E.U. WORRIES ‘ARMENIA!

’ RWANDA IS RISING
WHO CAN FILL ILLUMINATING VERDANT, REFLECTIVE
MERKEL’S ROLE? A NATION’S STORY AND OPEN FOR BUSINESS
PAGE 3 | WORLD PAGE 19 | CULTURE BACK PAGE | TRAVEL

..

INTERNATIONAL EDITION | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018

Trump plays Tossing out

his greatest ideas before
hits of 2016 vote to see
what sticks
NEWS ANALYSIS
WASHINGTON

Ross Douthat As other topics monopolize

attention, Trump is trying
to get back to center stage
OPINION
BY PETER BAKER

Every good politician knows that you First there was the middle-class tax cut
need a closing argument for your that even his allies and many of his aides
campaign, a way to seal the deal with had not heard about. Then troops were
wavering voters or goose turnout dispatched to the border to counter an
among the already committed. So in “invasion of our country” by impover-
the last two weeks, with the midterms ished migrants far from the border.
looming, Donald Trump has offered a And then, on Tuesday, President
set of closing arguments that might be Trump declared that he would sign an
summarized as follows: The fake news executive order essentially rewriting
media is the enemy and reporters de- the Constitution as it has been tradition-
serve to be roughed up a little, I’m ally interpreted to stop children of un-
going to help the middle class with tax documented immigrants from automat-
cuts and cheaper prescription drugs, ically becoming citizens just because
and nobody will be tougher on illegal they are born in the United States,
immigration — claiming power no other president has
The president whether that means asserted.
sending thousands of In the last days before a midterm con-
closes the troops to the south- gressional election that will determine
2018 ern border or ending the future of his presidency, Mr. Trump
campaign birthright citizenship seems to be throwing almost anything
with a return by fiat. he can think of against the wall to see
to his 2016 The media-bash- ANUSHREE FADNAVIS/REUTERS what might stick, no matter how unteth-
strategy. ing part of the pitch Smog shrouding the India Gate war memorial in New Delhi. In some global rankings of cities with the worst air pollution, India holds nine of the top 10 spots. ered from political or legal reality. Frus-
comes from Trump’s trated that other topics — like last
Twitter feed and his week’s spate of mail bombs — came to

India struggles to breathe

recent Montana rally,
where he hailed the congressman who
assaulted a journalist unprovoked as
“my kind of guy.” The middle-class
populism is embodied in Trump’s va-
porous proposal to cut middle-class
taxes by 10 percent, and his more
credible plan to change the way Medi-
care pays for prescription drugs so
that we aren’t subsidizing the world.
And the illegal-immigration gambits
describe themselves.
What unites these arguments is that
they were all crucial to his pitch during
the 2016 campaign, all part of what
made Trump-the-candidate unlike a
normal Republican nominee: He was
hard-line on immigration in ways that
included xenophobic flourishes like the
Muslim ban, he was populist on eco-
nomics in a way that placed him closer
to the center than a Paul Ryan or a Mitt
Romney, and whether in rally one-liners
or retweets he winked at not only ex-
tremism but even vigilante violence.
In his presidency the first two as-
pects of Trumpian exceptionalism have
been blocked or limited — the courts
and Congress have pushed back
against his most restrictive immigra-
tion measures (narrowing the travel
ban, forcing him to abandon the child
separation policy), and congressional
Republicans’ preference for warmed-
over supply-side economics has often
DOUTHAT, PAGE 14
The New York Times publishes opinion
from a wide range of perspectives in
hopes of promoting constructive debate
about consequential questions.
NEW DELHI
Seasonal smog chokes
its cities, among the
world’s most polluted
BY KAI SCHULTZ,
JEFFREY GETTLEMAN,
HARI KUMAR
AND AYESHA VENKATARAMAN
A toxic fog is creeping over New Delhi.
Children trudge to school with plastic
masks strapped to their faces. Sports
events are canceled. Eyes burn. Throats
itch. Chests heave.
It’s the dreaded pollution season in In-
dia, when the amount of vehicle fumes,
dust and smoke from agricultural fires
spikes to levels so high that experts say
that breathing this air could cause per-
manent brain damage in children.
Agra. Lucknow. Varanasi. New Delhi.
India’s most fabled cities are now among
the world’s most polluted. According to
some recent rankings, India holds nine
of the top 10 spots. In a sign of how many
people — especially the elite — are dis-
tressed about this, shops in Delhi now
sell “pollution guard” sunscreen and
shampoo.
Toxic air has become a global menace
that kills seven million people each year,
burned dried-up rice stalks to clear the
land for the next season’s wheat crop.
The sky became so sooty that the af-
ternoons resembled evenings. The
smoke drifted nearly 200 miles south-
east, blanketing New Delhi. Dalbir
Singh Kaleka, a farmer with a snow-
white beard, said he and his neighbors
put up with the discomfort because
burning was cheap and easy.
“We all did it,” he said.
But this November could be different.
Mr. Kaleka and his fellow farmers have
been buffeted with public service mes-
sages, including a new hit song, “Don’t
Burn the Stubble Brother, Don’t Burn.”
More persuasive, perhaps, is the $156
million chunk that the Indian govern-
ment has set aside for subsidizing alter-
natives to crop burning, such as renting
big steel machines that push the excess
REBECCA CONWAY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES rice stalks into the ground to act as a na-
Burning farm fields in the village of Bishanpur Channa. India is spending more than $150 tural fertilizer.
million to dissuade farmers from the traditional practice, a big cause of air pollution. This year, Mr. Kaleka said he and
many of his neighbors were trying to
burn as little as possible. “Look, I do not
the United Nations Environment Pro- While data from across India shows want to pollute,” he said. “My son tells
gram said in a bleak report released that hazardous air pollution continues to me, ‘Even if you lose money, we should
Tuesday. The bulk of these deaths are in rise, progress is being made. The central save India’s image.’”
the Asia-Pacific region, it said. government, for the first time, is spend- Indian government agencies are ca-
The report outlined 25 measures that ing more than $150 million to dissuade pable of taking bold steps. Beyond the
could easily reduce air pollution (which farmers from burning their fields. subsidies in Punjab, the authorities shut
also contributes to climate change). One Take the village of Bishanpur Channa, down the last coal plant near New Delhi,
tactic: stopping the burning of agricul- in the northern state of Punjab. Every and they have rerouted traffic and
tural waste like the countless farm fires November, for as long as anybody can banned some dirty fuel sources.
sweeping across northern India. remember, Bishanpur Channa’s farmers INDIA, PAGE 4
dominate the news, the president has
sought to seize back the national stage
in the last stretch of the campaign.
Ad hoc though they may be, Mr.
Trump’s red-meat ideas have come to
shape the conversation and, he hopes,
may galvanize otherwise complacent
conservative voters to turn out on Tues-
day. But he risks motivating opponents,
and he has put even some of his fellow
Republicans on the spot as they are
forced to take a position on issues they
were not expecting to have to address.
Within hours of his promise to end
birthright citizenship, some Republi-
cans were denouncing the idea or dis-
tancing themselves from it. “Well, you
obviously cannot do that,” Speaker Paul
D. Ryan of Wisconsin told WVLK, a ra-
dio station in Lexington, Ky. “I’m a be-
liever in following the plain text of the
Constitution, and I think in this case, the
14th Amendment is pretty clear.”
Representative Ryan A. Costello of
Pennsylvania said Republicans in sub-
urban districts with large numbers of
immigrants were already struggling to
hold on. “So now POTUS, out of no-
where, brings birthright citizenship up,”
he wrote on Twitter, using the acronym
for “president of the United States.” “Be-
sides being basic tenet of America, it’s
political malpractice.”
Mr. Trump has long favored eliminat-
ing automatic citizenship for children of
ELECTION, PAGE 7
PLAN HAS LITTLE SUPPORT
President Trump said an executive
order would end the right of citizenship
for anyone born in the U.S. PAGE 7

Standing up for her rights while sitting down

CLIFFSIDE PARK, N.J.
Disabled Muslim comic
has development deal
to star in U.S. sitcom
BY CARA BUCKLEY
The stand-up comedian Maysoon Zayid
likes to joke that if there were a competi-
tion called the Oppression Olympics,
she would win gold.
“I’m Palestinian, Muslim. I’m a wom-
an of color. I’m disabled,” Zayid, who has
cerebral palsy, tells audiences, before
pausing a beat to hang her head, her
long dark hair curtaining her face, “and
I live in New Jersey.”
The joke lands laughs whether Zayid
tells it in red states or blue, and puts peo-
ple exactly where Zayid wants them:
disarmed, charmed and eager for more.
She told it near the beginning of her 2014
TED Talk, which drew nearly 15 million
views, became the most-watched TED
Talk that year and changed Zayid’s life.
She now has a development deal with
ABC to create a semiautobiographical
sitcom called “Can-Can,” starring her.
The show faces daunting odds; only a
handful of the dozens of scripts that net-
works order each fall make it to the air.
But if “Can-Can” makes it all the way —
Zayid told studio executives that she
would end up in an internment camp if it
didn’t — it may push two populations,
one widely ignored, the other demon-
ized, from the margins in the United
States into the mainstream.
People with disabilities make up
nearly 20 percent of the population in
America, yet account for about 2 percent
of onscreen characters, about 95 per-
cent of whom are played by able-bodied
stars. And it is hard to imagine a group
more vilified in the United States than
Muslims or Middle Easterners, whom,
as Zayid’s television writing partner, Jo-
anna Quraishi, said, “Americans see as
either terrorists or Kardashians.”
KARSTEN MORAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES The executive producers of “Can-
The comic Maysoon Zayid, who has cerebral palsy, at home in New Jersey. She says that Can” include Todd Milliner and Sean
she wants to be “the image of the American you don’t think is American.” COMIC, PAGE 2

Y(1J85IC*KKNPKP( +&!"!$![![
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 ..
2 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

page two

A mythical, murderous Boston mob boss

JAMES (WHITEY) BULGER
1929-2018
BY ROBERT D. MCFADDEN
James (Whitey) Bulger, the South Bos-
ton mobster and F.B.I. informer who
was captured after 16 years on the run
and finally brought to justice in 2013 for
a murderous reign of terror that in-
spired books, films and a saga of Irish-
American brotherhood and brutality,
was found beaten to death on Tuesday in
a West Virginia prison. He was 89.
Two Federal Bureau of Prisons em-
ployees, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity because the information was
not yet public, said Mr. Bulger was beat-
en until he was unrecognizable by in-
mates shortly after he arrived at the
prison, the Hazelton federal penitentia-
ry in Bruceton Mills. He had been
moved from prison to prison in recent
years and was incarcerated in Florida
before being transferred to Hazelton,
which has been rife with violence.
One of the workers said that inmates
were thought to be “affiliated with the
mob.” A law enforcement official who
oversees organized crime cases said he
had been told by a federal law enforce-
ment official that a mob figure was be-
lieved to be responsible for the killing.
Mr. Bulger, who was serving two life
sentences for 11 murders, was found un-
responsive Tuesday morning and pro-
nounced dead by the Preston County
Medical Examiner, the Federal Bureau
of Prisons said in a statement. It did not
indicate a cause of death.
To the families of those he executed
gangland-style and to a neighborhood
held in thrall long after he vanished in
1994, Mr. Bulger’s arrest in Santa Mon-
ica, Calif., in 2011 and his conviction of
gruesome crimes brought a final reck-
oning of sorts and an end to the career of
one of America’s most notorious under-
world figures, the heir to a nation’s fasci-
nations with Dillinger, Capone and
Gotti.
In an all-but-lost era in South Boston,
before glassy condos and a showcase
harbor replaced mean streets and a de-
crepit waterfront, Mr. Bulger dominated
the rackets and folklore in an Irish-
American working-class enclave. Tales
of his exploits were learned from child-
hood there: how he shot men between
the eyes, stabbed rivals in the heart with
ice picks, strangled women who might
betray him and buried victims in secret
graveyards after yanking their teeth to
thwart identification.
For years before details of Whitey
Bulger’s criminal history became
known through trials, books, newspa-
pers and congressional hearings, popu-
lar myths in South Boston portrayed
him as an Irish Robin Hood, giving out
turkeys on Thanksgiving and protecting
his own from the hated police and out-
siders.
His code of the streets was touted:
Never sell angel dust to children or her-
oin in the neighborhood, trust only the
Irish, never lie to a friend or partner and
above all never squeal to the authorities.
He was an inspiration for Jack Nich-
olson’s mob boss in Martin Scorsese’s
2006 film, “The Departed,” set in Bos-
ton.
But such romantic notions were shat-
tered by disclosures that for some 15
years he had been a federal informer
and that the authorities had turned a
blind eye to his crimes in exchange for
his snitching on the Mafia.
Beyond corrupting agents with
bribes, the government said, the ar-
rangement helped him conceal 19 mur-
ders, learn the identities of witnesses
who later turned up dead, and send an
innocent man to prison for a killing that
Mr. Bulger had committed. It also led to
STUART CAHILL/THE BOSTON HERALD, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
James (Whitey) Bulger was escorted after a court hearing in 2011. He was convicted of participating in 11 murders.
undercover handler for years. Mr. Bul-
ger and his companion, Catherine Greig,
who joined him after he fled, were ex-
traordinarily elusive, despite interna-
tional searches. Sightings were re-
ported in Europe, Canada, Mexico and
elsewhere in the United States but no
traces were found. For a decade he was
on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted list. A $2 mil-
lion reward was offered for his capture,
the largest ever for a domestic fugitive.
A LIFE ON THE RUN
Mr. Bulger’s elusiveness was not co-
incidental. Kevin Weeks, who wrote a
memoir, “Brutal: The Untold Story of
My Life Inside Whitey Bulger’s Irish
Mob” (2006, with Phyllis Karas), said
that in 1993 and 1994 Mr. Bulger pre-
pared for life on the run by taking safe
deposit boxes in Montreal, London,
THE BOSTON GLOBE, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS Dublin, Venice and American cities to
Boston police mug shots of Mr. Bulger in 1953. After being discharged from the Air Force hide cash, jewelry and identity papers
at 20 for going AWOL, he robbed banks in three states and served nine years in prison. under false names. (Imprisoned on
racketeering charges, Mr. Weeks be-
came a cooperating witness against Mr.
a re-evaluation of rules for dealing with authorities looked the other way — Mr. Bulger.)
informers. Bulger vanished just as federal officials After plastic surgery to change their
In December 1994, after decades of were about to unseal an indictment and appearances, Mr. Bulger and Ms. Greig
extortion, bookmaking, loan-sharking, arrest him on racketeering charges. It settled in Santa Monica, Calif., in a small
gambling, truck hijacking and drug was later learned that he had been apartment a few blocks from the Pacific,
dealing — much of it carried out as the tipped off by the agent who had been his in 1996. They called themselves Charlie
and Carol Gasko and lived reclusively,
paying their $1,145 monthly rent in cash.
He spent his days watching televi-
sion. She took walks, went to a beauty
parlor and — being a former dental tech-
nician — had her teeth cleaned monthly.
They took occasional trips, but mostly
stayed home.
Embarrassed by its dealings with Mr.
Bulger as an informer and frustrated by
his invisibility, the F.B.I. in 2011 began a
national advertising campaign that fo-
cused not on him but on Ms. Greig’s idio-
syncrasies. Her beauty parlor and teeth-
cleaning visits were featured in 350 pub-
lic service announcements in 14 cities on
daytime television shows favored by
older women. They noted that the re-
ward for her had doubled to $100,000.
Acting on a tip, agents closed in and
arrested the couple on June 22, 2011.
They offered no resistance. The white-
blond Bulger hair had been dyed black
and was receding. He was 81 and had a
paunch. But the angular, narrow face,
the jutting chin and the clever eyes be-
hind sunglasses were unmistakable. In-
side the apartment walls, agents found
$822,000 in cash, false identity papers
and a score of handguns and rifles.
James Joseph Bulger Jr. was born on
Sept. 3, 1929, in Dorchester, Mass., one of
six children of James Bulger and the for-
mer Jane McCarthy. His father, a la-
borer, lost an arm in an industrial acci-
His code of the streets was said
to be never sell angel dust to
children, trust only the Irish and
never lie to a friend or partner.
dent. James grew up in a public-housing
project in South Boston, known as
Southie, a clannish community of
30,000, mostly Irish-American, across a
narrow waterway from downtown Bos-
ton. He preferred the streets to school,
where his brothers, William and John,
excelled.
A troublemaker from an early age,
Whitey ran with a gang, stole cars,
mugged people and was sent to reform
school. He joined the Air Force at 20 but
was discharged after going AWOL. He
robbed banks in Massachusetts, Rhode
Island and Indiana and served nine
years in federal prisons.
Back in South Boston, he became an
enforcer for an Irish mob. In 1979, he and
an associate, Stephen Flemmi, took over
the infamous Winter Hill Gang, which
had dominated crime there for years.
By then, both were F.B.I. informers.
The dates and circumstances of their re-
cruitments are in dispute, but the target
was the Patriarca family, which con-
trolled organized crime in New Eng-
land.
John Connolly, an F.B.I. agent who
had been a childhood friend of Mr. Bul-
ger’s, became his handler.
The arrangement helped end the Pa-
triarca reign, but the price was high. In
1998, Chief Judge Mark Wolf of Massa-
chusetts federal court concluded that
the F.B.I. had protected both inform-
ants, even from the police, as they com-
mitted murders and other heinous
crimes.
Mr. Flemmi and Mr. Connolly were
convicted of involvement in murders
and given long prison terms.
While he apparently never married,
Mr. Bulger had a long relationship with a
waitress from Quincy, Mass., and an-
other with Theresa Stanley, who had
children from a previous relationship.
Ms. Stanley fled with Mr. Bulger when
he disappeared in 1994, but within
weeks returned to her children. Mr. Bul-
ger was then joined by Ms. Greig, who
spent the fugitive years with him. She
survives him, as do Mr. Bulger’s broth-
ers.
FACING JUSTICE, FINALLY
After their capture, Mr. Bulger and Ms.
Greig were returned to Boston to face
trials. Ms. Greig was charged with har-
boring a fugitive and, as part of a 2012
plea agreement, was sentenced to eight
years in prison and a $150,000 fine. She
was later sentenced to 21 more months
in prison for refusing to testify before a
grand jury investigating whether other
people had helped Mr. Bulger while he
was a fugitive.
Mr. Bulger was charged with complic-
ity in 19 murders, racketeering, extor-
tion, money laundering and other
crimes. A parade of former associates
testified against him in a two-month
trial, telling of the killing of rival hood-
lums and others who had been identified
as informers. Witnesses told of guns in
victims’ faces and crotches and of de-
mands for cash for the privilege of doing
business on Bulger turf.
Mr. Bulger, who exchanged obsceni-
ties with some of his accusers, did not
take the stand. His lawyers, J. W. Carney
Jr. and Hank Brennan, described a cul-
ture of official corruption, with agents
taking bribes and alerting criminals to
wiretaps and pending indictments, but
offered little evidence that Mr. Bulger
could not have committed the crimes.
In August 2013, the jury convicted him
of 31 of 32 counts, including participa-
tion in 11 murders, while saying that the
prosecution had not proved his involve-
ment in seven others. No verdict was
reached in the death of one of two slain
women.
“It’s good to be over,” June Barry, 79, a
lifelong South Boston resident who used
to joke with friends about Mr. Bulger’s
grip on the neighborhood, said after the
verdicts. “I’m glad they got him, and
they got him alive. He has to pay for it
now.”
Federal Judge Denise J. Casper sen-
tenced Mr. Bulger to two life terms plus
five years. She also ordered him to pay
$19.5 million in restitution to his victims’
families and to forfeit $25.2 million to the
government, although it was unclear if
any of the millions he had stolen would
be retrievable.
“The testimony of human suffering
that you and your associates inflicted on
others was at times agonizing to hear
and painful to watch,” the judge said to a
courtroom filled with sobbing relatives
of the killer’s victims. “The scope, the
callousness, the depravity of your
crimes are almost unfathomable.”
Mr. Bulger had been moved to the Ha-
zelton prison after threatening a worker
at the Coleman prison in Sumterville,
Fla., according to one of the Hazelton
workers who spoke on the condition of
anonymity.
Hazelton has been a hotbed of vio-
lence, recording 275 episodes of assaults
on workers and fighting among inmates
in 2017, an investigation by The New
York Times found. At least two inmates
were reported killed there this year.
In a statement, Mr. Carney, one of Mr.
Bulger’s lawyers, said the prison au-
thorities shared blame in Mr. Bulger’s
death. “He was sentenced to life in pris-
on,” Mr. Carney said, “but as a result of
decisions by the Federal Bureau of Pris-
ons, that sentence has been changed to
the death penalty.”
After his incarceration, the story of
Mr. Bulger continued to generate pub-
licity, as well as books, a documentary
feature and a movie starring Johnny
Depp.
To raise money for the victims, the
government auctioned off more than 100
bins of items confiscated from Mr. Bul-
ger — furniture, sunglasses, sneakers,
hoodies and jewelry.
Katherine Q. Seelye, Danielle Ivory and
William K. Rashbaum contributed re-
porting.

Disabled Muslim comic has development deal for sitcom

COMIC, FROM PAGE 1
Hayes, who plays Jack on “Will &
Grace,” itself a groundbreaking show
credited with helping make gay charac-
ters mainstream. Milliner and Hayes
are well aware of the envelope-pushing
potential of “Can-Can” but said that was
not what had sold them on Zayid. Her
energy filled the room, and she was self-
aware, super smart and madly funny.
Crucially, she had a singular story. “The
whole business is moving even more to-
ward authentic stories that aren’t on TV
right now,” Milliner said.
Zayid is a vociferous part of a small,
dedicated movement calling attention to
disability rights in entertainment, which
are consistently overlooked in conver-
sations about diversity. Jay Ruderman,
president of the Ruderman Family
Foundation, a philanthropic and advo-
cacy organization for disability rights (it
also works to strengthen ties between
American Jews and Israel), said Zayid’s
show could crush the enduring stigmas
disabled people face. “Progress is being
made very slowly, but shows can be
transformational,” he said.
The “Can-Can” character will be
much like Zayid, a woman who happens
to be disabled and Muslim and who
grew up in New Jersey with big hair and
Metallica T-shirts, navigating love and
friendships and the world.
“I want to get out there and be the im-
age of the American you don’t think is
American, and the Muslim you don’t
think of when you think of a Muslim,”
she said.
Zayid lives in a bright, plant-filled
apartment in Cliffside Park, N.J., that
she shares with her husband and their
cat. She likes to keep her husband’s
name private and publicly refers to him
as Chefugee, for he is indeed both a refu-
gee — they met while she was working
with refugees in the Palestinian territo-
ries — and a chef.
Zayid’s parents, who are from a vil-
lage outside Ramallah, also raised their
family here. Zayid is the youngest of
four daughters and had an idyllic child-
hood, despite a traumatic birth. The doc-
The “Can-Can” character will be
much like Zayid, a woman who
is disabled and Muslim and who
grew up in New Jersey.
tor botched her mother’s C-section, she
said, smothering Zayid. Cerebral palsy
is not genetic; it’s often caused by brain
trauma before or during birth, and man-
ifests differently in different people. Za-
yid shakes all the time, though yoga has
reduced the severity, and can walk but
not stand for very long (she calls herself
a sit-down stand-up comedian).
Her parents treated her no differently
from her siblings. Her father, a gregari-
ous salesman, taught her to walk by
having her stand on his feet. She was
sent to dance and piano lessons because
the family could not afford physical or
occupational therapy, and she became a
popular high achiever. “I lived in a bub-
ble,” she told me, “and that is very much
related to who I am now.”
At college, her bubble burst. She went
to Arizona State University on an aca-
demic scholarship, and on her first day
in an English literature class, her profes-
sor stunned her by asking, “Can you
read?” She majored in theater — her
lifelong dream has been to appear on
“General Hospital” — yet despite im-
pressing teachers she was never cast in
school productions. Even when the the-
ater department mounted a play about a
girl with cerebral palsy, a nondisabled
student was chosen over Zayid for the
part. “It was devastating, because I
knew I was good,” Zayid said. “The girl
who got it was a great actress. But why
would anyone want to see her fake cere-
bral palsy, when I’m sitting right here?”
It was a light-bulb moment, and she
realized that the movies she loved with
disabled characters, like “Born on the
Fourth of July,” “What’s Eating Gilbert
Grape,” and “Rain Man,” all had visibly
nondisabled stars. She pursued acting
after graduation, until a forthright ac-
ting coach told her she would never get
cast and ought to do a one-woman show.
Zayid took comedy classes instead, be-
gan to get gigs, and after Sept. 11, 2001,
started the New York Arab-American
Comedy Festival with Dean Obeidallah.
“The simplest way for me to describe
Maysoon is fearless,” Obeidallah said.
She also toured with the stand-up
comedy show Arabs Gone Wild, landed
a part in Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t
Mess with the Zohan,” and became a po-
litical commentator on “Countdown
with Keith Olbermann,” which proved a
revelation.
Maysoon Zayid performing in New York. A colleague has described her as fearless.
Zayid had long understood that some
nondisabled people recoiled at disabili-
ties out of fear. “They’re one popped
blood vessel or car accident away from
being this way,” she said. But her Olber-
mann appearances drew hateful online
comments calling her, she said, “a
Gumby-mouth terrorist” and “an honor
killing gone wrong.” It was the first time
Zayid had been mocked for being dis-
abled and made her suddenly aware of
the abuse that disabled people routinely
faced.
After Zayid’s TED Talk went viral, she
became one of the most booked speak-
SAM HODGSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
ers at the huge talent agency WME and
used her bigger platform to push ques-
tions forward: Where were the visibly
disabled news anchors and talk-show
hosts? Why, outside a handful of shows
— among them “Switched at Birth,”
“Breaking Bad,” “American Horror
Story,” and “Speechless” — were visibly
disabled actors largely absent from tele-
vision? Why was it O.K. for nondisabled
stars to play disabled characters — a
practice nicknamed “CripFace” — and
win big awards?
While performances by, say, Joaquin
Phoenix as a wheelchair-using cartoon-
ist or Eddie Redmayne as Stephen
Hawking largely go unquestioned, and
even lauded, by able-bodied people, Za-
yid said that for many people with dis-
abilities, their acting looks cartoonish,
exaggerated, offensive and inauthentic.
“You can put on makeup to look Asian
or Latino or black, but black, Asian and
Latino people know you’re not,” she
said. “And disabled people watching
their disabilities being poorly portrayed
know it’s not them either.”
Or, as she says onstage, if a person in a
wheelchair can’t play Beyoncé, Beyoncé
can’t play a person in a wheelchair.
Zayid will find out in January whether
her show is to be made into a pilot. In the
meantime, she is zipping around the
world. In recent years, her gigs have in-
cluded performing at the Team Beach-
body Coach Summit — it’s for workout
fiends — in Nashville; opening for Pit-
bull in Las Vegas; and doing comedy, in
both Arabic and English, in the United
Arab Emirates.
At every turn, she slaps down people
for using a particularly dreaded word.
“If you think I’m inspirational be-
cause I go and do sit-down stand-up
comedy uncovered and uncensored in
the middle of the Arab world, I’ll take it,”
she said.
“If you think I’m inspirational be-
cause I wake up in the morning and
don’t weep about the fact that I’m dis-
abled, that’s not inspirational,” she con-
tinued. “That’s like I make you feel bet-
ter about yourself because you’re not
me. I want to make you feel better about
yourself because I made you laugh.”
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
World
E.U. is nervous at prospect of Merkel’s exit
BRUSSELS
Anxiety over who can fill
role of a reliable protector
of Europe’s core values
BY STEVEN ERLANGER
The European stage Angela Merkel
commanded for so long and so effec-
tively may be cracking, if not collapsing.
She has been the poster woman for Eu-
rope’s democratic center, but the center
is imploding. She and Germany have
been a symbol of stability, but now even
Germany is seen as politically unstable.
Nonetheless, the prospect of her de-
parture — she announced this week that
she will not run for another term as the
German chancellor — has created a de-
gree of panic at the core of the European
Union.
Ms. Merkel may be becoming more
unpopular at home, and her influence
over others may be waning. But to those
who believed — and worked for — the
dream of an ever-closer union, Ms.
Merkel was considered fundamentally
reliable, decent and committed to Eu-
rope and its values. She stood as a bul-
wark against the strutting populists
who now run countries as varied as Ita-
ly, Hungary and Poland.
What Europe will do without Ms.
Merkel is no small question, especially
when nationalism is rising and Europe’s
politics seem to be reorganized not
along the usual left-right spectrum, but
rather around who is for Europe, and
who is against it.
“She provided the sense that someone
was in control and could be counted on,”
said Jan Techau, the Berlin-based direc-
tor of the Europe program for the Ger-
man Marshall Fund of the United States.
“She gave the assurance that Germany
was the reserve power in Europe on
which you could depend. While she
made mistakes, you could rely on
Merkel even if you didn’t like her.”
Who can act as a counterbalance to
the forces tearing at the bloc’s unity in
her eventual absence — Ms. Merkel said
she would finish her term that ends in
2021, though that seems doubtful — is
suddenly an urgent discussion.
Tomas Valasek, the director of Car-
negie Europe, a foreign policy research
organization, said that Ms. Merkel “cre-
ated European consensus out of noth-
ing,” and everyone wonders, “My God,
who will do the job for her?”
Emmanuel Macron, the president of
France, is “now the default leader of Eu-
rope, the big hope,” Mr. Techau said.
“He’s the last one with a strong mandate
and an instinct for the right thing.”
But for now at least, before elections
in May, Mr. Macron, unpopular at home,
‘Fear is coming back’ as Sri Lanka enters crisis
NEWS ANALYSIS
BY MARIA ABI-HABIB
AND DHARISHA BASTIANS
When Sri Lanka’s president was elected
in 2015, he was given a sweeping man-
date from voters to investigate accusa-
tions of war crimes and graft against his
predecessor’s government and to cancel
deals with China that had plunged the
country into debt.
Now the president, Maithripala
Sirisena, has become an agent of the
comeback effort of the man he replaced,
Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Mr. Sirisena has unilaterally sus-
pended Parliament and the cabinet and
declared that Mr. Rajapaksa would im-
mediately become the new prime min-
ister.
The Parliament and public that once
rallied around Mr. Sirisena are now bit-
terly divided over what his critics call an
unconstitutional attempt to consolidate
power.
The country is split down the middle,
with members of Parliament slightly
tilted toward Prime Minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe, who is standing his
ground despite attempts to replace him
with Mr. Rajapaksa.
Sri Lanka, one of Asia’s oldest democ-
racies, has now been left with two prime
ministers claiming legitimacy, and con-
cerns that violence might be used to
break the stalemate.
Though the current crisis appeared to
have been at least partly caused by bit-
ter personal differences between the
leaders, it has geopolitical importance.
India and China have been locked in an
expensive competition for influence in
Sri Lanka, and Mr. Rajapaksa’s allies
blame his 2015 election defeat on med-
dling from New Delhi. India denies the
allegations.
Mr. Wickremesinghe said that any le-
gitimate confidence vote in Parliament
would confirm that he still had the votes
to remain in office. “I am confident that I
am the only one who can get a majority.
If someone else can show a majority, I
will give way,” Mr. Wickremesinghe said
in a news conference on Monday.
The president’s move to consolidate
power and invite Mr. Rajapaksa back
into government starkly counters the
promises he made to investigate the for-
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has a consensus-minded pragmatism that has been crucial to keeping Europe together through a series of crises.
has no representatives in the European
Parliament. And his ideas for reform of
the bloc and the eurozone — the group of
countries that share the euro currency
— laid out in September 2017, have got-
ten little traction.
The problem for Mr. Macron was, and
remains, that he is not strong enough on
“She gave the assurance that
Germany was the reserve
power in Europe on which
you could depend.”
his own to push through his ambitious
vision of ‘‘more Europe.’’ He needs Ger-
man support.
On paper, Ms. Merkel has committed
to support some of Mr. Macron’s ideas
for eurozone reform and his call for a
new start in Europe. If she was luke-
mer government’s actions during the
country’s long civil war. During his 10
years in power, Mr. Rajapaksa and his
government were accused of rights vio-
lations in the endgame of the war
against Tamil Tiger separatists. Opposi-
tion politicians, aid workers and journal-
ists routinely disappeared; many were
found dead.
During his campaign in 2015, Presi-
dent Sirisena used the image of the jour-
nalist and cartoonist Prageeth Ek-
naligoda, who had been critical of Mr.
Rajapaksa and disappeared in 2010, as a
symbol of Mr. Rajapaksa’s tenure.
On Monday, Mr. Eknaligoda’s wife,
Sandhya Eknaligoda, who campaigned
for Mr. Sirisena in 2015, called Mr. Ra-
japaksa’s appointment last week “a
great betrayal.”
“When we walked the streets for Mr.
Sirisena, we walked against the politics
of fear and repression. Today, the same
Mr. Sirisena is bringing the man who
terrorized us back to power,” she said.
“The fear is coming back.”
The crisis appears to be the first un-
constitutional transfer of power in Sri
Lanka’s independent history.
Mr. Rajapaksa and his supporters say
Mr. Wickremesinghe’s government has
behaved unconstitutionally by delaying
provincial elections.
“We are working as a caretaker gov-
ernment to prepare for elections next
year,” said Namal Rajapaksa, Mr. Ra-
japaksa’s son and a parliamentarian.
Mr. Wickremesinghe’s government, he
said, had “delayed elections for three
years and that was unconstitutional and
no one said anything.”
Mr. Wickremesinghe is hunkered
down in his residence with hundreds of
supporters and Buddhist monks sur-
rounding the building, complicating Mr.
Sirisena’s ability to oust him without a
bloody showdown. The president is in
charge of the armed forces, and it re-
mains unclear where they stand in the
crisis.
Violence broke out on Sunday
evening when the petroleum minister
approached his office and was con-
fronted by Mr. Rajapaksa’s loyalists,
who prevented him from entering. As a
crowd formed, the minister’s bodyguard
opened fire, killing one person. The min-
ister, Arjuna Ranatunga, formerly a
world-famous cricket player, was ar-
rested on Monday.
warm to some of his other proposals —
like the idea of empowering a European
finance minister — Ms. Merkel did at
least provide a reasonably like-minded
partner at the core of Europe.
Any Merkel successor is unlikely to be
any more supportive of Mr. Macron’s
ideas and will have a lot less stature in
Brussels than the chancellor has earned
after 102 European summit meetings
since she took office in 2005.
The rest of this year will see little
progress, said Josef Janning of the Euro-
pean Council on Foreign Relations in
Berlin, because “she’s a very lame duck
until a new party leader is elected, with-
out carte blanche to move in Europe.”
All of that portends badly for buttress-
ing European Union machinery that
could help the bloc head off another fi-
nancial crisis, or at least weather one.
“2018 was supposed to be the year of re-
form,” Mr. Janning said. “But nothing
President Maithripala Sirisena of Sri Lanka was elected in 2015 partly on promises to investigate his predecessor, but he has moved
to replace the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, top right, with the previous president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, lower right.
Over the weekend, a mob loyal to Mr.
Rajapaksa stormed the state television
broadcaster and took it off the air. Some
journalists say they have gotten threat-
ening calls to support Mr. Sirisena’s gov-
ernment.
From the beginning, it seems Mr.
Sirisena miscalculated how much sup-
port he could rally to oust Mr. Wick-
remesinghe.
On Friday evening, Mr. Sirisena sum-
moned members of his parliamentary
bloc and representatives of the military
for a meeting, which many assumed
would be on policy matters, according to
two officials familiar with the matter.
Instead they entered Mr. Sirisena’s
residence to find Mr. Rajapaksa and a
hastily arranged swearing-in ceremony
to appoint the former leader as the new
prime minister. By Saturday afternoon,
parliamentarians loyal to Mr. Wick-
remesinghe refused to defect to Mr.
Sirisena’s new coalition, and even some
members of the president’s own party
declined to cross over.
Mr. Wickremesinghe held a news con-
ference on Saturday, asserting his legiti-
macy and demanding that Parliament
convene for a vote to determine the
much has happened except trying to
solve one crisis after another.”
Ms. Merkel’s consensus-minded
pragmatism was crucial to the passing
of the Lisbon Treaty that governs bloc
relations, to the decision to keep Greece
inside the eurozone against strong op-
position, and to the Western response to
the Russian annexation of Crimea and
the sanctions that followed.
While a reluctant leader, Ms. Merkel
has provided a dignified but firm re-
sponse to both President Vladimir V.
Putin of Russia and to President Trump,
who have both tried to provoke her.
Some European leaders, of course,
will be glad to see her go. Ms. Merkel’s
critics note that her hard line on enforc-
ing austerity during the financial crisis
and her decision to let a million migrants
into Germany may have helped fuel the
populist backlash that is now Europe’s
biggest challenge.
SERGEY PONOMAREV FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
rightful prime minister. Moments later,
Mr. Sirisena suspended Parliament.
In a national speech on Sunday
evening, Mr. Sirisena claimed that a cab-
inet minister he did not identify had
been plotting to assassinate him. The
claim came weeks after The Hindu, a
One of Asia’s oldest democracies
now has two prime ministers
claiming legitimacy, and the
prospect of violence looms.
major Indian daily, reported that Mr.
Sirisena had told allies that India’s intel-
ligence agency was also planning to as-
sassinate him. Mr. Sirisena later denied
that report.
Mr. Sirisena also harshly criticized
Mr. Wickremesinghe, his coalition part-
ner of the past three years, calling him
“arrogant, stubborn and inflexible” and
saying the prime minister had stalled
economic reforms while allowing cor-
ruption to flourish. He had no choice but
to appoint Mr. Rajapaksa, he said, “for
the sake of the motherland.”
On Monday evening, Mr. Rajapaksa
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 | 3
KAMIL ZIHNIOGLU/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK
The Polish politician Jaroslaw Ka-
czynski has demonized the German
chancellor over the migration issue and
her support for the Nordstream II pipe-
line from Russia, and the Greeks blamed
her for all but strangling their country
financially.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Or-
ban, has set himself up as the anti-
Merkel for European elections in May,
and along with the new Italian populist
leaders, has been critical of the sanc-
tions on Russia but has so far not
blocked their renewal.
The countries of Central Europe were
opposed to Ms. Merkel’s initial welcome
of refugees and migrants and her efforts
to spread them around. But as Mr.
Valasek, the Carnegie Europe director,
pointed out, the Czechs and Slovaks ap-
preciated her financial rigor, and Ger-
man investment in Central Europe has
been crucial to the region’s economy.
ERANGA JAYAWARDENA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
M.A. PUSHPA KUMARA/EPA-EFE
swore in a cabinet, appointing himself as
finance minister in addition to his prime
ministerial posting, all while the legiti-
macy of the change remains unclear.
During Mr. Rajapaksa’s rule, China
found an opening to pull Sri Lanka more
closely into its orbit through billions of
dollars in loans, some for the ruling fam-
ily’s pet projects. The projects and the
debt they accumulated became an elec-
tion issue in 2015, with Mr. Sirisena and
Mr. Wickremesinghe cooperating to run
on an anti-China platform.
But once they came to power, they re-
alized that India and the United States
— which had also been critical of Mr. Ra-
japaksa’s rule — did not have China’s
deep pockets and began to gravitate to-
ward Beijing once again.
Last year the government handed
over the Hambantota seaport to China
in a 99-year lease after the government
could not repay the money Mr. Rajapak-
sa’s government had borrowed to build
the port.
China has been nimble in its diplo-
macy, too. Shortly after Mr. Sirisena
came to power, China’s government
built a hospital in his home district. After
a public uproar over the Hambantota
Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin may be glad
when she goes, as well.
Mr. Trump has always had issues with
Germany, especially over trade and the
German devotion to multilateralism.
“But with Merkel it seems to be worse,
almost personal, the way she avoids
open confrontation and sticks to her
principles,” Mr. Valasek said.
Mr. Trump, he said, “will be relieved,
but the fundamentals of the relationship
won’t change. And I think Putin will be
delighted. The staying power of the
sanctions against Russia were her per-
sonal triumph.”
There will be continuing uncertainty
as to how long Ms. Merkel will be able to
continue as chancellor, despite her
strong wish, as Mr. Janning said, “to
hand over the job to someone who has
won it in an election.” Ms. Merkel, who
ran only reluctantly for a fourth term af-
ter the election of Mr. Trump, “will hand
it over in dignity to an elected successor
and not be pushed out by her party,” he
said.
But new elections could come faster
than she now expects.
Writing in the Süddeutsche Zeitung,
Matthias Kolb said that given all the
challenges facing the European Union,
“one can only hope that Chancellor
Merkel and her new partner who heads
the conservative party are able to work
together and make clear what is at stake
for Germany” in next year’s European
election.
“With her departure,” he wrote, “a po-
litician is leaving who had the ability to
speak at eye level with Presidents Xi,
Trump and Putin, and always repre-
sented the position of the E.U. It will
take time before her successor reaches
such standing.”
There are worries about Ms. Merkel’s
position, somewhat thrust upon her, as
the defender of Western values and the
international order, especially in the
face of the challenges from Mr. Trump,
Mr. Putin and the Chinese leader, Xi Jin-
ping. Those were expressed in a Twitter
message by Richard N. Haass, head of
the American Council on Foreign Rela-
tions.
“The Merkel era is close to ending,
leaving the West and the post-WW2 int’l
order w/o a leader,” he wrote. “The US of
@realDonaldTrump has abdicated. The
UK is distracted. Canada lacks means.
Macron is too weak. Bodes poorly for
stability, prosperity, freedom.”
But Ms. Merkel has been badly weak-
ened, too. And as Mr. Valasek suggests,
her leaving office “may in fact take some
steam out of the populist wave.”
“The zeitgeist is getting someone else
in place,” he said. “So it’s possible when
the leader leaves who looms largest,
since 2005, and represents the largest
E.U. country, this might have salutary
effect on the restlessness of the masses
in getting out the elite no matter what.”
port this year, China gave Mr. Sirisena a
grant worth nearly $300 million, which
the president boasted was for “any
project of my wish.”
Western governments have rallied
around Mr. Wickremesinghe in the cri-
sis, and the loans and grants they have
given this government in recent years
may be at risk unless the prime minister
is restored. But that money pales in
comparison to the loans China has pro-
vided.
“The political turmoil, more than Ra-
japaksa’s return to power, works to Chi-
na’s advantage. In country after coun-
try, China has exploited internal disar-
ray to advance its objectives,” said
Brahma Chellaney, an analyst and critic
of China who often advises the Indian
government and is affiliated with the
Center for Policy Research in New
Delhi.
China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka
quickly sought to show he was not tak-
ing sides, posing for photo opportunities
with Mr. Rajapaksa and Mr. Wick-
remesinghe on Saturday.
Parliament is set to reconvene on Nov.
16, but there is concern that the delay
may be used to coerce lawmakers to
support Mr. Sirisena and Mr. Rajapaksa.
Namal Rajapaksa, the parliamentarian,
says his party and Mr. Sirisena’s already
have the support they need.
Mr. Sirisena broke from Mr. Rajapak-
sa’s party to ally with Mr. Wick-
remesinghe in the prelude to the 2015
elections. But the alliance he formed
with Mr. Wickremesinghe was a coali-
tion of contrasts, with Mr. Sirisena’s
party notably more socially conserva-
tive.
The leaders quarreled at every step,
and the government was paralyzed, un-
able to fulfill its economic or social
promises. And they never held the ac-
countability crusade they had promised,
to investigate claims of war crimes by
Mr. Rajapaksa’s government.
“This government came in and made
commitments to deliver on transitional
justice, to deliver truth, justice and repa-
rations for Sri Lanka’s conflict,” said
Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia direc-
tor for Amnesty International. “While
there were some very important gains
made, that process stalled, disappoint-
ing the families of victims. There is a
danger now that even those limited
gains will be reversed.”

4 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018
world
A young lion in Nairobi National Park in Kenya. Their numbers in Africa have plunged, and researchers have found that almost all parks’ budgets are less than 20 percent of what is needed to perform effective conservation.
In Africa, ‘paper parks’ are starved for cash is that it actually puts a number to the
Potential of protected areas
as havens for lions isn’t
being realized, study finds
BY RACHEL NUWER
As if illegal mining, logging and poach-
ing weren’t bad enough, Africa’s na-
tional parks face another dire threat:
They’re vastly underfunded.
According the most comprehensive
analysis of conservation funding to date,
90 percent of nearly 300 protected areas
on the continent face funding shortfalls.
Together, the deficits total at least a bil-
lion dollars.
Failing to address this deficit will re-
sult in severe and ongoing declines of
such iconic species as lions, researchers
warned last week in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences.
Some parks will likely disappear alto-
gether.
“The assumption is that parks are just
fine because they’re designated as pro-
tected,” said Jennifer Miller, a senior sci-
entist at the conservation group Defend-
ers of Wildlife and an author of the re-
port. “But in many cases, they don’t
have the resources to do conservation.
They’re just paper parks.”
That the parks are operating on a
shoestring comes as no surprise to
those working to preserve Africa’s wil-
derness, said Peter Fearnhead, chief ex-
ecutive and co-founder of African Parks,
a nonprofit that manages 15 protected
areas on the continent.
“What’s very helpful about this paper
As winter approaches, India struggles to breathe
INDIA, FROM PAGE 1
But Indian environmentalists say that
at the same time the government passes
measures to cut pollution, it passes oth-
ers that fling open the doors to dirty air.
This year, the central government
proposed removing environmental
clearances for construction projects up
to 50,000 square meters, or about
540,000 square feet, more than doubling
the previous threshold. Dust from such
projects is a major polluter; the new
policies would surely create more.
Like many developing countries, In-
dia is trying to bolster infrastructure, in-
dustry and economic growth, all of
which take their toll on the environment.
Unlike in China, where the Communist
government has responded to toxic air
by slapping criminal charges on pollut-
ers, India’s political system is much
more free and messy, a sprawling de-
mocracy that often shies away from us-
ing the stick.
Last week, when a group of civil ser-
vants and environmentalists took a tour
of West Delhi, they found construction
sites managed by government agencies
among the most flagrant polluters. At a
new subway station, the overseers had
not even put up proper barriers or sprin-
kled water to keep the dust down. The
subway system was ordered to pay a
fine of 500,000 rupees, or around $7,000.
In the coming weeks, air pollution
here is expected to hit a choking peak.
Winter will slow down the winds, mean-
ing that still air and cooler temperatures
will trap the soot and smoke that rises
up from India’s incredibly crowded,
growing cities.
problem,” said Mr. Fearnhead, who was
not involved in the study.
In the new analysis, the authors used
wild lions as a proxy for how Africa’s na-
tional parks are faring. Because of their
place at the top of the food chain, lions
are considered an umbrella species — a
bellwether of an ecosystem’s health.
“If lions are doing well, everything
else — with the exception of rhinos — is
also doing well,” said Peter Lindsey, di-
rector of the lion recovery fund at the
Wildlife Conservation Network and an
author of the new paper. (Rhinos are an
exception because of poaching to meet
the extreme demand for rhino horn.)
Throughout much of Africa, lions are
not doing well. Their numbers have
dropped 43 percent over the past two
decades to as few as 20,000 in the wild.
They now occupy just 8 percent of their
historic habitat.
A growing proportion of their range is
found in national parks and reserves.
But according to Dr. Lindsey’s and Dr.
Miller’s research — which they under-
took while working at Panthera, a group
dedicated to conserving wild cats —
most protected areas are not realizing
their potential as safe havens for lions.
Over two-thirds of the state-owned
parks the team surveyed hold lion popu-
lations that are less than half of what
they could be, based on the prey those
habitats could support, the researchers
said. If properly managed, those parks
could quadruple the population of wild
lions in Africa.
To estimate the amount of funding
needed to increase populations by at
Nikhil Gupta, left, an environmental engineer for the Indian government, teaching
farmers in Bishanpur Channa about the effects that burning waste has on air quality.
For those in the pollution-mask busi-
ness, these are profitable days.
Four years ago, when Jai Dhar Gupta,
an Indian entrepreneur who went to the
Wharton School, the business school of
the University of Pennsylvania, started
selling pollution masks, he was lucky to
move 200 a day.
Now, he said, his company, Nirvana
Being, sells thousands in a single day.
“We’ve seen online orders coming
from villages, the northeast, Goa, places
I don’t even know,” Mr. Gupta said. But it
makes sense, he said, because “this is a
pan-India problem.”
least 50 percent, the researchers relied
on three financial models. Then, follow-
ing a review of state wildlife and donor
funding, as well as interviews with park
managers and officials, the team totaled
the dollars available for protected areas
in the 23 countries included in their
study.
They found that 88 percent to 94 per-
cent of parks operate on budgets that
are less than 20 percent of that required
to perform effective conservation.
Without investment soon,
“African countries may lose the
opportunity to benefit from these
species in years to come.”
Parks need to invest $377 to $783 per
square mile, the researchers concluded.
On average, parks spend just $77 per
square mile.
The grand total to renew Africa’s
parks: $1.2 billion to $2.4 billion each
year. If the funding deficits are not ad-
dressed, lions and other wildlife in af-
fected areas will likely experience cata-
strophic declines, the authors warn.
Protected areas that are not ad-
equately managed inevitably succumb
to poaching, illegal livestock incursions,
land grabs and illegal mining and log-
ging.
“It’s a tragedy of the commons situa-
tion,” Dr. Lindsey said. “If there’s open
access to wildlife, you’d better poach or
someone else will.”
Wildlife is already quickly declining
across many parks in Africa, and
REBECCA CONWAY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
The situation is especially bad in
northern India, where the Himalayas
form a towering barrier that keeps
clouds of dirty air parked over some of
the country’s biggest urban areas. But
data shows how bad the air is in just
about every major Indian city.
In Chennai, on the southern coast, av-
erage annual concentrations of PM 2.5,
insidiously small airborne particles that
scientists estimate have killed millions,
have more than quadrupled in the last
three years to 105 micrograms per cubic
meter from 24, according to data from
the first 10 months of each year gathered
“there’s no reason that won’t continue
unless the situation changes,” said Tim
Tear, executive director of the Africa
program at the Wildlife Conservation
Society, who was not involved in the
study.
“If we want to see many of Africa’s
iconic species now and into the future,
then this paper calls out pretty starkly
that we’re going to have to change the
way we continue to invest.”
Should business continue as usual,
people also stand to lose, Dr. Lindsey
said.
Healthy ecosystems provide many
benefits, from watershed protection to
carbon storage. In many places in Afri-
ca, parks also contribute to job creation,
economic growth and rural develop-
ment through tourism — a $34 billion in-
dustry on the continent, the majority of
which is tied to wildlife.
Some countries already reap many of
these benefits. Recognizing that they
derive a significant portion of their na-
tional incomes from nature-related tour-
ism, South Africa and Kenya invest
more heavily than most other countries
in protected areas, and relatively few of
their parks face deficits.
Other nations, on the other hand, such
as Mozambique, have many lions and
stunning landscapes, but have yet to
profit from those assets because their
tourism industries are underdeveloped.
“That’s an important piece of the puz-
zle,” Dr. Tear said. “If we don’t invest
more in the near future, then African
countries may lose the opportunity to
benefit from these species in years to
come.”
by the United States Consulate. Hun-
dreds of miles north, in Kolkata, the
number nearly doubled to 78 micro-
grams per cubic meter from 40 during
the same period.
The latest figures for the two cities are
eight to 10 times the level of hazardous
particles that the World Health Organi-
zation considers acceptable.
The air in Mumbai, India’s seaside
commercial capital with some 20 million
residents, is also getting worse. Average
annual concentrations of PM 2.5 have
shot up nearly 50 percent in the last
three years.
Experts blame a mix of factors, in-
cluding Mumbai’s thickening traffic,
noxious gases from landfill fires, con-
struction dust and emissions from coal
plants in the suburbs.
A few local groups are trying to put
pressure on the government to get seri-
ous, but they say the authorities do not
seem to understand.
“They’re trying to build more vertical
roads, coastal roads, increase car traffic
and put less emphasis on public trans-
port,” said Ashok Datar, chairman of the
Mumbai Environmental Social Net-
work. “It’s like we’re investing in emis-
sion.”
In Punjab, home to several million
farmers, thousands of pounds of carbon
dioxide have typically been released
into the air every burning season.
But this year, there is reason for hope,
said S. S. Matharu, a government engi-
neer working for the Punjab Pollution
Control Board.
In just two years, Mr. Matharu said,
the number of fires dropped by nearly 70
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
TONY KARUMBA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
Dr. Lindsey added that the benefits
for nations that do invest are only set to
grow. Tourism is rising globally, and as
more natural areas are lost to develop-
ment, the few places that retain wilder-
ness and wildlife will increase exponen-
tially in value.
African countries, however, should
not bear sole responsibility for preserv-
ing the continent’s nature, the re-
searchers write. Many nations have set
aside a significantly greater proportion
of land for conservation than the global
average, yet are not compensated for
the costs of bypassing development.
“The global community needs to rec-
ognize that there’s an imbalance here,
and everyone needs to do their part to
help fix it,” Dr. Tear said.
While the amount needed to renew Af-
rica’s parks may seem daunting at first,
Mr. Fearnhead pointed out that it is a mi-
nuscule amount on a global scale.
“Literally a single individual — admit-
tedly a very wealthy one — could be the
solution to a continental challenge, and
that creates hope,” he said.
In addition to philanthropic donors
and companies, the shortfall could be
remedied if developed nations and
agencies such as the World Bank
stepped up their conservation commit-
ments, Dr. Lindsey said.
Africa currently receives around $51
billion in annual development aid —
about 200 times what it gets for support-
ing its protected areas. Reallocating just
2 percent of that money toward conser-
vation, Dr. Lindsey and his colleagues
write, could stem much of the impend-
ing crisis.
percent after stiff fines, advances in
farming technology and aggressive out-
reach in villages and on social media, in-
cluding the catchy new song.
“The motherland has birds and other
living creatures to feed,” the song goes,
“don’t burn rice straw to choke them to
death.”
Bishanpur Channa — described by
one farmer as the “most forward village
in all of Punjab” — has become a model.
Many farmers there said that instead of
burning, they planned to use machines
like the Happy Seeder, which mixes ex-
cess straw into the soil.
But in poorer villages people seemed
less inclined to change their ways.
About 20 miles down the road, a group of
farmers who had gathered near a field
offered a list of grievances.
A government program that subsi-
dizes harvesting equipment is still too
expensive, they said. Government
agents promise new equipment and
then disappear. Politicians seem less in-
terested in the poorer farmers because
their plots are so small.
Gurmeet Singh, a gangly young
farmer, said that lowering pollution was
a nice thought but that with no money to
spare, “the whole village will burn.”
As night fell, he walked out to his rice
fields. His plot was littered with dry
straw. He bent down and struck a match.
Soon enough, clouds of smoke lifted
into the sky.
Kai Schultz, Jeffrey Gettleman and Hari
Kumar reported from New Delhi, and
Ayesha Venkataraman from Mumbai,
India.
..
Beijing
reverses ban
on rhino and
tiger parts
BEIJING
Items used for medicine
will fuel a black market,
environmentalists say
BY JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ
The Chinese government, reversing a
25-year ban, has announced that it will
allow the use of rhinoceros horns and ti-
ger bones in medicine, a move that envi-
ronmentalists described as a significant
setback for efforts to protect the animals
from extinction.
The State Council, China’s cabinet,
said in a policy directive that it would le-
galize the use of rhino horns and tiger
bones for “medical research or in heal-
ing,” but only by certified hospitals and
doctors, and only from rhinos and tigers
raised in captivity, excluding zoo ani-
mals. While such remedies are highly
profitable, they have no proven benefits
to humans.
Environmentalists said the decision
would most likely help fuel a black mar-
ket for wild rhino and tiger parts, which
are revered in traditional Chinese medi-
cine for supposed healing powers, and
could lead to increased poaching of the
fewer than 30,000 rhinos and 3,900 ti-
gers still in the wild.
“It’s a devastating decision,” said
Leigh Henry, director of wildlife policy
at the World Wildlife Fund in Washing-
ton. “I can’t overstate the potential im-
pact.”
The announcement this week threat-
ened to undermine President Xi Jin-
ping’s efforts to promote an image of
China as a responsible environmental
steward capable of tackling global is-
sues like climate change and air pollu-
tion.
“A small number of individuals stand
to make a lot of money perhaps at the
price of the species,” said Peter Knights,
chief executive of WildAid, an envi-
ronmental advocacy group based in San
Francisco. He added that the decision
“comes completely out of the blue and
with no rationale.”
MANAN VATSYAYANA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
Rhino parts are revered in traditional
medicine for supposed healing powers.
In 2016, China, along with the United
States, announced that it would ban the
sale of ivory. China’s domestic ban,
which went into effect this year, was
widely applauded as a critical step in
ending elephant poaching in Africa.
Now, just as prices for rhino horn are
decreasing and populations of tigers
seem to be stabilizing, the environmen-
tal advocates say, China threatens to
hurt that progress.
Chinese officials this week did not
draw attention to the reversal of the
rhino horn and tiger bone bans, put in
place in 1993, nor did they explain the
decision.
Experts said the move was probably
related to the government’s efforts to
encourage the growth of traditional Chi-
nese medicine, an industry valued at
more than $100 billion, with more than
500,000 medical practitioners. While
leaders of traditional Chinese medicine
have officially discouraged the use of
rhino horn and tiger bone for years, an
underground trade has continued.
Rhino horn is used in Chinese medi-
cine to treat a variety of conditions, in-
cluding fevers, gout and food poisoning.
Tiger bone, often turned into tiger bone
wine or so-called glue, is thought to im-
prove health, cure a variety of ailments
and increase virility for men. Endan-
gered animal parts are not widely used
in traditional Chinese medicine, but folk
remedies incorporating them form a
small but profitable market.
Mr. Xi has used Chinese medicine as a
way to expand China’s overseas influ-
ence, and his government has promoted
it in places like Zimbabwe and Nepal.
The government hopes Chinese medi-
cine will win global acceptance along-
side Western therapies.
The Chinese state news media sought
to portray the policy announcement as
an effort to help protect rhinos and ti-
gers by improving oversight. The regu-
lations said that the trade of rhinos, ti-
gers and their related products was ille-
gal, except for a handful of purposes, in-
cluding medicine, scientific research
and “cultural exchanges.”
The State Council said in the an-
nouncement that the medical use of
rhino and tiger parts would be strictly
monitored. Only doctors certified by the
State Administration of Traditional Chi-
nese Medicine would be allowed to ad-
minister the medicines.
Albee Zhang contributed research.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
‘Mi amor,’ mother cries, as girl, 2, is sent home
SAN PEDRO SULA, HONDURAS
No longer in the labyrinth
of U.S. immigration, child
is reunited with her family
BY JEFF ERNST
AND MIRIAM JORDAN
The passengers from American Airlines
Flight 941 trickled out, alone, in couples
and in groups — all but the small girl
whose family was nervously awaiting
her in the arrivals area. It had been
three months since the 2-year-old Fer-
nanda Jacqueline Dávila had been
whisked away with her grandmother on
a journey to the United States that had
gone badly wrong.
For months, the child’s mother, Alison
Michell Dávila, had been trying with the
rest of the family in Honduras to navi-
gate the labyrinth of the American im-
migration system from afar. They
pleaded for the release of the child, who
was being held in foster care in New
York. She doesn’t need to stay in Amer-
ica, the family told the authorities. Just
let her come home.
Finally, more than an hour after the
plane landed, an immigration officer
emerged bearing the toddler in his
arms. Ms. Dávila wept. “Mi amor,” she
called out, “my love.”
There was no smile of recognition —
just a blank stare.`
Mother, grandparents and aunts put
away the welcome poster, the balloon
and candy from her favorite movie,
“Frozen,” all brought to celebrate the
end of a venture that some had hoped
might be a new beginning for Fernanda
— but that had proved more painful than
any of them had ever imagined.
The girl flew to the Honduran city of
San Pedro Sula a week ago with seven
other children, most of whom had been
separated from their families at the
United States’ border with Mexico,
among nearly 3,000 such separations
that happened this year under a Trump
administration policy intended to deter
migration from Central America. Presi-
dent Trump halted the practice in June
after it came under attack, but four
months later, the federal authorities
have been unable to return all the chil-
dren to their families.
The eight children who flew from New
York were among more than 100 still liv-
ing in shelters and temporary foster
care, according to volunteer and advo-
cacy groups working with migrant fam-
ilies.
In some cases, the adults who accom-
panied the children still in custody are
themselves in immigration detention;
others were deported, while their chil-
dren were left behind.
Reuniting children with families over-
seas is a complicated process involving
extensive paperwork from shelters,
documents from the children’s families
and approval from both governments.
Often, permission must also be granted
by a United States immigration judge.
Before Fernanda’s mother could even
touch her daughter at the airport, immi-
gration officers ushered the arriving
children into a windowed room. It would
be nearly 40 minutes more before they
would emerge.
Tears streaming down their cheeks,
the families pressed their faces against
the glass, trying to catch the children’s
attention. They waved. “Show us your
teeth!” one shouted. “Look how much
you have grown! We’ll be together
soon.” Two little boys who looked over-
whelmed took cover under a desk.
Fernanda’s mother held up her new
daughter, Mia Charlotte, who was just a
Senior Saudi prince returns home as royals confront turmoil
LONDON
BY DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
AND BEN HUBBARD
A senior member of the Saudi royal fam-
ily, who had feared returning to the king-
dom, has flown back to Riyadh from
London in the most significant move in
the royal family since the killing of the
dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
The return of the family member,
Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, on Tues-
day, which was confirmed by three
Saudis close to him, comes amid an in-
ternational backlash against the king-
dom after the brutal death of Mr.
Khashoggi.
Prince Ahmed, the younger brother of
King Salman, had been afraid to return,
associates of his family said, since he
had made public comments in Septem-
ber that appeared to criticize Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 33, the
king’s favorite son and the de facto ruler
of the kingdom.
As one of the most senior figures in
the royal family, Prince Ahmed, in his
70s, could help bestow legitimacy on
any family response to the furor over
Mr. Khashoggi’s killing — whether that
response might be some effort to limit
the crown prince’s unrivaled power or
instead to reinforce his grip.
“His return is a significant indication
of maneuvering within the royal family,”
said Gregory Gause, a scholar of Saudi
Arabia at the Bush School of Govern-
ment and Public Service at Texas A&M
University. “Something is up.”
The killing on Oct. 2 of Mr. Khashoggi,
Fernanda Jacqueline Dávila, 2, with her family in Honduras. Her maternal grandmother, Nubia Archaga, had attempted to bring her to the United States three months ago.
few days old when Fernanda had last
seen her. Fernanda did not react.
Finally, a while later, she cracked a
smile.
“She looked confused in the begin-
ning, but after, she wanted to come with
us,” Ms. Dávila said, sounding like she
was trying to convince herself.
Héctor Enrique Lazo, the child’s
grandfather, was exuberant. “I am over-
joyed to have her again. We were very
worried because we heard she could be
given up for adoption,” he said.
The child had been held in foster
care in New York after being
separated from her grandmother
at the border in Texas.
Later, his smile faded. Everyone had
been taken aback by the child’s failure to
respond to them. “I need to take her to a
psychologist tomorrow,” Mr. Lazo said.
Fernanda had embarked with her ma-
ternal grandmother on a two-week jour-
ney to reach the United States in late
July, only to be separated at the border
in Texas. The grandmother, Nubia Ar-
chaga, said in an interview last month
that she had hoped to forge a new life in
the United States with her granddaugh-
ter.
After two days in a holding facility at
the border, Fernanda was flown to New
York City, where she was under the care
of Cayuga Centers, a child welfare
agency, and living with a foster family.
After locating her with the help of a
toll-free number publicized on local tele-
vision, the family in Honduras immedi-
ately began to fight for Fernanda’s re-
turn, scrambling to collect documents to
prove that she was theirs.
Fernanda had been doted on by the
a Virginia resident and Washington Post
contributor, has mired the rulers of the
kingdom in their most significant inter-
national crisis since the terrorist attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001, on the United States, in
which a majority of the attackers were
Saudis.
It took the rulers of the kingdom more
than two weeks after Mr. Khashoggi
vanished inside the Saudi Consulate in
Istanbul to acknowledge that he was as-
sassinated there by a team of Saudi
agents.
Turkish officials have said they have
audio recordings and other evidence
showing that the agents quickly dis-
membered him with a bone saw to dis-
pose of the body, an operation they say
could only have been carried out with
authorization from the highest levels of
the royal court.
Saudi officials have portrayed the
killing as a rogue act, insisting that
Prince Mohammed did not order or con-
done it. Many current and former West-
ern officials with experience in the king-
dom have questioned the plausibility of
that assertion, given the prince’s tight
control over the kingdom’s intelligence
and security services.
With a cloud now hanging over the
crown prince, outside observers have
speculated that the royal family might
respond by circling its wagons around
him, or alternatively by seeking to im-
pose some checks on his power. The
family might seek to add a strong for-
eign minister, for example, to dilute the
role of the crown prince in matters of for-
eign policy or relations with the West.
How badly tarnished Prince Moham-
med will emerge from the scandal is of
When Fernanda arrived at the airport, she and other children were ushered into a windowed room, leaving families waiting outside.
entire family. She and her mother had
lived with Mr. Lazo and his wife, who
bought her toys and a tricycle, celebrat-
ed her birthdays and baptism.
Fernanda had been born four months
after their son, Fernanda’s father, died in
a car accident; she was a piece of their
son they still had. “She came back to fill
It was unclear whether Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz’s return to Saudi Arabia was in-
tended to help bolster Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, or to help rein him in.
keen interest in Washington, in part be-
cause the Trump administration has
embraced him as its most important
Arab ally, central to its plans to limit Ira-
nian influence and force the Palestin-
ians into a peace agreement with Israel.
Prince Ahmed is widely seen as a fig-
ure of special gravitas in the family be-
cause he is the king’s only surviving full
brother. He and the king are the last of
the so-called Sudairi 7: the seven sons of
the modern kingdom’s founder, King Ab-
dul Aziz, by his favorite wife, Hussa bint
Ahmed al-Sudairi.
Older half brothers of King Salman
also survive, though few ever rose to
the void that our son left,” Mr. Lazo said.
The family had been furious over Ms.
Archaga’s decision to take the child with
her to the United States, a decision, they
believed, made with the hope that hav-
ing a child with her would facilitate her
entry, albeit illegally, into the United
States.
AMR ABDALLAH DALSH/REUTERS
significant power inside the kingdom.
Prince Ahmed did, as deputy interior
minister for decades and then as interi-
or minister for a brief period in 2012.
He was not, however, regarded as a
success in that role. He spent the past
six years in retirement, often in London.
Despite his seniority, Prince Ahmed
had repeatedly postponed his return for
fear that he may be placed under house
arrest by Prince Mohammed, people
close to him said. Several other royals
who were perceived as rivals to the
throne have been subjected to such
treatment.
The prince’s worries began in Sep-
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 | 5
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANIELE VOLPE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
They were told in September that the
little girl would go before a judge, who
would decide her fate.
On Oct. 8, Fernanda was the youngest
child that day to appear in a federal im-
migration courtroom in New York, so
small she had to be lifted onto the chair.
A lawyer for Catholic Charities, who had
tember, when he was accosted in Lon-
don by protesters. They were chanting
against the royal family because of
Saudi Arabia’s leading role in the three-
year-old civil war in Yemen, which has
led to a military stalemate and a hu-
manitarian disaster.
“What does this have to do with the Al
Saud?” Prince Ahmed said in comments
caught on video, referring to the wider
royal family of thousands of princes and
princesses. “Those responsible are the
king and his crown prince.”
“I hope the situation ends,” he added,
“whether in Yemen or elsewhere, today
before tomorrow.”
Prince Ahmed became an instant
hero to Arab critics of the crown prince
around the region. Many posted oaths of
loyalty to him on the internet, as though
Prince Ahmed were king.
But he quickly made clear he had no
intention to turn on the crown prince, is-
suing a statement saying his comments
had been misinterpreted.
Until Tuesday, Prince Ahmed had re-
mained in London while seeking re-
assurances that he would face no reper-
cussions from his powerful nephew if he
returned to Riyadh.
It was unclear whether he now felt
safe to return only because he was
needed to help bolster the crown prince
against his Western critics. People fa-
miliar with his travels said Prince Ah-
med landed in Saudi Arabia at 1:30 a.m.
Tuesday; Prince Mohammed was there
to welcome him warmly at the airport.
Since his father, King Salman, 82, as-
cended to the throne in 2015, Prince Mo-
hammed has established control of the
crucial oil ministry as well as the main
world
volunteered to take her case, asked the
judge to grant the child “voluntary de-
parture,” a kind of voluntary deporta-
tion that would enable Fernanda to re-
turn quickly to Honduras. It took two
weeks to get all her travel documents to-
gether.
Early last week, her family was noti-
fied by the case manager in New York
that she would be flown to Honduras on
Thursday morning. Her aunt, Karenn
Lazo, shared the news in an email, say-
ing, “Our Fernandita is finally coming
back.”
Ms. Dávila and Mr. Lazo, along with
his wife, two daughters and Ms. Dávila’s
new baby crammed into their old green
pickup truck and set out in the wee
hours from the Honduran capital of Te-
gucigalpa, where they live in a working-
class suburb, to San Pedro Sula.
A few other families also were await-
ing children who had been separated
from a loved one at the border. Sandra
Isabel Pagoada said her son Carlos, 9,
had crossed the border with his uncle,
with her consent. “I wanted him to have
a better life,” she said, sobbing and
clutching a balloon.
But they were separated, the uncle
summarily deported and Carlos trans-
ferred to a shelter, where he would end
up spending five months. “I am so glad
he is back here,” Ms. Pagoada said.
All the families waited tensely for the
children’s first appearance after the
plane landed. Every time the silhouette
of a child appeared behind a privacy
screen, the families took a deep breath.
Then suddenly all eight children, in-
cluding Fernanda, were escorted to a
room where their documents were re-
viewed.
The children ranged in age from about
2 to 16. It seemed that several of them
had no one to pick them up, but the au-
thorities declined to answer any ques-
tions.
Even after the 40-minute processing,
it was not over. A Honduran official
stepped out and announced that all of
those who had arrived would have to
travel to a center for migrant children
for additional screening before they
could be officially returned to their fam-
ilies.
As Fernanda was carried toward a
beige van that idled outside, the dis-
tance between her and her family grow-
ing, she began to squeal and flap her
arms in protest.
Her mother slipped into the group and
climbed in the van along with her. Her
grandparents and aunts followed in
their truck.
After a couple of hours, mother and
daughter came out.
Fernanda had counted “all the num-
bers” in English while they were inside,
Ms. Dávila said. “She told me all about
what they did over there.”
Mr. Lazo grabbed his granddaughter.
“Who am I?” he asked her.
She did not respond. “Soy tu papá, mi
amor,” he said. “I’m your papa, my love.”
On closer inspection, they noticed her
body was covered in red spots and
scabs, apparently from scratching her-
self. A nurse at the center said it was an
allergy, Ms. Dávila said, and prescribed
skin cream. But Fernanda had never
had such an allergy, they said.
Weary but happy, the family stopped
for a celebratory meal of fried fish near
Lago de Yojoa, a big lake.
On the way, they picked up drinks at a
gas station. Ms. Dávila, her daughter
propped on her lap, handed her some
“Frozen”-themed candy.
“Mommy, is this a gift?” Fernanda
asked.
Jeff Ernst reported from San Pedro Sula,
Honduras, and Miriam Jordan from Los
Angeles.
security forces. He has also systemat-
ically torn down his potential rivals in
the family, leaving almost no one in posi-
tion to challenge him. Diplomats who
have met with the king say old age may
have diminished his mental capacity to
restrain his son.
Saudi media did not cover Prince Ah-
med’s return, suggesting he may not
have come home at the crown prince’s
behest. Critics of the crown prince have
pinned their hopes on other senior roy-
als only to be disappointed.
Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former am-
bassador to Washington and London
and also a former intelligence chief, was
Mr. Khashoggi’s chief patron for dec-
ades when they worked together in the
Saudi establishment. In the weeks after
Mr. Khashoggi’s murder, the prince also
happened to be in Washington.
But instead of lobbying for change in
Riyadh, Prince Turki publicly backed
Prince Mohammed. “The more criti-
cism there is of the crown prince, the
more popular he is in the kingdom,”
Prince Turki said in an interview with a
columnist for The Washington Post.
As Prince Ahmed returned, the rulers
of Saudi Arabia were confronting an es-
calating standoff with President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, a friend of
Mr. Khashoggi’s, who has demanded
they reveal the whereabouts of the re-
mains. Saudi officials have said the
killers gave Mr. Khashoggi’s body to a
“local collaborator” but have declined to
identify that person.
The Saudi rulers, Mr. Erdogan sug-
gested on Tuesday, were attempting a
cover-up. “Underneath,” he said, “there
is a game to save somebody.”
 ..
6 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

world

In welcoming refugees,
group drew online ire
Jewish agency in U.S.
was criticized by suspect
in Pittsburgh shooting
BY MIRIAM JORDAN
When Mazen Hasan had to flee his na-
tive Iraq because his work for the Amer-
ican military had drawn threats on his
life, it was a Jewish refugee resettle-
ment agency called HIAS that helped
him and his family to settle in Pitts-
burgh.
“They did everything they can to help
us and make it easy to adjust to a new
life here,” said Mr. Hasan, 61, an engi-
neer who arrived in the United States in
2014.
HIAS is one of nine agencies with con-
tracts from the State Department to
help refugees acclimate to the United
States. It has aided immigrants with di-
verse talents from all corners of the
world, including the co-founders of
Google and WhatsApp.
It is also the target of many anti-Se-
mitic rants posted on social media by
Robert Bowers, the suspect in the mass
shooting last week at the Tree of Life
synagogue in Pittsburgh — including
one post published only a few hours be-
fore the shooting. Eleven worshipers
were killed in the attack.
The agency’s local affiliate, Jewish
Family and Community Services of
Pittsburgh, met the Hasans at the air-
port when they arrived, drove them to
the apartment that had been arranged
for the family and shepherded them
In another post, he wrote: “You like to
bring in hostile invaders to dwell among
us? We appreciate the list of friends you
have provided.” Alongside it was a link
to information on the National Refugee
Shabbat Event, celebrated on Oct. 20 at
more than 300 Jewish congregations in
33 states.
Mark Hetfield, the president of HIAS,
said the climate of political rancor over
immigration had given impetus to the
national refugee event. “We felt that at a
time when the U.S. is doing less and less
for refugees, that we must demonstrate,
as a refugee people, that it is more im-
portant than ever to continue to wel-
come refugees as a community,” he said.
The Trump administration has
sharply reduced the number of people
fleeing violence and persecution who
are admitted to the United States as ref-
ugees, lowering the annual ceiling from
the 110,000 set before Mr. Trump took of-
fice to 45,000 in the 2018 fiscal year,
which ended Sept. 30, and to 30,000 for
fiscal 2019. Delays caused by extra lev-
els of screening ordered by the Trump
administration — targeting especially
people from 11 countries, 10 of them pre-
dominantly Muslim — meant that only
22,491 refugees actually arrived in fiscal
2018.
Since it began in 1881 in a storefront
on the Lower East Side of Manhattan as
the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society,
HIAS has assisted millions of people dis-
placed by conflict or persecution, often
on account of their religious or political
beliefs, to rebuild their lives. Its clients
have often been Jews — its first mission
was to aid those fleeing pogroms in HILARY SWIFT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

through the process of getting Social Se- Eastern Europe — but the agency has A memorial at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Balancing Jewish traditions with a criminal investigation presents a rare set of challenges for the mourning families.
curity numbers, securing medical care also helped resettle thousands of Viet-
and learning how to get around the city namese, Cambodians and Laotians.

Standing watch in the twilight

on public transportation.
The refugees who receive those kinds
of services from the nine resettlement
agencies, including the International
Rescue Committee and several faith-
based groups like HIAS, have all been
through extensive vetting by the federal
government and have been given clear-
ance to enter and reside in the United
States.
Even so, Mr. Bowers’s writings on so-
cial media were bitterly hostile to refu-
gees and to the agency that helped
them.
“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that
kill our people,” he said in a post hours
before the attack. “I can’t sit by and
watch my people get slaughtered. Screw
your optics, I’m going in.”
A HIAS worker, at center with pin, helping European refugees in 1951. The Pittsburgh
shooting suspect had posted that “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people.”
“We used to welcome refugees be-
cause they were Jewish,” Mr. Hetfield
said. “Today HIAS welcomes refugees
because we are Jewish.”
The organization played a role in re-
settling more than 400,000 Soviet Jews
who reached the United States, includ-
ing the families of Sergey Brin, a co-
founder of Google, who came in 1979
when he was 6, and Jan Koum, a co-
founder of WhatsApp, who arrived as a
teenager about a decade later.
“I would have never had the kinds of
opportunities I’ve had here in the Soviet
Union, or even in Russia today,” Mr.
Brin, who has donated to HIAS, said in a
2009 interview. “I would like to see any-
one be able to achieve their dreams, and
that’s what this organization does.”
ERNST HAAS/GETTY IMAGES
Volunteers guard deceased
as strict Jewish laws are
observed at crime scene
BY JENNIFER MEDINA
All night long, Jewish volunteers stood
solemnly in the rain outside the Tree of
Life synagogue, where 11 dead bodies
lay inside, sealed off with yellow crime-
scene tape. The deceased were not sup-
posed to be left alone, according to Jew-
ish tradition, from the moment of death
until burial. So when the medical exam-
iner removed the bodies at 5 a.m. Sun-
day, the volunteers were there to escort
them to the morgue.
Earlier in the night, the volunteers
had been allowed to peer briefly inside.
They saw a scene of carnage, with bod-
ies sprawled everywhere. Once homi-
cide investigators give them the all
clear, they intend to meticulously clean
the crime scene. They consider every-
thing left behind to be sacred remains, to
be preserved and buried with the bod-
ies.
Judaism has a strict set of laws gov-
erning death: Burials are expected to
take place as soon as possible, autopsies
are discouraged, and bodies are ritually
washed and clothed in white shrouds.
But balancing observance with a com-
plex criminal investigation is
presenting a rare set of challenges for
the mourning families and religious
leaders. Never before in modern Ameri-
can history have there been so many
people murdered in one Jewish commu-
nity.
“This is what we do — the community
needs us and we mobilize — but we have
never seen anything like this before,”
said Rabbi Daniel Wasserman, who
runs the Orthodox burial society, known
as a chevra kadisha, in Pittsburgh.
“These are people who were killed be-
cause they were Jewish, they are bodies
of holy martyrs.”
Jewish volunteers, led by Rabbi
Wasserman, were expected to enter the
synagogue Tuesday morning to begin
the ritual cleanup: According to Jewish
law, all human remains should be buried
along with the body. They will wipe
down blood with baby wipes, careful not
to leave even a drop behind.
“We would be looking for any flesh,
any blood, any organic material to give it
the proper honor with the bodies,” Rabbi
Wasserman said. “That’s going to be one
of the most difficult things.”
The first of the funerals, one for two
brothers who were killed and another
for a prominent community doctor, were
held Tuesday morning. The intense grief
is likely to play out in living rooms
across the city as hundreds or even
thousands of visitors offer condolences
at the homes of the families of the de-
ceased during shiva, the seven-day
mourning period that follows burial.
Jews do not mourn alone. During
shiva, community members visit the rel-
atives of those who have died, bringing
food and standing together for kaddish,
the memorial prayer. They sit with
them, speak fondly of those who have
passed on and comfort those left behind.
This week, in the close-knit Jewish com-
munity of Pittsburgh, there will be many
overlapping shivas.
Rabbis for the three congregations
that met at the Tree of Life have been
grappling with how to help families nav-
igate public and private mourning. Calls
have come in from across the country
from people wanting to visit during
shiva, but the families may not be eager
to greet strangers. At least one family
has requested total privacy.
Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who leads the
Tree of Life congregation, underscored
the magnitude of so many deaths.
“I have a congregation to take care of.
I have families that need me,” Rabbi My-
ers said on CNN on Monday. “I have fu-
nerals to plan.”
Since she helped create the New Com-
munity Chevra Kadisha in Pittsburgh in
2004, Malke Frank has prepared dozens
of bodies for burial. Each time, members
begin by saying a prayer for guidance,
followed by asking for forgiveness in
case any mistakes were made during
the ritual, using the person’s Hebrew or
Yiddish name to address the body, as a
sign of respect. They use three pails of
warm water to wash the body, careful to
remove nail polish or anything else that
“This is what we do — the
community needs us.”
is not naturally present. The face of the
deceased is constantly covered — if the
dead cannot see the eyes of the living,
tradition goes, the living cannot see the
eyes of the dead.
When the washing is done, they end
with a phrase from the Song of Songs, a
poem from the Jewish bible: “You are
beautiful my beloved friend and there is
no flaw in you.”
None of this, Ms. Frank said, will have
prepared her for what she and others
will see when they begin the tahara, as
the ritual washing is called, for those
killed on Saturday.
“We have no doubt this will be the
most difficult,” she said. “This is going to
be very, very different because of the ex-
tent of the damage of the bodies.”
One of the victims of Saturday’s
shooting, Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, was a
dedicated volunteer with the New Com-
munity Chevra Kadisha, working with
the same men who prepared his body
before his burial on Tuesday.
If it is too much to bear, Ms. Frank
said, another group of volunteers will
step in. Leaders of a national association
of chevra kadisha have flown in to help
comfort those volunteers.
Although autopsies are generally
avoided in Jewish tradition, there was
no doubt that each of the bodies would
need to be examined for evidence in the
criminal case. Once the bodies were
with the medical examiner, Rabbi
Wasserman ensured that a shomer, as
the guard is called in Hebrew, was in the
building to keep watch over them as
they went through the process.
“The idea being that when we die, our
soul stays with us until our body is laid
to rest and then the soul is free to go,”
said Sharon Ryave Brody, who runs
Ralph Schugar Chapel, a Jewish funeral
home in Pittsburgh that is handling
services for at least nine shooting vic-
tims. “During that time, that soul is kept
company and not alone.”
The dead are buried as soon as possi-
ble, often the day after death. But it was
clear that would be impossible after the
shooting.
Speedy burial is meant to not only al-
low mourners to begin to grieve with the
community, but also to honor the dead,
said Rabbi Jason Weiner, the director of
spiritual care at Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center, in Los Angeles.
“Death is a transition from this world
to the next, and it’s the way we show ba-
sic human dignity, no matter what you
did in life,” he said. “This is serving
someone when a person cannot do any-
thing for themselves, when they cannot
pay it back.”
Kim Lyons contributed reporting from
Pittsburgh and Sarah Mervosh from
New York.

Heeding family advice, Trump alters response to shooting

WASHINGTON
BY KATIE ROGERS
AND MAGGIE HABERMAN
Amid the storm of criticism over his re-
sponse to the synagogue killings in
Pittsburgh and the accusations that his
messaging had created the atmosphere
that caused them, President Trump has
turned to the people he trusts most for
advice — his family.
His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who
keeps a photograph of his grandparents,
both Holocaust survivors, in his West
Wing office, and a mezuza on the door-
way, as well as his daughter Ivanka, who
converted to Judaism to marry Mr.
Kushner, have quietly and persistently
shaped the president’s response to one
of the nation’s deadliest cases of anti-
Semitism.
In the immediate aftermath of the
shooting on Saturday, their conversa-
tion with the president led to a marked
change in his language. Within hours,
his remarks went from a vague state-
ment — “if they had an armed guard in-
side, they might have been able to stop
him immediately,” he said — to a plea to
a rally crowd in Illinois to combat “the
scourge of anti-Semitism.”
It was their advice to go to Pittsburgh
on Tuesday despite the opposition of city
officials and many members of the Jew-
ish community.
And it has been Mr. Kushner, in partic-
ular, who has been phoning Trump allies
and encouraging them to support the
president, who has grown frustrated
over being accused of engendering a po-
litically volatile climate.
The couple’s religious beliefs have at-
tracted relatively little attention in
Washington, though they are some-
times photographed walking their chil-
dren to temple on the Sabbath. Rabbi
Levi Shemtov, who is the executive vice
president of American Friends of
Lubavitch, which includes the temple
the pair attend, declined to comment on
their activities. “They come here as con-
gregants, not as public figures,” he said.
But after the shooting over the week-
end, the White House made a point of
the fact that they are Jewish — and of
their proximity to the president.
“He adores Jewish Americans as part
of his own family,” an emotional Sarah
Huckabee Sanders, the White House
press secretary, said during a briefing
with reporters on Monday. “The presi-
dent is the grandfather of several Jew-
ish grandchildren. His daughter is a
Jewish American, and his son-in-law is a
descendant of Holocaust survivors.”
For Mr. Trump’s Jewish supporters,
who have focused on his promise to fight
violence with political force, his family’s
involvement in responding to the Pitts-
burgh shooting has been an important
sign of his seriousness.
“The fact that he’s actually taking se-
Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s daughter, and Jared Kushner arriving in Pittsburgh.
rious advice from his daughter, who
happens to be Jewish, I think that peo-
ple are very happy with this,” said Lisa
Spies, a Republican fund-raiser.
Conservative Jewish supporters have
stuck by the president based on his sup-
port for Israel, particularly his decision
to move the American Embassy there to
Jerusalem.
But Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner have
been closely scrutinized by other more
liberal Jews — who expect them to be
public, forceful advocates with Mr.
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Trump as anti-Semitism rises in the
United States.
Last year, after a deadly rally held by
white supremacists in Charlottesville,
Va., the couple, along with other Jewish
members of the Trump administration,
were heavily criticized for not doing
enough to speak out when the president
claimed that “both sides” were to blame
for the violence that erupted and re-
sulted in the death of a woman.
In progressive Jewish circles, Mr.
Kushner and Ms. Trump have been ac-
cused of sanitizing the president’s refus-
al to cut ties with white nationalist sup-
porters who have fanned the flames of
anti-Semitism.
Mr. Trump did not require much per-
suading to make the trip to Pittsburgh,
according to White House officials. Mr.
Kushner’s aides believed there was
enough support among members of the
community, including the synagogue’s
rabbi, for such a visit that the president
could do so.
But with Mr. Trump’s past remarks in
mind, some relatives of the victims in
the shooting made clear before the pres-
ident’s arrival that they were unwilling
to hear from him.
When the Federal Bureau of Investi-
gation met with the family members of
Daniel Stein, a 71-year-old who was
killed at the Tree of Life synagogue, they
told officials they did not want Mr.
Trump to visit.
“We said absolutely not, not after
blaming people for what occurred,” said
Steven Halle, Mr. Stein’s nephew, refer-
ring to the president’s comments about
the synagogue needing an armed guard.
“It was just a worthless thing to say.”
Mr. Trump brought a contingent of ad-
ministration officials including Melania
Trump, the first lady; Ms. Sanders; and
Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secre-
tary, who is Jewish.
But when it comes to a more sus-
tained response to the shooting from the
White House, people will be looking to
Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner. This is par-
ticularly true as the president is ex-
pected to return immediately to his
midterm election agenda, which in-
cludes sending troops to the southwest
border and embarking on 11 political ral-
lies in the days before the elections.
Ron Klein, a former Florida congress-
man and the founder of the Jewish Dem-
ocratic Council of America, said that he
was skeptical that Mr. Trump’s daughter
and son-in-law could do much to influ-
ence the president’s behavior beyond
prompting him to make a somber visit.
“I’ve never accepted the notion that
just because Donald Trump has Jewish
family members that it makes him any
more sympathetic to Jewish interests,”
Mr. Klein said.
But Matthew Brooks, the executive
director of the Republican Jewish Coali-
tion, said that the expectations for Ms.
Trump and Mr. Kushner were outsized
and the criticism simply unfair.
“The Jewish community has worked
hard in modern days to make sure that
there are Jewish folks surrounding any
administration,” Mr. Brooks said.
He noted that aides to both President
George W. Bush and President Barack
Obama would speak with pride about
how many Jewish officials worked for
them. “It’s grossly unfair to call them
‘court Jews.’”
Jennifer Medina contributed reporting
from Los Angeles.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 | 7

world

President tries to seize the national stage

ELECTION, FROM PAGE 1
undocumented immigrants, but accord-
ing to broad legal consensus, doing so
would require a constitutional amend-
ment to adjust the 14th Amendment,
which declares that all people born in
the United States, “and subject to the ju-
risdiction thereof, are citizens of the
United States.”
But in an interview with Axios, he said
he has now been told by the White
House Counsel’s Office that he does not
need a constitutional amendment or
even an act of Congress and can instead
issue an executive order declaring that
the provision does not apply in the case
of children born to people in the country
without legal status.
“We’re the only country in the world
where a person comes in and has a baby,
and the baby is essentially a citizen of
the United States” and is entitled to “all
of those benefits,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s
ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to
end.”
Actually, about 30 other countries also
grant citizenship at birth, and most legal
scholars believe the president does not
have the power to change that in the
United States. If Mr. Trump follows
through and signs such an order, it
would presumably be challenged all the
way to the Supreme Court, which would
then be asked to determine whether the
traditional understanding of the 14th
Amendment applies.
Among those who think he would lose
is George T. Conway III, a prominent
conservative lawyer and the husband of
the president’s counselor, Kellyanne
Conway. In an op-ed article in The Wash-
ington Post written with Neal Katyal, a
former acting solicitor general under
President Barack Obama, Mr. Conway
said “such a move would be unconstitu-
tional” and that “the challengers would
undoubtedly win” at the Supreme Court.
Mr. Trump’s surprise proposal is the
latest he has introduced with Election
Day approaching. He recently an-
nounced that he would introduce a new
plan to cut taxes for the middle class by
10 percent, a statement that caught
other Republicans by surprise.
At first, he said Congress would pass
it before the midterm elections even
though lawmakers had recessed for the
campaign and had no plans to return to
Washington before the vote. Then he
said he would push for passage next
year, although even aides could not de-
scribe what he had in mind.
His focus on the caravan in Mexico
President Trump last week in Indianapolis. Within hours of his promise to end birthright citizenship, some Republicans were denouncing the idea or distancing themselves from it.
has also inflamed the election debate. At
rallies, he has depicted the group of mi-
grants as a dire threat to the United
States and vowed to make this the cara-
van campaign, accusing Democrats of
favoring “open borders” and even sug-
gesting that they were behind the move-
ment of thousands of Central Ameri-
cans. He ordered 5,200 troops to the bor-
der this week in a show of strength and
promised to build tent cities to detain
asylum seekers.
“This has nothing to do with elec-
tions,” Mr. Trump told Laura Ingraham
on Fox News on Monday night. “And
I’ve been saying this long before elec-
tion — I’ve been saying this before I
ever thought of running for office. We
have to have strong borders. If we don’t
have strong borders, we don’t have a
country.”
The proposal for a birthright execu-
tive order caught even the president’s
supporters by surprise. Mark Krikorian,
the executive director of the Center for
Immigration Studies, who supports end-
ing birthright citizenship and argues
that Mr. Trump can to do so on his own
authority, said the rollout of the plan for
an executive order was “sloppy” and ul-
timately counterproductive.
“It would have been nice if they did
this a month from now or two months
ago so it’s not right before an election,”
Mr. Krikorian said.
“Two months ago, they could have
prepared talking points and sent them
out, and then staffers to congressmen
could read them and decide what
they’re supposed to say,” Mr. Krikorian
said. “A month from now, it would not
happen right before an election.”
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
He added, “It doesn’t strike me as the
best way to run a railroad.”
Michael Waldman, the president of
the Brennan Center for Justice at New
York University School of Law and a for-
mer White House speechwriter for
President Bill Clinton, said Mr. Trump
seemed to be making stuff up as he went
without any kind of vetting.
“The executive order is flatly uncon-
stitutional. It’s pretend,” he said. “The
tax cut is pretend. Sending troops to the
border is expensive theater. Trump is
throwing out these ever wilder ideas in
the hope to dominate the news. Perhaps
there will be method to the madness if he
can shape the debate the week before
the election. Just as likely, though, the
escalating craziness will remind voters
of what they don’t like about the presi-
dent.”
The birthright issue was particularly
uncomfortable for Republicans in places
like Florida. Gov. Rick Scott, who is run-
ning for the United States Senate,
walked away when a reporter asked if
he supported Mr. Trump’s proposal. An
aide later said that the governor had not
heard the question, but an issued state-
ment did not answer it.
Representative Mario Diaz-Balart,
another Florida Republican, said that he
would “strongly disagree with the pro-
posed executive order,” and Representa-
tive Carlos Curbelo, also a Republican
from the state, wrote on Twitter that
“birthright citizenship is protected by
the Constitution, so no @realdon-
aldtrump you can’t end it by executive
order.”
Alfonso Aguilar, the president of the
Latino Partnership for Conservative
Principles, said that in pushing immi-
gration in the closing days of the cam-
paign, Mr. Trump was looking for short-
term political gain that could cost Re-
publicans in the long run.
“It helps him politically, and he’s look-
ing particularly at Senate races where it
could help energize a part of his base
that’s mostly anti-immigrant and re-
strictionist,” Mr. Aguilar said. But, he
added, “this continues to fuel the prob-
lem the G.O.P. has with Hispanic vot-
ers.”
David Winston, a Republican strat-
egist who advises the House and Senate
leadership, said the president’s discus-
sion of immigration plays to the base,
but wave elections like those in 1994,
2006 and 2010 have been won by per-
suading independents, who care more
about the economy.
“Yes, you’ve got these other issues
that motivate the base, but neither par-
ty’s base is large enough to win,” he said.
The political middle would decide con-
trol of Congress. “That is the audience,
and that’s the audience that’s focused on
the economy.”
The economic numbers right now are
good, Mr. Winston added, but the ques-
tion is whether voters feel they are fi-
nally breaking free of a paycheck-to-
paycheck lifestyle.
“We’ll find out a week from now,” he
said.

Little backing for Trump plan

naturalized in the United States, and
WASHINGTON
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States and of the
State wherein they reside.”
He proposes using The meaning of that clause is plain,
rights with other citizens,” Mr. Conness
said.
The Supreme Court confirmed that
understanding in 1898 in United States
v. Wong Kim Ark, ruling that a child born
AN EXHIBITION

executive order to end
birthright U.S. citizenship
BY ADAM LIPTAK
The words of the 14th Amendment are
plain, and the scholarly and judicial con-
sensus about what they mean is nearly
uniform: Children born in the United
States automatically become citizens of
the United States.
said Peter J. Spiro, a law professor at
Temple University. “The conventional
understanding is absolutely clear that
children born in the United States are
citizens of the United States, with the in-
significant exception of the children of
diplomats,” he said.
A main purpose of the clause was to
overrule Dred Scott, the shameful 1857
Supreme Court decision that said black
slaves were property and not citizens.
The decision said the Constitution
LINKS
in San Francisco to Chinese parents was
a United States citizen, even though the
parents were prohibited by the Chinese TO CELEBRATE THE 50TH
Exclusion Act from ever becoming citi- ANNIVERSARY OF THE VISIT
zens.
James C. Ho, a conservative legal OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II
scholar recently appointed by Mr.
Trump to the federal appeals court in TO CHILE
New Orleans, has written that the mes-
CURATED BY
sage of the decision is unmistakable.
IBERIA TORRES ABELAIRA
“This sweeping language reaches all
aliens regardless of immigration sta-

In an interview released this week,
President Trump proposed a different
reading of the amendment, one he said
denies birthright citizenship to the chil-
dren of undocumented immigrants. Mr.
Trump said he was preparing to issue an
executive order to that end.
The statement sounded more like a
political stunt than a reasoned legal ar-
gument, and its timing, coming a week
before the midterm elections, was sus-
pect.
barred Congress and the states from
granting citizenship to the descendants
of slaves, and it helped prompt the Civil
War.
“In its most monumentally erroneous
decision, the Supreme Court created a
monstrous exception to the common law
rule that birth on American soil to a free
person was sufficient for American citi-
zenship,” Walter Dellinger, then the
head of the Justice Department’s Office
of Legal Counsel, said in congressional
THAT
tus,” he wrote in 2006.
The 1898 decision did not specifically
discuss unauthorized immigrants. But
in 1982, in Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme
Court ruled that undocumented chil-
dren were entitled to free public educa-
tion.
The court relied on another part of the
14th amendment, its equal protection
clause, and it interpreted language simi-
lar to that in the citizenship clause.
“Although the court splintered over

Nor was it clear what the executive
order would say, or how it could change
the meaning of the Constitution.
But there was little question that any
action by Mr. Trump to try to alter birth-
right citizenship would be met with im-
mediate legal challenges.
“The president cannot erase the Con-
stitution with an executive order, and
the 14th Amendment’s citizenship guar-
antee is clear,” said Omar Jadwat, the di-
rector of the American Civil Liberties
Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
“This is a transparent and blatantly un-
constitutional attempt to sow division
and fan the flames of anti-immigrant ha-
tred in the days ahead of the midterms.”
The citizenship clause of the 14th
Amendment, ratified in the aftermath of
the Civil War, says, “All persons born or
A child watched as President Trump spoke last week at a campaign rally in Murphys-
boro, Ill. The citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment was ratified after the Civil War.
testimony in 1995. “The court held that
no persons of African descent — includ-
ing free persons of African descent —
and none of their descendants for all
time to come could ever be citizens of
the United States regardless of their
birth in America.”
In congressional debates about the
14th Amendment in 1866, lawmakers
said its sweep should be wide.
“Is the child of the Chinese immigrant
in California a citizen?” Senator Edgar
Cowan of Pennsylvania asked on the
Senate floor.
Senator John Conness of California
said the answer was yes.
“The children of all parentage what-
ever, born in California, should be re-
garded and treated as citizens of the
United States, entitled to equal civil
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
LAST
the specific question of public educa-
tion,” Mr. Ho wrote, “all nine justices
agreed that the Equal Protection Clause
protects legal and illegal aliens alike.
And all nine reached that conclusion
precisely because illegal aliens are ‘sub-
ject to the jurisdiction’ of the U.S., no less
than legal aliens and U.S. citizens.”
In asides in later decisions, too, the
Supreme Court has assumed that the
children of unauthorized immigrants
born in the United States are citizens.
Two of Mr. Trump’s appointees sit on
the Supreme Court, and it is more con-
servative than it has been in decades.
But there is little reason to think a ma-
jority of the justices would be inclined to
adopt Mr. Trump’s understanding of the
14th Amendment, as the constitutional-
ity of birthright citizenship is not an is-
sue that tends to divide lawyers along
ideological lines.
A few prominent scholars have dis-
sented, notably Peter H. Schuck, an
emeritus professor at Yale Law School. LONDON SANTIAGO DE CHILE
“The argument against any birthright
citizenship is that these children are 9.11.2018 - 29.11.2018 15.11.2018 - 15.12.2018
here as a result of an illegal act and thus MON-FRI 10AM-5PM TUE-SUN 10AM-6PM
have no claim to membership in a coun- CHILEAN EMBASSY, GROUND FLOOR - SALA DE EVENTOS CASA MUSEO EDUARDO FREI MONTALVA,
try built on the ideal of mutual consent,” 37-41 OLD QUEEN STREET, LONDON SW1 9JA HIDENBURG 683, PROVIDENCIA, SANTIAGO DE CHILE
he wrote in 2010.
There may be good policy arguments
for doing away with birthright citizen-
ship, but most legal scholars say it
would take a constitutional amendment
to do so. In his 1995 testimony, Mr. Del-
linger said that a federal statute would
not do, meaning that the executive order SUPPORTED AND FUNDED BY MARKETING PARTNERS
discussed by Mr. Trump would certainly
not suffice.
“Because the rule of citizenship ac-
quired by birth within the United States
is the law of the Constitution, it cannot
be changed through legislation, but only
by amending the Constitution,” he said.

8 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018
Business
Growth rate slips in the eurozone
FRANKFURT
With financial markets
already nervous, risks
in region are accumulating
BY JACK EWING
Economic growth in the eurozone has
fallen to its slowest pace in more than
four years, and Italy is not growing at
all, according to figures that are likely to
sharpen political divisions in the Euro-
pean Union and make the region more
vulnerable to the forces rattling finan-
cial markets.
The eurozone grew 0.2 percent from
July through September compared with
the previous quarter, according to the
European Union statistics agency. Sepa-
rately, Italy’s government statistics of-
fice said growth during the third quarter
had been zero as manufacturing had
slumped.
Both numbers were unexpectedly
poor. Eurozone growth in the quarter
was only half as fast as it had been in the
previous three-month period, and the
rate of growth has fallen in each of the
last three quarters.
Italy’s stagnation is likely to heighten
the dispute between the populist gov-
ernment in Rome and officials in Brus-
sels. The European Commission has
said that Italy’s proposed budget — full
of debt-financed welfare programs —
flouts spending limits that countries in
the European Union are supposed to ob-
serve.
One of the European Commission’s
criticisms of the Italian budget is that it
was based on overly optimistic esti-
mates of future economic growth. Now
those estimates look even less realistic.
Investors registered their disappoint-
ment by bidding up the market interest
rate on Italian government bonds on
Tuesday. That will only amplify the
country’s problems.
The rates on government bonds serve
as benchmarks for the rates that Ital-
ians pay on business or consumer loans.
Higher rates will squeeze spending and
lead to yet slower growth.
“It’s a self-defeating cycle,” said Lo-
renzo Codogno, chief economist at LC
Macro Advisors in London. “The gov-
ernment is shooting itself in the foot.”
But Mr. Codogno said he doubted that
the populist parties governing Italy
would retreat from their campaign
promises, such as increases in pensions.
To do so, he said, “would be political sui-
cide.”
And Italy is not the only country in the
eurozone facing political instability.
Germany is facing a difficult transi-
tion after Angela Merkel, the chancellor
for 13 years, said on Monday that she
would give up leadership of her conser-
vative party in December and not seek
re-election in 2021. The surprise an-
nouncement came after elections in the
state of Hesse underlined a migration of
A booming economy? Women aren’t seeing it
BY BEN CASSELMAN
AND JIM TANKERSLEY
A remarkable gender gap has opened up
in Americans’ views of their own fi-
nances and the broader national econ-
omy.
Men feel better about the economy
than they have in over a decade. Women
are far more skeptical. And the sharp di-
vide has emerged since President
Trump was elected two years ago.
Nearly half of men — 47 percent —
said their family’s finances had im-
proved in the past year, according to a
survey conducted for The New York
Times in early October by the online re-
search platform SurveyMonkey. Just 30
percent of women said the same, despite
an unemployment rate that is near a
five-decade low and economic growth
that is on track for its best year since be-
fore the recession.
Asked how they expected the Ameri-
can economy to fare over the next five
years, nearly two-thirds of men said
they anticipated “continuous good
times economically.” Women were more
likely to expect “periods of widespread
unemployment or depression.” The
gaps remain even between men and
women who are similar in age, race, ed-
ucation and income.
It isn’t clear how men’s and women’s
diverging views of the economy will af-
fect next week’s elections. There has
historically been at most a loose connec-
tion between the state of the economy
and midterm election results, and Mr.
Trump’s signature economic policies
poll poorly with swing voters. What is
clear is that the gender divide — tran-
scending party lines and voting prefer-
ences — is a striking departure from the
past.
Polls by the Pew Research Center go-
ing back to the mid-2000s showed al-
most no gender gap on economic ques-
tions until Mr. Trump took office; since
then, men have become significantly
more confident, while women’s confi-
dence has stalled.
The University of Michigan’s con-
sumer sentiment survey has long
A sweater factory in Solomeo, Italy. The country’s economic stagnation is likely to intensify the dispute between the populist government in Rome and officials in Brussels.
voters from centrist parties to parties on
the far left and far right.
The eurozone growth figure was a
first estimate and contained no detail
about what sectors led to the slowdown.
Still, the causes are obvious enough.
They include the prospect that Brit-
ain’s separation from the European Un-
ion will be disruptive; a trade war with
the United States that has interfered
with trans-Atlantic commerce; and ris-
ing interest rates as central banks roll
back the stimulus programs they used
to combat the last financial crisis.
Those risks are accumulating at the
same time that financial markets are un-
usually nervous. Daily fluctuations in
the prices of stocks, bonds, currencies
and commodities like gold and copper
are at their most extreme levels since
2008, when the last global financial cri-
sis began, according to data compiled by
analysts at the German bank Beren-
berg.
The one somewhat bright spot in the
numbers Tuesday was France, which
registered growth of 0.4 percent from
the previous quarter. But, coming after
Kylie Pierce, a grant writer for a nonprofit organization. “Everything in my life seems
to be getting more expensive, and my wages are the same,” she said of the economy.
Share of adults saying the economy is “good” or “excellent.”
80%
Obama All respondents
60 elected
40
20
0
80%
Democrats
60
40
20
0 the midst of an economic boom. Rome,
80%
Republicans
60
40
20
0
’04 ’06 ’08 ’10
Source: SurveyMonkey
two weaker quarters, even that above-
average result was not enough to
achieve the 1.7 percent pace of expan-
sion that economists say President Em-
manuel Macron needs to validate his
program of business-friendly overhauls.
The changes have not yet brought
widespread economic gains or job cre-
ation, damaging Mr. Macron’s popular-
ity with voters. The government needs
the economy to expand by around 1.7
percent in each of the next four years if it
is to maintain a pledge to cut unemploy-
ment to 7 percent, from more than 9 per-
cent, by the next presidential election,
economists say.
The disappointing growth in the euro-
zone as a whole was partly caused by
factors that aren’t likely to repeat, leav-
ing room for hope that growth will pick
up toward the end of the year.
For example, European car sales
slumped 24 percent in September, as
auto manufacturers struggled to com-
ply with new, stricter emissions stand-
ards. Cars were slow to reach dealers
because of delays in getting regulators
to certify vehicles for sale. Manufactur-
ANDREW SENG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Trump Men
elected
Women
’12 ’14 ’16 ’18
THE NEW YORK TIMES
ers such as BMW and Daimler have also
been caught in the crossfire of President
Trump’s trade war with China.
The slowdown in the car industry rip-
pled through the eurozone and was
probably most pronounced in Germany,
the Continent’s largest economy and en-
gine of growth. Registrations of new
Volkswagens slumped by nearly half in
September, according to the European
Automobile Manufacturers Association.
The company at least temporarily lost
its long-held status as the Continent’s
largest auto manufacturer to PSA of
France, the maker of Peugeot and Cit-
roën cars.
The brake on growth caused by the
auto industry should dissipate soon,
“and the euro economy is likely to grow
more strongly again,” Christoph Weil,
an economist at Commerzbank in
Frankfurt, said in a note to clients Tues-
day.
But many other risks will remain, par-
ticularly Italy and a government seen
by investors as reckless and determined
to defy Brussels. The ultimate question
facing the eurozone, and the world for
shown a small gender gap, but the di-
vide grew after Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory
and in December reached its widest
point on record. The gap has since nar-
rowed slightly but remains larger than
before the election.
Kylie Pierce and Paul Weeldreyer are
both 38, both college graduates and both
steadily employed — Ms. Pierce as a
grant writer for a local nonprofit, Mr.
Weeldreyer as a contract worker for
Comcast. Both are financially stable but
have struggled to build up savings or
buy a home.
But while their circumstances are
similar, their views of the economy dif-
fer sharply. Mr. Weeldreyer, a Wisconsin
native who lives in Denver, said the local
job market was strong. To the extent
that his finances aren’t where he would
like them to be, he blames his own
choices earlier in adulthood, not the
economy more generally. He is confi-
dent in the future.
“It’s frustrating not being able to buy
a house and stuff, but I guess I don’t lose
sleep over it,” he said. “I guess it’ll work
out.”
Ms. Pierce sees things differently. She
says there are plenty of jobs where she
lives in central New York State, but pay
has lagged. She dreams of the day she
can pay her bills the day they arrive,
rather than stalling until payday.
“It’s gotten a lot harder to do the
things that our parents may have done,
buy the house and do all the American
dream stuff,” she said. “Everything in
my life seems to be getting more expen-
sive, and my wages are the same.”
Ms. Pierce’s and Mr. Weeldreyer’s dif-
ferent perspectives may reflect, at least
in part, different realities. Denver is in
where Ms. Pierce lives, has seen a sig-
nificant rebound in recent years but is
still struggling compared with the coun-
try over all.
Their political views may also play a
role. A registered Republican, Mr. Weel-
dreyer said he voted for Mr. Trump re-
luctantly in 2016 and hadn’t decided how
to vote in next week’s midterms. But he
said the economy was “probably the one
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
NADIA SHIRA COHEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
that matter, is whether the problems of
Italy and the tremors in financial mar-
kets signal another crisis.
Bernd Meyer, chief strategist for
wealth and asset management at Beren-
berg, pointed out that prices for tech
stocks or real estate were not at the ex-
treme levels that preceded past melt-
downs. During a meeting with reporters
Tuesday, Mr. Meyer argued that market
pressure on Italy would eventually force
the government to relent on its spending
plans. But, he added, “they will only
back down when they are staring into
the abyss.”
Others are less sanguine about the eu-
rozone’s prospects. Nicola Nobile, lead
economist at Oxford Economics, a con-
sulting firm, noted that the European
Commission’s survey of economic senti-
ment also slipped Tuesday, though it re-
mains well above crisis levels.
“Recent surveys,” Mr. Nobile said in a
note to clients, “are painting a rather
bleak picture of eurozone growth.”
Liz Alderman contributed reporting
from Paris.
area where I would say the president is
doing a good job.” Ms. Pierce is a mem-
ber of the progressive Working Families
Party and said she strongly opposed Mr.
Trump’s agenda.
Indeed, partisanship explains part of
the gender gap. Americans’ assessment
of the economy has become increas-
ingly closely tied to their political views
in recent years. People who identify as
Republicans and as supporters of Mr.
Trump are far more likely to say the
economy is performing well — and there
are significantly more men than women
in both groups.
Still, partisanship isn’t the whole
story. Among men who said they
“strongly approve” of Mr. Trump’s over-
all performance, 76 percent said their fi-
nances were better now than a year ago,
according to the SurveyMonkey survey.
That sentiment was expressed by just
65 percent of women who gave Mr.
Trump strong overall marks. Other eco-
nomic questions reveal a similar gap.
“Republican men are just more confi-
dent and more optimistic than even Re-
publican women are,” said Laura Wron-
ski, a research scientist for SurveyMon-
key.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly promoted
his economic record, and Republican
strategists are hoping the strong econ-
omy will help hold off a potential “blue
wave” of Democratic victories next
week.
Still, the economy seems to be doing
little to win over groups of women who
could be crucial to Republicans’
chances. Ms. Wronski noted that col-
lege-educated suburban white women
actually felt slightly worse about their fi-
nances than women over all — and far
worse than similarly situated men. Per-
haps not coincidentally, they also over-
whelmingly said they planned to vote
for Democrats in the midterms.
Diana Shue-Willis is exactly the kind
of voter Republicans need to win over to
keep control of the House. A college-ed-
ucated Navy veteran in Virginia Beach,
Va., Ms. Shue-Willis is a registered Re-
publican. Her husband works in manu-
GENDER, PAGE 9
..
How China
could use a
number in
a trade fight
BEIJING
If currency falls below
7 to the dollar, it would
be a help to exporters
BY KEITH BRADSHER
As the United States and China swap
threats and mete out increasingly pun-
ishing tariffs, the world is watching to
see whether Beijing turns to one of its
most potent economic weapons. It in-
volves the number 7.
China’s currency, the renminbi, has
been gradually losing value since mid-
April, and on Tuesday it was at its weak-
est point in a decade. If the currency
weakens any further, it could fall below
the psychologically important level of 7
renminbi to the dollar. The last time it
took more than 7 renminbi to buy a dol-
lar was in May 2008, as the world was
slipping into a financial crisis.
The Trump administration doesn’t
like the idea of a weaker Chinese cur-
rency. That could give what it considers
an unfair advantage to China’s export-
ers. In the arsenal of trade disputes, cur-
rencies can be potent weapons.
But China has good reason to keep its
currency from weakening, and it ap-
pears to have acted in recent weeks to
prop it up. Currencies may be potent
weapons, but they are blunt ones — and
they can boomerang against those who
use them.
WHAT HAPPENS AT THE THRESHOLD?
There is nothing particularly threat-
ening about the number 7 itself. The ren-
minbi at 7.002 to the dollar is pretty simi-
lar to the currency at 6.998 to the dollar.
But the renminbi’s falling past that
number would be significant symboli-
cally. It would suggest China is prepared
to let its currency weaken further still.
That would give China’s factory owners
an advantage when they sell their goods
in the United States. It would also under-
mine the tariffs the Trump administra-
tion has levied on more than $250 billion
worth of Chinese-made products.
HOW WOULD THAT HELP CHINA?
Say you own a Chinese factory making
lawn ornaments, and you sell a lot of
pink flamingos to an American retailer.
You price each at $1 — they may sell for
far more in the United States, but ship-
ping and storage account for most of
that. When the renminbi is 6 to the dol-
lar, that translates to 6 renminbi in sales.
But when the currency depreciates to
7 to the dollar, that $1 flamingo is worth 7
renminbi in sales to you. Or you can cut
the price — say, from $1 to 85.7 cents —
and still make your original 6 renminbi
in sales. Your American competitor, who
has to buy and sell in dollars, has to
grudgingly cut prices to compete.
(It’s a lot more complicated in the real
world. The plastic and metal for the plas-
tic flamingo may have been imported by
China and be priced in dollars. But bear
with us.)
A weaker currency can also help Chi-
nese exporters beat President Trump’s
tariffs. Right now, the United States im-
poses tariffs of about 10 percent on a
wide variety of Chinese goods that ar-
rive at an American port. If the renminbi
has fallen 10 percent, the tariff is basical-
ly nullified.
WHAT’S DRIVING THE DECLINE?
Some politicians in the United States
and elsewhere have long said that China
manipulates its currency, even though
Washington officials — including those
in the Trump administration — have
stopped short of official accusations.
But in this case, many of the forces
weakening the currency are beyond
Beijing’s immediate control.
China’s financial system is firmly con-
trolled by the government, giving the
country’s leaders a great degree of con-
trol over how much the renminbi is
worth. Officials set a daily benchmark
rate for the renminbi and allow its value
to move a smidgen above or below that
level in currency markets. Chinese offi-
cials say each day’s trading activity
helps determine the value they set for
the renminbi the next day, but they dis-
close few details about how that works.
On Tuesday, Beijing set that guide-
post at 6.9574, just a hair’s breadth
stronger than 7. In the world of foreign
exchange, a higher number means a
weaker currency.
Right now, traders are sending Bei-
jing a single message: The renminbi
should be worth less. The people and
companies that hold the currency have
become increasingly nervous about Chi-
na’s slowing economic growth, slump-
ing stock market, fragile real estate
market and seemingly intractable trade
war with the United States. Inflation has
begun to tick upward, and rising prices
tend to make holding the relevant cur-
rency less attractive.
There are other reasons. Since late
July, Beijing has tried to prop up the
economy by having the state-controlled
banking sector increase lending, mak-
RENMINBI, PAGE 9
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Men more optimistic on economy
GENDER, FROM PAGE 8
facturing — a core source of support for
Mr. Trump, and an industry that has ex-
perienced a rebound since he took of-
fice.
But Ms. Shue-Willis, 49, is pessimistic
about the economy. She lost her house to
foreclosure during the last recession
and now worries that banks are repeat-
ing the mistakes that led to the financial
crisis. She worries about the cost of
health insurance, and about the jobs
available for her daughter, who didn’t
earn a high school diploma. She said
that the construction industry, where
she works, was slowing down, and that
she didn’t believe the rosy economic fig-
ures she heard on the news.
“I think the unemployment rate they
talk about on TV is misleading,” she
said.
Ms. Shue-Willis said she wasn’t sure
whom she would vote for next week. She
isn’t impressed by her Republican con-
gressman, Scott Taylor — or by almost
anyone else in Congress, a group she
called “a bunch of squabbling hypo-
crites.”
It isn’t clear what, beyond partisan-
ship, is driving the gender divide on the
economy. Men have not notably outper-
formed women in their economic for-
tunes since Mr. Trump took office. Wom-
en have, if anything, received a slightly
disproportionate share of jobs, and the
pay gap for full-time workers narrowed
slightly last year.
But hiring has been especially strong
in male-dominated sectors such as man-
ufacturing, construction and mining,
noted Jed Kolko, chief economist for the
job-search site Indeed. That growth, Mr.
Kolko said, may be making men more
optimistic — particularly because those
same sectors had been in a long slump.
“We are in this unexpected and per-
haps temporary moment where job
growth is faster on average in tradition-
ally male-dominated jobs,” he said.
Mr. Trump’s policies, Mr. Kolko said,
probably have little to do with the blue-
collar rebound. But that may not matter.
Amber Wichowsky, a political-science
professor at Marquette University, said
that during the Obama administration,
white men — particularly those without
a college degree — reported feeling that
their social status was eroding. Now
that might be reversing.
“Their guy’s in office, the economy’s
doing well, it’s an even bigger shot in the
arm,” Ms. Wichowsky said. “The psy-
chology’s really important.”
Even with the unemployment rate un-
der 4 percent, however, millions of
Americans are stuck in part-time or low-
paying jobs, and many families have
barely begun to recover from the Great
Recession.
“You have an economy that, although
the stock market and unemployment
rate look good, people’s actual lived ex-
perience of making ends meet” is less
good, said Corrine McConnaughy, a poli-
tical scientist at George Washington
University.
Ms. McConnaughy said the uneven
nature of the recovery might affect
men’s and women’s views of the econ-
omy differently. She said research had
found that men, on average, gauged the
economy based on their own financial
situation. Women tend to weigh more
A symbolic number
could be a trade weapon
RENMINBI, FROM PAGE 8
ing money more available. That means
even more renminbi sloshing around,
weakening the currency’s value.
While China hasn’t raised interest
rates, the Federal Reserve in Washing-
ton has. That makes it attractive for
many people to sell their renminbi and
buy dollars.
IS THE DROP DELIBERATE?
Not quite. If anything, Beijing is trying
to keep the renminbi from falling too
fast.
China has a number of ways to bolster
the currency’s value. One option is to fol-
low the Fed’s example and raise interest
rates. That would give Chinese families
and companies more incentive to keep
their money in China. But that would
raise the cost of borrowing in China, just
as the economy is slowing.
Beijing could buy up its own currency
instead. Like anything else, the renmin-
bi’s value rises when it is scarcer.
Thanks to the way it has managed its
currency over the years, China has
amassed the world’s largest foreign ex-
change reserves — a $3 trillion stash
7 is unlucky number for China
6 Renminbi per dollar
7 industrial giant still possessed funda-
8
China kept the renminbi little changed against the dollar
during the global financial crisis.
9 turn that business around, he said,
’06 ’08 ’10
Note: Month-end exchange rate data except for this month, which is as of Oct. 30. Scale has been
inverted to show the recently declining value of the renminbi.
Sources: People’s Bank of China, via CEIC Data
Paul Weeldreyer said the economy was “probably the one area where I would say the president is doing a good job.”
heavily the experiences of the people
they see around them.
For Addie Chase, the economy is
working fine. The shopping center that
she and her husband own in Stratford,
Conn., is fully rented, and she has a
strong stable of students for her busi-
that it keeps in dollars, euros, pounds,
yen and other currencies. It has begun
to tap that stash. When China’s central
bank released its monthly balance sheet
a week ago, it showed a drop of almost
$20 billion in foreign currency just dur-
ing September.
WHAT ARE THE BROADER RISKS?
Three years ago, as its economy slowed,
China devalued the renminbi, in part to
give its factories a helping hand. The fi-
nancial world was shocked. Markets
plunged.
As Chinese officials hurried to explain
themselves, people and companies be-
gan shifting their money — money that
China’s economy needed — outside the
country.
A year later, China had spent more
than $500 billion from its reserves in an
effort to shore up the renminbi. It later
tightened controls on the financial sys-
tem to shut off many ways people used
to get money out of the country.
Should the trade war intensify, China
may look to make more aggressive
moves with its currency. But as history
shows, there can be a price to pay.
6.957
’12 ’14 ’16 ’18
THE NEW YORK TIMES
ness as a piano teacher. But Ms. Chase,
67, said Connecticut as a whole was
struggling economically. She sees peo-
ple leaving the state in search of better
opportunities, and she worries about the
future. She said her frustrations with the
national political environment were
Job 1 for G.E. chief: Fix power business
Sharp market downturn
and self-inflicted wounds
leave a division reeling
BY STEVE LOHR
In March 2017, Stephen R. Bolze, the
president of General Electric’s power-
generation business, led an upbeat pre-
sentation to analysts. “We have got an
exciting story for you,” he said.
But by the end of the year, the power
business was in a tailspin — profit fell 88
percent in the fourth quarter. Mr. Bolze
had left. Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chief ex-
ecutive, had been pushed out. And early
last month, Mr. Immelt’s replacement,
John L. Flannery, was ousted as well —
largely a casualty of the troubled power
unit.
The depth of the challenge created by
the embattled power business was un-
derlined this week when the company
reported its third-quarter results.
Recognizing the financial drag, G.E.
announced that it would slash its quar-
terly dividend to 1 cent a share from 12
cents a share, starting next year. The
move will save $3.9 billion in cash a year.
G.E. also said that it would cut its
power business in two — one division
with its gas turbine generators, and the
other home to the rest of the business,
including electric grids and steam gen-
erators.
In a morning conference call,
H. Lawrence Culp Jr., the new chief ex-
ecutive, emphasized that the struggling
mental strengths. “The talent here is
real, the technology is special,” Mr. Culp
said. “But G.E. needs to change.”
The biggest changes would have to be
made in the power business, said Mr.
Culp, a former chief executive of Dana-
her, an industrial company that thrived
during his 14-year tenure. Working to
would be his priority.
The two power units will report di-
rectly to Mr. Culp. One message, he said,
will be to “wring out some of the undue
BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
hard to separate from her feelings about
the economy.
“I just feel like I’m angry all the time,
which isn’t my personality,” she said.
“Because women are so upset about
how things are going, it colors their
whole outlook.”
optimism” that had been part of the
mind-set there.
At the start of last month, when Mr.
Culp was named chief executive, he said
G.E. would sharply write down the val-
ue of its power business. The write-
down of $22 billion, formally announced
on Tuesday, is virtually all of the good
will in that business — everything other
than hard assets like factories and
equipment.
On the conference call, Jamie Miller,
the chief financial officer, told analysts
that a previously disclosed Securities
and Exchange Commission investiga-
tion, which included the accounting for
service contracts in the power business,
was being expanded to include the big
write-down. Ms. Miller also said the Jus-
tice Department had an investigation
underway.
In the third quarter, G.E. reported re-
sults somewhat below Wall Street’s ex-
pectations, including those for its oper-
ating earnings. Revenue of $29.6 billion
— a 4 percent decline — was below the
$29.9 billion average estimate of ana-
lysts compiled by Thomson Reuters. In
the quarter, the ailing power unit’s reve-
nue fell by 33 percent from a year earlier.
Shares in the company fell nearly 10
percent on Tuesday.
The precipitous fall of G.E.’s power
business is particularly remarkable be-
cause it does not seem to be a fall-off-a-
cliff kind of business. G.E. has long been
the market leader. Its power generators,
the company says, supply 30 percent of
the world’s electricity.
Gas-fired turbines, equipment that
lasts 20 or 30 years, are its core product.
There are more than 7,500 G.E. gas tur-
bines in power plants worldwide, which
should be the platform for a large, lucra-
tive service business for maintenance
and repairs.
So what happened?
The answer, according to former G.E.
managers and industry analysts, is a
combination of a sharp market turn, a
wayward acquisition and self-inflicted
wounds.
Energy efficiency programs and re-
newable sources like solar and wind
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 | 9
Apps for children
come loaded with ads
Researchers find games
aimed at age 5 and under
with rewards for buying
BY NELLIE BOWLES
Many developers market apps for chil-
dren as being educational. So Jenny
Radesky, a pediatrician who wrote the
American Academy of Pediatrics guide-
lines for children and media, wanted to
check that out.
“One of my big concerns about why
apps might not be educational was be-
cause of the presence of distracting fea-
tures such as banner ads that sit along
the top of the screen and which contain
stimuli that are irrelevant to the learn-
ing objective,” Dr. Radesky said. “And
we were expecting to see those.”
She was not expecting all the rest.
In apps marketed for children 5 and
under in the Google Play store, there
were pop-up ads with disturbing im-
agery. There were ads that no child
could reasonably be expected to close
out of, and which, when triggered, would
send a player into more ads. Dancing
treasure chests would give young play-
ers points for watching video ads, poten-
tially endlessly. The vast majority of ads
were not marked at all. Characters in
children’s games gently pressured the
kids to make purchases, a practice
known as host-selling, banned in chil-
dren’s TV programs in 1974 by the Fed-
eral Trade Commission. At other times
an onscreen character would cry if the
child did not buy something.
“The first word that comes to mind is
furious,” said Dr. Radesky, an assistant
professor of developmental behavioral
pediatrics at the University of Michigan
Medical School. “I’m a researcher. I
want to stay objective. We started this
study really just trying to look at distrac-
tion. My frustrated response is about all
the surprising, potentially deceptive
stuff we found.”
Her team of researchers spent hun-
dreds of hours playing 135 different
games. Published in the Journal of De-
velopmental & Behavioral Pediatrics,
the study’s findings are stark: 95 per-
cent of commonly downloaded apps
marketed to be played by children ages
5 and under contain at least one type of
advertising. The researchers concluded
many of these examples seemed to vio-
late F.T.C. rules around unfair and de-
ceptive advertising.
To accompany the publication of the
study, called “Advertising in Young Chil-
dren’s Apps: A Content Analysis,” over a
dozen media and children’s health advo-
cacy organizations sent the F.T.C. a let-
ter asking for an investigation.
“This is kind of a one-two punch,” said
Jeff Chester, the executive director of
the nonprofit Center for Digital Democ-
racy, which led the effort along with the
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Child-
hood. “Usually these academic studies
are published and there’s no conse-
quences,” he said, “but here when we
learned of her research it was clear from
the beginning that there were public pol-
icy implications.”
have both expanded and dropped in
price faster than anticipated. And fur-
ther advances in battery technology
could make renewables consistently re-
liable rather than dependent on the
weather. Those forces have prompted
utility executives to hold off new orders
for gas turbines, after years of growth.
The demand for gas-turbine power
generation this year will be more than
40 percent less than in 2016, analysts es-
timate.
“The market moved much faster than
anyone anticipated,” said Lisa Davis, a
member of the managing board at the
German company Siemens who over-
sees its gas turbine business.
T. ROWE PRICE, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
H. Lawrence Culp Jr., the new chief exec-
utive of General Electric, said his com-
pany “needs to change.”
But while the other major producers
of large gas turbines, mainly Siemens
and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems,
have suffered, they have moved more
quickly to adapt than G.E., analysts say.
At Siemens, Ms. Davis said, the mar-
ket weakness became evident in 2015,
and the company began tightening its
belt.
Yet Siemens may have also been a
lucky loser. It bid, in competition with
G.E., for the electricity generation and
distribution operations of France’s Al-
stom. G.E. prevailed in the long-running
negotiations in June 2014, and the acqui-
sition did not close until late 2015.
business
The letter brings up a few specific
findings from Dr. Radesky’s research:
In Olaf’s Adventures, published by Dis-
ney, clicking on a glowing cake that is
not marked as an ad takes the player to a
store; in Doctor Kids, published by
Bubadu, a character cries if the player
clicks away from the in-app store.
“We urge the commission to immedi-
ately launch an investigation of Android
apps designed for, and marketed to,
young children and hold developers ac-
countable for their practices,” the letter
states.
The group argues that these advertis-
ing tactics violate Section 5 of the Fed-
eral Trade Commission Act, which bans
unfair and deceptive business practices.
Mr. Chester said the Google app mar-
ketplace should not allow these apps to
be directed to kids at all. “Google in fact
knows and is a co-conspirator with the
developers,” he said.
In a statement, a Google representa-
tive said app developers can show ads
so long as they agree to comply with pri-
vacy laws and the company's policies,
such as barring advertisers from col-
lecting information on users under 13.
A character cried when a child
did not buy something.
“Apps primarily directed to children
must participate in our Designed for
Families Program and must follow more
stringent requirements, including con-
tent and ad restrictions,” the statement
said. It added that Google Play “dis-
closes whether an app has advertising
or in-app purchases, so parents can
make informed decisions.”
Kathryn Montgomery, who helped
lead the effort that resulted in the land-
mark Children's Online Privacy Protec-
tion Act of 1998, said she thinks now is
the moment for another landmark ac-
tion to protect children.
“The tide has turned,” said Dr. Mont-
gomery, a professor of communication
at American University. “You can feel it.
A few years ago to suggest limiting tech
for kids would have sounded alarmist,
and now that’s changing.”
“It’s unfair to children and deceptive
the way the ads are structured into the
play,” Dr. Montgomery said. “The F.T.C.
is one of the only regulatory agencies
able to do something about it.”
While other studies of children and
games usually focused on the top-rated
or recommended apps, Dr. Radesky
chose to study the ones with the most
downloads. Many of those were free
apps, and she found those had the most
alarming advertising.
To Dr. Radesky, this bombardment of
advertising undercuts most of the edu-
cational content an app may include.
“There’s very limited research show-
ing how children learn from interactive
media,” she said. “But the one thing
that’s consistent is if you have lots of dis-
tracting bells and whistles, children
don’t comprehend the underlying learn-
ing material as well.”
Doris Burke contributed reporting.
At first, the deal looked like a good one
for G.E. A top appeal was Alstom’s base
of installed gas turbines — a source of
service business — and its combined
steam-and-gas generation technology.
But absorbing Alstom proved to be
more difficult than expected, and the ac-
quisition increased G.E.’s stake in the
power business on the cusp of the mar-
ket’s downturn.
The largest part of the $22 billion
write-down was related to the Alstom
acquisition. It amounts to a declaration
by G.E.’s new management team that it
will never generate the earnings the
earlier management team had project-
ed.
“Alstom was the biggest bet, but it
was symptomatic,” said Deane Dray, an
analyst for RBC Capital Markets.
There is a debate among former G.E.
managers over whether the company
was slow to respond to the market turn
or, as the largest producer in the market,
was destined to be hit hardest.
But the G.E. power unit still has out-
standing technology and a long roster of
customers, analysts say. The key to a
comeback, they say, is quickly address-
ing the basics of the business. Cutting
costs will be part of the formula. But,
they say, so will more closely catering to
customers, and retaining experienced
midlevel managers and skilled engi-
neers.
All of G.E.’s industrial businesses
have been through severe setbacks in
the past, including industry cycles and
quality issues. But each time, the com-
pany has stayed the course and
emerged.
In the longer term, natural gas is pre-
dicted to be one of the winners in the en-
ergy market, plentiful and relatively
clean, unlike coal or nuclear.
“Right now, G.E. is in a real trough,
and it looks like the business is collaps-
ing,” said Richard Keck, president of the
Keck Group International, a power plant
consultant. “But if they don’t panic, it
will come back.”
“By 2022,” he added, “whoever is
leading the G.E. power business might
well be a hero.”
 ..
10 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

TURKISH AIRLINES OPEN

The Rolex Series

New players embrace a new series

A lineup of golfing talent
on the verge of joining the
sport’s top tier
BY JEFF SHAIN

As happens with many innovations,

some European Tour pros have warmed
up to the Rolex Series faster than others.
Yet even as such draws as Rory McIl-
roy, Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia have
been infrequent participants in its eight
events, the second-year series has made
a mark in identifying a lineup of talent
on the verge of joining the top tier.
As proof, look no further than the five
Ryder Cup rookies who helped Europe
wrest the prestigious 17.5-inch trophy
back from their American rivals a
month ago.
The English pros Tommy Fleetwood
and Tyrrell Hatton, Alex Noren of Swe-
den, Jon Rahm of Spain and Thorbjorn
Olesen of Denmark had a hand in nine of
the Europeans’ 17½ points in France. All
five used Rolex Series wins to help se-
cure their place on the team.
“They are quality golfers,” Thomas
Bjorn, the European captain, said in the
celebratory aftermath. “They are
putting their stamp on the world scene,
and there are a couple on this team who
are right on the way to the top of the
game over the next few years.”
Nor do they represent the only ones.
As this week’s Turkish Airlines Open be-
gins the three-event homestretch for the
Rolex Series and the season as a whole
— with the Nedbank Golf Challenge and
DP World Tour Championship to come
— the series has shown remarkable bal-
ance.
Since the concept made its debut at LUKE WALKER/GETTY IMAGES

last year’s BMW PGA Championship,

the 13 Rolex Series events have been
won by 11 different golfers.
Rahm and Noren are the only ones
with multiple titles, and the five events
this year have been spread among five
winners.
“They are top players in the world
who are kind of ready to win big events,”
Fleetwood told reporters in the summer.
“It has that feel to it that when you’re
coming down the stretch on Sunday, if
you’re in contention to win a Rolex Se-
ries event, it’s a massive event to win.
You’ve got to be ready for it.”
Francesco Molinari won May’s BMW
PGA Championship at the Wentworth
Club, just outside London, and went on
to a banner summer. He was runner-up
at the Italian Open — another Rolex Se-
ries event — and took the momentum to
the United States to win the Quicken
Loans National, capping it with a British
Open triumph that made him Italy’s first
major champion.
Nor was he done there. Molinari be-
came the first European to go 5-0 at a
Ryder Cup, teaming with Fleetwood to
win all four paired matches and capping
the weekend with a singles victory over
Phil Mickelson.
“Winning always helps to bring confi-
dence,” Molinari said early in October.
“To be honest, up until Wentworth my
season was nothing special. It was a lit-
tle bit disappointing because I could feel
that my game had improved a lot.”
Molinari also holds a commanding
points lead in the tour’s Race to Dubai
season, with a margin of 1.36 million
points — based on euros earned — over
second-place Fleetwood.
“With the year he’s having,” Fleet-
wood quipped, “I think he might deserve
it.”
Fleetwood captured the Race to Du-
bai crown last year, aided by his Rolex
Series win at the Open de France. Rahm
was third in points, with two Rolex wins
nearly making up for the 11 fewer Euro-
Going green pean tournaments he played than Fleet-
Last year’s Turkish wood.
Airlines Open at “If you play good, you can take advan-
Regnum Carya Golf tage toward the end of the year,” Rahm
& Spa Resort in said.
Antalya, Turkey. Fleetwood, Hatton and Olesen are all
in their late 20s; Rahm will be 24 this have embraced it. need time to take hold. A dozen years As Fleetwood, Hatton, Fitzpatrick and Italy for the win
month. “Over all, I believe that they have ago, PGA Tour players were rather cool Olesen — and other rising Europeans — Francesco Molinari,
“There are some good young guys more choice than they have ever had be- to the FedExCup points race, even with raise their profiles on the world stage, left, and Tommy
coming through,” said Matthew Fitz- fore.” a $10 million bonus awaiting the winner the Rolex Series could experience a simi- Fleetwood at the
patrick, 24, who has five top-12 finishes He also noted the trickle-down effect: at the finish. lar boost. British Masters last
in Rolex Series events. “I think it makes The 100th player on last year’s money But with McIlroy, Stenson, Jordan “They have that prestige put on them,” month. Molinari
for some exciting years on the tour.” list, Pelle Edberg, pocketed about Spieth, Justin Thomas and now Rose Fleetwood said. “They get the fields that recently won the
It’s the kind of impact envisioned in $135,000 more than the previous year’s taking FedExCup honors in recent I think we’re looking for now. You win British Open.
the creation of the Rolex Series, with No. 100, Lasse Jensen. years, that season title has strength- one of these Rolex Series events, and it
each tournament increasing its prize Sometimes, too, new concepts just ened in stature. opens up all kinds of avenues.”
fund to at least $7 million. Bigger purses
draw better lineups, and the money has
a greater impact on the points race.
“You can win two smaller ones and
still be behind someone who wins one
Rolex Series,” said Thomas Pieters of
Belgium. “I think it should be like that,
because you get the best fields in the
Rolex Series.”
The series also was given an elevated
role in Ryder Cup qualification, with
events held the same week as Rolex Se-
ries stops excluded from the points
process to determine eight automatic
qualifiers.
All five of Bjorn’s rookies got in via
one of the two lists used — a European
Tour points list and one measuring
world ranking points.
“More events, more money, more
world ranking points, bigger players —
it’s always good for the tour,” said the
English veteran Ian Poulter.
The interest level, though, hasn’t nec-
essarily reached the old guard. Rose’s ti-
tle defense in Turkey is just his sixth Rol-
ex Series start since it began. McIlroy
has teed up in just four events, and Gar-
cia and Henrik Stenson in three each.
Contrast that with the new-guard core
of Fleetwood, Molinari, Noren, Rahm,
Hatton, Olesen and Fitzpatrick. That
group has averaged 9.7 Rolex Series
starts to this point. Fitzpatrick has teed
up in all 13 events, Hatton in 12.
Keith Pelley, the European Tour’s
chief executive, doesn’t seem bothered
by the disparity. He acknowledges that
it’s unrealistic to expect such ultra-elites
as McIlroy and Rose to rearrange
schedules that have been successful for
them.
“What we have done,” Pelley said
early this season, “is provide a wonder-
ful option for the top players. And they

WARREN LITTLE/GETTY IMAGES

..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 | 11

TURKISH AIRLINES OPEN

It’s all in the technique

Matt Wallace started
winning after a new coach
changed his swing
BY JOHN CLARKE

Not too long ago Matt Wallace, the

British golfer who charged up the ranks
this year with three wins on the Euro-
pean Tour, was considering quitting the
game for a regular job.
“I started to send off emails to man-
agement companies,” said Wallace, 28,
who is playing the Turkish Airlines
Open this week. “I decided I would use
my love for sport and go down that
route. I never got one reply.”
One of those emails went to the for-
mer pro and current golf agent Andrew
Chandler at International Sports Man-
agement who, like all the others, never
responded to Wallace’s job pitch. “He
didn’t reply, either, and he hates that
fact. But in the end it worked out be-
cause now they manage me.”
Wallace was struggling in those
years, lost in the wilderness of not know-
ing what he was doing wrong. He cycled
through a few coaches with no results.
“The problem wasn’t mental, it was
technique-based,” Wallace said. “I lost
tournaments under pressure because of
my technique. I couldn’t stand up to the
gun. I was working really hard in those
years. I was just working on the wrong
stuff.”
Wallace was hitting a wall. “I got bet-
ter at what I was good at, but I didn’t
change my technique,” he said. “I kept
losing tournaments. I needed change.”
Wallace found his way to the coach
Matt Belsham in 2015. “He’s a very tech-
nical swing coach, and that’s what I
needed.” But he didn’t expect Belsham’s
approach to be so brutal. When he first
hit balls with him at the driving range,
Belsham was not impressed. Belsham
laughed and told Wallace that he must
be really good at chipping and putting.
“That kind of stuck with me,” Wallace
said. “I’ve never had a coach say some-
thing like that to me. It was quite cool.
We got right to working on my game.”
Belsham said he would have to
change fundamental techniques of hit-
ting the ball to reach the level he wanted
to play; he also told Wallace that he was
nowhere near that level. “He was brutal
and blunt, which was exactly what I
needed,” Wallace said. They worked
hard on his swing with the theory the
swing makes the ball do what it wants to
do. “He was brilliant,” Wallace said.
As his swing changed, Wallace was
approached by the veteran caddy Dave
McNeilly in 2017. “That was really cool,”
Wallace said. “I had in my head the idea
that a caddy should be young. You see a
lot of very young caddies on tour now.
That’s what I thought I wanted. Some-
one I could talk about sports, cars, golf
and life. And that is completely the
wrong thing for me. Coming out on tour,
you need knowledge and history. The
caddy needs to know every course we
play like the back of his hand.”
“We talk the same language when it
comes to golf,” McNeilly said. “He’s also
got a nice sense of humor. I can be a bit
wacky, but he goes along with it quite
well, and we can talk about anything, no
matter how random the subject I bring
up.”
Wallace and McNeilly, 66, paired to
play the Irish Open that year. “His expe-
rience is phenomenal. He’s brilliant.
He’s been amazing,” Wallace said of Mc-
Neilly. “He’s always trying to get the
best of himself every week, and he never
rests on his laurels.”
McNeilly also said he knew how to
handle Wallace as he grew as a player.
“It’s perfect because he’s got the hunger,
energy and passion, but is still learning
the game. I’ve seen players go through
that learning process before, and I un-
derstand the frustrations it can bring
and I can run with it.”
The third act in Wallace’s success play
came in another coaching change. That
same summer he started working with
the coaches Robert Rock, who still plays
on the European Tour, and Rock’s under-
study, Liam James.
“I’ve had two sets of eyes on my swing
for the last 12 months,” Wallace said.
“They go back and forth and help me
swing my club as well as possible. We’ve
got a great thing going there. We’re just
always trying to improve the technique,
which gives me confidence to go out
there, swing it great.”
Working as a team, the coaches have
reduced mistakes and significantly im-
proved his game. “We’ve made his
swing shorter, his strike quality is better
and the flight is more consistent,” Rock
said. “With the short game, we’ve also
used other players to help improve Matt,
such as Thomas Bjorn and Paul Lawrie,
who we are also working with.”
The run of success has been a whirl-
wind, Wallace said.
“It started on the Alps Tour, a sort of
mini-tour that travels around Europe, to
the Europe tour,” he said. “I found my-
self playing really well and found myself
in a really good position. Then it was the
Challenge Tour. Did well in my first
JAN KRUGER/GETTY IMAGES
event in Kenya. Got 25th in Turkey. Then Back at it
was invited to play Portugal, which I Matt Wallace
managed to win. That got me my Euro- taking his second
pean Tour card. It was a crazy eight shot at the 10th
months. And it just went from there. My hole during the
game has just improved as time has Portugal Masters in
gone on. I don’t think there’s been any September.
secret to it — it’s been hard work. I’ve
always felt like I could win golf tourna-
ments. I just started moving up through
the ranks.”
Along the way, he has kept a close eye
on a fellow Englishman, Tommy Fleet-
wood, who has had his own meteoric
rise. The two have played a few times
over the past few years.
“We’ve had a few chats,” Wallace said.
“It’s funny. You can’t just ask about his
rise and success. It’s a difficult question:
‘How do you do it?’ The answer is al-
most always hard work. He’s been at it
longer than I have, and he’s at the top of
his game. He’ll be up there for a long
time. He’s a brilliant player. Hopefully
with experience I can be where he is.”
Wallace has watched Fleetwood
closely. “I just love to learn from these
guys like Tommy,” Wallace said. “His
iron play is incredible, and that tells me
my iron play has to be better. I went back
and talked to my coaches, and we
worked on it. The week after, my iron
play was amazing. I basically tried to
swing it like Tommy, with that detailed
follow through, and I won that week.”
Last year, Wallace set the goal to
break into the top 50 on the European
Tour. He is hovering just north of that at
No. 61. Now, with four European Tour ti-
tles and three just this year, Wallace is
trying not to change anything.
“I’ve had a brilliant year so far, but I
can make it into an outstanding one,” he
said. “I’ve got a great opportunity to
play against the best players in the At his side
world in the next few weeks. If I can play Dave McNeilly with
the way I know I can, who knows what Wallace at the
can happen? All I have to do is prepare WGC-HSBC Cham-
like I always do. If I get into position for pions in Shanghai
contention, I know my head and my last month. Mc-
heart will take over.” Neilly has been
Wallace paused. Then he continued: crucial in helping
“Now, I don’t mind having my back up Wallace improve
against the wall. I like the pressure his performance on
now.” the course.

ANDREW REDINGTON/GETTY IMAGES

 ..
12 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Opinion
The girl who seized the internet
Tara Fares Molly Crabapple
fashioned
herself
into the On Oct. 9, the Iraqi author Sinan An-
Instagram toon tweeted, “Killing those who are
other/different has become a ritual/
queen of hobby, practiced by individuals for fun,
Iraq. Then after having been institutionalized by
she was shot the state, political parties and militias
for years.” His tweet referred to re-
to death. ports that an Iraqi teenager had been
butchered on a Baghdad street by an
assailant who thought he looked gay.
But Mr. Antoon could have been refer-
ring to any of the young Iraqis who
have tried to break free of the rigid
social codes governing both genders
only to suffer vicious reprisals.
The most famous of these victims
has been Tara Fares. When she was
killed in September, Ms. Fares, who
had 2.8 million followers on Instagram,
was the sixth most popular person on
Iraqi social media. At 22, she was a
self-created celebrity who mixed sexy
fashion shoots with video diaries in
which she fired back at her conserva-
tive critics. Ms. Fares was shot dead in
Baghdad’s Camp Sarah neighborhood
while riding in her Porsche.
When I read about Ms. Fares’s mur-
der, recognition hit me like a punch.
Though I am 13 years her senior, when
I was her age, I also worked as a
scantily clad internet model. I also
reinvented myself on social media,
posting endless photos of myself,
trying to build a following that would
somehow translate into something
more. Back then, qualified only for
menial jobs, I also saw my looks as a
fast-closing door to freedom and used
them as best I could. But I am in the
United States, and she was in Iraq. The
stakes for Ms. Fares were far higher.
Her courage was of a different magni-
tude from mine.
Ms. Fares was born in Baghdad into
a Christian family that converted to
Islam when she was 6. Her parents
married her off at 16 to a man she ANMAR KHALIL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

described as traditional and violent.

When her parents caught him beating
her, they took her back into their
home. She was 19 and soon discovered
she was pregnant. After she gave
birth, she said, her husband sent
armed men to take their son. “All Iraqi
men want a woman to serve them,
wash their clothes, devote themselves
to them, but they do not ask you to
have feelings. It is tantamount to
asking you not to be human,” Ms.
Fares said later.
Perhaps before, perhaps after her
divorce, she had started modeling. The
first Miss Iraq beauty pageant took
place in 1947; the winner was a Jewish
girl, Renee Dangoor. The pageant
closed shop in 1972, though unofficial
pageants continued in less extrava-
gant forms, until Miss Iraq officially
restarted in 2015. Ms. Fares made her
debut in an unofficial pageant in 2014
in a bare, over-lit room at the Baghdad
Hunting Club, whose contestants were
extraordinary only in their ordinari-
ness. She was baby-faced and wide-
eyed and won runner-up. In 2015, she
was crowned Miss Baghdad at the
Hunting Club.
Around this time, she began to post
selfies on social media. “I never
thought they’d become viral,” she later
said on YouTube. “I felt powerful from
all of these replies of love and hate. I
started to feel that I was strong
enough to choose whatever I wanted,
to dress the way I saw as correct,
because it is my choice and my life
after all.” Ms. Fares left for Turkey in
early 2015, determined to find success
as a model.
The Instagram account that made
her famous kicked off in May 2016. In
her first post, she sports an Adidas
baseball cap and a pout, and describes
a nightmare about a car bombing in
the caption. “I saw blood. I saw
corpses . . . but the strangest thing I
saw was my body, thrown onto the
ground. #Follow_TaraFares.” The
juxtaposition of hot girl and horror
garnered her post 15,091 likes.
Ms. Fares’s likeness remains re-
peated in this internet hall of mirrors:
swathed in a hotel robe, getting her
hair done on Eid al-Fitr, playing video
games, flaunting her intricate tattoos.
She traveled across the region from
Beirut to Doha to Amman, posting than the members of Parliament and tions between the deaths and fear that A display at the
increasingly stylish and slick videos of the Iraqi politicians. Because Tara extremist militias were killing these gravesite of the
her adventures. doesn’t swear at people. Tara doesn’t outspoken and outgoing women. social media star
In a self-produced mini-documenta- speak in sectarian language. Tara does- The murders remain unsolved and Tara Fares, in
ry, actors whisper her name as she n’t suck the blood of the Iraqi people.” questions remains around the mysteri- Najaf, Iraq.
trots into a hotel lobby. The legend Ms. Fares was based in the city of ous deaths. On Oct. 16, The Baghdad
reads “Glamour Queen.” She sports Erbil but she traveled frequently to Post claimed that the Iraqi Interior
skimpy clothes, designer bags, Baghdad. Her love for her hometown Ministry had ordered the prosecution
blinged-out nails. was evident. Four months before her of militia leaders in connection with the
The stakes She is her own wom- murder, she tweeted, “I have always killings of Ms. Fares and another Iraqi
an, mimicking the been proud of where I have come for internet star, a flamboyant actor
for Ms. Fares aspirational lifestyle me and others around me. I never feel named Karrar Noushi, stabbed to death
were far of the Westernized shame” for being from “a city inhabited in 2017.
higher. Her ultrarich. by war and destruction” “The militarization of the Iraqi
courage was Men harassed her The murder of Miss Baghdad is a big streets with armed men at checkpoints
of a different online and on the headline, and in death, Ms. Fares made and the proliferation of militias has
magnitude street. Women, too, the news around the globe. On Iraqi created new mechanisms of social
from mine. denounced her. social media some praised her as a free control,” the sociologist Zahra Ali wrote
When, on an Iraqi woman, some mourned the killing of a in the aftermath of Ms. Fares’s murder.
YouTube show, the harmless model, but to some others, Violent patriarchy may have killed
host asked her about she had earned death because of her Iraq’s Instagram queen, but in her
rumors she did sex work, she denied it, immoral behavior. A few days before brief, vivid life, she seized the internet’s
then mocked her accusers. In a video Ms. Fares’s killing, Suad al-Ali, a wom- possibilities for self-determination. In
diary, she berated an unnamed cleric en’s rights activist, was shot to death in her death, she remained an irresistible
who offered her a “pleasure marriage” Basra. In August, Rafif al-Yasiri and icon.
— a temporary union unique to Shia Rasha al-Hassan, two beauticians and
Islam. prominent figures on Iraqi social me- MOLLY CRABAPPLE is the author of
After rejecting his proposal, she dia, died in mysterious circumstances “Drawing Blood” and co-author of
declared: “Tara Fares has more honor in Baghdad. Some Iraqis see connec- “Brothers of the Gun.”

Australians must reject a nationalist push into universities

Politicians David Brophy
and activists
are shaping
nationalist SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA In 1985, the Aus-
sentiment tralian entrepreneur Paul Ramsay took
a tour of Nottoway Plantation in Loui-
into pride in siana. So impressed was he with the
artificial and luxurious “white castle” mansion and
ahistoric its grounds that he decided to buy it
right there and then. In Mr. Ramsay’s
notions of hands, the property became a popular
civilization. tourist attraction and resort. The re-
sort’s website continues to revel in
Nottoway’s antebellum glory days,
while neglecting to make any mention
of the slave labor from which it was
built.
A similar desire to whitewash the
past informs the institution that Paul
Ramsay has left Australians as his
legacy: the Ramsay Center for West-
ern Civilization in Sydney.
In the 1990s, Prime Minister John
Howard accelerated the privatization
of Australian health care, introducing a
tax rebate for those who took out
private insurance. During the sell-off
of state assets, Mr. Ramsay specialized
in turning veterans’ hospitals into
profit-making enterprises, before
expanding his interests across the
sector. By the time he died in 2014, his
net worth was likely upward of $2
billion.
Mr. Ramsay’s health care fortune is
now being plowed into a second sector
facing a dire erosion of public funding:
higher education. With Mr. Howard as
chairman of its board of directors, the
Ramsay Center is in negotiations with
multiple Australian universities to
fund a new program of courses in
Western Civilization.
There’s no denying the benefits that
philanthropy can bring to a public
university, but the Ramsay Center is
no ordinary donor. Its board members
have been frank about their political
goals: to redress what they see as
excessive criticism of the West in
Australian universities, and to culti-
vate a “new generation of leaders”
who will “defend and promote” West-
ern civilization, which the chief execu-
tive of the center, Simon Haines, be-
lieves is “arguably the richest of all
civilizations.”
The Ramsay Center wants to estab-
lish its program alongside, and sepa-
rate from, existing offerings in disci-
plines like history and philosophy —
disciplines already heavily weighted
toward the West. And it intends to
privilege “Western civilization” by
providing its budding “cadre of lead-
ers” with scholarships and learning
conditions that outstrip those available
to their peers.
Ramsay’s push onto campuses
marks the next step in a wider cam-
paign to roll back the more pluralistic
definition of national identity that is
emerging in today’s multicultural
Australia. In the 1990s, Prime Minister
Howard voiced his hostility to a “black
armband view of history,” which in his
view gave excessive weight to the
indigenous viewpoint on Australia’s
colonization.
Speaking in 2010 at the launch of the
Foundations of Western Civilization
Program, an initiative of the free-
market Institute of Public Affairs, Mr.
Howard railed against the Australian
Labor Party’s new high-school history
curriculum, which he felt belittled
European and British influences on
Australia.
Paul Ramsay speaking in Sydney, Australia, in 2011.
But it is not only Australia’s history
wars in which “Western civilization”
serves as a rallying cry for conserva-
tives. In a 2011 address entitled “West-
ern civilization must be defended,” Mr.
Howard argued that same-sex mar-
riage was “an exercise in de-authoriz-
ing the Judeo-Christian influence in
our society.” Another former prime
minister, and Ramsay Center board
member, Tony Abbott, has justified the
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in
terms of “defending Western civiliza-
tion against the forces of chaos.”
The myth of an embattled “Western
civilization” has also been featured in a
recent series of alarming interventions
into the politics of race and immigra-
tion in Australia. In August, Senator
MARK NOLAN/GETTY IMAGES
Fraser Anning referred to his harsh
policy ideas as the “final solution to
the immigration problem,” arguing
that we must not “concede the field to
enemies of Western civilization.” Earli-
er this month, the governing Liberal-
National coalition endorsed Senator
Pauline Hanson’s motion echoing the
alt-right slogan “It’s O.K. to be white,”
and deploring “attacks on Western
civilization.”
Efforts to re-center the university
curriculum on more celebratory no-
tions of “Western civilization” feed off,
and in turn give scholarly legitimacy
to, interventions such as these. The
Ramsay Center’s rhetoric may sound
more sophisticated than the outright
Western chauvinism emanating from
the Australian Senate, but the kinship
they share is obvious.
The Ramsay initiative mirrors a
wider global trend in which politicians
and activists shape nationalist senti-
ment into pride in artificial and ahis-
toric notions of civilization. Amid
growing geopolitical rivalries, and
widely expressed hostility toward free
trade, kindred spirits on the global
right now seek to divide the world into
cultural camps, threatening the critical
spirit and international exchange that
is so vital to scholarly work.
In the United States, the conserva-
tive National Association of Scholars
has lobbied to restore “Western civili-
zation” to the centrality it once held in
America’s college curriculum. This
campaign led to the creation of Texas
Tech’s Institute for the Study of West-
ern Civilization, headed by the N.A.S.’s
founding chair. Next month, the insti-
tute is hosting Bruce Gilley, a profes-
sor of political science at Portland
State University, who will present “the
case for colonialism.”
In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan is introducing a curriculum
that will inculcate a “new civilization”
informed by his definition of Ottoman
and Islamic values. In China, President
Xi Jinping has similarly set himself the
task of reviving his nation’s confidence
in “5,000 years of Chinese civilization.”
In some cases in Australia, universi-
ties have shown themselves vigilant to
the dangers inherent in this climate of
cultural nationalism. When Beijing’s
Confucius Institute came knocking at
the University of Sydney, my col-
leagues rightly insisted that they have
no role in teaching Chinese language
and culture to our undergraduates.
BROPHY, PAGE 14
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 | 13

opinion

The price of trans visibility

A.G. SULZBERGER, Publisher
DEAN BAQUET, Executive Editor
JOSEPH KAHN, Managing Editor
TOM BODKIN, Creative Director
SUZANNE DALEY, Associate Editor
JAMES BENNET, Editorial Page Editor
JAMES DAO, Deputy Editorial Page Editor
KATHLEEN KINGSBURY, Deputy Editorial Page Editor
BRAZIL LURCHES TO THE RIGHT
Jair Bolsonaro
joins the club
of reactionary
populists rising
to power.
protect us last Sunday, when those in astonishingly short amount of time: other side. This past week, for me,
Thomas Page McBee power appeared determined to strip us from seven years ago, when, as one of raised the question once again: Is
MARK THOMPSON, Chief Executive Officer
of our basic rights. Very few of the the first out trans journalists in the there?
STEPHEN DUNBAR-JOHNSON, President, International
people who so enthusiastically cele- country, I was still spending much of It’s probably not coincidence that the
JEAN-CHRISTOPHE DEMARTA, Senior V.P., Global Advertising
brated our stories of “finally being my time helping reporters and editors surge in trans visibility has accompa-
ACHILLES TSALTAS, V.P., International Conferences
About a month ago, I was reading the ourselves” showed up at the rallies newly attuned to trans issues use nied an era of precarious gender poli-
CHARLOTTE GORDON, V.P., International Consumer Marketing
new novel “Lake Success,” by Gary that took place across the country, in correct pronouns, to today, when a tics. Even before #MeToo, the bound-
Shteyngart, when I came across a the wake of news that the Trump ad- transgender candidate has won the aries of the old boys’ club that defined
HELEN KONSTANTOPOULOS, V.P., International Circulation
familiar trope. ministration aims to define us out of Democratic nomination for governor of our political and economic structures
HELENA PHUA, Executive V.P., Asia-Pacific
The book follows the story of a existence. And even as trans people on Vermont, and shows like “Transpar- for hundreds of years were being
SUZANNE YVERNÈS, International Chief Financial Officer
straight, white hedge fund manager, television are increasingly beamed into ent” and “Pose” not only receive high challenged. Women, trans and not, who
Barry Cohen, as he abandons his life to living rooms across the country, we’re critical praise but also feature powerful resist the idea that men have an inher-
take a trip across America via Grey- also seeing an uptick of violence trans storytellers and actors behind ent right to their bodies — at work and
hound bus. Along the way, Mr. Shteyn- against the most and in front of the camera. at home — are upending conventional
gart’s narrator takes pains to point out Pop culture marginalized mem- Which is why the backlash feels so wisdom about gender roles. At the
— but not engage with — two visibly bers of our commu- painful — rooted, as it is, not just in the same time, a global “masculinity cri-
has elevated
transgender women, but it’s not ex-
us as
nity. usual demeaning rhetoric from conser- sis” has spurred both a thoughtful
actly clear why. It’s not until he gets to Trans and nonbi- vatives or the ignorant and unin- examination of traditional ideas of
The script has become familiar in this global season of Texas, where Barry observes a young progressive nary people — by formed, but also in decades-old talking manhood and a sometimes-violent,
far-right politics: A fringe politician peddling vitriol trans woman who is upset because she symbols, most estimates, not points from women calling themselves vitriolic backlash.
can’t afford the fare, that we learn why while even 1 percent of the feminists who argue that trans women In these turbulent times, challenging
and promising order catches the mood of a nation he finds these women so intriguing. forgetting population — have aren’t women, and from those purport- gender norms is not just the territory
yearning for change, any change, and rides it to the “She was eating ice cream and crying,” come to hold an edly concerned about the ways social of trans people. But whether or not you
us when
presidential palace. Barry says. “But even in her tears she it comes to outsize role in our pressures may be leading children connect to the “authenticity” of trans
knew who she was.” cultural imagination, toward medical interventions too soon stories probably says a lot about how
A year ago, anyone who said Jair Bolsonaro could be At some point between 2011, when I
real progress. especially in the — never mind the lack of concrete you feel generally about gender in this
elected president of Brazil would have been dismissed transitioned, and 2018, a curious thing minds of film direc- evidence that this is any sort of wide- moment. Even if you don’t know a
happened in the relationship between tors, journalists and spread problem. Violence against trans single one of us, perhaps our existence
as a comic. A former artillery captain turned politician,
trans people and popular culture. A fashion and television executives (who people (and especially trans women of encourages you to believe that gender
Mr. Bolsonaro spent 27 years as an obscure congress- certain subset of trans people — usu- are still, with some notable exceptions, color) last year was the highest it’s is more expansive than you imagined
man opposed to everything left-wing. In the campaign, ally (though not always) palatable, almost never trans themselves). And been since it was first measured; over and that progress is possible. Maybe it
sympathetic and conventionally attrac- yet, it’s not exactly clear what this role half of trans boys have attempted even reminds you that gender policing
he came to be best known for his outrageously offen- tive — became pervasive, appearing has done for us. suicide. Erasure is a battle most of us of any kind serves the status quo,
sive comments about gays, blacks, indigenous people on magazine covers and in prestige It’s strange being trans in 2018. spend our entire lives fighting against, whether it’s defining people by their
and women and for defending the old military dictator- dramas. Some even became full- Everyone knows we exist, but very few which is why the memo from the De- genitalia, monitoring what women
fledged celebrities. And we took on — people know one of us well enough to partment of Health and Human Serv- wear or telling boys that “real men”
ship, torture and guns. in some mainstream liberal circles, see us as complex, fully formed human ices suggesting that the existence of don’t cry.
His campaign platform, such as it was, was mostly anyway — an often crude, if occasion- beings. Trans people may be on more trans people is, itself, a matter of de- That’s all true, and it makes sense
about going backward — pulling out of the Paris cli- ally flattering, symbolism: Our pres- screens and magazine covers than bate, opened old wounds. Despite all that the trans person (for our new
ence in a project lent it an air of edgi- ever before, but for the 84 percent of the attention on our stories, trans supporters, anyway) seems to hold a
mate accord, using strong-arm tactics with criminals ness, sometimes even glamour. Above Americans who believe they’ve never people almost invariably risk tremen- special place in this tumultuous new
(his favorite motto is said to be, “A good criminal is a all, as Mr. Shteyngart’s narrator al- met a trans person in real life, we still dous loss in endeavoring to be “authen- landscape — some combination of foil,
dead criminal”), giving industry what it wants. ludes to, we were seen as authentic. live in the realm of the imagination, tically” ourselves. The triumph you see role model and technological wonder.
And yet all these narratives empha- theoretical at best. on television only happens if there is a And this special place has meant that
Mr. Bolsonaro has said he did not support equal pay sizing our authenticity did little to We’ve made real progress in an welcoming world to greet us on the there is more space in the wider cul-
for women because they already “get more labor ture for our stories. But I’ve begun to
wonder whether this sense of us as
rights than men.” He said he would rather his son die
special, while it may help people who
in a car accident than be gay. He said he favored tor- aren’t trans begin to see new possibili-
ture and claimed the public agreed with him. He said ties for gender, also creates a kind of
license for holding us apart when the
in a 1999 interview he would disband the Congress if
going gets tough.
he were elected president. At a rally in October he In 2014, Time famously declared that
vowed to jail his political opponents or send them into we’d reached a “trans tipping point.” In
the years since, the magazine has
exile. And he promised to strip environmental protec- come to look both prescient and wildly
tions from much land held by indigenous peoples. wrong.
Yet his angry rants caught the mood of a Brazilian “Visibility” for trans people was
supposed to help humanize us, to give
electorate sick of an endless corruption scandal that the broader culture a sense of the
has reached to the far corners of the establishment, people behind our stories. And though
rampant street violence and economic dislocation, all that has been true, in part, the didactic,
often body-focused framing of those
of it indiscriminately and often unfairly blamed by stories and the gender-war timing of
many Brazilians on the left-wing Workers’ Party, that visibility has also rendered us into
known as PT. The eagerness to repudiate anything PT symbols, metaphors, pawns and
boogeymen.
— and the political class as a whole — overrode all I believe that many people of all
other considerations, like Mr. Bolsonaro’s total lack of genders do want to see the rigid state
of our gender politics improve, not just
preparation. He came in first in the first round and got
for trans people but for all of us. But
a resounding 55 percent of the vote in the second. reducing trans people into a symbolic
Not surprisingly, President Trump, with whom Mr. vanguard is not only dehumanizing —
it’s dangerous. True progress happens
Bolsonaro shares views on many issues ranging from when all of us are released from the
gun rights to China, was among the first to proffer realm of “other” — which means allow-
warm congratulations along with a cheery tweet (“Ex- ing trans people to captain our own
stories, where we can depict ourselves
cellent call, wished him congrats!”). as fully fleshed-out people: not just
Mr. Bolsonaro poses a danger to Brazil’s democracy. brothers, mothers, neighbors and
Like Mr. Trump, he is a polarizing force — he was friends, but also reflections of an as-
pect of humanity as old as time. We’re
seriously wounded by a would-be assassin during the not metaphors; we’re who you would
campaign, and even before the election Brazilian me- have been if you’d been born trans.
dia reported that police were staging raids in universi-
EMILY BERL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
THOMAS PAGE MCBEE is a journalist and
ties, purportedly to stop illegal electioneering. He is the author of “Amateur: A True Story
expected to name several former generals to his cab- Caitlyn Jenner, who is transgender, at the Vanity Fair Oscar party in 2016. About What Makes a Man.”
inet, a troubling move in a nation with a dark history
of military control.
Yet in the immediate wake of the election, Mr. Bol-

U.S. economy is great, really, for now

sonaro pledged to respect democratic rules. “This
government will defend the constitution, democracy
and liberty,” he declared. “This is a promise not of a
party, not the empty words of a man; it’s an oath be-
fore God.” Ruchir Sharma
So far so good. And if he does manage to bring
Brazil out of economic crisis, a task likely to be handed
to the University of Chicago-trained economist Paulo Whatever one thinks of President
Guedes, and to bring the crime rate and corruption Trump, it’s hard to deny that much of
America is feeling great again.
under control without undermining the rule of law, so
Surveys show that consumers have
much the better. The initial reaction of Brazilian finan- been this confident only twice before,
cial markets was a frenzy of stock-buying in the antici- at the height of the economic booms of
the 1960s and 1990s, and their mood is
pation of policies like selling off inefficient state com- bright across income groups, not just
panies, deregulation and a cut in social spending. among the rich. Small business confi-
The question is whether Brazil’s still adolescent dence has not been higher since the
surveys began nearly five decades ago.
democratic institutions can withstand a far-right as- The misery index, invented in the
sault. Most of the measures Mr. Bolsonaro might at- 1970s to describe the agonizing combi-
nation of inflation and unemployment,
tempt — whether expanding the authority to carry
is now just 6 percent, matching the
arms or classifying the movement of landless people lowest levels of the last half century.
as “terrorists” — would require either a law, which This year in particular, the economy
needs a simple majority in the legislature, or a consti- has performed exceptionally well.
Among major economies, only the
tutional amendment, which needs three-fifths. The United States has accelerated signifi-
new Congress is full of untried deputies, but, despite cantly in 2018, while Europe, Japan
and many emerging economies have
serious losses, the opposition Workers’ Party is still
slowed markedly. The Commerce
the largest party in the lower house, with the potential Department reported Friday that the
to block Mr. Bolsonaro’s more undemocratic initia- economy grew at a very strong pace of
3.5 percent in the third quarter, putting
tives. it on track for its best year in more
Brazil’s left is badly wounded, with the once-wildly than a decade. This raises a question:
popular former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in Why has the stock market, which
normally rises when investors antici-
prison. But the opposition would do best to recognize pate strong economic growth, been
the election of Mr. Bolsonaro as a cry of desperation gyrating wildly?
rather than a declaration of war, and to support those Investors may now be expecting
America to peak after a hot decade.
actions that address the wrongs while blocking those Even with recent setbacks, the per-
that endanger democracy. formance gap between the United
States stock market and the rest of the
global markets is close to a 100-year
high. Money flowing into the United
States has also driven up the value of
the dollar, which has never been more
dominant as the world’s preferred
currency.
Trump doubters say that this boom
began before he took office, in the
aftermath of the global financial crisis
of 2008, and they have a point. With its
more flexible economic system, the
United States responded faster than its
peers to the debt problems exposed by
the crisis. The United States forced
households and troubled financial
institutions to rapidly reduce their
debt, and easy money provided by the
Federal Reserve allowed them to start
spending again. Money flowed into the
giant tech companies that have under-
pinned the American economic surge.
Just as the 1980s belonged to Japan
and the 2000s to emerging nations, the
last decade belonged to America. Still,
the gap in performance between Amer-
ica and the rest of the world has wid-
ened in the last two years under Mr.
Trump, as his tax cuts and deregula-
tion turbocharged the American econ-
omy and its markets. His policies have
spurred consumption, and have incen-
tivized companies to buy back more of
their stock and bring home some of the
money they had stashed overseas.
But economies that are hot in one
decade rarely stay hot in the next.
Every boom eventually creates ex-
cesses that sow the seeds of its own
destruction, and the excesses that
could end the American decade are
coming into view.
The United States economy has been
expanding for nine years in a row and
if this streak carries on until August
next year it will be the longest eco-
nomic expansion in the country’s his-
tory. Within a few years after the crisis
of 2008, American companies had
started running up debts again. It’s not
unusual for companies to get overcon-
fident and become saddled with heavy
debts late in an expansion. But it is
unusual to see the government follow
suit, as it has this time. Owing in part
to the Trump tax cuts, the United
States budget deficit
is now around 4
The excesses
percent of gross
that could domestic product —
end a boom
the highest it has
decade for been outside the
the American immediate aftermath
economy are of a recession or a
coming into war.
That will make it
view.
very hard for the
government to keep
stimulating the
economy. Growth is expected to slow
next year as the impact of the tax cuts
fades and the strong dollar cuts into
exports. The Fed has been raising
rates, and the end of the long easy
money party is starting to have an
impact on the housing and stock mar-
kets, helping to explain the recent
correction.
Nonetheless, the United States stock
market is still swollen — and it seems
unlikely to keep expanding from here.
The stock market is now 60 percent
larger than the American economy, a
scale it has reached only twice in the
past century, during the manias of the
1920s and late 1990s. Moreover, the
giant tech companies that have been
driving the economy and markets now
face a regulatory backlash that could
cut into their extraordinarily high
profit margins.
Trump haters may be tempted to
conclude from all this that he is about
to lead America into a sudden decline,
but that is not the point. This American
decade started under President
Obama, continued under Mr. Trump
and survived congressional gridlock
throughout, showing that the economy
often rises above politics. The economy
is driven less by ideology than by its
own internal cycles, and this cycle has
been turning in America’s favor for so
long that it is unlikely to last much
longer.
While the excesses of corporate
exuberance and government debt are
rising in the United States, countries
from France to Brazil are in the cleanup
phase that often precedes an economic
comeback. Most are a long way from
working out the excesses of the last
decade, and they may suffer further
setbacks. But they are approaching the
start of a new cycle, while the United
States nears the end of an old one. If
history is any guide, the next decade is
less likely to be great for America than it
is for the rest of the world.
RUCHIR SHARMA is chief global strategist
at Morgan Stanley Investment Manage-
ment.

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14 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018
opinion
The Muslims are coming
Wajahat Ali
Contributing Writer
The Muslims are coming!
For some Americans — those who
support a travel ban, a wall along the
Mexican border and increased restric-
tions on refugees, all while holding on to
the ridiculous belief that the world’s 1.8
billion Muslim hate America, despite
the fact that it’s home to nearly 3.5
million of us — that statement probably
inspires fear.
But it’s true: Nearly 100 Muslim
political hopefuls have filed to run for
elected office this year. Only a dozen or
so ran in 2016. In July, The Associated
Press interviewed Muslim candidates
about this record number. The reporting
revealed that it’s precisely the bigotry
and hate that has been directed toward
Islam — including in remarks and
tweets by President Trump — that has
motivated so many Muslims to enter the
political arena, where they now stand
poised to advance policies that directly
reflect their faith and also benefit all of
their constituents.
Rashida Tlaib of Detroit, a former
state representative and a daughter of
Palestinian immigrants, would be the
nation’s first Muslim woman in Con-
gress. Ilhan Omar, a Somali-American
and refugee from Kenya, is predicted to
win in November, replacing Represent-
ative Keith Ellison in Minnesota.
A majority of Muslim candidates are
not running with their religion on their
sleeves, but instead as Democrats
promoting unabashedly progressive
platforms.
“It is important that people recognize
I am someone who is a public servant
working to create a better society, who
just happens to be a Muslim refugee,”
Ms. Omar told me in a phone interview.
While she represents a district that is
mostly Christian and white, she be-
lieves her constituents don’t care about
her religion or identity as much as they
do about whether she’ll champion their
causes in Washington.
These Muslim political veterans and
upstarts certainly aren’t the first to
demonstrate that deeply held religious
beliefs can inspire a commitment to
social justice. But at a time when the
hypocrisy of many who claim to repre-
sent the Christian religious right is
especially glaring, they provide the
latest reminder that being devout does-
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n’t have to — and shouldn’t — go hand in
hand with attacks on women, minorities
and poor people.
“It’s not about just being out there and
flaunting your faith,” Ms. Tlaib told
CNN in an August interview. “I always
tell people that I’m exposing Islam in
such a pivotal way, an impactful way,
through public service.” Ms. Omar beat
her closest Democratic rival by more
than 20,000 votes while calling for the
canceling of student debt, raising the
minimum wage and increasing the
number of refugees admitted to this
country.
“It is part of my Islamic teaching to
make sure we are charitable,” Ms. Omar
told me. “A huge part of the Islamic faith
is that you can’t sleep with a full belly if
your neighbors and those around you
aren’t sleeping with a full belly.”
Abdul El-Sayed — who recently lost
his race for the Michigan governor’s
nomination but started a PAC to support
liberal candidates — echoed the senti-
ment. Dr. El-Sayed
calls himself
It’s the hate
“openly, honestly
directed
and unapologetical-
toward Islam ly Muslim” and told
that has me he believes
motivated so “privilege begets
many to enter responsibility.” That
the political Islamic value inform
arena. his progressive
politics.
Nonetheless, both
Ms. Omar and Dr.
El-Sayed said critics have tried to use
their religion against them. “Islamopho-
bia comes with the territory,” Dr. El-
Sayed said. They’ve each been hounded
by the far-right activist Laura Loomer,
who has been traveling the country
“investigating” Muslim candidates
running for office. This includes disrupt-
ing their talks and asking whether they
support Hamas.
Ms. Omar refuses to be intimidated.
“We say what we want to say,” she said.
“They cannot continue to instill fear in
us and stop us from achieving critical
conversations.”
Unfortunately, many Christian Re-
publican voters are still encouraged to
fear Muslims. “Running on Hate 2018,” a
report by the nonprofit organization
Muslim Advocates, examined 80 cam-
paigns using anti-Muslim messages
leading up to the midterm elections and
found that almost all of the candidates
engaged in these tactics are Republican.
The evangelical leader Franklin Gra-
ham has said Islam is an “evil” religion.
After Dr. El-Sayed lost his race, a mes-
sage appeared on the Twitter page of
Corey Stewart, a Republican Senate
candidate from Virginia, that read,
“Michigan almost elected a far left ISIS
commie.” It was quickly deleted and Mr.
Stewart said that it was sent by some-
one with access to his account. Duncan
Hunter, a California Republican who has
been indicted on a charge of campaign
finance violations, said his opponent,
Ammar Campa-Najjar, was a national
security risk because of his Palestinian
Muslim roots and because his grandfa-
ther was involved in the 1972 Munich
Olympics terrorist attack. (Mr. Campa-
Najjar is a Christian and his grandfather
died 16 years before he was born, but
who needs facts?)
These are reminiscent of the attitudes
behind the anti-Catholic hazing of the
1950s that forced John Kennedy to
assuage fears that he was “not the
Catholic candidate for president” but
instead the “Democratic Party’s candi-
date for president who happens also to
be a Catholic.” But Kennedy won the
presidency, and now a quarter of United
States senators and six Supreme Court
justices are Catholic.
Hana Ali, seeking a seat in the Ten-
nessee legislature, is taking a cue from
President Kennedy. She told me she’s
running as a Democrat, a proud Tennes-
sean and an American who also hap-
pens to be Muslim.
In Tennessee, she has seen firsthand
the damage of the opioid crisis and the
dire consequences of her state’s failure
to expand Medicaid. She doesn’t have
the built-in progressive network of a
liberal Detroit or New York or the lux-
ury to ignore Trump supporters. In-
stead, Dr. Ali, a physician, health care
executive and proud immigrant, is
knocking on doors trying to win voters
over with a Democratic platform, one
smile and hug at a time.
Win or lose, she told me, she wants
her campaign to inspire her children
and the next generation. “If this woman
who lives in the middle of Tennessee can
run for office as a Democratic candi-
date, then it opens up a lot of doors for a
lot of Muslim women, future genera-
tions and communities who are watch-
ing from a distance,” she said.
Muslims are here, they’re running for
office, and a few are going to Washing-
ton, where they’ll do something many
members of Congress have failed to do:
serve God by serving people.
WAJAHAT ALI is a playwright and lawyer.
George Washington for president
Thomas L. Friedman
Dear Reader. I think you know, after 23
years of my writing this column, that
I’m not lazy. I always try to come up
with fresh ideas. Today, though, I am
fresh out of fresh ideas. More than any
time in my career, I think the United
States is in danger. It has a disturbed
man as president, whose job description
— to be a healer of the country in times
of great national hurt and to pull every-
one together to do big things that can be
done only together — conflicts with his
political strategy, which is to mobilize
his base with anger and fear. And time
and again he has chosen the latter.
When a person is promoted to a top
job in life, usually one of two things
happens: He either grows or he swells
— he either evolves and grows into that
job or all of his worst instincts and hab-
its become swollen and just expand over
a wider field. I don’t have to tell you
what happened with President Trump.
He is a shameless liar and an abusive
bully — only now he is doing it from the
bully pulpit of the presidency.
When you have a president without
shame, backed by a party without a
spine, amplified by a TV network with-
out integrity, reason is not an option and
hope is not a strategy. The only restraint
on Trump is a lever of national power in
the hands of the opposition party that
can force some accountability.
The stakes could not be higher. If the
coming midterms reaffirm Trump’s grip
on every lever of national power — the
White House, the Senate, the House and
the Supreme Court — he will become
Trump’s greatest hits
DOUTHAT, FROM PAGE 1
won out over Trump’s more populist
promises.
The desire to wink at extremism has
remained — witness his Charlottesville
response — but it’s been somewhat
kept in check by staff and aides, and the
mix of white nationalists and alt-right
provocateurs who fastened onto him in
2016 have seen their stars dim and a
much more conventional group of
right-wing grifters take their place.
Still, it’s not at all surprising that
with the election almost here Trump
would return to what seemed to work
for him two years ago, and try to revive
the mix of identitarian demagogy and
policy heterodoxy that helped him
achieve a partial Electoral College
realignment while his party held both
the House and Senate.
The question is whether it will work
again, and keep the House in Republi-
can hands for two more years. If it
doesn’t, there will be two main explana-
tions.
First, the voters who were won over
by Trump’s economic populism when
he was running against Hillary Clinton
— especially the kind of Midwestern
Democratic voters who flipped the
Electoral College — now have almost
two years of policymaking to assess,
rather than just a campaign’s worth or
promises. And on the evidence of a lot
of Midwestern polls they believe the
G.O.P. under Trump is still more pluto-
cratic than populist.
This is a reasonable assessment.
True, on trade and low-skilled immigra-
tion Trump can at least claim (however
debatably) to be looking out for blue-
collar workers more than past Republi-
cans. But on taxes he delivered an
unpopular tax cut for the rich, on health
care he delivered a failed and hated
Obamacare replacement, and on infra-
structure, the big campaign promise,
he delivered next to nothing.
If an infrastructure bill or the things
he’s suddenly pitching — lower pre-
scription drug prices and a tax cut for
the middle class — had been central to
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
even more swollen and more dangerous
to our institutions, which are now strain-
ing to contain his excesses.
Trump once boasted, “I am a national-
ist.’’ He surely is. And remember what
President Charles de Gaulle of France
once observed: Patriots put love of their
own people first, while nationalists put
hate for other people first. This is a time
for every American patriot to do the
only thing that can make a difference
now:
In the midterm elections, vote for a
Democrat, canvass for a Democrat,
raise money for a Democrat, drive
someone to a voting station to vote for a
Democrat. I repeat: In the midterm
elections, vote for a Democrat, canvass
for a Democrat, raise money for a Dem-
ocrat, drive someone to a voting station
to vote for a Democrat. I repeat: In the
midterm elections,
vote for a Democrat,
Patriots put
canvass for a Demo-
love of their crat, raise money for
own people a Democrat, drive
first, while someone to a voting
nationalists station to vote for a
put hate for Democrat.
others first. Beyond that, noth-
ing else matters. We
have to protect our
institutions until this
Trump era passes and we can restore
the presidency to someone — Democrat
or Republican — focused on loving our
country more than hating others. To
remind us what such a president sounds
like, I cede the rest of my space to Presi-
dent George Washington and the letter
he wrote, after a visit to Newport, R.I.,
where he was enthusiastically received
by, among others, members of the local
Jewish community. It was dated Aug. 18,
1790. (Hat tip to the Jewish Women’s
Theater in Los Angeles, Dana Milbank
of The Washington Post, NPR and all
others who have referenced this letter in
recent days.).
Gentlemen: While I receive, with much
satisfaction, your Address replete with
his agenda in 2017 he might have been
a much more politically formidable
president. But bringing them up now
would smack of political desperation
even if voters were paying close atten-
tion to the new proposals — and they
probably aren’t, given the chaos of
pre-election coverage.
So the return to economic populism
is likely to be less effective in 2018 than
the same message was in 2016. And
then at the same time the wink to the
conspiratorial extremes, the japes
about body-slams and punching pro-
testers in the face, have met the thing
most likely to make them a political
liability: actual far-right violence.
The idiosyncratic
The return nature of lone-wolf
attacks makes it a
to economic mistake to draw a
populism is line of direct respon-
likely to be sibility from Trump’s
less effective rhetoric to the would-
in 2018 than be pipe bomber and
the same the synagogue shoot-
message ing. And the oft-
was in 2016. repeated claim that
the Trump era has
produced a general
surge in anti-Semitic
violence seems dubious or wrong.
But the events of last week are still a
strong reminder that the politics of
vilification and the paranoid style work
darkly in darkened minds, and that
having a president embrace both is
simple wickedness, not just the WWE-
style game that Trump may believe
himself to be playing with his rhetoric.
And voters who decided to forgive
Trump’s demagogy in 2016, or treat it
as performance art, have just been
given a visceral reason to punish him
for it instead.
Given our vertiginous style of politics
there is still time for some unexpected
development, some last-minute
midterm twist. But with a week to go
the safest bet is that in returning to the
same strategy he followed in 2016,
Trump will earn — and deserve — a
more disappointing political result.
..
expressions of affection and esteem, I
rejoice in the opportunity of assuring you
that I shall always retain a grateful
remembrance of the cordial welcome I
experienced in my visit to Newport, from
all classes of Citizens.
The reflection on the days of difficulty
and danger which are past is rendered
the more sweet, from a consciousness
that they are succeeded by days of un-
common prosperity and security. If we
have wisdom to make the best use of the
advantages with which we are now
favored, we cannot fail, under the just
administration of a good Government, to
become a great and a happy people.
The Citizens of the United States of
America have a right to applaud them-
selves for having given to mankind
examples of an enlarged and liberal
policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All
possess alike liberty of conscience and
immunities of citizenship. It is now no
more that toleration is spoken of, as if it
was by the indulgence of one class of
people, that another enjoyed the exercise
of their inherent natural rights. For
happily the Government of the United
States, which gives to bigotry no sanc-
tion, to persecution no assistance, re-
quires only that they who live under its
protection should demean themselves as
good citizens, in giving it on all occasions
their effectual support.
It would be inconsistent with the
frankness of my character not to avow
that I am pleased with your favorable
opinion of my Administration, and fer-
vent wishes for my felicity. May the
Children of the Stock of Abraham, who
dwell in this land, continue to merit and
enjoy the good will of the other Inhab-
itants; while everyone shall sit in safety
under his own vine and fig tree, and there
shall be none to make him afraid. May
the father of all mercies scatter light and
not darkness in our paths, and make us
all in our several vocations useful here,
and in his own due time and way ever-
lastingly happy.
G. Washington
Nationalism
in Australia
BROPHY, FROM PAGE 12
The Ramsay Center’s first suitor,
The Australian National University,
balked when it realized the constraints
the center wished to place on its auton-
omy and the intellectual freedom of its
faculty. Yet with much of the same
proposal still intact, including a peri-
odic review of funding and Ramsay
participation in hiring decisions, ad-
ministrators at the University of Syd-
ney have been unable to resist the lure
of the center’s millions and — to the
considerable disquiet of staff, including
me — are plunging into negotiations.
More preliminary moves are afoot at
the University of Queensland.
In the face of administrative intran-
sigence and the erosion of faculty
governance, staff and students at the
University of Sydney have mobilized
strongly against the Ramsay proposal,
and enlisted the support of colleagues
from around the country and overseas.
Several departments have issued open
letters opposing the partnership, and
some faculty have threatened to boy-
cott it. An arm wrestle is taking place
on our campus, and its outcome will
have significant consequences for
Australian higher education.
For universities to fulfill the critical
role they were designed for, it’s essen-
tial that they not simply serve as con-
duits for the viewpoints espoused by
the loudest or wealthiest voices in the
wider society. The values of pluralism
and diversity that all Australian uni-
versities profess to represent shouldn’t
be reduced to mere advertising slo-
gans — they’re prerequisites for the
participatory intellectual climate in
which scholarly work thrives. It’s time
for our universities to live up to these
promises and to reject Ramsay.
DAVID BROPHY is a senior lecturer in the
department of history at the University
of Sydney, and a member of the Staff
Against the Ramsay Center group.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
style
Making fun of fashion
A new satirical bio-musical
riffs on Calvin Klein
and his designer friends
BY VANESSA FRIEDMAN
Fashion — that big, amorphous blob of
style pronouncements and product that
occupies an outsize space in the psycho-
graphic map of the world — is good at
many things, but laughing at itself is not
necessarily one of them.
Remember how unamused YSL (the
brand) was at the satirical “Ain’t Lau-
rent Without Yves” T-shirt in 2015? Re-
portedly unamused enough to threaten
to end its relationships with stores that
sold them.
So it’s relatively brave for a lone,
young, celeb bio-musical creator and
star to take on not one, but three of fash-
ion’s most sacred cows. At once. That’s
exactly what Ryan Raftery is doing in
“The Obsession of Calvin Klein,” which
had its opening at Joe’s Pub in the Public
Theater in New York on Sunday and
runs until Nov. 17.
And my guess is, the subjects —
Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Donna
Karan — will hate it. But they shouldn’t.
(Well, maybe Donna should; it’s not too
flattering about her.) Because under all
the mockery, and there’s quite a lot of it,
some friendly, some less so, it gets one
thing about fashion very right.
The show, which stars Mr. Raftery as
Mr. Klein, used the frame of a career talk
at the Harvard Graduate School of De-
sign to take him down memory lane,
back to the neighborhood in the Bronx
where both he and Mr. Lauren grew up,
thus setting up a story of competition,
jealousy and success à la “Black Swan.”
It is set to tunes from Amy Winehouse,
Fleetwood Mac, “Chicago” and “Pal
Joey,” among others, (the lyrics
changed to fit the theme) and is Mr.
Raftery’s second foray into the style set.
His first — the show that brought him
a new level of attention after time on the
underground cabaret circuit — was
“Ryan Raftery is the Most Powerful
Woman in Fashion,” a.k.a. the Anna
Wintour story, which he wrote while
working in the public relations depart-
ment of Coach.
Then he took on both Martha Stewart
and Andy Cohen, but the “Calvin” show
brings things full circle.
Mr. Raftery is not, it is fair to say, out
In Denmark, sibling chivalry
FROM T MAGAZINE
A chef and an artisan
respect each other’s
particular talents
BY JAMES CLASPER
When Sophie Bille Brahe and her
younger brother, Frederik, were grow-
ing up in Hellerup, a leafy suburb north
of Copenhagen, their parents had two
unorthodox methods of keeping the
house quiet when they wanted to sleep
in on Sunday mornings.
To distract Sophie, they permitted her
to rummage through the bric-a-brac in
the drawers of a 17th-century Chinese
cabinet that stood in the living room of
their two-story 1920s-era house. “This
was before television for kids,” she says.
“I could sit there all morning organizing,
arranging and looking at old things. I
once found a diamond ring my parents
didn’t know was there.” To occupy Fred-
erik, meanwhile, they would give him a
sandwich wrapped in layers of tinfoil.
“It’s so funny, considering what we do
now,” says Frederik, 35. While he has en-
joyed a career as a chef and has intro-
duced three successful restaurants in
Copenhagen — including Atelier Sep-
tember, a longstanding haunt of the
city’s fashion and design worlds — his
sister has become one of Denmark’s
most sought-after jewelry designers.
Her eponymous line of delicate, sculp-
tural pieces is sold at Dover Street Mar-
ket, among other stores, and she has col-
laborated on accessories with brands
that range from the decades-old Danish
design firm Georg Jensen to the avant-
garde Japanese label Sacai.
Sibling rivalry in childhood — “I was
extremely jealous of Sophie,” Frederik
says with a sheepish smile — has given
way to close friendship. “When I’m with
my brother, I feel like nothing else in the
world matters,” says Sophie, 38, who
lives in Gentofte, a suburb north of Co-
penhagen, with her five-year-old son,
Johan, and Border collie, Snoop. “In a
way, Frederik and I are completely the
same yet completely the opposite,” she
adds. “We both searched for something
to express ourselves with.”
Sophie introduced her label in 2011,
two years after graduating from the
Royal College of Art in London, and she
makes all of her jewelry by hand, using
centuries-old goldsmith techniques, in-
cluding creating her own alloys. The sib-
lings count the 16th-century astronomer
Tycho Brahe among their ancestors,
and “I always have the sky as an ele-
ment of inspiration,” Sophie says. A case
in point is her signature Croissant de
Lune, a curved gold earring with eight
white diamonds inset that follow the line
of the earlobe, echoing the shape of the
crescent moon. Her latest collection,
Jess Watkins as Donna Karan and Ryan Raftery as Calvin Klein, in “The Obsession of Calvin Klein,” now playing at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater in New York.
for historical accuracy; his poetic li-
cense is pretty extreme. Though he said
in an email exchange that his starting
point was wanting people who knew the
Calvin Klein brand to realize there was a
real person behind it, (and though he ac-
tually spent a day as the real Calvin’s as-
sistant, before realizing “he needed
someone willing to make a very serious
commitment to the job”), reality doesn’t
much come into the show.
While the general timeline of Mr.
Klein’s career is accurate, Mr. Raftery
has reimagined Ms. Karan (played by
Jess Watkins) as a cleaning lady/pawn
who gets Svengali’ed by Mr. Klein into
becoming a designer, to distract Mr.
Lauren (Miranda Noelle Wilson) with
competition, thus enabling Mr. Klein to
Aphrodite, is a homage to the paintings
of Botticelli. After the death of their fa-
ther last month, Sophie has temporarily
moved back to the family home to be
with her mother, and her new collection,
she says, “was very much about me feel-
ing happy again and celebrating life.”
Frederik has had occasion for celebra-
tion this year, too. In August, he married
the Danish fashion model Caroline
Brasch Nielsen (for whom Sophie de-
signed a wedding ring: a twist on the
Croissant de Lune, with a swirl of gradu-
ating diamonds), and earlier this year,
he started his third restaurant, Kafete-
ria, at the National Gallery of Denmark.
Designed in collaboration with the Dan-
ish-Vietnamese artist Danh Vo, the din-
ing room features Isamu Noguchi’s
Akari light sculptures and tables and
chairs from Enzo Mari’s 1974 collection
build the bigger empire. In this version
of the story, it’s Mr. Klein’s idea to send
Ms. Karan to Haiti, not for humanitarian
reasons, but to get a voodoo charm to
hex Mr. Lauren.
None of that is true, of course, though
the show does correctly get her pen-
chant for swathing herself in black, and
her view of yoga as a panacea for many
ills. Also, the fact she and Mr. Klein are
good friends.
Mr. Raftery is a little fairer to Mr. Lau-
ren and Mr. Klein, though not much. But
he’s a charismatic presence, the songs
are great (his version of “Back to Black,”
switching the words to “I Go Right to
White,” an ode to monochromatic allure,
is particularly catchy). It’s often genu-
inely funny, if occasionally wincing, and
PHOTOGRAPHS BY RASMUS WENG KARLSEN
Sophie and Frederik Bille Brahe in their
family’s home. Left, a 17th-century Chi-
nese cabinet there holds curiosities like a
small box containing a seahorse.
of D.I.Y. furniture. Seasonal vegetables
dominate the menu; dishes include
pumpkin with Danish feta and rye seeds
alongside turnips with hummus. “For
me, it’s obvious that the inspiration for
cooking should be the season, as much
as possible,” Frederik says.
After leaving school, he trained as a
chef in Copenhagen and London, work-
ing in acclaimed restaurants such as
Nobu and Sketch before opening Atelier
September, his first cafe, in 2013. Last
year, he opened Apollo Bar & Kantine,
an unfussy, affordable cafe at Kunsthal
Charlottenborg, a contemporary art
gallery; next up is a pop-up cafe in the
Aoyama district of Tokyo, a collabora-
tion with the Danish design firm Hay,
with whom he introduced a range of col-
orful, everyday kitchenware in 2017.
Frederik was drawn to the culinary
world, he says, because it was “in-
tensely dominated by a craft culture,” a
sentiment that his sibling shares. “Hav-
ing a craft is a very beautiful thing,” says
Sophie, “and it’s a very Scandinavian
thing — to know that if all your dreams
don’t work, you still have a craft. If my
company goes bananas, I can still sit
and polish jewelry in a workshop.”
the point of the show, which might be the
most important thing of all, is real: the
intense stakes of having to be creative
on a schedule, and the way it can make
you crazy.
In the show, it actually does make
both Mr. Klein and Mr. Lauren kind of
nuts. Which is not that far from the inter-
nal narrative that fashion tends to tell it-
self about many of its favorite sons and
daughters.
It’s kind of like a cabaret version of
“Phantom Thread,” but a lot less preten-
tious. If Calvin and Co. were really
smart, they would embrace the show,
adopt Mr. Raftery as a mascot and have
him guest-star at a fund-raiser.
After all, nothing makes you look
smarter or more secure than being able
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 | 15
REBECCA SMEYNE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
to laugh at yourself.
According to Mr. Raftery: “Many peo-
ple told me to focus my attention on the
current White House, but I have to
spend so much time thinking about my
subjects, I don’t think I could stand it. I
might lose my mind.”
So imagine instead a whole series on
fashion characters, inadvertently
presenting the industry with that much-
desired thing: content and a sense of hu-
mor. One of the issues with fashion sat-
ire is that the starting point is already so
extreme, it can never go far enough, but
this is not Mr. Raftery’s problem.
Just think of what he could do with,
say, Karl Lagerfeld. Or Giorgio Armani.
Or Dolce & Gabbana. The Gucci scan-
dal! Hedi Slimane. The mind boggles.
Open Thread:
Tuxedos
at the beach
Every week Vanessa Friedman,
The Times’s fashion director, answers
a reader’s fashion-related question
in the Open Thread newsletter at
nytimes.com/styles. You can send her a
question at openthread@nytimes.com
or via Twitter: @vvfriedman. Questions
are edited and condensed.
I am attending a wedding on the
beach in Santa Monica, Calif., and the
temperature will be high 80s on a
warm day. The dress code is black
tie, which seems incongruous. Plus,
I’ll be sweating in a wool tuxedo. Is it
acceptable to wear a dark navy suit?
This isn’t the Oscars! — Michael,
New York
Although I am big proponent of women
in tuxes, I wouldn’t wear one to a
beach wedding, so I feel your pain.
Here’s what Matthew Schneier, our
intrepid fashion reporter, said:
“If the dress code is strictly black tie,
I’m sorry to tell you that your navy
suit isn’t it.
“Luckily, Emily Post says that for
beach, tropical or cruise weddings,
black tie may be interpreted as a white
jacket and black tuxedo trousers. If
you want to go an all-light route,
braver labels now make light-colored
trousers to match those light jackets.
“Darrin Gordon of Jack Silver For-
mal Wear said most contemporary
tuxes will be light enough for a wed-
ding on the beach. Ask for one in Super
140s, Super 150s or Super 160s wool
(the higher the number, the finer the
fibers). He had a black-tie wedding on
the beach in Cabo San Lucas in Au-
gust. Santa Monica will be balmy by
comparison.” VANESSA FRIEDMAN
YOAN VALAT/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
Javier Bardem in a white tux jacket.
 ..
16 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

Sports

NAM Y. HUH/ASSOCIATED PRESS JAMIE SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES

Left, Northwestern kicker Charlie Kuhbander, right, and holder Jake Collins celebrated a field goal against Wisconsin that helped put the Wildcats atop the Big Ten West. Right, tight end Justin Rigg of Kentucky, which is tied for the Southeastern Conference East lead.

Kentucky? Northwestern? Who are these guys? SEC outright. Kentucky has not won
On College Football even a share of the conference title in
the last four decades. The last time
they finished a season ranked in The
Associated Press poll was 1984 —
BY MARC TRACY seven coaches ago.
Kentucky is one of several college
Pop quiz: Which team, once coached teams that, two-thirds of the way
by Bear Bryant, currently leads its through the regular season, finds itself
Southeastern Conference division? a surprise contender for its conference
If you sniffed out the trick nature of title and even the College Football
the question, congratulations. There Playoff because it leads its division.
are two teams that match this defini- In the four so-called power confer-
tion. One, of course, is Alabama, the ences besides the Big 12 — which, with
perennial juggernaut that Bryant both just 10 teams, has no divisions — the
played for and coached. The Crimson two division winners play in the con-
Tide, college football’s defending cham- ference championship game rather
pion, are ranked first and are 8-0 as than the league’s two highest-ranked
they head into a crucial Saturday night teams.
game against No. 4 Louisiana State Along with Kentucky, currently
(7-1) in Baton Rouge, La. ranked 11th, unranked Northwestern
The other, Kentucky, where Bryant (5-3), No. 23 Virginia (6-2), No. 16 Utah
coached in the 1940s and ’50s, is tied (6-2) and No. 10 Washington State (7-1)
for first place in the SEC East. In 1950, find themselves in their divisions’
under Bryant, the Wildcats won the driver’s seats. Not one was ranked in
the A.P. preseason poll; Virginia and
Washington State received zero votes
before the season.
The upstart division leaders are
where they are because college foot-
ball’s rich teams, concentrated mostly
in just three divisions, have gotten
richer in recent years. That has en-
abled anarchy in the weaker division in
each conference.
In all of the four so-called power
conferences that have divisions, one
division has dominated. The winner of
the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Atlan-
tic Division has won the conference
title every year since 2011. The Pa-
cific-12’s South division champion won
the conference’s title game for the first
time last year in its seventh try. In four
years of the Big Ten’s current align-
ment, three different teams from its
East have won all the league titles.
Other than last year, the SEC West has
won that conference every year going
back to 2008.
Casual followers of college football
will not be shocked to learn that the
dominant A.C.C. Atlantic houses Clem-
son and Florida State; the Pac-12
North contains Oregon and Stanford;
the Big Ten East features Ohio State
and Penn State and a once-and-per-
haps-future great power named Michi-
gan; and the SEC West has L.S.U.,
Alabama and Auburn.
There are several potential explana-
tions for this tendency. The divisions
tend to preserve traditional rivalries,
which means keeping certain excellent
teams — Ohio State and Michigan,
Alabama and Auburn — in the same
one.
An arms-race mentality can kick in,
with top programs knowing they have
to be exceptional even to reach their
conference’s championship game.
But in those leagues’ lesser divi-
sions, there is a party this year. Ken-
tucky’s carriage could turn back into a
pumpkin as soon as Saturday, when it
faces No. 6 Georgia (7-1), its division
rival, in Lexington.
Virginia — which one might politely
term a basketball school — has never
won its division; it last won a share of
the A.C.C. title in 1995, when it went 2-3
out-of-conference. Yet here it is, in first
place in the Coastal. The team’s re-
maining games against Pitt and at
Virginia Tech will likely determine
whether it has a chance to play for
another league title this season.
Utah has only been in the Pac-12
since 2011. It has never appeared in the
conference title game. But this season
Utah has won games against Stanford
and Southern California, neither of
which has been its usual competitive
self this year.
Northwestern last shared a Big Ten
title in 2000. Yet after defeating Wis-
consin, 31-17, on Saturday, it is atop the
West Division. Its game Nov. 10 at No.
19 Iowa (6-2) looms large.
And in the Pac-12 North, dominated
in recent years by Oregon, Washington
and Stanford, Washington State has
emerged as the last one-loss team in
the entire conference. The Cougars are
going for Coach Mike Leach’s first
conference title. The season-ending
Apple Cup versus Washington (6-3) is
likely its toughest remaining out.
The punch line is that most of these
teams will almost certainly face ex-
tremely talented teams the weekend
after the regular season’s final game.
Virginia could make its way to the
A.C.C. title game in Charlotte, N.C., and
face No. 2 Clemson (8-0), which looks
scary good. The SEC West will effec-
tively be decided Saturday night be-
tween L.S.U. and Alabama. Northwest-
ern will likely be looking at No. 5 Mich-
igan (7-1) or No. 8 Ohio State (7-1) in
Indianapolis.
The heroes of October may prove
sacrificial lambs come December. Or
maybe one of them will have one more
upset left.

NON SEQUITUR PEANUTS DOONESBURY CLASSIC 1991

GARFIELD CALVIN AND HOBBES

SUDOKU No. 0111

WIZARD of ID DILBERT
(c) PZZL.com Distributed by The New York Times syndicate
Created by Peter Ritmeester/Presented by Will Shortz

KENKEN CROSSWORD | Edited by Will Shortz

Fill the grid so Solution No. 3110 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

that every row,

column 3x3 box Fill the grids with digits so as not Across 32 Solidarity leader 53 Leapt 14 15 16

and shaded 3x3 to repeat a digit in any row or Walesa

column, and so that the digits
1 Something you must 56 Bossed around
box contains
17 18 19
within each heavily outlined box
be willing to leave? 33 *Mr. Moneybags 58 *Idiom meaning
each of the
numbers will produce the target number 7 Them’s the breaks! 36 McGillin’s ___ “guaranteed” 20 21 22

1 to 9 exactly shown, by using addition, 10 River past Orsk and

Ale House (historic
60 Sea of Tranquillity, e.g.
subtraction, multiplication or
Philadelphia tavern) 23 24 25
once. Orenburg 61 Chief agricultural
division, as indicated in the box. 37 *Branded candy with
export of Kenya
A 4x4 grid will use the digits 14 Add to in haste multicolored beans 26 27 28 29 30
For solving tips
1-4. A 6x6 grid will use 1-6.
62 Part of a steering
and more puzzles: 15 Snake genus, or one 39 Close follower of a
system
www.nytimes.com/
31 32 33 34 35
of its members team?
sudoku
For solving tips and more KenKen 16 Pet form of José 40 *Woman’s young lover, 63 Something commonly
puzzles: www.nytimes.com/ found in a laundry bag 36 37 38 39
in slang
kenken. For Feedback: nytimes@ 17 *Sound of little feet
41 Actress Campbell 64 Remnant
kenken.com
40 41 42
18 Shade of deep purple 65 Wholly absorbed
42 Staple of ragtime
20 Custom-fit 43 44 45
music
KenKen® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. 22 *Tycho Brahe 43 Corrects, as an ID on Down
Copyright © 2018 www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved. 46 47 48 49 50
contemporary Facebook 1 Picking up things?
23 Bridge player’s combo 45 Cary of “The Princess 2 Louver feature 51 52 53 54 55
Bride”
Answers to Previous Puzzles 25 Deprive of courage 3 “See ya!”
56 57 58 59
46 Neighbor of Tonga
26 3.3, give or take 4 Ability
49 Dr. Seuss’ real 60 61 62
29 Without a downside surname 5 Like sandals
31 A lot 51 *Small talk 6 ___ Field, 63 64 65
former home to the
Solution to October 31 Puzzle Houston Astros
PUZZLE BY MATT GINSBERG
S H A G A G A S P T I F F 7 Figure seen on
the National Mall,
21 Did one leg of a 34 Tops 46 Loser
C U J O R E V U E R A I L triathlon
O L A F E L E N A O G L E
informally 35 Groups on Noah’s Ark 47 Up
T A X L A W S K G B M O L E 8 Writing on many a 24 What’s helpful to a 37 Take a flier 48 Prefix with economics
A L E R A P greeting card degree?
38 Bond girl in 2006’s 50 Rush
N E S T E G G V A L E T E D 9 Frank Herbert’s “Dune” 26 Ink stain, e.g. “Casino Royale”
E R E R O O I V S E L I 52 One-named French
series, e.g. 27 Explorer whose name 39 Visigoth vis-à-vis designer
A D A T O M D E A A F T
R O S E D O W E L O B I T 10 What you need to talk is a sport Rome 54 “The Thin Man” role
S C E N E R H O B R I N Y to a satellite 41 “Cool beans!”
28 Word in many 55 Sticky stuff
R O T A R Y C L U B S 11 Sphere Catholic church 42 Uses a keyhole,
P C P A R A M A I C C A R names 57 One who might
12 Nocturnal affliction perhaps explain the birds and
A M E X T H E M E B U R Y
P O N Y R I G A 13 Admitted 30 Frigid 43 Scoundrel, in Britain the bees
A N T Z C R Y P T A T O N 19 Richly luxurious 33 Scratch, say 44 Girl in the fam 59 Debugging aid?
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 | 17

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Culture
Above, Michael Yeargan’s stark design for the English National Opera’s “Porgy and Bess,” which suggests the South Carolina tenements where the work is set. Below, Nicole Cabell and Eric Greene as the title characters.
‘Porgy’ rises up in London
OPERA REVIEW
LONDON
The new British staging
of an American classic
ascends on its emotions
BY ANTHONY TOMMASINI
It’s all too easy for the characters of
George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”
to come across as caricatures, though
Gershwin worked hard to avoid that
trap. In a 1935 article for The New
York Times shortly after “Porgy and
Bess” opened on Broadway, he wrote
that in depicting the story of poor
black people living in waterfront tene-
ments in Charleston, S.C., he adapted
his method as a composer to “utilize”
the drama, humor, superstition, reli-
gious fervor, dancing and “irrepress-
ible high spirits of the race.” For a
production not to seem steeped in
stereotypes, the performances must
reflect the profound respect that
Gershwin and his libretto collabora-
tors, Ira Gershwin, his brother, and
DuBose Heyward, brought to this
great but difficult-to-realize folk opera,
as they called it.
Emotional depth and belief in the
characters run through the English
National Opera’s first production of
“Porgy and Bess,” directed by James
Robinson and playing through Nov. 17.
Tapping into the feminine wild
A choreographer uses
Simone de Beauvoir
as a jumping-off point
BY GIA KOURLAS
Carrie Ahern isn’t one of those contem-
porary choreographers who makes a
dance and moves on. She really digs
her heels into a piece, and before you
know it, she’s created a multiyear
project — like her investigation into
modern death, for which she learned
how to hunt and butcher and slaughter
animals. She performed the first part
in a butcher shop.
Her latest undertaking, “Sex Status
2.0,” comes out of her thinking about
“The Second Sex,” Simone de Beau-
voir’s feminist masterwork from 1949.
Ms. Ahern, 43, is only just getting
started. She turned to “The Second
Sex” in 2016 when she was reading
Sarah Bakewell’s “At the Existentialist
Café,” which chronicles the existential
movement in Europe.
“I had read so many of the exist-
entialists,” she said, but only the men.
“I neglected Simone de Beauvoir. I
thought, this is idiotic that I haven’t
entered her realm before. Then the
election happened. I was trying to
figure out what project do I want to
do? I thought, this is it.”
Being performed in private homes in
New York City through Nov. 10, the
work features seven female dancers
who look at the ways in which women
are seen — and how they see them-
Hewing to the request of the Gershwin
estate to cast the opera with black
singers, this production features the
stalwart baritone Eric Greene as the
disabled, utterly decent beggar Porgy,
and the richly expressive soprano
Nicole Cabell as Bess, a glamorous but
troubled woman who struggles to
break free of an abusive relationship
with Crown, a cocky stevedore, fiercely
performed by the youthful baritone
Nmon Ford. Perhaps best of all is the
impassioned, radiant soprano Latonia
Moore as Serena. Even when wailing
with grief over the pointless killing of
selves — in society. How much has
changed since “The Second Sex” was
published? Men, Beauvoir wrote,
propose to stabilize women “as object
and to doom her to immanence.”
That doom is Ms. Ahern’s jumping-
off point for “Sex Status,” which in-
cludes a multiple-choice audience
survey about sexual and cleaning
preferences. (To Beauvoir, the relent-
less labor of housecleaning means it
could never be a satisfying task.) One
asks, “How do you feel about getting
tips on your cleaning habits?” with
four possible answers: A) take it as it
comes; B) sick to my stomach; C) yes,
please; and D) enraged. The question
is also framed around sexual habits;
the choices are the same.
In a touch-consent section, dancers
approach audience members with a
request: to touch them on a favorite
spot like, in Ms. Ahern’s case, the back
of the neck.
The choreography shifts from task-
oriented movements referring loosely
to cleaning — polishing the floor grad-
ually morphs into twisting and
writhing — to a more unfettered, full-
body release in an improvisation
where the dancers rub up against
surfaces and sometimes speak with
feverish abandon.
It’s intimate, and for that reason, Ms.
Ahern wanted to perform in private
residences. Audiences can choose from
three locations: two in Brooklyn (Bed-
ford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick) and
one in Manhattan (the Upper East
Side); addresses are provided to those
with reservations. “The public and
her husband (“My Man’s Gone Now”),
she shows the tragic grandeur of this
powerful character. (Ms. Moore sang
“Aida” to acclaim with the company
last year.)
The English National recruited an
impressive ensemble of 40 singers
especially for this production, from
Britain, America, South Africa, New
Zealand and elsewhere, who not only
sing splendidly but also act and dance
dynamically. During Gershwin’s en-
semble scenes, the various choristers
project their own individualized char-
acters. This month, they will join the
private become so porous,” Ms. Ahern
said. “Everyone’s home has idiosyncra-
sies, and as a group of dancers, our
own idiosyncrasies interact with that
of the home and host.”
Their research leading up to “Sex
Status,” including long discussions and
improvisations,was particularly rich
for the dancers, especially given the
current political landscape. “It was like
we were planting seeds and watching
them grow, and that our garden felt
wild,” the dancer Elke Rindfleisch said.
“Like a garden of wildflowers.”
While “Sex Status” has a specific
structure, Ms. Rindfleisch finds that
the work is slightly different every
time they perform it, she said, “be-
cause it allows for the immediacy of
the experience. I find that very femi-
nine. Or what we have defined as femi-
nine.”
For Ms. Ahern, that relates to the
freedom that she allows for in the
piece. “It’s really about permission,”
she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so
much of that in a dance: to do exactly
what I want to do or don’t want to do.”
These are edited excerpts from a
recent interview with Ms. Ahern.
How did Beauvoir’s idea about wom-
en being doomed to immanence
inspire you?
She talks about how housekeeping and
housecleaning are essentially pushing
against the negative, and that is why it
cannot be as satisfying as working
outside the home. Pushing into the
negative is work that’s never done — it
will never be finished. In some ways, it
company’s full-time chorus for a spe-
cial staged performance of Benjamin
Britten’s “War Requiem.”
This “Porgy and Bess,” a joint pro-
duction with the Metropolitan Opera
and the Dutch National Opera, is com-
ing to the Met next season. But, of
necessity, I can give only an incom-
plete report on the staging.
Before the curtain went up on Fri-
day’s performance at the London
Coliseum, it was announced that a
glitch had developed during the after-
noon in the stage’s revolving mecha-
nism. The company decided to forge on
with a “reduced” version of the produc-
tion. Certain ensemble scenes, notably
a church picnic on Kittiwah Island, had
to be played in the forestage area
without the intended scenic backing.
Perhaps this limitation inspired every-
one. During that scene, cast members
and choristers cut loose as they exe-
cuted some gyrating dance movements
and sang Gershwin’s music with full-
bodied sound and crispness.
I can report on the production’s
general look and atmosphere. The
tenements where the residents of
Catfish Row live are starkly suggested
(by the set designer Michael Yeargan)
with isolated wood beams that frame
two tiers of interconnected rooms and
spaces. With endearing costumes by
Catherine Zuber that are true to the
opera’s 1920s setting, the tenement
dwellers mostly wear worn house
dresses or work clothes in shades of
The choreographer Carrie Ahern, center, and other dancers in “Sex Status 2.0,” which
she says was inspired by Simone de Beauvoir’s 1949 feminist classic, “The Second Sex.”
becomes invisible almost the moment
it’s finished.
How did the book guide you?
We really worked out of Volume 2, in
which she basically chronicles the
lived experience and the conditioning
of girls or women from cradle to grave.
I pulled quotes from that section, and
asked questions that we answered
through the body.
For example?
One of the huge questions that we
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
russet and brown.
Heyward originally wrote this story
as a novel, which he and Dorothy
Heyward, his wife, adapted into a
successful play, which became the
basis for the libretto. DuBose Heyward
wrote all lines for recitative setting
(which Gershwin does skillfully) and
many song lyrics (including “Summer-
time”), while Ira Gershwin wrote lyrics
for the songs in a Broadway vein, like
the wonderful “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”
Some people find it awkward today to
hear recitative and ensembles with
lines like “Roll dem bones/Oh, my
brudder,” which the men sing as they
play a game of craps. But in the way
this committed cast conveys the text,
the words seem less like stilted slang
than a regional dialect with an every-
day elegance.
In scene after scene, Mr. Robinson
gets the balance right in showing both
the effects of oppression on this com-
munity and the defiant heartiness of its
members. These are mostly God-
fearing people who sincerely believe
that Maria (the formidable Tichina
Vaughn), the keeper of a cookshop and
the town matriarch, can ward off ill-
ness through her prayer. Yet there are
few fundamentalists among them.
When the aptly named Sporting Life, a
dope peddler (the vibrant Frederick
Ballentine), debunks a literal reading
of the Bible in “It Ain’t Necessarily So,”
even the churchgoers who find him
objectionable laugh, carry on and sing
NINA WESTERVELT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
worked with is based on a quote about
what is traditional femininity. I asked
this in different ways with the dancers:
“What does femininity mean to you?”
“Was there ever a time when someone
put you into a specific box of feminin-
ity?” At the core of it, there was what
we call the feminine wild.
Is that the improvisation section?
Yes. You’re undoing anything that
would get in the way of being yourself.
It means that you have to listen to
yourself, and that became some of the
..
PHOTOGRAPHS BY TRISTRAM KENTON
along. After all, this staging suggests,
who could actually believe that Methu-
selah lived more than 900 years?
The tragic elements of the work are
played straight and grimly. Ms. Cab-
ell’s Bess has some raw attraction to
Crown, but also an addiction to the
“happy dust” only he can supply. Her
problem could not have seemed more
current, given the opioid crisis affect-
ing the United States. The opera is a
portrait of a deeply patriarchal cul-
ture: Even the basically good men
boss their wives around. In this
#MeToo moment, Crown’s physical
bullying of Bess is chilling. Porgy’s
gentleness and sympathy, beautifully
rendered by Mr. Greene, draw Bess to
him for Gershwin’s soaring love duets.
At least for a while, he saves her.
Gershwin spent a summer with
Heyward, a Charleston native, living in
that area, exploring the music and
culture of its residents. But he made a
point, as he wrote in his article in The
Times, of composing his own folk
music and spirituals for his score. He
didn’t want to borrow material. And he
wanted the music “to be all of one
piece.”
The job of making it sound that way
finally fell to the conductor here, the
excellent John Wilson, who led a per-
formance that had sweep, shape and
vitality, as well as rarer qualities:
precision and restraint. The technical
glitches that night were all in the stag-
ing, not in the pit.
heart of the piece. As the work pro-
gresses, we get more into it. I had
everybody create a ritual from a place
of deep, unfiltered femininity.
Like what?
One of the rituals in the piece is about
healing a place where there has been
violence. One of the rituals is that you
have to go on an impossible journey.
What does that look like?
In that one, there’s a sense of stillness
and waiting and repetition in order to
build your strength.
You’ve said that audience participa-
tion is something that can be both
comfortable and uncomfortable. How
far do you push the uncomfortable
and how important is comfort?
I think I have a talent for making
people feel comfortable enough to get
uncomfortable. It’s really about mak-
ing people able to start to shift their
perspective.
To wake up a little bit?
Yes. I need to be respectful. I know
everyone’s coming from a different
place. But it’s one of the most impor-
tant things for me to do: I feel if I don’t
I’m missing a great opportunity, espe-
cially in the realm of the body and
dance. We have such a great opportu-
nity to get people more deeply into
their bodies. The body is more honest.
You can’t abstract it. So if you’re really
listening, it will tell you where you’re
at with something. That’s actually
where the change can happen.
..
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018 | 19

culture

The beauty of reverence

ART REVIEW

The Metropolitan Museum

gives the blockbuster
treatment to Armenia
BY JASON FARAGO

They were mostly young people who

came out in the streets of Armenia this
past spring, waving balloons of red,
orange and blue. They were fed up
with their ineffectual government, and
on their smartphones they watched the
progress of an opposition leader, the
former journalist Nikol Pashinyan, as
he walked in protest across central
Armenia. When he arrived in Yerevan,
the capital of this former Soviet repub-
lic, the crowds sang, shouted and
swore to go on strike.
Less than six weeks later, Mr.
Pashinyan was named interim prime
minister of Armenia, ushered into
office on the shoulders of the extraordi-
nary, nonviolent “velvet revolution.”
Armenia is a country with so much
history it can overwhelm you. This
spring, we learned its future might be
as eventful as its past, which makes it
a timely moment for “Armenia!,” the
Metropolitan Museum of Art’s eye-
opening appraisal of the art, manu-
scripts, textiles and religious artifacts
of a nation that is still adding surpris-
ing chapters to its dramatic history.
Mr. Pashinyan attended the opening
in September. There was no sign, alas,
of Kim Kardashian, the most famous
Armenian-American, but His Holiness
Karekin II, the catholicos (or supreme
patriarch) of the Armenian church,
was also spotted in the galleries; the
country was the first to make Christi-
anity its official religion, and this exhi-
bition, packed with weighty stone
crosses and richly illuminated gospels,
is a testament to the centrality of the
church to Armenian cultural identity.
No museum has ever mounted such a
large exhibition of Armenian art, and
most of the 140 objects come from
museum collections and churches in
Armenia and rarely travel.
“Armenia!,” which runs through Jan.
13, has been organized by Helen C. THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

Evans, the Met’s curator of Byzantine

art, and focuses specifically on the art
and history of the country’s medieval
period. It is not, despite the exclama-
tion point in its title, an exhibition that
favors razzle-dazzle. In fact, “Arme-
nia!” is a rather bookish sort of block-
buster, concentrating heavily on illumi-
nated manuscripts, and presented in
low lighting to protect the gospels and
romances on view.
There is some ecclesiastical flash, in
the form of bejeweled crucifixes and
gold-plated censers, but this is primari-
ly an exhibition of book illustration,
unlike any other medieval manuscript
show you’re likely to see.
Armenia had a long middle age,
extending from the early fourth cen-
tury, when St. Gregory the Illuminator
converted the king, Tiridates III, to
Christianity — an event commemo-
rated at the opening of this show by a
stela of porous stone, carved with
portraits of the two men — until the
late 16th century, when printed books
made their first appearance. This
mountainous region was a crossroads
of influences from east and west, but
Armenian art scrambles simple under-
standings of “Europe” and “Asia,”
exhibiting a stylistic cosmopolitanism
even as it used Christian identity to
define itself within the world of Islam.
Armenian book artists were not
anonymous; they signed their names,
had their own styles and took risks.
One volume here, flamboyantly illumi-
nated by Sargis Pidzak in 1331, is open
to a picture of a priest praying before
St. Matthew in a field of gold leaf, while
initial letters of the Gospels dance with
the angels. (Note the pointy hood worn
by the priest: This distinctly Armenian
clerical garb is still worn today.)
A Bible from the later medieval
period, illuminated by an artist named
Hakob, depicts God as a ruddy-faced,
goggle-eyed young man, as if in awe at
his own creation. In a 16th-century
manuscript relating the life of Alexan-
der the Great, done in Rome by an
Armenian bishop named Zakariay of
Gnunik, the Macedonian king’s ship is
swallowed by an enormous brown
PRESS OFFICE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF ARMENIA
In medieval Armenia, rival kings
and rich merchant families
competed to deck out the most
lavish cathedrals.
crab, hooking the sails with its pincers
as its mouth gapes open.
The Bibles and ritual books here are
testament to a relatively literate medi-
eval society, one that used (and still
uses) its own involute alphabet, devel-
oped in 405 by the cleric and scholar
now known as St. Mesrop Mashtots.
This new alphabet, with its arcing
capital letters, was the key to the con-
version of Armenian society into a
Christian society, since religious serv-
ices could now be conducted in the
vernacular. A densely lettered, un-
spaced sheet of parchment here,
whose translation of the Book of Corin-
thians could date from as early as the
fifth century, is one of more than a
dozen objects on loan from the Mate-
nadaran Mesrop Mashtots Institute.
There’s more than manuscripts.
Beautifully woven vestments and altar
frontals affirm that Armenian believers
saw as much beauty in services as in
the scriptoria. Reliquaries in the form
of St. Gregory’s right arm were popu-
lar, and one silver, gem-studded speci-
men here is said to contain the remains
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
MESROP MASHTOTS’ INSTITUTE-MUSEUM OF ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS
of his last known male descendant.
Gold earrings with dangling pendants
shaped like crescent moons and birds,
dating to the 11th century, are a rare
example of secular material here, and
MOTHER SEE OF HOLY ETCHMIADZIN
their filigreed panels reflect the influ-
ence of neighboring Iran.
Perhaps the most distinctive art-
works of the Armenian Middle Ages
are the khachkars, or cross-stones,
found across the Southern Caucasus.
These slabs of tuff, basalt or dolomite
are carved with highly decorative
crosses, and their elaborate patterns
suggest the influence of Islamic culture
even as they attest to an unshakable
Christian faith.
Medieval Armenia was not a central-
ized polity, and frequent foreign incur-
sions — from the seventh century,
when overlords practicing the new
religion of Islam invaded greater Ar-
menia; to the 13th century, when Mon-
gol warriors raided the east of Anato-
lia; to the invasions of the Ottomans
and Safavids in the later medieval era
— were a constant threat.
What kept it all together was their
own autocephalous church, not an-
swerable to Rome or Constantinople.
Rival kings and rich merchant families
competed to deck out the most lavish
cathedrals. And in the later medieval
period, scriptoria popped up in monas-
teries across greater Armenia, down
Above, an “Armenia!” gallery. From far
left, Nikol Pashinyan, the interim prime
minister of Armenia, at the show’s open-
ing; a stela commemorating a conversion
to Christianity; and an arm reliquary.
Below, a 16th-century manuscript.
into Crimea, and even as far as Italy,
the source of several manuscripts here.
By the end of the 17th century, when
Armenian power had flourished along
new trade routes, an Italian aristocrat
living in Constantinople received a
gift: a panoramic map of the world of
Armenian influence. Known as the
Tabula Chorographica Armenica, this
12-foot painted map includes nearly
800 sites of Armenian Christian wor-
ship, stretching past the Caucasus to
Jerusalem and Iran. In one corner, the
bearded St. Gregory destroys idols in
an Ottoman town, while laymen and
clergy, painted in a style more Persian
than European (softer features, finer
lines), chat amiably outside Etchmi-
adzin Cathedral, the Armenian equiva-
lent of the Vatican. The peaks of Mount
Ararat, the landing place, according to
the Bible, of Noah’s ark, are breasts of
solid green.
This boggling showstopper of a map
was not meant for navigation, and the
elite merchants who gazed on it would
have appreciated its expression of the
depth of Armenian trade routes in the
new early modern age. To modern
eyes at the Met, it has other overtones:
Its breadth recalls the extent of the
contemporary Armenian diaspora, and
its numerous churches in Ottoman
territory portend the genocide to come
during World War I.
Armenians, as this great show at-
tests, have long been at the mercy of
outside forces, and the beauty of this
show is tinged with conquest and
subjection. But the young revolutionar-
ies who marched and sang in Yerevan
this spring — such a rare gleam of
hope in this global age of authoritari-
anism — knew that the manuscript of
Armenian history was still being writ-
ten.

Black Death and black arts

BOOK REVIEW
City of Crows
By Chris Womersley. Illustrated. 344 pp.
Europa Editions. Paper, $17.
BY KATHARINE GRANT
By 1673, the year in which “City of
Crows” is set, the papal bull officially
recognizing the existence of witches
had been stoking superstition in Eu-
rope for nearly 200 years. The bad luck
of seeing a spider in the morning, the
methods of assisting a husband “in the
bedroom” and the hovering presence
of Hellequin and his Wild Horde, “lead-
ing fresh souls to the underworld,”
capture that superstition’s all-pervad-
ing nature. By interweaving the trivial,
the humorous and the grisliest of the
grisly, Chris Womersley straps us in
for a shivery ride.
It starts with a bang. We are con-
fronted with the grotesqueries of the
plague by which Charlotte Picot, an
already bereaved mother, is about to
be widowed and from which she flees
with her sole surviving child, 9-year-
old Nicolas. Mother and son are
quickly separated, and Charlotte’s
desperate hunt for him yokes her to
Adam du Coeuret, a man she believes
she has summoned from the spirit
world. In reality, du Coeuret (later
Lesage — in a nice pun, he abandons
his “coeur”) is a convict recently re-
leased from the galleys, his crimes
“impieties and sacrileges” and his
talents tarot card readings and sleights
of hand. Crucially, he is also a man in
search of a witch. To the sorceress/
mother and the convict/charlatan are
added a whole host of others, including
the old crone Madame Rolland, with
her “black book”; the troubadour
family Leroux; and the Parisian witch
Catherine Monvoisin. It’s a colorful
cast, some of them fictional, some of
them real, and when you include the
child-trafficking into which Nicolas has
been pitched, a side story involving the
king’s mistress and, naturally, an old
map leading to buried treasure, there’s
enough plot for several novels.
This abundance supplies admirable
energy. It does, however, reduce the
narrative’s scope for subtlety, and this
is a problem, not least for Lesage. The
revelation that he fell into sorcery
through love of his “dimwitted” young-
ROSLYN OADES
Chris Womersley.
er son and his pivotal cry, “One cannot
unlearn what one has learned,” are
touching, but still his occasional ten-
dernesses seem more contradictory
than poignant.
Along with the plot, there’s no stint-
ing on description. With the same
“ghastly and exhaustive detail” that
Lesage observes in a depiction of
damnation hanging in the house of an
Amsterdam burgher (“extravagant
debauch. . . . Men garroted and im-
paled on spears. Armies of grinning
skeletons. . . . Corpses in piles. Farting
nuns, strange-faced priests”), Womers-
ley lays out life in a French prison, a
public hanging and the “hearty stink”
of Paris. Of course description alone,
however unsparing, isn’t enough to
grip, but the author’s enthusiasm fuels
the slow-burning horror of his tale.
And isn’t he enjoyably sly! When
Lesage is summoned to the prison
governor’s office, Womersley knows
that the rattling off of his number
“double one five double four” will set
bells ringing for the post-“Les Mis”
reader, so with a wink and some chro-
nological disregard, he has Lesage
think about his “old friend” Jean. We
know too that, as befits convention,
Charlotte will read the black book she
has been warned against. Despite the
artful tongue-in-cheek, the result is still
shocking.
Sometimes in a Gothic novel, au-
thors lose courage and prettify the end.
No danger of that here. Unafraid to go
where the novel has taken him, Wom-
ersley produces a finale that’s both
slippery and perfectly in keeping. And
beware. Just when you think it’s all
over, the author’s note turns out to be
as Gothic as the novel itself.
Katharine Grant’s latest book is a novel,
“Sedition.”

20 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2018
travel
A country reborn and celebrating life
THE 52 PLACES TRAVELER
BY JADA YUAN
“Everyone is coming. Let’s grab that ta-
ble,” said Nathalie Gatesi, a new friend,
as she commandeered a high top in a
prime location at Kigali’s hip urban
beach club, Pili Pili. Nathalie was refer-
ring to the imminent arrival of some 20
members of her family who were all tex-
ting her at once.
Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, doesn’t
have a club scene so much as it has
night-life spots, each of which, perhaps
out of a sense of fairness and unity, get to
be hot one night a week. Thursdays are
for happy hour drinks at Inema Arts
Center, followed by jazz night at Repub
Lounge, which serves a coconut curry
fish I could have eaten every night of my
trip. Fridays, after midnight, are for
dancing at the red-lit Cocobean club
while sipping whiskey and amarula.
Saturdays are for concerts and birthday
parties, and clubs you didn’t hit up on
Friday.
And Sundays belong to Pili Pili. A Ni-
gerian government worker I had met at
my hotel had changed his flight to expe-
rience the magic with Nathalie and her
family — and then invited me along.
Children tossed a beach ball back and
forth in the pool, while their parents
drank lethally strong mojitos. A D.J.
played Boy George and James Brown.
Then there was that view of Kigali’s fa-
mous hills, covered in tropical greenery
and red clay as afternoon turned to bril-
liant sunset and then to the twinkling
lights of one of Africa’s cleanest cities
against a pitch black sky.
“This country has grown so far, it’s
like a new country,” said Marie Ange
Katabarwa, a relative of Nathalie’s who
sat down and immediately started treat-
ing me as if I was part of the family, too.
M.A., as most people call her, went to
boarding school in France before the
1994 genocide and is now an investment
banker splitting her time between Paris,
Dubai and Kigali. She’s been coming
back here more often to take care of her
parents and manage their family cattle
farm. The city, she said, seems to be ripe
with opportunities for women.
“You can open your company online
in three hours. It is so easy,” she said.
Parliament, she pointed out, is over 50
percent women. Now women can inherit
History mixed with modernism
CHECK IN
BY DEBRA KAMIN
VERA HOTEL, TEL AVIV
RATES
From $195.
BASICS
The bones of the Vera Hotel, the first
solo project from the Israeli hotelier
Danny Tamari, are older than Tel Aviv
itself. This boutique design property,
which opened in March after an exhaus-
tive two-year collaborative process with
local artists, designers and textile mak-
ers, reincarnates a century-old ma-
ternity hospital (predating the formal
establishment of the city) that over time
became a bank, and then an office build-
ing housing tax crunchers and insur-
ance adjusters. Mr. Tamari, who bought
the building after it had been abandoned
for nearly three decades, was obsessive
about sourcing nearly every detail lo-
cally. Today, the modern, 39-room prop-
erty features raw glass light fixtures,
custom wooden furnishings and pure
linen textiles, as well as a signature ce-
ramic ceiling fashioned from salvaged
floor tiles. All of the details contribute to
make this not just a hotel, but an homage
to industrial Tel Aviv.
LOCATION
Located on trendy Lilienblum Street,
the hotel puts you directly in the city’s
urban nexus. Rothschild Boulevard, ar-
guably Tel Aviv’s grandest thoroughfare
and the heart of its business and start-
up sectors, is just up the block, and a
short walk will take you to both the
bustling Carmel Market and the bou-
tique- and gallery-lined cobblestone
streets of the Neve Tzedek neighbor-
hood.
THE ROOM
There are six categories of accommoda-
tion. My fourth-floor deluxe room was
one of the biggest and was decorated in
a calm palette of dove gray, eggshell and
mocha brown. The king-size bed was
covered in butter-soft Egyptian cotton
sheets, and the oak wood interior was
brightened by a cool gray tile floor and
rich gray pillows.
THE BATHROOM
The spacious room contained a large
walk-in shower with a saucer-size brass
shower head, a sleek black iron ladder
shelf to hold towels and toiletries, and a
bare mirror above the basin sink. The
shower contains large refillable pumps
of organic shampoo, conditioner and
body wash made by a local skin care
company, Arugot.
AMENITIES
Guests can schedule to have massages
and body treatments, all incorporating
property, whereas not too long ago, fam-
ily wealth was passed on to men. A wom-
an can open a bank account, she said, in-
stead of asking her husband or father to
open it for her. And if that woman does-
n’t like her husband, she can divorce
him.
“We are allowed to vote,” chimed in
Nathalie, who does marketing for a tele-
communications firm. The head of
RwandAir, she pointed out, is a woman.
“If you see a woman as the head of a
company, you think, ‘I can do it.’”
While gender equality, in practice,
still has a ways to go, the women I met
said they felt the changes every day.
“Before, people were afraid,” said Ange-
line Kajeguhakwa, another member of
the family and a petroleum executive,
who moved back to Kigali after 20 years
in Florida. “Now you could take a cab by
yourself if you are drunk or tipsy and
you are going to get home safe.”
Angeline wasn't the only family mem-
ber to move back. I met new transplants
from Boston and New Orleans, as well
as Annabelle Uwera, who may be the pi-
oneer of the bunch. She's about to cele-
brate a decade back, after 10 years in
London, and is now a trade officer for
the British High Commission.
I felt the sense of safety that Angeline
had mentioned. I took walks alone at
night and even hopped on a few motor-
cycle taxis to get around. (They’re 10
times cheaper than regular taxis, and
thrilling to ride.) As M.A. explained, the
government changed the constitution to
ensure women feel less vulnerable, after
the horrific rapes of 1994. “Women can
have the power to do anything they
want. They can say ‘no’. And men know
they can’t beat you. They know if they do
something wrong, they will go to jail.”
There is a dark side to the sense of op-
portunity. Adult men over the age of 35
are largely dead and gone; two genera-
tions were wiped out in three months.
“One of the consequences of genocide is
we have a lot of young people and a lot of
women,” said Serge Kamuhinda, an-
other family member, and a Volkswagen
executive, who grew up in Germany af-
ter fleeing Rwanda at age 12. He remem-
bers his village in flames and people
running at him with machetes.
Then there are the critics of the gov-
ernment who have left the country for
fear of political persecution or who fled
during the genocide and still feel unsafe
coming home. Certain topics — politics,
Top, the Vera Hotel’s sleek pine-slated rooftop, where yoga, Pilates and Krav Maga
classes are offered. Above, a deluxe room, with an aloe vera plant adding a pop of color.
organic oils and lotions from Arugot, ei-
ther in their rooms or on the hotel’s sleek
pine-slated rooftop, where yoga, Pilates
and Krav Maga classes are also offered.
In the Vera’s charming lobby, there’s
24/7 coffee, cookies and tea, as well as a
complimentary wine dispenser that pro-
vides unlimited samples of a variety of
Israeli vintages.
DINING
In the morning, a complimentary break-
fast spread is served from the curved
countertop of the Vera’s lobby bar: eggs,
pastries and local cheeses, vegetables
and dips sourced from nearby farmers,
yogurt, fresh-squeezed juice, bread and
olives. The hotel plans to roll out late-
Clockwise from top left: Cocobean nightclub in Kigali; a village near Akagera National Park; peppers at a market; zebras in Akagera.
ethnic identity — are rarely discussed.
The people I met in Kigali do talk
about the genocide, though, and often. It
comes up in the fabric of everyday con-
versation as something that changed
their country so distinctly that there is
only a before and after. Almost everyone
you meet has suffered loss and trauma.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ASSAF PINCHUK
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ASSAF PINCHUK
night bar snacks and a signature cock-
tail menu before the end of the year.
There is no restaurant in the hotel, but
there is a wide range of restaurants in
the surrounding area. North Abraxas
(Lilienblum 40), from Israeli celebrity
chef Eyal Shani, offers a festive, vegeta-
ble-focused take on formal dining; Ha-
noi (Lilienblum 18) serves spicy, authen-
tic Asian noodles and soups al fresco.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Warm, chic and permeated with a love of
its own history, the Vera hits all the right
notes for visitors to Tel Aviv.
Vera Hotel, 27 Lilienblum Street, Tel
Aviv; theverahotel.com
M.A. and Angeline lost their grandpar-
ents, uncles, aunts and cousins.
Annabelle, from London, encouraged
me to go to the city’s powerful Kigali
Genocide Memorial to better under-
stand the history. When I later told her I
had cried in the Children’s Room, which
features portraits of kids as young as 15
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JADA YUAN/THE NEW YORK TIMES
months who were burned alive or had
their skulls bashed in, she told me that
she cannot go into that room. She has
relatives in there.
For my new friends that night at Pili
Pili, the rewards of being together with
their remaining loved ones in the coun-
try that is their home made it worth
..
moving back from overseas, even with
the big pay cuts they had to take.
“When you are elsewhere, you are re-
placeable,” Serge said. “But here you
have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
contribute to building this society.” A fan
of similes, he added, “coming here is like
visiting your old auntie who went
through cancer and beat it and is now a
fitness coach with life lessons. You feel
uplifted.”
PRACTICAL TIPS
TRANSPORT Kigali is a driving city. I was
very happy hiring a driver-translator,
starting at $100 a day, through a cooper-
ative run by Jean Pierre Sagahutu. This
saved me from having to worry about lo-
gistics, and it allowed me to see the city
through the eyes of a Kigali resident.
Should you take a taxi, rides anywhere
in the central city should cost no more
than 6,000 Rwandan francs (about $7).
Motorcycle taxis are around 500.
STAY I loved the luxurious new Kigali
Marriott, the first Marriott in sub-Saha-
ran Africa, until I got my bill. What
looked like a steal online had a signifi-
cant, not-so-transparent rate increase
two days into my seven-day stay. It’s a
great hotel — incredible massages, best
Wi-Fi in the city — but double-check the
math on the reservation web page to
avoid similar surprises. For a real steal,
Ivuka Arts Center has an Airbnb that
goes for $20 to $25 a night.
EAT Beyond Repub Lounge, my favorite
Kigali food was the delicious, tiny ba-
nanas you can pick up at any grocery
store. For a wider variety of fruits, head
to Kimironko and Nyabugogo markets.
SEE Inema and Ivuka galleries are great
for browsing, or take a tour of murals
with Kurema, Kureba, Kwiga, a public
arts organization.
DAY TRIP If you don’t have $1,500 to spend
on the permit to see mountain gorillas,
you can still observe plenty of animals at
Akagera National Park, two and a half
hours away. I left at 5 a.m. to take in a
beautiful sunrise view of villagers fetch-
ing water or transporting plantains on
their bicycles. By the end of a long day, I
had seen zebras, antelopes and giraffes.
Cost: $40 for park entrance, $40 for a
community-trained guide, and $200 for
my driver.