Political Critique: Back in the SFRY: Yugo-Nostalgia and Dreams of Communism

Perhaps these columnists had failed to win over the trust of those they spoke to. Perhaps it was they who were the ones uncomfortable with the topic. Perhaps things have changed. Or perhaps they were simply wrong. But, with the noteworthy exception of men around the age of 45-55 – those most likely to have personally fought in the conflict – I found during my time in the region that talk of the war, politics, Yugoslavia and the past is rarely far from the surface. Nowhere is this more true than in Bosnia, the Balkans’ most multi-ethnic region and one still perpetually hamstrung by an immensely complex patchwork of government organisation hammered out to bring the war to an end: three presidents, three postal services, three electricity companies, three of everything, each divided up between the three main ethnic groups, Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Croats, and Serbs.

Not only are people willing to talk of the past, but their viewpoints are remarkably similar. The ethnic hatred of the 1990s – still so emphasised in the contemporary press – is nowhere to be found. And nowhere is any great remorse at the ‘failed communist experiment’ our schoolbooks teach us about. Yes, Luka is slightly more pro-communist and pro-Tito (the Yugsolav president from the end of World War 2 till 1980) than your average Bosnian. But only slightly. And his words chime with opinions I heard over and over again. [...]

Nor are such observations merely anecdotal. In May of this year, the polling company Gallup posed the issue in the form of a simple, direct question. “Did the breakup of Yugoslavia benefit or harm this country?” About 60% of the region answered stating they believe it’s done more harm than good. Only 25% think the opposite.* Numbers are even more stark in poorer, non-EU states like Bosnia, where 77% regret the break up and only 6% support it, and Serbia, where the ratio is 81%-4%. The only fully independent state where the majority thought their country had benefited (by a 55%-23% margin) was Croatia. Kosovo, still locked in a seemingly endless sovereignty standoff with Serbia, also backed the separation. Overall, however, opinion is clear. The populations of five of the six republics of former Yugsolavia wish, to some degree or another, that it had never disappeared at all. [...]

All of this does not excuse the very real oppression that occurred under Tito. Yugoslavia was, throughout its communist history, a one-party dictatorship. While economic and political democracy existed on a low level, influence-peddling, corruption, and backscratching were the only real root to power. Many may find the ethnic nationalism and religious conservatism of the right objectionable. However, Tito and his successors’ methods of imprisonment, as well as the suspected state-sponsored assassination of several expat dissidents, is far from a reasonable response. Suffering was real. This is no panacea and should not be treated as such.

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The New York Review of Books: Our Trouble with Sex: A Christian Story?

As shocking as the Chechen campaign appears, it is nothing humans have not seen, or done, before. Ethnic groups, religious or racial minorities, and individuals who are different in some way have far too often become the objects of hatred and murderous intent. What is happening in Chechnya most immediately brings to mind the depredations of the Third Reich, which sought to rid Europe of Jews, Gypsies, gays, and others considered to be undesirables. [...]

In his deeply researched new book, Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America’s Origins to the Twenty-First Century, Geoffrey R. Stone gives his answer to these and other questions about our country’s regulation of sex, with a special emphasis on same-sex activity. According to Stone, a scholar of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, Christianity has exerted the biggest influence on how we have addressed the issue from colonial times to today. The “central theme” of Sex and the Constitution “is that American attitudes about sex have been shaped over the centuries by religious beliefs—more particularly, by early Christian beliefs—about sex, sin, and shame.”

This history, Stone argues, has created “a nettlesome question” for the practice of constitutional law. Over the years, courts have accepted Christian traditions on matters relating to sex despite our nation’s commitment to the separation of church and state. When confronted with cases regarding restrictions on sexual behavior, or activities related to sexual behavior like contraception, abortion, or consuming pornography, judges have had to dress up in secular garb what were essentially religious principles. They did this by distinguishing between the “moral views” they said they drew on and the “religious views” they claimed they did not. [...]

Curiously, Stone pays scant attention to perhaps the most consequential issue for many of the nineteenth-century moralists—their crusade against slavery, in which sex figured prominently. The widespread southern practice of concubinage was one of the principal targets of their brief against the institution. Stone’s decidedly northern emphasis leaves the sexual habits and preoccupations of the South largely out of the picture. Sex and the Constitution has almost nothing to say about the topic of interracial sex, although outlawing it was one of the earliest examples of the regulation of sexuality in North America. Those laws almost certainly affected more people than prohibitions of same-sex sodomy, and it was to them that courts and activists looked for analogy during debates about gay rights. [...]

Many of the regulations described in Sex and the Constitution could be found in places and among people who had never heard of—or certainly can’t be said to have been affected by—the early Christians, Augustine, or Aquinas. This suggests that we may have to look beyond the influence of any one religion to understand how and why we have set the rules of sex by which we have lived. What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? These are questions humans have struggled to answer, probably from the beginning of human history. Religion is only one way we have attempted to establish answers to them. Engaging with other possible influences more fully—specifically efforts throughout history to control women and perpetuate negative attitudes about womanhood—would have made Stone’s very important book longer, but it would have brought a needed perspective to his analysis.

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Vox: “It’s just an embarrassing spectacle at this point”: Matt Taibbi on Trump’s America

Probably not so much. I think the average Trump voter, when he or she turns on the news, is more convinced than ever that there's a coastal liberal media conspiracy out to get the president. But I'm sure they would much prefer a narrative of unbridled success, as opposed to this ongoing embarrassment. Although I think the defections seem to be worse with the political class than with the voters. Even though Trump’s approval rating is down pretty low, Democrats are hardly more popular.

My sense is that the entire Trump era has just turned off most voters. I’m sure there was a large contingent of Trump voters that delighted in seeing him stride into town and blow shit up, but I don’t think he’s really delivering much on that front anymore. [...]

Well, we have a long way to go before we get to the bottom of how bad things could be. I mean, right now it's mostly just amusing. There is no nuclear war or constitutional crisis or troops in the street or financial bubbles bursting or a currency devaluation. Until something terrible happens, it’s just a fucking game for a lot of people. [...]

Absolutely. It predates Trump. We’ve gradually turned the electoral process into a reality show over the last two decades or so. The only thing different about Trump is that he was better at it than everyone else. Trump understood that politics has been reduced to a TV show, and so he made it a kick-ass show that gets awesome ratings.

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The Atlantic: What More Do Trump's Critics Want Republicans to Do?

This is one of the most polarizing political questions of the moment. To Donald Trump’s opponents, the answer is laughably obvious: Of course congressional Republicans aren’t doing enough to hold the president accountable, they argue. Most GOP lawmakers are bending over backwards to excuse and ignore Trump’s bad behavior, while those few who do routinely speak out are still voting with him 93.5 percent of the time. They are all talk and no action: corrupt partisans posing as leaders.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the divide, a popular genre of GOP apologia has emerged to contend that Republicans are being held to an unrealistic standard; that in fact they’ve already done plenty to stand up to Trump. Sure, they’ve voted for conservative bills, the reasoning goes—they are conservatives, after all! But that doesn’t mean their public criticism of a Republican president can be dismissed. As the conservative columnist Ramesh Ponnuru recently put it: “They’re falling pitifully short only if the baseline expectation is that they do whatever liberal journalists think it’s their duty to do.” [...]

Virtually everyone I talked to agreed that the single most important thing congressional Republicans can do right now is to stop the president from shutting down Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump’s critics contend that any effort by the White House to meddle with the probe would represent a brazen affront to the rule of law. [...]

But impeachment threats wouldn’t necessarily just be about getting tough on Trump—they could also be a way for congressional Republicans to hold themselves accountable. After all, it’s easy to rationalize keeping your head down and staying quiet while a scandal engulfs the White House. It becomes harder to let yourself off the hook if you’re publicly on the record saying that this particular scandal would be an impeachable offense—and legislators can justify tough votes to angry constituents by saying that they’re bound by their public commitments.

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openDemocracy: Eastern Ukraine: “We need new ways of organising”

The Eastern Human Rights Group (EHRG) — a lawyers collective that gives support to individuals, workplace collectives and community groups — is working with other activists to set up territorially-based workers’ organisations that will embrace employed, unemployed and precariously employed people in the region. [...]

Lisyansky reckons this could be the beginning of the end for Ukraine’s old post-Soviet trade unions — not only the old “official” unions, which originated in quasi-state Soviet structures, but also the post-Soviet “independent” unions set up to compete with them. Indeed, membership is falling: a worker who has been ignored at his time of need in his old workplace is unlikely to sign up in his new one. [...]

The EHRG has pursued claims for back pay by workers who were effectively abandoned by their unions at some of the largest workplaces, including the Severodonetsk Azot chemical plant, whose 5,000 workers are owed six months’ wages; Lysychanskugol coal company, with 5,000 employees at four pits; Toretskugol coal company, with 2,500 employees at four pits; and the Donetsk railway network. Workers have protested with strikes — and, at Lysychanskugol, with an underground sit-in and lobby of the energy ministry — and cases have been taken up by the EHRG and some union officials. [...]

The EHRG has participated in a widespread protest against pension reforms being undertaken by the Ukrainian government at the behest of the IMF. The reform will strengthen the link between the level of contributions and what people receive, and effectively raise the statutory retirement age, by increasing the term over which a person must contribute from 15 to 25 years. Lisyansky said: “Yes, I spoke out and will keep speaking out against this reform, which I think breaches people’s rights.” Both “official” and independent unions had protested, but this had had “little effect” on the political process, he said.

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Independent: Laws that allow rapists to marry their victims come from colonialism, not Islam

In Jordan, it’s easy for a convicted rapist to simply walk free from court; all he has to do is to subject his victim to yet another terrible ordeal.

Article 308 of the Jordanian penal code means that a rapist can escape punishment if he agrees to marry his victim. Only if the marriage lasts for less than three years does he have to serve his time. Between 2010 and 2013, a total of 159 rapists walked free in this way. [...]

Similar legislation has been abolished in Egypt, Morocco and just last week in Tunisia, while activists in Lebanon have seen their demands for abolition endorsed by the government and are now awaiting parliamentary approval. [...]

Article 308 is a remnant of the Ottoman rule, but its origin is even more distant – historically and geographically – as the Ottomans had imported it from the French penal code. In countries that were under French colonial rule, such as Lebanon and Tunisia, laws like Article 308 are a direct hangover.

The roots of these laws lie in the cultural impact of centuries under colonial rule, where subjugation was ultimately secured by a true “gentlemen’s agreement”. While foreign powers took control of the state, in exchange they offered local men complete control of their homes.

The colonialists fed and legitimised the misogynist voices within the colonised, and so many of the barriers that women face in the region stem directly from this strategy of using patriarchy as a tool of oppression.

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Al Jazeera: UN: Yazidi genocide in Iraq still ongoing, unaddressed

ISIL's genocide against Iraq's Yazidis is still "ongoing" and remains "unaddressed" by the international community, the UN has said, marking three years since ISIL began killing and capturing thousands of members of the religious minority group.

The UN human rights Commission of Inquiry, which declared the killings of thousands of Yazidis by ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, to be a genocide, said on Thursday that the atrocity had not ended and that the international community was not doing enough to stop it. [...]

However, most Yazidis have yet to return to villages they fled when the group overran Sinjar in the summer of 2014, killing and capturing thousands because of their faith.

Nearly 3,000 Yazidi women and children remain in ISIL captivity, and control over Sinjar is disputed by rival armed groups and their regional patrons. [...]

About 3,100 Yazidis were killed - with more than half shot, beheaded or burned alive - and about 6,800 kidnapped to become sex slaves or fighters, according to a report published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.

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