Circle the first, first letter of the alphabet in this line. Now write the word ‘noise’ backwards and place a dot over what would be its second letter should it have been written forward.

The writer is a journalist.

You have 10 minutes to answer these and the 26 other questions, you can’t ask for extra time and you can’t ask the instructor to explain what these questions even mean. You can’t use the internet because you’re giving this test while being a black American in the US state of Louisiana in the year 1964. Oh and if you get any of these wrong, you’ve failed and won’t be able to vote.

This test was only one of the many techniques used to prevent black Americans from voting once they had acquired the legal right to do so after the civil war. After all, if black Americans could vote then they would likely vote out the good old boys (all white, all politically connected) who had a stranglehold on the levers of power. And since one couldn’t exactly bar them from voting outright, one could indeed make it virtually impossible for them to be able to register to vote. And when violence and intimidation failed, devices like the literacy test were made use of.

There has been much talk of rigging in the upcoming US polls.

Then due to pressure from the civil rights movement, the voting rights act was passed by the US congress in 1965 which prohibited racial discrimination in voting by enacting a range of safeguards.

Fifty-one years later, civil rights groups are warning that the 2016 elections may see record levels of voter disenfranchisement. Recently, an appellate court struck down North Carolina’s restrictions on early voting and a law requiring voters to carry picture IDs, saying that these laws had been enacted “with racial discriminatory intent” and targeted “African Americans with almost surgical precision”. Judge Diana Motz pointed out that “African Americans dis¬proportionately used the first seven days of early voting”, which is why North Caro¬lina’s Republican legislature elimi¬nated the first week of voting.

Moreover, data showed that “counties with Sunday voting in 2014 were disproportionately black” and “dispropor¬tionately Demo¬cratic”, which is why North Carolina elimi¬nated one Sunday as a voting day, as this is when black churches organise voters, even providing transport to those who cannot make it to the polling booths.

Many states have also recently passed voter ID laws purportedly meant to curb voter fraud but which in fact target African Americans who in many cases do not possess the required documents to ‘prove’ their citizenship or cannot afford the fees required to create those documents. In South Carolina for example, 178,000 voters (mostly non-white) don’t have any of the forms of photo ID the new law requires.

If you’re thinking getting an ID shouldn’t be such a big deal, consider that just last year Alabama tried to close 31 driver’s licence offices under the pretext of cost-cutting; it just so happens that most of these offices “were in rural areas with large African-American populations”.

Consider also that there is also no real evidence that the fraudulent voting the ID laws are meant to prevent even takes place.

Just a few years ago, these measures would have required ‘pre-clearance’ from the attorney general or federal judges, but that provision was struck down by the US Supreme Court in 2013 in a decision rights activists called a “death knell”.

Even without that judgment there’s always the long-standing tactic of felony disenfranchisement; in many US states a person convicted of a felony offence is rendered ineligible to vote, and it just so happens that these laws have stripped one in every 13 black persons of their right to vote. That’s no surprise given that while African-Americans make up about 13pc of the US population they make up 40pc of the prison population.

There’s been a lot of talk of rigging in these elections, with Bernie Sanders’ supporters claiming the system was made to work against them and with Donald Trump now also warning that the upcoming elections will be rigged. They will be, but just not in the way one imagines.

For us in Pakistan, the purpose of this piece is not to engage in a bout of ‘see, it happens there as well’ but as a reminder that the price of liberty is constant vigilance and that democracy is a process, not a destination.

The writer is a journalist. Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro
Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2016

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

Sometimes you just have to lie back and think of England. But how can one think of England without thinking of Shakespeare? And when you think of Shakespeare, how can you ignore Macbeth, his most Scottish of plays, and in particular the line: “we but teach bloody instructions, which being taught, return to plague the inventor”.

Finally, how can one think of that line in the context of Brexit and not consider the dramatic irony that a power, famous for dividing and ruling, stands divided by its own ruling?

That irony certainly isn’t lost on those of us who live in the much-partitioned parts of the world, with jokes like ‘the real Brexit was in 1947’ doing the rounds along with snide offers to repay colonial favours by helping divide up what’s left of the Empire with neat little lines and the quintessential disputed areas. Somewhere in an otherworldly bungalow, Mountbatten’s ghost is likely shuddering at all this schadenfreude.

Of course, this is less a partition than a parting of ways, but one that carries with it the promise of partitions to come. While the petition to declare London as an independent city-state is only semi-serious, Scotland is another matter entirely.

The Scots overwhelmingly voted to remain in the EU and are now considering another referendum on whether to remain in the UK. In that great glen in the sky, William Wallace is probably raising a toast.

Scotland brings us back to Macbeth, and in particular the dismissal by his wife: “stand not upon the order of your going, but be gone”. There’s a sliver of that in the statement by the EU leadership for the UK to leave the union “as soon as possible, however painful that process may be.”

Brexit carries with it the promise of future partitions.

Then there’s the theatre of the absurd as a terribly hung-over UK woke as if after a midsummer night’s dream. It is there in David Cameron resigning due to a defeat in a referendum he did not even need to call. It is found in the tragicomic fact that hours after the referendum result came in, the top two googled questions in the UK were ‘what does it mean to leave the EU?’ and ‘what is the EU?’

Then there’s the family, ripe for lampooning on reality TV, who all voted to leave but who are ‘disappointed’ because now — and only now —“the facts are coming in”.

Facts didn’t stand much chance here anyway, with the Brexit camp playing on fears and shouting false promises loudly and often enough for them to be taken as the truth. Just take the strutting and fretting Nigel Farage, who immediately backtracked on his campaign pledge that leaving the EU would free up £350 million to be spent on the National Health Service — a promise that was emblazoned on his campaign bus and which he now calls a ‘mistake’.

Then there’s the media coverage which, according to a detailed Reuters study, was “heavily skewed in favour of Brexit” and you have a coup that Goebbels might have nodded at with approval.

He would also no doubt be amused that the UK had inflicted on itself what it had fought two wars against Germany to avoid: a united Europe with England on the outside. This scenario has been England’s strategic nightmare for centuries, preventing it from coming to pass the foremost plank of its continental policy — the pursuit of which occupied its greatest minds and claimed an even greater number of lives.

Over at the Kremlin, glasses must be clinking as Czar Putin toasts the first real splintering of the Western Alliance that has thwarted Russia’s ambitions for nearly a century now. After all, the EU was the political manifestation of European unity, just as Nato is the manifestation of its US-backed military might — and Nato was created to keep the Russian empire’s Soviet incarnation in check. Ironically, this moment comes mere weeks after Putin’s poking fun at how “200 Russian fans could beat several thousands of the British” in clashes during the Euro cup. Well, in football terms, this was England playing England with England losing thanks to an own goal.

There will be joy among the autocratic and generally anti-democratic the world over, who have already latched on to the vote as proof that giving people a say in how they are ruled is a silly idea, really.

There will be similar cheer in militant camps and right-wing party headquarters alike, a shared delight at the apparent dismantling of what they see as a corrupt and decadent construct.

Granted that referendums are always about more than what’s printed on the ballot paper. This was also a protest vote, a vote of fear, anger and — quite possibly — ignorance; granted that this may end in a reforming of the EU and perhaps even the eventual return of the UK. But before that happens, Lady Britannia will have to wake and realise that the handsome prince she dallied with the night before is, in fact, a fool with a donkey’s head.

The writer is a journalist. Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

When Alexander the Great`s army faced Raja Porus at the battle of the Hydapses the smart money, despite Alexander`s formidable reputation, should have been on Porus. Large and disciplined, Porus’s fighters had the home ground advantage, included war elephants in their ranks (terrifying to the already tired Greeks) and, notably, deployed archers who could more accurately be classified as artillery.

Their bamboo bows were over six feet long and fired missiles that were three feet in length. When fired in unison, the result was a hail of death that few armies could resist.

Unfortunately, these giant bows needed to be securely moored in the ground in order to be fired and, thanks to recent rains, the ground near the Jhelum was too muddy to provide a firm foundation. One could thus argue that it wasn`t just the Macedonian l

Weather has always been an important factor in military calculations, but it wasn`t until the First World War that meteorological staff became a standard element in military organisation.

In the Second World War, from the effects of the early and severe Russian winter on the German advance to the fog that impeded the Allies at the Battle of the Bulge, Mother Nature was the X factor. War correspondent Ernie Pyle, reporting from Anzio declared: `One day of bad weather actually harms us more than a month of German shelling.` US Gen Eisenhower agreed. He said, `If really bad weather should endure permanently, the Nazi would need nothing else to defend the Normandy coast.

So what if the German army had the capability of actually ensuring the said bad weather? What if militaries could move beyond predicting the weather to controlling or even weaponising it? This may sound like science fiction, but it`s actually been tried.

During the Vietnam War, the US struggled to prevent the Vietcong from using the Ho Chi Minh trail to resupply themselves with men and material. In addition to using defoliants like Agent Orange, Pentagon planners also tried a new tack: using cloud seeding technologies to increase the span of the Southeast Asian monsoon season with the aim of `softening road surfaces, causing landslides, washing out river crossings`, and thus impeding the Viet Cong`s logistics.

The project, dubbed Operation Popeye, ran from 1965-1972 and was at least a partial success, with reports claiming that it succeeded in extending the monsoon season by over a month. This would have remained a secret but for journalist Jack Anderson, who exposed this operationin1971.

Following this `weathergate` the US Congress banned environmental warfare and in 1978, an international treaty called the Environmental Modification Convention was signed prohibiting the military use of environmental modification techniques.

But playing God is addictive, and in 1996 a report was presented to the US Air Force titled Weather as a force multiplier: Owning the weather in 2025.

The paper predicts that by 2025, weather modification will `become a part of national security policy` in the US, and can provide `battlefield dominance to a degree never before imagined`.

It starts out small, outlining how fog can be created on the tactical level to confound enemy operations, before moving on to being able to `trigger or intensify thunderstorm cells` with the aim of grounding enemy aircraft and damaging enemy assets. Here the report notes that a tropical storm has energy equal to 10,000 one megaton hydrogen bombs.

All this is eminently doable, the authors of the report claimed, requiring nothing more than the further development of existing technologies such as UAVs, cloud seeding and customised low-orbit satellites. Twenty years after the report was published, all these technologies, and more, exist.

Weather manipulation is commonplace, being widely used in China and Dubai for example, and miniaturised drones and nanotechnology are very much a reality. As with most such dual-use technologies all that is required is the will and resources to weaponise what already exists, and what general worth his stars would pass up the chance to rain lighting down on his enemies like a latter-day Zeus? The report also highlights the need for research into the ionosphere, with a view towards `modifying` it in order to block enemy communications. That research is already being conducted at The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Programme, which is a favourite bogeyman of conspiracy theorists worldwide.

While HAARP almost certainly isn`t capable of creating storms and earthquakes, as the tin-foil hat set believes, it would be naïve to think the research doesn`t have military applications. After all, history shows that when military capability exists it will almost certainly be used. With global climate change ushering in an era of extreme and unpredictable weather, the very idea of any nation possessing the capability to alter, perhaps control, weather even on a tactical scale should give us pause.

The writer is a journalist. Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan

The German language is truly underappreciated. Talce `Drachenfatter` for example: translating as `dragon fodder` this is the gift one gives as a peace offering to an angry partner or spouse. Then there`s `Schadenfreude` which means: `pleasure derived from another person`s misfortune` There`s a lot of that going around these days, with careful statistical research showing that global schadenfreude levels peak whenever Donald Trump opens his mouth.

This isn`t just expected, it`s also deeply satisfying. After all, America has lectured the world for decades on everything from human rights to democracy and everything in between. For those used to a steady stream of `do mores` from the exceptional nation, the opportunity for some payback is irresistible.

Latest to take a pot shot is the state-owned Chinese newspaper Global Times. In a mirror image of editorials one would normally see in the New York Times or Washington Post, the Global Times expresses concern that democracy itself may be the problem. After all, they argue, if such a `clown` can get so far in `one of the most developed and mature democratic election systems` in the world then what does that say about that system of government itself? In another jab, it points out that Hitler also came into power through the ballot box before going on to say that while Trump would probably not become president, the US does face the `prospect of an institutional failure`. Implicit in this criticism is the message that the Chinese system is far superior, given that it delivered dividends and not Donalds.

Echoing think pieces written by American journalists about the Middle East, journalist Murtaza Hussain sought to explain Trump`s rise in the context of American culture, saying that `it makes sense that fascist politics in the US would come via a reality TV star`.

In Pakistan, we are used to retired servicemen regaling us with their opinions about politics and even firing occasional shots across the bow of civilian statecraft and now, lo and behold, former CIA chief retired Gen Michael Hayden has come out saying that the US military would `refuse to act` if Trump were to actually order them to kill the family members of terrorists, as he pledged to do in his campaign speeches.

Were a former ISI chief to say this in Pakistan, we would be forgiven for keeping a close eye on the movements of the 111 brigade. As it stands, it isn`t impossible to picture a container outside the Capitol if Trump doesn`t get his way, with the soulchilling possibility of Kanye West standing in for DJ Butt. However, any possible (andprobable) Trump agitation would be nowhere near as peaceful as Imran Khan`s dharna, given that Trump has repeatedly and actively advocated violence against protestors at his rallies and has actually warned that his supporters may riot if he doesn`t clinch the nomination.

Add to that the massive support his fascist rhetoric garners and one can safely assume that were this to be happening in another country the US State Department would have issued at least one strongly worded statement of `concern` about the democratic process while readying the cruise missiles.

Turnabout is fair play of course, and Lebanese humorist Karl Sharro took advantage of the Chicago clashes between proand anti-Trump factions to express the hope that the US could one day hold peaceful elections. He also offered to send Lebanese election observers to help with capacity building for Americans in what seems to be an increasingly sectarian election season.

He`s (mostly) joking, but the highlyrespected Economist Intelligence Unit is dead serious when it warns that a Trump presidency would pose a major threat to the global economy.

On a scale of one to 25, they rank the threat of a Trump presidency at12,four points above a clashin the South China Sea and three points below the breaking up of the eurozone and the fracturing of the European Union.

According to the EIU, Trump gets this ranking due to his hostility towards free trade, his `exceptionally right-wing stance on the Middle East` and his `alienation of China and Mexico`. However, while the EIU also states that it does not expect Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton, his `most likely` contender for the Presidency, it says that there are `risks to this forecast, especially in the event of a terrorist attack on US soil` It`s not without irony then that, at number 12, Trump ties with the danger of an escalation in `jihadi terrorism`.

America borrows many symbols with the Roman Empire of old, so it is instructive to remember that Rome fell only after being weakened by a succession of weak, and of ten insane emperors. It`s also instructive to remember the old saying, `those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad`.

Or in this case, make ridiculous.

The writer is a joumalist. Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

This story was originally published by Dawn, Pakistan