aljazeera--2019-01-14--Al Jazeera reporter Asad Hashim wins AFPs Kate Webb Prize

Al Jazeera reporter Asad Hashim wins AFP's Kate Webb Prize

Al Jazeera correspondent Asad Hashim has been named the winner of the 2018 Agence France-Presse Kate Webb Prize for his coverage of the plight of ethnic Pashtuns and blasphemy issues in his native Pakistan.  The award, named after late AFP news agency correspondent Kate Webb, recognises journalism by locally-hired reporters in Asia operating in risky or difficult conditions.  Hashim, 33, was honoured for a series of articles for Al Jazeera on ethnic Pashtuns and other minority groups caught in the crossfire of Pakistan's fight against the Taliban.  These included an investigative report into enforced disappearances allegedly conducted by the country's powerful military and a reporting mission to the South Waziristan tribal region - the birthplace of Pakistan Taliban - to look into the civilian toll from landmines.  Pakistan has battled homegrown revolt for nearly 15 years, with tens of thousands of people killed, and fighters retain the ability to carry out devastating attacks despite recent improvements in security.  "These are challenging times for journalists in Pakistan, and Asad Hashim's work stands out for the kind of courageous, independent reporting the Kate Webb Prize was created to recognise," said AFP Asia-Pacific regional director Philippe Massonnet.  "His deeply-researched articles tackle sensitive subjects with an admirable balance of passion, commitment and journalistic detachment."  The award also recognised his work for Al Jazeera on other highly sensitive issues, such as Pakistan's blasphemy laws and the country's judicial system.  "I am honoured by the jury's decision to select my work this year," Hashim said after learning he was the winner of the 2018 prize.  "It has become increasingly difficult to report on rights issues, particularly on the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement rights group, due to restrictions imposed by Pakistani authorities in the last year. This award is a recognition of the increasingly restrictive reporting environment all Pakistani journalists are facing.  "I'd like to thank Al Jazeera for consistently supporting investigative reporting on human rights issues - real stories, that affect real people. I would also like to thank Saud Mehsud, a colleague without whose guidance and help on the ground my stories would have been impossible to report."  The Kate Webb Prize, with a $3,400 purse, honours journalists working in perilous or difficult conditions in Asia, and is named after a crusading AFP reporter who died in 2007 at the age of 64, after a career covering the world's trouble spots.  The award, which in 2017 went to Myanmar journalist Mratt Kyaw Thu for his brave coverage of the ethnic and religious conflict in his homeland, is administered by AFP and the Webb family.  The prize will be formally presented at a ceremony in March.


aljazeera--2019-03-21--Christchurch attack Damaged mosque repaired for Friday prayers

Christchurch attack: Damaged mosque repaired for Friday prayers

The bullet-scarred Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch was being repaired, painted and cleaned ahead of Friday prayers as grieving families buried more victims of New Zealand's worst mass shooting on Thursday.  Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced that Friday's call to prayers for Muslims will be broadcast nationally and a two-minute silence will be observed.  Armed police have been guarding mosques around New Zealand after 50 people were killed last Friday by a lone gunman who attacked worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch.  "We will have a heightened presence tomorrow in order to provide reassurance to people attending the Friday call for prayers," police said in a statement on Thursday.  "Police have been working relentlessly, doing everything in our power to gather all appropriate evidence from what are active crime scenes so we can allow people to return to the mosques as quickly as possible."  Both mosques attacked, Al Noor and the nearby Linwood Mosque, plan to reopen. Thousands of worshippers are expected at the Al Noor Mosque, where the majority of victims died.  Most victims were immigrants or refugees from countries such as Pakistan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Somalia, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.  A mournful cry of "Allahu Akbar" over a loudspeaker signalled the service had begun on Thursday. Mourners prayed before raising the bodies of two of the victims above their heads and carrying them to their graves.  Hundreds of mourners, including non-Muslims and many schoolchildren, wept and embraced as they said goodbye to 14-year-old Sayyad Milne and 24-year-old Tariq Omar.  Sayyad's father, John Milne, said his son was gunned down while praying at Al Noor.  Milne previously described his son as "a beautiful boy" and "my special little one" who longed to play for the northern England football club Manchester United.  Mourners arrived at the cemetery in long lines on a grey day, schoolgirls struggling to keep scarves on their heads in the wind.  Many came from Cashmere High School, which Sayyad attended alongside fellow victim Hamza Mustafa, a Syrian refugee who was buried Wednesday.  Omar was a coach for junior football teams. Christchurch United Academy Director Colin Williamson described him as "a beautiful human being with a tremendous heart and love for coaching".  Local media reported he was dropped off at the Al Noor mosque on the day of the killings by his mother who survived the attack because she was trying to find a parking space when the gunman launched his assault.  "He was one of those people that everyone knew," said Cashmere student Bailey Jordan, 15, as he left the funeral.  A mass burial is expected to be held on Friday.  Police said on Thursday they had identified and were able to release all 50 bodies to the families.  Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also announced an immediate ban on the sale of assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons along with related parts that could allow them to fire more rounds.  "It's in the national interest and it's about safety … to prevent an act of terror from ever happening again in our country," Ardern said of the ban.  Twenty-nine people wounded in the attacks remained in hospital, eight still in intensive care.  Many have had to undergo multiple surgeries because of complicated gunshot wounds. The gunman used semi-automatic AR-15 rifles, with large magazines, and shotguns.  Australian Brenton Tarrant, 28, a white supremacist who was living in Dunedin, on New Zealand's South Island, has been charged with murder following the attack.  He was remanded without a plea and is due back in court on April 5, when police say he is likely to face more charges.  The scale of the attack has caused global revulsion, including for Tarrant's use of social media to livestream the carnage in real-time.  In a rambling "manifesto", he said he was motivated partly by a desire to stoke religious conflict between Islam and the West by targetting "invaders".


aljazeera--2019-08-04--How ethnonationalists use the UNESCO World Heritage label

On July 6, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced the success of Myanmar's application to recognise the ancient Buddhist city of Bagan as a World Heritage Site - a boon for the image and tourism industry of a country accused by the UN's own fact-finding mission of committing genocide and crimes against humanity.  While preserving the archaeological remnants of "the heart of the largest Buddhist empire of its time" (from the 9th to 13th century) at Bagan, Myanmar has simultaneously been erasing all traces of the living Muslim-majority Rohingya from the landscape: physically, historically, socially, culturally, and legally.  Just two days before UNESCO's World Heritage announcement, international human rights lawyer Christopher Sidoti, a member of the UN fact-finding mission, told an academic conference that the now-decimated Rohingya population in Myanmar remains confined to concentration camps and ghettos "like those Jews lived in under Nazi-occupied Europe".  Myanmar is now preparing to pursue World Heritage status for Mrauk U, the historical capital of the kingdom of Rakhine, which existed between the 15th and 18th century. In the present, Rakhine state has been ground zero of the regime's genocidal operation against the Rohingya, as well as atrocities against the ethnic Rakhine Buddhists - who have collaborated with the Tatmadaw military in brutalising the Rohingya even while being brutalised themselves.  In preparation for the Mrauk U bid, local archaeologists are busy assessing how to repair the damage wrought by the military's war crimes, and protect the ruins from future harm - while for almost a million Rohingya left to rot in refugee camps in Bangladesh, there are no reparations or protection in sight. The government is building a new airport at Mrauk U to facilitate the anticipated influx of tourists - while the humanitarian aid workers and UN investigators attempting to gain access to the state's persecuted communities have routinely been barred.  Other tourist attractions in Rakhine include its famously idyllic beaches, where according to one Canadian ambassador who recently vacationed there, the waters are "pleasingly turquoise coloured, warm, clean and clear ... perfect for snorkelling," betraying no sign of the ethnic cleansing perpetrated a few kilometres away.  The profits from such touristic pleasures are largely reaped by the military and its cronies. Former military arms broker and military government collaborator Tay Za, for example, owns one of the country's largest network of luxury hotels and resorts.  Yangon and Naypyidaw International Airports are operated by Asia World, another corporation with deep ties to the Tatmadaw. Asia World is also involved in constructing the Chinese-funded deep-sea port at Kyaukpyu, where Rohingya were butchered and burned out of their homes in an organised campaign of violence in 2012.  "There would be global outcry if any entity declared the labour camps at Auschwitz are to be opened for a commercial activity," notes Burmese scholar and genocide expert Maung Zarni (not to mention if those profiting included the architects of genocide themselves). "But that is precisely the moral equivalent of what Myanmar is doing with its fresh crime sites."  While a disco club located near Auschwitz was closed following international outrage, Myanmar is open for tourism business, the evidence of its atrocities carefully bulldozed away.  Myanmar's staunch supporters, India and China, also celebrated the inauguration of new World Heritage Sites in July: The Rajasthan state capital of Jaipur in India, and the ruins of Liangzhu City in China.  In the Indian government's nomination dossier for Jaipur, the famed Pink City is described in barely concealed supremacist terms. "Jaipur is driven by Hindu town planning principles," claims the document, producing a "more universal model" and "more advanced and futuristic vision" than the "Indo Islamic cities" developed "in a political context dominated by Islamic rule."  In fact, Jaipur's history is a testament to the deeply engrained pluralism systematically being destroyed by the forces of Hindutva nationalism. Echoing the Mughal concept of sulh-i kul (universal toleration), generations of Jaipur's Hindu rulers patronised Muslim mystics and artisans. During Partition the Maharaja pledged to protect the Muslim inhabitants of the city and asked them to stay - an "advanced and futuristic vision" indeed, one under existential threat from the extreme-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) currently in power.  In Jaipur's state of Rajasthan and other areas under BJP control, history textbooks have been rewritten to delete or demonise Muslim figures of the past, as vicious mob lynchings target Muslims and other marginalised communities in the present. Last year, the government stripped nearly four million Muslim Indians of their citizenship in Assam.  In denigrating Muslims as foreign tyrants, the BJP is itself parroting the propaganda of a foreign tyrannical force that arrived in India with an agenda to dominate and exploit. British colonisers "Benefitted from pitting Hindus and Muslims against one another and portrayed themselves as neutral saviours who could keep ancient religious conflicts at bay," according to eminent historian Audrey Truschke. "While colonialism ended in the 1940s, the modern Hindu right has found tremendous political value in continuing to proclaim and create endemic Hindu-Muslim conflict."  Even the iconic monument to enduring love, the World Heritage Site of the Taj Mahal, has been turned into a battleground. Some BJP officials insist that the Taj was originally a Hindu temple, not a Muslim Mughal tomb, and so should be renamed the Ram Mahal or Krishna Mahal (a theory debunked by the Archaeological Survey of India). Since November, Muslims have been banned from praying at the Taj Mahal mosque except on Fridays, by order of the Supreme Court: exclusion rationalised as historical preservation.  In China, too, the mantra of preserving heritage has been used to strip dominated communities of their histories.  Like the "vocational training" China has professed to be providing Uighur Muslims - thin cover for the internment and indoctrination of as many as three million Uighurs in concentration camps - "cultural protection" serves as a vehicle for forcible assimilation.  "China utilizes the UNESCO [cultural heritage] lists to gain international recognition of minority cultures, such as the Uighurs', as small parts of Chinese national heritage, allowing them to take only narrow officially defined forms," observes a 2018 study by the Uighur Human Rights Project. "The government frames its interventions in Uighur culture as 'saving' it and uses this to justify thorough control of Uighur cultural production."  This "saving" has involved China demolishing the centuries-old Uighur city of Kashgar, once the "best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in central Asia" according to architect and historian George Michell - a stop visited by Marco Polo and others travelled along the fabled Silk Road.  For modern-day travellers, the government has erected a potemkin version in which tourists can witness "exotic" Uighur cultural performances and catch a peek inside "authentic" Uighur homes: a cultural theme-park in the midst of the world's most intensive surveillance state.  In China's rendering, Uighur musical traditions have been stripped of their Islamic roots and presented as a branch of Han Chinese culture. Dozens of Uighur mosques and shrines - some more than 800 years old - have been destroyed by a state that now boasts the largest number of World Heritage Sites in the world.  From China to India to Myanmar, a common thread is the persistently colonial conceptualisation of "heritage" - as a collection of aesthetic commodities severed from the social context that gives them life and meaning, as cultural fossils disinterred from their human soil.  It was in the name of safeguarding humanity's "heritage" that European colonisers appointed themselves the rightful guardians of the rest of the world's treasures, while ruthlessly dismantling the civilisations that produced them. It is in the name of "heritage" that the United States parades as the protector of Iraq's precious artefacts, having illegally invaded the "cradle of civilisation" and ripped it apart for spoils.  Equally enduring, however, is the cultural resistance of the people who have been colonised, subjected to genocide, and dispossessed; the people who continue to bring poetry, music, dance, and art into the world, in defiance of the powers violently determined to erase them.  The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.


bbc--2019-09-11--Pope Francis in Africa Five things we learned

Pope Francis in Africa: Five things we learned

Pope Francis drew huge crowds during his three-nation visit to Africa, reflecting the growth of the Roman Catholic Church on the continent.  This was his fourth visit to Africa since he became the pontiff in 2013. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, visited just twice during his eight-year papacy.  The BBC's Religion Editor Martin Bashir accompanied Pope Francis on his visit to Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius. Here, he reflects on five things which can be learned from the trip.  This visit was an opportunity for Pope Francis to refresh and rehearse the themes that he has wanted to be marks of his pontificate.  Much of this year has been overshadowed by the issue of clerical abuse, with the Pope hosting a summit of international bishops in February to seek a uniform approach to an issue that threatens the church globally.  This was followed by Cardinal George Pell's conviction on five counts of sexual abuse - the most senior Roman Catholic cleric to be found guilty of such offences.  Pell failed in his appeal against the verdict, and he was returned to jail to continue serving a six-year sentence.  Escaping from Rome, Pope Francis used the trip to focus on promoting compassion for the poor.  According to the United Nations World Food Programme, 80% of Mozambique's population cannot afford the minimum costs of an adequate diet. It says that 90% of Madagascar's population live on less than $2 a day.  In Mauritius, which by comparison scores more highly on economic development, the Pope repeated his theme of recognising the needs of the poor.  "It is the young who are suffering the most," he said. "They suffer from unemployment, which not only creates uncertainty about the future, but also prevents them from believing that they play a significant part in your shared history."  Pope Francis was also eager to press the theme of conservationism.  In 2015, he issued the only Encyclical in history dedicated entirely to the environment. Entitled "Laudato Si (Be Praised), On the Care of Our Common Home", the letter argued that scripture teaches care for the planet as well as its people.  It was no accident that he chose to visit Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius. The world's fourth largest island, Madagascar has suffered rampant deforestation, with 40% of its forests having disappeared in the last 60 years.  The environmental danger is aggravated because conservationists say that 80% of its plant and animal species are not found anywhere else on the planet.  Similarly, the World Bank says that Mozambique has lost 8 million hectares of forest (about the size of Portugal) since the 1970s and, according to US non-profit organisation Forest Trends, it is now the 10th largest supplier of rosewood to China.  Whether speaking to diplomats or addressing a youth event, the Pope repeatedly stressed humanity's responsibility to protect the planet.  And he used assertive language to make this point.  In Mozambique, he deplored the "tendency towards pillaging and plundering driven by a greed generally not cultivated even by the inhabitants of these lands, nor motivated by the common good of your people".  And in Madagascar, he said: "Your lovely island of Madagascar is rich in plant and animal biodiversity, yet this treasure is especially threatened by excessive deforestation. The last forests are menaced by forest fires, poaching [and] the unrestricted cutting down of valuable woodlands."  Organisers said more than a million people gathered at a special open-air Mass in Madagascar. This was yet more evidence that the demographic axis of the Roman Catholic Church is shifting.  The roar of the crowd when Pope Francis arrived on the outskirts of the capital, Antananarivo, would have been more fitting for a rock star than an 82-year-old cleric.  According to the Vatican Book of Statistics, the Catholic population across the continent increased by 6.3 million between 2016 and 2018. This takes the total number of Catholics in Africa to more than 150 million.  While attendance and affiliation in Europe and North America are declining, the church in Africa, South Asia, South East Asia and Latin America is growing.  The final visit on this trip involved a two-hour flight to Mauritius. At the presidential palace, in the presence of civil servants and the diplomatic corps, Pope Francis referred to the way he felt Mauritius had managed to blend different races and religions.  "Thanks to this brief visit," he said, "I have the pleasure of encountering your people, known not only for cultural, ethnic and religious diversity, but above all for the… ability to acknowledge, respect and harmonise existing differences in view of a common project."  Pope Francis also asked the people of Mauritius to live up to their history.  "I encourage you to take up the challenge of welcoming and protecting those migrants who today come looking for work and, for many of them, better conditions of life," he said. "Make an effort to welcome them, following the example of your ancestors, who welcomed one another."  The purpose of the Pope's appeal in Mauritius, a Hindu-majority nation, was to encourage the economic contribution of migrant workers which he believes will help prevent inter-religious conflict.  You may also be interested in:  Whenever journalists travel on the Papal plane, Pope Francis comes to the back of the aircraft to greet us about an hour after take-off.  He welcomes the travelling media and then says a few words about the nation we will be visiting together. This normally takes no more than 15 minutes. He then walks down both aisles in order to shake the hand of each member of the press, taking time to greet each of us personally.  Since my wife and I have recently welcomed our first grandchild, I decided to show Pope Francis a picture of baby Nate, explaining that he was born to our daughter Phoebe and son-in-law Tom at the beginning of March.  He offered his congratulations and gave a thumbs up to the picture on my phone. He then said: "You don't look old enough to be a grandfather."  The cabin fell about laughing, though I was perfectly happy to accept his assessment.


breitbart--2019-08-22--WaPo Islamist Militants Targeting Christians in Burkina Faso

WaPo: Islamist Militants ‘Targeting Christians’ in Burkina Faso

Post writer Danielle Paquette noted that jihadist death squads have been checking people’s necks for Christian symbols, killing anyone wearing a cross, crucifix, or some other Christian image.  As Breitbart News reported last month, Burkina Faso Bishop Laurent Birfuoré Dabiré has publicly condemned the ongoing, targeted slaughter of Christians by Islamic radicals, warning it could lead to the elimination of a Christian presence in Burkina Faso.  “If this continues without anyone intervening, the result will be the elimination of the Christian presence in this area and — perhaps in the future —in the entire country,” Bishop Dabiré told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a Catholic organization providing assistance to persecuted Christians around the world  Since January 2019, there have been five major jihadist attacks on Christians in the country, ACN reported in July, the last of which happened in late June.  “It happened in the neighboring Diocese of Ouahigouya,” the bishop said. “The Islamists arrived and forced everyone to lie on the floor. Then they were registered, and four of them who were carrying crucifixes were killed for being Christians.”  After the massacre, the jihadists told the other villagers that if they did not convert to Islam, they would also be killed.  These targeted killings “followed attacks on churches in the West African nation that have left at least two dozen people dead since February,” Ms. Paquette stated in her Wednesday piece.  “A spreading Islamist insurgency has transformed Burkina Faso from a peaceful country known for farming, a celebrated film festival and religious tolerance into a hotbed of extremism,” she said.  She also noted that attacks by militants with ties to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda “have quadrupled since 2017 in Burkina Faso,” and the environment of terror has driven some 70,000 people from their homes since January.  Paquette said that the attacks specifically aimed at Christians “signal a shift in the militants’ strategy from indiscriminate gunfire to attempts at dividing communities,” citing Chrysogone Zougmore, president of the Burkinabe Movement for Human and Peoples’ Rights.  “They are planting seeds of a religious conflict,” Zougmore said. “They want to create hate. They want to create differences between us.”  Last February, a team of jihadists opened fire on a customs post in southern Burkina Faso, slaying a missionary priest as well as four customs officials.  Father Antonio César Fernandez Fernandez, a Spanish priest of the Salesian order, had been working as a missionary in Africa for the last 37 years and helped found the first Salesian community in Togo in 1982.  The 72-year-old priest was riding in a car with other Salesians when the attack occurred, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the southern border of Burkina Faso. He was killed by three gunshot wounds but his companions escaped unharmed.  The three men were returning from Lome, Togo, where they had participated in the first session of the provincial chapter of the Salesians of Francophone West Africa.


drudgereport--2019-04-16--Muslims convert to Christianity in town once besieged by ISIS

Muslims convert to Christianity in town once besieged by ISIS...

KOBANI, Syria (Reuters) - A community of Syrians who converted to Christianity from Islam is growing in Kobani, a town besieged by Islamic State for months, and where the tide turned against the militants four years ago.  The converts say the experience of war and the onslaught of a group claiming to fight for Islam pushed them toward their new faith. After a number of families converted, the Syrian-Turkish border town’s first evangelical church opened last year.  Islamic State militants were beaten back by U.S. air strikes and Kurdish fighters at Kobani in early 2015, in a reversal of fortune after taking over swaths of Iraq and Syria. After years of fighting, U.S.-backed forces fully ended the group’s control over populated territory last month.  Though Islamic State’s ultra-radical interpretation of Sunni Islam has been repudiated by the Islamic mainstream, the legacy of its violence has affected perceptions of faith.  Many in the mostly Kurdish areas of northern Syria, whose urban centers are often secular, say agnosticism has strengthened and in the case of Kobani, Christianity.  Christianity is one of the region’s minority faiths that was persecuted by Islamic State.  Critics view the new converts with suspicion, accusing them of seeking personal gain such as financial help from Christian organizations working in the region, jobs and enhanced prospects of emigration to European countries.  The newly-converted Christians of Kobani deny those accusations. They say their conversion was a matter of faith.  “After the war with Islamic State people were looking for the right path, and distancing themselves from Islam,” said Omar Firas, the founder of Kobani’s evangelical church. “People were scared and felt lost.”  Firas works for a Christian aid group at a nearby camp for displaced people that helped set up the church.  He said around 20 families, or around 80 to 100 people, in Kobani now worship there. They have not changed their names.  “We meet on Tuesdays and hold a service on Fridays. It is open to anyone who wants to join,” he said.  The church’s current pastor, Zani Bakr, 34, arrived last year from Afrin, a town in northern Syria. He converted in 2007.  “This was painted by IS as a religious conflict, using religious slogans. Because of this a lot of Kurds lost trust in religion generally, not just Islam,” he said.  Many became atheist or agnostic. “But many others became Christian. Scores here and more in Afrin.”  One man, who lost an arm in an explosion in Kobani and fled to Turkey for medical treatment, said he met Kurdish and Turkish converts there and eventually decided to join them.  “They seemed happy and all talked about love. That’s when I decided to follow Jesus’s teachings,” Maxim Ahmed, 22, said, adding that several friends and family were now interested in coming to the new church.  Some in Kobani reject the growing Christian presence. They say Western Christian aid groups and missionaries have exploited the chaos and trauma of war to convert people and that local newcomers to the religion see an opportunity for personal gain.  “Many people think that they are somehow benefiting from this, maybe for material gain or because of the perception that Christians who seek asylum abroad get preferential treatment,” said Salih Naasan, a real estate worker and former Arabic teacher.  Thousands of Christians have fled the region over decades of sectarian strife. From Syria they have often headed for Lebanon and European countries.  U.S. President Donald Trump in 2017 banned entry for all Syrian refugees indefinitely and imposed a 90-day ban on travel from several other predominantly Muslim countries.  “It might be a reaction to Daesh (Islamic State) but I don’t see the positives. It just adds another religious and sectarian dimension which in a community like this will lead to tension,” said Naasan, a practicing Muslim.  Naasan like the vast majority of Muslims rejects Islamic State’s narrow and brutal interpretation of Islam. The group enslaved and killed thousands of people from all faiths, reserving particular brutality for minorities such as the Yazidis of northern Iraq.  Most Christians preferred not to give their names or be interviewed, saying they fear reaction from conservative sectors of society.  The population of Kobani and its surroundings has neared its original 200,000 after people returned, although only 40,000 live in the town itself, much of which lies in ruins.


eveningstandard--2019-01-18--Mary Queen of Scots review Itaposs queen vs queen but the audience are the real losers here

Mary Queen of Scots review: It's queen vs queen, but the audience are the real losers here

In a spooky accident of timing, the screening of Mary Queen of Scots began at the literal moment Murray King of Scots entered his supposedly final set of tennis.  This account of Mary Stuart’s demise would be a painful watch in any circumstances. By keeping me from following Sir Andy’s, it compounded the agony. The film opens with Mary’s execution in 1587 by order of her cousin Elizabeth I, before jumping back to tell the story of the rivalry between the warring queens. Like all our history, it stems from Henry VIII’s extrication of England from Vatican rule, the original Brexit, and the religious conflicts that ensued.  Two years after the protestant Elizabeth (Margot Robbie) inherited the English throne, devoutly Catholic Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan) became Scotland’s queen at five days old. Raised in exile at the French Valois court, at 16 she became queen consort of France via marriage to Francis II.  When Franky dies a couple of years later, Mary sails home to Edinburgh, ginger hair swept up into a fan and a gleam of steel in her eyes, to begin pushing her claim to the English crown she believes is hers by divine right.  But enough with the tedious history lesson. That isn’t my job. That’s the job of Beau Willimon’s stiflingly expository screenplay, which moonlights as the undergraduate lecture David Starkey would give after a partial lobotomy.  If it takes a few liberties with the facts, it isn’t the first Mary vs Liz drama to fabricate a face-to-face showdown between women who never met. It is equally entitled to pepper the Tudor court with advisers of colour (the excellent Adrian Lester among them, as Elizabeth’s ambassador to the Scottish court, Thomas Randolph).  But when the inclusivity retro-fitting extends to its subject’s moral sensibilities, credibility loses its head to the axe of virtue signalling. Unlike Yorgos Lanthimos’s delectable historical drama The Favourite, about the later Stuart monarch Queen Anne, the only laugh here is unintended.  In her cold stone castle suffused with flickering candlelight and lute music, Mary finds courtier David Rizzio (Ismael Cruz Córdova) dancing in a ball gown. “Be whoever you wish to be,” she tells him. “You make a lovely sister.”  It’s a sentiment that most of us would share here in 2019. But would an early-modern woman in thrall to the strictures of Rome, as introduced to us chanting the mass in Latin, come over all Oprah about that? Would she be so nonchalant on finding Rizzio in bed with Lord Darnley (Jack Lowden), her poisonous second husband?  Ronan, a sensational talent, does her heroic best. She looks right and switches effortlessly from perfect French to a spot-on, high-born Edinburgh brogue. But the part is so imprecisely written that she cannot find the definition to make her real.  As Elizabeth, who sublimates her libido into weaving ribbons into roses while Mary optimistically slips her fingers into Darnley’s knickers, Robbie is wildly miscast. Dead glam even after smallpox has ravaged her features, she sounds less convincing than she looks. She only excises the traces of her native Aussie twang in the invented woodland meeting that belatedly brings the film to life.  Until then, it is a turgid, soporific snorefest that thinks itself bold for showing Mary’s menstrual blood stain  but is wholly anaemic. It feels like part misrouted stage play (director Josie Rourke made her name at the Donmar), part treachery-laden political intriguer (Willimon wrote House of Cards), part under-budgeted Eighties TV costume drama (the battle scenes are woefully underpopulated) and part monstrously elongated Scottish Tourist Board promo (yeah, we knew the countryside is exquisite).  What it never does is locate its subject’s heart. Even when her arrest and removal to England separates her from the baby who is destined to realise her dynastic dream as James I of England and VI of Scotland, she rouses not a droplet of empathy.  In so far as the film has a heart of its own, it beats with a metronomic message about how the women’s desire for sisterly friendship is perverted into lethal enmity by the men seeking to control them. “How cruel men are,” murmurs Elizabeth, pile-driving the point home when advised against sending an army to ousted Mary’s aid.  The paradox is that the film infantilises the women it wants to lionise — as if these sovereigns were incapable of hating each other without male manipulation. A rabbinically bearded David Tennant lends a slither of gumption as the protestant hellfire preacher John Knox, ranting about Mary being the whore of Rome. Guy Pearce bests Robbie by masking his Australian timbre as Elizabeth’s cunning counsellor, William Cecil.  But these are measly scraps to set before a pair of queens whose captivating fight for supremacy is reduced to a mechanical power struggle with the soapy flavour of Frank Underwood’s White House.  By ignoring Mary’s presumed involvement in the murder of Lord Darnley, whom she tenderly cradles in his death throes, the film attempts to launder her reputation. If they really wanted to endear her to us, they should have shown her playing golf at St Andrews, as Mary did, days after his death. An eagle on the long 13th might have done it. The route to transforming a Scot from an English hate figure into an English love object runs not through sanctifying cinema but ungodly sporting brilliance, as the career of Murray King of Scots attests


freedombunker--2019-08-31--Can Private Cities Help Solve the Refugee Crisis

Can Private Cities Help Solve the Refugee Crisis?

At present, 70 million people worldwide are fleeing from their homes, mostly as a result of armed conflict. Think of Za’atari, the great tent city, which is composed of 80,000 refugees and NGO workers making it Jordan’s fourth-largest city.  Normally, war refugees find shelter in neighboring countries and return home after the conflict has passed. But this option can be difficult, if not impossible. As long as conflict and persecution persist at home, the refugees will be denied reentry or belong to an oppressed minority. Beleaguered refugees are forced to find new homes elsewhere.  The situation becomes more dramatic when one considers the extent of non-war-related migration.  According to a Gallup survey from 2017, nearly 710 million people want to leave their homeland, mostly from African and Arab states. Their preferred destinations are Western states.  From a humanitarian perspective, this is understandable. Western states offer greater opportunities. But when the number of those willing to emigrate is high, helping immigrants integrate can be problematic, even in stable industrialized countries. Conflicts are programmed into this scenario.  But it doesn’t have to be this way. Shouldn’t asylum seekers be offered opportunities—somewhere—to prove themselves and improve their lives?  Migrant cities based on the concept of free private cities would be one such option. Think of these as “Special Economic Zone Plus,” that is, semi-autonomous areas run as profit-oriented companies. For a one-year fee, the operating company could guarantee the protection of life, freedom, and property in a defined territory.  Free private cities would include basic infrastructure, police, fire brigade, emergency rescue, a legal framework, and independent jurisdiction that would allow residents to enforce their legitimate claims through a regulated process.  Migrant cities are therefore free private cities for refugees and migrants, providing a reliable, on-the-ground, legal framework.  Furthermore, free private cities offer opportunities for migrants easily to acquire real estate, as well as to import and export goods without corruption. Establishing a company should be quick and easy. These are precisely the conditions usually missing in the countries of emigration that therefore hinder economic development.  First, it is necessary for free private cities to secure appropriate territories in a given host country. The establishment of such a territory requires an agreement between the respective government and the private operator. It makes sense for such an agreement not only to be concluded between the private operator of the private city and the host country but also to have other countries’ governments sign, acting as quasi-guarantors of the migrant city.  For example, the contractual parties would agree to respect fundamental rights and international agreements in a free private city, such as prohibitions against inhumane working conditions, human trafficking, and money laundering.  States can be persuaded of the value of free private cities if they expect to benefit from them.  Nevertheless, the advantages that would come from migrant cities run by private companies are not to be underestimated. Because no country likes to have territory within their own jurisdiction managed by foreign powers, adoption of free private cities is likely to be much higher if a host state takes over the administration but leaves the free private cities legal framework as a carveout from the host-state’s status-quo institutions.  Under international law, the private city would be still part of the host country but would constitute a special administrative area that maintains its own rules, its own jurisdiction, and its own security. A comparable example is the status that Hong Kong has vis-à-vis China. Such a regime can initially be put in place for a period of time—for example, 50 years—long enough to provide security for residents and investors.  States can be persuaded of the value of free private cities if they expect to benefit from them. That’s precisely why a belt of densely populated and prosperous areas has formed around the city-states of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Monaco. These newly-created areas belong to the surrounding states. If similar metropolitan areas emerge in a previously underdeveloped area, then this is also just good business for the host country.  In conflict areas, it’s essential to protect the migrant city from the outside. The city itself should be absolutely neutral, like the Swiss model, and should abstain from any interference in conflicts nearby or far away. External security should not be provided by local forces, then, but by internationally active and recognized security companies. This is especially true if one wants to avoid the presence of military troops from other states. If other guarantor states have signed the contract, they can provide a security guarantee for the migrant city.  What about security within the city?  Here, a certain robustness is inevitable if one does not want to carry over existing regional conflicts into the city. In the contract with the operating company, each resident commits to the observance of the rules, which include renunciation of violence against people of other faiths and dissenters.  Ultimately, a migrant city will only be economically successful if the personal freedom of those who have different beliefs is guaranteed.  A violation, on the other hand, could lead to the termination of the contract and removal from the city. Each resident declares in advance in the covenant contract that he or she is prepared to leave in such a scenario. If this is not possible, the city sets up a reception center that the expelled resident can leave at any time.  This may seem harsh to some, but it sets the critical incentive to renounce violence. This is precisely because in a migrant city, it is expected that there will be diverse groups that may lack cultural and religious understanding. Ultimately, a migrant city will only be economically successful if, in addition to economic freedom, the personal freedom of those who have different beliefs—even non-believing ones—is guaranteed. Proving this relationship in practice is a meaningful way to take the wind out of the sails of fundamentalists.    Building basic infrastructure, security, administration, and a judicial organization requires significant funding. Given the policy component of the project, it is obvious that potential immigration countries will provide financial support, such as lenders to the operating company. This would not be a bad deal at all.  According to estimates, the costs of mass immigration to Germany in 2016 have amounted to 23 billion euros, and this amount is expected to rise to 30 billion euros per year by 2020. This amount of money would support the pre-financing of several migrants' cities in the affected areas. Unlike detention centers, after a start-up period, they would be self-supporting and, if successful, able to repay the benefits.  Newcomers with no financial means could be subsidized by the private city for one year—provided that the costs are to be repaid later once income is earned.  Administrative activity, including municipal services, is carried out by the operator himself or assigned to an experienced general contractor. This corresponds to the Sandy Springs model, named after the city near Atlanta, Georgia, that privatized all public functions and, after 10 years, concluded that the quality of urban services consistently increased while costs decreased by 10 to 40 percent depending on the administrative department.  Private security service providers are already exercising a police function when it comes to ensuring security and order in special economic zones. The operator of the city also provides a civil law system that includes courts. The idea is to adopt a proven legal system that offers investors security and is suitable for promoting economic prosperity, such as the Swiss civil law or English common law. There are already precedents for such imports of foreign legal systems, as evidenced by the Dubai International Financial Center and Abu Dhabi Global Market Special Economic Zones, which have both introduced legal systems based on British common law.  Newcomers with no financial means could be subsidized by the private city for one year—provided that the costs are to be repaid later once income is earned. This would reinforce the idea that the area is not a refugee camp that is run for charity or the United Nations, but a city that lives by and through its inhabitants.  It is important that migrant cities provide incentives for the settlement of more highly-educated individuals, entrepreneurs, and investors. Cities whose inhabitants consist exclusively or predominantly of people who lack literacy, education, and basic skills will find it hard to succeed. Therefore, each city needs to be able to choose its own inhabitants to achieve a healthy mix of quantity and quality. If the private city flourishes later, additional jobs for the unskilled will automatically be created.  The operating company will certainly have to pre-finance the first few years. However, if the break-even point is calculated to be 100,000 inhabitants, for example, and then 200,000 people actually come to live there, the company will make a profit. The reason is that police, justice, and infrastructure do not have to be doubled to provide the same level of service.  Due to the system itself, political conflicts in the migrant city do not even emerge—the less politics the better.  Alternatively, or additionally, it is possible to levy indirect taxes, in particular, value-added taxes or moderate real estate-related taxes such as property transfer taxes or property taxes. The operating company initially acquired the landed property in the area of the private city. The subsequent increase in the value of the land may represent a profit and allow for the cross-financing of other areas. If a particularly high surplus is generated, the contributions can be reduced.  The private structure of the city avoids the risk that in the event of a victory through election, the winner will favor a close associate or install a regime that jeopardizes stability or chases away businesses and investors. As experience shows, this, unfortunately, happens again and again at both the city and national level, especially in Africa and Arabia.  Due to the system itself, political conflicts in the migrant city do not even emerge—the less politics the better. Economic development, security, and stability take precedence over political participation. This can be introduced in a second phase, say after 10 years, with the residents then being able to choose the city manager or mayor or refuse measures or rule changes through referendums.  [Migrant cities] can offer many people a real perspective that they otherwise would not have simply because they were born in the wrong place.  Further, it is conceivable that over time, the inhabitants themselves become their co-owners through the allocation of shares in the operating company. This would bring about an alignment of interests, as the residents would then not only have the right of participation and co-decision at the shareholder meetings of the municipal operator, but also an economic interest in the prosperity of the private city.  The allocation of shares can be linked to a minimum length of stay in the city and the punctual payment of the contributions or similar criteria, which create incentives for good behavior.  Imagine a new Hong Kong or a new Dubai arising one day in the Mediterranean! This would have significant positive effects for all nearby communities. In terms of size, free private cities should comprise at least 10 (better 100) square kilometers in order to enable later commercial and industrial development. Ideally, the corresponding area has access to the sea and is initially unpopulated.  Guaranteed security, commitment to law and contracts, personal and economic freedoms, and refusing to accept political or religious conflict are all indications that such communities will grow and thrive. They can offer many people a real perspective that they otherwise would not have simply because they were born in the wrong place.  This article was originally published in German at the Neue Zürcher Zeitung


globalresearch--2019-01-15--The Fall of Biafra Landmark in Nigerian History

The Fall of Biafra. Landmark in Nigerian History

January 15th is a significant date in Nigerian history. On that day in 1966, a group of middle-ranking army officers staged a mutiny which overthrew the civilian government that had ruled Nigeria since it had been granted independence from Britain in October 1960. It began a concatenation of violence which led to a 30-month civil war that formally ended on January 15th 1970.  Tracing a line from 1966 to 1970 is clear enough: the mutiny which was led by officers drawn mainly from the Igbo ethnic group came to be viewed as an attempt to establish a form of ethnic hegemony over the rest of the country, a perspective which was consolidated by the Unification Decree announced by the Igbo Head of State, Major-General J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi in May 1966. The decree abolished Nigeria’s federal structure and created a unitary system of governance. The reactions came in the form of anti-Igbo pogroms in the Northern Region in May and September, as well as a counter-coup in July 1966 which led to the murders of Igbo army officers and soldiers. The frustration of peace efforts, notably that of the meeting in Aburi of members of the Supreme Military Council and Lieutenant-Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the military governor of the Igbo-dominated Eastern Region who disputed the legitimacy of the successors to Aguiyi-Ironsi, led to the secession of the Eastern Region and the creation of the Republic of Biafra in May 1967. This paved the way for the civil war which officially commenced on July 6th 1967.  But Nigeria’s drift towards regional and ethnic violence did not begin in 1966. A conglomerate state put together by imperial draughtsmen in the early part of the 20th century, the country was composed of over 250 ethnic groups who spoke over 500 different languages. The Northern Region was largely Islamic while the south, with its Western and Eastern regions (a Mid-West Region was carved out of the West), was largely Christianised. The south also led the north in terms of economic development and educational attainment. Thus, the stability of this artificially created multi-ethnic state was always certain to be tested.  The multiple elements of the Nigerian polity have often meant that a multiplicity of perspectives are in perpetual competition. For instance, the hegemony feared by sections of the country in the wake of the Igbo-dominated first coup was one effectively practised by the leaders of the Northern Region over the rest of the country. And violence related to the desire of the leaders of the North to ensure northern domination occurred in the Western Region as well as in the mainly Christian ‘Middle-Belt’ of the Northern Region. Corruption among the political elite, a fraudulent census, electoral fraud and trade union strikes created the requisite tinderbox which ultimately led to a bloody civil conflict.  Ojukwu’s declaration of independence was a measure undertaken with widespread support among the Igbos who dominated the Eastern Region. Most felt that they had been chased out of the federation and had been left with no alternative. The federal position enunciated by Gowon also resonated. If the Eastern Region was allowed to split from the rest of the federation, there was every reason to believe that Nigeria would chaotically splinter into smaller parts and that foreign powers would become involved in backing each of the warring entities.  The Biafran propaganda machinery driven by Mark Press, a Geneva-based public relations company, was skillful in setting out the grievances of the Igbos. The themes disseminated began by positing the rationale of the creation of Biafra as one that was predicated on the need for tribal emancipation. It also portrayed the Igbo cause as one based on a religious conflict between a feudal-minded Muslim leadership hell-bent on continuing the pre-colonial Sokoto Caliphate which intended to expand southwards, routing the animist and Christian peoples, until euphemistically, they would dip the Koran into the Atlantic Ocean. And as the war developed, Biafran propaganda utilised the images of starvation as a means of emphasising the claim that they were being purposefully subjected to a policy of genocide.  The evidence assembled appeared to back up the claims. The series of pogroms against Igbo civilians, the massacre of Igbo soldiers, the rise of northern Muslim soldiers to positions of military and political power, as well as the mass starvation symbolised by Kwashiorkor-afflicted children all offered strong corroborative evidence.  But this presented a one-sided and uncomplicated view.  Many of the minority groups within the Eastern Region, as well as in the Mid-West Region which was invaded by Biafran troops early in the war, did not want to live under what they perceived as Igbo domination. And many minority communities were subjected to brutal occupation by Biafran forces. The conflict was also not simply a case of Muslims waging a jihad against Christians. Many of the soldiers involved in the counter-coup of July 1966 were Christians from the Middle-Belt, and, indeed, the man who emerged as the Head of State after that coup, Gowon, was himself a Christian. Also the claim that the blockade mounted by the federal government was inflexible towards the idea of relief supplies being allowed into Biafran territory was not true. The federal side wanted such relief to pass through Nigeria while the Biafran government asserted their belief that such supplies would be tainted by poison deliberately introduced by the Nigerian side.  As military and civilian casualties mounted dissent arose within Biafran ranks. Some saw what some in the international community saw: that the starving millions were being used as part of a high-stakes political game through which the Biafran leadership hoped foreign military aid or even intervention would materialise. The leadership of Ojukwu was also seen as having a malign affect on the interests of his people. As Ralph Uwechue put it:  Divisions within the Biafran military led to the development of two factions: the ‘Port Harcourt Militia’ and the ‘National Militia’. Internal sabotage, one fruit of this division, severely undermined morale, as well as the effort of national self-defence. The early memoirs of the likes of Uwechue and N.U. Akpan, as well as later ones by Alexander Madiebo laid bare the divisions existing within Biafra: the civil servant against the intellectual, the soldier against the mercenary, the Igbo against minority groups, and the ‘Nnewi clique’ against the others; a dynamic based on the allegation that Ojukwu promoted nepotism in regard to his Nnewi kinsmen.  Added to this was the gap in knowledge between the elites and the masses, with the latter being manipulated by a highly efficient propaganda machinery and according to Uwechue possessing “neither the facts nor the liberty to form an independent opinion” about the option of seeking a negotiated peace with the federal side.  The skillful use of propaganda by the Biafrans, which included the organising of relief concerts, the use of Igbo celebrities such as the writer Chinua Achebe and Dick Tiger, the world boxing champion, was successful to a good degree in projecting Igbo pleas for self-determination to a global audience. But decisive help from the major world powers save for an infusion of a limited amount of French arms in the later stages of the war, eluded them. They had been subjected to a blockade and encircled early in the war. While Gowon continued to insist that Biafra had to surrender unconditionally, Ojukwu attempted to rouse his people whose ill-equipped army began to increasingly rely on what would be contemporarily termed child soldiers. After much delay, Nigeria began a final offensive on December 23rd1969, using the Third Infantry Division.  The end was soon in coming.  At a meeting of his cabinet held in Owerri on January 8th 1970, Ojukwu presented what he would describe as the “grim hopelessness of continued formal military resistance.”  He left Biafra soon after, claiming that he was going in search of a peaceful settlement. His deputy, Philip Effiong, previously a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Nigerian army, took over the reins of leadership and sued for peace. The surrender was arranged on the ground with Colonel Olusegun Obasanjo, the commander of the Third Infantry Division, and a formal ceremony of surrender took place before General Gowon at Dodan Barracks in Lagos. Dressed in civilian attire, Effiong made the following declaration:  I, Philip Effiong, do hereby declare: I give you not only my own personal assurances but also those of my fellow officers and colleagues and of the entire former Biafran people of our fullest cooperation and very sincere best wishes for the future. It is my sincere hope the lessons of the bitter struggle have been well learned by everybody and I would like therefore to take this opportunity to say that I, Major-General Philip Effiong, officer administering the government of the Republic of Biafra, now wish to make the following declaration: That we are firm, we are loyal Nigerian citizens and accept the authority of the federal military government of Nigeria. That we accept the existing administrative and political structure of the Federation of Nigeria. That any future constitutional arrangement will be worked out by representatives of the people of Nigeria. That the Republic of Biafra hereby ceases to exist.  Ojukwu’s final statement as leader released through Mark Press to Reuters reiterated the claim that the there had been no alternative other than to have declared a Biafran state. He emphasised the valour of its people in fighting against tremendous odds while enduring enormous privations and criticised what he termed the “international conspiracy against the interest of the African”, which he felt had played the biggest part in Biafra’s demise.  That demise, it was feared in some quarters, would be accompanied by mass killings of Igbos. From the Vatican, the Pope was quick to call for concerted efforts to prevent “massacres of a defenceless population exhausted by hardship, hunger and the lack of everything.” Such fears, stoked by Biafran propaganda were repeatedly referred to by Ojukwu in his statement who wrote that the aim of the Nigerian government had been to “apply the final solution to the Biafran problem away from the glare of an inquisitive world”.  It did not happen.  Gowon’s post-war speech emphasised the need for national reconciliation via the rhetoric of “No Victor, No Vanquished”. It was a claim backed by the fact that no medals were awarded to federal soldiers. Some Igbo officers were reabsorbed into the Nigerian military as where civil servants. And Igbos gradually returned to the north and other parts of the country.  The reabsorption of Igbos has over the decades nonetheless been accompanied by claims of marginalisation. This has often centred on two main issues: the amount of money allocated for the development of states composed of Igbo majorities and the fact that no Igbo has been allowed to lead Nigeria in the period since the end of the war.  In recent times movements have been created that have called for the resurrection of a Biafran state, the most prominent being the now proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (Massob). But protests organised by these groups have been violently put down and their leaders hunted down by Nigeria’s security forces.  In July 2017, a specially convened meeting of Igbo leaders consisting of state governors, legislators, traditional and religious leaders issued a statement giving their “full support” to a “united Nigeria”. It was a gesture aimed at diffusing mounting tensions, but their call for a restructuring of the country in order to achieve a “just and equitable society” underlined the sense of grievance many feel decades after the civil war.  Renewed agitation for separation has also served to reopen fears among minority groups of the former Eastern Region who alarmed at the inclusion of their territories in various versions of maps of a new Biafran state felt compelled to issue statements of their own. For instance in July 2017 the Efik Leadership Foundation (EFL), after impliedly disavowing their previous incorporation into a historical entity known as Biafra, accused the leaders of Ipob of attempting “to annex or conscript us surreptitiously or use our people, land and territory as (the) basis for bargaining” an exit out of the federation.  Aside from the persistent and widespread misgivings of neighbouring minority groups are doubts over the historical existence of a kingdom of Biafra for which no records, archaeological or other, can be offered as evidence. There is no oral chronology identifying who its rulers were, no accounts as to how it was formed or of its system of laws.  Today, there appears to be a generational divide on pressing for a separate Biafran entity with much of the rhetoric coming from younger people with little or no memory of the civil war. And with other parts of the federation implacable in their resolve to maintain the territorial unity of Nigeria, the catastrophic failure of the war commenced over fifty years ago must serve as a cautionary note for those intent on pursuing the path of secession.  Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.  This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Adeyinka Makinde.  Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.  Featured image is from the author


globalresearch--2019-01-27--Fighting Corruption in Latin America Politics and Religion

Fighting Corruption in Latin America. Politics and Religion

Here is the first part of this interview:  Brazil and the Illusion of the Rich: An Island of Prosperity Surrounded by Misery and Suffering  In the wake of the Brazilian presidential election where reserve army captain Jair Bolsonaro was inaugurated in January to lead the largest country in South America back to the far right, returning it to the narrower US imperial orbit while strengthening ties to the global bullies in Washington and Tel Aviv.  Frei Betto (Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo) served for a short period as an advisor to the PT government. He resigned his office because he could not accept responsibility for some of the decisions taken where he was engaged.[i] It is often said in Brazil that the PT lost the elections by their own actions—grossly disappointing their supporters—and turning the election this year into a protest vote, which the party governing since 2002 was bound to lose. Of course elections themselves do not change the power structures of a state. And the manipulation of elections even to the point of usurping the lawfully elected candidates (e.g. Honduras) has a long tradition in the “backyard” of the United States. Nevertheless the demand for integrity and fairness in government is not restricted to those “white glove” regimes of the North.  Frei Betto discussed the issues made central to the election hysteria: corruption and religion.  Dr Wilkinson: One explanation given for corruption is the presence of dishonest people in the institution.  The other explanation is that there is incoherence between the institution’s structures and procedures and the needs of those working with the institution.  The Reformation that began nearly 500 years ago was partly motivated by the corruption of the Church. Some argued that it was sufficient to purge the dishonest clergy while others argued that the rule of the Church itself was corrupt. They wanted another church or to completely reorganise the existing one.  The last elections have focused attention on corruption. The most publicised response was to put former president Lula in jail. What kind of corruption does Brazil have and what options are there for remedying it? Does Church history offer any lessons?  Frei Betto: Corruption has always existed in human history, including in the group of Jesus (Judas). To combat it, good intentions do not suffice nor the encouragement of the practice of virtues. It is necessary to create a political institution that inhibits and severely punishes corruption. This is the case in Cuba. The construction company Odebrecht[ii], responsible for corruption in almost all the Latin American countries in which it maintained works, confessed to corruption in of all of them, except Cuba. Does that mean there are no corrupt people in Cuba? Is there no corruption? There is, and I was invited to give a lecture at an important event of the General Comptroller of Cuba in May 2018. However, Cuban officials have to think long before accepting corruption. And in the work of the Port of Mariel, Odebrecht could not corrupt anyone.  Without this institutional mechanism that inhibits and punishes corruption, it tends to spread.  Not only did Castro give you the opportunity to explain the relationship between him, the Cuban revolution and religion (especially Catholicism). The book also shows your own relationship. At least this is what I saw after reading your prison memoir.  The presidents of the largest countries in the Western hemisphere, the US and Brazil, both claim their policies have a religious foundation. Does that make the present conflict in Brazil (and the US) a religious conflict too? If yes, what are the religious issues? And how might they be resolved? If no, what does the religious rhetoric mean—for those who are religious and those who are not?  FB: Religion, like politics, serves to liberate or to oppress. That of Jesus was liberating; that of the Pharisees and Sadducees, oppressing. In the medieval period religion was used to expand the power of the Church. Dictators like Franco, in Spain; Salazar, in Portugal; and Pinochet, in Chile, used religion to justify the atrocities they practiced.[iii]  Today, oligarchic governments, such as those of Trump, and neo-fascists, such as Bolsonaro’s, use religion to manipulate the conscience of the people.[iv] This is the “opium of the people” religion denounced by Marx. The religion of the gospel, liberating, is that of Pope Francisco, that of Saint Oscar Romero[v], that of Dom Pedro Casaldáliga.  However, the state must be secular. Confessional politics is to yield to religious fundamentalism. As most people in the West are religious, many opportunists take advantage of this to distort the purpose of religion and make money. They announce that “Jesus is the Way” but they are there to collect the toll…  TW: The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages was probably the great “mass media” of that epoch. Today the Mass Media- mainly owned by private corporations—plays an important role in shaping the perceptions of reality and at the same time creating reality when people act according to their perceptions.  An outside observer, following Brazilian history, cannot avoid seeing that there has always been a complaint about corruption in Brazil, in political and economic life. Yet for the past several years now the PT has been portrayed as the “most corrupt” political party in all Brazilian history. Much of the PT support seems to have been lost because people believe the PT was completely corrupt.  Is this a “perception” of corruption or a “reality”? Can you place the accusations of corruption in Brazil in historical context? The statements of many supporters of military government are based on the idea that the military is not corrupt. However the regime that the current president supported was also accused of corruption before 1986. Is it possible that the corruption that lost the PT the election is a corruption in the Mass Media, too?  FB: Corruption has always existed in Brazilian politics. The failure of the PT was not to react vigorously when some of its leaders got into corruption. And I must stress that there is no proof that Lula has been corrupted. He is an unjustly imprisoned political prisoner.[vi] But other PT leaders have become corrupt. A minority that greatly damaged the Party’s image in general. And this was well exploited by PT opponents in the election campaign.  The new Brazilian government, headed by Bolsonaro, has ministers accused of corruption and under investigation.[vii] The president’s own son, currently Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, will have to explain how one of his assistants, named Queiroz, handled so much money when Flávio served as a state deputy in Rio de Janeiro.  Operation Lava Jato,[viii] which investigates corruption in Brazil, is a very important initiative, but assumed a partisan character. It sends to jail the PT politicians accused of corruption and leaves in freedom politicians of other parties evidently involved in the corruption.  TW: When the CEBs began to proliferate in Brazil, one explanation given was that they filled the gaps left because the Catholic Church never had enough priests for the Brazilian masses.  The CEBs were both potentially democratic and potentially competition for the growing Protestant churches. For this reason even conservative clergy were willing to work with these new forms of church.  An analogy could be drawn in secular life. The size of Brazil has always been a problem for those who want to govern it. The country’s administration was concentrated in the coastal cities and the interior was left to the control of the private sector (latifundistas). This has also meant that even though Brazil is a rich country—with much natural and human potential—there has been great difficulty creating and implementing national policies that balance the great differences between the peoples and regions of Brazil.  In the 1950s and 1960s there were movements to develop the Brazil as a whole. In Europe there was a “redevelopment” after the destruction of WWII, which culminated in the European Union. Yet the difference between Germany and Portugal show that even the rich European countries are not able to balance the distribution of wealth between rich and poor regions. And now there are movements to break-up the EU. Do you think it is even realistic to make, let alone expect, successful and sustained socio-economic policies for the entirety of a country as big as Brazil—at a time when, at least in the rich parts of the West, large highly differentiated political entities appear incapable of such policies? Does this mean that all social-economic policy will be surrendered to the private sector?  FB: The economic policy of a country always derives from an ethical option. And in Brazil, except the two terms of President Lula and the first of President Dilma, economic policy was never aimed at reducing social inequality. The goal now, under the Bolsonaro administration, is to make the rich richer and preserve this huge inequality.  By 2018, Brazil was the 9th most unequal country in the world and the most unequal in Latin America. The richest 1% of the population appropriated more than 25% of the national income. And the sum of the wealth of the richest 5% was equal to the sum of the wealth of the remaining 95% of the population. 80% of the Brazilian population – 165 million people – survived with an income of less than two minimum wages per month (R $1,908). And 0.1% of the richest portion concentrates in its hands 48% of all the national wealth. And the richest 10% get 74% of the national wealth. And 50% of the population –104 million Brazilians– share 3% of the country’s wealth.  Note to readers: please click the share buttons above. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.  [i] Frei Betto published his reflections on this period in A Mosca Azul: Reflexão sobre o poder, São Paulo 2006  [ii] Organização Odebrecht, is one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the Americas. It was founded in Salvador, Bahia, by Norberto Odebrecht in 1944. In 2016, the group admitted to illegal payments to politicians in such countries as the US, Switzerland and Brazil, settling in one of the largest consent decrees in the world.  [iii] For a discussion of this topic see Karlheinz Deschner, God and the Fascists, 2013.  [iv] For a detailed history of Rockefeller overt and covert promotion of right-wing “Pentecostal” religious groups throughout Latin America, esp. in Brazil, see Gerald Colby and Charlotte Dennett, Thy Will Be Done, 1995.  [v] Roman Catholic Monsignor Oscar Romero was murdered by a US-funded death squad, while saying mass in San Salvador on 24 March 1980. He was canonised in October 2018 under Pope Francis. Romero was probably the most notorious victim of the US “Phoenix” political warfare operations throughout Central America. His elevation to sainthood has been seen as at least partial vindication of liberation theology in Latin America—persecuted both politically and ecclesiastically during the previous papacies.  [vi] Lula was committed to prison prior to the presidential elections (thus disqualifying him) by a judge who flagrantly disregarded the law whereby an accused is entitled to exhaust the course of appeal before a sentence is enforced.  [vii] The Folha de S. Pauloreported in the third week January that the investigation of Flavio Bolsonaro was suspended last week due to his immunity as a deputy and his election to the Brazilian senate. However new accusations have been made.  [viii] “Operação Lava Jato”. This is a kind of designation for police investigations into suspicions of large-scale criminal activity, esp. corruption, common to Brazil and Portugal (e.g. Operação Marquês, ongoing). Lavo Jatois a combination of investigations conducted by Brazil’s federal police into corruption, obstruction of justice, etc. that began in 2014.