Christchurch mosque shootings must end New Zealand’s innocence about right-wing terrorism

March 15, 2019

Members of the Armed Offenders Squad push back members of the public following a shooting at the Masjid Al Noor mosque in Christchurch. AAP/Martin Hunter, CC BY-SA Paul Spoonley, Massey University

Tonight, New Zealand police continue to respond to events following shootings at two mosques in central Christchurch. The national security threat level has been lifted to high. Mosques across New Zealand have been closed and police are asking people to refrain from visiting.

So far, 49 people have been killed. According to media reports, 41 people were fatally shot at the Masjid Al Noor mosque on Deans Avenue; others died at a second mosque nearby.

Four people, three men and a woman, have been taken into custody in connection with the shootings. One man in his late 20s has been charged with murder.

In the hours after the attacks, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern made it clear this was a terrorist attack of “extraordinary and unprecedented violence” that had no place in New Zealand.

She said extremist views were not welcome and contrary to New Zealand values, and did not reflect New Zealand as a nation.

It is one of New Zealand’s darkest days. Many of the people affected by this act of extreme violence will be from our refugee and migrant communities. New Zealand is their home. They are us.

She is right. Public opinion surveys such as the Asia New Zealand Foundation annual surveys of attitudes tend to show that a majority of New Zealanders are in favour of diversity and see immigration, in this case from Asia, as providing various benefits for the country.

But extremist politics, including the extreme nationalist and white supremacist politics that appear to be at the core of this attack on Muslims, have been part of our community for a long time.

The scene of the mass shooting, Masjid Al Noor mosque on Deans Avenue, in Christchurch. AAP/Martin Hunter, CC BY-SA

History of white supremacy

I completed research in the UK on the National Front and British National Party in the late 1970s. When I returned to New Zealand, I was told explicitly, including by authorities that were charged with monitoring extremism, that we did not have similar groups here. But it did not take me long to discover quite the opposite.

Through the 1980s, I looked at more than 70 local groups that met the definition of being extreme right wing. The city that hosted many of these groups was Christchurch.

They were a mixture of skinhead, neo-nazi and extreme nationalist groups. Some were traditional in their ideology, with a strong underpinning of anti-Semitism and a belief in the supremacy of the “British race”. Others inverted the arguments of Māori nationalism to argue for separatism to keep the “white race pure”.

And yes, there was violence. The 1989 shooting of an innocent bystander, Wayne Motz, in Christchurch by a skinhead who then walked to a local police kiosk and shot himself. The pictures of the internment showed his friends giving nazi salutes. In separate incidents, a Korean backpacker and a gay man were killed for ideological reasons.

Things have changed. The 1990s provided the internet and then social media. And events such as the September 11 terror attacks shifted the focus – anti-Semitism was now supplemented by Islamophobia.

Hate speech online

The earthquakes and subsequent rebuild have significantly transformed the ethnic demography of Christchurch and made it much more multicultural – and more positive about that diversity. It is ironic that the this terrorism should take place in this city, despite its history of earlier far right extremism.

We tend not to think too much about the presence of racist and white supremacist groups, until there is some public incident like the desecration of Jewish graves or a march of black-shirted men (they are mostly men) asserting their “right to be white”. Perhaps, we are comfortable in thinking, as the prime minister has said, they are not part of our nation.

Last year, as part of a project to look at hate speech, I looked at what some New Zealanders were saying online. It did not take long to discover the presence of hateful and anti-Muslim comments. It would be wrong to characterise these views and comments as widespread, but New Zealand was certainly not exempt from Islamophobia.

Every so often, it surfaced, such as in the attack on a Muslim woman in a Huntly carpark.

Families outside following a shooting at mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. AAP/Martin Hunter, CC BY-SA

An end to collective innocence

It became even more obvious during 2018. The Canadian YouTuber, Stefan Molyneux, sparked a public debate (along with Lauren Southern) about his right to free speech. Much of the public comment seemed to either overlook or condone his extreme views on what he regards as the threat posed by Islam.

And then there was the public protest in favour of free speech that occurred at the same time, and the signs warning us about the arrival of Sharia law or “Free Tommy” signs. The latter refers to Tommy Robinson, a long-time activist (cf English Defence League leader) who was sentenced to prison – and then released on appeal – for contempt of court, essentially by targeting Muslims before the courts.

There is plenty of evidence of local Islamophobic views, especially online. There are, and have been for a long time, individuals and groups who hold white supremacist views. They tend to threaten violence; seldom have they acted on those views. There is also a naivety amongst New Zealanders, including the media, about the need to be tolerant towards the intolerant.

There is not necessarily a direct causation between the presence of Islamophobia and what has happened in Christchurch. But this attack must end our collective innocence.

No matter the size of these extremist communities, they always represent a threat to our collective well-being. Social cohesion and mutual respect need to be asserted and continually worked on.

Paul Spoonley, Pro Vice-Chancellor, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Massey University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The internet is now an arena for conflict, and we’re all caught up in it

Dan Ojumah

March 15, 2019

Tom Sear, UNSW

This article is part of our occasional long read series Zoom Out, where authors explore key ideas in science and technology in the broader context of society and humanity.

Most people think the internet operates as a kind of global public square. In reality, it’s become a divided arena where conflict between nation states plays out.

Nation states run covert operations on the same platforms we use to post cat videos and exchange gossip. And if we’re not aware of it, we could be unwittingly used as pawns for the wrong side.

How did we get here? It’s complicated, but let’s walk through some of the main elements.

The age of entanglement

On the one hand, we have an information landscape dominated by Western culture and huge multi-national internet platforms run by private companies, such as Google and Facebook. On the other, there are authoritarian regimes such as China, Iran, Turkey and Russia exercising tight control over the internet traffic flowing in and out of their countries.

We are seeing more cyber intrusions into nation state networks, such as the recent hack of the Australian parliamentary network. At the same time, information and influence operations conducted by countries such as Russia and China are flowing through social media into our increasingly shared digital societies.

The result is a global ecosystem perpetually close to the threshold of war.

Because nations use the internet both to assert power and to conduct trade, there are incentives for authoritarian powers to keep their internet traffic open. You can’t maintain rigid digital borders and assert cyberpower influence at the same time, so nations have to “cooperate to compete”.

This is becoming known as “entanglement” – and it affects us all.

Data flows in one direction

Authoritarian societies such as China, Russia and Iran aim to create their own separate digital ecosystems where the government can control internet traffic that flows in and out of the country.

The Chinese Communist Party is well known for maintaining a supposedly secure Chinese internet via what is known in the West as the “Great Firewall”. This is a system that can block international internet traffic from entering China according to the whim of the government.

For the majority of the 802 million people online in China, many of the apps we use to produce and share information are not accessible. Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter are blocked. Instead, people in China use apps created by Chinese technology companies, such as Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu.

Traffic within this ecosystem is monitored and censored in the most sophisticated and comprehensive surveillance state in the world. In 2018, for example, Peppa Pig was banned and the People’s Daily referred to her as a “gangster” after she became iconic of rebelliousness in Chinese youth culture.

Complete blocking of data is impossible

A key objective of this firewall is to to shield Chinese society and politics from external influence, while enabling internal surveillance of the Chinese population.

But the firewall is not technologically independent of the West – its development has been reliant upon US corporations to supply the software, hardware innovation and training to ensure the system functions. And since the internet is an arena where nations compete for economic advantage, it’s not in the interest of either side to destroy cyberspace entirely.

As cyber security expert Greg Austin has observed, the foundations of China’s cyber defences remain weak. There are technical ways to get around the firewall, and Chinese internet users exploit Mandarin homophones and emoji to evade internal censors.

Chinese economic and financial entanglement with the West means complete blocking of data is impossible. Consistent incentives to openness remain. China and the United States are therefore engaged in what Canadian scholar of digital media and global affairs Jon R Lindsay describes as:

chronic and ambiguous intelligence-counter intelligence contests across their networks, even as the internet facilitates productive exchange between them.

That is, a tension exists because they are covertly working against each other on exactly the same digital platforms necessary to promote their individual and mutual interests in areas such as trade, manufacturing, communications and regulation.

Since Russia is less dependent upon the information technology services of the United States and is therefore less entangled than China, it is more able to engage in bilateral negotiation and aggression.

Different styles of influence

If the internet has become a contest between nation states, one way of winning is to appear to comply with the letter of the law, while abusing its spirit.

In the West, a network of private corporations, including Twitter, Google and Facebook, facilitate an internet system where information and commerce flow freely. Since the West remains open, while powers such as Russia and China exercise control over internet traffic, this creates an imbalance that can be exploited.

Influence operations conducted by China and Russia in countries such as Australia exist within this larger context. And they are being carried out in the digital arena on a scale never before experienced. In the words of the latest US Intelligence Community Worldwide Threat Assessment:

Our adversaries and strategic competitors […] are now becoming more adept at using social media to alter how we think, behave and decide.

The internet is a vast infrastructure of tools that can be used to strategically manipulate behaviour for specific tactical gain, and each nation has its own style of influence.

I have previously written about attempts by China and Russia to influence Australian politics via social media, showing how each nation state utilises different tactics.

China takes a subtle approach, reflecting a long term strategy. It seeks to connect with the Chinese diaspora in a target country, and shape opinion in a manner favourable to the Chinese Communist Party. This is often as much as about ensuring some things aren’t said as it is about shaping what is.

Russia, on the other hand, has used more obvious tactics to infiltrate and disrupt Australian political discourse on social media, exploiting Islamophobia – and the divide between left and right – to undermine social cohesion. This reflects Russia’s primary aim to destabilise the civic culture of the target population.

But there are some similarities between the two approaches, reflecting a growing cooperation between them. As the US Intelligence Community points out:

China and Russia are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s.

A strategic alliance between Russia and China

The strategic origins of these shared approaches go back to the early internet itself. The Russian idea of hybrid warfare – also known as the Gerasimov Doctrine – uses information campaigns to undermine a society as part of a wider strategy.

But this concept first originated in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In 1999, Chinese PLA colonels penned a strategy titled Unrestricted Warfare, which outlined how to use media, government, pretty much everything, in the target country not as a tool, but as a weapon.

It recommended not just cyber attacks, but also fake news campaigns – and was the basis for information campaigns that became famous during the 2016 US presidential election.

In June 2016, Russia and China signed a joint declaration on the internet, affirming their shared objectives. In December 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off on a new Doctrine of Information Security, which establishes how Russia will defend its own population against influence operations.

Observers noted the striking similarity between the Russian document and Chinese internet law.

Russia and China also share a view of the global management of the internet, pursued via the United Nations:

[…] more regulations to clarify how international law applies to cyberspace, with the aim of exercising more sovereignty – and state control – over the internet.

The recent “sovereign internet” bill introduced to the Russian Parliament proposes a Domain Name System (DNS) independent of the wider internet infrastructure.

If the internet is now a site of proxy war, such so-called “balkanization” challenges the dominance of the United States.

Nations are competing for influence, leverage and advantage to secure their own interests. Russia and China don’t want to risk an all out war, and so competition is pursued at a level just below armed conflict.

Technology, especially the internet, has brought this competition to us all.

We’re entering turbulent waters

Despite its best efforts, China’s leaders remain concerned that the digital border between it and the rest of the world is too porous.

In June 2009, Google was blocked in China. In 2011, Fang Binxing, one of the main designers of the Great Firewall expressed concern Google was still potentially accessible in China, saying:

It’s like the relationship between riverbed and water. Water has no nationality, but riverbeds are sovereign territories, we cannot allow polluted water from other nation states to enter our country.

The water metaphor was deliberate. Water flows and maritime domains define sovereign borders. And water flows are a good analogy for data flows. The internet has pitched democratic politics into the fluid dynamics of turbulence, where algorithms shape attention, tiny clicks measure participation, and personal data is valuable and apt to be manipulated.

While other nations grapple with the best mix of containment, control and openness, ensuring Australia’s democracy remains robust is the best defence. We need to keep an eye on the nature of the political discussion online, which requires a coordinated approach between the government and private sector, defence and security agencies, and an educated public.

The strategies of information warfare we hear so much about these days were conceived in the 1990s – an era when “surfing the web” seemed as refreshing as a dip at your favourite beach. Our immersion in the subsequent waves of the web seem more threatening, but perhaps we can draw upon our cultural traditions to influence Australian security.

As the rip currents of global internet influence operations grow more prevalent, making web surfing more dangerous, Australia would be wise to mark out a safe place to swim between the flags. Successful protection from influence will need many eyes watching from the beach.

Tom Sear, Industry Fellow, UNSW Canberra Cyber, Australian Defence Force Academy, UNSW

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Three charged for conspiracy to aid the Dusit D2 terror attack

Dan Ojumah

March 15, 2019

BY PRUDENCE WANZA – Three more people have been arraigned in court for allegedly providing property and services to terrorists to facilitate the Dusit D2 Complex terror attack that left at least 14 people dead.

The three namely; Mire Abdullahi Ali, Hussein Abdille, and Mohammed Hassan appeared before chief Magistrate, Francis Andayi, at the Milimani Law Courts pleaded not guilty.

Mire Abdullahi Ali, is accused of providing Internet Services through a company called Sahal Telecommunication Limited in Jilib, Somalia to the coordinators of the Dusit D2 hotel complex.

He is also alleged to have bought an Internet Kit which was used to offer Internet services in facilitating the terror attack. Mire is also accused of acquiring a Kenyan ID knowing very well he is not a Kenyan Citizen and also producing it before the Anti-terror police unit in Mandera.

Hussein Mohamed is said to have used a Facebook account in which he identified himself as Prince H. Ahmed to transmit information in preparation to undertake the DUSIT attack.

He is also accused of being in possession of a Safaricom SIM card that had been used to facilitate the collection of an unknown parcel at Makkah Bus office in Mandera sent by a Dusit D2 attacker by the name Ali Salim Gichunge, which was used in facilitating the commission of the terror attack.

The three have been in police custody since January and will now be jointly charged of conspiring to carry out the DUSIT D2 terror attack.

Kenya hailed for its strong stand against trade in ivory

Dan Ojumah

March 14, 2019

Kenya’s strong stand against trade in ivory is drawing global attention.

Top officials of the global Elephant Protection Initiative (EPI) today said Kenya has done well in drawing world attention on why trading in elephant trophies must be stopped in all the remaining markets especially in Europe and Japan.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Stop Ivory co-secretariat of the EPI John Stephenson said previous destruction of ivory stockpiles by Kenya had sent a strong message worldwide over the need to save the diminishing animals that form an important part of our natural heritage.

He spoke when the EPI team paid a courtesy call on First Lady Margaret Kenyatta at State House, Nairobi.

The First Lady is passionate about the saving the jumbos and is the patron of the Hands Off Our elephants campaign.

Aims of EPI include providing both immediate and longer-term funding to implement the African Elephant Action Plan and closing all domestic ivory markets.

The organization also campaigns for a continued moratorium on any consideration of future international trade for a minimum of 10 years and thereafter until African elephant populations are no longer threatened.

The EPI team included Executive Director for Wildlife Trafficking and Conservation Keith Roberts and Senior Technical Advisor Wilfred Kiiru.

Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala who accompanied the EPI team to State House said Africa needs to have one strong voice to lobby against all markets in Europe and Japan where trade in ivory still thrives.

Later, the First Lady also met with top officials of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) who briefed her on the forthcoming global trav summit.

The WTTC is a membership organization representing over 160 CEOs, Presidents and chairs from the world’s largest travel brands across the world.

Aims of the WTTC include promoting awareness of travel and tourism’s economic contribution, expanding markets in harmony with the environment and reduce barriers to growth.

The WTTC team that met with the First Lady included its President and CEO Ms Guevara Manzo, International Liaison Manager Ms Eliza-Rose Dendle and Mr Javier Esteban Molina who were also accompanied by CS Balala.

The WTTC CEO said Kenya is among countries doing well in the growth of its tourism sector.

This year’s WTTC Global Summit will take place in Seville, Spain on April 3 to 4.

At another function at State House, the First Lady hosted her Madagascar counterpart Mialy Rajoelina who paid her a courtesy call.

They two First ladies discussed matters of mutual interest including women empowerment, health, unemployment, gender issues, conservation, family, conservation and agriculture.

President affirms Kenya’s commitment to achieve 10% minimum forest cover

Dan Ojumah

March 14, 2019

President Uhuru Kenyatta today affirmed Kenya’s commitment to achieve a minimum of 10 percent forest cover by 2022 as part of the country’s efforts to address the challenge of climate change.

The President said his Administration has identified forestry as a key sector of investment in the realization of the country’s development agenda and is implementing the national green growth strategy that has set clear restoration targets aimed at achieving the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Today we are here to show commitment and on behalf of our government and our people, I am pledging that by 2022, we want to reach a minimum of 10 percent forest cover in our country as a way of also ensuring that we play our part both as a government and as members of the global community,”
President Uhuru Kenyatta

The President called for concerted efforts towards environmental conservation, saying forests like the oceans are the lungs that keep the planet alive.

“Investment in sustainable management in the conservation of our forests is one of the most effective interventions to combat climate change in Kenya,” the Head of State added.

The President was speaking at UNEP in Gigiri, Nairobi when he and French President Emmanuel Macron officially opened the One Planet Summit, also attended by Deputy President William Ruto and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga among other local and international leaders.

President Macron commended President Kenyatta’s commitment to environmental conservation and praised Kenya for hosting the One Planet Summit.

The French leader said the Nairobi summit was special because it proved that it was not only the Western world that was concerned about climate change and environmental conservation but also Africa.

“Africa is key in this project because it bears the first direct impact of climate change,” President Macron said.

President Kenyatta said the One Planet Summit which builds on two previous summits held in Paris and New York signals a strengthening of cooperation in scaling up environmental conservation and climate action.

He pointed out that deforestation and degradation of the environment ultimately undermines biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation as well as adaptation.

“This, without doubt, leads to loss of economic productivity and has destroyed means of livelihood for many communities across the world. It has also reduced the ecological integrity of our ecosystems,” President Kenyatta said.

The President said the loss of forest cover exacerbated the impacts of climate change leading to natural hazards such as droughts, fires and floods.

At the One Planet Summit, big financial pledges to support environmental conservation and address climate chance were made.

Interim World Bank President Kristalina Georgieva said her institution pledged $ 12 billion to fund adaptation and resilient climate smart projects in Africa over the next five years.

She assured President Kenyatta that the World Bank will support Kenya’s efforts to increase its forest cover by funding the restoration of at least 60 million hectares of forest land.

“We will invest heavily in smart agriculture and in the restoration of degraded land,” the World Bank boss said.

African Development Bank (AfDB) President Akinwumi Adesina said his bank commits to provide $25 billion towards climate finance over the next five years to address the problem of climate change.

The One Planet Summit was followed by the official opening of the Fourth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA4) whose theme is ‘Innovative Solutions for Environmental Challenges and Sustainable Production and Consumption’.

Addressing the UNEA4, President Kenyatta called for integrated climate action and innovation in sustainable development efforts.

The President noted that climate change continues to be a major threat to sustainable development worldwide and its impact places a disproportionately heavy burden on the poor and vulnerable.

“It calls for practical and creative solutions. Countries must embrace a culture of innovation and invest in education and capacity building to facilitate the transition to a knowledge society,” President Kenyatta pointed out, saying finance and technology remain crucial in this regard.

He welcomed the participation in the Assembly by traditional and spiritual leaders as well as representatives of councils of elders drawn from different regions of Kenya.

“I appreciate the role that traditional and spiritual leaders play in environmental conservation; resolution of resource-based conflicts and as custodians of our traditional indigenous knowledge and cultural heritage. I urge us all to learn from these traditional practices worldwide for the benefit of mankind,” President Kenyatta said.

President Kenyatta also spoke on the Kenya Cleaner Production Strategy 2000 that encourages resource efficiency and cleaner production in manufacturing.

“It embraces the “5 R’s” philosophy of Reduce, Re-use, Recycle, Reformulate, and Re-manufacture, cutting emissions into the environment to acceptable levels,” President Kenyatta said.

He said his administration has put in place several policy and legal instruments to control environmental pollution including imposing a ban on single use plastic carrier bags.

Other dignitaries present at the assembly included President Andry Rajoelina (Madagascar), President Maithripala Sirisena (Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka), President Felix Antoine Tshisekedi (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente (Rwanda).

Others were the President of the UNEA4 Mr. Siim Kiisler, UN Deputy Secretary General Amina J. Mohamed, the Acting Executive Director of UNEP Joyce Msuya, Acting Director-General of the UN Office in Nairobi and Executive Director of UN-HABITAT Maimunah Mohd Sharif, and the Executive Director-designate of UNEP Inger Andersen.

Careful how you treat today’s AI: it might take revenge in the future

Dan Ojumah

March 14, 2019

We might not like the way future AI responds to us. Shutterstock/Mykola Holyutyak Nicholas Agar, Victoria University of Wellington

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are becoming more like us. You can ask Google Home to switch off your bedroom lights, much as you might ask your human partner.

When you text inquiries to Amazon online it’s sometimes unclear whether you’re being answered by a human or the company’s chatbot technology.

There’s clearly a market for machines with human psychological abilities. But we should spare a thought for what we might inadvertently create.

What if we make AI so good at being human that our treatment of it can cause it to suffer? It might feel entitled to take revenge on us.

Machines that ‘feel’

With human psychological abilities may come sentience. Philosophers understand sentience as the capacity to suffer and to feel pleasure.

And sentient beings can be harmed. It’s an issue raised by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer in his 1975 book Animal Liberation, which asked how we should treat non-human animals. He wrote:

If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering – insofar as rough comparisons can be made – of any other being.

Singer has devoted a career to speaking up for animals, which are sentient beings incapable of speaking up for themselves.

Speaking up for AI

Researchers in AI are seeking to make an AGI or artificial general intelligence – a machine capable of any intellectual task performed by a human being. AI can already learn, but AGI will be able to perform tasks beyond that for which it is programmed.

The experts disagree on how far off an AGI is. The US tech inventor Ray Kurzweil expects an AGI soon, maybe 2029. Others think we might have to wait for a century.

But if we are interested in treating sentient beings right, we may not have to wait until the arrival of an AGI.

One of Singer’s points is that many sentient beings fall far short of human intelligence. By that argument, AI doesn’t have to be as intelligent as a human for it to be sentient.

The problem is there is no straightforward test for sentience.

Sending a human crewed mission to Mars is very challenging, but at least we’ll know when we’ve done it.

Making a machine with feelings is challenging in a more philosophically perplexing way. Because we lack clear criteria for machine sentience, we can’t be sure when we’ve done it.

Look to science fiction

The ambiguity of machine sentience is a feature of several science fiction presentations of AI.

Niska (Emily Berrington) in Humans (2015). Kudos, Channel 4, AMC (via IMDB)

For example, Niska is a humanoid robot, a synth, serving as a sex worker in the TV series Humans. We are told that, unlike most synths, she is sentient.

When Niska is questioned about why she killed a client she explains:

He wanted to be rough.

The human lawyer Laura Hawkins responds:

But, is that wrong if he didn’t think you could feel? … Isn’t it better he exercises his fantasies with you in a brothel rather than take them out on someone who can actually feel?

From a human perspective one could think sexual assault directed against a non-sentient machine is a victimless crime.

But what about a sex robot that has acquired sentience? Niska goes on to explain that she was scared by the client’s behaviour towards her.

And I’m sorry I can’t cry or … bleed or wring my hands so you know that. But I’m telling you, I was.

Humans is not the only science fiction story to warn of revenge attacks from machines designed to be exploited by humans for pleasure and pain.

In the TV remake of Westworld, humans enter a theme park and kill android hosts with the abandon of Xbox massacres, confident their victims have no hard feelings because they can’t have any feelings.

But here again, some hosts have secretly acquired sentience and get payback on their human tormentors.

We’re only human

Is it only science fiction? Are sentient machines a long way off? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

But bad habits can take a while to unlearn. We – or rather animals – are still suffering the philosophical hangover of the 17th century French thinker Rene Descartes’ terrible idea that animals are mindless automata – lacking in sentience.

If we are going to make machines with human psychological capacities, we should prepare for the possibility that they may become sentient. How then will they react to our behaviour towards them?

Perhaps our behaviour towards non-sentient AI today should be driven by how we would expect people to behave towards any future sentient AI that can feel, that can suffer. How we would expect that future sentient machine to react towards us?

This may be the big difference between machines and the animals that Singer defends. Animals cannot take revenge. But sentient machines just might.

Nicholas Agar, Professor of Ethics, Victoria University of Wellington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

New dictionary provides insights into the language of African politics

Dan Ojumah

March 14, 2019

In Ghana, “skirt-and-blouse voting” means to vote for different parties for presidential and legislative positions. Shutterstock Nic Cheeseman, University of Birmingham; Eloïse Bertrand, University of Warwick, and Sa’eed Husaini, University of Oxford

Every country has its own political language. These terms and phrases that have developed over time give distinctive meanings that may not be fully understood by outsiders. Unless we learn them, we may miss critical information about how politics really works.

Our new dictionary of African politics reveals the witty and insightful political terminology that people in different African countries use to speak truth to power and discuss everyday developments. It shows the importance of language for understanding politics and the varied experience of different nations.

The dictionary serves three key purposes. First, it provides clear and concise overviews of hundreds of key personalities, events and institutions from the colonial period to the present day. These range from Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to former South African leader Jacob Zuma, through the late Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel Laureate Wangari Mathaai, and Aja Fatoumata Jallow-Tambajang, a leading gender activist and the vice president of Gambia.

Second, it explains a rich set of theoretical terms that emerged out of the research on Africa over the last 70 years. These include neo-patrimonialism and extraversion, which have become important for global debates about power and the way it’s exercised.

Third – and much more significantly – it allows for a better understanding of the contributions that the continent has made to the practice and understanding of everyday politics. It also makes it possible to share the perceptive and shrewd ways that people speak truth to power in various countries: this is the real reason that the world needs a new dictionary of African politics.

Crowd-sourcing

To access this wealth of “kona” knowledge (street corner wisdom in Kiswahili), we crowd sourced suggestions for the most relevant and insightful terms using social media. The hundreds of responses we received mean that the dictionary is packed full of fascinating terms from across the continent. These come from a variety of languages including Kiswahili, Chibemba, Kikuyu, Wolof, isiZulu and isiXhosa. There are also Africanised versions of English, French and Portuguese words.

An illustrative example is the wealth of English vocabulary that has emerged from the interaction between local political norms and democratic institutions. This includes the Kenyan model of “negotiated democracy” – the sharing of political positions between different communities in advance of an election to avoid conflict.

Another is the Nigerian practice of “zoning”, which was set up to try and ensure that the presidency of Africa’s most populous country alternates between northerners and southerners. That way, no community is permanently excluded from power.

Clothing-related expressions have also emerged in countries like Kenya and Ghana to show voting behaviours. “Three-piece suit voting” refers to supporting the same party for all elected positions. On the contrary, “skirt-and-blouse voting” means to vote for different parties for presidential and legislative elections.

A series of evocative expressions describe a politician’s move from one party to another – usually from the opposition to the governing party following an inducement. Terms such as floor-crossing or cross-carpeting are inspired by the parliament’s settings, or nomadic traditions – examples are transhumance and “nomadisme politique”.

Ingenuity and humour

The ingredients that shape these terms are decades, if not centuries old. They thus provide an insight into a collective memory that goes back to well before colonial rule. But, language also evolves to keep up with the times. In French, for example, glissement means to slide. But, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the word recently took on a whole new meaning. This, as former President Joseph Kabila repeatedly postponed scheduled elections that would see him stand down. Congolese citizens started using the term to refer to the act of deliberately “sliding” past the official election date to retain power indefinitely.

Similarly, in Francophone Africa the term “alternance”, used as the demand for a transfer of power, shows a passionate commitment to the liberal-democratic norm of putting limits on the number of terms a president may serve. This has no equivalent in Europe and North America.

While the use of words such as glissement hint at the world-weary cynicism many ordinary people feel towards their leaders, other terms revel in the joy of wordplay. One of our favourites is “Watermelon politics”. It refers to an individual that professes to support one political party but in reality belongs to another.

It was coined in Zambia, where activists from the opposition United Party of National Development, (whose colour was then red), pretended to support the governing party, the Patriotic Front, (whose colour was green), to avoid reprisals. They were thus depicted as “green on the outside, but red on the inside”.

Such expressions show the ingenuity and humour with which citizens evade despotism and exercise their democratic rights. They also show how much researchers and journalists miss when they don’t pay attention to African ideas and concepts. Thus, the best reason to read this dictionary is to learn about the political ingenuity of African citizens and to gain insights into local political ideas and frames of reference.

The dictionary is also about much more than that. It includes one of the most thorough timelines of African political events ever compiled, with direct links to entries that put critical events into context. It also provides useful overviews of the topics that are of most interest to students. These range from from HIV/Aids to gender quotas, and from the anti-apartheid struggle to the Rwandan genocide.

Our hope is that it does justice to the efforts of the many people who took time to send in the suggestions that have enriched it, and that everyone who takes a look learns something new.

Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy, University of Birmingham; Eloïse Bertrand, PhD Student in Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, and Sa’eed Husaini, DPhil Candidate, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The exception: behind Senegal’s history of stability

Dan Ojumah

March 14, 2019

Senegal developed a diplomatic tradition after gaining independence from France. A.RICARDO/Shutterstock Mara Leichtman, Michigan State University

Senegal’s elections have been peaceful and the incumbent president, Macky Sall, has been reelected. For many this comes as no surprise. Senegal has long been a stable democracy in a region plagued by military coups, civil wars and ethnic conflicts. It’s been considered an “exception” in West Africa.

Markers of this stability have been visible since Senegal’s independence from France in 1960. There was a [peaceful and democratic] transition of power from colonial rule and Leopold Sedar Senghor, Senegal’s first president, established a solid democratic foundation. He voluntarily resigned after 20 years in power.

Since then Senegal has had free elections, peaceful transitions of power, and civilian rule.

One of the foundations of Senegal’s stability is the strong influence of Sufi Islam. Senegal is 94% Muslim and Sufi Islam dominates culturally, economically, and sometimes politically.

Sufis – Islamic mystics – seek divine love and knowledge through self-discipline. Senegal’s Sufis fall under one of the Sunni Muslim schools of jurisprudence.

My insights about the interplay between various Islamic groups, religion and the state is based on my research in the country over the past 20 years. I examined minority Shi’i Islamic communities in Senegal, a majority Sunni Muslim country that has long celebrated religious freedom. The coexistence of various religious groups in Senegal is just one factor that has contributed to peace in the country.

Aside from its religious dynamics, Senegal also has a long history of fostering global intellectual, diplomatic, and financial connections. These have all led to its “exceptional” stability.

Sufi Islam

To explain the foundation of Senegalese stability, the late Irish political scientist Donal Cruise O’Brien put forward a “social contract” theory. The contract, he argued, was between marabout (Sufi Islamic leader) and talibe (disciple), as well as between the marabouts and the state.

Senegalese historian Mamadou Diouf revisited this thesis in 2013. He touted Sufi Islam as an “antidote to political Islam”. This was particularly true, Diouf argued, of the Senegalese model of pluralism, cooperation, coexistence, and tolerance.

But there have been other factors that have contributed to Senegal’s stability.

Diplomatic tradition

French colonialism positioned Senegal as a port of entry into West Africa. And while Senegal continues to maintain strong ties to Europe and the US it has fostered important relations with the Middle East and Asia.

Senegal is officially a Francophone country. In addition to speaking various African languages, many Senegalese are also Arabophone – intellectually as well as linguistically.

The country developed a diplomatic tradition after gaining independence from France. It joined the United Nations in 1960, the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) in 1963 and the Non-Aligned Movement in 1964.

Significantly, Senegal is the only African country to have hosted the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (renamed the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) Summit twice – in [1991]and2008.

Senegal smartly used the opportunity of hosting these Islamic summits to attract significant Arab funding for infrastructural development. For example, it receives the largest amount of loans given by the Kuwait Fund to any African country. Today, Gulf aid has displaced Western development funds in Senegal.

Senegal is also a West African financial centre. It has taken leadership roles in the Islamic Development Bank and was the first African country to embrace Islamic finance.

While these global religious, intellectual, diplomatic, and financial connections have contributed to Senegal’s stability, it has experienced periods of instability too.

Not all plain sailing

The relationship between the state and Sufi Islamic leaders has sometimes been controversial. And the state has also had conflicts with the young people who make up roughly 60% of the population.

One example of instability was before Senegal’s contentious 2012 presidential elections. The incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade wanted to secure a third term by changing the constitution. The movement “Y’en a Marre” (Enough is Enough) mobilised the youth vote and organised political protests, which disrupted the country for weeks.

Policy commentators first suggested the events might insinuate that Senegal’s record of democracy had been weakened. But Wade eventually conceded peacefully to Macky Sall after a run-off election.

Some are concerned that more instability might be looming.

Last month Sall won re-election. Some analyists credit his victory to economic growth (7.2% in 2018), infrastructural projects and the recent discovery of offshore oil and gas.

But he has strong critics. His crackdown on corruption has been used politically to eliminate his biggest competitors. And he has been criticised for exiling Karim Wade, son of Abdoulaye Wade, from Senegal and imprisoning Dakar’s former mayor Khalifa Sall.

Nevertheless, Senegal looks good in relation to other African countries. Think of the recent elections in Nigeria; Kenya’s repeated 2017 elections; the 2016 Gambian elections, when President Adama Barrow had to be sworn in from Senegal; or the violent post-election conflict in Ivory Coast in 2010 and 2011.

Lessons

Senegal is important for Africa because it provides an example of a country that can help shift the narrative of the continent as an “arc of instability.”.

For example, while Sufi Islam is the dominant religious practice in Senegal, religious minorities have long been accepted and given the freedom to practice their religion.

But I am concerned by recent reports in Western media that portray the African continent as another sphere for the Saudi Arabia-Iran rivalry to play out by disseminating Sunni-Shi‘i sectarianism in Senegal and Nigeria.

There are tensions between the minority Salafi and Shi‘i movements. But it is inaccurate to suggest that West Africa has fallen victim to Gulf power politics and has no religious agency of its own.

So far Senegalese have pushed back against suggestions that the country is becoming more radicalised by promoting Sufi Islam as an Islam of peace. Despite the growth of minority Islamic movements, the majority of Senegalese are likely to adamantly remain proud Sufis.

Mara Leichtman, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Muslim Studies, Michigan State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Pakistan National charged for forging immigration documents

Dan Ojumah

March 14, 2019

BY PRUDENCE WANZA – A Pakistan national has been fined a total of Ksh. 450,000 or face six months imprisonment for forging immigration documents.

Appearing before Chief Magistrate Francis Andayi, at the Milimani Law courts, the foreigner pleaded guilty to using fake stamps to forge Crucial immigration documents and staying in Kenya illegally.

The man was arrested by immigration department officers stationed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport while trying to flee from the country with fake documents. He will be detained at Industrial Area Prisons

France supports Kenya’s regional integration agenda

Dan Ojumah

March 14, 2019

President Emmanuel Macron said France supports the regional integration agenda championed by President Uhuru Kenyatta and other regional leaders.

Speaking when President Kenyatta hosted a State Banquet in honour of the French leader, who is in Kenya for the first State Visit by a French Head of State, President Macron said he believes in the Kenyan leader’s vision for a fully integrated Eastern Africa.

The two Presidents were also joined by President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo during the dinner held inside the historic Karura Forest, the only indigenous forest in the middle of a city.

“We do believe in your strategy of building a new vision to bring peace and stability not only for Kenya but for the whole region,” said President Macron in his speech. “I want France to be part of your regional agenda. You are a champion of regional integration and we support you,” he added.

He said the EAC is one of the most integrated regions in the world and that France supports the agenda to achieve full integration in the region.

President Macron also encouraged the new DRC President to embrace the integration agenda.

“What you want to build for East Africa and Central Africa is feasible,” President Macron said.

He said Kenya is a world leader and a reference for many nations in various fields including innovation, environment, scientific research and support for humanitarian efforts.

President Macron said France wants to strengthen its partnership with Kenya, noting that in the past the French business community has been more perceptive than the French government in its relations with Kenya.

He said Kenya and France have already signed deals worth more than three billion Euros during his visit.

Earlier in the day, President Kenyatta and President Macron launched a Peugeot car assembled in Kenya targeting the Kenyan and regional markets.

The two Presidents also toured the Nairobi Central Railway Station and spoke on the planned construction of a commuter rail line that will connect the Nairobi Central Business District and the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. The rail system will be built in partnership with a French Consortium and is expected to be completed in two years.

President Kenyatta said Macron’s visit was historic since it is the first by a French President to Kenya.

He said Kenya and France share world views and are increasing their partnership in development as well as security.

President Kenyatta said France is a key trading partner of Kenya and encouraged business communities in both countries to strengthen their ties to create a sustainable trading environment.

He thanked the French government for its support towards Kenya’s development agenda especially the Big Four Agenda.

President Kenyatta also urged more French tourists to visit Kenya and enjoy its unique tourism products.

“This visit will give our nations new areas of cooperation,” said President Kenyatta.

While speaking about the venue of the dinner, President Kenyatta paid tribute to Nobel Laureate Prof Wangari Maathai who is credited for the continued existence of Karura Forest thanks to her brave fight to save the environment.

“I am happy to host you at this sanctuary we call Karura forest. It is the only indigenous forest in any capital city anywhere,” said the President.

He said it is because of the power, voice and bravery of Prof Maathai that Karura Forest still stands inside the city of Nairobi.

The dinner was attended by Kenyan and French dignitaries. Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga was among the Kenyan guests at the dinner. The delegation accompanying President Macron included three ministers, six parliamentarians and representatives of major French companies.

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