Dawn Editorials (with Summary and Vocabulary)

DAWN EDITORIALS

January 10, 2024 (Wednesday)

Day’s Vocabulary

  • Neoliberalism.    a political approach that favors free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending
  • Posit.            assume as a fact; put forward as a basis of argument
  • Quasi.          seemingly; apparently but not really
  • Delineate.  describe or portray (something) precisely
  • Exacerbate.           make (a problem, bad situation, or negative feeling) worse
  • Holistic.     characterized by the belief that the parts of something are interconnected and can be explained only by reference to the whole
  • Ramification.      a consequence of an action or event, especially when complex or unwelcome
  • Insurrection.       a violent uprising against an authority or government
  • Stint.             a person's fixed or allotted period of work
  • Exacting.   making great demands on one's skill, attention, or other resources
  • Reeling.      lose one's balance and stagger or lurch violently
  • Slam dunk.            a shot in which a player thrusts the ball forcefully down through the basket
  • Felon.           a person who has been convicted of a felony
  • Vindictive. having or showing a strong or unreasoning desire for revenge
  • Unsparingly.        merciless; severe
  • Torchlit.     lit by a torch or torches
  • Relentlessly.        in an unceasingly intense or harsh way
  • Sullied.        damage the purity or integrity of; defile
  • Discernible.          able to be discerned; perceptible
  • Multifarious.       many and of various types
  • Depredation.        an act of attacking or plundering
  • Appalled.    greatly dismayed or horrified
  • Tabloid.      a newspaper having pages half the size of those of a standard newspaper
  • Beleaguered.        in a very difficult situation
  • Latched.     a metal bar with a catch and lever used for fastening a door or gate
  • Absurdity. the quality or state of being ridiculous or wildly unreasonable
  • Horrendous.         extremely unpleasant, horrifying, or terrible
  • Delved.        reach inside a receptacle and search for something
  • Vaunted.     praised or boasted about, especially in an excessive way
  • Succumbed.          fail to resist pressure, temptation, or some other negative force
  • Repressive.           (especially of a social or political system) inhibiting or restraining the freedom of a person or group of people
  • Trickling.  (of a liquid) flow in a small stream
  • Unabatedly.          without any reduction in intensity or strength
  • Extermination.   killing, especially of a whole group of people or animals
  • Capitulation.       the action of surrendering or ceasing to resist an opponent or demand
  • Impunity.  exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action
  • Segregation.         the action or state of setting someone or something apart from others
  • Apartheid. (in South Africa) a policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race
  • Perturbing.           causing anxiety or concern; unsettling
  • Dubious.     hesitating or doubting
  • Concerted. jointly arranged, planned, or carried out; coordinated

Neoliberal approach

Summary

  • Neoliberalism shifts the focus from government to corporations.
    • It emphasizes self-sufficiency and independence.
    • It reduces collective responsibility for the vulnerable.
  • Neoliberalism has transformed education.
    • Schools and universities now focus on producing "economic entrepreneurs."
    • Education is seen as a way to build human capital and boost the economy.
    • Standardized tests are used to measure educational success.
  • Critics argue that neoliberal education has negative consequences.
    • It exacerbates inequalities.
    • It undermines holistic human development and critical thinking.
    • It transforms education into an afterthought rather than a priority.
    • It strengthens social divisions and empowers those in authority.
  • The author calls for a more balanced approach to education.
    • We should not focus solely on the economic aspects of education.
    • We should also consider the broader social welfare.
    • We should promote diversity and inclusion in education.

Article

The advent of neoliberalism has been marked by the transition from an administrative state, which was previously accountable for both the economy and human welfare, to one that empowers multinational corporations. This transition implements systems and ideologies that reshape individuals into economic entrepreneurs and transfer accountability for domains such as education, healthcare, and security.

This represents more than a mere revival of liberal principles that regard self-sufficiency and independence as prerequisites for self-respect, self-esteem etc. Rather, it signifies a disregard for collective responsibility for the vulnerable and marginalised and an emphasis on enterprise and the capitalisation of existence via calculated investments and actions.

The public service institutions that initially implemented the novel modes of governmentality were educational institutions and universities. But the implementation of neoliberal policies has significantly transformed the discourse, structure, and role of education within society.

Academic institutions, including schools and universities, are undergoing significant changes to cultivate subjects who bear the responsibilities of entrepreneurs and operate in every aspect of their lives. As a result, policy currently frames and justifies education as a venue for constructing human capital and fostering economic productivity beginning from early schooling and continuing through higher education.

The underperformance of young individuals on international standardised tests, or their failure to complete secondary education, constitutes a policy issue as it imposes an economic burden on the nation. Put simply, the lack of success exhibited by young individuals in their pursuit of education is perceived as an economic issue, given that education is primarily regarded as economically significant.

Neoliberal policies have transformed the role of education.

A similar argument posits that public edu­cation is unproductive, excessively uni­oni­sed, indifferent to the needs of its students, devoid of accountability, and inadequate in fostering the development of human capital. Neoliberal strategies have included market practices such as the chartered status of failing schools in the United States and their quasi-marketisation in other countries.

Public-private partnership (PPP) initiatives, such as voucher programmes, serve as a means to reduce the burden of the state in terms of public education. Lack of investment in education and indifference to the deteriorating quality of education contribute to the desire for PPP. As a consequence, an alternative approach is to propose the privatisation of public education.

Within the framework of neoliberal education, institutions strive to create the illusion that they are fulfilling the expectations of their “clients”. This is accomplished through various means, such as strategically prioritising exam-oriented instruction, allocating additional support to students deemed likely to perform well on assessments, attracting academically superior students who will elevate the school’s standing, and reallocating resources away from students with special needs.

Critics frequently consult the works of th­eorists such as Foucault, who delineates the instruments of disciplinary authority as hierarchical observation, normalising jud­gement, and their amalgamation within a procedure known as the examination. Nor­m­­alising judgement creates a consistent benchmark for every learner, whereas hierarchical observation oversees and controls conduct.

Curriculum and standardised examinations employ these instruments to quantify and regulate individuals by delineating their worth in relation to a predetermined standard. This sta­n­dardised appro­ach exacerbates ineq­u­a­­­lities and has ad­­v­erse effects on tea­ching, learning, and institutional cult­u­­re. It compromises inclusion in terms of identities, ideologies, ethnicity and history from the outset. Fur­the­r­m­o­­re, it undermines holistic human development, erodes the capacity for critical thinking, and most significantly, transforms education into an afterthought rather than something that originates from individual and societal requirements. This mode of education also strengthens social dichotomies and empowers those in authority and the privileged.

It is unjust to oversimplify neoliberalism as a negative ideology or to romanticise the pre-neoliberal era as more significant. Prior educational systems were not without their own challenges and disparities. Specific elements of present-day neoliberal policies, including marketing of education, standardisation of education and assessments serve to augment accountability and facilitate the identification of disparities.

For continuous attempts to improve education, the emphasis should not be solely on its economic methods and ramifications, but rather on the broader social welfare through public ownership and the promotion of diversity and inclusion.

Trumpistan

Summary

  • Trump has not changed his ways and intends to use his political office to exact vengeance on his enemies if he wins the 2024 election.
  • Trump is leading Biden in all of the polls and is likely to win the Republican nomination.
  • The only thing that could stop Trump from running for president is if he is convicted of a felony in Georgia or Florida, or if the US Supreme Court upholds the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to bar him from the ballot.
  • Biden's numbers are suffering because of the economy and his support for Israel.
  • If young people and Muslims boycott Biden, it could mean an easy victory for Trump.
  • If Trump wins, America will be transformed in drastic ways and forever.
  • The ultimate decision of whether Trump wins may lie with the nine justices of the US Supreme Court.

Article

January 6, 2024, fell on a Saturday, marking two years since a furious mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and sent lawmakers scrambling to safe rooms and away to undisclosed locations.

Then vice president Mike Pence, who has withdrawn from the presidential race for 2024, was one of the targets, with many chanting “Hang Mike Pence” because they saw him as a traitor for certifying the election results. Since then, the FBI has systematically gone through CCTV and other sources to identify everyone who was involved in the insurrection. They have faced arrest and lost employment as a consequence of their actions.

This does not mean that their leader, former president Donald Trump, has changed his ways. In the run-up to this year’s election in the United States, he has said that, if elected, he will imprison his political enemies.

He has also suggested that Gen Mark Milley, the US military’s former chairman joint chiefs of staff, ought to be executed. He hates Gen Milley for, among other reasons, asking for flags to be lowered following the death of senator John McCain, whom Trump also hated and called a ‘loser’ because he was taken prisoner of war in Vietnam.

In short, Trump fully intends to use his political office during a possible second stint as a vehicle for exacting vengeance on just about everyone that he does not care for.

A Trump win may be entirely possible. He is leading Biden in all of the polls. The other Republicans running for the nomination have not even been able to come close to his numbers. As the first primaries in Iowa get underway next week, the two closest to him are Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and Trump’s ambassador to the UN, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Haley has largely steered clear of criticising Trump (even though she is running to take his place as the Republican nominee).

Haley is also still reeling from not having included “slavery” in her list of reasons why she thinks the American Civil War was fought when asked the question at a town hall. According to political analysts, if, by some miracle, Haley is able to bag the nomination, the clip in which a man in the town hall confronts her about not mentioning slavery will be plastered all over the media and destroy her chances in no time at all.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — the conservative favourite — has proven a disaster for different reasons. Conservatives had raised DeSantis to godlike status as the successor to Trump because the former refused to adopt the same strict Covid protections that had been prescribed by other states at the beginning of the pandemic. His handling of the state’s public health and economic needs was widely celebrated in Republican circles and presented as a case study of how things should have been.

Alas for his cheerleaders, the series of debates showcasing the Republican nominees competing in the primaries have revealed DeSantis as lacking in charisma, wooden, and just lacking any spark that would make him relatable and appealing to the general electorate. Trump himself, it must be noted, has refused to participate in the debates altogether.

If young people and Muslims boycott Biden, it could mean an easy victory for Trump.

These primary opponents are unlikely to prove to be even the barest of bumps in Trump’s path to the nomination. The only scenario in which they become important or even the actual nominees is if Trump is barred from running for president.

This has already happened in Colorado, where the state supreme court has ruled that Trump’s participation in the insurrection on Jan 6 is reason enough to bar him from being on the ballot in Colorado. The case has grabbed a lot of attention, and the United States supreme court is expected to hear it in the next several weeks.

One would expect that, in the conservative supreme court, which has a whole bunch of Trump nominees in it, the case would be a slam dunk — that the state decision would be overturned and other states may be warned against similar decisions. However, conservative judicial doctrine has generally held that states have power over their own jurisdictions rather than being at the behest of federal institutions. Because of this, it is unclear exactly how the federal supreme court decision will go.

The Colorado decision is not the only one which could disqualify Trump: if he is convicted in the cases he faces in Georgia or Florida, he will then be a felon and, therefore, constitutionally ineligible to run for president.

If he is able to run, the Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden, may well lose against him. While the two are only points apart in recent polls, Biden’s numbers have been suffering because of the economy, where high interest rates have made credit almost unavailable to the American middle class.

Furthermore, Biden’s numbers are dismal in a category he has always led — young Americans under age 24 have turned hard against the president owing to his support for Israel and continued military aid to it. The battleground state of Michigan, which has a sizeable Muslim population (and which helped Biden reach the win in 2020), has also turned against him for the same reason. If young people and Muslims boycott Biden, it could mean an easy victory for Trump.

Punishing political opponents never does much for democracy. If Donald Trump is able to run and win the contest, America will be transformed in drastic ways and forever. The saving grace of 2016 was that Trump then did not quite know what the presidency involved.

In 2024, Trump is angry, vindictive and knows exactly how he will lay waste to the institutions that he thinks have betrayed him. Ironically, the ultimate decision of whether he does win seems to lie not with American voters but with the nine justices of the US supreme court.

One of a kind

Summary

- John Pilger, an Australian journalist who died on December 31, 2023, was known for his hard-hitting investigative journalism. - He worked in print, television, and film.

  • He focused on exposing underrepresented issues and challenging mainstream narratives.
    • He covered a wide range of topics, including wars, genocide, political oppression, and social injustice.
  • He was often critical of Western governments and their allies.
  • His work has been praised for its courage and integrity.
  • He has left behind a legacy of visual and written material that will continue to inform and inspire people for years to come.

Article

Across almost six decades of investigative journalism, John Pilger unsparingly torchlit many of what George W. Bush described as “the darkest corners of the world”, relentlessly exposing the realities edited out of the mainstream Western media’s distorted narrative.

The concept of speaking truth to power may have been sullied by overuse, but Pilger stands out among those who seriously made the effort — and, in the process, made a discernible difference.

It’s hard to know where to begin in evaluating his multifarious — and multimedia — contributions to reportage. I first encountered him, indirectly, in the 1980s when ITV in Britain re-broadcast some of his groundbreaking 1970s documentaries. It’s hard to be sure, but most probably the first one I viewed was The Quiet Mutiny, an account of small but consequential revolts among American troops in Vietnam that invariably went unreported in the US.

This was followed by further reports on Vietnam and Cambodia, in the latter case notably a soul-shattering report on the aftermath of the depredations decreed by the Khmer Rouge, Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia. As an eyewitness to the consequences of genocide, he was inevitably appalled when the US and China conspired in a cover-up only because they resented the fact that it was Vietnamese forces that had liberated Phnom Penh.

Pilger, who died on the eve of 2024, was born in Sydney in 1939 and joined the Australian city’s press corps as a teenager before travelling to Europe, beginning with Italy. The Reuters news agency was his first way station in London, from where he moved on to a 20-plus year residency at the Daily Mirror, where he was elevated to the post of chief foreign correspondent.

John Pilger will be a hard act to follow.

Pilger’s days at the Mirror were numbered once Robert Maxwell acquired the tabloid, but he found a potentially wider-reaching outlet at ITV, which hosted his film reports, interviews and some of his longer documentaries. Beleaguered as it was in the Thatcher and Blair years, British media — or at least sections of it — stood up to the challenges from the British establishment, the US State Department and CIA, and even the Israel lobby.

Pilger latched on to the dilemma of the Israeli-occupied territories in the early 1970s, and his pair of documentaries titled Palestine is Still the Issue are separated by almost 30 years, illuminating how little has changed. Recently re-watching the second of these documentaries, I was reminded of Pilger’s interview technique with subjects he probably found repulsive, notably the Israeli regime’s official spokespeople: his tone never got belligerent, but his questions gave them just enough rope to expose the absurdity of their contentions.

There are some conflicts to which Pilger did not turn his attention, including Balo­chistan and Kashmir, which is a pity. And his area of operations as a forensic investigator across the decades stretched from South Africa, Palestine and Iraq to the cre­a­­tion of Bangladesh and the absurdity of ‘India shining’, as well as Myanmar, East Ti­­­mor, the US (he witnessed the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy from metres away), Nicaragua, Venezuela, the Czechosl­ovak Republic and Ukraine, among other regions. His laser-focus on his native Aus­tralia related chiefly, but not exclusively, to the horrendous treatment of the colonised continent’s indigenous population, and he devoted several documentaries (and thousands of words) to the subject.

Not surprisingly, he also delved extensively into the woes of his adopted country, and his last documentary reflected on a subject that had bothered him for at least half a century: the creeping privatisation and spiralling neg­lect of Britain’s vau­nted National Heal­­th Service.

As he would have proudly acknowled­ged, Pilger belon­ged to a long line of Western journalists who have defied the odds — often their own governments and their allies — to sift the truth from propaganda or PR, and to report what they see, notably Martha Gellhorn, Wilfred Burchett, Paul Foot, Robert Fisk and Seymour Hersh. He was respected enormously even by those who did not agree with him on every issue, including Gellhorn, whose World War II experiences somewhat wedded her to the Zionist narrative about Palestine.

Pilger wasn’t perfect and very occasionally succumbed to the leftist disease of glossing over the inadequacies or repressive tendencies of regimes justifiably opposed to the long arm of American imperialism. In my humble opinion, it’s possible to point out the flaws of the Ortega regime 2.0 or the cruelty of the mullahcracy in Tehran without lapsing into the “Washington consensus”, without losing sight of the hypocrisy that unfailingly guides the US worldview. But Pilger was at most a peripheral culprit in this sense.

He leaves behind a visual and written legacy that will serve humankind for decades, and although he wasn’t alone in his endeavours, in many ways he was one of a kind.

Criminal silence over genocide

Summary

  • Israeli forces' genocide in Gaza has continued for four months, resulting in widespread destruction and displacement.
  • Over 23,000 Palestinians have been killed, with a child being killed every 10 minutes on average.
  • International community's failure to stop the genocide is evident, and the United States supports Israel's actions.
  • Arab countries' silence on Israel's war crimes is criticized, with some not endorsing South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  • South Africa has filed a case at the ICJ, accusing Israel of genocide and seeking a suspension of military operations in Gaza.
  • Several countries, including Turkey, Jordan, and Malaysia, support South Africa's case, but many Arab and Islamic countries remain silent.
  • Saudi Arabia's role and lack of condemnation of Israeli actions are highlighted, raising concerns about its stance on the issue.
  • Pakistan, despite condemning Israel's actions, has not indicated joining the South African petition, urging it to play a more active role in mobilizing international support.
  • Israel is attempting to prevent the ICJ from declaring genocide, launching a campaign to influence statements against South Africa's case.
  • The legal battle at the ICJ is expected to be lengthy, with uncertainties about its impact on preventing further Palestinian genocide.

Article

The genocide being carried out by Israeli forces in Gaza has entered its fourth month with, on average, a child being killed every 10 minutes and almost the entire population of the occupied enclave becoming homeless. Nowhere and no one is safe in the face of relentless bombardment that has killed over 23,000 Palestinians.

More than two million besieged people are facing the catastrophe of famine with barely any food trickling in. But the international community has failed to stop the worst genocide in recent history. Israel unabatedly continues with ethnic cleansing in the enclave.

While the United States is fully backing the extermination of the occupied population the silence of the Arab countries over Israel’s war crimes is deafening. Many of them are not even willing to endorse a case filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the Jewish state of crimes of genocide against Palestinians.

Their shameful capitulation seems to have encouraged Israel not only to continue its military operation on Gaza but it has also taken the war to Lebanon and other surrounding countries. Israel’s prime minister has made his plan clear to push out the entire population from their homes and to resettle Palestinians outside Gaza. The Israeli government has ignored the resolution passed by more than 150 nations at the UN General Assembly calling for a ceasefire.

The South African case will help mobilise world public opinion against Israel’s genocidal actions.

It’s apparent that American patronage and the inaction of the Arab countries has given the Jewish state complete impunity. The latest Israeli military action inside Lebanon has already widened the war beyond Gaza and the West Bank. The threat of regional conflagration is looming large with the increasing American military presence in the Middle East in aid of Israel.

Ironically, it has not been any Arab or Muslim country that has taken up the genocide case to the ICJ but it is South Africa that has challenged the Israeli atrocities. The top UN court will hear this week an application from South Africa alleging that Israel is breaching the 1948 Genocide Convention and seeking measures including the immediate suspension of its military operations in Gaza.

Israel has enjoyed impunity for its crimes against Palestinians for almost four months. But this situation seems to have changed after South Africa on Dec 29, 2023, submitted an 84-page charge sheet against the Jewish state at the ICJ. A well-documented petition filed by the country’s legal team maintains that Israel “has reduced and is continuing to reduce Gaza to rubble, killing, harming and destroying its people, and creating conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as a group”.

It further alleges that “acts and omissions by Israel … are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent … to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group” and that “the conduct of Israel — through its State organs, State agents, and other persons and entities acting on its instructions or under its direction, control or influence — in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, is in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the occupied West Bank with his country’s past apartheid regime of racial segregation imposed by the white-minority rule that ended in 1994.

Several human rights organisations have said that Israeli policies towards Palestinians amount to apartheid. South Africa’s appeal includes a request for the court to urgently issue legally binding interim orders for Israel to “immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.”

There are several other countries that have referred to genocide committed by Israel in Gaza. These countries include Algeria, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Iran, Palestine, Turkiye, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Egypt, Honduras, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Pakistan, and Syria. But it is not yet clear whether they would become a party in the South African case.

It was expected that particularly Arab and Islamic countries would become a party to South Africa’s petition, especially since the procedures followed by the ICJ allow it. But barring a few, none of these countries have backed South Africa’s appeal. Among the Muslim countries only Turkiye, Jordan and Malaysia have supported the South African case. The Jordanian government said that it’s preparing a legal file to follow up on the case.

What is most perturbing is the dubious role played by Saudi Arabia, one of the most powerful Muslim countries. The kingdom has not even publicly declared the Israeli action of killing of women and children in Gaza as genocide. Saudi Arabia is also among the Muslim countries that had reportedly opposed any punitive action against Israel by the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC).

Although Pakistan has called Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, sadly it has not yet given any indication of joining the South African petition. Islamabad needs to play a much more active role in mobilising the international community to end the destruction of Gaza and killing of children by Israeli forces. Some of the recent statements by the caretaker prime minister on Israel’s war against Gaza have added to our policy confusion on the issue.

Meanwhile, Israel has mounted a concerted campaign to prevent the ICJ from concluding that it has indeed committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. Last week the Israeli foreign ministry instructed its embassies to pressure politicians and diplomats in their host countries to make statements opposing South Africa’s case at the ICJ. Israel is also expected to challenge the jurisdiction and seek throwing the case out before lawyers start arguing.

It’s going to be a lengthy process of legal battle on the issue and there is no indication that it could prevent the genocide of Palestinians in the occupied territory. But the South African case will help mobilise public opinion across the world against Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza and colonisation of Palestine. The international community, particularly the Arab and Muslim countries, need to do more to stop the killing of women and children by Israeli forces before it’s too late.

 

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