#International Democracy Union

[lost-carcosa]

Disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who unlawfully suspended Parliament, restricted the right to protest, and lied to MPs, has been appointed to the advisory board of the International Democracy Union, the global centre-right group for “freedom and democracy”. 

The International Democracy Union (IDU) is an international alliance of centre-right political parties based in Munich, Germany. It is chaired by Stephen Harper, the former Prime Minister of Canada. 

The group announced on Tuesday: “The IDU is excited to announce that PM Boris Johnson has joined our Honorary Advisory Board. His extensive experience as a statesman will be of tremendous help as we work towards building an ever-stronger alliance of the centre-right! Welcome to the IDU, Prime Minister!”

The decision has been met with baffled outrage on social media. In June, a report found that democracy in the UK was in retreat, following Boris Johnson’s cavalier approach to standards in public life and efforts to warp the constitution under his tenure.

Commissioned by democratic pressure groups, Unlock Democracy and Compass, the report found that issues like the partygate scandal – where politicians making the rules repeatedly  broke them over Covid – and the lobbying scandal surrounding Owen Paterson which saw Johnson try and fail to get him out of hot water by overriding Commons procedure – undermined the strength of democracy in the UK. 

Johnson’s government also introduced mandatory photo voter ID, which has made it much more difficult for millions of people to vote. At the same time, his Elections Act undermined the principle that the body responsible for overseeing elections, in this case the Electoral Commission, should be independent of government. The government can now set the body’s strategy and has a majority of seats on the parliamentary body overseeing it. 

Meanwhile, clampdowns on the right to protest and strike, and conscious attempts to delegitimise and weaken the power of independent regulators and the judiciary, compounded existing failings within UK democracy, the report found.

The IDU post is the latest gong for the man who shut down Parliament in order to prevent it voting against his Brexit plans, and who resigned when faced with a potential Commons vote over repeatedly lying to MPs. Johnson’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act has also seen hundreds of peaceful protesters locked up since passing last April.

Responding to the announcement that the former Prime Minister has joined the IDU’s Honorary Advisory Board, Tom Brufatto, Director of Policy at Best for Britain, said: “There is a staggering irony in Boris Johnson – the man who unlawfully prorogued parliament, eroded voters’ democratic rights with the Election’s Bill, and was found to have deliberately misled Parliament and the country during the pandemic – providing advice on the promotion of democracy.

“He should have no further influence on our or anyone else’s politics.”

Byline Times readers responded to the news of Johnson’s new post with disbelief. “Their entrance requirements must be really low to think he’s an asset to the group,” one said. 

Another said: “Any potential credibility they have just flown out of the window. [I] can’t believe any organisation thinks having Johnson on board is an asset.”

“Johnson is one of the greatest scam artists the UK has ever seen,” one argued. “If they are pleased he has joined them it says a lot about their integrity or rather lack of it,” another said, while one branded it simply: “Farcical.”

Another pointed to Johnson’s decision in 2019 to withdraw the whip from 21 Conservative MPs who dared to challenge him over his no-deal Brexit push: “At the next election, many were replaced by people of the ‘calibre’ of Lee Anderson, Scott Benton and others.”

One reader noted wryly: “I expect they want his skills and expertise in how to dismantle and damage democracy.” Others mocked the IDU’s use of the phrase ‘Prime Minister’ to describe Johnson, in the way that former US presidents keep their ‘President’ title. “He appears to have fooled the IDU into thinking he is Prime Minister,” one said.

Several replied simply with clown emojis. 

Former Conservative leader William Hague is a former chairman of the IDU. In June last year, Hague was among those calling for Johnson to quit as PM, saying his win among MPs was the “worst possible result” for the party. 

The damage done to his premiership was “severe” and showed a “greater level of rejection than any Tory leader has ever endured and survived”, Hague said, slamming Johnson’s failure to tackle the drinking culture in No 10 during the lockdowns. 

[beltway-insider-komeradlurkr]

They don't give up, we should not either. I wrote those two things after reading a substack about why all those people didn't turn up in november, long story short despair and disheartenment. In addition to that I've heard of and myself been one of those people that disengaged in frustration and sadness after the orange bastard won.

But we cannot do that as a movement, as a party, as people, and as a society. The way the Republicans got to holding the Supreme Court, the Senate and the presidency in addition to having a vast propaganda machine was through determination, tactics , and work over decades. To take our country back and make a world better than the one we entered we must use those three things. It won't be easy, and it won't be without defeats and set backs but it is an effort we need to wage if for nothing else than to be looked upon favorably by history. Do not submit to them, it achieves their goals and makes the fascists feel great. Organize locally, teach others critical thinking, expand the membership of unions and of the party in addition to other organizations for us, and most importantly Resist and Persist.

We did beat people like this before , and I know it is within bare minimum possibility that we can beat them again.

To people like minded to me, see this and reblog it. There is a lot of dooming and despair going around and before we can reclaim our society we must reclaim our spirits!

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

Internment

"On January 11, 1940, the DOCR [Defence of Canada Regulations] were amended so as to permit preventive detention, internment before the fact of having committed a crime, ie. article 21. This meant that even though charges for precise offences might not hold up in court, communists could still be interned using vague terms. As well, should the police fail in making a DOCR charge stick, then the freed prisoner could quickly be interned. This situation applied to Ottawans Louis Binder and Arthur Saunders, and to westerners  Charles Weir, John McNeil, Pat Lenihan, Alex Miller, and Ben Swankey.

In June, 1940, via DOCR regulation 39C, the Communist Party and related  associations were made illegal. These associations included the Young Communist  League, the League for Peace and Democracy, which had succeeded the League to Fight  War and Fascism, and the Canadian Labour Defence League, as well as several pro-communist, ethnic associations: The Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association, the  Canadian Ukrainian Youth Federation, the Finnish Organization of Canada, the Russian  Workers and Farmers Club, the Croatian Cultural Organization, the Hungarian Workers  Club, and the Polish People’s Association. Membership in these organizations became illegal; it came to be the grounds most often used for internment.

The first internments took place on June 26, 1940, when Jacob Penner and John Navis, from Winnipeg, and Ottawans Louis Binder and Arthur Saunders were interned. Arrests for internment could follow at any time, but there were more active periods. On June 28 and 29, 1940, nine Montrealers as well as Nicholas Pyndus, from Trois-Rivières, and Robert Kerr and Fergus McKean, each from Vancouver, were interned. On July 8, 1940, seventeen Ukrainian Winnipegers were interned. On August 9, 1940, seven men  including five Montrealers were interned. On September 8 and 9, 1940, five more were  arrested for internment; on October 10, 1940, four more were interned. The last internment in Hull began on February 10, 1942 when Harvey Murphy was transferred from a Toronto prison.

The cases of Jacob Penner and Pat Sullivan provided important legal precedents about the question of habeas corpus. Were the governments and the police obliged to provide motives for the decision to intern someone, other than article 21 of the DOCR, whereby people presented a danger to the security of the state or the prosecution to the war, or article 39C, whereby people were members of an illegal organization? Jacob Penner was a highly-respected communist and municipal councillor in Winnipeg. After being interned in Kananaskis, Penner’s family hired a lawyer who successfully applied for habeas corpus , however, federal authorities simply held him during the summer of 1940 in an immigration centre in Winnipeg. In August, 1940, a federal appeals judge ruled that habeas corpus did not apply to DOCR article 21. Penner was returned to Kananaskis, providing an important precedent relative to internees from Western Canada.

In central Canada, Pat Sullivan, President of the Canadian Seamen’s Union, was arrested on June 18, 1940. The only explanation for Sullivan’s arrest offered to lawyer J. L. Cohen was Sullivan’s membership in the Communist Party, which the defendant denied. Cohen then launched unsuccessful habeas corpus proceedings in which an Ontario judge ruled that habeas corpus was not relevant since the detainer was not the minister of Justice, and the latter was not required to accept recommendations of a consulting committee considering the detention. Cohen was going to subject this tortured logic of the Ontario Appeals Court judge to the Supreme Court, but decided to desist when the federal government promised to improve the workings of the consulting committees, and to reveal more about the motives for Sullivan’s internment. Nevertheless, after considerable stalling by the minister of Justice, it became clear that the real reasons for Sullivan’s internment were strikes by the Canadian Seamen’s Union in 1938 and 1939, and especially in April, 1940, when Sullivan’s union closed shipping on the Great Lakes from the Lakehead to Montreal. Conciliation following this last strike was proceeding when Sullivan was arrested. Not only did Sullivan’s case show that habeas corpus was of no effect with respect to the internees, it also showed that for some internees, at least for Sullivan, the real motive of internment was union activity.

One suspects the considerable influence of C. D. Howe and his business colleagues working in Ottawa. This was also the case for several of Sullivan’s colleagues within the Canadian Seamen’s Union. A month after Sullivan was arrested, Jack Chapman, union secretary, was arrested while a few days later, Dave Sinclair, editor of the union’s newspaper Searchlight, was arrested for having written about the Sullivan case. Sinclair’s case also demonstrated farcically the incompetence of the RCMP. Sinclair was the nom de plume of David Siglar, a fact he did not hide. During his appeal before the consulting committee, the RCMP presented as evidence activities of someone unknown to Siglar named ‘Segal’, a common name among Jews. Siglar had no idea about whom or what the RCMP was talking not knowing the ‘Segal’ in question, but he did plead guilty to having known several people named ‘Segal’.

The case of Charles Murray, organizer for a fishermen’s union in Lockeport, Nova Scotia, a union affiliated with the Canadian Seamen’s Union, provided another example of how union activities might lead to internment. On June 15, 1940, Nova Scotia’s labour minister, L. D. Currie, sent a letter to Murray stating that:

…You are a communist and as such, deserve to be treated in the same manner as I would be treated if I endeavoured to carry on in Russia as you are doing in Nova Scotia. I warn you now to desist from your efforts to create industrial trouble, and I warn you too that your conduct will from now on be carefully watched and examined, and if I find out that you do not quit this sort of business, then it will be most certainly the worst for you. I am giving you this final word of warning. My advice to you is to get out of Lockeport and stay out…

A few days later, Murray was interned in Petawawa.

Other union leaders received similar fates to those of the leaders of the Canadian Seamen’s Union. Fred Collins had led a successful strike against furniture manufacturers in Stratford, Ontario. James Murphy was the leader of the Technical Employees Association of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and was arrested in the middle of negotiations. Orton Wade was negotiating with meat packing companies in Winnipeg when he was arrested. Bruce Magnuson was a union leader from Port Arthur, where he was local president of the Union of Lumber and Sawmill Workers. Unfortunately, his  federal MP was none other than C. D. Howe. In August, 1940, Howe responded to one of Magnuson’s colleagues complaining about the internment of Magnuson.

For very obvious reasons, the normal course of the law must be supplemented by special powers. Otherwise, the effort of the government to suppress fifth-column activities would be of no avail. The now tragic account of fifth-column activities in Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France is ample proof of the inadequacy of the ordinary peacetime machinery of the law in  controlling subversive elements… Persons who are considered to be friendly towards Canada’s enemies, or who in any way interfere with Canada’s war effort, are recommended for internment on the strength of evidence assembled by the Force (RCMP).

The motive given for Magnuson’s internment was his membership in the Party, but after the Party began supporting the war effort, Howe wrote to Magnuson in October, 1941: 

… do you think that the ends of justice would be served by your release merely because circumstances have caused a change of front by the Communist Party? You were interned because you were out of sympathy with Canada’s war effort, and because you were an active member of an organization which sought to impede that effort.

The case of Clarence Jackson also demonstrated the long arm of Howe. On June 11, 1941, Howe wrote to Justice minister Lapointe, demanding that Jackson be arrested. 

Please permit me to call your attention to the activities of one C. S. Jackson, who is undoubtedly one of the most active trouble makers and labour racketeers in Canada today. Jackson has been expelled from the Canadian Congress of Labour as a Communist. He has  been responsible for strikes at the R.C.A. Victor plant, the Canadian General Electric plant, and he is now boring in to the Canadian Westinghouse plant at Hamilton. The Westinghouse plant is the most important war manufacturer in Canada, having contracts for anti-aircraft guns, naval equipment, and a wide variety of electrical work important to our production. A strike at Westinghouse would directly stop many branches of our munitions programme. I cannot think why Canada spends large sums for protection against sabotage and permits Jackson to carry on his subversive activities. No group of saboteurs could possibly effect the damage that this man is causing. I feel sure that this is a matter for prompt police action. I suggest that responsible labour leaders can supply any information that you may require on which to base police action.

There is evidence, furthermore, according to the biographer of Jackson, that the Canadian Congress of Labour was complicit in the internment of Jackson. Jackson was arrested on June 23, 1941, but was released from Hull six months later owing to pressure by the American section of his union. 

Others were interned for strange reasons. Rodolphe Majeau, a member of the Canadian Seamen’s Union, was interned for having aided Communist candidate Évariste Dubé during the federal election of 1940, when the Party was still legal, an example of a retroactive charge. Scott McLean, a Cape Breton millwright was interned because of dynamite he had in his possession when arrested, dynamite he was using to explode rocks and a manure pile on his farm. John Prossack, from Winnipeg, an elderly Ukrainian  charged with membership in the Party, was not in the least involved in politics. Prossack believed that he was interned owing to a bad relationship with his former son-in-law, a paid police informer. Muni Taub, a Montreal tailor left the Party at the end of 1939,  one of the many Europeans disgusted at the Hitler-Stalin pact. Nevertheless, motives given for Taub’s internment included his writing for a leftist, Jewish newspaper; his  membership in the banned Canadian Labour Defence League, and most of all, Taub’s challenge of the constitutionality of Duplessis’ Padlock Law during the 1930s."

- Michael Martin, The Red Patch: Political Imprisonment in Hull, Quebec during World War 2. Self-published, 2007. p. 124-131

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil's Lula says democracy at risk after far-right surge in EU vote

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Thursday that democracy was at risk, commenting on the far-right gains in the European Parliament after last weekend's elections.

"We have a problem of democracy as we know it being at risk," the head of state told journalists ahead of an International Labor Organization event in Geneva, Switzerland.

"The denialist denies institutions, denies what Parliament is, what the Supreme Court is, what the Judiciary is, what Congress itself is," the leftist leader said.

Lula, who will take part in this week's Group of Seven (G7) summit in Italy after he was invited by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, added that those who believe in democracy must fight to preserve it everywhere in the world.

Continue reading.

[windsails]

nonprofits are overrated. if you really wanted to help people you would prove economic democracy, helping others, and improving communities is popular and profitable and actually start taking over huge sections of the economy to democratize them and organize apps, software, logistical systems, communities to run it all. in other words, profiting collectively from the redistribution wealth and power to the people of the world

[saxafimedianetwork]

Should the AU Recognize Somaliland?

Should the @_AfricanUnion recognize #Somaliland as an independent state? Granting diplomatic recognition could bring justice & stability, while skeptics warn of the potential ripple effects on regional & global stability. What's the right move for AU?

Continue reading Should the AU Recognize Somaliland?

[migrantsday]

Strengthening union power with migrant workers.

To mark International Migrants Day, the ITUC organised a webinar, in which trade unions from every region shared their experiences of building union power with migrant workers. The webinar highlighted the importance of ensuring democracy at work for migrant workers, including the effective exercise of their right to freedom of association and collective bargaining through trade unions.

[internationaldayofdemocracy]

Democracy 2030.

"Democracy 2030" questions how parliaments will function in the future, how to engage and involve youth, and the importance of democracy for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

[endimpunityday]

DAY I - SESSION 1: Safety of journalists in elections and crisis contexts: risks to democracies.

This session will delve into the security, violence and attacks against journalists and communicators during election periods and crisis contexts, as well as the specific obligations and responsibilities of States, officials and electoral authorities in these contexts. Participants will be able to delve into the integrity of elections, the risks faced by democratic institutions, as well as other issues related to journalistic coverage, protests and discrimination against women journalists during election cycles and other crisis contexts.

Moderator: Santiago Cantón, Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)

Testimonies from:

Patience Nyange, Executive Director, Association of Media Women in Kenya (AMWIK)

Nataliya Gumenyuk, Co-Founder, Public Interest Journalism Lab, Ukraine

Panel discussion:

Andrea Cairola, Senior Programme Specialist, UNESCO

Zoe Titus, Chairperson, Global Forum for Media Development, Executive Director, Namibia Media Trust 

Ambassador Salah S. Hammad, Head of African Governannce Architecture Secretariat, African Union

Gerardo de Icaza, Director, Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation, Organization of American States 

Arif Zulkifli, Chairperson, Law Commission, Indonesian Press Council

10:30 - 11:30  - Session 1: Safety of journalists in elections and crisis contexts: risks to democracies.

[marktaylor-canfield]

Thom Hartmann: Seattle's New Anti-Caste Discrimination Law - Report From Mark Taylor-Canfield

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Fines Imposed an Kirkland Lake Men Instead of Terms,” The Porcupine Advance (Timmins). June 11, 1942. Page 2, section 1. ---- Convictions of Men Charged with Offences During the Strike Sustained but Penalties Changed. --- Haileybury, June 10 - Three of the men whose activities during the recent gold miners strike at Kirkland Lake brought them into conflict with the authorities appeared here, Monday, before Judge G. Hayward when their appeals against convictions by Magistrate S. Atkinson in Kirkland Lake court were heard.

In every case the sentence imposed by Magistrate Atkinson was reduced to a fine and costs. George Lundstrom, convicted on a charge of intimidation had his sentence reduced from two months in jail to a fine of $75 together with $75 costs. Steve Harkin, convicted of obstructing the police, will have to pay a fine of $25 with $100 costs instead of having to serve 30 days. John Brown in place of a sentence of three months will have to pay a $100 fine and costs of $75. He was convicted on a charge of intimidation.

Reviews Lundstrom Case In only one case was the evidence reviewed, that of Lundstrom. The evidence of Mrs. Joseph Gavin, who, it was alleged, had been intimidated by the accused was read to the court she being in hospital. It was to the effect that the accused had come to her home two days after the strike started and threatened her that he would "fix" her husband if he did not cease working at the Macassa Mine. The accused stayed in the house for over three hours and repeated his threats on more than one occasion. He said how sorry he was for her because of what would happen to her husband if he continued to work and that some of the men would catch him in a dark alley some night and beat him up.

Makes Denial The accused denied making these statements telling the court that in the three hours he stayed there they had talked of dances, church and the odors of cooking which percolated up to the Lundstrom flat, which was over the Gavin home. He denied any intention of "fixing" Gavin and told Crown Attorney Dean that it was the swift passage of time that made him stay in the Gavin home so long.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Hayward, after hearing arguments from both Crown Attorney Dean and J. L. Cohen, K.C., who appeared for the accused men, stated he had no hesitation in upholding the magistrate's conviction.

The question of penalty then came up Mr. Cohen held that the judge had the power to assess new penalties while Crown Attorney Dean claimed that it was not in his power to do so. Court then adjourned for the noon hour and remained adjourned for two hours afterwards while Judge Hayward took the matter into consideration and looked up the authorities.

When court reopened he states he had come to the conclusion that he had the power to assess new penalties and fixed the fine in the case.

In the Harkin case Mr. Cohen stated he had, after considering the case, no fault to find with the conviction by Magistrate Atkinson but only with the penalty and after hearing the circumstances outlined by Inspector Doyle of the Provincial Police Judge Hayward fixed the fine with the higher costs due to the presence of several police witnesses from the southern part of the province.

In the Brown case the same statement as to the conviction was made by Mr. Cohen. Crown Attorney Dean called the attention of the court to several previous convictions for various offenses. His Honor held that these showed the accused was not a law abiding citizen.

Joseph Brown, committed for trial on a willful damage charge during the strike, and who was to have appeared for trail today before Judge Hayward had his trial put over until July 6. Bail was renewed.

[tanadrin]

Ok this might be a strange ask, but. do you have any opinions on the marxist/leninist/whatever idea that, western capitalist states supply a welfare state and higher wages (and so on) for western workers through imperialism, in order to subdue class struggle in western states, so that the western proletariat basically has a hand in imperialism (that anti-imperialism in practice would materially harm the western proletariat)

i think that's wrong. i think it sounds like a way you can rationalize political disengagement in a both-sidesist kinda way and also accelerationism if you're into that; i think that kind of nebulously conspiratorial belief is also a way to sort of rationalize the red-brown alliance, the need to punish the bad sheep people who don't agree with you, and a way to discount anybody who uses actual substantive policy achievements as a way to point out that actually, yes, engaging with politics can produce positive outcomes.

it is factually incorrect, of course. there's no causal connection between the welfare state and capitalist imperialism. capitalist imperialism in the form that hardcore marxists are thinking of is kind of an anachronism anyway. much like "liberalism," they're using a lens of analysis which basically thinks history ended in 1917, that the systems and politics of the long 19th century have continued forever, and we have to sort everything into categories that are a century old even though the world has changed radically since then.

it is also, annoyingly, a rejection of the wins of leftism. leftism has done a lot of good in the world! i think leftism is directionally correct. many of the things we take for granted now in many wealthy countries--the 40-hour workweek, legal protection for unions and labor organizing, universal healthcare (outside the US of course), the existence of welfare programs in various forms, employee protections (weak in the US except for Montana; strong in many other countries), and, you know, the decolonization of most of the planet--these are all things leftists of various stripes fought and died for, and for good reason!

the reason "leftism" is weak--and of course by "leftism" people taking this position usually only mean their own particular flavor of revolutionary leftism, with everybody else being a scumbag liberal or a revisionist or a trotskyist sabateur or w/e--is because leftism keeps winning when it allies with aligned interests in an electoral context. that is to say, pragmatic progressive politics is historically quite effective (the thing Americans have historically called "liberalism" but which in international political language is closer to "social democracy," and is not Reaganism/Thatcherism), is quite willing to ally with people who share its goals including less self-defeating leftists, and continues to make new gains. see this page. there is no telos to history of course, and it's a constant struggle. but the revolution-only remnant needs to come up with a narrative to rationalize being left out in the cold, because without that rationalization their whole approach starts to come under indictment. so it can't be that their politics is ineffective--it's the sheeple bribed into shutting up by welfare!

[reasonsforhope]

Note: I super don't like the framing of this headline. "Here's why it matters" idk it's almost like there's an entire country's worth of people who get to keep their democracy! Clearly! But there are few good articles on this in English, so we're going with this one anyway.

--

2024 is the biggest global election year in history and the future of democracy is on every ballot. But amid an international backsliding in democratic norms, including in countries with a longer history of democracy like India, Senegal’s election last week was a major win for democracy. It’s also an indication that a new political class is coming of age in Africa, exemplified by Senegal’s new 44-year-old president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye.

The West African nation managed to pull off a free and fair election on March 24 despite significant obstacles, including efforts by former President Macky Sall to delay the elections and imprison or disqualify opposition candidates. Add those challenges to the fact that many neighboring countries in West Africa — most prominently Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, but other nations across the region too — have been repeatedly undermined by military coups since 2020.

Sall had been in power since 2012, serving two terms. He declined to seek a third term following years of speculation that he would do so despite a constitutional two-term limit. But he attempted to extend his term, announcing in February that elections (originally to be held that month) would be pushed off until the end of the year in defiance of the electoral schedule.

Sall’s allies in the National Assembly approved the measure, but only after security forces removed opposition politicians, who vociferously protested the delay. Senegalese society came out in droves to protest Sall’s attempted self-coup, and the Constitutional Council ruled in late February that Sall’s attempt to stay in power could not stand.

That itself was a win for democracy. Still, opposition candidates, including Faye, though legally able to run, remained imprisoned until just days before the election — while others were barred from running at all. The future of Senegal’s democracy seemed uncertain at best.

Cut to Tuesday [April 2, 2024], when Sall stepped down and handed power to Faye, a former tax examiner who won on a campaign of combating corruption, as well as greater sovereignty and economic opportunity for the Senegalese. And it was young voters who carried Faye to victory...

“This election showed the resilience of the democracy in Senegal that resisted the shock of an unexpected postponement,” Adele Ravidà, Senegal country director at the lnternational Foundation for Electoral Systems, told Vox via email. “... after a couple of years of unprecedented episodes of violence [the Senegalese people] turned the page smoothly, allowing a peaceful transfer of power.”

And though Faye’s aims won’t be easy to achieve, his win can tell us not only about how Senegal managed to establish its young democracy, but also about the positive trend of democratic entrenchment and international cooperation in African nations, and the power of young Africans...

Senegal and Democracy in Africa

Since it gained independence from France in 1960, Senegal has never had a coup — military or civilian. Increasingly strong and competitive democracy has been the norm for Senegal, and the country’s civil society went out in great force over the past three years of Sall’s term to enforce those norms.

“I think that it is really the victory of the democratic institutions — the government, but also civil society organization,” Sany said. “They were mobilized, from the unions, teacher unions, workers, NGOs. The civil society in Senegal is one of the most experienced, well-organized democratic institutions on the continent.” Senegalese civil society also pushed back against former President Abdoulaye Wade’s attempt to cling to power back in 2012, and the Senegalese people voted him out...

Faye will still have his work cut out for him accomplishing the goals he campaigned on, including economic prosperity, transparency, food security, increased sovereignty, and the strengthening of democratic institutions. This will be important, especially for Senegal’s young people, who are at the forefront of another major trend.

Young Africans will play an increasingly key role in the coming decades, both on the continent and on the global stage; Africa’s youth population (people aged 15 to 24) will make up approximately 35 percent of the world’s youth population by 2050, and Africa’s population is expected to grow from 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion during that time. In Senegal, people aged 10 to 24 make up 32 percent of the population, according to the UN.

“These young people have connected to the rest of the world,” Sany said. “They see what’s happening. They are interested. They are smart. They are more educated.” And they have high expectations not only for their economic future but also for their civil rights and autonomy.

The reality of government is always different from the promise of campaigning, but Faye’s election is part of a promising trend of democratic entrenchment in Africa, exemplified by successful transitions of power in Nigeria, Liberia, and Sierra Leone over the past year. To be sure, those elections were not without challenges, but on the whole, they provide an important counterweight to democratic backsliding.

Senegalese people, especially the younger generation, have high expectations for what democracy can and should deliver for them. It’s up to Faye and his government to follow."

-via Vox, April 4, 2024

[secular-jew]

I’m a Palestinian American. Here’s Why I Can’t Support the Anti-Israel Protesters. By Elizabeth Gillanders. August 16, 2024

Walking past Union Station in the nation’s capital, I recently was met with a heartbreaking sight. Vandals had defaced the Columbus Memorial Fountain with spray paint, writing the words “Hamas is coming” in big red letters.

Trash and signs discarded by anti-Israel protesters littered the ground. A burnt shopping cart stood off to one side with piles of ash beneath it.

Most depressing, however, were the three bare flag poles that had been robbed of their American flags. Protesters had burned the flags, the only remnant a charred piece of fabric atop another pile of ash.

This was the aftermath of the July 24 “pro-Palestinian” protests in Washington, D.C., organized in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address that day to a joint meeting of Congress.

As an American of Palestinian heritage, some expect me to cheer on these people. They expect me to condemn the U.S., hate Israel, and support Hamas, a terrorist organization dedicated to wiping out the Jewish state.

But these expectations don’t represent me, nor my family.

I inherit my Palestinian background from my mother’s side of the family; her parents emigrated to America from the Middle East. My grandma was born in Israel and later moved to Ramallah in the West Bank and eventually to Jordan.

After arriving in America in her 20s, my grandma worked hard to become a U.S. citizen. She learned the English language while raising my mother and uncle. She opened a restaurant with my grandpa, lovingly named the Chicken Pantry, in Hamtramck, Michigan. When that business closed, my grandma worked as a real estate agent before eventually retiring in the land of prosperity.

America brought my family prosperity. My grandparents taught my mother to “kiss the ground you walk on” because they knew what a blessing America is.

They passed this lesson on to me.

Although many seem to think that my Palestinian heritage should cause me to align with protests that supposedly are “pro-Palestinian,” it’s precisely because of my heritage that I cannot do that.

Israel went to war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip only after Hamas terrorists slaughtered 1,200 and kidnapped about 250 in a rampage of rape, torture, and murder Oct. 7 in southern Israel.

About 10 months later, as pro-Hamas protesters march in this country to “free Palestine,” they call for the death of America. As they burn the American flag, they burn all that my family has worked to achieve.

As the protesters pledge their allegiance to Hamas, they encourage a group that my grandmother wouldn’t hesitate to call a terrorist organization that operates with a strategy of human sacrifice.

Think about it. Why are there no Hamas military bases in the Gaza Strip adjoining Israel? Because the terrorists hide behind their own people.

They dress like noncombatants in Gaza. They establish bunkers in hospitals. They commandeer ambulances for transportation.

These actions are all in direct violation of Article 18 of the Geneva Conventions, the international pacts that set minimum standards during armed conflict for the treatment of civilians, soldiers, and prisoners of war.

One example is Hamas’ use of Gaza’s most important hospital, Al-Shifa. According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Hamas uses a bunker under the hospital as a base for military operations. This not only makes the hospital a target, but takes medical resources needed for the sick.

In contrast, the Israel Defense Forces have given civilians in Gaza opportunities to evacuate and warned of impending attacks. No other nation goes this far to protect enemy civilians.

How can I support pro-Hamas demonstrators who wish to end the nation that brought my family so much? How can I back a terrorist group that uses its own people as human shields? How can I hate Israel, when the IDF has worked to keep Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way?

I believe it’s important to point out that, contrary to popular belief, not all Arabs think the same. Some of us do see this conflict differently. And our thoughts and beliefs should not be snuffed out because they go against the “narrative.”

To some, perhaps our stance makes us walking oxymorons. But we are proud ones, nonetheless.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mira Lazine at LGBTQ Nation:

On Thursday, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill that would give authority to the Treasury Department to revoke a 501c non-profit’s tax-exempt status if they’re believed to support terrorism.

House Resolution 9495, also known as the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act,” was sponsored by Rep. Tenney Claudia (R-NY) and passed through the house in a 219–184 vote. It has gone through multiple different forms since it was initially introduced in response to pro-Palestine organizers in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. According to anthropologist and legal scholar Darryl Li, who spoke to Democracy Now, this bill exists exclusively as a means for the right-wing to crush their political opponents, especially those who advocate for the rights of Palestinians, who were recently found by the International Criminal Court to be victims of war crimes enacted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “This bill is essentially a civil rights disaster, that … would allow the government to shut down nonprofits on the smear of being terrorist-supporting organizations…. This law requires an accusation with no evidence, but a tie-in. It’s an accusation that nonprofits are supporting a group on one of the existing international terrorism lists… The bill is essentially discriminatory by design,” he said. “Initially, it did have significant bipartisan support, because, of course, anti-Palestinian racism is one of the great bipartisan unifiers in Congress.”

Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) justified the bill as a plain way to defund terrorism. “We, as members of Congress, have the duty to make sure that taxpayers are not subsidizing terrorism. It’s very, very simple,” he said on the House floor.  Smith didn’t provide evidence that any major U.S. non-profit group has ever supported terrorism. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), the only Palestinian-American in Congress, said of the bill, “I don’t care who the president of the United States is. This is a dangerous and unconstitutional bill that would allow unchecked power to target nonprofit organizations as political enemies and shut them down without due process.” The bill doesn’t just pose a danger to advocates for war refugees trapped in Gaza, but also possibly to LGBTQ+ nonprofits as well. As the Trump-Vance campaign spent record numbers on anti-trans ad spending, it is increasingly likely that they could use this bill as a pretense to attack the many nonprofits that advocate for LGBTQ+ individuals. Li details that this could be the case for just about anyone who is a political opponent of the ruling administration.

[...] “Right-wingers and white supremacists in Congress can support this bill, with the assurance that their allies, right-wing extremist groups, are highly, highly unlikely to ever be targeted by this bill, because there isn’t going to — it’s much less likely that they will be smeared with an accusation of being tied to an international terrorist organization that’s already on one of the government lists,” Li said. Groups that could be on the chopping block with this bill include the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign, as well as nonprofit news outlets like Mother Jones or ProPublica.

HR9495 is an attack on nonprofit organizations, and Donald Trump and his allies can twist the definition of “supporting terrorism” to not only include pro-Palestinian groups, but also pro-abortion access and pro-LGBTQ+ groups (or any group that opposes the MAGA movement).

It’s time to kill this immoral bill in the Senate.