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This Jamaican woman is fighting ‘period poverty’ and daunting attitudes about reproductive health · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Shelly-Ann Weeks talks about female reproductive health at an event at the Institute of Jamaica in March 2019. Photo courtesy of Her Flow Foundation.
Fuelled by her determination to make a difference in the sexual reproductive health of Jamaican women, author and columnist Shelly-Ann Weeks — fondly known as “Dr. Sexy-Ann” on Twitter and Facebook — uses both mainstream and digital media to focus on traditionally taboo topics.
For one: “period poverty.” As the executive director of Her Flow Foundation, an initiative designed to address stigma and shame associated with menstruation, Weeks established Jamaica's first Period Awareness Day, which took place in October 2016, as well as Period Awareness Week, held in October 2017.
By November 2018, Weeks had organised the first Healthy Pelvis Conference in the capital, Kingston. During the past school year, she has conducted awareness sessions at 27 schools, reaching over 5,000 students — both boys and girls — thanks to funding from the United States embassy.
Weeks has long recognised that the issue is just as much about long-held societal attitudes, cultural beliefs and myths as it is about economic status. Over several cups of coffee, she and I discussed the complexities of what remains a somewhat taboo issue, and why she decided to write a book about it.
Shelly-Ann Weeks holds up a pack of pads as she talks to youth about menstruation. Photo courtesy of Her Flow Foundation.
Emma Lewis (EL): You were already a popular media personality in the field of relationships and sexual health, but how did Her Flow begin?
Shelly-Ann Weeks (SW): I started Her Flow in 2016 as part of a project I was doing with WE-Change [a rights-based lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy group]. I zoomed in on female reproductive health. I visited three schools to talk to students about puberty, mostly geared towards consent — that it’s OK to say “No.”
One girl told me she was able to make one menstrual pad last five days. I am not often speechless, but that shocked me! I thought, “Okay, I am going to get this girl some pads!” Talking to women while I was writing my first book, I realised so many have problems affording the products they need every month. And for the woman who has daughters, she literally has to choose between buying them pads and feeding them.
I realised that internationally there is a conversation going on around period poverty…the need is much greater than I had thought. I wanted to create a space where women could get access to pads free of cost, no questions asked. Because it’s a dignity issue as well.
EL: In your advocacy, you have talked about “breaking the silence” on the issue. Can you explain what you mean?
SW: Pain is a big part of women’s lives. We are not comfortable articulating to a doctor — we can’t even say the word “vagina” — and a lot of us end up suffering in silence. There are many myths and straight-up wrong information about periods. People are very superstitious. It’s really important, I think, for us to first of all, break the silence. This “hush-hush” attitude to female reproductive health is dangerous. If we are able to talk openly, there are a lot of benefits. Your quality of life is improved. The silence stops you from getting help.
EL: Why do you think the topic of menstruation is so “taboo”? Where does this come from?
SW: Oh, it’s clear: the Bible! A lot of Jamaicans’ feelings about female reproductive health — or even the rules about what women are allowed or not allowed to do — come from religion. And in Jamaica, that’s Christianity. If you think about the way the Bible talks about periods, the word ‘unclean’ comes up a lot. Even some Rastafarians in Jamaica actually do believe that a woman should be shut away and not allowed to come out until her period blood has been passed. Girls are taught to wash their underwear as soon as they remove it and not to let anyone know that she’s on her period. She needs to keep it to herself. Men and women are taught this way. But women push it more than men do.
Women community activists are honoured at a brunch hosted by Her Flow Foundation. Shelly-Ann Weeks is sixth from the right. Photo courtesy Her Flow Foundation, used with permission.
EL: In the schools you have visited, what was the response from teachers, students, and guidance counsellors?
SW: The teachers and counsellors love the book — there is nothing like it out there. There isn’t really a consistent way of teaching these matters; a lot depends on the personal whims of the teachers. We visited primary schools, where many girls have already started their periods. We insist that boys are a part of the class. If the boys are included, they know what’s going on. They’re exposed to something they never understood before. We invoke empathy in them; we teach them how to be more supportive. Engaging boys can only be a positive thing.
I think it’s important not to talk “at” the girls. We tend to underestimate how much information they can handle. It helps to show them that you know what it’s like.
What I have learned is that the biggest roadblock to all of this is their parents…especially the mothers. They should know that being kept in the dark is not helpful! The person who is hurt the most is the child.
EL: How do you get the message across in your advocacy?
SW: Social media has been a major tool from day one. We ran a social media campaign to donate products to schools and other institutions (the women’s prison, girls’ homes). I have had great support from Jamaicans living abroad, who have sent barrels. The public has really responded positively.
I would like to identify some funding to do some formal research on the extent of period poverty in Jamaica — I would like to see what that looks like. I know the need is there.
EL: What work have you done in 2019 and what are your plans for the future?
SW: In March, we honoured ten women doing amazing community work at a Celebrate Her brunch and we partnered with Desnoes and Geddes Foundation to fête over 100 students while giving them a period education session. In April, we partnered with young author and activist Marley Dias and the GrassROOTS Community Foundation in New Jersey to donate products to a high school in Montego Bay. We also partnered with Always on an End Period Poverty campaign, donating 13,000 packs of pads to girls in 20 high schools.
In September, in partnership with Jamaica AIDS Support for Life, we are planning a Live Safe college tour of 20 community and teachers’ colleges where we will offer free STD and HIV tests, period education sessions, condom distribution and more.
October is our Period Awareness Month. On Period Awareness Day, October 24, we will seek to spark a national conversation to seriously address the stigma and shame associated with menstruation through public awareness events. Our second Healthy Pelvis Conference on October 27 will address a range of female reproductive health issues.
In November, we are planning a Period Conference to help parents, guardians, and children. Men, especially fathers, will be encouraged to attend and participate.
It’s a full calendar!

author: Emma Lewis


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Trinidad & Tobago set to decriminalise marijuana, joining other Caribbean islands · Global Voices
Jada Steuart

Photo Credit: Ndispensable on Unsplash.com
In late 2018, Prime Minister Keith Rowley announced that the Trinidad and Tobago government would decriminalise marijuana as early as June 2019 — but with discussions continuing into July, the public is wondering what exactly this proposed law will entail and when it might come into effect.
If the legislation is passed, Trinidad and Tobago will join only a handful of other Caribbean countries that have decriminalised cannabis in an effort to reduce drug trafficking, lighten the load on the judicial system, ensure religious inclusion and help boost local economies.
The prime minister's initial announcement came as a shock to many, as he had previously been adamant that marijuana law reform was not his priority. However, recent moves by regional territories like Jamaica and Antigua and Barbuda, as well as continual encouragement by the public and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), seem to have influenced his Cabinet's stance on the issue.
Many citizens regularly get arrested for marijuana possession in Trinidad and Tobago. While arrests don't always result in incarceration, they do usually go hand-in-hand with a court appearance.
Under the country's existing legislation, possession of marijuana is subject to a fine of TT $25,000 (approximately $3,690 USD) and a five-year prison term, both of which can be increased to twice the amount based on the quantity of marijuana found, as well as whether or not the accused has any prior convictions. In fact, you can be charged with possession even if found in a private space — such as a home or car — unless you can prove it was there without your knowledge.
Decriminalisation would mean that cannabis possession for personal use will not lead to penalties. The attorney general, Faris al-Rawi, has officially finished drafting legislation which he says contains specificities such as the amount allowed per person and details of production and distribution.
Decriminalisation, however, is not legalisation.
Even if the new legislation comes to pass, marijuana will still be illegal to consume in public spaces and the penalties for this will most likely remain high. In his first press conference about the issue, Prime Minister Rowley stressed that his government was only focusing on decriminalisation at the moment.
One major reason for the new legislation is its anticipated effect on local law enforcement and the justice system. By making a distinction between marijuana consumption and drug trafficking, the new law would, at the very least, unclog the backup in the courts by not prosecuting cases of personal consumption — and ideally assist in reducing trafficking levels.
Trinidad and Tobago continually feel the effects of drug trafficking on the islands and this distinction may allow law enforcement to focus more on drug traffickers and smugglers, with more time, money and resources allocated to snuffing out more nefarious criminal activity.
In 2013, the country's chief justice, Ivor Archie, said the law should treat drug trafficking and drug consumption differently:
The burden on the police and prisons and the courts in terms of cost and human resource will be lessened if we focus on the scourge of trafficking, but as long as we have laws on the books we have to enforce them. We must take a long hard look at policy in this area.
Similarly, Darius Figuera, a local criminologist, noted that decriminalisation would drastically alter the incidence of crimes related to marijuana, explaining that the rigidity of the existing laws have had little or no effect on marijuana demand for personal consumption:
The reality is that prohibition has failed to dampen demand. In fact, demand in 2019 outstrips demand in the '90s and this demand has exploded because we have a whole digital generation now who makes it clear to you that they have rejected this prohibition talk and insisted that ganja is necessary for their well being.
Many economists think that decriminalising cannabis could have a major effect on the economy. A recent CARICOM report echoed this sentiment. Among other things, the paper highlights how countries should go about decriminalisation (or legalisation) within a regulated framework, the benefits of cannabis as a medicinal drug and how it could help boost many slow-moving regional economies.
Jamaica, for instance, is investing in the medical cannabis industry as part of its economic diversification and devoting more scientific research to the plant's healing properties. Recent studies have suggested that the medical marijuana industry has the potential to be worth billions of dollars within the next few years.
High demand and low supply — especially for medical use — means that countries seeking medical cannabis will likely turn to countries with thriving marijuana import and export potential. Jamaican cannabis farmers are able to export their product to countries like Canada and certain US states, where there is a high demand for medical marijuana.
The other factor that makes it a high-demand product is that cannabis is able to grow more naturally in tropical climates like the Caribbean. While the Jamaican cannabis industry is still in its infancy, it has massive potential — leaving many Trinbagonians to wonder if they can also make their mark on a growing industry.
The push for law reform on marijuana is not a new concept to regional governments. The Caribbean's Rastafarian community has continually asked for reform so that they can practise their religion without fear of arrest: Rastafarians believe that marijuana is the “tree of life” mentioned in the Bible; its use is ritualised by members of the faith to assist in meditation as the doorway to spirituality.
Sob select religious leaders ignore the religious beliefs of Rastas? Hindus used Weed lots until the 1960s
— Devant Maharaj (@MaharajDevant) May 27, 2019
Rastafarians have had to grapple with the illegality of marijuana in Trinidad and Tobago for years. The group All Mansions Of Rastafari (AMOR) has put pressure on the government to not only decriminalise marijuana but to legalise it.
Photo Credit Evieanna Santiago on Unsplash
St. Kitts and Nevis decriminalised cannabis with this issue in mind.
After Rastafarian Ras Sankofa Maccabbee was arrested in 2012 for possession with intent to sell, he was sentenced to pay a fine and spend one month in jail.  He appealed, saying that the country's drug laws violated his constitutional rights of freedom of thought and religion.
He won the case and the issue was brought before parliament. The resulting Cannabis Bill legalises marijuana for medical purposes and decriminalises possession of up to 15 grams of weed and cultivation of up to five plants. The legislation also overturns the convictions of those incarcerated for possession of similar amounts.
Similarly, in Jamaica, Rastafarians are allowed to smoke for religious purposes and can grow their own supply through authorisation from the country's Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA).
Despite the success stories, some still fear that decriminalisation will only make the crime situation worse in Trinidad and Tobago. If the legislation is passed this year, it will be historic.

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Jada Steuart


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French expat forced to apologize for making a music video which mocks the Thai junta · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Screenshot of the YouTube video ‘Junta Anthem Update’ by Yan Marchal.
A French expat living in Thailand was forced to apologize and delete his viral YouTube music video which mocked the military-backed government's anthem.
On 10 June 2019, Yan Marchal, a video game developer who has been living in Bangkok for the past 15 years, posted a video on YouTube which satirized the anthem of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). The NCPO was established after the military grabbed power in 2014. Although an election was finally conducted this year, the military still remains in control of government bureaucracy in the country.
The video titled ‘Junta Anthem Update’ is a parody of the song ‘Returning Happiness to the People’ written by General Prayut Chan-o-cha who led the 2014 coup and is still the head of the government. The anthem is repeatedly played on the radio and TV.
Instead of the lyrics “we shall act according to our promises,” Marchal replaced them with “we will break our promises.” Here’s an excerpt of the parody lyrics that poked fun at NCPO's promise to restore civilian rule:
We will break our promise
We need a lot more time
And the dictatorial system
Will live on
We will act tricky
We just need you to be gullible
And close your eyes
We shall devour your tax money
The parody video got more than a million views on YouTube before it was removed on 12 June.
Marchal was surprised that his video became a viral sensation, and denied accusations that he was attempting to promote hate against his host country. In a Facebook reply, Marchal said:
…criticizing a government and a regime does not equate to hating a country. I love Thailand, I just don't love dictators and military coups.
Despite this, on 12 June he wrote another Facebook post saying that he decided to delete the video after signing a memorandum prepared by the police. He shared that police officers visited him at his home with the memorandum which he later signed out to avoid facing further legal troubles. The document is Marchal’s ‘apology’ for posting the video which ‘caused harm’ to the NCPO and Thais. Here’s an excerpt of the text of the memorandum:
…it was improper act and now repenting for the bad action and will not do it again
I myself would like to say sorry to the government and the people of Thailand on my improper behavior which causing (sic) the damage against the NCPO and the people of Thailand
I myself make a promise not to do this action and will provide on making an apologetic clip to say sorry to the NCPO and the people of Thailand.
Marchal subsequently wrote that he felt threatened after receiving hateful comments from NCPO supporters:
One kind of attention I wish I would have gotten less of, however, is that of far-right activist groups who dug everything they could find about me on the internet (and that is a lot, as I have never been too keen on keeping things private). There were quite a few hateful comments, and even one person who posted the soi [address] in which I live.
Here are some reactions from Twitter:
#SaveYanMarchal French expat becomes instant celebrity in Thailand with video mocking Prayut's national song #RIPTHAILAND #ThaiDemocraticDictatorship #SaveThailand @suranand @PravitR @NuttaaBow @Piyabutr_FWP @RichardBarrow @ThaiVisaFra @georgebkk pic.twitter.com/tNkxKU6pNs
— stephff cartoonist (@stephffart) June 13, 2019
[Note: The above cartoon features the word ‘farang’ which means ‘foreigner’ from a Western country in Thai.]
It's pathetic that the junta is so afraid of some inoffensive mockery that they send police to deal with it. Democracy remains far distant in Thailand. 6/6
— Andrew MacGregor Marshall (@zenjournalist) June 12, 2019
Human Rights Watch reported that authorities also forced a famous comedian and some high school students to delete social media videos mocking Prayut and the NCPO. The group commented:
The Thai junta obviously has no sense of humor since even the slightest ridicule can result in thuggish intimidation or threats of prosecution.
Other junta critics were also physically attacked by unidentified men in May and June which has alarmed human rights groups about the continuing threats against the right to free expression in the country.
This is the video of the anthem:

author: Mong Palatino


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In India, opposition Leader Rahul Gandhi steps down after losing elections to Narendra Modi · Global Voices
Vishal Yashoda Manve

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi in 2017. Image via Wikipedia by BlakeShramster. CC BY-SA 4.0
On 3 July 2019, India's opposition leader Rahul Gandhi announced his resignation as the president of the country's oldest party, Indian National Congress (INC), after losing the general elections earlier in May. Despite presenting a united front, as seen by the formation of the Mahagathbandhan (or Grand Alliance), the opposition saw right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Narendra Modi reclaim his seat as Prime Minister in a landslide victory.
Gandhi's resignation has put the 134-year-old party Indian National Congress in a leadership crisis, and people from all across the political spectrum are weighing in on what this move could mean for the future of the party.
49-year-old Gandhi, also known as a ‘shy politician’ said his resignation was crucial for Congress’ future growth and took responsibility for losing elections.
It is an honour for me to serve the Congress Party, whose values and ideals have served as the lifeblood of our beautiful nation.
I owe the country and my organisation a debt of tremendous gratitude and love.
Jai Hind ?? pic.twitter.com/WWGYt5YG4V
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 3, 2019
In a four-page statement released on Twitter, Gandhi said:
“I was born a Congressman, this party has always been with me and is my lifeblood and forever that way it shall remain. Rebuilding the party requires hard decisions and numerous people will have to be made accountable for the failure of 2019. It would be unjust to hold others accountable but ignore my own responsibility as President of the party.”
Experts claim that Gandhi, who is the great-grandson of India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, painted a grim picture of India's future in his letter, accusing Modi of ‘crushing the voice of Indian people’ by undermining democratic institutions and pulling apart India's secular fabric by spreading a violent form of Hindu Nationalism’.
Gandhi, often mocked by social media trolls and leaders of the ruling party, said he would continue to fight for the ideals of the INC and would be available for input or advice. He further said the left-liberal party needs to radically transform itself to fight the Modi-led BJP.
“Where they see differences, I see similarity. Where they see hatred, I see love. What they fear, I embrace,” Mr. Gandhi wrote. “The attack on our country and our cherished Constitution that is taking place is designed to destroy the fabric of our nation.”
India's general elections in 2019, known as the largest democratic process in the world, saw Modi use nationalism and security as a plank to fight against Gandhi's economic promises for socially marginalized communities. The terror attack in Indian-administered Kashmir followed by Modi's much-televised attack on Balakot in Pakistan helped BJP decimate the INC party at the ballot box.
In the past years, instances of crimes against Muslims and Dalits have increased. Many Muslim men have been lynched for either beef consumption or over rumors. While Modi has condemned a few incidents, other instances have been ignored or the accused have been supported by party members from Modi's BJP.
Gandhi initially offered to resign on May 25, 2019, after losing his seat in Amethi and after the INC failed to muster 10 percent of the minimum seats required to lead the opposition. In contrast, Modi's BJP won 303 seats cementing its position as a political behemoth in the Indian political sphere.
As a protest to Gandhi's resignation, 130 Congress leaders resigned in solidarity a few days ago. Many on social media were divided over Gandhi's decision and India Today launched a live blog to curate all the reactions to his resignation.
Political commentator and a GV contributor Sanjukta Basu expressed dismay on Twitter:
This brought tears. This is the beginning of an end. Goodbye Rahul. Goodbye Congress. Goodbye Nehru. Goodbye the nation I was born in. ??
— Sanjukta Basu (@sanjukta) July 3, 2019
Another writer Anand Ranganathan mocked Gandhi's letter:
Request @RahulGandhi to submit his four-page resignation letter to JNU as a PhD dissertation. I am quite sure it would be accepted and the degree awarded. The university has lately accepted worse.
Nothing would please me more than to see a Dr. in front of his name.
Dr. Gandhi.
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) July 3, 2019
Journalist Angushukanta said:
A moral human being in a violently immoral world mostly stands alone. @RahulGandhi‘s resignation letter is a critique of power that our fascist State, institutions & media will obfuscate. India has no hope until it internalises the message of RG's letter.https://t.co/qEiJ5cC4cX
— Angshukanta (@angshukanta) July 3, 2019
Prominent journalist Barkha Dutt tweeted:
Good that @RahulGandhi remained consistent about the resignation but without elections to the CWC, whoever it picks next will be a figure head rendering the process of change absolutely meaningless https://t.co/3TcMyISBbi
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) July 3, 2019
Congress leader Anand Sharma said:
Congress President @RahulGandhi’s statement on his resignation has touched an emotional chord of millions of Congress workers across the country. The CWC and all senior Congress leaders and workers had wished that he continued. #RahulGandhi
— Anand Sharma (@AnandSharmaINC) July 3, 2019
Chandigarh-based Sam Bhonsle wrote:
Sir Your resignation letter is the biggest slap on BJP as well the congress person who acted just in self saviour rather then the party, the country
Proud of you sir ?
— iamsam (@iamsambhonsle1) July 4, 2019
The party now stands at a cross-road. Only time will tell who will steer this once influential Indian political party towards the future.

author: Vishal Yashoda Manve


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Iran’s Draft Data Protection Act: Too little but not too late · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

Iran's Minister of ICT (second from the right) reveals Iran's Draft Data Protection Act in July 2018.
This post was originally published as part of an ARTICLE19 legal analysis.
A Draft Personal Data Protection Act currently awaiting review in the Iranian Parliament, that apparently aims to protect he personal data of individuals, is instead likely to enable further surveillance and censorship.
The draft act—like data protection laws in general—aims to protect individuals when both public and private sector organisations process their data.
However, it leaves room for the government to collect personal data in the name of national security. This collection, when done without the individual’s consent—a pillar of data protection—amounts to surveillance, and is of great concern for freedom of expression.
With vague and inconsistent provisions, the draft law risks granting greater online controls to the state and thereby endangering the lives of journalists and activists who fall prey to government surveillance. Released in July 2018, the draft was written by the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology and the Research Center of the Islamic Legislative Assembly (the research arm of the Iranian parliament). As of May 2019 however, Iranian legislators noted a lack of clarity on when the government will bring the draft act to parliament for review and ratification.
Since the exponential growth of Iranian internet use in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the government sought to institutionalise its control over Iranians’ use and access to the global internet. While sporadic and sometimes ad hoc, the Ministry of Communications has enforced a number of controls to restrict Iranians’ information access online.
After the Green Movement protests of 2009, Iran’s legislative cogs shifted into high gear to ratify the Computer Crimes Law (CCL) of 2010. Alongside this Law’s problematic provisions, there have been a number of policy provisions, government led projects, and new draft laws that garnered fears for increasing the centralisation of the Iranian Internet. However, despite years of these restrictive policies, in May 2018 the Minister of Information and Communications Technology, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi announced that his Ministry welcomed the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). He promised to launch a data protection bill for Iran and to engage in “constructive talks with the EU about mutual legal and technical assistance.”
Given the precedent Iran has set as one of the most restrictive environments for freedom of expression, such a step towards protecting rights would be welcome. But it raises many questions of how such a new law would work in conjunction with pre-existing problematic provisions within the country’s Islamic Penal Code and Computer Crimes Law.
While efforts to improve data protection by the Iranian government are welcomed, as are efforts to engage with the EU and global initiatives to protect individuals across digital borders, the draft act fails to live up to global standards.
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation versus Iran’s Draft Data Protection Act
When the European Union created its new data protection legislation in April 2016, which entered into force in May 2018 in the form of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it placed data protection onto the map as a global standard. While certainly not the first regulation of data protection in the world (or even in the EU), it was the first to encompass such a large region as the European Union.  As one of the most comprehensive efforts to secure the rights of the individual in the digital realm, it cultivated a platform for global partnerships around the global nature of data flows.
In contrast, Iran’s Draft Data Protection Act lacks a clear scope in terms of what materials count as data (data processed by computers, or as in the GDPR, data that also includes information in an offline format), as well as the rights it affords to companies. The draft law also lacks protections from the risks that data processing regulations could pose against journalistic and cultural pursuits, and transparency efforts, as set out in Iran’s Freedom of Information Act.
Recent cases of journalists facing prosecution for their work to expose government corruption would potentially be aided by Article 12 of the draft law, which includes a worryingly broad definition of what constitutes a “security” exception to protecting an individual’s data from being processed without consent. The draft therefore risks further legitimising judicial repression of journalists and activists.
Iran has already set terrifying precedents of “security” concerns being abused by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to access the data of individuals such as journalists, those belonging to marginalised groups, or dual nationals, to unjustly persecute them. Notable cases include the illegal seizure of jailed dual-national Nazanin-Zaghari Ratcliffe’s data, and the illegal hackings of email and social media accounts of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian prior to his arrest. These seizures of data, both through the Revolutionary Guards, were then used to build absurd cases of espionage against both of these individuals.
Furthermore, the draft law proposes the establishment of a data protection commission (charged with overseeing the processing of data in accordance with the law), which would include individuals known to be part of the security apparatuses that suppress freedom of expression. This law would additonaly allow immunity for the processing and collection of data on individuals who are deemed in breach of Iran’s pre-existing and wide-ranging national security laws. The Iranian Penal Code contains numerous overbroad and vague content-based restrictions on freedom of expression, which are in violation of international human rights law and facilitate the targeting of human rights defenders, journalists, and other dissenting or minority voices.
Elements of the draft law aiming to increase internet localisation also chime with the wider project of the National Information Network (NIN), created during the era of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and continued throughout the Rouhani administration. These localisation efforts include government incentives to Iranian software developers to build messaging applications to rival foreign ones such as rewards on user numbers. These apps’ transmission of user data was proved by security engineers to be outside of protocols of encryption (encryption is illegal according to Article 10 of the CCL), which further undermines international standards of privacy.
These localisation requirements, in addition to the weak language of accountability and independence of the Commission that oversees the processing of user data, must be removed, and Iranian parliamentarians and politicians should revise the law according to international standards.
If the draft act is properly brought into line with international standards, it could serve as a small step towards protecting the human rights of Iranians.

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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Is Cuba trying to outlaw independent media? A new decree will prohibit foreign web hosting · Global Voices
Ellery Roberts Biddle

A WiFi symbol in Old Havana, Cuba. Photo by Nano Anderson, taken from Flickr under a CC License BY 2.0.
Cuban officials issued a decree law on July 4 that prohibits Cuban citizens from running websites hosted outside of the country. The law deals a heavy blow to Cuba’s growing independent media sector, where nearly all media sites and blogs take advantage of foreign hosting services and blogging platforms.
The law offers no details on its implementation — it is unclear whether it will affect people who use foreign-based social media platforms to publish their views — but Cubans say it presents at least two significant problems for any citizen who wants to run their own website. First, under the new rule, they will incur new costs. Hosting services in Cuba, which are provided exclusively by ETECSA, the country’s sole, state-run telecommunications provider, are more expensive than many foreign hosting services, and more than running a basic blog on a site like WordPress, where the minimum cost is zero.
The second and more worrisome aspect of the rule is that Cuban state regulations impose tight restrictions on which types of websites can be hosted in Cuba at all. According to item 27 on a long FAQ posted by ETECSA, publications that constitute “news media” cannot seek hosting on Cuban servers. Furthermore, for bloggers and others who write independent commentary, the rules prohibit content that “contradict[s] any provision of law or governmental act” or that could disrupt “public order.”
In a country where the media landscape is made up of three major components — state-run media, foreign press and wire services, and small but increasingly powerful local independent media groups — the new rule could put this third sector into long-term legal limbo.
“The law leaves independent media without ‘legal’ hosting options,” said local journalist and Global Voices author Elaine Díaz. “By imposing fines, they are criminalizing a decision that should not have any legal consequence.” Díaz is the editor-in-chief of Periodismo de Barrio, an independent media group based in Havana.
On Twitter, Díaz also criticized the fact that the law was brought in by decree, rather than undergoing discussion and scrutiny by the state assembly.
#NoMásDecretazos El artículo 68 afecta a cualquier ciudadano que tenga un blog en @wordpressdotcom o una página en @Medium. Es una violación y ni siquiera pasó por la Asamblea. La informatización debe ser por consenso o será injusta y arbitraria. pic.twitter.com/J2RVDXjdQ7
— Elaine Díaz (@elainediaz2003) July 5, 2019
#NoMoreDecrees Article 68 affects any citizen who has a blog on @wordpress or a page on @Medium. It is a violation and it was not even approved by the [National] Assembly. Information policies should be decided by consensus, or they will be unjust and arbitrary.

author: Ellery Roberts Biddle


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Netizen Report: Preventing bias or protecting extremism? Debunking the new US Senate proposal for Silicon Valley · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Photo by Flickr user zeevveez. CC BY 2.0
The Advox Netizen Report offers an international snapshot of challenges, victories, and emerging trends in technology and human rights around the world. This report covers news and events from June 26 – July 4, 2019.
A US senator has proposed an amendment that could prevent large social media companies from censoring user-generated content “in a manner that is biased against a political party, political candidate, or political viewpoint.” At a moment when companies like Facebook and Google are under fire globally for enabling the spread of violent and hateful messages, a law that would potentially protect extremist content online might seem absurd.
The proposal stems from fears that social media companies carry a liberal or left-wing bias when they moderate user content, allowing extreme left-wing views to stay on their sites, while removing comparably extreme right-wing views. Although there is no empirical evidence to support this theory (and not much to disprove it either, thanks to the companies’ unwillingness to release their data), it has become a powerful narrative among right-wing politicians and media in the US.
Under the “Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act”, large tech companies would be required to undergo an audit by the Federal Trade Commission to determine whether or not their moderation practices showed bias. Those that failed the audit would lose protections afforded by a key section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (230) that shields companies from liability for content posted by their users, and protects their rights to moderate content as they see fit, so long as it remains within the bounds of US law. Companies that lost this immunity then could be subject to crippling lawsuits that could put their business models in jeopardy.
Apart from the fact that the amendment is based on conjecture, not concrete evidence of bias, it also proposes a peculiar solution to the problem, given that the Federal Trade Commission has no special expertise in judging political bias on social media.
A handful of global internet companies have amassed unprecedented power to decide what kinds of speech is and is not allowed on the internet. Those based in the US have almost no obligation to disclose where and how they draw the line on content, or demonstrate that they treat users fairly. But amendments like this one (which is unlikely to go far) will not make platforms more transparent in their practices. If lawmakers in the US or anywhere else want to responsibly rein in these powers, they would do well to pursue a path based on evidence and documentation of harm, rather than politically-charged speculation.
Cuban officials issued a decree law that prohibits Cuban citizens from using foreign web hosting services. The law deals a heavy blow to Cuba’s growing independent media sector, where nearly all media sites and blogs take advantage of foreign hosting services and blogging platforms.
Cuban state regulations already impose tight restrictions on what types of websites can be hosted in Cuba at all. According to item 28 on a long FAQ offered by telecommunications officials, publications that constitute “news media” cannot seek hosting on Cuban servers. Furthermore, for bloggers and others who write independent commentary, the rules prohibit content that “contradict[s] any provision of law or governmental act” or that could disrupt “public order.”
“The law leaves independent media without ‘legal’ hosting options,” said local journalist and Global Voices author Elaine Diaz. “By imposing fines, they are criminalizing a decision that should not have any legal consequence.” Diaz is the editor-in-chief of Periodismo de Barrio, an independent media group based in Havana.
On the evening of June 26, access to the global internet was widely disrupted across Iran. Most internet service providers underwent a disruption or total shutdown for a period of roughly two hours. However, connections to websites and services hosted in Iran and connected to the country’s national intranet remained accessible.
Iranians on social media who had internet access reported the outage on Twitter and elsewhere, as did the internet censorship research group, NetBlocks. Iran’s ICT Minister blamed the outages on disruptions caused by connections from international cables in Europe. But evidence documented by ARTICLE19 indicates that state authorities may have had a hand in the disruptions.
An investigation by The Guardian and other outlets revealed that Chinese border security agents are secretly installing surveillance apps on the phones of visitors who cross the border into China’s Xinjiang region from neighboring Kyrgyzstan.
The app scans emails, texts, and contacts against a large list of content associated primarily with Islamist extremism, but that also includes items related to fasting during Ramadan, literature by the Dalai Lama, and even a Japanese metal band. Tourists interviewed by The Guardian say were asked to unlock and hand their phones to the border guards, who would then take the devices to a separate room before returning them sometime later. The visitors were never told about the software or its purpose.
China’s Xinjiang province is one of the most heavily surveilled places on earth. Citizens, particularly ethnic Uyghurs, who are commonly Muslim, are subject to round-the-clock monitoring through tracking apps, facial recognition cameras and voice printing. Human rights organizations estimate that around one million ethnic Uyghur Muslims are being held in so-called “re-education camps”.
Award-winning writer Shakthika Sathkumara has been in detention in Sri Lanka since April for publishing a short story on Facebook that included references to homosexuality and child abuse among Buddhist monks. Supporters fear Sathkumara will be charged with “inciting religious hatred,” for which he could face up to 10 years in prison.
Nigerian journalist Jones Abiri, who has been in the custody of Nigeria’s state police since late March 2019, was finally charged with sabotage, terrorism and cybercrimes on May 22. Abiri was first arrested in 2016 and detained without trial for two years before he was released on August 15, 2018.
Angela Quintal, the Africa Program Coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, described Abiri’s re-arrest as demonstration of the “brazen willingness of the Nigerian government to intimidate and harass the press.” She further called on the Nigerian government to immediately free Abiri, in order for the journalist to “continue his work without fear of retaliation.”
Afef Abrougui, Mahsa Alimardani, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Nwachukwu Egbunike, Rezwan Islam, Oiwan Lam, Leila Nachawati and Taisa Sganzerla contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


text:
New York Times ad for Nairobi bureau chief riddled with clichés about Africa · Global Voices
Amanda Lichtenstein

A July 2019 NYT job ad for Nairobi bureau chief is chock full of clichés about Africa referencing the “shores of Tanzania” and the “deserts of Sudan.” Photo of a dhow passing on the Indian Ocean in Tanzania, by Pernille Baerendtsen, used with permission.
On July 3, 2019, the New York Times announced a job ad in search of the next bureau chief for its Nairobi, Kenya, office. The reductive language used to describe the ideal candidate’s role and responsibilities has reignited the debate on Western media's trafficking of tired stereotypes about Africa.
The first few lines of the ad states:
Our Nairobi bureau chief has a tremendous opportunity to dive into news and enterprise across a wide range of countries, from the deserts of Sudan and the pirate seas of the Horn of Africa, down through the forests of Congo and the shores of Tanzania.
Many who read it had to stop there — “from the deserts of Sudan and the pirate seas of the Horn of Africa …?” Netizens on Twitter began to comment immediately about how the author of this ad had taken instructions from “How To Write About Africa,” by the late Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina — without getting the memo that he was being sarcastic.
But it doesn’t stop:
It is an enormous patch of vibrant, intense and strategically important territory with many vital story lines, including terrorism, the scramble for resources, the global contest with China and the constant push-and-pull of democracy versus authoritarianism.
East Africa, described as an “enormous patch”? A region reduced to “vital storylines” such as “terrorism, the scramble for resources, the global contest with China?” Netizens pointed out that the ad clearly relies on tired, colonial-era tropes about Africa:
The @nytimes advertised the following vacancy for a #Nairobi Bureau Chief position. If we wouldn’t know better you would think it was written by a colonial master that never left. Colonialism is still around in a big way, under various guises. Let #Africa choose its own stories! pic.twitter.com/Wp413KULGo
— Boutaïna Azzabi Ezzaouia (@Boutaina) July 4, 2019
Hard to distinguish this @nytimes ad for a Nairobi Bureau Chief from a call to join a 19th Century expedition with Livingstone & Stanley – H/T @kopalo pic.twitter.com/Sw78Crtxux
— Travis Adkins (@TravisLAdkins) July 3, 2019
The ad continues:
There is also the chance to delight our readers with unexpected stories of hope and the changing rhythms of life in a rapidly evolving region.
To which journalist Larry Madowo tweeted:
As a lifelong African, I’m overjoyed that a benevolent New York Times correspondent will soon patrol our pirate seas & deserts, occasionally telling our unexpected stories of hope. I live for the white gaze https://t.co/7t6IJjyf3C
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) July 4, 2019
Netizens on Twitter came out in full force to condemn the NYT for the ad.
Kenyan storytellers, Lam Sisterhood, created a spoken word performance piece out of the NYT ad, calling attention to problematic words, phrases and lines that reinforce disturbing, reductive notions of Kenya, East Africa and the continent. The video was retweeted nearly 240 times in a 24-hour period:
Dear @nytimes
We made this for you
Love,
LAM#bureauchiefniwewe pic.twitter.com/K3sddoAtZU
— sisterhood.lam (@sisterhood_lam) July 4, 2019
Kenyan filmmaker Jim Chuchu called up the “Tarzan” image:
Here we go again: the @nytimes appear to want to hire Tarzan as the next East Africa Bureau Chief. ? A stark reminder that American liberalism still views people of colour as a source of intermittent, feel-good ‘stories of hope’, or helpless pawns of global trade and conflict. https://t.co/kq96PWVfl3
— Jim Chuchu (@jimchuchu) July 4, 2019
Political analyst Ryan Cummings suggested “Indiana Jones” as the perfect candidate:
Think I found someone who meets the New York Times’ East Africa Bureau Chief's job description pic.twitter.com/flHBJorXn5
— Ryan Cummings (@Pol_Sec_Analyst) July 4, 2019
Both characters match the cliché adventure types common in Nairobi, who Wainaina described as a “Will Never Be Kenya Cowboy”:
Will try very hard, fail, be reassigned to another country, fight to stay, fail and then write a book about Their Time In Africa when they Dodged Bullets and met Warlord, Tore Out Crocodile’s Tooth and Advised THE PRESIDENT.
The NYT is not new to pushback in Nairobi in its handling of stories from the region.
When a deadly terrorist attack struck the Dusit Hotel in Riverside in Nairobi in January 2019, killing 15 and wounding over 30, then-incoming bureau chief, Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, wrote a controversial article about it for the NYT, which featured graphic photos of slain victims covered with blood.
The images invoked local and global fury for being insensitive, inappropriate and dishonorable. Many also called out the double standard that led to publishing these images, suggesting that had the victims been white, the NYT would not have published them.
Kenyans on Twitter, or #KOT, first waged their collective rage directly at de Freytas-Tamura, calling for her resignation and deportation. But de Freytas-Tamura pointed to the NYT’s photo department who approved the photos.
Kenya’s Media Council gave the NYT 24 hours to take down the article and photos from their website, but the newspaper did not budge — or apologize:
@mediacouncilk today officially wrote a protest note to @nytimes over it's coverage of #riversideattack pic.twitter.com/w27B20f73W
— Media Council of Kenya (@MediaCouncilK) January 17, 2019
The NYT responded:
We have heard from some readers upset with our publishing a photo showing victims after a brutal attack in Nairobi. We understand how painful this coverage can be, and we try to be very sensitive in how we handle both words and images in these situations. https://t.co/Qjm0qBMaF3 pic.twitter.com/1sqgTnnVKW
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 15, 2019
Kenyans reacted so strongly against de Freytas-Tamura — even threatening her life — that the NYT eventually shifted de Freytas-Tamura back to the London office. She never did assume her role officially as Nairobi bureau chief — and the controversial photos remain online.
Another former NYT Nairobi bureau chief, award-winning journalist Jeffrey Gettleman, also raised eyebrows with his recent book “Love, Africa.” The book cover depicts the classic tree and sunset and speaks to colonial overtones and fascination with “othering” Africa.
In a review of Gettleman’s book, German anthropologist, Tobias Denskus, concludes:
On further reflection, … his narrative seems a bit outdated, maybe even out of touch with the changing realities around him and the expectations from privileged global professionals.
Kenyans on Twitter do not only target the NYT. Several other examples point to moments when Kenyan Twitter came out to admonish and correct offensive language that perpetuates tropes and stereotypes about Africa.
In 2012, when Korean Airways launched Nairobi as a destination, it released an advert that said: “Fly Korean Air and enjoy the grand African Savanna, the safari tour, and the indigenous people full of primitive energy.” The advert went viral and unleashed a flood of tweets calling for Korean Air to reconsider flying to Kenya.
In 2015, when CNN labeled Kenya “a hotbed of terror” ahead of United States President Barack Obama’s visit, over 75,000 tweets within a single day protested the stereotype.
Perhaps the NYT is numb to loud reactions. The new ad clearly falls into the old “dark continent” trap.
Seven years after Welsh 19th century explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, cast Africa as “the dark continent” — based on travels to Central and East Africa that resulted in a published 1878 travelogue, “In Darkest Africa” — the Berlin Congress divided up Africa for “European powers’ pleasure and profit.”
Africa as a “dark continent” still persists in current Western mainstream media imaginations.
When University of Stanford media scholar, Toussaint Nothias, analysed over 282 articles published in British and French newspapers between 2007 and 2012, he identified a systematic portrayal of Africa with “darkness” and “tribalism” that treated Africa as a “homogenous entity” with coverage that relies “predominantly on Western sources.”
Cameroonian historian and philosopher, Achille Mbembe, uses the term “absolute otherness” to describe how the West positions itself toward Africa. What Africa is — the West is not. The need to negate and contrast brightness with darkness still dominates the West’s perception of its relationship with the other.
Let’s try to imagine the reverse, Jim Chuchu suggests:
Let's imagine the reverse: “African news agency seeking correspondents to cover America: a vibrant territory with many vital storylines, including inexplicable gun laws, the global contest with China, and a penchant for overthrowing foreign governments for sport”.
— Jim Chuchu (@jimchuchu) July 4, 2019
Chibuke Oguh, a Nigerian scholar, argues that this kind of framing ignores the continent’s many historical as well as contemporary “political and economic success stories.”
Communicating these anachronistic ideas about Africa makes satire relevant — but it still doesn’t answer why the NYT got this so wrong.
Editor's note: Global Voices reached out several times to the NYT for an official comment without a response. On July 8, international editor Michael Slackman responded on Twitter in direct response to Lam Sisterhood and claimed responsibility for the ad with an explanation. We will update again as necessary.

author: Amanda Lichtenstein


text:
Russians quick to point fingers after deadly floods in Siberia · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

Screenshot of the submerged town of Tulun, in Russia’s Irkutsk Region, from John Tark’s YouTube video “Тулун Утонул”
The world is ablaze. June has shaped up to be the hottest month on record in Europe, bringing a record-breaking heatwave to France and forest fires in Germany and Turkey. These abnormal, or probably new normal, weather conditions also made headlines in Russia; on June 29, a massive flood swept through the Irkutsk Region in Siberia, inundating over 30 settlements, destroying 3,500 houses, and leaving thousands homeless. Regional governor Sergey Levchenko, citing Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, recently said that 18 people have been killed.
Shocking images emerged from the towns of Tulun and Nizhneudinsk, where some apartment blocks were flooded up to the third floor. Satellite imagery from Russia’s space agency Roskosmos soon followed, showing the staggering geographic extent of the flood:
Роскосмос продолжает съемку Иркутской области
Снимки были получены от космических аппаратов дистанционного зондирования Земли «Канопус-В». Съемка региона со спутников проводится несколько раз в сутки, после чего фотографии передаются в Центр управления в кризисных ситуациях МЧС pic.twitter.com/whYnbCrQ9y
— РОСКОСМОС (@roscosmos) July 2, 2019
Roskosmos continues to take pictures of the Irkutsk Region
These images were received from the Kanopus-V remote Earth sensing satellite. These image of the region are being taken by the satellite several times a day, and are then given to the Ministry of Emergency Situations’ Center for Managing Crisis Situations
Tulun and Nizhneudinsk lie on the Iya and Uda rivers, tributaries of the Angara River, which flows from Lake Baikal into the River Yenisei. When these rivers burst their banks, major road links to surrounding provinces were immediately cut off.
With the river levels slowly subsiding, volunteers and emergency services have regained access.
The extent of the destruction is serious: Levchenko announced on Wednesday that damages came to 29 billion rubles (around 450 million US dollars). The governor had recently told Novaya Gazeta, the independent Russian newspaper, that 980 million rubles (15 million US dollars) had been allocated to compensating residents for loss of these properties, though there is some scepticism that these promises will be fulfilled.
Over the past week, a heated debate has erupted on the Russian-speaking internet about what—or who—was responsible for the flood. Some commentators aren’t taking “natural disaster” as an answer.
The authorities, local and federal, bore the brunt of much initial criticism. President Vladimir Putin headed back from Japan, where he had been attending the G20 summit, and held an emergency meeting in the nearby town of Bratsk on July 30. When pro-government news site Gazeta.ru reported that water levels had dropped after Putin’s visit, it received a wave of angry commentary from users who felt the pro-government media had ignored the crisis from the start.
В Иркутской области какое-то пиздецовое наводнение, затопленно несколько населённых пунктов, люди сидят на крышах. А по телеканалам только Путин, Трамп и Япония pic.twitter.com/WABT2npPaD
— Сталингулаг (@StalinGulag) June 29, 2019
There are some fucked up floods in the Irkutsk Region right now, several settlements have been flooded, people are sitting on their roofs. And all that’s on the television channels is Putin, Trump, and Japan.
— СталинГулаг (@StalinGulag) 29 июня 2019
Russian media reports from the region reveal that locals are perplexed and trying to make sense of why the authorities seemed so poorly prepared—governor Levchenko even said that he hadn’t been warned about the likelihood of flooding. A flood constructed built after heavy floods struck Tulun in 2006 became a subject of discussion on local messaging boards; locals discovered that the director of the company which built it told the Russian TV channel Vesti in 2008 that the barrier would protect Tulun for “a hundred years.” The installation, constructed as part of a federal program to prevent flooding, burst during the recent surge.
When Andrey Pertsev, a correspondent for independent news website Meduza, visited Tulun earlier this week, he found residents suspicious and resentful, harbouring their own theories for why the flood happened. One of these blames the floods on the methods used by firefighters to combat forest fires which hit the region in April and May (emergency services used cloud seeding techniques to fight the blaze.) These theories have not yet surfaced in any expert commentaries on the causes of the flood.
The Ministry of Emergency Situations initially put the causes as rapidly melting snows in the Sayan Mountains in the south of the province combined with heavy rainfall. On July 1, professor Inna Latysheva of Irkutsk State University released a statement claiming that this heavy rainfall, and thereby the floods, were the result of humid and warm air masses moving from the Pacific Ocean. But some weren’t buying it.
On Saturday, the influential Russian blogger El-Murid saw the tragedy as not the result of nature, “but theft.” In his opinion, the reason why such disasters always require the mass mobilisation of emergency services is that there are no resources left for systematic work to prevent them from happening.
Это наводнение в Иркутской области. Но на самом деле это не только наводнение. Так выглядит то, что у нас стыдливо называется “выводом средств”. Те самые четыре-пять триллионов, которые украдены у страны нынешней компрадорской властью. Поэтому просто нет средств для проведения стандартных противопаводковых мероприятий, стоимость которых по сравнению с ущербом от наводнений примерно на порядок ниже. […] Это и есть самый что ни на есть видимый пример того, что в стране, которой правят уголовники и воры, любая проблема будет немедленно превращаться в катастрофу и апокалипсис. И причина этих катастроф – не природа, а воры, продолжающие править страной.
Here’s the flood in the Irkutsk Region. Actually it’s not merely a flood. This is what we shamefully call a “withdrawal of funds.” The very same four or five billion stolen from the country by today’s comprador rulers. As a result, there are simply not the resources to carry out standard flood prevention measures, the costs of which are substantially lower than the losses caused by floods. […] This is the single most obvious example of the fact that in a country ruled by criminals and thieves, any problem will quickly turn into a catastrophe and an apocalypse. And the reason for these catastrophes is not nature, but the thieves who continue to rule the country.
— Эль Мюрид (facebook.com/el.murid.3), 29 сентября 2019
Similarly, the blogger who goes by the pseudonym Stepan Razin suggested that attempts to explain the flood with reference to abnormal weather conditions were tantamount to whitewashing the role of corruption in weakening the state’s ability to respond. A debate about the causes of the crisis quickly became a way of mapping other commentators’ perceived attitudes to the Russian authorities.
Кто их затопил? Природа? Вы видели дожди по многочисленным кадрам из мест наводнения? Я вот даже маленького дождя не видел. Да и какими это должны были быть дожди, чтобы вода поднялась на 14 метров, когда до этого рекорд был 10 метров? В 1983 году. По предыдущему опыту, я четко усвоил, что за всеми “природными” катастрофами, стоят друзья сказочного или выстроеная им коррупционная вертикаль.
What flooded them? Nature? Did you see rain on the numerous pictures from the flood sites? I didn’t even see a little rain. And what kind of rain is supposed to cause the water level to rise by 14 metres, when before the record high was 10? Previous experience has taught me that behind all “natural” disasters are the friends of those who built a vertical of corruption.
— Stepan Timofeevich Razin (facebook.com/serg.simonov.9) 30 июня 2019
A more elaborate theory recently expressed by oppositional commentators concerns a large dam and hydroelectric plant upstream from the worst affected towns. These posit that it was in the interests of the dam’s owners to keep the adjacent Bratsk Reservoir topped up with water beyond safe levels, intending to produce and sell more electricity. This theory is nourished by the fact that the dam also powers an adjacent aluminium processing plant connected to Rusal, the metallurgical firm owned by prominent Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Как доказать, что ПОТОП в Иркобласти имеет хотя бы отчасти рукотворный характер? Напрямую – никак, но есть, мне кажется, один четкий косвенный признак: все федеральные радио- и телеканалы без умолку треплются о наводнении, репортажи “с места”, “прямые включения”, новости с этого начинаются и заканчиваются – но при этом версия “нет ли в происходящем вины местных гигантских ГЭС” (которая, вообще говоря, должна первой приходить в голову любому разумному человеку) нигде не то что не обсуждается и не опровергается – она никоим образом даже ни разу не упоминается! Как будто крепко табуирована… Впрочем, на языке современных госпиарщиков это называется изящней – “блок”.
How can we prove that the FLOOD in the Irkutsk Region had a man-made character? There’s no direct way. But it seems to me that there is one clear indirect sign: all the federal radio and TV channels are constantly talking about flooding, but there’s no version which lays the blame at the nearby giant hydroelectric power plants (which should be the first thing in the mind of any rational person.) It’s neither discussed nor refuted; it’s just not mentioned in any way! It’s as though it’s strictly tabooed… as the state’s PR people would more gracefully put it, “blocked.”
— Alexey Roshchin (zen.yandex.ru/sapojnik), The Price of Russian Aluminium, 30 июня 2019
These commentators seemed to regard any explanation which stressed natural causes as a willingness to avoid assigning blame, if not an attempt to depoliticise the tragedy entirely. Eugene Simonov, international coordinator of the ecological group Rivers Without Boundaries, suggested that theories such as Roshchin’s were more of a reflection of Russia’s “sociopolitical psychology,” attesting to the extremely low degree of trust in the authorities.
In a roundtable discussion on Sibir.Realii, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Siberian service, on July 2, Simonov and Alexander Kolotov, director of the ecological organization Plotina, broadly agreed that man-made factors played a role in the flood. Kolotov believes that there are still grounds for suspicion around the role of the hydroelectric dam, remarking that data on the status of the Bratsk Reservoir between June 28 and July 1 was mysteriously unavailable on Rushydro’s website.
Simonov attributed the floods to incompetence and mismanagement by the local authorities, noting that residents were poorly informed about what to do in the event of a flood, that early warning systems did not work, and that authorities had been quick to allow construction on floodplains. Lessons from earlier floods in Siberia in 2013 and 2018, he concluded, had not been learned.
One conviction that unites commentators is the belief that Russian officials are eager to pass the buck when it comes to assuming responsibility. As ever, the RuNet’s vigilant satirists were quick to weigh in:
Путин поручил для борьбы с наводнением под Иркутском привлечь армию
Шойгу поручил генералам
Генералы поручили полковникам
Полковники поручили майорам
Майоры поручили капитанам
Капитаны поручили лейтенантам
Лейтенанты поручили прапорщикам
Прапорщики ищут на глобусе Иркутск
— Мысли Перзидента (@VVP2_0) June 30, 2019
Putin has instructed the army to head to Irkutsk to combat the flood
[Defense Minster] Sergey Shoigu has instructed the generals
The generals have instructed the colonels
The colonels have ordered the majors
The captains have ordered the lieutenants
The lieutenants have ordered the ensigns
And the ensigns are searching for Irkutsk on a globe
— Мысли Перзидента (@VVP2_0) 30 июня 2019
Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations has already issued warnings for extreme rainfall in the neighbouring regions of Buryatia and Tuva. Whatever lessons the authorities can learn from the floods in the Irkutsk Region, they may have to learn them quickly; the next tragedy could be right around the corner.

author: Maxim Edwards


text:
Spanish town challenges its residents to lose 100,000 kg in two years · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Pulpo a feira, typical Galician dish. Image on Flickr by demi, CC BY 2.0
In January 2018, the Spanish municipality of Narón, located in the autonomous community of Galicia, launched a unique challenge to its residents: losing 100,000 kilos collectively in two years.
One year on, the objective seems to be on the way of being completed. By February 2019, the population had lost in total 46,000 kilos.
With a population of 39,000, each resident will have to lose an average of 1.5 kilos by next year if the goal is to be met. The challenge's focus is the 15,000 overweight or obese citizens — or 40 percent of the town's population, according to figures of the Galician Health Service. The campaign's organizers hope this segment will lose at least 10 percent of their weight.
Doctor Carlos Piñero, the local physician who's supervising the project, told newspaper Diario de Ferrol:
Desta forma diminuiríase o índice de mortalidade en Narón en 1,5 puntos co que este concello pasaría a rexistrar a mortalidade máis baixa de Galicia, que se situaría entre as mellores de España.
In this way, mortality rate in Narón would decrease 1.5 units, so this municipality would register the lowest mortality rate in Galicia, and would be among the lowest in Spain.
The campaign called “100.000 Motivos de Peso” [literally translated from Spanish as “100,000 Reasons of Weight”] was launched by mayor Marián Ferreiro along with 14 members of the Narón municipal council on January 25, 2018. The first step of the program was weighing all the municipal officers, who had then a joint weight of 1,174.50 kilos.
During the first months, the campaign promoted healthy eating habits and regular physical activity with the support from the city council, associations, schools, and the medical community.
Doctor Piñeiro says he has observed that sedentary lifestyles and obesity were common in the town. Those are two serious problems in a community where so many are overweight. He says that by August 2018 participants had lost an average of 2.5 kilos per month, although there wasn't official data available at that time. By then, the program had over 6,000 active participants.
Besides the health improvement for individual participants, there is an economic gain too, as healthier communities usually incur in fewer health expenses.
Thanks to this initiative, the community of Narón was awarded the European Prize of Obesity 2018 in the category Best Public Participation Program. Speaking with the press, Doctor Piñero noted that they were awarded for the “public projection of a collective initiative that brings together obesity-fighting, prevention, and solidarity.”
Indeed, the initiative has a solidarity aspect. For each kilo the participants lose, the Center of Solidarity Resources of Narón will receive an amount of non-perishable food or milk, “in order to establish equal health conditions [among the population]”, as the mayor Marián Ferreiro noted.
There are also precocious contributors, as doctor Piñeiro says:
Un grupo de abuelos (…) preguntó qué estaban haciendo en los colegios porque sus nietos se negaban a comer patatas fritas. (…) [Los niños de Narón] son investigadores de su entorno y del tipo de dieta que realiza su familia y de cuánto camina.
A group of grandparents (…) asked us what we were doing in schools because their grandchildren refused to eat french fries. (…) [Children from Narón] are researchers of their surroundings and of the kind of diet their families have and how much they walk.
The campaign received some criticism for its focus on weight loss — although doctor Piñeiro has insisted the program is primarily about promoting healthy lifestyles.
For instance, Yolanda Cambra, who specializes in emotional intelligence, says cultivating healthy habits is more important than just losing weight. She wrote on her website:
Pero ¿por qué no llamarla 100.000 motivos de salud? Si centran el interés en adelgazar, están reforzando la idea equivocada que asocia delgadez con salud.
(…) La iniciativa, propuesta por los médicos de los centros de salud, consiste en varios puntos, como:
Pero esto no es estar a dieta, señores. Comer sano y tener actividad física debería ser el modo de vida de toda la población.
(…) Me parece estupendo que se tomen medidas para que un sobrepeso no llegue a obesidad. Pero utilizar con tanta alegría los términos “kilos” y “dieta para adelgazar” puede conseguir el efecto contrario.
But why not call it 100.000 reasons for health? When they focus on losing weight, they reinforce the wrong idea that associates thinness with health.
(…) The initiative, proposed by physicians in health centers, consists of several points, such as:
But this is not part of being on a diet, people. Eating healthily and keeping physically active should be the lifestyle for the whole population.(…)
I think it's great to see measures that aims to prevent overweight to turn into obesity. But using so cheerfully the terms “kilos” and “diet for losing weight” can have the opposite of the intended effect.
Meanwhile, Twitter users are also sharing the initiative and its results:
Thanks. We must stop this tragedy.
Narón, a munipality from Coruña, Spain, has proposed to lose 100.000 kilos in 2 years. And they go well. The power of Family and Community Medicine.
Walk more, eat well, enjoy & compromise.
The HISTORY is Happening now. @motivosdepeso
— carlos millan (@magnuspaulusfar) 5 de mayo de 2019
#Congreso de #pacientes en @AreaUnoArrixaca. Los #habitantes de 1 #pueblo deciden #adelgazar 100.000 kilos en 2 años. La propuesta es de 1 #médicodefamilia de #Narón (#Galicia). https://t.co/3ObckOpflG pág. 38 @SEMERGENap @carpydia @FEDE_Diabetes @SEMERGENmurcia @PacientSemergen pic.twitter.com/TiJ4B6p5VO
— Salud21 (@Salud_21) 31 de mayo de 2019
Tweet: #Congress of #patients in @AreaUnoArrixaca. The #inhabitants of 1 #town decide to #lose 100,000 kilos in 2 years. The proposal comes from one #familydoctor in #Narón (#Galicia).
Headline on image: “Residents of a town decide to lose 100,000 kilos in a two-year period”

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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The ripple effect of the Hong Kong anti-extradition protests on Taiwan politics · Global Voices
New Bloom

Taiwan international solidarity rally in support of Hong Kong anti-China extradition protests on June 16. Photo taken by Benson Tsang. Used with permission.
It may not be surprising to learn that recent demonstrations in Hong Kong against proposed amendments to local extradition laws have had a significant impact on Taiwan. The events triggered a number of solidarity rallies, in which many expressed the fear that Taiwan could suffer a similar fate to Hong Kong if it were to revert to Chinese control.
The majority of Taiwanese mainstream media are aligned with the pan-Blue (pro-Kuomintang) coalition and, given their perceived tendency to downplay negative news about mainland China, have not given extensive coverage to the Hong Kong protests. The massive protests on June 9, however, followed by the two-million-strong demonstrations on June 16, did capture the attention of a majority of Taiwanese.
Taiwanese also participated in international solidarity rallies against the Hong Kong extradition law. For seven consecutive days following June 9, Taiwanese civil society groups, including former Sunflower Movement activists, church groups, socialist organizations, Hong Kongers resident in Taiwan, Taiwanese residents of Japan and Democratic Progessive Party spokespersons, took turns to host rallies. The largest mobilization thus far has been the rally on June 16 organized by a new  coalition of NGOs called the Taiwan Citizens’ Front. It attracted 10,000 participants.
Protest against “red capital” in Taiwan media industry on June 24. Photo from Facebook page: Impolite TW (Attributive)
Also resonating with the Hong Kong solidarity protests was the massive rally against Beijing's influence in Taiwanese media on June 24. The event attracted 100,000 participants, a sign that organizers and protesters have taken the deterioration of political freedoms in Hong Kong since the handover to China in 1997 as a forewarning for Taiwanese society.
The situation in Hong Kong seems to have forced politicians from the Kuomintang (KMT) party to backtrack on political statements in which they have advocated the implementation of a “One Country, Two Systems” in Taiwan similar to Hong Kong's.
Taiwan has been a de-facto self-ruling state since 1949, when the KMT was defeated in the Chinese Civil War and subsequently relocated to the island. In 1992, the KMT signed a “One China” consensus with Beijing, in which both parties have agreed that both mainland China and Taiwan constitute a single country—but interpretations of what that consensus entails are strongly disputed.
In Chinese president Xi Jinping's 2019 new year address on cross-strait relations in January, he reaffirmed that “One Country, Two Systems” is the framework for the unification of Taiwan with China under the 1992 “One China, with different representations” consensus. Though the KMT stressed that Taiwanese people are not ready to accept the implementation of “One Country, Two Systems”, it continues to embrace the “One China” consensus, and did not deny the “Two Systems” framework in principle.
Yet the fallout in Taiwan after protests in Hong Kong has led KMT presidential contenders, including Eric Chu, Terry Gou and Han Kuo-yu, to reverse course and state that they would never allow “One Country, Two Systems” to be implemented in Taiwan.
This reversal was perhaps most dramatically visible in the case of Han Kuo-yu, the current KMT mayor of Kaohsiung municipality and a potential KMT candidate in the 2020 president election. Han has built a reputation for being “pro-China”, openly expressing his support for “One-China” Consensus and vowing to develop closer trade relations with China by attracting Chinese investment. In March, during a trip to Hong Kong, he met with the director of Hong Kong’s Beijing Liaison Office Wang Zhimin in a manner that circumvented normal diplomatic channels.
Even after the one million-strong anti-extradition rally in Hong Kong, Han has refused to comment on China's policy in Hong Kong, claiming that he “didn’t know” about the Hong Kong protests.
However, after Terry Gou, another potential KMT president candidate, publicly denounced “One Country, Two systems”, Han reversed course and claimed that system would only be implemented in Taiwan “over my dead body” — an expression originally attributed to DPP city councilor Wang Shi-jian during the Sunflower Movement, the massive 2014 protests against the KMT's trade bill that proposed turning Taiwan into a China free-trade zone.
The sudden reversals of course by Han and other KMT candidates on the issue of “One Country, Two Systems” is likely an election strategy rather than a sincere political choice—a reaction to the ripple effect of Hong Kong anti-China extradition protests. In fact, an uptick in election polling ratings for current president Tsai Ing-wen, as well as her victory in the DPP presidential primary over former premier William Lai, have also been attributed to the influence of protests in Hong Kong. Tsai has been taking Hong Kong as a reference to the future of Taiwan, stressing in a speech on June 10 that:
一國兩制對台灣來說，是絕對不能接受的。一旦接受一國兩制，我們就會失去捍衛自由、民主與人權的權利，也會失去選擇自己未來的權利。
我也要呼籲台灣人民繼續關注香港的發展，一起來撐香港，也一起來保衛台灣。
Taiwan could never accept One Country Two Systems. Once we accept the framework, we will lose our rights to defend freedom and democracy, we will lose our rights to decide on our future.
I want to urge Taiwanese people to pay attention to Hong Kong's development, to support Hong Kong and to defend Taiwan.
The political circumstance that has led to the swing in public opinion is similar to the spike in popular support for Tsai after Xi Jinping's new year speech on cross-strait relations.
On the other side of the coin, the public denunciation of “One Country, Two Systems” by the pro-China KMT could also generate a ripple effect in Hong Kong, as Beijing would now be well aware that its policy on Hong Kong is not just about the city, but has greater implications for its “One China” dream.
Currently, the extradition bill has yet to be fully withdrawn in Hong Kong. Periodic waves of protests continue. Though the Hong Kong government shows few signs of backing down, it has been noted that public appearances by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam have become increasingly rare in the past weeks. It is obvious that Beijing has softened its grip on Hong Kong for the moment, but the course of future events in Hong Kong still looks uncertain.
For more about Hong Kong's anti-China extradition protest, visit Global Voices’ special coverage page.

author: New Bloom


text:
Is a ‘Concordat’ stymieing education progress in Trinidad & Tobago? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

A screenshot of the PDF of The Concordat of 1960, signed between the Vatican and Trinidad and Tobago in an agreement governing public education in the country.
Nearly 60 years ago, the government of Trinidad and Tobago signed The Concordat of 1960 — an agreement between the state and religious bodies that gives them the right to determine their own curricula in denominational schools. They also have the right to select 20 per cent of new students entering denominational schools, regardless of their performance on the annual secondary school entrance exams — now called the SEA.
Students who do well on these exams often get into their school of choice based on how their marks are ranked relative to the availability of spaces, but those who don't can still get into desirable denominational schools — often referred to as “prestige schools” — using this 20 per cent rule.
Though denominational schools receive government assistance, they are able to extend this preferential treatment to students based on religious affiliation. As Trinbagonian parents continue to lament the inefficacy of the SEA, the issue of the Concordat goes hand-in-hand with discussions about education progress in the country, more than half a century after the document was signed.
In 2003, newspaper columnist George Alleyne penned an editorial which called out the Concordat as a mechanism of discrimination based on “a mixture of religion and privilege”:
Many children of lower income families were nudged aside in the application of the powers conferred by the state-church arrangement, and those receiving the head start under the Concordat were instead sons and daughters of far better-positioned middle- and upper middle-income families. It was clearly unjust and deprived many a bright schoolchild of a deserved chance at upward mobility. Government should and must move with dispatch to deal with this cruel absurdity of privilege conferred. There must be a rethink of the Concordat, not to see in what way it can be improved, but rather how quickly it can be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Sometime between 2006 and 2011, late independent Senator John Spence offered this proposal:
If indeed education is better in denominational schools then we must ensure that government schools are brought up to the best level. In the meanwhile the denominational schools should be allocated at least 50 percent of candidates from the lower end of the SEA [Secondary Entrance Assessment] pass list and such students must be given special attention. I am basing this proposal on the fact that religious denominations are concerned with the good of society as a whole and in particular with helping the disadvantaged and so I am certain this proposal will have [their] full support.
Thus far, it hasn't. The 20 per cent list still exists and parents often use it as a guarantee should their children not do well in the exam. Some parents have even been known to change the child's religion based on the denomination of their desired school.
The signing of this Concordat took place in Trinidad and Tobago's pre-independence era. The country eventually won its independence from Great Britain on August 31, 1962, led by Eric Williams and his political party, the People's National Movement (PNM).
Williams had big plans for revamping the country's colonial education system, which, until that time, consisted of state-subsidized “mission schools” directed by each religion's denominational board.  Until then, access to education had largely evaded the working class; children that did go to school were separated based on religion — which also meant that they ended up being split up along ethnic lines.
Williams’ proposed reforms — including levelling the playing field and broadening the scope of the curriculum — got a lot of pushback. Fearing that influential church opposition might lead to a similar defeat to the one his party suffered in the 1958 federal elections, Williams signed the agreement.
Most recently, analyst Nigel Henry examined leaked data from the 2018 SEA examination and dissected the process by which students are placed. The resulting newspaper exposé — the first instalment of which was published on June 30, 2019 — revealed the inequalities inherent in the system, catapulting the issue of the Concordat to the forefront of the education debate once again.
Government-assisted schools usually cost more to run than the state can allocate, so the schools also do their own fundraising. Besides the children of staff and alumni, their 20 per cent may also include children whose parents have the means to support the school.
The Sunday Express, the newspaper that published Henry's report wrote an editorial stating that analysis of the leaked data “shows how the anomaly of the 1960 Cabinet-approved Concordat, known to the population as the notorious '20 per cent’ introduces unfairness in the placement system”:
[…] As Mr. Henry demonstrated, that 20 percent sometimes mysteriously increases to 21, 25 or 33 percent in Concordat-type assignment of particular students. The Concordat is a common target of criticism and review of it has been repeatedly recommended in reports on the country’s youth population. It appears that Concordat-inspired behaviour has seeped into placements at wholly government-run schools as well.
The problems go even deeper […] A merit point system that uses students’ actual scores to place them in secondary schools is combined with a zoning formula in which scores do not matter […] resulting in sometimes awkward, sometimes arbitrary decisions about the future of tens of thousands of young people and their families.
Lynsley Anderson Doodhai, the current president of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA), took to Facebook on July 2, 2019, to make it clear that his trade union has not called for the Concordat to be abolished:
[…] This is not an official position of TTUTA. What I said was that there should be a review to determine the Concordat’s relevance since more than 50 years has elapsed since its signing.
While many find the agreement outdated and irrelevant, Facebook user Sankofa Mfom Tuzinde suggested that the real issue was less “the instrument of the Concordat” and more “dishonesty and unethical practices”:
[…] These denominational schools are not the problem. The government need[s] to fix the other schools. […] In the mean time, start to rotate teachers much like how police officers are rotated.
Many maintain, however, that the Concordat — and the SEA exam — is elitist and should be done away with, while others say that the cost of doing away with it would likely be prohibitive:
Implementation of a continuous assessment programme […] could be a short-term [solution], however certain safeguards, control and strict programme supervision tolls have to be in place so that everybody has a fair chance. The SEA is far from perfect but unless we start having a proper conversation with the parties of the Concordat, then SEA will be with us for a long time.
One teacher that Global Voices spoke with by phone — who asked to remain anonymous — believes that the issue with the SEA exam goes well beyond the Concordat. “We're asking the wrong questions,” she says.
In her estimation, some of the key issues with the current system are that it is not seamless, children must go through this stop-gap measure of being tested at age 11 (when, developmentally, the playing field is not level), and there are a handful of secondary schools that people want to go to, making the competition that much fiercer:
Rather than asking why the denominational schools are allowed their 20 per cent, we should be asking how we can raise the level of education and make more schools desirable.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Kim Kardashian, cultural appropriation, and genocide · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Memorial poles on public display behind glass at the Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM) in Victoria, B.C., Canada. The poles are originally from SG̱ang Gwaay llnagaay (Ninstints, on Haida Gwaii) and date back to the 1880s. The poles were removed from SG̱ang Gwaay llnagaay and purchased by the RBCM in 1957. On the left, in the background, is a Quatsino “Potlatch Figure” from the community of X̱wa̱tis on northern Vancouver Island, was acquired by RBCM in 1911. Photo by Nevin Thompson.
Less than a week after Kim Kardashian launched a controversial new brand, Twitter declared victory and she was forced to retreat. Kardashian caused an international social media firestorm on June 25 when she announced plans to launch “Kimono”, a personal line of underwear, handbags and deodorant that had nothing to do with Japan's iconic and elegant traditional attire.
The biggest complaint was that Kardashian was engaging in cultural appropriation — as an American and a member of a dominant culture, Kardashian was co-opting the kimono from Japan, a disadvantaged minority culture in the context of the United States.
In my Twitter feed and on Facebook, however, not everyone seemed to think Kardashian was engaging in cultural appropriation. It was obvious, according to some people, that Kardashian's line of girdles and shapewear looked nothing like a kimono, so there wasn't much appropriation going on, if any.
Another argument was that, despite the fact the mayor of Kyoto wrote Kardashian a letter begging her to reconsider ‘kimono’ as the name for her new brand, most of the social media noise came from outside of Japan, and not from Japanese people themselves. One Japanese reporter had to explain the meaning of ‘cultural appropriation’, since the term (文化の盗用) is mostly unfamiliar to readers in Japan.
Just whose culture is being appropriated? And does cultural appropriation even exist?
This ambiguous aspect of the Kardashian kimono controversy brings to mind the Boston kimono protests of 2015. When the Museum of Fine Arts Boston encouraged attendees to dress up in a kimono and pose in front of Claude Monet’s “La Japonaise,” protesters called the event racist, colonialist, Orientalist and culturally insensitive — and a prime example of cultural appropriation.
It didn't help that there was a short talk at Monet exhibit called “Flirting with the Exotic”.
According to the Boston Globe, counter-protesters also attended the Monet exhibit in Boston in support of allowing anyone to wear the kimono. “We actually do not quite understand what their point of protest is,” said a senior official at the Japan Consulate in Boston (blogger Keiko in Boston provides a detailed and frequently updated breakdown of the controversy).
There was also the idea that Western exhibit attendees dressing up in the kimono in some ways replicated the ‘Japonism‘ of 150 years ago, when the Western Impressionist movement became infatuated with and influenced by all things Japanese.
The convoluted nature of the two kimono controversies, where it's not entirely clear if it's Japan, as a “disadvantaged minority culture”, that's doing the protesting, makes it easy to dismiss cultural appropriation as something to get worried about. Different cultures “borrow” from each other all the time, much as the Impressionists were influenced by Ukiyo-e prints.
At least, so goes the conventional wisdom, judging by what I see on Twitter and on Facebook, and in various newspapers and magazines: “cultural appropriation isn't real“, and is just an example of an “incoherent and divisive” “toxic call-out culture” run amok.
I disagree. Cultural appropriation is indeed very real, and causes real harm, particularly in Canada, where I now live.
Stolen Sisters March in Victoria, B.C., Canada, February 16, 2019, commemorating missing and murdered women. Photo by Nevin Thompson.
While, for members of a dominant culture, the concept of cultural appropriation can appear to be abstract (at best), in Canada the issue is often framed in terms the settler majority can understand: money.
Victoria, where I live, sits on the the traditional and unceded territories of the Lkwungen (Songhees), Xwsepsum (Esquimalt), and WSÁNEĆ (Saanich) Nations. Victoria is the provincial capital and a tourist town, and is home to the Royal BC Museum and other institutions. The museum houses an extensive collection of First Nations cultural artifacts, much of it salvaged, recovered or otherwise collected from Indigenous communities up and down the coast during the first half of the 20th Century.
Because of the presence of the museum, the geographic proximity of the Lkwungen, Xwsepsum and WSÁNEĆ people First Nations art forms a key part of Victoria's local identity. So much so that First Nations iconography has become a somewhat kitschy presence on the streets of Victoria.
You could say cultural appropriation is to blame.
In a recent Facebook post, Richard Hunt, a famed Vancouver Island carver, complained that the Royal BC Museum was selling “fake” First Nations art in its gift shop. The transformation of cultural artifacts into souvenirs for tourists was especially galling, since the part of the museum's mandate is to strengthen “relations with BC’s (sic) First Nations“.
In fact, according to the Times-Colonist, Victoria's daily newspaper, some of the First Nations designs that are sold in the museum gift shop have been licensed by the original creators. However, the licensing fees paid out to the creators are quite small compared to the sale price and business margins on the products for sale. It could be argued that this is a concrete example of cultural appropriation in action, practiced by the museum, which receives financial support from a provincial government that says it is focused on fostering reconciliation.
An even more blatant example of cultural appropriation occured in 2017, when non-Indigenous Canadian artist Amanda PL was accused of copying the designs of famed Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau. The similarity between Amanda PL's paintings and Morrisseau's iconic artwork, which itself draws inspiration from traditional First Nations art, is striking.
However, in this case, framing Amanda PL's artwork with the controversial term “cultural appropriation” merely serves to obscure the fact that she was engaging in intellectual property theft, a crime that settler culture in Canada takes very seriously.
Focusing the debate on the supposed absurdities of cultural appropriation has also helped Canada's cultural elites marginalize First Nations artists, writers and other creators. In 2017, at the very same time Canada was debating whether or not Amanda PL stole from Norval Morrisseau, there was yet another toxic argument about cultural appropriation.
In his preface to an issue of the quarterly magazine published by Writers’ Union of Canada devoted to the work of Indigenous authors, editor Hal Niedzviecki said he did not believe in cultural appropriation. After his preface sparked debate in Canada, Niedzviecki swiftly resigned. In response, members of Canada's media and literary establishment rallied to support Niedzviecki, launching an “appropriation prize“.
As the debate shifted to media personalities who argued about the hazy abstraction of cultural appropriation, the implications for the Indigenous authors who were supposed to have been celebrated in the Writers’ Union quarterly were never addressed. This erasure of Indigenous voice is not unusual in Canada.
You could say it's part of our country's DNA.
Here in Victoria, British Columbia, sometimes it's hard to see “totem poles” and other First Nations art as anything more than aesthetically pleasing kitsch or museum artifacts. This is by design. It's often argued that the epidemics experienced by First Nations up and down the Pacific coast in the 19th Century following European contact led to population crash and cultural decline, so artwork and artifacts such as totem poles needed to be literally appropriated and preserved in a museum.
However, at the same time, so-called potlatch laws in fact outlawed First Nations from practicing their traditional culture. While museums were displaying totem poles purchased by collectors such as Charles Newcombe in order to tell the story of First Nations cultures that were supposedly going extinct as part of a natural process, the government of Canada was actively trying to erase Indigenous culture.
So, while it may be easy to understand cultural appropriation in terms of dollars and cents, the end result of the practice in Canada has been cultural erasure leading to actual genocide.
Billboard on Hwy 16 near New Hazelton, in northwestern British Columbia, from 2008. Photo by Nevin Thompson.
In June 2019, the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) released its final report. Intended to help understand and provide solutions to the systemic, ongoing crisis of violence against First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA in Canada, the final report once again sparked yet another controversy by identifying the violence against these groups as genocide.
While many columnists, politicians and others disparaged the idea that genocide had occurred in Canada, the report relied on an established international law that did not restrict the definition to physical destruction of a nation or ethnic group. Instead, the report defined genocide in part as “disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.”
So, while combining the words “Kim Kardashian”, “kimono” and “cultural appropriation” into a sentence seems almost comically idiotic, cultural appropriation has been employed as a successful strategy over the past 150 years. The results have been deadly, which is reason enough to take cultural appropriation seriously today.

author: Nevin Thompson