RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/17/dictator-robert-mugabe-is-what-happens-when-a-country-falls-for-charismatic-socialist/

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s dictator and lifelong communist, died on Sept. 6, 2019, at the age of 95. In a country where the average life expectancy was only 44 years (according to a 2006 census), he outlived most of his countrymen.

However, his protracted and long life was constructed upon inflicting enormous and unimaginable suffering upon his people and country. For the rest of us, his incumbency should serve as a constant warning about why we should not fall for the next charismatic socialist who heedlessly promises everything.

Mugabe’s Life Before His Dictatorship

Mugabe was born into poverty. Abandoned by his father at age 10, he attended a Jesuit missionary school and eventually graduated from the University of Fort Hare in South Africa, the same university Nelson Mandela attended.

While Mugabe was receiving educator training in Ghana in the 1950s, he joined one of Africa’s nationalist movements, calling for the establishment of an independent country led by the black majority in his homeland, which at the time was still a British colony. The emergence of these nationalist movements coincided with the Cold War. The Soviet Union and Communist China expanded their influence in Africa, hoping to turn former colonies into client states.

Mugabe was imprisoned for a decade due to his anti-government political activities, and while in prison, he was elected as the president of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). During his long imprisonment, Mugabe thoroughly studied Marxist-Leninist ideology. He became a firm believer that only socialism could save his homeland, and that only his ZANU could lead the people’s revolution and bring true socialism to Zimbabwe. Therefore, ZANU must “always remain in power” and remain the only power.

Mugabe also came to see private property owners, such as the white farmers, as a threat to the socialist paradise he wanted to build. Upon his release, Mugabe led the ZANU guerrillas to fight against the white minority rule from Mozambique. Somehow, between prison and guerrilla warfare, he managed to obtain seven college degrees and was commended as an intellectual freedom fighter.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14329/britain-criticism-of-islam

“We are concerned that the definition… could be used to challenge legitimate free speech on the historical or theological actions of Islamic states. There is also a risk it could also undermine counter-terrorism powers, which seek to tackle extremism or prevent terrorism.” — Martin Hewitt, Chair, National Police Chiefs’ Council.

Islam represents an idea, not a nationality or an ethnicity. The conventional purpose of most hate-speech laws is to protect people from hatred, not ideas.

The new proposed definition would criminalize criticism of Islam. Considering the origins of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, that is probably the whole point.

“[A]n alternative definition of Anti-Muslim Hatred should be specific and narrow. It should focus on addressing bigotry directed at individuals, and avoid censoring debate or freedom of expression on religion. Finally, a comprehensive definition of Anti-Muslim Hatred must take intra-Muslim hatred into account to protect those who want to speak freely or express themselves differently.” — Nikita Malik, Forbes, May 20, 2019.

In April 2018, Britain’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims began work on establishing a “working definition of Islamophobia that can be widely accepted by Muslims, political parties and the government”.

In December 2018, the group concluded its work with a “Report on the inquiry into a working definition of Islamophobia / anti-Muslim hatred.” The report defines “Islamophobia” as a form of racism, conflating religion with ethnic origin or nationality: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”[1]

The report, furthermore, claims that a definition of Islamophobia is “instrumental” to “the political will and institutional determination to tackle it.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14887/turkey-crackdown-journalists

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was held on September 13. Sadly, no one at the meeting addressed the persecution of journalists in Turkey — not José Guevara Bermúdez, Chair-Rapporteur of the Working Group, nor Béla Szombati, who represented the European Union, nor any other participant.

Amnesty International recently tagged Turkey the “world’s largest prison for journalists.”

The United Nations Human Rights Council, if it wishes to change its image from that of a laughing stock, should put at the top of its agenda calling Ankara to task. Meanwhile, however, Erdoğan’s violations of freedom of speech need to be exposed daily and loudly condemned — not only by members of the UN and the media, but by any and all allies of Turkey — and freedom of expression — in the West.

International human-rights and press-freedom organizations recently appealed to the United Nations to take action against the ongoing abuse of journalists by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In a letter to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on September 3, eighteen organizations — led by the group ARTICLE 19, which promotes freedom of expression — called on “all Member and Observer States committed to media freedom, democracy and the rule of law” to “speak out and address the Turkish government’s repressive campaign against freedom of expression” in the forum of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention during the UNHRC’s 42nd regular session.

The letter reads, in part:

“The right to hold and express dissenting opinions and to access information has been systematically undermined by the Turkish government in an intensive crackdown on journalists and independent media, academics, civil society, oppositional voices and the judiciary. Since 2016, the human rights situation in Turkey has steeply declined, facilitated by the misuse of sweeping emergency powers and the concentration of executive power. At the time of writing, at least 138 journalists and media workers are imprisoned, with hundreds more currently on trial facing lengthy sentences on manifestly unfounded terrorism charges … Access to thousands of websites and platforms has been blocked after a government decree authorising removals and blockages of websites without judicial oversight.”