SACW - 28-29 Oct 2017 | Afghanistan: Americas Fixer / Pakistan: Mashal Khan's grave / India: Adhaar ID problem; Dissent gagged; Assam Citizenship; Social media mob justice / Doctors Dealing With Death / Libyan Funding Of Sarkozy / The First Totalitarian / 1917 Russian revolution

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Sat Oct 28 15:16:48 EDT 2017


South Asia Citizens Wire - 28-29 Oct 2017 - No. 2960 
[via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996]

Contents:
1. India: Denial of health / social security services for lack of Adhaar ID is a violation of human rights - Statement from health movements & concerned citizens 
2. [Audio] The Radcliff boundry commission that demarcated the territorial division of India and Pakistan - lecture by Lucy Chester
3. Fight back fundamentalist threat to woman’s rights - K Bennoune (UN Special Rapporteur on cultural rights) 25 Oct 2017
4. The Lies of UN/WHO on Chernobyl - interview with Alison Katz
5. Why nuclear weapons must be abolished | Edwy Plenel
6. Recent on Communalism Watch:
 - India: Prof. Kancha Ilaiah placed under house arrest in Andhra Pradesh
 - India: Victims of lynch mobs giving up quest for justice | Harsh Mander
 - India: Zakia Jafri case explained by her lawyer Mihir Desai [ 4 part Video by cjp.org]
 - India: Millions Try To Prove Citizenship In Assam - more than 2,000 people held in six detention centres | Samar Halarnkar, IndiaSpend
 - Taj Mahal and Games of Divisive Politics | Ram Puniyani
 - India: How The Police Are Protecting The Murderers Of Pehlu Khan - full report released on 26 oct 2017
 - India: When hate comes calling | Mari Marcel Thekaekara
 - India - Ayodhya: RSS floats a new outfit [Shri Ram Mandir Nirman Sahayog Manch] to build mass support for Ram temple
 - India: Busting the myths and and propaganda regarding Taj Mahal propagated by the Hindutva right wing

::: URLs & FULL TEXT :::
7. In Kabul, first evening soccer match in nearly four decades defies Taliban attacks | Antonio Olivo
8. The Man Who Thought He Could Fix Afghanistan | May Jeong
9. ‘Death to blasphemers' increasing as political rallying cry in Pakistan | Asif Shahzad
10. The impact of Bolshevik Revolution on South Asian politics: interview with Harris Khalique
11. The Question More Indians Ask — ‘Is My Phone Tapped?’| Mira Kamdar 
12. India: Aadhaar becoming an instrument of exclusion - Editorial, The Tribune
13. Social Media mob justice is no solution to fight sexual harassment
14. Trumps set to launch two real estate projects in India, despite conflict-of-interest concerns
15. How Doctors Are Taught To Deal With Death | Eleanor Flynn and Jennifer Philip
16. How reluctant leader Jacinda Ardern charmed New Zealand | Eleanor Ainge Roy
17. France: Libyan Funding Of Sarkozy Election Campaign: A Damning Police Report | Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske
18. The First Totalitarian | Josef Joffe 
19. Looking back at Russian revolution - 3 commentaries from India

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1. INDIA: DENIAL OF HEALTH OR ALLIED SOCIAL SECURITY SERVICES FOR LACK OF ADHAAR ID IS A VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS - STATEMENT FROM HEALTH MOVEMENTS & CONCERNED CITIZENS
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We, the concerned people’s health movements, health networks, women’s groups and individuals vehemently condemn the denial of any health and allied services, access to PDS or any other schemes that enhance social security for want of an Aadhaar identity. This is extremely arbitrary and a gross violation of human rights, the right to life and dignity.
http://sacw.net/article13544.html

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2. [Audio] The Radcliff boundry commission that demarcated the territorial division of India and Pakistan - lecture by Lucy Chester
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audio recording of a lecture in Oct 2017 by Dr Lucy Chester on the Radcliffe Boundary Commission
http://sacw.net/article13543.html

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3. FIGHT BACK FUNDAMENTALIST THREAT TO WOMAN’S RIGHTS - Karima Bennoune (UN Special Rapporteur on cultural rights) 25 Oct 2017
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NEW YORK (25 October 2017) – The world must fight back against a growing threat to women’s rights fuelled by rising fundamentalism and extremism, a UN human rights expert has told the the Third Committee, 30th meeting - General Assembly in New York.
http://www.sacw.net/article13549.html

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4. THE LIES OF UN/WHO ON CHERNOBYL - INTERVIEW WITH ALISON KATZ | Nuclear Hotseat Podcast (Oct 2017)
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Alison Katz of Independent WHO reveals the suppression and dis-information campaign against the book Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, a compilation of over 500 health studies from Eastern European nations compiled by Prof. Alexei Yablokov
http://www.sacw.net/article13548.html

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5. WHY NUCLEAR WEAPONS MUST BE ABOLISHED | Edwy Plenel
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The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a coalition of hundreds of NGOs from dozens of countries, puts in stark relief the irresponsibility of those states – including France – who base their security on dissuasion by terror. Mediapart’s publishing editor and co-founder Edwy Plenel argues that far from keeping the peace, nuclear weapons spread the risk of a terrible catastrophe, as the current Korean crisis shows.
http://www.sacw.net/article13546.html

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6. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH:
======================================== 
 - India: Prof. Kancha Ilaiah placed under house arrest in Andhra Pradesh
 - India: Victims of lynch mobs giving up quest for justice | Harsh Mander
 - India: Explosive Fact-finding Investigation of Pehlu Khan's murder shows high-level Police cover up of murderers - press release by IAMC
 - India: Zakia Jafri case explained by her lawyer Mihir Desai [ 4 part Video by cjp.org]
 - India: Congress [lauds Sri Sri's act as 'mediator' in Ayodhya] commits another blunder in Ayodhya case
 - India: Millions Try To Prove Citizenship In Assam - more than 2,000 people held in six detention centres | Samar Halarnkar, IndiaSpend
 - Taj Mahal and Games of Divisive Politics | Ram Puniyani
 - India: How The Police Are Protecting The Murderers Of Pehlu Khan - full report released on 26 oct 2017
 - India Police officer who testified against BJP leader LK Advani in the Babri Masjid case denied extension of service
 - India: Pull Down Humayun's Tomb to solve graveyard problem in Delhi says Shia Waqf Board
 - India: When hate comes calling | Mari Marcel Thekaekara
 - India: Victims of terrorism in the name of cow protection - Pehlu Khan from Rajasthan
 - India - Ayodhya: RSS floats a new outfit [Shri Ram Mandir Nirman Sahayog Manch] to build mass support for Ram temple
 - India: Busting the myths and and propaganda regarding Taj Mahal propagated by the Hindutva right wing
 - India: Men from Adityanath's Hindu Yuva Vahini chant Shiva chalisa on Taj Mahal premises; removed by cops
 -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/
 
::: URLs & FULL TEXT :::
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7. IN KABUL, FIRST EVENING SOCCER MATCH IN NEARLY FOUR DECADES DEFIES TALIBAN ATTACKS | Antonio Olivo
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(The Washington Post, October 22, 2017)

Afghan soccer players take part in an Afghan Premier League match at the Afghanistan Football Federation stadium in Kabul in September. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images)

KABUL — The lights beamed on inside the Afghan Football Federation soccer stadium and 5,000 people, drawn to a spectacle unheard of for nearly four decades, came out to see.

Security in Afghanistan’s capital is tenuous, proved earlier in the week by several attempted suicide bomb attacks around the city while, elsewhere in the country, dozens of Afghan police and soldiers had been killed by Taliban fighters in one of the year’s deadliest spates of violence.

But, on Thursday night, another battle was taking place between the De Maiwand Atalan soccer club from the Kandahar province and the defending champion De Spin Ghar Bazan team from Nangahar province for a shot at this year’s title in the Afghan Premier League .

This was the first evening spectator event held in the country since the 1979 Soviet Union invasion.

Mostly beside the point was that the “Maiwand Champions” cruised to a 2-0 victory over Nangahar’s “Eagles of the White Mountain” in the semifinal match, which was also broadcast across the country on television and radio.

Instead, the men and women who crowded into the outdoor soccer stadium — tooting horns and cheering loudly at each shot on goal — were out to win back something far more valuable: a sense of public joy that has long eluded the nation locked for decades in a perpetual state of tyranny and war.

“It’s a very different feeling,” said Sayed Omar Anmadi, 23, who brought his brother Alyus, 12, to watch their favorite team from Kandahar’s Maiwand district play live, while dance music thumped over loudspeakers beneath the bright stadium lights.

“We don’t usually go out at night because of the security situation,” Anmadi said. “This offers a fresh kind of hope.”

The event, several years in the making, is part of a larger campaign to reintroduce a sense of normalcy into Afghan culture led by the Dubai-based Moby Media Group, which, with the Roshan telecommunications company, created the Afghan Premier League in 2012.

With some U.S. State Department backing, the effort also includes a popular Afghan “Sesame Street” children’s program on Moby’s TOLO TV channel and a music production house for budding artists in Kabul.

But a fun night inside a Kabul soccer stadium carries extra symbolism for millions of Afghans.

Many remember the gruesome public executions held inside Kabul’s older Ghazi Stadium — about a half-mile away from the Afghan Federation Football stadium — during the Taliban regime in the late 1990s.

Abdul Hameed Mubarez, a local historian, said those days epitomized the fear of Taliban reprisals that still permeates Afghan society, keeping many home at night and away from large crowds vulnerable to suicide bomb attacks.

Before the Soviet invasion, night events in Kabul were routine, said Mubarez, who was deputy minister of culture under former Afghan King Mohammed Zahir Shar.

Crowds gathered inside Ghazi Stadium to watch the Afghan national soccer team compete against Iran or Pakistan. During Eid or Independence Day festivals held in August, live music filled the air as families traveling to Kabul from nearby provinces celebrated with elaborate picnics, often sleeping overnight in outdoor camps.

Now, with the Taliban insurgency raging for 16 years after decades of conflict before, many Afghans are weary of their limited lives and yearn for that same sense of freedom, Mubarez, 83, said.

“People have decided that they will go on with their lives,” he said. “They will enjoy it as long as they’re alive, because nowadays whenever we go out from our homes, we are not sure if we’ll come back alive or not.”

As the sun fell over the mostly commercial section of Kabul where the Afghan Football Federation stadium is located, the stadium lights — brought in from China and installed this month — lit up the night in an otherwise pitch-dark section of the capital.

Fans made their way past a perimeter of security checkpoints, with Afghan national police inspecting bags and frisking everyone who walked through.

In September, three people were killed in a suicide bomb attack outside an afternoon cricket tournament held nearby, so the police — aware of the high stakes surrounding this event — were on high alert. Several hundred officers manned posts or conducted surveillance, a federal Interior ministry spokesman said.

[Dozens dead in mosque blasts in Kabul and central Afghanistan]

Mohammad Anit Watandost, an off-duty Kabul police office officer, passed through security with his son Irfan, 5. Watandost, 32, wore his police officer’s uniform. His adoring son wore a mock camouflage military uniform and sported a plastic toy AK-47 rifle.

Watandost said he came dressed in uniform to show pride in his role in fighting against a sense of insecurity in his native city that he views as a cancer in Afghanistan.

“I’ve gone through so many factional battles,” said Watandost, citing the Afghan mujahideen uprising against the Soviets during the 1980s that marked his early childhood, followed by civil war, the Taliban regime and today’s ongoing insurgency.

“We all want peace and the same kind of situation that we are in here,” Watandost said, gesturing to the crowded stadium of cheering fans. “I played football in my youth and I want my children to play football and watch football. This is what I want.”

With that, he turned his attention to the soccer pitch and, clutching his son, cheered a Maiwand Atalan goal.

On another play, the ball soared high over the players on the field, eliciting a roar from the crowd.

In one set of stands, fans from the conflict-ridden Nangahar province tooted their horns, including the veiled women who were seated in a section apart from the men.

On the other side, more noise came from the fans of the team from Kandahar, a province with portions under Taliban control.

Maiwand Habibi, 18, rooted for the Kandahar team, while his friend Mustafa Sultanzoy, 20, backed Nangahar.

Both are from Kabul and are too young to know much of the history behind either province, other than the constant reports of violence that hit their social media feeds.

But, after spending most of their youth indoors and socializing as young men at small gatherings inside hotels or friends’ homes, they said it felt good to be outside on what was a mild autumn night.

“There is a lot of security around here, which gives us confidence,” said Habibi, who works as a waiter inside a city cafe. Referring to the Islamic belief in fate, he added: “On the other hand, if anything happens to us, it is already written in the book.”

The following day, another semifinal night match took place without incident before an even larger crowd of 8,000 fans, setting up a final this Friday between the Maiwand team and the victorious “Falcons of Asmayee” from Kabul.

While the crowd’s cheers echoed into the night, a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite mosque nine miles away, killing 39 people.

Sharif Walid contributed to this story.

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8. THE MAN WHO THOUGHT HE COULD FIX AFGHANISTAN | May Jeong
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(Politico Magazine, November/December 2017)
The Friday Cover

To get something done in Afghanistan, you need to know Scott Guggenheim. But even the ultimate fixer isn’t sure anyone can solve the country’s problems.

KABUL—On November 9, 2016, Scott Guggenheim, a longtime American adviser to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, rose early with the sun, got into an armored vehicle and headed across Kabul’s fortified Green Zone to the U.S. Embassy. Afghanistan is 8½ hours ahead of the East Coast of the United States, and the American expatriates, Afghan elites and others who had managed to scare up invitations had gathered in the basement of the embassy—a city block-sized, blast-resistant compound as charmless as it is spotless—to watch the results of the American presidential election. The basement was dominated by State Department employees, who are officially barred from political activism while living abroad but tend to support Democrats; some, anticipating a Hillary Clinton victory, were even calling the occasion a party. On the wall hung a Donald Trump piñata.

By midmorning Kabul time, however, Trump had taken a commanding lead, and the mood in the embassy basement began to shift. Ties came undone, breakfast Danishes were anxiously devoured, and under the red, white and blue bunting, a stunned silence settled in. The cover band that had been playing earlier packed up its instruments. Some of the diplomats were typing furiously on their BlackBerrys. Others stepped outside to smoke, leaving behind a more Trump-friendly crowd of uniformed soldiers and veterans who had returned to Afghanistan as private contractors.

Guggenheim recalls thinking of the election outcome: “For Afghanistan, it’s not such a bad thing. But for the United States, it’s a disaster.” Depressed, he returned to bed. A few days later, he saw Ghani at the Gul Khanna, the presidential office. “Will you give me a passport?” Guggenheim asked him, jokingly. Ghani told him he would.

Guggenheim is not a household name, but anyone who knows anything about international development, or Ghani, or the makings of the modern Afghan state will have heard of him, or have worked with him, and might be a little surprised that he didn’t have an Afghan passport already. His title is modest—senior adviser—but his imprimatur is on many major government policies that have come out of the Gul Khanna. If Ghani, a former academic whose lifelong passion has been studying how to fix broken countries, is Afghanistan’s development expert in chief, then Guggenheim is his American alter ego—Ghani’s Ghani.

    Guggenheim recalls thinking of the election outcome: “For Afghanistan, it’s not such a bad thing. But for the United States, it’s a disaster.”

Guggenheim has been serving the Afghan state off and on for as long as the United States has occupied it, so long that when he speaks of Afghanistan, he often slips into the collective possessive pronoun—our country, our people—and refers just as reflexively to “you Americans.” He has worked with Ghani since 2002, but the two men have actually known each other for 36 years, long enough that, even though Ghani now holds the highest office in Afghanistan, Guggenheim still refers to him by his first name.

Over that time, amid Afghan politics’ literal palace intrigue and Hobbesian infighting, Guggenheim has somehow become one of the most powerful people in the country. He often functions as a connector—between Kabul and Washington, between Washington and its many allies, and sometimes even among the various branches of the American and Afghan governments. Whatever the Trump administration decided to do on Afghanistan after the inauguration, Guggenheim would play a major role implementing the Afghan side of the bargain.
Sec-1-Election_Revised_Zalkus_300dpi.jpg

Illustration by Daniel Zalkus

A week after the election, Guggenheim, who is 62 years old, arrived for an interview in the garden of my house in the diplomatic quarter of Kabul. He was disheveled and shiny with sweat from the unseasonably warm autumn we were having, a fleece jacket pulled over a crumpled suit, the wardrobe a metaphor for a man who had spent most of his career as a globe-trotting anthropologist before landing, unexpectedly, at the beating heart of a political culture he had previously known nothing about. Born and raised in New York and also educated in Florida and Baltimore, Guggenheim worked in Mexico, where he picked up Spanish, and Indonesia, where he built his career and his personal life. (His wife is the Indonesian human rights activist Kamala Chandrakirana.)

He has been called “the brain of Dr. Ghani,” but in interviews in the months after the election, he was at constant pains to deflect attention. His business card contains just his name and a Gmail address. This is deliberate. “Ashraf likes having someone who has no political or economic ambition,” Guggenheim told me. He sees his role not as a consigliere but as a kind of a fixer for Ghani, the executor to the president’s blue-skied vision. “Ashraf has a pretty clear agenda. I always thought my job was to help him realize it,” Guggenheim said.

Now, for reasons of friendship, expertise and circumstance, this American liaison has become uniquely essential at this moment in Afghan history—even as he talks increasingly of leaving.

The Afghan state is as much an American experiment as anything else. The U.S. military leads efforts on the war, just as the U.S. government spearheads reconciliation efforts, and the entire venture wouldn’t be possible without foreign donors, who have funded around 70 percent of the Afghan government’s budget since the 2001 invasion. The promise of the early years, of Afghanistan as a modern society that would catch up to regional success stories like India or Iran, never progressed beyond the struggle for basic services such as access to justice and health. Ghani’s takeover from the paranoid and ineffectual Hamid Karzai in 2014 saw a difficult yet peaceful transition of power, the first in modern Afghan history. In the following years, Guggenheim soon observed, however, that the biggest barrier to this goal was not so much the Taliban, or Western apathy, but the vicious jockeying among Kabul elites that threatened to capsize whatever reform Ghani had set out to accomplish.

Into this tenuous situation came another potentially complicating variable: the Trump presidency.

Afghan elites watched the U.S. election keenly, trying to game out what fate awaited them. Since taking office, Trump has offered a reenergized, if still shapeless, American military agenda in Afghanistan, which Guggenheim believed would free up the Afghan government to focus on internal reforms. Theirs was a race against time, to see how long they could cling on before things ran out—money, goodwill, patience, interest. Guggenheim believed not all was lost, but the rising insecurity and political infighting around him gave him the occasional pause.

***

Two weeks after the garden meeting, on a morning in November, I rode with Guggenheim to the Arg-e-Shahi, Afghanistan’s presidential palace. It was 9:30 a.m., and Guggenheim had already been working for hours. “I think he goes from meeting to meeting and sends emails in between meetings,” his colleague, Tara Moayed, told me. His work style hasn’t changed since his days in Indonesia, where he built development projects that began from communities and grew into nationwide initiatives. Guggenheim has long been known in development circles for pioneering the kind of bottom-up approach that rejects the older, headquarters-oriented style of proffering aid. He was the guy you called when you needed a job done that few would say yes to because it was too complicated, too impossible-seeming, too whatever. “I doubt if there is a government office in Jakarta that doesn’t know Scott,” James Gilling, an Australian development official who worked with Guggenheim from 2012 to 2014, told me. “I mean, he is probably a genius, right?”

That morning, Guggenheim was returning from an appointment with ambassadors from four Nordic countries, with whom he had been discussing the mass deportation of Afghan refugees. More than 10,000 were set to be expelled from Europe, and Guggenheim had been tasked with “taking advantage of their moral principles” to delay the returns, as he wryly told me. Guggenheim had spent the first half of his career as an international development expert, advising countries on how best to run their governments. The essential service he provides to Ghani’s government was turning this experience on its head: He is, among other things, Afghanistan’s informal ambassador to the world of foreign donors who fund most of the country’s budget.

    Ghani was a serious young man, starting to organize his thoughts around an enduring obsession over state formation into a 1982 thesis, one that would later inspire a 2008 book called Fixing Failed States.

Guggenheim first met Ghani in 1981, when Guggenheim, who was living in Brooklyn while working on an anthropology dissertation for Johns Hopkins, was urged by a former professor to seek out Ghani, who was working on his own thesis at Columbia. Ghani was a serious young man, starting to organize his thoughts around an enduring obsession over state formation into a 1982 thesis, one that would later inspire a 2008 book called Fixing Failed States, which would again find new form as a campaign manifesto during the 2014 presidential election, and yet again as the Afghanistan National Peace and Development Framework, a document that outlined how Afghanistan was going to go from 70 percent dependence on foreign aid to between 40 and 50 percent. The two men ended up talking for two hours at the Hungarian Pastry Shop several blocks from campus before moving over to Ghani’s graduate student housing, where Guggenheim met his wife and children. “I was impressed,” Guggenheim told me. “Here was a guy who really understood big theory, someone who had read the original texts.” Later, when the anthropologist Sidney Mintz asked Guggenheim for recommendations for a teaching position, Guggenheim suggested Ghani. “He got the job in time to sit in on my Ph.D. exam,” Guggenheim said. “He asked all the hard questions.”
Sec-2-PastryShop_Zalkus_350dpi.jpg

Illustration by Daniel Zalkus

Ghani and Guggenheim were both working at the World Bank when, in 2001, U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Guggenheim was in Indonesia running a World Bank-funded community development project. That November, he was climbing a mountain in East Java when his mobile phone rang. “It’s me, Ashraf,” said the voice on the other end. The U.S.-led NATO coalition was setting up a new Afghan government in Kabul to replace the recently ousted Taliban. Ghani would be named finance minister. “I want you up here in January,” Ghani told Guggenheim.

Guggenheim said yes—partly out of personal loyalty and partly out of intellectual curiosity. As an academic, Ghani had obsessed over the question of how to get the state to better serve the public. Afghanistan, emerging from decades of civil war and misrule, offered a country-sized laboratory. As for Guggenheim, he had watched other countries work through seemingly intractable problems and wanted to try his hand at the most impossible-seeming of them all. After a lifetime spent far from the center of power, here was a chance to end his career at the top, where decisions that affected the poor he had set out to help were being made. For both men, Afghanistan was a chance to implement some of the theories they had discussed during countless conversations at weddings, backyard swims and garden parties across decades. The George W. Bush administration had gone to war in 2001 promising to improve the lives of Afghans but spent most of its tenure hunting down Al Qaeda and inciting further violence. That original promise had faded from the minds of many, but Guggenheim remained its most formidable proponent. “Remember, the goal is still poverty,” he told me.

    For both men, Afghanistan was a chance to implement some of the theories they had discussed during countless conversations at weddings, backyard swims and garden parties across decades.

In January 2002, Guggenheim landed at the Kabul airport, its runway still cluttered with unexploded ordnance. “Welcome to Afghanistan,” said Ghani, meeting him on the pockmarked tarmac. The drive from the airport to the United Nations office, the only suitable lodging for visiting foreigners at the time, was a post-apocalyptic tableau of artillery shells and burned-out tanks. It reminded Guggenheim of Weekend, the Jean-Luc Godard film famous for its seven-minute shot of a traffic jam, replete with destroyed vehicles and dead bodies, the thin membrane of civility peeling off right before the viewer’s eyes. Guggenheim fell asleep that first night in a U.N. guest room heated by burning sawdust. For three months, he slept on a thick mat on the floor, read by the light of kerosene lamps, attended meetings in parkas and helped Ghani put up the scaffolding of a state.

Guggenheim had arrived in Afghanistan knowing little beyond what he had read in “The Man Who Would Be King,” the 1888 Rudyard Kipling story about two British adventurers who appoint themselves rulers of an Afghan province. His first job was to set up what would become the National Solidarity Program, which grants money to communities to build wells, roads or hospitals and is still cited as a rare success story in Afghanistan, a nation more often held up as a poster child for failed development projects.

GRAPHIC: http://tinyurl.com/yc9qrbyp

Guggenheim spent 12 years flying in and out of the country while working for the World Bank, visiting to check up on his programs or to assist Ghani with whatever his old friend needed doing. Then, in June 2014, Afghanistan held a bitterly contested election—the first democratic transition of power in its history. The new president was Ashraf Ghani.

Ghani inherited not just a fast-fracturing state, but also a set of impending, and existentially imperiling, deadlines: 2014 was the year NATO troops were scheduled to pull out, and foreign donors began slashing funding. One of the first calls Ghani made after becoming president was to Guggenheim, who had since returned to Indonesia. Guggenheim—who generally insists on wearing colorful Indonesian shirts even in official meetings—got three suits made and arrived back in Kabul in October.

***

That November morning, Guggenheim’s car inched through Kabul traffic and arrived at the first of many checkpoints surrounding the Green Zone, a cordoned-off area of downtown Kabul that is home to NATO headquarters, embassies, news bureaus and other foreign outposts. The gated community had been carved out of the city without the city in mind, and the resulting interminable traffic is, for Afghans, a daily reminder of the second-class status they endure in their own country. While we waited to be let into the palace grounds, a convoy carrying the U.S. ambassador drove by, coming from the embassy a mile away—an imposing structure that Guggenheim derisively called “Fort America.”

The original Arg-e-Shahi was built by Abdur Rahman Khan, the “Iron Emir” of Afghanistan, in 1880, after the Second Anglo-Afghan War destroyed the previous royal residence. Each invading army added another building, and today, its catholic architectural styles reflect the sedimentary layers of outside influences that have shaped—or failed to shape—the country. Once inside the security perimeter, we headed for Kot-e Baghcha, “the house of the small garden,” the building where Guggenheim was then living. We passed through an archway adorned with floral discs that harkened back to the time of Alexander the Great. This, Guggenheim explained, was the Afghanistan he had fallen for—a country with a real presence of history. “Somewhere up here is where they strung up Najibullah,” he added. Afghanistan’s last Soviet-backed president, Mohammad Najibullah, was overthrown and spent four years in seclusion before being castrated and dragged to death behind a Taliban truck in 1996, his body put on display hanging from a noose of piano wire, with imported cigarettes and rolled-up dollar bills stuffed in his mouth.

For most of its existence, the palace compound has been the center of not just the country’s political life but its social life too. President Hamid Karzai, after taking up residence in the Arg, used the building similarly, hosting group dinners for as many as 700 supplicants and opening up the royal mosque to anyone who wanted to join him for Friday prayers. Ghani, whose solitary disposition is legendary, preferred to dine with his wife at home. The only people living on the 80-acre grounds when I visited, aside from Ghani and his wife, were Guggenheim and two of his colleagues.

Ghani, as president, keeps a small kitchen cabinet of perhaps two dozen people, with Guggenheim as its nucleus. (When Ghani was looking around to assemble his team in 2001, then-World Bank President James Wolfensohn told him, “What you need is $100 million and one Scott Guggenheim.”) The two old friends maintain a routine of regular email correspondence and hold frequent in-person meetings. Guggenheim’s portfolio, in White House terms, would be split between the president’s chief of staff and the national security adviser. Ghani is known for barking out orders that his staff does not understand, which Guggenheim then translates. When he is not doing that, Guggenheim makes rounds of embassies, persuading foreign governments to fund the Afghan state directly. The current model, he argues, creates parallel structures of power, which in turn undermines the overall project, which has always been legitimacy through autonomous rule. The very presence of donors, and their dollars, was the thing that Guggenheim had been hired to render unnecessary. Ghani gave him sweeping authority to do things like restructure the budget to reflect actual needs instead of interests; figure out how to collect taxes; or come up with strategies for fighting corruption. Making Afghanistan fend for itself was a generational endeavor; Guggenheim’s mission was to start a process that would outlive any of us.

Above all, though, Guggenheim saw his most essential duty as keeping Ghani accountable. Ghani, who often gives the impression that he is suffering fools, was not an easy man to approach, let alone steer. Guggenheim was among the few who could reliably access the president, and among the even fewer who actually advised, instead of capitulating.

    When Ghani was looking around to assemble his team in 2001, then-World Bank President James Wolfensohn told him, “What you need is $100 million and one Scott Guggenheim.”

Guggenheim’s unparalleled access to the president has occasionally been a source of discord among Ghani’s other staff members. “He draws a lot of criticism because it is more like there is an individual who is doing things rather than the system doing things,” a finance ministry colleague told me. “They say, ‘Oh, there is this American guy who is running around the palace, there is a Scott that does things.’” Afghans who have never met Guggenheim but have heard the name Scott are sometimes surprised to learn that he is one man instead of an acronym for an entire office.

In a country rife with well-earned paranoia about foreign—and particularly American—influence, Guggenheim is easy fodder for conspiracy theories; during a protest in Kabul on June 2, posters appeared with his face and text in Dari that read Ghani ba ehsara-e en shakhs meraqsad: “Ghani dances on the order of this man.” If anything, Guggenheim’s sympathies run far closer to Afghanistan than the United States. He sees Afghanistan as a victim of modernizing struggles. “What the British achieved was turning one of the oldest civilizations into warring tribes,” he told me. “What the Americans did was empowering the mujahedeen without thinking through the consequences. In the second round, the Americans brought back warlords. How do you lose a popularity contest against the Taliban? They found a way.”

A decade and a half of American occupation, Guggenheim continued, produced “democratic institutions with the outward appearance of a democracy, but all about patronage,” he told me. “Is the Parliament of Afghanistan really representative of the country, or is it a bunch of warlords dividing up national rent? This is what American foreign policy in Afghanistan has created. The institutions they built up are deeply corrupt. They do have elections, but in terms of power structure, it is a deeply flawed version of democracy.” Meanwhile, Guggenheim said, the U.S. government’s ambitions for the country’s reconstruction had steadily diminished to a single narrow question: “What will take us to the end of the administration without a major blowout? It was never about how do we stabilize Afghanistan. It was about making it to the next election.”
Sec-3-Palace_Revised_Zalkus_300dpi.jpg

Illustration by Daniel Zalkus

As the 2016 U.S. election approached, Afghanistan’s diplomats in Washington kept in touch with both the Republican and the Democratic parties, dispatching observers to both conventions. A Clinton presidency would mean “another four years of Holbrooke and his legacy,” Guggenheim told me last November, referring to the late Richard Holbrooke, the veteran diplomat who, until his death in 2010, was President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Guggenheim did not care much for the former president’s policy in Afghanistan. “Obama didn’t have a clear policy,” he told me. “His policy was to get out.”

Trump, for Afghanistan, represented an unknown quantity. What little he had said about Afghanistan was unspecific and contradictory: He had called Afghanistan “a complete waste,” a nonsense war that America needed to leave so as to “rebuild the USA,” but he had also pledged that he would “bomb the hell out of ISIS,” an Arab creation that was nonetheless finding fertile ground in Afghanistan’s chaos. Clinton’s policies, which many Ghani supporters considered a failure, were regrettable, but also predictable; they offered something to plan around. So when Clinton lost, the future seemed a mystery.

***

Ghani first spoke with Trump on December 3, 2016. Their phone conversation was brief; Ghani sat in his usual chair and took his own notes. According to Guggenheim and others who spoke with Ghani afterward, Trump first brought up counterterrorism, and then Ghani raised the issue of mining. Trump wanted to know how the Afghan state could generate more income. He asked about its lithium reserve. He wanted to know why the mining sector hadn’t been developed, how American businesses could invest in Afghanistan, and why Afghanistan was giving away mining rights to Chinese companies when America had companies, too.

Beyond that, however, Trump’s interests in Afghanistan were as hard to fathom as they had ever been. So, in early December, a month and a half before Trump’s inauguration, Guggenheim visited Washington to figure out what was going on.

“It was surreal,” Guggenheim told me after the trip. He made the rounds of the usual Republican foreign policy stalwarts, but Trump and his inner circle did not have many contacts in that world, so the stalwarts did not know much. “I want you to know, Donald Trump and I are not friends,” Senator John McCain told Guggenheim when they met, and the Arizona Republican spent the rest of the conversation distractedly fielding phone calls about new nominations, Guggenheim told me. (McCain did not recall the comment, according to his spokeswoman, Julie Tarallo.)

Those officials who remained were in acting positions and were expected to leave once Trump was in power. The South Asia desk at the National Security Council, Guggenheim told me, referred him to an intelligence officer at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He met Rob Williams of ODNI at Sette, an Italian restaurant on D.C.’s 14th Street. The intelligence community, which traditionally plays an active role during the transition, had been cut out of the process by a president who did not trust spies; Williams confessed to knowing little and asked Guggenheim questions instead. “They kept asking, ‘What do you think their views on Afghanistan are going to be?’” Guggenheim told me. “And I kept saying, ‘I traveled halfway around the world to find out! Isn’t this your job?’” After four days, Guggenheim left Washington thinking, “I don’t know anything, and they don’t know anything either.”

    Clinton’s policies, which many Ghani supporters considered a failure, were regrettable, but also predictable; they offered something to plan around. So when Clinton lost, the future seemed a mystery.

Soon after the call between Trump and Ghani became public, the Afghan Embassy in Washington, D.C., began receiving the first of many inquiries from potential investors. They wanted to know how they might do business in Afghanistan. The embassy dug up decade-old maps by the U.S. Geological Survey marking mineral deposits across the country.

The State Department, the traditional bastion of Afghan policy, was soon to be gutted, and many of the relevant officials were already on their way out. By December, Guggenheim intuited that there was nobody there to talk with who had any real authority.

In the absence of civilian leadership, the generals stepped in. On February 9, three weeks after Trump’s inauguration, General John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, requested a troop increase. The Department of Defense and the National Security Council—which by late February were being led by retired General James Mattis and Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, both of whom had served in Afghanistan—began putting together the new government’s Afghanistan policy.

In April, McMaster traveled to Kabul to meet with Ghani and his team. The night after McMaster flew out, Guggenheim stopped by the Gul Khanna, where he found Ghani in a good mood. McMaster, Ghani told Guggenheim, “asked all the right questions. We have a counterpart who really gets strategy.” He wanted to discuss long-term planning—an improvement, Ghani told Guggenheim, over Obama, who had campaigned on the promise of bringing troops home. In practice that meant “not fighting a 16-year war, but a one-year war 16 times over,” Guggenheim said.

McMaster was also good at calling out whoppers. “Our side would try some standard bullshit on how we have great plans to fix everything,” Guggenheim said, “and McMaster would say, ‘I heard all this in 2012. Tell me what’s new.’”
Afghanistan-Reconstruction.png

For the Afghan government, McMaster’s arrival marked an inflection point in otherwise uncertain times. His 18-month tenure in Afghanistan put him well ahead of most American policymakers, who, even after the United States’ decade and a half in the country, did not know basics facts about Afghanistan—that the afghani is a unit of currency, not the people, or that the country’s official languages are Farsi and Pashto, not Arabic. His arrival also marked an unmistakable shift in who would be leading the Afghanistan portfolio. Under Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been deeply engaged, but with a seemingly uninterested Rex Tillerson leading the State Department, the generals took over almost completely. That was just fine with Ghani, who had been suspicious of the State Department ever since it facilitated an agreement in which he had to share power with his campaign rival, Abdullah Abdullah, who became the country’s first chief executive officer.

The security situation, however, was disintegrating at an alarming rate. Soon there might not even be a state to reform or build up or fight over. On May 31, a truck bomb at an entrance to the Green Zone in Kabul killed more than 150, the largest bombing since the beginning of the Afghanistan War in 2001 and the first ever to penetrate the Green Zone. The explosion left a 13-foot crater and shattered windows of the nearby Arg. Later that week, presidential guards shot at demonstrators who had gathered to protest the government’s inability to protect its citizens, killing as many as seven. At a funeral the next day, a suicide bomber blew himself up among the mourners, killing 20. The message from the insurgents was clear: By striking what had long been considered an impenetrable fortress of security, they were signaling that nowhere would be safe.

    H.R. McMaster, Ghani told Guggenheim, “asked all the right questions. We have a counterpart who really gets strategy.”

This news alarmed McMaster, and also Mattis, who had personally assured Ghani in Dubai in mid-May that the United States was renewing its commitment to Afghanistan. Both generals wanted more troops, but Trump was skeptical, and privately fumed about his lack of options. Steve Bannon, Trump’s since departed chief strategist, pushed for his own solution, bringing in two businessmen—private security company Blackwater Worldwide founder Erik Prince and Steve Feinberg, who owns majority shares of the private contracting firm DynCorp, among others—who pitched Trump on their plans for privatizing the war. As his aides argued for months over Afghanistan, Trump reportedly threatened to fire Nicholson, whom he still hadn’t met, and whom he seemed to blame for not winning the war there.

Then on July 28, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, who lost a son to the war in Afghanistan, replaced Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff, and the Washington debate shifted decisively in favor of the generals. The final blow to the Bannon camp came on August 18, when Prince was barred from joining discussions at Camp David. Shortly after, Trump signed off on a strategy much like what the generals had been pushing for all along: more troops, no deadline for withdrawal, effective immediately.

The following Monday, August 21, in a nationally televised speech at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, Trump announced his war plan. He did not mention the Taliban, the main reason for remaining at war, by name until halfway into the speech; referred to an Afghan “prime minister” who does not exist; and delivered what Afghanistan expert Barnett Rubin ripped as “an incoherent wish list unmoored in political reality or principle.” The president called the enemy in Afghanistan “nothing but thugs, and criminals, and predators, and—that’s right—losers,” and promised the American public that “in the end we will win” against every designated foreign terrorist organization active in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He did not explain in detail what winning might look like, sowing confusion among Washington’s foreign policy elites. “Is our goal to destroy all of them?” former State Department official John Dempsey asked. “How many are a direct threat to Americans? Are they Al Qaeda-like organizations trying to launch attacks in New York or just five guys and a donkey? How are we going to determine we’ve killed any terrorists? We will never know. And shouldn’t we be focusing on building up Afghan institutions to be able to handle this themselves anyway?”

Source: Institute for the Study of War

But the speech was met with great praise by both Ghani’s and Abdullah’s factions of the Afghan government, which often blames Pakistan for most of its ills. “Of course, yes, we are happy. The main thing to be happy about is the pressure on Pakistan. We have been waiting for this,” Arg spokesperson Najibullah Azad told me. “It is what we needed,” echoed Abdullah’s spokesperson, Javed Faisel. “It will boost confidence as there is commitment for a long-term support of Afghanistan. It will boost morale of the ordinary Afghans and those soldiers fighting in front lines. And most importantly, there is a clear understanding of the problem now. In his speech, we found out that the problem was very well identified, which is the support of Pakistan for the Taliban.” After Trump’s speech, Abdullah and Ghani, whose animus toward each other is famous, were seen hugging, united in their relief at the prospect of continued American support.

Guggenheim thought the same, despite his usual skepticism. America’s extended presence, he said, would free Ghani’s team to carry out some of the long-term reform plans it had wanted to work on. “Since the Obama government prioritized the unity government, they always pushed for restraint on anything that would threaten that unity,” Guggenheim explained. After Trump came to power, and the generals took over, the Afghan military had proposed to double the size of its special forces, which would require thousands more American trainers. Guggenheim said this would not have been possible under Obama who was reluctant to be seen expanding the American presence in Afghanistan. “President Obama had publicly made a commitment to withdraw American forces. We had to gain his confidence literally a month at a time,” Ghani said in a statement.

    After Trump’s speech, Abdullah and Ghani, whose animus toward each other is famous, were seen hugging, united in their relief at the prospect of continued American support.

There was also no denying the ancillary benefits of the new approach: Ghani could consolidate his power against a growing political opposition without being weighed down by the need to build consensus, as the now-neutered State Department has urged. Ghani planned to first go after the Interior Ministry, which is dominated by his political adversaries, to clean up corruption. It would also strengthen Ghani’s hand.

What was noticeably absent in Trump’s speech, however, was just what those additional troops would mean. “What he didn’t say was if you buy more ammunition, you also need to buy more body bags,” John Nagl, a retired Army officer and counterinsurgency expert, told me. Few who have studied or served in Afghanistan expect the new infusion of troops—only a few thousand—to turn the war’s downward trajectory around.

***

The Trump ramp-up was likely to benefit Ghani, but over the course of our conversations, Guggenheim’s longstanding doubts about the fate of the whole Afghan project seemed to be deepening. For some time now, he had been thinking hard about whether to stay or go. Many of the reforms he had been pushing for hadn’t materialized. Guggenheim had signed on to Ghani’s state-building project because he saw it as an opportunity to wrestle with big questions of democratic governance. But he spent the better part of the year complaining to me about a seemingly simple administrative issue—his attempts to get Ghani to hire a secretary who could manage the president’s schedule better. Guggenheim told me he considered this, and a few other asks, a goodwill gesture that would demonstrate to him how serious Ghani was about solving the bigger problems of his presidency—which were, in brief, delivering on the promise of a modern state he had run his campaign on. A vote for Ghani was meant to be a vote for progress, for reform, for equality, for human rights, and a sense of Afghanistan joining the rest of the world. Instead, Ghani’s tenure has been marred by rising insecurity, elite infighting and the constant threat of a coup from his political rivals.

In recent months, the worsening situation in the country was beginning to affect their decades-long friendship. Guggenheim expressed frustration that Ghani couldn’t even make small fixes, like hiring the secretary. (In a later conversation with Politico Magazine, he downplayed the importance of the issue.) Watching his otherwise no-nonsense friend give in to the undertow of Kabul politics, Guggenheim seemed to be asking himself whether democracy and reform were contradictory objectives. “There is tension between being authoritarian and being democratic,” Guggenheim told me. “There is chaos in government. It is deeply fragmented. The Kabuli elites are so polarized that getting the reform agenda through has been almost impossible. The temptation to be a strong authoritarian leader who says you cannot challenge authority is very strong. Why doesn’t he take that route?”

If that happened, Guggenheim speculated, the United States would keep funding this more authoritarian version of the Afghan state, just as it had done with autocratic regimes like those of Ferdinand Marcos, Augusto Pinochet and Arab dictators before the Arab Spring. Afghanistan had no tradition of a Western-style democracy; the Taliban’s Manichean rule was the closest any regime had ever come to realizing its ambitions in Afghanistan. The only way to carry out the reform agenda, it seemed, was through a similar use of force, which would negate the spirit of the reforms.

    “What you are doing is doomed,” Guggenheim said. But isn’t that the story of life? And so, you do it anyway.”

His sardonic wit made it easy to miss, but Guggenheim had always struck me as an optimist as long as I had known him. In recent times, though, the very thing that had drawn Guggenheim to Afghanistan in the beginning—the impossibility of the project—was now thwarting him. He had good days and bad days, but overall, he seemed to be losing faith in his ideals and his ability to implement them. It wasn’t clear whether this was because the aid system was broken, which it was; or because Ghani had modeled his vision for Afghanistan after Western versions of capitalism and democracy, which were coming undone; or because of the simple fact that “he has never manned a big organization or a big project before.”

Around then, the death threats that had become a regular fixture of daily life in Kabul had increased in frequency and specificity, and the posters with Guggenheim’s face on them now loomed larger in his mind. “I don’t really like living in Kabul, because I live under a lock and key and with a death threat, so that is not my best place,” he told me. “But I am willing to do it as long as that agenda is there. It is a fucked-over country with people I sort of like. If it is just spinning wheels, I would rather go live in my little apartment down in Brooklyn.” When I reached him in July, Guggenheim sounded defeated by events. “It’s the hardest place I’ve ever worked in,” he said. “The chances of success are middling at best.” Back in November 2016, on one of the first occasions I spoke to him, I had asked Guggenheim why he bothered at all. “What I’d like to see is countries with deep historical legacies, that are struggling, pull it off,” he said then. “Some sense that they will finally get their act together and they are going to be democratic and there is going to be basic freedoms. Kids can go to a movie theater and not worry about being blown up, that sort of thing. I’m still a deep idealist on those scores.”

“What you are doing is doomed,” he said. “But isn’t that the story of life? And so, you do it anyway.”

May Jeong is a Logan nonfiction fellow at the Carey Institute for Global Good and a visiting scholar at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

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9. ‘DEATH TO BLASPHEMERS' INCREASING AS POLITICAL RALLYING CRY IN PAKISTAN
by Asif Shahzad
========================================
(Reuters, October 27, 2017)

October 27, 2017 / 9:55 PM / Updated 5 hours ago

SWABI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Three police officers stand daily guard at the tomb of Pakistani student Mashal Khan to prevent religious hardliners from fulfilling threats to blow up the grave of the 23-year-old beaten to death over rumors he blasphemed against Islam.

Iqbal Khan shows a picture of his son Mashal set as the wallpaper on his phone at the family home in Swabi, Pakistan. REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz, October 24, 2017

His grieving family, now also under police protection, say they have little hope the shocking campus killing will prompt a re-examination of blasphemy laws that carry a death penalty, or action against the mob justice that often erupts in such cases.

On Friday, there was more evidence the opposite is happening.

A new political party that has made punishing blasphemers its main rallying cry won a surprisingly strong 7.6 percent of the vote in a by-election in Peshawar, 60 km (36 miles) from where Mashal Khan was killed six months ago.

“Death to blasphemers! Death to blasphemers!” was a common chant of supporters of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan party at its campaign rallies in the conservative northwestern city.

The party’s relatively strong showing - and a separate outcry over a proposed change to an election law that outraged the religious right - has elevated blasphemy into a potent political issue in the run-up to a general election in 2018.

While Tehrik-e-Labaik (Movement of the Prophet’s Followers) is unlikely to break out of single digits in coming votes, its rapid rise, along with another ultra-religious party, could create an additional challenge for the ruling Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

The PML-N party’s leader, Nawaz Sharif, was ousted as prime minister in July by the Supreme Court, and opposition leader Imran Khan - who spearheaded the legal case that removed him over unreported income - is seeking to press the advantage.
RELIGIOUS RIGHT GAINS

In this week’s Peshawar by-election, former cricket star Imran’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party swept to a comfortable victory to retain the parliamentary seat, winning 34.8 percent of the vote.

Sharif’s PML-N had 18.9 percent, narrowly coming in third to the regionally strong Awami National Party that won just 40 more votes.

But the gains by the Labaik party - formed just last year - have grabbed attention.

Labaik draws most of its support from the Barelvi branch of Sunni Islam, the largest sect in Pakistan that is traditionally considered moderate. Though the party does not publicly talk about its funding, the Barelvis have a network of mosques and madrassa religious schools that collect donations.

The party emerged out of a protest movement against the state’s execution of Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab province who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to reform Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, among the world’s harshest, to prevent abuses.

Qadri is considered a hero by the party, and its candidate in Peshawar, Muhammad Shafiq Ameeni, was equally supportive of Mashal Khan’s killers, although the student’s death was not a main feature at campaign rallies.

“It was state’s responsibility to punish a blasphemer, no two opinions, but when state doesn’t do its job and someone does kill, he shouldn’t be punished as a murderer,” Amini said, referring to the 57 people who face trial over Mashal Khan’s death.

In Pakistan, allegiance to Islam is the official line of most major parties, but ultra-religious parties have so far remained on the fringes.

Labaik is one of two new ultra-religious parties formed in roughly the past year.

Together, Labaik and the Milli Muslim League (MML) gained about 11 percent of the vote in last month’s by-election in Lahore and 10.4 percent in Peshawar, whereas the established religious parties, such as Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam, combined had 5.3 percent in the 2013 national election.

Muhammad Shafiq Ameeni, candidate of the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan party, speaks with a Reuters correspondent during an interview in Peshawar, Pakistan October 25, 2017. REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz

RULING PARTY UNDER FIRE

Blasphemy is such an effective wedge issue in Pakistan because there is almost no defense against an accusation.

For that reason, say critics, blasphemy laws are often invoked to settle personal scores and to intimidate liberal journalists, lawyers and politicians.

Dozens of Pakistanis are sitting on death row after being convicted of insulting Islam’s prophet, a specific charge that carries a mandatory death sentence, though no executions have been carried out in recent decades.

Now, political parties may be in danger of facing blasphemy accusations themselves.

Earlier in October, the PML-N found itself in the middle of a firestorm when it voted through seemingly small changes to the nation’s electoral law.

Iqbal Khan puts decorations on his son's grave in a family orchard in Swabi, Pakistan October 24, 2017. Picture taken October 24, 2017. REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz

The changes, among other things, turned a religious oath in the electoral laws stating that Mohammad was the last prophet of Muslims into a declaration using the words “I declare”.

The alterations prompted accusations of blasphemy from the religious right and the government quickly retreated, terming the change a “clerical” mistake and apologizing in parliament.

Labaik has vowed to hold a mass rally on Nov. 6 to demand the lawmakers responsible be prosecuted for blasphemy.

MOB KILLINGS

Even before the Labaik party’s political debut, politicians found promising swift action against blasphemers an easy way to appeal to conservative voters.

In March, then-prime minister Sharif issued a public order to prosecute anyone posting blasphemous content online.

The next month, Mashal Khan was accused of online blasphemy and beaten to death by fellow students and religious activists as onlookers filmed the scene. Sharif said he was “shocked and saddened” by the “senseless display of mob justice”.

At least 67 people have been killed over unproven blasphemy allegations since 1990, according human rights groups.

Mashal Khan’s father, Iqbal, said his son was the victim of false rumors.

The family has received death threats from right-wingers and Mashal’s sisters had to drop out of school.

“The snakes our country nurtured are now biting us,” the father said, two days before the Peshawar by-election, standing beside his son’s gave strewn with flowers, lace and poetry.

Learning of the Labaik party’s gains a few days later only made him more pessimistic about the government’s ability to stop abuse of blasphemy accusations.

“I know very well, I‘m not going to get my son back,” he said. “But this only adds to my pain.” 

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10.THE IMPACT OF BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION ON SOUTH ASIAN POLITICS: interview with Harris Khalique
========================================
(Deutsche Welle - 20.10.2017)

The 1917 Russian revolution had a great impact on South Asian political movements and leaders. DW talks to renowned Pakistani social activist and author Harris Khalique about its relevance today.

DW: What impact did the Russian Revolution have on anti-colonial movements in British India?

Harris Khalique: I find it interesting that while Karl Marx looked at British colonialism in India during the 19th century with a different lens and saw it as an agent for bringing modernity to a decadent and feudal country, the Marxist-Leninist Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was looked at most favorably in British, French and other colonies.

In British India, the 1917 revolution not only inspired and influenced secular movements, it had a similar impact on faith-based movements and political organizations. Even before the Communist Party of India (CPI) could formally take roots, there were religious scholars like Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi publicly owing allegiance to the international socialist movement.

They emphasized the inherent nature of deep connections between nationalism, freedom and class struggle. Over the next few decades - between 1925 and 1947 - from CPI to Progressive Writers Association to Indian Peoples Theater Association to the trade union federations, a solid left-wing anti-colonial movement was galvanized.
Harris Khalique Schriftsteller aus Pakistan (Privat)

Khalique: 'In British India, the 1917 revolution not only inspired and influenced secular movements, it had a similar impact on faith-based movements and political organizations'

Why did the communist parties fare well in post-partition India and not in Pakistan?

One obvious reason is the near-absence of any modern industry in Pakistan at the time of the country's creation and the other reason is the Pakistani government's decision not to dismantle the traditional feudal structure for agricultural production, unlike what the Indian government did soon after independence.

Besides, the Communist Party and its organs were proscribed by the Pakistani state very soon after independence. This was followed by the imposition of martial law, which was supported by the US. Not only that Pakistan mostly remained aligned with the US and the West during the Cold War, it was hardly a democracy where all political voices are allowed a space. Communists were seen as pro-Soviet and persecuted.

In later years, as Pakistan drew closer to communist China, some pro-Chinese parties and peasant movements were allowed to operate. Consequently, these initiatives led to the rise of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party around 1970.

The Pashtun areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan had a strong communist movement. How did that happen in such conservative places? And why did Pakistan consider them a threat?

It certainly was a strong progressive and liberal movement with Pakhtun nationalist imperatives which was pro-Soviet. It was not a communist movement, strictly speaking. For instance, Bacha Khan, the great Pakhtun leader and reformer, was a Gandhian and not a communist. But he remained pro-Soviet and saw the support of the USSR crucial in realizing the rights of Pakhtuns.

Please also note that Pakhtun areas are tribal and consequently more egalitarian in nature than some other parts of Pakistan like Punjab and Sindh which remained thoroughly feudal and classist. Even the middle classes here represented conservative thought and, in fact, still do. It was natural for the Pakistani state to see any pro-Soviet linguistic or nationalist movements as a threat to a pro-US unitary state.
Pakistan Ministerpräsident Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (STF/AFP/GettyImages)

'As Pakistan drew closer to communist China, some pro-Chinese parties and peasant movements were allowed to operate, leading to the rise of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party around 1970'

Do you see any relevance for socialist movements inspired by the Russian Revolution in India and Pakistan now?

What we witness now is the fall of the communist parties in India and a complete shift toward rightist politics in both India and Pakistan. On the other hand, Russia itself is a capitalist economy today, competing with the US and China for more market access and political influence in the world but they play by the same rules of the game.

There is no other ideology involved. However, for us here in India and Pakistan, there is a need for dynamic left-wing political and social movements than ever before to prevent us from completely slipping into fascism and totalitarianism. Marxists believe that history does not repeat itself. There may well be a desire to have replay of socialist revolutions that we saw in the 20th century but that will not happen.

Current structures work differently and a new kind of practice is required to first challenge and then overthrow right-wing politics - both in terms of economic oppression and religious fundamentalism.

Apart from Russia's Bolsheviks, China's Maoist influence was quite palpable on the sub-continent's socialist politics. How did those differences play out in Indian-Pakistani politics?

The split emerged clearly after 1962. CPI was factionalized and Pakistan saw student and labor movements splitting between pro-Soviet and pro-China camps. If you ask me, it further weakened the movement. Most time was spent on infighting rather than challenging the monopolistic capitalism taking roots in both India and Pakistan in tandem with feudal strongholds in Pakistan sustaining and strengthening.
Afghanistan Symbolbild Taliban-Kämpfer (picture alliance/Photoshot)

'There is a section among the social theorists and political activists in South Asia that clearly states that Islamic extremism is the Siamese twin of the neo-liberal global economic order'

That also reflects that the leftist leadership, particularly in Pakistan, was disingenuous and could not create an indigenous narrative.

Is it right to say that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, socialist movements in Pakistan lost their relevance?

In practical terms, they were not as impactful as they were in India even before the collapse of the Soviet Union. But of course, it was seen as a setback by left-wing political workers, writers and trade unionists.

Do socialists in South Asia have a counter-narrative to Islamic extremism and militancy in the region?

Most voices that you hear challenging extremism and militancy which international media regards today as liberal voices come from people who have left or centre-left background. However, there is a section among the social theorists and political activists in South Asia that clearly states that Islamic extremism is the Siamese twin of the neo-liberal global economic order. Because of that split in opinion, the counter-narrative is not articulated as clearly as it should be.

Harris Khalique, a poet and essayist, is the author of ‘Crimson Papers: Reflections on Struggle, Suffering, and Creativity in Pakistan'. He has remained associated with labour, minority and women rights movements.

The interview was conducted by Shamil Shams.

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11. THE QUESTION MORE INDIANS ASK — ‘IS MY PHONE TAPPED?’
by Mira Kamdar 
========================================
(The New York Times, OCT. 26, 2017)

Editorial Observer

New Delhi — A businessman told me he had stopped going online to buy books that the government might frown upon because he was afraid officials would track his purchases.

There’s good reason for such fears, another businessman said: “You go to a party where there are a dozen people you’ve known for years. Someone says something mildly critical of the government, and then you learn that person’s office was paid a visit the next day by the income-tax authorities.”

These were not reflections on life in some police state. These were conversations I had this month during a visit to India, a country I’ve been visiting for nearly 60 years.

It’s no secret that attacks on freedom of expression have accelerated since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2014. Yet, nothing prepared me for the pervasive anxieties I encountered on this trip. While freedom of speech has never been an absolute right in India, I always thought that this raucous democracy would ultimately overcome any blanket effort to quash dissent, as it did when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency and clamped down on the news media in 1975.

But I was stunned when a well-known writer in New Delhi confided that she and others used encrypted communications. “We’re all on ProtonMail and Signal at this point,” she said. Others said they only communicated on WhatsApp. “All of our phones are tapped,” declared a news editor in Mumbai.

As the comments from businessmen indicate, the fears I heard weren’t limited to journalists and writers disinclined to support Mr. Modi. People who had appreciated the pro-business elements of his candidacy, and who still have hope for his economic policies, expressed similar concern.

Journalists, though, have particular reason for fear. In June, the Central Bureau of Investigation raided residences and offices connected to the founders of N.D.T.V., an influential cable TV station and online news outlet that has had run-ins with Mr. Modi’s government. The Editors Guild of India and leading media figures condemned the raid. But a magazine editor confided, “Of course we are afraid; they could go after anyone in our family, at any time.”

Even more disturbing have been a series of unsolved murders of journalists, and punitive legal actions against the news media.

The online news outlet The Wire was slapped with a criminal defamation suit after it published a story this month alleging that Jay Shah, son of Amit Shah, the powerful head of Mr. Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, has profited handsomely under Mr. Modi’s government. Then, last week, a court in Gujarat — where Mr. Modi was formerly chief minister — barred the news outlet from publishing any stories “directly or indirectly” about Jay Shah until the suit was resolved. Defiant, The Wire posted a photo of the order, vowing, “It goes without saying that this attempt to gag The Wire will not go unchallenged.”

On Monday, the B.J.P.-led government in Rajasthan State introduced an ordinance in the state’s Legislative Assembly that would essentially bar reporting of government malfeasance by requiring government permission to investigate “both serving and former judges, magistrates and public servants for on-duty actions.” It would also make it illegal to “print or publish or publicize in any manner the name, address, photograph, family details or any other particulars which may lead to disclosure of identity of a judge or magistrate or a public servant against whom” an investigation is pending.

Not all the Indians I spoke with were so uneasy. Many citizens remain outspoken. Courageous journalists continue to fight to do their job. But the growing fear of Indians to speak, to write and even to read freely poses a grave threat to one of the world’s great democracies.

A version of this editorial appears in print on October 27, 2017, on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: The Question More Indians Ask — ‘Is My Phone Tapped?’

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12. INDIA: AADHAAR BECOMING AN INSTRUMENT OF EXCLUSION - EDITORIAL, THE TRIBUNE
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(The Tribune - Oct 27, 2017)

Editorial
A double-edged sword
Aadhaar becoming an instrument of exclusion

AADHAAR was initially conceived by the Manmohan Singh government as an effective subsidy delivery tool to ensure that unscrupulous elements do not siphon off welfare benefits meant for the poor. At that time, the BJP did what any opposition could do best: it called Aadhaar a “fraud” that violated the right to privacy. Less than two months before assuming power, a senior BJP office-bearer said if his party formed the government it would “scrap” Aadhaar “lock, stock and barrel” and it would be “thrown into the dustbin”. But, after winning the 2014 general election, the BJP government did the opposite. It transformed a noble delivery device into another appalling bureaucratic instrument to harass the common man in the name of national security.

It is always problematic to arm bureaucrats with unbridled powers like Aadhaar in a democracy. For example, an 11-year-old child starved to death recently in the BJP-ruled Jharkhand only because the family’s Aadhaar identities were not linked with their valid ration card. Aadhaar, which was initially conceived to ensure inclusive growth, has now become an instrument of exclusion. The government agencies are coercing people to link their ration cards, PAN cards, mobile numbers and bank accounts with their Aadhaar numbers. Banks and telecom companies are sending intimidating SMSes to their clients reminding them of deadlines, beyond which their accounts would be frozen and their mobile numbers inoperative. 

 There have been protests against such over-reach. Citizens are being made to feel an invasive and bureaucratic government. Why duplicate the identification processes? Customers’ credentials had already been ascertained by banks before opening accounts and telecos had issued SIM cards to mobile users after proper documentations, including verification of their photo IDs. Even the income tax department keeps constant vigil on every bank transaction through permanent account numbers (PAN) of individuals and companies. Then, why subject the citizen to another parallel authentication and scrutiny process? The zeal to unearth black money and eliminate sources of terror funding need not crowd out considerations of citizens’ rights and space. The promise of minimum government and maximum governance has been turned on its head.

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13. SOCIAL MEDIA MOB JUSTICE IS NO SOLUTION TO FIGHT SEXUAL HARASSMENT
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(Asia Times - October 27, 2017

NAMING SEXUAL HARASSERS WITHOUT DUE PROCESS IS MOB JUSTICE
by Manisha Chachra 

There is an intriguing wave of feminism sweeping across the world right now. From shaming Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein to the online #MeToo campaign followed by #TheList.

The first started as women came together spontaneously across the globe to air long suppressed stories of sexual harassment. It brought out the sheer scale and depth of abuse that women have endured silently for centuries. Then came the #TheList, a crowd-sourced attempt to name and shame largely Indian academics, who had allegedly sexually harassed, or assaulted women at some point.

But it also sparked a furious debate on due process and forced several prominent feminists to issue a statement of caution.

The #MeToo campaign made everyone think about the normalisation of sexual harassment in an unequal society. Now, #TheList breaks the myth that academia is a utopia – it isn’t and the ugly truth is that predators walk the portals of academia as well. The list, put together by an anti-caste law student based in the US, explicitly names and shames a group of academics who occupied powerful positions; some are also seen guardians of gender parity.

Academics often teach that the starting point for any issue is to look at a wide spectrum of competing narratives to arrive at a fuller perspective.

At first, the dominant narrative was enthralling – to see how this list received immense popularity among women to talk, deliberate and comprehend the nuances of privilege, position and power. The list also reinforced that victims need to be heard, protected and safeguarded.

However, the other side of the narrative was completely ignored. Those accused have already been judged or presumed guilty just because they were named anonymously in an open list. Let us think about the gruesome murder of 13-year-old Arushi Talwar, whose parents were recently acquitted after a nine-year legal battle. The initial narratives in the media and police had convinced us that the parents were the killers.

Similarly, as the list emerged, it convinced many of us that those named were already guilty. But so far, there is no way to authenticate the veracity of the allegations against those included on the list. In most cases, we don’t even know what the allegations are!

It must be granted here that it is important to believe the victims of sexual harassment and assault and recognize that the “system” is heavily stacked against them. However, this argument stands only to the extent of accusing a person – not for pronouncing a guilty verdict. Neglecting the other side of the narrative would mean a presumption of guilt without any due process to reach such a conclusion. The evidence claimed by the creator of the list stemmed, apparently, from WhatsApp chats, call recordings, and emails, which she considered sufficient to hold the “harasser” guilty.

Women assuming the role or moral vigilantes

But, this also means the person who drew up the list has also sat in judgment and pronounced these individuals guilty. The so-called “evidence” remains with the law student, and most of us have no to access it. A counter-argument could be that evidence needs to be protected, to safeguard the victim’s consent. But, this is women assuming the role of moral vigilantes, without having seen the evidence. This is also how lynch mobs operate, and every mob is always convinced about the legitimacy of its cause.

We also need to examine the notions of privilege and power. The move to name and shame has defied the norms of privilege and brought in an element of intersectionality.

But that should not merely restrict itself to the debates of “upper” and privileged castes and the “lower” and oppressed castes. This isolates and divides women. Does this mean that women from the “upper” and privileged castes are not victims of predatory sexual behavior and violence? That is certainly not the case; women from all castes and classes have borne the brunt of patriarchy for centuries to varying degrees.

Also, the calling out of privileges must not function in a reverse fashion whereby we transfer our historical baggage of humiliation onto another person’s shoulder.

Having said that, it is possible for a Brahmin woman to understand and speak for the concerns of a Dalit woman and vice versa. From available reports, the law student who started the list is a Singaporean citizen who studied in one of the most expensive private law universities in India and is now pursuing a Masters from the University of California. The majority of women in India, irrespective of caste, don’t share her extremely privileged background.

To have an inclusive feminist movement, there needs to be a sufficient connection – so debates do not end up with someone being labelled or dismissed as a ‘dalit‘ or ‘elite feminist’.

Lastly, the naming and shaming, or blacklisting of people negates the chance of state or legal follow-up. The passing of a domestic violence act and a law against sexual harassment at work only came after years of struggle and perseverance by feminists.

Sexual harassment and violence requires an overhaul of current power structures and building an institutional response. And any such move must be inclusive. Imagine if a million women sent in narratives of sexual harassment – could one give equal attention and justice to each of claim by publishing all the names on this list? The #MeToo campaign has already established the scale of the problem. Does #TheList add even greater depth to the problem? It’s a question worth pondering.

A massive section of the population has no voice in such a list. Women from non-elite, lesser-known or provincial institutions who have suffered harassment and abuse would be unlikely to reach such a list.

And as the debate regresses towards ‘the list’ versus due process, the matter of publicly shaming remains. While some may argue that our laws are a shambles and that there is no justice, we must remember that mob justice is not the solution. 

O o o

(Daily O, 26-10-2017)

MY NAME IS ON THE LIST OF SEXUAL HARASSERS IN ACADEMIA ON FACEBOOK, THIS IS WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT
Vigilante feminism by trolls only consolidates institutional trivialisation of sexual harassment.

Ashley Tellis
 
@politicalrandi

(Disclaimer: The author has been informed that he is also on the list of "sexual predators in academia" after his public criticism of it, though, of course, with no specific charges, no evidence and no need of a defence. As an out gay activist who has faced sexual harassment in educational institutions across the country for almost two decades now, the irony and dark humour of being on the list is not lost on him.)

The hit list of alleged sexual harassers doing the rounds in the hollow, self-echoing chambers of social media is a sad and sorry symptom of our times. While struggles for gender justice on the ground in universities remain sparsely populated and almost totally ignored, self-appointed heroes of social media produce lists like this and feel like the job is done.

Where are these cyber warriors when cases of sexual harassment are registered in universities on a regular basis? Why is there no day-to-day coverage of them on the social media by these self-appointed feminists? Where is the support for victims who have to fight alone and under pressures of all kinds? Why is there never any social media to offer support to them? Why is there no Facebook outrage at every sexual harassment case in universities which ends with no justice for the person at the receiving end? Why is there no public tracking of every sexual harassment case in the social media, no naming and shaming based on concrete evidence, procedures and failed attempts at getting justice?

We need a strong, supportive framework for women and other victims of sexual harassment to be able to continue the struggle, to boost their morale, to be there for them in their fight. This is the necessary supplement to the law, which will give the law teeth by creating a social context within which sexual harassment is taken seriously.

We have had social media for a fairly long time now. Why is there no supportive network for victims of this culture of sexual harassment, but only a sensational list instead? Where are these gung-ho internet warriors when victims of sexual harassment in universities need support on a daily basis? What has prevented them from forming a network even on social media (since they don’t seem to believe in the real world) to support people who have taken up the fight and are struggling against powerful people and institutions?

The answer is simple. That requires hard work. It requires real feminism that counters the systematic trivialisation of sexual harassment in educational institutions on a daily basis. It requires a movement and long, drawn-out struggles on the ground.

It is much easier to have lists on Facebook. The hard work of feminism on the ground actually fights abuses in concrete locations. Indeed, the list borrows names from some of these struggles to give itself credibility with no accounts of those struggles.

We have had the Vishakha Guidelines since 1997. We have had policies in educational institutions for over a decade now, some carefully drawn up over years, like the one at Delhi University. We have a law on the sexual harassment of women at workplace. Yes, all of these are flawed. Yes, we all know that the law is not enough. Those of us who have seen cases of harassment in educational institutions know the many ways in which they are mangled and used against complainants, trivialised, thrown out.

But does that mean we throw out the law altogether?

Do we give up what feminists have fought for (the sexual harassment law is the only law which reposes faith in the idea of the woman as an autonomous subject) and produce lists instead? Do we replace courts of law with kangaroo courts? Do we replicate the khap panchayat and produce rough and ready "justice" at online chaupals?

What is the ethics and politics of this list? The government produces lists of anti-nationals/Naxal supporters who are then hounded by the state. No evidence is offered or required. How is this list different? Indeed the timing of this list when the Hindu Right has hollowed out most educational institutions is appalling.

This is exactly how women are targeted by patriarchy. They are given names: no questions are asked, no answers are needed. Anyone’s name might be put on a list. The person who puts the name is anonymous, the specificities of the charge undeclared, the evidence irrelevant, the defence unnecessary, the condemnation total.

That’s a great world for a nationalist and patriarchal video game, but not one to which feminists might aspire.

Academia has a deep-rooted culture of sexual harassment. Anger at that is justified but has to be productively harnessed and put in the service of a feminism that cares about persons damaged by sexual harassment, that offers them support, that is in for the long haul, that fights the good fight, on a daily basis, and on the ground.

It is a complex and difficult struggle, with many more setbacks than victories, but it is one worth fighting. The dwindling of the autonomous women’s movement has to be reversed. The process is on with collectives like "Pinjra Tod", which does not produce lists, but fights specific campaigns in university spaces and is a powerful, growing movement.

What we do not need is a vigilante virtual feminism run by trolls on social media that doles out smear campaign justice which only consolidates the institutional trivialisation of sexual harassment and feminism.

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14. TRUMPS SET TO LAUNCH TWO REAL ESTATE PROJECTS IN INDIA, DESPITE CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST CONCERNS | Annie Gowen
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 (Washington Post, October 28, 2017)

KOLKATA, India — President Trump's eldest son, Don Jr., is expected to launch two residential projects in India for the Trump Organization in the coming weeks, continuing the family's promotion of the Trump empire despite concerns over the president’s potential conflicts of interest with foreign governments.

The Trump Organization vowed early on there would be “no new foreign deals” during Trump’s tenure as president; these two latest projects in India were inked before his election.
http://tinyurl.com/ycmuhkrf

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15. HOW DOCTORS ARE TAUGHT TO DEAL WITH DEATH | Eleanor Flynn and Jennifer Philip
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(The Conversation - 22 october 2017)

Doctors have to deal with death every day. It’s not easy to come to terms with it. from 
    

As a society we’re pretty removed from death. We don’t really talk about it. Yet when medical students start their training, it suddenly becomes something they’re intimately acquainted with. So how are young doctors taught to deal with death?

The teaching of medicine has traditionally been one of apprenticeship. A student is equipped with basic knowledge and then, through experience in “the clinic”, is guided by a trusted senior into a medical career. The teaching of students around one of the key skills they will require in their career, care of the dying, requires specific skills that the student may not encounter in their ordinary clinical teaching.

So it’s necessary to ensure all aspects of this vital topic are covered in the curriculum, and any extra clinical experience is a bonus to help cement the knowledge and understanding for the students.
What medical schools teach students about death

The most important skills medical schools need to teach students is to develop an understanding of the broad impact of chronic illness on patients and their communities; to understand patients’ (and their families’) responses and priorities; to understand their own emotions; and to be able to do all of this while ensuring the patient has all of the relevant medical information.

Most medical students, like many young Australians, have had no personal experience with death. They are part of a “death-free generation” that may not encounter the death of a close family member until later in life.

In many medical degrees, death is introduced in a theoretical way in the first year of study, with lectures on the ethics of body donation for anatomy dissection, and deaths of hypothetical patients. Some universities even have commemorative services to thank those who donated their bodies to be used in anatomy classes.

Read more: Medical schools are shaking off a dark past by honouring people who donate their bodies to science

Using these methods, the moral and social dimensions of dying and death are explicitly highlighted alongside the physical dimensions.

In addition to visiting patients on wards during clinical experience, students spend time following one patient through in-hospital care and to their follow-up appointments with different health care providers. This gives them unique insights into the patient experience, communication exchanges, decision-making, and the dynamics of receiving care in the setting of serious illness.
Students need to learn in practice and theory what dealing with death encompasses. from www.shutterstock.com
Student experiences of death

Most medical students will also have practical experience at a palliative care facility or acute hospital setting, caring for dying patients. The experience includes ward rounds, patient consultations, family meetings, home visits, discussions with social workers and pastoral care workers.

Teaching in this area covers pain and symptom management, with a focus on nausea and constipation, which are very common for patients at the end of life. This palliative care module allows them to cover the psychological, existential and spiritual issues, and discuss these with palliative and pastoral care staff.

In reflecting on these experiences, students are helped by relationships with trusted senior doctors or counsellors to talk through dealing with uncertainty and end of life care issues.

All medical schools have staff whose role is to provide appropriate student support. Many medical schools also build a mentor role into the curriculum, providing a regular safe space for students to discuss concerns. Research shows students may, in turn, adopt the negative mindset of doctors who consider any patient death to be a personal failure. This issue is directly discussed in these individual or group support settings.

Junior doctor experiences of death

All Victorian hospitals with interns (first year medical graduates) have a designated senior doctor as the intern supervisor. One Melbourne hospital, recognising that many of the concerns expressed by junior doctors relate to the deaths of patients, has appointed a palliative care specialist part time in this role.

Junior doctors, informally and in formal teaching sessions, find it very helpful to have a doctor who is comfortable speaking about death, able to answer their questions and support them to accept that patients will die. A UK study found 90% of doctors considered they coped well with deaths by using available informal and formal supports.

Any student or junior doctor who is struggling with any aspect of the course or work is encouraged to seek help from their medical school, university or hospital support services. Other organisations such as Doctors’ Health Services, Medical Defence Organisations and the Australian Medical Association also offer support.

Many students and junior doctors find it difficult to ask for help. Collegiate support through information, mentoring, and guided experiential learning is an important part of improving the care of patients with advanced illness and their families, and at the same time, improving the health and professional satisfaction of the doctors providing such care. 

[Eleanor Flynn, Associate Professor in Medical Education, University of Melbourne; Jennifer Philip, Professor, VCCC Chair of Palliative Medicine, University of Melbourne ]

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16. HOW RELUCTANT LEADER JACINDA ARDERN CHARMED NEW ZEALAND | Eleanor Ainge Roy
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(The Guardian, 19 October 2017)

The new PM turned down the Labour top job seven times before transforming her party’s fortunes with ‘Jacindamania’

Less than three months ago, Jacinda Ardern, preoccupied by home renovations, said the only way she would ever lead New Zealand’s Labour party would be if her entire caucus was hit by a bus and she was the “designated survivor”.

Now, she finds herself about to take office as New Zealand’s third female prime minister, and its youngest leader for 150 years.

After a 26-day wait, kingmaker Winston Peters, of the New Zealand First party, threw his support behind Ardern’s party on Thursday, allowing Labour to form a coalition government with NZ First and the Greens, with a slim majority in parliament.

Ardern – a 37-year-old former Mormon and occasional DJ – campaigned on a somewhat nebulous platform of hope and change. But after the most exciting and closely contested New Zealand election in decades, it appears her gamble has paid off.
Jacinda Ardern to be New Zealand's next PM after Labour coalition deal
Read more

Ardern has pledged to deliver a better life for New Zealanders by ending child poverty, making rivers swimmable again, building affordable homes and preparing young people for an unpredictable future through free tertiary education and a bigger student allowance.

“We aspire to be a government for all New Zealanders and one that will seize the opportunity to build a fairer, better New Zealand,” Ardern said. “We will work hard to ensure New Zealand is once again a world leader, a country we can all be proud of. We said we could do this, we will do this.”

Ardern’s victory is a major coup for the left, as her liberal, socially progressive policies are in direct contrast to increasing isolationism in the northern hemisphere – the key reason Peters said he decided to throw his support behind her party and form a coalition with Labour over the National party.

Peters said the global environment was undergoing rapid and seismic change, similar to the years before the global financial crisis, and he believed a Labour government was best placed to handle the social and economic welfare of New Zealanders during this turbulent period in history.

Winston Peters of NZ First said he chose to back Jacinda Ardern’s Labour because ‘capitalism must regain its human face’. Photograph: Marty Melville/AFP/Getty Images

“For too many New Zealanders, capitalism has not been their friend but their foe,” Peters said, claiming vulnerable people had been left behind while the political elite got richer. “We believe capitalism must regain its human face, and that conviction deeply influenced our decision.
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“The biggest issue is, we have heard and read many comments about poverty and the concertina-ing of wealth in fewer and fewer hands ... That has to change.”

Ardern’s rapid ascent to become New Zealand’s 40th prime minister began on 1 August. The week before, the then Labour leader, Andrew Little, approached his popular and dynamic deputy after repeatedly tanking in the preferred PM polls.

Little asked Ardern to lead the party as the left’s only hope of securing a change of government after three terms in opposition. Ardern – who has repeatedly said her anxiety precluded her from taking on the top job – said no. Seven times.

All Ardern wanted was to be minister for children. At 37, she wanted a family at some point, fewer sleepless nights, and a break from her persistent fear that she wasn’t doing enough, being enough, to everyone in her life. “I am a thinker and I do muse over things a lot, and am constantly assessing whether I am doing enough, or what I should be doing more of to make sure I am not letting anyone down,” she told the Guardian.

For years the Labour party had languished in the polls, viewed as snippy and uninspiring. But Ardern’s political nous is complemented by a generous dollop of uncultivated charm and humour, and her youth and energy communicated for voters a different future for New Zealand.

She has promised to lift more than 200,000 children out of poverty, raise the minimum wage, crack down on foreign speculators buying up prime land, and increase the refugee quota.
Who is New Zealand's new prime minister? A profile of Jacinda Ardern
Read more

“What Brexit and the Trump outcome really said to me is, we do have a sense of financial insecurity that really exists in a number of countries, and politicians have the choice to either respond to that financial insecurity with messages of hope, and a plan around how we are going to, in the face of ongoing globalisation and automation, make sure that there is a future for our workforce and our young people; or we can respond to the fear that exists,” Ardern told the Guardian.

“I think that fear has legitimately come through in those elections, and that really was a message to me about what we need to be talking about to allay those fears.”

A devoted Labour member since the age of 17, Ardern eventually said yes to the leadership. Within weeks, support for Labour had surged dramatically, increasing polling results by 19 points in just over a month.
3:37
'Honoured and privileged': Jacinda Ardern on being New Zealand's next PM – video

Her popularity was dismissed as “stardust” by her opponent, the National party’s Bill English, who anticipated that her honeymoon period would be short-lived. But he was wrong. Young voters and women championed Ardern’s vision, and she quickly became known for her wit and backbone when facing opponents.
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From Auckland convention centres to grimy pubs on the west coast, Ardern’s personal popularity drew huge crowds around the country – an outpouring that was dubbed “Jacindamania”, and led to comparisons between Ardern and “rock star” politicians such as Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau.

“Do it for all of us,” the UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, recently urged her, reflecting the hopes of Labour supporters around the world.

“I am certainly going to try to keep positive momentum for the progressive movements from around the world,” said Ardern, when asked if she had been passed the torch from Corbyn and from Bernie Sanders in the US. “But I can only be myself. I am never going to replicate any other leader. They’ve done amazing things in and of their own right, but I’m Jacinda Ardern.”

When Labour eventually takes office it cannot expect an easy ride. With controversial plans to slash immigration, address the boom in dairy and explore a manned re-entry of the Pike river mine, Ardern’s government will face fierce opposition from the National party, which holds 56 seats in the 120-strong parliament, and from many sectors of New Zealand society that want the country to stay the same.

But for now, Labour’s battle is over. Change has come to New Zealand, whether it is ready or not. 

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17. FRANCE:  LIBYAN FUNDING OF SARKOZY ELECTION CAMPAIGN: A DAMNING POLICE REPORT
by Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske
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(Mediapart - October 22, 2017)

Police officers from France's fraud squad the OCLCIFF have produced a preliminary and damning report into the claims that the Libyan regime under Muammar Gaddafi funded the 2007 presidential election campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy. It raises questions about the role of Éric Woerth who at the time was treasurer of Sarkozy's campaign, later became a minister and is now president of the finance committee at the National Assembly. Meanwhile judges have ordered the seizure of properties belonging to Sarkozy's former chief-of-staff and right-hand man, Claude Guéant. Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske report.

https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/221017/libyan-funding-sarkozy-election-campaign-damning-police-report

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18. THE FIRST TOTALITARIAN | Josef Joffe 
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(The New York Times Book Review, OCT. 19, 2017)

 Book Review | Nonfiction

LENIN
The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror
By Victor Sebestyen
Illustrated. 569 pp. Pantheon Books. $35.

Can first-rate history read like a thriller? With “Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror,” the journalist Victor Sebestyen has pulled off this rarest of feats — down to the last of its 569 pages. How did he do it? Start with a Russian version of “House of Cards” and behold Vladimir Ilyich Lenin pre-empt Frank Underwood’s cynicism and murderous ambition by 100 years. Add meticulous research by digging into Soviet archives, including those locked away until recently. Plow through 9.5 million words of Lenin’s “Collected Works.” Finally, apply a scriptwriter’s knack for drama and suspense that needs no ludicrous cliffhangers to enthrall history buffs and professionals alike.

It is surprising that a man who showed no sign of greatness in his youth and wasn’t even interested in politics should have become the leader of a revolution. Back in the U.S.S.R., a perplexed party hack mused: “I have always wondered how he could have done such extraordinary things.” Lenin ruled for less than seven years, and his Soviet empire crashed on Christmas Day 1991. Its 74-year career was a mere episode compared with Rome, Hapsburg or Britain. Communism, Soviet Russia’s ersatz religion, has ended up as a gory failure, claiming tens of millions of dead from Moscow to Mao’s China.

“How could this obstinate little man … Lenin have become so important?” the Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig asked in 1927. Yet 90 years later, Russians queue daily at Lenin’s tomb to gaze reverently at an embalmed corpse. The mausoleum was refurbished by Vladimir Putin at vast expense in 2011 to make an obvious point — that Russia needs a “dominant, ruthless, autocratic leader.” Lenin, the Robespierre of Bolshevism, now serves as patron saint of Russian nationalism and Putinist despotism.

This “little man” also foreshadowed a thoroughly “modern political phenomenon,” Sebestyen reminds his readers. He was a demagogue familiar to present-day democracies and dictatorships alike. Contemporary policy wonks will recognize Lenin as the “godfather … of ‘post-truth politics.’” Offer the electorate “simple solutions to complex problems.” Lie shamelessly. Designate scapegoats to explain all misery. Winning is everything, the ends justify the means. In politics, Lenin decreed, “there is only one truth: what profits my opponent hurts me, and vice versa.” Rings a bell, doesn’t it?

All of Leninism may be reduced to two famous words uttered by the Founder in 1921 and repeated by Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin: “Kto kovo?” “Who, whom?” That is, who will do in whom? A comrade-turned-foe gave Lenin something of a pass by invoking tragedy. Lenin “desired the good … but created evil.” Sebestyen seems to agree: The “worst of his evils was to have left a man like Stalin in a position to lead Russia after him. That was a historic crime.”

This sounds a familiar note: Lenin was history’s agent of necessity and justice, bringing down a decrepit czarist regime that had enslaved an entire nation. Yet his heir, Stalin, was evil incarnate, sending millions to the gulag or murdering them outright. Robert Conquest, the cleareyed historian of the Soviet Union who wrote “The Great Terror,” the definitive work on Stalin’s purges, quipped in a limerick: “There was a great Marxist named Lenin / Who did two or three million men in. / That’s a lot to have done in / But where he did one in / That grand Marxist Stalin did 10 in.”

To be fair, Sebestyen doesn’t fall for those exculpatory tales spun by so many Westerners to wrest “good” Marxism from Stalin’s butchering hands. And neither did Conquest. Yes, Stalin “did in” 10 times more than the First Bolshevik. But factor in time. Lenin had only seven years in power while Stalin had 30. Then consider the most glaring truth: Whatever Stalin perfected was rooted in the Leninist system.
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It was Lenin who created the “basis for a one-man tyranny,” the Polish scholar Leszek Kolakowski notes in his magisterial “Main Currents of Marxism.” “We do not promise any freedom, or any democracy,” Lenin exclaimed at the Third Congress of the Comintern in 1921. “We were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the sacredness of human life,” his comrade Trotsky declared in “The Defense of Terrorism.” As Kolakowski put it tout court: Like Lenin, Stalin “was the personification of a system which irresistibly sought to be personified.”

Where the system was heading, shattering all “hopes and dreams for freedom under the revolution,” became cruelly obvious as early as 1921, when sailors revolted at the Kronstadt naval base. At first, they clamored for larger rations, echoing the mutiny of 1905 — the original Russian revolution — immortalized in Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin.” Then it escalated, though peacefully. A mass meeting drew up a list of political demands: free elections, free trade unions, a free press and the abolition of the Cheka, the secret police that had taken over from the czar’s Okhrana.

“They must be shown no mercy,” Lenin thundered. He dispatched 20,000 troops under the command of Trotsky, who unleashed an “inferno,” according to Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who would rise to Marshall of the Soviet Union. Sebestyen rightly depicts the massacre as a turning point. “After the savagery … few people would be under any illusions that Lenin would brook serious opposition.”

The terror was systemic, not Stalin’s creation. As Dostoyevsky observed in “The House of the Dead,” “Tyranny is a habit. It has its own organic life; it develops finally into a disease. … Blood and power intoxicate.” Maxim Gorky, an early supporter who would soon call Lenin a “coldblooded trickster,” concurred: Former slaves “will become unbridled despots as soon as they have the chance.” So radicalization was not a matter of personality, but destiny.

Lenin used his chance well. “From his first few hours as leader of Russia, he laid the ground for rule by terror,” Sebestyen writes. On the second day, he began to censor the press. On Dec. 7, 1917, he set up the Cheka to combat “counterrevolution, speculation and sabotage.” He abolished the legal system in favor of “revolutionary justice,” which legitimized every perversion of the law. “To us,” Lenin pontificated, “all is permitted. … Blood? Let there be blood.” For victory was not possible “without the very cruelest revolutionary terror.”

The scholar Robert Service puts it all in a nutshell in his acclaimed book “A History of Modern Russia”: “The forced-labor camps, the one-party state … the prohibition of free and popular elections, the ban on internal party dissent: not one of them had to be invented by Stalin. … Not for nothing did Stalin call himself Lenin’s disciple.” But why blame only Lenin and Stalin? As Sebestyen emphasizes: “The structure of the police state had been established under Nicholas I in the 1820s.”

The difference between czarism and Leninism is the one between absolutism and totalitarianism. It is one-man rule in both systems, but the critical ingredient is the total state — what the Nazis imposed as Gleichschaltung — the liquidation of civil society top to bottom: parties, unions, media, churches, guilds and associations.

Lenin’s most brilliant invention was a secular religion: Communism. If you believe in me, you will gain salvation — not in the Great Beyond, but in the Here and Now. And if you don’t believe, the revolutionary faith pronounced, we will kill you. With this brand-new choice — paradise on earth or speedy demise — the “obstinate little man” made a revolution that shook the world and inspired tyrants round the globe.

Though dead for more than 90 years, Lenin lives on in his mausoleum and in the minds of millions of Russians who have stood in line to commune with a corpse. Today, as Sebestyen writes in his concluding words, Lenin is being “used by a new breed of autocrats, extreme nationalists who may have dispensed with Communism but nevertheless respect Lenin as a strongman in the Russian tradition.” Lenin is dead; Leninism lives.

Josef Joffe is a founder of The American Interest and a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he teaches international politics. His most recent book is “The Myth of America’s Decline.”

A version of this review appears in print on October 22, 2017, on Page BR18 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: The Godfather of Post-Truth Politics.

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19. Looking back at the Russian Revolution - Three commentaries from India
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The relevance of the Russian Revolution of 1917 for India in 2017 - Amit Sengupta
http://tinyurl.com/ybyugrvr

Hundred years on is it time for another Revolution? - Sukumar Murlidharan
http://tinyurl.com/y8x8lrye

Time to rearm Marxist Theory - Prakash Karat
http://tinyurl.com/ya4x6jua

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South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. Newsletter of South Asia Citizens Web: 
www.sacw.net/

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