Category Archives: Voices

Community and Risk Communication: Experience of COVID-19 Communication in India

May 21, 2021
By 19832

Sreerupa Sengupta discusses the positive and negative aspects of the risk communication strategies taken by India during COVID-19. On an international level, lessons learned from past pandemics have led to improvements in risk communication, and the Internet and social media have been used significantly to reach the public. But among other problems, use of the term “social distancing” reinforced the caste-based inequality prevalent in Indian society, Sengupta notes.

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Pandemic, Risks, and Realities

History has shown that pandemics are not a novel phenomenon. Over the decades, the world has witnessed an increase in the frequency of pandemics: HIV and AIDS in 1981, SARS in 2002, swine flu in 2009, and Ebola in 2013.[1] It may sound ironic, but globalization, urbanization, environmental change, and greater mobility of people and animals have increased the potential for “global transmission of epidemics” (Hastings and  Krewski 2016). While the higher frequency of pandemics has contributed to an increase in human mortality and social apprehension; pandemics have also led to transformational changes in the environment, society, and health systems research (Hall, Scott, et al. 2020). The outbreak of pandemics, such as HIV, SARS, and Ebola, has acted as a catalyst in bringing about advancements in health infrastructure, testing, screening, medical devices, medicine, and healthcare delivery. These pandemics have provided the necessary momentum and insights for reshaping risk communication during public health emergencies (WHO 2018). In short, pandemics have been our teachers. There were many lessons for the affected countries as well as for the rest of the world to leverage and strategize how to build a resilient society that can respond to public health emergencies effectively (Chatterjee, Bajwa, et al. 2020).

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of COVID-19[2] as a pandemic. The announcement of the pandemic created chaos, uncertainty, ambiguity, and anxiety across the globe. Despite experience with past pandemics and preparedness to deal with pandemics accumulated over the decades, many countries struggled to prevent and manage COVID-19 (Wang, Cleary, et al. 2020). The world was found to be in learning and reactive mode, with a greater focus on lockdown and isolation. This kind of reaction from countries was indeed surprising, especially given that it was the twenty-first century. Even risk communication during the COVID-19 pandemic created confusion and chaos in many countries.

Pandemic as Teacher: Designing Risk Communication during COVID-19

In the absence of a vaccine at the initial stage of the pandemic, countries relied heavily on nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)[3] such as risk awareness to prevent and slow the transmission of the virus in the community. Risk communication emerged as one of the potent tools to make people aware of the risks, motivate them to change their behavior, and thereby control the rapid spread of the virus into the community.[4]

COVID-19 risk communication was significantly influenced by the experiences of risk communication during HIV and AIDS. HIV and COVID-19 have a few similarities. Both started with no vaccine or cure. Both pandemics created social and moral panic.  Unlike COVID-19, the onslaught of HIV was slow and took nearly four decades to cause disruptions, but like COVID-19, HIV had an unprecedented impact on public health, human development, and individual lives.

HIV heralded major shifts in the discourse of health communication. HIV highlighted that individual behavior and decision-making capacity are determined by their social context and that this in turn influences their health seeking behavior (Sengupta 2013). Hence, HIV re-emphasized that the psychosocial determinants are crucial in designing realistic health messages.

Another major contribution of HIV communication was its insistence on a bottom-up approach while designing health messages to bring about social change. The significance of diverse stakeholder engagement in health communication was the point HIV drove home for policymakers, health officials, and development professionals.

Community workers, the networks of people living with HIV and AIDS activists also emphasized the necessity of risk communication to address human rights abuses that are both cause and consequence of the spread of the virus.

Taking cues from AIDS communication, the public service announcements developed by the WHO addressed the physical and emotional needs of people. The risk communication went beyond the biomedical model of health[5] and addressed an array of topics, such as empathy for people living with the virus, home care during COVID-19, stress reduction, taking care of mental health during a crisis, and provision of home care (WHO 2020). There were messages to destigmatize the disease and reduce discrimination faced by people living with the virus. The WHO also developed communication materials on how exactly to talk about the pandemic to reduce stigma and on addressing human rights as key to the response to COVID-19 (WHO 2020). The WHO acknowledged that integrating a human rights framework is “not only a moral imperative” but essential for making health communication inclusive. There were messages on the right to health of pregnant women and differently abled people and the right to life and security of healthcare workers (WHO, 2020).[6]

Social media was used extensively to send out messages on risks to a vast segment of the population. The WHO created a dedicated website on COVID-19, set up a WhatsApp group, and launched a new Information Network for Epidemics (EPI-WIN) as an immediate form of health intervention. Various countries launched national campaigns on pandemic-related issues on the government websites and social platforms to combat fake news and to encourage awareness, understanding, and compliance with government-imposed restrictions (Chatterjee, Bajwa, et al. 2020).

The risk communication developed during COVID-19 deftly incorporated the lessons learned from HIV and other health crises and brought about positive changes in the global communication on risk. The pace at which materials on risk communication developed during this pandemic in all countries and the range of topics covered is undeniably commendable.

But it should be borne in mind that while the pandemic is global, the response to it is local. As an academic and a development professional working in the domain of health communication for over a decade,[7] I became interested in exploring the changes in risk communication in India during the current public health emergency. I analyzed the risk communication materials published on social media and newspapers between March and October 2020, when cases of the novel coronavirus were sharply increasing in India. 

COVID-19 Communication: Experiences from India

A toll-free helpline for psychosocial support.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW)[8] of India developed a plethora of information, education, and communication (IEC) materials on risk awareness related to COVID-19 and strategies to stay safe and prevent the spread of the virus. Along with print and electronic media, social media was used extensively to connect with the people; a dedicated section on COVID-19 was also developed on the website of the MoHFW. The Health Ministry networked with diverse stakeholders including departments of telecommunication, postal services, and 

Educating people about rules of etiquette to follow during the pandemic.

the National Council for Science and Technology Communication to sensitize people about COVID-19. Given the paucity of time and the vast population, the government of India also joined hands with private players to reach out to remote corners of the country. For instance, the MoHFW collaborated with mobile companies to expedite the process of risk communication. Private mobile companies created ringtones to raise awareness about the virus and instructed people to report to the nearest healthcare center in case of symptoms of COVID-19. The ringtones included messages in the local languages and were aimed at debunking myths, reducing fear among the people regarding the virus, and educating them about “new normal” etiquette.

A message on home quarantine.

Given the rapid spread of the virus, multiple channels of communication, such as social and print media and mass media campaigns, were used to reach out to the people. Using multiple channels increased the chances that the intended audience will receive enough messages on risk awarene ss to absorb and act on them. It is also heartening to observe that risk awareness was not confined within the biomedical framework. Rather, the IEC materials developed by the government discussed a range of issues, such as the mental health of people living with COVID-19, empathy, home quarantine, care and support, stigma, and discrimination. The messages included, “Do not stigmatize patients and family members,” “Do not stigmatize COVID-19 survivors,” and “Standing together against COVID-19 stigma.” A psychosocial toll-free helpline and a helpline email account were created for better community engagement.

A message about destigmatizing people living with Corona.

For the first time, there was a series of communication materials that addressed the contribution of frontline workers, their need for protection, and the responsibility of society to be respectful toward them. Undoubtedly, there were major shifts in the content, channel, and strategy for risk communication during COVID-19. But notwithstanding the positive endeavor of the MoHFW, there were glaring gaps, as I outline below.

 a. Uncritical acceptance of the global framework of risk communication

The MoHFW followed the diktats of the WHO in developing local risk communication materials. Hence, in most such materials developed by the national government, the term “social distancing” has been frequently used as a key risk mitigation strategy. While the WHO did initially use the term “social distancing,” it quickly switched to “physical distancing.” Unfortunately, the MoHFW upheld the globally coined language of “social distancing.” History has shown that the concept is inherently divisive. The Indian caste system thrives on the idea of social distancing. The upper caste in India maintains its purity by socially distancing themselves from the impure lower caste. Frequent usage of the concept of social distancing in risk communication reinforced and deepened the inequality prevalent in Indian society.

The concept of social distancing also assumes that people have the requisite resources and an enabling environment to adopt such preventive strategies. The critical question is: can a daily wage earner, migrant laborer, homeless person, or resident of an urban slum who lives in abject poverty realistically practice social distancing?

 b. Absence of community concerns in COVID-19 communication

None of the IEC materials addressed the vulnerability of such groups as migrant laborers, homeless people, and sex workers, as if their reality does not matter. A content analysis of the posters uploaded on various social media and published in newspapers highlights the lack of representation of marginalized groups in the country. The review makes it apparent that a top-down approach had been taken in designing the risk communication materials, with little involvement of the community.

Governed by the diktats of the donors, the national government was keener to produce quantifiable results. The focus was more on measuring return on investment than on truly inducing social change. Success of risk communication was thus measured by counting the numbers of IEC materials produced, new media used, and NGOs supported in the creation of communication materials. If we observe the pattern of risk communication in India, it becomes apparent that the exercise had been an attempt to respond to the bureaucratic targets of preparing infographics, toolkits, manuals and reports rather than to uplift the lives of people and make health communication contextual, inclusive, and sustainable.

 c. Failure to contextualize risk communication

HIV clearly showed that risk communication is effective only when the real concerns of the community are addressed and social norms and cultures are honored. For instance, in India, every year people suffer from measles despite vaccines. It is a common practice to quarantine the individual within the family for three weeks. Such practices neither arouse stigma nor create any panic in the community. COVID-19 communication should have made references to such health instances to allay the fear of the people, reduce their anxiety and confusion, and strike the right chord with the larger population.

Conclusion

The public health emergency in the country did usher in a number of positive changes in the landscape of risk communication. COVID-19 created the space for greater use of technology in risk communication. For a country like India, with its geographical vastness, this was indeed a boon. But the pandemic once again made it clear that to make health communication sustainable and for better risk governance, there is a need to include local words and visuals from the community in health-related materials. Health messages should use local art forms to connect with the community. Local institutions should be engaged in documenting and disseminating local and traditional practices of good health already in place, which can then be shared and practiced by diverse communities to avert pandemics. International guidelines provide a direction to risk communication, but risk communication should essentially be context specific and people centered. Unless that happens, risk communication will remain a tool for public health management and not an initiative for the people to claim their right to health.

Adapted by the author from an article originally posted on changeframing.space: https://www.changeframing.space/answering-the-burning-questions/confusion-angst-and-deceptive-communication.

[1] The world witnessed the outbreak of HIV and AIDS in 1981 in the United States. Over the decades, HIV spread to several countries. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS, 2002–2003) originated in China and spread to nearly 29 countries, swine flu (2009–2010) appeared in Mexico and spread to at least 30 countries, and Ebola (2013–2014) appeared in Africa and spread to at least 10 countries. It was the geographical spread of these viruses that earned them the title of pandemic. The number of people affected by the latter three viruses did not reach the proportion of either HIV or the current COVID-19. See https://www.changeframing.space/answering-the-burning-questions/confusion-angst-and-deceptive-communication.

[2] COVID-19 is the infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered coronavirus. This new virus and disease were unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. COVID-19 is now a pandemic affecting many countries globally. See https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019.

[3] According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nonpharmaceutical interventions are actions that people and communities can take to help slow the spread of illnesses like pandemic influenza in the absence of a vaccine or medicine. NPIs are also known as community mitigation strategies. See https://www.cdc.gov/nonpharmaceutical-interventions/index.html.

[4] Risk communication forms an essential component in the package of effective pandemic response. In 2005, the International Health Regulations underscored its importance as a health intervention. Since then, risk communication has become central to the WHO’s Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework (WHO 2018).

[5] The biomedical approach focuses on disease transmission and prevention from a clinical perspective. Risk communication following a biomedical model of health will discuss only transmission of the virus and methods of prevention; the focus is only on biological factors. Other factors, such as psychological, environmental, and social, are not taken into consideration.

[6] See https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public.

[7] My affair with health communication happened in 2006 through a project on HIV and violence against women (VAW). Thereafter, the Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (Sylff) fellowship in 2008 gave me an opportunity to delve into the politics and ideology that influence health messages and engage with the community to make health communication more inclusive. My doctoral dissertation adopted a gender- and rights-based approach to analyze representation of gender inequality, HIV, and human rights and the intersections between them in HIV-related communication in India.

[8] The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (https://main.mohfw.gov.in/about-us/about-the-ministry) is responsible for health policy and the planning and implementation of health-related programs in India. The ministry also looks into matters pertaining to family planning in India.

References

Chatterjee, R, S. Bajwa, D. Dwivedi, et al. 2020. “COVID-19 Risk Assessment Tool: Dual Application of Risk Communication and Risk Governance.” Progress in Disaster Science 7 (October 2020), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pdisas.2020.100109.

Hall, C., D. Scott, and S. Gössling. 2020. “Pandemics, Transformations and Tourism: Be Careful What You Wish For.” Tourism Geographies 22, no. 3 (2020),577-598 https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2020.1759131.

International Labour Organization. 2020. An Employer’s Guide on Working from Home in Response to the Outbreak of COVID-19. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_dialogue/---act_emp/documents/publication/wcms_745024.pdf.

Saunders-Hastings, Patrick R., and Daniel Krewski. 2016. “Reviewing the History of Pandemic Influenza: Understanding Patterns of Emergence and Transmission.” Pathogens 5, no. 4 (2016), 66 https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens5040066

Sengupta, S. 2013. HIV and AIDS Media Campaigns in India: Exploring Issues of Gender and Rights, Doctoral Dissertation, Jadavpur University, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10603/133048

Wang, H., P. Cleary, J. Little, et al. 2020. “Communicating in a Public Health Crisis”. The Lancet Digital Health 2, no. 10 (2020): e503. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2589-7500(20)30197-7.

World Health Organization (WHO). 2020. Gender and COVID-19: Advocacy Brief. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/332080/WHO-2019-nCoV-Advocacy_brief-Gender-2020.1-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

WHO. 2020. Addressing Human Rights as Key to the COVID-19 Response. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/addressing-human-rights-as-key-to-the-covid-19-response.

WHO. 2018. Communicating Risk in Public Health Emergencies: A WHO Guideline for Emergency Risk Communication (ERC) Policy and Practice. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/259807/9789241550208-eng.pdf?sequence=2.

WHO. Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Advice for the Public. Last updated April 9, 2021. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public.

COVID-19 Pandemic: Requiem for Human Rights?

April 9, 2021
By 28870

The COVID-19 pandemic is challenging the international community’s commitment to human rights protection. Ana Zdravkovic, a PhD candidate at the University of Belgrade, looks at the “derogation clauses” included in most international human rights treaties, which allow for the temporary suspension of certain rights in emergency situations, and notices a disturbing trend in how states are approaching them.

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Derogations: A “Necessary Evil”

It hardly comes as a surprise that the vast majority of international human rights treaties provide contracting states with the possibility to temporarily derogate from their treaty commitments during states of emergency.[i] After the atrocities of World War II, at the time of drafting core instruments of human rights law, no one really questioned the need for some sort of escape mechanism to be used in emergency cases, such as war, natural disasters, riots, public health crises, or other extraordinary circumstances. Naturally, the option of human rights suspension is accompanied by carefully created substantial and procedural restrictions.

The rationale behind these so-called derogation clauses is straightforward: states should be allowed some space to confront and resolve the crisis and even derogate from their international obligations, with the aim of urgently restoring the previous state of normalcy, where full compliance with human rights treaties would be guaranteed. It was accepted that in the absence of this “necessary evil,” states would likely cease to meet their obligations during emergencies, but with a greater risk of violations due to lack of supervision. “Derogation clauses” enable the international community not only to identify and monitor alleged human rights abuses during exceptional circumstances but also to preserve and protect the core (non-derogable) rights of individuals.


ICCPR’s Derogating Mechanism in a Nutshell

The UN Human Rights Council meets in the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room, Palace of Nations, Geneva (Switzerland).

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a one-of-a-kind, multilateral treaty aimed at protecting civil and political human rights and freedoms. It entered into force on March 23, 1976, and 173 states have ratified the treaty and became its parties so far. The document appears to be the strongest confirmation of the international community’s dedication to human rights protection, at least in terms of first-generation human rights. However, the COVID-19 pandemic may reveal otherwise.

As can be expected, the ICCPR has its own derogation mechanism, namely Article 4, which reads as follows:

  1. In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed, the States Parties to the present Covenant may take measures derogating from their obligations under the present Covenant to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with their other obligations under international law and do not involve discrimination solely on the ground of race, colour, sex, language, religion or social origin.
  2. No derogation from articles 6, 7, 8 (paragraphs 1 and 2), 11, 15, 16 and 18 may be made under this provision.
  3. Any State Party to the present Covenant availing itself of the right of derogation shall immediately inform the other States Parties to the present Covenant, through its intermediary of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, of the provisions from which it has derogated and of the reasons by which it was actuated. A further communication shall be made, through the same intermediary, on the date on which it terminates such derogation.

The first paragraph of Article 4 prescribes the circumstances in which states can lawfully and validly derogate from their obligations. To begin with, there must be a “public emergency which threatens the life of the nation,” such as war, rebellion, terrorist attacks, a natural disaster, or a public health emergency. Although the Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the ICCPR[ii] provide with detailed guidance for the interpretation of the ICCPR in this regard, there is no denying that a health crisis such as a pandemic can amount to a public emergency, since Article 4 has already been activated in public health crises in the past.[iii] When it comes to the COVID-19 situation, it represents an actual emergency seriously affecting and threatening the entire humankind, especially from the points of view of death tolls, the almost complete collapse of healthcare systems, its impact on the global economy, and the riots and protests it is constantly triggering. As for the requirement that the emergency be officially proclaimed, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. Even prior to that date, many states had enacted emergency measures with the aim of curbing the spread of the deadly virus.[iv] Additional substantial conditions laid down by Article 4 require striking a fair balance between derogating measures and the actual needs of the particular situation, provided that the means used are not discriminatory or inconsistent with other obligations under international law.[v]

The second paragraph of Article 4 protects certain rights from derogation, so that they will continue to apply regardless of the state of emergency and must be protected under any circumstances. In particular, according to the ICCPR, the following are non-derogable rights: the right to life; freedom from torture and from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; freedom from slavery or servitude; the right not to be imprisoned for contractual debt; freedom from retroactive criminal punishment; the right to recognition as a person before the law; and freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.[vi]

Finally, the last paragraph prescribes the procedural conditions, which oblige state parties to immediately issue a notification to the UN Secretary-General with relevant provisions, reasons, and justifications and to provide additional communication on the date of termination of such derogating measures. The requirements are intended to ensure that all state parties are duly informed about the state of emergency and derogations taking place in one’s territory in order to enable active monitoring of ICCPR compliance, as well as potential abuse of emergency powers and possible breaches of human rights.[vii]


ICCPR: A Casualty of the COVID-19 Pandemic?

An empty Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room.

Although all of the abovementioned substantial and procedural requirements should always be examined on a case-by-case basis, the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic may constitute a public emergency requiring certain derogations in almost every state across the globe. This is even more so, taking into account all of the measures implemented around the world for the purpose of curbing virus transmission (such as border closures, travel restrictions, curfews, and total prohibition of movement). Nevertheless, since the outbreak of the pandemic, only 22 states have officially notified the UN Secretary-General of their intention to impose measures derogating from their obligations under the ICCPR, which is rather peculiar.[viii] One may hastily assume that this necessarily indicates the ignorance of the state parties about the provisions of the treaty, and hence that they failed to act in accordance with it.

However, there is another solution that may have been used by those who did not resort to derogations. Imposed measures affect rights that are not absolute in nature, primarily the right to liberty of movement (Article 12), freedom to manifest religion or beliefs (Article 18), right to freedom of expression (Article 19), right of peaceful assembly (Article 21), and right to freedom of association (Article 22). The provision allowing their limitations during ordinary times (permissible restrictions) seems to be the common ground to all of them. Put differently, the ICCPR recognizes the potential need of a state to limit certain rights in order to protect some of the enumerated collective interests, including public health. There are prescribed conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to apply permissible restrictions: the restrictions must be provided by law, proportionate and necessary for the protection of health, and nondiscriminatory. Therefore, it is perfectly comprehensible that some governments decided not to declare a state of emergency and not to opt for derogations, but rather to stay inside the regular framework of human rights treaties and to limit certain rights and freedoms to the extent required by the health crisis.

Unfortunately, there are arguments showing that this may not be the case. Firstly, in April 2020 the UN Human Rights Committee issued a statement expressing concern because “several states parties have resorted to emergency measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in a manner seriously affecting the implementation of their obligations under the Covenant, without formally submitting any notification of derogation from the Covenant.”[ix] Furthermore, as elaborated earlier, other human rights treaties also include similar derogation mechanisms. The European Convention on Human Rights procedurally requires that contracting states notify the Secretary General of the Council of Europe of their intention to derogate from their obligations. So far 11 states have issued such notifications, but strangely enough, this number includes ICCPR parties that failed to send any notification to the UN Secretary-General.[x] Similarly, there are at least 5 states that informed the Secretary General of the Organization of American States about the suspension of certain rights guaranteed by the American Convention on Human Rights but failed to notify the UN Secretary-General.[xi] It goes without saying that a state cannot derogate from its obligations under one of these treaties and not do so under another, without inevitably breaching provisions of the one it ignored.

Hence, it appears that the COVID-19 pandemic brought, apart from all other miseries, chaos into the long-crafted human rights system. The ICCPR, once a strong pillar of the International Bill of Human Rights and a great successor to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, suddenly became completely disregarded and passed over by its state parties. Governments either seemed reckless when it came to their human rights obligations, pretending that there was no need for triggering relevant emergency mechanisms, or starkly revealed that they were more eager to cherish the regional human rights systems they belonged to. As Professor Dominic McGoldrick famously stated back in 2004, “The response of a state to a public emergency is an acid test of its commitment to the effective implementation of human rights.”[xii]

In an attempt to not finish in this worrisome tone, I will note that the pandemic is still not over, which gives us time to revive ourselves and get back on the path we chose more than half a century ago with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — a path of protecting, respecting, and promoting human rights worldwide.

 

[i] See for example Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, UN Treaty Series, vol. 999, 171; Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as amended by Protocols Nos. 11 and 14, November 4, 1950, ETS 5; and Article 27 of the American Convention on Human Rights, Organization of American States. The African Charter, however, contains no derogation clause; see African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Organisation of African Unity.

[ii] The Siracusa Principles on the Limitation and Derogation Provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, September 28, 1984, UN Doc. E/CN.4/1985/4.

[iii] For example, Georgia activated Article 4 in 2006 due to the H5N1 virus, while in 2009 Guatemala opted for derogation in response to the influenza A (H1N1) epidemic. See https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-4&chapter=4&clang=_en (accessed February 9, 2021).

[iv] For more information, see https://www.icnl.org/covid19tracker/ (accessed February 9, 2021).

[v] For a detailed analysis, see for example Sarah Joseph and Melissa Castan, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Cases, Materials, and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 910–23.

[vi] In addition, the prohibition of the death penalty is non-derogable according to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/2ndopccpr.aspx (accessed February 9, 2021).

[vii] Although the UN Human Rights Committee did not clarify whether the failure to notify the UN Secretary-General would invalidate the derogation, the author is of the opinion that derogations that contravene Article 4 in any manner, including procedural, cannot be considered lawful.

[viii] These states are Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Namibia, Paraguay, Peru, the Republic of Moldova, Romania, San Marino, Senegal, and Thailand; see https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-4&chapter=4&clang=_en (accessed February 10, 2021).

[ix] UN Human Rights Committee, “Statement on derogations from the Covenant in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic,”, April 30, 2020, CCPR/C/128/2, https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CCPR/COVIDstatementEN.pdf (accessed February 10, 2021).

[x] By comparing publicly available lists of declarations, it can be concluded that Albania, North Macedonia, and Serbia did derogate from the ECHR but not from the ICCPR; see https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventions/treaty/005/declarations and https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-4&chapter=4&clang=_en (February 10, 2021).

[xi] The 5 states are Bolivia, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, and Suriname; see https://www.rightofassembly.info/assets/downloads/Derogations_from_the_Right_of_Peaceful_Assembly_(at_11_November_2020)_.pdf (accessed February 10, 2021).

[xii] Dominic McGoldrick, “The interface between public emergency powers and international law,” International Journal of Constitutional Law 2, no. 2 (April 2004), 388.

Is Egypt’s Economy Surviving Corona’s Bumpy Ride?

April 6, 2021
By 28847

Christine Guirguis, a 2020 Sylff fellow from the American University in Cairo, addresses the outlook for Egypt’s economy in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Egypt was one of only three countries in the region to maintain positive growth in 2020, an impressive record given the difficulties it has experienced over the past decade, as Guirguis details.

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View of Cairo from the top of Cairo Tower, August 25, 2014.

Egypt’s economic condition in 2012–13 was dubbed the worst crisis since the 1930s. The severity of the economic troubles reached its peak in the first half of 2014 with a fall in the GDP growth rate to 1.2%—the lowest in about 50 years—as well as a rise of the inflation rate to 9%, a surge in the unemployment rate to 14%, a fall of eight places in tourism ranking, and a shortage in essential food products. As a result, Egypt’s economic status as of 2014, which was downgraded from emerging market to frontier market in Russell’s Annual Index, left the country scrambling to rescue its 86-million population at the time.

Before reluctantly resorting to the International Monetary Fund, Egypt—whose national security is a safety valve to the region—had received generous aid from the Arabian Gulf and Saudi Arabia totaling as much as $30 billion. While such aid breathed life into Egypt’s economy, the bill was far from paid.

In 2015, three-quarters of Egypt’s budget vanished into subsidies, government wages, interest payments, and capital loan repayments; only 5% of the budget was left for other purposes. In the same year, the crash of a Russian airplane due to an act of terrorism marked the Egyptian tourism’s clinical death before it was gradually resuscitated in 2019 by stricter security measures in airports. This was when Egypt decided, on November 3, 2016, to brace up for a $12 billion IMF loan by devaluing its currency by 48% and fulfilling the IMF’s requirements by way of cutting subsidies, increasing VAT, and floating the currency.

Luxor temple, Luxor, January 2015.

In a recent television interview, Mr. Tarek Amer, governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, talked about the Herculean responsibility he had in his hands in 2015. Egypt’s foreign cash reserves were only $800 million, an amount Egypt normally spends in a week. Consequently, its economy would have faced the risk of a total shutdown unless an urgent “surgery” of painful economic reform was done. The political and social sensitivity of the November 2016 decision, at a time when Egypt was craving for stability, rendered the proposal impossible from the point of view of almost all the cabinet members. No one was able to digest the unimaginable scenarios that could have taken place if the economic reform process had failed to meet its purposes, especially because its probability of success was estimated to be between only 10% and 30% at the time. With no alternatives on the horizon, President Sisi gave the green light for the execution of the economic reform proposal, a decision that signified a new, independent approach that enabled Egypt to skip the limitations that had long impeded its economic restructuring.

In a country where a quarter of the people live below the poverty line, the government wanted to ensure that its measures would not cause a humanitarian crisis or a social backlash. The government kept intact the cash transmission programs and subsidized food systems launched earlier.

Given the painful austerity measures, some envisioned a doomsday scenario taking place in Egypt. Yehia Hamed, a former investment minister in Mohamed Morsi’s 2012–13 government, wrote an article in the Foreign Policy in 2019 where he conjectured that Egypt was heading toward bankruptcy and warned Europe against a mass flocking across the Mediterranean of Egyptians fleeing an inevitable bleak fate.

In response Ahmed Shams El Din, an Egyptian capital markets professional and adjunct professor at the American University in Cairo, published an article on the same news site where he expressed his wonder at the former minister’s criticism of securing an IMF loan even though the government in which he served had approached the IMF in 2012 for a loan. He noted that Egypt’s economy is growing rather than collapsing, with the account and budget deficits cut in half and a 5.5% growth in 2019 compared to 2.2% in 2013.  

The current pandemic is already suffocating some of the biggest economies, supporting the IMF’s description of it as “the worst economic crisis since the 1930s depression.” For Egypt, the challenge is tougher due to losses in the main revenue sources, such as tourism, the Suez Canal, and remittances, which together constitute 15% of Egypt’s GDP. Therefore, in its June report the IMF initially expected a decline in Egypt’s GDP growth rate from 5.6% in 2019 to as low as 2% in 2020—a percentage it later changed to 3.5% in its October report. Given the global economic challenges, this relatively low growth rate makes Egypt one of three countries in the Middle East and Central Asia to maintain a positive figure in 2020.

Antique Bazaars, Aswan, January 2015.

During the apex of the global pandemic uncertainty in 2020, Egypt managed to pay $35 billion of its liabilities without suffering a severe decline in its foreign currency stockpile or any shortage of essential goods. This explained Egypt’s ability to maintain its credit ratings by Standard & Poor’s at “BB” in April 2020, by Fitch at “B+” with a Stable Outlook in July, and by Moody’s at “B2” in August. Based on these ratings, J.P. Morgan praised Egypt’s economic performance, stating that, thus far, its economy had successfully withstood the test of the pandemic and kept the trust of the international community. Hence, Egypt’s economy has been given well-grounded positive appraisals.To contain corona’s economic repercussions, the Egyptian government allocated 100 billion Egyptian pounds (EGP) as a stimulus package, including half to support the severely affected tourism sector, EGP 8 billion for the health sector, a 14% increase in pensions, energy cost relief for factories, fewer taxes on businesses, more cash transmissions, and financial support for irregular workers until the end of 2020.

Egypt’s top priorities in the economic agenda include augmenting domestic savings, as well as adopting a more liberal approach toward the market, revisiting tax penalties and exemptions, and laying the basis for a fairer accountability system.

Teaching Literature in Times of Pandemic

March 3, 2021
By 28851

A scholar of Italian literature, 2020 Sylff fellow Nataša Gavrilović compares today’s situation with that of Renaissance-era Italy to contemplate the role of literature—and, more broadly, of the arts and humanities—as well as of teaching it, particularly at times of crisis like the current COVID-19 pandemic.

*　*　*

During the period of the flourishing of culture and the arts on the Apennine Peninsula—at the same time that the voice of humanism was becoming louder and clearer with each new day, via epistles or treatises, or among the members of informal circles later known as accademie, but always in the form of dialogue—Italy (or what would actually become Italy only three centuries later) was struggling amid continuous warfare.

Today, the traces of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century art and philosophy are far more visible than the scars left by the innumerable battles that at some point even became a “new normality,” just as the plague and other disasters did. Eugenio Garin, one of the twentieth century’s greatest scholars of European humanism and the Renaissance, sees this particular moment of crisis as one of the crucial factors that informed that period’s most important thought, oeuvres, and philosophy with a universal message, but always formed in one’s own microcosm, in a dialectical relationship between the contextualized temporary and the eternal.[1]

There is no need to expound on the greatness and value that the works and names from this period continue to hold for humankind, beginning from the very concept of freedom and unlimited possibilities innate to each and every individual, through the novel approach to and importance assigned to education, to the myriad discoveries in the fields of science and art.

Time will show whether the crisis we are coping with now will yield this kind of fruit to the generations to come, in the form of new ideas and thought-provoking works and discoveries. Nevertheless, one thing is for sure: the very concept of crisis means rethinking the values we cultivate, the system(s) we have created, and the steps we have taken in order to understand, adjust, and improve, so as to give meaning to our existence and make life on Earth if not better, then at least more bearable. Obviously, the humanities cannot face the pandemic from a medical standpoint, nor can they find a cure or create a vaccine. Are the humanities therefore redundant at this very moment, and, moreover, is teaching literature a false utopia when almost everything appears to be falling apart and when bare survival looms large in everyone’s mind? Is it an escape or a long journey toward the Promised Land?

Niccolò Machiavelli

Staying in the field of my research interests as an Italian literature scholar, I must call on what another Italian thinker wrote. I am referring to Niccolò Machiavelli, who has universally influenced political and historical thought and whose life and works are an evident product of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-wecentury crisis. In Chapter 25 (“What Fortune Can Effect In Human Affairs, And How To Withstand Her”) of his most famous treatise, The Prince (Il Principe), the Florentine author explains that one can and should fight against the unpredictable force of Fortuna, and not only that, but one even stands a chance to win (“Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less”). A memorable picture follows: Fortuna is compared to a raging river. If we survive its first strike, it is wise and necessary to think about what happened, to think it through thoroughly, engaging all our ability, experience, and knowledge gained by reading ancient authors, and analyzing our reality in order to be prepared when another similar situation arises. Because, as he says, “though its nature be such, it does not follow therefore that men, when the weather becomes fair, shall not make provision, both with defenses and barriers, in such a manner that, rising again, the waters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither so unrestrained nor so dangerous.”[2]

And isn’t that what teaching literature means, or at least should mean—an active and fruitful dialogue, both with people of the past and with our present times, so that one may (re)think critically and maybe even protect oneself and others from tragedies and disasters? Hence, to talk about the past, about philosophy or poetry, is to enrich your own existence, to observe the world from endless points of view. Furthermore, to convey knowledge and experience is to create future thinkers, to show them the way of honor and dignity: the dignity and virtue of curiosity. For, although a world made of words is a fragile world, words are all we have to communicate, express, create, learn, and understand. 

Due to my research activities, I happened to be at the University of Padua when the pandemic began. As I was witnessing the panic spreading along the stunning and peaceful Italian squares, my life-saving thought was the research I was (and still am) conducting; not because it made me forget the circumstances in which I had found myself—on the contrary, it was helping me to go beyond these circumstances and consider them from another, wider perspective. A few months later, in Belgrade, from the role of a doctoral student I returned to the role of a teacher. The need for reading, understanding, and sharing is a constant, and it was still there, helping me look toward the stars while rethinking the Earth. That is also what literature lessons should aspire toward: an endless “good fight” to create a context in which virtue can thrive. Our students’ questions, their curiosity, and the long discussions we have, even—or rather, especially—in these trying times, are both a strong proof of this innate human hunger for dialogue and a vital light of hope.

Literature cannot find a cure for diseases, but offers instead the benefit of the doubt, teaching us to consider everything with a pinch of salt and showing that, through the centuries, it is the doubt that has been the vital force of every kind of progress. Thus, talking about Petrarch’s existential doubts and antithetical thoughts, about Dante’s contempt for the uncommitted (ignavi), that is, those who lived their lives without making conscious moral choices and who therefore deserve neither Heaven nor Hell, or reading Pico della Mirandola’s speech about man’s freedom to be anything one decides to be—all this is not an escape, as it illuminates both the one who teaches and the one who learns (if there is any difference between those two); sometimes it is a shimmering light, as fragile as words, but it surely never goes out.

Words are delicate, fluctuating, ambiguous. To say or write is not enough, it is how something is said or written that makes the whole difference. That is what literature teaches and how literature should be taught. To translate is impossible, yet necessary, as noted by two of Trieste’s scholars, Guido Cosciani and Guido Devescovi. The same goes for teaching—teaching literature in particular, and especially teaching literature in times of a crisis.[3]

 

[1]     E. Garin, L’umanesimo italiano: filosofia e vita civile nel Rinascimento (1952), and E. Garin, La cultura del Rinascimento (1967).

[2]     N. Machiavelli, The Prince, translated by W. K. Marriott, downloaded from: https://www.holybooks.com.

[3]     C. Magris, Istantanee, Milano, La nave di Teseo, 2016, p. 178.

Survival Is Insufficient: Reflections on Social Safety Nets and the Need for Ritual, Connection, and Meaning

February 19, 2021
By 19658

Sherilyn Tan Siy, a 2007 Sylff fellow, currently lives in Japan with her husband and young children. Using the apocalyptic novel Station Eleven as a point of reference, she ponders how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of the family members, as well as those of others, and what revelations it has brought.

*　*　*

In late January 2020, I was reading Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel Station Eleven, an award-winning novel that takes place in the Great Lakes region before a fictional swine flu pandemic wipes out 99% of the population. Unlike many apocalypse novels, Mandel treats a grim subject with subtlety. Through her calm writing, she creates word tableaus that have the effect of making the unexpected stunningly beautiful, the sinister a little bit eerier, the dramatic even more gripping. It is the mark of good fiction when you begin to feel as the characters would in their situation and, despite the grimness of the subject, refuse to stop reading. Long after I have put the book down, the dread of living in a world where the few remaining people struggle to carry on weighed me down. Is there any meaning to surviving? Would we even want to be alive then?

Siy, center, with her family.

The novel bothered me so much I passed it on to my partner so we could discuss. We went out for dinner soon after he finished reading. The timing could not have been more inauspicious. Then Prime Minister Abe was slated to make an important announcement the following day, and the public, suspecting a possible lockdown, emptied the shelves à la Station Eleven of toilet paper and shelf-stable food. We asked each other, “Will this be the last time we will be able to eat out?”

My heightened unease could have been influenced by hormonal changes in my body in the third trimester of pregnancy. Our third was due to arrive in April. How safe is traveling to Tokyo by train for my check-ups? Will the hospital be overloaded with Covid-19 cases? Can my partner stay and support me in the delivery room? What sort of world will our baby be born into?

But I had more pressing and immediate concerns.

Schools abruptly closed down a few weeks short of the end of the academic year. My two children—aged nine and seven—grieved, left in limbo. As the weeks turned into months and there was no indication that school might restart anytime soon, my seven-year-old son asked whether he has already moved up a grade. First graders were required to keep a neon yellow cover on their schoolbags to enhance visibility when crossing the street. He could not wait to remove this thing that marked him as a neophyte. I realized then how important structure and rituals are, especially for children, and how the pandemic robbed us of the small and big ceremonies that mark time and growth. And so, after dinner one night, we played graduation music from the Internet and clapped after he solemnly unfastened the neon yellow cover and threw it away.

In conjunction with the sudden shutdown of schools, my after-school English classes—a significant source of my income—were also suspended until further notice. Projects for my travel writing work got canceled, and one of the international companies I worked with dissolved permanently. Some friends and family suddenly found themselves furloughed, laid off, or simply out of work. In the food bank that my partner runs, we saw a sudden increase in people lining up at the pantry. The pandemic is not a mere inconvenience but has real consequences to individuals, especially women who are likely to take on the no-work-no-pay type of jobs that allow for flexibility in childcare but also tend to be low wage and come with no security.

In my panic, I worked harder and longer at my job at the organic center, took on more shifts, and worked until the very day before I gave birth. I hurried back to work a month later, baby strapped on to me, partly because I was terrified of losing my job in a world that has become so uncertain. It turns out I need not have worried too much. Because people are cooking at home more and becoming more health conscious, orders for our organic food products skyrocketed, and our company had to move to a bigger warehouse and hire additional staff.

My partner and I are both foreigners living in Japan. We do not have family roots or cultural connections to Japan, so we often talk about the ideal country to live in and whether we might thrive better somewhere else. Now, our conversation is shaped by our most recent experiences. We consider ourselves fortunate to be in Japan where the pandemic has been handled fairly well compared to our home countries (the United States for my partner, the Philippines for me). Throughout the last trimester of my pregnancy until the birth of our son, the two hospitals we went to were never crowded. The pandemic also underscored what social safety nets Japan had in place.

・During the period of emergency measures, families suddenly felt the financial burden of feeding children at home all day. We realized how much we relied on school lunches at our public schools to provide that one affordable, nutritious meal for our kids every day. School restarted in June.

・Daycares—affordable and professionally run here in Japan—remained open, easing concerns of parents who cannot work from home.

・Books helped us keep our sanity. When our local library closed for two months, we realized how much we miss this public asset. We were lucky enough to have access to the online cloud library from my partner’s home state in the United States, but it is not a replacement for a physical space to retreat into. The library opened again at about the same time the school resumed.

・At this time, when the slightest cough is worrisome, having national health insurance gives us some peace of mind that we will be taken care of without going bankrupt.

・The national government provided a one-time ¥100,000 cash handout per person and initiated other cash grants for single parents, students, and small businesses. Local governments distributed support in the form of coupons that can be used in stores.

In Station Eleven, the year the deadly flu struck is, years later, referred to as Year Zero. With only 1% of the population left, the world is an unrecognizable mess. Covid-19 is nothing like Station Eleven, but it has made us rethink the ways we did things: What is absolutely essential? What is unnecessary? What can we do without? My introverted partner and I have been happily avoiding face-to-face meetings and gatherings and saving time and money conducting business online. There’s no need for new clothes, and makeup is frivolous when more than half your face is covered in a mask if and when you do go out.

On the downside, there’s “Zoom fatigue” and the almost-impossibility of forming warm human connections online. What we suddenly realize is most important, more than ever, are good relationships with the people we live with and see every day, our partner and children. All the time and work we have put into our family, on learning how to repair conflict and enjoy spending quality time together, even before Covid-19, has made us closer and given us a buffer in this prolonged stressful period.

Maybe this pandemic raises not only the question of whether life can or cannot return back to normal but whether we would want it to. My daughter is a member of the mini basketball team. Before Covid-19, the team used to have all-day games during the weekends. With the pandemic, everything was canceled, and we realized that we rather like having our daughter spend time with us during the weekends. Now that all-day games are slowly resuming, we find it harder to say yes to them. Covid-19 has helped us sift through what really matters and only commit to things that we truly want to do.

In Station Eleven, some survivors of the fictional pandemic banded together into a nomadic performing group called the Traveling Symphony, bringing Shakespeare to settlements across Canada and North America. On their caravan is painted the motto “Because survival is insufficient,” a line the author took from Star Trek: Voyager and, really, the thesis of the novel. Now, more than ever in the midst of alienation and collective anxiety, it is not enough to be merely alive. We search for meaning. In our family, we find ourselves doing gratitude exercises more frequently, finding small things to celebrate.

My baby, born in the thick of the pandemic, is an unusually happy baby. He can recognize when someone is smiling at him even when half the person’s face is covered up with a mask. If the person isn’t smiling, he is keen to make them smile with his gurgling. At eight months, he tries to reach out to pull down people’s masks. This is not a new reality for him but the only reality he knows. One of the lead characters in Station Eleven, Kirsten, says that the post-apocalypse world is hardest to bear for those old enough to remember how the world was before. “The more you remember, the more you’ve lost,” she explains. In some ways, yes, that is true. But if Covid-19 has forced us to rethink our lives and cull through what’s essential, then all is not lost.

A Triple Crisis in the Indian Sundarbans

January 7, 2021
By 25159

The article describes how the people of the Indian Sundarbans delta, who have adopted migration as a means of survival in an ecologically fragile deltaic region in eastern India, have been affected by the combined impact of the global pandemic and tropical cyclone Amphaan, which struck India in 2020.

* * *

Inhabitants of Banashyamnagar in the Sundarbans queue for disaster relief while trying to maintain social distancing norms to prevent the spread of COVID-19. (Picture by Amartya Ray)

The word cyclone was coined in the city I am writing from, Calcutta. A colonial officer, Henry Piddington studied tropical storms peculiar to the Bay of Bengal and named them cyclones after the Greek word ‘kuklōma', meaning the coil of a snake. When in 1853, the colonial government decided to build a port in the lush green deltaic region south of Calcutta, Piddington wrote an anxious letter to the then Governor-General of British India, Lord Dalhousie, to explain how the plan might not succeed should a cyclonic storm strike. True to his word, fourteen years later, a ferocious storm razed the newly built Port Canning to the ground. Nearly two hundred years after Henry Piddington’s lifetime, the forested deltas of present-day India and Bangladesh, called the Sundarbans, continue to reel under severe environmental stress.

People began settling in the hostile climate of the Sundarbans during the colonial period when the British Raj decided to deforest much of the largest mangrove forest in the world, and the natural shield of the eastern portion of the Indian mainland against sea storms, for agricultural revenue. Because of their low-lying, riverine and coastal setting, inhabitants of the region have never been unfamiliar with the threat of cyclones. But those living in the ‘transition’ zone between ‘stable’ inland areas contiguous with the mainland and ‘core’ seaward areas of legally protected mangrove forests, remain most vulnerable to environmental hazards. Located along major tidal rivers, only 23 percent of the roughly 1.5 million inhabitants of the transition zone had access to safe water in 2011, while less than 2 percent could access storm shelters.

The region faces a basket of environmental hazards round the year. It experiences sudden-onset extreme weather events in the form of about nine cyclonic storms a decade, a third of which are severe. In the recent past, Sidr (2007), Aila (2009), Phailin (2013), Hudhud (2014) and Bulbul (2019) have struck the Sundarbans with cycles of immense destruction. In the background of recurring cyclonic storms, are slow-onset environmental hazards that people have lived with for centuries. Some of these, such as a rising sea level, salinisation of soil and water, loss of ecosystem services and failure of the ring of embankments built to protect the region from erosion have led to decreased access to safe drinking water, lack of food security and inadequate WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) facilities. Salinity in soil has reduced land productivity in a region primarily dependent on agriculture as its chief livelihood strategy. Salinity in water sources and lack of piped water supply have resulted in poor health outcomes and high diarrhea-related mortality, especially among children. This year, however, the people of the Indian Sundarbans face a triple crisis. In the fourth week of May, the deadliest tropical cyclone to have ever impacted the Bay of Bengal, Amphan, coincided with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the background of deep-seated impacts of slow-onset hazards.

The Sundarbans is celebrated as a World Heritage Site, a recognition accorded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to the rich biodiversity of the Indian Sundarbans in 1987 and of the Sundarbans of Bangladesh in 1997. But its 7.2 million inhabitants confront as part of everyday life a web of slow-onset and sudden-onset climate stress and socio-economic vulnerability that lead them to migrate from the region in search of work to adapt to  their hostile living conditions. There are also instances of environmentally-induced displacement in the region. The islands of Lohachara, Suparibhanga and Bedford have already submerged in the sea, while Ghoramara has shrunk to a fourth of its original size, witnessing the displacement of thousands to the neighbouring island of Sagar. Climate change and human activities such as tidal-based aquaculture and overexploitation of natural resources further aggravate the impact of environmental hazards in the region. In fact, sea level rise in the Sundarbans does not result only from eustatic processes, or the thermal expansion of sea water due to global warming, but also from isostatic processes, which is a local decrease in land level due to compaction of soil and deltaic subsidence. Isostatic processes contribute to about 3 to 8 millimetres of sea level rise in the region every year.

Environmental migration has no locus standi in international treaty law at present, nor are there any national legal provisions in place that can support or compensate migration from the Sundarbans. Policies on disaster risk management in India are limited to disaster relief that address extreme-weather events alone. They do not include instances of displacement or migration due to environmental stress. Additionally, environmental change cannot always be separated from other drivers of migration, and it is therefore difficult to identify environmental migration as a discrete phenomenon. Cross-country research has shown environmental migration to be a multicausal affair, with factors of extreme poverty, socio-political insecurity and environmental dangers reinforcing each other in driving people to move. It is no different in the case of the Indian Sundarbans, where the living standards of the people are grave. According to a household survey conducted after Cyclone Aila of 2009, in a typical group of thousand residents, 510 people, most of them children, were found to suffer from some form of malnutrition. The survey revealed three broad patterns of migration from the region: long-term migration to distant big cities in search of work, seasonal migration during paddy-sowing and harvesting seasons to neighbouring districts as farm labour, and short-term migration to the nearest big city, Kolkata, for informal employment in masonry, sanitation services and public works. Although these people are not called forced environmental migrants because the term does not legally exist, environmental hazards and climate change contribute to the absence of employment opportunities for which they migrate. Extreme poverty both arises from and contributes to their vulnerability to environmental hazards.

When COVID-19 broke out in March, India witnessed the imposition of a nation-wide lockdown with only four hours’ notice. Businesses shut, streets were emptied, factories stopped and workers were laid off. Over 90 percent of India’s population work in the informal sector, and migrants form a large share of it. With abject poverty at source and little income in big cities, migrant workers in India straddle extreme uncertainty and vulnerability even without a pandemic or its economic fallout. But with the COVID-19 crisis, loss of work, and the government’s stringent lockdown rules, they were left with no choice but to return to their home states.

From very early into the lockdown, special repatriation flights were arranged to bring back Indian citizens stuck in foreign countries, but no effective measure was undertaken to facilitate the reverse exodus of migrants from cities or to provide them with alternative sources for earning a living. In a recent report by the country’s central bank, push factors such as high cost of living in urban areas, loss of employment, uncertainty of the lifting of the lockdown, and limited access to social and unemployment benefits, combined with pull factors such as the onset of winter harvesting season, employment opportunities in public assistance programmes in their native villages, and wanting to feel secure with their families, acted as major drivers of the massive reverse migration of migrant workers. With inter-state transportation halted, millions of migrants began a long journey home with babies and bundles under their arms, an unrecorded number of them collapsing on the way. By late March, about 250,000 to 300,000 migrants had returned to the Sundarbans alone. This amounted to an increased threat of disease in the islands, loss of remittances in migrant households, increased pressure on natural resources and an overwhelmed local labour market.

When Category 5 cyclone Amphan struck Bengal and Bangladesh in the afternoon of 20 May this year, inhabitants of the Sundarbans were already neck-deep in trouble. With a surge of return migration, loss of jobs and inadequate public health facilities making living conditions dismal, the cyclone caused irreparable damage to life in the Sundarbans. The 111 mile per hour winds washed away huts, cattle, trees and electric poles, broke through the protective embankments that had been built around the islands and filled paddy fields with seawater. People thronged in school buildings and storm shelters despite fear of contagion. In a month’s time, the spread of COVID-19 surged from 3,103 cases and 181 deaths on the day of the storm to nearly 5,500 cases and over 300 deaths in the region by early June. The state government estimated over 28 percent of the mangrove forests to have been damaged. The storm ripped off the 100 kilometre long nylon fencing that had hitherto prevented tigers from straying into human habitations. Subsistence agriculture, the dominant livelihood for most inhabitants, was badly hit. The agricultural department of the government estimated heavy losses incurred by 1,08,000 farmers across 17,800 hectares of crop field. The surge of brackish water in fields and ponds killed off fishes and rendered fields uncultivable for years ahead. With hundreds and thousands of extra mouths to feed, man-tiger conflicts spiked as islanders began venturing deep into the forests in search of fish, crab, honey and firewood.

When Cyclone Aila had struck in 2009, able-bodied islanders migrated out in search of work. Their families remained behind, living on a thin flow of remittances. But with the devastation of Amphan, a global pandemic showing no sign of decline and an unprecedented surge of return migration into the Sundarbans in early 2020, possibilities for exploring economic opportunities outside the region— the primary means of adapting to environmental hazards at home— remain bleak. The state government announced 827,000 dollars in aid for rebuilding life in the Sundarbans after Amphan while the central government has released 130 million dollars from the National Disaster Relief Fund for the state of West Bengal. But short-term relief cannot reverse the damage caused by Amphan unless supported by forward-looking strategies of overcoming the triple crisis of slow and sudden-onset environmental hazards, poverty and COVID-19 that the region faces today. Some climate experts and economists point to the benefits of planned and managed retreat of inhabitants living in the transition zone to more stable zones over in-situ strategies of adaptation while others point to the dangers of extracting people from their land. But with inhabitants trapped in a public health crisis amid extreme environmental and economic vulnerability, migration will have to be managed and facilitated by the state instead of scraping by with local efforts of building resilience.

Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank her friend Amartya Ray for his insightful comments. He went to the Sundarbans along with his mother Chaiti Ghoshal with relief for 500 inhabitants of the village of Banashyamnagar on 4 June 2020. Both of them are film actors in India.

 

Reprinted from the IOM's special blog, https://environmentalmigration.iom.int/blogs/triple-crisis-indian-sundarbans

 

Mental Health in Crisis: The Impact of COVID-19

December 17, 2020
By 24113

Elvisa Frrokaj  is a psychologist-psychotherapist (MSc, PhD-C.) and a former Sylff fellow at the University of Athens. She discusses the impact of COVID-19 on mental health, describing the detrimental influence of the pandemic on mental health, which, as studies are beginning to show, is in jeopardy.

***

The Importance of Solidarity in the Face of a Pandemic

In both my capacities as a person and a psychologist at the community level, I share the same passion with the SYLFF Association for making the world a better place. I utterly believe, as we say in Greece, that all people can contribute positively to a situation, each by adding a “small stone.” This means that by cooperating and thus becoming small parts of a large sum, it becomes much easier to tackle the challenges of life. As we humans are social animals, the value of a strong commitment to giving back to the community is of utmost importance to our physical and mental well-being.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was a very representative example of the aforementioned need for commitment to community and a very good opportunity to realize that by working together toward a common goal, we greatly increase the odds to achieving impressive results. The prevention of the spread of coronavirus depends on our individual responsibility, intertwined with collective-community responsibility.

Profound, Unprecedented Changes

When the first measures against the COVID-19 pandemic were enforced around the world, I was shocked, as I could foresee the impact the unprecedented restrictions in personal freedoms would have on public mental health. More particularly, in Greece between March and May 2020 we were in full lockdown. In order to leave home, we were required to send a text message stating the reason for moving. The same applies now for many countries in Europe, as a second lockdown is becoming part of our lives.

For the Western world, this state-enforced control over highly valued personal freedoms is unprecedented and takes a heavy toll on the individual’s mental state. The current situation is something that most of us could never have imagined to ever experience. In myself as well as in my clinical experience as a psychologist, I am seeing a broad palette of negative emotions: surprise, fear, anger, sadness, disappointment, and a sense of insecurity and vulnerability regarding our and others’ health. What is becoming more and more apparent is that COVID-19 will not leave us unscathed. The impact to mental health is happening; it is wide. and it is deep.

As a professional I am seeing the same symptoms, emotions, and thoughts. This new condition is affecting individuals at a personal, interpersonal, and communal level. The common feeling to all is that they do not know the duration of the profound changes they are forced to incorporate in their lives. “Until when?” and “After this, what?” are the most prevalent questions. The inability to make any safe predictions regarding the duration of the pandemic increases the stress on people, who feel helpless due to the perceived lack of control of the situation. For all these reasons, mental health and well-being are in jeopardy.

Scientific Studies Confirm the Observations

The crisis caused by the ongoing pandemic is a new, unknown, and unprecedented challenge that seems to have mentally affected a vast number of people. Recent studies have shown that COVID-19 constitutes a new stress factor or a trauma (Gorwood and Fiorillo 2020), causing several problems, such as intense stress of the unknown, frustration, anger, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and several other mental disorders (Shuja, Aqeel, Jaffar, and Ahmed 2020). Patients with mental disorders seem to have been affected more. A strong correlation has been documented between higher exposure to the effects—direct or indirect—of the pandemic and loneliness, depression, and anxiety disorders (Hoffart, Ebrahimi, and Johnson 2020).

The mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic may be profound, and there are suggestions that suicide rates will rise, although this is not inevitable. Suicide is likely to become a more pressing concern as the pandemic spreads and has longer-term effects on the general population, the economy, and vulnerable groups. Preventing suicide therefore needs urgent consideration (Gunnell et al. 2020). An area of key concern is the potential of the conditions caused by the pandemic to exacerbate existing psychiatric conditions and influence the manifestation of their symptoms. For instance, patients with paranoid psychosis seemed to have increased illusions under particular COVID-19-related conditions (Coogan, Faltraco, and Thome 2020).

As psychologists at the community clinical level, Ms. Iliana Fylla (psychiatrist, scientific director of the Mobile Mental Health Unit of Child and Adolescent Center, KMPSY, on the island of Chios, Greece) and I studied the consequences of COVID-19 on the psychopathology of our patients after the lockdown that was enforced from March to May 2020. Our studies documented the worsening of mental health among a sample of 450 patients of KMPSY. Thirty-nine of the patients claimed to have experienced a worsening of their mental health after the pandemic. Figures 1 and 2 below illustrate these findings. This study was published at the 28th Panhellenic Psychiatric Conference held in Thessaloniki, Greece, from October 29 to November 1, 2020.

 

Figure 1. Mental Health Disorders (ICD-10)[1]

 

Figure 2. Symptomatology after Covid-19 (ICD-10)

 

More specifically, Figure 1 shows the percentage of the symptoms of mental health patients that were claimed to have worsened. Among all our psychiatric patients (total patients: 450), 39 patients presented a worsening of psychopathology. Figure 2 shows in detail the degrees of worsening of mental health symptoms after lockdown. Thirty-nine of 450 psychiatric patients seemed to have more illusions, delusions, suicidal thought, sexual disorders, and so forth.

In sum, the results of our study confirmed the findings of other studies and showed that 11.5% of mental health patients at KMPSY presented recrudescence in their psychopathology (79.0% women, 20.5% men).

Reviews have shown that this pandemic has been compared to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, wars, and international mass conflicts, but in these situations the threat is recognized easily, whereas in pandemic the threat is invisible, could be anywhere, and could be transmitted from any person nearby (Gorwood and Fiorillo 2020). The pandemic has created many problems. In this study patients with “affective disorders” presented more intense symptoms. Some of them also had suicidal ideation, increase of compulsions, illusions, and delusion. The best way to confront these consequences is to reinforce and enhance the care support network.

Actions for Public Mental Health

In April 2020 the Psychology Association of Chios took a series of actions to raise awareness in the local community about COVID-19 and foster and reinforce the mental health of people with useful tips and advice. As part of these actions, we gave an interview on local television (https://bit.ly/3519HHl), in which we talked about the psychological impact of the pandemic on young and older people. Understandably, people experience negative feelings such as anger, despair, and depressive symptoms that are caused by the lockdown (April–May 2020). Lockdown affects not only mental health patients but also people who have not had mental health issues before. We tried to propose constructive ways of better managing the situation.

After that, we created a small video (https://bit.ly/3evzCtH ) as an advertisement with a social message—“Keep the coronavirus away and be safe”—in which each psychologist expressed feelings and emotions about COVID-19. Finally, we published articles with tips on how to confront the situation. This multifaceted approach helped people in the local community to stay positive, reduce stress, and avoid panic. I believe that such organized action from professional and scientific organizations can effectively help people confront the situation and the impact of COVID-19.

Useful Tips

  • Read reliable sources that are based on scientific data to avoid misinformation, which implies more stress.
  • This situation is unprecedented on a global level. The feeling of “helplessness” is expected but renders us more vulnerable mentally. Try to find ways to manage this feeling by being creative or dealing with things that make you happy and positive.
  • Find alternative ways of communicating with friends by socializing and having fun using tools that modern technology offers (e.g., Skype, Zoom, Google Meet). It is an opportunity to communicate with our friends and other people or to spend your time by watching interesting videos on YouTube.
  • Listen to music, read a book, or exercise to improve mental health and well-being.
  • Provide support and dedicate time to elderly people who may feel lonely or to your children and family. Try to show empathy if they are afraid or help them psychologically by listening carefully to their concerns and trying to rationalize them.
  • Be positive and focus on what you can control.

 

To Sum Up

This undoubtedly is a difficult and challenging period, but we can find ways to adapt and be happier living through it, even though there are radical changes in our daily life. It is crucial to focus on the present, in the “here and now,” and to the things that we can control. It is a period that shall pass and may present a good chance for all of us to treasure those little things in our lives, the most precious, which sometimes we take for granted or ignore altogether.

Let’s hope we will get through it soon.
Be strong and take care!

 

References

Coogan, A.N., F. Faltraco, M. Fischer, and J. Thome. 2020. “COVID-19 Paranoia in a Patient Suffering from Schizophrenic Psychosis: A Case Report.” Psychiatry Research 288 (11).

Fiorilo, A. and P. Gorwood. 2020. “The Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health and Implications for Clinical Practice.” European Psychiatry 63 (1), e32: 1–2.

Gunnell, D., E. Arensman, K. Hawton, and L. Appleby. 2020. “Suicide Risk and Prevention during the COVID-19 {andemic.” The Lancet Psychiatry 7 (6).

Hoffart, A., S. U. Johnson, and O. V. Ebrahimi. 2020. “Loneliness and Social Distancing during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Risk Factors and Associations with Psychopathology.” Retrieved from psyarxiv.com/j9e4q. DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/j9e4q

Shuja, K.H., M. Aqeel, A. Jaffar, and A. Ahmed. 2020. “COVID-19 Pandemic and Impending Global Mental Health Implications.” Psychiatria Danubina 32 (1): 32–35.

[1] ICD-10 is the 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), a medical classification list by the World Health Organization (WHO). 

The State of South African Education: Covid-19 Implosion Brings Good News and Bad News

November 24, 2020
By 25517

How much worse will things get in our education system? Teachers are familiar with the effects of extended periods of downtime, like that during the Covid-19 lockdown. The longer children are out of school, the more difficult it is to get them back into the routine and into the headspace needed for learning.

 

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I have some good news and, unfortunately, some bad news too. Which would you like to hear first? Most people want the bad news first so that they can move on to the good news and end on a high. And this is the formula I will use. The bad news is, unfortunately, very bad: Take cover! Tsunami warning for the SA education system! Get ready for waves of poorly educated children exiting the education system over the next decade or longer.

But how much worse could things really get in the education sector? Have we not already reached rock bottom? No, I suspect that we still have some way to go. One of the unintended consequences of the Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa has been to push our already ailing education system to an unprecedented low.

“Children are not the face of this pandemic. But they are at risk of being among its biggest victims… in some cases, by mitigation measures that may inadvertently do more harm than good. The harmful effects of this pandemic will not be distributed equally; they are expected to be most damaging for children in the poorest countries, in the poorest neighbourhoods, and for those in already disadvantaged or vulnerable situations.” – United Nations Policy Brief, 15 April 2020.

Covid-19 will naturally affect those who are the most disadvantaged to the greatest extent. This is also true in the field of education. The renowned psychologist Edward Thorndike’s “Law of Learning” provides further support for this. It states that the more one learns, the more learning one can achieve in the future. Learning generates further interest in learning.  

In fact, at a biological level we know that being exposed to interesting ideas and being curious triggers the human body’s narcotic-like dopamine chemicals to flood the brain, a positive stimulus that guarantees the individual would want to recreate these experiences.

Conversely, one who has not been exposed to learning opportunities would be less inclined to seek out cognitive stimulation. Thus, children who are described as educationally disadvantaged and were physically locked out of the education system and left to their own devices during the Covid-19 crisis are at much greater risk of not making adequate school progress in the future.

What do we know about the effects of extended periods of downtime on children’s learning? Teachers are very familiar with such scenarios as they often see a tailing off of children’s learning after long holidays and even long weekends. The longer children are out of school, the more difficult it seems to be to get them back into the routine and into the headspace needed for learning.

Teachers at the training working with the BCP materials.

In these situations, teachers constantly have to revert back to previously taught content. These learning setbacks might not be permanent, but they impact future learning.

Human cognitive development is a complex and individual process. How do we start to intervene in it? 

The good news is that we have accumulated a lot of knowledge about this process and that cognitive science does have a fairly good grasp of the fundamental principles that guide effective teaching and learning.

Most importantly, we know that human beings are cognitively modifiable, thanks to the pioneering and extraordinary work of the late cognitive psychologist Professor Reuven Feuerstein. The implications of this seemingly unassuming statement are profound for educators and for children not already in the learning loop. The notion of cognitive modifiability gives substance to the cliché that “all children can learn”. For too long we have been dominated by a deterministic, all-or-nothing view of human cognition; either you have the “smarts” or you don’t.

Children who are working with the BCP materials.

This recognition of cognitive modifiability has resulted in the development of cognitive intervention programmes, such as Instrumental Enrichment, Bright Start and Basic Concepts Programme. While traditional curative (remedial) programmes aim to close gaps in content learning, cognitive programmes aim to promote the growth of cognitive structures that are needed for higher order and abstract reasoning.

But is it possible to enhance the development of cognitive processes inside the classroom and can teachers do this? It is our experience that emergent cognitive structures can be enhanced and teachers can be trained to become mediators of learning. Mediated learning differs vastly from traditional “chalk-and-talk” pedagogical approaches on both a philosophical as well as humanistic level. 

Human mediators are caring, engaged, open, interactive and intensively involved with their children in the classroom. Young children happen to need these kinds of engagements to free up their involvement and participation. Children who take risks and share their thinking and are able to express their ideas are set on a path to improve their thinking, to reflect on it and consider the views of others.

So why are such cognitive educational approaches not being used more in learning institutions, particularly for young children who are not already engaged in learning and might have cognitive vulnerabilities? 

Children who are busy with an activity related to the programme

The Basic Concepts Programme is being extended across Grade R classes throughout the Northern Cape. The Northern Cape Department of Education has been forward-looking in helping to establish solid cognitive foundations needed for enhanced learning. There is an understanding that cognitive development and the school curriculum are not mutually exclusive activities, but both are integral. In a pilot study we have found almost universal improvements in school readiness of children who have been exposed to this cognitive programme during their school day.

The disruptions to teaching and learning in these very unsettled Covid-19 times might, in fact, allow those invested in education to pause, take stock and re-evaluate our understanding and approaches.

How does our practice as educators align with what we know about learning from cognitive science, and are we following the best evidence-based practices that will help children to improve their learning? It might be that the unintended outcome of the crisis also mobilises those involved in education to develop a range of special interventions to re-establish an interest in learning. 

All children can learn and make educational progress, but it might be that some children need a more thoughtful, intentional and mediational approach to successfully re-enter the educational mainstream. 

This article acknowledges the Douglas Murray Trust and Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund for their generous support of the work done by the author with the Northern Cape Department of Education.

*  *  *


Reprinted, with a lead by the author, from DAILY MAVERICK which is one of the largest and most credible online newspapers in South Africa; https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2020-11-02-the-state-of-south-african-education-covid-19-implosion-brings-good-news-and-bad-news/.

[BigDataSur] “WhatsApper-ing” alone will not save Brazilian political disarray: An investigation of the affordances of WhatsApp under Bolsonarism

October 16, 2020
By 27510

This article reflects on the role of “WhatsAppers”, defined as social activists appropriating WhatsApp as a primary platform to organize and communicate, in relation with the rise of Bolsonarism in Brazil. Affordances of WhatsApp usage by social actors are explored in the light of responses to Bolsonarism, along with their implications in the current time of crisis.

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Photo credits: Lo Cole / The Economist

The research illustrated explores the affordances of WhatsApp and its appropriation by the WhatsAppers in Brazil, here defined as social activists appropriating WhatsApp as a primary platform to organize and communicate. I explore the importance of the Global South context in shaping such affordances, focusing on local epistemologies which bypass the structure of mainstream Brazilian media. As illustrated elsewhere, the empirical analysis combined different qualitative methods, yielding insights into the communication and action repertoire of the group studied, not without considering reflections on research ethics and their implications in the context studied.

WhatsAppers: Towards a new research agenda

This research stems from an analysis of the social interactions of UnidosContraOGolpe (UCG), a leftist group in Brazil, which was a WhatsApp “private group” emerged in 2016 to oppose the controversial impeachment of the then-president Dilma Rousseff. The case study resulted into the first empirical MA dissertation in Latin America to explore digital activism on WhatsApp private chats as an emerging field of political action. To do so, a ‘meso-micro’ analysis was used – on the meso level, to identify the modus operandi of group interactions and, on the micro level, to capture individual motivations, tensions, and expectations. At the core of the investigation, the researcher’s identity was disclosed, following social actors through their chat environment and adopting an ‘engaged’ approach, whereby the research is designed with the goal of empowering social actors. In practical terms, this inspired a triangulation of qualitative methods, including digital ethnography (to identify and analyze the practice of social actors inside the chat domain, through a long “zoom” perspective on social interactions in the private chat group), content analysis of selected posts (to understand how the group emerged organically and self-organized in a contingent manner) and fifteen in-depth semi-structured interviews (to elicit values and motivations from the perspective of individual active participants).

This dissertation argues that WhatsAppers are characterized by their ability to appropriate the chat group as a means to participate in political life. Engagement with political activism becomes an intimate and familiar affair, mediated by a personal and omnipresent device, that enables a unique approach to mobilization. In general lines, everyone could be a WhatsApper, including those not previously politically active. A WhatsApper could be someone who already is entwined in other social media networks of politics and mobilization or not; they can be someone from a poor, middle or rich class background. In other words, WhatsAppers interact digitally with others, combining online and offline political actions. Through the lens of digital sociology, the case studied reveals that WhatsApp stands out as a platform for civic engagement, promoting new spaces of digital activism for three main reasons: the chat app (1) affords structurally new forms of political participation and collective engagement, (2) forges communities of mutual interest, and (3) promotes collective decision-making and individual autonomous actions on a small scale. However, drawbacks are found in howbots can influence conversations on WhatsApp, fake users can hijack chats, and group members may be threatened by surveillance attacks.

Bolsonarism: into the Brazilian political crisis

In 2019, the first year of Jair Bolsonaro’s government, Brazil has seen a record deforestation and a drop to zero applications of environmental fines. Bolsonaro nominated a human rights minister who was well-known for preaching sexual abstinence as a state policy. Sons of the president are under investigation of crime and corruption. Also, Bolsonaro has nominated a secretary of culture extolling Nazi propaganda. Moreover, every week the Brazilian “anti-president” openly attacks the press, and recently was considered the worst leader to struggle against the Coronavirus pandemic.

The political scenario in which Bolsonarism surges is widely recognized as reflecting a crisis of political representation and the widespread disbelief in politics and traditional parties. Bolsonarism can be understood as “a political phenomenon that transcends the figure of Bolsonaro and is characterized by an ultra-conservative worldview, returning to traditional values and nationalist and patriotic rhetoric”. Facing this scenario, an urgent question should be addressed: what is really happening to Brazilian democracy?

Looking back, looking forward

Brazil is an extremely unequal country along multiple dimensions that include internet access. Part of the semi-illiterate population gathers their information almost solely through visual messages, audios and videos from thousands of WhatsApp groups, thanks to the “zero rating” fees provided by telecom companies that replaced more expensive short-text messages. The larger context of Latin America makes an excellent test bed for the study of WhatsApp social interactions because “96 percent of Brazilians with access to a smartphone use WhatsApp as primary method of interpersonal communication”. According to the Reuters Institute, 53 percent of Brazilians use “ZapZap” (as the app is commonly known in the country) to find and consume news. Everyday citizens also use “ZapZap” to order pizza, stay in touch with family, transfer money, make doctor appointments, learn, spread gossip and date.

While the leftist “UCG” WhatsAppers were calling for political action, far right activists were articulating themselves in WhatsApp private groups and beyond, also combining online and offline activities. Progressive sectors were as well unable to build a national digital campaign, with very rare exceptions, such as small local initiatives like UCG. Consequently, the potential of digital activism on chat apps was later weaponized by far-right groups that not only appropriated public and private groups on and with WhatsApp, but also acted as pipeline to other social media. Digital information became a “weapon” that is still used in “out of control” mode nowadays by Bolsonaro’s supporters, taking advantage of the high penetration of WhatsApp in Brazil, and facilitated by the limited digital literacy of the population. In fact, Bolsonaro ran a successful campaign in 2018 based on a combination of bottom-up authoritarianism and digital populism. His supporters were helped by bots to spread misleading content “weaponizing” various WhatsApp groups.

COVID-19: creative WhatsAppers from the margins

This case presents important implications for the ongoing crisis. Brazilian citizens are currently bombarded with COVID-19 related disinformation and facing a chaotic portrait, while far right activists occupied larges spaces on digital networks before and after the 2018 elections. Moreover, there are lessons learned from the inability to stop Bolsonarism’s digital army, namely: send messages which everyday citizens can trust. Today, Brazilians behave more and more like consumers instead of citizens, trusting the market more than science – perhaps this is precisely the gap that paves our country for thousands of deaths during the coronavirus pandemic.

Brazilian mainstream media are currently discussing who might be a potential presidential candidate for the next elections in 2022. However, a deeper question is whether democratic values will still be upheld at that time. The composition of Bolsonaro’s government reminds us that Brazilian’s young democracy is now more capitalist, colonialist, patriarchaland is heading towards a dangerous and irresponsible political adventure, and the outcomes are unpredictable. During the pandemic, social distancing, hand washing, hand sanitizers, masks, respirator machines and lockdowns are privileges of the Global North, while in the South, many will not even have access to minimum services.

As the title suggests, using WhatsApp for chatting and hanging out alone will not solve the political Brazilian disarray, but perhaps creative WhatsAppers could provide a spark to create national-transnational solidarity. Namely: high speed participatory decision-making to deliver groceries, collect money, produce masks, share scientific information, mobilize against COVID-19 related disinformation, reach poor families and fight for emergent democratic imaginaries. The UCG case study still works as a well-informed internal communication strategy for connecting and activating social solidarity networks that grounds for hope, especially because it reveals the battlefield of political struggle that enables scientific shared information, civic engagement, collective mobilization, and solidarity. Lastly, the coordination of online activities combined with actions on the ground by WhatsAppers triggers digital activism in times of pandemic.

About the author

Sérgio Barbosa

Sérgio Barbosa is a PhD candidate in the program “Democracy in the Twenty-First Century” in the Centre for Social Studies (CES), at the University of Coimbra and a Sylff fellow sponsored by Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research. He is a member of the Technopolitics – a “Latin” research network connecting Brazil and Ecuador with Spain, Portugal and Italy. His research explores the emerging forms of political participation vis-à-vis the possibilities afforded by chat apps, with emphasis on WhatsApp for digital activism and social mobilization

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Silvia Masiero for her careful review (and beyond) and wishes to thank Charlotth Back and Jeroen de Vos for their comments and suggestions. He extends his gratitude also to Stefania Milan and Emiliano Treré for launching Big Data from the South initiative. This blogpost has received funding from the Sylff (Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund) Research Abroad – SRA fellowship sponsored by the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research.

 

Reprinted, with a lead by the author, from DATACTIVE Big Data Sur blog, https://data-activism.net/2020/06/bigdatasur-whatsapper-ing-alone-will-not-save-brazilian-political-disarray-an-investigation-of-the-affordances-of-whatsapp-under-bolsonarism/.

Leia em portugues

Providing Space for Good Conversations on YouTube amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

September 18, 2020
By 25157

James Martyn completed his Doctorate at Massey University in New Zealand in 2014–16 as a Sylff fellow. He currently works as a psychologist at the Department of Corrections in Tauranga, the fifth most populous city of New Zealand, and privately as a mental health consultant. Amid the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, James has been utilizing his expertise in creating space for good conversations through a short video series on YouTube, covering such useful topics as stress and better habits under the difficult circumstances.

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Introduction: Good Intentions

I have always wanted to be the sort of person who can be helpful in a time of need; to know not only that I can help if needed but that the type of help I can provide is useful. It is one of the things that led me to become a psychologist. But if I am honest with myself, there are many days when I feel like I fall short. As I sit and reflect on life, I often feel an internal pull toward doing more for others: to give more, be more, and have more of an impact. Too often, I think of the “big” things I wish I could do or might do in the future to be useful. However, during these times, it is easy to discount the small and perhaps equally important things we can do today to be helpful. It is my intention to focus not only on the big things in the future but also on the small things and the small ways in which I can be more outwardly focused today.


Coronavirus: Different Boats, Same Storm

Amid the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, we have all witnessed and experienced a rapidly changing world. These changes have contributed to a wide range of very real challenges that we have either experienced or observed in ourselves and in others. Whether the challenges were experienced emotionally, physically, socially, psychologically, or spiritually, there are very few people who have not been affected in some way by the recent circumstances. 

While I think it is a misconception that we are all in the same boat together during this pandemic, I certainly feel we are all experiencing the same storm. At times the figurative rain and wind have felt unrelenting. During this time some of our boats, for a variety of reasons, continue to fare better or worse than others. But like all storms, this too will pass—although this particular storm will be long remembered. The storm’s gift and curse is that it has brought to our attention a number of areas, personally, nationally, and even globally, that may require some repair to ensure our safety and the safety of others in the future. 

In our small country of New Zealand, with just over five million in population, it is easy to see that we have been incredibly lucky as a whole, despite the suffering of many. As of this writing, our country has been fortunate enough to be able to lift almost all of its coronavirus restrictions, despite some fluctuates across the country. However, New Zealand, as with many other countries, continues to face struggles. The increased stressors, pressures, and uncertainty that have arisen alongside the implications of the coronavirus have had and continue to have an impact on many people’s mental health and well-being. 


How Can I Be Helpful?

Just a few months ago, our country, like many others, entered full lockdown. We began to face the challenges of social and community disruption, financial pressures, and interruptions to many aspects of our daily lives on a scale that we had not seen before. While many people did not experience significant difficulties, for others the impact and uncertainty brought considerable stress. 

As a psychologist, I continue to work with adaptations to my day-to-day activities. In one of my roles, I work as a consultant with a friend and colleague at Lumind.co.nz. Lumind is a small start-up consulting and training company that we created with the intention to provide accessible, useable, and relevant evidence-based psychological information to businesses and community groups. Our aim is to help groups to “mind what matters.” Talking via Zoom, at one point we discussed the likely implications of the coronavirus on mental health. We wanted to help in some way, to find a place to step outside of our comfort zone. Together, we have often discussed the “big” ideas and dreams about what we can pursue. In doing so we have dreamt, strategized, and reflected, often at the expense of acting in the short term. This is not to say that taking time to think big is unhelpful, but I feel our focus on the future can at times lead to missing the smaller opportunities that lie in front of us. Consequently, as we spoke about wanting to be useful in this moment of the coronavirus pandemic, we decided to put aside our preconceptions of having a polished product and simply try to give some of our knowledge and resources to others. We tried to be useful in our own small way.


Our Mental Health and Technology Focus

Our particular area of interest at our business, Lumind, is the intersection between mental health and technology. It is our view that at present, psychological resources are not delivered effectively. Access to evidence-based psychology assessment and intervention in the community is typically bottlenecked by limited service resources. This is due in part to numerous barriers that surround current mental health treatment and delivery, which have contributed to discrepancies between treatment needs, availability, and uptake. Consequently, too many people who could benefit from psychological resources and greater well-being ultimately miss out on or are not afforded equal opportunity for access. It is our view that technology is one critical component that can help disseminate evidenced-based psychological resources and potentially improve access to appropriate resources in the future. We feel that this may subsequently work to improve mental health and well-being for many who may have otherwise missed out. 

Mental health and well-being has become an increasingly popular topic in recent years. New Zealand was the first country in the world to develop a “Wellbeing Budget.” Additionally, the number of well-being-focused websites, applications, podcasts, books, and other resources has grown exponentially. On the whole, this is a great thing. However, not all content is created equal. It is our view that there is a lot of information available through technology that has good intentions, but not all are evidence based. In some cases, the content and delivery method may even lead to a negative outcome. As such, we feel that psychologists should have a voice in the well-being and technology area. Lumind wants to be part of the conversation.


Creating the “Minding What Matters” Video Series


With this in mind, outside of our normal work, we decided to do something small using technology—something that utilized our expertise. As with any time you put yourself out to the public, it was very easy to think of the reasons not to go ahead. For instance, there was plenty of other content available online; our video and audio quality was relatively low; given that our content was casual and unscripted, we may say something incorrect or that may be judged differently than our intention. However, when we came back to our intention—to show support to our community in a time of need—we felt that the benefit was worth the effort. 

As psychologists, we are not trying to pretend we “have it all together.” We understand that we have our own paths climbing our own personal mountains with their own unique set of challenges. However, from our vantage point on our mountain, we may be able to see your position from a different angle. Our perspective, as well as the skills we have developed along the way, may be valuable to share. As such, my colleague and I decided to put together a short video series titled “Minding What Matters.” Each video was a casual, lighthearted, and short conversation with other psychologists. Together, we chatted around a particular topic area that we thought may be helpful during COVID-19 and beyond. 

The result was a series of nine videos available on YouTube with such topics as “virtually supporting someone who is struggling,” “dealing with anxiety and worry during difficult times,” “parenting tips during stressful times,” and “why bad habits strike during stress.” In total, we have had around 900 views so far. Our intention has never been to obtain media views, but to be useful. It has been great to see that a few people have found it beneficial along the way. We have had positive feedback from people in care-type roles and helping professions, strangers, parents, and our friends. That is all we could have asked for. 


Conclusion: Remembering That Small Steps Matter

We are well aware there is better content with better quality available. But I think there continues to be space for both small and big projects; space for good conversations around relevant topics and based on evidence-based principles. In the future, it would be great to work more in this space, perhaps even take more risk and step further out of the comfort zone. But it has been a valuable experiment, one that has taught me to not take things too seriously and that taking small steps to help others today may at times be more effective than waiting for the “right time” to make many big steps to help others in the future. I think there are a lot of opportunities out there, ready for psychologists and other professions to share their skill set. I am learning to be bolder and to open my eyes to what these opportunities may be, both now and in the future. I hope you are too.


Lumind Channel on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFr_ZQRaUGIVatjTrdVlbYg

Lumind is a start-up psychology consulting and training company consisting of co-directors Dr. James Martyn and Matt Hegan. Lumind aims to provide accessible, useable, and relevant evidence-based psychological information to businesses and community groups. Lumind’s purpose is to help people focus their “mind on what matters.”

Episode 1: Why This Series
https://youtu.be/vppYkanPXXI

Episode 2: Being Who You Want to Be
https://youtu.be/vppYkanPXXI

Episode 3: Anxiety and Worry during Difficult Times and Lockdown

Episode 4: Mindfulness—Calm in the Chaos of Lockdown
https://youtu.be/ztv625cG1T4

Episode 5: Psychologist Parenting Tips during COVID Lockdown

Episode 6: Mental and Physical Performance during Lockdown
https://youtu.be/TRnck0X_qVE

Episode 7: Virtually Supporting Someone Who May be Struggling

Episode 8 (BONUS): Psychologist Learns from 6-year-olds—How to Be a Good Friend in Lockdown

Episode 9. Why Bad Habits Strike during Times of Stress
https://youtu.be/RKMrPMR6t4Y