History teaches us that major social transformations have always
occurred in the wake of two types of traumatic social upheavals: war and
revolution. Although the sequence between war and revolution varies,
the two social upheavals tend to occur in the same historical process of
major social transformation, especially since the beginning of the 20th
century. At the end of the historical process, it will be clear that
neither war nor revolution alone could have explained the transformation
that took place. Both war and revolution are human products and, as
such, subject to risk and uncertainty, to the possibility and ambiguity
of both success and failure, to a mixture of passion and reason,
animality and spirituality, the desire to be and not to be, experiences
of despair and hope. In both war and revolution, the meaning of history
runs parallel to the absurdity of history, and its failures always
circulate in the underground of its successes.
War and revolution are so complex and take so many forms that those
who want to promote them rarely achieve what they set out to do, and
those who want to prevent them are rarely able to do so effectively or
without self-destruction. The social trauma they cause stems from the
abrupt violence they involve, which can be destructive to lives and
institutions, and often to both. The difference between war and
revolution is most visible in their antidotes. The antidote to war in
the contemporary era is peace, while the antidote to revolution is
counter-revolution. The antidotes reveal the character of the social
forces involved in both war and revolution. Those who want peace are the
social classes that suffer most from war. Those who die in wars are
soldiers and innocent citizens, not the politicians who decide them or
the generals who command them. Both the soldiers who choose war or are
forced to fight it and the innocent citizens most vulnerable to the risk
of death belong to the historically less privileged social classes,
members of the working classes, such as peasants and factory workers. On
the contrary, those who want war are the social classes that run the
least risk from the destruction it can cause and stand to gain the most
from what follows destruction. Those who promote counterrevolution are
the powerful minority social classes that benefit most from the status
quo that revolution seeks to destroy. On the contrary, those who promote
revolution are the exploited, oppressed, and discriminated social
groups and classes who, despite being in the majority, find no other
means than revolution to end the injustice of which they are victims.
Both war and revolution are extreme forms of class struggle,
constituting an open struggle between life and death. But while war
involves the death of the majority to defend the life of the minority,
revolution involves the death of the minority to defend the life of the
majority. The social and political forces that promote war are the same
ones that promote counterrevolution. On the contrary, the social and
political forces that promote revolution also promote peace, even if
this may imply war against minorities (the so-called revolutionary war
that marks many of the political trajectories of liberation in the
global South).
There are 35,220 U.S. troops in Germany and a total of 64,112 U.S. military in Europe TABLE; World Beyond War
It would be laughable if it were not so tragic. For at least four reasons.
1. The full-throated defence of globalization by a left that
previously characterized it as the source of every human misfortune.
Having deplored the indiscriminate opening of markets for thirty years,
it is now tearing its hair out because that opening is being rescinded,
as the American empire proceeds with deglobalization (a process that has
been underway for the past decade). It might be recalled that for years
left-wing economists regarded the trade protectionism of the Cambridge
School as a guiding light.
2. The carefree jubilation with which Europe met German rearmament,
heedless of the country’s last two military build-ups and their
disastrous consequences for the world. Blithe cheerfulness also met news
that Chancellor Friedrich Merz was deploying the 45th Armoured Division
in Lithuania – Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky, which tells the
story of how the Teutonic Knights were (fortunately) driven back from
this very region, had seemingly been forgotten.
3. Europe’s anguish as it realizes that it has somehow (no one quite
knows where or how) lost its umbrella. A feigned anguish, considering
that in all of Donald Trump’s outbursts, this subject has been
conspicuous by its absence: not once has the US president threatened to
scale back American bases in Europe, nor has he raised the possibility
of removing its hundred-odd nuclear bombs, nor the approximately one
hundred thousand troops it has kept stationed on the continent for more
than half a century. No matter: European leaders wring their hands,
regardless of the persistent silence. My God, they cry, we have no
umbrella to protect us from the storms on the horizon. At the very
least, we are in urgent need of a raincoat.
4. Speaking of raincoats, witness the chest-thumping virility with
which France and Great Britain flex their modest nuclear muscles,
striking a pose of proud independence from a United States now weary of
the Old Continent, and urging other European countries to spend more on
weapons. This is, of course, precisely what Trump had ordered of his
vassals: raise military spending to at least 3% of GDP, and then 5%. The
only way to achieve this is by slashing social expenditure – schools,
healthcare and so on. In other words, in the name of bellicose
continental independence, the European ‘powers’ are rushing to force
their citizens to swallow the diktat of Washington.
Today, the tragicomic seems the only register in which to narrate
contemporary events, such is the gulf between proclamation and action.
To narrate, not understand, much less predict: unpredictability appears
the sole constant of the period, the only forecast that can be made with
any certainty.
***
Interpretations of Trumpism – distinct, of course, from Trump himself
– tend to oscillate between two pairs of opposites:
minimalist/maximalist and declinist/anti-declinist. In a recent Sidecar article, Matthew Karp describes the poles of the first with great clarity:
Maximalists are inclined to view Trump as an agent or conduit of a
sudden historical rupture, whether the transformation of the party
system, the destruction of American democracy or the implosion of the
liberal world order. Minimalists see Trump not as a fundamental break
but rather as a lurid symbol of longer-running developments, or a
symptom of crises that lie elsewhere?– a black hole detracting attention
from real political problems.
For Karp, this dichotomy cuts across both left and right:
Despite some disagreement, liberal and conservative maximalists unite
in seeing the President himself as the chief and often the only issue
in national politics; both have also leapt to enlist in the “fascism
wars”, often brandishing the F-word as a cudgel to discipline the left
at elections, and elsewhere.
Minimalism, on the other hand, is the stance adopted by both
Republican and Democratic leaderships, which are united in the strategy
of ‘ha da passare la nottata’, that is, of waiting for the
Trumpian storm to blow over. The former are using it to notch up a few
of the right’s traditional goals – tax cuts for the wealthy,
privatization of state services, a shower of public contracts. The
Democrats, for their part, highlight inconsistencies, reversals and
blunders, wielding them as weapons for a (hoped-for) electoral comeback
in next year’s midterms. But both sides are united in supine, bipartisan
acquiescence: Republicans swallowing without protest the coup Trump
carried out within the Grand Old Party, Democrats enduring the
institutional offensive – total disempowerment of the legislative branch
– without even engaging in a little parliamentary obstruction in the
form of filibustering.
Sitting down with Neuralink’s 1st brain chip implant patient VIDEO/GMA/Youtube
It
was February 2024 when Noland Arbaugh, the first person to get Elon
Musk’s experimental brain chip, rolled across the stage in a wheelchair
during a Neuralink “all hands” meeting, revealing his identity for the
first time.
The room, filled with Neuralink employees,
erupted in applause as Arbaugh—who dislocated two of his vertebrae in a
swimming accident in 2016 and has since lost sensation and movement
below his shoulders—smiled ear to ear in his chair, a red Texas A&M
hat planted on his head. He grinned as he began to speak: “Hello,
humans.”
About
a month before that town hall, Arbaugh, who’s 31, had undergone surgery
at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, about 2.5 hours from
his home in Yuma, to get an experimental chip embedded into his brain
that Neuralink had been working on and testing on animals
for the past nine years. Arbaugh was anesthetized and, in a surgery
that lasted just under two hours, a Neuralink-made robotic surgery
device implanted the chip and connected tiny threads with more than
1,000 electrodes to the neurons in his brain. Now the device can measure
electrical activity, process signals, then translate those signals into
commands to a digital device. In layman’s speak, the BCI, or
brain-computer interface, allows Arbaugh to control a computer with his
mind. As a result, Arbaugh can do things like play Mario Kart,
control his television, and turn his Dyson air purifier on and off
without physically moving his fingers or any other part of his body.
The
first day that Arbaugh used his device, he beat the 2017 world record
for speed and precision in BCI cursor control. “It was very, very easy
to learn how to use,” he tells me in an interview.
When
Arbaugh became Participant 1—or “P1” as he is often referred to by
Neuralink employees and subsequent study participants—he joined a list
of about 80 people
to ever receive such a device. Brain chip interfaces have been a focus
of neurological study for more than 50 years, and a dozen companies in
the U.S. and China have been conducting limited human trials since 1998.
But becoming the first patient
to get a Neuralink implant, in particular, is its own right of passage.
For one, Neuralink’s device has threads with more than 1,000
electrodes, giving the device a much higher connectivity rate than most
of the BCIs currently being studied in humans in the market. But
Neuralink also places its electrodes in the motor cortex, the part of
the brain that controls movement—a more invasive approach than
competitors like Synchron or Precision Neuroscience, which also have
ongoing studies of multiple patients. Neuralink’s device is also
wireless, versus competitors like Blackrock Neurotech that require a
wired connection from the implant through the skull to an external
receiver for signal capture and decoding (Blackrock Neurotech sells a
wireless processor that has been used for research). That means
Neuralink participants can go cordless, but the device is battery
powered because of it and does need to be charged around every five
hours or so, Arbaugh says. Neuralink heat-treats the charger, a coil,
into some of Arbaugh’s hats, so that he can recharge it while wearing a
hat. In the beginning, Arbaugh couldn’t use the device while it charged,
though that’s since been updated.
Croatia’s journalists’ union and professional association mobilized against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, condemning the targeted killing of Palestinian reporters.
“It is time to show that unions, as the most important force for
workers, know how to take responsibility and take a stand when terrible
crimes unfold before our eyes,” the Trade Union of Croatian Journalists
(SNH) wrote in a call to action.
Together with the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND), SNH appealed
to other labor groups and the wider public to join a protest on August
28 in response to the genocide in Gaza and the deliberate killing of more than 240 Palestinian reporters.
SNH union leader and current president of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Maja Sever, told Peoples Dispatch
that the importance of media workers speaking out about the ongoing
genocide cannot be overstated. “The first and simplest reason is that
there is currently a genocide happening, and that is why media workers
must speak out,” Sever explained. “They have a key role in shaping
public opinion, and when mainstream media relativizes or silences the
violence against Gaza’s civilian population – when they silence the
genocide – there is a danger of normalizing the war and occupation.
That, in turn, risks enabling the continuation of the genocide and the
destruction of the Palestinian people. Silence or neutrality in this
case truly amounts to participation in covering up the crime.”
The killing of Gaza’s media workers, SNH and HND warned, has
dangerous implications for press freedom more broadly as well. “Their
deaths send a dangerous message: that the truth must not be heard,” the
two organizations added in their announcement. “By blocking access to
Gaza for foreign journalists, the Israeli military is silencing freedom
of expression and the public’s right to know. We are witnessing the
literal silencing of voices of truth, of journalists – by starving them
to death.”
Silence during a genocide: a moral and political disgrace
In recent months, journalists’ associations in Croatia, particularly
their trade union, have organized initiatives denouncing the targeting
of reporters in the Gaza Strip. Among them was a collaborative project
with local artists, who produced dozens of portraits of
journalists killed by Israeli occupation forces since October 7, 2023.
During Thursday’s action, union members, artists, and cultural workers
carried these prints in a march toward the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
where they reiterated demands for the Croatian government to act against
the genocide.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugging Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, US President Donald Trump, France President Emmanuel Macron, US President Barack Obama, UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Meta Platforms’ Mark Zuckerberg, France President Francois Hollande, Russia President Vladimir Putin, and Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto. IMAGE/The Hindu/Duck Duck GoJashodaben Narendrabhai Modi and her husband Prime Minister Narendra Modi IMAGE/Deccan HeraldIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother Hiraben Modi (1923–2022) waiting in line to exchange discontinued currency bills for for new ones IMAGE/Globeistan/The Hindu
He [Narendra Modi] told me once that “I will be travelling across the country and will go as and where I please; what will you do following me?” When I came to Vadnagar to live with his family, he told me “Why did you come to your in-laws’ house when you are still so young, you must instead focus on pursuing your studies.” The decision to leave was my own and there was never any conflict between us. He never spoke to me about the RSS or about his political leanings. When he told me he would be moving around the country as he wished, I told him I would like to join him. However, on many occasions when I went to my in-laws’ place, he would not be present and he stopped coming there. He used to spend a lot of time in RSS shakhas. So I too stopped going there after a point and I went back to my father’s house.
she was sure that her husband would become prime minister in 2014
Modi did become the premier in 2014 and continues in that position
“…Possibly, God only has sent me for some work, for some purpose.”
that work does not include addressing
the deplorable condition of most Indians,
it seems, God didn’t send Modi for them …
but Modi is God’s good emissary for Ambani, Adani, and others of that ilk
“Until my mother was alive, I used to think I was born biologically. After her demise, when I look at my experiences, I am convinced that I was sent by God.”
even those sent by God need human touch and hugs
mostly from the rich and powerful …
however, clearly stated, Modi is allergic to hugging
Dalit, Christian, and Muslim citizens of India, and
Despite intense media coverage over more than a year and a
half, the day-to-day, human reality of life in Gaza is difficult to
imagine. Often, it is overlooked or obscured, even as the genocidal
nature of Israel’s war becomes increasingly difficult to deny.
In a special episode of What’s Unsaid,
Eric Reidy, who commissions and edits the coverage of Gaza at The New
Humanitarian, speaks to 22-year-old Palestinian journalist Rita Baroud,
who was recently able to escape from Gaza.
“I am so
exhausted about writing or telling others how we are living our life,”
Rita says. “But I believe that my words can change something.”
Since
the beginning of Israel’s military campaign, The New Humanitarian has
been publishing first-person articles by Palestinians in Gaza. They have
been gathered into an ongoing series called “Don’t look away”.
Each article is an intimate testament to how individuals’ lives have
been upended and thrust into terror and uncertainty by unimaginable
violence, deprivation, and intentional starvation. For over a year, Rita
has shared her experiences of surviving the winter cold, dealing with
forced displacement, and navigating hope and despair during the
uncertain ceasefire.
“I always mention that I am so
depressed, that I’m so tired, that I’m so close to [quitting] this job,”
she says. “But in the end, I always just document everything, because I
am a human and I believe in humanity.”
In this podcast,
Baroud talks about life in Gaza before 7 October 2023, when she was 20
years old, and Gaza was “so small for the hopes or the dreams” she had.
With Gaza under Israeli occupation, she explains “growing up in a place
full of wars is like growing up in nothing”. She shares what it felt
like to watch her family home, where she lived for 20 years, be
destroyed, and how it pushed her into her career. As international
journalists were kept out, “we were the only ears and voice that they
left in Gaza to talk about Gaza,” she says.
At first,
Baroud turned down media requests from global outlets. “I was in shock,
because I just lost my house, and now you are asking me to talk about
Gaza?” she remembers. “But when I saw it’s not just a war, it’s a
genocide – a real genocide – I said, now, I have to do something.”
Rita was recently able to leave Gaza
with her family in a rare and limited evacuation organised by France –
an experience that was incredibly fraught. Now, in Marseille, she
admits, “I don’t do anything but work, writing, documenting.” As she
struggles to understand how the destruction of Gaza and the starving and
killing of its people continues, she says: “I feel helpless, and
writing is the only thing that I have to do right now.”
When
speaking about The New Humanitarian’s “Don’t Look Away” series, Baroud
expresses disappointment that people outside Palestine have the luxury
that “whenever you feel like you are tired because of news in Gaza, you
shut your phone down, and you shut off the news, and khalas.”
But having survived 573 days of Israel’s war in Gaza, until she was able
to evacuate, “all I want to know is why the world can’t do anything?”
I have been forcibly displaced 12 times by Israel’s war in Gaza
by RITA BAROUD
by RITA BAROUD
‘Everywhere we have gone, Israel’s evacuation orders and bombs have followed.’
As I write this, I’m sitting in a bare, grey room surrounded by the stifling August heat in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. The sun’s harsh morning rays pierce through the windows. There are no curtains. Those, like so much else that should be mundane, have become a luxury.
In fact, there are no furnishings in this room at all. Just the worn-out floor and my notebook beside me.
This is the second time I have come to Deir al-Balah as a displaced
person during Israel’s unsparing war on Gaza, which has now been going
on for more than 10 months. The first time I came was last October,
shortly after the war began.
I grew up in al-Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City. My family’s home
was hit by two airstrikes during the first week of the war. Luckily, we
were able to escape. But since then, everywhere we have gone, Israel’s
evacuation orders and bombs have followed.
We eventually went to Rafah in the south of Gaza, where we thought we
might be safe. But Israel invaded that city as well at the beginning of
May. It had become a last haven for so many of us, but we were forced
to escape once again.
It seems unimaginable, but I have been displaced 12 times in the past
10 months. I feel that I will never have a home or a safe place to stay
again. I can no longer imagine living without fearing that I will be
displaced and lose everything I have at any moment. It’s like we’ve been
trying to escape from death, but death keeps chasing us.
I don’t expect to be able to stay here in Deir al-Balah, either. I’m
afraid the Israeli army will return and we will have to flee again.
I am only 21 years old. Before this, I dreamed of finishing my
university programme and travelling abroad to study for a Master’s
degree. I wanted to see the world and explore different cultures. Now, I
feel as if death is near. I have been stripped of hope.
From Rafah to Deir al-Balah
Before Israel invaded Rafah at the beginning of May, my parents, two
siblings, and I were trying to leave the Gaza Strip. We were getting
ready to pay the $5,000-per-person fee required by an Egyptian company
to coordinate our exit. My 18-year-old brother and my grandmother were the only ones able to leave before the invasion began.
Now, the Rafah border crossing has been closed since it was taken over and destroyed by the Israeli army.
Those who would consider the depiction of George Floyd as the son of God as blasphemous must ask themselves whether George Floyd as Jesus is more offensive to them than any brother as Jesus.
Very often, there are issues we are forced
to confront that we did not know were controversial, solutions searching
for a problem. One of these is the recent removal of a painting of
Black Jesus—with a twist.
The painting in question is Kelly Latimore’s “Mama,”
a 2020 work displayed at the Catholic University of America in
Washington, DC. The artists decided to portray Jesus and his mother Mary
as Black people with golden halos. And Jesus bears a striking
resemblance to George Floyd, the Black man who was choked to death by a
police officer in Minneapolis in 2020. That Black man’s death
precipitated a worldwide outrage over police violence and systemic racism,
with millions upon millions of people participating in protests from
Minneapolis to Atlanta, from Paris to London, and from Tokyo to Tel
Aviv.
Because
the lynching of a Black man at the hands of an oppressive state–in
broad daylight with everyone there witnessing it– has a way of changing
the world, you know?
Two prints of “Mama” were stolen from Catholic University, and a petition circulated by White Christian nationalistconservative
students demanded the removal of the artistic work on the grounds it is
“disrespectful” and “sacrilegious.” The petition also stated is is
“extremely grave” that the university “would cast another in the image
of our Lord in this way, particularly for political purposes.” One student even referred to the artwork as “just another symptom of the liberalization and secularization of our campus.”
VIDEO/Zeteo/Youtube Dr. Mahrang Baloch speaks at a BYC rally in Dalbandin, Balochistan, Jan. 25, 2025. IMAGE/Facebook/Baloch Yakjehti Committee
From prison, Mahrang offers her perspective on the future of political dissent in Pakistan.
The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC)
has been advocating for Baloch rights since it was founded in 2020.
Since its early days, when the movement was known as the Bramsh Yakjehti
Committee, the BYC has organized peaceful protests against the
excessive use of force by the Pakistani state in Balochistan – including
forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and other forms of
repression.
Also since its beginning, the BYC has
been led by women – including Dr. Mahrang Baloch. The 32-year-old
became an activist after her father was “disappeared” in 2009. He was
released – only to be abducted again in 2011, and this time killed. Ever
since, Mahrang had been a central figure in the movement for human
rights and justice in Balochistan, including being honored by Time
magazine as of the 100 most influential leaders of 2024.
Led prominently by women, including
Dr. Mahrang Baloch herself, the BYC represents a new generation of
progressive political activism in a region long marred by conflict and
marginalization. The Pakistani state has responded to this peaceful
mobilization with a sweeping crackdown and arrests, disinformation
campaigns, and detentions without due process.
In March 2025, Mahrang – along with
several other BYC leaders – was arrested, and she has been held in
detention ever since, where they report “continuous mistreatment and
harassment.” This exclusive interview with Mahrang, conducted via an
intermediary who was able to visit her in prison, offers a rare and
urgent insight into the thinking of a movement that, in recent months,
has mobilized tens of thousands across Balochistan in protests against
enforced disappearances and state repression. Mahrang offers her
perspective on the current state of the BYC and its leadership while
under state custody, as well as the broader challenge of extremism and
the future of political activism and human rights advocacy under
increased state repression and now threats from the Islamic State’s
local branch.
In recent months, Balochistan has witnessed a troubling surge in religious extremism, most notably with the emergence of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), a group that appears to operate at both regional and international levels. This group has singled you out, publishing your photo in a booklet and labeling you as “evil” and a “Western puppet.” How do you respond to these personal attacks? And more broadly, what does the rise of such groups signal for the future of progressive politics in Balochistan?
Balochistan has a peculiar and
complex history with religious extremism. However, the roots of this
extremism are not embedded in Baloch society itself. Based on clear
evidence, we assert that religious extremism was imposed upon Baloch
society – it was, in a sense, installed
from the outside. The influence of religious radicalism in Balochistan
began to emerge prominently during the Afghan War and became more
pronounced after 9/11.
If we study Baloch society from a historical perspective, it is inherently secular, a society that has traditionally embraced religious, ethnic, and regional tolerance and coexistence.
The emergence of Islamic State in
Balochistan and the threats made against me or declaring me an apostate
are not something new. For the past two decades, we have witnessed how
religious extremists have been used as a tool against the progressive
Baloch political movement and against progressive educators, writers,
intellectuals, and journalists.
For example, Professor Saba
Dashtiari, a Baloch intellectual and teacher at the University of
Balochistan, openly criticized the state for human rights violations in
Balochistan. In 2011, he was murdered in broad daylight in front of the
university. A religious extremist group claimed responsibility for his
assassination through the media. Similarly, Professor Razzaq Zehri in
Khuzdar was killed merely for promoting co-education and free education
for all deserving students. Likewise, in Gwadar, Sir Zahid Askani was
also murdered for the same reason. And just last year in Turbat, another
educator, Sir Rauf Baloch, met a similar fate.
Progressive political activists in Balochistan, those who criticize the policies of the Pakistani state and advocate for human rights, face a dual threat. On one hand, they are subjected to enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings by the state of Pakistan. On the other hand, they receive death threats from religious extremist armed groups.
Last month, Islamic State released my
photo, branded me a European agent and an apostate, and warned the
public not to attend our events. This rhetoric mirrors the language used
against me by ISPR [Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of
the Pakistani military] in their press conferences. I had long
anticipated that a group like Islamic State would eventually be
activated and deployed against us, because we have been observing this
pattern in Balochistan for the past 20 years, as exemplified by the
cases I mentioned above.
I believe that threats from Islamic
State or their activation against us will not significantly impact
progressive politics in Balochistan. The Baloch political society has
matured considerably, and the people of Balochistan are well aware of
the truth, specifically, who is backing these religious extremists and
why. The public fully understands this reality.
Our greatest success is that the
majority of the Baloch people stand with us. And as long as that remains
true, the use of extremist groups like Islamic State against us will
not put an end to our struggle. The progressive political circles in
Balochistan are deeply rooted. Tactics like these will not silence the
progressive political movement in Balochistan, nor will threats from
Islamic State silence us.
You have now been imprisoned for over three months. During this period, Pakistan’s military spokesperson, in multiple ISPR press briefings, has described you as a “proxy of terror” and used terms like “evil face” in reference to your activism. How do you respond to these characterizations by the state’s military apparatus?
For the past three months, I have been detained unlawfully. During this time, according to the information available to me, ISPR has mentioned me in three to four press conferences or media briefings. In each instance, the same baseless accusations were repeated, such as: “Mahrang is a proxy of terrorists,” or “Mahrang is a foreign agent,” and so on.
Despite being a powerful state with a
600,000-strong army, numerous intelligence agencies, and various civil
institutions, ISPR has not presented even one piece of actual evidence
against me. Instead, they have relied solely on false accusations and a
media trial aimed at character assassination.
The military spokesperson has
repeatedly misrepresented the press conference I held on March 19 at the
Quetta Press Club. That press conference was not about the armed attack
on the Jaffar Express or the return of the bodies of armed individuals.
In reality, it was held to highlight the harassment faced by our fellow
human rights defenders at the hands of Pakistani security forces. We
had also submitted related cases to the United Nations Human Rights
bodies.
The video and written transcript of
that press conference are still publicly available in the media. At the
end of the press conference, a journalist asked a question regarding the
return of bodies lying in the Civil Hospital Quetta to their families.
In response, I merely said that the bodies should be identified and
handed over to the families, as this is their constitutional right. That
is the only comment I made on the matter.
The full recording of the press conference exists, and any institution can verify that I made no unlawful or unconstitutional remarks during it.
The second allegation that the
Pakistani military repeatedly makes against me and my colleagues is that
we broke into the gates of the Civil Hospital Quetta to retrieve the
bodies of armed individuals. I challenge the Pakistani military to
provide evidence to support this claim. If they can, I will declare
myself guilty. On that evening, I was at the Quetta Press Club, and
afterward, I went straight to my home. Any independent investigative
body is welcome to review CCTV footage from the Quetta Press Club and
the city of Quetta, or to interview individuals present on that day.
My colleagues, our organization, the
Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), and I have consistently spoken out
against violence and injustice. Wherever I’ve had the opportunity to
speak or write, whether in Pakistan or internationally, I have clearly
and unequivocally opposed violence. This is our well-established policy.
I believe the real issue ISPR and the
Pakistani military have with us is that we raise our voices against the
state’s violent policies and human rights violations in Balochistan. We
question them, we hold different views, and our position has gained
international recognition. Our peaceful struggle has been acknowledged
globally, and our voice is being heard. This is what troubles the
Pakistani military most.
That is why ISPR, in its repeated
press conferences, is branding me and our organization, the BYC, as
terrorists without providing a shred of evidence. The purpose of these
statements is clearly to create a false international narrative that
Mahrang and the BYC are proxies of terrorists, in an attempt to silence
international discourse on human rights violations in Balochistan and to
delegitimize our voice.
Each Google search returns a lengthy AI summary before providing
links to relevant search results. Chatbots pop up as soon as you go
online to make flight reservations or pay a credit card bill. Start
writing an email and an AI prompt appears right in the middle of a
sentence: Hi! Looks like you’re writing an email! Can I help? Hmmm? What about now?
A world in which we can use AI is quickly becoming one in which we
have little choice in the matter, and apparently, women in particular
need to step it up. The language used in recent reports like “Women are avoiding AI. Will their careers suffer?” and “Women are lagging behind on AI but they can catch up”
are instructive: “Falling behind” men in AI adoption, women are
“reluctant” to get on board and “in denial” about AI’s “all-consuming
importance.” But the encouragement toward more widespread adoption
ignores one reason women might be side-eyeing AI omnipresence: The
virtual revolution has repeatedly made them targets of real-world
aggression.
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Caution ? technophobia
The recent reporting on women and AI starts from the thesis that
women aren’t using AI at the same rates as men are, and that is bad. But
why is it bad? There’s no indication that women are refusing to comply
with the mandated use of AI tools; they’re just slower to choose them.
In not specifying what men are accomplishing with AI that women aren’t,
these pieces can only imply that AI is important because a lot of men
are using it. But a narrative in which women must catch up to men or
lose out serves a specific purpose: It reifies existing stereotypes
about women as not naturally interested in STEM fields.
Dr. Kerry McInerney, an AI ethicist at the University of Cambridge who co-hosts the podcast “The Good Robot,” points out that this narrative also conflates caution and technophobia.
“Critically questioning technology is not the same as being
anti-technology,” she says. “Because of a wide range of gender
stereotypes we consume from childhood on, it might be that there is a
gendered reluctance to adopt these tools when they’re very new.” But,
she says, this doesn’t mean it’s forever: Smart home devices are among
the products that quickly become normalized for people of all genders.
