A View from Afar – In this podcast, political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning consider and analyse the most significant global issues that define 2021. The topics include:

– Leadership: Trump, Putin, Xi, Biden,

– Pandemic: Impact of Covid-19 & variants on global security

– Security: Afghanistan, AUKUS, Autonomous Weapons, Cyber-Hackers/Attackers.

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

PODCAST: In this episode of A View from Afar political scientist Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning discuss how security threats present themselves in a multitude of forms. This week we look at a threat that mixes belief with nationalism. This threat is most obvious in its homeland where the movement was conceived.

But its devotees have migrated to countries all over the world. When confronted by others within their communities, they respond with threats that by degrees… become more sinister.

We are talking about Hindutva nationalism, a right wing movement which has its political epicentre in India.

In the United States of America, a network of universities had organised a virtual conference to discuss Hindutva’s rise. The Washington Post reported this month “the backlash was swift and staggering”.

It added: “Nearly a million emails were sent to universities in protest, the virtual event’s website was attacked and forced offline, organisers reached death and rape threats”, and pro-Modi government media in India said the event was “Hinduphobic and fostered hate against the community”. ref. Washington Post.

And in New Zealand – where this South Pacific nation suffered the tragedy known as the March 15 white supremacist attacks that killed 51 Muslim people while they met for Friday prayer – concerns are now emitting from within the vibrant Indian communities that Hindutva nationalism is growing.

As Stuff.co.nz reported this month, a professor at New Zealand’s Massey University, Mohan Dutta, has spoken out against Hindutva’s far right messages.

Professor Dutta has received hate messages relegating his concerns as promoting Hinduphobia.

Again as Stuff reported, Professor Dutta has received threats such as: “Bootlicker”, “brown servant”. “If you were in India you would be burnt… We should do anything in our power to stop him.” ref. Stuff.co.nz

So should we consider Hindutva as simply a right wing nationalistic political movement, with networks all over the world? Or does it pose a serious and growing threat to security?

—

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

A View from Afar – In this week’s podcast, Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning discuss: three areas that have been relied on to protect New Zealanders from terror-styled attacks; legal measures designed to protect communities from danger and even protect individuals from themselves and why they failed.

The background to this episode is the tragic, terrifying, attacks that were committed against unarmed innocent people at West Auckland’s LynnMall Countdown supermarket, by Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen.

The attacks occurred last Friday, September 3, 2021. It ended with the hospitalisation of seven people, and, the death of Mr Samsudeen who was fatally shot by special tactics Police officers during his attempt to kill and injure as many people as he could.

Immediately after, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the nation that the dead man was a terrorist and that she herself, the Police, and the courts were all aware of how dangerous he was and had been seeking to protect New Zealand from this man.

Within days of the attacks, we learned, that Mr Samsudeen was a troubled man with psychologists describing him as angry, capable of carrying out his threats, and displaying varying degrees of mental illness and disorder.

Mr Samsudeen was a refugee who sought asylum here in New Zealand after experiencing, through his formative years, civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka, who, at around 20 years of age, arrived in New Zealand on a student visa and then sought asylum.

He was eventually granted refugee status, and since then spent years in prison on various charges and convictions – largely involving the possession of terrorist propaganda seeded on the internet by ISIS, and, threats showing intent to commit terrorist acts against New Zealanders.

In this week’s episode, Paul Buchanan and Manning examine questions as to whether this tragedy could have been prevented and will consider New Zealand’s:

• Security and terror laws
• Deportation laws involving those with refugee status
• Mental Health Act and whether this was available to the authorities.

Buchanan and Manning also analyse whether it is necessary for the New Zealand Government to move to tighten New Zealand’s terrorism security laws. And, if it does, how the intended new laws compare to other Five Eyes member countries.

WE INVITE YOU TO PARTICIPATE WHILE WE ARE LIVE WITH COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS IN THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST:

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

A View from Afar – LIVE @ MIDDAY Thursday: In this week’s podcast, Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning will discuss: three areas that have been relied on to protect New Zealanders from terror-styled attacks; legal measures designed to protect communities from danger and even protect individuals from themselves and why they failed.

The background to this episode is the tragic, terrifying, attacks that were committed against unarmed innocent people at West Auckland’s LynnMall Countdown supermarket, by Ahamed Aathill Mohamed Samsudeen.

The attacks occurred last Friday, September 3, 2021. It ended with the hospitalisation of seven people, and, the death of Mr Samsudeen who was fatally shot by special tactics Police officers during his attempt to kill and injure as many people as he could.

Immediately after, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the nation that the dead man was a terrorist and that she herself, the Police, and the courts were all aware of how dangerous he was and had been seeking to protect New Zealand from this man.

Within days of the attacks, we learned, that Mr Samsudeen was a troubled man with psychologists describing him as angry, capable of carrying out his threats, and displaying varying degrees of mental illness and disorder.

Mr Samsudeen was a refugee who sought asylum here in New Zealand after experiencing, through his formative years, civil war and ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka, who, at around 20 years of age, arrived in New Zealand on a student visa and then sought asylum.

He was eventually granted refugee status, and since then spent years in prison on various charges and convictions – largely involving the possession of terrorist propaganda seeded on the internet by ISIS, and, threats showing intent to commit terrorist acts against New Zealanders.

In this week’s episode, Paul Buchanan and I will examine questions as to whether this tragedy could have been prevented and will consider New Zealand’s:

• Security and terror laws
• Deportation laws involving those with refugee status
• Mental Health Act and whether this was available to the authorities.

We will also analyse whether it is necessary for the New Zealand Government to move to tighten New Zealand’s terrorism security laws. And, if it does, how the intended new laws compare to other Five Eyes member countries.

WE INVITE YOU TO PARTICIPATE WHILE WE ARE LIVE WITH COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS IN THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST:

You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

The frequent detention and questioning of some of Fiji’s political leaders by the police late last month for merely engaging in public debate on the contentious iTaukei Land Trust Bill No. 17 has raised questions about Fiji’s claim to be a champion of human rights.

All this has happened when the country was losing its grip on the escalating covid-19 pandemic, and experiencing the worst economic crisis in its history. The only silver lining for Fiji was the glittering Olympic gold won by its Rugby 7s men’s team and bronze by its women.

But these temporary celebratory moments should not divert attention away from the long-term implications of the repressive responses to alternative ideas by the government.

The coercive measures were justified by the police and government as important for sustaining national security, an often arbitrarily defined term. The rationale is that comments against the bill by politicians have the potential to stir up racial tension and public discord.

At the centre of the controversy is the attempt by the government to liberalise the use of indigenous Fijian land and give more power to lessees to carry out such things as sub-leasing and mortgaging without the consent of the iTaukei Trust Board (ITB), which was established in 1940 to administer indigenous land.

Opposition to the bill spans a variety of political positions. Those on the nationalist end of the spectrum argue that it was part of a “Muslim conspiracy” to alienate indigenous land. Certain individual keyboard warriors even resorted to the use of online racial threats.

The more moderate ones argue that given the cultural and racial sensitivity around land issues, the bill was insensitive and itself a security threat. There was nevertheless consensus that the process used to push through the bill lacked proper and meaningful consultation with landowners and the public generally and thus lacked democratic legitimacy.

One of the fears raised is that removing the regulatory process of subleasing and mortgage by lessees can lead to the Vanuatu situation where 90 percent of land on the main island, Efate, has been alienated through extensive subleasing and selling by foreign investors with little income for the landowners.

To get their land back at the expiry of the lease period, landowners have to pay back millions of dollars worth of land improvement value, something no one is able to do.

Cycle of vengeance
The response by Fiji’s government and the police was to invoke the Public Order Act, a leftover from the British colonial days, which was made even more coercive through the 2012 Public Order Amendment Decree by the then military government. The Act gives the police unlimited powers to arrest anyone they deem to be a threat to public order and safety.

The arrests of leading opposition politicians, MPs and former prime ministers have raised a number of fundamental questions about human rights and freedom of expression in Fiji’s struggling constitutional democracy.

One of the critical issues is that the institutional norms, political psyche and behaviour associated with military coups have been embedded implicitly in Fiji’s constitutional and legislative systems.

Despite the elections and global projections of being a vibrant democracy, the arbitrary use of repressive means to suppress alternative views remains a lingering issue.

Well-meaning actions and words by citizens are securitised and considered a threat, while the entire security apparatus of the state is let loose on so-called perpetrators of instability.

The second point here is that this military psyche permeates through society in various subtle ways, creating a culture of fear and distrust and worsened by what people see as the government’s uncompromising tactics in micro-management of the civil service, as well as the use of the merit system as a tool of nepotism and patronage in civil service and board appointments.

Normalisation of the use of fear and psychological intimidation in the civil service, Parliament and society generally may result in short-term compliance but can spawn silent resistance which can explode into a major security issue in the future.

Driver of political antagonism
A third and related factor here, resulting from the hardline stance of the government, is the way in which Fiji politics has taken a dangerously dichotomous cycle of vengeance and counter-vengeance as a driver of political antagonism.

Both sides of the political divide have dug into their trenches with hardly anyone in “No Man’s Land” to keep a sense of restraint. The repressive tactics will only fuel counter-vengeance sentiments at a time when the country needs to focus on covid-19 and associated problems.

A fourth issue here is the battle for the moral high ground. The government policy of “racial blindness” has given them the licence to cast almost anyone who raises issues relating to identity and culture as “racist” or trying to inflame racial strife. This is certainly the case with the bill in question.

Public criticism of acts of nepotism, patronage and racial favouritism by government have often been constructed with racial lenses and thus framed as security threats.

Sociological research in various countries has shown that the policy of so-called racial blindness is ironically a racist prism in itself because it does not allow one to appreciate the value of racial diversity and it can actually be used as a Trojan horse for cultural nepotism and ethnic patronage by states. Many have accused the Fiji government of doing exactly that.

Who benefits from development in Fiji
The fifth and last point relates to what the bill represents in terms of the broader development strategy of Fiji. Because of the four points raised above, the efforts of the government to sell its rationale have not gone smoothly.

The critical question here is whether the bill was originally intended to benefit the landowners or was it to serve the interests of foreign investors and other local entrepreneurs who have been part of the government’s lobbying and patronage system.

I do not want to speculate on this but the point here is to do with what type of development is best for the landowners?

Covid-19 has shown us the fundamental fragility of the tourism-based economy and the need to strengthen the land-based social solidarity economy. This requires developing a comprehensive land innovation plan which includes training for landowners in modern agriculture, developing food processing plants and creating global markets in a holistic way throughout the value chain.

This will allow landowners to commercialise and acquire direct benefits from their land, empower them economically and address prevalent poverty.

A number of communities in Fiji have been able to do that at a very localised level, making millions of dollars even without any government support. A much larger model to look at is the multi-billion dollar Ngai Tahu indigenous corporation in New Zealand’s South Island.

Rather than remain passive lease money recipients and subservient players in the market economy as the current system promotes, landowners can be active players in the market.

The land bill in question will simply perpetuate the system of post-colonial servitude. Rather than making minor “administrative” adjustments which will only benefit some foreign and local individual entrepreneurs as the bill suggests, it is time to relook at alternative, equity-based and innovative development strategies with landowners as active participants and direct beneficiaries as empowered partners with other investors.

This will address the issues of poverty and inequality as well as create a much more favourable climate for national security for all.

The future of security in Fiji depends not on using repressive tactics to impose government’s will on the population, but on using an approach which incorporates equitable and people-centred development strategies, empathetic political governance and a reconciliatory way to unite different ethnic, cultural and political groups.

Arresting political leaders will only exacerbate tension and shamefully reveal the deeper structural and normative weaknesses of the ruling political class.

Dr Steven Ratuva is a global award-winning political sociologist and is director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury.This article was first published by RNZ News and is republished with the permission of the author.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz