Does The Travel Industry Have A Future? – Forbes

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Although it might not seem like it now, the travel industry has a future. A bright future.

It might seem jarring to read those words now, as the travel industry reels from a coronavirus pandemic. The outbreak has hit the travel industry hard, canceling flights, hotel reservations and cruises. Before coronavirus is contained, the travel industry will lose jobs and there will be bankruptcies and consolidations.

But then what?

The travel industry does have a future. By 2030, there will be 1.8 billion worldwide tourists a year, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization 400 million more than last year. That's a lot of people clamoring for cheap airfares, affordable hotel rooms, rideshares, and whatever the next big thing in travel will be.

Ten years from now, look for even bigger changes, say experts. Futurologist Ray Hammond predicts the number of airline passengers will double by 2040, and consumers will demand a faster and more efficient travel experience.

The face of travel as we know it will change dramatically over the next 20 years," he says.

High-speed rail is an essential part of the travel industry's future.

What will travel be like in 2040?

Hammond outlined his predictions in a new report called The World in 2040, which he created on behalf of Allianz Partners.

Among his 2040 predictions for the future of travel:

Other experts and they agree. The travel industry has a future, and here's what you can expect from it:

Ground transportation will get smarter in the coming decades.

Smarter ground transportation

Advances in self-driving technology will profoundly affect the way you travel by car. "Long road trips could be much more tolerable when the vehicle itself does the driving," says Josh Calder, a futurist with Foresight Alliance, a consulting firm. "This could spur more comfortable cars, and make RVs and camper vans much more popular. Ground vehicles will increasingly be powered by electricity."

New jets will travel at supersonic speeds in the future.

The return of supersonic air travel

Supersonic travel will make a welcome comeback in the 2030s, according to Netflights 2050: The Future of Air Travel report. Short breaks to far-flung destinations like San Francisco and Sydney will be possible. "And everyone will have the opportunity to fly on a plane that travels faster than the speed of sound," adds Andrew Shelton, Netflights managing director. "Itll not just be for wealthy travelers."

Virtual reality is a key part of the future of travel.

Virtual reality is the new reality

A recent global traveler survey conducted by Travelport found that 61% of travelers believe that virtual reality and artificial reality experiences will help them would make for better trip planning. "With the emergence of 5G, travel brands will be able to create more immersive digital experiences with friends and families," says Sharon Doyle, a global vice president of product management at Travelport. "We are already seeing companies offer ways of discovering and experiencing travel through virtual and augmented reality."

Trains will go even faster in the future.

Trains running at 700 mph?

In 20 years, new forms of transportation could whisk passengers between major cities at speeds rivaling today's commercial jets, predicts futurist James Patrick. "Above-terrain high-speed tube trains will reach speeds of 500 to 700 mph as they connect population centers of greater than 250,000 people," says Patrick, a former airline executive who also owns a bed and breakfast in Denton, Texas.

Aircraft will emit less carbon in the future and some airlines may emit none, thanks to biofuels.

A carbon zero future

Travel companies are serious about cutting their dependence on fossil fuels. For example, United Airlines already uses more sustainable biofuel than any other airline. "When thinking about the future of travel, particularly in the aviation industry, the move towards making operations more sustainable is going to continue to be a priority that shapes the industry," says United spokeswoman Christine Salamone. "Looking ahead to the next 10-plus years, we want to take the carbon out of flying from more supply of sustainable aviation fuel to investing in new technologies in the air and on the ground."

Space tourism may become a reality in the coming decades.

The final frontier for travel?

Space tourism isn't science fiction. Just visit Cape Canaveral in Florida to see all the private contractors who are preparing for the next phase of travel. Just as Port Canaveral is a big tourism destination, so, too the Cape may soon welcome space tourists. The prospect of space tourism seems very real with all the companies that are currently working on this, said Peter Cranis, executive director of the Space Coast Office of Tourism.

But some things probably won't change, says Joe Mason, chief marketing officer at Allianz Partners.

"Though some aspects of travel should be much less stressful by the year 2040, there will still be some familiar risks for travelers to contend with, along with some new ones," he says. "Unforeseen trip cancellations, delays and emergencies abroad will continue to happen, meaning that travelers will continue to need travel protection and assistance services to travel with peace of mind."

What does the future of travel mean for you?

So what does the travel industry's future mean for you?

It's one thing to talk about the possibilities. Faster trains and planes, self-driving cars and biometrics are exciting. But what do they mean to you?

More competition and lower prices. The airline industry's monopoly on America's skies will end as new transportation options become available. That means the days of overpaying for bad airline service will end.

A faster experience. Everything about the future will be faster, from the way you check in for your trip to the length of time it takes to get there.

A more connected world. As more people travel, walls will break down. The insular politics that have defined the last few years will can't thrive in a well-traveled world.

The future of travel looks bright, but let's hope that the customer experience also improves dramatically.

That's the thing about the future, though. No one knows what will happen.

"With the rate of technology, the next 20 years are up for debate," says Parag Khanna, founder of FutureMap, a data and scenario-based strategic advisory firm, "anything can happen."

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Does The Travel Industry Have A Future? - Forbes

IGCF: What are the best practices in government communication? – Euronews

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The 9th edition of International Government Communication Forum brought together global communication experts to explore best practices in the field.

Key issues discussed at the event, which took place in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, included the impact of media in forming public opinion and how effective communication can benefit body and mind.

Speakers included the actress Priyanka Chopra, the futurist physicist Professor Michio Kaku and and the veteran journalist Michaelle Jean, who was the former Canadian Governor General.

Having been sworn in as Governor General in 2005, Jean promoted the democracy, freedom and human rights of Canadians for five years, inspiring a generation of young men and women.

She defined communications, through the prism of the North American society in which she lives and works.

Per se, it is about respect, she said. And to respect you have to listen, and by listening you have to include.

Whilst in office, Michaelle came face-to-face with a man who served as her inspiration, a newly-elected President Barack Obama. She says they shared a common view on strong communication and engagement with others. They also, Jean noted, shared the belief that they were making history in their respective roles.

The first thing we said to each other was, Who would have thought that the Commander in Chief of the United States and the Commander of Chief of Canada, myself, would both be of African descent - and in office at the same time? And something we shared profoundly was the importance of listening.

For almost five decades, Sharjahs leadership has leveraged communications role as an engine of positive change and sustainability in society.

Its media council is spearheaded by His Royal Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Ahmed Al Qasimi, who in 2009 established and restructured Sharjahs TV and radio operations.

Sheikh Ahmed is also responsible for launching IGCF, which, amongst its pillars has strengthening public interactions with the government, adopting advanced digital education and boosting innovation in the media sector.

In a country comprised of more than 200 nationalities, Inspire Middle Easts anchor Rebecca McLaughlin-Eastham spoke to His Highness about how mass communication was best achieved in such a diverse and media-savvy society.

Rebecca: You say that, within this new age of media, something of a communication revolution has taken place. Revolution would imply that change was somehow needed. So, what was the catalyst?

Sh. Sultan Al Qasimi: I've worked through a time when TV was the first thing youd see, and the mobile phone was the second screen. Now, the mobile phone is the first screen that you see and the TV is the second screen. As government, as people working in the government, we need to be as fast as everyone else with technology. So, that's a revolution.

Rebecca: If you had to sum it up, how would you describe the media scene here in Sharjah? And what steps should be taken to advance it further?

Sh. Sultan Al Qasimi: Sharjah used to be very closed. A lot of entities in Sharjah didn't want to be open to government, to publicor the media. But now, we are showing them that it's okay to be open. It's okay to talk about your pros and cons. If you have a problem, if you say it, it's better than someone else talking about it. And we are improving in Sharjah. We are taking this forward.

Rebecca: In the spirit of more transparency more openness, how do you view a freer press and more freedom of speech in the UAE?

Sh. Sultan Al Qasimi: I think there's a very thin line between being free to speak and between being, if I may say, rude. But, I think we're in a culture that understands that. We do have freedom of speech, we do have ethics though - we have ethics that we adhere to. We always look at the positive side of the freedom of speech and we're actually all for it.

Rebecca: To what degree do you believe that a governments, or state-run media entities, should be able to influence people's behaviour and attitudes? To what degree should they be forming people's opinions?

Sh. Sultan Al Qasimi: I think it's a two-way road. I think even the public should be able to persuade the governments to do things that they want, at the end of the day. The government is here to serve them. Everybody has an opinion. Everybody has a good idea. Everybody can share their ideas, even with the government, and we open our doors and our minds to the public.

Rebecca: You've said in the past, that a particular challenge of recent years was to change peoplesperception of the emirate of Sharjah. So, what was the perception back then, and what is its image today?

Sh. Sultan Al Qasimi: I think for people who were in Sharjah, let's say 15 years ago, they might notice a big difference in the way we communicate. They would definitely see, that in the past, a lot of entities in Sharjah used to have closed-door policies. If you don't speak about anything, no-one would know about it etc. But this is a good time to be clear and to be to be truthful about what you have.

Rebecca: Looking at history, and looking at the Arab world, arguably certain countries and certain media organisations have portrayed the region in a particular light. Its not easy to control nor influence that. What's your view?

Sh. Sultan Al Qasimi: I think if you need your picture to be painted in a nice way, you should be the one talking about it. And I think you always have to have the right tools and the right way of talking about it.

Rebecca: Lets talk about COVID-19 currently dominating headlines around the world. To what degree, is it fair to lay blame at the medias door for sparking something of a health panic? And should governments be the ones to calm people down?

Sh. Sultan Al Qasimi: I think government should always be the one who calm people down. But I think also they should do it the right way. I think they should do it the scientific way. The UAE has done a good job in talking about it being clear about it, saying how many cases we have in the Emirates and how theyre being treated.

Irina from Russia enjoyed meeting the futurist Professor Michio Kaku at IGCF.

Saad, and his co-writers, from Kuwait were thrilled to launch their book at the Sharjah forum.

With contribution from Nancy Sarkis, Ana De Oliva and Nicolas Tabbal.

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IGCF: What are the best practices in government communication? - Euronews

Paganism and Countercultures | Tom Swiss – Patheos

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To live outside the law, you must be honest. Bob Dylan, Absolutely Sweet Marie

Todays Neopagan movement was heavily influenced by the 1960s counter-culture.

The overall zeitgeist of self-expression and self-exploration made space for alternatives to mainstream culture and religion. Feminism helped bring the idea of the divine feminine and the archetype of the witch to new prominence. The ecological movement lent impetus to the idea of nature religion. Fantasy literature notions of wizards brought magical ideas to mind.

But Neopaganism has older roots than the 1960s. We can clearly trace its ancestry back through Gardnerian Wicca and the occult movements of the early 20th century, though Hermetic societies like the Golden Dawn, to Theosophy and Spiritualism.

We can go further back, to the Transcendentalists were previously discussed how Walt Whitman was a proto-Pagan. And before them, the British Romantic poets were important predecessors of Paganism; not only did their poetry help shape our notion of the Goddess and raise Pan to new prominence, they seems to have taken the worship of the Old Gods into their lives to some degree. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote to a friend, I am glad that you do not neglect the rites of the true religion. Your letter awoke my sleeping devotions, and the same evening I ascended alone the high mountain behind my house, and suspended a garland, and raised a small turf altar to the mountain-walking Pan.

And we can go back through earlier Romantics like Blake and Rousseau; and in the mists of history, we can dimly see the secret and fraternal societies of the 1600s and 1700s, the Bavarian Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, and Freemasons, freethinkers and anti-authoritarians whose ritual structures became templates for occultists of later centuries.

To some degree, each of these ancestors and influences might be said, in a broad sense, to be a counterculture.

The term counter culture was popularized in Theodore Roszaks 1969 book The Making of a Counter Culture. An earlier form, contraculture, was used by sociologist John Milton Yinger in a 1960 article.

(Miriam-Webster.com claims, but does not cite a source, for a first known use of counter culture in 1947. If the term was in use before the 1960s, it was not significant enough to show up in my 1956 Websters New Collegiate Dictionary. Old dictionaries, by the way, are fascinating.)

Roszak was writing specifically about the subculture that developed in the US (with echoes in Europe) in the 1960s, as a response to the materially affluent but spiritually empty technocratic mainstream culture that developed in the post-World War II years. However he did not completely limit his view; he quoted William Blake and named our proto-Pagan Walt Whitman as prophetically counter-cultural.

In contrast, Yinger was writing about a general sociological concept. He used contraculture to refer to subcultures with norms that contain as a primary element, a theme of conflict with the values of the total society, where personality variables are directly involved in the development and maintenance of the groups values, andits norms can be understood only by reference to the relationships of the group to a surrounding dominant culture. He cited examples from jazz musicians to juvenile delinquents.

A counterculture is different than a subculture which merely persists as a minority group in a larger whole. It sets itself up as an opposition, attempting in some way to change, reform, or replace some aspect of the culture at large.

So before the 1960s, we might classify the poets and artists of the Beat Generation in the US as a counterculture; before them in Europe, the Surrealists and the Decadent movement; and before them the Transcendentalists, and the Romantics.

Outside of artistic movements, in the field of lifestyle, we can identity Borsodis back to the land movement; the German Naturmenschen and Libensreform movements of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the California California Nature Boys of the 1940s whom they inspired; and Ernest Thompson Setons Woodcraft Indians of the early 1900s, who may have been an ancestor tradition to both Wicca and the Boy Scouts.

Each of these movements set out, in some way, to reform or change broader society. In some sense, they (as Yinger described) stood in conflict with the values of society at large, and attracted a personality type in accordance with that conflict.

Now we, wild Pagans that we are, might find each of these groups sympathetic in at least some sense. Artists, poets, nature lovers, advocates for alternative medicine, social reformers, naturalists, wanderers these are our people! They stood opposed to the mainstream cultures of their time in order to push for egalitarianism, creativity, and liberty.

But these are not the only countercultures out there.

Prohibitionists, censors, authoritarians, religions fundamentalists in every society, there are countercultural currents that move in opposition to freedom and openness.

Imagine, for example, that you were invited to join a mystic, social, patriotic, benevolent association with a perfected lodge system, with an exalted ritual form of worknot for selfish profit, but for the mutual betterment, benefit, and protection of initiates, in order to promote liberty, justice, and fraternity among all mankind. If I told you that the initiation rite of the this fraternity involved a chalice and a blade (though called differently) and proceeding widdershins around a sacred altar while wearing ceremonial robes, you might think that I was talking about some cousin to Wicca, or a Rosicrucian group.

In fact, this description is of the Ku Klux Klan a thoroughly twisted counter-culture.

And this is important to us today, because there are twisted counter-cultures around that present with elements of Paganism. Some have real historical ties to groups that were antecedents of the Pagan revival, however badly they have gone off the track.

White supremacists standing in opposition to cultural values of equality who misrepresent Heathenry and Asatru. Trans-exclusive radical feminist witches who believe that the yin qualities of existence are entirely linked with anatomy, standing against the trend towards greater openness about gender.

And of course there are always cults organized for the enrichment or empowerment of the leaders but that present themselves as brave rebels standing against a corrupt society.

There are many advantages to Paganism being decentralized, diverse, and a somewhat underground, countercultural phenomenon. But this also brings with it the risk that seekers will encounter one of these twisted groups which can look Paganish from a distance.

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Exclusive: The Wing Launches The Guild, A New Incubator Program For Women-Owned Businesses – Forbes

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The Guild launch at The Wing Williamsburg, Brooklyn location Sunday, March 8.

Womens coworking startup The Wing has launched a new initiative to support female founders. The program, aptly called The Guild, kicked off on International Womens Day and will provide 13 female business owners, including a jeweler, baker and doula, the opportunity to partner with The Wings new location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, for one year.

The mission of The Wing is advancement through community, says Lauren Kassan, cofounder and COO of The Wing. As we expand into new neighborhoods, we want to support local women-led businesses by helping them utilize The Wing as a platform to grow.

The Wing will offer custom programming and mentorship opportunities to The Guilds inaugural class of business owners throughout the year. Ultimately, the goal is to roll out the initiative in all of its markets and build a network of female entrepreneurs around the world.

When we open a space, were very conscious of the location and its surrounding ecosystem, Kassan says. The purpose of a program like this is to localize us and support women within our four wallsbut also outside of them as well.

Since founding in 2016, The Wing has capitalized on the zeitgeist of the modern feminist revolution by creating a community where its membersor Winglets, as the company calls themcan work, eat, network, shower, breastfeed and even stage a small coup if needed. Celebrities such as Serena Williams, Kerry Washington, Megan Rapinoe and Lena Dunham are among its founding members and investors, and Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Maggie Haberman, Jennifer Lopez, Janet Mock, Hillary Clinton and Christiane Amanpour have spoken at its member events.

The company scaled quickly, raising $75 million in a Series C round led by women partners at Sequoia Capital and Upfront Ventures, with additional participation from Airbnb, NEA and WeWork, in December 2018.

But hyper growth in a volatile market comes with its own complicated set of challenges, including cultural growing pains and a discrimination lawsuit. In early March 2020, WeWork sold its stake in The Wing, a move that slashed the startups estimated $375 million valuation nearly in half to approximately $200 million.

Even so, The Wing is still one of the fastest growing and most well-funded women-led startups in recent history, raising a total of $117.5 million in just over two years. As such, it is well-positioned to make this new vision a reality. With 12,000 members and counting in 11 coworking spaces in New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles and London, with plans to open six more spaces by the end of the year, The Wing is quickly becoming one of the most influential womens networks in the $26 billion global coworking market. We didnt anticipate this level of growth so quickly, Kassan says. The growth was a function of the demand and people really wanting us to bring The Wing into their cities.

The Wing cofounders Audrey Gelman, Lauren Kassan and brand director Alex Covington at The Guild ... [+] launch at The Wing Williamsburg, Brooklyn location Sunday, March 8.

Its leaders growing influencecofounder and CEO Audrey Gelman made history last fall when she became the first visibility pregnant CEO to appear on the cover of a major business magazineas well as their seemingly effortless ability to make things happen is, perhaps, a significant part of The Wings allure.

Our business is just one block away from The Wing Williamsburg, says Corinna Williams, cofounder of eco-friendly modern laundromat Celsious and member of The Guild. Weve been following the buildout process and anticipating their opening for the last few months. At the launch party on Valentines Day this year, we bumped into Audrey and instantly agreed that we had to collaborate. That night, she connected us via email. About two weeks later we received an email with an invite to join The Guild.

Christina Viviani, cofounder and creative director of lingerie lifestyle brand The Great Eros, was also invited to join The Guild. While shes managed to secure retail partnerships with Bloomingdales and Net-a-Porter on her own, not to mention celebrity clientele including Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlet Johannson and Zoe Kravitz, she is looking forward to receiving business guidance. The biggest pain point I face as a founder is isolation, she says. Theres no playbook on this journey of entrepreneurship. You dont always know if the decision youre making is the right one. You learn from experience. With a network as dynamic as The Guild we will all be able to share our stories and benefit from our collective experiences.

Women-owned businesses are a critical part of the U.S. economy. Between 2014 and 2019, the number of women-owned businesses climbed 21% to nearly 13 million and revenues rose 21% to $1.9 trillion, according to American Express 2019 State of Women-Owned Business report. Still, female entrepreneurs face many obstacles that their male counterparts do not, including a $189 billion funding gap, according to new research by Crunchbase.

By launching The Guild, the Wing may have tapped into a huge economic opportunity to help even the playing field for women. Realizing the economic potential of women-owned businesses requires changes in policies, business practices and attitudes, says Geri Stengel, research advisor to American Express. For example, $981 billion in revenue would be added to the U.S. economy if the average revenue of minority women-owned firms matched that of white women-owned businesses. Mentorship and training programs provide advice, build skills, shift mindset, as well as provide access to markets and funding.

Dan Wang, associate professor of business and sociology at Columbia Business School agrees. It is true that women founders receive disproportionately less VC funding than men . . . Organizations like The Wing and Chief can be highly productive in this area by making sure that women founders, who might otherwise be overlooked, receive a greater share of resources, he says. Ultimately, however, I think the entire VC ecosystemwhich includes men and womenhave to dedicate themselves to reversing their biases together.

For some of the women participating in The Guild, however, fundraising isnt the focus. I am proud that Mociun has no outside investment and we have no plans to seek funding, says Caitlin Mociun, founder of her namesake jewelry and homegoods company. Figuring out how to grow my business in a sustainable way that holds true to my values and my business values is what appealed to me the most.

At its core, The Guilds mission is about helping women business owners feel seen and recognized. If youre a founder from a creative background, you tend to be overlooked in a community dominated by VCs and MBA backgrounds, Viviani says. But something you cant overlook is that creatives have an ability to storytell, to have vision and to see opportunity that isnt a recipe found through CACs [customer acquisition cost(s)] or spreadsheets.

Whether intentional or not, The Wing has found itself at the center of a movement, and Gelman and Kassan have become proxies for the female founder community, not to mention a source of inspiration.

Broadening the impact of The Wing is an important reminder that we need to address opportunities for women on all frontsbusinesses supporting a local community and opportunities to reach the C-suites and boardrooms of Fortune 100 companies, says Katia Beauchamp, cofounder and CEO of Birchbox. We must heighten the awareness and the resources to address the entire playing field if we are going to accelerate the balance that we know will serve us all in creating the world we want to live in.

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Exclusive: The Wing Launches The Guild, A New Incubator Program For Women-Owned Businesses - Forbes

George Pyle: Maybe just stop calling it ‘government’ and we can have a good one – Salt Lake Tribune

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Maybe we are going to have to start calling it something else.

To some people, the very word government conjures up an image of jackboots and oppression.

Listening to debates on such issues as taxation, homelessness, abortion and health care not just in Utah you get the impression that a great many people, some of them holding political power or social influence, believe that government is, by its very nature, evil. Perhaps a necessary evil, but evil just the same.

A belief that seems to hold quite a bit of influence in many places is that the purpose of government is to be mean to people. And that the Constitution of the United States, the state constitutions and other basic laws exist to be sure that government is only mean to the people who have it coming you know, poor, brown, female and leaves the rest of us blissfully alone to make our own way in the world without the yoke of oppression.

Until something happens. Like the banks needs to be bailed out. Or the fossil fuel industry needs more subsidies and fewer regulations. Or even rich people start worrying about global pandemics.

Then, our government is Dudley Do-Right to the rescue. Unless hes lost his pistol and just fired his third horse.

State officials in Utah pretty much ignored the growing homelessness problem in Salt Lake City until, a couple of years ago, it was suggested to them that they could basically militarize the problem, crack down on those smelly people, march a bunch of them off to jail and make the Rio Grande neighborhood safe for gentrification.

Since then, theres been a lot of work and money put into a more humane approach involving better services provided in cleaner and safer buildings. But it continues to be like pulling teeth to get the state to fund human services with a fraction of the amount that it was willing to spend for billy clubs.

For several years now, it has been an all-hands-on-deck effort of people who care to drag first the United States, then Utah, toward building a First World health care system, one that allocates resources based on how sick you are, not on how wealthy you or your insurance-providing employer happen to be.

Not only does the purpose of government instantly shift from humanity to misogyny, some lawmakers and activists get to savor the possibility of imprisoning doctors and women for long stretches in retaliation for providing or availing themselves of a medical procedure that, in civilized nations, is a basic human right.

Even those the anti-abortion movement claims to help, the unborn, are only eligible for government assistance when the process includes being deliberately cruel to the women involved. Otherwise, wheres the fun in that?

Oh, and once those children are born? Sorry, kid. No government assistance for you. That would be oppressive. Dont you see that weve set you free? Now, go away and dont bother us. Were busy giving tax cuts to the rich and repealing environmental standards.

And now, almost four years after we elected to the highest office in the land a buffoon who showed no stomach for the hard work of governing, it may be becoming more obvious that deliberately disempowering the federal government by racking up towering debt and chasing away all the competent adults and best brains in favor of toadies and grifters, wasnt such a good idea after all.

The sudden resurgence of Joe Bidens political fortunes are likely to be based on the feeling that, while Ol Uncle Joe may have lost a step, and may have some really embarrassing male supremacy artifacts in his closet, he at least knows where the Centers for Disease Control is. And that he will find, or find someone who can find, competent people and adequate funds to run it.

Yes, we have constitutional protections, a free press and elections because we know that government strong enough to help us is also strong enough to hurt us, if we dont pay attention. The watchdog can slip the leash.

But, like the authors of our nation, the ones who tossed out a self-serving government to install a public-serving one, we know that freedom from crime, invasion, disease and want doesnt come from a lack of government. It comes from people willing to the work of good government.

And, if that still sounds too oppressive, lets call it by its other name.

George Pyle, editorial page editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, has been more of a bother to government than it has ever been to him.

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George Pyle: Maybe just stop calling it 'government' and we can have a good one - Salt Lake Tribune

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR | Re: Government and law enforcement, please do your jobs – The Martlet

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Recently, we published an article by one of our writers on the rail blockades in opposition to the Coastal GasLink pipeline taking place in solidarity with the Wetsuweten people. This article was published in the interest of allowing a platform for varied and diverse voices, however due to our mission statement to be an agent of constructive social change and thanks to the independence we are privileged with as student journalists, we recognize we have a duty to fight against oppression and mainstream voices. The Martlet would like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to our community for our failure to support our mission statement. We acknowledge that this articles perspective contributes and perpetuates a narrative that is inherently racist and privileged, and enables a system that has contributed to hundreds of years of genocide against Indigenous peoples in Canada. For the role we have played in perpetuating these systems, the Martlet is sincerely sorry. After much consideration, we have decided to remove the article from our website. Our team must be held accountable for our actions and we will not attempt to hide from our choices. The opinions conveyed by this writer do not reflect the beliefs and actions of our staff as a whole, and the racist views within the article are not supported by the Martlet.

In publishing this opinion piece, we veered from the Martlets mission statement to act as an agent of constructive social change and work to eliminate forms of oppression. The arguments and the premise of this article were rooted in antiquated, racist principles surrounding land ownership, and did not acknowledge the role of the RCMP and police in colonialist Canadian legal authority. The country of Canada and these systems, after all, only exist because of colonialism. We appreciate those that have reached out to us and offered their thoughts on the piece. This has given us a lot to think about, and we commit to a more critical approach to our choices in the future.

I would like to make it clear that the views and narratives expressed in this opinion article are not indicative of the beliefs and principles held by myself and the Martlet as a collective. As a team, weve spoken out against the Coastal Gaslink pipeline under construction without Indigenous consent and the hundreds of years of colonial violence that has led to the current Wetsuweten solidarity movement. Individually, our staff has written op-eds about the RCMP as a force for colonial bigotry and why disruptive demonstrations are the most effective. Weve been covering the frontlines of the Wetsuweten solidarity movement in Victoria since the start the blockade of the BC Ferries terminal, the arrests of Indigenous youth at the Ministry of Energy, both occupations of the B.C. Legislature, the recent arrests of Indigenous youth at the legislature, and looked deep into the Wetsuweten Matriarchal Coalition and benefit agreements with Coastal GasLink and the province. For over a year, we have featured a column authored by the Native Students Union called News Unsettled, which has been incredibly impactful in shaping conversations on campus, in the community, and in our newsroom. Through publishing this column, we hope to assist in minimizing the effects of colonialism on campus.

As a publication, we will do better. Trust has been broken, and we will work hard to earn it back. This effort begins now. We want to continue to be a force for positive social and cultural change and for critical journalism, particularly on issues impacting Indigenous peoples in our community. We hope you will continue to trust us to do that.

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Chelsea Manning Ordered Free From Prison but Will Still Have to Pay Massive Fines – The Intercept

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Chelsea Manning, photographed in Washington, D.C., in January 2018.

Photo: Jesse Dittmar/Redux

The ruling itself is striking in what it fails to recognize. The court finds Ms. Mannings appearance before the Grand Jury is no longer needed, in light of which her detention no longer serves any coercive purpose, the judge noted. The fact that the coercive purpose of Mannings detention had long been shown to be absent Manning has proven herself incoercible beyond any doubt was not mentioned. Nor was the fact that on Wednesday, Manning attempted suicide. It was the most absolute evidence that she could not be coerced: She would sooner die.

She endured months of extreme suffering, driving her to near death, but never wavered on her principled refusal to speak.

While Mannings release is vastly long overdue and most welcome, the framing and timing of the decision are galling. On Friday, Manning was scheduled to appear at a court hearing on a motion to end her continued imprisonment, predicated on her unshakeable resistance proving coercion to be impossible, and her incarceration therefore illegal. She endured months of extreme suffering, driving her to near death, but never wavered on her principled refusal to speak.

The day before this hearing and the day after she made an attempt on her own life the judge ruled that Manning is no longer needed by the grand jury. The court did not recognize that she is incoercible, nor that her detainment had become punitive. Indeed, a profoundly punitive element of her treatment will remain, even after her release: The judge denied a motion to vacate the exorbitant fines Manning faces. She owes the state $256,000, which she is expected to pay, even though the fines were only accrued on the condition that they might coerce her to speak.

Again and again, Manning and her legal team showed that her imprisonment was nothing but punitive, and thus unjustifiable under the legal statutes governing federal grand juries. Yet for nearly a year, Manning has been caged and fined $1,000 per day. Ever since she was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury, which is investigating WikiLeaks, Manning has also insisted that there was never anyjustifiable purpose to asking her to testify.

As her support committee noted in a statement last May, Chelsea gave voluminous testimony during her court martial. She has stood by the truth of her prior statements, and there is no legitimate purpose to having her rehash them before a hostile grand jury.

For the court to admit, after nearly a year of torturous treatment, that further testimony from her is unnecessary adds insult to very real injury.

The governments treatment of Manning has been putrid and continues to be especially as she remains under the yoke of state-enforced financial ruin. For her unwavering resistance to government oppression, in the name of social justice struggle and press freedom, Manning is owed our deepest admiration and all the support we can muster.

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Patriotism and freedom of press – Daily Times

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The Falklands War was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands, but while the war was raging in the archipelago, the prime minister of the UK fumed at the BBCs coverage and branded it treacherous. Margaret Thatchers political future depended on the result of the war, but the relationship between the Corporation and the government turned sour over its reporting.

The prime minister accused the BBC of assisting the enemy by discussing possible military developments before they happened. The BBCs coverage of the Falklands War was perceived to be significantly less supportive as Mrs Thatcher thought the BBC was questioning her decision to even go to war at the time. The BBC refused to refer to British troops as our boys during the conflict, to the chagrin of the Iron Lady. She wanted the BBC to refer to the troops using us or ours. She expected the press to give a report favourable to the government, but the British media, including BBC, reported the war objectively. The prime minister thought the BBC had let down the Army, the country, and had exaggerated the case of a few dissidents. The BBC angrily denied the allegations of bias.

Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw was under tremendous pressure to take control of BBC and to direct what it broadcast, intending to boost the morale of the country and the troops. During the campaign, BBC was determined to maintain its editorial independence, declaring, it is not the BBCs role to boost troops morale.

The Falklands War was not the first case where the government of the day wanted the press to report wrongly to keep up the morale of the public. That also happened during the 1971 war between Pakistan and India. During the war, a military junta ruled Pakistan. General Yahya Khan declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on 25 March 1971, and immediately imposed strict censorship on newspapers throughout Pakistan, forcing a complete blackout of news that differed from the official point of view. As a result, it was not possible to broadcast accurately and professionally.

Pakistan media kept the Pakistani public in dark during the war. The army lied to the people of Pakistan throughout the war and projected imaginary military victories

State-controlled electronic media, Radio Pakistan and Pakistan Televisionbroadcast news and programmes made to boost the morale of the public. They blared nationalistic anthems and patriotic songs, extolling heroics of the army. Half of the newspapers were owned by the government and followed government instructions. Journalists who criticised the government were denounced as traitors. Neutral reporting was dubbed as Indian propaganda. Anthony Mascarenhas was a Pakistani journalist who risked his life to report on the atrocities being committed in 1971. He knew he couldnt publish the story without risking his life, so he got it published in the UK.

All the foreign journalists were expelled from the erstwhile East Pakistan. According to the Pakistan government regulations, anybody sending inappropriate or hostile news could be imprisoned for up to two years. The military censor checked all newspaper articles. Information that reached masses was based on handouts of the government or the Ministers statements. The public was fed with misleading and biased information in the national interest and to instil a spirit of nationalism.

Pakistan media kept the Pakistani public in dark during the war. The army lied to the people of Pakistan throughout the war and projected imaginary military victories. It forced the media to report outrageous lies about the outcome of the war. The news considered to have the potential of causing subversion and disruptions were suppressed. The wholesale, planned defection of the Bengali soldiers from the Pakistan Army in the early weeks of the war was not reported.

The Morning News even editorialised that the armed forces were saving East Pakistanis from eventual Hindu enslavement. The government-controlled press played down the civil war as an uprising sponsored by the Indian government. During the period of active combat starting from late November, Morning News and Pakistan Observer projected an image of Pakistan as being in complete control of the situation. Both newspapers, till the very end of the war, kept on reporting on the advances of Pakistans troops, and the huge losses incurred by the Indian military.

While the Pakistan army surrendered on 16 December 1971, the daily Jang published a statement of Yahya Khan on 17 December, declaring that the war will continue, and we shall fight till victory is achieved. He had the gall to announce that the programme to form a representative government will not be affected and that a new constitution will be declared on 20 December 1971. On 18 December 1971, Pakistan Times brought out a scandalous lie that Pakistan accepted the Indian ceasefire offer.

Although the Pakistani press highlighted atrocities committed by Mukti Bahni against Biharis and non-Bengalis, brutality perpetrated by the Pakistan army was completely blacked out. No information about the massive migration of the Bengali population to India was reported.

The Pakistani press did not report the destruction of the Karachi harbor, the sinking of PNS Ghazi in the Bay of Bengal, and enforcement of the naval blockade of the Arabian Sea. However, the destruction of Indian ship Khukri by Pakistani submarine Hangor received prominent coverage. By maintaining the naval blockade, the Indian army was able to prevent dispatching reinforcements or evacuating by sea.

After the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, the US State Department asked the US-funded Voice of America not to air an interview with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said that broadcasting the voice of the Taliban was not right. However, the VOA charter also calls for accurate, objective and comprehensive news and a broad spectrum of American thought and institutions.

Truth is the first casualty of any war. Other victims are suppression of freedoms of press and expression, and right of free assembly. In some sense, this is understandable because war breeds fear and fear breeds oppression in the corridors of power. Rulers strongly believe, especially in times of war, that freedom of press is subservient to patriotism and nationalism. The tension between patriotism and free press is neverending, but it is heightened during war or crisis. It is believed that censorship is necessary to protect the public from the effects of enemy propaganda. Besides, they think that the morale of the public must be boosted, even at the cost of stifling the press and allowing broadcast of misleading and biased information. Reporters are expected to hide inconvenient truths and always portray the country in a positive light. It is only over the past forty years that the civilised world has embraced the notion that the press can openly and freely criticise the government in peace or wartime.

History sheds light on the experiences of journalists who opposed the war or dictatorial regimes. During World WarI, The Masses, a revolutionary journal, took an anti-war stance, so the Postmaster General of the US stopped its circulation. The publishers and editors of The Masses were prosecuted and sentenced to prison for their criticism of the war. Moreover, among the 2,000 individuals and organisations prosecuted under the Espionage and Sedition Acts were dozens of editors and publishers.

Bertrand Russell and others openly opposed the WWI from the beginning; in 1916, Russell authored a pamphlet opposing conscription. He was subsequently sentenced to prison under the Defence of the Realm Act and fined 100. That conviction led to Russells dismissal from his lectureship at Trinity. Later, he spent nine months in Brixton prison for his outspoken pacifism.

William Dudley Pelley, journalist and activist, accused Roosevelt of being a warmonger and advocated isolationism. He opposed WWII and was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

The political future of governments depends on the victory or defeat in war. In Argentina, the military government led by General Galtieri was suffering criticism for its oppressive rule and economic mismanagement. In a desperate attempt to prop up his beleaguered government, General Galtieri planned the invasion of Falklands. After the humiliating defeat against Britains armed forces, Galtieri was forced to resign in the wake of a large-scale public protest. Elections were held, and a civilian rule was restored.

On the other hand, the military victory gave a clear fillip to British patriotic feeling and national pride that had dwindled since the failure of the 1956 Suez campaign. Margaret Thatchers popularity soared after the conflict, and her Conservative Party won a landslide victory in 1983 parliamentary elections. She felt empowered to press ahead with her economic readjustments popularly known as Thatcherism. After the surrender of 90,000 Pakistani troops in East Pakistan, and the creation of the new state, Bangladesh, a group of angry army officers forced General Yahya Khan to resign and hand over power to Bhutto. He was then stripped of his service honours

and put under house surveillance for most of the 1970s. After being released from those restrictions in 1977, he died in Rawalpindi in 1980 in disgrace.

The writer is Chest specialist in San Francisco

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Patriotism and freedom of press - Daily Times

The meaning of conservatism – The Economist

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Nick Timothy offers an answer to a question the government has fumbled: what is it for?

Mar 12th 2020

BRITISH CONSERVATISM is in an odd state: politically triumphant but intellectually dazed. A hundred days after the election the Conservative Party is still far ahead of Labour in the polls. But it has not provided a clear sense of what it stands for. Going back to the good old days of blue passports and royal yachts? Perpetual war on the liberal elite? Cutting red tape and unleashing business?

Such confusion is understandable. The Brexit explosion blew apart David Camerons post-Thatcherite synthesis of free markets with progressive values. But having been in power since 2010 the party hasnt had time for a rethink. The default contender to fill the vacuum is the populism that drove the Brexit revolution. Alas, such populism is an unstable mixture of emotions not a coherent philosophy, consisting in part of rage at the liberal elites, in part celebration of the noble savage in the form of the northern working class and in part nostalgia for national greatness. The party has failed to take on the biggest issue it faces: can it cleave to free-market orthodoxy (as it did when allowing the Flybe regional airline to go bust), while still catering to its new voters in the north?

Here Nick Timothy has an advantage. He was at the heart of government for over a decade, first as Theresa Mays adviser at the Home Office and then as her co-chief of staff in Downing Street. He was hurled into the wilderness after the election debacle in 2017 and given plenty of time to think, not least about his own mistakes. These were numerous. He alienated many colleagues with his abrasive management style and he was the principal author of the partys disastrous manifesto. Yet his northern strategy of winning Brexit-inclined Labour voters bore fruit in 2019, suggesting that the problem lay in its execution not its design. His conduct in Downing Street was a model of restraint compared with that of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnsons chief adviser. And unlike Mr Cummings, Mr Timothy is a conservative with both a small and a large c. His new book, Remaking One Nation: Conservatism in an Age of Crisis, provides something that the Johnson government conspicuously lacks: an answer to the question of what conservatism is now for and a blueprint for translating philosophical principles into detailed policy.

Mr Timothy argues that, since the French revolution, the role of conservatism has been to act as a corrective to the extremes of liberalism. Today those extremes come in two forms: neo-liberalism, which sees markets as the solution to all problems, and woke liberalism, which sees the world through the prism of minority rights and all-pervasive oppression. Many see these two liberalisms as polar opposites. But for Mr Timothy they are both degenerate versions of classical liberalism. The first undermines markets by failing to see that they require popular legitimacy and the second sacrifices what is best in liberalism (pluralism, scepticism, individualism) on the altar of group rights.

Mr Timothy presents a dismal picture of the consequences. Bosses have seen their compensation more than quadruple while the value of their companies has hardly risen at all. The largest demographic groupthe white working classhas seen incomes stagnate for over a decade. Britain has the highest level of regional inequality in Europe. It also has one of the worst systems of vocational education, with 80 undergraduate degrees awarded for every post-secondary technical qualification. Woke liberals are increasingly willing to no-platform or shout down opponents because they see their objectives as quasi-sacred and their critics not just as wrong-headed folk needing to be reasoned with but as evil-minded enemies who must be destroyed.

Rather than using its power to mitigate inequality the government has directed resources at the countrys most prosperous region. Transport subsidies are twice as high per person in London as elsewhere. London and Oxbridge get almost half of national R&D spending. Far from reviving vocational education, the government has poured money into universities which, as well as failing to defend free speech, load up students with debt at the same time as too often failing to provide them with any significant return on their investment.

Mr Timothy presents an ideologically eclectic list of solutions to Britains problems. They are reminiscent of John Ruskins description of himself as both a violent Tory of the old school and the reddest also of the red. But two ideas give his arguments organising force: the nation-state and civic capitalism. A long-standing Brexiteer, Mr Timothy argues that the nation-state has been uniquely successful in holding global elites accountable to voters while also giving citizens a sense of common purpose. He points out that the welfare state was constructed after the second world war, when the sense of common purpose was at its height. A proud citizen of Birmingham, he champions the sort of civic capitalism practised by Joseph Chamberlain, a local businessman who looked after his workers and went on to be a reforming mayor.

There are problems with Mr Timothys argument. He sees the upside of nationalism without the downside, such as the beggar-thy-neighbour policies of the 1930s. He sees the downside of lifestyle liberalism without the upside: two decades ago advocates of gay marriage were self-righteous extremists. But his book should be a jolt of electricity to a moribund debate in the Conservative Party. He makes a powerful case against the libertarian right, which sees Brexit as an excuse to shrink the state and liberalise further. And he presents a blueprint very different from the one that has ruled the right since the 1970s. This is a conservatism which celebrates the power of the state to achieve collective ends by dealing with regional and inter-generational inequalities; which challenges the self-dealing of business elites by rewiring the rules of corporate governance; and which puts a premium on rebuilding local communities and reigniting civic capitalism.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "The meaning of conservatism"

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The meaning of conservatism - The Economist

Campaign of the Week Turkey and Kurdistan Solidarity Initiative – Morning Star Online

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TUC Womens Conference discussed and debated a range of issues facing the labour movement when it gathered in London last week. Domestically it passed motions on equal pay, with the gender pay gap still seeing women disadvantaged 50 years after the Equal Pay Act was passed.

On the international front a motion proposed by the Transport and Salaried Staff Association (TSSA) provoked much interest among delegates and its passing has led to the establishment of a new and much needed labour movement-based organisation in solidarity with Turkey and Kurdistan.

Chair of the union s national womens section Sarah-Jane McDonough told the Star that the Turkey and Kurdistan Solidarity Initiative (Taksi) was being launched with other trade unionists in London later this month.

She has led campaigning within the union in solidarity with the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) which has faced unprecedented attacks from the Turkish state. The union sent a message of support to the HDP Womens Conference earlier this year which was read out to applause and cheers at the Ankara gathering.

Earlier this year TSSA Women in Focus (WiF) launched a petition against a horrifying proposed child rape law which would grant an amnesty to the perpetrators if they married their victims. This would also have seen the release of 4,000 convicted paedophiles.

WiF has been angered over the attacks on the HDP co-chair system, which guarantees sex equality at all levels of the party. Turkeys authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has branded the system an act of terrorism. According to him the women have been appointed to their posts within the HDP by the Kurdistan WorkersParty (PKK), a proscribed organisation.

In response to pleas for international solidarity TSSA WiF is planning a delegation to Ankara to meet the HDP Womens Platform, which the womens section of the union has affiliated to.

At TUC Womens Conference Ms McDonough urged other unions to follow suit, highlighting the oppression of women in Turkey.

She said she was proud of TSSA for building strong links with their counterparts describing women as the forefront of the resistance in Turkey.

Ms McDonough said the attacks they face are yet another bid from Erdogan to stop women participating in political life.

But she warned that the attacks are not just confined to the Turkish state. They are able to do this with the compliance of the British government which supports Mr Erdogan both politically and militarily, emboldening him in his efforts to crush democracy internally and wage deadly wars targeting Kurds in Syria.

This is why we are campaigning for an end to arms sales to Turkey and are pressing for this to be adopted as official policy by the Labour Party here, she said, explaining that the motion passed at TUC Womens Conference unanimously adopted this approach.

There is much work to be done, she told the Star. Lots of delegates came to speak to me to say they hadnt realised what was happening in Turkey and that they too thought it should have featured in Labour Party policy. They were genuinely interested in helping and getting their unions involved.

This gap in knowledge of the political situation in Turkey and the oppression of the Kurdish people is one of the reasons for the launch of Taksi, she explained.

It already has the backing of a range of trade unions who will attend the founding meeting on March 28 and has been welcomed by HDP officials, trade unionists and womens movement activists in Turkey.

When footage of the motion being moved was played to our sisters in Turkey I was told people in the room were in floods of tears. They said that finally their voices were being heard, Ms McDonough explained.

Last years Labour Party conference and TUC was filled with leaflets, meetings and motions on Palestine and there are well-established and effective campaigns in solidarity with the people of Cuba, Venezuela and other countries quite rightly, she said.

But there was not a single motion about Turkey, which is unacceptable.

There is an urgent need for a similar movement raising the voices of the people of Turkey and Kurdistan in the British labour movement, particularly given the role of our own government in propping up the Erdogan regime.

The motion also called for solidarity with journalists in Turkey, which holds more media workers behind bars than any other country in the world.

Taksi will work not just to raise awareness, but also build real and meaningful solidarity including the twinning of trade unions with their counterparts in Turkey, collecting funds, sending delegations to picket lines, court hearings and pressuring bosses, Ms McDonough explained.

One of the first initiatives will be a campaign to twin local authorities and councillors in Britain with their HDP counterparts in Turkey, where scores of municipalities were taken over by government-appointed trustees after last years local elections.

We started much of this work last year with councils including Doncaster and Salford indicating support for the campaign and many councillors committing to twin with a counterpart in Turkey, she explained.

Taski will also launch a high-profile campaign for the freedom of jailed former HDP co-chair Figen Yuksekdag who faces the rest of her life behind bars on trumped-up terrorism charges.

In many ways she is the face of the oppression of women in Turkey, singled out for harsh treatment because of her status as a leading woman in politics, something that is anathema to the misogynistic tyrant Erdogan.

But raising awareness of what has happened to her opens the door for the movement to find out more about the oppression and attacks on the HDP Labours sister party in Turkey. We want unions to adopt Figen and give her honorary membership as part of a broad campaign, Ms McDonough insisted.

On March 28 Taksi holds its launch meeting which will see trade unionists gather in London to plan ahead of an official founding conference planned for the summer.

They will have a Q&A session with HDP activists in Turkey via a live link and hear from a range of campaigns including trade unionists, womens movement activists, hunger striking Grup Yorum musicians and the experience of journalists including a display of photographs taken byKurdish reporter Seda Taskinduring her recent visit to Hasankeyf, a 12,000 year old city which is being flooded by the Erdogan regime in an act of cultural genocide against Kurds

The importance of international solidarity and the failure of the movement here in raising the voices of those fighting for peace and democracy in Turkey and Kurdistan cannot be underestimated. That has to change, Ms McDonough said.

To find out more about Taksi email turkeyandkurdistanSI@gmail.com , follow the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/turkeyandkurdistanSI/ and to sign-up for the launch meeting register via Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/taksi-launch-meeting-london-tickets-99077259751

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Campaign of the Week Turkey and Kurdistan Solidarity Initiative - Morning Star Online

Holding Zimbabwe Independence celebrations in Matabeleland in the face of coronavirus smells of evil – Bulawayo24 News

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Zimbabwe government decision to hold its 40th Independence Anniversary in Bulawayo, Matabeleland, in the face of an infectious disease such as coronavirus smells of evil intentions.

Besides spreading coronavirus in Matabeleland to kill many, Zimbabwe Independence Day aims to celebrate Shona independence, Matabele genocide, tribal marginalisation and oppression of Matabele people which are the only "achievements" of Shona majority rule in the last 40 years. The people of Matabeleland have got nothing to celebrate.

When your worst enemy pretends to be your friend and wants to be close to you at a time when you are calling for your independence, you must not only be worried, but be on high alert. They may be hiding a sword behind their back.

We implore all the people of Matabeleland to avoid the death trap set by the oppressive and murderous Shona supremacist government of Zimbabwe by boycotting the so called Independence Day celebrations in their numbers.

MLO firmly stands by two critical demands that have already been delivered to the government of Zimbabwe ie the Notice of Demand for the Restoration of Matabeleland State as at 3 November 1893, and demand of US$100 billion as compensation for Matabeleland genocide, loss of property and our dignity, dispersal of Matabeles as refugees around the world, illegal exploitation and plundering of Matabeleland resources by successive Zimbabwe government.

The above demands are non- negotiable and binding to the present and future governments of Zimbabwe until they are fully met.

Take it or leave it! In case you decide to leave it, be prepared to face regrettable political consequences.

Holding the so called Zimbabwe 40th Independence Day in Bulawayo, the Capital City of Matabeleland will not make us change our mind. As a matter of fact no amount of pressure, apology, persuasion or force by the murderous and oppressive government of Zimbabwe will make us shift an inch from our demands.

We are aware that the panicking government of Zimbabwe is now in hurry to fast - track what they term as exhumations and reburials of Matabeleland genocide victims with the help of some unscrupulous organizations and individuals from Matabeleland. The heartless and shameless murderers who killed more than 40 000 innocent and unarmed Matabele civilians are not even shy to attempt to get rid of evidence in broad day light. The cold blooded killers are not even shy to pretend to be our sympathisers yet we know that their evil intention is to stop Matabeleland restoration cause and continue with their evil Matabele annihilation program. We are watching and can see through them.

The evil genocidists will not tell us when and how we must mourn our departed relatives. The evilmurderers will not dictate to us how and when our departed relatives should be exhumed and reburied.

Those buried in the shallow graves, thrown into disused mine shafts and caves are not cockroaches but human beings. They are our children, sisters, mothers, grand mothers, brothers, fathers, and grand fathers that we loved dearly. We will never allow dirty murderers who killed them to "fast- track" their exhumations and reburials. You can fast- track your land reforms and end there. Genocidists abused and killed our relatives in the most painful way and should not be allowed to abuse them in death.

Fast - tracking the exhumations and reburials of our beloved relatives will be tantamount to crossing the battle lines.

Matabeleland restoration is the idea whose time has come. Failure is the word not found in our vocabulary. We do not expect our journey to freedom to be a walk in the park. We are be prepared to make huge sacrifices. It is a pity that some of our own are misreading the fast changing political climate in Matabeleland.Some are being used by our enemy to put up barricades against the revolution, we are watching you. Be warned! We are not playing child games, this is war. Anyone found on the side of the enemy will die with the enemy, anyone who sides with the enemy is our enemy.

The revolution has no mercy for traitors!

With our AKs and glittering necklaces, we shall liberate ourselves.

Izenzo kungemazwi!

Israel Dube

MLO Secretary for Information and Public Affairs

All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.

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Holding Zimbabwe Independence celebrations in Matabeleland in the face of coronavirus smells of evil - Bulawayo24 News

After nearly 20 years in America, this woman will be stripped of her US citizenship for lying on forms – The Dallas Morning News

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When single mother Lilla Haiddar arrived in the U.S from Afghanistan with her two boys to escape Taliban oppression, she embellished her story in her bid to stay.

Nearly 19 years later, she likely will be stripped of her U.S. citizenship due to those lies.

A federal jury in Dallas convicted the Arlington woman on Monday of three counts, including committing lies of omission on two passport applications by not listing a previous name. The more serious charge of obtaining citizenship or naturalization unlawfully carries with it mandatory denaturalization, officials say.

Haiddar, a former U.S. Army interpreter, raised two sons in the U.S. and had a job at DFW International Airport for more than three years, helping travelers. Her conviction is punishable by up to 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $750,000. It also paves the way for Haiddar, 57, to be deported.

Her successful prosecution appears to be part of a stepped-up effort by the Trump administration to strip citizenship from naturalized Americans over a variety of infractions, including lying on government forms and to immigration officials.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a court may revoke naturalization through a civil or criminal proceeding if their citizenship was obtained through fraud or misrepresentation. The Justice Department has filed a total of 228 civil denaturalization cases since 2008. Of those, nearly 100 were brought since 2017 when President Donald Trump entered the White House.

Trump has made immigration a signature issue of his administration. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently said it would begin investigating the citizenship files of 700,000 naturalized Americans. And ICE has asked for money to hire 300 more agents as part of the effort. The U.S. has about 20 million naturalized citizens, according to the Pew Research Center.

In the past, denaturalizations were rare and usually reserved for terrorists, war criminals, human rights violators, sex offenders and violent criminals, according to government reports and immigration attorneys.

Critics say cases of fraud in citizenship applications are rare and not worth the resources the Trump administration is committing to combat it. They allege that the effort is part of a political agenda that has nothing to do with safety or security.

Theyre being far more aggressive on denaturalization cases, said Lance Curtright, a San Antonio immigration attorney. I hope it doesnt have a chilling effect on people naturalizing.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

The jury in Haiddars case returned its verdict after a four-day trial.

Prosecutors say the Afghan native flew to the U.S. in 2001 on a temporary transit visa and was supposed to leave for Canada the same day, but never did. Instead, she applied for asylum under a different name, Lilla Haiddar, and told a false story of how she made it to New York, prosecutors said.

Haiddar told immigration officials she flew from Pakistan to Mexico and then was secreted across the border into the U.S. with the help of an uncle to escape oppression in her native country. Haiddar listed two different names and dates of birth on U.S. documents, court records show.

We have no idea who this woman is, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany H. Eggers told a magistrate judge during an April 2019 detention hearing.

Haiddar was taken into custody following the jury verdict. Her sentencing is scheduled for July.

The Justice Department on Feb. 26 announced the creation of a Denaturalization Section in its immigration office to bring justice to terrorists, war criminals, sex offenders, and other fraudsters who illegally obtained naturalization. A department official told The New York Times that those who commit serious violations of the law would be a priority.

Some cases, like Haiddars, have involved lying on government paperwork. And the government is using high-tech methods to find violators. In Haiddar's case, facial recognition software snared her in 2018 when she applied to renew her passport.

When you lie, it can affect your good moral character, which is a qualification for citizenship, Curtright said. A lie could also be material, or relevant, if it cut off some lines of inquiry that might have disqualified you from asylum, he said.

Prosecutors say Haiddar obtained C-1 transit visas in May 2001 for herself and her two sons under the name Marufa Khashim Surgul. Transit visas allow travelers safe passage" through an intermediary country, according to court records. She received the visas at the U.S. embassy in Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan, court records say.

The following month, she and her sons arrived by plane at JFK International Airport in New York with the visas. They were scheduled to leave for Canada the same day but never did, prosecutors said.

Using the name, Lilla Haiddar, she applied for asylum in August 2001 and claimed to have fled Afghanistan after Taliban soldiers came to her home, the federal complaint said.

She told U.S. officials she traveled to Pakistan and eventually flew to Mexico City, arriving in June 2001. From there, she said she was driven to New York by an uncle, according to court records. An asylum officer met with her and denied her application, deeming it not credible, court records say.

Haiddar -- a moderate Muslim from the Tajik ethnic minority -- went before an immigration judge in Dallas in 2002 and testified under oath that she feared returning to Afghanistan due to a well-founded fear of future persecution on account of her religious beliefs, according to court records.

The judge granted her application, and she later became a lawful permanent resident, as is permitted under asylum law, court records say.

Haiddar applied for citizenship in March 2011 and it was granted several months later, court records say. She applied for a U.S. passport five days after that, resulting in the first count against her of making a false statement in a passport application, records show. Specifically, Haiddar did not disclose in her application that she had used another name, according to the indictment.

After obtaining her passport, Haiddar repeatedly traveled to the Middle East, to such countries as Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan, federal court records say.

Eggers said Haiddar traveled so frequently, her passport book filled up with visa stamps. So she applied to renew her passport early -- in November 2018 -- resulting in the second false statement count against her, according to court records.

She was caught when her 2018 passport renewal application was flagged for a match with her 2001 transit visa application under her previous name, according to a federal complaint. The Bureau of Consular Affairs facial recognition software helped make the match using photographs from the applications, which bore a very close resemblance, records said.

A federal complaint contains her photo for her transit visa with a different name, as well as more recent photos for her passport under the name, Lilla Haiddar. In her two passport application forms, she was asked to list all other names you have used. She left both blank.

Haiddar was interviewed at the Dallas office of the State Departments Diplomatic Security Service on March 15, 2018, during which she denied ever using another name, the federal complaint said. Haiddar told agents her father paid her uncle $20,000 to smuggle her out of Afghanistan and into the U.S., the complaint said.

Had the defendant not taken the steps prior to her interview for naturalization on October 20, 2011, she never would have been eligible to apply for citizenship in the first place, Eggers said in a court filing.

Haiddar began working at DFW International Airport in late 2016, after finding a job with an aviation support company, prosecutors said.

Her duties included helping passengers who needed interpreters to navigate the airport. She was given an identification badge that allowed her access to areas not available to non-travelers, Eggers said in the court filing.

Courtney Stamper, a federal public defender, said during Haiddars April detention hearing that her client was not a threat to anyone.

Haiddar, she said, helped prepare U.S. soldiers being deployed to Afghanistan to handle the customs and the culture there in a time when our nation needed it the most.

And so the notion that somehow shes the bogeywoman is false, and its quite frankly bothersome, Stamper said.

Eggers said in court documents that no matter how horrific conditions were for women in Afghanistan under the Taliban, it didnt excuse Haiddars lies on immigration and passport forms as well as lies to an asylum officer, an immigration judge and federal law enforcement officers.

A defense witness, a professor of Islamic history, testified during the trial last week about Haiddars identification papers. The witness is an expert on how the Taliban made it impossible for women to exercise control in their own affairs, according to a defense filing.

Defense attorneys wrote that the professor would tell jurors about how a potential alias would be a necessary component of any attempt to smuggle an unmarried woman from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan.

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After nearly 20 years in America, this woman will be stripped of her US citizenship for lying on forms - The Dallas Morning News

There is an alternative to broken Western liberalism – Telegraph.co.uk

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In The Matrix, the lead character, Neo, is offered a choice by Morpheus, the leader of a rebel band. Neo can take a red pill, and discover that the world around him is an entirely false construct. Or he can take a blue pill, and wake up in bed, blissfully unaware that everything about his life is a fabrication.

Of course, we are not living inside some artificial reality, like in The Matrix, controlled by powerful forces without even realising it. But if Western citizens were presented with a choice of pills, and opted for the red one, they would see that the world is not as they imagined. Many aspects of life they were told were unavoidable and universal, inevitable and irreversible, are no such thing at all.

We have grown used to being told that globalisation, in the form we have experienced it, is an irresistible force. We have been told that the nation state and the collective identity, democracy and solidarity it makes possible must be subordinated to supranational governance. We have been told that international market forces are impossible to shape, mass immigration is impossible to stop, and the destruction of culture is impossible to resist. We have grown to accept that markets trump institutions, individualism trumps community, and group rights trump broader, national identities. Legal rights come before civic obligations, personal freedom beats commitment, and universalism erodes citizenship.

These things have become the norm not because they are the natural order of things, but because our world is a construct of ideology. That ideology is not as extreme as those our leaders like to reject, such as communism or fascism. But it is an ideology nonetheless, and its name is ultra-liberalism. Like all ideologies, as its contradictions and failures mount, ultra-liberalism is growing illiberal and intolerant towards dissenters, and retreating into delusion and denial.

Consider how the political classes did what they could to thwart Brexit. How, when it comes to public services, the answer is always to turn them into a market. How politicians insist we need more and more immigration. And think about how those who disagree with them are smeared as bigoted, deplorable and incapable of understanding the complexity of the modern world.

My new book, Remaking One Nation, sets out why things have got this far, and what conservatives can do about it. We need to counter ultra-liberalism, and develop a new conservative agenda that respects personal freedom but demands solidarity, reforms capitalism and rebuilds community, and rejects selfish individualism while embracing our obligations towards others. In rejecting ultra-liberalism, however, conservatives must be careful to defend the essential liberalism that stands for pluralism and our democratic way of life.

Essential liberalism is what makes liberal democracy function. It requires not only elections to determine who governs us, but checks and balances to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. It demands good behavioural norms, including a willingness to accept the outcome of election results.

And it requires support for free markets. Essential liberalism does not seek to turn every aspect of life into a market, but it knows that economic freedom is closely related not only to personal freedom but other values, including dignity, justice, security and recognition and respect from our fellow citizens.

The power of essential liberalism is that it does not pretend to provide a general theory of rights or justice or an ideological framework that leads towards the harmonisation of human interests and values or a single philosophical truth. It respects political diversity and allows for all manner of policy choices, from criminal justice to the tax system.

And it understands that human values and interests are often in conflict. My right to privacy might undermine your right to security, for example. A transsexuals right to be recognised as a woman might undermine the safety of women born as women. We need institutions, laws, and a limited number of legal rights to handle those conflicts. We need customs and traditions to maintain our shared identities and build up trust. Keeping the fragile balance between conflicting values and interests is a delicate and difficult job, and this is why ultra-liberalism can be so dangerous.

Of course there is no single ultra-liberal agenda. The ultra-liberalism of Tony Blair may, despite party divides, be similar to the beliefs of Nick Clegg, George Osborne and John Bercow. But it is very different to the form of ultra-liberalism pursued by the Left-wingers who dominate todays Labour Party.

Blair and Osborne stand for elite liberalism. Their beliefs are shared by most members of the governing classes, but not the general public. And so, despite public opposition, and changes in ministers and parties in government, Britain continues with policies including mass immigration, multiculturalism, a lightly regulated labour market, limited support for the family and the marketisation of many public services.

And then we have the ultra-liberal ratchet: beliefs that are not shared across the party divide, but which keep propelling liberalism forward. On the Right, market fundamentalists think mainly of the economy, while Left-liberals pursue their agenda of cultural liberalism and militant identity politics.

One side might attempt to reverse some changes made by the other, but in the end most remain. And market fundamentalism and Left-liberalism reinforce one another: both leave us with economic dislocation, social atomisation and a state that is left trying to pick up the pieces.

The trouble with all these forms of ultra-liberalism is that they are based on a conception of humanity that is not real. Right from the beginning, liberal thought was built on the false premise that there are not only universal values but also natural and universal rights.

Early liberals made this argument by imagining a state of nature, or life without any kind of government at all. They argued that in the state of nature life in which was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short humans would come together to form a social contract setting out the governments powers and the rights of citizens.

This meant, from the start, liberalism had several features hard-wired into it. Citizens are autonomous and rational individuals. Their consent to liberal government is assumed. And rights are natural and universal.

This is why many liberals fall into the trap of believing that the historical, cultural and institutional context of government is irrelevant. Institutions and traditions that impose obligations on us can simply be cast off. All that matters, as far as government is concerned, is the freedom of the individual and the preservation of their property. Liberal democracy can therefore be dropped into Iraq, and made to work like in Britain. At home, we can be given legal rights without any corresponding responsibilities. Our duties to others are merely unjust hindrances.

Liberals ignore the relational essence of humanity: our dependence on others and our reliance on the institutions and norms of community life. They take community and nation for granted, and have little to say about the obligations as well as rights of citizenship. The nation state can therefore hand over its powers to remote and unaccountable supranational institutions. Transnational citizenship rights can be bestowed upon foreign nationals. Public services should be freely available to those who have never contributed to them.

With later liberal thinkers came further flawed ideas about humanity. The great Victorian, John Stuart Mill, devised the harm principle, in which the liberty of the individual should be restricted only if his actions risk damaging the interests of others. Even then, there could be no encroachment on liberty to ensure conformity with the moral beliefs of the community, to prevent people harming themselves, or if the restriction was disproportionate.

The problem with the harm principle is that it fails to acknowledge that all our actions and inactions to some degree affect those around us. And, precisely because human values and interests conflict with one another, we will never agree about what clearly constitutes harm. Yet ultra-liberals today echo Mills harm principle when they behave as though the use of hard drugs has no consequences for anybody but the individual user, or when they are reluctant to force fathers to meet their obligations to their families or refuse to take action against serial tax-dodging individuals or businesses.

Mill and other liberals sometimes made the case for pluralism and tolerance on the basis that the trial and error they make possible leads to truth and an increasingly perfect society. It is this teleological fallacy this assumption that ones own beliefs stand for progress that can lead liberalism towards illiberalism: its intolerance of supposedly backward opinions, norms and institutions can quickly become intolerance of the people who remain loyal to those traditional ways of life.

This illiberalism is a particular problem on the ultra-liberal Left. And here, Left-liberals are influenced by post-modernists such as Michel Foucault and the mainly American thinkers behind the rise of identity politics. Discourse, Foucault argued, is oppressive. People are not in charge of their own destinies. Their social reality is imposed on them through language and customs and institutions, and even the victims of the powerful participate in their own oppression through their own language, stories and assumed social roles.

Because oppressive discourses work to favour those at the top of exploitative hierarchies, we should not simply remove the hierarchy but penalise those who subjugate others. Equal political rights are therefore not enough: because historically power lay with white men, today whiteness and masculinity must be attacked. Because we do not understand how our social roles are constructed, we do not understand the meaning of even our own words. Those who hear us particularly if they are members of marginalised groups understand better than we do the true meaning of what we say. Because discourse is itself a form of violence, free speech is no longer sacrosanct, and it is legitimate to meet violent language with violent direct action.

On the ultra-liberal Right, support for the free market can turn into extreme libertarianism. Struggling communities shorn of social capital, deprived of infrastructure and lacking opportunities for young people are ignored, in the belief that the invisible hand of the market will come to the rescue.

Instead, policy energy is devoted to deregulating the labour market and marketising public goods. Friedrich von Hayek, a hero to many ultra-liberals on the Right, argued that no political system, not even a democratic one, nor even a very small and local one, can accurately reflect collective choice in the way a market does. For his disciples, it follows, therefore, that the NHS cannot be the right way of delivering healthcare, since consumer choices and real pricing do not drive decision-making. And the same goes for other public services, from public transport to schooling.

It is time for a decisive break with ultra-liberalism in all its forms. And there are signs that under Boris Johnson the Conservatives are shifting away from both economic and cultural liberalism. They are taking Britain out of the EU, toughening up sentencing and reviewing human rights laws. And as Rishi Sunaks impressive Budget showed this week, they are investing in the regions and appear ready to intervene far more in the economy.

Time will tell if they will break the domination of British politics by the Right, Left and centre of ultra-liberalism. But we should hope they do so. There is more to life than the market, more to conservatism than the individual, and more to the future than the destruction of cultures and nations. Its time for conservatives to take the red pill, see the world around them for what it is, and fight for a different future.

Remaking One Nation: The Future of Conservatism, is out on March 27, and available to pre-order online now

Continued here:

There is an alternative to broken Western liberalism - Telegraph.co.uk

Wet’suwet’en Matriarchal Coalition funded by BC, Coastal GasLink to divide and conquer – The Martlet

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Members of Indigenous Youth for Wetsuweten during their occupation of the B.C. Legislature. Photo by Mike Graeme

While the hereditary chiefs were actively discussing a proposed deal with the government on land title, Teresa Tait-day, the co-founder of the Wetsuweten Matrilineal Coalition (WMC, also known as Wetsuweten Matriarchal Coalition), spoke at the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs in Ottawa.

As female Wetsuweten members and community leaders, we want to be heard, Tait-day said. Many of the male hereditary chiefs are acting out of internalized historical oppression. We face patriarchal domination.

Tait-day has been vocal in her opposition of the chiefs decisions. In her recent speech in Ottawa, for instance, she alleged she was being bullied by the hereditary chiefs and left out of decision making processes with the province. She also said people acting in solidarity with the chiefs throughout Canada were hijacking her nation.

She was invited to speak by a federal party. When CBC journalist Chantelle Bell Richard asked why Tait-Day was invited, they said the committee members decided by consensus that each party would suggest one Indigenous expert to speak to the complex underlying issues related to the study.

Since speaking to the committee, Tait-Day has been featured in CBC, National Post, and APTN articles.

The WMC is not, and was not ever, an independent Indigenous body or governance structure but rather a group founded with the B.C. government and CGL to sway Wetsuweten public opinion in favour of the pipeline, according to documents obtained in a 2017 F.O.I..

In 2015, the WMC was incorporated as a corporation, without consultation of the Wetsuweten hereditary chiefs. Documents obtained from the B.C. government show the WMC was a joint project between Coastal GasLink (CGL), the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation, and the three founding members Gloria George, Darlene Glaim, and Tait-Day.

In a resignation letter from Glaim, she says the group was formed with the intent to negotiate a benefit agreement for Clan/House members with [CGL], and that in 2017 the hereditary chiefs explicitly called the WMC a strategy used by the government and CGL to disunite their people.

We had a meeting with about 50 people, Tait-day explains in a video for Resource Works. And they said find a way to get this agreement done. As a result of that, we formulated the [WMC] .. .and we started to negotiate with [CGL].

WMC originally requested $181 721 in funding from LNG Canada, CGL, and the province. The B.C. government and CGL each donated $60 000 to WMC to carry out workshops, which aimed to educate the Wetsuweten about the economic benefits of LNG.

Since WMC was founded and began holding their workshops, there has been contention about their ability to hold any authority as they inherently attempt to undermine the Wetsuweten governance structure.

Documents show that the purpose of the WMC was not only to advance LNG, but also to delegitimize the hereditary chiefs by brainstorming new decision-making processes in relation to resource projects.

The stated purpose of the organization includes an agreement between the government and WMC, stating their goal to bring Wetsuweten people together to discuss decision-making processes for economic development opportunities, specifically natural gas development as that was identified as a gap in the decision-making process.

It further hopes to bring Wetsuweten members back into the information sharing and decision making processes based on the traditional practices but in a modern day context.

The WMC claims this pipeline is approved by 85 per cent of Wetsuweten people, but there is no further evidence of how they arrived at this figure. Because she caused so much contention between the clans, Tait-day is banned from attending traditional Wetsuweten feast halls.

Tait-day is not a hereditary chief but previously held the family name of a hereditary chief. She was stripped of her hereditary title in a feast hall.

Despite having no jurisdiction in the traditional governance model, Tait-Day has been cited in the Globe and Mail with her vocal opposition to the pipeline.

Micheal Lee Ross, the lawyer representing Unistoten to the B.C. Supreme Court, explained in court that WMC includes individuals who have improperly represented themselves as hereditary chiefs and who in consequence have been reprimanded and ordered to stop using a hereditary chiefly title or formally stripped of the claimed chiefly title.

The WMC hired a private firm called Impact Resolutions to assist them with creating websites, social media, and making their workshops effective. In their funding requests, its clear a lot of their funding goes towards this firm.

In June 2016, the hereditary chiefs interrupted a meeting between the WMC and TransCanada. Once the representative from the Ministry, Katie Scott, and representatives from TransCanada heard the hereditary chiefs were on their way, they quickly left.

In a Youtube video from the meeting, the chiefs are shown in their full regalia speaking to a crowd of about 60 men and women. They repeatedly spoke of this meeting as an effort by the government and TC, not the Wetsuweten, to create division and invited everyone to a traditional feast hall, including the government and TransCanada representatives that had already left, to resolve things.

[The WMC] is not sanctioned by the chiefs, Kloum Khun, a hereditary chief of the Laksamshu clan said.

The slide on the meetings interrupted PowerPoint visible in the video advertises the basis for moving forward as building Wetsuweten unity.

This is not unity, Madeek or Jeff Brown, of the Gitdumden house says, pointing to the slide. This is conquer and divide, and we dont need that.

Culturally, the Wetsuweten are a matrilineal nation, and the house that a person is a part of is determined on matrilineal lines. Apart from this society, there are Wetsuweten matriarchs that feel underrepresented by the all-male group of hereditary chiefs. This past week, during the talks with federal and provincial partners, the hereditary chiefs welcomed matriarchs to the table. These issues of representation are being worked out by the Wetsuweten, and that situation is separate from the WMC that was funded by CGL and the B.C. government.

Tait-day has a continued relationship with CGL. A press release following her address in Ottawa recently was authored by Coast Communications, a public relations firm that represents other clients like Pacific Northern Gas and First Nations LNG Alliance.

In the press release, people supporting the Wetsuweten hereditary chiefs are criticized for compromising our Nations social well-being and our peoples economic futures.

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Wet'suwet'en Matriarchal Coalition funded by BC, Coastal GasLink to divide and conquer - The Martlet

Hockey, Politics And ‘Treason’: The 1950 Czechoslovakia National Team – WBUR

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Bruce Berglund is a historian and a writer. He works at a small college in Minnesota. But back in the winter of 1998, he was living in Prague, doing research on his dissertation on 20th century Czechoslovak history.

And that February, an event was being held 5,000 miles from Prague, in Japan, that Czechs were following quite closely: the Nagano Winter Olympics.

"This was the first Winter Olympics that included NHL players," Berglundsays. "So there was a lot of build up, a lot of excitement. And with that tournament, it was expected going into the tournament that Canada would come away with the gold medal. Canada was led by Wayne Gretzky. They had a roster that was stocked with players who are now in the Hall of Fame.The Russians were touted as one of the favorites. The Americans were touted as favorites.And the Czechs ended up surprising everyone."

In the semifinal, the Czech Republic defeated Canada in a shootout. In the final, they faced off against Russia.

"And, because the Olympics were in Japan, we had to get up early, early in the morning to watch the gold medal match," Berglund says.

"And a lot of Czechs tuned into that game, right?" I ask

"Yeah, it's estimated that 80% of Czech adults at some point during the game were tuned in," Berglundsays. "So I was in a small Czech town the day of the final match. And when the final horn sounded, when the Czechs had won, when they received their gold medals,everybody in the small town poured into the town square, cheering, singing, waving flags.

"The fire truck came down and drove around and and blared its sirens. A lot of alcohol was consumed for very early on a Sunday morning, and it was just this wonderful, enthusiastic celebration of the Czech hockey team."

The team returned home, flying into the airport on the outskirts of Prague.

"Crowds, huge crowds, at the airport there to greet them," Berglund says. "They stopped first at the president's house and they were out on the front lawn having shots of Slivovitz. They boarded the bus and went down into the center, where at least 100,000 people were packed into the old town square in the center of Prague."

So this moment was a big deal for Czechs for a bunch of reasons. For one, the Czechs had won world championships before and after splitting from Slovakia. But theyd never won Olympic gold.

But as Berglundwas talking to people in Prague, he realized that there was another reason Czechs were celebrating this win. It was a story that had been on peoples minds for a long time.

Widely Known Story

"This story of the 1950 hockey team, of the injustice that they experienced," Berglund says, "this is a widely known story among Czechs."

Berglund went back to Prague last fall. He visited the National Archives and the archives of the former state security services, known in Czech as the StB. And after viewing thousands of documents, he finally was able to piece together the story.

But to really understand what happened to the 1950 Czech hockey team, we have to go back to the end of World War II.

"People in Czechoslovakia were hungry for hockey after the war,"Stanislav Konopsek wrote in his memoirs. He was one of the players on that 1950 Czechoslovak national team. He died in 2008."We were happy when we could start playing international matches again. We had good results on our first trips, to Switzerland, Sweden and England."

"In 1947, Prague hosted the first hockey world championships to be hosted after World War 2," Berglund says.

Canada didnt send a team to those world championships, and without the best team in the world in attendance, Czechoslovakia won.

And this was a big deal. Because Czechoslavakia was in a unique political position. It saw itself as a bridge between the communist Soviet Union and the democratic West. And so any international success the country had was really celebrated as proof that Czechoslavakia could thrive in this middle ground.

But, while things were going great on the ice, political tensions were heating up.

"Czechoslovakia had a coalition government," Berglund says. "The president was a non-communistEdvard Bene. The prime minister was the leader of the Communist Party. Klement Gottwald. In 1948, communist parties in Europe, they get the signal from Moscow that it is time to take full control of their governments.

"President Bene recognizes that the situation is inevitable. A few months later,Bene resigns, and Gottwald becomes the president of the country."

Through all this, and a plane crash that killed six members of the team in 1948, the Czechoslovak national team continued to compete and they continued to win, even beating out the Canadians for the 1949 World Championships.

"So the following year, the 1950 World Championships are going to be staged in London, and the Czechoslovak national team is preparing to leave," Berglund says. "They go to the airport outside of Prague, and they don't board the plane."

"We waited a long time at the airport for our flight," Konopsek wrote. "We thought there must be some malfunction. After a time they told us that the flight was postponed until the next day. In the morning, we went back to the airport and waited again. Nobody believed anymore that there was a problem with the plane. After about two hours, the team manager and some security service officers came to announce that we were not flying to London."

"The security officers say, 'Well, two journalists accompanying the team have been denied their visas by the British,' " Berglund says.

"You don't want the people of Czechoslovakia to listen to the world championship over some foreign radio services, do you?" Konopsekremembered the security officers saying.

In other words, the players were told that in solidarity with the journalists and for the good of their country, they would be giving up their opportunity to win another championship ... for the good of their country. It didn't make a lot of sense.

"The players headed off to a pub. It was late in the evening. They were wanting to eat dinner. And when they went to the pub, they began to talk over beer of how angry they were, how upset they were with the government's handling of the team," Berglund says. "And while they're at dinner, it comes over the radio, a news announcement that the Czechoslovak hockey team had joined in solidarity with Czechoslovak journalists who had been denied visas by the British government. And this set the players off.

"They start swearing, they start cussing. They cussed out Gottwald. They cussed out the Communists. And of course, there were other people in the restaurant listening. And these people report to the police what's happening.

"So at about 9:00 p.m., the police show up, the StB. And the players are brought to the police station, and they undergo interrogation, including torture. The players were surprised to learn that they were being charged with treason."

"It was a huge shock," Konopsek wrote. "None of us had been interested in politics before. Never."

"The police are particularly interested in a man named Bohumil Modry," Berglundsays."Modry had been the team's goalie. During the summer and fall of 1949, Modry became more and more disenchanted with the way the team was organized, and particularly the way the communist sports authorities dealt with the national team.

"And so Modry had left the team before this planned trip to London in 1950. The questions kept revolving around Modry and Modry's contacts with foreigners, particularly with Americans who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Prague. And it was the case that Modry did have contacts with an American at the U.S. Embassy. Modry did introduce this American to other members of the team.

"So the charges were not fabricated. There were indeed connections between the hockey players and westerners. Talk of defecting, talk of emigrating had been circulating among the hockey players ever since the communists took power in 1948."

"The trial was very simple," Konopsek wrote.

"The trial is really perfunctory," Berglund says. "Their guilt had already been determined. They have the sense that word had come down from up above from higher authorities, that they were an anti-state element. And in a communist state, in communist Czechoslovakia, this was a high crime."

The players had individual greivances about the way their team had been treated, but they didn't think of themselves as an anti-state group.

"No," Berglund says. "But because the communists were still new in terms of having power in Czechoslovakia, they had to demonstrate that nobody, including the world champion hockey players, was excused from 'socialist justice.' "

Twelve players were put on trial. Twelve players were convicted. Their sentences ranged from 15 years for Modry, the goalie, to eight months for a player deemed to be less involved in the plot.

And this wasnt going to be easy time at a country club jail.

Sent To The Mines

"The players were sent to work in the uranium mines in the western part of Czechoslovakia, close to the German border," Berglund says. "And really, this is notorious as one of the worst places of communist oppression, a work camp extracting uranium which was used for the Soviet military in conditions without any safeguards whatsoever."

"We wore no masks," Konopsek wrote. "We breathe uranium dust fully into lungs. Uranium was on our clothes all the time. We didn't even have a shower. After work we just wash them before going to bed."

"So these were terrible conditions and the state police really had no regard for the health of the prisoners, whether hockey players or any other kind of prisoner," Berglund says.

"The players were released in 1955," Berglund says. "So this comes after the death of Stalin in 1953. And shortly after that, the death of Klement Gottwald, the president of Czechoslovakia. Many of the players are allowed to return to hockey. They play in the highest league in Czechoslovakia, but none of them are allowed to play for the national team again.

But...why?

"In my opinion, the whole event was managed from Moscow," Konopsek wrote.

"Stanislav Konopsek, he makes the case that this was something that was ordered from Moscow," Berglund says. "And the reason was, that it was at this time in the late 1940s, in the early 1950s, that the Soviet Union was developing their own hockey program. So, by getting the world champion Czechoslovak hockey team out of the way, this would open up the path for the rise of the Soviet hockey team."

And that plan worked.

More Than A Sporting Event

"So, knowing this whole story, how does that shape how you see what you saw in '98 with the great celebration over the Olympic win?" I ask. "Because it feels like more than just a win in a sporting event."

"During the winter of 1997, 1998, this was really a difficult time in the Czech Republic in terms of politics, in terms of the economy," Berglund says. "The economy was slowing down. So this was roughly a decade after the Velvet Revolution, the end of communism. There were a lot of questions at this time as to what ... the transition to democracy and capitalism [had] brought.

"One of the newspaper headlines after the Olympic win in 1998 called this the 'Victorious February.' When the communists took power in February of 1948, they called their bloodless coup 'Victorious February.' And so the headlines 50 years later, in February 1998, were intended to suggest that our difficult history of living under communism and then the difficult transition from communism, in some ways this has been mitigated. That we have a new 'Victorious February.' "

Bruce Berglund upcoming book is called "The Fastest Game in the World: Hockey and the Globalization of Sports." Our thanks to stage actorFrantiek paek for the dramatic readings of translated passages from the memoirs ofStanislav Konopsek.

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Hockey, Politics And 'Treason': The 1950 Czechoslovakia National Team - WBUR

The long march of men from the workplace – The Conservative Woman

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THERE has been seemingly good news recently of increasing levels of employment. It has been largely stimulated by the growing numbers of women entering the workforce.

Men however, and by contrast, are making up an increasing proportion of those who are economically inactive.This is a trend which has been a long time in the making and should not be ignored.

Rates of economic inactivity tell us who is not available for work, but not the reason. They may bestudents, retired, or, particularly in the case of women, looking after the family whether their children, their spouses or dependent parents.They are termed inactive yet many are productively engaged, albeit it in the private sphere, which in todays society doesnt seem to count for much.The rate ofadjustedeconomic inactivity is the key to telling us who actually might theoretically want employment, such as the long-term sick, the short-term sick or those who are discouraged by being unemployed, many of whom have become alienated from the world of work.

As women have moved out of so-called productive inactivity from the family into the workplace, this means an increasing proportion of the inactive (as opposed to simply short-term unemployed) will be men. Explaining this rise solely in terms of the decline in manufacturing and traditional male industries is clearly insufficient. It ignores the impact of feminist ideology on economic and social policy on peoples choices.

Feminists from Betty Friedan onwards have taken a dim view of womens traditional caring for the family role, seeing it a sign of womens oppression and a burden that rendered women dependent on men.They have made it their mission, for some 50 years now, to liberate women through work to bring about the financial independence they assumed would result.

Successive governments have come under huge pressure from this very active but not necessarily representative lobby to change taxation and social policy to free women from any financial dependence on men.

There have been some critical milestones in governments response.The first was the advent of independent taxation without a concomitant option of a household or transferable tax with the Thatcher government in 1988. Chancellor Nigel Lawson said it wasno longer acceptablethatthe income of a married womanshould be taxedas if it belonged to her husband. But hisreform ofpersonal taxation had two objectives:First, to give married women the same privacy and independence in their tax affairs as everyone else; and, second, to bring to an end the ways in which the tax system can penalise marriage.

Unfortunately he did not remain Chancellor long enough to see the second and critical part of his reform through.

The result, for the last 25 years, has been the penalising of families, none more so than where one parent wants to stay at home to look after the children, while the other (usually the man) acts as chief provider.Thanks to the UKs hyper-individualised tax system, families have been treated ever more unfairly over the years, in contrast with our OECD neighbours.

Thisoversight set the trajectory for a long line of feminist policy-makers, career women but also honorary woke men, with their quite different motivations from their mainstream female constituents,to complete their mission to get all women out of the domestic sphere and into work. The pressure from campaigners, such as Gingerbread, the Daycare Trust and the Equal Opportunities Commission which reported early on about the under-utilisation of women in the workforce came in tandem. Labours 1997 victory, seen as a victory for women with its record number of female MPs,but in fact a victory for feminism, put radical feminists such as Harriet Harman, Patricia Hewitt and Mo Mowlam none of whom hadsympathy for the mother at home or her male provider at the heart of government.

Tony Blairs New Labour government created a Womens Unit in the Cabinet Office while Gordon Brown furthered the working woman revolution with tax policy designed to encourage lone parents into work (rather than marriage) under the guise of lifting children out of poverty. Its effects were documented by Jill Kirby in her policy analysisThe Price of Parenthood,which was to be a combination ofminimum hours work at best to qualify for more generous levels of state support.

The 2010 Coalition government decided to reform rather than reject the tax credit system (leading to years ofdebate over Universal Credit) which had trapped so many families in a tax churn, explained by Peter Saunders in a detailed paper for Policy Exchange.Thisaccepted rather than rejected theBrown-Harman mantra that getting mothers out of the family and into work was the solution to child poverty, and committed to further tax free childcare incentives.With Nick Clegg, the husband of a feminist businesswoman, at the helm, the policy-makers ignored the fact that so-called inactive women were in fact productively engaged in the private sphere and that many had no desire to increase their working hours.You think we are worthless, Laura Perrins challengedhim on air to his dismay.

Both Labour and Conservative remain blind to the downside of the economic productivity equation the money they would need to spend on financial incentives such as childcare and paternity leave and the cost to businesses of introducing family-friendly flexible employment.They have not yet grasped that childcare will nevermake economic sense or be affordable to anyone but the high-paid,nor have they grasped that the desire to provide for their families lies at the heart of the male productive role.

Such blinkered vision has led to taxpayers money and policy going in one direction only getting women into work and throwing good money after bad into ever more round-the-clockchildcare, whether this is what mothers and fathers really want, and regardless ofchildrens best interests.

The outcome of this strategy has been bad for everybody.Work provides men with more than just an income. It provides them with the wherewithal to express their desire to care for their families.It provides structure, purpose and social networks. It lends to a mans sense of identity and self-worth. Take it away and you remove part of their manhood. This is why changes in employment have a particularly severe and well-documented impact on the health of men.

Yet governments and the media still regard getting women into the workforce as their priority, though the resulting male inactivity extends well beyond its impact on men as these statistics show:

Awoman is38 per cent more likelyto file for divorce if she works more than her husband;

She is 29 per cent more likely to divorce if she has had to increase the number of hours worked outside the home in the last five years; [i]

And despite those years offeminist indoctrination, 80 per cent of women said they would ostracise a man who failed to provide for his family as he should.

An analysis of the emerging gender gap in labour markets and educationdemonstrates the links between unemployment and single parenthood. Increasing numbers of mothers (including those with children under four) in full-time employment means homes are empty. Families spend little time together and children are packed off into wrap-around schoolcare from morning till night. State boarding schools are starting to open for children as young as four.

There really should be little mystery about high rates of depression and mental health issues which we hear young people are suffering from. All too often they are growing up without knowing the meaning of family and home or experiencing its security.

It has also had an impact on community. Women who are now compelled into the workforce once shaped their families and communities in ways which extended well beyond the home.It is not only about looking after children, crucially valuable though this is.It is about creating a realm which provides security, safety, and an alternative arena with a set of values which are independent of the state. It is about cultural activity, whether choirs, reading groups, theatre or going to church. It means having people at the grass roots who can inform local and central politicians about the measures which would make a difference to their communities. It is about having a body of parents monitoring their schools who are ready to step into action when they see profoundly damaging ideologies being taught. It means having eyes in the community so that burglars will not feel that they can so easily walk into your home. It means having people around to help care for elderly or sick family members, or simply do shopping for the disabled person down the road.

When feminists sent women into the workplace they didnt just destroy the family, they also destroyed the community which sustained mothers, fathers and children. Perhaps it is a reflection of the value of men to the workforce that with the advent of additional and replacement female labour force growth in productivity did not go up. It went down.

Reference:

[i]A Cherlin,Worklife and Marital Dissolution, in George Levinger and Oliver C Moles, eds,Divorce andSeparation, 1979, pp. 151-66.

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The long march of men from the workplace - The Conservative Woman

Ripples of Hope – The Borneo Post

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An opinion piece by Selangau MP and Bakelalan assemblyman Baru Bian.

Since finding myself with some unaccustomed free time, I have been reading a book by Kerry Kennedy called Robert F Kennedy Ripples of Hope about her fathers impact on the lives of several prominent individuals. I find a quotation by Senator Kennedy in this book to be profound and meaningful, especially given the current political developments in Malaysia.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance

Now the dust has more or less settled and we have read various reactions and responses from political analysts and the public. To me, the piece Tell Me You Want Me To Stay written by a heartbroken Yin is the one that encapsulates the reality of the matter for many of us.

On my part, I made the decision to stay out of the new government and remain as an independent MP.

Since the events of the political convulsion that has shaken the country these past few weeks, I, like many Malaysians, have questioned whether there is any hope left for Malaysia, and indeed, for Sarawak.

Is there any hope for those who have fought for their NCR to be fully recognised?

Is there any hope for those who have been made to feel unwelcome and unwanted in their own country?

Is there any hope for those who feel unappreciated despite having contributed to the building of this nation?

Is there any hope for those stateless people who long for their citizenship applications to be granted?

Is there any hope for those who have spoken out against racist politics?

Dwelling on these questions, my mind was drawn back to a speech I made on Malaysia Day 2012 when the Kuching Declaration was unveiled. In that speech, I laid out the many injustices and hardships borne by the people of Sarawak. In the same speech, I shared my dream and vision for Sarawak and Sarawakians, in the spirit of Martin Luther Kings I have a dream speech.

My opponents had mockingly called me a dreamer, whose struggle for justice and fairness had no hope of succeeding. Many years have passed since that day - I have experienced numerous highs and lows in my political journey, and learnt many lessons along the way.

Having collected my thoughts after a period of reflection, I am thankful to discover that the same dreams and vision still firmly reside within me, and are very much alive with every beat of my recently restored heart.

Malaysia has gone through the trauma of a political haemorrhage, and understandably many Malaysians are disillusioned and bitter about the outcome. However, the simple fact is that there is still hope as long as we, the people do not give up, and we resolve to unite to fight the injustices that have been inflicted upon us. There is still hope if we believe that there are still good and sincere leaders from the different races who are ready to lead us. There is still hope if the voters continue to fearlessly speak up against all those who have betrayed our trust.

I believe, deep in my core, that Sarawak still has the potential to make the difference in Malaysia, to be the model State for peaceful racial relationships, harmonious living and religious acceptance. We have the potential and resources to be an economic powerhouse and an advanced agricultural centre.

In order to achieve our goals, I believe that we need to focus on three key areas: Unity, Infrastructure and Education.

To be united, we need to have political stability and social cohesion, and I believe that these are achievable in Sarawak. Good road infrastructure is fundamental to connect people and places, thereby acting as a catalyst for economic activity and growth. Education is the golden key to enlightenment and freedom from manipulation and oppression, and paves the way to personal growth and the progress of a nation.

In my 2012 Malaysia Day speech, I said that in 2007, an African American named Barack Obama announced his lofty dream to the nation, proclaiming: For that is our unyielding faith that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it. Obama went on to become the president of America.

Perhaps at times our love for our country feels very much like unrequited love. It is easy to give in to feelings of anger and cynicism and give up all hope. Nevertheless, we must continue to love and to hope, and to rise above all the turmoil that engulfs us at seemingly regular intervals.

I believe in a God that is sovereign over the world, our country and state. I believe that there are many of us who are looking for like-minded people to come together to send forth tiny ripples of hope that will cross each other from a million different centres of energy that in turn will build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression, injustice, religious and racial bigotry, corruption in this beloved State and country of ours.

God have mercy upon us.

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On reform of the Gender Recognition Act – Holyrood

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And so, last week, to Aberdeen, where I was to talk on politics, power and journalism at an event to mark International Womens Day.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, in 21st-century Scotland, a woman talking to women about women in politics, has become a lightning rod for protest around the proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) no matter how nebulous the connection.

And with the police notified to a possible protest outside the university venue, a risk assessment done, 999 on speed dial, and campus security on alert, it was left to me to decide whether I wanted to carry on. I did.

This policy has all the hallmarks of the Named Person and the Offensive Behaviour at Football Matches

And while the potential risk felt frightening and I was hyper vigilant to what might happen, the event was uplifting, genuinely life affirming, and importantly, without incident. Just as any womens event should be.

But my tenuous brush with the Orwellian practices employed by campaigners to silence women is nothing compared to the wider madness that is going on right now.

Glasgow Womens Library banning a feminist organisation from holding an event to discuss womens sex-based rights.

Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre changing their toilets to be gender neutral. And their assistant director asserting that sex is not binary.

Labour leadership contenders saying babies are assigned a gender at birth, or worse, born without a sex.

The civil service avoiding the use of the word women, even when talking about menstruation.

And with academics being threatened with the sack, pioneering feminists barred from speaking at womens events, journalists no-platformed, politicians called Terfs and doughty equality campaigners accused of bigotry, there is something very rotten at the heart of this debate. And it will take a long time to heal.

That isnt transphobia, that is the lived experience of a lifetime of male oppression because of biology, not gender

If the Scottish Government believed its own rhetoric, that the move to self-ID for trans people was simply an administrative change that would affect only trans people, then they have seriously misjudged the harm that their naivety, and the ensuing wider debate, has inflicted.

The GRA consultation the second now to be held closes in just over a weeks time and the nature of the deliberations has only got worse.

More than half of Nicola Sturgeons ministerial team privately admit the proposed reforms are a complete mess, unlikely to stand up to legal scrutiny, never mind get through the committees or win a parliamentary vote. One told me that the hope was that the coronavirus would overtake events and any bill would be kicked into the long grass. Others have just said they cant go there.

And in the wider SNP membership, there is the threat of revolt with a widescale loss of support and people already abandoning a party that they see as having been captured by a group of activists who care more about gender identity than they do about independence.

But it isnt just an issue for the SNP. MSPs across the house are frightened to talk. Little wonder, when Green MSP Andy Wightman was vilified by his own party and made to publicly apologise for attending a university event on sex-based rights. Wightman was left in no doubt that he could be thrown out of the Greens for the crime, it would appear, of educating himself.

Labour is in a similar quandary, with women like former leader Johann Lamont, Elaine Smith and Jenny Marra keeping up the good fight and refusing to bend to a mantra of trans women are women which threatens much of what their feminism is about.

And already in the parliament, the Presiding Officer, Ken Macintosh, has had to intervene in a row about whether it was appropriate for Patrick Harvie, the co-leader of the Greens, to use the word cisgender, which he even acknowledged some women found offensive [so why use it?], during a debate for International Womens Day, after women MSPs complained.

How have we got to this place? There is almost wholesale consensus that equality is a good thing. There is recognition that trans people are a terribly oppressed group and an acknowledgement that they shouldnt need to suffer to prove who they want to be. There seems to be a societal desire for everyone to live their best life, free from harm to themselves and unto others, and we truly appear to be a progressive country.

But this proposal, no matter how well intentioned, has ignored the sensitivities and ethos of hard-won womens rights and the way issues of equality can butt up against each other and have serious consequences. It is currently unpopular, unworkable, potentially illegal, and could be dangerous to women and trans people. It is a cheap and quick fix to a complex issue that cant be resolved by a simplistic approach to what being equal really means.

Policy doesnt happen in a vacuum and that appears to be what the government wants us to believe.

There is no room here for sense, nor reason. We have been on a dangerous journey where shutting down debate, silencing detractors and steam-rollering on has simply trumped science, history, legislation and logic.

And at its heart is womens fear of male violence. That does not mean that women believe trans women are predators, but they do, quite justifiably, have questions to ask about the risks associated with male bodied people self-identifying as women and having access to their protected single-sex spaces.

That isnt transphobia, that is the lived experience of a lifetime of male oppression because of biology, not gender. It is what has shaped many womens feminism and how they live their lives. They should be allowed to raise concern.

The UK Government has already called a halt to its move towards self-ID amid concerns about the medical interventions being made around children. And the Scottish Government needs to find a way to do the same.

But Shirley-Anne Somerville, the Cabinet Secretary responsible, has made clear that she believes that the GRA reforms proposed by her government are the right thing to do and that the role of the consultation is simply to persuade those that do not already agree, to agree. That is not listening.

This policy has all the hallmarks of the Named Person and the Offensive Behaviour at Football Matches and will be a political bloodbath for the SNP if it ever gets as far as the floor of the parliamentary chamber.

Given everything else she is currently facing, Nicola Sturgeon will need to decide whether this is the hill worth dying on.

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On reform of the Gender Recognition Act - Holyrood

Boris Johnson cares more about the economy than he does about human lives – The Canary

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On Thursday 12 March, PM Boris Johnson made a statement about the governments planned response to the coronavirus outbreak. He said there were no plans as yet to close schools or advise against large public gatherings. The response, pretty much, seems to be to let the virus do its thing even if it means that lives will be lost.

Some have praised Johnson for following expert advice despite him openly saying many more families are going to lose loved ones. However, to anyone whos watched Shrek, Johnson might sound eerily similar to the infamous Lord Farquaad when he proclaims, Some of you may die, but its a sacrifice I am willing to make. The thought that Johnson can actually be compared to a cartoon villain would be laughable if we werent living through a pandemic.

While it sounds credible that the government response is based on expert opinion, theres more that we need to consider. Not least that there are many experts in any given field and therefore many expert opinions. Whats surprising is that Johnson is listening to his own advisors while ignoring successful responses in other countries, most notably South Korea. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of medical journal The Lancet, has described this as a major error:

The UK governmentMatt Hancock and Boris Johnsonclaim they are following the science. But that is not true. The evidence is clear. We need urgent implementation of social distancing and closure policies. The government is playing roulette with the public. This is a major error.

Financial Times journalist Tom Hancock has described the governments approach of building herd immunity as an unprecedented experiment. And then theres the fact that its possible catching the virus doesnt build immunity to it. Hancock went on to describe the scale of casualties a herd immunity approach could cause:

Moreover, the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Twitter:

#COVID19 is a controllable pandemic. Countries that decide to give up on fundamental public health measures (like case finding and contact tracing) may end up with a larger problem, and a heavier burden on the health system that requires more severe measures to control.

This advice, combined with the South Korea example, would suggest that making testing more accessible and reducing contact through public gatherings is the obvious solution. So why are Johnson and his government doing the opposite? The answer might be more sinister than anyone wants to admit.

On 29 February, a Times article discussing the emergency response to the virus casually described how:

Ministers and officials are considering the trade-off betweenallowing an acute outbreak, from which the economy would rebound more quickly, and trying to save more lives by imposing restrictions on mass gatherings and transport.

Of course, restricting large gatherings and travel is going to slow down economic activity. People not leaving their homes to work, shop or socialise will impact service and retail industries. And the longer these measures last, the greater the impact. However, Chinas response of extensive testing, self-isolation and social distancing has effectively controlled the spread of the disease. And reducing the spread of the disease means reducing potential deaths.

But in order to protect economic interests, rather than attempting to reduce the number of cases and potential deaths, the governments plan is to stagger them over a longer period of time.

Johnson appeared on ITVs This Morning last week saying we could allow the virus to move through the population and take it on the chin. This line might be less indicative of a survival of the fittest attitude if Number 10 hadnt, just weeks before, refused to deny Johnsons belief in eugenics. And this is combined with the many issues Johnson didnt address in his speech chronic underfunding, understaffing, and a lack of bed spaces which will no doubt impact the NHSs ability to respond effectively. Plus the black hole in social care that already shows this governments disregard for elderly people. Suddenly Johnsons commitment to reduce the human cost of this epidemic starts to look increasingly questionable.

He claims that the government will be providing money and other forms of support to help people through this crisis. But given the Tories general aversion towards public spending, and Johnsons many lies in the past, his commitment to acting in the public interest during this pandemic remains doubtful.

Featured image via YouTube/Guardian News

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The World Changed Its Approach to Health After the 1918 Flu. Will It After The COVID-19 Outbreak? – TIME

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As the world grapples with a global health emergency that is COVID-19, many are drawing parallels with a pandemic of another infectious disease influenza that took the world by storm just over 100 years ago. We should hope against hope that this one isnt as bad, but the 1918 flu had momentous long-term consequences not least for the way countries deliver healthcare. Could COVID-19 do the same?

The 1918 flu pandemic claimed at least 50 million lives, or 2.5 per cent of the global population, according to current estimates. It washed over the world in three waves. A relatively mild wave in the early months of 1918 was followed by a far more lethal second wave that erupted in late August. That receded towards the end of the year, only to be reprised in the early months of 1919 by a third and final wave that was intermediate in severity between the other two. The vast majority of the deaths occurred in the 13 weeks between mid-September and mid-December 1918. It was a veritable tidal wave of death the worst since the Black Death of the 14th-century and possibly in all of human history.

Flu and COVID-19 are different diseases, but they have certain things in common. They are both respiratory diseases, spread on the breath and hands as well as, to some extent, via surfaces. Both are caused by viruses, and both are highly contagious. COVID-19 kills a considerably higher proportion of those it infects, than seasonal flu, but its not yet clear how it measures up, in terms of lethality, to pandemic flu the kind that caused the 1918 disaster. Both are what are known as crowd diseases, spreading most easily when people are packed together at high densities in favelas, for example, or trenches. This is one reason historians agree that the 1918 pandemic hastened the end of the First World War, since both sides lost so many troops to the disease in the final months of the conflict a silver lining, of sorts.

Crowd diseases exacerbate human inequities. Though everyone is susceptible, more or less, those who live in crowded and sub-standard accommodation are more susceptible than most. Malnutrition, overwork and underlying conditions can compromise a persons immune deficiencies. If, on top of everything else, they dont have access to good-quality healthcare, they become even more susceptible. Today as in 1918, these disadvantages often coincide, meaning that the poor, the working classes and those living in less developed countries tend to suffer worst in an epidemic. To illustrate that, an estimated 18 million Indians died during the 1918 flu the highest death toll of any country, in absolute numbers, and the equivalent of the worldwide death toll of the First World War.

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In 1918, the explanation for these inequities was different. Eugenics was then a mainstream view, and privileged elites looked down on workers and the poor as inferior categories of human being, who lacked the drive to achieve a better standard of living. If they sickened and died from typhus, cholera and other crowd diseases, the reasons were inherent to them, rather than to be found in their often abysmal living conditions. In the context of an epidemic, public health generally referred to a suite of measures designed to protect those elites from the contaminating influence of the diseased underclasses. When bubonic plague broke out in India in 1896, for example, the British colonial authorities instigated a brutal public health campaign that involved disinfecting, fumigating and sometimes burning indigenous Indian homes to the ground. Initially, at least, they refused to believe that the disease was spread by rat fleas. If they had, they would have realized that a better strategy might have been to inspect imported merchandise rather than people, and to de-rat buildings rather than disinfect them.

Healthcare was much more fragmented then, too. In industrialized countries, most doctors either worked for themselves or were funded by charities or religious institutions, and many people had no access to them at all. Virus was a relatively new concept in 1918, and when the flu arrived medics were almost helpless. They had no reliable diagnostic test, no effective vaccine, no antiviral drugs and no antibiotics which might have treated the bacterial complications of the flu that killed most of its victims, in the form of pneumonia. Public health measures especially social distancing measures such as quarantine that were employing again today could be effective, but they were often implemented too late, because flu was not a reportable disease in 1918. This meant that doctors werent obliged to report cases to the authorities, which in turn meant that those authorities failed to see the pandemic coming.

The lesson that health authorities took away from the 1918 catastrophe was that it was no longer reasonable to blame individuals for catching an infectious disease, nor to treat them in isolation. The 1920s saw many governments embracing the concept of socialized medicine healthcare for all, free at the point of delivery. Russia was the first country to put in place a centralized public healthcare system, which it funded via a state-run insurance scheme, but Germany, France and the UK eventually followed suit. The U.S. took a different route, preferring employer-based insurance schemes which began to proliferate from the 1930s on but all of these nations took steps to consolidate healthcare, and to expand access to it, in the post-flu years.

Many countries also created or revamped health ministries in the 1920s. This was a direct result of the pandemic, during which public health leaders had been either left out of cabinet meetings entirely, or reduced to pleading for funds and powers from other departments. Countries also recognized the need to coordinate public health at the international level, since clearly, contagious diseases didnt respect borders. 1919 saw the opening, in Vienna, Austria, of an international bureau for fighting epidemics a forerunner, along with the health branch of the short-lived League of Nations, of todays World Health Organization (WHO).

A hundred years on from the 1918 flu, the WHO is offering a global response to a global threat. But the WHO is underfunded by its member nations, many of which have ignored its recommendations including the one not to close borders. COVID-19 has arrived at a time when European nations are debating whether their healthcare systems, now creaking under the strain of larger, aging populations, are still fit for purpose, and when the US is debating just how universal its system really is.

Depending on how bad this new pandemic gets, it may force a rethink in both regions. In the U.S., for example, we have already seen heated discussion of the costs and availability of COVID-19 testing, which could help revive the proposals to make healthcare more affordable, that President Obama put forward in his 2010 healthcare reform plan. In Europe, meanwhile, the outbreak could re-ignite a long-running debate over whether people should pay to use national health services (other than indirectly, through taxes or insurance schemes) for example through a monthly membership fee. Whether current outbreak generates real change remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: we are being reminded that pandemics are a social problem, not an individual one.

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