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Vanity Fair

“Saudi bans ‘Abaya’ for Muslim students in exam halls; Crown Prince orders adhere to uniform.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 2022)

The video does not show the uniform that female students will have to wear instead of abaya, so this piece of news is wanting.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) otherwise said: “The decision is entirely left for women to decide what type of decent and respectful attire they choose to wear.” Not so for female students, as they will have to don a uniform other than the abaya. – Still, at the same time that they defang the mutawa, the religious police, this. Consequently, I believe Saudi women will wear indecent and disrespectful attire in public, because there no longer is police enforcement of the decency rule. The abaya is a consensual sign of decency. For every innovation in female attire, there will be a question regarding its decency but no one to properly enforce the rule and, at last, no one to bother about it because it will be too much strain to monitor each fashion change in the endless race of vanity.

If you look at Pakistan’s current Minister of State for foreign affairs, Mrs. Hina Rabbani Khar, you’ll see she wears a veil. Yet her veil reveals all her hair, and not only the hair but also the hairdo; it is only a piece of cloth attached to the back of the head. If this is decent attire, then wearing no veil at all is no less decent because the difference between this sort of veil and no veil lies somewhere between nil and minimal. Presumably, Saudi women’s fashion will follow the same direction as a result of Saudi authorities’ current stand against the traditional and rational abaya. Instead of decency, mockery.

With Mrs. Rabbani Khar’s veil, you also see the ears. With the earrings. It would be a pity not to be able to show such expensive jewels, would it not?

Meanwhile, in Western countries, the next trend in lawmaking will be menstrual leave. Mark my words.

(Post-scriptum. According to some, the abaya ban in exam halls has been motivated by a will of Saudi authorities to prevent the use of crib sheets, as the attire would facilitate it.)

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“Bulldozer Crackdown”

“BJP government in MP [Madhya Pradesh] punishes man with bulldozer action for assaulting girlfriend.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 25, 2022)

(i)
On the one hand

The man’s house being “illegal,” it was bulldozed because of its illegality and certainly not because of assault and battery by the owner on his girlfriend. Can you image a system where the administration bulldozes one’s house because of battery, and this even before any judgment by a court of law? No, the assaulter was not punished by the government for assaulting somebody: he will be judged for his assault and, as to his house, as it was found illegal it was bulldozed. If the house had been bulldozed by virtue of an extrajudicial decision of the government, and that were normal, then India would not abide by the rule of law. But the whole story has nothing to do with administrative “punishment” of a wrongdoer. This is not how the law works.

(ii)
On the other hand

If certain illegal houses, a certain slum had been brought before a court already, MP government had a court order to demolish the slum, not a permission to demolish some of the houses at the government’s discretion. Then, assuming MP government chose to ignore the order based on governance considerations, by allowing some people to live in illegal houses it detracted from the principle of equality before the law. Then, when it punishes a wrongdoer from the slum by bulldozing his house, the government commits another breach of the principle, as the wrongdoer will be punished not only by way of the penalty prescribed by law but also with demolition of his dwelling, which presumably is not in the code under the head of assault and battery. The government may believe to correct one breach, a “plus breach” for the individual (who benefits from government tolerance, in disregard of real estate law), with a “minus breach” (adding an administrative penalty, namely cancellation of said tolerance, to the usual, expected judicial penalty), but in reality it only accumulates breaches of the equality principle.

My take on the issue is that operations of this kind do not reduce crime and are not even aimed at this. If it took bulldozers to prevent violence, the laws should be rewritten to replace prison by bulldozing. But the government thinks it’s got a convenient tool to exercise a judicial power of its own, which it does not have by virtue of the separation of powers. By ignoring real estate law and, in many cases presumably, property rights of landowners whose land is illegally occupied, it creates a slum jurisdiction in which the real judicial power is the government, instead of courts, because there is no defense against an administration that can send a bulldozer to demolish one’s house, and slum dwellers therefore fear not as much the courts as the government. This preeminence of the executive is authoritarian. Slum dwellers are at the mercy of officials, completely dependent on their flippant whims, without recourse. (In such grey zones, drugs and prostitution rings could be run by law enforcement and other officers themselves.) Such governments have no enticement to eliminate slums and on the contrary a direct interest in maintaining them. The only way to see that change is to reject the government’s claims to behave as property law enforcer against individual slum dwellers.

In (i), I overlooked the slum dimension of the issue, which is that slum dwellers are at the mercy of government officials. Also, as several people live in the house, there is a collective dimension to the punishment which is contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which India is a signatory state (although, technically, the wrongdoer and his family are not punished with bulldozing for the wrongdoer committing battery but for the family’s illegal occupation of land).

Some people argue that MP government’s maneuver is good deterrence, as trials are long processes. – However, even if a trial can be long, there is such a thing as pre-trial detention, especially for murderers and violent criminals, which are named by these people. Many accused are kept under arrest while their trial is going on, so the remark is absurd. Then, bulldozing the illegal house of a wrongdoer, not because of illegal occupation of land but because of something else, is not permissible. First, the government tolerates illegal occupation of land regardless of landowners’ rights. Then, officials blackmail the squatters by threatening to bulldoze illegal houses not because a landowner is harmed by illegal occupation but because a squatter does something wrong, and that something can be anything, from battery as in the present case (but the criminal code has no such penalty as bulldozing a house in punishment for battery) to looking askance at one or the other official’s conduct. Finally, bulldozing a house where several people live in retaliation for the wrongdoing of one person is against legal principles of the civilized world and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This story, once understood, is appalling publicity for the Indian regime. It talks of slums, that is, lawlessness for landowners; it talks of extrajudicial punishment, that is, lawlessness for slum dwellers; it talks of collective punishment, that is, lawlessness for everybody.

(iii)
And then

“J&K [Jammu and Kashmir] government bulldozer action against Hizbul Mujahideen deputy chief. According to authorities, Ghulam Nabi Khan alias Amir Khan had a wall built on encroached land as an extension to his house in Liver Pahalgam in the south Kashmir district. Khan is a self-styled operational commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen outfit and had crossed over to Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) in the early 1990s and is operating from there.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 31, 2022)

Is “bulldozer crackdown” (Hindustan Times) the specific penalty against “terrorists,” then, rather than the legal response to encroachment? – India fighting terrorism with excavators. Now I better understand the phrase “the long arm of the law”: it talks of the articulated arm of excavators.

I’m impressed how Indian authorities punish terrorists for their violations of urban planning.

What a show of powerlessness by Indian authorities! To have people labeled terrorists and punish them for estate encroachment…

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“‘Burn Indian High Commission’: Maldives ‘India Out’ campaigner Adil Riza arrested.”(Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 25, 2022)

I disagree that the tweet, as presented, is incitement to arson. Abbas Adil Riza claims the 2012 riots and arsons in Maldives were provoked by India and the damages have not been compensated. “We should start with embassy” is to read in this context, the asking of compensation. In the same way that some threats are true threats and others are merely rhetorical tools in controversies, this tweet is rhetorical, not incitement. The tweet means Maldives has a right to compensation for the 2012 arsons. As India may acknowledge its debt and pay it, the payback alluded to, arson for arson, is not a true threat; it is obvious that arson cannot repay arson, this is merely a way to express the urgent need of compensation after the alleged damaging interference. The tweet is not about Maldives’ retaliation but about Indian reparations. There is, to be sure, a form a rhetorical threat in it, namely: “Absent reparations, Maldivians may retaliate with arson against the embassy and other Indian estate in Maldives.” However, as the threat is conditional, it cannot be incitement, and rather a rhetorical tool in an ongoing debate about reparations or about the events of 2012.

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Only in BJP India:
Breakup as abetment to suicide

“BJP [political party with Hindu nationalist ideology] MLA [Member of the Legislative Assembly] R. K. [I do not wish to publicize the MLA’s name on this blog] said if there is any love-jihad angle in actor [actress] Tunisha Sharma’s suicide, then the police will probe that and take strict action. The BJP MLA added the communal angle after Tunisha’s co-actor Sheezan Mohammed Khan was arrested and sent to police custody for four days based on the complaint [for abetment to suicide] by Tunisha’s mother.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 2022)

The love-jihad spin deserves some explanation first, for a Western readership. Some Hindus believe that Muslims practice a form of jihad these Hindus call “love jihad,” which takes the form of relationships of Muslim males with Hindu females, the aim of which would be to alienate the latter from their religious community and any other malice conceivable. And now to the point.

Breaking with one’s lover is not abetment to suicide. First of all, extramarital relationships are not protected by the law. When you are dropped like a bag of dirt, you get a broken heart, whether you can live with it or not. If you want your relationship to be protected, do not consent to anything outside marriage.

“The FIR [first information report] says that the breakup may have pushed Tunisha to the edge.” A man arrested for breaking up with his girlfriend is here the salient and weird piece of news. The love-jihad spin by a MLA was unfortunately predictable, given the arrested man is a Muslim; it is the predictable and deplorable sequel of something unexpected and very lawfare-like. Merely breaking with one’s girlfriend is not abetment to suicide, which requires intent and some form of direct incitement and/or active psychological pressure. Even if the breakup were the direct cause of suicide, it still would not be abetment, absent further elements hinting at intent and pressure; therefore, that such a vague FIR (“breakup may have pushed T. to the edge”) can serve to arrest a man is appalling. The police themselves may be engulfed in love-jihad fantasies and prejudice, to allow this.

“Cops … maintain that there is no angle of blackmailing or love jihad yet.” So why was Sheezan Khan arrested? Do they want to torture him to get false confessions? The mother’s declarations, as described, do not support the case for abetment to suicide. There used to be, in Western countries, a crime of fraudulent or deceitful seduction (tentative translation of French “séduction dolosive”), which would apply to false promises of marriage as here alleged. However, it is obsolete in the liberal “emancipated” West, and as India is so eager to be as liberal as the West on morality issues, I believe it does not exist in India either. But to talk, in lieu of this, of abetment to suicide, on the grounds presented, is frivolous.

Sheezan Khan has nothing to do in police custody. Police said there is no blackmailing or love-jihad angle “yet,” and the complaint for abetment to suicide is frivolous: to presume intent to abet suicide in a breakup is completely unwarranted. A man being grilled in police custody after his lover’s suicide is appalling publicity for the Indian regime, it is outrageous. In any case, a breakup cannot per se give enough reasons to presume intent to abet suicide, or love jihad, or blackmail, or whatever, and arrest a man.

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“Gujarat Shocker: BSF [Border Security Force] Jawan [soldier] lynched after fight over his daughter’s ‘obscene’ video. The soldier along with his wife had decided to confront the accused teenager for allegedly circulating the video. However, on raising the issue with the teenager’s parents, the accused’s family attacked them.” (Hindustan Times, YouTube, Dec 2022)

The more liberalism ruins authority within the family and community, the more it is compelled to repair its mistakes with harsh liberticidal legislation, such as against so-called revenge porn. Liberalism is against families because it is against freedom. If you don’t want obscene videos of yourself on the web, then don’t allow videos to be made of you to begin with. Liberal laws do not have in view payment for acts but rather shielding from payment for acts. You agree that a video is made of you, but you call the police when it is released; yet it is you allowed the release by allowing the video to be made. You’re asking the state to repair your own mistakes. You were lured by promises of lustful liberty and now you beg the police to beat up your lovers with bludgeons and torture them in dark cellars. You are the ones asking for a police state.

In police states, women have their lovers killed by police in basements to prevent revenge porn. Termination is paid by the taxpayer. What kind of state is India?

In France, revenge porn is admissible evidence in a divorce case, yet it is a crime. Think about it.

A man should not marry a woman whose obscene videos are circulating on the internet.

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“Twitter’s Deep Involvement with CIA [after FBI] Now Out in the Open | Twitter Files” (Firstpost, YouTube, Dec 2022)

So, Twitter is basically an intelligence department within the public administration, and yet all this commercial advertising on the platform? Shocking.

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In the Year of the Rabbit

Not one country will lift a finger to help Taiwan. China’s quarantines have had an impact on the world economy, with tensions on many production lines. You can’t go to war against the workshop of the world, it would have to be a blitzkrieg and that’s impossible against China. It must be a war of attrition and you can’t fight such a war against the very workshop of your armies.

(ii)

On hypothetical “Western sanctions against China”: the phrase sounds so unreal. How could any country impose sanctions against the workshop of the world? The workshop would keep producing, but its “sanctioning” outlets would collapse.

It is because of foreign investment that China became the workshop of the world, and why has foreign investment gone to China to begin with? Because of profit maximization and free trade. That is to say, companies won’t leave China unless it becomes less competitive, less attractive, or because national states see China as a threat and force companies to leave the country, i.e., if there are sanctions against China. Western sanctions against China are no more unthinkable than a completely different makeup of the world economy, but they are unthinkable in today’s situation.

Companies coming in a country on commercial considerations and leaving on political considerations, are leaving to their own commercial detriment. In Europe, so many factories have shut down over the last decades. As unions say, when this happens, this is not only a factory that is closing but also know-how that goes lost; as the industrial base has been narrowing, redundant skilled workers cannot find jobs for their specific skills any longer and must apply to unskilled jobs. National relocation of industry would be a long process, and this must deter nations from taking sanctions against their workshop, China, because in the short run they will suffer from them more than sanctioned China.

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Criminal trials do not require complaints. Imagine a man without family and he is murdered. He can’t complain because he’s dead and relatives can’t complain because he had none; yet the authorities will investigate the case to bring the culprit before a court of law. Another example: A man having one relative is murdered by his relative. The victim won’t complain because he’s dead and the relative won’t complain because he’s the murderer. Complaints are not needed in criminal cases for justice to be done.

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On Indonesia’s extramarital sex ban. If governments are allowed to ban drugs, there is no reason why they could not ban extramarital sex. When you take drugs, is it any less your own business? Extramarital relationships are the business of any government having marriage regulations, that is, of all governments. Pay attention that, where adultery is not banned, it is a legal cause of punitive divorce. Where adultery is not banned, there is divorce for misconduct. However, when the situation between the spouses is asymmetrical, this civil procedure is wanting, so a criminal procedure may correct the asymmetry and restore harmed spouses in their rights.

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The lèse-majesté laws of UK are shrouded in mystery. 1) When one cabinet member said these laws are no longer valid, the statement was later recanted. As it was recanted, it is to be assumed one still faces imprisonment for life in case of lèse-majesté. 2) Police arrested demonstrators with placards “Not my queen etc.”; the demonstrators were later released, and the authorities explained it was the demonstrators’ right to demonstrate. So what, if I’ve got the right to demonstrate and am nonetheless arrested (demonstration terminated) and later released? This is very convenient. No trials: oh so liberal! No demonstrations: oh how they love their monarchs!

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IT

“Italia e Turchia sono storicamente i due attori principali del Mediterraneo.” (Giorgia a Bali) Bello. Adoro. Dato che Giorgia Meloni non è sposata, dovrebbe provare a diventare la seconda moglie di Erdogan, per consolidare i legami dei due attori principali.