Zimbabwe’s Problems Go Beyond Mugabe

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph-Journal

 

Are there some countries where elections cause more damage than good? Zimbabwe comes to mind.

Autocrat Robert Mugabe may be gone, but the recent Zimbabwe election was, perhaps predictably, marred by violence – and the outcome is dubious, at best, and rejected by the opposition.

On July 30, candidates competed for the presidency and seats in parliament. Turnout was high, estimated at 75 per cent.

The results showed a victory for former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who became head of state when Mugabe was forced from office last November, ousted by the military after 37 years in office.

Both have been major figures in the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), which has been in power since independence in 1980.

Mnangagwa won 50.8 per cent of the vote to 44.3 per cent for Nelson Chamisa, the presidential candidate of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Alliance. The 21 other candidates took the remainder.

Chamisa carried the cities of Harare and Bulawayo.

By crossing the 50 per cent threshold, Mnangagwa also conveniently avoided a second-round runoff.

ZANU-PF also was said to have won 145 seats in the House of Assembly to 63 for the MDC Alliance. 

Chamisa accused officials of vote-rigging and insisted he was the victor. He called it a “coup.”

According to his own observers, the MDC Alliance had won as much as 56 per cent of the vote.

Violence and chaos ensued, and the army was deployed in Harare, the capital.

Human rights groups reported dozens of abductions, beatings and rapes; thousands of MDC Alliance members went into hiding.

A senior Zimbabwean opposition figure, Tendai Bit,i was arrested as he tried to flee to neighbouring Zambia.

Nkululeko Sibanda, an MDC Alliance spokesperson, called the repression “worse than under Mugabe.”

The 40-year-old Chamisa, whose skull was fractured when beaten up by state security agents in 2007, succeeded Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader who died last February. 

Mnangagwa, known as “the crocodile” because of his political shrewdness, is 75.

Tsvangirai had lost to Mugabe in a rigged election in 2002 and withdrew from the 2008 contest, describing it as a “violent sham.”

“In African elections, often stakes are very high and nobody has a backup plan for losing,” explained John Dramani Mahama, former president of Ghana and head of the observer mission from the Commonwealth.

Zimbabwe, a country that once had one of Africa's most promising economies, suffered crippling hyperinflation under Mugabe.

It desperately needs the International Monetary Fund to start giving it loans again. It also needs the United States, European Union and others to lift sanctions.

But the European Union and United States have condemned the post-election violence.

The task of putting Zimbabwe back on track after 37 years that were tainted by corruption, mismanagement and diplomatic isolation was never going to be easy. Of course, a fraudulent election won’t make matters any better for the embattled nation in southern Africa.

Will France Lose a South Pacific Possession?

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer
 

Unlike the other major European imperial powers, France has retained bits and pieces of its once large colonies, most of them small islands, like Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean and Mayotte and Réunion in the Indian Ocean.

They have been incorporated directly within the French Republic as overseas departments and appear satisfied to be part of France.

France has not given up any overseas territory since 1977, when Djibouti in Africa gained its independence. But by 2019 another piece of the empire may attain sovereignty.

In the South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia, a referendum on independence will be held in November. Its 268,000 inhabitants, living in an area of 18,576 square kilometres, may become the world’s newest state.

But according to the 2014 census, the indigenous Melanesian Kanaks make up only 44 per cent of the total population. The rest are people of French origin or other parts of the Pacific region.

The island territories comprising New Caledonia were acquired by France between 1853 and 1865, during the age of imperialism. The remote islands were used as a penal colony from 1854 to 1922. 

Once the prisoners had completed their sentences, they were given land to settle. These people, originally from metropolitan France, are often known as Caldoches. More recent French arrivals are referred to as Métros.

French colonial policy in New Caledonia marginalized the Kanaks from the economy and political system and sought to assimilate them into the French Empire through an influx of French settlers. In response, Kanak resistance to these policies has been strong. 

After an 1878 rebellion, the early plantation economy collapsed and the nickel mining era began. The economy was dominated by French colonist businessmen in Nouméa, the capital. Indeed, by 1903, nearly all Kanaks on Grande Terre, the principal island, were confined to reservations. 

In 1917, resistance to this state of affairs resulted in another revolt.

In 1946, the colonial status of New Caledonia was changed to an overseas territory, and for the first time, Kanaks were given French citizenship.

With the nickel boom of the 1970s another major migration wave began with many economic migrants arriving in New Caledonia from other French possessions, such as Wallis and Futuna, as well as French settlers who had left Algeria after North Africa was lost to France.

Indigenous nationalistic movements elsewhere in Melanesia, such as Fiji, had a profound effect on Kanaks, who now became the only large Melanesian population still subject to colonialism.

A movement for total independence began in 1975, led by the Union Multiraciale de Nouvelle-Calédonie. In 1984, pro-independence parties in New Caledonia came together in the Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS).

There followed intense political animosity between pro-independence Kanaks and  anti-independence Europeans with their assimilated allies.

A referendum held in 1987 was boycotted by Kanaks, as they felt it didn’t promise full independence. A period of violence ensued. 

In April 1988, militants attacked a police station on Ouvéa, one of the Loyalty Islands. 

Four gendarmes were killed and others held hostage in a cave. When the French military counterattacked, nineteen Kanaks perished.

In May 1998 the Accord de Nouméa, an agreement between FLNKS and other groups with the territorial and French national governments, was signed.  

The agreement recognized the trauma caused by colonization on the Kanak people. It turned New Caledonia into a “special territorial entity within the French Republic,” and promised a referendum on full independence by 2018.

On Nov. 4 the territory is scheduled to vote on a separation from France. French President Emmanuel Macron visited New Caledonia in May and implied that the territory needed France to protect it from Chinese expansionism.

 “New Caledonians are tired of our current system of society,” independence leader Daniel Goa, head of the Union Calédonienne, declared. “They cannot take it anymore.”

Legislative elections held in 2014 saw 25 of 54 seats going to pro-independence members and 29 to those supporting continuing ties with France.

The ethnic Europeans, who mostly oppose independence, tend to be highly nationalistic. In last year’s French presidential election, the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen received nearly 30 per cent of the votes in New Caledonia compared with Macron’s 13 per cent.

The nationalists hope a sovereign New Caledonia would become “ambassadors for Oceania” to France and Europe.

They also promise to safeguard the status quo with the two regional powers, Australia and New Zealand.

Campaign Against "Fake News" a Cover for Censorship?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Ever since the unexpected victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 election, the American political establishment has been bombarding the public with warnings about “fake news.”

But France, too, is not immune to this hysteria. President Emmanuel Macron has demanded that his parliamentary majority provide him with a law against “fake news” during election campaigns.

Angered last year by a phony story claiming he had an offshore account in the Bahamas, Macron has made fighting “fake news” a priority. 

His main opponent in the 2017 election, the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, brought up the Bahamas story during a critical presidential debate. 

On Jan. 3, in a speech to journalists at the Élysée Palace, Macron told the gathering that he would aim to “protect our democracy from these false stories.” 

The measure would allow judges to block content deemed false during a three-month period preceding an election.

Judges would have 48 hours to decide if “any allegation or imputation” in a news item was “devoid of verifiable elements that would make it credible.” Only items written “in bad faith” could be blocked, and again it would be up to the judge to decide.

The president’s proposal has aroused opposition from journalists who see it as an attack on press freedom and who view it as unnecessary because the country already has legislation regarding false news stories.

The Conseil d’État pointed out on April 19 that French law already contains several measures intended to combat the dissemination of false information, in particular an 1881 law on the freedom of the press, which permits curbs on the dissemination of false information and views that are defamatory or abusive or incite hatred.

France’s media watchdog, the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel, requires that media content reach a minimum level of accuracy and honesty.

With regard to elections, Article L97 of France’s electoral code prohibits the dissemination of false information that might influence the behavior of voters.

Critics say that it is difficult for a judge in 48 hours, in an electoral period, to decide what is fake news. They also expressed concern that the process could put journalists’ sources at risk.

The respected newspaper Le Monde warned against the “perilous nature” of information regulation. Serge Halimi, president and editorial director of its Le Monde Diplomatique edition, asserted that the proposal “reveals both the blindness of those who govern when challenged and their inclination to invent new coercive countermeasures.”

The political opposition sees the measure as a threat to democracy. “The potential risk in this law is if it winds up in the hands of a government with the wrong motives,” warned Hervé Saulignac, a Socialist member of parliament who is leading the opposition. “That’s where it could lead to catastrophe.” 

At a time “when the press is threatened around the world, it is better to protect the press,” he added.

“This is nothing less than a crude attempt at controlling information and its means of diffusion,” Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the France Unbowed party, who also ran against Macron in last year’s election, argued. 

Constance Le Grip of Les Républicains, a right-wing group, told parliament the law was “useless, redundant, inadequate, dangerous, an attack on freedom of expression, badly written and only raises concerns instead of bringing solutions.” Le Pen, too, has attacked the proposed law as a “liberty killer.”

Macron’s bill was presented to parliament on June 7. The government wants the law to come into force before next spring.

But we should always remember that the cure is often worse than the disease. This law will not solve the problem of fake news.

But we should always remember that the cure is often worse than the disease. This law will not solve the problem of fake news. Moral panics often lead to the undermining of freedoms.

Ending Turkey's Democracy

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph-Journal
 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election as President of Turkey on June 24 came as no surprise. He has now ruled Turkey as either president or prime minister for more than fifteen years. 

Muharrem İnce, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidate had hoped to force Erdogan into a second round run-off for the presidency, but failed. Erdogan won outright in the first round with 52.6 per cent of the vote. 

In the parliamentary voting, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost some ground, but its alliance with the Turkish ultra-nationalist National Movement Party (MHP) provided it with 344 seats in the new 600-seat parliament. (The MHP, naturally, supports Erdogan’s renewed war against Kurdish separatists in the southeast of the country.)

How fair was this election?  You can guess.  Not only was the president the beneficiary of overwhelming support from both state and corporate media, but one of the candidates, Selahattin Demirtas of the left-wing pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who came third, was in prison. 

Ince, who 30.6 per cent, said Turkey was now entering a dangerous period of “one-man rule.” But Erdogan called the election result a “lesson in democracy to all the world.”

Nor should we forget the purges and mass arrests that have taken placed since the failed military coup in July 2016, with thousands jailed or in exile – almost 152,000 have been dismissed from the public service alone. 

Erdogan’s AKP has to a large extent co-opted the organs of the state. It runs a countrywide network of patronage, charities, religious orders and “youth groups.” 

The passing of a new constitution, approved by referendum in November 2017, has granted him sweeping powers to run the country largely uncontested. Parliament has been weakened and the post of prime minister abolished.

The president can now appoint the head of the National Intelligence Agency, the Religious Affairs Directorate and the Central Bank, as well as ambassadors, governors and university rectors. He has also placed the chief of staff of the armed forces under control of the Defence Ministry.

Erdogan sees himself presiding over a “great transformation” that will undo the secularization imposed on the state by its founder, Kemal Ataturk, and make it once again an Islamic power. 

The Islamization of the state has been going on for many years, but its pace has increased, with a focus on the education system; Erdogan wants to raise a “pious generation.”

Last year Erdogan made substantial changes to school curricula, and after 2016 fired more than 33,000 teachers and closed scores of schools over claims that they had ties with those involved in the coup attempt.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag has described Erdogan as a leader “who exerts himself for the sake of God.” He is trying to leave a legacy that will last for decades. Turkey to all intents and purposes is in its Second Republic, this time a neo-Ottoman one.

Israel and the Complexities of Jewish History

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Jewish identity after the Holocaust and the creation of Israel has become ever more complex, especially for those of the post-1945 generation, who grew up immediately after these transformational events

In Israel itself, Jews face a dilemma regardless of where they find themselves on the ideological spectrum.

While the left is correct about the dangers of continued occupation of the territories acquired after the 1967 war, the right warns about the dangers of a peace process with a Palestinian national movement that includes Hamas, which rules Gaza and is sworn to eventually destroy the Jewish state.

The enclave is home to two million Palestinians, more than half of whom live below the poverty line and who face an unemployment rate of nearly 50 per cent.

The militant group believes that the Jews invented their history and that Israel is nothing more than a colonialist intrusion, which needs to be destroyed, as were the Christian Crusader kingdoms almost a millennium ago.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars in the last decade and many on both sides think a fourth is inevitable.

Hamas sees compromise as a betrayal of justice. The events on the Gaza border in recent weeks demonstrate this.

Why are Palestinians who live in Palestine demanding the “right of return” to a country that is no longer Palestine?

Does the Palestinian right of return mean going back to the actual ancestral homes that were lost in war 70 years ago? Those homes in most cases no longer even exist.

No Israeli government will agree to national suicide by allowing the descendants of refugees to move to the Jewish state.

The Palestinian demand for right of return to the state of Israel is nothing less than an expression of the rejection of Israel’s right to exist.

In a video of a July 12 rally, aired on Al-Jazeera, former Hamas interior minister Fathi Hammad spoke about “the cleansing of Palestine of the filth of the Jews, and their uprooting from it,” which he promised would soon happen.

“By 2022 we will be rid of them,” he said, and Palestine will have been “healed of its cancer -- the Jews.”

It is of course true that modern Zionism originated in an increasingly inhospitable Europe, where pogroms were common, and where anti-Semitic hatred culminated in the Holocaust.

That’s not the whole story, though.Today, a majority of Israeli Jews are not of European descent but come from families who left one part of the Middle East and came to another part, who left or fled or were expelled from countries like Egypt, Iraq and Morocco, where Jews had lived for centuries.

They weren’t touched directly by the Holocaust but as minorities of a different faith they suffered at the hands of their Arab neighbours -- and long before 1948.

A Holocaust-centered  narrative also ignores the centrality of the land of Israel to Judaism and the Jewish people.

Yes, Jews needed a safe home -- but not just anywhere. Through their culture, religion, and languages, Jews maintained a vicarious indigineity with a homeland lost but never forgotten.

So this is the quandary: while Jews are not “occupiers” in any part of the land of Israel -- the way Europeans have occupied lands with which they had no historical or religious connection, in Africa, Australia, and North America -- Israel does govern millions of Palestinian Arabs who have no civil, national, or political rights under occupation.

Left-wingers tend to minimize the security threat that Israel faces, the level of hostility and denial of its right to exist. But right-wingers ignore the political, demographic and moral consequences of permanently ruling over another people.

The ideologues in each camp pretend the argument of the rival group has no substance. That is madness.

De Gaulle’s Fifth French Republic, Sixty Years On

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Fifth Republic in France. It is now the second-longest constitutional order in the country since the 1789 French Revolution.

It is surpassed only by the Third Republic, which lasted from 1870 until the French defeat of 1940 in the Second World War.

The Fifth Republic was born amidst a profound crisis that destroyed the ill-fated Fourth Republic.

The latter lasted little more than a decade, and collapsed due to the vicious colonial wars France had been fighting in Indochina and Algeria.

The Fourth Republic’s weak parliamentary system had seen a revolving door of prime ministers amidst political gridlock -- there were 21 administrations in its 12-year history.

Moreover, the government proved unable to make effective decisions regarding the decolonization of the numerous remaining French colonies.

After a series of crises, most importantly the Algerian one of 1958, the Fourth Republic collapsed.

In many ways the Algerian War, launched by the Front de Libération Nationale in 1954, almost tore the nation apart.

Across the Mediterranean from metropolitan France, Algeria had, apart from its indigenous Arab Muslim population of some 8.5 million, about a million French settlers, known as pied-noirs.

They, of course, wanted to remain French, under the slogan Algérie française.

Favourable to them, the French Army in Algeria slowly consolidated power, and by May 1958 had complete control over the territory and were on the verge of launching a coup d’état.

Fearing a military takeover of France itself, the government called former general Charles de Gaulle, the hero of the Second World War, out of retirement to hold the country together.

He now presided over a transitional administration that was empowered to design a new French constitution.

The Fourth Republic was dissolved by a public referendum in 1958 which established the modern-day Fifth Republic with a strengthened presidency.

Under this semi-presidential form of government, the president has substantial power, holds a term of five years and, following a change to the constitution in 1962, is directly elected by the French people. (De Gaulle held the position until 1968.)

Algeria eventually became independent on July 5, 1962, and virtually the entire European population left thereafter.

De Gaulle was a military man who was ahead of his time. In the 1930s he defied the strategic orthodoxy of the military high command by advocating greater reliance on armoured divisions.

When France fell to Hitler’s armies in June 1940, de Gaulle escaped to England, salvaging the country’s honour by creating the Free French movement, rather than joining the defeatist Vichy regime of Marshal Philppe Pétain.

On June 18 he broadcast an appeal to his compatriots on the BBC to continue the struggle, vowing to kindle the “flame of resistance.”

Over the next four years, the exiled general became the symbol of the French collective fight against the Germans.

The French turned to him again in 1958, and he once again saved the republic.

Since de Gaulle,  who left office in 1969, there have been seven French presidents, of differing political ideologies, under the Fifth Republic. Emmanuel Macron, the latest, was elected last year.

Finally, France has crafted a republican system that seems to work.

Now the nation’s most revered historical figure, de Gaulle has thousands of streets, schools and public squares across France bearing his name. Le général had saved the country twice.

African States Lay Down Arms

Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

Most of Africa’s conflicts are interminable affairs, civil or tribal wars lasting decades and  involving non-state actors. They’re hard to bring to a close.

One of Africa’s few wars between sovereign states, on the other hand, recently ended.

The leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea on July 9 signed a “joint declaration of peace and friendship,” a day after a summit in Asmara, the Eritrean capital, between Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia. 

Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war, but their border remained contested and about 80,000 people died in a 1998-2000 border war.

A peace agreement known as the Algiers accord was signed in 2000. It created an independent, impartial body, known as the Ethiopian-Eritrean Boundary Commission, to determine the boundary, but Ethi­o­pia balked at implementing the deal.

Ethiopia has now agreed to implement the ruling that awarded the key town of Badme to Eritrea.

Isaias visited Addis Ababa July 14. The two leaders announced that they would resume airline and telephone services and cross-border trade, and reopen their embassies. 

Ethiopia, which has been a landlocked nation since Eritrea achieved independence, needs the Eritrean port of Assab for access to the Red Sea. Until 1998, it used Assab for two-thirds of its trade with the world. 

In addition, the two countries agreed to participate in the development of other ports. This will reduce Ethiopia’s dependence on the port of Djibouti, which has been its main gateway for trade.

Africa’s second most populous state, with 102 million people, Ethiopia has East Africa’s largest economy and is a regional power.

It has the largest army in the region and the continent’s fastest-growing economy, with a growth rate expected to be 8.5 per cent this year. 

Abiy, who became Ethiopia’s prime minister in April, is the first member of the Oromo ethnic group, which makes up more than a third of Ethiopia’s population of more than 102 million, to lead the government. 

They have suffered repression in the past and were at the center of protests demanding more economic opportunities and greater freedom of expression.

The outgoing Ethiopian leader, Hailemariam Desaleg of the small Welayta ethnic group, who number only 2.3 per cent of the country’s people, resigned in February.

Deadly clashes for more than two years had left at least 700 people dead. Abiy lifted a state of emergency and freed political prisoners.

Both men are members of the Ethiopian People’s RevolutionaryDemocratic Front that has ruled the country since overthrowing an Amhara-led Marxist-Leninist Derg regime in 1991.

Historically, the Amhara people, numbering 27 per cent, were the country’s governing force. Emperor Haile Selasssie, deposed in 1974, was Amhara, as was Mengistu Haile Mariam, the country’s dictator until 1991.

The minority Tigrayans, though numbering just 6.1 per cent of the population, have controlled the political and economic life of Ethiopia since then. The late Meles Zenawi, the first prime minister of a post-Derg Ethiopia, was Tigrayan.

Abiy’s ethnicity has been crucial in laying the ground for reconciliation with Eritrea.

The repressive Eritrean government, meanwhile, has long been involved in human rights abuses, and denies rights based on political opinion and religion.

It subjects its citizens to “national service” that traps conscripts for well over a decade and in some cases, forever. About 12 per cent of Eritrea’s five million people have fled the country.

Will this peace deal result in social and political liberalization there?

Does Russia Regret Having Sold Alaska?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

 

As all those who study nationalism know, one of the major sources of conflict between states relates to what is known as irredentism.

This refers to any movement or country that seeks to reclaim and occupy a land that it considers to be a “lost” or “unredeemed” territory that it once owned.

Such territorial claims are justified on the basis of real or imagined national notions of historic, territorial, religious or ethnic affiliations.

There are many serious cases of irredentist claims around the world, and they often spark wars. Some seem dormant – but are they?

Visiting Alaska recently, I wondered if there was any “seller’s remorse” in Russia regarding a former colony that is now an American state. 

It’s been more than 150 years since Tsar Alexander II of Russia sold Alaska, across the Bering Strait from Siberia, to the United States.

At the time, it seemed to make sense. The Russians had lost the Crimean War to European rivals Britain and France a decade earlier, and they feared that the British, already in control of most of northern North America, might wrest it from them.

To forestall this, in 1867 they sold Alaska to the United States, then still a relatively minor power and certainly no threat to them.

Russian America was the name of the tsarist colonial possessions in North America from 1733 to 1867. The Russians were primarily interested in the abundance of fur-bearing mammals on Alaska’s coast.

The fur trade proved to be a lucrative enterprise, and on 1784, with encouragement from Empress Catherine the Great, permanent settlement in Alaska began. 

In 1799 the Russian-American Company was created in order to monopolize the fur trade. Alexander Baranov (for whom a hotel is named in present-day Juneau) was promoted by the company as chief manager, effectively becoming the first governor of Russian America. 

The capital was established in New Arkhangelsk (today’s Sitka) and became known as the “Paris of the Pacific Ocean.”

Angered by encroachment on their land, Tlingit warriors destroyed several Russian settlements, but the Russians re-established their presence following the Battle of Sitka in 1804.

By the middle of the 19th century, though, profits from the colony were in steep decline and the Russians concluded that it was too expensive to retain. They also feared that if gold were discovered (as it eventually was), Americans might overrun the territory.

U.S. Secretary of State William Seward had wanted to purchase Alaska for quite some time as he saw it as an integral part of “manifest destiny.” The purchase would position the U.S. closer to trade with China, and fend off any British thoughts of encroachment on the West Coast.

Though many skeptics called it “Seward’s folly,” Washington purchased the colony for $7.2 million. As it turned out, it was money well spent!

Some Russians now regret the decision. So the 150th anniversary last year of Russia’s sale was a day of mourning for some right-wing Russian nationalists who see the transaction as a gigantic blunder, one that lessened Moscow’s influence in an Arctic with natural riches in an age of climate change.

“If Russia was in possession of Alaska today, the geopolitical situation in the world would have been different,” Sergey Aksyonov, the prime minister of Crimea, remarked. A Russian military magazine ran an article on “The Alaska We’ve Lost.”

Alexander Dugin, a Russian philosopher and strategist known for his fascist views, and one of the founding fathers of the “Eurasian civilization doctrine,” has stated that the sale should be re-discussed.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, was more diplomatic. “The anniversary may, of course, trigger diverse emotions,” he said. “But it is a good occasion to refresh memories of Russians’ contribution to exploration of the American continent.”

Andrei Znamenski a history professor at the University of Memphis, told the New York Times that irredentist calls to reclaim Alaska were not limited to extremists.

“It’s a very convenient episode for nationalists, who want Russia to expand, to exploit,” he said. “It fits into national rhetoric: Look how the Americans have treated us.”

Today the Russian-American border runs through the Diomede Islands in the middle of the Bering Strait. Big Diomede belongs to Russia and Little Diomede to the US. The distance between them is a mere 3.8 kilometres.

In Pakistan, Voting and Violence

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

It seems every Pakistani election is preceded by violence and political detentions. This one has proved no exception.

In the run-up to the July 25 vote for the National Assembly, there were high-profile arrests and bloodshed.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter and political heir Maryam were arrested at the Lahore airport July 13 on corruption charges as they returned to the country in an attempt to rally their beleaguered party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

The arrests came the same day the election campaign took a deadly turn. More than 130 people, including a candidate from another party, were killed in two militant attacks elsewhere in Pakistan.

In the southwestern province of Baluchistan, a suicide bomber killed 128 people, including a politician running for a provincial legislature. Four others died in a strike in Pakistan's northwest, spreading panic in the country. 

Police officers and members of a paramilitary force known as the Rangers clashed with protesters in several cities in the Punjab, the country’s most populous province and a stronghold of Sharif’s party.

The police also arrested at least 600 workers of the PML-N on security-related charges.

 “It’s the sort of crude repression that recalls dark periods of Pakistani history under military rule,” said Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director for Amnesty International.

The Sharifs were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in connection with their ownership of expensive properties in London that the courts said were bought with illegally acquired money. Sharif's son-in-law is currently serving a one-year prison sentence on the same charge.

The Supreme Court removed Sharif as prime minister last year and barred him from seeking office again. He has already served as the country’s prime minister three times.

The Sharifs contend that the case was manufactured by their political foes and the country’s powerful military. The former prime minister remarked that Pakistan now has a “state above the state.”

During his term in office, Sharif criticized the military’s involvement in civilian affairs and its efforts in fighting extremists. 

He stated that the entire nation has been converted into a “big prison,” and urged the people of the country to break the shackles and free themselves.

His brother Shahbaz Sharif now heads Sharif’s party and is campaigning for re-election on July 25.

There are a total of 342 seats being contested, out of which 272 are general seats while the remaining 70 are special seats reserved for women and ethnic minority candidates. As well, the four provincial assemblies of Punjab, Sind, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are also holding elections.

Altogether, 3,459 candidates will contest on 272 general seats of the National Assembly, while 8,396 are running for 577 provincial seats.

Polls have consistently shown a close race for parliament between the PML-N and the Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI), with the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) polling in third place ahead of several smaller parties. 

The PTI was founded in 1996 by former national cricket captain Imran Khan, who seems favoured by the military, while the PPP is the political vehicle of the Bhutto family.

Its current leader is Bilawal  Bhutto Zardari, the son of the Pakistani politician and slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari, the former president of Pakistan.

In elections held five years ago, the PML-N secured 166 seats in the National Assembly and the PTI only 35, with the incumbent PPP slashed to a mere 15 seats.

The army will deploy 350,000 security personnel to polling stations throughout the country on election day.

Will Helsinki Summit Affect the Syrian Conflict?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript 
 

This past Monday, all eyes were turned towards Helsinki, where Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin held their long-anticipated summit.

A serious bone of contention between the two countries has been the Syrian Civil War, where Russia has been aiding Bashar al-Assad’s regime, while the United States has supported Kurdish rebels and other anti-government forces. The two superpowers have come perilously close to blows at times.

The conference was also hyped in its possible implications for Israel, a key American ally in the Middle East.

But in the end, maybe too much has been made of this meeting -- certainly as far as Israel is concerned. Russia might be offering Israel a grand bargain that Putin believes will meet the interests of the parties involved, without much American input.

Its cornerstone involves keeping Iran at bay in Syria until a total settlement, which would include the withdrawal of the United States (and Turkey), is reached. After that, Moscow will make sure the Iranians -- and Hezbollah -- leave Syria as well.

In Helsinki, Trump stated that Putin “is helping Israel.” He added that “creating safety for Israel is something that both President Putin and I would like to see very much.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to agree. On July 11, he made his third visit to Russia this year to see Putin. 

The talks revolved around the possibility of an Iranian departure from the country in exchange for Israel not interfering in Assad’s forces in the south of the country, near Israeli territory. 

Netanyahu has been pressing Moscow to curb Iranian influence in Syria and has repeatedly warned that Israel will not tolerate a permanent Iranian presence there.

Netanyahu stressed that Israel “has no problem with the Assad regime,” but the main issue includes the presence in Syria of fighters from Hezbollah, the remnant of the Islamic State and Iran.

Russian diplomats have emphasized that there should be no “non-Syrian forces” in the southwest of Syria, near the Israeli border. 

Russia has apparently promised to keep Iran within 100 kilometres from the boundary and has already been partially delivering on this commitment. 

Moscow still gives Israel needed leeway on Syrian territory, as long as they strike Syrian positions only in retaliation to Syria’s own offenses or when they attack non-Syrian forces. 

The very day Netanyahu arrived in Moscow, Ali Akbar Velayati, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s foreign policy adviser, delivered what Iran’s foreign ministry called a “very important” message regarding Syria from Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani.

A few short years ago hardly anyone could imagine that Russia would become the most influential external actor in the region, with everyone now expecting something from Moscow.

Russia is taking into account the security interests of the key players --Turkey, Israel and Iran, contends Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs.  

Does the road to ending Iran and Hezbollah’s presence in Syria run through Moscow rather than Washington? Netanyahu thinks so, and Helsinki hasn’t changed his mind.

Does Being Smaller Make a Country More European?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

At 2,586 square kilometres, it is the smallest but one of the 28 European Union states. You could drive its length (88 kilometres) or its width (56 kilometers miles) in no time.

The capital, with the same name, has barely 100,000 souls.

The country is the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Small as it is, this grand duchy is a founding member of the European Union and NATO and hosts the European Court of Justice, the Secretariat of the European Parliament and other supranational institutions. Luxembourg expects to be listened to and taken seriously by its European peers. 

With roots stretching back to the 10th century, Luxembourg’s history is closely intertwined with that of its more powerful neighbours, especially Germany. Many of its 600,000 inhabitants are trilingual in French, German and Luxembourgish.

The state’s roots go back to 963 AD, when Siegfried, count of the Ardennes, acquired Lucilinburhuc, an old Roman fort with a Frankish name.

Over the next few centuries, it would grow to encompass an area four times the size of the present grand duchy. It even managed to produce three Holy Roman emperors and several kings of Bohemia. But it would eventually suffer three partitions, resulting in the small nation of today.

The three countries surrounding present-day Luxembourg all own territory that once belonged to Luxembourg, and they all at one point or another demanded its total annexation into their own territory.

In 1659, by the Treaty of the Pyrenees, France gained 1,060 square kilometres, 10 per cent of Luxembourg’s size at the time. Luxembourg later became part of Napoleon’s European empire.

At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, after his defeat, Luxembourg re-emerged, but smaller again. This time it was Prussia that gained territory -- 2,280 square kilometres, 24 more per cent of the grand duchy.

But the worst loss occurred in 1839, when the Netherlands accepted the Treaty of London, formally recognising Belgian independence. As a result, the country lost its western, French-speaking half to Belgium, which still has a province also called Luxembourg.

The territory ceded to Belgium was 4,730 square kilometres, or 65 per cent of the territory of the grand duchy at the time. The population of this territory was 175,000, then half of Luxembourg’s total.

Together, the three partitions reduced the territory of Luxembourg from 10,700 square kilometres to the present-day area of 2,586.

Even after all that, King William III of the Netherlands remained the head of state, as the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, maintaining a personal union between the two countries until 1890.

And of course the country didn’t avoid the horrors of 20th century Europe, either: in the first half of the 20th century, Germany brutally occupied Luxembourg twice, with Hitler annexing it outright the second time.

Luxembourg was liberated in September 1944, and became a founding member of the United Nations a year later.

Yet Luxembourg, instead of harboring irredentist designs to recover its lost territories, has become a poster child for the pan-European model we call the European Union. It was one of the six founding members in 1951 of what would become the EU.

With an advanced economy and one of the world'’ highest GDPs per capita, it is part of a greater economic region alongside the Walloon part of Belgium (including its German-speaking area), the French region of Lorraine, and the German states of Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate.

A global financial centre, the country is a major banking hub. ArcelorMittal SA, headquartered in Luxembourg City, is the world’s largest steel producer.

Many radio and television services for pan-European audiences, including those in France, Germany and Great Britain, are headquartered Luxembourg. Generations of British listeners grew up with Radio Luxembourg, which beamed pop music programs into the country.

Xavier Bettel formed a government in December 2013 after elections held in October at which his Democratic Party, the Socialists and Greens emerged with a small majority over the largest overall group, the conservative Christian Social Party.

The vote was called after Jean-Claude Juncker of the Christian Social Party, who had been prime minister since 1995, lost his majority in parliament when the Socialists quit his coalition over a phone-tapping scandal. The Christian Social Party had been in government since 1979.

Bettel, the mayor of Luxembourg City between 2011 and 2013, is the country’s first openly gay prime minister.

July in Alaska: a Pleasant Reunion

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

I once heard a speaker refer to “remote” Alaska. That it certainly is – it’s five times zones west of Prince Edward Island.

Earlier this month, we travelled to Juneau, the capital, to attend the 50th year reunion of my wife Pat’s high school.

Alaska belonged to tsarist Russia until sold to the United States in 1867, and remnants of that past are visible in onion-domed Russian Orthodox churches and aboriginal Alaskans with Russian surnames.

The St, Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, built in the 19th century, contains icons brought from Russia, and sits on a steep hill overlooking the downtown. It was built by Tlingit natives who were Orthodox.

One of the saints of the church is St. Peter the Aleut, a native Alaskan.

Today, indigenous Alaskans comprise some 15 per cent of the state’s 740,000 people. Most others are people whose families came from the “lower 48.”

Alaska became the 49th American state – and, at 1,717,856 square kilometres,  by far the largest -- in 1959.

Juneau is in the Alaska panhandle, located on the Inland Passage of the Pacific Ocean and surrounded by mountain ranges.

Founded in 1880 as a gold mining town -- you can take tours of the old mines -- the mountains loom over the city making for dramatic and spectacular views.

The city of 32,000 people, above the 58th parallel, sits at the base of Mount Roberts and can only be reached by boat or airplane.

The absence of a road network is due to the extremely rugged terrain surrounding the city. This makes Juneau in effect an island in terms of transportation, in spite of the city being located on the mainland.

A good starting point for learning about the city is the Juneau-Douglas City Museum, which also offers walking tours of Juneau's historic buildings.

Juneau has become a major destination for cruise ships. In summer, as many as five huge boats dock in the cruise ship harbour, and the  city is overrun with tourists.

The downtown begins to resemble a virtual theme park; indeed, most shops sell souvenirs and trinkets.

A tramway, opened in 1996, carries visitors 550 metres up Mount Roberts, elevation 1,164 metres, through the rain forest to an alpine area.

There are hiking trails, wildflowers and views of Gastineau Channel separating the mainland from Douglas Island.

The Mendenhall Glacier, some 22 kilometres long, is located in Mendenhall Valley, about 19 kilometres from downtown Juneau, and is also a tourist destination.

The glacier has recently come to the forefront of the international debate on global warming, because it is retreating and shrinking. A lake has now formed at its base from the melting ice.

On the fourth of July, America’s Independence Day, we watched Juneau’s annual parade, on a day when the temperature actually reached 28C. Not bad for a place this far north.

There were parades, races, music, sand sculpting, food vendors, and barbeques. We went to the one at Douglas United Methodist Church on Douglas Island. It was indeed a very spirited event.

Israel Boasts Robust Demographic Strength

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Israel’s birthrates have seen a sustained rise in fertility. They present a stark contrast to the picture in other developed societies, where the fertility rate has been steadily sinking to or below replacement level.

New demographic data have revealed that the fertility rate in the United States, which had been relatively robust until recently, and was still holding its own as late as 2008, has just plunged to a historic low of 1.76, far below the replacement level of 2.1 children per family.

That is because, in the view of Sarah Rindner, who teaches English literature at Lander College in New York, the democratic West is ‘undergoing a deep cultural or spiritual crisis of which the demographic crisis is less a cause than a particularly severe symptom.”

Ofir Haivry, an Israeli historian and political theorist who is vice-president of the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem, attributes this to the situation in affluent cultures, where “the material and even the spiritual well-being of individuals is connected to the limit they place on the number of their children,” whereas the situation in more traditional societies large numbers of offspring are regarded “as the single best measure of success and status.”

While the individualism now dominant in the West, a product of liberalism, is one that lauds the autonomous, rational individual, Israel’s mix of collectivism and individualism, as Haviv Rettig Gur, the senior analyst for the Times of Israel newspaper, points out, allows for a more robust demographic strength.

Its culture of camaraderie and self-sacrifice, he notes, stems from “a collectivist ethos deployed in defence of individualism, a lionizing of family and tradition alongside an underlying liberalism that ensures these traditionalist and collectivist choices are entered upon by free individuals.”

Thirty years ago, in 1988, Israel’s population was at 4.4 million; it is now at about 8.8 million. In other words, the country’s population has doubled in three decades.

With 399 people per square kilometre, Israel is certainly densely populated. Has this led to the very small country feeling “overcrowded,” with a corresponding increase in economic problems, and a decline in services and quality of life? Not at all.

As the population doubled between those years, the GDP went from $43.9 billion to $318.7 billion, a seven-fold increase; per-capita GDP has more than tripled, from just under $10,000 to just over $37,000.

Israel is now among world leaders in the percentage of people with post-secondary degrees. At 46 per cent of the population, it is far above the average of 32 per cent in the developed world, as measured by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

In 1988, life expectancy for an Israeli was 74.4 years; it is now about 82.5 years, at number eight in the world, above Canada, Denmark, France, and the United States. Not bad for a people sweating out an “aggressive, stress-filled existence.”

Now home to the majority of the world’s Jews, at almost 6.5 million, Israel’s resilience and demographic strength will probably increase that percentage, especially as in the Jewish diaspora a declining birth rate and growing assimilationist pressures may make for far smaller Jewish communities in the future.

An Organization Helping Egyptian Christians

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

The mission of Coptic Solidarity, located in the Washington DC region, is to increase awareness of the situation of Copts in Egypt and to solicit the support of international public opinion and policy makers.

The Copts are over 10 million strong and have lived in Egypt for two millennia. They are the largest Christian and largest non-Muslim community in the Middle East.

Discriminatory state policies and political violence have historically marginalized Copts, particularly in many cities of Upper Egypt and in the Nile Delta area.

Though they are descended from the aboriginal Pharaonic civilization, many Egyptian Muslims think of them as “foreigners.”

Attempts to address this are usually met with denial by Egyptian media and government are under-reported. 

Sometimes Copts drawing attention to these injustices are portrayed as agitators out to tarnish Egypt’s image. 

I attended Coptic Solidarity’s ninth annual conference, held in Washington June 21-22, which addressed the theme of “Egypt’s Copts: Faces of Persecution,” and presented a paper on Nazi anti-Semitism.

I was on a panel with Edward Clancy, the New York-based Director of Outreach, Aid to the Church in Need, a papal-sponsored charity; and Father Philemon Patitsas, of the Holy Metropolis of Atlanta, and St. Katherine Greek Orthodox Church in Naples, Florida.

A host of other academics, social activists, and American and Canadian politicians and bureaucrats, addressed the meetings.

As well, two Hungarian officials, Dr. Laszlo Szabo, the Hungarian ambassador to the United States, and Tristan Azbej, Hungary’s Deputy State Secretary for Aiding Persecuted Christians, a government department now located within the Prime Minister’s office, provided views on how Christians in the Middle East might be helped.

The consensus that emerged from the conference is that the situation for Copts in Egypt is dire.

Raymond Ibrahim, author of The Sword and the Scimitar, maintained that the Egyptian government and media deny there is a problem. They insist Copts are considered part of the country’s social fabric and thus are not discriminated against because of their faith.

So violence and terrorism directed at Copts are considered an “aberration.” The government, he suggested, engages in deception and denial, “because they don’t want the status quo shaken.”

In fact sometimes Copts acting in self-defence against mobs are portrayed as perpetrators rather than victims. And it is claimed they exaggerate their plight.

Dr. Robert Herman, Senior Advisor for Policy at Washington-based Freedom House, agreed.

Under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in office since 2014, independent media have been shut down, and some 40,000 opponents of the regime languish in prison. All legal sources, states the constitution, must be based on Islamic sharia law.

The absence of accountability in government allows attacks against Copts and other marginalized minorities to happen with impunity.

Islamist websites spew hate against Copts on a daily basis while critics are repudiated and their statements are said to be “full of lies.” Copts now face “a shrinking of civic space,” said Herman.

 “A democratic political system is the best way to protect religious freedom” and defend society against “hatemongers,” he concluded.

Andrew Miller, deputy director for policy at the Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy, went further, asserting that Sisi pretends to be a “saviour” protecting Copts from extremists like Islamic State, in order to advance his standing on the international stage.