An Ode To Seth Frotman | Myanmar’s Genocide | India’s Demographic Dilemma

“The dead were not replaceable, and they had been lost in a place the Army did not need them to be. Sometimes, when he was awake in the restless hours between midnight and dawn, his memories of lost friends orbiting his mind, Soto entertained the questions. What befell those who sent them? Did generals lose sleep, too? “They just failed as leaders,” he said. “They should know: They failed, as leaders. They let us down.” – C.J. Chivers, War Without End

Young Man, There’s No Need To…Do Any Of This: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may be contributing to the “summer of rage”, but the blame is not entirely theirs. In this burgeoning civil crisis, extremist Hindus continue to assault and kill others, mostly Muslims. Dozens have been murdered by lynch mobs inspired by right-wing nationalist organizations. But the question becomes why so many are embracing extremist propaganda. One answer certainly lies in young male overpopulation, and a serious lack of employment prospects. There are more than 600 million people under the age of 25 in India. Millions of these young people have scant hope of finding decent jobs, and as a result of generations of a preference for male babies and the aborting of female fetuses, there are 37 million surplus men, a situation referred to as a “bachelor bomb.”

More than a million job seekers enter India’s labor market each month. But even with a college degree, many attended schools where classes are taught in Hindi, and have poor English and inadequate job skills. Statistics from the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy, a research firm, show the country generated only 1.8 million additional jobs in 2017. Modi claims the number of new jobs last year was closer to 7 million. Without solid job prospects, young men are gravitating toward the Hindu nationalist movement, where they find a sense of purpose. Prolific Hindu pride-focused WhatsApp groups and alt-history websites feed a deep sense of victimization, and enable leadership camps sponsored by the World Hindu Council to turn out angry activists eager to address every perceived slight to Hinduism and Modi by increasingly violent means.

Additional read: Dreamers: “How Young Indians Are Changing the World by Snigdha Poonam – review: A perceptive account of the challenges India faces in dealing with the aspirations of its growing young population.” (Guardian)

Far-Right Protests: Marauding mobs of far-right xenophobes have been attacking people in the eastern city of Chemnitz, Germany. A 35-year-old German man was stabbed and killed Sunday after a confrontation with a 21-year-old Iraqi and a 22-year-old Syrian, both of whom were arrested and held on suspicion of manslaughter. Protesters carrying Nazi-linked banners and giving the outlawed straight-arm salute continued demonstrations Monday. Chancellor Angela Merkel has condemned the racist street violence and said it has “no place in our country.” (Guardian)

Myanmar’s Genocide: UN investigators have released a blistering report accusing Myanmar’s military of genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state. The report said conclusive evidence had been found that the country’s armed forces, known as the Tatmadaw, were guilty of committing the “gravest crimes under international law”, including mass extermination and deportation. Minutes after the report’s release, Facebook removed 18 accounts and 52 pages associated with the Myanmar military, including that of Min Aung Hlaing, the Tatmadaw’s commander-in-chief. Critics had hounded Facebook for months for failing to combat the spread of hate speech, disinformation and anti-Rohingya sentiment in Myanmar. Facebook’s decision to remove the accounts is another example of leadership by followership (and recalls what they did with Infowars after Apple decided to move against the fake news site). (Guardian)

El Arte Del Acuerdo: President Trump has announced he is close to striking a new trade deal with Mexico and ripping up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Trump told reporters in the Oval office Monday that “I’ll be terminating the existing deal and going into this deal.” Mexico’s president, who was on speaker phone, continued to stress that he wants Canada to be part of any new trade deal. Trump said negotiations would start “relatively soon” with Canada, but went on to suggest there could be a trade war instead. (Guardian)

Narcos Meets House Of Cards With A Dash Of Breaking Bad: Argentina has a corruption investigation going on that is better than binge-watching a television series. In recent weeks there have been at least 26 high-profile arrests, quickly followed by a race between 15 prominent business leaders and two high-ranking government figures to strike tell-all deals with prosecutors. The investigation began when a judge got his hands on notebooks kept by the driver of a powerful official in the Planning Ministry whose job was to pick up and deliver bags of cash around town. People implicated in the scandal have been coming forward to describe a vast network of kickbacks involving government contracts that’s been on for years. (NYT)

Online Shopping Addiction: Powerful opioids may be getting harder to find in the US, but they’re readily available for sale to Brits on the Chinese eBay-style website, Weiku.com. Fentanyl, bromadol, pentobarbital—all are Just a Click Away in The UK. (Guardian)

Shooting In Jacksonville: On Sunday there was a shooting at a Madden NFL 19 video game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida. The shooter, armed with a handgun, opened fire on tournament players and onlookers killing 3 people and injuring 9. The shooter’s exact motives are still unclear, however it is being reported that he had been eliminated in the tournament prior to the shooting. The attack was streamed live on Twitch to thousands of people. (Vox)

An Ode To Seth Frotman: Student loans got you down? Well…we have some bad news. Seth Frotman, the official in charge of protecting loan borrowers from predatory lending practices (AKA perhaps one of the greatest unsung heroes of all time) has resigned from his position. In his resignation letter, Frotman cites President Trump’s administration as his main reason for resigning, “you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.” (NPR)

– “Don’t Bug Out! The Smithsonian Channel Is Going To Show You How To Cook Insects” Sorry Indiana Jones, but this does not belong in a museum…or anywhere. (NPR)

– “5 More Cheap(ish) Things That Could Disproportionately Improve Your Life: Small things can have huge ramifications.” (NYT)

– “How Trump created a new American flag – with an added Russian twist” “I will create a combination of America and Russia. It will be called Amerus- Russerica…Trumpland. It’s called Trumpland.” (Guardian)

– “China’s Consumption Downgrade: Skip Avocados, Cocktails and Kids: Chen Siqi doesn’t eat out so much anymore. Li Keli cut down on travel and takes her son to a public playground instead. Wang Jiazhi stopped dating.” (NYT)

– “The radical moral implications of luck in human life” You gotta ask yourself one question, “Do I feel the radical moral implications of luck?” Well, do ya, punk? (Vox)

– “Gospels of Giving for the New Gilded Age: Are today’s donor classes solving problems—or creating new ones?” (New Yorker)

– “What happens when we work non-stop: What’s really behind the global rise in working longer and longer hours.” (BBC)

– “The 100 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time” It’s time to play a fun game called “Which book best predicted our actual dystopia?” (Unbound Worlds)

– “America Soured on My Multiracial Family: When my wife and I adopted our daughter from Ethiopia in 2010, we did so full of hope. In the years since, we’ve faced ugliness that has robbed us of our optimism—and left us fearful for the future of our country.” (Atlantic)

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw

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