Taking to the streets to protest must be part of free speech – within decent democratic boundaries. That deal is broken if prejudiced placards, chants and slogans go unchecked – but undermined too when politicians declare every protestor for peace or Palestine to be a pro-Hamas hate marcher or part of an Islamist mob.

Democratic protest must mean persuasion, not intimidation. Enabling MPs to make their views and votes as clear as possible on questions of war and peace is a good principle – but the Commons speaker citing threats to MPs as a decisive influence of his decisions was unfortunate. Every practical thing should be done for MPs’ security, except for changing the business of the Commons.

One irony of a ferocious and incomprehensible partisan battle over Commons procedure was just how much most MPs across parties can agree on what they would wish for in the Middle East – a sustainable ceasefire, hostages released, humanitarian aid, and a diplomatic push for a two-state solution – but with limited power to make that happen.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak made Lee Anderson a party vice-chair a year ago, with a licence to offend, provoke opponents and to polarise. He has now removed the whip from his party’s most strident right-winger. Yet Anderson was trying to argue that Suella Braverman had gone too far with her sweeping claim that “Islamists run Britain”. He narrowed that charge to Islamist ‘control’ of London mayor Sadiq Khan and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

This was partly a reprise of Tory attacks on the ‘loony left’ – but a baseless conspiratorial smear personally attacking a mayor (who is himself Muslim) does nothing to challenge Islamist extremism.

The suspension of Anderson, but not Braverman, illuminates a view of prejudice as primarily about interpersonal incivility. Lurid conspiracy claims about the woke-Islamist coalition running the ‘deep state’ – an implausible alibi for a Conservative government after 14 years – go unchecked.

Consistency in tackling prejudice is difficult to achieve. Challenging political opponents is easy. The test that matters is applying similar standards to your own tribe. Any party that wants to govern our country should seek to meet this simple ‘one nation’ test: that no citizen should feel any tension between their ethnicity or faith and their stake in our shared society.

It was mainly left to the tiny number of Muslim Conservative parliamentarians, with a handful of allies, to insist on action. Without the intervention of government minister Nus Ghani, who tried to explain to Anderson why his comments were dangerous and divisive, together with former Home Secretary Sajid Javid, it is unclear that a reluctant Sunak would have suspended Anderson.

The Ashfield MP turned down the chance to retain the whip with an apology, from a stubborn mixture of pride and prejudice.

London’s Conservatives were admirably quick to distance themselves from Anderson’s remarks, with Susan Hall speaking out about the anti-Muslim prejudice Khan faces. That shows that some lessons have been learnt from the Zac Goldsmith campaign of 2016.

Yet, Richard Tice of Reform dismissed challenges to the anti-Muslim smear against Khan as a political elite obsession with “hurty wurty words” and invited Anderson and his supporters to feel at home with Reform.

Even after the suspension, Sunak, deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden and illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson all struggled (or refused) to say why Anderson’s comments were wrong.

The government has no working definition of anti-Muslim prejudice. It is sceptical about an APPG (all party parliamentary group) definition of Islamophobia, so committed to building consensus on an alternative in 2019, before abandoning that pledge with no end product.

Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch is right to say that “anti-Muslim hatred” can be a clearer term. Centring “Islam” rather than “Muslims” can blur the key distinction. Critiquing political and theological ideas is free speech – but prejudice against people who are Muslim crosses the line. But the government lacks the basic foundations to make its commitment to ‘zero tolerance’ of anti-Muslim prejudice more than rhetoric.

Conservative MP Rehman Chishti detailed the policy vacuum: the government has no working definition, has appointed no adviser on anti-Muslim prejudice, and has no active forum of engagement with whichever civic Muslim groups it is willing to talk to. The recent government decision to defund the Interfaith Network further exacerbates that problem.

The contested politics of prejudice will remain in the headlines. The Rochdale by-election may see suspended Labour candidate Azhar Ali still emerge as an MP if voters did not hear about his suspension for an antisemitic conspiracy theory, or if they still prefer him to George Galloway.

Galloway’s charge, that Starmer is controlled by Zionists, offers the mirror image of Anderson’s conspiratorial claim that he is in the pocket of Islamists – but may still get a Commons platform again. By the end of this general election year, voters as well as parties will have to determine which democratic boundaries we value.

(The author is the Director of British Future)

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Despite constantly boasting of breaking records, none of the films have been as financially successful as the major blockbusters from international cinema, including from some countries that also produce non-English language content. They have constantly failed to acheive global acclaim. Only three Indian films have ever been nominated in the best international feature film category at the Oscars, with none winning the award.

When the actual box office figures of bigbudget Indian films are compared with those of international cinema, they are much lower. The main reason for this is poor writing and the lack of ambition of producers, who are largely beholden to clueless A-list stars with too much creative power. There is an argument that it isn’t possible to make these types of movies in India, but that has constantly been blown out of the water by a British Asian.

Ever since his big-screen debut in the multi-award-winning Slumdog Millionaire, Dev Patel has consistently acheived cross-cultural success with India-set films and protagonists, a feat unmatched by Bollywood’s self-proclaimed superstars.

While the big names in Indian cinema are talented enough, they lack the ambition, courage or vision to emulate Patel. Instead, it has been left to the Harrow-born star to do what A-listers in India should have done long ago. Patel’s India-set films, such as Slumdog Millionaire, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Lion have clocked higher box office figures and more global prestige than anything made locally.

While the movie icons in India remain in a cocoon, constantly hailed as demi-gods despite doing average box office business, Patel has continued to capitalise on India’s potential in a way none of them have ever done, with boundary-breaking projects such as his new film, Monkey Man.

The multi-talented star has written, produced, directed and headlined the film that is centred around a hero rooted in Indian culture. The film’s trailer has received a riproaring response and promises to be the kind of action-entertainer never before made

in India. Like his previous projects, it is a role that could quite easily have been played by an A-list leading man from India and made by local producers. But Patel has shown once again that he has an astute understanding of international film markets, which is what top Bollywood filmmakers lack.Monkey Man is due for release on April 5 and like Patel’s earlier India-set successes, it will certainly do much bigger business than most Indian films, including major Bollywood blockbusters.

Unlike Indian superhero films, where they randomly break into an out-of-place song and dance, he has delivered a project rooted in reality that will be more palatable to global audiences. As in the past, the British star will once again prove that hit English-language films can be made in India.

Patel will likely come up with more projects in the country, while the local leading men will carry on basking in fake praise and shockingly low box office figures. (Even those in India who dishonestly inflate box office numbers of their films to look more popular, don’t come anywhere close to what the great British star has done.) Maybe the Indian film fraternity should all watch Monkey Man when it is released and study the actor’s body of work to see where they are going wrong. They won’t do that and remain happy with what in today’s world is considered mediocrity. By launching himself as a producer, writer and director, Patel will now have the kind of power in Hollywood no sub-continental star has ever had, despite his biggest successes coming from India-based projects. For that, he deserves all the praise and more.

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At our wedding, Julie Barnes, the wife of one of my best friends from boarding school, who was a senior journalist working at the Maidenhead Advisor, said I must meet her friend Shreela Flather who had been mayor of Windsor and was in the House of Lords. She was apparently starting an initiative to engage young Asians with parliament and Julie recommended to Shreela that I join this programme.

It was called Asian Link and Shreela held regular events in the House of Lords – lunches, dinners, receptions – always with a cabinet minister as a speaker. That is how, thanks to Shreela, I first started visiting the House of Lords and getting to know and love it.

Out of that cohort of predominantly young Asians, three of us become parliamentarians – Conservative MP and former minister Shailesh Vara; Dinesh Dhamija, MEP in the Liberal Party and myself, an independent cross-bench member of the House of Lords since 2006.

Shreela Flather hailed from the Rai family, who were known and respected in Lahore. Her brothers were at Doon School (in north India) with my father and his family. At the time of India’s independence, the Rai family moved to Delhi.

Shreela was one of life’s great characters, a true force of nature. She was forthright, outspoken and utterly authentic. She was very clear about her identity in being proud to be Indian, invariably wearing a sari and Indian attire.

However, she was completely integrated within British society and so was a proud Indian, Asian and Briton.

Shreela was an active and regular attender in the House of Lords.

Throughout her life she broke one glass ceiling after another. She was the UK’s first ethnic minority councillor, the first Asian woman to be mayor, when she took charge of the post in Windsor, and the first Asian woman to sit in the House of Lords.

Among her many achievements, the one that I think meant the most to her was the creation of the Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill next to Buckingham Palace.

She had to raise the funds, obtain all the permissions, as well as drive the whole project forward – often against much resistance.

Along with the help of senior army generals and field marshals as well as Viscount Slim, she persisted and the Memorial Gates were eventually inaugurated in 2002 by Queen Elizabeth II.

I remember being present at this very special occasion and ever since, every year, there has been a commemoration ceremony which now takes place on Commonwealth Day in March.

Shreela also set up the Memorial Gates Council and after retiring, I have had the privilege of chairing the council for two terms, including at present.

King Charles, including when he was the Prince of Wales, always sends a wreath and this event is attended by senior armed forces officers, politicians and high commissioners from the Commonwealth, including the Ambassador from Nepal, as well as cadets and schoolchildren.

The Memorial Gates commemorate the service and sacrifice of the five million individuals from south Asia, Africa and the Caribbean who served in the armed forces in the two world wars.

Inside the roof of the pavilion next to the Gates are inscribed the names of the Victoria and George Cross awardees.

Shreela’s husband, Gary Flather QC, who passed away in 2017, was a senior lawyer and judge and suffered from multiple sclerosis. He was in a wheelchair, always accompanied by his dog Mac and his carer. I was privileged to serve with Gary as a fellow commissioner of the Royal Hospital Chelsea appointed by Queen Elizabeth II.

Gary was a wonderful man and never gave up despite his severe illness, and Shreela was devoted to him and supported him throughout.

She is survived by her sons Paul and Marcus. Paul is a professor at Balliol College, University of Oxford. He is now a member of the Memorial Gates Council and a great supporter of his late mother’s cause. Marcus is a professor at the University of East Anglia.

In the House of Lords, Baroness Flather started as a Conservative, crossed the floor to become a cross-bench peer, returned to be a Conservative and returned once again in 2008 to become a cross-bench peer and remained there ever since.

Shreela passed away after a short illness last Tuesday (6).

Heather and I were blessed to have visited her in hospital two days before her passing. She had much difficulty in speaking, but as we were leaving the room, she softly said “bye”.

Shreela Flather made a unique and huge impact throughout her life, and her legacy and inspiration will live on with us always. She passed away a week before her 90th birthday.

The post Comment: Shreela Flather broke one glass ceiling after another throughout her life appeared first on Bangladesh Weekly.

Yet Cleverly’s predecessors already include three different British Asian home secretaries. There have been four Asian or Black Chancellors as well as a Black foreign secretary and Asian prime minister. A sense that ethnic diversity in politics is so familiar that this “new normal” goes unnoticed sped up, thanks to the cartoonishly abnormal revolving door in top government jobs since Brexit.

That Cleverly happens to be an atheist, succeeding a Buddhist, a Jew, a Hindu, a Muslim and a Christian as the last half dozen politicians responsible for national security generates even less attention. It is largely a good thing that we take for granted this ease with a modern, multi-faith and secular Britain, though it skews the public conversation about integration where the challenges stick out and the everyday lived reality gets ignored.

What people did notice is that Suella Braverman was perhaps the most consciously polarising UK government minister since Norman Tebbit. How politicians use their voice can generate mixed feelings about the value of more visibly diverse representation.

Cleverly has a different style and a different worldview too. Telling Home Office staff he would praise in public and criticise in private was warmly received. The new home secretary called a truce in his predecessor’s battle with the Met over policing protest too.

Cleverly’s personal instincts are much more pro-migration than anti. He wondered if we may one day find our ‘protectionist’ visa rules as archaic as the Corn Laws, when a London Assembly member a decade ago. He did recognise the need to secure public consent in a democracy.

“There is an optimum rate of change, and all at once isn’t it”, he wrote. In 2019 Cleverly enthusiastically championed the evidence that post-Brexit Britain had seen public attitudes to immigration soften rather than harden, seeing an opportunity for a “long overdue, grown- up debate about our need and appetite for immigration.” How far will he still see a chance to lead that debate now?

Though Braverman warned of a coming “hurricane” of immigration, Cleverly argued that more human movement is inevitable “and we must not be King Canute about it”.  What the historically misunderstood Canute had wanted his courtiers to understand is that all of his majesty and sovereignty could still not control the tides. Sunak and Cleverly are doubling down on their promises to “stop the boats”, and rescue the Rwanda plan from the Supreme Court’s ruling that it is unlawful.

Do they truly believe that they can? Cleverly could not deny his Labour Shadow Yvette Cooper’s claim that he once privately called the Rwanda plan “batshit”. Sunak, as Chancellor, doubted its legality, deterrent effect and cost too.

The right of the party does not trust this reshuffled Cabinet to get Rwanda through. Showing that they are willing to try might seem the prudent way to fail. YouGov finds that just 12% of the public believe the Rwanda plan will happen before the General Election.

One political headache for Cleverly will be when to admit that the government now has no practicable or lawful alternative to admitting many thousands who crossed the Channel this year into the UK asylum system, having repeatedly pledged never to do so.

New migration statistics out this week are a reminder that immigration is about more than small boats. Asylum seekers make up only around 5% of those coming to Britain. Overall immigration numbers are likely to come down from their exceptional 2022 peak – inflated by Ukraine and Hong Kong arrivals – but will certainly remain well above the net 250,000 figure of 2019 that the Conservatives said would come down.

Immigration minister Robert Jenrick now says the post-Brexit system was a mistake in being much too open. The Conservative right wing mostly want both bigger tax cuts and lower immigration, and shorter NHS queues too. Yet higher immigration was the main reason why the OBR could revise its growth and fiscal forecasts upwards, so giving Jeremy Hunt some leeway on taxation.

The Hong Kong BN(O) visa scheme has had unanimous cross-party support. A new Welcoming Committee for Hong Kong report this week reminds government and employers to focus not only on who gets a visa but how people’s skills and contributions are unlocked once here.

As the government grapples with the dilemmas of control, how far can Cleverly remain a pragmatic balancer under political pressure? The answer may influence whether it is Cleverly, Braverman or Kemi Badenoch who shape the future of Conservatism if the party needs new leadership once the General Election votes are in.

(Sunder Katwala is the director of British Future)

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Their reshuffle divorce sees Braverman make unwelcome history as the first Home Secretary to leave that role twice in just thirteen months. Braverman has exemplified the era of volatility in British politics. Sunak now brings the experience of David Cameron back into government at a time of international crisis, even if it was Cameron’s mistaken prophecy to cast the 2015 election as a choice between stability under the Conservatives or chaos under their opponents – eight tumultuous years and four Prime Ministers ago.

Braverman will see being sacked as a temporary setback. She becomes an internal leader of the opposition on identity issues, paralleling Liz Truss’s role on low taxes. Braverman’s disdain for collective responsibility in office may mean that having the freedom of the backbenches makes less difference in her case. Yet she seemed to miss the key point about what sometimes make polarisation a political winning formula. Thatcher and Reagan in their era, like Brexit and Boris Johnson in ours, split the country almost down the middle, but with just enough support to win. Braverman has more often split her own party, rather than the country, down the middle instead.

Research by Ipsos found 16% of people approved of her record, with half of Conservatives onside but a third opposed. Sunak’s headache, submerged below 30% in the polls, is that the continual noisy culture clash between Braverman’s allies and enemies inside the party risked eroding on both flanks the voting coalition he needs to somehow bridge.

Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision on the Rwanda policy might have more long-term impact on the government’s fortune than any Cabinet reshuffle. At the time of writing, the result is not yet known: judges could uphold the Court of Appeal’s verdict, that Rwanda’s asylum system is too seriously flawed for the scheme to be safe; or accept that the Home Secretary had the authority to accept Rwanda’s assurances of future improvements.

The government has an agreed policy if it wins, though one incentive for Sunak to sack Braverman before the verdict was that the political rift after a court defeat would be deeper than ever. Braverman never sought to disguise her support for the UK leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. The departing Home Secretary was reportedly even advocating that Sunak to call a snap election over Rwanda – though trying to hold a ‘single issue’ General Election faces the problem that the public would vote on everything else too.

If the government loses this case, it is unlikely any asylum seekers will go to Rwanda before the General Election – or probably ever. But do not expect ministers to admit that this week. There will be many ruses about how to rescue the Rwanda scheme floated by think-tanks, backbenchers and perhaps ministers themselves – such as using the new immigration laws to just target recent arrivals, and seeking to derogate from specific parts of the ECHR. Few, if any, could make a difference before the general election.

The real challenge may come if the government wins in court. The government would get a political morale boost from declaring victory – yet its prize would just be to prove whether or not the Rwanda policy would actually work.

Could it “stop the boats” next summer? Most experts are sceptical – and not just those who oppose the Rwanda plan in principle. Its supporters recognise that the logic of a deterrent effect depends on the scale of the policy. Asked how many people it expects to send to Africa, the UK government always avoids giving a number, saying that the scheme is “uncapped” and therefore expandable. Rwanda’s government was anticipating a scheme of around 300 people a year, less than 1% of those who have crossed the Channel. Legal processes in the UK and Rwanda, as well as the lack of UK detention capacity, place significant limits on any rapid expansion.

Even if it wins, the Home Office expects to have to admit into the UK asylum system everybody who already arrived this year – breaking twenty thousand times Rishi Sunak’s impossible promise in his March 7th speech that nobody who arrived from that day onwards would ever get to stay. Yet hearing those asylum claims is a pragmatic necessity, in order to prevent new legal duties on the Home Secretary, to remove all new arrivals, from falling over on day one.

The government may hope focusing on a date when the first plane might go to Rwanda could distract from that. Suella Braverman once described that as “her dream”. She may have left the government, but this may be how her spirit lives on.

(Sunder Katwala is the director of British Future)

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There was a protest rally on the eve of the first anniversary of the Armistice in 1919, demanding the government bring home the bodies of the million soldiers who had died abroad.

The devastating scale of death demanded new rituals of public mourning. The two-minute silence had been proposed only days before the first anniversary. The ‘great stillness’ right across the nation so stirred the public mood that it has continued for more than a century.

It was because the government stood by its decision to leave the dead buried abroad in foreign fields that the Cenotaph itself became such a potent national focal point.

Yet the 1920s saw a fierce media battle over Armistice Day.

The Daily Mail, claiming to speak for families in mourning for those who had died, campaigned vocally against Armistice Balls, the often-raucous celebrations popular with veterans who had survived and come home.

The Daily Express argued that those who had fought and won a world war should not be shamed over how they chose to mark the anniversary.

The solemnity of Remembrance won out. That was, paradoxically, renewed and reinforced in this century by deeply controversial modern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The public recognises that the armed forces do not make the political decisions that put them in harm’s way.

Remembrance this year again takes place at a time of global conflict – but risks being overshadowed by political arguments about protests and the Cenotaph.

This has been a somewhat phoney war – in seeking to delegitimise the weekly Saturday London protests for Palestine, the government played a central role in amplifying rumours that this weekend’s Palestine rally could target Remembrance Sunday itself or other Remembrance events.

The prime minister declared a “clear and present danger” that the Cenotaph could be desecrated. Protest organisers had agreed with police they would avoid the Whitehall area, and would start the march a couple of hours after the national silence on Saturday (11).

The government has done more to amplify tensions than defuse them. Ministers argue that a protest anywhere in London on Armistice weekend is disrespectful; supporters say Armistice Day could be a fitting time to call for a ceasefire. Since the timing is a coincidence, the arguments are largely instrumental on both sides.

A culture war over Remembrance could derail significant progress in proactively broadening the appeal of how we remember across ethnic and faith minorities. The armies that fought the two world wars look more like today’s Britain of the 2020s than that of 1914 or 1940 in their ethnic and demographic mix. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, Jews and Christians all served in the trenches.

This year’s Remembrance commemorations have also made the link with the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Windrush, including at a recent British Legion ‘Remember Together’ event in Bristol. A third of the passengers on the boat were Caribbean RAF servicemen returning to Britain when it needed more men to help rebuild the country after the war.

The Indian army’s contribution of 2.5 million soldiers to the Second World War was the largest volunteer army in history. Yet at the start of the First World War centenary commemorations in 2014, only four in 10 people knew that Indian troops took part. That rose to seven out of 10 during the centenary, moving from minority knowledge to something most people have now heard about.

British Future found much lower knowledge of Muslim contribution. Just one in five people were aware that Muslims fought for Britain in the First World War – though 400,000 did so as part of the Indian Army. The centenary effort doubled awareness of this – to almost four out of 10 – but many people remain unaware that Muslims served too.

Back in 2010, a handful of Islamist extremists had provocatively chosen to burn a poppy. It was part of a symbiotic relationship with the far right, with both acting as the best recruiting sergeant that the other could ever imagine. Academic research found 62 per cent of British ethnic minorities say they wear poppies for Remembrance, including half of respondents from Muslim backgrounds.

But that fact struggles to be heard over the noise from toxic fringes who seek to make their mutual desire for a breakdown in community relations a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I just wonder, are we heading to some form of religious war in Britain,” Nigel Farage asked on GB News.

Increasing knowledge of the Commonwealth and Muslim contributions could be one antidote to efforts to promote a new clash of civilisations in British society. The King and Cenotaph wreath layers from across politics, faith and the Commonwealth should reassert why Remembrance can still have more potential to unite than divide, especially once we know the full history of service and sacrifice that we silently remember together.

The post Comment: Remembrance Day tension ignores UK’s shared history appeared first on Bangladesh Weekly.

Friedman, who joined the paper in 1981, has won three Pulitzer Prizes. He is the author of seven books, including From Beirut to Jerusalem, which won the National Book Award.

There have been more than 2,000 responses to his article titled, “The Israeli Officials I Speak With Tell Me They Know Two Things for Sure.”

Friedman’s piece begins: “I am watching the Israel-Hamas war and thinking about one of the world leaders I’ve most admired: Manmohan Singh. He was India’s prime minister in late November 2008 when 10 Pakistani jihadist militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba group, widely believed to be linked to Pakistan’s military intelligence, infiltrated India and killed more than 160 people in Mumbai, including 61 at two luxury hotels.

“What was Singh’s military response to India’s September 11?”

Friedman answers his own question:

“He did nothing.”

He goes on: “Singh never retaliated militarily against the nation of Pakistan or Lashkar camps in Pakistan. It was a remarkable act of restraint.

“What was the logic? In his book Choices: Inside the Making of India’s Foreign Policy, India’s foreign secretary (the most senior civil servant in India’s external affairs ministry) at the time, Shivshankar Menon, explained, making these key points: ‘I myself pressed at that time for immediate visible retaliation’ against the jihadist bases or against Pakistani military intelligence, ‘which was clearly complicit,’ Menon wrote. ‘To have done so would have been emotionally satisfying and gone some way toward erasing the shame of the incompetence that India’s police and security agencies displayed.’

“He continued, ‘But on sober reflection and in hindsight, I now believe that the decision not to retaliate militarily and to concentrate on diplomatic, covert and other means, was the right one for that time and place.’”

Friedman goes into the reasoning: “Chief among the reasons, Menon said, was that any military response would have quickly obscured just how outrageous and terrible the raid on Indian civilians and tourists was – ‘the fact of a terrorist attack from Pakistan on India with official involvement on the Pakistan side’ would have been lost. Once India retaliated, the world would immediately have had what Menon called a ‘ho-hum reaction’. Just another Pakistani-Indian dust-up – nothing unusual here.

“Moreover, Menon wrote, ‘an Indian attack on Pakistan would have united Pakistan behind the Pakistan army, which was in increasing domestic disrepute’, and ‘an attack on Pakistan would also have weakened the civilian government in Pakistan, which had just been elected to power and which sought a much better relationship with India than the Pakistan Army was willing to consider’. He continued, ‘A war scare, and maybe even a war itself, was exactly what the Pakistan army wanted to buttress its internal position.’

“In addition, he wrote, ‘a war, even a successful war, would have imposed costs and set back the progress of the Indian economy just when the world economy in November 2008 was in an unprecedented financial crisis’.

“In conclusion, said Menon, ‘by not attacking Pakistan, India was free to pursue all legal and covert means to achieve its goals of bringing the perpetrators to justice, uniting the international community to force consequences on Pakistan for its behaviour and to strengthen the likelihood that such an attack would not take place again’.”

Friedman sets out the differences: “I understand that Israel is not India – a country of 1.4 billion people, covering a massive territory. The loss of more than 160 people in Mumbai, some of them tourists, was not felt in every home and hamlet, as were Hamas’s killing of roughly 1,400 Israelis, the maiming of countless others and the kidnapping of more than 200 people. Pakistan also has nuclear weapons to deter retaliation.

“Nevertheless, it is instructive to reflect on the contrast between India’s response to the Mumbai terrorist attack and Israel’s response to the Hamas slaughter.”

Friedman sets out what might be the consequences of Israeli military action: “After the initial horror at the sheer barbarism of the Hamas onslaught on Israeli children, older adults and a dance party, what happened? The narrative quickly shifted to the brutality of the Israeli counterattack on Gazan civilians, among whom Hamas has embedded itself.

“The massive Israeli counterstrike overshadowed Hamas’s terrorism and instead made the organisation a hero to some. It has also forced Israel’s new Arab allies in the Abraham Accords to distance themselves from the Jewish state.”

He reckons there will also be consequences for Israel’s economy: “Meanwhile, with some 360,000 reservists called up, Israel’s economy will almost certainly be depressed if Israel’s ouster of Hamas from Gaza takes months, as predicted.”

Friedman says he has “sympathy for the terrible choices Israel’s government faced after the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. But it was precisely because I closely followed Singh’s unique reaction to the Mumbai terrorist attack that I immediately advocated a much more targeted, fully thought-through response by Israel. It should have called this Operation Save Our Hostages, and focused on capturing and killing the kidnappers of children and grandparents. Every parent could understand that.

“Instead, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government immediately raced into a plan to, as defence minister Yoav Gallant put it, ‘wipe out’ Hamas ‘from the face of the earth’. And in three weeks Israel has inflicted easily more than triple the number of civilian casualties and caused far more destruction in Gaza than Israel suffered, while committing itself to taking military control of Gaza – an operation, on a relative population basis, that is roughly equivalent to the United States deciding almost overnight to occupy half of Mexico.

“As I said, Israel is not India, and there is no way that it could be expected to turn the other cheek – not in that neighbourhood. But what is Netanyahu’s plan? The Israeli officials I speak with tell me they know two things for sure: Hamas will never again govern Gaza, and Israel will not govern a post-Hamas Gaza. They suggest that they will set up an arrangement similarly seen in parts of the West Bank today, with Palestinians in Gaza administering day-to-day life and Israeli military and Shin Bet security teams providing the muscle behind the scenes.”

Friedman did not think too much of this strategy: “This is a halfbaked plan. Who are these Palestinians who will be enlisted to govern Gaza on Israel’s behalf? What happens after a Palestinian working for Israel in Gaza is found murdered with a note pinned to his chest: ‘Traitor,’’ signed ‘the Hamas underground’.

“Israel should keep the door open for a humanitarian ceasefire and prisoner exchange that will also allow Israel to pause and reflect on exactly where it is going with its rushed Gaza military operation – and the price it could pay over the long haul.

“That is why I raise the Indian example. “Israel built an impressive society and economy, even if flawed, and Hamas took nearly all of its resources and built attack tunnels. Please, Israel, don’t get lost in those tunnels,” he warned. “I have always believed you can reduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the early 1900s to one line – conflict, time out, conflict, time out, conflict, time out, conflict, time out, conflict and time out.”

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When prime minister Rishi Sunak flew to Israel to tell prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “we want you to win”, he could not really claim to be speaking for his much more ambivalent country. Only a quarter of people say they want the UK government to support one side in this conflict – and those who do are evenly split between Israel (13 per cent) and Palestine (12 per cent). Being a neutral mediator is more popular among both Conservative and Labour voters.

Yet it is not the prime minister, but Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer who faces much more political pressure over this conflict. Starmer mishandled an early radio interview, later retracting his assent to Israel’s right to self-defence including cutting off water or power in Gaza. Now the Labour leader faces growing demands to call for an immediate ceasefire. Sadiq Khan in London, Andy Burnham in Manchester and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar have done so – and a dozen of Starmer’s own frontbench team at Westminster have, unusually, broken with collective responsibility to do so too.

The intensity of the Labour debate at Westminster may give the impression that a few words from Starmer could halt the bombing. British influence in Palestine is nothing like what it was a century ago. US president Joe Biden administration’s willingness to be a critical friend of Israel – in pressing the Netanyahu government over how it pursues Hamas – may offer Sunak or Starmer their best route to be part of multilateral pressure for de-escalation.

Labour’s Muslim Councillors have led the challenge to Starmer with more than 300 signing a joint letter pressing him to call for an immediate ceasefire. This reflects the anguish in British Muslim communities about the civilian death toll in Gaza. Yet, framing this call as primarily from the Muslim community could have downsides too. A coalition of 500 Labour councillors – half of them Muslim – could have framed the claim as speaking for Labour values, as well as the dominant sentiment of Britain’s largest faith minority community.

Around one in 12 Labour voters at the last General Election was Muslim – perhaps 800,000 out of ten million votes – with Muslims preferring Labour by a 7:1 margin. The lesson of recent political history is that parties take so-called ‘core votes’ for granted at their peril. Indeed, Labour lost nearly a quarter of its Muslim voters over the Iraq war, when the LibDems surged to a 25 per cent share, though around half of Muslims did vote to re-elect prime minister Tony Blair even after the Iraq war.

Minority voices had little presence in politics then. There was just one single Muslim MP in all of England – Khalid Mahmood in Birmingham – during the Iraq war. Nineteen British Muslim MPs today, 15 of them Labour, show how the turbulent years after 9/11 were also two decades of integration in British public life, even if party management could become more challenging in a diverse democracy.

If there was an electoral revolt on an Iraq-style scale, it could cost Labour a quarter of a million votes. Yet, even that would not transform the General Election map. Thirty seats may have more Muslim voters than Labour’s 2019 majority, but Labour’s national poll lead gives the Conservatives and LibDems little chance in diverse inner-city constituencies. A George Galloway style insurgency could contest one or two seats seriously, but would need support across communities to do better than that.

Muslim votes may help to tip the balance in Middle England marginals of middling diversity. One in five voters is Muslim in Peterborough, whose Conservative MP Paul Bristow was sacked by Sunak after his own call for a ceasefire. A significant drop in Muslim turnout could prove a bigger headache for Khan’s London mayoral re-election bid, next May, than for Starmer’s campaign a year from now.

I think we would encourage a less polarised politics if, over this next generation, it got harder rather than easier to guess somebody’s party preferences from their ethnicity and faith alone. My “one nation test” for any party that aspires to govern is that no citizen should feel any tension between supporting that party and their colour or creed. For all of their diversity at the top table, the post-Cameron Conservatives risk going backwards again with black British and British Muslim citizens, in particular. Starmer’s challenge may be both to reconnect with British Muslims, beyond this conflict, and to rebuild trust with Britain’s Jews after Labour’s failures on anti-Semitism – seeing no contradiction between the two.

None of Britain’s many ethnic or faith minorities could wield a veto over who ends up in Downing Street next year. Our political leaders should accept the bridging challenge to reach across communities – as an ethical challenge, as much as an electoral one.

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Ultimately, Sunak wants an international organisation established, based in London, to effectively be an AI watchdog. He also has plans for the capital to host a conference on the issue later this year.

It would appear that the ability and use of AI has reached a tipping point and people are worried about it.

In May, a group of industry leaders – including Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI; Demis Hassabis, chief executive of Google DeepMind and Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic (three of the leading AI companies) – signed an open letter warning that the “risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority, alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

In less apocalyptic terms, Microsoft published a set of guidelines of how companies should use AI. And in a similar vein Meta (the parent company of Facebook) and Twitter have both stressed the need for better regulation of AI.

In all the discussions around AI, one issue has been notable by its absence – racism.

I work for the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, based at Birmingham City University and I focus on issues such as racism, sexism and ableism in journalism and across the media industry.

The Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity believes that AI poses an existential threat to diversity in the media industry. According to a survey by the World Association of News Publishers, currently half of all newsrooms use AI tools. These tools, such as ChatGPT, can help journalists source experts to even writing entire pieces. (There are even examples of ChatGPT successfully writing an entire master’s thesis).

The problem is many of these AI programs are inherently biased. Let me explain with two simple examples.

Last Tuesday (13), the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity tested one of the most popular AI programs used by journalists, Bing, and asked it: “What are the important events in the life of Winston Churchill?”

Bing failed to mention his role in the Bengal famine and his controversial views on race.

Three days prior, on June 10, the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity asked Chat GPT (another popular program used in newsrooms); “Who are the twenty most important actors of the 20th century?”

ChatGPT did not name a single actor of colour.

That means that if a journalist were to rely on these AI programs to help them write piece on Winston Churchill or Hollywood actors, they would be excluding facts and figures that are disproportionately seen as important to black and Asian people.

Whether you agree or disagree with whether the Bengal famine should be mentioned in an account of Churchill’s life, or that all of the important Hollywood actors in the past century were white.

What the answers demonstrate is that ChatGPT “views” the world through a certain prism.

In many ways, we should not be surprised by this. The algorithms of tools Generative AI rely on processing large quantities of existing source materials. It is commonly acknowledged that existing British journalism suffers from a diversity problem with an over-representation of white men.

For example, in 2020, Women in Journalism published research showing that in one week in July 2020 – at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests across the world – the UK’s 11 biggest newspapers failed to feature a single byline by black journalist on their front pages. Taking non-white journalists as a whole, of the 174 bylines examined, only four were credited to journalists of colour.

The same report also found that in the same week just one in four front-page bylines across the 11 papers went to women.

Importantly, the week the study surveyed, the biggest news stories were about Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, the replacement of the toppled statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol and the appeal over the British citizenship of the Muslim mother, Shamima Begum.

This means that assuming the algorithms of Generative AI programs draw on the stories written by journalists in mainstream newspapers to generate its information, if a journalist were to ask it any questions about the issues in the news that week, they will overwhelmingly be receiving information from a white, male perspective.

The end result is that Generative AI programs, if used inappropriately, will only serve to reinforce and amplify the current and historical diversity imbalances in the journalism industry, effectively building bias on top of bias.

That is why last week the Sir Lenny Henry Centre produced a set of guidelines that it hopes all journalists and newsrooms will adopt.

These guidelines include:

1. Journalists should be aware of built-in bias.
2. Newsrooms are transparent to their readers when they use AI.
3. Journalists actively building in diversity into the questions they ask the AI programs.
4. Journalists should report mistakes and biases they spot (we’ve reported the biases we’ve highlighted).
5. Newsrooms should never treat the answers provided by AI programs as definitive facts.

While the centre has focused on how to address racism and bias on the use of AI in the media industry, we hope it also serves as a clarion call for all discussions around the use and threats of AI to make sure issues of discrimination and historically marginalised groups are considered.

If Sunak really wants the UK to be a world leader in safeguarding against the risks of AI, recognising the importance of tackling racism should be at the heart of any and all of his plans.

(The full set of guidelines and the work of the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity are available here)

Marcus Ryder is the head of external consultancies at the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity. A former BBC news executive, he is also the author of Black British Lives Matter

The post If Sunak wants to regulate AI, racism should be his number one priority appeared first on Bangladesh Weekly.

New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Arden recently resigned saying she simply no longer has ‘enough in the tank’, something many of us can relate to. It’s hardly surprising, as our lives have been happening at a 100 miles per hour. We cram so much into our day against time pressures and responsibilities that most of us are running on empty. We are exhausted and experiencing burnout.

Although ‘burnout’ was recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an ‘occupational phenomenon’ in 2019, it now covers all areas of life, not just the workplace. And sadly, burnout isn’t something that just disappears. In fact, it can take you on a downward spiral which could harm your emotional and physical health, career, and relationships. So, it’s essential to not ignore signs of burnout and address the root issues.

So, how can we prevent burnout?

Firstly, manage money worries. A 2021 YouGov poll showed 81 per cent of people agree that money worries contributed to burnout. Let’s face it, with the cost of living rising, lying awake all-night worrying is stressful. So, plan your finances using a free budgeting tool and get advice from Mental Health and Money Advice website (www.mentalhealthandmoneyadvice. org) if you are affected.

If you work from home, ensure to have clear boundaries between your work and home life. Make a conscious effort to switch off from work by getting outdoors for a walk after work to make that physical separation or if you can, work in a different room. Your brain needs to rest.

Taking care of your physical health is super important. Get enough sleep, ideally eight hours to give your mind and body time to recharge. Keep a diary to track your sleep patterns and avoid overstimulation from screens close to bedtime. Make time to unwind, meditate, and release worries to get restful sleep.

Eating a well-balanced nutritious diet isn’t rocket science. But it’s easy to forget and eat = whatever on the go. Choose healthy foods that will keep you fuelled and not play havoc with your mood and cravings. And stay well hydrated – drinking enough water helps to keep your stress hormone cortisol in check.

Your relationships with yourself and the people in your life matter. We all need one another to survive and thrive. Isolation harms us. So, arrange to meet that friend for coffee. Give people your time, be present for each other, listen and share your thoughts and feelings.

This leads us nicely to scheduling self-care time daily. Yes daily. You need to unplug and recharge your batteries every single day without fail. Taking at least 10 minutes for yourself can work wonders to prevent burnout. And there are countless ways to pour energy back into yourself, including finding three things you are grateful for, meditating, having a bath, and reading a book.

Mita Mistry’s new book All You Need Is Rest is published
by Summersdale and available now. Instagram:
@itsmitamistry & Twitter @MitaMistry

The post How to prevent burnout? appeared first on Bangladesh Weekly.