Alternatives International

India: From a Politics of Hatred to a Politics of Hope

Praful Bidwai — 2015-03-01T15:13:02Z

The Aam Aadmi Party has accomplished a stupendous political feat in India's capital. Not only has it won more than half the total vote and 95 percent of all seats, which even the luckiest of parties don't do in India's periodic referendum-style “wave” elections. More, by unabashedly championing the cause of the poor, and the interests of underprivileged social and religious groups, it has signalled the arrival of a new moral force in national politics.

It's the kind of force the Indian Left once was, but recently ceased to be—irreverent towards authority, militant in opposing hierarchy and privilege based on birth, passionately egalitarian, and ready to bring the tall claims of “the world's largest democracy” down to earth through expanded livelihood rights for people and greater public accountability for rulers.

The sheer magnitude of the AAP's victory cannot be explained by “positive” factors alone, including its mass outreach and appeal to local democracy, celebration of toiling people, commitment to providing better public services, sustained emphasis on fighting the kind of corruption that robs the poor of their hard-earned income, or Arvind Kejriwal's charisma. The AAP won because the electorate wanted to hand a stunning defeat to Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, which has strutted about since it won the national election eight months ago as if it were invincible, and displayed a hubris no other party can match.

Under Modi and party president Amit Shah, implicated in several criminal cases, the BJP seemed to have found the right recipe for election victories: polarise voters on caste, class and religious lines (where necessary, by inciting anti-Muslim violence), make crude appeals to Hindu-supremacism, sectarian identities and jingoism, capitalise on upper-caste-upper-class elite aspirations by citing the success of the skewed, inequality-enhancing and ecologically destructive “Gujarat model”, and run a dazzling multi-billion-dollar election campaign funded by corporate cronies, estimated to cost the equivalent of the US presidential contest.

The recipe succeeded in converting the BJP's 31-percent national vote into a clear parliamentary majority last May, but the Delhi election—where these methods were deployed in a concentrated manner—suggests it may be turning against the BJP. Modi has failed to live up to his promise of “less government, more governance”, higher growth, and more jobs, of which India needs to create more than a million every month just to absorb an expanding labour force. Each of Modi's grandiose schemes, including large-scale urban sanitation, cleaning up the Ganges, interlinking rivers, or creating “smart cities”, smacks of gimmickry and empty sloganeering.

Yet, more pertinently, Modi has cut funding for the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme, said to be the world's largest job-provision scheme, by 45 percent, and is about to severely restrict the public provision of foodgrains at affordable prices. He's bringing in a shamefully pro-corporate land acquisition law, which will displace millions of farmers without public hearings, and social or environmental impact assessment. This law is opposed by a majority of parties, including the middle-of-the-road Congress. More than a quarter-million farmers in agrarian distress have committed suicide since 1995. All these measures have antagonised the poor, who constitute a majority of the population, and are eroding the BJP's credibility.

Modi's government is waging a “silent war on the environment” by dismantling India's already-weak environmental regulations to promote industry and mining in forests and other sensitive areas, while displacing vulnerable tribal communities and causing yet more ecological degradation. Such destruction/degradation annually costs India 5.7 percent of GDP, higher than the growth rate of national income, according to the World Bank.

The government, with the BJP and its hardline-Hindutva allies, is messing with education and culture, and rewriting textbooks to reflect India's glorified “Hindu past” and “national pride”. Growing religious intolerance, including attacks on churches and forced conversions to Hinduism, recently drew critical comments from Barack Obama. As secularism is attacked, and Mahatma Gandhi's Hindu-fanatic assassin is lionised by BJP supporters, the religious minorities, over a fifth of the population, feel increasingly insecure. Modi hasn't yet been legally held culpable for the anti-Muslim pogrom on his watch in Gujarat in 2002, but his Hindu-hardliner image inspires little confidence.

The Delhi result has halted the BJP juggernaut and created the hope that a new people-centred, participatory, secular politics could have great resonance among the majority; the poor can acquire agency through it. It's not clear if the AAP leadership will draw this lesson and grapple with the issue of defining a broad ideological-programmatic framework for its politics, which it has hitherto evaded. But the result has electrified public awareness and energised India's political opposition in ways that seemed inconceivable until now. Whether it leads to a broad-ranging national-level political realignment against the BJP remains an open question, but it has at least been squarely posed.

11 February

Source: http://www.sacw.net/auteur11.html

A Surveillance Society And Criminalize Dissent

Stefan Christoff — 2015-03-01T15:10:51Z

New ‘anti-terrorism' legislation proposed by the Conservative government, Bill C-51, is a clear assault on free expression, creating an extensive legal framework for state authorities to criminalize dissent.

Under the proposed Conservative law, the promotion of ‘terrorism' becomes criminal, in a legal context where the definition of ‘terrorism' remains extremely broad and relatively undefined. Today, Canada's Criminal Code defines ‘terrorism' as acts already defined as illegal under existing laws, but committed for “a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause.”

This all creates clear political and legal space for an abusive and politically motivated application of the ‘anti-terrorism' law.

Under the new legislation could road or rail line blockades lead by First Nations activists, taking place as part of a campaign against the construction of oil and gas pipelines over their traditional territories without consent, be construed as ‘terrorism' by state authorities?

Could a person, or an organization, publicly defending the right of Palestinians to fight back militarily against the Israeli military siege in Gaza, be construed under the legislation as ‘promoting' terrorism? Given the fact that Hamas, an organization democratically elected in Palestine, but defined as ‘terrorist' under existing laws in Canada, is also deeply connected to and involved with the Palestinian armed resistance.

Will social media posts expressing support or sympathy for the actions of groups or movements defined as ‘terrorist' by Canada, which also includes the major Lebanese political force Hezbollah, quickly become reason for a person to face a ‘terrorism' charges in Canada?

In real terms this legislation also equals an incredible amount of political space for the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) to systematize and normalize a surveillance society in Canada, all taking place with Liberal backing.

Discussing and challenging this new anti-terrorism legislation and CSIS needs to also look at and investigate the growing powers of the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), or NSA-north, a shadowy organization engaged in mass data collection of Canadian communications with an annual budget now sitting at around half a billion dollars.

Moves to embolden CSIS, a largely unaccountable organization clearly linked to devastating human rights abuses, like in the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik, also takes place as part of broader political efforts to normalize Canada's embrace of torture.

In parallel the state-funded CSIS oversight body, the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), an organization not with a great deal of political teeth, but has in the past issued relatively strong critiques of CSIS practices, is now facing debilitating budget cuts. Ironically Conservative operators and politicians, specifically Steven Blaney the minister of Public Safety, consistently cites the existence of SIRC when claiming that the newly extended powers for CSIS will be kept in check.

To justify these authoritarian moves, that really are an extension of the anti-terror legislation brought in under the Liberals post 9/11, Harper is delivering apocalyptically toned colonial sermons, pushing an inherently manipulative discourse, strongly rooted in utilizing fear as a cynical political tool.

Harper's words do really echo the discourse of George W. Bush post-9/11, “a great evil has been descending upon our world,” stated Harper recently, going on to say describe the Islamic State group and associated networks as “one of the most dangerous enemies our world has ever faced.” This is bombastic and totally unreal, yes there is an active confrontation with the Islamic State group, but those paying the most are people and communities in Syria and Iraq, not people in Canada.

By extension any basic political analysis on understanding the political origins of the Islamic State group, needs to draw a very clear link to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, that created a great deal of the context for the political violence today. Is additionally US-driven military action in the region, today strongly supported by Canada, really a solution to the Islamic State crisis?

If only the Conservative government in Ottawa would work with such diligence on the actual most extreme danger facing our world today, that is directly linked to Canada, global warming and climate change.

Overturning this new ‘terrorism' legislation is essential. The law clearly points to the authoritarian vision for Canada that the Conservative government is pushing down on all of us. It is without question that the legislation, as well as the expanded powers of CSIS, will be used to target grassroots activists and communities engaging in actions opposing the neo-colonial, fundamentalist capitalist vision of colonial Canada being forced on us without consent.

Feb. 11, 2015

Terrorism on Both Sides of the Mediterranean

Messaoud Romdhani — 2015-03-01T15:07:59Z

On 6 February 2013, the Tunisian leftist leader Chokri Belaid was shot dead. Belaid had been very critical of the Islamist-led troika government and of violence perpetrated by radical Islamists. More than one million people took to the streets on that Wednesday, protesting against the murder and violence, and asking for the whole truth about the murder to be unveiled. Despite arrests of some suspects and security sweeps that led to the killings of some of Ansar Alsharia extremist members, a certain ambiguity about the circumstances of the assassination remains about the persons-or the parties- who participate, instigate or execute.

Less than two years later, terrorism struck at the very heart of Paris, leaving 17 deaths and about 20 people injured. Once again, up to about two million people were estimated to have taken to the streets, led by about fifty world leaders, denouncing terrorism and the attack on freedom of expression and that of conscience.

The two terrorist operations, although they took place in two different countries, have common links that go beyond Islamist extremism that has become a real danger, not only in the Middle East and North Africa where the political and security situation is precarious but also around the world, including countries with strong institutions, stable political environment and an extensive sophisticated security apparatus.

Overlaps

On January 8th, 2015, barely twenty-four hours after Charlie-Hebdo terrorist attack, the investigative judge of Tunis put Abdelkarim Labidi , a police officer who had been given exceptionally rapid promotions under the Troika government to end up as chief brigade at the Carthage airport, under arrest. Labidi had often been accused of his close relations with extremists and had been seen with Abubaker Alhakim, a now famous leader of Daesh who prides himself on being responsible for the killing of Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, in a Tunis Air Company Car on the eve of the Brahmi's assassination. (Ashourouq daily newspaper 27-12-2014)

Curious coincidence! Alhakim, the mastermind of political assassinations in Tunisia had close contacts with Said and Cherif Kaouachi, the two brothers who attacked Charlie-Hebdo. (Mondafrique.com 11-1-2015)

They had been together in the “19th arrondissement Iraqi cell” in Paris and they spent weeks in Tunisia “the promised land for international terrorism between 2012 and 2013” (previous source).

The two brothers would have stayed two months in Tunisia, performing their training skills in handling arms, before joining Abubaker Alhakim in Libya.

Tackling the roots of terrorism

The course followed by the Kaouachi brothers and Alhakim is the same followed by thousands of extremists all over the world: born in torn apart families, they were involved in delinquent behavior before being recruited by Jihadists. In the absence of social and cultural integration, the universe of terrorism gives meaning to petty criminals, promoted to the rank of “heroes in a holy war.” (see Adam Shatz, moral clarity)

No “value” could justify terrorism that deliberately targets the fundamentals of democracy: freedom of expression, the right to be different, religious and cultural diversities…

But that does not prevent us from taking account of limits of successes against terrorist cells in Tunisia.We need to peer into the forces that attract so many youths to the world of terrorism. And a large number of them have a high educational attainment. For instance, among the 3000 suspected terrorists arrested in 2014, 90% have had a university degree. (As-sabah daily newspaper,04-02- 2015)

In other words, high impact operations, arrests and confiscations of firearms could be only reassuring to the Tunisian population. And so much the better. But the major challenge remains on how to disentangle the relationship between terrorism, trafficking on the borders, the crisis of secular and religious education, poverty and despair. If such issues are not handled head on, security operations would just be symptomatic treatments of a deep-seated crisis.

The October 2014 International Crisis Group report, while emphasizing the Tunisian success of the political transition, was less optimistic concerning the purely security approach when dealing with the terrorist scourge. It issued two key recommendations: sustainable development policy for frontier zones and taking into account the social and intellectual dimensions of terrorism. We couldn't agree more.

Committee for the Respect of Liberties and Human Rights in Tunisia

Terrorizing Teesta Setalvad

Prashant Bhushan — 2015-03-01T15:03:12Z

The case of Teesta Setalvad is a chilling example of what can still happen to even highly acclaimed and well connected persons in this country if they take on those in authority

The case of Teesta Setalvad is a chilling example of what can still happen to even highly acclaimed and well connected persons in this country if they take on those in authority, and especially if the person you have taken on becomes the most powerful person in the country. It is also a sad commentary on how a supposedly independent judiciary does sometimes appear to get influenced by executive authority.

For the last 13 years Teesta has fought a valiant and sometimes lonely battle to bring the perpetrators of the 2002 Gujarat carnage to justice. In this battle, she produced considerable evidence to demonstrate the role of Narendra Modi in abetting the carnage, and kept raising her courageous voice against him.

In retaliation, the Gujarat police registered several cases against her and repeatedly tried to arrest her. But in earlier cases the courts came to her rescue and stayed her arrest and investigations against her.

But now, in a complaint of misappropriation of trust funds filed by a purported resident of Gulbarga society (not by any member or donor of the trust), a single judge of the Gujarat high court has not only dismissed her application for anticipatory bail, but has also urged the police to arrest her and subject her to “custodial interrogation”.

The court has also made sweeping and prejudicial allegations against her by relying only on allegations of the Gujarat police and completely ignoring explanations provided by Teesta.

Personal expenses incurred from her personal account are taken to amount to misappropriation of trust funds, merely because some reimbursements of trust expenses incurred from her personal account for the trust were made to her.

The judge says that she must not be granted anticipatory bail because she must undergo “custodial interrogation”, which everyone knows is a euphemism for torture.

In India, as in most civilised countries, the right to silence is a constitutional right of everyone accused of a crime. Though Teesta had answered every question put to her by the police, they cannot compel any accused person to answer questions.

They can draw an adverse inference, but cannot compel answers by “custodial interrogation”. Unfortunately, however, courts in India have not understood this simple constitutional principle and still continue with the antiquated practice of rendering accused persons to police custody and thus to police torture.

Another unconstitutional and illegal practice of the police, which unfortunately is also being sanctioned by courts, is allowing the arrest of accused persons merely because there is an allegation against them. The police think that merely an FIR against a person gives them the licence to arrest him.

This has become an easy weapon in the hands of the police to terrorise and torture innocent persons, who might be falsely accused of offences.

Unfortunately the lower courts have been sanctioning this practice too, despite clear judgments of the Supreme Court to the effect that the mere fact that the police have the power to arrest does not mean that they can exercise that power just because there is a charge.

The apex court has said, “No arrest can be made merely because it is lawful for the police officer to do so. The existence of the power to arrest is one thing. The justification for the exercise of it is quite another.”

Arrest during investigation is justified only if the accused if not arrested may flee from justice, or he might tamper with evidence, or he has committed a heinous offence and arresting him is essential for instilling a sense of security among the community, or he is a habitual and violent offender and is likely to repeat such offences unless arrested.

None of these factors are normally present in most cases, especially not in the one against Teesta. Yet the police habitually resort to arresting anyone accused, particularly if they have a motive to do so or if the powers-that-be want it.

Despite the Constitution makers having gone to great lengths to protect independence of the judiciary, and the judiciary having withdrawn even the power to appoint judges to itself, we are witnessing the continuing influence of the executive over the judiciary.

This influence is exercised in multiple ways, which include post-retirement jobs, sanctioning of foreign trips, medical treatment in foreign countries and so on.

More distressingly, however, we are also seeing increasing social consanguinity between politicians and judges. Gone are the days when judges kept aloof from politicians.

We now have the common spectacle of ministers and sundry politicians attending weddings of judges' children and vice versa. If the judiciary also allows itself to get influenced by a powerful and fascist executive, our rights and liberties are truly in dire straits.

Source: http://caravandaily.com/portal/terrorizing-teesta-setalvad-prashant-bhushan/

Disinformation and Repression Against BDS

Palestinian BDS National Committee — 2015-03-01T15:00:50Z

Palestinian Civil Society Condemns Canadian Government Disinformation and Repression Against Boycott Movement

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition of Palestinian civil society organizations that leads the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, has condemned the Canadian government's ramped up disinformation campaign and repressive measures against the BDS movement for Palestinian rights.

BDS is a global, Palestinian-led nonviolent human rights movement that aims to apply pressure on Israel, as was done on apartheid South Africa, to fully comply with its obligations under international law.

Canada and Israel signed a series of cooperation agreements recently, one of which included an unprecedented commitment to work jointly to counter the continued growth of BDS.

On January 22, Canadian public safety minister Steven Blaney gave a speech at a meeting on anti-semitism at the United Nations General Assembly, convened in the wake of the Paris criminal attacks, that smeared the BDS movement as “anti-semitic.”

BNC Responds

Rafeef Ziadah, a secretariat member of the the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the broad coalition of Palestinian civil society organizations that leads the BDS movement, said:

“Rather than seeking to hold Israel to account for its war crimes during the recent military assault on Gaza and its intensified colonization of the occupied West Bank, particularly in Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley, the Canadian government is further deepening its collaboration with Israel's occupation and launching a shameful, propagandistic attack on free speech in the process.

“The Canadian government's continued unconditional support for Israel's colonial policies and its smear campaign against BDS highlight the deeply ideological and reactionary character of this government. Canada is sending Israel the message that it can act with total impunity in violating human rights and international law.

“Sadly, while claiming to defend free speech the current Canadian government is among the most repressive in the west; it has gone farther than most in suppressing free speech and infringing the rights of its own civil society, including trade unions, community and faith groups, to participate in human rights campaigning, as in boycotts against Israel's injustices.”

As a matter of principle, the BDS movement has consistently and categorically opposed all forms of racism, including anti-semitism and Islamophobia. The movement's anti-racist, human rights platform is growing into the western mainstream and attracting growing support among Canadians, including many Jewish Canadians who join conscientious and progressive Jewish Israelis in rejecting Israel's claim to commit its atrocities in their name.

In her 2009 article endorsing BDS against Israel's regime of occupation and oppression, the world best-selling author Naomi Klein wrote:

“It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.”

The award-winning Canadian filmmaker John Greyson, who has produced some of the BDS movement's most creative videos, has justified his support for BDS and boycott of the Tel Aviv queer film festival saying:

“[BDS] is the only peaceful means right now that can have an effect on the Israeli state that has gone completely out of control. ... A line in the sand has been drawn.”

South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, a great supporter of the BDS movement, after presenting a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council about an Israeli war crime in the occupied Gaza Strip in 2008 said:

“I think the West, quite rightly, is feeling contrite, penitent for its awful connivance with the Holocaust ... . The West is penitent, the penance is being paid by the Palestinians. … I just hope that ordinary citizens in the West will wake up and say, ‘we refuse to be part of this'.”

Rafeef Ziadah concluded,

“At a time when people of conscience the world over are joining the Palestinian BDS movement for freedom, justice and equality and connecting it with their own struggles for social and economic justice, equal rights, indigenous rights, minority rights, and environmental protection, the Canadian government is standing on the wrong side of history, supporting a pernicious regime of Israeli occupation, colonialism and apartheid.”

The Casino Republic

Uri Avnery — 2015-03-01T14:57:53Z

Who is the ruler of Israel?

Prime Minister Biyamin Netayahu, of course.

WRONG.

The real ruler of Israel is one Sheldon Adelson, 81, American Jew, Casino king, who was rated as the world's tenth richest person, worth 37.2 billion dollars at the latest count. But who is counting?

Besides his casinos in Las Vegas, Pennsylvania, Macao and Singapore, he owns the US Republican party and, lately, both Houses of the US Congress.

He also owns Binyamin Netanyahu.

ADELSON'S CONNECTION with Israel is personal. On a blind date, he fell in love with an Israeli woman.

Miriam Farbstein was born in Haifa, attended a prestigious high school, did her army service in the Israeli institute which deals with bacteriological warfare and is a multifaceted scientist. After one of her sons (from her first marriage) died of an overdose, she is devoted to the fight against drugs, especially cannabis.

Both Adelsons are fanatical supporters of Israel. Not just any Israel, but a rightist, supremacist, arrogant, violent, expansionist, annexationist, non-compromising, colonialist Israel.

In "Bibi" Netanyahu they found their man. Through Netanyahu they hope to rule Israel as their private fief.

To assure this, they did an extraordinary thing: they founded an Israeli newspaper, solely devoted to the furthering of the interests of Binyamin Netanyahu. Not of the Likud, not of a specific policy, but of Netanyahu personally.

Years ago I invented a Hebrew word for papers which are distributed for nothing. "Hinamon" translates, roughly, into "ragratis" or "gratissue" and was intended to denigrate. But I did not dream of a monster like "Israel Hayom" ("Israel Today") – a paper with unlimited funds, distributed every day for nothing in the streets and malls all over the country by hundreds, perhaps thousands of paid young persons.

Israelis love getting something for nothing. Israel Hayom is now the daily paper with the widest distribution in Israel. It drains readers and advertising revenue from its only competitor – Yedioth Ahronoth ("Latest News"), which held this title until then.

Yedioth reacted furiously. It became a ferocious enemy of Netanyahu. Yossi Werter, a commentator of the center-left Haaretz (which has a far lower circulation) even believes that the present election boils down to a contest between the two papers.

That is vastly exaggerated. Judged by political and social content, there is little to differentiate the two. Both are super-patriotic, war-mongering and rightist. That is the journalistic recipe for attracting the masses anywhere in the world.

Yedioth is owned by the Moses family, a business-minded clan. The present, third-generation publisher is Arnon ("Noni") Moses, the publicity-shy boss of a large economic empire based on the paper. The paper serves his business interests, but he has no special political interests.

Adelson is unique.

IN ISRAEL, betting is forbidden by law. We have no casinos, and secret gambling dens are raided by the police. In our early youth we were taught that casino moguls are bad people, almost like arms merchants. They take the money off poor addicted people, throwing them into despair, even suicide. See Dostoyevsky.

Israelis read Israel Hayom (it's something for nothing, after all), but they don't necessarily like the man and his methods. So some members of the Knesset were encouraged to enter a bill forbidding gratis newspapers altogether.

Netanyahu and the Likud party did everything to obstruct this bill. But in the preliminary vote (necessary for private members' bills) they were beaten in an amazing way. Even members of Netanyahu's governing coalition voted for it. The cameras caught Netanyahu literally running in the Knesset plenum hall to gain his seat before the voting started.

The vote was 43 to 23. Almost half the Likud members absented themselves. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his party voted for the bill. So did ministers Ya'ir Lapid and Tzipi Livni.

From the preliminary vote to the final adoption, such a bill has to pass several stages. There was plenty of time to bury it in one of the committees. But Netanyahu was furious. A few days after the vote, he dismissed Lapid and Livni from the cabinet, causing the government coalition to break up and the Knesset to disperse.

Why did Netanyahu do such a foolish thing less then half way through his (third) term of office? There can be only one logical explanation: he was ordered to do so by Adelson, in order to prevent the adoption of the law.

If so, Adelson is now our chief lawmaker. Perhaps he is also our chief government-maker.

MONEY PLAYS an ever-increasing role in politics. Election propaganda is made on television, which is very expensive. Both in Israel and the US, legal and illegal funds pour into the campaign, directly and indirectly. Corruption is abetted or tolerated by the courts. The very rich (known euphemistically in America as the "wealthy") exercise undue influence.

In the last US presidential elections, Adelson poured rivers of dollars into the contest. He supported Newt Gingrich, and then Mitt Romney, with huge sums of money. In vain. Perhaps Americans don't like to be ruled by captains of casinos.

For the next US presidential elections, Adelson has started early. He has summoned to his Las Vegas casino HQ all leading Republican candidates, to grill them on their allegiance to him - and to Netanyahu. Nobody dared to refuse the summons. Would a Roman senator refuse the summons of Caesar?

In Israel, such rituals are superfluous. The Adelsons – both Miri and Sheldon – know who their man is.

The Israel Hayom newspaper is, of course, a big propaganda machine, totally devoted to the re-election of Netanyahu. All quite legal. In a democracy, who can tell a newspaper whom to support? We are still a democracy, for God's sake!

IT SEEMS to be strange for a country to allow a foreigner, who never lived in the country, to have such enormous power over its future, indeed, over its very existence.

That's where Zionism comes in. According to the Zionist creed, Israel is the state of the Jews, all the Jews. Every Jew in the world belongs to Israel, even if temporarily residing somewhere else. A few days ago, Netanyahu publicly claimed to represent not just the State of Israel but also the entire "Jewish People". No need to ask them.

Accordingly, Adelson is not really a foreigner. He is one of us. True, he cannot vote in Israel, though his wife probably can. But many people, including himself, believe that he, being a Jew, has a perfect right to interfere in our affairs and dominate our lives.

For example, the appointment of our ambassador in the US. Ron Dermer is an American, born in Miami, who was active in Republican politics. To appoint an American functionary of the Republican Party as ambassador of Israel to a Democratic administration may seem strange. Not so strange if Netanyahu acted under the orders of Sheldon Adelson.

It was Adelson who prepared the witches' brew that is now endangering Israel's lifeline to Washington. His stooge, Dermer, induced the Republicans in Congress – all of them dependent on Adelson's largesse or hoping to be so – to invite Netanyahu to give an anti-Obama speech before both Houses.

While this intrigue was in preparation, Dermer met with John Kerry but did not tell him of Netanyahu's coming. Neither did Netanyahu inform President Obama, who, in a fury, announced that he would not meet with the Prime Minister.

From the point of view of Israel's vital interests, it is sheer madness to provoke the President of the United States of America, who controls American's flow of arms to Israel and the American veto power in the UN. But from the point of view of Adelson, who wants to elect a Republican president in 2016, it makes sense. He has already threatened to invest unlimited sums of money to prevent the reelection of any Senator or Representative who is absent from Netanyahu's speech.

We are nearing open warfare between the Government of Israel and the President of the United States.

Is someone playing roulette with our future?

Why Low Oil Prices Could be a Great Thing

Grist staff — 2015-03-01T14:55:47Z

May Boeve, executive director of 350.org, recently interviewed Naomi Klein, activist and author of the book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (and a 350 board member), as part of a web workshop ahead of Global Divestment Day. You can watch the whole conversation. Or you can read our three-part edited transcript, starting with part one today.

May Boeve: There's a lot of talk right now in the news about falling oil prices. Can you speak to the role that falling oil prices play in energy and climate politics in particular, and what we should be thinking about in this moment?

Naomi Klein: That's something I've been thinking a lot about, because the book I wrote before was called The Shock Doctrine, and the message of that book was that these moments are often catalysts for the wrong kind of change. It is not preordained that low oil prices will either hurt or help the climate movement.

If we do nothing, then it's more likely that low oil prices will work against sensible climate action, just for simple economic reasons. When oil is cheap, people feel able to buy more of it. Already we're hearing these stories, like the comeback of the SUV. All of these incentives toward efficiency for reasons of financial strain — people were leaving their cars at home, taking public transit, carpooling and doing these things that were good for the environment, but for financial reasons — we've lost that.

But I think on the whole, if we look at this in the context of this rising movement that we're a part of, if we look at it in the run-up to [U.N. climate talks in] Paris and the fact that climate is going to be very much in the news and top of mind, if we also look at it in the context of the renewable energy sector, with prices falling rapidly, the fact that we can all now point to a country like Germany that has moved so rapidly toward having 20-25% of its electricity coming from renewables, this is definitely a moment.

[Look at this recent] Economist cover. This is a figure leaping off a pyramid of oil barrels, and the headline is “Seize the day.” The editorial that accompanies this — and this is a quote from the Economist, not from 350.org — is saying that this is a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to dramatically transform our energy system, to kick the oil habit. We've been using this slogan internally: “Kick it while it's down.”

There are various reasons why, if we get the right set of incentives in place — both political and economic — it can be a really, really good time to get off fossil fuels and push very aggressively toward a decentralized, renewables-based economy.

One of the things that has really struck me, as I've been thinking about this price plummet over the past couple of weeks, is that we've been living with an oil price between $80 to $100 per barrel or more — even reaching $120 per barrel — for over a decade. It went up to $100 a barrel after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, that's when things really took off.

I wrote a column [in 2007] and the headline was “Baghdad Burns, Calgary Booms.” It was about the fact that the turmoil in the market that was linked to the invasion of Iraq, which had sent oil prices soaring, was leading to the boom that was happening with the Alberta tar sands. Calgary is ground zero for those profits. We had known for a long time that there were vast oil deposits in northern Alberta, but those oil deposits weren't counted toward the global fossil fuel reserves because they were considered uneconomic. It wasn't that they discovered oil in Alberta in 2003, it was that when oil prices were $30 a barrel it didn't make sense to count it, because it costs so much to dig it up.

What's been striking to me is understanding that it really kind of makes sense why, despite all of the consciousness-raising around climate change that has taken place over the past decade — An Inconvenient Truth, the IPCC winning the Nobel Prize, all of these various moments — why this hasn't translated into action. It's because we have been working against the titanic power of enormous profit that comes with oil at such a high price. Because that kind of pricing, with oil at $100 per barrel, it makes people crazy. It's irresistible. So, even as we've had scientists raising the alarm, we've been barreling down the wrong road. We've been barreling into extreme energy, drilling in the Arctic, tar sands, fracking. And this is all linked to high prices.

Now, we find ourselves in this kind of reprieve. It's not permanent. What goes down can go back up, and will go back up. But I think what this has given us is a little bit of breathing room, because suddenly a lot of these projects that we've been working so hard to stop, many of them are shutting down on their own. I mean, not completely, but a lot of investors are pulling their investments out of tar sands, or suspending their investments because it's so expensive. There's less of a push for Arctic drilling. That's a context in which it's easier to win political victories.

When you're going head-to-head with the richest companies on earth, and they're dying to get into the Arctic, and you're saying, “no” — well, that's not a fair fight. But when their own investors are going, “Wow, is this really a good idea?” I think that's a moment when we can win some really big victories to close off fossil fuel frontiers.

Of course, this is very tied to the whole logic of the divestment movement and the need to leave this carbon in the ground. But we all know we're not going to win this one divestment fight at a time. We're going to win this by building the arguments that will then lead to big demands, like no new fossil fuel frontiers, country-wide bans on fracking, closing off the Arctic to drilling permanently, and those types of policies.

One of the reasons that it's been difficult to win and sustain victories to put a price on carbon, a carbon tax (and I don't think a carbon tax is a silver bullet, but I think a progressively designed carbon tax is part of a slate of policies that we need to make this transition happen), is that when consumers are hurting — and we've been in the midst of an economic downturn, recession, or crisis depending on where you live — it's hard for politicians to increase the price of energy. When suddenly oil is way cheaper and your energy bill is dropping, that's a good time to introduce a progressive carbon tax.

Between the capacity to win some big keep-it-in-ground fights in the midst of falling prices, and the ability to fight for a progressive carbon tax, and that we now have these great examples of what a rapid renewables transition might look like — I think it is an extraordinary moment, to be honest.

May Boeve: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And extraordinary moments can pass.

Naomi Klein: They can and do pass. I am haunted by the long shadow of 2008, when the financial crisis hit and we all witnessed this huge transfer of wealth from public hands into the hands of the banks. And this was a moment when it could have been a real leap forward, especially in the U.S., because Obama had just been elected with a clear mandate to act on climate change. It was also a moment when the car companies were bankrupt, and it was possible to write a really big stimulus bill, and we could have told the banks what to lend — they could have funded the energy transition. But that became this period of demobilization for people as they sort of waited for what Obama would do.

And now I feel like we're being given a second chance. When that happened and we didn't seize that moment, I thought, “Am I ever going to see another moment like this, with this amount of potential?” And here we are now, with this opening.

And we're also seeing some big political shifts. Syriza just won in Greece, that's a big message. Podemos is rising in Spain. These political parties need a vision for what the next economy should look like, and I believe that the climate movement should be very much a part of that conversation.

… You know, I've been making these arguments around economics, but there is nothing more powerful than a values-based argument. We're not going to win this as bean counters. We can't beat the bean counters at their own game. We're going to win this because this is an issue of values, human rights, right and wrong. We just have this brief period where we also have to have some nice stats that we can wield, but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that what actually moves people's hearts are the arguments based on the value of life.

Source: http://grist.org/climate-energy/naomi-klein-on-why-low-oil-prices-could-be-a-great-thing/

9 Feb 2015

Syriza: The Greek Spring

Costas Douzinas — 2015-03-01T14:53:20Z

The 2015 Greek elections mark the beginning of the end of a cycle that started in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. We are now witnessing the end of the "end of history" metanarrative.

According to an oft-repeated cliché, the recent Syriza victory has historic significance. Its place in history books as the first elected left government in Europe is assured. But its importance goes further. The Syriza victory is an important marker in three historical periods or concentric cycles that started in 1949, 1968 and 1989.

The year 1949 symbolises the beginning of the Cold War. The Greek civil war ended with the defeat of the left. In the long period afterwards, which culminated in the 1967-1974 Colonels dictatorship, the people who formed the backbone of resistance to the Nazi occupation were persecuted, exiled and imprisoned. A strong right-left divide was established with the right dominant and the left accepting its political defeat and retreating to trade union activism and theoretical utopianism.

This historical and ideological divide was shaken in the many acts of resistance against austerity and in the 2011 occupation of Syntagma square by the Greekindignados. Unlike other instances of the Occupy movement, Syntagma attracted people from all social classes, historical and ideological traditions including many who had never participated in a protest. People from antagonistic positions found themselves together and realised that an unemployed rightist and leftist suffer the same, that a religious patriot and an atheist internationalist resent equally the humiliation in the hands of European and domestic elites.

When the resisting multitudes became the voting people, they chose Syriza. The small protest party of 4% in 2009 rose to 27% in 2012 and 36% in 2015. The 9% victory margin was largely due to the direct transfer of votes from right to left. The New Democracy government sensed the sea-change and tried to resurrect the ghosts of the past in its ill-conceived election campaign. Greece under Syriza will go communist and become like North Korea stated former PM Samaras. We will protect “by all means necessary” what our fathers won with armed struggle, added a senior Minister. But this attempt to bring old ghosts to life did not work. The old ideological divide collapsed allowing the left to move through its electoral glass ceiling.

In this sense, the election marked the end of the post-civil war period and perhaps the second end of the Cold War. The Syriza coalition, with the small patriotic Independent Greeks party, confirms this view. The DNA of the left lies in its militant support for immigrants, gay and lesbians, Roma, ethnic and religious minorities. It remains intact. Tassia Christodoulopoulou, a well known lawyer and campaigner for minority rights, was appointed Minister for Immigration. She immediately announced legislation to give citizenship to immigrants who had their basic schooling in Greece, a provision missing from many European legal systems.

The 2015 elections are also the beginning of the end of a cycle that started in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin wall. The “end of history” and the “new world order”, proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama and President Bush, presented liberal capitalism as the last stage in humanity's progress.

But this is the economic system in which 50% of world wealth belongs to 1% of super-rich, according to a recent Oxfam report. The Syriza victory rejects this catastrophic orthodoxy and, in a small way, puts history back on the road. The government's immediate adoption of a tranche of measures aimed at helping the most vulnerable attracted a positive response from European politicians and citizens across the political spectrum.

If the elections bring the periods starting in 1949 and 1989 to an end, they re-start the 1968 cycle. May '68 symbolises the counter-cultural revolution by young people all over the world. In the period since the fight against discrimination and for the rights of minorities and the environment has been successful but blunted.

The 68ers holds the reins of power in governments, business and the media. Human rights, the toleration of difference and the rhetorical condemnation of discrimination have become part of the ruling vernacular but have not changed the balance of forces. Human rights replaced the struggle for social justice and ‘humanitarian' wars became the logical extension of turning every political campaign into a question of rights. The centrality of the individual gives capitalism a human face but does not challenge growing injustice.

Greece joined the cultural revolution after the 1973 Polytechnic uprising and the fall of the dictatorship. The Polytechnic generation ruled the country for the last forty years. It accepted some of the May values but twisted them towards individualism and freedom of consumer choice.

The new government is called to reintegrate the values of difference and dignity in the struggle for social justice. The left horizon of equality and democracy must take on the rainbow colours. There is no blueprint or textbook and the new government will be tested every step along the way. It is a tall order for a small country and party. But if the Greek spring succeeds – it is a big if - it will mark the beginning of a new type of democratic socialism for the 21st century.

Source: https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/costas-douzinas/syriza-greek-spring

5 February 2015

Letter from Paris

Bernard Dreano — 2015-03-01T14:51:28Z

My friends and I, either in the past or more recently, all had some kind of personal and/or activist link with people among the victims...

Dear Friends,

As you know the terrorists killed 17 persons, targeting journalists and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo and Jews at the Hyper-Kosher store.

In a way the victims were a microcosm of French society, for among the victims in Charlie Hebdo were 2 Muslims, one Caribbean policewomen and one Tunisian, and several customers of the kosher store were saved thanks to the courageous behaviour of a Muslim migrant from Mali who was working there.

My friends and I, either in the past or more recently, had all had some kind of personal and/or activist links with people among the victims, such as the cartoonists Wolinski, Cabu or Tignous, the writer “Oncle Bernard”, and Yohav Attab, a Jew from Tunis, a human rights activist who had just arrived in France as a student and who was killed in the kosher store.

Condemnation of the attacks came from everywhere, all kind of parties, movements, unions, right and left, Christian, Muslim, Jews, etc.

And as you know 4 million people went to the streets on Saturday and Sunday in all the towns of France, probably 1.5 million people in Paris alone (the biggest street demonstration ever). A massive expression of the society in honor of the victims, and to say "we are not afraid", "we will live together in peace...".

People were not only condemning the violence. They were also defending the freedom of expression (of the newspaper) and condemning the racist attack against Jews.

Charlie-Hebdo was a leftist satirical journal, supposed to mock the mightiest, criticize all powers (political, economical, and religious), to fight bigotry and racism wherever it could be found. Be that as it may, Charlie had also been in recent years a channel for Islamophobic positions, and I am not referring to the publication of the “Mohamed” Danish cartoons, but to a host of articles, statements, as well as some cartoons, attacking Muslims and Arabs.... Especially in the period 2005-2009 when Philippe Val was editor in chief (Val for example, expounded the thesis that the 2005 youth riots were an Islamic plot, and in 2008 he expelled Sine, one of the cartoonist founding members of Charlie, for criticising Israeli policies; he was subsequently nominated by Sarkozy for the position of the director of the main French public radio-channel).

Therefore Charlie was not very popular among the civic activists of the populous districts of the “banlieue” as a whole (even if the journal was quietly ignored by young people in general), not to mention Muslims. Nevertheless, practically all of them reacted against the terrorist attacks and

mobilized themselves and participated actively in the demonstration. But at the same time a lot of them were questioning the slogan “Je suis Charlie” (to the extent that this implied support for all the opinions and editorial line of Charlie...), many combining it with other slogans like je suis Charlie and something else, Je suis Charlie, Je suis Ahmed (the Muslim police officer killed in the attack), Je suis juif (I am a Jew) et musulman (and Muslim).), or simply using other slogans instead, like nous sommes ensemble – (we are together).

“National Unity” or union of the people

The decision of François Hollande to invite heads of state and government to participate in the Paris rally created uneasiness. A lot of people – including a lot of Parisian demonstrators, got the impression that their protest had been hijacked by politicians. Beyond the symbolism of the meeting of all nations gathered around the French people to fight terrorism, there was an unmistakeable sense of a lack of legitimacy among these powerful peoples, some of them being well known for their responsibility for policies of war, discrimination, not to speak of corruption. Netanyahu came with his two henchmen Lieberman and Bennet (the leader of the Israeli extreme right, an advocate of apartheid and ethnic cleansing). He was duly accorded the maximum red carpet treatment and shown every sign of respect by the French authorities, as if he alone was representing “The Jews”, having just issued a sort of war communiqué by inviting all French Jews to emigrate to Israel! And the presence of Mahmoud Abbas was hardly seen as a “balancing factor” or compensation...

Nevertheless, it must be asked, does this massive mobilization of a society means that the people are indeed united? Or is this “union nationale” a fake? The willingness of all the demonstrators to “co-exist” respectfully and peacefully was obvious. Unfortunately xenophobia, sectarianism and divisions are now on the rise. The union of the people has to be built.

Unity?

A lot of Jews are afraid. There are 600,000 Jews or people of “Jewish Culture” in France, the majority of whom are very secular, the biggest Jewish community in western Europe. Anti-Semitic incidents are frequent (insults, name-calling, assaults, etc.). Meanwhile the leader of the “official representatives” of the Jewish Communities (who are very far from “representing” all French Jews) take a very aggressive and provocative stance, (especially concerning the Palestinian question). Some of these “spokespersons” have opined that the mere demand of recognition of the State of Palestine had opened the gates of terrorism!

A lot of Muslims are afraid. There are 4.5 million Muslims or people from a “Muslim culture” in France, the majority being very secular in their attitudes. There were Islamophobic incidents just after the attacks in more than 50 cities (Mosque attacks, graffiti, etc.). Muslims, especially women – with or without the hijab (Islamist veil) are insulted and sometimes assaulted in the street. Muslims have the impression that the authorities are not fighting Islamophobia but contributing to spreading it (as with the veiled Muslim mother forbidden to participate in school activities with the pupils, as officially decreed by the Ministry of Education, but with the mother insulted in front of her children).

“Islam” is represented in the media by a few “spokespersons”, most of them discredited (especially among young believers) and appearing as the “Imams of the République” like those who were active during the days of French colonialism.

Intellectuals, people of the media, political leaders are always “enjoining” Muslims to “take sides”, and at the same time systematically ignoring year in year out the numerous anti-sectarian and prodemocracy activities, statements and demonstrations orchestrated by a huge range of organizations of citizens including those of the Muslim faith, proponents of Muslim culture, local, secular, religious, leftist, conservative, antiracist, even islamist (like the French Muslims Brothers) voices who responded affirmatively to these exhortations.

In this context, a “radical Islamism” is growing (mainly through informal channels, influencing a lot of people, but especially youngsters). Sectarian “salafists” and neo-wahhabist elements are active in some mosques, on the internet, through publications (often Saudi publications), etc. They spread the ideas of division, separatism, and intolerance. From this background a few “jihadists” as such, emerge.

A small but significant section of the young people, mainly (but not only) Black and Arabs, mainly (but not only) from a Muslim background, and from the “banlieue” are expressing a sort of dissent by refusing the “Je suis Charlie” rallying cry, and denouncing as double standards the attitudes towards the recent killings. Very often as well, especially among the younger elements, there are a lot of converts to a ‘conspiracy theory' about a fake attack, or ‘plot' (just like after 9/11). These people are more or less, in support of Dieudonné. Dieudonné is a black ‘humorist' who last year very vocally espoused very racist and anti-Semitic positions. He is linked to the extreme right... He chose to say after the attacks, “I am Charlie Koulibaly”, and is currently being prosecuted for being an apologist for terrorism (which of course gives him maximum publicity).

French chauvinism is of course also on the increase. The extreme-right, xenophobic, Front National now represents around 25% of the potential vote. Its traditional anti-Semitism is now much less visible, but islamophobia is one of its main preoccupations. But the Front National is not supporting any kind of violence. Small radical fascist groups (one is called Riposte laïque) are trying to create an anti-Islam movement like the Pegida in Germany. Another kind of xenophobia is articulated by leftists who purport to be secular and republicans, but who in the name of an antireligious “laïcité” are encouraging discrimination against religious people, and blaming as “accomplices to jihadists”, anyone who denounces the existence of Islamophobia in French society!

And, in the name of “national unity” and “laïcité” some mainstream officials, intellectuals, and politicians are calling for the people who dare to say, “we are not Charlie”, to be prosecuted and penalised in some kind of official way.

Who are the terrorists?

Who were the terrorists? Three French guys born and raised in France may have been helped by a very small number of accomplices. The Kouachi brothers (murderers of the Charlie- Hebdo team) were radical jihadists (one of them had been convicted in 2006 for recruiting for jihad in Iraq). The third one, Amedy Coulibaly had met Cherif Kouachi in jail (Koulibaly was in jail for a minor misdemeanor).These are the ‘lost generations' of French society (suffering isolation, school problems, social marginalization, unemployment...). There have been radical- islamist attacks in France in the past, the most important ones in 1995. These assassinations and bombs in public places were also organized by a very small group of the same kind of young “lost children” like their “leader” Khaled Kelkal, also killed by the police.

You find the same kind of admiration of or fascination for jihadists among part of the marginalized youth of the banlieue. But it seems that among the more than 1000 French active ‘jihadists' who are in Syria or Iraq, a lot do not correspond to the profile of these lost children coming from the poor outskirts of the big cities. 1/4 are recent converts to Islam coming from non-migrant families, and a lot are relatively middle class. They often come from small cities. France has the biggest number in western Europe, but it's still a very small number if you consider the number of Muslims in France.

20 years ago everybody said that we should have better security laws, but also have some social solutions to bring to the situation of social insecurity of these people from ‘the banlieue', and also have a ‘dialogue with Islam', to promote ‘laîcité', and to avoid the ‘importation of foreign conflict... such as Israel-Palestine, or the civil war in Algeria...' and so on and so forth. All words, words...

WE ARE TOGETHER, a movement initiated by people from the ‘banlieue' of Paris and Toulouse

What next?

The worst scenario is one where we accept the logic of dislocation and the logic of war (which is precisely what the terrorists are trying to achieve). A sort of French “Patriot Act” with emergency laws, the restriction of liberties, minority discriminations, some kind of concentration camp for suspected terrorists, as proposed by some politicians. This will not protect anybody.

A certain type of speech about “national unity” against the common enemy addresses itself to the enemy within, all these dangerous youths. The constant references to the unifying “values of the République “ while the discrimination, double standards, segregation, continue to flourish, can only be counterproductive.

Inside French society, there are some individuals, associations, movements, who are working hard to unite the people. Others are working hard to divide them.