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55 Voices for Democracy is inspired by the 55 BBC radio addresses Thomas Mann delivered from his home in California to thousands of listeners in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and the occupied Netherlands and Czechoslovakia between October 1940 and November 1945. In his monthly addresses Mann spoke out strongly against fascism, becoming the most significant German defender of democracy in exile. Building on that legacy, 55 Voices brings together internationally esteemed intellectuals, scientists, and artists to present ideas for the renewal of democracy in our own troubled times. The series is presented by the Thomas Mann House in partnership with theLos Angeles Review of Books,Sddeutsche Zeitung, andDeutschlandfunk.

Mohamed Amjahid calls for more emancipatory voices in transatlantic networks. He opposes derailed liberalism and emphasizes the need to show backbone and to stand in solidarity with vulnerable minorities. This effort, he says, is necessary for inclusive democracies to survive. Mohamed Amjahid is a political journalist, author of the bestsellers Among Whites and Whitewash, and a moderator. He was an editor at ZEITmagazin and has received, among other awards, the Alexander Rhomberg Prize and the Henri Nannen Prize. Amjahid is a 2022 Fellow at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles.

The video of Mohamed Amjahids talk can be viewed below.

Trigger Warning: Some old white men might feel offended by what I have to say. However, I am pretty sure everybody will survive this episode of 55 Voices, delivered from Thomas Manns desk in Pacific Palisades, where the rich, famous, and powerful reside.

When the violent mob better known as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington, DC, just over a year ago, a conspicuous group of liberals escorted them. Not necessarily on the streets, rather cheering from the sidelines for years and years.

How the fork did we get here? And what has it to do of all things with Germany?

Stakeholders from politics, media, society, and business, who act in the tradition of a long-established GermanUS friendship, gather under the keyword Atlanticists. They are the often-described old white men in positions of power who become sentimental at the famous sayings of USAmerican leaders from times long past: Ich bin ein Berliner! or Tear down this wall!

In this interdependent relationship between the Federal Republic and the United States, a dangerous understanding of liberalism was born. It threatens many vulnerable communities. Liberalism is in itself a positive term, dont get me wrong, because there is also something good about it: the self-determination and unhindered blossoming of each subject. But what is meant here is a liberalism that fetishizes freedom beyond all limits and elevates the individual sphere at the expense of the well-being of minorities and of society as a whole.

This exclusive understanding of individual freedom is central to simplistic liberalism. The underlying concept of freedom is defined in a fatal way: in a laissez-faire policy towards rightwing extremists and their friends, in exploitative capitalism and the preservation of old, discriminating structures. Unfortunately, many Atlanticists embody this derailed liberalism.

In the spirit of limitless freedom of speech, they say: Say what you want! And so Donald Trump said what he wanted: he reproduced hate speech against women, Black people, refugees, queer people. Millions of voters liked it so much, they made him president. Donald Trump was able to reach a huge audience through many mainstream and social media platforms, build a base, normalize his misanthropic views, alternative facts, and clownish behavior. Meanwhile, in Germany, the extremist AfD is being established as a legitimate political force in a deep-seated liberal belief. Even though they are no better than what Thomas Mann was fighting against from exactly this desk.

More than half a year after the storming of the Capitol in Washington, right-wing extremists tried to occupy the Reichstag in Berlin in August 2021. Armed with Nazi-symbols they got onto the stairs of the Federal German Parliament building. These events show that both US and German societies are threatened by the interaction between right-wing nationalist movements and hyper-liberal tolerance for them. Before the storms began on both sides of the Atlantic the radicalized views of the stormers were normalized by hyper-liberalism. That should be a warning for all our political decision makers. We cant let history repeat itself.

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55 Voices for Democracy: Mohamed Amjahid on the Antiquated Atlanticists - lareviewofbooks

Ants in pants anxiety over state voting rules has mostly focused on efforts to curtail the liberal ballot access procedures put in place for the pandemic-year election of 2020.

New laws to restrict mail balloting, use of drop boxes, early voting days and handing out water or snacks in election day voting lines are deserving of concern.

But far more frightening, less publicized changes could allow partisan actors in some states to nullify votes and overturn elections if they dont accept the results as valid.

They open the door to sham elections like those in authoritarian-governed countries where the dictators dictate election outcomes so they never lose.

Could this happen in America, the worlds oldest democracy?

It almost did in the last presidential election. Incumbent Donald Trump, the clear loser, attempted to stay in power with strong-arm tactics to reverse the results under the false claim of a stolen election.

Whats more, he continues to peddle his electoral lie. Sadly, a recent public opinion poll revealed 50 percent of registered Republicans believe it. Trumps conspiracy theories are trusted more than evidence that no widespread fraud occurred.

The most dangerous effect of the lie believers is playing out in states with Republican legislatures influenced by Trump. They are considering, and a few have passed, partisan election review laws.

Georgia is a prime example. Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger heroically refused Trumps coercive attempts to alter the twice-confirmed election results giving Democrat Joe Biden a 0.2 percent victory margin in Georgia.

Yet Georgias Trump- friendly legislature was not so valiant. Last year, it diluted the secretary of states election oversight powers by removing the office from heading the State Election Board. Instead, the chair is now appointed by a majority of state legislators or, if they are not in session, the governor.

Additionally, state lawmakers expanded the boards powers to allow it to intervene in county election board and probate judge election certification and voter eligibility responsibilities if those office holders underperformed.

So if a candidate contests election results and wants them changed to his or her advantage, the partisan mechanism is in place to nullify ballots and change outcomes, provided the candidates party controls the State Election Board.

Georgia Republicans insist it is not a return to Jim Crow-era voting laws. But if it looks like Jim Crow, flies like Jim Crow and caws like Jim Crow, then it probably is Jim Crow.

The Brennen Center for Justice at New York Universitys School of Law reported this month that similar legislation to manipulate election outcomes for partisan gain are under consideration in 13 states, many of them key battlegrounds such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, Florida and South Carolina.

Alan I. Abramowitz is a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta and a senior columnist for Sabatos Crystal Ball, a political analysis newsletter produced by the University of Virginia Center for politics. He believes public fears that voter access restrictions suppress voter turnout are misguided.

Abramowitz bases his conclusion on his comparative study of state election turnouts in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. In both instances, he said, passion for or against the candidates drove voter participation.

Abramowitzs research found only marginal differences in the percentage of voter method preferences between 2016 and 2020 in comparing mail-in ballots, early days voting, ID requirements and in-person voting even though several states relaxed absentee voting requirements due to the pandemic in 2020.

Voting rules did not appear to have much impact on turnout and had no measurable impact on vote margins at the state level in the 2020 presidential election, he said in a recent article titled, Why Voter Suppression Probably Wont Work.

Current efforts by Republican legislatures to suppress turnout among minorities and other Democratic-leaning voter groups by imposing restrictions on absentee voting, early in-person voting and use of drop boxes or by requiring that voters present photo identification in order to vote are unlikely to bear fruit, opined Abramowitz.

He did acknowledge, however, in an interview with CNN host Michael Smerconish last week that the greater threat lies in votes lawfully cast being counted and results accepted by election officials, by the candidates and by their parties.

When all is said and done, our democracy depends on it.

BILL KETTER is CNHIs Senior Vice President of news. Reach him at wketter@cnhi.com

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KETTER: Voter nullification remains threat to democracy - Sharonherald

Data crunching by this newspaper shows state legislative assemblies averaged just 30 sittings a year over the past decade. Anecdotally familiar, this devaluation of legislative democracy is still shocking when framed by data. All the more so because many states where electoral politics is high-tempo manage considerably fewer sittings than the already appalling national average. Among them are Punjab, Haryana and Delhi assemblies that meet less than 20 days a year, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and mighty-important UP, less than 25. Punjab and UP are witnessing fierce poll battles and government and opposition will equally ignore assembly duties post-poll. Not that, as data shows, Lok Sabha is an exemplar of legislative seriousness its yearly average is just 63 sittings, much poorer than national chambers of democracies like US, UK, Japan, Canada and Germany.

Put simply, this is unconscionable. So few sittings of MLAs, and indeed MPs, mean legislators are not spending enough time either debating laws or debating governance issues. Note that Chief Justice of India NV Ramana had some time back highlighted how poorly drafted many of our laws are, and how they frequently lead to controversies over interpretation and a raft of litigation. Thats a direct result of legislators not doing their job on legislations. The other outcome is that the executive, whether at state levels or at the Centre, feels increasingly unconstrained by the legislature. Only 13% of bills in the current, 17th Lok Sabha have been referred to standing committees, down from 27% in the previous one, and sharply down from over 60% during the 15th Lok Sabha. It is no accident that higher courts are the institutions that act as the only effective checks on executive overreach.

Therefore, peoples Houses in the worlds largest democracy need a rule a minimum of 100 sittings a year, and a majority of MLAs or MPs from every party in a House present in those sittings. Since culpability on this is cross-party, senior leadership of all major parties should agree at least on this one thing if they are as committed to Indias democratic system as they all say they are. Many senior leaders, across parties, increasingly see governance as almost solely an exercise in executive power, and Houses as at most venues for political theatrics. If legislatures continue to remain as unimportant in governance as they are now, the decline in the quality of democracy, which is different from just winning elections, may become irreversible. Thats a truly troubling thought.

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.

END OF ARTICLE

Originally posted here:
House that? Shockingly low legislature sittings cant go on. Leaders must understand the quality of democrac - The Times of India Blog

Fear is supremely contagious, wrote Primo Levi, the Italian-Jewish writer and thinker who survived the horrors of Auschwitz, and who left us prescient warnings about the monopolisation of power and the systemic dehumanisation of others. His words echo in my head when I consider the persecution of the Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in China today.

We live in an age in which we have too much information, but little knowledge, and even less wisdom. These three concepts are completely different. In fact, an overabundance of information, and the hubris that comes with it, is an obstacle to attaining true knowledge and wisdom.

Every day we are bombarded with snippets of sombre news from all over the world. The escalating humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan where millions are facing starvation; desperate migrants and refugees drowning on Europes borders; attacks on abortion rights throughout the US; the use of rape as a military weapon amid the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans in Ethiopia; the violent coup in Myanmar. Meanwhile, an escalating climate crisis, an impending financial crisis and a crisis of liberal democracy and pluralism are looming.

[See also: My culture will survive: the Uyghur poet Fatimah Abdulghafur Seyyah on her familys devastating persecution]

A deluge of information necessitates faster consumption. We are catapulted from one piece of news to the next, and we treat each incident as an atomised, separate event and then it simply becomes too much, too depressing, so we switch off and go back to our own lives. When so much is happening at such a large scale every single day, we think, what can I possibly do to change anything? This is how we lose the fight against authoritarianism.

Let us then return to the memoirs of those who have survived the darkest chapters in history, for they will guide us with their sagacity and fortitude. Fear, as Primo Levi rightly warned us, is supremely contagious, and autocrats recognise this all too well. But dictators and demagogues know there is one more thing just as easily transmittable, and that is numbness our indifference and detachment as global citizens. If the Chinese government today can continue with crimes against humanity in its treatment of the Uyghur minority, it is because it understands how numbness works and relies on it.

When is a human rights violation deemed grave enough to draw the attention and ire of the global public? How many more atrocities does it take for governments in the West to react to a genocide in another part of the world? How many more disappearances or cases of forced labour will it take before China crosses the Wests red line? How many more children need to be sent to orphanages, ripped from their families, made to forget their own language and identity? How many more women must be sterilised by force and sexually assaulted?

The truth is that, by now, we know whats going on in China. The Human Rights Watch report published in April last year underlined how Beijing is responsible for policies of mass detention, torture and cultural persecution. Western leaders claim to have red lines hence the United States diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics but its questionable whether they are fixed. Authoritarian rulers benefit from this vagueness, and they gain power every time demands or conditions shift.

[See also: Behind Xi Jinpings Great Wall of Iron]

While the West is grappling with its own apathy, the silence of Muslim-majority countries including some of the wealthiest regarding the persecution of Uyghurs is deafening. It is more than silence: it is a blatant trade-off. In 2019, when a group of mostly European countries signed a letter to the UN high commissioner for human rights, criticising and condemning Chinas mistreatment of its minorities, more than 30 states rushed in to sign an alternative letter. Employing alternative facts, they went as far as praising Chinas remarkable achievements on human rights. When truth is distorted and diluted, that, too, serves authoritarianism.

We must be aware of how oppression in one part of the world encourages it elsewhere. Populist demagogues and dictators are emboldened by each others presence and atrocities. Last June authorities in Belarus, in an unprecedented act of hijacking, forced a plane flying between two EU countries to make an emergency landing so that they could arrest a journalist critical of the regime. A few days later the Turkish government pushed Nato allies into softening their response to this alarming violation of human rights. Belarus openly thanked Turkey for its support.

This new internationalism of authoritarian regimes is something we all need to be deeply concerned about. While too many Americans continue to believe in the empty rhetoric of US exceptionalism and the EU struggles with its own tides of populist nativism, it is tragic to see that dictators are the ones who understand the power of international collaboration far better than their democratic counterparts.

Every time we fail to investigate a gross human rights violation, every time we turn a blind eye to atrocities because we have trade deals or financial engagements, we are closely observed not only by that particular countrys government but also by the authoritarian regimes across the world. For they know that when one of them is met with numbness it will benefit them all.

This is how democracy loses. Not only there but also here, and everywhere.

Elif Shafak is a British-Turkish novelist and activist

This article appears in our series, The Silencing, on China and the Uyghurs

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This article appears in the 16 Feb 2022 issue of the New Statesman, The Edge of War

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The Uyghurs' plight shows the biggest threat to democracy is Western apathy - The New Statesman

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THE joy of the government in the survival of its Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Muhammad from the vote of no-confidence was short-lived after both the Minister of Defense Sheikh Hamad Jaber Al-Ali and the Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Mansour tendered their resignation in protest of the parliaments abuse of interpellation tool.

This was followed by MP Abdullah Al-Mudhaf filing an interpellation against the Minister of Public Works. It is expected that MP Bader Al-Mulla will file an interpellation against His Highness the Prime Minister in the coming days.

The government deserves to be blamed for all this, due to the fact that the head of the government did not realize from the start that handing over the thread and needle to the MPs would lead to this difficult situation, and that his government would collapse sooner than anticipated because it was based on unstable grounds.

Is it conceivable that within a month and a half of the governments life, it has dealt with all these interpellations and resignations? Is it because the government is not coherent and capable of confrontation?

What we are experiencing is not like any democracy in the world. It is closer to the systematic killing of the state, which has been suffering for years due to an adventurous parliamentary practice based on personal interests only, while the government has resigned from its role.

This is exactly what has made the people look for salvation to exit this distorted democratic cycle that brought them nothing but misfortune and misery.

There are rumors about exorbitant under-the-table deals being accomplished by the MPs, who are well aware of the location of the governments pressure points. Also, the prime minister is working on stripping his Cabinet of all protection tools because he is yet to make up his mind and preserve the authority of his government.

Therefore, it seems that sacrificing ministers is the new trend, at a time when parliamentarians are getting fiercer in their pursuit of more personal gains.

Well done to both the Defense and Interior Ministers for announcing their resignation in the presence of a National Assembly that was able to dominate a government whose leaders only concern is to immunize himself from accountability, and has no objection to sacrificing ministers one after another.

Therefore, we only have the supreme leadership to turn to in order to get Kuwait out of this absurdity.

This can happen not only by dissolving the National Assembly, but also by dismissing this government, which is unable to protect itself, and coming up with a stronger one, which is composed of states figures and is able to remedy all the devastation caused by the four governments of Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled, as well as the legislative authority that did not legislate what serves the country, the people and development.

By Ahmed Al-Jarallah

Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

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Bare government and a distorted democracy - ARAB TIMES - KUWAIT NEWS - Arab Times Kuwait English Daily