Monday, June 22, 2020

Black Lives Matter: Trump, Antifa, and the Anti-Racist movement

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Aditi Mohta

Article Title

Black Lives Matter: Trump, Antifa, and the Anti-Racist movement

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Global Views 360

Publication Date

June 22, 2020

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President Trump visits St. John Episcopal Church, Washington

President Trump visits St. John Episcopal Church, Washington | Source: White House via Wikimedia

As massive protests following the passing of George Floyd kept on shaking the United States. President Donald Trump tweeted on 31st of May that far-left group Antifa was the one behind the violent riots and he would designate it as a terrorist group. He said, “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.” This assertion was repeated by the US Attorney General William Barr as well.

Antifa, short for anti-fascists, is an amorphous movement and not an organization as Trump labels it to be. They tend to be on the left of the U.S. political spectrum, many describing themselves as socialists, anarchists, anti-capitalists or communists. Antifa, according to many commentators, is just a decentralized collection of individual activists who mostly use non-violent methods to achieve their goal, which is to resist the spread of fascism. They track people who spread racist hatred and fascist ideology through on-ground events, traditional media, or social media and use cultural forms of art like drawing, music, film screenings etc. to spread the message of inclusivity. There are more militant anti-fascist groups as well, who mostly engage in non-militant activities but are willing to use more confrontational tactics at times as well. 

This is not the first time that Donald Trump has criticized Antifa to shift the focus away from racial discrimination faced by the black community in USA. In this instance as well President has tried to portray the protestors and looters with a vague phrase “radical-left bad people” and invoking “Antifa” to represent the whole of leftist militant groups which are bound more by belief than by any organizational structure.

Taking a cue from President Trump, many officials, conservative commentators and white supremacists started blaming Antifa for using the “Black Life Matters” movement to indulge in violence and undermining the government of the USA. Mr Trump’s national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, had also blamed such activists during his appearances on CNN and A.B.C. News. Mr O’Brien said the F.B.I. needed to “come up with a plan” to deal with Antifa. John Guandolo, who was in the FBI for 13 years, went a step ahead and claimed that Antifa and “Black Life Matters” are communist organizations, who are planning to overthrow the US government. He also praised President Trump for calling Antifa a terrorist organization and lamented that the FBI are unaware of its plan. Fiona Moriarty-McLaughlin, a journalist at the right-wing publication Washington Examiner, re-posted a video purportedly depicting "Paid #Antifa thugs" vandalizing the store — even though there is no evidence to suggest that the vandals were members of the movement.

The FBI and local law enforcement agencies have aggressively pursued charges against rioters, looters and others accused of havoc. However there is no evidence of any involvement of organized violence by Antifa or any other left-wing group. The most serious case that has emerged in federal court involved three men in Nevada linked to a loose, national network of far-right extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. They were arrested on May 30 on charges of trying to foment violence during Black Lives Matter protests. There are many instances when white thugs were seen vandalizing which blacks feared could be used against them.

The invocation of Antifa by President Trump during the “Black Life Matters” protest is conveniently used by the conservative commentators and white supremacists to somehow shift the focus away from the deep rooted racism in the USA to the violent actions by some protesters during the “Black Life Matter” protest.

As massive protests following the passing of George Floyd kept on shaking the United States. President Donald Trump tweeted on 31st of May that far-left group Antifa was the one behind the violent riots and he would designate it as a terrorist group. He said, “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.” This assertion was repeated by the US Attorney General William Barr as well.

Antifa, short for anti-fascists, is an amorphous movement and not an organization as Trump labels it to be. They tend to be on the left of the U.S. political spectrum, many describing themselves as socialists, anarchists, anti-capitalists or communists. Antifa, according to many commentators, is just a decentralized collection of individual activists who mostly use non-violent methods to achieve their goal, which is to resist the spread of fascism. They track people who spread racist hatred and fascist ideology through on-ground events, traditional media, or social media and use cultural forms of art like drawing, music, film screenings etc. to spread the message of exclusivity. There are more militant anti-fascist groups as well, who mostly engage in non-militant activities but are willing to use more confrontational tactics at times as well. 

This is not the first time that Donald Trump has criticized Antifa to shift the focus away from racial discrimination faced by the black community in USA. In this instance as well President has tried to portray the protestors and looters with a vague phrase “radical-left bad people” and invoking “Antifa” to represent the whole of leftist militant groups which are bound more by belief than by any organizational structure.

Taking a cue from President Trump, many officials, conservative commentators and white supremacists started blaming Antifa for using the “Black Life Matters” movement to indulge in violence and undermining the government of the USA. Mr Trump’s national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, had also blamed such activists during his appearances on CNN and A.B.C. News. Mr O’Brien said the F.B.I. needed to “come up with a plan” to deal with Antifa. John Guandolo, who was in the FBI for 13 years, went a step ahead and claimed that Antifa and “Black Life Matters” are communist organizations, who are planning to overthrow the US government. He also praised President Trump for calling Antifa a terrorist organization and lamented that the FBI are unaware of its plan. Fiona Moriarty-McLaughlin, a journalist at the right-wing publication Washington Examiner, re-posted a video purportedly depicting "Paid #Antifa thugs" vandalizing the store — even though there is no evidence to suggest that the vandals were members of the movement.

The FBI and local law enforcement agencies have aggressively pursued charges against rioters, looters and others accused of havoc. However there is no evidence of any involvement of organized violence by Antifa or any other left-wing group. The most serious case that has emerged in federal court involved three men in Nevada linked to a loose, national network of far-right extremists advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. They were arrested on May 30 on charges of trying to foment violence during Black Lives Matter protests. There are many instances when white thugs were seen vandalizing which blacks feared could be used against them.

The invocation of Antifa by President Trump during the “Black Life Matters” protest is conveniently used by the conservative commentators and white supremacists to somehow shift the focus away from the deep rooted racism in the USA to the violent actions by some protesters during the “Black Life Matter” protest.

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February 4, 2021 4:45 PM

How the failure of political leadership resulted in the explosion of pandemic in Brazil

With over 1.2 million active cases and over 51 thousand deaths as on 30th June 2020, Brazil is one of the worst coronavirus affected countries. Latin America became the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in the latter half of May, largely due to Brazil’s incompetency in dealing with the pandemic. Due to the underreporting and low testing rates, the actual number of active cases and deaths are unknown.

The Brazilian Ministry started making changes to the number of cases reported, making it even harder to control the situation the pandemic has caused. The country’s response has been widely criticized in Brazil and outside. The President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, dismissed the threat of the virus and the pandemic. OnMarch 26, 2020, he said that Brazilians are immune to the virus and even if they are drunk in a sewer they “don’t catch a thing.” He defied the guidelines set by his own health ministry and visited a busy commercial district in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, where he told all the elderly Brazilians to get back to work. He also went on TV many times and called it little flu and accused the media of hysteria. Even as the coronavirus crisis has worsened recently, some major cities have eased their preventive measures, like Sao Paulo opening up shopping malls in Mid-June and beaches getting crowded again. With all of this happening, hospitals are close to running out of intensive care beds.

In early March, Brazil declared a public health emergency, a few days after the World Health Organization. The Ministry of Health in Brazil urged the officials to cancel all the public events and reinforce the measures of social distancing as prescribed by the World Health Organization. Some experts thought that Brazil could handle the pandemic based on its records during past public health emergencies. Brazil’s health care system is underfunded, but it does not fail to provide robust coverage across the country. The efforts of the state government went awry when the President called the virus a “cold” and provided anti-malaria tablets as a solution to the virus. President Bolsonaro’s clash with the governors and officials led to two health ministers leaving- one was fired and the other one quit. This left the military general, with no public health training, in charge of the virus. The clash amongst the government left the citizens of Brazil uncertain about the importance of following the preventive measures kept in place to prevent the spread of the virus. This led to the defying of the measures, which in turn led to the pandemic’s rate being one of the highest in the world.

The Ministry of Health has not presented a comprehensive plan to beat the virus yet. One of the main initiatives by the Ministry of Health is to boost the production of hydroxychloroquine and has encouraged the doctors in the public healthcare system to prescribe the same. The country has struggled to import lifesaving instruments, like coronavirus tests and ventilators. The lack of tests, in turn, has made it difficult to track the spread of the virus. This might result in the undercount of cases of the virus in the country.  Between Jan. 1 and June 6, 23,171 people who were not diagnosed with the coronavirus died from acute respiratory infections, according to data released by Fiocruz, one of Brazil’s state-run health research institutes. Experts believe most of them died from coronavirus.

At a time when Brazil needs to be putting all its efforts into fighting the virus, the president has been wrapped up in his own political battles. The Supreme Court is investigating allegations of disinformation and intimidation by the President’s supporters. Investigations also state that he has interfered in federal police investigations to protect his family. Due to this, the tensions between President Bolsonaro and the judiciary are high.

During the past few months, politics have become bigger than the pandemic. Even though the health crisis is extremely important, the magnitude of the political scandals has had a huge impact on how the country reacts to the pandemic. There is anger over how President Bolsonaro is handling the crisis and at the same time, there is a fear as to where the country is headed after the pandemic passes.

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