tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/tribalism-27373/articlesTribalism – The Conversation2023-12-12T19:03:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2192022023-12-12T19:03:32Z2023-12-12T19:03:32ZLeft is Not Woke: a philosopher’s plea for universalism and ‘progress’ is a frustrating polemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564750/original/file-20231211-17-7hfs0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4300%2C2851&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/people-in-black-shirts-and-black-shorts-sitting-on-bench-during-daytime-qT7fZVbDcqE">Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some years ago I was surprised to come across a person whose politics I knew to be conservative at a Greens fundraiser. When I asked him why he was there, he said he supported any gay candidate, irrespective of party.</p>
<p>It is this emphasis on identity against values that most annoys American philosopher and writer <a href="https://www.susan-neiman.com/">Susan Neiman</a>. She could well have echoed Cate Blanchett’s character in the film Tar, an acclaimed conductor who is appalled when one of her students discards Bach’s music because he was a white, cis male. </p>
<p>Tribal identities, for Neiman, are undermining the traditional claims of the left for a universalist understanding of justice and progress. </p>
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<p><em>Left is Not Woke – Susan Neiman (Polity)</em></p>
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<p>Neiman’s book <a href="https://www.politybooks.com/search?s=Susan%20Neiman">Left is Not Woke</a> is strongest when querying the centrality of this tribalism. Elsewhere she has written movingly about the way in which German guilt about the Holocaust blocks <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/10/19/historical-reckoning-gone-haywire-germany-susan-neiman/">the capacity to feel empathy for Palestinians now dying in Gaza</a>. </p>
<p>In her book she defends Hannah Arendt’s use of the term “crimes against humanity” to describe the Holocaust, an expression journalist <a href="https://theconversation.com/universalism-or-tribalism-michael-gawendas-memoir-considers-what-it-means-to-be-a-jew-in-contemporary-australia-213459">Michael Gawenda has found objectionable</a> because it elides the particular experience of Jews. </p>
<p>Neiman’s defence of universalism is important and has been praised by Fintan O’Toole in a <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/11/02/defying-tribalism-left-is-not-woke-neiman/">powerful essay in the New York Review of Books</a> titled “Defying Tribalism”. (Despite living in Berlin, the United States is very much her focus in her book.) But nowhere does Neiman demonstrate that “woke” and “tribalism” are identical. As she claims, concern for those who are marginalised can </p>
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<p>end by reducing each to the prism of her marginalization […] The idea of intersectionality […] [has] led to a focus on those parts of identities that are most marginalized and multiplies them into a forest of trauma.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-wokeness-has-become-the-latest-battlefront-for-white-conservatives-in-america-207122">Why 'wokeness' has become the latest battlefront for white conservatives in America</a>
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<p>Her concern is that an emphasis on personal experience can easily magnify tribal grievances at the expense of a universal concern for justice. Neiman’s insistence on the importance of universalism is particularly apposite in the current emotional responses to the Gaza conflict.</p>
<p>It is true some contemporary leftists are so concerned with language at the expense of major inequalities that they forget the need for a politics of redistribution alongside a politics of recognition. But Neiman fails to demonstrate the contemporary American left is beholden to a cartoon version of identity politics, unable to recognise multiple oppressions. </p>
<p>Indeed she stresses the numbers of white Americans who rallied behind the Black Lives Matter protests of several years ago, which would seem to disprove her central assertion.</p>
<h2>The philosophers</h2>
<p>Neiman begins the book by positioning herself as left rather than liberal. She defines a leftist politics as one as concerned with social as with political rights. One assumes she would applaud the tentative attempts of the Biden administration to modify the worst excesses of American capitalism, but while she inveighs against neo-liberalism, she ignores contemporary mainstream politics, wanting instead to seek out the philosophic roots of what she sees as the current failings of many on the left.</p>
<p>Her discussion of the Enlightenment and its claims to universalism is genuinely interesting, even if she is too willing to glide over the deep contradictions in America’s favourite Enlightenment figures. Yes, philosophers like Kant and Rousseau were more aware of the limitations of Eurocentric views than is often acknowledged, but there is little evidence their appeals for universalism actually had much influence on colonial expansion.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-philosophy-of-jean-jacques-rousseau-is-profoundly-contemporary-201179">Explainer: the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is profoundly contemporary</a>
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<p>It is interesting to note Kant condemned the expropriation of land from Indigenous owners but his writings did nothing to check colonial settlers. If any of them read philosophy they were far more influenced by John Locke’s view that only through agriculture could the right to property develop. (Interestingly historian Henry Reynolds <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/truth-telling/">reads Locke rather differently</a> and quotes him in defence of unceded Indigenous sovereignty.)</p>
<p>When Neiman moves to more recent philosophers, the book becomes both polemical and unreliable. For Neiman the philosophical forbears of “woke” are apparently Michel Foucault and <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schmitt/">Carl Schmitt</a>, who between them undermined the belief in progress and altruism necessary for a decent politics of the left.</p>
<p>I doubt if one in a hundred contemporary activists could identify Schmitt, who was a Nazi apologist and has been seen as an inspiration for autocrats in the postwar world. Foucault certainly was a major intellectual influence on many activists but Neiman’s dislike for him borders on the irrational.</p>
<p>My antennae bristled when she describes him as “openly, transgressively gay”. In fact Foucault was ambivalent about his sexuality and reluctant to be open about it. Nor was he “flamboyant, courting outrage”, except perhaps in the safety of a few backroom bars. Having condemned identity as the basis for a decent politics, Neiman seems determined to link Foucault’s ideas to his sexuality.</p>
<p>The refusal to find anything useful in Foucault’s analysis of power – especially given the sanctification of Foucault in many academic circles – makes what could be an important critique seem more of an unjustified personal attack. A more generous reading of Foucault could have pointed to his scepticism about identity politics. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-ideas-of-foucault-99758">Explainer: the ideas of Foucault</a>
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<h2>A lack of specifics</h2>
<p>Neiman calls herself a socialist, although I suspect she would be very comfortable with the politics of the Australian Labor Party. She argues persuasively that if we do not believe that progress is possible, we cannot construct a meaningful politics for the left, one that creates greater equality and fairness for all.</p>
<p>In subsequent chapters other obstacles to progress are identified, particularly sociobiology and neo-liberalism. (In her reading, sociobiology suggests inequalities of class and gender are inherent in our DNA, rather than socially constructed.) This discussion of sociobiology is somewhat mystifying, as she makes no direct connection between it and “woke” politics.</p>
<p>Her argument that, in contrast to this view, humans are capable of acting out of more than self-interest is important, but hardly radical. Even the current US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin is pressuring Israel to moderate its rampage in Gaza <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/688ed77b-87ea-425a-acd3-63dd9b914633">for both strategic and moral reasons</a>.</p>
<p>As the book progresses, Neiman tends to fall back on statements of the obvious, with trite observations such as: </p>
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<p>At a time when many ten-year-olds can give you a lecture on carbon emissions, what do the masters of the universe fail to see? </p>
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<p>Had she pursued this thought to consider why her privileged belief in progress might seem illusionary to people whose lands are being obliterated by climate change, there might have been some value to this observation.</p>
<p>Left is Not Woke is a frustrating book, rich in philosophical inquiry but with a strange lack of specifics that might clarify exactly who are the leftists she is criticising. </p>
<p>She ends with a conversation with the Indian activist and writer <a href="https://harshmander.in/">Harsh Mander</a>, who, like her, is appalled by the rise of tribalism in the contemporary world. They share, she claims, a commitment to “universalism, a hard distinction between justice and power, and the possibility of progress”. To which Mander adds a commitment to doubt.</p>
<p>I, too, would like to believe in these ideals. But when I think of the people I know who share these commitments, many of them, I suspect, would be dismissed by Neiman as “too woke”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219202/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Altman 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>Some leftists today forget the need for a politics of redistribution alongside one of recognition. But a new book fails to show the left is beholden to a cartoon version of identity politics.Dennis Altman, VC Fellow, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1758712023-09-09T12:52:24Z2023-09-09T12:52:24ZMangosuthu Buthelezi: the Zulu nationalist who left his mark on South Africa’s history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444063/original/file-20220202-19-1fky7gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C49%2C575%2C442&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi speaks in parliament.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mangosuthu-gatsha-buthelezi">Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi</a> played a prominent role in South African politics for almost half a century. <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-ramaphosa-announces-passing-honourable-prince-mangosuthu-buthelezi%2C-traditional-prime-minister-zulu-nation-and-monarch">He was</a> one of the last of a generation of black South African leaders who influenced the transition from the white minority apartheid regime to a society under a democratically elected government. </p>
<p>Prince Buthelezi (95) was born on 27 August 1928 in Mahlabatini into the Zulu royal family. His mother <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/princess-magogo">Princess Magogo ka Dinuzulu</a> was the daughter of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-dinuzulu">King Dinizulu</a>. His grandfather was the prime minister of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-cetshwayo">King Cetshwayo</a>. So, he was the first-born in line to the Buthelezi chieftainship. </p>
<p>His Zulu identity became the decisive compass for his career in politics, and personified the ambiguities between ethnic identity and national policy. He became the only Bantustan leader who played a significant role in South Africa’s transition to democracy and subsequent politics. Under apartheid <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">Bantustans or homelands</a> were the ten mainly rural, impoverished areas where black South Africans were required to live and have nominal “self-rule” and “independence”, along ethnic group lines separate from whites under apartheid. </p>
<p>Buthelezi used his power to combine ethnic particularism with a policy aimed at inclusive national governance opposed to segregation under apartheid. </p>
<p>As Minister of Home Affairs (1994-2004) and MP since democracy in 1994, he remained a relevant political figure with considerable political influence. His political role remains a controversial and heavily criticised example of how a quest for power based on a Zulu identity as regional-ethnic particularism can take a huge toll on lives.</p>
<h2>Under apartheid</h2>
<p>In 1948 Buthelezi enrolled to study history and “Bantu administration” <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mangosuthu-gatsha-buthelezi">at Fort Hare University</a>. In 1949 he briefly joined the African National Congress Youth League. He was expelled from the university in 1950 for his political activism, completing his degree at the University of Natal. In 1953 he became the hereditary chief of the Buthelezi clan. </p>
<p>In 1976 he was appointed the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/KwaZulu">chief minister</a> of KwaZulu. The area comprised 11 territorial enclaves in the province of Natal. It was a Bantustan under the apartheid state’s policy euphemistically called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-separate-development-south-africa">“separate development”</a>.</p>
<p>In 1975 <a href="https://theconversation.com/post-election-pact-failure-echoes-of-fraught-history-between-south-africas-anc-and-inkatha-172696">he revived Inkatha ka Zulu</a>, a Zulu cultural movement established by King Dinizulu in 1922. It later became the <a href="https://www.ifp.org.za/our-history/">Inkatha Freedom Party</a>. According to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mangosuthu-G-Buthelezi">Encyclopedia Britannica</a>:</p>
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<p>He used Inkatha as a personal power base that systematically mobilised Zulu nationalist aspirations, although his narrow regional and ethnic support base would make his ambition of being national leader difficult.</p>
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<p>His Zulu stronghold allowed him to throw a spanner in the apartheid government’s “separate development” policy, by preventing a declaration of pseudo-independence for KwaZulu. </p>
<p>As he once <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=NcipiPf0tncC&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=Mangosuthu+Buthelezi:+We+have+our+own+history,+our+own+language,+our+own+culture.+But+our+destiny+is+also+tied+up+with+the+destinies+of+other+people+-+history+has+made+us+all+South+Africans.&source=bl&ots=SUDJvJwodt&sig=ACfU3U3xcligo5RWHbM_x9pkORPIYtv6Og&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizpKmjwoH2AhXcwAIHHRWLDw4Q6AF6BAgFEAM#v=onepage&q=Mangosuthu%20Buthelezi%3A%20We%20have%20our%20own%20history%2C%20our%20own%20language%2C%20our%20own%20culture.%20But%20our%20destiny%20is%20also%20tied%20up%20with%20the%20destinies%20of%20other%20people%20-%20history%20has%20made%20us%20all%20South%20Africans.&f=false">explained</a>:</p>
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<p>We have our own history, our own language, our own culture. But our destiny is also tied up with the destinies of other people – history has made us all South Africans.</p>
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<p>Adam Houldsworth, in his <a href="http://scholar.ufs.ac.za:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11660/4047/HouldsworthA.pdf;jsessionid=B41C2C6F899271C77B98E5FF9FD35E82?sequence=1">PhD thesis</a> on Inkatha and the National Party, 1980-1989, documents important domestic policy shifts, influenced by Buthelezi’s political manoeuvres. He disputes the view that Buthelezi pursued an opportunistic and unprincipled policy.</p>
<p>Much of the underlying notion in Buthelezi’s position was inspired by the conservative political philosophy of <a href="https://www.masterclass.com/articles/edmund-burke-guide#who-was-edmund-burke">Edmund Burke (1729-1797)</a>. Buthelezi demanded a majoritarian power-sharing system on a national level as opposed to apartheid. He placed his hopes on reformist tendencies emerging from within the National Party.</p>
<p>According to Houldsworth (p. 210): </p>
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<p>Buthelezi sought to improve Inkatha’s prospects by advocating a long and multifaceted negotiating process which would allow for the gradual moderation of African politics and the reconciliation of disparate black groups … Inkatha politics were to an extent shaped by considerations of expedience in its efforts to retain or gain influence in South African politics.</p>
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<h2>Reinventing Zulu traditionalism for politics</h2>
<p>Buthelezi turned his local-ethnic agency into a national policy factor by rejecting the Bantustan principle. This contributed to the growing awareness within the ranks of the more enlightened faction in the ruling <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/national-party-np">National Party</a> that a post-apartheid scenario needed to be negotiated. </p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/african-national-congress-anc">African National Congress</a> (ANC) becoming an increasingly influential factor in any negotiated solution, while at the same time a threat to his own interests, Buthelezi walked a political tightrope. Considering the exiled ANC as ideologically too left, he advocated the <a href="https://www.deseret.com/1988/6/12/18768341/leader-of-zulus-calls-for-the-release-of-mandela-assails-emergency-rule">release from prison</a> of its leader <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a>. Mandela had been jailed for life for sabotage aimed at <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/rivonia-trial-1963-1964">overthrowing the apartheid regime</a>. Buthelezi believed Mandela would be a moderating element, preventing a socialist transformation. </p>
<p>German historian Aljoscha Tillmanns adds further insights to Buthelezi’s political strategy in his <a href="https://www.roehrig-verlag.de/shop/item/9783861107545/development-for-liberation-von-aljoscha-tillmanns-gebundenes-buch">PhD thesis</a>. As he shows, Buthelezi’s political convictions were strongly influenced by a belief in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/consociationalism">consociationalism</a>. As a concept of government by coalition it is a form of political power sharing among competing elites.</p>
<p>As sociologist <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/roger-southall-296862">Roger Southall</a> has shown, this included attempts to seek closer cooperation with liberal and conservative whites <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/721987">in a politics of compromise</a>. Buthelezi posed as a pragmatic reformer without any specific ideology. </p>
<p>His trust in and reaffirmation of capitalism appealed to the business community, both in and outside South African. Tillmanns (p. 408) quotes him from a meeting with the press, commerce and industry in Frankfurt in February 1986:</p>
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<p>Dire necessity dictates that the free enterprise system be unshackled from its apartheid shackles (and…) multi-party democracy in which politics and economics are synthesised is prescribed by the need for economic development. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>From civil war to democracy</h2>
<p>Buthelezi personified both black nationalism and Zulu traditionalism. But his ambitions were confronted with and limited by the growing influence of the ANC in the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">negotiations for a post-apartheid society</a>. This escalated into massive violent clashes between his <a href="https://www.ifp.org.za/">Inkatha Freedom Party</a> and the ANC. Thousands of people <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/161169">were killed</a>. </p>
<p>He was willing to cooperate closely with the apartheid regime in his aim to prevent the ANC from seizing power. This went as far as having Inkatha members receiving <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/1995-12-22-caprivi-200-the-year-of-the-generals/">military training from the apartheid government’s army</a>.</p>
<p>Buthelezi’s determination to prevent the establishment of a new post-apartheid dispensation in which he had no major role ended in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/161169">large-scale, deadly violence between IFP and ANC supporters</a> in today’s KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces. This escalated after the ANC and other liberation movements were unbanned in 1990. Thousands were killed ahead of the first democratic elections of 1994. </p>
<p>At the brink of civil war, Buthelezi – who originally <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/ifp-agrees-participate-1994-elections">refused to participate in the elections</a> – decided to add Inkatha to the ballot papers. This paved the way to reducing the violence and allowed President Nelson Mandela to co-opt Buthelezi as minister of home affairs in his cabinet.</p>
<p>Buthelezi kept the portfolio during the first term of Thabo Mbeki’s presidency. He also occasionally served as South Africa’s acting president.</p>
<h2>The last days</h2>
<p>With the decline of Inkatha in the <a href="https://www.eisa.org/pdf/JAE3.2Mottiar.pdf">2014 elections</a>, Buthelezi lost his cabinet post. He remained president of the IFP until 2019 and an MP until his death.</p>
<p>He had an uneasy relationship with <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/king-goodwill-zwelithini-kabhekuzulu">King Goodwill Zwelithini</a>, the Zulus monarch since 1971. With the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/22/king-goodwill-zwelithini-obituary">king’s death</a> in March 2021, Buthelezi re-engaged more intensively with the <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02424/04lv02730/05lv03005/06lv03006/07lv03068/08lv03074.htm">Zulu kingdom</a> and related politics. </p>
<p>Buthelezi should not be dismissed as a mere stooge during apartheid. Yet, he deserves little praise as an advocate for human rights and civil liberties. His appetite for power was always stronger. But no matter on which side of history he is placed, he will remain the only leader of a Bantustan who left an imprint on South Africa’s way to democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175871/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber 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>Buthelezi should not be dismissed as a mere stooge during apartheid. Yet, he deserves little praise as an advocate for human rights and civil liberties.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2105942023-08-16T20:10:23Z2023-08-16T20:10:23ZIt is not just heat waves — climate change is also a crisis of disconnection<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542024/original/file-20230809-28-ur0cq8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=42%2C0%2C4755%2C3160&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Political tribalism has severely hampered genuine action on climate change and developing more environmentally just practices and standards.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/it-is-not-just-heat-waves-climate-change-is-also-a-crisis-of-disconnection" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Climate change is widely recognized by the scientific community as “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60922-3">the biggest global health threat of the 21st century</a>.” </p>
<p>However, climate change isn’t just about greenhouse gas emissions. At its core, it is both a symptom and a cause for the centuries-long trend in declining social connection and community cohesion.</p>
<h2>A modern atomized life</h2>
<p>Consider this: If <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature.2017.22114">human history</a> was summarized in 100 minutes, modern life would only take shape in the last 30 or so seconds. </p>
<p>In these last 30 seconds, human beings began <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01019">domesticating plants and animals</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0965-40">built cities</a>, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=vgbJbZi00bQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=history+of+the+factory&ots=9UAgXOExlf&sig=5-Xc1cKNB8lOOguT21xyv8j7tPE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=history%20of%20the%20factory&f=false">invented factories</a> and began harnessing <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2876929">electric power</a>. These novelties <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3631212">totally revolutionized how we relate to each other</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24690565">the world around us</a>. </p>
<p>Prior to the modern age, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.03.005">most humans lived in small collective bands</a>, surrounded by extended family, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43050800">and hardly ever ventured far</a> from home. These traditional lifestyles are increasingly rare <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctv6q52rv">as the pressures of capitalism and colonialism homogenize our lives</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541767/original/file-20230808-27-i8u8og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An Indigenous community on the boundaries of a clear-cutting operation." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541767/original/file-20230808-27-i8u8og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541767/original/file-20230808-27-i8u8og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541767/original/file-20230808-27-i8u8og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541767/original/file-20230808-27-i8u8og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541767/original/file-20230808-27-i8u8og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541767/original/file-20230808-27-i8u8og.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541767/original/file-20230808-27-i8u8og.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>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clear-cutting operations in Brazil reveal with particular clarity the exponential growth of our demands upon this planet, in stark contrast to our ever shrinking social networks and communities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andre Penner)</span></span>
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<p>Across the globe, people <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/overview">increasingly live in cities</a> and are forced to abandon traditional lifestyles. <a href="https://www.americansurveycenter.org/why-mens-social-circles-are-shrinking/">Social networks have divided and grown smaller and smaller</a>. Despite efforts to resist declining social connection, we increasingly <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-015-0440-z/%22%22">organize ourselves into disconnected and competing family units</a>. As a result, rates of loneliness <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2021-067068">are elevated</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2021.06.006">and increasing</a> in nearly every global region and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2167696820962599">our attachments to one another are becoming less and less secure</a>.</p>
<h2>Consequences for our planet</h2>
<p>The consequences of modern life don’t end with <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/03/new-surgeon-general-advisory-raises-alarm-about-devastating-impact-epidemic-loneliness-isolation-united-states.html">growing rates of loneliness and social disconnection</a>. Indeed, in the same fraction of time that we revolutionized human social life, we have also dramatically increased our demand on the world around us — <a href="https://doi.org/10.1079/9781780642031.0005">clearing billions of acres of forests</a>, releasing <a href="https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-2057-2017">billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere</a> and <a>imposing vast infrastructure upon this planet and its non-human inhabitants</a>. Moreover, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10745-021-00237-w">we are losing traditional ecological knowledge needed to protect our environments</a>. These atomized lifestyle changes have been costly to the environment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A baby in a pram stares at a phone on a subway carriage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541963/original/file-20230809-16-tydw85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=48%2C0%2C5400%2C3564&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541963/original/file-20230809-16-tydw85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541963/original/file-20230809-16-tydw85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541963/original/file-20230809-16-tydw85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541963/original/file-20230809-16-tydw85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541963/original/file-20230809-16-tydw85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541963/original/file-20230809-16-tydw85.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Climate change is as much a crisis of disconnection with ourselves and our planet as it is a failure of policy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In addition to the more environmentally intensive lifestyles we now lead, our increasingly individualistic culture has emerged as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2019.100198/%22%22">key driver of environmental degradation</a>. Studies suggest that tribalism and polarization are stifling our ability <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40665-016-0018-z%22%22">to respond to the environmental threats we are increasingly facing</a>. </p>
<h2>A vicious feedback cycle</h2>
<p>Perhaps of greatest concern, it is apparent that there is a vicious feedback cycle between climate change and poor social cohesion. In fact, there is a growing body of research showing that climate change will not just be worsened by our social disconnectedness, but will itself contribute to greater disconnection. Climate change and our modern social ills are linked.</p>
<p>As exemplified by recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/style/modern-love-relationship-climate-change.html">media reports</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.623757">even close families and friends experience conflict over climate change</a>. Such conflicts may arise from disagreements about <a href="https://theethicalist.com/partner-does-not-care-climate-change/">how to live our lives in an environmentally conscious way</a> and this potential is increased by <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4168583">important gender differences in climate anxiety</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/eco-anxiety-climate-change-affects-our-mental-health-heres-how-to-cope-202477">Eco-anxiety: climate change affects our mental health – here's how to cope</a>
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<p>Couples worried about the future may therefore experience conflicts over <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-15674-z">whether to have kids</a>. For other couples, climate change may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-018-0690-7">reduce intimacy</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2023.1958">increase intimate partner violence</a> and threaten <a href="https://womendeliver.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Climate-Change-Report.pdf">sexual and reproductive wellbeing</a>. Indeed, there is compelling evidence that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-018-0690-7">unseasonably warm weather is associated with a decline in births</a> nine months later, which suggests that changes in the climate could impact intimacy between partners. Climate change is a wedge issue that has the potential to drive us further and further apart.</p>
<p>While the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91611-4">decision to not have kids may have many environmental benefits</a>, living and ageing without children can have its own difficulties – including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X22000824">increased risk for loneliness and isolation</a>. The feedback cycle goes both directions.</p>
<p>Moreover, at the population level, these impacts are compounded. Extreme weather effects can increase the rate of interpersonal violence. Declining birth rates lead to considerable economic impact. And mass migration creates cultural challenges such as those driving the re-emergence of extreme-right parties in Europe.</p>
<h2>The way out</h2>
<p>Put simply, human life has changed at a breakneck pace and our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpp.2022.12.005">biology, ecology and psychology have failed to keep up</a>. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182111303">Indigenous peoples have taught for centuries</a>, it’s time we recognize that all things are interconnected. If we don’t act, climate change will worsen our social bonds, which will only reduce our capacity to respond to the environmental threats that lie ahead. The climate will worsen and the cycle will continue.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fearmongering-about-people-fleeing-disasters-is-a-dangerous-and-faulty-narrative-200894">Fearmongering about people fleeing disasters is a dangerous and faulty narrative</a>
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<p>However, there is a way out of this vicious feedback loop: we can reverse the centuries-long trend in disconnection by treating social and environmental health on par with physical and mental health. </p>
<p>Our own research suggests that <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8226568">promoting social connection is key to reducing the harmful effects of climate change, including its effect on mental health</a>. Other studies also show that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625211020661">more connected we are, the better we will be able to discuss</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080%2F08941920.2019.1709002">respond to</a> climate change. </p>
<p>Of course, if the last few decades are any indication, we must acknowledge that social connection and cohesion is difficult to achieve. If modern life were conducive to healthy social lives, we would not be where we are today. </p>
<p>This is exactly why we need renewed public and philanthropic investments in social cohesion and community life. For example, <a href="https://www.friendshipbenchzimbabwe.org/">friendship benches in Zimbabwe</a> provide a leading example for how relying on and strengthening community <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08767-9">can help people live happier and healthier lives</a>. We must learn from communities leading the way across the globe if we are to survive and thrive in the midst of environmental change. Indeed, climate change requires us to come together.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kiffer George Card has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Health Research British Columbia, Canadian Red Cross, Public Health Agency of Canada, Government of British Columbia, and Canadian Institutes of Health Research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kalysha Closson receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship program.</span></em></p>Dealing with climate change requires us to address not just our carbon emissions but also the disconnection with ourselves and our planet which fuels ecological destruction.Kiffer George Card, Assistant Professor in Health Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser UniversityKalysha Closson, Adjunct Professor and Post Doctoral Fellow, Faculty of Health SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2079302023-07-19T14:08:02Z2023-07-19T14:08:02ZKenya’s politicians continue to use ethnicity to divide and rule – 60 years after independence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535299/original/file-20230703-259537-edbjvx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protesters in Kisumu confront police officers after Kenya's disputed 2017 elections. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since independence in 1963, Kenya’s politicians have fed and manipulated ethnicity to win elections. </p>
<p>With some 40-odd ethnic groups, Kenya is a country of ethnic minorities – it has no single dominant community. During elections, political parties and candidates <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/07/27/specter-of-politics-as-usual-in-kenya-s-2022-election-pub-87578">do raise policy issues</a>, but ethnicity, or tribalism as it’s popularly called in Kenya, is the default vote-hunting strategy. </p>
<p>With few deviations, voting is akin to an ethnic census. Leading presidential candidates are usually from the populous ethnic groups. Of Kenya’s five presidents – three have been Kikuyu and two Kalenjin – come from two of the country’s biggest communities. This has raised <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-62373083">issues of exclusion and fanned ethnic animosity</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320132659_The_Kenyan_State_and_the_Ethnicity_Challenge">My research</a> into <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Political-Power-Tribalism-Westen-Shilaho/dp/331965294X">ethnicity in Kenya</a> has found that it is central to political power. The two have a symbiotic relationship. In my view, ethnicity is not an expression of cultural identity or a reservoir of talent for nation building. It has been politicised and is linked to social status. It determines people’s fortunes, making it integral to social mobility, stagnation or regression.</p>
<p>Since no single ethnic group is populous enough to politically impose its will on others, winning presidential candidates have had to build alliances with other ethnic groups. Political elites have <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Political-Power-Tribalism-Westen-Shilaho/dp/331965294X">built ethnicity into the system of governance and administration</a>. </p>
<p>For self-preservation, successive governments have arbitrarily <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/kenyans-of-indian-descent-become-44th-tribe-428220">created more ethnic groups</a>. They have cemented ethnically based administrative units and emphasised ethnic differences. </p>
<p>This has normalised the exploitation of ethnicity for political and economic gain. The populace buys into ethnic politics under the false hope that their respective ethnic leaders will help them better their lives.</p>
<h2>How ethnicity plays out</h2>
<p>Throughout 60 years of independence, Kenya has held <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322533176_'I_do_not_know_who_won_the_elections'_How_Not_to_Conduct_Elections_and_Kenya's_Democratic_Reversals">inconclusive elections</a> marred by rigging and executive interference. The transitional elections held in 2002 and 2022, however, were exceptions. Electoral disputes are <a href="https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=scr">often protracted</a>. They can degenerate into <a href="https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/ethnicity-and-violence-new-dynamics-kenyas-elections-35968">inter-ethnic violence</a>. </p>
<p>Ethnic politics in Kenya manifests itself in four major ways. </p>
<p>First, the Kenyan state is <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347999393_Ethnicity_and_Political_Pluralism_in_Kenya_in_Journal_of_African_Elections_Special_Issue_Kenya_72_pp_77-112">colonial in orientation</a>. It is extractive, discriminatory and oppressive. It is also insidiously ethnicised, elitist and classist. Successive Kenyan presidents, starting with the first, Jomo Kenyatta, anchored the state to ethnicity. </p>
<p>Second, historical land injustices in which communities and individuals have been dispossessed of their ancestral land – first by colonialists and then the post-colonial elite – manifests in ethnic politics and electoral violence. A lack of justice across the board, and especially for <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-prosecutor-international-criminal-court-fatou-bensouda-status-government-kenyas-0">victims of state-instigated ethnic violence</a>, has also contributed to ethnic consciousness. </p>
<p>Third, institutional disregard for the rule of law makes ethnic politics attractive, with the political elite evoking it to evade accountability. Their deliberate effort to erase memory and distort Kenya’s contested history fuels ethnicity, too. So does a lack of trust among the people, and between the people and the government. </p>
<p>Fourth, ethno-regional political figures – essentially, personality cults – have an outsized influence on Kenyans’ psyche and political choices. This comes at the expense of civic identity, personal agency and a pursuit of collective aspirations. </p>
<p>Ethnicity often <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-political-elites-switch-parties-with-every-election-how-this-fuels-violence-205005">determines party loyalty</a>. Individuals form political parties under the assumption that members of their ethnic group will rally behind them. Further, since independence, the president’s co-ethnics have <a href="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/nairobi/article/2001385110/six-tribes-dominate-top-government-jobs-report">disproportionately held state positions</a>. </p>
<p>Ethnicity has been on the upsurge with urbanisation in Kenya. Contrary to popular belief, the <a href="https://www.khrc.or.ke/index.php/publications/183-ethnicity-and-politicization-in-kenya/file">Kenyan elite are fixated on ethnicity</a> – not the masses – since it determines access to the benefits of modernity. The elite tend to advance their political and economic interests through ethnicity. This has made it pervasive in the media, academy, politics, religious formations, civil society and state apparatus.</p>
<p>There is a link between ethnicity, elite ambitions and the impact of modernisation. Missionary education and the spread of infrastructure affected Kenyan communities differently. So did nature, which gave some communities arable land and others harsh environments. Disparities in development provide a basis for ethnicity. </p>
<h2>False starts</h2>
<p>Kenya’s <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/lex/actview.xql?actid=Const2010">2010 constitution</a> sought to neutralise ethnicity. It requires that state appointments <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/lex/actview.xql?actid=Const2010#chp_Seven">reflect Kenya’s diversity and enhance inclusivity</a>. It also seeks to <a href="https://klrc.go.ke/index.php/constitution-of-kenya/172-chapter-seven-representation-of-the-people/part-3-political-parties/258-91-basic-requirements-for-political-parties">streamline political parties</a> to enhance national cohesion and harmony. </p>
<p>The constitution also provides for the <a href="https://klrc.go.ke/index.php/constitution-of-kenya/139-chapter-eleven-devolved-government/part-1-objects-and-principles-of-devolved-government/343-174-objects-of-devolution">devolution of power and resources</a> through county governments. This aims to cure winner-take-all politics, which has fuelled resentment and animosity. </p>
<p>The constitution, however, is only as good as society’s political culture and norms. It cannot transform Kenyan society by itself. Governance shortfalls and excesses that have undermined the state for decades persist. </p>
<p>Ethnicity hasn’t always been Kenya’s bugbear. In elections held before independence in 1962, for instance, candidates won elections on the strength of vision and national appeal. <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/weekly-review/kenya-s-president-who-never-was-cia-files-reveal-fresh-details-about-tom-mboya-4297404#:%7E:text=Two%20years%20before%20Mboya%20was,he%20had%20acquired%20many%20enemies.">Tom Mboya</a>, a Luo, defeated <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/jomo-s-foreign-minister-dr-munyua-waiyaki-dies-at-91-389930">Munyua Waiyaki</a>, a Kikuyu, in a Kikuyu-dominated constituency. </p>
<p>However, ethnic consciousness heightened after a fallout among the post-colonial elite. The quest to monopolise political power and control national resources raised the stakes. This resulted in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Political-Power-Tribalism-Westen-Shilaho/dp/331965294X">political assassinations, authoritarianism and a constriction of the political space</a>. Some politicians abandoned policy-oriented programmatic politics and resorted to ethnic mobilisation to claw back receding influence. </p>
<p>Kenya’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-young-voters-have-a-dilemma-they-dislike-ethnic-politics-but-feel-trapped-in-it-186855">inability to transcend the ethnic ideology</a> has made it hard to devise alternative bases for political organisation. </p>
<h2>Class vs tribe</h2>
<p>Kinship ties and ethnic bigotry have trumped class-based national identities. In the lead-up to Kenya’s 2022 elections, opponents of class politics <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2022/07/three-reasons-ethnicity-will-count-for-less-in-kenya-upcoming-vote/">equated it to ethnic politics</a>. They claimed it sought to incite the poor against the rich. </p>
<p>Unlike ethnic politics, however, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/122/487/205/7133587">class politics is programmatic</a>. It is not based on primordial identities and differences. It affords people an opportunity to resolve social, economic and political concerns through the ballot. </p>
<p>William Ruto, as a presidential candidate in 2022, shifted the discourse from <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-election-promises-an-economists-perspective-186480">ethnicity to the economy</a> through a “<a href="https://globalchallenges.ch/issue/9/hustlers-versus-dynasty-kenyas-new-class-politics/">hustlers vs dynasties</a>” ideology. He prevailed. Had Ruto designed his <a href="https://theconversation.com/william-ruto-how-kenyas-new-president-took-on-powerful-political-dynasties-178787">strategy</a> solely around ethnicity, he would likely have been defeated – the opposition lived true to tradition and crafted a <a href="https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2021/12/raila-unveils-odm-led-azimio-la-umoja-alliance-for-2022-race/">broader ethnic alliance</a>.</p>
<p>While Ruto’s margin of victory was thin – just over <a href="https://www.iebc.or.ke/uploads/resources/QLTlLJx0Vr.pdf#page=3">230,000 votes</a> – it illustrates that Kenya is not impervious to class politics as an alternative form of political organisation. </p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>Moving away from ethnic politics requires an overhaul of the Kenyan state to ensure social justice, the rule of law and access to opportunities for all. This would begin to dismantle ethnicity as an operative ideology. </p>
<p>It requires decolonising the state to rid it of oppressive, extractive and predatory inclinations. This has to start with an overhaul of the education system to make it relevant to Kenyan society. There is need to empower the minds of citizens by instilling in them a sense of national pride and consciousness. </p>
<p>The trouble is that the political elite have no incentive for such reform – it would render them vulnerable to a conscious citizenry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Westen K Shilaho 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>Kenya’s inability to move past ethnic ideology has made it difficult to develop alternative bases for political organisation.Westen K Shilaho, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for PanAfrican Thought and Conversation (IPATC), University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2082422023-07-09T11:35:15Z2023-07-09T11:35:15ZKenya at 60: six key moments that shaped post-colonial politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533521/original/file-20230622-8708-1flywg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kenya's first president Jomo Kenyatta waves at a crowd. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harry Benson/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Kenya celebrates 60 years of independence this year. As a political scientist who has <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/lynch/">studied</a> Kenya for the past 20 years, I consider a turning point from each decade that helped to shape the east African country’s post-colonial politics. I haven’t selected elections, assassinations or other moments that have enjoyed much coverage over the years. Instead, I turn to often-forgotten moments that shed light on the country’s key steps forward – and backwards – and the role of agency and institutions.</em></p>
<h2>1964: The Lanet mutiny</h2>
<p>In the 1960s and 1970s, governments across <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170808104534id_/http://www.jonathanmpowell.com/uploads/2/9/9/2/2992308/mcgowan_2003jmas_-_african_military_coups_1956-2001-_frequency_trends_and_distribution.pdf">Africa fell</a> to military coups and countercoups. These nations suffered the arbitrary and authoritarian rule of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/ethnic-inequalities-in-kenya/EAFC4455E840815B624147EE930C1C34">military leaders</a>. </p>
<p>Kenya managed to avoid this fate. A regiment based at Lanet in Nakuru did stage an unsuccessful mutiny in 1964. In response, Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta – as Kenyan political scholar <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-kenyan-politics-9780192887429?cc=us&lang=en&#">Musambayi Katumanga</a> has detailed – opted to keep the military small. He relied instead on various police units. </p>
<p>Kenyatta also “gradually altered the military’s ethnic composition”, which, at that time, was disproportionately composed of officers from Kalenjin, Kamba, Samburu and Somali communities. He increased the number of co-ethnic Kikuyu, Kenya’s largest and most economically dominant ethnic group. </p>
<p>These measures helped to ensure the military’s loyalty to the regime. But at a cost. The multiplication of security units undermined control and <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-kenyan-politics-9780192887429?cc=us&lang=en&#">accountabiliy</a>. </p>
<p>The strategy of ethnic recruitment and promotion reinforced a sense of an ethnically biased state. It was a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-kenyan-politics-9780192887429?cc=us&lang=en&#">strategy copied</a> by Kenyatta’s successor, Daniel arap Moi, after a <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/nation-prime/how-ochuka-coup-attempt-changed-kenya-1910656">coup attempt in 1982</a>. Kenya’s third president, Mwai Kibaki, also adopted it after the country’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2013/3/3/kenya-what-went-wrong-in-2007">2007/8 post-election crisis</a>.</p>
<h2>1976: The Change the Constitution Movement</h2>
<p>By the mid-1970s, Kenyatta was unwell. To prevent the automatic succession of his vice-president, Moi, a group of prominent Kikuyu politicians attempted to <a href="https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft9h4nb6fv&chunk.id=d0e2582&toc.depth=1&brand=ucpress">change the constitution</a>. Their efforts were unsuccessful. Power transferred peacefully to Moi upon Kenyatta’s death in 1978. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the attempt had three important legacies:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the military had once again been kept out of national politics </p></li>
<li><p>the new president was made acutely aware of the insecurity of his position</p></li>
<li><p>a popular sense grew of how a Kikuyu elite felt entitled to rule.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>1980: The crackdown begins</h2>
<p>For the first year or so, Moi largely followed in Kenyatta’s footsteps, or “nyayo” in Kiswahili. He blocked any real opposition but left space for broader political debate. </p>
<p>However, in 1980, Moi’s more authoritarian streak began to show. He banned the Nairobi University Students’ Organisation and deregistered the University Academic Staff Union and Kenya Civil Servants Union. He also ordered ethnicity-based associations to wind up their affairs in the interest of “national unity”. </p>
<p>Authoritarianism came to characterise the 1980s as people were required to follow in Moi’s footsteps. </p>
<h2>1990: Timothy Njoya’s new year speech</h2>
<p>In November 1991, the <a href="https://clubdeparis.org/">Paris Club of donors</a>, an informal group of western creditors, suspended US$350 million in aid to Kenya until political reforms were initiated. The following month, a constitutional amendment was rushed through parliament, paving the way for a return to multi-party elections. </p>
<p>This timeline could mistakenly be taken to suggest that it was donor pressure that forced constitutional reform. But there was already substantive pressure for multi-party politics from within Kenya. </p>
<p>A tidal change occurred at the dawn of 1990 when, in a new year speech, theologian Timothy Njoya <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tmmTQgt0iXQC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=i+say+to+you+ethnic+politics+kenya+lynch+&ots=u7HbNNpU6Q&sig=Fc0hDJagdL31LFjKxkRkf8E4qkc&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=i%20say%20to%20you%20ethnic%20politics%20kenya%20lynch&f=false">speculated</a> on how much longer Kenya would be a one-party state. Opposition elements –- most notably, religious and civil society leaders, and politicians marginalised from the political centre –- became increasingly vocal in their demands for multi-party politics.</p>
<p>It was these domestic demands – together with the threat of suspended aid – that forced Moi’s hand and prompted a return to multi-party politics in the early 1990s. Still, Moi <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-kenyan-politics-9780192887429?cc=us&lang=en&#">sought to control</a> the transition. </p>
<h2>2005: The constitutional referendum</h2>
<p>In 2002, Kibaki and the National Rainbow Coalition ousted independence party Kanu in a landslide victory. This prompted a moment of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3518447">great optimism</a> in Kenya. </p>
<p>However, divisions soon wracked the coalition as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10246029.2005.9627591">reports emerged</a> of corruption scandals and ethnic bias. Promises of constitutional reform were watered down. Popular frustration showed when Kenyans rejected the draft constitution in the 2005 <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00020180601035674">referendum</a>.</p>
<p>The referendum and general elections that followed meant that Kenya was in intense campaign period for over two years. This elongated campaign drew attention to frustrated hopes. It also presented the government as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00020180601035674">from and for the Kikuyu</a>. </p>
<p>The referendum also increased confidence in the electoral commission. This meant that people paid relatively little attention to developments like Kibaki’s unilateral <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17531055.2019.1592326">judicial appointments</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, the referendum fostered a sense that the opposition would win the 2007 election unless it was rigged. Together with a <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/67654/elections-ke-2007.pdf">problematic election</a> and history of unpunished election-related violence, these factors fuelled Kenya’s greatest post-colonial crisis. More than 1,000 people were killed and almost <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03056240903346194">700,000 displaced</a> in violence after the 2007 election.</p>
<h2>2011: A new chief justice</h2>
<p>The 2007/8 crisis paved the way for a new <a href="http://www.parliament.go.ke/sites/default/files/2023-03/The_Constitution_of_Kenya_2010.pdf">constitution</a> in 2010. Among other things, it devolved power to 47 new county governments. It also established a new bill of rights and created the supreme court. The latter has exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine presidential election petitions, and determine appeals from the court of appeal. It also determines cases that involve interpretation or application of the constitution. </p>
<p>As the highest court in the land, the leadership of the supreme court is critical. It marked a turning point when Willy Mutunga –- a highly respected human rights advocate –- was appointed as the court’s first chief justice. Some criticise Mutunga for having <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17531055.2015.1029296">validated</a> Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto’s election in 2013. However, he also presided over <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/journals/SPECJU/2015/6.html">decisions</a> that protected the devolution of power and the bill of rights. And he oversaw <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/article/kenyas-democracy-hinges-strong-chief-justice">reforms and judicial learnings</a> that helped to establish a more independent court. Reforms that – together with his successor’s brave leadership – made the supreme court’s <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-election-court/kenyan-court-scraps-presidential-vote-kenyatta-calls-for-calm-idUSKCN1BC4A5">annulment of the August 2017 election</a> possible.</p>
<p>The lesson from these moments: individuals can make a difference for good or bad, particularly when they help to reshape the institutions that will outlive them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208242/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In recent years Gabrielle Lynch has received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and University of Warwick. </span></em></p>Jomo Kenyatta and his successor Daniel arap Moi set the tone for ethnic and authoritarian politics which Kenya has wrestled to free itself from in recent decades.Gabrielle Lynch, Professor of Comparative Politics, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2069902023-06-08T14:08:37Z2023-06-08T14:08:37ZKenya’s opposition wants to split up the country – but secession calls seldom succeed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530907/original/file-20230608-22-hj7i1j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kenya’s opposition politicians recently called for <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/azimio-to-push-for-secession-in-battle-with-ruto-as-talks-stall--4248456">secession</a> – which is the withdrawal of territory and sovereignty from part of an existing state to create a new state. Led by Raila Odinga, who received <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-62554210">48.8%</a> of the presidential vote in Kenya’s 2022 election, the politicians want the country split into two republics to create a new state for Kenyans unhappy with President William Ruto’s leadership.</p>
<p>Calls for secession are not a new political phenomenon in Kenya. </p>
<p>Even before the territory gained independence from Britain in 1963, some Kenyan Somalis had <a href="https://medium.com/@muturi/kenya-that-was-never-kenyan-the-shifta-war-the-north-eastern-kenya-e7fc3dd31865">sought to secede</a> and join neighbouring Somalia. And the <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/kenyas-mombasa-republican-council-liberators-or-nascent-radical-fanatics">Mombasa Republican Council</a>, established in the 1990s, has called for an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/06/kenya-ocean-coast-secessionist-party">independent state</a> for the coastal people, citing their marginalisation.</p>
<p>Opposition groups also made <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/112/446/48/10197">secession calls</a> after Kenya’s 2007-08 <a href="https://www.csis.org/blogs/smart-global-health/background-post-election-crisis-kenya">post-election violence</a>. These calls were repeated in the run-up to the elections in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-kenya-coast-mrc-idUKBRE86M0H820120723">2013</a>. Then in 2017, a bill tabled in parliament proposed creating a <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/mp-peter-kaluma-drafts-bill-for-secession-of-40-counties-476322?view=htmlamp">People’s Republic of Kenya</a> from 40 of the country’s current 47 counties. Geographically, this new republic would retain nearly 87% of Kenya’s population and 97% of the land mass, leaving behind a nation that would not be economically viable. </p>
<p>Secessionist movements around the world usually result from the belief by some groups within a region or state that they aren’t able to exercise their right to <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2013/gashc4085.doc.htm">self-determination</a>. This is their right to determine “<a href="https://press.un.org/en/2013/gashc4085.doc.htm">their own future, political status and independence</a>”, according to the UN. </p>
<p>Self-determination can be <a href="https://pesd.princeton.edu/node/511#:%7E:text=External%20self%2Ddetermination%20is%20the,an%20exercise%20of%20self%2Ddetermination.">external or internal</a>: full independence from other states, or access to political and social rights within a state. The two kinds are related. When governments fail to guarantee internal self-determination, affected groups may seek secession, or external self-determination. </p>
<p>The politicians calling for secession in Kenya argue that some Kenyans have been <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/azimio-to-push-for-secession-in-battle-with-ruto-as-talks-stall--4248456">systematically deprived</a> of the right to participate in the country’s government and economy. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-muslims-a-divided-community-with-little-political-clout-184436">Kenya's Muslims: a divided community with little political clout</a>
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<p>Aggrieved groups may seek to form their own independent sovereign state, like the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51094093">Biafrans of Nigeria</a> did between 1967 and 1970. Or they may seek to join another independent state, as the <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/oped/comment/what-can-kenya-s-budding-secessionist-movement-learn-from-elsewhere--1378732">Somalis of Kenya</a> did in the 1960s. </p>
<p>In my view as a legal scholar and economist who has studied the political economy in Africa for close to two decades, any group in Kenya that unilaterally declares independence is unlikely to find support on the continent. Additionally, Kenyan politicians have yet to prove that aggrieved groups have been systematically denied the right to participate in the government and the economy in meaningful ways. </p>
<h2>Colonial borders</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/en/article/the-african-union-totally-rejects-the-so-called-declaration-of-independence-by-a-rebel-group-in-northern-mali">African Union</a> has been against secession since it was first established as the Organisation of African Unity in <a href="https://au.int/en/overview">1963</a>. </p>
<p>The organisation refused to intervene in the Nigerian civil war sparked by the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51094093">Biafran secession of 1967</a>, calling it an internal affair. And in Mali, in response to the declaration of the independent state of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/ozatp-mali-20120406-idAFJOE83500820120406">Azawad</a> by northern Tuaregs in 2012, the union rejected this, terming it “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/ozatp-mali-20120406-idAFJOE83500820120406">null and of no value whatsoever</a>”. </p>
<p>The union’s chairperson at the time, <a href="https://www.peaceau.org/uploads/auc-comm-mali-2-06-04-2012.docx-eng.pdf">Jean Ping</a>, emphasised the </p>
<blockquote>
<p>fundamental principle of the intangibility of borders inherited by African countries at their accession to independence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This echoes <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf#page=8">Article 4(b)</a> of the Constitutive Act of the African Union. It states that the continental organisation shall respect the borders that existed at independence. The act also calls on the union to defend the <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf#page=7">territorial integrity</a> of its member states. This presents it with a dilemma when it comes to addressing secessionist movements. </p>
<p>The answer to this dilemma is for the African Union to establish a legal mechanism for recognising legitimate struggles for secession. These include struggles that offer a <a href="https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=114130#:%7E:text=Van%20Der%20Driest%20defines%20remedial,or%20domestic%20constitutional%20authorization%2C%20yet">remedy</a> for grave and systematic injustices.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-breakdown-of-biafra-separatism-and-where-kanu-fits-into-the-picture-166235">A breakdown of Biafra separatism, and where Kanu fits into the picture</a>
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<p>This was seen in South Sudan in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14069082">2011</a>. The South Sudanese people based their push to secede on the argument that since independence in <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2011/0721/South-Sudan-5-key-questions-answered/Why-did-the-Republic-of-South-Sudan-secede-from-the-North#:%7E:text=The%20decision%20to%20secede%20can,Sudan%20became%20independent%20in%201956.">1956</a>, Khartoum had systematically marginalised them and denied them the right to pursue their political, economic and social development within a united Sudan. </p>
<p>At the end of a brutal civil war (<a href="https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/sudan-2nd-civil-war-darfur/">1985 to 2005</a>), the warring parties signed a peace agreement. It granted southerners the option to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12317927">pursue self-determination</a>. Sudan <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20100628-sudan-agrees-commission-southern-referendum">approved</a> of South Sudan’s independence push.</p>
<p>National governments can also establish constitutional processes that allow aggrieved groups to peacefully and constitutionally petition for separation. This has been done in the <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9104/">UK</a> and <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-31.8/page-1.html">Canada</a>. Such constitutional mechanisms <a href="https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/secession">can encourage</a> aggrieved groups to seek internal instead of external self-determination.</p>
<p>While secession can involve the use of force – as it did in Biafra and South Sudan – it can also be achieved through peaceful means. Scotland’s ongoing bid to become independent of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-16/nicola-sturgeon-resigned-what-s-next-for-scottish-independence#xj4y7vzkg">Britain</a> is a case in point. </p>
<h2>Kenya’s obstacles</h2>
<p>Secession by Kenya’s aggrieved groups or peoples is unlikely to succeed as it faces four major obstacles.</p>
<p>First, as is clear from the African Union’s <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/pages/34873-file-constitutiveact_en.pdf">Constitutive Act</a>, any move to interfere with Kenya’s territorial integrity is unlikely to be supported by the organisation. </p>
<p>Second, it’s not likely that the post-secession state will gain the approval of the UN Security Council and then that of two-thirds of the UN General Assembly to be admitted to the UN. This is largely because the secessionists have not yet made a credible case for splitting Kenya into two states. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ghanas-secessionist-conflict-has-its-genesis-in-colonialism-its-time-to-reflect-158953">Ghana's secessionist conflict has its genesis in colonialism: it's time to reflect</a>
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<p>Third, secession as <a href="https://nation.africa/kenya/news/politics/azimio-to-push-for-secession-in-battle-with-ruto-as-talks-stall--4248456">envisioned</a> by Kenya’s opposition will create two states, one of which is not likely to be economically viable. This could lead to a civil war. </p>
<p>Fourth, the <a href="http://kenyalaw.org/kl/index.php?id=3979#:%7E:text=The%20Constitution%20of%20Kenya%2C%202010,specified%20in%20the%20First%20Schedule.">2010 constitution</a> <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/kenya/brief/kenyas-devolution">devolved power</a> from the central government in Nairobi in favour of local communities in 47 regions. This significantly improved the ability of various groups to govern themselves and participate in their own economic, social and cultural development. </p>
<p>Politicians and aggrieved groups need to exercise the right to self-determination through this decentralised governance process. Through it, they can help create a participatory, inclusive and development-oriented government and economy in a united Kenya.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206990/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Mukum Mbaku 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>Calls to secede have been heard from time to time in Kenya – most often around elections.John Mukum Mbaku, Professor, Weber State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2010992023-03-13T12:24:32Z2023-03-13T12:24:32ZThe Banyamulenge: how a minority ethnic group in the DRC became the target of rebels – and its own government<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513396/original/file-20230303-18-fisnxr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Banyamulenge community members at the funeral of one of their own in eastern DRC.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexis Huguet/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Banyamulenge are a minority ethnic group in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In December 2022, the UN adviser on the prevention of genocide raised concerns about attacks against the community based on “<a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/december-2022/un-special-adviser-prevention-genocide-condemns-escalation-fighting-drc">ethnicity or perceived allegiance with neighbouring countries</a>”. The Banyamulenge have <a href="https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/2071779/ACCORD_DR+Congo_Situation+of+Banyamulenge.pdf">long been viewed</a> as not being Congolese. The government, however, has often dismissed claims that the community is facing targeted attacks <a href="https://www.politico.cd/encontinu/2022/11/24/pretendus-discours-de-haine-en-rdc-une-fiction-qui-ressemble-aux-discours-segregationnistes-portes-par-le-rwanda-patrick-muyaya.html/121636/">as fiction</a>. Delphin R Ntanyoma, who has <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behind-Scenes-Banyamulenge-Military-extinction/dp/2343186979">extensively researched</a> the Banyamulenge, explains why they are facing persecution.</em></p>
<h2>Who are the Banyamulenge and how has their status changed over time?</h2>
<p>The Banyamulenge live in eastern DRC in South Kivu province. They are mostly seen as affiliated to the Tutsi of the <a href="https://www.africangreatlakesinform.org/page/african-great-lakes">African Great Lakes region</a>, and they speak a language close to Kirundi (Burundi) and Kinyarwanda (Rwanda). The Banyamulenge settled in South Kivu between the 16th and 18th centuries, having come from what are today Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. They are largely cattle keepers. </p>
<p>They mostly occupy the southern part of South Kivu province: the Fizi, Mwenga and Uvira territories. In the 1960s and 1970s, some Banyamulenge moved to Katanga in the DRC’s southern region. The region has rich pastures for cattle herding and is close to the large cities of Lubumbashi and Mbujimayi, providing business opportunities. However, in 1998, nearly 20,000 Banyamulenge were forced to flee Katanga after they were <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Hornet/irin_10298.html">attacked for being “foreigners”</a>. </p>
<p>Since 1984, the DRC has not organised a <a href="https://securelivelihoods.org/wp-content/uploads/DRC-census-working-paper-fina-online.pdf">general census</a>. The historian <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/nl/title/banyamulenge-qui-sont-ils-dou-viennent-ils-quel-role-ont-ils-joue-et-pourquoi-dans-le-processus-de-la-liberation-du-zaire/oclc/42719868">Joseph Mutambo</a> estimated the group had around 400,000 people in 1997. There are no clear estimates today, but it’s safe to assume that they have grown in number. </p>
<p>Colonial history in the Great Lakes region has categorised local communities into <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-history-matters-in-understanding-conflict-in-the-eastern-democratic-republic-of-congo-148546">“native” and “immigrants”</a>. Farmers are seen as native, while cattle herders are largely perceived as immigrants, foreigners and invaders. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-history-matters-in-understanding-conflict-in-the-eastern-democratic-republic-of-congo-148546">Why history matters in understanding conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo</a>
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<p>Based on these assumptions, the Banyamulenge have been viewed as foreigners and were <a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/worldreport/Africa-04.htm">denied citizenship in the 1980s</a>. A decade later, the Congolese state <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/congo/drc-banyamulenge-seeking-political-solution-tensions">sought to expel them</a> after a parliamentary resolution to send back all Rwandan and Burundian descendants. </p>
<p>This added to the perception that the Banyamulenge were “invaders”. I have researched the drivers of violence in South and North Kivu for six years, with a focus on the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behind-Scenes-Banyamulenge-Military-extinction/dp/2343186979">Banyamulenge situation</a>. It’s clear that much of the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/14687968211009895">violence targeting them</a> revolves around the misconception that they are <a href="https://www.jpolrisk.com/the-banyamulenge-genocide-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-on-the-interplay-of-minority-groups-discrimination-and-humanitarian-assistance-failure/">strangers in their own country</a>. </p>
<h2>Who’s who on the list of their political adversaries?</h2>
<p>The Banyamulenge’s political adversaries range from local politicians to armed groups and militias. Most of the politicians who rally their constituents against the Banyamulenge are from neighbouring ethnic communities. These include the Babembe, Bafuliro, Banyindu and Bavira. Members of these ethnic communities consider themselves “native”. Political figures outside South Kivu have also spread the idea that the Banyamulenge are outsiders. </p>
<p>Those who take issue with the Banyamulenge claim to be protecting their country from “invaders”. This has led to armed mobilisations and the use of local militias, like the MaiMai and Biloze-Bishambuke. These militias have vowed to <a href="https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/genocide-warning-the-vulnerability-of-banyamulenge-invaders">expel the Banyamulenge or eliminate them</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-conflicts-intertwined-over-time-and-destabilised-the-drc-and-the-region-185432">How conflicts intertwined over time and destabilised the DRC – and the region</a>
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<p>Since 2017, Burundian rebel groups like Red-Tabara and Forces Nationales de Liberation have joined local militias in attacks against the Banyamulenge. The Red-Tabara’s involvement raised questions about <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-burundi-rwanda-un-idUSKCN0VD04K">Rwanda’s role</a> after UN reports claimed that the country had supported the rebel group with logistical and training skills. </p>
<h2>How are the Banyamulenge targeted?</h2>
<p>The Banyamulenge have been targeted by Congolese security services and local militias in major attacks <a href="https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Hornet/irin_brf2287.html">in 1996</a>, <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/report/27798/drc-belgium-pursues-case-against-ex-minister-icj">1998</a> and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/africa/burundi/2004/0904/index.htm">2004</a>. </p>
<p>A new wave of violence against the group <a href="https://www.ifri.org/fr/publications/notes-de-lifri/province-sud-kivu-un-champ-de-bataille-multidimensionnel-meconnu">began in 2017</a>, and has since led to the deaths of thousands of civilians and the destruction of <a href="https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/rapport-sur-les-attaques-anti-banyamulenge-en-rd-congo">hundreds of villages</a>. That year was marked by <a href="https://theconversation.com/2017-the-year-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-would-like-to-forget-88170">intensifying conflict in the DRC</a> over election delays. </p>
<p>The looting of Banyamulenge-owned cattle has been a constant occurrence <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26309798">since the 1960s</a>. Cattle constitute a major source of income and livelihood, and looting has worked as a strategy to impoverish the community and jeopardise their future. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/burundis-gatumba-massacre-offers-a-window-into-the-past-and-future-of-the-drc-conflict-191351">Burundi's Gatumba massacre offers a window into the past and future of the DRC conflict</a>
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<p>Due to the widespread destruction of villages, the remaining Banyamulenge in South Kivu live in small localities like Minembwe, Murambya/Bijombo, Mikenge and Bibokoboko. They continue to face <a href="https://kivutimes.com/minembwe-attaque-des-mai-mai-biloze-bishambuke-ilunga-et-yakutumba-plusieurs-villages-sous-le-feu-la-societe-civile-alerte-les-autorites/">regular and coordinated attacks</a>, which have prevented the community from accessing pastures and farmland beyond a two-kilometre radius. </p>
<p>Armed militias in South Kivu have <a href="https://www.jpolrisk.com/the-banyamulenge-genocide-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-on-the-interplay-of-minority-groups-discrimination-and-humanitarian-assistance-failure/">prevented and constrained</a> humanitarian organisations from getting aid into Banyamulenge settlements. </p>
<p>Hate speech has played a major role in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2022.2078578">fuelling violence</a> against the community. Twitter, Facebook, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG2YPRq3Uqw">YouTube</a> and other social media platforms have thousands of posts and videos that claim the Banyamulenge are not Congolese citizens and shouldn’t be in the country. </p>
<p>Such dehumanising and hateful speech feeds the minds and hearts of young people, mainly men, who consider attacks against the Banyamulenge a <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/5253c0784.html">“noble” cause</a>. <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/blog/democratic-republic-of-congo-rising-concern-banyamulenge">Researchers</a> and <a href="https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/hate-speech-and-genocide-in-minembwe-d-r-congo">activists</a> have called for greater attention to be paid to these attacks.</p>
<h2>Who’s behind the attacks?</h2>
<p>The Banyamulenge are targeted because they are viewed as “foreigners”. For decades, local armed groups and militias have mobilised to get rid of those perceived as invaders. This ideology is transmitted across generations. </p>
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<p>In addition, the Congolese national army has played a role in enabling attacks against the Banyamulenge by <a href="https://twitter.com/KivuSecurity/status/1304083139334156289">providing ammunition to militias</a> or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXYdu8U7At0">opening breaches when rebels attack civilians</a>. Huge destruction has taken place in areas where the <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2019/10/28/eastern-Congo-Kivu-conflict-regional-tensions">Congolese army is present</a> but didn’t intervene. </p>
<p>There are three possible reasons for the army’s general inaction. First, some military commanders and soldiers may believe the narrative that the Banyamulenge are not Congolese. Second, some military commanders create chaos and conflict pocket zones to serve one or more protagonists in the <a href="https://www.africangreatlakesinform.org/page/african-great-lakes">Great Lakes region</a>. Third, violence allows military commanders to access operational funds – and looted cattle can be turned into money.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Delphin R. Ntanyoma 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 Banyamulenge have been viewed as strangers in their own country – the violence targeting them revolves around this misconception.Delphin R. Ntanyoma, Visiting Researcher, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1975542023-01-18T14:50:47Z2023-01-18T14:50:47ZAl-Shabaab is just a symptom of Somalia’s tragedy – the causes are still in place<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504205/original/file-20230112-52283-w708x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abdurashid Abdulle Abikar/AFP via GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For at least 14 years now, the militant group Al-Shabaab has <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/al-shabaab">terrorised</a> the southern region of Somalia. Its ambition is to impose a tyrannical dictatorship over the entire country through fear and brutality. To achieve its aims, it has sought to oust the Somali government and its foreign military allies. </p>
<p>I have been a student of Somali political economy for over three decades. I <a href="https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/1690.htm">predicted the collapse</a> of the Somali state and political order 33 years ago. That analysis foretold the miserable conditions Somalis have endured since. The political and humanitarian catastrophe predates the terrorist group’s rise – thus, Al-Shabaab is a symptom rather than the cause of Somalia’s misfortune. </p>
<p>There are two main forces responsible for the catastrophe that is Somalia. The dominant faction of the Somali political class is the chief culprit. Their agenda has been to attain power and loot the country’s resources for private gain. </p>
<p>Second is the international community, who are the junior partners of the political class. Based on my observations, representatives of western and African governments fear that Somalia could become a base for “terrorists”, which might destabilise the strategic Horn of Africa. But they are unwilling to engage with civic and independent-minded Somalis. </p>
<p>Most of the expatriate people I have encountered in my research and interacted with in my civic activities see tribalism as a Somali’s defining political character. Such a view dates back to the colonial era when colonisers segmented African people into ethnic camps to divide and rule them. </p>
<p>Out of this has emerged a strange marriage of convenience between the Somali political class and the diplomatic community. Each pretends progress is being made. The truth is that little progress has been made in reforming the political disorder. And much less has been done to tackle the country’s urgent human and development needs.</p>
<p>It’s likely that the terrorist group will be defeated one day. But there are no signs that the political elite is willing or capable of changing, short of a radical shift in international pressure or a determined public. As I argue in my recent <a href="https://africaworldpressbooks.com/framing-somalia-beyond-africas-merchants-of-misery-by-abdi-ismail-samatar/">book</a>, unfortunately the tragedy might fester for decades, with or without Al-Shabaab. </p>
<h2>Al-Shabaab’s midwife</h2>
<p>In its first decade of independence, Somali leaders <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Africas-First-Democrats-Somalias-Abdirazak/dp/0253022304">stood out in Africa</a> for democratic rule by respecting the rule of law, the independence of public institutions and electoral terms. Nevertheless, Somalia’s first president, Aden Abdulle Osman, was deeply concerned about the behaviour of a segment of the political class. He registered his <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253022301/africas-first-democrats/">worries</a> in his diary on 5 July 1964: </p>
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<p>God save Somalis from the scavenging beasts in human form that are the so-called representative of the people. </p>
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<p>The democratic project ended when those who defeated President Osman in the 1967 election turned the country into a quasi single-party state. The mess they generated led to the murder of President Abdirashid Sharmarke by one of his bodyguards in 1969. The military quickly seized power, and foreclosed a return to a representative and accountable system of government for the next 21 years. </p>
<p>After half a decade in power, the dictatorship intensified the tribalisation of public power. The political opposition followed suit. Civil service and promotions in the military, and access to state resources, became based on an individual’s genealogical identity or loyalty to the regime. From the late 1970s to 1990, the military dictatorship confronted a fragmented and equally tribalised and armed political opposition. The state became the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/somalia_1990.pdf">agent of terror</a>. Whole communities were punished and towns destroyed because of their cultural pedigree. This was long before Al-Shabaab’s rise. </p>
<p>The military regime <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/161268">collapsed</a> in January 1991, but opposition groups failed to agree on a common civic agenda. The opposition group most active around Mogadishu, the United Somalia Congress, forced out the dictator. Among the consequences of the factional bloodletting that followed was the destruction of livelihoods and the making of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/31/world/somalia-1992-picking-up-pieces-as-famine-subsides.html">first famine</a> in the country since independence in 1960. This was long before Al-Shabaab appeared on the horizon.</p>
<p>Warlords and tribalistic political fiefdoms replaced the dictatorship, and much of the educated elite fled. The balkanisation of the country and society <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03736245.2019.1612769?journalCode=rsag20">impoverished everyone</a> except the very few who controlled the means of violence. Illiteracy rose dramatically and the population’s state of health took a nosedive, depriving the young majority of a productive future. </p>
<p>Most of the country’s current population were born after the fall of the military; few therefore know what civic politics and leadership look like. That makes them easy pawns of the sectarian elite.</p>
<p>It took almost 16 years for a religious group known as the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17531050701452382">Union of the Islamic Courts</a> to defeat the warlords. This event gave hope to the population that a more inclusive and accountable system of authority would be restored. But America and its regional allies were alarmed by the possibility of an “Islamist” foothold in the Horn of Africa. Consequently, Ethiopia <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2006/7/21/ethiopian-troops-enter-somalia">invaded</a> Somalia and installed in Mogadishu the tribal-based Somali Federal Government, <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/somalia/somalia-interim-government-relocate-nairobi">formed in Nairobi</a>. The Union of the Islamic Courts forces broke into smaller units, adopted guerrilla tactics and successfully resisted the invasion.</p>
<p>America and its allies recognised that the Ethiopian occupation was doomed and subsequently engineered a split among the Union of the Islamic Courts. This schism marked the birth of Al-Shabaab as an autonomous organisation dedicated to take revenge on their former allies, western supporters of the Somali governments, and anyone who opposed them.</p>
<h2>A devil’s pact</h2>
<p>Al-Shabaab is only the latest manifestation of the consequences of 50 years of exclusivist political ideology and inept leadership. </p>
<p>It is estimated that the Somali defence force is about 20,000 strong. But several factors have prevented it from taking the challenge to Al-Shabaab’s militias. The lack of necessary resources and quality leadership is partly to blame. Another problem is the prominence given to tribal identity over patriotism and competence in the running of the national force. </p>
<p>In addition, tribalised provinces have their own armed forces because they mistrust the federal government and each other. Finally, Somalia has been under a UN <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Impact-of-the-Global-Arms-Trade-in-Somalia-A-%C3%87anci-Medugu/4df6f722153e1270753c89ec2809047d0d1aba53">arms embargo</a> since the civil war began nearly three decades ago. The embargo has limited the capacity of the Somali government to sustain the war against Al-Shabaab. </p>
<p>The current governing leadership has not learned any lesson from past failures. The regime is using the National Security Agency to demonise the business community, under the cover of the war with Al-Shabaab. And it has <a href="https://hornobserver.com/articles/1746/Somalias-president-plans-to-use-clan-militia-to-degrade-al-Shabaab-Sources">mobilised tribal militias</a> in the fight. These acts deepen divisions among Somalis at a time when when the regime should be unifying the population for a common cause. Finally, such strategy bodes ill for the establishment of a post Al-Shabaab inclusive civic dispensation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197554/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abdi Ismail Samatar is Extraordinary professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Pretoria, a professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota. He is also a senator in the Somali Parliament.</span></em></p>It’s likely that the terrorist group will be defeated one day. But there are no signs that the political elite is capable of changing.Abdi Ismail Samatar, Extraordinary Professor, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1879412022-08-08T13:40:49Z2022-08-08T13:40:49ZProsecution or compensation? What Kenyan choices tell us about international justice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476724/original/file-20220729-18-ysejqp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Uhuru Kenyatta's supporters celebrate after the ICC dropped charges against him in 2014. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Simon Maina/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In December 2007, the Electoral Commission of Kenya <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-31176820071230">announced</a> that Mwai Kibaki had won a second five-year term as president. It was a surprising outcome, given his opponent, Raila Odinga, had held a significant early lead in the polls. </p>
<p>Kibaki was hastily sworn in, sparking <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2008/03/16/ballots-bullets/organized-political-violence-and-kenyas-crisis-governance">inter-ethnic violence</a>. Odinga’s supporters, who were mostly from the Luo and Kalenjin ethnic groups, attacked Kibaki’s Kikuyu supporters, which led to retaliatory clashes across the country.</p>
<p>This violence <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/AFR32/001/2014/en/">resulted in</a> over 1,000 dead, more than 600,000 displaced and innumerable victims of sexual assault. </p>
<p>In 2010, the International Criminal Court (ICC) charged <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/kenyas-post-election-violence-icc-prosecutor-presents-cases-against-six-individuals-crimes">six prominent Kenyans</a> with inciting the violence. According to the prosecution, <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2012_03827.PDF">William Ruto</a> – at the time an Odinga supporter – instigated violence by rallying his Kalenjin co-ethnics to attack Kibaki’s Kikuyu supporters. </p>
<p>The court alleged that <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2011_03178.PDF">Uhuru Kenyatta</a> responded by mobilising his Kikuyu co-ethnics to attack those who purportedly backed Odinga. </p>
<p>To date, however, there have been no convictions. Evidentiary difficulties were primarily to blame. The ICC accused the Kenyan government of failing to cooperate in providing <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-prosecutor-international-criminal-court-fatou-bensouda-withdrawal-charges-against-mr">documentary evidence</a>. The government also failed to <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-prosecutor-international-criminal-court-fatou-bensouda-regarding-trial-chambers">protect witnesses</a>. It was additionally <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/kenya-icc-idAFLDE74S08720110529">accused</a> of creating “a climate of fear”.</p>
<p>According to Kenyatta and Ruto, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30347019">collapse</a> of the Kenya cases was a victory. They <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/kenya-trials-keytoiccafricarelations.html">called</a> the ICC an imperialistic institution that is biased against Africans. </p>
<p>Fatou Bensouda, a former prosecutor of the court, <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/icc-prosecutor-says-relentless-intimidation-sunk-kenya-case-180705978.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall.&guccounter=1">disagreed</a>, lamenting the continued impunity and denial of justice for the many victims of post-election violence. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/icc-case-against-kenyan-lawyer-gicheru-it-matters-but-not-for-victims-of-the-violence-178938">ICC case against Kenyan lawyer Gicheru: it matters, but not for victims of the violence</a>
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<p>We set out to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0022002719893740">investigate</a> whether the ICC’s failure to secure convictions mattered to Kenyans. More broadly, we wanted to learn about the justice preferences of individuals in countries emerging from mass violence and human rights abuses. </p>
<p>Our research findings have two implications. First, despite years of campaigns against the ICC by Kenya’s elected leadership, and little on-the-ground outreach from the court, it still has supporters in the country. Second, victims or witnesses to violence are less likely to buy into anti-ICC narratives. When denied justice locally, they may be willing to support the court’s quest to deliver justice and accountability. </p>
<h2>Prosecution vs compensation</h2>
<p>We conducted our research in Kenya in 2015. Our research team carried out face-to-face surveys of more than 500 Kenyans in five regions in the country where violence had occurred. Our results have been published over the last three years, most recently in a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00223433211065573">May 2022 paper</a>. </p>
<p>We asked respondents whether they preferred prosecutions or compensation for the harms they or their fellow citizens had suffered during the 2007-2008 post-election violence. </p>
<p>Citizens may prefer both, but we phrased the question this way because in post-conflict situations, countries don’t always have the resources to pursue every available justice mechanism. For those who preferred prosecutions, we asked whether they preferred that the alleged perpetrators be tried in Kenyan courts or at the ICC. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/20-years-on-the-international-criminal-court-is-doing-more-good-than-its-critics-claim-186382">20 years on, the International Criminal Court is doing more good than its critics claim</a>
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<p>As far as we are aware, ours is the first study that asks Kenyans to choose between prosecution and compensation. It’s also the first to consider how the option of ICC prosecutions might moderate preferences. Our study additionally collected data on ethnicity and on whether the respondent was exposed to post-election violence as a witness or victim.</p>
<p><a href="https://open.bu.edu/handle/2144/38762">Some researchers</a> suggest that individuals’ justice preferences will align with those of their ethnic leaders. This is because these are the people they turn to for material and other support. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286745711_A_psychological_jurisprudence_model_of_public_opinion_and_international_prosecution">Other scholars</a> theorise that people exposed to violence will prioritise psychological over material benefits. That is, they’ll be pulled towards mechanisms that might hold abusers accountable. </p>
<p>We tested these theories using data we gathered when the ICC’s case against Ruto was still pending. </p>
<p>Our findings remain relevant as the Kenyan post-election issue continues before the ICC. Lawyer <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/kenya/gicheru">Paul Gicheru</a> is awaiting a decision on his trial after closing statements were made in June 2022. Gicheru has <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2021_06271.PDF">been accused</a> of corruptly influencing witnesses in cases stemming from the 2007 election crisis – including the <a href="https://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2020-11-02-what-paul-gicherus-decision-to-surrender-to-icc-means-for-ruto-case/">case against Ruto</a>.</p>
<h2>Role of ethnicity</h2>
<p>Our research found that first, most Kenyans didn’t favour compensation over the retributive justice afforded by prosecutions. </p>
<p>Second, ethnicity generally played a role in respondents’ preferences. Respondents who identified as Kikuyu or Kalenjin – Kenyatta’s and Ruto’s ethnicities, respectively – were less likely to support trials than Kenyans of other ethnicities. </p>
<p>Material self-interest may explain this finding. Respondents may believe they would benefit if their co-ethnics remained in power. </p>
<p>Third, and perhaps most importantly, Kenyans who self-identified as witnesses or victims of violence generally preferred prosecutions over compensation. Additionally, they preferred prosecution at the ICC rather than at a domestic court. </p>
<p>This result held for co-ethnics of Kenyatta and Ruto. Even though Kikuyus or Kalenjins generally had higher levels of support for compensation than those who identified as other ethnicities, victims who identified as either Kikuyu or Kalenjin decreased their support for compensation by about 11 percentage points (from 52% to 41%). Kikuyu or Kalenjin victims were also about 11 percentage points more likely than Kikuyus or Kalenjins who were not victims to support trials at the ICC over domestic trials. </p>
<p>In short, even though Kikuyu or Kalenjin individuals show higher levels of support for compensation than trials compared to other ethnic groups, exposure to violence has a similar impact across ethnicities: it increases support for trials and the ICC. </p>
<p>While Kenyatta and Ruto sought to discredit the international court after they were charged, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002719893740">our research</a> found that witnesses of violence and victims were less likely than the average Kenyan to buy into this narrative. </p>
<h2>What it means</h2>
<p>Our research findings suggest that personal experiences with violence influence attitudes towards post-conflict justice mechanisms. </p>
<p>Individuals who have encountered violence are more likely to prioritise “righting the wrong” even if it means their co-ethnics will be punished. They further demonstrate the key role the international court plays for victims of mass violence. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/al-bashir-and-the-icc-is-it-worth-getting-your-man-if-you-jeopardise-your-mission-119317">Al-Bashir and the ICC: is it worth getting your man, if you jeopardise your mission?</a>
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<p>Many have criticised the court for, among other reasons, its paucity of convictions. However, our research shows that the court has an important role to play in providing justice for those for whom justice is denied domestically. </p>
<p>The ICC, however, can only deliver justice if countries cooperate with and support it. The outcome of the Kenya cases (so far) shows what happens when states fail to do their part: victims are denied their day in court.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eamon T. Aloyo acknowledges funding for this research from The Hague Institute for Global Justice. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoff Dancy has received funding from the National Science Foundation and from Global Affairs Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvonne M. Dutton acknowledges funding for this research from The Hague Institute for Global Justice.</span></em></p>Research in Kenya finds victims or witnesses to violence are less likely to buy into anti-International Criminal Court political narratives.Eamon T. Aloyo, Assistant professor, Leiden UniversityGeoff Dancy, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of TorontoYvonne M. Dutton, Professor, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1875922022-07-31T06:48:58Z2022-07-31T06:48:58ZKenya’s election red flags in five essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476268/original/file-20220727-13-bgetb7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kenyans take to the streets in the capital, Nairobi, to call for peaceful August 2022 elections. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luis Tato/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kenya is no stranger to highly contested elections. Several of the country’s past polls have seen high levels of conflict. The violence that broke out after the 2007 elections stands out in particular. It caused more than a thousand fatalities and led to a national crisis. This was eventually resolved through a coalition government and constitutional reform.</p>
<p>Patronage politics, a history of violent conflict and high-stakes elections increase the risks of poll violence, which often erupts along identity lines. </p>
<p>Still, Kenyans continue to turn up to vote. Elections are valued as a moment when voters can reject those they believe have failed – or will fail – to protect and promote their national, community and individual interests. In the last general election in 2017, <a href="https://www.iebc.or.ke/uploads/resources/siEABKREDq.pdf#page=3">78% of registered voters</a> turned up to vote. In 2013, the voter turnout stood at 86%. </p>
<p>But this does not mean that voters don’t have concerns about the process. </p>
<h2>Fears of rigging</h2>
<p>As Kenyans approach the 9 August 2022 poll, many lack confidence in the electoral process.</p>
<p>Deviations from electoral rules – from vote buying to election disruptions – persist. Research has explored how citizens justify their participation in electoral malpractice. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fears-of-election-rigging-may-fuel-further-abuses-in-kenya-democracy-could-be-the-loser-176113">Fears of election rigging may fuel further abuses in Kenya: democracy could be the loser</a>
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<h2>Elites vs the rule of law</h2>
<p>A failed attempt to <a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyan-judges-stop-presidents-reforms-as-attempt-to-dismember-the-constitution-166587">overhaul Kenya’s constitution</a> less than a year before elections illustrates the struggles between the rule of law and the crude tribal instincts of Kenya’s political elite.</p>
<p>The current pact between President Uhuru Kenyatta and presidential candidate Raila Odinga is a form of power sharing. However, it further divided society and fragmented elites by isolating Kenyatta’s deputy, William Ruto, and his supporters. </p>
<p>This situation provides evidence of the personality politics that has often driven Kenya to the precipice since independence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenyas-next-election-is-in-view-the-struggle-between-elites-and-rule-of-law-is-intensifying-167378">Kenya's next election is in view: the struggle between elites and rule of law is intensifying</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Predictors of conflict</h2>
<p>Political leaders and aspirants have used group-based grievances to mobilise voters and, at times, violent militias.</p>
<p>Land tenure has remained closely connected to communal identity in Kenya. Regions where land conflicts are prominent – and politicians are mobilising based on these conflicts – are areas to watch for signs of violence. </p>
<p>Research has highlighted other key drivers of communal conflict that could inform efforts to predict and prevent election violence. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/drivers-of-electoral-violence-in-kenya-red-flags-to-watch-out-for-180703">Drivers of electoral violence in Kenya: red flags to watch out for</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Gendered violence</h2>
<p>In the run-up to the August 2022 election, aggressive language has featured on the campaign trail. It has perpetuated patriarchal attitudes, which stand in the way of women’s participation in and engagement with politics.</p>
<p>Women face a host of obstacles, from inadequate political support from their parties to a lack of financial resources and gender-based violence. Kenya’s electoral process has often highlighted the fact that male politicians don’t shy away from aggressive confrontations in campaigns against a woman.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-election-sexist-language-shows-that-patriarchy-refuses-to-give-way-178066">Kenya election: sexist language shows that patriarchy refuses to give way</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Judiciary’s role</h2>
<p>Kenya’s judiciary, however, has shown its capacity to help ensure that the elections are free, fair and credible. The country’s courts have exhibited a significant level of maturity and independence in recent years. </p>
<p>An efficient, equitable and accessible justice system is the foundation of a democracy based on the rule of law.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-kenyas-judiciary-can-break-the-cycle-of-electoral-violence-182710">How Kenya's judiciary can break the cycle of electoral violence</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187592/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Patronage politics, a history of violent conflict and high-stakes elections increase the risks of poll violence in Kenya.Kagure Gacheche, Commissioning Editor, East AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838332022-05-31T15:07:47Z2022-05-31T15:07:47ZSomalia’s election raises more questions than answers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465261/original/file-20220525-24-tv3wso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Newly elected Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud waves after he was sworn-in, in the capital Mogadishu, on May 15, 2022.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Hasan Ali Elmi / AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Somalia now has a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/somalia-swears-lawmakers-paving-way-presidential-vote-2022-04-14/">new parliament</a> – and a president elected by its <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-sense-of-history-and-urgency-as-somalia-moves-to-elect-a-new-president-182959">329 lawmakers</a>. This followed more than a year’s <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/14/somalia-to-hold-overdue-presidential-election-on-may-15">delay</a>.</p>
<p>Somalis are asking whether President Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud – who <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-19556383">previously ruled</a> the country between 2012 and 2017 – will in his second stint chart the path to the promised land of reconciliation and development. Many will wonder whether this opportunity will be squandered, as it was during his previous tenure. </p>
<p>In my analysis, the outcome will depend on the interplay between the inertia of the profoundly corrupt process that produced parliament and the president, and the will of the new leadership to dare to introduce a transformative agenda. But the president’s first step of appointing several sectarian individuals to his office, and to the national security office appear to foreclose his promises of an inclusive political road map. </p>
<p>President Hassan has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to set an example by offering a consistent civic voice matched by progressive policies and institutional reform. </p>
<h2>A flawed electoral process</h2>
<p>Somalia has <a href="https://africaworldpressbooks.com/framing-somalia-beyond-africas-merchants-of-misery-by-abdi-ismail-samatar/">arguably one of the most fraudulent political systems</a> in the world. Its people have been denied the vote <a href="https://uca.edu/politicalscience/dadm-project/sub-saharan-africa-region/somalia-1960-present/">since</a> 1969. The partnership between a corrupt elite and the terrorist organisation Al Shabaab has created a countrywide open political prison in which the citizens are cowering observers. </p>
<p>Al-Shabaab dominates South-Central Somalia and has infiltrated cities. Meanwhile, the political class operates in a few areas, such as Mogadishu, as they hunker in their barricaded villas and circulate in severely restricted spaces in their bullet-proof Land Cruisers. These conditions are the byproducts of past blunders. </p>
<p>About two decades ago, warlords and sectarian politicians concocted a vile tribal formula supposedly reflecting people’s political identity. This formula balkanised Somalis into tribal political groups denying them the possibility of civic identity as apartheid South Africa did to the African population. </p>
<p>Two political changes emerged from this formula. First, the country was divided into tribe-based federal provinces. Second, traditional authorities were granted the right to represent their groups in the political arena. In the process tribal chiefs have become the de facto selectors of parliamentary representatives.</p>
<p>Once the tribal provinces had been established, conflict emerged between the governors of those regions and traditional leaders, both angling for power. The governors, who control the provincial administration and security forces, used this leverage to weaken the chiefs’ role during the recent “election”. Consequently, they were able to appoint MPs loyal to them. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the former president and his political allies handpicked and installed loyalist governors in three of the five provinces. Thus, “electing” new MPs resulted in an epic struggle between the former president and his regional allies, and two opposition governors and other politicians. Such politicking corrupted every government agency. </p>
<p>Another major problem was the infusion of corrupt money into the parliamentary and presidential campaigns. The selection of candidates in most provinces did not attract much money as governors singularly controlled the levers of power and selected loyalists. In a few cases where there was real competition between candidates, the payment of bribes was almost the single most important winning factor. </p>
<p>These shenanigans delayed the election. Finally, the two houses of parliament selected their officers only two months ago. A week later parliament appointed a joint committee to organise the election of a president in two weeks: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/somali-lawmakers-choose-countrys-new-president-may-15-2022-05-05/">May 15 was D-day</a>.</p>
<h2>Corruption</h2>
<p>The list of hopeful presidential candidates was very long. In a country where the average person earns less than $2 a day, each of the 39 presidential candidates paid the <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/somalia-s-lone-female-presidential-candidate-/6570667.html">astonishing sum</a> of $40 000 to register as a presidential candidate. This requirement was determined by the former president and his team. Once registered, candidates lobbied the MPs who would be electing the president. </p>
<p>In the absence of political parties or ideologies, the only distinction between candidates was the size of their campaign chests and genealogical identity. </p>
<p>Five candidates dominated the money game: two former presidents, the incumbent, a regional governor, and a former prime minister. Courting the MPs intensified the week before the election, but it was the eve of Election Day that MPs went scavenging for the big bribes. Candidates reportedly paid bribes ranging from $30 000 to $90 000 per MP. </p>
<p>This culture of corruption permeates all levels of society and everything that comes under the domain of the state. Confronting this demon will require far-sighted and determined leadership, and a revolutionary movement. </p>
<h2>The hope</h2>
<p>To earn the confidence of the people, the new president must, at a minimum, take on the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Endeavour to reverse the tribalisation of political identity. </p></li>
<li><p>Radically restructure the tribally-based federal system to undo the exclusive tribal fiefdoms. </p></li>
<li><p>Admit the role of corruption in the election and appoint an independent election commission consisting of the most credible Somalis to lead the country out of the current cul de sac.</p></li>
<li><p>Craft and apply radical strategies to defeat Al-Shabaab or reconcile with it. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The first signal of the president’s intention and agenda will be his nomination of the prime minister. If he selects a candidate with integrity, civic capital, and independence that will indicate his commitment to serious reform. But if, as he did during his previous presidency, appoints a client who would be a front for his machination, the charade will lock 15 million desperate citizens into perpetual purgatory. </p>
<h2>Somali dilemma</h2>
<p>In a letter from prison in 1929, Antonio Gramsci, the renowned Italian theorist and political activist <a href="https://abahlali.org/files/gramsci.pdf">remarked</a> that he was </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>After studying Somalia for three decades, I am convinced that the intellect can clearly envision the path to progressive reform. However, what seems lacking is an organised will on the part of those concerned about the fate of the Somali people. A certain degree of fatalism and fear has crippled the civic minded, and it is as if the risk of change is dreaded more than the persistence of despair and slow death.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abdi Ismail Samatar is a senator in the Somali Parliament. He is the author most recently of Framing Somalia: Beyond Africa’s merchants of misery (2022)</span></em></p>The obstacles the new government must confront to earn the confidence of the people are challenging.Abdi Ismail Samatar, Research Fellow, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1824572022-05-16T14:28:29Z2022-05-16T14:28:29ZEthnic poverty: dividing and excluding people keeps them poor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462848/original/file-20220512-20-vzo0jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tribalism often leads to diversion of funds meant for development in Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by John Wessels/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sub-Saharan African countries are the most ethnically diverse in the world. Within each African country there are more <a href="https://www.infoplease.com/world/social-statistics/ethnicity-and-race-countries">ethnic groups</a> than there are in most of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/">world’s countries</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, the world’s 20 <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-racially-diverse-countries">most ethnically diverse</a> countries are all African. </p>
<p>An ethnic group is a social group that shares a common and distinctive history, culture, region, religion or language. </p>
<p>The reason for this diversity in sub-Saharan African countries is chiefly that almost all of them were <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/berlin-conference-1884-1885-divide-africa-1433556">carved into colonial territories</a> without regard to ethnic boundaries. </p>
<p>The region also accounts for <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/number-poor-people-continues-rise-sub-saharan-africa-despite-slow-decline-poverty-rate">40%</a> of the world’s extremely <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty">poor</a> (around 276 million people who survive on less than $1.90 a day). </p>
<p>Ethnic poverty occurs when there is systemic poverty for an ethnic group.</p>
<p>We reviewed the connection between ethnicity and poverty in a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344725834_Ethnic_Poverty_Causes_Implications_and_Solutions">chapter</a> of the Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.</p>
<p>Goal 1 is to end poverty in all forms everywhere and the encyclopedia is the first comprehensive publication addressing the goals in an integrated way. Our chapter provided an overview of research on ethnic poverty in developing and developed countries. </p>
<p>We focused on ethnic poverty because some people are more likely to be in poverty due to ethnic differences in education, employment, entrepreneurship, and access to infrastructure.</p>
<p>Members of ethnic groups in power sometimes distribute resources to fellow members at the expense of national growth. </p>
<p>In addition, different ethnic groups don’t always agree on what goods and services public money should be spent on. Inadequate public spending contributes to higher poverty. </p>
<p>Differences and favouritism often make it difficult to take inter-ethnic group action, such as addressing poverty. While the poverty rate has been <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/number-poor-people-continues-rise-sub-saharan-africa-despite-slow-decline-poverty-rate">falling</a> in Africa, it has not fallen fast enough to keep up with population growth. </p>
<p>The work for the encyclopaedia shows that African nations, among others, would do well to consider including diverse ethnic groups in transparent governance structures. </p>
<h2>Poverty and inclusion</h2>
<p>The five countries with the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=false">lowest GDP per capita</a> are in Africa: Burundi, Somalia, Mozambique, Madagascar and Sudan. And two African countries have the <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/half-world-s-poor-live-just-5-countries">highest number of people</a> in extreme poverty in the world. They are Nigeria (with 98.9 million people in extreme poverty) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (64.9 million). </p>
<p>Poverty goes beyond a lack of income and material resources. It shows in hunger and malnutrition, and access to education and other basic services. It’s also about social discrimination and exclusion from decision-making. </p>
<p>Different ethnic groups are likely to have somewhat different economic interests – if only because they come from different parts of the country and may specialise in different economic activities. Thus, they will have different interests in public expenditure. </p>
<p>Their governance styles may differ historically too. Not all are similar to western-style democracy.</p>
<p>Ethnically related wars and genocides have also slowed progress towards ending poverty. Conflicts in Liberia, Somalia, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Chad, among others, have led to civil wars exacerbated by a struggle for ethnic identities and resources.</p>
<p>African countries can better represent the interests of their numerous ethnic groups by engaging them in both formal and informal governance structures reflecting diversity. </p>
<p>Formal governance structures could be political roles that take into account ethnic groupings. Informal structures could be local committees that pursue projects of interest to the ethnic community. Traditional village leaders could also be useful whenever these leaders can be held accountable.</p>
<p>Rather than just a standardised national approach to poverty reduction, more is needed to promote local participation that can address specific ethnic issues. </p>
<h2>How to reduce ethnic poverty</h2>
<p>Our review showed that to reduce ethnic poverty, ethnic minorities should be given better access to education, resources, infrastructure and opportunities. </p>
<p>We suggest:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>offering educational, agricultural and vocational training for particular ethnic groups </p></li>
<li><p>offering business training and support for ethnic minorities</p></li>
<li><p>providing incentives for investment in ethnic minority areas </p></li>
<li><p>improving industrial development and transport infrastructure in areas plagued by ethnic poverty</p></li>
<li><p>pursuing a strategy of balanced urban and rural socio-economic development. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Mauritius and Botswana are examples of sub-Saharan countries that have used this to reduce poverty. In fact, Mauritius was able to <a href="https://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/poverty/33EF03BB-9722-4AE2-ABC7-AA2972D68AFE/Global_POVEQ_MUS.pdf">eradicate extreme poverty</a> in 2017 by diversifying its economy and following this strategy. </p>
<p>We also suggest reducing ethnic conflicts by:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>promoting peaceful dialogue and resolution of disputes</p></li>
<li><p>promoting trade along historical ethnic lines</p></li>
<li><p>policy reforms to favour poorer ethnic groups. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>African nations need governance structures that effectively manage the challenges facing diverse ethnic groups. </p>
<p>These governance structures will need to enhance inter-ethnic group cooperation, especially with regard to economic management. </p>
<p>They should embody the principles of participation, inclusion and consensus-building among Africa’s numerous ethnically defined social groups.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tolu Olarewaju 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>Although there is strength in diversity, members of ethnic groups in power distributing resources to members of their ethnic group at the expense of national growth entrench poverty in Africa.Tolu Olarewaju, Economist and Lecturer in Management, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1734052021-12-15T19:07:46Z2021-12-15T19:07:46ZPrior’s warning: what would NZ’s greatest 20th century philosopher have said about civil liberties in the COVID age?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437664/original/file-20211214-13-11ngan7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C0%2C6669%2C4476&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>Vaccines, their mandates and certificates have ignited heated debate about civil liberties in New Zealand. Add <a href="https://www.miq.govt.nz/">MIQ</a>, climate change, the government’s <a href="https://threewaters.govt.nz/">Three Waters</a> policy and proposed hate speech legislation, and it’s easy to see what’s fuelling the so-called culture wars.</p>
<p>Opinion on both the left and right, on social media and on the streets during the recent anti-lockdown and <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/groundswell-founders-distance-themselves-from-racist-protesters/W7SFVIN7CIDY4UXGWNF245QNPU/">Groundswell protests</a> has been highly polarised.</p>
<p>Accusations of authoritarianism (and worse) are levelled at the Ardern government, while opponents of its COVID policies are dismissed or vilified. There can appear to be little reasoned thought or common ground.</p>
<p>But are these new phenomena, or do they perhaps signal a deeper pattern in the New Zealand temperament?</p>
<h2>Habits and weaknesses</h2>
<p>The writer Bill Pearson’s essay, <a href="https://publicaddress.net/great-new-zealand-argument/fretful-sleepers/">Fretful Sleepers</a>, written in the wake of the <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/the-1951-waterfront-dispute">1951 waterside dispute</a>, famously depicted his fellow citizens as what some might now call “sheeple”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437667/original/file-20211214-27-r7l8bl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437667/original/file-20211214-27-r7l8bl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437667/original/file-20211214-27-r7l8bl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437667/original/file-20211214-27-r7l8bl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437667/original/file-20211214-27-r7l8bl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=990&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437667/original/file-20211214-27-r7l8bl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1244&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437667/original/file-20211214-27-r7l8bl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1244&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437667/original/file-20211214-27-r7l8bl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1244&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Arthur Prior in Christchurch, 1953.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martin H. Prior</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He warned there “is no one more docile in the face of authority than the New Zealander”, a condition he said arose from “a docile sleepy electorate, veneration of war heroes, willingness to persecute those who don’t conform, gullibility in the face of headlines and radio pep talks”.</p>
<p>But there’s another critique that, while not as well known, is arguably more balanced and nuanced. It can be found in an address to the Civil Liberties Council in 1955 by <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/111207418/its-time-to-honour-arthur-prior">Arthur Prior</a>, the greatest New Zealand philosopher of the 20th century.</p>
<p>In his speech, titled “The Threat to Civil Liberties in New Zealand, Today and Tomorrow”, Prior identified three “rather deep-seated national habits and weaknesses […] in our national temperament”. He argued these threatened our liberties more than any organised or systematic action by an individual or group.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-century-on-from-the-1919-influenza-inquiry-nz-needs-a-royal-commission-into-its-covid-19-response-173494">A century on from the 1919 influenza inquiry, NZ needs a royal commission into its COVID-19 response</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Careless legislation</h2>
<p>Firstly, Prior identified “what might be called our habit of lazy and careless legislation” – laws that enter the statue books not because of any conspiracy but because “of a lack of concern and watchfulness”. He warned:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Something will be brought in during an emergency or supposed emergency – and at such times it is always liberty that suffers first – and then it just stays there, like a ‘temporary’ building, but with less justification.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Prior worried about the lack of safeguards in the law, noting that while oppressive provisions were not often applied, they sat dormant, able to be applied if deemed necessary. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/protesting-during-a-pandemic-new-zealands-balancing-act-between-a-long-tradition-of-protests-and-covid-rules-171104">Protesting during a pandemic: New Zealand's balancing act between a long tradition of protests and COVID rules</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>He called this “oppression on paper with liberty in fact” – that is, daily life continues unaffected <em>until</em> a government threatens to enact the dormant legislation. Prior observed that such threats had been successfully used against trade union officials, newspapers and booksellers.</p>
<p>Today, in an age of emergency public health legislation rushed in under urgency, it’s again important to ask how long such laws will remain in force under this or any future government.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437671/original/file-20211214-23-ffkjv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437671/original/file-20211214-23-ffkjv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/437671/original/file-20211214-23-ffkjv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437671/original/file-20211214-23-ffkjv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437671/original/file-20211214-23-ffkjv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437671/original/file-20211214-23-ffkjv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437671/original/file-20211214-23-ffkjv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/437671/original/file-20211214-23-ffkjv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Civil liberties and conformity: police and strikers clash in Wellington during the 1951 waterfront dispute.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23052149">Alexander Turnbull Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Political tribalism</h2>
<p>Prior defined the second weakness as “unscrupulous party spirit” – what today we might call political tribalism – whereby “we cannot admit that sometimes our own bunch are wrong and the other bunch is right”.</p>
<p>We see this today in entrenched party political positions, where few or none are prepared to dissent publicly or vote against their own party.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/">MMP</a> was meant to allow both greater consensus and diversity of views, in reality we see an intensification of party discipline and enforced “party spirit”.</p>
<p>The other element of this tribalism is the new populism, or what’s been termed a “<a href="https://quillette.com/2019/07/02/post-liberal-politics-left-right-and-center/">post-liberal</a>” shift. This combines traditionally left- and right-wing ideas in new, emotive ways that pitch “the people” against a claimed corrupt political and media “elite”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/to-be-truly-ethical-vaccine-mandates-must-be-about-more-than-just-lifting-jab-rates-169612">To be truly ethical, vaccine mandates must be about more than just lifting jab rates</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Blanket of silence</h2>
<p>Prior identifies the third weakness as “a certain excessive readiness to take offence which we New Zealanders exhibit”. As he put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For some reason it is only too easy for a person or organisation to go to the powers that be and say, ‘Look here, it hurts us to hear somebody saying so-and-so’, and the powers that be will reply, ‘Goodness me, I’m sorry to hear that – we’ll just stop them saying it then’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Prior thought New Zealanders were “too touchy” and authorities too willing “to silence voices which this or that group not only does not want to hear, but does not want others to hear”.</p>
<p>This sounds similar to the rise of 21st century “cancel culture”, whether that be the “pile on” tendencies of the Twittersphere or the vexed intricacies of the proposed hate speech legislation.</p>
<p>New Zealanders like to speak out about what they oppose, Prior said, but not about what they like. This meant they operated under “a comfortable blanket of silence”. </p>
<p>Because we don’t tend to speak out in support of the rights of others to say controversial things we don’t agree with, Prior says, it “is deplorably easy” to be united “in coddling our sectional prejudices and in listening to those who would have us all wrapped up in intellectual cotton wool”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1411826300654809090"}"></div></p>
<h2>A question of spirit</h2>
<p>Underlying all this was the idea of “spirit” – what we draw on to make sense of ourselves, our values and our world. It’s an echo of the author <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5b40/brasch-charles-orwell">Charles Brasch</a>’s statement in the inaugural issue of the literary journal <a href="https://www.otago.ac.nz/press/landfall/">Landfall</a> in March 1947:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What counts are not a country’s material resources, but the use to which they are put. And that is determined by the spiritual resources of the people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Spirit” was a constant refrain in the postwar world, part of asking what could stand against a turn to nihilism and authoritarianism. Civil liberties, it was feared, were threatened by an intellectual weakness within the wider population.</p>
<p>Today, one can hear echoes of Prior’s concerns: emergency laws limit civil liberties, “unscrupulous party spirit” needlessly deepens political divides, unpopular opinions are shouted down or cancelled.</p>
<p>Prior would say a global public health emergency should not blur the lines. A dangerous weakness of spirit or intellect may be evident among the anti-vaccination minority, conspiracy theorists and others on the fringe, but it is present in the rest of New Zealand too. </p>
<p>Threats to civil liberties are not only done <em>to</em> us, they exist in what we allow to be done to others. As ever, the threat lies as much in our own attitudes and ways of thinking as it does in the actions of governments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Grimshaw 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>Bad laws, political tribalism and cancel culture – philosopher Arthur Prior was describing similar things in the 1950s, and his challenge is just as relevant today.Mike Grimshaw, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1717632021-11-15T14:43:42Z2021-11-15T14:43:42ZReligion was once Ethiopia’s saviour. What it can do to pull the nation from the brink<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431888/original/file-20211115-15-vpro7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ethiopian Orthodox pilgrims at Lalibela, Ethiopia. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ethiopia is at war with itself – all over again. Again, it is in the global media spotlight for the wrong reasons: <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/ethiopia-grave-humanitarian-crisis-unfolding-never-saw-hell-before-now-have">war, displacement, rape, and killings</a>. A nation with a long but turbulent history and a rich religious heritage has struggled to shrug off the vices holding it back from moving forward.</p>
<p>This, however, is not for a lack of opportunity. The nation lays claim to <a href="https://addisstandard.com/opinion-does-ethiopia-really-need-democracy-then-it-should-draw-resources-from-indigenous-virtues/">cultural and religious values</a> which could have been nurtured, re-calibrated, and developed to foster peaceful cohabitation. Moreover, history has afforded Ethiopia <a href="https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=ijad">many chances</a> to find a unifying formula and move to a more democratic dispensation. Many times, the country has struggled to root out toxic seeds which have effectively ruined its chances of using ethnic and religious diversity as a strength, not as a threat.</p>
<p>Ethiopia is a <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2017/11/08/orthodox-christians-are-highly-religious-in-ethiopia-much-less-so-in-former-soviet-union/">deeply religious</a> nation. Both Christians and Muslims have <a href="https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/fr/oir/interfaith-relations-between-christianity-and-islam-ethiopia">fascinating stories</a> to tell not only of their origins, but also of how they have managed to negotiate their shared space. The question, therefore, should be: what role is religion playing in the conflict in Tigray? </p>
<p>It is worth starting this discussion by way of briefly capturing the role religion played in the past in addressing threats of division and disintegration.</p>
<h2>The unifying myth</h2>
<p>Ethiopia has survived several dark epochs in its long history. Religion was one of the reasons why it survived. Take, for example, the <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199211883.001.0001/acprof-9780199211883-chapter-4">“Zemene Mesafint”</a> – the era of princes. This period, between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, got its name from the Bible because it mimicked the biblical <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43660013?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">“period of judges”</a> in Israel’s history.</p>
<p>Joshua, who had guided Israelites in the last and critical part of their journey of liberation and helped them to settle in the promised land, had just died. Upon this, the central point in Jewish life <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00393388408600023?journalCode=sthe20">started to dissipate</a>. The nation splintered into 12 tribes, followed by a vicious cycle of violence and lawlessness.</p>
<p>In the same way, the Zemene Mesafint was a treacherous time in Ethiopian history, its union <a href="https://books.google.es/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jRMWPSfPBysC&oi=fnd&pg=PA348&dq=zamana+mesafint+%2B+Israel&ots=PYQ3wV_69N&sig=qi4yB6MVHxmhDh3fjATiSOCpXSE&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=zamana%20mesafint%20%2B%20Israel&f=false">threatened by power-hungry regional warlords</a>. As the real power deserted central government and lay instead with regional leaders, the nation’s political and institutional architecture was challenged. </p>
<p>Scholars <a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=m5ESDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA39&dq=Regionalism+%2B+zemene+mesafint&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_xIjEm_PjAhUBYsAKHaegA5EQ6AEIMTAB#v=onepage&q=Regionalism%20%2B%20zemene%20mesafint&f=false">believe</a> that heightened regionalism during the Zemene Mesafint brought Ethiopia to the brink of disintegration. But the Orthodox church, a powerful non-state actor, was in favour of unity at the time. Religion, therefore, provided a theologically informed political tool – a national myth of a social covenant – to abate the looming danger. </p>
<p>Ordinary citizens used this notion to invent their own version of <a href="https://books.google.es/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Y0YDve-kiK0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=Ullendorff+Ethiopia+and+the+Bible&ots=QcAb3ybQgz&sig=DC8YWs0OcNTVfMmzkrspafRULjY&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Ullendorff%20Ethiopia%20and%20the%20Bible&f=false">volksgiest</a>, or a way of life. Their principal concern was negotiating their space with ethnic and religious others. Ultimately, the social tool that religious intellectuals deployed to avoid existential crisis became an opportunity that helped reconfigure the Ethiopian union. For many years, it was an epistemic framework that provided a vision for peaceful cohabitation.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ethiopia-needs-a-new-rallying-point-instead-of-recycling-its-painful-past-121531">this myth</a> – and the social values that enveloped in it – has not been nurtured and re-calibrated to fit current social and political realities. Instead, it has been demystified and politicised. The result is that, instead of becoming a unifying force, it became a source of polarisation. That religious default point is now replaced by a new one: ethnicity.</p>
<p>In the current Ethiopian political reality, ethnicity is not mere allegiance, it is also an interpretive framework by which groups analyse and formulate their existence. Religion and its social values have been weakened. More worrying, religion is now being preyed upon and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1YE-gr1yGU">can be instrumentalised</a>, if necessary, by politicians to score political points.</p>
<h2>War in Tigray</h2>
<p>The problem confronting Ethiopia now has some similarity to the times of the Zemene Mesafint. For instance, powerful regional states were born. Some of them operate with worrying levels of autonomy in relation to the federal state. They have well-resourced armies that stand toe-to-toe with the federal army. </p>
<p>Personal animosities among political leaders often swiftly take a tribal shape. Ethnic allegiance, and resultant territorialism, has become a social and political prism through which human interactions are imagined. Historical injustices are not properly addressed. Instead, they are recirculated and galvanised by hostile groups to achieve their political goals. </p>
<p>So, what is the role of religion here?</p>
<p>Firstly, what is manifesting in the social and political reams is symptomatic of moral decay within the religious institutions. By their very inability to become a source of peaceful cohabitation and reconciliation, religious groups have become responsible for the loss of the moral compass in society.</p>
<p>Secondly, there is no one unified religious entity that commands attention and dictates a unifying narrative as religious institutions face their own internal crises related to ethnicity. A case in point is that Abune Mathias – the head of the Orthodox Church who is of Tigrayan descent – has recently <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ethiopia-africa-religion-99106036de345fc5e8615ca95b022b36">spoken against</a> the government’s stance in the conflict. There are other clergy members within the same church who are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpPC2WlnTUE">outspoken supporters</a> of the government’s action of “maintaining law and order” in Tigray.</p>
<p>Thirdly, even though religion is not the primary factor behind the conflict, it can be used as a mobilising factor by both sides. Supporters of the warring groups use their pulpits to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QshmiE3-XwE">demonise their perceived enemies</a> and paint their leaders in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2Avy9Y9_GA">messianic light</a>. This comes with the risk of dogmatising ideological positions and desensitising conscience when atrocities are committed by those who are supported by a particular group.</p>
<p>Finally, religiously laced conversation pushes politics from ideas that can be challenged to dogma that should be defended at any cost. It, simply, is a matter of existence.</p>
<h2>Going forward</h2>
<p>Ethiopia’s future is uncertain. The country needs the efforts of every stakeholder to prevent it from the already unfolding tragedy. Religious groups – Christians and Muslims – have big roles to play. I will suggest three action points:</p>
<p>The first, and very critical, step is genuine soul-searching within each religious group. They need to ask the hard questions of why and how the society is sliding into hate-filled chaos. They need to come up with corrective actions within themselves and find a unified narrative among themselves.</p>
<p>Secondly, there is a great need for an inter-religious peace effort. This requires coming out of their own small echo chambers, empathetic listening to those who are hurting, and providing a transcendent narrative that goes beyond the political divides.</p>
<p>Third, they need to take an emotional distance from politics and find a neutral space so they can get moral clarity. They need to find courage to speak truth to power, if necessary. Ethiopia is crying out for a new social covenant – the “we” of humanity, not for the “us versus them” of politics. While diversity should be respected, and even celebrated, the religious teachings should now be focused on healing and reconciliation.</p>
<p><em>An earlier version of this article was first published by <a href="https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/religion-and-the-social-covenant-in-ethiopia-faith-in-the-tigray-conflict">Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171763/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mohammed Girma 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>Ethiopia’s main religions need to take an emotional distance from politics and find a neutral space so they can get moral clarity.Mohammed Girma, Visiting Lecturer, University of RoehamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1676132021-09-29T19:25:59Z2021-09-29T19:25:59ZAfghanistan shows the U.S. folly of trying to implant democratic institutions abroad<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423901/original/file-20210929-20-1uv8sfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4690%2C3124&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks during a congressional committee hearing on the withdrawal of American troops Afghanistan. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The rapid conquest of Kabul in Afghanistan <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-talibans-conquest-of-kabul-threatens-the-lives-and-safety-of-girls-women-and-sexual-minorities-166254">and the triumphant seizure of power by the Taliban</a> triggered shock waves throughout the world. </p>
<p>Since the crumbling of the Afghan government and disintegration of its professionally trained army, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/31/defiant-biden-defends-afghanistan-withdrawal-as-criticism-mounts">a volley of scorching criticisms has been launched at U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration</a> for withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan. But the collapse of the Afghan government was likely inevitable.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and continuing political instability in Iraq provide painful but valuable lessons for those who insist on implanting democracy in a sociopolitical environment that’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0305829817741267">profoundly shaped by inveterate tribal loyalty</a>, kinship and sectarian affiliation. </p>
<p>Since the triumphant arrival of Taliban forces in Kabul in August 2021, the Biden administration has been the target of harsh criticisms. In order to enhance their electoral fortune in 2022 midterms election, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghanistan-republicans-biden-2022-midterms/">congressional Republicans</a> have seized upon the chaotic situation as a golden opportunity to question Biden’s decision-making capacities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Taliban flag on the front of a motorbike." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423908/original/file-20210929-28-47mr7m.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Taliban flag is placed in the front of a motorbike in Kabul, Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Islamic groups and regimes like Iran’s have celebrated the departure of U.S. forces as a sign of the decline in American world domination.</p>
<p>Even media outlets like CNN have depicted Biden as “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/opinions/biden-afghanistan-address-third-option-stewart/index.html">the author of the mess</a>” in Afghanistan. Jim Langevin, a Democrat member of U.S. House of Representatives, has characterized the Biden administration’s decision <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/17/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-biden-congress-democrats-military-plan/">as a “catastrophe”</a> on full display for the world to see.</p>
<h2>Afghan withdrawal was years in the making</h2>
<p>It would be unfair to lay the blame for the tumultuous situation in Afghanistan solely at the feet of the Biden administration.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Biden speaks from behind a podium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423911/original/file-20210929-28-yj5j5y.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>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. President Joe Biden speaks from the White House in April 2021 about the withdrawal of the remainder of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Withdrawing U.S. forces was nothing more than a punctuation mark to end a long sentence of secret negotiations between <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/peace-talks-with-us-started-secretly-under-obama-taliban-spokesperson-120030200196_1.html">Barack Obama’s administration</a> with the Taliban. Those talks eventually culminated in the <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-08-19/was-biden-handcuffed-by-trumps-taliban-deal-in-doha">signing of a peace deal between the Donald Trump administration and the Taliban in Qatar in February 2020</a>.</p>
<p>Ethnically and religiously motivated <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/asia-jan-june11-timeline-afghanistan">political rivalries have been a hallmark of Afghan politics for at least the past four decades</a>. The presence of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan since 2001 provided an incentive for these factional groups to intensify their rivalries. </p>
<p>As long as the U.S. was willing to bear “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/08/16/remarks-by-president-biden-on-afghanistan/">the brunt of the fighting</a>,” there was no incentive for leaders of these factional groups to reach a lasting political settlement. </p>
<p>Despite declarations of a commitment to building democratic institutions, the western-backed Afghan government was nothing more than a corporate entity. Its shareholders were regional warlords and local officials who exercised enormous control and influence over “<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/files/warlords_as_bureaucrats.pdf">the disbursement of financial resources</a>,” including international aid, and bureaucratic recruitment to public positions in both the civil service and the military.</p>
<p>The retention of “<a href="https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5909d5f34.pdf">former warlords in positions of power</a>” cultivated a fertile ground for corruption to flourish. This was further exacerbated by the lack of effective oversight over international aids and the operations of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Afghanistan. </p>
<h2>NGO corruption</h2>
<p>In fact, corruption, <a href="https://archive.globalpolicy.org/home/176-general/49498-criticism-grows-of-afghanistans-bloated-ngo-industry.html">profiteering and extravagant spending by NGO staff</a> fuelled resentment among local Afghans. Ordinary Afghans aware of massive international financial assistance supposedly pouring into the country saw no significant improvement in their lives, but painfully witnessed “<a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2007/09/afgh-s20.html">the vastly higher standards of living among NGO staff</a>” who happened to be connected to regional warlords and local officials. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A baby is fed a supplement." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423913/original/file-20210929-26-190cbdh.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>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2019 photo, a health-care worker provides a supplement as part of a nutrition regime for a seven-month-old baby suffering from malnutrition near Kabul, Afghanistan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the past two decades, numerous official reports and <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2007/09/afgh-s20.html">government watchdogs</a> have highlighted the rampant fraud, embezzlement and nepotism that gradually eroded the faith of Afghan people in their government, and hence sapped the strength of the Afghan state.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, U.S. military leaders who were aware of the scale of corruption chose to conceal it so they could <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/14/afghanistan-taliban-us-troops">boast about the “progress”</a> they were making. But contrary to those assertions, the magnitude of corruption had not only diminished the morale of the Afghan army but had also alienated ordinary Afghans from their own government. </p>
<p>Consequently, neither the Afghan people nor its <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/08/taliban-take-kabul-via-path-paved-by-corruption/">security forces and army</a> were willing to put up resistance against advancing Taliban forces. </p>
<h2>Parallels to Iraq</h2>
<p>A parallel can also be drawn between the lack of morale to counter Taliban forces and the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37702442">collapse of Iraqi army in Mosul in June 2014</a>. That collapse resulted in the capture of several major cities and towns in northern Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). </p>
<p>Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, ethnic and sectarian politics have dominated Iraqi politics. Like Afghanistan, Iraqi political factions have failed to establish an inclusive form of government. In conjunction with ethnic rivalry and sectarian politics, “<a href="https://www.u4.no/publications/iraq-overview-of-corruption-and-anti-corruption-2020">deeply entrenched corruption</a>” has become a major force in fostering a sense of disillusionment among ordinary Iraqi citizens. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Children play in a damaged car amid piles of rubble." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/423915/original/file-20210929-20-1tooer7.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children play inside a damaged car amid heavy destruction in a neighbourhood retaken by Iraqi security forces from Islamic State militants near Mosul, Iraq, in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Political corruption and sectarian appointments in fact eroded <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/pauliddon/2021/08/17/is-there-an-iraq-precedent-to-the-failure-of-afghanistans-military/?sh=7ab9e06b79dc">the morale of the Iraqi army</a> to withstand the ISIL onslaught.</p>
<p>This summer’s disintegration of the Afghan government and the continuation of political turmoil in Iraq provide invaluable lessons for the United States, which has imposed upon itself the duty of emancipating the world in the name of democracy. </p>
<h2>Failed ‘democratization’ missions</h2>
<p>The failure to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan is a compelling testimony of the fallacy of the project heralded by neoconservatives and put into action by George W. Bush. The former U.S. president justified these wars as “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4152940.pdf">democratizing missions</a>.” </p>
<p>The abject failure of both missions shows the folly of trying to implant democratic institutions in societies where kinship, tribal loyalty and sectarian affiliation have deep roots. Sectarianism and ethnic loyalty tend to foster environments that aren’t receptive to liberal values of tolerance, respect for civil liberty and individual freedom — all of which are <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20048858.pdf">essential conditions</a> to develop vibrant and successful democracies. </p>
<p>Loyalty to tribes and sectarian affiliation often impede the development of loyalty to the wider political community. This is a painful reality that must be taken into consideration by those who insist on installing democracy in countries marked by ingrained tribal and sectarian loyalty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sirvan Karimi 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>This summer’s disintegration of the Afghan government and continuing political turmoil in Iraq provide valuable lessons for the U.S. and its mission to impose democracy on the rest of the world.Sirvan Karimi, Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1487992020-11-12T13:25:08Z2020-11-12T13:25:08ZThe Matrix is already here: Social media promised to connect us, but left us isolated, scared and tribal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366612/original/file-20201030-14-y5b5fy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2999%2C1999&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It's time, says the author, to take the red pill.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/red-pill-blue-pill-concept-the-right-choice-the-royalty-free-image/1025776498?adppopup=true">Diy13 via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>About a year ago I began to follow my interest in health and fitness on Instagram. Soon I began to see more and more fitness-related accounts, groups, posts and ads. I kept clicking and following, and eventually my Instagram became all about fit people, fitness and motivational material, and advertisements. Does this sound familiar?</p>
<p>While the algorithms and my brain kept me scrolling on the endless feeds, I was reminded of what digital marketers like to say: “Money is in the list.” That is, the more customized your group, people and page follows, the less time and money is needed to sell you related ideas. Instead, brand ambassadors will do the work, spreading products, ideas and ideologies with passion and free of charge. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.starclab.org/members/arash-javanbakht">I’m a psychiatrist</a> who studies anxiety and stress, and I often write about how our politics and culture are mired in fear and tribalism. <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/marina-arakcheieva-57850916/">My co-author</a> is a digital marketing expert who brings expertise to the technological-psychological aspect of this discussion. With the nation on edge, we believe it’s critical to look at how easily our society is being manipulated into tribalism in the age of social media. Even after the exhausting election cycle is over, the division persists, if not widening, and conspiracy theories continue to emerge, grow and divide on the social media. Based on our knowledge of stress, fear and social media, we offer you some ways to weather the next few days, and protect yourself against the current divisive environment. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Old media, like television and newspapers, exposed us to a wide variety of beliefs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366614/original/file-20201030-18-10sv6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366614/original/file-20201030-18-10sv6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366614/original/file-20201030-18-10sv6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366614/original/file-20201030-18-10sv6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366614/original/file-20201030-18-10sv6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366614/original/file-20201030-18-10sv6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366614/original/file-20201030-18-10sv6oz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It wasn’t perfect, but old media – like TV, newspapers and books – often exposed us to a wide variety of beliefs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/smiling-young-couple-both-sitting-on-a-sofa-with-a-royalty-free-image/81773001?adppopup=true">H. Armstrong Roberts via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The promise, the Matrix</h2>
<p>Those of us old enough to know what life was like before social media may remember how exciting Facebook was at its inception. Imagine, the ability to connect with old friends we had not seen for decades! Then, Facebook was a virtual dynamic conversation. This brilliant idea, to connect to others with shared experiences and interests, was strengthened with the advent of Twitter, Instagram and apps.</p>
<p>Things did not remain that simple. These platforms have morphed into Frankenstein’s monsters, filled with so-called friends we’ve never met, slanted news stories, celebrity gossip, self-aggrandizement and ads. </p>
<p>The artificial intelligence behind these platforms determines what you see based on your social media and web activity, including <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ds/preferences/">your engagement</a> with pages and ads. For example, on Twitter you may follow the politicians you like. Twitter algorithms quickly respond and show you more posts and people related to that political leaning. The more you like, follow and share, the faster you find yourself moving in that political direction. There is, however, this nuance: Those algorithms tracking you are often triggered by your <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-fright-why-we-love-to-be-scared-85885">negative emotions</a>, typically impulsivity or anger.</p>
<p>As a result, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc_Jq42Og7Q&fbclid=IwAR0rdHWlYYnBmmxVwTD36JZ__HQfaU9BcgifDNFuG4stTLLyQvykIh5cvNo">the algorithms</a> amplify the negative and then spread it by sharing it among groups. This might play a role in the widespread anger among those engaged in politics, regardless of their side of the aisle.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Even before COVID-19, social media was a major source of stress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366615/original/file-20201030-17-1nhczci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366615/original/file-20201030-17-1nhczci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366615/original/file-20201030-17-1nhczci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366615/original/file-20201030-17-1nhczci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366615/original/file-20201030-17-1nhczci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366615/original/file-20201030-17-1nhczci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366615/original/file-20201030-17-1nhczci.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Social media are a major source of stress.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/even-the-best-sometimes-suffer-with-stress-royalty-free-image/1186693960?adppopup=true">Dean Mitchell via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The digital tribe</h2>
<p>Eventually, the algorithms expose us mostly to the ideology of one “digital tribe” – the same way my Instagram world became only superfit and active people. This is how one’s Matrix can become the extremes of conservatism, liberalism, different religions, climate change worriers or deniers or other ideologies. Members of each tribe keep consuming and feeding one another the same ideology while policing one another against opening up to “the others.” </p>
<p>We are inherently tribal creatures anyway; but particularly when we’re scared, we regress further into tribalism and tend to trust the information relayed to us by our tribe and not by others. Normally, that’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-the-politics-of-fear-and-racism-how-our-brains-can-be-manipulated-to-tribalism-139811">an evolutionary advantage</a>. Trust leads to group cohesion, and it helps us survive. </p>
<p>But now, that same tribalism – along with peer pressure, negative emotions and short tempers – often lead to ostracizing those who disagree with you. <a href="https://civicscience.com/the-majority-of-americans-are-also-social-distancing-from-politics/">In one study</a>, 61% of Americans reported having unfriended, unfollowed or blocked someone on social media because of their political views or posts.</p>
<p>Higher levels of social media use and exposure to sensationalized news about the pandemic is linked with <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32945123/">increased depression and stress</a>. And more time spent on social media correlates with <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27723539/">higher anxiety</a>, which can create a negative loop. <a href="https://www.journalism.org/2020/10/07/before-trump-tested-positive-for-coronavirus-republicans-attention-to-pandemic-had-sharply-declined/">One example</a>: The Pew Research Center reports 90% of Republicans who get their political news only from conservative platforms said the U.S. has controlled the COVID-19 outbreak as much as possible. Yet less than half of Republicans who rely on at least one other major news provider thought so. </p>
<h2>The Matrix does the thinking</h2>
<p>Human thinking itself has been transformed. It’s now more difficult for us to grasp the “big picture.” A book is a long read these days, too much for some people. Scrolling and swiping culture has reduced our attention span (on average people spend <a href="https://www.facebook.com/business/news/insights/capturing-attention-feed-video-creative">1.7 to 2.5 seconds</a> on a Facebook news feed item). It has also deactivated our critical thinking skills. Even really big news doesn’t last on our feed longer than a few hours; after all, the next blockbuster story is just ahead. The Matrix does the thinking; we consume the ideology and are bolstered by the likes from our tribemates.</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>Before all this, our social exposure was mostly to family, friends, relatives, neighbors, classmates, TV, movies, radio, newspapers, magazines and books. And that was enough. In that, there was diversity and a relatively healthy information diet with a wide variety of nutrients. We always knew people who were not like minded, but getting along with them was normal life, part of the deal. Now those different voices have become more distant – “the others” we love to hate on social media. </p>
<h2>Is there a red pill?</h2>
<p>We need to take back the control. Here are seven things we can do to unplug ourselves out of the Matrix:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Review and update <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ds/preferences/">your ad preferences</a> on social media at least once per year.</p></li>
<li><p>Confuse the AI by flagging all ads and suggestions as “irrelevant.”</p></li>
<li><p>Practice being more inclusive. Check other websites, read their news and do not “unfriend” people who think differently from you.</p></li>
<li><p>Turn off cable news and read instead. Or at least put a disciplined limit on hours of exposure.</p></li>
<li><p>Check out less biased sources of news such as <a href="https://www.npr.org">NPR</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com">BBC</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/us">The Conversation</a>. </p></li>
<li><p>If you think everything your tribe leaders say is absolute truth, think again. </p></li>
<li><p>Go offline and go out (just wear your mask). Practice smartphone-free hours.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, remember that your neighbor who supports the other football team or the other political party <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1324926298762870785?s=20">is not your enemy</a>; you can still go for a bike ride together! I did today, and we didn’t even have to talk politics.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>It’s time to take the red pill. Take these seven steps, and you won’t give in to the Matrix. </p>
<p><em>This piece was co-authored with Maryna Arakcheieva, who is expert in digital solutions and marketing</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arash Javanbakht 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>Remember what life was like before social media took over? Now that the election is over, it might be a good time to take back our lives.Arash Javanbakht, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1457692020-09-14T15:06:26Z2020-09-14T15:06:26ZAmerica’s inflection point: four key things Africa must watch for<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357896/original/file-20200914-22-ihm118.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Jessica Koscielniak / pool</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>African scholars and policymakers face a tough challenge in analysing how the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53657174">US presidential election</a> on 3 November might affect Africa-US relations. </p>
<p>This is because of the extreme polarisation of politics that has been growing for decades in the US. Simultaneous national crises have made matters worse. These suddenly erupted over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, its impact on the economy, and fresh evidence of white racism towards black Americans. </p>
<p>In deeply divided America, four clusters of political political conflicts arise over issues of national identity, sustainable democracy, international relations and electoral integrity. Crises in public health, the economy and race relations are adding to these conflicts. </p>
<p>African countries struggle with similar political issues – though in very different local circumstances. They are also afflicted by the global COVID-19 pandemic and economic crises. </p>
<p>These four unresolved and contentious clusters of political issues have confronted the US since it declared independence from Britain <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Declaration-of-Independence">in 1776</a> and created a federal state in 1789. In 2020 many crucial issues have <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2019-02-05/new-americanism-nationalism-jill-lepore">yet to be resolved</a>. </p>
<p>Republican President Donald Trump and his deputy Mike Pence <a href="https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/08/24/rnc-sends-trump-pence-ticket-off-and-running/">campaign</a> for an ethnic nationalist identity. Their appeal is to white Christian racial supremacists. They also advocate a nationalist and unilateral foreign policy. They back Republican efforts to limit equal voting rights. And they <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/08/28/what-can-trump-do-to-eke-out-a-victory-in-the-electoral-college/">threaten other actions</a> to subvert electoral integrity.</p>
<p>Their Democratic challengers Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris have very different goals. They are <a href="https://apnews.com/1483c085980847a6a54957a4ed0399f4">campaigning</a> for an America that is more inclusive and equitable. A similar aspiration is enshrined in South Africa’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/SAConstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a>: to become a country that belongs to all who live in it, united in its diversity. </p>
<h2>American inflection point</h2>
<p>Harris describes the 2020 election as an “inflection point”. She means a turning point in America’s long curve towards or <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2020/08/19/Kamala-Harris-says-US-at-inflection-point-Obama-rebukes-Trump/5251597870474/">away from democratic development</a>. It is a nod to an adage attributed to Martin Luther King, and <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/white-house-defends-king-quote-on-oval-office-rug/1877758/">popularised by former President Barack Obama</a>, that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/opinion-smith-obama-king_n_5a5903e0e4b04f3c55a252a4">The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This theme threads through the Democratic Platform, with <a href="https://www.demconvention.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020-07-31-Democratic-Party-Platform-For-Distribution.pdf">specific promises</a>. Biden and Harris now appear <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-presidential-race-is-still-joe-bidens-to-lose">likely to be elected</a>. It’s therefore important to consider what their positions mean for Africa-US relations.</p>
<p>Trump, by contrast, repeats his promise of 2016 to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/trump-rnc-speech-alone-fix-it/492557/">restore America’s “greatness”</a>. His Republican Party doesn’t even offer a new list of goals and programmes for the next four years. Instead, the party republished its 2016 platform with a covering memo praising the leadership of Donald Trump. This leaves voters and foreign governments with <a href="https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/docs/Resolution_Platform_2020.pdf">little new to analyse</a>.</p>
<p>For those trying to calculate the effects on African nations of an American inflection point, there are four areas to consider:</p>
<h2>National identity</h2>
<p>White supremacy has been the predominant national identity since America was colonised in the 17th century. Now, with ethnic diversity accelerating, exemplified by the election of a black president <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05campaign.html">in 2008</a>, Trump has stoked a backlash. Deprived of any claim to a strong economy as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage, he is reduced to running again as an ethnic nationalist – akin to a “tribalist” in Africa.</p>
<p>In today’s America there are limits to blatant appeals to racial prejudice. </p>
<p>Trump absurdly claims to have done more for African-Americans than any president <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/05/trumps-claim-that-hes-done-more-blacks-than-any-president-since-lincoln/">since Abraham Lincoln</a>. But there are also political limits to how far Biden can go in embracing progressive calls for more rapid and complete integration. </p>
<p>The structural racism cited by the <a href="https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1327&context=honorstheses">Black Lives Matter movement</a> persists among liberals. But it does so as an implicit <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/americas-racial-contract-showing/611389/">“racial contract”</a> sustaining white privilege in access to housing, health care, education and employment. These are familiar issues in African countries, where a white tribal faction has historically dominated. </p>
<h2>Sustainable democracy</h2>
<p>In accepting the Democratic Party nomination, Biden focused on issues of <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/20/politics/biden-dnc-speech-transcript/index.html">character and leadership</a>. He had Obama make the case for sustainable democracy and democratic inclusion. Obama pointedly referenced democracy 18 times in an address that reprised themes Africans heard in his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/07/17/629862434/transcript-obamas-speech-at-the-2018-nelson-mandela-annual-lecture">2018 Mandela Lecture</a> in South Africa. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357897/original/file-20200914-22-1se33rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357897/original/file-20200914-22-1se33rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357897/original/file-20200914-22-1se33rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357897/original/file-20200914-22-1se33rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357897/original/file-20200914-22-1se33rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357897/original/file-20200914-22-1se33rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/357897/original/file-20200914-22-1se33rf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Presidential hopeful Joe Biden addresses the Democratic National Convention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/DNCC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Trump, by contrast, did not reference democracy once in his unusually long 70-minute address accepting his party’s nomination for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/us/politics/trump-rnc-speech-transcript.html">a second term</a>.</p>
<p>Obama’s warnings to Americans that Trump threatens the integrity and sustainability of democratic institutions has a familiar ring. In his 2009 address to the Ghanaian parliament, he said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-ghanaian-parliament">Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump, along with his family, cronies and party enablers, appears to have achieved sufficient “state capture” to bring the US to a negative inflection point, as I <a href="https://www.eisa.org/pdf/sym2017papers.pdf">predicted in 2018</a> (Chapter 10).</p>
<h2>International relations</h2>
<p>Of more immediate and practical concern to African nations is whether Trump’s <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-08-11/present-disruption">nationalist unilateralism</a> will continue to dominate US foreign policy. Or will there be a turn towards the multilateralism that Biden pledges to pursue? This includes:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/pay-remaining-dues-trump-pulls-200902210814877.html">restoring US funding and engagement</a> in the World Health Organisation,</p></li>
<li><p>support for climate change mitigation, </p></li>
<li><p>immigration reform, and</p></li>
<li><p>support for collective security efforts to help Africans implement their commitments to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-african-union-has-failed-to-silence-the-guns-and-some-solutions-139567">ending armed conflicts</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>African scholars also <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2020-09-07-four-more-years-of-donald-trump-bodes-ill-for-the-future-of-africa/">warn</a> of a growing US-China “Cold War” under Trump. This would be detrimental to Africa.</p>
<p>Former US national security advisor and UN ambassador Susan Rice has called for an <a href="https://www.democratsabroad.org/susan_rice_call">early summit</a> with South Africa’s president and current African Union chair, Cyril Ramaphosa, should Biden be elected. Similarly, former US assistant secretary of state for Africa, Johnnie Carson, <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/acsus/">envisions</a> a deepening of African-American partnerships under a Biden administration. </p>
<h2>Electoral integrity</h2>
<p>The threat to American democracy most familiar to Africans is an incumbent’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa-faces-a-new-threat-to-democracy-the-constitutional-coup-72011">subversion of electoral integrity</a>. Trump has repeatedly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/06/trumps-voter-suppression-effort-has-devolved-into-farce/">indicated his readiness to do</a> something similar.</p>
<p>African electoral violence specialist Michelle Small has noted the need to compare Trump’s responses to racial protests with efforts to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/witsacsus/photos/a.685933545195575/1075414576247468/?type=3">retain power by extra-constitutional means</a>. All members of the African Union, despite democratic setbacks, are still obliged to hold periodic national elections, accessible to <a href="https://eisa.org/pdf/eisa2016Stremlau.pdf">external observers</a>.</p>
<p>Well documented interference in the 2016 and 2020 US elections by the Russian government, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/putin-american-democracy/610570/">favouring Trump</a>, may also portend similar risks of foreign manipulation of [African elections]. (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/technology/russia-facebook-disinformation-africa.html)</p>
<h2>What to expect</h2>
<p>For African scholars and policymakers seeking to advance their national and regional interests in dealings with the US, the <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/us/inauguration-day">59th presidential inauguration</a> will also be an inflection point. </p>
<p>Should Trump prevail, there is unlikely to be any discernible change in his behaviour of the past four years. Occasional private disparagement of African <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-referred-haiti-african-countries-shithole-nations-n836946">nations</a> and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-nelson-mandela-leader-south-africa-judge/">leaders</a> will most likely continue. </p>
<p>There will be continued disengagement from initiatives of concern to Africans in public health, the environment, trade and other areas. His actions towards Africa, as in other areas, lack strategy. But as in 2016 <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/how-trump-could-win?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_091120&utm_campaign=aud-">he could still win</a>.</p>
<p>Despite presidential neglect, programmes in public health, trade agriculture, health, education and young leaders launched by Trump’s predecessors would likely continue with <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/02/20/how-america-deals-with-africa-despite-donald-trump">bi-partisan Congressional support</a>. </p>
<p>A Biden win offers a much richer field for contingency planning, although resources will be very constrained and attention will be <a href="https://theconversation.com/africas-wish-list-of-what-might-change-under-a-biden-presidency-133253">overwhelmingly domestic</a>. </p>
<p>That said, Biden would enter office owing a huge political debt to the support of African Americans. His ticket indicates receptiveness to honouring it, including immigration and other reforms affecting the African diaspora as well as expanding US-Africa partnerships. Planning to take advantage of those contingencies should be a priority in Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145769/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John J Stremlau is affiliated as board member of the Electoral Institute of International Affairs and is a member of Democrats Abroad.. </span></em></p>Many political issues in the 2020 US election are domestic. But black resistance to white supremacy has long had global repercussions.John J Stremlau, Honorary Professor of International Relations, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed 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/1398112020-06-02T12:13:00Z2020-06-02T12:13:00ZTrump, the politics of fear and racism: How our brains can be manipulated to tribalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338996/original/file-20200601-95018-1wp5kra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C35%2C3880%2C2376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protester reacts after being hit by pepper spray from police as their group of demonstrators are detained prior to arrest at a gas station on South Washington Street, Sunday, May 31, 2020, in Minneapolis. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-America-Protests-Minneapolis/26d3b4099da44eee84e05ef34e2f92a6/6/0">John Minchillo/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tribalism has become a signature of America within and without since the election of President Trump. The nation has parted ways with <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44427660">international allies</a>, left the rest of the world in their effort to fight the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/773474657/u-s-formally-begins-to-leave-the-paris-climate-agreement">climate change</a>, and most recently the pandemic, by <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/29/trump-says-the-us-will-cut-ties-with-world-health-organization.html">leaving</a> the World Health Organization. Even the pandemic was not a serious issue of importance to our leaders. We did not care much about what was happening in the rest of the world, as opposed to the time of previous pandemics when we were on the ground in those countries helping block the progress so long as it was China’s or the European Union’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/lethargic-global-response-to-covid-19-how-the-human-brains-failure-to-assess-abstract-threats-cost-us-dearly-137119">problem</a>. This marks drastic change from previous U.S. altruistic attitude, including during the World War II.</p>
<p>Whether Trump is the cause or effect of the changes in America’s collective attitude, an attribute of our current president is his eagerness and ability to use fear for intimidation of those who disagree with him, and subordination and shepherding of those who support him. </p>
<p>Fear is arguably as old as life. It is <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-fright-why-we-love-to-be-scared-85885">deeply ingrained in the living organisms</a> that have survived extinction through billions of years of evolution. Its roots are deep in our core psychological and biological being, and it is one of our most intimate feelings. Danger and war are as old as human history, and so are politics and religion.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://www.starclab.org/members/arash-javanbakht">psychiatrist and neuroscientist</a> specializing in fear and trauma, and I have some thoughts on how politics, fear and tribalism are intertwined in the current events.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1266007038817116163"}"></div></p>
<h2>We learn fear from tribe mates</h2>
<p>Like other animals, humans can learn fear from <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nn1968">experience</a>, such as being attacked by a predator, or witnessing a predator attacking another human. Furthermore, we learn fear by instructions, such as being told there is a predator nearby.</p>
<p>Learning from our tribe mates is an evolutionary advantage that has prevented us from repeating dangerous experiences of other humans. We have a tendency to trust our tribe mates and authorities, especially when it comes to danger. It is adaptive: Parents and wise old men told us not to eat a special plant, or not to go to an area in the woods, or we would be hurt. By trusting them, we would not die like a great-grandfather who died eating that plant. This way, we accumulated knowledge.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evolution-explains-why-politics-tribal/">Tribalism has been an inherent</a> part of human history, and is closely linked with fear. There has always been competition between groups of humans in different ways and with different faces, from brutal wartime nationalism to a strong loyalty to a football team. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1745691617707317">Evidence from cultural neuroscience</a> shows that our brains even respond differently at an unconscious level simply to the view of faces from other races or cultures.</p>
<p>At a tribal level, people are more emotional and consequently less logical: Fans of both teams pray for their team to win, hoping God will take sides in a game. On the other hand, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-risky-is-it-really/201012/fear-makes-us-tribal-and-stupid-case-in-point-rush-limbaugh">we regress to tribalism when afraid</a>. This is an evolutionary advantage that would lead to the group cohesion and help us fight the other tribes to survive.</p>
<p>Tribalism is the biological loophole that many politicians have banked on for a long time: tapping into our fears and tribal instincts. Abuse of fear has killed in many faces: extreme nationalism, Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan and religious tribalism have all led to heartless killing of millions.</p>
<p>The typical pattern is to give the other humans a different label than us, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Social_and_behavioral_sciences">perceive them as less than us</a>, who are going to harm us or our resources, and to turn the other group into a concept. It does not have to necessarily be race or nationality. It can be any real or imaginary difference: liberals, conservatives, Middle Easterners, white men, the right, the left, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs. The list goes on and on.</p>
<p>This attitude is a hallmark of the current president. You could be a Chinese, a Mexican, a Muslim, a Democrat, a liberal, a reporter or a woman. So long as you do not belong to his immediate or larger perceived tribe, he portrays you as subhuman, less worthy, and an enemy.</p>
<p>Retweeting “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/28/trump-retweets-video-saying-only-good-democrat-is-dead-democrat/">The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat</a>” is a recent example of how he feeds, and feeds off of such divisive and dehumanizing tribalism.</p>
<p>When building tribal boundaries between “us” and “them,” politicians have managed very well to create virtual groups of people that do not communicate and hate without even knowing each other: This is the human animal in action!</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338940/original/file-20200601-95036-iey1yh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/338940/original/file-20200601-95036-iey1yh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338940/original/file-20200601-95036-iey1yh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338940/original/file-20200601-95036-iey1yh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338940/original/file-20200601-95036-iey1yh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338940/original/file-20200601-95036-iey1yh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/338940/original/file-20200601-95036-iey1yh.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The coronavirus pandemic has contributed to divisions rather than mitigated them, as shown here in a protest in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on May 15, 2020 in favor of reopening the state.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-protest-in-harrisburg-pennsylvania-on-may-15-news-photo/1213147461?adppopup=true">Photo by Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fear is uninformed, illogical and often dumb</h2>
<p>Very often my patients with phobias start with: “I know it is stupid, but I am afraid of spiders.” Or it may be dogs or cats, or something else. And I always reply: “It is not stupid, it is illogical.” We humans have different functions in the brain, and fear oftentimes bypasses logic. In situations of danger, we ought to be fast: First run or kill, then think.</p>
<p>This human tendency is meat to the politicians who want to exploit fear: If you grew up only around people who look like you, only listened to one media outlet and heard from the old uncle that those who look or think differently hate you and are dangerous, the inherent fear and hatred toward those unseen people is an understandable (but flawed) result.</p>
<p>To win us, politicians, sometimes with the media’s help, do their best to keep us separated, to keep the real or imaginary “others” just a “concept.” Because if we spend time with others, talk to them and eat with them, we will learn that they are like us: humans with all the strengths and weaknesses that we possess. Some are strong, some are weak, some are funny, some are dumb, some are nice and some not too nice.</p>
<h2>Fear can easily turn violent</h2>
<p>There is a reason that the response to fear is called the “fight or flight” response. That response has helped us survive the predators and other tribes that have wanted to kill us. But again, it is another loophole in our biology to be abused. By scaring us, the demagogues turn on our aggression toward “the others,” whether in the form of vandalizing their temples, harassing them on the social media, of killing them in cold blood.</p>
<p>When demagogues manage to get hold of our fear circuitry, we often regress to illogical, tribal and aggressive human animals, becoming weapons ourselves – weapons that politicians use for their own agenda.</p>
<p>The irony of evolution is that while those attached to tribal ideologies of racism and nationalism perceive themselves as superior to others, in reality they are acting on a more primitive, less evolved and more animal level.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article is an updated version of an article that originally was published Jan. 11, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arash Javanbakht 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>Fear is very much a part of humans’ survival. Demagogues and others who want to manipulate have learned that this human trait can be exploited, often with disastrous consequences.Arash Javanbakht, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1229112019-09-20T12:36:24Z2019-09-20T12:36:24Z‘Always sticking to your convictions’ sounds like a good thing – but it isn’t<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291610/original/file-20190909-109923-1tblza1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Conviction can lead to dogmatism.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/crowd-small-symbolic-figures-forming-big-1245473695">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is nothing wrong with strong opinions. They are healthy in a democracy – an apathetic electorate is an ineffective electorate.</p>
<p>But a curious fact about American society’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/26/us/america-state-of-hate/index.html">supercharged political culture</a> is that even the most humble debates (think: <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/9/6/20852676/popeyes-chicken-sandwich-chick-fil-a-sandwich-wars">Which fried chicken sandwiches are best?</a>) turn a tweet into matters of conviction. </p>
<p>The result is that many of us come to see criticism as intolerable and disagreement with our opinions as <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034">a mark of moral inferiority</a>. </p>
<p>That’s a problem not just because it can lead to incivility; it’s a problem because it can lead to dogmatism, and when it comes to matters like <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-sciences-are-best-hope-for-ending-debates-over-climate-change-39671">climate change</a> or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/10/trump-some-his-supporters-violence-against-immigrants-appears-totally-acceptable/">immigration</a>, even violent fanaticism. </p>
<h2>‘Where your beliefs meet your identity’</h2>
<p>I’m a philosopher who studies truth and democracy. And as I argue in my 2019 book, <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631493614">“Know-it-All Society: Truth and Arrogance in Political Culture,”</a> the key to understanding why people are prone to turn straightforward disagreements into matters of conviction lies in understanding what convictions are in the first place. </p>
<p>A conviction isn’t just a strongly held belief. I strongly believe that two and two make four, but that doesn’t rise to the level of a conviction. </p>
<p>Convictions are about what matters to us. Most importantly, they signify to others what kind of person – parent, friend, citizen – we take ourselves to be. They reflect our self-identity. It is this fact that makes a conviction feel so certain, so right. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291619/original/file-20190909-109962-1fh6mn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291619/original/file-20190909-109962-1fh6mn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291619/original/file-20190909-109962-1fh6mn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291619/original/file-20190909-109962-1fh6mn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291619/original/file-20190909-109962-1fh6mn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291619/original/file-20190909-109962-1fh6mn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291619/original/file-20190909-109962-1fh6mn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291619/original/file-20190909-109962-1fh6mn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators clash during a protest in Philadelphia, July 28, 2016, during the final day of the Democratic National Convention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/DEM-2016-Philadelphia/1e971f85025b4e0888f2417b4b3774d6/119/0">AP/Alex Brandon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is pretty obvious in some cases. Whether you are Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Muslim, your religious convictions shape the kind of person you and others see yourself as being. The same is true of your convictions about hotly contested ethical issues like abortion, the death penalty or gun control. In such cases, conviction becomes where belief meets identity.</p>
<p>Of course, people do change their minds about such things, but the connection between conviction and identity helps to explain why it is so difficult for them to do so – even when the evidence points in the other direction. </p>
<p>People’s convictions reflect the kind of person they aspire to be, and as a result they are ready to make all sorts of sacrifices for them – including sacrificing the facts and logic if need be. </p>
<p>And because it is connected to a person’s identity, giving up a conviction – even admitting it might need some improvement – feels like an act of self-betrayal and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-total-exoneration-to-impeach-now-the-mueller-report-and-dueling-fact-perceptions-116488">betrayal of their tribe</a>. </p>
<p>And naturally, the tribe may well agree. As a result, and as Yale psychologist <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Dan+Kahan&oq=Dan+Kahan&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.5512j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Dan Kahan</a> and his colleagues have emphasized, it can actually be pragmatically rational to end up ignoring the evidence and sticking to your convictions. No one wants to crush their self-image; nor does anyone want to be voted off the island.</p>
<h2>Grudge matches everywhere</h2>
<p>Conviction’s connection to identity also helps to explain how our <a href="https://www.people-press.org/interactives/political-polarization-1994-2017/">increasingly polarized</a> political culture can encourage us to turn every debate – from debates over chicken sandwiches to the path of hurricanes – into a grudge match.</p>
<p>People’s identities, particularly political identities, are not formed in isolation. We construct them by adopting opinions that are woven into larger cultural stories of <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-total-exoneration-to-impeach-now-the-mueller-report-and-dueling-fact-perceptions-116488">the tribes we want to remain a part of</a>.</p>
<p>And it is the nature of cultural narratives to expand – to go beyond the question of who to vote for to <a href="https://theconversation.com/partisan-divide-creates-different-americas-separate-lives-122925">what kinds of cars to drive, sports to watch and coffee to drink</a>. The stories become about who “we” are, who “they” are, why we are right and they are wrong. </p>
<p>As a result, opinions about questions that should be settled by empirical data – like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/could-a-booster-shot-of-truth-help-scientists-fight-the-anti-vaccine-crisis-111154">safety of vaccines</a> or the effectiveness of a wall for stemming illegal immigration or the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/oct/22/trump-thinks-scientists-are-split-on-climate-change-so-do-most-americans">reality</a> <a href="http://whatweknow.aaas.org/get-the-facts/">of climate change</a> – end up being absorbed into a larger identity-shaping story. They become convictions and immune to evidence. </p>
<p>So what happens when it becomes super easy to share and shape our convictions – when people carry in their pockets devices essentially designed to do just that?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291621/original/file-20190909-109931-11d6hsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291621/original/file-20190909-109931-11d6hsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291621/original/file-20190909-109931-11d6hsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291621/original/file-20190909-109931-11d6hsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291621/original/file-20190909-109931-11d6hsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291621/original/file-20190909-109931-11d6hsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291621/original/file-20190909-109931-11d6hsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291621/original/file-20190909-109931-11d6hsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What happens, the author asks, when people’s convictions – here, about the safety of vaccines – become immune to evidence?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Vaccine-Exemptions-Schools/af836aabdbec47dbaf0abff59a9ba5f9/150/0">AP/John Bazemore</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reward and punishment</h2>
<p>For many, identity is increasingly constructed online, their self-image determined by what social networks say about them and what they say in response. </p>
<p>Social networks, in turn, can act as tools for <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-new-report-offers-insights-into-tribalism-in-the-age-of-trump">reinforcing and policing the way in which people describe each other</a> and the convictions these descriptions encourage. Platforms like Facebook not only let people communicate their emotions; they let people reward and punish each other for doing so.
[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.] </p>
<p>Put these facts together – that our identities are shaped by cultural narratives and those narratives are increasingly told online – and you get our <a href="https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/googling-is-believing-trumping-the-informed-citizen/">digitalized political culture, which promotes, rewards and upholds blind conviction</a>. </p>
<p>By sharing our outrage or our emotional attachment to some claim of fact, we signal to each other that the tribe must commit to it. We signal to each other that it should be a matter of conviction, that it should be part of “our” story. And we signal that it would be dangerous to change our minds. </p>
<p>As a result, commitments that we think are principled, a result of the evidence and our individual story of our best self, are actually just fragments of a larger cultural story. </p>
<p>They’re not really “ours.”</p>
<p>When people are unaware that convictions can seem principled while actually being blind, they are helpless in the face of the conviction machine. And that helplessness makes their stories – their very identities – vulnerable to being hijacked by those who feed off tribalism and focus conviction-inspired rage into an ideology of contempt and hate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122911/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Patrick Lynch 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>Convictions are where beliefs meet identity. But that can lead to trouble. Our supercharged politics make giving up a conviction feel like an act of self-betrayal and a betrayal of our tribe.Michael Patrick Lynch, Professor of Philosophy, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1217712019-08-20T13:04:43Z2019-08-20T13:04:43ZHow a chief defied apartheid and upheld democracy for the good of his people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288184/original/file-20190815-136222-34o1j9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo, right, with Dali Mpofu and Winnie Mandela in 1989. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thobekile Maphumulo Family Papers, Author provided (No reuse)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recently released report of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s <a href="http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-ramaphosa-appoints-advisory-panel-land-reform">advisory panel</a> on land reform, and the latest efforts to force through <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-still-has-a-long-way-to-go-to-settle-traditional-leadership-challenges-119009">two controversial traditional authority bills</a>, point to the continued legacies of changes to the relationship between traditional leaders, their followers, and land in South Africa’s history. </p>
<p>The panel calls for a resolution to the “<a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/final-report-presidential-advisory-panel-land-reform-and-agriculture-28-jul-2019-0000">contending philosophies around land tenure</a>” — those of individual rights and those of communalism. But as traditional leaders <a href="https://www.enca.com/news/contralesa-back-zulu-king-ingonyama-issue">fight to continue their control</a> over communally held land, there also needs to be a recognition that there are contending philosophies of traditional leadership. At times, these overlap.</p>
<p>This was evident at the meeting between a delegation from the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa) and the then exiled African National Congress (ANC) in Lusaka, Zambia 30 years ago – on 18 August 1989.</p>
<p>The meeting released a joint memorandum. In it the parties called upon traditional leaders in South Africa to refuse to implement apartheid. The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110427125959/http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=3843">document</a> recognised the profound effects of apartheid on South Africa’s traditional leaders: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>From leaders responsible and responsive to the people, you are being forced by the regime to become its paid agents. From being a force for unity and prosperity you are turned into perpetrators of division, poverty and want among the oppressed. The so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">homeland system</a>, land deprivation, forced removals and the denial of basic political rights – all these and more are the anti-people policies that the white ruling clique forces the chiefs to implement on its behalf.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Contending views of chieftancy</h2>
<p>The ANC and the Contralesa delegation called on a historical understanding of traditional authority in which a leader’s authority came from their followers. This understanding is embodied by the isiZulu proverb <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> (a chief is a chief by the people who <em>khonza</em> him, or pay allegiance to him). <em>Ukukhonza</em> is a practice of political affiliation. It is one that binds chiefs and their subjects and allows for accountability.</p>
<p>Colonialism and apartheid sought to make traditional leaders accountable to white officials by tying them to land. Historian Percy Ngonyama called this <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em> (a chief is a chief by territory). Doing so effected territorial segregation. It also allowed white officials to govern through a mimicry of pre-existing political structures.</p>
<p>Colonial officials came to interpret <em>ukukhonza</em> as a practice of subservience. But in fact, historically, this was a reciprocal practice. Paying allegiance to a chief came with expectations of physical and social security.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287997/original/file-20190814-136176-ywjj73.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My recent <a href="http://www.ukznpress.co.za/?class=bb_ukzn_books&method=view_books&global%5Bfields%5D%5B_id%5D=552">book</a>, To Swim with Crocodiles: Land, Violence and Belonging in South Africa, 1800 - 1996, is a history of <em>ukukhonza</em>. It shows how even as colonialism and apartheid sought to break down personal bonds of <em>ukukhonza</em>, people used knowledge about the practice to make claims on land and on their leaders. </p>
<p>In the case of Inkosi Maphumulo, the claims were for physical security in times of violence.</p>
<h2>Inkosi Mhlabunzima Maphumulo</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/mhlabunzima-joseph-maphumulo">Inkosi (Chief) Mhlabunzima Maphumulo</a> (1949-1991) led the Contralesa delegation to Lusaka. He governed in the Table Mountain region, an area just outside of Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu-Natal. His life, tragically cut short by an apartheid hit squad, provides insight on these overlapping concepts of chiefly authority – <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> and <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em>. </p>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo was the fourth chief of a colonially created chiefdom that from its genesis in 1905 was tied to land south of the <a href="http://www.dwaf.gov.za/iwqs/rhp/state_of_rivers/state_of_umngeni_02/history.html">Umngeni River</a> at <a href="https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1NHXL_enZA711ZA711&q=table+mountain+pietermaritzburg&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNz9T18f_jAhVKJVAKHbBzCQUQsAR6BAgGEAE&biw=1261&bih=636">Table Mountain</a>. The existence of two types of chiefdoms served to “divide and rule”. It pitted leaders who saw themselves as having historical authority against those with new authority from the colonial regime. </p>
<p>From his installation in 1973, he carried out the duties of the chieftaincy within the structures of the nascent KwaZulu bantustan. The so-called <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">“bantustans” or “homelands”</a> were the ultimate level of the three tiered system of governance designed to ensure segregation in South Africa – not only on racial, but also ethnic lines. The bantustans built on so-called <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/24222/02chapter2.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y">tribal authorities</a> such as that of the region Maphumulo governed. </p>
<p>One of Inkosi Maphumulo’s priorities was to provide land to his subjects during a time when territorial segregation constrained black South Africans’ access to land. He tirelessly pursued a contested strip of land that bisected his territory but, according to apartheid-defined boundaries, fell neither under his control nor that of a neighbouring chief.</p>
<p>The government gazette that outlined the boundaries of the Inkosi Maphumulo Tribal Authority in 1957 made its leaders chiefs by land. Colonial officials had been putting down boundaries in Natal for over 100 years. But apartheid’s <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/bantu-authorities-act%2C-act-no-68-of-1951">Bantu Authorities</a> finalised this process and fully bounded chiefdoms. </p>
<p>But Inkosi Maphumulo was a leader who did not forget the responsibilities of chief by the people, even as he pursued land to allocate to his followers. By the time he flew to Lusaka, he had become known as the “peace chief”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287938/original/file-20190813-9389-k5lnqo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maphumulo the peace maker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">New African, April 17, 1989</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As violence spread across the Natal Midlands from 1985 in a state-sponsored civil war, Inkosi Maphumulo organised peace initiatives. And, through Contralesa, he set up a commission of inquiry into the causes of the conflict. </p>
<p>He spoke out against police partiality and cooperation with Inkatha, which was engaged in a deadly conflict with the ANC and the broader liberation movement. He also welcomed refugees of all political affiliations from war torn townships onto land at Table Mountain. He described the process by which this happened to the press:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People are not made to pay money to live in the area, but in our tradition they are expected to pay ‘khonza’—a tribute to the chief… A goat is sufficient for ‘khonza’ but if a person does not have one, then a small amount of money, depending on the person’s circumstances, is expected.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Land and belonging</h2>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo spoke of rights to land as tied to belonging in a chiefdom, a process facilitated by <em>ukukhonza</em>. There was a slight hitch. The neighbouring Nyavu chiefdom, who claimed precedence in the region – to the time of King Shaka, if not before – believed the land onto which Maphumulo located refugees belonged to them. </p>
<p>While Inkosi Maphumulo sought to provide expected security to his followers, both old and those who newly paid allegiance to him, his neighbours and some among his followers who contested his chieftaincy saw the newcomers as interlopers. Peace would <a href="http://disa.ukzn.ac.za/sites/default/files/pdf_files/aff00000000.043.027.pdf">not remain</a> at Table Mountain.</p>
<p>As the violence spread to the area, people used the cultural inheritance of <em>ukukhonza</em> to define who had access to the contested land, and who could expect security from their chief. Inkosi Maphumulo believed himself responsible for the new residents because they had paid allegiance to him. As the conflict raged, he reflected:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had done all I could to ensure peaceful coexistence in my area. What had I done wrong?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He sought to expand his territory, but respected the demands of <em>ukukhonza</em> with his attempts to promote political tolerance, provide a safe haven, and end the violence.</p>
<h2>Chiefaincy and land reform</h2>
<p>Inkosi Maphumulo did not live to see the dawning of democracy in South Africa. But these overlapping concepts of chief by the people and chief by land embodied in his leadership need to be brought to the forefront in current discussions about traditional authority and land reform. </p>
<p>Even after the territorial rule of colonialism and apartheid took hold among chiefs, Inkosi Maphumulo’s belief in the concept of <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em> spurred him to pursue peace and promote political tolerance.</p>
<p>Enshrining the control of land by traditional leaders in <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2019-08-07-secret-details-of-the-land-deal-that-brought-the-ifp-into-the-94-poll?fbclid=IwAR1crtWUQX3RseTPGSua0-0FRZhRv7niLms6KJQBe0tv5bIg8tcNF4TWCkc">recent</a> and newly proposed laws gives precedence to the <em>inkosi yinkosi ngendawo</em> of colonial and apartheid rule at the expense of the people of <em>inkosi yinkosi ngabantu</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121771/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill E. Kelly's research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies (2015) and Fulbright (2010-2011, 2018-2019). </span></em></p>Colonialism and apartheid sought to make traditional leaders accountable to white officials by tying them to land.Jill E. Kelly, Associate Professor of History, Southern Methodist UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1216062019-08-08T13:35:18Z2019-08-08T13:35:18ZCan experts determine who might be a mass killer? 3 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287220/original/file-20190807-144892-2l0vi0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gloria Garces of El Paso grieves before crosses, flags and flowers Aug. 6, 2019 to commemorate those killed at a mall in El Paso.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Texas-Mall-Shooting/feb2d4856cdc4698b6356e7f3f1ee9ba/69/0">Jim Locher/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s Note: After mass shootings, people naturally search for answers. We also want to find the root cause. One subject that often arises is mental illness. People, and politicians, raise questions about “red flags,” or warning signs a person might commit a violent act, and whether someone could have intervened to stop a mass murderer. Psychiatrist Arash Javanbakht answers some questions about mental illness, mass murder and whether it’s possible to prevent horrific shootings.</em></p>
<h2>1. Is a person who commits mass murder mentally ill?</h2>
<p>Not necessarily. In psychiatry, we do not have diagnostic criteria for a mass murderer, terrorist or violent person. There are psychiatric conditions that may include anger, aggression, impulsivity, violence, or lack of remorse or empathy among their symptoms. But there is <a href="https://theconversation.com/guns-and-mental-illness-a-psychiatrist-explains-the-complexities-121480">no one illness</a> that would be found in all mass murderers, or murderers in general.</p>
<p>On the top of the list of the conditions that may lead to violent acts are substance use and personality disorders, specifically antisocial personality disorder. This condition, commonly known as “psychopathy” among the public, entails disrespect for social norms and law; deceitfulness; impulsivity; aggression; lack of responsibility; and remorse. It is highly prevalent among the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20445838">criminal and prison population</a>, and less often treated in the psychiatric clinic. That is because no one comes to the clinic asking us to fix their “lack of conscientiousness.” </p>
<p>Another condition is when a psychotic person has paranoid or persecutory delusions with a conviction that others are there to harm them. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24220644">These conditions</a> are rare. In general, most of the psychiatric conditions that affect nearly a fourth of the population, such as depression, anxiety, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, hair picking, etc., do not increase the risk of violence <a href="http://www.annalsofepidemiology.org/article/S1047-2797(14)00147-1/pdf">toward others.</a></p>
<p>As I have noted before, only a <a href="https://theconversation.com/guns-and-mental-illness-a-psychiatrist-explains-the-complexities-121480">small percentage of violent acts</a> are committed by the mentally ill, and violent behavior does not have to necessarily be coming from mental illness.</p>
<p>Putting a label on something can only be helpful when we are able to treat it, or when it proves the person is not responsible for the act due to the illness. Furthermore, there could always be coincidence: A person who commits violent acts could have depression, and he or she also could have eczema. But the correlation would not necessarily be causational.</p>
<h2>2. What is the difference between extremism and mental illness?</h2>
<p>Broadly, a mental illness is a diagnosable condition that significantly changes one’s emotions, thinking, or behavior, and that leads to dysfunction or distress. There are more than 200 of them listed in the <a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm">diagnostic manual</a> of psychiatry. The profession does not have psychiatric diagnoses for extremism or terrorism. </p>
<p>The person who does commit a crime is an outlier from society in terms of their behavior. People who are overly suggestible, isolated and angry, based on their social and environmental circumstances may get attracted to dangerous ideologies, or join a criminal group or cult. That does not qualify them for a mental illness diagnosis. I have previously discussed <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-politics-of-fear-how-it-manipulates-us-to-tribalism-113815">humans’ tribal nature</a>, and that in the wrong context, especially when fear circuitry in a person’s brain is hijacked by the group leaders, people can be manipulated to heinous acts in service to the tribe’s ideology. </p>
<h2>3. Are there ‘red flag’ behaviors that can indicate risk?</h2>
<p>Yes. In general, a person’s previous actions are great predictors of their future actions: most often, history of violence predicts future violence. However, hindsight is 20/20. We often hear retrospectively that people remember what was wrong with a person who committed a terrible crime, while others could never think “such a nice person” would do what they did. </p>
<p>But in general, history of violence or abuse, substance use and history of self-harm would be among the red flag signs that the person <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18588583">may act violently</a> toward others or themselves. I could also add history of paranoid or persecutory delusions to that. </p>
<p>The good news is that, to prevent a violent person from access to firearms, we do not need an established diagnosis of a mental illness. The history of unreasonable violence itself is enough. These measures may not prevent some of the mass shootings, but they can help with a lot of murders and deaths by suicide.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arash Javanbakht 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>In the wake of yet more mass murders, people want answers. Some questions that arise about the tragedies relate to mental illness. A psychiatrist answers three here.Arash Javanbakht, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1170892019-06-05T22:55:01Z2019-06-05T22:55:01ZFrom the penalty box to the ballot box, our brains are wired for tribalism<p>I’ve been living in southern Ontario for more than a decade, having also lived in various parts of the United States and India. But I’m a Montrealer, born and raised. It was a bit of an adjustment moving to my neighbouring province but I’ve adjusted to my life here quite well.</p>
<p>Except for the Leafs. I’m a Habs fan. I cannot root for the Leafs. So what am I holding on to? Well, besides being a Canadiens supporter, I also work in the field of neuroscience, so I can tell you. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763413001498">neural hardware responds differently</a> when we perceive people to be on “our team” (in-group membership). This hard-wiring allows for positive biases for members of our group, helping them, and us, survive — a clear evolutionary advantage.</p>
<p>My father, who came to Canada from India, loved watching hockey. <em>Hockey Night in Canada</em> was always on TV, whether we were home on a Saturday night or at someone’s house for dinner. His big jump — “SCORE!” — was a highlight. His contagious exuberance about the game gave life to us all. So you could say rooting for the Habs is a great memory that I’m hanging on to.</p>
<h2>Memories</h2>
<p>Our limbic system — our “emotional brain” — contains the hippocampus, the neural structure responsible for our memory. Those childhood connections between pleasure and pride are deep-seated in my identity. And those memories are not just about being a Montrealer.</p>
<p>I know it makes no logical sense to care about the Habs, 35 years after those Cup parades. But because I know which part of my brain cares about the Habs, I can rise above my limbic system and use my pre-frontal cortex to reflect about what I’m actually doing.</p>
<p>Seen another way, I know I’m not a chimp. Yes, as a primate I am wired for in-group vs. out-group biases. But the neocortical difference between me and our close primate relatives means I can look beyond my emotional attachment to my Montrealer identity, and see it for what it is. Thus, my human brain can also let me slow down, pause, and reflect. I can think.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277283/original/file-20190530-69071-1e9t5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277283/original/file-20190530-69071-1e9t5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277283/original/file-20190530-69071-1e9t5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277283/original/file-20190530-69071-1e9t5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277283/original/file-20190530-69071-1e9t5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277283/original/file-20190530-69071-1e9t5zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/277283/original/file-20190530-69071-1e9t5zo.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We’re not chimps. So we should be able to use our brains to slow down and reflect on our visceral instincts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ryan al Bishri/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Political strategists know that the politics of division can manipulate most of the electorate as if we were chimps. They know that all they need to do is repeat a familiar mantra about someone being different, and we’re straight <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-fight-or-flight-response-2795194">into fight/flight mode</a>. It’s morally wrong, but it’s fast, and it works.</p>
<h2>Division works</h2>
<p>The politics of division is clearly working in this era. <a href="http://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2019/04/increased-polarization-on-attitudes-to-immigration-reshaping-the-political-landscape-in-canada/">A recent Ekos</a> survey found that 40 per cent of Canadians believe there are too many visible minority immigrants in Canada. </p>
<p>Ethics in politics became passé with the election of Donald Trump. Why do the right thing when you can make it to the White House? Similarly, here at home, Doug Ford, Jason Kenney and Francois Legault are doing a great job of dividing us. And let’s not forget Narendra Modi in India, who just won a huge majority.</p>
<p>Perhaps simply reminding us humans that we are not chimps is the way to go. If I had to choose one rule, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2018/01/22/jordan-peterson-on-embracing-your-inner-lobster-in-12-rules-for-life.html">just one rule</a> to live by , it is that I am not a chimp. And neither are you. Let’s do better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117089/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Veena D. Dwivedi receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada Foundation for Innovation, Ontario Ministry for Innovation, Brock University. </span></em></p>Our neural hardware responds differently when we perceive people to be on “our team.” This hard-wiring allows for both positive and negative biases.Veena D. Dwivedi, Associate Professor, Psychology/Neuroscience; Director, Dwivedi Brain and Language Laboratory, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1138152019-03-19T10:45:14Z2019-03-19T10:45:14ZThe politics of fear: How it manipulates us to tribalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284568/original/file-20190717-147318-ylfzoj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., respond to remarks by President Donald Trump.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Trump-Democrats/ea3afb0bfa25454ba4886b3215b2681c/4/0">J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo/</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People have always used fear for intimidation of the subordinates or enemies, and shepherding the tribe by the leaders. Recently, it appears that Pres. Trump has used fear by <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/17/four-gop-house-members-voted-condemn-trump-racist-tweets/1753365001/">suggesting in a tweet</a> that four minority congresswomen go back to the places they came from.</p>
<p>There is a longstanding history of employing the fear of “the others,” turning humans into illogical ruthless weapons, in service to an ideology. Fear is a very strong tool that can blur humans’ logic and change their behavior.</p>
<p>Fear is arguably as old as life. It is <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-fright-why-we-love-to-be-scared-85885">deeply ingrained in the living organisms</a> that have survived extinction through billions of years of evolution. Its roots are deep in our core psychological and biological being, and it is one of our most intimate feelings. Danger and war are as old as human history, and so are politics and religion.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://www.starclab.org/members/arash-javanbakht">psychiatrist and neuroscientist</a> specializing in fear and trauma, and I have some evidence-based thoughts on how fear is abused in politics.</p>
<h2>We learn fear from tribe mates</h2>
<p>Like other animals, we humans can learn fear from <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nn1968">experience</a>, such as being attacked by a predator. We also learn from observation, such as witnessing a predator attacking another human. And, we learn by instructions, such as being told there is a predator nearby. </p>
<p>Learning from our conspecifics – members of the same species – is an evolutionary advantage that has prevented us from repeating dangerous experiences of other humans. We have a tendency to trust our tribe mates and authorities, especially when it comes to danger. It is adaptive: Parents and wise old men told us not to eat a special plant, or not to go to an area in the woods, or we would be hurt. By trusting them, we would not die like a great-grandfather who died eating that plant. This way we accumulated knowledge.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evolution-explains-why-politics-tribal/">Tribalism has been an inherent</a> part of the human history. There has always been competition between groups of humans in different ways and with different faces, from brutal wartime nationalism to a strong loyalty to a football team. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1745691617707317">Evidence from cultural neuroscience</a> shows that our brains even respond differently at an unconscious level simply to the view of faces from other races or cultures. </p>
<p>At a tribal level, people are more emotional and consequently less logical: Fans of both teams pray for their team to win, hoping God will take sides in a game. On the other hand, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-risky-is-it-really/201012/fear-makes-us-tribal-and-stupid-case-in-point-rush-limbaugh">we regress to tribalism when afraid</a>. This is an evolutionary advantage that would lead to the group cohesion and help us fight the other tribes to survive.</p>
<p>Tribalism is the biological loophole that many politicians have banked on for a long time: tapping into our fears and tribal instincts. Some examples are Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, religious wars and the Dark Ages. The typical pattern is to give the other humans a different label than us, and say they are going to harm us or our resources, and to turn the other group into a concept. It does not have to necessarily be race or nationality, which are used very often. It can be any real or imaginary difference: liberals, conservatives, Middle Easterners, white men, the right, the left, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs. The list goes on and on. </p>
<p>When building tribal boundaries between “us” and “them,” some politicians have managed very well to create virtual groups of people that do not communicate and hate without even knowing each other: This is the human animal in action!</p>
<h2>Fear is uninformed</h2>
<p>A soldier once told me: “It is much easier to kill someone you have never met, from distance. When you look through the scope, you just see a red dot, not a human.” The less you know about them, the easier to fear them, and to hate them.</p>
<p>This human tendency and ability of destruction of what is unknown and unfamiliar is meat to the politicians who want to exploit fear: If you grew up only around people who look like you, only listened to one media outlet and heard from the old uncle that those who look or think differently hate you and are dangerous, the inherent fear and hatred toward those unseen people is an understandable (but flawed) result.</p>
<p>To win us, politicians, sometimes with the media’s help, do their best to keep us separated, to keep the real or imaginary “others” just a “concept.” Because if we spend time with others, talk to them and eat with them, we will learn that they are like us: humans with all the strengths and weaknesses that we possess. Some are strong, some are weak, some are funny, some are dumb, some are nice and some not too nice.</p>
<h2>Fear is illogical and often dumb</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253263/original/file-20190110-43544-1059i67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253263/original/file-20190110-43544-1059i67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253263/original/file-20190110-43544-1059i67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253263/original/file-20190110-43544-1059i67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253263/original/file-20190110-43544-1059i67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253263/original/file-20190110-43544-1059i67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253263/original/file-20190110-43544-1059i67.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&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">Some people are afraid of spiders, others of snakes or even cats and dogs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/spider-web-1132571987?src=1VkcpXiqrlz0y3i11NXUwg-3-90">Aris Suwanmalee/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>Very often my patients with phobias start with: “I know it is stupid, but I am afraid of spiders.” Or it may be dogs or cats, or something else. And I always reply: “It is not stupid, it is illogical.” We humans have different functions in the brain, and fear oftentimes bypasses logic. There are several reasons. One is that logic is slow; fear is fast. In situations of danger, we ought to be fast: First run or kill, then think.</p>
<p>Politicians and the media very often use fear to circumvent our logic. I always say the U.S. media are disaster pornographers – they work too much on triggering their audiences’ emotions. They are kind of political reality shows, surprising to many from outside the U.S.</p>
<p>When one person kills a few others in a city of millions, which is of course a tragedy, major networks’ coverage could lead one to perceive the whole city is under siege and unsafe. If one undocumented illegal immigrant murders a U.S. citizen, some politicians use fear with the hope that few will ask: “This is terrible, but how many people were murdered in this country by U.S. citizens just today?” Or: “I know several murders happen every week in this town, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-mass-shootings-do-to-those-not-shot-social-consequences-of-mass-gun-violence-106677">why am I so scared now</a> that this one is being showcased by the media?”</p>
<p>We do not ask these questions, because fear bypasses logic.</p>
<h2>Fear can turn violent</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253356/original/file-20190111-43514-1aejyi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253356/original/file-20190111-43514-1aejyi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253356/original/file-20190111-43514-1aejyi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253356/original/file-20190111-43514-1aejyi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253356/original/file-20190111-43514-1aejyi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253356/original/file-20190111-43514-1aejyi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/253356/original/file-20190111-43514-1aejyi8.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">
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<span class="caption">Toppled headstones at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Philadelphia Feb. 27, 2017. A report on the vandalism cited an increase in anti-Semitic bias since the 2016 election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Anti-Semitism-Report/18e12f63b62c43eb95c3afc0247fa326/1/0">Jaqueline Larma/AP Photo</a></span>
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<p>There is a reason that the response to fear is called the “fight or flight” response. That response has helped us survive the predators and other tribes that have wanted to kill us. But again, it is another loophole in our biology to be abused to turn on our aggression toward “the others,” whether in the form of vandalizing their temples or harassing them on the social media.</p>
<p>When ideologies manage to get hold of our fear circuitry, we often regress to illogical, tribal and aggressive human animals, becoming weapons ourselves – weapons that politicians use for their own agenda.</p>
<p><em>This is updated version of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-politics-of-fear-how-fear-goes-tribal-allowing-us-to-be-manipulated-109626">article</a> originally published Jan. 11, 2019.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arash Javanbakht 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>Fear, a psychiatrist writes, has roots deep within the human psyche, and demagogues have long exploited the emotion. In today’s world, it’s important to know the dangers of that exploitation.Arash Javanbakht, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1097842019-01-13T09:18:04Z2019-01-13T09:18:04ZRamaphosa sets out a bold vision for South Africa. But can he pull it off?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253525/original/file-20190113-43544-1bxl9fv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the launch of the governing ANC's 2019 elections manifesto in Durban.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As South Africa heads for the polls in a few months time in its sixth democratic election, political party electioneering has begun in earnest. </p>
<p>President Cyril Ramaphosa kick started the governing African National Congress’s (ANC’s) election campaign in his <a href="https://www.power987.co.za/news/read-cyril-ramaphosas-january-8-statement/">January 8th Statement</a> celebrating 107 years since the birth of the liberation movement. This campaign continued with the launch of the <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/01/12/must-read-the-anc-s-2019-elections-manifesto">ANC’s manifesto</a> at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in KwaZulu-Natal on January 12. An estimated 80 000 ANC members and supporters attended the launch.</p>
<p>The ANC declared 2019 the year for “united action to grow South Africa”. This year sees a continuation of the dominant themes of unity, hope and <a href="https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/ramaphosa-promises-corruption-crackdown-at-maiden-sona-20180216">renewal</a>, for both the <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2014-05-11-the-partys-over-anc-sees-decline-in-support">troubled ANC</a> and South Africa, which Ramaphosa has reiterated since he assumed the presidency in February 2018. </p>
<p>Ramaphosa noted that he was presenting a plan:</p>
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<p>that we have forged together to respond to the challenges of unemployment, inequality and poverty.</p>
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<p>South Africa’s political parties – 285 are <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2019-01-10-84-new-political-parties-hoping-for-your-vote-in-may-elections/">contesting the elections </a> – will soon be providing the country with their priorities and plans. The key question will be which plan is robust enough to turn the country around from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-anc-itself-is-the-chief-impediment-to-ramaphosas-agenda-108781">trajectory of despair</a> that overwhelmed it under former president Jacob Zuma.</p>
<p>The same applies to the ANC. Are their nuggets of hope that something different will transpire if it’s elected for another five years? The majority of South Africans agree on the challenges, but does the party have effective solutions and the political will to implement them? Can the ANC’s vision provide all South Africans with a common agenda and a renewed sense of purpose?</p>
<p>It won’t be easy. The roar of support for Zuma as he left the stadium is a telling sign of the deep divisions within the ANC, despite the shows of solidarity. It’s still an open question as to whether its change in leadership is enough to ensure that the party – and the country – doesn’t make a u-turn and head back towards the path of despair.</p>
<p>For now, all the right noises are being made to, as Ramaphosa put it, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>restore our democratic institutions and return our country to a path of transformation, growth and development. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the ANC still needs to develop the toolbox for mobilisation and implementation to get this done. The vision articulated by Ramaphosa has the seeds for galvanising South Africans to get back on the right path. It urgently needs a plan to make it happen.</p>
<h2>The commitments</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/3761/thesis_tshawane_n.pdf">“Rainbow nation”</a> seems to have revealed all its ugly stripes over the past few years: a rise in <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-12-10-racism-complaints-by-blacks-are-on-the-rise-with-gauteng-the-worst/">incidents of racism</a>, <a href="https://www.enca.com/south-africa/claims-of-tribalism-emerge-as-vuwani-shutdown-continues">tribalism</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/xenophobia-in-south-africa-why-its-time-to-unsettle-narratives-about-migrants-102616">xenophobia</a>, factionalism and continued high levels of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-link-between-violence-against-women-and-children-matters-heres-why-106942">gender-based violence</a>. </p>
<p>This has necessitated the emphasis on unity, non-racialism, equality and managed migration that echo in Ramaphosa’s statements. It’s bold of him to want to put the country back on the principled path of non-racialism amid a rising race-based populism. But calling on South Africans to abide by the principle isn’t enough. Making this long standing principle a lived reality, when race still largely defines where South Africans live and work and their life’s chances, is a big task. As Ramaphosa <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2019/01/12/must-read-the-anc-s-2019-elections-manifesto">notes</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>the promise of freedom is yet to be realised for so many of our people.</p>
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<p>The core of the ANC’s plan revolves around the building of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-the-anc-turn-south-africa-into-a-developmental-welfare-state-64919">developmental state </a> that will create inclusive growth, stimulate investment, create jobs and drive infrastructure development. It also seeks to provide for skills development, progressive free higher education and access to health care. It’s also promising to facilitate redistribution through land expropriation and compensation. And it’s committing itself to strengthening governance and service delivery through reclaiming state enterprises and government institutions.</p>
<p>There is nothing really new here. The ANC has been making these promises since it came to power 25 years ago. What is going to be different this time around so that implementation can yield the desired results? Ramaphosa’s <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-12-20-cyril-ramaphosas-2018-thuma-mina-moments/">Thuma mina</a> (send me) call to South Africans to join him in working for a better country?</p>
<p>This may indeed be the glue the country needs for citizens to all begin to work together to achieve these laudable goals. But, again, proclaiming it will not make it happen. </p>
<p>How does the country get the nation-building spirit of <a href="https://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography">Nelson Mandela</a> back? How can people working in the public service be made to change their attitudes and deliver what they are employed to do? How does the country stop graft? How can South Africans be made to sign onto a new social contract that requires both citizens and government to determine what they want, how they will live together and how they collectively fulfil their roles and responsibilities to make good on the contract? </p>
<p>The country needs to have many local dialogues in all its nine provinces that can develop a new charter for South Africans to live by. A plan that emanates from the people, for the people.</p>
<h2>Can the ANC deliver?</h2>
<p>I am encouraged by the strong stance against gender-based violence in Ramaphosa’s manifesto statement. But the ANC now needs to figure out how it is going to make sure that the pledge to stop the scourge will go further than the show of solidarity at the stadium. Every man and woman in South Africa should make a monthly pledge to uphold the human rights and safety of all citizens and prevent gender based violence. Citizens need to hold one another to account for its implementation. </p>
<p>Only when the scourge of this violence has been eradicated will South Africans be able to meaningfully begin to speak of equality and dignity for all. This is not something the ANC can do on its own, it needs the whole of society. </p>
<p>If globally – and across the continent – South Africa wants to champion the transformation of multilateral institutions, silence the guns and achieve women’s security, it needs a plan that can provide it with the national credibility and legitimacy to do so. </p>
<p>The elephant in the room is whether or not the ANC can overcome its divisions to deliver effectively.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cheryl Hendricks is the Executive Director of the Africa Institute of South Africa at the Human Science Research Council which receives funding from multiple funding sources.</span></em></p>The vision set out by Cyril Ramaphosa has the seeds for galvanising South Africans to get back on the right path. But it urgently needs a plan to make it happen.Cheryl Hendricks, Executive director, Africa Institute of South Africa, Human Sciences Research CouncilLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.