Ben Harris-Roxas

Sharp observations from Ian Dunt:

“The trouble was that the government had no basic competence. It did not have the organisational proficiency to deliver on its stated aims. So Afghans were encouraged to send emails documenting their case which were simply never read. The tiny haphazard team of civil servants who did read some of them were not equipped with the specialist skills required to assess them. They did not even have a rudimentary understanding of Afghanistan’s ethnolinguistic groups. The men in charge - Dominic Rabb and Boris Johnson - did not have the kinds of minds which could handle the matter. So people were betrayed. They were left to the barbarism of the Taliban. They died. And all that is most admirable about this country and what it represents died with them, in the dust of Afghanistan.

This was by far the most shameful episode of the last 14 years of Tory government, but it is replicated in one form or another across the policy landscape: health, criminal justice, transport, you name it. The same process with the same outcome: incompetence followed by failure followed by national shame.”

14 years of Tory rule: Some shattered conclusions from a broken brain

Defined as the degree of “Indian blood” one must prove to their tribe in order to be considered a member of a tribe, this measure was historically (and still remains) crafted by colonial powers to regulate and ultimately reduce the populations of Native American Nations. Today, blood quantum is the most widely used way to record “membership,” affecting not just personal identity but also political and social rights.

I’ll Show You My Indian If You Show Me Yours esquire.com

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