Sunday is International Women’s Day but the annual ritual of high-minded promises and hand-wringing will be different this year because of a dispiriting new real-life disaster movie, India’s Daughter. It injects a powerful local flavour into the increasingly bland, homogenised global debate about violence against women. But many Indians fear it shows them as a nation of neanderthals.
The snowballing controversy only underlines the contradictions within Indian society and does nothing for the cause of women. British filmmaker Leslee Udwin spent two years in India making the documentary. She examined the cultural context of the gang-rape of a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus in Delhi in December 2012, the corrosive anger that erupted across India after her death from her injuries and the subsequent international scrutiny of India’s attitude to women. The film was broadcast by the BBC in the UK on Wednesday and was to be simultaneously shown in seven other countries, including India, on Sunday. But the Indian authorities want to block its broadcast at home and abroad on account of the rapists’ recorded remarks.
The kerfuffle makes it difficult to predict if the planned high-profile New York screening of India’s Daughter will go ahead on Monday. But it was meant to be the centrepiece of a worldwide campaign against gender inequality and sexual violence, to be launched by Meryl Streep and Indian actress Freida Pinto (leading lady of the film Slumdog Millionaire).
It may be just as well if this documentary on India’s conflicted reality is not elevated into a global template. It cannot carry such broad-focus concerns.
Rewind to Beijing in 1995, when 189 governments adopted a blueprint for women’s rights, whittled down to 12 “critical areas of concern”. It was organised by the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women. That was when Hillary Clinton, as US first lady, received hosannas for taking the stage in a pink jacket and declaring that “human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights”. She might more usefully have added the words “in the local context”. Rights are about global principles of natural justice; their enforcement – or not – is always local.
The “status of women”, in UN-speak, cannot be shoehorned into a homogenous set of global statistics. The local context is crucial. As Udwin tells it, her film lays bare the aggressive misogyny of the rapists she interviewed in India. In 16 hours of interviews, Mukesh, one of the five men who raped the 23-year-old woman, tells the film-maker that had the girl passively put up with the assault, she might have stayed alive.
He also expresses a view that is echoed (and often tragically acted upon) by many men across South Asia and was recently expressed by the great and the good in the Turkish government: that a woman’s place is the home and only the promiscuous are abroad at night.
While regrettable, Mukesh’s opinions are hardly a surprise, but India’s Daughter is still not the world’s story.
The situation is subtly distinct, say, in Ethiopia, where women suffer an equally ignominious social position, yet rape is a cultural practice often used as a way of taking a girl as wife. (For the record, rapists in South Asia rarely stoop to wanting to marry their victims.)
And then there is Sweden, which has one of the highest rates of rape complaints in the world. But that’s because its police procedures and legal definitions are very different, and a woman reporting sexual assault, say by her husband, receives due attention in that every incident is recorded separately. This swells the overall numbers.
That said, there is a common thread that runs through incidents of sexual violence wherever and whenever they occur. It is always about power. And women, as that intergovernmental Commission on the Status of Women says, still don’t have their fair share anywhere. It released the following figures at the end of February: only one in five parliamentarians worldwide is a woman; approximately 50 per cent of women are in paid employment but wage inequality is so gross it will take 81 years, at the current rate of progress, to achieve parity.
But here’s the problem with aspiring to statistical equivalence and ticking boxes: women’s rights become a ring-fenced preserve of female commentary and action, run by a frightening global mafia spouting a slick sisterspeak that takes no note of disparities across and even within cultures, countries and classes.
Economist Ruth Pearson points out the contradictions in, say, paid employment for women worldwide: “As individual workers they experienced both the liberating or the ‘empowering’ impact of earning a regular wage, and of having increased autonomy over their economic lives; at the same time many were also well aware of the fact that their work was low paid, both in comparison with male workers but also with women workers employed in industrialised countries.”
Globalisation, then, is only half-good for women’s rights. As Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, the only woman of colour to be honoured with a professorship in Columbia University’s 264-year-history, said of Beijing and other such world jamborees, they project “a global radical aura” and they turn “woman into global theatre”. That is reductive – for the cause and for results. If the spirit of Mrs Clinton’s famous Beijing 1995 declaration is to inform the agenda, women’s rights really must be seen as indivisible from human rights, and any crime against a woman as a crime against us all. Complete with local nuances.
rroshanlall@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @rashmeerl
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Dubai World Cup factbox
Most wins by a trainer: Godolphin’s Saeed bin Suroor(9)
Most wins by a jockey: Jerry Bailey(4)
Most wins by an owner: Godolphin(9)
Most wins by a horse: Godolphin’s Thunder Snow(2)
Essentials
The flights
Etihad (etihad.ae) and flydubai (flydubai.com) fly direct to Baku three times a week from Dh1,250 return, including taxes.
The stay
A seven-night “Fundamental Detox” programme at the Chenot Palace (chenotpalace.com/en) costs from €3,000 (Dh13,197) per person, including taxes, accommodation, 3 medical consultations, 2 nutritional consultations, a detox diet, a body composition analysis, a bio-energetic check-up, four Chenot bio-energetic treatments, six Chenot energetic massages, six hydro-aromatherapy treatments, six phyto-mud treatments, six hydro-jet treatments and access to the gym, indoor pool, sauna and steam room. Additional tests and treatments cost extra.
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Brief scores:
Manchester United 4
Young 13', Mata 28', Lukaku 42', Rashford 82'
Fulham 1
Kamara 67' (pen),
Red card: Anguissa (68')
Man of the match: Juan Mata (Man Utd)
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Match info
Wolves 0
Arsenal 2 (Saka 43', Lacazette 85')
Man of the match: Shkodran Mustafi (Arsenal)
Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Manchester City transfers:
OUTS
Pablo Zabaleta, Bacary Sagna, Gael Clichy, Willy Caballero and Jesus Navas (all released)
INS
Ederson (Benfica) £34.7m, Bernardo Silva (Monaco) £43m
ON THEIR WAY OUT?
Joe Hart, Eliaquim Mangala, Samir Nasri, Wilfried Bony, Fabian Delph, Nolito and Kelechi Iheanacho
ON THEIR WAY IN?
Dani Alves (Juventus), Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal)
SPECS
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Should late investors consider cryptocurrencies?
Wealth managers recommend late investors to have a balanced portfolio that typically includes traditional assets such as cash, government and corporate bonds, equities, commodities and commercial property.
They do not usually recommend investing in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies due to the risk and volatility associated with them.
“It has produced eye-watering returns for some, whereas others have lost substantially as this has all depended purely on timing and when the buy-in was. If someone still has about 20 to 25 years until retirement, there isn’t any need to take such risks,” Rupert Connor of Abacus Financial Consultant says.
He adds that if a person is interested in owning a business or growing a property portfolio to increase their retirement income, this can be encouraged provided they keep in mind the overall risk profile of these assets.
Building boom turning to bust as Turkey's economy slows
Deep in a provincial region of northwestern Turkey, it looks like a mirage - hundreds of luxury houses built in neat rows, their pointed towers somewhere between French chateau and Disney castle.
Meant to provide luxurious accommodations for foreign buyers, the houses are however standing empty in what is anything but a fairytale for their investors.
The ambitious development has been hit by regional turmoil as well as the slump in the Turkish construction industry - a key sector - as the country's economy heads towards what could be a hard landing in an intensifying downturn.
After a long period of solid growth, Turkey's economy contracted 1.1 per cent in the third quarter, and many economists expect it will enter into recession this year.
The country has been hit by high inflation and a currency crisis in August. The lira lost 28 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2018 and markets are still unconvinced by the readiness of the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to tackle underlying economic issues.
The villas close to the town centre of Mudurnu in the Bolu region are intended to resemble European architecture and are part of the Sarot Group's Burj Al Babas project.
But the development of 732 villas and a shopping centre - which began in 2014 - is now in limbo as Sarot Group has sought bankruptcy protection.
It is one of hundreds of Turkish companies that have done so as they seek cover from creditors and to restructure their debts.
The currency conundrum
Russ Mould, investment director at online trading platform AJ Bell, says almost every major currency has challenges right now. “The US has a huge budget deficit, the euro faces political friction and poor growth, sterling is bogged down by Brexit, China’s renminbi is hit by debt fears while slowing Chinese growth is hurting commodity exporters like Australia and Canada.”
Most countries now actively want a weak currency to make their exports more competitive. “China seems happy to let the renminbi drift lower, the Swiss are still running quantitative easing at full tilt and central bankers everywhere are actively talking down their currencies or offering only limited support," says Mr Mould.
This is a race to the bottom, and everybody wants to be a winner.
MORE ON TURKEY'S SYRIA OFFENCE
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
'Shakuntala Devi'
Starring: Vidya Balan, Sanya Malhotra
Director: Anu Menon
Rating: Three out of five stars
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 240hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 390Nm at 3,000rpm
Transmission: eight-speed auto
Price: from Dh122,745
On sale: now
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Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
The specs: Fenyr SuperSport
Price, base: Dh5.1 million
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 800hp @ 7,100pm
Torque: 980Nm @ 4,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 13.5L / 100km
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
