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El Salvador project illustrates the ‘invisible’ African roots of common Latin American words · Global Voices
Carlos Lara

Visual by Carlos Lara, created by the author and published with his permission.
The following story is by Afro-Salvadoran artist and activist Carlos Lara, who shares some of his artwork with Global Voices. All illustrations are by Carlos Lara and are published here with his permission.
According to the latest census (2007), only 7,400 Salvadorans recognize their African roots, although it is claimed that this number does not reflect reality. Many people hid their true origin because of the fascist and racist policies of General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez during the 1930s, through a migration law “influenced by a mindset, a discourse, and practices that are based on scientific racism, which hierarchizes groups, constructs races, and places the white race as superior and the indigenous and black races as inferior.” Since then, many Afro-Salvadorans have concealed their ethnic roots.
The People's Day of the Salvadoran Afro-descendants was commemorated on August 29, 2020, with the intent of telling the invisible story of the Afro-descendant community in El Salvador. Following the idea of a friend, the artist Jesús Cerén, members of the organization AFROOS organized an activity called “Arte Afrogosto,” to which we invited artists and illustrators to represent 31 words (one for each day of August) of African origin used specifically in El Salvador. The idea was to highlight how deep African influence is in our language and culture, despite the fact that it has been largely negated in the past.
Amigos, amigas, amigues artistas! En algún momento ustedes han participado en el ‘inktober’, que como ya sabrán, es una dinámica para dibujar cada día según una palabra que se encuentra en la lista oficial. pic.twitter.com/NaNbdNKPqd
— Carlos Lara (@carloslaradibuj) July 28, 2020
Artist friends! You have participated at some point in the ‘inktober,’ which as you know, is a exercise to draw every day according to a word found in the official list.
Here are some of the words I illustrated for this event, and I briefly explain their etymology and uses in the region:
Chingar: This is a very common word in Mexican Castellano. It means to “mess with,” “to annoy,” “to nag,” “not to leave someone alone.” According to the RAE Dictionary, it derives from the Roma (“gypsy”) word “cingarár,” which means “to fight.” However, others have traced its origin to the Bantu languages of the enslaved Africans brought by the Portuguese and Spanish.
In Brazil, Xingar (pronounced “chingar”) means “to offend,” “to insult,” and comes from Kimbundu and Kikongo Singa languages from the Central African region.
Cumbia: It is a popular dance, mainly from Colombia and Panama, which combines white, African and indigenous traditions. According to some theories, it comes from cumbé, a dance from Equatorial Guinea. According to other researchers, it is either an abbreviation of cumbancha, from the Mandinka of West Africa, or a derivation from the words kumba, kumbé and kumbí, the “k” becoming a “c” when integrating the Spanish language, with the meaning of “drums” or “dances.”
Cumbia is one of the most important identity features of Salvadorans.
Gallina Guinea: Literally a hen from Guinea, which is “small, with a bony crest, a bare head, bluish-black plumage with white spots, a short and pointed tail.”
There are three countries in Africa with the name of Guinea, located in the region of the same name: Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Equatorial Guinea. The last is a Portuguese-speaking country.
Guineo: Fruit of the banana tree. The guineo, also known as banana, originates from Southeast Asia; it subsequently flourished in Africa and later in the Americas. However, the name guineo is believed to come from West Africa, formerly known as “Guinea,” which in the Berber language means “land of the Blacks.”
India is now the world's largest banana producer, and there is a country in Southeast Asia with the name Guinea: Papua New Guinea.
Jelengue: In Puerto Rico, it means “annoyance,” “bother,” “nuisance,” “mishap.” In El Salvador, it is synonymous with chonguenga (a social gathering), pachanga (a dance party), molote (a get-together), jolgorio (festivities), movimiento (movement), desvergue (a blowout) or fiesta (a party).
Marimba: When we hear about the marimba, we sometimes imagine Guatemala and associate it with the indigenous world. However, the marimba has African origins. It is a percussion instrument similar to the xylophone, and the name comes from the Kimbundu or Bantu languages, since it was the African slaves who brought it to America. It is also known in those languages as Kalimba or Malimba.
Mondongo: This is a kind of stew or casserole prepared with the belly (mondongo) of a cow or a pig, and other meat, vegetables, legumes and spices are added. It is traditional in many Spanish-speaking countries and considered a national dish of Venezuela. The word mondongo comes from the word mondejo, which in turn, seems to derive from bandujo, whose origin is uncertain.
The word was introduced by the Bantu-speaking African slaves, who were given to eat the parts of beef that their masters discarded.
Pachanga: Dance originating in Cuba, where it means “uproar,” “party,” “bustling entertainment.”
In El Salvador, it refers to a popular or family celebration, usually with dancing.
Pachanga is probably derived from a party “para Changó” (literally, “for Changó”). Changó is one of the major deities of the religion of the Fon and Yoruba people of Benin and Nigeria, respectively. “Para Changó” evolved to “pa'Changó” and finally became pachanga. It can also be used as a verb and an adjective: pachanguear (v.) and pachanguera/o, describing someone who “likes to pachanguear” or “goes to pachangas”.
Ruco: In both Colombia and Mexico, ruco means ‘old’.
In El Salvador, I have heard it with two meanings, linked to each other: One of them is “old” and the other is “toothless” (synonym of sholco). In any case, the word “toothless” refers to someone of advanced age who has lost their teeth, queda ruco.
Zombi: An entity that, in one way or another, has come back to life. It has its origin in the “Vodou” religion of parts of West Africa. According to the belief, a dead person can be resurrected by a houngan or a bokor performing a ritual; once brought back to life, the person would be subject to the will of the one who resurrected him or her.
Several possible roots for the term zombie have been put forward, most of them African. Research also exists on the Haitian origin of zombies, historically linked to slavery and oppression in Haiti.
Carlos Lara is a member of the NGO Afrodescendientes Organizados Salvadoreños (AFROOS), “an organization that works for the recognition, resistance and struggle of the Afro-Salvadoran population.” You can follow him on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or on his YouTube channel, to find out about his work and discover more Africanisms in the Salvadoran language.

author: Carlos Lara


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Hungary’s new health care law could upset expectant mothers’ birth plans · Global Voices
Bianka Koka

An obstetric examination. Photo by Doktor24 Medicina Zrt., used with permission.
A new health care law in Hungary that aims to increase the salaries of medical professionals and curb corruption in the sector could end up limiting expectant mothers’ freedom to choose their obstetricians.
The new law, approved by the Hungarian Parliament in October 2020, provides a long-overdue increase on the salaries of public health care employees, while also laying down new rules for those who work in both the private and the public sectors.
Most notably, the law prohibits the widespread practice of patients providing doctors and nurses with gratuities, known in Hungary as “parasolvency” and considered a form of corruption. Patients are expected to give health professionals extra money or expensive gifts in exchange for skipping waiting lists or getting better care at the state-funded health system.
The new law punishes workers who accept money or gifts from patients with 5 to 10 years in prison. The wage hike is also aimed at discouraging the practice.
The statute also bans doctors who work in the public sector from holding a second job in private clinics unless they obtain permission from the relevant authorities. It also prohibits patients that are consulting with a doctor in the private sector from seeing that same doctor at a public hospital for treatment of the same issue.
One inadvertent consequence of the new arrangements is that expectant mothers will become unable to choose their obstetricians. In Hungary, it is customary for women to go through prenatal care in a private clinic and have the same doctor deliver the baby in their state-funded place of employment. The reason for this is to circumvent the high costs of a private childbirth, although patients still usually give those doctors gifts or extra money.
With the new law, mothers who choose to deliver their babies in the public sector will be cared for by the doctor on duty, regardless of whether they have a personal relationship with them.
In European nations that have public health care systems, such as the UK, the Netherlands, and Sweden, patients generally can only see a specialist after they are referred by a general practitioner, but expectant mothers are allowed to self-refer to their obstetrician of choice.
Speaking with the government-friendly station Kossuth Radio, Health Minister Miklós Kásler admitted that “the separation of the public and private spheres does require more detailed regulation,” while also assuring listeners that the Ministry has been in close consultation with the Hungarian Medical Chamber and health trade unions.
The Chamber, however, has already declared it disagrees with opening exceptions, claiming they could open a loophole through which parasolvency would persist. Meanwhile, trade unions in the health sector have issued a statement describing the bill as “unconstitutional” because it limits workers’ freedom of employment.
While the pay raise came into effect on January 1, the rest of the rules outlined in the law will only come into force in March.
Dr Agnes Ruzsovics. Courtesy photo, used with her permission.
In an in-person interview with Global Voices, doctor and medical law specialist, and legal advisor to one of Hungary’s largest private health service providers, Dr. Agnes Ruzsovics explained what the new regulation means for patients:
Fighting against the practice of parasolvency is a great initiative, even from a doctor’s perspective, but this arrangement is making it practically impossible to choose the obstetrician you want to deliver your baby.
While the initial text claimed there might be some exceptions, government officials have yet to elaborate [on them], even though the statute enters into force in a month. As it currently stands, expectant mothers will likely not be able to have the obstetrician they chose and trust to deliver their babies after March 1, but they don’t know for sure. Doctors cannot answer their questions as they have no information either. The fact that they went through the journey of pre-natal care with a doctor and then can’t have them deliver their child, combined with mood swings resulting from pregnancy, and the added pressure of the pandemic situation, can be extremely hard on expectant women.
With the lack of legal clarity, one hospital attempted to fill the gaps by issuing their own guidelines prohibiting exceptant mothers to deliver with the obstetrician of their choice in the transition period leading up to March 1.
The hospital's decision was met with confusion and outrage by patients, who opened a petition demanding the repeal of the new rules.
In a reaction to the hospital’s guidelines, the Ministry of Human Resources issued a statement saying that “limiting the freedom of choice using the fight against parasolvency as an excuse is unacceptable.“ Paradoxically, the provisions lawmakers have included in the new law might end up producing the same results.
As decrees regulating the new law are still in the works, many doctors are uncertain whether to sign this year's employment contracts.
In a January 21 letter to National Hospital Director Zoltán Jenei, the Hungarian Medical Chamber issued a list of requests by health professionals including more information on the rules governing paid overtime and time-off requests and how to obtain permission to work outside of the public health system.
As the February 28 deadline looms, government officials have yet to answer the letter, issue a statement, or define special rules on obstetrics and childbirth.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Bianka Koka


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LIVE on February 10: A conversation with Jillian C. York on her upcoming book “Silicon Values” · Global Voices
Georgia Popplewell

“Who has the power to decide what does or doesn't appear on the internet?” That's the fundamental question posed by activist and writer Jillian C. York in her upcoming book “Silicon Values,”* set for release on March 23, 2021.
On Wednesday, February 10 at 2:00pm GMT, Jillian will join Global Voices’ executive director Ivan Sigal for a live video conversation about the book, which, as she notes in the preface, “seeks to encapsulate the history of how Silicon Valley’s major communications platforms created a system apart—specifically, a system that governs how we can express ourselves online.”
Jillian, who is the Director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is also a long-standing member of Global Voices, where she cut her teeth writing about digital rights and freedom of expression in the context of the Middle East.
The session is free and open to the public and will be live-streamed on Facebook Live, YouTube, and Twitch.
We look forward to having you join us on Wednesday, February 10 at 2:00pm GMT (click here to convert to your local time zone)!
*Buying the book through this link helps support Global Voices.

author: Georgia Popplewell


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Protests rock Istanbul’s most prestigious university over appointment of new rector · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Istanbul's Boğaziçi University. Photo by Turkmessage, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Istanbul's renowned Boğaziçi University has been swayed by mass protests since early January demanding the resignation of a new rector appointed by President's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Rector Melih Bulu, who took office on January 1, has ties to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), having contested parliamentary elections in 2015 with the bloc.
In 2016, President Erdoğan secured the right to appoint universities’ rectors; previously, they were elected by the academic body.
Boğaziçi's students see Bulu's appointment as another step in Turkey's democratic backslide and compare it to the replacement of over one hundred elected mayors with government appointees in recent years.
In addition to his ties to the ruling party, Bulu has also been criticized for his lack of qualifications. He has also been accused of plagiarism (he denied this).
The crackdown on the protests has been harsh and sweeping: Police have used pepper spray and rubber bullets to repress demonstrations in January. On February 1, it arrested none less than 159 Boğaziçi students for participating in the rallies. While all have been released over the course of the week, some have been sentenced to house arrest or released under judicial control.
On February 2, the university witnessed more protests, with professors seen holding signs with the number 159:
Turkey: Bogazici faculty today, after police detained 159 students yesterday. pic.twitter.com/3ZuxHCsDZw
— Piotr Zalewski (@p_zalewski) February 2, 2021
Students’ fears that the new rector would curtail academic freedom turned out to be well-founded: One of Bulu's first order of business was to shut down the LGBTI+ Studies Candidate Club for organizing an art exhibition that featured a drawing of the Kaaba, a holy site for Muslims, with a rainbow flag attached to its corners. Two students were arrested last weekend in connection with the art event.
Turkey's religious affairs directorate, Diyanet, claimed students “disrespected religious values” with the drawing. And a tweet about the issue by Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun attracted online criticism as it appeared to downplay the reasons for the protests:
Boğaziçi Üniversitesi'ndeki “Rektörlük Ablukası” suçunu işleyenleri harekete geçiren şey, aşağıdaki karardır.
Görüleceği üzere kutsal değerlerimizi ayaklar altına almaya çalışanlara karşı üniversite yönetimi meşru bir tasarrufta bulunmuştur.
Olay bundan ibarettir. pic.twitter.com/a9v4sqb0Di
— Fahrettin Altun (@fahrettinaltun) February 1, 2021
What motivated those who committed the crime of “blockading the Rector's Office” at Boğaziçi University is the decision below. As it can be seen, the university administration has taken a legitimate decision in the face of those trying to trample upon our sacred values. That is all.
Also commenting on the rector's decision, Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu called LGBTQ+ individuals “perverts” in a tweet that was subsequently flagged by the platform as “hateful content:”
Tuzağa düşmeyin… pic.twitter.com/HZKRM18fPL
— Süleyman Soylu | Maske? Mesafe↔ Temizlik? (@suleymansoylu) February 2, 2021
Should we be lenient towards those LGBT perverts who insult the Kaaba? Of course not. Should we be lenient towards the LGBT perverts who attempted to occupy the rectorate building? Of course not. I have a message for those watching what is happening at Boğaziçi: Don't fall into the trap of those who have not one single achievement, who have become a toy in the hands of one agency, who are outdated, not even leftists politicians. Our expectations from you is scientific success. Our expectation from you is academic excellence. Our expectation from you is to prepare yourselves for Big and Strong Turkey.
Bulu has so far refused to resign, stating that his appointment “met global standards”. AKP's spokesperson Omer Celik has also rushed to the rector's defense, saying “it is not a crime for a person to have a political view.”
But in Erdoğan's Turkey, it may as well be the case. The president's persecution of academics is well documented: After the 2016 coup, thousands of professors were dismissed from their jobs after signing a petition calling for peace with Kurdish militants. Lawyers, rights defenders, journalists, and civil servants have also been arrested, detained, or targeted in recent years over their alleged ties to “terrorism.”
Not surprisingly, Erdoğan himself told reporters that “terrorists” were involved in this year's protests.
On January 8, some sixty Boğaziçi University alumni, including writers, artists, and other notable figures, signed a joint statement against the appointment of Bulu. “A rector appointed without a democratic process would harm the traditional values that Boğaziçi has represented for 150 years,” it reads.
Meanwhile, the university's academics released a separate statement saying this was the first time since the 1980 military coup that a rector was appointed from outside the university's ranks, without an internal election.
The protests at Boğaziçi University may be the most recent standoff between the secular society and the populist, authoritarian government seated in Ankara. But who will win in this power struggle remains to be seen. So far, Bulu is leading.

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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Public pressure helps halt the felling of hundred-year-old rubber trees in Guyana · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Screenshot of Guyana's Mabaruma region taken from Google Earth.
In Guyana's Mabaruma region, located on a narrow plateau above the rainforest not far from the country's border with Venezuela, is a copse of rubber trees, nearly a century old, in danger of being cut down to facilitate roadway expansion.
Local environmentalists, who say that the trees, quite apart from producing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide, are an “iconic” feature of the area, have started an online petition aimed at halting their felling.
While those in support of extending the roadway have proposed a re-planting exercise, environmental advocates maintain that older trees, like the ones along Philbert Pierre Avenue (dubbed Rubber Walk), act as “vacuums”, absorbing more carbon than younger trees. They have called on those involved in the road expansion project to consider the trees in their design, and find an alternate route around them. At the time of publication, the petition had secured over 4,000 signatures.
The trees were scheduled to be chopped down on January 27. Even as activists lamented the fact that residents of Mabaruma weren't seeing the big picture, Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Nigel Dharamlall instructed the town's mayor to halt the felling, explaining that the trees were a “hallmark” of the area. By this stage, however, 10 to 12 trees had already been sacrificed.
The authorities claimed that community consultations had been carried out under the previous government, in which residents allegedly said they viewed the trees as a danger. Minister Dharamlall requested that the results of that consultation—complete with participants’ names—be published, and challenged the Ministry of Public Works to come up with an appropriate engineering solution that would allow the remaining trees to stay in place.
The town council has responded by saying it will engage forestry experts to determine whether the trees are a threat to residents’ safety.
GSA News, meanwhile, reported that residents of the area stood on both sides of the issue, saying the felling of the trees has long been a topic of debate. While some are in favour of this route to developing the area, others maintain that the road can be extended while preserving the trees, which are a landmark and have also become a tourist attraction.
Noting that “development with consideration for heritage is still development,” Facebook user Raquel Thomas-Caesar posted photos of the area, along with a short history.
Author Vincent Roth's “A Life in Guyana Volume 2″ credits Philbert Pierre, who managed a thousand-acre rubber and cocoa plantation along the Aruka River, with being “a man of vision” who “believed in the prosperity” of Guyana's northwest district and did everything within his power to further it. He planted the rubber trees in 1922.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Queer and single French women face uphill legal battle to have biological children · Global Voices
Laila Le Guen

Photo from Stocksnap, under public domain.
If French queer couples and single women want a biological child, they have no choice but to resort to travelling outside the country, most commonly to neighbouring Spain and Belgium, for artificial insemination and in-vitro fertilization. In France, these medical procedures are strictly reserved for straight married couples who have difficulties conceiving a child.
On February 3, the conservative French Senate adopted the draft law which excluded its trademark feature—allowing single women and same-sex couples to have biological children in France.
The proposal, which is about extending the right to access fertility treatments to a larger number of French women, has been debated for years. It is part of a broader reform touching on ethics, examining a range of issues, from organ donation to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in medical decision-making.
The Senate first voted to exclude single women from access to fertility treatments. Then, on the same day, the senators denied this right to same-sex couples too. Trans women and men, on the other hand, were never included in the draft law.
As it is a contentious issue with little agreement between France's two parliament chambers, it will now be the turn of a mixed committee, with representatives of the Senate and those of the more progressive lower chamber (l'Assemblée Nationale), to discuss whether to allow these women to start a family.
Yet, supposing the law is passed with the help of the lower chamber, it might be challenged in the Constitutional Court. Still, single women and queer couples have the hope of being able to legally have biological children in France within the next year.
Stephanie, a blogger who’s been following this saga closely, is hopeful that the lower chamber will vote favorably on the issue for queer couples:
Un pas en arrière qui prouve une fois de plus à quel point la droite française est déconnectée de la réalité.
Ils disent qu’ils n’étaient pas au rdv du mariage pour tous, ils ne sont pas non plus à ce rdv là.
Vivement l’AN. Cette ouverture a la PMA, on l’aura. ? https://t.co/rxeI7oVSPM
— Demande À Tes Mères (@_Tes_Meres) February 3, 2021
A step back that proves once more how much the French right is disconnected from reality. They say they failed to show up during [the vote] on marriage equality, they failed to show up this time too.
Can’t wait for the lower house. We'll achieve access to medical assistance for fertility issues.
Even if women earn this win in a few months, they will have to pay for the medical treatments out of their pockets. In January 2020, during the first reading, the French Senate denied the possibility of medical costs being covered by the social security system. The reasoning: heterosexual couples seeking fertility treatments do so on the basis of a medical diagnosis, unlike same-sex couples or single women.
Laurence Rossignol, a left-wing senator who serves as Vice-President of the Senate, has compared this reasoning to the 1982 debates around abortion:
De nouveau la droite sénatoriale s’oppose au remboursement par la sécurité sociale de la #PMApourtoutes . En 1982, déjà la droite s’opposait au remboursement de l’IVG par la sécu. Même argument « la sécu c’est fait pour les maladies, pas pour les convenances personnelles… » ?
— Laurence Rossignol (@laurossignol) February 2, 2021
Once again, the right-wing Senate opposes social security coverage for single and queer women’s fertility treatments [known in French as “PMA pour toutes”, or medically assisted procreation for all women]. In 1982, right-wing politicians already opposed social security coverage for abortion. Same argument: “social security is meant for [the treatment of] diseases, not for personal matters…”
The debate has been dragging on for years, much to the dismay of would-be parents as well as existing “rainbow” families who are forced to exist in a grey legal zone, whether they attempt to (illegally) secure a sperm donation by their own means or request fertility drugs and medical exams from a sympathetic gynaecologist, who in turn risks losing their licence. Becoming a parent in France is often a costly obstacle course, which does not end at the child’s birth, as only one of the partners in a same-sex couple is automatically recognized legally. The other has to adopt their child through a lengthy process.
During the same voting session, the Senate also approved an amendment, popularly known as “post-mortem assisted reproduction,” that would allow a woman whose partner passed away to use his sperm for an artificial insemination in a medical setting.
Twitter user @ManonWyr shared her dismay with a sarcastic comment on the government’s disregard for lesbians’ rights:
dans un monde où les morts ont plus de droits que les lesbiennes… bienvenue en France #PMApourtoutes https://t.co/zIObNrwAPa
— manoushka? (@ManonWyr) February 2, 2021
In a world where dead people have more rights than lesbians. Welcome to France…
Conservative voices have strongly pushed against this debate, with regular marches against the draft law and media appearances to defend “traditional family values.” These are the same groups that protested against same-sex marriage in the early 2010s.
On this side of the issue, the Senate's vote was celebrated as a victory for women and children, with tweets highlighting the recurring arguments of opponents to the draft law:
Les #jeunes de France saluent le courage du @Senat qui vient de rejeter l'article 1er ainsi que l'article 2 du #PJLBioethique !
Ce soir, il n'y a ni #PMAsansPere ni auto-concervation des gamètes!
Grande nouvelle pour les enfants et pour les femmes!#Gonlr #Onlr
— Génération ONLR (@GenerationOnlr) February 2, 2021
The youth of France hail the courage of the Senate who have just voted against article 1 as well as article 2 of the bioethics draft law! This evening, there is no fertility treatment without a father, and no sperm or egg freezing for personal reasons! [Ed. note: In France, only gamete donors and people with certain medical conditions likely to threaten their future fertility are allowed to preserve their own gametes for future use] Big news for children and women!

author: Laila Le Guen


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Indian farmers’ protests: Twitter withholds, then restores, prominent accounts by government order · Global Voices
Samaya Anjum

Indian farmers’ protest in December 2020. Image via Wikimedia Commons by Randeep Maddoke. CC0 Public Domain.
On February 1, Twitter temporarily blocked people in India from viewing more than 250 accounts that appeared to express support to the farmers’ protests that have rocked the country for the past four months. The accounts were restored around six hours later.
Twitter then told news agency ANI that it withheld the accounts in response to a request from India's Ministry of Electronics and IT to block accounts that had tweeted the hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide for making “fake, provocative, and intimidatory tweets.”
The US-based platform explained its decision by pointing to its policy of withholding content in certain countries, which it employs when it receives “a request from an authorized entity” in that jurisdiction.
A source speaking under the condition of anonymity told The Hindustan Times said that Twitter decided to restore the accounts after concluding that the content withheld was “speech and newsworthy.”
The Indian government then lashed at Twitter, saying it may take action against the company if does not comply with its orders. A statement said:
Twitter cannot assume the role of (a) court and justify non-compliance. […] Twitter being an intermediary is obliged to obey the directions as per the satisfaction of authorities as to which inflammatory content will arouse passion and impact public order. Twitter cannot sit as an appellate authority over the satisfaction of the authorities about its potential impact on derailing public order.
Among those suspended from Twitter on February 1 was India's prestigious magazine The Caravan. The publication's executive editor Vinod K. Jose told Buzzfeed news that Twitter's decision to withhold their official account is the “latest in a long list of targeted attacks” that had been mounted on the publication for pursuing important stories.
Activists and organizations that have been posting updates from the protests were also caught on the Twitter crackdown on Monday. Some of them were large popular accounts, such as @Tractor2twitr, @Kisanektamorcha, and @bkuektaugrahan.
The mass suspensions were deplored by the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, who labelled it as a “shocking case of blatant censorship”. The organization added: “By ordering these blockings, the Home Affairs Ministry is behaving like an Orwellian Ministry of Truth who wants to impose its own narrative about the farmers’ protests.”
Many journalists in India have also condemned the action, such as Sania Farooqui:
Today's special in Censorship Nation: Twitter India blocks multiple accounts https://t.co/klpkuWmrUz via @geetaseshu
— Sania Farooqui (@SaniaFarooqui) February 1, 2021
Notable journalist Rana Ayyub tweeted:
We are talking about Emergency in Myanmar but nobody is talking about the undeclared emergency in India. Journalists, activists charged with sedition for reporting on the farmers protest, their twitter accounts suspended, the world cannot afford to ignore this dictatorship
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) February 1, 2021
Farmers joined in sit-in protests near the capital. 5 December 2020. Image via Wikimedia Commons by Randeep Maddoke. CC0 Public Domain.
Hundreds of thousands of farmers in many parts of India have been protesting against liberalizing agriculture reforms approved by the country's parliament in September 2020. Farmers’ unions and organizations say the reform, which among other measures removes subsidies and protections against big corporations, will endanger their livelihoods.
Thousands of farmers have camped for months outside New Delhi demanding the laws be repealed. Authorities have filed several sedition charges against activists and journalists since the demonstrations began, and have imposed internet shutdowns.
The protests drew global attention this week after international popstar Rihanna tweeted about the issue:
why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest https://t.co/obmIlXhK9S
— Rihanna (@rihanna) February 2, 2021
The following day, Meena Harris, the niece of United States’ Vice President Kamala Harris, also took to Twitter to condemn the internet shutdowns.
And on February 4, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg expressed support for the protests on a Twitter thread in which she also shared a “protest toolkit” — a document with resources for those wanting to familiarize themselves with the farmers’ or help with organizing.
The Delhi police then said it will investigate the toolkit's authors, who are thus far unknown.
Many Indians, including politicians, Bollywood stars, and cricketers condemned the tweets by foreign personalities.
In a statement released on February 3, India's Ministry of External Affairs also commented on the foreign personalities’ expressions of support: “The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible.”

author: Samaya Anjum


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China shuts down its most popular piracy website—is it just about copyright? · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Screen capture from yyets.com (Reren Yingish).
Shanghai police authorities raided on February 3 the offices of Renren Yingshi, a website that provides free streaming and crowdsourced subtitles of foreign films and series to its 800 million members. Fourteen people were arrested.
Authorities described the site as a “piracy gang,” claiming its operators profited around RMB 16 million yuan (US$2.5 million) from advertising and subscription fees.
While it is clear that the site has infringed the copyrights of many foreign productions, some Chinese netizens are wondering whether the crackdown was also motivated by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ideological battle against “Western values.”
Renren emerged in 2004 as an online community for Chinese fans of U.S.-made films and series. Members shared pirated versions of them with homemade Chinese subtitles.
In 2006, the community opened to public access, allowing anyone to upload or download subtitles and videos. In 2010, People’s Daily praised Renren's translation community as knowledge distributors of the internet era. Three years later, in 2014 after Chinese president Xi Jinping has fully established his leadership, the site was forced to shut down.
When it resurrected in 2016, Renren restricted access to registered members only. In recent years, it also launched a live-streaming application.
In January 2020, Shanghai police began investigating the site for “violating users’ rights,” which led administrators’ to suspend their entire operation. They placed a notice on the main page saying they were going to review all content to ensure they complied with Chinese law. This took around three months, and then the site went back online.
Last month, the administrators did another content review. This time, however, that didn't save them from the police crackdown.
What drew the attention of netizens was that Shanghai police worked with the National Copyright Administration of China, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, and the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications.
On social media, many Chinese netizens spoke out in defense of the community. Some pointed out that the so-called profit generated from the platform couldn't have been enough for maintaining the server or paying a small honorarium (of around 400 RMB per video) for the translators. Some are worried that they will be unable to watch foreign films if they can't afford a VPN, an essential service for those looking to circumvent the great firewall. Not to mention the fact that since 2019 a few netizens have been punished for using VPN to access foreign sites.
Indeed, Renren isn't the only website of this kind in China, as there aren't a lot of legal channels for mainlanders to watch foreign entertainment. In order for movies and series to be imported officially, they must first be approved by the censorship authorities. And politically sensitive content isn't the only thing that might be barred —  sexual or violent scenes are often cut out as well before they are screened on Chinese TV or cinemas.
Chinese netizens’ sentiments were best reflected in a post called “Mourning for the Renren subtitle translation community: We are not proud of copyright infringement but are ashamed of not being able to access copyright works” (悼人人字幕组：我们不以盗版为荣，但以看不到正版为耻). The post went viral on WeChat and Weibo before it was taken down.
The author, Yang Shiyang, explains how its millions of users view Renren:
在美剧迷心中，人人字幕组是个神一般的存在，是符号、是偶像、是icon，某种程度上说，这家字幕组是一代美剧迷的启蒙，是他们让美剧真正进入了一代年轻人的生活，且从此变得不可分割，即便后来各种字幕组遍地开花，分工愈细，风格各异，但人人依旧以其快速优质的翻译被奉若神明。
所以，它每一次“遇难”都会在剧迷群体里引发巨大震动。
Among fans of U.S. drama, the Renren subtitle translation community is like a god, it is a symbol, an idol and an icon as the community has helped a whole generation of US drama fans. Although similar translation communities were established later, Renren outrivals them all in terms of translation speed and quality. That’s why, whenever the site suspends its operation, people react strongly.
While admitting copyright infringement is wrong, the author explains how Chinese people are forced to resort to it:
明确地讲，盗版是错误的，为创作者和出品方付费天经地义，因为影视也是一种商品，但我们这里的问题在于这付费的正途不通。
如果说二十年前，中国的消费者还尚且没有足够的版权意识，那么现在，看看那些国内网站付费会员制的情况就会明白，无论意识层面还是消费能力层面，我们都已经没有问题，我们愿意给那些优质的娱乐内容付费，但我们举着钱无处可付。
谁能告诉我，我想看HBO、Netflix、Showtime、Hulu、amazon、AMC 、Apple+等等一系列最大众的流媒体内容，我该怎么办？墙伫立在我们面前，它巍峨坚固得让人绝望，但人类寻求精神满足的欲望与寻求肉身满足的欲望一样强烈且不可抵挡，所以，饥饿的人只能另寻门路，那些歪门邪道都是被逼无奈的选择。
Obviously, copyright infringement is wrong and authors and publishers should be paid for their work. But our problem is that we have no channels to pay.
Twenty years ago, Chinese consumers did not have a lot of awareness about copyright. Now, just take a look at the blooming of sites that provide subscribed content, we have the awareness and ability to pay for quality entertainment. But we have no channels to pay.
How can I subscribe to HBO, Netflix, Showtime, Hulu, Amazon, AMC, Apple + here? The great firewall is right in front of us. It is very strong and we feel desperate. But the human desire to fulfill spiritual needs is also strong and cannot be blocked. Hence, thirsty people look for a way out, and piracy is the choice of the helpless.

author: Oiwan Lam


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China blocks Clubhouse after netizens discuss Xinjiang and Tiananmen · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Image by the Stand News. Used with permission.
On February 8 China blocked Clubhouse, the United States-based, audio-only social network that mainland netizens have been using to discuss politically-sensitive topics away from the prying eyes of government's censors.
Launched in 2020, Clubhouse is the fastest growing social networking site worldwide. Users — currently surpassing 2 million — can open private chat rooms for friends or join public rooms with up to 5,000 people. The app is still invite-only and available exclusively on iOS.
Although not available in China's Apple Store, mainland users could still download the app by changing their phone's location. Invitation codes were reportedly being sold on Taobao, an online marketplace, for between 10 and 50 US dollars.
For a brief moment in time Clubhouse cracked the Great Firewall, and over the weekend several media outlets have noticed the existence of chatrooms named “Does Xinjiang have concentration camps?” (新疆有個集中營？and “Friends from Tibet and Xinjiang, we want to invite you over for a chat” (「西藏跟新疆的朋友，我們想找你們過來聊天」).
In both rooms, conversations lasted for hours. Some users said they had family members detained in Xinjiang's re-education camps or reported living in fear and under surveillance. Although a number of online patriots questioned the credibility of the testimonies, some Han Chinese have expressed empathy, and sometimes guilt for not being able to do anything to change the situation. Many said they were shocked to hear the testimonies.
Both Sinica podcast host Kaiser Kuo and The Economist's China Affarid Editor Gady Epstein were in the room “Does Xinjiang have concentration camps?”. Kuo summarized the discussions on a Twitter thread:
This discussion in Chinese on Xinjiang is still going on in Clubhouse. Good running thread below. One speaker just asked if 20% of Han Chinese were locked up, forced to speak Uyghur, etc, how would Han Chinese feel about that? Remarkable https://t.co/2sh4kV0xNr
— Gady Epstein (@gadyepstein) February 6, 2021
Clubhouse also has other chat rooms discussing topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen incident, the Hong Kong national security law, feminism, youth activism, among other issues.
The exchanges on Clubhouse not only attracted the attention from foreign media, but also of Chinese state media outlet Global Times, which cited a Weibo opinion leader that alleged the social network “could be used as a weapon by Hong Kong and Tibetan secessionists to spread their political views and become another anti-China opinion platform.”
Many commentators had anticipated Clubhouse eventually would be blocked in China. Political artist Badiucao, who was active in the app's discussions, said the platform was “an air valve in a pressure cooker” when talking to independent journalist William Yang:
… noise that the whole world can hear it. However, we don't know when the #China government's big hand is going to close off that air valve. Regardless, it shows that situation inside the pot isn't as smooth-sailing as the Chinese government tries to make it look.
— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) February 8, 2021
After the Chinese government closed the “air valve”, whoever remained on Clubhouse began to discuss strategies to create uncensored space for genuine exchanges on political issues among Chinese netizens from different regions.
Some users are also worried about the security of the platform as it encourages registration under one's real name and requires access to users’ personal data, such as contacts and voice fingerprints. Others have expressed concern with the fact that Clubhouse's API belongs to Agora, a Shanghai-based company.


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Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago as examples of how smaller countries have been responding to COVID-19 · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

COVID-19 CG illustration by Yuri Samoilov on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica are the only two English speaking countries included in an interactive COVID Performance Index that examines how 98 countries with publicly available data have managed the pandemic so far, following their hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19.
Researchers at the Australia-based Lowy Institute, which describes itself as “an independent, nonpartisan international policy think tank,” attempted to deconstruct various countries’ responses to the pandemic. Trinidad and Tobago ranked at Number 28, while Jamaica came in at Number 31 on the list.
Sorting countries into various categories—by region, political system, population size, and economic development—the study determined whether significant variations exist when it comes to their handling of the pandemic. The findings showed that “no single type of country emerged the unanimous winner in the period examined,” though “smaller countries (with populations of fewer than 10 million people) proved more agile than the majority of their larger counterparts.”
Interestingly, levels of economic development or differences in political systems between countries had less of an impact on outcomes, though countries with “smaller populations, cohesive societies, and capable institutions” were generally found to have a comparative advantage in dealing with the pandemic.
The approach focused on six areas of measurement over the 36 weeks that followed each country’s hundredth confirmed case of COVID-19, up until January 9, 2021: confirmed cases, confirmed deaths, confirmed cases per million people, confirmed deaths per million, confirmed cases as a proportion of tests and tests per thousand people.
From there, the researchers calculated two-week rolling averages of new daily figures for each of the indicators, followed by an average across those indicators for individual countries in each period to produce a score from 0 to 100 (worst to best performing).
In the Americas, which includes the Caribbean region, the spread of the pandemic accelerated during the second wave of the pandemic, making it the worst affected region:
Much of that statistic would have been determined by the large number of COVID-19 cases in countries like the United States and Brazil.
Even now, however, Jamaica's numbers have been steadily climbing and most recently, St. Lucia—which was not included in the study—declared a national state of emergency, which began on February 3. St. Lucia's population is just over 180,000 people. As of February 3, the country had recorded 757 active cases and 1,479 total cases, with 16 COVID-related deaths.
Interestingly, the data revealed that while countries with higher per capita incomes had more resources at their disposal and so far, performed better on average than developing countries, it was a lead they lost by the end of 2020 as second waves began to hit and air travel increased transmission rates.
Meanwhile, much of the Global South was actually able to cope well with the initial outbreak of COVID-19, which the researches ascribed to more preparation time and “a greater sense of urgency […] to put in place preventative measures after the scale and severity of the global crisis became known.”
Jamaica, at the outset, quarantined entire communities and issued travel restrictions against countries like the UK, which had high infection rates. The Caribbean is a popular winter destination for both Europeans and North Americans, and many regional territories introduced travel bans in an effort to keep the virus at bay.
Trinidad and Tobago, meanwhile, put a stop to the arrival of cruise ships and on March 16, 2020 closed its borders completely. While the country has been allowing travel exemptions to repatriate nationals, the borders officially remain closed nearly a year later. Most recently, the government announced that permission would be required for travel both to and from the country.
The Lowy researchers deduced that “low-tech” measures like these, including large-scale lockdowns, “may have created a more level playing field between developed and developing countries in the management of COVID-19.”
However, they noted that the “uneven deployment of the first vaccines against COVID-19 could give richer countries a decisive upper hand in crisis recovery efforts, and leave poorer countries fighting against the pandemic for longer.” This is one of the reasons why the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has called for a global summit to address more equitable distribution:
It's interesting to see how the two Caribbean nations compare, positioned as they are at opposite ends of the archipelago–Jamaica to the north and Trinidad and Tobago to the south. The interactive, which allows users to compare up to five specific countries one one graph, made this easy:
Screenshot comparing the COVID-19 response between Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago taken from the Lowy Institute Covid Performance Index.
The study's methodology noted that fewer reported cases and deaths, both in aggregate and per capita, indicate a better response to the virus. More COVID-19 tests being conducted per capita also offers a more accurate picture of the extent of the pandemic at a national level, and lower rates of positive tests naturally suggest greater control over transmission.
As of February 3, 2021, out of a population of close to three million, Jamaica had performed 170,045 COVID-19 tests (approximately 5.6 per cent), while Trinidad and Tobago, with an estimated population of close to 1.4 million people, had tested 85,910 (approximately 6.1 per cent). Of Jamaica's COVID-19 tests, 16,250 (9.5 per cent) were positive, while Trinidad and Tobago recorded 7,586 positives (8.8 per cent).
Wikipedia has compiled COVID-19 data from countries around the world here, through which the performance of all Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states can be tracked.
Update: As of February 9, Jamaica recorded its highest number of COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour period thus far, with 403 positive cases from 1,935 samples tested.


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‘You messed with the wrong generation’: Daily protests pose strong challenge to Myanmar coup · Global Voices
Global Voices South East Asia

‘You messed with the wrong generation’, one of the protest visuals posted on walls in various cities across Myanmar. Photo supplied to Global Voices by local researchers, Used with permission
The civil disobedience movement launched in response to the February 1 military coup has continued to gather support across Myanmar.
Communication lines have been intermittently disrupted since the coup and internet connectivity was totally cut off on February 6. When service was restored the following day, the world saw images and reports of massive pro-democracy rallies in the streets of Myanmar cities and towns.
Global Voices interviewed local researchers and foreign residents (whose identities have been withheld for security reasons) about the protest movement. One foreign resident shared this account from over the weekend:
The civil disobedience movement asked the public to go out in the streets on Friday [February 5]. The protests swelled on Saturday. Then internet connection was cut off in the country. Protests continued on Sunday until today [February 7]. Hundreds of thousands participated in almost all regions and cities. Police are deployed in the streets but so far no arrests were made. Protest is peaceful. Meanwhile the Than Pone is still being done every night at 8PM.
Than Pone—which means “iron buckets”—is the name given to the banging of pots to ward off evil spirits. Since the coup, collective pot-banging takes place  three times a day in some areas: at 8am, 2pm, and 8pm, for a total of 15 minutes.
Local researchers told Global Voices that many internet users “got pissed off that the internet was shut down and joined the protest.” One researcher had no internet at home so went out to meet a friend and ended up in the crowd.
They observed that people offered the police flowers, water bottles and snacks during the protest in Yangon on February 6.
These videos shared by the researchers offer a glimpse of the large protest in Yangon, the country's largest city:
A glimpse of the weekend protest in Myanmar. Video shared by local researchers with Global Voices pic.twitter.com/WpbhZsLb6j
— GlobalVoices SE Asia (@gvsoutheastasia) February 8, 2021
Weekend anti-coup protests gathered thousands in Yangon and other cities in Myanmar. Video taken by local researchers and shared with Global Voices pic.twitter.com/JwZWZHoxCR
— GlobalVoices SE Asia (@gvsoutheastasia) February 8, 2021
Disinformation has been rampant since the coup. One of the most notorious sources of disinformation is Radio Free Myanmar, which mimics the logo and naming convention of the news website Radio Free Asia.
Local researchers noted that verifying information became more difficult when the internet was blocked:
When you don’t have internet for two days, there is no way to verify those news. Even politicians starting to believe those are rumours.
They were referring inaccurate reports circulating outside Myanmar based on discussions taken place on Chinese social media platform Weibo, such as the military’s supposed readiness to repatriate Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, or that soldiers had staged the coup to protecting the people.
The symbol of the civil disobedience campaign is inspired by the Hollywood film ‘Hunger games’ three-finger salute. Photo supplied to Global Voices by local researchers, used with permission
The researchers also reported that some Buddhist ultra-nationalists have been attempting to mislead coup supporters by claiming that the three-finger salute widely used in anti-coup protests is in fact a Muslim gesture that means “I am the son/daughter of Muhammad.”
The disinformation appears to be a desperate reaction by coup supporters as the civil disobedience campaign gains traction. Here are some photos depicting the defiance of many groups across Myanmar:
UPDATE: Civil servants from the Education and Railway departments in Mandalay, the economic hub of Upper Myanmar, join citywide protests against the military regime on Monday. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) #WhatishappeninginMyanmar pic.twitter.com/Pds0nE7WTT
— The Irrawaddy (Eng) (@IrrawaddyNews) February 8, 2021
Lawyers take part in a protest against the #militarycoup in Yangon, #Myanmar, 08 February 2021. EPA-EFE/LYNN BO BO pic.twitter.com/jXIH7tiP3p
— Mizzima News (@MizzimaNews) February 8, 2021
UPDATE: Thousands of people in Karen State joined a nationwide general strike against the military coup on Monday. Protesters have been marching towards the Karen State government office in Hpa-an since 8 a.m. #WhatishappeninginMyanmar pic.twitter.com/S1Hum5hCUm
— The Irrawaddy (Eng) (@IrrawaddyNews) February 8, 2021
Government workers from Ministry of Ethnic Affairs hold the signs with red ribbons as a symbol of resistance against the #militarycoup during a strike named civil disobedience campaign in front of their ministry headquarters, #Naypyitaw, #Myanmar, 05 February 2021. EPA-EFE pic.twitter.com/gUiMMCQ91L
— Mizzima News (@MizzimaNews) February 5, 2021
Today the people of Myanmar are rising up against the military regime, demanding democracy. This is no longer a protest. It's an uprising. Public nurses, school teachers and forestry officials are taking to the streets to join #2021uprising #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar #MyanmarCoup pic.twitter.com/8Cv52hOqpA
— Myanmar Now (@Myanmar_Now_Eng) February 8, 2021
Teachers and students of Myanmar Mercantile Marine College flash three-finger salute and sing a song as they against the #militarycoup in Yangon, #Myanmar, 05 February 2021. EPA-EFE/NYEIN CHAN NAING pic.twitter.com/TbXSJ4pmdJ
— Mizzima News (@MizzimaNews) February 5, 2021
Even Japanese beer giant Kirin was forced to sever business ties with the military after the coup.
The Burmese Ghouls, a professional esports team that rarely comments on politics, publicly condemned the coup.
In response to the week-long protests, Myanmar military authorities have banned public gatherings of more than five people in some townships. The police also used water cannons to disperse a protest in Naypyidaw, the country's capital.
Police disperse anti-coup protesters with water jets in Naypyitaw
Riot police in Naypyitaw on Monday dispersed anti-coup protesters gathered at the Thabyae Gone Market with water canon, wounding some protesters. (Photo: The Irrawaddy)#WhatishappeninginMyanmar#StopMilitarycoup pic.twitter.com/xasPQOqiSr
— The Irrawaddy (Eng) (@IrrawaddyNews) February 8, 2021
These two recent developments will certainly affect the trajectory of the protest movement in the coming days.
*With additional reporting from Global Voices’ Civic Media Observatory project

author: Global Voices South East Asia


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Alexey Navalny’s views on migrants run counter to his pro-democracy discourse · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Alexey Navalny on the campaign trail in Irkutsk in 2017 in Central Russia. Credit: Evgeny Feldman for navalny.feldman.photo, used under CC-BY-NC license.
While Alexey Navalny has emerged as a rallying figure for a large part of the liberal Russian public and a symbol of opposition to president Vladimir Putin, his image among Central Asians – many of whom live in Russia as migrant workers – is much more nuanced. Indeed, some perceive him as a nationalist who has made discriminatory statements he has neither apologized for nor retracted.
Navalny was thrust into the spotlight as a whistleblower in 2010. Through his blog, the clever use of social media, and the launch of his anti-corruption foundation in 2011, he rose to prominence in Russian politics. His latest investigative documentary about Putin’s Palace on the coast of the Black Sea, which was released on January 19, attracted an audience of more than 100 million on YouTube.
He has paid a heavy price for his outspoken criticism: both Navalny and his brother have been arrested and imprisoned a number of times. On August 20, 2020 he was poisoned, but survived, having undergone treatment and recovery in a German hospital. According to the investigative group Bellingcat, the attempt on his life can be traced back to Russian secret services.
Despite his brush with death and knowing he would face prison charges upon arrival, Navalny returned to Russia on January 17. He was promptly detained and has since become an icon of political resistance and democracy, inspiring thousands of Russians to take to the streets on January 23 in numbers not seen since the 1990s.
On February 2, he was given a close to three-year prison sentence for alleged parole violations.
While Navalny’s actions show personal courage, he has also made public statements about his view on migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus – as well as on the status of Crimea – that do not square with the broader discourse about human rights and democracy he uses to critique state corruption in the two decades of Putin’s undisputed rule.
Global Voices spoke to Sergey Abashin, a professor at the European University at Saint Petersburg, and a leading expert on Central Asia and Central Asian migrants in Russia, to unpack Navalny’s stand on this issue:
Десять лет назад политик участвовал в ежегодных «русских маршах», которые имели откровенный ксенофобский посыл. На выборах в мэры Москвы в 2013 году одним из главных пунктов выступлений Навального была тема миграции, с которой он предлагал бороться, причём его риторика изобиловала ксенофобскими выпадами против среднеазиатских и кавказских мигрантов, обвинение их в преступности, террористической угрозе, чуждости культуры.
Ten years ago, Navalny took part in the annual ‘Russian Marches‘ that were openly xenophobic. During the Moscow mayoral elections of 2013, one of Navalny’s main talking points in his public appearances was the topic of migration, something he proposed to fight, using in his rhetoric a flurry of xenophobic attacks against people from Central Asia and the Caucasus, accusing them of being criminals, posing a terrorist threat and being alien to Russian culture.
Interviewed by Global Voices, Rashid [name changed for security reasons], an Uzbek migrant who has lived in Moscow for over ten years, said:
В России именно он был одним из тех кто вынес из маргинального, не нормального дискурса в либеральный негативное отношение к мигрантам, негатив к кавказскому региону.
He [Navalny] was one of those people in Russia who took this previously marginalized, non-mainstream negative attitude towards migrants, towards the Caucasus region, and brought it to the liberal discourse.
Since 2016, Navalny and his team have tried to deemphasize his past statements, and have avoided talking about the sensitive issue of migration from Central Asia and the Caucasus to Russia, perhaps realizing this could potentially harm his public image.
Still, there have been some embarrassing incidents. During the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, which saw Russia’s annexation of parts of Georgia, Navalny expressed his support for Moscow’s actions and even used derogatory terms against Georgians in his blog posts.
In April 2017, on the eve of the presidential elections for which he was running, Navalny appeared as a guest on an online talk show run by Yury Dud, one of the top vlogging influencers in Russia, and denied being a nationalist.
Yet, when the host asked why he wanted to impose a visa system for Kazakh citizens while requesting that Germany allow for a visa waiver for Russian citizens, Navalny responded, “I see that people from Central Asian countries come to Russia, and I don’t see anything valuable in this.”
Economic and demographic indicators, though, tell a different story. Russia has been steadily losing its population, and migration into Russia prevents those numbers from being overly negative. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were several million migrant workers in Russia, coming mostly from Central Asia. In November 2020, the official figure stood at 1.8 million. There are no exact figures, however, as many migrants come from countries that allow visa-free travel to Russia and often do not work legally.
The role of Central Asian migrants is vital for everything from heavy industry to construction and other services to the point where, in January 2021, the Russian government restated the acute need for migrant workers from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
If the importance of migrant workers is such a well-known fact, why has Navalny stated a number of times in the past that migrants are a problem, if not a threat? Professor Abashin explained:
Навальный является популистским и прагматичным политиком, идеология не является для него основным принципом и он больше ориентируется на настроения своей потенциальной российской аудитории. Если в обществе вновь появится сильный запрос на анти миграционную программу и если эта тема опять выйдет на первый план в общественных настроениях, потеснив темы Украины, Запада, ковид-19, я думаю, что Навальный способен вернуться к антимиграционной с ксенофобскими элементами риторике.
Navalny is a populist and a pragmatic politician. Ideology is not a key principle for him, he is a lot more attuned to the mood of his potential Russian audience. Should Russian society express a strong demand for an anti-migration discourse, and if this topic moves to the fore of the public agenda to dominate the issues of [the war with] Ukraine, the [role of the] West, or COVID-19, I believe he is capable of returning to an anti-immigration rhetoric with elements of xenophobia.
Rashid shared similar views:
Вряд ли он не понимает насколько важны мигранты для экономики России. Но он должен пользоваться поддержкой простых людей, кого можно убедить что во всем виновата нынешняя власть, которая передала мигрантам всю работу, и поэтому сейчас в России все так плохо.
It is unlikely that [Navalny] does not understand the importance of migrants for Russia’s economy. But he needs the support of regular Russians, people he can convince that the current government is to blame for everything that is wrong, the same government that has offered all the jobs to migrants, which is why everything is wrong in Russia today.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part analysis on the perception of Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny from a Central Asian perspective. Read Part 2 here.

author: Filip Noubel


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Canadian, US cannabis corporations threaten Colombia’s indigenous communities · Global Voices
J. Fernanda Sánchez Jaramillo

Misak People in the department of Cauca, Colombia. Wairaquetzal/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
This story was originally published on Media.coop; an edited version is published on Global Voices.
In 2016, when the Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) was signed, Colombia also introduced the legal growth, processing, and exportation of medical cannabis. To date, total investment in medical cannabis farms and laboratories in that country has reached approximately $600 million Canadian dollars, including “roughly $100 million invested by Canadian firms, which are among the first movers in the sector,” according to Michael Cullen and Miguel Salcedo, international consultants at FTI Consulting.
That same year, national authorities granted the first license to PharmaCielo, a Canadian corporation whose subsidiary company is located in Rionegro, in the province of Antioquia, and which employs 500 Colombians. According to PharmaCielo's media liaison, their commitment to their operations in Colombia overall has remained “unchanged since establishment.”
“It is the core of our business strategy, and we expect to continue to grow over time,” the spokesperson told Media Co-op in an email.
The company works with Seynekun, an association led by the Arhuaco people that serves indigenous communities working on different projects in the Sierra Nevada, located between the provinces of Magdalena and Cesar.
PharmaCielo also works with Caucannabis Cooperative, which seeks to improve people's health through medicinal cannabis. This cooperative has 63 members of different rural and ethnic groups, including farmers and members of the Nasa and Paeces indigenous communities who are spread across five municipalities: Jambaló, Corinto, Caloto, Miranda y Toribio, North Cauca.
Additionally, Asocolcanna, a Colombian association of cannabis industries, includes 30 members, at least eight of which are the Canadian and Colombian-Canadian companies Pharmacielo, Khiron, Nusierra, Ecopharma, Canopy Growth, Avicanna, Cleaver Leaves, Green Health, as well as other Canadian companies not named on its website, such as Verdemed and Aphria.
According to Fedesarrollo, a Colombian socio-economic research centre, the world’s cannabis market is expected to grow 44 per cent by 2025.
In 2019, One World Pharma, a US-based corporation, obtained Colombian licenses for non-psychoactive low-THC cultivation and the manufacture of hemp derivatives and seed use. They also touted their partnership with the Misak People for the cultivation, purchase and sale of non-psychoactive cannabis and hemp for medicinal and scientific research.
This company also works with Wala Cannabis. Both received the Medal Croix of Belalcázar from the provincial assembly thanks to their investments in 2019. (Belalcázar was a Spanish conqueror and founder of Popayán city in Cauca whose statue was toppled by Misak people last year.)
This massive influx of cannabis investment, however, puts the traditional living standards of indigenous nations like the Misak at risk. More than 26,000 Misak people live across the country in Cauca, Caquetá, Huila, Putumayo, Valle del Cauca, Cundinamarca and Meta provinces and many are uneasy about cannabis cultivation.
Mama Mercedes Tunubalá, a Misak mayor of the municipality of Silvia in the province of Cauca, explained to Media Co-op that ancestral authorities are worried about the future of young generations and the social disruptions this type of monocrop brings, as evidenced by poppy crops for opium in the past.
“We believe in medicinal plants, cold and hot, which have their functions, but cannabis isn’t part of our traditional medicine,” she said in Spanish. “We are not interested and don’t use it.”
Jesús Tunubalá, political secretary of the Council of Taitas and Mamas, ancestral Misak Nu Nakchack authorities, also says cannabis cultivation can bring conflict on lands where different social actors such as paramilitaries and drug dealers dispute the territory.
He also defends their own agricultural practices which he says are respectful of Mother Earth, including the cultivation of diverse crops in yatules (orchards) around their homes. These, he said, promote traditional ways of farming which cannabis monocrops do not.
The Misak’s situation is worsened by the fact that they face a deficit of land.
For example, in the Guambia reserve, 78 per cent of the land is protected as important ecosystems and sacred areas, which leaves a mere 22 per cent of land available for agricultural use.
Taita José Pillimue, a Misak vice governor of the town council at Guambia reserve, added that the cultivation of cannabis monocrops has divided their people, as some growers disrespect the guidance of ancestral authorities who protect the land and the community's food sovereignty.
The division is already taking place, as some Misak-run companies have partnered with US-based One World Pharma, namely Farmacéutica Indígena Medicinal Wala Cannabis Zomac Colombia S.A.S and Pharma Indígena Misak Masnar S.A.S. Media Co-op tried to contact the companies but did not get responses by press time.
However, ancestral Misak authorities are clear.
“Misak People will not bow down to the induction of a corporative regime in our territories,” read a press release, “because we will not sell our workforce, nor will we become workers of a foreign company.”
Cauca is the second Colombian province with the largest indigenous population, strategically located in the southwest, with a route to the Pacific Ocean, a variety of climates, fertile land, rivers, minerals and metals.
According to the Colombian Drugs Observatory, Cauca was the province with the most poppy crops and the number one with cannabis in 2017. Fourteen of the 91 massacres in 2020 happened there, which included the murder of 96 of the 300 social leaders living there. This year has already seen yet one more massacre in the area.
Colombia’s location is ideal for foreign investors because of its climate, sunlight, geostrategic location for exports and lower production cost (approximately $0.50/gram of cannabis flowers compared to $2.10/gram in Canada). Lower costs of production mean a cheap (underpaid) workforce.
This explains why the number of licenses granted by the country's Ministry of Health is so high. There were 632 as of December 30, 2020, in addition to those approved by the Ministry of Justice and Interior.
Last year, mainstream media reported that Pharma Indígena Misak Manasr S.A.S, run by a group of Misak, had obtained the first license for cannabis cultivation and would work with the US-based company One World Pharma.
But despite this being touted as “good news,” national ancestral authorities Misak Nu Nakchak—Fogón de la Autoridad Mayor and Unidad del Pueblo Misak—expressed their opposition.
In a press release written in Spanish, they recalled their mandate from the 2017 and 2019 national congresses which prohibits both the expansion of monocrop plantations and external forms of economic pressure perceived as a threat to ancestral sovereignty.
In the press release, they declared: “We decided that none of our national territories Nu Nakchak will allow the experimentation of the collective land with monocrops, mining exploitation, and other projects which break the equilibrium of our health, culture, spirituality on the Misak territory.”
Misak authorities further stated that producing cannabis feeds multinational corporations, which diverts land that the Misak require for their own needs and disrespects the legacy of the ancestors who fought for it.
Taita José Pillimue believes that the Colombian government should limit the entrance of transnational corporations, which influence the political economy wherever they go.
International presence on indigenous territories, he emphasized, has a negative impact on their culture and economic stability.
For this reason, he added, the proliferation of multinational corporations, which accumulate wealth for industrialized countries, is simply not welcome.

author: J. Fernanda Sánchez Jaramillo


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Lost and found: The struggle to preserve Nepal’s linguistic heritage · Global Voices
Nepali Times

Image by Monika Deupala. Via Nepali Times. Used with permission.
This article by Alisha Sijapati was originally published in Nepali Times and an edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
At last count, in 2019, Nepal had 129 spoken languages, but even as new ones are identified, others are becoming extinct.
At least 24 of the languages and dialects in Nepal have become “endangered,” and the next three ones on the verge of disappearing are Dura, Kusunda, and Tillung, each of which has only one speaker left.
“It will not surprise me if these three languages will be the next to go. With no one left to speak, we will not be able to save them,” says Lok Bahadur Lopchan of the Language Commission of Nepal, which is entrusted with preserving Nepal’s linguistic diversity.
If a language is spoken by fewer than 1,000 people, it is categorised as “endangered.” Lopchan predicts that over 37 more languages spoken in Nepal are in that category and likely to disappear within the next 10 years.
According to the Language Commission of Nepal‘s 2019 annual report, the languages most commonly spoken in the country are Nepali, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Tharu, Tamang, Nepal Bhasa, Bajjika, Magar, Doteli and Urdu, in that order.
But just as there are languages disappearing, new ones that had never been recognised are being found in far-flung parts of the country, including Rana Tharu which is spoken in the western Tarai, Narphu in a remote valley in Manang, Tsum in the Tsum Valley of Upper Gorkha, Nubri Larke in the Manaslu region, Poike and Syarke.
Child reading Newar folk story, “Dhaplaan Khyaa,” by Durgalal Shrestha. Photo: Ashish Shakya via Nepali Times. Used with permission.
“It is fortunate that these languages have been identified, but it is unfortunate they are spoken by very few people, and could very soon die out,” says Lopchan, who adds that every two weeks, an indigenous language goes extinct somewhere in the world.
Even those that are among the top 10 most spoken in Nepal are losing their first-language status. Parents insist on proficiency in Nepali or English in school to ensure good job prospects for their children. And ever since King Mahendra’s reign, the state has pushed Nepali as the lingua franca to the detriment of other national languages.
Supral Raj Joshi, 29, is a voice actor and grew up speaking Nepal Bhasa (Newar language) at home. But from primary school onwards, it was Nepali and English only in class, and he soon forgot his mother tongue. Speaking Nepali with his family, it suddenly struck him how much of his culture he had lost with the language.
“The loss of Nepal’s languages is the result of deliberate state policy; our linguistic heritage was swept away to promote a national character,” says Joshi.
King Mahendra instituted measures to create a unified Nepali identity through dress, language, and even dismantled democracy and instituted the partyless Panchayat system that he said: “suited the Nepali soil.”
Experts say that the decision to enforce the idea of nationalism through one language restricted indigenous communities from speaking their ancestral tongue.
Maithili script. Image via Nepali Times. Used with permission.
“The dominant class made its language the national language, and in doing so, other languages suffered collateral damage,” says Rajendra Dahal, Editor of Shikshak magazine. “The end of a language is not just a loss for a community, but for the country and the world.”
At the Language Commission of Nepal, there is a sense of urgency to save the three languages that each have only one speaker left. It has partnered with 45-year-old Kamala Kusunda, the only living person in the world who speaks Kusunda. She now runs a small private school in Dang to teach the language to over 20 students.
“If I die, then my mother language dies with me too. I had to revive this language for its value to our people, and the hope of keeping our ancestral language alive,” Kamal Kusunda told Nepali Times over the phone.
Muktinath Ghimire in Lamjung has a similar task. As the only remaining speaker of Dura, he is preparing to start a school to teach the language to others in the community. “We can’t let this language die,” he says.
Other languages like Tsum, more recently identified as distinct dialects, were already endangered by the time they were identified as being unique.
“Older people in Tsum Valley exclusively speak Tsum, but the younger generation is losing the language,” says Wangchuk Rapten Lama, a fluent Tsum speaker himself who is working to expand its use by introducing the language to children through cultural activities.
Canada-based linguistic anthropologist Mark Turin worked with the Thangmi in Dolakha District and Sindhupalchok District to document their endangered language.
“To speak of linguists saving languages is just as ludicrous as suggesting that Apps and digital technologies save the language,” he says. “Neither is true, and field linguistics is still dominated by quite colonial and extractivist models of knowledge production.”
He says speakers of indigenous languages like the Thangmi deserve recognition as they work tirelessly to reclaim, rejuvenate and revive their ancestral languages, often in the face of considerable opposition.
After Nepal went into the federal mode, it was expected that schools across the country would teach regional languages. Article 31 of the Constitution says: ‘Every Nepali community living in Nepal shall have the right to acquire education in their mother tongue up to the secondary level, and the right to open and run schools and educational institutions as provided for by law.’
The Curriculum Development Centre along with rural municipalities introduced a “local curriculum” bearing 100 points. While some schools offer mother tongues as an option, a majority choose the “local curriculum.”
In October 2020, Kathmandu Mayor Bidya Sundar Shakya made it mandatory for schools to teach Nepal Bhasa from Grade 1-8. But there was a mixed reaction from parents, with many feeling it would burden the students and their Nepali and English would suffer.
Languages stop evolving once people stop conversing in them. Ancestral languages are also needed to root people in their heritage and give a distinct identity. This is becoming more and more difficult all over the world with globalisation and the internet.
“My little children only speak English,” says Saraswati Lama who is married to a Rai, and works for a non-profit in Kathmandu. “My daughter learned it from YouTube and she taught it to her younger brother.” Neither Lama, nor her husband speak their own mother tongues and use Nepali to speak with one another.
But these days, it is in the Nepali diaspora that the country’s linguistic heritage seems to be valued more. Sujan Shrestha was born in Kathmandu but moved to the US while he was in high school. Now a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, he says his wife and children only speak English and Nepal Bhasa, and no Nepali.
“Nepal Bhasa gives the kids an identity, and connects them to the extended family, especially their grandparents. It is about teaching our kids cultural sensitivity and open-mindedness towards other cultures and people.”

author: Nepali Times


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Nearly six centuries after his birth, who owns Alisher Navoiy, the ‘father of Uzbek literature?’ · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Alisher Navoiy metro station in Tashkent decorated with art evoking the 15th-century culture of the poet. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
February 9 marks the 580th anniversary of the birth of Alisher Navoiy, a 15th-century poet, linguist and thinker who has come to play a central role in the nation-building process of Uzbekistan.
The concept of nations is relatively young in Central Asia, a region that for centuries identified more around religion, important urban centers and language. People defined themselves as being Sunni, Shia, Jewish, or as coming from regions gravitating around key cities such as Bukhara, Samarkand, Kokand, Ghulja, Kashgar where local political and military power concentrated.
Linguistically very mixed, Central Asia has mostly combined two main language families: Persian and Turkic. Persian was the language of the court, of literature and philosophy, but also penetrated Turkic languages with hundreds of words. To this day, many Central Asians are equally fluent in Tajik or Dari, languages belonging to the Iranian group of languages, and Uzbek, Turkmen or Kyrgyz, for example.
Arabic also played a major role in religion, education and knowledge, while Russian entered the space as a colonial language in the 19th century.
As for Turkic languages that evolved over time into separate modern languages, known today as Karakalpak, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tatar, Turkmen, Uyghur or Uzbek, they all shared a common literary language known as چغتای or Chagatai, written in the Arabic alphabet, and used from the 15th to the 20th century.
Alisher Navoiy was a poet and thinker who is mostly remembered today in Uzbekistan for having championed the use of Chagatai that serves as the foundation for the modern literary and spoken Uzbek language.
Typically, Navoiy was a Central Asian who crossed regions, cultures and languages during his entire life. He was born in 1441 in Herat (now in Afghanistan), studied in Masshad (a city in Iran) and Samarkand (located in Uzbekistan), and died in Herat, where he is buried. He was a polymath who constructed buildings, served the local political power, and wrote in three languages (Chagatai, Persian and Arabic), mostly poetry. One of his most famous works is the Muhakamat al-Lughatayn, (known in English as the “Judgment Between The Two Languages”) a treatise in which he compares the merits of Persian against Chagatai and concludes that the Turkic language is superior.
Such a statement was unusual, to say the least at this period, given the prestige attached to Persian and the relative lack of texts written in Chagatai. This is why Navoiy is celebrated in the Turkic world, and especially in Uzbekistan, as the father of Uzbek literature. He took his pen name from the word “navo” which means melody, a poetic aspiration reflected in his ghazals, the short poems largely inspired by Sufi imagery in the Muslim world. His most famous works include “Xamsa” (“The Quintuple), a collection of five epic poems that includes cult love stories, such as Farhad and Shirin, or Layli and Majnun, and the “Lison ut-Tayr”(“Language of the Birds”). He also wrote treatises to help other poets write in the Chagatai language, and embrace the Turkic heritage.
A 1947 Soviet movie by Tajik director Kamil Yarmatov, called “Алишер Навои “ (Alisher Navoiy) and available in both Uzbek and Russian, embodies his image as a key figure in the nation-building process of a Soviet, albeit Uzbek, identity. The movie had cult status in the Soviet Union and includes a part, in the 21st minute, where Navoi defends the importance of a “Turkic language that can unite the people”:
One of the key priorities of Uzbek authorities since the demise of Islam Karimov who ruled the country with an iron fist from its late Soviet period to 2016, has been a rebranding of the image of the country, emphasizing its potential for tourism along the Silk Road. Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the current president, is very keen on relying on cultural symbols to present his country as an attractive destination for both tourism and investments. Thus the 580th anniversary of the birth of Navoiy is given particular attention through events inside and outside the country. The poet is already very present through statues, streets, a university, a scholarship, a metro station and a theater named after him in the capital, Tashkent, countless books and his place in the school curriculum. This video, marked with the trending hashtag #navoiyiftixorim in Uzbek (meaning #NavoiyMyPride) displays images of landmark places and monuments associated with the poet, accompanied by readings of his poetry:
But while those celebrations remain official and very much in the hands of the government, as during the Soviet period, some call for more diverse ways to celebrate Navoiy.
A’zam Obidov, a Tashkent-based poet, literary translator and cultural activist who founded Uzbekistan’s Literature and Art Bridge, told Global Voices:
“В Узбекистане не существует хотя бы маленького международного фестиваля поэзии, международного фестиваля писателей. Мои многочисленные обращения о создании института Наваи за рубежом просто игнорируются. Нет прайвит-паблик партнершип в сфере искусства, культуры и литературы. Эти сферы, если хотят развиваться, должны быть независимыми, то есть полностью негосударственными, как в Европе. Для этого нужны нормальные законы. Например, если предприниматель, филантроп или какая-та организация поддерживает литературу или искусства, то, автоматически им предоставляется льгота по налогу.
In Uzbekistan, there are no small international festivals of poetry, or writers. The many calls I have made to establish a Navoiy Institute abroad are being ignored. There is no private-public partnership in the area of the arts, culture and literature. If those fields are to develop, they have to be independent, that is entirely outside of the sphere of the state, as it is done in Europe and the US. For that, we also need normal laws, for example, if a businessperson or a philanthropist or an organization supports the arts or literature, they automatically get a tax-cut.
While Navoiy has been widely translated into Russian, there is indeed very little translation available in English, complains Obidov who calls for more funds and attention from the government on this task. Meanwhile, he has himself produced a few translations showing the sophistication and complexity of Navoiy’s language and imagery, in the hope that other translators will be inspired to recast Navoiy in their own languages.


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Olympic head’s misogynistic remarks highlight Japan’s persisting sexism · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Caption: Nojo Momoko (22) of No Youth No Japan. In an interview on national television, Nojo asked, “Does Japan Olympic Committee chair Mori really understand what the problem is?” Screencap from ANN News official YouTube channel.
Sexist comments made by a former prime minister and current president of the Japan Olympic Organizing Committee drew a strong backlash in Japan and around the world.
Not only did the controversy threaten to torpedo, once and for all, Tokyo's ill-fated summer Olympic games, but it also highlighted the discrimination women still endure in Japan.
During a press conference on February 3, Olympic Committee chair Mori Yoshiro (83) remarked that women “talk too much“:
女性がたくさん入っている理事会の会議は時間がかかります女性っていうのは競争意識が強い。誰か1人が手をあげていうと、自分もいわなきゃいけないと思うんでしょうね。それでみんな発言されるんです
Meetings of boards of directors with a lot of women take so much time. […] Women have a strong sense of rivalry. If one (female) member raises her hand to speak, all the others feel the need to speak, too.
The off-the-cuff remarks ignited a firestorm. The hashtags #DontBeSilent, #GenderEquality and #男女平等 (also “gender equality”) trended on Twitter, with many people sharing their outrage at Mori's comments.
Several European embassies in Japan included the hashtags as they tweeted pictures of staff raising their hands in protest of Mori's remarks.
Nojo Momoko, the 22-year-old representative of No Youth, No Japan, a group dedicated to encouraging youth to become more active in politics, launched an online petition signed by more than 140,000 people so far in just one week.
?♀Please Sign Our Petition!
We request that Tokyo 2020 Chairman Mori’s recent behavior are properly addressed and steps taken to ensure that similar behavior will not be tolerated in the future.#DontBeSilent #genderequity #男女平等https://t.co/UebUa4GSjm @change_jp
— 能條桃子 \NO YOUTH NO JAPAN/ (@momokonojo) February 5, 2021
In the face of immediate criticism, Mori first defended his comments by saying he “doesn't speak to women much.” He offered a complete retraction but appeared to resist stepping down from his role as Japan Olympic Committee chair.
These were not Mori's first prominent public comments that were demeaning towards women. Following the recent uproar, the former head of Japan's Rugby Union, a woman, disclosed that Mori had directed sexist remarks to her in 2013.
In 2014, as newly installed head of the Japan Olympic Committee (JOC), Mori criticized Asada Mao, a figure skating superstar beloved in Japan, for failing to complete a triple axel at the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
During his short term as prime minister in 2000, Mori made so many gaffes — some of them evocative of wartime ultra-nationalist rhetoric — that there is a section of his Wikipedia entry devoted to them.
Mori's government lasted for just one year before he resigned with an 8 percent public approval rating. After retiring in 2012, Mori would eventually be named “supreme advisor” of the Japan Sports Association. A former rugby player, Mori was chosen to lead the Japan Olympic Committee (JOC) in 2014.
Under Mori's leadership, the JOC seems to be in no danger of being forced to listen to women. Of the 25 JOC board members, just five are women. This is despite a JOC policy target, based on a governance code for sports organizations, that at least 40 percent of its directors should be women.
In fact, Mori appears unaware of how many women actually sat on the JOC board:
JOC chair Mori’s sexist comments get even worse. Asahi: he also said “the current 7 female JOC members know their place.” (There are only 5; he can’t even count women correctly.) The other JOC members laughed right along with him. Is this kind of Olympics we want, @iocmedia? pic.twitter.com/erypDk1nCw
— Hiroko Yoda (@Ninetail_foxQ) February 4, 2021
While Mori's remarks have been characterized as an “obsolete patriarchal leadership style,” the support for Mori by men in prominent leadership positions suggests that sexist, anti-women attitudes are in fact quite normal and are the main reason why Japan is so commonly referred to as an “underdeveloped country for women.”
Powerful men closed ranks to protect Mori from criticism. For example, Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide (72) initially declined to comment, claiming he was unfamiliar with Mori's remarks. But as the backlash continued to mount, the prime minister admitted that Mori's comments were “not desirable for (Japan's) national interests,” while stopping short of asking the JOC chair to resign.
Mori also received support from many other notable Japanese men, including influential politician Nikai Toshihiro (81), and Nakanishi Hiroaki (74), who serves as the chair of both the giant conglomerate Hitachi, and the industry lobby group Japan Business Federation (Keidenran).
Nakanishi implied that the reaction to Mori's remarks was an example of “cancel culture”:
Keidanren Nakanishi: “Honestly speaking, I feel that in Japanese society, a lot of ppl understand Mori's remarks deep down in their heart.
If you are honest enough to put it into words, you get ganged up on on the Net. I feel a bit frightened.”https://t.co/Xtdcj6b2q8
— 猫ぐるま (@neko_guruma01) February 8, 2021
Observers pointed out that Mori made his misogynistic comments in the presence of senior Japan Olympic Committee officials, who chuckled in response.
NYタイムズ記事。
But the problem is that no one stopped him. The biggest news is that he said this in the official place of the JOC meeting, where reporters were attending, and that no one stopped the discrimination.
でラスト締めくくり。https://t.co/gfraBDsjaR
— ケイ (@key_s410) February 3, 2021
[top] From the New York Times…
[bottom] This (above tweet) is how the Times should have reported the story.
It was revealed that Mori offered to resign because of his remarks, but the JOC instead insulated him from criticism, fearing his resignation would imperil the Games. The International Olympic Commission (IOC) also at first refused to criticize Mori for his remarks.
As nearly 400 Olympic volunteers and two torch bearers quit in protest, a former Olympic athlete pointed out that Mori's comments  may have violated the IOC's code of ethics:
Former Japanese Olympic judo silver medalist Noriko Mizoguchi points out the clause of the IOC code of ethics protecting human rights and rejecting any form of discrimination
President Mori appears to have not read, or understood, this clause…
Time for the IOC to step in https://t.co/NSPhiEayWL
— ????? Kjeld Duits (@KjeldDuits) February 4, 2021
The comments also exposed the unpopularity of the Tokyo Summer Olympics, which had already been postponed from 2020 to 2021. A survey conducted on February 6, three days after Mori's remarks, found that only 14.5 percent of Japanese people say the Olympics should be held as planned.
The continuing COVID-19 pandemic and Japan's slow vaccine rollout pose challenges to holding the rescheduled games this year.
This banner unfolded in Tokyo urges Olympic chief Mori to resign. It also reads: “Cancel the Summer Games and concentrate on coronavirus prevention.” I couldn’t agree more. https://t.co/gtjYV1LJDR
— Thoton Akimoto (@thoton9) February 6, 2021
As the Japanese government spends 15 billion USD on games that still have no clear COVID-19 mitigation strategies, an increasingly impoverished class of gig workers in Japan struggles to survive. Job cuts in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic have also disproportionality affected women.
Even women who enjoy prestigious and seemingly powerful careers may be at a disadvantage in Japan.
Mari Miura, a professor at Sophia University's Faculty of Law who specializes in gender and political science, notes that the women Mori disparaged as “talking too much” are likely purposefully excluded from the decision-making process:
森さんは、場をわきまえた男性理事は会議で発言しないのに、女性は比較的、積極的に多様な発言をしている、[…] 本音の話し合いは会食などの裏の会合で行い、公式の場では決まったことに皆が従う、という流れで物事が動いてきました。
Mori thinks that in comparison to men, who know when not to speak, women are more likely to engage in discussion in formal meetings. […] However, the real discussions are held at meetings [among men] behind the scenes such as at dinners. [In formal meetings], men then agree [without discussion] what has already been officially decided.
Entrenched sexism also dissuades younger women from speaking out. Aradhna Krishna, a well-known marketing innovator who is professor at the Ross School of Business, laments that Mori's remarks, and the tacit acceptance by men in power, are an example of why women's voices are often absent:
As profs., we try to have women speak up more in class. Why are many so quiet? The sentiments of Tokyo’s olympics chief provide one expln. He announced that women talk too much and that their speaking time should be limited. Methinks HE needs a Gag-order. https://t.co/7kH5V4x2Yt
— Aradhna Krishna (@AradhnaKrishna) February 4, 2021

author: Nevin Thompson