Saturday, January 20, 2018

The poor woman who put Hissene Habre in jail

2018-01-20

Hissene Habre, the brutal former dictator of Chad, became the first Head of State to be convicted of rape, and that was based on the testimony of Khadidja Zidane, a poor, illiterate woman who feared Habre even after he fled the country 25 years ago.

Habre was given a life sentence in May 2017 of crimes against humanity and other crimes at a special court set up by the African Union and the Government of Senegal, where he lived for 22 years in exile.

The rape and sexual slavery charges were not even listed on the original charge sheet, and victims refused to come forward until they were sure that the trial would actually take place.

The Extraordinary African Chambers, as the tribunal was called, changed the charges at the last minute and convicted Habre of rape.

“Nobody could guarantee my security,” Zidane said from her home in the Chadian capital, where she lives with her extended family.

Habre was given a life sentence in May 2017 of crimes against humanity and other crimes at a special court set up by the African Union and the Government of Senegal, where he lived for 22 years in exile

“From the very beginning, I said I’d only tell my story when I was face to face with Hissene Habre. Then I’ll have a story to tell, I said.”

She was arrested by the Directorate of Documentation and Security (DDS), Habre’s dreaded Secret Police, as her family are Chadians of Libyan origin.

At the time, Libya supported rebels fighting Habre’s regime.

“My whole body is marked – look,” she said, showing where she had been electrocuted under her arms.

“Look,” taking off her headscarf and exposing her neck.

“They strangled me with a rope. I was struggling with Habre when he stabbed me here with a pen,” she said, pointing at her groin.

“I told the court that. Someone, who disrespects you like that.”

Zidane’s mother and brother died in Habre’s jails.

But at least I was able to face him. If I die today, I’ll die in peace. I had the opportunity to tell the whole world what he did to me. Thank Allah for that. He’ll pay in the afterlife for what he did. I’m happy for that.
-Khadidja Zidane-

At night, he would sit at his desk, smoking and watch as his men tortured Zidane, someone he didn’t know personally. Put back into her cell, the exhausted, starving woman would be recalled early in the morning so that he could rape her.

Habre watched court proceedings with the greatest contempt and called Zidane a “nymphomaniac prostitute” on his website.

According to Kim Thuy Seelinger, Director of the Sexual Violence Programme at Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Centre in the US, the verdict represented a “huge brick in the wall that establishes sexual violence as international crimes.”

He adds that it built on the tribunals in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, and would make a huge contribution to the jurisprudence that any future tribunal dealing with sexual violence as a crime against humanity would be able to draw on.

After Habre’s regime was overthrown, his Chief of Staff Deby became ruler of Chad.

He kept many of Habre’s henchmen in his administration, including DDS torturers.

Some were in senior positions and were arrested only in 2014, and convicted in N’Djamena before Habre’s trial started.

Many of his supporters are still moving about and working in Chad.

Zidane says that, after she came out with her story, she has received death threats, faced physical violence in the streets and abused in her own home. She says:

“When I came back from Dakar, people came to my house and shouted, ‘Whore, you went to Dakar to testify. Something will happen to you this year. We’ll do something to you.”

One said: “What would Habre want with an ugly woman like you, and slapped me.” But she is defiant and says she will not be intimidated. Her life has already been badly disrupted by her arrest and its consequences.

When she was finally let out of jail, her husband left her.

This has been the fate of other women, too, who faced jail, torture and rape during Habre’s time. Another victim called Ngarbaye was deserted by her fiancé. Another called Mouaba, relatively wealthy before her incarceration, was reduced to poverty in a week.

They were treated as spies by friends and even families as anyone arrested by the DDS was thought of as a spy.

Habre took 12 million US dollars from the national bank accounts when he fled Chad. The Senagalese Government froze a property worth about a million dollars and two small bank accounts containing just $5,000. Nothing else has been recovered.

The court has ordered Habre to pay millions of dollars in compensation to more than 4,000 victims who registered as civil parties. This is a lot less than the $ 250m that their lawyers asked for. Each victim should receive up to $34,000.

Campaign groups have urged the international community not to abandon his victims, and put money into a fund for them in case the amount recovered from Habre proves to be insufficient.

Campaigners are also owed the $129m that the Chadian Government was ordered to pay victims after the N’Djamena trial. President Deby has so far remained silent on the issue and has not set up a commission to deal with it. Zidane and other victims need medical attention due to the tortures inflicted on them, but cannot afford medical treatment. Most of them have very little money. Zidane says Habre’s life sentence will compensate for his crimes. “He’s been jailed, but when we were in jail, we slept on the bare floor, we had no mats – we didn’t even have cardboard. Hissene Habre dresses in a pristine white robe. He wears glasses. He eats fish. He eats chicken. He would tie our hands behind our backs and torture us, sit and watch. And after all that, he’s in an air-conditioned prison cell. Were we treated like that? As long as he’s not tortured, given electric shocks, dressed in dirty clothes, I won’t be satisfied. All I have to look forward to is death. I have no future – look at me. My life has been destroyed. What can I expect from life?

“But at least I was able to face him. If I die today, I’ll die in peace. I had the opportunity to tell the whole world what he did to me. Thank Allah for that. He’ll pay in the afterlife for what he did. I’m happy for that.”

Female journalists, male politicians and the epidemic of sexual harassment in Asean

By Max Walden | 19th January 2018

A PIECE which described “sexual harassment culture in Southeast Asia” has sparked debate in Malaysia this week, with journalists, parliamentarians and industry groups calling for legal and cultural change on the issue.

The report entitled “Female journalists, male politicians and the epidemic of sexual harassment in Asean” was published by Asian Correspondent on Monday, revealing testimony of female media workers in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Journalists reported being subjected to lewd comments, sexually explicit messages and unwanted physical contact while engaging with male politicians, which was said to be “sanctioned by the bigwigs of the media industry where senior male editors condone, or in some cases, encourage such behaviour.”

The claims reflect the findings of a survey conducted by the International Federation of Journalists across the Asia Pacific including Malaysia from 2015, which found that almost one in five female journalists had been sexually harassed at work.

SEE ALSO: Female journalists, male politicians and the epidemic of sexual harassment in Asean

Asked about the allegations by Malaysiakini on Tuesday, however, Malaysia’s National Union of Journalists (NUJ) President Mohd Taufek Razak said that sexual harassment of female journalists was “not new” and suggested that reporters use “appropriate ways to obtain news stories”.

“Do not wear clothes that are too revealing or sexy, decline interviews at inappropriate places such as nightclubs or a politician’s home,” he said.

“In the context of female journalists, particularly attractive ones, this [sexual harassment] can easily happen if both sides reciprocate.”

Taufek’s comments drew widespread criticism online, including from Malaysian parliamentarian Teresa Kok who called the response “terrible”.

Hannah Yeoh

January 16 at 12:06am

I applaud the journalists who have come forward to share their horrible experiences dealing with sexual harassment by politicians. This is not exclusive to journalists alone. It is about a safer workplace environment for everyone. The same can happen to sportswomen, nurses, teachers and even domestic helpers.

Sexual harassment can inflict guilt on the victims similar to rape victims being blamed for their attire. I hope our parliamentarians will not stop at pushing for legislation to prevent sexual harassment but the greater urgency is to roll out sex education in schools. Young girls must be taught about their bodies and their feelings - and this includes their right not to allow anyone to inflict on them a sense of guilt for feeling disgusted about sexual harassment.

Awareness is key. And these journalists have set the ball rolling..

The Institute of Journalists Malaysia (IoJ) in a statement commended female journalists “who had the strength and come out” regarding sexual harassment and called for a “halt to such practices”, as well as for Malaysian media organisations to come up with strong codes of conduct.

“Policies and standards must be put into place to address this issue if we are to see better journalism in our respective countries,” it said.

‏Verified account @SumishaCNA

Women journalists in Malaysia: how many of you have felt like you've had to put up with inappropriateness / harassment for work/ in order to maintain connections and access? (You'll remain anonymous in this poll, even to me, but my DMs are open too)

7:39 pm - 17 Jan 2018

“Sexual crimes are serious but sadly has been taken ever so lightly mainly due to the general gender discrimination towards women in a workplace,” Malaysian Trades Union Congress President Abdul Halim Mansor told Berita Daily.

Changes to Malaysia’s 1955 Employment Act were needed, said Abdul, noting that sexual harassment was covered only in a “minor scope”. The IFJ’s 2015 study found that 59 percent of female journalists who had been sexually harassed said that perpetrators were their superiors at work.

National Union ‘regrets’ initial response

After a backlash to Taufek’s comments to Malaysiakini, the NUJ released a subsequent statement in which it said “we realise that the dressing and appearance of a journalist should not be blamed as a cause of sexual harassment. We do not endorse such a stance.”

“The Union also regrets the impression given by specific remarks that appeared to victim blame,” it added.

SEE ALSO: Rappler’s registration revoked in the Philippines

Malaysian parliamentarian Teresa Kok told Asian Correspondent that “I will recommend the journalists concerned to expose the politicians who have harassed them in the media.”

“Boycott these kind of people. Don’t interview them and don’t give them coverage.”

But as one journalist was quoted as saying in Monday’s piece: “for the sake of getting quotes and information for our stories, we have to maintain good relationships with people in powerful positions, some of which have ended up abusing their positions.”

Additional reporting from Lee Lian Kong

Kasur child rape stems from subjugation of women in general

Saturday, 20 January 2018

Since the first week of the New Year, Pakistan has been in turmoil over the abduction, rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl, Zainab, in Kasur, a small town not far from Lahore in the Punjab province.

It is a pity that Kasur, sanctified by the burial site of the celebrated 18th Century Punjabi Sufi poet Bulleh Shah who had spoken up for women in an age of male dominance, should now be the “child rape capital” of Pakistan.

Shocked to the core by the rape and murder of angelic Zainab, even conservative and reticent Muslim women were out on the streets all over Pakistan to demonstrate their anger and anguish about the gory deed.

Men went into a collective frenzy, rioting in various places and killing at least two persons. The incident was grist to the mill of the opposition parties to lambast the Shehbaz Sharif Government in Punjab for negligence. Civil society activists took up the issue with zeal demanding that the authorities look deeper into the basic causes of such acts and attack the phenomena at their root.

The Lahore High Court ordered the police to catch the culprits at the earliest. Shaken by the scale and intensity of the uprising, the Federal and Punjab governments promised swift action. And for once, the police shed their indifference to social evils and went on an overdrive, if only to appease the enraged public.

The Additional Inspector General of Police (Investigation) of Punjab, Abu Bakar Khuda Bakhsh, told a Parliamentary committee that 1,500 persons had been investigated in the case. He also revealed that since July 2017, seven cases of sexual assault on kids had been reported in Kasur within a half-a-kilometre radius.

DNA samples in all those cases were similar and the suspicion was that the acts were committed by a serial rapist cum killer. The role of one Tanveer is being investigated, Bakhsh added.

Writing in Express Tribune, Hasaan Khawar points out that Zainab’s murder was the 12th such case of child sexual murder reported from within a two-kilometre radius in the past 12 months.

“Besides geographical proximity, other similarities in these cases include use of under-construction houses, crimes occurring between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., and rape or sodomy of children, before killing them,” he added.

The media quoted “Sahil” — an independent NGO — as saying that there were 129 cases of child assault in Kasur in 2017, including 34 abductions, 23 rapes, 19 sodomy cases, 17 attempted rapes and 10 abductions with rapes or gang-rapes. During the last three years, on average, there have been two reported cases of child sexual abuse every three days in Kasur.

The all-Pakistan figures are also alarming. About 11 children were sexually abused every day in the country in 2016, while a child was murdered after sexual abuse every three to four days, according to Sahil.

Again according to Sahil, only 78% of those cases were registered with the police. In 142 such cases the police had refused to register a First Information Report (FIR).

Social activists are sure that non-reported cases would be much more because of police apathy, parental fear of social stigma, and the possible involvement of a close friend or family member in the crime.

Hasaan Khawar points out that while the entire country knew about rampant child abuse in Kasur, the website of the Kasur District Police is totally blank as regards child abuse.

According to Pakistani journalist Xari Jalil, Kasur has been seeing social violence since 2014, when two Christian brick kiln labourers, Shama and Shahzad Masih, were accused of blasphemy and burnt alive by a mob.

A gang organising child porn, which was discovered in 2015, was patronised by a local member of the Punjab Assembly belonging the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz). The concerned member of provincial assembly was let off the hook, but the ring leader was nabbed and jailed.

According to Mamtaz Gohar, Senior Program Coordinator at Sahil, there has been an increase in rape cum murder cases. In Kasur in 2015 and 2016, four children were found raped and murdered in both years. In 2017 there were 11 such incidents. Gohar believes that for every reported case, there would be many unreported ones.

According to media reports other districts too have not been safe for children. Even as the Zainab case shocked the nation, the body of 15-year-old Sajida – raped and murdered – was found in a field in the outskirts of Sargodha. The same week, a molested body of 11-year-old Shariq was also found in Kasur, in a field. In November 2017, 10-year-old Ali Raza had also been sexually assaulted and murdered in the same location.

Legal experts tend to put the blame for the increasing number of such cases to legal and police negligence which is reflected in the very low conviction rate in Pakistan.

But social activists feel that the problem is located much deeper in the nature of Pakistani or South Asian society, where women, whether old or young, are subjugated and degraded in myriad ways.

As Dr. Shenila Khoja-Moolji says in an opinion piece in Express Tribune: “Rape and murder of girls do not happen in a vacuum. It is an effect of sedimented societal views about the female sex and institutional practices that reproduce male dominance in every domain of life.

“We (the men) live in a society that abhors women. We don’t like it when they enter the workplace and make it known through harassment and unequal pay. We ogle them when they are on the streets and even grope them when the opportunity presents itself.

“We are threatened when they appear as TV personalities and curse at them on air. We create a political fuss when a girl with uncovered hair is depicted in a textbook. We pass laws like the Hudood Ordinance (Islamic ordinances reinforcing conservative social mores). We police what women can wear at universities. We even reprimand female professors for wearing jeans!”

“We do all this, and then wonder why eight-year-old girls get assaulted? Who is responsible for this monstrosity? YOU. You, my dear reader, and I, are complicit in reproducing a system that views women as sub-human. We reinforce male privilege through minor, everyday actions from swear words to advocating for policies that make life unbearable for women.

“If we are so angry about what happened to Zainab, then it behoves us to first check ourselves and our views about women and girls. We then have to come out and try to hold societal institutions — from the state and the media to the mosque — accountable for portraying women as less-than-men.

“Indeed, in Pakistan, women are not considered as fully human. They are viewed as sex objects available for men’s pleasure, as upholders of familial morality and honour, or as domestic managers who will nurture children. Women who deviate from these pre-assigned roles do not have much breathing room.

“If men are so mad at Zainab’s murder then let’s see them give up their privilege and make space for women in their professions, on the streets, in media and in politics. Let’s see them pass pro-women laws or just implement the laws already in place. Let’s see them stand up and speak for women when misogynist elements want to push women to the margins every day.”

Myanmar finalizes Rohingya repatriation preparations as doubts mount

Nyi Pu (L), Chief Minister of Rakhine state talks to reporter about Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attack, at Sittwe, Myanmar August 27, 2017. RETUERS/Soe Zeya Tun/Files

Yi-Mou Lee-JANUARY 20, 2018

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar was making final preparations to take back the first batch of Rohingya Muslims who had fled conflict in troubled Rakhine state, state media said on Saturday, despite growing doubts about the plan among refugees and in the United Nations.

Rakhine state Chief Minister Nyi Pu “insisted on completion of the finishing touches on buildings, medical clinics and sanitation infrastructures” during a visit to repatriation camps in the state on Friday, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

It published a photo of his delegation standing by a long, wooden house that will be used to house returnees at the camp near the town of Maungtaw. A wire-mesh fence topped by barbed wire appears in the background of the photo.

Over 655,500 Muslim Rohingya fled to Bangladesh after the Myanmar military cracked down in the northern part of Rakhine in response to militant attacks on security forces on Aug. 25. The United Nations described the operation as ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya, which Myanmar denies.

Myanmar will start receiving Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh at two reception centres and the temporary camp near Maungtaw starting on Tuesday and continuing over the next two years, under an agreement the two countries signed this week.

Bangladesh will provide an advance list of prospective returnees with forms attesting to their residency in Myanmar, the newspaper said. Some returnees will cross over by land and others via a river along the border, it said.

Rohingya refugees at the sprawling Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh are balking at going back until Myanmar can guarantee their safety, among other demands listed in a petition drawn up by camp leaders and shown to Reuters.

Even as Myanmar gets ready to start receiving the Rohingya next week, more of them are fleeing continued military operations in Rakhine, newly arrived refugees camp have told Reuters.
More than 100 Rohingya Muslims from northern Rakhine fled into Bangladesh and scores more were waiting to cross the Naf river that forms the border, they said.

‘CONCENTRATION CAMPS’

Rohingya Muslim insurgents said on Saturday the repatriation plan was “not acceptable” and “the Burmese terrorist government is deceitfully and crookedly offering Rohingya refugees to settle down in so-called temporary camps”. Burma is the former name of Myanmar.

“Repatriated Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh will never be able to settle down in their own ancestral lands and villages, rather than spending not only the rest of their lives but also the lives of their next generations to come in those concentration camps,” the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) said in a statement on Twitter.

Myanmar has said it would build a transit camp that can house 30,000 returnees before they are allowed to return to their “place of origin” or “nearest to their place of origin.”

Government spokesman Zaw Htay did not respond to requests for comment on the ARSA statement.
Paul Vrieze, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) spokesman in Myanmar, cautioned that the returnees must not be rushed out of Bangladesh prematurely “without the informed consent of refugees or the basic elements of lasting solutions in place”.

“Further measures are also required to ensure safe, voluntary and sustainable repatriation of refugees to their places of origin and to address the underlying root causes of the crisis,” he told Reuters.

The UNHCR, which is helping to administer the refugee camps, is not involved in the repatriation exercise between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Persian shallot 'could help fight TB antibiotic resistance'

A type of shallot used in Iranian cooking could help "reverse the tide" of drug-resistant TB, researchers found

20 January 2018

A type of onion could help the fight against antibiotic resistance in cases of tuberculosis, a study has suggested.

Researchers believe the antibacterial properties extracted from the Persian shallot could increase the effects of existing antibiotic treatment.

They said this could help "reverse the tide" of drug-resistant TB, which infected 490,000 people in 2016.

But they said the research was still in its early stages and clinical trials would need to follow.

In the ongoing study, led by Birkbeck, University of London and University College London, the research team conducted tests on four different molecules from the shallots, which are a staple of Iranian cooking.

They found all four showed a significant reduction in the presence of the bacteria in the multidrug-resistant TB - the most promising candidate of which inhibited growth of the isolated TB cells by more than 99.9%.

The team concluded that the chemical compounds could be used alongside existing antibiotics to combat strains of TB which have developed resistance to anti-bacterial drugs.

The team concluded that the chemical compounds may work as templates for the discovery of new drug treatment to combat strains of TB

Dr Sanjib Bhakta, one of the study's authors, from Birkbeck's department of biological sciences, said: "Despite a concerted global effort to prevent the spread of tuberculosis, approximately 10 million new cases and two million deaths were reported in 2016.

"In searching for new anti-bacterials, we tend to focus on molecules that are potent enough to be developed commercially as new drug entities by themselves.

"However, in this study we show that by inhibiting the key intrinsic resistance properties of the TB, one could increase the effects of existing antibiotic treatment and reverse the tide of already existing drug resistance."

Prof Simon Gibbons, another of the authors, and head of UCL's department of pharmaceutical and biological chemistry, said: "Natural products from plants and microbes have enormous potential as a source of new antibiotics.

"Nature is an amazingly creative chemist and it is likely that plants such as the Persian shallot produce these chemicals as a defence against microbes in their environment."

In October, England's chief medical officer, Prof Dame Sally Davies, urged global leaders to tackle the growing threat of antibiotic resistance.

Medical experts say these drugs are being used too much, and that 25,000 people die across Europe each year because of drug-resistant infections.

Researchers said they hope the molecules, which were tested in a laboratory, could be combined with existing antibiotics to form new anti-TB drugs.

The research is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Friday, January 19, 2018

Sri Lanka: Supreme Court judge charged for corruption counter-charges lawyer for contempt

Judicial Corruption in Sri Lanka

( January 19, 2018, Sri Lanka Guardian) Supreme Court Judge Vijith Malalgoda charged for corruption by activist Nagananda Kodituwakku for abuse of office to favour former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has now charged the lawyer for contempt in the Supreme Court.

Activist Nagananda fights back

When the matter was taken up last week (16th January 2018) the activist lawyer filed in Court an affidavit setting out the basis for the charges leveled against justice Malalgoda then the President of the Court of Appeal.

Justice Malalgoda is alleged to have abused the office to favour President Rajapakse

The activist alleged in the affidavit filed in Court, that there was a Writ Application in the Court of Appeal by him on 15thDec 2014, challenging the nomination of the former president Rajapaksa who was a candidate of the Presidential Election – 2015 which was due on 08th Jan 2015, with a request made to the Court to support the matter before the commencement of the Court vacation (which was due on 20th of Dec 2014) considering the urgency of the matter. However, surprisingly it went missing from the Court of Appeal Registry.

The activist states that when President Rajapaksa was facing a formidable challenge from the opposition Presidential Candidate Maithripala Sirisena, the case record, which disappeared after filing, was suddenly listed for support on 2nd Jan 2015 during the Court Vacation and strangely the Attorney General hand-delivered a letter to his residential address on 01stJan 2015, a practice never adopted by the Attorney General under normal circumstances. He states that by that time there were numerous requests from many concerned citizens to withdraw the case claiming that the Presidential Election would be postponed in the event the activist proceed with the action, granting of the interim relief prayed for throwing a life-line to Mahinda Rajapakse to remain in power. Therefore, respecting the popular demand he filed a motion dated 02nd Jan 2015 withdrawing the Petition with the following submission made to the Court.

“… Whereas since the filing of this Petition, the Petitioner believes that the public opinion on the Extant President has been evidently eroded and in this background the Petitioner contemplates that the Attorney General who performs his office under the Extant President would have been instructed to concede the Interim Relief prayed for in the Petition to suspend the holding of the Presidential Election scheduled for 08thJan 2015 until the final determination of this Petition, effectively throwing a life-line to the Extant President to remain in Office for a considerable period, against the Will of the People that has been expressed by both in the electronic and print media since filling of this Petition … ”

“… And whereas in this background the Petitioner believes that the Petition filed in the national Interest could be defeated if preceded with it, the Petitioner withdraws the Petition, with due respect to the Will of the people and their Sovereignty that would determine their choice through the exercise of their franchise at the forthcoming Presidential Election…”

The Activist states that therefore he lost the confidence in Justice Vijith Malalgoda and on 20th May 2015 when he was due to appear before Justice Malalgoda in another case (CA/Writs/83/2014) he filed a Motion requesting the Court to refer the matter to a different Bench. That request was intentionally made to avoid the relevant submission being mentioned in the open Court to avoid unpleasant situation. Yet, justice Malalgoda declined the said request and called the matter before him on 20th May 2015 and informed the lawyer Nagananda that as the President of the Court of Appeal he would hear the matter by himself. Therefore the activist was compelled to inform justice Malalgoda in the open court that he had lost trust and confidence in him and therefore to appoint a different bench to hear the said case.

The lawyer Nagananda says that thereafter the matter was referred to the Chief Justice Sripavan by justice Malalgoda with an allegation of contempt made against him and he too made a written submission to Chief Justice explaining the reasons and on 28th June 2016 the matter was resolved by the Chief Justice with the case case (CA/Writs/83/2014) referred o another bench.

Justice Malalgoda charged for judicial corruption

The Activist Lawyer Nagananda states that he thereafter charged justice Malalgoda for Judicial Corruption for abuse of office to favor Mahinda Rajapkse and now the matter (SC/Writs/3/2016) is pending before the Supreme Court.

Contempt charges against activist violate UN basic principles on the role of lawyers

The activist states that therefore the contemptuous proceedings initiated against him for legitimate criticism of the performance of the judicial office of Justice Vijith Malalgoda is inappropriate and it violates Commonwealth Latimer House principles and the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers.

2018-01-16-AFFIDAVIT.pdf by Thavam on Scribd

Demagoguery, deception and decrepitude inherent in most contemporary democracies

“Demagoguery is a congenic illness of democracy. There is, though, the chance to keep it under control” – Dr. Rafael Piñeiro

Saturday, 20 January 2018

Democracy is well and good as long its erstwhile proponents and players remain committed to high attendant ideals, pursuing with some degree of intelligence and sanity (fast eroding with the ascent of Donald J. Trump). Surely one must be faithful and devoted to inclusiveness, diversity and multi-racialism regardless of the heat, mutating metrics or sinister opportunities the playing field could engender.

The moment insecure contenders see opportunity in unbridled and unregulated demagoguery, inherent deficiencies of a democracy get exposed, quite indecently too. Where there is no limits, checks and balances there is disarray and possibly fatal disconnections. When anyone can say and do anything without consequences a dangerous precedence is set. It’s even construed by some as integral instruments afforded in a democracy, is it? In such circumstances minorities and vulnerable sectors get exposed and varying degrees of harm loom against them.

It’s deplorable when the so-called leader of the free world makes overt racist remarks, reportedly criticising immigrants coming to the United States from what he called “shithole countries”. It’s unthinkable that such demeaning language is emanating from the President of the United States of America.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, the great warrior of Sri Lanka, an adept proponent of showmanship with intricate yet subtle proclivities towards demagoguery with his ubiquitous presence, donning the milky white national suit and kurakkan-coloured shawl, did a lot to project the image of the undying protagonist of the Sinhala Buddhist people. The sensational image of Dutugemunu, marauding with his soldiers brandishing his radiant sword, resonated well with the people just a few years ago. Can such indiscretions of the former President prove conclusively to be aracist? Absolutely not. Distorting and discrediting a political system more likely hurts the individual than a system. That’s why ideals remain preserved. Abusers either drift to oblivion or perish one after the other.

Our own six-footer Minister of Megapolis and Western Development, the right honourable Patali Champika Ranawaka, is another living testimony and an exemplary technician of the craft of demagoguery. His accent and genre was remarkably fresh. He imbibed a great deal from his former boss. The dude was a walking, talking statistician, disgorging supposedly disproportionate breeding of Muslims not just to the domestic terrain but abroad as well with effortless finesse. This was when the dude was valiantly supporting the former President.

Who on earth is a demagogue? The advent of Donald J. Trump has necessarily accelerated the spread of this word and ensured a high-octane dissemination. Its etymology traces to the Greek language. Root word simply means “leader of the people” (demos, or “the people”; agein, or “to lead”). A demagogue is someone who appeals to greed, fear and hatred. An egregious politician who achieves or holds on to power by stirring up feelings of his audience and leading them to action despite considerations weighing against him or her.

Demagogues have appeared in democracies since ancient Athens. They exploit a fundamental weakness in democracy: because ultimate power is held by the people, it is possible for the people to give that power to someone who appeals to the lowest common denominator of a large segment of a population. Demagogues usually advocate immediate, forceful action to address a national crisis whilst accusing moderates and opponents of weakness or disloyalty.

A “demagogue” is usually pretty articulate and adept to refer to either populist or partisan ends; or to deceptive or dangerous means; or to both. This is an in-built gift they have. It’s a tool they carry.

Deception is frequently deployed to mislead, misalign and obfuscate. This is an international phenomenon in democracies today. In the age of the internet the acronym LOL is used quite extensively which is to mean “laugh out loud”. But in common political circles in the west it stands for “lie or lose” – the public are so used to lies and desensitised to the truth they have developed a dislike if nota disdain for the truth. There is no such thing as an outright political lie. Instead there’s distortion, exaggeration, misrepresentation, deception and half-truth.

Citizens’ alienation and disenchantment with politics breed demagoguery, when parties or the institutional resources available to citizens are not capable of delivering. When politics becomes meaningless for a portion of the electorate, the opportunity for demagogues arises. Although demagogues re-engage disaffected citizens, they, and their political organisations, cannot fulfil their promises. Therefore, demagogues are simply political agents taking advantage of citizens´ frustration with democratic representation.

Quality of governance in most countries has weakened, at least in South Asia. It has got exponentially impaired and broken. If “Yahapalanaya” is something to go by. Crime is the new ethos. Crisp fiat notes get lubricated in their billions every day. Celebrity is the new religion – the average denizen is hooked on to the TV pleasuring and fantasising. Society is consumed in a pathological contagion. The heist intensifies unabated. All is rotten inside.

Relentless decay of our dystopian and apocalyptic culture has grown to become a recognisable fact. Excessive democracy has in essence has added fuel. Terms such as ‘decay’ and ‘decrepitude’ seem to reappear in postmodern culture and erudite thinkers are capturing it in art beautifully.

Our societies apparently are in severe need of reconstruction.