Moon said during a speech earlier this year that Japan was in no position to declare the emotionally charged issue settled.
Moon said during a speech earlier this year that Japan was in no position to declare the emotionally charged issue settled.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in delivers a speech during a ceremony celebrating the 99th anniversary of the March First Independence Movement against Japanese colonial rule in Seoul.Credit: Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji
Seoul: South Korean President Moon Jae-in described Japan‘s wartime use of “comfort women” as a “crime against humanity” on Thursday in some of his strongest comments yet, sparking an immediate protest from his key ally in containing North Korea.
Moon said during a speech marking a national holiday commemorating Korean resistance to Japanese occupation – his first since taking office last year – that Japan was in no position to declare the emotionally charged issue settled.
“To resolve the comfort women issue, the Japanese Government, the perpetrator, should not say the matter is closed,” Moon said.
“The issue of a crime against humanity committed in time of war cannot be closed with just a word. A genuine resolution of unfortunate history is to remember it and learn a lesson from it.”
His comments drew an immediate rebuke from Tokyo.
Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga described Moon’s comments as “extremely regrettable”.
Suga, speaking at a regular briefing, also urged cooperation between South Korea and Japan to tackle the threat posed by North Korea.
The two Koreas have pursued a thaw in relations that began ahead of last month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, but Seoul remains a key part of the international push to increase pressure on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.
Japan and South Korea share a bitter history that includes Japan’s 1910-45 colonisation of the peninsula and the use of “comfort women”, Japan‘s euphemism for women – many of them Korean – forced to work in its wartime brothels.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his wife Kim Jung-Sook march with participants during a ceremony celebrating the 99th anniversary of the March First Independence Movement against Japanese colonial rule. Credit: Yonhap via Reuters
Japan apologised to the women and provided a 1 billion yen ($9.4 million) fund to help them under a 2015 deal with Moon’s conservative predecessor, but South Korea has recently sought to revisit the issue.
“These details were agreed by South Korea and Japan and we find it unacceptable and extremely regrettable,” Suga said.
Historic tensions
Moon, speaking at the site of a former jail where Korean independence fighters were imprisoned by Japanese forces, said South Korea was not looking for “special treatment” from Tokyo.
However, he hoped Japan pursued “sincere self-reflection” and “squarely face the truth of history and justice with the universal conscience of humanity”.
Japan also formally complained on Monday after South Korea’s foreign minister raised the issue at the top UN rights body, warning that it should not be allowed to harm bilateral relations at a critical time in East Asia.
A South Korean panel set up to investigate the deal concluded late last year that the agreement failed to meet the needs of the thousands of girls and women forced to work in Japan’s military brothels.
Over the objections of some in his conservative base, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went on to visit South Korea during last month’s Winter Olympics, but he restated Tokyo’s opposition to revising the 2015 agreement, telling Moon the deal was a promise between nations and the basis of two-way ties.
On Thursday Moon said South Korea considered Japan one of its closest neighbours and hoped to be able to move forward together.
“I hope Japan will be able to genuinely reconcile with its neighbours on which it inflicted suffering and will walk the path of peaceful coexistence and prosperity together,” he said.
A pilot project in Nagri block has only created more hardships for people trying to access the state’s public distribution system.
A pilot project in Nagri block has only created more hardships for people trying to access the state’s public distribution system.
Women participate in the 8 km march against the DBT scheme, carrying their children on their backs. Credit: Jahnavi Sen
Ranchi (Jharkhand): In the last few months, Jharkhand’s public distribution system (PDS) has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The alleged starvation deaths due to the denial of ration have shed light on how the Aadhaar-linked system is making people’s lives harder. And now, people in the Nagri block of Jharkhand’s Ranchi district say the government is trying to put the final nail in the PDS’s coffin.
In October 2017, the Jharkhand government decided to roll out a pilot project in Nagri – direct benefit transfers as part of the food security scheme. Earlier, people would take their ration cards to the local dealer and be able to purchase rice at Re 1/kg, with each member of a priority household allotted five kg. Now, the government has decided to throw a few extra steps into the mix – money is first transferred into each household’s Aadhaar-linked bank account. They have to then withdraw this as cash (often from the local Pragya Kendra or business correspondent and not the bank), take it to the local ration dealer and buy rice at Rs 32/kg – of which Re 1/kg comes from the ration card holder.
On Monday (February 26), over a thousand people from across Nagri block collected in Ranchi to mark their protest against the new system and demand that the PDS delivery return to what it used to be. Slogans like ‘DBT nahi, ration chahiye (We want our ration, not DBT)’ rang through the streets as men and women of all ages marched more than eight km from Nagri block to the governor’s residence in Ranchi.
People carrying posters against the DBT scheme during the march. Credit: Jahnavi Sen
The rally was organised under the banner of the Ration Bachao Manch, a coalition of five opposition parties – Congress, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha – and a number of civil society groups, including the Right to Food Campaign and All India People’s Forum.
Once at the governor’s residence, representatives from various groups submitted a memorandum to the governor, Draupadi Murmu. “We demand the immediate withdrawal of the DBT pilot in Nagri in favour of the Re 1/kg rice at the ration shop. All households who were unable to purchase rice due to this pilot – and other reasons such as the mandatory linking of the Public Distribution System with Aadhaar – should be compensated as per the provisions of the National Food Security Act,” the document said. While the old system had its own set of problems, it was far better than what is happening now, was the general consensus at the rally.
Behind the anger
What brought them out to the streets in such large numbers? “The new system is nothing but a new set of problems for us,” Sushila from Lada village, who is a member of the local mahila samiti (women’s group), told The Wire.
“First, we don’t know when the money comes into our account – most of us are not literate so we can’t check online or through SMS. We have to keep going to the bank. Then, after multiple trips to the bank, we finally get the cash and then have to go to the ration dealer. We lose so many work days, children also have to miss school. It’s okay for those who have a motorcycle, but what about the rest of us? If we don’t go to collect the DBT one month, they send us a notice saying they will stop giving us the subsidy, trying to scare us.”
A warning notice received by a card holder who did not collect his DBT. Credit: Right to Food Campaign
Another problem people raised is that when the scheme was first introduced, households with multiple bank accounts had no idea where the money was going. “We were not told if the money would come to my account, my husband’s or my mother-in-law’s. The ration dealer also didn’t know. We had to keep going to all three banks to check,” Meena Uraon from Saher village said.
A recent survey of 224 household across 13 villages in Nagri, carried out by student volunteers working with the Right to Food Campaign, found that 97% of the respondents wanted to go back to the old system. Of the four instalments of ration due to them since the DBT method was put in place, on average people had received only 2.1 instalments. In addition, the multiple trips required to go through the process meant that people were losing out on work days – on average, respondents said the entire process took 12 hours or almost two working days.
Dilip Mahto from Tusmu village earns about Rs 400 per day as a daily wage labourer. His bank is about five km away, in Nagri town. He first goes there to make sure that the money has come in, which can sometimes take multiple trips. Then he goes to the Pragya Kendra to withdraw the money, since the transactions are too small for the bank to handle. When he gets the money, he brings it back to the village and takes it to the ration shop. “There’s barely any point anymore,” he told The Wire. “We just really want the system to go back to the way it was.”
In Hotwasi village, Sanju Tirku says her problems go even beyond the ones everyone else is talking about. “My DBT transfer has been coming in the form of Airtel money. I didn’t even know I had an account with them until that happened! I don’t have a smartphone and couldn’t figure out how to get money converted to cash that I can take to the ration shop. One month my brother-in-law helped me – we transferred the money to his account and managed to get it out. But since then I haven’t taken in out now – two more instalments are still in the phone.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” added her neighbour, Sumita Devi. “We have to go through all this effort to take out rice. But for everything else we are buying at the ration shop, we are still paying out of our own pocket. There is no DBT for that. What is the logic?”
“Also, who is the government trying to fool by telling us that this rice costs Rs 32/kg? For that kind of money, we could buy better rice in the market. But now they are giving us the money, and still saying we must buy the same quality rice from the ration shop. Some women have also been complaining that their husbands are taking the money and spending it on other things, including alcohol.”
Dhaneswar Gor, a 58-year-old farmer from Katarpa, says the bank has been cutting away his family’s DBT money because the account which the money comes to – his wife’s – had an outstanding loan. “I went there (to the Bank of India branch in Nagri, where him and his wife both have accounts) and they told me that the money had come, but the bank would be cutting it because we hadn’t repaid our loan. So now we’ve been buying ration with our own money. We were told that if we don’t collect ration for three months in a row, our card will be cancelled. Others in our village have got notices saying their card may be cancelled since they haven’t collected ration.”
It’s not just card holders who are unhappy with the new system. Members of the mahila samiti in Katarpa village, which runs the ration distribution, say that their work has become a lot more difficult now. “Earlier, the supply would come and we would open the shop for two-three days, everyone would come and buy their share. But now we are sitting here all month, and still everyone hasn’t come. Out of the 120 people on our list, only about 80 have taken their ration. Before DBT, in any given month, only four-five people wouldn’t come. Now the supply is just lying here, and we have to be available all the time,” Lalita Devi, a member of the mahila samiti, said.
Surle Munda loading his ration onto his neighbour’s motorcycle. Credit: Jahnavi Sen
“Look,” she said, pointing at two men outside the ration centre. “They have come now to collect their January ration. It’s February 27, but we’re still dealing with last month’s supply. This month’s money is yet to come.”
“What can I do?” asked Surle Munda, one of the men who had come to collect his ration. “The problem is the system. I lost two working days at the beginning of the month going and checking if the money had come. Then I had work, I couldn’t go again. I finally went this morning.”
Why the change?
According to Kuldeep Kumar, Nagri’s block development officer, the new system – which involves more cash than the previous one – is part of the state government’s push for a cashless economy. “Right now it involves cash, but the plan is that soon the money will be transferred directly from government to card holder and then card holder to ration dealer, without any withdrawals in between. It will be completely cashless. And it will also make sure that no duplicate ration cards are there.”
When asked about the troubles people said they were facing and the rally in Ranchi, Kumar said, “Some people start protesting even before a scheme is rolled out. What can you do about that? Now opposition parties are just trying to politicise the issue. There may be a few problems, but if they bring those to us, we can smooth things over. They should wait and watch instead if protesting instantly.”
People from Nagri gathered outside the governor’s residence in Ranchi. Credit: Jahnavi Sen
Sunil Kumar, the block supply officer, seemed a little less convinced about the issues being only a few. “So far, we have managed to make sure that 84% of Nagri’s population is covered under the DBT pilot project – that’s no small feat. But about whether it’s good or bad, that’s not for me to say. It is a government scheme, our job is to implement it. Yes, there are problems – but the card holders will be able to tell you about them better than I can.”
Communist Party of India leader Annie Raja thinks there is a more sinister motive behind the programme. “Efforts have been on for a while now – since the UPA regime – to end the ration system. The government doesn’t want to take responsibility, so it is slowly killing the system. This is just another way of doing it.”
At the rally, one of the major demands was that the project be rolled back in Nagri and not be carried over to other parts of the state. From ration dealers to card holders, there seems to be a near consensus that the project isn’t working for the people. “It has to go,” Congress worker Pramod Kumar Singh told The Wire. “The people of Nagri will not take this.”
“They’re doing this in Nagri, which is close to Ranchi and relatively well-off,” economist and activist Jean Drèze said. “And even here people who depend on the ration system are facing countless problems. Imagine if this is taken to more remote areas – where banks are further away and literacy is even lower. The implementation has also happened in a rushed and unplanned manner – there’s no evaluation mechanism to check what’s actually going on. How is that a good model for a pilot project? Now people are being excluded without compensation and obviously there is public anger.”
On February 28, Jharkhand’s food minister Saryu Rai and food secretary Amitabh Kaushal met with Drèze and three others from the Right to Food Campaign to discuss the situation in Nagri. According to a press note issued by the campaign, Rai did not deny the results of the survey that said 97% of people are unhappy with the new system. “However, the delegation failed to persuade the Minister that the DBT experiment should be discontinued to avoid further damage,” the release says. Another meeting between Rai and a larger delegation from the Ration Bachao Manch and villagers from Nagri is set for March 6.
Hundreds of people have died in 11 days of bombing in the eastern Ghouta.
A Syrian soldier loyal to President Bashar al Assad is seen outside eastern Ghouta, in Damascus, Syria February 28, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Omar Sanadiki
Beirut/Geneva:Syrian government forces launched a ground assault on the edge of the rebel-held eastern Ghouta enclave on Wednesday, seeking to gain territory despite a Russian plan for five-hour daily ceasefires, a war monitor and sources on both sides said.
Hundreds of people have died in 11 days of bombing of the eastern Ghouta, a swathe of towns and farms outside Damascus that is the last major rebel-controlled area near the capital.
The onslaught has been one of the fiercest of Syria’s civil war, now entering its eighth year.
The UN Security Council, including President Bashar al-Assad’s strongest ally Russia, passed a resolution on Saturday calling for a 30-day countrywide ceasefire. But the measure has not taken effect, with Moscow and Damascus saying they are battling members of terrorist groups excluded from the truce.
Russia has instead called for daily five-hour local ceasefires to establish what it calls a humanitarian corridor so aid can enter the enclave and civilians and wounded can leave.
The first such truce took place on Tuesday but quickly collapsed when bombing and shelling resumed after a short lull.
There were no air strikes during Wednesday’s five-hour ceasefire, but heavy bombardment resumed in the afternoon, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.
There has been no sign of aid deliveries to the besieged area.
President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had managed to evacuate “quite a big group” of civilians and that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had helped broker the evacuation. He did not say when the civilians had managed to leave.
State-run Anadolu news agency quoted Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin as saying Erdogan had asked for the evacuation of around 700 people from eastern Ghouta a month ago. Kalin said Russia told Turkey the civilians had been taken to southern Damascus a week later, despite Erdogan’s request for them to receive treatment in Turkey.
The Observatory said it could not confirm the evacuation.
Moscow and Damascus have accused rebels of shelling the corridor to prevent people leaving. Rebels deny this, and say people will not depart eastern Ghouta because they fear the government.
Wednesday’s ground assault targeted the Hawsh al-Dawahra area at the eastern edge of the enclave.
The Observatory reported advances by the government forces in the area, describing it as the resumption of an assault that first began on February 25. It said rebels had inflicted heavy losses on government forces.
An official with one of the rebel groups in eastern Ghouta said fighters were battling to repel an attempted incursion, and characterised the battle as “back and forth”.
A commander in the military alliance that backs Assad said an elite unit of the Syrian army, the Tiger Force, was taking part in the assault and advances had been made.
France’s foreign ministry called on Russia and Iran, Assad’s other military ally, to exert “maximum pressure” on the Syrian government to implement the 30-day ceasefire.
A Syrian soldier loyal to President Bashar al Assad is seen outside eastern Ghouta, in Damascus, Syria February 28, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Omar Sanadiki
But with no sign of decisive international pressure to stop the attack, eastern Ghouta appears on course to eventually meet the same fate as other areas won back by the government in lengthy, punishing assaults, where rebels and civilians who oppose Assad were finally evacuated in negotiated withdrawals.
Damascus appears to be applying tried and tested military means, combining air strikes and bombardment with ground assaults, as it did to recapture eastern Aleppo in 2016.
A senior Western diplomat said Russia appeared intent on a repeat of Aleppo in eastern Ghouta by evacuating the area and then killing “the terrorists even if it’s not just Nusra”, a reference to a jihadist group with al Qaeda links.
A senior US general on Tuesday accused Moscow of acting as “both arsonist and firefighter” by failing to rein in Assad.
US, Russia clash over chemical weapons
Diplomatic sources have said the chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, opened an investigation into attacks in eastern Ghouta to determine whether banned munitions were used.
The US says it has evidence Syrian forces have used chlorine, which is permitted for civilian purposes but banned as a weapon, in attacks in eastern Ghouta and elsewhere.
US disarmament ambassador Robert Wood said on Wednesday that Russia has violated its duty to guarantee the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile and prevent the Assad government from using poison gas.
Syria agreed to give up its stockpile of poison gas and join the international chemical weapons ban in 2013 under a Russian-brokered deal that averted US retaliatory air strikes after a nerve gas attack killed hundreds of people in Ghouta.
Washington accused Damascus last year of again using nerve gas and carried out a round of air strikes as punishment.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Syria had eliminated its poison gas stockpiles, and described allegations it was still using chemical weapons as “absurd”.
UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council on Wednesday the scale of attacks by the Syrian government against eastern Ghouta “cannot be justified on the basis of targeting Jabhat al Nusra fighters.”
“The air strikes, shelling, and ground offensives continue. There are even reports of yet another chlorine gas attack. What we need is implementation of 2401, and that is not happening,” Feltman said.
Lavrov said militants entrenched in eastern Ghouta were blocking aid and the evacuation of people who want to leave. Moscow would continue to support the Syrian army in totally defeating the “terrorist threat”, Lavrov told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Rebels have intensified shelling of nearby government-held Damascus. A medical official in the capital said on Monday 36 people had been killed in four days. Damascus and Moscow say the campaign in eastern Ghouta is needed to halt such shelling.
The multi-sided Syrian war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and driven half of the pre-war population of 23 million from their homes. Fighting has escalated on several fronts this year, with the collapse of ISIS giving rise to conflict between other Syrian and foreign parties.
As Assad has pressed the offensive against eastern Ghouta, Turkey has launched an incursion against Kurdish fighters in the northwestern Afrin region.
It is not uncommon for Muslims to be denied a house in Hindu-dominated areas and vice-versa, and one of the chief culprits of this blatant apartheid is the regressive Disturbed Areas Act, 1991, which is fuelling distrust.
It has been 16 years since the 2002 riots, which serves as a reminder to the Gujarat government for a policy overhaul if it sincerely wants to address the glaring demarcation and ghettoisation of the Muslim residents in the state.
Gujarat has residential areas demarcated for Hindus and Muslims. Within Ahmedabad, for instance, Muslim residential areas such as Juhapura and Jamalpur have clearly defined boundaries with other Hindu residential areas. I have witnessed this phenomenon as a child and an adult in this state through the lived experiences of Muslim friends. It is not uncommon in Gujarat for Muslim citizens to be denied a house in any of the Hindu dominated areas and the other way around.
One of the chief culprits of this blatant apartheid is the Gujarat Prohibition of Transfer of Immovable Property and Provision for Protection of Tenants from Eviction from Premises in Disturbed Areas Act, 1991 or commonly called the ‘Disturbed Areas Act, 1991’. It is a law that restricts sale of immovable property in “disturbed” areas with the justification to avert an exodus or distress sales in neighbourhoods hit by inter-religious unrest in Gujarat. The Act is currently implemented in many parts of Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat city. In Ahmedabad alone, more than 30 areas are declared disturbed. Almost 40% of the areas in the state fall under this Act. Most of these areas still declared “disturbed” have not seen mob violence since 2002.
The various clauses of the Act have been thoroughly misused by the state government, beginning with the very interpretation of Section 3(1) of the Act on the declaration of disturbed areas:
“Where the State Government, having regard to the intensity and duration of riot or violence of mob and such other factors in any area of the State is of opinion that public order in that area was disturbed for a substantial period by reason of riot or violence of mob, it may, by notification in the Official Gazette, – (a) declare such area. to be a disturbed area (b) specify the substantial period (hereinafter referred to as “the specified period).”
Section 3(1) indicates invoking the Act only in areas “disturbed for substantial period by reason of riot or violence of mob.” The latest imposition of the Act is in October 2017 in Surat and Vadodara, where the central zone of Surat Municipal Corporation and several residential colonies within Bopad police station were declared “disturbed”. These declarations were not a result of “reason or violence of mob” but because of religious intolerance among communities, not willing to share residential spaces. Vadodara police had conducted a survey in August 2017 based on various applications requesting for invoking the Act and submitted a report to the Home Department, enlisting the demands of the residents. According to Police Commissioner Manoj Sashidhar, many Hindus in the area were apprehensive about “Muslims acquiring the residential properties”.
The BJP MLA from Surat, Sangita Patil, had demanded imposition of the Disturbed Areas Act in August 2017 in her constituency of Limbayat, on the following grounds (in her own words):
“Limbayat was once a Hindu area. But now, many societies, such as Govind Nagar, Bharati Nagar, Madanpura and Bhavna Park, which go by Hindu name, are now dominated by Muslims. If they do not get the house easily, they even threaten Hindus and force them to sell it……The way Muslims are using various tactics to acquire Hindu properties, I am of the opinion that the ‘Disturbed Areas Act’ should be imposed here to stop them from spreading into Hindu areas. I requested the collector to do so after many residents made their representations to me”.
She also won the MLA elections held in Gujarat in December 2017. The misuse of the Act for inciting intolerance and creating a vote bank is quite apparent in the close timing of these events.
There are other sections in the Act which are problematic and have been misused in the state.
The Act gives a lot of power to the collector to hold an inquiry and reject an application to transfer immovable property in disturbed areas even when the transfer of immovable property was made “by free consent of the transferor and the transferee (and) for a fair value of the immovable property so transferred.” (Section 4(2) of the Act).
2002 Gujarat riots. Credit: Reuters/Files
In such instances, despite free consent and fair value of the transaction, if the collector invalidates the transfer, there is no judicial recourse for those aggrieved by such a decision. The only recourse is an appeal to the state government and all proceedings before the collector and the state government shall be deemed judicial proceedings (refer Section 6 and 7 of the Act). The decisions of the collector and the state government on the appeal, according to Section 8 of the Act “shall be final and conclusive and shall not be questioned in any Court”. These provisions often leave the communities at the mercy of the inclinations (religious and political) of the state machinery.
This act is not only ill-drafted, archaic and regressive but also a tool of social engineering of the society by the state. The Act has no place in a modern society and should be abolished. The Chief Justice of Gujarat high court also called for a repeal of the Act in 2011, which fell on deaf ears of the state administration.
Invoking this Act, as recently as 2017, only reflects on the failure of the state machinery to promote communal harmony.
Memories of the 2002 riots still linger in the continued distrust among the communities. The Act perpetuates this distrust by adhering to the status quo. Gujarat desperately needs a communal harmony policy with clear objectives and action plan on promoting religious pluralism in school, colleges, government offices and residential colonies.
Dr Damini Shah’s thesis, “Muslim Ghettoisation – A tragedy”, received a lot of attention in 2015. She studied Muslim communities within three districts in the state – Anand, Ahmedabad, and Sabarkantha – and found that 92% of Muslim residents (respondents) who earlier had some contact with Hindu communities, do not have contact with the majority (Hindu) community after coming to the ghettos. The state government should, therefore, ensure more interaction between and across communities, through de-stigmatisation campaigns and promoting co-existence of communities within residential colonies, than declare more areas as “disturbed” under this Act.
The state government can also look at creating a Minority Commission (with members from all communities and judiciary) to look into these matters that can also serve as a platform for grievance redressal. In Gujarat, while such a commission exists in name, an RTI enquiry to the department of social justice and empowerment on the same in 2014 received a response that no such commission exists.
The need of the hour is to acknowledge the communal elephant in the room, learn from past experiences and memories of the 2002 riots and find solutions to create a more plural society in Gujarat.
Nidhi Tambi is a public policy enthusiast and a former LAMP fellow.
“This amendment does not mean changing the retirement system for party and national leaders, and does not mean a life-long term system for leading officials,” the paper wrote.
Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks as China’s new Politburo Standing Committee members meet with the press at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China October 25, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Jason Lee/File Photo
Beijing: Reforms to China’s constitution to remove term limits for the presidency does not mean life-long terms, the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily said on Thursday, after a surge of concern that Xi Jinping may stay in power forever.
The party made the announcement on Sunday, setting the stage for Xi to stay in office indefinitely should he wish, prompting accusations from some in the country that China is set to become another North Korea.
The amendment will be approved at this month’s annual meeting of China’s largely rubber stamp parliament, which is stacked with delegates loyal to the party who will not challenge its proposal.
In a lengthy commentary, the People’s Daily said the idea was an “important move” to cement the party’s leadership in every aspect.
“This amendment does not mean changing the retirement system for party and national leaders, and does not mean a life-long term system for leading officials,” the paper wrote.
It pointed out that the party’s constitution, which is different from the national constitution, clearly states that leaders cannot keep their offices forever and that if their health does not hold up they should retire.
The rules for who heads the party, the military and the state – all positions Xi currently holds – are all the same, the paper added.
“It is a system designed to accord with the national condition and ensure long-term peace and stability for the party and the country,” it said.
The party has had an unwritten rule that senior officials cannot be promoted once they reach the age of 68, though the party has said that this rule is exactly that – unwritten.
There has been heated speculation since the end of a once-every-five-years party congress in October about the fate of a close Xi ally, former top graft buster Wang Qishan, who stepped down from the elite Standing Committee at the congress, having reached the age of 69.
But he is expected to be appointed vice president at parliament, with a specific role dealing with the Trump administration.
The move is significant because if Wang does not retire, that would set a precedent for Xi, now 64, to stay in power after he reaches what is normally considered retirement age.
Xi will be formally elected to his second term as president at parliament, which opens on Monday. He began his second term as party boss in October.
The information sought is crucial for SEBI’s investigation into the leakage of financial data at blue-chip companies.
The information is crucial for SEBI’s investigation into the leakage of financial data at blue-chip companies.
The magistrate said that there was no material evidence to prove any anti-national activity. Credit: Reuters
Mumbai: Instant messaging platform WhatsApp has declined to share user-specific data with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), citing its privacy policy.
The market regulator had written to WhatsApp, seeking information on the origin of messages that allegedly contained unpublished price-sensitive information of listed companies, sources said. The information is crucial for SEBI’s investigation into the leakage of financial data at blue-chip companies.
Under current regulations, WhatsApp is not obliged to provide the information to SEBI. The regulator could pursue the matter by moving court against WhatsApp, experts said. However, such a move could be sensitive since it might amount to an infringement of personal space.
An email sent to SEBI seeking comments remained unanswered. WhatsApp declined to comment on the matter. According to SEBI’s insider trading rules, mere possession of unpublished price sensitive information does not amount to wrongdoing, but trading on the basis of it amounts to a serious violation. As a result, the regulator will need substantial evidence to nail those who could have benefited.
“The root source of information can be very effective in zeroing down on the culprits. However, based on the response received from WhatsApp, it is clear that the social media firm is not keen to oblige. Globally, there have been several cases where social media platforms have declined to share user-specific information with government agencies. These have often resulted in bitter legal battles,” a source privy to the development said.
Another key concern for WhatsApp seems to be the fact that sharing data with SEBI could set a precedent. If the market regulator manages to get the information from WhatsApp through court intervention, other government agencies could file similar cases.
This is not the first instance when SEBI has gone outside its ambit to seek specific information. In 2014, it had sought call records and tower location data of individuals from telecom service providers. The Indian Council of Investors filed a public litigation against SEBI challenging the regulator’s power to seek such information. The Bombay high court delivered a judgment in favour of the market regulator.
“Under Section 11 of the Sebi Act, 1992, SEBI has wide powers to protect the interests of investors in the securities market. SEBI has the same powers as those vested in a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, in respect of matters such as discovery and production of books of account and other documents. In the Sahara case, the Supreme Court has upheld that measures to be adopted by SEBI in carrying out its obligations are couched in open-ended terms, with no pre-arranged limits,” said Yogesh Chande, partner at law firm Shradul Amarchand Mangaldas.
The shooting inflamed the nation’s long-running debate on gun rights as defined in the Second Amendment of the US Constitution.
A memorial seen outside of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as students arrive for the first time since the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, US, February 28, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Mary Beth Koeth
Parkland: Survivors of the second-deadliest US public school shooting were brought to tears on Wednesday by empty seats and missing friends at roll call as they returned to their Florida high school two weeks after 17 students and educators were massacred there.
Upon emerging from a half-day of classes intended to ease their return after the tragedy, some of the roughly 3,000 teens who attend Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, described their emotional day.
Samuel Safaite, a 15-year-old sophomore, said students in his Spanish class broke down when the teacher took attendance and read out the name of Luke Hoyer, a 15-year-old slain in the attack.
“A lot of people started crying because we all knew he was gone,” Safaite said. “It was difficult for a lot of people.”
Many of the students carried white flowers when they arrived at the school in the morning and wove through hundreds of uniformed police officers providing security for their return. Emotional-support dogs also were on hand to provide comfort.
Police and law enforcement show their support as students arrive at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for the first time since the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, US, February 28, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Mary Beth Koeth
Nikolas Cruz, 19, who had been kicked out of the school for disciplinary reasons, is accused of carrying out the rampage.
The shooting inflamed the nation’s long-running debate on gun rights as defined in the Second Amendment of the US Constitution. It also sparked a youth-led gun control movement featuring survivors of the attack, who have already lobbied lawmakers in Florida‘s capital Tallahassee and Washington, D.C.
“We will push for change and our children are going to be the change agents,” said Jeannine Gittens, 44, who drove to the school to be there to meet her son Jevon, a 16-year-old junior, when he arrived on the bus. “We see that things have to change and we are not going to stop until they do.”
The building where most of the victims died was closed, surrounded by a chain-link fence decorated with signs reading “MSD strong” and “Pray for Douglas.” Florida lawmakers are contemplating tearing it down and replacing it with a memorial to the victims.
Hard to move on
Local residents show their support as students arrive at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for the first time since the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, US, February 28, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Mary Beth Koeth
As she left the school with her mother and 18-year-old brother, sophomore Marisa Lopez, 16, said some friends were talking about leaving the school.
“I don’t think that some people are ready to move on,” Lopez said, adding that some of her friends had witnessed the shooting of Scott Beigel, a 35-year-old social science teacher who was one of the three adults killed in the attack. “I just don’t know if some of them are ever going to get over it.”
Investigators say Cruz used a legally purchased AR-15 assault-style rifle in the attack.
President Donald Trump met with a group of 17 Republican and Democratic lawmakers with a broad range of views on guns on Wednesday, and asked for a broad bill to address school shootings.
The Republican president, endorsed by the powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby in his 2016 campaign, has been wary of angering voters who oppose any curbs on gun ownership, particularly ahead of the November elections in which his party’s control of Congress will be at stake.
“We’re going to come up with some ideas,” Trump said. “Hopefully we can put those ideas in a very bipartisan bill. It would be so beautiful to have one bill that everybody can support, as opposed to – you know – 15 bills. Everybody’s got their own bill.”
Trump has previously suggested arming teachers and reopening mental hospitals as ways of addressing school shootings.
As school shootings become a growing concern, police in Georgia on Wednesday arrested a high school teacher who barricaded himself inside a classroom and fired a handgun when the principal tried to force the door open.
The debate over how to respond to the school shootings pulled in corporate America, with gun retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc <DKS.N> on Wednesday saying it would no longer sell assault-style rifles, the type of weapon used in four of the five deadliest mass shootings by a single gunman in US history, as well as Parkland.
When the battle shifts to courts, as it will eventually, one can expect very stiff resistance.
When the battle shifts to courts, as it will eventually, one can expect very stiff resistance.
Nirav Modi. Credit: Nirav Modi Jewels/Facebook
Is it possible to view the ongoing revelations of the over Rs 12,000 crore fraud at India’s second largest public sector bank (Punjab National Bank) with a fair degree of equanimity?
Past experiences with mega scams suggest it won’t be easy. Yet it is necessary to consider the circumstances that led to what looks like one of biggest financial frauds in this country.
It is trite and cliche to say that no matter how comprehensive and well thought-out a bank’s systems may be, scamsters will always find a way to exploit loopholes. This is true throughout the world, including in advanced economies. Therefore, a post-mortem of any scam should lead to the absorption of correct lessons. This should start as soon as possible, in parallel with the other priority of recovering the lost money.
What is cliche is the nature of the scam itself. A government bank and its murky relationship with one of its top borrowers is the story of Indian banking. The modus operandi of the alleged scamster – siphoning off a bank’s money by colluding with a few junior officials – is not particularly novel. Neither is billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi’s dramatic exit from the country for that matter, as Vijay Mallya and others have shown us.
Ever since the fraud came to light just about three weeks ago, there has been a tendency to sensationalise every aspect of Modi’s alleged shenanigans.
Modi himself, obviously, is no ordinary crook. He had, according to reports, apparently earned the trust of not only his bankers but also of his highly discerning global clientele.
Tough questions, no easy answers
This is what is puzzling. If Modi was the toast of the diamond world, why would he throw away everything he had earned over a fairly long period of time? Especially because the business he thrived in survives on reputation. Modi’s clan, the Jains of Gujarat’s Palanpur, are known to support each other in times of crisis. However, so far, the entire community appears to be stunned by the revelation of the fraud.
These are tough questions for Indian law enforcement authorities, the answers to which will provide at least part of the understanding to the ever-expanding jigsaw puzzle. To what extent was Modi’s empire built on fraud?
As expected, a number of mid-level bankers have been arrested. A close relative of Modi, Mehul Choksi who runs a listed company (Gitanjali Gems) has also been charged.
The list of bankers and business associates of Modi who will implicated will only likely expand in days to come. How fruitful that exercise will be remains to be seen. Past efforts at bringing to book high-profile delinquents have not been easy. Especially when, like Mallya, Modi has moved out of the country and ostensibly has the wherewithal to fight possible extradition moves by Indian authorities.
In fact, laying hands on the ill-gotten wealth of scamsters is no easy task even assuming their locations can be identified. As everyone knows, salting away the money in one or more secret tax havens and offshore centres is child’s play .
So far, only a fraction of Modi’s estimated total assets has been identified. An even smaller number will be attached. And when the battle shifts to courts, as it will eventually, one can expect very stiff resistance. There is no doubt at all that some of India’s top lawyers will argue for the billionaire jeweller.
There is a very interesting parallel here with Sahara’s Subrata Roy. Over the last few six years, the Sahara group has been using all the top guns in the legal profession to stall the Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) order to recover from investors money that it had raised illegally from the public.
Roy’s efforts in this regard have been so pervasive that while SEBI struggled to get a single lawyer of standing from the Supreme Court roster and had to bring in a senior counsel from Chennai, with seemingly unlimited resources, Sahara could sign up almost all senior lawyers in the Supreme Court!
The logo of Punjab National Bank is seen on a branch office window in New Delhi, India, February 27, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Saumya Khandelwal
Recovering the dues
This will prove to be even more difficult. Like most mega scamsters, Modi has already argued that the amount he owes is much less than what was been put out by the authorities. Another not-so-novel argument from his side has to do with the Punjab National Bank spoiling his reputation by making public the details of his fraud besides give an allegedly exaggerated picture that set off alarms. According to him, the actual amount he owes (Rs 5,000 crore) is much less than what the bank has claimed.
Such an argument was also voiced by the spokespersons of the fraudulent ‘Big Bull’ Harshad Mehta.
And truth be told, there is likely in an element of truth in that. Mehta’s scam came to light after details of fraudulent transactions were leaked out by some influential insiders within the State Bank of India who wanted to give a ‘scoop’ to journalist Sucheta Dalal who was then with the Times of India. Once in the public domain, the scam came out in its multifarious dimensions and could not be bottled up.
Like Mehta, Modi appears to have thrived on loopholes within the system. In the big bull’s case it was through BRs (bank receipts) and the inability of the systems in the Reserve Bank of India’s debt management office to reconcile them speedily, leading to the brokers enjoying a ‘free float’ .
Modi thrived on misuse of letters of undertaking (LoUs) which is a genuine instrument facilitating trade finance. They were issued by PNB without margins, not incorporating them in the secure reporting financial system and rolling them over. All this had the connivance of relatively junior staff at PNB.
It is well known that Harshad Mehta had assiduously cultivated junior officials of public sector State Bank of India and other major banks with large treasury operations.
At this juncture, it is clear that the PNB scam will roll on for a long time to come. After all, the Harshad Mehta scam, even 26 years after it surfaced, has not come to a satisfactory close.
RTI activists had contended that DU’s challenge to CIC’s order directing it to disclose the names of all students who graduated in 1978, the year in which the PM claims to have graduated, was wrong interpretation of law.
RTI activists had contended that DU’s challenge to CIC’s order directing it to disclose the names of all students who graduated in 1978, the year in which the PM claims to have graduated, was wrong interpretation of law.
File photo of BJP president Amit Shah and finance minister Arun Jaitley hold up copies of Narendra Modi’s degree certificates. Credit: PTI
New Delhi: In a major leg up for the transparency movement, the Delhi high court has issued notice on the intervention filed by right to information (RTI) activists in the matter relating to information about students who graduated from Delhi University in 1978 – the year Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to have graduated, according to his election affidavit.
Justice Rajiv Shakdher issued the notice despite Delhi University, represented by additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta, strongly opposing the request filed by Anjali Bhardwaj, Nikhil Dey and Amrita Johri from the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information.
While Mehta insisted that RTI activists should not be allowed to intervene in the case, the counsel of the intervenors said this was an issue of grave public importance and that the interpretation by the court would have serious ramifications on the RTI regime in the country. Further, it was highlighted that similar interventions had been allowed by the Delhi high court in matters relating to the appointment of the chief information commissioner of the Central Information Commission (CIC) under the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act.
As reported earlier by The Wire, RTI activists had contended that Delhi University’s challenge to the CIC order directing it to disclose the names of all students who graduated with a BA degree in 1978, was bad in law. They had noted that while such information was readily provided by prominent foreign universities, Delhi University had also erred in citing various provisions of the RTI Act in trying to block the disclosure of information, which is over 20 years old.
Delhi University had challenged the CIC’s 2016 order on the grounds that it violated the RTI Act’s provision pertaining to privacy (Section 8(1)(j)) that it is in possession of the information being sought in a fiduciary capacity under section 8(1)(e) of the Act.
CIC had allowed inspection of DU’s 1978 BA degree records
In his order of December 21, 2016, central information commissioner M. Sridhar Acharyulu had allowed inspection of Delhi University’s 1978 BA degree records. Hearing the RTI application by one Neeraj, Acharyulu had overturned the DU central public information officer’s (CPIO) decision to deny the sought information. The university then contended that disclosure of its 1978 university records would invade the privacy of students and that the information “has no relationship to any public activity or interest”.
The CIC held that the university could not provide any evidence or explain how such information causes any “invasion of privacy”, and allowed for inspection of records.
Soon after he passed the order in the case, Acharyulu was divested of the charge of the human resource development ministry. Though the chief information commissioner later issued a notice allowing him to retain the power to intervene in HRD ministry matters, RTI activists have urged that the reasons behind the move, widely assumed to have been prompted by a nudge from outside the commission, be disclosed.
Kejriwal had accused PM of influencing departments
The issue had also kicked up a political storm as Aam Aadmi Party leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote to the CIC alleging that the prime minister was influencing the departments concerned not to release details about his degrees.
Treating his letter as an RTI application, the CIC had then directed both Gujarat University (GU) and Delhi University to give Modi’s roll numbers so that they could find out the necessary details. Later, both DU and GU confirmed what Modi had stated in his election affidavits. Copies of his degree certificates showed that he had completed his BA from Delhi University in 1978 with a third division and finished his MA in ‘Entire Political Science’ with a first division in 1983.
Also read
RTI Appeal Seeking Corroborating Details for Modi’s BA Degree Blocked
Central Information Commission Shields Modi From RTI Once Again
Shah, Jaitley had jumped to PM’s defence
But the controversy did not end there. Soon after BJP leaders Amit Shah and Arun Jaitley triumphantly flashed Modi’s degrees at a press conference and blamed AAP for stooping to a new low, Team Kejriwal retaliated by pointing to discrepancies in the degrees.
AAP leader Ashutosh alleged that Modi’s name in the marksheets and the degree were different, and that names could be changed only through an affidavit. He demanded that the BJP produce the affidavit. He also pointed out that the final year mark sheet was awarded in 1977 while the degree stated that Modi graduated from DU in 1978.
The BJP responded by saying that Modi had failed his examinations in 1977 and had therefore taken the final year exams in 1978, the year the degree was awarded.
DU opposed the CIC order citing privacy clause
The CIC order was expected to provide finality, but DU opposed it and moved the Delhi high court in appeal. The court on January 23, 2017 stayed the CIC order directing disclosure of Modi’s degree records.
In its petition, Delhi University had stated that the CIC order of December 21, 2016 had directed the “University of Delhi to facilitate inspection of relevant register where complete information about result of all students, who have passed in Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), in the year 1978 along with roll number, names of students, father’s name and marks obtained is available and provide certified copy of the extract of pages from the register”.
The Delhi University, therefore, “sought exemption from provision of the said information under Section 8 (1)(e), (j) and Section 11 of the Act”, citing clauses pertaining to privacy and its fiduciary capacity. In granting a stay, the high court stated that Delhi University had contended it had “no difficulty” in providing information on three points that concern the total numbers but when it came to the fourth point, it objected to the demand saying that this concerned “personal information” of all students and was thus exempt from disclosure.
The high court noted that the additional solicitor general, while appearing for Delhi University, had contended that even if the said information was not held in fiduciary capacity, disclosure of personal information could only be directed after compliance of provisions of sections 8(1)(j) and section 11 of the Act, which require issuance of a notice and provision of an opportunity of hearing to the individual concerned about whom the information is sought.
RTI activists plea says DU’s stand based on incorrect interpretation of law
Before the matter was listed again for hearing toward the end of 2017, the three RTI activists filed an intervention plea in the matter. They stated that DU’s stand was at variance with major universities across the globe which freely share information on their students’ performance.
The RTI activists also claimed that Delhi University’s petition was based on an incorrect interpretation of law and ran contrary to the manner in which Delhi University dealt with such information at present. They also pointed out that the university had at the time of obtaining the stay ignored section 8(3) of the RTI Act, which provides for the lifting of most of the exemptions if the information sought for pertains to matters that are over 20 years old.
At the hearing on February 28, after issuing the notice, the Delhi high court has now listed the matter for May 22, 2018.
Note: This article has been edited as the previous version stated that the high court had allowed the activists’ intervention. It has, in fact, issued notice on the intervention plea.
Antisemitic incidents are on the rise across the globe. To understand this modern hatred we need to look into the past and understand its origins.
Antisemitic incidents are on the rise across the globe. To understand this modern hatred we need to look into the past and understand its origins.
Antisemitism rears its ugly head in every aspect of public life, whether internal debates within political parties or accusations of conspiratorial networks or plots in politics and business. Credit: Flickr
Antisemitism is on the march. From the far-right demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, with their “Blood and Soil” chants and their “Jews will not replace us” placards to attacks on synagogues in Sweden, arson attacks on kosher restaurants in France and a spike in hate crimes against Jews in the UK. Antisemitism seems to have been given a new lease of life.
The seemingly endless conflicts in the Middle East have made the problem worse as they spawn divisive domestic politics in the West. But can the advance of antisemitism be attributed to the rise of right-wing populism or the influence of Islamic fundamentalism? One thing is clear. Antisemitism is here and it’s getting worse.
Antisemitism rears its ugly head in every aspect of public life, whether internal debates within political parties or accusations of conspiratorial networks or plots in politics and business. Or even in the accusations that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s sexually predatory behaviour was somehow linked to his Jewish origins.
But by focusing narrowly on the contemporary context of modern antisemitism, we miss a central, if deeply depressing, reality. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic magazine, puts it correctly when he says that what we are seeing is an ancient and deeply embedded hostility towards Jews that is reemerging as the barbarous events of World War II recede from our collective memory.
Goldberg says that for 70 years, in the shadow of the death camps, antisemitism was culturally, politically and intellectually unacceptable. But now “we are witnessing … the denouement of an unusual epoch in European life, the age of the post-Holocaust Jewish dispensation”. Without an understanding of antisemitism’s ancient roots, the dark significance of this current trend may not be fully understood and hatred may sway popular opinion unchallenged.
Antisemitism has been called history’s oldest hatred and it has shown itself to be remarkably adaptable. It is carved from – and sustained by – powerful precedents and inherited stereotypes. But it also taking on variant forms to reflect the contingent fears and anxieties of an ever-changing world. Understood this way, it is the modern manifestation of an ancient prejudice – one which some scholars believe stretches back to antiquity and medieval times.
Ancient tradition of hatred
The word “antisemitism” was popularised by the German journalist Wilhelm Marr. His polemic, Der Sieg des Judentums über das Germentum (The Victory of Jewry over Germandom), was published in 1879. Outwardly, Marr was a thoroughly secular man of the modern world. He explicitly rejected the groundless but ancient Christian allegations long made against the Jews, such as deicide or that Jews engaged in the ritual murder of Christian children. Instead, he drew on the fashionable theories of the French academic Ernest Renan (who viewed history as a world-shaping contest between Jewish Semites and Aryan Indo-Europeans). Marr suggested that the Jewish threat to Germany was racial. He said that it was born of their immutable and destructive nature, their “tribal peculiarities” and “alien essence”.
Antisemites like Marr strove for intellectual respectability by denying any connection between their own modern, secular ideology and the irrational, superstitious bigotry of the past. It is a tactic which is employed by some contemporary antisemites who align themselves with “anti-Zionism”, an ideology whose precise definition consequently excites considerable controversy. But this continuing hostility towards Jews from pre-modern to modern times has been manifest to many.
The American historian Joshua Trachtenberg, writing during World War II, noted:
Modern so-called ‘scientific’ antisemitism is not an invention of Hitler’s … it has flourished primarily in central and eastern Europe, where medieval ideas and conditions have persisted until this day, and where the medieval conception of the Jew which underlies the prevailing emotional antipathy toward him was, and still is, deeply rooted.
The electric fence at Auschwitz. Credit: Flickr
In fact, up until the Holocaust, antisemitism flourished just as much in western Europe as in central or eastern Europe. Consider, for example, how French society was bitterly divided between 1894-1906, after the Jewish army officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was falsely accused and convicted of spying for Germany. It saw conservatives squaring up against liberals and socialists, Catholics against Jews.
Yet Trachtenberg was undoubtedly correct in suggesting that many of those who shaped modern antisemitism were profoundly influenced by the older “medieval” tradition of religious bigotry. The Russian editor of the infamous Protocols of Zion – a crude and ugly, but tragically influential, forgery alleging a Jewish world conspiracy – was the political reactionary, ultra-Orthodox, and self-styled mystic Sergei Nilus.
Wrought by fear and hatred of the challenges to traditional religion, social hierarchies and culture posed by modernity, Nilus was convinced that the coming of the Antichrist was imminent and that those who failed to believe in the existence of “the elders of Zion” were simply the dupes of “Satan’s greatest ruse”.
So modern antisemitism cannot be easily separated from its pre-modern antecedents. As the Catholic theologian Rosemary Ruether observed:
The mythical Jew, who is the eternal conspiratorial enemy of Christian faith, spirituality and redemption, was … shaped to serve as the scapegoat for [the ills of] secular industrial society.
Antisemitism in antiquity?
Some scholars would look to the pre-Christian world and see in the attitudes of ancient Greeks and Romans the origins of an enduring hostility. Religious Studies scholar Peter Schäfer believes the exclusive nature of the monotheistic Jewish faith, the apparent haughty sense of being a chosen people, a refusal to intermarry, a Sabbath observance and the practise of circumcision were all things that marked Jews out in antiquity for a particular odium.
Ancient Roman politician Cicero. Credit: Wikipedia
Finding examples of hostility towards Jews in classical sources is not difficult. The politician and lawyer Cicero, 106-43BC, once reminded a jury of “the odium of Jewish gold” and how they “[stick together]” and are “influential in informal assemblies”. The Roman historian Tacitus, c.56-120AD, was contemptuous of “base and abominable” Jewish customs and was deeply disturbed by those of his compatriots who had renounced their ancestral gods and converted to Judaism. The Roman poet and satirist Juvenal, c.55-130AD, shared his disgust at the behaviour of converts to Judaism besides denouncing Jews generally as drunken and rowdy.
These few examples may point towards the existence of antisemitism in
antiquity. But there is little reason to believe that Jews were the objects of a specific prejudice beyond the generalised contempt that both Greeks and Romans exhibited towards “barbarians” – especially conquered and colonised peoples. Juvenal was every bit as rude about Greeks and other foreigners in Rome as he was about Jews. He complained bitterly: “I cannot stand … a Greek city of Rome. And yet what part of the dregs comes from Greece?” Once the full extent of Juvenal’s prejudice has been recognised, his snide remarks about Jews might be understood as being more indicative of an altogether more sweeping xenophobia.
The ‘Christ killers’
It is in the theology of early Christians that we find the clearest foundations of antisemitism. The Adversus Judaeos (arguments against the Jews) tradition was established early in the religion’s history. Sometime around 140AD the Christian apologist Justin Martyr was teaching in Rome. In his most celebrated work, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Justin strove to answer Trypho when he pointed to the contradictory position of Christians who claimed to accept Jewish scripture but refused to follow Torah (the Jewish law).
Justin responded that the demands of Jewish law were meant only for Jews as a punishment from God. Although still accepting the possibility of Jewish salvation, he argued that the old covenant was finished, telling Trypho: “You ought to understand that [the gifts of God’s favour] formerly among your nation have been transferred to us.” Yet Justin’s concern was not really with Jews. It was with his fellow Christians. At a time when the distinction between Judaism and Chritianity was still blurred and rival sects competed for adherents, he was striving to prevent gentile converts to Christianity from observing the Torah, lest they go over wholly to Judaism.
Vilifying Jews was a central part of Justin’s rhetorical strategy. He alleged that they were guilty of persecuting Christians and had done so ever since they “had killed the Christ”. It was an ugly charge, soon levelled again in the works of other Church Fathers, such as Tertullian (c.160-225AD) who referred to the “synagogues of the Jews” as “fountains of persecution”.
The objective of using such invective was to settle internal debates within Christian congregations. The “Jews” in these writings were symbolic. The allegations did not reflect the actual behaviour or beliefs of Jews. When Tertullian attempted to refute the dualist teachings of the Christian heretic Marcion (c.144AD), he needed to demonstrate that the vengeful God of the Old Testament was indeed the same merciful and compassionate God of the Christian New Testament. He achieved this by presenting the Jews as especially wicked and especially deserving of righteous anger; it was thus, Tertullian argued, that Jewish behaviours and Jewish sins explained the contrast between the Old and the New Testament.
To demonstrate this peculiar malevolence, Tertullian portrayed Jews as denying the prophets, rejecting Jesus, persecuting Christians and as rebels against God. These stereotypes shaped Christian attitudes towards Jews from late antiquity into the medieval period, leaving Jewish communities vulnerable to periodic outbreaks of persecution. These ranged from massacres, such as York in 1190, to “ethnic cleansing”, as seen in the expulsions from England in 1290, France in 1306 and Spain in 1492.
Martin Luther portrait by Lucas Cranach, 1529. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Although it was real people who often suffered as a result of this ugly prejudice, antisemitism as a concept largely owes its longevity to its symbolic and rhetorical power. American historian David Nirenberg concludes that “anti-Judaism was a tool that could usefully be deployed to almost any problem, a weapon that could be deployed on almost any front”. And this weapon has been wielded to devastating effect for centuries. When Martin Luther thundered against the Papacy in 1543 he denounced the Roman Church as “the Devil’s Synagogue” and Catholic orthodoxy as “Jewish” in its greed and materialism. In 1790, the Anglo-Irish conservative Edmund Burke published his manifesto, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and condemned the revolutionaries as “Jew brokers” and “Old Jewry.”
The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner not only annexing the power of money but also through him and also apart from him money has become a world power and the practical spirit of the Jew has become the practical spirit of the Christian people. The Jews have emancipated themselves in so far as the Christians have become Jews … Money is the jealous god of Israel before whom no other god may stand … The god of the Jews has been secularised and has become the god of the world.
And there remain those, from across the political spectrum, who are still ready to deploy what Nirenberg referred to as “the most powerful language of opprobrium available” in Western political discourse, commonly using the language of conspiracy, webs and networks. In 2002, the left-leaning New Statesman included articles by Dennis Sewell and John Pilger, debating the existence of a “pro-Israeli lobby” in Britain. Their articles, however, proved less controversial than the the cover illustration chosen to introduce this theme, which drew on familiar tropes of secret Jewish machinations and dominance over national interests: a gold Star of David resting on the Union Jack, with the title: “A Kosher Conspiracy?” The following year, veteran Labour MP Tam Dalyell accused the then prime minister, Tony Blair, of “being unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers”. It is still language that is being used now.
On the far right, white supremacists have been quick to project their own time-honoured fantasies of Jewish malfeasance and power onto contemporary events, however seemingly irrelevant. This was quickly apparent in August 2017, as the future of memorials glorifying those who had rebelled against the union and defended slavery during America’s Civil War became the focus of intense debate in the US. At Charlottesville, Virginia, demonstrators protesting against the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, began chanting “Jews will not replace us”. When journalist Elspeth Reeve asked one why, he replied that the city was “run by Jewish communists”.
When accusations of serious sexual misconduct by Weinstein were published by The New York Times in October 2017, he was quickly cast by the far right as a representative of the “eternal conspiratorial enemy” of American society as a whole. David Duke, former head of the Ku Klux Klan, would write on his website that the “Harvey Weinstein story … is a case study in the corrosive nature of Jewish domination of our media and cultural industries”.
‘The hatreds of our time …’
Responding to such language, The Atlantic’s Emma Green astutely commented on how “the durability of anti-Semitic tropes and the ease with which they slide into all displays of bigotry, is a chilling reminder that the hatreds of our time rhyme with history and are easily channelled through timeless anti-Semitic canards”.
There is real danger here as the spike in antisemitic hate crimes shows. This peculiar way of thinking about the world has always retained the potential to turn hatred of symbolic Jews into the very real persecution of actual Jews. Given the marked escalation of antisemitic incidents recorded in 2017, we are now faced with the unsettling prospect that this bigotry is becoming “normalised”.
For example, the European Jewish Congress expressed “grave concerns” over an increase in antisemitic acts in Poland under the right-wing Law and Justice government which won the 2015 parliamentary election with an outright majority. The group said the government was “closing … communications with the official representatives of the Jewish community” and there was a “proliferation of ‘fascist slogans’ and unsettling remarks on social media and television, as well as the display of flags of the nationalist … group at state ceremonies”.
In response to these fears, a survey investigating antisemitism within the EU will be undertaken in 2018, led by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights. The agency’s director, Michael O’Flaherty, commented, correctly, that: “Antisemitism remains a grave worry across Europe despite repeated efforts to stamp out these age-old prejudices.”
Given the phenomenon’s deep historical roots and its epoch defying capacity for reinvention, it would be easy to be pessimistic about the prospect of another effort to “stamp it out”. But an historical awareness of the nature of antisemitism may prove a powerful ally for those who would challenge prejudice. The ancient tropes and slights may cloak themselves in modern garb but even softly-spoken allegations of conspiratorial “lobbies” and “cabals” should be recognised for what they are: the mobilisation of an ancient language and ideology of hate for which there should be no place in our time.
Given the phenomenon’s deep historical roots and its epoch defying capacity for reinvention, it would be easy to be pessimistic about the prospect of another effort to “stamp it out”. But an historical awareness of the nature of antisemitism may prove a powerful ally for those who would challenge prejudice. The ancient tropes and slights may