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‘Hiroshima Timeline’ uses tweets to portray real-time experience of world’s first atomic bombing · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Screencap from Hiroshima Timeline documentary on NHK on Demand.
To mark the 75th anniversary of the August 6, 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japanese public broadcaster NHK has launched an innovative way to commemorate the world's first use of nuclear weapons. The “What If They Had Social Media in 1945” (もし、75年前にSNSがあったら) project uses imaginary tweets based on the diary entries of three people who lived through the bombing of Hiroshima. Three Twitter accounts created for the project share a chronology of real-time tweets before, during and after the attack on Hiroshima.
★スタッフからのお知らせ★
やすこさんのツイートは、1945年に今井泰子さん(当時26)が書いた日記をもとにしています。
日記原文?8/1～7https://t.co/sU31lGnvN1
現代の広島に暮らす3人の女性が日記や資料を読み込み、関係者への聞き取りを行いながら作っています。#ひろしまタイムライン
— やすこ＠ひろしまタイムライン (@nhk_1945yasuko) August 7, 2020
Yasuko's tweets are taken from the 1945 diaries of Imai Yasuko, then 26 years old. Her diary entries (written in Japanese) from August 1 to August 7, 1945 can be found at the following link: https://www.nhk.or.jp/hibaku-blog/timeline/genbun/yasuko/434035.html
The diary entries came to be used for this project after three women who currently live in Hiroshima read them, and who then spread the word (about their importance).
Using three Twitter accounts, the Hiroshima Timeline project follows the lives in 1945 of Koichiro Osa (@nhk_1945ichiro), a 32-year-old reporter for the Chugoku Shimbun, Yasuko Imai (@nhk_1945yasuko), a 26-year-old homemaker pregnant with her first child, and Shunichiro Arai (@nhk_1945shun), 13, a junior high school student.
On August 6, 1945, in the final days of World War II, an American aircraft dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima in western Japan. Up to 80,000 people—30% of the population of Hiroshima at that time—were killed instantly, and much of the city was destroyed. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, the city of Nagasaki experienced a similar attack.
For the Hiroshima Timeline project, three Twitter accounts were launched in late March, 2020, and used an “on-this-day” format to share observations and experiences of daily life from 75 years ago in the months leading up to the August 6, 1945 bombing.
In April, 1945, Shunichiro Arai had just entered middle school and was still learning how things worked.
【1945年4月26日】
今日は数学の時間に平板測量というものをした。この時間に僕は級長に、一番大切にしていた消しゴムを貸してあげた。数学が終わり返してくれと言うと、失くしたと言う。そういうきちんとしてない所も、皆にバカにされてしまう理由なのかもしれない。#ひろしまタイムライン
— シュン@ひろしまタイムライン (@nhk_1945shun) April 26, 2020
(April 26, 1945)
Today in math class we learned about how to “survey area”. I gave the senior boy (head of class, 級長) my beloved eraser. While he said he would return it after math class, he said the eraser had “disappeared.” When he does careless things like this, it's no wonder everyone says he's an idiot.
According to an article in Tokyo Shimbun, the Hiroshima Timeline project was supervised by playwright Yaginuma Akinori. Ordinary citizens of Hiroshima of different ages and all walks of life participated in the project to help write the tweets. Participants read period newspaper articles and listened to stories by relatives in order to understand the lives, personalities, and sensibilities of the three people profiled in Hiroshima Timeline.
The tweets were published according to corresponding diary entries, but were rewritten in a more accessible contemporary vernacular, all with the goal of presenting what ordinary people thought and felt in during wartime.
The project also provides eyewitness accounts of the events of August 6, 1945, when an American aircraft dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Reporter Koichiro Osa had just finished breakfast at his suburban home and was preparing to go to work when the bomb exploded. Left with a mouthful of dirt, first he checked to make sure his wife was safe, before venturing towards the city center.
【1945年8月6日】
あれはなんだ！
たけり狂う炎が、メリメリ、ゴーッと音を立てながら猿猴川の水を巻き上げている
地獄だ。大焦熱地獄。#ひろしまタイムライン#もし75年前にSNSがあったら
— 一郎@ひろしまタイムライン (@nhk_1945ichiro) August 6, 2020
(August 6, 1945)
What was THAT? A blazing fire is roiling up the water of the Sarugawa River, growling with a splintering, crackling roar. It is hell on Earth. A great fiery hell.
Junior high school student Shunichiro Arai also lived in a suburb of Hiroshima, but had already been on his way to school when the bomb exploded. He experienced gruesome scenes as he navigated the ruins of the city, including a slowly marching column of badly wounded burn and blast victims.
【1945年8月6日】
顔が崩れている…目も鼻も崩れている
人、じゃない、あんなふうにはならない
人の形をしているが…#ひろしまタイムライン#もし75年前にSNSがあったら
— シュン@ひろしまタイムライン (@nhk_1945shun) August 6, 2020
(August 6, 1945)
Faces totally destroyed, eyes, noses erased. These can't possibly be people, even if they are human forms…
Homemaker Yasuko, whose husband was away from Hiroshima, serving as a conscript in the military, also survived the initial blast. The Hiroshima Timeline described her experience in a tweet that was shared thousands of times:
【1945年8月6日】
ものすごい光　地響き、家が揺れて　電気の傘やガラスがふきとんで#ひろしまタイムライン#もし75年前にSNSがあったら
— やすこ＠ひろしまタイムライン (@nhk_1945yasuko) August 5, 2020
(August 6, 1945)
An incredible flash of light, a rumbling in the earth, the whole house sways, as lampshades scatter and window panes are blown out.
The sense of realism is so strong that a concerned reader asks about Yasuko's unborn baby:
やすこさん！
お腹の赤ちゃんも大丈夫でしょうか
— ひだまり工房?高円寺 RAVEL様で委託販売中 (@genkiniikirudh) August 5, 2020
Yasuko-san! Is your child in your tummy all right?
The Twitter account for Yasuko Imai was managed in part by Hiroshima resident Naori Fukuoka, whose grandparents experienced the bombing, and then had to live through devastation and hardship that persisted for years following the end of the war in August, 1945.
In an interview with Tokyo Shimbun, Fukuoka says:
８月６日に焼け野原になってたくさんの人が亡くなったことだけが原爆じゃない […] ずっと放射能の怖さを感じ、大勢の死傷者を見たトラウマ（心的外傷）と生きなくちゃいけない。原爆とは何だったか、私たちが考え出すのはこれからだと思う.
The atomic bomb not only killed all those people on a scorched field of earth field on August 6, 1945 […] Ever since that day we have all had to live in fear of radiation, and collectively we (in Hiroshima) have had to live with the trauma of witnessing mass death. When people wonder what happened on that day, from now on it is up to us to pass on that memory.
The Hiroshima Timeline project will continue to post tweets based on the diaries of the three eyewitnesses until the end of December, 2020.
The Hiroshima Timeline timeline documentary is available to watch online.

author: Nevin Thompson


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The historic selection of Kamala Harris as the Democrats’ vice-presidential candidate resonates in the Caribbean · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris speaking with attendees at the 2019 National Forum on Wages and Working People in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo by Gage Skidmore on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
The August 11 announcement that Joe Biden, the Democratic party's candidate for the presidency of the United States, had chosen Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, has sent waves of celebration throughout the Caribbean.
Harris’ father, an economist and professor emeritus at Stanford University, was born in Jamaica when it was still under British rule — and although she identifies as American, Caribbean netizens still claim her as a descendant of the region. So, too, do Caribbean people of Indian descent, as Harris’ mother, a breast cancer scientist, was born in Madras, India.
From Trinidad and Tobago, writer Ira Mathur, herself of Indian descent, felt that the choice allowed “so many of us [to] see ourselves represented.” She wrote on Facebook:
From Madras and Jamaica with love to America […] from the West Indies to South Asia we couldn’t feel prouder or have more hope for a Trump shattered America.
In a piece for CNN, writer Fredreka Schouten contemplated what the move meant for “islanders” like herself:
I, too, am from the Caribbean […] but descended from people who came from all over what the late Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite once called ‘a whole underground continent of thought and feeling and history.’
We carry the archipelago within us, looking and listening, always, for bits of what we left behind […] the habit — a preoccupation, really — with detecting the Caribbean heritage in the people around us.
To the nation, Shirley Chisholm represents the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first to pursue a major-party nomination for the presidency. To me, she's also the daughter of a seamstress from Barbados and a factory worker who came from Guyana. Colin Powell, the first African American to serve as Secretary of State? His parents hailed from Jamaica. Former Attorney General Eric Holder, Barbados roots. […]
Harris, who made a run last year for the Democratic nomination, has navigated public life as a Black woman in America.
That's not to say she doesn't embrace all of who she is.
Whether or not the Democrats emerge triumphant come November, Harris has already made history by becoming the first Black and South Asian American woman candidate for a well established political party.
Many social media users suspected Harris would be Biden's vice-presidential pick, and although most were pleased with the choice, they also understood that it wasn't a straightforward one.
Renee Cummings, a Trinidad-born criminologist and artificial intelligence (AI) strategist who lives in New York, noted:
She has the experience and she has the look and she has the energy that [Biden] doesn’t have but she also has a lot of baggage when it comes to black and brown men and the criminal justice system. But they must have worked out their strategy and messaging moving forward. She also represents ‘law and order’ and someone who was ‘tough on crime’ and ‘incarcerated a lot of black and brown men’ and they may be seeing that as a good counterbalance for the Trump campaign. She probably polled well among non people of color. She also has a white husband. So the aesthetic works politically. She’s also a very intelligent woman, articulate, and very savvy and will make a good VP. But she’s also half Jamaican so a big moment for Caribbean people in America.
She summarised her thoughts by saying Harris is “great for diversity,” adding:
She is also the daughter of immigrants and represents the promise of America pre-Trump’s attack on immigration. She ticks a lot of boxes.
Trinidadian Twitter user Caroline Neisha agreed:
I completely underestimated the enthusiasm & emotion Kamala’s selection would inspire… how much it would mean to so many. The usual corners of grumbling… but heart full from seeing how happy, proud, energised this is making people. ❤??
— caroline neisha (@carolineneisha) August 12, 2020
Jamaican social media users also found Harris to be a unifying force, and a firm vote of confidence came from Wayne A. I. Frederick, the Trinidad-born president of Howard University, Harris’ alma mater. Posting a photograph of himself and Harris at a graduation ceremony, Frederick said on Facebook:
Today is an extraordinary moment in the history of America and of Howard University. Senator Kamala Harris’ selection as the Democratic vice presidential candidate represents a milestone opportunity for our democracy to acknowledge the leadership Black women have always exhibited, but has too often been ignored. […] As Senator Harris embarks upon this new chapter in her life, and in our country’s history, she is poised to break two glass ceilings in our society with one fell swoop of her Howard hammer!
Harris’ unique experience as a multiethnic child of immigrant parents who were very involved in the activist movements of the 1960s — she was part of the second class of students to be desegregated through busing — undoubtedly helped shape her identity and worldview. In her announcement post on Facebook, she said:
My mom and dad, like so many other immigrants, came to this country for an education. My mother from India and my dad from Jamaica. And the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s brought them together. Some of my earliest memories are from that time: My parents being attacked by police with hoses, fleeing for safety, with me strapped tightly in my stroller.
That spirit of activism is why my mother, Shyamala, would always tell my sister and me, ‘Don’t just sit around and complain about things. Do something.’
That’s why I became a District Attorney and fought to fix a broken system from within. Why I served as California’s Attorney General. Why I’m proud to represent my state as a U.S. Senator. And it’s why, today, I’m humbled to be joining Joe Biden in the battle to defeat Donald Trump and build a country that lives up to our values of truth, equality, and justice.
Not everyone bought into her explanation. One Twitter user suggested that Harris once used her Jamaican heritage “to uphold an anti-Jamaican stereotype for unaccumulated relatability a broader white audience”. He is referring to a radio interview in which Harris joked about smoking marijuana, after which her father publicly distanced himself from her statement.
Harris’ record of incarcerating high numbers of people of colour is also proving problematic for some, and while there have been opinion pieces that declare the Biden/Harris combo as “disastrous,” some have also deemed it “wise.”
Former Jamaican prime minister P.J. Patterson, a classmate of Harris’ father, noted the ways in which she has grown:
She has been incisive, she goes to the heart of the issue that has to be resolved, particularly at this time when the US itself is going through severe challenges — including, but not confined to, matters pertaining to race. It is good to have someone on the ticket who can look at that and who has ethnic origins.
As the writer Schouten attested:
Who knows what will happen in the months ahead. But for the islanders keeping score — always reconstructing that continent of islands, if only in our minds — Harris will remain the first daughter of the West Indies on a major-party presidential ticket.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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After its general election, Trinidad & Tobago’s racist underbelly is showing · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Screenshot of a line from Trinidad and Tobago's national anthem, which reads, “Here every creed and race finds an equal place,” taken from a YouTube video by Hardeo Roopan.
On August 10, Trinidad and Tobago held its general elections. The preliminary results showed that the incumbent People's National Movement (PNM) led by Prime Minister Keith Rowley had won, with 22 parliamentary seats to the opposition United National Congress‘ (UNC) 19, one seat more than it currently had.
The two largest demographic groups in Trinidad and Tobago comprise people of Indian and African descent and for the most part, they vote along these lines, with Afro-Trinbagonians supporting the PNM and Indo-Trinbagonians, the UNC.
The 2020 election campaign was a short but bitterly contested one. While both sides of the political aisle are not strangers to playing the race card, during the course of the 2020 election campaign the UNC was singled out — on more than one occasion — for race-baiting.
It also received a lot of flak for what many social media users agreed was a racist ad campaign. Dubbed the “Trinity Triangle,” it canvassed the Black vote by portraying Afro-Trinidadians as struggling economically and surviving on handouts. It has since been taken down from the party's YouTube channel.
Facebook user Ancil Valley, who posted screenshots from different advertisements, simply could not wrap his head around it:
The first time I heard the word cosmopolitan I was in primary school, it was used as one of the adjectives to describe the nation of Trinidad and Tobago. A place where people of varied ethnicities live and work together. It stands to reason that within each of these ethnicities there are social hierarchies, some more fortunate than others. […]
How therefore, can a political party in running a national campaign in efforts to become the government of all the peoples of Trinidad and Tobago, consistently portray one race as impoverished and downtrodden? The images […] are taken from three separate campaign ads, the consistency therein dismisses any notion that this was merely cultural insensitivity.
Posting an empowering photograph of herself in a proud, elegant pose, dressed in a full length floral dress and vibrant yellow head wrap, fellow Facebook user Mo Martin also felt compelled to take a stand, creating a hashtag that really took off:
This is beyond politics now ?.
In an effort to combat the racist & stereotypical narrative being promoted by the UNC I am asking all people of African descent (Mixed included) to post your qualifications & successes with the hashtag #IAmNotSuffering on your wall. […]
People of all races have people who suffer. Please stop using Afro-Trinidadian ppl ONLY to depict a stereotype & promote this harmful narrative.
Blogger and University of the West Indies lecturer Amilcar Sanatan took issue not only with the use of images of children in political campaigns generally but also with the definitive use of minors along ethnic and socioeconomic lines.
In deconstructing of some of the advertisements, he explained:
What they do in their targeting is create a narrow view of black life in those circumstances. It focuses singly on poor, black people without an attempt to show how poverty and displacement shapes the life of other racial categories. The ads are cheap and they frame poor black people as a political commodity to compete for. […]
What we need are representations that are closer to life and not to our prejudices. This also demands that we move beyond the racist scorecard that counts what PNM does racist and what UNC does racist. To build a more racially just and equal society, we should be brave enough to speak up and call out what is wrong.
In a subsequent Facebook post, Sanatan provided a road map as to how “anti-racism and a more equal society” could be accomplished, including the support of civic institutions, social movements “that do race and class solidarity work” and that push for “more fair, democratic and inclusive” institutions:
What we see which is miserable and unequal cannot only be responded to with our feeling of remorse, it has to be matched with education and political action. Cultural discourse and memory, language, social and economic policy, the racial and spatial division of labour, issues of access require many more people who are governed by principles of human rights, solidarity and justice.
It is the people, not politicians, that move the political needle on issues. Conflict and misunderstanding may always be a part of our society but spaces of engagement, ethics and standards to the way we present ourselves and represent people can change.
Once it became apparent that the UNC had lost the election, some stalwarts began expressing their discontent in racist language, further polarising the local blogosphere.
Naila Ramsaran, one of several Indo-Trinidadians who shared racist rants on social media, referred to Afro-Trinbagonians as “cockroaches [that] keep populating.” The backlash was swift and she soon posted an apology; it was a mea culpa that Garth St. Clair, in a post published on Wired868, refused to accept:
What you really meant to say was: ‘I am sorry for speaking out loud what I, my circle of friends and family really think about the African community. […] I said what I said, please don’t hurt me or our family business because we still need ‘Your Cockroach money’ to live our best life. So let’s move on.’
This election, we voted against racism especially. This blessed country is way too small to start a race war. Blame your leaders and supporters for your loss, not us.
Massy Stores, the country's largest supermarket chain, has since decided to “temporarily suspend” stocking products from Ramasaran's, her family's beverage company, and the Supermarket Association of Trinidad and Tobago advised its members that they should boycott the company until it carries out “appropriate remedial action.”
The Opinion Box blog, however, was not interested in boycotting. The blogger, a Black person, posted a video on Facebook saying he “refuse[s] to contribute to this ‘cacaholeness‘” [asshole behaviour]. He also pleaded with those perpetuating “disgusting” racial slurs to recognise how their stupidity only further divides the country.
Many social media users, like attorney Cordell Salandy, who started an online petition asking for “legislation to penalise racial discrimination, actions and words of any kind”, are interested in effecting change.
Facebook user and activist Tillah Willah observed:
We are desperate for institutions that can help us process this unchecked rage. We are desperate for safe spaces to work through inherited and generational traumas. We are desperately in need of policies in work places and schools to address what is rotting in our brains.
Our politicians clearly don’t have the consciousness nor the inclination to address these problems.
We have work to do, in addition to the two days of outrage, the two days of public shaming, the two days of boycotts.
Poet Shivanee N. Ramlochan eloquently echoed her sentiment:
The best we can do, even at the pinnacle of carrying out our democratic gift, is to try to find the least flawed path through the terror: the global health crisis, the violent crime, the invidious bribeocratism, the denuding of the mangroves, the rot at the heart. The rot at *our* heart. Because it is our communal heart, no matter its colour.


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An earthquake shook Tanzania. A new law prohibits citizens from speaking about it online. · Global Voices
Pernille Baerendtsen

An earthquake was felt in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 12, 2020. Photo by Chen Hualin, April 1, 2011, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY 3.0.
When a major earthquake of 6.0 on the Richter scale shook coastal East Africa at around 8:15 on August 12, Tanzanians quickly took to Twitter to report on the unusual natural event that momentarily swayed chandeliers, shattered windows and cracked walls.
The earthquake hit beneath the Indian Ocean, approximately 82 kilometers from the shores of southeast Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the nation's cultural and financial capital. Residents on the Zanzibar archipelago as well as coastal Kenya also felt the tremors. No deaths or injuries were reported. A moderate aftershock was reportedly felt the next day.
Today's earthquake here in dar es salaam, Tanzania.. The video shown here is at Akemi revolving restaurant #earthquake #tanzaniaearthquake pic.twitter.com/6lR8ZRPtJ8
— . (@ageingpiers) August 12, 2020
The unprecedented earthquake in recent history gripped the attention of Tanzanians on Twitter, but  tremor news was quickly tempered by new online content regulations that prohibit citizens from reporting on the “occurrence of natural calamities” — like earthquakes — “without the approval of respective authorities.”
Last month, Dr. Harrison Mwakyembe, Tanzanian Minister of Information, Culture, Arts and Sports, signed the new “Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Regulations, 2020,” which replaces the 2018 regulations with a few additional stipulations that further tighten free speech online.
According to LEX Africa (Lawyers for Africa), the 2020 online content regulations “apply to all contents broadcasted to the public through internet websites, application software, forums, blogs, weblogs, microblogs, public account, instant messaging tools like WhatsApp, online live streaming, aggregators, and other related platforms like YouTube.”
Fines are no less than 5 million Tanzanian shillings (approximately $2,151 United States dollars), or 12-month imprisonment, or both.
Under the law's category of “public information that may cause public havoc or disorder,” Tanzanian citizens are technically not allowed to mention an earthquake before the government has officially approved the messaging around it.
But can you expect people to keep quiet when they experience an earthquake?
About an hour after the earthquake struck Tanzania, netizen Gaure Mdee tweeted the regulations with a snarky, but “fair warning” to those who intend to tweet about the earthquake:
Fair warning for those mentioning an earthquake in #Tanzania ?? pic.twitter.com/zbUkt5vUzm
— Gaure Mdee (@Profesy) August 12, 2020
Which was quickly followed by a few humorous tweets like this one:
All you people talking about ‘I felt the tremor!’ – please make sure a govt official has verified your tweet. ? https://t.co/aF2qS65Y0a
— Wayua Muli (@MizMuli) August 12, 2020
Earthquakes are not the only matters getting muted.
The new online content regulations also prohibit citizens from sharing any “content with information about an outbreak of a deadly or contagious disease,” without government approval, including related discourse on medications and cures.
This amendment was added after the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 hit Tanzania in March 2020.
By early April, the Tanzanian parliament decided to promote an herbal steaming strategy against the virus known as kupiga nyungu, which loosely translates in English as “hit the potion,” encouraging citizens to do facial herbal steams and eat blended potions of lemon, chili and ginger.
President John Magufuli also urged Tanzanian citizens to pray to God, and he insisted that houses of worship stayed open. In early May, Magufuli suspended Tanzania's national laboratory, which performed COVID-19 tests, after questioning the accuracy of its tests.
Since April 29, Tanzania has not published official COVID-19 data, and ultimately, in early June President Magufuli declared Tanzania free of COVID-19. BBC journalist, Sammy Awami, describes how citizens experienced the COVID-19 situation in Tanzania.
On the evening of the earthquake, netizen James Rut quipped:
Has Magufuli approved that there was a huge earthquake in Tanzania? It might be a hoax from enemies of the country #Tremor
— James Rut (@james_Rut) August 12, 2020
And netizen Wavinya Kiagiri asked the next day:
So you want us to pretend it didn't happen, the same way y'all are pretending there's no COVID? #AskingForAFriend https://t.co/pdoN40sPVK
— Wavinya Kiagiri (@wavinya_) August 13, 2020
Twitter user Jakom sarcastically joked, using a reference to how the president earlier declared Tanzania “corona-free”:
Magufuli just declared Tanzania Earthquake Free ? #tremor
— JAKOM? (@JakomRon) August 12, 2020
All jokes aside, some netizens pointed out that the government had failed to issue a potential tsunami warning following the earthquake, and took the risk of pointing it out on Twitter:
An earthquake of 5.9 magnitude,12 km in depth in Kilindoni,Pwani has been felt around East Africa. Tsunami warning is needed but still Meko [Magufuli] don't care about the citizens.@fatma_karume @MSalimu @MariaSTsehai @Greathinker12 pic.twitter.com/rVHKmhs1dz
— DR. Robert Kasainne (@KasainneRobert) August 12, 2020
The new regulations were issued just ahead of the presidential elections in Tanzania in October. The incumbent party, Chama cha Mapinduzi, or The Revolutionary Party (CCM), has held power since 1961. Recent elections have amplified challenges to their position.
The new regulations prohibit online calls for protests, including any “contents that are involved in planning, organizing, promoting and calling for demonstrations, marches or the like that would lead to public disorder …”
The Tanzanian Regulatory Commissions Authority, who issued the new online content regulations, has the power to intervene on any content deemed to “threaten national security.” Critics say these regulations violate the constitution including Article 13 and Article 18, which protect freedom of information, according to The Citizen.
Critics call these new regulations an attempt to further stifle opposition voices in the run-up to the 2020 election, making it nearly impossible for citizens and candidates alike to speak openly about the issues or the contenders. In recent years, journalists and human rights defenders have been disappeared, detained or imprisoned under dubious charges.
While election campaigns are well underway, the government has also allegedly prohibited the circulation of foreign-made media about Tanzania in the country without government approval, leaving critics to wonder how journalists can fairly and freely cover the 2020 elections.
Magufuli has received both praise and criticism for his stern approach to leadership with his “hapa kazi tu” slogan, loosely translated as “it's all work here.” But the slew of new laws and regulations that restrict freedom of expression and silence dissent and opposition in the East African nation goes way beyond this.
“Magu-phoria” has been followed by “Magu-phobia,” writer Sabatho Nyamsenda suggests.
COVID-19, an earthquake and an upcoming election are three very different issues, but each has the potential to seriously impact people's lives. Is it really possible to control online conversations on issues that matter most to people? And if so — at what cost?

author: Pernille Baerendtsen


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How a bad translation of ‘Black Lives Matter’ ended up enabling racist narratives on Chinese social media · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Chinese poster on #blacklivesmatter. Image from Liang Xiao Wen's Twitter.
As the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the killing of George Floyd in the United States evolved into a global anti-racism movement, communities around the world were inspired to translate the protest slogan into their own languages.
The task, however, isn't always straightforward. On Chinese social media, there has been a lot of debate around what would the most appropriate translation of “Black Lives Matter” in Chinese — and the confusion contributed, perhaps unwittingly, to the spread of racist discourse among Chinese-speaking communities.
The most popular translation of the hashtag #blacklivesmatter or #BLM in Chinese is #黑命貴, which means “black lives are expensive” or “black lives are valuable.”
But describing someone’s life as expensive in Chinese usually implies that the person in question is from a privileged social class, as a few netizens have pointed out:
Side note, the translation'黑命贵’ works for right wing xenophobic agenda (didn't know who coined it), for ‘贵’ literally means ‘precious’ and ‘valuable’, and it's used to spread the misinformation that BLM is about ‘black lives value more than other’
— 铪锶合金 (@thundy2002) June 9, 2020
While some have proposed alternatives such as #黑人的命也是命 (“black lives are lives”), #黑人同命 (“black lives are the same”), and #黑命攸關 / #黑人生命攸關 (“‘black lives’ is an important issue to address”), those are rarely used.
Instead, the misleading translation seems to have caught on. @SlowZhu, a user who follows and supports the Hong Kong protests, noticed that it even appeared on a Netflix talk show, and urged the program to change it:
Here’s the @netflix translation in simplified Chinese for BLM in @patriotact. 黑命贵 doesn’t mean black lives matter in Chinese, but applies that black lives matter more or only black lives matter. It’s not a secret that Asian communities hold certain type of images of black ppl. pic.twitter.com/613zTvQGMx
— ((走马困))??? (@SlowZhu) July 16, 2020
As a bilingual user, knowing the harm “黑命贵” creates, I urge ppl who understand this issue to ask @netflix Please audit the simplified Chinese subtitles, please check the misleading/racist translations. Words matter, #BLM
— ((走马困))??? (@SlowZhu) July 16, 2020
The “黑命贵” translation has been widely used by Chinese diaspora communities, in particular anti-CCP media outlets such as Epoch Times, Bannedbook.org, Aboluowang.com, and by post-1989 Chinese political dissents.
When the Chinese tag #黑命貴 appears on Twitter, the content usually includes negative views of the BLM movement.
For example, one video that appeared on the top results of a search for #黑命貴 depicted a violent scene of a dark-skinned man beating up a Chinese woman in Guangzhou. The video was tagged with #BLM and in Chinese #黑命貴 (“black lives are expensive”), #黃命賤 (“yellow lives are cheap”), and #廣州 (“Guangzhou”).
Many tweets using this tag, such as this one by @Sumerian0 from August 7 and this other one by @lamfromorient from August 5, have resonated with supporters of the rightwing conspiracy theory that the BLM protests are organized by Antifa, which US President Donald Trump has threatened to designate as a “terrorist organization.”
The flood of #黑命貴 (#black lives are expensive) discourse on Chinese social media has given Chinese-speaking communities around the world an impression that Chinese-Americans don't support the BLM protests.
However, there are many young Chinese-Americans who have been proactively addressing the anti-black racism within their communities, sharing strategies to talk about the issue with their family members, and participating in protests in the US and around the world:
Happy Juneteenth Day! We are joining today’s #JuneteenthDay event at City Hall New York. #chineseforblacklives #asiansforblacklives #yellowperilforblackpower pic.twitter.com/CsmuHcd1p8
— ChineseForBlackLives (@chineseforblac1) June 19, 2020
From seadyke :”#Chinese4BlackLives join the movement and be the change! None of us are free until all of us are free! #blacklivesmatter” pic.twitter.com/5idhlv0lvU
— ChineseForBlackLives (@chineseforblac1) June 13, 2020
HK protestor are in line with BLM,
#BlackLivesMatter
人命攸關，豈可視人命如草芥？#黑人生命攸關 #黑人命非草芥
We Hong Kongers are against #PoliceBrutality . pic.twitter.com/43cr5fZFWo
— I ??????我反抗?ergo sum?故我在?Ⓐ?? (@LynxEvil721) July 28, 2020

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
‘This is a partisan movement of a partisan nation’: a Belarusian poet reflects on her homeland’s turmoil · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort. Photo (c): Tanya Kapitonova, used with permission.
As events unfold in Belarus following presidential elections whose results are contested by the opposition and a large part of the population, Belarusian artists are speaking out to denounce state violence and express solidarity with protesters. Valzhyna Mort, a celebrated Belarusian poet who lives in the US and writes in Belarusian and English, spoke to Global Voices about her response, her impressions, and what she is doing to raise awareness.
Valzhyna Mort is the author of two poetry collections, “Factory of Tears” and “Collected Body”. She is a recipient of the Lannan foundation fellowship, the Amy Clampitt fellowship, and the Bess Hokins prize from “Poetry magazine”. She also teaches at Cornell University. Her second Belarusian-language book, “Эпідэмія Ружаў” [The Rose Epidemic], came out in 2017. Her next book, “Music for the Dead and Resurrected”, will be published this year.
The interview has been edited for brevity and style.
Embroidery by Belarusian artist Rufina Bazlova depicting Belarusians supporting the opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsihanouskaya. Image used with permission.
Valzhyna Mort (VM): This was supposed to be a peaceful change in power in my country. This moment has taken so long because people didn’t want violence. We, Belarusians, who have endured many wars, would say to ourselves: “Let’s endure for a bit longer. No revolution is worth a human life.”
This year, when presidential candidates were imprisoned and declared criminals overnight, people have been moved by the clarity of just how weak and pathetic our government really is. Belarusians do not have to do anything in order to ensure their government fears them, it’s enough to just exist. Violence is being committed against defenceless people by riot police and Interior Ministry troops. It began with people being beaten and arrested for making a victory sign on their way to work. Right now, riot police are dragging people out of grocery stores and their cars at random, beating and arresting them.
When the election fraud started with the formation of polling committees and the non-accreditation of independent observers, it seemed obvious that it needed to be opposed by following the most basic legal steps. Even if the state-controlled court didn’t agree, just the fact of a hearing on the issue made the corruption visible. A strong sense of grassroots solidarity that had already formed during the COVID-19 pandemic when the government failed to offer systematic support, developed into well-informed civil engagement. When fraud started at the polling stations, I, despite being on the other side of the ocean, felt that I could see through walls and to read the sheepish minds of officials.
At the same time, the government didn’t know what to expect from its people. Perhaps it expected violence? Is that why the riot police and troops keep behaving as though somebody is attacking them? Just now, I saw a picture of a 15-year-old boy motionless on the ground with three policemen beating him. Perhaps the greatest weakness made visible in these past months has been how little the state knows its own people.
FN: Belarusians have often been described as politically indifferent. We have seen them taking to the streets for four nights, braving police violence, arrests, and threats. What is different this time?
VM: What’s happening in Belarus is unique. We don’t want to sacrifice a single life: in Belarus, there’s nothing but the blood of our people under our feet. This blood is nameless, boneless, voiceless. To be born in Belarus means to inherit fear and fearlessness, shame and shamelessness, voice and voicelessness. But one thing is certain: to be born in Belarus means to inherit a great invisibility and self-reliance. Planting vegetable gardens, making preserves for the winter, sowing, fixing things, reading, showing up to educational and cultural events: these are all political activities of self-reliant people who feed themselves, clothe themselves, and educate themselves. This is why what we are witnessing in the past three days and nights is unlike protests we've seen elsewhere. This is a partisan movement of a partisan nation that has been surviving on self-reliance for centuries.
The internet in Belarus is shut down, and yet, I have just watched a brief interview with a janitor at a subway station who shows a mobile phone recording of the blood she had to clean up. With the help of Belarusian Telegram channels I’ve watched more Belarusian TV than during my years in Belarus. All these are videos of police violence recorded by private individuals onto their personal mobile phones and then shared with the world. This, along with the self-organised, non-centralised street partisan protest, is a version of polyphony, the favourite literary device of our writers Ales Adamovich and Svetlana Alexievich. This is our tradition.
Embroidery by Belarusian artist Rufina Bazlova representing police forces putting down their protective gear and weapons. Illustration used with permission.
FN: Many Belarusians such as yourself have made the choice to live outside their country for political and economic reasons. Is the diaspora playing a role today? Can it and should it play one?
VM: This is a moment of a worldwide Belarusian solidarity. We are all people with little knowledge of our roots, with family trees hanging on a single chance survivor, all we have is each other. We are too alone and invisible in the world not to be united. And yes, the diaspora is doing everything to draw international attention to the Belarusian struggle for dignity. There are protests with concrete demands, petitions, and fundraising. There is keeping in touch, as simple as getting through the phone disruptions in order to check on family and friends and let them know that they are not alone.
In Belarus, people are trapped without any means of communicating with the outer world, without a clear understanding of what is seen, what is understood about their situation. Foreign journalists have been deported. Many journalists have been shot at and beaten by police. Some reporters, especially in Russia, have so little knowledge of Belarusian situation that they might be doing more damage than help with their baseless parallels with Ukraine and/or unapologetically colonial frames.
So, it is the duty of all of us outside the country to make Belarus both visible and supported. Again, this is not something that had to be declared. Rather, it was immediately felt, it went without saying. It is my belief that most people in the diaspora didn’t leave for good. We have ties to home, we return regularly, we educate our children about where they come from, we provide a support system for our people back in Belarus and for Belarusians everywhere.
FN: You are a poet who writes in both Belarusian and English. How is Belarus present in your writing? Do current events in Belarus influence what you are writing or might write?
VM: My new book of poetry “Music for the Dead and Resurrected” is a deeply Belarusian work. I will publish it in Belarusian in Belarus when it becomes possible.
In these past few days I’ve been living entirely online, in a virtual Belarus. My body’s clock has shifted, I cannot tell what work I actually had to do during these few days. I might have a light version of PTSD – seeing people discuss American politics or going about their day as if nothing were happening in Belarus seems absurd and, more so, it enrages me. In my many years of living abroad, I’ve felt out of place many times, but this is a new level of that feeling. I do not want a single person who isn’t watching Belarus right now anywhere near me. Of course, this is all raw emotion. Americans didn’t go on strike when children died in cages on their own southern border. But I can say this: I’m tired of ignorant curiosity. I want to see international empathy.
Today, I’ve written a statement in solidarity with Belarusians and sent it out to a couple of editors. I wanted to publish it immediately so that everybody drops everything and sees what’s going on in my home. When I hit the “send” button and the text slipped out of my hands, a great fear overcame me. I wondered whether I had actually dreamed what I described in my statement. I imagined somebody reading it – somebody having lunch and saying “oh wow, she is too much, so angry, so emotional,” and I got scared that everything was just a trick of my own insane mind.
Then my phone buzzed. My dear friend was writing to me via Telegram from Minsk: “We hear gunshots and explosions. Does anybody outside see us?”

author: Filip Noubel


text:
Is moving to Canada the real American Dream? · Global Voices
Owen Guo

“American Flag on Canada Day 2008″  by Antony Pranata is licensed under  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Call it an American’s Canadian moment.
Shortly after a remote work meeting at a local café in early February, Victoria Heath, an American living in Toronto, witnessed something extraordinary. A man approached the barista and asked for water. As he turned to reach for a cup, the man snatched the tip jar. Startled, the café staff tried to convince him to surrender the jar, even offering a few dollars and free food. “I’m sorry Sir, but I have no money,” the man said, with obvious remorse, and walked out with the jar.
The transgression, to Heath’s surprise, produced no further drama. And in a gesture of sympathy, some patrons found an empty jar, and began to fill it with cash.
“This was a surreal thing for an American to witness, because there were no threats or aggression thrown at this man. I’m not even sure the police were called,” Heath later wrote on LinkedIn.“There was just the calm understanding that the man meant no physical harm, and probably desperately needed the money.”
With its steel-and-glass towers, cadres of emotionless commuters, and die-hard sports fans, Toronto may look just like any American city. Yet it is moments like Heath’s that drive home a fact that’s hardly a secret: Canada can feel like a world away from the U.S.
In 2018, I left China, where I was born and raised, to attend graduate school in Canada. I had just ended a seven-year run as a journalist, at a time when the very profession was looking increasingly grim in an authoritarian state. In moving to Canada, I saw a chance of putting down roots somewhere open and democratic. Like Heath, I often find myself—through the mundanity of everyday life as a newcomer—juxtaposing Canada against its neighbour to the south. From working with Americans to my schooling in Canada, both countries have left deep imprints on my personality and worldview.
The author at Beijing International Airport on August 17, 2018. Photo courtesy the author. Used with permission.
For example, I learned colloquial English from watching the American TV series, Friends. For my first master’s degree in China, my thesis supervisor was an American from Kansas. I cut my teeth in journalism at McClatchy Newspapers, an American news organization, and worked for The New York Times in Beijing for almost three years. If my native Chinese culture taught me hard work and conformity, Americans introduced me to another value system, one that prizes critical thinking, ingenuity, and personal liberty.
For a long time, I thought Canada was just another America, only with nicer people and colder weather. Since moving to Toronto, I’ve been fascinated by their special relationship. In my experience, Canadians often struggle to articulate what defines their nation and tend to frame their identity in a we-are-not-them fashion.
“Them”, of course, refers to Canada’s next-door neighbour. “We’re just NOT American,” many Canadians would tell me, before rattling off a laundry list of differences: healthcare system, gun culture, and even national character.
Yet whatever Canadians say about their southern neighbour, the U.S. still looms large in the Canadian psyche.
Consider my campus life. A Canadian classmate often entertained us with his effortless impersonations of U.S. presidents from Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan. One professor boasted that our graduate program had an acceptance rate close to that of top American universities. And despite their disdain for the American way, some Canadians in my cohort followed American politics even more obsessively than they watched hockey.
The University of Toronto campus. Photo by the author. Used with permission.
“Canadians measure Canada inevitably and overwhelmingly against the United States,” Jeffrey Simpson, a former columnist for The Globe and Mail, wrote in his 2000 book Star-Spangled Canadians. “This Canadian measuring produces a kaleidoscope of reactions, ranging from envy to anger, from inferiority complex to moral superiority, from doubt to defiance.”
By contrast, Canada barely registers in the American consciousness. When asked to name the Canadian capital, an American interviewee told BuzzFeed News in 2015 that “It’s either Toronto, or Quebec, or there’s something with Victoria in it?” No wonder author Margaret Atwood compares the U.S.-Canada relationship to a “one-way mirror” through which Canadians see the U.S. but Americans barely see Canada. In 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau famously remarked that being next door to America was like “sleeping with an elephant“ whose “every twitch and grunt” would be felt.
Despite the lopsidedness, some argue that the perceived differences are overblown. Take Charlotte, an American classmate of mine in graduate school who moved to Canada after studying in Scotland for years. “I knew I wouldn't have to adapt all that much. I got to move closer to home than I had been throughout undergrad, but without actually being back in the U.S.,” she said, “Canadians frame themselves as different to Americans because they don’t want to admit how similar they are.”
Indeed, ask what music and movies people from the U.S. and Canada consume, and the lists would be unsurprisingly similar. Both countries are functioning democracies with large immigrant populations. About 70 per cent of Canada’s foreign trade flows through the world’s longest undefended border to the U.S.
Ed Grabb, a sociology professor at Western University, says any attempt at dissecting differences between the two countries must factor in regional variances. To him, the differences can be best understood by dividing the U.S. and Canada into four distinctive subgroups: the conservative U.S. South, the politically and culturally left-liberal Quebec, English Canada, and the U.S. North. “English Canada and the U.S. North are very similar in their attitudes and behaviours,” he told UBC News in 2011.
Still, the “we are non-American” camp in Canada is just as staunch in their belief, driven by a sense of patriotism and Canadian pride. North America, they say, is not a monolithic concept. And even between the closest of neighbours, nuanced differences abound, from politics to etiquette and mannerisms.
A popular 2000 Canadian beer commercial featuring “Joe”, a character in a typical lumberjack-type plaid shirt, was full of jabs at the U.S.
“I have a Prime Minister, not a President. I speak English and French, not American,” Joe delivered his rousing monologue behind a big screen, his voice growing louder as the speech marched on. “I believe in peacekeeping, not policing, diversity, not assimilation … and it’s pronounced “Zed,” not “Zee!”… Canada is the second-largest landmass, the First Nation of Hockey, and the best part of North America! My name is Joe, and I. AM. CANADIAN!”
The chasm is reflected in temperament, too. A stereotypical American is brash, arrogant, and opinionated. Canadians, on the other hand, are thought to be deferential, nice, and risk-averse. The differences—at least according to popular narrative—have been centuries in the making.
In envisioning a new republic, America’s founding fathers wrote “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” into the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Following the American Revolution—a triumph over the British colonizers—the mantra sowed the seed for unbridled individualism and a deep skepticism of government overreach.
Canada followed a different path. Its constitutional mandates—peace, order, and good government—were prescribed in London for a British colony. Late Canadian novelist Robertson Davies went so far as to label his country a “socialist monarchy.” Unchecked liberty and freedom, the thinking goes, risk undermining the greater collective good.
Enter the recent government response to the COVID-19 crisis. While the U.S. at times let bitter partisanship undercut its efforts to muster a strong government response, Canadian politicians of different stripes banded together in a largely collective move to tackle an unprecedented crisis. On a per capita basis, the COVID-19 mortality rate in the U.S. is twice that of Canada’s.
Had I attended graduate school in the U.S., what would my life look like now? Would I be able to rebuild my life in Trump’s America where foreign workers and international students alike have been targeted by a ruthless immigration clampdown?
Unlike the U.S., Canada hasn’t turned its back on immigrants, many of whom arrive in the country nursing different dreams and ambitions. They help build the economy and add to the strengths of the society. According to the latest available official data published in 2011, among the immigrants residing in the host country six to ten years, the average citizenship rate in Canada was 71 per cent, compared to 24 per cent in the U.S.
Morning commuters in Toronto, one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world. Photo by the author. Used with permission.
Of course, Canada is not perfect. Many problems plaguing the U.S., including racism and homelessness, also afflict Canada. Still, the country feels different—safer and more accepting. I feel at ease speaking Chinese on Toronto’s Yonge Street, in a multicultural city where one’s skin colour and accent rarely bring frowns. And while people expect me to be respectful, no one forces me to “act Canadian.”
As I set out to plan my life in Canada during an unprecedented pandemic, I’m also watching anxiously from afar the escalating tensions between my birth country and the U.S., as Beijing and Washington jockey for greater influence globally. Now the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating a nasty race between the two powers, with each side touting their self-proclaimed exceptionalism in governance. Sadly, aggression is emerging as the new currency in global geopolitics. It has bruised Canada, following its arrest of a Chinese tech company executive in Vancouver in 2018 on behalf of the U.S. In the aftermath, Ottawa is confronted with both Beijing’s ire and indifference from Washington.
For many immigrants living in the U.S., the aggression can be just as excruciating. A Chinese friend, who is about to start his PhD at an Ivy League university, packed all his belongings in preparation for the worst when the Trump administration recently threatened, unsuccessfully, to revoke visas for international students whose courses were entirely online due to the pandemic.
Last week, he reached out to me with an unusual request. “Many of my Chinese classmates in D.C. want to immigrate to Canada. Do you have time to chat?” he asked on Facebook messenger. Over a one-hour Zoom chat, he, along with his peers, some of whom work for international organizations like the IMF and the World Bank, showered me with questions about life in Canada—as well as its immigration policy. To them, neither the U.S. nor China feels like home.
Now, two years into my new life in Canada, I still think back to these parting words from a former American colleague: “Congratulations, you’re achieving both the Chinese Dream and the American Dream—moving to Canada.”

author: Owen Guo


text:
Thirty years after his tragic death, iconic Soviet musician Viktor Tsoi continues to inspire demonstrators · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

August 15 marks the 30th anniversary of the tragic death of Viktor Tsoi, the Russian-Korean rock star who was killed in a car crash in 1990.
Photo of the Viktor Tsoi wall in central Minsk. The main writing says  “Ты знал, что будет плохо, но не знал, что так скоро” [You knew, all would be bad, but what you didn't know is that it would happen so quickly], inspired by one of his songs. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Tsoi and his band Kino shot to fame during the latter years of the Soviet Union and are still beloved today. Three decades after his death, Tsoi continues to gain new fans—notably in former Soviet states such as Kazakhstan to Belarus—who are deeply inspired by his anti-authoritarian message.
Even younger generations of Russian-speakers who have no memory of the Soviet period are enraptured by the story of Viktor the rebel, who sided with the people against the system. Many of his songs have a clear political subtext calling for disobedience, urging young people to disregard the authorities and take control of their futures.
One of Tsoi's most famous songs, “Перемен!” [Change!], first performed in May 1986, is experiencing a surge in popularity.
Its lyrics go as follows:
Перемен требуют наши сердца
Перемен требуют наши глаза
В нашем смехе
И в наших слезах
И в пульсации вен
Перемен!
Мы ждём перемен…
Change is what our hearts require / Change is what our eyes require / In our laughter / And in our eyes / And in the pulsing of our veins / Change! / We await changes…
“Перемен!” has become something of a protest anthem in Belarus, where it is being played and sung by opponents of Belarusian president Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who is accused of having rigged the August 9 presidential election in his favor.
In Kazakhstan's capital Almaty, where a statue of Tsoi was erected on June 21, 2018 in honour of his numerous connections to the country where his father was born and lived, the monument has featured in anti-government protest actions, such as the one featured in this tweet:
“И больше нет ничего
Все находится в нас»
Виктор Цой вышел с плакатом «Перемен» в Алматы pic.twitter.com/tWCSiOfvlD
— Timur Nusimbekov (@mr_mysyk) May 30, 2019
“And there is nothing else
All is within us.” [Lyrics from Tsoi's song “Changes” (Перемен)]
Viktor Tsoi came out to protest in Almaty with a poster saying “Changes”
Yevgenia Plakhina, a Global Voices contributor in her 30s who's a keen observer of Kazakhstani pop culture, shared the following view:
Мне кажется, для людей моего поколения нет более знаковой песни, чем Перемен, когда речь идет о политическом протесте.
I think that for people of my generation, no song is more emblematic than Перемен [Change], when we talk about political demonstrations.
A similar sentiment is echoed by Hamdam Zakirov, a Helsinki-based DJ originally from Uzbekistan who runs a Youtube channel about Soviet and Uzbek music:
Песня “Перемен”, конечно, не имеет аналогов по своей энергетике и довольно простым ясным словам. Да и за годы, эта песня только набирает звездочки, как марочный коньяк. После событий в Беларуси её статус “гимна свободы” только укрепится.
The song Перемен [Change], of course has no equivalent given its energy and rather simple and clear words. And with time, this song, like quality cognac, gets more stars. After the events in Belarus [demonstrations following contested presidential elections] the song's status as a “hymn to freedom” only continues to grow stronger.
Plakhina recalls how Kino entered her life:
Мне кажется, что Кино всегда было в моей жизни по умолчанию. Если честно, даже трудно отследить, когда именно я начала слушать Кино. Осознанно, наверное, лет в 12. Я всегда чувствовала в Кино бунтарство и неприкаянность – мы, алматинские подростки, были такими. И, где бы мы не были сейчас, при первых аккордах встаем в стойку и поем все слова наизусть.
It seems to me Kino was always present in my life by default. Honestly, it is hard to track when exactly I started listening to Kino. I guess around 12. I always felt that spirit of rebellion and disobedience – we, teenagers from Almaty, were just like that. And no matter where we might be today, upon hearing those opening chords we stand up and sing all the lyrics we know by heart.
Bektour Iskender, a media manager and trainer from Kyrgyzstan, recalls:
I discovered Tsoi rather late — in 2002, when I was 17. By then I had studied quite in detail English-language rock music from the 60s and the 70s and rock music in Russian wasn't appealing for some reason. Tsoi and Kino became the first Russian-language musicians that I really liked.
Here one can witness the same fascination already at play within Kino's audience from 1987. The mystery resides in the fascination Tsoi's body language inspires. The body of a wild animal, a feline: not a bit of heaviness in his posture, an extraordinary liveliness and flexibility, the innocence of a cat playing with a bit of string. One need only revisit the idyllic scene by the Aral Sea when Viktor chases after and overtakes the actress Smirnova in the dried-up tyre tracks of a truck, then clambers up onto a boat using the anchor chain and ends up climbing the mast.
La tournée a eu lieu en avril 89, pour la promotion de l’album “Dernier des Héros” que j’ai d’abord fait paraître en France deux semaines avant le Printemps de Bourges, festival auquel nous avions associé KINO et deux autres groupes. Les « gens » de St Pétersbourg le savent tous, ils se sont arrachés les images et les bribes de films.  En province et en Asie centrale, ces faits ont été occultés par l’aura du film Igla de Nougmanov qui, en voulant faire de Victor une icône, a travesti sa vraie nature et son histoire de rocker urbain. Le film est « bon » en ce qu’il a de vrai malgré le scénario convenu.
The tour took place in April to promote his album “Последний герой” [Last Hero], which I published in France two weeks before one of the major French music festivals, le Printemps de Bourges [Bourges’ s Spring]. People from Saint-Petersburg know about it; they did everything they could to get the posters and footage of this event. In provincial Russia and Central Asia, this was overshadowed by Rashid Nugmanov's movie “Игла ” (The Needle), which wanted to turn Tsoi into an icon, but betrayed his true nature and his urban rocker origins. The film is “good” in the the sense of being true, despite a conventional script.
Tsoi always said that “Последний герой” [Last Hero] was the best mix and asked me to mix in France the album scheduled for the autumn of 1990. This is why I did the album “Черный альбом” [Black Album] with the other three musicians of the band Kino immediately after his death. I was closely involved in the production of three songs, including the hit  “Кукушка” [The Cuckoo]
Tsoi did not like his tours in the West, he was more looking forward towards his tours in Japan and South Korea scheduled for October 1990 or March 1991. He didn't like the arrogance of French journalists.
Я слушаю периодически. Мне нравится, что слова многих песен актуальны и сегодня — особенно, в период, когда в постсоветское пространство вернулось столько проблем, которые, казалось, останутся в советском прошлом. Но моя самая любимая песня — это малоизвестная “Я иду по улице“. С виду она кажется простой — парень идёт по улице один, одетый в зелёный пиджак и в новом галстуке. Но потом ты понимаешь, что в этом всём и есть бунт — он одет не так, как было принято.
I listen to Tsoi regularly. I like the fact the lyrics of many of his sons are relevant today — when we have some many problems in the post-Soviet world that we thought we had left in that world. My favorite song is “Я иду по улице” [I walk down the street]. It seems to be a simple song — a guy walks down a street alone, wearing a green vest and a new tie. But then you understand this is precisely his rebellion — he is not dressed in a way that was then considered appropriate.


text:
Is India’s digital ID system, Aadhaar, a tech solution for a socio-economic problem? · Global Voices
Subhashish Panigrahi

Biometric details being captured in an Aadhaar enrolment centre in Kolkata, West Bengal, India (Biswarup Ganguly, CC-BY-3.0)
This post was first published on Yoti as a part of Subhashish Panigrahi's Digital Identity Fellowship. It has been edited for Global Voices.
The world's largest biometric ID system, Aadhaar, assigns Indians a 12-digit unique identity number which is tied to a range of citizen beneficiary services. The programme was meant to be a technological solution to both existing and emerging socio-economic challenges, designed to help ensure inclusion in India. In practice, however, it has done the opposite, deepening the exclusion of marginal and vulnerable communities.
Aadhaar began to take shape in 2009, when the Indian National Congress (INC) was in government, but saw aggressive implementation under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), currently in office, which holds a majority at the federal level and wields strong influence in many provinces. The system has therefore been used in both federal and provincial public programmes on a massive scale, but exclusion persists.
It was hoped that, after a decade of Aadhaar, issues like the country's long history of racial oppression — which existed long before British colonisation and continues long after the country became a democratic republic in 1947 — would be addressed. Instead, many marginalised communities find themselves in a multitude of troubles, unable to access basic amenities and services.
Conversations with members of several such communities — as part of research conducted for the MarginalizedAadhaar project (see Field Diaries #1, #2 and #3) — indicate that the most marginalised among them have been further excluded as a result of the absolute trust in ‘tech-solutionism’ displayed by several state entities.
However, the technological biases that have come out of the systemic social oppression in Indian society — especially in the context of Aadhaar — are yet to be addressed.
When viewed through the lenses of different demographics — social, political, economic, regional, linguistic, religious, and most importantly, access to privileges for those at the bottom of the pyramid — one can only grasp a tiny portion of what a national biometric-based identity system like Aadhaar means to citizens.
By their very nature, ID systems need to allow for social inclusion and the rights of individuals to address issues across the spectrum — from widespread inequality to the nuances associated with the Adivasis, especially the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups. If they do not, people with privileges but with no understanding of diversity and inclusion, end up building ‘tech-weapons of mass exclusion.’
For instance, Aadhaar has been deployed for biometric-based authentication in the distribution of food rations through the Public Distribution System (PDS), a federal government initiative that provides food and other essential commodities to those in need. The objective, of course, is to eradicate poverty, but data from the country's census showed that between 2001 and 2011, the number of people in need rose from 21 to 26.8 million, a 22.4% increase.
Technology, particularly in India, cannot be discussed without bringing up systemic racial discrimination. The country’s political power dynamics are much more racially divisive than ever before, to the point where they have now become part of the apparatus for exclusion.
The caste system divides people of the Hindu faith into four major classes, of which some are considered outcasts, or ‘untouchables’. These communities are collectively known as Dalits in progressive discourses; in India's constitution, they are classified as Scheduled Castes (SC).
The BJP, the ruling right-wing nationalist party dominated by “upper-caste” Hindus, has been pushing to exclude the Dalit, Muslim and Adivasi people — and several other marginalised communities — through divisive policies. From a human rights perspective, the technological implementations of these policies often translate into inherent and serious design flaws.
A Muslim woman in the state of Assam who was declared as a “Doubtful Voter” in the National Register of Citizens. (Screengrab from a video reportage by NewsClickin. CC-BY 3.0).
Curiously, in a country where there have been no less than 402 documented internet shutdowns since the BJP came to power in 2014, the Aadhaar system relies on the internet to function. People wanting to get food rations must authenticate their identity via a fingerprint-based process, and authorities at the ration centres use an online portal to verify the information.
Just as concerning is the fact that as many as 104 million Adivasis, already largely excluded because they come from low-income groups, are further sidelined because they cannot find any information about Aadhaar in their native languages.
In the following video, Sora-language speaker Manjula Bhuyan from Odisha, India, highlighted the importance of accessing information about digital identity in one’s native language. Downloadable videos with captions and transcripts can be accessed here.
The impact of this systemic bias is broad. It ranges from Dalit and Muslim schoolchildren from low-income families being denied scholarships because of Aadhaar system errors, to Muslim citizens being harassed and asked to provide proof of citizenship.
Muslims in the state of Assam have been among the hardest hit — 1.9 million of them out of the state's population of 33 million were declared illegal during the National Register of Citizens (NRC), a programme designed to eliminate illegal immigrants.
The video below says that the state of digital identity took a critical turn when these 1.9 million people were declared illegal. Downloadable videos with captions and transcripts can be found here.
The NRC exercise came to a momentary halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but new waves of terror began to unfold among those who have been declared illegal.
Ashraful Hussain, an activist who works closely with many discriminated Assamese Muslims, recently noted, “Most Muslims — and even many Hindus of [West] Bengal origin — were purposely excluded in the ‘original inhabitant‘ category by the officers who were in charge of the NRC drive.”
The 1.9 million people whose names were left out of the list of “legal citizens” have one last option — appearing before what's known as a foreigner’s tribunal to prove their citizenship in a judicial process.
Hussain fears, however, that even though these already marginalised people are becoming poorer as a result of lockdown restrictions, they will need to pay the legal costs associated with having to prove their citizenship once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted — and the exclusion goes much further. According to Hussain, “As many Muslim women are illiterate and are unable to find documents to establish their parental link, these women and their children are out of the [NRC] list.”
The NRC is deeply linked with Aadhaar. As attorney Tripti Poddar explained, the collection of individuals’ biometric data happened during the NRC process. Those who made it to the NRC were issued Aadhaars; those who did not were denied. Poddar further argues that even a foreigner residing in India can receive an Aadhaar, but Indian citizens flagged by the NRC can be stripped of their constitutional rights.

author: Subhashish Panigrahi


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Natives’ or ‘outsiders’? A mob attack in Meghalaya throws questions of belonging into sharp relief · Global Voices
Abhinash

Night view of Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, a hill station in the northeastern part of India. Image from Flickr by Santanu Sen. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The recent attack on six boys from the Bengali community in Shillong has reignited the “native” versus “outsiders” debate in the Indian state of Meghalaya. The deeply entrenched idea that only indigenous people — known as “tribals’ — should have rights to stay, own land or secure good jobs there is contributing to the marginalisation of people who aren't originally from the area.
A hilly state whose name means “the abode of clouds” in Sanskrit, Meghalaya is an epicentre for many of North East India's indigenous tribes. Bordering both the Indian state of Assam and neighbouring Bangladesh, the three indigenous communities of Khasi, Garo and Jayantia comprise about 83 per cent of the state's population. Its non-indigenous community includes Bengali, Nepali and other Indian communities, like Sikhs, Biharis, and the Marwadi people.
The Bengali youth were attacked — allegedly by a 20-person-strong mob — on July 3, when they went to play basketball in the Lawsohtun district of Shillong. On Twitter, the Meghalaya police confirmed the report and appealed to eyewitnesses to assist:
Update regarding Lawsohtun incident.
A criminal case No. 71(07)20 has been registered at Laban PS, following which, 3 suspects were picked up yesterday and 8 suspects were picked up today. We appeal to all the witness(es) to kindly come forward & help the investigation team. pic.twitter.com/KjkAB2kjGS
— Meghalaya Police (@MeghalayaPolice) July 4, 2020
The incident has provoked widespread discussion across Shillong, putting issues like land rights and illegal immigrants back on the front burner.
In an article for the Assam Tribune, journalist Patricia Mukhim raised concerns about rising inter-community conflicts in Meghalaya, but several netizens criticised her stance, alleging that she is trying to sully the Indigenous community by ascribing racist motives to the incident.
Meghalaya governor Tathagata Roy, however, defended Mukhim's writings:
Sometimes some good emerges from evil. Attack on five non-tribal boys who were playing basketball at Lawsohtun,Shillong,by a masked gang of 20-apparently all tribals-has brought forth strident criticism from prominent tribal citizens like Ms Patricia Mukhim and Albert Thyrniang.
— Tathagata Roy (@tathagata2) July 9, 2020
The Dorbar Shnong, an important political institution for the Khasi and Jaintia tribes of Meghalaya, mentioned that the incident was a “clash between two groups and not to be misunderstood as racial”.
However, incidents like this are not stand-alone; Meghalaya has a history of similar events.
The xenophobic narrative in Shillong took root during Britain's colonisation of India, when Meghalaya was part of Assam. From 1864 to 1874, officials from West Bengal were brought in to help with administrative work; many of them settled in various parts of Assam.
After the partition of Bengal in 1947, some Bengali Hindus who were being persecuted in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) came seeking refuge. The Assam government settled them in the vicinity of Shillong, during which time other communities — like the Nepali, Marwadi and Bihari — also settled there.
The state's notion of illegal immigrants, therefore, is not limited to Bengalis; many ‘tribals’ also consider Nepali people, as well as Indian communities like Biharis and Punjabis, as foreigners.
The third wave of Bengali migration in Meghalaya happened when refugees fled the oppression of the Pakistani army during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. By January 21, 1972, Meghalaya had become a full-fledged Indian state, with Shillong as its capital.
Ironically, according to a popular story among the community's Indigenous folk, most of the Nepali people in Meghalaya arrived after the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the governments of India and Nepal, which allows citizens of both countries to travel between them without the need for passports or visas.
“One who speaks a different language follows a different culture and practices” and “who is not native to the land” — these are the definitions of an “outsider” in Meghalaya.
A khasi tribal woman from Cherrapunji, Meghalaya. Image via Flickr by Roman Korzh. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Many Indigenous groups paint the “non-tribals” as exploiters of their jobs, land and economic resources.
While reviewing the book ‘Insider Outsider: Belonging and Unbelonging in North-East India’ for the online news portal LiveMint, Sanjukta Sharma wrote:
Ever since the 1950s, the hills of the North-East have been marked along ethnic lines. As scholar Binayak Dutta says in his essay, multi-ethnicity has been viewed as a ‘transgression of community spaces’ in the region, and violence viewed ‘as a legitimate means to homogenize geopolitical and social spaces, in the name of protection of community interests.
“Dkhar” (or “Dikhar”) is a derogatory term often used to describe “non-tribals” and mainland Indian people. More recently, it is being used to refer to Bengali-speaking people who hail from East Bengal (Bangladesh) and West Bengal.
The state of Meghalaya falls under the sixth schedule of the Indian constitution, which protects the culture, language and civil rights of Indigenous people. Additional privileges, like land rights, also favour to some extent the interest of the local tribes.
Writer Naomi Dutta acknowledged the complexity of the issue in a tweet:
I am an Assamese Hindu but grew up in Shillong. As a non tribal.( a minority). This thread is interesting – even as I am conflicted. The fear of the outsider & regional chauvinism, yet the real loss of indigenous identity. It is complex – there are no easy answers. Not on Twitter https://t.co/IDPAOx0iMh
— Naomi Datta (@nowme_datta) December 24, 2019
The ethnic tensions of Meghalaya — as well as most of India's north-eastern states — can be linked to the “outsider” narrative, as well as to the protection of the uniqueness of culture, language, and customs of local Indigenous communities. Apart from conscious cultural and linguistic awareness, politics also plays a major role in building these narratives.
A Facebook group, “Stop Discriminating Non-Tribals in North East”, stresses:
Before we divide and classify ourselves into various caste[s], creed[s], tribes, or religion[s], let us just take a moment to consider the fact that above all these divisions lies the fact that we are all fellow human beings and our specie[s] has thrived because of the saga of migration that [began] from Africa millions of years before the existence of the modern society.
Therein lies the rub. As Mahua Sen, who authored an essay in “Insider Outsider”, asks:
If benevolent humanity were to erect a symbolic sculpture of a refugee, wouldn’t it be a poetic paradox to assign it a square piece of land in this world?

author: Abhinash


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A masked Spiderman and friends bring joy to Melbourne’s locked-down suburb · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Spiderman jogging in East St Kilda, a district of Melbourne. Photo courtesy of Asher Wolf, used with permission
With Melbourne in a winter COVID-19 lockdown for six weeks, any ray of sunshine is especially welcome. It seems that Spiderman has been bringing just that for some time during the coronavirus pandemic.
St Kilda is an iconic bayside inner suburb, usually bubbling with backpackers and other visitors from around the globe. It has played a big part in your author’s life, not the least because of its Australian Football League club that began there.
It’s an unlikely place to find our superhero as there are few very tall buildings. Perhaps that’s why Spiderman has taken to jogging. Local Jack Latimore’s son has been lucky enough to spot him more than once:
Thank you to the fella jogging St Kilda neighbourhoods in full SpiderMan suit. You have brightened my young bloke’s day beyond measure on three occasions now. My son yelled after him today: SpiderMan! Is there a problem?! #LockdownLyfe
— Jack Latimore (@LatimoreJack) August 13, 2020
Another resident, activist Asher Wolf, is well known on social media. The photo at the top of this post is from one of her tweets in June 2020. It was taken in Carlisle Street, Balaclava, which is part of East St Kilda. She replied to Jack’s tweet and also explained that another encounter was before the current 8 p.m. curfew:
For the record, I once came across St Kilda Spiderman out on the street at 2am
Me: “why?”
Him: “because ppl have to believe there’s good in the world.” https://t.co/QZXZz91jKC
— Asher Wolf (@Asher_Wolf) August 13, 2020
Spiderman was wearing a mask before they became compulsory for most outdoor activities. He couldn’t have known that jogging and cycling would be the two mask-free activities allowed during the maximum one hour’s exercise within five kilometres of your home each day.
Photographer Leigh Henningham posted this take with iconic St Kilda pier in the background a week earlier:
A well masked spider man on St Kilda Beach today. Photo by Leigh Henningham Visit https://t.co/azvE473QBb for options #melbourne #photooftheday #australia #lockdownlife #lockdown2020 #coronavirus #covidaustralia #covidmelbourne #spiderman #facemask #stkilda pic.twitter.com/XHZo64iiIr
— leigh henningham (@leighhenningham) August 6, 2020
Jack Begbie was surprised by his obvious caution:
Hold up, he's wearing two masks??
— jack begbie (@jackbegbie) August 13, 2020
Meanwhile, Museums Victoria’s Bridget Hanna shared this image of St Kilda’s much loved Luna Park:
Mask up Melbourne! #LunaPark #LunaParkMelbourne #COVID19Vic pic.twitter.com/hd3sq8bxny
— Bridget Hanna (@BridgeJulie) August 1, 2020
This mockup had been posted by @CapturingMelbourne a week earlier on Instagram:
Heya folks! ? Time for an appreciation post. This little mock up is dedicated to all of the healthcare workers – not only in Australia, but around the world – that are tirelessly working day and night to stop the spread. Using Melbourne’s iconic Luna Park (abiding by Melbourne’s recent mandatory mask rules ?), I thought this was a great opportunity to echo this message through our online community. During such unprecedented times, mask up, and continue to follow the rules. Do it for your community, your healthcare workers, and your fellow Australian. Spread this image far and wide! Let’s stand together against COVID-19 ????
A post shared by  Capturing Melbourne (@capturingmelbourne) on
Former City of Port Phillip councillor Serge Thomann also captured St Kilda beach and the pier at their best:
No comments needed. Life in lockdown, one hour walk a day. So great to live in a beautiful village. #stkilda #stkildabeach #sunset
A post shared by  Serge Thomann (@sergethomann) on
The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) has joined those trying to lift people's spirits:
ANNOUNCING: ‘Never alone’, by Kent Morris, a new billboard project viewable until 30 August. Read more here: https://t.co/cOgrMGA197 pic.twitter.com/b4EEDQzGUs
— ACCA (@ACCA_melbourne) August 4, 2020
According to their website:
We are honoured to present Kent Morris’ Never alone, which reflects his interest in countering the lack of Indigenous cultural representation in the built environment.”
The work’s location, on a busy St Kilda intersection, is positioned halfway between the Ngargee Tree or Corroboree Tree, near St Kilda Junction and Cleve Gardens – two significant gathering places for First Nations people.
Finally, one for the kids from Kids Fun Toys YouTube channel:
A special thank you to Friends of St Kilda (yoūruk) Facebook group for lots of ideas and images.

author: Kevin Rennie


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Indonesian students expelled from school face treason charges for joining a protest on Papua · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Expelled students during a preliminary hearing for the administrative case they filed in Ambon. Photo from Facebook page of the student group PEMBEBASAN, used with permission.
Arbi Nur was one of four students who were expelled from Khairun University in Indonesia after they joined a protest in December 2019 supportive of Papua, Indonesia's largest and most eastern located, and predominantly Christian province. Their expulsion is currently under appeal, but Arbi Nur learned on July 13 that the police has charged him with ‘treason’ and ‘public provocation’. Human rights groups are calling for the dropping of cases against him, and the reinstatement of the students at the university. Global Voices author Mong Palatino interviewed Arbi Nur about his case through a Twitter conversation on August 12.
Arbi Nur and fellow students Fahrul Abdullah W. Bone, Fahyudi Kabir, and Ikra S. Alkatiri joined a protest on December 2, 2019 in Ternate City calling for the release of Papuan political prisoners. The protest was violently dispersed by the police and the four were detained for 27 hours.
Ternate is part of North Maluku province, which is a neighboring island to West Papua and Papua provinces, both located in the east of Indonesia. It is also a place where many Papuan students are studying for college.
West Papua and Papua are part of Indonesia but some groups are demanding that the government recognize Papuans the right to self-determination. The conflict has lasted for many years already, with Papuan activists accusing Indonesian troops of committing widespread abuses in the region.
As of June 2, there are around 51 prisoners of conscience from Papua according to the monitoring of Amnesty International. Most are political activists and human rights defenders facing treason charges.
Despite the fact that the protest was not held on the campus, the rector of the Khairun University dismissed the four students based on a notice sent by the police. The rector’s decree stated that the four had “tarnished the good name of the university, breached the ethics of being a student, and threatened national security.”
The notice of dismissal was received by the students in March only. They challenged the dismissal by filing a petition at the administrative court in Ambon, the capital of the Maluku Islands province.
After the appeal petition was filed, a treason case was lodged by the Ternate police against Arbi Nur. The notice was sent by the police to the Ternate district attorney's office on July 13. If found guilty, Arbi Nur could face up to 20 years in prison.
Tigor Hutapea, the lawyer of Arbi Nur, said the police cannot simply issue notices passing judgment on individuals for allegedly committing treason.
An act of makar (treason) allegedly committed by a person must be proven and ruled on by a court. A simple notification from the Kapolres (police chief) clearly cannot be used as a formal legal reference.
The public defender also insisted that Arbi Nur did not commit a crime:
Arbi also spoke out about [human rights] violations against the Papuan people. Once again, the demonstration was peaceful, orderly and there were no blunt or sharp weapons, firearms and no violence was committed against persons or property.
Nanang Kosim, spokesperson of the Indonesian People's Front for West Papua or FRI-WP, told Radio New Zealand on August 10 that activists like them are often beaten and yelled at for being ‘traitors to the nation’. Arbi Nur is a member of FRI-WP which has chapters in a growing number of universities.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) weighed on the issue and expressed concern about the case of Arbi Nur. It also urged Khairun University to reinstate the expelled students. Andreas Harsono, HRW’s senior Indonesia researcher said:
Khairun University should support academic freedom and free expression, not expel students peacefully expressing their views. (It) should let the students return to their studies this semester and ensure a university environment that promotes free expression.
Indonesian students becoming engaged in the West Papuan human rights struggle are under pressure from authorities.
Four Indonesian university students have been expelled for protesting against human rights abuses in Papua.https://t.co/gbBcjf59UP
— RNZ (@radionz) August 11, 2020
Through a direct message on Twitter, this author reached out to Arbi Nur who shared his thoughts about the treason case:
I am not surprised and afraid when I learned about the treason case. I am ready to face this accusation. Treason charge is often used by authorities against Papuan activists and non-Papuan solidarity activists. An example is the conviction of Surya Anta (who was found guilty of treason for organizing a protest against racism). And the impact is the silencing of freedom of expression.
He also wrote about his expulsion from the university.
Campus should be independent. Campus should not accommodate political interest from outside (referring to the police action). The university bureaucracy doesn't have authority to intervene in student political activities inside or outside campus.
He also belied the claim of the Indonesia government that it upholds human rights and democracy in Papua. He pressed for greater global attention about the situation of activists in Papua and the need to make the Indonesian police accountable for its alleged human rights atrocities in the region.

author: Mong Palatino


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It’s time to tackle post-COVID-19 mental health · Global Voices
Joel Herrera

Photo credit: Oscar Navarrete, used with permission.
We human beings tend to trivialise our bodies’ mental and emotional health. We make jokes like “I must be going crazy” or “I have a memory like a sieve”, which could be defence mechanisms against real underlying worries, a way to escape from some cognitive deterioration we are suffering, or maybe just simple ignorance. Any of these situations is valid, as we all act, process, interpret and feel things in our own way. So, let's talk about the effects COVID-19 has on our mental health and how this illness could potentially be causing a deterioration in the cognitive functions of patients who have survived it. This damage could be irreversible if we don't tackle it in the right way.
Let's imagine ourselves in Nicaragua, where I'm from, and where there is no plan of action in place to support mental health nor even specific legislation to look after it. As a medical student, I was able to witness and experience my country's health system from the inside, and I could see that it has many weaknesses. Mental health has not been a priority in the country because of successive political crises and natural disasters. The State is negligent and doesn't invest enough in something so highly important as health. As a result, the outlook for Nicaraguan society in terms of a complete recovery for people who have survived COVID-19 is very complicated.
After speaking to someone who suffered trauma from not being able to breathe, and reading an article in The Atlantic about delirium syndrome and its relation to the coronavirus, I reached the conclusion that we need to talk about mental health and how mental disorders could get worse in people who have survived COVID-19.
We can't talk about COVID-19 without mentioning acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which consists of severe damage to the lungs and a steep drop in arterial oxygen partial pressure (hypoxemia). This syndrome generally requires aggressive treatment such as a mechanical ventilator, and therefore treatment in intensive care to stabilise patients. According to researchers, hypoxaemia, which characterises ARDS, may cause delirium, otherwise known as a “confusional state”, in patients in intensive care.
In this state, patients may experience altered awareness and changes to their cognitive function which develop over a long period of time, according to the psychiatric manual written by researchers Juan Lopez-Ibor Aliño y Manuel Valdés Miyar.
The Atlantic article features accounts from COVID-19 survivors, who tell of the horror of feeling like their arms and legs are amputated or being at their own funerals. For many years, scientists have studied the direct relationship between ARDS and the creation of a state of delirium in people who are on intensive care wards, but other findings are even more shocking: over time, people who survive these episodes develop cognitive impairment that is undetected in functions such as memory, attention, concentration, processing speed or the executive functions of the brain, as demonstrated by Hopkins et al.
Now let's focus on two conditions that so many people suffer from, and yet very few are aware of: anxiety and depression. According to Nicaraguan psychologist Junieth Cruz, it's very likely that most people have experienced an episode of anxiety at least once in their lives; however, we don't have enough health education recognise the symptoms.
Studies relating to surviving intensive care have shown that following their medical discharge, many people develop psychological problems such as nightmares, panic attacks, agoraphobia, anxiety and depression. Moreover, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often present, with people experiencing hyper-vigilance, reliving the traumatic experience, and avoidance.
The symptoms of depression appear to improve over the course of the first year, after the patient is discharged, while anxiety lasts for longer than a year, but PTSD is a long-term condition, according to a study by Myhren et al. Meanwhile, H. Rothenhäusler et al have shown that cognitive impairment and its effects can be observed six years after medical discharge, and that only 46% of people would be able to resume their former activities.
If we are realistic about the public health crisis caused by COVID-19, how many survivors will be able to receive treatment for their mental health? Will the health authorities do anything to mitigate the mental health crisis following the pandemic? These are just two of the questions we could reflect on, not just in Nicaragua but in many other countries around the world.
To summarise, we usually make the mistake of thinking of health as the absence of physical discomfort, without taking into account that to be healthy, we need to consider the balance between physical health and mental health. The demonisation of self-care and the taboo of discussing psychological struggles are things we have to tackle to avoid a spike in psychological and psychiatric patients, bearing in mind the psychological impact the COVID-19 pandemic will have in the medium and long term, and we must be able to swallow our pride and begin to accept help for our mental health.
Now more than ever, we must have these discussions regarding everyone's physical and mental well-being and move away from outdated and obsolete statements such as “I'm not going to a therapist because I'm not crazy.”

author: Joel Herrera