It seems black lives don't matter quite so much, now that we've got to the hard bit

Many who were quick to support Black Lives Matter protests are fading away as it becomes clear what real change demands writes Nesrine Malik in The Guardian

 

Black Lives Matter mural in Shoreditch, London. Photograph: Amer Ghazzal/REX/Shutterstock


It didn’t take long. The wheels of the Black Lives Matter movement are already starting to get stuck in the mire of doubt and suspicion. A few short weeks ago, politicians were eager to be photographed taking the knee in solidarity with the movement; now they’re desperate to distance themselves from what the movement demands – such as moving funds away from policing and into mental health services and youth work to prevent crime occurring in the first place. After a respectful period during which it would have been tone deaf to object to public support of the cause of the day, the BBC banned its hosts and presenters from wearing Black Lives Matter badges because it is seen as an expression of some sort of “political” opinion.

Everyone applauds a movement for social justice until it “goes too far” – when it starts making “unreasonable demands” in the service of its “political agenda”. This moment, where sympathetic onlookers start shimmying away from their earlier expressions of solidarity, was always inevitable. It is easy to agree that black lives should matter. But it is hard to contemplate all the ways the world needs to change to make them matter – and for most people, it’s simpler to say that the goal is admirable, of course, but that these particular demands from these particular protests at this particular moment are just going too far. We project our failures of imagination on to the movement, and we decamp from the cheerleading stands into the peanut gallery. “Defund the police”? How about we come up with a less provocative slogan, for a start? These Black Lives Matter protesters, they don’t make things easy for themselves, do they?

We tend to think that protest is confrontational, and change is consensual – first, a painful moment with marches in the streets and impassioned orations, followed by something less dramatic, a softer path of negotiation and adaptation. But the opposite is true. Protest is the easy bit. More specifically, protest is a smooth part sandwiched between two very rough ones.

Before protest there is a oppression, lack of popular support, and the hard work of awareness-raising. After that comes the high-octane action, the moral clarity – and allies hop on board. But once the first blood rush of protest subsides, the people who are still on the streets are mocked by their erstwhile allies, impatient to find fault with the movement and get back to their lives without any further disruption. What was universally celebrated a few weeks ago is now faintly embarrassing: too radical, too combative, almost comically unrealistic. You might think of the trajectory of the Black Lives Matter protests so far as like that famous quote misattributed to Gandhi, but this time in reverse: first you win, then they fight you, then they laugh at you, then they ignore you.

We have a great knack for supporting victims once the injustices are out in the open – when David and Goliath have been clearly identified, and a particularly British sensibility of fair play has been assailed. In the Windrush scandal, popular anger and support for the victims of the Home Office is what put a stop to their deportations and led to the resignation of Amber Rudd. National fury, at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, managed to pressure an obstinate, bunkered government into scrapping the outrageous NHS surcharge for NHS staff, and extending residency rights to all the bereaved families of NHS victims of coronavirus. If it hadn’t been for Boris Johnson’s terror of losing him, the country’s disgust at Dominic Cummings would have turfed him out too, so mortally had he wounded the nation’s sense of justice.

But when it comes to the underlying injustice – to making the links between the deportation and death of a Windrush citizen, the NHS worker impoverished by Home Office fees and unsettled by cruel hostile environment policies, the unelected special adviser breaking lockdown rules, and the political party we keep voting in – we’re not so good.

The same is now happening with the Black Lives Matter movement. Everyone is on board with the principle, but when it comes to the change that is required, the idealistic passengers the movement picked up along the way suddenly come down with a case of extreme pragmatism.
Part of the reason for their belated reluctance is that the course of actual change is unflashy. After the first moment passes, the supportive ally has nothing to show for their continued backing for the cause: there are no public high-fives for your continuing solidarity. You can’t post it, you can’t hashtag it; most of the time you can’t even do it without jeopardising something, whether that’s your income, status, job prospects or even friendships.

But the main reason for the ebbing support is that change is just hard. If it wasn’t, the long arc of history that allegedly bends towards justice would be a very short one. And change is supposed to be hard. It is supposed to be political.

Movements such as Black Lives Matter aren’t hobbies or social clubs or edgy pop culture moments to be accessorised with. Change is supposed to have an agenda, otherwise it’s just a trend. When we hear that liberal politicians think the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement are nonsense, or that wearing a badge is political, or that support needs to be scaled back because it looks like there might be other, more nefarious forces at play, what we are really being told is: this is hard – and we are retreating to our comfort zones.

Hysteresis means we will have scars after Covid-19

Tim Harford in The Financial Times 

In the middle of a crisis, it is not always easy to work out what has changed forever, and what will soon fade into history. Has the coronavirus pandemic ushered in the end of the office, the end of the city, the end of air travel, the end of retail and the end of theatre? Or has it merely ruined a lovely spring? 

Stretch a rubber band, and you can expect it to snap back when released. Stretch a sheet of plastic wrapping and it will stay stretched. In economics, we borrow the term “hysteresis” to refer to systems that, like the plastic wrap, do not automatically return to the status quo. 

The effects can be grim. A recession can leave scars that last, even once growth resumes. Good businesses disappear; people who lose jobs can then lose skills, contacts and confidence. But it is surprising how often, for better or worse, things snap back to normal, like the rubber band. 

The murderous destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001, for example, had a lasting impact on airport security screening, but Manhattan is widely regarded to have bounced back quickly. There was a fear, at the time, that people would shun dense cities and tall buildings, but little evidence that they really did. 

What, then, will the virus change permanently? Start with the most obvious impact: the people who have died will not be coming back. Most were elderly but not necessarily at death’s door, and some were young. More than one study has estimated that, on average, victims of Covid-19 could have expected to live for more than a decade. 

But some of the economic damage will also be irreversible. The safest prediction is that activities which were already marginal will struggle to return. 

After the devastating Kobe earthquake in Japan in 1995, economic recovery was impressive but partial. For a cluster of businesses making plastic shoes, already under pressure from Chinese competition, the earthquake turned a slow decline into an abrupt one. 

Ask, “If we were starting from scratch, would we do it like this again?” If the answer is No, do not expect a post-coronavirus rebound. Drab high streets are in trouble. 

But there is not necessarily a correlation between the hardest blow and the most lingering bruise. 

Consider live music: it is devastated right now — it is hard to conceive of a packed concert hall or dance floor any time soon. 

Yet live music is much loved and hard to replace. When Covid-19 has been tamed — whether by a vaccine, better treatments or familiarity breeding indifference — the demand will be back. Musicians and music businesses will have suffered hardship, but many of the venues will be untouched. The live experience has survived decades of competition from vinyl to Spotify. It will return. 

Air travel is another example. We’ve had phone calls for a very long time, and they have always been much easier than getting on an aeroplane. They can replace face-to-face meetings, but they can also spark demand for further meetings. Alas for the planet, much of the travel that felt indispensable before the pandemic will feel indispensable again. 

And for all the costs and indignities of a modern aeroplane, tourism depends on travel. It is hard to imagine people submitting to a swab test in order to go to the cinema, but if that becomes part of the rigmarole of flying, many people will comply. 

No, the lingering changes may be more subtle. Richard Baldwin, author of The Globotics Upheaval, argues that the world has just run a massive set of experiments in telecommuting. Some have been failures, but the landscape of possibilities has changed. 

If people can successfully work from home in the suburbs, how long before companies decide they can work from low-wage economies in another timezone? 

The crisis will also spur automation. Robots do not catch coronavirus and are unlikely to spread it; the pandemic will not conjure robot barbers from thin air, but it has pushed companies into automating where they can. Once automated, those jobs will not be coming back. 

Some changes will be welcome — a shock can jolt us out of a rut. I hope that we will strive to retain the pleasures of quiet streets, clean air and communities looking out for each other. 

But there will be scars that last, especially for the young. People who graduate during a recession are at a measurable disadvantage relative to those who are slightly older or younger. The harm is larger for those in disadvantaged groups, such as racial minorities, and it persists for many years. 

And children can suffer long-term harm when they miss school. Those who lack computers, books, quiet space and parents with the time and confidence to help them study are most vulnerable. Good-quality schooling is supposed to last a lifetime; its absence may be felt for a lifetime, too. 

This crisis will not last for decades, but some of its effects will.

Revenge of America’s deep state

Stanly Johny in The Hindu


Not many had foreseen such an abrupt end to Michael Flynn’s role in the Donald Trump presidency. Mr. Flynn, who was Mr. Trump’s National Security Adviser for 24 days, the shortest stint for anybody since the post was created over 60 years ago, was seen as a key architect of the new administration’s foreign and security policies. He was one of the first military figures to endorse Mr. Trump and had been closely associated with him through his rise to the White House.

Still he was forced to leave amid a growing scandal over his contacts with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador in Washington. While the sudden resignation may be surprising, for those who closely watch the events that led to Mr. Flynn’s downfall, it’s not difficult to see an underlying pattern in them, which points to a growing tussle between the Trump team and U.S. intelligence agencies. The U.S. deep state, a web of military (intelligence), political and other interests operating behind the scene to ensure the status quo prevails, may not be as visible to the public as in dictatorships. That’s mainly because its interests have always been taken care of by the political leadership. However Mr. Trump’s attack on the establishment and his seemingly friendly approach towards Russia, the arch enemy of the U.S. in Washington parlance, clearly upset the deep state.

The Russia factor

So the tussle between Mr. Trump and intelligence agencies dates back to the billionaire property mogul’s surprising election victory on November 8, 2016. Within a month, the American media carried reports that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had concluded that Russia had interfered in the U.S. election to help Mr. Trump become President. The finding was that Russian hackers attacked Democratic campaign servers, stole emails and gave them to WikiLeaks, which released them to the public apparently hurting Hillary Clinton’s chances in the election. Barack Obama, by then a lame-duck President, quickly acted on the intelligence reports, imposing fresh sanctions on Russia and expelling 35 Russian diplomats. Clearly, it made any reset in ties difficult for his successor.

Another report that came a month later, again leaked by intelligence officials, claimed that Russia had “compromising personal and financial” information about Mr. Trump.

There were even allegations in Washington by influential people such as Strobe Talbott, a former Deputy Secretary of State, and Michael Morell, a former acting CIA director, that Mr. Trump is a “Kremlin stooge” and a “Putin recruit”. The leaks did not stop after Mr. Trump assumed office or his nominees took over the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. Mr. Flynn’s fall is a case in point. To bring him down, intelligence officials have leaked the contents of intercepted communication, something which is seen as one of the most serious felonies among crimes involving leaking classified information. Mr. Flynn talked to the Russian Ambassador multiple times on the phone on December 29, the day Mr. Obama imposed fresh sanctions on Russia and sacked the diplomats. He first denied having spoken of sanctions. So did the White House. But the Ambassador had been wiretapped and the intelligence community had the details of what was discussed. Once the media got hold of these details, the White House had no option but to give up on Mr. Flynn. 

What connects all these exposés and allegations is the Russia factor. Mr. Trump had sought better cooperation with Moscow in the war against the Islamic State. He had also challenged certain accepted notions among the Washington establishment such as the role and relevance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). This was unacceptable for the deep state, for which the presidency is temporary and the system permanent. The first major leak by the CIA on the Russian involvement in the cyberattack on Democratic campaign servers was a declaration of war. This doesn’t mean that the leaks are bad. Any attempt to make information public, irrespective of its cause and effect, is welcome. But in this case, information is being used as a weapon in a battle between powerful groups. It’s also to be noted that the establishment doesn’t have a problem with Mr. Trump’s more dangerous (for both the U.S. and the world) and provocative policy measures. The Republican leadership, including Paul Ryan, defended his Muslim ban. His belligerence on West Asia is unlikely to invite significant opposition. The opposition comes only over the red line, and that’s Russia.

Mr. Trump could either fight back or make peace. Two days after Mr. Flynn’s resignation, he has signalled both. He attacked the intelligence agencies on Twitter on Wednesday, while the White House indicated that the promised détente with Russia was over. But Mr. Flynn has set in motion a process that is unlikely to be controlled by a seemingly incompetent administration like Mr. Trump’s. With chaos engulfing his government, Mr. Trump will be forced to conform.

Likely Scenarios after the Brexit vote?

By Girish Menon

Now that a majority of Britons have voted to leave the EU, Nigel Farage has denied his claim to fund the NHS, David Cameron has resigned and the markets have fallen; so what happens next?

Scenario 1: The Status Quo

The Conservative party will elect a leader who will try to develop a national consensus on the EU. . S/he will then embark on negotiations with the EU and this time the spooked EU leaders will concede enough to make a difference. S/he will conduct another referendum in 1-2 years time and the UK will continue to be a part of the EU.

Scenario 2: The Nightmare

True Eurosceptics with strong neoliberal leanings will come to power. They will fan xenophobic forces to mask the budget cuts to public services. They will negotiate trade deals from a weak position, dilute workers' rights and help their rich funders convert England into another Russia.

Scenario 3: The Ideal

There will be intense and honest soul searching across the EU. A realisation will dawn that inequality is the major cause for the rise of fissiparous forces. The EU will become a transparent organisation with accountability. It will ensure a Universal and Unconditional Basic Income, Free Education, Free Health and subsidised Housing for all its citizens.

There could be many more scenarios which will be variations on the above themes. I hope the EU will choose scenario 3 but as a betting man I think it will choose scenario 1. The case for scenario 1 becomes stronger as the government is in no hurry to invoke Clause 50 which is the next step to start the Brexit negotiation and Boris Johnson appears subdued after the victory.