A Shia-Shia Conflict in Iraq

Fallout from Syria Withdrawal Continues, SDF Allies with Damascus

A Weekly Political News Magazine

What is Boris Johnson›s New Brexit Deal?

Issue 1770- October - 18/10/2019

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1770- October - 18/10/2019

What’s So Big About William Blake? www.majalla.com

A Shia-Shia Conflict in Iraq

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Editorial This past year has been quite eventful for the Middle East, in addition to rising tensions in the Arabian Gulf; many Arab states have been rocked by mass protests which have thus far caused two longtime leaders, Bouteflika of Algeria and Bashir of Sudan, to resign. Now it seems that the mass mobilizations have moved to other areas in the region as rallies have started taking place in Lebanon and Iraq. The recent protests in Iraq are particularly fascinating as it highlighted Iran’s power over the Arab country, and more significantly the growing frustration of Shia residents towards Iran backed leaders and forces. Most protests have taken place in Shia populated areas, and the response from the Iran-backed Hashd (PMF) forces has been swift and violent. This week’s cover story by Hanin Ghaddar focuses on these events and the implications they have on the current Iraqi state apparatus, which Iran supports, and wider Iranian hegemony in the region.

Trump’s decision last week to withdraw US troops from northern Syria instantly resulted in a Turkish military occupation of SDF held areas. In a desperate attempt to fend off the Turks, the Kurds have called on the services of Assad forces; meanwhile, Russian troops have deployed Manbij in order to separate Turkish forces from those of the SDF and Assad. Within a week of American withdrawal, Turkish, Assad and Russian troops have become involved in northern Syria, 275 SDF troops have been killed while hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced. Joseph Braude writes on these recent developments while he also weighs in on the response from the US Congress and the EU, as the former has introduced a bill to place sanctions on Turkey and the latter has banned arms sales to Ankara.

With the recent news of the UK and EU finally reaching a new agreement, one might think that the Brexit saga might finally subside.

However, it is highly likely that the deal will not pass through British parliament and the EU does not seem adamant about granting further extensions. As a result, a no-deal scenario still seems like the most probable outcome, and such an event might have catastrophic implications on the UK’s health sector and the border relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Yasmine El-Geressi and Ali El Shamy write on what a no-deal might have in store for the NHS, Irish border as well as travel arrangements between the UK and EU. We invite you to read these articles and more on our website eng. majalla.com. As always, we welcome and value our reader’s feedback and we invite you to take the opportunity to leave your comments on our website.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

28 China’s Neo-Maoist Moment

Issue 1770- October - 18/10/2019

24 Peace Is Slipping Away in Colombia

20 The Not So Special Relationship

16 Brexit, the NHS and the Irish Border

32 Kais Saied is Elected as Tunisia’s President

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John Goodenough: The Oldest Nobel Prize Winner Who Initiated the Wireless Revolution 3

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34 Fitness Trend: Nordic Walking

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Extinction Rebellion activists gather on Manly beach and bury their heads in the sand on October 2019 ,11 in Sydney, Australia. The event was organised as part of Extinction Rebellion's global "Week Of Action" in 60 cities across the world to bring attention to climate change and push governments to declare a climate emergency. (Getty)

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Burnt vehicles are seen after fire took out forests in the mountainous area that flank Damour river near the village of Meshref in Lebanon's Shouf mountains, southeast of the capital Beirut, Lebanon on October 2019 ,15. Flames devoured large swaths of land in several Lebanese and Syrian regions. The outbreak coincided with high temperatures and strong winds, according to the official media in both countries. (Getty)

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eekly news cabinet to backtrack on plans to raise a new tax on WhatsApp voice calls. Tear gas was fired as some demonstrators and police clashed in the early hours. The unrest led Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri to cancel a cabinet meeting due on Friday to discuss the 2020 draft budget.

Lebanese media has said he would instead make a speech on the protests.

Fires lit in the street in central Beirut were smoldering on Friday morning.

Pavements were scattered with the glass of several smashed shop-fronts and billboards had been torn down.

Lebanon Battles Worst Wildfire in Decades Lebanon has asked for international help battling hundreds of forest fires that broke out on Monday and have spread abroad. The blazes - the worst in decades - started in Lebanon's western mountains, amid a heatwave and strong winds. The Red Cross in Lebanon said 18 people have been hospitalized and 88 received emergency medical care. One person is confirmed dead as a result of the fire. Fire crews were overwhelmed by the flames in the Mount Lebanon region early Tuesday, forcing the Interior Ministry to send riot police with engines equipped with

water cannons to help. Lebanon’s prime minister Saad Hariri said if the fires turn out to be intentional those behind it “will pay a price” Mr Hariri added that an investigation will be opened to know what caused the fires.

Protests Sweep Lebanon Protesters across Lebanon blocked roads with burning tires on Friday and marched in Beirut for a second day in demonstrations targeting the government over an economic crisis.

In Lebanon’s biggest protest in years, thousands of people gathered outside the government headquarters in central Beirut on Thursday evening, forcing the

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Shells Still Fall in Northeast Syria Despite Pause Agreement Between Turkey and US Shelling could be heard at the SyrianTurkish border on Friday morning despite a five-day ceasefire agreed between Turkey and the United States, and Washington said the deal covered only a small part of the territory Ankara aims to seize. Reuters journalists at the border heard machine-gun fire and shelling and saw smoke rising from the Syrian border battlefield city of Ras al Ain early on Friday, although the sounds of fighting later subsided by mid-morning. The truce, announced on Thursday by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence after talks in Ankara with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, sets

out a five-day pause to let the Kurdishled SDF militia withdraw from an area controlled by Turkish forces.

Trump Warned Erdogan in Letter: 'Don't be a Tough Guy' or 'a Fool' U.S. President Donald Trump warned Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in a letter about Turkey’s incursion into Syria, “Don’t be a tough guy” and “Don’t be a fool!” The Oct. 9 letter was released by the White House on Wednesday as Trump battled to control the political damage following his decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria, clearing the way for the Turkish incursion against America’s Kurdish allies. The letter tried to persuade Erdogan to reverse a decision to invade Syria that Erdogan told Trump about in an Oct 6 phone call.

“Let’s work out a good deal!”

Trump said. “You don’t want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy and I will.”

“Robocop” Kais Saied wins Tunisian Presidential Election The electoral commission announced that the former law professor Kais Saied , 61, secured %73 of votes in the run-off election.He was up against media mogul Nabil Karoui, 56, who had campaigned from prison after being arrested on charges of money laundering and tax fraud. Saied thanked the country’s young people “for turning a new page” and vowed to try to build “a new Tunisia”. About %90 of -18 to -25yearolds voted for Saied, according to estimates by the Sigma polling institute, compared with %49.2 of voters over 60.

said. The move, which is expected to take place at the beginning of November, will be the fourth Iranian step away from the deal, and puts pressure on France, Germany and the UK to make some form of countermove. The joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) was signed in 2015 but Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in 2018, placing pressure on Europe to prove to Iran it was worth sticking with the deal. On Wednesday, the spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, Hossein Naghavi-Hosseini, said: “In the fourth step of reducing JCPOA commitments, we will probably impose limits on inspections, which means the International Atomic Energy Agency’s surveillance on Iran’s nuclear activities will be reduced.”

Iran to Limit Inspectors' Access to its Nuclear Facilities Boris Johnson Agrees Brexit deal

Iran will further reduce its commitment to the nuclear deal signed with world powers with EU by limiting international inspectors’ access to its nuclear sites, senior Iranian MPs have Boris Johnson has agreed a new Brexit deal with the EU after last-ditch talks ahead of a crucial leaders' summit in Brussels. Negotiators worked until 2am on Thursday to strike the deal – but questions remain about whether it can gain enough support back in Westminster. "Where there is a will, there is a deal – we have one!" JeanClaude Juncker said in a statement on Thursday morning. But the agreement is crucially understood to not have the support of DUP members of parliament, whose votes in parliament are almost certainly required for it to pass it. MPs will vote on the deal on Saturday.

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A Shia-Shia Conflict in Iraq For the first Time in the Arab world, the Shia Rose Up Against the Iran-backed Leaders 10

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These demonstrators will have to face many challenges in the days to come if they were to continue with their revolution, knowing that Iran will never voluntarily let go of Iraq. means by the regime to stay in power.

If anything, the use of force by the Iraqi regime to quell the demonstrations, only lead to a wider division between the Iraqi political class and the Iraqi people. But the most significant outcome, is that the cities and towns that rose against the leadership are Shia-majority cites, meaning that Iran’s ideology of Wilayat Al-Faqih did not spread in Iraq the way Tehran meant it to.

Another important outcome is that the political class came out divided into two components: one that still believes in Iraqi state institutions and national identity, but is too weak to contribute to any vital change, and another, the armed Iranianbacked militias represented by the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are strong enough to use violence and kill people without any fear of retribution or accountability.

THE HASHD POWER

An Iraqi protester gestures the v-sign during a demonstration against state corruption, failing public services and unemployment at Tayaran square in Baghdad on October ,2 2019. (Getty)

by Hanin Ghaddar It is going to be very difficult for the Iraqi regime to amend its relation with the Iraqi people in general, and with the Iraqi Shia in particular.

After the blood has been spilled in the streets of Iraq earlier this month, one can tell that this relation has been broken, and it doesn’t seem that the Iraqis are going to stay away from the streets for long. Many anticipate larger demonstration later this month, and in return, more aggressive

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Faleh Al-Fayyad, the head of the Popular Mobilization Forces, was very clear in his statements that followed the demonstration.

He defined what Iraq would look like when he said that the violence used by his forces against the unarmed demonstrators was to defend the Iraqi state, and that his forces are ready to face whoever will try to challenge their power over the State and its institutions.

This is very similar of what happened in Lebanon during the May events of 2008, when Hezbollah’s forces attacked the Sunni and Druze areas in Lebanon, forced their March 14 opponents to go to Doha where the infamous Doha agreement was signed and when everyone surrendered to Hezbollah. At that moment, the

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political balance in Lebanon was eradicated and Hezbollah actually took control.

The Iraqi street might be stronger than Lebanon’s political leaders, and the Iraqis will probably go back to the streets again to tell Iran that this is not over; however, according to the Hashd (PMFs), challenging Iran’s power in Iraq will not be tolerated.

Meanwhile, Adel Abdel Mahdi’s government found itself on the margins, unable to stop the bloodshed, and incapable of offering real promises to the people. The list of “reforms” that it announced were short of a real vision and a sustainable program. All he did was promise more charity to the Iraqis without addressing the real questions.

Fearing a new and wide range of demonstrations, Abdel Mahdi continues to arrest activists and threatens a crackdown on the Iraqi people, mainly in Shia areas. Nothing he did proved to the Iraqis that his government was even a little independent from the Iranian regime. The real authority in Iraq is the Hashd and that was the reality that unfolded itself after the first of October.

Looking forward, Abdel Mahdi will probably not resign, even if he wanted to. He will not be allowed to resign because Iran needs this system. Other Iraqi leaders such as Muqtada Al-Sadr and Ammar Al-Hakim, who were taken and overwhelmed by the Iraqi street will try to tactically move around these voices to show that they still in control of the street and that they have not lost this leverage.

However, it seems the Iraqi street has moved

The real authority in Iraq is the Hashd and that was the reality that unfolded itself after the first of October.

away already and the only internal power that can still protect it to a certain extent is Sistani and the Najaf. The first statement that came from Najaf was weak and was obviously neutral to everyone. However, as the days passed, Najaf’s rhetoric got stronger and more to the side of the street. This is still not enough, and the main religious institution for the Arab Shia needs to realize this historic moment and help Iraq move away from Iran.

THE SHIA STREET When the Iraqi Shia burns the Iranian flag in the

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A protester wearing an Iraqi national flag as a bandana face mask stands during clashes between protesters and riot police amidst demonstrations against state corruption, failing public services, and unemployment, in the Iraqi capital Baghdad's central Tahrir Square on October 2019 ,3. (Getty)

What happened early October in Iraq was fascinating on many levels, but it should be the beginning of an elaborate and clear political process that moves through the street to the Iraqi political institutions.

streets of Iraq, it is a moment that should not be taken lightly. The Arab world witnessed many demonstrations in the past decade. Sometimes these were against dictators, such as in Egypt, an others against the “system” such as in Lebanon.

In many cases, it was in sectarian milieu such as in Syria where the Sunni-majority rose up against the Alwaite minority. In Lebanon, demonstrations happen on a regular basis, but it is always against the others’ leaders. The Shia in Lebanon almost never demonstrated against Hezbollah.

In Iraq, for the very first time in the Arab world, the Shia rose up against the Shia leaders backed

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by Iran. And this is a big deal.

However, these demonstrators will have to face many challenges in the days to come if they were to continue with their revolution, knowing that Iran will never voluntarily let go of Iraq. They will have to deal with the Hashd directly, as the protector of Iran in Iraq, and they will have to face them in the streets and in the institutions. Also, the demonstrations should include other communities, like the Sunnis and the Kurds. That’s how it develops an encompassing national identity. Moreover, a real vision with a clear political program and clear demands need to be made in order to achieve anything realistic.

What happened early October in Iraq was fascinating on many levels, but it should be the beginning of an elaborate and clear political process that moves through the street to the Iraqi political institutions.

Iran needs Iraq, as much as it needs Syria and Lebanon. However, Iraq has an economic and financial value for the Iranian, as an alternative source of funding, in the light of the increased US sanctions. Iran will use everything in its capacity to crush the opposition, especially within the Shia street, and it will go beyond the level of crimes it committed in Syria to protect Bashar Al Assad.

Without Iraq, Iran will lose to sanctions and international pressure. That is exactly why this battle should be a smart one.

Hanin Ghaddar is the inaugural Friedmann Visiting Fellow at The Washington Institute.

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Fallout from Syria Withdrawal Continues, SDF Allies with Damascus International Actors are Rapidly Adjusting to a New Reality

by Joseph Braude As America withdraws from northeastern Syria and Turkey invades, international actors are rapidly adjusting to a new reality. Though initially neutral

toward the Turkish move, a deluge of negative outcomes, including reports of ISIS detainees escaping SDF detention facilities en masse, drove President Trump to announce sanctions on Turkey.

These were met with widespread support on Capitol

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Hill, as both Democrats and Republicans have largely opposed the abandonment of American allies. In the meantime, the SDF has concluded a desperate bargain with Damascus, welcoming Asad’s forces back into the northeast in a bid to fend off the Turkish offensive.

TURKEY INVADES, AMERICA WITHDRAWS, ASSAD EXPANDS In the last week, both the U.S. withdrawal from northeastern Syria and the Turkish invasion of SDF-held territory along its border have accelerated. Turkish forces have massed opposite Manbij, and have moved swiftly to occupy much of the border region between Tal Abyad and Tal Tamer, along the strategic M4 highway.

According to the Syrian Observatory, some 250 SDF fighters have been killed in the clashes.

According to Kurdish sources, nearly 275,000 civilians have been displaced.

Syrian families fleeing the battle zone between Turkey-led forces and Kurdish fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in and around the northern flashpoint town of Ras al-Ain on the border with Turkey, arrive along with Syrian Arab and Kurdish civilians in the city of Tal Tamr on the outskirts of Hasakeh on October ,15 2019. (Getty)

As the combat intensifies, US President Trump has opted to withdraw nearly 1,000 American troops from northeastern Syria, with Defense Secretary Mark Esper issuing a statement saying “the risk to U.S. forces in northeast Syria has reached an unacceptable level.” For its part, the Turkish political echelon has shown no signs of relenting.

Turkish parliament speaker Mustafa Sentop said, “We as Turkey expect our allies in NATO to stand beside us against terrorist organizations, we are surprised to see that some of our allies are on the side of the terrorist organization.”

The combination of accelerated American withdrawal and intensified Turkish ground operations reached critical mass on Sunday, forcing the SDF leadership to invite Syrian regime forces to deploy throughout the northeast and along the Turkish border. As of Monday, Russian troops began patrolling Manbij, in a bid to separate Turkish-backed forces from the SDF and Syrian government troops, while Assad’s forces deployed in downtown al-Raqqah, where footage has emerged of Syrian troops entering in force for the first time since 2013.

AMERICA, EU SANCTION TURKEY Through all this, the American response has

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The combination of accelerated American withdrawal and intensified Turkish ground operations reached critical mass on Sunday, forcing the SDF leadership to invite Syrian regime forces to deploy throughout the northeast and along the Turkish border. been deeply conflicted. President Trump appeared to bless both the Turkish invasion and Assad’s entrance into northeastern Syria over the weekend, saying: “Let Syria and Assad protect the Kurds and fight Turkey for their own land,” and adding: “others may want to come in and fight for one side or the other. Let them!”

Then, a few hours later, he issued a statement condemning the Turkish move for “precipitating a humanitarian crisis and setting conditions for possible war crimes” and announcing his intention to sign an executive order imposing sanctions on Turkish officials.

Within Congress, a clearer picture has emerged.

Pro-Kurdish sentiment runs high among both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, with leaders in both parties expressing deep frustration at President Erdogan’s decision to invade. As Senator Graham put it, “What do you tell an American soldier who’s fought with the Kurds [against ISIS], died with Kurds, and say we’re leaving them behind?” This week, he and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen introduced a bill to impose “immediate, far-reaching” sanctions on Turkish government officials and ban the sale of American military equipment to Turkey.

Reception to the Turkish move has been no warmer in Europe, where the EU issued a statement condemning the operation, saying it “seriously undermines the stability and the security of the whole region”, and agreed to impose a ban on arms sales to Ankara.

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Brexit, the NHS and the Irish Border

Johnson and the EU Agree to a Deal, but a No-Deal Scenario is Still Probable

by Yasmine El-Geressi and Ali El Shamy After a storm of recent developments in the Brexit arena, a no-deal scenario continues to be a potential outcome of the Brexit debate. While Johnson and the EU have come to an agreement, there is still the possibility that British parliament will reject it, effectively dragging the UK back to square one. Nevertheless, treasury assessments show that

a no-deal scenario would shrink our economy by 90ÂŁbn, further reducing the money available for vital public services which are which are already stretched to dangerous levels by more than a decade of austerity measures. With many care providers already in difficulty, a hit to the public finances could have big knock-on consequences for the NHS. The effect of a no-deal Brexit on the delivery of public health services has received particular media attention, with

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A photocall attempting to highlight NHS stockpiling in the event of a 'no-deal Brexit, by youth campaign group 'Our Future, Our Choice', (OFOC), takes place outside the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on August 2018 ,22 in London, England. (Getty)

health think tanks, and several other organizations voicing their concern. In August, health union leaders, including the British Medical Association, joined forces to issue a strong warning that a no-deal Brexit could ‘devastate’ the NHS and lead to the “disintegration of the health service”. They said that leaving the EU without a deal could also intensify the staffing "crisis" in the NHS, adding that thousands of EU staff have already left since the 2016 referendum.

An open letter to MPs published by The King’s Fund – an independent charity aimed at improving health and care across England – voiced concerns about the potentially problematic implications of no-deal with regard to the NHS staffing crisis, shortages and price rises for vital supplies, funding shortfalls and providing care for returning emigrants. The Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists commented that the government was “not fully prepared” and risked increasing NHS costs without providing benefits to patients.

Last month, Whitehall’s spending watchdog found that Ministers will not know whether there are enough medicines, medical supplies or freight capacity to support the NHS if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. Meg Hillier, the chair of the public accounts committee, said the report was deeply concerning and could result in the “gravest of consequences”. “The Department of Health and Social Care still doesn’t know whether all stockpiles are in place, it has no idea whether social care providers are ready and it is still not certain whether all the freight capacity government needs will be in place on time. If government gets this wrong, it could have the gravest of consequences,” the Labour MP said.

Meanwhile, England’s most senior medical adviser warned this week that people could die as a result of shortages of medical supplies in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Professor Dame Sally Davies, the outgoing chief medical officer, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Everyone has worked very hard to prepare but I will say what I said before. We cannot guarantee that there will not be shortages not only of medicines but technology and gadgets. There may be deaths, we can’t guarantee there won’t. [Patients’ lives] are at risk.”

Dame Sally's intervention comes a month after documents on the Government's own planning for a no-deal scenario revealed that food and medicines could be in shortage.

According to files from Operation Yellowhammer, there could be "significant disruption lasting up to six months" of medicines coming into the UK. "Whilst some products can be stockpiled, others cannot due to short shelf lives - it will also not be practical to stockpile products to cover expected delays of up to six months," the document said.

The original leak of the operation, which is being led by the Cabinet Office’s Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS), was followed by the MP-forced publication of the government’s ‘reasonable worst-case planning assumptions’ in September.

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In August, health union leaders, including the British Medical Association, joined forces to issue a strong warning that a no-deal Brexit could ‘devastate’ the NHS and lead to the “disintegration of the health service”.

According to The Observer, a senior Whitehall source said that the document is “not Project Fear, this is the most realistic assessment of what the public face with no deal.

These are likely, basic, reasonable scenarios – not the worst case.”

As of September 2019, the government has committed 8.3£ billion towards preparing for no deal, around 434£ million of which is to be spent on stockpiling medicines and medical products as well as covering freight capacity and warehousing. The National Audit Office praised the government for the "enormous amount of work" that had been done but said there were still "significant" gaps” and that it is still not known exactly what level of stockpiling is in place. The watch dog said that a no-deal Brexit presents risks to the NHS and care homes despite the extensive government planning. The NOA also said there was no clear evidence the care sector was ready, raising concerns that the sector has not received enough government support.

HOW WILL BREXIT AFFECT UK AND EU TRAVELLERS? Unlike Britain’s health sector, there are clearer answers as to how travelling between the UK and EU will change in the event of a no-deal. As of the writing of this piece, the UK and the EU have agreed to a deal that both Boris Johnson and Michel Barnier are content with. However, for it to go through both the British parliament and the European parliament will need to approve it, and things aren’t looking promising for Johnson as the DUP has already stated that they won’t vote for it, and the majority of Labour MPs will likely reject it. As such, all eyes will be on the House of Commons’ Saturday sitting where MPs will discuss, dissect the deal and either pass it or reject it, and if MPs reject it the Benn Act would require Johnson to request an extension.

Until we see what will happen in the coming days, we can only report on the information that has been available for the past few weeks.

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First off, according to the UK’s government website, if a UK citizen wishes to enter an EU country in the event of no-deal, then he or she will need to ensure that their passport is still valid for the next six months, and that it’s not older than ten years (even if it still has a -6month validity). Much to the relief of holiday makers and business travellers, the European Commission confirmed that UK citizens will not need a visa to enter EU countries and they will not need one as long as they’re only staying for up to 90 days within a -180day period. Flights between both entities will also not be effected in a no-deal scenario. However, the BBC reported those conditions won’t be in place forever because by 2021 British citizens (as well as citizens from other nonEU member states), will have to apply for a visa waiver for future trips to EU countries, the waiver will be known as the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS) and will need to be renewed every three years. If a deal is put in place, then both entities will have until the end of the transition period (slated for December 2020) to negotiate new travel arrangements. Until the end of the transition period, UK and EU citizens will be able travel freely with only a passport or an identity card, in other words things would stay the same until December 2020.

As for EU citizens going into the UK, in the event that a deal is agreed then no changes to EU citizen’s travel and living arrangements in the UK will happen until 2021. The UK government website also states that if the UK leaves without a deal, then EU, EEA and Swiss citizens will be able to enter the UK without a visa even after October 31, moreover these citizens will be able to live and work in the UK until December 2021. However, the key date here is December ,31 2020 if EU citizens who arrived in the UK before it leaves the bloc wish to remain living there then they will need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme. For future expats who wish to move to the UK after Brexit, they will need to apply for European temporary leave to remain. Moreover,

Johnson’s deal specified that Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the UK, will still be subject EU customs rules and there would be customs checks for goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

EU citizens and citizens of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland will not need a visa to enter the UK, just their passports. As of writing of this piece, it seems that few changes will happen for UK/EU travellers and immigrants who wish to move freely within the bloc. This is especially true for British citizens and Irish citizens as no changes whatsoever will happen Irish citizens will be able to enter, work and study in the UK without a visa as they can now and vice-versa for British citizens wishing to settle in the Republic of Ireland, and both sides are determined to keep this arrangement with or without a deal. If Johnson’s deal goes through both parliaments, then the UK will abide by EU rules until the end of 2020 and the rights if EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens living in EU countries will be guaranteed. As such, expats and travellers on both sides would have little to worry about.

WHAT ABOUT THE IRISH BORDER? The Irish border has been at the centre of the negotiations and Theresa May’s controversial backstop has been one of the major reasons why her deal has been rejected multiple times in parliament. Johnson’s deal has instead given Northern Ireland a special status in which it remains part of the EU single market and the UK’s customs territory. The deal specified that Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the UK, will still be subject EU customs rules and there would be customs checks for goods moving between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. In other words, Northern Ireland would be de jure part of the UK customs territory, but de facto part of the EU customs union. The Northern Irish assembly will get to vote on the arrangements every four years, and changes would pass by a simple majority rather than a majority from both unionists and nationalists.

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Demonstrators from 'Border Communities Against Brexit' attend an anti-No Deal Brexit protest at the Carrickcarnon border crossing on the road between Dundalk, Ireland on October ,16 2019, and Newry in Northern Ireland. (Getty)

What is Boris Johnson's New Brexit Deal?

EU and UK Negotiators Reach a New Brexit Agreement that Would Avoid a Hard Border Majalla - London Boris Johnson has agreed the terms of a Brexit deal, paving the way for a historic vote in the UK Parliament on Saturday that could finally see the UK leave the European Union. Negotiators in Brussels worked intensely on Wednesday and Thursday to reach an agreement on a revised version of the withdrawal agreement which both the UK and the EU welcomed.

The new Brexit deal is essentially the old Brexit deal with few key tweaks to the political declaration but the one major difference between Johnson’s and Theresa May’s deal is the Northern Ireland border.

May’s deal included the backstop - a sort of safety net to keep the island of Ireland from a hard border in the event a thorough trade deal could not be established.

This was widely criticised, faulted for keeping the UK tied to the customs union without a say in it.

In the new deal, Northern Ireland will be in the UK customs territory ‘forever’ and will benefit from any free trade deals the UK strikes. However, there will be a ‘special arrangement’ for Northern Ireland, ‘reflecting the unique circumstances there’. There will be no hard border between the two Irelands, as Northern Ireland will remain aligned with the single market on goods, but checks and procedures will take place at ports and airports, and not at the border.

This means UK authorities will have responsibility for applying the EU rules in Northern Ireland. This will be underpinned by the principle of ‘democratic consent’, and Northern Ireland will have the ability to leave the arrangement through a vote in the NI Assembly. But this vote would not happen until four years after the end of the transition period that is due to run until the end of 2020 - so no earlier than January 2025. If the Northern Irish Assembly votes against the provisions, they would lose force two years later during which time the "joint committee" would make recommendations to the UK and EU on "necessary measures". If the Assembly accepts the continuing provisions by a simple majority, they

Boris Johnson and JeanClaude Juncker.

(Getty)

will then apply for another four years. If the deal has "cross-community support" then they will apply for eight years, or until a new agreement on the future relationship is reached if that comes sooner.

During the Brexit talks, the EU worried that the U.K. could apply VAT rates to goods in Northern Ireland that were lower than those of the Republic of Ireland, undermining the single market. Under the Northern Ireland protocol, EU rules on VAT and excise duties will apply in Northern Ireland, with the U.K. responsible for their collection. However, revenues resulting from transactions taxable in Northern Ireland will be retained by the U.K. rather than being remitted to the EU. DUP leader Arlene Foster and deputy Nigel Dodds put out a joint statement laying out their concerns with the draft VAT terms. The pair said: “As things stand, we could not support what is being suggested on customs and consent issues and there is a lack of clarity on VAT. The new Political Declaration sets out the broad direction for the future relationship with the EU, with both sides committing to a "comprehensive and balanced Free Trade Agreement" with "zero tariffs, fees, charges or quantitative restrictions" between the two sides.

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WHATS NEXT? The next challenge for Johnson is to get enough support to pass the deal through Parliament, particularly from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Union Party, particularly as the Johnson's governing partners which lends the government 10 votes have already said they do not support.

"These proposals are not, in our view, beneficial to the economic well-being of Northern Ireland and they undermine the integrity of the Union," a party representative said. They added that the party "will be unable to support these proposals in Parliament."

Labour have already called it a ‘sell-out deal’ with leader Jeremy Corbyn saying there should be a second referendum so that voters get the final say. He said the new deal was worse than the one Theresa May negotiated, which was rejected by Westminster three times. If the deal is voted down in the U.K. parliament on Saturday, Johnson would likely have to seek another extension to negotiations under the terms of the Benn Act, a new law designed to prevent a no-deal Brexit. The EU could refuse to give the U.K. more time, which would leave MPs with the choice of backing Johnson’s deal or leaving without a deal.

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The Not So Special Relationship How Trump Has Bewildered the United Kingdom

by Steve Bloomfield In 2009, as then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was preparing to visit President Barack Obama in the White House for the first time, his aides devoted long strategy sessions to the nature of the gift that the prime minister would hand to the president. Eventually, they opted for a pen holder made from wood from the sister ship of H.M.S.

Resolute—the nineteenth-century boat from which the Oval Office desk was made—and a seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill. The president’s staff had not been so thoughtful. In return, Obama handed Brown a set of DVDs that worked only on a North American DVD player.

The United States and the United Kingdom have shared what both have called a “special relationship” since the end of World War II, though in truth the connection is much

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U.S. President Donald Trump (L), speaks to Theresa May, U.K. prime minister, prior to a working lunch on the first day of the G20 summit on June ,28 2019 in Osaka, Japan.

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older. The ties between the two countries’ governments are among the strongest and most harmonious between any two nations in the world. The countries have many of the same interests. Both have sought to uphold a rules-based international order. Both have been strong proponents of liberal democracy and free trade.

They have forged a powerful alliance in international bodies like the UN Security Council and NATO, and, at least until Brexit, the United Kingdom acted as a bridge between the United States and Europe. Though the closeness of the relationship has waxed and waned depending on the personalities in Downing Street and the White House, the underlying strength of the bureaucratic ties between diplomats, military officials, and intelligence agencies has endured—until now.

The United Kingdom has worried about the state of the so-called special relationship with the United States for as long as it has existed. “We’ve freighted it with all this symbolism, a lot of which is nonsense,” Simon Fraser, a former head of the United Kingdom’s diplomatic service, told me in an interview in London in September. “There is this exaggerated sense on the British side that United States needs it as much as we do.”

At least during the Obama administration, the relationship still seemed to function. Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, angst among British policymakers has reached a new high. The two governments share a dramatically shrinking number of policy positions as Trump pursues a chaotic “America first” policy that has often left British officials bewildered. In July this year, cables critical of the Trump administration from London’s ambassador to the United States, Kim Darroch, leaked to the press. Trump responded with outrage, and the rift deepened. Trump now dominates every high-level discussion at the Foreign Office. One senior U.K. official, who has worked closely with the current U.S. administration, told me he had come to view Trump as a threat to global security as great as China, Russia, and ISIS. From a series of conversations I had with officials at Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence, it is clear that Trump’s presidency has rocked the foundations of the United Kingdom’s relationship with its closest ally.

The timing couldn’t be worse. Brexit has badly damaged Britain’s bonds with Europe and lowered its influence around the world. When it needs a strong, reliable relationship with the United States more than ever, the United Kingdom looks across the pond with doubt and uncertainty.

CHAOS AND CONFUSION It is not just Trump’s policies that trouble the relationship between the two countries but also the absence of them. Incoherence and impulsivity plague U.S. foreignpolicymaking—officials in Whitehall often find that their counterparts in Washington cannot give straight answers to policy questions. “Whether you’re talking to the national

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Both nations have forged a powerful alliance in international bodies like the UN Security Council and NATO, and, at least until Brexit, the United Kingdom acted as a bridge between the United States and Europe. security adviser or the head of the CIA, they’ll say, ‘The boss will decide,’ ” one Foreign Office official told me.

The personalization of power in Washington, according to this official, has complicated the relationship between the two governments more than either “America first” or U.S. retrenchment has done.

Initially, the British government did not take the full measure of the Trump administration. Prime Minister Theresa May visited the Trump White House in January 2017, when she was the first world leader to meet Trump after he became president. At that time, the U.S. president expressed his “100 per cent” commitment to NATO, and both the Foreign Office and the prime minister’s staff came away fairly happy. The first warning sign came only four months later, when Trump travelled to Brussels and delivered a blistering verbal attack on NATO allies.

Then came the far-right march in Charlottesville in August 2017. Trump responded equivocally to torch-wielding white nationalists and the counter-protesters who confronted them, claiming that there were “very fine people on both sides.”

For the Foreign Office, Charlottesville was a turning point, presenting clear, unavoidable evidence that the United Kingdom’s closest ally was now led by someone willing to defend white nationalists. By the time Trump finally visited the United Kingdom in 2018—he sandwiched the U.K. trip between another chaotic NATO meeting and a bizarre press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki—even those in government who had previously tried to convince themselves that Trump wasn’t that different from previous presidents had accepted that his presidency was in fact acutely, disturbingly different.

A WOBBLY STOOL The relationship—which most officials in the United Kingdom prefer not to call “special”—is, of course, not just a personal connection between president and prime minister.

The links between the two countries’ bureaucracies—the

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Department of State and the Foreign Office, the Department of Defense and the Ministry of Defence, and the two nations’ various intelligence agencies—are arguably stronger than those between any other pair of democratic nations. Many of these links remain tight, but Trump’s rogue nature and Washington’s disarray have strained them. As a senior Ministry of Defence official told me: “More and more the [Department of Defense] is not connected to the White House. Either they can’t do things or they are doing things below the White House radar.”

Unfortunately for the United Kingdom, it desperately needs the United States to be a reliable ally. As the chaos around Brexit rumbles on and as relations with Europe continue to fray, the United Kingdom’s reliance on the United States for both trade and security is only likely to grow. One senior Foreign Office official described the United Kingdom’s post–World War II framework for security and prosperity as a “three-legged stool: the transatlantic relationship, the relationship with Europe, and our own capability. We are suddenly, fundamentally renegotiating two of those legs.”

Those renegotiations are taking place at a time when the third leg—the United Kingdom’s own capabilities—has been weakened by a decade of austerity which has seen severe cuts to both the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office.

Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, tortuous and occasionally angry negotiations with Brussels have badly damaged the U.K. government’s relationships with European leaders. May even went as far as to suggest that EU politicians were interfering in the 2017 U.K. parliamentary elections by leaking accounts of Brexit talks. When current Prime Minister Boris Johnson was foreign secretary, many of his EU counterparts despised him—to the point where the foreign ministers of neither France nor Germany wanted to

As the chaos around Brexit rumbles on and as relations with Europe continue to fray, the United Kingdom’s reliance on the United States for both trade and security is only likely to grow.

speak to him.

Brexiteers, including Johnson, tend to be Atlanticists. They have long argued that one of the main benefits of leaving the European Union would be the freedom to make advantageous trade deals on the United Kingdom’s own terms. The prospect of a new formal deal with the United States excites many Brexiteers. But in Whitehall—aside from the more gungho Department for International Trade—there is concern that a weakened and undeniably smaller United Kingdom will struggle to negotiate a fair deal with the United States, whose economy is roughly seven times its size.

And while its relationship with its European partners has become clearly more fraught, the United Kingdom has actually sided with Europe against the United States in all major disagreements since Trump became president. Trump pulled the United States out of Paris climate accords in June, 2017: May issued a joint statement with French President

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media at a press conference on the second day of the 2018 NATO Summit on July 2018 ,12 in Brussels, Belgium. (Getty)

pragmatism, and in the rules-based order that Trump seems so keen to rip up.

The United Kingdom, however, has no doctrine of siding with Europe against the United States. As an official who was involved in each of the above decisions told me, they were taken on a “case by case” basis. “We looked at our interests and decided that yes, these are better served siding with Europe.” Now that Johnson has replaced May, that calculus might begin to change. Both Johnson and his foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, are pro-Brexit Atlanticists who are far warmer toward Trump than May was. Whether that makes a practical difference remains to be seen—the structural problems of an “America first” president and a chaotic White House are likely to have a far greater impact than any personal relationship. For instance, Downing Street—like the rest of the world—first heard about Trump’s decision this week to pull troops out of northern Syria from the president’s Twitter feed.

YOU WILL NEVER LEAVE

Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirming the United Kingdom’s commitment to tackling climate change. Trump questioned the necessity of NATO in July 2018: May stood firm with European partners. Trump abandoned the Iran nuclear deal in the spring of 2018: May dispatched Johnson to Washington to press Europe’s case for remaining in the deal with Tehran. (Despite his close relationship with Trump, Johnson didn’t actually get an appointment. He had to settle for making his case on Fox News, with the not unreasonable hope that Trump might be watching.) Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and the United Kingdom quietly made clear that it would not do the same. These decisions suggest that the United Kingdom has not allowed either the fallout from Brexit or the importance of the U.S. relationship to cloud its judgment—each of these decisions was consistent with British interests and values: a belief in multilateralism, in

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Whoever occupies Downing Street, however, London will continue to prize and to rely on close relations with Washington. That is because the United Kingdom sees a profound and epochal test in China’s dramatic rise, which one official described as the defining challenge of his generation. As a “developed democracy,” in Fraser’s words, the United Kingdom has a clear interest in one side of an emerging bipolarity. China, in Fraser’s view, has challenged the very model of national and international order that the United Kingdom relies upon. And for that, Fraser says, “America is the cornerstone. If we don’t stick together, our ability to have an international society is eroded.” The senior official I spoke to in the Ministry of Defence echoed these concerns from a practical standpoint. “We would be deeply screwed if there wasn’t the United States balancing the rise of China,” he said. “We would be screwed politically, militarily, and we wouldn’t have intelligence reach.”

The United Kingdom’s relationship with the United States may be at its lowest ebb, but most in Whitehall cannot see a future without it. It is a relationship that the British foreign policy, military, and intelligence establishment has relied upon for decades. Even when there have been policy disagreements in the past, whether over the Suez crisis in 1956 or the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983, the foundations of the alliance have held firm.

The adjective some officials used to describe the relationship to me was “indispensable,” not “special.” It is through its relationship with the United States that the United Kingdom exercises much of its power on the global stage. The problem with an indispensable relationship is that no matter how badly your partner behaves, you will never leave.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Peace Is Slipping Away in Colombia How the United States Can Help Win It Back

by Paul J. Angelo Between 2000 and 2015, the United States provided Colombia—a country plagued by political and social strife—with more than 10$ billion in aid in order to bring stability to the Andean nation.

The U.S. government also sent hundreds of U.S. military trainers to help reform and professionalize the Colombian security forces.

Partly as a result of these efforts, the South American state signed a peace deal in 2016 that promised to put an end to five decades of armed conflict within its borders.

Implementation of these measures was meant to take place over

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15 years and bore a price tag exceeding 30$ billion. Washington and other foreign capitals regarded the agreement as a triumph for U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos received a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the accord.

The 2016 deal promised to disarm and reintegrate the members of the Marxist-Leninist insurgency known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) into Colombian society.

The accord included a plan to develop Colombia’s longabandoned countryside and a substitution program for illicit drug crops, which were fueling the violence. It also guaranteed justice for victims of the conflict as well as the right of the FARC to participate in elections as a lawful political party.

Today this agreement is in jeopardy. What’s worse, Washington has turned a blind eye to the Colombian president’s slipshod implementation of the accord. The Trump administration’s negligence may abet the spread of drug violence or reignite the conflict. To prevent this, the United States should step up its financial and political support for the full implementation of the hard-won peace deal.

A FRIEND IN NEED

The leader of the dissolved guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) and current FARC political party, Timoleon Jimenez "Timochenko" (C) takes part during a mass protest named "Marcha por la vida" (in English: "Demonstration for life") on July 2019 ,26 in Bogota, Colombia.

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In 1999, the U.S. government took a gamble on Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine and a longtime U.S. ally. The United States vowed to help the war-torn nation restore order and establish the rule of law in vast stretches of ravaged territory. At the time, Colombia faced one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Rampant corruption plagued the country and now it faced the worst economic downturn in its history. With some 2.1 million citizens displaced by violence and more than 40 percent of the country’s territory under the control of armed insurgents, the future looked bleak.

U.S. assistance for the Andean nation via Plan Colombia (–2000 2011) changed the country’s outlook. Partly as a result of the plan, the Colombian government professionalized the military and police forces, improved judicial capacity, and jump-started a period of needed economic growth. Twenty years later, Colombia has become a global reference point for counterinsurgency, law enforcement, and improved governance. Despite persistent obstacles, the country has reduced its homicide rate to its lowest point since 1975.

The Colombian government was aware that making peace with the FARC would prove harder than making war. But the authorities were slow in implementing the plan from the start. And since the country elected a new president in 2018—the conservative Iván Duque—major elements of the process have faltered. According to the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, by April 30 ,2019 percent of the stipulations of the accord had yet to be initiated, and the government made “minimum” progress on another 34 percent.

Duque came into office promising to “correct” the peace agreement. The Colombian president appears committed to reintegrating the FARC into society for largely pragmatic reasons. But Duque is less devoted than his predecessor to the

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The 2016 deal promised to disarm and reintegrate the members of the Marxist-Leninist insurgency known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) into Colombian society. other provisions of the accord. Far-right politicians and voters have regularly insisted that the terms of the deal are too lenient on ex-insurgents accused of committing human rights abuses.

Like them, Duque spent much of his first year in office railing against the transitional justice mechanism, the cornerstone of the agreement. The new president also slashed the budgets for the truth commission, a land restitution program, and rural development.

What’s more, the Colombian state has failed to provide for the physical security of many demobilized FARC insurgents, 137 of whom have been assassinated since 2016. Killings of political and social activists from across the political spectrum have spiked in the same period. (There have been as many as 738 murders.) In the run-up to local elections in October, the first such electoral cycle in which the FARC’s party is participating, at least 26 politicians from right-wing and progressive parties alike have been killed.

Suspicious of the state, a handful of senior leaders of the FARC declared their rupture with the peace process in August and vowed to take up arms again. But Rodrigo Londoño—once the FARC’s commander and now its party leader—rejected his former comrades’ call to arms and encouraged the FARC’s rank and file to stay the course. In the days that followed, former FARC combatants from around the country took to social media to reaffirm their commitment to the peace process.

PEACE OUT The Colombian peace process is indeed worth defending, and to advance the accord’s implementation is in the United States’ interest. Some of the very territories at the heart of the peace process have accepted more than 1.4 million Venezuelans fleeing political and economic instability. These communities could see renewed violence and economic ruin if the accord is not properly put into practice. More important, a properly executed peace deal would help stabilize the region in the long run.

The Obama administration recognized the significance of Colombia’s success and unveiled an assistance package known as Peace Colombia during its final year in office. But the Trump administration has failed to capitalize on decades of U.S.

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investment in Colombia’s peace and stability. In fact, U.S.– Colombian relations appear to have devolved during Trump’s tenure—from a multi-faceted partnership to a relationship seen only through the lens of the war on drugs.

In 2017, President Trump went as far as to threaten to decertify Colombia as a partner in the war on drugs over rising coca cultivation, a diplomatic censure typically reserved for the United States’ geopolitical foes. The U.S. president has demanded that Duque reduce the cocaine flow or face a 160$ million reduction in aid. And the administration has been equally unhelpful by demanding the extradition of senior FARC members accused of drug crimes to the United States, a violation of the terms of peace, and by endorsing Duque’s assaults on the transitional justice tribunal.

The U.S. government needs an assistance strategy in Colombia that champions peace, and that draws on the same spirit that delivered across-the-aisle consensus for Plan Colombia two decades ago. In April 2019, the U.S. Senate adopted a bipartisan resolution supporting Colombia’s efforts to pursue peace. The resolution is a good starting point, but U.S. political leadership should do more.

THE PATH AHEAD Colombia is at a crossroads. It must heal its war wounds and revitalize the rural economy, all the while absorbing large numbers of desperate Venezuelans. The United States can enable this transformation, helping to build a sustainable future for its long-standing partner, or it can take a punitive tack on the drug issue—but it cannot do both.

The Colombian government needs funds if it is to properly implement the peace agreement. The most expensive of the accord’s requirements are agrarian reform and investment in rural communities, which together account for 85 percent of the total cost of the peace. The Colombian government lacks the fiscal resources to deliver. The Trump administration should make more funding available for these purposes.

The influx of Venezuelans is not only costly but runs the risk of distracting authorities from the peace process. International

The Colombian state has failed to provide for the physical security of many demobilized FARC insurgents, 137 of whom have been assassinated since 2016.

donors have been footing the bill for 5.6 million Syrian refugees in the Middle East and Europe (5,000$ per person), but the Colombian government has received only 193$ in international aid per Venezuelan in Colombia. There is bipartisan consensus in Washington on providing relief to Venezuelan civilians. As such, the U.S. government should help Colombia both keep the peace and extend much-needed charity to its neighbors.

The U.S. Department of State could also remove the FARC’s political party from the Bureau of Counterterrorism’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list. After all, at least 90 percent of the 13,018 ex-FARC members who have registered with the reintegration process remain committed to peace building, and FARC political leaders have put their faith in a political system in which the electoral odds are stacked against them. The European Union led the way by removing the FARC from their terrorism sanctions list in 2017.

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President of Colombia Ivan Duque Marquez speaks during the 2019 Bloomberg Global Business Forum at The Plaza Hotel on September 2019 ,25 in New York City. (Getty)

The enduring stability of the Colombian countryside will depend on the success of constructive and sustainable measures to uproot the drug trade—a business that both funded and fueled FARC violence. The U.S. government should work with peasants to eradicate drug crops manually and substitute them with legal crops. Forty percent of families enrolled with the government’s eradication program have not yet received the payments and technical assistance from the state that were promised to them under the accord. Duque has further buckled under U.S. pressure by vowing to resume the controversial aerial spraying of drug crops with hazardous herbicides.

Recent reporting from the United Nations suggests, however, that crop substitution is significantly more effective than forced eradication measures. Instead of flatly insisting on a return to repressive tactics, the Trump administration should support

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programs that assist amenable coca farmers in making a transition to legal crops. Such programs agree with popular sentiment in Colombia and can help get the reconciliation process back on track.

In 1981, Colombia’s revered literary son, Gabriel García Márquez, wrote Chronicle of a Death Foretold, which famously depicts the residents of a small town where everybody knows of an imminent murder but does nothing to stop it. Unlike the protagonist in the novella, Colombia’s peace process still has a fighting chance, provided that Colombian authorities—and their partners in the United States—commit themselves to the key components of the accord. If they fail to do so, both Colombia and the United States will find themselves mourning a death long foretold.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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China’s Neo-Maoist Moment How Xi Jinping Is Using China’s Past to Accomplish What His Predecessors Could Not

by Elizabeth Economy Few countries commemorate historical milestones with the zeal of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and 2019 offers a bonanza of celebratory opportunities: 40 years since Deng Xiaoping launched the economic reforms that opened China to the rest of the world; 40 years since China and the United States established diplomatic relations; and, on October 70 ,1 years since the founding of the PRC. These events provide the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) opportunities to

laud past achievements, legitimize the course it has set for the country, and rally support for challenges yet to come. And as Chinese President Xi Jinping surveys the country’s progress, he can point to any number of extraordinary economic, social, and geopolitical achievements.

Outside observers tend to credit the Deng-era reforms for China’s meteoric rise. But Xi and the rest of the Chinese leadership are more focused on the earliest years of the PRC—when Mao Zedong sat at the helm of the Communist Party. Like Mao, Xi has prioritized

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strengthening the party, inculcating collective socialist values, and rooting out nonbelievers. Like Mao, who invoked “domestic and foreign reactionaries” to build nationalist sentiment and solidify the party’s legitimacy, Xi has adopted a consistent refrain of unspecified but “ubiquitous” internal and external threats. And like Mao, Xi has encouraged the creation of a cult of personality around himself.

Yet Xi has revived the methods and symbols of Maoism not in service of a return to the past but in order to advance his own transformative agenda, one that seeks to ensure that all political, social, and economic activity within, and increasingly outside of, China serves the interests of the CCP. He is creating a model that reasserts the power of the Communist Party; progressively erases the distinction between public and private in both the political and economic spheres; and seeks to integrate foreign actors, including private businesses, more deeply into a system of CCP values and institutions. Xi also aspires to accomplish what Mao and his successors could not: to render irrelevant the political and physical boundaries separating Taiwan and Hong Kong from the mainland, and to offer China as a legitimate model for other countries disinclined toward liberal democracy.

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1949

The German flag hangs next to surveillance cameras and the portrait of late communist leader Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on September 2019 ,6.

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Party ideology increasingly pervades everyday life in China, narrowing the space for the expression of alternative views. The government heavily censors the Internet; limits foreign television content; and has called for schools to be “strongholds of Party leadership,” punishing professors for using unapproved texts or “defaming the rule of the Communist Party.”

At the same time, Xi’s contribution to CCP theory, known as Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, is pumped relentlessly through the system: more than 100 institutes devoted to Xi Jinping Thought have sprung up over the past few years; a phone app, Study Strong Country, offers mandatory quizzes for party members on Xi’s thoughts and activities; and college entrance exams even now feature political questions tied to the leader’s campaigns and sayings—a practice, journalist Zheping Huang notes, that was popular during Mao’s tenure.

The CCP also seeks to shape the daily choices of its citizens, influencing their behavior to better reflect the interests of the party. One element of this enterprise is the social credit system, an ambitious experiment in social engineering designed to evaluate the trustworthiness of Chinese citizens and condition their

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Xi aspires to accomplish what Mao and his successors could not: to render irrelevant the political and physical boundaries separating Taiwan and Hong Kong from the mainland, and to offer China as a legitimate model for other countries disinclined toward liberal democracy. behavior through punishments and rewards. Underway in more than 40 pilot programs throughout the country, the social credit system is slated to be rolled out nationally in 2020. As the China scholar Rogier Creemers has observed, this system is about “doing things that are right and incentivizing things that are right. But right is not something that people get to sort out for themselves. It doesn’t call upon individual moral autonomy, rather it calls upon obeisance to, and compliance with, a certain state-defined version of the good.”

In one pilot program in eastern China, for example, people receive points for donating bone marrow or performing other good deeds, but lose points for late payment of bills or traffic tickets. Other programs penalize citizens for participating in protests. While much of this tracking and accounting is done with technology, the CCP has also revived Mao-era tactics: paying elderly residents to report on the behavior of their neighbors, publicly celebrating model citizens while shaming those who fall short. As one government document noted, the objective of the social credit system is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.” It is a motto that can be taken literally: in 2017, more than six million Chinese were barred from air travel as a result of social credit misdeeds.

The party keeps watch through almost 200 million cameras capable of recognizing faces within a matter of seconds. In rural areas, the surveillance system is called “sharp eyes,” a name reportedly drawn from a Mao-era slogan—“the people have sharp eyes”—that encouraged people to denounce fellow citizens who diverged from officially sanctioned behavior. While cameras might be justified to reduce crime, it is harder to defend other intrusive technologies such as Police

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Cloud, a platform that allows the police to collect personal data on everything from where people shop to their health records, and MFsocket and Fengcai, two apps that enable the police to extract data such as location, images, and audio files from private mobile phones. Many Chinese have taken to the web to complain about these secret surveillance efforts, and some now carry two phones to protect their privacy in case of a random police stop.

PRIVATE IS PUBLIC Xi is also intruding into the private economic sphere, extending the CCP’s reach into not only state-owned but also private-sector firms. He has empowered party committees within private Chinese companies and joint ventures, permitting these purely political bodies to play a larger role in investment and other business decisions. In cities across China, local governments are also dispatching officials to work in private companies for up to a year to “help on government matters.” The work of all firms, public and private, must now reflect party priorities.

Beijing is even exerting more control over foreign citizens and companies, which have traditionally been exempted from political campaigns. Foreign nongovernmental organizations operating in China, which saw their number culled from more than 7,000 to roughly 600 following the passage of a restrictive NGO law in 2017, are now subjected to onerous reporting requirements and their leaders and activities are closely monitored by local public-security bureaus.

Multinationals, too, must contend with a raft of challenging new party initiatives, such as the newly assertive party committees and required participation in the country’s social credit system. By the end of 2020, multinationals will reportedly be subjected to an evaluation based on as many as 300 metrics. Some of these metrics will likely reflect Chinese laws on the environment and worker safety. It is easy to imagine, however, more troublesome demands for achieving

Hong Kong and Taiwan are also persistent reminders to mainland Chinese of their own potential alternative political futures.

a good social credit score, such as sourcing from Chinese suppliers, investing in less developed regions, or supporting Beijing’s interests globally. China has already demanded that multinationals not list Taiwan as a separate entity on their websites. More such requirements could be on the horizon.

THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM Reclaiming sovereignty over Hong Kong and Taiwan is central to Xi’s transformative project. He has stated explicitly that unification is “an inevitable requirement for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people.” In his vision, the geographic, economic, and political barriers that separate the mainland from Taiwan and Hong Kong are artificial and temporary constructs. To break them down and encourage greater integration, Beijing has adopted a number of inducements, such as economic benefits for businesses investing in the mainland, and coercive measures, such as interfering in Taiwan’s most recent local elections on behalf of pro-mainland politicians.

Yet in neither place is there much appetite for the type of closer political and economic integration that

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Security guards patrol below surveillance cameras on a corner of Tiananmen Square in Beijing on September 2019 ,6. (Getty)

Xi seeks. In Hong Kong, for instance, the territory’s Beijing-backed chief executive introduced an extradition law in March that would have eroded the “one country, two systems” construct that gives Hong Kong a degree of political and economic autonomy.

The move provoked months of mass protests, which did not end even after the chief executive promised to withdraw the bill. Beijing’s coercive diplomatic and economic policies toward Taiwan, and its meddling in the island nation’s internal politics, have likewise diminished the already limited support within Taiwan for any form of reunification with the mainland. The message to Xi from both Hong Kong and Taiwan is clear: they have seen what the Chinese president has to offer and have found it wanting. Hong Kong and Taiwan are also persistent reminders to mainland Chinese of their own potential alternative political futures.

Xi did not allow lack of support for his vision in Hong Kong and Taiwan to mar his triumphal 70th anniversary celebration. Still, he must recognize that they represent the ultimate paradox: the tighter he embraces Mao’s political legacy, the less likely he is to realize his Chinese dream of reunification. And to use force to achieve reunification would be the ultimate failure—an admission that his model is not, in fact, a true alternative to liberal democracy.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

A protester destroys a surveillance camera at Wan Chai MTR Station during a pro-democracy march in Hong Kong. (Getty)

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Kais Saied is Elected as Tunisia’s President The Tunisian Youth Make Their Voices Heard 32

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Karoui earned the nickname, ‘Nabil Macaroni’ as his party distributed pasta to poor Tunisians in hopes of securing the poor vote.

Karoui and former jurist/university professor Kais Saied.

Karoui was a former member of Nidaa Tounes, which he left back in 2017 and has since formed his own party called Qalb Tounes (Heart of Tunisia). Karoui ran as the leader of his party, while Saied ran as an independent candidate. The second round didn’t end up becoming the close race many were expecting, as Saied won a landslide victory securing 73 percent of the votes.

THE MODEST ‘ROBOCOP’ OVERCOMES THE EXTRAVAGANT ‘NABIL MACARONI’

Nabil Baffoun, President of the Independent Higher Authority for Election, holds a press conference to announce the results of a second round run- off of the presidential election in Tunis, Tunisia on October 2019 ,14. Tunisias independent candidate Kais Saied has secured more than %72 of votes in the presidential election.

(Getty)

by Majalla-London As one of the world’s youngest democracies, the 2019 Presidential election marked an important milestone for the North African country. First and foremost, the election proved that the electorate has the power to vote out establishment candidates, in favour of new individuals with little to no political experience. As the first round of the elections went underway, it became evident that the Tunisian public has grown frustrated with both the Islamist Ennhada Party and the secular Nidaa Tounes Party, both of which have dominated Tunisian politics since the 2011 Revolution which toppled longtime autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. As the first round of votes was counted, two outsider candidates made it to the second round, local media mogul Nabil

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What distinguishes this election was just how different both candidates were in terms of their beliefs, campaign methods and mannerisms. Nabil Karoui was by far the controversial candidate since he was imprisoned earlier this year following allegations of money laundering and tax evasion, these charges were brought up by an independent anticorruption group which has denied any political motivations behind its action. As a result, Karoui had to do most of his campaigning via his wife and party. Karoui earned the nickname, ‘Nabil Macaroni’ as his party distributed pasta to poor Tunisians in hopes of securing the poor vote. Giving away food to the needy isn’t an uncommon campaign practice in North Africa; back during the 2012 Egyptian elections the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood notoriously distributed sugar and cooking oil in Egypt’s poor districts.

Karoui was eventually released and was able to join Saied in a televised debate, where he further advertised himself as the “people’s candidate” by speaking in the Tunisian dialect, rather than formal Arabic. Despite being imprisoned Karoui had a bigger campaign advantage as he had his party and a popular local channel (Nessma) on his side. Meanwhile, Kais Saied, by contrast, ran a relatively modest campaign in which he relied on door-to-door promotion, volunteers and openly invited people into his private office where they could ask him policy questions. One BBC report indicated that his office was teeming with businesspeople, and more importantly students who were curious about what he could do to the country’s economy and how he would tackle corruption. Saied was the more conservative out of the two

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candidates; he does not support equal inheritance between men and women, nor does he support LGBT rights. He is also in favour of reintroducing the death penalty, something that has been banned in Tunisia since 1994, as well as enacting a law that would punish unmarried couples who engaged in public displays of affection. Furthermore, his stoic and stern mannerisms have earned him the nickname “Robocop”. In spite of these views, young voters did not shy away from baking Saied as the vast majority of 18 to 25 year olds who voted in the election chose to back him.

IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID Two of the biggest factors behind the Tunisian Revolution

While the economy was a major deciding point in the election, it is unclear how Saied can tackle these issues since the president deals with foreign and defense policies, while the Prime Minister (who is chosen by the parliament) is the one that handles domestic affairs.

were youth unemployment and poverty. According to the World Bank, youth unemployment peaked in 2011, the year of Ben Ali’s ouster, as 42 percent of young people aged 15 to 24 were jobless. While this number steeply fell since then, it saw a gradual resurgence after 2014 and as of last year, youth unemployment is at 35 percent. Even though Tunisia’s poverty rate fell by 5 percentage points since 2010, the latest World Bank statistic still indicates that 15 percent of its population is below the poverty line.

Needless to say, the economy was one of, if not the largest, factor that was in voters’ minds, particularly the youth.

While Karoui might have been the one who was giving away provisions, he failed to give any concrete economic reform promises and as a result, the youth were swayed by the candidate who seemed to have a better semblance of the future. The fact that Karoui was facing corruption charges didn’t help matters with the young vote either.

While the economy was a major deciding point in the election, it is unclear how Saied can tackle these issues since the president deals with foreign and defense policies, while the Prime Minister (who is chosen by the parliament) is the one that handles domestic affairs.

Saied might follow the footsteps of his predecessors and interfere in the government’s policies, but he might end up shooting himself in the foot if he decides to that.

Furthermore, the parliamentary elections resulted in a fragmented parliament which saw Ennahda gain the majority, while the newly formed Kalb Tounes came in second, this diversified chamber could lead to difficulties in forming a functioning government.

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Tunisians gather to celebrate the victory of Tunisias independent candidate Kais Saied.

(Getty)

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1770- October - 18/10/2019

What’s So Big About William Blake? www.majalla.com

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Fitness Trend: Nordic Walking Walking with Nordic Poles Burns More Calories and Works More Muscles than Conventional Walking

by Harvard Health Picture a brilliant blue sky over a vast field of fresh, fluffy snow. The air is crisp and cold, and you're suited up on skis, ready to propel yourself across the expanse of white for a day of crosscountry skiing.

mimicking the motion of cross-country skiing by using poles to push yourself as you walk along a trail or sidewalk. That's called Nordic walking. It was originally designed as a summer training routine for cross-country skiers. Now Nordic walking is catching on in the United States as an exercise regimen, especially among older adults.

Now imagine that you're in your own neighborhood,

Cardiologist Aaron Baggish is all for it. He

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Lots of evidence confirms that Nordic walking burns more calories than regular walkingestimates range from an increase of %18 to %67 more.

BENEFITS Nordic walking combines cardiovascular exercise with a vigorous muscle workout for your shoulders, arms, core, and legs. "When you walk without poles, you activate muscles below the waist. When you add Nordic poles, you activate all of the muscles of the upper body as well," Dr. Baggish explains. "You're engaging %80 to %90 of your muscles, as opposed to %50, providing a substantial calorie-burning benefit."

Lots of evidence confirms that Nordic walking burns more calories than regular walking-estimates range from an increase of %18 to %67 more.

Nordic walking is also associated with reductions in fat mass, "bad" LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and waist circumference, and increases in "good" HDL cholesterol, endurance, muscle strength and flexibility, walking distance, cardiovascular fitness, and quality of life.

Another benefit: "You're much more stable when you use poles, because you have more ground contact points and you're not relying on two feet alone," Dr. Baggish says.

just returned from a year of work and study in Switzerland, where he says Nordic walking is a common pastime among older adults. "You go to the train station on Saturdays and there are droves of people over 70 waiting to go up to the mountains to walk with Nordic poles," says Dr. Baggish, director of the Cardiovascular Performance Program at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

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Plus, Nordic walking is fun. It can be a great social activity if you join one of the Nordic walking clubs popping up across the country. To find one near you, search the Internet or contact your local parks and recreation department.

ABOUT THE POLES Unlike trekking or hiking poles, which have loose straps that go around your wrists, Nordic poles have a special glove-like system attached to each pole. "You slide your hand into it and use your palm rather than your fingers to transmit power to the poles and move yourself forward," Dr. Baggish explains.

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You'll find poles in sporting goods stores and online.

The poles are available in lightweight aluminum or carbon material; with pointed tips for trails, or rubber tips for sidewalks; and fixed or adjustable heights.

Prices range from about 20$ to 200$ for a pair of poles. (Hint: A set of poles would make a nice holiday present.)

TECHNIQUES There are several Nordic walking techniques. One is "double poling." It involves planting both poles symmetrically in front of you and pulling yourself forward as you walk a few steps. "You double pole and then walk three steps. Double pole; one, two, three. Double pole; one, two, three," Dr. Baggish explains.

Another technique is "single poling," which mimics what your feet are doing, with just one pole in front of you for each stride. Do this either with the same-side arm and leg together or with the opposite arm and leg together. "The pole and foot will always be striking and propelling at the same time. The difference is whether it's on the same side or the opposite side," says Dr. Baggish. He advises starting out with single poling, and gradually building up speed and vigorous arm swinging.

GETTING STARTED Dr. Baggish says most people are candidates for Nordic walking, even if they have balance problems.

It was originally designed as a summer training routine for cross-country skiers. Now Nordic walking is catching on in the United States as an exercise regimen, especially among older adults.

In fact, "if you have balance issues you're the best candidate for this, because of the increased stability from the poles," he says. "But you should still talk to your doctor first, especially if you have heart disease."

Once you have the green light and a set of poles, you'll need a walking route. You can walk on level surfaces or on varied terrain -- anything from sidewalks to

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Members of the I Love Supersport running school take part in a running event titled "Run of Promises" in Mikhailovskaya Embankment. (Getty)

grassy fields or trails. Safe neighborhoods and parks are ideal.

Some tips for success: Dress comfortably. Wear clothing that allows lots of arm swinging.

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Stay hydrated. "Drink water in advance if you'll be walking less than an hour. Otherwise, drink along your route," Dr. Baggish suggests.

Do a -10minute warm-up and a -10minute cooldown. Nordic walking is fun, but it's definitely a workout.

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What’s So Big About William Blake?

A New Exhibition of William Blake Attempts to Show Us the True Scale of His Legacy

by Bryn Haworth As I arrived at the press preview for Tate Britain’s new exhibition, I saw the glass cabinets containing the familiar pages of William Blake’s etchings, with their slightly overneat handwriting and the little illustrations in the style of medieval manuscripts and, I have to admit, my heart sank.

‘That was his problem,’ I thought. ‘Everything he did was on such a small scale.’

The impression was only reinforced by the sight as I came in of a massive reproduction of ‘The Ancient of Days’, the figure of a creator or demiurge crouching on the disk of the sun and leaning down with a pair of compasses. The actual image (hanging in the last room of this exhibition) is barely a foot in height, and yet here it was, as if projected on the museum wall, ready to dwarf any passing art critic below in the monumental way it deserved.

Sadly, Blake never managed to intimidate the critics of his own day. When already in his fifties, he exhibited in his brother’s house in Soho, above the Blake family’s haberdashery. The solitary review his work received was utterly, almost vindictively, dismissive, ridiculing him as an unfortunate lunatic who ought by rights to be in an asylum were it not for his mild manners. In other words, he was a harmless nutter. It was as damaging a review as the one that

Shelley thought had killed Keats. Hardly anyone showed up, nothing sold and Blake, despite the adulation of far younger artists in his later years, never really got over it.

The disappointment must have been all the more intense as Blake had gone to great, maybe inordinate, lengths to big up his artistic reputation. He wrote a grand ‘catalogue’ to accompany the exhibition, fulminated against old masters he disliked, praised the good ones, indulged in a rambling critique of Chaucer, and so and so forth. As an experiment in self-promotion it was a disaster, but then a life of poverty and very little in the way of public profile lay behind it.

The exhibition at Tate Britain attempts to recreate that doomed display of 1809 by showing what has survived of the original show, though without the largest of the pictures, said by one punter to have been his masterpiece, as it has been lost. Blake wanted to encourage his audience to think of his pictures as frescoes, meant for a bigger scale than he had ever managed before, but he also wanted personal magnification of a kind, so that his fame could at last correspond to his undoubted talent. It’s painful to imagine him now, full of hope as he prepared for the big entrance onto Fame’s massive stage, self-consciously preparing the kind of works that might appeal to a contemporary British audience. What he came up with, among other pieces, were two grandiose failures, mythologised portraits of admiral

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Newton toiling over a diagram at the bottom of the sea

Nelson and Pitt the prime minister which hover uneasily (and perhaps deliberately) between the sublime and the ridiculous.

The naked Nelson, his physique magically restored to full fitness by the visionary eye, wrestles into submission the forces of evil. The prime minister seems to be engaged in a similar enterprise, difficult yet made to look easy. There may be some Indian influence in the designs. There might also be a simplistic patriotism Blake hoped to inspire in his viewers. More obvious than any of this, however, is the strain to say something. For the whole of his artistic career Blake had been the prophet no one honoured in his own land – a true prophet of Albion, a bard like no other in England’s history – yet, at the very moment when he sought that honour most deliberately, tired of his stubborn obscurity and lack of money, he became inauthentic. The result doesn’t even seem like a ‘vision’ of the kind Blake is famous for, but a very calculated political overstatement.

It’s a magniloquent dud, as unlike any of his celebrated works as it was possible for Blake to make it, and against the better judgement of a small-scale visionary who had recently urged us, in his ‘Auguries of Innocence’, To see a World in a Grain of Sand

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And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

This question of the dimensions of William Blake’s work is addressed elsewhere in Tate Britain’s carefully curated show. At one point, we are shown the interior of a church with its altar graced by one of his religious pictures, blown way out of proportion. Other attempts to enlarge his works render the colours and shapes almost entirely abstract.

This shadows the exhibition’s other main theme, the size of his reputation. The extent to which he was known in his lifetime (hardly at all, except by a very select group of patrons and friends) is explored through the people who knew and commissioned him, but it’s difficult to get very interested in these people, grateful as we may feel that they kept him going. A clerk who liked his work, a fellow poet who had turned down the laureate, his devoted wife Catherine who helped with the printing and colouring and who shared his enthusiasms – these are all worthy of gratitude, but they do little to help us understand the artist.

Even the young men who called themselves ‘The Ancients’ – Samuel Palmer, notably, who referred to Blake’s house as that of ‘the interpreter’ and kissed the door knob whenever he passed – their idolatry of Blake may have made up in some small way for sixty years of neglect, but it contributes

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next to nothing to our comprehension of his work. It’s hard to imagine anyone who could, or any anecdote (there are plenty of anecdotes) that might shed light on his genius.

Something in every human being is resistant to knowledge, even to self-knowledge. In the case of a man who saw angels at the age of six and was still conversing with them at sixty, who devised what he called an ‘infernal’ method of printing that reversed the normal processes, who was a Christian but utterly opposed to priests and organised religion, in short, a total one-off, the more one learns about him, the less explicable he becomes.

Blake has been co-opted on numerous occasions. E. P. Thompson, the great communist historian, thought he could trace his views to an obscure sect known as the Muggletonians; in other words, back to the radical puritans of the seventeenth century and a political tradition that rejected the church, kings and laws. They also didn’t like Newton.

Newton toiling over a diagram at the bottom of the sea

‘I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Man’s; I will not Reason and Compare: my business is to Create.’

Blake, famously, was not fond of Newton either, nor did he choose to worship in a congregation, but unlike the Muggletonians he did not even choose to sit with others and speak of the spirit. He was far too individual for that.

There is a sense with him that he had fulfilled the logic of the dissenter tradition and reduced his life to a lonely pursuit of his own idiosyncrasy, hence the resolve to construct what Tom Paulin derides as ‘batty eccentricity’ and the bag lady’s trolley load of mythical heroes, emanations and spectres that took the place of his simpler, more succinct songs of innocence and experience. I think Paulin has a point. It is hard to like the epic poems, and hard not to regret this proud declaration from the last of them:

This independence of mind, admirable in itself, is possibly the most characteristic thing about Blake. Sadly, however, it didn’t only lead to what Paulin rightly calls the ‘tiny psychological myths’ of the Songs; it also led to an occult ‘system’ so complex that even W. B. Yeats struggled to comprehend it.

Again, the problem of Blake comes down to a matter of scale. The epic poems are too big, suffering from the same strenuous grandiosity as the picture of Nelson. In contrast, the best of his poems stick to his own advice about grains of sand. He was transcendently profound whenever he observed the small or the everyday and saw beyond it into a spiritual or psychological dimension. Then he could wander through London and perceive the hidden agony of those who populated the city:

He was transcendently profound whenever he observed the small or the everyday and saw beyond it into a spiritual or psychological dimension.

I wander thro’ each charter’d street.

Near where the charter’d Thames does flow And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg’d manacles I hear Those manacles are real and metallic for the slaves in the West Indies, but psychological for those enslaved to the

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Blake's virgin and child

drudgery of capitalism. This is the same poet who lamented that ‘Pity would be no more / If we did not make somebody Poor / And Mercy no more could be / If all were as happy as we’ (‘The Human Abstract’). He’s a poet for our own unequal and often brutal times, painfully aware of what Robert Burns had called man’s inhumanity to man, a voice of moral outrage in the world’s most immoral city. That voice is less clear, however, when he refers to London as Golgonooza and subsumes it into his complicated ‘system’.

Is there a problem of self-consciousness here? It may be sacrilege to those determined to see him as a prophetic figure, but the grandeur of that role had stylistic consequences.

Prolixity was an obvious one, the tendency to epic poetic statements. He was also excessively conscious at times of other prophetic writers, such as Swedenborg, who he gave short shrift in the marvellous ‘Marriage of Heaven and Hell’, along with some over-cerebral angels: ‘I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning. Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new; though it is only the contents or index of already published books’ (‘Marriage of Heaven and Hell’).

Angels are rational, almost bureaucratic in Blake. His devils have more imagination. But notice the phrase ‘I have always found’. This is cheeky and combative, implying that Blake is the real expert on angels, not his Swedish predecessor who speculated so exhaustively about them. The freeborn Englishman is defending his superior credentials as a seer.

Blake was more interesting when the spirit world took him by surprise and did the instructing. Similarly, he was most convincingly political when he was least conscious of being so, when he merely perceived the curses of the youthful harlot, or when he actually witnessed, with his inner eye, how …the hapless Soldier’s sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls.

Just as politicians should not (as Tony Blair’s spin doctor once warned him) ‘do God’, so visionaries should not do politics. Explicitly, that is. Yet, for this very reason, people have striven to detect hidden political messages in Blake.

Even when they encountered obscurity, it was easier than interpreting Jane Austen’s stubborn refusal to mention the war.

Nowhere has this obscurity been more tantalising than in Blake’s most famous poem, ‘The Tyger.’ It’s true, of course, that he was writing in the wake of the September Massacres in France and similar horrors of the French Revolution, but it is hard to reduce this or any of his other poems to a clear and simple political context. The language is utterly individual and concentrated, yet (unlike his epic poems) does not degenerate into idiolect. Instead, like so much of his best writing, it has an almost childlike simplicity: Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp, Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears And water’d heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye,

The Spiritual Form of Nelson Guiding Leviathan

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Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Underneath the poem, Blake pictured a lugubrious looking tiger which has been compared to a cuddly toy. For a big cat, it seems rather small, and if it’s a cuddly toy, it resembles Eeyore more than Tigger.

This is a perfect instance of the unique power of an artist whose grasp of language was equalled by his skill in drawing.

It seems incredible good fortune that a man who claimed to have regular visions of the dead and of eternity beyond ‘the world of generation’ should have been able to describe these things so beautifully, in word and image, yet we are often left none the wiser as to the meaning of his words or his pictures, as both remain obstinately impenetrable.

‘The Tyger’ is, on the face of it, simply a complement to another poem about a lamb, and always in Blake the lamb is Jesus, as well as being a very young sheep. The most obvious question the poet is asking is how such cruelty could be created by the same deity as created the lamb’s innocence, since this implies that he created both good and evil. For most readers, that would be sufficient food for thought.

But perhaps there is a more topical reference. The poem is full of rebels: it mentions Satan’s revolt (‘the stars threw down their spears’), Prometheus, a favourite rebel of the Romantics (‘What the hand dare seize the fire?’), and, perhaps Icarus (‘On what wings dare he aspire?’) – though this line might just as easily evoke Milton’s Satan. Peter Ackroyd suggests that the rebellion Blake may have in mind is a very real one:

tigers”. At a later date Marat’s eyes were said to resemble “those of the tyger cat’”.

The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli

Wordsworth, moreover, described post-revolutionary Paris as ‘a place of fear […] Defenceless as a wood where tigers roam’. All this sounds plausible enough if one assumes that Blake was aware of such commentaries, yet he had also written in ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’ (3-1790) that ‘the tigers of wrath’ were ‘wiser than the

‘Even as Blake worked upon the poem the revolutionaries in France were being branded in the image of a ravening beast – after the Paris massacres of September 1792, an English statesman declared, “One might as well think of establishing a republic of tigers in some forests in Africa”, and there were newspaper references to “the tribunal of

The ‘selfish smiling fool’ is self-evidently Boris Johnson. The ‘frowning fool,’ it goes without saying, is his megalomaniac sidekick, Dominic Cummings.

Urizen.

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horses of instruction’. The wisdom of tigers has something to do with their energy in a work that seeks to redeem evil from a bad press and to prove that the saintly Milton had himself, unwittingly, been of the devil’s party. In Blake, nothing is ever quite as simple as it first appears, but he definitely had a low opinion of priests:

Where I used to play on the green.

‘As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys’ (‘Marriage of Heaven and Hell’).

His spelling and dodgy entomology aside, the hostility here is unmistakable, but for Blake this was an example of gross understatement. Elsewhere, the priest becomes the male sexual organ, a literal embodiment of phallic power: ‘Embraces are Comminglings: from the Head even to the Feet,’ he insists, ‘And not a pompous High Priest entering by a Secret Place.’

One wonders if the ‘invisible worm’ that flew in the night and found out Rose’s bed (‘The Sick Rose’) had flown from a nearby seminary.

But ‘A Little Boy Lost’ gives us the cruellest account of priestly behaviour. It is as bad as anything in Goya. Here, a small boy states that love of oneself is natural and paramount:

And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

And Father, how can I love you, Or any of my brothers more?

I love you like the little bird That picks up crumbs around the door.

It’s a form of cupboard love. The man of God is enraged by this. He forcibly removes the boy from his parents and burns him at the stake for suggesting that his own conception of love is more accurate than the priest’s holy Mystery. This cruelty is confirmed in ‘The Garden of Love’, where Blake’s righteous fury becomes almost unbearably poignant. It is as if priests have invented death itself in order to murder innocence. They don’t need to be explicitly infanticidal. They merely make it their business to blight childhood: Definitely no Tigger

I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst,

And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door; So I turn’d to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore.

Clearly, such men and their moral law were anathema to a dissenting individualist who always gave pews and pulpits a wide berth. Priests were the enemies of the Imagination, of Jesus (who Blake saw as Imagination incarnate) and, even when they invoked the concept, all that was ‘holy’. How to respond, then, to a revolution that sought to end their power across the Channel?

Though he would have cheered the aims of those who acted in the name of Liberty, it is hard to imagine Blake gloating over massacres. He was surely too much of a lamb for that. On the face of it, the poem about the ‘Tyger’ is primarily a meditation on the enigma of theodicy, the problem of how a good creator can permit the manifestation of evil.

But on this particular point, Blake was adamant throughout his adult life: God the Father was not good. He was Nobodaddy, the jealous patriarch who remains silent and invisible in the short poem of that name. This was the hostile demiurge with the compass in the picture, a figure he referred to as Urizen, which may have been a play on the words ‘Your reason’.

Urizen forges the very manacles of the mind which oppress humanity. He is the bringer of the Law, the laws of Moses and those of Newton alike. He is the calculating scientist and the highest of high priests. In ‘Vala, or The Four Zoas’ he actually crucifies Jesus. It was Urizen who created the tiger in all its stupid ferocity. If the most celebrated song of experience tells us anything about the poet’s response to violent revolution, it is that the tiger’s ‘wisdom’, and the Devil’s ‘heroism’, make for a very cruel politics. But on a more personal level, experience and priestly rule come at the same high price: What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price Of all that a man hath, his house his wife his children.

Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy And in the witherd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain. (‘Vala, or The Four Zoas’) The true dimensions of Blake are by turns infinite and minuscule. In a sense, he is beyond measurement, leaving the

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determination of quantity to the minds that know the price of everything and the value of nothing. He can be big and small, long-winded and terse, sometimes at the same time.

There are lines of Blake which haunt you for a lifetime.

Others just seem, for an ephemeral moment, as topical as any newspaper headline. Here for instance: The selfish smiling fool and the sullen frowning fool shall be both thought wise that they may be a rod. (‘Marriage of Heaven and Hell’) The ‘selfish smiling fool’ is self-evidently Boris Johnson. The ‘frowning fool,’ it goes without saying, is his megalomaniac sidekick, Dominic Cummings. The rod in question, I would humbly submit, is the one that the British electorate have fashioned for their own back.

It has become a conventional observation that these are dark times in the English-speaking world. An atmosphere of unrest and division has prevailed on both sides of the Atlantic, and Britain has become polarised in a manner that William Blake would immediately recognise. We are in the throes of a full-blown political nightmare, as if the incubus from a painting by Fuseli (one of Blake’s friends) sits on the country, disturbing its sleep. The identity of this incubus is in some doubt. It looks like Cummings, but it’s acting exactly like Boris. Let’s call it Boris Cummings, then, or Dominic Johnson.

The Nightmare, by Henry Fuseli I can’t recall whether it had been one of my better nights lately, or whether the incubus had been back, but on the

The expression on the infant’s face is more like the unique blend of innocence and experience that characterises Blake’s vision. The infant embodies all the clear-sighted innocence of ‘the bard’.

morning I attended the press preview of the exhibition, the media were abuzz with the idea of a ‘prorogation’ of parliament. That evening, as parliament was indeed suspended and its Conservative members quit the chamber, there were taunts of “Shame on you!” from the opposition benches. Then, once the governing party had left, the remaining MPs began to sing. One of the anthems they sang was ‘Jerusalem’, and the words of William Blake, set to music by Sir Hubert Parry, rang out across the House of Commons: And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green…

The words are obscure, maybe – they are based on a legend that Jesus once visited England in the company of Joseph of Arimathea, a rich tin merchant – but they are incredibly well-known, to the extent that every line sounds like a cliché at first, though a cliché it would be hard to do without: ‘dark Satanic Mills’, ‘chariot of fire’ – it is an indication of the grip Blake has on the collective English imagination that these words are so familiar.

Sadly, familiarity has dissipated a lot of the energy in the original, but it is still possible to re-glimpse that energy if we take the words he used to introduce his ‘Songs of Experience’ literally: Hear the voice of the Bard!

Who Present, Past, & Future sees Whose ears have heard, The Holy Word, That walk’d among the ancient trees.

Here we have the Word, or Jesus, treading once again on the solid ground of England. It is a visitation of spiritual grace, and it is Blake who hears the holy footfalls.

Blake was part of a dissenting tradition in England that

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dated back to the seventeenth century and beyond. For the more radical dissenters, the coming of Christ’s kingdom was interpreted as the entry of Christ into every man and woman, a degree of literal godliness that put priests out of a job. In the exhibition, we can see an unusual painting of the Virgin and Child. It is rather stiffly interpreted and not what we have come to expect from endless Catholic versions of the subject.

As you gaze at the face of Jesus, you see how remarkably similar it is to a self-portrait by Blake elsewhere in the rooms. The eyes are far apart, the expression is knowing. It isn’t babyish at all.

Could this have been the accidental result of Blake’s lack of a model? I doubt it. The expression on the infant’s face is more like the unique blend of innocence and experience that characterises Blake’s vision. The infant embodies all the clear-sighted innocence of ‘the bard’.

As a child, Blake was spanked for claiming to have seen Ezekiel sitting under a tree. As a grown man, he would go one better and claim to be Ezekiel. He regularly saw visions.

Angels he saw and depicted, along with the heads of dead men and women, even the ‘ghost of a flea’. He could readily see Jesus wandering through a wooded English landscape, because the bard/prophet could see past, present and future with equal clarity. And, in the words of ‘Jerusalem’ once reinvested with prophetic energy, Blake is obviously remembering the ascension of Elijah into the heavens on a chariot of fire, and simultaneously recalling the ascension of Christ into heaven from a hilltop, accompanied by Moses and Elijah. Christ’s face shines, just as his disciples once saw it shine: And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

Blake himself becomes the new Elijah: Bring me my Bow of burning gold Bring me my Arrows of desire Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold: Bring me my Chariot of fire!

Jesus is the burst of solar energy breaking through the English clouds. Whether the people who sang these words in the House of Commons knew it or not, they were expressing more than patriotic fervour; they were rehearsing a kind of English ecstasy.

And yet these words have not always been so familiar.

As Tate Britain’s exhibition demonstrates, they were almost unheard till long after Blake’s death, and his stunning pictures known only to a select few admirers.

Blake was a prophet par excellence, not honoured in his own lifetime, but rather ignored, or despised as crazy. I think his exhibition in Soho was misjudged, as if the elderly artist was tired of a life of obscurity and wanted to be accepted as a more conventional artist than he actually was. He probably had no inkling, old habits dying hard, that depicting Nelson as a flexing nude might strike critics as, well, stark raving mad.

The most ambitious picture in the exhibition, now lost, was called ‘The Ancient Britons’ and depicted the last battle of King Arthur. It was said to have been 14 feet (4.3 metres) wide by 10 feet (3 metres) tall, the largest picture Blake ever made, with what his catalogue described as ‘Figures full as large as Life.’ The young art student Seymour Kirkup said it was Blake’s ‘masterpiece’ and Henry Crabb Robinson called it “his greatest and most perfect work.” It’s sad that such a majestic piece could disappear, just like that.

But then, what did size really matter to a man who could hold infinity in the palm of his hand?

‘William Blake’ is at Tate Britain until 2 February 2020.

Blake c.1802

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John Goodenough: The Oldest Nobel Prize Winner Who Initiated the Wireless Revolution Majalla - London At 97 years old, John B Goodenough is the oldest laureate to receive a Nobel prize in any discipline. "Live to 97 (years old) and you can do anything," Goodenough said in a statement. "I'm honored and humbled to win the Nobel Prize. I thank all my friends for the support and assistance throughout my life."

He won the award on October 9 alongside Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for their contributions to the development of lithium-ion batteries. The trio will share the prize money of nine million kronor (738,000£). Lithium-ion batteries have long been tipped for the award, not least since they have proved pivotal in the development of the high-tech world we inhabit. The Nobel Committee said: "Lithium-ion batteries are used globally to power the portable electronics that we use to communicate, work, study, listen to music and search for knowledge.”

Born in 1922 in Jena, Germany, Goodenough earned a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1952 after

serving as a meteorologist in the Army during World War II. He went on to work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then at the University of Oxford, where he served as the head of the Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, according to the University of Texas at Austin, where he currently holds faculty positions in the Cockrell School’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

In 1980, Goodenough, then aged 57, invented lithium-ion’s nervous system.

His brainchild was the cobalt-oxide cathode, the single most important component of every lithium-ion battery. His variations on the design are everywhere: batteries using a lithiummanganese-oxide cathode, developed in his lab and refined at Argonne National Laboratory, are now used in many electric cars. His lithium-iron-phosphate cathode is found in many modern power tools. Moreover, lithium batteries can be used to store energy from solar and wind energy—a critical need for renewable energy technologies that only collect electricity when the sun is out or the

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wind is blowing. Others have tried to improve on the cobalt-oxide cathode, but all have failed.

Goodenough, who still continues to work well into his 90s reaching battery materials, said he does not regret not having made a fortune for a discovery that has powered the portable electronics revolution. “I didn’t really care too much about the money,” he said. “Everything I’ve ever done, the lawyers end up with all the money.”

He is the author of eight books and more than 800 journal articles, and he is the recipient of numerous national and international honors, including the Japan Prize (2001), the Enrico Fermi Award (2009), the Charles Stark Draper Prize (2014) and the National Medal of Science (2011), The Eric and Sheila Samsun Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels for Transportation, 2015, Fellow, Electrochemistry Society, 2016, Fellow, National Academy of Inventors, 2016, The Welch Award in Chemistry, 2017, and The Benjamin Franklin Award in Chemistry, 2018.