Surviving in the Era of Populism

Can’t fathom where the last decade went. True, some of its ravages have left their mark on this poor body of mine, but in other ways, things have been moving so fast and so far that the universe has become virtually unrecognizable from the one we knew at the beginning of the decade.

         Of course, the dominant motif has been the spread of this vast network of interconnectedness that links most of humanity together. I am talking here about the digital connections in which, we are told, 3.5 billion of us are engaged these days, treating each other and everyone who has access, to the tedium that defines our lives.

         But lest we forget, our digital inter-connectedness can never match the biological connectedness that links us, as humans, manifested in the indivisibility of the DNA sequences that weave us all together. To emphasize the point, although the number of genes coding for human characteristics and features has been downsized from the 100,000 that was calculated at the opening stages of the new genetics era to between 24,000 and 25,000 now, there is still a huge potential for variation that transcends family, group and region and exposes the emptiness of those who would divide us. And here we include non-essential attributes like skin colour, hair texture, body shape, physiognomy. It’s rather like being in a car lot where you’re looking at buying yourself a nice new motor. On that lot you see an array of vehicles, stretching from horizon to horizon: Different shapes, different sizes, colours, different marque, and indeed different models, some only slightly differing from the other. But all have four wheels (When did you last see a three-wheeler? Whenever one of these appears these days, it does so mainly for comic relief), a steering wheel, gear shift, accelerator and brake pedals, and the array of instruments on a dashboard. The motor under the hood, however, is the same: It could be internal combustion or, nowadays, electric. But they are still the engine that moves the whole thing along.

         The point I am making is that all those variations do not detract from the essence of ‘carness’, if I could coin a word. By the same token, human beings, on our car-lot of humanity, are essentially the same under the hood, despite or because of the 25000 genes that we each embody.  And, prick any of us, we bleed the same red blood. But it has become fashionable, in some quarters, to somehow, deny this reality by attempting to drive a wedge between communities and groups for only one sordid purpose, capturing power. From the streets of London to America’s heartland, and from the domes of the Kremlin to places along the languid waters of the Danube, and from the hovels of New Delhi to the dragons rising in China, and from the unfortunate Rohingyas on to Brazil’s burning Amazon,  “strong” men (and women, sadly) have wrested control from the hands of social democrats who, until recently, have been trying to make the world a better place. But by the end of the decade, things have taken a decidedly bad turn. True, the Robert Mugabes and Hosni Mubaraks, the Gadafis, the Tunisian Ben Alis, and The Gambian Yahyah Jammeh have been swept away. But the optimism that followed these ejections have not fulfilled their promise.

         Instead, there are important countries in which people are incited to hate each other to a level that has become totally toxic orchestrated by a President of the United States, for example, who, it seems, believes that wholesale disruption is the brilliant approach to refashioning world order. Even his domestic policies reverberate negatively around the world, and his so-called foreign policy directly threatens world peace. All we can do is hold our breath and hope that we can survive to exhale in the purer air of broad and sunlit uplands.

         So, despite the early signs, let us not despair but instead, wish ourselves survival in 2020.

Tell Fren Tru

Failing The Poppy Test

The world is a big place. There is so much we don’t know about it which, in general, behoves us to hold our tongue.

 I am thinking about the furore that has erupted in the lead-up to this year’s Remembrance Day, a day when the dead of world wars and other conflicts are remembered and commemorated. This time, the whole thing has been torpedoed by remarks made by a celebrity commentator, Don Cherry, whose normal business is to offer commentary on hockey games as they are played. On this occasion, Mr. Cherry felt impelled to comment on the apparent lack of a show of gratitude by new immigrants ('These people’, as he called them) to Canada for the sacrifice made by, presumably exclusively Canada-born veterans, who had sacrificed much, up to and including, in many cases, paying the ultimate price for the glory and survival of the British Empire, the amenities of which 'these people' dare to enjoy in Canada’s welcoming embrace. Their transgression? ‘These people’ did not show sufficient appreciation for the afore-mentioned sacrifices by wearing a poppy emblem on their lapel during the days leading to Remembrance Day.

        Whatever the merits or demerits of wearing or not wearing the emblem on one’s breast, there has to be something eerie in the vision of the 85-year old Cherry peering into the faces of individuals going about their normal business in his bid to administer the 'poppy test' as to who is or is not legit. It is a vision loaded with assumptions and not dissimilar to the Tebbit cricket test that, in Britain of the 1990s was supposed to be the measure of an individual’s patriotism, defined by whether they supported England or another Commonwealth country in a cricket match.

        In the case of Mr. Cherry’s, his mistake was not to have researched the role that immigrants to Canada and their forebears played in defending the Empire against the opposing forces, starting even before the two world wars. If Mr. Cherry had done his homework,  research would have prevented him from making a fool of himself. He would have discovered that the defence of the empire transcended races and regions.  He would have learnt also that the very first shot fired in anger by British forces in WWI was not by some anonymous person, but by one Alhaji Grunshi, a Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) Regimental Serjeant Major serving in Britain’s West African Frontier Force, when he returned fire against German forces in neighbouring ‘German’ Togoland. Grunshi was, and remains, one of the Forgotten Soldiers of Empire, whose descendants, more than a century on, are being disrespected by Don Cherry.

        But there are multiple other corners of the world, in the former British Empire, where what these men did, many dying in the process, is still celebrated and commemorated, including in Sierra Leone, for example, where Remembrance Day was celebrated this past Sunday and where this writer, in primary school, first learnt the opening lines of John McCrae’s “In

Flanders Fields, Where Poppies blow…” 

        Well, by the end of Remembrance Day, the unapologetic Mr. Cherry has been fired from his position and most people would say, “Not before time”. Lessons learnt? Maybe.

Tell Fren Tru

Kill Fest

 It is an epidemic...

I mean, mass shooting in America.
Can anyone say they understand it?

I can’t. Neither, evidently, can the world at large outside America. And within that country itself, there seems to be a paralysis of spirit around the subject. What you hear, even from top politicians (especially, perhaps), is an unimpeded flow of nonsense. Meanwhile, the rest of the world stands aghast as, time after time, a presumably “ordinary” citizen picks up a gun- usually an automatic or semiautomatic, crams it full with ammunition, packs up an extra supply to make sure he does not run out before his awful purpose is fully realised. Thus equipped, he - it is always a he - packs the arsenal into his vehicle and sets off on a murder spree, targeting his fellow citizens in what has become almost a ritual: One of mass slaying at a location where hundreds, or even more, are gathered for work or play, education or worship, celebration, or any of the other ordinary things that people do when they try to live their daily lives.

The script, from Act I Scene l, to the Finale is now fairly predictable and, has even become almost pedestrian, except that the denouement is always so horrible: The perpetrator murders his fellow-citizens in industrial quantities and, sometimes, kills himself or is killed by law-enforcement or, in some cases, captured alive. But all in all, an appalling scene.  

Some of the elements in this tableau are pretty obvious: It can be argued, fairly, that such murderers are not “normal”. The “shooter”, as they are now called, almost certainly has some mental disorder that renders him unable to resolve internal conflicts in a normal way. I am just supposing here, because I do not have the credentials that would qualify me to make such an assessment. But, what is also obvious is that all of us are beset to a similar, if not the same extent, by the propaganda and misinformation that emanates from the various sources, ranging from tweets to campaign stops, to blogs, to TV and talk radio, and in the open web or in its darker regions; a poisonous brew poured out by top politicians and other opinion-makers, some by innuendo, others full-frontal.

Most of us, however, manage to sift out the dross and concentrate on what is real and logical, and true. But even among people who cannot separate the nonsensical from the sensible, most remain harmless, although they may fume and rage privately or among friends but go to their bed at night without harming anyone. The problem with America lies in its guns. But, for some reason, Americans seem unable to understand the link between the wide availability of firearms of all kinds in the population and the impulse to use them. Americans (some, at any rate) peddle nonsense about a Second Amendment to the constitution that allows citizens to “bear” arms. As follows: ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed’. One supposes that it is all in the meaning of what a ‘free state’ is and what role the armed citizen, whether as an individual or in a collective or militia can do to maintain the state as a free entity. And while we are appalled by the power of the weapons held in private hands, there can be no contest between official government military on the one hand and a militia on the other, however well-regulated the latter might be. But in any case, that militia, whether regulated or not, is definitely not intended for unleashing its firepower against unarmed fellow-citizens going about their normal business. Restricting the type of weapons an ordinary citizen might wish to possess to just single-shot rifles or shotguns for use in killing animals for sport is bad enough. but that is something one can live with, knowing that the destructive power of such instruments would be limited when deployed in an urban setting. Otherwise, it is ludicrous to claim that repeater rifles have a place in downtown Dayton or suburban Denver or most recently Odessa, Tx, for example.

The country has to get real and understand that a deliberate misunderstanding of Second Amendment provisions is a sure track to ruin even for those who manufacture and sell firearms.

Tell Fren Tru

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Working you to the bone

Don’t get me wrong. I am all in favour of social media. I love it. It keeps me in touch with what some friends and family are up to and, besides, it puts one right into the midst of the marketplace of ideas, whether good, bad or deplorable. Some offerings you might applaud and agree with and others not and, in the case of a few, you just shake your head and move on. On some rare occasion, some truly idiotic or atrocious contribution makes you angry, fume and rage, an extraordinary stream of emotions and reactions that track through the mind whether you are relaxing in the comfort of your home, travelling on the bus or just stealing time from your employer.

         Perhaps the major attraction in social media is that participation is free: it’s a pleasure you don’t have to pay for. Nothing in upfront money. Where do you, these days, get anything so useful and, at times, even addictive, paying? It is a deception, however, although you can’t just say “caveat emptor” because, in ordinary usage, you are not actually buying or forking out. However that may be, should not the sellers also be subject to the warning contained in another Latin expression, ‘caveat venditor’ or ‘seller beware’? But these buccaneers don’t care, do they? Even though they must be fully aware of the answer to the third of my Latin language quotes: “Cui bono?” Who, indeed, benefits from all those freebies being splashed about? Well, you better believe it’s not me or you, friend. The FAANGs, Facebooks, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Googles of this world, or to give them their full, frightening enormity, FAANGY, with YouTube rounding off the predatory sextet, are not doing it out of the kindness of their heart. They’re there just for the money. For them to make their money, they deliver you, bound hand, foot and mind, to their real paymasters: these are the ones who want to sell you stuff.

         Someone, somewhere, wants your soul and is prepared to pay for it. Once they’ve got it, the step to the contents of your purse or your mind is an easy one. You are now property, the modern-day slave-form. And, like the slave-masters of old, they work you to the bone. But this time it is not your physical labour, but instead, your eagerness to amass stuff. Whatever is in the market, they sell, real or virtual. But it is the virtual stuff that poses the greatest threat to the public good. It is now fully established that Facebook, for example, played a leading role in manipulating UK voters to do a Brexit on themselves. And, similarly, Americans who voted in their presidential election a few months later, were manipulated into making a bad choice for their leader, although that vote was complicated by external factors. Besides that kind of manipulation, social media allows and promotes the publication of lies and other fake stories full of destructive propaganda. When questioned about that kind of behaviour, they retreat behind a threadbare curtain of an amendment to the constitution of the United States which, if we are to believe the hype, prohibits censorship in the public sphere. When the platform operators are forced, they may concede, grudgingly and would, sometimes, remove objectionable material from their platforms. A recent example is that post of Nancy Pelosi that was manipulated to make her appear under the influence. ‘No, they can’t touch it’, they say. That would be censorship, horror of horrors, even though they know that the video is a lie. And a few weeks ago, it was a struggle to get Facebook to delete the live-streamed rant of the Christchurch mass-shooter as he went about his murderous business, killing scores of innocent Muslims going about their devotions on a Friday afternoon. I, too, in my own limited experience, have had to deal with Facebook when a horrible anti-Muslimism rant appeared in my feed. When I complained, I was horrified to hear Facebook say that the rant did not breach “community standards”. Which community? Which standards? So, it stood. This is just a minor example of how the platforms neglect what is a public duty to prevent civil dissention. Each of us, individually, has not the power to influence what the FAANGY’s do, but you would have thought that governments, singly, or even collectively, have enough clout to force them to behave responsibly.

         But that, sadly, is not so. Case in point, the Canadian parliament subpoenaed the CEO and COO of Facebook, among others, to explain why they behave the way they do. They were a no-show, instead, they sent lower level officials to face the questions.

So, what do we do with these all-powerful multi-trillion-dollar corporations, whose wealth, individually and combined exceeds that of many countries? The answer, my friend, lies with us. Voting with our feet will send a message that they can’t ignore. But I hear you say, “You first.”

Tell Fren Tru

Babes & Sucklings: How Antivaxxers will lose the argument

Question: Why are anti-vaxxers the same as Boko Haram?
 

Another one: How are they so like the Taliban?

Of course, there are many reasons why we shouldn’t cnflate North Americans or Europeans who manifest bad behaviour, such as vaccine hesitancy or refusal, with jihadists like the Taleban or Boko Haram. Boko and the Talys are terrorist groups who kill without logic. They do so, even when you try to protect their children from preventable deadly diseases. 

Why do they do the things that they do? Their rationale, if it can be called that, is that immunization is ‘haram’ or forbidden. But by whom or by what they do not make clear. Even more ridiculous, is their claim that vaccination renders their girl-children unfertile.  Neither of these claims is sensible. Us, reasonable people, simply don’t get it, and are totally befuddled by the Taliban and Boko’s assertion that all western-based science is haram, anyway.

         So, the question is, why would someone living in the West, and being of the West, be unable to inoculate themselves against the bizarre and do a Boko or Taleban on us, despite all the rational knowledge they are immersed in? One would imagine that lifelong exposure to the technological ideas that have proved useful and effective, starting from the ancient Chinese who, reportedly, ingested snake venom as protection against the lethal consequences of the reptiles' bite, and up to and including our present-day practices and procedures. We don’t know how well that Chinese science worked, but we can suppose that it did, because, today, there are, indeed, several oral vaccines that are highly effective in controlling some of the dreadful diseases that threaten the health and lives of children. Chief among these, is oral polio vaccine which, as it happens, is one of the immunizations that seem to get Boko and the Taleban’s goat. 

         But, as well as polio, there are many other public health successes that mass immunization has racked up. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the world would be in a far darker place today were we not able to enjoy the protections that vaccines afford against scourges like small pox, notorious killer and disfigurer; the holocaust-dealing yellow fever; polio, which, as well as killing, leaves in its wake, a range of crippling disabilities; and diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles, rubella, pneumonia, meningitis, Tb; an almost endless roll-call of killers and destroyers. And we haven’t mentioned hepatitis of various sorts, some of which, as well, may trigger the development of some cancers.

         And for those who might think that catching some of these preventable infections is limited only to the infected generation, may we remind them that the casualty list includes the unborn as well, as in the case for rubella, which takes its toll on the babies of mothers who had not acquired immunity either through natural infection or by vaccination. This protection afforded by the vaccinated individual to her fetus is a specific example of ‘herd’ immunity, the concept that says that, by being immunized, you reduce the chances of your neighbour catching a natural infection from you. It is reckoned that, if 95% of people are immune, then it means that the culprit germ cannot spread. Makes sense, doesn’t it? An epidemic is stopped dead in its tracks. What’s there to hate about that?

         It is shameful to observe that in 2019, children are being denied the protection afforded by vaccines because their parents, for a variety of spurious reasons, are refusing those innocents the option of being protected, some in the belief that the vaccines are harmful. Sounds familiar? The result is that the proportion of immunized individuals among us has declined to a dangerously low level, jeopardizing the immunity in the herd. We are all, thereby, placed at risk because some parents arrogate to themselves the option not to protect their child.

         In 1998, former doctor, Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues published a paper in the Lancet, that claimed evidence that the combination vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) was linked to developmental behavioural disabilities, including autism. That publication triggered a marked fall in vaccination rates in children in UK, Canada and the US, even though the quality of the research has been discredited, not only because of the lack of scientific integrity and rigour, but also because of possible financial impropriety as well.

         Now, fast-forward to 2019. We learn that, among the numerous other reasons why children are not being vaccinated is that their parents are falling prey to an alternative procedure called ‘homeo-prophylaxis’, an offshoot of the shady practice of homeopathy. Not surprisingly, the incidence of measles has been increasing in Canada, for example, with the city of Vancouver leading the way in this dereliction of parental duty. Elsewhere in the western world, the picture is equally dismal, from New York to Florida, to Rome and to Kiev, to Tel Aviv and to Paris, everywhere where parents ought to know better, the children are being let down. And, as we speak, Pakistan has had to suspend a mass polio vaccination campaign because of lethal harassment by the Taliban.

         However, children are fighting back, and where they can, and have full agency, are making the choice for standard vaccination procedures by themselves . “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings…”

Tell Fren Tru