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🚨 BREAKING POINT: 🚧 WHEN ROADS DISAPPEAR, CITIZENS APPEAR 🚧 #NoRoadNoTax Today, Saturday morning at 📍#Balagere Road- between #DishaApartment and #ShekharBelleVue Apartment- residents reached their limit. With protests restricted in our ನಮ್ಮ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು Namma Bengaluru, Citizens didn’t gather with placards or posters, but they walked the very stretch that...

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Pulse of the People

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45,465 просмотров • 1 год назад •via X (Twitter)

#NoRoadNoTax#Balagere#DishaApartment#ShekharBelleVue
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Комментарии: 7

Фото профиля Ajay Iyer 🇮🇳
Ajay Iyer 🇮🇳11 месяцев назад

@CitizenMattersX @NammaBengaluroo This people should get funds from the RTO of that region who takes the Road Tax & doesn’t build the roads

Фото профиля OnAPurpose
OnAPurpose1 год назад

@CitizenMattersX @NammaBengaluroo Were you or the protesters paid by MLA to not tag? You have tagged President of India but have no guts to tag the local MLA? Coward

Фото профиля Angry GSB
Angry GSB1 год назад

@CitizenMattersX @NammaBengaluroo Shame on you @DKShivakumar and lame duck @siddaramaiah @PriyankKharge

Фото профиля sureshayg VK
sureshayg VK1 год назад

@CitizenMattersX @NammaBengaluroo can you send photo with front pose

Фото профиля Rajesh Kumar Agarwal
Rajesh Kumar Agarwal1 год назад

@CitizenMattersX @BalagereConnect @NammaBengaluroo @narendramodi

Фото профиля Neethu
Neethu1 год назад

@CitizenMattersX @NammaBengaluroo @ICCCBengaluru

Фото профиля Vishal Narayanaswamy
Vishal Narayanaswamy1 год назад

@CitizenMattersX @NammaBengaluroo If they walked like this everyday they would be more healthier

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Brothers and sisters of Ireland, 🇮🇪 We gather not in silence, but in strength. We gather not in hate, but in hope. And we gather not to divide, but to demand. For the past number of days, our country has been brought to a standstill. Not by chaos without cause, but by people pushed to the edge. Farmers, workers, drivers, families, ordinary Irish people have taken to the roads, to the streets, to the gates of this nation’s lifelines because the cost of simply living has become too much to bear. They are not there for attention. They are there because they cannot afford not to be. Fuel prices have surged to unsustainable levels, driven by global crises and policies beyond the control of ordinary people. And yet, it is the ordinary people who are expected to carry the burden. They tell us support has been given. They tell us measures are in place. They tell us to be patient. But patience does not fill a tank. Patience does not keep a business alive. Patience does not put food on the table. Across Ireland, roads have been blocked, cities brought to a halt, and supply lines disrupted. Fuel depots, ports, even the country’s only oil refinery have been targeted in protest. Not out of malice but out of desperation. And now we see the response. The government condemns the protests. They speak of disruption, of law and order, of consequences. They warn of penalties and even bring in the Defence Forces to assist. But where was this urgency before? Where was this response when people were crying out for help? We ask not for chaos. We ask not for division. We ask for fairness. We ask for a government that listens before the country grinds to a halt. We ask for action before people are forced onto the streets to be heard. Because let us be clear: These protests did not appear out of nowhere. They are the result of years of pressure, rising costs, and people feeling ignored. You, in government, we ask you now!! Why does it take nationwide disruption before you listen? Why are workers and families pushed to breaking point before action is taken? Why must people blockade their own country just to be heard? We are not extremists. We are not criminals. We are citizens. And we are pissed of being ignored. Those standing on the roads today those sitting in tractors and trucks through the night those sacrificing income to make a point they are not the enemy of this country. They are the voice of it. And yes you best believe disruption is real. People are delayed, services affected, and frustration is growing. But that is what happens when a government stops listening and the people are left with no other choice. This is a peaceful movement. But it is a powerful one. And it carries a message that cannot be ignored! A country cannot function when its people cannot afford to live in it. So we say again: Serve your people first, or step aside. This is not your Ireland to manage from a distance. This is our Ireland, lived in every day by those now standing in protest. And until there is real action, real engagement, and real change the voices on those roads will not fade. They will grow louder. Éire Abú. Fergus (Ferg) Power The Irish Git Conor McGregor @real_eire @RealMessageEire
3:45

Brothers and sisters of Ireland, 🇮🇪 We gather not in silence, but in strength. We gather not in hate, but in hope. And we gather not to divide, but to demand. For the past number of days, our country has been brought to a standstill. Not by chaos without cause, but by people pushed to the edge. Farmers, workers, drivers, families, ordinary Irish people have taken to the roads, to the streets, to the gates of this nation’s lifelines because the cost of simply living has become too much to bear. They are not there for attention. They are there because they cannot afford not to be. Fuel prices have surged to unsustainable levels, driven by global crises and policies beyond the control of ordinary people. And yet, it is the ordinary people who are expected to carry the burden. They tell us support has been given. They tell us measures are in place. They tell us to be patient. But patience does not fill a tank. Patience does not keep a business alive. Patience does not put food on the table. Across Ireland, roads have been blocked, cities brought to a halt, and supply lines disrupted. Fuel depots, ports, even the country’s only oil refinery have been targeted in protest. Not out of malice but out of desperation. And now we see the response. The government condemns the protests. They speak of disruption, of law and order, of consequences. They warn of penalties and even bring in the Defence Forces to assist. But where was this urgency before? Where was this response when people were crying out for help? We ask not for chaos. We ask not for division. We ask for fairness. We ask for a government that listens before the country grinds to a halt. We ask for action before people are forced onto the streets to be heard. Because let us be clear: These protests did not appear out of nowhere. They are the result of years of pressure, rising costs, and people feeling ignored. You, in government, we ask you now!! Why does it take nationwide disruption before you listen? Why are workers and families pushed to breaking point before action is taken? Why must people blockade their own country just to be heard? We are not extremists. We are not criminals. We are citizens. And we are pissed of being ignored. Those standing on the roads today those sitting in tractors and trucks through the night those sacrificing income to make a point they are not the enemy of this country. They are the voice of it. And yes you best believe disruption is real. People are delayed, services affected, and frustration is growing. But that is what happens when a government stops listening and the people are left with no other choice. This is a peaceful movement. But it is a powerful one. And it carries a message that cannot be ignored! A country cannot function when its people cannot afford to live in it. So we say again: Serve your people first, or step aside. This is not your Ireland to manage from a distance. This is our Ireland, lived in every day by those now standing in protest. And until there is real action, real engagement, and real change the voices on those roads will not fade. They will grow louder. Éire Abú. Fergus (Ferg) Power The Irish Git Conor McGregor @real_eire @RealMessageEire

Éire

28,249 просмотров • 6 месяцев назад

This is the Gokwe–Binga highway in Zimbabwe. These trucks have been stuck here for more than three days because of the terrible condition of the road. One of the trucks hit a massive pothole, or perhaps a sinkhole, and the impact damaged its suspension, including the springs and shock absorbers. The truck could no longer move, effectively blocking the road and leaving the other trucks stranded. This is exactly what we mean when we talk about the incompetence, corruption and failure of governance under the ZANUPF government. Look at the attached video. This is no longer a question of routine road maintenance. This road needs to be reconstructed. There is barely a proper road here at all, let alone a tarred highway. And yet millions of dollars’ worth of goods are transported along these routes every day by the Chinese. The companies using these roads pay taxes, licences, fuel levies and other charges to the government. In return, they are being forced to operate on roads that are barely passable. This is not just an inconvenience. It has a direct economic cost to everyone. Trucks lose days sitting idle. Transport companies lose money. Businesses face delays. Goods take longer to reach their destinations. Vehicle maintenance costs increase. Ultimately, those costs are passed on to consumers, YOU. And this is where the failure becomes even more difficult to understand. Zimbabwe is strategically located between major regional markets, yet we cannot maintain the basic infrastructure required to move goods efficiently. A functioning economy depends on roads and railways that work. In an ordinary, functional country, you would also expect a significant proportion of heavy bulk freight to be moved by an efficient railway network rather than putting enormous pressure on already inadequate roads. Zimbabwe inherited an extensive railway network from the Rhodesian era, but decades of neglect by ZANUPF have left much of that infrastructure severely degraded. This is the bigger tragedy that we can imagine. Zimbabwe has the natural resources, the agricultural potential, the geographical position and the human talent to be a prosperous country. What is missing is competent, accountable governance and the political will to maintain the infrastructure that keeps the economy moving without stealing state funds. Where corruption and political patronage determine who gets contracts, who gets licences and who gets access to opportunities, public infrastructure becomes an afterthought. Money that should be going into roads, railways, hospitals, schools and other public services can instead disappear through corruption, inflated contracts, procurement abuse and political patronage. This is not about hating ZANUPF, hating China, or being anti-government. It is about demanding accountability from the people who have been entrusted with running the country and are holding the national purse. If a government cannot maintain something as fundamental as a major transport corridor, how can it realistically claim that Zimbabwe is developing? You cannot build a modern economy on roads like this. You cannot talk about industrialisation while trucks carrying millions of dollars’ worth of goods are stuck for days because there is effectively no road. You cannot talk about economic growth while the infrastructure that supports that economy is collapsing. And you cannot hide the reality on the ground with propaganda, speeches and political slogans. Zimbabwe has increasingly become a case study in how not to run a country. The pictures tell the story. No amount of propaganda can change what people see with their own eyes. We love Zimbabwe. That is precisely why we should be angry about this. Loving your country means demanding better from those who govern it. Where is the money paid daily through toll gate fees, license discs, environmental levies, and more? If it is not being looted, why are the roads not fixed.
4:16

This is the Gokwe–Binga highway in Zimbabwe. These trucks have been stuck here for more than three days because of the terrible condition of the road. One of the trucks hit a massive pothole, or perhaps a sinkhole, and the impact damaged its suspension, including the springs and shock absorbers. The truck could no longer move, effectively blocking the road and leaving the other trucks stranded. This is exactly what we mean when we talk about the incompetence, corruption and failure of governance under the ZANUPF government. Look at the attached video. This is no longer a question of routine road maintenance. This road needs to be reconstructed. There is barely a proper road here at all, let alone a tarred highway. And yet millions of dollars’ worth of goods are transported along these routes every day by the Chinese. The companies using these roads pay taxes, licences, fuel levies and other charges to the government. In return, they are being forced to operate on roads that are barely passable. This is not just an inconvenience. It has a direct economic cost to everyone. Trucks lose days sitting idle. Transport companies lose money. Businesses face delays. Goods take longer to reach their destinations. Vehicle maintenance costs increase. Ultimately, those costs are passed on to consumers, YOU. And this is where the failure becomes even more difficult to understand. Zimbabwe is strategically located between major regional markets, yet we cannot maintain the basic infrastructure required to move goods efficiently. A functioning economy depends on roads and railways that work. In an ordinary, functional country, you would also expect a significant proportion of heavy bulk freight to be moved by an efficient railway network rather than putting enormous pressure on already inadequate roads. Zimbabwe inherited an extensive railway network from the Rhodesian era, but decades of neglect by ZANUPF have left much of that infrastructure severely degraded. This is the bigger tragedy that we can imagine. Zimbabwe has the natural resources, the agricultural potential, the geographical position and the human talent to be a prosperous country. What is missing is competent, accountable governance and the political will to maintain the infrastructure that keeps the economy moving without stealing state funds. Where corruption and political patronage determine who gets contracts, who gets licences and who gets access to opportunities, public infrastructure becomes an afterthought. Money that should be going into roads, railways, hospitals, schools and other public services can instead disappear through corruption, inflated contracts, procurement abuse and political patronage. This is not about hating ZANUPF, hating China, or being anti-government. It is about demanding accountability from the people who have been entrusted with running the country and are holding the national purse. If a government cannot maintain something as fundamental as a major transport corridor, how can it realistically claim that Zimbabwe is developing? You cannot build a modern economy on roads like this. You cannot talk about industrialisation while trucks carrying millions of dollars’ worth of goods are stuck for days because there is effectively no road. You cannot talk about economic growth while the infrastructure that supports that economy is collapsing. And you cannot hide the reality on the ground with propaganda, speeches and political slogans. Zimbabwe has increasingly become a case study in how not to run a country. The pictures tell the story. No amount of propaganda can change what people see with their own eyes. We love Zimbabwe. That is precisely why we should be angry about this. Loving your country means demanding better from those who govern it. Where is the money paid daily through toll gate fees, license discs, environmental levies, and more? If it is not being looted, why are the roads not fixed.

Hopewell Chin’ono

78,302 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад

The proposed indefinite stay-away by Zimbabwe’s war veterans’ leader Blessed “Bombshell” Geza has failed to take off. Zimbabweans, particularly in Bulawayo and Harare and other small towns, chose to go to work today. I see on social media that some citizens in the diaspora are angry with fellow compatriots back home for going to work, but we should remember that Zimbabwe has 95% unemployment, so if people do not go out to hustle, they will starve, so goes the argument. The idea that people would get food from retailers or wholesalers was Alice in Wonderland stuff, it was never going to work or happen in a country where most businesses are owned by the corrupt cabal that the action intended to remove or loosen its grip on power. Secondly, Zimbabweans want to be liberated from corrupt rule by a particular type of political group and politician, so without the traditional opposition throwing its weight behind Geza's call, his efforts were always going to be in vain even though they are noble and progressive. The failure of this stay-away ends any immediate hope that citizens will participate in any liberation efforts unless mobilised by the traditional opposition, which does not exist, or by the military. I will be blunt. Short of a military intervention to stop Emmerson Mnangagwa’s corrupt rule, he will now get everything he wants, including term extensions. He is relentless. Zimbabweans will now be stuck with Mnangagwa until the day he dies and possibly will have to accept that his kids will rule them too with the assistance of his crooked cronies and clansmen. Zimbabweans should forget about the 2028 election and as a local doctor mentioned on social media, begin working through the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. It is pointless putting your hopes in a process that you know too well will be rigged. For him to fail to achieve what he wants, Mnangagwa would have to make a catastrophic mistake, like killing loads of people which will attract international scrutiny or firing his Vice President, General Constantino Chiwenga which might finally trigger a decisive response. There is now nobody with the capacity to stop him, short of a military intervention or death. Geza has tried, but there is no tangible citizen support that was forthcoming. Geza managed to force Mnangagwa’s team to stop chanting the 2030 slogan and pushed them into another plan of bribing MPs with illegally parcelled land. But after today, the dictator knows that Geza is now all alone, unless the military intervenes, which, as I have said before, is now looking highly unlikely unless they are provoked by the continued conspicuous consumption of looted public funds. So, Zimbabweans must now accept the reality that their failure to sacrifice for their liberation by simply staying at home will mean more unemployment, more looting of public funds, more dilapidated hospitals and public infrastructure, and more economic pain all around. Those are the grim political and socio-economic realities of Zimbabwe going forward, nothing less, nothing more. Journalists will continue writing about corruption scandals, but only for historical records and as part of our job, and for many readers, it would be for entertainment value sadly. Some will just switch to issues that have positive mental health outcomes. If you are young, have a passport, and have somewhere to go, my advice is to leave, otherwise, you will just become another tragic statistic of poverty, unemployment, and possibly death in a derelict hospital. Ordinarily, Africans do not care about who is in power if they have the basic necessities of life. But sadly, in Zimbabwe, those necessities will remain out of reach for as long as Mnangagwa and his corrupt cabal are in power. As for the opposition, it is dead. There will be no pushback for reasons you all know. You will remember that last year in May, I mentioned that three key countries to Zimbabwe's politics privately mentioned through their diplomats that, as far as they were concerned, 2028 was gone, and they were now looking at perhaps 2033 or even beyond to envisage any possibility of a change of government. But as long as Zimbabweans remain fixated on the main actor syndrome and not an opposition movement, they must also accept being stuck in the current political ditch for a long time to come. What does this mean? It means more looting. For the diaspora, it means continuing to send money back home for the foreseeable future. The tragedy is that Zimbabwean citizens continue to look for a hero figure rather than building a durable, collective movement that outlasts individual egos. Until that changes, power will remain concentrated in the hands of whoever seizes the moment, no matter how corrupt or undemocratic they are like Mnangagwa. For foreign diplomats, it simply means accepting that they now must work with the government of the day no matter how corrupt it is, with no hope of any change unless there is a dramatic intervention that puts an end to the current political rot. For General Constantino Chiwenga, it means kissing goodbye to his dream of becoming president. He must now tighten his security and pray that Mnangagwa does not make the un-strategic mistake of firing him because he might not be able to fight back. If he still has an appetite for this job, he has to fight for it by coming out of the shadows, otherwise he will meet the same fate that destroyed Joice Mujuru’s career. Without her husband, she became a nobody, and without the military, Chiwenga will be just another brick in the wall. For 74-year-old war veterans’ leader, former intelligence officer, and former Member of Parliament Blessed “Bombshell” Geza, keep your head up high old man. You did what you could, and history will be kind to you for trying, at great personal cost. Your beautiful home in Sanyati was burnt, your wife harassed, and now you are living in hiding. One would have to be a fool of monumental proportions not to acknowledge your efforts and say thank you for trying. You have contributed to people’s consciousness about how bad corruption has become, and hopefully you will live to see the change that Zimbabwe so desperately needs. Every struggle needs leadership; people cannot lead themselves. The idea that the Arab Spring was leaderless is rooted in ignorance and a lack of understanding of what happened. Without leaders to provide direction and inspiration, citizens cannot move forward on their own. Citizens were given direction and inspiration by Geza, but quite evidently, they felt it was not enough to compel them to make sacrifices, such as simply staying away from work and enduring a little hardship for the greater good and a better future. The dysfunctionality of national leadership in Zimbabwe has been fuelled by money changing hands, shameless ethnic alignments, corruption, and the absence of a shared national vision and values. Put simply, Zimbabweans are not united against the common enemy, corrupt rule. The oversized egos that prioritise individualism over a collective agenda are self-evident, and they are among the key ingredients of today’s failed politics. Sadly, it is the ordinary people and the lumpen who cheer that individualism that will continue to suffer. As Dr Solomon Guramatunhu has always said in my favourite saying of his, politicians are a mirror of who we are as a society. Every society has a leadership it deserves. When the society fundamentally changes, it will change its leadership too. When citizens hero-worship politicians regardless of the mistakes they make, it means such a people deserve those leaders. When citizens demand more, the leaders will also change. For now, Zimbabweans are stuck with Mnangagwa and an elusive opposition that only exists in name and not indeed. I conclude by saying that only something very dramatic will change Zimbabwe’s state of affairs. It could be a military intervention that removes the current corrupt political leadership of Mnangagwa, but ultimately it will also serve the interests of the elites if the citizens are just by-standers, or a dramatic fall from grace for the corrupt if a few of them are arrested beyond the president’s control, leading to the public shedding its fear. At this moment, any change will do, because the country was removed from the gutter in 2017 into the sewer. The question is who has the capacity to bring the required change? Only time will tell.
2:25

The proposed indefinite stay-away by Zimbabwe’s war veterans’ leader Blessed “Bombshell” Geza has failed to take off. Zimbabweans, particularly in Bulawayo and Harare and other small towns, chose to go to work today. I see on social media that some citizens in the diaspora are angry with fellow compatriots back home for going to work, but we should remember that Zimbabwe has 95% unemployment, so if people do not go out to hustle, they will starve, so goes the argument. The idea that people would get food from retailers or wholesalers was Alice in Wonderland stuff, it was never going to work or happen in a country where most businesses are owned by the corrupt cabal that the action intended to remove or loosen its grip on power. Secondly, Zimbabweans want to be liberated from corrupt rule by a particular type of political group and politician, so without the traditional opposition throwing its weight behind Geza's call, his efforts were always going to be in vain even though they are noble and progressive. The failure of this stay-away ends any immediate hope that citizens will participate in any liberation efforts unless mobilised by the traditional opposition, which does not exist, or by the military. I will be blunt. Short of a military intervention to stop Emmerson Mnangagwa’s corrupt rule, he will now get everything he wants, including term extensions. He is relentless. Zimbabweans will now be stuck with Mnangagwa until the day he dies and possibly will have to accept that his kids will rule them too with the assistance of his crooked cronies and clansmen. Zimbabweans should forget about the 2028 election and as a local doctor mentioned on social media, begin working through the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. It is pointless putting your hopes in a process that you know too well will be rigged. For him to fail to achieve what he wants, Mnangagwa would have to make a catastrophic mistake, like killing loads of people which will attract international scrutiny or firing his Vice President, General Constantino Chiwenga which might finally trigger a decisive response. There is now nobody with the capacity to stop him, short of a military intervention or death. Geza has tried, but there is no tangible citizen support that was forthcoming. Geza managed to force Mnangagwa’s team to stop chanting the 2030 slogan and pushed them into another plan of bribing MPs with illegally parcelled land. But after today, the dictator knows that Geza is now all alone, unless the military intervenes, which, as I have said before, is now looking highly unlikely unless they are provoked by the continued conspicuous consumption of looted public funds. So, Zimbabweans must now accept the reality that their failure to sacrifice for their liberation by simply staying at home will mean more unemployment, more looting of public funds, more dilapidated hospitals and public infrastructure, and more economic pain all around. Those are the grim political and socio-economic realities of Zimbabwe going forward, nothing less, nothing more. Journalists will continue writing about corruption scandals, but only for historical records and as part of our job, and for many readers, it would be for entertainment value sadly. Some will just switch to issues that have positive mental health outcomes. If you are young, have a passport, and have somewhere to go, my advice is to leave, otherwise, you will just become another tragic statistic of poverty, unemployment, and possibly death in a derelict hospital. Ordinarily, Africans do not care about who is in power if they have the basic necessities of life. But sadly, in Zimbabwe, those necessities will remain out of reach for as long as Mnangagwa and his corrupt cabal are in power. As for the opposition, it is dead. There will be no pushback for reasons you all know. You will remember that last year in May, I mentioned that three key countries to Zimbabwe's politics privately mentioned through their diplomats that, as far as they were concerned, 2028 was gone, and they were now looking at perhaps 2033 or even beyond to envisage any possibility of a change of government. But as long as Zimbabweans remain fixated on the main actor syndrome and not an opposition movement, they must also accept being stuck in the current political ditch for a long time to come. What does this mean? It means more looting. For the diaspora, it means continuing to send money back home for the foreseeable future. The tragedy is that Zimbabwean citizens continue to look for a hero figure rather than building a durable, collective movement that outlasts individual egos. Until that changes, power will remain concentrated in the hands of whoever seizes the moment, no matter how corrupt or undemocratic they are like Mnangagwa. For foreign diplomats, it simply means accepting that they now must work with the government of the day no matter how corrupt it is, with no hope of any change unless there is a dramatic intervention that puts an end to the current political rot. For General Constantino Chiwenga, it means kissing goodbye to his dream of becoming president. He must now tighten his security and pray that Mnangagwa does not make the un-strategic mistake of firing him because he might not be able to fight back. If he still has an appetite for this job, he has to fight for it by coming out of the shadows, otherwise he will meet the same fate that destroyed Joice Mujuru’s career. Without her husband, she became a nobody, and without the military, Chiwenga will be just another brick in the wall. For 74-year-old war veterans’ leader, former intelligence officer, and former Member of Parliament Blessed “Bombshell” Geza, keep your head up high old man. You did what you could, and history will be kind to you for trying, at great personal cost. Your beautiful home in Sanyati was burnt, your wife harassed, and now you are living in hiding. One would have to be a fool of monumental proportions not to acknowledge your efforts and say thank you for trying. You have contributed to people’s consciousness about how bad corruption has become, and hopefully you will live to see the change that Zimbabwe so desperately needs. Every struggle needs leadership; people cannot lead themselves. The idea that the Arab Spring was leaderless is rooted in ignorance and a lack of understanding of what happened. Without leaders to provide direction and inspiration, citizens cannot move forward on their own. Citizens were given direction and inspiration by Geza, but quite evidently, they felt it was not enough to compel them to make sacrifices, such as simply staying away from work and enduring a little hardship for the greater good and a better future. The dysfunctionality of national leadership in Zimbabwe has been fuelled by money changing hands, shameless ethnic alignments, corruption, and the absence of a shared national vision and values. Put simply, Zimbabweans are not united against the common enemy, corrupt rule. The oversized egos that prioritise individualism over a collective agenda are self-evident, and they are among the key ingredients of today’s failed politics. Sadly, it is the ordinary people and the lumpen who cheer that individualism that will continue to suffer. As Dr Solomon Guramatunhu has always said in my favourite saying of his, politicians are a mirror of who we are as a society. Every society has a leadership it deserves. When the society fundamentally changes, it will change its leadership too. When citizens hero-worship politicians regardless of the mistakes they make, it means such a people deserve those leaders. When citizens demand more, the leaders will also change. For now, Zimbabweans are stuck with Mnangagwa and an elusive opposition that only exists in name and not indeed. I conclude by saying that only something very dramatic will change Zimbabwe’s state of affairs. It could be a military intervention that removes the current corrupt political leadership of Mnangagwa, but ultimately it will also serve the interests of the elites if the citizens are just by-standers, or a dramatic fall from grace for the corrupt if a few of them are arrested beyond the president’s control, leading to the public shedding its fear. At this moment, any change will do, because the country was removed from the gutter in 2017 into the sewer. The question is who has the capacity to bring the required change? Only time will tell.

Hopewell Chin’ono

121,252 просмотров • 1 год назад

I would like to wish all my compatriots a happy Independence Day, happy Independence Zimbabwe. The independence of our country, unlike many other African countries, came through blood that was shed. There are so many Zimbabweans who lie in unmarked graves from Tanzania to Zambia to Botswana to Mozambique, and they put their lives on the line so that you and I could have the independence that we did not have under colonial rule. There is a distinct difference between those who fought for the independence of our country and died, never seeing an independent Zimbabwe, and those who took over from colonial rule and then destroyed our country through incompetence, corruption, and many other afflictions that should never have been there. I am in no doubt at all that had our country not become independent, I and many Black citizens would probably not be where we are today, thanks to the early gains of independence. Sadly, I now find myself as a journalist and a Zimbabwean with NO freedom to speak, to write, and to exist as a full citizen in my country post independence after the derailment of the independence dream. Many of our people did not have the opportunities that I personally got, and many others got, to advance our lives. It is unfortunate that we find ourselves where we are today, not because independence is bad, but because we ended up with selfish, corrupt, and incompetent individuals who abandoned the principles and aspirations that inspired many Zimbabweans to go out there and fight so that their country could be free. So on this day, when we celebrate 46 years of independence, the same zeal and drive that defined those who died fighting for our country must be carried forward by those who are alive today, to make sure that the country is restored to where it is supposed to be. Zimbabwe is one of the richest countries under the sun. It has almost every mineral that you can think of, and it has some of the best soils in the world. There is no reason for any Zimbabwean to be unemployed, to fail to earn an income, or to go to bed on an empty stomach. There is absolutely no reason for any Zimbabwean to struggle if the country is led by people who know what they are doing and who put the country first, the national interest first, ahead of their own selfish needs. Whilst colonialism was a terrible stain on the history of our country, there are lessons that can be drawn from that period. Rhodesia was run like a business, not like a fiefdom. The fact that most of the central hospitals that exist today were built during the colonial period, with the exception of Chitungwiza, tells us that infrastructure was prioritised, even if it was designed to serve a minority. That reality does not excuse colonial injustice, but it exposes the scale of failure after independence. Forty-six years later, the government has built only one central hospital. Around 2,500 women die every year during childbirth due to a lack of adequate maternity facilities. The largest hospital in Zimbabwe still relies on a maternity theatre built in 1977, and even then only one of its two theatres is functional, with the working one having been refurbished by a South African bank. That is a damning indictment on the current leadership. The fact that millions of Zimbabweans have been forced to leave the country to take up menial jobs in South Africa, as waiters or farm workers, is an indictment on the current leadership. The fact that people like myself and many others have had to leave home out of fear for our lives is an indictment on the current leadership. Whilst the leadership has failed, we as citizens of Zimbabwe also carry a responsibility towards our country, in whatever space we occupy. We must stop following personalities and start following ideas, whether in the ruling party or in the opposition. Our country has been destroyed because we follow personalities, many of whom are vacuous and empty, and when they fail, they drag the nation down with them as our leaders have done. We must not wait for a Messiah to come and save us from the afflictions we face today. We have a responsibility to do what is right for our country. During the liberation struggle, leaders were changed at different points because the struggle was never about personalities, it was about an idea, an independent Zimbabwe where every Zimbabwean, black, white, green, or yellow, has the same rights and opportunities to pursue a better life. So as we celebrate, and we should celebrate, we must also reflect on our responsibilities going forward. We celebrate because independence itself was a noble idea and remains a noble idea. When things are bad, you do not burn down the house, you fix what is broken. We must honour and remember those who lost their lives so that people like myself could go to college, become journalists, and be recognised internationally, as many Zimbabwean professionals have been, some even advising presidents across the continent and beyond. Zimbabwe has some of the most accomplished people anywhere in the world, and it should not be where it is today. It is therefore up to us, as Zimbabweans, to make sure that we do what is right for our country. Once again, happy Independence to my compatriots, and thank you to all the stalwarts who laid down their lives for us to be independent and to the countries that supported our struggle. We could not have achieved independence in 1980 without Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana, and many others who stood with us. They did well for us and we thank them. It is those who destroyed the country who should hang their heads in shame today. My heart bleeds when I see so many young Zimbabweans with university degrees, yet ending up as victims of drug abuse because there is no work to go to. There are no opportunities available that are aligned with what they went to university to study. It is a tragic indictment of the situation we find ourselves in today. Today we have become a nation where boreholes are being drilled in the middle of cities because the rulers have failed to do something as basic as delivering water into people’s homes. Today we have become a nation where the rest of the region laughs at us because our roads are riddled with potholes, yet the leadership drives Ferraris on those same roads. Today we have become a nation where even our O-level pass rate has not gone beyond 34% because of the failure of leadership to do what needs to be done. Today we cannot even feed ourselves. We have to rely on food aid, and yet we were once colloquially referred to as the breadbasket of the region. These are some of the realities we should reflect on. I could go on and on, but at this point, it is not necessary. To our leaders, I say, how does it feel when you hear the very people you lead saying Ian Smith was better, when they say colonialism was better? How do you feel? Or do you even feel anything at all when those words are spoken? Of course, colonialism was brutal. Of course, Ian Smith was a racist leader who upheld a minority regime built on exclusion and oppression. But it is a damning indictment of your failed leadership that some of our own people now feel pushed to the point of romanticising that dark past. Independence was meant to usher in dignity, opportunity, and shared prosperity for every Zimbabwean, regardless of colour or creed. It was meant to restore ownership of our future to the people. Yet today, you cannot deny that a small, privileged few are the primary beneficiaries of that independence, while the overwhelming majority are trapped in poverty, penury, and relentless suffering. That is not what liberation was fought for. However, nothing can justify a failure to be grateful to those who fought and died for the independence of our country. They did their part. It is now up to us to do our part and ensure that our country becomes what it is meant to be. Happy Independence Zimbabwe.
2:26

I would like to wish all my compatriots a happy Independence Day, happy Independence Zimbabwe. The independence of our country, unlike many other African countries, came through blood that was shed. There are so many Zimbabweans who lie in unmarked graves from Tanzania to Zambia to Botswana to Mozambique, and they put their lives on the line so that you and I could have the independence that we did not have under colonial rule. There is a distinct difference between those who fought for the independence of our country and died, never seeing an independent Zimbabwe, and those who took over from colonial rule and then destroyed our country through incompetence, corruption, and many other afflictions that should never have been there. I am in no doubt at all that had our country not become independent, I and many Black citizens would probably not be where we are today, thanks to the early gains of independence. Sadly, I now find myself as a journalist and a Zimbabwean with NO freedom to speak, to write, and to exist as a full citizen in my country post independence after the derailment of the independence dream. Many of our people did not have the opportunities that I personally got, and many others got, to advance our lives. It is unfortunate that we find ourselves where we are today, not because independence is bad, but because we ended up with selfish, corrupt, and incompetent individuals who abandoned the principles and aspirations that inspired many Zimbabweans to go out there and fight so that their country could be free. So on this day, when we celebrate 46 years of independence, the same zeal and drive that defined those who died fighting for our country must be carried forward by those who are alive today, to make sure that the country is restored to where it is supposed to be. Zimbabwe is one of the richest countries under the sun. It has almost every mineral that you can think of, and it has some of the best soils in the world. There is no reason for any Zimbabwean to be unemployed, to fail to earn an income, or to go to bed on an empty stomach. There is absolutely no reason for any Zimbabwean to struggle if the country is led by people who know what they are doing and who put the country first, the national interest first, ahead of their own selfish needs. Whilst colonialism was a terrible stain on the history of our country, there are lessons that can be drawn from that period. Rhodesia was run like a business, not like a fiefdom. The fact that most of the central hospitals that exist today were built during the colonial period, with the exception of Chitungwiza, tells us that infrastructure was prioritised, even if it was designed to serve a minority. That reality does not excuse colonial injustice, but it exposes the scale of failure after independence. Forty-six years later, the government has built only one central hospital. Around 2,500 women die every year during childbirth due to a lack of adequate maternity facilities. The largest hospital in Zimbabwe still relies on a maternity theatre built in 1977, and even then only one of its two theatres is functional, with the working one having been refurbished by a South African bank. That is a damning indictment on the current leadership. The fact that millions of Zimbabweans have been forced to leave the country to take up menial jobs in South Africa, as waiters or farm workers, is an indictment on the current leadership. The fact that people like myself and many others have had to leave home out of fear for our lives is an indictment on the current leadership. Whilst the leadership has failed, we as citizens of Zimbabwe also carry a responsibility towards our country, in whatever space we occupy. We must stop following personalities and start following ideas, whether in the ruling party or in the opposition. Our country has been destroyed because we follow personalities, many of whom are vacuous and empty, and when they fail, they drag the nation down with them as our leaders have done. We must not wait for a Messiah to come and save us from the afflictions we face today. We have a responsibility to do what is right for our country. During the liberation struggle, leaders were changed at different points because the struggle was never about personalities, it was about an idea, an independent Zimbabwe where every Zimbabwean, black, white, green, or yellow, has the same rights and opportunities to pursue a better life. So as we celebrate, and we should celebrate, we must also reflect on our responsibilities going forward. We celebrate because independence itself was a noble idea and remains a noble idea. When things are bad, you do not burn down the house, you fix what is broken. We must honour and remember those who lost their lives so that people like myself could go to college, become journalists, and be recognised internationally, as many Zimbabwean professionals have been, some even advising presidents across the continent and beyond. Zimbabwe has some of the most accomplished people anywhere in the world, and it should not be where it is today. It is therefore up to us, as Zimbabweans, to make sure that we do what is right for our country. Once again, happy Independence to my compatriots, and thank you to all the stalwarts who laid down their lives for us to be independent and to the countries that supported our struggle. We could not have achieved independence in 1980 without Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana, and many others who stood with us. They did well for us and we thank them. It is those who destroyed the country who should hang their heads in shame today. My heart bleeds when I see so many young Zimbabweans with university degrees, yet ending up as victims of drug abuse because there is no work to go to. There are no opportunities available that are aligned with what they went to university to study. It is a tragic indictment of the situation we find ourselves in today. Today we have become a nation where boreholes are being drilled in the middle of cities because the rulers have failed to do something as basic as delivering water into people’s homes. Today we have become a nation where the rest of the region laughs at us because our roads are riddled with potholes, yet the leadership drives Ferraris on those same roads. Today we have become a nation where even our O-level pass rate has not gone beyond 34% because of the failure of leadership to do what needs to be done. Today we cannot even feed ourselves. We have to rely on food aid, and yet we were once colloquially referred to as the breadbasket of the region. These are some of the realities we should reflect on. I could go on and on, but at this point, it is not necessary. To our leaders, I say, how does it feel when you hear the very people you lead saying Ian Smith was better, when they say colonialism was better? How do you feel? Or do you even feel anything at all when those words are spoken? Of course, colonialism was brutal. Of course, Ian Smith was a racist leader who upheld a minority regime built on exclusion and oppression. But it is a damning indictment of your failed leadership that some of our own people now feel pushed to the point of romanticising that dark past. Independence was meant to usher in dignity, opportunity, and shared prosperity for every Zimbabwean, regardless of colour or creed. It was meant to restore ownership of our future to the people. Yet today, you cannot deny that a small, privileged few are the primary beneficiaries of that independence, while the overwhelming majority are trapped in poverty, penury, and relentless suffering. That is not what liberation was fought for. However, nothing can justify a failure to be grateful to those who fought and died for the independence of our country. They did their part. It is now up to us to do our part and ensure that our country becomes what it is meant to be. Happy Independence Zimbabwe.

Hopewell Chin’ono

12,473 просмотров • 5 месяцев назад

The whole Left ecosystem, starting with the Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge to Congress Chief Ministers across states, seem to have gotten into a frenzy and have become desperate to hide the truth that PM Sri Narendra Modi ji exposed in his tweets on #FakePromisesOfCongress. What Modi Ji has highlighted is a living reality in Karnataka - unsustainable freebie model has wreaked havoc on our State's developmental journey in the last 1.5 years, severely crippling the pace of our progress. What Mr. Kharge himself admits in the video that went viral proves this fact. Apart from his warning to not go overboard with promises, he says that there is no money to make roads. Some people seem to have missed this in translation but that's the indicative reality in Karnataka. That's the gist of what he was trying to say - that development has taken a backfoot in the state because of the unsustainable guarantees that the Congress party is trying to keep alive. It asserts the fact that Congress has fully realized the cost of its own guarantees on State's finances. Take CM Siddaramaiah's last budget for instance. To accommodate these freebies - although there is a budgetary provision made, he has achieved the provision by reducing budget in other key sectors. - The agricultural budget has been reduced by 38%. - The irrigation budget - crucial for many North Karnataka districts and in South Karnataka too - has been reduced by 17%. - The Capital Expenditure is down by 13%. - For Education, 11% budget is allocated while State Average is 14.7%. - Further, Congress budget has allocated merely 0.6% towards Urban Development, against other States average of 3.5%. - Inadequate fund have pushed Bangalore infra from bad to worse. - About Rs 13,000 crore of SC/ST funds have been redirected to fund the freebies. - Every MLA across all party lines is seen complaining about the lack of funds for local area development. - Govt stopped Rs 4000/- that was earlier added as State Contribution to PM Kisan Fund, directly impacting over 58 Lakh farmers. What's worse, while Govt hospitals do not have medicines at their pharmacy due to lack of funds, legacy institutions like KSRTC are being pushed to 100s of crores of losses. All done to keep the evidently unsustainable Guarantees alive. This shouldn't come as a surprise as it's not the first time that Congress itself has spoken about the ground reality in Karnataka. DCM DK Shivakumar, in the first six months of the Government taking over, had said there are no funds for development in Karnataka. CM's Financial Advisor Basavaraj Rayareddy had blamed the freebies for the lack of growth in the state. Mr. Kharge's statement is the most recent addition to such series of admissions by the Congress party. Anyway, it brings another opportunity to throw light on the mishaps that the Karnataka Govt is pursuing on the economic front. When BJP presented its last budget under CM Basavaraj S Bommai, it was a revenue surplus budget. But the latest budget under Siddaramaiah has a revenue deficit of over Rs 12,000 crore! And as always, Congress is taxing the middle class to bridge this gap in revenue. Congress Govt has gone on a spree to hike taxes on so many items that are essential for daily lives. In just 1 year or so, Karnataka has seen hikes in water bills, electricity bills, hike in transportation costs, property tax, stamp paper duty, hike in petrol and diesel, road tax on new vehicles, milk price, excise duty hike and the list goes on. To fund the Freebies, Congress is siphoning money off the common man's pocket. This is why we call this Govt as the #PickpocketSarkara. Claiming to give benefits, but looting the same people is a strategy that is bound to fail. People see through this, and identify this strategy very well. What Modi Ji has highlighted is how aware citizens are making informed choices like they made in Haryana. As much as Mr. Kharge, or DCM, or CM may try to hide PM's message with shrill rhetoric and name calling, his message to be vigilant from Congress fake promises reflects the ground reality in Karnataka.
5:36

The whole Left ecosystem, starting with the Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge to Congress Chief Ministers across states, seem to have gotten into a frenzy and have become desperate to hide the truth that PM Sri Narendra Modi ji exposed in his tweets on #FakePromisesOfCongress. What Modi Ji has highlighted is a living reality in Karnataka - unsustainable freebie model has wreaked havoc on our State's developmental journey in the last 1.5 years, severely crippling the pace of our progress. What Mr. Kharge himself admits in the video that went viral proves this fact. Apart from his warning to not go overboard with promises, he says that there is no money to make roads. Some people seem to have missed this in translation but that's the indicative reality in Karnataka. That's the gist of what he was trying to say - that development has taken a backfoot in the state because of the unsustainable guarantees that the Congress party is trying to keep alive. It asserts the fact that Congress has fully realized the cost of its own guarantees on State's finances. Take CM Siddaramaiah's last budget for instance. To accommodate these freebies - although there is a budgetary provision made, he has achieved the provision by reducing budget in other key sectors. - The agricultural budget has been reduced by 38%. - The irrigation budget - crucial for many North Karnataka districts and in South Karnataka too - has been reduced by 17%. - The Capital Expenditure is down by 13%. - For Education, 11% budget is allocated while State Average is 14.7%. - Further, Congress budget has allocated merely 0.6% towards Urban Development, against other States average of 3.5%. - Inadequate fund have pushed Bangalore infra from bad to worse. - About Rs 13,000 crore of SC/ST funds have been redirected to fund the freebies. - Every MLA across all party lines is seen complaining about the lack of funds for local area development. - Govt stopped Rs 4000/- that was earlier added as State Contribution to PM Kisan Fund, directly impacting over 58 Lakh farmers. What's worse, while Govt hospitals do not have medicines at their pharmacy due to lack of funds, legacy institutions like KSRTC are being pushed to 100s of crores of losses. All done to keep the evidently unsustainable Guarantees alive. This shouldn't come as a surprise as it's not the first time that Congress itself has spoken about the ground reality in Karnataka. DCM DK Shivakumar, in the first six months of the Government taking over, had said there are no funds for development in Karnataka. CM's Financial Advisor Basavaraj Rayareddy had blamed the freebies for the lack of growth in the state. Mr. Kharge's statement is the most recent addition to such series of admissions by the Congress party. Anyway, it brings another opportunity to throw light on the mishaps that the Karnataka Govt is pursuing on the economic front. When BJP presented its last budget under CM Basavaraj S Bommai, it was a revenue surplus budget. But the latest budget under Siddaramaiah has a revenue deficit of over Rs 12,000 crore! And as always, Congress is taxing the middle class to bridge this gap in revenue. Congress Govt has gone on a spree to hike taxes on so many items that are essential for daily lives. In just 1 year or so, Karnataka has seen hikes in water bills, electricity bills, hike in transportation costs, property tax, stamp paper duty, hike in petrol and diesel, road tax on new vehicles, milk price, excise duty hike and the list goes on. To fund the Freebies, Congress is siphoning money off the common man's pocket. This is why we call this Govt as the #PickpocketSarkara. Claiming to give benefits, but looting the same people is a strategy that is bound to fail. People see through this, and identify this strategy very well. What Modi Ji has highlighted is how aware citizens are making informed choices like they made in Haryana. As much as Mr. Kharge, or DCM, or CM may try to hide PM's message with shrill rhetoric and name calling, his message to be vigilant from Congress fake promises reflects the ground reality in Karnataka.

Tejasvi Surya

42,212 просмотров • 1 год назад

I have never seen the American president, Donald Trump, bootlick someone like this, literally kissing ass, as he himself likes to say. This was Trump today with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and boy oh boy, Trump was praising him like crazy. What I found interesting is what I did with this video. I first inserted a clip of Trump during his campaign days attacking and mocking China, then followed it with this latest clip of him praising and flattering the Chinese president in a way we have rarely seen before, today. It perfectly shows how power and economic strength change global power relationships. This should be a lesson for Africa and African leaders who embarrass themselves grovelling for recognition to Western leaders. In 1975, China’s economy was nowhere near where it is today. Back then, China was still a relatively poor developing country and nowhere close to being a global superpower. Today, depending on which economic measurement is used, China is either the largest economy in the world or the second largest after the United States. What did the Chinese do? They did not spend decades begging the West for validation or recognition. They rolled up their sleeves and went to work. They industrialised. They built infrastructure. They invested in manufacturing, education, technology, and long-term planning. And because they built something powerful, the world had no choice but to take them seriously. That is why today you can see an American president publicly flattering a Chinese leader. China now has something the world wants and needs. African leaders waste too much time begging for approval, validation, and symbolic recognition from the West instead of fixing their countries and building functional economies. You even hear leaders like Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe demanding a permanent seat or influence at the United Nations Security Council, yet he presides over a country that struggles to provide electricity for even 10 hours a day. Zimbabwe has massive unemployment, collapsing public services, hospitals without medication, broken roads, a currency that cannot be freely exchanged internationally, and widespread corruption. The list is long. The country’s biggest hospital has operated for long periods with severe shortages of equipment and functioning theatres. Citizens are heavily taxed while public services continue collapsing. How do you expect the world to place you at the top table when your own country is struggling to provide the basics for its citizens? Serious nations do not hand out respect because of liberation war slogans or revolutionary rhetoric from 50 years ago. Respect is earned through performance, stability, production, innovation, and competence. You cannot talk about sovereignty and greatness while importing maize because you failed to properly utilise some of the best agricultural land in Africa. You cannot demand global influence while your citizens depend on food aid and medical support and donations from the same international system you constantly criticise. What we are seeing with Trump and Xi Jinping is a lesson in how the world works. Hard work, economic strength, production, and strategic planning force the world to respect you. Even the most powerful country in the world cannot ignore you once you become economically indispensable. Zimbabwe has enormous potential. We have vast mineral wealth, fertile land, talented people, and strategic opportunities. We have over 80 different minerals and some of the best farming land in the region. Yet millions of Zimbabweans live in poverty and struggle to survive because of corruption, poor governance, and misplaced priorities. We even import toilet paper and tooth picks from South Africa. No serious global institution will fully respect leaders who cannot first build functioning societies at home. The world respects results, not empty slogans, rhetoric and childish propaganda. What we have also learned from this video is that Trump has a domestic audience in America that he clearly does not fully respect intellectually. He says whatever he believes will win him votes, even if it means making exaggerated or hostile statements about countries like China during campaign periods. He understands the emotions and intellectual emptiness of his audience and plays to them politically. And it does not end with his domestic audience only. Trump also has loyal but ignorant supporters and bootlickers across the world, including in Africa, people who treat him almost like a god. But politicians do not necessarily respect people simply because they worship them blindly. They respect power, leverage, influence, and results. During his campaign, Trump spoke about China in derogatory and confrontational terms because it suited his political objectives at the time. But when he came face to face with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the tone changed completely. There was respect, praise, and careful language. In Trump’s own language, he practically “kissed ass”. And that is the reality of how global politics works. You do not get respect simply because you shout loudly, insult others, or demand recognition. You get respect when you build something powerful enough that the world cannot ignore you. China earned that respect through decades of hard work, industrialisation, discipline, economic expansion, infrastructure development, and strategic planning. They built an economy and a system that the world now depends on. That is the lesson Africans and African leaders must take from this video. Stop wasting time begging for validation and recognition from the West. Stop thinking respect is something that can be demanded through slogans, liberation war rhetoric, or political noise. Respect is earned through competence, production, economic strength, innovation, and delivery to your own people. When you build a strong country, the world respects you automatically because you have something valuable to offer. When you have more than 80 minerals in your country and yet your citizens are walking on top of sewage, nobody will respect you. You become a laughing stock. The world looks at that contradiction and sees failure of leadership, not potential. You can steal as much money as you want from your people, build mansions, drive convoys, and surround yourself with praise singers, but when a clown enters a State House, it does not become a palace. It becomes a circus. Real leadership is not measured by slogans, propaganda, or how long you stay in power. It is measured by whether ordinary citizens have clean water, functioning hospitals, decent roads, electricity, jobs, dignity, and hope for the future. A country rich in minerals but poor in governance will never command real respect internationally. Respect comes when national wealth is converted into prosperity for the people, not luxury for the political elite.
2:31

I have never seen the American president, Donald Trump, bootlick someone like this, literally kissing ass, as he himself likes to say. This was Trump today with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and boy oh boy, Trump was praising him like crazy. What I found interesting is what I did with this video. I first inserted a clip of Trump during his campaign days attacking and mocking China, then followed it with this latest clip of him praising and flattering the Chinese president in a way we have rarely seen before, today. It perfectly shows how power and economic strength change global power relationships. This should be a lesson for Africa and African leaders who embarrass themselves grovelling for recognition to Western leaders. In 1975, China’s economy was nowhere near where it is today. Back then, China was still a relatively poor developing country and nowhere close to being a global superpower. Today, depending on which economic measurement is used, China is either the largest economy in the world or the second largest after the United States. What did the Chinese do? They did not spend decades begging the West for validation or recognition. They rolled up their sleeves and went to work. They industrialised. They built infrastructure. They invested in manufacturing, education, technology, and long-term planning. And because they built something powerful, the world had no choice but to take them seriously. That is why today you can see an American president publicly flattering a Chinese leader. China now has something the world wants and needs. African leaders waste too much time begging for approval, validation, and symbolic recognition from the West instead of fixing their countries and building functional economies. You even hear leaders like Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe demanding a permanent seat or influence at the United Nations Security Council, yet he presides over a country that struggles to provide electricity for even 10 hours a day. Zimbabwe has massive unemployment, collapsing public services, hospitals without medication, broken roads, a currency that cannot be freely exchanged internationally, and widespread corruption. The list is long. The country’s biggest hospital has operated for long periods with severe shortages of equipment and functioning theatres. Citizens are heavily taxed while public services continue collapsing. How do you expect the world to place you at the top table when your own country is struggling to provide the basics for its citizens? Serious nations do not hand out respect because of liberation war slogans or revolutionary rhetoric from 50 years ago. Respect is earned through performance, stability, production, innovation, and competence. You cannot talk about sovereignty and greatness while importing maize because you failed to properly utilise some of the best agricultural land in Africa. You cannot demand global influence while your citizens depend on food aid and medical support and donations from the same international system you constantly criticise. What we are seeing with Trump and Xi Jinping is a lesson in how the world works. Hard work, economic strength, production, and strategic planning force the world to respect you. Even the most powerful country in the world cannot ignore you once you become economically indispensable. Zimbabwe has enormous potential. We have vast mineral wealth, fertile land, talented people, and strategic opportunities. We have over 80 different minerals and some of the best farming land in the region. Yet millions of Zimbabweans live in poverty and struggle to survive because of corruption, poor governance, and misplaced priorities. We even import toilet paper and tooth picks from South Africa. No serious global institution will fully respect leaders who cannot first build functioning societies at home. The world respects results, not empty slogans, rhetoric and childish propaganda. What we have also learned from this video is that Trump has a domestic audience in America that he clearly does not fully respect intellectually. He says whatever he believes will win him votes, even if it means making exaggerated or hostile statements about countries like China during campaign periods. He understands the emotions and intellectual emptiness of his audience and plays to them politically. And it does not end with his domestic audience only. Trump also has loyal but ignorant supporters and bootlickers across the world, including in Africa, people who treat him almost like a god. But politicians do not necessarily respect people simply because they worship them blindly. They respect power, leverage, influence, and results. During his campaign, Trump spoke about China in derogatory and confrontational terms because it suited his political objectives at the time. But when he came face to face with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the tone changed completely. There was respect, praise, and careful language. In Trump’s own language, he practically “kissed ass”. And that is the reality of how global politics works. You do not get respect simply because you shout loudly, insult others, or demand recognition. You get respect when you build something powerful enough that the world cannot ignore you. China earned that respect through decades of hard work, industrialisation, discipline, economic expansion, infrastructure development, and strategic planning. They built an economy and a system that the world now depends on. That is the lesson Africans and African leaders must take from this video. Stop wasting time begging for validation and recognition from the West. Stop thinking respect is something that can be demanded through slogans, liberation war rhetoric, or political noise. Respect is earned through competence, production, economic strength, innovation, and delivery to your own people. When you build a strong country, the world respects you automatically because you have something valuable to offer. When you have more than 80 minerals in your country and yet your citizens are walking on top of sewage, nobody will respect you. You become a laughing stock. The world looks at that contradiction and sees failure of leadership, not potential. You can steal as much money as you want from your people, build mansions, drive convoys, and surround yourself with praise singers, but when a clown enters a State House, it does not become a palace. It becomes a circus. Real leadership is not measured by slogans, propaganda, or how long you stay in power. It is measured by whether ordinary citizens have clean water, functioning hospitals, decent roads, electricity, jobs, dignity, and hope for the future. A country rich in minerals but poor in governance will never command real respect internationally. Respect comes when national wealth is converted into prosperity for the people, not luxury for the political elite.

Hopewell Chin’ono

69,711 просмотров • 5 месяцев назад

Everyone is exhausted. This is not a metaphor or a generational complaint. It is a clinical and measurable reality that spans every culture and every economic class. In China, young people call it tang ping, or “lying flat,” a deliberate withdrawal from the achievement treadmill. In Japan, karoshi is a legally recognized cause of death, meaning “worked to death.” In Korea, fertility has collapsed to the lowest rate on earth because an entire generation has decided the grind is not worth reproducing into. In America, deaths of despair have driven life expectancy backward for the first time in a century. Quiet quitting. Let it rot. The Great Resignation. These are not trends. They are symptoms of a global labor force that has reached the end of its tolerance. Capitalism is not satisfied with the limitations of human flesh, and our bodies are in open revolt. Something fundamental is breaking, and it is worth naming plainly. For the past two centuries, labor has been the primary mechanism by which modern economies distribute resources to households. You work for a firm, you receive wages, you use those wages to participate in the economy. This arrangement was never a law of nature. It was a system designed to solve a particular problem at a particular moment in history, and it worked reasonably well for a long time. It is not working anymore. Wages in the United States decoupled from productivity growth in the early 1970s. Since then, economic output has continued to climb while median household income has remained essentially flat. The gains have flowed to capital owners while workers have absorbed the stress and stagnation. Meanwhile, automation has steadily displaced human labor across sector after sector. Manufacturing employment peaked decades ago. Retail is hollowing out. White-collar work is now facing the same pressure from AI that blue-collar work faced from robotics. This is not a policy debate about whether automation is good or bad. It is an observation about a trajectory that is already underway and accelerating. The reason we struggle to talk about this clearly is that we have inherited a set of beliefs about labor that have nothing to do with economics. We have been told that work is sacred. That labor builds character and idleness corrupts the soul. That anyone who does not want to work is morally defective. These ideas feel like common sense, but they are not ancient wisdom. They are the residue of a specific theological tradition, namely the Protestant work ethic that emerged in the 16th century and fused with capitalism over the following centuries. We have mistaken a historical artifact for a natural law. It is time to stop fetishizing labor. It is time to stop sacralizing the sacrifice of our time, our bodies, our health, and our sanity to enrich others. Young people are already rejecting this. “I do not dream of labor” has become a widespread sentiment, not because this generation is lazy, but because they can see what older generations have rationalized away. The deal is bad and getting worse. The fetishization of work as a moral good serves the interests of those who benefit from cheap and compliant labor. It does not serve the people doing the work. Before any productive conversation about the future can happen, this fetish has to be named and dismantled. The difficulty is that both the political left and the political right remain committed to defending labor, even as the ground shifts beneath them. On the right, the defense takes the form of bootstrap mythology and warnings about welfare dependency. Work builds character. Idle hands invite trouble. A strong society requires productive citizens, and productivity is measured in hours exchanged for wages. This position treats labor as a disciplinary institution as much as an economic one. On the left, the defense is more sympathetic but equally stuck. The focus falls on dignified work, living wages, job guarantees, and union solidarity. These are responses to the genuine brutality of labor under capitalism, but they share an underlying assumption with the right. Both positions treat labor as the foundation of economic life, something to be reformed or protected rather than transcended. I call this shared ideology laborism. It is the belief that human labor must be preserved as an economic necessity, a moral virtue, or a foundation for identity. Laborism spans the political spectrum. It unites people who agree on almost nothing else. And it has become the primary obstacle to honest thinking about what comes next. Once automation reaches the point where machines can perform most human labor better, faster, cheaper, and safer, the laborist position becomes untenable. At that point, insisting that humans must continue working is not a defense of dignity. It is a demand that people perform unnecessary suffering for ideological reasons. I am proposing something simple. L/0. Labor-zero. The elimination of obligatory human labor. This does not mean the elimination of work. It means the elimination of compulsion. People will continue to create, to build, to care for each other, to solve problems, to pursue mastery. What disappears is work performed under threat of deprivation. The difference between chosen work and coerced work is the difference between exercise and forced labor. One is life-enhancing. The other is a condition we have historically recognized as a form of bondage. We call it “wage slavery” for a reason. The goal of L/0 is a world where no one has to work to survive. Where contribution is voluntary and intrinsic rather than extracted through economic desperation. This is not a utopian fantasy. It is a design problem with identifiable components and measurable progress. The coalition for this goal already exists. It just does not recognize itself yet. Consider who actually wants labor to end. On one side, you have capital. Corporations have spent the last century trying to reduce labor costs through every available means. Offshoring, automation, gig classification, union suppression. The ideal business from a pure capital perspective has zero employees and infinite output. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is the explicit optimization target of every efficiency-focused enterprise. On the other side, you have workers. Not the abstract proletariat of Marxist theory, but actual burned-out humans who fantasize about quitting, who dread Monday mornings, who experience their jobs as something to be endured rather than enjoyed. The lying flat movement, the antiwork forums, the quiet quitting phenomenon. These are not expressions of laziness. They are rational responses to a system that extracts maximum effort for diminishing returns. Capital and labor are usually framed as adversaries. But on the question of whether human labor should continue to exist as an obligation, their interests converge. The capitalist does not want to manage humans. The worker does not want to be managed. Both would prefer a world where the machines do the work and humans do something else. The conflict between capital and labor is real, but it is a conflict over the terms of the transition, not the destination. Who captures the gains from automation? How is ownership distributed? What happens to the people displaced in the process? These are genuine fights worth having. But they are negotiations within a shared frame, not a war between incompatible visions. Here is the opportunity that L/0 names. Neither side wants this marriage anymore. Capital does not want the overhead, the liability, the HR departments, the labor disputes, the inefficiency of human workers. Labor does not want the compulsion, the precarity, the alarm clocks, the performance reviews, the quiet desperation of trading irreplaceable time for replaceable wages. We are ready for a divorce. Let’s get this acrimonious arrangement behind us. The productive move is to acknowledge this honestly, sign the papers, and start negotiating the separation agreement. The fight over wages was always zero-sum. Every dollar paid to workers was a dollar not captured as profit, and vice versa. But the negotiation over ownership of automated production is positive-sum. Capitalists need consumers with money to spend or their markets collapse. Workers need income decoupled from employment or they starve. Both sides get what they want if the transition is designed correctly. This is not idealism. It is alignment of incentives. The path forward is not mysterious. Economists have understood for decades that the answer to technological unemployment is broadened capital participation. If wages are no longer the primary mechanism for distributing economic gains, then ownership must take their place. Instead of trading hours for dollars, households participate directly in the productive capacity of the automated economy. This can take many forms. Sovereign wealth funds that distribute automation dividends to citizens. Expanded employee stock ownership plans. Universal basic capital grants. Public equity stakes in AI and robotics firms that use public infrastructure and public data. The policy mechanisms are not speculative. Norway has a sovereign wealth fund worth over a trillion dollars that provides direct benefits to its citizens from oil revenues. Alaska has distributed oil dividends to residents for decades. Singapore has a system of mandatory savings and public investment that gives citizens a stake in national prosperity. These are not radical experiments. They are proven models operating at national scale. And there are thousands of such programs around the world. What is missing is not economic theory. What is missing is the political will to implement these mechanisms, the narrative infrastructure to make them seem inevitable rather than radical, and the coalition to demand them. That is what L/0 exists to build. This is an invitation. If you are building the automation and wondering who is thinking about the social transition, this is for you. If you are burned out and know that “find a better job” is not a solution to a systemic problem, this is for you. If you have been called lazy for refusing to pretend the treadmill leads somewhere, this is for you. If you run a company and understand that your future customers need income even after your company stops hiring, this is for you. L/0 is not a political party or a policy platform. It is a coalition and a direction. The work is ongoing through the Post-Labor Economics project, which addresses the specific mechanisms of transition. The conversation is happening in public, and it is open to anyone who understands that the current arrangement is ending and wants to participate in designing what comes next. The goal is simple. Eliminate obligatory labor. Distribute ownership broadly. Let humans do what humans do when they are not forced to sell their time to survive. Liberate humanity from drudgery so that we can all reach our maximum potential.
2:04

Everyone is exhausted. This is not a metaphor or a generational complaint. It is a clinical and measurable reality that spans every culture and every economic class. In China, young people call it tang ping, or “lying flat,” a deliberate withdrawal from the achievement treadmill. In Japan, karoshi is a legally recognized cause of death, meaning “worked to death.” In Korea, fertility has collapsed to the lowest rate on earth because an entire generation has decided the grind is not worth reproducing into. In America, deaths of despair have driven life expectancy backward for the first time in a century. Quiet quitting. Let it rot. The Great Resignation. These are not trends. They are symptoms of a global labor force that has reached the end of its tolerance. Capitalism is not satisfied with the limitations of human flesh, and our bodies are in open revolt. Something fundamental is breaking, and it is worth naming plainly. For the past two centuries, labor has been the primary mechanism by which modern economies distribute resources to households. You work for a firm, you receive wages, you use those wages to participate in the economy. This arrangement was never a law of nature. It was a system designed to solve a particular problem at a particular moment in history, and it worked reasonably well for a long time. It is not working anymore. Wages in the United States decoupled from productivity growth in the early 1970s. Since then, economic output has continued to climb while median household income has remained essentially flat. The gains have flowed to capital owners while workers have absorbed the stress and stagnation. Meanwhile, automation has steadily displaced human labor across sector after sector. Manufacturing employment peaked decades ago. Retail is hollowing out. White-collar work is now facing the same pressure from AI that blue-collar work faced from robotics. This is not a policy debate about whether automation is good or bad. It is an observation about a trajectory that is already underway and accelerating. The reason we struggle to talk about this clearly is that we have inherited a set of beliefs about labor that have nothing to do with economics. We have been told that work is sacred. That labor builds character and idleness corrupts the soul. That anyone who does not want to work is morally defective. These ideas feel like common sense, but they are not ancient wisdom. They are the residue of a specific theological tradition, namely the Protestant work ethic that emerged in the 16th century and fused with capitalism over the following centuries. We have mistaken a historical artifact for a natural law. It is time to stop fetishizing labor. It is time to stop sacralizing the sacrifice of our time, our bodies, our health, and our sanity to enrich others. Young people are already rejecting this. “I do not dream of labor” has become a widespread sentiment, not because this generation is lazy, but because they can see what older generations have rationalized away. The deal is bad and getting worse. The fetishization of work as a moral good serves the interests of those who benefit from cheap and compliant labor. It does not serve the people doing the work. Before any productive conversation about the future can happen, this fetish has to be named and dismantled. The difficulty is that both the political left and the political right remain committed to defending labor, even as the ground shifts beneath them. On the right, the defense takes the form of bootstrap mythology and warnings about welfare dependency. Work builds character. Idle hands invite trouble. A strong society requires productive citizens, and productivity is measured in hours exchanged for wages. This position treats labor as a disciplinary institution as much as an economic one. On the left, the defense is more sympathetic but equally stuck. The focus falls on dignified work, living wages, job guarantees, and union solidarity. These are responses to the genuine brutality of labor under capitalism, but they share an underlying assumption with the right. Both positions treat labor as the foundation of economic life, something to be reformed or protected rather than transcended. I call this shared ideology laborism. It is the belief that human labor must be preserved as an economic necessity, a moral virtue, or a foundation for identity. Laborism spans the political spectrum. It unites people who agree on almost nothing else. And it has become the primary obstacle to honest thinking about what comes next. Once automation reaches the point where machines can perform most human labor better, faster, cheaper, and safer, the laborist position becomes untenable. At that point, insisting that humans must continue working is not a defense of dignity. It is a demand that people perform unnecessary suffering for ideological reasons. I am proposing something simple. L/0. Labor-zero. The elimination of obligatory human labor. This does not mean the elimination of work. It means the elimination of compulsion. People will continue to create, to build, to care for each other, to solve problems, to pursue mastery. What disappears is work performed under threat of deprivation. The difference between chosen work and coerced work is the difference between exercise and forced labor. One is life-enhancing. The other is a condition we have historically recognized as a form of bondage. We call it “wage slavery” for a reason. The goal of L/0 is a world where no one has to work to survive. Where contribution is voluntary and intrinsic rather than extracted through economic desperation. This is not a utopian fantasy. It is a design problem with identifiable components and measurable progress. The coalition for this goal already exists. It just does not recognize itself yet. Consider who actually wants labor to end. On one side, you have capital. Corporations have spent the last century trying to reduce labor costs through every available means. Offshoring, automation, gig classification, union suppression. The ideal business from a pure capital perspective has zero employees and infinite output. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is the explicit optimization target of every efficiency-focused enterprise. On the other side, you have workers. Not the abstract proletariat of Marxist theory, but actual burned-out humans who fantasize about quitting, who dread Monday mornings, who experience their jobs as something to be endured rather than enjoyed. The lying flat movement, the antiwork forums, the quiet quitting phenomenon. These are not expressions of laziness. They are rational responses to a system that extracts maximum effort for diminishing returns. Capital and labor are usually framed as adversaries. But on the question of whether human labor should continue to exist as an obligation, their interests converge. The capitalist does not want to manage humans. The worker does not want to be managed. Both would prefer a world where the machines do the work and humans do something else. The conflict between capital and labor is real, but it is a conflict over the terms of the transition, not the destination. Who captures the gains from automation? How is ownership distributed? What happens to the people displaced in the process? These are genuine fights worth having. But they are negotiations within a shared frame, not a war between incompatible visions. Here is the opportunity that L/0 names. Neither side wants this marriage anymore. Capital does not want the overhead, the liability, the HR departments, the labor disputes, the inefficiency of human workers. Labor does not want the compulsion, the precarity, the alarm clocks, the performance reviews, the quiet desperation of trading irreplaceable time for replaceable wages. We are ready for a divorce. Let’s get this acrimonious arrangement behind us. The productive move is to acknowledge this honestly, sign the papers, and start negotiating the separation agreement. The fight over wages was always zero-sum. Every dollar paid to workers was a dollar not captured as profit, and vice versa. But the negotiation over ownership of automated production is positive-sum. Capitalists need consumers with money to spend or their markets collapse. Workers need income decoupled from employment or they starve. Both sides get what they want if the transition is designed correctly. This is not idealism. It is alignment of incentives. The path forward is not mysterious. Economists have understood for decades that the answer to technological unemployment is broadened capital participation. If wages are no longer the primary mechanism for distributing economic gains, then ownership must take their place. Instead of trading hours for dollars, households participate directly in the productive capacity of the automated economy. This can take many forms. Sovereign wealth funds that distribute automation dividends to citizens. Expanded employee stock ownership plans. Universal basic capital grants. Public equity stakes in AI and robotics firms that use public infrastructure and public data. The policy mechanisms are not speculative. Norway has a sovereign wealth fund worth over a trillion dollars that provides direct benefits to its citizens from oil revenues. Alaska has distributed oil dividends to residents for decades. Singapore has a system of mandatory savings and public investment that gives citizens a stake in national prosperity. These are not radical experiments. They are proven models operating at national scale. And there are thousands of such programs around the world. What is missing is not economic theory. What is missing is the political will to implement these mechanisms, the narrative infrastructure to make them seem inevitable rather than radical, and the coalition to demand them. That is what L/0 exists to build. This is an invitation. If you are building the automation and wondering who is thinking about the social transition, this is for you. If you are burned out and know that “find a better job” is not a solution to a systemic problem, this is for you. If you have been called lazy for refusing to pretend the treadmill leads somewhere, this is for you. If you run a company and understand that your future customers need income even after your company stops hiring, this is for you. L/0 is not a political party or a policy platform. It is a coalition and a direction. The work is ongoing through the Post-Labor Economics project, which addresses the specific mechanisms of transition. The conversation is happening in public, and it is open to anyone who understands that the current arrangement is ending and wants to participate in designing what comes next. The goal is simple. Eliminate obligatory labor. Distribute ownership broadly. Let humans do what humans do when they are not forced to sell their time to survive. Liberate humanity from drudgery so that we can all reach our maximum potential.

David Shapiro (L/0)

64,309 просмотров • 9 месяцев назад

FULL DISCUSSION: Tucker, Botswana, Zimbabwe & Sierra Leone Leaders Clash on China, U.S. and Europe Tucker Carlson: Gentlemen, thank you for doing this. It’s awfully nice of you to do this. I’d just like to go right down the line. Um, and first to you, President Mnangagwa. Again, thanks. In as clear terms as you can, I wonder if you would, um, contrast your experience with China versus the Western powers. Do you think that Zimbabwe and other African countries, to be totally blunt, get a better deal from Chinese investment than they have with Western powers over the past 150 years? President Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe): Well, um, my view is that, um, initially as we became independent, we had, um, most of our development thrust was from the West. But as we evolved, we have also benefited from investment and cooperation from countries like China. But what are... I mean, the basic structure seems the same? Foreign powers extract mineral wealth from various African countries. But do you think that the arrangement that Zimbabwe and other countries currently have with China is better or worse for Zimbabwe than it was under, say, the Brits? President Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe): I think the premises upon which you construct your question... I don’t think is perfect. Yes, Zimbabwe is a sovereign state. And we move on the basis that gives us the best results for our resources. Whether it is relation with the West or the East, what is primarily important is what we ourselves, as an officer, are satisfied with. We don’t need to please the West or please the East. We please ourselves. Tucker Carlson: That seems like a good model for every sovereign country. President Mnangangwa, thank you for this. Do you think that there is a substantial difference? I’m just trying to understand from a Western perspective how the East does business in Africa versus how the West does. It may be too sensitive a topic to talk about out loud, but to the extent you have a view, you can share, would you? President Mnangangwa (Zimbabwe): I’m sure relations cannot be measured country by country. Yes, relations depend on the historical background of countries between one country and another. That’s the base on which relations grow and are nurtured. For us in Zimbabwe, yes, we are a former British colony, but we are very happy with the relations that have now developed with countries like China and so on. Yes, despite being a former British colony. Tucker Carlson: I think this may be one of these topics that's too difficult to talk about in public. Let me just ask you, President Bio, about one of the strengths of your country and the continent, which is its birth rate, which so far surpasses that of any other region in the world, and that seems like a strength. How has your country, Sierra Leone, but also many other countries in Africa, been able to maintain a birth rate at replacement when Europe, the US, Canada, and lots of other parts of the world have not been able to? President Bio (Sierra Leone): Thank you very much. I think, um, we are hard workers, and, uh, we work both in the day and at night. That is such great advice. It is essential to have, uh, young people and to keep the birth rate at the right level so that, uh, there is sustainability in development. What we do today, or as leaders, we provide the enabling environment, provide them with the tools, uh, the young people to navigate the world, which is extremely tough, complicated, and evolving and changing all the time. So it is our responsibility to bear that in mind. We have to plan ahead, be ahead of the curve, to be able to replace accordingly, so that we don’t have a gap in our development process. So we have been busy producing, um, as much as we can, a lot of good people, and we are investing in their education so that they are fit for purpose for a world that is becoming digital and of course going extremely to the edge of technological advancement. Tucker Carlson: If I could just ask a quick follow-up, uh, to you, Mr. President, do you keep track precisely of how many of your young, educated citizens leave and how many stay? Are you thinking hard about how to retain the smartest, most energetic people? President Bio (Sierra Leone): Definitely. Um, in fact, what, uh, my administration did was to make sure that, uh, we provide basic primary and secondary education free of charge to the citizens. Every child born in Sierra Leone, uh, can go to school, be, um, and finish high school without paying a penny. We don’t just provide tuition. We also make sure that we provide other essentials to make it possible for so that nobody has an excuse not to go to school. Because, um, in the 21st century, without education, definitely you can’t make it, and we do not just want to make it at the personal level, family level. We want to grow as a nation. We want to be, um, useful citizens of West Africa, um, the community that I chair today, but we also want to be useful citizens globally, useful citizens that can contribute to the world. So we are taking stock of that, and we are educating them, equipping them, in fact, I call education as an equip—equipment, a navigation equipment in a world that is becoming very, very complicated and complex. Tucker Carlson: Thank you, President Boko. If, as you look at young people in Botswana who are educated and energetic, what’s your pitch to them? What’s your argument to them to stay in Botswana, not go to South Africa, Europe, or the United States? President Boko (Botswana): Young people are generally innovative. They are entrepreneurial. They now have become digital natives. And that presents immense opportunities to them. These opportunities mean they can pretty much operate wherever they are, and they must, as a matter of course, remain within Botswana so that they can then spread their reach and influence to every part of Botswana. And so the opportunities that there are in Botswana, the training, the education, the acquisition of skills, the support, the environment that nurtures them and, uh, feeds and fuels their vitality is what, uh, Botswana offers and what, uh, will power Africa. Africa generally is a very young continent with a median age of 19.3. Botswana's median age is 25. And so with such a population, Africa is poised to rule the world. Tucker Carlson: So what are your plans for the world once you rule it? President Boko (Botswana): To make it fairer, to make it more equitable, to ensure that, uh, intellectual property is internalized in every part of the African continent, that innovation serves humanity, not just a predatory elite, and that everybody can partake equitably and benefit from the fruits of the economy and the vast opportunities that are available in the world. Tucker Carlson: Well, I look forward to being treated fairly under your rule. Thank you. President Mnangagwa, I wonder, you’ve been in the government of Zimbabwe for decades in various roles, including through a very turbulent period where your predecessor famously kicked out the whites and then the economy tanked, and now it’s rising again. I wonder if you would summarize the lessons that your country has learned from that experience. President Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe): I'm not so sure what you have in mind, [clears throat] but let me say, um, our economy has faced challenges. I'm sure you're aware. Yes, Zimbabwe has been under sanctions for decades as a result of us claiming our land from the British and making ourselves independent. Uh, we seized the land and gave it to our people. So sanctions were imposed on us. But in spite of all that, uh, constraint, we have developed, and we are happy that, um, we have developed on our own and we feel very independent. Tucker Carlson: Well, some of the land was seized from people who were born there. Um, so I wonder if there's a lesson about targeting people on the basis of their skin color. Do you think? President Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe): No, land did not belong to a race. It belonged to Zimbabweans. [snorts] [clears throat] So when the colonialists took land from us, time came when we asserted ourselves to take back our land. Those who wanted to have land at the same basis as the African people of Zimbabwe remained. But those who felt superior left. Tucker Carlson: Okay, um, Mr. Bio, I—it does seem like President... Mr. President, that, um, the model of government around the world seems to be changing, or people seem to have lost confidence in democracy. At least in the West, people aren’t quite as keen to promote democracy. Do you notice this? Do you think democracy is in retreat around the world? President Bio (Sierra Leone): I think the world is in transition. Yes, and normally that comes along with instability. I normally refer to it as we are in a state of flux. Yes, we have been told to go democratic, and those who are leading the way or who have been teaching us to be democratic are no longer committed to that method of governance. So we are left to choose. But I still believe that democracy is the best method of governance, choosing who leads, especially liberal democracy, with all the freedoms that go with it so that human rights and other liberties are observed and maintained. We remain committed to democracy, irrespective of the fact that, um, there are now reversals, um, even in Africa, around the world. In fact, these days when you listen to world news and other things, you hardly hear about democracy.
20:05

FULL DISCUSSION: Tucker, Botswana, Zimbabwe & Sierra Leone Leaders Clash on China, U.S. and Europe Tucker Carlson: Gentlemen, thank you for doing this. It’s awfully nice of you to do this. I’d just like to go right down the line. Um, and first to you, President Mnangagwa. Again, thanks. In as clear terms as you can, I wonder if you would, um, contrast your experience with China versus the Western powers. Do you think that Zimbabwe and other African countries, to be totally blunt, get a better deal from Chinese investment than they have with Western powers over the past 150 years? President Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe): Well, um, my view is that, um, initially as we became independent, we had, um, most of our development thrust was from the West. But as we evolved, we have also benefited from investment and cooperation from countries like China. But what are... I mean, the basic structure seems the same? Foreign powers extract mineral wealth from various African countries. But do you think that the arrangement that Zimbabwe and other countries currently have with China is better or worse for Zimbabwe than it was under, say, the Brits? President Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe): I think the premises upon which you construct your question... I don’t think is perfect. Yes, Zimbabwe is a sovereign state. And we move on the basis that gives us the best results for our resources. Whether it is relation with the West or the East, what is primarily important is what we ourselves, as an officer, are satisfied with. We don’t need to please the West or please the East. We please ourselves. Tucker Carlson: That seems like a good model for every sovereign country. President Mnangangwa, thank you for this. Do you think that there is a substantial difference? I’m just trying to understand from a Western perspective how the East does business in Africa versus how the West does. It may be too sensitive a topic to talk about out loud, but to the extent you have a view, you can share, would you? President Mnangangwa (Zimbabwe): I’m sure relations cannot be measured country by country. Yes, relations depend on the historical background of countries between one country and another. That’s the base on which relations grow and are nurtured. For us in Zimbabwe, yes, we are a former British colony, but we are very happy with the relations that have now developed with countries like China and so on. Yes, despite being a former British colony. Tucker Carlson: I think this may be one of these topics that's too difficult to talk about in public. Let me just ask you, President Bio, about one of the strengths of your country and the continent, which is its birth rate, which so far surpasses that of any other region in the world, and that seems like a strength. How has your country, Sierra Leone, but also many other countries in Africa, been able to maintain a birth rate at replacement when Europe, the US, Canada, and lots of other parts of the world have not been able to? President Bio (Sierra Leone): Thank you very much. I think, um, we are hard workers, and, uh, we work both in the day and at night. That is such great advice. It is essential to have, uh, young people and to keep the birth rate at the right level so that, uh, there is sustainability in development. What we do today, or as leaders, we provide the enabling environment, provide them with the tools, uh, the young people to navigate the world, which is extremely tough, complicated, and evolving and changing all the time. So it is our responsibility to bear that in mind. We have to plan ahead, be ahead of the curve, to be able to replace accordingly, so that we don’t have a gap in our development process. So we have been busy producing, um, as much as we can, a lot of good people, and we are investing in their education so that they are fit for purpose for a world that is becoming digital and of course going extremely to the edge of technological advancement. Tucker Carlson: If I could just ask a quick follow-up, uh, to you, Mr. President, do you keep track precisely of how many of your young, educated citizens leave and how many stay? Are you thinking hard about how to retain the smartest, most energetic people? President Bio (Sierra Leone): Definitely. Um, in fact, what, uh, my administration did was to make sure that, uh, we provide basic primary and secondary education free of charge to the citizens. Every child born in Sierra Leone, uh, can go to school, be, um, and finish high school without paying a penny. We don’t just provide tuition. We also make sure that we provide other essentials to make it possible for so that nobody has an excuse not to go to school. Because, um, in the 21st century, without education, definitely you can’t make it, and we do not just want to make it at the personal level, family level. We want to grow as a nation. We want to be, um, useful citizens of West Africa, um, the community that I chair today, but we also want to be useful citizens globally, useful citizens that can contribute to the world. So we are taking stock of that, and we are educating them, equipping them, in fact, I call education as an equip—equipment, a navigation equipment in a world that is becoming very, very complicated and complex. Tucker Carlson: Thank you, President Boko. If, as you look at young people in Botswana who are educated and energetic, what’s your pitch to them? What’s your argument to them to stay in Botswana, not go to South Africa, Europe, or the United States? President Boko (Botswana): Young people are generally innovative. They are entrepreneurial. They now have become digital natives. And that presents immense opportunities to them. These opportunities mean they can pretty much operate wherever they are, and they must, as a matter of course, remain within Botswana so that they can then spread their reach and influence to every part of Botswana. And so the opportunities that there are in Botswana, the training, the education, the acquisition of skills, the support, the environment that nurtures them and, uh, feeds and fuels their vitality is what, uh, Botswana offers and what, uh, will power Africa. Africa generally is a very young continent with a median age of 19.3. Botswana's median age is 25. And so with such a population, Africa is poised to rule the world. Tucker Carlson: So what are your plans for the world once you rule it? President Boko (Botswana): To make it fairer, to make it more equitable, to ensure that, uh, intellectual property is internalized in every part of the African continent, that innovation serves humanity, not just a predatory elite, and that everybody can partake equitably and benefit from the fruits of the economy and the vast opportunities that are available in the world. Tucker Carlson: Well, I look forward to being treated fairly under your rule. Thank you. President Mnangagwa, I wonder, you’ve been in the government of Zimbabwe for decades in various roles, including through a very turbulent period where your predecessor famously kicked out the whites and then the economy tanked, and now it’s rising again. I wonder if you would summarize the lessons that your country has learned from that experience. President Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe): I'm not so sure what you have in mind, [clears throat] but let me say, um, our economy has faced challenges. I'm sure you're aware. Yes, Zimbabwe has been under sanctions for decades as a result of us claiming our land from the British and making ourselves independent. Uh, we seized the land and gave it to our people. So sanctions were imposed on us. But in spite of all that, uh, constraint, we have developed, and we are happy that, um, we have developed on our own and we feel very independent. Tucker Carlson: Well, some of the land was seized from people who were born there. Um, so I wonder if there's a lesson about targeting people on the basis of their skin color. Do you think? President Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe): No, land did not belong to a race. It belonged to Zimbabweans. [snorts] [clears throat] So when the colonialists took land from us, time came when we asserted ourselves to take back our land. Those who wanted to have land at the same basis as the African people of Zimbabwe remained. But those who felt superior left. Tucker Carlson: Okay, um, Mr. Bio, I—it does seem like President... Mr. President, that, um, the model of government around the world seems to be changing, or people seem to have lost confidence in democracy. At least in the West, people aren’t quite as keen to promote democracy. Do you notice this? Do you think democracy is in retreat around the world? President Bio (Sierra Leone): I think the world is in transition. Yes, and normally that comes along with instability. I normally refer to it as we are in a state of flux. Yes, we have been told to go democratic, and those who are leading the way or who have been teaching us to be democratic are no longer committed to that method of governance. So we are left to choose. But I still believe that democracy is the best method of governance, choosing who leads, especially liberal democracy, with all the freedoms that go with it so that human rights and other liberties are observed and maintained. We remain committed to democracy, irrespective of the fact that, um, there are now reversals, um, even in Africa, around the world. In fact, these days when you listen to world news and other things, you hardly hear about democracy.

Solomon Harudzibwi

16,356 просмотров • 8 месяцев назад

PUTIN 12 minutes Answers to questions from media representatives **Question:** Vladimir Vladimirovich, you said earlier that after the State Duma elections, talks in a trilateral format — Russia, the United States, and Ukraine — might resume. The elections have taken place. Where and when might a new round of negotiations be held? **Vladimir Putin:** It is well known that the Ukrainian side broke off the talks that were under way in Istanbul. But now — or rather even before the elections, about ten days or a couple of weeks beforehand — it declared its readiness to resume those talks. And indeed, we said that negotiations were hardly possible before the State Duma elections, and that after that we would be ready to resume those contacts. But what has happened recently is also well known to everyone. On the night of the 19th to the 20th, that is, on the main voting day itself, an attempt was made to carry out a massive strike on Moscow. More than 1,600 unmanned aerial vehicles entered practically the Moscow zone. That is the first point. Second. Strikes were carried out against polling stations. In one place the polling station was in a school, and the school was practically destroyed by the strike. They began attacking the residential buildings of the chairs of territorial election commissions. In one case the chair of a territorial commission was wounded, her husband was wounded, and a child was wounded; in another case, unfortunately, it ended in tragedy, and as you know, the chair of a territorial election commission was killed — the strike was delivered against her home. In addition. We are in St. Petersburg right now. I think everyone remembers how the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum went, when the Ukrainian authorities tried to strike St. Petersburg, hit the so-called coal harbour in the port, and set it on fire. Who were they trying to frighten — us or our guests? People who work with Russia are hardly going to take fright and run off somewhere. No one ran anywhere. We held the forum through to the end. Then, starting in June, they began striking our oil refineries. As is also well known, in June they announced the start of a forty-day operation. Well, it led to certain losses on our side. On top of that they tried to organize a naval blockade of our Black Sea coast. They damaged more than 100 ships — 100 vessels — both Russian ones and those sailing under foreign flags. Yes, we restored all of that. But these were active operations that… Then — against such civilian facilities as Wildberries or Ozon warehouses. What is that? What is it for? Nevertheless, it was done. After that we began to respond on each of these points. And, by all appearances, the retaliatory actions of the Russian Armed Forces proved so painful and destructive for the adversary that now they are again actively raising the issue of a truce on several tracks, as they themselves put it: an energy track (that is, they are already prepared to stop striking our refineries), an air track (a mutual halt to strikes). We can see that they especially need to stop the strikes of our Geran drones — the modern Gerans — against which they have, at least for now, no countermeasure, no antidote — and to end the blockade we have imposed on the Black Sea coast. But they started all of this. They started it on every one of these tracks. Is this some kind of game? Children’s games of some sort? Therefore they must feel these retaliatory strikes by Russia and understand that no provocative actions and no whipping up of tensions will produce the result they want. They only make their own position worse. So all of these moves aimed at so-called reconciliation, and the proposal to resume negotiations — yes, they are all on the table; all of that is possible. But after everything they have done, we will still think carefully about what we need to do in response. And in any case, all decisions in this area, including on a possible resumption of the negotiating process, we will take on the basis of the interests of the Russian Federation. **Question:** Unfortunately, we have already grown used to a wave of Russophobia from Europe. But the other day Estonia’s Minister of Defence, Martin Herem, said they are ready to kill every Russian who crosses the border, and — note this — if the Russians do not attack first, it would be more advantageous for the Estonians to do it themselves. Madness. But this is being said by the defence minister of a neighbouring country, a NATO country. How should one respond? **Vladimir Putin:** On the part of European countries this is, without any doubt, a deliberate inflaming of the situation and a provocation. Everyone is saying — many in Europe are saying — that they expect an attack from the Russian Federation and therefore must themselves prepare for combat operations, for a war with Russia. I want to stress once again: we are not preparing for any combat operations with Europe whatsoever. We have no such plans and, most importantly, no grounds, no real motives for aggravating the situation with Europe, no matter what anyone says, including from the Baltic states. Yes, we know that the rights of the Russian-speaking population are being violated there, but we already know how to respond, and we have worked out a certain approach to this. We respond in the humanitarian sphere and in the sphere of international law. What they invented with “non-citizenship” — that is all a fabrication in the Baltic countries. They are not citizens, not foreigners, not dual nationals — they are “non-citizens.” But that is nonsense. It is nonsense that has already been a fact of international life for more than a year. We will continue to fight for the rights of our compatriots, but in the international legal field. We have never intended to use other instruments, we have not used them, and we do not intend to do so. The whipping up of tensions by certain aggressively minded circles can be explained by only one thing: they want to go on using Ukraine and Ukrainians as cannon fodder, and Ukraine as a state as an instrument of struggle against Russia, in order to prevent our development, to constrain our development, to slow Russia’s forward movement. And in order to keep pouring money into this thoroughly aggressive behaviour and to explain to their own citizens why they are doing it, they try to deceive the citizens of European countries with the thesis that Russia itself is supposedly going to attack someone. That is complete nonsense. Just as it is nonsense coming from this individual who says that they… What will they do? **Remark:** That it would be more advantageous for them to attack us themselves, and they will kill every Russian. **Vladimir Putin:** Look, this is one of those cases where, as we say jokingly, the circus has left town but the clowns have stayed behind. This is political clowning. Estonia’s population, I believe, is a little over 1.3 million people. And the Russian army — the Russian army alone, I am not even talking about the population of the Russian Federation — is 1.535 million. One million three hundred thousand are Estonia’s citizens, and that includes infants and elderly people. Clearly this is complete nonsense, complete rubbish. But unfortunately these are the kind of people we have to deal with today in Western Europe. **Question:** As is well known, talks are now under way in the United States between the Chairman of the PRC and the President of the United States. How do you view that? Are you jealous? And do you intend to go to the APEC summit in China, where a trilateral meeting with you could be held? **Vladimir Putin:** Jealousy belongs to an entirely different sphere — the humanitarian sphere, relations between a man and a woman. In international politics I do not think such categories are used. We welcome the talks between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Why? Because these are the two largest economies in the world, and depending on how they agree on disputed issues, on the problematic issues arising from illegitimate sanctions on the part of the United States, and on what agreements are reached, that will affect the entire world economy, including our own. Yes, today almost everything between us and the United States has been reduced to zero. But with the People’s Republic of China our trade turnover is 240 billion dollars. That is substantial. And the volume of trade is growing. In addition, we have a very important line of further development both for us and for the People’s Republic of China. And of course it matters how international economic relations as a whole take shape. Therefore we welcome any agreements of a positive nature between China and the United States. **Remark:** And as for the APEC summit? **Vladimir Putin:** Ah, the APEC summit. A final decision still has to be made. Everything will depend on the situation in the country — in our country. Whenever I decide whether or not to take part in some international event, I proceed from the situation that is developing inside the Russian Federation. But overall this is a major, serious event, and I have an invitation. I proceed from the view that it is useful to work on such a platform. I told Chairman Xi Jinping that as well. I am inclined to take part in that work. But, I repeat once again, in the end it will still depend on the situation in Russia.
12:21

PUTIN 12 minutes Answers to questions from media representatives **Question:** Vladimir Vladimirovich, you said earlier that after the State Duma elections, talks in a trilateral format — Russia, the United States, and Ukraine — might resume. The elections have taken place. Where and when might a new round of negotiations be held? **Vladimir Putin:** It is well known that the Ukrainian side broke off the talks that were under way in Istanbul. But now — or rather even before the elections, about ten days or a couple of weeks beforehand — it declared its readiness to resume those talks. And indeed, we said that negotiations were hardly possible before the State Duma elections, and that after that we would be ready to resume those contacts. But what has happened recently is also well known to everyone. On the night of the 19th to the 20th, that is, on the main voting day itself, an attempt was made to carry out a massive strike on Moscow. More than 1,600 unmanned aerial vehicles entered practically the Moscow zone. That is the first point. Second. Strikes were carried out against polling stations. In one place the polling station was in a school, and the school was practically destroyed by the strike. They began attacking the residential buildings of the chairs of territorial election commissions. In one case the chair of a territorial commission was wounded, her husband was wounded, and a child was wounded; in another case, unfortunately, it ended in tragedy, and as you know, the chair of a territorial election commission was killed — the strike was delivered against her home. In addition. We are in St. Petersburg right now. I think everyone remembers how the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum went, when the Ukrainian authorities tried to strike St. Petersburg, hit the so-called coal harbour in the port, and set it on fire. Who were they trying to frighten — us or our guests? People who work with Russia are hardly going to take fright and run off somewhere. No one ran anywhere. We held the forum through to the end. Then, starting in June, they began striking our oil refineries. As is also well known, in June they announced the start of a forty-day operation. Well, it led to certain losses on our side. On top of that they tried to organize a naval blockade of our Black Sea coast. They damaged more than 100 ships — 100 vessels — both Russian ones and those sailing under foreign flags. Yes, we restored all of that. But these were active operations that… Then — against such civilian facilities as Wildberries or Ozon warehouses. What is that? What is it for? Nevertheless, it was done. After that we began to respond on each of these points. And, by all appearances, the retaliatory actions of the Russian Armed Forces proved so painful and destructive for the adversary that now they are again actively raising the issue of a truce on several tracks, as they themselves put it: an energy track (that is, they are already prepared to stop striking our refineries), an air track (a mutual halt to strikes). We can see that they especially need to stop the strikes of our Geran drones — the modern Gerans — against which they have, at least for now, no countermeasure, no antidote — and to end the blockade we have imposed on the Black Sea coast. But they started all of this. They started it on every one of these tracks. Is this some kind of game? Children’s games of some sort? Therefore they must feel these retaliatory strikes by Russia and understand that no provocative actions and no whipping up of tensions will produce the result they want. They only make their own position worse. So all of these moves aimed at so-called reconciliation, and the proposal to resume negotiations — yes, they are all on the table; all of that is possible. But after everything they have done, we will still think carefully about what we need to do in response. And in any case, all decisions in this area, including on a possible resumption of the negotiating process, we will take on the basis of the interests of the Russian Federation. **Question:** Unfortunately, we have already grown used to a wave of Russophobia from Europe. But the other day Estonia’s Minister of Defence, Martin Herem, said they are ready to kill every Russian who crosses the border, and — note this — if the Russians do not attack first, it would be more advantageous for the Estonians to do it themselves. Madness. But this is being said by the defence minister of a neighbouring country, a NATO country. How should one respond? **Vladimir Putin:** On the part of European countries this is, without any doubt, a deliberate inflaming of the situation and a provocation. Everyone is saying — many in Europe are saying — that they expect an attack from the Russian Federation and therefore must themselves prepare for combat operations, for a war with Russia. I want to stress once again: we are not preparing for any combat operations with Europe whatsoever. We have no such plans and, most importantly, no grounds, no real motives for aggravating the situation with Europe, no matter what anyone says, including from the Baltic states. Yes, we know that the rights of the Russian-speaking population are being violated there, but we already know how to respond, and we have worked out a certain approach to this. We respond in the humanitarian sphere and in the sphere of international law. What they invented with “non-citizenship” — that is all a fabrication in the Baltic countries. They are not citizens, not foreigners, not dual nationals — they are “non-citizens.” But that is nonsense. It is nonsense that has already been a fact of international life for more than a year. We will continue to fight for the rights of our compatriots, but in the international legal field. We have never intended to use other instruments, we have not used them, and we do not intend to do so. The whipping up of tensions by certain aggressively minded circles can be explained by only one thing: they want to go on using Ukraine and Ukrainians as cannon fodder, and Ukraine as a state as an instrument of struggle against Russia, in order to prevent our development, to constrain our development, to slow Russia’s forward movement. And in order to keep pouring money into this thoroughly aggressive behaviour and to explain to their own citizens why they are doing it, they try to deceive the citizens of European countries with the thesis that Russia itself is supposedly going to attack someone. That is complete nonsense. Just as it is nonsense coming from this individual who says that they… What will they do? **Remark:** That it would be more advantageous for them to attack us themselves, and they will kill every Russian. **Vladimir Putin:** Look, this is one of those cases where, as we say jokingly, the circus has left town but the clowns have stayed behind. This is political clowning. Estonia’s population, I believe, is a little over 1.3 million people. And the Russian army — the Russian army alone, I am not even talking about the population of the Russian Federation — is 1.535 million. One million three hundred thousand are Estonia’s citizens, and that includes infants and elderly people. Clearly this is complete nonsense, complete rubbish. But unfortunately these are the kind of people we have to deal with today in Western Europe. **Question:** As is well known, talks are now under way in the United States between the Chairman of the PRC and the President of the United States. How do you view that? Are you jealous? And do you intend to go to the APEC summit in China, where a trilateral meeting with you could be held? **Vladimir Putin:** Jealousy belongs to an entirely different sphere — the humanitarian sphere, relations between a man and a woman. In international politics I do not think such categories are used. We welcome the talks between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Why? Because these are the two largest economies in the world, and depending on how they agree on disputed issues, on the problematic issues arising from illegitimate sanctions on the part of the United States, and on what agreements are reached, that will affect the entire world economy, including our own. Yes, today almost everything between us and the United States has been reduced to zero. But with the People’s Republic of China our trade turnover is 240 billion dollars. That is substantial. And the volume of trade is growing. In addition, we have a very important line of further development both for us and for the People’s Republic of China. And of course it matters how international economic relations as a whole take shape. Therefore we welcome any agreements of a positive nature between China and the United States. **Remark:** And as for the APEC summit? **Vladimir Putin:** Ah, the APEC summit. A final decision still has to be made. Everything will depend on the situation in the country — in our country. Whenever I decide whether or not to take part in some international event, I proceed from the situation that is developing inside the Russian Federation. But overall this is a major, serious event, and I have an invitation. I proceed from the view that it is useful to work on such a platform. I told Chairman Xi Jinping that as well. I am inclined to take part in that work. But, I repeat once again, in the end it will still depend on the situation in Russia.

🇷🇺 STANISLAV KRAPIVNIK 🇷🇺

13,639 просмотров • 18 дней назад

50 years ago yesterday: U.N. General Assembly adopts initial draft resolution declaring Zionism to be “a form of racism.” U.S. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan delivered this historic speech when the infamous act was ratified on Nov. 10, 1975: 🇺🇸 “There appears to have developed in the United Nations the practice for a number of countries to combine for the purpose of doing something outrageous, and thereafter, the outrageous thing having been done, to profess themselves outraged by those who have the temerity to point it out, and subsequently to declare themselves innocent of any wrong-doing in consequence of its having been brought about wholly in reaction to the “insufferable” acts of those who pointed the wrong-doing out in the first place. Out of deference to these curious sensibilities, the United States chose not to speak in advance of this vote: we speak in its aftermath and in tones of the utmost concern. The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act. Not three weeks ago, the United States Representative in the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee pleaded in measured and fully considered terms for the United Nations not to do this thing. It was, he said, “obscene.” It is something more today, for the furtiveness with which this obscenity first appeared among us has been replaced by a shameless openness. There will be time enough to contemplate the harm this act will have done the United Nations. Historians will do that for us, and it is sufficient for the moment only to note the foreboding fact. A great evil has been loosed upon the world. The abomination of anti-semitism — as this year’s Nobel Peace Laureate Andrei Sakharov observed in Moscow just a few days ago — the Abomination of anti-semitism has been given the appearance of international sanction. The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty — and more — to the murderers of the six million European Jews. Evil enough in itself, but more ominous by far is the realization that now presses upon us — the realization that if there were no General Assembly, this could never have happened. As this day will live in infamy, it behooves those who sought to avert it to declare their thoughts so that historians will know that we fought here, that we were not small in number — not this time — and that while we lost, we fought with full knowledge of what indeed would be lost. Nor should any historian of the event, nor yet any who have participated in it, suppose, that we have fought only as governments, as chancelleries, and on an issue well removed from the concerns of our respective peoples. Others will speak for their nations: I will speak for mine. In all our postwar history there had not been another issue which has brought forth such unanimity of American opinion. The President of the United States has from the first been explicit: This must not happen. The Congress of the United States in a measure unanimously adopted in the Senate and sponsored by 436 of 437 Representatives in the House, declared its utter opposition. Following only American Jews themselves, the American trade union movements was first to the fore in denouncing this infamous undertaking. Next, one after another, the great private institutions of American life pronounced anathema in this evil thing — and most particularly, the Christian churches have done so. Reminded that the United Nations was born in struggle against just such abominations as we are committing today — the wartime alliance of the United Nations dates from 1942 — the United Nations Association of the United States has for the first time in its history appealed directly to each of the 141 other delegations in New York not to do this unspeakable thing. The proposition to be sanctioned by a resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations is that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Now this is a lie. But as it is a lie which the United Nations has now declared to be a truth, the actual truth must be restated. The very first point to be made is that the United Nations has declared Zionism to be racism — without ever having defined racism. “Sentence first — verdict afterwards,” as the Queen of Hearts said. But this is not wonderland, but a real world, where there are real consequences to folly and to venality. Just on Friday, the President of the General Assembly, speaking on behalf of Luxembourg, warned not only of the trouble which would follow from the adoption of this resolution but of its essential irresponsibility — for, he noted, members have wholly different ideas as to what they are condemning. “It seems to me that before a body like this takes a decision they should agree very clearly on what they are approving or condemning, and it takes more time.” Lest I be unclear, the United Nations has in fact on several occasions defined “racial discrimination.” The definitions have been loose, but recognizable. It is “racism,” incomparably the more serious charge — racial discrimination is a practice; racism is a doctrine — which has never been defined. Indeed, the term has only recently appeared in the United Nations General Assembly documents. The one occasion on which we know the meaning to have been discussed was the 1644th meeting of the Third Committee on December 16, 1968, in connection with the report of the Secretary-General on the status of the international convention on the elimination of all racial discrimination. On that occasion — to give some feeling for the intellectual precision with which the matter was being treated — the question arose, as to what should be the relative positioning of the terms “racism” and “Nazism” in a number of the “preambular paragraphs.” The distinguished delegate from Tunisia argued that “racism” should go first because “Nazism was merely a form of racism.” Not so, said the no less distinguished delegate from the Union Soviet Socialist Republics. For, he explained, “Nazism contained the main elements of racism within its ambit and should be mentioned first.” This is to say that racism was merely a form of Nazism. The discussion wound to its weary and inconclusive end, and we are left with nothing to guide us for even this one discussion of “racism” confined itself to world orders in preambular paragraphs, and did not at all touch on the meaning of the words as such. Still, one cannot but ponder the situation we have made for ourselves in the context of the Soviet statement on that not so distant occasion. If, as the distinguished delegate declared, racism is a form of Nazism — and if, as this resolution declares, Zionism is a form of racism — then we have step to step taken ourselves to the point of proclaiming — the United Nations is solemnly proclaiming — that Zionism is a form of Nazism. What we have here is a lie — a political lie of a variety well known to the twentieth century, and scarcely exceeded in all that annal of untruth and outrage. The lie is that Zionism is a form of racism. The overwhelmingly clear truth is that is it not. The word “racism” is a creation of the English language, and relatively new to it. It is not, for instance, to be found in the Oxford English Dictionary (appears in 1982 supplement to Oxford Dictionary). The term derives from relatively new doctrines — all of them discredited — concerning the human population of the world, to the effect that there are significant biological differences among clearly identifiable groups, and that these differences establish, in effect, different levels of humanity. Racism, as defined in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, is “The Assumption that . . . traits and capacities are determined by biological race and that races differ decisively from one another.” It further involves “a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and its right to dominate over others.” This meaning is clear. It is equally clear that this assumption, this belief, has always been altogether alien to the political and religious movement known as Zionism. As a strictly political movement, Zionism was established only in 1897, although there is a clearly legitimate sense in which its origins are indeed ancient. For example, many branches of Christianity have always held that from the standpoint of biblical prophets, Israel would be reborn one day. But the modern Zionism movement arose in Europe in the context of a general upsurge of national consciousness and aspiration that overtook most other people of Central and Eastern Europe after 1848, and that in time spread to all of Africa and Asia. It was, to those persons of the Jewish religion, a Jewish form of what today is called a national liberation movement. Probably a majority of those persons who became active Zionists and sought to emigrate to Palestine were born within the confines of Czarist Russia, and it was only natural for Soviet Prime Minister Andrei Gromyko to deplore, as he did in 1948, in the 299th meeting of the Security Council, the act by Israel’s neighbors of “sending troops into Palestine and carrying out military operations aimed” — in Mr. Gromyko’s words — at the suppression of the national liberation movement in Palestine.” Now it was the singular nature — if, I am not mistaken, it was the unique nature — of this national liberation movement that in contrast with the movements that preceded it, those of that time, and those that have come since, it defined its members in terms not of birth, but of belief. That is to say, it was not a movement of the Irish to free Ireland, or of the Polish to free Poland, not a movement of the Algerians to free Algeria, nor of Indians to free India. It was not a movement of persons connected by historic membership to a genetic pool of the kind that enables us to speak loosely but not meaninglessly, say, of the Chinese people, nor yet of diverse groups occupying the same territory which enables us to speak if the American people with no greater indignity to truth. To the contrary, Zionists defined themselves merely as Jews, and declared to be Jewish anyone born of a Jewish mother or — and this is the absolutely crucial fact — anyone who converted to Judaism. Which is to say, in terms of International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted by the 20th General Assembly, anyone — regardless of “race, colour, descent, or nationally or ethnic origin …..” The state of Israel, which in time was the creation of the Zionist Movement, has been extraordinary in nothing so much as the range of “racial stocks” from which it Orient and Jew from the West. Most such persons could be said to have been “born” Jewish, just as most Presbyterians and most Hindus are “born” to their faith, but there are many Jews who are just converts. With a consistency in the matter which surely attests to the importance of this issue to that religions and political culture, Israeli courts have held that a Jew who converts to another religion is no longer a Jew. In the meantime the population of Israel also includes large numbers of non-Jews, among them Arabs of both the Muslim and Christian religions and Christians of other national origins. Many of these persons are citizens of Israel, and those who are not can become citizens by legal procedures very much like those which obtain in a typical nation of Western Europe. Now I should wish to be understood that I am here making one point, and one point only, which is that whatever else Zionism may be, it is not and cannot be “a form of racism.” In logic, the State of Israel could be, or could become, many things, theoretically, including many things undesirable, but it could not be and could not become racism unless it ceased to be Zionist. Indeed, the idea that Jews are a “race” was invented not by Jews but by those who hated Jews. The idea of Jews as a race was invented by nineteenth century anti-semites such as Houston Steward Chamberlain and Edouard Drumont, who saw that in an increasingly secular age, which is to say an age made for fewer distinctions between people, the old religions grounds for anti-semitism were losing force. New justifications were needed for excluding and persecuting Jews, and so the new idea of Jews as a race — rather than as a religion — was born. It was a contemptible idea at the beginning, and no civilized person would be associated with it. To think that it is an idea now endorsed by the United Nations is to reflect on what civilization has come to. It is precisely a concern for civilization, for civilized values that are or should be precious to all mankind, that arouses us at this moment to such special passion. What we have at stake here is not merely the honor and the legitimacy of the State of Israel — although a challenge to the legitimacy of any member nation ought always to arouse the vigilance of all members of the United Nations. For a yet more important matter is at issue, which is the integrity of the whole body of moral and legal precepts which we know as human rights. The terrible lie that has been told here today will have terrible consequences. Not only will people begin to say, indeed they have already begun to say that the United Nations is a place where lies are told, but far more serious, grave and perhaps irreparable harm will be done to the cause of human rights itself. The harm will arise first because it will strip from racism the precise and abhorrent meaning that it still precariously holds today. How will the people of the world feel about racism and the need to struggle against it, when they are told that it is an idea as broad as to include the Jewish national liberation movement? As the lie spreads, it will do harm in a second way. Many of the members of the United Nations owe their independence in no small part to the notion of human rights, as it has spread from the domestic sphere to the international sphere exercised its influence over the old colonial powers. We are now coming into a time when that independence is likely to be threatened again. There will be new forces, some of them arising now, new prophets and new despots, who will justify their actions with the help of just such distortions of words as we have sanctioned here today. Today we have drained the word “racism” of its meaning. Tomorrow, terms like “national self-determination” and “national honor” will be perverted in the same way to serve the purposes of conquest and exploitation. And when these claims begin to be made — as they already have begun to be made — it is the small nations of the world whose integrity will suffer. And how will the small nations of the world defend themselves, on what grounds will others be moved to defend and protect them, when the language of human rights, the only language by which the small can be defended, is no longer believed and no longer has a power of its own? There is this danger, and then a final danger that is the most serious of all. Which is that the damage we now do to the idea of human rights and the language of human rights could well be irreversible. The idea of human rights as we know it today is not an idea which has always existed in human affairs, it is an idea which appeared at a specific time in the world, and under very special circumstances. It appeared when European philosophers of the seventeenth century began to argue that man was a being whose existence was independent from that of the State, that he need join a political community only if he did not lose by that association more than he gained. From this very specific political philosophy stemmed the idea of political rights, of claims that the individual could justly make against the state; it was because the individual was seen as so separate from the State that he could make legitimate demands upon it. That was the philosophy from which the idea of domestic and international rights sprang. But most of the world does not hold with that philosophy now. Most of the world believes in newer modes of political thought, in philosophies that do not accept the individual as distinct from and prior to the State, in philosophies that therefore do not provide any justification for the idea of human rights and philosophies that have no words by which to explain their value. If we destroy the words that were given to us by past centuries, we will not have words to replace them, for philosophy today has no such words. But there are those of us who have not forsaken these older words, still so new to much of the world. Not forsaken them now, not here, not anywhere, not ever. The United States of America declares that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.”
24:35

50 years ago yesterday: U.N. General Assembly adopts initial draft resolution declaring Zionism to be “a form of racism.” U.S. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan delivered this historic speech when the infamous act was ratified on Nov. 10, 1975: 🇺🇸 “There appears to have developed in the United Nations the practice for a number of countries to combine for the purpose of doing something outrageous, and thereafter, the outrageous thing having been done, to profess themselves outraged by those who have the temerity to point it out, and subsequently to declare themselves innocent of any wrong-doing in consequence of its having been brought about wholly in reaction to the “insufferable” acts of those who pointed the wrong-doing out in the first place. Out of deference to these curious sensibilities, the United States chose not to speak in advance of this vote: we speak in its aftermath and in tones of the utmost concern. The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act. Not three weeks ago, the United States Representative in the Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee pleaded in measured and fully considered terms for the United Nations not to do this thing. It was, he said, “obscene.” It is something more today, for the furtiveness with which this obscenity first appeared among us has been replaced by a shameless openness. There will be time enough to contemplate the harm this act will have done the United Nations. Historians will do that for us, and it is sufficient for the moment only to note the foreboding fact. A great evil has been loosed upon the world. The abomination of anti-semitism — as this year’s Nobel Peace Laureate Andrei Sakharov observed in Moscow just a few days ago — the Abomination of anti-semitism has been given the appearance of international sanction. The General Assembly today grants symbolic amnesty — and more — to the murderers of the six million European Jews. Evil enough in itself, but more ominous by far is the realization that now presses upon us — the realization that if there were no General Assembly, this could never have happened. As this day will live in infamy, it behooves those who sought to avert it to declare their thoughts so that historians will know that we fought here, that we were not small in number — not this time — and that while we lost, we fought with full knowledge of what indeed would be lost. Nor should any historian of the event, nor yet any who have participated in it, suppose, that we have fought only as governments, as chancelleries, and on an issue well removed from the concerns of our respective peoples. Others will speak for their nations: I will speak for mine. In all our postwar history there had not been another issue which has brought forth such unanimity of American opinion. The President of the United States has from the first been explicit: This must not happen. The Congress of the United States in a measure unanimously adopted in the Senate and sponsored by 436 of 437 Representatives in the House, declared its utter opposition. Following only American Jews themselves, the American trade union movements was first to the fore in denouncing this infamous undertaking. Next, one after another, the great private institutions of American life pronounced anathema in this evil thing — and most particularly, the Christian churches have done so. Reminded that the United Nations was born in struggle against just such abominations as we are committing today — the wartime alliance of the United Nations dates from 1942 — the United Nations Association of the United States has for the first time in its history appealed directly to each of the 141 other delegations in New York not to do this unspeakable thing. The proposition to be sanctioned by a resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations is that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” Now this is a lie. But as it is a lie which the United Nations has now declared to be a truth, the actual truth must be restated. The very first point to be made is that the United Nations has declared Zionism to be racism — without ever having defined racism. “Sentence first — verdict afterwards,” as the Queen of Hearts said. But this is not wonderland, but a real world, where there are real consequences to folly and to venality. Just on Friday, the President of the General Assembly, speaking on behalf of Luxembourg, warned not only of the trouble which would follow from the adoption of this resolution but of its essential irresponsibility — for, he noted, members have wholly different ideas as to what they are condemning. “It seems to me that before a body like this takes a decision they should agree very clearly on what they are approving or condemning, and it takes more time.” Lest I be unclear, the United Nations has in fact on several occasions defined “racial discrimination.” The definitions have been loose, but recognizable. It is “racism,” incomparably the more serious charge — racial discrimination is a practice; racism is a doctrine — which has never been defined. Indeed, the term has only recently appeared in the United Nations General Assembly documents. The one occasion on which we know the meaning to have been discussed was the 1644th meeting of the Third Committee on December 16, 1968, in connection with the report of the Secretary-General on the status of the international convention on the elimination of all racial discrimination. On that occasion — to give some feeling for the intellectual precision with which the matter was being treated — the question arose, as to what should be the relative positioning of the terms “racism” and “Nazism” in a number of the “preambular paragraphs.” The distinguished delegate from Tunisia argued that “racism” should go first because “Nazism was merely a form of racism.” Not so, said the no less distinguished delegate from the Union Soviet Socialist Republics. For, he explained, “Nazism contained the main elements of racism within its ambit and should be mentioned first.” This is to say that racism was merely a form of Nazism. The discussion wound to its weary and inconclusive end, and we are left with nothing to guide us for even this one discussion of “racism” confined itself to world orders in preambular paragraphs, and did not at all touch on the meaning of the words as such. Still, one cannot but ponder the situation we have made for ourselves in the context of the Soviet statement on that not so distant occasion. If, as the distinguished delegate declared, racism is a form of Nazism — and if, as this resolution declares, Zionism is a form of racism — then we have step to step taken ourselves to the point of proclaiming — the United Nations is solemnly proclaiming — that Zionism is a form of Nazism. What we have here is a lie — a political lie of a variety well known to the twentieth century, and scarcely exceeded in all that annal of untruth and outrage. The lie is that Zionism is a form of racism. The overwhelmingly clear truth is that is it not. The word “racism” is a creation of the English language, and relatively new to it. It is not, for instance, to be found in the Oxford English Dictionary (appears in 1982 supplement to Oxford Dictionary). The term derives from relatively new doctrines — all of them discredited — concerning the human population of the world, to the effect that there are significant biological differences among clearly identifiable groups, and that these differences establish, in effect, different levels of humanity. Racism, as defined in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, is “The Assumption that . . . traits and capacities are determined by biological race and that races differ decisively from one another.” It further involves “a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and its right to dominate over others.” This meaning is clear. It is equally clear that this assumption, this belief, has always been altogether alien to the political and religious movement known as Zionism. As a strictly political movement, Zionism was established only in 1897, although there is a clearly legitimate sense in which its origins are indeed ancient. For example, many branches of Christianity have always held that from the standpoint of biblical prophets, Israel would be reborn one day. But the modern Zionism movement arose in Europe in the context of a general upsurge of national consciousness and aspiration that overtook most other people of Central and Eastern Europe after 1848, and that in time spread to all of Africa and Asia. It was, to those persons of the Jewish religion, a Jewish form of what today is called a national liberation movement. Probably a majority of those persons who became active Zionists and sought to emigrate to Palestine were born within the confines of Czarist Russia, and it was only natural for Soviet Prime Minister Andrei Gromyko to deplore, as he did in 1948, in the 299th meeting of the Security Council, the act by Israel’s neighbors of “sending troops into Palestine and carrying out military operations aimed” — in Mr. Gromyko’s words — at the suppression of the national liberation movement in Palestine.” Now it was the singular nature — if, I am not mistaken, it was the unique nature — of this national liberation movement that in contrast with the movements that preceded it, those of that time, and those that have come since, it defined its members in terms not of birth, but of belief. That is to say, it was not a movement of the Irish to free Ireland, or of the Polish to free Poland, not a movement of the Algerians to free Algeria, nor of Indians to free India. It was not a movement of persons connected by historic membership to a genetic pool of the kind that enables us to speak loosely but not meaninglessly, say, of the Chinese people, nor yet of diverse groups occupying the same territory which enables us to speak if the American people with no greater indignity to truth. To the contrary, Zionists defined themselves merely as Jews, and declared to be Jewish anyone born of a Jewish mother or — and this is the absolutely crucial fact — anyone who converted to Judaism. Which is to say, in terms of International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted by the 20th General Assembly, anyone — regardless of “race, colour, descent, or nationally or ethnic origin …..” The state of Israel, which in time was the creation of the Zionist Movement, has been extraordinary in nothing so much as the range of “racial stocks” from which it Orient and Jew from the West. Most such persons could be said to have been “born” Jewish, just as most Presbyterians and most Hindus are “born” to their faith, but there are many Jews who are just converts. With a consistency in the matter which surely attests to the importance of this issue to that religions and political culture, Israeli courts have held that a Jew who converts to another religion is no longer a Jew. In the meantime the population of Israel also includes large numbers of non-Jews, among them Arabs of both the Muslim and Christian religions and Christians of other national origins. Many of these persons are citizens of Israel, and those who are not can become citizens by legal procedures very much like those which obtain in a typical nation of Western Europe. Now I should wish to be understood that I am here making one point, and one point only, which is that whatever else Zionism may be, it is not and cannot be “a form of racism.” In logic, the State of Israel could be, or could become, many things, theoretically, including many things undesirable, but it could not be and could not become racism unless it ceased to be Zionist. Indeed, the idea that Jews are a “race” was invented not by Jews but by those who hated Jews. The idea of Jews as a race was invented by nineteenth century anti-semites such as Houston Steward Chamberlain and Edouard Drumont, who saw that in an increasingly secular age, which is to say an age made for fewer distinctions between people, the old religions grounds for anti-semitism were losing force. New justifications were needed for excluding and persecuting Jews, and so the new idea of Jews as a race — rather than as a religion — was born. It was a contemptible idea at the beginning, and no civilized person would be associated with it. To think that it is an idea now endorsed by the United Nations is to reflect on what civilization has come to. It is precisely a concern for civilization, for civilized values that are or should be precious to all mankind, that arouses us at this moment to such special passion. What we have at stake here is not merely the honor and the legitimacy of the State of Israel — although a challenge to the legitimacy of any member nation ought always to arouse the vigilance of all members of the United Nations. For a yet more important matter is at issue, which is the integrity of the whole body of moral and legal precepts which we know as human rights. The terrible lie that has been told here today will have terrible consequences. Not only will people begin to say, indeed they have already begun to say that the United Nations is a place where lies are told, but far more serious, grave and perhaps irreparable harm will be done to the cause of human rights itself. The harm will arise first because it will strip from racism the precise and abhorrent meaning that it still precariously holds today. How will the people of the world feel about racism and the need to struggle against it, when they are told that it is an idea as broad as to include the Jewish national liberation movement? As the lie spreads, it will do harm in a second way. Many of the members of the United Nations owe their independence in no small part to the notion of human rights, as it has spread from the domestic sphere to the international sphere exercised its influence over the old colonial powers. We are now coming into a time when that independence is likely to be threatened again. There will be new forces, some of them arising now, new prophets and new despots, who will justify their actions with the help of just such distortions of words as we have sanctioned here today. Today we have drained the word “racism” of its meaning. Tomorrow, terms like “national self-determination” and “national honor” will be perverted in the same way to serve the purposes of conquest and exploitation. And when these claims begin to be made — as they already have begun to be made — it is the small nations of the world whose integrity will suffer. And how will the small nations of the world defend themselves, on what grounds will others be moved to defend and protect them, when the language of human rights, the only language by which the small can be defended, is no longer believed and no longer has a power of its own? There is this danger, and then a final danger that is the most serious of all. Which is that the damage we now do to the idea of human rights and the language of human rights could well be irreversible. The idea of human rights as we know it today is not an idea which has always existed in human affairs, it is an idea which appeared at a specific time in the world, and under very special circumstances. It appeared when European philosophers of the seventeenth century began to argue that man was a being whose existence was independent from that of the State, that he need join a political community only if he did not lose by that association more than he gained. From this very specific political philosophy stemmed the idea of political rights, of claims that the individual could justly make against the state; it was because the individual was seen as so separate from the State that he could make legitimate demands upon it. That was the philosophy from which the idea of domestic and international rights sprang. But most of the world does not hold with that philosophy now. Most of the world believes in newer modes of political thought, in philosophies that do not accept the individual as distinct from and prior to the State, in philosophies that therefore do not provide any justification for the idea of human rights and philosophies that have no words by which to explain their value. If we destroy the words that were given to us by past centuries, we will not have words to replace them, for philosophy today has no such words. But there are those of us who have not forsaken these older words, still so new to much of the world. Not forsaken them now, not here, not anywhere, not ever. The United States of America declares that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act.”

Hillel Neuer

68,720 просмотров • 1 год назад

"You just hate Hichilema": The dramatic fall of Zambia's president By Sishuwa Sishuwa Hakainde Hichilema stood in the queue to becoming President of Zambia for 15 years before voters finally removed him from it in August 2021. This demonstrates how badly the man wanted this job. But it has taken him only five years in office to display his unfitness for the role. When it comes to the bigger national issues, such as safeguarding our cherished democracy, getting the best out of Zambia’s mineral wealth, respecting the constitution and the rule of law, fighting corruption beyond rhetoric, genuine promotion of national unity and equitable distribution of appointments to public service positions, sorting out the cost-of-living crisis and the deplorable conditions of life for most Zambians, Hichilema has lamentably failed. In fact, I would go as far as saying that the President has become a clear and present danger to Zambia’s economy, to our democracy, our constitutional order, our nationhood and its 'One Zambia Nation' foundation, and to the lives of ordinary Zambians. Voting Hichilema out of office will be the highest expression of patriotism. As I have previously stated, I am convinced that Hichilema will lose the election on 13 August. The only thing that can save him from defeat is pre-ballot death (of any candidate) or industrial scale vote-rigging. I really hope that we Zambians will never again elect a lying, tribal, corrupt, unpatriotic, vindictive, hypocritical, lawless, and undemocratic scumbag. In addition to his policy failures on major issues of public concern, one reason why Hichilema is losing the election (unless he rigs it on an industrial scale) is because of having extremist supporters, mostly Zambezi supremacists, who dismiss legitimate criticism of his leadership actions as hate speech and consequently enable his continued failure to be receptive to criticism, to reflect on the feedback provided by the governed, and to change for the better. When citizens (be it the Catholic Bishops, opposition parties, civic actors, or ordinary Zambians like me) raise governance concerns, they do so in the spirit of accountable democratic governance. They do not do so because they hate the president as a person, hate his ethnic identity, or hate where he was born. I insist that a better Zambia is possible but we won’t get it if we treat criticism of presidential leadership failure as expression of hate. Unfortunately, even Hichilema himself has embraced this warped thinking that any criticism of his leadership actions is hate speech. This attitude has deprived him of the much needed feedback on his leadership performance and capacity to listen to divergent views, consequently impoverishing his presidency. We must embrace the unfamiliar, eschew haste in passing judgement, and be more tolerant and understanding. These qualities are especially essential to those in public leadership roles. I once raised concern that we seem to have prepared different standards for this president compared to those who came before him. If a leader can only provide five hours of electricity to the people in a day, they have failed. If a leader can only increase the cost of living, they have failed. If a leader…I can go on. In addition to denying the president the benefit of legitimate public feedback on his performance, misconstruing criticism as hate makes it look like the responsibility of holding our public leaders to account falls on those who either love him or hail from the region where the president does not come from. If his supporters and Tongas, Lozis and Zambians from Northwestern Province join in calling out the wrongs of Hichilema, he will no longer play the tribal card of reducing all criticism of his leadership to ethnic hatred. In the uncritical minds of some of the president's supporters, I criticise Hichilema because I hate him! Most of the individuals who hold this view are people who repeatedly criticise me on this platform, even when their criticism is quite often devoid of reason or substance. I do not think those who criticise me do so because they hate me. I think they criticise me, even if I hold no elected public office, simply because they have a different take, different opinions, on things. Why is it so hard to apply the same logic to my criticism of an elected public leader like Hichilema who is accountable to us, the public? I have been providing regular political commentaries on Zambian affairs since 2009. Why was my much stronger criticism of Hichilema's predecessors, namely Rupiah Banda, Michael Sata, and Edgar Lungu, not considered hatred of these individual leaders? In fact, many of the individuals who today accuse me of harbouring hatred for Hichilema were people who were very happy with my much stinging criticism of the leadership failures of his predecessors. When I called Sata a tribalist and undemocratic leader who did not listen to advise, and provided evidence in support of my conclusions, they were happy to cheer me on, even as Sata's supporters said I was bitter and a Hichilema supporter. When I called Lungu a tribalist and corrupt leader, and provided evidence in support of my conclusions, they were happy to cheer me on, even as Lungu's supporters said I was bitter and petitioned the police to arrest me for sedition. Some of Hichilema's supporters, as part of the enjoyment of their exercise of the right to free expression, even insult me, call me names, or outrightly declare that they dislike me. Of course I would prefer content-based discussion, but if the best that anyone's mind can do is to insult me, I will consider their actions as part of the right to free expression. I recognise that people have the right to dislike me, to call me names, to wish me whatever they desire, to feel however they want about me. I have no problem with all this. I do not speak to be liked or secure the validation of anyone. I speak to express myself and I respect the right of other people to do the same. As I have repeatedly stated, free speech is not just for the people or thoughts we like or agree with; it is also for people we despise and opinions that we do not support. The important point is not the position I take on a given issue of public interest. It is the reasoning advanced in support of said position. If I say Hichilema is a lying, tribal, corrupt, unpatriotic, vindictive, hypocritical, lawless, and undemocratic scumbag, what is important is not simply this description; it is the reasons and evidence I have adduced in support of this conclusion. Anyone is welcome to challenge my conclusions or evidence, to say "I disagree with your argument for this and that reason." What I totally reject is the idea that criticism of a president's leadership actions amounts to hate; it does not. If I point out that Hichilema is failing to ensure adequate ethnic diversity in public appointments and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema is a compulsive liar and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema’s fight against corruption is a sham and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema is a compulsive liar and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema has eroded Zambia’s democracy and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema has failed to reduce the cost of living, as per his campaign promise, and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema (working in cohort with his friend Situmbeko Musokotwane) has facilitated the extraction of the country’s mineral wealth by multinational corporations without ensuring sufficient returns in revenue collection for Zambia and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema has failed to…and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. Simply dismissing my criticism as an expression of my alleged hatred for Hichilema is most unhelpful. Those who do so are depriving me the opportunity to learn what I do not know and Hichilema the opportunity to adjust his leadership style and change for the better. While I do not hesitate to share my opinions on matters of public concern, I also retain the intellectual integrity of one who is willing to abandon their point of view if its weakness can be shown. I have repeatedly stated that I harbour no hatred against Hichilema. What I hate is his bad leadership, whose meaning I have explained in the article below. There is no constitutional democracy in the world that requires citizens to love their elected leaders. Loving individuals is the responsibility of their spouses and family members. Once these individuals step up to hold elective public office, we owe them one thing: accountability or feedback on their performance. No elected public leader or their supporter should burden me or another person with any demand for affirmation or affection. In a functioning democracy, the duty of citizens is to hold their elected leaders to account so that they deliver basic services and do not undermine accountable democratic governance. This is what I have been doing across different administrations, including this one. As early as December 2021, when I analysed Hichilma's first 100 days in office, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In 2022, when he was celebrating one year in office, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In 2023, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In 2024, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In fact, as did his predecessor in 2021 in response to my criticism of the abuse of state institutions to fix critics and opponents, the president asked his supporters to report me to the police for alleged hate speech against him! In 2025, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. This year and for the many reasons that I shared in the interview on the link below, Hichilema is losing the election because he did not listen to criticism that we, as citizens, raised about his performance. He is also losing the election because of his extremist supporters who, in addition to a wilful but harmful failure to hold him to account, dismiss legitimate criticism of his leadership from other people as hate speech. What a pity! What a wasted opportunity! I have just read a story on a ruling party platform casually dismissing Global Witness's report that "Ahead of Zambia's general election...First Quantum Minerals and its associates have been running a decades-long covert influence campaign distorting the copper-rich nation's democracy" and that the Canadian firm has "become his [Hichilema's] largest funder in the upcoming 2026 election after pledging up to $50 million in support." The report adds that "FQM has reaped enormous benefits: major changes to Zambia's tax regime have save the company $771 million between 2022 and 2025, and it has been shielded from legal scrutiny." Rather than interrogating these grave concerns, the publisher, the Zambian Watchdog which is run from State House, is treating the issue so casually when Global Witness, a very credible international outlet, raises serious corruption and governance allegations. In January 2019, I raised questions about Hichilema's relationship with foreign mining firms, but was told by his supporters that I just hate him. Today, we are ere. The net result is that Hichilema, who in opposition politics had positioned himself as the reformist leader Zambia needed to reclaim its democracy, eliminate corruption, unite the country, and set it on the path to economic recovery, has, in power, turned out to be nearly everything he detested about his predecessor and, in some cases, much worse. Under his watch, corruption has thrived on a massive scale, the economy is a shambles, ethnic divisions have worsened, Zambia’s previously principled foreign policy has been shredded into something unrecognisable, and democracy is essentially non-existent. The man who was expected to lead reform has instead transitioned into an aspiring despot. Unless he rigs the election, or eliminates his main rival, Zambians should prepare for a new administration after 13 August. Many voters have reached a point of no return and it is too late for Hichilema to change their mind. A combination of failure to listen and the "you just hate Hichilema" brigade has destroyed his once promising presidency. I see many people expressing surprise at the huge turnout at Brian Mundubile's rallies. What they miss is that the turnout reflects the revulsion against Hichilema rather than genuine support for Brian. Even if Brian was not there, voters would have rallied behind another candidate through which to express their opposition to Hichilema as a result of his major policy failures. As early as 2023, wen I noticed Hichilema's direction of travel, I warned that the greatest opposition that he and the UPND face is a politically alert and informed citizenry, not an opposition party: “The biggest opposition that Hichilema faces is the people, particularly if he fails to lower the cost of living and tackle the huge unemployment outside the health and education sectors. They can stop opposition rallies like Edgar Lungu and the PF tried to do but if Zambians would have decided in a year or two that Hichilema must go at the next election, there is nothing that he can do to stop them....Even if Hichilema tries to, he cannot stop the people’s will. Even if he succeeds in killing the PF and in his manoeuvres to block his main political opponents from running in 2026, another platform and another candidate to serve as the outlet of opposition will be found. The voters will support any visionary patriot they see as better placed to be used as the vehicle for removing Hichilema just like they chose him as the vehicle for removing Lungu. Please tell him”. Hichilema did not listen. Again. This continued failure to listen prompted my conclusion two years later that "Many Zambians may not know yet who they will vote for in the 2026 presidential election, but they already know who they won’t vote for." The truth is that I tried to warn Hichilema in good time and at different points that he was heading in the wrong direction. The President, dripping with arrogance, did not listen. Think of it this way. A bus (representing a political party in power) is transporting passengers (active citizens) from Intercity terminus (2021, being the departure point of where we did not want to be anymore) to Nakonde (2026, being the arrival point of destination before subsequently deciding whether to book the same bus for the return trip). After leaving Intercity, some passengers notice that the bus is heading towards Livingstone (a wrong destination that takes us back to before 2021). A few of us (active citizens) decide to stand up (holding the leader to account) and confront both the driver (the president) and his conductor (Minister of Finance), demanding an explanation for why we are heading to Livingstone when we were promised that we woud be taken to Nakonde. Other passengers, mainly those who came from the ethnic group of the driver and conductor, defended the duo even before it could respond to our concerns. They repeatedly told us that "You just hate the driver. Please sit down!" One or two relatives of the conductor joined in support, saying the "The driver and the conductor are excellent and one of them has even won awards for stellar performance on his duties, including his remarkable capacity to understand direction of travel"! That is how some passengers kept quiet. I kept on talking, especially after we reached Choma in the hope that if we turned atthat point, we woudl not wast more time. I talked because I could not get off the bus at undesigned stations, so the only solution was to appeal to the driver to change course. I explained that it would be an act of extreme irresponsibility on my part as an active passenger to wait until the bus has reached Livingstone before holding the driver to account about the direction of travel. That is why I tried to warn the driver that we were headed in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, other passengers said we should just sit back comfortably, enjoy the ride which included some morsels of food delivered by the bus, and trust the driver because other drivers before him were much worse. In the end, we arrived in Livingstone, our undesired destination. Just when we were arriving, we saw another bus, loading passing from there directly to Nakonde. The driver, upon realising the cost of his failure to listen and the disappointment in the eyes of the passengers, urged everyone to sit down, promising that he would take us to Nakonde if we give him more time. With the exception of those who came from the driver's ethnic group and the auxiliary ones, most passengers, who had shown great faith in his driving skills by paying (voting) the fare for the bus as their mode of transport from Intercity to Nakonde, have left the bus for the other. These include those who had adopted silence during the journey after realising that the driver, aided by the choir mentioned, was not a listening kind. As I write this post, the alternative bus is almost full. The same passengers who accused those of us who, along the way, advised the driver to change course, of harbouring hatred for the driver are now wondering why nearly everyone is leaving the bus we came with for an alternative one that is promising to take us directly to Nakonde. One of the driver's supporters, reiterating the driver's earlier appeal that we should stick to the bus that brought us to Livingstone, just shouted at us a moment ago: "The alternative bus will take you to a wrong destination. Its driver cannot be trusted; just stick to this one because you won't have to pay a new fare". The supporter is overlooking the point that we are already at a wrong destination, the current driver has betrayed our trust, and that we would rather repose our trust in another person. It is not good to remain on a bus, driven by a person who does not listen, out of the fear that an alternative one might be driven by someone who could be worse. Let us try the alternative bus. If its driver takes us to a wrong destination, we will disembark from the bus we are about to jump onto, as we have done before, and find another one until we reach Nakonde. For me and other active passengers, such has been the the current driver's betrayal of our trust that we have reached a point of no return. We cannot trust this driver anymore, especially that when we tried to correct him, no one explained to us why our concerns were unfounded. We were just told that we hate hate the driver or his ethic group or or the province where he comes from. Recently, Dr Lee Habasonda, a lecturer in political science at the University of Zambia, told Reuters (watch the video clip on the link below) that electoral success is a matter of thresholds – of grievances, feelings, frustrations, etc. Lee’s view is that once a certain threshold or tipping point has been reached, "no matter your manifesto, ideology, lies" or whatever those in power do or say, the voters will "decide to change government" because they would have reached a point of no return. Emotionally, many Zambian voters, including some that I know who voted for Hichilema in 2021, have passed that threshold where no matter what Hichilema or UPND does, these voters will reject him. This is because the threshold, or the point of no return, has been reached. As Lee argued, those in power "may say we have already won this election when they campaign but the political coalitions and realignment" suggest otherwise. When the opposition wins next month, we will need to advise them to get non-sycophants at State House and in the critical posts in the civil service. It is important that they understand that unless there is a clear shift away from the harmful culture we have raised concerns about, we will be compelled to challenge them with the same resolve we previously applied to both the PF and UPND governments. On my part, I promise that I will always be on the side of the people. You will not find me in government even after the election. Once Hichilema is out of office, I will leave him alone and my attention will shift to holding to account the next set of public leaders. As I made clear in 2021, I am content serving as an academic and I will work, as part of my civic duty, to hold the new Government to account as I did with previous Governments. I am not available for or interested in any form of government job. For now, Iet me continue listening to the attached song. Chalo chesu.
4:54

"You just hate Hichilema": The dramatic fall of Zambia's president By Sishuwa Sishuwa Hakainde Hichilema stood in the queue to becoming President of Zambia for 15 years before voters finally removed him from it in August 2021. This demonstrates how badly the man wanted this job. But it has taken him only five years in office to display his unfitness for the role. When it comes to the bigger national issues, such as safeguarding our cherished democracy, getting the best out of Zambia’s mineral wealth, respecting the constitution and the rule of law, fighting corruption beyond rhetoric, genuine promotion of national unity and equitable distribution of appointments to public service positions, sorting out the cost-of-living crisis and the deplorable conditions of life for most Zambians, Hichilema has lamentably failed. In fact, I would go as far as saying that the President has become a clear and present danger to Zambia’s economy, to our democracy, our constitutional order, our nationhood and its 'One Zambia Nation' foundation, and to the lives of ordinary Zambians. Voting Hichilema out of office will be the highest expression of patriotism. As I have previously stated, I am convinced that Hichilema will lose the election on 13 August. The only thing that can save him from defeat is pre-ballot death (of any candidate) or industrial scale vote-rigging. I really hope that we Zambians will never again elect a lying, tribal, corrupt, unpatriotic, vindictive, hypocritical, lawless, and undemocratic scumbag. In addition to his policy failures on major issues of public concern, one reason why Hichilema is losing the election (unless he rigs it on an industrial scale) is because of having extremist supporters, mostly Zambezi supremacists, who dismiss legitimate criticism of his leadership actions as hate speech and consequently enable his continued failure to be receptive to criticism, to reflect on the feedback provided by the governed, and to change for the better. When citizens (be it the Catholic Bishops, opposition parties, civic actors, or ordinary Zambians like me) raise governance concerns, they do so in the spirit of accountable democratic governance. They do not do so because they hate the president as a person, hate his ethnic identity, or hate where he was born. I insist that a better Zambia is possible but we won’t get it if we treat criticism of presidential leadership failure as expression of hate. Unfortunately, even Hichilema himself has embraced this warped thinking that any criticism of his leadership actions is hate speech. This attitude has deprived him of the much needed feedback on his leadership performance and capacity to listen to divergent views, consequently impoverishing his presidency. We must embrace the unfamiliar, eschew haste in passing judgement, and be more tolerant and understanding. These qualities are especially essential to those in public leadership roles. I once raised concern that we seem to have prepared different standards for this president compared to those who came before him. If a leader can only provide five hours of electricity to the people in a day, they have failed. If a leader can only increase the cost of living, they have failed. If a leader…I can go on. In addition to denying the president the benefit of legitimate public feedback on his performance, misconstruing criticism as hate makes it look like the responsibility of holding our public leaders to account falls on those who either love him or hail from the region where the president does not come from. If his supporters and Tongas, Lozis and Zambians from Northwestern Province join in calling out the wrongs of Hichilema, he will no longer play the tribal card of reducing all criticism of his leadership to ethnic hatred. In the uncritical minds of some of the president's supporters, I criticise Hichilema because I hate him! Most of the individuals who hold this view are people who repeatedly criticise me on this platform, even when their criticism is quite often devoid of reason or substance. I do not think those who criticise me do so because they hate me. I think they criticise me, even if I hold no elected public office, simply because they have a different take, different opinions, on things. Why is it so hard to apply the same logic to my criticism of an elected public leader like Hichilema who is accountable to us, the public? I have been providing regular political commentaries on Zambian affairs since 2009. Why was my much stronger criticism of Hichilema's predecessors, namely Rupiah Banda, Michael Sata, and Edgar Lungu, not considered hatred of these individual leaders? In fact, many of the individuals who today accuse me of harbouring hatred for Hichilema were people who were very happy with my much stinging criticism of the leadership failures of his predecessors. When I called Sata a tribalist and undemocratic leader who did not listen to advise, and provided evidence in support of my conclusions, they were happy to cheer me on, even as Sata's supporters said I was bitter and a Hichilema supporter. When I called Lungu a tribalist and corrupt leader, and provided evidence in support of my conclusions, they were happy to cheer me on, even as Lungu's supporters said I was bitter and petitioned the police to arrest me for sedition. Some of Hichilema's supporters, as part of the enjoyment of their exercise of the right to free expression, even insult me, call me names, or outrightly declare that they dislike me. Of course I would prefer content-based discussion, but if the best that anyone's mind can do is to insult me, I will consider their actions as part of the right to free expression. I recognise that people have the right to dislike me, to call me names, to wish me whatever they desire, to feel however they want about me. I have no problem with all this. I do not speak to be liked or secure the validation of anyone. I speak to express myself and I respect the right of other people to do the same. As I have repeatedly stated, free speech is not just for the people or thoughts we like or agree with; it is also for people we despise and opinions that we do not support. The important point is not the position I take on a given issue of public interest. It is the reasoning advanced in support of said position. If I say Hichilema is a lying, tribal, corrupt, unpatriotic, vindictive, hypocritical, lawless, and undemocratic scumbag, what is important is not simply this description; it is the reasons and evidence I have adduced in support of this conclusion. Anyone is welcome to challenge my conclusions or evidence, to say "I disagree with your argument for this and that reason." What I totally reject is the idea that criticism of a president's leadership actions amounts to hate; it does not. If I point out that Hichilema is failing to ensure adequate ethnic diversity in public appointments and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema is a compulsive liar and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema’s fight against corruption is a sham and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema is a compulsive liar and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema has eroded Zambia’s democracy and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema has failed to reduce the cost of living, as per his campaign promise, and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema (working in cohort with his friend Situmbeko Musokotwane) has facilitated the extraction of the country’s mineral wealth by multinational corporations without ensuring sufficient returns in revenue collection for Zambia and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema has failed to…and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. Simply dismissing my criticism as an expression of my alleged hatred for Hichilema is most unhelpful. Those who do so are depriving me the opportunity to learn what I do not know and Hichilema the opportunity to adjust his leadership style and change for the better. While I do not hesitate to share my opinions on matters of public concern, I also retain the intellectual integrity of one who is willing to abandon their point of view if its weakness can be shown. I have repeatedly stated that I harbour no hatred against Hichilema. What I hate is his bad leadership, whose meaning I have explained in the article below. There is no constitutional democracy in the world that requires citizens to love their elected leaders. Loving individuals is the responsibility of their spouses and family members. Once these individuals step up to hold elective public office, we owe them one thing: accountability or feedback on their performance. No elected public leader or their supporter should burden me or another person with any demand for affirmation or affection. In a functioning democracy, the duty of citizens is to hold their elected leaders to account so that they deliver basic services and do not undermine accountable democratic governance. This is what I have been doing across different administrations, including this one. As early as December 2021, when I analysed Hichilma's first 100 days in office, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In 2022, when he was celebrating one year in office, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In 2023, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In 2024, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In fact, as did his predecessor in 2021 in response to my criticism of the abuse of state institutions to fix critics and opponents, the president asked his supporters to report me to the police for alleged hate speech against him! In 2025, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. This year and for the many reasons that I shared in the interview on the link below, Hichilema is losing the election because he did not listen to criticism that we, as citizens, raised about his performance. He is also losing the election because of his extremist supporters who, in addition to a wilful but harmful failure to hold him to account, dismiss legitimate criticism of his leadership from other people as hate speech. What a pity! What a wasted opportunity! I have just read a story on a ruling party platform casually dismissing Global Witness's report that "Ahead of Zambia's general election...First Quantum Minerals and its associates have been running a decades-long covert influence campaign distorting the copper-rich nation's democracy" and that the Canadian firm has "become his [Hichilema's] largest funder in the upcoming 2026 election after pledging up to $50 million in support." The report adds that "FQM has reaped enormous benefits: major changes to Zambia's tax regime have save the company $771 million between 2022 and 2025, and it has been shielded from legal scrutiny." Rather than interrogating these grave concerns, the publisher, the Zambian Watchdog which is run from State House, is treating the issue so casually when Global Witness, a very credible international outlet, raises serious corruption and governance allegations. In January 2019, I raised questions about Hichilema's relationship with foreign mining firms, but was told by his supporters that I just hate him. Today, we are ere. The net result is that Hichilema, who in opposition politics had positioned himself as the reformist leader Zambia needed to reclaim its democracy, eliminate corruption, unite the country, and set it on the path to economic recovery, has, in power, turned out to be nearly everything he detested about his predecessor and, in some cases, much worse. Under his watch, corruption has thrived on a massive scale, the economy is a shambles, ethnic divisions have worsened, Zambia’s previously principled foreign policy has been shredded into something unrecognisable, and democracy is essentially non-existent. The man who was expected to lead reform has instead transitioned into an aspiring despot. Unless he rigs the election, or eliminates his main rival, Zambians should prepare for a new administration after 13 August. Many voters have reached a point of no return and it is too late for Hichilema to change their mind. A combination of failure to listen and the "you just hate Hichilema" brigade has destroyed his once promising presidency. I see many people expressing surprise at the huge turnout at Brian Mundubile's rallies. What they miss is that the turnout reflects the revulsion against Hichilema rather than genuine support for Brian. Even if Brian was not there, voters would have rallied behind another candidate through which to express their opposition to Hichilema as a result of his major policy failures. As early as 2023, wen I noticed Hichilema's direction of travel, I warned that the greatest opposition that he and the UPND face is a politically alert and informed citizenry, not an opposition party: “The biggest opposition that Hichilema faces is the people, particularly if he fails to lower the cost of living and tackle the huge unemployment outside the health and education sectors. They can stop opposition rallies like Edgar Lungu and the PF tried to do but if Zambians would have decided in a year or two that Hichilema must go at the next election, there is nothing that he can do to stop them....Even if Hichilema tries to, he cannot stop the people’s will. Even if he succeeds in killing the PF and in his manoeuvres to block his main political opponents from running in 2026, another platform and another candidate to serve as the outlet of opposition will be found. The voters will support any visionary patriot they see as better placed to be used as the vehicle for removing Hichilema just like they chose him as the vehicle for removing Lungu. Please tell him”. Hichilema did not listen. Again. This continued failure to listen prompted my conclusion two years later that "Many Zambians may not know yet who they will vote for in the 2026 presidential election, but they already know who they won’t vote for." The truth is that I tried to warn Hichilema in good time and at different points that he was heading in the wrong direction. The President, dripping with arrogance, did not listen. Think of it this way. A bus (representing a political party in power) is transporting passengers (active citizens) from Intercity terminus (2021, being the departure point of where we did not want to be anymore) to Nakonde (2026, being the arrival point of destination before subsequently deciding whether to book the same bus for the return trip). After leaving Intercity, some passengers notice that the bus is heading towards Livingstone (a wrong destination that takes us back to before 2021). A few of us (active citizens) decide to stand up (holding the leader to account) and confront both the driver (the president) and his conductor (Minister of Finance), demanding an explanation for why we are heading to Livingstone when we were promised that we woud be taken to Nakonde. Other passengers, mainly those who came from the ethnic group of the driver and conductor, defended the duo even before it could respond to our concerns. They repeatedly told us that "You just hate the driver. Please sit down!" One or two relatives of the conductor joined in support, saying the "The driver and the conductor are excellent and one of them has even won awards for stellar performance on his duties, including his remarkable capacity to understand direction of travel"! That is how some passengers kept quiet. I kept on talking, especially after we reached Choma in the hope that if we turned atthat point, we woudl not wast more time. I talked because I could not get off the bus at undesigned stations, so the only solution was to appeal to the driver to change course. I explained that it would be an act of extreme irresponsibility on my part as an active passenger to wait until the bus has reached Livingstone before holding the driver to account about the direction of travel. That is why I tried to warn the driver that we were headed in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, other passengers said we should just sit back comfortably, enjoy the ride which included some morsels of food delivered by the bus, and trust the driver because other drivers before him were much worse. In the end, we arrived in Livingstone, our undesired destination. Just when we were arriving, we saw another bus, loading passing from there directly to Nakonde. The driver, upon realising the cost of his failure to listen and the disappointment in the eyes of the passengers, urged everyone to sit down, promising that he would take us to Nakonde if we give him more time. With the exception of those who came from the driver's ethnic group and the auxiliary ones, most passengers, who had shown great faith in his driving skills by paying (voting) the fare for the bus as their mode of transport from Intercity to Nakonde, have left the bus for the other. These include those who had adopted silence during the journey after realising that the driver, aided by the choir mentioned, was not a listening kind. As I write this post, the alternative bus is almost full. The same passengers who accused those of us who, along the way, advised the driver to change course, of harbouring hatred for the driver are now wondering why nearly everyone is leaving the bus we came with for an alternative one that is promising to take us directly to Nakonde. One of the driver's supporters, reiterating the driver's earlier appeal that we should stick to the bus that brought us to Livingstone, just shouted at us a moment ago: "The alternative bus will take you to a wrong destination. Its driver cannot be trusted; just stick to this one because you won't have to pay a new fare". The supporter is overlooking the point that we are already at a wrong destination, the current driver has betrayed our trust, and that we would rather repose our trust in another person. It is not good to remain on a bus, driven by a person who does not listen, out of the fear that an alternative one might be driven by someone who could be worse. Let us try the alternative bus. If its driver takes us to a wrong destination, we will disembark from the bus we are about to jump onto, as we have done before, and find another one until we reach Nakonde. For me and other active passengers, such has been the the current driver's betrayal of our trust that we have reached a point of no return. We cannot trust this driver anymore, especially that when we tried to correct him, no one explained to us why our concerns were unfounded. We were just told that we hate hate the driver or his ethic group or or the province where he comes from. Recently, Dr Lee Habasonda, a lecturer in political science at the University of Zambia, told Reuters (watch the video clip on the link below) that electoral success is a matter of thresholds – of grievances, feelings, frustrations, etc. Lee’s view is that once a certain threshold or tipping point has been reached, "no matter your manifesto, ideology, lies" or whatever those in power do or say, the voters will "decide to change government" because they would have reached a point of no return. Emotionally, many Zambian voters, including some that I know who voted for Hichilema in 2021, have passed that threshold where no matter what Hichilema or UPND does, these voters will reject him. This is because the threshold, or the point of no return, has been reached. As Lee argued, those in power "may say we have already won this election when they campaign but the political coalitions and realignment" suggest otherwise. When the opposition wins next month, we will need to advise them to get non-sycophants at State House and in the critical posts in the civil service. It is important that they understand that unless there is a clear shift away from the harmful culture we have raised concerns about, we will be compelled to challenge them with the same resolve we previously applied to both the PF and UPND governments. On my part, I promise that I will always be on the side of the people. You will not find me in government even after the election. Once Hichilema is out of office, I will leave him alone and my attention will shift to holding to account the next set of public leaders. As I made clear in 2021, I am content serving as an academic and I will work, as part of my civic duty, to hold the new Government to account as I did with previous Governments. I am not available for or interested in any form of government job. For now, Iet me continue listening to the attached song. Chalo chesu.

Sishuwa Sishuwa

32,874 просмотров • 2 месяцев назад

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa who has been in power since November 2017, following the military coup that removed President Robert Mugabe. He has now signed into law Constitutional Amendment No. 3, which, among many other things, extends his term of office to 2030, cancels the 2028 elections, extends the presidential term from five years to seven years, and removes the direct election of the President by citizens, transferring that responsibility to Parliament. This is a massive controversial constitutional change, one that would ordinarily require a referendum. However, the President and his advisers have refused to subject these changes to a referendum. That fact alone renders the entire process contestable and places a dark cloud of illegitimacy over his presidency beyond 2028, when his term of office was originally supposed to end. But this crisis will not wait until 2028. It began the moment he signed Constitutional Amendment No. 3 into law, as opponents of the Bill which is now law have already declared the process illegal because there was no referendum. The real challenge facing President Mnangagwa is not so much the opposition, which he has effectively dismantled with the assistance of opposition leaders who have allegedly been bought or co-opted. The real challenge is the economy. As Bill Clinton famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” The economy is what will create a wave of political discontent between now and whenever he eventually leaves office, assuming he does not die in office. I have seen some of my South African friends mocking Zimbabweans over this development and saying it is a Zimbabwean issue that Zimbabweans must resolve themselves. One can only say that if one is ignorant of the interconnectedness of our region and the ripple effects that this constitutional change is likely to create. South Africa’s illegal immigration crisis has been authored, in part, by the misgovernance in Zimbabwe, which successive South African governments and the African National Congress have tolerated and, at times, enabled. When the economy deteriorates in Zimbabwe, desperate people cross into South Africa by any means necessary in search of jobs and opportunities. This should not be viewed as a Zimbabwean crisis alone. It is a regional crisis, one that has the potential to create political and social turbulence throughout Southern Africa. History has taught us that whenever there is a crisis in Zimbabwe, South Africa bears much of the burden. But this post is not about South Africa. It is about Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans. The culture of bootlicking leaders and hero-worshipping politicians cuts across Zimbabwean society, both in the ruling party and in the opposition. Part of the reason why the opposition has been emasculated by Emmerson Mnangagwa is because citizens continue to place blind faith in leaders who have delivered very little. Those leaders continue to sell hope to the people, even when many Zimbabweans know that some of them have been captured or compromised. We saw this decadence in the Parliament of Zimbabwe. Opposition Members of Parliament voted with ZANUPF. Only 42 voted against the Constitutional Amendment Bill. The rest supported it. That is a reflection of the deep crisis within the opposition itself. Unfortunately, many Zimbabweans mistakenly think that Zimbabwe’s problems are exclusively a ZANUPF problem. They are not. They are a Zimbabwean problem that Zimbabweans themselves must resolve, and not sit and watch. As long as Zimbabweans continue to hero-worship personalities instead of supporting ideas, institutions and principles, the crisis will never go away. There are people with ideas and solutions for Zimbabwe, but they are not popular enough. Populism has derailed the opposition and made it ineffective in pushing back against ZANUPF’s misgovernance. The signing of Constitutional Amendment No. 3 into law is, in my view, the beginning of a new phase of resistance, assuming events themselves do not overtake any organic resistance to Mnangagwa’s rule. Zimbabwe today is a hopelessly divided society. People are fighting one another, and there is little national unity. President Mnangagwa could have secured his legacy by uniting the country and fixing the economy. Instead, it is evident that his administration remains adrift when it comes to economic management. This is, therefore, a moment for Zimbabweans to reflect on what they want for their country and how they intend to achieve it. For neighbouring countries, particularly South Africa, this is not Zimbabwe’s problem alone. According to the South African government, around 70% of women who give birth at Musina Hospital are Zimbabwean. You cannot simply turn them away. They will continue coming because the Zimbabwean government has failed to build a healthcare system capable of serving its people. An estimated 2,500 Zimbabwean women die every year while giving birth because of inadequate maternal healthcare facilities. The largest hospital in Zimbabwe still relies on a single maternity theatre built in 1977 by the Ian Smith government. That alone is a devastating indictment of the state of public healthcare in Zimbabwe, and a metaphor for the state of affairs. With unemployment estimated at over 95% in the formal and informal sectors combined, it is not surprising that Zimbabweans are prepared to risk their lives crossing crocodile-infested rivers in the Limpopo to reach South Africa. They will continue doing so. No amount of anti-immigration marches in South Africa will stop this reality. One either understands how crises create migration flows, or one lives under the illusion and delusion that Zimbabweans can somehow be prevented from seeking survival elsewhere. As we speak, many large-scale farms in Limpopo employ significant numbers of undocumented Zimbabwean workers. If those workers were suddenly to disappear overnight, the consequences for agricultural production and food prices would be enormous. This is not simply my opinion as an analyst or journalist. I have spoken to numerous farmers in Limpopo. I am a farmer myself and have access to many people within the agricultural sector, including some who are political actors in South Africa. The reality is that complex regional problems cannot be solved by slogans, social media noise or emotional outbursts. They require honest conversations, competent governance and courageous leadership on both sides of the Limpopo. As this law comes into effect, many people must reflect on the roles they played, directly or indirectly, in bringing Zimbabwe to this point. Vice President General Constantino Chiwenga was one of the leading proponents of the idea that President Mnangagwa could and should rule for as long as he wished, as he stated in the video I have attached below. Today, he finds himself effectively locked out of any constitutional path to the presidency. The opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa, also bears a significant share of responsibility. He effectively dismembered the opposition by getting rid of key allies who brought talents and skills that he himself did not possess. He dismantled leadership structures and ran the opposition without a constitution, creating an environment that enabled ZANUPF to infiltrate the opposition through the political charlatan Sengezo Tshabangu, whose actions were aided by Professor Jonathan Moyo’s ideas. Ultimately, the supporters of these two men must not live in denial by blaming everyone else while refusing to examine their own role in what has happened. There is nothing contained in this constitutional amendment, which is now law, that was not predicted. Analysts who warned that these developments would occur were ridiculed. They were demonised on social media, insulted and called names by opposition supporters. That abuse continues to this very day. It cuts across the political divide, both in ZANUPF and in the opposition, where leaders deploy and sponsor people to attack anyone who raises uncomfortable truths about the realities of life in Zimbabwe. One cannot help but wonder whether some of those who have spent years attacking people who brought genuine issues to the table have themselves been manipulated or even indirectly serving the interests of ZANUPF, because it beggars belief that people can be so self-contradictory and self-destructive in the manner in which Zimbabwean politics has unravelled since 2022. In 2021, through Constitutional Amendment No. 2, the running mate clause was removed. That amendment effectively dismantled the constitutional mechanism that many believed would guarantee General Chiwenga’s succession within ZANUPF. The running mate provision had been an important part of the constitutional architecture established by the 2013 Constitution, which was negotiated during the Government of National Unity and endorsed by almost 95% of Zimbabweans in a referendum. The Vice President remained silent. He was warned. I was among those who argued that the removal of the running mate clause was the beginning of what I called a “royal presidency”, one in which President Mnangagwa would accumulate so much power that he could potentially remain in office until his death. All the mistakes that have been made, whether through deliberate action, political expediency or sheer ignorance, have brought Zimbabwe to where it is today. Have opposition supporters finally understood that ideas matter more than bootlicking and hero-worshipping political leaders? I do not know. Their reaction to what is happening in Zimbabwe today will answer that question. Have members of ZANUPF who feel aggrieved by President Mnangagwa’s actions now come to understand that when people speak about constitutionalism, accountability and good governance, they are not necessarily being anti-ZANUPF? I do not know. Time will tell. My thoughts, as I end this article, are with the millions of Zimbabweans who remain trapped inside Zimbabwe with little or no prospect of meaningful economic opportunities and who are unable to live normal lives in the way that citizens in functional countries do. My thoughts are also with those citizens who spent years bootlicking and hero-worshipping politicians, unknowingly aiding this process and helping to create the very circumstances in which they now find themselves: unemployed, economically excluded and without hope for a better future. And my thoughts are especially with those who cannot leave. As the Jamaican reggae artist Buju Banton poignantly said in his song Untold Stories: “Those who can run, run away, but what about those who can’t? They will have to stay.” That, perhaps, is the greatest tragedy of Zimbabwe: those with the means often leave, while the poorest and most vulnerable are left behind to endure the consequences of political failure, economic collapse and broken leadership. Their suffering should never be forgotten.
0:37

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa who has been in power since November 2017, following the military coup that removed President Robert Mugabe. He has now signed into law Constitutional Amendment No. 3, which, among many other things, extends his term of office to 2030, cancels the 2028 elections, extends the presidential term from five years to seven years, and removes the direct election of the President by citizens, transferring that responsibility to Parliament. This is a massive controversial constitutional change, one that would ordinarily require a referendum. However, the President and his advisers have refused to subject these changes to a referendum. That fact alone renders the entire process contestable and places a dark cloud of illegitimacy over his presidency beyond 2028, when his term of office was originally supposed to end. But this crisis will not wait until 2028. It began the moment he signed Constitutional Amendment No. 3 into law, as opponents of the Bill which is now law have already declared the process illegal because there was no referendum. The real challenge facing President Mnangagwa is not so much the opposition, which he has effectively dismantled with the assistance of opposition leaders who have allegedly been bought or co-opted. The real challenge is the economy. As Bill Clinton famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid.” The economy is what will create a wave of political discontent between now and whenever he eventually leaves office, assuming he does not die in office. I have seen some of my South African friends mocking Zimbabweans over this development and saying it is a Zimbabwean issue that Zimbabweans must resolve themselves. One can only say that if one is ignorant of the interconnectedness of our region and the ripple effects that this constitutional change is likely to create. South Africa’s illegal immigration crisis has been authored, in part, by the misgovernance in Zimbabwe, which successive South African governments and the African National Congress have tolerated and, at times, enabled. When the economy deteriorates in Zimbabwe, desperate people cross into South Africa by any means necessary in search of jobs and opportunities. This should not be viewed as a Zimbabwean crisis alone. It is a regional crisis, one that has the potential to create political and social turbulence throughout Southern Africa. History has taught us that whenever there is a crisis in Zimbabwe, South Africa bears much of the burden. But this post is not about South Africa. It is about Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans. The culture of bootlicking leaders and hero-worshipping politicians cuts across Zimbabwean society, both in the ruling party and in the opposition. Part of the reason why the opposition has been emasculated by Emmerson Mnangagwa is because citizens continue to place blind faith in leaders who have delivered very little. Those leaders continue to sell hope to the people, even when many Zimbabweans know that some of them have been captured or compromised. We saw this decadence in the Parliament of Zimbabwe. Opposition Members of Parliament voted with ZANUPF. Only 42 voted against the Constitutional Amendment Bill. The rest supported it. That is a reflection of the deep crisis within the opposition itself. Unfortunately, many Zimbabweans mistakenly think that Zimbabwe’s problems are exclusively a ZANUPF problem. They are not. They are a Zimbabwean problem that Zimbabweans themselves must resolve, and not sit and watch. As long as Zimbabweans continue to hero-worship personalities instead of supporting ideas, institutions and principles, the crisis will never go away. There are people with ideas and solutions for Zimbabwe, but they are not popular enough. Populism has derailed the opposition and made it ineffective in pushing back against ZANUPF’s misgovernance. The signing of Constitutional Amendment No. 3 into law is, in my view, the beginning of a new phase of resistance, assuming events themselves do not overtake any organic resistance to Mnangagwa’s rule. Zimbabwe today is a hopelessly divided society. People are fighting one another, and there is little national unity. President Mnangagwa could have secured his legacy by uniting the country and fixing the economy. Instead, it is evident that his administration remains adrift when it comes to economic management. This is, therefore, a moment for Zimbabweans to reflect on what they want for their country and how they intend to achieve it. For neighbouring countries, particularly South Africa, this is not Zimbabwe’s problem alone. According to the South African government, around 70% of women who give birth at Musina Hospital are Zimbabwean. You cannot simply turn them away. They will continue coming because the Zimbabwean government has failed to build a healthcare system capable of serving its people. An estimated 2,500 Zimbabwean women die every year while giving birth because of inadequate maternal healthcare facilities. The largest hospital in Zimbabwe still relies on a single maternity theatre built in 1977 by the Ian Smith government. That alone is a devastating indictment of the state of public healthcare in Zimbabwe, and a metaphor for the state of affairs. With unemployment estimated at over 95% in the formal and informal sectors combined, it is not surprising that Zimbabweans are prepared to risk their lives crossing crocodile-infested rivers in the Limpopo to reach South Africa. They will continue doing so. No amount of anti-immigration marches in South Africa will stop this reality. One either understands how crises create migration flows, or one lives under the illusion and delusion that Zimbabweans can somehow be prevented from seeking survival elsewhere. As we speak, many large-scale farms in Limpopo employ significant numbers of undocumented Zimbabwean workers. If those workers were suddenly to disappear overnight, the consequences for agricultural production and food prices would be enormous. This is not simply my opinion as an analyst or journalist. I have spoken to numerous farmers in Limpopo. I am a farmer myself and have access to many people within the agricultural sector, including some who are political actors in South Africa. The reality is that complex regional problems cannot be solved by slogans, social media noise or emotional outbursts. They require honest conversations, competent governance and courageous leadership on both sides of the Limpopo. As this law comes into effect, many people must reflect on the roles they played, directly or indirectly, in bringing Zimbabwe to this point. Vice President General Constantino Chiwenga was one of the leading proponents of the idea that President Mnangagwa could and should rule for as long as he wished, as he stated in the video I have attached below. Today, he finds himself effectively locked out of any constitutional path to the presidency. The opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa, also bears a significant share of responsibility. He effectively dismembered the opposition by getting rid of key allies who brought talents and skills that he himself did not possess. He dismantled leadership structures and ran the opposition without a constitution, creating an environment that enabled ZANUPF to infiltrate the opposition through the political charlatan Sengezo Tshabangu, whose actions were aided by Professor Jonathan Moyo’s ideas. Ultimately, the supporters of these two men must not live in denial by blaming everyone else while refusing to examine their own role in what has happened. There is nothing contained in this constitutional amendment, which is now law, that was not predicted. Analysts who warned that these developments would occur were ridiculed. They were demonised on social media, insulted and called names by opposition supporters. That abuse continues to this very day. It cuts across the political divide, both in ZANUPF and in the opposition, where leaders deploy and sponsor people to attack anyone who raises uncomfortable truths about the realities of life in Zimbabwe. One cannot help but wonder whether some of those who have spent years attacking people who brought genuine issues to the table have themselves been manipulated or even indirectly serving the interests of ZANUPF, because it beggars belief that people can be so self-contradictory and self-destructive in the manner in which Zimbabwean politics has unravelled since 2022. In 2021, through Constitutional Amendment No. 2, the running mate clause was removed. That amendment effectively dismantled the constitutional mechanism that many believed would guarantee General Chiwenga’s succession within ZANUPF. The running mate provision had been an important part of the constitutional architecture established by the 2013 Constitution, which was negotiated during the Government of National Unity and endorsed by almost 95% of Zimbabweans in a referendum. The Vice President remained silent. He was warned. I was among those who argued that the removal of the running mate clause was the beginning of what I called a “royal presidency”, one in which President Mnangagwa would accumulate so much power that he could potentially remain in office until his death. All the mistakes that have been made, whether through deliberate action, political expediency or sheer ignorance, have brought Zimbabwe to where it is today. Have opposition supporters finally understood that ideas matter more than bootlicking and hero-worshipping political leaders? I do not know. Their reaction to what is happening in Zimbabwe today will answer that question. Have members of ZANUPF who feel aggrieved by President Mnangagwa’s actions now come to understand that when people speak about constitutionalism, accountability and good governance, they are not necessarily being anti-ZANUPF? I do not know. Time will tell. My thoughts, as I end this article, are with the millions of Zimbabweans who remain trapped inside Zimbabwe with little or no prospect of meaningful economic opportunities and who are unable to live normal lives in the way that citizens in functional countries do. My thoughts are also with those citizens who spent years bootlicking and hero-worshipping politicians, unknowingly aiding this process and helping to create the very circumstances in which they now find themselves: unemployed, economically excluded and without hope for a better future. And my thoughts are especially with those who cannot leave. As the Jamaican reggae artist Buju Banton poignantly said in his song Untold Stories: “Those who can run, run away, but what about those who can’t? They will have to stay.” That, perhaps, is the greatest tragedy of Zimbabwe: those with the means often leave, while the poorest and most vulnerable are left behind to endure the consequences of political failure, economic collapse and broken leadership. Their suffering should never be forgotten.

Hopewell Chin’ono

228,037 просмотров • 3 месяцев назад

A Twist in the Tale: Has BJP become the adda of corrupt? In the run up to the 2014 general elections, the BJP centred its campaign around alleged corruption under the Congress-led UPA government, promising ‘ache din’ . Several times during the campaign, Narendra Modi Ji grandiloquently promised to jail the corrupt. He was equally loud about bringing back 'all the looted money stashed away in Swiss banks and eliminating black money'. People gave BJP a decisive mandate and Modi became PM in 2014. On 8th November 2016 in a public broadcast PM Modi declared that Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes would cease to be legal tender and grandiosely announced that the purpose of #demonetisation was to crackdown on corruption and eliminate black money. It, however, turned out to be spurious. Recently, Supreme Court Justice B. V. Nagarathna said in a conference in Hyderabad that in the Indian economy at that time, Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes comprised 86% of the currency and wondered about the goal of the demonetisation exercise since 98% of those notes came back to banks. She also questioned about black money eradication as demonetisation became a good way of converting black money into white money. In 2017 the BJP government introduced #ElectoralBond Scheme, which was anonymous financial contributions to political parties, by amending several laws namely, the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the Companies Act, 2013, the Income Tax Act, 1961. Its avowed purpose was to enhance transparency and accountability in political funding by eliminating black money, corruption. etc. The Supreme Court has recently struck down this secret political funding as unconstitutional and directed disclosure of complete details of all electoral bonds. From the data available in public domain, thanks to the Supreme Court, it came to light that the BJP is the biggest beneficiary as out of total Rs. 11,450 crores it received Rs. 6,566 crores which is 57%. Contemporaneous evidence indicates that #ElectoralBonds have all the ingredients of a huge scam such as quid pro quo and corruption, shell and loss making companies donating to political parties huge sums of money suspected to be kickbacks, and laundering of black money. In order to shield our democratic process from foreign interference, the laws regulating foreign contributions prohibited political parties and candidates in elections from accepting foreign contributions. But the BJP government through Finance Acts, 2016 and 2018 amended with retrospective effect the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act, 2010 (#FCRA) by changing the definition of ‘foreign source’ not only condoning the past illegalities committed but also permitting political parties to receive foreign funds, and thereby paved way for foreign intrusion into our political and electoral process compromising our sovereignty. Further, notwithstanding the huge propaganda of alleged action against Foreign Funded NGOs, there has been a huge spike in #FCRA remittances since the 2014-15. While during the 20 years between financial years 1994-1995 and 2013-14 an amount of Rs. 1,51,036 Crores was received, during the 8 years between 2014-15 and 2023-24 Rs. 1,46,392 was received. Data for financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24 is not yet available. However, from the trends of #FCRA remittances in the preceding years it will be around Rs. 50,000 Crores together for both the financial years, making the total FCRA remittances during 10 year rule of BJP to be around Rs. 2,00,000 Crores which is humongous. Even if a small fraction of that huge amount of foreign funds has gone to political parties or candidates in elections, it amounts to serious subversion of our democracy and constitution. What sort of patriotism is this? Several months prior to 2014 general elections, a spate of alleged scams during UPA rule surfaced namely, Chit Fund scam, Chopper scam, Tatra truck scam, 2G Spectrum scam, CWG scam, Coal scam, Adarsh scam, etc. The courts, CBI, ED and IT proactively initiated action as a result several Congress and UPA leaders came under scanner. Though the BJP came to power on the anti-corruption plank, hardly any political leaders of significance was convicted, nor even paisa of black money stashed away in Swiss banks was brought back. On the other hand, the BJP has allegedly been misusing the law enforcement agencies to arm-twist the opposition political leaders under cloud either to defect to or align with the BJP. Out of 25 important opposition leaders who were allegedly under the scanner and joined BJP, 23 have reportedly got reprieve. Politicians like Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan who faces 38 criminal cases including 11 CBI and 7 ED cases, have been buying peace from the BJP. As a result none of his cases have seen the light of the day, notwithstanding the direction of Supreme Court to speed up trial of cases against politicians. Likewise, the DMK leaders namely, the Maran brothers, A. Raja, Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi have been acquitted, after they not so secretly cosied up to BJP, thanks to the lacklustre prosecution of their cases before the courts. These are only representative examples of how the BJP has become the adda for the leaders facing allegations of corruption, money laundering, etc. It is quite possible that some of them may be genuinely innocent. But as their innocence has been established only after their defection to or aligning with the ruling BJP, it creates dark shadows by raising serious moral questions. Last year, fourteen political parties approached the Supreme Court against the alleged misuse of central investigating agencies in arresting opposition political leaders and other citizens exercising their fundamental right to dissent and disagree with the ruling BJP. It was alleged that 95% of political leaders investigated by CBI and ED belong to opposition. That is, out of 121 prominent politicians facing ED probe between 2014 and 2022, 115 are opposition leaders who had been booked, raided, questioned or arrested. To wriggle out of or deflect the allegations of promoting corruption, shielding the corrupt who have joined or aligned with the BJP and targeting opposition leaders, etc, one of the standard refrains of the BJP has been that as Narendra Modi has no family he cannot be corrupt or has no motivation to be corrupt or shield the corrupt. That is a disingenuous argument. Late Jayalalitha, who was a spinster with no family, was convicted for corruption and was sent to jail. There are many prominent leaders who are unmarried or have no families facing cases or allegations of corruption. I don’t mean to even hint let alone allege that Narendra Modi is personally financially corrupt. I merely want to call out their bluff by highlighting the point that there is no connection between one’s familial status and corruption. It must be recalled that Manmohan Singh, whose personal financial integrity was impeccable, presided over a corrupt regime. As such, personal financial honesty of PM or a CM is meaningless if his party and government are not honest. Barring honourable exceptions, every political party while in opposition grandiloquently talks against corruption, not necessarily because they are honest, but because they try to make a virtue of out of lack of opportunities to make money. Notwithstanding its anti-corruption rhetoric the BJP is no stranger to corruption as its unsavory history tells. In 2001, none other than its National President late Bangaru Laxman was caught on the camera taking bribe from one Mathew Samuel, and was later convicted by a Special CBI Court on 27th April 2012 and sentenced to four years in jail. Further, BJP’s former CM of Karnataka Sri B. S. Yeddyurappa faced charges of corruption and was also in jail for a while. There are allegations of misdeeds of BJP government in PM-CARES Fund which is mired in secrecy, in sale of Air India to Tatas for peanuts, about CAG’s concern about astronomical escalation in cost of construction of Dwarka Expressway from Rs. 18.2 crores per km to Rs. 251 crores per km, in the utility of more than Rs. 14,000 crores public funds for Namami Gange project while the sacred Ganga is on the verge becoming a sewer like Yamuna, and several others. The #ElectoralBondScam which points to several alleged scams, is only a tip of the iceberg. It seems further action to take it to logical end has come to a naught. Therefore, having seen the fate of investigation and trial of all the alleged scams and how the political class sabotage, it is imperative that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising serving or retired officers specially chosen by the Supreme Court, which will not be part of any Law Enforcement Agency but independently directly reporting to the Supreme Court, would alone will be able to unravel the truth. It is pertinent to recall the stellar role of RTI Act and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (before it was amended in 2018) in exposing alleged corruption in the Congress-led UPA government. Information is power. So, the RTI Act empowered people to seek information from public authorities on all official matters (barring a very few exceptions). Based on that information obtained through RTI process about alleged corrupt deals, illegalities, etc during UPA rule, the CBI which had no legal shackles could initiate enquiries and investigation into those allegations. The BJP while in opposition used and exploited this situation to the hilt to oust the Congress-led UPA from power. And having formed government the BJP is acutely aware of the dangers for the corrupt lurking in these laws. So they have systematically wrecked the RTI Act so much so that it has gone from citizens’ most powerful tool to an Act on life support. In 2018 they amended the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. As per new section 17A introduced therein, “No police officer shall conduct any enquiry or inquiry or investigation into any offence alleged to have been committed by a public servant under this Act, where the alleged offence is relatable to any recommendation made or decision taken by such public servant in discharge of his official functions or duties, without the previous approval” of respective governments or appointing authority of the public servant. Which government will permit investigation into its own misdeeds? While Justice R. M. Lodha in 2013 denounced the CBI as a ‘caged parrot’, the BJP government translated his oral observation into a legal reality by destroying the Prevention of Corruption Act. Evidently, the real purpose of BJP undermining RTI Act and emasculating the CBI was to prevent visitation of fate similar to that of UPA by insulating and firewalling themselves from any future enquiries and investigations into their alleged corrupt deeds. Finally, there is an uncanny resemblance between the BJP’s anti-corruption rhetoric with a story in Jeffrey Archer’s popular book, ‘A Twist in the Tale’, which goes like this: Ignatius Agarbi was the new Financial Minister of Nigeria. He begins a sweep on corruption and makes a name for himself. Impressed by his extreme honesty, his president entrusted him to find out how many Nigerians have stashed their bribes in Switzerland. He arrives at the Swiss Bank with a briefcase. Despite his greatest persuasion, the Swiss banker refuses to break their code of privacy. In the end, Ignatius places a gun to the head of the Swiss banker and threatens to kill him. Still the banker refuses to divulge any confidential information. Ignatius, who was actually extremely corrupt, was only checking to find out if the Swiss Banks would actually reveal the name of an account holder. Delighted with their secrecy, Ignatius deposits $5 million in cash which he had skimmed as Financial Minister.”
2:02

A Twist in the Tale: Has BJP become the adda of corrupt? In the run up to the 2014 general elections, the BJP centred its campaign around alleged corruption under the Congress-led UPA government, promising ‘ache din’ . Several times during the campaign, Narendra Modi Ji grandiloquently promised to jail the corrupt. He was equally loud about bringing back 'all the looted money stashed away in Swiss banks and eliminating black money'. People gave BJP a decisive mandate and Modi became PM in 2014. On 8th November 2016 in a public broadcast PM Modi declared that Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes would cease to be legal tender and grandiosely announced that the purpose of #demonetisation was to crackdown on corruption and eliminate black money. It, however, turned out to be spurious. Recently, Supreme Court Justice B. V. Nagarathna said in a conference in Hyderabad that in the Indian economy at that time, Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes comprised 86% of the currency and wondered about the goal of the demonetisation exercise since 98% of those notes came back to banks. She also questioned about black money eradication as demonetisation became a good way of converting black money into white money. In 2017 the BJP government introduced #ElectoralBond Scheme, which was anonymous financial contributions to political parties, by amending several laws namely, the Representation of the People Act, 1951, the Companies Act, 2013, the Income Tax Act, 1961. Its avowed purpose was to enhance transparency and accountability in political funding by eliminating black money, corruption. etc. The Supreme Court has recently struck down this secret political funding as unconstitutional and directed disclosure of complete details of all electoral bonds. From the data available in public domain, thanks to the Supreme Court, it came to light that the BJP is the biggest beneficiary as out of total Rs. 11,450 crores it received Rs. 6,566 crores which is 57%. Contemporaneous evidence indicates that #ElectoralBonds have all the ingredients of a huge scam such as quid pro quo and corruption, shell and loss making companies donating to political parties huge sums of money suspected to be kickbacks, and laundering of black money. In order to shield our democratic process from foreign interference, the laws regulating foreign contributions prohibited political parties and candidates in elections from accepting foreign contributions. But the BJP government through Finance Acts, 2016 and 2018 amended with retrospective effect the Foreign Contributions (Regulation) Act, 2010 (#FCRA) by changing the definition of ‘foreign source’ not only condoning the past illegalities committed but also permitting political parties to receive foreign funds, and thereby paved way for foreign intrusion into our political and electoral process compromising our sovereignty. Further, notwithstanding the huge propaganda of alleged action against Foreign Funded NGOs, there has been a huge spike in #FCRA remittances since the 2014-15. While during the 20 years between financial years 1994-1995 and 2013-14 an amount of Rs. 1,51,036 Crores was received, during the 8 years between 2014-15 and 2023-24 Rs. 1,46,392 was received. Data for financial years 2022-23 and 2023-24 is not yet available. However, from the trends of #FCRA remittances in the preceding years it will be around Rs. 50,000 Crores together for both the financial years, making the total FCRA remittances during 10 year rule of BJP to be around Rs. 2,00,000 Crores which is humongous. Even if a small fraction of that huge amount of foreign funds has gone to political parties or candidates in elections, it amounts to serious subversion of our democracy and constitution. What sort of patriotism is this? Several months prior to 2014 general elections, a spate of alleged scams during UPA rule surfaced namely, Chit Fund scam, Chopper scam, Tatra truck scam, 2G Spectrum scam, CWG scam, Coal scam, Adarsh scam, etc. The courts, CBI, ED and IT proactively initiated action as a result several Congress and UPA leaders came under scanner. Though the BJP came to power on the anti-corruption plank, hardly any political leaders of significance was convicted, nor even paisa of black money stashed away in Swiss banks was brought back. On the other hand, the BJP has allegedly been misusing the law enforcement agencies to arm-twist the opposition political leaders under cloud either to defect to or align with the BJP. Out of 25 important opposition leaders who were allegedly under the scanner and joined BJP, 23 have reportedly got reprieve. Politicians like Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan who faces 38 criminal cases including 11 CBI and 7 ED cases, have been buying peace from the BJP. As a result none of his cases have seen the light of the day, notwithstanding the direction of Supreme Court to speed up trial of cases against politicians. Likewise, the DMK leaders namely, the Maran brothers, A. Raja, Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi have been acquitted, after they not so secretly cosied up to BJP, thanks to the lacklustre prosecution of their cases before the courts. These are only representative examples of how the BJP has become the adda for the leaders facing allegations of corruption, money laundering, etc. It is quite possible that some of them may be genuinely innocent. But as their innocence has been established only after their defection to or aligning with the ruling BJP, it creates dark shadows by raising serious moral questions. Last year, fourteen political parties approached the Supreme Court against the alleged misuse of central investigating agencies in arresting opposition political leaders and other citizens exercising their fundamental right to dissent and disagree with the ruling BJP. It was alleged that 95% of political leaders investigated by CBI and ED belong to opposition. That is, out of 121 prominent politicians facing ED probe between 2014 and 2022, 115 are opposition leaders who had been booked, raided, questioned or arrested. To wriggle out of or deflect the allegations of promoting corruption, shielding the corrupt who have joined or aligned with the BJP and targeting opposition leaders, etc, one of the standard refrains of the BJP has been that as Narendra Modi has no family he cannot be corrupt or has no motivation to be corrupt or shield the corrupt. That is a disingenuous argument. Late Jayalalitha, who was a spinster with no family, was convicted for corruption and was sent to jail. There are many prominent leaders who are unmarried or have no families facing cases or allegations of corruption. I don’t mean to even hint let alone allege that Narendra Modi is personally financially corrupt. I merely want to call out their bluff by highlighting the point that there is no connection between one’s familial status and corruption. It must be recalled that Manmohan Singh, whose personal financial integrity was impeccable, presided over a corrupt regime. As such, personal financial honesty of PM or a CM is meaningless if his party and government are not honest. Barring honourable exceptions, every political party while in opposition grandiloquently talks against corruption, not necessarily because they are honest, but because they try to make a virtue of out of lack of opportunities to make money. Notwithstanding its anti-corruption rhetoric the BJP is no stranger to corruption as its unsavory history tells. In 2001, none other than its National President late Bangaru Laxman was caught on the camera taking bribe from one Mathew Samuel, and was later convicted by a Special CBI Court on 27th April 2012 and sentenced to four years in jail. Further, BJP’s former CM of Karnataka Sri B. S. Yeddyurappa faced charges of corruption and was also in jail for a while. There are allegations of misdeeds of BJP government in PM-CARES Fund which is mired in secrecy, in sale of Air India to Tatas for peanuts, about CAG’s concern about astronomical escalation in cost of construction of Dwarka Expressway from Rs. 18.2 crores per km to Rs. 251 crores per km, in the utility of more than Rs. 14,000 crores public funds for Namami Gange project while the sacred Ganga is on the verge becoming a sewer like Yamuna, and several others. The #ElectoralBondScam which points to several alleged scams, is only a tip of the iceberg. It seems further action to take it to logical end has come to a naught. Therefore, having seen the fate of investigation and trial of all the alleged scams and how the political class sabotage, it is imperative that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising serving or retired officers specially chosen by the Supreme Court, which will not be part of any Law Enforcement Agency but independently directly reporting to the Supreme Court, would alone will be able to unravel the truth. It is pertinent to recall the stellar role of RTI Act and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (before it was amended in 2018) in exposing alleged corruption in the Congress-led UPA government. Information is power. So, the RTI Act empowered people to seek information from public authorities on all official matters (barring a very few exceptions). Based on that information obtained through RTI process about alleged corrupt deals, illegalities, etc during UPA rule, the CBI which had no legal shackles could initiate enquiries and investigation into those allegations. The BJP while in opposition used and exploited this situation to the hilt to oust the Congress-led UPA from power. And having formed government the BJP is acutely aware of the dangers for the corrupt lurking in these laws. So they have systematically wrecked the RTI Act so much so that it has gone from citizens’ most powerful tool to an Act on life support. In 2018 they amended the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. As per new section 17A introduced therein, “No police officer shall conduct any enquiry or inquiry or investigation into any offence alleged to have been committed by a public servant under this Act, where the alleged offence is relatable to any recommendation made or decision taken by such public servant in discharge of his official functions or duties, without the previous approval” of respective governments or appointing authority of the public servant. Which government will permit investigation into its own misdeeds? While Justice R. M. Lodha in 2013 denounced the CBI as a ‘caged parrot’, the BJP government translated his oral observation into a legal reality by destroying the Prevention of Corruption Act. Evidently, the real purpose of BJP undermining RTI Act and emasculating the CBI was to prevent visitation of fate similar to that of UPA by insulating and firewalling themselves from any future enquiries and investigations into their alleged corrupt deeds. Finally, there is an uncanny resemblance between the BJP’s anti-corruption rhetoric with a story in Jeffrey Archer’s popular book, ‘A Twist in the Tale’, which goes like this: Ignatius Agarbi was the new Financial Minister of Nigeria. He begins a sweep on corruption and makes a name for himself. Impressed by his extreme honesty, his president entrusted him to find out how many Nigerians have stashed their bribes in Switzerland. He arrives at the Swiss Bank with a briefcase. Despite his greatest persuasion, the Swiss banker refuses to break their code of privacy. In the end, Ignatius places a gun to the head of the Swiss banker and threatens to kill him. Still the banker refuses to divulge any confidential information. Ignatius, who was actually extremely corrupt, was only checking to find out if the Swiss Banks would actually reveal the name of an account holder. Delighted with their secrecy, Ignatius deposits $5 million in cash which he had skimmed as Financial Minister.”

M. Nageswara Rao IPS (Retired)

239,217 просмотров • 2 лет назад

I normally agree with De Villepin on virtually everything so I was surprised to hear him say this 👇. No, universalism isn't Europe's salvation - it's largely what destroyed it. This way of dealing with the world whereby you proclaim yourself the gatekeepers of values and principles that you deem universal, and insist the rest of the world adopt, is over. And this "great fight to be fought" between different conceptions of humanity that Villepin sees coming is precisely what we need to avoid, because it doesn't need to be fought: we should make our peace with the coexistence of different civilizations and cultures. And not only is this universalist approach over, it is now thoroughly counterproductive as it screams of hypocrisy after Europe's own performance with regards to its stated values and principles. Gaza in particular completely obliterated this, and De Villepin ought to know this given how vocal he's been on the matter. He speaks of Europeans as being "guardians of the law," but he knows all too well that no-one had done more to undermine international law than the West these past few years. The new multipolar world we're entering into is not, as De Villepin suggests, an arena for a "great fight" between competing universal visions - the fight between "American individualism, Chinese collectivism and European citizenship" as he puts it. Instead it must become the age of understanding and managing differences between civilizations and cultures. Europe's biggest challenge going forward is to learn some measure of humbleness. We need to relearn that there is no measuring scale between civilizations and, especially looking at its record these past few decades, that Europe certainly isn't the paragon of anything. And if there's a fight to be fought, Europe needs to fight to avoid the emergence of a civilizational war, a fight to promote coexistence and mutual understanding. Granted, it is undeniable there are such things as universal values and principles. For instance I think we can all agree that killing innocent civilians is bad. We can also all agree that there shouldn't be child soldiers. We can all agree there is but one Earth and that protecting it is important for our collective survival. And, as such, international law has a place. But given its record, if Europe truly believes in these principles it should support them and the institutions that underpin it - like the ICC or the ICJ - in the way an ex-convict promises to behave: with humility and a commitment to do better - not with the sort of misplaced arrogance of presenting itself as their guardian or moral custodian, which would be completely out of order given its own failures to uphold them. Lastly, perhaps more than anything, the way universalism destroyed Europe is by destroying the notion of sovereignty in Europe. Because see, if you're convinced as Europe has been that your values and principles are universal, then the world becomes borderless since any deviation from them within your own borders becomes not just a difference of perspective or a sovereign choice, but a moral failing that must be corrected. When every political or cultural difference is framed as a deviation from universal norms rather than an expression of national sovereignty, the very concept of meaningful self-determination goes away. If a policy is framed as implementing universal values - whether on migration, economic policy, or social issues - then national populations' objections can be dismissed as parochial or even morally suspect. This effectively turned universalism into a tool for circumventing genuine democratic deliberation at the national level, all while claiming to act in democracy's name. The result was a gradual hollowing out of national decision-making power through the implicit assumption that resistance to "universal" norms was itself illegitimate. The tragic irony is that this universalist approach actually always loses out when you have nations out there that actually do act in their sovereign interests, as they should. Because you end up with a deep asymmetry: a bunch of nations in Europe whose leaders are essentially denationalized, seeing themselves as vectors of an ideology often explicitly at odds with their own nations' wellbeing, versus leaders who remain grounded in the concrete reality of national interests and understand their primary duty as protecting and advancing their people's prosperity and security. This mismatch creates an almost absurd dynamic where European leaders regularly sacrifice their nations' vital interests while facing counterparts who view such behavior as nothing more than naïveté to be exploited. The United States, in particular, has masterfully taken advantage of this situation - happy to let European leaders indulge in grand universalist proclamations while systematically advancing American interests, often at Europe's expense. De Villepin correctly identifies this "system of predation and vassalization," but fails to see how Europe's own universalist pretensions enable it. And how could it be otherwise? When one side's leaders fundamentally see themselves as working to transcend and even dismantle their own nation's sovereignty, while the other's remain firmly committed to national advancement, the outcome is predetermined. That's not the way to approach universal values or international law. European nations should approach international institutions and universal principles as sovereign equals entering into mutual commitments, not as self-appointed moral arbiters. The path forward lies in first reclaiming genuine sovereignty, for only sovereign nations can make meaningful choices. From this foundation, European nations can then exemplify their values through concrete actions: by treating other nations with respect rather than condescension, by accepting that different paths of development are legitimate, and most crucially, by focusing first on doing right by their own citizens. This last point is essential - a nation that cannot or will not protect and advance the wellbeing of its own people has no business lecturing others about universal values. True universalism, if it is to exist at all, must emerge organically through the example of nations that successfully balance sovereign self-determination with voluntary participation in a world order, not through moral imperialism disguised as universal principles. The stake isn't, as De Villepin suggests, whether "universal man exists" - it's whether we can respect and coexist with those who see humanity differently.
2:53

I normally agree with De Villepin on virtually everything so I was surprised to hear him say this 👇. No, universalism isn't Europe's salvation - it's largely what destroyed it. This way of dealing with the world whereby you proclaim yourself the gatekeepers of values and principles that you deem universal, and insist the rest of the world adopt, is over. And this "great fight to be fought" between different conceptions of humanity that Villepin sees coming is precisely what we need to avoid, because it doesn't need to be fought: we should make our peace with the coexistence of different civilizations and cultures. And not only is this universalist approach over, it is now thoroughly counterproductive as it screams of hypocrisy after Europe's own performance with regards to its stated values and principles. Gaza in particular completely obliterated this, and De Villepin ought to know this given how vocal he's been on the matter. He speaks of Europeans as being "guardians of the law," but he knows all too well that no-one had done more to undermine international law than the West these past few years. The new multipolar world we're entering into is not, as De Villepin suggests, an arena for a "great fight" between competing universal visions - the fight between "American individualism, Chinese collectivism and European citizenship" as he puts it. Instead it must become the age of understanding and managing differences between civilizations and cultures. Europe's biggest challenge going forward is to learn some measure of humbleness. We need to relearn that there is no measuring scale between civilizations and, especially looking at its record these past few decades, that Europe certainly isn't the paragon of anything. And if there's a fight to be fought, Europe needs to fight to avoid the emergence of a civilizational war, a fight to promote coexistence and mutual understanding. Granted, it is undeniable there are such things as universal values and principles. For instance I think we can all agree that killing innocent civilians is bad. We can also all agree that there shouldn't be child soldiers. We can all agree there is but one Earth and that protecting it is important for our collective survival. And, as such, international law has a place. But given its record, if Europe truly believes in these principles it should support them and the institutions that underpin it - like the ICC or the ICJ - in the way an ex-convict promises to behave: with humility and a commitment to do better - not with the sort of misplaced arrogance of presenting itself as their guardian or moral custodian, which would be completely out of order given its own failures to uphold them. Lastly, perhaps more than anything, the way universalism destroyed Europe is by destroying the notion of sovereignty in Europe. Because see, if you're convinced as Europe has been that your values and principles are universal, then the world becomes borderless since any deviation from them within your own borders becomes not just a difference of perspective or a sovereign choice, but a moral failing that must be corrected. When every political or cultural difference is framed as a deviation from universal norms rather than an expression of national sovereignty, the very concept of meaningful self-determination goes away. If a policy is framed as implementing universal values - whether on migration, economic policy, or social issues - then national populations' objections can be dismissed as parochial or even morally suspect. This effectively turned universalism into a tool for circumventing genuine democratic deliberation at the national level, all while claiming to act in democracy's name. The result was a gradual hollowing out of national decision-making power through the implicit assumption that resistance to "universal" norms was itself illegitimate. The tragic irony is that this universalist approach actually always loses out when you have nations out there that actually do act in their sovereign interests, as they should. Because you end up with a deep asymmetry: a bunch of nations in Europe whose leaders are essentially denationalized, seeing themselves as vectors of an ideology often explicitly at odds with their own nations' wellbeing, versus leaders who remain grounded in the concrete reality of national interests and understand their primary duty as protecting and advancing their people's prosperity and security. This mismatch creates an almost absurd dynamic where European leaders regularly sacrifice their nations' vital interests while facing counterparts who view such behavior as nothing more than naïveté to be exploited. The United States, in particular, has masterfully taken advantage of this situation - happy to let European leaders indulge in grand universalist proclamations while systematically advancing American interests, often at Europe's expense. De Villepin correctly identifies this "system of predation and vassalization," but fails to see how Europe's own universalist pretensions enable it. And how could it be otherwise? When one side's leaders fundamentally see themselves as working to transcend and even dismantle their own nation's sovereignty, while the other's remain firmly committed to national advancement, the outcome is predetermined. That's not the way to approach universal values or international law. European nations should approach international institutions and universal principles as sovereign equals entering into mutual commitments, not as self-appointed moral arbiters. The path forward lies in first reclaiming genuine sovereignty, for only sovereign nations can make meaningful choices. From this foundation, European nations can then exemplify their values through concrete actions: by treating other nations with respect rather than condescension, by accepting that different paths of development are legitimate, and most crucially, by focusing first on doing right by their own citizens. This last point is essential - a nation that cannot or will not protect and advance the wellbeing of its own people has no business lecturing others about universal values. True universalism, if it is to exist at all, must emerge organically through the example of nations that successfully balance sovereign self-determination with voluntary participation in a world order, not through moral imperialism disguised as universal principles. The stake isn't, as De Villepin suggests, whether "universal man exists" - it's whether we can respect and coexist with those who see humanity differently.

Arnaud Bertrand

49,135 просмотров • 1 год назад

//The Wire//1300Z September 28, 2026// //PRIORITY// //BLUF: INCIDENT REPORTED AT RAF FAIRFORD AS MULTIPLE MEN ARRESTED IN MULTIPLE VEHICLES NEAR THE AIRBASE PERIMETER.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- United Kingdom: Yesterday a possible terror attack was foiled at Fairford Airbase, after a group of men were discovered acting suspiciously in the vicinity of the base. Local authorities state that a local farmer visually observed three vans parked in the roadway just outside the base. When the farmer approached the vehicles blocking the road, a group of masked men fled from the scene. After the alarm was raised, authorities responded and a total of five men were detained after being found hiding in the woods near the van site. A search of their vans revealed large containers of hazardous material, which prompted a mass evacuation of the local area. A total of 85x homes were evacuated for several hours while EOD personnel examined the contents of the vans, with residents being allowed to return to their homes last night. All five suspects have been detained, and government officials have declined to officially attribute motive. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: As this is a developing situation, many of the details as presented to the public either are not clear, or do not make much sense in terms of what attack might have been planned. Right now, the finger is being pointed at Iran for this incident for obvious reasons, however before attribution can be laid on any group or nation, the basic facts of the case must be ironed out. Government officials and media groups are insinuating that this was a Vehicle Borne IED (VBIED) attack that was foiled before it could materialize. Other claims are being made suggesting that this incident is not terrorism...but rather a group of thieves who were trying to steal diesel from the farm that they were discovered at. Examining the Most Deadly theory first, if it was a VBIED attack, it would be one of the most unorthodox VBIED attacks in history, for many different reasons. First of all, multiple people being located in each vehicle is odd; these types of attacks almost never result in multiple attackers being located in the same vehicle...it's almost always just one person inside the VBIED. If multiple people are to take part in an attack, it would have made more sense for the additional personnel to travel to the site in separate vehicles, to conduct a more complex attack (such as the infamous Bataclan attack back in 2015). In this case however, local authorities have not stated whether or not any small arms were found inside the vehicles, and no ideological material (such as flags, banners, or other paraphernalia) was found either. Additionally, the local farmer who claims to have been the original source for visually observing these individuals stated that she initially became suspicious after these men were seen wearing hoods and masks. If this observation is true (and it probably is), this is another detail that does not make sense. VBIED attacks are usually a one-way trip, and therefore the attackers aren't normally concerned with keeping their identity a secret. On the contrary, they usually want to be known publicly as martyrs, so wearing masks goes against nearly all other similar attacks. Furthermore, the attackers were spotted by the farmer blocking the roadway, and fled from the scene on foot after the farmer drove up on them. This is once again another clue that something is amiss. Normally, once a terrorist begins moving into the final stages of their attack and starts maneuvering to the attack site, a series of events is in place that would be difficult to stop. Once they've committed to the attack, violence from authorities is usually the only thing that can stop an attack at that point. Following the narrative as presented, five very physically fit Military Aged Males spent months planning an attack, had obtained three vehicles packed with explosives, had arrived at the attack site, and were preparing the attack...but were shooed away by an unarmed British lady right as they were about to detonate. This framing makes absolutely zero sense unless the story as presented is missing large and very critical details. Another discrepancy is the exact location of where the vehicles were discovered blocking the road. The farmer who made the discovery found these men and their vehicles at a junction on Horcott Road, a quiet English lane just to the east of the base itself. This road is nowhere near a main entrance to the facility. Speculating a bit (and following the VBIED theory), it is possible that the attackers intended to attack the perimeter fence itself, and not a main gate. Right at the junction where the vehicles were parked is a farm which features a small path that leads somewhat close to the perimeter fence itself. However, based on the satellite imagery (which the attackers surely would have had) this is a rather poor attack site. There is no High-Speed Avenue of Approach, and even if they detonated their cargo right where they were sitting, it's not very likely that any military aircraft at the base would have been damaged (although a LOT of citizens would have been killed). There are several other points where the attackers could have breached the perimeter, including one site that is directly on a main road, easily accessible, and offered absolutely zero resistance to a vehicle ramming through the flimsy fence to drive directly onto the runway itself. If the attackers were dedicated enough to fill three vans with explosives in an attempt to carry out one of the most substantial IED attacks in British history...they would have had to drive past one of the most devastatingly vulnerable parts of the base, to pick a far less effective target. Now that the jig is up and base security is heightened, there is no risk to pointing out this glaring vulnerability, because base security have parked heavy vehicles near all of the gates that are easy to ram through. This indicates that the vulnerabilities along the base perimeter were genuine...and the alleged terrorists did not choose to exploit them for some reason. Finally, the vehicles themselves provide a major clue which adds helpful context that must be considered in the broader context of what might have happened. At least one of the vans was marked with the logo of "Fuel 2You" a fuel delivery company, which provides fueling services to machinery and industrial sites, for customers who need small fuel deliveries. However, the logo is NOT the same as the company...they misspelled the name. The vans are marked with "Fuel 2YOU", but the actual company is stylized as "FUEL2U" with the letter "U". The logo is also green in the United Kingdom; the red logo that the suspects copied is from an American company. This small detail alone is the strongest evidence of malign action. Camouflage is an act that, when discovered, betrays intent to conceal something. And in this case, it's fantastic camouflage, because if a terrorist were to be pulled over with barrels full of flammable liquid, there is no better camouflage than to take on the identity of a company that is known for operating mobile gas stations. The problem is that the suspects googled "Fuel 2 You" and got the logo from the American company, instead of the British company that is called "Fuel2U". The actual company released a statement confirming that their company likeness was used by the suspects without their permission, and that these vehicles had no affiliation with their company whatsoever. As a result of this final detail, the suspects were almost certainly up to no good, but exactly what they were planning is up for debate and will have to be determined later on. The use of camouflage on their vans is a clever trick that would support either the VBIED theory or the diesel theft theory, but adding up all of the details that are known, every factor lines up more with the diesel theft theory than the VBIED theory. Speculating on the diesel theft theory, everything so far makes sense. A band of thieves masquerading as a fuel delivery service company, and using that as cover to steal fuel would be a rather slick criminal operation (that is, if they weren't dumb enough to use the wrong logo). Since the suspects were captured alive, it is certain that some information will be obtained, but for now a lot of guesswork is required both to determine what actually was being planned, and also what future threats might be still on the horizon. The discrepancies in the other details of the case indicate that this case is not as cut-and-dry as depicted in the media...there is very clearly something that the authorities are not telling the public. This does not necessarily indicate much on it's own; there is certainly enough wiggle room in the official story for everything to technically be true. Maybe the attackers got lost, or had a breakdown, or were not that great at planning. Maybe they weren't trying to conduct an attack at the time of their discovery, and were instead trying to stage IEDs for later on. On the other hand, it's also possible that these individuals were not terrorists, but rather thieves attempting to steal fuel from the farm at which they were caught. As it stands, the possibilities vary widely, and until more details are known we just don't know. More broadly, this incident is a high profile matter that will have several follow-on effects even if it was just diesel theft. First and foremost, the American B-1B bombers will probably be moved around the base, since news helicopters revealed where they are parked. Fairford is not the only base where American bombers are located, and these assets are rotated around fairly regularly anyway. Random Antiterrorism Measures (RAM) are certain to increase at all British bases where American forces are staged, with this incident highlighting the security vulnerabilities at major military installations throughout Europe. If pro-Palestine activists can break into a military airbase and damage aircraft with paint (as they did last summer at RAF Brize Norton), then legitimate and serious terrorists certainly can do worse. This latest incident is too close for comfort, and if this was an attack that was indeed imminent (before it was stopped), this would be a miracle that highlights the critical importance of a prepared and observant citizenry. Until we know more details, from a planning perspective it would be wise to treat this as a very serious threat that could have killed a lot of people. Regardless of who was behind it (and for whatever reason) if this was an attack and if it were to be carried out as claimed by initial reports, many lives would have been lost, nearly all of which would have been civilian. And the threat might not be over just yet. The local farmer who made the initial discovery has adamantly assured that she saw more than just the five men who were detained. If this is true and if there are other suspects on the loose, this could present a more persistent threat to the local area until they are found. Analyst: S2A1 Research: NomadNet: 5fa68c88be727a0e1a250a75e5e79269 Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report. //END REPORT//
9:13

//The Wire//1300Z September 28, 2026// //PRIORITY// //BLUF: INCIDENT REPORTED AT RAF FAIRFORD AS MULTIPLE MEN ARRESTED IN MULTIPLE VEHICLES NEAR THE AIRBASE PERIMETER.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE----- -International Events- United Kingdom: Yesterday a possible terror attack was foiled at Fairford Airbase, after a group of men were discovered acting suspiciously in the vicinity of the base. Local authorities state that a local farmer visually observed three vans parked in the roadway just outside the base. When the farmer approached the vehicles blocking the road, a group of masked men fled from the scene. After the alarm was raised, authorities responded and a total of five men were detained after being found hiding in the woods near the van site. A search of their vans revealed large containers of hazardous material, which prompted a mass evacuation of the local area. A total of 85x homes were evacuated for several hours while EOD personnel examined the contents of the vans, with residents being allowed to return to their homes last night. All five suspects have been detained, and government officials have declined to officially attribute motive. -----END TEARLINE----- Analyst Comments: As this is a developing situation, many of the details as presented to the public either are not clear, or do not make much sense in terms of what attack might have been planned. Right now, the finger is being pointed at Iran for this incident for obvious reasons, however before attribution can be laid on any group or nation, the basic facts of the case must be ironed out. Government officials and media groups are insinuating that this was a Vehicle Borne IED (VBIED) attack that was foiled before it could materialize. Other claims are being made suggesting that this incident is not terrorism...but rather a group of thieves who were trying to steal diesel from the farm that they were discovered at. Examining the Most Deadly theory first, if it was a VBIED attack, it would be one of the most unorthodox VBIED attacks in history, for many different reasons. First of all, multiple people being located in each vehicle is odd; these types of attacks almost never result in multiple attackers being located in the same vehicle...it's almost always just one person inside the VBIED. If multiple people are to take part in an attack, it would have made more sense for the additional personnel to travel to the site in separate vehicles, to conduct a more complex attack (such as the infamous Bataclan attack back in 2015). In this case however, local authorities have not stated whether or not any small arms were found inside the vehicles, and no ideological material (such as flags, banners, or other paraphernalia) was found either. Additionally, the local farmer who claims to have been the original source for visually observing these individuals stated that she initially became suspicious after these men were seen wearing hoods and masks. If this observation is true (and it probably is), this is another detail that does not make sense. VBIED attacks are usually a one-way trip, and therefore the attackers aren't normally concerned with keeping their identity a secret. On the contrary, they usually want to be known publicly as martyrs, so wearing masks goes against nearly all other similar attacks. Furthermore, the attackers were spotted by the farmer blocking the roadway, and fled from the scene on foot after the farmer drove up on them. This is once again another clue that something is amiss. Normally, once a terrorist begins moving into the final stages of their attack and starts maneuvering to the attack site, a series of events is in place that would be difficult to stop. Once they've committed to the attack, violence from authorities is usually the only thing that can stop an attack at that point. Following the narrative as presented, five very physically fit Military Aged Males spent months planning an attack, had obtained three vehicles packed with explosives, had arrived at the attack site, and were preparing the attack...but were shooed away by an unarmed British lady right as they were about to detonate. This framing makes absolutely zero sense unless the story as presented is missing large and very critical details. Another discrepancy is the exact location of where the vehicles were discovered blocking the road. The farmer who made the discovery found these men and their vehicles at a junction on Horcott Road, a quiet English lane just to the east of the base itself. This road is nowhere near a main entrance to the facility. Speculating a bit (and following the VBIED theory), it is possible that the attackers intended to attack the perimeter fence itself, and not a main gate. Right at the junction where the vehicles were parked is a farm which features a small path that leads somewhat close to the perimeter fence itself. However, based on the satellite imagery (which the attackers surely would have had) this is a rather poor attack site. There is no High-Speed Avenue of Approach, and even if they detonated their cargo right where they were sitting, it's not very likely that any military aircraft at the base would have been damaged (although a LOT of citizens would have been killed). There are several other points where the attackers could have breached the perimeter, including one site that is directly on a main road, easily accessible, and offered absolutely zero resistance to a vehicle ramming through the flimsy fence to drive directly onto the runway itself. If the attackers were dedicated enough to fill three vans with explosives in an attempt to carry out one of the most substantial IED attacks in British history...they would have had to drive past one of the most devastatingly vulnerable parts of the base, to pick a far less effective target. Now that the jig is up and base security is heightened, there is no risk to pointing out this glaring vulnerability, because base security have parked heavy vehicles near all of the gates that are easy to ram through. This indicates that the vulnerabilities along the base perimeter were genuine...and the alleged terrorists did not choose to exploit them for some reason. Finally, the vehicles themselves provide a major clue which adds helpful context that must be considered in the broader context of what might have happened. At least one of the vans was marked with the logo of "Fuel 2You" a fuel delivery company, which provides fueling services to machinery and industrial sites, for customers who need small fuel deliveries. However, the logo is NOT the same as the company...they misspelled the name. The vans are marked with "Fuel 2YOU", but the actual company is stylized as "FUEL2U" with the letter "U". The logo is also green in the United Kingdom; the red logo that the suspects copied is from an American company. This small detail alone is the strongest evidence of malign action. Camouflage is an act that, when discovered, betrays intent to conceal something. And in this case, it's fantastic camouflage, because if a terrorist were to be pulled over with barrels full of flammable liquid, there is no better camouflage than to take on the identity of a company that is known for operating mobile gas stations. The problem is that the suspects googled "Fuel 2 You" and got the logo from the American company, instead of the British company that is called "Fuel2U". The actual company released a statement confirming that their company likeness was used by the suspects without their permission, and that these vehicles had no affiliation with their company whatsoever. As a result of this final detail, the suspects were almost certainly up to no good, but exactly what they were planning is up for debate and will have to be determined later on. The use of camouflage on their vans is a clever trick that would support either the VBIED theory or the diesel theft theory, but adding up all of the details that are known, every factor lines up more with the diesel theft theory than the VBIED theory. Speculating on the diesel theft theory, everything so far makes sense. A band of thieves masquerading as a fuel delivery service company, and using that as cover to steal fuel would be a rather slick criminal operation (that is, if they weren't dumb enough to use the wrong logo). Since the suspects were captured alive, it is certain that some information will be obtained, but for now a lot of guesswork is required both to determine what actually was being planned, and also what future threats might be still on the horizon. The discrepancies in the other details of the case indicate that this case is not as cut-and-dry as depicted in the media...there is very clearly something that the authorities are not telling the public. This does not necessarily indicate much on it's own; there is certainly enough wiggle room in the official story for everything to technically be true. Maybe the attackers got lost, or had a breakdown, or were not that great at planning. Maybe they weren't trying to conduct an attack at the time of their discovery, and were instead trying to stage IEDs for later on. On the other hand, it's also possible that these individuals were not terrorists, but rather thieves attempting to steal fuel from the farm at which they were caught. As it stands, the possibilities vary widely, and until more details are known we just don't know. More broadly, this incident is a high profile matter that will have several follow-on effects even if it was just diesel theft. First and foremost, the American B-1B bombers will probably be moved around the base, since news helicopters revealed where they are parked. Fairford is not the only base where American bombers are located, and these assets are rotated around fairly regularly anyway. Random Antiterrorism Measures (RAM) are certain to increase at all British bases where American forces are staged, with this incident highlighting the security vulnerabilities at major military installations throughout Europe. If pro-Palestine activists can break into a military airbase and damage aircraft with paint (as they did last summer at RAF Brize Norton), then legitimate and serious terrorists certainly can do worse. This latest incident is too close for comfort, and if this was an attack that was indeed imminent (before it was stopped), this would be a miracle that highlights the critical importance of a prepared and observant citizenry. Until we know more details, from a planning perspective it would be wise to treat this as a very serious threat that could have killed a lot of people. Regardless of who was behind it (and for whatever reason) if this was an attack and if it were to be carried out as claimed by initial reports, many lives would have been lost, nearly all of which would have been civilian. And the threat might not be over just yet. The local farmer who made the initial discovery has adamantly assured that she saw more than just the five men who were detained. If this is true and if there are other suspects on the loose, this could present a more persistent threat to the local area until they are found. Analyst: S2A1 Research: NomadNet: 5fa68c88be727a0e1a250a75e5e79269 Disclaimer: No LLMs were used in the writing of this report. //END REPORT//

S2 Underground

47,174 просмотров • 15 дней назад

When Will We Have The Courage To Talk About The Men From Pakistan? The rape gangs made up of men of Pakistani heritage were not driven by lust, impulse, or paedophilia. Their crimes were acts of prejudice and power, not passion. These were deliberate expressions of domination rooted in racial contempt and cultural hierarchy. Sexual violence was their weapon, not their motive. These men operated within a worldview that divided women into categories of purity and impurity, respect and contempt. Within that hierarchy, White working class girls, often vulnerable, isolated, and without social protection, were seen as beneath consideration. They were not viewed as children to be safeguarded, but as unclean outsiders whose degradation carried no moral weight. The assaults were not random or opportunistic. They followed an internal logic, an assertion of power over a despised group. Rape became a symbolic act, a declaration of control, a means of confirming moral dominance over those they regarded as inferior. This was domination masked as desire, an assertion of supremacy, not sexuality. You cannot understand this through the narrow lens of sexual deviance or paedophilia. It was a crime of hierarchy, a collision between a patriarchal honour culture and a society that had ceased to defend its most vulnerable members. The men responsible saw themselves not as predators acting outside their culture's norms, but as men enforcing them. In their worldview, purity and honour were attributes reserved for "their own" women, while outsiders existed beyond the boundaries of empathy. The victims' perceived impurity made them suitable targets, their suffering both permissible and deserved. Historical Continuities. Rape as a Weapon of Purity and Power Sexual violence as domination has deep roots in the region. Pakistan's creation in 1947, one of the most violent ethnic cleansings in modern history, set a grim precedent. As millions fled across newly drawn borders, rape was systematically used as a weapon of revenge and purification. Women's bodies became battlegrounds on which competing visions of religion and nationhood were fought. This was not incidental brutality. It reflected a worldview in which the "honour" of one group could be asserted through the violation of another. The act of rape carried symbolic meaning. It was the conquest of the enemy's women, and therefore the humiliation of the enemy's men. Sexual violence became a language of dominance and purification, justified as the restoration of moral order. Two decades later, during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, the Pakistani military's campaign in East Pakistan saw rape elevated to genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Bengali women were subjected to systematic sexual violence, not for sexual gratification, but to ethnically cleanse and terrorise. The perpetrators viewed the victims as racially and culturally inferior, unworthy of protection or personhood. These events left a moral scar that Pakistan has never acknowledged. There was no reckoning, no process of truth or accountability. The silence that followed entrenched a cultural pattern that sexual violence could be justified when directed against those outside the moral or religious community. It was an ideological silence, a refusal to see women, and especially other people's women, as human beings. This inheritance matters. When sons of that diaspora settled in Britain, they carried not just religious identity but cultural memory, a hierarchy of purity and pollution shaped by centuries of social conflict. The grooming gang phenomenon was not an aberration, but the reappearance of an older logic of domination, transposed into the United Kingdom. And once here, the men involved found a fertile breeding ground to continue as was what they believed their tradition. Institutional Fear and the Collapse of Moral Courage The first failure was ideological. The second was institutional. For decades, police forces, local authorities, and safeguarding agencies failed to act decisively despite overwhelming evidence of organised sexual exploitation. They had the intelligence and investigative capability. What they lacked was moral courage. Officials were paralysed by fear of being labelled racist. In a political environment obsessed with community cohesion and the optics of diversity, the race and religion of the perpetrators became a forbidden topic. Victims who spoke up were dismissed. Frontline officers were warned not to "stir up tensions." Social workers were told to consider the "cultural sensitivities" of the offenders. What followed was bureaucratic cowardice disguised as anti racism. Institutions abandoned their duty of care to some of the most vulnerable children in the country because their abusers belonged to a protected demographic. In protecting themselves from accusations of prejudice, they allowed racial prejudice of a different kind, against poor, White, working class girls, to flourish unchecked. This was not equality. It was a moral inversion. Fear of racism became a tool that shielded perpetrators from scrutiny and deepened the inequality between victim and offender. Political correctness, when elevated above principle, becomes not a safeguard against injustice but its enabler. The Political Bargain That Protected Power The institutional silence was reinforced by political calculation. In many northern towns, including Oldham, Rochdale, and Rotherham, electoral politics had become dependent on the loyalty of bloc votes within Pakistani heritage communities. These blocs were managed through networks of kinship, business, and patronage that rewarded compliance and punished dissent. Local politicians understood that maintaining "community harmony" often meant maintaining the support of those who controlled these votes. In return for reliable electoral turnout, politicians offered influence, access, and protection. Issues that risked disrupting this balance, including the organised sexual exploitation of White working class girls, were treated as political threats, not safeguarding emergencies. This relationship hollowed out democracy. Council seats and public positions were distributed through informal patronage systems that blurred the line between representation and control. The same intermediaries who could mobilise the vote were often the ones advising councillors on "community relations", a conflict of interest so normalised that few questioned it. Anyone who challenged the arrangement risked being denounced as divisive or racist. The language of anti racism was repurposed to defend vested interests. "Community cohesion" became a euphemism for silence. The welfare of children was subordinated to the management of a political alliance. This culture of political exchange explains why so many local authorities failed to confront what was happening on their own streets. It was not only cowardice but complicity, the institutionalisation of denial as the price for maintaining electoral peace. The grooming gang scandal was not only a moral or policing failure. It was a political failure rooted in the corruption of representation itself. A Two Tier Morality The third and most enduring failure is moral. By refusing to hold all communities to the same ethical standard, Britain has entrenched a hierarchy of accountability. When the offender is White and the victim is from a minority group, society demands structural explanations, cultural reckoning, and public shame. When the roles are reversed, the conversation collapses into evasion and denial. This asymmetry corrodes trust. It tells one part of society that their suffering is negotiable, and another that their identity grants them immunity from moral examination. It fractures the very idea of equal justice. The victims were not only failed by their abusers but by a system that calculated their worth through the lens of political risk. They were denied recognition because their pain was inconvenient. Their trauma was filtered through focus groups and equality impact assessments, rather than confronted as a national disgrace. Confronting this honestly requires rejecting both denial and collective blame. The grooming gangs were not acting on behalf of all Pakistanis or Muslims, but nor were they isolated anomalies. They were products of specific cultural and ideological environments that must be named and challenged. Pretending otherwise serves no one, least of all the victims. The Cover Up That Never Ended The same fear and political cowardice that allowed these crimes to happen now defines the government's response to them. The National Inquiry was meant to expose the truth. Instead, it has become another act of management. Survivors who once believed the inquiry would deliver justice have walked away, saying it was designed to protect institutions rather than expose them. Evidence has been ring fenced, language softened, and uncomfortable lines of questioning quietly erased. This is not accountability. It is choreography. The state has learned to perform contrition while keeping the machinery of denial intact. Each new report repeats the same phrases, "systemic failure," "lessons learned," "moving forward", as if repetition were justice. What it achieves instead is distance. The further the inquiries go, the further the truth recedes. The inquiry's retreat into managed caution mirrors the original betrayal. Once again, those who hold power speak of compassion while concealing the cause. The same instinct that told police officers to stay silent now guides Whitehall. Protect relationships, preserve reputations, and avoid offence at all costs. Real justice will not come from committees or reviews. It will come only when the country stops managing the story and starts telling it, when it names who did this, why it was ignored, and who still benefits from silence. The survivors who walked away from the inquiry understood something the rest of us refuse to see. You cannot heal a wound that the state refuses to admit exists. Their withdrawal was not despair. It was defiance. They have refused to play their assigned role in another performance of forgetting. And so the burden returns to the rest of us. If the institutions built to tell the truth will not do it, then it falls to citizens to speak plainly. To confront what was done, to remember who was silenced, and to insist that moral equality means moral courage. Until that happens, the estimated 100,000 betrayed girls will remain symbols of a nation still lying to itself. The inquiry has stalled. The cover up continues. It is a monument to fear, to cowardice, and to the terrible power of silence. No matter the cost. We must fight it. _________ This isn't about politics anymore. It's about preservation - a ruling clique defending its own survival, even if it means abandoning the very people they swore to protect. The nation does not need silence. It needs truth. This is not only a child abuse scandal. It is a crisis of truth, trust and governance in modern Britain. I am Raja Miah. For seven years, I led a small team that exposed how politicians protected the rape gangs. I cannot do this on my own. I need you to stand with me and help make sure the National Inquiry we have all fought for is not a whitewash. We’re running out of time. Without the numbers, they will win. It’s as simple as that. 🔴 Subscribe to my newsletter – it’s free. Or support the work for just 75p a week (£3/month or £30/year). Whatever you do, please subscribe; 👉 Subscribe Now This is the fight. This is the moment. There will not be another 🔴 Prefer a one-off contribution? 👉 👉 No corporate sponsors. No party machine. Just you and thousands of ordinary people who know what’s at stake. We’ve come this far. Help finish it. Raja Miah MBE
3:17

When Will We Have The Courage To Talk About The Men From Pakistan? The rape gangs made up of men of Pakistani heritage were not driven by lust, impulse, or paedophilia. Their crimes were acts of prejudice and power, not passion. These were deliberate expressions of domination rooted in racial contempt and cultural hierarchy. Sexual violence was their weapon, not their motive. These men operated within a worldview that divided women into categories of purity and impurity, respect and contempt. Within that hierarchy, White working class girls, often vulnerable, isolated, and without social protection, were seen as beneath consideration. They were not viewed as children to be safeguarded, but as unclean outsiders whose degradation carried no moral weight. The assaults were not random or opportunistic. They followed an internal logic, an assertion of power over a despised group. Rape became a symbolic act, a declaration of control, a means of confirming moral dominance over those they regarded as inferior. This was domination masked as desire, an assertion of supremacy, not sexuality. You cannot understand this through the narrow lens of sexual deviance or paedophilia. It was a crime of hierarchy, a collision between a patriarchal honour culture and a society that had ceased to defend its most vulnerable members. The men responsible saw themselves not as predators acting outside their culture's norms, but as men enforcing them. In their worldview, purity and honour were attributes reserved for "their own" women, while outsiders existed beyond the boundaries of empathy. The victims' perceived impurity made them suitable targets, their suffering both permissible and deserved. Historical Continuities. Rape as a Weapon of Purity and Power Sexual violence as domination has deep roots in the region. Pakistan's creation in 1947, one of the most violent ethnic cleansings in modern history, set a grim precedent. As millions fled across newly drawn borders, rape was systematically used as a weapon of revenge and purification. Women's bodies became battlegrounds on which competing visions of religion and nationhood were fought. This was not incidental brutality. It reflected a worldview in which the "honour" of one group could be asserted through the violation of another. The act of rape carried symbolic meaning. It was the conquest of the enemy's women, and therefore the humiliation of the enemy's men. Sexual violence became a language of dominance and purification, justified as the restoration of moral order. Two decades later, during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, the Pakistani military's campaign in East Pakistan saw rape elevated to genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Bengali women were subjected to systematic sexual violence, not for sexual gratification, but to ethnically cleanse and terrorise. The perpetrators viewed the victims as racially and culturally inferior, unworthy of protection or personhood. These events left a moral scar that Pakistan has never acknowledged. There was no reckoning, no process of truth or accountability. The silence that followed entrenched a cultural pattern that sexual violence could be justified when directed against those outside the moral or religious community. It was an ideological silence, a refusal to see women, and especially other people's women, as human beings. This inheritance matters. When sons of that diaspora settled in Britain, they carried not just religious identity but cultural memory, a hierarchy of purity and pollution shaped by centuries of social conflict. The grooming gang phenomenon was not an aberration, but the reappearance of an older logic of domination, transposed into the United Kingdom. And once here, the men involved found a fertile breeding ground to continue as was what they believed their tradition. Institutional Fear and the Collapse of Moral Courage The first failure was ideological. The second was institutional. For decades, police forces, local authorities, and safeguarding agencies failed to act decisively despite overwhelming evidence of organised sexual exploitation. They had the intelligence and investigative capability. What they lacked was moral courage. Officials were paralysed by fear of being labelled racist. In a political environment obsessed with community cohesion and the optics of diversity, the race and religion of the perpetrators became a forbidden topic. Victims who spoke up were dismissed. Frontline officers were warned not to "stir up tensions." Social workers were told to consider the "cultural sensitivities" of the offenders. What followed was bureaucratic cowardice disguised as anti racism. Institutions abandoned their duty of care to some of the most vulnerable children in the country because their abusers belonged to a protected demographic. In protecting themselves from accusations of prejudice, they allowed racial prejudice of a different kind, against poor, White, working class girls, to flourish unchecked. This was not equality. It was a moral inversion. Fear of racism became a tool that shielded perpetrators from scrutiny and deepened the inequality between victim and offender. Political correctness, when elevated above principle, becomes not a safeguard against injustice but its enabler. The Political Bargain That Protected Power The institutional silence was reinforced by political calculation. In many northern towns, including Oldham, Rochdale, and Rotherham, electoral politics had become dependent on the loyalty of bloc votes within Pakistani heritage communities. These blocs were managed through networks of kinship, business, and patronage that rewarded compliance and punished dissent. Local politicians understood that maintaining "community harmony" often meant maintaining the support of those who controlled these votes. In return for reliable electoral turnout, politicians offered influence, access, and protection. Issues that risked disrupting this balance, including the organised sexual exploitation of White working class girls, were treated as political threats, not safeguarding emergencies. This relationship hollowed out democracy. Council seats and public positions were distributed through informal patronage systems that blurred the line between representation and control. The same intermediaries who could mobilise the vote were often the ones advising councillors on "community relations", a conflict of interest so normalised that few questioned it. Anyone who challenged the arrangement risked being denounced as divisive or racist. The language of anti racism was repurposed to defend vested interests. "Community cohesion" became a euphemism for silence. The welfare of children was subordinated to the management of a political alliance. This culture of political exchange explains why so many local authorities failed to confront what was happening on their own streets. It was not only cowardice but complicity, the institutionalisation of denial as the price for maintaining electoral peace. The grooming gang scandal was not only a moral or policing failure. It was a political failure rooted in the corruption of representation itself. A Two Tier Morality The third and most enduring failure is moral. By refusing to hold all communities to the same ethical standard, Britain has entrenched a hierarchy of accountability. When the offender is White and the victim is from a minority group, society demands structural explanations, cultural reckoning, and public shame. When the roles are reversed, the conversation collapses into evasion and denial. This asymmetry corrodes trust. It tells one part of society that their suffering is negotiable, and another that their identity grants them immunity from moral examination. It fractures the very idea of equal justice. The victims were not only failed by their abusers but by a system that calculated their worth through the lens of political risk. They were denied recognition because their pain was inconvenient. Their trauma was filtered through focus groups and equality impact assessments, rather than confronted as a national disgrace. Confronting this honestly requires rejecting both denial and collective blame. The grooming gangs were not acting on behalf of all Pakistanis or Muslims, but nor were they isolated anomalies. They were products of specific cultural and ideological environments that must be named and challenged. Pretending otherwise serves no one, least of all the victims. The Cover Up That Never Ended The same fear and political cowardice that allowed these crimes to happen now defines the government's response to them. The National Inquiry was meant to expose the truth. Instead, it has become another act of management. Survivors who once believed the inquiry would deliver justice have walked away, saying it was designed to protect institutions rather than expose them. Evidence has been ring fenced, language softened, and uncomfortable lines of questioning quietly erased. This is not accountability. It is choreography. The state has learned to perform contrition while keeping the machinery of denial intact. Each new report repeats the same phrases, "systemic failure," "lessons learned," "moving forward", as if repetition were justice. What it achieves instead is distance. The further the inquiries go, the further the truth recedes. The inquiry's retreat into managed caution mirrors the original betrayal. Once again, those who hold power speak of compassion while concealing the cause. The same instinct that told police officers to stay silent now guides Whitehall. Protect relationships, preserve reputations, and avoid offence at all costs. Real justice will not come from committees or reviews. It will come only when the country stops managing the story and starts telling it, when it names who did this, why it was ignored, and who still benefits from silence. The survivors who walked away from the inquiry understood something the rest of us refuse to see. You cannot heal a wound that the state refuses to admit exists. Their withdrawal was not despair. It was defiance. They have refused to play their assigned role in another performance of forgetting. And so the burden returns to the rest of us. If the institutions built to tell the truth will not do it, then it falls to citizens to speak plainly. To confront what was done, to remember who was silenced, and to insist that moral equality means moral courage. Until that happens, the estimated 100,000 betrayed girls will remain symbols of a nation still lying to itself. The inquiry has stalled. The cover up continues. It is a monument to fear, to cowardice, and to the terrible power of silence. No matter the cost. We must fight it. _________ This isn't about politics anymore. It's about preservation - a ruling clique defending its own survival, even if it means abandoning the very people they swore to protect. The nation does not need silence. It needs truth. This is not only a child abuse scandal. It is a crisis of truth, trust and governance in modern Britain. I am Raja Miah. For seven years, I led a small team that exposed how politicians protected the rape gangs. I cannot do this on my own. I need you to stand with me and help make sure the National Inquiry we have all fought for is not a whitewash. We’re running out of time. Without the numbers, they will win. It’s as simple as that. 🔴 Subscribe to my newsletter – it’s free. Or support the work for just 75p a week (£3/month or £30/year). Whatever you do, please subscribe; 👉 Subscribe Now This is the fight. This is the moment. There will not be another 🔴 Prefer a one-off contribution? 👉 👉 No corporate sponsors. No party machine. Just you and thousands of ordinary people who know what’s at stake. We’ve come this far. Help finish it. Raja Miah MBE

Raja Miah

55,347 просмотров • 11 месяцев назад

RESCUE OF THE KEEPER OF TARA EARTH This is going to sound like absolute fiction, but the story still needs to be told. Let me preface by saying I’m not just sane, but an autodidact polymath with multiple quantum physics patents under exclusively my own name, not part of any collaboration. So by dismissing my testimony as someone who is just nuts is really reading a book strictly through its cover. This all actually happened, even if you’ve never heard of anything like this before. What we don’t know about ‘the real worlds’ out there you could barely fit in all of our skies, we’ve been that isolated here. Everyone in this preschool dimension have preconceived notions about who ‘god’ is, inflated to the realm of all-knowing and all-powerful, able to create whole worlds, complete with millions of species of flora and fauna, and all in just 6 days. And while it is true such powers do exist, they are not without collaboration with other ‘gods’ to make that all happen, no matter how grandiose your captors want to make themselves seem. Just one species of your apples or oranges here represents possibly trillions of years of development and perfection. They didn’t just magically appear. “God” is a psyop term that stands for the word “perfect”, of which there is no such thing. The term perfect is strictly subjective, because what may seem perfect to a caveman is going to seem rudimentary kid’s stuff to George Jetson. The real term for the creator of all things is not ‘god’, but rather Prime Creator. “God” is actually DOG spelled backward and got its name from the Dog Star, also known as Sirius A, the headquarters of the Anuhazi Elohim’s breakaway group that call themselves The Michaelube, Suns of Ba’al. The ‘Arch Angels’ want you to believe they are the creator god of all things in this world. That was a lie 560m years ago and it is still a lie today. In reality, Tara Earth existed more than 4 billion years prior to the Anuhazi’s arrival to take the Human Elohim Project spirit essences hostage. They DID in fact help create Tara earth, just like you did, because they are fractals of Prime Creator. But to present themselves as ‘one guy with a long white beard who created the world and everything in it’ is word magic and gaslighting, designed to demoralize and subjugate Humans. For more on the why to this psychopathic plan, see my article: 👉 HISTORY OF THE CHIMERA. With that said, there are MANY beings in the world around you that are secretly ancient ‘gods’ of past eras who really do have more powers than humans do. I know, because I’ve met some and dealt with others during my years of education from the keeper of our simulation. There are also beings here who have roles to play to keep our world functioning correctly so Tara is able to continue offering a holographic platform for your manifestation adventure, who also have god-like powers, such as the keeper mentioned above, and others that are part of the team I refer to as the ‘crew’. You would call them angels, I call them people. Scary powerful people, but still people. Among the ‘crew’ is the main ‘keeper’ of the simulation that you wind up referring to as god down through the ages, because once in a while humans get to meet the keeper and witness the power for themselves which is very obviously not human. But the keeper doesn’t have a long flowing white beard, doesn’t sit on a throne in the sky and certainly isn’t perfect. But like you, a work in progress. Always seeking greater balance. That is the one common denominator among all fractals of Prime Creator, regardless if they are currently playing ‘bad guy’ roles, or ‘good guy’ roles. Understand there are beings here constantly at war against the keeper that has control of the universal elements of the hologram. Also understand, like the other beings who came here from much higher dimension with ‘god-like’ powers, they fractalize themselves into many, many different bodies, so it is effectively impossible to ever ‘kill’ each other. You would have to not only find all the many hundreds or thousands of them, but have a fool-proof way of killing them all at the same exact moment, making sure they are gone-gone, not just that one avatar holding their spirit awareness. That’s not going to happen. Not to any of them from what I’ve witnessed. Which means simply, as far as you are concerned, they are eternal beings, continuously here since 560m years ago in some case, depending when each one of them arrived. The ‘gods’, and the keeper, live in mortal bodies that age and die. But their positions are always held by the next one of themselves that can step into that role to maintain continuity of their offices. These are all the same person and can appear exactly identical to each other, or they can take on totally different appearances as well. I’m not sure why or how, but I’ve seen them both ways. After I was contacted by the keeper and informed of my role where I was in contract to supply protection and help to the crew back in 2013, eventually I was activated for that help in September of 2017. Both the keeper and a portion of the worldwide crew support staff as it were, had been taken hostage in California. I was tasked to bring them out to safety. I won’t go deeply into the details of this, but it was a serious situation where the invader races had stripped the keeper of all access to banks and cash, making it impossible to remain safe inside of the place they had been using as headquarters, literally casting them into the streets. And before you imagine this would be ‘impossible’, the keeper can’t just manifest stacks of cash out of thin air, and also there were a massive amount of beings all working together to neutralize them so they could possibly remove them from the levers of power of the simulation. That’s really all I can offer for details about that for now. The alphabet agencies were keeping the entire crew isolated in that one city, living in a car, camping in the woods and basically making it impossible to look after Tara. The keeper was able to get donations through various support mechanisms, but were shut out of getting off the streets. They brought in specialists to help them all escape, but the agencies wound up permanently disabling them, or taking them out altogether. That’s when I was contacted for assignment. Not being one of ‘the gods’ like they are, I was naturally terrified of having anything to do with this mission because I had no powers I was aware of that could provide anything they couldn’t. Which is really a fantastic understatement, since the keeper and crew can translocate anywhere in the world in seconds, have ‘thousands of avatars’ scattered out as vessels they can use in any city around the world, and basically everything they can do we can’t are about as intimidating as they can be. But I was told I was the only one who could rescue them. And while that may sound like the perfect scenario for a deluded mind seeking validation with illusions of grandeur, like a classic mental patient would come up with in their insane mind, this is what I was actually told, and I do mean in real life. To this day I find it as confusing to believe as you will trying to believe me now. Nonetheless, I carry certain powers I have been fitted with for my contract here on earth that I have had no education about at all. And the main one I’ve learned of now is I have a frequency shield that blocks out ‘the gods’ from doing harm. As long as the keeper and crew were within that field, the invaders were rendered powerless. Wow, even I want to roll my eyes at that. But I watched it play out first hand now multiple times after I got the crew off the streets in a ‘place of safety’ over the next couple of years. As long as I was at the safe house, nothing nefarious happened. When I went shopping every other week for groceries in town over 10 miles away, that’s when all hell would break out back at the compound. Those stories too would seem impossible to you to believe, just like everything else I am covering here, so I won’t go deeply into them. But they included black helicopters, 10’ long rattlesnakes sealing off the safe house & even assassinations. I was even requested to get to town and back as quickly as possible and not to linger due to these threats. I was told that my frequency shield while blended to the natural frequency shield the keeper and crew all have reached ‘87.3 miles’ apart (or so, going by memory now. But it was a very specific number). But even though the overall power of our combined fields still increased within that distance, the closer I was to the group, the more powerful the shield. I’m just telling you what I was told. You can believe it or not. I certainly wouldn’t believe it had I not actually witnessed it myself, so I’m right there with you if that’s your position. That brings us to the story I intended to pass along to you here; regarding that flight from ‘homeless bondage’ out across the deserts that spanned well over 1000 miles I was brought in for. The keeper and crew had been held hostage and homeless for 2 ½ years by the time I got the call requesting me to sell everything I owned and fly half way around the world for their rescue. Their lives had been hell, trust me. I arrived late at night where they picked me up and the hard part of the journey began. I will skip the details of the truly insane things I witnessed starting then for another time after the separation, for obvious reasons having to do with breadcrumbs and the very real fluid war we’re inside of still. But I will tell you about the ‘angels’ that were with us for that escape I would only learn about myself after 2 days of running. In the video below you will see what appear to be asteroids or a meteor shower, but they are traveling horizontally, not downward at all. We’ve seen this now since late 2024 a few times. This time I saved one of the videos taken on 2/19/2025 in Germany so I could actually show people what I saw first hand on that second night of our escape. We had covered whole states by this time, but we couldn’t stop and rest until we made it to a ‘frequency zone’ that was somehow outside of the reaches of the keeper’s enemies. I’m under the impression that there are certain key cross-leyline areas on earth that are too high in frequency for the low-vibration invader races to penetrate with their hyper-advanced psychotronic & scalar weapons, and that had been our destination ever since our escape that began at about 3:30-4am in the dead of night when the least amount of eyes would be surveilling us. Boy do I have outrageous stories about just how absolute that surveillance really is too. It is like they are not just tracking us, but using time travel to put agents in areas we would be arriving to, posing like homeless people and everyday folks. While in real life they were monitoring my every word in secret. I was surveilled many times during the weeks in that city while arranging for the escape and it blew my mind every time. The asteroids that really look more like comets in the video is what the "guardian angels" that had been secretly escorting us from overhead looked like, WHEN they were uncloaked. They only showed up in my visible view at the moment we broke over a ridge at about 3:30 in the morning 2 days later after our run began, at the exact same moment I could see the city lights way off in the distance below that was the ‘safe zone’. Suddenly overhead three giant comets appeared immediately above my head. I was in the lead vehicle the whole way, because the keeper was following my taillights. This is the only way they can navigate at night, because they don’t see like you and I do, looking at solid shapes and images, but everything through their eyes are light waves. I couldn’t make up something like that if I spent 10 years trying to write this article, mostly because it is still not believable to me now, 8 years later. These 3 comets were massive, what looked to be around 50 feet across, with tails of flame coming off that must have been 150-200 feet behind streaking VERY low across the sky. As I came down the hill to the desert floor for the final 10 miles between us and the safe zone (small town lights), the ‘comets’ started coming straight down toward ground, one at a time. They appeared they were going to crash into the highway, now traveling vertically at hypersonic speed, then just stopped 50 ft away from impact and vanished. You would have to try to imagine being in the total dark desert with only very faint, far-away lights off in the distance, only to have 3 comets traveling RIGHT DIRECTLY overhead suddenly uncloak, then turn straight down to get an idea of how insanely frightening they appeared, since their trajectory was to strike directly in front of your vehicle on the highway, as if you were about to slam right into them as they hit like giant bombs that would certainly blow up on impact and basically vaporize you and your moving van, to appreciate how absurd this event was. I was only about 150 feet away from where they were set to strike, so there was no hitting the brakes and avoiding anything. They were right there. Which means it was sort of like watching 'god' just fill the night's sky with fire. I saw 3 of them myself, but I was informed there were an additional 9 ‘angels’ that my own frequency wouldn't allow me to see according to the keeper. It is because this story is so unbelievable that I avoid talking about it, as you can imagine. Since 99 people out of a hundred are only going to accuse you of being insane upon hearing it, some possibly trying to have you committed at the same time, and the other person is likely already crazy themselves, so they just glaze over it. Until you see something like that with your own eyes, I'm pretty sure you will *never believe it could be a real thing. But this is what we call angels look like when they are decloaked and traveling at night. I don’t personally know if they were inside vehicles, or they are just simply traveling in their own Merkabah fields. That part was never explained to me. I was told they were with us 'flying overhead the entire journey' since we escaped California and were basically ‘signing off’ as I gathered it, now that we had reached the safe zone. You can believe I'm crazy all you want to, but now you can see them with your own eyes in this video, sure as hell not acting like meteors, but acting more like flaming time crafts (‘space’ ships). Are you crazy too? - On X, to search for my articles, simply type in the name of the piece, enter one space, then from: plus my username in parenthesis such as shown here: CASTING THE APOCOLYPSE (from:iontecs_pemf) Off-site, you can look up any of my writings through this link below for my other more than 100 recent articles and many thousands of comments on X, regularly updated thanks to Justin This message will only be seen by your eyes if not shared, and if you want to reference this article again later, you will need to cut and paste it in your own notes off line, as it will surely be erased. This is the most accurate translation of these events I am aware of at this time.
0:20

RESCUE OF THE KEEPER OF TARA EARTH This is going to sound like absolute fiction, but the story still needs to be told. Let me preface by saying I’m not just sane, but an autodidact polymath with multiple quantum physics patents under exclusively my own name, not part of any collaboration. So by dismissing my testimony as someone who is just nuts is really reading a book strictly through its cover. This all actually happened, even if you’ve never heard of anything like this before. What we don’t know about ‘the real worlds’ out there you could barely fit in all of our skies, we’ve been that isolated here. Everyone in this preschool dimension have preconceived notions about who ‘god’ is, inflated to the realm of all-knowing and all-powerful, able to create whole worlds, complete with millions of species of flora and fauna, and all in just 6 days. And while it is true such powers do exist, they are not without collaboration with other ‘gods’ to make that all happen, no matter how grandiose your captors want to make themselves seem. Just one species of your apples or oranges here represents possibly trillions of years of development and perfection. They didn’t just magically appear. “God” is a psyop term that stands for the word “perfect”, of which there is no such thing. The term perfect is strictly subjective, because what may seem perfect to a caveman is going to seem rudimentary kid’s stuff to George Jetson. The real term for the creator of all things is not ‘god’, but rather Prime Creator. “God” is actually DOG spelled backward and got its name from the Dog Star, also known as Sirius A, the headquarters of the Anuhazi Elohim’s breakaway group that call themselves The Michaelube, Suns of Ba’al. The ‘Arch Angels’ want you to believe they are the creator god of all things in this world. That was a lie 560m years ago and it is still a lie today. In reality, Tara Earth existed more than 4 billion years prior to the Anuhazi’s arrival to take the Human Elohim Project spirit essences hostage. They DID in fact help create Tara earth, just like you did, because they are fractals of Prime Creator. But to present themselves as ‘one guy with a long white beard who created the world and everything in it’ is word magic and gaslighting, designed to demoralize and subjugate Humans. For more on the why to this psychopathic plan, see my article: 👉 HISTORY OF THE CHIMERA. With that said, there are MANY beings in the world around you that are secretly ancient ‘gods’ of past eras who really do have more powers than humans do. I know, because I’ve met some and dealt with others during my years of education from the keeper of our simulation. There are also beings here who have roles to play to keep our world functioning correctly so Tara is able to continue offering a holographic platform for your manifestation adventure, who also have god-like powers, such as the keeper mentioned above, and others that are part of the team I refer to as the ‘crew’. You would call them angels, I call them people. Scary powerful people, but still people. Among the ‘crew’ is the main ‘keeper’ of the simulation that you wind up referring to as god down through the ages, because once in a while humans get to meet the keeper and witness the power for themselves which is very obviously not human. But the keeper doesn’t have a long flowing white beard, doesn’t sit on a throne in the sky and certainly isn’t perfect. But like you, a work in progress. Always seeking greater balance. That is the one common denominator among all fractals of Prime Creator, regardless if they are currently playing ‘bad guy’ roles, or ‘good guy’ roles. Understand there are beings here constantly at war against the keeper that has control of the universal elements of the hologram. Also understand, like the other beings who came here from much higher dimension with ‘god-like’ powers, they fractalize themselves into many, many different bodies, so it is effectively impossible to ever ‘kill’ each other. You would have to not only find all the many hundreds or thousands of them, but have a fool-proof way of killing them all at the same exact moment, making sure they are gone-gone, not just that one avatar holding their spirit awareness. That’s not going to happen. Not to any of them from what I’ve witnessed. Which means simply, as far as you are concerned, they are eternal beings, continuously here since 560m years ago in some case, depending when each one of them arrived. The ‘gods’, and the keeper, live in mortal bodies that age and die. But their positions are always held by the next one of themselves that can step into that role to maintain continuity of their offices. These are all the same person and can appear exactly identical to each other, or they can take on totally different appearances as well. I’m not sure why or how, but I’ve seen them both ways. After I was contacted by the keeper and informed of my role where I was in contract to supply protection and help to the crew back in 2013, eventually I was activated for that help in September of 2017. Both the keeper and a portion of the worldwide crew support staff as it were, had been taken hostage in California. I was tasked to bring them out to safety. I won’t go deeply into the details of this, but it was a serious situation where the invader races had stripped the keeper of all access to banks and cash, making it impossible to remain safe inside of the place they had been using as headquarters, literally casting them into the streets. And before you imagine this would be ‘impossible’, the keeper can’t just manifest stacks of cash out of thin air, and also there were a massive amount of beings all working together to neutralize them so they could possibly remove them from the levers of power of the simulation. That’s really all I can offer for details about that for now. The alphabet agencies were keeping the entire crew isolated in that one city, living in a car, camping in the woods and basically making it impossible to look after Tara. The keeper was able to get donations through various support mechanisms, but were shut out of getting off the streets. They brought in specialists to help them all escape, but the agencies wound up permanently disabling them, or taking them out altogether. That’s when I was contacted for assignment. Not being one of ‘the gods’ like they are, I was naturally terrified of having anything to do with this mission because I had no powers I was aware of that could provide anything they couldn’t. Which is really a fantastic understatement, since the keeper and crew can translocate anywhere in the world in seconds, have ‘thousands of avatars’ scattered out as vessels they can use in any city around the world, and basically everything they can do we can’t are about as intimidating as they can be. But I was told I was the only one who could rescue them. And while that may sound like the perfect scenario for a deluded mind seeking validation with illusions of grandeur, like a classic mental patient would come up with in their insane mind, this is what I was actually told, and I do mean in real life. To this day I find it as confusing to believe as you will trying to believe me now. Nonetheless, I carry certain powers I have been fitted with for my contract here on earth that I have had no education about at all. And the main one I’ve learned of now is I have a frequency shield that blocks out ‘the gods’ from doing harm. As long as the keeper and crew were within that field, the invaders were rendered powerless. Wow, even I want to roll my eyes at that. But I watched it play out first hand now multiple times after I got the crew off the streets in a ‘place of safety’ over the next couple of years. As long as I was at the safe house, nothing nefarious happened. When I went shopping every other week for groceries in town over 10 miles away, that’s when all hell would break out back at the compound. Those stories too would seem impossible to you to believe, just like everything else I am covering here, so I won’t go deeply into them. But they included black helicopters, 10’ long rattlesnakes sealing off the safe house & even assassinations. I was even requested to get to town and back as quickly as possible and not to linger due to these threats. I was told that my frequency shield while blended to the natural frequency shield the keeper and crew all have reached ‘87.3 miles’ apart (or so, going by memory now. But it was a very specific number). But even though the overall power of our combined fields still increased within that distance, the closer I was to the group, the more powerful the shield. I’m just telling you what I was told. You can believe it or not. I certainly wouldn’t believe it had I not actually witnessed it myself, so I’m right there with you if that’s your position. That brings us to the story I intended to pass along to you here; regarding that flight from ‘homeless bondage’ out across the deserts that spanned well over 1000 miles I was brought in for. The keeper and crew had been held hostage and homeless for 2 ½ years by the time I got the call requesting me to sell everything I owned and fly half way around the world for their rescue. Their lives had been hell, trust me. I arrived late at night where they picked me up and the hard part of the journey began. I will skip the details of the truly insane things I witnessed starting then for another time after the separation, for obvious reasons having to do with breadcrumbs and the very real fluid war we’re inside of still. But I will tell you about the ‘angels’ that were with us for that escape I would only learn about myself after 2 days of running. In the video below you will see what appear to be asteroids or a meteor shower, but they are traveling horizontally, not downward at all. We’ve seen this now since late 2024 a few times. This time I saved one of the videos taken on 2/19/2025 in Germany so I could actually show people what I saw first hand on that second night of our escape. We had covered whole states by this time, but we couldn’t stop and rest until we made it to a ‘frequency zone’ that was somehow outside of the reaches of the keeper’s enemies. I’m under the impression that there are certain key cross-leyline areas on earth that are too high in frequency for the low-vibration invader races to penetrate with their hyper-advanced psychotronic & scalar weapons, and that had been our destination ever since our escape that began at about 3:30-4am in the dead of night when the least amount of eyes would be surveilling us. Boy do I have outrageous stories about just how absolute that surveillance really is too. It is like they are not just tracking us, but using time travel to put agents in areas we would be arriving to, posing like homeless people and everyday folks. While in real life they were monitoring my every word in secret. I was surveilled many times during the weeks in that city while arranging for the escape and it blew my mind every time. The asteroids that really look more like comets in the video is what the "guardian angels" that had been secretly escorting us from overhead looked like, WHEN they were uncloaked. They only showed up in my visible view at the moment we broke over a ridge at about 3:30 in the morning 2 days later after our run began, at the exact same moment I could see the city lights way off in the distance below that was the ‘safe zone’. Suddenly overhead three giant comets appeared immediately above my head. I was in the lead vehicle the whole way, because the keeper was following my taillights. This is the only way they can navigate at night, because they don’t see like you and I do, looking at solid shapes and images, but everything through their eyes are light waves. I couldn’t make up something like that if I spent 10 years trying to write this article, mostly because it is still not believable to me now, 8 years later. These 3 comets were massive, what looked to be around 50 feet across, with tails of flame coming off that must have been 150-200 feet behind streaking VERY low across the sky. As I came down the hill to the desert floor for the final 10 miles between us and the safe zone (small town lights), the ‘comets’ started coming straight down toward ground, one at a time. They appeared they were going to crash into the highway, now traveling vertically at hypersonic speed, then just stopped 50 ft away from impact and vanished. You would have to try to imagine being in the total dark desert with only very faint, far-away lights off in the distance, only to have 3 comets traveling RIGHT DIRECTLY overhead suddenly uncloak, then turn straight down to get an idea of how insanely frightening they appeared, since their trajectory was to strike directly in front of your vehicle on the highway, as if you were about to slam right into them as they hit like giant bombs that would certainly blow up on impact and basically vaporize you and your moving van, to appreciate how absurd this event was. I was only about 150 feet away from where they were set to strike, so there was no hitting the brakes and avoiding anything. They were right there. Which means it was sort of like watching 'god' just fill the night's sky with fire. I saw 3 of them myself, but I was informed there were an additional 9 ‘angels’ that my own frequency wouldn't allow me to see according to the keeper. It is because this story is so unbelievable that I avoid talking about it, as you can imagine. Since 99 people out of a hundred are only going to accuse you of being insane upon hearing it, some possibly trying to have you committed at the same time, and the other person is likely already crazy themselves, so they just glaze over it. Until you see something like that with your own eyes, I'm pretty sure you will *never believe it could be a real thing. But this is what we call angels look like when they are decloaked and traveling at night. I don’t personally know if they were inside vehicles, or they are just simply traveling in their own Merkabah fields. That part was never explained to me. I was told they were with us 'flying overhead the entire journey' since we escaped California and were basically ‘signing off’ as I gathered it, now that we had reached the safe zone. You can believe I'm crazy all you want to, but now you can see them with your own eyes in this video, sure as hell not acting like meteors, but acting more like flaming time crafts (‘space’ ships). Are you crazy too? - On X, to search for my articles, simply type in the name of the piece, enter one space, then from: plus my username in parenthesis such as shown here: CASTING THE APOCOLYPSE (from:iontecs_pemf) Off-site, you can look up any of my writings through this link below for my other more than 100 recent articles and many thousands of comments on X, regularly updated thanks to Justin This message will only be seen by your eyes if not shared, and if you want to reference this article again later, you will need to cut and paste it in your own notes off line, as it will surely be erased. This is the most accurate translation of these events I am aware of at this time.

W.R. Schock, QBD

62,828 просмотров • 1 год назад

Now that South Africa, through President Cyril Ramaphosa, chairs SADC, there are no longer any excuses for pretending that South Africa’s immigration crisis begins and ends at the Limpopo border. South Africa cannot sustainably resolve regional migration through police raids, deportations and empty speeches about undocumented foreigners. It must confront the conditions forcing people to leave countries such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique. These root causes are known; they are disputed elections, repression, corruption, unemployment, economic collapse and poor governance. SADC already has the necessary instruments. The SADC Treaty requires member states to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Its election guidelines require political tolerance, freedom of expression and association, impartial electoral institutions, equal access to state media and genuinely open political competition. The Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation requires SADC to promote democratic institutions, good governance and regional stability. Zimbabwe’s own 2023 SADC Election Observation Mission found that aspects of the election fell short of Zimbabwean law and the SADC election guidelines. It identified restrictions on political participation, the partisan conduct of state media, restrictions on freedom of assembly and expression, problems involving the voters’ roll and serious failures in the delivery of ballot papers. Nothing had been done three years in to fix these problems. In Mozambique, SADC called for electoral management bodies to be professionalised and reconstituted on a non-partisan basis. It also called for electoral reforms to be enacted well before elections rather than being introduced close to polling day. ⁠ President Ramaphosa should now place the implementation of these recommendations formally before the SADC Summit. He is now the SADC chairman and has no reason for excuses not to do it. His chairmanship should demand time-bound reform programmes, publish reports showing which governments have complied, strengthen post-election reviews and stop SADC observer reports from becoming ceremonial documents that are forgotten as soon as incumbents are inaugurated. Most importantly, Article 33 of the SADC Treaty permits sanctions against a member state that persistently fails to fulfil its treaty obligations or implements policies undermining SADC’s principles and objectives. Ramaphosa cannot impose those sanctions by himself, because the Summit acts collectively and generally by consensus, but he can force the issue onto its agenda and require every regional leader to state publicly whether they support or oppose enforcement. ⁠He has a choice to be like Nelson Mandela, or Julius Nyerere or Ian Khama who called a spade a spade. South Africa can also push for coordinated regional migration and labour policies, better border administration and the implementation of SADC agreements governing employment and the lawful movement of people. But managed migration cannot substitute for democratic government and functioning economies. If President Ramaphosa wants fewer Zimbabweans and Mozambicans crossing into South Africa out of desperation illegally, he must use South Africa’s diplomatic and economic influence to insist that their governments respect elections, constitutionalism, human rights and the rule of law. Immigration is not merely a border-management problem. It is also the bill South Africa receives for tolerating failed governance next door. Seventy percent giving birth in Musina are from Zimbabwe according to the South Africa government. It gives South Africa not only the SADC but the moral authority to call for a roundtable. Nelson Mandela understood this, he used South Africa’s mighty and SADC protocols to fix problems. President Ramaphosa now chairs SADC. He has the instruments, the regional platform and the economic leverage. What remains to be seen is whether he has the political courage and will to use them. Many opposition leaders, past and present, across Southern Africa have accused South African leaders, particularly those within the ANC, of accepting bribes from delinquent governments in the region and using South Africa’s economic and diplomatic might to shield those governments from scrutiny and accountability. South Africa’s chairmanship of SADC now presents ANC leaders with an opportunity to prove that they can uphold the organisation’s own democratic principles, perform their regional responsibilities and put South Africa’s national interests first. They must demonstrate that South Africa will no longer be used by corrupt and delinquent regional leaders seeking protection from accountability. Protecting governments that rig elections, suppress political opposition, loot public resources, butcher constitutions and destroy their economies does not merely harm the citizens of those countries; it ultimately harms South Africa itself. The consequences manifest in economic instability, regional insecurity and massive illegal immigration into South Africa. President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC can no longer complain about the symptoms of illegal immigration while protecting, tolerating or refusing to confront the governments creating its root causes. South Africa now chairs SADC. It has the diplomatic platform, economic influence and regional instruments required to demand reform. The question is whether its leaders have the political courage, and the clean hands to use them. South Africa is now in charge. Let us wait and see whether it will be just a paper tiger or a real regional power that exercises the SADC powers it now holds. Power without responsibility is simply bad and terrible leadership without any moral fibre.
0:55

Now that South Africa, through President Cyril Ramaphosa, chairs SADC, there are no longer any excuses for pretending that South Africa’s immigration crisis begins and ends at the Limpopo border. South Africa cannot sustainably resolve regional migration through police raids, deportations and empty speeches about undocumented foreigners. It must confront the conditions forcing people to leave countries such as Zimbabwe and Mozambique. These root causes are known; they are disputed elections, repression, corruption, unemployment, economic collapse and poor governance. SADC already has the necessary instruments. The SADC Treaty requires member states to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Its election guidelines require political tolerance, freedom of expression and association, impartial electoral institutions, equal access to state media and genuinely open political competition. The Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation requires SADC to promote democratic institutions, good governance and regional stability. Zimbabwe’s own 2023 SADC Election Observation Mission found that aspects of the election fell short of Zimbabwean law and the SADC election guidelines. It identified restrictions on political participation, the partisan conduct of state media, restrictions on freedom of assembly and expression, problems involving the voters’ roll and serious failures in the delivery of ballot papers. Nothing had been done three years in to fix these problems. In Mozambique, SADC called for electoral management bodies to be professionalised and reconstituted on a non-partisan basis. It also called for electoral reforms to be enacted well before elections rather than being introduced close to polling day. ⁠ President Ramaphosa should now place the implementation of these recommendations formally before the SADC Summit. He is now the SADC chairman and has no reason for excuses not to do it. His chairmanship should demand time-bound reform programmes, publish reports showing which governments have complied, strengthen post-election reviews and stop SADC observer reports from becoming ceremonial documents that are forgotten as soon as incumbents are inaugurated. Most importantly, Article 33 of the SADC Treaty permits sanctions against a member state that persistently fails to fulfil its treaty obligations or implements policies undermining SADC’s principles and objectives. Ramaphosa cannot impose those sanctions by himself, because the Summit acts collectively and generally by consensus, but he can force the issue onto its agenda and require every regional leader to state publicly whether they support or oppose enforcement. ⁠He has a choice to be like Nelson Mandela, or Julius Nyerere or Ian Khama who called a spade a spade. South Africa can also push for coordinated regional migration and labour policies, better border administration and the implementation of SADC agreements governing employment and the lawful movement of people. But managed migration cannot substitute for democratic government and functioning economies. If President Ramaphosa wants fewer Zimbabweans and Mozambicans crossing into South Africa out of desperation illegally, he must use South Africa’s diplomatic and economic influence to insist that their governments respect elections, constitutionalism, human rights and the rule of law. Immigration is not merely a border-management problem. It is also the bill South Africa receives for tolerating failed governance next door. Seventy percent giving birth in Musina are from Zimbabwe according to the South Africa government. It gives South Africa not only the SADC but the moral authority to call for a roundtable. Nelson Mandela understood this, he used South Africa’s mighty and SADC protocols to fix problems. President Ramaphosa now chairs SADC. He has the instruments, the regional platform and the economic leverage. What remains to be seen is whether he has the political courage and will to use them. Many opposition leaders, past and present, across Southern Africa have accused South African leaders, particularly those within the ANC, of accepting bribes from delinquent governments in the region and using South Africa’s economic and diplomatic might to shield those governments from scrutiny and accountability. South Africa’s chairmanship of SADC now presents ANC leaders with an opportunity to prove that they can uphold the organisation’s own democratic principles, perform their regional responsibilities and put South Africa’s national interests first. They must demonstrate that South Africa will no longer be used by corrupt and delinquent regional leaders seeking protection from accountability. Protecting governments that rig elections, suppress political opposition, loot public resources, butcher constitutions and destroy their economies does not merely harm the citizens of those countries; it ultimately harms South Africa itself. The consequences manifest in economic instability, regional insecurity and massive illegal immigration into South Africa. President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC can no longer complain about the symptoms of illegal immigration while protecting, tolerating or refusing to confront the governments creating its root causes. South Africa now chairs SADC. It has the diplomatic platform, economic influence and regional instruments required to demand reform. The question is whether its leaders have the political courage, and the clean hands to use them. South Africa is now in charge. Let us wait and see whether it will be just a paper tiger or a real regional power that exercises the SADC powers it now holds. Power without responsibility is simply bad and terrible leadership without any moral fibre.

Hopewell Chin’ono

77,259 просмотров • 1 месяц назад