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
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.
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.
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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