The country of Venezuela, officially known as the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is located on the northern coast of the South American continent.  Its territory encompasses roughly 354,000 square miles (916,445 square kilometers), on which lives the country’s estimated population of 29.1 million inhabitants.  From a natural perspective, Venezuela is considered a state with extremely high biodiversity, with habitats ranging from the Andes Mountains in the west to the Amazon Basin rainforest in the south, via extensive llanos plains and Caribbean coastline in the center and the Orinoco River Delta in the east.

Venezuela is organized as a federal presidential republic consisting of 23 states, the Capital District (covering the capital city of Caracas), and Federal Dependencies (covering Venezuela’s offshore islands). Venezuela also claims all Guyanese territory west of the Essequibo River, a 61,583 square mile tract dubbed Guayana Esequiba or the Zona en Reclamación (the “zone being reclaimed”).

Among Latin American countries, Venezuela is considered one of the most highly urbanized, as the vast majority of Venezuelans live in the cities of the north, especially in the capital, Caracas, which is also the largest city in Venezuela.  Since the discovery of oil in the early 20th century, Venezuela has been one of the world’s leading exporters of oil and has the largest oil reserves in South America. Previously an underdeveloped exporter of agricultural commodities such as coffee and cocoa, oil quickly came to dominate exports and government revenues. The 1980s oil glut led to an external debt crisis and a long-running economic crisis, which saw inflation peak at 100% in 1996 and poverty rates rise to 66% in 1995.  By 1998, the country’s per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell to the same level as 1963, down a third from its 1978 peak.

The fortunate recovery of oil prices after 2001 boosted the Venezuelan economy and facilitated social spending, which significantly reduced inequality and poverty, although the fallout of the 2008 global financial crisis saw a renewed economic downturn. In February 2013, Venezuela devalued its currency due to the rising shortages in the country. Shortages of items included toilet paper, milk, flour and other necessities. As of November 2013, Venezuela’s inflation had increased to 54%. This was one of the main causes of the 2014 Venezuelan protests.

History of Venezuela: Introduction

Venezuela boasts a long and storied history.  In 1522, the country was colonized by the Spanish amid resistance from the region’s indigenous people.  In 1811, the country became one of the first Spanish-American colonies to declare independence, which was not securely established until 1821, when Venezuela was included as a department of the federal republic of Gran Colombia.

Venezuela achieved full independence as a separate country in 1830.  Throughout the 19th century Venezuela suffered political turmoil and dictatorship, remaining dominated by regional caudillos (military strongmen) until the mid-20th century.

Since 1958, the country has had a series of democratic governments. Economic shocks in the 1980s and 1990s led to several political crises, including the deadly Caracazo riots of 1989, two attempted coups in 1992, and the impeachment of President Carlos Andrés Pérez for embezzlement of public funds in 1993. A collapse in confidence in the existing parties saw the 1998 election of former career officer Hugo Chávez and the launch of the Bolivarian Revolution, beginning with a 1999 Constituent Assembly to write a new Constitution of Venezuela.

Pre-History of Venezuela

Historians postulate that the first inhabitants of the Americas came from Siberia across the Bering Strait, spread over the North American continent, then moved down to Central and South America in several waves of migration. There is evidence of human habitation in what is now northwest Venezuela going back more than 15,000 years. Steady agriculture was established around the 1st millennium, leading to the first year-round settlements in the region.

Groups which were formerly nomadic began to develop into larger cultures in Venezuela, cultures that belonged to three main linguistic families: Carib, Arawak and Chibcha. By the time of the Spanish conquest at the end of the 15th century, some 300,000 to 400,000 indigenous people inhabited the region that is now Venezuela.

The warlike Carib tribes occupied the central and eastern coast of the country during this time, living off fishing and shifting agriculture. Various Arawak groups were scattered over the western plains and north up to the coast. They lived off hunting and food-gathering, and occasionally practiced farming.

The Timote-Cuica tribes, of the Chibcha linguistic family, were the most advanced of Venezuela’s pre-Hispanic societies. They lived in the Andes and developed advanced agricultural techniques, including irrigation and terracing. They were also skilled craftspeople, as we can judge by the artifacts they left behind: examples of their fine pottery are shown in museums across the country. No major architectural works have survived from the pre-colonial era, although there are some smaller sites in the Andean region that have recently been unearthed and will be opening for tourism in the next few years.

Colonial History of Venezuela

In the year 1498, on his third trip to the New World, Christopher Columbus became the first European to set foot on Venezuelan soil. Columbus anchored at the eastern tip of the Península de Paria, just opposite what is now the city of Trinidad.  He originally believed that he was on another island, but the voluminous mouth of the Río Orinoco hinted that he had stumbled onto something slightly larger.

A year after Columbus’ discovery, the Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojeda, accompanied by the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, sailed up to the Península de la Guajira, at the western end of present-day Venezuela.  Upon entering Lago de Maracaibo, the Spaniards saw the local indigenous people living in palafitos (thatched huts on stilts above the water). They called the land “Venezuela,” literally “Little Venice,” perhaps as a sarcastic sailor joke, as these rustic reed dwellings didn’t exactly match the opulent palaces of the Italian city they knew. The name of Venezuela appeared for the first time on a map in 1500 and has remained to this day. Laguna de Sinamaica is reputedly the place where the first Spanish sailors saw the palafitos, and you can see similar huts there today.

Alonso de Ojeda sailed further west along the coast and briefly explored parts of what is now the country of Colombia. He saw local aborigines wearing gold adornments and was astonished by their wealth. Their stories about fabulous treasures inland gave birth to the myth of El Dorado (The Golden One), a mysterious land abundant in gold. Attracted by these supposed riches, the shores of Venezuela and Colombia became the target of a number of Spanish expeditions, an obsession with El Dorado driving them into the interior. Their search resulted in the rapid colonization of the land, though El Dorado was naturally never found.

The Spanish established their first settlement on Venezuelan soil around 1500, at Nueva Cádiz, on the small island of Cubagua, just south of Isla de Margarita. Pearl harvesting provided a livelihood for the settlers, and the town developed into a busy port until an earthquake and tidal wave destroyed it in 1541. The earliest Venezuelan town that is still in existence, Cumaná, on the northeast coast, dates back to 1521 and is an enjoyable place to visit, even though earthquakes ruined much of the early Spanish colonial architecture.

From an official standpoint, most of Venezuela was ruled by Spain from Santo Domingo (present-day capital of the Dominican Republic) until 1717, when it fell under the administration of the newly created viceroyalty of Nueva Granada, with its capital in Bogotá, Colombia.

The colony’s population of indigenous communities and Spanish invaders diversified with the arrival of black slaves, brought from Africa to serve as the workforce in a number of agricultural pursuits. Most of them were set to work on plantations on the Caribbean coast. By the 18th century, Africans had surpassed the indigenous population in terms of number.

Independence: History of Venezuela in the Early 19 Century

With but a few exploited gold mines, Venezuela lurked in the shadows of the Spanish Empire for its first three centuries. However, the country took a more prominent role at the beginning of the 19th century, when Venezuela gave Latin America one of its greatest heroes: a man named Simón Bolívar.

Venezuela longed to be out from under the thumb of the Spanish Empire, and in 1806 a revolutionary by the name of Francisco de Miranda lit the initial flame for that cause. However, his efforts to set up an independent administration in Caracas ended when fellow conspirators handed him over to the Spanish. He was shipped to Spain and died in jail. Bolívar then assumed leadership of the revolution. After unsuccessful initial attempts to defeat the Spaniards at home, he withdrew to Colombia, then to Jamaica, until the opportune moment came in 1817.

The Napoleonic Wars had just ended in Europe, and Bolívar’s agent in London was able to raise money and arms, and recruit a small number of British Legion veterans of the Peninsular War. With this force and an army of horsemen from Los Llanos, Bolívar marched over the Andes and defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Boyacá, bringing independence to Colombia in August of 1819. Four months later in Angostura (present-day Ciudad Bolívar), the Angostura Congress proclaimed Gran Colombia (Great Colombia), a new state unifying what are now the sovereign countries of Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador (though the last two were still under Spanish rule). The memories of the event are still alive in Ciudad Bolívar, and you can see the great mansion where the first congress debated. Venezuela’s liberation came on June 24, 1821 at Carabobo, where Bolívar’s troops defeated the Spanish royalist army.

Although Venezuela was seen as the least important of Gran Colombia’s three provinces, the country bore the brunt of the fighting. Venezuelan patriots fought not only on their own territory, but also in the armies that Bolívar led into Colombia and down the Pacific Coast. By the end of 1824, Bolívar and his assistants had liberated Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. It’s estimated that a quarter of the Venezuelan population died in the independence wars.

Gran Colombia and the History of Venezuela in the Late 19 Century

Bolívar’s vision of a unified republic fell apart even before he died in 1830. On his deathbed, he proclaimed: “America is ungovernable. The man who serves a revolution plows the sea. This nation will fall inevitably into the hands of the unruly mob and then will pass into the hands of almost indistinguishable petty tyrants.” Sadly, he was not far off the mark with those statements. The three-province state of Gran Colombia began to collapse from the moment of its birth; the central regime was incapable of governing the immense country with its racial and regional differences. The new state existed for only a decade before splitting into three separate countries.

Following Venezuela’s separation and departure from Gran Colombia, the Venezuelan congress approved a new constitution and—quite incredibly—banned Bolívar from his own homeland.  In fact, it took the Venezuelan nation 12 long years to finally acknowledge its debt to the man to whom it owed its very freedom. In 1842, Bolívar’s remains were brought from Santa Marta, Colombia, where he died, to Caracas and entombed in the national cathedral.  In 1876 they were solemnly transferred to the Panteón Nacional in Caracas, where they now rest in a bronze sarcophagus.

The year 1830, when Venezuela achieved its full independence as a separate country, marked the beginning of the era of “indistinguishable petty tyrants.” The post-independence period in Venezuela was marked by serious governmental problems that continued for more than a century. These were times of despotism and anarchy, with the country being ruled by a series of military dictators known as caudillos.

The first of the caudillos was General José Antonio Páez, who controlled the country for 18 long years (1830–48). It was a tough rule, but it established a certain political stability and put the weak economy on its feet. The period that followed was an almost uninterrupted chain of civil wars that was only stopped by another long-lived dictator, General Antonio Guzmán Blanco (1870–88). Blanco launched a broad program of reform, including a new constitution, and assured some temporary stability, but his despotic rule triggered wide, popular opposition, and when he stepped down the country plunged again into a bloody civil war.

During the 1840s, Venezuela raised the question of its eastern border with British Guiana (present-day Guyana); claiming for its own as much as two-thirds of Guiana, up to the Río Esequibo. The issue was a subject of lengthy diplomatic negotiations and was eventually settled in 1899 by an arbitration tribunal, which gave rights over the questioned territory to Great Britain. Despite the ruling, Venezuela maintains its claim to this day. All maps produced in Venezuela have this chunk of Guyana within Venezuela’s boundaries, labeled “Zona en Reclamación.”

Yet another conflict that led to serious international tension was Venezuela’s failure to meet payments to Great Britain, Italy and Germany on loans accumulated during the government of yet another caudillo, General Cipriano Castro (1899–1908). In response, the three European countries sent their navies to blockade Venezuelan seaports in 1902.

History of Venezuela in the 20 Century

The first half of the 20th century was dominated by five successive military rulers from the Andean state of Táchira. The longest lasting and most tyrannical of these was the General Juan Vicente Gómez, who seized power in 1908 and didn’t relinquish it until his death in 1935. During his ruthless reign, Gómez phased out the parliament, squelched the opposition and monopolized power.

The discovery of oil in the 1910s helped the Gómez regime put the national economy on its feet. By the late 1920s, Venezuela was the world’s largest exporter of oil, which not only contributed to economic recovery but also enabled the government to pay off the country’s entire foreign debt. As in most oil-rich-states, almost none of the oil wealth made its way to the common citizens. The overwhelming majority of Venezuelans continued to subsist in poverty with little or no educational or health facilities, let alone reasonable housing. Fast oil money also led to the neglect of agriculture and to the development of other types of production. It was easier to just import everything from abroad, which worked for a while, but proved to be unsustainable.

Tensions in Venezuela rose treacherously during the following dictatorships, exploding in 1945 when Rómulo Betancourt, leader of the left-wing Acción Democrática (AD) party, took control of the government. A new constitution was adopted in 1947, and the noted novelist Rómulo Gallegos became president in Venezuela’s first democratic election. The inevitable coup took place only eight months after Gallegos’ election, with Colonel Marcos Pérez Jiménez emerging as the leader. Once in control, he smashed the opposition and plowed oil money into public works and built up Caracas. He superficially modernized the country but the mushrooming development did not heal the country’s economic and social disparities, nor did it quell the bitter resentment that lingered from the coup.

Pérez Jiménez was overthrown in 1958 by an alliance of civilians and navy and air-force officers. The country returned to democratic rule and Rómulo Betancourt was elected president. He enjoyed popular support and actually completed the constitutional five-year term of office – the first democratically elected Venezuelan president to do so. Since then, all changes of president have been by constitutional means, although the last decade has seen a few hiccups.

During the prescribed term of President Rafael Caldera (1969–74), the steady stream of oil money flowed into the country’s coffers keeping the economy buoyant. President Carlos Andrés Pérez (1974–79) also benefited from the oil bonanza; not only did production of oil rise but, more importantly, the price quadrupled following the Arab-Israeli war in 1973. In 1975 Pérez nationalized the iron-ore and oil industries and went on a spending spree; imported luxury goods were in large supply in the country’s crammed shops and the nation got the impression that the mythical riches of El Dorado had finally materialized.

In the late 1970s, the growing international recession and oil glut began to shake Venezuela’s economy to the core. Oil revenues declined, heightening unemployment and inflation, and once more forcing the country into foreign debt. The 1988 drop in world oil prices cut the country’s revenue in half, casting doubt on Venezuela’s ability to pay off its debt. Austerity measures introduced in 1989 by Pérez Jiménez (elected for the second time) triggered a wave of protests, culminating in the loss of more than 300 lives in three days of bloody riots known as “El Caracazo.” Further austerity measures sparked protests that often escalated into riots. Strikes and street demonstrations continued to be part of everyday life in Venezuela.

To make matters even worse, there were two attempted coups d’état that occurred in Venezuela in 1992. The first, in February of that year, was led by paratrooper Colonel Hugo Chávez.  Shooting throughout Caracas claimed more than 20 lives, but the government retained control. Chávez was sentenced to long-term imprisonment. The second attempt, in November, was led by junior air-force officers. The air battle over Caracas, with war planes flying between skyscrapers, gave the coup a cinematic, if not apocalyptic, dimension. The Palacio de Miraflores, the presidential palace, was bombed and partially destroyed. The army was called to defend the president, and this time more than 100 people died.

Corruption, bank failures and loan defaults plagued the government through the mid-1990s. In 1995, Venezuela was forced to devalue the currency by more than 70%. By the end of 1998, two-thirds of Venezuela’s 23 million inhabitants were living below the poverty line. Drug-trafficking and crime had increased and Colombian guerrillas had dramatically expanded their operations into Venezuela’s frontier areas.

Hugo Chávez and the History of Venezuela in the 21 Century

When it comes to politics, there is perhaps nothing more noteworthy than a dramatic comeback, and that’s exactly what Venezuela witnessed toward the close of the 20 century.  The 1998 presidential election in Venezuela put Hugo Chávez, the leader of the 1992 failed coup, into the presidency.  After being pardoned in 1994, Chávez embarked on an aggressive populist campaign: comparing himself to Bolívar, promising help (and handouts) to the poorest masses and positioning himself in opposition to the US-influenced free-market economy. He vowed to produce a great, if vague, “peaceful and democratic social revolution.”

After his victory in the election, however, Chávez’ “social revolution” was anything but peaceful. Shortly after taking office, Chávez set about rewriting the constitution. The new document was approved in a referendum in December 1999, granting him new and sweeping powers. The introduction of a package of new decree laws in 2001 was met with angry protests, and was followed by a massive and violent strike in April 2002. It culminated in a coup d’état run by military leaders sponsored by a business lobby, in which Chávez was forced to resign. He regained power two days later, but this only intensified the conflict.

While the popular tensions rose, in December 2002 the opposition called a general strike in an effort to oust the president. The nationwide strike paralyzed the country, including its vital oil industry and a good part of the private sector. After 63 days, the opposition finally called off the strike, which had cost the country 7.6% of its GDP and further devastated the oil-based economy. Chávez again survived and claimed victory.

National politics continued to be shaky until Chávez won a 2004 referendum and consolidated his already sweeping power. Emboldened by greater political support and his pockets engorged by high oil prices, Chávez quickly moved to expand his influence beyond the borders of Venezuela, reaching out to other Leftist leaders in Bolivia, Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay, Chile and Brazil. He had openly allied himself with Cuba’s Castro regime, supported the successful Leftist candidacy of Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Leftist candidates in Peru and Mexico who did not win office.

In 2005, shortly after Caracas hosted the 6th World Social Forum, Chávez started a highly publicized and dubiously intentioned program to provide reduced-priced heating oil for impoverished people in the United States. The program was expanded in 2006 to include four of New York City’s five boroughs, providing 25 million gallons of fuel for low-income New Yorkers at 40% off the wholesale price. While the program obviously aided hundreds of thousands of poor New Yorkers, it was used as a political jab to Chávez’s then enemy, former U.S. President George W Bush.

The end of 2006 was enveloped in the lead-up to the December 3 presidential election. Chávez’ closest challenger, Manuel Rosales, accused the president of providing impractical political favors and aid to other countries while poverty and crime increased at home, and also challenged Chávez’ government-approved land takeovers (for redistribution to the landless) and the military build-up for a hypothetical U.S. invasion. Chávez wrote Rosales off as a lackey for the United States and refused to debate him on TV. Chávez won again with the Organization of American States and the Carter Center certifying the results.

Chávez came out of the Socialist closet during his second term, further increasing public works and social programs to benefit the poor (bringing basic healthcare to the barrios, for example) and nationalizing the country’s largest telecommunication, cement and steel companies, the majority of its electricity industry and many hotels, recreational and transport facilities. He has also managed to instill the idea of inclusion in politics among the general population whereas previous governments blatantly excluded all but the highest echelons of society.

Despite contributing to Venezuela’s deep oil pockets and an improved life for the poor, Chávez’s popularity started to wane. Infrastructure upgrades, such as improved roads and bridges, shiny new subways and barrio teleféricos (cable cars) kept up appearances, but the decade ended with Venezuela struggling to combat a very serious energy and water shortage, a crisis that has struck the heart of the middle and upper classes. Widespread blackouts were commonplace throughout the country and Chávez called on all Venezuelans to limit their showers to three minutes only (a “Communist shower,” he said).

As 2010 was ushered in, so was water rationing, with Caracas temporarily taking the brunt of the blow: Up to 48 hours per week without water. Chávez supporters balked at the idea, however, and rations were suspended in Caracas, amplifying the problem elsewhere and sparking protests in Mérida. Electricity Minister Ángel Rodríguez was removed from office over the debacle, but the cabinet shakeup didn’t stop there: In January alone, the Vice-President and Defense Minister, Ramón Carrizalez, and his wife, Environment Minister Yubirí Ortega; and the Minister for Public Banking, Eugenio Vásquez Orellana, all resigned. Rumors blamed the electricity crisis on a disagreement with government policy, though all three politicians denied this. A month later, the energy crisis deteriorated to the point that Chávez issued a state of emergency.

Chávez also instilled many controversial policies to combat the country’s wild inflation and debilitating economy, including price controls on basic foodstuffs, a move that, on one hand, allows families to purchase the same amount of basic food with the same amount of money despite inflation; but sparked occasional food shortages of basics like milk and sugar on the other.  In January of 2010, Chávez announced a sharp devaluation of the currency known as the bolívar fuerte—the first since 2005—thus creating a two-tier official exchange rate in Venezuela, a move designed to boost revenue from oil exports and limit unnecessary imports.  However, the people of Venezuela, fearing widespread price increases and astronomical inflation, mobbed imported electronics stores. Chávez condemned stores that raised their prices and acted: The Venezuelan Institute for the Defense of People in Their Access to Goods and Service shut down dozens of stores for price-gouging.

Elsewhere, strict currency controls meant that Venezuelans who travel abroad were only allowed a rationing of $2,500 in credit card and $500 cash per year to spend outside the country, leaving some feeling trapped within their own borders; and car showrooms were (and continue to be) virtually empty.

Although Brazil’s controversial approval of Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur was a major victory for Chávez and bilateral trade, Chávez’s foreign relationships weren’t faring much better than his domestic economy. Bi-national relations with Colombia remained extremely fragile over the neighboring country’s accusations that Venezuela was supplying arms to FARC rebels and its decision to allow US troops to operate out of seven of its military bases. Chávez banned Colombian car imports and built up troops at the border after several suspicious, cross-border deaths on both sides. Things got personal over these bi-national issues during a private meeting of heads-of-state at the Group of Rio summit in Cancun in February 2010, when Colombian President Álvaro Uribe scoffed at Chávez: “‘Be a man…you’re brave speaking at a distance, but a coward when it comes to talking face to face.” Chávez nearly stormed out.

Some popularity surveys, including one by the group known as Datanálisis, showed that Chávez’s approval rating in 2011 had fell to 46% – the first drop below 50% since 2004.  These numbers seemed to indicate that the controversial leader was running out of gas. 

Despite his waning popularity, Chávez, even after a publicized battle with colon cancer, declared his intentions to run for a fourth six-year term in the elections of 2012.  Chavez was indeed reelected in 2012, and while he did begin his fourth term on January 10, 2013, he eventually succumbed to his illness and died less than 2 months later on March 5, 2013.

Vice President, Nicolas Maduro, took over the presidential powers and duties for the remainder of Chávez’s abbreviated term until presidential elections were held. Today, Maduro continues to serve as the president of Venezuela.

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From the US assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani to the ongoing case of the jailed mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Iran has scarcely been out of the headlines in recent months. But how far back does the history of Iran stretch? Here, Professor Ali M Ansari from the University of St Andrews charts the country’s historical lineage, the emergence of Islam and Shiism, and Iran’s attempts to reconcile its traditions with the modern world.

Iran enjoys one of the richest historical lineages of any modern state stretching back several thousand years. This history can be broadly divided into three epochs: the pre-Islamic ancient period (c559 BC to 651 AD); the Islamic era (651 AD to 1800 AD); and the modern era, defined by its encounter with Western modernity from around 1800.

The pre-Islamic ancient period

‘Iranian’ history proper begins with the migration of the Iranian tribes from Central Asia onto what is now known as the Iranian plateau in the 2nd millennium BC. But organised human settlement developed much earlier and Elamite civilisation in south western Iran – southern Iraq today – emerged in the third millennium. By the 1st millennium BC, two distinct Iranian states emerged in the form of the Medes and Persians and their emphatic entrance onto the world stage began with the accession of Cyrus II in 559 BC.

The Achaemenid Persian Empire grew to become the largest contiguous land empire then known to man, impressing both friend and foe alike with its relatively benign administration drawing on religious ideas that would later be associated with Zoroastrianism, the pre-Islamic religion of Iran identified with the mantra “good words, good thoughts and good deeds”. It looms large in the Western imagination because of its failed attempts to conquer the Greek states and its subsequent defeat at the hands of Alexander the Great some 150 years later in the 330s BC. Hellenized rule under Alexander’s successors – the Seleucids – lasted a century until the arrival of a new Iranian dynasty from the east, the Parthians.

The Parthian Empire

The Parthian Empire reshaped Iranian history by importing myths and legends from the east and supplanting the Achaemenids in popular memory. This decentralised kingdom – in which the king was first among equals; a king over other kings, if you will – made up for its fractiousness with longevity (it is the longest lived of all Iranian dynasties) and proved a serious foe to the emergent Roman empire, inflicting upon it one of its greatest defeats. This was at the plains of Carrhae in 53 BC, where the Roman commander Crassus (famous for his defeat of Spartacus) was decisively defeated by a smaller Parthian force largely composed of horse archers, losing some two-thirds of his legions and several ‘eagles’ [Romans Standards]. After 500 years, in 224 AD the Parthians were in turn overthrown by another dynasty, this time from the heartlands of Persia itself, the Sasanians.

The Sasanians were undoubtedly the heirs of the Parthians but their empire was more centralised and the ‘king of kings’ was more than a first among equals. Administration was consolidated and Zoroastrianism was promoted as an official and increasingly well-defined creed. In time Sasanian kings, most notably Khusrau II, would come to symbolise all that was good about pre-Islamic Iran and its administration.

Like their predecessors, the Sasanians proved formidable opponents to the Roman and then Byzantine Empires, engaging in a cycle of conflicts which ultimately exhausted both empires and made them vulnerable to hitherto unforeseen challenges.

The Islamic era

In the 7^th century a new power emerged from the Arabian Peninsula – Islam. Defeating the Byzantines, the Muslim Arab armies eventually conquered and absorbed the Sasanian empire into the new Caliphate. The Iranian empire was too large a morsel for the Caliphate to fully digest, with the result that Iranian ideas on the nature and practice of ‘just’ government and culture began to shape the way in which the Caliphate developed.

Islam transformed the Iranian world view, but the political and religious culture of the Islamic world was in turn shaped by the profound legacy of ancient Iran and many of the leading administrative and scientific minds of the classical Islamic age including the polymath Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and the famous vizierial (ministerial) family of the Barmakids, emanated from the Iranian world.

Indeed the emphatic influence of the Iranian world was made clear with the emergence of the Abbasid Caliphate in 749 AD and the transfer of the capital from Damascus to the newly founded city of Baghdad (around 762 AD), not far from the old Sasanian capital. This Iranian turn was exemplified by the development of the ‘new’ Persian language, now empowered with the adoption of the Arabic alphabet to become the lingua franca of the eastern Islamic world, and in time one of the great literary languages of the world.

The Islamic era would witness another profound development in the history of Iran with the entrance of the Turkic peoples from central Asia from the 11th century, but most consequentially with the eruption of the Mongols (nomadic warriors from the steppes of inner Asia) in the 13th century. The Mongol conquest facilitated the migration of the Turkic tribes onto the plateau – forcing a knock-on migration of Iranians onto the Anatolian plateau – fundamentally altering the political economy of the country from one which was largely sedentary to one with a significant nomadic component, especially in the northern parts of the country.

Moreover, Mongol and Turkic words (such as ‘Khan’) feed into the Persian language adding further dimension to the vocabulary of an already rich and diverse language. In economic terms, however, the wave of nomadic invasions beginning with the Mongols and culminating in the devastation wrought by Tamerlane in the 14th century, resulted in widespread economic dislocation. It was to be many years before the economic lifeblood returned in any meaningful sense.

At the same time, taking the long view, the Mongol conquests ensured that ‘Iran’ as a distinct political entity re-emerged after centuries of seclusion within the wider Islamic world. It says something of the cultural confidence and richness of Iranian civilisation that it was able to re-form as a distinct state in its own right and by the 16th century a new dynasty was to emerge which would add further layers to this distinctiveness.

Iran had been absorbed into the Caliphate but had retained its own language and culture such that it began to influence the shape and direction of travel of the Islamic world. Even the Turkic nomads would in turn come to appreciate the cultural powerhouse that Iran and the Persian world represented, adopting and adapting many of its cultural attributes including the Persian language. With the rise of the Safavids in the 16th century this cultural confidence was given political form once again and in order to consolidate their position the Safavids imposed the minority branch of Islam, Shiism, as the new state religion from 1501.

This proved to be something of a double-edged sword. The adoption of Shiism helped distinguish the Iranian state from its Ottoman rival to the West. But it also served to hinder political ties with the Persianate world of the east. Nonetheless, over two centuries the Safavids oversaw a flourishing of Iranian civilisation, most notably under Shah Abbas I (1587–1629), the only king after the Islamic conquest to be known as ‘the Great’. Indeed, just as Iranians ascribed all pre-Islamic achievements to the reign of Khusrau I, so too was Shah Abbas credited with all and any achievements during the Islamic period.

It was during this period that the first systematic contacts were made between Iran and Europe, as European merchants came to establish commercial, and in some cases, political, ties.

Modern challenges

It is to Iran’s misfortune that the period of the most dramatic growth in European power and western civilisation in the 18th century coincided with a period of political turmoil within Iran itself. The traumatic fall of the Safavid dynasty in 1722 resulted in decades of warfare as first Iran re-emerged empowered under the leadership of Nader Shah (1736–47), only to once again descend into turmoil following his death.

As a little-known footnote in history, it was Nader Shah’s invasion and defeat of the Mughal Empire in 1739 that paradoxically opened up India to European penetration in the 18^th century. And by the time Iran emerged from its turmoil by the end of the 18^th century it faced a whole new challenge in the Russian and British empires. These were not just political threats but ideological ones with self-confident European powers who were not in awe of Iranian civilisation – on the contrary, they regarded the political economy of the Iranian state to be archaic and dependent on the authority and despotic power of its kings.

European power approached the world with new ideas about the organisation of the state, the rule of law and constitutionalism, all of which were alien to the Iranian world but which gained traction among a group of intellectuals who regarded the salvation of Iran in the adoption of these new and innovative forms of political and economic organisation. Iranians, so used to educating the world, found themselves in the reluctant position of being the student. Throughout the 19th century Iranian intellectuals and activists sought to promote reform but were faced with the objections of reactionary elements within Iran (most notably a monarchy reluctant to concede power) and with the ambivalence of imperial European powers ultimately more anxious to maintain the balance of power.

Eventually, at the turn of the 20^th century, in 1906, the first of Iran’s revolutions – the Constitutional Revolution – established a parliamentary system on the British model, complete with a constitution and separation of powers. It was a seminal moment that altered the political landscape of the country. But its ambitions were high and its promise remained unfulfilled as a new dynasty – the Pahlavis (1925–79) – sought to impose revolution from above.

With the emergence of the Pahlavis in 1925 the revolutionary impetus of 1906 was adopted with some vigour by the new monarch supported initially by many of the intellectuals of the period who were anxious to see the creation of a modern state that would enable their many reforms to education and the judicial system to be realised. Reza Shah’s rule oversaw a transformation of the country but the reforms he oversaw were only partially fulfilled, with the growth in the power of the state not being matched by a growth in civil society and civic rights.

Overthrown following an Allied occupation (1941–46) in the turmoil of the Second World War, he was succeeded by his young son Mohammad Reza Shah (1941–79) who for the first period of his reign had to contend with growing factionalism as well as the continued interference of foreign powers. The crisis over the continued Soviet occupation of Azerbaijan was resolved in 1946, but a more serious crisis over Iran’s oil industry resulted in an Anglo-American orchestrated coup to overthrow the nationalist prime minister Dr Mohammad Mosaddeq who had encouraged the Shah to reign rather than rule. As with the revolution of 1906, the coup of 1953 was to cast a long shadow over Iranian politics and the Shah struggled to emerge from it.

Royal autocracy and the ‘Islamic’ revolution

In the 1960s the Shah felt strong enough to launch a ‘White’ revolution of his own, further transforming the socio-economic landscape of the country but failing to match these dramatic changes with a measure of political reform. Indeed, far from democratising, the 1970s witnessed a retrenchment of royal autocracy. Political stagnation with social and economic change proved to be a combustible combination to which was added a religious revival centred on the figure of Ayatollah Khomeini. By 1978 the Shah, faced with opposition from nationalists, the left and the religious groups, found himself no longer master of his political domain, increasingly at a loss as to how to react to the groundswell of discontent.

He went into exile in January 1979. Two weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini returned to the adulation of the crowds (pictured above) and in short order the monarchy was replaced by an Islamic Republic. But this new ‘Islamic’ revolution proved no more successful in reconciling Iran’s traditions with the challenges of modernity. The seizure of the US Embassy in November 1979 and the start of a protracted war with Iraq in 1980, which lasted to 1988, both scarred and defined the emergent Islamic Republic. Rampant factionalism was not expunged by the violent suppression of the Left, and the Islamic Republic has been characterised by fierce debates over the nature and character of the state dividing between those who favour the republican institutions and those who seek the establishment of an Islamic government.

The dominance of the ‘Islamists’ and the growing autocracy of the ‘supreme leader’ indicate that the problems of 1906 remain unresolved and that 1979 simply witnessed the ‘crown’ being replaced by the ‘turban’.

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Kashmir – the “paradise on Earth” of Bernier, has the proud privilege of having a history in Sanskrit (Rajatarangini) giving a lucid account of events from 3000 B.C. to 1149 A.D., including the list of kings, queens, ministers, and their military expeditions to neighboring states.

Kashmiris distinguished themselves in the production of an uninterrupted series of written records of its history, reaching back beyond the medieval times Kalhana in the 12^th century A.D. testifies to the existence of at least eleven earlier compositions on the history of Kashmir which he consulted to write his immortal and outstanding book – Rajatarangini.

The early accounts of Kashmir are referred to by various sources, both indigenous as well as foreign. The only certain reference to Kashmir that classical literature has preserved is found in Ptolemy’s Geography, wherein he referred to the region as “Kaspeiria”. Herodotos, the “Father of History” has referred to Kashmir as “Kaspatyros”. Wilson was the first who distinctly attempted to connect the name of Kashpatros with Kashmir. According to Wilson, the name Kashmir was derived from Kasyappura, a name which he supposed to have been given to the country owing to its colonization by the Raja Kashyapa.

Earlier Buddhist pilgrims from China on their way to the sacred locations of the Indian plains visited Kashmir and chose it as a resting place. According to M.A. Stein, the first clear reference to Kashmir is contained in a record dating from 541 A.D. given by an Indian envoy who reached China during the early part of the reign of the Tang Dynasty. Hiuen Tsang was the first Chinese traveler who visited Kashmir and resided here as an honored guest for two years. The records of this great Chinese pilgrim contain the fullest and most accurate description of Kashmir.

The next Chinese notice of Kashmir, with considerable historical interest, is contained in the Annals of the “Tang Dynasty”. Another Chinese pilgrim Ou-King also visited Kashmir. He reached Kashmir in the year 759 A.D. from Gandhara, by the same route as followed by Hieun Tsang. He stayed for 4 years to visit holy sites and study Sanskrit.

Muhammad bin Al-Qasim was the first Muslim (Arabian) commander who established the Arab hegemony in Sindh, Punjab, and Multan in India during 711-712 A.D. through Indus Valley, Muslim forces reached close enough to the confines of Kashmir. The Arabic literature provides enough, accurate and valuable information about ancient Kashmir. The credit goes to Alberuni – a great Muslim scholar who during his long stay at Ghazna and Punjab (1017 – 30 A.D.) had utilized every opportunity to collect information on Kashmir.

Kalhana’s immortal work Rajatarangini, composed in the year 1148 – 49 A.D. is our oldest record of the various kings and their dynasties. Kalhana, during his research, has consulted some of the compositions on the history of Kashmir i.e.; Kshemendra’s Nrapavali which chronicles Nilmatpurana. According to Kalhana, Padmamihira had obtained the information about earlier kings from Helaraja who had composed a “list of kings” (Parthivavali) Kalhana’s Rajatarangini is the only work in Indian literature that may be regarded as a historical text.

King Zain-ul-Abidin, of Kashmir, has the credit of translating Kalhana’s Rajatarangini’ into Persian during the 15^th century. Abu Fazl, the great writer during the Mughal period incorporated long abstracts of Rajatarangini in his famous book Ain-i-Akbari, under the orders of the Mughal king – Akbar. Bernier (1665 A.D.) an authority on Kashmir studies makes a mention of it in his lectures. Motorcraft during his visit to Kashmir in 1823 A.D., obtained a copy of Rajatarangini and got it translated into French by M. Troyer., Dr. Buhler and Dr. Stein were the pioneers in providing the monumental translation of the chronicles published in 1900. R.S. Pandit in 1935 A.D. translated Rajatarangini into English, highlighting its poetic and literary standards.

Parihaspura is believed to be the birthplace of Kalhana, who was a Brahmin by descent and a Saiva by faith. Kalhana’s father, Compaka, was a minister in King Harsa’s reign (1089-1101 A.D.) who remained loyal to the king until his last. Kalhana as a historian has consulted every available source, besides studying coins and inspecting old monumental structures. He is a master of accurate topography of ancient Kashmir. Sanskrit was the official and sole literary language of Kashmir, not only in Kalhana’s own time but also in those earlier periods from which the records used by him may have dated. Kalhana’s work was continued by Jonaraja, who brought the chronicle down to the reign of Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin (1420-70 A.D.). The greater part of his chronicle deals with the reign of Hindu rulers from Jayasimha to Queen Kota. His pupil Srivara, recorded historical events dating from 1459 to 1486 A.D., The 4^th chronicle titled Rajavalipataka by Prajyabhatta was completed by his pupil Shuka some years after the annexation of Kashmir by Akbar (1586 A.D.).

After the advent of Muslim rule in Kashmir, Sanskrit continued to be the official language.  With the increasing patronage of the Persian language and literature by the Muslim rulers, there are rich Persian records of the history of Kashmir by eminent Kashmiri scholars. Mulla Ahmad, Kashmiri, translated Kalhana’s Rajatarangini into Persian under the orders of King Zain-ul-Abidin. Malik Haider Chadura wrote a history of Kashmir from the earliest times to his times in Persian during 1617 A.D. during the reign of Jehangir. Haider Malik was both a historian and an architect. He designed the architectural structures of Jamia Masjid Srinagar after it was consumed by fire. The Khanqah of Mir Sham-ud-Din Iraqi was also designed by him. Another Kashmiri scholar of the Persian language and poet Narayan Koul Aijaz, in his book “Twarikh-i-Kashmir” (1710 A.D.) assesses the reigns of the Sultans and early Mughals. Khawaja Mohammad Azam Kaul of Didamar (Srinagar) wrote a historical account of Kashmir titled “Waquat-i-Kashmir” in 1735-46 A.D. Khawaja history of Kashmir. During Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s rule Pandit Birbal Kachru, wrote “History of Kashmir” in 1836 A.D. Moulvi Ghulam Hassan’s “Twarikh-i-Kashmir”, in three volumes deals with Geography, Political History, and the Arts and Crafts of Kashmir. He was an authority on Kashmir and its past. It was Moulvi Hassan of Bandipora who was the main source of providing historical and statistical information to Sir. W. Lawrence, the settlement commissioner of Kashmir.

During the middle of the 19^th century, when Urdu and English were the court languages in the state, there were valuable contributions to the history of Kashmir by Kashmiri scholars, i.e… Pandit Anand Koul (Geography of Jammu and Kashmir in 1910 A.D.); and Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din Sofi (Kashir in 1949) deserve mention. Mohammad Din Fauq, a Kashmiri who settled in Lahore, wrote about the History, Geography, folklore, and origin of communities in Kashmir. He wrote in the Urdu language.

A detailed account of Kashmir, its people, agriculture, religion, architecture, arts and crafts is recorded by Mirza Haider Dughlat, a cousin of Mughal king Babar, in his Tarikh-e-Rashidi. He invaded Kashmir twice, once from Kashgar in 1533 A.D. and again from Lahore in 1540 A.D. when he ruled the valley for ten years in the name of puppet king Nazuk Shah.

The Tabaqat-i-Akbari by Nizam-ud-Din refers to the history of Kashmir from the earliest times to the conquest of the valley by Akbar, in one of its sections. “Tarikh-i-Farishta” by Mohammad Qasim Farishta contains a chapter on Kashmir. Very useful information about Akbar’s relations with Chak rulers of Kashmir is contained in A.Q. Badayunis’ “Muntakhab-ut-Tawarikh”. Abu Fazal’s “Akbar Nama” and “Ain-i-Akbari” and Jehangiri’s “Tuzk” provide rich information about the land and people of Kashmir.

Father Gerome Xavier and Benoist de Gois were the first Europeans to visit Kashmir, accompanying Akbar. They were followed by famous scholars i.e., Francis Bernier (1665 A.D.) who accompanied Aurangzeb; George Forester, Vigne (1835 A.D.); Moorcraft; Fredrick Drew; Lawrence and Lord Cunningham whose works form the bedrock of the study of Kashmir and its people.

The archaeological studies of the early sites in Kashmir supplement the old chronicles and texts. Sir W. Lawrence in his memorable work “The Valley of Kashmir” says, “Kashmir is the holy land of the Hindus and I Have rarely been in any village which cannot show old Kashmir temples, huge stone seats of Mahadeo, Phallic emblems, innumerable carved images heaped in grotesque confusion by some clear spring have met me at every turn. I have seen curious mosques built in a style, unlike the presence of wooden beams with stones between. Chance excavations, for irrigation and other works, reveal curious sculptures and interesting relics of ancient history.

It was Goerge Buhler’s remarkable visit to Kashmir in 1875 A.D., which resulted in the discovery of valuable material for a systematic study of the history of Kashmir. Dr. M.A. Stein followed the methodology of his teacher, Goerge Buhler, and thanks to his sustained labors for presenting a comprehensive knowledge of the antiquities of the valley. His memoir on the ancient geography of Kashmir is a monumental work that shows the close link that most of these ruins form in the chain of data for a study of the history of this ancient land and its people.

The study of Kashmir coins by some scholars has resulted in useful data being collected on the chronology of the Sultans and other Muslim kings from the 14^th to 17^th centuries. Such studies by C.J. Rogers, Sir Aurel Stein, and R. B. Whitehead have made considerable contributions to the ancient history of Kashmir through a study of old coins.

The Kashmiri people are perhaps the most important source of Kashmir history. Kashmiri art, culture, traditions, customs, manners, folklore, language, dress food, and other related habits, which they held since ancient times present an open book of history. The Kashmiris are a living race with a magnificent past, full of both joy and sorrow, hope and fear, who are changing along with the times, leaving their cowardice and bonds of slavery to shape and design their future.

According to Dr. Stein, Kashmir can claim to have the distinction of being the only region of India that possesses an uninterrupted series of written records of its history, going back beyond the period of Muslim rule and deserving the name of real chronicles.

Kashmir History – After Independence

After a long period of struggle for independent states, the Indians were declared independent, by the British, who before leaving the land, partitioned it into two states, i.e., India and Pakistan, on the midnight of 14^th August 1947 A.D.

With the departure of Maharaja Hari Singh, the last Dogra King on the 26^th of January 1947 A.D. from Kashmir to Jammu the state was in a chaotic situation, and there was an acute shortage of all essential commodities of life in the valley especially, salt, sugar, cloth, kerosene, and petrol, etc.

The emergency administration, with Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah’s National Conference as the torchbearer, made every effort to normalize the situation and on the request of Sheikh, the central government prevailed upon the Maharaja to appoint Mohan Chand Mahajan as Prime Minister on the 5^th of March 1948 A.D., the emergency administration was converted into a regular council of ministers with Sheikh Abdullah as Prime Minister.

The “New Kashmir” plan, as envisaged and Sheikh’s popular government implemented social and agrarian reforms. In April 1949 A.D., a land reforms committee was appointed to prepare a plan for the abolition of the zamindari system and transfer of land to the tiller. The Chakdari system came to an end.

To change the Educational system, the mother tongue was adopted as the medium of instruction in primary classes. Schools and colleges were set up throughout the J&K State. The J&K University was established on 1^st Nov. 1948 A.D., with its campus at Hazratbal, Srinagar.

In May 1951, the Yuvaraj, Dr. Karan Singh in the capacity of the Regent, issued a proclamation convoking a constituent Assembly based on free adult franchise. Elections to the assembly were held and it met in October 1951 A.D. for the first time. All the 75 seats of the assembly were won by the National Conference. The constituent assembly in its meeting decided that the titular head i.e., Maharaja be called Sadar-e-Riyasat to be elected by the Legislative Assembly for a term of five years.

The position of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian Union was settled in an agreement popularly known as the “Delhi Agreement” of 1952 A.D., in which India agreed to accord a special statute and position to J&K State in the constitution, whereby complete internal autonomy was assured to the state.

Due to the disturbing political and economic situation in the state during the early months of 1953 A.D., there was dissension in the cabinet. On the 8^th of August 1953 A.D., the Sadar-e-Riyasat with the support of the central government dismissed Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah as Prime Minister, and on the 9^th of August 1953 A.D., invited Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad, (the trusted Lieutenant of Sheikh as well as center) to form a new government. Sheikh was arrested on the 9^th of August 1953 A.D. and kept in detention.

Bakshi announced various programs to ameliorate the economic crisis. The Levee was abolished forthwith; cottage industries were developed. The Educational freedom from school to university level was abolished. Efforts were made to develop the regional languages i.e. Kashmir, Dogri, and Ladakhi. The permit system for the tourists was abolished.

It was during Bakshi’s regime that the constituent Assembly confirmed the state’s accession to India on 6^th February 1954 A.D.

The drafting committee presented the draft of the new constitution to the Assembly on 10t Oct 1956 A.D., which was unanimously adopted on 17 November 1956 A.D., and came into effect from 26 January 1957 A.D. in 1959 A.D., The state Assembly unanimously decided to seek amendment of the state’s constitution to provide for the extension of the jurisdiction of the election commission of India and the supreme court over the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

Elections to the new legislative assembly were held in March 1957 A.D., and the national conference headed by Bakshi won 68; Praja Parishad 05, Harijan Mandal 1, and independent 1 out of 75 seats. The second election was held in 1962 A.D., under the control of the Election Commission of India. Bakshi was forced to resign under the “Kamraj Plan” in August 1963 A.D. He was succeeded by Khawja Shamus-ud-deen, a compromise candidate as prime minister.

It was on December 27, 1963, A.D. that the Holy Relic of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) at Hazratbal Shrine was stolen, which caused widespread anger and anguish among the Kashmiris. This event was responsible for the loss of the Sham-ud-Deen ministry. With the help of the central government, the national conference legislatures elected Ghulam Mohammad Sadiq as their leader in February 1964 A.D. With every change in government and by the planting of blue-eyed boys by the Delhi Government, the state in one way or the other, came nearer to the center. It was during Sadiq’s regime, that the head of state was to be designated as “Governor” and the Prime Minister as “Chief Minister”, on the pattern of the Indian Constitution.

Mr. Sadiq decided to withdraw all the charges of conspiracy against Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and others, who were in detention from August 1953 A.D. to April 1964 A.D., with a brief spell of freedom from January to April 1958 A.D. after his release in April 1964 A.D., he was received very warmly by the people and was invited by Pandit Nehru to visit Delhi, after Delhi, he visited Pakistan. He cut short his tour due to the death of Pandit Nehru on 27^th May 1964 A.D.

In August 1965 A.D., there was a 22-day Indo-Pak war. During the Arab – the Israel war in 1967 A.D., there were widespread riots in Srinagar. In September 1967 A.D., Kashmiri Pandits led a massive agitation against the marriage of a Pandit girl, named Prameshwari to a Muslim boy.

During G.M. Sadiq’s regime, many NC members like Mohammad Shafi Qureshi, and Syed Mir Qasim were active in establishing the Indian National Congress Party in the state. With the demise of Mr. Sadiq on December 12, 1971 A.D., Syed Mir Qasim, the congress stalwart in the state was called upon to assume office as Chief Minister.

In December 1971 A.D., there were 14 days of war between India and Pakistan, which led to the creation of “Bangladesh”, as a sovereign state.

The Shimla Agreement between Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Mr. Z.A. Bhuttoo was signed on July 3, 1972, A.D., in which 90,000 soldiers of Pakistan captured by the Indian Army and Mukti Bhani of Bangladesh, were allowed to return to Pakistan. The ceasefire line in Kashmir was renamed as “Line of Actual Control”.

The fourth elections to the State Legislative Assembly were held in March 1972 A.D., which returned the INC to power. All political parties took part in these elections for the 74 seats; Congress won 57, the Jamat-i-Islami 05, the Jana Sangh 03, and Independent 09.

It was during Mir Qasim’s rule, that Sheikh Abdullah and his trusted Lieutenant Mirza Afzal Afzal Beigh, who were in prison, were released. Over time, there were exchanges of views for the restoration of power to Sheikh Abdullah, between Mirza Afzal Beigh and G. Parthasarathy, (Mrs. Gandhi’s Ambassador). An accord called “Indira – Abdullah Accord” was negotiated in 1975 A.D., by which Sheikh Abdullah was offered the Chief Ministership of the state and Syed Qasim was asked to step down by the high command in Delhi. In his second period as the ruler of the state, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah was accused of having sold his conscience for the lure of power through the masses as the majority of Kashmiris considered secession from India the only panacea for their ills. The tall and towering personality of Sheikh Abdullah who dominated the political scene of Kashmir for about half a century came to an end after his demise in 1982 A.D. After his death his son Dr. Farooq Abdullah was administered the oath of office as Chief Minister of Kashmir.

Dr. Farooq’s rule of 02 years came to an end due to a split in the National Conference and he was replaced by his brother-in-law Ghulam Mohammad Shah at the behest of Govt. of India. But he hailed to restore the law and order situation. There was hardly a day when curfew was not imposed in one part of the other in the valley Shah was therefore referred to as curfew chief minister. He was dismissed in March 1986 A.D. and the governor’s rule was imposed throughout the state. After six months Dr. Farooq with the blessings of Rajiv Gandhi was reinstalled as chief minister on November 7, 1986 A.D., Dr. Farooq’s great achievement on the political front was the reunion of two factions, led by Dr. Farooq and Mirwaiz Moulvi Farooq after 40 long years.

During Dr. Farooq’s second stint as Chief Minister, there was a complete breakdown of the state administration. The entire socio-economic setup crumbled and the political scenario had assumed a ferocious look. The entire system was dominated by militancy – the propounders of NIzam-e-Mustafa and Azadi for Kashmiris.

During 1988 and 1989 A.D., the conditions were totally out of control. There was a writ of militants in every domain of social, political, and economic affairs. There were frequent bandhs, processions, and marching to the UN observer’s office in Srinagar. The people were in a do-or-die situation to achieve freedom.

Governor Jagmohan was replaced by K.V. Krishna Rao, as the new incumbent on 11^th July 1989. When the conditions were just out of control, the central government replaced Governor K.V. Krishan Rao and in his place, Jagmohan was installed as the new governor on January 17, 1990 A.D. The appointment of the new Governor irked Dr. Farooq who resigned as Chief Minister, during Jagmohan’s term of office the Kashmiri Pandits were encouraged by the majority of the Muslim population to be annihilated. Silent protestors and processions were gunned down and the security forces left no stone unturned to harass, harm, and kill the innocent Kashmiris, who fought for their rights.

Mirwaiz Farooq was killed by unidentified gunmen and his funeral procession was fired, in which 15 mourners lost their lives and 60 were injured during Jagmohan’s rule.

Jagmohan after his second term was replaced by a retired intelligence officer, namely Girish Saxena, on 20^th May 1990 A.D. As there was no improvement in the chaotic conditions during Saxena’s Governorship, he was replaced by K.V. Krishna Rao.

Elections to the Legislative Assembly were held in the months of September-October 1996 A.D., under the barrel gun and the participation of the electorate in these elections was negligible which gave a mandate to Dr. Farooq’s national conference who assumed power as chief minister on October 09, 1996 A.D. Dr. Farooq again ruled Kashmir from 1996 to 2002 A.D. for six years. In the elections, again held under tight security in October 2002, none of the political parties gained a majority to form the government. So, a coalition government between Congress and the People’s Democratic Party was formed with Mufti Mohammad Syed as Chief Minister for a term of the first three years as per the agreement. After the expiry of his term of office, he was replaced by Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad, a Congress candidate from Jammu (Doda district) region, who assumed office on November 2, 2005 A.D. The coalition government formed by Congress and PDP came to an end when differences between the two parties surfaced on certain issues, resulting in fresh elections during 2008 A.D. The coalition government had a tough time dealing with the public outcry on “Azadi” and “Amarnath” issues. After the election in 2008 A.D., a coalition government was formed between the National Conference and the Congress party, with young Omar Abdullah, as the Chief Minister and the President of the National Conference Dr. Farooq Abdullah was inducted into the Union Cabinet as Minister of Renewable Energy.

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The many cultures of the Middle East

Culture, a shared set of traditions, belief systems, and behaviors, is shaped by history, religion, ethnic identity, language, and nationality, among other factors. The Middle East consists of approximately 20 countries, with many different religions and a variety of ethnic and linguistic groups. Given this diversity, we should not be surprised to find a multitude of different cultures coexisting in the region.

Stereotypes about the Middle East

During the 19th century, translations of the Arabian Nights and archaeological discoveries in Egypt dominated the imaginations of people in the West who had never visited the Middle East. These armchair explorers conjured up competing images of a desert region populated by nomads and camels and, of course, pyramids, but also brimming with all manner of sweet and savory treats in bustling urban bazaars. During the 20th century, stories about the Middle East have tended to focus on oil wealth, territorial wars, and religious conflicts. All of these do exist, but there is much more to life in this area.

Daily life in the region is too complex to be summarized on a Web page; we can only begin to suggest the multiple variables involved in the lives of people there. A common thread that runs through many lives is the importance of family and the values that derive from having a strong extended family: respect, honor, and loyalty.

Religion in the cultures of the Middle East

The Middle East is the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all monotheistic religions that grew from the same tradition. Each religion used the texts from earlier groups, and so they share many rules and beliefs. For example, Islam and Judaism observe the same dietary rules and have a similar focus on religion as a foundation for civil law. All three share a tradition of prophets, from Adam and Abraham to Solomon and Joseph. Jesus is significant for both Christianity and Islam, and Muslims in addition follow the teachings of Muhammad.

Religion plays a large part in the rhythm of daily life, not only through prayer and study, but also in determining the end of the work week. Shops in different neighborhoods close down on Fridays for the Muslim holy day, Saturdays for the Jewish Sabbath, and Sundays for the Christian day of rest. Religious festivals and remembrances, like Id al-Fitr (the Festival of Fast-Breaking, celebrated at the end of Ramadan), or the Jewish Passover holiday, or Easter Sunday as determined by the Roman or Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, are all recognized as national holidays in different countries.

An awareness of God (Arabic: Allah) is exhibited in common Arabic expressions that are used throughout the region — even in Turkey and Iran, where Arabic is not the local language. A common response to “How are you?” is “Ilhamdillah!” — “Praise be to God.” When expressing hope for a future event, one might say “Inshallah” — “God willing.” The exclamation “Mashallah” — “What God wills!” — is often heard as an expression of delight, at the sight of a new baby, for example. While there are those for whom these phrases reflect the divine, others use them the way many English speakers use “Good-bye” (literally, “God be with ye”).

Religion plays a role in national and international politics as well. Turkey has a Muslim majority, but is officially a secular nation. Other countries in the region identify themselves with a specific religion, mostly Islam. Lebanon’s constitution attempted to provide for power sharing among 18 officially recognized religions, including Maronite and Orthodox Christians, Sunni and Shii Muslims, and Druze. But because the populations of the various groups grew at different rates, this system eventually became less representative of the nation as a whole and civil war broke out.

The poor relations between Israel and most of its Arab neighbors are sometimes described in terms of a perpetual religious conflict between Jews and Muslims. This reading, however, is too simplistic. Although control over important historical sites of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is a factor in the disagreements, many of the details that stall negotiations have to do with control of land and access to water resources. Furthermore, many Palestinians who demand restitution for their property are Christian, not Muslim, and Egypt’s historic treaty with Israel provides a model for how Muslim and Jewish neighbors can live peaceably.

Ethnic diversity at the crossroads of civilizations

Situated between Africa, Asia, and Europe, the Middle East has been a crossroads for traders, travelers, and empire builders for thousands of years. Africans, Central Asians, and Celts have all added to the ethnic mix. Major ethnic groups in the Middle East today include Arabs, Iranians (also known as Persians), Turks, Jews, Kurds, Berbers, Armenians, Nubians, Azeris, and Greeks.

Most of the countries in this region are multiethnic. But even as diversity enhances the cultural richness of a society, it unfortunately may also lead to political conflict. The Kurds, for example, do not have their own nation-state, but are instead spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Their political and military attempts to create an autonomous Kurdistan have been strongly resisted by those states.

Many languages, three families

The multiplicity of languages spoken in the Middle East reflects its ethnic diversity. Most of these languages come from three major language “families”:

• Semitic (including Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic)
• Indo-European (Kurdish, Persian, Armenian)
• Turkic (Turkish, Azeri)

These language families reflect the successive migrations of different peoples into the region. A quick examination of these languages reveals the influence they have had on each other. Persian, for example, is written in Arabic script, while Turkish incorporates vocabulary words from Persian and Arabic. Arabic itself is spoken in regional dialectics that are not always mutually understood. Some ethnic and religious communities have preserved “native” languages for religious use, such as Coptic and Greek.

Culture: Family, city, and the globe

The family is an important part of culture in the Middle East, as is evident in the Arabic honorific names that are often used in preference to given names. A man may be called Ibn (“son of”) followed by his father’s name or Abu (“father of”) followed by his child’s name.

In traditional Arab societies the family unit is an extended family — cousins, grandparents, second cousins, cousins-in-law, nieces, nephews, and more — all living together. This remains true in rural areas particularly. Migration to the cities has broken up some of these extended families, and the number of people living only with their nuclear family in urban areas is increasing.

The difference between life in the village and life in the city sometimes seems to be as great or greater than the difference between living in the Middle East and living in America. Two men in Egypt, for example, may share the same language (Arabic), religion (Islam), and nationality (Egyptian), but one may live in an air-conditioned apartment building with his wife and two children and wear a suit to his government job, while the other may live in a naturally cool mud-brick house surrounded by three generations of relatives and wear a traditional robe, called a galabiya, to work a plot of land.

These differences are eroding, however, with the introduction of inexpensive cellular phone service and the ubiquity of television. Even some mud-brick houses are now equipped with satellite dishes that bring news, entertainment, and fashions not only from the capital city, but from around the world as well.

The Middle East in a globalized world

Over the past 200 years, and increasingly in the contemporary age of globalization, more and more Western goods — everything from clothing to food to computers — have appeared in Middle Eastern markets. Not only goods, but culture as well, have been imported from the West. Western books and movies are popular, especially (but not exclusively) among the urban elite.

In fashion, Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, banished the fez and other aspects of Ottoman dress in favor of European three-piece suits. Today, one might see young people clad in jeans and T-shirts that advertise their fondness for Britney Spears or Titanic walking down the same street as their peers who are wearing traditional hijab or galibiyas.

There is an active debate in most Middle Eastern communities about how much Western culture and technology can and should be adopted before such influences begin to compromise their culture, traditions, and identity. This discussion will require defining that identity to some degree. Will they characterize themselves as Egyptian? Muslim? Arab? a resident of a particular village? a member of a particular tribe? Most importantly, in what order would they prioritize these qualities? These are not easy questions, but the encroachment of Western influences requires some answers.

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Tensions are escalating between Niger’s new military regime and the West African regional bloc that has ordered the deployment of troops to restore “democracy” in Niger.

The ECOWAS bloc said on Thursday it had decided to deploy a “standby force” aimed at restoring constitutional order in Niger after its Sunday deadline to reinstate ousted President Mohamed Bazoum expired.

Hours earlier, two Western officials told The Associated Press that Niger’s junta had told a top U.S. diplomat they would kill Bazoum if neighboring countries attempted any military intervention to restore his rule.

It’s unclear when or where the ECOWAS force would deploy, and how reports of the threats against Bazoum would affect a decision by the 15-member bloc to intervene. Conflict experts say that the force would likely comprise some 5,000 troops led by Nigeria and could be ready within weeks.

After the ECOWAS meeting, neighboring Ivory Coast’s president, Alassane Ouattara, said his country would take part in the military operation, along with Nigeria and Benin.

“Ivory Coast will provide a battalion and has made all the financial arrangements … We are determined to install Bazoum in his position. Our objective is peace and stability in the sub-region,” Ouattara said on state television.

Niger, an impoverished country of some 25 million people, was seen as one of the last hopes for Western nations to partner with in beating back a jihadi insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group that’s ravaged the region. France and the United States have more than 2,500 military personnel in Niger and together with other European partners had poured hundreds of millions of dollars into propping up its military.

The junta responsible for spearheading the coup, led by Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, has claimed it could do a better job than Bazoum’s government of protecting the nation from jihadi violence, and has exploited anti-French sentiment among the population to shore up its support.

Nigeriens in the capital, Niamey, on Friday said ECOWAS isn’t in touch with the reality on the ground and shouldn’t intervene.

“It is our business, not theirs. They don’t even know the reason why the coup happened in Niger,” said Achirou Harouna Albassi, a resident. Bazoum was not abiding by the will of the people, he said.

Hundreds of people marched toward the French military base in Niamey on Friday waving Russian flags and screaming “Down with France.” Many were young, including children, all chanting that the French should go.

Also Friday, the African Union expressed strong support for ECOWAS’ decision and called on the junta to “urgently halt the escalation with the regional organization.” It also called for the immediate release of Bazoum. An African Union meeting to discuss the situation in Niger is expected to take place on Monday.

On Thursday night after the summit, France’s foreign ministry said it supported “all conclusions adopted.” U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken said his country appreciated “the determination of ECOWAS to explore all options for the peaceful resolution of the crisis” and would hold the junta accountable for the safety and security of President Bazoum. However, he did not specify whether the U.S. supported the deployment of troops.

The mutinous soldiers that ousted Bazoum more than two weeks ago have entrenched themselves in power, appear closed to dialogue and have refused to release the president. Representatives of the junta told U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland of the threat to Bazoum’s life during her visit to the country this week, a Western military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. A U.S. official confirmed that account, also speaking on condition of anonymity, because the official was not authorized to speak to the media.

“The threat to kill Bazoum is grim,” said Alexander Thurston, assistant professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati. There have been unwritten rules until now about how overthrown presidents will be treated and violence against Bazoum would evoke some of the worst coups of the past, he said.

Human Rights Watch said Friday that it had spoken to Bazoum, who said that his 20-year-old son was sick with a serious heart condition and has been refused access to a doctor. The president said he hasn’t had electricity for nearly 10 days and isn’t allowed to see family, friends or bring supplies into the house.

It’s unclear if the threat on Bazoum’s life would change ECOWAS’ decision to intervene military. It might give them pause, or push the parties closer to dialogue, but the situation has entered uncharted territory, analysts say.

“An ECOWAS invasion to restore constitutional order into a country of Niger’s size and population would be unprecedented,” said Nate Allen, an associate professor at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. Niger has a fairly large and well-trained army that, if it actively resisted an invasion, could pose significant problems for ECOWAS. This would be a very large and significant undertaking, he said.

While the region oscillates between mediation and preparing for war, Nigeriens are suffering the impact of harsh economic and travel sanctions imposed by ECOWAS.

Before the coup, more than 4 million Nigeriens were reliant on humanitarian assistance and the situation could become more dire, said Louise Aubin, the U.N. resident coordinator in Niger.

“The situation is alarming. … We’ll see an exponential rise and more people needing more humanitarian assistance,” she said, adding that the closure of land and air borders makes it hard to bring aid into the country and it’s unclear how long the current stock will last.

Aid groups are battling restrictions on multiple fronts.

ECOWAS sanctions have banned the movement of goods between Niger and member countries, making it hard to bring in materials. The World Food Program has some 30 trucks stuck at the Benin border unable to cross. Humanitarians are also trying to navigate restrictions within the country as the junta has closed the airspace, making it hard to get clearance to fly the humanitarian planes that transport goods and personnel to hard-hit areas.

Flights are cleared on a case-by-case basis and there’s irregular access to fuel, which disrupts aid operations, Aubin said.

The U.N. has asked ECOWAS to make exceptions to the sanctions and is speaking to Niger’s foreign ministry about doing the same within the country.

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For decades, artificial intelligence, or AI, was the engine of high-level STEM research. Most consumers became aware of the technology’s power and potential through internet platforms like Google and Facebook, and retailer Amazon. Today, AI is essential across a vast array of industries, including health care, banking, retail, and manufacturing.

But its game-changing promise to do things like improve efficiency, bring down costs, and accelerate research and development has been tempered of late with worries that these complex, opaque systems may do more societal harm than economic good. With virtually no U.S. government oversight, private companies use AI software to make determinations about health and medicine, employment, creditworthiness, and even criminal justice without having to answer for how they’re ensuring that programs aren’t encoded, consciously or unconsciously, with structural biases.

Its growing appeal and utility are undeniable. Worldwide business spending on AI is expected to hit $50 billion this year and $110 billion annually by 2024, even after the global economic slump caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a forecast released in August by technology research firm IDC. Retail and banking industries spent the most this year, at more than $5 billion each. The company expects the media industry and federal and central governments will invest most heavily between 2018 and 2023 and predicts that AI will be “the disrupting influence changing entire industries over the next decade.”

“Virtually every big company now has multiple AI systems and counts the deployment of AI as integral to their strategy,” said Joseph Fuller, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, who co-leads Managing the Future of Work, a research project that studies, in part, the development and implementation of AI, including machine learning, robotics, sensors, and industrial automation, in business and the work world.

Early on, it was popularly assumed that the future of AI would involve the automation of simple repetitive tasks requiring low-level decision-making. But AI has rapidly grown in sophistication, owing to more powerful computers and the compilation of huge data sets. One branch, machine learning, notable for its ability to sort and analyze massive amounts of data and to learn over time, has transformed countless fields, including education.

Firms now use AI to manage sourcing of materials and products from suppliers and to integrate vast troves of information to aid in strategic decision-making, and because of its capacity to process data so quickly, AI tools are helping to minimize time in the pricey trial-and-error of product development — a critical advance for an industry like pharmaceuticals, where it costs $1 billion to bring a new pill to market, Fuller said.

Health care experts see many possible uses for AI, including with billing and processing necessary paperwork. And medical professionals expect that the biggest, most immediate impact will be in analysis of data, imaging, and diagnosis. Imagine, they say, having the ability to bring all of the medical knowledge available on a disease to any given treatment decision.

In employment, AI software culls and processes resumes and analyzes job interviewees’ voice and facial expressions in hiring and driving the growth of what’s known as “hybrid” jobs. Rather than replacing employees, AI takes on important technical tasks of their work, like routing for package delivery trucks, which potentially frees workers to focus on other responsibilities, making them more productive and therefore more valuable to employers. 

“It’s allowing them to do more stuff better, or to make fewer errors, or to capture their expertise and disseminate it more effectively in the organization,” said Fuller, who has studied the effects and attitudes of workers who have lost or are likeliest to lose their jobs to AI.

Though automation is here to stay, the elimination of entire job categories, like highway toll-takers who were replaced by sensors because of AI’s proliferation, is not likely, according to Fuller.

“What we’re going to see is jobs that require human interaction, empathy, that require applying judgment to what the machine is creating [will] have robustness,” he said.

While big business already has a huge head start, small businesses could also potentially be transformed by AI, says Karen Mills ’75, M.B.A. ’77, who ran the U.S. Small Business Administration from 2009 to 2013. With half the country employed by small businesses before the COVID-19 pandemic, that could have major implications for the national economy over the long haul.

Rather than hamper small businesses, the technology could give their owners detailed new insights into sales trends, cash flow, ordering, and other important financial information in real time so they can better understand how the business is doing and where problem areas might loom without having to hire anyone, become a financial expert, or spend hours laboring over the books every week, Mills said.

One area where AI could “completely change the game” is lending, where access to capital is difficult in part because banks often struggle to get an accurate picture of a small business’s viability and creditworthiness.

“It’s much harder to look inside a business operation and know what’s going on” than it is to assess an individual, she said.

Information opacity makes the lending process laborious and expensive for both would-be borrowers and lenders, and applications are designed to analyze larger companies or those who’ve already borrowed, a built-in disadvantage for certain types of businesses and for historically underserved borrowers, like women and minority business owners, said Mills, a senior fellow at HBS.

But with AI-powered software pulling information from a business’s bank account, taxes, and online bookkeeping records and comparing it with data from thousands of similar businesses, even small community banks will be able to make informed assessments in minutes, without the agony of paperwork and delays, and, like blind auditions for musicians, without fear that any inequity crept into the decision-making.

“All of that goes away,” she said.

A veneer of objectivity

Not everyone sees blue skies on the horizon, however. Many worry whether the coming age of AI will bring new, faster, and frictionless ways to discriminate and divide at scale.

“Part of the appeal of algorithmic decision-making is that it seems to offer an objective way of overcoming human subjectivity, bias, and prejudice,” said political philosopher Michael Sandel, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government. “But we are discovering that many of the algorithms that decide who should get parole, for example, or who should be presented with employment opportunities or housing … replicate and embed the biases that already exist in our society.”

AI presents three major areas of ethical concern for society: privacy and surveillance, bias and discrimination, and perhaps the deepest, most difficult philosophical question of the era, the role of human judgment, said Sandel, who teaches a course in the moral, social, and political implications of new technologies.

“Debates about privacy safeguards and about how to overcome bias in algorithmic decision-making in sentencing, parole, and employment practices are by now familiar,” said Sandel, referring to conscious and unconscious prejudices of program developers and those built into datasets used to train the software. “But we’ve not yet wrapped our minds around the hardest question: Can smart machines outthink us, or are certain elements of human judgment indispensable in deciding some of the most important things in life?”

Panic over AI suddenly injecting bias into everyday life en masse is overstated, says Fuller. First, the business world and the workplace, rife with human decision-making, have always been riddled with “all sorts” of biases that prevent people from making deals or landing contracts and jobs.

When calibrated carefully and deployed thoughtfully, resume-screening software allows a wider pool of applicants to be considered than could be done otherwise, and should minimize the potential for favoritism that comes with human gatekeepers, Fuller said.

Sandel disagrees. “AI not only replicates human biases, it confers on these biases a kind of scientific credibility. It makes it seem that these predictions and judgments have an objective status,” he said.

In the world of lending, algorithm-driven decisions do have a potential “dark side,” Mills said. As machines learn from data sets they’re fed, chances are “pretty high” they may replicate many of the banking industry’s past failings that resulted in systematic disparate treatment of African Americans and other marginalized consumers.

“If we’re not thoughtful and careful, we’re going to end up with redlining again,” she said.

A highly regulated industry, banks are legally on the hook if the algorithms they use to evaluate loan applications end up inappropriately discriminating against classes of consumers, so those “at the top levels” in the field are “very focused” right now on this issue, said Mills, who closely studies the rapid changes in financial technology, or “fintech.”

“They really don’t want to discriminate. They want to get access to capital to the most creditworthy borrowers,” she said. “That’s good business for them, too.”

Oversight overwhelmed 

Given its power and expected ubiquity, some argue that the use of AI should be tightly regulated. But there’s little consensus on how that should be done and who should make the rules.

Thus far, companies that develop or use AI systems largely self-police, relying on existing laws and market forces, like negative reactions from consumers and shareholders or the demands of highly-prized AI technical talent to keep them in line.

“There’s no businessperson on the planet at an enterprise of any size that isn’t concerned about this and trying to reflect on what’s going to be politically, legally, regulatorily, [or] ethically acceptable,” said Fuller.

Firms already consider their own potential liability from misuse before a product launch, but it’s not realistic to expect companies to anticipate and prevent every possible unintended consequence of their product, he said.

Few think the federal government is up to the job, or will ever be.

“The regulatory bodies are not equipped with the expertise in artificial intelligence to engage in [oversight] without some real focus and investment,” said Fuller, noting the rapid rate of technological change means even the most informed legislators can’t keep pace. Requiring every new product using AI to be prescreened for potential social harms is not only impractical, but would create a huge drag on innovation.

Jason Furman, a professor of the practice of economic policy at Harvard Kennedy School, agrees that government regulators need “a much better technical understanding of artificial intelligence to do that job well,” but says they could do it.

Existing bodies like the National Highway Transportation Safety Association, which oversees vehicle safety, for example, could handle potential AI issues in autonomous vehicles rather than a single watchdog agency, he said.

“I wouldn’t have a central AI group that has a division that does cars, I would have the car people have a division of people who are really good at AI,” said Furman, a former top economic adviser to President Barack Obama.

Though keeping AI regulation within industries does leave open the possibility of co-opted enforcement, Furman said industry-specific panels would be far more knowledgeable about the overarching technology of which AI is simply one piece, making for more thorough oversight.

While the European Union already has rigorous data-privacy laws and the European Commission is considering a formal regulatory framework for ethical use of AI, the U.S. government has historically been late when it comes to tech regulation.

“I think we should’ve started three decades ago, but better late than never,” said Furman, who thinks there needs to be a “greater sense of urgency” to make lawmakers act.

Business leaders “can’t have it both ways,” refusing responsibility for AI’s harmful consequences while also fighting government oversight, Sandel maintains.

“The problem is these big tech companies are neither self-regulating, nor subject to adequate government regulation. I think there needs to be more of both,” he said, later adding: “We can’t assume that market forces by themselves will sort it out. That’s a mistake, as we’ve seen with Facebook and other tech giants.”

Last fall, Sandel taught “Tech Ethics,” a popular new Gen Ed course with Doug Melton, co-director of Harvard’s Stem Cell Institute. As in his legendary “Justice” course, students consider and debate the big questions about new technologies, everything from gene editing and robots to privacy and surveillance.

“Companies have to think seriously about the ethical dimensions of what they’re doing and we, as democratic citizens, have to educate ourselves about tech and its social and ethical implications — not only to decide what the regulations should be, but also to decide what role we want big tech and social media to play in our lives,” said Sandel.

Doing that will require a major educational intervention, both at Harvard and in higher education more broadly, he said.

“We have to enable all students to learn enough about tech and about the ethical implications of new technologies so that when they are running companies or when they are acting as democratic citizens, they will be able to ensure that technology serves human purposes rather than undermines a decent civic life.”

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Lawlessness in Haiti amounts to a “human rights emergency”, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned, urging immediate action as the Caribbean nation grapples with a spate of vigilante killings.

Speaking via video during a UN Security Council session on Wednesday, Volker Turk warned that Haiti is “dangling over an abyss”.

“The state’s lack of capacity to fulfill human rights has completely eroded people’s confidence. The social contract has collapsed. The current lawlessness is a human rights emergency that calls for a robust response,” said Turk, who visited the country in February.

“There is an immediate need to support Haiti’s institutions by deploying a time-bound, specialised and human rights-compliant support force, with a comprehensive action plan,” he said.

“The longer-term challenge, of course, is to build robust institutions that deliver on human rights.”

Gang violence has surged across the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince in recent months, fuelled in part by the power vacuum created following the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Haiti’s de facto leader, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, whom Moise chose for the post just days before he was killed, has faced a crisis of legitimacy. Attempts to chart a political transition for Haiti have failed, and a lack of functioning state institutions has made stemming the violence more difficult.

Deadly clashes have impeded access to healthcare facilities, forced the closure of schools and clinics, and worsened already dire food insecurity by cutting residents of gang-controlled areas off from critical supplies.

Last week, the head of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), Maria Isabel Salvador, said 1,674 homicides, rapes, kidnappings and lynchings were reported in the first quarter of 2023.

That is up from 692 such incidents in the same period a year earlier, said Salvador, citing data collected by BINUH and the Haitian National Police (HNP).

The humanitarian group Mercy Corps also recently warned that the country was on the “brink of civil war”, with many residents starting to question, “Why not seek revenge and take justice into their own hands?”

Last week, a mob lynched at least 13 suspected gang members who had been arrested in Port-au-Prince.

The Associated Press reported this week that five more men were killed and set on fire on Tuesday by a crowd of people in Jalousie, an impoverished area outside of Port-au-Prince.

Referencing people who were in the crowd, the news agency said most of the bodies were left along a road leading to former President Moise’s home, while one was left outside a police station in Pétionville, a suburb of the capital.

“It’s horrible for them to be killed in front of the eyes of the police,” Jean Marc Etienne, who was in a park in front of the police station and witnessed what happened, told the AP. “That shows nobody is safe, that anybody can be killed.”

On Monday, Henry, the Haitian prime minister, condemned the ongoing vigilante killings and ordered people to “calm down”.

“The insecurity we experience is appalling,” he said, adding that people should not be dragged “into mindless violence”.

Last October, Henry called on the international community to help set up a “specialised armed force” to quell violence in the country, a demand that has the backing of the UN and the United States.

But many Haitian civil society leaders have rejected the prospect of international intervention, saying history has demonstrated that foreign forces bring “more problems than solutions”.

Meanwhile, efforts to set up the international armed force have stalled, with no country agreeing to lead such a mission.

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If you think the pandemic-era shortage problems are fading away, think again.

An ongoing shortage of baby formula due to a wide-ranging manufacturer recall has been causing hardships for families in recent months. Production recently resumed at a previously-closed plant, but meanwhile the crisis is still persisting.

It’s not just baby formula. While many of the shortages from the pandemic’s early days have abated and hand sanitizer and toilet paper are now plentiful, consumers are still struggling to find certain goods because of ongoing supply chain snags, production delays and even extreme weather.

Here are eight things that are hard to find or extra expensive right now because of supply problems, from movie theater popcorn to tampons.

Sriracha Hot Sauce

In a letter to wholesale customers last month, sriracha maker Huy Fong Foods said that weather conditions are causing a severe shortage of the chili peppers it uses to make the beloved spicy condiment.

“Unfortunately, this is out of our control,” the company wrote. “Without this essential ingredient we are unable to produce any of our products.” It’s unclear when store inventory will be affected by the pepper shortage.

Popcorn

As moviegoers return to the box office this summer, they may encounter a popcorn shortage — or at least higher prices.

Farmers are growing less popcorn in general because other crops can yield higher profits at lower costs, the Wall Street Journal reported last month. An ongoing shortage of truckers is delaying shipments too.

And it’s not just the snack itself that’s difficult to source. Movie theater concession manufacturers are also facing shortages of cups, trays and the plastic liners for popcorn bags, according to the Journal.

Tampons

Retailers have been struggling to keep tampons on the shelves, according to a recent report from TIME, leaving people across the country struggling to access the essential care products.

In a recent earnings call, Andre Schulten, Chief Financial Officer at Tampax maker Procter & Gamble, cited difficulties sourcing raw materials and described the “costly and highly volatile” process of transporting its goods, including feminine care products. The company will raise prices in July to cope with the extra expenses.

Pet Food

The same supply chain issues affecting the grocery and personal care categories are also slowing down shipments of pet food this summer, and a shortage of aluminum cans is only making things worse. Citing “inconsistent availability and ongoing sourcing issues,” the Trader Joe’s grocery chain announced in April that it would discontinue six pet food products.

It’s hard to predict when things will return to normal. “Food brands are promising they are going to get better in the next four and six months; others are saying it might be up to a year before we see some of their products back in stock,” one Minnesota pet store general manager told local station KSTP this week.

Baby Formula

Back in February, Abbott Nutrition initiated a voluntary recall of certain powdered formulas under the Similac, Alimentum and EleCare brands after complaints of possible bacterial contamination.

The company said that none of its products tested positive for the bacteria, but the disruption stemming from the recall and subsequent shutdown of a plant in Michigan means that families are still struggling to find formula on store shelves and online.

Contrast Dye

Shortages also persist outside the grocery store. A contrast dye that is essential for medical imaging tests like CT scans is being rationed in hospitals and causing delays for patients, CNN reported this week. Coronavirus-related lockdowns in Shanghai, where the dye is manufactured by GE, are being blamed for the shortage.

Rental Cars

If you’re in the market for a rental car for your upcoming summer vacation, or even looking to buy a new car yourself, it’s a good idea to start your search early and prepare to spend extra.

An enormous drop in traveler demand in the early days of the pandemic prompted rental car companies to sell portions of their fleets, and they’ve struggled mightily to replenish their supply of cars. Production in the car manufacturing industry has slowed significantly because of an ongoing shortage of semiconductor chips.

For rental car companies, that means low inventory and high prices across the board. Bloomberg found that daily rental car rates in the U.S. this summer are roughly double what they were in the summer of 2019.

“It’s still tough out there,” Greg Scott, spokesman for the American Car Rental Association, told the Washington Post in March. “There are some instances where the supply of new cars has improved, but it’s not back where it needs to be and it won’t be for a long time.”

Houses

News about the red-hot housing market is inescapable, and home prices are up an eye-watering 20% in the last year alone. Those rising prices are attributable in large part to a severe shortage of housing inventory that has persisted throughout the pandemic. There were 48.5% fewer active listings last month compared to May 2020, according to recent data from Realtor.com.

Shipping delays and shortages of lumber and other raw materials helped drive up costs for home builders and slowed down the pace of construction — just as demand for new homes began to boom as people sought out more space during the pandemic. Thankfully, there are signs that construction is picking back up again. But for now, buyers can expect slim pickings and exorbitantly high prices.

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The ninth generation of game consoles is coming by the end of the year, headlined in part by Sony’s PlayStation 5. Sony has finally revealed every major detail of the system, like what the console will look like, its internal specs, and (finally) the price and launch date. Here’s everything we know about the PlayStation 5.

PlayStation 5 Release Date and Price

The PlayStation 5 will launch on November 12 in several regions, including North America. The system will be available for $499, the same price as the Xbox Series X. The PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, will retail for $399, $100 more than the Xbox Series S.

PlayStation 5 Controller and Design

We now know what the PS5 looks like. It’s tall, narrow, and white with a black middle. The curved, slim shape is reminiscent of a router more than a game console, and it’s a significant contrast to the Xbox Series X’s stark, cubelike shape. Despite its odd shape, it apparently will be usable horizontally, and not have to stand vertically to work.

Before Sony revealed the PS5’s design, it unveiled the DualSense controller that will go with it. It keeps the same general layout as the DualShock gamepads Sony has used since the original PlayStation, but it’s rounded, white, and more friendly-looking than previous controllers. It kind of looks like the gamepad version of Baymax from Big Hero 6 or a tiny pair of sunglasses with a huge white wig.

PlayStation 5 Specifications

Sony has gone into detail on the PS5’s internal specs, and they’re impressive. The PlayStation 5 features an eight-core AMD Zen 2 CPU paired with a custom Radeon GPU, giving it ray-tracing and 4K rendering capabilities. The CPU also features a 3D audio unit that will support directional audio similar to Dolby Atmos (or Sony’s own 360 Reality Audio), letting games generate sound in front, behind, to the sides, and even above the player (assuming the right speakers/headphones are being used). This will all run through 16GB of GDDR6 memory.

Instead of a hard drive, the PlayStation 5 will feature an 825GB SSD. This means games will load much faster than on previous consoles, and support some new features like suspending multiple games at once and what Sony’s lead designer Mark Cerny describes as “instant game startup.”

The PlayStation 5 will have an optical drive, though a disc-less PS5 Digital Edition will also be available. The optical-drive-equipped PS5 will specifically have an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive that will be able to play UHD Blu-ray movies in 4K, a feature the PlayStation 4 and even PS4 Pro lack (but the Xbox One S and Xbox One X both have). The PS5 Digital Edition appears to have the same specs as the standard PS5, besides the lack of an optical drive. This is notable, since its Microsoft equivalent, the digital-only Xbox Series S has significantly less power than the Xbox Series X.

PlayStation 5 Features

Sony has confirmed that the SSD will enable the system to suspend multiple games, letting you jump immediately back into whatever you feel like playing without loading it from the start. This is on top of the faster loading speeds for games that the SSD will enable.

The DualSense gamepad adds a few tricks as well, starting with a built-in microphone to let you use voice chat without a headset. It’s handy for some gamers, but could be a privacy concern for others. The controller also features improved force feedback, with “adaptive triggers” that add tension to the pull of the L2 and R2 triggers.

PlayStation 5 Games

As the new console generation comes in, expect to see plenty of crossover between PS4 and PS5 games. However, Sony has unveiled a wide spread of games being designed specifically for the PlayStation 5, which will be out either with the PS5 or in 2021.

They include sequels to very popular first- and second-party games, like Final Fantasy XVI, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Horizon: Forbidden West, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Resident Evil VIII: Village will also be released on the PlayStation 5 (whether it will be cross-platform has not yet been confirmed), along with several other large and indie third-party games, as well. The PS5 will also support PS4 backwards compatibility, and PlayStation Plus subscribers will even get access to a library of classic PS4 games on the PS5 at launch.

PlayStation 5 Accessories

Sony showed off a few first-party accessories to go with the PlayStation 5, including a charging stand for the DualSense controllers, a media remote, a camera, and the Pulse 3D wireless headset for audio. The new camera will presumably be used for PlayStation VR, though curiously Sony has not announced a new PS VR headset yet, and the Move controllers that PS VR currently uses come from the PlayStation 3.

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