As part of our everyday life we consume breaking news and interpret it based on our own viewpoints and beliefs. We have easy access to online social networking platforms and news media websites, where we inform ourselves about current affairs and often post about our own views, such as in news comments or social media posts. The media ecosystem enables opinions and facts to travel from news sources to news readers, from news article commenters to other readers, from social network users to their followers, etc. The views of the world many of us have depend on the information we receive via online news and social media. Hence, it is essential to maintain accurate, reliable and objective online content to ensure democracy and verity on the Web. To this end, we contribute to a trustworthy media ecosystem by analyzing news and social media in the context of politics to ensure that media serves the public interest. In this thesis, we use text mining, natural language processing and machine learning techniques to reveal underlying patterns in political news articles and political discourse in social networks. Mainstream news sources typically cover a great amount of the same news stories every day, but they often place them in a different context or report them from different perspectives. In this thesis, we are interested in how distinct and predictable newspaper journalists are, in the way they report the news, as a means to understand and identify their different political beliefs. To this end, we propose two models that classify text from news articles to their respective original news source, i.e., reported speech and also news comments. Our goal is to capture systematic quoting and commenting patterns by journalists and news commenters respectively, which can lead us to the newspaper where the quotes and comments are originally published. Predicting news sources can help us understand the potential subjective nature behind news storytelling and the magnitude of this phenomenon. Revealing this hidden knowledge can restore our trust in media by advancing transparency and diversity in the news. Media bias can be expressed in various subtle ways in the text and it is often challenging to identify these bias manifestations correctly, even for humans. However, media experts, e.g., journalists, are a powerful resource that can help us overcome the vague definition of political media bias and they can also assist automatic learners to find the hidden bias in the text. Due to the enormous technological advances in artificial intelligence, we hypothesize that identifying political bias in the news could be achieved through the combination of sophisticated deep learning modelsxi and domain expertise. Therefore, our second contribution is a high-quality and reliable news dataset annotated by journalists for political bias and a state-of-the-art solution for this task based on curriculum learning. Our aim is to discover whether domain expertise is necessary for this task and to provide an automatic solution for this traditionally manually-solved problem. User generated content is fundamentally different from news articles, e.g., messages are shorter, they are often personal and opinionated, they refer to specific topics and persons, etc. Regarding political and socio-economic news, individuals in online communities make use of social networks to keep their peers up-to-date and to share their own views on ongoing affairs. We believe that social media is also an as powerful instrument for information flow as the news sources are, and we use its unique characteristic of rapid news coverage for two applications. We analyze Twitter messages and debate transcripts during live political presidential debates to automatically predict the topics that Twitter users discuss. Our goal is to discover the favoured topics in online communities on the dates of political events as a way to understand the political subjects of public interest. With the up-to-dateness of microblogs, an additional opportunity emerges, namely to use social media posts and leverage the real-time verity about discussed individuals to find their locations. That is, given a person of interest that is mentioned in online discussions, we use the wisdom of the crowd to automatically track her physical locations over time. We evaluate our approach in the context of politics, i.e., we predict the locations of US politicians as a proof of concept for important use cases, such as to track people that are national risks, e.g., warlords and wanted criminals. ; Als festen Bestandteil unseres täglichen Lebens konsumieren wir aktuelle Nachrichten und interpretieren sie basierend auf unseren eigenen Ansichten und Überzeugungen. Wir haben einfachen Zugang zu sozialen Netzwerken und Online-Nachrichtenportalen, auf denen wir uns über aktuelle Angelegenheiten informieren und eigene Ansichten teilen, wie zum Beispiel mit Nachrichtenkommentaren oder Social-Media-Posts. Das Medien-Ökosystem ermöglicht es zum Beispiel, dass Meinungen und Fakten von Nachrichtenquellen zu Lesern, von Kommentatoren zu anderen Lesern oder von Nutzern sozialer Netzwerke zu ihren Anhängern gelangen. Die Weltsicht hängt für viele von uns von Informationen ab, die wir über Online-Nachrichten und soziale Medien erhalten. Hierfür ist es wichtig genaue, zuverlässige und objektive Inhalte zuzusichern, um die Demokratie und Wahrheit im Web gewährleisten zu können. Um zu einem vertrauenswürdigen Medien-Ökosystem beizutragen, analysieren wir Nachrichten und soziale Medien im politischen Kontext und stellen sicher, dass die Medien dem öffentlichen Interesse dienen. In dieser Arbeit verwenden wir Techniken der Computerlinguistik, des maschinellen Lernens und des Text Minings, um zugrunde liegende Muster in politischen Nachrichtenartikel und im politischen Diskurs in sozialen Netzwerken aufzudecken. Mainstream-Nachrichtenquellen decken täglich üblicherweise eine große Anzahl derselben Nachrichten ab, aber sie stellen diese oft in einem anderen Kontext dar oder berichten aus unterschiedlichen Sichtweisen. In dieser Arbeit wird untersucht, wie individuell und vorhersehbar Zeitungsjournalisten in der Art der Berichterstattung sind, um die unterschiedlichen politischen Überzeugungen zu identifizieren und zu verstehen. Zu diesem Zweck schlagen wir zwei Modelle vor, die Text aus Nachrichtenartikeln klassifizieren und ihrer jeweiligen ursprünglichen Nachrichtenquelle zuordnen, insbesondere basierend auf Zitaten und Nachrichtenkommentaren. Unser Ziel ist es, systematische Zitierungs- und Kommentierungsmuster von Journalisten bzw. Nachrichtenkommentatoren zu erfassen, was uns zu der Zeitung führen kann, in der die Zitate und Kommentare ursprünglich veröffentlicht wurden. Die Vorhersage von Nachrichtenquellen kann uns helfen, die potenziell subjektive Natur hinter dem "Storytelling" und dem Ausmaß dieses Phänomens zu verstehen. Das enthüllen jenes verborgenen Wissens kann unser Vertrauen in die Medien wiederherstellen, indem es Transparenz und Vielfalt in den Nachrichten fördert. Politische Tendenzen in der Medienberichterstattung können textuell auf verschiedene subtile Arten ausgedrückt werden und es ist selbst für Menschen oft schwierig deren Manifestierung korrekt zu identifizieren. Medienexperten wie Journalisten, sind jedoch eine gute Ressource, die uns helfen kann, die vage Definition der politischen Medien Bias zu überwinden und sie können ebenfalls dabei helfen automatischen Modellen beizubringen, versteckten Bias im Text aufzudecken. Aufgrund der enormen technologischen Fortschritte im Bereich der künstlichen Intelligenz nehmen wir an, dass die Identifizierung politischer Vorurteile in den Nachrichten durch die Kombination aus ausgefeilten Deep-Learning-Modellen und Fachkenntnissen erreicht werden kann. Daher ist unser zweiter Beitrag ein qualitativ hochwertiger und zuverlässiger Nachrichtendatensatz, der von Journalisten in Bezug auf politischen Bias annotiert wurde und ein hochmoderner Algorithmus zur Lösung dieser Aufgabe, der auf dem Prinzip des "curriculum learning" basiert. Unser Ziel ist es herauszufinden, ob Domänenwissen für diese Aufgabe erforderlich ist und eine automatische Lösung für dieses traditionell manuell bearbeitete Problem bereitzustellen. Nutzergenerierte Inhalte unterscheiden sich grundlegend von Nachrichtenartikeln. Zum Beispiel sind Botschaften oft kürzer, persönlich und dogmatisch und sie beziehen sich oft auf spezifische Themen und Personen. In Bezug auf politische und sozioökonomische Nachrichten verwenden Individuen oft soziale Netzwerke, um andere Nutzer in ihrer Interessensgruppe auf dem Laufenden zu halten und ihre persönlichen Ansichten über aktuelle Angelegenheiten zu teilen. Wir glauben, dass soziale Medien auch ein gleichermaßen leistungsfähiges Instrument für den Informationsfluss sind wie Online-Zeitungen. Daher verwenden wir ihre einzigartige Eigenschaft der schnellen Berichterstattung für zwei Anwendungen. Wir analysieren Twitter-Nachrichten und Transkripte von politischen Live-Debatten zur Präsidentschaftswahl um Themen zu klassifizieren, die von der Nutzergemeinde diskutiert werden. Unser Ziel ist es die bevorzugten Themen zu identifizieren, die in Online-Gemeinschaften zu den Terminen politischer Ereignisse diskutiert werden um die Themen von öffentlichem Interesse zu verstehen. Durch die Aktualität von Microblogs ergibt sich die zusätzliche Möglichkeit Beiträge aus sozialen Medien zu nutzen um Echtzeit-Informationen über besprochene Personen zu finden und ihre physischen Positionen zu bestimmen. Das heißt, bei einer Person von öffentlichem Interesse, die in Online-Diskussionen erwähnt wird, verwenden wir die Schwarmintelligenz der Nutzerbasis, um ihren Standort im Verlauf der Zeit automatisch zu verfolgen. Wir untersuchen unseren Ansatz im politischen Kontext, indem wir die Standorte von US-Politikern während des Präsidentschaftswahlkampfes voraussagen. Mit diesem Ansatz bieten wir eine Machbarkeitsstudie für andere wichtige Anwendungsfälle, beispielsweise um Menschen zu verfolgen, die ein nationales Risiko darstellen, wie Kriegsherren und gesuchte Kriminelle.
In this analysis of the retold experiences of 27 survivors of the war in northwestern Bosnia, the aim is to describe the informants' portrayal of "war violence", "sexual war violence", "victimhood", and "reconciliation" as a social phenomenon as well as analyzing the discursive patterns that contribute to constructing the category "victim" and "perpetrator". The violence practice during the war is portrayed as organized and ritualized and this creates a picture that the violence practice became a norm in the society, rather than the exception. When, after the war, different categories claim a "victim" status, it sparks a competition for victimhood. All informants are eager to present themselves as victims while at the same time the other categories' victim status are downplayed. The stories of reconciliation are connected to the past; the interactive consequences of war-time violence are intimately linked to the narrator's war experiences. The interviewees distance themselves from some individuals or described situations. It is common that the portrayal of possible reconciliation is transformed into a depicted implacable attitude, thus the interviewees negotiate their stances: they articulate between reconciliation and implacability statements. This study shows that after the war in Bosnia, the interpretations of biographical consequences of violence are intimately connected to previous war experiences. Narratives on the phenomenon "war violence" and "sexual war violence" depict a decay of pre-war social order. The use of violence during the war is described as organized and ritualized, which implies that the use of violence became a norm in society, rather than the exception. The narratives on the phenomenon "war violence" produce and reproduce the image of human suffering and slaughter. Those subjected to violence are portrayed in a de-humanized fashion and branded as suitable to be exposed to it. In these stories, morally correct actions are constructed as a contrast to the narratives on war violence. In these descriptions, the perpetrator is depicted as a dangerous, evil, and ideal enemy. He is portrayed as a real and powerful yet alien criminal who is said to pose a clear threat to the social order existing before the war. The narratives on wartime violence, war perpetrators, and those subjected to violence during war are enhanced with symbolicism of ritualized ethnic violence ("cockade," "chetnik," "Serb," "Muslim," "warlord"). On one hand, the narrators make an ethnic generalization based on the differences between the ethnic categorizations; on the other hand, they present their own physical existence and ethnic identity and that of those subjected to violence as being threatened by the violent situation. The disintegration of the existing, pre-war social order produces and reproduces a norm resolution that enables the ritualized war-time use of violence. This development allows the normalization of war violence in this time period even though the result, as this study shows, means human suffering and the slaughter of humans. This study presents this development in society ambivalently, as both allowed and normatively correct (during the war) and as prohibited and condemned (primarily in retrospect, in post-war narratives). It seems as if the category "war violence" and "sexual war violence" means different things depending on whether it happened during war or not, whether it is retold or observed, and who is telling the story. For some persons, violence targeting civilians during the war is an act of heroism. The Holocaust during World War Two was in many cases highly efficient and industrialized; the typical goal was to kill from a distance, impersonally. Researchers have noted that those who climbed the ranks to leadership positions or were in charge at concentration camps seemed to have engaged in very personal, sadistic acts in Germany during WWII. Is there an interaction of rank/power in wartime and level of motivation/energy input required for violence (ie, those in charge require less energy input because of the factors that put them in charge in the first place)? The stories and phrasing in this paper emphasize a distant, evil, and/or powerful leader who motivates the crowd (perhaps in part by symbolically reducing an ethnic target to something like a dog or rat) or gives orders, with the distinction from Holocaust violence that the leaders in these stories were neighbors, etc., of those they were harming and killing. In general contrast, the war violence in Bosnia was more broadly characterized by the individualized use of violence, in which the perpetrators often knew those subjected to violence. The stories reveal that firearms were seldom used; instead, the weapons were baseball bats or knives. These features can be compared to examples of violence in Rwanda, where the violence was more similar (and even more "savage") to that in my material than the typical examples of industrialized extermination violence of World War Two. The perpetrators in this study are often portrayed as people who enjoyed humiliating, battering, murdering, and inflicting pain in different ways. This characterization is a contrast to Collins (2008), who suggests that soldiers are not good in acting out close violence and that individuals are mostly inclined to consensus and solidarity. An explanation, in my study, of the soldiers' actions can be that soldiers in a war are pressured into being brave in close combat, the aim being to reign over the Others, the enemy. During war, enemies are targets of violence, to be subjected to it and neutralized. Soldiers and police in northwestern Bosnia were not close to any battlefield, and civilians thus were framed in the enemy role. By exposing civilians to violence, soldiers proved their supremacy over the enemy even when the enemy was an abstract type, unarmed and harmless. Another explanation might be found in the degree of mobilization and emotional charge that occurred before the war, through the demonization of the enemy. People were probably brutalized through this process. Those interpersonal interactions that caused the violence continue even after the violent situation is over. Recollections from perpetrators and those subjected to violence of the war do not exist only as verbal constructions in Bosnia of today. Stories about violent situations live their own lives after the war and continue being important to individuals and social life. Individuals who were expelled from northwestern Bosnia during the war in the 1990s are, in a legal sense, in a recognized violence-afflicted victim category. They suffered crimes against humanity, including most types of violent crimes. Several perpetrators were sentenced by the Hague Tribunal and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on War Crime. The crimes committed in northwestern Bosnia are qualified as genocide according to indictments against former Serbian leaders Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić. All of the interviewees in this study experienced and survived the war in northwestern Bosnia. These individuals have a present, ongoing relation with these communities: Some live there permanently, and some spend their summers in northwestern Bosnia. An analysis of the processing of experienced or described violent situations in a society that exists as a product of a series of violent acts during the war must be conducted in parallel both at the institutional and individual levels. Institutions in the administrative entity Republika Srpska deny genocide, and this approach to war-time events becomes a central theme in future, post-war analysis of the phenomena "war violence," "sexual war violence", "victimhood," and "reconciliation". The existence of Republika Srpska is based on genocide committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, it is very important to analyze the political elite's denial of the systematic acts of violence during the war that have been conveyed by the Hague Tribunal, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on War Crime, and Bosnian media. The narratives in my empirical material seem to be influenced by (or coherent with) the rhetoric mediated in these fora. When informants emphasize extermination and the systematization of violence during the war, they produce and reproduce the image of a mutual struggle on a collective level. The aim of this struggle seems to be that the described acts of violence be recognized as genocide. Another interesting aspect of the phenomenon "war violence," "victimhood," and "reconciliation" to be examined in a future analysis, regards the stories of perpetrators describing violent situations. Conversations with these actors and an analysis of their stories might add a nuanced perspective of the phenomenon "war violence," "victimhood," and "reconciliation". Another question that emerged during my work on this article is, What importance is given to stories told by the perpetrator of violence and those subjected to violence in the development of a post-war society? I believe it is of great importance to study stories in both categories. By recounting their stories, those subjected to violence could obtain recognition and some degree of self-esteem and the perpetrators be given a chance to explain to themselves and others, display shame over their actions, and possibly restore their social status. Without this type of process, those who are subjected to violence risk a life without recognition, and the perpetrators risk being permanently bound by their war-time actions, a clearly unstable foundation for the future development of a post-war society.
In this analysis of the retold experiences of 27 survivors of the war in northwestern Bosnia, the aim is to describe the informants' portrayal of "war violence", "sexual war violence", "victimhood", and "reconciliation" as a social phenomenon as well as analyzing the discursive patterns that contribute to constructing the category "victim" and "perpetrator". The violence practice during the war is portrayed as organized and ritualized and this creates a picture that the violence practice became a norm in the society, rather than the exception. When, after the war, different categories claim a "victim" status, it sparks a competition for victimhood. All informants are eager to present themselves as victims while at the same time the other categories' victim status are downplayed. The stories of reconciliation are connected to the past; the interactive consequences of war-time violence are intimately linked to the narrator's war experiences. The interviewees distance themselves from some individuals or described situations. It is common that the portrayal of possible reconciliation is transformed into a depicted implacable attitude, thus the interviewees negotiate their stances: they articulate between reconciliation and implacability statements. This study shows that after the war in Bosnia, the interpretations of biographical consequences of violence are intimately connected to previous war experiences. Narratives on the phenomenon "war violence" and "sexual war violence" depict a decay of pre-war social order. The use of violence during the war is described as organized and ritualized, which implies that the use of violence became a norm in society, rather than the exception. The narratives on the phenomenon "war violence" produce and reproduce the image of human suffering and slaughter. Those subjected to violence are portrayed in a de-humanized fashion and branded as suitable to be exposed to it. In these stories, morally correct actions are constructed as a contrast to the narratives on war violence. In these descriptions, the perpetrator is depicted as a dangerous, evil, and ideal enemy. He is portrayed as a real and powerful yet alien criminal who is said to pose a clear threat to the social order existing before the war. The narratives on wartime violence, war perpetrators, and those subjected to violence during war are enhanced with symbolicism of ritualized ethnic violence ("cockade," "chetnik," "Serb," "Muslim," "warlord"). On one hand, the narrators make an ethnic generalization based on the differences between the ethnic categorizations; on the other hand, they present their own physical existence and ethnic identity and that of those subjected to violence as being threatened by the violent situation. The disintegration of the existing, pre-war social order produces and reproduces a norm resolution that enables the ritualized war-time use of violence. This development allows the normalization of war violence in this time period even though the result, as this study shows, means human suffering and the slaughter of humans. This study presents this development in society ambivalently, as both allowed and normatively correct (during the war) and as prohibited and condemned (primarily in retrospect, in post-war narratives). It seems as if the category "war violence" and "sexual war violence" means different things depending on whether it happened during war or not, whether it is retold or observed, and who is telling the story. For some persons, violence targeting civilians during the war is an act of heroism. The Holocaust during World War Two was in many cases highly efficient and industrialized; the typical goal was to kill from a distance, impersonally. Researchers have noted that those who climbed the ranks to leadership positions or were in charge at concentration camps seemed to have engaged in very personal, sadistic acts in Germany during WWII. Is there an interaction of rank/power in wartime and level of motivation/energy input required for violence (ie, those in charge require less energy input because of the factors that put them in charge in the first place)? The stories and phrasing in this paper emphasize a distant, evil, and/or powerful leader who motivates the crowd (perhaps in part by symbolically reducing an ethnic target to something like a dog or rat) or gives orders, with the distinction from Holocaust violence that the leaders in these stories were neighbors, etc., of those they were harming and killing. In general contrast, the war violence in Bosnia was more broadly characterized by the individualized use of violence, in which the perpetrators often knew those subjected to violence. The stories reveal that firearms were seldom used; instead, the weapons were baseball bats or knives. These features can be compared to examples of violence in Rwanda, where the violence was more similar (and even more "savage") to that in my material than the typical examples of industrialized extermination violence of World War Two. The perpetrators in this study are often portrayed as people who enjoyed humiliating, battering, murdering, and inflicting pain in different ways. This characterization is a contrast to Collins (2008), who suggests that soldiers are not good in acting out close violence and that individuals are mostly inclined to consensus and solidarity. An explanation, in my study, of the soldiers' actions can be that soldiers in a war are pressured into being brave in close combat, the aim being to reign over the Others, the enemy. During war, enemies are targets of violence, to be subjected to it and neutralized. Soldiers and police in northwestern Bosnia were not close to any battlefield, and civilians thus were framed in the enemy role. By exposing civilians to violence, soldiers proved their supremacy over the enemy even when the enemy was an abstract type, unarmed and harmless. Another explanation might be found in the degree of mobilization and emotional charge that occurred before the war, through the demonization of the enemy. People were probably brutalized through this process. Those interpersonal interactions that caused the violence continue even after the violent situation is over. Recollections from perpetrators and those subjected to violence of the war do not exist only as verbal constructions in Bosnia of today. Stories about violent situations live their own lives after the war and continue being important to individuals and social life. Individuals who were expelled from northwestern Bosnia during the war in the 1990s are, in a legal sense, in a recognized violence-afflicted victim category. They suffered crimes against humanity, including most types of violent crimes. Several perpetrators were sentenced by the Hague Tribunal and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on War Crime. The crimes committed in northwestern Bosnia are qualified as genocide according to indictments against former Serbian leaders Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić. All of the interviewees in this study experienced and survived the war in northwestern Bosnia. These individuals have a present, ongoing relation with these communities: Some live there permanently, and some spend their summers in northwestern Bosnia. An analysis of the processing of experienced or described violent situations in a society that exists as a product of a series of violent acts during the war must be conducted in parallel both at the institutional and individual levels. Institutions in the administrative entity Republika Srpska deny genocide, and this approach to war-time events becomes a central theme in future, post-war analysis of the phenomena "war violence," "sexual war violence", "victimhood," and "reconciliation". The existence of Republika Srpska is based on genocide committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Therefore, it is very important to analyze the political elite's denial of the systematic acts of violence during the war that have been conveyed by the Hague Tribunal, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina on War Crime, and Bosnian media. The narratives in my empirical material seem to be influenced by (or coherent with) the rhetoric mediated in these fora. When informants emphasize extermination and the systematization of violence during the war, they produce and reproduce the image of a mutual struggle on a collective level. The aim of this struggle seems to be that the described acts of violence be recognized as genocide. Another interesting aspect of the phenomenon "war violence," "victimhood," and "reconciliation" to be examined in a future analysis, regards the stories of perpetrators describing violent situations. Conversations with these actors and an analysis of their stories might add a nuanced perspective of the phenomenon "war violence," "victimhood," and "reconciliation". Another question that emerged during my work on this article is, What importance is given to stories told by the perpetrator of violence and those subjected to violence in the development of a post-war society? I believe it is of great importance to study stories in both categories. By recounting their stories, those subjected to violence could obtain recognition and some degree of self-esteem and the perpetrators be given a chance to explain to themselves and others, display shame over their actions, and possibly restore their social status. Without this type of process, those who are subjected to violence risk a life without recognition, and the perpetrators risk being permanently bound by their war-time actions, a clearly unstable foundation for the future development of a post-war society. ; Panel with Presenters
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Today, Afghanistan is a nightmarish place for many Afghans, marked by a lack of rights and opportunities. It's crucial to recognize this reality. However, it's also important to acknowledge that numerous predictions from Washington did not materialize as expected. For all the admonishments of the Biden administration, Afghanistan has not become a gift for China or Russia, or a hotbed of transnational terrorism.President Biden faced relentless criticism for the withdrawal, decried as squandering "20 years of blood and sacrifice" by Republican Senator Jim Risch and branded "fatally flawed" by Democratic Senator Bob Menendez. Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who oversaw the end of the U.S. surge in Afghanistan during President Obama's tenure, likened the evacuation to the infamous Bay of Pigs fiasco, even before the tragic loss of 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans in an ISIS attack. Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who less than one year earlier had proudly stood for a photo op with the Taliban's chief negotiator, after agreeing to withdraw U.S. troops, told Fox News that the "Biden administration has just failed in its execution of its own plan." In April, the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board partly attributed Russia's invasion of Ukraine to "U.S. surrender in Afghanistan" and during a Congressional hearing in July, Congressman Michael McCaul labeled the withdrawal "a mistake of epic proportions." Failure is, indeed, an orphan.One of the most frequently cited reasons for why the U.S. military had to remain in Afghanistan was rooted in counterterrorism efforts. Indeed, fighting terrorism was the reason for the authorization for the use of military force that allowed U.S. troops to be deployed to Afghanistan in the first place. President Biden drew criticism from certain pundits when he asserted on August 16, 2021, that "Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on [sic] American homeland." He emphasized that the original mission was, in fact, a response to a terrorist attack and had a primary focus on counterterrorism. Some pundits might find this fact inconvenient, especially those who have come to believe that our presence in Afghanistan was primarily about nation-building, rather than acknowledging that nation-building itself was an ill-conceived strategy within the context of the War on Terror. In the lead-up to the withdrawal, the notion of over-the-horizon counterterrorism capabilities was often ridiculed as ineffective. During the fall of 2021, the Pentagon assessed that the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP), an ISIS offshoot in Afghanistan, could potentially launch an attack on the U.S. within as little as 6 months. Yet, nearly two years later, no ISKP attack originating from Afghanistan has targeted U.S. soil. Furthermore, senior analysts at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) recently evaluated that the group relies on "inexperienced operatives in Europe" to carry out attacks abroad. In other words, the next generation of 9/11 hijackers is not being trained in Afghanistan. The Biden administration showcased its ability to secure significant over-the-horizon victories against terrorists, such as when a U.S. drone killed al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Kabul apartment on July 31, 2022. As of last March, Nicholas Rasmussen, the Department of Homeland Security's counterterrorism coordinator, viewed the likelihood of a 9/11-style attack as "almost inconceivable." The world of today is different than on the morning of September 11, 2001. Back then, Afghans had extremely limited communication with the outside world. In contrast, today, over 60 percent of adults own a cell phone, with more than 80 percent having access to one. This trend holds true for other once-isolated parts of the world as well. This connectivity will pose challenges to the Taliban's ability to enforce their draconian restrictions over the long-run. It has also changed the way terrorists operate. In the realm of terrorism, the world is indeed flat. Extremist ideologies can be disseminated, and terrorists can recruit overseas operatives to inflict harm. But this may not be such a big win for terrorist groups like ISKP. While their capacity for recruitment is more substantial than in the past, their ability to train and direct quality recruits without interference is actually diminished. Meanwhile, the capacity of potential target nations to intercept such plots is stronger than ever before. Instead of participating in a global campaign of terrorist whack-a-mole, it is our domestic defenses that are best positioned to protect the homeland. This isn't meant to downplay the potential of ungoverned spaces to serve as breeding grounds for adept and motivated terrorists. However, concerning the case of Afghanistan, NCTC analysts concluded that the Taliban's activities have "prevented the branch [ISKP] from seizing territory that it could use to draw in and train foreign recruits for more sophisticated attacks."While it's true that terrorism can be managed and nation-building wasn't the purpose of going to war, it was still shocking for many Americans to witness the swift collapse of a government that so many U.S. lives, tax dollars, and lives of our Afghan partners had contributed to building. One reason for the astonishment shared by lawmakers, media, and the American public over the evacuation debacle, the vanishing of Afghan security forces, and the hasty departure of the Ghani administration, stems from a steady flow of falsehoods regarding the war. Rather than a deliberate effort of intentional deceit, it was more of a collective exercise in self-deception, omission, and hopeful exaggeration. As the U.S. war in Afghanistan trudged onward, a carefully curated liturgy of talking points was repeated in Washington. Our leaders were well aware that Afghanistan was an archipelago of cut-off cities and forward operating bases, while the Taliban dominated the countryside, roads, and the night. It was no secret that Ashraf Ghani was surrounded by a circle of sycophantic advisors. The economy was sustained by a continuous flow of aid and war-related industries. Yet, speaking candidly about this was rare until after the Afghan government collapsed.A cognitive dissonance made it acceptable for U.S. lawmakers, foreign elites, military-aged men who had fled their conflict-ridden countries, and even human rights organizations to not only call for the perpetual deployment of American soldiers but to claim we owed such a commitment. Of course, the U.S. military was more than enthusiastic to oblige. And for soldiers, there is an unrelenting desire and pressure to deploy. I too volunteered to deploy. However, the enthusiasm of young warfighters shouldn't grant a blank check for putting them in harm's way.Since the U.S. withdrawal, unsettling truths emerged. Although tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice, when push came to shove — even before the Americans' departure — Afghan forces fell to the Taliban. Their supplies ran out and corrupt leaders in Kabul left them to die or surrender. The strongman warlords, elevated by Washington and summoned by Ashraf Ghani to save the republic, fled to neighboring countries. Over the years, the Taliban were dismissed as a proxy of Pakistan, disconnected from Afghan society, yet, it was the Afghan government, created through an international conference in Bonn, Germany, and supported with billions of U.S. aid, that failed to inspire Afghans to fight for its survival at a crucial moment. Many observers, myself included, were confident that Afghans would fiercely resist the Taliban and the country would rapidly descend into civil war. The country has instead fallen into a haunting silence.One prediction that has come true is the dire situation for women under the Taliban's rule that can only be described as gender apartheid. They have progressively restricted girls'and women's right to education, closed gathering places and livelihoods like beauty parlors, and even banned women from a national park. Their actions seem more driven by an obsession with control of every aspect of women's lives than religious doctrine. Additionally, the Taliban have stifled dissent and used torture against rivals. We must confront these harsh realities and take meaningful actions, but we must also avoid making promises we cannot fulfill, both for the sake of Afghans and our own credibility.Today, Afghanistan is not at war for the first time in twenty years, with violent deaths decreasing from well over 20,000 per year in the years leading up to the U.S. withdrawal to under 2,000 last year. The country hasn't turned into a narco-state. The Taliban also haven't abandoned their extremist beliefs, disavowed al-Qaeda, or restrained the Pakistani Taliban. However, their current focus seems to be inward on Afghanistan. The Afghan economy is struggling, partly due to Taliban mismanagement, though it doesn't appear to be much worse than the previous government at management, and their corruption seems to be less. Their cruelty, however, seems unfailing.It's worth reflecting on why so many of our predictions were inaccurate. The U.S. facilitated Afghanistan's development, but it also prolonged the war. Now, Taliban rule and the isolation it creates has plunged Afghans into deeper poverty and created a nightmare for women, a bargain from hell, created by Washington and its partners in Kabul, but that ultimately can only be resolved by Afghans themselves.
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America's Global War on Terror has seen its share of stalemates, disasters, and outright defeats. During 20-plus years of armed interventions, the United States has watched its efforts implode in spectacular fashion, from Iraq in 2014 to Afghanistan in 2021. The greatest failure of its "Forever Wars," however, may not be in the Middle East, but in Africa."Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated," President George W. Bush told the American people in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, noting specifically that such militants had designs on "vast regions" of Africa.To shore up that front, the U.S. began a decades-long effort to provide copious amounts of security assistance, train many thousands of African military officers, set up dozens of outposts, dispatch its own commandos on all manner of missions, create proxy forces, launch drone strikes, and even engage in direct ground combat with militants in Africa. Most Americans, including members of Congress, are unaware of the extent of these operations. As a result, few realize how dramatically America's shadow war there has failed.The raw numbers alone speak to the depths of the disaster. As the United States was beginning its Forever Wars in 2002 and 2003, the State Department counted a total of just nine terrorist attacks in Africa. This year, militant Islamist groups on that continent have, according to the Pentagon, already conducted 6,756 attacks. In other words, since the United States ramped up its counterterrorism operations in Africa, terrorism has spiked 75,000%.Let that sink in for a moment.75,000%.A Conflict that Will Live in InfamyThe U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq opened to military successes in 2001 and 2003 that quickly devolved into sputtering occupations. In both countries, Washington's plans hinged on its ability to create national armies that could assist and eventually take over the fight against enemy forces. Both U.S.-created militaries would, in the end, crumble. In Afghanistan, a two-decade-long war ended in 2021 with the rout of an American-built, -funded, -trained, and -armed military as the Taliban recaptured the country. In Iraq, the Islamic State nearly triumphed over a U.S.-created Iraqi army in 2014, forcing Washington to reenter the conflict. U.S. troops remain embattled in Iraq and neighboring Syria to this very day.In Africa, the U.S. launched a parallel campaign in the early 2000s, supporting and training African troops from Mali in the west to Somalia in the east and creating proxy forces that would fight alongside American commandos. To carry out its missions, the U.S. military set up a network of outposts across the northern tier of the continent, including significant drone bases – from Camp Lemonnier and its satellite outpost Chabelley Airfield in the sun-bleached nation of Djibouti to Air Base 201 in Agadez, Niger — and tiny facilities with small contingents of American special operations troops in nations ranging from Libya and Niger to the Central African Republic and South Sudan.For almost a decade, Washington's war in Africa stayed largely under wraps. Then came a decision that sent Libya and the vast Sahel region into a tailspin from which they have never recovered."We came, we saw, he died," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joked after a U.S.-led NATO air campaign helped overthrow Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the longtime Libyan dictator, in 2011. President Barack Obama hailed the intervention as a success, but Libya slipped into near-failed-state status. Obama would later admit that "failing to plan for the day after" Qaddafi's defeat was the "worst mistake" of his presidency.As the Libyan leader fell, Tuareg fighters in his service looted his regime's weapons caches, returned to their native Mali, and began to take over the northern part of that nation. Anger in Mali's armed forces over the government's ineffective response resulted in a 2012 military coup. It was led by Amadou Sanogo, an officer who learned English in Texas and underwent infantry-officer basic training in Georgia, military-intelligence instruction in Arizona, and was mentored by U.S. Marines in Virginia.Having overthrown Mali's democratic government, Sanogo and his junta proved hapless in battling terrorists. With the country in turmoil, those Tuareg fighters declared an independent state, only to be muscled aside by heavily armed Islamists who instituted a harsh brand of Shariah law, causing a humanitarian crisis. A joint Franco-American-African mission prevented Mali's complete collapse but pushed the militants into areas near the borders of both Burkina Faso and Niger.Since then, those nations of the West African Sahel have been plagued by terrorist groups that have evolved, splintered, and reconstituted themselves. Under the black banners of jihadist militancy, men on motorcycles — two to a bike, wearing sunglasses and turbans, and armed with Kalashnikovs — regularly roar into villages to impose zakat (an Islamic tax); steal animals; and terrorize, assault, and kill civilians. Such relentless attacks have destabilized Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger and are now affecting their southern neighbors along the Gulf of Guinea. Violence in Togo and Benin has, for example, jumped 633% and 718% over the last year, according to the Pentagon.U.S.-trained militaries in the region have been unable to stop the onslaught and civilians have suffered horrifically. During 2002 and 2003, terrorists caused just 23 casualties in Africa. This year, according to the Pentagon, terrorist attacks in the Sahel region alone have resulted in 9,818 deaths — a 42,500% increase.At the same time, during their counterterrorism campaigns, America's military partners in the region have committed gross atrocities of their own, including extrajudicial killings. In 2020, for example, a top political leader in Burkina Faso admitted that his country's security forces were carrying out targeted executions. "We're doing this, but we're not shouting it from the rooftops," he told me, noting that such murders were good for military morale.American-mentored military personnel in that region have had only one type of demonstrable "success": overthrowing governments the United States trained them to protect. At least 15 officers who benefited from such assistance have been involved in 12 coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the war on terror. The list includes officers from Burkina Faso (2014, 2015, and twice in 2022); Chad (2021); Gambia (2014); Guinea (2021); Mali (2012, 2020, and 2021); Mauritania (2008); and Niger (2023). At least five leaders of a July coup in Niger, for example, received American assistance, according to a U.S. official. They, in turn, appointed five U.S.-trained members of the Nigerien security forces to serve as that country's governors.Military coups of that sort have even super-charged atrocities while undermining American aims, yet the United States continues to provide such regimes with counterterrorism support. Take Colonel Assimi Goïta, who worked with U.S. Special Operations forces, participated in U.S. training exercises, and attended the Joint Special Operations University in Florida before overthrowing Mali's government in 2020. Goïta then took the job of vice president in a transitional government officially charged with returning the country to civilian rule, only to seize power again in 2021.That same year, his junta reportedly authorized the deployment of the Russia-linked Wagner mercenary forces to fight Islamist militants after close to two decades of failed Western-backed counterterrorism efforts. Since then, Wagner — a paramilitary group founded by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former hot-dog vendor turned warlord — has been implicated in hundreds of human rights abuses alongside the longtime U.S.-backed Malian military, including a 2022 massacre that killed 500 civilians.Despite all of this, American military aid for Mali has never ended. While Goïta's 2020 and 2021 coups triggered prohibitions on some forms of U.S. security assistance, American tax dollars have continued to fund his forces. According to the State Department, the U.S. provided more than $16 million in security aid to Mali in 2020 and almost $5 million in 2021. As of July, the department's Bureau of Counterterrorism was waiting on congressional approval to transfer an additional $2 million to Mali. (The State Department did not reply to TomDispatch's request for an update on the status of that funding.)The Two-Decade StalemateOn the opposite side of the continent, in Somalia, stagnation and stalemate have been the watchwords for U.S. military efforts."Terrorists associated with Al Qaeda and indigenous terrorist groups have been and continue to be a presence in this region," a senior Pentagon official claimed in 2002. "These terrorists will, of course, threaten U.S. personnel and facilities." But when pressed about an actual spreading threat, the official admitted that even the most extreme Islamists "really have not engaged in acts of terrorism outside Somalia." Despite that, U.S. Special Operations forces were dispatched there in 2002, followed by military aid, advisers, trainers, and private contractors.More than 20 years later, U.S. troops are still conducting counterterrorism operations in Somalia, primarily against the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab. To this end, Washington has provided billions of dollars in counterterrorism assistance, according to a recent report by the Costs of War Project. Americans have also conducted more than 280 air strikes and commando raids there, while the CIA and special operators built up local proxy forces to conduct low-profile military operations.Since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the U.S. has launched 31 declared airstrikes in Somalia, six times the number carried out during President Obama's first term, though far fewer than the record high set by President Trump, whose administration launched 208 attacks from 2017 to 2021.America's long-running, undeclared war in Somalia has become a key driver of violence in that country, according to the Costs of War Project. "The U.S. is not simply contributing to conflict in Somalia, but has, rather, become integral to the inevitable continuation of conflict in Somalia," reported Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ Ṣóyẹmí, a lecturer in political philosophy and public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. "U.S. counterterrorism policies are," she wrote, "ensuring that the conflict continues in perpetuity."The Epicenter of International Terrorism"Supporting the development of professional and capable militaries contributes to increasing security and stability in Africa," said General William Ward, the first chief of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) — the umbrella organization overseeing U.S. military efforts on the continent — in 2010, before he was demoted for profligate travel and spending. His predictions of "increasing security and stability" have, of course, never come to pass.While the 75,000% increase in terror attacks and 42,500% increase in fatalities over the last two decades are nothing less than astounding, the most recent increases are no less devastating. "A 50-percent spike in fatalities tied to militant Islamist groups in the Sahel and Somalia over the past year has eclipsed the previous high in 2015," according to a July report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research institution. "Africa has experienced a nearly four-fold increase in reported violent events linked to militant Islamist groups over the past decade… Almost half of that growth happened in the last 3 years."Twenty-two years ago, George W. Bush announced the beginning of a Global War on Terror. "The Taliban must act, and act immediately," he insisted. "They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate." Today, of course, the Taliban reigns supreme in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda was never "stopped and defeated," and other terror groups have spread across Africa (and elsewhere). The only way "to defeat terrorism," Bush asserted, was to "eliminate it and destroy it where it grows." Yet it has grown, and spread, and a plethora of new militant groups have emerged.Bush warned that terrorists had designs on "vast regions" of Africa but was "confident of the victories to come," assuring Americans that "we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." In country after country on that continent, the U.S. has, indeed, faltered and its failures have been paid for by ordinary Africans killed, wounded, and displaced by the terror groups that Bush pledged to "defeat." Earlier this year, General Michael Langley, the current AFRICOM commander, offered what may be the ultimate verdict on America's Forever Wars on that continent. "Africa," he declared, "is now the epicenter of international terrorism."This article has been republished with permission from TomDispatch.
Professor David Dabydeen is a Guyanese-born writer, critic and academic at the Centre of Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick. In 1993 he became Guyana's ambassador at UNESCO and is still a member of their Executive Board. He has been Guyana's ambassador to China since 2010. Professor Dabydeen has also won several international and national prizes such as the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Quiller-Couch Prize, and the Hind Rattan (Jewel of India). Among his works are Slave Song (1984), The Intended (1991), Disappearance (1993); and Our Lady of Demerara (2004). He also co-edited The Oxford Companion to Black British History in 2007. RB[1]: You are both a writer and a university professor of comparative literature. Do you know yourself first as a writer or a university professor?DD[2]: First as a writer. When I was a boy that is basically all I wanted to be. As a teenager I wrote the usual self-pitying stuff and, at 16 or 17, I attempted a novel in verse, inspired by some story in the Bible, I forgotten which; but gave up after a couple of pages. Why want to be a writer? I don't know. In my youth in Guyana I never encountered a writer. I think it must have been youthful aspiration to emulate the writers of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys novels, which were standard childhood fare in Guyana. Also, since I come from a large family, it must have been the regular escape to the New Amsterdam public library to be alone, and whilst there( the place was usually empty), discovering books in the Ladybird series on great scientists, great politicians etc. I distinctly remember reading about Benjamin Franklin, Madame Curie, Alexander the Great, and others, at the age of nine or ten. There were also the odd books on Greek myths, lavishly illustrated for children. The story of Andromeda chained and naked and threatened by a monster, before being saved by Perseus, awakened unfamiliar boyish erotic feelings… perhaps not 'unfamiliar '( I was 8 or 9 ) but certainly the first time a book had aroused such feelings. When I was about 11 or 12 I came across V.S. Naipaul's MIGUEL STREET and was awed by how it made our lives in Guyana so familiar. It was set in Trinidad but the characters lived down my street. A great contrast to the Andromeda story which was exotic and erotic as opposed to the familiar lives of ordinary folk described by Naipaul.Being an academic has also been important to my writing. Firstly, you get a lot of time to read and discuss books with very bright students. Teaching in seminar groups has been amazingly exciting at times, and that intellectual excitement, sensuous in intensity, inspires the act of writing. I used to teach MA courses on Black British Literature and on Literature and Slavery. Certainly, Olaudah Equiano's autobiography in 1789, which I read multiple times for teaching purposes, left an impact on my writing, which is dotted with 'Equiano' figures ( people who moved from deprivation to the craft of writing, through cunning and an inclination for mischief mostly). Secondly, as an academic, you are exposed to theory, which can fertilised your writing and give it a 'metaphysical' content. Overexposure leads to didacticism, which I am sure my writing suffers from. As Derek Walcott says, you shouldn't "put Descartes before the horse." Most importantly, being an academic pays the bills, so whilst hunger has provoked a lot of writers, I preferred to have a house rather than a hovel. Growing up in Guyana was to exist in relative lack of material things. Many years ago I met Maya Angelou, she had kindly invited me to her house, and she had cooked a lovely Southern meal. She said: "I drive a Cadillac. I don't do bicycles, which were my youth. And I eat meat, because all I had as a child was garden vegetables'. I appreciated her extravagance, though deep down she was a kindly person, and generous. RB: You are also a politician. In 2010 you were appointed as Guyana's Ambassador in China. How have you proved yourself as a politician?DD: I don't belong to any political party in Guyana, but I enjoyed a close friendship with Cheddi and Janet Jagan. Cheddi had been cheated out of office as a result of the CIA and the British Government, in the 1960s, because he was a committed man of the left. In 1984, when I was appointed to Warwick University, I invited Cheddi to lecture there. He had no money, so the University and a travel agent friend, Vino Patel, were persuaded to provide his economy ticket and accommodation whilst at Warwick. We treated him as the true President of Guyana. All the national elections had been fiddled, and he was kept out of office for decades. Warwick offered him a platform, when other places thought of him as a 'has been'. He visited about five times, then in 1992, the Berlin Wall having fallen and the Cold war ended, the Americans allowed us to have free and fair elections, supervised by President Carter and Cheddi Jagan won and became President of Guyana. I was his regular houseguest from 1992 until 1997 when he died. He taught me more about how colonialism behaved than any textbook. He had lived through the colonial period and was jailed by the British in 1953. All his life was dedicated to the betterment of the poor: he was fiercely concerned with reducing and eliminating poverty. In return for his great hospitality, all I could do was to edit and publish some of his political speeches. He also asked me to be his Ambassador at Large and to sit on the UNESCO Executive Board representing Guyana. He had no money, since he inherited a bankrupt country in 1992, so it was an amazing honour to serve him pro bono. One day I will write something more extensive about him… one of the stories he told me was about Fidel Castro. The two of them were friends and political comrades in the late 50s and early 60s. It was Cuba who supplied us with food in the early 1960s when the CIA formented strikes and shortages in Guyana. Castro, however, needed allies in the region, against American embargo, so when Cheddi was manoeuvred out of Office, Castro started to court the friendship of our new autocratic Prime Minister, Forbes Burnham, and more or less dropped his relationship with Cheddi. I learn from this that politics trumps decency; that politicians by and large are opportunists. Learning this first hand from a great and ethical politician like Cheddi Jagan was more powerful than learning this from textbooks.As to Janet Jagan, his wife, who, when he died, was elected President in our national elections, with an enhanced vote, she was an astonishingly generous host. My role was to edit and publish her short stories for children. She was a bit lonely in Guyana, in terms of only a few people to share her passion for the arts, so whenever I showed up, a bottle of wine was uncorked, or better still, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream( we had a local equivalent). She too had been jailed by the British in 1953, so, again, I learnt from her intimate details of Guyana's struggle for independence, and the callousness of politicians ( Forbes Burnham had attempted to murder her in the 1964 but his bomb went off in the wrong place in the Party's Headquarters, killing a young activist instead, Michel Forde. Janet suffered from minor injuries.)As to Walter Rodney, Guyana's internationally renowned historian, assassinated by Forbes Burnham and the State apparatus in 1980( the International Commission of Enquiry into his death was issued to Guyana's Parliament last month), it was an enlightened decision on the part of the University of Warwick to set up an annual Memorial Lecture . The Walter Rodney lecture has been given, since 1985, by some of our leading Caribbean scholars, like Hilary Beckles, Carolyn Cooper, Harold Goulbourne, Michael Gilkes, Clem Seecharan, Ken Ramchand, Verene Shepherd and others.I don't think I have proved myself as a politician in any concrete way. My only possible 'political' act was, in 2012-2013 lobbying the Government of Guyana vigorously and regularly to set up an International Commission of Enquiry into the death of Walter Rodney. I took full advantage of my friendship with the then President, Donald Ramotar, who was readily sympathetic to Pat Rodney's written request for such an Inquiry( Walter's widow). As a member of the Walter Rodney Foundation's Advisory Group, I liaised with Pat Rodney and in 2013 the Government of Guyana agreed to set up the Commission. I don't think this was a 'political' act on my part, merely the obligation I felt to Walter Rodney, a fellow academic whose books were monumental. RB: How do you define politics?DD: In a small underdeveloped or developing country, politics normally is about the acquisition of power over state resources for the benefit of family and friends. Idealism goes out of the window as soon as the politician assumes Office; the struggle then is for survival and continuation of Office, so very little good gets done, political energy being spent on maintaining and expanding the arena of privilege. Exceptions are rare, people like CheddiJagan, Nelson Mandela…Cheddi was famous for his frugal lifestyle. He died intestate, owning no property. He never stole from the national treasury, rare for a politician from the developing world. Had Rodney lived, he would have been a leader of exemplary ethics. I should add my admiration for a previous, undemocratically elected President of Guyana, Desmond Hoyte, who, long before the Rio Summit and long before 'Climate Change' was topical, bequeathed a million acres of Guyana's rainforest to the Commonwealth, for the study of sustainable development (the Iwokrama Project). This was in 1989. It was an act of rare vision by a Caribbean politician. So, politicians like Hoyte might have been elected by crookery, but can prove to be significant and visionary leaders. I enjoyed cordial relations with him, when he was President (1985-1992) as well as when he was Leader of the Opposition, again based on books. We talked a lot about Egbert Martin, the first Guyanese poet and short story writer (19th century), and about the Guyana Prize for Literature which he had instituted in 1987, in the hope of bolstering the literary and intellectual life of Guyana and its Diaspora. He had a wonderful library, and he cared deeply for literary achievement. We talked little about party politics, except about the sharing of political power and the Mandela Rainbow ideal. Towards the end of his life he was all for power sharing, though he had enough integrity to worry about where oppositional ideas would come from if we were all in alliance. RB: Do your political affairs affect your creative writing?DD: There is no direct link, though I have written about the dereliction of Guyana under the autocratic rule of Forbes Burnham. My new novel-in-progress, set partly in China, is provoked by the unimaginable cruelty imposed on the people by the Emperors and their warlords. So, politics breeds in me a despair which can stimulate writing. One of the great disappointments, living in Britain, was Tony Blair's loss of idealism ( he seemed abundantly idealistic , which is why people voted him into Office in 1992) and the lies he told about Iraq's military capacity to justify a hideous and bloody invasion of Iraq. On the other hand, in Britain, there were politicians like Jo Cox, who was visionary and full of promise( she was murdered recently), and who made all of us feel hopeful and glad to be alive. If only we had a handful of such politicians in Guyana! I am privileged to enjoy a long-standing friendship with Clare Short, the former Labour politician whose heart is as big as Mount Kilimanjaro.RB: You have often depicted Guyanese characters and settings in your fiction such as Disappearance (1993), The Counting House (1996), and Our Lady of Demerara (2004). Does it mean that you still live in your past? and that you know yourself devoted to your homeland?DD: I do live in the past, in that my childhood in Guyana left indelible memories of family and friends and village landscape. Especially the creole language we spoke at home, and the creative tension with the 'proper' English we spoke at school. The slippages between the two are fascinating, with potential for comedy and pathos. The vigour of creole is always with me.Leaving Guyana as a boy was exciting (the prospect of adventure) but then proved to be lonely and hurtful, since I was never settled in England. On the one hand, England was a world of books but at the same time a world of grunting and guttural 'skinheads' daubing racist slogans on walls and threatening to assault immigrants. London has changed profoundly since the 60's and 70's, it is now a diverse space, enriched by waves of immigrants from the Commonwealth and from Europe. There is still a strong undercurrent of racial hostility, but more in the north of England, hence the recent vote to leave the European Community. Many in the north of England have not got accustomed to the loss of Empire and the new order of the free movement of goods and people. This hostility is at the ideological level, and contradictory, because on a day to day level, people are, by and large, decent to each other, irrespective of ethnicity. London is different; it is run by people of immigrant backgrounds: nurses, doctors, builders, hotel and retail staff, care workers. I am astonished at how much has changed, and I am excited to be living in London. The creative energy of the city is palpable, and the diversity of people is inspiring. I no longer feel culturally or physically threatened, as in the 1960's and 1970's. In other words, I feel London is home, but so is Guyana. I return to Guyana at least once a year, to renew my sense of the past, to be refreshed by creole language and creole ways, and to be awed and terrified by the rainforest. I also keep writing about Guyana partly out of a sense of obligation to the place. We only have a handful of writers, so I feel it is important to write about the place. Guyana came into modern being, in a sense, through literature: I am thinking specifically of Walter Raleigh's DISCOVERIE OF GUIANA (1596), the first text about us. RB: Why do you often depict historical tensions and challenge traditional cultural representations of the slave in your novels?DD: Guyanese history, in relation to contact with Europe, is stark: the decimation of indigenous people, the enslavement of Africans, the system of Indian indentureship. It is stark in terms of the immensity of suffering, and the sheer injustices of colonial rule. Yet, we became acquainted with Samuel Johnson's DICTIONARY and the magical properties of the English language; with the lyricism and storytelling of the Bible, of Shakespeare, of Victorian poetry. These new texts supplemented the ones we brought from Africa and India ( the KORAN, the RAMAYANA) . Ancient and living Carib, Arawak and other Amerindian stories fertilised the situation. We rewrote and reimagined our inheritance, hence Walcott, Naipaul, Jean Rhys, Pauline Melville, Grace Nichols, John Agard, and a host of others. I write about the injustice (historical, but also self-inflicted in our postcolonial condition) but more about the urge to creativity and expression that emerged from being on the margins; the fierce resolve to become educated, literate, creative, venturing beyond boundaries. Our postcolonial politicians may have failed us repeatedly, but I am forever astonished at how resilient Guyanese are. When I visit parts of India, parts of China, the nature of poverty there is brutal and overwhelming. We don't have that level of deprivation, because we have created the means of survival and the prospect of abundance, whether on the plate or on the page. RB: Do you believe that there is any nation on earth that enjoys true freedom and independence?DD: I don't know what true freedom or independence mean, we are all constrained and liberated and catapulted into creativity by being with each other. However, I recall what Walcott said about slavery: that the enslaved African being herded to the cane fields would have seen something sensationally beautiful along the way, given how lush Caribbean landscapes are. A hummingbird or kiskadee or blue-saki or brightly coloured viper…Walcott said that such encounters with beauty were moments of freedom which could only be partially understood, partially described, because they also contained the seeds of tragedy and terror. If you venture into Guyana's rainforest, you will experience the sublime which contain elemental terror and a tragic sense of how life is constantly being destroyed and remade and destroyed by tooth and claw.[1] Ruzbeh Babaee[2] David Dabydeen
