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Citizens from Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Zambia and the DRC are there protesting against their respective heads of state.

Zimbabwean, Zambian, DRC and Swaziland citizens are protesting outside the SADC summit against their heads of state. Picture: Hitekani Magwedze/EWN.

PRETORIA - Members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Democracy Forum, a coalition of civil society organisations, are calling for their respective presidents to resign for various reasons.

They've been protesting outside the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) in Pretoria where the SADC summit is being held.

Foreign dignitaries are in Pretoria attending the summit.

Citizens from Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are there protesting against their respective heads of state just a kilometer away from the department.

Zimbabwean citizens are calling on their First Lady Grace Mugabe to be arrested.

She is a disgrace, Grace Mugabe is a disgrace.

Mugabe, who is currently in the country, is facing criminal charges after she allegedly assaulted 20-year-old Gabriella Engels in a Sandton hotel on Sunday.

Since the International Relations Department confirmed that it had received communication from the Zimbabwean government invoking diplomatic immunity for Grace Mugabe, there has been no further communication from the department on a decision.

The Police Ministry says it will not be arresting Mugabe until it receives an official indication from Dirco.

The group is being barred by police from protesting at the gates.

(Edited by Winnie Theletsane)

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SADC Democracy Forum calls on various African presidents to resign - Eyewitness News

Johannesburg - Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane says he will only consent to a meeting with Zambian President Edgar Lungu if Lungu publicly commits to restoring democracy in Zambia. "I have noted Zambian President Edgar Lungus public appeal to schedule a meeting with me this weekend while he is in South Africa attending the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Pretoria. The Zambian High Commission has also made contact with my office to formally request such a meeting," Maimane said on Saturday.

"I will only agree to meet with President Lungu if he publicly commits to a programme that works to restore Zambias democracy. This must include lifting the 90-day state of emergency; reconvening parliament; restoring the independence of the justice system; ensuring the media is free from suppression and intimidation; and ending the oppressive treatment of the opposition in Zambia."

"Furthermore, an apology must be made to Mr Hakainde Hichilema, the leader of the opposition, who was arrested on trumped up treason charges and detained for almost four months in the most inhumane conditions only for the charges to be dropped as baseless," Maimane said.

Under Lungu, Zambia was fast heading towards a dictatorship.

The country was still under a state of emergency, characterised by increased security measures and the suppression of free speech and press freedom.

Opposition party members had been arrested en masse, and opposition members were still not present in parliament.

"Part of my work as leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) and chairperson of the Southern African Platform for Democratic Change (SAPDC) is to work constructively with leaders, from both governing and opposition parties of democratic states in the SADC region. That said, we must ensure that those who we work with are committed to democratic practices such as human rights, constitutionalism, and the rule of law," Maimane said.

Having consulted with Hichilema and the United Party for National Development (UPND), Maimane said he was well aware of the deteriorating state of democracy in Zambia, and would constructively engage all sides genuinely committed to reversing this trend.

The SADC summit, hosted in South Africa, presented an opportune moment for the South African government to condemn and act against leaders in the region - and across the continent - who continued to undermine democracy and commit human rights violations.

Africas prosperity would only be fully realised when "big men" humble themselves by submitting to the institutions and laws of democracy, and work towards building for their people and future generations, Maimane said.

See the rest here:
Zambia president must commit to restoring democracy, says Maimane - Independent Online

What is it to be an Indian after the death of dharma? How are we to face the crises that is brewing in our society? We may metaphorically describe our plight by declaring that the Sabda brahman has been replaced by Sankhya Asura.

Victor Ferrao

What is it to be an Indian after the death of dharma? How are we to face the crises that is brewing in our society? We may metaphorically describe our plight by declaring that the Sabda brahman has been replaced by Sankhya Asura. Well this calls for explanation. The Vaisnava and several other traditions of Hinduism view all pervading Brahamana, the sabda brahaman as the source of the primordial sound from which they believe that all forms of vakya/speech has evolved. It is also viewed as the ultimate cosmic sound, the sacred OM. Maybe the use of this sacred imagery in an analogical sense can illumine our sad condition. The developments in the politics of our country have expelled something sacred out of our democracy. It is as though the sacred sound OM is squeezed out of our democratic language and traditions. Time has lost its joint and life seems to have lost its samanvaya or balance. Indeed, for the first time our constitutional democracy is reduced to a mere play of numbers. Our democracy was based on the primacy of numbers but they were subservient to the laukika brahmana. This image is again used here to bring home the sacredness of peoples will in the democracy. It was the people who were supreme and sovereign in our democracy. All numbers that determine the victors were given by the people. What we have today is a loss of sovereignty of our people. Democracy has become simply reduced to a play of numbers that are engineered in favour of ruling dispensation by hook or crook. It is almost like tossing a coin that is manipulated to always read heads. From the allegations of manipulation of the electronic voting machines, abuse of enforcement institutions of our democracy like CBI and income tax authorities, us of media as propaganda machine to the dismantling of peoples mandate (in Goa, Manipur and Bihar), we can see how we have destroyed peoples democracy in our country.

We can reduce music to its corresponding frequencies. But with such quantification of music something beautiful dies. Same is the case with democracy. Without the constitutive Demos, democracy becomes merely a wild pursuit of power. It seems that we have lost our democracy in the wilderness. Something vital about our democracy is dying and its ship is sinking quickly. From distance things appear rosy, yet if we scratch a bit, we may open a can of worms. The slope of loss of democracy is dipping. If we try to calculate the fall in our democracy when the role of people is tending towards zero, we may get a deep insight into it. To do this we have to indulge into the mumbo jumbo of numbers and that will give us some kind of approximation of the state of democracy in our country. Maybe Newtons calculus might help us. Maybe we can employ calculus to measure the loss of democracy. Doing so, we might be surprised to discover that we are having a democracy that does not exist. We may use what is called as limits to discern the loss of democracy. We might require a little familiarity with what we call functions. This is so because the state of democracy is dynamic and is changing rapidly and minutely. Functions will help us to represent the dynamics of democracy. The function that we need can be written as y = f(x), where x stand for the role of the people. Now the domain of the x can take values that will indicate the role of the people. We are looking at the changing function. It is changing wherever we look at it. We will deal with the change that may be derived by dy/dx. This gives us the derivative, the coordinate on the y axis. We have to calculate the slope at the stationary point, the point cut by a tangent, the point where democracy is tending to zero. We do so because we seem to have come to the stationary point in the practice of our democracy where the practice is moving towards zero. Now we can derive the dipping of democracy at any point on the curve of its practice. The present practice of democracy seems to be nullifying the role of the people. Therefore, we may represent it with the value that is tending towards 0. This leads us to calculate the value of the output of function when the input is tending towards 0. What will be the rage of the values that f(x) have when x is tending to 0 ? This means we will have to ask what will be f(x) when x tends to 0? To get the value of f(x), let us take a parabola given by the function f(x)=x square as representing the state of democracy. The slope of a tangent in this context is calculated by using it limits formula by considering f(x) as x square. This solution is found to be 2x. Now when x tends to 0, it will be also zero. But the fact that x is tending to 0 does not mean that it is 0. Therefore, its solution is certainly not 0 but one that comes very close to 0. This means we can say that the state of democracy is not totally destroyed. But it is about to get annihilated. The answer of the function that we have considered may be figuratively described as samkhya Asura. This is a problem that is inherent to representative democracy where the role of the people is bare minimum. This means we are already having the seeds of destruction / Asura embedded in what we call representative democracy.

Surely, we do not need calculus to factor in the loss of democracy that we are facing. We all know the state of democracy in our country. The next important question that we have to ask ourselves is that what are we doing about the loss of democracy? This means that we have to realize that time has come to ask for full and total democracy. What would be fuller and total democracy? Will it be the participatory democracy that would maximize the role and responsibility of the ordinary citizen? The questions that we have considered manifest that the reigning representative democracy is completely exhausted and has become vulnerable of being completely manipulated by those who grab power without any regard to the will of the people that is expressed in what we call the mandate of a democratic election. We can already notice it in the way the circus of democracy is playing out in our country. Moreover, this drama is enacted on the backdrop of an aggressive nationalism. All this simply tells us another vital truth. When this so called nationalism reaches its peak, we get minimum democracy. Once again if we employ calculus to calculate at any instance, the quality of democracy in reference to the level of the reigning nationalism (which of course cannot be easily quantified), we may come to what may be described as its un-tenability with our democracy. Higher the reign of that nationalism lesser will be the quality of democracy. That is why the nationalism that we are facing is rightly called fascism. This is the reason why a nationalism that is promoting minimum democracy is dangerously anti-democratic. Unfortunately, we have almost reached a point of no return. That is, our plight is that we have to fight for it now or never. Yes we have a collective imperative to save our dying democracy. We have to awake, arise and fight to save our democracy.

(The author is Professor of Rachol Seminary)

See the article here:
Democracy and Numbers - Oherald

A new row about Big Ben has broken out after it emerged that a historic lamp installed by Queen Victoria to show that Parliament is sitting will be turned off for months.

The House of Commons confirmed that the Ayrton Light at the top of the Elizabeth Tower which houses Big Ben will be switched off for months while maintenance work is carried out.

It will be the first time in over 70 years that the lantern has not been lit when MPs or peers are sitting.

The last time it failed to shine was when German bombers were strafing London during the Second World War.

It came as John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, defied Theresa May, the Prime Minister, and refused to order a rethink of the decision to silence Big Ben for four years from this Monday to allow for the maintenance of the great bell's clocktower.

Nigel Evans MP, a former deputy Speaker, asked why the lamp could not be restored...

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'Silence of the Bongs' row grows over switching off of Big Ben's historic 'democracy lamp' above Parliament - Telegraph.co.uk

Last year, a young Chinese citizen and I were trying to connect for a conversation. Skype seemed to be the most convenient medium, although once our chat commenced, she started apologising. That was not just for the quality of the connection, which kept dropping as during a cellphone conversation in Delhi. It was also because she had to use a virtual private network since she was in Beijing and foreign-owned instant messaging services are considered illegal there. The virtual private network (VPN), anonymising her local network, bypassed that block. This year, we wouldnt be able to re-connect on Skype, since VPNs are now blocked by China. Obviously, VPNs with their ability to circumvent the Chinese checkers and gatekeepers of the Great Firewall, allowed access to content that the Communists find abhorrent, like those about same-sex relationships.

Silicon Valleys behemoths that have been at the forefront of social justice combat in the United States, have happily capitulated before Beijing as is their collective track record since the advent of the Web. Freedom of expression, in their corporate calculus, is an optional extra, one, that at times is unaffordable.

But in coddling the Chinese censor, they compensate by getting a little more strident where free speech is protected. These are, obviously, democracies, like the US, Canada and India, three countries where Ive spent the majority of my life. As a journalist, Ive found each of their leaders has attracted less than laudatory lines, though the current US President, Donald Trump, has taken that to another level.

As India celebrated the 70th year of its freedom, it has largely maintained the part of its destiny that relates to being home to particularly argumentative people. Social media have amplified that noisy contest for duelling ideas, even if trolls go to war with weaponised words. In the US, Trump attracts historic opprobrium. Even Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a global liberal darling, isnt exempt from extreme opinions, both of the fawning and flaming varieties.

Which is great, actually. The thing about democracy is that its an equal opportunity offender; it often leaves half, sometimes more, of the population miserable. And the volume of that angst has been pumped up recently. This right to debate and dissent exists in exactly one system.

As British author EM Forster wrote in What I Believe: Two Cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three. And it offers plenty of latitude for jeers, as with the righteous chorus of outrage against the neo-Nazi extremists storming Charlottesville, Virginia.

This, then is a pause for praise before returning to our regularly planned panning. And relief that residents of democracies dont often require VPNs to get their messages across. Today, I will take a deep breath and thank a system that allows me the space to vent; tomorrow, I can do just that, if I so wish.

Anirudh Bhattacharyya is a Toronto-based commentator on American affairs

The views expressed are personal

The rest is here:
Democracy is an equal opportunity offender - Hindustan Times