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read about the Hindu right’s attacks on Muslim sanctuaries!

Adil Rashid, writing [[link removed]] in The Dial, takes readers to India, where Muslim sanctuaries are under attack.

The piece opens with the Ram temple, which opened to the public in January, and which was the site of a centuries-old mosque, known as Babri Mosque, destroyed by a Hindu mob in 1992. In 2019, India’s Supreme Court said that Muslims had indeed been wronged in this destruction — but that Hindus owned the site (“because Hindus had always maintained possession of the outer courtyard of the mosque and, since the placing of idols inside it in 1949, had also maintained possession of the interior”).

Rashid describes the frenzy in the lead up to the temple’s consecration — but then quickly turns to how, in the days since, the Hindu right has had to look to other mosques. A 600 year old mosque in Delhi was razed; the government said it encroached on forest land. Violence erupted in Uttarakhand, from which hundreds of Muslim families reportedly fled. Litigation is ongoing in the cases of Shahi Idgah in Mathura and Gyanvapi Mosque in Uttar Pradesh. “A mere week after the Ram Temple inauguration, a court in Varanasi granted Hindus the right to offer prayers in the basement of Gyanvapi Mosque,” Rashid writes. “The judge, who delivered the order on his last working day before retirement, was given a government job in February.”

Deadly Journey

Melissa del Bosque in Border Chronicle writes [[link removed]] of a new report from the nonprofit No More Deaths that says that the number of migrant deaths along the border in New Mexico and West Texas is rising.

Until now, writes del Bosque, research into this section of the border has been limited. This report is a break from that trend: It covers 15 years, from 2008 to 2023, and shows that “people, increasingly women and children, are barred from accessing asylum and are dying at the doorstep of American cities and towns.”

Del Bosque also has an interview with Bryce, a No More Deaths volunteer (whose last name was withheld because the far right has targeted the group). Bryce shared that, while “The dynamics of migration are complex … one thing that seems pretty clear is that the asylum policies in the last few years have led to an increase in some of these deaths, just from people trying to get asylum and being prevented either by metering or by turnbacks.” There were relatively few deaths in the area — until 2018, since which deaths have increased each year.

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Laura Burocco looks at [[link removed]] the Venice Biennale, the theme of which this year is “Foreigners Everywhere.” Burocco is especially interested in the barriers to participation.

The massive art show —now in its 60th iteration — happens every other year in Venice. The title, “Foreigners Everywhere,” was chosen by Brazilian curator Adriano Pedrosa. Per Pedrosa’s statement, “The backdrop for the work is a world rife with multifarious crises concerning the movement and existence of people across countries, nations, territories, and borders, which reflect the perils and pitfalls of language, translation, nationality, expressing differences and disparities conditioned by identity, nationality, race, gender, sexuality, freedom, and wealth.”

But Burocco makes the case that a rallying cry can’t overcome structural barriers like visa issues and limited or unequal resources. “The reality is enormous resources are required to participate. Money occupies a central place in the discussion of the Venice Biennale. It connects directly with the elitism, the inaccessibility, and the exclusivity that Venice blatantly expresses, but also directly to financial and geopolitical issues,” Burocco writes. What’s more, African countries have limited representation: only Egypt has a permanent national pavilion (South Africa has permanent room in the Arsenale).

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE Identity vs. Identity

Writing in the Journal of Public Policy [[link removed]], Nazita Lajevardi and Kassra A. R. Oskooii ask whether American identity predicts preference for anti-democratic, anti-Muslim policy. Their argument is that, without significant priming of an inclusive understanding of Americanness, those with strong American identity are less likely to reject anti-Muslim policies, even though those policies are counter to ostensibly American values like religious freedom and equality.

And, indeed, across two studies, one’s sense of American identity is a powerful predictor of preference for curbing Muslim citizens’ civil liberties. Notably, this is true of Democrats as well as Republicans. That fact, per the authors, “explains the endorsement of exclusionary policies among self-identified Democrats, who typically hold more progressive policy positions toward minority groups than Republicans.”

The authors argue that, despite the idea that America is a nation of immigrants, American identity is often assumed to be white, and that there has long been concern over whether people of color can be American or whether they threaten Americans’ way of life. They thus contend that identity is an important factor when considering public opinion of Muslim Americans, who are often not only vilified by public opinion, but also targeted by policy.

The authors conducted two studies: one relied “on a nationally representative survey fielded in 2018 by the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) through YouGov,” and the other used “two original, cross-sectional surveys that were hosted on Qualtrics and conducted online in English through opt-in panels of adult US respondents via Lucid survey sampling firm.” Across the two studies, they surveyed not only respondents’ sense of American identity, but views on six different policies.

The authors feel this demonstrates the contradictory, exclusionary nature of American identity. Americans may say that they cherish American diversity, but, per these studies, a strong sense of American identity is a strong predictor that a person will still support discriminatory policy.

This work, the authors noted, could be replicated with other minority groups, and that a “cross-group comparison study will help scholars identify for which populations and policies American identifiers may be more or less likely to undermine their principles for,” though they offered that it was their prediction that Americans are likelier to be fine with stripping away Muslim Americans’ rights than other minorities.

Ending on a relatively optimistic note, the authors write that this can shift. For example: “Recent panel studies on the Muslim Travel Ban show that while high American identifiers were more likely than their counterparts to endorse President Trump’s executive action, a wave of swift and one-sided political communication highlighting the incompatibility between the ban and American values nudged some high identifiers to oppose the ban.” Under the right conditions, in other words, Americans can be reminded what it is they purport to believe in until they actually believe in it when it comes to policy preference.

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Natassa Bastea explored [[link removed]] the question of whether Europeans need to worry about war. Aspirations of a united Europe — a capable and formidable force — have been shattered, wrote Bastea. And though Europe often boasts that what it lacks in hard power it makes up in soft power, as Bastea noted, “it’s crucial to recall that since the cessation of hostilities in the former Yugoslavia in 1999, the EU has struggled to foster enduring stability and democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Similarly, its efforts in Kosovo have been equally disappointing. Numerous EU member states do not acknowledge Kosovo’s independence, and Brussels has faltered in establishing robust rule of law institutions in the region.” Bastea suggested that much hinges on Europe’s future dealings with Russia and China.

Senegal is energizing a West African democratic alliance, wrote [[link removed]] Joseph Sany, pointing to last week’s dramatic transfer of presidential power. Per Sany, “The Senegalese people’s resolute reversal of last month’s constitutional crisis shows that US and international efforts to counter violent extremism and military coups can reinforce a potent West African democratic constituency.” Sany also reminded that democracy support requires meeting a country where it is, and that investment in civil society is both vital and, in the long-run, cost effective.

Ukraine is facing artillery and air defense shortages, explained [[link removed]] Daniel Ofman. Ofman wrote up testimony by top US military leaders before the US House of Representatives, quoting General Christopher Cavoli, who said, “The severity of this moment cannot be overstated. If we do not continue to support Ukraine, Ukraine can lose,” and that Ukraine was being outgunned, as well as Yuriy Sak, an advisor to the minister of strategic industries in Ukraine, who said, “The major concern on the frontlines at the moment is the lack of artillery, lack of ammunition and, if the situation doesn’t change very soon, we are likely to be in a position where the ratio will be six to one.”

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Critical State is written by Emily Tamkin with Inkstick Media.

The World is a weekday public radio show and podcast on global issues, news and insights from PRX and GBH.

With an online magazine and podcast featuring a diversity of expert voices, Inkstick Media is “foreign policy for the rest of us.”

Critical State is made possible in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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