Daily Archives: December 6, 2019

Censorship is detrimental to society as a whole, and that is no less true in the school setting. We cannot afford to have students afraid to practice the important civic duty of holding the government accountable when it is the voices of these very students that are leading us into the future.

Sommer Ingram Dean (SPLC Attorney)

Some would argue that the unknown is what makes life beautiful. This First Amendment Week series has looked at student press in that past and at present. But now, looking towards the future, who truly knows what will happen?

Well, no one.

But Neha Madhira, a recent high school journalist and current New Voices advocate, shared her predictions.

What student journalists learn now is what they will carry on into their futures, and if its nothing but the results of the Hazelwood case, self-censorship or being called, fake news, we will never know the definition of a free press and how its maintained, said Madhira.

Unfortunately, if the past and present happenings are any indication, Madhira could be correct.

Every year, the State of The First Amendment (SOFA) provided information regarding how people view student journalists. The 2019 report asked two questions in regards to this.

As directly quoted from the report, participants were first asked whether they agree or disagree with the statement: Public school students should be allowed to report on controversial issues in their student newspapers without the approval of school authorities. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of participants agreed that students should be allowed to report on controversial issues without prior approval. Thirty-five percent of respondents disagreed, and a small number (2%) did not know or refused.

The next question asked respondents whether students should be allowed to express their opinions on social media without worrying about being punished by teachers or school administrators for what they say. More than two-thirds (72%) of participants agreed that students should be able to post on social media without being afraid of retaliation. Forty percent strongly agreed with the statement and only 10% of participants strongly disagreed.

Based on these statistics, along with both earlier and more recent court cases scattered throughout our history, we know that the state of student press is not always something that has been supported. The SOFA shows that not enough Americans are aware of or informed about the meaning behind their First Amendment freedoms as a whole.

But what has to change so that these statistics reflect an informed, engaged, and supportive society?

According to Madhira, with all the rights and privileges afforded by the law stems a responsibility for students. If students want to have and keep a free press without combating prior review, prior restraint, or censorship then being educated and following the rules is important.

Student journalists must use ethics and common sense when it comes to reporting, keeping their readers in mind, said Madhira. We must also strive to build good relationships and have streamlined communication with school faculty/staff, community members, etc. Organizations like the JEA and SPLC are great places to learn more about all of this.

The Student Press Law Center (SPLC), as instigators of 2019 being the Year of The Student Journalist, has been instrumental in not only teaching and informing, but also in instigating change. New Voices bills, which are state-based legislation to protect the First Amendment rights of student journalists and their advisers, have made significant progress this year. In fact, a record number of state bills (11) were introduced.

SPLC (2019) graphic on New Voices legislation

Passage of a New Voices law is a momentous leap, but its also just the beginning, said Hadar Harris, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. Informing the entire education community about the benefits of the law, and holding administrators accountable to abide by it provides the traction to ensure a healthier environment for student journalism to thrive.

Stakeholders are the people who have the power to make change, which include students and journalists first and foremost. There is a certain tension between law and our values, as in the desire to shut down speakers who cause unrest due to anger and dissent. However, this comes at the expense of the law.

As citizens of the United States, it is our duty and responsibility to understand our rights as outlined by the First Amendment not just as a collective law, but also as a specific aspect of our livelihood that cannot be overlooked.

As we come to the end of what has been dubbed the Year of the Student Journalist, ensuring that we continue to move forward in our understanding and attentiveness to free student press is seen as vitally important, not only by the advocates mentioned, but by others who have the power to change it. The public, politicians, educators, advisors, the press, and you, yes YOU, can make a difference by educating yourself through articles, posts, speeches, and images.

Student journalists are fighting forward. But will the oppression of their rights and abilities end up completely stifling their work?

Only time will tell.

As Nadhira says, I know our story doesnt end here.

Read more:

Oppression of Student Press: The Future - BVU The Tack Online

Democrats are too woke for their own good, or so goes the argument.

Todays progressivism is more or less a secular form of religion with its own high standards, Matt Lewis, a conservative columnist, wrote this spring. Eventually, he concluded, the revolution devours its own. Bill Maher, host of HBOs Real Time, urged Democratic presidential candidates to Get out of Woke-ville, for a day.

Wokeness, in this rendering, is an overly rigid commitment to identity politics and social justice ideology. And in their zeal, these woke Democrats are pushing the Democratic Party away from the voters it needs to beat President Trump in 2020.

If this were actually true, you would expect real traction for the wokest candidates in the Democratic presidential race. But its been just the opposite. The woke candidates have been the weakest, electorally speaking, and the defining attribute of the Democratic primary has been a preoccupation with the voters that put Trump in the White House.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York centered her campaign on racial justice and the fight against sexual assault. During one debate, she identified herself as a white woman of privilege and promised to reach out to white women in the suburbs who voted for Trump and explain to them what white privilege actually is. Fluent in wokeness, Gillibrand hoped to win the most progressive, social justice-minded Democrats. But she never broke away from the pack and dropped out at the end of the summer.

Beto ORourke, the former Representative of Texass 16th congressional district, took a similar approach, barnstorming the country as the wokest of woke Democrats. In the wake of a shooting that killed 22 people in his hometown, El Paso, ORourke embraced mandatory buybacks for assault weapons, with fines for people who do not sell their weapons back to the federal government. Later, at a town hall on L.G.B.T.Q. issues, ORourke said he would end tax-exempt status for religious institutions that opposed same-sex marriage: There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us. ORourke, like Gillibrand, hoped to win the most culturally liberal Democrats. Instead, his support shrank. He dropped out at the beginning of November.

Senator Kamala Harris of California was not as openly woke as some of her rivals although she did voice support for reparations but as the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, she embodied the Great Awokening of the Democratic electorate. If post-Obama, the Democratic Party is increasingly the party of women and the woke, as Perry Bacon Jr., a political analyst, argued in FiveThirtyEight just after she announced her campaign, then Harriss biography and politics align well with where the party has moved. Harris made headway at first. But she wasnt able to capitalize on her early success. For most of the fall, she struggled to win over voters and raise money. This week, she left the race.

None of this is dispositive. The Democratic Party might still be too woke for its own good. But the evidence for that isnt in the primary campaign. A former vice president, Joe Biden, known for his centrist politics and blue-collar affect, leads the field. His nearest rivals, Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, support social justice politics, but theyve centered their campaigns on inequality and corruption.

Yes, the failure of explicitly woke campaigns is a function, in part, of moderate and conservative voters in the Democratic coalition, including African-Americans and Latinos. But if the Democratic Party is as woke as critics say, the race should be able to sustain one or two woke candidates. The fact that it cant should undermine, or at least temper, the idea of a Great Awokening transforming Democratic politics. At the very least, it shows that Democrats are far more concerned with beating Trump than elevating woke ideology.

With all of that said, I want to make a point about the term woke itself. These days, its a term of abuse a shorthand for puritanical political correctness, a pejorative wielded against liberal elitism. But its origins are in African-American vernacular, where it referred to a broad awareness of anti-black oppression. The metaphor of being awake, for example, drives Martin Luther King Jr.s 1965 speech Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution. Like so much other black slang, its been borrowed and diluted and worn down, so that the original meaning has faded from view. That meaning, however, is still worthwhile.

Puritanism is not useful for politics or governing. But a broad awareness of oppression of the ways this country does not work for many of its citizens is vital. To the extent that Democrats have that awareness, they should not shy away from it.

Go here to see the original:

Why the Wokest Candidates Are the Weakest - The New York Times

These slightly edited remarks were made at a Nov. 23 Workers World Party forum titled, What road to socialism? Motema is an organizer with the Peoples Power Assemblies/NYC.

Racism perpetrated by the U.S. state, whether by police domestically or by the CIA, U.S. State Department and U.S. military in other countries, operates the same way. The foundation of racialized violence is to lie about the victim, and these lies always follow a similar pattern.

We are told that (1) the primary target of U.S. state violence is a violent thug, that (2) they come from a broken culture that produces criminality, and that (3) the use of violent force is a net benefit to the targeted community at large.

The road to socialism

Everyone in this room understands this. Many of you have written on this subject and documented the lies of the U.S. state in detail. What bears discussion is how this information is communicated to the masses at large. The road to socialism is through the people.

The road to socialism is through organizing the masses. Educating them about the political character of their oppression and identifying their class enemies. By collectivizing and educating the masses, we can then concentrate our forces against the capitalist ruling class and engage in revolutionary struggle.

But this requires that we explain to folks that their oppression is directly linked with the oppression faced by people living thousands of miles away. Further, we have to explain that this link goes beyond moral empathy. Someone living in New York City can easily understand why the lynching of Indigenous people in Bolivia is wrong. They do not need Marxists to explain the basics of morality.

But what may not be clear is how the overthrow of a democratic government in Bolivia is part of the same neoliberal program that brought 500 new cops to our subway platforms. And further, that a defeat of the forces of imperialism in Bolivia is a victory for oppressed people here. Our job is to provide that clarity.

The focus of my talk will be on the way that domestic and international state repression mirror each other. I have found that discussing the international struggle in this way resonates strongly with people who are new to the struggle.

Capitalism is racist

One of the most important things to communicate to people when organizing is that racism is motivated by the material interests of the ruling class. Liberals have been extremely effective at spreading the myth that racism is driven by individual hatred. Under the liberal model, in order to determine whether someone is perpetuating racism, we need to perform a heart exam.

That is, we need to find out if so and so is truly a racist in their heart. This false paradigm leads to confusing and unproductive discussions where people end up debating whether all cops are racist or if some are redeemable.

Its important to refocus the discussion on the material dimension. Specifically, the extraction of wealth. The police in the U.S. exist to protect the ruling class and to extract wealth from the working class especially the Black and Brown community. The current MTA [Manhattan Transit Authority] struggle serves as a clear example.

Wall Street desperately wants to continue collecting debt service from MTA fares. However, due to crumbling infrastructure and increasing poverty, the working class is less and less likely to tolerate a toll for public transportation.

The only way Wall Street can continue to extract wealth from the working class is through an injection of police officers on subway platforms who use violence to force Black and Brown people to pay for a service that barely works.

This process repeats itself in other countries. As the environmental crisis worsens, there is an incredible demand for non-fossil-fuel sources. These alternative energy sources rely on battery power storage, and one of the primary components of rechargeable batteries is lithium.

The people of Bolivia have the fortune and the misfortune of living on top of one of the worlds largest stores of lithium. [Former President] Evo Morales understood that national ownership of Bolivias lithium could provide his country with an increasing standard of living while helping the rest of the world convert to green energy.

But such an arrangement would deny U.S. and European companies profits from the mining of lithium, and therefore, this arrangement was intolerable. U.S. foreign economic policy demands that U.S./European companies have unfettered access to the resources of the Global South and the profits that result.

In order to extract those profits and wealth, the emerging picture seems to be that the U.S.-backed, right-wing military, police and militia in Bolivia forced Evo Morales out of office to make room for a Christo-fascist [evangelical] government that would ensure U.S./European economic control in Bolivia.

These coup forces have used anti-Indigenous racism as a rallying standard for their movement. In La Paz, Bolivia, as in New York City, racism serves the goal of capitalist wealth extraction.

Lies and criminalization: thugs, dictators and thuggish dictators

The U.S. does not present itself as an evil empire. In spite of its immense crimes against humanity, the U.S. claims to be the leading moral force in the world. Therefore, the murder of unarmed Black people in the U.S., or the overthrow of foreign governments, need to be justified somehow as moral acts. The way they do this is by lying and slandering the victims of U.S. aggression.

Black and Brown people immediately understand what you are talking about when you say the phrase, He was no angel. They understand the racialized nature of the term thug. They know that this is the way the police reinforce the stereotype of Black criminality.

They know that after an unarmed person of color is killed by the police, their personal records will be searched for any infraction no matter how minor, no matter how unrelated to smear their character.

This character assassination, following the physical assassination, is done to morally justify state violence and to make white people feel comfortable about the actions of the state. And oppressed nationalities understand this. So its important to explain that the U.S. follows the same pattern of violence and slander in other countries.

Countries that use their resources primarily for the benefit of their own people, rather than for the benefit of U.S. companies, do not have democratically elected presidents and prime ministers, at least according to U.S. media. The U.S. State Department, and its propaganda arm in the media, will only ever refer to these leaders as dictators, no matter how many votes they receive. These dictators are not the heads of governments or administrations; they are the leaders of regimes. Usually brutal regimes.

Black and Brown people know that the terms thug and gang member are racial codes that signal that the person being described is inferior and violent. As revolutionary organizers, we need to make the connection that terms like dictator and regime are always used in the exact same way. The parallels are so close that we often hear them cross over, and certain leaders are referred to as thuggish dictators.

Another dog whistle is the term corruption. Foreign governments, especially in Africa and Latin America, are said to be plagued by corruption. The use of the word plague implies an affliction. Something that becomes part of a person whom they cannot control.

Whats really being said here is that Black and Latinx people are not capable of being in positions of responsibility without stealing whenever they get the chance. Oftentimes, allegations of corruption are completely manufactured. This is the same racist ideology that argues that Black and Brown people in the U.S. suffer from poverty, crime and a lack of education for cultural reasons.

But Black and Brown people do not steal for cultural reasons, here or abroad. They are not poor for cultural reasons, in North America or South America. Black and Brown people in the U.S. and abroad are stolen from. They are made poor by the thievery of the ruling class and the U.S. state.

And perhaps the primary moral appeal is to invoke sympathy for innocent bystanders within a targeted community. During the height of the war on drugs, the incredible violence used against mostly Black men was justified as a means of protecting the larger Black community. The victims of police violence were skillfully divided from their own population through clever language.

The police told us that drug dealers were poisoning their own community. The idea is that targeted individuals are not members of the community who are victimized by police violence; rather they are aberrant predators who are inflicting harm on other innocent people, whom we should pity.

This is how police violence against Black men becomes an act of mercy toward the Black community at large.

We have to explain that this language that says, thugs and drug dealers are poisoning their own community comes from the same template as the phrase, dictators who gas their own people. Its the exact same concept.

The U.S. masks its racism by feigning pity for the innocent civilians of a targeted country, and they pretend that the political leaders of that country are a distinct and separate element which is harming the people of that country. But when they talk about poisoning communities, they will never talk about the Flint water crisis or depleted uranium in Iraq.

Us against them

Whats necessary as we build toward socialist revolution is to explain to the masses who their class enemies are and who their allies are. We must organize the working class into political mass organizations that have the power to take control of the means of production. Class consciousness is higher today than it has been in decades. But there is a tremendous amount of political education that still needs to be done.

We cant effectively organize the working class if they dont understand that the people of Bolivia are part of the international working class. They cant fight against the ruling class unless they understand that folks in the South Bronx are on the exact same side as the folks in La Paz and that the NYPD [New York Police Department] and the CIA are two sides of the same coin.

Making these connections is not just important for solidarity. Its important because it provides clarity in the struggle. It prevents future contradictions from emerging within the struggle, such as the contradiction between POC

[People of Color] who are U.S. citizens and POC who are undocumented.

And it inoculates the working class from attempts at cooption and controlled opposition by nongovernmental organizations, Democrats and social democrats because those forces are totally incapable of standing against U.S. imperialism.

The road to socialism is through agitation, education and organization of the masses. An essential part of that is explaining that U.S. racism respects no borders.

(WW photo: Brenda Ryan)

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The lies are the same about racism at home and abroad - Workers World

By:Simon Sibarani,a communication expert based in Jakarta, specializing in public affairs and social development issues. He currently advises international organizations, development donors and government agencies that aim to refine their communication and advocacy works.

In and around the discussions about the development and representation issues in the Indonesian government today, there is a burgeoning conversation around the concept of privilege and how it impacts individuals and ultimately our social system through and through.

In a socially vigilant population, being aware of your privilege has become more important than ever. Unluckily, the conversation around the topic has been nothing but convoluted with expressions of uneasiness and disengaging points which lead to unproductive exchange. The use of privilege as a term has met with contempt and skepticism and the common reactions found are usually the feeling of guilt, blamed, avoidance or even attacked hence the defensive comeback.

These expressions are rooted in misguided ideas about privilege. Let alone the misguided ideas, some people are not even aware of their privileges because we have never been taught to be aware of our privileges which also might be intended as part of the oppressive system too. If people get outraged when their privileges are pointed out, it means there has been no solid understanding yet of what privilege is.

How should we approach and understand privilege?

To some people, the term privilege still rings the images of conglomerate and affluent groups who have a lavish lifestyle, own access to economic resources and very well-connected to an oligarch. While these associations are compatible with a certain type of privilege, taking them as full comprehension of privilege is an incorrect belief.

In its simplest definition, privilege can be understood as the variety of advantages accessible by a person compared with other individuals, in relation to their identities and pre-given condition within the social system. Therefore, based on this definition, every conversation around privilege must be inherent with the understanding of biases, social and political context that prevail in the society. In Indonesia, similar to almost everywhere else in the world, there are several dominant social systems for different contexts and situations. This presents a noticeable divide between majority groups who mostly decide what should be universal and acceptable, and minority groups who are less represented in the social system therefore oppressed and underprivileged.

The majority groups have power over the minority groups since they own more access to information and resources, such as political domination, financial power, influence over the media, strategic positions in companies, etc. However, if we want to truly understand privilege, we must first think of privilege as a spectrum instead of a black-and-white situation. Despite to which group an individual belongs to, every person (even the oppressed group) might still have an identity that may benefit or even harmed from the social system. The social system still grants privilege to people because of certain aspects of their identities such as age, gender, class, sexual orientation, geographical location, faith and ethnic, familial bond with the oligarch, and many more.

As an illustration, if you are a young Christian man who works as a civil servant in Jakarta, you may receive both benefits and oppression from the current social system. By weighing in your identity as a man in a patriarchy culture, you will be granted several male privileges such as higher income standard, less judgment towards your sexuality expression and lower risk of receiving sexual harassment, to name a few. However, if we look at aspects of your identity as a young person with minority religion, you may struggle with some obstacles such as more difficult career progression due to toxic ageism at the workplace, intolerant actions from the majority religion, and many more.

What needs to change when we think about privilege?

First, having privilege is not a sin. In the most practical explanation, the privileged individuals cannot decide the physical abilities they are born with, their sexes, their social class, the wealth and ethnic of their families. The privileged cannot choose their preconditioned situation, but they can always choose what they will do with their privileges.

Second, everyone is both privileged and suffering differently. As previously explained, every person (even the oppressed group) have different aspects of identities that can receive both benefit and oppression by the social system, which deduces that everyone suffers from the system. However, the society must not shy away from the reality that there are less fortunate groups who suffer more because they are carrying more weights, while others are privileged with access to alternatives of exit doors in the face of problems. Exposing this imbalance of struggle is never intended for unproductive speculation such as coining a playing-victim competition among the oppressed group. The idea is to acknowledge that there are structural problems such as poverty, inequitable law system, the lack of information, and discriminative systems in place that contribute to the struggle imbalance. Each of these structural problems is fundamental and must be taken seriously.

Third, privilege is not meant to discredit the struggle and achievement of the privileged group. Our current social system presents obstacles that make life more difficult for oppressed groups. At the same time, the system also grants privileges manifested in many ways for certain groups to help them overcome the obstacles or even eliminate the obstacles. With this practical sense, the situation does not negate that the privileged have their obstacles and they deserve validation to their success too. This situation demonstrates that having privilege means there are obstacles that the privileged do not have to deal with, while the oppressed groups have to. Having this situation at hand, society must find ways and work together to ensure everyone owns equitable access to success.

What should be done with privilege?

First, it is important to have the humility to acknowledge your privileges. Each of us has the liberty to choose between looking away and ignoring the inequalities that harm people; or taking the responsibility to assess our privileges. You may start by contemplating how life is harder for other people without each of your privileges based on each of your identities. Refusing to acknowledge your privilege will be counterproductive and only keeping the oppression lingers in the system. On the person-to-person level, acknowledging your own privilege enables you to practice empathy better, therefore, makes you understand the situation better and work towards the solution. On a social level, higher collective awareness of privileges will make the inequalities more visible and open more doors to challenging a system that privileges people and oppresses the others.

Second, listening with empathy. No matter how much information, research and knowledge you can afford, never assume that you know the issues better than people who are oppressed by the system. In this case, the big chunk of work is committing to self-education which also includes listening to other peoples obstacles in order to invite more perspectives and having the willpower for self-criticism along the way.

Third, you should not respond to the struggle of the oppressed groups as a tool for you to exercise gratitude. When faced with inequalities, no matter what our privileges are, we should be angry instead and work together to ensure no one should have to struggle at all to access basic resources such as quality health and education.

Fourth, it is important to maintain an equal level of interaction with the oppressed groups. You should never appear superior as if they cannot survive without your help because this harmful attitude will only cement the idea of the superiority of the major groups

Lastly, and most importantly, you can work in solidarity with the oppressed groups. We can be part of the problem while still taking action for the solution. There is a lot of areas to start helping the oppressed groups by using your privileges. If you look at oppression in any form, confront and challenge the system. If you have the voice, do not take their rights to talk but share your platform so they can speak too. If you have the information, do not take their rights to make decisions for themselves but share your knowledge to ensure they pick a well-informed choice. If you have access to power, skill or resources, do not give them away to rescue people but transfer them in the spirit of empowering so more people have equitable access to the resources. It is less about what the resources are, but more about who should have them too.

In doing all of these, you will get it wrong and that is perfectly normal. Acknowledging our privileges, identifying our own biases and challenging the unequal system are not silver bullets. They require consistency, open-mindedness to learnings, self-criticism and most importantly believing that success can be incremental.

An equal community can only be as strong as its equal individuals. Promoting awareness about privilege and challenging the unequal system can be difficult and emotionally demanding, but it can get better if more people understand how they can use their privileges to destroy the uncomfortable reality and build a more equitable social system for all.

*)

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Revisiting the Concept of Privilege in Social System - Tempo.co English

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Re: Indigenous peoples in Latin America once again victims of oppression (SP, Nov. 16)

A big thank you is due to columnist Doug Cuthand for his expression of international solidarity. Cuthand briefly described some of the atrocities committed recently towards Indigenous peoples throughout Central and South America.

His emphasis was on the recent coup in Bolivia where Indigenous President Evo Morales was overthrown by the military before his term was up in January.

As of the morning of Nov. 18, at least 23 people had died amid escalating violence. On Nov. 15, military forces opened fire on Indigenous pro-Morales protesters, killing at least nine people, injuring more than 100. The massacre came one day after self-proclaimed President Jeanine ez issued a decree protecting the military from prosecution for violent acts. ez has previously called Indigenous communities Satanic.

Cuthands call for international solidarity is one form of action which almost 30 years ago helped end South African apartheid. Yet Canadas Minister of Foreign Affairs endorsed the coup. The federal government also financed and promoted an effort to discredit Bolivias presidential election by supporting an Organization of American States (OAS) call for Moraless resignation, although the grounds for this call were disputed by multiple international organizations.

Canadas role is less surprising given its record of supporting resource companies in the country in their antagonism to the Morales government. It is also less surprising given Canadas shameful record regarding the failed overthrow of Maduro in Venezuela this year and, a few years ago, Haiti. Both were cases of violently undemocratic actions.

Rick Hesch

Saskatoon

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Letter of the Day: Global solidarity is a form of action - The Province

Politics/1 December 2019, 1:59pm/BALDWIN NDABA

Johannesburg - Azapo has urged law enforcement agencies, including Hawks and NPA, to speed up the process of arresting and charging those responsible for state capture in the country.

Azapo president Strike Thokoane made the call addressing his party members at its biennial congress held at KwaDaku Hall in Zwide outside Port Elizabeth.

The congress also marked the celebration of the 50th anniversary since the birth of the South African Students Organisation (SASO) formed by Steve Biko, Barney Pityana and Harry Nenghwekhulu on July 1, 1969.

SASO is a black student organisation working for the liberation of the black man first from psychological oppression by themselves through induced inferiority complex and secondly from physical oppression occurring out of living in a white racist society.

Our movement, born out of resilience against the brutality of racism and oppression, the Azanian Peoples Organisation (Azapo), today still stands for this objective of both physical and psychological liberation of black people.

This position, carved for us by SASO 50 years ago, affirms that there is no true liberation without the defeat of mental slavery, of lack of knowledge, of the reversal of ignorance and the psychological damage done by more than 300 years of colonialisms and 50 years of apartheid on black people, Thokoane said.

He said Azapo would continue to spread this message of resistance, of self-love and to affirm the humanity of black people.

Azapo was not formed to win a parliamentary seat. Azapo was not formed to be in government. Our movement was not formed for comrades to be councillors and members of parliament and Ministers in government. Azapo was founded first and foremost to liberate the masses of black people who are oppressed and the black working class that is exploited by capitalism and imperialism. It is worth reminding ourselves of this noble and sacrosanct mission of our movement, Thokoane said.

He said South Africa was on a perilous path due to misgovernance, corruption, theft and self- enrichment by those in power and their sponsors saying the country was preoccupied with spending billions of money on Commission of Inquiry that lead to nowhere.

Our country has been seized with almost two years of the Zondo Commission. After spending millions of rands on lawyers, not a single one of the Ministers or senior ruling party leaders and big business men and women, including international companies like McKinsey and Bain, have been charged for perpetuating so called State Capture and corruption.

Embarrassingly, we see many of those who have been implicated, forming political parties to clear their names. They continue to wear their bespoke suits and live in mansions bought with money that was stolen from the people.

KPMG, McKinsey, the lawyers and other accountants who aided this corruption and malfeasance continue to operate as normal and to do business with government, without any sanction or fear of arrest. Corruption and theft in our dear country, very sadly, has become normalised, Thokoane said.

He said Azapo supports the onerous task being performed by Judge Zondo, of uncovering this deep rot, many of our people are losing faith and patience with the judicial system, if 24 months since the Inquiry began, no action seems to have been taken by the National Prosecuting Authority and other arms of the law to bring the criminals and perpetrators to book.

Azapo makes an urgent call to all the law enforcement agencies to act upon the findings of all the Commissions that have been conducted, Thokoane said.

Political Bureau

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Law enforcement urged to speed up arrests of corrupt government officials - IOL

U.S. lawmakers have called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to speed up implementation of an agenda requiring host cities to adhere to rights protections ahead of Beijings Winter Games in 2022, citing reports of widespread abuses in Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

In a letter dated Dec. 5, a bipartisan group of 10 U.S. Senators urged IOC President Thomas Bach to put the Olympic Agenda 2020 and the corresponding Host City Contract into practice in time for the 2022 Olympic Games instead of the current timeline of 2024, citing Chinas exploitation of human labor and violation of human rights.

We hold great concern that the Peoples Republic of China, a country plagued with violent suppression of free speech, state-sponsored oppression, and human rights abuses, is set to serve as host to the 2022 Olympic Winter Games without proper guidelines or requirements, said the senators.

Rightfully present in the revised Host City Contract under the Olympic Agenda 2020 is an address of the host citys respect of human rights, they said.

These revised Host City Contract requirements include protection of human rights and labor-related protections, as well as the assurance that all violations of human rights, fraud, or acts of corruption are remedied in accordance with applicable international agreements, laws, and regulations.

The letter noted that the Olympic Agenda 2020 and its corresponding Host City Contract requirements were adopted seven months before Beijing was awarded the 2022 Winter Games and the execution of its host contract, but years before full implementation was expected. China has implemented some of the non-human rights-related requirements in the contract, but not complied in totality, it said.

The senators warned that delaying implementation leaves China free reign to continue rights violations while hosting the Winter Games, and said that among Beijings worst abuses is its ongoing treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the XUAR.

Authorities in the region are believed to have held 1.8 million people accused of harboring strong religious views and politically incorrect ideas in a vast network of 1,300-1,400 internment camps since April 2017.

While Beijing once denied the existence of the camps, China this year changed tack and began describing the facilities as boarding schools that provide vocational training for Uyghurs, discourage radicalization, and help protect the country from terrorism.

Reporting by RFAs Uyghur Service and other media organizations, however, has shown that those in the camps are detained against their will and subjected to political indoctrination, routinely face rough treatment at the hands of their overseers, and endure poor diets and unhygienic conditions in the often overcrowded facilities.

Host of abuses

In Thursdays letter, the lawmakers cited recent leaks of official Chinese documents that outlined the Communist Partys ruthless and extraordinary campaign to organize mass incarcerations in the XUAR and included the first known manual for operating camps, which last week U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said are proof that Beijing is committing very significant rights abuses in the region.

But they also referenced the State Department as identifying that China had reached a peak in human rights abuses around the time it hosted the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing through forced relocations linked to the Games, house arrest for political prisoners, increased surveillance of civil society groups and NGOs, increased harassment of religious groups, and other restrictions, as well as child labor violations.

They called on the IOC to implement Host City Contract requirements as outlined in the Olympic Agenda 2020 to all contracts applied to the Olympic Games occurring after Jan. 1, 2020, noting that the guidelines have been prepared for six years and were publicly available prior to Beijing signing its July 2015 contract.

Any nation enjoying the opportunity to promote its image on the world stage should be held to the utmost standards of human rights and freedom, the senators said.

Among the 10 senators who signed Thursdays letter was Marco Rubio of Floridaa co-architect of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which would authorize regular monitoring of the situation in the XUAR by various government bodies for the potential application of sanctions, and which cleared both houses of Congress earlier this week.

Joining Rubio were Senators Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Rick Scott of Florida, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Todd Young of Indiana, and Jerry Moran of Kansas.

Speaking to RFAs Uyghur Service on Friday, Dolkun Isa, the president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress exile group, welcomed the lawmakers letter and urged the IOC to reverse its decision to award the 2022 Games to Beijing.

At a time when the international community is fully aware of the crimes against humanity committed upon the Uyghur people in East Turkestan by the Chinese government, the IOC needs to seriously review its decision awarding China the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, he said, using a name preferred by many Uyghurs to refer to their historic homeland.

The Olympic Games are a global celebration of peace, unity, friendship and the human spirit. The hosting of such Games in China is contrary to the founding principles of the IOC and the spirit of Olympic Games. It will only darken the IOCs global reputation and standing.

Isa also called on members of the international community to follow the lead of the 10 U.S. senators to express their concerns to the IOC and, if necessary, boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

Reported and translated by Alim Seytoff for RFAs Uyghur Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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US Lawmakers Urge Olympic Committee to Ensure Rights Protections Ahead of Beijing Winter Games - Radio Free Asia

By TNH Staff December 6, 2019

FILE- Protesters throw fireworks and flares at riot police during clashes in Athens, on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2016. Riots have broken out in central Athens, with dozens of youths throwing petrol bombs at police after a peaceful march to commemorate the police killing of a teenager eight years ago. (AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis)

ATHENS With the Christmas shopping season kicking into high gear, much of the Greek capitals downtown area including prime stores was close to a lockdown on Dec. 6 as thousands of police were deployed after an anarchist group threatened to strike.

Rouvikonas posted a warning on a website it would launch assaults to protest New Democracy government plans to evict squatters in abandoned buildings in the neighborhood of Exarchia the anarchists had dominated and to mark the 11th anniversary We have prepared a defense and retaliation plan of pharaonic proportions, anti-establishment group Rouvikonas said on its Facebook page, saying it would confront police if they try to empty the abandoned buildings, some holding unlawful migrants.

Other anarchist groups are also organizing rallies against oppression, without being more specific but police have taken the threats seriously enough to put 4,000 officers on the streets and deploy drones and helicopters, a tactic that prevented widespread violence on the Nov. 17 anniversary marking a 1973 student uprising that helped bring down a military dictatorship backed by the United States.

Police also closed parts of the downtown to traffic in areas where morning and afternoon rallies were set to be held and subways will go through there without stopping on platforms and as sentries will be posted on the hills of the Acropolis and Lycabettus.

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Riot Fears, Anarchist Threats Put Clamp on Athens' Downtown - The National Herald

I wonder what those women would be doing now, says Ruth Eden, assistant deputy minister of infrastructure in the Government of Manitoba. Thirty years ago, Eden was a fresh engineering graduate when the news broke that 14 women had been slain in a horrific act of misogyny at cole Polytechnique in Montreal. Her question hangs in the air its painful to consider the lives cut short, so many bright futures extinguished. Twelve of the 14 were engineering students.

In her 1999 essay about the massacre and the public response, media scholar Wendy Hui Kyong Chun an engineering student at the time of the attack argues that while we can never fully make sense of what happened that day, every woman scarred by the event can come to the table as a listener. The important task in listening, then, is to feel the victims victories, defeats and silences, know them from within, while at the same time acknowledging that one is not the victim, so that the victim can testify, so that the truth can be reached together.

Its in that spirit that I approach this anniversary. Our own response to this tragedy must be founded on a remembrance of its terrible specificity. Our speech must take its root in listening.

One way of doing that is by holding vigils, as engineering schools across the country are doing today. Here at Policy Options, weve chosen to share the reflections of four women from across the country who were students or recent graduates of engineering at the time of the murders. They express grief and a sense of solidarity with their late peers. And they emphasize that while the tragedy marked their lives, it does not define what it means to be a woman in engineering in this country.

Kathryn Woodcock, professor at the Ryerson University School of Occupational and Public Health; director of the THRILL Laboratory at Ryerson.

How did the Dec. 6th Polytechnique massacre impact you at the time?

I was a hospital vice president (Centenary Hospital, in Scarborough, Ont.). I had completed my U WaterlooMASc in 1988 while in that position, but PhD programs demanded a singular focus. So I had just given notice to leavemy position after eight years and return to school for a PhD in Engineering beginning in January 1990.

This man he would have shot me, too, simply for doing what I was meant to do. Because he didnt want me to do it.Because he felt entitled to be an engineer, and blamed his failure on women instead of himself.

It did not just impact me at the time. I am literally in a caf crying today because I was reminded. I wear a button that reads 14,not forgotten every December 1 to 6.

Did it change how you felt about your career and your place as a woman in it?

As of the date of the event, I was already a professional engineer, and preparing to start a PhD, so I was pretty committed. But it shook me to my core that someone could hate me to the degree of being prepared to shoot me to death on purpose for a specific reason without knowing me. Being also deaf, I was pretty accustomed to proving myself, but it was chilling to think that there were still people to whom there was noproving, who would still take the oppression of an entire group to the point of violence, on principle.

Looking back to my first University of Waterloo work term, there were engineering co-op job postings that were understood to be off limits to female students, butthat was ancient history, and like most people, I had thought we had moved beyond that by 1989. All at once, it was obvious we had not.

How has your professional life unfolded since obtaining your engineering degree?

Since completing the PhD, Ive pursued an academic career and work extensively with the global attractions industryon human factors applications to amusement attractions, consulting and delivering training, and just secured my firstUS patent. Although not in the Faculty of Engineering, I do considerable extracurricular teaching and mentoring ofengineering students here and from many universities. I produce and direct a university student competition sponsoredby Universal Creative, the design division of Universal Parks & Resorts.

Ruth Eden, assistant deputy minister, Manitoba Infrastructure

How did the Dec. 6th Polytechnique massacre impact you at the time?

Disbelief, I think, would be a good word But for me, I think what resonates more is just the realization that that event has actually stayed with me for my whole career. Its always been in the back of my mind that something like that could happen and did happen. And just to be vigilant, I think, for that type of attitude throughout your whole career.

I was a recent grad. I was working at the time. I cant remember exactly where I was when it happened, but I remember the feeling when I first found out. Just the feeling of I think almost disbelief, almost panic. And then such a strong sense of sadness that we were living in an age where that could happen. And did happen.

Just to give you a bit of background, I was the first and I hate the term female engineer hired by the province of Manitoba. And that was in the fall of 1988. I was working in construction. I was a construction engineer, and it was the first time a woman had ever done that. So, there were no other female engineers around at that point.

But the incident affected my male counterparts I dont want to say as much as me but they were as impacted as I was. It caught everybody shocked, surprised, to that degree.

Did it change how you felt about your career and your place as a woman in it?

No, because I did have a very supportive work environment. And there were a few individuals who I can give a lot of credit to for that. One of them actually was a Jewish man who was in hiding during World War II and escaped the Nazis. So, when you put that in perspective, what he had to go through he had had that real-life experience, and he helped me navigate through it for sure.

But I dont want everyone to just think of the doom and gloom. I made the choice to stay in engineering, even when that was going on, because I loved what I did. I felt like I was a very good engineer, and even though it had happened, it wasnt going to dissuade me or convince me not to do what I knew in my heart was the right thing.

How has your professional life unfolded since obtaining your engineering degree?

Like I said, Im very, very lucky to have the work family I did, and the support and the mentors that I did. They looked at everybody as individuals and not based on their gender.

I talked about being the first woman engineer in the province, the first woman construction engineer in the province. I went back and got my masters while continuing to work. And Ive just risen through the ranks through my career. At this point Im assistant deputy minister with Manitoba Infrastructure.

I love what I do, and I wouldnt change it for anything. I work with great people, and every day in this job I see the value of what we do for the people of Manitoba. And thats a huge reason why the career that Ive had, and that I will have, has been so fulfilling. I feel like Im making a difference for the people of Manitoba every single day.

For all the women thinking about going into engineering, I want them to see that its so rewarding. It makes you such a better person, I think, this career. And I dont want them not to consider it or to be dissuaded by the guidance counsellors or the influencers, the people along the way, who would maybe steer them away.

Im also past president of our engineering association in Manitoba. And Manitoba is taking a lead role in the 30 by 30 initiative across Canada. Its an initiative that recognizes that there has to be more women engineers. If were trying to find solutions to problems, we should be including all of the great minds across our society, and not just one portion of it. We need our profession to reflect that diversity so that the solutions that we develop are actually representative of society as a whole.

Li Qian, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Photonics Group), University of Toronto

How did the Dec. 6th Polytechnique massacre impact you at the time?

I was in Canada studying engineering at the time this tragedy happened. I arrived in Canada only a few months earlier, in September 1989, to start my undergraduate studies in engineering at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN). I was 18. It was my first time abroad. Before coming to Canada, I was a physics undergrad in Shanghai and had never been outside China, nor had I heard much about the world outside due to the strict media censorship there.

It was also a tumultuous year for me even before the cole Polytechnique tragedy The Tiananmen massacre took place in June while I was still in China, and I was among the thousands of university students participating in the pro-democracy protests in Shanghai. (There were many pro-democracy protests in various large cities in China at the time, not only in Beijing.)

It was a shock to hear the news on the radio. I couldnt comprehend it. It was not something I expected to happen in Canada, though I knew very little of Canada at the time. I am not sure if I can comprehend it now. Whatever the social background against which it happened, and whatever unfortunate circumstances that led Lpine to commit this unthinkable crime, I felt, and still feel, it was an isolated incident, not representative of the Canadian society or the Canadian values which I now regard as my own.

Did it change how you felt about your career and your place as a woman in it?

No, not at all. I have always liked to be in STEM, and cannot imagine myself otherwise. No external event, however shocking, is likely to change that. Also, I dont really think of myself as a woman in STEM I am just my thinking self, and my gender is irrelevant in the profession I choose.

How has your professional life unfolded since obtaining your engineering degree?

I suppose you can say that it unfolded very well. I continued to pursue graduate degrees, and eventually obtained a PhD in electrical engineering (photonics) from U of T. After working in industry for a couple of years, I returned to U of T as a professor. Engineering was not my passion at 18 physics was. I took engineering because it was the only way I could pay for my education in Canada on my own, thanks to the co-op program at MUN. But over the years I came to like, even be passionate about, the engineering profession.

Lianna Mah, vice president of business development at Associated Engineering in Vancouver

How did the Dec. 6th Polytechnique massacre impact you at the time?

In 1989, I was an engineer-in-training with a consulting firm in London, Ont. I had recently graduated from UBC with an undergraduate degree in civil engineering and a masters degree in environmental engineering.

I had grown up in an environment where my parents encouraged me to be anything I wanted to be. While there were few women in engineering at UBC when I was completing my degrees, and there was only one other female engineer at my workplace, I did not feel that being a woman was a barrier to my career. That changed on December 6, 1989.

I heard about the massacre while I was at work. I recall feeling extremely sad and angry at the same time. I was outraged that these young women were murdered because of their gender, and that their lives were cut short because they had chosen to study engineering.

Did it change how you felt about your career and your place as a woman in it?

While I had seldom felt isolation as an engineering student or an engineer-in-training, at that moment I felt an extreme sense of isolation. There was no one in the office with whom I could share and express my feelings of grief and outrage about the murders, and loneliness that there were not more women in our profession. I had no female role models or mentors who I could go to for advice.

The massacre of these women became a catalyst for me to find and connect with other women engineers and to do more to promote women in engineering. Thats when I started to get more involved, and with a group of women we formed the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BCs Division for the Advancement of Women in Engineering and Geoscience (now Engineers & Geoscientists of BCs Women in Engineering and Geoscience Division).

DAWEG established a mentoring program and school visits, created a regular newsletter, and organized conferences and networking events to promote and advocate for women in engineering and geoscience. I believe our work helped to provide awareness and encourage girls to pursue a career in engineering, and create a network for women in engineering which improved retention of women in our profession.

How has your professional life unfolded since obtaining your engineering degree?

Throughout my career I have worked for companies that are open to diversity. My supervisors and managers gave me the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects and to take on a range of challenges.

I have participated in the design of water and wastewater treatment facilities, and water supply and wastewater collection systems in British Columbia and Ontario. I also had the opportunity to work on a waste management project in the British Virgin Islands and travelled there twice as part of the project.

One of the highlights of my career was working on the design of upgrades to the Annacis Island and Lulu Island Wastewater Treatment Plants for Metro Vancouver in the 1990s. The upgrades improved the quality of wastewater treated at these two facilities, which together treat wastewater from over 1 million people in Metro Vancouver. As an environmental engineer, this was a project of a lifetime, in particular to work with leading professionals in the Lower Mainland, and from across Canada and the US.

For the past 15 years, I have been responsible for business development, marketing and communications at Associated Engineering. Im also corporate champion for our Women in Science and Engineering Retention (WISER) Committee and Young Professionals Group

While my career experiences have been largely positive, I know that women still feel isolated in the workplace; some women are harassed on job sites; and some women are not hired or promoted because they are women. While we have done so much to welcome women to our profession, we still have much work to do to improve the culture for women in engineering in our profession.

We need to continue the conversation about the importance of diversity and inclusion. A diverse and inclusive workplace that includes people with a wide range of backgrounds, skills and experience spurs creativity and results in better outcomes and stronger organizations.

Photo:Fourteen lights shine skyward at a Montreal vigil on December 6, 2018 honouring the victims of the 1989 cole Polytechnique massacre. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

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