Tag: Dissent

Justice Pour Adama: Covering the Protests in Paris

In the wake of protests against police brutality in the United States brought on by the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, anti-racists protests emerged around the world during the summer of 2020, including in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. In this photo essay, SOAS postgraduate Canela Laude offers a window into the “Justice pour Adama” protests against police brutality in France during June and July of 2020.

In June, anti-racists protests in France sparked in response to the death of George Floyd in the US and the protests that ensued across America. In France, the response was led by Assa Traoré, the sister of Adama Traoré, a young black man killed by the police by suffocation in 2016, and whose death circumstances are still under investigation.

Assa Traoré has been pushing for a new autopsy in order to unveil the true circumstances of her brother’s death, while connecting with other families who lost family members due to police violence, in order to lead unprecedented anti-racist and anti-police violence protests in Paris and all over the country. Soon after the French lockdown ended, 20,000 people were out in front of a Paris courthouse protesting alongside the family of Adama Traoré and chanting “Justice pour Adama.”

A protest sign reading “From Minneapolis to Beaumont sur Oise”, respectively the cities where George Floyd and Adama Traoré were killed, summarized the general feeling of international interconnection in the struggle against police violence. A second protest, 11 days later, saw the same renewed energy, with 15,000 people out in the streets on Paris’ Place de la République.

As summer in France rolls on, the movement has continued with a third protest on July 18th in Beaumont sur Oise, where part of the Traoré family lives and where Adama was killed.

“We are Black Lives Matter,” said Assa Traoré in an interview for the New Yorker. “The two fights echo each other, so that we’re pulling back the curtain on France, in saying, ‘People of the whole word, look what’s happening here.’ ”

Prove Me Wrong… I’ll Wait

You present your argument with such confidence and stand by it with such arrogance. Yet you miss the factual evidence standing in front of you. 

You claim to try to be an ally, which for one, isn’t a title you can bestow on yourself, yet the closest title I would give you is racist. But for kicks, I’ll play along. 

Let’s see if you can prove me wrong. Because there’s no doubt in my mind how this conversation will end.

Tell me how it’s a figure of my imagination.  That I tend to make problems out of nothing. 

Tell me that I’m overreacting or too critical. That like my fellow sisters, my aggressive tone drowns out any sense I make and I just need to take it down a notch. 

Tell me that that perception does not demonstrate a larger issue of societal disproportion as when you speak, it’s considered enlightened and an example of feminist exceptionalism. 

Tell me that it takes the partnership of educated and outspoken black and white women to accomplish anything. But let’s not forget Sojourner, Rosa, Angela, Assata or Michelle and the lack of space for any of us at your Women’s March. 

Prove me wrong…. I’ll wait.

Tell me that rights are universal, equitable, and fair. That no matter who you are, people are born with the same indiscriminate privileges to survive in the world. Yet poverty, ailment, and lack of education wreak havoc on post colonized lands across continents. 

Tell me we haven’t been trapped in a Eurocentric system of supremacy for a millennium and the ownership of black bodies doesn’t keep getting passed from one white hand to another. 

Prove me wrong… I’ll wait.

Tell me that the land of opportunity is not only for the pale majority, but for all who worship the United Racists Under Trump. That good things happen to those who abide by the system, the same one engulfed in the flames still burning from KKK crosses. 

Tell me racism is over and the noose I struggle through daily was psychologically woven, not made by hands of former slave owners. But then how do me and my black brethren wear matching ones, I wonder? 

Prove me wrong… I’ll wait.

Tell me that the justice system is built on fairness. That law sees no color. 

Tell me that a black homeless mother seeking a better education for her child calls for a five year sentence but that same action by a rich white Hollywood actress violating several other laws only calls for ten months, for which she only served 14 days. 

Tell me that mass murderers deserve bullet proof vests but an aid worker sleeping deserves 8 bullets. That justice shouldn’t be Just Us and law doesn’t stand for “Lethal Amongst Whites”. 

Prove me wrong…. I’ll wait.

Tell me that these cases are just one in a million….oh no wait, a thousand….okay, more like a hundred. Out of the BILLIONS of people in the world! Because the saying  “once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, three times is enemy action” is just philosophical mumbo jumbo. 

Tell me it happens to all people and our coffee toned wrapping doesn’t also serve as target practice for the country’s most lethal assassins. 

Prove me wrong… I’ll wait.

But while I’m waiting you know what I can bet? That you have continued to go on about your day, strutting the same walk, spewing the same talk and doing nothing to actually challenge what we BOTH know. 

I can bet you scrolled past every post, ignored every tweet, and drove straight past that protest you saw on your way home without a second look. And why? Because your desire to prove me wrong extends further than the tunnel vision that is your outlook on societal structures. It prohibits you from seeing an even deeper superiority complex you hold over a fellow woman with the major difference being that of skin. 

So while you are able to take the time to construct a cleverly crafted rebuttal to this assessment, I must continue my fight against the system you say fights for me. I don’t have the luxury of time to devote to your white fragility. 

At the end of this, you’ll go into your cozy condo up Northwest where they never ask you if you live there, kickback with your favorite Kendrick playlist, and let the trivial, privileged worries of your day fade away. While others pray they make it home, you pray nothing changes because your life is just perfect. You’re a complacent bystander in a world of murder. Bet that’ll look great on your resume. 

So keep talking, prove me right…. I’ll wait.

Silence = Inaction = Betrayal

Image: CC – 0  Free Stock Photo

Reanalysing Violence as a Tool for Justice

In this post, Svetlana Onye explores the way violence has been understood in society and question whether it can be reconceptualised as a tool for liberation.

What values have you amassed and embodied with such an ease that you have lost the ability to come to terms with your own psyche? 

In discussions of liberation, Western society encourages the idea of change through peace. Through collective silent walking, through speaking your thoughts freely but not loud enough as to rouse the baton of a police officer or to threaten a fragile yet fortified sovereign state. It can be argued that this is because of the Christian teachings which remain present in the values of Western society or it can be argued that submissiveness cast as peace allows one to be dominated in a way that appears to look like security and care. 

In the words of Assata Shakur, “nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who are oppressing them.” This quote challenges us to wonder what states of being and tools of change we are employing when seeking to make a difference and whether they will work. If we are employing tools given to us by those who oppress us to seek change, will change truly manifest or instead will it be hindered? Because those tools were never made to incite liberation but rather created to maintain the order which currently exists. Therefore, we ask ourselves whether peace is really a tool for change or instead does it come through violence.

Violence is often brandished with the label of barbarism, through the observance of its fatal and often ugly repercussions, as well as the belief that pursuing change through violence only prolongs one’s own injustice. The August 2011 riots against the unlawful killing of Mark Duggan, was called “criminality pure and simple” by then-UK Prime Minister David Cameron; in the US, American conservative personality Tomi Lohren called anti-police brutality riots in New York, sparked after the unlawful murder of Stephon Clark by police, as events which only “advance the ill and society grievances.” It is almost as if the perceived feral behavior of violence is something that should naturally not possess the civilised man, despite the fact that it is through violence we have built the civilised man. History shows us this. Slavery, with its subjugation, brutality and dehumanization was violent to the body as it was to the mind, othering black people through all facets of self in order to distinguish the binary of the civilized and savage man, creating a history of the plight of trying to rid the stain of the latter in order to become the former.

Or must we believe that violence is only innate to the man who lives in places of corruption? Or the man who does not have the moral values which have been shaped through socialised comparisons? If we understand violence as innate to all men and as integral to change, we can see violence as having been castrated to permit the violence of some and to dehumanise the violence of others, the latter of whom need to reclaim their natural state to capture their freedom. As humans, we are made up of violence as much as we are made up of love. History shows us that many men chose to create systems where worldly growth could only be yielded through violent means.  

We live in a world where the many things we consume, the many institutions we enter and the values which it teaches have manifested from violence. The great economies of the West are the residue of boats crossing cold waters while carrying black bodies, of displacement and rewritten histories, of labour without citizenship and many other acts of violence which could not be resigned to time for it now exists across generations. Such violence colonises some but permits freedom for others, oppresses many but spreads wealth to a few and in this inequity, it is those who have suffered from such violence who have been taught to dissociate from their own. 

In his 1961 book The Wretched of the Earth, Franz Fanon states that violence can be viewed as the remedy for decolonisation, as colonialism is “violence in its natural state, and it will only yield with greater violence.” If colonialism is violence in its natural state, then violence itself, which is structured and systemised, transcends merely physical violence. Rather, the form of violence which has structured the modern world is a violence which affects the mind, the body and the soul and dictates the course of life, death and culture.   

Why has this violence been normalised? It can be argued that is because we are surrounded by this violence in its natural state. For the nature of colonisation pulsates in the police force, in politics, in schools, in hospitals and many entities which enforce racial discrimination and social injustice. These methods of violence are normalized because it yields economic wealth and permits a system with a particular set of morals and norms that create order and assimilation, while violence for means of liberation threatens to incite the dismantling of it.

Or maybe we fear the capacity to which our violence can materialise when we use it towards our own betterment. When we are made to believe that violence is a dark physical energy that is not innate, but rather roused through poverty of upbringing or evil, we are unable to come to terms with the full capacity of it. Instead, we have pent up frustrations towards a system which seems too intangible to break, loneliness from a cyclical work life which juxtaposes the suffocation of our peak time trains, ideations of wealth and status and the ability to have access to the lives of others, comparing our loses to their gains, colours and weight and cursing at the fact that our appearances can dictate the paths some of us take.

Where do these grievances go? When they are built up inside, when they are reflected in the faces of our children and their children, when the people to blame appear too high to touch. These grievances are thrust upon another, the violence remains on the ground as people fight their neighbours, brothers and sisters, as we create gangs to belong and to release as people shout only at the people who are within their reach. These actions, these formations are then presented as examples of savagery. Examples of why the system exists, of why morality has to be shaped and moulded by those who will never have to fight to reclaim their stolen rights. 

Fanon tells us that violence is a tool for change and justice because it is retribution, the act of seeking liberation on terms which does not please nor align with what oppression has taught the individual. It is not about negotiations and empathy, it negates second thoughts and love because these are the very things that you have been denied. It is having access to a violence that you hold within you because “you now realise your life, your breath, your beating heart is the exact same as the settlers” (Fanon, 1961). 

Though Fanon employs the example of the Algerian revolution in his book, the Haitian revolution is also an example of how utilising violence incites change. The 1791 Haitian Revolution happened after years of slavery, discrimination, dehumanisation and abuse suffered by West African slaves in the colony formerly named Saint-Domingue. It was the ultimate sugar island at that time and a crucial source for the economic growth of France. The slaves believed that change could only come through violence because they had understood that there was no other way to demand liberation if those who you are asking to liberate you, do not see you as equal nor deserving of a quality of life. Therefore, they spoke to them with the same language they have been spoken too, reflecting onto them the horrors which they have suffered.

So, is violence the tool for change and justice? It is a question we should not be afraid to ask for through our exploration of the idea we may find the correct procedures in creating the changes that remain missing in the world. 

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0

A Second Spring? The Fragile Hope for Democratic Transition in Sudan and Algeria

The recent toppling of authoritarians in Algeria and Sudan have the potential to breathe new life into the hope of democracy for North Africa, years after the “Arab Spring.” Yet even as the Sudanese and Algerian people have appeared to have learned important lessons from the events of 2011, fundamental obstacles still stand in the way of democratic transition that echo the failures of the Arab Spring.  

By 2019, the eighth anniversary of the Tunisian Revolution, the hopes of the Arab Spring appeared all by extinguished. Within the span of a few years, popular movements that carried the potential to bring about dignity, accountability, and democracy for the people of the Middle East and North Africa were overwhelmed by renewed government repression and the new conflicts of the “Arab Winter.” Then on 2 April, Algeria’s Algeria’s 20-year president, Bouteflika, stepped down after mass protests over his planned 5th consecutive term in office. Nine days later, Sudan’s 30-year dictator, al-Bashir, was removed by the Sudanese military following months of citizen mobilization. Within weeks, journalists and pundits were already describing these twin revolutions as a “second Arab Spring.”

It’s not a coincidence that two nations, which largely avoided demonstrations in 2011, are now witnessing the toppling of some of the region’s most powerful strongmen. On the surface, the Sudanese and Algerian uprisings appear almost as a delayed second act to the 2011 uprisings, and even have followed a pattern similar to the cases of Tunisia and Egypt: the formation of peaceful and sustained popular mobilization, whose aims were made reality once popular pressure caused military and government structures to eventually turn on the regime. On closer inspection, however, the protesters who brought down Bouteflika and al-Bashir have learned important lessons from the Arab Spring—namely, that democratic transition does not stop with the removal of a single figure and the need for commitment to continue to put pressure on the state even through the transition period.

In Algeria, protesters have already set their sights beyond the immediate fall of Bouteflika, with peaceful protesters calling for the removal of the prime minister and interim president, figures which remain representative of the power structures of the Bouteflika regime. By turning out every Friday to insist on transparency and the inclusion of civil society in the transition period, including free and fair elections under reformed rules, Algerians have signaled that challenging  le pouvoir—or “the power”—goes beyond the removal of Bouteflika and instead requires a radical restructuring of state institutions and the electoral process.

Sudan faces perhaps more difficult hurdles—with the difference being the military’s forcible removal of al-Bashir and its significant control over the post-Bashir transition. In a situation that resembles the post-Mubarak military transition of Egypt in 2011, the Sudanese military and security forces have recently inflicted violence against protesters that have mobilized against the military junta, in the process jeopardizing the breakdown of military-protester negotiations. Despite this, protesters have maintained peaceful methods, and, like in Algeria, have continued to protest and call for a civilian-led transition, with a message that democratic aims would not be settled by the merely the election of another authoritarian figure with military support.

Neither outcome is guaranteed to end in democracy. If anything, the events of the Arab Spring show just how ingrained military and government power structures are in the region—and just how delicate democratic transition can be even after a given leader has fallen. In Egypt, a military coup in 2013 has resulted in a government just as repressive and violent as the Mubarak era; in Bahrain, a violent Saudi-led intervention resulted in the crackdown of political dissidents; and in Libya, Syria, and Yemen, conflicts whose origins are derived from 2011 continue to be waged with varying levels of intensity. The shadows of the Arab Spring’s failures loom large over Algeria and Sudan, both of which experienced their own horrific civil wars not too long ago, and whose current power brokers will be loathe to give up control to civilian administration. In this environment, the use of violence to maintain power is all too possible a reality under the transitional, military-led regimes.

So too do Algeria and Sudan face a different international community than existed in 2011, with the foreign policy emphasis on security over democracy and human rights—which already largely guided Western policy in Libya, Syria, Bahrain, and Egypt during the Arab Spring—even more pronounced than it was eight years ago. Without external pressure to respect a civilian transition, military leaders in Sudan and Algeria might feel emboldened to violently crack down on protesters, knowing well how little pushback they will receive from the likes of President Trump or Italian strongman, Salvini.  

That is not to say that the Algerian and Sudanese revolutions are doomed to fail; in fact, the protesters who brought down Bouteflika and al-Bashir have already made great strides beyond what was accomplished by many countries during the Arab Spring, and have remained peaceful despite instances of military violence. These steps don’t guarantee a peaceful transition, but they send an important message that democratic, civilian government is the end goal of the revolution, and that citizens will not easily settle for the mere replacement of another autocratic figure.

No matter their outcome, the April revolutions reveal that the desire for rights, dignity, and freedom is still very much alive across the Middle East and North Africa—and always has been. Sudan and Algeria show that even under the most long-standing and repressive regimes, change is in fact possible, through the actions of the Sudanese and Algerian people themselves who dare to struggle for a better future. While the events of April may not yet point to a “Second Spring,” they do suggest that the Arab Winter, regardless of how long it lasts, will one day thaw.

Photo Credit: M.Saleh, CC BY-SA .40

Violence and Dissent in Modi’s India

2014 was a turning point for India. The year marked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election victory. The BJP government not only won, but also dominated the election by winning with a majority–the first of this kind of majority in twenty years. Though the election was won on the promises of development, the creation of different employment opportunities, and agricultural reforms, the BJP-led government has failed at keeping these promises.

Instead of the creation of a better society, the country has witnessed a rise in intolerance towards minorities, increased violence, and suppression of any form of dissent against the party in power. Furthermore, the conflict within Kashmir has further deteriorated under Modi’s rule, with an increase in civilian as well as military officials’ deaths.

In Modi’s India, questioning the state has led to online trolling, arrests, and even killings of those who dare to publicly voice their dissent against the government. The Bhima Koregoan commemoration emphasizes the silencing of dissent and violence in Modi’s India and demonstrates why the Modi government is a threat to the diversity and democracy in India.

In order to shed light on the recent atrocities being committed by the government, the SOAS India Society organized an panel titled, ‘Violence and Dissent in Modi’s India,’ to discuss the violence surrounding the Bhima Koregoan case. On New Year’s Eve, 2017, thousands of lower-caste Hindus–who are known as Dalits–gathered at the Bhima Koregoan war memorial to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Anglo-Maratha war.

The commemoration is significant; it was organized to pay respects to the fighters of the Mahar regiment who fought against the upper-caste regiment and won the battle. Though the commemoration was a peaceful celebration, it soon turned violent when the attendees were attacked by upper-caste Maratha groups. Following the violence, instead of the arrests of those who incited the violence, local police arrested various activists and attendees.

Though the violence was only perpetrated against harmless attendees, it was followed by nation-wide harassment and the arrests of scholars and activists who publicly spoke against the crushing of dissent and curbing of freedom of speech in Modi’s India.

The panel at Violence and Dissent in Modi’s India consisted of three panellists who explored on the violence surrounding the Bhima Koregoan case. The first speaker, Dr Mayur Suresh, is a lecturer in Law at SOAS, University of London. Due to his law background, Dr Suresh focused on the law under which those arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case were charged by the police: the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). Put into effect following the second emergency period in India (1967), UAPA was enacted as a response to two separatist campaigns.

A recent amendment was made to the law in 2002, which expanded UAPA to include POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act). Hence, with the introduction of this act, the events of Bhima Koregaon or lower-caste assertion were being linked to terrorism. This is evident as the first information report (FIR) filed by the upper-caste Maratha group,s who attacked the attendees of the Bhima Koregoan commemoration event, emphasized the violence as a response to the speeches being made at the event.

The law is highly problematic as it enables the state to arrest the accused for a time period of six months of longer without providing the accused with the relevant information about the charges for which they are being convicted.

Furthermore, arrestees cannot attain the granting of bail. Not only does this law act as a threat to freedom of speech, it also enables the state to practice draconian laws and arrest any individual they view as a threat without substantial evidence. Dr Suresh highlighted how the law is a key tool used by the state to curb dissent.

The second speaker, advocate Susan Abraham, is a lawyer and human rights activist. She emphasizes how the violence that was unleashed on the attendees on 1 January led to a greater movement of people from the Dalit community, who came together for a state-wide strike in protest of the violence perpetrated by Hindutva groups. No action was taken, nor was any judgement passed in January.

Following the violence that occurred during the Bhima Koregoan commemoration, months later on 6June, the government of Maharashtra issued the arrests of prominent scholars and activists related to the Bhima Koregaon commemoration violence, including Rona Wilson, Sudhir Dhawale, Mahesh Raut, Surendra Gadling, and Shoma Sen. They were arrested, with terrorism related charges, under UAPA five months after the event. In addition to the brutality unleashed by the state by imposing this law, the five individuals were arrested on the premise that they were plotting collectively to assassinate Prime Minister Modi. During the arrests, not only were they assaulted by the police, but their laptops and documents were seized.

Despite wide-scale protests domestically and on an international level, the government refused to allow bail for the activists involved and declared war on “urban naxals.” This term is used to label those who dissent against the government in power and the enemies within India who “act as a threat to the integrity and unity of the country.” Following a second round of arrests and raids by the police, on 28 August 2018, Dr. Abraham’s own house was raided by the authorities and her husband Vernon Gonsalves was arrested.  

The third speaker, Professor Romila Thapar, is a renowned historian and professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi. In a recorded video, Professor Thapar emphasized the role of government in changing the content of school textbooks in order to glorify the role of Hindus in Indian history. In history textbooks across Maharashtra and Rajasthan, the role of Mughals and Muslim rulers is being erased and replaced with the accomplishments of Hindu Maratha and Rajput rulers.

She stressed the silencing of dissent with a clear focus on university campuses, noting how dissent is met with violence. She highlighted how fear is being spread specifically within universities by Hindutva forces, who perpetrate violence with impunity.

Professor Thapar’s contribution is important as it highlights how the education sector is being widely targeted by the Modi government to suit their interests and to magnify the role of Hindus. This deliberate rewriting of history according to the interests of the ruling party is a threat to the learning process of students who are forced to learn a distorted version of history.

The election of Narendra Modi has not only led to an increase in hate crimes against minorities and lower-caste Hindus, but also in the legitimization of violence without any repercussions. Dr Suresh, Advocate Abraham, and Professor Thapar provide different reasoning for why the Modi government is a threat to the unity of the country. Laws such as UAPA, arrests of activists for voicing their dissent, and the changing of school textbooks are systematically employed by the Modi government to crush dissent.  The violence at the Bhima Koregaon commemoration is a clear example of the rise of the Hindutva groups and the rise of politics of repression in all forms, ranging from the public sphere to even a private declaration of dissent against the state. Minority groups, students, scholars, and activists are under a clear threat.

The attacks on university campuses and changing of school textbooks are a clear reflection of this. Any form of dissent is met with abuse, arrests and even deaths of those who publicly oppose the government in power. The curbing of dissent has taken various forms and the application of laws, such as UAPA, which entails a form of institutionalized discrimination and violence.

Hence, the targeting of minorities and suppression of dissent isn’t just a threat to the well-being of the citizens of India, but also a threat to our constitution, which allows all citizens of India with the right to question authority, dissent, and requires tolerance of the diverse groups living in our nation.

The four pillars of democracy–the Executive, Judiciary, Legislature, and Media–are constantly being used by the government to silence any form of dissent. Not only has the Prime Minister failed to fulfill the promises on the basis of which he was elected in 2014, but his government has become the root cause of the growing intolerance and rise in communal violence across India.

Unfortunately, in Modi’s India, being critical of the Prime Minister is conflated with being an enemy of India. Therefore, in light of the escalating tensions with Pakistan, the conflict in Kashmir and the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, it is important now more than ever to come together as a secular and democratic nation to fight against intolerance, hate, and prejudices, collectively. The upcoming elections are the only chance for the citizens of India to come together and use the power of the ballot to vote this hateful, intolerant, and fascist government out of power and save our democracy.

Further Reading:  

1. Shantha, Sukanya. (2018), ‘The People’s Fighters: Meet the Five Arrested in the Bhima Koregoan Case’. The Wire. Available from: https://thewire.in/caste/meet-the-five-arrested-in-the-bhima-koregaon-case

2. Torgalkaer, Varsha. (2018), ‘One Killed in Clashes at Bhima Koregoan Battle Anniversary Event in Pune; Situation Tense in Maharashtra’. The Wire. Available from: https://thewire.in/caste/one-killed-clashes-bhima-koregaon-battle-anniversary-event-pune

3. The Wire Staff. (2018), ‘In Nationwide Swoop, Five Rights Activists Arrested, Several More Raided’. The Wire. Available from: https://thewire.in/rights/police-take-sudha-bharadwaj-into-custody-raid-homes-of-lawyers-activists-across-cities

Image Credit: Frederick Noronha