16 Days of Activism Against GBV Blog Series| Holding Both Ends of the Line in the fight Against Digital Violence

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Prevailing responses to digital violence against women and girls are largely reactive— demanding justice after a case of revenge-porn, doxxing or cyber-bullying has already destroyed a life, livelihood or a sense of safety. This crisis has become an emergency: globally,16-58% of women have experienced a form of online violence, and in Nigeria 45% of women self-report experiencing digital violence. Yet we continue to treat symptoms while the architecture that enables digital violence remains unchallenged.

We are holding only one end of the line.

In this blog, Emaediong Akpan argues for a dual approach that addresses both the structural and the cultural dimensions of this crisis. First, we must hold tech platforms and legal systems accountable for the technological architectures that enable abuse. Second, we must transform how we prepare and support the next generation, beginning with digital literacy from childhood. This strategy is not about making users responsible for their own safety but about building communal resilience against the weaponized shame that is digital abuse’s core tactic. By treating survivors with unwavering belief and care, we challenge the culture of silence and place shame where it belongs—with the abusers and the systems that grant them anonymity and virality.

Photo Credit: UN Women


Beyond Reactions

Nearly half of the world’s women and girls, have no legal protection from digital violence. The uncomfortable truth in our fight for digital safety is that we are often act after the fact. There is an overwhelming number of safety nets—legal, social, psychological, to ‘protect’ women and girls after they have experienced harm in digital spaces. However, according to Amnesty International, 76% of women report altering their online behavior due to abuse. This statistic reveals the limitation of our reactionary approach. We are treating the consequences of digital violence but failing to confront the architecture that exposes women and girls to harm.

Our reactionary approach, though vital, is a partial victory at best — it means holding one end of the line. My call is to extend our hands and hold both ends.

The reactionary approach operates after the fact, after the harm has been done. It fails to confront the underlying issue: a digital ecosystem that is engineered through its architecture, business model and algorithms to facilitate and profit from such harm. To address digital violence against women and girls, we must adopt a dual-approach. This approach requires us to hold the line of platform accountability on one hand while engaging in foundational prevention rooted in early digital literacy and communal care on the other.

Understanding the Impact of Digital Violence on Women’s Participation in Public Life

Globally, 16-58% of women have experience online violence. In Nigeria, 45% of women self-report experiencing digital violence, with girls aged 12-17 and young women up to 35 being targeted. 85% of women globally have witnessed digital violence such as cyberbullying, false and misleading smear campaigns, doxxing, image and text-based threats and more. Although the forms of digital violence vary, the motive remains the same: to shame, silence, and exclude women and girls from public life. Below I explain the impact of two particularly insidious forms.

  • Cyber-Stalking: Research indicates that an estimated 7.5 million people have experienced cyberstalking, demonstrating that anyone with a smartphone, social-media or GPS-enabled device is vulnerable.  Data from domestic violence programs in multiple countries indicates that 71-85% of domestic violence perpetrators use technology from smartphones and GPS to spyware—to stalk, monitor and threaten survivors. The intimate violence of the physical world now follows women into every digital space, collapsing any boundary between public and private life.

 

What Do We Mean by ‘Digital Violence’?

Without a universal conceptualization, this phenomenon operates under a cluster of terms, each highlighting a different aspect of this menace.

I use “digital violence” throughout this piece because it is conceptually encompassing. It captures not only the act of violence (harassment, doxing) but also the structural nature of the harm. It points to a violent digital environment shaped by the algorithmic amplification of harm and the prioritization of engagement/virality over safety. Digital violence as a concept draws attention to the platform not as a neutral mirror of gender-based violence offline but as an active, participant in these acts of violence.

Holding Platforms and Systems Accountable

Our response ought to begin with the platforms whose digital architectures are designed to maximize ‘engagement’ irrespective of whether these engagements are driven by joy, outrage or hatred. The algorithms reward inflammatory contents with increased visibility, providing a fertile ground for digital violence to thrive. In adopting this approach, we must move beyond reactive content moderation to safety-by-design principles that places the responsibility on these platforms to mitigate systemic risks, including gender-based violence.

Our laws should specifically criminalize forms of digital violence including but not limited to cyber-stalking, disinformation, revenge porn, and doxxing. Although the Nigerian Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act 2015 is a good starting point, its effective application to address digital violence requires both amendment and judicial activism. The Act currently lacks explicit provisions for image-based sexual abuse, cyber-stalking, and platform liability. Courts must be willing to interpret existing provisions broadly while legislators work to close these gaps. We need legal frameworks that recognize the unique harms of digital violence—its permanence, its viral spread, its capacity to follow victims across every platform and into every space.

Digital Literacy as a Complimentary Strategy

Preventive approaches have been critiqued —often rightly—for placing the responsibility on potential victims while absolving platforms of responsibility. My suggested approach does not absolve platforms of their responsibility. Rather, I argue that building communal resilience is not a parallel response but a complimentary strategy in this fight against digital violence. Even in a utopia with perfectly regulated platforms, harm can exist. The goal is to change the social and psychological terrain on which these attacks land.

Fostering a child’s critical consciousness does not excuse a platforms toxic design; it can help mitigate the effect of that design. This is the inoculation I speak of—not against infection, but against the shame that digital violence weaponizes. Where young girls and women have the nonjudgmental support of their community, it becomes harder to manipulate them into feeling shame and equips them to identify, and resist abusive dynamics.

Building Communal Resilience from the Cradle

Today’s children are digital natives in a profound sense. Globally, one in three internet users is a child. In high-income countries, 60% of children use the internet by age five. In Africa, with the world’s youngest population and smartphone adoption surpassing 50%, children are primary users of family devices, entering complex digital publics with little to no guidance. This strategy ought to begin with digital literacy.

Critical consciousness from early childhood: Teaching children to question what they see online, who benefits from this content? Who might be harmed? Why is this being shown to me? This is media literacy adapted for an algorithmic age.

Bodily autonomy and consent: Children need to understand they have the right to set boundaries online, to say no to requests for images or information, and that consent given under pressure is not consent at all. These conversations must happen before children encounter coercion, not after.

Trusted adult networks: Every child should be able to identify at least two adults they can turn to if something online makes them uncomfortable or afraid. This requires adults who respond without panic, judgment, or punishment—a significant cultural shift in many contexts.

Community response models: When digital violence occurs, the community’s response matters as much as the legal one. Schools, religious institutions, and community organizations must be prepared to support survivors with unwavering belief rather than interrogation, with resources rather than blame. In Nigeria, organizations like the International Federation of Women Lawyers, Feminist Coalition, and StandToEndRape have pioneered such models, but they need to become the norm, not the exception.

The evidence supports this approach. In Finland, where comprehensive digital literacy has been integrated into education since 2014, young people report higher confidence in identifying misinformation and manipulation online. In South Korea, where digital citizenship education is mandatory, rates of cyber-bullying have declined even as internet usage has increased. Nigeria has the capacity to develop contextually grounded approaches that respond to our specific realities of digital violence.

Conclusion: Holding Both Ends of the Line

The fight against digital violence is a struggle for the future of public space, discourse, and democracy itself. A singular focus on post-harm justice, while morally imperative, is strategically incomplete. It addresses the symptoms but does not prepare the next-generation for these realities. We must confront digital violence by contesting the exploitative architectures of platforms and by building a critically conscious population from the cradle. This dual-approach is critical in this moment.

We must confront digital violence by contesting the exploitative architectures of platforms while simultaneously building a critically conscious population from the cradle. We must demand that platforms redesign their systems for safety while teaching young people to navigate these systems with critical awareness. We must prosecute abusers while building communities that refuse to shame survivors.

This dual approach is not a compromise, it is recognition that structural change and cultural transformation must advance together. One end of the line without the other leaves us perpetually playing catch-up, counting casualties, offering comfort after the fact.

It is time to hold both ends of the line. Our daughters are counting on it.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Emaediong Akpan is a legal practitioner and an alumna of the International Institute of Social Studies. With extensive experience in the development sector, her work spans gender equity, social inclusion, and policy advocacy. She is also interested in exploring the intersections of law, technology, and feminist policy interventions to promote safer digital environments. Read her blogs here: 1, 2, 3, 4,5

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16 Days Activism Against GBV Series| Beyond Convictions: Rethinking gender justice through survivors’ lived experiences

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International criminal law has made remarkable progress in recognizing gender-based crimes, yet conviction rates alone cannot capture the meaning of justice for survivors. In this blog, Abubakar Muhammad Jibril draws on the Gender Justice in International Criminal Law Conference to argue that genuine gender justice must be reimagined through survivors’ lived experiences—centering healing, dignity, and accountability beyond the courtroom. 

Photo credit: Unsplash

The limits of legal victories

Over the past two decades, international criminal law (ICL) has evolved to acknowledge sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) as crimes of the gravest concern. From the landmark Akayesu judgment of the ICTR, which recognized rape as an act of genocide, to the Rome Statute’s explicit listing of sexual slavery, enforced pregnancy and other forms of sexual violence, progress has been undeniable. Yet despite these achievements, the lived experiences of many survivors reveal a different reality. During the Gender Justice in International Criminal Law Conference, several participants echoed a powerful truth: a conviction does not automatically equate to justice. Survivors often remain unseen, unheard and unsupported in the aftermath of trials. Many return to communities where stigma and silence persist, where reparations are delayed and where their suffering is reduced to a footnote in legal history. This paradox between legal recognition and lived reality lies at the heart of why gender justice remains incomplete.

The epistemic gap in International Criminal Law

ICL, by design, privileges evidence, procedure and precedent. It asks: What can be proved? Who can be held responsible? Yet for survivors of gender-based crimes, justice often depends on questions the law cannot fully answer: How can I heal? Who believes me? Will my story change anything? This epistemic gap between legal knowledge and experiential truth reflects a deeper structural limitation. The courtroom, though vital, cannot capture the emotional, social and cultural dimensions of gendered harm. The narratives of survivors are frequently filtered through lawyers, investigators and judges, transformed into ‘admissible evidence’ rather than lived testimonies of pain and resilience. As feminist scholars like Catharine MacKinnon and Fionnuala Ní Aoláin have argued, law can recognize sexual violence without truly listening to survivors. This dissonance risks turning gender justice into a symbolic victory rather than a transformative one.

From criminalization to transformation

At the conference, one speaker remarked that international tribunals have been more successful in criminalizing gender-based crimes than in transforming the conditions that enable them. This distinction is crucial. Criminalization ensures accountability for perpetrators, but transformation demands more: it requires dismantling the patriarchal, cultural and institutional structures that make such crimes possible in the first place. Survivors do not merely seek punishment; they seek recognition, healing and inclusion in rebuilding their societies. For instance, the Trust Fund for Victims under the International Criminal Court (ICC) has provided symbolic reparations, but survivors repeatedly stress the need for collective and community-based remedies, access to education, psychological care, economic empowerment and public acknowledgment. These are not mere add-ons to justice; they are justice itself.

Centring survivors’ voices: towards participatory justice

Reimagining gender justice means shifting from a courtroom-centred model to a survivor-centred one. Survivors must not only testify; they must shape the process. Participatory justice approaches already piloted in certain post-conflict societies offer valuable lessons. In Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Uganda, survivor networks have played pivotal roles in truth-telling and community reconciliation. Their initiatives illustrate that justice becomes meaningful when survivors help define their goals and outcomes. As discussed in several conference panels, integrating psychosocial support, trauma-informed procedures and culturally sensitive reparations into ICL processes could bridge the gap between law and lived experience.

The politics of recognition

Gender justice cannot be disentangled from global hierarchies of power. Many survivors come from the Global South, yet international criminal processes are dominated by Northern institutions and perspectives. This imbalance shapes not only whose stories are heard but also how justice is defined. To move beyond symbolic inclusion, international mechanisms must decolonize their approaches, valuing local knowledges, community healing practices and indigenous forms of accountability. Justice cannot be exported; it must be co-created with those who have suffered most. A decolonial feminist approach to ICL thus requires more than reforming procedure; it demands rethinking the very epistemology of justice from punishment-centred to person-centred, from institutional legitimacy to human dignity.

Reclaiming the meaning of justice

The conference’s closing sessions were marked by a shared realization: while legal frameworks are essential, they are not sufficient. The future of gender justice lies not only in how courts punish crimes but in how societies restore humanity after harm. For survivors, justice is not measured in verdicts but in voices being heard, believed and healed. It is in communities that refuse to silence them, in policies that empower them and in histories that finally honour their truths. International criminal law must therefore evolve from a reactive to a restorative paradigm, one that integrates legal accountability with social repair, trauma healing and long-term prevention. Only then can justice be both legal and lived.

Conclusion

As scholars, practitioners and advocates, we must move beyond celebrating convictions to asking harder questions: Whose justice? For whom? At what cost? The survivors who continue to rebuild their lives after unimaginable violence remind us that justice is not a verdict; it is a process of human restoration. The future of gender justice in international criminal law depends on whether we can truly listen to the people for whom justice was meant to serve.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Abubakar Muhammad Jibril is a legal researcher and LLM candidate specializing in human rights law, with a focus on women’s and children’s rights, gender-based violence and international human rights frameworks. His work integrates comparative legal analysis across diverse jurisdictions, exploring the intersections of law, culture and religion, particularly within Islamic legal traditions. Abubakar’s research aims to promote equitable legal reforms and deepen the scholarly understanding of justice, dignity and protection for vulnerable groups worldwide.

 

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The Ruling Elites Put Democracy under Duress in Indonesia – and the People are fighting back

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Police violence against recent protests by civil society groups and social movements marks the biggest challenge for Indonesia’s Prabowo administration and tests the Indonesian political class’ commitment to democracy. In this blog Iqra Anugrah and Rachma Lutfiny Putri explain how Oligarchic agendas of the elites have led to disastrous policy choices, triggering the protest movement. Progressive politics, despite its lack of leadership and clear ideology and platform, should maintain this momentum by defending itself from state repression and forcing elite concessions.

Photo Credit: Maria Cynthia, Wikimedia

Recent anti-oligarchic protests across Indonesia have presented the biggest political challenge to the Prabowo administration since it took power in 2024. Repressive handling of the protests by the Indonesian police, which resulted in the martyrdom of Affan Kurniawan, a motorcycle taxi driver, and nine others along with the arrest of 3,337 protesters triggered a protest movement to spread like wildfire. All of this has happened in less than a year after Prabowo’s inauguration as president.

The gruesome nature of Affan’s death significantly raised political consciousness of the movement and the general public, but the collective anger behind it has been simmering for a while. Like other authoritarian populists, Prabowo had pursued a series of questionable policies prone to elite hijacking and rent-seeking, such as the Free Nutritious Meal programme and the Danantara sovereign wealth fund. But the causes for the recent protests were something more structural and paradigmatic: increasing inequality and precariousness, shrinking ‘middle class,’ growing military role in politics, and crackdown on democratic dissent. These were exacerbated by the contempt of several members of the parliament (MPs) toward the plight of the working people and the proposal to raise their allowances amidst economic hardship.

By the time of this writing, the clashes between the state and the movements had entered a period of protracted de-escalation. With the exception of some young liberal influencers who naively entered an appeasement dialogue with a few MPs, labor unions, women’s movements, and student activist groups still continue their grassroots advocacy and popular education works, while the police continue to detain those arrested.

Concrete policy shifts after this crisis are still unclear. Aside from the cancellation of the proposed housing allowance raise for MPs, the government has yet to meet other crucial demands: ending police violence, reducing excessive allowances for MPs and high-ranking officials, and addressing labor demands concerning fair wage and employment relations.

Deepening illiberal and authoritarian practices under Prabowo presidency suggest the limits of a democratic façade to oligarchic politics. This propelled widespread response from a broad alliance of grassroots social movements supported by the public and piggybacked by liberal-leaning groups and influencers. The ruling elites made only limited concessions to popular demands, while divisions between grassroots bases and liberal networks show how fragmented the civil society remains. The future will remain uncertain and bleak, but grassroots social movements can break this impasse by exercising their leadership and mobilizational power to force further elite concessions.

By Mori505 - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=174069478
Photo Credit: Mori505 via Wikimedia

Drivers of the protests: the changing contour of oligarchic politics

The shift to a more brazen display of authoritarian politics in Indonesian democracy is not merely a product of changing elite political culture, but a logical consequence of the transformation of mechanisms of oligarchic extraction in the interests of the ruling class and the bourgeois state. At the international level, Indonesian economic and political elites try to tap into profits offered by the booming nickel industry. Domestically, these oligarchic elites have expanded their extraction targets from traditional sectors (e.g., land and coal resources) to ‘white elephant’ projects most notoriously the construction of the new capital city.

As detailed by the People’s Liberation Party, this heavy strain on the state budget is further compounded by the ambition of Prabowo, himself a top member of the oligarchic elites, to implement his flagship Free Nutritious Meal  programme, which has been poorly implemented, and increase military spending. This forced the central government to slash transfer funds for regional governments by 50 per cent in 2025. In turn, many local governments significantly raised property taxes, with some raising them by over 100 per cent.

These policies prompted various mass protests since the beginning of Prabowo’s tenure, ranging from anti-government protests in various cities to the famous anti-tax protest in Pati, Central Java, which forced the district head of Pati to resign.

Unsurprisingly, it becomes imperative for the ruling elites to further constrain democratic spaces to defend their interests. The tragic death of Affan, the excessive use of state violence, and the political elites’ lukewarm response to this crisis are clear signs of this development.

 

The nature of the protest coalition: Fragmentation amidst rising political consciousness

Responding to this elite assault, a series of protests started in late August. Of particular interest were the protests in Jakarta on August 28, the day Affan was martyred. They shared the same anti-government sentiment but differed in their policy demands and compositions of protest coalitions. Four participating groups can be identified:

1) labor unions, whose demands centered around wage increase and job security,

2) broad people’s coalition for climate justice consisting of farmers, fishers, grassroots women’s movements, and urban poor organizations,

3) student activists who rejected the proposed housing and other allowances raise for the MPs, and

4) motorcycle taxi drivers, whose mobilization intensified after the police’s armored vehicle ran over Affan.

These four groups, in varying degrees, continued their protests after Affan’s tragic death and intensifying police violence.

Afterwards, the coalitions and support for the protesters gained broad public support. Public jubilation and awe when witnessing the looting of the houses of problematic MPs, most notoriously the suspended MP Ahmad Sahroni, indicated the culmination of their collective anger.

But this brief period of political joy was punctuated by arson cases targeting public infrastructure in Jakarta such as bus stops and an optical server box, a pattern that spread to other cities. While there is a strong possibility that factions of the competing elites were behind these provocations, one should keep in mind that the youth participating in these urban riots saw their act as one of defiance and, we would add, protest against the sanctification of wealth and private properties of the elites.

These chaotic events, followed by increasing repression and control by the police and armed forces, led to the reappearance of a familiar trope in Indonesian politics: the dichotomy between peaceful and ‘anarchistic’ protesters. While we remain cognizant of elite manipulation behind these events and the excesses of street protests, we reject such dichotomy. Such as a false dichotomy, in our view, is cynically deployed by the ruling elites and the state to tame people’s militancy and divide the public. Further, as the case of violent attacks against student protesters resting at safe zones at Bandung Islamic University and Pasundan University showed, the police and armed forces have a long record of using the false dichotomy as a pretext to curb freedom of assembly and speech of dissident and marginalized groups.

As this chaos subsided, the latter phase of the protests witnessed the emergence of liberal influencers as accidental torchbearers of the movement. Political scientist Edward Aspinall argued that the proponents of this not-so-new counterculture of protest are student executive councils, unions and NGOs. His comprehensive analysis misses one new actor: liberal influencers with links to consultancy and ‘hip’ online media industries. Deliberately intervening into the ongoing dynamics, they summarized organic programmatic demands from various working-class and popular organizations into a laundry list of demands called the ‘17+8’ demands (a catchy reference to the Indonesian date of independence, 17 August).

While we recognize the value of such campaigns and their impact on raising political awareness among the urban middle class, we doubt their claims about actual campaign reach and policy impacts. We also criticize the inherent class bias and celebrity culture in their methods of activism which unfortunately sideline the role and agendas of actual working-class bases and organizations — groups whose agency played a key role in advancing the political aims of the protests and yet remains nameless and unseen. This attitude is emblematic of the cultural and political outlooks of the liberal/critical sections of the professional managerial class in Indonesia.

Our informal conversation with working-class activists involved in the protests and grassroots collectives reveal their anger and criticism toward the liberals. The main problem with liberal activism, in their view, is the lack of stronger labor and class demands and the dominance of liberal aesthetics and voice at the expense of aspirations and experiences of the most marginalized. From our conversation with them, we learned that the sacrifice of working-class activists at the frontline of the protests, including a dozen of ordinary labor and rural activists from our own personal networks detained or charged as provocateurs by the police, features mostly as statistics in mainstream media rather than stories of pro-democracy heroism.

Like their previous predecessors, liberal influencers are ‘floating’, divorced from the lived experience and consciousness of the masses. This detachment reveals a long-standing fault line in Indonesian civil society: between liberal and progressive–radical activism.

 

Take-away points

It is still too early to assess the impact and legacy of the 2025 protests, but we would like to highlight three important take-away points.

First, both ‘spontaneity’ and ‘leadership’ in mass movements are not opposites, but rather essential parts in a process to consolidate democratic leadership and institutionalization of social movements. As Rosa Luxemburg once reminded us, social reforms and spontaneity mobilized the oppressed, but revolutionary collectivity is mandatory to make their gains last.

Second, reflecting on the severity of state repression in recent protests, we reaffirm the right of the protesters to defend themselves against state violence through peaceful, and, under severe circumstances, disruptive methods. Our argument is not a provocation of violence but rather a view backed by research. A rigorous study has shown that disruptive actions by nonelites drive democratic deepening. Street protests and their dynamics are indeed the bloodlines of democracy.

Lastly, given the lack of success of the liberal influencers’ lobbying effort with the parliament, it is high time for grassroots working-class organizations to mobilize again. Only their leadership and political power can break this impasse.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

 

Disclaimer and acknowledgement: We maintain an active engagement with Indonesian social movements and our works since 2015 can be verified with various organizations, communities, and individuals that we have been working with. Currently we are conducting field research in Indonesia as Visiting Researchers at Agrarian Resource Center (ARC). In particular, we would like to thank our comrades at Progressive Islam Forum (FIP) and Kolektif SULU for insightful discussions on recent developments with them.

About the authors:

Iqra Anugrah

Iqra Anugrah is a Trapezio MSCA Seal of Excellence Fellow at the Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Modern Cultures at the University of Turin. He holds affiliate positions at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) at Leiden University and the Institute for Economic and Social Research, Education, and Information (LP3ES) in Jakarta. His current project examines multi-strand conservatism in Indonesia.

 

Rachma Lutfiny Putri

Rachma Lutfiny Putri is a Wenner-Gren Wadsworth International Fellow and a PhD candidate at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam and a Visiting Fellow at Populi Center. Her interests include urban anthropology, value chain, informal work, and development studies.

 

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Amsterdam’s Troubling Children’s Book

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Amsterdam marked its 750th anniversary by distributing 60,000 copies of a commemorative book, Mijn Jarige Stad (“My Birthday City”), to children across the Dutch city. But what was intended as a celebratory gift has instead sparked controversy over its casual perpetuation of racial stereotypes. In this blog, Zhiqi Xu, PhD student at the International Institute of Social Studies, reflects on how unconscious bias infiltrates children’s literature and its wide-reaching impacts.

An expanded Image of the full Board Game. Image: Het Parool

On page 31, within the book’s board-game section, young readers encounter this instruction: “Ni Hao! Chinese tourists are blocking the bike path. To avoid them, go back to square 39.”

The passage, framed as playful gameplay, exposes a more troubling reality: how racial stereotypes can be seamlessly woven into educational materials, normalizing prejudiced thinking from an early age. What publishers likely viewed as harmless humour instead demonstrates how unconscious bias infiltrates children’s literature—and how such casual stereotyping can shape young minds in ways that extend far beyond the pages of a book.

 

The cover of the book. Image: Reddit
The problematic passage in question. Image: Reddit

The incident raises critical questions about editorial oversight in educational publishing and the responsibility institutions bear when shaping children’s understanding of diversity and inclusion. For a city celebrating nearly eight centuries of history, the oversight represents a missed opportunity to model the inclusive values Amsterdam claims to champion.

Who are Amsterdam’s Tourists?

The idea of Chinese tourists “blocking the bike path” paints a vivid, supposedly familiar image—but it’s not supported by data. According to the 2023–2024 Toerisme MRA report, visitors from Asia accounted for only 8% of hotel overnight stays in Amsterdam in 2023. In contrast, 54% came from the rest of Europe, 17% from the Americas, and 18% were Dutch.

Tourism growth between 2019 and 2023 was highest among European and American guests, not Asian ones. The visibility of Asian tourists is being exaggerated and weaponized through cognitive distortions like availability bias, where rare but vivid impressions are perceived as more common than they are.

From Bias to Dehumanization

In psychology, stereotypes are heuristics— mental shortcuts used to categorize and simplify. They reduce people to flattened, predictable group traits. Although they ease mental load, they cause real harm when used to navigate social life.

Children absorb stereotypes early. By age seven, many have already internalized group-based categories learned from books, media, and adults. When a schoolbook casts a specific ethnic group, in this case, Chinese, as a social nuisance, it builds implicit biases: automatic associations between group identity and negative traits.

But the path doesn’t end there. As Gordon Allport outlined in his “scale of prejudice,” stereotypes escalate. When repeated enough, they lead to objectification — seeing people not as individuals, but as representatives of a group. That group is then more easily dismissed, mocked, blamed, or even harmed, with less guilt.

The dehumanizing tone becomes especially stark when we read the other obstacles in the same game section:

  • “Een reiger heeft op je hoofd gepoept. Je moet terug naar huis (vakje 18) om je haar te wassen.”
    (A heron pooped on your head. Go back home to wash your hair.)
  • “Plons. Je probeert een mega-duif te ontwijken met je fiets, maar valt in de gracht. Je moet helemaal terugzwemmen naar start.”
    (Splash. You try to dodge a mega-pigeon on your bike, but fall into the canal. Swim all the way back to the start.)

In this context, Chinese tourists are the only human obstacle, grouped alongside animal accidents and fictional giant birds. This reinforces a subconscious lesson: some people are not peers — they are problems.

A historical pattern

The casual stereotyping found in Amsterdam’s children’s book follows a well-documented historical pattern where seemingly minor representations precede more serious discrimination. The Amsterdam book incident, while seemingly minor, fits within this broader historical context of how prejudice becomes embedded in society’s foundational institutions.

In 1930s Germany, anti-Semitic imagery and language appeared in school textbooks and public messaging years before systematic persecution began. Educational materials depicted Jewish citizens through derogatory caricatures and false narratives, gradually normalizing prejudice in the public consciousness.

During the latter half of the 20th century in America, media portrayals consistently framed Black Americans through the lens of criminality and violence. These representations helped build public support for policies that would lead to mass incarceration, with communities of colour disproportionately targeted by law enforcement and judicial systems.

Following 9/11 attacks, Muslims faced increasingly negative portrayals in media and popular culture, depicted as inherently threatening or suspicious. This narrative shift preceded and justified expanded surveillance programs that specifically monitored Muslim communities and individuals.

Scholars who study the sociology of discrimination have identified this progression as a common precursor to institutional bias: stereotypical portrayals in popular culture and educational materials gradually shift public perception, creating the social conditions necessary for discriminatory policies to gain acceptance.

East Asians, especially those perceived as Chinese, have long faced similar treatment. During COVID-19, Asians across Europe were verbally harassed and physically attacked. In Tilburg, a Chinese-Dutch student at Tilburg University, Cindy, was brutally attacked in an elevator after asking a group to stop singing a racist song: Voorkomen is beter dan Chinezen (“Prevention is better than Chinese”). She suffered a concussion and knife wounds. Before leaving her unconscious, the attackers said they would “eradicate the coronavirus.”

Cindy’s story illustrates the continuum from mockery to violence, and how normalized stereotyping can desensitize people to cruelty.

And racists don’t differentiate between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese. When one is mocked, all are targeted.

Systemic Roots

Equally troubling is that, according to the publisher’s own statement, the book passed through multiple levels of review and testing—city departments, school boards, and teachers, without objection. This reflects a deeper issue: normative bias, where majority-group perspectives are mistaken for neutrality.

It’s not necessarily malice. But when no one notices, it signals a system that is not built to detect or understand minority harm.

Public reactions have further exposed this divide. Dutch media figure Tina Nijkamp publicly criticized the passage and highlighted the absence of East Asian representation in Dutch TV and media. However, some online commenters called the backlash oversensitive, arguing “it’s just a joke” or “I’m Chinese and I’m not offended.”

Psychologically, this reflects pluralistic ignorance and false consensus bias: the assumption that one’s view is universal, and the failure to recognize diverse lived experiences.

But the data contradicts these dismissals. In March 2024, the Dutch government released the first national survey on discrimination against people of (South)East Asian descent. One in three reported experiencing discrimination in the past year. Minister Van Gennip responded:

“Discrimination against people of (South)East Asian descent must stop.”

Asian-Dutch community leader Hui-Hui Pan (@huihui_panonfire) posted a widely shared critique:

“Mijn stad is jarig. Maar waarom vieren we het met racisme?”
(“My city is having a birthday. But why are we celebrating it with racism?”)

She called it “racism in children’s language.” The Pan Asian Collective, which she founded, launched a national campaign and is organizing the National Congress against Discrimination and Racism on 26 June 2025, where Utrecht University and Dataschool will present findings on Asian underrepresentation in 25 years of Dutch media coverage.

Their message: this isn’t about one book—it’s about a long, visible pattern of exclusion.

Entrenched Normalization

In response to public concern, various institutions linked to Mijn Jarige Stad began clarifying their roles. The Amsterdam Museum stated it was not involved in content creation, despite its name appearing in the book. Stichting Amsterdam 750 funded the project, but delegated execution to the Programmabureau Amsterdam 750, part of the city government. The publisher, Pavlov, initially issued a standard response emphasizing positive intent and broad involvement:

“The book was developed in collaboration with all primary schools through the Breed Bestuurlijk Overleg (BBO), and extensively tested with students and teachers from three different Amsterdam schools… We sincerely had no intention to insult or hurt any group.”

This response—focused on process, intention, and positive feedback—sidestepped the core issue: harm was done, and a line that dehumanizes East Asians passed through supposedly inclusive safeguards. The problem isn’t that one group failed; the problem is how normalized and institutionally invisible anti-Asian stereotypes remain, even in materials for children.

This is not a matter of blaming a single actor or demanding symbolic apologies. The book should be recalled, and what’s needed now is an honest reckoning — not just of the production process, but of how certain forms of discrimination are so implicit, so embedded in everyday thinking, that they go unnoticed by those involved and even by broader audiences who dismiss criticism as oversensitivity.

Yet this very invisibility is reinforced by the fragmentation of accountability. It highlights a deeper issue: when everyone is involved, no one is responsible. And when no one notices the harm, it reveals how profoundly such portrayals are normalized in our collective imagination.

From Learning to Living

From a behavioral science perspective, the issue extends far beyond questions of political sensitivity. Research demonstrates how cognitive shortcuts—the mental patterns children use to navigate social situations, become deeply embedded through repeated exposure to stereotypical representations.

Child development studies reveal that young minds absorb social hierarchies through seemingly innocuous content, internalizing messages about which groups hold value and which can be dismissed. These early lessons shape neural pathways that influence decision-making well into adulthood.

The potency of stereotypes lies not in their malicious intent but in their subtle persistence. They need not provoke outrage to encode prejudice, nor offend every reader to establish harmful categories of human worth. When children encounter these patterns repeatedly—whether in games, stories, or casual conversation—they learn implicit lessons about power dynamics and social belonging.

Educational content serves a dual purpose: it teaches explicit knowledge while simultaneously transmitting unspoken values about empathy, respect, and human dignity. A board game instruction becomes more than entertainment; it becomes a framework for understanding who deserves consideration and who can be overlooked.

The distribution of 60,000 books represents more than a municipal celebration. It constitutes the widespread dissemination of social scripts—subtle but powerful instructions that will influence how an entire generation of children perceives and interacts with others throughout their lives.

In this context, editorial choices carry profound responsibility, shaping not just individual attitudes but the social fabric of communities for decades to come.

This blog was first published by the Contrapuntal

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Author:

Zhiqi Xu

Zhiqi Xu is a behavioral scientist, psychologist, and development policy researcher. She investigates how people and communities respond to policy interventions and social change, uncovering the social and behavioral roots of transformation across contexts. Her work bridges disciplines to promote more inclusive and human-centered development thinking.

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Governing through expulsion: rise in U.S. deportations quiets the Darién Gap, shifting burdens south

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In this blog, Dr Maria Gabriela Palacio uses the example of The Darien Gap (a jungle crossing formerly utilised by forced migrants and refugees to travel North towards the USA) to consider the effects of recently changed and more brutal deportation policies put into place by the USA. More and more Ecuadorians are being forcefully returned to a country suffering from multiple damaging geopolitical currents, which is being asked to process large numbers of deportees whilst grappling with its patterns of out-migration.

Photo Credit: Akpan, 2024 Simulated by ChatGPT

Barely months ago, Ecuadorians were the second-largest group braving the perilous Darién Gap on their way to the United States; today, the trail is almost silent. Their abrupt disappearance is not just the outcome of a new deportation rule-set. It exposes a deeper political-economy in which mobility and immobility are governed by structures that render certain lives dispensable.

At the centre of this shift is the renewed U.S. deportation regime. Since Trump’s return to office, more than 100,000 people have been deported in just ten weeks. Over 2,000 Ecuadorians have been forcibly returned, many without hearings, detained in private facilities and flown home under armed guard. This is governance through expulsion.

Ecuadorians today are not “deciding” to stay or return. For many, the journey ends not at the border but on a deportation flight, disoriented and handcuffed, arriving with a plastic bag of belongings at Guayaquil airport. They are not returning to opportunity but to the same political and economic structures that first pushed them out.

This is not just the arithmetic of migration: it is the logic of a global regime of accumulation that produces and manages surplus populations. A critical political economy perspective reveals that migration is not just a reaction to hardship but a structural outcome wherein labour becomes mobile, governable, and dispensable due to long-established patterns of dependency, dispossession, and coercive governance. Deportation, in this light, is not a policy failure but a tool that sorts, removes, and disciplines those made surplus by design.

Ecuador sits at the crossroads of this regional machinery. Dollarised and locked into extractive exports, the country relies heavily on remittances, yet now faces budget cuts and austerity at home. It has long sent populations abroad, but it has also become where multiple flows collide or return. Venezuelans, Haitians, and others caught in overlapping crises have passed through or been stranded within Ecuador’s borders. The state is now expected to absorb not just returnees but the violence of the very system that expelled them.

That violence is reflected in the routes themselves, which have begun to bend and shatter. Some Ecuadorians now fly to El Salvador to bypass Darién. Others remain in limbo in Mexican shelters. A growing number of people apply for asylum in Spain. But more and more are returning, voluntarily or not. The International Organization for Migration reports a record spike in Ecuadorians requesting return assistance. We are witnessing less of a voluntary reverse migration but a form of forced and adverse absorption into a country already under immense strain, where access to secure jobs, welfare, and infrastructure is deeply uneven.

Others, unable to return or continue northward, remain like many other Latin American migrants trapped along the Andes–Central America–North America corridor, caught between increasingly punitive migration regimes and the uncertain protection of overstretched asylum systems. As migration routes are militarised and digital tools for asylum access are cancelled or restricted, a growing number of migrants are forced into reverse movement, undertaking costly and dangerous journeys back south. Some, like those arriving in the Colombian port town of Necoclí, spend thousands of dollars only to find themselves unable to continue or return, stranded without money, documents, or shelter. For others, the journey halts mid-route, creating new bottlenecks in Panama, Guatemala, or southern Mexico.

In these spaces of stalled mobility, migrants navigate a dense ecosystem of state and non-state actors: smugglers, private contractors, ferry operators, humanitarian organisations, and municipal authorities, forming a transnational migration industry. This industry manages not just “flows” but also immobility. It offers temporary passage, paperwork, food, or credit, often at a high cost, while blurring the line between protection and extraction. As formal protections shrink, mobility becomes commodified, mediated through precarious arrangements that feed off uncertainty and the shifting contours of migration policy.

What happens when a country simultaneously expels and receives its people, when labour is demanded abroad yet unprotected, and its return is funnelled into informal survival? These trajectories are not individual mishaps; they are produced by a regime that displaces populations through extraction, polices them through securitised borders, and repatriates them under the veneer of humanitarian policy.

In Ecuador, that regime is palpable: rolling blackouts stall hospitals and markets, armed violence reaches classrooms, and Indigenous territories are carved up by legal and paralegal extractive fronts. None of this is accidental. It stems from the dismantling of public infrastructure and the transfer of land and power to corporate actors, all within a global order that treats impoverished, racialised populations as surplus problems to be contained, displaced or discarded.

The question, then, is not only why Ecuadorians are returning but what kind of world is making this return inevitable.

The empty Darién trail is not the end of a journey but proof that a border system built on expulsion works as intended. It shifts responsibility from the global North to Latin American states and turns human mobility into a profitable detention, surveillance and return market. Deportation, in this context, is not an exception.

We must begin by asking different questions. Not only how to make migration safer or more “orderly,” but how to dismantle the global structures that produce dispensability in the first place. Migration regimes do not simply fail; they succeed in what they are designed to do: sort, discipline, and displace surplus populations created by extractive capitalism and securitised governance. In this view, deportation is not an aberration; it is the tangible expression of a world order that governs through expulsion. It legitimises neglect, turns mobility into criminality, and transforms human lives into data points in a market of detention, surveillance, and return.

The return of Ecuadorians is not the end of a journey; it is proof that a border regime built on expulsion works exactly as designed.

Notes:

For readers who want to trace the argument from Ecuador’s current return-migration crisis back to its structural roots, start with Jara, Mideros and Palacio (eds.) 2024, Política social, pobreza y desigualdad en el Ecuador, 1980-2021 my co-edited volume that charts four decades of welfare retrenchment, labour precarity and territorial inequalities. Then situate those findings within the broader politicaleconomy canon: W. Arthur Lewis’s (1954) seminal essay on surplus labour, Celso Furtado’s (1966) classic dependency analysis, Saskia Sassen’s (2014) study of “systemic expulsions” under global capitalism, and Tania Murray Li’s (2010) account of how neoliberal governance renders populations surplus.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author

María Gabriela Palacio

Maria Gabriela Palacio is an Assistant Professor in Development Studies at the Institute for History, Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University. Her research asks how political-economic forces, social policy and migration regimes shape poverty, inequality and (in)security in Latin America. Trained as an economist, she holds a PhD and MA in Development Studies (ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam), an MSc in NGO Management and Social Economy (Universitat de València) and a BA in Economics (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador).

 

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Mobilizing against patriarchy and caste on Twitter: How women in India use digital spaces to speak up against gender-based violence

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Digital spaces can amplify marginalized voices, but for many women, especially Dalit women in India, they often become sites of abuse. Navigating the intersection of gender, caste, and religion, Dalit women face systemic exclusion and violence, reinforced by both offline and online structures. While technology does not oppress all women equally, movements like #MeToo have helped Dalit women spotlight caste-based and patriarchal violence. In this blog, recent ISS MA graduates, Sri Lakshmi, and Emaediong Akpan explore how digital platforms both challenge and reinforce structural inequalities, revealing that technology is never neutral.

Image Credit: DALL-E

Dalit women in India

The Indian Hindu religious caste system (more than 3000 years old) has stratified Indian society into castes based on bloodline, occupation, and economic resources. The Brahman caste and other ‘upper’ castes have capitalized on their social position to exercise superiority and control over the ‘lower castes’ and therefore sustains an exploitative system. At the other end of the scale, the Dalit caste is deemed to have been rejected by God and is therefore ‘outside’ the caste system. While India has made progress in several social aspects, the sturdy caste system continues to prevail based on religious authorization. The Brahman caste has subjugated women from their own caste as well as ‘lower’ castes to maintain ‘caste purity’. This modus operandi is manifested in intense oppression and gender-based violence towards the Dalit women. ‘In every sphere of life, they (Dalit women) are in a pitiable position, worse off than the upper caste women’ due to the triple oppression exerted by men from their own caste and ‘upper castes’. The triple oppression here refers to casteism, patriarchy,and economic injustices that are manifested as gender-based violence, caste-based discrimination, and being limited to low-grade jobs that are poorly paid.

The Janus-faced nature of digital spaces in India: Reflections on the non-neutral nature of digital spaces

Digital technology has expanded communication, breaking traditional media barriers and enabling collective action. Today,people are leveraging digital spaces like Twitter (now X),and FaceBook to organize, draw attention to their struggles, and demand change.

In India, the dawn of digital spaces transformed social interactions, providing avenues for citizens to engage politically, communicate their demands. These spaces are considered revolutionary tools that promote global inclusion and equality. 

These spaces also act as a window into the broader Indian society, where norms and power interact to control individual actions. In navigating societal norms, digital spaces have been useful in helping Dalit women find community and access resources for mobilization. For example, Pallical, a Dalit rights activist, noted that ‘online space is refreshing and a space we never had earlier. There used to be limited regional media spaces, but we are now visible, and much of our anti-caste conversations are now happening on social media platforms’. For example, stories of how Dalit women were flogged and assaulted in public in the small city of Una led to government intervention only after it went viral on Twitter.

In this example, Twitter (and other digital spaces) served as a powerful public space for minorities and marginalized voices to circumvent traditional media; online, these actors could express opinions and opposition in a succinct format, as well as unite and organize swiftly in their capacity as ‘new social movements’. However, this is not the full picture. In these spaces, these marginalized groups are still unable to escape society and have been re-victimized in the spaces that also hold a ‘liberating’ potential’. This inability to ‘escape’ reality is why Wacjman states that technologies are not neutral; they do not exist outside of society but are a part of society. Within digital spaces, interactions are understood as performing gender roles that are deeply ingrained in society.

Digital spaces are a replication of gendered societal values and norms. One such replication is the backlash that followed the posting of an image showing a poster held by Jack Dorsey (former Twitter CEO) and Dalit Activists that read ‘Smash Brahminical Patriarchy’.

Image
Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Activists holding a Poster: Source Nalina

This sparked controversy and threats of boycotts on Twitter, ultimately emboldening casteism by forcing an apology for the poster and image. Despite knowing the impact of the caste system, Twitter conformed to the social norms in Indian society by stating that the poster ‘did not represent Twitter’s official position’. Twitter also apologized for speaking out against marginalization and social injustice in order to avert the risk of losing the Indian market which boasts about 8 million Twitter users. This singular act amongst many others reflects how technology is both a source and consequence of marginalization; first because of how it relates with society and second as a consequence of marginalization by reinforcing it through ‘mindless apologies’.

Twitter’s Denial of Siding with Dalits; Source: Bapuji and Chrispa

Gendered access and use of technology in India: The #MeToo case study in India

The #MeToo movement was a viral online movement of raising voices against the sexual harassment of women. Many women came forward to share their experiences using the hashtag #MeToo on Twitter and other digital spaces.

The Indian #MeToo movement leaves the original ‘Me’ behind

The Indian #MeToo movement was started in 2017 by Raya Sarkar, a woman from the Dalit caste. She used the digital space of Facebook to expose sexual harassment as a form of gender-based violence by male professors in Indian universities by curating a List of Sexual Harassers in Academia (LoSHA). Sarkar was berated for posting such a ‘name and shame list’ in an attempt to re-enact the historical silencing and disregard for the testimonies of sexual violence against Dalit women in India. After this, the movement was taken over by mainstream activists, especially on Twitter and this diffused any remnant attention on the marginalization of women from the Dalit caste. While there were several personal testimonies on Twitter in which Indian women shared their experiences of sexual harassment, the testimonies of Dalit women were absent and scarcely featured in the debates that ensued. Hence, Twitter became a tool used to exclude the voices of the most oppressed who suffer on account of their class, race, and gender. In this way, Twitter reinforced the marginalization of Dalit women.

Technology as a source and consequence of gendered relations: Exclusion and discrediting of marginalized voices

As stated earlier, digital spaces have been instrumental in helping marginalized groups draw attention to social injustices. However, platforms like Twitter are generally unsupportive and even hostile toward women from the Dalit caste. Their marginalization on Twitter reflects these women’s reality by mirroring the existing caste network. It is unsettling to witness the casual and rarely-questioned oppression on Twitter faced by Dalit women. The oppression includes casteist slurs, disparaging comments on darker skin tones, and implicit insults on how women who are academically, professionally, and financially successful, or who have a fairer skin tone, are told that they don’t ‘look’ Dalit. Twitter has also provided the space for misogynists to target Dalit women without any consequences. This shows how technology (digital spaces) embolden and exacerbate existing gender inequalities and caste-based marginalization’ . Gender- and caste-based social dynamics and technology therefore connive to leave women from the Dalit caste behind on Twitter.

Conclusion

While there are numerous accounts of the benefits of social movements that have been organized in digital spaces, the realities are not the same for all, especially for marginalized groups. This lends credence to Whelan’s position that technology does not oppress all in the same way, nor does it necessarily oppress all women. In India, Dalit women, despite having gained access to digital spaces to draw attention to the injustice they face, are often faced with violence based on their gender and caste. Thus, although Twitter helped to break the culture of silence around sexual violence and draw attention to the injustices faced by Dalit women, it did not influence social relations to address the root causes. Rather, it emboldened these root causes and became a space where Dalit women continue to experience violence. People who wield more power (upper caste and those with more access) decide and shape technology by deciding what information is important or true.

Digital spaces are double-edged – they expose women and marginalized groups to harm, yet remain vital for organizing social movements. Recognizing the lack of neutrality of these spaces remains crucial, as offline systems of oppression are often mirrored and reinforced online. While legal frameworks can play a role in addressing digital harms, they alone cannot dismantle deeply entrenched caste and gender hierarchies. Instead, the focus must shift to challenging the power structures that shape technology itself. The experiences of Dalit women show that technology can be both a tool of oppression and resistance. Ensuring that digital platforms do not further marginalize vulnerable communities requires holding innovators and policymakers to higher ethical standards while amplifying the voices of those fighting for justice.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Sri Lakshmi

Sri Lakshmi is a recent graduate of the Master’s in Development Studies program at the International Institute of Social Studies. With nine years of experience working with students, caregivers, educators, disability inclusion organizations, and government officials. Sri is passionate about fostering inclusive spaces, bridging the gap between education and social impact.

Emaediong Akpan

Emaediong Akpan is a recent graduate of the Master’s in Development Studies program at the International Institute of Social Studies. With extensive experience in the development sector, Emaediong Akpan’s work spans gender equity, social inclusion, and policy advocacy. She is also interested in exploring the intersections of law, technology, and feminist policy interventions to promote safer online environments. Read her blogs 1,2, 3

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Bodies Designed for Profit

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Gender inequality and the discrimination of sexual and gender minorities in Nigeria are often attributed to sociocultural norms and unfavourable state policies. However, reflecting on body politics reveals a deeper entanglement with state control, colonial legacies, and capitalism. Our bodies are not just personal, they are sites of regulation, commodification, and profit. From the exploitation of women in the corporate sector, often referred to as ‘corporate prostitution’, to the policing of gender nonconforming and the sexualisation of bodies in the creative industry, capitalism thrives on controlling and monetising bodies. In this blog, Eno-Obong Etetim reflects on these dynamics and highlights body politics activism in Nigeria, arguing that a decolonial lens is crucial for reclaiming bodily autonomy. 

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Gender inequality and the discrimination of sexual and gender minorities in Nigeria are often attributed to sociocultural norms and unfavourable state policies. However, my reflection on body politics reveals a deeper entanglement with state control, colonial legacies, and capitalism. Our bodies are not just personal, they are sites of regulation, commodification, and profit. From the regulation of the body by the state to the utilisation of certain bodies to drive profits, the body is a canvas for the expression of capitalism and state power. This commodification and socio-political regulation of human bodies encompasses what is termed ‘body politics’ and has birthed the need for activism to reclaim bodily autonomy.

I reflect on my evolving understanding of body politics and its intersection with capitalism through three illustrative examples:  The commodification of women within the Nigerian banking sector – often referred to as ‘corporate prostitution’; The state’s regulation of sexual minorities and gender non-conforming individuals, and; The sexualisation of bodies within the creative industry. With these examples, I explore instances of body politics activism in Nigeria, ultimately concluding with how decoloniality serves as a relevant framework for conceptualising and fostering resistance.

Examples of Body Politics at Work

‘Corporate Prostitution’

The Nigerian banking sector has faced criticism for its gender-specific hiring practices, particularly in marketing roles. For these roles, women are often recruited based on certain physical characteristics, like height, slimness, and lighter skin tone. These traits are frequently perceived as advantageous for attracting high-net-worth clients, mostly men, to the bank’s customer base. This recruitment approach is grounded in the belief that female marketers can use their appearance to boost customer engagement and grow the bank’s clientele. Many financial institutions have been alleged to impose unrealistic sales targets on these marketers, with monthly quotas sometimes reaching millions of Naira. Reports suggest that management may advocate for morally ambiguous practices, evidenced by phrases like “do what you must [to bring in customers],” which could pressure women to utilise their physical appeal in questionable ways to meet these benchmarks. In turn, this trend of sexualising women in the workplace has led some male clients to expect sexual favors in exchange for financial services, such as opening accounts or depositing funds. The systemic focus on profit generation has shifted attention away from ethical considerations, linking career advancement directly to the ability to meet these aggressive targets. Employees who fail to meet these expectations face job insecurity or dismissal.

In response to this commodification of women’s bodies and the pressing need for reform, the Nigerian Senate introduced proposals for an anti-corporate prostitution and exploitation bill in 2010 and again in 2016. These legislative efforts aimed to address the intersection of gender, employment practices, and corporate responsibility within the financial sector.

 

LGBTIQ+ and State Control

Another significant aspect of body politics lies in how the state regulates sexuality. Harcourt, in her work, connects the discourse on body politics to Foucault’s idea of Biopolitics, which pertains to the socio-political control and regulation of life, often leading to the reinforcement of gendered identities. A closely related concept is Mbembe’s necropolitics, which discusses the sovereignty of the body, often manifesting as state threats to life and death. For instance, in Nigeria, the government enforces discrimination and threatens the lives of LGBTIQ+ individuals through the same-sex prohibition act, which criminalises all forms of same-sex relationships. This law serves as a clear illustration of body politics since it dictates how bodies must exist. The systematic control of bodies as a means to uphold state order has been the subject of academic discourses.  According to  Alexander the state normalises heterosexuality while condemning any sexual orientation that does not contribute to the reproduction of the nation. In this way, the state views bodies merely as sites for reproduction. By placing LGBTIQ+ rights within the context of capitalism and body politics, we can better understand that state regulation of sexuality is also tied to the need to maintain a future labor force. Historically, states have opposed non-traditional family structures because women’s bodies have been seen as essential for population growth. Furthermore, capitalism thrives on hierarchies and a gendered division of labor, but gender non-conforming individuals challenge these established roles and responsibilities. By reinforcing heterosexuality, the state seeks to secure future populations and, ultimately, the labour workforce.

 

Body Politics and the Creative Industry

The creative industry thrives on the sexualisation of women’s bodies. ‘Sex sells’ is a capitalist phrase utilised in the marketing and entertainment industry as a rationale to portray women’s bodies in an overtly sexualised manner under the guise of sexual liberation. Female talent and capacity for career advancement in the creative industry are measured not by artistic merit, but by whatever erotic heights the body can achieve.
Female artists are subjected to systemic pressures where their physical appearance significantly influences their career opportunities; for instance, actresses are overlooked for roles due to insufficient sexual appeal, and music videos often feature scantily dressed women as vixens, reinforcing a narrative that prioritises hyper-sexualised imagery. This trend reflects a capitalist agenda aimed at profit maximisation, where increased viewership translates into increased financial returns for both the artist and their management. One example is the music video for Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s WAP song – that featured five minutes of ‘twerking’ – which gained 26 million views, within 24 hours of its release, establishing the record for the most views in a day. This is no attempt to condemn the artists themselves but rather to buttress societal response to the hyper-sexualisation of women in contemporary media. The societal pressure to adhere to these narrowly defined body standards has consequently fostered a global market for cosmetic surgeries, with many women opting for surgical interventions to meet these expectations.

Body Politics Activism in Nigeria

Anti-corporate Prostitution and Exploitation Bill

In 2010 and 2016, members of the Nigerian Senate attempted to address the troubling commodification of female workers in commercial banks by proposing the Anti-Corporate Prostitution and Exploitation Bill. This legislation aimed to prevent employers from taking advantage of employees and compelling them to engage in ‘iniquitous’ acts that undermine their integrity for profit. While many hailed this bill as a positive step, it faced significant pushback from the banking sector and ultimately was not passed by the Senate.
Activism may often fail but ‘succeed’ in creating the needed effort to spark public interest in certain issues and catalyse new forms of activism. Although the Anti-Corporate Prostitution Bill has yet to become law, it succeeded in raising awareness and inspired female-led organisations to push for anti-harassment legislation in workplaces and educational institutions within the Senate. One notable example is the anti-harassment bill in tertiary institutions.

Queer Activism

Same-sex unions [and relationships] are illegal in Nigeria, punishable with up to 14 years of imprisonment. This law not only targets same-sex relationships but also criminalises any support offered to individuals within this community. Despite these harsh restrictions, many individuals and organisations are actively fighting for the basic rights to life, health, and social services for queer individuals. Anti-capitalist queer activism in Nigeria has taken on various forms, including campaigns for reproductive justice and opposition to healthcare systems that prioritise profit over essential, life-saving medical care for gender non-conforming individuals, all while facing considerable state resistance. Additionally, efforts to promote inclusion in the workforce for queer individuals, improve representation in organisations and institutions, and advocate against workplace exploitation are all crucial components of body politics activism in the region.

Decoloniality as a Lens for Body Polities Activism

The categories in which we define ourselves – including our understanding of gender and sexuality – are rooted in Universalist perspectives and the “colonial matrix of power”. In her groundbreaking work, The Invention of Woman, Nigerian decolonial feminist scholar Oyéronké Oyewùmí explores how Western discourses have shifted the local socio-cultural understandings of pre-colonial Nigerian societies. She argues that the ongoing debate surrounding the gender binary is, in fact, an imported issue. Oyewùmí highlights how Western privileges tied to the visual perception of bodies created a gendered gaze that systematically categorised certain bodies, perpetuating a narrative of inferiority in comparison to the so-called ‘ideal’ of the white, civilised male. Similarly, Latin American feminist decolonial writer Maria Lugones elaborates on how colonialism has reproduced gendered identities. She contends that binary concepts of gender were used as tools of colonial control, undermining and invalidating the existing understandings of identity. These binaries have played a significant role in sustaining not only capitalism but also patriarchy, effectively serving the Eurocentric agenda aimed at population growth for labour reproduction. Positioning decoloniality in body politics activism requires delinking from Western ideologies of gender and humanness. Activists can benefit from situating their resistance in narratives that do not encourage or conform to Eurocentric and colonial dominant narratives. For instance, recent queer activism by Nigerians has been rooted in re-telling the stories of old Yoruba cosmology by relating its gender complexities and gender-fluid nature through anthropological research and modern art.

Conclusion

Body politics is the commodification and control of human bodies and experiences often through hegemonic power relations, and body politics resistance aims to challenge capitalist, colonial, and socio-political discourses that have shaped hegemonic perceptions of the body. If our bodies are sites that are transformed by hegemonic social relations and “hetero-patriarchal capitalism” we must sever from those ties and learn alternative ways of being, doing, and thinking. Body politics activism provides an opportunity to dispel colonial and hegemonic gendered behaviour that has resulted in the categorisation of women and gender non-conforming persons in the lower global pyramid of power.

This blog was first published as part of the Exercise In World Making 2023-2024.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Eno-obong Etetim

Eno-Obong Etetim is a researcher and recent graduate of the Master’s in Development Studies program at the International Institute of Social Studies. She has several years of experience working on projects focused on gender, health equity, sexual and reproductive rights, and social norms. Her research interests also extend to sustainability and policy interventions that promote social justice.

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The USAID freeze and its dire consequences for women and girls: In conversation with Plan International

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The recent USAID funding freeze has left critical international development programmes in limbo, with devastating consequences for women and girls. The freeze is undoing decades of progress in gender-sensitive development work, putting at risk thousands of aid programmes that support women and thereby limiting the ability of frontline workers to serve their communities. The global development sector is now scrambling to find alternative funding and policy solutions to keep gender-focused initiatives alive.

In this interview, Plan International’s Director of Business Development Allison Shannon, and Vannette Tolbert, Senior Communications Manager, discussed the immediate and far-reaching impacts of this policy decision with Emaediong Akpan and Eno-Obong Etetim, recent MA graduates in Women and Gender Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies, both of whom were also impacted by the USAID stop work order. From disrupted education to increased vulnerability to child marriage, the freeze threatens essential services that protect and empower girls. Drawing on reflections from the interview, the authors explore the ongoing impact of the freeze and highlight the necessity for urgent action.

Source: Wikicommons

The recent USAID funding freeze has left critical international development programmes in limbo, with devastating consequences for women and girls. In this article, we explore the ongoing impact of the freeze while reflecting on our conversation with Plan International’s Director of Business Development, Allison Shannon, and Senior Communications Manager, Vannette Tolbert. As recent MA graduates in Women and Gender Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies.  we examine how this freeze is undoing decades of progress in gender-sensitive development work, putting at risk thousands of aid programmes that support women and limiting the ability of frontline workers to serve their communities. We discuss how the freeze is disrupting education, increasing vulnerability to child marriage and threatening essential services that protect and empower girls while highlighting the urgent need for immediate action.

Pause, when do we ‘press play’?

‘Until we are all equal’ is the guiding ethos behind Plan International’s work across the globe. Yet, like many other organizations, this mission is currently threatened due to the recent USAID funding freeze. The suspension of funds has halted 13 programmes across 12 countries, disrupting essential services that support girls’ education, child protection and economic empowerment. These countries include Nepal, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Philippines, Malawi, Egypt, Jordan, Mexico and Honduras. Notably, immediate consequences of this decision include the discontinuation of maternal healthcare services, leaving women without access to essential prenatal and reproductive health services; the interruption of educational opportunities for girls, increasing their vulnerability to early marriage and long-term economic hardship; and the disruption of gender-based violence prevention programmes, putting millions of women and girls at greater risk of violence. The impact is particularly severe for marginalized communities which have relied on USAID-funded initiatives as a crucial lifeline. Senior Communications Manager Vannette Tolbert says, ‘The freeze is not just pausing development efforts; it is actively dismantling critical support systems for women and girls worldwide.’

Plan International relies significantly on funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which accounts for one-third of its overall budget. USAID has provided over US$54 million to support Plan’s programmes, funding essential initiatives that promote gender equality, prevent child marriage and ensure access to education for girls around the globe. The rationale behind the freeze centres on a reassessment of US foreign aid spending, yet its immediate impact is felt by the world’s most vulnerable populations. To put this in perspective, Tolbert states that US$38 million in grant funding across 13 contracts in 12 countries has been affected, while US$19.5 million in unspent funds remains frozen.

The ripple effects: How the freeze endangers girls and women

1. Education interrupted: The risk of reversing gains: In Nepal, for instance, Plan International’s remedial classeshave become critical in providing vital academic support to young girls like Ganga, an ambitious eighth-grader with dreams of becoming a teacher. These classes not only help reinforce her academic skills but also boost her confidence in a society where education for girls often takes a backseat. Without this essential assistance, hundreds of girls like Ganga face the grim possibility of failing their exams, which could lead to early marriage – a common reality for many girls from economically strained households in Nepal where educational opportunities are limited.

Beyond Nepal, in Nigeria’s conflict-affected regions, Plan International-supported non-formal learning centres serve as a haven for children displaced by violence. These centres create nurturing environments where children can access not only literacy and numeracy training but also crucial psychosocial support to help them cope with conflict-induced trauma. With the funding freeze now in effect, these vital safe spaces have shut down, leaving thousands of children, especially girls, without viable options for continued education and emotional well-being.

In Kenya, Plan International’s community-driven approach has been essential in improving education for girls. Through their GirlEngage project, Plan listens to the specific needs of girls and their communities, ensuring that solutions are both relevant and sustainable. When high absenteeism rates were reported in schools, Plan engaged with communities and identified the need for menstrual products and safe hygiene spaces. In response, they constructed washrooms and latrines to address this gap. As a result, absenteeism rates dropped significantly and graduation rates skyrocketed. However, with the recent funding freeze, these vital initiatives are now at risk and threaten to reverse years of progress in education and gender equality, leaving long-lasting consequences for the affected communities

  1. Increase in child marriage

In numerous communities, girls are seen as ‘economic assets’, and financial hardship often leads to early marriages. As Tolbert notes, ‘…families can’t afford to support many children, so the girls are sent off at very young ages, often as a financial transaction’. Community-driven initiatives, supported by organizations like Plan International, have been crucial in delaying child marriages by educating families and fostering behavioural change. ‘These programmes not only fund services – they reshape mindsets, empower allies and drive lasting social change’. However, the funding freeze risks reversing this progress, as many families may turn back to traditional survival strategies, including marrying off their daughters to ease financial strain. Without timely intervention, the significant gains made in preventing child marriage could be undone.

This is evident in the case of community leaders, key opinion leaders and allies who were beginning to challenge harmful traditions but will now face reduced support, slowing progress toward gender equality. For instance, the role of fathers in challenging gender norms and advocating for their daughters’ well-being could experience significant setbacks. Many fathers, often referred to as Girl Dads, have been actively engaged in initiatives promoting girls’ education and ending child marriage. The case of Yusuf in Indonesia, who re-evaluated his decision to marry off his daughter after participating in a Plan International anti-child marriage and girls’ education awareness session, exemplifies the tangible influence of such efforts. With one in nine Indonesian girls still married before the age of 18, the withdrawal of funding may lead to a reduction in interventions and an increase in child marriages.

Similarly, in Uganda, where Plan International collaborates with activists like Peter, who combats child marriage in a context where 34% of girls marry before reaching adulthood, the potential loss of USAID funding could impede progress in altering detrimental cultural norms. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that USAID represents Uganda’s largest single donor for health aid. The funding freeze jeopardizes essential health services, including maternal care and HIV/AIDS treatment, which are vital to the well-being of hundreds of thousands of Ugandans.

  1. Economic disempowerment and vulnerability

Economic empowerment programmes, particularly for women and girls, are another casualty of the funding freeze. Plan International has supported childcare centres at industrial parks in Ethiopia. The centres allow women to access to childcare at the site of their work, enabling them to gain income and skills through working while supporting Ethiopia’s industrial development. These initiatives have been instrumental in equipping women to make informed decisions about their futures. Now, with funding paused, the sustainability of these programmes is uncertain, leaving women without critical support systems and increasing their economic vulnerability.

4. Humanitarian assistance: From bad to worse

Perishable food and medical supplies for over 100,000 displaced families are stranded in warehouses, putting lives at risk. Plan International’s US$7.8 million Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance project in Ethiopia supports 58,000 displaced people with healthcare and 56,000 with food aid. The freeze has stranded supplies, endangering lives and preventing critical aid delivery.

Hana, a single mother working in an Ethiopian industrial park relied on USAID-funded childcare and mental health support to maintain employment. The freeze now leaves her struggling to find affordable childcare and manage work, threatening her family’s financial stability.

Mulu, a 28-year-old single mother working at Hawassa Industrial Park, relied on the USAID-funded Early Childhood Care and Development Centre for childcare while she worked. The sudden closure of the centre due to funding cuts left her struggling to keep her job while caring for her daughter. Missing work days to find alternative childcare has put her employment at risk, threatening her family’s financial stability and future.

This withdrawal has left communities, local partners and even governments questioning the reliability of international aid commitments, while organizations like Plan International, which have spent years cultivating relationships and fostering development through a bottom-up approach, now face the daunting task of re-establishing credibility.

 Beyond the freeze: The big picture

As USAID funding stalls, other global players are stepping in to fill the gap, leading to significant geopolitical shifts. This shift is not just about financial assistance, it signifies a broader change in global influence and the loss of USAID’s presence in these communities. As authors, we are inclined to question the impact of US soft power in these communities. While it has been seen as a tool for fostering influence and cooperation, it also prompts us to reconsider whether this form of aid truly benefits the communities it targets or whether it perpetuates dependency. The resulting shift in the international development landscape could have lasting effects, altering the dynamics of both aid distribution and global power structures.

In response to the crisis, organizations are seeking diversified funding sources. Corporate partnerships, such as Plan International’s collaboration with private partnerships to support menstrual hygiene education, upskill young people and amplify the voices of women, present potential alternatives. However, corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives are not a monolith, and many smaller NGOs lack the resources to pivot swiftly. Without immediate policy intervention, these organizations face closure, leaving gaps that private donors alone cannot fill.

Reflections on the aid freeze: Colonial legacies, Global South reactivity

As women from the Global South with extensive expertise in implementing USAID-funded initiatives in Nigeria, we have been actively engaged in research, policy advocacy and programme implementation focused on addressing gender inequality and systemic exclusion. Our work has encompassed gender-responsive legislative advocacy, stakeholder engagement and the design of intersectional health interventions alongside violence-prevention strategies. Through these initiatives, we have gained insights into how international development funding influences opportunities for women and girls in fragile contexts.

Our perspective is shaped by a critical lens that highlights the structural dependencies inherent in international aid systems. While USAID funding has historically facilitated advancements in health, education access, economic empowerment, and protective services, the recent abrupt suspension of these funds exposes the vulnerability of relying on external financing for sustainable gender justice initiatives. This new reality necessitates not only an analysis of the immediate ramifications but also a comprehensive reflection on the inherent drawbacks of donor-dependent funding models.

Our collaborations with local organizations and policymakers in Nigeria have illuminated the disproportionate impact of funding disruptions on grassroots movements, many of which lack alternative resources to sustain their advocacy efforts. The freeze not only impedes service delivery, it also undermines the authority of local actors, who navigate intricate socio-political landscapes to foster gender-transformative change. This erosion of trust in partnerships raises critical ethical considerations regarding the long-term viability of externally funded programmes and the need for decolonial approaches to global development.

As researchers and practitioners, we perceive the USAID funding freeze as a crisis that highlights the dissonance between global aid policies and localized strategies for achieving gender justice. Addressing this situation requires a shift from immediate funding appeals to a thorough interrogation of power dynamics within development frameworks, prioritizing the voices of marginalized communities in shaping funding agendas, and ensuring that gender-focused interventions are genuinely community-led and resilient to geopolitical shifts. However, we acknowledge that moving away from aid dependency and reframing funding mechanisms for aid-dependent countries is a complex process that must consider the enduring effects of colonization in these regions.

While international aid provides an immediate solution to problems that many governments are yet to resolve, this new reality serves as an urgent wake-up call for governments to reassess their approaches to addressing health and social inequalities domestically. An example is the Nigerian government’s recent commitment of US$1 billion towards health sector reforms and the allocation of an additional US$3.2 million for the procurement of HIV treatment packages over the next four months. However, these investments should not have been contingent upon the withdrawal of US funding in the first place.

As policymakers deliberate, the stakes for women and girls in vulnerable communities hang in the balance. Consequently, urgent advocacy is needed to push for resolutions that prioritize continuity in development efforts while rethinking our approaches to these initiatives. For those with decision-making influence, the message is unequivocal: restore funding, rebuild trust and reaffirm commitments to gender equality and global development. The costs of inaction are simply too significant to ignore.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Emaediong Akpan

Emaediong Akpan is a legal practitioner. She recently graduated from the Master’s in Development Studies program at the International Institute of Social Studies. With extensive experience in the development sector, Emaediong Akpan’s work spans gender equity, social inclusion, and policy advocacy. She is also interested in exploring the intersections of law, technology, and feminist policy interventions to promote safer online environments. Read her blogs here.

Eno-obong Etetim

Eno-Obong Etetim is a researcher and recent graduate of the Master’s in Development Studies program at the International Institute of Social Studies. She has several years of experience working on projects focused on gender, health equity, sexual and reproductive rights, and social norms. Her research interests also extend to sustainability and policy interventions that promote social justice.

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US Congress backs diaspora-driven efforts for Tamil self-determination

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On 15 May 2024, US Congressman Wiley Nickel introduced House Resolution 1230, which addresses long-standing grievances of the Tamil community. Endorsed by over 50 Tamil diaspora organisations worldwide, the resolution symbolises hope amid frustration over Sri Lanka’s lack of accountability. Although its path to becoming law is uncertain, the resolution reflects shifting geopolitical dynamics and marks a significant moment in US policy regarding the Tamil diaspora’s pursuit of self-determination. With a new president in place, Sri Lanka may also have the opportunity to reshape its approach to the Tamil question. In this blog, Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits delves into the potential impacts and wider implications of this resolution.

Source: East Asia Forum

On 15 May 2024, US Congressman Wiley Nickel introduced House Resolution 1230, marking the latest congressional effort to address the long-standing grievances of the Tamil people. The resolution recognises the hundreds of thousands of lives lost during Sri Lanka’s nearly 30-year long armed conflict. It also seeks to ensure nonrecurrence of past violence, including the Tamil Genocide, by supporting the right to self-determination of Eelam Tamil people and their call for an independence referendum.

The resolution received moderate partisan support and was endorsed by over 50 Tamil diaspora organisations across fifteen countries who have been working to advance the Tamils’ quest for justice and self-determination. House Resolution 1230 certainly boosted the morale of the global human rights community and the Tamil diaspora, who have grown increasingly frustrated with Sri Lanka’s lack of accountability and have been torn between hope and despair under different US administrations and their allies.

The resolution emerged as the United States faces global scrutiny over its complicity in Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza and for dragging its support in implementing a two-state solution. The resolution, though important for Tamils, underscores the double standards in US policy regarding justice and accountability for war crimes. While the demand for justice for Tamils is stronger than ever, the Tamil diaspora cannot expect much from the United States or most liberal Western states, given their diminishing moral authority.

House Resolution 1230 is a step forward in advancing the February 2023 declaration issued by six major US-based Tamil organisations urging the government to do the ‘right thing’. Dr Murugiah Muraleetharan — President of the Federation of Global Tamil Organizations — shared that ‘only by serving justice to the Tamils and returning their sovereignty, can peace and stability be established in the region. A permanent solution is important, and Independence Referendum is the democratic, peaceful and correct approach’.

Both the 2023 and 2024 resolutions clearly advocate for an internationally monitored independence referendum for Eelam Tamils, echoing the 1976 Vaddukoddai resolution introduced by Tamil political elites in Sri Lanka. The new resolution adopts a maximalist approach by reigniting hopes of securing an independent state. This approach can be viewed as a tactical manoeuvre within the current geopolitical landscape, which may not favour such a drastic measure. Instead, it seeks to advance achievable goals, such as addressing justice grievances, returning of land, promoting regional economic development and ensuring human rights.

One pertinent issue is how much pressure diaspora groups can exert on the United States and its allies to ensure Sri Lanka complies with human rights laws and is held accountable. This is especially crucial amid current US–China geopolitical contestations in the Indian Ocean, where Sri Lanka is viewed as an important ally to deter China’s influence.

Since the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in May 2009 by the Government of Sri Lanka’s armed forces, a number of House Resolutions have been introduced. These have been accompanied by high-profile US-backed UNHCR resolutions calling for a credible investigation into possible war crimes committed by the state armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. But these efforts have been overlooked by Sri Lankan authorities.

Continued pressure from Tamil diaspora groups has encouraged some progress under the Biden administration, which imposed personal sanctions on four senior Sri Lankan military officials between 2020 and 2022.

Given the history and lifespans of resolutions introduced in Congress regarding Sri Lanka, the new resolution shows slim chances of proceeding to the next stages required to become law. This limits its potential to demand binding action from the Sri Lankan state. Despite this potential outcome, receiving the US Congress’s acknowledgment and support holds symbolic significance for the Tamil diaspora.

As the United States prepares to elect its next president, the outcome will also impact the fate of the new resolution and US interest in human rights in Sri Lanka. The resolution will have a better chance of progressing under a Harris presidency, which may signify a continuation of the Biden administration’s policies.

The chances of the resolution gathering support on the Sri Lankan side seem likely under the newly appointed leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Dissanayake’s campaign failed to secure the endorsement of the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi — one of the largest Tamil political groups representing the north and east. But there is hope for a locally grown solution to the Tamil question with home based political groups if Dissanayake remains true to his past sentiments and have the courage to ‘interrogate the JVP’s chauvinistic past, embrace minority communities, and support their struggles for justice and equality’.

During a 2018 parliamentary debate, Dissanayake compared his party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, now part of his ruling coalition, to the Tamil National Alliance. He pointed out that both parties represented people in the south and north who have suffered the most under a repressive state.

Meanwhile, India, a regional US ally, has already signalled its commitment to finding a lasting solution to the Tamil issue through power devolution within a united Sri Lanka. This was highlighted during Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar’s visit shortly after President Dissanayake assumed office. The new president has expressed similar views to that of India. Dissanayake’s success in the November 2024 parliamentary elections will be pivotal for advancing these efforts, as both domestic and diaspora Tamil groups are well-positioned to shape these developments.

This article was first publish on the East Asia Forum 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Author:

Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits

Shyamika Jayasundara-Smits is an Assistant Professor in conflict and peace studies at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University, Rotterdam.

 

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When the State Doesn’t love you back: Navigating identities as a Nigerian woman

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Although the Nigerian state is guided by a Constitution that confers on all Nigerian citizens equal rights regardless of gender and sexual identity, it has been adept at maintaining a system of patriarchy through institutions, policies, and procedures which has led to the differential treatment of men and women. This is what Chouinard refers to as “spatial differing”, and has several knock-on effects that translate to unequal outcomes for some Nigerian citizens. In this blog, Emaediong Akpan explores how the state confers citizenship on its people: who has the right to participate in the affairs of the state? And to what extent such rights can be exercised and enjoyed by all?

Does the State have a character? And is it Gendered?

“The state is a masculine institution,”  assigning rights and belonging along gendered patterns. In allocating these rights, the state decides who belongs in the state and to what extent a person can lay claim to their citizenship. This is both a legal and social decision that affects the feeling of belonging and inclusion The struggle for inclusive citizenship is not new, and from voting rights to property rights, women have had to constantly negotiate with the state about what rights they can enjoy, but not in the same way that men do. This is because Nigerian women are often at a disadvantage, working against multiple levels of assumption, and negotiating male-dominated spaces.

The state is not a neutral entity, only concerned with the maintenance of law and order, rather it descends like a biased umpire into the arena of private life, regulating bodies and relationships. This is what French philosopher, Michael Foucault describes as bio-politics: [state] regulation of its people, taking the form of control over social interaction, health and reproductive rights, and the right to life amongst many others. For radical feminists, bio-politics is an indication of the state’s masculinity and commitment to protecting patriarchy. 

The organisation of state affairs does not occur accidentally, rather it is a deliberate effort to ‘exert a positive influence on life, that endeavors to administer, optimize, and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations.’ This deliberate effort of the state generally works though subjection that is guided by economic structures and cultural norms that dictate gender roles.

In Nigeria, citizenship occurs at the national level, state, and local government levels. While a woman in Nigeria can claim citizenship  (on paper), true citizenship that is characterized by access to citizenship rights, including social benefits and political participation. True citizenship, then, is something she must consistently negotiate through the course of her life. This negotiation is limited by the state’s decision to favor patriarchy, and this results in the differential capacity of men and women to claim the benefits and privileges that come with being a citizen.

Gender and Citizenship in Nigeria:  Women as Outsiders Within

The 1999 Nigerian Constitution (As Amended) is the reference point for who can be conferred the status of a citizen and who can transfer citizenship. In the country, citizenship is conferred at the national level by birth, where either parents or a grandparent is a citizen of Nigeria or from a tribe indigenous to Nigeria. Under section 26(2), only a man can confer citizenship to his wife through marriage, in essence, a Nigerian woman who marries a non-Nigerian cannot confer this citizenship on her husband or her children. In this way, a Nigerian woman’s citizenship can be considered inferior in the sense that it cannot be transferred to another.

The situation becomes more dire with single mothers who try to navigate citizenship, especially when the father of their child is no longer present or refuses to be in their lives. Women in this situation must attach themselves to a Nigerian male if their child is to identify as a citizen of the country, even with the most basic form of identity, a certificate of birth. These women are left with no other choice than to give their children the names of absentee fathers, or that of a male member of their family to retrieve these certificates from the state. Citizenship is sexual, in the way that, it ‘empowers’ the genders that are beneficial to the state – men. In doing so, the state considers the man as the entity who is able to give life, and the woman’s role is reduced to a body that houses the uterus suitable to carry a (male) Nigerian child, but not confer citizenship upon that child.

Another way the state is implicit in fostering gendered power relations is in the refusal to enact policies to address forms of disempowerment such as protecting the rights of single women who are navigating the rental market in Nigeria. For decades, there has been an outcry of single women in the country with complaints of facing prejudice from property owners because “single women should not rent houses independently.” My first-hand experience as a single woman renting a home in 2014 lends credence to this conversation. My search for a home in Abuja, the country’s capital, was met with several rejections because of my status, but interestingly, this changed when I returned with a ‘hired partner’ and flaunted a shiny make-shift engagement ring. Surprisingly, the property owner was female. As noted by Sathiamma patriarchy is produced by a system, meaning that both men and women can be active gatekeepers of patriarchal norms and practices, albeit sometimes unknowingly. These attitudes are rooted in persistent patriarchal socio-cultural norms that view women as property belonging to men.

While national citizenship is relevant for macro-level discourses, a different form of citizenship also exists within the margins – state citizenship. This is perhaps the most challenging for Nigerian women to navigate. Identities within the Nigerian state are defined in a masculine way. As a Nigerian woman, your identity is often contested and changing in many ways. For instance, at the point of marriage, Nigerian women must pay a fee to the state to change their names to that of their new partner, while notifying the public through print media – in a change of name announcement – that her previous name (father’s name) has been abandoned. These changes must also be replicated across every identity document that she possesses – bank details, international passport, and state and local government identity documents. In the case that her state and local government of origin differs from her husband’s, she continues to be denied indigeneity (rootedness), never fully belonging to her father’s home or her husband’s.

Reflection

The redefinition of a state – as masculine and non-neutral – through a feminist lens provides the needed objectivity to ask critical questions on the state’s role in regulating the public and private lives of its citizens. By looking at how the Nigerian state interacts with Nigerian women through this lens, we can better understand its preconceived roles for female Nigerian citizens.

The Nigerian state is masculine and would continue to subject women’s identities to the whims and caprices of patriarchy whilst denying men who do not fit the ideals of masculinity the right to citizenship. This is operationalized in its administrative processes, how women can (or cannot) access basic needs like housing, and the way that women are treated when they participate in public affairs.

Unless we begin to interact with foundational institutions like the state using a feminist lens to dismantle the assumptions of its rationality, these current efforts at addressing gender inequality will not yield much.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Author

Emaediong Akpan

Emaediong Akpan is a legal practitioner, called to the Nigerian Bar in 2015. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Development Studies with a specialization in Women and Gender Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies ,Erasmus University Rotterdam. With extensive experience in the development sector, her work spans gender equity, social inclusion, and policy advocacy. Her research examines the effects of technology-facilitated gender-based violence on women and social movements, highlighting how digital spaces serve as sites for power contests and the policing of gender norms.

 

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War between successive peoples is considered a moral evil, and indicates an increasing collapse of the values of human rights and law

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Source: Hosny Salah via Pixabay

The International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA), held its inaugural Annual Lecture on 23 May at the Literature House in Bergen, Norway. The lecture was given by Khaled Quzmar, General Director of Defence for Children International: Palestine (DCIP), and was held in collaboration with the Rafto Foundation and WAR-FUN project at the Chr Michelsen Institute in Bergen.

As the first part in a blog series to mark the lecture, IHSA Coordinator Tom Ansell has put together this blog in collaboration with Khaled Quzmar. It starts with an interview and is followed by the key points from Quzmar’s lecture.


How important is it that we see accountability for military crimes in the current Gaza war (especially in light of the indictment of the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister for war crimes by the ICC)?

‘The decision of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to indict is an historic decision par excellence. We have been waiting for this since 1948 and later since 2014: after the entry of ICC jurisdiction over Palestine. It is a first step to achieving accountability for the international crimes committed by the Israeli army against Palestinians over many years.

‘Whilst the indictment did not address all the crimes committed against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it is a symbolic message. It has a legal and political dimension indicating the possibility of no more immunity for criminals and no impunity for violence against Palestinians in the future.’

With ongoing atrocities in Gaza, there is likely to be a collective trauma amongst Palestinians. In your opinion, how might it be possible to re-humanize this conflict and the people in it once direct military action has ceased?

‘In my opinion, the civilian population in the Gaza Strip has been under a racist colonial military occupation since 1967, and the people have been refugees for 76 years. For the last 17 years they have lived under a strict military siege from land and sea, and under direct bombardment. Since the beginning of the Israeli military operation in 2024, they have cut off water, food, medicine and electricity, and destroyed homes and infrastructure. In this situation the civilian population do not expect justice, they just want the aggression and killing to stop.

‘The Israeli military and authorities need to treat people in Gaza as human beings that are part of society. People with the right, like other peoples of the world, to self-determination and to live in dignity, security and safety without occupation.

‘[After a ceasefire has been called] massive interventions will be required to provide all the necessities of life and to enable the population to enjoy human rights according to international law. Work will also be needed to help rid children of the psychological issues resulting from the aggression and deprivation of the last  230 days on top of the siege of the 17 years before that.’

In your role as Director of DCI-Palestine,you have direct experience of the importance of humanitarian organizations. What is their importance in the current conflict, and how can children’s rights in particular be safeguarded?

‘The work of human rights and humanitarian organizations is very important in order to help the victims and provide some services and assistance to them. But they also work to preserve hope for future generations, especially children. We are aware that the Israeli occupation wants to kill the hope of children and youth. Our work is to help victims build their capabilities in accordance with international law. Working as human rights defenders is to preserve hope and aspire to a better future and a just peace free of occupation and crime.’

The IHSA Annual Lecture 2024: ‘War and Humanity’

‘Human scientific efforts have been put towards generating ever-more deadly weapons, and conflicts are now most often settled militarily, rather than diplomatically; conflicts are no longer resolved through moral reason and law, nor through political negotiations, but through wars with well-organized armed forces.

‘Warring parties target civilians and civilian infrastructure as a weapon of war: war is no longer limited only to the battlefield. The different types of weapons and the killing, destruction and atrocities targeting the civilian population are now more prolific than ever before. It takes successive generations to overcome the results and consequences of war, to rebuild what was destroyed and provide the necessities of life.

‘The various legal and judicial efforts to enshrine the value of humanity in times of war have a number of shortfalls. Given that humanity is the opposite of war, human dignity requires the peaceful settlement of conflicts between and within societies. Individuals and groups should be treated in accordance with human rights standards. They have the right to live in peace and their human rights should be protected through legal systems and international human rights standards. Commitments within and between communities should be permanently respected.

As the war on Gaza continues to unfold, Israeli forces (and Hamas) have violated international humanitarian law  – including the fundamental right to life, the massive destruction of infrastructure and a growing famine in the territory – many times. Their rights infringements include administrative detention for civilians in the West Bank, including children and a lack of information about detainees in the Gaza strip.

There is a significant issue here with double standards, especially when we look at the refusal of Israel to follow decisions made by the International Court of Justice. If International Humanitarian Law is to be upheld, it must be upheld by everyone, regardless of their international alliances.

‘It is now time to activate the international accountability system by stopping the policy of impunity, eradicating hypocrisy and double standards, in order to reach a world free of wars, where justice and humanity prevail.

We cannot have a “two-level” system of international law and accountability. States and warring parties should not be free of their international obligations, especially around protecting civilians and the most vulnerable. If we fail to uphold standards within this war, we may find far-reaching repercussions in the future.’

The 2024 IHSA Annual Lecture was followed by a roundtable discussion on the theme of ‘War and Humanity’. The next blog in this series will include the contributions from expert panellists from that discussion.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the Authors:

Khaled Quzmar

Khaled Quzmar has worked with Defence for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), since 1985. He is a lawyer by training and profession, and as part of his work with DCIP he has represented hundreds of children held in arbitrary detention, tortured and otherwise mistreated by the Israeli government.

DCIP as an organization works on documenting human rights abuses, advocacy and campaigning on the right to a childhood. The organization also works within the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including with the Palestinian Authority, on child protection, education and access to justice. For their work on protecting the rights of children, Khaled Quzmar and DCIP were awarded the 2023 Rafto Prize.

Tom Ansell is the Coordinator of the Humanitarian Studies Centre and International Humanitarian Studies Association.

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How the United States’s legacy of slavery influences unequal credit scores and what we can do about it

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The credit scoring system in the United States, particularly the FICO score, significantly impacts individuals’ access to affordable financing, housing, and employment opportunities. In this blog article, recent ISS MA graduate Conor Farrell shows that though deemed “colour-blind,” the model inadvertently perpetuates racial disparities rooted in historical injustices, particularly slavery. Reforms, including AI-enabled credit scoring and policy changes like excluding medical debt from credit considerations, are essential to address these inequities and break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and racial inequality, he writes.

Acting as the economic gatekeeper in the United States, the credit score, most commonly known in its FICO form and that which is referenced throughout this blog article, scores individuals on a range from 300 to 850, with lower scores representing greater risk of default or missing payments, and higher scores the opposite. Within the FICO form, an individual’s score is primarily calculated across five components, each with an approximate weight (1):

  • Payment history (35%):an analysis of timely payments on outstanding debts and the severity of late payments (i.e., 30 or 60+ days late).
  • Amounts owed (30%):calculated as a percentage of total credit available and amount currently employed with a rule of thumb to keep this percentage lower than 10%.
  • Length of credit (15%):calculated as the amount of time an individual has accessed credit.
  • New credit (10%):how recently the individual opened a new account.
  • Type of credit(10%): considers the different revolving and installment loans you have active.

Poor credit scores almost always mean far fewer lending options and far more expensive options when available. Putting this into hard numbers, according to data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a change from a “subprime” 640 credit score to a 740 credit score in one example might allow a potential home buyer to access a mortgage interest rate as low as 5.75% instead of 7.625%, resulting in almost $90,000 in lower interest costs over the life of a thirty-year loan for the same house (2).

The five factors determining the level of risk are claimed not to consider demographic characteristics. However, the map of average percentages of county populations with subprime credit scores in the United States (Figure 1) shows the stark differences between the American south and north.

Figure 1: Subprime Credit Score Populations by County

The percentage of people per county with subprime credit scores in the United States. Orange indicates counties with fewer subprime credit scores and blue counties with more subprime credit scores. The red line on the map is the Mason-Dixon line and Ohio River extension, the traditional division between northern and southern states. Source: (Equifax and Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2024).

In particular, given that over 60% of the total African American population resides in the American south, as we further break out the average credit score by race, it is therefore unsurprising to find a mirrored divergence in subprime credit scores, particularly between Black and White Americans (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Average Credit Scores by Race in 2021

Seen across race, there is a significant divergence between the average credit scores of White Americans (734) and Black Americans (677) with the average score for Black Americans averaging near the subprime threshold. Source: (Dual Payments, 2020)

This brings into question whether these differences can be explained by other factors not accounted for by the model. Given that credit scores play such a significant factor in one’s ability to obtain affordable finance and in certain cases may impact where one can live or rent or inhibit one’s ability to obtain employment opportunities, how is it then that such a “colour-blind” model appears to be disproportionately impacting Black Americans? In this blog article, I show that a historical institution fundamental to economic development of the United States and the racial and geographic divisions still present in the present — the institution of slavery — can provide an alternative explanation for injustices in the credit score system.

A quick history lesson

While present for the initial two centuries of colonial expansion in North America, slavery rapidly grew in the early 1800s as the United States solidified into a nation-state (Figure 3). Ultimately abolished after a bloody civil war, the history of the United States since slavery’s abolition in 1865 has been characterized by a various forms of institutionalized and explicit forms of race-based discrimination and exclusion, including the sharecropping system, housing discrimination in the form of redlining, and segregation in the education system. While each of these systems and institutions can each be understood to be extensions of the historically unequal forms of development in the United States with their own unique impact of the historical inequalities in their respective period of development, my research as part of my MA thesis set out to determine how is it that the Figure 3 and that of Figure 1 bear strikingly similarities to one another.

Figure 3: Relative Slave Populations by County (1860)

Figure 3 presents the relative slave population as a share of the total population in 1860. Counties with dark yellow shades have the largest slave population relative to the total county population, while light blue are the counties with lower slave populations. Counties in dark blue are either unreported or have zero slave population according to the census. It is important to note that this data may not be fully reflective of the actual slave population, but it is the best official data that is available. Source: (United States Census Bureau, 1864)

Current models are far too simplistic

Hypothesizing that the current model claims to be colour-blind in its analysis and that its simplistic model focuses solely on the present-day actions of an individual without acknowledging the persistent inequalities already present within our society, my research analysed 1860 census data alongside contemporary panel data from 2014–2021 through an instrumental variable specification. Through the most stringent specification applied,  I found a 10-percentage-point increase in the relative slave population of a county in 1860 results estimated average effect of 0.791 percentage point increase in the percentage of the current population with a subprime credit score in 2021, holding all else constant; a result that remains highly significant even in the most stringent model employed (3). Put simply, counties that had higher proportions of enslaved people in 1860 tend to have a higher percentage of residents with poor credit scores today, even after considering other factors that might influence this outcome.

Given the consistent but varying forms of discrimination experienced by Black Americans since the abolition of slavery, I also found that relative slave populations influence different channels’ persistence including through an education system that requires Black Americans to take on higher levels of debt to obtain the same education, only to earn consistently lower wages than their White counterparts. Unable to generate as much wealth as their White counterparts, Black Americans are often far more burdened by greater amounts of relative debt, limiting their ability to obtain larger assets like homes, which are so vital in generating and retaining intergenerational wealth (4).

Such findings demonstrate that the current credit scoring model, one that claims to be unbiased and does not explicitly penalize individuals based on race, fails to account for the multitude of contextual historical factors that continue to privilege certain groups while barring others from accessing the same system. Contemporary economic inequalities may be influenced by the lingering effects of historical factors emphasizing the complex interaction between race, inequality, historical factors, and contemporary economic outcomes.

As such, it also provides clear evidence that policies that do not adequately consider historical inequalities existing and persistent in the system may in fact serve only to continue to perpetuate such inequalities. Particularly in the context of the credit scoring model in the United States and similar systems of economic gatekeeping, not addressing the existing inequalities through the model restricts an individual’s ability to access affordable financing, housing, or decent employment prospects.

Significant reforms are the only way to address persistent injustices

The rapid introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) holds some promise in this context. A greater number of AI-enabled credit scoring algorithms are being tested that could vastly expand the number of variables influencing a credit score. This will hopefully allow a far more comprehensive picture of an individual current financial health. Models with a greater number of variables would increase the diversity of scoring criteria and de-emphasize the potentially discriminatory data points currently prioritized in the FICO model. The recent decision by the Biden administration to remove medical debt as a variable influencing credit scores also helps to address the burden of emergency care costs that can be detrimental to an individual’s ability to meet their financial responsibilities (5).

However, given that poor credit scores have the potential to make financing almost inaccessible for low- and middle-income individuals, additional social safety nets must be considered to ensure that drastic emergency expenses do not create cycles of intergenerational poverty resulting from poor credit scores. Without significant reform, the current credit scoring model will continue to punish low-income families, forcing them to take on more expensive financing to obtain the same assets as their neighbours, inhibit access to home ownership, make higher education less accessible without taking on larger debt, and continue to ensure a cycle of poverty that perpetuates racial inequalities within the United States.

Footnotes

(1) Pritchard, J., (2021) How the FICO Credit Score Is Composed. Available at: https://www.thebalancemoney.com/fico-credit-score-315552 (Accessed 28 July 2024).

(2) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), (2023). Explore interest rates. Available at: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/owning-a-home/explore-rates/ (Accessed 28 July 2024).

(3) Farrell, C. (2024). The lingering legacy of slavery: historical injustices and credit scores in the United States. International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). ISS working papers. General series No. 723

(4) Jones, J., & Neelakantan, U. (2022). How Big Is the Inheritance Gap Between Black and White Families? Richmond: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Brief.

(5) The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) (2023). CFPB Kicks Off Rulemaking to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports. Washington, D.C.: CFPB. Accessed 4 July 2024.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) (2023). CFPB Kicks Off Rulemaking to Remove Medical Bills from Credit Reports. Washington, D.C.: CFPB. Accessed 4 July 2024.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2024). Explore Interest Rates. Retrieved from Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/owning-a-home/explore-rates/. Accessed 5 July 2024.

Dual Payments. (2020). Credit Score. Retrieved from Dual Payments: https://dualpayments.com/statistics/credit-score/#race. Accessed 28 July 2024.

Equifax and Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Equifax Subprime Credit Population, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EQFXSUBPRIME036061. Accessed 28 July 2024.

Farrell, C. (2024). The lingering legacy of slavery: historical injustices and credit scores in the United States. International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). ISS working papers. General series No. 723

Jones, J., & Neelakantan, U. (2022). How Big Is the Inheritance Gap Between Black and White Families? Richmond: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Brief.

United States Census Bureau, (1864). 1860 Census: Agriculture of the United States, Washington: United States Census Bureau. Available at: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1864/dec/1860b.html

About the author: Conor Farrell

Conor Farrell

Conor Farrell is a graduate of the International Institute of Social Studies where he majored in Economics of Development. He is passionate about the intersection of history and contemporary economic outcomes understanding that history is not a set of fixed beginnings and ends, but continues to live on through the institutions we have created to shape our societies and influence our future.

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How a new conscription law is threatening everyday humanitarian action in Myanmar

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Image Source: Unsplash

The compulsory enlistment of young men and women in war-stricken Myanmar following the enactment of a conscription law in February this year is adding a layer of complexity to a society already struggling with human rights abuses and a lack of safety for civilians. The conscription order is systematically depleting the youth who are pivotal to everyday humanitarian action, thereby posing a threat to humanitarianism in a country facing a massive humanitarian crisis, writes ISS PhD researcher Hyeonggeun Ji.

Over three years have passed since the Myanmar military seized power, ousting the democratically elected government. Until early last year, the junta currently in control of Myanmar showed unparalleled power over the joint resistance force, which consists of armed organisations opposing the government that emerged from the coup. However, the junta now faces many challenges, in particular a significant manpower shortage. According to several estimations, the junta’s armed forces once comprised between 300,000 to 400,000 troops, but this number has now dwindled to approximately 150,000 due to desertions and casualties.

To address this shortage, the military on 14 February this year enforced a conscription order, targeting men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27. In mid-March, it started enlisting the first batch of civilians by mail, with plans to draft 60,000 people annually. The military authority announced that the first batch of 5,000 troops would be called to duty in mid-April; however, the actual number summoned remains undisclosed so far.

Young people are fleeing en masse…

The announcement has been met with resistance. Young people, unwilling to kill or serve in military, have been compelled to flee abroad en masse — a  phenomenon frequently portrayed in the media as a mass migration or exodus — to avoid conscription. And two people tragically died of suffocation in a crammed queue days after the law was enacted while trying to obtain visas at the Myanmar passport office.

…leading to the loss of youth in Myanmar society

This sudden flight of young people signifies the loss of youth in Myanmar society, both in the sense of youths become forced to be soldiers opposing civilians and by leaving the country altogether. Moreover, the military is continuously trying to label young people as the ‘worst’ enemies due to their active and potential role in anti-coup and pro-democracy movement. In this context, recruiting them can be seen as part of a broader strategy to eliminate the presence of youth from the social fabric by turning young people into soldiers. Concurrently, it is possibly related to the junta’s manoeuvre to politicise aid for its political gain — the military regime could cite reduced humanitarian activity as a means to render people more compliant.

The humanitarian crisis is being exacerbated…

This development is compounding an existing humanitarian crisis. The war is violent — a recent report by Action on Armed Violence estimates this ‘under-reported war’ resulted in 2,164 casualties due to explosive weapons in 2023 alone, and according to a UN report, systematic military violence against civilians had displaced 2.6 million people and had forced another 600,000 to flee by December 2023. War-torn Myanmar moreover is marked by humanitarian needs; 18.6 million people — one-third of the country’s total population — struggle with precarious living conditions, hunger, a lack of clean water, illness, and human rights violations. And the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has sharply increased to nearly 2 million people over the past three years. Military forces are even brutally attacking IDP camps, where unarmed civilians have relocated after their homes were attacked. Affected people are grappling with trauma.

The international humanitarian system moreover is facing multi-layered constraints, making it difficult for humanitarian aid to reach affected people. At the international level, the attention of developed countries, whose resources and decision-making power are essential, to the war in Myanmar is woefully inadequate, partly due to the country’s perceived lack of economic potential. In addition to the utterly inadequate scale of international relief efforts and a lack of funding, the restriction of humanitarian aid and a hostile environment for aid workers have also prevented humanitarian workers from assisting people in need. Meanwhile, the junta jeopardizes the neutrality of humanitarian assistance by requiring international humanitarian organisations to hand over aid resource to military authorities.

…but everyday acts of humanitarianism persist

Despite these frustrations and limitations, humanitarianism persists in Myanmar, with local people and grassroots organisations sustaining alternative humanitarian approaches through everyday acts of humanitarianism. For instance, teachers are continuing to teach, which can give children access to psychosocial services in emergencies while also preserving their right to education. Another instance is the crucial role of diaspora organisations in reporting the local conditions in inaccessible conflict zones and by organising fundraising activities to provide help in the form of emergency relief, assistance for IDPs, and education support. These instances represent mere glimpses of the myriad everyday humanitarian practices conducted by diverse local actors within Myanmar and along its borders, operating beyond the boundary of the hierarchical global humanitarian system.

The youth embody humanitarianism…

Along with continuing humanitarian efforts led by diverse local actors, young people in Myanmar embody humanitarianism in their everyday lives. The role of youth in humanitarian practice is not new but has become intricately intertwined with social norms and culture over time. Young men and women in the country lead and support the social affair groups that organise cultural events, weddings, funerals, blood drives, and various community activities within their villages. Through this social environment, the youth have forged the virtue of helping others in voluntary and collaborative ways. Their important role was highlighted during COVID-19 as they demonstrated capacity to raise funds and circulate health-related information within the communities when external resources were insufficient for managing the pandemic situation.

As humanitarian needs escalate while external assistance remains limited, the volunteerism, leadership, and unity embodied by the youth for humanitarian action are now more critical than ever.

…and their erasure should be countered

But the Myanmar junta’s conscription law presents a systematic obstacle to youth-led everyday humanitarian action and, consequently, poses a threat to humanitarianism in Myanmar. A recent report, Forced to Fight, underlines the emerging signs of young people’s apprehension about conscription, noting how these fears significantly impede their social participation and how their absence is acutely felt within the society.

Currently, the limited attention paid to the issue focuses solely on the security of the youth, which is essential for discussing the conscription law; however, it neglects the broader implications for people and the society. I contend that the conscription law should be recognised as an instrument of power designed to dismantle humanitarian action sustained by everyday practices of local youth in collaboration with other actors on the ground. The failure to respond appropriately to this critical juncture could push humanitarianism in Myanmar to the brink of an existential crisis.

 

Funding statement

This blog article is part of the work of the Humanitarian governance, accountability, advocacy, alternatives project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 884139.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Hyeonggeun Ji is currently pursuing his PhD at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). His research focuses on humanitarian governance for climate-related displacement in Bangladesh.

Hyeonggeun Ji

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Tren illiberal akan semakin kuat di era Prabowo

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The electoral victory of the ex-general-turned-cuddly-populist Prabowo Subianto on 20 March marks the continuation of illiberal democracy in Indonesia. However, the moral panic that followed the announcement of his presidency may be exaggerated, writes Iqra Anugrah, who argues for a more nuanced analysis of Indonesia’s current and future political trajectory. The dangers for democracy posed by Prabowo’s impending rule is just a symptom of the larger problem of oligarchic rule in the Global South. English

Bhasa: Kemenangan Prabowo menandakan keberlanjutan demokrasi illiberal. Tetapi, kita tidak boleh terjebak oleh kepanikan moral. Yang kita butuhkan adalah analisis yang lebih bernuansa mengenai trajektori politik sekarang dan yang akan datang. Ancaman bagi demokrasi di bawah kekuasaan Prabowo merupakan gejala bagi persoalan yang lebih besar, yaitu kuasa oligarki di negara-negara Selatan.

Image by @illustruth

DEMOKRASI Indonesia berada di persimpangan jalan. Prabowo Subianto, seorang mantan jenderal yang aktif di masa kediktatoran Orde Baru yang dipimpin oleh mantan mertuanya, Soeharto, dan bereputasi buruk karena kasus-kasus pelanggaran Hak Asasi Manusia (HAM), telah resmi memenangkan pemilihan presiden. Terlepas dari klaim tentang penyimpangan prosedur pemilu dan upaya dari dua capres rival, Anies Baswedan dan Ganjar Pranowo, menggugat melalui Mahkamah Konstitusi (MK), Prabowo akan tetap dilantik pada Oktober nanti.

Bagi kalangan gerakan sosial, kemenangan Prabowo merupakan kabar buruk. Ada keresahan di antara para aktivis bahwa pemerintahan Prabowo akan memangkas kembali pencapaian perjuangan demokratik secara signifikan, seperti kebebasan berpendapat, berserikat dan berkumpul, dan aktivitas pers.

Akan tetapi, sentimen ini, meski sangat bisa dimaklumi, cenderung melihat agensi Prabowo secara berlebihan dan alpa dengan fakta bahwa justru di bawah dua periode pemerintahan Joko Widodo-lah demokrasi Indonesia menjadi semakin oligarkis dan illiberal. Maraknya gelombang populisme otoriter di tingkat global yang menjangkiti berbagai negara dan kawasan lain menunjukkan bahwa pertanyaan yang tepat bukanlah mengapa Indonesia tetap bisa mempertahankan kualitas demokrasinya, melainkan kapan Indonesia akan bergabung dengan tren global tersebut dan memiliki versi lokal Rodrigo Duterte atau Bongbong Marcos.

Menyikapi perkembangan politik ini, sosiolog politik Abdil Mughis Mudhoffir baru-baru ini berargumen bahwa demokrasi di Indonesia “akan berjalan seperti biasanya.” Meskipun mengakui bahwa akan ada kemungkinan belokan illiberal yang lebih dalam di bawah kepresidenan Prabowo, kawan Mughis mengkritik kecenderungan alarmis di lingkar-lingkar gerakan sosial dan media dan juga klaim bahwa Indonesia akan kembali menjadi rezim otokratik secara utuh di bawah pemerintahan Prabowo. Mughis berpendapat bahwa para elite telah mendapat keuntungan secara politik dan ekonomi dari demokrasi elektoral borjuis semenjak 1998. Tatanan rezim yang sekarang dengan demikian akan tetap bertahan.

Sementara itu, editor IndoProgress Coen Husain Pontoh mengkritik Mughis dan menyajikan analisis yang berbeda mengenai demokrasi dan perkembangan kapitalisme di Indonesia di bawah pemerintahan Prabowo. Menurut kawan Coen, yang berbagi keresahan yang sama dengan elemen-elemen gerakan sosial mengenai kenaikan otoritarianisme, kecenderungan represif di dalam kerangka demokrasi elektoral di bawah pemerintahan baru akan cenderung meningkat, tapi bukan karena personalitas Prabowo melainkan tekanan struktural dan logika akumulasi kapital itu sendiri, yang akan memaksa negara dan aktornya, yaitu pemerintahan Prabowo, untuk mewakili kepentingan kelas kapitalis melalui pelestarian eksploitasi dan dominasi yang akan semakin parah derajatnya.

Terlepas dari perdebatan di antara Mughis dan Coen, kedua analisis ini menyajikan pembacaan yang lebih bernuansa tentang masa depan demokrasi Indonesia di bawah pemerintahan Prabowo. Tulisan saya kali ini bertujuan untuk berkontribusi dan mengintervensi perdebatan ini.

Dalam hal interpretasi atas dinamika politik Indonesia di bawah Prabowo, analisis Mughis menurut saya memberikan pembacaan yang lebih jernih mengenai skenario-skenario politik yang mungkin terjadi. Di sisi lain, analisis Coen menekankan kerangka teoretik penting yang perlu diingat oleh setiap aktivis dan ilmuwan progresif dan kiri, bahwa negara kapitalis memiliki tendensi struktural untuk terus melanggengkan ekspansi kapital dan proses perampasan dan penghisapan nilai lebih yang dilakukannya.

Pembacaan yang ingin saya tawarkan adalah sebagai berikut: Saya lebih bersepakat dengan pembacaan Mughis mengenai kondisi demokrasi Indonesia di bawah kekuasaan Prabowo, seraya mengamini bahwa kita tidak boleh melupakan natur dari negara kapitalis dan kecenderungan represifnya, yang digaris bawahi oleh Coen.

Tetapi, pembacaan Mughis bahwa proses perebutan dan bagi-bagi kekuasaan di antara para elite sebagai faktor utama di balik stabilitas demokrasi illiberal terlalu uni-dimensional. Di sisi lain, meskipun Coen secara tepat mengingatkan kita tentang tendensi struktural dan otoriter dari negara kapitalis, analisisnya luput melihat bahwa kuasa kapital, meski determinan, termediasi efeknya oleh sejumlah faktor. Implikasinya, corak dan manifestasi dari tendensi otoriter ini akan berbeda-beda bentuknya di lokasi-lokasi geografis yang berbeda.

Oleh karena itu, dalam hemat saya, analisis yang lebih komprehensif perlu melihat tiga faktor. Pertama, karakteristik dari kompetisi elektoral di antara para elite politik; kedua, relasi antara demokrasi dan kapitalisme oligarkis di Indonesia; dan ketiga, aspirasi politik dari para pemilih itu sendiri. Dengan melihat ketiga faktor ini, saya berkesimpulan bahwa alih-alih kembali kepada kediktatoran ala Orde Baru, Indonesia di bawah Prabowo akan menyaksikan kelanjutan demokrasi illiberal.

Elit Politikus Tetap Berkuasa, Tetapi Kekuasaannya Tidak Mutlak

Politikus Indonesia dari berbagai partai dan tingkatan pemerintahan telah menikmati dan dengan sukses memanfaatkan sistem pemilu yang relatif bebas dan terbuka sejak 1999. Elite-elite lama yang mapan secara cepat beradaptasi dengan permainan elektoral borjuis ini dan memantapkan posisinya tatkala Indonesia mengalami transisi politik dari kediktatoran menuju demokrasi, sebuah kesempatan yang juga dimanfaatkan oleh pemain-pemain baru seperti kelas kapitalis/kalangan pebisnis lokal.

Di level nasional, para elite dengan mudah dapat berbagi kekuasaan dan berbagai jenis “rampasan perang” di antara mereka, seperti jatah dari anggaran negara dan jabatan menteri. Di tingkat lokal, para kepala daerah seperti bupati dapat memenangkan pemilu melalui jejaring patronase dan ijon politik dengan aktor kapitalisme ekstraktif, seperti perusahaan tambang.

Tentu saja, tingkah laku elite ini menunjukkan preferensi mereka, yaitu tatanan politik yang lebih otoriter, ditandai dengan terbatasnya ruang untuk partisipasi popular, oposisi, dan tuntutan redistribusi. Tetapi, ambisi ini terbatasi oleh sejumlah fitur struktural dan kelembagaan dari negara Indonesia itu sendiri, seperti kurangnya monopoli elite lokal secara langsung atas sumber daya ekonomi dan lembaga negara.

Kapitalisme Oligarkis dan Demokrasi Kawan, bukan Lawan

Kemudian, sebagaimana telah ditunjukkan oleh ahli ekonomi-politik dan sarjana kritis, demokrasi dan kapitalisme oligarkis dapat hidup berdampingan di Indonesia (juga di banyak masyarakat kapitalis lainnya). Demokrasi elitis di Indonesia tidak menjadi ancaman yang signifikan bagi kelas kapitalis. Ini terlihat dari respons positif kalangan bisnis dan investor yang menyambut baik hasil pemilu sebagai mekanisme untuk memastikan stabilitas politik dan transisi kekuasaan yang damai, yang dibutuhkan untuk pertumbuhan ekonomi dan investasi.

Nyatanya, di tengah absennya agenda sosial demokrasi minimum yang solid, seperti redistribusi kekayaan, program-program kesejahteraan sosial yang luas, dan kontrol kelas pekerja atas ekonomi dan politik, maka kalangan pebisnis tidak akan keberatan untuk memodifikasi aktivitas usaha mereka sesuai dengan norma-norma demokrasi formal. Kelas kapitalis tidak perlu mengandalkan represi politik yang bersifat eksesif, apabila mereka bisa memanfaatkan institusi elektoral dan demokrasi formal yang ada, satu hal yang telah mereka lakukan sejak awal reformasi.

Karenanya, tidak heran bahwa dari dulu ilmuwan politik Benedict Anderson memperingatkan kita bahwa pemilu di Asia Tenggara termasuk Indonesia merupakan indikasi bagi dominasi politik borjuis. Secara sinis, kita bisa menyimpulkan bahwa para elite memiliki kepentingan untuk mempertahankan demokras illiberal yang memiliki dimensi elektoral yang kompetitif, bebas, dan matang.

Pemilih Indonesia Mendambakan Pendisiplinan Demokrasi

Terakhir, kita tidak boleh luput melihat aspirasi politik para pemilih Indonesia secara saksama. Prabowo memenangkan pemilu dengan perolehan suara mayoritas, termasuk dukungan dari para pemilih Gen-Z. Prabowo juga terbantu oleh dukungan Jokowi, yang masih memiliki popularitas publik yang tinggi. Ini mendongkrak citra Prabowo sebagai penerus Jokowi yang setia dengan cita-cita developmentalisnya.

Kalangan aktivis dan intelektual boleh saja tercengang melihat ekspresi politik semacam ini, tetapi banyak pemilih melihat preferensi politik mereka sebagai pemenuhan hak demokratis mereka. Hasil jajak pendapat yang cukup baru dari salah satu lembaga survei terkemuka menunjukkan bahwa hampir 71% responden berpendapat bahwa kinerja demokrasi Indonesia baik atau sangat baik. Fenomena illiberalisme di masyarakat ini tidak hanya terjadi di Indonesia. Di Filipina, banyak pemilih kelas menengah dan menengah atas yang mengamini model demokrasi yang kuasi-otoriter dan eklusivis ala Duterte sebagai tanggapan dan kritik atas “kekacauan” dalam demokrasi liberal. Persoalan ini juga menunjukkan kurangnya daya tarik populis yang luas dari agenda dan program politik gerakan sosial selama ini.

This version of the article was first published on IndoProgress

The English version was published on Bliss

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Iqra Anugrah is a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden University and a Research Associate at the Institute for Economic and Social Research, Education, and Information (LP3ES). He has conducted extensive fieldwork-based research on democracy, development, social movements, and local politics in Indonesia.

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The Indonesian democracy may change once Prabowo is president — but we need to look at the bigger picture

By Posted on 2922 views

The electoral victory of the ex-general-turned-cuddly-populist Prabowo Subianto on 20 March marks the continuation of illiberal democracy in Indonesia. However, the moral panic that followed the announcement of his presidency may be exaggerated, writes Iqra Anugrah, who argues for a more nuanced analysis of Indonesia’s current and future political trajectory. The dangers for democracy posed by Prabowo’s impending rule is just a symptom of the larger problem of oligarchic rule in the Global South.

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Indonesian democracy is at a crossroads. Prabowo Subianto, a retired general who served in the army during the dictatorship of his former father-in-law, Suharto, and who has a tainted reputation due to his alleged involvement in human rights abuses, is set to become the next president of Indonesia. Despite claims of possible electoral irregularities and attempts by losing presidential candidates Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo to challenge the election results at the Constitutional Court, the official results have shown that Prabowo has won the presidential race.

For Indonesian social movements, his electoral victory is bad news. There is growing concern among activists that Prabowo’s presidency will roll back hard-won democratic achievements, including freedoms of speech, association, and the press. But this sentiment, while understandable, overstates Prabowo’s agency and overlooks the fact that it was during the two-term tenure of incumbent president Joko Widodo (Jokowi) that Indonesian democracy became increasingly oligarchic and illiberal. After years of subscribing to authoritarian populism — a worrying trend that is observed globally — it was only a matter of time before Indonesia was to have its own version of Rodrigo Duterte or Bongbong Marcos.

Responding to the election of Prabowo, political sociologist Abdil Mughis Mudhoffir recently argued that democracy in Indonesia “will keep on running just as it did before”. While acknowledging the real possibility of a deeper illiberal turn under Prabowo’s presidency, he challenged the alarmist tone in social movement and media circles and the claim that Indonesia would fall back into a full-blown autocracy under Prabowo’s rule. He argued that elites have benefitted politically and economically from electoral democracy since 1998. The current regime will therefore likely remain in place.

Mudhoffir’s assessment offers a more sober view of possible scenarios under Prabowo’s rule. However, his argument that struggles for and the sharing of power among elites is the main driver of the stability of illiberal democracy is too one-dimensional. I do agree that, rather than a return to dictatorship, Indonesia could witness the continuation of the illiberal democracy developed under Jokowi’s rule.

But in my view, a more nuanced analysis of the implications of Prabowo’s ascension to the presidency is necessary — one that would require us to look at three factors: 1) the nature of electoral competition among political elites, 2) the relations between democracy and oligarchic capitalism in Indonesia, and 3) the political aspirations of Indonesian voters. By looking at these three factors, we can better describe the overall characteristics of Indonesian democracy under Prabowo’s presidency and help concerned activists, social movements, and citizens to formulate their next steps.

Political elites remain powerful, but are kept in check

Indonesian politicians across parties and levels of government have benefitted from free and open electoral competition since 1999. Established elites quickly adapted to the new electoral game that arose as the country transitioned from a dictatorship to a democracy, and newer players such as local businesspeople have gained significant influence. At the national level, elites are able to easily share post-election “spoils” among themselves, which include a portion of the state budget and ministerial appointments. At the local level, district heads can win elections through acts of patronage or shady deals with extractive businesses, such as mining corporations. Obviously, these acts of elites demonstrate their preference for a more authoritarian arrangement marked by less popular participation, dissenting opinions, and redistributive demands, but their ambition is tempered by the structural and institutional constraints of the Indonesian state, such as the lack of a direct monopoly of economic resources and state institutions by local elites.

Oligarchic capitalism and democracy: friends, not foes

Secondly, as has been pointed out by political economists and critical scholars, democracy and oligarchic capitalism can coexist in Indonesia. Indonesia’s elitist form of democracy poses no significant threat to the interests of the capitalist class. This can be seen in how businesses and investors welcomed the general elections as a mechanism for ensuring political stability and a peaceful transfer of power needed for economic growth and investment. In fact, in the absence of solid social democratic demands for wealth redistribution, expansive social welfare programmes, and working-class control over the economy and political processes, the business community should be quite happy to adjust its operations in a formally democratic environment.

It is small wonder that a long time ago political scientist Benedict Anderson had warned that elections in Southeast Asia including in Indonesia are indicative of “bourgeois political dominance.” Put cynically, it is in the interests of the elites themselves to maintain an illiberal form of democracy with robust electoral dimensions.

Indonesian voters want a disciplined democracy

Lastly, one must not forget the political aspirations of Indonesian voters themselves. Prabowo won the election by a wide margin and enjoyed the support of the Gen Z voters. And the fact that Prabowo’s candidacy was supported by Jokowi, who remains popular among the Indonesian public, helps to enhance his image as a faithful successor of Jokowi’s brand of developmentalism.

One might balk at this political preference, but despite concerns from activists and scholars, most Indonesian voters see this as a genuine exercise of their democratic rights. A recent survey shows that close to 71% of respondents think that the quality of Indonesian democracy is either “good” or “very good.” This phenomenon of societal illiberalism is not exclusive to Indonesia. In the neighboring Philippines, especially upper- and middle-class voters have been embracing a quasi-authoritarian, exclusionary conception of democracy in response to the perceived “messiness” of liberal democratic procedures.

A contextual assessment is needed

This is not to minimize the potential dangers of Prabowo’s presidency, but it is important to contextually assess such dangers beyond moral panic. An alarmist take on the rise of an authoritarian-leaning president is a sign of knee-jerk liberalism, which is detached from the material concerns of the working people and steers us away from the important task of rejuvenating democratic class politics.

Most likely, democratic “stability” under Prabowo’s presidency will be a perverse one. Free electoralism will remain the only game in town, but episodic repressions of democratic rights and the contraction of democratic spaces will continue, especially in semi-urban and rural areas. Oligarchic control of politics and economy too will continue.

The increasing fragmentation of Indonesian social movements, partly due to their disagreement in engaging Jokowi’s government, makes resisting authoritarian tendencies in the upcoming Prabowo administration an arduous task. But hope should not be lost. Despite the rise of conservative politics, a new cohort of student and social movement activists has emerged and for the first time in recent years a new Labor Party, which was formed by leading labor unions, managed to join the general elections this year.

Prabowo’s presidency will not lead to a return of a Cold War-style capitalist dictatorship. Nevertheless, it will herald a new dawn in the contemporary history of Indonesian democracy, where illiberal tendencies become the norms rather than exceptions.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Iqra Anugrah is a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden University and a Research Associate at the Institute for Economic and Social Research, Education, and Information (LP3ES). He has conducted extensive fieldwork-based research on democracy, development, social movements, and local politics in Indonesia.

Disasters as ‘tipping points’? How the deadly Bhola Cyclone influenced East Pakistan’s 1970 electoral outcomes and what this means for disaster politics

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The Bhola cyclone swept through the Bengal region in November 1970, displacing millions of people and leaving more than 300,000 dead. While such natural disasters cause widespread destruction that are felt for many years afterward, they can also be seen an opportunity for political change, writes Muhammad Basar, who contends that the cyclone influenced the 1970 election that ultimately led to the separation of united Pakistan. But although such calamities can act as catalysts for political restructuring, it is important not to become complacent in managing disaster risks, he writes.

 

The emergence of Bangladesh as an independent nation in 1971 is a significant event in modern history: its birth is not only the result of a prolonged struggle for freedom but also the consequence of an unexpected natural hazard leading to a man-made disaster that contributed to the rise of Bengali nationalism and their secession from Pakistan.

In November 1970, a severe cyclone made landfall on the East Pakistan coast, resulting in the tragic loss of nearly 300,000 lives in a single night of devastation. According to the Economic Times , the cyclone is ranked the fourth most devastating hazard in the past century. But what made the cyclone so destructive was not the force of nature but the force of circumstances: the Bhola cyclone struck at the worst possible place at the worst possible time.

The cyclone is particularly significant in the field of disaster studies not only due to its immense destructive impact but also because of the detrimental policies pursued by West Pakistan in its aftermath. This we explored in detail in our recent scholarly article titled ‘The final straw: Bhola cyclone, 1970 election, disaster politics, and the making of Bangladesh’. Our article offers valuable information for researchers and practitioners in the fields of disaster management and humanitarian assistance, shedding light on how ineffective disaster governance policies can contribute to political division in the wake of a disaster.

We refer to this event as a “critical juncture“, as it was one of the first instances of a compound disaster where a natural event contributed to the start of a civil war, an external military intervention, and, ultimately, the dissolution of a nation-state.We studied this phenomenon using qualitative research methods, which included six months of archival research, the analysis of media contents, and interviews with aid activists, political leaders, and survivors of the cyclone.

The pre-cyclone political configuration

The Bengalis, comprising 54% of Pakistan’s population, had limited influence over the economic and political affairs of the country. As a result, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the President of the Awami League (AL), a regional political party of East Pakistan, advocated for provincial autonomy and democracy through the famous ‘Six-Point Plan’ in the late 1960s. In response to increasing demands for democracy and equality, the Pakistani military government set a date for the nation’s first national election. The election was planned for December 7, 1970 and would take place simultaneously across all provinces.

However, on November 12 — just three weeks before the election — a powerful cyclone with winds reaching up to 200 km/h accompanied by 30-foot tidal waves hit the East Pakistan coast at midnight. The cyclone caused widespread destruction, resulting in a significant loss of life and displacing millions of individuals. Regrettably, the people of East Pakistan were not adequately warned about the cyclone, as the warning system failed to operate promptly.

The cyclone’s impact on East Pakistan’s political dynamics

The fallout of responses to the cyclone was found to be more severe than the cyclone itself. It took almost ten days for the government to officially announce a state of emergency and mobilize the military to aid in relief and recovery operations.President Yahya Khan received substantial criticism for his mismanagement of the crisis, with many viewing his lack of concern as a form of criminal neglect. This delayed reaction significantly influenced the attitudes of the Bengali population and fueled their desire to break away from the rest of Pakistan. Moreover, the cyclone had struck the poorest area of East Pakistan, where infrastructure, livelihoods, and economic prospects were severely lacking. And this disaster served as a wake-up call, revealing the critical importance of economic equality and political freedom for the survival of the Bengalis.

The leadership emphasized this point strongly. Maulana Abdul Hamid Bhashani, at the time a prominent figure within the National Awami Party in East Pakistan, voiced strong disapproval of how the government handled the cyclone’s aftermath. He criticized the Pakistani government for its perceived lack of empathy towards the affected individuals. On November 23, 1970, he made the significant declaration of East Pakistan’s independence and advocated for a boycott of the impending election. In response to his stance, two additional leftist parties also opted to abstain from participating in the election.

AL leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (popularly known as Mujib in both Pakistan and Bangladesh) conversely took advantage of the situation to unite the Bengali population against the ruling authorities of West Pakistan. Rahman highlighted the inadequate response of the central government to the crisis and stressed the need for increased autonomy to better protect the people of East Pakistan from future natural disasters. Through public gatherings, marches, and promotional materials, Rahman drew attention to the grievances of the East Pakistanis and emphasized the disparities between the two regions. A notable poster with the slogan “Why is Golden Bengal a Crematorium?” became a significant symbol of the AL’s electoral campaign.

A ‘Tipping Point’?

Political analysts had anticipated that the AL would emerge as the dominant political force in East Pakistan, but few had foreseen its landslide victory; it secured 160 out of 162 seats for East Pakistan in the election. The electoral outcome was surprising not only to political factions but also to the Pakistani military, which had underestimated the growing influence of Mujib’s AL in East Pakistan. Yahya and his administration were confident that no political party would be able to attain the critical threshold of 151 seats, resulting in a hung parliament that would be more susceptible to their manipulation in the future. Yet this is exactly what transpired.

This overwhelming victory provided Mujib with the authority to independently establish the government at the national level without requiring support from any other political party. He declared that his future government would draw up a new constitution for Pakistan based on the demands of his Six-Point Plan, which would give East Pakistan greater provincial autonomy and weaken the ties between the center and the provinces.

Despite the victory, a transfer of power did not occur. In an attempt to engage in dialogue, the central authority sought to persuade Mujib to abandon his plan and adhere to the principle of greater unity for Pakistan. However, Mujib and the Bengali nationalists saw no reason to deviate from their demands, as they had already received a mandate from the Bengali voters. Failing to resolve the issue with Mujib, the military instead of relinquishing power initiated a brutal military operation, known as Operation Searchlight, on March 25, 1971. This event sparked a civil war in East Pakistan, ultimately leading to the successful establishment of independent Bangladesh.

The complex interplay between natural disasters and politics

Our research suggests that the Bhola Cyclone of 1970 not only caused immense devastation but also had far-reaching political consequences in South Asian history. The post-disaster politics shaped the electoral landscape in East Pakistan, leading to a call for an election boycott and ultimately resulting in the AL gaining a significant majority. However, the military’s refusal to transfer power to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman sparked a civil war that lasted for nine months, leading to India’s intervention and the eventual emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country.

The aftermath of a cyclone created a distinctive situation in disaster politics, as it sparked a nationalist movement that ultimately resulted in the country’s fragmentation. This highlights the importance of effectively managing disaster crises during times of political instability to prevent further harm to a divided nation. The events following the Bhola Cyclone underscore the intricate relationship between natural disasters, politics, and the lasting impact of such occurrences. Despite the historical importance of these outcomes, they have been largely neglected in global historical narratives.

How can we further reduce the risk of disasters?

Disaster risk reduction in a situation where a state is politically, culturally, and economically divided and on the brink of fragmentation is one of the most challenging tasks in disaster governance. The Bhola Cyclone highlighted several key weaknesses in the disaster governance system.These included a deficient warning system, inadequate infrastructure and logistical support, reliance on foreign aid for recovery efforts, and a lack of political trust due to the presence of a non-democratic regime, leading to widespread public anger and political unrest.

This event demonstrated that a disaster can raise questions about legitimacy and underscore the importance of democratic freedoms and equal opportunities for all. Additionally, it revealed the significant impact of non-state actors, such as the media, civil society, political parties, and foreign donor agencies, in influencing government opposition.

To learn more about the cyclone and its relation to the independence of Bangladesh, our recent article published in the Contemporary South Asia can be consulted. The article is the outcome of our joint research funded by North South University, Bangladesh (CTRG-20-SHSS-05; NSU IRB/ERC: 2020/OR-NSU/IRB/1121).

About the author:

 

 

Muhammad Asiful Basar is a PhD candidate at the University of Antwerp, Belgium and Senior Lecturer at North South University, Bangladesh.

 

Verdict upheld against former president in Suriname (Part II)

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On 20 December 2023, Suriname’s highest court of appeal, the Hof van Justitie issued a judgement, confirming the conviction and twenty-year prison sentence of Desiré Delano Bouterse in what has been the longest criminal trial in the history of Suriname. In this article, which forms the second of two parts, Jeff Handmaker explains how the trial has been accompanied by a great deal of political drama and legal manipulations, but also judicial courage and perseverance by the victims of what has been referred to as the 1982 December Murders.

Image by We El at Dutch Wikipedia

Procedural delays

Back in 2012, there were hopes among many colleagues, including myself as a trial observer for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) who supported the trial observation mission, that the Court would issue a definitive judgement on the constitutionality of the Amnesty Law (or not). This proved to be too optimistic. The process was hampered by further delays, most of which were triggered by the accused’s defence counsel raising procedural obstacles in lieu of substantive arguments, each of which demanded a decision by the Court and hence served to undermine the rule of law.

The ICJ responded by issuing a press release in 2013 outlining concerns over how ‘unacceptable’ the delays were, and in particular how delays caused great uncertainty. Eventually, the Court concluded on 9 June 2016 that the Amnesty Law was unconstitutional and therefore the trial ought to resume. President Bouterse responded shortly afterwards with an Executive Order determining the trial to be a threat against the country’s national security (with specific reference to economic grounds) and ordered the prosecutor to halt their efforts. Rather than stopping the trial entirely, this merely served as a further source of delay. In the meantime, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights expressed its ‘deep concern’ about persistent delays in the resumption of the trial.

After another four years of procedural obstacles, the ICJ eventually issued a second report and statement on 8 May 2017 on the ‘Importance of Resuming the Trial Without Undue Delay’. In this report, the ICJ emphasised how ‘justice delayed is justice denied’. The ICJ did not engage in the substance of the allegations against Bouterse and his co-accused, but instead focussed on two issues. Firstly, the ICJ’s statement focussed on the context in which the trial was taking place, in particular the social and political climate which included statements by Bouterse that those who had opposed the Amnesty Law were ‘enemies of the people’. Secondly, the statement presented arguments drawing on international law that emphasised the need for a fair and speedy trial and an effective remedy for victims of human rights violations.

After a further round of further delays, including illness by one of the judges, the trial eventually resumed on the merits, in other words the substantive nature of the atrocity crimes that Bouterse and others were charged with.

 

Judgement and sentence for atrocity crimes

The Court issued a judgement on 29 November 2019. To the surprise of many, the Court found Bouterse and several of the accused (though not all) to be guilty of atrocity crimes.  Bouterse was sentenced to a prison term of twenty years. However, in a noticeable exception to criminal procedure, the court did not order an arrest warrant to be issued.

Unable to send a follow-up, in-person trial observation mission, the ICJ issued a press statement, both in English and in Dutch, calling ‘on all parties to respect the rule of law and to allow the legal system to run its course, in accordance with international fair trial standards, without further delays, threats or other forms of executive interference’.

Bouterse’s lawyers decided to appeal both the conviction and sentence and a new trial resumed in the country’s appeals court. Six months later, in July 2020, Bouterse stepped down as President of Suriname after his political party lost the election to the opposition party, led by Chandrikapersad Santokhi.

 

Appeal

In October 2020, the ICJ once again expressed its concern and gave new impulse to its trial observation mission by announcing a new trial observer, the former Attorney-General of Belize and senior barrister, Godfrey Smith, SC. Physical attendance was impossible at this stage due to Covid-related lockdown regulations.

Despite his inability his inability to attend in person, Smith continued to monitor the trial from afar, emphasising, in September 2021, how important it was that the trial proceed ‘without delay, ensuring due impartiality, independence and fairness to all concerned in the interests of the victims, the accused and the rule of law’.

 

Historic judgement on 20 December 2023

After 15 years, anticipation that Suriname Appeals Court would issue a final judgement was high. On this occasion, the ICJ decided to again send another, experienced in-person trial observer, Reed Brody, one of the Commissioners of the ICJ and a veteran human rights lawyer who had been involved in cases against previous heads of state, including: Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Hissène Habré of Chad and Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti, among others.

The decision of the Appeals Court on 20 December 2023 to confirm the conviction and twenty-year prison sentence of Bouterse was again not accompanied by an arrest warrant.  While in the first instance this was regarded as understandable given the likelihood that Bouterse would appeal (along with his significant public profile). In the second instance, especially the legal justification was less clear, and while Bouterse did not, as a last resort, apply for the final domestic remedy available, which was to seek a pardon from President Santokhi, he did submit a last-ditch appeal to the prosecutor, with new lawyers, to avoid being arrested (which was unsuccessful).

At the time of writing, the Court eventually issued an order that those accused of crimes were expected to report to the prison in Paramaribo. Some of the accused honoured this. Former president Bouterse did not and there remains a great deal of speculation where he may be.

Irrespective of this, the judgement of the Appeals Court in Suriname can be regarded historic. As Brody confirmed:

Today’s decision is a victory for the families of Bouterse’s victims, who never gave up, and for all those around the world seeking to bring powerful abusers to justice. It should serve as another reminder that accountability for the most serious crimes has no expiration date.

Read the first part of the blog: https://wp.me/p9fvbD-76v

Image by We El at Dutch Wikipedia: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Dr. Jeff Handmaker is Associate Professor of Legal Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam and has published widely on topics concerning Israel’s decades-long impasse with the Palestinians. He conducts research on legal mobilization.

 

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

 

Monitoring an atrocity crimes trial in Suriname (Part I)

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On 20 December 2023, the Hof van Justitie, Suriname’s highest court of appeal, issued a judgement confirming the conviction and twenty-year prison sentence of Desiré Delano Bouterse in what has been the longest criminal trial in the country’s history. In this article, which forms the first of two parts, Jeff Handmaker explains the background to the trial, and why the International Commission of Jurists started to actively monitor this trial since 2012.

Image by Antonisse, Marcel / Anefo (CC Zero)

The 1982 December Murders

What makes this trial unique and special is not only the severity and nature of the crimes being charged, but the fact that the principal accused is a former head of state. The charges against Bouterse and other accused comprised atrocity crimes, including torture and extra-judicial executions of fifteen men, allegedly committed in 1982 under the leadership of then Sergeant Desi Bouterse during a military coup that allegedly also included the complicity of the Dutch government.

According to Amnesty International, which has been following the case already since 1982, the killings were ‘never properly investigated’. This understanding aligned with other human rights organisations, including the Netherlands Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (NJCM) which released a report on 14 February 1983, and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) which conducted a mission and issued a report on 4 March 1983.

While the opportunities for seeking justice at the time were virtually non-existent, the events of December 1982 have certainly not been forgotten. In particular, the victims’ families of those men who lost their lives have refused to remain silent and remained committed in securing redress. Their advocacy was accompanied by a growing academic scholarship on atrocity crimes, including by Suriname jurist Gaetano Best, who later completed an (unrelated) doctoral thesis in 2016 at the University of Amsterdam on ‘Fair and Accurate Fact-Finding in Dutch Atrocity Crimes Cases‘ and subsequently returned to practice law in Suriname, which later also included frequent commentary on the Bouterse trial.

 

The trial begins

On November 2007, in the midst of advocacy by the victims of those killed in December 1982, a trial was initiated against Bouterse and twenty-four other individuals, including sitting government officials. The court was located on a naval base in Boxel just outside the capital city of Paramaribo, and comprised two chambers: a civilian chamber (criminal court) and a military chamber (court-martial) each with a three-judge panel. Both chambers had the same, highly experienced judge-president, Justice Cynthia Valstein-Montnor.

Three years later, Bouterse was elected as president of Suriname. Remarkably, the trial continued, largely unhindered by these developments. Eventually, the Suriname parliament passed an Amnesty Law in 2012 that aimed to extend immunity for prosecution to Bouterse and other co-accused. Emboldened by this, Bouterse’s lawyers argued that the prosecutor had no authority to purse the charges against him.

After five years of delays, and little tangible progress in the trial on its merits, doubts began to emerge as to whether the Court had the capacity to consider this matter in a free, impartial and objective manner.

 

ICJ trial observation

Confronted with persistent delays as well as some reports of intimidation against journalists, court officials and the public prosecutor, the ICJ, as one of the largest and most established human rights organizations in the world based in Geneva, decided to launch a trial observation mission. This was in anticipation of a judgement that the Court was due to issue in May 2012.

The ICJ’s first, in-person trial observation mission took place from 8 – 12 May 2012. As a British lawyer, with some years of experience teaching post-graduate students in the country and with a knowledge of Dutch (the official language of Suriname), I was asked to lead the mission. This comprised a combination of tasks, set-out in a trial observation manual that the ICJ had produced earlier, which drew on the experiences of earlier ICJ trial observation missions. This included meeting with officials, making clear to all actors that they were under scrutiny, collecting findings about the context in which the trial was being held in order to ensure compliance with international due process requirements, issuing press releases, speaking to the media and of course issuing a report.

 

Court’s first Judgement in 2012

The occasion of an in-person mission in May 2012 was to attend the trial itself and to speak with various key stakeholders to get a sense on whether international standards of due process were being respected. Based on its findings and a comprehensive analysis of both Suriname law and international law, the conclusions that we drew in the report were fourfold. First, while the Government of Suriname had co-operated fully with the trial observation mission and did not hinder the work of the mission, the court had not yet clearly decided on the implications of the Amnesty Law. Second, there appeared to be space for a fair trial in Suriname, although continued procedural delays raised questions about this. Third, the role of a free, professional and independent media was seen to be crucial. And finally, public interest in the trial from diplomatic missions, as well as international organizations, promoted greater visibility of the outcome and integrity of the process.

In other words, while there was no overt effort to subvert the rule of law by force, even by Bouterse, as both the sitting President of the country and the principal accused, the main legal issue at stake had not been conclusively established. This was namely: whether (1) the passing of an Amnesty Law was valid, which implied that the trial ought to be stopped altogether or alternatively, (2) the Amnesty Law was not consistent with the constitution and therefore the trial should proceed.

As discussed in Part II, the next stage in this legal drama proved to be both eventful and for us as trial observers, very frustrating.

Read the Second part of this blog: https://wp.me/p9fvbD-76E

Image by Antonisse, Marcel / Anefo (CC Zero): https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=december+moorden+suriname&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Dr. Jeff Handmaker is Associate Professor of Legal Sociology at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam and has published widely on topics concerning Israel’s decades-long impasse with the Palestinians. He conducts research on legal mobilization.

 

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

 

In supporting Israel’s genocide, Germany has learnt nothing from history

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It is becoming increasingly clear that as the German government targets migrants and cracks down on pro-Palestine protests, some lives are more valuable than others. In this blog, Josephine Valeske—a project officer with the Transnational Institute’s War and Pacification programme—calls on the German Government to rethink its stance in both domestic and foreign policy.

Image by Author

Earlier this month, amid the unfolding genocide in Gaza, German leaders convened in a Berlin synagogue to mark the 85th anniversary of the 1938 November pogrom that formed part of the genocide perpetrated by Germany against Jews in Europe.

But it seems they have failed to learn from their own history. In a memorial speech for the victims of that night and the Holocaust that followed, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz affirmed that “Germany’s place is on Israel’s side”.

Referring to pro-Palestine solidarity protests, he said: “Any form of antisemitism poisons our society, just like Islamist demonstrations and rallies,” before going on to threaten migrants with deportation if they exhibited antisemitic behaviour.

The German government habitually conflates Judaism with the Zionist project in Israel, and has adopted a working definition of antisemitism that includes hatred of or attacks against the state of Israel. Its crackdown on Palestinian solidarity – from protests to memorials to cultural events – and the dangerous curtailment of freedom of speech have been well documented.

But as Scholz’s speech revealed, this crackdown also has an Islamophobic, anti-migrant dimension, at a time when the Social Democrat-led government has adopted a hard stance on migration in a desperate attempt to recapture votes from the right.

On 25 October, following a surge in support for the far-right AfD party and a panicked debate about rising numbers of immigrants, the government agreed on a legislative proposal that would expand police powers to search, detain and deport people without papers.

Two weeks later, a summit between the federal and state governments ended with the announcement of further cuts to financial support for asylum seekers and the possible outsourcing of asylum procedures to third countries – a potentially illegal process similar to the UK’s infamous, and ultimately failed, Rwanda deal.

 

Rights restricted

But for many centre-to-right politicians, this does not go far enough. They frame Palestinian solidarity protests as antisemitic, and instrumentalise them to demand further restrictions of rights.

In a recent video, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck from the Green Party called on Muslim associations to explicitly distance themselves from Hamas, and threatened deportations and revocation of residency permits for those who voice support for the group.

Meanwhile, Germany’s largest opposition party, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is proposing legislation that would increase the sentence for antisemitic crimes, and lead to the loss or denial of international protection for refugees if they commit such crimes, including possible deportation.

Similar moves already seem to be taking place in practice: Zaid Abdulnasser, coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which was recently prohibited in Germany, reportedly received a deportation order because of his activism.

Under the CDU proposal, people applying for German citizenship would have to pledge their support for Israel’s right to exist and could be denied citizenship if they fail to do so, or if they are deemed to have an “antisemitic mindset”. Germans who hold dual citizenship and commit an antisemitic crime would stand to lose their German passport if convicted and sentenced to more than a year in prison.

Two weeks ago, explicitly citing pro-Palestine demonstrations, the CDU demanded the cancellation of a pending law that would make it possible for foreigners to fast-track their citizenship applications. In addition, former justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, of the Free Democratic Party has proposed to limit freedom of assembly to German citizens only.

While German politicians are outdoing each other in blaming antisemitism on immigrants, Muslims, Arabs or anyone who is not white, they conveniently ignore the fact that antisemitism among white, Christian and atheist Germans is actually a widespread problem. More than 80 percent of antisemitic crimes in 2022 were committed by people on the right-wing spectrum, continuing a trend from previous years.

When it became public in August that Hubert Aiwanger, the deputy governor of the state of Bavaria, had shared antisemitic propaganda in the 1980s, his party’s vote share increased in the following elections, and the government rewarded him with a fourth ministry.

 

Historical responsibility

If the German government is genuinely concerned about protecting Jews, it should address antisemitism coming from the majority white, right-wing population, instead of inciting hatred against minority groups. A similar message was recently conveyed by the Jewish Bund during an action called “You do not protect us” in front of parliament.

Right-wing violence has traditionally gone unchecked by authorities, whether it takes the form of antisemitism or other hate crimes.

The government failed to take any comparable action when it became known in 2011 that neo-Nazis had been on a seven-year murder spree while shielded by the intelligence service; when from 2014 onwards, tens of thousands of right-wingers started Monday marches against the “Islamisation of the West”; when a right-wing fanatic fatally shot nine people with migrant backgrounds in Hanau in 2020; or when a 2023 study showed that racism against Black people in Germany had risen by nearly 50 percent since 2016, among other examples. White, Christian and atheist Germans were never asked to distance themselves from any of these incidents.

Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear in both internal and external policy discourses that for the German government, some lives are more valuable than others. The demonisation of (those perceived to be) Muslims or immigrants, and the crackdown on solidarity protests goes hand in hand with Germany’s political and financial support for Israel.

While many countries, including France, are calling on Israel to cease fire amid its relentless military assault, which has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza, Scholz has reaffirmed his resistance to any such calls. Instead, his government has increased arms exports to Israel tenfold over 2022, with 85 percent of the permits granted after the Hamas attack and the ensuing military campaign.

Eighty-five years after the November pogrom, Germany should have learned that a genocide cannot be atoned for by enabling another genocide. Similarly, those who think that stoking Islamophobic and anti-migrant sentiments will fulfill Germany’s historical responsibility to fight antisemitism have learned nothing from history.

The German government must stop paying mere lip service to its commitment to human rights, and drastically change its stance in both domestic and foreign policy.

This article was originally published on Middle East Eye.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Josephine Valeske is a project officer with The Transnational Institute’s War and Pacification programme.

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A right-wing populist party ‘won’ the Dutch elections. What does this mean? And will Geert Wilders become Prime Minister?

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In this blog, Thea Hilhorst looks at the potential outcomes following the Dutch general election last week. Whilst the PVV party, led by Geert Wilders, won the largest proportion of votes, this is just the beginning of the government-forming process. The Dutch system requires building governing coalitions, and the largest party does not always form the next government. So, what is the PVV? How might they govern? And will Geert Wilders become Prime Minister?

Photo 5533984 | Dutch Parliament © Jan Kranendonk | Dreamstime.com

Last Wednesday, 22 November, the PVV (Party for Freedom) led by Geert Wilders won the most votes in the national elections in the Netherlands. But the national elections to elect members of the Lower House of parliament in The Netherlands is just the beginning of the government-forming process.

The Netherlands has a system of parliamentary elections, unlike other countries that have presidential elections. In those countries, the two winners of a first round of elections may need to contend in a second round until one of the presidential candidates obtains a majority vote. In a parliamentary system, on the other hand, elections are about allocating parliamentary seats to political parties. The Netherlands has 150 parliamentary seats, and a party or coalition needs 76 seats to form a government, and so select a Prime Minister. The PVV came out of the elections as the largest party with 37 seats. As there are 150 seats in total, this means that slightly less than 25% of the electorate voted for PVV (and 75% did not).The second place in the elections came to the combination of the Green Left and Socialist Party, that ran together in these elections for 25 seats, followed by 24 seats for the currently largest party VVD and 20 seats for the new party of New Social Contract.

Another notable difference between a presidential and a parliamentary system is the different power invested in the leader of the government. While a President usually has executive power, a Prime Minister is technically speaking just the chairperson of the government – although far more powerful in practice than this job description would imply.

 

What is the PVV? And what did they win?

The Party for Freedom is mainly known for its leader: Geert Wilders, who has started PVV in 2005, having previously been a politician for the VVD party (of Mark Rutte, current Dutch PM). As a party it stands out, because there is no membership and hence it is often referred to as a ‘one-man show’. The PVV can be seen as a right-wing populist party. It rides strongly on anti-immigrant sentiments and islamophobia, and it denies the relevance of climate policies. Its political programme for the election proposes to end immigration, development cooperation and involvement in climate action. Geert Wilders also announced he wants to spend “not a single Euro” on gender equality, and he is a proclaimed fan of NEXIT (Netherlands leaving the EU). Socio-economically the PVV profiles itself as the champion of marginalized people, promising to lower costs for health insurance, lower the retirement age and increase minimum wages, although it is not clear how proposed measures will be financed.

The PVV has never previously been part of the Dutch government, but in 2010 they did provide support to the first government formed by Mark Rutte. This arrangement, sometimes known as a ‘confidence and supply’ formation meant that whilst the PVV did not provide any Ministers, they did support the government during votes in the Upper and Lower chambers of the Dutch parliament. In any case, the PVV pulled out of this arrangement in 2012 and collapsed the government, leading to fresh elections.

 

The Dutch government is almost always a coalition, and the process can take months

In the Dutch parliamentary system, coalitions need to be formed of different parties to reach a majority of seats in the parliament. Ruling by a single party could only happen when a political party won more than 75 seats, which has never happened in Dutch history. This means that PVV cannot form a government unless it can form a coalition with at least two more parties. The RTL News service has made a handy ‘coalition forming tool’– with so many political parties having been elected, coalitions can involve up to 5 parties in partnership. The formation of a coalition is a long-term process. The last government of the Netherlands consisted of 4 different parties and only reached an agreement  after 271 days. It is usual that the largest party can initiate the coalition building process, and that this party will take the lead in the government and provide the Prime Minister. This is not always the case, in fact there have been 11 elections in the 20th century where the leader of the largest party did not become Prime Minister, the most recent in 1986.

Moreover, it is even possible that the winner is not going to be part of the new government at all. Whilst the largest party is given the first chance to form a coalition, there have been a few historical precedents where coalition negotiations failed, and new negotiations started up with other parties. This can have the consequence that the party with the largest number of seats is shut out of the government. This happened three times in the last century, and co-incidentally always in cases where the Labour (PvdA) party won the elections. In 1982, the party obtained 52 seats, more than one third of the votes, and was nonetheless side-lined in the formation of the government.

 

What happens next?

Formation processes are very unpredictable. The programmes of PVV and any likely coalition partners (other parties on the right side of the political landscape) have some issues in common but are also hugely different on others. An additional complications  is that the VVD –the largest party for the last 12 years – now has a new leader who has initially ruled out working with the PVV. The new leader, Dilan Yeşilgöz, remarkably has a refugee background herself yet opposes liberal asylum practices.  The second likely coalition partner for the PVV would be New Social Contract (NSC), that is an entirely new Party formed by the popular parliamentarian Pieter Omtzigt, who won 20 seats  at the first election it joined. The combination of a new leader of the VVD and an entirely new party sitting at the negotiation table with Geert Wilders, who has been a solo player since he started the PVV, makes the process markedly unpredictable.

The three parties may find it easy to form a right-wing government in no time, or they may clash over their differences and leave an open arena for other parties to try to form a coalition. Only time will tell.

Photo 5533984 | Dutch Parliament © Jan Kranendonk | Dreamstime.com

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Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Dorothea Hilhorst is professor of Humanitarian Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University.

 

 

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