Journalists and News Orgs Including ESPN Snub Beijing Olympics of ‘Shame’

2022/01/25 Leave a comment

How is CBC and other Canadian media handling this ethical and moral quandary? CBC Sports seems to be a cheerleading mode, with little critical notes on issues related to China being the host and the restrictions it means:

For sports reporters, being sent to cover an Olympic Games has always been seen as a privilege, a career highlight, a chance to bathe in the reflected glory of the world’s top athletes while enjoying a couple of weeks in the sun or on the slopes, all expenses paid.

Now, not so much. Reporters assigned to next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics are being warned to leave their cellphones at home and pack “burner phones” and “clean” laptops to prevent Chinese spies hacking into their data. They have been sent a 36-page guide on how to navigate China’s ultra-strict COVID regulations just to get into the country, including a health-monitoring app and multiple PCR tests. Once inside the Olympic bubble, they could be served food by robots, prepared by robots, in order to limit unnecessary human contact. And if, after all that, they do test positive for the rampant Omicron variant, then it will all have been in vain; their Olympics will be over.

Not surprisingly, some editors are deciding it’s just not worth it and are keeping their staffs at home, including executives at ESPN, the U.S. cable sports giant that announced Thursday that the four reporters it had been due to send to China would be staying home and covering the Games from the U.S.

As a non-rights holder, ESPN was never going to be able to broadcast any actual sports coverage from Beijing. Its news reporters would normally be flitting between venues, catching up with American stars to generate stories off the field of play and filming video stand-ups before key venues. As part of their pandemic plan, however, Beijing Olympic organizers are treating all three Olympic clusters—in central Beijing and two mountain zones outside the capital—as Olympic venues in their own right, further limiting the activities of non-rights holders.

ESPN’s executive editor, Norby Williamson, displayed his frustration at those restrictions in a statement confirming the coverage plans. “With the pandemic continuing to be a global threat, and with the COVID-related on-site restrictions in place for the Olympics that would make coverage very challenging, we felt that keeping our people home was the best decision for us,” he said.

But even NBCUniversal, which has paid billions of dollars for the rights to broadcast successive Olympics, is cutting back on its team in China. Its anchors and announcers will cover the Games from the NBC sports hub in Stamford, Connecticut. They will be following the example of the BBC, which successfully covered last year’s Summer Olympics from a “greenscreen” studio in the suburbs of Manchester designed to fool viewers into thinking they were watching a live feed from downtown Tokyo.

With the U.S. leading a “diplomatic boycott” of the Beijing Games—which means Western political leaders snubbing the opening and closing ceremonies in the Bird’s Nest stadium—NBC has been stung by suggestions from human rights groups that its coverage could legitimize Chinese repression of Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region. Molly Solomon, NBC’s Olympic production chief, told reporters this week that athletes would “remain the centerpiece of our coverage” but the “geopolitical context” would not be ignored.

That political pressure will remain, at least until American skiers, skaters, snowboarders, and hockey stars start showing off their medals. A bipartisan group led by Rep. Tom Malinowski, the New Jersey Democrat, called on Friday for the International Olympic Committee to explicitly guarantee athletes’ right to free speech in Beijing after a Chinese official warned that competitors who spoke about against human rights abuses could be sent home.

Some journalists have not even been allowed to go at all. Canadian reporter Devin Heroux tested positive for coronavirus late last year and has been told he cannot now cover the event. “Unfortunately my plans to cover the Olympics from Beijing have been derailed,” the CBC reporter wrote.

Reporters who are going admit they will not be allowed to report freely. “It’s naive to think the pandemic hasn’t played right into China’s hands,” Christine Brennan, a USA Today columnist told the Washington Post. “They would have wanted to control us, anyway. This just gives them another excuse. China will be China.”

Owen Slot, chief sportswriter at The Times of London, described his shock when he and other reporters assigned to the Beijing Games were invited to a security briefing at the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper in December: “Don’t use your phones over there, we were informed. Take a burner phone. Take a clean laptop. And even then, if do you phone home, your friendly hosts may be straight into your wife’s data instead.”

Fortunately, Slot wrote earlier this month, he already has a burner phone at home on which he can call home to his family. “Yet we are just scratching at the surface here. How did we get to a point where we granted hosting rights to a nation where you can’t use your phone?”

He added: “The truth is that we are entering the most extraordinarily appalling year for our global sporting feasts. We start 2022 with the Olympics in Beijing and finish it with the World Cup in Qatar. It is a double whammy of shame. We will hold our noses, award the medals and leave behind us the empty rhetoric of disapproval.”

Source: Journalists and News Orgs Including ESPN Snub Beijing Olympics of ‘Shame’

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One in 10 Black people living in the U.S. are immigrants, new study shows

2022/01/22 Leave a comment

By way of comparison, the percent of Blacks in Canada who are immigrants is 52 percent:

The demographics of America’s Black population are in the middle of a major shift, with 1 in 10 having been born outside the United States. That’s 4.6 million Americans, a figure that is projected to grow to 9.5 million by 2060, according to the findings of a Pew Research Center study published Thursday.

“When we talk about the nation’s Black population, we have to understand it is one that is changing and becoming even more diverse than it already was, and immigrants are a big part of that story and so the immigrant experience is a growing part of the experience of Black Americans today,” said Mark Lopez, Pew’s director of race and ethnicity research.

Black immigrants and their American-born children make up 21 percent of the nation’s Black population, with an increasing number of migrants coming from Africa, according to the report. Lopez said it’s a group that often is overlooked in discussions about immigration.

Source: One in 10 Black people living in the U.S. are immigrants, new study shows

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UN defines Holocaust denial in new resolution

2022/01/22 Leave a comment

Significant, at least symbolically:

The UN has adopted a resolution aimed at combating Holocaust denial and is urging member states and social media firms to help fight anti-Semitism.

The resolution, put forward by Israel and Germany, was passed without a vote by the 193-member General Assembly.

The move sends “a strong… message against the denial or the distortion of these historical facts”, the UN said.

Six million Jewish people died in the Holocaust – Nazi Germany’s campaign to eradicate Europe’s Jewish population.

On Thursday, the UN General Assembly said it “rejects and condemns without any reservation any denial of The Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part”.

“Ignoring historical facts increases the risk that they will be repeated,” Germany’s UN Ambassador Antje Leendertse said.

The text commends nations that preserve sites that once served as Nazi death camps and concentration camps and urges member states to provide educational programmes on The Holocaust.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and her Israeli counterpart, Yair Lapid, said in a joint statement they were concerned by a recent dramatic increase in Holocaust denial.

The resolution lists distortion or denial of The Holocaust as:

  • Intentional efforts to excuse or minimise the impact of The Holocaust or its principal elements, including collaborators and allies of Nazi Germany
  • Gross minimisation of the number of the victims of The Holocaust in contradiction to reliable sources
  • Attempts to blame the Jews for causing their own genocide
  • Statements that cast The Holocaust as a positive historical event
  • Attempts to blur the responsibility for the establishment of concentration and death camps devised and operated by Nazi Germany by putting blame on other nations or ethnic groups

While the resolution was adopted by the UN General Assembly, Iran – a member of the organisation – said it was disassociating itself from the text.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they began to strip Jewish people of all property, freedoms and rights under the law. At the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in January 1942, the Nazi leadership decided to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, and deportations of Jews to extermination camps began.

Source: UN defines Holocaust denial in new resolution

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In the story of Ethiopian Jewish immigration, is Israel really the hero?

2022/01/22 Leave a comment

Of interest:

When we hear about racism or discrimination in Israel, it is usually about Jewish-Arab relations. It is far more rare that we hear the complicated story of Beta Israel, the Ethiopian Jewish community, who also face discrimination in the country. Usually, if we hear anything about their plight, we hear of Israel heroically airlifting thousands of Ethiopian Jews out of the country in covert operations. The truth of the story if far more complicated.

“With No Land,” a documentary about the Ethiopian Jews and their immigration to Israel, directed by Ethiopian immigrant Aalam-Warqe Davidian and Israeli native Kobi Davidian, a husband-wife filmmaker pair, sheds some light on the complexities involved in the Ethiopian Aliyah, giving far greater agency to the Ethiopian activists who worked to evacuate their community.

“I was astonished to hear a lot of stories about their work and their struggle to come to Israel,” Davidian told the Times of Israel in an interview about the documentary. “What I learned [growing up] is that they didn’t do anything, we just came and took them.”

Discourse around Operation Moses and Operation Solomon, the missions which airlifted thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, often portray Israel as the heroic rescuers of a persecuted Jewish minority. But in fact, activists from Beta Israel had to push the Israeli government to help their community immigrate, especially after the Israeli Ministry of Absorption decreed that they were foreign to the Jewish people and thus ineligible to make aliyah under the Law of Return; that decision was reversed in 1977 after hard advocacy work.

Even once the first major wave of Ethiopian migrants arrived in Israel after Operation Moses, in 1984, they did not find the safety and welcome they had hoped for. Activist Adiso Masala recalls being taken, without explanation or consent as almost none of the Ethiopian refugees spoke Hebrew, to a room to be vaccinated — and, it turned out, re-circumcised; the circumcisions only ceased after more than a month of protests.

The documentary interviews many of the major players in the movement to evacuate Beta Israel, largely Ethiopian Jews, discussing the larger politics at play that impacted the waves of immigration. Operation Moses, for example, depended on secrecy; a fragile agreement with Sudan allowed Israel to fly members of Beta Israel out, but once Israeli journalists broke the story, Sudan’s Arab allies began pressuring the country to put a stop to the operation.

We also learn that Operation Solomon, a high-pressure mission in 1991 evacuating over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews in 36 hours, was a result of Cold War politics. Ethiopia’s Soviet-supported Mengistu regime had been preventing the migration of the Ethiopian Jewry. But after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., Mengistu was struggling to maintain power and hoped to instead gain support from the U.S. — an opportune moment to push to evacuate the Ethiopian Jewry.

Most effectively highlighted by the documentary are the families often separated during the immigration process. The sudden end of Operation Moses in 1985 stranded hundreds of Ethiopian Jews — all of whom had risked their lives walking for weeks through the desert to arrive at the operation’s pickup point — in refugee camps in Sudan after the airlifts were stopped.

Other families were separated during the immigration process due to arbitrary rulings from Israeli immigration authorities. A mother and six out of her seven children, for example, were approved for entry to Israel but her daughter is still, even today, in Ethiopia — where she is now married and has children of her own, still hoping to one day unite with her family.

The amount of history that is covered in the documentary can be overwhelming and hard to follow, but that’s not entirely its fault. Documentaries on topics more well-known in the West can rely on their audience’s preexisting knowledge of the event; films on the Holocaust can focus on specific aspects of the Nazi regime because viewers already know the broad brushstrokes of World War II.

African politics and history, whether the Sudanese civil war that impacted Operation Moses or Ethiopian ethnic tensions,are often left out of our history books and mainstream news coverage. “With No Land” has to explain the entire landscape of the region as well as the Israeli government’s suspicion of Beta Israel and the tensions with the migration.

That tension continues even today; though immigration has become slightly easier, and the documentary ends with shots of planes from Addis Ababa filled with migrants in surgical masks — the universal visual symbol of our current era — Beta Israel is still not truly welcome in Israel. The Israeli Immigration and Population Authority released a statement just this past November casting doubt on the Jewishness of a group of migrants from Ethiopia. The Israeli National Security Agency similarly implied many Ethiopian migrants are lying about their religion and ethnicity to get into Israel.

There are few members of Beta Israel left in Ethiopia today; most have finally moved to Israel. But it’s clear that even after aliyah, the problems of the Ethiopian Jewry persist.

Source: In the story of Ethiopian Jewish immigration, is Israel really the hero?

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Nicolas: Les réacs attaquent

2022/01/21 Leave a comment

Of note:

Croyant que les «woke» posent une menace de censure, les républicains censurent.

Enfant, il m’arrivait d’être frustrée que mes séries américaines préférées soient télédiffusées avec deux, trois, voire quatre saisons de retard, dans leur version doublée, par rapport à leur version originale. Ça me donnait l’impression de vivre en décalage, et me donnait hâte de comprendre assez l’anglais pour « aller dans le futur ». Bien sûr, le « retard » n’existerait pas si on ne consommait que des créations locales. Ce sentiment qu’on absorbe des éléments de la culture américaine, comme francophones, avec quelques saisons de retard persiste encore souvent chez moi — et je ne parle pas ici seulement de télévision.

Du moins, c’est ainsi que je m’explique la mode des mots « woke » et « wokisme » au Québec depuis à peu près un an. Fox News et le Parti républicain ont mis en avant ce dispositif rhétorique il y a quelques années pour contrer la sympathie grandissante du public américain pour les revendications du mouvement Black Lives Matter. On s’en est aussi servi pour décrédibiliser toute mesure visant à rectifier l’exclusion historique des femmes et des minorités de la vie universitaire américaine. Du moins, c’est un synopsis qu’on pourrait offrir pour présenter une première saison de « Les wokes attaquent ». Une production de Rupert Murdoch, bien sûr.

Alors qu’on savoure ici les premiers moments de ce grand spectacle télévisuel, vous me permettrez de vous divulgâcher platement la suite. Quelques saisons plus tard, la série introduit un nouveau mot-clé : la critical race theory, ou théorie critique de la race (TCR). En juin et juillet 2021 seulement, Fox News a mentionné l’expression 1914 fois en ondes, selon le Washington Post. Un total de 1914 fois en deux mois. Qu’est-ce que la théorie critique de la race, au juste ? Au sens propre, il s’agit d’un champ de recherche des sciences sociales qui étudie l’histoire du racisme et ses effets contemporains. Au sens de Fox News, il s’agit, comme pour le mot « woke », d’une expression fourre-tout indéfinissable. On ne sait plus trop exactement ce que ça veut dire, mais on sait que c’est haïssable.

De manière générale, on comprend que la TCR, c’est l’opposé du patriotisme, voire une arme de culpabilisation et de dévalorisation massive de la fierté américaine (conservatrice). Le Projet 1619 du New York Times Magazine, qui raconte les origines de l’esclavage sur le territoire ? C’est de la TCR. Les activités de formation continue sur l’équité et l’inclusion dans les entreprises ? Encore de la TCR. Un enseignant qui parle en classe des privilèges sociaux ? Toujours de la TCR. De ses milliers de mentions en ondes découle une mobilisation de parents à travers le pays, qui implorent les conseils scolaires de bannir la TCR de l’enseignement primaire et secondaire (même si la définition pré-Fox News du terme se réfère à une branche de recherche en sciences sociales qui n’a jamais touché les enfants). Tout enseignant qui mentionne en classe un aspect de l’histoire qui ne glorifie pas l’Amérique blanche conservatrice risque de se faire accuser d’avoir « commis » de la TCR. Les enseignants qui ne sont eux-mêmes pas des blancs conservateurs sont particulièrement à risque, bien entendu.

Dans les derniers épisodes de « Les wokesattaquent », on s’est toutefois lassé de la rhétorique, et on est passé à l’action. Alors que Fox News a progressivement diminué l’emploi de l’expression critical race theory vers la fin de l’été, neuf États américains avaient adopté des lois « anti-TCR » à la fin de 2021 : l’Idaho, l’Oklahoma, le Tennessee, le Texas, l’Iowa, le New Hampshire, la Caroline du Sud, l’Arizona et le Dakota du Nord. En étudiant le recensement que l’Institut Brookings a fait de ses différentes pièces législatives, on voit qu’on a aussi profité du mouvement anti-TCR pour compliquer l’enseignement de notions liées au sexe et au genre. Certaines de ces lois posent des limites à ce qui peut être enseigné au primaire, au secondaire, et dans les universités de l’État. D’autres interdisent les formations en équité, diversité et inclusion pour les employés des services publics.

Leur vocabulaire a été choisi avec soin. Au Texas, par exemple, un enseignant causant de « l’inconfort, de la culpabilité, de l’angoisse ou toute autre forme de détresse psychologique » à des étudiants en lien avec leurs identités raciales ou sexuelles en abordant des sujets délicats contrevient à la loi. On interdit aussi de remettre en question l’idée de la méritocratie, d’avancer que l’esclavage est central à la fondation des États-Unis ou d’enseigner que le racisme est « autre chose qu’une déviation, une trahison ou un échec à faire vivre les authentiques principes fondateurs des États-Unis, qui incluent la liberté et l’égalité ». On prohibe aussi carrément le recours en classe du fameux Projet 1619 du New York Times Magazine. On ne manque pas de précision.

Des élus de l’Alabama, de l’Alaska, de l’Arkansas, de la Floride, du Kentucky, de la Louisiane, du Maine, du Michigan, du Mississippi, du Missouri, du New Jersey, de New York, de la Caroline du Nord, de l’Ohio, de la Pennsylvanie, du Rhode Island, de la Virginie-Occidentale, du Wisconsin et du Wyoming ont déposé des projets de loi qui vont dans le même sens. Six initiatives législatives similaires ont aussi été proposées au Congrès américain. On parle ici d’interdire l’enseignement de concepts « divisifs » liés à la race et au genre, là de renvoyer des enseignants ou de réduire les fonds publics aux « promoteurs » de la TCR. Décidément, la saison 2022 de « Les wokes attaquent » s’annonce pleine d’action. Ne devrait-on pas renommer la série « Les réacs attaquent », d’ailleurs ?

Nombreux sont les fans de l’émission qui ont accroché à la saison 1 à cause de la force du thème de la liberté d’expression dans la trame narrative. Comme on vient de le voir, le récit évolue plutôt vers une campagne de censure étatique en bonne et due forme visant les milieux d’enseignement. Si ce que j’ai divulgâché nous intéresse moins, il est encore temps de changer de poste

Source: Les réacs attaquent

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Antonius: Réflexion critique sur l’usage du terme «woke»

2022/01/21 Leave a comment

Balanced perspective:

Le terme « woke » est utilisé de façon tellement polémique par divers acteurs politiques qu’il a perdu sa valeur analytique. Il est trop chargé de jugements (généralement négatifs) et son sens est imprécis. Je préfère l’éviter.

Dans les luttes contemporaines pour la justice sociale aux États-Unis, être woke (« éveillé » en slang américain), c’est :

a) être conscient des injustices sociales, surtout quand elles sont masquées par le discours dominant et encore plus quand on les subit soi-même, et

b) en fonction de cette prise de conscience, prendre position contre une hégémonie culturelle des dominants dont le discours tend à nous rendre aveugles aux injustices sociales. C’est dans ce sens, par exemple, que la « critical race theory » vise à rendre visibles les logiques raciales qui ne disent pas leur nom et qui se déguisent en postures universalistes. J’estime que ces logiques raciales sont beaucoup plus marquées aux États-Unis qu’au Canada ou au Québec.

En somme, le terme a désigné une posture de prise de conscience des injustices, et de la nécessité de mener des luttes pour dénoncer leurs manifestations dans le langage et la culture. C’est là que la posture woke s’exprime, et elle tire son sens positif (aux yeux des militants pour la justice sociale) de la contestation des rapports de pouvoir qui s’expriment dans le discours.

Mais comment a-t-il fini par prendre des connotations négatives ? Et négatives pour qui ?

Pour diverses raisons, les postures woke ont fini par donner lieu à des dérapages, c’est-à-dire des actions injustifiables, qui les ont discréditées et qui sont responsables de l’usage péjoratif du terme « woke ». Mais qu’est-ce qui constitue un dérapage ou une action injustifiable ?

Deux perspectives

La première perspective (qui est la mienne) se situe en appui aux luttes pour la justice sociale, et elle est globalement de gauche, mais elle est critique de l’usage inadéquat de certaines accusations de « racisme » ou de « transphobie », surtout lorsqu’elles sont accompagnées d’actions pour « faire taire ».

La deuxième perspective est celle des groupes hégémoniques, qui voient d’un mauvais œil la contestation de l’ordre établi. Ils vont alors se saisir de chaque dérapage pour accentuer son danger. Et leur critique portera d’autant plus que les dérapages se multiplient.

Quand une militante contre le racisme, qui encourage ses étudiants et étudiantes à participer aux manifestations de Black Lives Matter, se fait traiter de raciste par certains de ses étudiants et étudiantes parce qu’elle a utilisé le fameux mot en n pour analyser les stratégies de retournement du stigmate, il y a là un dérapage qui ne sert pas la cause des luttes pour la justice sociale. Mais jusque-là, il n’y a encore rien à signaler. Il y a une longue tradition de radicalisation des luttes pour la justice sociale, et particulièrement des luttes étudiantes. On ne peut pas reprocher à des jeunes de 19 ans de faire ce que les jeunes de 19 ans font souvent : contester. Le problème survient quand l’université, sous couvert d’appui aux luttes pour la justice sociale, appuie des actions de censure, et valide, à tort, les accusations de racisme contre l’enseignante avant d’avoir examiné adéquatement si ces accusations tiennent la route.

Dans cette logique, il est arrivé que plusieurs établissements d’enseignement, ou encore de grandes institutions médiatiques regardent d’un œil favorable ces excès, pour diverses raisons qui méritent une analyse séparée. J’ai examiné dans une publication récente* deux aspects de ces dérapages, dans lesquels : a) la posture morale remplace souvent la posture analytique, et b) les concepts (racisme, « phobies » diverses) sont étirés bien au-delà de leurs limites de validité. Et cela a pour conséquence que les « détenteurs et détentrices de la vertu inclusive et de la vérité absolue » se sentent le droit de faire taire les discours qu’ils n’aiment pas, y compris au sein de l’université. C’est cela qui permet de considérer que la posture woke, au départ libératrice, est devenue contre-productive dans les luttes pour la justice sociale.

Dans ce contexte, les groupes hégémoniques (porteurs d’une perspective de droite) ont beau jeu de délégitimer ces formes de critiques de l’ordre social dominant, à cause de ces dérapages. Cette situation permet alors un discours démagogique qui associe à une posture de droite et à une « panique morale » toute critique des dérapages associés à la posture woke.

Voilà pourquoi il est urgent que les forces contestataires de l’ordre dominant restent critiques et vigilantes face aux dérapages qui discréditent leurs luttes.

Source: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/661371/idees-reflexion-critique-sur-l-usage-du-terme-woke

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Indo-Canadian leaders say Elections B.C. oversight would end questionable tactics in party races

2022/01/19 Leave a comment

Of note. Look forward to comments from British Columbia readers:

Leaders in the province’s Indo-Canadian community say the recent controversy surrounding B.C. Liberal party memberships would not be happening if a third-party organization such as Elections B.C. was given an oversight role in political party leadership elections.

Several long-time Liberals and New Democrats of Punjabi heritage are concerned that the blame for questionable memberships is being unfairly placed on racialized communities, instead of on the parties’ membership and voting rules.

“Punjabi-Canadians are a demographic that loves their politics, and you have the traditional loyalty to family and friends, so that is why this community is able to sign up large number of members in a very short period of time. It does not mean their memberships are illegal,” said long-time B.C. Liberal Barj Dhahan.

“Whenever this question comes up, it is Punjabi-Canadians who get stereotyped that they are not following the rules. The real question is: Are the rules being followed by the candidates and their campaign teams and volunteers?”

The controversy came to a head last month, after six of the seven B.C. Liberal leadership campaign teams demanded the party audit close to half of its new memberships over concerns that rules were not being followed. They pointed to addresses that were not residences, including one on a forest service road. One campaign said its canvassers found one residence where only one of the five people signed up using that addressed lived there. The campaigns questioned whether the party was capable of catching potential cheaters.

Since then, the party has been accused of singling out members from the South Asian and Chinese communities for review and audit.

Former NDP MLA Harry Lali said there is a long history of groups, including lawyers and teachers, that launched large membership campaigns for their favoured candidates, but those campaigns were never questioned. He believes all leadership elections over the past two decades in every party have been tainted by dubious membership recruitment tactics.

Lali said when that happens, the party suffers.

“What ends up happening is the old-guard membership is pitted against the new membership, so it often becomes white people being pitted against non-white people,” he said. “It’s time that political parties were dragged into the 21st century.”

That is why Lali recommended that Elections B.C. take over the process of vetting memberships and overseeing leadership votes more than a decade ago, when he was running for the NDP leadership.

Vikram Bajwa also supports calls for involvement by Elections B.C. Bajwa has been a member of the B.C. Liberal party for more than 20 years, and was one of the whistle-blowers in the so-called “quick wins” scandal in 2013, when the party under former premier Christy Clark planned to use government funds to target ethnic support.

Bajwa now claims more than 6,000 international students from India and China have been signed up as Liberal party members in the current leadership race. Bajwa said he and several other party members have sought legal advice and have written a letter demanding the party take action.

“The Liberal party membership form does not ask you to state your citizenship or permanent resident status,” explained Bajwa. “It was overlooked during Christy Clark’s time, and this time we want to put a stop to this.”

Bajwa said if the issue is not properly addressed at the final Liberal leadership debate on Tuesday night, as promised by the party, he and several concerned members will be filing a judicial review of the memberships in B.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the party has not responded to a request for comment about foreign student memberships.

The leadership election organizing committee issued a public statement last week, saying that more than 3,000, or six per cent, of the party’s 43,000 current active members have been flagged for an audit. It said some audits were triggered when a non-Canadian IP address was used to buy a membership.

It added that, so far, no membership has been rejected.

Critics say they are not working for any of the B.C. Liberal campaigns and their only agenda is to rid the system of the abuses within it. They say it will take political will not seen so far to introduce legislation allowing Elections B.C. to oversee all party leadership elections.

“Not doing something about it, for all political parties, it ends up creating a schism and that erodes to less and less participation in the political process,” said Lali. “And on a wider scale, when you’re talking about someone who wants to be the premier of the province, you want to make sure that individual has won fairly and that the general public can have that confidence.”

Source: Indo-Canadian leaders say Elections B.C. oversight would end questionable tactics in party races

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The AP Interview: Exiled artist Ai Weiwei on Beijing Games

2022/01/19 Leave a comment

Refreshing to have a sports journalist do this kind of reporting:

Ai Weiwei is one of China’s most famous artists, and many regard him as one of the world’s greatest living ones. Working with the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron, he helped design the Bird’s Nest Stadium, the centerpiece of Beijing’s 2008 Summer Olympics.

The stadium in northern Beijing, instantly recognizable for its weave of curving steel beams, will also host the opening ceremony for Beijing’s Winter Olympics on Feb. 4.

In the design phase, Ai hoped the stadium’s latticework form and the presence of the Olympics would symbolize China’s new openness. He was disappointed. He has repeatedly described the stadium and the 2008 Olympics as a “fake smile” that China presented to the world.

Ai expects the Winter Games to offer more of the same.

Even before his fame landed him the design job, Ai had been an unrelenting critic of the Chinese Communist Party. He was jailed in 2011 in China for unspecified crimes and is now an outspoken dissident who lives in exile in Portugal. He has also lived in exile in Germany — he still maintains a studio there — and in Britain.

His art — ranging from sculpture to architecture to photography, video and the written word — is almost always provocative, and he’s scathing about censorship and the absence of civil liberties in his native country.

His memoir — “1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows” — was published last year and details the overlap of his life and career with that of his father Ai Qing, a famous poet who was sent into internal exile in 1957, the year Ai Weiwei was born.

Ai writes in his memoir: “The year I was born, Mao Zedong unleashed a political storm — the Anti-Rightist Campaign, designed to purge “rightist” intellectuals who had criticized the government. The whirlpool that swallowed up my father upended my life too, leaving a mark on me that I carry to this day.”

He quotes his father: “To suppress the voices of the people is the cruelest form of violence.”

Ai responded to a list of questions by email from the Associated Press. He used his dashed hopes for the Bird’s Nest to illustrate how China has changed since 2008.

“As an architect my goal was the same as other architects, that is, to design it as perfectly as possible,” Ai wrote to Associated Press. “The way it was used afterwards went in the opposite direction from our ideals. We had hoped that our architecture could be a symbol of freedom and openness and represent optimism and a positive force, which was very different from how it was used as a promotional tool in the end.”

The 2008 Olympics are usually seen as a “coming out” party for China, When the IOC awarded Beijing the Olympics in 2001, it said they could help improve human rights. Ai, instead, termed the 2008 Olympics a “low point” as migrant workers were forced out of the city, small shops were shuttered and street vendors removed, and blocks-long billboards popped up, painted with palm trees and beach scenes to hide shabby neighborhoods from view.

“The entire Olympics took place under the situation of a blockade,” Ai told AP. “For the general public there was no joy in participation. Instead, there was a close collaboration between International Olympic Committee and the Chinese regime, who put on a show together in order to obtain economic and political capital.”

Ai writes in his book that he watched the opening ceremony away from the stadium on a television screen, and jotted down the following.

“In this world where everything has a political dimension, we are now told we mustn’t politicize things: this is simply a sporting event, detached from history and ideas and values — detached from human nature, even.”

The IOC and China again say the Olympics are divorced from politics. China, of course, has political ends in mind. For the IOC, the Olympics are a sports business that generates billions in sponsor and television income.

In his email, Ai described China as emboldened by the 2008 Olympics — “more confident and uncompromising.” He said the 2008 Olympics were a “negative” that allowed China’s government to better shape its message. The Olympics did not change China in ways the IOC suggested, or foster civil liberties. Instead, China used the Olympics to alter how it was perceived on the world stage and to signal its rising power.

The 2008 Games were followed a month later by the world financial crisis, and in 2012 by the rise of General Secretary Xi Jinping. Xi was a senior politician in charge of the 2008 Olympics, but the 2022 Games are his own.

“Since 2008 the government of China has further strengthened its control and the human rights situation has further deteriorated,” Ai told AP. “China has seen the West’s hypocrisy and inaction when it comes to issues of human rights, so they have become even bolder, more unscrupulous, and more ruthless. In 2022 China will impose more stringent constraints to the Internet and political life, including human rights, the press, and We-media. The CCP does not care if the West participates in the Games or not because China is confident that the West is busy enough with their own affairs.”

Ai characterized the 2022 Winter Olympics and the pandemic as a case of fortunate timing for China’s authoritarian government. The pandemic will limit the movement of journalists during the Games, and it will also showcase the state’s Orwellian control.

“China, under the system of state capitalism and especially after COVID, firmly believes that its administrative control is the only effective method; this enhances their belief in authoritarianism. Meanwhile, China thinks that the West, with its ideas of democracy and freedom, can hardly obtain effective control. So, the 2022 Olympics will further testify to the effectiveness of authoritarianism in China and the frustration of the West’s democratic regimes.”

Ai was repeatedly critical of the IOC as an enabler; interested solely in generating income from the Chinese market. The IOC and China both see the Games as a business opportunity. Ai suggested many Chinese see the Olympics as another political exercise with some — like athletes — trying to extract value.

“In China there is only the Party’s guidance, state-controlled media, and people who have been brainwashed by the media,” Ai wrote. “There is no real civil society. Under this circumstance, Chinese people are not interested in the Olympics at all because it is simply a display of state politics. Nationally trained athletes exchange Olympic gold medals for economic gains for individuals or even for sport organizations; this way of doing things deviates from the Olympics’ original ideas.”

Ai was asked if the planned to go back to China. He said he was doubtful.

“Judging from the current situation, it is more and more unlikely for me to be able to return to China,” he said. “My main point here is that the situation in China has worsened. The West’s boycott is futile and pointless. China does not care about it at all.”

Source: https://apnews.com/article/winter-olympics-sports-business-ai-weiwei-beijing-1be58fc1f4c7e2ad67a24fdf02ff7690?user_email=493060eb1cb5da6f90ab22a591bc627176b5cc39456eeb420f43f5376b912d43&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningWire_jan18&utm_term=Morning%20Wire%20Subscribers

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‘Racist’ junior high immigration assignment has advocates calling for curriculum change

2022/01/18 Leave a comment

Not convinced by the arguments advanced against the approach of having students contrast and compare opposing perspectives and develop their critical thinking.

Most of the immigration opposing points reflect polling and other data and students will likely be exposed to these positions in any case outside of the more controlled space of a classroom.

Of course, the role of teachers in leading and framing the issues is critical.

And while I hate the term “snowflake,” (which can apply both the “woke” and “non-woke”), this is a classic example of underestimating the ability of people to handle such material:

Advocates and university professors are calling this school assignment ‘dehumanizing.’ (Name withheld)

Anti-racism advocates and a university professor are calling an assignment handed out at a junior high school in St. John’s “racist” and say it could result in bullying and discrimination.

A textbook assignment that was sent to CBC News by a concerned parent asked students to write down two reasons why immigrants and refugees should be allowed into the country — and two reasons why they should not be.

The textbook provides a list of reasons why immigrants and refugees should be allowed in the country; for example, “Canada is a big country with room for many more people” and “Immigrants provide new ideas and skills.”

Source: ‘Racist’ junior high immigration assignment has advocates calling for curriculum change

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How the New Atheists Hijacked Secularism After 9/11

2022/01/18 Leave a comment

Of note:

In the English-speaking world today, it is very common for the words “atheism” and “secularism” to be used interchangeably. This is unfortunate because far from being synonyms, the two terms have very different intellectual lineages and refer to very different things. The confusion, as we shall see, has been debilitating for those who yearn for secular governance (among whom are atheists and believers alike).

The most recent knotting of “secularism” and “atheism” can be explained by reference to the history, technology, and intellectuals of the new millennium. Historically, the attacks of 9/11 forced many writers to ponder religious extremism with new urgency. Technologically, this was the moment that digital media was coming into its own. Each passing year of the 21st century exponentially magnified the ability of new social movements to spread their message, mobilize members, and grow their ranks.

Which brings us to the new class of atheist intellectuals that emerged in the aftermath of 9/11. These figures were outraged by the violence of militant Islam. They were also stunned by the growing political stature of conservative Christian political movements in the United States. One important voice was the independent scholar Susan Jacoby. Her 2004 book—notice the subtitle—Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism was among a slew of texts that casually tied the knot mentioned above.

Then there were the New Atheists, i.e., Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hitchens. The so-called “Four Horsemen” published fierce smackdowns of religion—and not just the Fundamentalist variants. In the early aughts, they quickly became digital media sensations. Their books not only sold millions of physical copies around the world, but energized a growing nonbelief community on the internet.

Two themes emerge in New Atheist interventions. First, much of their prose was devoted to proving how senseless, illogical, and violent all forms of religion were. Second, they embraced science as an alternative to faith. Their training in fields like evolutionary biology (Dawkins), neuroscience (Harris), and cognitive science (Dennett) made them worthy ambassadors of one of secularism’s core principles. Namely, the idea that public policy decisions should be based on science, rationality, and data.

Curiously, the New Atheists seldom reflected on political secularism and its many variants. When they did, they showed themselves to be proponents of what is known as “separationism.” As Dawkins approvingly observed in The God Delusion: “The [American] founders most certainly were secularists who believed in keeping religion out of politics.”

The accuracy of that statement notwithstanding, the New Atheists portrayed their activism as defending aggrieved secular people everywhere. “I think it’s us, plus the 82nd Airborne and the 101st,” exclaimed Christopher Hitchens, “who are the real fighters for secularism at the moment, the ones who are really fighting the main enemy.” Joining the fight were countless other nonbelievers, many with digital platforms and training in STEM disciplines.

The result of this intervention, now 20 years on, is that a good deal of the conversation about secularism has been dominated by New Atheist views. This is unfortunate because accusations of Islamophobia, sexism, transphobia, and even a general drift to the alt-right have dogged followers of The Four Horsemen. Yet it is their unyielding animus towards people of faith that has elicited the most anger among religious people across the spectrum. Situated on that spectrum are religious moderates and religious minorities who have traditionally been proponents of secular governance.

The dividend of this all is that, for many, the word “secularism” has become linked with forms of extreme atheism that are hostile to all forms of religion.

How different this is from classical definitions of secularism which center on how a government is to interact with the religious groups under its jurisdiction. In this more traditional understanding, secularism isn’t about metaphysics or anti-metaphysics or God or gods. It’s about how a state is to judiciously govern a polity of diverse believers and, increasingly, non-believers.

Then again, there is no Vatican of secularism. No institution exists which retains the power to decide who is, and who is not, a secularist. If some atheists call themselves secularists, I think there is a moral imperative to respect that self-designation. Media outlets routinely draw this connection, as do conservative religious activists. Accordingly, the equation that prevails in public discourse is “all atheists are secularists,” and vice versa.

For me, the New Atheist embrace of secularism raises an interesting theoretical question: Is there such a thing as a non-secular atheist? I mention this because extreme atheists sometimes advocate ideas that undermine the very secular principles they claimed to be championing.

Toleration has been a staple of secular discourse since the Enlightenment. In The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason, Sam Harris viewed “the very ideal of religious tolerance,” as “one of the principal forces driving us towards the abyss.” The impression that the New Atheists—and hence secularists—were deeply intolerant was widespread among their critics. It led many to wonder what they might do if their “secular” state came into being.

The sharpest contradiction between New Atheism and political secularism had to do with basic beliefs about religion’s legitimacy. Hitchens’ catchphrase in his 2007 polemic, God is Not Great, was “religion poisons everything.” He warned his readers that “people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction.” Harris averred that religious moderates were every bit as dangerous as a suicide bomber. Moderate religious faith, he insisted, posed a “threat” to our survival.

Few observers of the New Atheists, pro or con, believe that their true intent was to eliminate religion. Yet their rhetoric, performative as it may have been, strongly intimated that goal. This put these champions of secularism in a rather tense relation with the political secularism they claimed to be defending.

The latter has always accorded religion a legitimate place within the social body. Political secularism takes the existence of religion as a given. If there were no religion, there would be no need for secularism!

True, there is no Vatican of Secularism. But there are ways for social scientists to define their terms precisely. Given the New Atheists’ rejection of so many secular principles, they might conceivably be referred to as “non-secular atheists.”

What must be stressed, though, is that their position is extreme among atheists. Most non-believers are not bent on the liquidation of religion even in their rhetoric. They request something entirely different from the secular state. And what they request is basically what religious moderates and religious minorities request as well. All seek freedom from a religion that is not their own.

The secular state is tasked with balancing its citizens’ competing desires for freedom of religion and freedom from religion. The New Atheists had a very different conception of secular governance in mind. That conception disillusioned and even frightened the vast religious mainstream–the very constituency whose support is essential for secularism to persevere in a liberal democracy.

Source: How the New Atheists Hijacked Secularism After 9/11

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