South Asia
India
People are at it again. The roads into Delhi, India’s capital, have been filled with protesting farmers responding to the Modi government’s new agriculture laws deregulating the market. The farmers, mostly from Punjab and Haryana states, are marching on the capital to force the government to repeal the laws which they say will put them at the mercy of corporations looking to get the cheapest deal. The union-led strike has been going on since late November and has overcome barriers such as police water canons and roads being dug up to impede travel towards Delhi. Farmers have brought enough supplies to sustain their protest for three months.
Trade unions across India have joined the farmers in solidarity, with general strikes occurring in late November, and some planned in the next few days, too. There are reports that around 300,000 farmers are protesting, with the general strike drawing out a quarter of a billion workers. Leftist news sources are claiming it is the biggest workers strike in the history of the world, but the mainstream media has only focussed on the farmers.
Indeed, it seems there has only been building unrest towards Narendra Modi’s neoliberal agenda for the country. That, and his evermore-apparent push for a one party state threatening India’s democracy. Underpinning his populist streak is his party’s following of Hindutva, or Hindu Nationalism, which has fed hate crimes against Muslims since Modi came to power.
There are parallels between Modi and other right-wing governments around the world who look to scapegoat minorities to shift blame from their own policies, and fix social and economic issues with the free market.
The agricultural sector in India is in crisis and these new laws have surface solutions: farmers can enter into special trade relationships with corporations, and the deregulation of the market should mean they have more control over their yields. However, small scale farmers are often unable to access credit to bolster their business with the private sector and sustain them over bad years, and the worry is they won’t get assured prices or subsidies without the regulations. On top of this, there is a suicide epidemic among the farming population with over 10,000 deaths by suicide in 2019 alone.
It will be interesting to see how Indians go about protecting their democracy in the coming years, or whether the threat of China and its relationship with Pakistan is enough for the majority to entrust in the big man leadership of Modi, in spite of his party’s neoliberal approach to fixing the country.
East Africa
Ethiopia
Ethiopia has been in the news over the past month for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s crackdown on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in the northern region of Tigray. The political group that controlled the Ethiopian government for thirty years before Ahmed was elected leader has a complicated history with the country, some claiming preferential treatment of its own ethnic community over others. Ahmed’s offensive is said to have been triggered by insurgent activity by the now guerrilla group.
This week, Ahmed claims no civilians were killed, however due to a communications blackout in the region, these reports contradict ones from humanitarian groups on the ground and from TPLF troops. Over 40,000 Tigray natives are said to have fled to Sudan as asylum seekers. That’s 1% of the total population of the region.
What has the media in a lather about this conflict is the fact that Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his efforts at pulling Ethiopia into the 21st century and ending a territorial stale-mate with Eritrea. (Headlines declare “Peacekeeper to Warmonger!”) Born to a Christian mother and a Muslim father both of Oromo ethnicity, he was the first Oromo chairman of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition of ethnic parties that won the 2018 election ending the Tigray rule. Being Oromo, the largest ethnic population in Ethiopia (over 34% of the population), Ahmed signified a united Ethiopia that appealed to young, middle-class Ethiopians keen to modernise the country.
The biggest project symbolising this change is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. It aims to provide electricity to a country that still experiences rolling blackouts and should generate enough to export to neighbouring countries. For Ethiopia, being at the source of the Blue Nile, the dam is a coup. However, for Sudan and Egypt further downstream, the dam is a geopolitical tool they fear Ethiopia will wield to control the area.
For more on the Tigray conflict and the possible fallout of Ahmed’s militarised “peacekeeping” I recommend this video:
Max and I have recently become friends with an Ethiopian expat who gave us his view on the escalating pressure on the TPLF. It was interesting to listen to him to balance out the narrative that the Tigray political elite are powerless victims and that this will be the first step to a Rwandan-esque genocide. Our friend stated adamantly that the Tigray who seek to cede or cause strife wrestling back power were tiresome to this vision he and his friends had subscribed to.
Time will tell, obviously, and the moves by Ahmed to stall the next election and blacking out media access to Tigray are still suss. But he bears more resemblance to Bolivia’s Morales than to India’s Modi (despite a penchant for privatisation) in that Ahmed’s raison d'être focusses on unity and self-realisation. Assisting this national pride is the fact that Ethiopia was never colonised, has its own alphabet, and probably the continent’s best marketed and unique cuisine.
Ugh. The frustrating thing with so many places is how great their tourist industry could be without military coups. And that’s the shallowest thing I’ll write today.
Other things!
Police charge man in Singapore for holding up a smiley face sign
So you can say 'bonjour' – but how about hello in a local Indigenous language?
What Ancient Egyptian sounded like:
The GeoWizard is at it again. This time he’s attempting to walk in a straight line across Norway:
I know I’m very late to the party (and WHAT a party!), but since watching their Netflix show, I am now a certified Aunty Donna super fan. Here’s one of their most popular YouTube sketches to test whether their humour is for you or not:
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