tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/egalitarianism-2364/articlesEgalitarianism – The Conversation2024-02-08T19:17:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2221542024-02-08T19:17:44Z2024-02-08T19:17:44ZAustralians love to talk about a ‘fair go’. Here’s what it meant before we became a nation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573697/original/file-20240206-24-mn43my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C989%2C785&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-148533449/view">National Library of Australia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Fair go” is an expression we hear a lot in Australia. Activists use it to demand social justice, companies use it to promise customers a good deal, and politicians invoke it to persuade us that they understand the plight of ordinary people. </p>
<p>Most political commentators and academics who write about the fair go associate the phrase with Australia’s famed <a href="https://www.dca.org.au/news/opinion-pieces/land-of-the-fair-go">egalitarian traditions</a>, including equality of economic opportunity, universal political rights and the provision of a safety net via minimum wages and welfare programs. </p>
<p>Yet the fair go expression is sometimes used in ways that are distinctly inegalitarian. Former prime minister Scott Morrison repeatedly declared his belief in “a fair go for those who have a go”, suggesting the concept only applies to hardworking, “deserving” Australians. Morrison’s comments <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/17/the-meaning-of-morrisons-mantra-about-getting-a-fair-go-is-clear-its-conditional">drew the ire</a> of critics who argued he was subverting the original egalitarian meaning of the fair go phrase, along with the Australian culture of benevolence to the needy. </p>
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<p>So who is right about what a fair go means to Australians? Are some uses more faithful to our “fair go traditions” than others? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-australia-land-of-the-fair-go-not-everyone-gets-an-equal-slice-of-the-pie-70480">In Australia, land of the 'fair go', not everyone gets an equal slice of the pie</a>
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<h2>Origins in the sports pages</h2>
<p>In our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10361146.2023.2170211">research project</a>, we went back to the earliest recorded mentions of the fair go phrase in colonial-era newspapers to understand the original uses and meanings of this phrase, focusing on the period between 1860 and 1901. </p>
<p>We found the most common uses of the fair go expression did not refer to equality, benevolence and social justice. Instead, the phrase was mainly used to describe spirited efforts in competitive sports such as horse racing, boxing and sprinting. We found this in an <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/227936298">article</a> published in New South Wales in 1889:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They were stripped of shoes and everything and had a fair go with the hurdles out about 18 yards.</p>
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<p>In sport, a fair go could also mean trying your hardest, as opposed to “pulling” a race or “throwing” a match, such as in <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article120653023">this piece</a> from 1892: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>With a dishonest jockey aboard […] an owner never knows whether he is to get ‘a fair go’ or not.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A fair go could also refer to a thrilling, close match that entertained spectators, or a lucky win for gamblers, as in the expression “having a fair go for their money”. The fair go phrase was also used in politics in the context of closely
fought elections, such as in <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article155981003">Western Australia in 1900</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] he can depend on a fair go for it, for it’s a dead certainty he won’t gain the seat unopposed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Fair go” could also refer to violent power struggles. In an <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3524500">1891 telegram</a> sent during the Shearers Strike in Queensland, a union leader advocated achieving a fair go by force: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] if a little more devil was put into our actions the better it would be for us in the end. We have tried passive resistance and it appears to have failed. Let us try the other now, and have a fair go.</p>
</blockquote>
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<span class="caption">The term ‘fair go’ was used during the Queensland Shearer’s Strike in 1891.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.slq.qld.gov.au/viewer/IE316889">State Library of Queensland</a></span>
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<p>The expression was sometimes used to refer to fistfights in politics and beyond, such as <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/216692383">this piece</a> in 1897: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fights between members of Parliament or city or municipal councillors are not of rare occurrence in Australia, but a fair “go” between lawyers with the “bare bones” is not often chronicled.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was even used to describe violence in wartime, such as when an Australian soldier in the Boer war <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page12085571">expressed a hope</a> to a reporter that the enemy would “let him have a fair go […] with the bayonet”. </p>
<h2>Different contexts, different meanings</h2>
<p>While the dominant meanings of the fair go in the 19th century referred to competition and power struggles, we also found uses that resonate more with egalitarianism, social justice and procedural rights. In an 1891 article about politics, a fair go could mean the right to speak:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You are a liar and the father of a liar. Why don’t you let me speak? This is my maiden speech and you might let me have a fair go.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fair go phrase was also used to <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/216907224">advocate for</a> the principle of one person, one vote, as well as <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page7513252">ranked voting</a>. </p>
<p>In sport, a fair go was said to require <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19024103">impartial umpires</a> who didn’t favour one side over the other. In the legal system, a fair go required the right to <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article114314382">due process</a>, such as the provision of warrants for arrests and adequate defence in the courtroom. </p>
<p>While these ideas resonate with contemporary concerns about equal rights, non-discrimination, and proper process in government, they represented the minority of uses of the fair go phrase in the 19th century. Uses of “fair go” to refer to benevolence to the poor and the need for a safety net were virtually absent in the period we studied. </p>
<p>These findings highlight that the fair go originally meant different things to different people, and in different contexts. In our <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8500.12624">recent research</a>, we show that 19th-century uses of the fair go can be organised into six distinct meanings. These reflect the fact that the words “fair” and “go” have multiple meanings associated with both “justice” and “strength”.</p>
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<p>These different interpretations are alive and well today, and can be used to critically <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8500.12624">assess public policies</a> on contentious issues such as housing affordability and immigration. </p>
<p>Who is right about the true historical and contemporary meaning of the fair go? Our research shows no political ideology or party has a monopoly on the fair go. How we talk about the fair go reveals the ideas that shaped us as a nation, and the values that influence our political debates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222154/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cosmo Howard receives funding from the Australian Research Council. This article was funded under the ARC Discovery Project: DP220101911 – Understanding the Antipodean 'Fair Go'.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pandanus Petter receives funding from the Australian Research Council. This article was funded under ARC Discovery Project: DP220101911 – Understanding the Antipodean 'Fair Go'.</span></em></p>Politicians often wheel out the phrase, but what does it really mean? We examined newspaper articles from before Federation to track how it was used.Cosmo Howard, Associate Professor School of Government and International Relations, Griffith UniversityPandanus Petter, Research Fellow Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127412023-09-05T15:15:03Z2023-09-05T15:15:03ZPoverty in Britain is firmly linked to the country’s mountain of private wealth – Labour must address this growing inequality<p>Labour’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66634187">has said</a> that a Labour government would not raises taxes on wealth, capital gains or higher incomes. She does not, she says, see “the way to prosperity as being through taxation.” </p>
<p>Britain is asset rich. National wealth – a mix of property, business, financial and state assets – stands at almost <a href="https://wid.world/news-article/world-inequality-report-2022/">seven times</a> the size of the economy. That is double the level of the 1970s. </p>
<p>This has not come about as a result of investment and productivity growth. Instead, much of this private-wealth mountain is <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-richer-the-poorer">unearned</a> – the product of windfall gains, resulting from state-driven <a href="https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/the-missing-billions/">asset inflation</a>, the mass sell-off of former public and commonly held assets (from land to industries) and the exploitation of corporate power. As philosopher and civil servant John Stuart Mill quipped during the Industrial Revolution, it’s “getting rich while asleep”.</p>
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<p><em>The Conversation is partnering with <a href="https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/london?utm_source=MP+L23+Conversation&utm_medium=Article+feature&utm_campaign=HTLGI+London+2023&utm_id=The+Conversation">HowTheLightGetsIn</a>, the world’s largest philosophy and music festival, which returns to Kenwood House in London on September 23-24. On Saturday 23, we will host a discussion on how to restructure society for <a href="https://howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-common-good-16017">the common good</a>. <a href="https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/london/programme?utm_source=MP+L23+Conversation&utm_medium=Article+feature&utm_campaign=HTLGI+London+2023&utm_id=The+Conversation">Explore the full programme here</a> and don’t miss getting <a href="https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/london/festival-passes?utm_source=MP+L23+Conversation&utm_medium=Article+feature&utm_campaign=HTLGI+London+2023&utm_id=The+Conversation">20% off tickets using the code CONVO23</a></em></p>
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<p>This has widened the wealth gap. The top tenth of Britons now holds nearly half of the UK’s <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/totalwealthingreatbritain/april2018tomarch2020">private wealth</a>. The <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674430006">poorest half’s share</a>, meanwhile, has never exceeded one-tenth. </p>
<p>As a former US supreme court justice <a href="https://www.newgeography.com/content/004253-concentrated-wealth-or-democracy-not-both">Louis Brandeis</a> famously declared – a century ago – it was possible, in the US, to have either democracy or great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few – but not both. </p>
<p>Britain today badly fails Brandeis’s democracy test. Yet, the Labour party’s leaders have <a href="https://theconversation.com/keir-starmers-first-conference-speech-as-labour-leader-was-a-serious-affair-heres-what-you-need-to-know-168788">no declared plans</a> – at least, as yet – to close this gap.</p>
<h2>Radical thinking</h2>
<p>In its early history, Labour drew on a number of radical, egalitarian thinkers to develop the case for a greater level of equality including via <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-new-enclosure-how-land-commissions-can-lead-the-fight-against-urban-land-grabs-167817">common ownership</a> of assets. As Britain’s first professor of sociology, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/hobhouse-liberalism-and-other-writings/introduction/DE180F13230FC78763861C9804E41EC4">Leonard Hobhouse</a> put it:</p>
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<p>Some forms of wealth are substantially the creation of society and it is only through the misfeasance of government that such wealth has been allowed to fall into private hands.</p>
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<p>Historian and Christian socialist <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/tawney-richard-h">Richard Henry Tawney</a>, meanwhile, warned that assets used simply to extract payments from others, and not to perform a positive role, allowed “property without function”.</p>
<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/attlee00kenn">Clement Attlee</a>, who became prime minister immediately after the second world war, accepted that poverty was essentially due to inequality and excessive private ownership. He set out to reduce wealth inequality through a mix of higher taxes, nationalisation of key industries and a commitment to collectivism. </p>
<p>The course of poverty and inequality is ultimately the outcome of the conflict over the spoils of economic activity. It also traces the interplay between rich elites, governments and societal pressure. </p>
<p>Largely <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-post-war-drive-for-a-more-equal-society-help-with-todays-cost-of-living-crisis-185743">as a result</a> of Attlee’s policies, Britain achieved <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/living-standards-poverty-and-inequality-uk">peak income and wealth equality</a> and a low point for (relative) poverty in the late 1970s. This period turned out to be the high water mark of egalitarianism. </p>
<p>Since then, these gains have been overturned, amid a return to the <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-richer-the-poorer">high-inequality politics</a> of the pre-war era. Child-poverty levels <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-for-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2020/households-below-average-income-an-analysis-of-the-income-distribution-fye-1995-to-fye-2020">have doubled</a>. A small financial and corporate elite has seized a growing share of economic gains.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/london-is-a-major-reason-for-the-uks-inequality-problem-unfortunately-city-leaders-dont-want-to-talk-about-it-212762">London is a major reason for the UK's inequality problem. Unfortunately, City leaders don't want to talk about it</a>
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<p>Former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s governing philosophy of a private “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/01/05/thatcher-property-revolution-undone-plunging-home-ownership/">property-owning democracy</a>” brought a shift from collectively to individually owned wealth. It ushered in a string of policies, from the discounted sale of council homes to the sale of cut-price shares through rolling privatisation. </p>
<p>Yet the key outcome of that philosophy has been an erosion of Britain’s common wealth base. A towering <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-richer-the-poorer">nine-tenths</a> of the national asset pool is now privately-owned while the share that is in public ownership has fallen from around 30% in the 1970s to one-tenth today. </p>
<h2>Rising inequality</h2>
<p>The property-owning dream is bypassing the current generation. The number of <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/articles/housingandhomeownershipintheuk/2015-01-22">first-time home-buyers</a> now stands at less than half its mid-1990s rate. </p>
<p>The public’s ownership of <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/investmentspensionsandtrusts/bulletins/ownershipofukquotedshares/2020">corporate Britain</a> has shrunk and is largely confined to the rich and affluent. More than a half of shares in the nation’s quoted companies are owned overseas <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/investmentspensionsandtrusts/bulletins/ownershipofukquotedshares/2020">up from 8% 60 years ago</a> – largely by giant US asset management companies and sovereign wealth funds. They are displacing the share once held by UK pension and insurance funds.</p>
<p>Labour today remains largely silent on the critical distinction between new wealth creation that contributes to the common good, and extraction that serves the powerful few. In 1896, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/manual-of-political-economy-9780199607952?cc=gb&lang=en&">defined</a> economic activity as either the “production or transformation of economic goods” or “the appropriation of goods produced by others.” </p>
<p>Such <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-economic-growth-alone-will-not-make-british-society-fairer-or-more-equal-202388">appropriation</a> or extraction was widespread in the Victorian era but less prevalent in the post-war decades. Today, it is once again common practice. </p>
<p>Wealth surges that are not linked to new value creation have a malign socioeconomic impact, including upward redistribution from those without to those with assets. Many large companies have been turned into <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-richer-the-poorer">cash cows</a> for executives and shareholders. House price rises benefit existing property owners, at the expense of all renters. </p>
<p>Taxation is one way of rebalancing – if only marginally at current rates – these gains and losses. However, Labour has been eroding its historic mission of greater equality. </p>
<p>As Labour prime minister between 1997 and 2007, Tony Blair’s ambitious commitment to cut poverty ultimately failed because Britain’s model of extractive capitalism was allowed to continue unchecked. </p>
<p>On the day of Thatcher’s death in 2013, he <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-22073434">said</a> he’d always aimed to build on her achievements, not reverse them. He bought into the argument that surging rewards at the top were deserved and that poverty had nothing to do with the process of wealth accumulation. </p>
<p>History cannot be clearer, though. Poverty levels soared during the 1980s because of the sharp rise in the share of national income accruing to the rich, a trend that left less for everyone else. </p>
<p>Current Labour leader Keir Starmer has said that the fight against poverty requires more than “<a href="https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/why-sir-keir-starmer-wants-to-smash-through-the-class-ceiling-with-vision-for-scotland-4254496">tinkering at the edges</a>.” A successful strategy would require a new set of embedded pro-equality measures. Yet, like Blair, he appears to be downgrading the anti-inequality goal. </p>
<p><em><a href="https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/london?utm_source=MP+L23+Conversation&utm_medium=Article+feature&utm_campaign=HTLGI+London+2023&utm_id=The+Conversation">HowTheLightGetsIn</a>’s theme for London 2023 is <a href="https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/london/the-big-ideas">Dangers, Desire and Destiny</a>. The two-day festival on September 23-24 covers everything from politics, science, philosophy and the arts and attracts a host of speakers including Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer prize-winners, political activists and world leading thinkers.</em></p>
<p><em>Alongside the Conversation’s curated event <a href="https://howthelightgetsin.org/events/the-common-good-16017">The Common Good</a>, expect to see Alastair Campbell, Rory Stewart, Ruby Wax, Michio Kaku, David Baddiel, Carol Gilligan, Martin Wolf and more lock horns over a packed weekend of debates, talks and performances. <a href="https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/london/programme?utm_source=MP+L23+Conversation&utm_medium=Article+feature&utm_campaign=HTLGI+London+2023&utm_id=The+Conversation">Explore the full programme here</a> and don’t miss out on <a href="https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/london/festival-passes?utm_source=MP+L23+Conversation&utm_medium=Article+feature&utm_campaign=HTLGI+London+2023&utm_id=The+Conversation">20% off tickets using code CONVO23</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stewart Lansley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The UK Labour Party used to radically advocate for common ownership. But as private wealth in Britain benefits from ever greater tax breaks, anti-inequality sentiment is waning.Stewart Lansley, Visiting Fellow, School of Policy Studies, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1950532022-11-29T14:29:52Z2022-11-29T14:29:52ZViolence against women is staggeringly high in South Africa – a different way of thinking about it is needed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497346/original/file-20221125-24-oe1eoe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Agitated women vent their anger and frustrations at a gender-based violence summit with government in November 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa has notoriously high levels of violence against women. The latest police figures show that <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-06-03-crime-crisis-continues-in-first-quarter-of-2022-with-women-and-children-worst-affected/">10,818 rape cases</a> were reported in the first quarter of 2022. The country has among the <a href="https://www.tbsnews.net/world/countries-highest-rape-incidents-144499">highest rape</a> incidence in the world. </p>
<p>How can gender-based violence in the country be reduced?</p>
<p>It’s important to first understand the causes of gender-based violence – with a focus on sexual violence – globally and in South Africa. There are many contested theories.</p>
<p>Louise du Toit, a Stellenbosch University philosopher, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Louise-Du-Toit/publication/273177610_Shifting_Meanings_of_Postconflict_Sexual_Violence_in_South_Africa/links/5c59bbcf299bf1d14cadbe70/Shifting-Meanings-of-Postconflict-Sexual-Violence-in-South-Africa.pdf">analysed</a> four explanations that are often offered: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>past perpetrator violence</p></li>
<li><p>social and economic exclusion</p></li>
<li><p>injured masculinity or patriarchal politics (reaction to women gaining rights)</p></li>
<li><p>violence that is a condition of human existence (ontological violence). </p></li>
</ul>
<p>She showed that each theory on its own could not explain sexual violence. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Many men were involved or caught up in apartheid or liberation struggle violence. Yet, women were also victims of that violence. They very seldom commit sexual violence. </p></li>
<li><p>Poverty and loss of breadwinner status does not explain why men of all classes rape. </p></li>
<li><p>If women’s progress undermines men’s status and dominance, why do men retaliate with sexual violence? </p></li>
<li><p>Ontological violence makes the most sense. It relates violence to men’s sense of entitlement to women’s bodies and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/hypermasculinity">hypermasculinity</a>. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>It is, therefore, hard to find suitable common ground for interventions to reduce violence.</p>
<p>Having researched gender-based violence extensively, I concur with Du Toit’s analysis. Most theories fall short of explaining all aspects of gender-based and sexual violence. I believe interventions need to be anchored in solutions for ontological violence and have to be multi-faceted.</p>
<p>Ontological violence is difficult to address because its origins are diffuse and it relates to men’s treatment of women that has long histories. Yet, there are studies that aim to create multi-faceted solutions to deal with different dimensions of gender-based violence, and sexual violence that have become normalised as part of human existence. Below I single out three such studies.</p>
<h2>Gender-based violence and political economy</h2>
<p>Jacqui True, an Australian professor of international relations, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241764665_The_Political_Economy_of_Violence_Against_Women">uses a political economy approach</a> to analyse gender-based violence globally.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/16-days-of-activism-how-south-africas-tv-news-gets-it-wrong-193734">16 Days of Activism: how South Africa's TV news gets it wrong</a>
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<p>In her view, all violence stems from relations of inequality. A political economy approach shows the connections between the economic, social and political realms. It looks at the distribution of resources, benefits, privileges and power in the home, the state and transnational communities.</p>
<p>Secondly, such an approach engages the global macroeconomic environment. It shows how neoliberal economic policies and capitalist competition depend on cheap labour and precarious jobs that make women more vulnerable to violence. This contributes to structural inequalities in which women are the worst off. </p>
<p>Unregulated markets disrupt local economies as well as the division of labour in the household. The struggle for power and resources leads to violent conflict that gets normalised in societies suffering from increasing inequality. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/best-worst-countries-for-women-gender-equality/">Research</a> on good and bad countries for women to live in shows that equality lessens sexual violence; inequality and conflict worsen sexual violence. </p>
<p>South Africa is one of the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/03/09/new-world-bank-report-assesses-sources-of-inequality-in-five-countries-in-southern-africa#:%7E:text=South%20Africa%2C%20the%20largest%20country,World%20Bank%27s%20global%20poverty%20database">most unequal countries</a> in the world and has a history of conflict.</p>
<p>Thirdly, True’s approach shows the connections between gender-based violence and global conflicts. Hypermasculinity and military masculinity contribute to the normalisation of violence in societies, even after conflict has stopped. </p>
<h2>Addressing gender-based violence</h2>
<p>Canadian political scientist Laurel Weldon’s research <a href="https://upittpress.org/books/9780822957744/">shows</a> the importance of government responsiveness through policy to reduce gender-based violence. There are seven areas where policy can make a difference: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>legal reform dealing with domestic violence </p></li>
<li><p>legal reform dealing with sexual assault </p></li>
<li><p>government-funded shelters for victims of domestic violence </p></li>
<li><p>crisis centres for victims of sexual assault </p></li>
<li><p>training for service providers such as the police, judges and social workers </p></li>
<li><p>educating citizens about gender-based violence </p></li>
<li><p>coordinating national policies on gender-based violence.</p></li>
</ul>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rape-is-endemic-in-south-africa-why-the-anc-government-keeps-missing-the-mark-188235">Rape is endemic in South Africa. Why the ANC government keeps missing the mark</a>
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<p>A government that creates a broader, more multifaceted response, early in the rise of the problem, has more success in tackling it. </p>
<p>Weldon also found that national identity, culture and level of development don’t strongly predict sexual violence. What makes the greatest impact to reduce violence is a strong, independent women’s movement. </p>
<p>The number of women in government counts less than whether they put gender violence on the legislative agenda. It also helps to have state structures that promote gender equality, such as an office of the status of women. Successful policy responses are, therefore, driven by committed feminist women in state structures.</p>
<p>American political scientist Hannah Britton, in her 2020 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ending-Gender-Based-Violence-Justice-Community/dp/0252084969">book</a>, Ending Gender Based Violence: Justice and Community in South Africa, rightly points out that mass incarceration does not work. That’s because it holds only individuals responsible. Structural conditions underlying violence are ignored. The state is then absolved from responsibility for dealing with violence.</p>
<h2>No easy solutions</h2>
<p>If we apply Weldon’s seven points to South Africa we see the following: significant law reform was done during the first decade of democracy. For example, parliament passed the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/domestic-violence-act">Domestic Violence Act</a> and the Sexual Offences and Related Matters Act, <a href="https://www.golegal.co.za/sexual-offences-amendment/#:%7E:text=02%20Aug%202022&text=Cabinet%20approved%20the%20bill%20for,persons%20but%20all%20vulnerable%20groups">amended in 2022</a>. But the laws are not consistently implemented or enforced by the police. </p>
<p>For instance, shelters for domestic violence are <a href="https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/government/state-of-shelters-for-women-raises-commission-for-gender-equalitys-concern/">underfunded by government</a>. Also, <a href="https://www.gov.za/TCC">one-stop Thuthuzela care centres</a> at police stations to treat rape victims with the necessary sensitivity are being rolled out too slowly. </p>
<p>Police training on gender-based violence is limited. The establishment of the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/national-council-gender-based-violence-and-femicide-bill-explanatory-summary-5-oct-2021">National Council on Gender Based Violence</a>, the central agency that’s supposed to coordinate official responses, has been stalled since 2012.</p>
<p>South Africa has an impressive 46% women’s representation in parliament, because of the ANC’s policy of <a href="https://pmg.org.za/blog/Representation%20and%20Participation%20of%20Women%20in%20Parliament">50% representation for women</a>. But, these women have not spearheaded policy against gender-based violence. Instead, the government was forced to draw up a <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/vg/gbv/NSP-GBVF-FINAL-DOC-04-05.pdf">National Strategic Plan on Gender Based Violence and Femicide</a> by the <a href="https://genderjustice.org.za/photo-gallery/the-total-shutdown/">#TotalShutDown movement</a> in 2018. </p>
<p>South Africa had one of the best national gender machineries globally. It had structures in the legislature (such as the Joint Monitoring Committee on the Quality of Life and the Status of Women and the <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/press-releases/media-alert-multi-party-womens-caucus-consider-action-plan-gender-based-violence-and-femicide">multiparty women’s caucus</a>, in the executive (Office of the Status of Women) and the independent constitutional body, the <a href="https://cge.org.za/the-role-of-the-cge/">Commission for Gender Equality</a>. </p>
<p>Most of these structures were dismantled and replaced with a dysfunctional <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/31/department-of-women-youth-and-persons-with-disabilities-dwypd">Ministry for Women, Youth and People with Disabilities</a> that is supposed to initiate interventions on gender-based violence.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/change-what-south-african-men-think-of-women-to-combat-their-violent-behaviour-167921">Change what South African men think of women to combat their violent behaviour</a>
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<p>As Weldon’s research has shown, the most important cog in the struggle against gender-based violence is a strong women’s movement. In South Africa there is currently no coherent, active women’s or feminist movement. The <a href="https://www.globalmediajournal.com/open-access/the-rising-tide-of-womens-national-coalition-the-experience-of-south-africa.pdf">Women’s National Coalition</a> that spearheaded feminist equality during the democratic transition in the 1990s has since fractured and disintegrated.</p>
<p>Activism now takes the form of sporadic issue-driven action, such as the campaigns by #TotalShutDown and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02589346.2018.1418201">#EndRapeCulture</a>. While this type of activism is laudable, it does not sustain pressure on government for action.</p>
<p>There is thus no simple suggestion for how to reduce gender-based violence. All interventions are contextual and political and need to address different dimensions of a multi-dimensional problem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Gouws receives funding from the NRF</span></em></p>South Africa had one of the best national gender machineries globally. But, these were dismantled and replaced with a dysfunctional ministry for women, youth and people with disabilities.Amanda Gouws, Professor of Political Science and Chair of the South African Research Initiative in Gender Politics, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1706132021-12-14T13:28:30Z2021-12-14T13:28:30ZWhat partnership looks like in Mormon marriages is shifting – slowly<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436490/original/file-20211208-19-1jlb8tt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C47%2C2082%2C1362&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What should a marriage look like? Religious leaders' ideas have shifted for centuries.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">davidf/E+ via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Discussions about women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the LDS church or Mormon church, often revolve around <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/why-the-womens-ordination-question-will-shape-the-future-of-mormonism/">one question</a>: Will they ever be ordained? </p>
<p>Latter-day Saint women may serve as leaders of <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/learn/relief-society-general-presidency?lang=eng">women’s</a> or <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/learn/primary-general-presidency?lang=eng">children’s organizations</a>, but power in the church remains firmly in the hands of men.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.cgu.edu/people/caroline-kline/">my research on Mormonism and gender</a>, however, I’ve studied how women’s status and leadership have noticeably increased within Latter-day Saint families since the 1980s.</p>
<p>This change is significant, given <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/family?lang=eng">the importance of the family</a> in the church’s teachings. Latter-day Saints believe that families continue to be together beyond this life, and that familial relationships shape their destinies after death.</p>
<h2>Two centuries of change</h2>
<p>Unlike many churches, the LDS church does not employ paid, full-time clergy at the local level. Instead, all practicing men and boys are ordained into a lay priesthood, usually around age 12. Priesthood holders can lead local congregations as <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/my-calling-as-a-bishop/getting-started?lang=eng">bishops</a> and <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/my-calling-as-a-counselor-in-the-bishopric/getting-started?lang=eng">bishops’ counselors</a>. Depending on their status within <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-14-priesthood-organization?lang=eng">the priesthood hierarchy</a>, boys and men can officiate in baptisms and Holy Communion, which is called the “sacrament.”</p>
<p>Women of all ages, however, are barred from ordination and therefore barred from serving as bishops, apostles and prophets, among other types of leaders. In recent years, <a href="https://ordainwomen.org/">a grassroots movement</a> called Ordain Women has pushed to extend the priesthood to women. However, senior church leaders have held firm that “<a href="https://www.thechurchnews.com/archives/2014-04-05/elder-dallin-h-oaks-keys-and-authority-of-the-priesthood-40861">the divinely decreed pattern</a>” is for only men to be ordained, as one apostle of the church said in 2014. They emphasize that the blessings of the priesthood are available for everyone, including women and children. </p>
<p>The LDS church was founded in 1830, at a time when most Christian groups in the United States emphasized men’s “headship” or predominance in the family. Early Latter-day Saint leaders echoed these ideas and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23286316">likewise affirmed male superiority</a>.</p>
<p>Throughout the 20th century, LDS leaders often used the word “preside” to describe their vision of men’s leadership role in the family, which, up to the 1970s, emphasized their prerogatives to be <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1973/02/strengthening-the-patriarchal-order-in-the-home?lang=eng">the ultimate decision makers</a>.</p>
<p>But the 1980s and 1990s saw the beginnings of a noticeable softening in leaders’ rhetoric about male “headship.” Increasingly, notions of men’s presiding within the family were coupled with messages about equal partnership between husbands and wives. Sermons from church leaders began to emphasize the importance of <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1989/07/unrighteous-dominion?lang=eng">joint decision making</a>, compromise and <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1998/04/the-relief-society?lang=eng">working together within marriage</a>.</p>
<p>This shift toward a double discourse – one that simultaneously affirms male headship and egalitarianism in marriages – is reflected in the 1995 document known as “<a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng">The Family: A Proclamation to the World</a>.” The proclamation laid out the church’s official stance on family and gender roles. It states that “fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurturing of children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.”</p>
<p>Many Latter-day Saints consider it to be a <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1998/02/the-family?lang=eng">divinely inspired document</a>. </p>
<h2>Balancing act</h2>
<p>How does a religion simultaneously emphasize both of these ideas: that men should preside and that men and women should be equal partners? How does a Latter-day Saint couple uphold both these visions of power dynamics within the home? </p>
<p>Part of the answer is in how the church has redefined the term “preside.” The church’s 2006 <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/family-guidebook?lang=eng">Family Guidebook</a> describes male “presiding” as leading religious training and rituals within the family. Presiding was no longer attached to male decision making; rather, it involved proactive participation within the family.</p>
<p>Even more recently, the concept of male presiding <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2012/06/counseling-together-in-marriage?lang=eng">has been reinterpreted</a> to simply mean that fathers need to make sure the whole family is happy and thriving and that decisions are made mutually with both partners’ full participation.</p>
<p>Another way LDS teachings have accommodated egalitarian ideas is by reinterpreting the role of Eve – the first woman on Earth, according to the Bible.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="God stands over Adam and Eve in an illustration." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436493/original/file-20211208-27-bblzge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436493/original/file-20211208-27-bblzge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436493/original/file-20211208-27-bblzge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436493/original/file-20211208-27-bblzge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436493/original/file-20211208-27-bblzge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436493/original/file-20211208-27-bblzge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436493/original/file-20211208-27-bblzge.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In many traditions, expectations for gender roles often circle back to Adam and Eve.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Angel_of_the_Divine_Presence_Clothing_Adam_and_Eve_with_Coats_of_Skins,_object_1_(Butlin_436).jpg">William Blake, 'The Angel of the Divine Presence Clothing Adam and Eve with Coats of Skins'/Fitzwilliam Museum</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Throughout the church’s history, messages about Eve have reflected <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199358212.003.0011">evolving understandings of women’s roles</a>. In the 19th century, Latter-day Saints, like most other Christian traditions, used the curse God placed on Eve – <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/gen/3?lang=eng">that her husband would rule over her</a> – to justify <a href="https://jod.mrm.org/13/197">female subordination</a>.</p>
<p>Leaders in the early and mid-20th century downplayed the curse and evoked Eve as <a href="https://emp.byui.edu/SatterfieldB/Talks/Motherhood/Wives%20and%20Mothers%20in%20the%20Plan%20JRC.pdf">a noble model</a> of what they considered women’s main purpose in life: to become mothers. And in the late 1970s, then-president of the church Spencer W. Kimball, while <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1976/03/the-blessings-and-responsibilities-of-womanhood?lang=eng">speaking about Eve</a>, rejected the starkly patriarchal concept of men ruling over wives, saying he preferred the softer term “preside.”</p>
<p>Leaders in the 2000s have continued to reinterpret the story of Adam and Eve in increasingly egalitarian ways. Church leader <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2007/08/crossing-thresholds-and-becoming-equal-partners?lang=eng">Bruce Hafen</a> sees Adam and Eve as “equal partners.” </p>
<p>This focus on Eve to justify newer ideas of women’s leadership within their families – though still couched within concepts of men’s “presiding” – is especially meaningful given Latter-day Saints’ emphasis on the story of Adam and Eve. During a major rite in church members’ lives, called the <a href="https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/temples/what-is-temple-endowment?lang=eng">temple endowment ceremony</a>, participants reenact part of the story, with men taking on Adam’s role and women Eve’s.</p>
<p>[<em>There’s plenty of opinion out there. We supply facts and analysis, based in research.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=politics-no-opinion">Get The Conversation’s Politics Weekly</a>.]</p>
<p>In 2019, leaders changed the part of the ceremony where women made an obedience covenant, promising to “hearken” unto their husbands in righteousness – which had been one of the last and most significant ways the church stressed men’s predominance in the family. In a nod to rising egalitarianism, women now make a covenant <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/01/03/lds-church-changes-temple-ceremony-gives-eve-a-bigger-role/">to obey God directly</a>. Husbands no longer serve as middlemen between wives and the divine. </p>
<h2>The next generation</h2>
<p>This momentous change to the temple ceremony signaled the death knell for older Latter-day Saint concepts of female subordination within marriage. Tellingly, however, church leaders have doubled down on language of male “presiding,” even if it does not mean so much in practice. The same year the women’s temple covenant was changed, church authorities <a href="https://www.the-exponent.com/guest-post-why-is-preside-in-the-new-sealing-ceremony/">added a reference to male “presiding”</a> to the marriage ceremony.</p>
<p>The Latter-day Saint tradition continues, therefore, to embrace a double discourse of male headship and marital egalitarianism. For many Latter-day Saint feminists, this discourse is <a href="https://zelophehadsdaughters.com/2007/11/30/the-trouble-with-chicken-patriarchy/">disingenuous and unsatisfying</a>. These progressives desire teachings about marriage that better fit the new egalitarian ideals espoused by church leaders.</p>
<p>While leaders are clearly in no hurry to step away from talk of male “presiding,” one important outcome of the shift toward egalitarian rhetoric may be increasing male participation in the home. As fathers step into active, nurturing roles, a new generation of Latter-day Saint couples may increasingly live out a theology closer to equal partnership.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Kline does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>LDS leaders still stress that men should ‘preside’ over their families. But in recent years, messages about marriage have stressed more equal partnership.Caroline Kline, Assistant Director of the Center for Global Mormon Studies, Claremont Graduate UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1616752021-06-03T20:10:50Z2021-06-03T20:10:50ZQueen’s Birthday honours reveal a New Zealand slowly recovering from its ‘imperial hangover’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404137/original/file-20210603-21-rgvz3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C4%2C2986%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the beginning there was no New Zealand honours system at all. New Zealanders received British honours as British subjects. So the very local honours handed out this Queen’s Birthday weekend also recognise how far Aotearoa New Zealand has come since the colonial era.</p>
<p>The British honours system originated in medieval times when knights on steeds fought chivalrously for ladies. In rewarding service, loyalty and gallantry, the monarchy was moving away from gifting land and money to the favoured few towards offering <a href="https://www.royal.uk/queen-and-honours">orders of chivalry</a> identified by insignia.</p>
<p>The modern system advanced with empire. From a small number of highly exclusive orders restricted to the aristocracy and high-ranking military, British subjects serving in the colonies began to receive honours in the 19th century. </p>
<p>In 1848 George Grey – soldier, governor, premier and scholar – was the first New Zealand resident to receive a Knight Commander of the Civil Division of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (KCB). </p>
<p>By the first world war, honours had expanded beyond military and public service to include science, the arts and commerce. From 1917, the Order of the British Empire became popular for colonials, cultivating national identity out of British values. </p>
<p>As New Zealand evolved from crown colony to dominion to self-governing constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth, the British honours system itself continued to <a href="https://dpmc.govt.nz/our-programmes/new-zealand-royal-honours/new-zealand-royal-honours-system/history">evolve and grow</a> — according to historian Karen Fox, quoting author and historian Philip Temple, as part of the “imperial hangover”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404138/original/file-20210603-19-6rmhss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man kneeling to be knighted inside a church" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404138/original/file-20210603-19-6rmhss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404138/original/file-20210603-19-6rmhss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404138/original/file-20210603-19-6rmhss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404138/original/file-20210603-19-6rmhss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404138/original/file-20210603-19-6rmhss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404138/original/file-20210603-19-6rmhss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404138/original/file-20210603-19-6rmhss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2009 investiture ceremony for the 72 New Zealand dames and knights who took up the offer of redesignation after the government reinstated titular honours.</span>
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<h2>The colonies grow up</h2>
<p>By 1919, unimpressed by unpopular awards and honours-selling scandals in Britain, Canada was questioning its deference to the British system and stopped making recommendations. The Order of Canada was established in 1967, emphasising equality by being non-titular. </p>
<p>The Australian Labor Party had also been keen to end titles from 1918, but it took until 1975 for Gough Whitlam’s government to institute the Order of Australia. Originally non-titular, Malcolm Fraser added knights and dames in 1975, only for Bob Hawke to remove them again in 1986. (They were briefly brought back by Tony Abbott in 2015, but just as quickly dropped.)</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-colonialism-and-slavery-why-empire-needs-to-be-removed-from-the-uk-honours-system-129311">Racism, colonialism and slavery: why 'empire' needs to be removed from the UK honours system</a>
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</p>
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<p>Meanwhile, loyal New Zealand retained British honours until 1975 when an embryonic national awards system began with the Queen’s Service Order (QSO) and Queen’s Service Medal (QSM). </p>
<p>Despite the Order of New Zealand (ONZ) being created in 1987, a confusing mix of British and New Zealand awards persisted until 1996, when a single system was finally established with the New Zealand Order of Merit (NZOM). The NZOM includes five tiers, the top two (mildly controversially) being titular. </p>
<iframe src="https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/6305995/embed" title="Interactive or visual content" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="width:100%;height:600px;" sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts allow-downloads allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<div style="width:100%!;margin-top:4px!important;text-align:right!important;"><a class="flourish-credit" href="https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/6305995/?utm_source=embed&utm_campaign=visualisation/6305995" target="_top"><img alt="Made with Flourish" src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/made_with_flourish.svg"> </a></div>
<h2>Elitism in an egalitarian land</h2>
<p>The British imperial honours system had been an increasingly uneasy fit with New Zealand’s self-image as an egalitarian, new world society. In that vein, the Labour government removed the remaining titles in 1999, only for the next National government to reinstate them ten years later. </p>
<p>Of those eligible to retroactively <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/royal-honours-system/page-2">take up the title</a> of dame or knight, nearly all (72 of 85) of the 2000–2008 recipients did. Two of the 13 who declined already had a title. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whitlam-didnt-really-end-our-old-honours-system-were-still-handing-orders-of-australia-to-the-wrong-people-130800">Whitlam didn't really end our old honours system. We're still handing Orders of Australia to the wrong people</a>
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</p>
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<p>From 1987, the ONZ has reigned as the country’s single highest honour. It <a href="https://dpmc.govt.nz/our-programmes/new-zealand-royal-honours/new-zealand-royal-honours-system/components-new-zealand-1">recognises</a> “outstanding service to the Crown and people of New Zealand in a civil or military capacity”. </p>
<p>Whereas the Order of Canada and Order of Australia became widely awarded in those countries, the ONZ is limited to 20 living people (although additional and honorary members can be appointed). </p>
<p>While proudly non-titular, putatively egalitarian and nation-centred, the ONZ actually resembles the truly elite British Order of Merit. Also non-titular, this is restricted to 24 members who have excelled in the arts, learning, literature and science. </p>
<iframe src="https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/6305862/embed" title="Interactive or visual content" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="width:100%;height:400px;" sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts allow-downloads allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<div style="width:100%!;margin-top:4px!important;text-align:right!important;"><a class="flourish-credit" href="https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/6305862/?utm_source=embed&utm_campaign=visualisation/6305862" target="_top"><img alt="Made with Flourish" src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/made_with_flourish.svg"> </a></div>
<h2>Lingering male bias</h2>
<p>What does an analysis of the 32 ordinary and additional ONZ appointees from 2000 reveal about New Zealand’s most esteemed citizens? </p>
<p>First, it appears chivalry is not quite dead: 75% of ONZ appointees are men, leaving women starkly under-represented. Furthermore, Karen Fox’s analysis of 20th-century dames in New Zealand shows they were considered exceptions to the rule. </p>
<p>After all, the modern honours system has evolved from clearly masculine origins, as we can see in the “courtesy” title of “lady” for those married to knights. The husband of a dame, awarded in her own right, does not have any reciprocal right to be called “sir”. </p>
<p>It has been observed of the Australian honours system that the higher the award, the fewer women receive it — and this appears to hold for New Zealand, too. </p>
<p>Balancing the tendency to recognise traditionally masculine roles in the military and civil service, there have been more awards for voluntary community service. Of course, this is often the site of women’s unpaid labour, and these awards are at the bottom of the honours hierarchy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404134/original/file-20210603-932-1dvdqby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Richie McCaw lifts the Webb Ellis cup at the Rugby World Cup Final in London" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404134/original/file-20210603-932-1dvdqby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404134/original/file-20210603-932-1dvdqby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404134/original/file-20210603-932-1dvdqby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404134/original/file-20210603-932-1dvdqby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404134/original/file-20210603-932-1dvdqby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404134/original/file-20210603-932-1dvdqby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404134/original/file-20210603-932-1dvdqby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Youngest ONZ: Richie McCaw lifts the Webb Ellis Cup following the All Blacks’ second consecutive Rugby World Cup victory in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>An antidote to individualism and celebrity</h2>
<p>Perhaps unsurprisingly, ONZ recipients tend to be older, with an average age of 73 at appointment. Recognition has come after a lifetime of achievement, their service record largely complete. The exception is former All Black Richie McCaw, who in 2015 received the ONZ aged 35, shortly after leading New Zealand to a second consecutive Rugby World Cup victory. </p>
<p>But as a snapshot of national values, New Zealand’s honours system represents a kind of continuity. Monarchs rewarded service and loyalty to power and authority, and politicians still make up the biggest ONZ recipient group.</p>
<p>On the other hand, in a nuclear-free, peace-keeping society, military service has seen only one appointment — and that was Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. Given its focus on profit rather than service, business makes only a small appearance.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tom-moore-knighthood-shows-the-value-of-honours-system-but-reform-is-needed-139061">Tom Moore knighthood shows the value of honours system – but reform is needed</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Significantly, the nation-building qualities of the creative arts are highly valued. Sport, science and social sciences, and Te Ao Maori feature strongly, with religion, law and health noticeably present. Reflecting the country’s developing multiculturalism, there is a Pasifika presence, too. </p>
<p>Ironically, there seems to be more unease about honours in the former imperial centre than elsewhere. In 2004, former British prime minister John Major <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmpubadm/212/212.pdf">suggested</a> “Excellence” might be substituted for “Empire” in the OBE. The system’s complicity in colonisation and racism has also been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/28/honours-system-british-empire-racism">questioned</a>. There have been recent calls for reform to recognise acts of service and bravery in the battle with COVID-19. </p>
<p>Currently, though, New Zealand seems comfortable with its quaint, devolved, largely uncontroversial system. In an age of individualism and celebrity, these regular rewards for service to community and nation are generally seen as a welcome tonic and well worth toasting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie Pickles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New Zealand’s honours system has come a long way since colonial times. But a glaring gender imbalance reminds us of its historical origins.Katie Pickles, Professor of History, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1523752021-03-25T12:26:00Z2021-03-25T12:26:00ZCulture matters a lot in successfully managing a pandemic - and many countries that did well had one thing in common<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389698/original/file-20210315-19-1l68gap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C25%2C2787%2C1869&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Leaders can make rules in a pandemic, but it takes everyone's compliance for them to work.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/wearing-a-medical-face-mask-for-winter-royalty-free-illustration/1211544115?adppopup=true">Ada daSilva via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Culture matters more than a leader’s gender in how a nation survives a global pandemic, according to a <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0244531">study I conducted on gender and COVID-19 management</a>, which was published in December in the journal PLOS ONE. </p>
<p>My co-authors and I examined COVID-19 cases and deaths in 175 countries, 16 of which are led by women. We identified no statistically significant differences in deaths based on the gender of the country’s leader. </p>
<p>Instead, we found that pandemic outcomes hinged primarily on how egalitarian a country is. Countries that prioritize the well-being of society in general have have fared better over the past year than more individualistic cultures.</p>
<p>We identified two cultural variables with a statistically significant effect on death rate: individualism and “power distance” – a measure of power disparities among the citizenry. </p>
<p>When both elements are extremely high, as in the United States, that culture becomes a threat to COVID-19 survival. The average death rate predicted by our model under such conditions is 28.79 per 100,000. When both are extremely low – as in Trinidad and Tobago or New Zealand – culture aids the pandemic response. The average predicted death rate under such conditions is 1.89 per 100,000.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Our findings complicate evidence <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-women-leaders-really-doing-better-on-coronavirus-the-data-backs-it-up-144809">early in the pandemic</a> that countries like New Zealand and Germany were <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-women-leaders-are-excelling-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-138098">doing well in the pandemic because they were run by women</a>. </p>
<p>Leaders do have important power during a crisis. They can institute emergency policies – from mask requirements to stay-at-home orders – to halt the virus’s spread. But it takes <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/11/933903848/wear-masks-to-protect-yourself-from-the-coronavirus-not-only-others-cdc-stresses">everyone’s cooperation to make these measures work</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1249138168907120645"}"></div></p>
<p>Collective action may also come more naturally in egalitarian societies, where people grow up with the understanding that <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4049">everyone’s well-being depends on the well-being of the community</a>. When the pandemic hit, egalitarian places made policies promoting behaviors that benefited society, like mask-wearing, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-nz-goes-into-lockdown-authorities-have-new-powers-to-make-sure-people-obey-the-rules-134377">penalized acts that jeopardized public health</a>. </p>
<p>Well before the pandemic, egalitarian countries also generally had <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/06/06/health-services-social-democracy/">universal health care</a>, paid sick leave and subsidized child care. These policies made it easier for people to stay home and protect themselves – and others – from COVID-19. </p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>Egalitarian countries also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2012.01.013">tend to reject traditional gender roles</a>, so are more likely to elect women leaders. All 16 women-led countries in our study rated as “egalitarian.” </p>
<p>In other words, there was a correlation between good pandemic outcomes and women’s leadership, but not necessarily a causal one. </p>
<p>The relationship could be causal, but the world simply has too few women leaders to make strong, evidence-based claims about the effects of gender on pandemic outcomes. </p>
<p>In normal times, women world leaders are criticized both for acting too “masculine” or aggressive and also for acting too <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/ties-that-double-bind-social-roles-and-womens-underrepresentation-in-politics/617A9986FF59B8934BC300DA21984121">“feminine” or nurturing</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389701/original/file-20210315-13-933auu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women and a man stand on a stage at lecterns, at a safe social distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389701/original/file-20210315-13-933auu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389701/original/file-20210315-13-933auu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389701/original/file-20210315-13-933auu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389701/original/file-20210315-13-933auu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389701/original/file-20210315-13-933auu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389701/original/file-20210315-13-933auu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389701/original/file-20210315-13-933auu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, center, with other government ministers, holds a pandemic press conference for children, Sept. 3, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/norways-minister-of-education-and-integration-guri-melby-news-photo/1228321436?adppopup=true">Berit Roald/NTB Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But that custom flips in crises like natural disasters. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/69FA5BD035CEE66F0FFFC61DF037DD0E/S1743923X20000525a.pdf/women_leaders_and_pandemic_performance_a_spurious_correlation.pdf">Women are given more latitude to act</a>, past research shows.</p>
<p>That happened in the pandemic, too. Throughout last spring, analysts celebrated New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern for the hard-line security policy of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52540733">closing national borders</a> and congratulated Norway’s Erna Solberg for her compassionate press conferences <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/norway-pm-tells-kids-it-is-ok-to-feel-scared-during-coronavirus">explaining the pandemic to children</a>.</p>
<p>Women leaders enjoyed rare latitude during COVID-19 that allowed them <a href="https://time.com/collection/finding-hope-coronavirus-pandemic/5820596/taiwan-coronavirus-lessons/">to do everything in their power to manage it</a>. It shows in our data – there just aren’t enough examples to be statistically significant. </p>
<p><em>Gina Yannitell Reinhardt, Alistair Windsor, Robert Ostergard, Susan Allen, Courtney Burns, Jarod Giger and Reed Wood co-authored the study highlighted here.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152375/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Cathryn Windsor participated in a Minerva Initiative project funded by the Department of Defense. </span></em></p>A new study finds egalitarian nations have had fewer COVID-19 deaths than individualistic ones like the US, a new study finds. But women’s leadership may have something to do with their success, too.Leah Cathryn Windsor, Research Assistant Professor, University of MemphisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1415752020-07-06T12:10:45Z2020-07-06T12:10:45ZIslam’s anti-racist message from the 7th century still resonates today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345374/original/file-20200702-111368-1x5lf4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4640%2C3014&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Muslims of all backgrounds pray during the 2019 Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/muslim-pilgrims-pray-outside-the-namirah-mosquee-at-mount-news-photo/1160522220?adppopup=true">Fethi Belaid/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One day, in Mecca, the Prophet Muhammad dropped a bombshell on his followers: He told them that all people are created equal. </p>
<p>“All humans are descended from Adam and Eve,” said Muhammad in his <a href="https://www.arabnews.com/news/467364">last known public speech</a>. “There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab, or of a non-Arab over an Arab, and no superiority of a white person over a black person or of a black person over a white person, except on the basis of personal piety and righteousness.”</p>
<p>In this sermon, known as the Farewell Address, Muhammad outlined the basic <a href="http://lcwu.edu.pk/ocd/cfiles/Gender%20&%20Development%20Studies/Maj/GDS%20%E2%80%93%20308/TheFarewellAddressofProphetMuhammad.pdf">religious and ethical ideals of Islam</a>, the religion he began preaching in the early seventh century. Racial equality was one of them. Muhammad’s words jolted a society divided by notions of tribal and ethnic superiority. </p>
<p>Today, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-floyd-protests-arent-just-anti-racist-they-are-anti-authoritarian-139932">racial tension and violence roiling contemporary America</a>, his message is seen to create a special moral and ethical mandate for American Muslims to support the country’s anti-racism protest movement. </p>
<h2>Challenging kinship</h2>
<p>Apart from <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo6826294.html">monotheism</a> – worshipping just one God – belief in the equality of all human beings in the eyes of God set early Muslims apart from many of their fellow Arabs in Mecca.</p>
<p><a href="https://quran.com/49/13">Chapter 49, verse 13</a> of Islam’s sacred scripture, the Quran, declares: “O humankind! We have made you…into nations and tribes, so that you may get to know one another. The noblest of you in God’s sight is the one who is most righteous.”</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>This verse challenged many of the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/middle-east-history/hierarchy-and-egalitarianism-islamic-thought?format=PB">values of pre-Islamic Arab society</a>, where inequalities based on <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/ethico-religious-concepts-in-the-qur-an-products-9780773524279.php?page_id=73&">tribal membership, kinship and wealth</a> were a fact of life. Kinship or lineal descent – “nasab” in Arabic – <a href="https://www-jstor-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/stable/pdf/j.ctt7zvcmx.9.pdf?ab_segments=0%252Fbasic_SYC-5187%252Fcontrol&refreqid=excelsior%3A110bbea87bab858639cb7b042ca39f1c">was the primary determinant of an individual’s social status</a>. Members of larger, more prominent tribes like the aristocratic Quraysh were powerful. Those from less wealthy tribes like the Khazraj had lower standing. </p>
<p>The Quran said personal piety and deeds were the basis for merit, <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/7252?rskey=Db4ryV&result=1">not tribal affiliation</a> – an alien and potentially destabilizing message in a society built on nasab.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345141/original/file-20200701-159815-1lxj4en.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345141/original/file-20200701-159815-1lxj4en.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345141/original/file-20200701-159815-1lxj4en.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345141/original/file-20200701-159815-1lxj4en.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345141/original/file-20200701-159815-1lxj4en.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345141/original/file-20200701-159815-1lxj4en.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345141/original/file-20200701-159815-1lxj4en.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345141/original/file-20200701-159815-1lxj4en.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The wealthy Quraysh tribe of ancient Arabia dominated the region for centuries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.qantara.de/sites/default/files/styles/slideshow_wide/public/uploads/2018/03/16/mahmudinrobefromthecaliph.jpg?itok=2R3-quT4">Qantara</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Give me your tired, your poor</h2>
<p>As is often the case with revolutionary movements, early Islam encountered fierce opposition from many elites.</p>
<p>The Quraysh, for example, who controlled trade in Mecca – a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islamic-world/Formation-and-orientation-c-500-634">business from which they profited greatly</a> – had no intention of giving up the comfortable lifestyles they’d built on the backs of others, especially their <a href="https://oneworld-publications.com/slavery-and-islam.html">slaves brought over from Africa</a>. </p>
<p>The Prophet’s message of egalitarianism tended to attract the “undesirables” –people from the margins of society. Early Muslims included young men from less influential tribes escaping that stigma and slaves who were promised emancipation by embracing Islam. </p>
<p>Women, declared to be the <a href="https://quran.com/33/35">equal of men by the Quran</a>, also found Muhammad’s message appealing. However, the potential of gender equality in Islam would become compromised by the <a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/barlas-believing-women-in-islam">rise of patriarchal societies</a>. </p>
<p>By Muhammad’s death, in 632, Islam had brought about a fundamental transformation of Arab society, though <a href="https://www-cambridge-org.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/CC41AE69D28F2827B1AB50559905DF6F/S002074380005546Xa.pdf/in_praise_of_the_caliphs_recreating_history_from_the_manaqib_literature.pdf">it never fully erased the region’s old reverence for kinship</a>. </p>
<h2>I can’t breathe</h2>
<p>Early Islam also attracted non-Arabs, outsiders with <a href="https://its.org.uk/catalogue/muhammad-his-life-based-on-the-earliest-sources-paperback/">little standing in traditional Arab society</a>. These included Salman the Persian, who traveled to the Arabian peninsula seeking religious truth, Suhayb the Greek, a trader, and an enslaved Ethiopian named Bilal.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345137/original/file-20200701-159815-wl178v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345137/original/file-20200701-159815-wl178v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345137/original/file-20200701-159815-wl178v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345137/original/file-20200701-159815-wl178v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345137/original/file-20200701-159815-wl178v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345137/original/file-20200701-159815-wl178v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345137/original/file-20200701-159815-wl178v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345137/original/file-20200701-159815-wl178v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bilal, center, found freedom in Islam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a8/Bilal.jpg/360px-Bilal.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All three would rise to prominence in Islam during Muhammad’s lifetime. Bilal’s much-improved fortunes, in particular, illustrate how the egalitarianism preached by Islam changed Arab society. </p>
<p>An enslaved servant of a Meccan aristocrat named Umayya, Bilal was persecuted by his owner for embracing the new faith. Umayya would place a rock on Bilal’s chest, trying to choke the air out of his body so that he would abandon Islam. </p>
<p>Moved by Bilal’s suffering, Muhammad’s friend and confidant Abu Bakr, who would go on to rule the Muslim community after the Prophet’s death, set him free. </p>
<p>Bilal was exceptionally close to Muhammad, too. In 622, the Prophet appointed him the first person to give the public call to prayer in recognition of his <a href="https://referenceworks-brillonline-com.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/bilal-b-rabah-SIM_1412?s.num=1&s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-2&s.q=bilal">powerful, pleasing voice</a> and personal piety. Bilal would later marry an Arab woman from a respectable tribe – unthinkable for an enslaved African in the pre-Islamic period. </p>
<h2>Black lives matter</h2>
<p>For many modern Muslims, Bilal is the <a href="https://oneworld-publications.com/the-first-muslims-pb.html">symbol of Islam’s egalitarian message</a>, which in its ideal application recognizes no difference among humans on the basis of ethnicity or race but rather is more concerned with personal integrity. One of the United States’ leading Black Muslim newspaper, published between 1975 and 1981, was called <a href="https://www.preciousspeaks.com/bilalian-project">The Bilalian News</a>. </p>
<p>More recently Yasir Qadhi, dean of the Islamic Seminary of America, in Texas, invoked Islam’s egalitarian roots. In a June 5 public address, he said American Muslims, a population familiar with discrimination, “must fight racism, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyECoCpPkw0">whether it is by education or by other means</a>.” </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/muslim-americans-assert-solidarity-with-black-lives-matter-finding-unity-within-a-diverse-faith-group-141344">Many Muslims in the U.S. are taking action</a>, supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and protesting police brutality and systemic racism. Their actions reflect the revolutionary – and still unrealized – egalitarian message that Prophet Muhammad set down over 1,400 years ago as a cornerstone of the Muslim faith.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141575/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Asma Afsaruddin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Quran recognizes ‘no superiority of a white person over a black person.’ That notion, radical in 7th-century Arab society of slavery and tribal divides – remains unrealized 1,400 years later.Asma Afsaruddin, Professor of Islamic Studies and former Chairperson, Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1251052019-10-10T22:55:45Z2019-10-10T22:55:45ZTurkish attack on Syria endangers a remarkable democratic experiment by the Kurds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296566/original/file-20191010-188792-l4zhjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C8%2C5955%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kurdish fighters in Syria say the U.S. is abandoning its allies and potentially empowering the Islamic State by withdrawing from northeastern Syria and allowing a Turkish assault, Oct. 7, 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Syria/01b7c48ed1bc400e99cac09047706a55/13/0">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Turkey’s attack on Kurdish-run territory in northern Syria will likely snuff out a radical experiment in self-government that is unlike anything I have seen in more than <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-new-middle-east-what-everyone-needs-to-know-9780190653989?cc=us&lang=en&">30 years studying the Middle East</a>.</p>
<p>In a surprise Oct. 6 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-85/">statement</a>, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-to-pull-troops-from-northern-syria-as-turkey-readies-offensive/2019/10/07/a965e466-e8b3-11e9-bafb-da248f8d5734_story.html">its troops from northern Syria</a>. </p>
<p>Approximately 1,000 American soldiers had been stationed in that region as a buffer separating Kurdish forces – who had been working with the Americans in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/07/brief-history-syrian-democratic-forces-kurdish-led-alliance-that-helped-us-defeat-islamic-state/">fight against the Islamic State</a> – from Turkish troops. Turkey feared that the Syrian Kurds would link up with Turkey’s Kurdish minority who have <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10102610/why-turkey-attacking-syria-border-map-background-tension-explained/">demanded autonomy or independence</a>. </p>
<p>On Oct. 9, the Turkish military <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/09/politics/syria-turkey-invasion-intl-hnk/index.html">began its assault</a>, pummeling Kurdish-held territory with artillery and airstrikes. Kurds are rapidly evacuating the region and <a href="https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/syria-turkey-military-offensive-dle-intl/index.html">at least 24 people</a> have been killed in northern Syria. Retaliatory strikes from Syria have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/the-latest-finland-condemns-turkeys-offensive-into-syria/2019/10/10/8f29cd60-eb42-11e9-a329-7378fbfa1b63_story.html">killed civilians</a> in southern Turkey.</p>
<p>According to Turkish president Recep Erdogan, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/09/turkey-plans-syrian-safe-zone-advocates-fear-death-trap/">Turkey’s goal</a> is to create a buffer zone separating Syria’s Kurds from the Turkish border. </p>
<p>But his country’s attack will do much more than that. If successful, it will destroy the most full-fledged democracy the Middle East has yet to see.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296563/original/file-20191010-188835-ujglip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C7%2C5065%2C3407&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296563/original/file-20191010-188835-ujglip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296563/original/file-20191010-188835-ujglip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296563/original/file-20191010-188835-ujglip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296563/original/file-20191010-188835-ujglip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296563/original/file-20191010-188835-ujglip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296563/original/file-20191010-188835-ujglip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Turks look toward northern Syria, which has been under attack by Turkey since Oct. 9.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Turkey-US-Syria/58f92d9fae874674973ce05e73000364/16/0">AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A different way to govern</h2>
<p>The Kurds call their autonomous region in Syria “Rojava,” meaning “the land where the sun sets.” </p>
<p>Kurdish-led forces took possession of this <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2019/05/23/the-kurds-are-creating-a-state-of-their-own-in-northern-syria">swath of territory in northern and eastern Syria</a> from <a href="https://rojavainformationcenter.com/background/rojava-timeline/">direct Syrian government control in 2012</a>. Then they successfully defended it against the Islamic State.</p>
<p>Kurdish Syria is a small portion of a territory, known as Kurdistan, that includes parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Kurdistan is home to approximately <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2019/01/independence-iraqi-kurds-190122043558455.html">25-35 million Kurds</a>, a cultural and ethnic minority in the Middle East.</p>
<p>The key to understanding the Rojava project, as those involved often refer to it, is the notion of “<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/50102294-77fd-11e5-a95a-27d368e1ddf7">confederalism</a>.” In this form of government, local units – in this case, Kurdistan’s “autonomous regions” – come together in a federation yet retain a great deal of autonomy. </p>
<p>Because sovereign power belongs to the local units and not to a central government, Kurdish confederalism differs from an American-style federal system.</p>
<p>The Kurds are so serious about devolving power to the local level that <a href="https://www.kurdishinstitute.be/en/charter-of-the-social-contract/">Rojava’s charter</a> requires each of its three regions to have its own flag. And within each region, local elected councils are in charge. They organize garbage collection, adjudicate disputes and manage public health and safety.</p>
<p>Confederalism sets the Kurds apart from almost every other government in the Middle East. </p>
<p>Across the region, power is <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/11/22/want-to-stabilize-the-middle-east-start-with-governance/">concentrated at the top</a>. Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, is an authoritarian leader who has ruthlessly crushed his opponents in the country’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-syrian-uprising-began-and-why-it-matters-112801">eight-year civil war</a>. Egypt has a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/middleeast/egypt.html">military government</a>. Saudi Arabia has a king. </p>
<p>But Rojava would be an exceptional society almost anywhere.</p>
<p>Rojava’s charter guarantees freedom of expression and assembly and equality of all religious communities and languages. It mandates direct democracy, term limits and <a href="https://theconversation.com/kurds-targeted-by-turkish-attack-include-25000-female-fighters-whove-battled-islamic-state-125100">gender equality</a>. Men and women share every position in government. Kurdish women have <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/15/syrias-kurds-are-not-the-pkk-erdogan-pyd-ypg/">fought the Islamic State in Syria as soldiers</a> in an all-female militia.</p>
<p>In a region where religion and politics are often intertwined, the Kurdish state is secular. Religious leaders cannot serve in politics. Rojava’s charter even affirms the right of all citizens to a healthy environment.</p>
<p>Surrounding countries, <a href="https://theconversation.com/syrias-forgotten-pluralism-and-why-it-matters-today-76206">including Syria</a>, also have constitutions with eloquent endorsements of political and human rights. </p>
<p>In Rojava, however, the constitution is <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-10-14/rojava-model">actually in effect</a>. Syrian Kurds have realized the dream of the 2010-2011 pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world.</p>
<h2>Rojava’s downsides</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/d49f0ab9-1c99-4a85-89e2-7953ab6d31a4">Internal cleavages</a> in Syria’s Kurdish community undermine the Rojava project – namely, the perpetual jockeying for power between rival Kurdish clans and the struggle for preeminence among Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi Kurds. </p>
<p>The Kurds also have a troubled relationship with Syria’s Arabs and other groups. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/11/26/group-denial/repression-kurdish-political-and-cultural-rights-syria">Beginning in the 1960s</a>, the Syrian government began moving other populations to Kurdish territory to challenge Kurdish dominance there, sparking Kurdish resentment. </p>
<p>The devastation wrought by the Islamic State – such as the mass murder of the Yazidis, a religious minority within the Kurdish community, and sexual enslavement of their women – further fueled this resentment.</p>
<p>There have been numerous reports of Kurdish soldiers taking violent revenge against captured Islamic State members, alleged collaborators and even entire villages suspected of <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/10/syria-us-allys-razing-of-villages-amounts-to-war-crimes/">aiding the Islamic State enemy</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296558/original/file-20191010-188807-9mubsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296558/original/file-20191010-188807-9mubsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296558/original/file-20191010-188807-9mubsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296558/original/file-20191010-188807-9mubsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296558/original/file-20191010-188807-9mubsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296558/original/file-20191010-188807-9mubsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296558/original/file-20191010-188807-9mubsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296558/original/file-20191010-188807-9mubsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People in Akcakale, Turkey, run for cover after mortars were fired from northern Syria in retaliation for Turkey’s military attack, Oct. 10, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Turkey-US-Syria/62d861712a3a414c9e0ac86795157758/3/0">Ismail Coskun/HA via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Kurdish region of Syria also has some politically problematic origins. </p>
<p>The Syrian-Kurdish Democratic Union Party – Rojava’s leading political party – played an outsized role in the creation of Rojava. The party is <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/the-ypg-pkk-connection/">affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party</a>, or PKK, a far-left militant group that has fought against the Turkish government, first for the <a href="https://nationalinterest.org/feature/its-time-acknowledge-pkks-evolution-42482">independence of Kurds from Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s</a>, then – in the early 2000s – for their autonomy within Turkish borders. </p>
<p>Many Kurds in Rojava consider <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/10/syria-kurds/">PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan</a> a national hero. It was Ocalan who came up with the idea of confederalism in the first place, back in 2005. </p>
<p>But both Turkey and the United States consider the PKK to be a <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-foreign-terrorist-designation-is-more-punishment-than-threat-detector-116049">terrorist organization</a>. The PKK is currently conducting an insurgency against the Turkish government.</p>
<h2>Danger ahead</h2>
<p>The Rojava project is now in imminent peril. </p>
<p>Even if Turkey hadn’t launched its military offensive, Rojava would probably still have a tenuous future.</p>
<p>The Syrian-Kurdish Democratic Union Party has refused to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-kurds-explainer/where-do-the-kurds-fit-into-syrias-war-idUSKCN1OX16L">take sides in the Syrian civil war</a>. Its vision, now realized, lay elsewhere. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, it is doubtful that the Syrian regime will reward Kurds for their relative impartiality during the civil war. Nor is it likely that the regime will reward them for limiting their goal to autonomy instead of independence. </p>
<p>The reason: Rojava <a href="https://www.bakerinstitute.org/files/13492/">sits atop Syria’s largest oil fields</a>.</p>
<p>[ <em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125105/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James L. Gelvin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since defending northern Syria from the Islamic State, Kurdish people have established an egalitarian society where women are equal, democracy is direct and religious freedom is guaranteed.James L. Gelvin, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/853512017-10-08T23:13:45Z2017-10-08T23:13:45ZIndigenous people invented the so-called ‘American Dream’<p>When President Barack Obama <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-president-obama-act-legally-in-issuing-his-executive-order-on-immigration-34734">created</a> Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the 2012 program that offered <a href="https://undocu.berkeley.edu/legal-support-overview/what-is-daca/">undocumented young people brought to the U.S. as children a path into society</a>, for a moment the ideals of the American Dream seemed, at least for this group, real. </p>
<p>We call these kids, many of whom are now adults, “<a href="https://unitedwedream.org/about/projects/deferred-action/">Dreamers</a>,” because they are chasing the American Dream – a <a href="https://psmag.com/news/economic-mobility-is-fading-and-so-is-the-american-dream">national aspiration for upward economic mobility built on physical mobility</a>. Fulfilling your dreams often means following them wherever they may lead – even into another country. </p>
<p>The Trump administration’s decision to <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-trump-be-holding-dreamers-hostage-to-make-mexico-pay-for-his-border-wall-82727">cancel DACA</a> – which is currently on hold while it is <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/DACA-s-end-was-delayed-but-Houston-s-13222292.php">litigated in the courts</a> – and <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/construction-begins-wall-prototypes">build a U.S.-Mexico border wall</a> has endangered those dreams by subjecting 800,000 young people to deportation. </p>
<p>But the <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/sep/05/fact-checking-attorney-general-jeff-sessions-remar/">notion underlying both Trump’s DACA repeal and the wall</a> – which is that “<a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/09/05/andrea_mitchell_sessions_use_of_illegal_aliens_is_offensive_not_correct.html">illegal</a>” immigrants, most of them from Mexico, are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/us/immigrants-arent-taking-americans-jobs-new-study-finds.html?_r=0">stealing U.S. jobs</a> and hurting society – reflects a profound misunderstanding of American history.</p>
<p>On <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/indigenous-peoples-day-replace-columbus-day-los-angeles-county-677982">Indigenous Peoples Day</a>, it’s worth underscoring something that many archaeologists know: Many of the values that inspire the <a href="http://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev/vol7/iss1/22/">American Dream</a> – liberty, <a href="https://lonang.com/commentaries/conlaw/religious-liberty/c71c/">equality</a> and <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2014/06/19/immigration-and-the-american-dream-part-1/">the pursuit of happiness</a> – date back to well <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/texas-annexation">before the creation of the U.S.-Mexico border</a> and before freedom-seeking Pilgrim immigrants arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620. </p>
<p>They originate with native North Americans.</p>
<h2>A Native American dream</h2>
<p>The modern rendition of the American Dream can be traced back to 1774, when Virginia’s governor, John Murray, the fourth earl of Dunmore, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Origins_of_the_American_Revolution.html?id=DlmrAAAAIAAJ">wrote</a> that even if Americans “attained Paradise, they would move on if they heard of a better place farther west.”</p>
<p>The actual term “American Dream” was popularized in 1931 by the businessman and historian <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078384/">James Truslow Adams</a>. For him, its realization depended on not just being able to better oneself but also, through movement and human interaction, seeing your neighbors bettered as well. </p>
<p>The first peoples to come to the Americas also came in search of a better life. </p>
<p>That happened 14,000 years ago in the last Ice Age when <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-clovis-point-and-the-discovery-of-americas-first-culture-3825828/">nomadic pioneers</a>, ancestors to modern Native Americans and First Nations, arrived from the Asian continent and roamed freely throughout what now comprises Canada, the United States and Mexico. Chasing <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/111/30/10972">mammoth, ancient bison and the elephant-like Gomphothere</a>, they moved constantly to secure the health of their communities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189074/original/file-20171005-14904-99olmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189074/original/file-20171005-14904-99olmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189074/original/file-20171005-14904-99olmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189074/original/file-20171005-14904-99olmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189074/original/file-20171005-14904-99olmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189074/original/file-20171005-14904-99olmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189074/original/file-20171005-14904-99olmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189074/original/file-20171005-14904-99olmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The indigenous communities of the Americas knew none of these modern-day national borders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Early_Localization_Native_Americans_USA.jpg">USGS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A more recent example of the power of migration reappears about 5,000 years ago, when <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/107/11/E33.full">a large group of people from what is today central Mexico</a> spread into the American Southwest and farther north, settling as far up as western North America. With them they brought corn, which now <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn/trade/#US">drives a significant part of the American economy</a>, and a way of speaking that birthed over 30 of the 169 <a href="https://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acsbr10-10.pdf">contemporary indigenous languages</a> still spoken in the United States today.</p>
<h2>The Hohokam</h2>
<p>This globalist world view was alive and well 700 years ago as well when people from what is now northern Arizona fled a decades-long drought and rising authoritarianism under religious leaders. </p>
<p>Many migrated hundreds of miles south to southern Arizona, joining the Hohokam – <a href="http://www.tonation-nsn.gov/history-culture/">ancestors to modern O’odham nations</a> – who had long thrived in the harsh Sonoran desert by <a href="https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/free-resources/fact-sheets/who-or-what-is-the-hohokam/">irrigating vast fields of agave, corn, squash, beans and cotton</a>.</p>
<p>When the northern migrants arrived to this hot stretch of land around the then-nonexistent U.S.-Mexico frontier, Hohokam religious and political life was controlled by a handful of elites. Social mechanisms restricting the accumulation of power by individuals had slowly broken down. </p>
<p>For decades after their arrival, migrants and locals interacted. From that exchange, a Hohokam cultural revolution grew. Together, the two communities created a commoners’ religious social movement that <a href="https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/prelude/">archaeologists call Salado</a>, which featured a feasting practice that invited all village members to participate. </p>
<p>As ever more communities adopted this <a href="http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/readings/boehm.pdf">equitable tradition</a>, political power – which at the time was embedded in religious power – became more equally spread through society. </p>
<p>Elites lost their control and, eventually, abandoned their temples.</p>
<h2>America’s egalitarian mound-builders</h2>
<p>The Hohokam tale unearths another vaunted American ideal that originates in indigenous history: equality. </p>
<p>Long before it was codified in the <a href="https://lonang.com/commentaries/conlaw/religious-liberty/c71c/">Declaration of Independence,</a>, equality was enacted through the building of large <a href="http://publications.newberry.org/indiansofthemidwest/people-places-time/eras/moundbuilders/">mounds</a>.</p>
<p>Massive earthen structures like these are often acts of highly hierarchical societies – think of the pyramids of the ancient Egyptians, constructed by <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/who-built-the-pyramids.html">masses of laborers</a> as the final resting place of <a href="http://archive.archaeology.org/0705/etc/pyramid.html">powerful pharaohs</a>, or those of the <a href="http://www.aztec-history.com/ancient-aztec-government.html">rigid, empire-building</a> Aztecs.</p>
<p>But great power isn’t always top-down. <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1435">Poverty Point</a>, in the lower Mississippi River Valley of what’s now Louisiana, is a good example. This massive site, which consists of five mounds, six concentric semi-elliptical ridges and a central plaza, was built some 4,000 years ago by hunter-fisher-gatherers with little entrenched hierarchy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189073/original/file-20171005-14086-io4f9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189073/original/file-20171005-14086-io4f9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189073/original/file-20171005-14086-io4f9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189073/original/file-20171005-14086-io4f9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189073/original/file-20171005-14086-io4f9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189073/original/file-20171005-14086-io4f9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189073/original/file-20171005-14086-io4f9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poverty Point: a city built on cooperation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poverty_Point_Aerial_HRoe_2014.jpg">Herb Roe/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Originally, archaeologists <a href="https://source.wustl.edu/2013/01/archaic-native-americans-built-massive-louisiana-mound-in-less-than-90-days-research-confirms/">believed</a> that such societies without the inequality and authoritarianism that defined the ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Aztec empires could not have constructed something so significant – and, if so, only over decades or centuries.</p>
<p>But excavations in the last 20 years have revealed that large sections of Poverty Point were <a href="http://www.saa.org/Portals/0/SAA/Publications/thesaaarchrec/nov08.pdf">actually constructed in only a few months</a>. These Native Americans organized in groups to undertake massive projects as a communal cooperative, leaving a built legacy of equality across America’s landscape.</p>
<h2>The consensus-building Haudenosaunee</h2>
<p>The Haudenosaunee, or <a href="http://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/aboutus.html">Iroquois</a>, offer a more modern example of such consensus-based decision-making practices.</p>
<p>These peoples – who’ve lived on both sides of the St. Lawrence river in modern-day Ontario and the U.S. Great Lakes states for <a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.an.21.100192.002251">hundreds, if not thousands, of years</a> – built their society on collective labor arrangements.</p>
<p>They ostracized people who exhibited “selfish” behavior, and women and men often worked together in <a href="https://www.academia.edu/22366106/Emotion_work_and_the_archaeology_of_consensus_the_Northern_Iroquoian_case">large groups</a>. Everyone lived together in communal longhouses. Power was also shifted constantly to prevent hierarchy from forming, and decisions were made by coalitions of kin groups and communities. </p>
<p>Many of these participatory political practices <a href="http://www.haudenosauneeconfederacy.com/confederacystructure.html">continue to this day</a>.</p>
<p>The Haudenosaunee sided with the British during the 1776 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/American-Revolution">American Revolution</a> and were largely driven off their land after the war. Like <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/trail-of-tears">many native populations</a>, the Haudenosaunee Dream turned into a nightmare of invasion, <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/11/24/indians-slaves-and-mass-murder-the-hidden-history/">plague and genocide</a> as European migrants pursued their American Dream that excluded others.</p>
<h2>Native Americans at Standing Rock</h2>
<p>The long indigenous history of rejecting authoritarianism continues, including the 2016 battle for <a href="http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a12181154/still-fighting-at-standing-rock/">environmental justice at Standing Rock</a>, South Dakota.</p>
<p>There, a resistance movement coalesced around a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/magazine/the-youth-group-that-launched-a-movement-at-standing-rock.html">horizontally organized youth group</a> that rejected the planned <a href="http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/standing-rock-one-year-later">Dakota Access oil pipeline</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189197/original/file-20171006-25784-ytzpfn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189197/original/file-20171006-25784-ytzpfn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189197/original/file-20171006-25784-ytzpfn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189197/original/file-20171006-25784-ytzpfn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189197/original/file-20171006-25784-ytzpfn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189197/original/file-20171006-25784-ytzpfn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189197/original/file-20171006-25784-ytzpfn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Native American pioneers continue to fight for the same ideals that inspire the American Dream, including equality and freedom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/NoDAPL-Drums-JohnDuffy.png">John Duffy/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The movement centered on an environmental cause in part because nature is sacred to the Lakota – and to <a href="https://nau.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/the-flower-world-in-prehistoric-southwest-material-culture">many other indigenous communities</a> – but also because communities of color often <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/environmental-justice-movement">bear the brunt of economic and urban development decisions</a>. </p>
<p>Standing Rock was the indigenous fight against repression and for the American Dream, gone 21st century.</p>
<h2>Redefining the North American dream</h2>
<p>Anthropologists and historians haven’t always recognized the quintessentially Native American ideals present in the American Dream. </p>
<p>In the early 19th century, the prominent social philosopher Lewis Henry Morgan <a href="http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/Books/bid321.htm">called the Native Americans he studied “savages.”</a> And for centuries, America’s native peoples have seen their <a href="https://www.ohiohistory.org/learn/collections/archaeology/archaeology-blog/2011-(1)/june-2011/the-moundbuilder-myth">cultural heritage attributed to seemingly everyone but their ancestors</a> – even to an invented <a href="http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/graham-hancock-announces-plans-to-investigate-mound-builder-myth-search-for-lost-white-race-in-america">“lost” white race</a>. </p>
<p>America’s indigenous past was not romantic. There were petty disputes, <a href="http://www.crowcanyon.org/researchreports/castlerock/text/crpw_finaldays.asp">bloody intergroup conflicts</a> and slavery, namely <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520206168">along the Northwest Coast</a> and <a href="http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9780803217591/">American Southeast</a>. </p>
<p>But the ideals of freedom and equality – and the right that Americans can move across this vast continent to seek it out – survive through the millennia. Societies based on those values have prospered here. </p>
<p>So the next time a politician invokes American values to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/09/05/ag-sessions-american-people-have-rightly-rejected-open-borders-policy.html">promote a policy of closed borders</a> or <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/249927-romney-jokes-hes-have-better-chance-at-white-house-if-dad-was-mexican">selfish individualism</a>, remember who originally espoused the American Dream – and first sought to live it, too.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85351/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lewis Borck received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Archaeology Southwest Preservation Fellowship Endowment.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>D. Shane Miller is an assistant professor at Mississippi State University. </span></em></p>Anti-immigrant policies ignore that American ideals like liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness can be traced back to the indigenous pioneers who once moved freely across North America.Lewis Borck, Archaeologist, Leiden UniversityD. Shane Miller, Prehistoric Archeologist, Mississippi State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/830912017-09-11T19:40:34Z2017-09-11T19:40:34ZA home for everyone? Property ownership has been about status and wealth since our convict days<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185211/original/file-20170908-9573-1gprv4p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A house and land on the River Derwent, Tasmania, 1822</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-139503586/view">National Library of Australia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While Australia has an egalitarian mythology, where everyone has a chance, the roots of problems with access to housing lie in our history. The first land grants were given to former convicts as a way to control an unfenced prison colony. As free settlers arrived in Australia, priorities changed, land ownership gained prestige, and smaller landholders were pushed out of the market. </p>
<p>When Governor Phillip stepped onto Australian soil for the first time, in 1788, he carried with him a set of <a href="https://archive.org/stream/historicalrecord00aust#page/8/mode/2up">instructions</a> to guide him through the early days of the newest British colony. Included was some authority to grant land, and the number of acres each male convict could receive at the end of his sentence. Eighteen months later, the colony received <a href="https://archive.org/stream/historicalrecord00aust#page/124/mode/2up">further instructions</a> from Home Secretary William Grenville, permitting soldiers and free settlers to receive parcels of land if they chose to stay in the colony.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185208/original/file-20170908-19097-e6rnr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185208/original/file-20170908-19097-e6rnr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185208/original/file-20170908-19097-e6rnr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185208/original/file-20170908-19097-e6rnr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185208/original/file-20170908-19097-e6rnr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185208/original/file-20170908-19097-e6rnr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185208/original/file-20170908-19097-e6rnr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185208/original/file-20170908-19097-e6rnr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grants given to former convicts at Norfolk Plains, northern Tasmania, 1814.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/default.aspx?detail=1&type=I&id=AF396/1/1325">G.W. Evans, held by Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, AF 396/1/1325</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Grenville’s instructions also set out the pattern of land granting that would dominate the colony for the next two decades. Groups of grants were to be placed at the edge of a waterway, with each individual property stretching back into the land rather than along the bank. These rules had a long history; the American colony of Georgia received almost <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aMMOAQAAIAAJ&q=%22One+third+the+length%22+georgia+1754&dq=%22One+third+the+length%22+georgia+1754&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQnL6qlJPWAhUoL8AKHWYACSkQ6AEIKzAB">identical phrasing</a> in 1754, but other versions had been in place since the early 18th century. </p>
<p>The rules had two specific purposes in Australia: to foster productivity; and to maintain surveillance over the landholding population, which consisted largely of former convicts.</p>
<p>Initially, all land grants were required to conform to these instructions, and status was shown by the amount of land received. Former convicts started at 30 acres, while free settlers got at least 100 acres. </p>
<p>Under this scheme everyone would receive a mixture of good and bad soils, access to a navigable river and the safety of a surrounding community – important in an unfamiliar land. These grants would reduce the colony’s reliance on imported provisions. Instead, it could feed excess produce into the ports that <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3744707">restocked passing ships</a>. </p>
<p>Colonial exploration and expansion could then continue to stretch to the furthest parts of the globe. But the rules also kept the grantees contained and within a dayʼs travel of a centre of governance (Hobart or Launceston, for example).</p>
<h2>Free settlers’ arrival changed the rules</h2>
<p>In 1817, the Colonial Office began to encourage <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=nJhHgYOJH3MC&lpg=PP6&ots=Y7Zc_DbDrB&dq=penetentiary%20system%20van%20diemen's%20land&lr&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false">voluntary emigration</a> to the Australian colonies, and ambitious free settlers arrived. <a href="http://digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?embedded=true&toolbar=false&dps_pid=IE3732195">People complained</a> about the failings of the former convicts, as they practised a rough agriculture that did not fit British ideals. </p>
<p>At the same time the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Z2dMvxEH6PoC&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=penitentiary+system+van+diemen%27s+land&ots=DjRGAdD7hl&sig=Fxptf7_73MpADwLAKOqhrKyymNM#v=onepage&q&f=false">management of convicts</a> in Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) moved towards the harsh penitentiary system today associated with convicts. Using land grants to pin the former convict population to specific locations, while permitting them the freedom to live their lives, conflicted with free settlersʼ aspirations for the colony.</p>
<p>It is no accident that Bothwell, in Tasmania’s Derwent Valley, was not directly connected to Hobart by river and was dominated by free settlers. The spread of Europeans across the land resulted from the mix of an expanding overland road network and the reduced need to keep these higher-status settlers within armʼs reach.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184969/original/file-20170906-9202-ptltij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184969/original/file-20170906-9202-ptltij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184969/original/file-20170906-9202-ptltij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184969/original/file-20170906-9202-ptltij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184969/original/file-20170906-9202-ptltij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184969/original/file-20170906-9202-ptltij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184969/original/file-20170906-9202-ptltij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184969/original/file-20170906-9202-ptltij.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grants at Bothwell were given primarily to free settlers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/default.aspx?detail=1&type=I&id=AF396/1/338">Surveyor and date unknown, Tasmanian Archives and Heritage Office, AF 396/1/338</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Land granting policies that excluded poorer settlers (most of whom were former convicts or the children of convicts) were introduced. Only those people with £500 capital and assets (<a href="http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/Pages/resources/inflationtools/calculator/default.aspx#">roughly A$80,000</a>) would be eligible. The minimum grant would be 320 acres. </p>
<p>One writer, the colonial surveyor G.W. Evans, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2MgRAAAAYAAJ&dq=G.W.%20Evans%20van%20diemen's%20land&pg=PA114#v=onepage&q&f=false">asked</a> at the time whether this was intended to drive those without means to the United States of America instead. Even if they scraped together the money, the sheer quantity of land would be beyond their ability to cultivate.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184974/original/file-20170906-17089-mt3b8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184974/original/file-20170906-17089-mt3b8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184974/original/file-20170906-17089-mt3b8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184974/original/file-20170906-17089-mt3b8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184974/original/file-20170906-17089-mt3b8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184974/original/file-20170906-17089-mt3b8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184974/original/file-20170906-17089-mt3b8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184974/original/file-20170906-17089-mt3b8c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Average grant sizes, taken from specific representative regions to eliminate duplicates in the records.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author, 2017</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Locating former convicts on the rivers ensured productivity and the reliable transportation of goods, but these grants also kept them under close observation. As the penal system became more punitive convicts lost the hope of gaining a small piece of land after their sentence. </p>
<p>But before this, far from being intended as any kind of reward or enticement, the first land grants given in Australia represented ongoing control over the lowest class of settlers – those who had been “transported beyond the seas”. Since the beginning of our colonial history, land ownership in Australia has been intricately connected with role and status.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Imogen Wegman has received funding from an Australian Postgraduate Award to complete research into colonial land granting.</span></em></p>The egalitarian myth behind the great Australian dream of home ownership is at odds with the first rules of land granting in the colonies. Even then, property ownership depended on wealth and status.Imogen Wegman, PhD candidate, History and Classics, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/812422017-07-28T05:46:58Z2017-07-28T05:46:58ZCastro’s conundrum: finding a post-communist model Cuba can follow<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179809/original/file-20170726-2676-1q8xnpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Cuba, unlike in many Latin American countries, when you see children on the street, they're not begging; they're playing. And therein lies Castro's dilemma: how to reform Cuba's stagnant economy without losing what's working?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/HAaxKZ">Dan Lundberg/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When US President Donald Trump <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/politics/trump-cuba-policy/index.html">imposed new restrictions on Cuba</a> in June 2017, he professed his administration’s aim was to “encourage greater freedom for the Cuban people and economic interaction”.</p>
<p>Raúl Castro, who took over from his brother Fidel in 2008, has been trying to <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-cuba-the-post-fidel-era-began-ten-years-ago-71720">figure out that last part for years</a>. In 2010, Castro spoke of the need to “<a href="http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/cuba-es/article139985523.html">update the economic model</a>”, but the world has regrettably few models for a communist country in transition can follow.</p>
<p>As Rafael Hernandez, editor of the Cuban journal <a href="http://www.temas.cult.cu/">Temas</a>, informed America’s <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/08/21/159466378/cuba-views-china-vietnam-as-economic-hope">National Public Radio</a> in 2012, “a new model for Cuba is still taking shape, but it would be foolish for the island to try copying China or Vietnam”. </p>
<p>In both of these countries, but particularly in China, the transition to a market economy in recent decades has created <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-13945072">gross economic inequality</a> and come at a <a href="https://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/three-gorges-dam">high social cost</a>. Such outcomes would be unacceptable in Cuba, where <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-donald-trump-change-cuba-79734">the revolutionary spirit of egalitarianism lives on</a>.</p>
<h2>Cuba’s <em>cuentapropistas</em></h2>
<p>In the meantime, Castro is giving Cuba’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/11/26/fidel-castros-economic-disaster-in-cuba/#563ca56f6b65">stagnant economy</a> a cash injection by pursuing a simple premise: maintain state control of the economy but give the private sector more room for manoeuvre. </p>
<p>At the March 2011 <a href="http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/documentos/2011/ing/l160711i.html">Sixth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party</a>, Castro spearheaded the approval of 300 historic measures to unlock the country’s entrepreneurial spirit, including reducing public sector jobs, decentralising the state apparatus and encouraging self-employment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179505/original/file-20170724-16930-xx41zf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rickshaw drivers are among Cuba’s burgeoning self-employed class.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Antonio Castillo</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a half-century of prohibition on where and how they could earn money, Cubans jumped at the opportunity to start their own small businesses. </p>
<p>Ramiro is one of them. “It was unbelievable, I took more than a hundred photos of Obama,” he told me on a crisp April afternoon while walking along the Malecón, the eight-kilometre esplanade along Havana’s north coast. </p>
<p>Barack Obama and his family landed at José Martí international airport in March 2016, the first US president to set foot on the island since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. </p>
<p>Ramiro, who sells <em>churros</em> in touristy Old Havana, is also a freelance photographer, and he followed the Obamas around the city, documenting their stay.</p>
<p>“Look at this one,” he said, showing me an image of the former president entering a restaurant with his wife and two daughters. “This is Obama when he went to have dinner at San Cristobal”, one of Cuba’s top-rated <em>paladares</em>, or private eateries. </p>
<p>“You should try the food there, you know Mick Jagger ate there, too?” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179508/original/file-20170724-7881-th6vxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tourism is the engine that fuels Havana’s upscale private eateries, called <em>paladares</em>.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">advencap/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The tourist engine</h2>
<p>Ramiro’s recommendation is tongue-in-cheek: I can’t afford San Cristobal and he knows it.</p>
<p>Happily, there are more affordable options among Havana’s 1,700 <em>paladares</em>. These in-home restaurants are part of the new economic model that encourages <em>cuentapropismo</em>, or self-employment, in Cuba. </p>
<p>By the end of 2016, there were more than 535,000 <em>cuentrapropistas</em> on the <a href="https://www.martinoticias.com/a/cuba-mas-medio-millon-cuentapropistas-cifras-oficiales/136867.html">island</a>. Self-employment now represents 26% of non-state employment, and it is projected to rise to 35%. </p>
<p>Other than owning a <em>paladar</em>, Cuban entrepreneurs may now legally engage in 202 other private activities, including being an electrician, animal trainer, gardener, hairdresser, street vendor and rickshaw driver.</p>
<p>Tourism is the engine of this change. According to Cuba’s Ministry of Tourism, more than <a href="http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2017/07/12/ministro-del-turismo-cuba-proyecta-cerrar-el-ano-con-cuatro-millones-700-mil-turistas/#.WXe4jNOGNPM">4 million tourists are expected to land on the island in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>US tourism has long been banned here, even under Barack Obama, so Americans must seek one of 12 specific licences to avoid <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/pages/cuba.aspx">violating US sanctions against Cuba</a>.</p>
<p>Lester and Laura, a Catholic couple in their 60s, told me that they “came in under the religious activities” license, citing one reason Americans can <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/how-to-travel-to-cuba_n_6489024">get authorisation to travel Cuba</a>.</p>
<p>Both schoolteachers, Lester and Laura were staying in an affordable <em>casa particular</em> (private home) on Old Havana’s Plaza Vieja. Like the <em>paladares</em>, these bed and breakfast-style accommodations are part of the <em>cuentapropista</em> economic plan.</p>
<p>The average host makes US$250 per booking, <a href="http://fortune.com/cuba-havana-airbnb/">according to Fortune magazine</a> – good money in a country where the average monthly salary is US$23. Business is clearly booming.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"872035360896933888"}"></div></p>
<p>Jaime and Mario, the owners of the <em>casa particular</em> hosting Lester and Laura, have impeccably renovated the fourth floor of their six-floor apartment building, splitting it into two self-contained bedrooms. </p>
<p>They’d like to add a third, they told me, but navigating Cuban bureaucracy is as slow as dancing <em>merengue</em>. Approval to expand will take months.</p>
<h2>An equitable society</h2>
<p>Fidel Castro, who died in 2016 at the age of 90, remains a revered figure among Cubans. He is buried 800 kilometres from Havana, in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/04/fidel-castro-funeral-ashes-interred-cuba-cemetery">the Santa Ifigenia cemetery</a> in Santiago de Cuba, the birthplace of the Cuban revolution.</p>
<p>Don Raúl, a <em>Santiagueño</em> engineer who drives an unpainted 1954 Chevrolet, met me at the cemetery on one of those steamy, scorching Santiago mornings. He directed me to Fidel’s tomb (“Walk to the entry and then turn left”). </p>
<p>Fidel’s ashes are encased under a bulky granite boulder bearing a minimalist dark plaque engraved with just his first name. To pay respects to the legendary <em>comandante</em>, just as with so many things in Cuba from buying coffee to accessing the internet, one must queue.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179506/original/file-20170724-7881-3i7jtu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fidel Castro remains a hero for many Cubans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Antonio Castillo</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Without Fidel we are heading to an unequal society,” Don Raúl told me. He is suspicious of <em>cuentapropismo</em>, which enriches some and leaves others out. “It’s not good.” </p>
<p>He doesn’t consider himself an entrepreneur. “I’m just a driver,” he said. </p>
<p>Don Raul, who still gets emotional when he speaks of Fidel, worries that <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-castro-diaz-canel-idUSKBN13P0FC">Miguel Díaz-Canel</a>, Raúl Castro’s designated successor, will push Cuba to become a “US-style country” when he takes the reins in 2018. </p>
<p>A girl, perhaps ten years old, leaves a bunch of red roses at Fidel’s tomb. </p>
<p>“He was a friend,” she told me. “He fought for the country and for the education of children.” </p>
<p>She’s onto something. Unlike elsewhere in Latin America, kids in Cuba don’t beg or sell candy on the streets. Education levels <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/salim-lamrani/world-bank-cuba-has-the-b_b_5925864.html">rival those of the developed world</a> and <a href="https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Progress_for_Children_-_No._4.pdf">childhood malnutrition</a> is almost nonexistent. </p>
<p>These are key indicators of human development. Even in bad times, Cuba has been an equitable society. And herein lies the existential dilemma facing Castro (and, soon enough, Díaz-Canal): Cuba is poor, but it has also avoided many of the maladies facing its neighbours. </p>
<p>Raul Castro has described his vision for the country as “prosperous and sustainable socialism”. Now he just has to figure out what that looks like.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81242/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Antonio Castillo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Cuba won’t tolerate the high social costs paid by China and Vietnam in their shift to market capitalism, but its economy desperately needs a reboot.Dr Antonio Castillo, Director, Centre for Communication, Politics and Culture, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/765162017-07-24T06:19:59Z2017-07-24T06:19:59ZIs life in Norway as happy as it’s cracked up to be?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179278/original/file-20170721-24759-162a4dp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Freedom and tolerance are Norwegian values that don't apply equally to all.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kongevold/3571950995/in/photolist-6rDbzZ-TzfvEk-jZ1gNm-SSqCaY-eC45mE-oED3TU-eYkDRR-eBZS2g-eC455y-VkWcF2-Wfr3qS-WFmDpj-b2xrwz-eC44Kh-dKMVw4-efx8ov-rbj4JV-9kBade-p1cDda-oMQNjF-91JQc1-nJwGiS-eRw6FB-f24avG-TPTN6q-p6eGEW-9ZTB9S-Dsf8RB-WDidtv-osnbbp-qmGcoy-oJuSsE-ddeUzp-eBZUv4-akp7b6-pVEyt8-fAwfQQ-U6CZbA-8unRwN-pQjzqL-y9TMxj-rr3mcb-jAeWeS-nsRv9X-69bTSJ-ptHMMp-q1ddj9-8f8jdh-qQNmxu-p6gLYb">André Kongevold / flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For progressives around the world, it has become almost a pastime to romanticise the quasi-socialist Scandinavian countries. Nations such as Norway, Finland and Sweden are – to many – not only examples of wealth and well-being but also bastions of social progress and tolerance.</p>
<p>Norway, in particular, consistently leads the world in <a href="http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/#/11111111111">quality of life</a> and <a href="https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2017/">happiness</a>, and the country is <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/02/10/norway-syria-crisis/80164696/">responding compassionately</a> to the Syrian refugee crisis, unlike its many critics in Europe. But is life in Norway really so great? </p>
<p>I’m not so sure. </p>
<p>As an Australian who worked in Oslo for three years, I found that while freedom, tolerance and happiness are indeed important values there, you can expect to enjoy them only if you’re Norwegian.</p>
<h2>You’re welcome?</h2>
<p>After the the 2011 <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/the-inexplicable">mass shooting by Anders Breivik</a>, which he carried out in the name of rejecting a “Muslim colonisation” of Europe, Norway emerged determined to defy xenophobia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179279/original/file-20170721-28498-w4zly7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179279/original/file-20170721-28498-w4zly7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179279/original/file-20170721-28498-w4zly7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179279/original/file-20170721-28498-w4zly7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179279/original/file-20170721-28498-w4zly7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179279/original/file-20170721-28498-w4zly7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179279/original/file-20170721-28498-w4zly7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flowers and candles in Oslo after the 2011 Norway attacks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nrkbeta/5977743910/in/photolist-a7ev1b-3drpmD-6b7TxJ-93Qn72-cUTSRu-e4Z7AL-deyHDe-bkVKjS-8nCcwN-byQBgX-deyG5d-a7NjLA-8ft6Ln-VsnWAm-a7KrZF-8fwn8o-6p5jBj-cPN6Jh-e4Tswp-a7Krdc-eaqooP-aagfY6-9RRwfz-b5qCUa-9RRwzX-6p5jLh-aiAV7b-e19dE3-S9wgAf-bz3xAs-6p5i1G-p84ahc-aagfEe-aJ19QH-6p5iYw-6b5zHf-e4Z7jA-ptb3SQ-afZwoz-6b1pGr-MHdXuy-e13v3H-ptb51S-oH4S61-VQZKB4-pbHr2q-e19fP7-6R5TTR-6J3s4T-awbhY8">Henrik Lied / NRK/flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2015, during the height of the European refugee crisis, the country, which has a population of 5.2 million, considered some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/24/norway-halts-return-of-asylum-seekers-who-entered-via-russia">31,000 asylum cases</a>, a national record. And in contrast to most European countries, Norway extends full social support and protections to all asylees while they await a ruling.</p>
<p>Still, Norway’s far-right Progress Party – to which Breivik belonged in his youth and which holds 29 seats in parliament – has fought to roll back migration and benefits. </p>
<p>Since 2015, Integration Minister Sylvi Listhaug has pursued aggressive restrictions on immigration, particularly for Muslims. As a result, the country deported a <a href="https://www.thelocal.no/20161230/norway-deported-record-number-in-2016">record number</a> of migrants in 2016, including <a href="https://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/norway-send-back-half-unaccompanied-refugee-minors">minors between the ages of 16 and 18</a>, as per new restrictions.</p>
<h2>A history of exclusion</h2>
<p>This fear-mongering taps into a dark strain of Norwegian history. As recently as 1977, the Norwegian government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/dec/09/2">forcibly sterilised members of its Romani minority population</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zhiEiCfECws?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Such policies also echo Norway’s treatment of its indigenous population, which I have been studying. Indeed, it seems forgotten in post-colonial societies that Norwegian history is blighted with atrocities against the native Sámi.</p>
<p>Until the second half of the 20th century, the Norwegian government forcibly <a href="http://minorityrights.org/minorities/sami-2/">seized Sámi lands in middle and northern Norway</a> and sought to eradicate Sámi culture. A policy of Norweginisation, known as <em>fornorsking</em>, meant that Sámi children were sent to Norwegian boarding schools, where they were <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/awards-and-festivals/tiff/sami-blood-shines-spotlight-on-assimilation-of-indigenous-children-in-scandinavia/article31892290/">beaten for speaking their native language</a>. </p>
<p>The Sámi were also denied the right to purchase property if they could not speak Norwegian. Today, Sámi people are still suppressed by Norwegian policy and experience <a href="http://www.unric.org/en/indigenous-people/27307-the-sami-of-northern-europe--one-people-four-countries">ten times more discrimination</a> than ethnic Norwegians.</p>
<p>Many Sámi live throughout the country, and though their right to an education in Sámi and to the use of their language for public purposes has now been recognised, these rights are enjoyed only in small municipalities in the rural north that have been designated as Sámi territories. </p>
<p>Generally speaking, to participate in Norway’s society and economy, you must forgo being and speaking Sámi.</p>
<p>While popular and even academic writing in Norway describes immigrants from the Middle East as speaking “kebab Norwegian”, my <a href="http://jhlr.org.nz/">2016 analysis</a> of online comments to Sámi-themed news found a similarly pervasive prejudice. </p>
<p>The analysis shows that Norwegians argue that the Sámi threaten the purity of Norwegian ethnicity and way of life. Some say Sámi cannot be seen as Norwegian citizens, do not deserve indigenous status and have invented their historic oppression.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179269/original/file-20170721-28465-tkq8uu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179269/original/file-20170721-28465-tkq8uu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179269/original/file-20170721-28465-tkq8uu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179269/original/file-20170721-28465-tkq8uu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179269/original/file-20170721-28465-tkq8uu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179269/original/file-20170721-28465-tkq8uu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179269/original/file-20170721-28465-tkq8uu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Art work ‘Spor’ by Hilde Skancke Pedersen inside the Sámi parliament. ‘Sámediggi’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/samediggi/11081728335/in/photolist-hTfKKD-ceGxaj-hTnTMV-hTddWZ-hTe3MB-aEfAVk-cgVN5q-aEiTKL-TaF3R4-UpfKcz-kEjH41-hTwz3o-aEiTnG-hTdKzG-hTnhTY-hTwuF9-kTN2Kt-kEi8o6-kTEorn-kTJXQa-nFWB15-kTFoNJ-hTnLV1-kTNFAr-hTnHRn-npuafj-kEhCPK-kTKCmB-kEjJzh-hTnpCu-oJK3HU-hTnpFA-oGK26G-kTFpJG-kTNFEV-kTNG2g-hTnSy2-kTEohK-kTPEBS-kTJXN6-kTPD91-kTPDC7-kTKCqe-hTnjr9-kTPDdQ-UpfL6i-kTEnbg-kEhBDD-kTFmmE-kTFiVs">Denis Caviglia /Sámediggi Sametinget/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In another display of discrimination, when Tromsø, the major town of the far north, considered designating itself a Sámi zone, opposing voices were filled with hate. Opponents even fired bullets at bilingual signs to express displeasure.</p>
<h2>Assimilation nation</h2>
<p>This racist undercurrent in Norway may derive from an American-style exceptionalism in Norway, whereby Norwegians are told and truly believe that they are world leaders in social policy. </p>
<p>But to survive in Norway, those of a non-Norwegian culture are expected to adopt a Norwegian world view. The compulsory language courses given to migrants really brings that message home. Its curriculum celebrates Norway but presents almost hegemonic views on nearly everything else, from alcohol consumption to social values and Norwegian history. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179257/original/file-20170721-28498-glmtrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1600%2C1061&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179257/original/file-20170721-28498-glmtrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179257/original/file-20170721-28498-glmtrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179257/original/file-20170721-28498-glmtrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179257/original/file-20170721-28498-glmtrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179257/original/file-20170721-28498-glmtrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179257/original/file-20170721-28498-glmtrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sculpture in Vigeland Park, Oslo. Life in Norway is great for some, but not for all.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ceekay/3526274817/in/photolist-6nB5DF-djfNTE-cepefy-69Q98R-6awsAJ-59uH7r-5DMNdZ-dH1AnT-aHJk2-isV5LP-jWAMF6-7jbQWW-6awsEh-bFNBtg-59yWX3-7DusLb-59uHte-59yWSq-69UkiG-629WpC-62DE6B-9pKiyg-3GFwFm-8nKKEg-629WGj-7DusL3-5EbL6k-f6DtcF-jgBF4-6diuqQ-aGu6sB-6oy9KN-aDrQwX-4WBXDu-dH74vU-9LiF2h-2Z7572-69UkgE-7DusL9-5V1g3i-ow31mi-d5gwqd-d3DZjW-cy8CES-DVAqa-6awugL-6asifr-a7eFJL-9jWhP-4vdx7">PROC.K. Koay / flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Sámi and Romani are almost entirely absent from the language-course curriculum.</p>
<p>To suggest that all is bad in Norway would be false. I, too, have been thankful for Norway’s affordable health care and generous leave entitlements. And the upcoming <a href="http://europedecides.eu/2016/08/a-forecast-for-the-2017-norwegian-elections/">parliamentary election</a>, to be held in September 2017, presents an opportunity for a broader change, including on immigration.</p>
<p>But not all is rosy in the Norwegian utopia. Next time someone extols the virtues of this “perfect” Scandinavian society, remind them that the Norwegian dream is not available to all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76516/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan John Albury was recently a research fellow at the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan at the University of Oslo.</span></em></p>Freedom, social progress and tolerance are Norwegian values, but not everyone there gets to enjoy them equally.Nathan John Albury, Assistant Professor, Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/704802017-01-27T04:31:17Z2017-01-27T04:31:17ZIn Australia, land of the ‘fair go’, not everyone gets an equal slice of the pie<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154488/original/image-20170126-30397-10ei227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australian political leaders love to talk about the 'fair go', but in truth we are moving away from it on many measures.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is part of a series examining Australian national identity, especially around the ongoing debate about Australia Day.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Australian politicians, interest groups and political and social commentators have long drawn on the idea of the “fair go”. In fact, despite their ideological differences, Australia’s last four prime ministers have all used the term at some point. </p>
<p>In government and opposition, Labor leader Kevin Rudd referred to the fair go, particularly when <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s1899860.htm">criticising</a> the Howard government’s WorkChoices industrial relations reforms. </p>
<p>In December 2011, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/julia-gillards-speech-in-full-20111201-1o9yu.html">Prime Minister Julia Gillard</a> also argued that “we are the people who hold onto mateship and the fair go”, citing Labor’s support for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and health spending in support of this claim. </p>
<p>The idea of the fair go is not unique to Labor, either. <a href="https://theconversation.com/slanguage-and-dinky-di-aussie-talk-in-elections-59967">Robert Menzies and Malcolm Fraser</a> used the term in campaign speeches, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also made reference to the fair go when discussing tax reform in 2015. <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-has-promised-tax-changes-will-be-fair-in-a-melbourne-speech/news-story/db4ad7c0ccc40df3cd7ee716c76b7616">He stated</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have a very unique culture in Australia and we have a very good mixture of capitalism and free market, but we also have a culture of fair go, of looking after each other. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The idea of the fair go also figured prominently in debates over the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-13/budget-winners-and-losers/5433178">2014 federal budget</a>, which was attacked for placing a disproportionate burden on lower-income families. </p>
<p>Given the term is used by such different politicians in a range of contexts, it is impossible to associate the idea of the “fair go” with any precise meaning. It generally stands for whatever the person using the term regards as fair or just, although it generally has an egalitarian flavour. </p>
<p>However, even political theorists who devote themselves to analysing political values and concepts differ over what an egalitarian approach to fairness and justice requires. At the most basic level, most egalitarians agree that justice and fairness demand that all citizens have their basic needs met. So ending poverty, for example, is an important egalitarian goal. </p>
<p>Equality of opportunity is also regarded as another important requirement of justice. This means that all citizens should have the same chance to develop their natural abilities, regardless of their backgrounds. For example, it is wrong if a child from a working-class background is disadvantaged because the schools she has access to are worse than the schools to which affluent children have access. </p>
<p>Some egalitarian political theorists take the idea further, arguing that justice and fairness requires a more equal distribution of social resources, not just equal opportunities. </p>
<p>There are a variety of different reasons for this. Some defend the idea because of the beneficial social consequences it has. Others challenge the distinction between “natural” and “social” forms of inequality, arguing that we should be concerned about inequalities resulting from differences in our natural abilities, not just our social environment. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most influential approach in the post-war period is <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/sociology-general-terms-and-concepts-93">John Rawls’ difference principle</a>, which states that inequalities are only justified if “they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged”. This means that we should aim for equality in the distribution of social resources, but not to the point that we damage the economy and actually leave the poorest citizens worse off than they were before. </p>
<p>How does Australian society match up against these goals? For a start, there is an ongoing problem with poverty in Australia, with <a href="https://crawford.anu.edu.au/pdf/events/2013/8801/Whiteford-Australia-Inequality-and-Prosperity-final.pdf">recent research</a> suggesting that the relative poverty rate has been between 10% and 14% of households since 2000 (where the poverty rate is set at 50% of median income). </p>
<p>Around 5% of households were suffering from what is known as “deep exclusion”. Australians with a long-term medical condition or disability were particularly vulnerable, as were indigenous people. People lacking a year 12 qualification and those in public housing also had higher levels of deep exclusion. </p>
<p>Equality of opportunity is usually tested by focusing on whether children end up in a different income category from their parents. In the literature, this is usually measured through intergenerational earning elasticity, which “<a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=319647066160018;res=IELHSS">benchmarks adult children’s earnings</a> with their parents’ earnings after controlling for demographic characteristics”. </p>
<p>There are major methodological challenges in measuring intergenerational elasticity in an Australian context. There are also relatively few studies on the topic.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/10440/716/1/Leigh_Intergenerational2007.pdf">a 2007 study</a> by Andrew Leigh found that Australia had a higher level of mobility than the US. As he put it in his 2013 book, “in the United States, the heritability of income is similar to the heritability of height. But in Australia, income is only about half as heritable as height”. A <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.1839-4655.2016.tb01236.x/full">2016 study</a> reached broadly similar conclusions to Leigh, finding that Australia has “a relatively large amount of income mobility”.</p>
<p>But doing relatively well internationally is still a long way from saying there is equality of opportunity. Being half as heritable as height still suggests the playing field is a long way from level. </p>
<p>There has also been an increase in income inequality over recent decades. While there are different ways of measuring income inequality, the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-31847943">Gini coefficient</a> is one of the most common measures. A country with a Gini coefficient of 0 has complete equality in incomes, while a country with a Gini coefficient of 1 has complete inequality. </p>
<p>In Australia, the <a href="http://www.treasury.gov.au/PublicationsAndMedia/Publications/2013/Economic-Roundup-Issue-2/Economic-Roundup/Income-inequality-in-Australia">Gini coefficient</a> in disposable household income was 0.309 in 1995 but 0.334 in 2010. Going back further, the increase in inequality is even more marked – the Gini coefficient in 1980 was 0.2.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.oecd.org/australia/49177643.pdf">In 2011, the OECD reported</a> that according to 2008 figures, “the average income of the top 10% of Australians was … nearly 10 times higher than that of the bottom 10%”. Australia is once again more equal than the US, but more unequal than the OECD average.</p>
<p>So although politicians claim to place a great deal of importance on the idea of the fair go, there are still significant ways in which Australian society seems to depart from this idea.</p>
<p>Given the reforms the Coalition tried to get through (for the most part unsuccessfully) in the 2014 budget, and the recent <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-16/government-to-change-centrelink-debt-recovery-program/8185366">scandal over Centrelink</a>, it seems likely that the “fair go” will continue to be under political pressure in the years to come, whatever the rhetoric.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Catch up on other pieces in the series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/the-australian-national-identity-35033">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Barry is a member of the NTEU.</span></em></p>Although politicians claim to place a great deal of importance on the idea of the fair go, there are still significant ways in which Australian society seems to depart from this idea.Nicholas Barry, Lecturer, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/686552016-12-02T07:06:49Z2016-12-02T07:06:49ZFrom Paraguay, a history lesson on racial equality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147079/original/image-20161122-10997-llxh0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An 18th-century painting shows an indigenous woman with her Spanish husband and their child. The plaque reads: 'From a Spaniard and an Indian is produced a mestizo.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Mestizo.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Any notion that the United States had become “post-racial” ended when Donald Trump, who as a candidate <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/opinion/trump-makes-his-birther-lie-worse.html">questioned president Barack Obama’s citizenship</a> and employed <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-s-racial-rhetoric-crime-puts-him-political-bind-n651886">heated racial rhetoric</a>, was elected to succeed the country’s first black president.</p>
<p>As North American social issues often do, the debate on race and equality is has an echo in Latin America. Mexican historian Enrique Krauze <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/opinion/enrique-krauze-latin-americas-talent-for-tolerance.html?_r=0">recently praised</a> Latin America’s “talent for tolerance” in the New York Times, noting that, as early as 1858, Mexico elected an indigenous president (<a href="http://www.biography.com/people/benito-ju%C3%A1rez-39733">Benito Juárez</a>). Since then, 33 of the country’s 36 presidents have been <em>mestizos</em> – that is, in Latin American parlance, someone of mixed race. </p>
<p>As a South American historian, this moment has also caused me to reflect on my region’s own imperfect racial history. There’s one unusual and controversial moment that, I hope, may prove enlightening: the time Paraguay made it <a href="http://www.tierraviva.org.py/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Digesto_Normativo_sobre_Pueblos_Indigenas_en_el_Paraguay_1811-20031.pdf">illegal</a> for some people to marry within their race. </p>
<h2>Paraguayan exceptionalism</h2>
<p>It was March 1 1814, and <a href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/paraguay/francia.htm">José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia</a>, was about to become “Supreme Dictator”, a title he would hold until his death in 1840.</p>
<p>Many credit Francia with modern Paraguay’s pluriethnic, plurilingual, and multicultural society. He remains a mysterious figure, who had a doctorate in theology but in politics behaved as a <a href="https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255/kat_anna/jacobins.html">French Jacobin</a>. Running an austere and orderly iron-fisted government, Francia secured Paraguayan independence by isolating his nation from the outside world.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147077/original/image-20161122-11012-1cn26ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147077/original/image-20161122-11012-1cn26ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147077/original/image-20161122-11012-1cn26ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147077/original/image-20161122-11012-1cn26ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147077/original/image-20161122-11012-1cn26ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147077/original/image-20161122-11012-1cn26ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147077/original/image-20161122-11012-1cn26ln.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=810&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Francia was Paraguay’s ‘Supreme Dictator’ from 1814 to 1840.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Gaspar_Francia_(La_Plata,_the_Argentine_Confederation,_and_Paraguay).jpg">Thomas Jefferson Page/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1814, Francia issued a <a href="http://www.tierraviva.org.py/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Digesto_Normativo_sobre_Pueblos_Indigenas_en_el_Paraguay_1811-20031.pdf">decree</a> forbidding marriages between “European men” (namely, Spaniards) and women “known as Spanish” (born in Spain or of Spanish descent). European men would only be allowed to marry indigenous, mixed-race or black Paraguayan women. </p>
<p>By preventing the white elite from reproducing, Francia’s decree had the undeniable potential to allow the newly independent Paraguay to rise as a mixed-race nation. </p>
<h2>Racial justice or political manoeuvring</h2>
<p>But was that Francia’s intent? Scholars differ on the reasoning behind his law, which is unique in all Latin American, if not in world, history. </p>
<p><a href="http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/otros/20130529043420/critica5.pdf">Sergio Guerra Vilaboy</a> sees it as an economic effort, noting that in newly post-colonial Paraguay, Europeans still held a prominent position. By curbing their power, Francia dealt “a hard blow to the old trade oligarchy of [the capital] Asunción”, allowing other social classes to thrive. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://books.google.com.uy/books?id=-Qd3AAAAMAAJ&source=gbs_book_other_versions">Julio César Chaves</a>, the 1814 marriage decree aimed to reduce the political threat posed by royalist Spaniards in Paraguay, and it was one of many such provisions. In addition to forbidding Europeans to wed Europeans, Francia also confiscated royal and church lands and gave them to indigenous peasants as “state ranches”. In return, they served as soldiers loyal to the Supreme Dictator; no one was allowed to hold a rank above captain.</p>
<p>According to historian <a href="https://books.google.com.uy/books/about/Paraguay_s_Autonomous_Revolution_1810_18.html?id=WNYrAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y">Richard Alan White</a>, all this added up to the “first autonomous revolution in the Americas”: Francia launched a successful program of economic development without any foreign financing. </p>
<p>An alternative interpretation of the 1814 marriage decree is that it was about equality – just not racial equality. </p>
<p>Over the course of his reign, as historian <a href="https://books.google.com.uy/books/about/The_Poverty_of_Progress.html?id=H-GV_4ysCSUC&redir_esc=y">E. Bradford Burns</a> chronicles, Francia sought to increase Paraguayan egalitarianism. He abolished taxes paid to the Catholic Church, established religious freedom, and organised a free elementary educational system that reached a majority of even indigenous populations. </p>
<p>By 1840, Paraguay had emerged as “the most egalitarian society yet known in the Western Hemisphere”, Burns says. </p>
<h2>Exceptional, yes – but since when?</h2>
<p>Intent aside, the 1814 decree did cause the extinction of Spanish Europeans as an ethnic group in Paraguay. </p>
<p>In that effort, Francia was building on Paraguayan initiatives to eliminate racial difference <a href="http://www.nhanduti.com/Libros.PY.PT/Tiempo%20de%20Historia.PT/Jornadas%20de%20H.%20del%20Paraguay%20%28II%29%20-%20Montevideo/Jornadas.%20Paraguay.%20Montevideo.II.html">that already dated back to colonial times</a>. Because virtually no European women accompanied the Spanish conquistadors and settlers who arrived in Paraguay from 1540 to 1550, all took native <a href="http://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/Ling450ch/reports/Guarani1.html">Guaraní</a> women as wives. </p>
<p>A century later, in 1662, local authorities requested a royal proviso to categorise their mixed-race descendants as legitimate American-born Spaniards. Succeeding generations, also classified as Spaniards, were granted the same privileges as European-born Spaniards. </p>
<p>For <a href="http://www.nhanduti.com/Libros.PY.PT/Tiempo%20de%20Historia.PT/Jornadas%20de%20H.%20del%20Paraguay%20%28II%29%20-%20Montevideo/Jornadas.%20Paraguay.%20Montevideo.II.html">American scholar Jerry Cooney</a>, it’s this proviso, which was also unprecedented and unequalled in the Spanish Empire, that prompted Paraguayan exceptionalism. </p>
<p>Francia’s decree 150 years later, was just another “step towards the creation of a homogeneous Paraguayan society”. By 1800, well before the Supreme Dictator, “Spanish mestizos” comprised almost 60% of Paraguay’s population and had become the new upper and middle classes. </p>
<p>Thus in Paraguay’s early period, there had long been a considerable degree of racial equality, especially compared to neighbours such as Brazil or the then-United Provinces (Argentina). </p>
<h2>Mestizo but not post-racial</h2>
<p>But equality only held for the mestizo ruling classes. Spanish law never allowed members of the mestizo majority to marry minority black or mixed-race Afrodescendant people, though they could occasionally wed indigenous people. </p>
<p>As a result, a significant divide was maintained between the ruling mestizo elite and minority populations of black, mixed-race Afrodescendant and some nomadic or un-assimilated indigenous tribes.</p>
<p>Francia never questioned these principles on a moral basis. On balance, his regime consolidated the political hegemony of the mestizo class, with policies such as land redistribution and universal education also benefiting large indigenous groups. But black, mixed-race people and certain nomadic native tribes were left out of the equation. </p>
<p>It is difficult to evaluate whether Francia’s marriage decree has had an impact on present-day Paraguay. On the one hand, it quickly <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1008321?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">fell into disuse after his death</a> and nearly all of Paraguay’s male population was annihilated in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/War-of-the-Triple-Alliance">War of the Triple Alliance</a> (1864-1870). On the other, today Paraguay proudly considers itself a mestizo nation, with Francia as its founder. </p>
<p>What can this slice of history offer modern readers? For me, it reiterates the fact that “post-racial” does not exist. The recent US election disappointingly proved that racial intolerance (alongside gender prejudice) remains very present.</p>
<p>Similarly, after Francia’s reign, <a href="https://books.google.com.uy/books?id=DdQZAAAAYAAJ&dq=The%20Stroessner%20Regime%20and%20Indigenous%20Resistance%20in%20Paraguay%20Ren%C3%A9%20Harder%20Horst&source=gbs_similarbooks">oligarchic governments</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com.uy/books?id=tAzaRAAACAAJ&dq=The+Stroessner+Regime+and+Indigenous+Resistance+in+Paraguay+Ren%C3%A9+Harder+Horst&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y">military dictatorships</a> introduced new forms of racism and intolerance to Paraguay. Today, indigenous peoples still suffer <a href="http://unsr.vtaulicorpuz.org/site/index.php/documents/country-reports/84-report-paraguay">discrimination</a>. </p>
<p>Americans and the world saw the Obama years as the embodiment of social progress. But, as Paraguay’s exceptionalist period reveals, progress is complex, and it can quickly be undone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juan Manuel Casal receives funding from Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación (ANII, Uruguay). </span></em></p>The strange and enlightening tale of a South American dictator who tried to prevent white people from marrying other white people.Juan Manuel Casal, Professor, University of MontevideoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/325522014-10-13T19:19:08Z2014-10-13T19:19:08ZDo Australians still believe in the fair go? Views on pay suggest not<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60882/original/696w57kj-1412571900.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The difference between CEO and average workers' pay is much greater than most people imagine, but Australians' idea of the ideal ratio is higher than elsewhere.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-175830491/stock-photo-an-old-school-bronze-justice-scale-with-stacks-of-brazilian-real-money-on-one-side-and-a-few.html?src=pOrwFNG72dGOrYjDQxcbLg-1-15">Shutterstock/albund</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/Kiatpongsan%20Norton%20PPS_dae93595-5382-4ab6-99f7-24329c8c0c33.pdf">recently published study</a> produced some revealing findings on beliefs about inequality in a range of countries around the world. The study, by Chulalongkorn University’s Sorapop Kiatpongsan and Harvard Business School’s Michael Norton, examined the views of 55,000 people in 16 countries. It asked subjects two questions about CEO pay and worker pay. </p>
<p>The first question was: “What do you believe is the average ratio of the pay of CEOs to that of workers?” The second question was: “What, in your opinion, is the ideal ratio between the pay of CEOs and workers?”</p>
<h2>CEOs get paid far more than people think</h2>
<p>One finding was that, in all countries surveyed, people consistently underestimated how much CEOs were paid. </p>
<p>The discrepancy was particularly large in the US. Respondents thought the average CEO earned about 30 times as much as the average worker. According to the study, the average CEO earns 354 times as much.</p>
<p>Some other countries had even larger discrepancies. But in every country surveyed, CEOs earned more – often much more – than people believed they did.</p>
<p>Subjects were also asked what they thought the ideal ratio of CEO pay to that of workers would be. In every country surveyed, this figure was significantly lower than both the actual ratio and what people believed the ratio to be.</p>
<p>In Britain, for example, CEOs earn 84 times what workers earn, people believed CEOs probably earned about 13.5 times as much, and thought that ideally it ought to be 5.3 times as much. A more or less similar pattern was found in all countries surveyed.</p>
<h2>‘Ideal’ pay ratios vary widely</h2>
<p>There were, however significant differences between countries concerning beliefs about the ideal ratio between CEO pay and worker pay. </p>
<p>Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Scandinavian countries had the most egalitarian views. Respondents in Denmark thought that, ideally, the CEO ought to earn twice what workers earned. In Sweden, they thought CEO pay ought to be 2.2 times that of workers, while in Norway they thought it ought to be 2.3 times worker pay. </p>
<p>Well towards the other end of the spectrum lay the US. People surveyed there thought the CEO ought to earn 6.7 times as much as a worker. </p>
<h2>Which country favours the biggest pay gap?</h2>
<p>The United States was not the country in which people saw the largest gap between CEO and worker as ideal. The identity of that country might come as a surprise.</p>
<p>It was not Germany or Japan or France. It was Australia. We thought the ideal ratio of CEO pay to worker pay would be 8.3.</p>
<p>Not only did Australians approve of the largest gap between CEO and worker, we did so by a fair margin. Here, in order, are the countries seeing the largest pay gaps as ideal:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60875/original/wct4qrks-1412568936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60875/original/wct4qrks-1412568936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60875/original/wct4qrks-1412568936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60875/original/wct4qrks-1412568936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60875/original/wct4qrks-1412568936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60875/original/wct4qrks-1412568936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60875/original/wct4qrks-1412568936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kiatpongsan and Norton/Harvard Business School, Chulalongkorn University</span></span>
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<p>The “gap” between Australia at 8.3 and the second place-getter – the US – is 1.6. This is more than twice the “gap” (0.7) between the US and fifth-placed Japan. </p>
<p>By a significant margin Australians are, it seems, most accepting of a large pay gap between those at the top and those at the bottom. This is certainly very different from the image of Australia as a highly egalitarian country.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/the-lucky-country50-years-on/5710724">The Lucky Country</a> (published in 1964), Donald Horne described Australia as “the most egalitarian of countries” where “most people earn within a few pounds of the average”. Although Horne acknowledged there were still some forms of inequality, he expressed the belief these would fade with time. For Horne, Australia was above all a place that valued egalitarianism.</p>
<h2>What’s become of our fabled egalitarianism?</h2>
<p>Now, 50 years later, we are the country (at least of those surveyed) most <a href="https://theconversation.com/ceo-pay-study-shows-how-much-australians-tolerate-inequality-32140">accepting of big differences in pay</a> between those at the bottom and those at the top. What has happened? Is it possible that in the last half-century we have in our values gone from being “the most egalitarian of countries” to the least, or one of the least, egalitarian?</p>
<p>A few possible answers to these questions might be considered.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most obvious suggestion is that Australians are most accepting of high levels of inequality because we have not, as yet, actually been exposed to the stark contrasts found in some other countries. Perhaps if billionaires and people in grinding poverty lived side by side, we would be repelled by gross inequality. But living in a society in which there just isn’t that much difference between those at the top and those at the bottom, we have yet to see what a bad thing inequality can be.</p>
<p>The only problem with this suggestion is that it is false. Compared to other developed countries, Australia is well towards the unequal end of the spectrum on some measures. If inequality is defined as the <a href="http://www.oecd.org/social/income-distribution-database.htm">ratio of incomes</a> of the top 10% to the bottom 10%, Australia generally comes in at around the third- or fourth-most-unequal developed country. </p>
<p>It might be suggested that Australians are so accepting of large pay differences because in this country there is little or no “absolute” poverty. </p>
<p>The thinking behind this suggestion might be as follows: the main reason inequality is bad is not because there is a gap between those at the top and those at the bottom, but because those at the bottom are deprived of what we regard as the necessities for a decent life. It is the poverty of those at the bottom that is the real “culprit”, not the fact that some have very much more.</p>
<p>And, it might be suggested, we in Australia fortunately do not have significant numbers <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-12/poverty-levels-among-australians-on-the-rise-acoss-report-abs/5807624">living in poverty</a>. But this suggestion, too, is false. </p>
<p>An explanation of a rather different kind might be sought. One reason people in some countries might be wary of great inequality of wealth is the inequality of power it may produce. Perhaps in some other countries people are concerned about their wealthiest exerting power or influence in the political sphere, and are worried this would be inimical to healthy democracy. </p>
<p>Is it possible that we in Australia are happy with a larger pay gap between those at the top and those at the bottom because our wealthy have not sought to exert political influence?</p>
<p>Again, this suggestion pretty clearly doesn’t square with the facts. After all, Australia has an exceptionally <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-lamentable-media-diversity-needs-a-regulatory-fix-12942">high concentration of media ownership</a>. News Corporation alone accounts for about two-thirds of daily newspaper circulation.</p>
<p>And there other ways, such as the recent success of the Palmer United Party, in which great wealth would seem to be able to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wa-senate-election-and-the-rise-of-money-in-australian-politics-25477">acquire political power</a>. In Australia, differences in wealth have brought about differences in political power.</p>
<p>So it remains unclear why Australians are accepting of such large pay differences between those at the top and the rest. Is it possible we just no longer believe in the fair go?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32552/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Wright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A recently published study produced some revealing findings on beliefs about inequality in a range of countries around the world. The study, by Chulalongkorn University’s Sorapop Kiatpongsan and Harvard…John Wright, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/54582012-02-22T02:58:41Z2012-02-22T02:58:41ZMore than just money: differing morals at the heart of US economic divide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/7913/original/657qbzmk-1329804591.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amid an ongoing economic crisis, American exceptionalism faces the ultimate test.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Herbert Hoover was wrong about America. During a press conference in February 1931 - amid the depths of the Great Depression - he famously warned that the American values of “rugged individualism” risked being diluted by “European-styled socialism”. </p>
<p>Hoover suggested that the Depression presented a dilemma as to “whether the American people, on one hand, will maintain the spirit of charity and mutual self-help through voluntary giving and the responsibility of local government, as distinguished on the other hand, from appropriations out of the Federal Treasury for such purposes”. </p>
<p>In short, his fear was that too much federal involvement would weaken the bonds of local connection and civil society, displacing religious and charitable organisations and undermining American ideals. </p>
<p>Hoover was wrong because – as Franklin Roosevelt showed in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal">New Deal</a> – American values were not exclusively individualist. Instead, they also contained an important egalitarian, if not communitarian, commitment to fairness. </p>
<p>In recent weeks, Hoover’s arguments have been resuscitated by conservative intellectual [Charles Murray](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(author). In a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-the-working-class-be-saved.html">widely</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/opinion/krugman-money-and-morals.html">commented-upon</a> new book, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/book/119020/coming-apart-by-charles-murray">Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010</a>, Murray advances the thesis that a decline in basic individual values – most importantly, of industriousness – explains an erosion of social mobility and America’s exceptionalist identity. </p>
<p>To be sure, in describing the fragmented nature of American society, there is much to commend in Murray’s account. He describes a society in which elites and the general public have equally withdrawn from community engagement. However, his view is fundamentally flawed as he emphasises the pervasive effects of excessive statism to explain societal trends over a period in which the state has been in more or less continual retreat from its postwar peak of influence. </p>
<p>Indeed, that his argument kicks off in November 1963, with the premature end of the Kennedy administration, is somewhat telling, as it was Kennedy who – as Ronald Reagan later stressed – inaugurated the current trend to cutting taxes.</p>
<p>To be sure, no single variable explains the social, economic and demographic shifts that have characterised the past half-century. Yet a lack of individualism is not the problem. Murray would have seen this, had he offered a more encompassing view. Contrary to free-market nostrums, post-Depression era America was marked by the extensive use of wage and price controls, which derived considerable popular legitimacy from a commitment to fairness. </p>
<p>Indeed, Republican President Eisenhower advanced a doctrine of “shared responsibility” for economic stability. Such appeals in turn succeeded only by virtue of the existence of a postwar trust in government: in 1958, 73% of Americans stated that they could trust the government either “just about always” or “most of the time”. Moreover, this trust was paralleled by a mass scepticism in markets, as only 14% of Americans blamed government for economic instability. </p>
<p>What explains the demise of these controls, and the broader sense of fairness upon which they relied? Over the 1960s and 1970s, the experiences of Vietnam and Watergate would undermine faith in government, giving rise to a much more libertarian ethos. By 1978, only 25% of Americans would assert that they could trust the government “just about always” or “most of the time” by 1980. Paralleling these general shifts, the percent of the public blaming government for inflation would rise from 14% in 1959 to 51% in 1978. </p>
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<p>As scepticism in government assumed the force of a self-fulfilling prophecy, successive inflationary crises – in the “great stagflations” of the 1970s – and financial crises – from the savings and loan crises of the late 1980s to the global financial crisis of recent years – wracked the US economy. Yet with each crisis, the wave of deregulation has been advanced in tandem. </p>
<p>In this light, Murray may be underrating the importance of a communitarian ethos, as his Tea Party-styled libertarian values might be juxtaposed against the Occupy Wall Street-styled view on display in say, the revived communitarianism of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren">Elizabeth Warren</a>. </p>
<p>In a widely-circulated clip, Warren recently asserted the case for an alternative view of American exceptionalism, arguing that “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate … God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/5458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wesley Widmaier receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Herbert Hoover was wrong about America. During a press conference in February 1931 - amid the depths of the Great Depression - he famously warned that the American values of “rugged individualism” risked…Wesley Widmaier, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.