DECODING DENIALISM

Nadeem F. Paracha in The Dawn

Illustration by Abro


On November 12, 2009, the New York Times (NYT) ran a video report on its website. In it, the NYT reporter Adam B. Ellick interviewed some Pakistani pop stars to gauge how lifestyle liberals were being affected by the spectre of so-called ‘Talibanisation’ in Pakistan. To his surprise, almost every single pop artiste that he managed to engage, refused to believe that there were men willing to blow themselves up in public in the name of faith.

It wasn’t an outright denial, as such, but the interviewed pop acts went to great lengths to ‘prove’ that the attacks were being carried out at the behest of the US, and that those who were being called ‘terrorists’ were simply fighting for their rights. Ellick’s surprise was understandable. Between 2007 and 2009, hundreds of people had already been killed in Pakistan by suicide bombers.

But it wasn’t just these ‘confused’ lifestyle liberals who chose to look elsewhere for answers when the answer was right in front of them. Unregulated talk shows on TV news channels were constantly providing space to men who would spin the most ludicrous narratives that presented the terrorists as ‘misunderstood brothers.’

From 2007 till 2014, terrorist attacks and assassinations were a daily occurrence. Security personnel, politicians, men, women and children were slaughtered. Within hours, the cacophony of inarticulate noises on the electronic media would drown out these tragedies. The bottom-line of almost every such ‘debate’ was always, ‘ye hum mein se nahin’ [these (terrorists) are not from among us]. In fact, there was also a song released with this as its title and ‘message.’

The perpetrators of the attacks were turned into intangible, invisible entities, like characters of urban myths that belong to a different realm. The fact was that they were very much among us, for all to see, even though most Pakistanis chose not to. 

Just before the 2013 elections, the website of an English daily ran a poll on the foremost problems facing Pakistan. The poll mentioned unemployment, corruption, inflation and street crimes, but there was no mention of terrorism even though, by 2013, thousands had been killed in terrorist attacks.

So how does one explain this curious refusal to acknowledge a terrifying reality that was operating in plain sight? In an August 3, 2018 essay for The Guardian, Keith Kahn-Harris writes that individual self-deception becomes a problem when it turns into ‘public dogma.’ It then becomes what is called ‘denialism.’

The American science journalist and author Michael Specter, in his book Denialism, explains it to mean an entire segment of society, when struggling with trauma, turning away from reality in favour of a more comfortable lie. Psychologists have often explained denial as a coping mechanism that humans use in times of stress. But they also warn that if denial establishes itself as a constant disposition in an individual or society, it starts to inhibit the ability to resolve the source of the stress.

Denialism, as a social condition, is understood by sociologists as an undeclared ‘ism’, adhered to by certain segments of a society whose rhetoric and actions in this context can impact a country’s political, social and even economic fortunes.

In the January 2009 issue of European Journal of Public Health, Pascal Diethelm and Martin McKee write that the denialism process employs five main characteristics. Even though Diethelm and McKee were more focused on the emergence of denialism in the face of evidence in scientific fields of research, I will paraphrase four out of the five stated characteristics to explore denialism in the context of extremist violence in Pakistan from 2007 till 2017.

The deniers have their own interpretation of the same evidence. In early 2013, when a study showed that 1,652 people had been killed in 2012 alone in Pakistan because of terrorism, an ‘analyst’ on a news channel falsely claimed that these figures included those killed during street crimes and ‘revenge murders.’ Another gentleman insisted that the figures were concocted by foreign-funded NGOs ‘to give Pakistan and Islam a bad name.’

This brings us to denialism’s second characteristic: The use of fake experts. These are individuals who purport to be experts in a particular area but whose views are entirely inconsistent with established knowledge. During the peak years of terrorist activity in the country, self-appointed ‘political experts’ and ‘religious scholars’ were a common sight on TV channels. Their ‘expert opinions’ were heavily tilted towards presenting the terrorists as either ‘misunderstood brothers’ or people fighting to impose a truly Islamic system in Pakistan. Many such experts suddenly vanished from TV screens after the intensification of the military operation against militants in 2015. Some were even booked for hate speech.

The third characteristic is about selectivity, drawing on isolated opinions or highlighting flaws in the weakest opinions to discredit entire facts. In October 2012, when extremists attempted to assassinate a teenaged school girl, Malala Yousafzai, a sympathiser of the extremists on TV justified the assassination attempt by mentioning ‘similar incidents’ that he discovered in some obscure books of religious traditions. Within months Malala became the villain, even among some of the most ‘educated’ Pakistanis. When the nuclear physicist and intellectual Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy exhibited his disgust over this, he was not only accused of being ‘anti-Islam’, but his credibility as a scientist too was questioned.

The fourth characteristic is about misrepresenting the opposing argument to make it easier to refute. For example, when terrorists were wreaking havoc in Pakistan, the arguments of those seeking to investigate the issue beyond conspiracy theories and unabashed apologias, were deliberately misconstrued as being criticisms of religious faith.

Today we are seeing all this returning. But this time, ‘experts’ are appearing on TV pointing out conspiracies and twisting facts about the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccines. They are also offering their expert opinions on events such as the Aurat March and, in the process, whipping up a dangerous moral panic.

It seems, not much was learned by society’s collective disposition during the peak years of terrorism and how it delayed a timely response that might have saved hundreds of innocent lives.

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Time for a great reset of the financial system

A 30-year debt supercycle that has fuelled inequality illustrates the need for a new regime writes CHRIS WATLING in The FT 

On average international monetary systems last about 35 to 40 years before the tensions they create becomes too great and a new system is required. 

Prior to the first world war, major economies existed on a hard gold standard. Intra-wars, most economies returned to a “semi-hard” gold standard. At the end of the second world war, a new international system was designed — the Bretton Woods order — with the dollar tied to gold, and other key currencies tied to the dollar. 

When that broke down at the start of the 1970s, the world moved on to a fiat system where the dollar was not backed by a commodity, and was therefore not anchored. This system has now reached the end of its usefulness. 

An understanding of the drivers of the 30-year debt supercycle illustrates the system’s tiredness. These include the unending liquidity that has been created by the commercial and central banks under this anchorless international monetary system. That process has been aided and abetted by global regulators and central banks that have largely ignored monetary targets and money supply growth. 

The massive growth of mortgage debt across most of the world’s major economies is one key example of this. Rather than a shortage of housing supply, as is often postulated as the key reason for high house prices, it’s the abundant and rapid growth in mortgage debt that has been the key driver in recent decades. 

This is also, of course, one of the factors sitting at the heart of today’s inequality and generational divide. Solving it should contribute significantly to healing divisions in western societies. 

With a new US administration, and the end of the Covid battle in sight with the vaccination rollout under way, now is a good time for the major economies of the west (and ideally the world) to sit down and devise a new international monetary order. 

As part of that there should be widespread debt cancellation, especially the government debt held by central banks. We estimate that amounts to approximately $25tn of government debt in the major regions of the global economy. 

Whether debt cancellation extends beyond that should be central to the negotiations between policymakers as to the construct of the new system — ideally it should, a form of debt jubilee. 

The implications for bond yields, post-debt cancellation, need to be fully thought through and debated. A normalisation in yields, as liquidity levels normalise, is likely. 

High ownership of government debt in that environment by parts of the financial system such as banks and insurers could inflict significant losses. In that case, recapitalisation of parts of the financial system should be included as part of the establishment of the new international monetary order. Equally, the impact on pension assets also needs to be considered and prepared for. 

Secondly, policymakers should negotiate some form of anchor — whether it’s tying each other’s currencies together, tying them to a central electronic currency or maybe electronic special drawing rights, the international reserve asset created by the IMF. 

As highlighted above, one of the key drivers of inequality in recent decades has been the ability of central and commercial banks to create unending amounts of liquidity and new debt.

This has created somewhat speculative economies, overly reliant on cheap money (whether mortgage debt or otherwise) that has then funded serial asset price bubbles. Whilst asset price bubbles are an ever-present feature throughout history, their size and frequency has picked up in recent decades. 

As the Fed reported in its 2018 survey, every major asset class over the 20 years from 1997 through to 2018 grew on average at an annual pace faster than nominal GDP. In the long term, this is neither healthy nor sustainable. 

With a liquidity anchor in place, the world economy will then move closer to a cleaner capitalist model where financial markets return to their primary role of price discovery and capital allocation based on perceived fundamentals (rather than liquidity levels). 

Growth should then become less reliant on debt creation and more reliant on gains from productivity, global trade and innovation. In that environment, income inequality should recede as the gains from productivity growth become more widely shared. 

The key reason that many western economies are now overly reliant on consumption, debt and house prices is because of the set-up of the domestic and international monetary and financial architecture. A Great Reset offers therefore opportunity to restore (some semblance of) economic fairness in western, and other, economies.

The Benefits Of Being Hindu

What are the benefits of being a Hindu?

Kerala actor Joy Mathew has kicked up a debate on social media about the differences between Hinduism and Abrahamic religions. The post has gone viral since then.

“Benefits of being Hindu- No need to go and learn religion in childhood. No restrictions about what to do or what not to do. No hard and fast rules about how to live your life,” began the Facebook post of Mathew, who is known as a ‘political actor’ in Kerala.

Mathew, however, has confessed that it is not a post written by him. “One of my friends sent this to me on WhatsApp. I am posting it here for my readers since I find elements of truth in it,” he said, adding, “I am not a slave to any religion."

The one-liners in his post say, in Hinduism, "there is no need to wear a cap, no need of circumcision, no baptism."

“There is no compulsion to go to temples. Only believers have to go. If you wish to go, you can go to any temple irrespective of the caste, language or the ritualistic traditions.

You won’t be labeled agnostic. You won’t be excommunicated.

At the time of marriage, you won’t need a character certificate from the priests. Bride’s family won’t go to the temples to check if you practise religion.”

You can live your life peacefully with only one or two children as you like.

Since there is no restriction to drink, you don’t need to spoil your life by getting addict to weed and drugs.

You can watch films. You can dance. You can sing. You can give and take money for interest.

You can live your life as you like. There are no doctrines.

There are no scary stories about the life after death.

You don’t need to spoil your life dreaming about rivers of wine and houries in heaven.

You don’t need to fear about becoming the firewood in the hell.

There is nothing that goes against the modern science.

There are no special rules for women. No one will abuse if a woman dances. Instead, they will clap and encourage. They will even send girls for dance classes. And for sports too. You don’t need to cover your face, nor head. You can wear the dresses of your choice. Women can eat along with men.

You can worship any god of any religion. You can light stars. You can make cribs. You can celebrate any festival. You can wish your friends on any festival.

Also, you can share this post without fear” he concludes.

Jaishankar’s problem is stark – no amount of external PR can cover up India’s truth

Freedom House and V-Dem are no gold standards of democracy rating. But Jaishankar must know that just pointing out Western hypocrisy won’t cover India’s reality writes Yogendra Yadav in The Print 



 

S Jaishankar has an unenviable task. He has been handed over the job to give a liberal gloss to a government that cannot spell l-i-b-e-r-a-l. More than manage external relations, he is here to manage external public relations, to ensure that the Narendra Modi government doesn’t get a bad international image. Now, that’s manifold more challenging than managing domestic media, mostly darbari if not outright sarkari, with a handful of carrots and sticks. So, you shouldn’t blame the hon’ble Minister of External Affairs if he occasionally botches it up.

As he did last Saturday at the India Today conclave. He was asked about India’s downgrading by two of the leading democracy rating agencies. The US-based non-government organisation Freedom House released a report that classified India as “partly free”, down from “free” earlier. Sweden-based Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute has categorised India as an “electoral autocracy”. Jaishankar was aggressive in his response: “It is hypocrisy. We have a set of self-appointed custodians of the world who find it very difficult to stomach that somebody in India is not looking for their approval, is not willing to play the game they want to play. So they invent their rules, their parameters, pass their judgements and make it look as if it is some kind of global exercise.”

Now, Jaishankar is an educated man. He must know some basic logical fallacies that any intelligent argument must avoid. Usually, at the top of that list is ad hominem, Latin for “against the man”. This happens when someone replaces logical argumentation with criticism based on personal characteristics, background or other features irrelevant to the argument at issue. One variety of ad hominem is called “tu quoque”, Latin for “you too”. It distracts from the argument by pointing out hypocrisy in the opponent. This is a logical fallacy and does not prove anything simply because even hypocrites can tell the truth. When an otherwise intelligent and educated person uses this type of argumentation, you know he is really short on logic and facts.

This is not to dispute Jaishankar’s charge of hypocrisy. Of course, Europe or North America is nobody to distribute certificates of democracy. Not just because their certificates are inevitably linked to their foreign policy and economic interests but also because their own democracy is deeply flawed. The list of autocracies that the US has spawned and supported is too long to be enumerated. Besides, Freedom House and V-Dem are no gold standards of democracy rating. Actually, there is no gold standard in this field. Any quantitative measurement or categorisation of democracy is inevitably a subjective exercise open to challenge. All rating agencies invite experts who inevitably bring their own values. There is no way to have a completely objective rating of democracy. But subjective is not arbitrary and values are not necessarily biases. If long literary essays can be evaluated in terms of quantitative marks in an examination, the same holds true for democracy. 

India craves world rankings

S. Jaishankar would know that the Freedom House and V-Dem have not invented democracy ratings or categorisations to damn his government. They have been publishing annual democracy ratings for most countries of the world for a fairly long time. He would also know that besides these two, there are other ratings such as Democracy Index by The Economist. There is also Press Freedom Index. Besides, there are reports by Amnesty International and UN Rapporteur on Human Rights. He would surely know that of late India has consistently fallen in each and every rating of democracy and has been severely indicted in human rights reports. These reports happen to have given a number and a name to what anyone who knows anything about India knows so well.

No doubt, each of these ratings is from a Western liberal understanding of what a democracy is. Yet it would stretch one’s credulity too far to suggest that all of them are into a grand conspiracy against India. It was rich of Jaishankar to claim that India was not looking for approval from the West. Facts suggest otherwise. No prime minister before Narendra Modi has held melas outside India to promote his image. No head of government was as keen to please an American president as Modi was to Donald Trump. No government has made such a song and dance about a routine Ease of Doing Business Index as this one did, a ranking that landed in a manipulation controversy. Never have Indian government officials preferred International Monetary Fund (IMF) data over India’s own statistics as during this government. No one in the world has tried to claim credit for a high score on severity of lockdown index as this government’s enthusiasts did. Ever since gaining Independence from colonial rule, no Indian government has been as craven in its need for Western certificates as this one is.

Facts, not verbiage

The only honest and intelligent way of questioning such ratings would be to counter them with facts. Jaishankar had only one fact to offer: that in India, everyone including the defeated parties accepts election results. But he forgot that the main target of this much-needed punch was Trump who was recommended to the American electorate by Modi himself. Besides, this fact only proves the fairness of counting and, at best, electoral process. It does not disprove widespread anxiety about the worsening state of civil liberties, capture of democratic institutions, erosion in the freedom of media, judiciary and other watchdogs, attack on political opponents and criminalisation of dissent in today’s India. In fact, the whole point of calling India an “electoral autocracy” is this: elections happen more or less fairly, but the country is non-democratic in between two elections. Unwittingly, Jaishankar has conceded this point.

The only other option would be to come up with an alternative way of measuring democracy. A news report says that the Ministry of External Affairs might support an independent Indian think tank to do an alternative global rating of democracies. At any other time, this should have been welcomed as an instance of the kind of intellectual ambition non-Western democracies must show. In today’s context, it is more likely to be another version of Colonel Gaddafi’s Green Book that sought to challenge the hegemony of Western political philosophy through some verbiage.

Mr Jaishankar’s attempt to clothe up the current state of Indian democracy is stark: The Emperor is naked. And no amount of words can dress it up.