West Africa Digital Rights and Freedom of Expression Litigation Surgery 2019 (Fully-funded Workshop for Lawyers in ECOWAS Member Countries)

Application Deadline: 28th April 2019.

Eligible Countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, the island nation of Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast,Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, the island of Saint Helena, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

To Be Taken At (Country): Accra, Ghana

About the Award: MLDI provides legal support to journalists, bloggers and independent media. In recent years, it has supported a significant number of cases involving online media. These have included challenging social media blocking and Internet shutdowns, contesting cybercrimes legislation and intermediary liability, as well as calling for greater online privacy and source protection.
The objectives of the litigation workshop are:

• To equip participants with skills and knowledge to litigate using national and international laws as well as regional and international mechanisms relevant to freedom of expression – both online and offline;
• To build a digital rights network and help facilitate its engagement with international legal mechanisms and global civil society initiatives; and
• To assist and develop working relationships amongst lawyers undertaking such cases.

Themes: The following non-exhaustive list of themes are a guide for the type of cases that could be submitted with the application:

1.  Cybercrime laws;
2. · Intermediary liability;
3. · Internet shutdowns;
4. · Restriction of online media;
5. · Online privacy;
6. · National security; and
7. · Anonymity online.

Type: Workshop

Eligibility: Participants will be selected on the following criteria:

• The surgery is open to lawyers who work and reside countries that are members of the ECOWAS (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo) and the Republic of Cameroon;
• Applicants can either be working in private practice or be working for or be affiliated with NGOs promoting the right to freedom of expression in West Africa through litigation. Exceptionally strong applications from lawyers who have not yet undertaken freedom of expression work, but have experience litigating other human rights cases and have a strong interest in undertaking freedom of expression work will be considered as well. A maximum of 12 participants will be selected;
• Applicants must be proficient in English;
• They must have a demonstrated interest in and/or knowledge of the right to online freedom of expression, digital rights, internet freedom and/or related issues;
• The lawyers must have a demonstrated interest in and/or knowledge of international and regional human rights law;
• With their application, applicants are requested to submit a case study of a case that they are either currently litigating or that they intend to litigate, which may be discussed during the litigation surgery. As set out above, it will suffice for participants who do not have a case that is pending to have identified a relevant law, practice or policy relating to online freedom of expression that they would like to challenge in court. However, such participants must demonstrate their ability and willingness to pursue the case after the surgery;
• The cases submitted must involve a violation of the fundamental right to freedom of expression online;
• The following (non-exhaustive) list of themes are a guide for the type of cases that could be submitted with the application:
  • Cybercrime laws;
  • Intermediary liability;
  • Internet shutdowns;
  • Restriction of online media;
  • Online privacy;
  • National security; and
  • Anonymity online.

MDLI is committed to advancing equality and diversity and will therefore consider gender, age and country of origin in its selection of participants.

Number of Awards: A maximum of 12 participants will be selected;

Value of Award: MLDI will cover airfare, accommodation, travel expenses and a per diem.

Duration of Programme: 1 – 5 July 2019

How to Apply: 

• Please complete the attached application form and submit it to Michael Moss at michael.moss@mediadefence.org before the deadline of midnight on Sunday 28 April 2019.
• Shortlisted applicants will be notified soon after the closing date and should be available for a Skype or telephone interview on 8, 9 or 10 May 2019.
• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

Visit the Programme Webpage for Details

UNLEASH Innovative Lab 2019 for Young Changemakers (Fully funded to Shenzhen, China)

Application Deadline: 18th April, 2019, 23:59:59 SST

Eligible Countries: International

To be taken at (country): China

About the Award: UNLEASH is a global innovation lab, which gathers 1,000 top talent annually from all over the world to collaborate on solutions to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In 2019, UNLEASH will be held in Shenzhen, China from November 6-13

Type: Entrepreneurship

Eligibility: UNLEASH accepts top talents typically aged 20-35. 

Successful applicants will excel across 5 general criteria.

• Demonstrated passion and commitment to solving one of the world’s pressing challenges;
• Possession of a creative and innovative mindset;
• Willingness to engage in co-creation with peers and experts;
• High proficiency in English with the ability to engage in complex discussions and 
• Bonus: working in the field in a global context.

Selection Criteria: The profiles UNLEASH is looking for are:

Entrepreneur: Recently launched/or considered launching start-ups, organizations or campaigns at a very early stage (both non- and for-profit).

Intrapreneur: Improved or changed entities, e.g. through R&D, business development or organizational changes.

Academic: Top class academic with in-depth content knowledge, e.g. via courses, research projects or a Ph.D.

Technical expert: Possess skills, tools and know-how (e.g. with engineering, design or finance) enabling development of physical or software-based solutions.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: UNLEASH covers all expenses for travel, accommodation, curriculum, and activities and provides you with a new toolset for how to innovate, create impact at scale and collaborate with experts, mentors, and facilitators from all over the world.

Duration of Programme: November 6-13 2019

How to Apply: Learn more and apply

• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Chinese Government-Chinese University Scholarships 2019/2020 for International Students

Application Timeline: 15th April 2019 (Generally)

Offered annually? Yes

Type: Masters, Doctorate

About the Scholarship: Chinese University Program is a full scholarship for designated Chinese universities and certain provincial education offices in specific provinces or autonomous regions to recruit outstanding international students for graduate studies in China. It only supports graduate students.

Eligibility: 

• Applicants must be a citizen of a country other than the People’s Republic of China, and be in good health
• The requirements for applicants’ degree and age are that applicants must:
• be a bachelor’s degree holder under the age of 35 when applying for the master’s programs;
• be a master’s degree holder under the age of 40 when applying for the doctoral programs.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Duration of Awards: This scholarship only supports master’s students for no more than 3 academic years or doctoral students for no more than 4 academic years. The scholarship covers both major study and Chinese language/preparatory study, as specified in the Admission Letter.

Value of Scholarship: The Chinese University Program provides a full scholarship which covers tuition waiver, accommodation, stipend, and comprehensive medical insurance. Please refer to Introduction to CGS—Coverage and Standard for details of each item.

How to Apply: 

• Step 1 – Apply to the designated Chinese universities undertaking this program.
• Step 2 – Complete the online application procedure at CGS Information System （Visit http://www.csc.edu.cn/studyinchina or http://www.campuschina.org and click “Application Online” to log in）,
• submit online the completed Application Form for Chinese Government Scholarship, and print a hard copy. Please consult your target university for the Instructions of the CGS Information System and Agency Number.
• Step 3 – Submit all your application documents to your target university before the deadline.

You need to apply latest early April. Please consult the Chinese universities for the specific deadline of each year.
Learn more about the Chinese Government Scholarship

Australian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) International Scholarships 2019 for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 5th May 2019

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Australia

About the Award: The ACEM scholarship is to support attendance and presentation at the ACEM Annual Scientific Meeting and to increase awareness and support for emergency medicine in developing countries.
The International Scholarship aims to increase awareness and support for emergency medicine in developing countries. By nomination of a FACEM or trainee, the scholarship is designed to help increase the recipient’s skills and understanding of emergency medicine systems and standards throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Type: Short Course/Training

Eligibility: To be eligible to submit a nomination the nominator:

1. Must either be a Fellow or trainee of ACEM in good standing of the College
2. Have developed linkages with the nominee through previous international emergency medicine development activities in the nominee’s country
3. Willing to accept responsibility for arranging a suitable program for the nominee (in liaison with the International Emergency Medicine Committee Administrator)
4. Attend both the ACEM College Ceremony and ASM as a personal host of the nominee.

To be eligible for nomination the nominee must fulfil the following criteria:

1. A doctor or other health professional from developing countries
2. An actual or potential leader in the development of emergency medicine in their country
3. Secured a committed sponsor who will host them and arrange their program
4. Present on the challenges and opportunities relating to the development of emergency medicine in their country at the ACEM Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) in the relevant year
5. Give permission for ACEM to use their ASM presentation, and personal and professional information, including a photograph, for the purposes of publishing in the ASM program and other promotional material
6. Is able to apply for his/her visa to travel to Australia/New Zealand prior to 31 July in the year of the application.

Selection Criteria: A Panel from the International Emergency Medicine Committee reviews applications and the ACEM Foundation awards the scholarship, all based on the following criteria:

• Present at the Annual Scientific Meeting
• Actual or potential leadership capacity in emergency medicine in the nominee’s country
• Engagement in an area of work that would benefit from the opportunities and learning experiences at the ASM
• Explanation of the value of the scholarship for the nominee, their environment and their country
• Well-established relationships with FACEMs and is from a country with strong linkages with Fellows of the College
• Have a reference from a Fellow or trainee of ACEM.

Preferable

• Scope for the FACEM sponsor (or other FACEMs) to support the development of emergency medicine in the nominee’s country
• Fom region which is a priority for the College
• Desn’t have significant support from other sources
• No previous record of attendance at any major emergency medicine conference(s).

Number of Awards: Up to six each financial year.

Value of Award:
Benefits include:

• AUD$8,000 per recipient, with a maximum of AUD$50,000.
• The scholarship is to be used to cover the return economy-class airfares, visa, accommodation, travel and living expenses while the recipient(s) are in Australia or New Zealand.
• The Scholarship may include visiting emergency departments within Australia and New Zealand to help increase the scholarship recipients skills and understanding of emergency medicine systems and standards throughout Australasia.
• The recipients are presented with a certificate of the scholarship at the College Ceremony held in November every year.

Obligations include:

1. Responsible for arranging a suitable program for the scholar (in liaison with the International Emergency Medicine Committee Administrator)
2. Provide a report detailing the scholar’s experience to the ACEM Foundation by 1 February of the year following the scholarship.

Duration of Program: The expected length of stay is seven (7) days.

How to Apply: If the nominator and nominee meet the selection criteria above.

• Read the full terms and conditions
• Complete the application form by 5th May and provide necessary document
• Email the application to ACEM.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details


Award Providers: Australian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM)

NNPC/Addax Petroleum Scholarships 2019 for Nigerian Undergraduate Students

Application Deadline: Ongoing

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To be taken at (country): Nigeria

About the Award: This Scheme Is Open To Unregistered Existing Awardees of Addax Scholarship ONLY.

Type: Undergraduate

Eligibility: Requirements for existing Tertiary scholarship beneficiaries are as follows:

• Proof of admission (Admission letter, Letter / sign-off from HOD confirming student’s claim)
• School ID Card
• Passport photograph
• Email
• Phone number
• Address

Value of Award: Onetime financial aid

How to Apply: Before you start this application, be reminded that this exercise is only for candidates invited. 

• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

How ISIS’s Brutal Project in the Middle East was Finally Overthrown

Patrick Cockburn 

Up to its dying days the self-declared Islamic State has retained the ability to top the news agenda, even as its fighters were losing their last battle for bomb-shattered villages in the deserts of eastern Syria. When their spokesman promised retaliation for the massacre of Muslims in the Christchurch mosques his threat was taken seriously.

Given the record of Isis atrocities it is not surprising that nobody can discount its ability to exact revenge through existing adherents, new converts or those using its name to spread terror. This is not just western paranoia: in Syria and Iraq people speak continually of Isis sleeper cells waiting to emerge and exact revenge.

There is a largely sterile debate about whether or not Isis – whose territory once stretched from the outskirts of Baghdad to the hills overlooking the Mediterranean – is dead and buried, as Donald Trump claims. Could it be reborn if the pressure against it is relaxed? The answer is simple enough: Isis is defeated as a state apparatus that once ruled eight million people, but it can persist as a terrorist and guerrilla organisation.

I was in Baghdad in June 2014 when Isis was advancing south towards the capital, capturing cities and towns like Tikrit and Baiji with scarcely a shot being fired. The rout of the Iraqi army seemed total and for several days there was no defensive lines between us and Isis advance patrols. As many as 1,700 Shia air force cadets were massacred amid the ruins of Saddam Hussein’s old palaces on the banks of the Tigris river near Tikrit.

Isis had 100 days of stunning victories in Iraq and Syria but its emirs were never to reach the same level of success again. Instead of focusing all their forces on seizing Baghdad, they moved north and attacked the autonomous and near independent Iraqi Kurdish enclave. The US and its allies started using their devastating air power. If Isis ever had a chance of complete victory, it came and went very quickly.

The success of its blitzkrieg tactics in 2014 depended in part on Isis’s ability to spread terror through the internet by broadcasting its atrocities. Iraqi families would watch them and tell their soldier sons to desert the army and keep out of the fighting. The unexpected capture of Mosul in 2014 gave the impression to many Sunni Arabs in Iraq and Syria that the forces of the newly declared caliphate were divinely inspired. Isis commanders certainly believed this.

But now with obliteration on the battlefield Isis can no longer make any convincing claim for divine inspiration or support. One of the great attractions of Isis – that it had almost magical powers guaranteeing victory – has gone. For the eight million Iraqi and Syrians whom Isis once controlled, its rule brought nothing but death and destruction. Almost all of Raqqa, its Syrian de facto capital, and much of Mosul, its Iraqi counterpart, are in ruins. Tens of thousands of Sunni Arabs in both countries have died in the relentless US-led bomb and artillery bombardments that finally overwhelmed Isis defences.

But could the thousands of dispersed Isis fighters that the Pentagon says are hiding out in the vast deserts and semi-deserts between Syria and Iraq reorganise and stage a convincing counter-attack? After all, the US “Surge” in Iraq in between 2007 and 2009 was trumpeted at the time as marking the final defeat of al-Qaeda in there, which was Isis under another name. Isis commanders are reported to draw inspiration from that period, arguing that they have come back before and they will do so again.

It is not very likely that favourable circumstances will once more combine in such a way that Isis could relaunch itself. It has lost the advantage of surprise and has too many enemies who may not like each other but know what Isis can do given half a chance. In 2014 it enjoyed a certain tolerance and even support from Sunni states like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar which is no longer there.

But this not quite the same as saying that Isis is finished. The deserts of Syria and Iraq are vast and impossible to police in their entirety. Occupation forces, be they Kurds in Raqqa or Iraqi Shia troops in Sunni parts of Iraq, are resented and often hated by Sunni Arabs and Isis could benefit from their disaffection. And even if Isis does not regain such popularity as it once enjoyed in these places, its reputation for homicidal fury means that it does not have to do very much to spread terror.

Isis as Isis has probably had its day. But could it transmute into something else? The defeat of Isis does not mean the defeat of al-Qaeda of which Isis was only a single clone. In north-west Syria Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), despite several changes of name, has been for over a year the largest jihadi or al-Qaeda type movement in the country. In western Idlib, northern Hama and western Aleppo provinces it has displaced other armed opposition groups. It now may have as many as 50,000 fighters and control three million people. HTS might also establish itself as an ally of Turkey in northern Syria which would allow the al-Qaeda brand to live on.

But one should not let such possibilities to run riot and pretend that the old al-Qaeda formula of making war – with suicide attacks as acts of faith – has the destructive power it once did. President Trump is largely right in his claims that Islamic State is destroyed – even if he is grossly, even ludicrously, inflating his own role in its demise.

Ecological Civilization: Could China Become a Model for Saving the Earth?

Evaggelos Vallianatos

Industrialized agriculture is threatening humanity with catastrophe. It feeds global warming and dissolves societies. In addition, its pesticides contaminate and poison drinking water and food.

Undoing rural America

I reached this conclusion from working for the US Environmental Protection Agency for twenty-five years. I summarized my experience in my 2014 book, Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA. This essay reflects my knowledge from that experience.

The industrialization of agriculture did massive damage to rural America, turning most of that beautiful land into medieval plantations. Instead of millions of small family farmers, we now have a few thousand large corporate farmers in charge of rural America and the growing of most food. Democracy and human and environmental health suffered a severe blow. Money and power triumphed.

Catching up

Like many countries, China is trying to catch up with the agricultural superpower illusion of America. Yes, America produces huge amounts of food, but at unsustainable and catastrophic costs and consequences.

There are non-toxic alternatives to coaxing more from an acre of land.

In the United States, the alternative to chemical farming has the name of “organic” agriculture. In the European Union, the alternative is “biological” agriculture. These alternatives are sophisticated modifications of traditional agriculture. They produce and sell food without using pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, genetic engineering, sludge, and radiation. But like industrialized farming, the organic-biological alternatives ignore the size of farms, the plight of farm workers, the kind and size of farm machinery, the use of petroleum and petroleum products like plastics.

Petroleum fuels industrialized societies. Their agriculture, transportation, energy and defense industries are largely depended on petroleum. However, petroleum is a major global warming fuel.

Agribusiness and peasants in China

China has a growing sector of industrialized agriculture. China has also more than 200 million peasants practicing traditional farming.

Caught between these two gigantic forces, The Chinese government is campaigning on behalf of environmental protection primarily as an antidote to the ecocidal and destabilizing effects of environmental pollution.

I have had the opportunity of visiting China twice. The Institute for Postmodern Development of China made that possible. Since 2005, this non-profit organization based in Claremont, California, has been the ecological link between China and America.

What is ecological civilization?

Indeed, the first time I heard the term “ecological civilization” was in Claremont where I have been living since 2008. I immediately smiled and connected ecological civilization to fantasy.

The idea, of course, is not entirely utopian. First of all, it is beautiful. It brings to mind heaven on Earth: flourishing villages and towns, peasants working the land without outsiders oppressing them or oppressing each other or polluting the natural world; flowers, monarch butterflies, honeybees, singing birds, sheep and lambs, fig trees, flowering lemon and almond trees, creeks and rivers running through the land, olive groves, grapevines and god Dionysos and his maenad followers indulging in a frenzy of dance and music.

However, Zhihe Wang and Meijun Fan, who direct the Institute for Postmodern Development of China, probably have other dreams for ecological civilization. They grew up in the China of Mao Zedong. They experienced hunger and witnessed the destruction of traditional Chinese culture. They are both trained in academic philosophy. They know China and the West.

They may see ecological civilization as an emerging new global philosophy. Either humans will learn how to live in harmony with the natural world or they will become extinct. Perhaps ecological civilization is a convenient expression for the end of war and a beginning of something better for themselves and China. It may be no more than a slogan or deep belief in a better world.

I joined the discussion about ecological civilization during some of the conferences they sponsored in Claremont. That gave me a chance to talk to Chinese scholars.

Such theoretical perspectives enriched my limited observations in rural China. Chinese peasants told me they love the land they rent from the state. And Chinese agronomists who study peasant farming told me they would love to see a better future for peasant farming.

Americanizing Chinese farming

Nevertheless, China is striving to “modernize” its peasant agriculture. Chinese scientists have been training in America for decades. The Chinese government is funding these scientists to expand the scope of industrialized farming in China. Both the government and the American-trained scientists overlook the fact that peasants are raising most of China’s food.

Industrialized farmers in China are converting peasant land to large factory farms. Such a policy is bound to spark clashes between peasants and large industrialized farmers supported by the government. This looming tragedy is a telling example of how difficult it is to maintain ancient ecological traditions in an age of worldwide ecocide and rapacious ambitions and governance.

The peasant factor

In contrast to the hegemonic American agribusiness and the equally hegemonic if misguided developing Chinese agribusiness, Chinese peasant farming opens an exciting vista of ecological and political insights for a strategy of an agriculture that is largely benign to the natural world, just to those working the land, and healthy to all eating the food peasants grow.

Industrialized agribusiness, be that of the American or Chinese variety, is against ecological civilization. Organic / biological farming and peasant agriculture open the doors to ecological civilization – just a little. They give us but a glimpse of what the future could become.

The first system – agribusiness — is a grab for power; the second is a spark from millennial traditions of wisdom and practice in the raising of food without wounding the land.

There’s also the best of modern science coming under the name of agroecology: the latest findings in agricultural ecology, that could and would complement and enrich peasant practices.

China would do its culture a favor if it turns all its efforts in repairing and strengthening its peasant farming, abandoning its agribusiness as an error. Such a policy shift would tell the world China is serious about ecological civilization – and fighting global warming. At that moment, China might become a model for saving the Earth.

Civilizationism vs the Nation State

James M. Dorsey

Many have framed the battle lines in the geopolitics of the emerging new world order as the 21st century’s Great Game. It’s a game that aims to shape the creation of a new Eurasia-centred world, built on the likely fusion of Europe and Asia into what former Portuguese Europe minister Bruno Macaes calls a “supercontinent.”

For now, the Great Game pits China together with Russia, Turkey and Iran against the United States, India, Japan and Australia. The two camps compete for influence, if not dominance, in a swath of land that stretches from the China Sea to the Atlantic coast of Europe.

The geopolitical flashpoints are multiple. They range from the China Sea to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Central European nations and, most recently, far beyond with Russia, China and Turkey supporting embattled Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

On one level, the rivalry resembles Risk, a popular game of diplomacy, conflict and conquest played on a board depicting a political map of the earth, divided into forty-two territories, which are grouped into six continents. Multiple players command armies that seek to capture territories, engage in a complex dance as they strive for advantage, and seek to compensate for weaknesses. Players form opportunistic alliances that could change at any moment. Potential black swans threaten to disrupt.

Largely underrated in debates about the Great Game is the fact that increasingly there is a tacit meeting of the minds among world leaders as well as conservative and far-right politicians and activists that frames the rivalry: the rise of civilisationalism and the civilizational state that seeks its legitimacy in a distinct civilization rather than the nation state’s concept of territorial integrity, language and citizenry.

The trend towards civilisationalism benefits from the fact that 21st century autocracy and authoritarianism vests survival not only in repression of dissent and denial of freedom of expression but also maintaining at least some of the trappings of pluralism that can include representational bodies with no or severely limited powers, toothless opposition groups, government-controlled non-governmental organizations, and degrees of accountability.

It creates the basis for an unspoken consensus on the values that would underwrite a new world order on which men like Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Victor Orban, Mohammed bin Salman, Narendra Modi and Donald Trump find a degree of common ground. If anything, it is this tacit understanding that in the shaping of a new world order constitutes the greatest threat to liberal values such as human and minority rights. By the same token, the tacit agreement on fundamental values reduces the Great Game to a power struggle over spheres of influence and the sharing of the pie as well as a competition of political systems in which concepts such as democracy are hollowed out.

Intellectually, the concept of civilisationalism puts into context much of what is currently happening. This includes the cyclical crisis over the last decade as a result of a loss of confidence in leadership and the system; the rise of right and left-wing populism; the wave of Islamophobia and increased anti-Semitism; the death of multi-culturalism with the brutal crackdown on Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang as its most extreme expression; the Saudi and Russian alliance with ultra-conservative Christian groups that propagate traditional family values; and Russian meddling in Western elections.

Analysts explained these developments by pointing to a host of separate and disparate factors, some of which were linked in vague ways. Analysts pointed among others to the 2008 financial crisis, jihadist violence and the emergence of the Islamic State, the war in Syria, and a dashing of hope with the rollback of the achievements of the 2011 popular Arab revolts. These developments are and were at best accelerators not sparks or initiators.

Similarly, analysts believed that the brilliance of Osama Bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks on New York’s World Trade Towers and the Pentagon in Washington was the killing of multi-culturalism in one fell and brutal swoop. Few grasped just how consequential that would be. A significant eye opener was the recent attack on the mosques in Christchurch. New Zealand much like Norway in the wake of the 2012 attacks by supremacist Andre Breivik stands out as an anti-dote to civilisationalism with its inclusive and compassionate response.

The real eye-opener, however, was a New Zealand intelligence official who argued that New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance alongside the United States, Britain, Australia and Canada, had missed the emergence of a far or alt-right that created breeding grounds for violence because of Washington’s singular post-9/11 focus on what popularly is described as Islamic terrorism. That remark casts a whole different light on George W. Bush’s war on terror and the subsequent war against the Islamic State. Those wars are rooted as much in the response to 9/11, the 7/7 London attacks and other jihadist occurrences as they are in witting or unwitting civilisationalism.

“The global war on terror has become a blueprint for violence against Muslims. When there isn’t a shooting at a mosque, there’s a drone strike in Somalia. When one Friday prayer goes by without incident, an innocent Muslim is detained on material support for terrorism charges or another is killed by law enforcement. Maybe a baby is added to a no-fly list,” said human rights activist Maha Hilal. Scholars Barbara Perry and Scott Poynting warned more than a decade ago in study of the fallout in Canada of the war on terror that “in declining adequately to recognize and to act against hate (crimes), and in actually modelling anti-Muslim bias by practicing discrimination and institutional racism through “‘ethnic targeting,’ ‘racial profiling,’ and the like, the state conveys a sort of ideological license to individuals, groups and institutions to perpetrate and perpetuate racial hatred.”

The same is true for the various moves in Europe that have put women on the frontline of what in the West are termed cultural wars but in reality are civilizational wars involving efforts to ban conservative women’s dress and endeavours to create a European form of Islam. In that sense Victor Orban’s definition of Hungary as a Christian state in which there is no room for the other is the extreme expression of this trend. It’s a scary picture, it raises the spectre of Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations, yet it is everything but.

Fact is that economic and geopolitical interests are but part of the explanation for the erection of a Muslim wall of silence when it comes to developments in Xinjiang, the Organization of Islamic Countries’ ability to criticize the treatment of Muslim minorities in various parts of the world but praise China for its policy, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s alliance with a man like Victor Orban and his joining the right-wing chorus that has turned Jewish financier and philanthropist George Soros into a bogeyman or the rise of militant, anti-Muslim Buddhism and Hinduism. In fact, the signs of this were already visible with the alliance between Israel and the evangelists who believe in doomsday on the Day of Judgement if Jews fail to convert to Christianity as well as the recent forging of ties between various powerful Islamic groups or countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE and the evangelist movement.

Civilisationalism is frequently based on myths erected on a falsification and rewriting of history to serve the autocrat or authoritarian’s purpose. Men like Trump, Orban, and Erdogan project themselves as nationalist heroes who protect the nation from some invading horde. In his manifesto, Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch attacks, bought into the notion of an illusionary invader. Muslims, he wrote, “are the most despised group of invaders in the West, attacking them receives the greatest level of support.”

He also embraced the myths of an epic, centuries-long struggle between the white Christian West and Islam with the defeat of the Ottomans in 1683 at the ports of Vienna as its peak. Inscribed on Tarrant’s weapons were the names of Serbs who had fought the Ottomans as well as references to the battle of Vienna. To Tarrant, the Ottomans’ defeat in Vienna symbolized the victory of the mythical notion of a world of inviolable, homogeneous nations. “The idea that (medieval societies) are this paragon of unblemished whiteness is just ridiculous. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so awful,” said Paul Sturtevant, author of The Middle Ages in the Popular Imagination.

Much like popular perception of the battle for Vienna, Tarrant’s view of history had little relation to reality. A multi-cultural empire, the Ottomans laid siege to Vienna in cooperation with Catholic French King Louis XIV and Hungarian Protestant noble Imre Thokoly as well as Ukrainian Cossacks. Vienna’s Habsburg rulers were supported not only by Polish armies but also Muslim Tartar horsemen. “The Battle of Vienna was a multicultural drama; an example of the complex and paradoxical twists of European history. There never has been such a thing as the united Christian armies of Europe,” said historian Dag Herbjornsrud. Literary scholar Ian Almond argues that notions of a clash of civilizations bear little resemblance to the “almost hopelessly complex web of shifting power-relations, feudal alliances, ethnic sympathies and historical grudges” that shaped much of European history. “The fact remains that in the history of Europe, for hundreds of years, Muslims and Christians shared common cultures, spoke common languages, and did not necessarily see one another as ‘strange’ or ‘other,’” Almond said.

That was evident not only in the Battle of Vienna but also when the Ottomans and North Africa’s Arab rulers rallied around Queen Elizabeth I of England after the pope excommunicated her in 1570 for breaking with Catholicism and establishing a Protestant outpost. Elizabeth and her Muslim supporters argued that Protestantism and Islam were united in their rejection of idol worship, including Catholicism with its saints, shrines and relics. In a letter in 1579 to Ottoman sultan Murad III, Elizabeth described herself as the “most mighty defender of the Christian faith against all kind of idolatries.” In doing so, she sought to capitalize on the fact that the Ottomans had justified their decision to grant Lutherans preferred commercial treatment on the basis of their shared beliefs.

Similarly, historian Marvin Power challenges the projection of Chinese history as civilizational justification of the party leader’s one-man rule by Xi Jinping and Fudan University international relations scholar Zhang Weiwei. Amazon’s blurb on Zhang’s bestselling The China Wave: Rise of the Civilizational State summarizes the scholar’s rendition of Xi Jinping’s vision succinctly: “China’s rise, according to Zhang, is not the rise of an ordinary country, but the rise of a different type of country, a country sui generis, a civilizational state, a new model of development and a new political discourse which indeed questions many of the Western assumptions about democracy, good governance and human rights.” The civilizational state replaces western political ideas with a model that traces its roots to Confucianism and meritocratic traditions.

In his sweeping study entitled China and England: The Preindustrial Struggle for Justice in Word and Image, Powers demonstrates that Chinese history and culture is a testimony to advocacy of upholding individual rights, fair treatment, state responsibility to its people, and freedom of expression rather than civilisationalism, hierarchy and authoritarianism. Powers extensively documents the work of influential Chinese philosophers, writers, poets, artists and statesmen dating back to the 3rd century BC who employed rational arguments to construct governance systems and take legal action in support of their advocacy. Powers noted that protection of free speech was embedded in edicts of the Han Emperor Wen in the second century BC. The edicts legitimized personal attacks on the emperor and encouraged taxpayers to expose government mistakes. The intellectuals and statemen were the Chinese counterpart of contemporary liberal thinkers.

In a lot of ways, Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church have understood the utility of civilisationalism far better than others and made it work for them, certainly prior to the Russian intervention in Syria. At a gathering several years before the intervention, Russia achieved a fete that seemed almost unthinkable. Russia brought to the same table at a gathering in Marrakech every stripe of Sunni and Shiite political Islam.

The purpose was not to foster dialogue among the various strands of political Islam. The purpose was to forge an alliance with a Russia that emphasized its civilizational roots in the Russian Orthodox Church and the common values it had with conservative and ultra-conservative Islam. To achieve its goal, Russia was represented at the gathering by some of its most senior officials and prominent journalists whose belief systems were steeped in the values projected by the Church. To the nodding heads of the participating Muslims, the Russians asserted that Western culture was in decline while non-Western culture was on the rise, that gays and gender equality threaten a woman’s right to remain at home and serve her family and that Iran and Saudi Arabia should be the model for women’s rights. They argued that conservative Russian Orthodox values like the Shariah offered a moral and ethical guideline that guarded against speculation and economic bubbles.

The Trump administration has embarked on a similar course by recently siding in the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women with proponents of ultra-conservative values such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Iraq and several African countries. Together they sought to prevent the expansion of rights for girls, women, and LGBT people and weaken international support for the Beijing Declaration, a landmark 1995 agreement that stands as an internationally recognized progressive blueprint for women’s rights.

The US position in the commission strokes with efforts by conservative Christians to reverse civilizational US courts decisions in favour of rights for women, minorities, members of the LGBT community, Muslims and immigrants and refugees. It is what conservative historian and foreign policy analyst Robert Kagan describes as the war within traditionally liberal society. It is that civilizational war that provides the rationale for Russian meddling in elections, a rational that goes beyond geopolitics. It also explains Trump’s seeming empathy with Putin and other autocrats and authoritarians.

The US alignment with social conservatives contributes to the rise of the civilizational state. Putin’s elevation of the position of the church and Xi’s concentration of absolute power in the Communist Party strengthens institutions that symbolize the rejection of liberal values because they serve as vehicles that dictate what individuals should believe and how they should behave. These vehicles enable civilisationalism by strengthening traditional hierarchies defined by birth, class, family and gender and delegitimizing the rights of minorities and minority views. The alignment suggests that the days were over when Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov trumpeted that the West had lost “its monopoly on the globalization process” because there was a “market of ideas” in which different “value systems” were forced to compete.

Similarly, conservative American author Christopher Caldwell asserted that Orban’s civilizational concept of an authoritarian Christian democracy echoed the kind of democracy that “prevailed in the United States 60 years ago” prior to the civil rights movement and the 1968 student protests. Orban’s Hungary epitomizes the opportunism that underlies the rise of the civilizational state as a mechanism to put one’s mark on the course of history and retain power. In Orban’s terms, civilizational means not Christianity as such but those Christian organizations that have bought into his authoritarian rule. Those that haven’t are being starved of state and public funding.

Civilisationalism’s increased currency is evident from Beijing to Washington with stops in between. Trump’s and Steve Bannon, his former strategy advisor’s beef with China or Russia is not civilizational, its about geopolitical and geo-economic power sharing. In terms of values, they think in equally civilizational terms. In a speech in Warsaw in 2017, Trump declared that “the fundamental question of our time is whether the west has the will to survive” but assured his audience that “our civilization will triumph.” Bannon has established an “academy for the Judeo-Christian west” in a former monastery in the Italian town of Collepardo. The academy intends to groom the next generation of far-right populist politicians.

It is initiatives like Bannon’s academy and the growing popularity of civilizational thinking in democracies, current and erstwhile, rather than autocracies that contribute most significantly to an emerging trend that transcends traditional geopolitical dividing lines and sets the stage for the imposition of authoritarian values in an emerging new world order. Interference in open and fair elections, support for far-right and ultra-conservative, family-value driven Western groups and influence peddling on both sides of the Atlantic and in Eurasia at large by the likes of Russia, China and the Gulf states serve the purpose of Bannon and his European associates.

Civilizationalists have put in place the building blocks of a new world order rooted in their value system. These blocks include the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that groups Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The grouping is centred on the Chinese principle of non-interference in the sovereign affairs of others which amounts to support for the region’s autocratic regimes. The SCO’s Tashkent-based internal security coordination apparatus or Regional Antiterrorist Structure (RATS) has similarly adopted China’s definition of the “three evils” of terrorism, extremism, and separatism that justifies its brutal crackdown in Xinjiang.

Proponents of the civilizational state see the nation state and Western dominance as an aberration of history. British author and journalist Martin Jacques and international relations scholar Jason Sharman argue that China’s history as a nation state is at best 150 years old while its civilizational history dates back thousands of years. Similarly, intellectual supporters of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) project India as a Hindu-base civilization rather than a multi-cultural nation state. Modi’s minister of civil aviation, Jayant Sinha, suggests that at independence, India should have embraced its own culture instead of Western concepts of scientific rationalism. Talking to the Financial Times, Sinha preached cultural particularism. “In our view, heritage precedes the state… People feel their heritage is under siege. We have a faith-based view of the world versus the rational-scientific view.”

Arab autocracies like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have stopped short of justifying their rule in civilizational terms but have enthusiastically embraced the civilizational state’s rejection of western notions of democracy and human rights. One could argue that Saudi Arabia’s four decade long global propagation of ultra-conservative strands of Islam or the UAE effort to mould an Islam that is apolitical and adheres to the principle of obedience to the ruler is civilizational in nature.

Islamic law scholar Mohammed Fadel argues that one reason why Arab autocracies have not overtly embraced civilisationalism even though they in many ways fit the mould is the absence of a collective memory in post-Ottoman Arab lands. To explicitly embrace civilisationalism as a concept, Arab states would have to cloak themselves in the civilizational mantle of either pan-Islam or pan-Arabism, which in turn would require regional integration. One could argue that the attempt by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to impose their will on the Middle East for example with the boycott of Qatar is an attempt to create a basis for a regional integration that they would dominate.

The rise of the civilizational state with its corporatist traits raises the spectre of a new world order whose value system equates dissent with treason, views an independent press as the ‘enemy of the people’ and relegates minorities to the status of at best tolerated communities with no inherent rights. It is a value system that enabled Trump to undermine confidence in the media as the fourth estate that speaks truth to power and has allowed the president and Fox News to turn the broadcaster into the United States’ closest equivalent to state-controlled television. Trump’s portrayal of the media as the bogeyman has legitimized populist assaults on the press across the globe irrespective of political system from China and the Philippines to Turkey and Hungary. It has facilitated Prince Mohammed’s effort to fuse the kingdom’s ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam with a nationalist sentiment that depicts critics as traitors rather than infidels.

In the final analysis, the tacit understanding on a civilisationalism-based value system means that it’s the likes of New Zealand, Norway and perhaps Canada that are putting up their hands and saying not me instead of me too. Perhaps Germany is one of the countries that is seeking to stake out its place on a middle ground. The problem is that the ones that are not making their voices heard are the former bastions of liberalism like the United States and much of Europe. They increasingly are becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution.