Latest news with #SocialDarwinism
Scroll.in
01-08-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Enforced during World War I, perfected by modern surveillance: The story of passports and visas
Like many 'extraordinary measures' implemented in times of crisis – often under the guise of security – the supposedly temporary restrictions on free movement at the start of the First World War became permanent features hindering migration. From that time onwards, a growing number of countries required identity documents, passports and visas for travel. When the war ended, negotiations failed to re-open borders. Despite Japanese, Chinese and Indian demands for the free movement of labour, the new League of Nations failed to abolish the new passport system or liberalise controls on international migration. Passports and citizen identification soon became hallmarks of the modern nation state. By the time decolonisation took place in the mid-20th century, passports and visas were widespread. New states followed the example of established ones. All of a sudden, people could no longer cross a border without a document that included their photograph, birthplace and nationality. War, nationalism and state-building required large and elaborate bureaucracies, which were tasked with regulating migration flows. Quotas as well as passports and other new forms of border control were introduced to restrict how many people entered a country, where they come from, and what rights and resources they could access. Political ideas of national security, culture, language and race became as influential for immigration and migrant flows as economic policies had been in the nineteenth century. States increasingly allocated citizenship rights on the basis of nationality, making it necessary to belong to a state to be officially recognised and so able to move and work. A growing preoccupation with managing the movement of people was entwined with exclusionary attitudes based on race and ethnicity. Economic failure and other social problems were blamed on foreigners, and migration began to be seen by some as a form of deviant behaviour. Elaborate hierarchies of race, ethnicity and nation were built across Europe and its settler colonies, drawing on a misreading of Darwin's widely publicised ideas. 'Social Darwinism' was used to justify establishing a highly stratified society with white northern Europeans at the apex. The perceived threat to social order posed by immigrants, along with pseudoscientific theories of race and media-inflamed prejudices, combined to generate a growing suspicion of 'foreigners' during the late nineteenth and early 20th century. These were increasingly given expression in discriminatory immigration policies, expulsions, savage pogroms and populist purges. In 1905, Australia implemented a 'dictation test' which required a prospective immigrant to write down 50 words in any European language of the immigration officer's choosing, including Gaelic. Anyone who failed the test could be deported. The test was used to enforce the recent Immigration Restriction Act, which became a cornerstone of the unofficial 'White Australia' policy. Other countries tightened up their entry requirements. In 1917, France started requiring all foreigners to carry a form of identification with a photograph, indicating the bearer's nationality and occupation. Germany and Britain introduced similar regulations to identify foreigners. The United States also policed its borders more aggressively; in 1917 it too introduced a literacy test that had to be passed by all migrants. In earlier centuries, governments had tried to control who left the country. Migration policies from the mid-1800s began to focus on who was allowed in. The US viewed – and still views – their populations as a valuable source of taxation, labour and military or economic power. Private employers similarly kept their workers close, often coercively. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some European states discouraged or forbade emigration. Feudal Japan prescribed the death penalty for those who left the country without permission. While concerns over people leaving never went away, governments after the First World War became much more preoccupied with restricting entry. The change in attitude also reflected changes in the origins and destinations of migrants and their reasons for moving. With the rapid growth of industry and a gradual decline in birth rates, north-western European economies became migrant destinations rather than sources of labour. While migrants had previously travelled from wealthier countries in Europe to the less prosperous regions of the world and more distant colonies, after the First World War, a growing proportion of migrants came from poorer parts of southern and eastern Europe, typically moving north or embarking for Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil and New Zealand. In earlier centuries, private enterprises such as the Dutch East India Company and institutions such as the Church had helped to shape global patterns of migration. Identity cards and passports now allowed nation states to choose who got to come and go. By regulating the free movement of people, governments could also decide what resources, jobs and social services people had access to. There was another, unintended consequence: large groups of people suddenly found themselves without a state from which they could derive rights and protection. The emergence of a more rigid interstate system led to the rise of stateless people and refugees. While wars and famine may have caused them to flee, refugees were also the product of increasingly rigid legal definitions of citizenship and impenetrable borders. A combination of state sovereignty and strict identification of citizens made 'foreigners' legal outsiders, as the sociologist Saskia Sassen has highlighted in her work. Refugees became a distinct, institutionalised category excluded from the rights offered to citizens. Deprived of citizenship, they became trapped in legal limbo, denied the right by many countries to work, vote, travel or access services offered to citizens. In the interwar years, rising nationalism was coupled with protectionism. Industries that felt threatened by rival manufacturers abroad lobbied their governments to impose tariffs on imported products. Similarly, trade unions fearing competition from foreign labour sought to limit migrant numbers and curtail the rights of foreign workers to remain and access social services. In the United States, debates around 'Americanisation' and immigration have driven politics for over 150 years. Under the Burlingame Treaty of 1868, an early version of the 'guest worker' programmes that would appear in other parts of the world, Chinese workers were given the right to work in the US – albeit under certain restrictions. Shifting public attitudes towards foreigners were accompanied by more stringent legislation in the decades that followed. In 1882, the US passed laws curbing the entry of Chinese workers, as well as those perceived to pose potential threats to 'national interests', including 'convicts, lunatics, idiots, and persons likely to become public charges'. Immigration policy became more centralised under institutions dedicated solely to the task of identifying and preventing the entry of a growing list of people deemed unsuitable for entry. The Immigration Act of 1924 charged American consuls overseas with administering quotas, including submitting applicants to financial checks and medical examinations before issuing visas. In practice, the legislation extended the reach of border control to other countries, allowing the United States to restrict entry long before prospective migrants embarked in Europe or elsewhere. This was framed as benefitting travellers and protecting them from having to sell their possessions before attempting futile journeys. As immigrants increasingly attempted to cross into the US by land as an alternative to arriving by sea or by air (planes began to carry commercial passengers soon after the First World War ended), the US Border Patrol was created in 1924.
The Star
13-07-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Why they are flattening Gaza
IN Washington, Pakistan and Israel's Nobel Peace Prize nominee, joined by Israel's MIT-educated prime minister, were recently toasting their shared success. While some differences exist, the duo considers its achievement epoch-making: the Arabs have been reduced to a defeated and demoralised lot, humbly offering as tithe a three trillion-dollar investment in America – with a personal jetliner as the topping. While Israel dropped bombs from the sky over Arab lands, regular flights of Gulf carriers to and from Tel Aviv continued undisturbed. But the victories go further: Iran was once the outlier, the last to challenge United States-Israeli domination of the entire Middle East. After 12 days of war its defiance is now merely token. Months earlier its allies in Lebanon and Yemen had been decimated. Mass starvation in Gaza – now just piles of rubble – has eviscerated Hamas. Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers with automatic weapons enjoy daily target practice with live ammunition on Palestinian children as they chase food trucks. Pronouncing moral judgement on these two men may offer relief to some but to what end? Let's recall that even the International Criminal Court was openly derided in Washington as a 'kangaroo court' when it ordered Netanyahu's arrest. Blaming individual leaders alone misses the point. No matter how powerful, they invariably reflect what their base wants. Consider that in 2024, as Netanyahu addressed the United States Congress amidst his hospital bombing campaign, American lawmakers – mostly Republicans but also many Democrats – repeatedly gave him standing ovations. We surely need to dig deeper lest we miss the systemic forces shaping the mindset of both leaders as well as Western publics. To see why Israel wants to eliminate as many Palestinians as possible is easy. Over its entire history it has deliberately cultivated a Holocaust-driven us-or-them mentality. While Hamas' October 7 attack on Israeli civilians was morally abhorrent, Israel has systematically sought to blame all violence on the people it has conquered. But what about America? What beef does America have with Palestinians living half a world away? The ruins of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. — AFP In the past, American presidents pursued their political objectives in the Middle East through 'gentler' covert means like CIA-led coups and targeted assassinations but never through overt genocide captured on camera. The shift, I will argue below, owes to the rapid rise of Social Darwinism and evangelists of the Bible Belt. Social Darwinism became a popular belief in 19th-century America soon after Darwin discovered the laws of biological selection. Darwin – a true scientist – forcefully rejected this 'Darwinism' as extreme misapplication and distortion of his work. Nevertheless, the capitalist robber barons of his time found this piece of science very useful. British philosopher Herbert Spencer first coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest' and advocated that this is the way things ought to be, not just how nature functioned. Society advances, he wrote, when 'its fittest members are allowed to assert their fitness with the least hindrance.' The unfit should 'not be prevented from dying out'. America's cowboy culture readily absorbed Spencer and, in time, Donald Trump inherited this mindset from his father, a property dealer. His political career, culminating in his presidency, was launched by his popular book, Think Big and Kick A**: In Business and in Life . This crude title bespeaks its crude content: being self-serving and brazen brings success, and ultimately, success is all that matters, regardless of how it's achieved. Elon Musk – the richest man in the world and Trump's ex-sidekick – couldn't agree more. 'The fundamental weakness of Western civilisation is empathy', he declared, adding that 'woke' liberals have weaponised empathy and are 'exploiting a bug in Western civilisation.' Musk trashes social insurance such as Social Security, which he calls a 'Ponzi scheme.' His newly launched political party will be still kinder to America's ultra-rich and yet harsher on ordinary people. As for starving Palestinians: the fewer the better. What do they produce, he asked rhetorically. While heartlessness might explain why the US has stopped trying to feed the world's hungry, it fails to explain why America helped Israel flatten Gaza. For that, we must glance at Trump's political base. In 2024, Trump won over roughly 80% of white conservative, evangelical Christian voters. (Incidentally, most conservative Pakistani-Americans also voted for Trump.) During my professional visits to the US over the decades, I've often found myself watching white televangelists hawk their beliefs and marvelled at their well-honed delivery skills. Their core message: the Bible commands you to give your absolute support for Israel. Then, without batting an eyelid, they equate the Promised Land of Moses's time with today's nation-state of Israel. One such preacher – later disgraced because of his weakness for women – I watched particularly. Jimmy Swaggart, who died last week, was a Christian Zionist who made his living off the Bible. 'Israel is God's prophetic time clock,' that heralds Armageddon and Jesus's return to Earth, he sermonised. His son, Donnie Swaggart, carries on his mission today: 'We must stand for Israel, for Jerusalem is the chosen city of God, where Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, will one day reign forever.' That Trump ordered the US embassy to be shifted from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in his first presidency was surely not accidental. No logical exercise can ever disprove what the Swaggarts and their ilk preach. Reason can never defeat faith, particularly when it stands behind a holy book. But what about Social Darwinism? Is that unassailable too? Here one can be more hopeful. Its nonsensical pseudo-scientific claims – virtuous people beget virtuous children being one – are readily disproven. But more importantly, as Darwin himself insisted, cooperation within the human species is fundamental for societal well-being. Cooperation, in turn, demands empathy. Without empathy we'd be living in a dystopic Muskian jungle populated by selfish individuals pursuing selfish needs. To prevent more Gazas, people in every country must boldly confront their ingrained beliefs, repudiate pure selfishness, and internalise the profound truth that humanity is one. Else the scum shall continue rising to the top, eventually becoming that country's political leaders. — Dawn/ANN Pervez Hoodbhoy is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.
Scoop
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Celluloid Exploitation: Immigrants And Reality Television
Shocking it might be, yet still part of an old pattern. The US Department of Homeland Security is floating the idea of using a reality television program to select immigrants vying for US citizenship. Whether this involves gladiatorial combat or inane pillow battles remains to be seen, though it is bound to involve airhead celebrity hosts and a set of fabricated challenges. What matters is the premise: the reduction of a government agency's functions to a debauched spectacle of deceit, desperation and televisual pornography. Much, in some ways, like the Trump administration itself. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, television producer Rob Worsoff, the man behind the Duck Dynasty reality show, comes clean in his monstrous intentions behind this proposed series he hopes to call The American: he has been pursuing this seedy project since the days of the Obama administration, hoping for some amoral stakeholder to bite. Worsoff, in true fashion, denies that such a project is intended as malicious ('this isn't the 'The Hunger Games' for immigrants'), let alone denigrating the dignity of human worth. In the grand idea of full bloom, optimistic America, it is intended as hopeful, but most of all, competitive. Forget equal protection and a fair evaluation of merits; here is a chance for Social Darwinism to excel. Worsoff insists he is free of political ideology. 'As an immigrant myself, I am merely trying to make a show that celebrates the immigration process, celebrate what it means to be American and have a national conversation about what it means to be American, through the eyes of people who want it most'. He proposes to do this by, for instance, sending immigrants to San Francisco where they find themselves in a mine to retrieve gold. Another would see the contestants journey to Detroit, where they will be placed on an auto assembly to reassemble a Model-T Ford chassis. The winners would end up on the Capitol steps, presumably to receive their citizenship in some staged ceremony for television. The losing contestants would go home with such generous prizes as a Starbucks gift card or airline points. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin has apparently spoken to Worsoff on this steaming drivel, with the producer describing the response as 'positive'. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, it is said, has not officially ''backed' or even reviewed the pitch of any scripted or reality show. The Department of Homeland Security receives hundreds of television show pitches a year.' The mind can only dissipate in despair at such an observation, unsurprising in a land where the television, or televisual platforms, remain brain numbing instructors. That the DHS is considering this is unremarkable. The department has already participated in television projects and networks, To Catch a Smuggler being a case in point. Noem has also made much of the camera when it comes to dealing with immigrants. An ad campaign costing US$200 million promises to feature her admonishing illegal immigrants to return to their countries. No doubt the hairdressing and makeup department will be busy when tarting her up for the noble task. Broadcasters in a number of countries have also found the unsuspecting migrant or foreign guest captured by television irresistible viewing. It's not just good, couch potato fun, but also a chance to fan prejudice and feed sketchy stereotypes. The reality TV show Border Security, which first aired on Australia's free-to-air Channel 7 in 2004, proved to be a pioneering model in this regard. Not only did it provide a chance to mock the eating habits of new arrivals as food stuffs were confiscated by customs officers with names like 'Barbs', the program could also impute an intention to attack the Australian agricultural sector with introduced pests and diseases. These depictions went hand in hand with the demonising strategy of the Australian government towards unwanted asylum seekers and refugees ('Stop the Boats!' was the cry), characterised by lengthy spells of detention in an offshore tropical gulag. The plight of the vulnerable immigrant has also become a matter of pantomime substitution, an idea supposedly educative in function. Why not act out the entire migrant experience with reality television individuals with particularly xenophobic views? In February, this is exactly what took place in a reality television show vulgarly titled Go Back to Where You Come From aired on the UK's Channel 4, running four episodes where selected, largely anti-immigration participants, according to Channel 4, 'experience some of the most perilous parts of the refugee journeys'. It comes as little surprise that the series is modelled on an Australian precursor made in the early 2010s. Even pro-immigrant groups were reduced to a state of admiring stupor, with the Refugee Council, a British charity, praising the worth of such shows to 'have huge potential to highlight the stories behind the headlines'. Gareth Benest, advocacy director at the International Broadcasting Trust charity, also thought it instructive that the participants 'face the reality of irregular migration and to challenge their preconceptions.' French politician Xavier Bertrand failed to identify similar points, calling the program 'nauseating'. In his attack on the experiment, he saw the deaths across the English Channel as 'a humanitarian tragedy, not the subject of a game'. But a game it has become, at least when placed before the camera.
New Straits Times
22-04-2025
- Politics
- New Straits Times
NST Leader: Nip bullying in the bud
THE edgy but hard-hitting American comedian Chris Rock once joked in one of his stand-up routines that he would not mind if his children were bullied. In paraphrasing his logic, Rock contended that school bullying, as tough, demeaning and painful as it is, was a "good and revealing education" for victims. Rock postulated that bullying, for all its negativity, moulded him into what he is today: stronger, savvier and smarter in the command of his art form, particularly as a distinctive Black man strengthening his community against ignorance, oppression and racism in a divisive America. If it had not been for the incessant school bullying, Rock said that he might have grown up weak, complacent and dependent on silly trigger warnings for safety. From his American perspective, Rock, like millions of his generation, were drilled into the American philosophy of "Social Darwinism". This pseudo-scientific theory skews Darwin's biological concepts of human society, propagating that the strong and successful must dominate the weak. In a nutshell, a code to further entrench racism, imperialism and discrimination. As much as level-headed Americans have tried to curb school bullying, their permissive pop culture and socio-politics inadvertently foment new bullies in every societal stratum and generation. Nevertheless, Rock's comedic inference that bullying strengthens a child's personality may work in America but the side-effects are reprehensible: it facilitates a ruthless zero-sum game that glorifies winners and discards losers. In Malaysia, and for that matter East Asia, the mutual diplomatic mantra is to "prosper thy neighbour". It means that major military, economic and technological superpowers should cooperate and help smaller and less endowed neighbours to achieve a win-win situation instead of resorting to bullying. In this context, school bullying has not dissipated in Malaysia, merely dispersed. The prime example lately being the expulsion of seven Maktab Rendah Sains Mara students caught hectoring their peers. Once exposed, bullies are quickly castigated and punished to pre-empt adulthood violence, drug and alcohol abuse, hostility towards family and a potential criminal future. Children who experience bullying may grow up with a skewed mindset, be involved in vice and even suffer from mental problems. In rejecting school bullying, Malaysia steers victims from negative physical, social, emotional, academic and health problems. The country may not be inclined to embrace Rock's masculine and rugged "Americanism", no matter how dominant he has turned out to be, not when America's bullying may trigger extreme violence, like school mass shootings. We reiterate: anti-bullying campaigns must start in kindergartens through a comprehensive civics lesson, and be extended to universities and work culture.
Khaleej Times
22-04-2025
- Business
- Khaleej Times
In 100 days, President Trump shatters US global role
For eight decades the United States has built a global order around its interests and values. In 100 days, Donald Trump has torn it down. The United States remains, by most measures, the world's most powerful country and Trump has vowed to strengthen it further by aggressively promoting domestic business and ramping up military spending. But the Republican billionaire offers a far more unilateralist vision than any modern US president. Reviving views long seen as antiquated, Trump has vowed US expansionism, setting sights on the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada, which he has belittled as the "51st state." In another throwback, Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on both friends and foes — a step that was mostly suspended following a market rout, except against China, which is seen as Washington's top adversary. Yet the property tycoon-turned-president who boasts of his dealmaking skills has also been open to reaching transactional agreements with rivals, including China and Russia. He and Vice President JD Vance have been less committed to maintaining post-World War II security guarantees to allies, especially in Europe, seeing the region's developed countries as commercial competitors who are freeloading on US defense. "His initiatives are shattering what we have known, certainly since World War II," said Melvyn Leffler, a historian of US foreign policy at the University of Virginia. "I think Trump is a return to late 19th-century Social Darwinism, in which he believes all nations are embroiled in a struggle for survival of the fittest," he said. "I think what is most fundamentally important is that Trump does not believe in the concepts of mutual interdependence, shared values and common interests, even with allies." Mixed 'peacemaker' record Trump, showing a distaste for soft power, has killed more than 80 percent of US overseas assistance and has eyed major cuts in diplomatic staff in Africa. But he also said in his January 20 inaugural address that his ultimate ambition was to be a "peacemaker" -- a role in which his success rate is decidedly mixed. Trump had vowed to end the Ukraine war on his first day back in the White House. On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the United States may "move on" from seeking a Ukraine solution, after talks initiated by Washington have failed to lead to concrete outcomes. Russian President Vladimir Putin has rebuffed calls for a complete truce, even as he relishes the shift in US tone on Ukraine — seen most dramatically in a February 28 White House showdown where Trump and Vance publicly accused President Volodymyr Zelensky of being an ingrate. Trump spoke proudly of how his globe-trotting envoy Steve Witkoff helped secure a Gaza ceasefire shortly before the inauguration, using the outline of a plan prepared by outgoing president Joe Biden's team. Israel has now resumed military operations in Gaza, vowing a death blow to Hamas over its October 7, 2023 attack, and blocking aid to the Palestinian territory, leading to the worst humanitarian situation since the start of the war. Trump, however, appears for the moment to have restrained Israel from a strike on Iran, with Witkoff holding two friendly meetings with Tehran on seeking a deal on its contested nuclear program. Turning point? After defeating Trump in 2020, Biden vowed to restore the United States' global role, especially with allies. The extent of the tumult induced by Trump in his second term -- and the reaction to it -- is far wider-reaching. After Trump's dressing down of Zelensky, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that "the free world needs a new leader." Faith in US policymaking has historically been so strong that the dollar gains during times of crisis, with investors turning to US Treasury bonds. Since Trump's inauguration, the dollar has slipped nine percent against a basket of other major currencies. The trend is largely welcomed in Trump's circles. Vance has blamed foreign investors for keeping the dollar high at the expense of US manufacturers. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong of Singapore, long a key US partner in Asia, said Trump's tariff announcement showed that "the era of rules-based globalization and free trade is over" after having America as its "anchor" for eight decades. Wong noted that the United States has fared better than other advanced countries but acknowledged the Americans who lived in "hollowed-out towns" and felt the economy is "fundamentally broken." Leffler, the historian, said that many Americans had lost faith in the system based around a globalized economy, promoted by presidents of both major parties. With China also on the rise, Leffler expected Trump's actions to "portend a new trajectory" in world affairs. "I do not believe the United States will return to the same type of liberal, global, hegemonic order that has existed more or less from 1945," he said.
