collaboration – Radio Free

Why I Wrote an Expert Report against the UK Classing Hamas as a Terror Group

Jonathan Cook — Sat, 03 May 2025 14:59:41 +0000

Predictably, the British establishment is vilifying lawyers trying to end the proscription of Hamas’ political as well as armed wing. The lawyers have good arguments. So why is no one listening?

This is the first time I have had to begin an opinion column with both a journalistic disclosure and a legal disclaimer. But hey ho, these are dystopian times we live in.

The disclosure: I was one of 20 people who contributed expert reports for a recent legal submission to the British home secretary, Yvette Cooper, calling on her to end the proscription of Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

You can read my submission – on the significant damage done to journalism by Hamas’ proscription – here.

If, as widely expected, Cooper does not approve the application, prepared by the London-based Riverway Law firm on behalf of Hamas, within the 90-day time limit, her decision will be referred to an appeal tribunal for judicial review.

The disclaimer: Nothing that follows is intended in any way to encourage you to take a more favourable view of Hamas. It is not intended in any way to encourage you to support Hamas. It does not endorse opinions or beliefs that are supportive of Hamas, as set out in the submissions calling for the de-proscription of Hamas.

The danger is this: under Section 12 of Britain’s draconian Terrorism Act of 2000, if anything I write, however inadvertently, encourages you to think more favourably of a proscribed organisation like Hamas, I face up to 14 years in jail.

The purpose of this article is to show how the law and the establishment operate together to stifle legitimate criticism of the Israeli occupation.

The law is so loosely worded that the British government, supported by a counter-terrorism police seemingly only too eager to please, can potentially arrest anyone praising the work of Gaza’s public hospitals in saving lives because Hamas is in charge of the enclave’s government, or prosecute anyone, including media outlets, giving a platform to Hamas politicians trying to advance a ceasefire.

If all this sounds crazy, given both that stating facts should not be illegal and that I cannot possibly know how anyone might receive and feel about any information regarding Hamas, then you are starting to understand why the application to the home secretary is so urgent and important.

Secret meetings

The UK may have declared Hamas’ armed wing a terrorist organisation a quarter of a century ago, but its political and administrative wings were added to the proscribed list much more recently – in 2021.

Which is why Cooper, the current home secretary, was misleading in the way she dismissively responded to the de-proscription application submitted to her office. She told LBC: “Hamas has long been a terrorist organisation. We maintain our view about the barbaric nature of this organisation.”

It was Priti Patel who, as home secretary, added Hamas in its entirety, including its political and administrative wings, to the proscription list shortly after she was rehabilitated and readmitted to Boris Johnson’s government in 2019.

Two years earlier, she had been forced to resign from her post as international development secretary in disgrace.

Why? Because she was found to have held 12 secret meetings with senior Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without disclosing those meetings to her colleagues and while she was supposedly on a family holiday.

It later emerged she had also secretly met other Israeli officials in New York and Westminster.

Patel’s political career, to put it politely, has been distinguished by an evident attentiveness to Israeli concerns.

Undoubtedly her decision to proscribe Hamas’ political and administrative wings, treating them as identical to the armed section of the organisation, was high on Israel’s wish list.

It instantly degraded Britain’s political discourse so that it became all but impossible to discuss Hamas’ rule in Gaza or Israel’s blockade of the enclave in a balanced or realistic way. It resulted in a simplistic black-and-white picture of life in the enclave in which everything Hamas was bad – and therefore, by contrast, everything Israeli was good.

That would spectacularly serve Israeli interests two years later, when, following the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, Israel fed the western media entirely fabricated stories of Hamas “beheading babies” and carrying out “mass rapes”.

For months afterwards, as Israel set about murdering Palestinians in Gaza en masse and levelling their homes, the only question media interviewers directed at anyone criticising Israel’s actions was this: “Do you condemn Hamas?”

Even the ever-swelling death toll figures recorded by Gaza’s health ministry – proven to be so reliable in previous Israeli attacks that international bodies and the Israeli military itself relied on them – were suddenly treated as suspect and inflated. Independent research continues to suggest otherwise.

Western media outlets appended “Hamas-run” to the health ministry, and its casualty figures – almost certainly a massive undercount given Israel’s systematic destruction of the health sector – were now reported only as a “claim”.

In turn, these deceptions were implicitly used to justify Israel’s own, far greater atrocities in killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women and children, destroying the enclave’s hospitals and supporting infrastructure, while at the same time starving the entire population.

Eighteen months on, “evil Hamas” is still the story, not Israel’s all-too-obvious genocide.

Bullied into silence

Concerns about Hamas being proscribed in its entirety – not just its armed wing – are far from hypothetical, given the expansive wording of the UK’s Terrorism Act since 2019, when it was amended.

In particular, a revision to Section 12 means that anyone who “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation”, and one that might “encourage support” for that organisation, is liable to arrest by terrorism police, prosecution, and up to 14 years in jail.

For expressing an opinion.

The wording is so vague that, for example, simply criticising Israel for committing greater and more numerous atrocities than Hamas could theoretically have the counter-terrorism police banging on your door.

To avoid prosecution, Riverway Law’s website dedicated to its application to the home secretary carries a legal disclaimer: “By entering this website you acknowledge that none of the contents can be understood as supporting, or expressing support for, proscribed terrorist organisations under the Terrorism Act 2000.”

Several independent British journalists and commentators – those whose careers are not dictated, and protected, by billionaires or the UK state broadcaster – have had their homes raided at dawn by counter-terrorism police or been arrested at the border as they return home.

One political commentator, Tony Greenstein – who also happens to be Jewish and a trained lawyer – is currently being prosecuted under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act. Others are under prolonged investigation. They have the threat of prosecution hanging over their heads like a sword.

The rest of us are meant to take note, feeling the chilling effect. Do we want the police breaking down the door of our homes at dawn? Do we want to be arrested on return from holiday, our partners and children looking on in horror?

The National Union of Journalists has called the police actions against journalists “abuse and mis-use of counter-terror legislation” and warned that they risk “threatening the safety of journalists”, as well as their sources.

Understandably, you may be barely aware of these repressive police tactics, which have been accelerating since Keir Starmer came to power. He, let us recall, personally approved, as opposition leader, Israel’s crime against humanity of blocking food, water and power to Gaza.

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The BBC and the rest of the media have failed to meaningfully report these incidents – which are characteristic elsewhere of police states.

Is that because these media outlets are themselves cowed into submission by the Terrorism Act?

Or is it because they are simply mouthpieces of the same British establishment that made it illegal to express support for objectives which are the same as those sought by Hamas’ political, as opposed to military, objectives?

Let us remember – and it’s easy to forget, given how rarely such things are mentioned by the British media – that the same UK state that proscribed Hamas continues to arm Israel directly, helps ship weapons from other countries to Israel, supplies Israel with intelligence from British spy planes over Gaza, and provides Israel with diplomatic cover – all while Israel carries out what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) calls a “plausible genocide”, and while its sister International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks the arrest of Netanyahu for crimes against humanity.

The British government is not a neutral party in the levelling of Gaza, the decimation of its people by bombs, the ethnic cleansing of swaths of the enclave, or the starvation of the population. It is actively assisting Israel in its genocidal campaign.

The UK establishment is also, through its proscription of Hamas and the wording of the Terrorism Act, bullying journalists, academics, politicians, lawyers – in fact, anyone – into silence about the context of its complicity, into an unwillingness to scrutinise its rationalisations for collusion in genocide.

‘No civilians’

There are two main objectives behind Riverway Law’s submission to the home secretary against Hamas’ proscription as a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The first concerns the proscription of the entire organisation by the British government. This is the part of the legal submission that has attracted most attention – and which has been used to vilify the lawyers involved

As barrister Franck Magennis has explained, Riverway’s hands were tied because Patel – now the shadow foreign secretary – added Hamas to the list as a single entity in 2021, making no distinction between its different wings. That meant the lawyers had no choice but to petition for the entire group to be deproscribed.

The government set the terms of the legal debate, not Hamas or its legal representatives.

Hamas’ lawyers accept that its military wing meets the definition of a terrorist organisation under the terms of the UK’s Terrorism Act. They argue this law casts the net so wide that any organisation using violence to achieve political ends is covered, including the Israeli, Ukrainian and British militaries.

The establishment media have tried to smear Riverway and its barristers as Hamas “stooges” and supporters of terrorism – amply illustrating why the case is so necessary.

An openly hostile interviewer for LBC appeared to think he had caught out Magennis in some kind of ethical or professional lapse because he chose to represent Hamas without payment – as he must do under UK law because Hamas is a proscribed organisation.

The implication was that Magennis was so enthusiastically supportive of terrorism that he was willing to take on time-consuming and career-damaging work for free – rather than that he is doing so because there are vitally important legal and ethical principles at stake.

Not least, the proscription of Hamas’ political wing, including its governmental and administrative institutions, treats them as extensions of the armed struggle.

It breathes life into Israel’s patently ridiculous claims that all of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are really “Hamas command and control centres”, that Gaza’s doctors can be killed or arrested and taken to torture camps because they are “Hamas operatives” in disguise, and that Gaza’s paramedics can be executed because their rescue missions supposedly aid Hamas.

And worse, ultimately proscription supports Israeli leaders’ genocidal statements that there are “no civilians in Gaza”, a place where half the population are children.

Bargaining chips

The proscription of Hamas in its entirety ignores the fact that the group has political goals – ones Gaza’s population voted for 19 years ago to liberate themselves from decades of Israel’s brutal and illegal military occupation. Those goals are distinct from Hamas, yet expressing support for the objectives gives rise to the risk of being investigated by the police and prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Gaza’s people – the less than half who were old enough to vote two decades ago – were driven down the path of supporting armed resistance in the pursuit of national liberation for an all-too-obvious reason. Because Israel had refused to make any concessions to Hamas’ political rivals, headed by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, has been using strictly diplomatic means – which Israel also opposes – to achieve statehood.

The proscription of Hamas sweeps out of view the fact that a people under occupation have a right enshrined in international law to use armed struggle against their military oppressors. It makes it perilously dangerous to show support for the armed struggle of Gaza’s Palestinians lest you are accused of breaching Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Proscription sanctions the failure by western politicians and media to distinguish between Hamas actions on 7 October 2023 that accord with international law, such as its attacks on Israeli military bases, and illegitimate actions targeting Israeli civilians.

It reverses reality, treating all those Israelis held in Gaza as hostages who have been kidnapped, even those who are soldiers, while approving of Israel’s kidnapping of Palestinians in Gaza, from medical staff to children.

The latter are supposedly “arrested”. They are referred to by the western media as “prisoners”, even though most have not been charged or put on trial, and the main purpose of their detention seems to be as bargaining chips in an exchange for Israelis captive in Gaza.

And finally, since 2021, Britain’s proscription of Hamas’ political wing has effectively meant the UK has given its backing both to Israel’s refusal to talk to Gaza’s government, and to Israel’s near two-decade-old siege of Gaza that turned it into little more than a concentration camp holding 2.3 million Palestinians, further radicalising the population.

British politicians should understand quite how self-defeating such an approach is. After all, it was only through talking to Sinn Fein, the political wing of the “terrorist” IRA group, that Britain was able to negotiate a peace deal, the Good Friday Agreement, in Northern Ireland in 1998.

Hamas stated in its revised 2017 charter that it is ready to make territorial concessions with Israel – based on the traditional two-state solution.

And it does so again in its application to the home secretary, calling the two-state solution the “national consensus” among Palestinians.

The submission notes that Israel has repeatedly assassinated Hamas leaders, including Ahmed Jabari and Ismail Haniyeh, when they were close to concluding ceasefire agreements, in what looks suspiciously like attempts by Israel to undermine more moderate voices within the organisation.

Through proscription, Britain has handed Israel a permanent licence to refuse to test Hamas’ willingness to compromise.

Attack on lawyers

Robert Jenrick, Britain’s shadow justice secretary, has called for Riverway Law and its barristers to be investigated and struck off for representing Hamas – apparently forgetting the foundational principle in law that everyone, even serial killers, have a right to legal representation if the law is not to become a hollow charade.

The Terrorism Act includes provision for an appeal by proscribed organisations against their inclusion on the list. How are they to go through the legal procedure to appeal their listing apart from through lawyers?

Disgracefully, Starmer’s officials have once again kept their silence as Hamas’ legal representatives in the UK have been turned into targets for establishment abuse. The government is as complicit in the assault at home on basic democratic rights, such as free speech and the rule of law, as it has been complicit abroad in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

How would the Starmer government have reacted had the two British barristers who defended Israel against South Africa’s case against genocide at the ICJ last year been publicly maligned for doing so? Would it have been okay to tar those lawyers with the crimes against humanity committed by their client?

Fahad Ansari, director of Riverway Law, has written to the government, urging it to speak up in defence of this team’s right to challenge Hamas’ proscription, and warning that Jenrick’s “comments are not only reckless and libellous but amount to incitement against our staff members”.

He has reminded the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, of the previous murder of lawyers for taking on cases that challenged the British establishment, including Pat Finucane, who was killed by Ulster loyalists in collusion with the British security services, after he won several human rights cases against the British government.

Hamas’ submission makes the case that Patel provided several false grounds to justify the proscription of Hamas in its entirety.

Hamas disputes Patel’s characterisation of it as a terrorist organisation. It notes that international law allows people illegally occupied and oppressed to resist through military means.

Hamas’ former political bureau chief Mousa Abu Marzouk notes in his witness statement on behalf of Hamas that Hamas’ operation on 7 October 2023 was intended only to strike military targets, and that atrocities carried out by its fighters that day against civilians had not been authorised by the leadership and are not condoned.

It is impossible to know whether that claim is true.

It is also incredibly hard to draw attention to factors which could be said to support Abu Marzouk’s argument without also being alleged to have invited support for Hamas or as expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of Hamas – which would risk being accused of a criminal offence under Section 12.

In addition to the false stories spread by Israel, such as that Hamas “beheaded babies” and carried out “mass rape”, it is known that other, presumably less disciplined, groups broke out of Gaza that day as well as Hamas. Apparently no effort has been made to determine which groups carried out which atrocities.

And then there is the fact that an unknown number of the atrocities blamed on Hamas were actually caused by Israel’s green-lighting of its Hannibal directive, which authorised the Israeli military to kill its own soldiers and citizens to prevent them being seized. That included firing missiles into kibbutz homes and on vehicles heading towards Gaza, leaving only charred remains of the occupants.

The proscription of Hamas makes it legally dangerous to draw attention to the sickening acts of the Israeli government.

Also worth noting is that Hamas makes clear in its submission that, unlike Israel, it is ready to have its actions that day investigated by international bodies and any of its fighters who committed atrocities put on trial.

“We remain, as always, prepared to cooperate with any international investigations and inquiries into the operation, even if ‘Israel’ refuses to do so,” Abu Marzouk writes.

He calls on “the ICC Prosecutor and his team to immediately and urgently come to occupied Palestine to look into the crimes and violations committed there, rather than merely observing the situation remotely or being subject to the Israeli restrictions.”

Public demonised

Abu Marzouk points out that Britain is not a dispassionate observer of Israel’s genocide unfolding in Gaza. As the colonial power in Palestine for much of the first half of the last century, it permitted European Jews to colonise the Palestinian people’s homeland, effectively leaving the latter stateless.

“Unsurprisingly,” Abu Marzouk writes, “the British state continues to side with the genocidal Zionist coloniser, while proscribing organisations like ours that strive to assert Palestinian dignity.”

Which alludes to the second main purpose of Hamas’ application.

The British state has a legal obligation to prevent Israel’s current crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza. And those in a position to shed light on Israel’s atrocities – and thereby add to the pressure on the British government and international bodies to fulfil their legal obligations – have a duty to do so too.

That means lawyers, journalists, human rights groups, academics and researchers should be as free as possible to contribute information and analyses that hold both Israel to account for its continuing crimes and the British state for any collusion in those crimes.

But as noted earlier, what Hamas’ proscription has done is precisely stifle expert discourse about what is happening in Gaza. Those who try to speak up, from independent journalists to lawyers, have found themselves vilified, bullied or threatened with prosecution by the British state.

Increasingly, this crackdown is being extended to the wider public.

Proscription has paved the way for the arrest and jailing of peace activist groups like Palestine Action trying to stop the UK-based arms manufacturer Elbit producing the quadcopters Israel is using to finish off civilians, including children, injured in air strikes on Gaza.

Proscription has paved the way for demonising mass public marches and student campus demonstrations against Israel’s genocide as pro-Hamas and “hate protests”.

Proscription has paved the way for the police to place ever-tighter restrictions on such demonstrations, to arrest the organisers, and to investigate prominent figures like Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell who take part in them.

“Rather than allow freedom of speech, police have embarked on a campaign of political intimidation and persecution of journalists, academics, peace activists and students over their perceived support for Hamas,” the application argues.

But while those opposed to genocide find themselves maligned as supporters of terrorism, those actually committing crimes against humanity – whether Israeli leaders or British nationals taking part as soldiers in the genocide in Gaza – are still being welcomed in Britain with open arms.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy met his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, in London last month for a so-called “private meeting”. The British government apparently agreed to Saar’s visit, even though it must have known it would trigger requests from legal groups for his arrest for war crimes.

British officials have also hosted senior Israeli military figures.

Meanwhile, a legal dossier handed to the Metropolitan Police last month against 10 Britons accused of committing war crimes in Gaza, such as killing civilians and aid workers, has made barely any ripples.

Where is the outrage meted out by the media and politicians for Britons who have chosen to travel to Gaza to fight with an army that has killed and maimed many tens of thousands of Palestinian children there?

There is more to say, but saying more risks arrest by the UK’s counter-terrorism police and jail time. Which is why ending Hamas’ proscription needs to happen as soon as possible.

And why the British establishment, from politicians to the media, are so determined to close ranks and foil the application.

First published in Middle East Eye on 1 May 2025.

The post Why I Wrote an Expert Report against the UK Classing Hamas as a Terror Group first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

Fallibility, Dirty Wars, and Pope Francis I

Binoy Kampmark — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 08:00:52 +0000

The very idea of infallibility sets one up for the mighty fall. But the Pope, temporal head of all Catholics, is one such character, the papacy one such institution, arrogantly paraded before religion, faith and principle, as an individual and office hovering between humankind and God. Unfortunately for the papal record, infallibility in any spiritual sense is no guard against spotty records and stains. It certainly does not erase what came before, though good efforts are often made to reinvent it.

Pope Francis I, eulogised as the pontiff of the periphery and the oppressed, was not averse in his pre-papal iteration to courting the powerful and the authoritarian when a US-backed military dictatorship seized power in his native Argentina in 1976. That dictatorship, responsible for the forced disappearance of 30,000 people, came to be known as the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (National Reorganization Process). In 1978, on a visit to Buenos Aires to attend the football World Cup as dictator Jorge Videla’s guest, former US National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was filled with praise for the murderous methods of the Proceso in its efforts to combat “terrorism”.

On their seizure of power, the junta were also keen to grease palms and cultivate ties with the Catholic Church. Archbishop Adolfo Tortolo obligated, urging Argentinians “to cooperate in a positive way with the new government.” Argentina’s bishops also issued a statement declaring that the security services could hardly act “with the chemical purity” expected of them in times of peace. Some freedom had to be shorn. Church figures who did not play along, such as Enrique Angelelli, the bishop of the Andean diocese of La Rioja, were murdered. In a 2012 interview, Videla expressed satisfaction at Church-state relations during his rule. “My relationship with the church was excellent. It was very cordial, frank and open.”

To say, for one thing, that Francis had that progressive rainbow in soul and practice is to ignore the same figure who encouraged Jesuit priests under his charge to focus on religion rather than matters of social deprivation. As Jose Mario Bergoglio, Provincial of the Jesuits, he removed teachers of the more progressive stripe and replaced them with steelier, austere types. He shunned the liberation theologians, clinging on to the 1969 Declaration of San Miguel that gave the cold shoulder to Marxism in favour of a rather vague theology of the masses. Paul Vallely writes that the late Francis “seemed unaware of any of the teachings of Vatican II. It was all St. Thomas Aquinas and the old Church Fathers. We didn’t study a single book by Gutiérrez, Boff or Paulo Freire”. (Those three figures were very much front and centre of liberation theology.)

The disavowal of priestly work in the slums of Buenos Aires as Provincial of the Jesuits had its consequences. Orlando Yorio, a Jesuit priest doing just such work, was conveyed in 1976 to the dark offices of the military junta by then Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s seeming refusal to back, endorse or acknowledge the labours that the military regime despised. The same fate befell Franz Jalics. In the first trial of the junta leadership in 1985, Yorio was convinced “that he himself [Bergoglio] gave over the list with our names to the Navy.” Jalics, however, stated in March 2013 that Bergoglio had never “denounced” either himself or Yorio. Both priests had been kidnapped for connections to a catechist who “later joined the guerillas.”

At the time of his election in 2013, the Vatican made a point of stating that, in the words of spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, there had “never been any credible, concrete accusation against him.”

In other instances during that most dirty of wars, Fr Bergoglio does not seem to acquit himself well. Estela de la Cuadra, who shared little in the way of enthusiasm for Cardinal Bergoglio’s elevation to pontiff, suggests that he knew far more about what was taking place in the 1970s than what he subsequently testified to. In a trial in 2010, the then Cardinal was asked to attend a trial on the infamous “stolen babies” cases, a spectacularly unsavoury matter involving the handing over of infants from murdered mothers to military families. Unconvincingly, he claimed to only know of the practice once Argentina moved into the calmer, less murderous waters of democracy after 1983.

De la Cuadra is all rebuttal, claiming that her father had been advised by the then Fr Bergoglio to meet a bishop who might advise him on the fate of the disappearance of his pregnant daughter Elena. The bishop was, at best, callously helpful, informing him that “his granddaughter was ‘now with a good family’.”

The ventures to investigate and tease out Bergoglio’s legacy during the Proceso remain a matter of record. Investigations by scribblers in 1986 and 2003, carried out respectively by Emilio Mignone and Horacio Verbitsky, attest to that. (Verbitsky’s account is further spiced by llegations that he was himself on the junta’s payroll, working as ghost writer for Brigadier Omar Domingo Rubens Graffigna.)

Bergoglio’s disputed dance with the junta continues that extensive tradition perfected by the Catholic Church. A power, however ruthless in the secular realm, should still be accommodated by the spiritual leaders of the church if the adherents of said power are sympathetic followers of Rome. “Never in the years he headed the Catholic Church in Argentina did he acknowledge its complicity in the dictatorship, much less ask for forgiveness,” blazed Gabriel Pasquini, editor of El Puercoespín, in 2015.

The argument for the defence has tended to be framed along the lines of internal church politics, misunderstanding, and indignant claims of slander. There were Jesuits who took issue with him, for instance, for selling the Universidad del Salvador to the Iron Guard, a right wing order characterised by an unflappable ascetic. And when Bergoglio met with such bloodthirsty thugs as Videla and Emilio Massera, this was only to intercede on behalf of the detained clerics and others to seek their release. “He was very critical of the dictatorship,” asserts former Argentine judge and acquaintance, Alicia Oliveira. He really meant well. It is precisely in that meaning that questions have been and should be asked. To what extent should the powerful be pleased by the supposedly spiritual?

The post Fallibility, Dirty Wars, and Pope Francis I first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

“Troubling”: Panama Agrees to Anti-Migrant Collaboration After Trump Threatens to Retake Canal

Democracy Now! — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 13:16:20 +0000

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is visiting Latin America on his first foreign trip in his new post. One of his stops is Panama, where President Trump has threatened to invade and take over control of the critical trade route of the Panama Canal in response to its growing ties to China. It is a deeply unpopular proposition in Panama, seen as a “reversion to the mid-20th century imperial encroachment that Panama so intentionally confronted over the course of the Canal transition.” It is also, “on a logistical level,” essentially “impossible,” according to Panama City-based scholar Miriam Pensack. In what Pensack calls a “troubling” development, Panama has announced it will more closely cooperate with Trump’s policing of migration from Central America to the United States as a diplomatic concession to his threats.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

West and media are ‘erasing’ Palestinian history, say critics

APR editor — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 07:00:16 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

Palestinian history is “deliberately ignored” and is being effectively “erased” as part of Western news media narratives, while establishment forces work to shut down anyone speaking out against Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, academics have told a university conference of legal and Middle East experts.

A two-day online summit Erasure and Defiance: the Politics of Silence and Voice on Palestine, hosted by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Diversities and Social Inclusion Research Centre, also heard the type of reporting in the mainstream media “normalised violence” against Palestinians, reports the UTS Central News.

Also, the murder of Palestinians and resistance by them had been routinely mischaracterised as “loss and failure” on their part as though it was their own fault.

Although the conference took place over one and-a-half days in July and brought together Arab, Muslim, Jewish and Indigenous speakers from Palestine, Australia, Germany, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom, details have only just been released.

The release of the conference proceedings comes more than one year on from the start of the Israeli War on Gaza, now extended into Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, with arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and an Amnesty International investigation concluding Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

The western media has ranged from selective reporting of facts… and publishing outright lies that justify the murder of Palestinians.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) at least 45,097 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including over 17,492 children, with more than 107,244 people injured and in excess of 10,000 people missing under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Israeli forces, meanwhile, have killed journalists at a faster rate than any conflict on record, with estimates varying between 137, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 188 documented by Turkish news agency Anadolu Ajansi, and the 196 killed as reported by the Gaza Government Media Office.

By comparison 63 journalists were killed in 20 years of the Vietnam War.

Posed war crime questions
The conference posed major questions regarding the erasing of Palestinian history, how it enables present-day war crimes and how defiance has resonated and inspired ongoing resistance by:

Palestinians fighting to defend their lives and their land, or as seen around the world, in civic protests;
the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement;
human rights advocacy;
alternative social media production; and
legal challenges in the highest of our international institutions, the ICC and the International Court of Justice.

The conference was officially opened with the Welcome to Country, from Uncle Greg Simms, Gadigal elder of the Dharug Nation.

Uncle Greg spoke about the importance of land and country to the survival of Australia’s Indigenous people, the role of ancestral ties and connections, the importance of history and allies in the face of genocide, and the need to empathise with the people of Palestine at this time.

Dr Janine Hourani’s address. Video: UTS

Janine Hourani from the University of Exeter and Palestinian Youth Movement, in her keynote speech detailed the history of Palestinian resistance to Zionist occupation, addressing how the recording of history, privileged by a select few, served to stifle narratives, as well as erase key figures and moments in time, “reproducing a particular version of Palestinian history that focuses on defeat and loss, rather than resistance and rebellion”.

“The Western media has ranged from selective reporting of facts, reporting Palestinians as ‘died’ and Israeli settlers as ‘murdered’ and publishing outright lies that justify the murder of Palestinians,” said Hourani.

“Since October we’ve heard multiple political interventions being made about the Western media’s complicity in the current genocide in Palestine.”

Souheir Edalbi, a law lecturer at Western Sydney University, convened the session that followed, featuring four speakers.

Anti-Palestinian racism
Randa Abdelfattah, an author, lawyer and academic, addressed anti-Palestinian racism which serves to disarm criticism of Israel and Zionism.

Udi Raz, an academic and activist based in Germany, presented a case study of Mizrahi or Arab Jews in Germany, interrogating the definition of semitism and otherness in that context, the culturally pervasive racism towards Arabs, and German anxieties about what constitutes a non-European identity.

Annie Pfingst, an author and academic, listed 11 different types of “erasure” by Israel, from the confiscation, possession and renaming of Palestinian villages through to the holding of Palestinian bodies killed by the Israeli forces, not returned to their families, or buried in the “cemetery of numbers”.

She described a “necrological regime” that turns dead bodies into prisoners of the state, penalising and torturing the community, serving “to further evict the native in line with the structure of the settler colonial imperative of elimination”.

We have seen many instances of pro-Palestinian voices who have been sacked from their work places.

Jessica Holland, a researcher, curator and archivist, discussed how the history of archiving of Palestinian material is “deeply embedded within a legacy of coloniality”, and the importance of Palestinian social history and archiving projects, in redressing and countering hegemonic understandings and organisation of materials.

“Journalists, teachers, doctors, health care workers, public servants, lawyers, artists, food hospitality workers. Across every profession and industry [showing] solidarity with Palestine has been met with a repertoire of repressive tactics, disciplinary employment processes, cancelled contracts, lawfare, police brutality, parliamentary scrutiny, coordinated complaints and harassment campaigns, media coverage, doxxing, harassment, attempts at law reform and policy amendments,” said Abdelfattah.

“We have seen in the past few days the treatment of [Senator] Fatima Payman and the intimidation, bullying and silencing she has endured.

“We have also seen many instances of pro-Palestinian voices who have been sacked from their work places.”

On day two of the conference Aunty Glendra Stubbs gave the Acknowledgement of Country, which was followed by the keynote speaker Jeff Halper, anthropologist, author, lecturer, political activist and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.

Normalising violence
Halper addressed how Israel as a Zionist settler colonial state normalises violence, erasure and apartheid against Palestinians, where physical and cultural genocide are built in, necessitating indigenous resistance.

A second panel, “Social Movements, in Defiance”, convened by Alison Harwood, a social change practitioner, included speakers Nasser Mashni from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), Sarah Schwartz from the Jewish Council of Australia, and Latoya Rule from UTS Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research.

Speakers shared insights on how social movements mobilise from within their diverse communities, to reach and potentially impact the Australian and international social and political stage.

Interdisciplinary storyteller and media producer Daz Chandler presented a series of pre-recorded interviews and a live discussion with participants involved in University campus encampments from around the world including activists from Birzeit University in the Occupied West Bank, Mexico, Trinity College in Dublin, UCLA, the University of Melbourne, University of Tokyo, University of Sydney and Monash University.

Two further sessions focused on responses “From the Field”, with a third panel convened by Paula Abboud, a cultural worker, educator, writer and creative producer, featuring The Age journalist Maher Moghrabi, author and human rights lawyer Sara Saleh, Lena Mozayani from NSW Teachers for Palestine, and Dr Sana Pathan from ANZ Doctors for Palestine.

Each reflected on their work and the challenges they encountered in their respective professional fields. Obstructions they faced ranged from hindering and silencing the expression of ideas, through to the prevention of carrying out critical on-the-ground work to save lives.

Hometown of Nablus
The final panel of the conference was moderated by Derek Halawa, a Palestinian living in the diaspora, who shared his experience of travelling to his hometown of Nablus.

He followed virtual footsteps from his cousin’s video, through the alley ways, to reach the home of his great grandfather, a journey which culminated in reaching the steps of Al Aqsa Mosque, with both spaces symbolising belonging and hope.

Cathy Peters, media worker and co-founder of BDS Australia described a diverse range of disruption movements calling for the end of ties with Israeli companies, since the war on Gaza.

This was followed by RIta Jabri Markwell, solicitor and adviser to the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, addressing specific points of Australian law dealing with terrorism, freedom of speech, and racial discrimination.

The conference, which was was co-convened by Barbara Bloch, Wafa Chafic, James Goodman, Derek Halawa and Christina Ho, concluded with UTS Sociology Professor James Goodman giving an overview of the proceedings and potential actions post-conference.

One post-conference outcome is an additional series of interviews produced by Daz Chandler exploring the power of creative practices utilised within the Palestinian resistance movement.

It features renowned Palestinian contemporary artist Khaled Hourani, Ben Rivers: co-founder of the Palestinian Freedom Bus, Yazan al-Saadi: co-founder of Cartoonists for Palestine, Taouba Yacoubi: Sew 4 Palestine, Birkbeck University of London; and artist and activist from Naarm Melbourne, Margaret Mayhew.

Republished from the UTS Central News.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Musicians Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig (Lucius) on the power of friendship in creative collaboration

Jon Leland — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 08:00:00 +0000

In thinking about the history of musical duos, they’re frequently characterized by underlying tension. Sometimes that’s creative tension. Sometimes it’s romantic or sexual tension. Your partnership, by contrast, is characterized by a really deep connection and alignment between the two of you to the point where you basically merge both visually and harmonically. How intentional was that choice, or was that an emergent quality?

Jess: I think that was just us. I think there was always just a respect for one another’s strengths, and I think we just happened to have personalities that complement each other and we’re not competitive with each other. We’re competitive together as a team, but I think that the first pillar of our strength together is just recognizing what each other brings, and therefore we can’t be us without both parts.

Holly: Yeah. When we first started, we were friends, but it was more like friends through friends, and we decided to work together first. And then, became deeply connected through work. So, I think what Jess is saying is that it came from a work mindset, and looking for the complementary work partnership. And so, that’s what we started with. And then, the appreciation and then everything kind of grew around that.

Jess: Yeah, and it has fluctuated. I’d say we’re close as ever. Even from pandemic on, it got stronger through life’s changes and difficulties and blessings. Our familial relationship got even closer. Obviously, as babies come into the world, and lockdown, you’re very, very intentional about who you’re spending your time with. And not that we weren’t really close before that, because we were, but it was also like we were just nonstop working. So it was just a different dynamic.

The pandemic drove a lot of people apart as well. The fact that you’ve been able to maintain such a close relationship and partnership for so long is impressive. Do you have any advice for people who are operating in creative partnerships about how to maintain that positive relationship over time? It’s a stressful profession.

Jess: Yeah, it is stressful. Work with people who celebrate the good things that you bring to the table. Work with people who bring out your strengths, and you find a healthy partnership. It can be hard to work with other people, but if you allow yourself that ability to really just recognize and appreciate what other people can bring, you have so much more at your disposal for both you and them. It can be a really fruitful, wonderful thing, that community.

Holly: Agreed.

What are the strengths that you feel like you bring out in each other?

Holly: You could break it down into multiple things. If you’re breaking it down into songwriting, I feel like Jess has a really good melodic sense, and I like lyrics. Not that we don’t do both, but we both kind of excel in those. And then, as far as performance, Jess is really good at styling and curating visual aspects.

And then of course, personality wise. I mean, we just have different personalities, so we kind of attract different things. I mean, she’s definitely the social butterfly of the two. She always brings all kinds of different people together. And I think I’m good at working with all different kinds of people. I’m just not as good at bringing them together.

Jess: Holly has a really amazing communicator ability. She doesn’t need to take up space unless there’s a reason for it. Everything is intentional. And so, it makes talking to her really comfortable and respectful. And it’s just a really strong quality that I think a lot of people don’t have.

And musically, we have different types of voices. I have more of a belty alto tenor voice, and she’s got this light and airy soprano. We can fill in the other, but it’s with a different texture. So, we can really play around with so many different sounds and dynamics that only we can do as a unit. It brings out the strengths in our own voices that much more.

Holly: It is fun.

You have some very intensely personal songs in your repertoire about heartbreak and loss. How does that writing process work, given that you’re so merged in your performance? Does that carry through to the songwriting process as well, or is that more individual?

Holly: Some of them start individual, and then we kind of bring these ideas to each other. And because we’re best friends and in each other’s business all the time, then we know what each other is writing about. It’s easy to know, “Okay, this is where they’re coming from and how can we make this.”

Jess: Yeah, it’s a very unique dynamic because we observe the other person’s life from such a close proximity, so we’re really able to not only know what’s going on, but actually comment or interact within that idea or feeling because we’re witness to it.

So, it allows you to write a bit from the other’s perspective?

Holly: Yeah.

Jess: In the closest way you can be without being that person, I would say. You know? Pretty unique.

It is really unique and you spend a lot of time with other musicians, solo acts, bands. How is your relationship different than what you see other musicians experiencing in their work? And how do you think that changes your experience of being a musician and touring? Do you see it as a materially different way of being a musician?

Holly: Oh, no. I feel like all musicians are so different. All the bands are so different in dynamic because it’s just different people in each band. I mean, there’s things to relate to with the lifestyle of being on the road all the time between different bands. But each band is put together by such different people. There’s always such different dynamics and you’re not privy to everything. So I think it’s hard to say for me.

Jess: I think that automatically we’re a team, and you have a built-in community when you have a teammate. And so, nothing has to be done alone. I mean, that in itself is huge. We have a lot of friends who are solo artists and not having that perspective or not having that other person on the other end on the days that it’s harder to do what we do. We have the other person sort of cheerleading. Just makes the process that much easier to accomplish something with a partner.

For us at least, it just works better. It’s just so helpful to have a teammate who believes in it, who can champion, and who can support when it’s challenging. And who’s with you, who wants similar things, to accomplish similar things. It’s hard work, so being able to split some of that is clutch, for lack of a better word.

Holly: In some bands, it’s like there’s a lead, but maybe the drummer and the singer are the two that are like us. Where they’re both been in it from the beginning, but you don’t see that represented in the same way. It’s almost like the difference with us is that we’re representing ourselves as a co-front. And so people, instead of saying, “Oh, I love the drummer of that band” or “I love the lead singer” or whatever, a lot of times it’s like, “Oh, I love their friendship.” They love this concept of these two people as a lead, which I guess would be different than other people.

Jess: And they’re also like, “Where’s the drama? Come on. Show us the drama.” And I’m like, “Honestly …” I mean, we’ve had drama as a band, obviously. I was married to the drummer, but we don’t have that much drama. We create our own little fun drama in the band. We’ve got some funny text threads that no one will ever see. It’s just true friendship.

Friendship is particularly important in an industry where a lot of people can feel alone in their effort. So, it is incredible to have a partner.

Jess: It’s true.

You’ve moved between producing your own work and releasing it as Lucius, and then working with other musicians. You took six years between Good Grief in 2016 and your next full length, all new material album, Second Nature in 2022. During that time you toured with Roger Waters, and worked with some incredible musicians like John Legend and The War on Drugs. How do you choose between focusing on collaborating with other musicians, and when to focus on writing and releasing original work?

Holly: Going on tour with Roger [Waters] felt like a great opportunity we couldn’t turn down, and we didn’t know that a pandemic was on the other side of it, so it was never meant to be that long.

Jess: But the pandemic offered us a lot of time to write, so we actually were able to truly sit and reflect and in this way that we maybe never have been able to do, except in the very, very beginning.

Holly: Yeah, yeah. I think after that experience of being away touring with someone else’s project, as fruitful as it was and wonderful, it also made us realize how much we want to do our own thing, and build and tour, and make music for our own project, rather than be away that long. I think we’ll always collaborate with people, but not to that extent.

Jess: Yeah. It was fun. We had fun.

Holly: It was awesome.

Roger Waters is such a massive production to tour with. Did you learn anything from that experience that you are bringing back to how you’re approaching your own music or what you want out of your own music?

Jess: Attention to detail and never really settling on something until it’s actually settled. He was such a perfectionist, and every night would watch the show and take notes on lights and visual and band arrangements. And every day during soundcheck, we worked on something to improve something. And I think making sure every moment matters to the audience and doing what we can to achieve that.

You recently recorded Wildewoman and completed a 10-year anniversary tour. What led to the decision to revisit that album? Did anything surprise you in revisiting that with your fans across the country?

Jess: How meaningful it was to all those people. That record really connected us to a fan base and built a relationship with those people, and it was really meaningful. Every night we had a mailbox at our merch table, and we told everyone that they could write us a letter. We had notepads there with pens. And so, we ended up reading a couple every night on stage, and they were just super meaningful. That was a huge part of the tour. That album was the thing that gave us legs for the first time.

I think that playing a record or most of the songs from the record for 10 years or plus, the meaning of a song changes. The way that you play it evolves. And being able to celebrate that instead of just … Not that there’s anything wrong with remastering and celebrating in other ways, but for us, it was about we recorded that ourselves then, and here’s us recording it now after having played those songs for so many years, and so many things have evolved, and this is that record now. It was just a fun way of celebrating really.

Holly: Yeah, I mean, listening back also when we were recording stuff was funny because we hadn’t listened to it in so long. It was kind of like relearning everything, but it was really fun.

You hadn’t listened to the album?

Holly: Yeah.

Jess: People don’t listen to their own albums that often. It’s everyone else’s record.

Holly: We played a bunch of those songs for years and years, but it was funny to listen back to the record and see how certain things had drifted or shifted.

Jess: We were in Brazil on the Roger Waters tour, and we went to Milton Nascimento’s birthday party. And I remember part of the party, we were sitting in his pool lounge area and listening to his album with him sitting there. I was like, “You know, that’s pretty baller.”

So, how are things shifting in this new … now that you’re in this new phase with families that you’re starting? What are you feeling pulled towards at this point?

Holly: Well, the record that we’re working on now, that we’re going to release, is kind of all about homecoming. Coming back to a place that feels home, kind of like Wildewoman. Like our roots a little bit. And that I’m sure has something to do with feeling home in this sort of domestic part of our life.

Jess: Yeah. And you just work harder with more purpose. A little less blindly. We say yes to things with a little more intention. And you understand the value of things a little on a deeper level.

I mean, I’m not a mom yet, but soon, and I already feel that, even just watching my godchildren through Holly, the purpose changes. It evolves. You want to make a legacy for your family, and you want to do things with thought and care, especially because your time is divided in a different way. And so when you’re working or when you’re putting something out, it needs to be with a certain type of intention and purpose that didn’t exist before. You don’t have that …

Holly: Dilly-dally time.

Jess: Yeah, endless open range of anything. You want that selfishness, which can serve you really well in a musical sense. But yeah, it’s just not as readily available.

So, what are your goals at this point, entering into this next phase creatively or career-wise?

Jess: Coming back to ourselves as a unit and working on stuff the way that we did when we first started all together. We have so many ideas between just the four of us. So, really allowing ourselves to explore those ideas and see how we can come to the output within our own home, so to speak. That’s been really rewarding. I think probably for all four of us.

There’s also an ease about it because we just know each other so well, and we each have different roles that we fulfill in the studio. Yeah, so that’s really nice.

Holly: We’re going to put out more music. We’re going to keep touring. And where we’re at now is kind of coming back to ourselves after reaching out into these different genres and things that interested us, but maybe felt a bit more of a costume or something. We’re coming back home to ourselves.

The Essential Lucius:

“Two of Us on the Run” (song)

“How Loud Your Heart Gets” (song)

“Old Tape” (Music Video)

Roger Waters - “The Great Gig in the Sky” (ft. Lucius)

Faribault Wool Blanket

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Jon Leland.

Steppin Out | Steel Pulse | Playing For Change x Mana Maoli Collaboration | Live Outside

Playing For Change — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 15:55:00 +0000

This content originally appeared on Playing For Change and was authored by Playing For Change.

Beethoven / Jupiter Medley | Taimane | Playing For Change x Mana Maoli Collaboration | Live Outside

Playing For Change — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 18:55:00 +0000

This content originally appeared on Playing For Change and was authored by Playing For Change.

Visual artists Jamie Nami Kim and Paul Waters on collaboration

Jamie Nami Kim and Paul Waters — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 07:00:00 +0000

Paul Waters, Conversation oil on cut cotton collage on canvas, 36h x 30w in

Jamie Nami Kim, Ten Women, cut paper on board, 37h x 95w in

How does a collaboration begin?

Paul: It starts with a conversation. It needs to be straightforward, open, honest, and it should allow free exchange between what’s being talked about.

Jamie: I like it when those kinds of conversations aren’t prompted. When it’s spontaneous. It’s the kind of conversation that feels like it’s happening to the people who are in conversation. They are both the recipients and participants of what’s being exchanged.

There’s a real joy that happens in these kinds of exchanges. So, in our case, we marinated for a long while in the free exchange through conversations for about a year before we actually discussed doing any art work together. Our conversations, in retrospect, were a very important part of our collaborative experience.

Paul: Yes and it’s an ongoing conversation. It doesn’t have a beginning and doesn’t seem to have an end. I feel like that’s what happens when you have a longtime collaborator. You say one year; I think it’s actually been going on for longer. There’s a real mystery in that. Our collaboration has been happening in nonlinear time.

What makes a great collaboration?

Paul: I think that one must do their work to be free of their ego. You have to be comfortable with being vulnerable especially if we are talking about creating expressions. You need to tell your personal story, whatever the story is. I think it’s very exciting when you can share your story with somebody who embraces it and understands it clearly. It’s equally exciting when you can listen and embrace someone else’s story.

Jamie: A lot of the time in our culture, we often privilege action over feeling and presence. Two or more people come together because they like to create. The questions will go towards an outcome: What are we going to do? What are we going to make? How? It’s all very action and outcome driven. What happens if we give more time and energy towards staying in a non-outcome driven state? I’m very appreciative that you and I exercise a lot of patience and curiosity to stay in a present and open state. That wasn’t always easy for me to do at times and you helped me a lot to get there.

Paul: You need to seek out the flow and get away from your individual self as much as you can. That’s the experience I had with you.

I let go of immediate concerns and enter into dream time. When I can get into that state, the unexpected and surprising always happens.

Jamie: Yes, it was helpful for me to have a method of getting into that space of dream time. Meditation, breath work, and dream analysis has really helped me access this space. Art-making of course is another way of entering into nonlinear time.

Language is also important. What words do we choose to speak in our mind to get out of our own way? Each person has to do their part in making powerful decisions about how they speak to themselves and to others. The focus needs to be centred on the collective experience and not an individual experience. More ‘us/we’ and less ‘me/I’.

Paul Waters, Warrior Woman, oil on cut cotton collage on canvas, 36h x 30w in

Jamie Nami Kim, New Life, cut paper on paper, 24h x 26w in

Paul: People need to be honest and that’s very hard. There’s a fear we all carry. Everybody wants to be accepted. People place barriers between themselves and other people out of fear and instead of getting closer, they end up further away. Shutting down and creating barriers is an indication that you don’t have enough love with yourself. Love is central in the picture of collaboration.

And it should be fun!

Jamie: Yes! If you start to feel it’s not fun, then you gotta ask yourself what’s going on?

Not feeling joy is a signal that there’s something you need to work out. It doesn’t mean it’s over. It just probably means there’s something that hasn’t been said or something that hasn’t been heard. So conversation is really important throughout the entire process. Open dialogue, open channels both with yourself and the people you are collaborating with.

Paul: Feedback is also very important. Listening and digesting what’s being shared is part of the process of creating. I learned to feel free enough in myself to accept criticism. I cultivated humility by taking time to understand myself and embrace myself. The more you love yourself, the more people will love you. I heard that as a child. Makes a lot of sense.

Humbleness is a part of humility. Humbleness is to embrace sensitivities. Appreciating what’s around you, appreciating the strengths of commitment and respecting others and their emotions.

What do you love about collaboration?

Jamie: Everybody has a story. Collaboration allows us to express our stories by celebrating the humility and humanity behind each story. At the core, our stories are the same.

It’s very exciting to witness each other bringing our own experiences and wisdom into a collaboration. There’s such a deep level of satisfaction and celebration that happens when you collectively make decisions and collectively determine that something is complete.

I love the sparkle that happens when we are in sync—it’s a real “yeah!” feeling that is large and energising and feels so good to share. It’s the feeling that anything is possible when we do it together.

Paul: Collaboration is a wonderful learning experience. More specifically, I think intergenerational relationships are very important because of the exchange of language and interpretation which is not only healthy but also a very large measuring tool. Learning how to talk to different generations has helped me to grow and learn more. I think generational differences create fear and hesitation in people because of those differences. And that’s a bad omen. So for me it’s been a great learning tool to see how you fit into the great and changing cultural dynamics.

Jamie Nami Kim and Paul Waters Recommend:

Stay true to yourself. Have happiness doing what you love.

Be kind. Be graceful.

Celebrate happiness. Enjoy loving.

Make art. Relish the creative part of you.

Be love. Love and accept love.

Paul Waters and Jamie Nami Kim sketching Twins

Paul Waters and Jamie Nami Kim, Twins, oil on cut cotton collage on canvas, 36h x 48w in

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Jamie Nami Kim and Paul Waters.

45 Ways Ottawa Could Push Peace, Justice for Palestinians

Yves Engler — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 14:14:56 +0000

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals now say they oppose Israel’s onslaught on Rafah, want a ceasefire in Gaza and that they are no longer offering permits for new arms shipments to Israel. But this rhetorical shift doesn’t reflect a commitment to peace and justice for Palestinians. If the Trudeau government truly believed in international law and fair treatment of Palestinians, here’s 45 easy moves Ottawa could make to stop enabling Israel’s holocaust in Gaza:

Use the word “slaughter”, “crime”, “massacre”, “butchery”, “carnage”, “ecocide”, “genocide” or “holocaust” to describe Israel’s operations in Gaza.
Announce that Ottawa will enforce its obligations as party to the International Criminal Court by arresting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yaov Gallant if a warrant is issued.
Task the Department of Justice and RCMP Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program to investigate Canadians currently fighting in the Israeli military. Considering the wanton destruction in Gaza, it’s hard to imagine that someone fighting there hasn’t committed war crimes.
Issue a notice to exporters declarating that arm permits for Israel are paused.
Follow the recent recommendation of UN experts and over 140 countries — including Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Norway recently — recognizing Palestine.
Mention the 9,000 Palestinians Israel’s taken hostages since October 7.
Add Israel to the list of countries investigated in the ongoing Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions.
Stop providing millions of dollars in grants to Canada’s Jewish federations, which have formal ties to the para-statal Jewish Agency for Israel and sponsor the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
Direct the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to investigate registered Canadian charities that may be contravening CRA regulations by supporting illegal West Bank settlements.
Announce that Canada won’t buy any arms “field tested” on Palestinians.
Pause all direct arm sales to Israel irrespective if the permits were requested before January.
Denounce Israel’s killing of 140 journalists over the past eight months.
Restrict Canadian firms that sell components or full weapons systems to the US from subsequently being sent on to the Israeli military.
Pause any CSIS spying on Palestinians for Israel.
End government grants for bilateral industrial-military research
Announce that the Israeli military is no longer welcome to train in Cold Lake Alberta or elsewhere in Canada.
Criticize any US vetoing of UN Security Council resolutions defending Palestians.
Denounce Israel’s poisoning of the air and water in Gaza.
End the Department of National Defence’s Defence Research and Development Canada financing and collaboration with Israeli partners and initiatives.
Direct the CRA to investigate registered charities contravening the CRA rule against “supporting the armed forces of another country” by assisting Israel’s military.
Join Spain, Ireland, Mexico, Chile, Egypt, Turkey and other countries that have announced that they will participate in South Africa’s International Court of Justice case against Israel’s genocide.
End the military’s Operation Proteus training and assistance initiative of the Palestinian force overseeing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
Pause Canadian military intelligence sharing with Israel.
Ask the CRA to conduct enhanced reviews of all foreign income for property or businesses owned in Israel and its occupied territories.
End any border security arrangement Ottawa has with Israel.
Announce a finance committee hearing into taxpayers subsidizing over a quarter billion dollars a year in donations to Israel. Is it right for all Canadians to pay a share of some individuals’ donations to a country with a GDP equal to Canada’s?
Bar Israeli military suppliers from Canadian military testing exercises.
Pause any Communications Security Establishment spying on Palestinians for Israel.
Impose sanctions on Israel’s settlement economy through Canada’s Special Economic Measures Act, particularly on individuals and entities involved in Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank.
Instruct the Canadian Border Services Agency to deny entry to any foreign national owning property in an illegal Israeli settlement or outpost.
Direct the CRA to investigate registered Canadian charities that may be contravening existing CRA regulations by supporting explicitly racist Israeli organizations.
Mention Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’tselem conclusion that Israel has long committed the crime of apartheid.
Remove the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine from Canada’s list of terrorist entities.
Denounce Israel’s destruction of nearly half of Gaza’s agricultural land and tree crops.
Remove from the terrorist list the Canadian-based International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy, which was listed because it supported orphans and a hospital in Gaza through official (Hamas controlled) channels.
Launch a review of Canada’s criminalization of Palestinian political life, particularly why over 10 percent of Canada’s terrorism list is made up of organizations headquartered in a long-occupied land representing one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population.
Denounce Israel’s killing of 190 UN workers over the past eight months.
Apologize to Palestinians for Canada’s sizeable contribution to the unjust UN Partition Plan, which called for the division of Palestine into ethnically segregated states and gave most of the land to the newly arrived minority. As Global Affairs officials warned privately in 1947, the Canadian-shaped roadmap would lead to decades of conflict.
Cancel the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement or, at minimum, exclude products from the occupied West Bank.
Rescind adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is designed to undermine free speech and legitimate expressions of opposition to Israeli colonial violence.
Apologize for supporting the colonial Balfour Declaration and sending Canadians to help the British conquer Palestine.
Allow the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to accurately label wines produced in the occupied West Bank.
Eliminate the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, which was created to deflect criticism from Israeli apartheid and is acting as a tool to promote genocide.
State publicly that any inducement or recruitment for the Israeli military in Canada contravenes the Foreign Enlistment Act and must be investigated.
Support all UN resolutions backed by most nations that uphold Palestinian rights.

Most of the above demands are not radical. They aren’t, for instance, as bold as Türkiye’s recent ban on trade with Israel, Colombia cutting off coal exports or the Maldives blocking Israeli passport holders from entering their country. In many cases it’s simply a matter of upholding Canadian and international law.

The post 45 Ways Ottawa Could Push Peace, Justice for Palestinians first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Yves Engler.

45 Ways Ottawa Could Push Peace, Justice for Palestinians

Yves Engler — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 14:14:56 +0000

Use the word “slaughter”, “crime”, “massacre”, “butchery”, “carnage”, “ecocide”, “genocide” or “holocaust” to describe Israel’s operations in Gaza.
Announce that Ottawa will enforce its obligations as party to the International Criminal Court by arresting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yaov Gallant if a warrant is issued.
Task the Department of Justice and RCMP Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program to investigate Canadians currently fighting in the Israeli military. Considering the wanton destruction in Gaza, it’s hard to imagine that someone fighting there hasn’t committed war crimes.
Issue a notice to exporters declarating that arm permits for Israel are paused.
Follow the recent recommendation of UN experts and over 140 countries — including Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Norway recently — recognizing Palestine.
Mention the 9,000 Palestinians Israel’s taken hostages since October 7.
Add Israel to the list of countries investigated in the ongoing Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions.
Stop providing millions of dollars in grants to Canada’s Jewish federations, which have formal ties to the para-statal Jewish Agency for Israel and sponsor the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
Direct the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to investigate registered Canadian charities that may be contravening CRA regulations by supporting illegal West Bank settlements.
Announce that Canada won’t buy any arms “field tested” on Palestinians.
Pause all direct arm sales to Israel irrespective if the permits were requested before January.
Denounce Israel’s killing of 140 journalists over the past eight months.
Restrict Canadian firms that sell components or full weapons systems to the US from subsequently being sent on to the Israeli military.
Pause any CSIS spying on Palestinians for Israel.
End government grants for bilateral industrial-military research
Announce that the Israeli military is no longer welcome to train in Cold Lake Alberta or elsewhere in Canada.
Criticize any US vetoing of UN Security Council resolutions defending Palestians.
Denounce Israel’s poisoning of the air and water in Gaza.
End the Department of National Defence’s Defence Research and Development Canada financing and collaboration with Israeli partners and initiatives.
Direct the CRA to investigate registered charities contravening the CRA rule against “supporting the armed forces of another country” by assisting Israel’s military.
Join Spain, Ireland, Mexico, Chile, Egypt, Turkey and other countries that have announced that they will participate in South Africa’s International Court of Justice case against Israel’s genocide.
End the military’s Operation Proteus training and assistance initiative of the Palestinian force overseeing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
Pause Canadian military intelligence sharing with Israel.
Ask the CRA to conduct enhanced reviews of all foreign income for property or businesses owned in Israel and its occupied territories.
End any border security arrangement Ottawa has with Israel.
Announce a finance committee hearing into taxpayers subsidizing over a quarter billion dollars a year in donations to Israel. Is it right for all Canadians to pay a share of some individuals’ donations to a country with a GDP equal to Canada’s?
Bar Israeli military suppliers from Canadian military testing exercises.
Pause any Communications Security Establishment spying on Palestinians for Israel.
Impose sanctions on Israel’s settlement economy through Canada’s Special Economic Measures Act, particularly on individuals and entities involved in Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank.
Instruct the Canadian Border Services Agency to deny entry to any foreign national owning property in an illegal Israeli settlement or outpost.
Direct the CRA to investigate registered Canadian charities that may be contravening existing CRA regulations by supporting explicitly racist Israeli organizations.
Mention Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’tselem conclusion that Israel has long committed the crime of apartheid.
Remove the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine from Canada’s list of terrorist entities.
Denounce Israel’s destruction of nearly half of Gaza’s agricultural land and tree crops.
Remove from the terrorist list the Canadian-based International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy, which was listed because it supported orphans and a hospital in Gaza through official (Hamas controlled) channels.
Launch a review of Canada’s criminalization of Palestinian political life, particularly why over 10 percent of Canada’s terrorism list is made up of organizations headquartered in a long-occupied land representing one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population.
Denounce Israel’s killing of 190 UN workers over the past eight months.
Apologize to Palestinians for Canada’s sizeable contribution to the unjust UN Partition Plan, which called for the division of Palestine into ethnically segregated states and gave most of the land to the newly arrived minority. As Global Affairs officials warned privately in 1947, the Canadian-shaped roadmap would lead to decades of conflict.
Cancel the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement or, at minimum, exclude products from the occupied West Bank.
Rescind adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which is designed to undermine free speech and legitimate expressions of opposition to Israeli colonial violence.
Apologize for supporting the colonial Balfour Declaration and sending Canadians to help the British conquer Palestine.
Allow the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to accurately label wines produced in the occupied West Bank.
Eliminate the Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, which was created to deflect criticism from Israeli apartheid and is acting as a tool to promote genocide.
State publicly that any inducement or recruitment for the Israeli military in Canada contravenes the Foreign Enlistment Act and must be investigated.
Support all UN resolutions backed by most nations that uphold Palestinian rights.

The post 45 Ways Ottawa Could Push Peace, Justice for Palestinians first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Yves Engler.

UK professor condemns own university over collaboration with oil giant

Ben Webster — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 09:27:50 +0000

Southampton University slammed after openDemocracy uncovered its involvement in Exxon’s ‘greenwashing’ project

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Ben Webster.

Germany confirms its collaboration with genocide

Rick Sterling — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 23:19:02 +0000

The photo is a screen shot from Press TV showing a demo protest against the shutdown of the conference.

A three day Palestine conference in Berlin was forcibly shut down after three hours on Friday. Electricity was abruptly terminated in the midst of the presentation by Salman Abu Sitta, the 87 year old author of the authoritative “Atlas of Palestine”.

Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of DIEM25, Yanis Varoufakis, was prevented from entering Germany to attend the conference. He went on Twitter/X to send a message:

Do you know that the German Interior Ministry has just banned me from entering Germany? Indeed if that were not enough, I have been banned from talking to you via zoom, or indeed through a video message like this, exactly like this. The threat being that I will be tried in Germany for breaking German law. Why? Because of a speech that I published yesterday on my blog calling for universal human rights in Israel- Palestine …. So my question to my German friends, to Germans in general whether you agree with me or not doesn’t matter. … Is this (banning) in your name? Is it something that you feel comfortable happening in your democracy? From my perspective this is essentially the death knell of the prospects of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Another banned guest speaker was UK citizen Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah. He reported on Twitter/X:

I have just returned from Germany where I was prevented from entering the country for attending a conference in Germany to give evidence on the war in Gaza and my witness statement as a doctor working in its hospitals. This morning at 10 I landed in Berlin to attend a conference on Palestine where I had been asked … to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both Shifa and al-Ahli Hospital. Upon arrival I was stopped at the passport office. I was then escorted down to the basement of the airport where I was questioned for around 3.5 hours. At the end of 3.5 hours I was told that I will not be allowed to enter German soil and that this ban will last the whole of April. Not just that … if I were to try to link up by Zoom or Facetime with the conference even if I were outside Germany or if I were to send a video of my lecture to the conference in Berlin, then that would constitute a breach of German law and that I would endanger myself to have a fine or even up to a year in prison.

Dr. Abu Sitta further commented:

Germany is defending itself against Nicaraguan charges that it is an accomplice to genocidal war as described by the International Court of Justice. This is exactly what accomplices to a crime do. They bury the evidence and they silence or harass or intimidate the witnesses. …. This crackdown on free speech is a dangerous precedent… We are watching the first genocide unfold in the 21^st Century and for Germany to become implicated as an accomplice in silencing the witnesses of this genocide does not bode well for the rest of the century.

A large contingent of police invaded the conference and shut off the electricity. Organizers told the reported 250 conference attendees to not provoke the police to violence. Afterward, organizers held a press conference reporting on the behaviour of police before and during the crackdown. Even before the conference, police tried to intimidate supporters of the conference and the owner of the conference venue. They threatened the venue owner might not be able to hold events in future if the conference went ahead. An organizer asked, “Are these the methods of the mafia or democracy?”

Western and Israeli media reported the closure was to prevent “anti semitism” or “hatred of Israel”. On this dubious and hypothetical basis, public education about a real ongoing massacre and mass starvation was made illegal.

The post Germany confirms its collaboration with genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Rick Sterling.

COP28 Presidency Unveils new ‘Alterra’ $30 Billion Renewable Energy Fund in Collaboration with BlackRock and Brookfield

Newswire Editor — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 15:09:32 +0000

In an announcement today, the COP28 Presidency with investment giants BlackRock and Brookfield announced to establish a $30 billion fund dedicated to renewable energy in Emerging and Developing Economies. While scaling up investment in renewables is much needed, 350.org raises concerns regarding the accuracy of fund claims and the absence of critical safeguards against potentially harmful investments.

“In the pursuit of a greener tomorrow, we must scrutinize the COP28 fund’s bold claims. While in principle a step in the right direction, we would need to check that the claims by the presidency are not overblown. It seems that safeguards against dangerous distractions and projects that harm communities are missing” says Andreas Sieber, Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns of 350.org

The majority of the $30 billion fund is expected to operate at market rates rather than through concessional finance or grants – a financial approach deemed essential for the substantial upscaling of renewable deployment in the Global South.

Presently, the fund stands at a mere $6.5 billion, not $30bn and is only “expected” to attract additional funds, leaving the timeline for achieving the full “commitment” of $30 billion unclear. Of the total sum, $5 billion is planned to be designated for “risk mitigation capital,” in principle a positive step. Yet, this can be expected to come in the form of concessional loans which can help in particular to unlock private capital. However, 350.org expresses apprehension about the lack of safeguards to prevent the accumulation of unsustainable debt, for both market rate and concessional finance instruments.

“What we can take at face value right now is a fund of $6.5bn which will lend at market rates ‘for global investments, including the Global South’ – this isn’t wrong per se, but as such not a game changer and certainly not an adequate response to the financing needs of countries in the Global South” says Andreas Sieber, Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns of 350.org

While acknowledging the potential of concessional loans to attract additional private investment, 350.org questions the bold claim of unlocking $250 billion by 2030, deeming it potentially exaggerated and urging a closer examination of the fund’s feasibility.

The composition of the fund’s leadership raises further concerns, with three out of four members having a documented history of involvement in fossil fuel investments or having led fossil fuel companies. This has prompted 350.org to highlight concerns about the potential exclusion of essential renewable investments, such as Carbon Capture and Storage, and the need for a strategic shift away from fossil fuel-related endeavors.

350.org calls for a transparent and comprehensive assessment of the fund’s governance, ensuring it aligns with principles of responsible and ethical investment to effectively drive the transition towards a sustainable, green energy future.

Zaki Mamdoo, 350.org Campaign Coordinator, StopEACOP said:

“History shows that when rich countries extract fossil fuels in poorer countries there are usually consequences, like worsening social and economic inequalities on top of deepening the climate crisis. 30 billion USD of climate funds managed by the likes of these companies risk replicating the same systems that worsen inequalities. We must support affordable and energy-saving solutions.

We also need to put decision-making power in the hands of the many, instead of bankers. People should be actively involved in making decisions. Community-centered, community-led, and community-owned wind and solar energy projects are the models that will bring us to an energy transition rooted in justice.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The problems with Ukraine’s wartime collaboration law

Igor Burdyga — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 11:50:16 +0000

Politicians want to amend the new law on collaboration to make it fairer to people living in occupied areas

This content originally appeared on openDemocracy RSS and was authored by Igor Burdyga.

Latest Island Studies journal features social justice activism and advocacy

APR editor — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 11:04:40 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

A new edition of the Okinawan Journal of Island Studies features social justice island activism, including a case study of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific Media Centre, in what the editors say brings a sense of “urgency” in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion in scholarship.

In the editorial, the co-editors — Tiara R. Na’puti, Marina Karides, Ayano Ginoza, Evangelia Papoutsaki — describe this special issue of the journal as being guided by feminist methods of collaboration.

They say their call for research on social justice island activism has brought forth an issue that centres on the perspectives of Indigenous islanders and women.

READ MORE: Other Okinawan Journal of Island Studies articles

“Our collection contains disciplinary and interdisciplinary research papers, a range of contributions in our forum section (essays, curated conversations, reflection pieces, and photo essays), and book reviews centred on island activist events and activities organised locally, nationally, or globally,” the editorial says.

“We are particularly pleased with our forum section; its development offers alternative forms of scholarship that combine elements of research, activism, and reflection.

“Our editorial objective has been to make visible diverse approaches for conceptualising island activisms as a category of analysis.

‘Complexity and nuance’
“The selections of writing here offer complexity and nuance as to how activism shapes and is shaped by island eco-cultures and islanders’ lives.”

The co-editors argue that “activisms encompass multiple ways that people engage in social change, including art, poetry, photographs, spoken word, language revitalisation, education, farming, building, cultural events, protests, and other activities locally and through larger networks or movements”.

Thus this edition of OJIS brings together island activisms that “inform, negotiate, and resist geopolitical designations” often applied to them.

Geographically, the islands featured in papers include Papua New Guinea, Prince Edward Island, and the island groups of Kanaky, Okinawa, and Fiji.

Among the articles, Meghan Forsyth’s ‘La langue vient de la musique’: Acadian song, language transmission, and cultural sustainability on Prince Edward Island engagingly examines the “sonic activism” of the Francophone community in Canada’s Prince Edward Island.

“Also focused on visibility and access, David Robie’s article ‘Voice of the Voiceless’: The Pacific Media Centre as a case study of academic and research advocacy and activism substantiates the need for bringing forward journalistic attention to the Pacific,” says the editorial.

Dr Robie emphasises the need for critical and social justice perspectives in addressing the socio-political struggles in Fiji and environmental justice in the Pacific broadly, say the co-editors.

In the article My words have power: The role of Yuri women in addressing sorcery violence in Simbu province of Papua New Guinea, Dick Witne Bomai shares the progress of the Yuri Alaiku Kuikane Association (YAKA) in advocacy and peacebuilding.

In ‘La Pause Décoloniale’: Women decolonising Kanaky one episode at a time, Anaïs Duong-Pedica, “provides a discussion of French settler colonialism and the challenges around formal decolonisation processes in Kanaky”.

Inclusive feminist thinking
The article engages with “women’s political activism and collaborative practice” of the podcast and radio show La Pause Décoloniale.

The co-editors say the edition’s forum section is a result of “inclusive feminist thinking to make space for a range of approaches combining scholarship and activism”.

They comment that the “abundance of submissions to this section demonstrates the desire for academic outlets that stray from traditional models of scholarship”.

“Feminist and Indigenous scholar-activists seem especially inclined towards alternative avenues for expressing and sharing their research,” the coeditors add.

Eight books are reviewed, including New Zealand’s Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia, edited by Valerie Morse.

The full OJIS edition

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Rabuka’s message to the nation: ‘I am the PM of Fiji and all its people’

Pacific Media Watch — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 04:04:28 +0000

By Naveel Krishant in Suva

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says he is the prime minister for the whole of Fiji and all of its people.

In an interview with Fijivillage News, Rabuka said he would like everybody to have a happy New Year and not worry too much about the changes that they think this new government would bring in.

He said the biggest change was that they could have a “happy new year”.

Rabuka said the legacy of his previous leadership was his ability to work with opposition parties to formulate the 1997 constitution.

He added that this time he would like to continue that effort to work across the floor of Parliament and across the political divide in Fiji.

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka’s interview with Fijivillage News.

The multicultural makeup of Fiji’s 903,000 population is about 65 percent iTaukei Fijians, 30 percent Indo-Fijians, and 5 percent “others” including those of other Pacific Islander ethnicities and Europeans.

‘Citizens’ assembly’ plan
FBC News reports that Rabuka announced in his national address that a “citizens’ assembly” would be convened for consultations on a coalition manifesto review.

Rabuka said this would involve Fijians from all walks of life to add to the manifesto and vision statements of the ruling People’s Alliance, National Federation Party, and the Social Democratic Liberal Party (Sodelpa) coalition.

He said the assembly would seek ideas and concepts from delegates to complement the government’s plans for building a better, more prosperous, and happier nation.

Rabuka said the coalition government intended to establish specialist reviews in four key areas:

“The constitution and legal reform, the economy, defence, and national security and a forensic examination of the spending of the FijiFirst government.

“Each review team will include people with expert knowledge. The teams will report to the appropriate cabinet member, Of course, a looming issue is the state of Fiji’s public finances.

“The government debt may be now above $10 billion.”

The citizen’s assembly is part of the coalition government’s plan for the first 100 days.

Promise of ‘united Fiji’
RNZ Pacific reports that Rabuka’s inaugural address to the nation was delivered to the people of Fiji via the state’s social media channels.

Rabuka, the instigator of two military coups in 1987, has assumed the role of head of government for the second time in his political career, after being prime minister between 1992 and 1999.

Fijian voters voted out Voreqe Bainimarama’s FijiFirst after two terms in power, signalling their appetite for change. He was also a coup leader, in 2006.

Rabuka’s message to his fellow citizens was one promising a better and united Fiji for all.

“Our country is experiencing a great and joyful awakening,” he said.

“It gladdens my heart to be a part of it. And I am reminded of the heavy responsibilities I now bear.”

Apart from being prime minister, Rabuka is also responsible for foreign affairs, climate change, environment, civil service, information and public enterprises, and leads a cabinet made up of 19 ministers, as well as 10 assistant ministers.

He accepts that his cabinet is “larger than I initially planned.”

Parliamentarian pay cuts
“Some of you [Fijian people] will be concerned about the cost,” he said.

But he offered his assurance to the people that he would take the necessary actions to cut costs, beginning with cuts to parliamentarians’ paycheques.

“In a democracy, the people are in charge,” Rabuka said.

“Elected representatives like me, and my parliamentary colleagues, do not lord it over you. We are your servants. We are here to listen to your concerns and respect your views.”

In his speech he set out the direction the Rabuka’s People’s Alliance-National Federation Party-Social Democratic Liberal Party coalition government will be headed.

Naveel Krishant is a Fijivillage News reporter. This article drawing on Fijivillage, FBC News and RNZ Pacific is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

User Group Pie: The Folly of Collaboration

Howie Wolke — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 06:50:14 +0000

With encouragement from both corporate foundations and the U.S. Forest Service, many “conservation groups” have adopted the collaboration model for conflict resolution. In each of these collaborations, local wilderness proponents and opponents negotiate the fate of our remaining unprotected wildlands. The general public is excluded in favor of “local stakeholders”, even though public lands “belong” More

The post User Group Pie: The Folly of Collaboration appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Howie Wolke.

Honiara doesn’t want to be forced to choose sides, says Foreign Minister

APR editor — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 06:50:04 +0000

RNZ Pacific

Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele says the country joined an agreement with the United States only after changes to wording relating to China.

He said the country did not want to be forced to choose sides, and the Pacific should be seen as a region of peace and cooperation.

Manele was in Wellington today for an official meeting with his New Zealand counterpart Nanaia Mahuta, and was welcomed to Parliament with a pōwhiri today.

READ MORE: Climate change gets ‘highest priority’ in US, Pacific agreement

Solomon Islands has been a central focus in discussions over partnerships and security in the region after it signed a partnership agreement with China in April.

After a draft of the agreement was leaked in March, New Zealand had described it as “gravely concerning”, but the full text of the final document has never been made public.

The US has been working to contain China’s growing influence with Pacific countries, and last week brought leaders of 12 Pacific nations to Washington DC for two days with the aim of finalising a new Pacific strategy with a joint declaration of partnership.

Solomon Islands had initially refused to sign the declaration, which covered 11 areas of cooperation, but later agreed after a requirement for Pacific Island states to consult with each other before signing security deals with regional impacts was removed.

Decision clarified
Manele clarified that decision when questioned by reporters this afternoon.

“In the initial draft there were some references that we were not comfortable with, but then the officials under the discussions and negotiations … were able to find common ground, and then that took us on board, so we signed,” he said.

Asked what specifically they were uncomfortable with, he confirmed it related to indirect references to China.

“There was some references that put us in a position that we would have to choose sides, and we don’t want to be placed in a position that we have to choose sides.”

He said the Solomons’ agreement with China was domestically focused and did not include provision for a military base.

“My belief … and my hope is this — that the Pacific should be a region of peace, of co-operation and collaboration, and it should not be seen as a region of confrontation, of conflict and of war,” he said.

“And of course we are guided by the existing regional security arrangements that we have in place — and these are the Biketawa declaration as well as the Boe declaration.

US re-engagement welcomed
“We welcome the US re-engagement with the Pacific and we look forward to working with all our partners.”

After securing its partnership agreement, US officials acknowledged they had let the relationship with Pacific nations “drift” in recent years, and there was more work to do.

A pōwhiri for Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele at Parliament today. Image: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ

Manele said he was “delighted” to be in Aotearoa for the first time in about eight years, after his previous plans to visit two years ago were put on hold by the covid-19 pandemic.

He thanked New Zealand for support in helping manage and contain the virus, including with vaccines and medical equipment.

Manele said the discussion between the ministers covered the RSE scheme, the need to review the air services agreement, the 2050 Blue Pacific strategy, and maritime security.

He was keen to stress the importance of increased flights between New Zealand and Solomon Islands.

“I think this is important, we are tasking our officials to start a conversation, we’ll be writing formally to the government of New Zealand to review the air services agreement that we have between our two countries,” he said.

Boost for business, tourism
“This will not only facilitate the RSE scheme but I hope will also facilitate the movement of investors and business people and general tourism.”

The country was also hopeful of more diplomatic engagement with New Zealand.

“Not only at the officials level but also at the ministerial level and at the leaders level, and your Prime Minister has an invitation to my Prime Minister to visit New Zealand in the near future, and my Prime Minister is looking forward to visiting.”

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta welcomes Jeremiah Manele at Parliament today. Image: Samuel Rillstone/RNZ

Increased engagement would be required, he said, from all Pacific Island Forum partners, including Australia and New Zealand, to tackle climate change in line with the Blue Pacific Continent 2050 strategy agreed at the most recent Forum meeting in Fiji.

Both Manele and Mahuta highlighted climate change as the greatest threat to security in the region.

He was to attend a roundtable discussion with New Zealand business leaders this evening.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

PODCAST: The electronic sounds of pan-African collaboration

UN News/ Conor Lennon — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 20:21:44 +0000

Uganda’s status as a refuge has seen large numbers escaping conflict in neighbouring and nearby countries, in particular South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and living in relative safety.

Whilst many are living in refugee camps administered by the UN in the north of the country, such as the Bidi Bidi settlement, others have made their way to the capital, Kampala, and some are making an impact on Uganda’s alternative music scene.

Conor Lennon from UN News visited the headquarters of the Nyege Nyege record label in Kampala, which hosts a range of strikingly original artists from several countries, many of whom live on-site and collaborate with other musicians, whilst they develop their style, working towards critical and financial success.

Music: Ketsa, Within the Earth

This content originally appeared on UN News and was authored by UN News/ Conor Lennon.

FNU formalises ‘exciting’ real world collaboration with Auckland Uni

APR editor — Mon, 09 May 2022 21:55:08 +0000

The Fiji Times

The Fiji National University and the University of Auckland have formalised their partnership through a memorandum of understanding that encourages academic cooperation between the two institutions.

FNU acting vice-chancellor Dr William May said the collaboration was another opportunity to strengthen the longstanding relationship between the two universities in education and capacity building.

“I’m pleased to note that as per our action plan over the course of our five-year Strategic Plan (2021-2026), FNU intends to conduct research on national issues and priorities and build teaching and research partnerships with regional universities,” he said.

READ MORE: Other FNU reports

“This aligns with one of our key pillars of conducting research with real-world impact, and … regarding our regional outlook and engagement.”

“I am happy to learn that this MOU has been long-time coming … discussions regarding the partnership were initiated almost three years ago, a time before covid-19. This was spearheaded by our College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences’, [which] were driven by the need for staff capacity-building.”

Dr May said that as the engagement and cooperation between the two tertiary bodies developed, the need for an official agreement was evident.

“We have both committed to at least four areas of collaboration, which are the exchange of materials, publications and information; cooperation between professors and research staff; student mobility; and joint research and meetings for research,” he said.

Exchange of knowledge
“Through this academic cooperation, we look forward to the exchange of knowledge and skills between our students and staff and their Kiwi counterparts. FNU stands ready to provide the necessary support to ensure that both parties equally benefit from this official collaboration for many years to come.”

University of Auckland Department of Paediatrics associate professor Stephen Howie said they were excited to extend and enhance the partnership between both universities.

“The MOU is a way to formalise all of the work that the University of Auckland and FNU will do together moving forward,” he said.

“It also opens the door for wider relationship-building as it is an institution to institution agreement rather than faculty to faculty, so it brings with it huge potential.”

“This is a concrete expression of the university’s Taumata Teitei vision for partnership in the Pacific region.”

As an alumni of the former Fiji School of Medicine, University of Auckland associate dean Pacific Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, associate professor Collin Tukuitonga spoke via Zoom and said he was also excited about what the partnership meant for the region and for both universities.

“Fiji School of Medicine has been producing doctors and health workers for the region and is an icon, so to be able to align to share and support each other is fantastic,” Dr Tukuitonga said.

FNU now has campuses and centres at 40 locations throughout the country, running a total of about 300 different courses and programmes with a staff complement of 2000 and a student enrolment of around 26,000.

Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Musician Christian Lee Hutson on collaboration and community

Jess Focht — Mon, 02 May 2022 07:00:00 +0000

I’m not only a fan of your music, but your lyrics specifically. How did you initially get into songwriting?

Embarrassingly, I really loved Weird Al when I was a kid. One of my friends at school had a Weird Al CD and he gave it to me, and I didn’t really understand that it was parody music. I thought that he wrote all those songs. And I was like, dude, this guy’s incredible. He can do anything. And then years later I realized those are parodies of popular songs.

It took me a while to understand his songwriting and humor, but it’s interesting you mentioned him because something I was curious about is your ability to be both funny and sad at the same time. Do you think there’s something about your music writing process that helps you heal or work through things by making fun of it or poking fun at it?

Yeah, I think so. My mom has a kind of self-effacing sense of humor and any time things get a little too serious or whatever, she’ll just kind of make fun of how heavy and serious they seem. I think that is some kind of coping mechanism that we all need to be able to laugh at it a little bit in order to get through it.

Back to songwriting, can you speak to how that and your creative processes have evolved over the years?

I think that I have gotten a little bit more relaxed about it and have given myself more time. When I was younger, I used to frantically write as much as I possibly could and was rushing to finish things. And one of the things, at least about the process of doing it now, is I’ll give things a lot of space to breathe. And if something doesn’t need to be done today, I would just take more time to work on things and not try to force something to come out just to do it.

Do you have any other creative outlets?

I write. I’ll just write little stories from my life and stuff like that. When I was a kid, I really wanted to be a novelist and I just kind of never pursued that. I journal and write. It’s less restricted than writing songs, where I can get more ideas about. And then sometimes I’ll even pull from those little pieces and be like, oh, that actually would be a really good lyric.

I also am a big fan of your covers and your play on words with how you write about pain and sadness in a funny way. I love that there’s a certain irony to them, especially with songs like “Dancing Queen,” but I really like it when artists take songs that are more well-known or more upbeat and make them quieter and more reflective, which I think you did really well there. So I was curious about the process behind that–were you doing it unintentionally, or were you looking to poke at the irony there?

Not totally. I was aware that some of them were kind of funny, but the real intention when I started doing it was during early COVID when I was just trying to keep my mind active and a way of doing that was by covering songs that I liked or songs that would get stuck in my head all the time, and try to do one a day. I feel like there’s probably like 100 of them over those first 100 days of COVID. And then we just chose the ones that came out the best.

I wasn’t necessarily trying to be ironic. But I was aware, I guess. I think the first one we did was for a charity compilation and I did a Sum 41 cover. I was like, okay, yeah, this is funny to do an acoustic-sounding Sum 41 cover.

I know you collaborate a lot with your friends who are also musicians like Phoebe Bridgers, Ethan Gruska, and Marshall Vore. What is most helpful or unhelpful about working with others and just collaborating in general?

Being comfortable. I definitely collaborate best with people that I know well on a personal level, because it seems like the most important part of being collaborative is being willing to sound stupid and have bad ideas. That’s the only way to get to the good ideas. I’ve been in plenty of writing sessions with people I don’t know very well, where I’m afraid to look stupid, and they generally don’t pan out that well because I’m too self-conscious. But with Ethan or Marshall or Phoebe, it’s very easy to work with them because I know that they don’t think I’m stupid, but we can all have a dumb idea and that’s how we get to the good ones.

It seems like there has to be a foundation of trust, for sure.

Yeah, definitely. It’s because it’s scary to say your big idea. The fear is always you’re going to leave the room or whatever and then the person going to be like, “Wow, what a fucking idiot.” [laughs]

Do you usually prefer collaboration?

It depends on the mood. Sometimes I’ll work on something and I’m able to get it all done and to where I want it just by myself. Other times, it’s like if there’s a person around or it’s a block, a place where I get stuck, or a place where someone else gets stuck on a song, then it is nice to have someone else to just support you to think about things in a different way.

So I don’t know if I prefer one or the other, but it’s definitely really satisfying to come up with something with your friends that feels like it belongs to everyone instead of just this thing banged out by yourself.

And they also have their own solo stuff. Do you think that it’s inspiring to be in a group or in a circle that’s constantly making music?

Absolutely. I feel like that’s one of the main reasons that it’s still fun to write songs. The main thing that I’m trying to do is ask myself, “How do I write a song that will impress Phoebe or Conor or Marshall and make them laugh?” It is really useful to write for an audience of one or two people as opposed to just always an audience of yourself. I think it’s not helpful at all to write for a large audience or whatever. You kind of step on your own toes in that way.

For young musicians who are trying to share their work or have their work seen in this day and age, what’s your advice?

I don’t know if I have advice for how to get seen, and maybe this is naive or something, but I believe if you are making work that you like and that your friends like, the best thing you can do is just keep your head down and keep doing it and then it will always find the people that it’s supposed to. I believe that good songs and good art always find the right audience. I would say don’t tweak anything to try and make it fit what you think is happening right now, if that makes sense.

I think there’s so much that’s continually evolving right now with streaming and social media and stuff like that. And it seems like young, or up-and-coming artists are trying to balance all of that as well, especially maybe if they’re more introverted and don’t want to be as present on those platforms. But I do agree with you, it seems like kind of being true to yourself and your craft will help appeal to the right audience.

I think it’s definitely true. I don’t think that you necessarily even need to be totally on social media, and in some ways, for the people who aren’t, it makes me like them even more because they’re sort of mysterious for it. I think that people are attracted to things that are confidently themselves, whatever that version of you is, leaning into that is the best thing that you can do for yourself, because I know at least for me, when I listen to music, it’s very easy to tell who is just really, truly doing them. And no matter what it is, that’s the kind of music that I like. It’s not a specific genre, it’s just people that are being their weird selves.

You write a lot about LA, and I love the “this city’s full of quitters” line in “Rubberneckers.” I know that the city is known for being a place that people go to be in certain scenes, or maybe be famous or “make it” in some way. So I think it’s interesting how you paint it in a different way, or a more nuanced way. Can you speak to LA’s influence on your creativity and songwriting at all?

Yeah. I mean, I’ve lived in LA most of my life and I grew up there. And it is a really funny place. When you grow up there you’re not very aware of this aspect of it for some reason, but it has this, “We’re moving here from Ohio and we’re going to fucking start a band. We’re going to be actors. We’re going to…” Whatever the shit is, there’s a lot of that kind of energy around. And then I feel like for the people who grew up in LA, there’s a little bit of, “Okay, that’s fine.”

I think it is an interesting place. It’s hard for me to tell how different it is from other places. I think that it gets a bad rap for being a place full of psychic vampires, but I don’t think it totally is all that. Whenever I’m thinking of a time or a place or trying to describe, set a song in a memory as they typically tend to be places that I grew up in LA, there are definitely a lot of those on Quitters. There’s a high school memory where we all go out to Dockweiler Beach and sit and have a bonfire on the beach and try and see the meteor shower.

I used to think it was kind of lame to be from LA and was really embarrassed, because in my mind I’m like, we want all of our songwriters to be working in a sawmill or something like that in the middle of the country and be these rough blue-collar heroes. And I was like, whoever heard of a songwriter from Santa Monica? I think once I got over that, it’s nice and kind of funny to me to embrace that influence. So, yeah, a little bit of that, right? What is around you and what you know, and just be yourself.

Your last album is called Beginners and the new album is Quitters. I think it’s very on brand for your humor and what you’re going for in your music. I was curious if you could share what inspired that kind of immediate juxtaposition or jump from Beginners to Quitters?

It was mainly kind of a joke. I just thought it would be funny. I’d been joking, like, well, Beginners is technically, my first album. Quitters is my last album. But that’s just me messing around.

The first record is definitely about a lot of growing up experiences, trying to figure out what the hell is going on in this world and feeling just stuck in your everything you’re just trying to learn. And this record, I feel like, is a lot more about adults, adult experiences and changes and trying to become okay with yourself. And okay with not needing to be defined by the people that are around you or the things that are immediately in your periphery.

How did you figure out how to make a living through your creative work?

I think I kind of just accepted that it’s fine if I don’t. I would do just whatever to make ends meet as long as I had time to try and do this as well. And I think the people that do this are crazy and you wouldn’t do it unless you had to. You’ll find a way to do it if it means that much to you, even though it’s hard and shitty. I think if it is important to you and you feel like you have to do it, then you’re always going to figure out a way to do it even if you’re working three different jobs and quitting jobs left and right just so you can go on tour for a week and then scrambling to find work when you get home. I don’t know if that’s good advice, but that’s just what I believe.

And that’s what I see in myself and all of my friends is that there is also a real community of people. Once you have done it for a long time, everyone has the same understanding, We’re all so stupid, but we’re stupid and crazy about music and there’s people who will lift you up in unexpected ways as well when you’re low, and you will lift other people up in the same way when they’re low.

Christian Lee Hutson Recommends:

5 painfully beautiful things that inspired my new record.

The album Mid Air by Paul Buchanan

The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan

The film Youth by Paolo Sorrentino

The album Suicaine Gratifaction by Paul Westerberg

The film Somewhere by Sofia Coppola

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Jess Focht.

World builder Tony Patrick on why nothing exists without collaboration

Daniel Sharp — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 07:00:00 +0000

In your bio, you not only call yourself a creator and re-writer, but you also call yourself a world builder. What does a world builder mean to you?

I’ve been thinking about this lately. I usually define world building as creating a speculative future that catalyzes a real world, modern day result. World building is usually first associated with literary and gaming realms in terms of creating a fictional universe. But over the years, I’ve had the pleasure and privilege to see various communities sit around the table and catalyze a vision which can be implemented and materialized in the present. I’m starting to think that we’re all, to some degree, world builders.

So if everyone is a world builder, do some people just decide not to act on the impulse to create or build something?

Absolutely. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, but there are some people who are not very comfortable with building. They’re not very comfortable with embracing certain processes, whether that is designing, building, implementation, and so on.

But humans are inherently good at play. We see this all the time in children. It’s the power of imagination. That innate ability and that inherent power is in there, always—it’s somehow inherent to humanity, but we aren’t really cultivating it. A lot of people don’t have the privilege and the time to continue to cultivate it.

Hereborn Park Final Map; Photo by Aaron Tucker

What about people who build a world that isn’t good for others?

Well, what you’re talking about is what I call a lack of cultural abundance. If you don’t have a culturally abundant table for people to create, then you’ll end up with a lot of the blind spots and constraints that arise from a biased or singular viewpoint. The wider the spectrum, the stronger and more resonant the output and expression, as far as I’m concerned.

We want a culturally abundant crew of people to imagine together in order to avoid biased and siloed outcomes. It provides a dimensionality that you would not get with groups made up of the same people. It’s a personal principle that I add to all of my world building sessions. Because otherwise, yeah, one person’s utopia becomes another person’s dystopia.

It sounds like a world builder is an aesthetic approach to the field of systems science. Are there any writers, makers, systems scientists, or other world builders that you definitely point to for inspiration in your own practice?

I was part of the Sundance World Building Residency that was called the Future of Work in 2017. It was held at USC in their World Building Lab, and it was sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation. So the trinity of those three entities allowed me to stay in LA and imagine the future of collaboration with Lauren McCarthy, who’s a creative technologist and performance artist, and Grace Lee, who’s a documentary filmmaker. We had the luxury and opportunity to imagine a future of LA. It was facilitated by Joe Unger and Trisha Williams, who now have their own VR-based metaverse institution, Origami Air. They taught me their process of world building, which is an iteration of Alex McDowell’s world building process. McDowell was responsible for the production design on the 2002 film Minority Report, which I learned was an output of a weekend summit initiated by Steve Spielberg of technologists, MIT students, artists, and futurists to imagine Washington, DC in 2054.

This process of gathering not only yielded an artistic expression, but it also predicted a lot of the speculative technologies that are commonplace today, like hyper personalized targeted ads, gestural glove technology, and autonomous vehicles. I’m still waiting on the precogs (telepaths immersed in water) to show up. It supposedly initiated or catalyzed over a hundred patents since the screening of that film.

There are many worldbuilders, visioneers, and futurists who are creating inspirational works and spheres who are cooking up new experiences, spheres, and futures for us to inhabit, for instance Intelligent Mischief, Ari Melianciano, Paisley Smith, Marina Zurkow, and Sara Rothburg to name a few. I’m also a fan of Monica Bielskyte’s and Ian Cheng’s works as well. People have also used this technique in urban planning. It’s the same thing: the act of sitting around the table to dream up a collective vision and civic solutions.

Kasama

It’s smart to start world building at who and how we bring people together in the first place.

I use the term world building, but really what I’m doing—and we’re doing—is creating continuums. That’s the focus for me. And a continuum, as far as I’m concerned, is an energetic space in which we establish values and create a space for iteration and re-imagination. From there, we’ll cultivate everything that we need for art, for programming, for technology, and solutions.

2020 showed us that we need a re-imagination. We could see broken systems. We could see the flaws and the fractures everywhere. There was a call to action for re-imagination. You could see it. But this idea of futuring can, to some, seem like a constraint or unnecessary, and there’s a sentiment that we should instead focus on the now. But for me, futuring does focus on the now– because in this very moment of the present, this world we live in now is someone’s past vision of the future. This is why we use futuring as a tool to create an expansive future vision in world-building sessions. That can be honed down into more grounded implementable elements in the present.

That leads us to a recent example of your world building called Hereborn Park. You announced it last year with a Kickstarter campaign, and this year you’re working on building the first phase of the park. Can you walk me through what Hereborn Park is and who it’s for?

Hereborn Park is a Black virtual theme park centered around liberation and joy. It’s a space for play, learning, and collaboration for Black artists and geniuses to work together.

The park is for everyone under the Black diaspora and the marginalized, but it also invites those who are committed to Black joy to visit and participate. Hereborn Park embodies a new framework for collaboration that is housed in joy, in experiential learning, and shared experiences.

How did Hereborn Park start?

So an Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) graduate student at NYU by the name of Dylan Dawkins centered his thesis on spaces for Black liberation and joy through the lens of theme parks. He was put on my radar by a fellow instructor. I teach at ITP and the Interactive Media Arts program (IMA), so we had a conversation and I immediately resonated with his inquiry. I offered to run three world building sessions with him and a network Black folks across the diaspora and across disciplines.

We dove into the premise of what a modern day Black theme park would look and feel like. We imagined an ecosystem that flourished, filled with all of the nutrients that one needs in life, on a creative, physical, mental, and spiritual level. Our work was synthesized into a document Dylan used for his thesis.

After he presented his thesis, I asked him if I could dive into the idea a bit further. He granted me permission to kind of take the ball and run with it. So I invited more collaborators to imagine a cosmic themed Black theme park, like Stephanie Dinkins, Intelligent Mischief, Hank Willis Thomas, Terence Nance, LaJuné McMillian, Aaron Tucker, and Ayanna Soaries. It became an intergenerational team of artists and forward thinkers who showed up to play. And ultimately that collaborative effort coalesced into a project centered around building an online place for Black liberation and joy.

It sounds like creative placemaking, or how urban policy and planning work on a communal scale.

I am fascinated by participatory planning. What I’m really doing anyway is participatory design. We bring in people early in the process, which yield outcomes and expressions that people end up being really invested in.

I feel like Hereborn Park is one of those examples. I think of creative placemaking as urban acupuncture: creating small interventions to revitalize the macro-sphere, like an entire region or ecosystem. Hereborn Park acts as an intervention for some of those blocks that we might have in terms of virtual experiences and spaces. How can we cultivate a place of safety, experience, and storytelling that helps us catalyze joy in our own personal and collective lives?

How do you plan to invite people? And how do you envision people using Hereborn Park?

So year one is about opening the first ride, Cosmic Circle, and circulating physical and virtual items from the rewards on the campaign and exploring the idea of making social tokens for our creators and everyone who contributed. We want to make sure that there’s always a dialogue, a call and response, from virtual to IRL.

We’ll see a space that will act as the entry to the park, like a virtual lobby, an interactive map, and the Cosmic Circle experience, which is an emotional journey that takes you from pain and struggle into cathartic joy.

Inviting people in seems to be a through line with a lot of your work, whether it’s working with The Wide Awakes or Batman and the Signal. You almost always bring in more people to the decision table. Why do you choose to work with others?

I think we’ve already entered the age of collaboration. Nothing exists without collaboration. adrienne maree brown’s Emergent Strategies blew my mind because she combined community building with self care, speculative exploration, and imagining as a practice. She talks about murmuration, or the ability for birds to fly in sync together. I feel like one of our most self-destructive acts at the moment, as a society, is ignoring the call into a spiritual, creative murmuration. That combined with an egoistic obsession of discarding (and being disconnected from) the wide spectrum of voices in our world, including our connection to the non-human family members of the ecosystem in which we exist, steers us toward this harmful, planet-crushing trajectory.

Everything collaborates in nature. If our cells do not work together, on a cellular level, we’re done. They have to collaborate to live. So to believe that you exist in a silo is just incredibly self-harming. And so over time, I, probably like some other artists, learned that the hard way, and now make sure I take every opportunity to invite others in.

Batman and the Signal, Vol . 11

Just like your principle of cultural abundance.

I know the need and the desire for people to be heard. As a Black man in spaces that haven’t been culturally abundant in the past, I have also witnessed the continual harm of Black people in the United States online and offline. Yet, I’ve become acutely aware over the past few years, how it seems that we have a million ways to talk about and to articulate harm, but not enough words or phrases or sentences which can open the portal for restoration, renewal and healing. Part of what I’m interested in currently is creating space for that. I know how good it feels to be given agency, to be invited into continuums of imagination and creativity.

And as we imagine together, we need to create a shared language for restoration. Where is the verbal bridge for clear, transparent communication that can facilitate healing and repair? Where is the structure for true dialogue and transformation and transcendence? That is part of some of the processes and frameworks I’m interested in. It’s become a passion of mine to cultivate those spaces.

There’s an opportunity to lean into ancestral intelligence, which for me includes Indigenous wisdom and learning from all of those beautiful Black minds which cultivated the continuum in which I now create and stand in. When we explore the whole cultural spectrum of ancestral intelligences, we can take those learnings and start to get to the macro view of us all being part of one ecosystem, a plurality in which we can collaborate with one another to ensure the survival of our species.

Have you ever experienced a community online or offline that just didn’t work? If so, why do you think it didn’t work?

Yes. Communities that don’t work have the tendency to be extractive and ignore regenerative opportunities. First, there’s usually no structure for clear communication, restorative justice, and feedback. Two, they often lack imagination and creativity. And three, they consistently devalue their community members and guests. Those are the things that I’ve seen that usually create a funnel into dysfunction and a quick path to dissolution.

I saw a lot of this in 2020. Most organizations, institutions, spaces, and communities realized they needed to reimagine themselves for a shifting paradigm and culture. That’s why I formed the (Re)Writer’s Room in 2020. It isn’t just a space to conjure up new ideas or artistic outputs. It’s about moving past the conceptual and building new frameworks, communities, and networks in the name of reimagination.

How does the (Re)Writer’s Room work?

It starts with creating a culturally abundant space to realign ourselves and reconnect with each other. We then have to rewrite the table and the room we’re sitting in. Only then can we reimagine the cultures, technologies, and organizations we’d like to see in our world in order to flourish.

Right now, we’re focused on the spaces and communities which spun out our first year sessions, like the School of Lived Experience, which was a collaboration with For Freedoms that prototypes an artist-led renewal center. Hereborn Park is an example, too, by reimagining an online space for Black joy and liberation. The Guggenheim Greenhaus is a third, a space for exploring new sustainable art practices and social innovation.

(Re)Writers Room

It sounds like it fights against the systems we’re used to building projects or programs with, because those systems tend to keep certain people in positions of power. Those people hold it tight and don’t change or listen to their larger community, which transforms to distrust.

I think it’s great that you’re speaking to that because there is this thing about moving at the speed of trust. I’m part of a community called the Guild of Future Architects, and that saying is one of the things we talk about. If you don’t move at the speed of trust, you won’t have the emotional investment needed from real stakeholders involved, which are usually the communities who can support a wide spectrum of offerings in your organization’s or project’s future.

For example, people who work in comics are some of the most hard working people I’ve ever met when I was writing Batman and the Signal. They’re incredibly undervalued, overworked, and hardly receive the acknowledgement or financial compensation they deserve. They are perpetually extracted from. And so that premise alone leads to a lot of distrust.

When you’re depleted and deprived, there’s a tendency to either lash out at others or develop a blind spot for opportunities that will give you the tools you’ll need for self-empowerment and self-sustainability—and could change your career trajectory.

I’m curious if you had projects or thoughts in the past when competition was actually the name of the game instead of collaboration.

Well, that’s where healthy competition enters the fray. I think about Matisse and Picasso here. In the book Matisse and Picasso: The Story of Their Rivalry and Friendship, someone had insinuated that when Matisse passed away, Picasso would somehow become the greatest artist alive. But Picasso was quoted saying he was saddened by Matisse’s death. He lost someone who understood his perspective, view, and journey—someone who spoke his language—and there’s no joy in that.

To me, that’s healthy competition: an inherent call-and-response between artists in which one artist’s output inspires the other’s output, which catalyzes a new output from the first artist, and so on. Who are those catalysts that move you toward personal excellence? That relationship is necessary for everyone involved to level up.

It sounds like healthy competition is rooted in respect for different people. It’s against the “rise and grind” culture, which implies someone will beat you if you don’t work harder than everyone else. Healthy competition sounds less like a win-lose and more of a win-win.

It’s feedback. Feedback is the seed for something profound to grow, even if feedback looks like art that we may not like or may not agree with. I’m inspired by those things where I’m like, “Ugh,” because I had an adverse reaction to it. It’s a call to action to build something more beautiful or resonates with me.

People can fall into pockets of toxicity when they don’t offer an alternative. What’s underneath toxicity is a desire to either create or participate when someone feels left out, but that person doubles down on their critique instead of seeing it as an opportunity to build something better. I mean, healthy competition is just a more expansive definition of “cooperation” that could, in the near future, incorporate slow-growth and self-care practices. We are racing against ourselves and others to our detriment—when it’s actually time to decelerate and deepen.

What about people who collaborate using DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations?

I think we’re in a moment of intense experimentation and unparalleled opportunity for participation. Blockchains and DAOs represent an opportunity to build new international communities, tools, and consensus that may not exist offline in the same way. That being said, they aren’t the holy grail when it comes to building online communities or empowering creators. There are serious climate and security issues, and because most DAOs aren’t grounded in reality, they have real world limitations. Relying on just these will only lead to more chaos, disillusionment, and resentment. So it’s a balancing act of skepticism and optimism for me.

We need to reinforce what works in pre-existing IRL cooperatives, collaborative structures, and networks and experiment slowly with online frameworks. Perhaps carbon negative blockchains will find even more ways to reduce its environmental impact in the meantime. So while I pay close attention to how some are using tech and tokens for a gold rush or a grift, I’m also realizing that their true value is in the conversations, explorations, and the opportunities for participatory design which may be more important than the tech itself.

Personally, I’m waiting for more artists to create a proportional response to DAOs and NFTs. Some of the most intriguing work (in my opinion) is happening in Western Europe as we speak. To build a DAO from an artist-led perspective which combines the learnings of pre-existing cooperatives is a necessary and inevitable trajectory. I think we’re going to see a proliferation of that kind of hybrid model soon enough. I think we’re going to see a proliferation of it. It could give an economic opportunity to the disenfranchised, the voiceless, the siloed, and the marginalized. I’m hoping to see artists rise to that challenge because I argued with people in 2020 that artists are essential workers. There are some people who don’t believe it, but we’ve seen it in action. Artists are usually the arbiters of change, the first wave of forecasters and forward thinkers. They are the alchemists that transmute the intangible into powerfully-articulated expressions which people can absorb and comprehend in a matter of seconds.

So if we talk about the placemakers and waymakers, the artists are sometimes the first line on that front line of transformation. But anything digital, as far as I’m concerned, should help reinforce some of the beauty that happens in real life. I mean, that’s the missing opportunity. It’s not about just inhabiting a digital or virtual world. It can be an engine to improve things.

Tony Patrick Recommends:

5 Recommendations (things to read, see, do)

Stephanie Dinkins, Secret Garden

adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategies

Monika Bielskyte, “Protopia Futures”

Peter Block, Community

Christian Linke and Alex Yee, Arcane

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Daniel Sharp.

Musician and producer Aaron Dessner on what you can learn from a collaboration

Brandon Stosuy — Tue, 22 Feb 2022 08:00:00 +0000

You’ve always been someone open to collaboration, whether it’s writing songs or recording or playing on someone else’s songs. What do you get from collaboration? Why is it something that you come back to so often?

I think collaboration is so deeply embedded in my psyche, as a twin. [My brother] Bryce and I grew up basically doing everything together, including when we learned instruments and when we were creative with instruments, we would usually be playing together. But then I think even more than that, for me, I think it’s like the social experiment or something, where it’s a way I feel most comfortable making friends. When we were kids, a lot of my friends are people we played music with. That’s been as an adult, too, where it’s like partly the weird life of being in a touring rock band for more than 20 years, most of the big friendships I have are creative ones.

A lot of times it’s an amazing way to get to know someone and share something personal and creative. My favorite thing about collaboration is is that I learn. I’m able to get inside other people’s brains or musical personalities and benefit from it. Whether it’s discovering new techniques or hearing how someone’s musical mind works and learning through osmosis. I guess it’s both personal and creative. It’s both personal and musical for me, where I feel like you make very close friends that way and you also grow.

There’s something to me, that vulnerability you have to have to actually collaborate, to open yourself up to someone. That’s the most important artistic thing I do. That’s very much at the core of the great machine, for sure.

Have you ever had something that seems good on paper, but when you get together with the person, nothing comes of it?

That’s never happened to me. I have had difficult experiences in the studio, but it’s usually because it’s more like trying to produce a band or something, where you’re stepping into an existing group dynamic. I know that, that would be hard. The National is one. It would be not the easiest thing to like insert yourself into a kind of complex, slightly dysfunctional sort of creative family. But I’ve never had the experience of hitting a wall when it’s just trying to make new things with friends, even in very unusual circumstances.

With something like your work with Taylor Swift, where you didn’t know her at first and you started collaborating remotely during the pandemic, was it weird to not have the initial, “Hey, let’s sit in a room together and hash stuff out?”

No, that was the interesting and serendipitous thing about the collaboration between Taylor and me. It felt like the most natural thing in the world, even from the first hours after I sent her a folder of things I’d been working on. She wrote “Cardigan” so quickly and it felt like we wrote it together somehow, in the room. It was literally just the music that I had made basically as it is. When she sent back “Cardigan,” a few hours after I’d sent her the music, it felt almost like we architected it together in the room because of the progression of it, and the completeness of it, and just structurally, the dynamics. It was surreal to both of us how realized that felt. Then it just kept going.

I think I realized all of the work that I’d done over the years, writing songs, essentially in a similar way with The National maybe prepared me for that. Not to work remotely, and not be in the same space with someone, because with National songs you also have to imagine the song. You know, create something that has a structure that [National vocalist] Matt [Berninger] can carve into.

Because you do collaborate so much, have you ever sat down to just do something entirely on your own and thought, “I wish I had someone to collaborate with here”? Is there ever that lonesomeness of making something entirely by yourself?

Yeah, for sure. I think because I make a lot of music, I get inspired or really moved by something and then I wish there was someone just sitting next to me that could run with it, because it’s a little bit of a lonely pursuit. Because I could then write all the words and try to sing it, finish it, make a final, make something that feels done. But to me, it’s always felt more interesting to bounce off someone else or to have someone else’s input. More recently, there have been times, like with some of these Big Red Machine songs I sing, where it becomes clear in my head what it’s about.

That’s been a fairly new feeling, but in the past I feel like I’ve enjoyed that feeling, almost like a venture, this thing where I’m trying to make music that causes other people to sing or to hear, to see a scene that they want to depict or capture.

As you’ve become a more well-known producer, do you find artists approaching you that don’t quite fit with what you want to do? I imagine it could introduce collaborations that don’t feel as natural or organic.

I think I’ve dealt with this ever since I started to collaborate outside of The National, because at first it was working with just those guys for many years, and then doing weird art projects with my brother, or helping to play some of his classical stuff, or doing things with [Icelandic artist] Ragnar [Kjartansson]. Things that felt very natural and close. But as you start to work with other songwriters, in general, I try not to worry about how something will be perceived as much as can I hear something. Do I hear a way to actually help someone. The times where I have heard that are the ones that really work, where I can feel inspired when I hear someone’s music or voice, and there’s a sound in my head I can chase.

How do you avoid burning out? Last year you made the Big Red Machine record, two Taylor Swift records, and other records…Plus, you’re also a human—a father and a husband, a friend, a brother.

To be honest, I go running. When we were making records, the early National records, we would work for seven weeks without stopping. I realized that actually you can’t, you hit a wall after a few days. Even four days of really intensely working, the ideas…It can start to be diminishing returns.

You’ve won multiple Grammys. You’ve had other kinds of accolades. How, in 2022, do you define success?

Success is when I can listen to a song and get lost in it. Like actually drive too fast because I’m completely lost in the moment. Because, that’s how I’ve always listened to music. I once got a reckless driving ticket because I was driving too fast on the highway. I was listening to a live version of [Bob Dylan’s] “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” from No Direction Home. It was just so intoxicating I just couldn’t believe how much I got completely lost in it. In the moment I stopped thinking critically about it. It’s pretty hard for me to get to that point actually. So that honestly, to me, is success.

I mean, it hurts when critics or anyone, someone, doesn’t like something that you’ve done, it always hurts. I think it’s almost like being bullied about something you love. You put so much effort and love into something and working with people that you love, and then you have to wake up and see what some person thinks of it.

The more you can tune that out and just stay close to the thing you love and why you made it in the first place, that’s what success is. Whether it’s commercially successful, it really just depends. I think a lot of that is luck or the zeitgeist of if you happen to strike a chord. I’ve had both.

When would something feel like a failure? If something’s not working do you abandon it or do you keep trying to find the thing that you can pull from it, that will make sense and make it come together?

When I’ve had failures, it’s almost always because they’re compromises that have been forced upon you by someone external to the collaboration, or you’re forcing it yourself. I also think that no matter how many songs you’ve made, or how many records you’ve made, each time you start again, it feels like you’ve never made any. Whenever we start a new National record, for example, we always feel like we’ve never made a record and we don’t even know how to write a song. And, it’s like climbing that mountain again. It feels like the first time.

I think a lot of people have the idea that if you do something once, and it has success, suddenly it’s easy. But, in my experience, and judging from the people I’ve spoken to on TCI, there’s no real formula. You finish a book, it’s a bestseller, but now you have start all over again, and nobody may care about the next one. It rarely ever becomes a breeze.

[The Creative Independent] logo reminds me of this metaphor we often use where we say we’re “circling the vortex.” It is true that you can have something that’s working, and if you have the persistence to really keep circling the vortex, you will eventually unlock something about it, which allows you to push it, to elevate it into a place where it is fully compelling. But you have to have that relentless willingness to keep chasing it. Sometimes it shouldn’t be that hard, but it’s a funny thing actually—Sufjan [Stevens] once said this to me. When [The National] were making Boxer, and we really hit a wall, we had to give up halfway through and then start again. And he said “It’s going to be a good record because of that struggle.”

There’s always one or two songs on a record, whatever record it is, that are the tricky ones, but you see them through. Sometimes there can be these lightning in a bottle moments where it’s somewhat instantaneous and you just accept it. Then there’s other times where it’s this long arduous struggle to find it. I think both are important. Taylor said this to me, numerous times during the period that we worked together, which is that it seemed as though for both, her and for me, everything we had done in the past has prepared us to move at the speed that we were moving. It all felt like all the experiences that we had and techniques were colliding in a way that allowed us to go at this weird light-speed for a year. It was also just the fact that the world had slowed down and there was very little outside distraction because of that.

You’ve set a precedent of lightning speed with Taylor Swift. If you worked together on something else, would you try to follow that same situation, or was it unique to the fact that it was during quarantine?

I think in a lot of ways it is unique to quarantine, but I also think you have a flow with someone, you understand each other. That’s it again, the thing I love about collaboration, you feel like you know someone in a very deep way, it’s just so personal. So, I don’t know if we did more together, if it would beat that same speed, but there is an understanding and there’s a communication. A shorthand, emotionally.

Taylor Swift’s fans are experts on her output and have specific ideas about her work. They’ve embraced you as a collaborator, because you made records with her that they enjoy. Did you fear, at all, that you’d create a record they hated? You’d have this very large audience of people mad at you.

While we were making Folklore, I had moments where I would wonder how it’d be received because she has such a passionate fan base. They’re all encyclopedic about her songs and her collaborators and it was a little scary, but one of my favorite things about Taylor is the way she makes everybody around her feel confident and appreciated and fearless, literally, to quote her own song. But I think first of all, no one outside of the two of us and Jon Low, even the people that played on the record, really knew what it was. So it felt like this cocoon that we were in to be creative. It was very conducive to not having anxiety. It created this environment that didn’t feel anxious and I didn’t worry. And luckily people fell in love with it.

We were actually on the phone as it came out midnight July 24th or whatever, just drinking wine and enjoying seeing the reaction. She had kept it a secret that she made a video for “Cardigan.” There was a lot of surprises and fun, mystery that that was going on. Whether I knew about things or not. You know, for all of us that worked on it, it felt like we were able to do our best work because we didn’t feel insecure or exposed or anything. It’s a special thing about her. She didn’t make me feel the shadow of her accomplishments.

That’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, music for the sake of making it, or being creative because it makes you feel good or gives you hope or gives you a spring in your step. Don’t think critically or don’t have self-doubt in the moment because it is paralyzing. Later, when you’re done, you can always see what you think is worthy of sharing, and what isn’t.

Aaron Dessner Recommends:

Bess Atwell - Already, Alway

Charlie Crockett - Welcome to Hard Times

Honoré de Balzac - Cousin Bette

Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrouv - Ethiopiques, vol. 21: Emahoy (Piano Solo)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Idiot

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Brandon Stosuy.