Jacobin Magazine: Goodbye and Good Riddance, Robert Mugabe

As a young politician in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mugabe was by no means the most prominent of the black nationalists fighting white colonial rule. Neither was he the most motivated. He was, however, the most eloquent. For a clique of educated black elites, whose political and societal outlook was fashioned in mission schools, Mugabe was the man of choice to convey the message to white rulers — in voice and comportment — that blacks were no longer “uncivilized tribesmen.” They were sophisticated enough to deserve the franchise. [...]

At the time, Mugabe had come back home, presumably for the holidays, from Ghana, where he worked as a teacher, with the intention to go back to West Africa. He may never have wanted to stay in Rhodesia for long. He became the reluctant latecomer who would go on to dominate Zimbabwean politics for almost half a century. [...]

He was a rebel, but one who wanted to replace white rulers with a self-interested political project. When he “talked revolution,” it was out of expediency, to further his goal of securing the presidency for life. When he donned revolutionary garb, it was always fleetingly (in the early 1980s, for picture poses), and with an unseemly addition: a tie that clashed with his safari suit.  [...]

It is easy to point to the social programs during the independence euphoria of the 1980s as an example of Mugabe’s commitment to black people and socialism. But throughout the 1980s, and with “Britain’s willful blindness,” Mugabe sought to build a one-party dictatorship in the mold of the Kims’ North Korea. In fact, he invited North Korean military supervisors to help him create a private army brigade that hounded the opposition and committed one of the worst atrocities against African people in independent Africa. In the end, the Gukurahundi massacres left an estimated twenty thousand civilians, most of them isiNdebele-speaking black men, women, and children, dead in unmarked mass graves.

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CityLab: How Brexit Got Snagged on the Irish Border

When Brexit happens, it will create the U.K.’s first-ever land border with the E.U., on the frontier between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This shouldn’t pose passport problems, because the U.K. and Ireland have a longstanding passport-free Common Travel Area agreement. But because Britain is on course to leave the E.U.’s tariff-free single market, imports and exports must somehow be monitored across this 310-mile-long barrier. Controlling this flow by a so-called “hard” border—that is, one with checkpoints and customs controls—would be quite the job. Looking in one direction alone, Northern Irish exports to the Republic are worth £3.6 billion ($4.8 billion) a year, while there are a total of 275 land crossings between the two parts of the island, more than twice the number there are along the E.U.’s entire eastern frontier. A hard border here could thus be a nightmare for both countries. [...]

If that sounds a little too easy, it’s because it is. With no controls for smaller businesses, the Irish border would become a quasi-legal smuggling paradise for importers wanting to avoid paying duty on their goods. There would be nothing to stop, say, a non-European company flying their goods into Belfast, then using a constellation of smaller companies to get it across the border tariff-free. There’s no way the E.U. could accept this. It could end up being a weird backdoor version of the single market—which Britain says it wants to leave.

And E.U. resistance isn’t the only barrier to this plan becoming a reality. Allowing E.U. importers to get their goods into Britain tax-free over the Irish border would be giving their countries preferential treatment, which would break World Trade Organization rules and expose the U.K. to a tsunami of litigation. [...]

Since the referendum, the U.K. government has already risked jeopardizing the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brokered peace in the region by forming an electoral alliance with the hard-line loyalist Democratic Unionist Party. By attaching its electoral future to a sectarian party, the British national government has called into question its ability to maintain the “rigorous impartiality” stipulated by the agreement. If that weren’t bad enough, the U.K. is now hurtling toward re-solidifying the border—and potentially toppling a carefully balanced status quo—while contriving to insist that it’s doing nothing of the sort.  

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Al Jazeera: Scotland still wants independence

These setbacks have occurred after a decade of nearly uninterrupted progress for independence supporters. The SNP first took control of Holyrood, Scotland's devolved national parliament, in 2007. In 2011, it won an overall majority of the parliament's seats. In 2014, it staged (and narrowly failed to win) a landmark vote on the break-up of Britain. So the rapid loss of momentum that has taken place this year has been profoundly disconcerting for a movement that had come to view independence as a cast-iron certainty. [...]

The baseline numbers tell their own story. A poll from September put backing for independence at 46 percent - one point higher than it was at the same stage in 2014. Other surveys suggest it might be slightly lower than that, but few indicate that it has fallen far below the symbolic 40-percent mark. Similarly, the SNP - which is now in its 11th year of office - continues to register double-digit leads over Labour and the Conservatives at both the devolved Scottish and UK parliamentary levels.

Until quite recently, polling of this sort would have been unthinkable for nationalists. Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, barely a quarter of the Scottish electorate wanted Scotland to leave the UK. Today, it's cited as evidence that the independence movement has stalled and that the SNP is spiralling into decline.   [...]

Since the 2014 referendum, the case against independence has rested almost exclusively on the claim that Britain insulates Scotland from economic pain. In the absence of English public subsidies, unionists argue, Scotland would be a financial basket case, incapable of covering the basic costs of self-government. Even Jeremy Corbyn - who otherwise vigorously insists that spending cuts are an ideological choice rather than a fiscal necessity - has suggested that independence would mean "turbo-charged austerity" for the Scots. [...]

And the ongoing controversy in Catalonia is more likely to shrink the prospects of Scottish independence than it is to advance them. The constitutional standoff between Barcelona and Madrid may have animated the SNP grassroots, and even prompted the party's instinctively cautious leadership to launch a rare intervention into the affairs of a foreign state. But it also illustrates the pitfalls of declaring independence unilaterally (London will resist giving the green light to another Scottish vote for as long as it can), as well as the EU's intense institutional hostility towards regional and sub-state secessionist movements.

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Quartz: No, Pope Francis wouldn’t say “Rohingya” in Myanmar. Yes, it matters

In address made to Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung Suu Kyi, the country’s diplomatic corps, military officials, and Vatican clergy, the pope offered careful words to argue that religious differences should be a source for unity, not division.

Francis said Myanmar was suffering from civil conflict and hostilities “that have lasted all too long and created deep divisions” and that the Southeast Asian country should respect all religious groups, but never uttered the word “Rohingya.” Tens of thousands of members of the largely Muslim ethnic minority have fled Buddhist-dominated Myanmar for Bangladesh after facing violent retaliation following a militant attack. The exodus has created a humanitarian crisis in both countries. [...]

In Myanmar, using the term implies the speaker sides with the Rohingya and is against the government’s view. Papal advisors had warned him that using the word during his first visit to the country could exacerbate the tense situation and also put the country’s very small Christian population at risk. [...]

It’s not uncommon for the pope to avoid directly criticizing his hosts while making trips abroad. On a recent visit to Egypt, where president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been accused of human-rights abuses and sharply limiting democracy, Francis spoke of peace and unity and only broadly warned of the “demagogic forms of populism.” [...]

Francis is expected to travel to Bangladesh later this week to meet with Rohingya refugees, which raises more questions about how effective his trip can be. Will a private gathering with a small group present the opportunity to voice condemnation of what some are calling mounting evidence of genocide? And, face to face, will the pope be able to address the Rohingya by their name?

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Politico: A Catalan de-escalation plan

“We can’t take definitive steps until we have solid international allies,” said Mas, 61, who was Catalan president from 2010 to 2016 and continued to wield influence as part of an unofficial group of more than a dozen people making the big decisions during the independence process. [...]

In an interview in his office in Barcelona, Mas acknowledged the problems facing the secessionist camp, saying the European Union had positioned itself against Catalan independence “at this stage,” and adding that it was hard to imagine Brussels changing its mind in the short term. [...]

There has been a great deal of soul-searching in the Catalan separatist camp after the events of the past two months, which saw a referendum on secession marred by police violence; businesses moving out of Catalonia; a failed declaration of independence; a swift move by Madrid to take direct control of the rebel region; and a judicial push that could see separatist leaders — including Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium, and others currently in previsionary detention — end up behind bars.

As a result, the two main secessionist parties have slowly started to signal their willingness to move away from further confrontation with Madrid without renouncing independence. As those two goals have thus far proven incompatible, some radical secessionists have interpreted it as giving up on independence altogether.

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Deutsche Welle: Jean-Claude Juncker: Migrants 'need legal ways to come to Europe'

We've told the member states of their responsibility, and we will see what the member states do about it. The member states, in their wisdom, don't always follow the Commission's proposals. In 2001, the Commission proposed a joint system to protect the external borders. The member states rejected it then, only to demand it now. And now we've implemented these joint controls of the external borders. When it comes to resolving the great challenges of our age, we have to leave it to the imagination of those who are governing the member states and nations. And immigration and migration is a great challenge of our age. It's not just about preparing for the future; we should have prepared for the present yesterday.  [...]

The populists themselves are dangerous, but they are far more dangerous when the traditional, classic parties adopt their harmful proposals. If the traditional parties follow the populists, they become populist themselves, which is a phenomenon we are already seeing in some EU countries. No, we should not be afraid of the populists; we should embrace those they are fighting. [...]

Yes, but it's a solidarity that must touch on all areas of international life. Africa must become aware of the fact that it is already, today, a big international player. Europe must not distance itself from Africa's universal ambitions. Africa is not a continent that will become part of our history tomorrow. Africa has always been a part of history. Certain Europeans just didn't see it that way.

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Vox: The terrorist attack against Sufi Muslims in Egypt, explained

“Sufism isn’t a sect, and it’s not even a subgroup within Sunnism,” Shadi Hamid, a Middle East and Islam expert at the Brookings Institution, told me. Sufism is “a spiritual tendency within Islam that prioritizes the inward aspects of religion and one’s personal relationship with God,” Hamid said. “This is why defining who’s a Sufi is hard, since many Sufis wouldn’t self-identify as such.” [...]

ISIS follows a fundamentalist, highly intolerant interpretation of Islam known as Wahhabism. As Vox’s Jennifer Williams explains, “Wahhabism grew out of the teachings of an 18th-century reformer named Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who argued for ‘purifying’ Islam by getting rid of the ‘innovations’ that had snuck in over the centuries as Islam spread to new lands and mixed with indigenous beliefs and practices.” [...]

Groups like ISIS consider Sufis among those “apostates.” That’s because they think Sufis are polytheists because they venerate mystics and erect shrines to saints. ISIS — and other Wahhabi followers — consider the association of God with others an unpardonable sin. [...]

But ISIS writ large isn’t just going after Sufis in Egypt. It continues to attack Sufis around the world, especially in Pakistan. Most infamously, ISIS bombed a Pakistani mosque in February that killed at least 70 people and injured more than 250. Four months before, ISIS murdered 52 people at a Sufi shrine. And in April 2011, suicide bombers killed 41 Sufis during a three-day festival.

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