(OpEd By Dr. James Finck, a professor of history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma and Chair of the Oklahoma Civil War Symposium. For daily history posts Follow Historically Speaking at http://www.Historicallyspeaking.blog or on Facebook.)

I study history because I think we can benefit from learning from mistakes of those before us. Why make mistakes that others have already made? It may seem odd to look at the Middle East, a region that has struggled with freedom and peace. Yet, historically speaking, I believe there is something we can learn from them that might benefit us here.

Since the death of the Prophet Mohammed, the Middle East has split into two warring camps, the Sunni and the Shia. The original conflict was over who should have taken over leadership of the Ummah, or community of the faithful. The next few decades were strife with wars over this issue of succession.

Jump ahead to WWI and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, which led to the formation of several new nations. One such nation was Iraq. At first Iraq was placed under the leadership of King Faisal of the Hashemite Family who led the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans. Faisal governed fairly between the Shia and Sunnis in his realm. However, the Hashemite rule was ousted in 1968 by the Baath Party that included Saddam Hussein. Hussein, a Sunni, turned on the Shia population, treating them as second-class citizens and subjugated them to all manner of hardships, including torture and death. Experts estimate that Hussein may have killed up to half-a-million of his people, mostly Shia and Kurds.

Finally, in 2003, when the United States declared war on Iraq, the Hussein regime was toppled. The U.S. has allowed the once oppressed Shia to take over leadership of the government and the militia. What is now happening is Shia oppression of the Sunni. This oppression, however, is much less than the decades of pain and murder by the Sunni towards the Shia. In some ways, the Sunni possibly deserve to know what it feels like being oppressed. I completely understand the Shias treatment towards their past oppressors. However, though perhaps justifiable, what has it done for the nation and the people? Not only is there no peace in Iraq, but the Sunni began to fight back with the creation of the Islamic State.

I have no idea what it feels like to be oppressed, and some may think I have no right to speak on this subject. However, speaking as a historian, it is difficult to find examples of where any type of reprisal or revenge has helped anyone. It is easier said than done, but the best way I can think of to help any situation of historic oppression is some type of forgiveness. If the oppressor can honestly repent and recognize its wrongs and the oppressed can offer historical forgiveness, maybe not only can we see peace in areas like Iraq, but here also.

When I see the Governor of Virginia taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee from the famed Monument Alley, I cant help but think just because you can does not mean you should. How does angering the other side, make anything better? Yes, the Confederacy was wrong. Yes, removing a monument is in no way comparable to treatments Black Americans have endured. But what will it accomplish? Will it make race relations better? Can you say you want peace while purposely provoking the other half of the population to anger, even if justified? I try to understand how this will be hard, but if somehow we can find a way to practice historical forgiveness, perhaps we can find a way for all sides to work together in the future.

A friend recently gave what I saw as a good suggestion. For a compromise, why not leave the statue of Lee in place while also erecting a monument of a slave having her child torn way and sold. That would be a powerful monument and could help tell a painful history. If we dont want to follow the pasts of other nations, compromise and forgiveness may be our only chance for real peace. We need to work towards racial reconciliation, not racial revenge.

Abraham Lincoln, in his Second Inaugural, noted that the four years of the Civil War resulted in the greatest violence in American history, and called on everyone to forgive each other: With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nations woundsto do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. If those who actually fought against the Confederates can forgive, why cant we 150 year later?

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Historically Speaking: Historical Forgiveness The News Journal - The News Journal

Sudan is to ban female genital mutilation (FGM), cancel prohibitions against religious conversion from Islam and permit non-Muslims to consume alcohol in a decisive break with almost four decades of hardline policies under the former Islamist government, its justice minister has said.

The transitional government which took over after the Sudanese autocrat Omar al-Bashir was toppled last year has faced stiff opposition from conservatives who thrived under the former regime but the prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, appears to have accelerated the pace of reforms following calls from pro-democracy groups for faster change.

Last week the finance, foreign, energy and health ministers were replaced as part of a reshuffle and Sudans police chief and his deputy, both seen by pro-democracy groups as close to Bashirs regime, were also fired.

Hamdok, who leads the administration of technocrats under an awkward, 39-month power-sharing agreement between the military and civilian groups, said the reshuffle was intended to advance the performance and execution of the transitional periods missions and respond to accelerated economic and social changes.

The new laws announced this weekend mean that Sudans non-Muslim minority will no longer be criminalised for drinking alcohol in private, the justice minister, Nasredeen Abdulbari, told state television. For Muslims, the ban will remain. Offenders are typically flogged under Islamic law.

Alcoholic drinks have been banned in Sudan since the former president Jaafar Nimeii introduced Islamic law in 1983, throwing bottles of whisky into the Nile in the capital Khartoum.

Sudan will also ban the practice of takfir, by which a Muslim can be declared apostate by another and so subject to a potential death sentence. The takfir of others became a threat to the security and safety of society, Abdulbari said.

Campaigners have long sought to impose a ban on FGM. A UN-backed survey in 2014 estimated 87% of Sudanese women and girls between the ages of 15 and 49 have been subjected to FGM. Most undergo an extreme form known as infibulation, which involves the removal and repositioning of the labia to narrow the vaginal opening.

Anyone found guilty of performing FGM will be sentenced to up to three years in prison, according to a copy of the new law.

FGM degrades the dignity of women, the justice ministry said in its statement.

During Bashirs rule some Sudanese clerics said forms of FGM were religiously allowed, arguing that the only debate was over whether it was required or not.

While many were elated by the the laws long-awaited passing, rights groups warned that the practice remained deeply entrenched in the regions conservative society and that enforcement posed a steep challenge.

In neighbouring Egypt, for example, where genital cutting was banned in 2008 and elevated to a felony in 2016, a government survey still found that nearly nine out of every 10 Egyptian women had undergone it.

Other veteran activists questioned the timing of the ratification, saying the coronavirus pandemic puts them at a disadvantage since they cannot mobilise awareness campaigns or police training in a country under lockdown.

Currently there are fuel shortages and long daily power cuts as well as rising infections of Covid-19, said Nahid Toubia, a leading Sudanese womens health rights activist specialising in ending FGM. Communication and peoples mobility are severely hampered. These are not the conditions where advocacy for legislating against FGM is a priority or even possible.

There have been more than 10,000 cases of Covid-19 confirmed in Sudan and 649 deaths.

Still the move, both symbolic and consequential, has stirred hopes for stronger protection of personal liberties as Sudan moves towards democratic elections scheduled for 2022.

In another change, women will also no longer need a permit from male members of their families to travel with their children.

Though some have criticised the pace of reform, the new government has made a series of moves that have surprised and pleased many international observers.

One was to put Bashir on trial for corruption, and even signal that the former dictator might eventually be transferred to the international criminal court to face charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed by pro-government forces in Darfur.

In the Darfur conflict, rebels from the territorys ethnic central and sub-Saharan African community launched an insurgency in 2003, complaining of oppression by the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum.

The government responded with aerial bombings and unleashed militias known as the Janjaweed, which are accused of mass killings and rapes. Up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were driven from their homes.

Last month one of the most notorious Janjaweed commanders involved in the wars in Darfur was arrested in Central African Republic and handed over to the ICC.

Ali Kushayb, who had been on the run for 13 years, surrendered to authorities in a remote corner of northern CAR near the countrys border with Sudan.

In May, Sudan appointed an ambassador to the US, the first such envoy in more than 20 years.

The introduction of Islamic law by Nimieri was major catalyst for a 22-year-long war between Sudans Muslim north and the mainly Christian south that led in 2011 to South Sudans secession.

Nimieri shifted away from earlier nationalist, socialist and pan-Arab ideologies towards Islamism in the early 1980s but remained a significant US ally in the region.

Bashir reinforced Islamic law after he took power in 1989, seeking to bolster his support among Sudans powerful conservative factions.

Sudanese Christians live mainly in Khartoum and in the Nuba mountains near the South Sudan border. Some Sudanese also follow traditional African beliefs.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

The headline on this article was amended on 13 July 2020 to remove any suggestion that FGM is an Islamist policy; while the practice continued with support from some clerics in Sudan, it is considered a cultural tradition.

Excerpt from:

Sudan bans FGM and breaks with hardline Islamist policies - The Guardian

If you follow politics, you know that politicos are in the news all the time, and they are highlighted for the supposed good and the alleged bad they do. Much of the bad they allegedly do, unless they are Republicans, is kept quiet, however.

Herewith some of the insider info on two of them.

Rep.Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, D-Minn.,says America is a giant system of oppression needing an immediate dismantling far beyond current calls for criminal justice reform. She told constituents recently that most national conversations fail to realize the size and scope of change she envisions, as reported by the Washington Times.

We cant stop at criminal justice reform or policing reform, she said during a press conference. We are not merely fighting to tear down the systems of oppression in the criminal justice system. We are fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment, [and] in the air we breathe.

She wants the U.S. to guarantee homes for all, due to what she thinks are racial disparities in home ownership. And she supports the Green New Deal because we know that environmental racism is real.

As long as our economy and political systems prioritize profit without considering who is profiting, who is being shut out, we will perpetuate this inequality. So, we cannot stop at [the] criminal justice system. We must begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression wherever we find it.

These arent the words of your every-day regressive liberal/socialist, these are the words of someone whose family fled their home country, lived as refugees for four years, and eventually came to America and earned asylum. Why did her family choose America?

Omar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. Her family fled the countrys civil war when she was eight-years-old, lived in a refugee camp in Kenya for four years before coming to the United States in 1992. Her father drove a taxi for some time before getting a job with the U.S. Postal Service. They secured asylum in 1995 and eventually settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Omar became a citizen in 2000.

Having been in such horrible circumstances that they had to flee their native country to another poor African country, and then coming to the United States, where so many in similar circumstances yearn to be, it is an interesting question as to why she wants to change everything in the country her family worked so hard to come to for relief. It would not be unfair to expect her to be a thankful immigrant.

But she is not.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, also a Democrat, has generated a great deal of news since the pandemic began. But who, exactly, is this guy?

De Blasio wasnt known as Bill de Blasio untilJanuary 2002.He was born Warren Wilhelm Jr., but changed his name in 1983 to Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm. The reason he gave was to honor his mothers Italian heritage. He received court approval to officially change his name again in 2002 to a name he had been using, and became the Bill de Blasio we have all come to know and love.

He has indulged in some things along the way that would cause many folks to raise an eyebrow. For example, he supported the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua during the 1980s.

De Blasio opposed the Supreme Courts decision to allow corporations, political nonprofits and trade associations more freedom to donate to political campaigns. But he is less fervent against labor unions, like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), donating to campaigns. In fact, the 1199 SEIU New York State Political Action Fund and the SEIU Local 1957 Committee of Interns and Residents supported de Blasio to the tune of $14,850in 2017.

And while he decries big money in politics, he quietly collects money from anti-American George Soros and his family. A large group of the Soros clan helped him win his first mayoral campaign to the tune of $29,875. Soros and two of his sons gave $12,400 to a subsequent mayoral campaign.

The way he operated his campaign earned him a healthy fine from the New York City Campaign Finance Board, of nearly $48,000 in 2016. The violations included failing to report transactions, accepting over-the-limit contributions and taking contributions from unregistered political committees.

De Blasio ran for the Democrat presidential nomination beginning in May of 2019, was critical of fellow candidate and former vice president Joe Biden, but dropped out in September when his candidacy failed to get traction.

It is also interesting to note the number of media people associated with the Democrats.

Jay Carney went from Time to the White House press secretarys office. Shailagh Murray went from the Washington Post to the Vice Presidents office while married to Neil King at the Wall Street Journal. Neil King left the Wall Street Journal for Fusion GPS. Linda Douglass went from ABC News to the White House, then to the Atlantic. Jill Zuckman went from the Chicago Tribune to the to the State Department. Stephen Barr went from the Post to the Labor Department.

James H. Smokey Shott, a resident of Bluefield, Va., is a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. Contact him at james.shott@yahoo.com

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

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FROM THE OPINION PAGE Sometimes it is good to know a bit more about the people serving us - Bluefield Daily Telegraph

We are in the middle of one of the most inspiring protest upsurges in the United States in decades. Mass demonstrations against racist police violence have swept the country since the police murder of George Floyd, demanding an end to state murders of unarmed black people and racial inequality more generally.

Protesters have persisted in the face of vicious police rioting and repressive curfews. The number of protests has waned in recent weeks, as all protest upsurges eventually do. But they are still going strong throughout much of the country and have produced a massive ideological shift, making defunding the police a mainstream policy proposal. Elected officials in some cities, with varying degrees of sincerity, are arguing for or have already pledged to cut police budgets.

The protests have inspired many white Americans to reflect on the persistence of racism in the United States and their role in changing it. One common framework for reflection involves asking how white people can be good allies to people of color.

This framework seems to suggest that, while white people have a moral obligation to assist people of color in anti-racist struggles, we who are white have no interests of our own at stake in these struggles. So white people must be moved to anti-racist action through feelings of obligation, guilt, or sympathy. At its worst, the white allyship framework promotes introspection and quasi-spiritual self-improvement as political action.

Black people in the United States have faced and continue to face horrible forms of oppression that white people dont. Yet thinking of white peoples role in anti-racist struggle solely in terms of allyship is myopic. White people have sometimes taken part in significant black freedom struggles in the past not just out of altruism or a sense of moral duty. They saw the moral imperative to fight racial oppression as bound up with broader projects of collective liberation projects in which they, too, had a stake. They were moved, in other words, by solidarity.

Take the story of the Haitian Revolution, as an example, recounted by C. L. R. James in his classic The Black Jacobins and dramatically illustrating the power of solidarity. The revolution in the French colony of Haiti (then called Saint-Domingue) began with an uprising of the enslaved in August 1791. This revolt took place against the context of the ongoing revolution in France.

The enslaved black people of Saint-Domingue won their freedom through years of protracted, bloody struggle against the white plantation owners, as well as French, British, and Spanish troops who attempted at different points to crush the rebellion.

Given the forces they were up against, the Haitian slaves victory over so many European imperial colonizers and invaders is one of the most incredible achievements of recent history. The slaves themselves were the principal protagonists in overthrowing slavery. As James writes, the revolutionary troops led by Touissant LOuverture, and not the perorations in the Legislative [Frances governing body] would be decisive in the struggle for freedom.

But the victory of the Haitian revolutionaries was also aided by the revolutionary action of the French masses. In 1792, the internally divided French government, which had not yet entered its more radical, Montagnard phase, sent armed forces to Saint-Domingue to help quell the enslaved peoples rebellion. By early 1793, these forces had nearly crushed the uprising.

But in the meantime, the French masses had deposed and executed the King, provoking Britain and Spain to declare war on the revolutionary regime. These events helped turn the tide. They forced a diversion of French troops away from their assault on LOuvertures army to defend the coasts against British and Spanish invaders, and they allowed LOuverture to make an alliance with the Spanish against the French.

In the course of these events, the cause of the Haitian rebels and that of the French revolutionaries came to be fused in the minds of the more radical militants. As a Jacobin-aligned governor of the colony said: The slaves of the New World are fighting for the same cause as the [revolutionary] French armies.

Local French authorities in Saint-Domingue were forced to declare the abolition of slavery, in an attempt to win the formerly enslaved to their side in the struggle against the counterrevolutionary powers. The abolition of slavery was finally made official and extended to all colonies by the French government on February 4, 1794.

Robespierre and the left-wing Jacobins (the Montagnards) had won control of the National Convention, and their voting for abolition reflected not only longstanding personal convictions, but the revolutionary mood of the French people. James writes:

It was not Paris alone but all revolutionary France. Servants, peasants, workers. the labourers by the day in the fields all over France were filled with a virulent hatred against the aristocracy of the skin. There were many so moved by the sufferings of the slaves that they had long ceased to drink coffee, thinking of it as drenched with the blood and sweat of men turned into brutes At that time slavery had been overturned only in [Saint-Domingue] of all the French colonies, and the generous spontaneity of the Convention was only a reflection of the overflowing desire which filled all France to end tyranny and oppression everywhere.

The revolutionary French masses came to fight for the abolition of slavery not out of a sense of pity or disinterested moral obligation, but because they had come to see their own destiny as tied up with the enslaved. As James says, the poor and working classes of France felt towards them [enslaved Saint-Dominguans] as brothers, and the old slave-owners, whom they knew to be supporters of the counter-revolution, they hated as if Frenchman themselves had suffered under the whip.

The white slave owners of Saint-Domingue had always opposed the French Revolution, which represented an assault on their property rights and political power. In 1793, they actually took the side of the invading British who had promised to restore slavery against the revolutionary French government. These counterrevolutionary efforts incited the French masses against the the aristocracy of the skin, which the common people associated with the hated French nobility they had just deposed.

Thus the slave owners opposition to the revolution made it easy for the French masses to see the connection between their own liberty and that of enslaved Saint-Dominguans. And as James notes, the planters counterrevolutionary conspiracy also gave the Montagnards strategic reasons to abolish slavery.

[The] [abolition] decree, by ratifying the liberty which the blacks had won, James writes, was giving them a concrete interest in the struggle against British and Spanish reaction. Frances revolutionary leaders (rightly) predicted that the formal abolition of slavery would recruit the former slaves to their side.

It was up to the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue to make the legal abolition of slavery a reality on the ground, through several more years of war with European armies who wanted to return them to bondage. Facing the possibility of death or torture at the hands of a vicious enemy, the formerly enslaved freed themselves through courageous armed struggle. But they also werent alone.

At the high point of the French Revolution, the French masses joined the Haitians to push forward the fight for abolition. And they did so because they saw their freedom and that of the black people of Saint-Domingue linked together by the struggle to defeat their common enemies.

Multiracial solidarity is a big part of the story of slaverys destruction in our own country, too. As in Haiti, it took a violent war to end slavery, during which the actions of black people themselves were central to the process that led to their emancipation.

As W. E. B. Du Bois famously argued, the Union victory was hastened by a general strike of hundreds of thousands of enslaved people in the South, who deserted their plantations to assist and join the Union war effort.

But understanding why the Civil War occurred in the first place requires us to look to the mass antislavery movement that brought Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party to power. It was the Republican capture of the federal government that provoked Southern secession, and as historian Matt Karp writes, the party achieved this [by] linking the moral battle against slavery to the material concerns of millions of Northern voters.

The ideological connection that the antislavery movement and Republican Party forged between the material interests of ordinary white Northerners and the freedom of enslaved black people helped make it possible for many Northern whites to find common cause with the enslaved and, again, to perceive a common enemy.

Republicans mass appeal rested in large part on developmental and egalitarian economic policies that ran counter to the interests of the slave-owning class, including tariffs and federal infrastructure spending. Their central economic proposal, Karp says, was a homestead act by which the government would give away millions of acres of land for free.

This policy, opposed by the pro-slavery Democratic Party, was justified by its advocates with the argument that citizens should be able to live on and work their own land for themselves, as free laborers, rather than be subject to the domination of landowners or industrial capitalists.

As Karp notes, it also depended, wrongly, on an assumption that the North American West rightly belonged to Euro-American settlers, not its indigenous inhabitants. The denial of prior inhabitants rights to the land was a justification for a different racist monstrosity the displacement and mass murder of indigenous peoples, which could never be justified.

Southern opposition to the Act, led by the regions enormously wealthy oligarchs, allowed Republicans to portray the slave owners as proponents of land monopoly and plutocracy, and hence as opponents of liberty for both white and black people. In doing so Republicans provided a material basis for Northern white solidarity with enslaved black people against the slave aristocracy.

Many Northerners also saw the pro-slavery laws passed by Congress as direct attacks on their own freedom, revealing the dominance of the slaveholding class over the political system. The House of Representatives passed a gag rule in 1836 barring from consideration any petition or resolution regarding slavery. Many viewed the law as an attack on their political liberties; it encouraged antislavery activism and actually resulted in a significant increase in petitions to Congress.

In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which forced private citizens to aid in the capture and return of enslaved fugitives. Defiance of the act was punishable by fine or imprisonment. The law was met with outrage and civil disobedience in the North: even many who had been less sympathetic to the abolitionist cause saw the act as the product of a slave power conspiracy to subject Northern whites as well as enslaved blacks to the power of the slave owners. Like the gag rule, the Fugitive Slave Act heightened antagonism to slavery.

Republican appeals to white Northerners economic and political freedom went hand-in-hand with increasingly strong moral denunciations of slavery and its perpetrators. Partly through the partys electoral campaigns and propaganda efforts, both a sense of shared interests with enslaved people and a moral hatred of slave owners came to be established in the minds of millions of Northern voters.

Ohio Governor Salmon P. Chases comments during the 1856 election were typical of Republican rhetoric, which made the continued existence of slavery a threat to the freedom of all Americans:

[T]he popular heart is stirred as never before, for the issue is boldly made between Freedom and Slavery a Republic and a Despotism! The chain-gang and Republicanism cannot coexist, and you must now elect whether you will vindicate the one at whatever cost, or whether you will yield to the other.

Sentiments like these led to the election of an antislavery government. That election in turn put the country on the road to a social revolution, in which black and white Americans fought side-by-side to defeat the Confederacy and abolish slavery.

The movements which brought about abolition in Haiti and the United States provide particularly dramatic examples of the power of solidarity. But we dont need to look so far back in time to make the point. The US Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century was led by many activists, including socialists and labor organizers, who connected the struggle for black liberation with wider fights for economic justice.

Black workers led the struggle for civil rights in the 1940s, through participation in militant unions belonging to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), and especially the most left-wing unions, led by members of the Communist Party. Radical unions like the United Public Workers of America fought against discrimination and for full rights for their black workers.

Local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America fought against racist police and voter disenfranchisement in Jim Crowera North Carolina. Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union of San Francisco also fought racial discrimination against its black workers in the 1940s.

Many of these Communist-led unions were destroyed by McCarthyism and the Red Scare in the 1950s, significantly setting back struggles for racial justice. Even so, many leading activists of the Civil Rights Movement later on continued working to forge multiracial coalitions, by connecting anti-racism with broader redistributive demands. Paul Heideman writes:

At the grassroots, organizers like Ella Baker or Bayard Rustin came out of the Old Left, and knew full well that legal equality without redistribution would be a hollow victory. The 1963 March on Washington was built with crucial assistance from the United Autoworkers, and the marchs full title was The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The policy objectives of this tendency in the movement were summed up in the Freedom Budget, a proposal that attempted to translate the Civil Rights Movement into a campaign for full employment and public works.

Martin Luther King Jr, best remembered for his passionate moral speeches against racism, was a supporter of the Freedom Budget. Toward the end of his life, King declared the need for democratic socialism and began organizing a Poor Peoples Campaign to demand economic justice. (He was assassinated before the campaign began, when he traveled to Memphis to support a strike of black sanitation workers.)

In the late 60s and early 70s, radical activists like those involved in Detroits League of Revolutionary Black Workers also sought to reconnect anti-racist struggle to workplace militancy. The League fought racism in the auto plants and within their own union, while building multiracial solidarity with other workers around their shared interests.

Civil rights activists of various stripes refused to separate anti-racist struggle from class struggle. Many of the movements successes in fact depended on linking struggles against racism with economic demands, within the workplace or outside of it. And movement leaders like King realized that the movement for racial equality would not make further progress without tackling economic equality. That vision of anti-racism linked the interests of black Americans with poor and working-class whites.

White people have a moral obligation to help dismantle white supremacy. But it would be wrong to see anti-racism only as a moral imperative. Now, as in the past, poor and working-class white people have a shared interest in fighting racism and destroying its material infrastructure.

Policies and institutions responsible for the severe oppression of black people and other people of color hurt the entire working class. Our massive, heavily militarized police forces kill black people at higher levels than whites, but kill the poor of all races at higher rates than the rich; mass incarceration locks up black people at much higher rates than whites, but it also locks up an enormous number of white people and represses labor organizing; xenophobic immigration restrictions also make it harder for workers to organize. That means working people of all races have a material stake in defunding the police, dismantling mass incarceration, and ending repression of immigrants.

The emancipatory potential of anti-racist demands for the working class as a whole is nothing new, of course. As Jamelle Bouie documents, the black freedom struggle in America has long been bound up with struggles against the dominance of capital and for economic redistribution.

Those who participated in great freedom struggles of the past did not lose sight of their common plight and common enemies. Neither should we. White people can act in solidarity with people of color to fight racial oppression and to work toward collective liberation.

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Solidarity Should Be the Basis of White Anti-Racism, Not Allyship - Jacobin magazine

I am not sure which is the more terrifying: the idea that the premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, had sufficient evidence to justify locking up about 3,000 of my neighbours, or the idea that he didnt and was doing it anyway.

Last Saturday, shortly after 4pm, Andrews announced that the public housing tenants of Flemington and North Melbourne were to be detained in forced quarantine because of potentially high rates of Covid-19. They would be prohibited from leaving their homes for any reason.

A sudden shock will send your fingers numb. I was watching the press conference on television. I grabbed my phone and ran the two blocks to the Flemington estate.

The police were already there. As dusk fell I began to take photographs of massed police cars, the flashing blue lights, the armed officers stopping people trying to leave the towers, and residents of the estate making their way home and asking: Whats happened? What have we done wrong? Has there been a murder?

The public housing towers are part of the rhythm of my suburb. There are the kids clattering up the hill to the high schools, and the constant traffic in the main street to and from the African cafes.

I can see the towers of the Flemington estate from my living room window. The lights in individual flats, blinking off, prompt me to my own bedtime. Sometimes if I rise in the night, I can see that someone over there is also awake.

I am not part of the public housing community. I am one of the middle-class white people literally and metaphorically at the top of the hill. But these are my neighbours.

On the estates, one in five people have no English, or poor English. The main languages are Vietnamese and Somali, as well as Ethiopian languages such as Amharic, Tigrunya and Oroimo. Arabic is common, as is Cantonese. Many of the residents are refugees from war-torn countries, predominantly in Africa. Unemployment is high.

And now, without warning, they were locked up by government.

The police, it emerged, had only about an hour and a halfs notice of the lockdown. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the lead agency managing the lockdown, had about the same warning.

The two local governments City of Melbourne and Moonee Valley city council had no warning, and nor did the community leaders on the estate.

Ever since the coronavirus crisis began, these leaders had been asking the health department for a plan. They wrote emails and made phone calls asking for hand sanitiser on every floor, regular deep cleaning of lifts and shared spaces, and public health information posted in multiple languages.

Bottles of sanitiser were placed in the foyers, but when they ran out they were not replaced. Otherwise, there was no visible response.

Now the community depended for its most basic needs on the same department which they routinely experience as deaf to their voices.

And that department was responsible, with next to no warning, for provisioning a vulnerable community the size of a small town, vertically stacked.

Among the residents, shock at the sudden and heavy police presence was universal, but there was also some relief that the emerging Covid-19 crisis, which they had been uneasily aware of, was at last attracting serious government attention. Yet there were no health workers, social workers or health department employees in the first wave of government action.

As one frustrated department employee said to me later, there are no standing armies of health workers and social workers. We have no surge capacity in caring. If you need an emergency response, you have either the army or the police.

In the African Australian community, there were angry people who did not believe the public health justification for the lockdown and saw the operation as a racially motivated act of oppression.

One resident of the Flemington estate, Melissa Whelan, got the text telling her about the lockdown when she was in the checkout queue at the supermarket. Short on cash, she had popped out for milk and bread with a budget of $7. She rapidly rang a friend, borrowed another $50 and stocked up.

Other households were not so quick or lucky. These tend to be big and young families, living week to week. Those who had planned to shop on Sunday soon ran short of food.

By Sunday morning, there were a few DHHS workers on the estate, dispatched at no notice and with no clear directions. The police were still in charge, and there were hundreds of them.

The DHHS and other agencies struggled with the implications of the premiers promise that this vulnerable community would be supported with wraparound services. To start with, they could barely keep it fed.

The basics boxes the government delivered in the first day of lockdown contained date-expired food, Weetbix without milk, jam without bread. They were stacked in the foyers while the DHHS worked out how to get them safely up the towers.

Calls went out from those inside the flats to friends and relations, desperately asking for grocery deliveries and, in some cases, medication.

Local federal and state MPs Greens and Labor devoted their staff to trying to fill the gaps, escalating emergencies on an ad hoc basis. The premiers office made a staff member solely available for their calls.

There were people with asthma who had no Ventolin, diabetics without clean needles, mothers of premature babies now isolated from their infants in the nearby Royal Melbourne hospital.

Meanwhile, the African community was rallying, wanting to look after its own. In the forefront were young volunteers from the North Melbourne-based Australian Muslim Social Services Agency Youth Connect (AMSSA) who began soliciting and trying to deliver bags of goods. Others were trying to deliver just to specific family members and friends.

It was chaotic, and made harder by the fact there was no protocol. Police concern for security, and DHHSs concern for infection control, meant the deliveries were frustrated. Food was left in foyers and on steps, attacked by rats overnight.

The people on the outside were desperate knocking their heads against a system failing to care for the community, yet prevented from doing the job themselves.

That was the first 48 hours.

On Monday night, I began to get texts telling me things were going very wrong. Residents looking down from their windows, hoping for deliveries, could see hazmat-clad workers carrying away bags of food. The DHHS infection control officer had knocked off for the day, and so the order went out that deliveries from the community were to be stopped.

The bags being carried away were the food that had been left to spoil overnight, but the combination of events meant that people in the flats believed goods bought for them by family members were being stolen.

They are starving our people, one social media post said.

Everyone pitched in. The local MPs hit the phones. I tweeted that it was a mix-up. I got replies saying I was just a lickspittle for racist authorities. The police were heard arguing with the DHHS orders.

I am not sure which part of this effort worked, but the order to prevent deliveries was rapidly reversed, and DHHS issued an apology.

This whole crisis took about 90 minutes to brew, peak and dissipate, but during that time I thought there might be a riot that the whole situation might slip disastrously out of control. Some police confessed the same fear.

By Tuesday, things were beginning to improve. The emergency management commissioner, Andrew Crisp, was brought in, as were many volunteers, emergency services and local government. Coles repurposed an entire supermarket to the provisioning effort.

It was an immense effort, with many people working ridiculously hard hours, all in the knowledge that they were still in some ways failing.

Pallets of food and supplies were trekked into the estate and up the tiny, decrepit lifts. Nevertheless, that night there was an arrest during another conflict between police and young African-Australian volunteers delivering food.

Meanwhile, the huge effort to test every resident for Covid-19 was underway. In the end, they managed to test 85%.

By Wednesday, there was plenty of food far too much food and much of it was wasted.

But the help was still generic. MPs and family members were hearing of urgent medical needs and mothers without nappies for their babies. The hotline established for residents had a wait of over an hour to be answered.

One MP described dealing with DHHS as struggling with institutional somnambulance, including an inability to realise that more than a nine-to-five effort was needed, and a stark refusal to embrace the efforts by the community to look after its own. Some called for the community to be allowed to run its own hotline.

It was paternalism, said another community representative. The fact that people wanted to help their own was seen as a problem, not a strength.

Behind the scenes the Labor MPs for the area, Bill Shorten and Danny Pearson, the Trades Hall Council and other Labor groups were pushing a mutually agreed log of claims about what needed to be done to save the state government from getting this wrong. The Greens MPs, Ellen Sandell and Adam Bandt, with their colleagues on the Melbourne city council, were pushing a similar message.

Top of the list was arguing for the young people of AMSSA to be taken into the heart of the effort, instead of being resisted and frustrated. By Wednesday morning that was beginning to happen. Protocols for community deliveries were established and the authorities began to cooperate with the community.

By the afternoon, the relief effort was at last adequate and impressive. It was a mighty thing just three days late. There were dedicated workers on site, consistently identifying individual household needs.

Thursday was intense. Testing had been finished the night before an immense effort by many health workers. Residents were to be given news of their results, and the future of the lockdown. The premiers press conference was to be at 11 am, then early afternoon. He finally got to his feet at 4.30pm.

All but one of the towers were to be moved to the same stage 3 restrictions as the rest of Melbourne. Alfred Street, on the North Melbourne estate, with 53 people testing positive, would remain in quarantine for another nine days.

Most significantly, AMSSA would become the host of the continuing work of provisioning Alfred Street. The police minister, Lisa Neville, even thanked them.

That night, the young people of AMSSA posted images of themselves to social media, dancing as they delivered the food parcels.

The Greens have called for an inquiry into the public housing lockdown. It seems inevitable there will be a reckoning and only that can determine whether such action was justified.

Questions will surely include why there was no planning for this scenario. The states pandemic plan, written in 2015, makes no mention of public housing. But surely when the coronavirus crisis began in March, plans could have been made that included consultations with community leaders on the estates.

As Daniel Andrews likes to say, this isnt over.

Some residents who were not on the estate when the lockdown occurred did not return. About 10% of residents did not open their door to the authorities at any stage during the lockdown, whether from fear or anger.

Almost certainly, more Covid-19 cases will emerge. But lessons have certainly been learned.

Awatif Taha, who told the Guardian her story at the beginning of the crisis, said on Friday afternoon: Last night we were all screaming with joy.

Perhaps, she said, the government had learned something about her community, its strength and resourcefulness. Perhaps now they would be heard.

See the article here:

'It was paternalism': how government support for Melbourne's locked down public housing blocks fell short - The Guardian

(Editors Note: This article is part of a specialJust SecurityRacing National Securitysymposiumedited by editorial board memberMatiangai Sirleaf. Thegoal of the symposium is to render race visible in national security to shift the dominant paradigm toward addressing issues of racial justice.)

In the pre-Trump world, the Obama Administration endorsed economic reparations, truth commissions, and memorial building for countries transitioning out of repressive regimes. Promoting these processes was a core moral responsibility of the United States, it said.

When a New York Times columnist asked whether the United States is such a country in transition, an Obama State Department spokesperson replied: I wont have anything further for you.

This uncomfortable silence reflects a broader trend within the field of transitional justice, which addresses how societies can deal with conflictual histories. For decades, U.S.-based discussions of transitional justice have gazed outward internationally, while overlooking the legacies of slavery, segregation, and white supremacy at home.

Certainly, there have been exceptions to this trend. Greensboro, North Carolina and the states of Illinois and Maryland engaged in localized truth and reconciliation processes. Civil rights leader Sherrilyn Ifills 2007 book On the Courthouse Lawn elaborated transitional justice principles for American struggles with racism. Ta-Nehisi Coatess 2014 Atlantic article reminded Americans that broader reparations are still pending more than two centuries after freedwoman Belinda Royall successfully petitioned for a pension of 15 pounds and 12 shillings from her former enslavers estate. Religion professor Anthony Bradleys 2018 essay applied the Chicago Principles of Post-conflict Justice to individual American states. Yet, despite these efforts and arguments, the United States has proceeded as if transitional justice does not belong here.

No more. Following the tragic killings of Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others, protestors and advocates have reissued demands for civilian accountability boards to address police violence, reparations for decades and centuries of racist oppression, and truth and reconciliation processes to acknowledge historical and ongoing injustices.

Such demands are fundamentally calling for transitional justice.

My recent and forthcoming work argues that the United States remains a nation in transition, still far from surmounting its racist past. Laws concerning affirmative action, school desegregation, voting rights, and disparate impact are part of Americas racial transition. Yet, a number of factors have prevented widespread application of a transitional justice framework to the United States.

Some factors have to do with the field of transitional justice itself. Since its inception, this field has been more concerned with transitions to democracy such as in Argentina and Chile as they emerged from dictatorships than with transformations within established democracies. From a traditional viewpoint, transitional justice is inapposite to the American context because the United States is assumed to be an established democracy, because it lacks the sort of explicit regime break found in many transitional contexts, or because too much time has passed since its antebellum and Jim Crow histories.

Other factors are specific to the United States, such as a belief in American racial exceptionalism. This notion depicts the United States as the leader in the global struggle for liberty whose own march to racial equality was completed with the Civil Rights Movement, or the election of Barack Obama. As United Nations Special Rapporteur on racism, E. Tendayi Achiume, recently wrote for Just Security, this exceptionalism implicitly treats existing domestic law as a high watermark for achieving justice and equality, when this law falls short even of global human rights anti-racism standards. The United States is exempted from political and legal considerations applied to other transitional societies, despite its centuries-long struggle with state-sponsored racial violence.

On a closer look, such distinctions between the United States and the rest of the world are as illusory as they are problematic. If Canada could be moved to address Indian Residential Schools dating back to the 1800s through the establishment of a truth commission, nothing should prevent the United States reckoning with its racist legacies. For three sets of reasons, beliefs about Americas democracy and exceptionalism must not place it beyond the reach of transitional justice.

American Democracy

Some claims place the United States outside the purview of transitional justice by assuming its status as an established democracy. However, such claims ignore the denial of basic political rights and representation during slavery, up through Jim Crow, and into the present day. Writers from W.E.B. Du Bois to Nikole Hannah-Jones have argued that the United States was not a real democracy until Black people forced it to move toward becoming one.

Political scientists Francisco Gonzlez and Desmond King distinguish between restricted and full liberal democracies and characterize the United States as a restricted democracy prior to the implementation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Pointing to the barriers that Black voters faced in Alabama in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. similarly asked in his letter from Birmingham Jail: Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

In this light, it is possible to characterize periods of major racial change in American history as regime changes. Historian Eric Foner and others have framed the Reconstruction era as Americas second founding. Political scientist Andrew Valls describes the Civil Rights era as a regime transition that was woefully incomplete, and therefore unjust.

As Hannah-Jones writes in her Pulitzer Prize winning 1619 Project: Without the idealistic, strenuous and patriotic efforts of black Americans, our democracy today would most likely look very different it might not be a democracy at all. Today, that struggle for democracy continues. These arguments highlight how American democracy has been and still is incomplete, given the nations lack of racial justice. Interrogating fundamental assumptions about the state of democracy reveals a nation in transition.

Comparative Experience

There are also deep similarities between American racial injustice and the kinds and degrees of oppression that have been found to necessitate transitional justice in other contexts. As I show elsewhere, the United States is most clearly comparable with one of the paradigmatic case studies of transitional justice: South Africa. Both the United States and South Africa have deep histories of the state enforcing and enabling racial subordination; the pre-Civil Rights United States was arguably no more an established democracy than apartheid South Africa. The increasing understanding of the history and legacies of Americas racial apartheid only bolsters such comparisons.

More fundamentally, the transitional justice canon demonstrates that historic injustices and their legacies need to be addressed, even within democracies and even without regime change. A transitional justice lens reveals commonalities between the United States and other societies dealing with oppressive pasts and allows the experiences of one to inform the other.

Transition Process

Ultimately, individual laws and policies must be understood in relation with one another and as elements of a broader transition process. The United States struggles with racism in part because government agencies and institutions such as the Supreme Court believe that brief implementation of discrete measures has resolved centuries of racial subordination, when transitional justice is a generational process requiring holistic approaches.

In 1915, W.E.B. Du Bois argued that a longer period of distributive and welfare policies following the Civil War could have created a more equal United States, but the country would not listen to such a comprehensive plan. Todays Movement for Black Lives similarly demands reparations for past and continuing harms to black people; investment in healthcare, housing, and education for Black people; economic justice for Black people; and a political system in which Black people can exercise their political power, among other changes.

These demands are linked as much to the past and future as to the present. From a transitional justice viewpoint, protesters today are not demanding discrete remedies for discrete harms. Instead, they are calling for a comprehensive and coordinated transition process that addresses the United States traumatic history with racism, its enduring legacy, and future threat.

The passage of significant time since slavery and Jim Crow has not rendered this transition process complete. Countries spanning from Canada to the Philippines have taken centuries to grapple with the legacies of their past. Until the United States takes adequate steps to address its racist legacies, its transition will be delayed as harms compound and past progress is erased.

An enduring feature of Black oppression in the United States has been a backsliding away from democracy. Transition can thus be conceptualized not only as the attainment of a truly democratic regime, but also as the sustainment of democratic rule. For example, as I argue in a forthcoming article, the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act, which prevents public officials from using discriminatory voting practices on a continuous basis, supports transition by sustaining democratic rule.

Transition is not only a move toward democracy and the rule of law, but also charts a path toward peace and justice. In his letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. King expressly called for transition from an obnoxious negative peace to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Recurring protests against police violence and structural racism indict the governments failures to secure such a substantive and positive peace. Civil rights leader Bayard Rustins warning to New York City mayor Robert Wagner rings as true today as it did in 1965: Either you creatively meet the causes of discontent in spring, or negatively face another long, hot summer. This warning reminds us of the need to target our transitional efforts not only at American democracy, but at racial justice.

Conclusion: From There to Here

In 1963, James Baldwin wrote about the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen. Today, those same beliefs in American creed and exceptionalism impede recognition of the United States as a nation in transition. However, the enduring and increasingly international criticisms of the United States failures on racism should lead us to consider this country alongside others with conflictual histories.

A key promise that transitional justice holds for the United States is a shifting of the burden of proof. Transitional justice demonstrates that the centuries-long oppression of Black Americans is precisely the kind of massive human rights violation that necessitates systematic and ongoing redress. Moreover, it places the United States alongside other countries that have taken, or are in the process of taking, steps to address historical legacies of oppression. Once we acknowledge that transitional justice applies here, the question becomes how mechanisms of justice and accountability should be implemented rather than whether such mechanisms are needed.

Of course, the United States should not uncritically adopt transitional justice approaches from elsewhere. Transitional justice has limitations and needs to be considered with careful attention to specific contexts and local demands. At the same time, Americans must recognize that their nation is still developing in ways that place it alongside or behind others it considers less developed. If transitional justice belongs there, it belongs here too.

(Editors Note: Readers interested in the potential of pursuing transitional justice in the United States as a means of addressing systemic racial oppression may also be interesting in thisrecent Just Security article by Zinaida Miller and an upcoming article by Colleen Murphy).

Read more here:

Does Transitional Justice Belong in the United States? - Just Security

Claudia Jones. | CPUSA Archives

WASHINGTONThe Claudia Jones School for Political Education and Black Women Radicals came together virtually on the evening of July 3rd to co-host an event uplifting the life and work of Black Communist Claudia Jones. Over 300 attendees from around the world attended the event, including scholars and activists from Kenya, Toronto, London, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the United States.

The event was centered around Joness life and, in particular, her essay in A Right to be Radical, which was published as in the pamphlet Ben Davis: A Fighter for Freedom, distributed by the National Committee to Defend Negro Leadership in November 1954. The booklet was written by Claudia Jones in defense of Benjamin Davis, Jr., the former Communist Councilman of Harlem. Like Jones herself and many other reds, Davis was persecuted for his Communist ideas. Joness booklet argued for his right to have those ideas and for the groups of Black leaders being tried during the McCarthy Red Scare period.

The event featured Dr. Carole Boyce Davies, author of both Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones and Claudia Jones: Beyond Containment. Like Jones, Boyce Davies was born in Trinidad and Tobago; she is currently Professor of Africana Studies and English at Cornell University (recently appointed the Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters at Cornell).

The life of Claudia Jones

Jones was born in Trinidad and Tobago (then, the British West Indies) in 1915 and immigrated to the U.S. with her family when she was just eight years old. Her family moved to Harlem, where her mother worked as a garment worker and died five years later due to poor working conditions.

Jones joined the Young Communist League (YCL) in 1936, when she was 21 years old, after being impressed with the Communist Partys work on behalf of the Scottsboro Nine. The defendants were nine young Black men tried for raping two white women in a box car in Scottsboro, Ala. The Communist Party, through its legal defense front, the International Labor Defense, spearheaded the campaign to have them taken off death row and to have the bogus charges dropped. This was also in the period of Jim Crow apartheid in the U.S. and the onset of the Great Depression, when millions were put out of work.

While in the YCL, she became a journalist for the Weekly Review and the Daily Worker and was eventually elected to the National Committee of the CPUSA in 1945, becoming the only Black woman on the partys leading body. In 1948, Jones became secretary of the Womens Commission of the Communist Party and, along with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, traveled around the U.S. to organize women into the Party.

Around this time, she wrote An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman, which further developed the ideological foundation of triple oppression and We Seek Full Equality for Women, demanding full emancipation for women. She also wrote a column in the Daily Worker in the early 1950s called Half the World, focusing on how women represent half the world and how they should receive half of the worlds resources.

She was arrested three times, with one of those arrests following a speech she gave called International Womens Day and the Struggle for Peace. Eventually, she was arrested and tried with twelve other Communists under the Smith Act amidst the Red Scare. She served ten months of a sentence but, because of health issues, was released early from the Womens Penitentiary in Alderson, W.V.

After her release, however, she was ordered deported to the United Kingdom at the end of 1955. After arriving in London, she got involved with the local Caribbean community, developed the West Indian Gazette in 1958, and organized the first London Carnival in Notting Hill. Toward the end of her life, she traveled to Japan, China, and the Soviet Union before dying in December 1964. Her ashes were buried to the left of Karl Marxs grave in Londons Highgate Cemetery.

The right to be radical

In the Jones essay, A Right to be Radical, which was the focus of the July 3rd seminar, she wrote: Over 115 Communist and working class leaders, thirteen of whom are Negroes have been arrested under the Smith Act. These Black leaders were: Ben Davis, Henry Winston, Pettis Perry, James Jackson, Jr., Thomas Dennis, Ben Carreathers, Al Murphy, Thomas Nebried, Robert Campbell, Paul Bowen, James Tate, Claude Lightfoot, and Jones herself.

The introduction of the booklet is written by Eslanda Goode Robeson (the wife of Paul Robeson) and says Jones holds a position of leadership in the Communist Party and plays a major role in the work for equality for women and peace. For her beliefs, Claudia Jones was victimized by reaction and prosecuted under the Smith Act. She also faces deportation to her native West Indies under the Walter-McCarran Act.

Joness International Womens Day speech was brought into the context of her ideas on radicalism. She asked, Do not an oppressed people have a right to have radicals? Do not our people have the right to seek some radical solutions to their highly oppressed status? And have a right to be radicals? It would surely seem they have.

Jones six justifications for radicalism were being against slavery, oppression, and capitalism, and being for equal rights, suffrage, and socialism. Boyce Davies explained that Jones always tried centering the following in her radicalism:

Boyce Davies further said on this point that once Black women move, then the rest of society moves, referencing the Black radical feminists who have come before and those who are organizing now, like those in the Movement for Black Lives.

Boyce Davies also centered the interlocking oppressions of class, race, and gender throughout this discussion, further explaining the super-exploitation of Black women workers. Jones was further quoted: The very core of all Negro history is radicalism against conformity to chattel slavery, radicalism against the betrayal of the demands of Reconstruction, radicalism in relation to non-acceptance of the status quo!

Is there a conflict between being radical and being loyal to ones country? History can best answer this question. For the history of our people is rich in examples that, because the oppression of our people comes from the ruling class, the very survival of our people required nonconformity to preserve the dignity of manhood and womanhood. We can conclude as a result of these examples that the entire history of the Negro people has been one of radical solution to the sorely oppressed status. We and Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and David Walker, Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey, Ben Davis and Henry Winstonthose who have been assailed as radicalsare the staunchest fighters against slavery and Jim Crow, for freedom and equality. Claudia Jones

Jones had said that the very any serious leadership in the fight for Negro rights brings one into opposition with the foreign and domestic polices of government. Seeing all those, like her, whod been charged with trumped-up charges under the Smith Act, Jones said that no matter if it was in writings, speeches, or needed organization endeavors, any Negro leader who pursues any necessary manifestation of leadership is labeled subversive, communistic.

Throughout the conversation on July 3rd, Angela Daviss work on Women and Capitalism in the Black Feminist Reader was connected, since similar ideas were expressed about triple oppression by both her and Jones, each of whom were members and leaders of the CPUSA in different time periods. It was Davis who argued, The objective oppression of Black women in America has a class, and also a national origin. Because of the way the structures of female oppression are tethered to capitalism, she said, female emancipation must be simultaneously and explicitly the pursuit of Black liberation and of freedom of other nationally oppressed groups.

The second half of the event included Jaimee Swift, the founder, creator and executive director of Black Women Radicals, engaging in dialogue with Boyce Davies, as well as a question and answer from the audience. Black Women Radicals is a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting and centering Black womens radical political activism. It is a collective of Black women who represent and uplift Black women of diverse gender identities and gender expressions, educational backgrounds, nationalities, religious and/or non-religious affiliations, languages, ethnicities, and more who have diverse pathways of and to Blackness and to Black womanhood(s) but who are all committed to uplifting, centering, and honoring Black women in their entireties. Swift is a Ph.D. candidate at Howard University, with concentrations in Black Politics, International Relations, and Comparative Politics. Her dissertation focuses on radical, Black feminist politics and resistance against state, structural, and symbolic violence in Brazil.

In their dialogue, Boyce Davies noted that Joness work always centered on womens rights, Black rights, and workers rights. She also spoke on the global foundations of racism and how the current uprisings are not only in solidarity against police violence in the United States, but everywhere in the world. Boyce Davies also mentioned how more Caribbean people died in New York from COVID-19 than in the Caribbean and connected this to Joness migration to the United States when she realized the contradictions of values in the country.

Swift asked about the role of other Black women radicals, such as Maude White and Louise Thompson Patterson of the Communist Party, and also connected the international struggles of the late Marielle Franco and other Black feminist radical leadership. Boyce Davies added that people must also not forget the role of Grace Campbell, who was a Black woman leader in the African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) and became the first Black woman member of the CPUSA once the ABB merged.

They also spoke on their future thoughts on the Black feminist tradition. Some thoughts came to mind such as how the Black Lives Matter movement was birthed by all Black women, who are really concerned about the impoverishment in communities and intersecting racial, class, and gender oppression.

Speaking further, Boyce Davies argued that by deporting Claudia, they [the U.S. government] deported a radical Black female subject, and you can see the same with Assata Shakur.

Later during the conversation, an audience member asked about self-care. Boyce Davies mentioned that radical self-care is a fundamental part of being an activist and protecting oneself from oppressive people. She further said that this new generation is leading the conversation around radical self-care unlike former generations of activists.

Jaimee, who is a journalist herself, also asked about radical Black journalism. Boyce Davies pointed to Ida B. Wells as a model, noting her work in fighting against the lynching of Black people in the South.

To end, Boyce Davies said that Black radical women want to challenge the way that society operates and have the right to challenge the oppressive structures due to their super-exploitation.

Read the rest here:

The right to be radical: Uplifting the life of Claudia Jones - People's World

Key Points

On July 1, 2020, the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Homeland Security, State, and the Treasury issued a joint advisory on the Risks and Considerations for Businesses with Supply Chain Exposure to Entities Engaged in Forced Labor and Other Human Rights Abuses in Xinjiang. The advisory follows months of increased attention by Congress, the Trump administration, and nongovernmental organizations (NGO) on labor conditions in Xinjiang and the treatment of Uyghurs and members of Muslim minority groups in China. Specifically, the advisory describes a range of specific abuses including mass arbitrary detentions, severe physical and psychological abuse, forced labor and other labor abuses, oppressive surveillance used arbitrarily or unlawfully, religious persecution, political indoctrination, forced sterilization, and other infringements of the rights of members of those groups in Xinjiang. The advisory also describes how these concerns are, in the words of Secretary of State Pompeo, no longer confined to the Xinjiang region but spread across China through government-facilitated arrangements with private sector suppliers.

Against this backdrop, the agencies warn businesses of the reputational, economic, and legal risks of involvement with entities that engage in human rights abuses, including but not limited to forced labor in the manufacture of goods intended for domestic and international distribution. The agencies specifically call on [b]usinesses, individuals, and other persons, including but not limited to academic institutions, research service providers, and investors [businesses and individuals] that choose to operate in Xinjiang or engage with entities that use labor from Xinjiang elsewhere in China to heed the warnings in the advisory and implement human rights-related due diligence policies and procedures.

Towards this end, while the advisory itself is explanatory only and does not have the force of law, the agencies outline a range of ongoing U.S. government efforts to curb alleged human rights abuses related to Xinjiang in the areas of import and export controls and financial sanctions. They also provide specific guidance to importers, exporters, and financial institutions on how to identify Xinjiang-related risks. The advisory further urges businesses and individuals to evaluate their exposure to Xinjiang-related risks and to the extent necessary, implement due diligence policies, procedures, and internal controls to ensure that their compliance practices are commensurate with identified risks and international best practice across the upstream and downstream supply chain, and in making investment decisions.

In particular, the advisory highlights three types of supply chain exposure that broadly track export, import, and financial activities implicating Xinjiang:

(1) Assisting in developing surveillance tools for the PRC government in Xinjiang.

(2) Relying on labor or goods sourced in Xinjiang, or from factories elsewhere in China implicated in the forced labor of individuals from Xinjiang in their supply chains, given the prevalence of forced labor and other labor abuses in the region.

(3) Aiding in the construction of internment facilities used to detain Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups, and/or in the construction of manufacturing facilities that are in close proximity to camps operated by businesses accepting subsidies from the PRC government to subject minority groups to forced labor.

On the subject of surveillance, the advisory recounts recent efforts by the Department of Commerce to list and leverage Entity List restrictions against a range of Chinese technology companies and public security bureaus allegedly implicated in human rights violations and abuses in Xinjiang. The advisory goes on to describe the Xinjiang surveillance infrastructure as an unprecedented, intrusive, high-technology surveillance system across Xinjiang, as part of a province-wide apparatus of oppression aimed primarily against traditionally Muslim minority groups. According to the advisory, this system is enabled by technologies including artificial intelligence, facial recognition, gait recognition, and infrared technology, as well as mobile apps used by police to track personal data about Xinjiang residents and cloud databases used to centralize collected information. The advisory notes the role of Chinese surveillance and technology companies supported by PRC government contracts, but also points to evidence that these [Chinese] businesses also get support from foreign academics, scientists, businesses, and investors.

With respect to these concerns, the advisory warns that businesses and individuals engaged in certain activities or who are otherwise directly linked to those in Xinjiang engaged in certain listed activities may face reputational risks and/or trigger U.S. law enforcement or other actions.... These activities include:

On the subject of forced labor, the advisory and related comments by Acting DHS Deputy Secretary Ken Cucinelli recount various recent and ongoing efforts by the Trump administration and Congress to increase scrutiny and enforcement related to labor conditions in Xinjiang and for Muslim minorities throughout the PRC.

As we described in our publication on this topic in March of this year, 2019 marked an uptick in DHS attention to and enforcement of forced labor authorities, beginning with a memorandum of understanding between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Liberty Shared in July 2019 and culminating in Customs and Border Protections (CBP) issuance on September 30, 2019, of what would be the first of a string of Xinjiang-related WROs. Following a series of congressional hearings and NGO activity in late 2019 calling for further scrutiny of labor conditions in Xinjiang, DHS released a formal strategy describing its commitment to combatting human trafficking and forced labor on January 15, 2020, which included among five key goals leveraging DHS law enforcement and national security authorities to investigate, take enforcement action, and refer [human trafficking and forced labor] cases for prosecution. Since CBPs September WRO, it went on to issue additional Xinjiang-related WROs on May 1 and June 17, 2020, and announced on July 1 the seizure of nearly 13 tons of hair worth more than $800,000 that it suspects may have been produced using forced child labor and imprisonment. In describing the seizure, Brenda Smith, CBPs Executive Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Trade, said that [i]t is absolutely essential that American importers ensure that the integrity of their supply chain meets the humane and ethical standards expected by the American government and by American consumers (CBP, July 1).

In Congress, Rep. McGovern and Sen. Rubio introduced, with bipartisan support, companion bills entitled the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (Bill Text,Reuters, March 11), which would, if enacted as written, create significant obligations and restrictions for textile and other importers with supply chains connected directly or indirectly to Xinjiang. While the bills remain pending in Congress, they continue to gain co-sponsors and in some respects have had their political paths cleared by the passage and enactment on June 17, 2020, of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020 (S. 3744), which received overwhelming support in both the House and Senate before being signed by President Trump. As noted in the advisory, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act directs the President to impose sanctions on each foreign person the President determines is responsible for certain actions with respect to specified ethnic Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang region in China.

Against this backdrop, the advisory focuses on several areas of PRC government activity contributing to forced labor conditions in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China, including:

(1) The governments mutual pairing assistance program linking companies from eastern China to factories in Xinjiang (described further in Annex 2 of the advisory).

(2) Involuntary transfers of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities from Xinjiang to factories across China (described in Annex 3 of the advisory).

(3) The use of prison labor in the cotton, apparel, and agricultural sectors (described further in Annex 4 of the advisory).

To aid businesses and individuals in identifying and evaluating forced labor risks, the advisory goes on to describe six potential indicators of forced labor or labor abuses, including:

The advisory also includes (Annex 3) a nonexhaustive but illustrative list of industries in Xinjiang reported to be involved in labor abuses, including:

Finally, the advisory discusses certain due diligence strategies and challenges for identifying and evaluating Xinjiang-related supply chain exposure. For example, the advisory describes the role and limits of third-party audits as credible sources of information for indicators of labor abuses in light of repressive conditions on the ground. It further encourages businesses and individuals to collaborate with industry groups to share information, develop Chinese language research capabilities, and build relationships with Chinese suppliers and recipients of U.S. goods and services to understand their possible relationships in Xinjiang under the mutual pairing assistance program. The advisory also points to several forced labor and human trafficking due diligence tools produced by the Departments of Labor, State, and Justice, among others (see our March publication for additional resources, including a summary of CBPsnine-step processfor initiating and adjudicating forced labor allegations).

As described in the advisory, the foundational authority for regulating imports of goods produced from forced labor is found in Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1307) (see our earlier Client Alert on Section 307here). This law prohibits the importation of [a]ll goods, wares, articles, and merchandise mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in any foreign country by convict labor[,] forced labor[, or] indentured labor, which includes forced or indentured child labor. Such merchandise is not only subject to exclusion and seizure; its importation may lead to criminal investigation of the importer and other parties involved in the import transactionand the imposition of civil or criminal penalties (e.g., 19 U.S.C. 1592 (penalties for fraud, gross negligence, or negligence) and 18 U.S.C. 545 (smuggling goods in the United States)).

In addition to the advisorys guidance for the import and export communities, it also urges entities with banking ties to the U.S. financial system to be aware of requirements for financial institutions to adopt risk-based antimoney laundering, counter terrorist financing, and countering proliferation financing (AML/CFT/CPF) programs to identify, assess, and mitigate risks related to those regulatory regimes. The advisory specifically urges financial institutions to assess their potential exposure to the risk of handling the proceeds of forced labor on behalf of their clients and, as appropriate, implement a mitigation process in line with the risk. As noted in the advisory, money laundering crimes generally require the involvement of proceeds of a specified unlawful activity, which may include sex trafficking, forced labor, and other crimes related to trafficking in persons.

To address these risks, the advisory recommends that financial institutions:

In addition, all U.S. persons and financial institutions with ties to the U.S. financial system must comply with U.S. economic sanctions administered by the Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

On July 9, OFAC and the State Department took the first concrete Xinjiang-related actions following the July 1 joint advisory. OFAC sanctioned four PRC officials and one Public Security Bureau pursuant to Executive Order 13818, which implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (OFAC Press Release). These individuals and entities include:

As a result of the designations, U.S. persons are broadly prohibited from dealing with these persons and entities that are 50 percent or more owned, directly or indirectly, by one or more Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) (collectively, blocked persons), absent a license from OFAC. U.S. persons must also block and report to OFAC any such property that is in, or comes into, their possession or control.

Also on July 9, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo designated Quanguo, Hailun, and Mingshan under Section 7031(c) of the FY 2020 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act; as a result, they and their immediate family members are ineligible for entry into the United States (State Department Press Release). Secretary Pompeo indicated that he is also placing additional visa restrictions on other CCP officials believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, the unjust detention or abuse of Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang pursuant to the State Departments October 2019 visa restriction policy under Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

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U.S. Agencies Issue Business Advisory Warning of Xinjiang-Related Supply Chain Exposure and OFAC Imposes Blocking Sanctions on Chinese Persons Related...

The ongoing awakening to the long-standing realities of discrimination against African Americans is marked by a scope and intensity that were unimaginable even one month ago. Polling shows a significant increase from 2015 among Americans who believe racial and ethnic discrimination in the United States are big problems, and widespread protestsincluding in rural and suburban communities where such activism is unprecedentedagainst systemic racism and police misconduct have erupted. The United States has thus entered a window of opportunity where real social change is more likely than at any time in recent history.

But are there foreign-policy implications for this moment? Could this enhanced recognition of racial discrimination at home result in meaningful differences in how the United States engages with the world? Its tempting to think sobut the answer to both questions is almost certainly no. The structural impediments to more seriously accounting for social justice and human rights in foreign policy are simply too great.

There are at least four such structural factors. First, the composition of foreign-policy shapers (think tank experts, columnists) and implementers (government officials) remains disproportionately white (and male). This is visibly evident from any photograph of senior military officials. But it also pronounced in Americas diplomatic corps. In 2002, 70 percent of all State Department employees were white; by September 2018, it remained nearly unchanged at 68 percent. Moreover, in 2018, the more senior the role, the greater the proportion of employees who were whitegoing from 35 percent for midlevel GS-10 rank up to 87 percent for the most senior civil service executives.

This relatively homogenous composition of the foreign-policy eliteincluding yours trulymatters because the recognition of racial oppression at home and abroad is a glaring blind spot. In 20-plus years of working at academic institutions and think tanks, I can recall very few mentions of race. And even these observations were made not out of inherent concern for racial underrepresentation or discrimination within the United States but because the lack of progress toward combating those twin evils could lessen Americas relative power on the international stage.

Second, the predominant frame through which foreign-policy debates are conveyed is as national security interests. These seemingly neutral concepts are conveyed through principles or objectives, ranked by their purported interest-ness: vital, extremely important, important, or secondary. Those categories come from a landmark 2000 report by the Commission on Americas National Interests, which was representative of many comparable bipartisan initiatives. The 23-member commission included just three women, one of whom was the only person of color (Condoleezza Rice). The sole mention of individual rightsone of 10 important national interestswas in promoting pluralism, freedom, and democracy in strategically important states as much as is feasible without destabilization. The caveats that this august group of geostrategic thinkers added on demonstrate that rights are not universal and should never hinder stabilitymeaning a government that endorses U.S. interests retains power.

Though the facts shift, and allies and adversaries come and go, the narrative of Americas global role is always conveyed via static interests, which remain wholly uninformed by human rights concernsunless it can be weaponized selectively to highlight an adversarys human rights abuses. Foreign policy cannot be reconfigured in enduring and impactful ways without updating the thinking and language that could enable such change.

Third, and relatedly, a consistently missing element in elite foreign-policy debates is the livelihoods of actual humans. The central unit of analysis is countries, which are overwhelmingly evaluated through the words and actions of their leaders. When people are considered at all, it is as demographic clusters that might influence the countries or regions where they residethe Arab youth bulge, Russias population decline, and Chinas graying citizenry are popular examples. So-called voices from the regions are those few media-tested, English-speaking people who reside in the rolodexes of TV producers, serve as visiting think tank fellows, or are escorted through Capitol Hill offices by K Street lobbyists.

Without a reimagining of Americas global influence from the perspective of the individuals who experience hatred, bigotry, and oppression, it is impossible to conceive of a foreign policy that ever truly confronts racism.

Finally, the defining manifestation of U.S. foreign policy for 75 years has been the threat or use of military force. The global architecture required to use force anywhere at any time requires host nation basing and overflight permissions. These, in turn, require permanently stationing U.S. troops abroad, which increases civil wars and enables human rights violations by host nation governments. These governments enjoy military assistance in the form of arms sales. According to the State Departments latest World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers report, the United States is the top arms exporter to the least democratic countries (meaning those in the lowest quintile as determined by Polity Project rankings)accounting for 66 percent of all such sales. In short, to project military power, the United States tolerates or abets subjugation.

Moreover, military spending ($712 billion) absorbs more than half of all federal discretionary spending, towering over the diplomacy and development budget ($48 billion), which could be far better suited to promoting individual rights and freedoms globally. Unfortunately, when you review what country receives the most foreign assistance from the United States, it is a conspicuous list of occupiers, autocrats, and illiberal regimes. The top six proposed recipients for 2020, in order, are: Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Uganda. These are so-called strategic partners showered with aid because of their geographic location, security partnerships, or a consequence of great-power competition (Uganda). Congress could vastly increase funding for international and nongovernmental organizations that work to protect groups experiencing prejudice and seriously hold recipients of foreign aid to account for their human rights violations. But there is nothing in recent history to suggest that legislators will fulfill this needed role or even its most basic oversight functions.

For these four reasons, and many others, an overdue turn toward an individual, rights-centric foreign policy is unimaginable, at least for now. The current defensiveness among elite foreign-policy institutions toward considering the role that race plays in U.S. foreign policy is simply too overwhelming. A more diverse group of future foreign-policy thinkers and leaders could one day lead the waybut that group wont arrive in time to keep pace with the current push for racial justice across the rest of U.S. society.

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From National Interests to the Diplomatic Elite, the Foreign-Policy Blob Is Structurally Racist - Foreign Policy

AFGHANISTAN

If I had dreamed of such a situation, I would have died, says Aziza. But now I have to tolerate it and wait hopelessly for what might happen. (Her name has been changed to protect her livelihood.)

The COVID-19 pandemic officially reached Herat on 23 March via an individual from Qom province in neighbouring Iran. There may have been earlier cases, but little is known given frequent border crossings.

The pandemic has had a severe impact on the livelihood and subsistence of individuals, especially students and teachers in the countrys fragile education sector. And like in other developing countries, Afghanistan has limited resources to counter the public health threat and socio-economic disruption.

Access to quality education in Herat is now acute. With 19 districts, the province includes more than 1,000 villages and 1.8 million residents, with an additional 700,000 to one million internally displaced persons. The education sector in Herat is nearly paralysed given weak IT infrastructure, high cost and low speed internet services and modest e-learning systems.

Students and lecturers suffer from these conditions, which continue to worsen as the city is in quarantine.

Without effective systems in place, school and university closures are increasing learning inequalities and hurting vulnerable children and youth disproportionately, especially girls and women. To respond, inclusive quality education and the role of universities are critical to protect the socio-economic stability of Herat and throughout Afghanistan.

Social impact

In a country where some 3.7 million children are already out of school and do not have regular access to primary education, COVID-19 increases the probability of permanent dropouts and affects childrens general well-being. The closure of schools exacerbates the burden of unpaid homecare responsibilities for young girls, who usually absorb the additional load of supervising other children in Afghanistan.

COVID-19 is quickly changing the context in which children live. Quarantine measures, school closures and restrictions on movement disrupt childrens routines and social support structures, while placing new stressors on parents and caregivers who may have to find new childcare options or forego work.

Stigma and discrimination related to COVID-19 make children more vulnerable to violence and psychosocial distress. Disease control measures that do not adequately consider the gender-specific needs and vulnerabilities of girls and women can increase risks and lead to negative coping mechanisms. UNESCO reports that violence, harassment and oppression against women and girls during every type of emergency tend to increase.

Women who are displaced, refugees and those living in conflict-affected areas are particularly vulnerable. Children and families who are already vulnerable due to socio-economic exclusion or those who live in overcrowded settings remain at risk. Supporting the role of teachers and university lecturers is critical as part of Herats social response network.

Online education

Internet, radio, TV and e-learning programmes are available as distance learning opportunities but remain expensive and are not considered equivalent to the growing quality of Herats public and private universities.

The government of Afghanistan launched online education for students, but they continue to struggle given slow internet speeds and electricity outages. These realities impact students who are already under pressure and now face exhaustion as well as growing mental health concerns.

Students throughout the city have a similar challenge ahead. The specific risks facing children and students include physical and emotional maltreatment, gender-based violence, mental health and psychosocial distress as well as specific child protection-related risks such as child labour, separation and social exclusion.

Herat province has a fragile economy and it depends on aid and tailored technical assistance from donors, much like Afghanistan as a whole. To overcome the impact of COVID-19, research on the extent of the local crisis and the response of NGOs and donors is critical without meaningful action informed by valid research, such as needs assessments, emergency donations and coordinated cooperation, it will be difficult to cope with a worsening situation and recover.

In response and in coordination with the national and provincial government, the government has put together a plan to promote self-learning, small-group learning and distance learning, which draws not only on IT-enabled teaching and learning via television and mobile apps, but also on strong communities.

Literate parents, religious leaders and upper secondary school students are part of a growing network, including in hard-to-reach areas, who meet in open-air settings while observing physical distancing. Nevertheless, significant gaps remain.

Partnerships

For a peaceful and resilient community, ongoing research and development towards equitable access to quality education is key. Herat needs coordinated engagement to meet urgent needs for infrastructure, for low-tech solutions around e-learning, faculty professional development and local economic development with government, donor, private sector, higher education institution and community engagement.

Herat needs locally available solutions and committed international partners. The world has much to gain from seeing the cultural province of Herat thrive by combatting the pandemic and making a better future for all. Aziza need not wait when there is hope.

Dr Abdullah Faiz is chancellor of Herat University, Afghanistan, Ali Mohammad Karimi is education and research consultant with Rayan Asr R&D Company and Dr Wesley Teter is senior consultant with UNESCO Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education.

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Universities are the key to pandemic recovery - University World News

The national security law imposed by Beijing over Hong Kong went into effect on 30 June. By writing this piece, I may be in violation of it.

On the evening the law came into effect, I lay wide awake at my apartment in Chicago, my eyes glued to the screen for the latest developments. The bill had been swiftly drafted, passed and signed by the central government before its content was revealed, the process foreshadowing its draconian measures. The legislation marks an end to Hong Kongs judicial independence and the beginning of a new police state. It also assumes extraterritorial powers for the Chinese government that may subject a person from anywhere in the world to punishment for breaches of speech against its national security.

I stayed up as late as I could, hoping to bear secondhand witness to a fleeting freedom the city and its people had fought so hard to preserve. I fell asleep with my phone in hand, my heart racing, pumping blood and oxygen to a fervent dream, where millions of Hong Kong residents would once again flood the streets, as they did a summer ago, nullifying the law with united disobedience.

I woke up to a shattering reality. Hundreds of protesters had been arrested, some under the new legislation. Prominent activists stepped down from leadership positions. Pro-democracy posters disappeared from public spaces. Once-active social media accounts went silent. I felt ashamed for the fantasy I had clung to the night before. In my relative security from an ocean away, I had selfishly projected an impossible burden on a people.

Eleven years ago when I left mainland China for graduate school in the US, I proudly declared that I was going to live in a free country. Freedom cannot be eaten like rice, my mother said, quick to puncture my naivety. I argued that liberty and prosperity are not mutually exclusive. I was not wrong. Neither was my mother. But only one of us had endured starvation as a child. Only one of us had to feed a family under authoritarian rule.

Do you think the Chinese people will one day rise up? I have often encountered this question from well-meaning Americans, who read my writings critical of the Chinese government and loudly wonder if my country has more people who are courageous like me. To them, political oppression exists only in the abstract, afflicting an alien people on a distant land. Similarly vague is their notion of rising up, as if martyrdom is the only valid response, and whoever fails to do so must deserve servitude. They regard themselves as freedom-loving without contemplating its meaning. They cheer rebels from faraway places without shouldering the cost. An honest reflection would complicate this worldview.

I am not free, despite living in an ostensible liberal democracy. A free person must be able to return to her birthplace at any time without risking persecution; I cannot. A free person must be able to exist with nothing to prove and live without fear; I cannot. I am neither brave nor exceptional. I am fortunate to have options afforded by the luxury of my degrees. I made a calculation and traded one set of freedoms for another, knowing that both are incomplete and I will forever be grieving for what I have lost.

It is from this personal experience that I am troubled by much of the language from politicians and governments around the world promoting resettlement policies for Hong Kong residents. Boris Johnson announced that Hong Kongers with a British national overseas passport would be able to live and work in the UK. The Australian government is extending skilled visas to attract the best and the brightest from the city as well as its businesses. The US Congress introduced a bipartisan bill to grant refugee status to Hong Kong protesters.

Migration is a human right. Every state has an ethical and moral obligation to open its doors to people in search of safety or better opportunities. However, the dominant rhetoric from western countries goes beyond the humanitarian principle to emphasise economic self-interest. Relocating the concept of Asias World City to its isles has occupied a corner of the British imagination for decades, the idea revitalised in light of the new national security law. Hong Kong citizens are described as enterprising and highly educated, who would enrich their new host nation and boost its competitiveness.

The glistening phrases are not compliments. They are dehumanising. They paint a caricature of a population where Hong Kongs poor and disenfranchised are never part of the picture, where a lifes worth is defined by its productivity. For those of us who have faced the menace of a border, the price of crossing means turning a part of ourselves into currency: our savings, our diplomas, our labour, our despair as well as our pain. Unconditional gratitude is demanded of us in exchange for a probationary dwelling. Our resilience becomes justification for continued exploitation.

A person may go through multiple countries of residence, but can only have one true homeland, where no matter how much time has passed, the itinerant may touch the ground with her feet and in that instance become whole. Those who do not know the open wound of exile can callously suggest uprooting a people and congratulate themselves for being generous and clever. The thoughtless self-righteousness stems from an age-old superiority complex, a colonial mindset that insists people from lesser parts of the world must prefer life in the civilised west, if given the chance.

In a recent survey of Hong Kong citizens, Taiwan topped the chart as their first choice for relocation, while Britain and the US ranked below mainland China. The result is not surprising, as most people favour geographical, cultural and linguistic proximity to their place of origin. What the residents of Hong Kong want is of little concern to the politicians and pundits who appropriate their plight. By portraying Hong Kongers as the right kind of immigrant, distinct from migrants at the US-Mexico border or refugees across the Mediterranean, western lawmakers see the Asian city as their own political theatre. They claim the mantle of human rights defenders by feigning solidarity, while espousing racist and xenophobic policies at home.

The heartbreaking reality of Hong Kong is a continuation of its fate as a chess piece in great power politics. Sandwiched between empires, the financial hub derives its status from its usefulness to global capital; the interest of its people has always been secondary. With the new law, Beijing has called the worlds bluff, exposing both the Communist partys ruthlessness and the wests hypocrisy.

I do not know what shape or how long the path to liberation might take for Hong Kong and the rest of China. What I do know is that it must start by focusing on the most marginalised, the people whose work is considered low-skill, whose bodies are deemed sacrificial. The edge of our struggle is not its limit but a new beginning. The road that will lead me home can only be forged through radical imagination and collective effort. The kind of freedom that is upheld by national borders is always fragmented and fragile. Emancipation cannot be achieved through flight for the privileged few. No one is free until everyone is free.

Yangyang Cheng is a particle physicist and a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University

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Allowing the privileged few to flee Hong Kong isn't liberation - The Guardian