SACW - 22 July 2015 | Blasphemy Laws Myanmar, India and Pakistan / Maths in the maressahs / India: Human DNA Profiling; NGOs under threat / On Indonesia’s mass killings / Brazil’s Amazon – Crushed by the Belo Monte Dam

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire - 22 July 2015 - No. 2864 
[since 1996]

Contents:
1. Blasphemy prosecutions are undermining the rule of law in Myanmar, India and Pakistan | Vani Sathisan, Sanhita Ambast and Reema Omer 
2. Math in our madressahs? | Pervez Hoodbhoy
3. India: Usha Ramanathan’s Note of Dissent on Human DNA Profiling Bill that is coming soon in the Parliament
4. India: Non-Congressism and the Mainstreaming of the BJP (former Jan Sangh) | Christophe Jaffrelot
5. India: In Defence of Teesta Setalvad and others - Solidarity Demos on 16 July 2015 in Delhi and Elsewhere - Statements, Press releases and Photos
6. India: Press Release and Photos of Narmada Ki Aawaz event in New Delhi, 17-18 July 2015
7. It’s about cabaret time in Pune | Jawed Naqvi
8. Recent On Communalism Watch:
- Bhagwat says 'time is favourable' to push Hindutva agenda and expand youth RSS
- India: Communal violence in the country up by 25% in first five months of 2015 (Aman Sharma)
- [The Path of Hedgewar - The ideologue of the Hindu Right] Subhash Gatade
- India: Sangh groups at Smriti door - Four-hour meet to lobby for key posts
- Truth vs Hype Exclusive: How Baba Ramdev, and a Proxy Hindutva Agenda, Have Entered IIT Delhi (Sreenivasan Jain)
- India: Sunil Sethi on the cheating by Rajiv Malhotra

::: RESOURCEs & FULL TEXT :::
9. Poets and fathers - Remembering Faiz in Lahore, Delhi and Srinagar | Ananya Vajpeyi
10. Crushing dissent: NGOs under threat in India | Seema Guha 
11. Skill Dil: Modi's job portal makes a pitch for palmists, astrologers & moneylenders | Nihar Gokhale
12. German Pavilion in Venice: Artists make statement against Greece austerity
13. Book Review: Ahrar Ahmad on Rounaq Jahan's Political Parties in Bangladesh
14. Joshua Oppenheimer on why he had to make another film about Indonesia’s mass killings | Adam Taylor  
15. Book Review: Cohn on McFate, 'The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order'
16. Indigenous People in Brazil’s Amazon – Crushed by the Belo Monte Dam? | Mario Osava 

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1. BLASPHEMY PROSECUTIONS ARE UNDERMINING THE RULE OF LAW IN MYANMAR, INDIA AND PAKISTAN
by Vani Sathisan, Sanhita Ambast and Reema Omer
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Those who support prosecutions under the blasphemy laws may honestly believe they are protecting the dignity of their religion, but by violating human rights such prosecutions deny the human dignity of the defendants and undermine the rule of law for all. The laws must be repealed or fundamentally changed, ongoing prosecutions must be ended
http://sacw.net/article11391.html

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2. MATH IN OUR MADRESSAHS?
by Pervez Hoodbhoy
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It is a fact that children who do not know English, math, or science cannot compete in the job market or benefit from university-level education. They become the victim of conspiracy theories, pseudo-scientific nonsense, and various forms of illogic. Madressah graduates can become maulvis and qazis but not engineers, scientists, or doctors. India sees its madressahs as posing a serious education problem but not — at least officially — as a terrorism problem.
http://sacw.net/article11392.html

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3. INDIA: USHA RAMANATHAN’S NOTE OF DISSENT ON HUMAN DNA PROFILING BILL THAT IS COMING SOON IN THE PARLIAMENT
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Human DNA Profiling Bill is being brought in Parliament probably this Monsoon session in 2015. Bill that has been pushed by the CDFD (Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad) with full support from India’s Dept of Biotechnology. It asks for the collection of DNA from convicts, accused ans suspects; unidentified dead bodies; create a missing persons’ index; create a volunteers index and from anyone else as required by regulations. here is to be a DNA Data Bank into which all our DNA data will be out and held.
http://sacw.net/article11388.html

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4. INDIA: NON-CONGRESSISM AND THE MAINSTREAMING OF THE BJP (FORMER JAN SANGH)
by Christophe Jaffrelot
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Things started to change in the early 1970s, during the JP movement. Student organisations were at the forefront of this struggle, as is evident from the role played by the Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti (CSS, Student Struggle Committee) formed in Patna on February 17, 1974.
http://sacw.net/article11389.html

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5. INDIA: IN DEFENCE OF TEESTA SETALVAD AND OTHERS - SOLIDARITY DEMOS ON 16 JULY 2015 IN DELHI AND ELSEWHERE - Statements, Press releases and Photos
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http://sacw.net/article11380.html

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6. INDIA: PRESS RELEASE AND PHOTOS OF NARMADA KI AAWAZ EVENT IN NEW DELHI, 17-18 JULY 2015
 Event marking 30 years of Narmada Bachao Andolan / Save the Narmada Movement held in New Delhi
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http://sacw.net/article11381.html

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7. IT’S ABOUT CABARET TIME IN PUNE
by Jawed Naqvi
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The Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association (Ipta) manufactured cosy dreams and occasionally offered the Communist Manifesto as a user’s manual. The Indian state never belonged to the dream vendors. It co-opted and subverted Ipta. Saeed Mirza was among the few that dodged the trap. He is currently supporting the resistance against a right-wing takeover of Indian cinema.
http://sacw.net/article11376.html

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8. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH:
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- Bhagwat says 'time is favourable' to push Hindutva agenda and expand youth RSS
- India: Communal violence in the country up by 25% in first five months of 2015 (Aman Sharma)
- [The Path of Hedgewar - The ideologue of the Hindu Right] Subhash Gatade
- India: Sangh groups at Smriti door - Four-hour meet to lobby for key posts
- India - Alert: Communal violence in Alirajpur district again [in Madhya Pradesh] | 18th July, 2015. 10:00 pm
- Truth vs Hype Exclusive: How Baba Ramdev, and a Proxy Hindutva Agenda, Have Entered IIT Delhi (Sreenivasan Jain)
- India and its new normal where Teesta Setalvad is seen as threat to national security not Amit Shah, Asaram Bapu,
- India: Sunil Sethi on the cheating by Rajiv Malhotra
- India - politics over the Bombay High Court Orders: Ganesh Chaturthi Celebrations - Public’s right should prevail over communitarian interests
- Rajiv Malhotra’s plagiarism - Andrew J. Nicholson and Permanent Black respond to the controversy
- India - Maharashtra: On Harsul violence 30 Kms from Kumbh
- India: Video of RSS Shakha and report on Sri Ram Colony, New Delhi
- India: 32 years after Nellie, a documentary finds sorrow, indifference, and a refusal to forget
- “Ab Hamara Hindustan, Mulla Bhago Pakistan” (Hindustan is now ours, Muslims flee to Pakistan) - Mahesh Kumar @cpim.org
- India: Vedic Vidyalayas run by Vishwa Ved Sansthan (an organ of Vishwa Hindu Parishad) in Hindi belt
- Islamist Terrorism: The Undelying Politics
- India: Modasa Bomb Blast - Beginning of the end ? Are investigations into Hindutva terror related cases changing course?  (Subhash Gatade)
 
::: RESOURCEs & FULL TEXT :::
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9. POETS AND FATHERS - REMEMBERING FAIZ IN LAHORE, DELHI AND SRINAGAR
by Ananya Vajpeyi
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(The Telegraph (Calcutta), July 16 , 2015)
In late February, this year, I was invited to the Lahore Literary Festival. I spoke about my work, and naturally there was no dearth of interesting panels to attend and folks to meet. Like my fellow participants, I was also keen to see the city on my first trip there. My mother's family had been wealthy Sikhs in Western Punjab, who had fled to India during Partition. Lahore for me was a storied place, the locus of my maternal grandparents' memories of a charmed youth and a lost home. But as I met people, old friends and new, and visited many monuments, museums and markets, the place that left the deepest impression on me was Faiz Ghar, a small bungalow in Model Town, dedicated to the memory and legacy of the great Pakistani poet and revolutionary, Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911-1984).

In contemporary Pakistan's fragile civil society, Faiz's poetry is a bulwark against a State that has not stood strongly enough for democracy, a bubbling sectarianism that can erupt at any moment into yet another scalding episode of fratricidal bloodshed, and a continual erosion of the secular, cosmopolitan, democratic and enlightened values that were central to the founding vision of figures like Allama Iqbal and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. It may appear far-fetched to suggest that beautiful poetry could be a consolation for awful politics, but in Pakistan today this seems true.

Most educated Pakistanis, even in the younger generation, know their Faiz. His smoke-ringed picture hangs in the atmospheric Pak Tea House and his radical songs are sung by left-wing musical bands like Laal. Faiz's family - his daughters, Salima and Moneeza Hashmi (who married two brothers), and his grandsons, Ali, Adeel and Yasser Hashmi - through their collective efforts in the arts, academia, media and cultural life more generally, ensure that even thirty years after the poet's death, he remains a living presence in the minds and hearts of Lahoris, otherwise beleaguered by the escalating sense of political anarchy in Pakistan.

At Faiz Ghar, a room full of photographs shows him with both public figures and family members [picture]. I was riveted by images of Faiz, almost all of them black-and-white or sepia-toned, with fellow writers, artists, world leaders, dissident intellectuals - so many important and interesting men and women of his time. They reminded me of similar photographs of my father, Kailash Vajpeyi, a poet at home both in India and abroad. I did not know then that my father was going to die in less than five weeks from that day when I spent hours lingering in the gallery, library, archive and garden at Faiz Ghar, transfixed by the poet's charisma and drawn to his adventures in life and letters.

My father, Kailash Vajpeyi (1936-2015), belonged to the generation after Faiz Ahmad Faiz. But in the 1960s and 1970s, when my father was young and Faiz was getting older, there was a clear overlap in the circles they traversed, especially outside South Asia. The Communist world - the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Latin America - was where oppressive State structures combined with emancipatory Marxist, Leninist and Maoist ideologies were forcing literature underground, and spawning new genres, linguistic experimentation and transnational solidarities. Poets and writers in the post-colonial and Commonwealth nations were naturally drawn to these ideas and innovations flourishing in the shadow of Communism.

Faiz's searing poems, among his most famous, indicting the leprous dawn and the moth-eaten freedom of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the blood-stained independence of Bangladesh in 1971, reminded me of my father's Rajdhani ["Capital City"], Ganatantra ["Republic"] and Ek Naya Rashtrageet ["A New National Anthem"]. These had earned him Nehru's ire, heated questions in Parliament, temporary bans and blacklisting from All India Radio in the 1960s, and cost him his passport during Indira Gandhi's Emergency. He wrote of the perversion of freedom and self-rule, the bitter after-taste of nationalism, decolonization and Partition, and the crashing failures, disappointments, frustrations and resentments associated with the post-colonial state (Ek sil ki tarah jaise giri hai svatantrata/ Aur pichak gaya hai poora desh!). In his first three collections, published between 1964 and 1972, his poetry was seething with anger at the Cold War, the madness of the arms race between the two global superpowers, the poverty, the backwardness and corruption of the Third World, and the precarious condition of a planet overrun by nuclear weapons.

While progressive ideologies were a common thread between the older poet and his younger contemporary across the border, Islam connected Faiz to West Asia and the Palestinian struggle, while a keen scholarly interest in Buddhism turned my father's attention to the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the disaster of the 1962 Sino-Indian War. After 1980, though, he was increasingly drawn to Buddhist, Sufi and Advaita philosophies, and his poetry took a turn away from politics towards the deeper questions of god, soul, mortality and eternity.

Arguably, Faiz remained politically invested to the very end. His poems about the struggles of workers, peasants and ordinary people, the impoverished masses in the half-built cities of the subcontinent, about refugees, migrants and the unknown soldier, provide a lexicon of protest and dissent as much in India as in Pakistan. Poems like Hum dekhenge, Yahaan se sheher ko dekho, Ummeed-e-seher, Intisaab ( Aaj ke naam), Gulon mein rang bhare, Mujh se pehli si muhabbat, Dua ( Aaiye haath uthaaien hum bhi), Subh-e-Aazadi and Bol ki lab azaad hain tere are the anthems of the Left all across Urdu-speaking South Asia, beyond territorial nationalisms. Perhaps the note of undefeated hope, the indefatigable optimism in Faiz is what makes him attractive as the voice of struggle even today.

Like Faiz, my father used a mastery of poetic form and a firm grasp of the historical traditions of poetry in his language (Urdu/Farsi for Faiz, Hindi/Sanskrit for my father), to think about pressing contemporary issues. Through formal virtuosity, these poets bridged the classical and the modern. But an equally fecund source of creativity for both men was a private life rooted in a good marriage and sweet domesticity. The sheer unalloyed joy and affection on Faiz's face, his relaxed and happy appearance in his photographs with his wife, daughters and later his grandchildren, were so reminiscent of the closeness my father had throughout his married life of 50 years with my mother, later on with me and in his last years with my partner, who is a writer. Our home and family - small, intimate, seamless - were an inseparable part of my father's poetic métier, and provided the space and security for the free play of his imagination.

In June, this year, Moneeza Hashmi, Faiz's younger daughter, who has worked in television and broadcasting in Pakistan, travelled to Srinagar, Kashmir. She wanted to visit the Government College for Women, where her father and her mother, the British-born Alys George, were married in October 1941. The college itself was started in 1950 in the same building. Alys and Faiz's nikah-naama was read by Sheikh Abdullah, and later became the basis for an egalitarian and modernized Muslim marriage contract in Pakistan. Other progressive Urdu poets of the pre-Partition era, like Josh and Majaz, had attended the informal post-nuptial house party, and even today the college has a "Faiz Room" in honour of its eminent visitor, who was married there nearly 75 years ago.

We accompanied her to the college for an emotional visit to the site of her parents' marital union, so unusual for its time. Later we showed her around Srinagar, a difficult journey for all of us - my husband who is from Kashmir, me from Delhi, and Moneeza from Lahore - as we navigated the Valley's fabled landscape, now scarred and ravaged by decades of conflict, militarization, poor infrastructure and, most recently, the catastrophic floods of September, 2014. All of us, coming from different but intertwined histories and pasts, knew that this was not the place Faiz, Alys and Sheikh would have recognized from three quarters of a century ago. Together we could not have enough of the lore of Faiz's life and poetry, but we could also not deny the utter destruction of the dreams, hopes and struggles of our forefathers in the fractured and ruined political reality around us.

Salima's husband, Shoaib Hashmi, has translated Faiz's poetry into English, and Moneeza's older son, Ali Madeeh Hashmi, a psychiatrist by profession, has written a short biography of his grandfather, to be followed by a complete life in the coming months. On a trip to Gulmarg, the day after we had visited the Faiz Room, I told Moneeza about my father's death. After weeks of sadness, I felt some relief. In the company of a daughter of Faiz, I could think of my father not just as the parent I had loved and lost, but as a poet, an intellectual, a literary figure who belonged to his time and his language, and who would have a significance far beyond my personal experiences and memories of him.

We laughed as we compared notes - our respective fathers wrote at night, locked themselves away when they had to write, were shielded valiantly from external demands on their time by their loyal spouses, had busy public lives, thriving friendships with members of the opposite sex and boundless love for their daughters. Both talked about forthcoming poems in terms that resembled the language of pregnancy and childbirth, both were tormented and distracted until they had got the impending, gestating, brewing, blooming, erupting words out of their systems. Both had died of heart-attacks, but without any illness, hospitalization or prolonged suffering, for which we each felt grateful.

As we chatted for hours, I told Moneeza that unlike Faiz, my father had never been exiled or incarcerated, despite the radicalism, critical stance and anti-establishment tone of his early poetry. "Do you think that Faiz would not have had to spend all those years in jail, or in Beirut, Moscow and London, had he chosen to stay on in India after Partition?" I asked her. I wondered whether it was more or less uninterrupted democracy in India that had kept my father safe, but periods of autocratic rule, military dictatorship and political turbulence in Pakistan that had caused Faiz so much hardship, made his life so itinerant?

Moneeza looked out of the car window to the plunging mountainsides of pine forests and stepped rice fields rolling by below us, the cloud-wrapped snow peaks in the distance that stood between us and her city. "Yes, perhaps," she replied, after a while. "He was a genius, they say. Talent like my father's has to express itself, regardless of circumstances. India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Palestine... I don't know, maybe. He would have written poetry no matter what. But I suppose if he had not been through all that, then Faiz wouldn't have been Faiz."

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10.  CRUSHING DISSENT: NGOS UNDER THREAT IN INDIA
by Seema Guha 
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(Open Democracy - 15 July 2015)

Can NGOs and India’s political opposition stop Modi’s civil society clampdown? A contribution to the openGlobalRights debate, Funding for Human Rights.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in India have been put on notice. By recently denying entry to Greenpeace and placing the Ford Foundation on its watch list, the Modi government has sent a clear message to all NGOs: be very, very careful. “The target is not just Greenpeace,” says Anil Chaudhuri, coordinator of Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), “but also the thousands of smaller NGOs working with communities in tribal areas and forests.”

The effect has been profound. Locating the offices of smaller Indian NGOs is becoming more difficult as many remove their signage. “We don’t want to draw attention, as [we] never know when a policeman or … official [will] come and trouble us,’’ said the director of a small NGO in North Bengal that works closely with the police to rescue young girls from traffickers. His is not a foreign funded outfit, but the fear of being targeted has permeated the entire Indian NGO community.

Of course, neither the Ford Foundation nor Greenpeace will really be affected; they are too large and established. Instead, those feeling the most impact will be the smaller outfits who cannot defend themselves and can’t work without outside help. According to Lenin Raghuvanshi, founder and director of the Peoples’ Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) in Uttar Pradash, many smaller groups will shut down without foreign aid. Those most at risk are working against discrimination, a topic India’s upper castes typically refuse to support.

What is driving India’s civil society clampdown? Prime Minister Modi swept to power in May 2014 on an economic development platform, promising acche din (better days) for all Indians. He was massively funded by a corporate India tired of the previous government’s economic non-performance. With unwavering faith in Modi, Indian industry is looking to smooth the way towards land acquisition and subsoil mineral access, both of which are often found in tribal areas across the country.

Modi has travelled widely, exhorting foreign businessmen to “make in India” and turn the country into a manufacturing hub. Clearly, he ignores the hypocrisy of courting foreign investment while restricting NGOs from doing the same. Still, foreign direct investment (FDI) has not increased significantly, and overseas businesses say there is still no sign that doing business in India is getting much easier. Modi’s National Democratic Alliance knows that unless it creates sufficient jobs, its popularity will suffer, and so the government sees NGOs, especially those in the environmental sector, as an impediment to growth.

An Indian NGO highlights the environmental consequences of a commuter rail line project in Bangalore by holding a funeral for felled trees in the train's path.

“This government…is driven by corporate interests and feels NGOs are against development,” explains NGO leader Raghuanshi. He rejects the claim, however; “We want development,” he says, “but not at the cost of marginalised communities or …the environment.”

'We want development, but not at the cost of marginalised communities or …the environment.'  Indian officials are also pursuing action against activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband, Javed Anand, both civil rights activists and journalists in charge of Sabrang Communications, a group dedicated to fighting India’s societal divisions. Sabrang publishes a monthly magazine, Communalism Combat, and runs a program called Khoj, which teaches tolerance and secular values to Mumbai school children. Setalvad and Anand are also trustees of Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), a group that offers free legal aid and is currently a co-petitioner seeking criminal charges against Modi and 62 other government officials for their involvement in the Gujarat violence of 2002.

In 2006, Ford Foundation gave $200,000 to Sabrang, and NGOs speculate that the government has targeted the New York-based donor because of this grant. Since 2010, the police have repeatedly charged Sabrang director Teesta Setalvad with all manner of legal violations.

Attacks on environmental NGOs are not entirely new, however. Prior to Modi’s election, the Congress-led government had a similar mind-set, especially when dealing with anti-nuclear activists. In fact, it was Congress that created the first laws restricting foreign donations to local NGOs in 1976, and Congress once again tightened that law in 2010. Over the years, all manner of governments have used these laws to harass local non-profits.

The government often catches NGOs out because many do not have the proper training or knowledge to fill out legal forms or file paperwork. As a result, official investigations typically do reveal violations.

And yet, former Congress leader Sonia Gandhi launched her government in 2004 by packing her National Advisory Council with NGO representatives. In fact, her son and Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi met representatives of several NGOs this week, including Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai. Now that Rahul has declared his support for India’s NGOs, the Congress party is likely to challenge the Modi government. “This kind of crackdown on NGOs is neither acceptable in our democratic society, nor appropriate or healthy for democracy,” says Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjawala.

If India’s NGOs unite against official harassment, and if Congress parliamentarians lend their support, Modi’s government may find it increasingly hard to crush dissenting voices.

Seema Guha is a New Delhi-based freelance journalist writing on Indian foreign policy.  She also works as a commissioning editor for openGlobalRights.

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11. INDIA:: SKILL DIL: MODI'S JOB PORTAL MAKES A PITCH FOR PALMISTS, ASTROLOGERS & MONEYLENDERS
by Nihar Gokhale
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(Catchnews.com - 21 July 2015)
The portal
    Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a National Career Services website on 20 July
    The aim is to bring together employers and job-seekers in one place

The jobs
    The jobs listed included astrologers, palmists, money-lenders and pawn-brokers
    It describes an astrologer's job as "mildly hazardous" with risks of neck pain, heart disease, depression, anxiety and headache
    The site also has links to job sites like Times Jobs and Naukri.com. But the jobs have expired
    It also directs job-seekers to places where they can develop their skills as astrologers and palmists

Are you an aspiring astrologer? Or an experienced one, tired of waiting by parks and markets for those who seek to know their future?

The government is here to help you get a job.

National Career Services is a website launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Indian Labour Conference on 20 July . The portal aims to bring together employers and job seekers in varied sectors of the economy in one place, using information technology.

But it has a rather wide-reaching mandate. Jobs listed include astrologers, palmists, and even money lenders and pawn brokers, all listed under the "unorganised sector" section of the website. While these jobs are officially recognised under the International Standard Classification of Occupations - which is probably why they are listed on the website - the details shows that the government is quite serious about these careers.

The general description for an astrologer's job (the alias mentioned: jyotish, fortune teller) is "advising individuals about precautions to be taken and religious rites to be performed to avoid evil influences of the stars and planets".

The website informs that this is a desk job requiring 9-10 hours of work everyday with a work from home option. It also warns that an astrologer's is not an easy job. The job is classified as "mildly hazardous or dangerous" with risks of neck pain, heart disease, depression, anxiety, headache, etc.

Given the Modi government's thrust towards skill development, the website promises that skill training for astrologers is available in "all colleges across India" besides specialised institutes such as the All India Federation of Astrologer's Societies and All India Institute of Occult Science.

There are also three links to YouTube videos of Ludhiana-based Rajesh Joshi, who provides video lectures on learning astrology.

While a fresher is expected to earn Rs 8,000-10,000 per month, those with experience can expect to take home up to Rs 30,000.

The website lists some job links from Times Jobs and Naukri.com. Unfortunately, clicking the links led either to expired jobs or zero search results.

But don't worry. The website assures there are big ticket takers for your skills. "[Astrology] continues to have a following across the world, sometimes numbering amongst its adherents celebrities or political leaders in positions of power and influence. The popular media continues to give it ample time and space across the world, suggesting that astrology columns, telecasts and shows help at least a little in making cash registers ring."

The website provides links to Times Jobs and Naukri.com for jobs that are no longer there

If stars aren't your USP, you may try seeing palms. A palmist's job, according to the NCS website, involves "interpreting the lines and other symbols on palms, feet or forehead of persons to relate past and forecast future".

YouTube comes to the rescue here, too. There are three links cited on the website on video lectures on palmistry.
Moneylenders

To a follower of Hindi cinema, the local moneylender is a rotund, bespectacled man sitting by a low desk (the website lists 'sahukar' as an alias for moneylenders, just to get the picture right). In films, the sahukar is shown to control the village economy, often threatening the poor with dire consequences for not returning his loan. Anyone who has heard of farmer suicides knows that the loans are taken at exorbitant rates from money lenders, whose coercive methods of loan recovery often lead to the fatal depression.

This is passe. The government considers moneylenders have a place in the microfinance sector of the country. No matter that the coercive methods used by microfinance institutions led to Andhra Pradesh passing a law in 2010 to ban them.

"The microfinance sector has made a strong come back after the Andhra Pradesh crisis and is poised to grow at [.] 24% over FY15-FY19. MFIs have expanded in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar while continuing to grow in their traditional strongholds of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and West Bengal," the description says.

Here too, the jobs listed courtesy Times Jobs includes a 'loan administrator' of a Maharashtra-based firm offering a handsome package of Rs 15-30 lakh per annum.

The government hasn't missed the fact that in urban settings, the job is done by pawn brokers. The job is "Advancing money to persons on security of movable property such as jewellery, utensils, furniture, etc." with a fresher salary of Rs 10,000-15,000 per month, rising to Rs 25,000 per month for those experienced.
Priests

But there is more space for the transcendental. Listed alongside sectors such as mining, apparel, banking and healthcare is 'religious professionals'. While the other sectors have logos next to their links - such as a stethoscope and a heart monitor for healthcare - this link to religious professionals does not have any logo. This is probably because of the secular nature of our Constitution.

So far, divine opportunity is available only to Hindus and Christians. The former may apply to be a 'Purohit', while the latter is called, simply, a 'priest'.

A purohit's job is "worshipping deity in temple", "performing religious rites and ceremonies of Hindus on behalf of persons engaging him", besides "Reciting from scriptures and/or performing havans, kirtans, etc. to invoke divine blessing".

However, there is no work from home option, and the job is seven days a week. "This may vary from temple to temple", although shifts may be available, the site informs.

There is also a career path defined for purohits, even though to the devout this may be earthly maya, a delusion. One begins as a priest (or teacher, preacher) and grows to be a senior priest, then a purohit, and finally a temple trustee.

Peculiarly, there is no career path described for an architect.

Priests are listed as 'religious professionals'. They have to work all 7 days with no option to work from home

Among the career skills desired of priests are "good communication skills", "disciplined" and, likely the most crucial, "persuasive".

The site claims to have over 20 million registered job seekers. It aims to integrate data from all the nearly 1,000 employment exchanges in the country. As a jobs provider, it links closely with Modi government's Make in India and Skill India.

Indeed, the 23,936 skill providers outnumber 1,684 employers (and counting) registered on it. There is no data yet on how many have opted for a particular job.

Descriptions are available for jobs - both available and prospective - in 53 sectors.

These include piano tuners, ambulance drivers, share market traders, gem polishers, marine biologists, aircraft navigators, even Supreme Court judges.

But it is nice to know that even for those intent on counting stars, there is hope.

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12. GERMAN PAVILION IN VENICE: ARTISTS MAKE STATEMENT AGAINST GREECE AUSTERITY
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(Ahram Online, 18 July 2015)

Artists and workers at the German Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale hung an altered German flag expressing solidarity with Greece under Eurozone austerity demands

Flag at the entry to the German Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. (Photo accompanying the artists' statement, posted by Hito Steyerl on her Facebook account)

"Today, the artists of the German Pavilion and a number of the workers of the 56th Venice Biennial covered the Germania sign on the pavilion with a Greek flag and the word 'Germoney.' We show our solidarity with the people in Greece and all other places suffering from austerity.

As cultural workers and artists we demand an end to austerity for health, culture and education while public funding for banks and oligarchs seems unlimited," read statement released two days ago on Facebook by Hito Steyerl, one of the artists participating in German Pavillion at the Venice Biennale.

Steyerl continued listing signatories to the action, including artists Tobias Zielony, Olaf Nicolai, and Cairo-based artistic duo Philip Rizk and Jasmina Metwaly, alongside employees involved in this year's pavilion who are against the austerity measures Germany has demanded Greece accept as part of a Eurozone bailout deal.

Running 9 May to 22 November, the 56th Venice Biennale includes participants from over 50 countries.

The German Pavilion was curated by Florian Ebner, its concept explained as a "meditation on the material and political nature of images in the contemporary digital world," through the filmic and photographic works of Zielony, Steyerl and duo Metwaly/Rizk.


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13. BOOK REVIEW: AHRAR AHMAD ON ROUNAQ JAHAN'S POLITICAL PARTIES IN BANGLADESH
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(The Daily Star - July 13, 2015)

Book Review: Political Parties in Bangladesh: Challenges of Democratization
Author: Rounaq Jahan Dhaka: Prothoma Prokashan, 2015, pp. 212
Ahrar Ahmad

Bangladesh abounds in paradoxes.  It has confounded many developmental pundits by maintaining a fairly brisk pace of economic growth while continuing to be mired in dysfunctional politics, rampant corruption, and routine bureaucratic inefficiencies.  It won a long and intense struggle to gain its independence, establish its identity based on cultural and linguistic markers, and commit itself to some secular and humanistic ideals, only to see the creeping shadow of disillusionment and rising religious assertiveness complicating the nation's previous clarity and confidence about itself.  In a country where the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition (since 1991), and the Speaker of the House (since 2014) have all been women, it is also true that women face objectification and prejudice throughout the land that is pervasive, crude and, often, violent.

Professor Rounaq Jahan's latest book refers to a few other paradoxes more explicitly political in nature.But before we discuss the book, it should be noted that the project itself is situated within a more apparent conundrum.  It is abundantly clear that Bangladesh is care deeply, perhaps obsessively, about politics.The people, particularly the highbrow classes,talk incessantly and cleverly about political matters. There is also a long and rich intellectual/creative tradition that is closely associated with the region. But strangely, perhaps lamentably, this passion for politics has neither been informed by, nor reflected in, much serious scholarly effort that has been dedicated to its study.  Consequently, there is an academic vacuum in the field that is quite inconsistent with the country's own history, opportunities and needs.

Standing against that trend, and seeking to redress that imbalance, have been a few scholars in the social sciences and the humanities (economists are exempt from this category because many of them have pursued lively research agendas), who have remained intellectually engaged and productive.  Dr. Rounaq Jahan has been a pre-eminent member of that small band of the faithful, and has continued to generate work on issues related to development, women, parliament, and so on, that is both sophisticated and relevant. Her current book serves to underscore her reputation as one of the premier political scientists working, and consistently publishing, on Bangladesh today.

The book is, ostensibly, about political parties and democracy in Bangladesh but is actually framed within a wider context of an apparent disjuncture between the country's stated, and supposedly enthusiastic, commitment to democracy on the one hand, and the many customs and practices seemingly inherent in the system itself that seem to threaten the very essence of that ideal.

Thus, its leaders speak fulsomely, and with much chest-thumping puffery, about the need for democracy, congratulate themselves on their struggles and sacrifices to protect it, encourage their supporters to uphold it, and warn against dark conspiracies that seek to undermine it.

At the same time, some of the habits of thought and action embraced by these "fighters for democracy"have more often served to jeopardize the practice of democracy rather than further it. They have:

- lowered the level of political discourse through employing a rude, polarizing, inflammatory rhetoric that assumes that all "opponents" are "enemies", makes it into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and ensures that no compromise can be possible;
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- created an intimidating environment for writers and journalists through political threats and judicial actions which have a "chilling effect" on free speech;

- cultivated a culture of impunity so that the rule of law is only selectively applied;

- manipulated the apparatus of the State, and politicized it's institutions,to advance partisan advantages in ways that are often arbitrary and sometimes vicious (which has led to a palpable erosion of civil rights and liberties in the country);

- devalued the Parliament with opposition parties routinely boycotting many, if not most, of its sessions and, in the process, turning the streets into the primary platform to vent political disagreements (which inevitably leads to costly economic disruptions, deeply frustrating public inconveniences, and bloody political encounters); and

- problematized the electoral system itself through pursuing a win-by-any-means strategy, or if-I-do-not-win-I will-not-play tactics, that clouds the credibility and the moral authority of the entire exercise.

Professor Jahan explores this tension through the perspective of political parties.  In the process she offers a broad overview of political parties in Bangladesh in the context of three eras which she has identified - between 1972 and 1975 when Bangladesh transformed itself into a one-party state, 1975 and 1990 when state sponsored parties launched by erstwhile military rulers controlled the system, and the third after 1991 with regular (if, at times, controversial) electoral contests that led to the emergence of the current system of two-party dominant clusters that commands the political landscape of the country. 

She goes on to delineate the basic policy orientations and ideological inclinations that differentiate the parties, examine their structures and internal procedures, scrutinize their leadership and membership base as they have evolved over time, analyze their electoral strategies and outcomes, and investigate both the internal factions and the lived experience of the parties at the grass-roots level.  The tone is objective and judicious, the information substantive and well organized, the observations astute and insightful. 

But Professor Jahan goes beyond providing merely a competent and comprehensive narrative about the parties she has chosen to investigate (the Awami League, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Jatiyo Party and Jamat-i-Islami party).  She also raises some other issues (paradoxes) that are germane to the notion of democracy itself, and its relevance and survival in Bangladesh.  Several are worth pointing out.

For example, it is generally assumed by most political theorists that competing political parties are an indispensable part of the democratic process and the longer they have functioned, the stronger become the prospects of democracy; that electoral contests are expected to facilitate the consolidation of democratic principles and practices; and that an essentially two-party dominant system (with minor parties allied with them) should lead to greater democratic stability than a plethora of parties that can generate unnecessary, and often unwieldy, complexity.  But, the extent to which these assumed relationships have been expressed, or realized, in Bangladesh is very much an open and intriguing question. In spite of enjoying almost all the advantages that are supposed to lead to the institutionalization of democracy in the country, Bangladesh continues to flounder at various levels and expose its democratic "deficits" in many self-evident ways.

One answer to that enigma is explored by Professor Jahan.  She poses this question rather provocatively - can parties really be expected to encourage and support the ideals of democracy at the national level when the parties themselves are indifferent to democratic norms and practices in terms of their own structures and procedures? Can democracies be really safe, or at all functional, in the hands of institutions that are organized in a fundamentally undemocratic manner? How can democracy flourish if the parties which advocate it do not practice what they preach?

Professor Jahan's book deals with this issue at some length and analytical rigor. The picture that emerges is not pretty.  Party leadership remains in the hands of single individuals who dominate it for decades often spawning dynastic inheritance of the position.  The council meetings (the highest deliberative body of the parties) are not held regularly, and when they are, the meetings are reduced to opportunities for sycophancy and rubber-stamping of the leader's wishes rather than meaningful debate or discussion. Parties are ridden with internal factions which necessitates constant bargaining that leads to a further strengthening of the leader's position because only s/he can negotiate/garner their support through spreading the rewards of sprawling patronage networks.  Political campaigns followed by the parties deliberately utilize street agitation, intimidation, and the denial of political space to others. These strategies are reinforced by the increasing influx of money and mastans (thugs) in the political process.

Moreover, the parties typically ignore their own constitutions in terms of leadership selection, candidate nomination and policy setting, with the principal leader (and his/her chosen underlings) making most decisions.  They are equally casual about meeting the stipulations demanded by the RPO (Representation of the People Order, 1972, with subsequent amendments) in terms of achieving diversity (both women and minorities are woefully under-represented), campaign finance regulations, or requirements of transparency.  None of the parties have established procedures through which disagreements can be handled, or conflicts resolved, either within the parties or with external forces.  There is little wonder then that such institutions could not possibly be the guardians and exemplars of democratic governance, and their rhetoric about their respect for, or commitment to, democracy is probably cynical and hypocritical froth.

But, while the book describes well, it does not explain as effectively.  Several questions come to mind.  First, why is it that the situation has developed in this direction?  What is it that is so unique about the party system in Bangladesh that compels this kind of behavior?  Is it political culture, historical quirks, leadership failures, social structure, or something else?  Some explanatory framework would have greatly added to the value of the book. 

Second, can we really refer to these institutions as political parties with philosophical and policy differences that are clear and specific (except for the Jamaat),or as groups formed around a dominant leader whose personal interests, ambitions and ego drive the group and lead to ideological shape-shifting, opportunistic alliances and factional bickering? (It should be borne in mind that it is entirely possible for the same person to belong to different governments in power, and it is typical to have break-away factions claim the name of the original party with the names of the new leaders in parentheses).  In other words, are political parties in Bangladesh merely extensions of personalities rather than formally systematized structures that are supposed to follow the organizational rules and precedents that are usually, and perhaps universally, acknowledged?

Third, can we really discuss the patronage networks through which party leaders seek to secure their positions and extend their authority without reference to the pervasive patron-clientelism that defines a rentier state (hence the desperate scramble to gain governmental power), or the hierarchies and behavior patterns of the semi-feudal class structure that is so entrenched in rural Bangladesh?  Thus, are political parties really contravening the democratic aspirations and commitments of the people, or are they merely reflecting, and in some ways reinforcing, the traditional modes of personal conduct and social transactions that are intrinsic to the system itself? Can parties be really expected to behave differently from the way in which other institutions, work-places or even families are organized, the way in which wealthier classes treat the less fortunate, or the way in which women are usually disregarded and made invisible?

Such minor quibbles not withstanding, Dr. Jahan's book is an impressive contribution to the (admittedly meager) literature on political science in Bangladesh.  She presents her case with care, precision and authority.  Her style is crisp and steady.  Her message is sobering. She does not dazzle us (there are far too many in Bangladesh who try to), but she enlightens, provides a fine example of scholarly research (which, hopefully, may also inspire younger academics), and provokes us to think.  For all that, Dr. Jahan deserves our gratitude and, more importantly, deserves to be read and discussed.

The reviewer is a senior faculty at Black Hills State University, Spearfish, SD 57799.
He can be reached at ahrar.ahmad at bhsu.edu   


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14. JOSHUA OPPENHEIMER ON WHY HE HAD TO MAKE ANOTHER FILM ABOUT INDONESIA’S MASS KILLINGS
by Adam Taylor  
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(Washington Post - July 20, 2015)

Is the past ever past? Joshua Oppenheimer's 2012 documentary, "The Act of Killing," investigated that question. Over the course of several years, the American filmmaker followed a group of Indonesian men as they reenacted their part in the anti-Communist massacres of 1965 and 1966. These men, former gangsters and militia members who killed with tacit government approval, wanted to commemorate what they saw as a proud moment in their lives. They reenacted how they had killed scores of people, playing both killers and victims in surreal shoots.

Oppenheimer's film caused a major stir in Indonesia — he has not returned to the country since the film came out because of death threats. The film not only cast light on an atrocity that much of the world knew little about, but it also revealed both the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators and their troubled consciences.

Given the angry response to "The Act of Killing" and the threats against Oppenheimer, it may come as a surprise that he was able to make another documentary that focuses on the same anti-Communist killings. Oppenheimer is keen to explain that the new film isn't a sequel but a companion piece. While the first film showed the impunity of the killers, the second film, "The Look of Silence," shows the aftermath of the killings from a different angle: the silence of the victims.

"'The Act of Killing' is cut through with these cuts to silence, where time stops and you feel the haunted space where everything is playing out," Oppenheimer said in an interview in Washington last week. "The Look of Silence" was designed to take the viewer into those silences, he said, and "make the viewer feel what is it like to be forced to live there, to rebuild a life there surrounded by the powerful men who killed your loved ones."

"The Look of Silence," which released in the United States this month, follows Adi Rukun, an optometrist whose elder brother was killed during the anti-Communist purges. "I knew [Adi] would be a major collaborator from early on, from 2003, because it was Adi who was gathering survivors to tell me their stories," Oppenheimer said. However, after the military threatened Adi and others, Oppenheimer shifted the focus of his research to the perpetrators.

Oppenheimer says the first time he filmed two killers together in 2004 was when he knew he had to make two films. The two merrily described how they tortured and killed Ramli Rukun and threw him in the river, like many others. They weren't ashamed. In fact, Oppenheimer says, he felt as if they were reading from a shared script. "Anyone who hears the way they are speaking will be forced to acknowledge that in a terrible way the genocide hasn't ended," he said, "because the perpetrators are still in power and our lives are still being wrecked by fear and unresolved trauma."

It was only after Oppenheimer returned to Indonesia in 2012 after editing "The Act of Killing" that he realized Adi would be the focus of the new film. He had given Adi a camera, and Adi had filmed a painful scene of his 100-year-old father forgetting who his family members were and becoming frightened of them. "He said, 'The moment I started filming, I realized that this is the moment that it became too late for my father to heal,'" Oppenheimer recalls. Adi's father had finally forgotten his son's murder, but not the fear he carried with him.

Oppenheimer says that Adi then asked him to film him confronting his brother's killers, so he could face up to the fear that had followed him through life. The timing was crucial: As "The Act of Killing" had not yet been released, many in Indonesia did not realize how critical the film would be. Regional militia members and gangsters were willing to talk to Oppenheimer and Adi because they felt he was close to the national figures who were interviewed for that film. Even so, Adi understood that he and his entire family might have to flee the country if things turned bad during filming.

Watching the film, you can see that the closure Adi seeks isn't easy to come by. Adi gets little in the way of clear apologies from the killers. Worse still, he discovers that his own uncle may have been complicit in Ramli's death. An excuse, repeated throughout the film by both killers and victims, is that "the past is past." Oppenheimer hopes that the film lays bare the hollowness of those words. "Survivors always say it out of fear and perpetrators always say it as a threat, which means the past is not past," he said.
A clip from 'The Look of Silence'(1:49)
Joshua Oppenheimer directed "The Look of Silence," a documentary about the Indonesian killings in 1965. (Drafthouse Films)

Even if Adi didn't get the answers he had sought, the film is making a difference. Oppenheimer says that whereas "The Act of Killing" was released in secret within Indonesia, the premiere of "The Look of Silence" was announced with billboards. So many people turned up that the organizers had to hold two screenings, and Adi appeared as the surprise guest at both. A Twitter hashtag calling him a hero trended internationally. The film has now screened more than 3,500 times in the country.

Adi has moved from the area where he grew up, and a team of five people work round-the-clock to ensure he and his family are safe. Although there have been no threats against his life, there is always concern that something could happen. But in many ways, Oppenheimer says, the film has improved Adi's family's life. Adi is planning to open a brick-and-mortar shop for his optician business, and his children are in better schools. While his father passed away in 2013, Oppenheimer says, Adi's mother is fully aware of how important the film has been and has stopped repeating the details of Ramli's killing.

While "The Act of Killing" prompted some of the perpetrators to reconsider their roles in the massacres (the film memorably ends with death-squad leader Anwar Congo retching at the thought of what he has done), "The Look of Silence" may prompt further introspection in Indonesia. The government has introduced a truth and reconciliation bill in parliament, and there are rumors that a presidential apology might be forthcoming.

Such a mea culpa is extremely rare without a regime change. Oppenheimer likes to compare the situation in Indonesia to Nazi Germany if the country had not only won World War II but also had the Holocaust cheered on by other nations. "The question of 'what if the Nazis had won' is not some science fiction scenario," he said. "It's not the exception to the rule — it may be the rule across the global south, and this kind of impunity may be the story of our time."

With the U.S. release of "The Look of Silence," it may be time for the United States to consider its own role in Indonesia's killings and others like them. The United States was a key supporter of Indonesia's government during the Cold War, and U.S. companies profited from the country's dictatorship — "We did this because America taught us to hate Communists," one killer says in "The Look of Silence."

Oppenheimer hopes more Americans will follow the lead of Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.)and call for all U.S. files relating to the mass killings to be declassified and made public. "Anyone who cares about freedom and democracy who sees "The Look of Silence" ought to pause and wonder if the struggle for the so-called free world against the Communist world was the real reason for this or whether it was an excuse," he says, "a pretext for a murderous plunder."
Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.

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15. Book Review: Cohn on McFate, 'The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order'
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 Sean McFate. The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 272 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-936010-9.

Reviewed by Lindsay P. Cohn (Naval War College)
Published on H-Diplo (July, 2015)
Commissioned by Seth Offenbach

The last fifteen years have seen an explosion of debate and literature on the topic of privatized military force. Peter Singer’s landmark book Corporate Warriors: The Rise of Privatized Military Industry (2003), excited both scholarly and popular interest in the issue, and many works have followed. Some have been autobiographical, some exercises in self-justification, some polemic, and some have attempted to apply scholarly rigor to a particularly opaque world. It has been difficult to advance our general understanding of the phenomenon of private military force, however, largely because neither the US government nor academics have access to data, such as the names and backgrounds of people employed by private military companies (PMCs), whether or not they misbehave, and how many of them are killed or injured. As Sean McFate points out, even Congress is generally not allowed to see the contracts the government makes with PMCs.

Sean McFate’s ambitious book, The Modern Mercenary, aims to both contextualize and explain the phenomenon of the private market for force, and to do so he reaches back to the late medieval period. The book thus attempts to cover about a thousand years of history, and ostensibly to produce a new theory of international relations that will more accurately describe what McFate sees as a post-Westphalian world. The chapters on modern PMCs are valuable both as a synthesis of current debates and as a detailed look at how the private market for force functions. The quasi-historical and theoretical chapters are weaker.

The book combines the author’s insights from his personal experience in the industry with his ideas about why, historically, we are seeing the rapid expansion of the private market for force, and what its implications for international security might be. Because of this somewhat reflective nature, there is no particular methodology followed. For that reason, it may not appeal to social scientists looking for an empirical test of the author’s theory. The book is interesting and well written, but should be read along with other works in order to get the most accurate historical picture. For example, David Parrott’s The Business of War (2012), Frank Tallett and D. J. B. Trim’s European Warfare, 1350-1750 (2010), Peter Reid’s Medieval Warfare (2007), and Sally Paine and Bruce Elleman’s chapters on the Opium Wars in Modern China: Continuity and Change 1644 to the Present (2009) would all be valuable historical context.

In the chapters that draw on his own personal experience working for DynCorp--particularly his experience in Liberia--McFate’s discussions are detailed, interesting, and well sourced. In the more historical and theoretical chapters, there is a deficiency of sourcing and citation. While the sources used are appropriate, there is a great deal of assertion that demands more citation, and there are some inaccuracies. For example, at one point McFate refers to Carl von Clausewitz as “the great seventeenth-century Prussian war theorist” (p. 65--Clausewitz was born in the late eighteenth century and wrote his masterpiece following the Napoleonic Wars), although this error is not repeated. In addition, McFate frequently refers to the pope as a nonstate actor (see, for example, pp. 67, 72), despite the fact that from the late 700s to the late 1800s, many popes were temporal rulers with armies and territories appropriately named the Papal States.

Much of the discussion of history is simplified and truncated to fit into the narrative. For example, the main argument McFate makes about the international system is that the current system looks a great deal like the medieval system, both of which look very different from the intervening “Westphalian” system. However, while there is a significant amount of text devoted to discussing the purported similarities between the current system and the medieval system, there is almost no discussion of the intervening period, which McFate alleges functioned according to the ideal-type of state supremacy, sovereignty, and monopoly of force. This is a difficulty for McFate’s argument, as the period between 1648 and 1945 most certainly did not function that way (see, for example, the books cited above, and the examples below).

The argument that the Westphalian order eliminated the phenomenon of overlapping sovereignty or authority is easily undermined by a brief glance through the various empires and confederations characterizing Europe during that period, not to mention the rest of the world, where states were neither ubiquitous nor necessarily the most important actors. Indeed, the entire concept of federalism is one of overlapping sovereignty. War between states was certainly an important issue, but nonstate warfare did not disappear. For example, there were the Indian wars in the Americas, the wars of eastward expansion in Eurasia, the wars of rebellion under the British by the Irish, the Zulu, the Sepoy, the Boer, and others (some of which the British Empire lost), as well as the various civil wars in well-established states. States were certainly important actors, but they were not the only important actors: the Opium Wars in China were started not by states, but by merchants ignoring the sovereignty of the Chinese emperor; Sir James Brooke, a British adventurer, simply established himself as king of Borneo, with no connection to the British Empire; and the British and Dutch East and West India Companies operated for decades, if not centuries, essentially independently of their governments’ control. Not all rebellious or terrorist actors aspired to statehood, either: nineteenth-century terrorism in Europe--particularly Russia--was mainly anarchist in character and did not aim at establishing or taking over a state. To characterize the Westphalian period as having cleaned up and solved all the messiness of the medieval period is thus problematic, to say the least.

McFate is also inconsistent in identifying which period constitutes the “Westphalian” era--he sometimes refers to the entire period since 1648 (see, for example, p. 167), and other times suggests that only the nineteenth and twentieth centuries represent the Westphalian ideal (see, for example, pp. 102, 136, 166). While there are of course important differences in all these periods, there are also continuities, and while McFate is doing a service in drawing out the parallels between the modern and medieval markets for force, it is misleading to imply that there was ever a time when states were the only important actors and had a monopoly on the use of force (see, for example, pp. 6, 28f., 65, 68ff., 82f., 91f.).

McFate draws a distinction between what he calls “mercenaries,” or those private military/security companies that provide actual trigger-pullers, and “military enterprisers,” or those companies that recruit, organize, and train military or police forces for another actor (p. 14 and chapters 10-11). This is, however, a difficult distinction to maintain. As McFate himself points out, any company that can do the latter can probably do the former, with many companies doing both. Most companies (and their employers) also claim a significant distinction between trigger-pullers who are doing guard or security work, and trigger-pullers who are engaging in combat. Even the historical example McFate uses to illustrate the distinction he wants to make is not particularly helpful: he refers to “the tradition of military enterprisers such as [Albrecht von] Wallenstein, who built military forces rather than using them” (p. 158). But this is not accurate; Wallenstein did indeed recruit and organize massive forces (up to around 58,000 men at one point--see Parrott, The Business of War, p. 117), but he also commanded them in the field. He was not hired to recruit and train imperial troops; he was hired to recruit and train his own army, and then command it in the service of his employer. This is far closer to what McFate calls “mercenaries” than to what he is calling “military enterprisers.” Indeed, it appears that an important component for McFate’s definition of “military enterprisers” in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is that they are raising police and military forces for a state.

McFate distinguishes “mercenaries” and “military enterprisers” because his prescriptive argument is that it is important to shape the market for force to encourage the latter and discourage the former. He argues that neither states nor the international community have been successful in producing regulations to rein in the damage that a free market for force can create, so the best alternative is to manipulate market incentives to maintain a “mediated” market for force. By “mediated,” he appears to mean a market in which states and other responsible nonstate actors such as the United Nations (UN) hire vetted, responsible PMCs to raise and train military and police forces for state actors, which can then enforce order. This, at least, is the implication of the fascinating chapters on Liberia and Somalia. However, he also makes clear that he expects both state and nonstate actors to hire PMCs to conduct operations: he argues that the UN could make very good use of PMCs in humanitarian disaster or peacekeeping situations by, for example, having them create humanitarian safe zones for a period of weeks or months while the UN puts together a more permanent solution. How this differs from using “mercenaries” is not entirely clear, although McFate contends that the UN could and should develop a vetting and licensing regime that would simultaneously set standards for the industry and encourage good behavior in order to be eligible for contracts.

What McFate does not discuss is the problem that, regardless of whether large consumers such as the United States and potentially the UN create licensing regimes, without significant, enforceable, and enforced regulation, the market for the less savory firms engaged in less savory behavior will not go away. The market will simply differentiate, as it already does, into those firms that want to go for the big contracts with the big, legitimate employers, and those firms that are perfectly happy to serve whoever wants to pay them, be it warlords in Somalia or Afghanistan, or shipping companies, or smaller countries trying to resist bigger countries, etc. So long as there is both a demand for applied force and a supply of skilled labor, the market will bring those things together. Indeed, if one does not find McFate’s argument about the distinction between enterprisers and mercenaries convincing, the book’s message becomes even bleaker. It then implies that the market will create its own demand, allowing low-level violence to undermine weaker state actors, and increasing costs for trade and travel.

While the arguments about neomedievalism or the options for shaping the market may not be convincing, the chapters on contracting, Liberia, and Somalia are interesting as primary source accounts. Not many of the books currently available go into such detail on the contracting process or provide such finely grained accounts of how various contractor missions have played out. These chapters are valuable to anyone interested in either military and security contracting in particular, or issues of national defense policy and international security more broadly, and would be appropriate for advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level classes on those topics. McFate’s point that the United States missed an historic opportunity to shape the industry is certainly on target, and serves as a sobering contribution to the ongoing debates about the costs and benefits of privatized military force.

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16. INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN BRAZIL’S AMAZON – CRUSHED BY THE BELO MONTE DAM?
by Mario Osava 
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(Inter Press Service)
ALTAMIRA, Brazil, Jul 16 2015 (IPS) - Ethnocide, the new accusation leveled against the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, brings to light deeper underlying aspects of the conflicts and controversies unleashed by megaprojects in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

Federal prosecutor Thais Santi announced that legal action would be taken “in the next few weeks” against Norte Energía, the company building the dam, on the argument that its initiatives to squelch indigenous resistance amount to ethnocide.

“This will be an innovative legal process in Brazil,” said Wilson Matos da Silva, who has a direct interest in this “pioneer legal proceeding” as a Guaraní indigenous lawyer who has written about the issue in publications in Dourados, the city in western Brazil where he lives.

“Brazil has no legislation on ethnocide, a neologism used as an analogy to genocide, which is classified by a 1956 law,” said the defender of indigenous causes. “The object of the crime isn’t life, it is culture – but the objective is the same: destroying a people.

“Ethnocide only occurs when there is omission on the part of the state, which means it can be implicated in an eventual lawsuit,” added Matos da Silva.

The issue has been debated for some time now, especially among anthropologists, in international forums and courts. The novel development in Brazil is that it will now reach the courts, “a laudable initiative” that could set an important legal precedent, the lawyer said in a telephone interview with Tierramérica.

Belo Monte has been the target of numerous complaints and lawsuits that sought to halt the construction process. The company has been accused of failing to live up to the measures required by the government’s environmental authority to mitigate or compensate for impacts caused by the hydropower complex on the Xingú River which will generate 11,233 MW, making it the third –largest of its kind in the world.

The 22 lawsuits brought by the public prosecutor’s office failed to halt work on the dam. But they managed to secure compliance with several environmental requisites, such as the purchase of land for the Juruna Indigenous Community of Kilometre 17 on the Trans-Amazonian highway, who were exposed to the bustle and chaos of the construction project because they lived in a small area near the dam.
Socorro Arara, an indigenous fisherwoman whose surname is the name of her indigenous community, is fighting to maintain the way of life of the seven family units in her extended family. The island where they live on the Xingú River will be flooded by the Belo Monte reservoir, and she is demanding another island or riverbank area for resettling her family. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

Socorro Arara, an indigenous fisherwoman whose surname is the name of her indigenous community, is fighting to maintain the way of life of the seven family units in her extended family. The island where they live on the Xingú River will be flooded by the Belo Monte reservoir, and she is demanding another island or riverbank area for resettling her family. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

In a Jun. 29 report, the non-governmental Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA) said the conditions were not in place for the government to issue the final operating permit to allow Belo Monte to fill its reservoirs and begin generating electricity in early 2016.

ISA, which is active in the Xingú basin, said that many of the 40 initial requisites set before the concession was put up to tender in 2010, as well as the 31 conditions related to indigenous rights, have not yet been fulfilled.

Protection of indigenous territories is one of the conditions that have not been met, as reflected in the increase of illegal logging and poaching by outsiders, it said.

Norte Energía argues that it has invested 68 million dollars to benefit the roughly 3,000 people in 34 villages in the 11 indigenous territories in the Belo Monte zone of influence.

The programme aimed at providing social development in the local area has included the construction of 711 housing units and the donation of 366 boats, 578 boat motors, 42 land vehicles, 98 electrical generators, and 2.1 million litres of fuel and lubricants, as of April 2015.

In addition, teachers were trained as part of the indigenous education programme.

“But indigenous communities are unhappy because the plan was only partially carried out: of the 34 basic health units that were promised, not a single one is yet operating,” complained Francisco Brasil de Moraes, the coordinator for FUNAI – the government agency in charge of indigenous affairs – along the middle stretch of the Xingú River.

Nor is the project for productive activities, a local priority as it is aimed at enhancing food security and generating income, moving forward, he added. Technical assistance for improving agriculture is needed, and few of the 34 community manioc flour houses, where the staple food is processed and produced, are operating.

Another indispensable measure, the Indigenous Lands Protection Plan, which foresees the installation of operating centres and watch towers, has not been taken up by Norte Energía and “FUNAI does not have the resources to shoulder the burden of this territorial management,” Moraes told Tierramérica.

But the actions that prompted the accusation of ethnocide occurred, or started to occur, before the projects making up the Basic Environmental-Indigenous Component Plan were launched.
Part of what will be the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant’s turbine room in the northern Brazilian state of Pará – a mega-project which is 80 percent complete and will be finished in 2019. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

Part of what will be the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant’s turbine room in the northern Brazilian state of Pará – a mega-project which is 80 percent complete and will be finished in 2019. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

For 24 months, up to September 2012, Norte Energia carried out an Emergency Plan, distributing donations of necessary goods to the 34 villages, at a monthly cost of 9,600 dollars per village.

That fuelled consumption of manufactured and processed foods such as soft drinks, which have hurt people’s health, increased child malnutrition, and undermined food security among the indigenous communities by encouraging the neglect of farming, fishing and hunting, the ISA report states.

“Norte Energía established a relationship with the indigenous people that involved coopting the only outspoken opponents of the dam, and making their leaders come frequently to the city (of Altamira) to ask for more and more things at the company headquarters,” Marcelo Salazar, ISA’s assistant coordinator in the Xingú River basin, told Tierramérica.

In addition, villages were divided and the authority of local leaders was weakened by the company’s activities in the area, according to the public prosecutor’s office.

But Norte Energía told Tierramérica in a written response from the press department that “the so-called Emergency Plan was proposed by FUNAI,” which also set the amount of monthly spending at 30,000 reals.

The funds went towards “the promotion of ethno-development,” and included the donation of farm equipment and materials, the construction of landing strips and the upgrading of 470 km of roads leading to the villages, the company said.

Strengthening FUNAI by hiring 23 officials on Norte Energía’s payroll and purchasing computers and vehicles was another of the Emergency Plan’s aims, the company reported.

But the emphasis on providing material goods such as boats, vehicles and infrastructure forms part of a business mindset that is irreconcilable with a sustainable development vision, say critics like Sonia Magalhães, a professor of sociology at the Federal University of Pará, who also accuses Belo Monte of ethnocide.

“Their culture has been attacked, a colonial practice whose objective is domination and the destruction of a culture, which is a complex and dynamic whole,” she told Tierramérica, referring to the Emergency Plan.

“The Xingú River forms part of the world vision of the Juruna and Arara Indians in a way that we are not able to understand – it is a reference to time, space and the sacred, which are under attack” from the construction of the dam, she said.

Indifferent to this debate, Giliard Juruna, a leader of a 16-family Juruna indigenous village, is visiting Altamira, the closest city to Belo Monte, with new requests.

“We got speedboats, a pickup truck and 15 houses for everyone,” he told Tierramérica. “But things run out, and it was very little compared to what is possible.”

“We also asked for speedboats for fishing, although the water is murky and dirty, we don’t have sanitation, we have schools but we don’t have bilingual teachers,” he said, adding that they were seeking “a sustainability project” involving fish farming, cacao and manioc production, a manioc flour house, and a truck.

“We have customers for our products, but we don’t have any means of transport, because we won’t be able to use boats anymore,” he said.

The diversion of part of the waters of the Xingú River to generate electricity in Belo Monte will significantly reduce the water flow at the Volta Grande or Big Bend, where his village is situated.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

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South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
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