ELECTIONS ARE NOT FOR CHANGE

President Vladimir Putin

Russia’s strong man, Vladimir Putin has observed that elections around the globe are no longer about meaningful change.

“Elections have stopped being tools for change, they have been reduced to scandals, to discussions of, excuse me, who sleeps with who and who pinched who.

“This is beyond all boundaries. Frankly, if you look at the programmes of the candidates, you get the impression that they follow the same pattern”

Mr.Putin was speaking at the final plenary session of the annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

“People feel that their interests come into contrast with the views of the elite. Consequently, referendum and elections lead to more and more surprises for the authorities.

People vote contrary to what respectable official media recommend, while social movements that were previously considered too leftist or too rightist come to the forefront, pushing political heavyweights aside” he said.

According to Mr. Putin, such uncomfortable results were considered as something very unusual at first.

“Afterwards when they became increasingly frequent, they started saying that the people do not understand those in power, that they are too immature to assess the aspirations of the authorizes, whereas some others may hysterically scream that this is a consequence of external, primarily, Russian propaganda” he said.

Mr. Putin said that he would "happily" retire when the time comes.

"When the time comes, I will retire, and it will be the right thing to do. For the time being, I am not retired, I work as the leader of a large power, I have to be restrained, I do not need to show excessive aggression in what I say. I do not think that this is my style at all."

Editorial

PUTIN IS RIGHT

Russian President Vladimir Putin is absolutely right about the value of elections around the world in these times.

We fully agree with him that elections across the globe have not brought about any fundamental shift in policy.

Indeed, they have been about choosing one personality over the other even as the personalities come from the same ideological backgrounds and share common programmes.

As Putin says, on many occasions elections have been about who is sleeping with who and whose language is most foul.

The real issues of development, access to social services such as health, education, housing and others are hardly raised in these elections.

Putin’s observation comes in the round up to the December 7 elections in Ghana and it is our hope that the people of Ghana will be guided by it in making the important choice before them.

A candidate may speak you language and worship in your church but what is the relevance of that when it comes to the national development effort.

RESIDENTS RISE UP AGAINST UCC OVER SEIZURE OF THEIR CEMETERY

Inspector General of Police, John Kudalor

Residents of Akotokyire near the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in the Central Region have massed at the community’s centre where they are protesting the seizure of their cemetery by the University authorities.

They are demanding the immediate release of the cemetery, which they claim the University has encroached on for the extension of its Medical School.

The Police in Cape Coast have moved in to ensure peace prevail. The leaders are of the community are currently in a crunch meeting with the Police. It is not clear whether the University management has been invited into the meeting.

According to the residents, several attempts within the last three months to get the cemetery land back from the University in a peaceful manner has proved futile. “They are asking us to write a proposal but whether or not a proposal, we have to maintain our cemetery,” Nana Kojo Yeboah, one of two opposing chiefs in the community who is leading the residents told 3News.

The community is scheduled to burry four people on Saturday at the cemetery, hence the latest protest to get back the land ahead of the burial and funeral for their beloved ones.

They claim since the seizure of the cemetery by the University, they have been compelled to bury their natives in neighbouring communities, something the leaders say should stop. Nana Yeboah told 3News that although he gave the University a portion of land when management approached him, the cemetery was not part of the area allocated to the school yet management encroached on it.

Although he said they have performed some rituals and invoked curses on the land to deter the University authorities from accessing the place, they appear adamant.

The residents, mainly youth, believe the only way to get back their cemetery is through the protest.

FARMING FOR THE FUTURE

By Grace Mwaura

At a time when human well-being is measured not only in terms of economic development, but also on the resilience of the environment and the society we live in, it is important to question the nature of livelihood opportunities that young people are being encouraged to pursue and their implications for the future.

Assume that three in five African youth are meaningfully engaged in agriculture. Assume they are investing across the value chain – in production, processing, manufacturing, distribution and, of course, are also the major consumers. This could not only address the global food demand (which FAO estimates will increase by 70 percent by 2050), but also would translate into a significant 60 percent of the much needed youth jobs. This notwithstanding, the World Bank, Sumberg et al, and my earlier analyses on African youth in agriculture already suggest that young people are more likely to engage in agriculture as a transition into other off-farm rural/urban work opportunities. Thus, it is equally important to understand the very nature of youth livelihoods in agriculture, temporary or otherwise.

The point here is, increasing the number of (young/new) farmers will indeed address an immediate need for employment and food security in Africa; but it will also illuminate the systemic challenge concerning the future of farming. For how long can young/new farmers sustainably engage in the agricultural sector, securing their livelihoods, improving the economy, while also safeguarding the environment? I will highlight three key issues that the narrative of enticing young people into agriculture has not yet considered: - the ecological footprint, markets and the policy incentives.

The footprint

My argument is that, in addition to real incomes and enhanced capabilities, youth opportunities agriculture must also contribute to ensuring that the agricultural landscapes remain resilient to the changing environment. To achieve such transformative work opportunities, what we really need to be addressing is the ecological footprint of young/new farmers in relation to increasing agricultural productivity, decent employment opportunities amidst environmental changes. Cleland &Machiyama argue that a demographic dividend could turn into a challenge as the growing rural and urban populations put more pressure on remaining arable land, soil and water resources are exhausted as we increase production, and more land is degraded due to over-cropping and over-grazing among other intensive activities.

Globally, 13 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions come from the agriculture sector, with Africa contributing about 15 percent of that. These emissions will grow substantially in Sub-Saharan Africa, given the increasing demand for food and the availability of land in these countries that could be put under crop and livestock production. Essentially, this means that the current young/new farmers will be faced with the future challenge of reducing emissions from their agricultural practices. Yet, current efforts to engage them in agriculture do not inform or prepare them for such realities. Away from emissions reduction, let’s approach the issue from the perspective of soil and water conservation strategies, the conservation of agrobiodiversity, and the resilience of agricultural landscapes.

Better still, let’s employ systems thinking, and appreciate the food, water, energy, and environment nexus in an agricultural landscape. Even with all these approaches, sadly, the current narrative to entice young people into agriculture rarely addresses how young farmers can participate in a climate-smart agriculture. This makes the current youth agricultural opportunities a time bomb for future agricultural contribution, and vulnerability, to the impacts of climate change.

The markets

Proponents of youth entrepreneurship and employment rarely respond to the question of whether labour markets and free trade facilitate or hinder sustainable youth livelihoods in the agriculture sector. Until now, young people work in agriculture as part of a household and as informal sector employees. These work opportunities are largely categorized as un(der)employment. The current narrative and approach seeks to increase youth engagement by encouraging them to establish agribusinesses. The shifting of goalposts from un(der)employment to self-employment is a complex twist of youth opportunity spaces and as well a disguise of the reality of the marginalization of young people in the formal and informal economies.

First, there is an assumption that young people will earn decent incomes from agriculture if they become entrepreneurs; yet there is little evidence that entrepreneurship is a solution to the eminent agricultural challenges. Second is the assumption that un(der)employed young people are willing to become entrepreneurs; yet there is little evidence that entrepreneurship is a solution to existing youth unemployment challenges. Evidently, we have not addressed the challenges of current farmers and unemployed youth: why do we then anticipate that unemployed young people can enter the agriculture sector and become successful agripreneurs without addressing existing systemic challenges?

On the other side, there is an idealized view that production is indeed the problem of African agriculture. However, markets and infrastructure to facilitate access and affordability of food are equally important. Against the backdrop of a projected green revolution in Africa, staple food imports continue to increase on the continent and in most cases are cheaper than locally produced foods. On the contrary, Africa feeds the world with the some of the best and high-value crops. It is obvious that this market inequality hurdle remains a geopolitical battle that African countries could barely win. Under such a context, what incentive would a new/young farmer get for participating in the current agricultural markets? Would young/new farmers perpetuate the existing market trends that exacerbate global food crisis, or would they have the opportunity to participate in a food sovereignty movement that increases opportunities for social equity and inclusion?

Policy incentives

We could argue that the solutions to the above two issues lie in the political will to implement existing policies. Nevertheless, we do not currently have adequate policies that favour sustainable youth work opportunities. At the heart of national and regional policy reforms to achieve these transformations is the need to prioritize safeguarding the sovereignty of local farmers, their seeds, and their land resources; establishing agricultural processing and manufacturing industries so that more young people are absorbed across the agriculture value chains; and enhancing rural infrastructure to facilitate distribution, access and affordability even in the most remote areas of Africa.

Additionally, policies that promote research and localized innovations to increase crop productivity and resilience of agriculture to climate change, while also being supported by policies that allow exportation of African-processed foods, would further widen the opportunity space for young/new farmers.

Most importantly, there is need to implement policies that favour innovative financing mechanisms for young people, promote intra-trade, and facilitate environmental integrity and social equity in agriculture and across all sectors. Above all, the implementation of these policies is reliant on peaceful countries and stable governments that invest in agricultural sector reforms for the benefit of their citizens.

Moving forward, our ability to capture the potential of the youth will determine whether we address the global food crisis and the interconnected challenge of climate change, thus attaining sustainability. Essentially, envisioning a sustainable future for young farmers helps demystify the narrative that unemployed youth, provided with financial support and enticed to use ICTs, will be attracted and retained in agricultural livelihood opportunities. Our attention should focus then on whether indeed our efforts to increase employment opportunities in agriculture align with our overall vision of sustainable development.

* Dr Grace M. Mwaura is a Non-residential Research Fellow at African Centre for Technology Studies (ACT

PUNISHING THE PUNISHED: CHELSEA MANNING’S FATE

By Dr. BinoyKampmark

 “Essentially she is now being tortured as punishment for an act of desperation.” — Nancy Hollander, lawyer for Chelsea Manning, Sep 24, 2016.

It was not sufficient for US military authorities to sentence whistleblower Chelsea Manning to the onerous, disproportionate sentence of 35 years imprisonment for conniving with WikiLeaks in releasing classified material. (People have gotten less for gruesome, remorseless murders.)  Punishment has a myriad of forms, and even within the carceral system, Manning has discovered that additional methods can be devised.

As with any penal system worth its brutal salt, minor infractions incite strong rebuke and hefty retaliation. Manning has previously been in hot water over the usual violations of the prison code, be they as innocuous as possessing an expired tube of toothpaste, or having inappropriately designated research materials used for the drafting of articles.

The three member disciplinary board at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas claimed that the punishment for Manning, which involves a fourteen day sentence with seven suspended days, was occasioned by an attempt to take her own life in July.  A good deal of this gloomy effort was spurred on by official refusals to permit access to treatment for gender dysphoria.  Manning has not merely been an aberration to US state security in her actions, but a transgender puzzle within the military establishment.

Left to such devices of desperation, the only form of meagre autonomy left is suicide, that one great act of liberation that throws off the captor and negates the need for their presence.  It is the grand act of disruption.  “And because liberation is destruction,” suggests Jean Améry, “it finds its most extreme possible confirmation in voluntary death.” With, of course, the questionable point to what extent one remains in a voluntary state when confined in such circumstances.

But not even such a possibility could be permitted in a universe where solitary confinement becomes an excessive form of suicide prevention.  There is a macabre institutional irony to this, given the fact that solitary confinement goes some way to provide ample encouragement to inmates to take their own lives.

Manning is therefore being incited without the means of being fulfilled.  “It is unconscionable,” stated Justin Mazzola, researcher with Amnesty International USA, “that instead of giving her the medical help she needs, the government has put her in solitary confinement.”

As the American Civil Liberties Union has noted, some 73 percent of suicides in incarceration tended to take place in isolation cells. Adding to this grotesque figure is how many prisoners are held in what has been termed “restricted housing”, including a range of penal restrictions such as “administrative segregation, disciplinary segregation and protective custody”.  The one thread that unites all is a heavy emphasis on social isolation.

The effort on the part of Manning to take her own life was not the only gripe the board had.  Manning had been reading some supposedly seditious material – in so far as it was Gabriella Coleman’s Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy.  Even in prison, Manning’s diet of cerebral consumption has moved into such areas as Coleman’s discussion of Anonymous, though it was always going to sail close to the wind of legality.

A statement from Manning gave some detail about the treatment.  Manning was “acquitted of the ‘Resisting the Force Cell Move team’ charge” but found guilty of the “Conduct Which Threatens” charge. “This charge,” she clarifies, “was for the suicide attempt.” Such an attempt, so went the charge, threatened the “orderly running, safety, good order and discipline or security” of the facility.

Having Coleman’s book in her possession amounted to being a breach of the “Prohibited Property” injunction, given that it was an unmarked copy.  Even within cells, the threat of literature remains ominous and pressing, necessitating such actions as “disciplinary segregation”.

Manning has engaged in a range of actions that have further transmuted her actions into those of a political dissident.  A five day hunger strike, oiled by public indignation managed to yield some health care concessions.  But the prevailing weapon used by authorities of solitary confinement suggests that degrading the human spirit remains the acme of the US prison system.

That particular point of degradation is fundamentally spiritual and mental.  As the US Supreme Court noted in supposedly less enlightened times in the case of In re Medley, 134 US 160, 168 (1890), such prisoners “fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them” while others became “violently insane” or took their own lives.

Most strikingly, such solitary punishment could hardly ever be said to reform a person, sabotaging personality and being.  It could hardly ever have any relevance for Manning, whose conscience remains unhampered by the assaults. There was, in short, never anything to reform to begin with.

Far from enabling a person to enter a world after such an ordeal, such a cruel state, according to the Supreme Court, would have produced a defective of low “mental activity” incapable of providing service to the community. Manning’s supporters can only hope that such a state of mind has yet to be reached.

Dr. BinoyKampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

Global Research, September 26, 2016