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enthusiasticsobrietyabuse · 3 years

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”Adolescent Attraction to Cults” Originally posted on OnTheEmmis.com circa 2005.

I'm writing term paper on Cult Deprogramming for my Psych class. I saw this (with several others), and thought it made for a good read here... (maybe @ the end of the semester I will submit my findings as well).

Warning: this is pretty long.

Title: ADOLESCENT ATTRACTION TO CULTS , By: Hunter, Eagan, Adolescence, 0001-8449, September 1, 1998, Vol. 33, Issue 131

Database: Academic Search Premier

ADOLESCENT ATTRACTION TO CULTS

Contents

REFERENCES

ABSTRACT

This article details the reasons behind adolescents' attraction to cults. It is recommended that parents, teachers, and counselors familiarize themselves with the warning signs. Suggestions are offered on how to make adolescents less vulnerable to cult overtures.

Adolescence is the transitional period between the dependence of childhood and the assumption of the rights and responsibilities of adulthood. It is a time when young people attempt to understand who they are, what they can do, and why they are here. Their freedom to make decisions greatly increases, but, at the same time, certain adult privileges remain inaccessible. Their lives seem to be filled with possibilities, restrictions, and uncertainties.

New and unfamiliar situations quickly generate unrest and crisis, arising during an important period of identity development. To establish a coherent identity, adolescents draw from models and ideals found within their environment. They may seek out reliable standards to achieve a sense of security, only to find confusing, paradoxical social rules. They therefore may have difficulty distinguishing between heroes and anti-heroes, and may end up seeing themselves only in negative terms, producing a severe identity crisis. Having sought independence, they find that they fear standing alone.

Thus, it is not surprising that adolescents, having encountered conflict, confusion, and frustration, often feel disoriented and anxious. Fearing rejection by a society that they do not understand, they may retreat into isolation, or demonstrate inappropriate emotional outbursts, aggression, and rebellion, and embrace radical causes. All of these are youthful cries of pain, cries for help and understanding.

Traditionally, young people have been critical of, and impatient with, the established values and behavior patterns of society. They desire change, and experience frustration when it does not occur. Their ideal ism leads them to believe that those in power, as well as established institutions, have failed to meet the legitimate needs of various groups. To them, social problems and their solutions stand out in stark clarity.

In addition, during adolescence higher-order thinking skills become engaged; it is a time of intellectual curiosity, of seeking truth. Youths are intellectually and spiritually open to new ideas. Unfortunately, they have not achieved the balance of experience and maturity that would enable them to sort truth from illusion and reality from fantasy in all situations. They have not gained sufficient sophistication to evaluate --critically and methodically--complex philosophies.

Many youth movements play upon this naive idealism and intellectual curiosity. The young person may be challenged to answer the clarion call to join a group that professes to offer a vision of a perfect society, one in which all injustices are rectified. After all, how could any self-respecting person, caring for the world and its people, not be willing to give this "new way" a try?

Group membership can lead to either positive or negative outcomes. For example, the Peace Corps and various forms of community service and mentor programs are excellent ways for youth to achieve self-actualization. On the other hand, gangs and cults suppress individuality and foster estrangement from society.

The personality profile of an adolescent susceptible to cult overtures might include identity confusion or crisis; alienation from family; weak cultural, religious, and community ties; and feelings of powerlessness in a seemingly out-of-control world. Studies have indicated that a surprising number of cult members come from democratic and egalitarian homes and upper socioeconomic levels, rather than over-permissive, overindulgent, dysfunctional, and poor families. In fact, Andron (1983) reports that many cults focus on the recruitment of gifted and creative adolescents. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to delineate a precise portrait of potential adolescent cult members.

In a review of the literature, Wright and Piper (1986) reported that alienation from family relationships precedes cult membership. Youths are compensating for unfulfilled needs (e.g., love, sense of belonging), the lack of which hinders the development of self-esteem, social competence, and mastery of life tasks. In turn, this generates attempts to gain approval and recognition. Wright and Piper indicated that the attraction to cults is strengthened by the fact that a cult's rules often are better defined than those of the family. Adherence to the cult lifestyle often results in radical behavior changes, along with "a loss of identity" compensated by an "enslavement to cult leaders" and further estrangement from family.

Parents, teachers, and coaches sometimes place excessive demands on youth. Such pressures frequently lead to undesirable outcomes, such as physical or intellectual burnout, drug use, or escape to what appears to be the safety of a cult. Adults must remember that there is a time for everything--a time simply to enjoy being young, and later, after normal adolescent development has progressed, a time increasingly for admission into the competitive, success-oriented adult world.

There has been a marked decline in the influence of the family and traditional religious beliefs, with a concomitant liberalization of personal values. The social climate has nourished rejection of cultural and moral standards. This has left adults and especially adolescents with the dilemma of finding values with which to fill this vacuum, so as to be able to resolve old problems and discover new solutions. Mike Warnke (1972), a former drug addict and satanic high priest who became involved in the anti-occult counseling program Alpha Omega Outreach, explains that a person "is constructed like a triangle, with one side representing his physical needs, the second his mental needs, and the third his spiritual needs. A person fulfilling only his physical and mental needs is not complete... [and] is consciously or subconsciously undergoing a search for spiritual fulfillment, wherever he can find it--in drugs, the occult." The loss of society's religious and social moorings leaves many youths adrift. The desire to become a complete person--to complete the triangle of their being--leads many, Warnke warns, into dangerous ways.

In the absence of authentic, stabilizing standards upon which youth can depend and trust, self-destructive tendencies quickly emerge. Adolescents become vulnerable to academic failure, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, risk-taking behavior, violence, and gang and cult membership.

Zimbardo and Hartley (1985) reported that approximately 50% of the high school students included in their survey had been approached to join a cult. Wright and Piper (1986) have indicated that cults are most successful in recruiting individuals between 18 and 23 years of age, when persons are most likely to be seeking "perfect" answers to life's questions and problems. Because of their immaturity, they fail to take into account the long-term consequences of cult membership.

Rudin (1990) defines cults as "groups or movements exhibiting an excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing. Such cults employ unethically manipulative techniques of persuasion and control designed to advance the goals of the group's leaders to the determent of members, their families, or the community." Cults attract youths experiencing psychological stress, rootlessness, feelings of emptiness and of being disenfranchised, and identity diffusion and confusion. Such youths come from all walks of life and from all classes of society. Cults seem to offer confused and isolated adolescents a moratorium--a period of dropping-out, or a "time-out"-- as well as a highly structured sense of belonging and a means of escape from being "normless."

The terms "church," "sect," and "cult" should be distinguished. Church usually is applied to specific religious organizations. A sect is an offshoot of a particular religious body, whose members prefer to follow doctrines or teachings that differ from the parent group. A cult exhibits many of the characteristics of a sect. However, it represents a major and abrupt break with the past. A cult is viewed by its members as the climax of history, and often emphasizes devotion to a single person. Legitimate movements withstand the test of time to prove their authenticity.

A distinguishing characteristic of cults is that they prey upon a person's fears through a systematic process of "brainwashing" and "programming." They recruit aggressively. Strong efforts are made to separate members from family and former associates--to cut them off from their past--in order to establish new values and standards requiring total dependence on, and devotion to, the cult itself. There is usually an all-powerful authoritarian leader. Members may be psychologically, physically, or sexually abused, with discipline maintained through fear. Rudin (1990) states that "what makes a group a cult is the deception and manipulation of its members and the harm done to them and to society, not its ideals or theology." Notable examples have been the mass suicide of the followers of Jim Jones in Guyana (1978), the holocaustic climax of the disciples of David Koresh in Waco, Texas (1993), and most recently the group suicide of the Heaven's Gate believers in San Diego (1997).

Davidowitz (1989) has stated that an increasing number of adolescents are falling under the influence of Satanism. Evidence includes the desecration of cemeteries and the theft of bodies; the appearance of satanic symbols and themes in contemporary literature, art, and music; and in an extreme case, the satanic, ritualistic murders in Matamoros, Mexico. Belitz and Schacht (1992) have indicated that male youths from abusive families are especially vulnerable to satanic cult recruitment. Adolescents seeking a sense of power over their own lives as well as over others are susceptible.

According to Rudin (1990), this process has several stages. Initially it begins as a fun experience, with adolescents involved in fantasy and role-playing games based on occult ideology and incorporating an obsession with violence. These adolescents are usually deeply involved in heavy metal rock music and, frequently, brag about their activities to boost their self-image. This type of involvement tends to make the individual receptive to satanic activities. A "dabbler" stage follows, in which satanic literature and paraphernalia are acquired. The transition from fun-and-games to serious interest opens the door to satanic recruitment through clubs, hangouts, and private parties. As involvement deepens, cruelty to animals, rape and molestation, drug use, and even murder may follow.

It is the responsibility of society in general and the family in particular to be alert to the danger signs, especially during the early stages of youth involvement. However, with society fractured and unable to fulfill this role, educators, social workers, and psychologists must rise to the occasion. In addition, the cooperation and support of religious institutions, civic organizations, and government agencies must be enlisted.

School and youth organizations can be particularly helpful. The sensitive teacher or counselor can be watchful for the warning signs--confusion, alienation, sudden changes in personality or behavior, withdrawal from home and social activities, the development of antisocial attitudes, a decline in academic achievement, the assumption of an unusual style of dress, and preference for music with satanic themes--and intervene in a timely fashion.

However, caring adults must be proactive rather than merely reactive. They can help adolescents to develop a strong self-concept, one that is not vulnerable to the harmful attractions of a cult. They can assist youths to formulate positive, realistic life goals, and ease the emotional impact of inevitable frustrations. Adults must be willing to discuss--knowledgeably, frankly, and honestly--the various personal and social issues confronting adolescents, such as substance abuse, AIDS, teenage pregnancy, as well as the insidiousness of cults.

Adolescents seek self-identity and acceptance as unique individuals. They search for standards and values upon which to model their behavior. Educational and social institutions must be made welcoming places in which young people feel a sense of belonging, places of understanding and trust, places of stability in a rapidly changing world. Adolescents should be shown ways to achieve a richer and more meaningful life, to attain their natural potential, and to become contributing members of society. The meeting of these challenges and opportunities is what education for life--not for death--is all about.

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star-anise · 5 years

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i was hoping my last ask would get me a free rant without having to make a dreaded choice uhhhhhhh do maybe washcloths or fake smile?

Hahaha no you have to specify what white person thing you want a rant about, or else I’m paralyzed by too many choices. And nb. by “white” I generally mean white Anglo-Saxon Protestant; WASPs have traditionally been held up as the cultural standard everyone else n North America or other British colonies should follow, and the “whiteness” of different European ethnicities in those colonies is generally judged by how assimilated they are to the WASP ideal. So my observations will not apply very well to, for example, other European ethnicities, or people from areas colonized by those other European groups.

WASHCLOTHS. Related to another trap, Guest Towels Guests Must Never Use. Which are usually distinguished by their elaborateness and a thin layer of dust. As a certified White Person (Anglo Canadian) I can say: This is a real actual literal thing my family does. If I stay at an aunt’s house, I don’t use her guest towels; I walk past the guest towels on the towel rack and ask my hostess, “What towel do you want me to use?” and she fetches me a new, less nice, towel out of the linen closet.

The actual washcloth meant to be used is hung somewhere separate. When I was about 13, I rebelled against sharing a washcloth with my brothers, bought my own washcloth from a department store, embroidered my name on it, and zealously defended it against all comers. These days, my older brother has four children. When we go to his house to eat dinner, his children all wash their hands before they eat… and then wipe them dry on a single towel hung in the downstairs bathroom, which his guests also use. So we all wash our hands and then share germs. I… think? There might be a bar on the opposite wall with guest towels hanging on it? But my eyes have been trained to skate right over guest towels. They’re decor, not things we actually use.

Why White People Do This:

1. Washing and cleanliness… have not traditionally held a central place in European life the way, say, wudu does in Islam. Although priests ritually wash their hands before performing the consecration of Mass, nobody else in the congregation has to. This is partly because in Christian Scripture, Jesus says that if something is ritually pure but spiritually suspect, it should be treated as impure, which Christians kind of took to mean “ritual purity and cleanliness rituals are things non-Christians do.”

So in the 19th century, a German doctor discovered that you could reduce the rate of infection dramatically when doctors washed their hands and instruments between dissecting dead bodies and attending in childbirth. Doctors were OFFENDED and APPALLED by this–partly because the guy pointing it out was an asshole, yes, but partly because there was a feeling that “a gentleman’s hands are always clean”, so it was offensive to say their hands were dirty because it impugned their class and education.

Cleanliness is hugely related to class and status–I could go on a LOT more here about how in the 19th century, British and American attempts to “educate” and “civilize” poor white people and people of colour included imposing standards of hygiene on them that felt cruel and punitive–scrubbing skin raw, using caustic soap, delousing with kerosene–partly because white people didn’t have a very advanced idea of what chemicals made good cosmetics, and there wasn’t much awareness of the need for oils or moisturizers. (For a long time very few sources of natural oil, like canola, olives, or sunflowers, or even petroleum products, were available in Britain, so until somewhat recently they only really had pine tar and animal fat, which they used for everything from making soap to lighting lamps to greasing cart axels.) And the 19th century cleanliness movement did not have a good opinion of traditional bathing methods like the sauna, banya, or steam room, where sweat was scraped off the skin. So people who HAD hygiene rituals that worked for them, when they emigrated to western Europe or North America, got shamed and discouraged from using them. It was just expected that part of “civilizing” a child who hadn’t been “well brought up” was forcefully ducking them in a bath and scrubbing them while they screamed and fought you.

So for white people from everything but the highest classes, if you go a few generations back, there’s this feeling that cleanliness is something unnatural and unpleasant, something imposed by a punitive authoritarian force, and not something intrinsically desirable. Old men used to talk about “taking a bath once a year, whether I need it or not,” and fear of losing their “protective coating of dirt.” Which makes sense when you realize how awful old cosmetics used to feel.

I mean, as I type this, I’m applying Vaseline to the hangnails on my fingers, because when I use soap in the bath or do the dishes or wash my hands after going to the bathroom, the soap strips oil from my skin and dries it out, leading it to crack and bleed. This is a really common problem but the current solution seems to be “women carry tiny bottles of moisturizer everywhere in their purses, and men… suffer if they want to seem manly, and then post memes to facebook about how rough and terrible their hands look to emphasize their heterosexual masculinity.”

This also relates to why white people say racist things about people of colour being “dirty” when they use natural methods of keeping their hair or skin clean. The white conception of cleanliness is honestly really fucked up.

2. Cloth holds an especially weird place in white society. I mean, lots of cultures everywhere like their cloth to look nice! But in Europe and American colonies in the 1600s there was an extra special movement to restrict women economically and bar them from business and public life–so while a rich woman could run a business outside the home and buy and sell in 1400, that freedom was disappearing in 1600. Only women of the ~lower classes~ did real actual work. And the religious sentiment at the time really emphasized Purity, Hard Work, Productiveness, and No Fun. So women were supposed to stay inside all the time and not participate in industry! But they were always supposed to be busy. The saying was literally “Idle hands are the devil’s tools”.

That turned embroidery from an aesthetic, decorative art into a moral act. You didn’t embroider to make something pretty; you embroidered for the good of your soul. Fancy embroidered pieces displayed in a home were meant to demonstrate a) that the house was rich enough to have idle women, and b) the moral purity and obedience to gender norms of the women of the house. (This also extends to things like quilts, lace doilies, hooked rugs, etc.)

So towels used to be made of linen, a plain flat cloth, and then embroidered and otherwise embellished. My mom, in the 1960s, learned how to do embroidery where you painstakingly pull a few threads out of a piece of linen, and then embellish the place where the threads have been taken out.

Linen, incidentally, is a strange and amazing fabric. When new, freshly starched and ironed, it is flat and crisp. But pressure and moisture can change it really easily. When I sew with linen, I just have to lick my fingers and fold it over, and it stays like that–something most fabrics don’t do. So if you actually use a linen towel to dry your hands, you will crumple it in a way that is very hard to reverse.

Therefore: Fancy linens were displayed prominently in the home as a status symbol, but a guest who wanted to stay on his hostess’s good side did not use them. There are a lot of ettiquettes around using linens when you absolutely have to, like just gently wiping your fingers on a towel, that diminished the damage the fabric would take.

So, I mean, actually rich people used their good towels, because if they ruin them, they can just get new ones. Fancy linens were intended for high-class guests who knew how to keep from damaging them. So using someone’s guest towels sent the message, “I am so high-status that I’m WORTH potentially ruining something that took a ton of work to make and maintain.” Or, if you obviously weren’t that high status, “I don’t know about the work that goes into making nice things, or don’t value the work you did and don’t care how much effort you’ll have to go to because I wanted to wipe my face.”

But that was in the days of linen. Guest towels are going out of fashion, partly because modern terrycloth towels are almost impossible to crease or ruin, so it doesn’t really matter if guests use them. But even with terrycloth towels, homeowners sometimes like to create really elaborate towel displays. I don’t know how those people feel when guests use them, but as a white girl I feel really uncomfortable taking a towel display in somebody else’s house apart, and try to wipe my hands while causing the least disturbance possible.

Oh, I guess I should mention that invisible tests no one will ever mention if you fail are absolutely a white person thing. Like, if you watch costumed period drama movies, there’s often a scene where someone is really unbearable and rude, and everyone is super polite and awkward and just sits there and says nothing. That’s not consciously an exclusive practice; from the perspective of white people it’s just an ingrained reflex, “Freeze and smile when something awkward happens and then later cut them out of your life.”

That reflex comes because the Industrial Revolution and colonization (1600s-1800s) led to a lot of class mobility. Ordinary men could get involved in business and become wealthier than the hereditary landowners! Which the hereditary landowners felt super threatened by, so they went out of their way to cultivate manners and standards that were very unlike those used by the common people. Upperclass accents became more marked and exaggerated; dictionaries decided to make English spelling and grammar especially hard to learn; manners got super weird and unintuitive. They wanted to make it as hard as possible for common people to fit into high society.

Therefore, to enable that system, the rule became: Never tell someone when they’re fucking up. If they know what they’re doing wrong, they’ll FIX it, and then they’ll fit in better! And that would lead to the absolute downfall of Western civilization! Which would of course be a bad thing! And that got codified as The Right And Desirable Way To Do Things. A low-class person might say “Hey, you just insulted me, I’m upset,” but someone with aspirations of rising higher in life learned to freeze and say nothing. That was how you defined “polite”.

So like I said, if I, as a white person, point out to other liberal white people that the freeze-and-smile-awkwardly response is really exclusionary to people from different backgrounds, they go, “Oh my gosh, you’re right!” and we can talk about changing it. It’s why white people invented assertiveness training. It’s a thing white people have to unpack and decolonize. But it’s not commonly a conscious attempt to exclude someone by not letting them know they’re breaking the rules.

ANYWAY. Towels.

So IF someone has guest towels taking up their towel rack in their bathroom, there’s very little room left for the actual towels. (Unless they’re like my aunt, whose bathroom literally has a second towel rack to accommodate her guest towel arrangement) Therefore: The entire fucking family sharing a single washcloth because that’s all they have room for, and it doesn’t feel that important not to share.

WHITE CULTURE IS WEIRD AS HELL.

And if you come to my house? You’re allowed to use my guest towels. It’s what they’re there for.

#staranise original #white culture #lis explains white people shit #AND I DIDN'T EVEN NAMECHECK CALVINISM ONCE #chucktaylorupset

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daprojex · 4 years

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Nigeria Cracks Down on a Critic, and a New Jersey Town Pushes Back

When the Nigerian government went after a prominent detractor in the midst of a broad crackdown on free speech, it didn’t expect to stir resistance 5,000 miles away.

By Ruth Maclean

Dec. 22, 2019, 11:20 a.m. ET

HAWORTH, N.J. — Opeyemi Sowore watched the videos on her phone in bed in her New Jersey home, the children still asleep, the Christmas tree twinkling downstairs.

The videos showed her husband — a former presidential candidate and the publisher of a website known as Africa’s WikiLeaks — being wrestled to the floor in a Nigerian courtroom by a man in a black suit, as lawyers in wigs and gowns crowded around shouting.

The court had ruled that her husband, Omoyele Sowore, should be free on bail while awaiting trial on charges of treason, money laundering and, for criticizing President Muhammadu Buhari on television, cyberstalking. But on Dec. 6, while his wife slept more than 5,000 miles away, Mr. Sowore was taken from the courtroom back into detention, where he has been held for nearly all of the past five months.

Before Mr. Sowore was led away by Nigeria’s equivalent of the Secret Service, he was videotaped saying that these “might be my only words on record before they kill me.” His wife has had no contact with him since.

When Mr. Buhari was elected in 2015 as president of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and largest economy, it was hailed as a triumph for democracy. Since then, however, his government has turned toward harsh authoritarianism, putting the country’s thriving civic organizations and news media to the test.

Protests have been met with deadly force. The country’s chief justice was summarily sacked. Humanitarian organizations that criticize the state were threatened with closure, and newspaper offices were raided. One journalist, Jones Abiri, has been in detention so long that for a time, he was thought to be dead.

One bill now making its way through Nigeria’s Senate proposes the death penalty for some instances of “hate speech.” A second, the Anti-Social Media Bill, modeled on a new Singaporean law, calls for government critics to spend as much as three years in prison.

Nigeria is not alone in clamping down on freedom of expression. A punitive new security law in traditionally media-friendly Burkina Faso, a proposed hate speech measure in Ethiopia, a harsh crackdown in Tanzania and routine internet and social media shutdowns across Africa point to a wider trend toward censorship.

“The people in power just don’t want to have to tolerate the voices of the people,” said Ayisha Osori, head of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa.

African leaders feel emboldened to strangle the news media because of a perceived global rollback in democracy, she said.

Mr. Sowore founded a website in 2006, Sahara Reporters, that specializes in exposing corruption and government malfeasance. With funding from American foundations and about 50 staff members working in Nigeria and the United States, the site’s publication of leaked, often unfiltered information disrupted Nigeria’s traditional media scene.

By basing his operation in New York, Mr. Sowore for years had a degree of protection from the consequences of publishing often scandalous information about Nigeria’s most powerful people. He shuttled between his family home in New Jersey and Nigeria, where he is a citizen, without much interference.

Then, on Aug. 3, in the middle of the night, he was arrested by Nigeria’s Department of State Services, or D.S.S., in his Lagos hotel room.

At first, Opeyemi Sowore told no one in Haworth, a well-off suburb about 20 miles from midtown Manhattan, about her husband’s arrest. None of them knew much about Nigeria, or what Mr. Sowore, known as Yele, did for a living. As far as they were concerned, he was just a dad and a keen runner.

One day, though, texting with another mother with children at the local school, Ms. Sowore explained why her husband had been away so long.

Word traveled fast in Haworth, a town of 3,500 people.

“One mom told another mom, told another mom, told another mom, and next thing we knew we had assembled what really is functioning as a crisis management team,” said Alanna Zahn Davis, one of the mothers in that chain.

If Mr. Buhari’s government had gotten tough, so would Haworth.

A core group of 10 women raised the alarm at the State Department. Then they reached Amal Clooney, the human rights lawyer, who demanded Mr. Sowore’s release. They worked with Amnesty International, which declared him a prisoner of conscience.

Sometimes they prepared meals for Ms. Sowore, a marketing executive, or looked after the couple’s two children. Inspired by an American tradition of using yellow ribbons to remember hostages, they held “Yele ribbon” ceremonies in Haworth’s tree-lined town center, attended by hundreds of people.

After the courtroom melee, they called members of Congress, engaging New Jersey Senators Robert Menendez and Cory Booker. Six members of Congress sent a letter on Friday to Nigeria’s attorney general condemning the treatment of Mr. Sowore.

His detention “will only serve to tarnish Nigeria’s international reputation and its standing as a leading African democracy,” they wrote.

Before his arrest, Mr. Sowore was often accused of favoring Mr. Buhari, even helping him get elected. Sahara Reporters’ relentless exposés of graft under the previous government meant Mr. Buhari’s vow to sweep the country clean of corruption resonated with voters. One of Mr. Buhari’s earliest interviews as president was with Sahara TV.

However, Mr. Buhari’s administration turned out to have a corrupt bent, too, along with authoritarian tendencies, said Chidi Odinkalu, the former chairman of Nigeria’s Human Rights Commission.

“The Buhari administration has proved to be at least as bad, if not much worse” than the prior administration that Mr. Buhari had promised not to emulate, said Mr. Odinkalu, who is facing prosecution himself after he criticized one of the president’s close allies.

This was not a great surprise to those who remember how Mr. Buhari, now 77, first came to power in 1983 as a major general in the wake of a military coup. Before being overthrown in another coup, he jailed hundreds of people, made tardy civil servants do frog jumps and had three men executed.

By the time he was democratically elected three decades later, in 2015, it was on promises to tackle corruption and insecurity. Nigeria was battling Boko Haram, oil theft and violent clashes across the country. He often appeared frail, said little in public and spent many months of his first term being treated for a mysterious illness in London.

Sahara Reporters wrote about the absences and allegations of his allies’ corruption, and Mr. Sowore openly condemned the government for failing to meet its promises. He ran unsuccessfully for president against Mr. Buhari in February, and was preparing to lead a protest calling for revolution when he was arrested on August 3.

At the time, La Keisha Landrum Pierre, Sahara Reporters’ chief operating officer back in New York, was heavily pregnant. When she gave birth five days later, she was managing the company’s biggest crisis ever. It keeps getting bigger.

She said that the Nigerian government had frozen the site’s financial account.

“There have been armed D.S.S. men standing outside our offices” in Nigeria, said Ms. Landrum Pierre, in between calls and meetings in Manhattan. She had to cut the staff by 70 percent, and said that most of the remaining employees, feeling intimidated, were staying at home.

On Dec. 6, the court scheduled Mr. Sowore’s trial for February, but he did not remain free on bail as previously ordered. Instead, Mr. Sowore’s lawyers and family maintain, D.S.S. agents attacked Mr. Sowore while still in the courtroom and ultimately took him back into custody.

The D.S.S. said in a statement that it had rearrested Mr. Sowore because of public comments it claims he made the prior night promising to pursue his cause. A D.S.S. spokesman also claimed that Mr. Sowore’s supporters had staged the courtroom attack and were trying to frame its agents.

Ms. Sowore said that watching the videos made her afraid for his life.

“The hardest part about it for me was — how do I tell my kids?” she said.

They have tried to help. For the Haworth school fair in early December, their 12-year-old daughter Ayo made and sold slime and stress balls, planning to put her profits toward her father’s bail. Her mother had to explain that he had already posted bail, but still wasn’t allowed out. Ayo gave her $80 to Amnesty International instead.

Ten-year-old Komi’s desires are clear from his Christmas list. He wants:

1. A remote-controlled racing car that can climb walls.

2. An Apple watch.

3. His father safely home.

4. A turtle.

#Ruth Maclean #nigeria #afolabi sotunde #gabriela bhaskar

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xtruss · 4 years

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How the Coronavirus Pandemic Will Permanently Expand Government Powers

Our series on the world after the pandemic, we asked 10 leading global thinkers for their predictions.

The pandemic has allowed some governments to assume new powers to trace, track, and control. For better or for worse, will it permanently expand government influence? We asked 10 leading thinkers to weigh in.

— BY JAMES CRABTREE, ROBERT D. KAPLAN, ROBERT MUGGAH, KUMI NAIDOO, SHANNON K. O'NEIL, ADAM POSEN, KENNETH ROTH, BRUCE SCHNEIER, STEPHEN M. WALT, ALEXANDRA WRAGE

— MAY 16, 2020 | Foreign Policy

BRIAN STAUFFER ILLUSTRATION FOR FOREIGN POLICY

We are all statists now. Since the coronavirus pandemic struck and the global economy unraveled, we have looked to governments to mobilize medical resources, implement containment measures, and spend previously unimaginable sums to support workers and businesses. Out of these emergency policies could arise new institutions and ways of solving problems that will benefit us long after the pandemic.

There is a dark side, too. Governments have assumed new powers to trace, track, and control. Some of them have already abused these powers, and it is entirely conceivable that they may never give them back.

To help us understand how the pandemic will permanently expand government powers—for good or for bad—Foreign Policy asked 10 leading thinkers from around the world to weigh in.

In the Post-Pandemic World, Big Brother Will Be Watching

— by Stephen M. Walt

Governments around the world have assumed unprecedented control over their citizens’ daily lives in response to the coronavirus. Get ready for the new normal: Opportunism and fear will lead many governments to leave some of their newly acquired powers in place.Democracies and dictatorships alike have closed borders, imposed quarantines, shut down much of the economy, and implemented a variety of testing, tracing, and surveillance regimes in order to contain the infection. Those that acted fastest and adopted more stringent measures have been most successful. Leaders who denied, dissembled, and delayed are responsible for thousands of preventable deaths.

Get ready for the new normal: Opportunism and fear will lead many governments to leave some of their newly acquired powers in place.

As infection rates decline and effective treatments become available, many countries will gradually relax most of the restrictions that are now in place. Some of the leaders who assumed emergency powers during the crisis may relinquish them. But get ready for the new normal: Political opportunism and fear of a new pandemic will lead many governments to leave some of their newly acquired powers in place. Expect to have your temperature taken or throat swabbed when you travel, and get used to having your phone observed, your picture taken, and your location tracked in many countries—with the use of that information not always restricted to matters of public health. In the post-coronavirus world, Big Brother will be watching.

The Pandemic Will Be a Boon for Good Government

— by Alexandra Wrage

First, the bad news: As the world pours trillions of dollars into stimulus programs and the medical sector, there will be endless opportunities for corruption and graft.Authoritarian governments will almost certainly face a backlash for concealing the scope of the problem.

Authoritarian governments will almost certainly face a backlash for concealing the scope of the problem.

The good news is that the inevitable stories of squandered resources and opaque dealings will ultimately turn the pandemic into a boon for good governance and increased accountability. From the Arab Spring and other movements, we know that societies have little patience with corruption when the population is suffering. This will be especially true for authoritarian governments, which will almost certainly face a backlash for concealing the scope of the problem and allowing officials to profit from the pandemic.

By comparison, governments that are responsive, data-driven, energetic, collaborative, and innovative will have proved superior to autocracies in delivering their societies from the coronavirus and its economic costs—leaving these governments strengthened and enjoying greater public trust in the future.

The Shape of Future Government Will Be Forged in Asia

— by James Crabtree

The coronavirus pandemic is set to usher in a new era of bigger, more intrusive government in almost every advanced economy—but that change will be felt most dramatically in Asian nations that have long prided themselves on their relatively lean, minimal states.The pandemic will usher in a new era of bigger, more intrusive government in almost every advanced economy.

Most rich countries have moved quickly to turn on the spending taps, protecting their citizens and businesses with wage support schemes and cash payouts. That is true in the United States and Germany, but also in places like Singapore and Malaysia whose leaders have traditionally shied away from expensive fiscal expansions.

The pandemic will usher in a new era of bigger, more intrusive government in almost every advanced economy.

Future pandemic management will clearly require larger governments, too, as states rush to create expansive new tools of disease control, workplace management, and social surveillance in the hope of curbing future outbreaks in advance of a vaccine. Again, this is an area where Asian governments such as South Korea and Japan are likely to take the lead, given their mixture of high state capacity, technological knowhow, and relatively relaxed approach to privacy regulation.

In short, the era of big government is returning, but it will manifest itself in in ways that are quite different from the previous era of large states during the 1960s and 1970s—and much of its new shape will be forged not in the West, but in the East.

Industrial Policy Is Back

— by Shannon K. O’Neil

This is likely just the start of a raft of public schemes to shape the production of goods and services deemed essential.As countries and companies struggle with the effects of COVID-19 on work and production, industrial policy is making a comeback. After decades of free-market momentum, governments in developed countries and emerging markets alike are embracing influential and long-lasting roles for themselves in the basic workings of their economies.

So far, this has involved increasing the management of trade by means of tariffs, licenses, quotas, product standards, and even outright export bans, particularly in food and medical supplies. It has also included billions in cash and other public benefits to companies to “bring home” manufacturing currently done abroad, such as the $2.3 billion Japan is now paying its companies to leave China.

This is likely just the start of a raft of public schemes to shape the production of goods and services deemed essential.

With the World Trade Organization faltering, this is likely just the start of a raft of public subsidies, tax breaks, government purchases and stockpiling, buy-local requirements, and other schemes that many nations will put in place to shape the production of and access to a much wider array of goods and services deemed essential on national security grounds—now defined ever more broadly to include risk of disruption, overdependence on China, or the provision of jobs. To be sure, efforts to maintain and perhaps even expand free trade won’t end. But many of these negotiations will assume, condone, and sometimes even codify more, rather than less, direct government intervention in markets.

A New Age of Overbearing Government

— by Robert D. Kaplan

Like other life-transforming crises such as World War II, the coronavirus pandemic will likely ignite an urge for the protective embrace of big government.

After three decades of wealth creation on a historically unprecedented scale, we may now be on the cusp of an unprecedented period of wealth redistribution in the form of higher taxes to fund an expansion of health care and other services.We may be on the cusp of an unprecedented period of wealth redistribution.

We may be on the cusp of an unprecedented period of wealth redistribution.

The new kinds of surveillance of individuals with which some countries have successfully battled the pandemic may be a harbinger of the future. Privacy will increasingly become an issue in this new age of overbearing government. And so will government debt, which is already mushrooming out of all proportion. With the pandemic heating up the U.S.-China rivalry, calls for increased U.S. defense spending loom just over the horizon. How will we pay for it all? That will constitute the real debate.

A bigger government with a larger role for experts on public health and other subjects may be on its way, along with an intensified populist backlash against it. With the pandemic response in the United States and many other countries rather uncoordinated, there will be a tendency to strengthen the role of national governments in the post-coronavirus world. As a result, our lives may soon become more regulated than ever.

Some Governments Are Using This Crisis to Silence Critics

— by Kenneth Roth

A crisis need not lead to a permanent expansion of government powers—as long as the public remains vigilant.

In times of crisis, international human rights law allows all governments to temporarily limit certain rights—by means of travel restrictions and social distancing rules, for example—as long as the restrictions are strictly necessary, proportionate, and nondiscriminatory. Some governments, however, are trying to use the coronavirus pandemic to silence critics, expand surveillance, and entrench their rule. Whether they succeed will depend on whether the public understands that this would only increase the likelihood and severity of future public health disasters.A crisis need not lead to a permanent expansion of government powers—as long as the public remains vigilant.

A crisis need not lead to a permanent expansion of government powers—as long as the public remains vigilant.

Censorship restricts the free flow of information that is so essential in recognizing and effectively responding to health threats. Surveillance that fails to protect privacy discourages voluntary cooperation, a prerequisite for any successful public health initiative. Checks and balances on executive power—an independent legislature, judiciary, media, and civil society—ensure that governments serve the public’s welfare rather than their own political interests.

In short, the pandemic makes it clear that human rights should be upheld not only out of principle, but for powerful pragmatic reasons as well. If the public appreciates these reasons, sufficient pressure can be put on governments to prevent them from profiting from tragedy. If not, we may find ourselves in a world with both greater risk of disease and less regard for human rights.

Local Government Will Emerge Stronger After the Pandemic

— by Robert Muggah

The coronavirus pandemic is exposing the quality of governments around the world. Many national leaders have failed the test—in contrast to the leaders of regions and cities, who have faced the pandemic head-on in their communities, showed greater competence, and earned the trust of their constituents. In the process, the virus is clarifying the division of powers between different levels of government and strengthening the hand of regions and cities.The virus is clarifying the division of powers between different levels of government—and strengthening the hand of regions and cities.

The virus is clarifying the division of powers between different levels of government—and strengthening the hand of regions and cities.

The current focus of governors and mayors is on saving lives, delivering essential services, maintaining law and order, and supporting economic recovery. But already, there are local leaders looking beyond the pandemic and actively reimagining life in their communities. Limited finances will favor cost-effective policies that generate multiple benefits—including better ways to provide health care to the most vulnerable and promoting greener economies. Future government services will be more digitalized, leaner, and more distributed.

Throughout history, infectious disease outbreaks have had a profound effect on local governance. The bubonic plague in the 14th century led to a rethinking of squalid urban spaces. Cholera outbreaks in the 19th century triggered massive urban redevelopment schemes and a dramatic buildout of sewage systems. The current coronavirus pandemic will likewise generate transformations in governance—from invasive surveillance technologies to track infections and enforce quarantines to major spending on health care to keep this and future diseases under control.

The Technocrats Will Get Their Hands Dirty

— by Adam Posen

Past macroeconomic policymaking focused on key variables: growth, inflation, unemployment, debt. This allowed central bankers and the like to tell themselves and their publics that they were only looking after the general welfare, not making distributional choices. The pandemic and its fallout, however, have compelled the economic technocrats to get their hands dirty with allocative decisions—which companies get bridge loans, which work arrangements get subsidized, which assets get purchased. This makes crisis policies both more effective and, as long as the loans and purchases are transparent, more accountable.Central banks and finance ministries will come out of this crisis with new forms of intervention.

Central banks and finance ministries will come out of this crisis with new forms of intervention.

It also removes the gloves that previously kept policymakers somewhat clean but with a looser grip on events. Central banks, finance ministries, and financial regulators will come out of this crisis with new forms of direct intervention, and some old ones unseen in decades and previously abandoned as distorting markets. But the global economy we live in today, where markets are recurrently disrupted by crises, requires strong hands, not laissez faire.

Lines between fiscal, financial, and monetary policy will be blurred to good effect—it was always disingenuous to pretend that there were strict divisions. Norms that previously prevented cooperation across government agencies will be replaced in response to the economic realities. Independence is nice to profess, but it is little comfort when you cannot deliver the desired outcome in splendid isolation.

After We Beat the Pandemic, We Must Cure Affluenza

— by Kumi Naidoo

We must make sure this rollback of civil rights does not become a permanent fixture of life in the post-coronavirus era.Shaping the post-pandemic world starts with the acknowledgment that we are all infected by affluenza: We consume too much and equate conspicuous consumption with success and happiness in life. Valuing economies purely on the basis of GDP has been recognized as a failure that must be addressed if we are to have a chance at creating a more equitable world.

We must make sure this rollback of civil rights does not become a permanent fixture of life in the post-coronavirus era.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us that we need a radical rethink of the production and distribution of food and other essential goods for all of us in society to live in good health, peace, and prosperity. We should now be pushing for local, decentralized ownership and co-creation of social goods and services.

Governments are using the military-industrial complex to reduce citizens’ participation in the democratic processes, and we must make sure this rollback of civil rights does not become a permanent fixture of life in the post-coronavirus era.

The Public Good Requires Private Data

— by Bruce Schneier

There’s been a fundamental battle in Western societies about the use of personal data, one that pits the individual’s right to privacy against the value of that data to all of us collectively. Until now, most of that discussion has focused on surveillance capitalism. For example, Google Maps shows us real-time traffic, but it does so by collecting location data from everyone using the service.It’s the same trade-off: Individually, private health data is very intimate, but it has enormous value to us all.

COVID-19 adds a new urgency to the debate and brings in new actors such as public health authorities and the medical sector. It’s not just about smartphone apps tracing contacts with infected people that are currently being rolled out by corporations and governments around the world. The medical community will seize the pandemic to boost its case for accessing detailed health data to perform all sorts of research studies. Public health authorities will push for more surveillance in order to get early warning of future pandemics. It’s the same trade-off. Individually, the data is very intimate. But collectively, it has enormous value to us all.

It’s the same trade-off: Individually, private health data is very intimate, but it has enormous value to us all.

Resolving the debate means careful thinking about each specific case and a moral analysis of how the issues involved affect our core values. The answers for law enforcement, social networks, and medical data won’t be the same. As we move toward greater surveillance, we need to figure out how to get the best of both: how to design systems that make use of our data collectively to benefit society as a whole, while at the same time protecting people individually.

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U.S. plans for Venezuela hit turbulence as Maduro tries Assembly takeover

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U.S. plans for Venezuela hit turbulence as Maduro tries Assembly takeover

President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro speaks during an anti-Trump demonstration in August 2019 in Caracas. | Carolina Cabral/Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s campaign to oust Nicolas Maduro hit a major snag on Sunday as supporters of Venezuela’s authoritarian president tried to politically sideline the man whom Trump has recognized as the country’s legitimate leader.

The troubles underscored the difficulties in the U.S. strategy toward Venezuela nearly a year after Trump demanded that Maduro leave office and ramped up sanctions on his government. The strongman remains ensconced in power, with backing from U.S. adversaries Russia and Cuba.

On Sunday, the U.S. expected Juan Guaido, 36, to be re-elected as the head of Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly. That position gave Guaido grounds to make the legal claim that he is Venezuela’s “interim president” because Maduro’s last election victory was marred by fraud.

But, according to media reports, security forces loyal to Maduro blocked Guaido and many of his allies from entering the building. Onevideoshowed Guaido trying to scale the gate and being pulled down by security forces, some of whom carried shields to push back the crowd.

The vote that followed gave the Assembly leader’s post to Luis Parra, a rival of Guaido’s, according to media reports. In the extraordinary confusion, some observers insisted there was no quorum for a vote. Parra, described in some accounts as a “dissident opposition politician,” has beenaccusedin a recent corruption scandal, and U.S. officials suspect he is allying himself with Maduro in trying to take over the Assembly.

U.S. officials denounced the events and said they would not recognize Parra’s claim.

Guaido “remains #Venezuela’s interim president under its constitution,”tweetedMichael Kozak, the State Department’s acting assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs. “This morning’s phony National Assembly session lacked a legal quorum. There was no vote.”

Later Sunday, Guaido gathered lawmakers in a separate location to cast what the opposition said was the real vote, which he won easily. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent out a statement on Sunday night congratulating him on his re-election.

Guaido’s claim to be “interim president” of Venezuela is recognized by the U.S. and more than 50 other countries, many of them in Latin America. The coalition has been alarmed by Venezuela’s descent into autocracy and economic despair under Maduro.

U.S. officials say they retain confidence in Guaido, notwithstanding fractures andscandalsin the Venezuelan opposition and despite widespread frustration that a year’s worth of pressure, including a failed high-profileuprising attempt, has not led to a change in government in Caracas.

In an interview ahead of Sunday’s vote, Elliott Abrams, the Trump administration’s special representative for Venezuela, stressed that Guaido is the Venezuelan opposition’s choice for interim president and that the U.S. backs him as a result.

“We continue to support him fully,” Abrams said. “There is no reduction in support at all in the United States.”

He also confirmed that the Trump administration intends to ramp up the economic pressure on Maduro and his allies in the months ahead. That will primarily involve imposing more economic sanctions on individuals, companies and other entities linked to the Maduro government.

Companies in other countries that do business with the Maduro government may face new U.S. sanctions, too. Venezuela is a top oil producer, making it a tempting partner for nations seeking energy resources. The U.S. has sanctioned PDVSA, a major Venezuelan state-owned oil firm.

Abrams dismissed claims that the United States is running out of targets to sanction, saying that the Trump administration keeps getting “more and more information from cooperative governments and individuals” about new targets tied to the Maduro government.

The U.S. also hopes to see the European Union and other Latin American countries step up their own imposition of sanctions on Maduro. Abrams downplayed frustrations with the lagging international sanctions effort, noting that unlike the U.S., many other countries have not traditionally used sanctions and thus lack the necessary expertise and architecture.

“It’s slow because it’s new,” he said.

Guaido’s ambassador to the United States, Carlos Vecchio, echoed Abrams’ assertions that U.S. support for Guaido remains strong nearly a year into the anti-Maduro campaign. Guaido remains a popular figure across Venezuela despite the fact that he has little access to the media institutions under Maduro’s thumb, Vecchio said.

He and others further pointed to what’s being called “Operation Scorpion” — an effort to bribe, imprison and otherwise cajole National Assembly members not to back Guaido — as a sign of Maduro’s feelings of insecurity. The brute force used to block Guaido from the Assembly on Sunday suggests that Maduro knew the opposition leader had the votes he needed.

“If Guaido was weak, the question would be why Maduro is doing everything to interfere with Guaido’s reelection” as assembly leader, Vecchio said.

Under Maduro, who took power in 2013, Venezuela’s economy has crumbled amid allegations of graft and drug trafficking in the government’s top echelons. A humanitarian crisis — people can barely afford food — has led millions of Venezuelans to flee to nearby countries.

One reason Maduro remains in power is support from Venezuela’s military, whose senior ranks have stuck by him despite entreaties from Maduro opponents.

Abrams acknowledged that past outreach by the U.S. and the opposition to Venezuelan military officers and soldiers “obviously was not sufficient.” The trick is figuring out who will have the most impact in such outreach, he said, pointing to potential liaisons such as retired military officers from Latin American countries.

Another group that the United States wants to peel away from Maduro are the “Chavistas.” These are Venezuelans who support the left-wing, socialist ideology that kept Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, in power for years. Chavez, who died in 2013 while battling cancer, endorsed Maduro as his successor.

Abrams argued that many Chavistas recognize that Maduro’s corruption and economic mismanagement have badly damaged their movement’s reputation. And while Abrams stressed that the United States does not believe a socialist approach will rebuild Venezuela, he added that what matters is to have a legitimate political process.

“Venezuelans need to have the chance to vote,” he said. “If Chavistas win a free election, we will respect the outcome of that election. We’re not trying to destroy their future. We’re trying to create a future for Venezuela.”

While U.S. interests in Venezuela are many — including its oil — Trump administration officials have also said Washington has an interest in ensuring that the Western Hemisphere remains a stronghold for democracy. Trump’s dislike of Maduro strikes an odd note, however, given his affinity for strongmen in other countries, including President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Former U.S. officials who have dealt with Venezuela said it was clear that the Trump administration’s hopes that Maduro would quickly resign have been tempered over the past year, and that it is still trying to properly calibrate its policy toward the Latin American nation.

Trump himself appears less interested in the issue than in early 2019, when on Jan. 23 hedropped his recognitionof Maduro as Venezuela’s true leader. Back then, Trump even nodded to the idea of U.S. military action in Venezuela.

As the months have worn on, the U.S. has sent mixed messages about whether it backs the opposition’s attempts to negotiate a political solution with Maduro, former U.S. officials said.

Now, “the trend lines point toward increasing authoritarian consolidation, a stronger Nicolas Maduro and a more fragmented opposition,” said Michael Camilleri, who served in the State Department and the National Security Council during the Obama administration. “Those in the opposition who had deluded themselves into thinking Trump was going to invade and solve all their problems are coming to the realization that’s not going to happen.”

In a sense, the status quo works for Trump politically.

As long as he maintains pressure on Maduro, he can use that to gain votes in Florida, a key 2020 swing state where many Venezuelan and Cuban exiles live, even if nothing changes on the ground in Caracas. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has been particularly influential in urging Trump to stay tough on Maduro.

The Venezuelan autocrat, meanwhile, is outwardly striking a confident pose despite the sanctions and rhetorical fury from his giant neighbor in the north.

“I’m a man of dialogue!” Madurotweetedon Thursday. “With Donald Trump or whoever governs the US: whenever, wherever and however [they] want, we’re ready for dialogue with respect, pride and dignity, to establish new basis of relations that will contribute to the stability of the region.”

But opposition leaders say they cannot see a viable Venezuelan future with Maduro in charge.

“He is in power, but he is far from governing,” Vecchio argued. “He is surviving and is unable to solve any problems, not even the basic ones. … He doesn’t have the support of the people.”

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