Problem is not us women and booze: It’s paternalism and capriciousness in policymaking

 Friday, 19 January 2018

The other day the President of Sri Lanka went public expressing his intention to revoke a ministerial order revoking the notion that a woman of any age has no more maturity than a youth less than eighteen years old.

Excise Notification No. 666 promulgated in terms of the provisions of the Excise Ordnance published in Gazette notification dated 31 December 1979 contains among other things the following restrictions on the sale of liquor;

(a)Paragraph 5(v) – The restriction on “male persons under the age of eighteen years and female persons of any age” from working at places of production and marketing of liquor, provided that “Excise Commissioner in his discretion may permit the employment of female persons above the age of eighteen years, only as waitresses in licensed premises specially approved by him for that purpose”.

(b)Paragraph 11(c) – “Persons to whom Liquor is not to be sold or given - No liquor shall be sold or given….. (c) to a woman within the premises of a tavern”…..

Minister Mangala Samaraweera by Excise Notification No. 02/2018 dated 10 January 2018 has among other things revised the Excise Notification No. 666. This is a part of a broader policy of removing antique laws that restrict individual freedoms or economic development.

These wide policy objectives notwithstanding, at a rally held in Agalawatte the President had declared: “I expressed my view on the recent revision to the regulations on alcohol control to Prime Minister and Finance Minister, and the positive outcomes of my intervention will soon be seen.”

The President can have his views but then at a media briefing at SLFP headquarters, a member of the Cabinet of Ministers, Mahinda Samarasinghe has declared that at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers supposedly held on 16 January 2016 the Cabinet of Ministers has purportedly decided to revoke the recent gazette allowing women to purchase alcohol. The official report of from the Cabinet office decisions is not out yet, but unofficial sources have no reference to such a decision.

The President and Minister could be posturing in the context of a hotly-contested local elections environment. The right to buy booze is not the foremost problem for women either. Most women were probably not aware such a rule existed. What is worrisome is that these individuals in high places with power to make policy have no qualms about demeaning women in the process and the policy process in Sri Lanka is so paternalistic and capricious in general.

Paternalistic rules on women

Equating women of all ages to minors under the age of 18 should have gone out the window when universal franchise was awarded to both men and women in 1931. But some rules persist. For example, a Swarna Bhoomi deed can be passed on only to oldest son in the family. A woman who has been living with parents and taking care of them until death has no property rights.

We need to pursue these issues and correct injustices. Reading ‘Is Land Just for Men? Critiquing Discriminatory Laws, Regulations and Administrative Practices relating to Land and Property Rights of Women in Sri Lanka,’ a book edited by Kishali Pinto-Jayawardena and Jayantha de Almeida Guneratne, published by the Law & Society Trust, 2010 would be good place to start.

In another instance, it pains me when I note that the marriage certificates for my children have no place for a mother’s name. It was probably an acceptable practice when men thought that women’s wombs were like pots where you plant your seeds, literally and notionally. We now know better now, but institutional practices continue.

Another instance of personal note was the Local Government Elections Act of 2012 where in regard to women’s representation, the lawmakers then had the temerity to say that  “25% of the candidates MAY consist of women,” making women like me who campaigned for representation cringe at the expression. The present Government has removed the offensive clause in their further amendment in 2017 and included a 25% mandate on women’s representation.

Capriciousness in policymaking

The more disturbing aspect to the emotional or opportunistic response by the President to a sane policy is the general capriciousness in policymaking it demonstrates. The President’s decrees as Minister of Environment banning asbestos, herbicides or pesticides and polythene are cases in point.

The ban on asbestos was sheepishly revoked in response to powerful customer’s threats. The toxicology evidence and the economics argument countering the asbestos ban is another story. In the case of banning glyphosate herbicide again there were no scientific and economic arguments to back the decision.

Eminent scientists led by Dr. Parakrama Waidynatha is on record saying that policies were made without consulting  even the Director General of Agriculture or the many crop research institutes in the country and based on misinformation and fuelled by emotion.

Same with the decision to the banning polythene shopping bags.  Supermarkets now use low density polythene bags. What is the rationale? Is there less damage to the environment as a result? Have other economic disincentives have been fully explored?

In the past, according Parliament tradition, a White Paper would be produced and widely circulated prior to drafting a bill on any issue. The last white paper on any topic, according to my knowledge, was presented by Ranil Wickremesinghe in 1981 as a young Minister of Education. The paper was thrashed unjustly by the media and the opposition. Since then, having learnt their lesson, politicians including Wickremesinghe have stayed away from White Papers. Now it is policy by stealth or policy through capricious decision making in the Cabinet or on the floor of the Parliament. Stealth policymaking at least has some planning. More on that later, but capriciousness should be stopped.

RTIs demanding evidence

RTI is a tool we can use to stop capriciousness. My RTI request dated 10 December 2017 demanding “minutes of meetings, policy briefs and other evidence supporting the 2017/09/01 Order to prohibit the manufacture of any bag of high density polyethylene as a raw material for in country use” is still awaiting response from the Central Environment Authority.

By letter dated 15 December 2017, CEA informed me that they will respond within 14 days. Oh well, time to write another letter or make a phone call. No sir, the problem is not us women and booze. The problem is paternalistic and capricious policymaking.

CORRUPTION CASE AGAINST EX-CJ Peiris

Former APPEAL COURT Judge and Ex-Leco Chairman, the other parties :

Allegedly helping those involved in misappropriation of Rs. 260 mn Leco funds :

Allegedly helping those involved in misappropriation of Rs. 260 mn Leco funds :

Lakmal Sooriyagoda-Friday, January 19, 2018 - 01:10

The Bribery Commission yesterday filed a corruption case in the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court against former Chief Justice and former Attorney General Mohan Peiris, Court of Appeal Judge A.H.M.D. Nawaz and former LECO Chairman M.M.C. Ferdinando.

This is over an allegation that they conferred a wrongful or unlawful benefit, and favour or advantage on the perpetrators who had been accused of misappropriating funds belonging to Lanka Electricity Company (Private) Limited (LECO).

Accordingly, Chief Magistrate Lal Ranasinghe Bandara issued summons on the three accused to be present in Court on March 8.

The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption filed this case against the three accused under Section 70 of the Bribery Act. The Bribery Commission alleged that the accused had committed this offence on or around December 1, 2010 and December 30, 2010 while Mohan Peiris was serving as the Attorney General and A.H.M.D. Nawaz was functioning as a Deputy Solicitor General at the Attorney General’s Department. Third accused M.M.C. Ferdinando was the former chairman of LECO.

The Bribery Commission maintained that two committees appointed to look into the alleged misappropriation of funds at LECO had recommended to institute legal action against the perpetrators under the Penal Code for misappropriation and under the Bribery Act for corruption charges.

The Bribery Commission alleged that contrary to the recommendations made by two committee reports, former Attorney General Mohan Peiris and A.H.M.D. Nawaz had made recommendations not to institute criminal investigations against the perpetrators, in a manner of conferring a wrongful or unlawful benefit and favour or advantage to the perpetrators.

It is learnt that several complaints had been made regarding an incident on alleged misappropriation of Rs.260 million at LECO when purchasing properties to the LECO.

The Bribery Commission has listed 15 persons as witnesses and 19 documents as production items of the case.

SRI LANKA: PRIESTS, MEDICINE MEN, PROFESSIONAL POLITICIANS AND THE STATE

Siri Hettige, Professor Emeritus of SociologyUniversity of Colombo.

18/01/2018

Media headlines in recent months in Sri Lanka have concentrated heavily on the political role of Buddhist monks, agitations of government medical officers against the establishment of a private medical college and the increasing failure of the State to address many pressing social issues. These three matters are by no means unconnected. In fact, all three are products of a process of social and political change that unfolded over the last several decades.


As is well known, despite leftist and liberal misgivings about the continuing connection between the State and the Buddhist establishment, successive governments after independence have tended to accept it, either willingly or unwillingly. In more recent years, not just political leaders, but even senior state officials, having assumed duties of their new positions have routinely visited the high priests of the Buddhist order, tacitly accepting the need to have their counsel and blessings to conduct their official duties.

Yet, Sri Lanka is not a theocracy and the political leaders often have taken decisions that do not always conform to religious precepts. But, on some contentious issues, the influence of the Buddhist establishment has prevented political leaders from taking timely and necessary measures to resolve them. The most important one is the national question. Given the strong link between popular Buddhism and Sinhala nationalism, many Buddhist monks and laity resist any attempt to temper with the existing constitutional provisions dealing with the special status accorded to Buddhism.

This resistance to constitutional reforms is also extended to cover the issues connected with the relative standing of ethnic communities within the political structure of the country. Extensive devolution of power to sub- national units is resisted because it is presumed to be based on the idea of a more inclusive State. Given the fact that Sinhala Buddhist nationalism has been a major factor shaping public policies in post-independence Sri Lanka, it is not difficult to understand the above resistance. What is noteworthy is that many of the post-independence public policies have privileged the dominant ethnic community often at the expense of the others.

On the other hand, turning to the medical doctors who have continued to resist private medical education in the country, through disruptive trade union agitations, the main issue involved is intricately connected to the emergent social class structure and the post-independence State. The state-led development model adopted after independence in Sri Lanka stifled the growth of the private sector, and created an increasing dependence on the part of the upwardly mobile segments of the population on public resources for education, stable employment and other sources of livelihood such as land. So, any attempt to create greater space for private capital in the economy and the social sectors like education has been resisted by the members of the lower middle class dependent on the state for their privileges.

Public health institutions

Political parties, student groups and government medical officers who by and large represent the underprivileged yet upwardly mobile segments of Sri Lankan society have been able to prevent the establishment of a private medical college since the early 1980’s. Such a college would have brought to an end the almost monopolistic rights to local medical education that the underprivileged students have enjoyed for decades. This is in spite of the fact that the health care provision in the country is no longer confined to public health institutions and the private health sector has emerged as a highly significant source of healthcare not just for the rich but also for an increasing proportion of the not so rich.

It is against the above background that we need to analyze the dysfunctional nature of the state in managing public affairs in the country today. Sri Lankan state has failed to adopt a rational approach to public policy making due to the persisting or even growing influence of constituencies that have been accommodated by a populist State, and these include politically active Buddhist priests, medical professionals who have originated from dependent lower middle class backgrounds and the diverse aspirants to political office whose only source of subsistence and wealth has been populist politics.
The populist politicians by and large do not see politics as a way of dealing with existential problems of the ordinary masses through rational public policies and effective state institutions. Instead, they see these problems as opportunities for them to get public attention and offer piecemeal solutions. Many examples can be cited here as illustrative examples but poverty alleviation is a classic case in point. Political fortunes of many, self seeking, populist politicians have been built on this issue over several decades.

When state institutions are micro-managed to offer ad hoc solutions to long standing economic and social issues, patron-client politics comes to the fore, making political leaders at all levels the key sources of relief to many ordinary people faced with all sorts of problems. These politicians, instead of discussing long term, durable solutions to diverse economic and social issues in fora as the parliament, Provincial Councils and local bodies, roam around in their jurisdictions offering instant solutions to problems at an individual level such as jobs, transfers, school admissions, food parcels, credit, wheel chairs, roofing sheets and land.

Public service

It is against the above background that we need to understand the chronic failure of the Sri Lankan State to find durable solutions to long standing political, social and economic issues, making the situation in the country almost hopeless, unstable and volatile in recent years.

The continuing deterioration of state institutions and the persisting inertia of the public service have been the result, leading to the worsening of conditions in many sectors such as education, research, environment, public transport, public health and social security. Yet, many populist politicians continue to dominate the media, and many journalists continue to hold their microphones to them so that they can continue to mislead the hapless masses by spreading the myth that they have solutions to the problems that we are faced with.

Way forward

It seems that there are many gullible people who continue to believe them. On the other hand, the country still has a window of opportunity to lead the country on a more constructive path towards sustainable development, national unity and social justice. This is thanks to the political change that took place about three years ago.

If we could build national consensus among enlightened members of the public, public servants, civil society organisations, professionals, intellectuals, progressive politicians and other groups such as youths and university students on the need to take the country forward on the basis of sound state policies and interventions, it would be possible to prevent a downward slide to a state of sectarian violence, arbitrary rule and anarchy again.

( First published in Daily News)

The elders can relax, but can we?

  

2018-01-18

There are days when I run out of ideas and topics to write on. Those are days I suffer from creative blocks, on account perhaps of drowsiness or the languor that a full stomach tends to invite. All it takes to get out that block is a quick perusal of my bookshelves, a random flip-through of a book I’ve just finished reading, but sometimes even that method never works out. That’s when I stray from the usual topics I like to write about and instead read what other writers and bloggers from here have come up with. 

The other day I fell into such a block, and after hours of reading and thinking and still not coming up with anything to ponder on, I decided to browse the web. Browsing through several sites brought me to Malinda Seneviratne’s blog and an article he wrote recently, “Elders of the world relax, the kids are fine.” Rather tellingly titled, I felt. 

The article was basically about how young people prefer to look beyond ethnic and communal rifts when celebrating or protesting a particular course of action taken by authorities, in this case the deforestation underway at Wilpattu. There are those who feel that more important issues are ailing our polity in far more insidious ways and I would be inclined to agree (no one, for instance, talks about the deliberate robberies and thefts from the electorate perpetuated by the leaders that make possible something like Wilpattu), but for the time being let’s forget that. Let’s instead focus on the crux of Malinda’s argument: that the young who converged about a month or so back, at the Viharamadevi Park, to campaign against the destruction around the Forest, were far more perceptive about the communal-less-ness (I have invented a term there, I know) of the issue than their elders, who on the one hand were accusing the other of encroaching on their property and on the other reacted defensively to this allegation with the claim that Wilpattu has housed their kind for years. It’s an argument that merits scrutiny for more reasons than one.

The old call the shots. For that reason, what they say of the young in whatever sphere the latter operate in – politics, literature, music, drama, indeed the arts in general – are generally disseminated, promoted, and affirmed by the majority through the press and mass media. The idealism of the committed, who almost always happen to be young, tends to drive me a little crazy for this reason, since I have been conditioned by the old to accept the weariness and the disillusionment that goes with the passing of time: sooner or later, according to these elders, that youthful idealism congeals into its own opposite. This is as true for our young musicians as it is for our young politicians, who creep in with the promise and hope of doing something new, anything new, and to trump the conventional wisdom. They want to rebel by being pop revolutionists. How do they become pop revolutionists? By letting go of any desire to be committed to anything. These are the rebels that the sixties and the seventies bred, the flower power youth. We are seeing a resurgence of that flower power youth, here, right now, everywhere. 

Should we be worried? Yes and no. I have reason for hope and reason for lament. Before getting to the latter, though, let me come out with my rationale for hope.

I am sincerely emboldened by the new Youth Spring that’s taking the country’s polity by storm, be it the Viharamahadevi Park protest against the destruction in Wilpattu or the countless and frequent protest campaigns conducted against otherwise politically tainted issues like constitutional amendments and the bond issue. These are remarkably less politically motivated than, say, the demonstrations against unfair pay hikes, discrepancies between the private and the public sectors when it comes to medicine and education, and laws and regulations curtailing trade union action. And why? Because the latter, regardless of the idealisms of their provocateurs and agents, always turn out to be exercises in protests that are aimed at procuring monopolies and benefits for those provocateurs. The Youth Spring is considerably different, therefore more welcoming.

What of my reasons for worry? Call me conservative, call me outdated, but I simply can’t see this “Spring” as anything to seriously reckon with in the long term. I know some of the people who attended the Viharamahadevi protest and that less than half of the participants come from the Kolombian subset which is satisfied with candle vigils that go nowhere. These youngsters are hence committed, and not to political groups or ideals. 

Regardless of my reservations about what transpired after the January 2015 election, I am encouraged by the fact that the mainstream political parties (well, the UNP more than the UPFA, but let’s forget that for the time being here) consciously engaged with the young in a way that left the young in a state of disillusionment after those First 100 Days. It’s that sense of disillusionment which helped them become a class of their own, or to be more specific, become committed pop revolutionaries free of old political affiliations. And yet, even with this tide of youthful idealism, I am worried by the fact that it may well be a temporary phenomenon. It’s roughly the same story in other countries. 

• The old call the shots. For that reason, what they say of the young in whatever sphere the latter operate in – politics, literature, music, drama, indeed the arts in general – are generally disseminated, promoted, and affirmed by the majority 
• The article was basically about how young people prefer to look beyond ethnic and communal rifts when celebrating or protesting a particular course of action taken by authorities, in this case the deforestation at Wilpattu

And it’s also roughly the same story in the arts. If we have never progressed beyond the old masters – in the cinema, in music, in dance and drama – it’s because there’s always a disjuncture between the young rebel’s desire to defy what those masters did and the material needed to validate that act of defiance. When a particularly ambitious young singer lampoons the personal life of an established musician, he gets crucified, not by the old, but by the young (the reactions and comments that such works of art glean from his fan base indicate this only too well), and when another ambitious young singer sidelines another master with the remark that there are better singers from his age, he gets crucified again by the young. You see the point I am making here: pop revolutionaries, no matter how zealous they may be, don’t seem to have what it takes to transform defiance into cohesive action plans. That’s the contradiction at the heart of our youth today. 

Are our youngsters “disconnected” from their surroundings? The old seem to think so.
The last few years, however, have taught me otherwise. They may appear to be indifferent and informal (they have progressed in the way they address elders, because to them everyone is an aiya, an uncle, an auntie) but that is because they believe they know everything, so much so that they are willing to look beyond problems and realities to make way for their own solutions. To them, hence, the problems of destruction and deforestation at Wilpattu are a sign of political apathy, and not racial discord. To me those problems are remarkably and unfortunately different, because racial discord has become a living, material reality: no one can escape it, and no one can ignore it. But the allegation that this indifference to such discord makes the young uprooted from their reality is, at best, misconceived and a result of what we, the elders, think to be the correct attitude to such problems. The young are not disconnected, they are not indifferent. 

I rarely write about the young to this paper because I too, because of my conservative streak, believe that there’s nothing serious to write about when it comes to them. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t written on them at all: the various events that school clubs and societies organise, the music concerts, the photographic exhibitions, the book stalls and quiz competitions, I have gone through in this newspaper. These are all handled by a demographic that has, thanks to social media, and to the multiplicity of voices (never constant, always on the move) that YouTube and the blogosphere has brought about, is becoming more powerful in the country. These youngsters, from that demographic, are supremely confident of what they believe in. They may be erroneous, fundamentally wrong in their assumptions, but I feel that their beliefs are to be welcomed. 

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting schoolchildren who dabble in poetry in ways that trump and stimulate my imagination. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting schoolchildren who listen silently and reverently to elders who chastise them and then succinctly point out where they are wrong, often to their faces, if not to me. They have become emboldened by a false consciousness of their own strength. A false consciousness, because it’s buttressed by what they read, often do, but all too often engage in online. The internet and social media have democratised opinion, so when youngsters come across those opinions, they tend to be suave and smug, thinking they know everything they need to know. This attitude of being overconfident can in the long term be its own descent, but I see, particularly in those who can be referred to as street-smart and book-smart (i.e. those who think and do at the same time), a new hope for the future. They are friendly, ever eager to accommodate, but they can also get testy and sceptical when they are questioned unfairly. 

So yes, perhaps Malinda was right. Perhaps the elders should be relaxing. Perhaps they already are. Either way, we get the point: however smug and smart they (think they) are, the young can carve a different part, one free of political and communal parameters.       

FCID traces Udayanga’s Rs. 94 mn worth properties

Lakmal Sooriyagoda-Friday, January 19, 2018

The FCID yesterday informed Colombo Fort Magistrate that it had traced properties worth Rs.94 million belonging to former Ambassador to Russia, Udayanga Weeratunga.

The FCID revealed these facts after filing a further report regarding the alleged financial fraud that is alleged to have taken place in procuring seven MiG-27 ground attack craft for the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF).

The FCID told Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne that they were able to trace seven acres valued at Rs.40 million in the Dompe area.A land and apartment in Colombo valued at Rs.25 million and Rs.29 million have also been traced.

The FCID sought court’s permission to issue an order directing the Land Registrar to prevent the identified properties from being sold to another party.The FCID’s request is to be considered today (19).

On June 30, the Colombo Fort Magistrate ordered to impound two passports belonging to the former Ambassador in the magisterial inquiry pertaining to the controversial MiG aircraft transaction.

A diplomatic passport bearing number D 3643585 and a general passport bearing number N 5400885 issued by the Sri Lankan government to Udayanga Weeratunga were ordered to be impounded by Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne in accordance with Section 124 of the Criminal Procedure Code and Section 51 C of the Immigrants and Emigrants Act. Colombo Fort Magistrate Lanka Jayaratne had earlier issued a warrant through INTERPOL for the arrest Weeratunga, a first cousin of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa over alleged financial fraud that is alleged to have taken place in procuring seven MiG-27 ground attack craft for the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLFA)

Palestinian activists crushed online by the PA, Israel and Hamas

Activists are often arrested for what they write on Facebook, or even posts they are tagged in

 
Graffiti depicting founder of Facebook Inc Mark Zuckerberg on the Israeli separation barrier (AFP)

Kaamil Ahmed-Thursday 18 January 2018

RAMALLAH - When 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi slapped an Israeli soldier in the face outside her home, that brief moment in her small West Bank village drew global attention because it was streamed live to Facebook by her mother.

Tamimi has now been charged with throwing stones, incitement and making threats.

But the very act of broadcasting it has also been branded a crime by Israeli authorities and her mother, Nariman Tamimi, now faces charges of incitement.

It is perhaps the most recent example of Palestinians being deprived of their digital rights, something they face from all sides, activists said on Wednesday at a digital activism conference held in the occupied West Bank's administrative capital Ramallah.

"Palestinian digital rights have been repeatedly violated in the last two years, there are many risks and many threats to these rights," said Nadim Nashif, director of 7amleh, which organised the Palestinian Digital Activism Forum.

"People are arrested because of what they say, what they write on Facebook."

According to 7amleh, a group that encourages Palestinians to use social media for activism, the freedom to use the internet for expression and with privacy is a human right – but one increasingly under attack in Palestine and Israel. 

Palestinian activists in a restaurant in Gaza City in early 2011 (AFP)

A fifth of Palestinians, including those with Israeli citizenship, have been arrested or investigated by either Israeli or Palestinian authorities for sharing their opinions online, according to results of a poll published by 7amleh in 2017.

Nashif said it largely started with Israel trying to crack down on protests and alleged stabbing attacks by individual Palestinians in October 2015 but has now extended to Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip who want to silence dissent. 

"Unfortunately, all the authorities on the ground, be it Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza have fallen short," said Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch's Israel-Palestine director, who was speaking at the event.

'We're increasingly now seeing them using the same sort of tactics in the online space to make it more difficult for individuals to organise, to exchange ideas, to criticise'

- Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch's Israel-Palestine director

He said Hamas had arrested Gaza residents critical of it, including a person who had been tagged in a post about protests over electricity shortages in the blockaded coastal enclave. 

"We're increasingly now seeing them using the same sort of tactics in the online space to make it more difficult for individuals to organise, to exchange ideas, to criticise," Shakir told Middle East Eye, saying that traditional methods of repression used by the various actors were now also moving online.

He said Nariman Tamimi would have been within her rights under international law to film her daughter Ahed's confrontation with the Israeli soldier in December and that she had "pretty clearly" been arrested for criticism of Israel and not under international standards for an incitement charge. 

Electronic Crimes Law

For many of the activists at the conference, a looming theme was the Palestinian Authority's Electronic Crimes Law, introduced last year and slammed for being a broad and vague means to silence online dissent. 

Nashif said the PA chose the most draconian version of laws on policing the internet, copied from the United Arab Emirates who he said "even by Arab standards, this is the worst example." 

Read more ►

Palestinian Authority crackdown on media raises alarm among journalists

Many of the attendees took the opportunity to berate Samer Sharwaqi, a Palestinian Justice Ministry official in attendance, over the law. 

They also criticised Facebook's product policy manager Aibhinn Kelleher about the company's alleged co-operation with the Israeli government. 

Israel requested data for 509 Facebook accounts in the first half of 2017, the most recent data made available by the company, and provided at least some information in 77 percent of those cases. 

A queue of young Palestinians lined up to direct their complaints at Kelleher, demanding answers about what the social network does with data on its users, reported meetings with Israeli officials and the alleged silencing of Palestinian dissent through the platform.

Kelleher said there were "misconceptions" about Facebook's meetings with Israel, which she said "doesn't mean that we take a position" on its actions. 

'Our rights are being breached in a technical way that we don't understand'

- Jalal Elias, Palestinian citizen of Israel and law student

But some were unsatisfied with her answer, especially in light of the forum’s focus on protecting individuals’ digital rights from governments.  

"They fell short on that, they didn't explain this," said Jalal Elias, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who studies law at Tel Aviv University. "Our rights are being breached in a technical way that we don't understand."

He said the conference and the response from Facebook had made him more aware of his digital rights but also more sceptical about social media platforms and their role in political organising. 

It was "understandable" that companies meet with governments, Elias said, especially when they are threatened with being closed down for not cooperating, "but, on the other hand, do not claim that you harbour free speech and are a platform for the weak, because you're not."

Nashif said that was, in part, the intention of inviting companies like Facebook and YouTube – who faced far less criticism – even though they skirted the questions. 

"Bringing them here is also to make them accountable to the Palestinian public because at the end of the day, they go to the Knesset, to lots of Israeli meetings, which is good, but the point is they need to be accountable to the Palestinian users."

The fear I learned during Cast Lead has never left me

 

There was nowhere to escape from the horror of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead nine years ago, as Israel and Egypt both closed their crossings to Palestinians under bombardment in Gaza.Thair Al Hassanyabacapress.com

 Muhammad Shehada-18 January 2018

The morning of 27 December 2008 was as any other. My 14-year-old self put on a worn pale-blue school uniform, prepared my heavy bag and ran – late as usual – to catch the bus.

The bus stopped near my home in the Tal al-Hawa area of Gaza City, and there was the normal hubbub. Schoolchildren were crossing the road, young kids were crowding by the bus, hustling to get in.

On the short ride to our UNRWA school, I was chatting to my younger brother Salah, who was 9 at the time, about the cake we’d enjoyed the day before for our older brother Mahmoud’s birthday.

Just as we walked out of the bus the earth literally shook beneath my feet. Unbelievably loud explosions drowned out the screams and cries of those around me. My heart skipped several beats and all I really remember during the confusion was pulling my brother into the bus and down to the floor and holding on to him tightly.

I didn’t know it then, but at that moment – 10 minutes before our usual school assembly and 30 minutes ahead of the Saturday noon start for lessons – Israel had struck dozens of targets around the Gaza Strip in 100 near-simultaneous airstrikes. At least four were in the vicinity of the school.

Children poured out of the school, a human deluge of panicking students and teachers. Our bus driver ordered us back into the bus and tried to rush us all home. But traffic jams paralyzed the unpaved streets and people ran in all different directions.

No one knew where to seek refuge as giant black clouds of smoke smothered the city and obscured the horizon.

Desperately seeking sanctuary

The road home was blocked with rubble. Near the Arafat City government compound – right on our route – which was also the police headquarters, the rubble was mixed with blood and body parts.

Ninety-nine police cadets and officers were killed in those first moments, struck by five missiles as they were doing morning exercises and undergoing a routine inspection in the yard. There was chaos, with people pulling bodies from the rubble, ambulances zipping in and out of traffic, going this way and that, as new emergencies kept coming in.

The bus could not get us all the way back so my brother and I had to walk and run the last bit home. Tal al-Hawa saw several airstrikes on that first day, including on a former Preventive Security headquarters and the al-Asra tower block built – though never completed – to house those who had once been prisoners of Israel.

There was rubble everywhere and when we got to our house, my brother and I were terrified at what we might find. The outer walls were scarred with shrapnel, and inside, the floor was covered in broken windows, chunks of concrete that could have come from our walls or the fallen tower. Nothing and no one stirred inside. Fortunately, no one had been at home.

We asked a neighbor to call our mother, but the phone network seemed to be down. Unable to move and not knowing what else to do, we just sat and stared through the hole in the wall where the front window had been, waiting. Outside, we saw an empty dust-filled space where al-Asra tower had previously loomed.

My mother and four siblings eventually managed to find their way home (my father had passed away seven months earlier). We packed our bags, hoping we might be able to leave Gaza to find sanctuary in a family house in Cairo.

But we soon learned that it was too late. Both Egypt and Israel closed their crossings to Gaza at the moment of first strike and they would remain closed throughout the three weeks of Israel’s brutal offensive. We had nowhere to go.

Fish in a barrel

As the days wore on, the assault intensified. And the more we heard the names of friends and acquaintances broadcast as among the dead, the more this fate seemed certain for us.

We pushed the furniture against the windows and gathered together in the living room. We hugged every night as if for the last time, before we struggled to steal an hour of sleep. Above us, the sky lit up what seemed like every other second with airstrikes and artillery fire.

I regularly had to venture out to bring food home. There was little out there except for ruins and rubble. Israeli “evacuation leaflets” were scattered around, urging us to leave our homes; as if we had anywhere to go.

We were just fish in a barrel at which the Israelis shot without restraint. Hospitals were bombed, UNRWA schools were targeted. Death waited in every corner, and there were constant reports of overcrowded mortuaries where they had run out of freezers to store corpses.

With drones and warplanes in the sky above me and the shadow of death following close behind, I would walk an hour and queue for several more to secure the few loaves of bread that barely kept my family of seven alive.

Every step was taken in fear: I feared the buildings near me might collapse on my head or the cars next to me blow up. I worried that when I returned my home and my family would be no more.
On 3 January, Israeli troops invaded Gaza. As the reports came in, we were horrified at the scorched-earth strategy employed in border areas.

Over the days, they closed in on our neighborhood. Then one night, while listening to the radio, my oldest brother, Ahmad, 20 then, heard an unusual dragging sound. He shushed us and in that instant there was a burst of heavy machine-gun fire and shelling. The tanks had reached us.

We fell to the floor and crawled to the door, heading for the basement, which was also, unusually in Gaza, a garage.

There we sat, seven people in our small car, torn between waiting for rescue or trying to escape. Then the air filled with a garlic-like odor. We already knew it was white phosphorus … bad news travels fast in war.

The phosphorus rained down on the area like hellfire. We covered our faces with wet clothes and shut off the air conditioner, which we had turned on to get some air circulating in the car.

Every second seemed a lifetime. We were scared to make noise. We were scared to sleep. We did not dare move. We whispered and trembled for six hours until silence came with dawn. All this time, the Red Cross couldn’t enter the area. In the morning, a press vehicle evacuated us from the area, but there was no safe place to go. In the end, we decided to stay with relatives.

“If we are to die,” my mother said, “let us be together until the last moment.”

Betrayal

That day, our neighborhood fell. Later, I would hear how, at gunpoint, Israeli soldiers gathered the kids of the area into one apartment and asked them to snitch on members of Hamas in the neighborhood.

Some were even forced to open bags soldiers suspected of being booby-trapped.

A mentally ill neighbor tried to attack a tank with a hammer, but was disarmed, detained, handcuffed and shoved onto the floor of the tank. (The man, Muhammad Ahmad, was taken into custody and not released for a year).

A neighbor was praying alone when a tank shell crashed through his home and put him in a coma. He survived, but still suffers severe migraines. The Red Cross wasn’t allowed to evacuate civilians for two days. Many died.

By then, Israel had almost entirely re-occupied Gaza. Troops had invaded from the north, east and southeast until they almost met in the center of the Gaza Strip. And then the army began to retreat.
On 18 January, it declared a ceasefire and announced that the aim of the war had not been to end Hamas rule in Gaza, but to restore Israel’s “deterrence capacity” after its chastening 2006 assault on Lebanon and Hizballah.

When we went back to our neighborhood, it was almost unrecognizable. Houses were pockmarked with shrapnel and bullet holes, buildings had been destroyed by shells. Everything was turned upside down.

The area’s al-Quds Hospital had burned down, its ambulances broken and crushed under Israeli tanks, a supermarket had been looted and burned and apartments had been broken into and plundered.

Our own home was severely damaged, the furniture destroyed, its wooden doors broken into pieces.
In the weeks and months that followed, people waited anxiously for justice to be served.

We had hoped the much-publicized UN inquiry into the assault would do exactly that. And it might have had we not been betrayed in the end by our own Palestinian Authority, which had kept largely silent during the Israeli onslaught.

We learned that the PA agreed to delay a vote in the UN on the Goldstone Report after US pressure and in exchange, reports said – reports I believe – get an Israeli license to allow the Wataniya mobile phone company to operate.

Justice was sold and our people betrayed.

I was only 14 back then. Today, after two further Israeli military onslaughts, the constant fear I first felt in those days has become chronic. Sleep is hard: nightmares and memories prey on my mind. Loved ones are always exposed to danger.

My youngest brother, Yousef, was only a year old back then. He was passed from one person’s shoulder to another’s and survived that onslaught only to live through another two attacks in his short life.

Now, at the age of 10, his most vivid memories are of us hiding in the basement during military assaults, praying in silence, being trapped in darkness and isolated from the world, betrayed by everyone, and left to outwit fate in order to steal just another year of life.

Muhammad Shehada is a writer and civil society activist from the Gaza Strip. He can be followed on twitter: @muhammadshehad2

Trump tweets create confusion on GOP plan to avert shutdown; Ryan tries to calm Republicans

If Congress doesn't reach agreement on crucial immigration issues and pass a spending bill, the costly consequence would be a government shutdown. (Video: Joyce Koh/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

By Mike DeBonis, Ed O'Keefe, Erica Werner and Elise Viebeck January 18 at 12:56 PM

The White House said Thursday that President Trump supports a short-term spending bill to avert a government shutdown, as eroding support for the measure among Senate Democrats and some Republicans increased the prospects of a closure.

“The President supports the continuing resolution introduced in the House,” deputy White House press secretary Raj Shah said in a statement.

“Congress needs to do its job and provide full funding of our troops and military with a two year budget caps deal. However, as the deal is negotiated, the President wants to ensure our military and national security are funded. He will not let it be held hostage by Democrats,” Shah wrote.

The short-term spending bill would keep the government open through Feb. 16 while extending a children’s health insurance program, and rolling back several taxes in the Affordable Care Act. House Republicans hoped to hold a vote as soon as Thursday, and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) expressed confidence it would pass.

Yet even if the House manages to approve the bill, its fate in the Senate was unclear.

9 million children and 370,000 pregnant women could see the end to their health insurance, if lawmakers don't act. (Joyce Koh/The Washington Post)

Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Angus King (I-Maine), all of whom voted for the last short-term spending bill, said they would oppose the current GOP proposal. Republican Sen. Mike Rounds (S.D.) joined Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in saying he would vote no.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who blamed Democrats on Thursday for working to “manufacture a crisis,” said colleagues should plan to work through the weekend if circumstances do not change. He urged Republicans to hold firm in their support for the bill.

“Joining Democrats to shut down the government plays right into the Democrats’ hand. We are strongest when we stick together – that will produce the best spending deal and the best DACA deal – one that has a chance of being enacted into law,” he wrote in a note to Republicans.

GOP lawmakers had tried to make sense of Trump’s early-morning tweets, which seemed to directly contradict the legislative strategy of congressional Republicans by calling for the separation of a long-term extension of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) from a short-term spending bill to keep the government open through mid-February.

While Republicans like Ryan suggested that the president was endorsing the GOP’s approach, others found the tweets inexplicable and unhelpful ahead of a possible election-year shutdown.

[Trump pushes back on chief of staff claims that wall pledges “uninformed”]

“We don’t have a reliable partner at the White House to negotiate with,” said Graham, entering the Capitol building on Thursday morning.

“This has turned into an s-show for no good reason, and the only way out of this thing is to grow up a little bit — and I think that’s going to happen,” he said.

The back-and-forth was reminiscent of the chaos that erupted last week after Trump tweeted criticism of an intelligence bill that his administration had endorsed the day before.

Republicans’ goal is to force Democrats into the uncomfortable position of choosing between funding CHIP and their effort to win legal protections for hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers.”

[Bitter divisions over immigration, military threaten to derail spending bill]

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned Thursday morning that “it doesn’t look good” for the version of the stopgap set for a House vote and complained about the confusion resulting from Trump’s tweets.

“We barely know who to negotiate with. ... They point at each other and nothing gets done,” he said.
Some Republican aides said Trump was trying to be helpful when he posted his comments on Thursday morning.

“I think people are misreading this,” tweeted Brett Horton, chief of staff to House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). “The president wants a long-term reauthorization [solution] for CHIP, and this CR does exactly that.”

To senior Senate Republicans, however, Trump’s intention was unclear.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) — one of CHIP’s founders — sought clarification from the White House on Thursday morning, and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) suggested Trump was confused.

“I don’t know whether it’s clear to the president that what we’re trying to do is reauthorize CHIP long term, not just 30 days. I would understand his concern about doing it just 30 days, but we’re trying to do a long term extension for CHIP,” Cornyn said.

[House Republicans’ divisions threaten plans to avert government shutdown]

The GOP was prepared to target Democrats for opposing the short-term spending with the six-year extension of the children’s health program. The attack would involve letters from governors and statistics from individual states, according to a senior aide.

“It’s just confusing. I don’t know what he means. I don’t know why he’s doing that,” this person said about Trump’s tweets.

In several tweets before 9 a.m., Trump blamed Democrats for a possible shutdown and argued CHIP should be “part of a long term solution, not a 30 Day, or short term, extension!” Later in the morning, he again raised the specter of a shutdown.

“If the country shuts down, which could very well be ... the worst thing is what happens to our military,” Trump told reporters during a visit to the Pentagon.

If the government closes and its employees are furloughed, it will be the first time under unified party control of Congress and the White House. The military would not cease to operate, but troops would not be paid unless Congress specifically provided for it.

Early Thursday, some Republicans signaled that their patience with the president was wearing thin.
Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) said that the level of support in the House for the short-term bill is unclear and that extending CHIP would help avoid a shutdown.

[GOP leaders offer one-month spending bill]

“A lot of House Republicans want a six-year extension. It’s important to us,” he said. “That’s just another one of those inexplicable tweets that’s not very helpful.”

Another Republican, Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, said he was uncertain how he would vote on the bill.

“It seems to be a work in progress. No one has completely pinned down what’s coming next,” he said.

My Dream Has Turned Into a Nightmare — MLK

( January 17, 2018, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) Dr. King explains that the war in Vietnam undermined the fight for social justice by breeding insensitivity to the suffering of Asians.

MLK full interview with Sander Vancour (NBC) 1968

India’s missing middle class

Multinational businesses relying on Indian consumers face disappointment

Jan 11th 2018

THE arrival of T.N. Srinath into the middle class will take place in style, atop a new Honda Activa 4G scooter. Fed up with Mumbai’s crowded commuter trains, the 28-year-old insurance clerk will become the first person in his family to own a motor vehicle. Easy credit means the 64,000 rupees ($1,000) he is paying a dealership in central Mumbai will be spread over two years. But the cost will still gobble up over a tenth of his salary. It will be much dearer than a train pass, he says, with pride.

India’s missing middle class.docx by Thavam on Scribd

‘Crop Apartheid’: Malaysia lashes out after EU votes to ban palm oil biofuels

 18th January 2018

The EU is Malaysis'a second biggest export market for palm oil. Source: muhd fuad abd rahim/Shutterstock

MALAYSIA’S government has lashed out at the EU Parliament on Thursday following a vote to ban palm oil biofuels from its renewable energy strategy.

In a press release, Malaysia’s Plantation Minister Mah Siew Keong said the move was a “highly unjustified blockade against Malaysian farmers, families and communities.”

“This is a clear case of discrimination against palm oil producing countries. The EU is practising a form of Crop Apartheid,” he said.

Melissa Goh‏ @MelGohCNA

it’s Crop Apartheid . Malaysia plantation minister Mah Siew Keong lashed out at EU. The proposed ban on palm oil from biofuel mix is wholly unjustified blockade against Malaysian farmers, families & communities. A breach of WTO commitment

9:54 pm - 17 Jan 2018

Palm oil is one of Malaysia’s biggest exports, making up five percent of total exports. The EU is the second largest export market.

SEE ALSO: Malaysia: Anti-graft officials conduct corruption probe at giant palm oil company

In 2017, Malaysia exported approximately 2 million tonnes of palm oil to the EU, of which about 600,000 tonnes are used as feedstock for biodiesel. Additionally, another 215,000 tonnes of palm-based biofuel are directly exported to countries of the EU, Mah told reporters on the sidelines of the Palm Oil Economic Review and Outlook Seminar 2018, as reported by The Edge.

Deforested tropical rain forest in Borneo to be used for an oil palm plantation. Photo taken near Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia, in May 2015. Source: Rich Carey/Shutterstock

Members of the European Parliament voted on Wednesday for the resolution to phase out palm-based biofuels from the EU energy mix after 2020. The final decision will be made in a tripartite meeting along with the Council of the EU and the European Commission.

The decision prompted protests in the Malaysian capital. Chants of “Stop EU” were shouted by protesters outside the central Felda Tower as thousands of settlers staged a noisy protest against the ban palm oil, according to the Star.

SEE ALSO: Southeast Asia’s palm oil problem needs cross-border solutions

“EU accuses us of deforestation but we never cut the forest. We developed the land that has been used by our ancestors for farming over the years,” said Jonek, 66, who flew in from Sarawak for the protest.

Having been a palm oil smallholder for more than 20 years, Jonek said they depended on palm oil products for their livelihood.

“We will suffer without palm oil products. The revenue is used to give education to our children and build our houses,” he said.

Faces of Palm Oil‏Verified account @PalmOilFarmer

Farmers from across Malaysia joined together to protest the EU’s dangerous #PalmOil ban.

10:32 pm - 15 Jan 2018

Mah said that actions were being taken both by Malaysian ambassadors in the EU and the Plantations Ministry to inform the energy ministers of the “correct fact” regarding the sustainability of Malaysian palm oil. The ministry has formally written to the parliament and petitions are being prepared to present to European governments.

“This is a black day for free trade, because [the EU] discriminating palm oil is a very unfair trade practice,” Mah said. “To me, it is not about the environment, it is trade protectionism.”