The responsibility of governments in acting against offences committed by private individuals may sometimes involve condonation or ineptitude in taking effective action against thuggery and assault.
by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne-
Sinhalese nationalists may be looking for an enemy…The Economist
( March 12, 2018, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) The latest issue of The Economist cites commentator Tisaranee Gunasekara, as warning: “If we, the Sinhalese, fail Muslims as we failed Tamils, history will not forgive us, and will punish us with a new and worse war”. This comment may have its roots in the claim by some political analysts that that “Sinhalese extremists are trying to transfer lingering hostility against Tamils onto Muslims (most of whom speak Tamil as their mother tongue)”.
Hate speech and hate propaganda contribute its venom and fuel to the fire of ethnic and religious bigotry. This was clearly seen in an attack on Muslims by the Sinhalese on February 26th when thugs ran riot in Ampara after a video went viral of a Muslim restaurant-worker confessing to adding “sterility pills” to food sold to Sinhalese women, which of course was false propaganda. The Economist goes on to say: “many Sinhalese believe, wrongly, that the slightly higher birth rate among Muslims poses a threat to the continued demographic supremacy of the Sinhalese. But throughout the civil war (against the Tamils which ended in 2009) Muslims and Sinhalese mostly coexisted peacefully”.
First off, it must be stated that all Sinhalese in the country are not involved in the thuggery and mayhem that went on over the past few weeks. It is fair to assume that the majority of the 70% Sinhalese want to live in peaceful coexistence with the 10% Muslims and 13% Tamils in the country. Secondly, one wonders whether the grouse of the thugs is based on ethnic or religious grounds, or both. Be that as it may, on the religious count, one could well note Pulitzer Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson’s quote: “There’s something about religion that transcends the specific circumstances of religion, you know? We’re wrong to think that a religious loyalty precludes finding sympathy with other people who are also religious”. As for ethnic violence, as someone said, it is the infatuation with violence that is evil.
Whatever it is, it behoves both government and society to protect the vulnerable. In his book The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust, Amos N. Guiora identifies a bystander as a person who sees but chooses to ignore. The victim is faceless; the bystander is anonymous. Guiora says: “[T]o determine legal culpability of the bystander, it is necessary to distinguish bystander conduct and knowledge, from perpetrator intent and conduct and victim knowledge and conduct. The three principal actors – perpetrator, bystander and victim – must be examined from three distinct perspectives: conduct, knowledge, and capability. Determination of culpability is dependent on that three-part analysis impacted by conditions and circumstances”.
More compelling is the inquiry into the complicity theory and the question “has the State done its part in protecting the vulnerable from private thugs?” At the core of this issue is the Theory of Complicity, which attributes liability to a State that was complicit in a private act. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), founder of the modern natural law theory, first formulated this theory based on State responsibility that was not absolute. Grotius’ theory was that although a State did not have absolute responsibility for a private offence, it could be considered complicit through the notion of patienta or receptus. While the concept of patienta refers to a State’s inability to prevent a wrongdoing, receptus pertains to the refusal to punish the offender.
The 18th Century philosopher Emerich de Vattel was of similar view as Grotius, holding that responsibility could only be attributed to the State if a sovereign refuses to repair the evil done by its subjects or punish an offender or deliver him to justice whether by subjecting him to local justice or by extraditing him. This view was to be followed and extended by the British jurist Blackstone a few years later who went on to say that a sovereign who failed to punish an offender could be considered as abetting the offence or of being an accomplice. The complicity theory, particularly from a Vattellian and Blackstonian point of view is merely assumptive unless put to the test through a judicial process.
Another theory that may be applicable to the issue is the Condonation Theory which emerged through the opinions of scholars who belonged to a school of thought that believed that States became responsible for private acts of violence not through complicity as such but more so because their refusal or failure to bring offenders to justice, which was tantamount to ratification of the acts in question or their condonation. The theory was based on the fact that it is not illogical or arbitrary to suggest that a State must be held liable for its failure to take appropriate steps to punish persons who cause injury or harm to others for the reason that such States can be considered guilty of condoning the criminal acts and therefore become responsible for them. Another reason attributed by scholars in support of the theory is that during that time, arbitral tribunals were ordering States to award pecuniary damages to claimants harmed by private offenders, on the basis that the States were being considered responsible for the offences.
The responsibility of governments in acting against offences committed by private individuals may sometimes involve condonation or ineptitude in taking effective action against thuggery and assault. There is also the Separate Delict Theory’ in State responsibility, whereby the only direct responsibility of the State is when it is responsible for its own wrongful conduct in the context of private acts, and not for the private acts themselves. Indirect State responsibility is occasioned by the State’s own wrongdoing in reference to the private assault on citizens. The State is not held responsible for the act of violence itself, but rather for its failure to prevent and/or punish such acts, or for its active support for or acquiescence in violence. Arguably the most provocative and plausible feature in this approach is the desirability of determining State liability on the theory of causation. Tal Becker states: “The principal benefit of the causality-based approach is that it avoids the automatic rejection of direct State responsibility merely because of the absence of an agency relationship. As a result, it potentially exposes the wrongdoing State to a greater range and intensity of remedies, as well as a higher degree of international attention and opprobrium for its contribution to the private terrorist activity”.
Another method of determining State responsibility lies in the determination whether a State had actual or presumed knowledge of acts of its instrumentalities, agents or private parties which could have alerted the State to take preventive action.
In conclusion, it must be emphasized that the author has no evidence of guilt on the part of the Sri Lankan Government or any of its instrumentalities of complicity, condonation or tortious liability. What appears above is merely an academic and legal discussion of the various philosophical and legal thoughts that have been put to practice by courts in various jurisdictions over the years. This having been said, it is incontrovertible that those involved in governance as well as social and civic justice must not be mere bystanders. The vulnerable must be protected at all costs.
By Shivanthi Ranasinghe-2018-03-12 The plan to oust Ranil Wickremesinghe, from both premiership and from the United National Party leadership, was hatched from within the UNP itself. The initiative taken by the UNP middle rung attracted many supporters, including Maithripala Sirisena. The fact that he only secured the presidency by partnering with Wickremesinghe or that he fared even worse at the just concluded Local Elections hardly mattered. Such is the unpopularity of our incumbent premier.
The only person who remained unperturbed by this move to send Wickremesinghe packing was only Wickremesinghe. For him, it was business as usual even while stalwarts from his own party were partnering with their archenemy the Joint Opposition to bring a No-Confidence motion in Parliament to oust him from the premiership. When he flew to Singapore, a cartoonist depicted the irony by caricaturing Wickremesinghe playing a string instrument while flames were licking his posterior end.
Amidst reports that Wickremesinghe secretly met the disgraced former Central Bank Governor, Arjuna Mahendran, in Singapore, curious things were happening in Sri Lanka. First in Ampara and then in Kandy Muslim property came under attack allegedly by the Sinhalese. Allegedly Muslims reciprocated and the Kandy situation became an utter mess.
In the Ampara incident, couple of youth who were having a meal from a Muslim owned eatery had found a partially dissolved tablet. The owner when questioned by this group admitted that these were 'sterilization' tablets. Incensed, the group strengthened by participants who very conveniently were attending a nearby funeral attacked number of shops and even a mosque. A sample of the offending gravy had already been sent to the Government Analyst.
In the meantime, Director General Dr Anil Jasinghe issued a statement that there are no pills to cause permanent sterility in humans. The only way is via surgery, he noted. While that is true, a leading gynaecologist pointed out that there are drugs used to cure serious illnesses like cancer that may lower the sperm count or result in impotency. Whether such a drug was indeed used or not will be revealed by the Government Analyst's report.
Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader Rauff Hakeem also pooh-poohed the notion that Muslims are trying to permanently sterilize the Sinhalese. He also highlighted that there are no such "sterilization" tablets. This is a plot to turn Sinhalese and Muslims against each other, he cautioned.
To coincide with the incident, an old news clip began to be circulated in social media. It is about the confiscation from several warehouses in Pettah of 22,000 kg of fennel that has been mixed with another spice. Dr. Sunethra Kariyawasam from The Auryvedic Hospital interviewed in the news clip explained that this spice that has medicinal properties and should not be consumed regularly and certainly not without a doctor's guidance. If taken in regular doses can cause termination in pregnancies. Why this news clip is again making fresh rounds at this time is curious indeed.
Just as the Ampara incident was concluding, Muslims came under attack again in Teldeniya and Digana in the Kandy District. The cause for the eruption appears to stem from an incident of road rage that had ended with the most unfortunate of consequences. A lorry driver, assaulted by four Muslim youths, succumbed to his injuries the following day. The victim was a father of two young children.
The situation thereafter deteriorated very quickly and the Police was unable to contain it. President Sirisena directed an 'impartial investigation' to be conducted to assess the reason for the unrest, when in fact the law demanded the culprits be arrested. Curfew was imposed, schools were closed down, the troops were called in to control the situation and a State of Emergency had to be declared.
In the aftermath, an interesting blame game is being played out by a number of entities. Leader of the House Lakshman Kiriella rescued his Government by laying the blame squarely on the intelligence authorities. Speaking in Parliament, at the debate called to discuss the prevailing tense situation, he said the intelligence authorities should have recognized the possibility of communal unrest, when the assaulted victim died.
He further elaborated, "Gangs who destroyed the properties of Muslim people were not residents of Teldeniya or Digana. They are outsiders and entered those areas after the death of a Sinhalese person. We saw some of them during the recent Ampara communal unrest as well. But the intelligence authorities failed to recognize the threat; which even other people had raised concerns about, pertaining to outsiders entering the areas after the Sinhalese person died."
Executive Director of the Centre for Human Rights Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon on the other hand laid the blame squarely on the Government. According to him, certain leading figures behind the Aluthgama clashes in 2014 are associates of a "powerful minister" and they are also behind these clashes.
He while failing to identify this minister or to note whether this minister was, also, a part of the previous administration reveals, "Many people were transported to Digana from other areas after BBS heavyweights visited Digana and attended the funeral." The Police, he added, were deployed since 5 a.m., outsiders started arriving from around 6.30 p.m. and the attack commenced around 1 p.m. Thus the Police had time to disperse the crowds, but did not.
It must be remembered that the Aluthgama clashes played a pivotal role in estranging the Muslim vote block from the previous Government. It was this alienation that proved to be a prime factor in toppling that administration, believed by many to be invincible. The regime changers then cleverly identified the pillar of support the Muslim community was to the then government and the close bond cultivated by the war winning President, Mahinda Rajapaksa. This bond was a strength, not only in the home front, but also in the international arena, as well.
This was revealed by MR while expressing his concerns over this Government co-sponsoring the Geneva Resolve in 2015. He explained, "In the last months of the war, in 2009, when Sri Lanka was fast losing foreign reserves due to severe global economic recession that year and the IMF was under pressure from the Western nations and was delaying the standby facility that we were entitled to, Muammar Gaddafi agreed to lend USD 500 million to Sri Lanka in response to a single phone call from me. If not for that pledge, the economy would have collapsed before the war could be won."
From the recently concluded election results, especially from the Beruwela results, it became apparent that the Muslim voters are returning to MR's camp. With the Provincial Council, Presidential and then General elections all looming within the space of two years, this is a worrisome factor to the incumbent government for two crucial reasons.
The first being its 2015 victory was only possible after alienating the Muslim voters from the then administration. The second reason is that with Wickremesinghe at the helm, defeat is assured and hence the agitation from the UNP itself to get rid of him. Thus, preventing the Muslim vote base seeping back to the MR Camp might be a levelling of the playing field, as it were. From the international perspective, most of the influential Islamic nations have proved to be our all-weather friends. Theldeniya incident coinciding with the ongoing UNHRC sessions in Geneva are perfect to alienate them.
On the whole, wittingly or unwittingly, these recent clashes have been very profitable for this government and especially Wickremesinghe. Due to the prevailing situation, the no-confidence motion against him has been postponed as well as the Pohottuwa's victory rally.
What this Government did and what the previous administration failed to do was a commission to investigate the Aluthgama incident. Then, Ginthota, Ampara and Theldeniya all with the same hallmarks, might not have not occurred. Either way, we have enough hindsight to know that these are not ethnic clashes, but purely for the benefit of local and geopolitical agendas.
Police recovered several parts of an aircraft from a house of a retired officer of Sri Lanka Air force in Alubomulla, Panadura today, Police Spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said.
He said the suspect who had 12 year of service in the Sri Lanka Air force as an aeronautical engineer is now being employed by a private aviation company after retirement.
The 42- year-old suspect had claimed the recovered parts were discarded aircraft parts which were purchased from the private company.
According to Police, the fuselage had been sold to the Guruge Nature Park, In Ja-Ela and the rest of the parts were to be sold.
The suspect had stated to the police that he usually purchases old aircraft parts and supplies them after reconditioning to local aviation companies and aviation teaching schools for demonstration purposes.
However, the Police said they are yet to seek the support of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and the Air force to identify the parts.
Police said the suspect was not taken into custody, but the aircraft parts were being guarded by police.
A Police team led by Panadura Police Division Crime Unit OIC Suneth Shantha who conducted the raid, while Panadura – South Police HQI Thushara de Silva is conducting further investigations on the instruction of Panadura Division SP P.R.P Senanayake. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)
AMMAN - The main architect of the Arab Peace Initiative, which offered Israel recognition in exchange for a full withdrawal from the occupied territories, says that the two-state solution is dead.
Marwan Muasher, who was Jordan’s foreign minister at the time of the initiative in 2002, told Middle East Eye: “Some people will say it [the two-state solution] never lived, but it is certainly dead today.
“No amount of negotiations today are going to reach a two-state solution, because one of the parties does not want it, the Israeli party"
“No amount of negotiations today are going to reach a two-state solution, because one of the parties does not want it, the Israeli party, and the sponsor of such talks is now totally biased towards the Israelis. Under these conditions, you can no longer cling onto an old model.”
The veteran diplomat, who was Jordan’s first ambassador to Israel and a former ambassador to the US, said Jordan now felt vulnerable to an agenda dictated by Israel and pushed by Washington.
“If there is no two-state solution, with the presence of such an Israeli government, then one of the very likely scenarios is that the Israeli government will work for a solution at Jordan's expense,” Muasher said.
“They are faced with a choice of giving the Palestinians rights in a two-state solution, or have somebody else take care of the problem. They don’t really care about Jordan's well-being today.
“So we are very vulnerable and worried about it and that explains why Jordan has always been an ardent supporter of the two-state solution because it was in Jordan's interest, not just the Palestinians' interest. Today that has evaporated.”
Marwan Muasher, left, in conversation with David Hearst, Middle East Eye editor-in-chief (MEE)
Muasher’s comments about the death of the two-state solution are significant. The creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel remains the official policy of the Palestinian Authority, the Middle East Quartet (which includes United Nations, the United States, the EU, and Russia), the European Union and the UK's main political parties.
Few Arab diplomats have invested as heavily in the two-state solution as Muasher, who played a central role in developing the Arab Peace Initiative and the Middle East Roadmap.
The Arab Peace Initiative, proposed by the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, has gone down in the history of the conflict as an opportunity wasted by Israel and the then-US president George W Bush. It was embraced by then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and supported by his successor Mahmoud Abbas.
Muasher said the current US initiative, which Donald Trump has called the “deal of the century”, was dead in the water.
The new proposal is thought to exclude two key elements of what were called the “final status” negotiations during the Oslo peace talks: the determination of East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state; and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Muasher has called the Trump deal “pure fantasy” and said there was no Palestinian in the world who could agree to such a deal.
“The Trump administration have this idea that they can take Jerusalem out, take the refugees out, without even a symbolic right of return and with the reduction of funds for UNWRA [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency], take the Jordan Valley out, take the settlements out, and you can negotiate the rest.
“It’s crazy. That is not a ‘deal of the century’ to anybody but the Israelis.”
Jerusalem: Source of friction with Riyadh
Muasher, a Jordanian Christian, said that Jerusalem was important to every Arab, and highlighted the decline in the Christian population in the holy city. Christians constituted 20 percent of the population at the turn of the 20th century – now they are less than one percent.
“The number of Christians in Jerusalem today is less than 4,000 people,” said Muasher, “which means we might face a situation in a generation's time when Christian holy places become museums where nobody lives. That’s dangerous to the idea of diversity and co-existence in Palestine and the Arab world. It’s not just Arab Christians who are worried about this. Muslims do not want the Christians to disappear from the city.”
"Nobody wants Abu Dis. People want the holy places. The rest is all gimmicks"
“Pure fantasy,” Muasher said. “Nobody wants Abu Dis. People want the holy places. The rest is all gimmicks. They say: ‘Let's give them Abu Dis and they will forget about the holy places.’ You can forget about everything else except the holy places.
“There is no way the Saudis can say, even to their own people, that even if the Palestinians cannot accept such a deal, we think it should be accepted.”
Muasher acknowledged that Jerusalem was a source of friction with Riyadh. Jordan’s custodianship of the city’s holy places was written into the Wadi Araba peace treaty with Israel. He said the late King Hussein went into the 1967 war with Israel knowing that he would lose, but that he always felt responsible for losing Jerusalem.
Muasher said: “It is also part of the legitimacy of the Hashemites. Legitimacy is very important in the Arab world. It has allowed us to withstand all the turmoil of the Arab Spring, because the monarchy in Jordan is not threatened in the way that the systems in Egypt and Tunisia were. People want reform within the system rather than outside it. Jerusalem plays a big part in this.”
Has the moment passed?
Muasher said the moment for a deal between Arab states and Israel had passed. Factors include that there is no Arab of the stature of the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia; the war in Syria, which formed a key part of the initiative; and Arab public opinion, which is against any such rapprochement.
"This generation is not interested in a two-state solution, not because it does not believe in a Palestinian state, but because it understands it cannot be realised. And it cannot"
Instead, Musaher said, a new generation of Palestinians had moved away from the debates about the shape of the solution to the conflict and towards focusing on their own civil rights. This means there will be more emphasis on raising the cost to Israel of the occupation through recourse to UN bodies, the International Criminal Court and the BDS campaign.
“This generation is not interested in a two-state solution, not because it does not believe in a Palestinian state, but because it understands it cannot be realised. And it cannot.
“So if it cannot come to pass, they will focus instead on a rights-based approach, and if that takes them to a one-state solution, they don't care. They want their rights now.”
Though a Western world dominated by The Donald might be going to hell in a hand-basket, little Sri Lanka, particularly because of its dense population, cannot afford to tread the same path
Monday, 12 March 2018
With The Donald seemingly bestriding the world and the entire universe observing him with bemused wonder, it certainly is time to look around the leadership of countries – democratic and otherwise – and place them in an appropriate place in the spectrum of political policy and practice.
The very mention of the name “Putin” should be enough to invoke the vision of the leader of what is left of the Soviet Union. The man does not even pretend to follow any of the rules usually governing democratic societies and, while selectively picking off Russian oligarchs if they don’t actively contribute to the system of corruption over which he presides, runs the biggest country in the world like the Russian Mafioso he is.
In neighbouring Ukraine which has come off second best in contests, armed and otherwise, with its giant neighbour over which Mr. Putin reigns, it appears that each government is more repressive and corrupt than the one that preceded it.
France has, after a series of corrupt politicians parading as “socialists,” produced a leader who is a suave version of dictators parading as democrats in other western jurisdictions. The light at the end of that particular tunnel is the fact that, whenever France seems to be teetering on the edge of total Fascism, there has been an upsurge of indignation at the threat to traditions that grew out of its revolution being destroyed which lead to the government in power having to backpedal. One can but hope that that tradition survives.
Britain, long considered the cradle of democratic tradition and practice, has its “compromise Tory” Theresa May, with Boris Johnson, the brilliant but totally unscrupulous man who deliberately refused any suggestion that he should accept the leadership of the Tories after Brexit, lurking in the shadows and calling the shots. Scary stuff!
The Scandinavian countries, particularly over the latter part of the 20th Century, were considered bastions of humane governance where the financial bottom line was not the ultimate arbiter of what should or should not be done in a nation. However, the emergence of an increasing number of what are, euphemistically, referred to as “centre-right” governments has eroded that tradition very seriously. The warning signs have come in the form of racist and anti-immigrant groups, many displaying a capacity for extreme violence on the street.
The fact that Angela Merkel who once carried the banner for political conservatism in Western Europe is now viewed as the last best defender of humanist governance in that part of the world should say it all to anyone suffering under the illusion (delusion?) that democratic practice, as close to the ideal as possible, was alive and well in countries that were considered to adhere to such norms.
As for Southern Asia in which the countries that had emerged from the yoke of Imperial exploitation, initially, at least attempted to adopt the best of the governance system that had been practiced by their oppressors on their home turf unfortunately that story has been a sad one.
Pakistan has had a series of fiscally corrupt leaders that have followed what has unhappily become the tradition of preaching social democracy to the masses while practicing capitalism in its most abhorrent form in the management of those nations. The fact that the Bhutto family has met with sticky ends should in no way undercut this historical reality. Those who’ve succeeded them haven’t been much better and seem to survive on the basis of some form of conservative tribalism rather than as reward for good governance.
India, now probably the most populous nation on earth, has at its head a man banned – until he reached the pinnacle of power in that country – from so much as entering the USA because of his record of leading murder and mayhem on his home turf. Mark the fact that even by the standards of the USA which has a justified reputation of being tolerant of murderous tin pot dictators, particularly in South and Central America, this man was considered “untouchable” until his ascendance to power.
Myanmar, which had a rather spotty reputation in the matter of “one man, one vote” kind of democracy, has descended into a violent, anti-minority and militaristic state after a brief romance with Aung San Suu Kyi and her humanism. Even a cursory study of Myanmar’s/Burma’s post-World War II history will reveal the fact that the Nobel Laureate’s father was an army general and the fact that he was gunned down within the walls of that country’s legislature does not, in any way, alter the nature of his own politics which could be described as crypto-communist populism.
As for the Philippines and its, fortunately, unique President Duterte, what can one say more than simply point to the summary justice he dispenses in his country, claiming that those being “terminated with extreme prejudice,” as the CIA characterized that process, were all drug dealers (“with a few exceptions”). Even given the fact that the collection of thousands of islands that claims to be one country never had anything close to democratic governance, Duterte’s behaviour is not only bizarre, it is murderously so.
And now to our “home front.”
Beginning with the presidency of Sri Lanka’s Yankee Dick Jayewardene, the so-called “democratic world” has accepted leaders who have been responsible for murder and mayhem at an escalating rate, no matter how well they succeeded in concealing themselves behind nominal democratic practices.
This acceptance by those nations that had, in fact, developed democratic systems within their own boundaries was particularly reprehensible because, in the larger scheme of things, Sri Lanka didn’t have to be pandered to for strategic or other reasons.
Western intelligence could not but have been aware of the ramifications of the militarisation of governance that flowed from its armed forces being as large as the Russian army! The only explanation for that tolerance is probably the fact that those alleged “bastions of democracy” simply couldn’t be bothered with imposing the kinds of sanctions that would have been appropriate in the circumstances, with the singular exception of the removal of a preferential tariff on our garment exports.
The pious proclamations that our prosperous trading partners made from time to time appeared to be as a response to the political power of diaspora groups that owed their origins to the fact that they had fled persecution in Sri Lanka and wielded some electoral clout in their new home countries because of their numbers and militancy.
The simple fact is, though a Western world dominated by The Donald might be going to hell in a hand-basket, little Sri Lanka, particularly because of its dense population, cannot afford to tread the same path. Our inability to adopt anything resembling a confrontational stance vis-à-vis the economic giants of this world does not prevent us from putting our own house in order and conducting our affairs in a just manner, where the rule of law prevails.
The difficulty we have in establishing the “Third Force” that we desperately need to put our nation back on the rails shouldn’t deter Sri Lankans because, after all, we do have a tradition, admittedly somewhat frayed, of operating as a functioning democracy.
Ivanka Trump tried to travel to South Korea as the president’s envoy — but she could not escape also being his celebrity daughter.
She peppered National Security Council experts in advance with questions, not just about the nuclear threat, but also about South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his wife’s hobbies. Flying over the Pacific bound for the Winter Olympic Games last month, she pored over a research dossier for hours.
And she and her team choreographed many of the possible encounters she might have, including acting out what she would do if a North Korean official tried to shake her hand.
“I don’t like to leave a lot up to fate,” President Trump’s 36-year-old daughter, also a senior White House adviser, said in an interview with The Washington Post.
Ivanka Trump likes to be in complete control — over-prepared and deliberate — in contrast to her freewheeling and impulsive father.
But at the moment, Ivanka — whose first name has become a brand identity — controls increasingly little of the world she inhabits. The White House is careening from crisis to crisis. Her colleagues are leaking damaging anecdotes about her and husband Jared Kushner. Tensions between the couple and Chief of Staff John F. Kelly are intensifying. And all the while, the dark legal cloud hanging over her family is threatening to unleash a downpour.
First daughter and adviser to the president, Ivanka Trump arrived in South Korea on Feb. 23, to attend the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics.(Reuters)
By many accounts, her trip to South Korea was a success and arguably helped lay the groundwork for her father’s surprise decision Thursday to talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But she ran into trouble for her response to a question by NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander about whether she believes the accusations of sexual misdeeds against her father from more than a dozen women — first saying it was “inappropriate” to ask because she is the president’s daughter, then ultimately answering that she did not believe them.
Ivanka’s response, and the ensuing scrutiny, illustrated how she attempts to navigate her dual role as both daughter and senior adviser. It also served as a fresh reminder of the control she relinquished when she shifted from principal — running her own apparel business and shaping her own brand — to West Wing staffer carrying the public messages of an administration with which she does not always agree.
“I am the daughter of the president. I am also an adviser to the president,” she said. “And I respect that in that role I must work incredibly diligently to follow protocol as any other staffer would.”
This portrait of Ivanka after a year in the White House comes from interviews with more than a dozen administration officials, lawmakers and outside confidants, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a more candid assessment. Ivanka also sat down with The Post in her office on the West Wing’s second floor — a tucked-away modernist oasis of bright white and clean lines — for two interviews on back-to-back days in late February, portions of which were off the record.
White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, left, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, senior adviser Jared Kushner, in the Cabinet Room at the White House last Thursday. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
‘Still his little girl’
Ivanka, a business executive and mother of three, entered the administration as a floating adviser. In her first year, she worked to help secure congressional votes and public support for the Republican tax plan — including pushing for expansion of the childhood tax credit — and has championed paid family leave, science and technology education, and other issues.
But in recent months, the strain between her and Kelly has deepened, White House officials said. Kelly — who Ivanka and her husband, also a senior adviser, initially pushed for chief of staff — has grown frustrated with what he views as the duo’s desire to have it both ways: behaving as West Wing officials in one moment, family members the next. He has griped to colleagues about what he views as her “freelancing” on “pet projects” as opposed to the administration’s stated top priorities.
Ivanka argues that every issue she has championed is also a policy her father campaigned on and pushed in office. Paid family leave, for instance, is far from a Republican rallying cry, but it is something Trump mentioned on the campaign trail and in both of his addresses to Congress.
Last year, she invited female senators to the White House for personal huddles on the issue.
“She spent an hour meeting with me, going over the studies, making the case,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said. “She had a couple of staffers, but she really ran the discussion. I was impressed with how smart she was and how informed she was and how passionate she was about a cause that is not closely associated with Republican leaders. I just really liked her, right off the bat.”
The president himself has exacerbated the tensions between his chief of staff and his family. He has mused to Kelly that he thinks Ivanka and her husband should perhaps return to New York, where they would be protected from the blood sport of Washington and less of a target for negative media attention, White House officials said. In the president’s eyes, “Ivanka’s still his little girl,” as one confidant put it.
Donald Trump and his daughter, Ivanka, peek over the crowd at the U.S. Open in 1994 in New York. (Ron Frehm/Associated Press)
But Trump has at other times urged Ivanka and Kushner to remain in Washington, telling them he relies on their counsel in the West Wing. Others say he values her singular role as an ambassador for both his presidency and the family brand.
“Everybody loves and respects Ivanka,” the president said in a statement. “She works very hard and always gets the job done in a first class manner. She was crucial to our success in achieving historic tax cuts and reforms and served as my envoy in South Korea, where she was incredibly well received.
Her work on behalf of American families has made a real impact.”
Ivanka’s last name creates an aura of invincibility around her within the White House. In private, some aides criticize and share unflattering details about her— and, more acutely, Kushner —but are loath to do so publicly and risk the president’s wrath.
Ivanka and Kushner have become known simply as “Javanka,” a nickname that they view as disparaging and that they speculate was coined in the early stages of the presidency by rivals, such as then-chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, to undermine them. Ivanka resents that she and her husband are seen as a single unit, in part because their work portfolios are different. (Kushner’s declared portfolioincludes brokering Middle East peace, the U.S. relationship with Mexico and domestic prison restructuring.)
Though Ivanka has long desired individuality, now Kushner is ensnared in the wide-ranging Russia investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, and his mixing of his family’s real estate business and his government work is drawing public scrutiny.
Last month, Kelly instituted a new policy on security clearances that effectively stripped Kushner of his access to the nation’s top secrets. The downgrade was a public embarrassment for the presidential son-in-law and was widely interpreted as a power play by Kelly, who other White House officials say has clashed with Kushner on several fronts. Ivanka’s security clearance status is unclear.
Here’s what the changes to the security clearance process in the White House could mean for Jared Kushner, President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law.(Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Some close to her say Ivanka remains miffed at Kelly’s frustrations with her. Though she and her fatherspeak multiple times a day — sometimes in unscheduled calls when the president spontaneously dials her — she says she honors Kelly’s demand that she inform him and other officials about any policy-related discussions the two have.
Kelly declined to be interviewed about his relationship with the president’s daughter, but emailed a statement through a spokesman: “Ivanka is a great asset to this Administration and has done a terrific job helping to advance the president’s agenda including the passage of historic tax reform and most recently led a tremendously successful trip to the Olympics in South Korea.”
Addressing the tensions between her and her husband and Kelly, Ivanka said, “One of the first things he said is, ‘You are family. You are part of the reason the president is here.’ He understands the role of family. He is a very family-oriented person and made it clear he doesn’t want to get in the way of that. But he also needs to make sure that in our role as advisers, we go through the process, and we respect that and have embraced that.”
Almost as soon as Ivanka arrived in Washington, she began reaching out to lawmakers from both parties, visiting them in their Capitol Hill offices and hosting small private salons at her and Kushner’s Kalorama home. Some of her West Wing colleagues were initially uncomfortable with her unofficial role as a Trump interlocutor, but under Kelly’s watch, they say, she has been more diligent about coordinating with the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and other teams.
“The fact that she has her own relationships with members on the Hill enables us to accomplish more, and anytime she’s engaging in conversations, she’s checking in with us on how she can be helpful and getting our advice on what we need,” said Marc Short, White House director of legislative affairs. “She would say, ‘I’m intending to go have a meeting today but I want to make sure your office is comfortable with it and what are the White House priorities I can help with.’ ”
Ivanka Trump, left, and Jared Kushner in the Rose Garden of the White House, with national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at right. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
‘I believe my father’
Ivanka, however, has at times struggled to navigate her twin roles as family and staff member. Most recently, a high-profile gaffe came during the NBC interview in PyeongChang, where she bristled at Alexander’s question about whether she believes her father’s accusers.
“I think it’s a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father, when he’s affirmatively stated there’s no truth to that,” she said. “I don’t think that’s a question you would ask many other daughters.”
But Ivanka did proceed to answer the question: “I believe my father, I know my father. I think I have that right as a daughter.”
(Ivanka declined to address the accusations against her father on the record in her interviews with The Post.)
This was not the only uncomfortable subject of the NBC interview, which aides said Ivanka knew going in would probablybe less friendly than the soft sit-downs she was accustomed to with Fox News. Alexander also asked Ivanka to weigh in on Mueller’s probe of possible Russian collusion (she defended the Trump campaign), as well as on the president’s proposal to arm some schoolteachers (she demurred).
Occupying two roles has opened her up to sharp criticism. Democrats, as well as some mainstream Republicans, had expected her to exert a moderating influence on her father. Ivanka has disappointed them by failing to halt some hard-line policies, such as the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, or by not publicly standing up to what they see as racist, sexist and anti-Semitic remarks and actions by the president.
Ivanka also has come under sustained criticism for her eponymous fashion line, which she still controls and which relies exclusively on foreign factories in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China, where low-wage laborers — many of them women and children — have limited ability to advocate for themselves. Many critics see such practices as deeply hypocritical given her father’s railing against outsourcing and her stated interest in advancing the rights of working women.
Ivanka argues her critics hold her to an unfair standard, and fundamentally misunderstand the way any White House works when they expect her to publicly contradict an administration policy. She does not see herself as a talking head and refuses to promote policies with which she personally disagrees; for instance, she was notably silent on last year’s Republican health-care plan, and has said little recently about her father’s guns agenda.
“When people say, ‘Where is Ivanka and why is she silent on X, Y, Z?,’ they don’t understand how any White House works,” Ivanka said. “No West Wing staffer should tweet things that are inconsistent with the policy of the White House.”
How President Trump's kids are becoming his new TV surrogates(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
Rather, Ivanka says she tries to use her voice to amplify the issues she most cares about — such as workforce development, infrastructure and women’s entrepreneurship in the months ahead.
“Let’s face it, when someone is the daughter of a president, people know that and it elevates her ability to be effective,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said. “But she also is well prepared, and so the double role that she plays also accrues to her benefit.”
In some television appearances, Ivanka seems to present a simulacrum of herself — a for-public-consumption version that is at once both poised and guarded, complete with a breathy, unplaceable accent. In private, her voice sounds an octave deeper. She can be by turns lighthearted and defiant, down-to-earth and supremely confident. And like both her husband and her father, Ivanka sprinkles her conversation with the occasional curse word.
On a small table in her well-appointed office sit several pictures of her kids, a framed copy of Trump’s typed “Remarks Regarding the Capital of Israel” — signed “To Ivanka, Love Dad” in the president’s oversized Sharpie scribble — and the lyrics to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” handwritten to her by one of the songwriters. Unlike in the rest of the West Wing, including in the president’s private study, no big-screen televisions blare; she said she has little patience for cable news.
Ivanka Trump swings daughter Arabella Rose Kushner in the Rose Garden during the Congressional Picnic in June. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Olympics emissary
Ivanka has privately said she was naive when she first came to Washington. She was unprepared for the palace infighting that has so shaped the White House power dynamics. It was not until the hiring of White House spokesman Josh Raffel last April that she and Kushner aggressively moved to protect their reputations.
She also has lamented to friends that she is sometimes “weaponized” — unwittingly invoked by other officials as a high-profile surrogate for their personal grievances, knowing that if Ivanka is said to be frustrated about something, it is likely to draw more attention.
On tax legislation, Ivanka made especially good use of her skill set, administration officials and lawmakers said. She could speak confidently and in depth about the issue and became the administration’s point person for some skeptical lawmakers.
White House adviser Ivanka Trump, right, speaks about tax legislation at a forum last November with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) at Volk Packaging in Biddeford, Maine. (Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press)
The South Korea trip leading the presidential delegation for the Olympic Closing Ceremonies in late February was another proving ground for Ivanka. But her role was not merely that of a goodwill ambassador. With PyeongChang roughly 40 miles from the North Korean border, her trip was weighted with diplomatic import.
Ivanka came bearing a private national security message from her father to Moon. And for the ceremony, she sat in the same VIP box as North Korean Gen. Kim Yong Chol, who is believed to be responsible for, among other acts, a torpedo attack that killed 46 South Korean sailors in 2010.
“This was not an uncomplicated situation — a balance of reaffirming and creating goodwill, within the eyes of the South Korean public, being happy, celebrating America, but also being inches away from a man who’s killed many people,” Ivanka said.
Ivanka said she was determined to forge a warm rapport with Moon, a progressive who has a somewhat cool relationship with her father. When South Korea’s first couple hosted the traveling Americans for a dinner of bibimbap with marinated tofu at the presidential Blue House in Seoul,
Ivanka knew from her research how to strike up a conversation with first lady Kim Jung-sook. They chatted about their shared interest in K-pop, a distinct musical style originating on the peninsula.
“She 100 percent carried the conversation of the dinner,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a member of the visiting U.S. delegation. “She and Moon instantly had a good connection and she and the first lady had really good chemistry.”
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right, with Ivanka Trump during their dinner at the presidential Blue House in Seoul in February. (South Korean Presidential Blue House/Getty Images)
National security adviser H.R. McMaster said in a statement, “Ivanka ably represented our country and advanced our diplomatic goals in the region.”
Even abroad, though, her special status as presidential daughter followed her like so much glistening snow. One morning, she attended the men’s snowboard big air final to cheer on the American athletes.
But as the snowboarders flipped in the air, performing gravity-defying tricks, many of the cameras were instead facing the stands, trained squarely on the willowy blonde in the red ski suit and Team USA beanie.
What do we in the West know about Islam? Perhaps more than we did before 9/11 but not much. When Tony Blair was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he was photographed walking along holding the Koran. President George W. Bush said repeatedly that Islam was a religion of peace, even though at that time one of the most influential American political writers, Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University, had written that it wasn’t fundamentalism that was the problem, it was Islam itself. He argued in his best-selling book, “The Clash of Civilizations” that “The twentieth century conflict between liberal democracy and Marxist-Leninism is only a fleeting superficial phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflictual relationship between Islam and Christianity.” He foresaw nuclear war between the West and Islam.
This seems to me to be extravagantly over the top. Yet, there are many Islamic scholars who make, like Huntington, a departure from what are the historical facts, but going in the opposite direction. One is the Oxford professor of contemporary Islamic studies, Tariq Ramadan, in his book, “Islam: The Essentials.” Quite rightly, he stresses that in the first twelve years of Islam’s existence, Mohammed’s followers did not retaliate when persecuted, tortured and murdered. Ramadan highlights the Quran’s “Hence, if you have to, respond to an attack levelled against you; but to bear yourselves with patience is indeed far better for those who know how to control themselves.”
The truth is the Quran faces both ways. Mohammed himself was a general and spent much of the last ten years of his life fighting his opponents in Medina and pushing forward against Roman-occupied Arab lands. In this way he acted more like an Old Testament leader rather than the total pacific Jesus
But, as Ramadan argues, the Quran also said: “Permission to fight is given to those against whom war is wrongfully waged.” Legitimate self-defence was blessed. Ramadan appears to suggest that this is as far as it goes. No offensive violence.
But Ramadan omits to mention the Quranic verse 9.29 - “Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, nor abide by the religion of truth.” Offensive violence is sanctified.
It is this verse that sustains the fundamentalists in Al-Qaeda and ISIS. The truth is the Quran faces both ways. Mohammed himself was a general and spent much of the last ten years of his life fighting his opponents in Medina and pushing forward against Roman-occupied Arab lands. In this way he acted more like an Old Testament leader rather than the total pacific Jesus.
Its violence often put Islam in the shade and it didn’t exhibit the important virtue of tolerance practised by Islam
Shortly after Mohammed’s death in AD 632, his father-in-law Abu Bakr took over the leadership. His task was to carry out the orders and plans of Mohammed. His first job was to recapture the tribesmen whom he had defected. To do so he unleashed on Arabia a war of unprecedented ferocity. Four years after Mohammed’s death he had conquered Syria too. After 10 years the great Persian Empire was subdued.
This laid the basis for Islam’s rapid expansion to the frontier of China and the middle of France. Over the next two centuries it created a vast Afro-Asian-European empire. No other religion has expanded so fast, so far and so violently. None of these fights, apart from the struggle with the Quraysh, might be described as defensive wars. The non-violent verses of the Quran were contradicted by the teaching of verses 9.29 and also 22.39-40.
There are many Islamic scholars who make, like Huntington, a departure from what are the historical facts, but going in the opposite direction. One is the Oxford professor of contemporary Islamic studies, Tariq Ramadan
A new book, ‘Crusade and Jihad’ by the esteemed William Polk, who taught Arabic literature and history at Harvard, is the latest writer to obfuscate this debate.
It is a brilliant survey of the Muslim world and its advance. But on the issue of violence it fails to come clean, just as Ramadan and many other writers fail to. The Western world’s most popular serious writer on religion, Karen Armstrong, is among them.
But what Polk does successfully is to give the reader a detailed measure of Islam’s history. The relationship between Christianity and Islam is searchingly recounted. Christianity, thanks to the foundations laid by a converted Roman emperor, Constantine, became the most vicious and warlike of all the great religions. Its violence often put Islam in the shade and it didn’t exhibit the important virtue of tolerance practised by Islam. When a part of the Christian world was conquered by Muslims, Christians were allowed to practice their religion and build their churches.
Polk is the first author I’ve read who explains in full why the Christian world became dominant from the fifteenth century onwards -- the growing lack of water in the Middle East, a series of small technological changes in Europe, including the use of printing on a large scale and the invention of the eyeglass
Polk is the first author I’ve read who explains in full why the Christian world became dominant from the fifteenth century onwards -- the growing lack of water in the Middle East, a series of small technological changes in Europe, including the use of printing on a large scale and the invention of the eyeglass. Most important, some have argued, is the sophisticated and technologically advanced way the Europeans made use of gunpowder and armaments. None of these, apart from the water issue, seemed to be given the same urgency in the Muslim world.
Now the Islamic fundamentalists want to overturn Christian/Western dominance. If they read this book they will realize they are probably on a hopeless quest. Nevertheless, to be honest, the Quran is - at least partly - on their side.
Note: For 17 years, the writer had been a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune.
( March 12, 2018, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) The latest issue of The Economist cites commentator Tisaranee Gunasekara, as warning: “If we, the Sinhalese, fail Muslims as we failed Tamils, history will not forgive us, and will punish us with a new and worse war”. This comment may have its roots in the claim by some political analysts that that “Sinhalese extremists are trying to transfer lingering hostility against Tamils onto Muslims (most of whom speak Tamil as their mother tongue)”.
Marwan Muasher, left, in conversation with David Hearst, Middle East Eye editor-in-chief (MEE)
What do we in the West know about Islam? Perhaps more than we did before 9/11 but not much.