Freedom House, a prominent US-based human rights organization which monitors and rates various global freedoms, has found that under President Xi Jinping repression has increased in China. Of the 17 categories assessed by Freedom House in their China Report, repression has increased in 11 since 2012 when Xi took power, indicating an overall intensification of repression.
“The current leaders appear to be increasing repression, expanding the targets and reach of the security agencies even more than their predecessors,” wrote Sarah Cook, senior research analyst for East Asia at Freedom House and author of the report.
The categories in which repression had increased since Xi took power in 2012 include grassroots rights activists, online opinion leaders, ordinary internet users, civic-minded businesspeople, CCP cadres, labor leaders, scholars and professors, print and television journalists, Christians, Buddhist Tibetans, and Muslim Uighurs.
Since 2012, the Chinese government has begun to targeted new entities as well, Cook found. CCP authorities conducted detention, imprisonment, public humiliation and physical abuse on individuals who had previously been safe in the nation, including a pastor from a state-sanctioned church, a highly popular businessman, an acclaimed lawyer, an internet entrepreneur, and several middle class professionals. Party cadre had also suffered increased physical abuse — to the point of death — Freedom House reported.
Five categories maintained a level of repression consistent with pre-2012 findings: political dissidents, human rights lawyers, formal nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), protest participants, and Falun Gong practitioners.
Freedoms in China increased in only one category, according to Freedom House: petitioners, and the increase was minor, involving the abolition of the “reeducation through labor” camp system.
Freedom House noted that particularly prevalent in China since Xi took office was the incidence of religious persecution. Falun Gong adherents, Muslim Uighurs and Tibetan Buddhists were more likely than other classes of people to suffer prison sentences of over 10 years, systemic torture and death while in custody.
The Chinese government has shifted tactics since Xi entered office, Freedom House found. The government began using less overtly political charges — instead using public assembly- and disturbance-related charges for arrests. Bribery, illegal business offences and prostitution were also used against politically-involved actors in China, including journalists, according to the report.
The CPC also increased it’s use of short detention terms and high monetary fines, and revived televised forced confessions.
“On the one hand, there seems to be a greater emphasis on more formal types of punishment — such as administrative detention, brief criminal detention, and full prosecutions — and on punishments that discredit or humiliate the target, most likely a bid to enhance the legitimacy of the crackdown. On the other hand, this has not translated into an actual reduction in the use of extralegal detention, since the abolition of the discredited RTL system has led to the reported proliferation of less visible alternative facilities,” wrote Cook in the report.
“Repression has increased under the new leadership, yet fear of the regime appears to be diminishing,” she concluded.
The data from which Freedom House completed their study included that from their own interviews (conducted for the purposes of their research), media reports, Chinese human rights groups, the China Labor Bulletin, the Duihua Foundation and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
The report, “The Politburo’s Predicament,” was completed by Sarah Cook and was published on the Freedom House website.
A recent study has found that health messages–the kind that are posted on billboards to advise the public or decorate the walls of doctors’ offices–have different effects on two different classes of people. The research found that while experts respond better to negative, loss-framed messages that make sense within the context their strong knowledge of the subject, most people do not. The general public responds better to positive, gain-framed messages that make sense within a big picture-type understanding of health.
It is the difference between “preaching to the choir” and reaching “people who really need to hear it, but who really don’t care that much to think very deeply about it,” Dr. Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and lead author of the study, said of his findings.
Wansick explained this by referencing the different understandings of health possessed by experts and the general public.
Experts–dieters, dieticians, and people who work in medicine or the medical area–have a strong knowledge-base with which they can process a health message. These people are highly involved in the topic, Wansick explained, and they “piecmeal process” health information (process things in detail. They also feel a duty to maintain the achievements they have already made in health matters, and tend to be risk-averse.
The general public, Wansick said, have less firsthand knowledge of the consequences of their actions, and view healthy behaviors are a choice rather than a duty. They tend to focus on what is gained by a certain behavior rather than what is lost.
Because experts write health messages, the study should give them something new to consider, the researchers expect. Because message designers can now be aware that what makes sense to themselves and their peers will likely have a different effect on the general public, they may be able to correct for their negative-message bias and create more useful positive messages.
The report, “Negative Messages for Experts, Positive Messages for Novices,” was completed by Brian Wansick and Lizzy Pope, and was published by Cornell Food & Brand Lab in Nutrition Reviews.
JUBA, South Sudan — The government has hailed the just concluded meeting with the rebels and mediators in Khartoum as a step towards the attainment of lasting peace.
South Sudan’s Foreign Minister, Benjamin Marial, praised the initiative by the Chinese government to mediate between the warring parties in an effort to restore peace to the country.
“The fact that China, People’s Republic of China, got involved in trying to push forward the peace process also shows the commitment of the Chinese government to peace in South Sudan. We endorsed it because it does not deviate from the IGAD peace process.”
Marial spoke to journalists in Juba upon arrival from the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Wednesday, saying the meeting would boost the IGAD brokered peace negotiation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
“The safety of personnel who are involved in important economic institutions in the Republic of South Sudan; that of course includes economic installations and I think is very important thing – that they wanted the assurance that these institutions are properly protected and not to be destroyed in any form.”
The foreign minister said that they and the SPLA opposition rebels have agreed to allow access to those displaced by the war.
Aid agencies earlier raised the issue of access to those in dire need of assistance by both sides of the conflict by placing numerous roadblocks in place and demanding money.
Marial added that the two sides had agreed to allow aid workers access to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in need of humanitarian assistance.
According to the minister, the two sides recommitted to ending the conflict peacefully and to respect the cessation of hostilities agreement signed nearly a year ago between the government and rebels.
However, accusations of attacks have been occurring recently, according to SPLA spokespeople.
He further said that the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, who mediated in the talks between the two warring parties, met the two sides’ delegates, Sudanese and Ethiopian, separately and held discussions with the IGAD mediators.
On the talks, Marial said the government hopes to resume peace talks in Addis Ababa at the end of this month with new momentum to reach a permanent peace deal.
China is sending 750 combat troops to South Sudan as part the UN peacekeeping mission by next March.
Marial supported the Chinese troops adding that they adhere to the UN Mission in South Sudan mandate and will not side with either party to the conflict.
China is the main investor in South Sudan’s oil industry, which contributes more than 90 percent of government revenues.
This is the second time that another country has come and held talks on ending the one year conflict that has ravaged the country. Last year, Tanzania invited the two sides of the conflict to try to unify their factions in an intra-party dialogue, wherein President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar accepted responsibility for the current crisis facing the nation.
JUBA, South Sudan — The leader of the minority party in the National Legislative Assembly, Onyoti Adigo, has suggested convening a national consensus dialogue to resolve critical issues rather than conducting partial elections in June.
“The Government should call all political parties, civil society organizations, faith-based groups and people to decide the way forward,” Onyoti told the New Nation.
According to the minority leader, if the government is accepted by all, the mandate should be to bring peace, reconcile and unite people, build trust, and afterwards elections could be organized — “After census and geographical constituencies is known,” said Onyoti.
“Supposing the government goes for elections in June and in July there is peace, you might have wasted time by establishing another transitional period again. If you think about elections, it means the government is not for peace.”
The warring parties in the IGAD-brokered talks have agreed on the formation of a transitional government as a final deal is negotiated to end the war.
They have agreed on a 27 cabinet ministers, but the most sticky issue is who heads the government, as the rebels propose their leader, Riek Machar, and Juba insists on South Sudanese President Salva Kiir as the leader of the transitional government of national unity.
“They brought the example of Sudan, Syria and Afghanistan, which ran elections. Are those countries peaceful now? They are killing their own citizens,” he said.
The minority leader added that those dying in both sides of the conflict are South Sudanese, so the example of Syria and Iraq holding elections during turmoil are irrelevant to the country.
He further said partial elections are not democratically acceptable, and in the case of South Sudan there maybe four states: Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity and Lakes.
“How can the government talk of elections when thousands are in IDP camps and those in towns experience hunger even in Juba? Instead of thinking of the people — for them to eat — you talk of an election. Money should have been for the suffering people. The displaced are in dire need of food, sanitation, water and medical care, and you want to take billions for elections.”
According to the leader of minority, the money allocated for elections is not within the law as it is not reflected in the budget and appropriation bill endorsed by Parliament when the national budget was passed last year.
“When we approved the budget, the amount was not there. It should have been approved by Parliament. They want to use it, as previous billions were lost. It is a violation of the law,” said Onyoti.
An accidental discovery made by researchers testing the weight-bearing capacities of a small bird in the Tennessee mountains has shed light on how birds’ senses–notably their ability to hear very low infrasounds characteristic of large storms–allow the animals to avert meteorological catastrophes.
“I think this is just one newly discovered example of the many ways other animals perceive and interact with their environment that are different from how we humans work, Dr. Henry Streby of Beissinger Lab at UC Berkeley, the lead author of the study, told The Speaker.
Birds’ ability to hear weather demonstrated in storm-avoiding relocation
“We tend to assume other animals are hearing, seeing, and smelling things the same way we do, but we know many other animals sense things far outside of the range of our senses. It is difficult to imagine what goes on in a bird’s brain; they hear higher and lower frequency sounds that we do and they see in a much wider light spectrum and a more complicated color space than we do. Our study, and others tracking migratory birds, are starting to show some of the ways birds can use their impressive senses to get around and stay safe from weather and other dangers.”
The team was working in the Cumberland Mountains of eastern Tennessee, testing the weight-bearing capacity of a small bird.
“A golden-winged warbler weighs only 9 grams, which is less than the mass of 2 US nickles or one British Pound coin,” Streby described his subject. They wanted to know if the bird could carry geolocators on their backs.
Around 24 hours before a large storm blew into the area, spawning 84 tornadoes and killing at least 25 people, the warblers unexpectedly picked up and moved 1,500 kilometers in five days. The team was able to monitor their movements because of the devices they had saddled some of the birds with.
Streby qualified that he couldn’t say with certainty that the birds flew in large groups.
“Our sample of birds carrying tracking devices was quite small, but we suspect they were not the only ones that left,” Streby said. “Although these movements seem impressive, and they occurred outside of the birds’ normal migration period, they were well within the known capabilities of these birds. The birds in this population regularly make similar long distance movements during their spring and fall migration to and from Colombia.”
However, the timing and character of the birds’ movements led the researchers to conclude that a mass temporary relocation took place when the birds sensed that the massive storm was headed their way.
“People have been studying this species on the breeding grounds for decades, but we only just started tracking their migration during this study,” Streby told us.
“Movements like this have not been reported before, and we did not see anything like this during the previous year with this population or with another population we were tracking that was not in the storm’s path. So, basically, we have an extraordinary large-scale movement away from the breeding grounds and back again, that correlates perfectly with the timing of this enormous and powerful storm. Avoiding the storm is the most likely explanation.”
The warbler, like other birds, are particularly attuned to hearing weather, Streby explained. “We know birds are particularly attuned to these very low infrasounds, and we know that large tornado producing storms create infrasound in the exact same frequency range, but nobody had put the two together until this report.”
Next, the team will undertake a further phase of their research, which is expanding in unpredicted ways–they will be collecting data from hundreds of migrating birds, and the team is looking forward to new unexpected developments.
“In 2015, we will be marking more than 400 birds of this species and a closely related species at 16 sites across their entire breeding range. Our goal is to find out where all of these populations spend the winter and where the important resting and refueling places are along their migration routes. These species are of high conservation concern and we are hoping to better understand the challenges they face during all aspects of their annual cycle. We did not intend to study how these birds respond to extreme weather events, but if they encounter any storms like the one from 2014, or maybe have to fly around a hurricane during migration, or something else completely unexpected, I’m excited to see what they do.
“We shouldn’t assume animals perceive their environment the same way we do,” Streby said. “We are lucky to have all of our experts and technology monitoring the weather and warning us when tornadoes or other dangers are coming our way. It is amazing to discover the different tools wildlife have for knowing what is coming too. It is also important for readers to understand that these birds apparently sensed the storm at a great distance, and there is a logical scientific explanation for how they did it; they did not magically detect the storm long before it existed like many media outlets have suggested.”
The report, “Tornadic Storm Avoidance Behavior in Breeding Songbirds,” was completed by Henry M. Streby, Gunnar R. Kramer, Sean M. Peterson, Justin A. Lehman, David A. Buehler, and David E. Andersen, and was published in the online Current Biology.
Microsoft Devices Group and communications and information technology company Nokia are launching a $29 cell phone that will last one month on a single charge.
“With our ultra-affordable mobile phones and digital services, we see an inspiring opportunity to connect the next billion people to the Internet for the first time,” Jo Harlow, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Devices Group, said of the device. “The Nokia 215 is perfect for people looking for their first mobile device, or those wanting to upgrade to enjoy affordable digital and social media services, like Facebook and Messenger.”
The Nokia 215 will be the Finnish company’s “most affordable internet-ready” phone, and will be marketed to buyers in developing markets, particularly in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, in Q1 of this year.
The 215 is enabled with 2G wireless technology, carries a VGA camera, and will be available in both single- and double-SIM models. The 215 will also be equipped with a flashlight–an important selling feature for around 20 percent of the world’s population who live in regions with no regular access to electric power.
The battery life of the 215 allow nearly one month of standby power (21 days for the dual-SIM model) or 21 days (20 hours) of talk time. The battery also allows for 45 hours of FM radio playback.
The 215 also comes equipped with access to social media services like Facebook, Twitter and Messenger.
Bacteria divide into two identical progeny cells, right? According to Professor Peter Young and his team at the University of York’s Department of Biology, this is only part of the picture. The team recently studied a community of rhizobia from a clod of earth dug up from the university campus, and found that bacterial cells are in fact unique, despite bearing identical core genomes, and that this is due to individual accessory packages carried by the cells.
We can picture the bacterial genome as having two parts, according to Dr. J. Peter W. Young, professor of Molecular Ecology at the University of York and lead author of the study. While all members of a bacterial species carry a very similar core genome, they also carry an accessory package of genes which are not essential to the cell’s operation, but which allow individuals to cope with the special demands of their environments.
Dr. Peter Young
“The best known accessory package in rhizobia is the set of genes that enable them to form their symbiosis with plants,” Young told The Speaker. “These ‘sym’ genes include ‘nod’ genes that produce signal molecules that induce the plant to make a nodule and let the bacteria in, and ‘nif’ and ‘fix’ genes that encode the nitrogen-fixation process. These genes usually occur as a cluster in the genome, commonly on a plasmid, which is a separate element that can often be transferred easily. We looked at rhizobia from two different wild plant species, a clover and a vetch, that the bacteria need very different nod genes to interact with. Hence, all the strains were either clover specialists or vetch specialists. However, bacteria that were very similar in their core genome could have either of these specialisms, because the sym genes have been transferred from strain to strain.
“Another set of accessory genes gave the bacteria the ability to grow on gamma-hydroxybutyrate. These genes were also scattered across the population, without regard to the host background and independently of the sym genes. We had a few difficulties with this part of the study because this substance has been used as a date-rape drug and is hard to get hold of legally.”
The team dug in the dirt for their research. They took a square meter of earth from the roadside of the University of York campus and isolated a particular bacterium called Rhizobium leguminosarum.
They then established 72 distinct strains of the bacteria they found in that clump–each had different genes that allowed it to grow on different sources of food. But, Young commented, the potential benefits of the work are not limited to an understanding of bacteria as individuals.
“We studied the complete genomes of 72 bacterial strains–that is a lot of information that can be used to address many questions. Besides the ‘bacteria are individual’ and ‘bacteria transfer functional gene modules’ messages, there are other issues that are important, at least to those who work with bacteria. One of my targets is to improve the way we describe new bacterial species. We have no real idea how many bacterial species there are. Many fewer bacteria have been named than insects, but this is unlikely to reflect reality–it is just a slow business to describe new bacteria. We could now describe bacterial species much more clearly using genome sequences, or at least the core genome sequences.
“The problem is that, for historical reasons, taxonomists insist that there must also be phenotypic differences, that is, observable differences in growth, etc. What we have shown is that this is illogical–almost all these phenotypes are due to accessory genes, and these move about so much that it is impossible to define stable species using them.”
“We are not the solution; we are a tool in order to create a new situation.” – Pablo Iglesias, political spokesperson for Podemos
The traditional bipartisan state of Spanish politics is now under threat. A party and a political movement originating from the 15-M indignant protests of 2011 is gaining ground on the political battlefield to a point where Podemos has found itself at the top of the polls according to a survey recently conducted by El Pais newspaper.
Nearly 28.2 percent of people asked said they would be voting for the new party, five percentage points ahead of the two main parties, the left-wing Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) and the right-wing party People’s Party (PP).
Since the death of the prolific Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, these two main parties have interchanged on a consistent basis.
But the parties have recently found themselves losing votes in droves and their image being eroded away by the current climate of economic austerity, with increasing cuts and high employment on one hand and political corruption of an unmeasurable scale on the other.
The people of Spain are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the traditional two-party system, and Podemos has come along at just the right time (“Podemos” being the Spanish for, “We can,” a tag-line lifted from US President Barack Obama´s campaign).
The party is headed up by political science professor Pablo Iglesias, who has links to Cuban and Equatorial political parties with which he shares some common ground. Iglesias has been clever not to position himself in either the right or left of the political spectrum, allowing the party to gain votes from disenchanted supporters from all sides.
Podemos´s rise to popularity over the years has been due to corruption scandals that have damaged the main bipartisan parties, along with the fact that neither party has been able to control spiraling employment figures or aggressive banks that are becoming increasingly heavy-handed with mortgage defaulters.
Podemos seeks to manage the austerity by renegotiating Spain´s debt-paying commitments and stopping evictions on mortgage defaulters, as well as reducing retirement age to 60.
Along with successful online media campaigns, Podemos have used anti-elitism rhetoric to their advantage, repeatedly enforcing the idea of the self-interests of the two main parties and the “ caste” idealism that has led to the current state of affairs.
Podemos has decided to use a transparency system regarding its finances, publishing its expenses and salaries on a webpage.
Podemos´s rise to political power is being fuelled by younger voters, aged 25-34, who feel disenfranchised by the political system and the current unmitigated corruption scandals and mismanagement which is coming out in the press on a daily basis. Even once revered and stable political figures such as the Catalan politian Jordi Pujol have been exposed for siphoning off public funds to offshore fiscal paradises.
Podemos released an anti-corruption propaganda video using the words of JordiPuyol against him: “It isn´t just the apples, it is the entire tree that is rotten, they all will fall.”
As condolences for the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack continue being expressed in France and worldwide by people standing up for the freedom of speech, the controversial satirical magazine published a new issue Monday, featuring Mohammad again on the front cover. In the cartoon, Prophet Mohammad is holding a sign “Je suis Charlie” under the headline “All is forgiven.” If anything, this new move of the magazine only adds to the already turbulent politics in France, a great part of which stems from the tension between Islamic communities and non-Islamic communities within the country.
France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim population. The migration of Muslims to France can be sourced to France’s colonization of North and Western Africa. France’s Colonization of Algeria did not come to an end until 1962, the year when Algeria declared independence. A lot of the migrant families became the lowest strata of the French society in terms of education, employment, and social status in general. The attack of Charlie Hebdo, followed by the 1.5-million-people march in Paris on Sunday and the magazine’s provocative new issue on Monday, threatened to deepen the fissure between the Muslim population and the Roman Catholic majority within France.
This series of events ultimately served to intensify the polarization of wealth and power by socially alienating Muslims from the rest of the society, so they became ever more confined to the poorer “zones” or neighborhoods in the cities. Considered within this context, is Charlie Hebdo really the symbolic free speaker of France, Europe, and even the world? Are we Charlie, but in the derogatory sense that our rallies and “free speech” contribute to the inequality between citizens? The most unsettling fact of last week was that Muslims were condemned as Muslims, not as French citizens, and the violent actions of a few individual Muslims as “Muslim violence” against the universal value of free speech.
The History of Freedom of Speech
Freedom of Speech has a long history. It was included in early human rights documents, and was fervently debated among philosophers and political theorists as early as in the 17th and 18th century when the establishment of a modern state posed questions to the relationship between the Church and the State. The history of freedom of speech has always been part of the history of the separation of the Church and the State. The socio-political context in which free speech became significant was the Church’s dominance in public speech and the rise of the power of the Civil State, which threatened to take away certain rights of the Church to grant them to the individual citizen. But in the Charlie Hebdo attack and its aftermath, the lack of discussion on the question of civil rights is alarming. To what extent the new issue of Charlie Hebdo might have harmed the civil rights of Muslims who are French citizens and have committed no crimes?
Freedom of speech was, and should stay as, a site of a political debate that involves two sides: the speaker and the side that can be potentially harmed by the speech. So long as speech is an act in the public domain, it should be held responsible for any harm it exerts on other citizens as all other public acts. The truth is there are no governments that do not restrict free speech. The discussion of free speech only becomes meaningful when the discussion is focused on the extent to which the freedom should be limited. In France, or for instance, in the United States, we often see free speech restricted by the right to privacy, national safety, or punished when it is categorized as hate speech.
What adds to the complexity of the issue of Charlie Hebdo is that their cartoons do not only involve French citizens, but also other nations which have a very different legal tradition and religion. Here, the question of free speech is, more than anything, a question of politics between nations. However, in the march in Paris last Sunday, the issue of free speech has undoubtedly been taken out of its context. It becomes an absolute, universal value for which France stands, and moreover, as President Hollande puts it, it stands ever more united. When any concept is taken out of context and wrapped in a national flag, we should sit up and worry.
New hope for a universal flu vaccine has come out of recent work by a join research team from McMaster University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. The team published a report Wednesday on a new class of broadly-neutralizing antibodies that are expected to increase the potency of our weapons against flu viruses.
“These broadly-neutralizing antibodies work very well in the context of natural human responses to vaccines or infections,” Dr. Matthew Miller, an assistant professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, told The Speaker. “This means that vaccines in development that are targeting these antibodies have a high chance of success.
Dr. Matthew Miller
“In addition, the types of antibodies present in the lung are especially good at providing ‘universal’ protection against flu, so if we can successfully increase their numbers by vaccination, they are likely to be very potent at protecting against infection.”
The research team’s work involves a previously unknown class of antibodies capable of neutralizing a wide range of influenza A viruses.
“These broadly-neutralizing antibodies bind to a region on the viral entry protein–the hemagglutinin stalk/stem domain–that are intolerant to change/mutation,” Miller told us.
“They were first discovered through the analysis of antibody repertoires isolated from mice–in the laboratory setting–and humans who had been exposed to influenza virus by either vaccination or infection.
“As a result, they are capable of neutralizing a much broader range of viruses than the type of exquisitely-strain specific antibodies that are predominantly elicited by current seasonal flu vaccines.”
The new antibodies have virus-fighting capabilities not possessed by the strain-specific antibodies currently in use.
“While flu is very good at mutating the region of the protein that strain-specific antibodies bind, it does not tolerate changes in the region bound by broadly-neutralizing antibodies. This seems to be because the structure of this region is very important for other viral functions.”
Miller explained how these new antibodies are different from isolated strain-specific antibodies.
“Strain-specific antibodies bind to the “head” domain of the viral hemagglutinin, which mutates readily and differs substantially among strains of flu. These broadly-neutralizing bind to a conserved region in the hemagglutinin stalk domain that is intolerant to mutation.”
The new antibodies hold wide promise, the researchers expect: mutations of the virus would also be protected against by the new vaccines, and flu pandemics could be eliminated.
Miller expects that a universal flu vaccine could become a reality within the next five to seven years.
Since mid December 2013, South Sudan has been experiencing a political crisis that erupted within the ruling party’s top leadership. The crisis started in the national capital, Juba, in Central Equatoria state and engulfed other states like Unity, Upper Nile and Jonglei.
Western Equatoria state has been one of the states that has experienced relative peace compared with other states in the country, with the exception of smaller insecurity problems caused by Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in some parts of the state like Ezo, Nzara and Tombura counties that border Central African Republic–CAR and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) respectively.
However, last year parts of Mundri West, Mundri East, Mvolo and Maridi Counties have been invaded my cattle keepers from Lake State. The coming of these cattle keepers into the area is causing tension with the local who are mostly farmers. The pastoralist communities often graze on the farms of the host communities in almost all the counties mentioned above.
Apart from this problem, the host communities accused the invading communities from Lakes States of cattle rustling. Cattle are often raided from other communities, either in Jonglei or in Lakes states, and being driven to Western Equatoria State. This conflict has caused the death of a large but unrecorded number of people on both sides.
The cattle keepers have also started raiding the cattle of the locals. On Dec. 26, 2014 at midnight cattle raiding occurred in an area called Modubai Boma, about 20 km north of Maridi town. Three locals were killed and one injured. Many herds of cattle were driven to unknown areas towards Lakes State.
Apart from the insecurity of cattle raiding, the evading communities have been accused of taking part in ambushing and looting vehicles travelling within the states.
Last week, the police in Maridi County intercepted a plan by the suspected cattle raiders who staged an ambush along Mambe-Yei road. One suspect was killed.
This new development in the state has caused worry to the governor, Mr. Joseph Bangasi Bakasoro, and the whole population, who know nothing about warlike situations.
In an effort to defuse the worrying situation, the state government is organizing for a peace conference to take place soon in the most affected areas of Mundri East and West as well as Mvolo and Maridi Counties. The conference is targeting both the cattle keepers and the host communities.
Predispositions to prejudice can be manipulated, according to new research. By making social minorities appear to hold egalitarian beliefs, researchers demonstrated that those minority individuals would bear less prejudice–both implicit and explicit–from American and Chinese nationals. By manipulating the would-be judges so that they made their appraisals of minority individuals while in a collectivist mind-set, the researchers found this also could reduce prejudicial judgements.
Dr. Jeanine Skorinko
“Our attitudes, both positive and negative, can be shaped by subtle factors in our social environment—things that we may not even be aware of, such as the cultural values we are thinking about at the moment or the message on another person’s t shirt,” Dr. Jeanine Skorinko, Associate Professor of Psychology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Department of Social Science and Policy Studies and lead researcher on the study, told The Speaker.
“By conducting research on these topics, we can start to better understand the effects these different factors have so we can better understand how our attitudes are shaped, how attitudes are transmitted, and how attitudes might change–whether short or long-term. When we learn about the effects these subtle factors have, we can hopefully become more mindful during our interactions with others and when thinking about our attitudes. It is also important to understand cultural similarities and differences as it is so much easier to communicate with others throughout the world, and we still, sadly, have ethnic and cultural discontent and violence.”
Skorinko explained how she and the team set on testing the effects of egalitarian views and collectivist mindsets on the formation of prejudicial judgements.
“This set of studies came about in several ways,” Skorinko told us. “As a group of folks interested in the phenomenon of social tuning, we chatted about cross-cultural differences and wondered how social tuning might work with collectivist mindsets versus the individualist mindsets we had been testing in the lab. Then I had the opportunity to collect some data while in Hong Kong. I was there as a faculty advisor for WPI’s global projects program and I took the initiative to collect some data to start testing this idea we had been thinking about. As for the views, we could have tested egalitarian or prejudiced views, and we opted to start with the more positive approach. This was also inspired by a t-shirt that I found while in Hong Kong.”
The researchers found that Hong Kong Chinese were less prejudiced toward homosexuals when the homosexual was perceived to be egalitarian.
“We manipulated the views based on the t-shirt the experimenter was wearing. We have found in past research that this is a subtle yet effective manipulation of perceived views because we assume people endorse something they are wearing. So, in this study, the experimenter either wore a plain white shirt–expressing no views, or what we call the neutral views condition–or they wore a t shirt that said, ‘People don’t discriminate, they learn it,’ and there were caricatures of individuals of all different ethnic backgrounds.
“I saw this shirt while visiting an NGO in Hong Kong called Hong Kong Unison. Their mission is to help racial and ethnic relations in Hong Kong. So, the shirt came from Hong Kong and from a group trying to improve relations in Hong Kong We made sure that people believed that the message and pictures on the shirt indicated egalitarian views by showing the t-shirt to individuals–in the US and Hong Kong–and asking them to tell us what the t-shirt meant to them. Participants overwhelming reported that it endorsed egalitarian views towards all groups of people.”
Skorinko noted that there was no manipulation of whether the experimenter was homosexual or not. The team merely manipulated whether the experimenter endorsed egalitarian views towards others or not.
Skorinko elaborated on how differences in prejudice were identified, and pointed out the important finding that mindset was more important than cultural affiliation when it came to prejudice.
“We conducted a meta-analysis across the three studies to see if there were any differences in prejudice that were expressed. We found that those in a collectivist mindset tended to express more prejudice when in the neutral–or plain t-shirt–condition than any other group. The important thing about this finding is it is across all three studies so the participants are both Hong Kongers and Americans, and the important variable is their mindset—collectivist or individualist, and not necessarily their cultural background. This is in line with some past research that shows that collectivists are more sensitive to distinctions between ingroup and outgroup [Erez & Eearley, 1993; Triandis, et al., 1988].”
The two types of mindset looked at were impressed on the participants through the use of individual and collectivist values in story narratives.
“In the first study, we looked at cultural background as an indicator of collectivist mindset. So, we had American (individualist) and Hong Kong (collectivist) participants. In the second study, we ran only American participants. We manipulated the mindset by having participants read a short story about a warrior. This warrior had to make a big decision. The decision was either motivated by personal interests or by family interests.
“Past research has shown the those who read about the decision made by the personal interests are primed to be in a more individualistic mindset; whereas, those who read about the decision made by family interests tend to be in a more collectivist mindset [Oyserman & lee, 2008; Trafimow, et al., 1991]. In the third study, we ran only Hong Kong participants. For this study we did not use the warrior prime instead we used a task that was used successfully in the past with Hong Kong participants [Hong, et al, 2000; Wong & Hong, 2009]. For this study, we manipulated the mindset by showing participants five icons. These icons either represented American culture (American flag, Statue of Liberty) or Chinese culture (Great Wall, Forbidden City). Participants identified each icon and wrote a few sentences about what each icon meant to them. Participants successfully identified the icons–regardless of the culture they depicted.”
The difference, practically, between implicit and explicit prejudice was found to be that some prejudices are expressed and other are not, but, Skorinko pointed out, these two prejudices may not reflect each other–and may not even be desired.
“Practically, explicit attitudes are those that we consciously know and can express; whereas, implicit attitudes are unconscious and ones we cannot express. Our implicit and explicit attitudes may not align–or maybe they will, it depends. So, we may consciously think and say that we are egalitarian, but we may also have some implicit prejudices towards some groups. For instance, I firmly believe that women should be scientists and I am a female scientist–my explicit attitude. But, when I take the gender-career implicit association task [IAT], I find that I have a slight association for women and arts, rather than women and science–my implicit attitude. So, my explicit attitude is, ‘Go women scientists!’ but my implicit attitude may not be as enthusiastic–and yes, this bothers me to no end, especially as a female scientist!”
Skorinko explained how culture can influence views, including prejudicial views, and offered some educated guesses on whether prejudice could be increased through the types of manipulation used in this study to decrease prejudice.
“There are a number of factors that influence how we think about the world around us, including how we think about other groups. From this set of studies we know that both our cultural mindset–or cultural values orientation–and what we think our interaction partner thinks are very important in the expression of egalitarian views. If we are in a mindset to value our social connections and maintain group harmony (a collectivist orientation) than this research suggests that we will be more likely to pay attention to and align our views with the views expressed by our interaction partner. If we are in a mindset that we are unique and are more self-focused (an individualist orientation) than we will be less likely to pay attention and align our views with our interaction partner’s views.
“In this set of studies, we only looked at what happens when our interaction partner expresses egalitarian views. We would need to conduct further research to see what happens when an interaction partner expresses prejudiced views. Based on the social tuning framework, it is possible that if an interaction partner expressed prejudiced beliefs that collectivists might express more prejudice towards that group. But, we need to conduct more research to see what happens!
“I also want to note that individualists are not immune to social tuning. Rather, our original work shows that individualists who have the right motivation will also align their views with their interaction partner. So, if an individualist has the desire to get along with their interaction partner (affiliative motivation) than they are more likely to social tune towards the perceived views of their partner (whether the views are egalitarian or prejudiced). Also, if an individual has the desire to gain knowledge (epistemic motivation) than they are more likely to social tune towards the perceived views of their partner.
“The bottom line—expressing egalitarian views and kindness towards others especially during social interactions can, at times, help others also express those egalitarian attitudes,” Skorinko concluded. “It is a good first step in making the world a more egalitarian and hopefully tolerant place.”
The report, “Reducing Prejudice Across Cultures via Social Tuning,” was completed by Jeanine L. M. Skorinko, Janetta Lun, Stacey Sinclair, Satia A. Marotta, Jimmy Calanchini, and Melissa H. Paris, and was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.
