Archive for the ‘Democracy’ Category

As Sudan’s transition to democracy accelerates, reforming the … – Atlantic Council

Sudans political factions are negotiating the formation of a new transitional government, a major step toward a civilian-led government that is long overdue nearly eighteen months after a military coup led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Once the parties do form a new governmenttalks are continuing past a previously announced April 11 target dateperhaps its most critical task will be to clarify what role Sudans security forces will have in the country going forward.

To ensure that Sudans transition to democracy succeeds, its leaders must put limits on the power of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). For a successful political transformation, the SAF, led by Burhan, and the paramilitary RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, must be governed by the rule of law and work to protect democracy and human rights in Sudan. Absent meaningful reform to rein in the existing power of the security services, institutional tension between the services could spark a wider conflict that would destabilize the country and threaten the transition to democracy.

Reform of the security services will not be easy, and it is the subject of ongoing debate as the factions try to strike a deal on a transitional government. But there are steps Sudans leaders and those who support Sudans transition to democracy can take now.

Sudans military has played a major role in the political landscape of the country since its independence in 1956. Omar al-Bashir came into power in a military coup and, following thirty years of autocratic rule, was removed in 2019 by another military coup. Following his ouster, civilian and pro-democracy leaders called for fundamental reforms of the security sector, but Sudan continues to struggle with attempts at reform.

During the transition to democracy since 2019, the SAF and RSF have both cooperated and competed with one another for power in the country. For example, in an October 2021 coup ousting Sudans civilian leadership led by then-Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdock, the SAF and RSF joined forces with an array of Sudans armed movements and marginalized groups. At the same time, the RSF and SAF compete with each other behind the scenes to retain as much economic and political power, influence, and control as possible.

Managing the tension between the SAF and RSF will be a paramount concern for Sudans leadership as it seeks to avoid future conflict between the security forces that could trigger greater violence. This is a key element to establishing peace, security, and sustainable development in the country while allowing for the development and modernization of Sudans security institutions.

Meaningful security sector reform must address the role of the SAF and the professionalization and integration of the RSF into the SAF. It must also place the security services firmly under civilian control and oversight. In the security sector, reforms to Sudans legal framework must include formally establishing the role of the security forces and a single national army trusted by local communities across Sudan, especially in the conflict areas of the country.

Another critical step is untangling the military institutions from the economy. This will be very difficult and will require careful planning, as the SAF and RSF currently dominate nearly all facets of political, economic, and media power in Sudanand work to protect this influence. Civilian authorities should seize the moment and take steps to address the challenges of security sector reform in Sudan during the transition to civilian leadership. The Bashir regime created a vast array of expensive, corrupt, and ineffective security forces accused by critics of operating outside of the law, committing human-rights abuses, and creating an economy that directly benefits the security institutionspreventing more robust economic reform and development. To set the country on a better path, Sudans civilian leaders must enact reforms that begin to disentangle the military from the construction, telecommunication, aviation, and banking sectors.

In concert with the new civilian leadership, the military must commit to reform that helps modernize and develop the SAF. This includes ensuring that the SAF is tasked with protecting civilians and is accountable to the countrys civilian leadership. The SAF needs to be respected and not feared by those it is assigned to protect.

Civilian and military leaders must adopt legislation that addresses the specific gaps in Sudans transitional documents. Using the legal framework, civilian authorities should work with the military leadership to scale down the size of the SAF, find meaningful economic opportunities for former fighters, identify core priorities for its mission, and deploy a military that is able to meet the needs of the country. Sudans authorities should also identify funding to create and support a broad disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration strategy that avoids a sole focus on the reintegration of militia fighters and includes appropriate financial oversight.

Outside of these efforts, civilian authorities must look for ways to reform Sudans economy that help to disentangle the vast array of companies linked to the security services, create opportunity to improve the business environment, and send the signal to investors, banks, and credit rating agencies that Sudan is open for business. Civilian authorities must take steps to increase transparency and accountability in the illicit gold trade to disrupt illicit financial flows to Sudans militias, including the RSF.

As Sudans economy faces uncertainty due to elevated food, fuel, and transportation prices, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank must balance the need for economic reforms in the country with the imperative to not destabilize a new civilian-led government. This government will need to walk a difficult line to implement reforms that address economic mismanagement by the SAF, the rising cost of living, and stubbornly high prices for basic goods that have further complicated efforts to secure international funding and support for the economy.

The United States can help Sudans transition to democracy and help facilitate security sector reform. The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act included the Sudan Democratic Transition, Accountability, and Fiscal Transparency Act of 2020, elevating Sudan on the foreign policy agenda and sending a signal to Sudans new leadership that the United States is ready to support Sudan as it enacts difficult reforms. This law is an effective messaging tool, encourages a coordinated US government response to support the civilian leadership, and can direct public reporting on sensitive issues, support a sanctions regime, and show the private sector that Sudan is not open for business as usual. Policymakers can use this legislation to support Sudans economic reforms, stability, and oversight of the security and intelligence services in the short term while seeking to hold human-rights abusers, spoilers to the transition, and those seeking to exploit Sudans natural resources accountable for their actions.

Working with other countries, the United States can also play a leading role to encourage international financial institutions to carefully leverage the approval of World Bank projects, consider withholding IMF disbursements, and institute public reporting to ensure that economic and security sector reforms remain on track. The diplomatic community must continue to apply coordinated pressure on Sudans authorities to ensure that they follow through on their verbal commitments and work with key external actorsincluding the United Arab Emirates and Egyptto encourage them to be meaningful contributors to Sudans democratic progress.

Sudans transition to democratic leadership provides another critical opportunity for security sector reform in the country. As the transitional government moves forward, Sudans civilian leadership can show investors, banks, and its people that greater connectedness to the global economy, a modern security apparatus, and a commitment to fighting corruption is in its long-term interest. Doing so would solidify a path toward a peaceful and democratic Sudan.

Benjamin Mossberg is the deputy director of the Atlantic Councils Africa Center. Previously, he led US Treasury Department efforts to combat corruption, money laundering, terrorist financing, and financial crimes on the African continent.

Image: Protesters march during a rally against a signed framework deal between political parties and the military that provides for a two-year civilian-led transition towards elections and would end a standoff triggered by a coup in October 2021, in Khartoum, Sudan December 8, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah

Continue reading here:
As Sudan's transition to democracy accelerates, reforming the ... - Atlantic Council

Haiti Needs Help to Restore Functioning Democracy – Foreign Policy

Two years ago, private mercenaries allegedly hired by Haitian American businessman Christian Emmanuel Sanon assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Mose in his residence in Port-au-Prince. Sanon and six other people have been charged by U.S. authorities for their role in the assassination. Ever since, Haitis political and economic situation has further declined, pushing it even closer to the brink of collapse.

Two years ago, private mercenaries allegedly hired by Haitian American businessman Christian Emmanuel Sanon assassinated Haitian President Jovenel Mose in his residence in Port-au-Prince. Sanon and six other people have been charged by U.S. authorities for their role in the assassination. Ever since, Haitis political and economic situation has further declined, pushing it even closer to the brink of collapse.

Violent, tragic crises like the one in Haiti are why the U.S. Congress passed the Global Fragility Act (GFA) in 2019 in an effort to redefine Americas response to fragile and volatile states worldwide. Unlike past congressional attempts at promoting stability and peace within crumbling democracies, the GFA aims to get ahead of the problemto shift the United States from its back foot to its front. In pursuit of that purpose, the State Department formulated the Strategy to Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability, and on March 24, President Joe Biden transmitted to Congress10-year plansfor realizing the strategy across the laws priority countries.

The priority countries were chosen based on a number of factors including the level and risks of fragility and violent conflict, political will within the countries, the opportunity for the United States to have an impact, other international commitments, and the security and economic interests of the U.S. Alongside Haiti, the other priority countries include Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and the region of costal West Africa (consisting of Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, and Benin).

But our strategy and its 10-year plans risk failing to address the key drivers of conflict in Haiti. Given the promise of the GFA, that would be a colossal missed opportunity.

In its strategy for Haiti, the United States outlines two objectives: thefirst,advancing responsive and accountable governance and security; thesecond,supporting an engaged and prosperous citizenry. For the first objective, it recommends working with the Haitian National Police to develop and implement security programming across the country. Currently, however, Haiti only has 10,000 police officers to address security, down from 16,000 at the end of 2021.

With police officers underpaid, ill-equipped, and facing increasing dangeranaverageof five officers a month were murdered between July 2021 and January 2023the police haveceded controlof most of the capital, Port-au-Prince, to violent gangs. Some estimates now put theamountof territory in Port-au-Prince controlled by gangs at 90 percent. Security is so poor that Haitis embattled prime minister and acting president, Ariel Henry,requestedintervention from foreign troops to quell the violence.

Even if the Haitian National Police can push back the gangs, and the United States can achieve success in its first objective, the second goal of supporting an engaged and prosperous citizenry will be equally challenging to achieve. Complicating matters is public perception of Henry as illegitimate, in part because he was named prime minister in the days before Moses assassination but was never formally installed in the role. Henrys request for foreign troops was seen as an attempt to shore up his power. The request was not met well in Haiti as previous interventions, including the U.S.-led intervention in 1994 and the 15 years of consecutive U.N.-led peacekeeping operations from 2004 to 2019 all failed to result in lasting democratic change.

Indeed, Henry is not helping his case. Haiti has not had a single elected official inpowersince January in either house of the Haitian Parliament. Henry haspromisedelections this year, intending to swear in a new set of elected representatives in 2024, but he failed to live up to the same pledge in 2021 and so far has not set a date for an election this year.

Another avenue for security and stability is the Montana Accord of August 2021, released by the 13-member Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis, which draws support from groups across Haiti including unions, human rights organizations, and religious groups. The accord is promising,providingthe basis for a transition in Haiti that will lead to a new democratic government.

But so far, negotiations between Henry and Montana Accord drafters have yielded nothing. Crucially, the United States has not announced support for the accord itself, instead pushing for Henry and the accord drafters to reach a mutually agreeable resolution. This stems from the GFA strategy, which calls for prioritizing locally driven solutions,statingthat the United States ought to work with both national and local leaders to ensure that Haitians are protagonists in shaping their own future.

The United States must realize the GFAs full potential. Despite the inability of the Haitian National Police to control the violence engulfing Port-au-Prince, the United States should not heed Henrys calls for a militarized intervention. Such interventions have failed to bring lasting stability to Haiti. Indeed, they compound Haitis many problems. Worse, agreeing to an armed intervention now risks allowing Henry to cement power, further deepening the crisis of illegitimacy gripping Haitis government.

Its time to go back to the drawing board. The GFA strategy should shift its focus to the front footto first promoting a democratic transition, rather than supporting a constantly deteriorating policing situation with no clear path to improvement. Announcing U.S. support of the Montana Accord is a good start, but there are other actions the United States can take short of this step.

In November, the United States sanctioned four Haitian politicians, accusing them of involvement with gangs and drug trafficking. The bipartisan Haiti Criminal Collusion Transparency Act of 2022 would expand the number of Haitians involved in illegal activities who are targeted by sanctions and introduce reporting on the linkages between individuals and gangs, helping to highlight corruption among the Haitian elite.

The U.S. and its allies enjoy a large amount of leverage over Henrys government, providing transport of armored vehicles to Haiti for use by the police, and once helped legitimize Henrys rule by announcing support for him as leader in the aftermath of Moses death. The United States can use its leverage to force Henry to the negotiating tableeither with the Montana Accord or push him to set a timeline and hold elections this year.

Doing so might help the United States accomplish the second objectivean engaged and prosperous citizenry.In the process, the United States may also be able to accomplish the strategys first objective of advancing a responsive and accountable security sector in Haiti. The United States has an opportunity to make a difference this time, but its strategy risks emphasizing security at the cost of democracy, delaying a real change in Haiti once again.

As part of passing the GFA, Congress acknowledged Haitis precarious situation and the failures of past U.S. interventions. Our strategy under the GFA should build on that acknowledgment and set a course to peace and prosperity for an important neighbor. Lets not miss that opportunity.

Originally posted here:
Haiti Needs Help to Restore Functioning Democracy - Foreign Policy

What are the politicians going to do to rescue our democracy … – HeraldScotland

Small numbers of largely-privileged people have dictated the leadership of an already highly centralised Government. Downing Street has looked more like a short-term rental property than a residence. With the next General Election reportedly not untillate 2024, there is a way to go before the people have their voices heard.

The UK Government has given up on any pretence of due process and reason. Its treatment of asylum seekers and disregard for international human rights obligations; interference with the BBC; and the introduction of new election rules designed to reduce democratic participation hammer this home.

Until recently, Scotland has been a steadier ship.

Read more:Fine words are not enough. Yousaf must quickly deliver a radical plan

The sudden resignation of the previous First Minister, followed by the SNPs leadership election, and of course the events surrounding the Party which have followed, hardly bears comparison with the democratic debacle at Westminster over the past three years.

However, it has punctured the view of many that all is well with Scotlands democracy. This is not to prejudge the outcome of any process currently under way. Suffice to say that it has been a difficult first few weeks for the new First Minister. Internal difficulties aside, his party is squaring up to the real possibility that independence, despite continuing to enjoy close to equal support among the Scottish electorate as the status quo, has no practical short-term route to being delivered.

Both the Brexit vote and the independence referendum continue to represent major fault lines in our politics. As well as revealing deep disagreements over sovereignty, both votes came about in part because of peoples dissatisfaction with our democracy and a feeling of political and economic disempowerment. Whether through falling wages, rising fuel costs or taxes on the lower-paid rather than the wealthy, peoples sense of disenfranchisement continues to grow.

In addition, we have seen the erosion of the everyday democracy which offered people the chance to collectively determine at least some aspects of their lives. Community councils and tenants organisations, with some notable exceptions are weaker or non-existent. Community organisations across this country do amazing work but every year presents new challenges, not least through cuts to funding.

Now at least though, unions and our wider labour movement are bucking that trend.

Workers across the length and breadth of the UK are taking action to fight injustice. On pay, terms, conditions or cuts to services, it has been those within unionised workplaces seeking to bring about change. To the surprise of the Tories, their demonisation of trade unions has fallen on deaf ears. The public remains largely steadfast in their support for striking workers. This is, at least in part, due to our union democracy being open and transparent. We are subject to some ridiculously arcane and restrictive laws such as the need to hold postal ballots rather than online voting, or non-returns being effectively counted as "no" votesin ballots. Despite this, nearly every ballot for industrial action has been overwhelming.

Read more: Lineker saga has shown how solidarity gets results

In response, the UK Government has hit the panic button. Its Minimum Service Bill aimed at making it even harder for public sector workers to take strike action and flouting international democratic norms is a last-ditch attempt to turn the tide in their favour.

It wont work. Workers have had enough. Enough of the duplicity and the clear double standards: one for those who make the rules and another for those playing by them.

Those same workers are coming to our Congress next week in Dundee the biggest gathering of trade unionists across Scotland since the beginning of this cost of living crisis. They will debate how we want to build a National Care Service, the industrial policies we need for a Just Transition to net zero, increasing taxation on wealth and much more besides.

With the First Minister, Labours Deputy Leader Angela Rayner and Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar all set to address our Congress, theyll hear first-hand how we expect them to meet these challenges.

But we also want to hear not just how they intend to defend and uphold the place of our trade union movement but how we can revitalise our wider democracy.

Voter apathy is not the voters fault. Trade unions have shown over the past period that when you consult people on what they want to do, and when you actually do what it is they have voted for, participation is strong. A little dose of that could go a long way in parliamentary politics over the coming period.

Roz Foyer is General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC)

See the rest here:
What are the politicians going to do to rescue our democracy ... - HeraldScotland

A culture of truth denial is wilting US democracy and Britain is following fast – The Guardian

Opinion

GB News is chasing Fox down a path of being economical with the facts, culminating in assertions last week that a liberal elite is running the UK

The United States is a grim warning of what happens when a society dispenses with the idea of truth. Fragmentation, paranoia, division and myth rule democracy wilts. Fox News, we now know from emails flushed out by a lawsuit from the voting machine company Dominion, feared it would lose audiences if it told the truth about the 2020 presidential election result. Instead, it knowingly broadcast and fed Donald Trumps lie that the election had been stolen in particular the known unfounded allegation that Dominion had programmed its voting machines to throw millions of votes to the Democrats. Fox could have been instructed to tell the truth by its owner, as this months Prospect magazine details, but as Rupert Murdoch acknowledged under oath: I could have. But I didnt. There was no penalty for lying, except being on the wrong side of a $1.6bn lawsuit.

But the culture of truth denial is no accident; it was a key stratagem of the US right as it fought to build a counter-establishment in the 1970s, 80s and 90s that would challenge and even supplant what it considered an over-dominant liberal establishment. Unalloyed facts, truthful evidence and balanced reporting on everything from guns to climate change tended to support liberals and their worldview. But if all facts could be framed as the contingent result of opinions, the right could fight on level terms. Indeed, because the right is richer, it could even so dominantly frame facts from its well-funded media that truth and misinformation would become so jumbled no one could tell the difference. Stop the steal is such a fact-denying strategy. Ally it with voter suppression and getting your people into key roles in pivotal institutions and there are the bones of an anti-democratic coup.

For years, the right had a target in its sights, rather as the British right today has the BBC the 1949 Fairness Doctrine. This required American broadcasters to ensure that contentious issues were presented fairly; that both sides to any argument had access to the airwaves and presented their case factually. Like the BBC, it enraged the right and, over his period of office, Ronald Reagan ensured the Federal Communications Commission, which enforced it, was chaired and increasingly staffed by anti-Fairness Doctrine people. Finally, in 1987 the doctrine was ruled unnecessary because it obstructed free speech. Within months, The Rush Limbaugh Show, the ultra-rightwing talkshow platform, was being nationally syndicated as the scourge of the liberal elite anti-immigrant, anti-tax, anti-feminist, anti-LGBT, anti climate change and later denying Covid vaccines and always rejecting the evidence that smoking caused cancer. No need any longer for countervailing views. A lifelong smoker, Limbaugh died in 2021 of the very lung cancer he denied.

Through the 1990s, many rightwing TV stations were launched following suit, including the fair and balanced Fox News although in 2017 it replaced the logo with most watched, most trusted. Donald Trumps ascent would have been impossible without it, even as the US grew more ungovernable. Tens of millions believe the lies. And anyone who calls out the process is quickly dismissed as an elitist: out of step with the real opinions of real voters in neglected America, opinions that have been forged by the Republican media.

In this respect, the next general election is the most important in Britains democratic life. The Tory party has learned from the rise of the Republicans. Voter suppression is one part of the toolkit the new UK requirement to show photographic ID to vote is borrowed straight from the Republican playbook, as is the weakening of the Electoral Commission. Ensuring appointments to key roles are only available to Tories or known Tory sympathisers from chairing the BBC and Ofcom to membership of any regulatory or cultural body is another building block in achieving ascendancy. What remains is to control the commanding heights of the broadcast media, given the right already possesses the majority of the print media. Freezing the BBC licence fee in a period of double-digit inflation helps to enfeeble it but better still would be to consign it and conceptions of fairness and impartiality to history. Thus the promised end of the licence fee before the current charter expires in 2027. This will open the prospect of overtly rightwing broadcaster GB News trying to reproduce the scale and success of Fox News, as its Dubai-based backer the Legatum Ventures Ltd together with hedge fund owner Sir Paul Marshall stomaching 31m of losses this year anticipate.

GB News in important respects goes further than Fox; Fox gives few presentation slots to active rightwing politicians. But from the married Tory MPs Esther McVey and Philip Davies via Jacob Rees-Mogg to the deputy chair of the Tory party, Lee Anderson, GB News has become the broadcasting arm of Conservative central office. There is little pretence of journalism, which ceases altogether if a programme can be branded as current affairs. Ofcom raps its knuckles over some of the more egregious examples of bias, but it has no real power. Ofcom chair Michael Grade knows from his spells at ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC what good TV journalism looks like its not on GB News but equally he knows his role in the Tory scheme of things.

Lastly, the coup needs useful intellectuals to draw the sting from any critics. Step up last week the academic Matthew Goodwin, who has morphed from studying the right to becoming an active rightwing advocate, arguing that a liberal elite constituting Emily Maitlis, Gary Lineker and Emma Watson (some elite!) has the country in its thrall, out of step with virtuous mainstream working-class opinion who it haughtily disparages. Yes, it is possible to understand why many in the working class in red wall seats want strong defence and immigration policies and think climate change is only a middle-class preoccupation but that does not mean that objectively the stop the boats policy is not cruel and inhumane, that climate change is bogus or that Brexit has nothing to do with queues at Dover. What should matter surely is the truth not whether the answer is closer to the view of some member of an elite or red-wall voter. Goodwins function is to throw a smokescreen around what is actually happening.

There is endless commentary about how technocratic, charisma-light Keir Starmer lacks definition against proved technocratic Rishi Sunak. Wrong. His election would bring this coup to a halt; Britain would strike out on a different, more democratic course. You may shake your head at the shenanigans in the US, but the Conservative ambition is to go at least as far, if not further in a country with none of the USs checks and balances. The issue is whether you want that.

Will Hutton is an Observer columnist

This article was amended on 9 April 2023 to refer to the Federal Communications Commission, rather than Council as an earlier version said.

{{topLeft}}

{{bottomLeft}}

{{topRight}}

{{bottomRight}}

{{.}}

View post:
A culture of truth denial is wilting US democracy and Britain is following fast - The Guardian

Author Carol Anderson on How Anti-Blackness Drives U.S. Gun … – Democracy Now!

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the debate over gun control, Republican attacks on democracy across the country and much more, were joined by Carol Anderson, professor at Emory University, author of The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. The paperback edition has just been published. Shes also the author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy and the book White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. Her new documentary, named after a Langston Hughes poem, is titled I, Too.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Professor Anderson. Its great to have you with us. So, you have both Justins, the youngest Black lawmakers in the Tennessee House of Representatives, being reinstated to the Tennessee Legislature, after leading, with Gloria Johnson, a protest against guns on the floor of the House after the Nashville school massacre. Talk about the significance of whats taken place over the last week with the overwhelmingly white Legislature expelling these two legislators.

CAROL ANDERSON: You are seeing a convergence of so many of the multiple streams in American society right there. So, on one hand, what youre seeing is the power of gerrymandering to create a legislature that is not representative of the people, that is not one person/one vote, but instead is that extreme partisan gerrymandering, so that you have the needs of the people not being able to be addressed by that legislature. What youre also seeing is the power of the youth, who are pushing forward for a different vision of America. It is a vision that is multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural, multireligious.

And that vision scares those who are in those gerrymandered districts, scares the bejeebers and thats the scholarly term out of them, because it is a way of being, a way of thinking, a way of recognizing peoples humanity, a way of knowing that there are resources, incredible resources, in this nation that should be available to all. But instead, youve got this hoarding happening, a hoarding of power, a hoarding of a way of wanting to be able to control.

And in that control, this is why were also seeing this valorization of the Second Amendment. And as I laid out in the book, the Second Amendment emerged really fully out of a concern about Black people, out of a fear of Black people. And so, this is what the role of the militia was. And so, yes, we hear the thing about domestic tyranny. They really werent good at that. We heard this thing about being able to the militia being able to fend off a foreign invasion. They really werent good at that. But what they were good at was putting down slave revolts. And so, when youre having the debates about the Second Amendment, youre having the battles over the ratification of the Constitution, the Second Amendment was the bribe to the South to not scuttle the Constitution of the United States, in order to have control of that militia to keep the enslaved in check.

And so, this stream that comes through is what were consistently seeing is and I think about Charlie Kirk, who said last week that, you know, unfortunately, there are going to be gun deaths, but thats the price you have to pay in order to have the Second Amendment. And so, what its saying is, because of the inherent, fundamental fear of Black people in this nation, we are willing to be unsafe in our schools, in our churches, in our grocery stores, in our amusement parks, on our streets, in our parking lots. We are willing to be unsafe in order to be able to have the access to weaponry, where we cant even think through it in terms of what is logical.

What is logical is that weapons of war do not belong in the hands of civilians. What is logical is that you have background checks. What is logical is that you have red flag laws. But all of those, because of the gerrymandering that has happened politically and the barriers that have been put up for access to the ballot box, youve got a political system that is not responsive to the needs of the people. And that is what you saw in Tennessee.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Anderson, I wanted to go to who Justin Jones is, one of the two Black legislators who were expelled, was reinstated on Monday, but there still has to be a special election, with untold amount of money having to be spent because of the overwhelmingly white Legislature expelling them. But Justin Jones, before he was elected in November, was a well-known activist. And one of the things that he did in the last years one of his targets was the bust of the Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest. He wanted it removed from the state Capitol. Now, this is very interesting, going to who Nathan Bedford was, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, sold slaves in Memphis, was in command at the Fort Pillow massacre. Cameron Sexton, the speaker of the House in Tennessee, voted against the removal. And, of course, each time Justin Jones speaks, he is now calling for him to resign. Talk about the significance of this push ultimately, of course, they did succeed and guns.

CAROL ANDERSON: And so, part of what youre also seeing here is the kind of, again, valorization of those who were steeped in anti-Blackness, those who and to put that in a public space, saying this is these are our value systems right here, that speaks volume. It speaks volumes about how intricately woven the anti-Blackness is in the operating code and how you have this this has been a consistent push to open up this nation. So, you know, We hold these truths to be self-evident. The push that youre seeing, what we heard from Justin Jones, what we heard from Justin Pearson, was to make those truths self-evident. And that is to break apart this notion that youve got that you embrace the Confederacy, you embrace the treason of attacking the United States of America, you embrace slaveholding.

And so, I think about Tate Reeves, the governor of Mississippi, bringing this out as Confederate History Month in Mississippi, the same Mississippi that is removing the control of the police and of the judicial system from Jackson. Again, its part and parcel of the same pattern, part and parcel of the same drive to put Black folks back in their place. I mean, thats what Nathan Bedford Forrest was about. Black folks thought they could be free. Black folks cant be free. Black folks thought that they were equal. Black folks cant be equal.

And so, when you think about that as the signal, as the public-facing signal, what it says to the rest of the community is a kind of violence, a violence on your own humanity. And this other vision that the Justins are talking about is a vision that recognizes and embraces our humanity and that finds a way for us to be able to live into that full humanity, not to have this exclusion, this control, because part of what youre seeing in these legislatures is a drive for control to put all the things back in their place. So, Black folks need to go back in their place. Women need to go back in their place. Immigrants need to go back in their place. The LGBTQ community needs to go back in their place. That drive to put things back in their place, the push, the counterweight, has been no. No. And you heard it when they said, No. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Anderson, I want to ask about your new documentary, I, Too. I want to play first a clip of the trailer.

CAROL ANDERSON: Were you taught the Hamburg massacre in school?

UNIDENTIFIED: No. You looked across the river, all you could see is a jungle.

UNIDENTIFIED: As African Americans, youve got to go find it yourself. Youve got to go research it, because youre going to miss it because theyre not telling you.

UNIDENTIFIED: Thats the original cross, with the bullet holes.

CAROL ANDERSON: So, you have this church that is providing sanctuary and protection to those who are being chased out of their homes.

UNIDENTIFIED: Right.

CAROL ANDERSON: Now, that is biblical.

UNIDENTIFIED: When it happened, he hid underneath a streetcar. And so, he could look underneath the car and see people hitting the street.

UNIDENTIFIED: Here, theyre sitting in this circle, and they would grab someone, and theyd take them over a hill, and you would hear a gunshot.

UNIDENTIFIED: We have no idea how many Black people were murdered. Some of these records were intentionally not kept, and some things have, oddly enough, gone missing.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that is a clip of the trailer for the new film about you, I, Too. Youre talking there about the Hamburg massacre. Im wondering if you can elaborate on that and also the attack on African American history on American history across this country, where you have Missouri, the House, voting to defund the libraries, because if they cant have their books banned, they dont want the libraries open, as in Llano, Texas, theyre saying if a judge forces them to put them back, just close the libraries. You recently wrote a piece in The Washington Post titled Floridas past paints Ron DeSantis war on 'wokeism' in a dark light. Put it all together for us, Professor Anderson.

CAROL ANDERSON: So, as part of this pattern that were talking about, theres also the attack on history, the attack on knowledge, because a people who knows their history, oh, then theyre thinking in very new, vibrant ways. When you know where you come from, when you know the violence that has been rained down on communities, it begins to shatter those very traditional political narratives.

So, one of the things we did in that film was to link the January 6th insurrection with the coup in Wilmington, North Carolina, where you had a multiracial government in the late 1890s that was overthrown by white supremacists, where you had Black folks slaughtered, where you had the newspaper for the the Black newspaper burned down and trashed, where in Hamburg you had the Black militia marching on January 4th down Market Street, and you had two white men come up behind them, just angry that Black men were in uniform, and demanded that they disband, and then demanded they had over their guns to them. This is a state militia. And when the Black soldiers said no, they were massacred. Massacred.

But when we dont know these histories, then were able to talk about, were able to see American as white and male, as patriotism as white and male, as the folks who are fighting for this country as white and male. But what were really seeing is that you have had Black folks believing in America even when America didnt believe in them. You had Black folks fighting for America when America wouldnt fight for them. And you had Black folks just pushing this nation to be stronger, to be better, to live up to its ideals. And that is what you saw in Tennessee in the Legislature when the Justins stood up and spoke the truth.

AMY GOODMAN: And Ron DeSantis, if you can talk about the significance? Hes not only, of course, governor of Florida, but is probably running for president.

CAROL ANDERSON: And hes running on that platform of, basically, anti-Blackness, anti-LGBTQ and anti-woman. So, youve got him pushing for the six-week abortion ban. I believe he signed off on that. You had the scuttling of the African American studies AP course because it lacked educational value. And you had the attack on Disney, because Disney said, you know, LGBTQ folk are folk, and that is a radical idea. And so, you see him attacking, attacking, attacking, because the marginalized, apparently, in his worldview, dont have the power to fight back. And that platform is so racist, homophobic and disgusting.

And it is part of that narrative of trying to bring back control. I think about the old Archie Bunker song, The days when men were men, and girls were girls, and you knew who you were then. Wouldnt we like to go back to those great old days again? Its harkening back to a past that wasnt so great, because it was violently exclusionary, because it undermined democracy. And so, what were seeing is a full-blown assault on democracy. Were also seeing that full-blown assault on democracy by going after the rule of law, threatening judges, threatening prosecutors who are trying to bring justice to those who have allegedly broken the law.

So, all of these are factoring in the assault on education, the assault on knowledge, the assault on access to reproductive care, the assault on the right to vote by raising these barriers, and then opening up full-blown access to guns, to the violence that those guns bring, and to craft it in that language of crime, crime, crime, which has that subtone of Blackness, Blackness, Blackness. Its a formula. Its a recipe. And its an authoritarian recipe. It is an anti-democratic recipe.

And it is a recipe that you have young folk pushing back, fighting back. And one of the things that is consistent in American history is that that right-wing authoritarianism is always met with a larger, better vision of what America could be. And that is what were seeing right now, a battle for that vision. Theres the Ron DeSantis vision, and then theres the Justin Pearson and Justin Jones vision.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, going back to Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, I couldnt help, continually this past week, but think of the title of your book, One Person, No Vote, the issue of gerrymandering all over this country, these hyper-supermajorities in states, where actually the state itself is evenly divided, but because of gerrymandering and what you have in Tennessee, these men, it was not only they who were expelled, it was all the people who voted for them. This wasnt like getting fired from your employment in a store. They were elected.

CAROL ANDERSON: Right. And oddly enough, or ironically enough, Tennessee was the site of that massive Supreme Court decision that laid out one person, one vote, because of the ways that white rural conservative counties had disproportionate power in the state Legislature vis--vis Nashville and Memphis. And because of a series of Supreme Court decisions, subsequent Supreme Court decisions, particularly Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, these states have been able to hyper-partisan gerrymander again, and this is the result.

So, when you have something like 70% or so of Americans wanting to have sensible gun safety legislation, but you have a legislature that is built on extreme partisan gerrymandering, where they appear to be immune from the will of the people, youre not getting that kind of legislative response. And that is why the bullhorn came up, because you had young folk saying to their representatives, We need gun safety legislation. We do not need to be in a space, in our workplace, where we are being gunned down. And the response from that Legislature was they were concerned about their decorum being disrupted because people were responding to the needs of those people, to the needs of those young folk who were out in the halls.

So, extreme partisan gerrymandering is it is so anti-democratic, so anti-one person/one vote. And the result is, is that youve got a society that believes in reproductive rights, a society that believes in the right to vote, a society that believes in gun safety legislation, and you have legislators who arent responsive to the wants and the needs and the desires of the people.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Carol Anderson, I want to thank you for being with us. Well continue this discussion. Carol Anderson is a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, author of The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America the paperback edition has just been published also author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy and the book White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide.

Coming up, President Biden signed legislation ending the coronavirus national emergency, but millions with long COVID say the pandemic is not over. Well speak with a journalist living with long COVID. Stay with us.

See the original post here:
Author Carol Anderson on How Anti-Blackness Drives U.S. Gun ... - Democracy Now!