Hyping a Proxy War in Yemen

Kevin Schwartz

It is an axiom in mainstream analyses of the Middle East that Sunni and Shii Muslims overwhelmingly operate in society based on their sectarian identity and not much else, regardless of their location (Iraq, Syria, Yemen), profession, tribal or regional affiliations, or other economic and political factors. It is a slight variation on the larger manner in which Muslims, particularly in the West, are deemed to interact in society solely based on their “Muslimness,” where aspects of their identities- whether they are mothers, doctors, businessman, or possibly gamers- are deemed subsidiary to their membership in a religion that has over a billion adherents. The obvious unacceptability of such an approach as applied to members of other religions and ethnicities need not be recounted here.

The latest example of Shii-Sunni determinism, where Shiis and Sunnis act as Shiis and Sunnis and little else matters, can be seen no better than the ongoing media coverage of events unfolding in Yemen. It is a conflict deemed to be developing as a proxy war between the country’s Houthi rebels, seen as backed by Shii Iran, and a coalition of mainly Sunni Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, supporting the ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. As the NY Times wrote on March 22, 2015: “The conflict has taken on the features of a regional proxy war, with Iran backing the Houthis, whose leaders are Zaydi Shiites, and Saudi Arabia and the other regional Sunni monarchies backing Mr. Hadi.”

This belief, and now likely occurrence, of a sectarian proxy war in Yemen has largely been a self-fulfilling prophecy, as much the result of unqualified claims perpetuated by mainstream media outlets as from hype stemming from Saudi Arabian officials that the Houthis are backed by Iran and doing their bidding in Yemen. The claims are based on the Houthis practice of Zaydism. (Zaydism is an offshoot of mainstream Twelver Shiism, the predominant religion in Iran.) No matter that former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a onetime ally of the United States and Saudi Arabia who sought to rally tribal support in Yemen against the Houthis years prior, is now aligned with the Houthis and assisting them through his continued support by some in the military. No matter that Yemen is home to one of the highest rates of corruption in the world or a high rate of youth unemployment. Yet the importance of such shifting political alliances and local socio-economic factors remains severely overlooked.

With little evidence offered regarding the nature of the relationship between Iran and the Houthis, headlines nonetheless abound with inclusions of “Iranian-backed Shia Houthi fighters” and articles using the phrasing “the rise to power of the Iran-backed Houthis” and “the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.” (For a more nuanced picture of the history of the Zaydis and the political rise of Houthis in Yemen, including the impact of Iran upon Houthi religious leaders, see Daniel Varisco’s“Proxy Moron’s: The Demolition of Yemen.”)

In justifying the recent Saudi-led air campaign against the Houthis, the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States noted, “It’s the Iranians who interfered in Yemen…there are Iranian advisers advising [the Houthis] and Hezbollah operatives advising them.” The claim of association between Hezbollah and the Houthis- stemming from their shared adherence to Shiism- goes back several years and was the subject of a US diplomatic cable entitled “Hizballah and Houthis: Different Goals and Ideology.” The November 18, 2009 cable contrasts the ideologies and make-up of Hezbollah and the Houthis and argues to understand the Houthis as a political, rather than religious, movement. “The Houthis could more accurately be characterized as a movement with religious undertones and politically addressable grievances rather than a radical, religiously motivated sect with which the ROYG [Republic of Yemen Government] cannot negotiate,” the author writes. The cable goes on to cite a July 2009 article by Abdullah Lux in the journal Contemporary Arab Affairs that there is a “lack of evidence of direct support (to the Houthis) by either Hizballah or Iran.”

In a cable four days later (November 22, 2009) entitled “Tempting but No, Saudis Resist Iranian Provocation” the Iran-Houthi relationship is once again center stage. The cable presents a litany of accusations and condemnations by Saudi officials and religious leaders for Iran’s backing of the Houthis and the former’s meddling in Yemen. No actual evidence between Iran and Houthi collaboration is offered. Nonetheless, the ongoing narrative championing direct links between Shii Iran and the Zaydi Houthis has been sustained in the interim and served as a justification of the recent campaign to intervene in Yemen’s internal affairs.

United States lawmakers have quickly accepted the justification of Iran and Houthi collusion in offering overwhelming support to the Saudi campaign. As Julian Pecquet recently reported in Al-Monitor, the Saudi airstrikes in Yemen have already received bipartisan support. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, justified Saudi actions by noting, “The takeover of large swaths of Yemen by Iranian-backed Shia militants has forced our Saudi allies to take military action.” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif), the top Democrat on the Intelligence panel, was equally adamant: “The military action by Saudi Arabia and its partners was necessitated by the illegal action of the Houthi rebels and their Iranian backers,” Pecquet quotes the Congressman as stating.

Iran’s putative support of the Houthis should not be taken lightly. In September 2014, three members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were freed, following their arrest for supposedly providing logistical and training support to the Houthis. Days earlier Yemeni authorities released members of Hezbollah who were arrested on the same charge. In January 2013, a ship containing weapons, including surface-to-air missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, was intercepted off Yemen’s coast. The shipment was believed to have been sent by Iran. Further reports claim that some Zaydi students have traveled to Iran to receive seminary training.

The presentation of such evidence has been absent from casual depictions of the Houthis as “Iran-backed” Shii rebels, deemed a secondary concern to the overarching claim it seeks to purport. Instead, it has been replaced by the much-hyped axiom of sectarian determinism, aligning Shiis with Shiis, or Shiis with Zaydis as the case may be, which wills an association based on religious affiliation and nothing more. Any relationship between Iran and the Houthis, the evidence notwithstanding, has been further clouded by a determined Saudi campaign to depict a close association between the two parties, even when one likely didn’t exist, as was the case back in 2009. No doubt things have changed since 2009 as noted in the examples above. But few attempts have been made to understand the intersection of political rhetoric, whether stemming from Saudi Arabia, other governments, or non-governmental actors, and actual realities on the ground. Well aware of the benefits of playing up such rhetoric for Sunni and Western audiences and capitalizing on the climate of fear around Iran’s influence in Yemen and Iranian support for Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, Hadi recently referred to the Houthi rebels as Iran’s “stooges” at an Arab League Summit.

Of the few exceptions giving a brief nod to the role of rhetoric around the Iran-Houthi relationship was a recent article in The Washinghton Post that noted in passing “The Saudis and their allies think that the Shiite rebels are backed by Iran and that Tehran is trying to exert control” (emphasis added) or a recent NY Times article that noted that the Houthis are “portrayed as Iranian proxies by the Saudis but few others.” If only the latter statement were true. A detailed assessment of the nature of the relationship between Iran and the Houthis, how the relationship functioned, and an exploration of the evidence indicating Iran’s backing of the Houthis up to this point is becoming moot. It is soon to be superseded by more recent, and likely more corroborative, evidence of Iran-Houthi collaboration, arising from the self-fulfilling prophecy of a much-hyped sectarian proxy war that has culminated with Saudi intervention now coming to fruition in Yemen. These are developments that very may well draw Iran and the Houthis closer together.

Deterring Cyberattacks With Sanctions?

Bill Blunden

The White House has announced a new sanctions program that will authorize the executive branch to penalize malicious cyber “actors” whose behavior endangers “the national security, foreign policy, or economic health or financial stability of the United States.” Sadly the President is opting for theater that creates the perception of security rather than actually making it more difficult for attacks to succeed.

Obama’s new executive order rests on a strategy of deterrence, a cold war idea that’s been revived by the likes of former NSA director Mike McConnell and more recently by current NSA Director Mike Rogers. The basic idea is this: if enemies fear retaliation they’re less likely to launch an attack (nuclear, cyber, or otherwise).

But deterrence is useless if you can’t figure out who attacked you. Malware isn’t like an ICBM that leaves a clear trail going from point-A to point-B. Thanks to Ed Snowden it’s public knowledge Five-Eyes Intelligence agencies have invested heavily in developing anonymity technology and conducting deception operations that aim to conceal the origins of their clandestine attacks. It would be naïve to believe that other countries aren’t doing the same.

Consider the following scenario. A Japanese spy targeting sensitive information in the United States could launch their campaign out of China, outsourcing the bulk of their work to local outlaws who use indigenous tools and tactics. Advanced anti-forensic methods could be wielded to cast suspicion elsewhere, away from Japan, and investigators would no doubt recognize the political expedience of accusing China over an ally.

One can imagine the hazards, not to mention embarrassment, associated with rash accusations. In 2009 the presiding republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra, in lieu of hard evidence recommended that the United States execute a “show of force” against North Korea in response to run-of-the-mill denial of service attacks on South Korean and U.S. websites. Cooler heads prevailed and the attacks were eventually traced back to a VPN circuit in Florida.

It’s interesting to watch history repeat itself with the data breach at Sony. Yet the public clamors for POTUS to do something. This new program, which threatens would-be “actors” with economic sanctions, is something. So that’s what Obama is doing.

Boldly clambering down into the rabbit hole of attribution is bad enough, but there are additional questions that arise with respect to this new executive order. For example, if the United State is going to penalize other countries for alleged cyberattacks does this mean that other countries will be able to seek redress from the United States for American cyberattacks?

After all the United States is the most prolific “actor” in the cyber domain, seeking to “dominate” the Internet. Officials have admitted outright that both the Stuxnet and Equation Group attacks were NSA initiatives. Dozens of countries and hundreds of organizations were impacted. Will the United States be exempt from the mandates that it applies abroad, as the world’s one indispensable nation?

Sanctions may be less violent than conventional military weapons but they still rely on the process of attribution. This underscores the reality that false flag operations are as popular as ever and relatively easy for funded intelligence outfits to execute. Does the President believe threatening sanctions will improve our cyber security or is he merely looking for another excuse to frame and punish his adversaries?

Al-Shabaab and Kenya: the Somali Factor

Jason Mueller

On April 2, 2015, al-Shabaab carried out a major attack on Garissa University College, Kenya, killing nearly 150 people—almost entirely students. In response to this attack, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta immediately called for the training of 10,000 new police officers and “urged Kenyans abroad to help attract tourists back [to Kenya]” after countries began issuing travel advisories that cautioned visiting the region. Predictably, al-Shabaab’s deadliest attack inside of Kenya since its September 2013 assault on the Westgate Mall—killing 67—has dredged up the fraught question: “Is [Kenya’s] nation’s security strong enough?”

At this point, we might stop for a second to consider whether the “strength” of Kenya’s national security is truly in need of bolstering, or if it is already one laden with extreme might—perhaps too much so. In fact, any serious analyses of political violence require us to move beyond the immediacy of events and dig through the social-historical contexts under which these events may have founds their roots. It doesn’t take much effort to acknowledge that an assault on a University that kills nearly 150 people is a tragic and unjustifiable event, but we must not stop there—as most news outlets do. Appeals for emotional outrage, hollow tropes of “they hate us for our freedom,” and pointless/bellicose statements declaring “We will keep hitting them until their spine is completely broken… and we will relish that moment” have no place in a serious sociological analysis, past or present. Rather, we should recognize that insights on the causes of current political violence can be gained by looking at past and current policies that may have enflamed a particular situation.

Taking a brief look at the recent history of Kenyan policies towards Somalis—both internally and across-borders—we encounter some grim revelations. The October 2011 decision by the Kenyan government to invade Southern Somalia (Operation Linda Nchi: “Protect the Country”) was a critical juncture in the relationship between Kenya and al-Shabaab, as thousands of Kenyan security forces romped through Somalia. In fact, al-Shabaab immediately declared that they planned to seek revenge for the Kenyan incursion. This was made explicit in aftermath of the Westgate Mall assault, where al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Godane released a statement saying “The attack at Westgate Mall was to torment the Kenyan leaders who’ve impulsively invaded [Somalia]. It was also a retribution against the Western states that supported the Kenyan invasion and are spilling the blood of innocent Muslims in order to pave the way for their mineral companies…So make your choice today and withdraw all your forces [or] an abundance of blood will be spilt in your country”. Somali blood was also spilled at the hands of Kenyan forces in the months following their invasion, confirmed by a ‘Human Rights Watch’ report released in 2013 showing that Kenya had indiscriminately bombed and shelled the population they were sent to protect.

In addition to these external factors, the treatment of Somalis within Kenya has been equally troublesome. The Kenyan government has been described as its “own worst enemy,” where it has cast a wide net on countless ethnic Somalis as potential al-Shabaab suspects to be rounded up and interrogated. Moreover, it has recently come to light that Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU)—under direct command of Kenya’s National Security Council—is potentially responsible for nearly 500 extrajudicial executions, operating under the general pretext of: “If the law cannot work, there’s another option… eliminate [them]”. This “elimination” strategy is believed to be directly supported by the West, as they provide the operational intelligence while the Kenyan forces carry out the kinetic operation.

Al-Shabaab has not only carried out numerous attacks in Kenya since the Post-October 2011 “Operation,” but they have had great luck with finding sympathies within Kenyan borders as well, for many of the reasons mentioned above. Like many social problems, it certainly becomes more difficult to ameliorate a conflict after you’ve continually taken steps to exacerbate the issue—giving greater fuel for grievance formation and a calcification of “us vs. the enemy” mentality. We only need to take a cursory examination of the recent verbal exchanges between the Kenyan president and al-Shabaab to understand the severity of issue at hand. Continuing the bombastic rhetoric, President Kenyatta declared that he plans to persist “unbowed” with the scorched-earth policy against al-Shabaab, looking to respond in the “severest way possible” against those he deems responsible. Coinciding with that, we saw al-Shabaab release a statement declaring that “Kenyan cities will run red with blood” until Somalia is “liberated from Kenyan occupation”.

To fully explore the current conflict between al-Shabaab, Somalia, Kenya, and all of its neighboring states requires much greater length and a different forum of discussion. However, there are a few thoughts and observations that should strike all those concerned with the situation. First, heavy-handed response by the state security apparatus’ rarely serve to quell violent and disenfranchised armed opposition. To expect al-shabaab to simply dissipate by means of state-sponsored extrajudicial executions and shelling of the civilian populations near which they are potentially operating is a failure on both humanitarian and moral levels. This must be acknowledged as an independent fact, regardless of the nature of violence doled out by al-Shabaab. This applies not only to the Kenyan security forces, but all other security forces involved in the conflagration as well (In particular, Ethiopia and the United States.) Furthermore, as we have seen through countless other recent conflicts in the “global war on terror,” military-interventionist policies are likely to promote hostilities not only within the country being occupied, but potentially the diaspora of that region as well. Viewing all Somali’s as potential suspects is an objectionable violation of the very principles that these countries claim to be fighting for in a “war against terrorism.” Lastly, at the very least, citizens around the globe should continue to be highly skeptical of their governments when a foreign incursion is suggested as a cure-all for “fighting terrorism.” As we’ve seen all too often, it is not just those engaged in the immediate conflict but also those shopping at the markets or attending University that pay the price.

The Question of Jewish Identity

Joan Roelofs

Shlomo Sand’s gracefully written and translated short book, How I Stopped Being a Jew, deals with a question many have wondered about but have been afraid to ask: What makes someone a Jew? While it has been a puzzle from time immemorial, it is more salient today as Israel welcomes all deemed Jewish, regardless of their nationality or religious beliefs (or lack of them). On the other hand, non-Jews (25% of Israelis), even if born and resident in Israel, are not quite full citizens of the Jewish state.

“If the United States of America decided tomorrow that it was not the state of all American citizens but rather the state of those persons around the whole world who identify as Anglo-Saxon Protestants, it would bear a striking resemblance to the Jewish State of Israel.” (p. 82)

Sand is an Israeli, and a secular and atheist Jew, defined by his parentage as Jewish by the state of Israel. He is a professor at Tel Aviv University, specializing in French history. He is best known as the author of two controversial books, The Invention of the Jewish People (2009) and The Invention of the Land of Israel (2012).

His major argument is that the claim that today’s Jews are descendants of the ancient Israelites is simply a myth, of considerable use to the Zionist cause. Sand’s theories are ably expounded in a CounterPunch article of February 14-16, 2014, by Paul Atwood.

Briefly, Sand contends that European Jews, and even many of the Middle Eastern ones, are descendants of converts to Judaism, with no biological connection to ancient Israelites. Yet the founders of Zionism, mostly secular and atheist Jews, while rejecting the supernatural aspects and miracles of the Old Testament, proposed its stories to be accurate history.

“To justify colonization in Palestine, Zionism appealed above all to the Bible, which it presented as a legal property title to the land. It then proceeded to depict the past of various Jewish communities not as a dense and varied fresco of the motley groups that converted to Judaism in Asia, Europe and Africa, but rather as a linear history of a race-people, supposedly exiled by force from their native land and aspiring for two thousand years to return to it.” (p. 48)

This provided a somewhat shaky justification of “return” to the “Promised Land,” in already inhabited Palestine, but it was adequate to persuade the great powers, which were feeling guilty about the fate of Jews in WWII, and also anxious to have an offshore place for the survivors to migrate.

In addition, it provided an identity and rationale for the secular and atheist Jews of the US and elsewhere who were urged to “return” to
Israel to help develop and defend the land, by joining the kibbutzim and the military.

Sand, who identifies as an Israeli and wishes it were the only form of national identity for all inhabitants, rejects the historical as well as the cultural, racial, ethnic, and biological bases of Jewishness. He questions the orthodox definition of a Jew: a person born of a Jewish mother, who was herself thus born since time immemorial, “I have the increasing impression that, in certain respects, Hitler was the victor the Second World War…his perverted ideology infiltrated itself and resurfaced.” (p. 5)

He explores the idea of a common Jewish culture apart from religious belief, but finds no convincing evidence. Jews of Western Europe, Africa, and the Middle East may have practiced their religion, but in everyday life shared the culture and settlements of their fellow nationals. (p. 35) In contrast, the Yiddish speakers of Eastern Europe had a distinctive culture in dress, food, language, and religious fundamentalism. (p. 36) The children of these Jews often became atheist socialists, some of whom, rejecting the shtetl culture, founded the Zionist movement.

“The Yiddish colonists [of Israel], in fact, were very quick to discard their despised mother tongue. The first thing they needed was a language that could unite Jews the world over, and neither Theodor Herzl nor Edmond de Rothschild could communicate in Yiddish. The early Zionists subsequently aspired to create a new Jew, who would break with the popular culture of their parents and ancestors as well as with the wretched townships of the Pale of Settlement.” (p. 41)

Sand maintains that Jewish holidays serve only as nostalgia for secular Jews and do not honor their universalist culture. For example, the traditional Haggadah for Passover Seder includes an “explicit demand to exterminate all the peoples who did not believe in the God of the Jews and had dared to attack Israel. . .” (p. 67) In the book of Exodus (23:23), God promises to “exterminate all the inhabitants of Canaan in order to make room in the Promised Land for the sons of Israel.” (p. 72) The Old Testament command to love thy neighbor as thyself was applied only to fellow Jews. (p. 70) The Talmud states: “You shall be called men, but the idolaters are not called men.” (p. 71)

Sand provides a long list of Jews who adopted a universalistic morality (from Karl Marx to Naomi Klein) and also distanced themselves from the Jewish religious tradition. (p. 73)

Sand refutes those who claim that what binds all Jews is their history as unique victims of persecution: “Zionist rhetoric [insists that] there are hosts of murderers like Hitler, while there have never been and never will be victims like the Jews.” (p. 63) Yet millions of non-Jews were killed by the Nazis; persecution, genocide and ethnic cleansing have been and continue to be inflicted on many peoples.

Some critics of Sand argue that a motive for remaining Jewish despite enjoying nothing of its culture or religion is the ability to have legitimacy when criticizing Israeli policies, but this is a merely pragmatic basis for a major decision.

Sand concludes: “I wish to resign and cease considering myself a Jew.” (p. 97) Although he considers Israel “one of the most racist societies in the Western world” and the perpetrator of “cruel military colonization [of] weak and defenceless victims who are not part of the ‘chosen people,’” he remains “by everyday life and basic culture” an Israeli. (p. 98-99)

Others have resigned from Judaism in protest of Israeli policies; Sand has the additional motive of seeing no convincing basis for Jewish identity other than the religion. Contemporary concepts of free choice of religion and ideology are embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , and warmly championed by secular Jews. So why wouldn’t a person be able to resign from any or all religions and systems of belief? In contrast, one can’t resign from one’s ethnic background; Sand acknowledges that his is Austrian.

While I do not have the expertise to assess Sand’s historical assertions, the status of secular Jews is of personal significance and an issue independent of the exiles, migration, and conversions of people long ago. One problem with Sand’s choice is that Israeli authorities, Jewish religious leaders, the general public, and anti-Semites are not going to let him or others slip out of it so easily. Joining another religion makes resignation more convincing, even legally recognized in Israel, but Sand does not want to do this.

Another issue is how to have holiday celebrations, weddings, funerals, potluck suppers, youth groups, communities of shared values, etc., if you eschew the Jewish institutions. Religion has been a source of social justice activism and solace, despite its flaws. Many secular Jews remain in the faith without faith for these reasons. A solution is to join one of the religions (it means bind together) welcoming atheists, such as Unitarian Universalism, or the burgeoning atheist churches of England.

Sand’s fine accessible book is likely to provoke heated controversy, and it should.

Outsourcing the Canadian Economy

MURRAY DOBBIN

Powell River, British Columbia.

A news story this week blandly described the perverse reality that is the current state of the Canadian economy. The headline read “Corporate profit margins at 27-year high and likely to stay there.” Pretty heady stuff if you took it out of context. But the context is everything: pathetic growth projections, record high personal debt, stagnating wages, hundreds of billions in idle corporate cash, a multi-billion dollar infrastructure deficit, a growing real estate bubble and a Bank of Canada chief who has no idea how to fix things. And, of course, a prime minister who thinks fixing things is heretical.

The headline describes the conclusion of a report by CIBC World Markets the gist of which is that not only has the profit margin hit a 30-year-high of 8.2 per cent (the historic average is less than five per cent) but the signs are that it is going to stay there: “profit margins are fully supported by the fundamentals.”

Ah, yes the fundamentals. The study doesn’t purport to make any ethical or moral judgments (or even economic ones for that matter) — it just states the facts. Indeed it doesn’t talk about the context of those facts at all, nor that this hyper-profitability might indeed be bad for the economy in general, for growth, for employees, families and governments. It’s as if the fundamentals were somehow God-given, having fallen from the sky.

But of course “fundamentals” don’t fall from the sky, they are the result of the actions of governments, corporations, individuals and other agents — some random, some planned, some unpredictable — like the crash in oil prices. Economists love to talk about fundamentals, but in this case they are related to a structural change in the profit rate: that is, a permanent shift from the below five per cent level to over six per cent — a 20 per cent increase. The key fundamentals, says the report: “globalization, innovation, lower cost of capital, high barriers to entry, and reduced bargaining power of labour…”

The report points out that the crashing Canadian dollar is a big factor but for the economy as a whole, for Canadians’ standard of living and for future investment it is the last item that matters: the “reduced bargaining power of labour.” Wages and salaries have been flat literally since 1980 and personal debt has tracked upwards in parallel as inflation ate into disposable real incomes. This is not sustainable for any functioning capitalist economy that depends on growth to survive.

Here are some of the consequences of a continuing high-profitability/slow growth scenario:

* The rich will continue to get rich and income and wealth inequality will continue to grow. Stock prices will continue to rise, as corporations accumulate more and more idle cash, dividends will increase. According to the IMF Canadian corporations are accumulating “dead money” faster than in any other G7 country.

* As increasing amounts of the wealth created every year accumulates in corporate coffers, personal debt, now at a record high of 163 per cent of annual income, will continue to rise increasing the already bloated profits of the big banks.

* Corporations exist to make profits, not to invest for the sake of investing. What is the motivation to invest if your profits are at record levels and the bargaining power of labour remains low? According to the CIBC report, “No less than one third of Canadian GDP last year was produced by sectors with falling labour unit costs.”

* With corporations relying on falling labour costs there is even less incentive to invest in innovation, training, or new equipment and technology to increase productivity.

Those costs — a reflection of labour’s weakened bargaining power — are not likely to increase anytime soon. The labour participation rate (the number of employable people working or looking for work) is at its lowest since 2000 — providing a reserve of workers that will continue to suppress pay. The economy produced fewer jobs in 2014 than at any time since 2009.  At the same time, corporations are on a binge of hiring part-time to avoid paying benefits. Partly as a result, Canada has the second highest percentage of low-wage jobs in the OECD.

Another CIBC study revealed that job quality is at its lowest level in 25 years. The bank’s job quality index has fallen 15 per cent since the early 1990s. The index “examines the distribution of full- and part-time positions, the gap between self-employment and the higher-quality jobs for paid employees, and whether full-time jobs were created in low-, medium- or high-paying sectors.”

Perhaps the key observation made by the report’s author, CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal, was that “The findings reveal a descending path in labour quality, a gravitational pull the study’s author warned will persist unless it’s addressed.”

Addressed by whom? He doesn’t say. But like any other economist, he clearly knows the answer. The structural nature of low quality, low paying and insecure work is not an accident of nature — it is the result of both corporate practices and government policies.

The so-called “labour flexibility” policies of the 1990s are still in place: the slashed accessibility to Employment Insurance, impoverished social assistance programs, and the abandonment of labour standards enforcement. Rather than addressing the issue of low job quality, the federal government has been exacerbating it with the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP), allowing hundreds of thousands of young people to work for nothing as so-called “apprentices”, and making commitments in trade agreements to allow companies to bring in skilled workers with none of the “red tape” involved in the TFWP.

Even though the TFWP rules have been abused, at least under that program there is supposed to be an assessment of whether Canadians can do the job before a foreign worker is brought in.  Under trade agreements, corporations have been guaranteed the right to outsource high paying jobs to foreign workers without any such assessments. According to the government’s own data, most of the foreign workers in Canada are here without any responsibilities placed on their employers to prove they tried but failed to find Canadians to do the job. For example, only one of the 14 jobs in the infamous Royal Bank example — where Royal Bank workers had to train their replacements from India — were brought in under the TFWP. The rest are likely to have got their positions through the intra-company transfer visas provided for by trade agreements. While the jobs outsourced through the intra-company transfer program are referred to as “temporary,” clauses in the program allow them to stay for up to seven years. The motivation appears to be pure greed: displacing highly paid Canadian employees with much lower paid foreign nationals.

Outsourcing Expanded

The program was supposed to be limited to executive and managerial positions (applicants are supposed to have university degrees) but has rapidly expanded by exploiting a clause that says workers with “specialized” skills can also be brought in. Concerns have been expressed by insiders that companies are exaggerating employee resumes to expand the scope of their outsourcing.

No wonder Canadian graduates are having so much trouble finding jobs — the Harper government is determined to give them away.

As bad as things are they are about to get much worse. At the urging of the Canadian Services Coalition, a corporate lobby group, the multiple trade and investment agreements the government is intent on signing (or has signed) all contain sections allowing for such transfers. International Trade Minister Ed Fast boasted that the next generation of trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership will be much more ambitious about enabling the entry of foreign workers.

For sheer callousness it is hard to outdo the Harper government. But the academic cheerleaders for expanded trade agreements aren’t far behind. Shih-Fen Chen, with Western University’s Richard Ivey School of Business, opined that while the displaced Royal Bank workers would have a hard time finding other jobs, “Outsourcing is just international trade in the service sector and the rationale to support it is similar to the trade of manufactured goods.”

Well, yes that sounds about right, if the Harper government’s rationale in trade negotiations is to do to Canadian service sector jobs what NAFTA and other trade agreements have done to jobs in the manufacturing sector: outsource them.

At no time in the past 70 years have Canadian workers and their families been confronted with such a ruthlessly indifferent combine of corporations and the state. Neo-liberalism, the so-called freeing of market forces, is thus revealed as having no limits, ethical, moral or political to its greed and its contempt for society. And it has little to do with “market forces.” It’s simple corporatism.

The Cuban Opportunity

Benjamin Willis

After the announcement of a framework to a “deal” with Iran concerning their nuclear program, President Obama turns his attention to the Summit of the Americas transpiring April 9-11 in Panama. The fortuitous timing of this announcement allows Obama to address the Summit without the distraction of ongoing negotiations. Coincidentally, poll results published the day before the Iran announcement should give Obama even more swagger because his decision to reestablish diplomatic ties and move towards normalization with Cuba is playing very well with Cuban Americans everywhere.

Indeed, the upcoming Summit had been threatened by boycott from a majority of the thirty-five Heads of State if the United States did not allow Cuba to participate. The position was clear: no Cuba, no Summit. Obama learned in the last Summit in 2012 that the rest of the hemisphere was not going to let this slide anymore and, to his credit, Obama has listened and moved on this.

The historic announcements on December 17^th, 2014 that put in motion an opening between the two estranged nations have been well received throughout the international community and across a wide spectrum of American society including business leaders, NGOs, and curious Americans who have flocked to Cuba since the traveling licenses were streamlined.

According to a poll by Bendixen & Amandi International released Wednesday, April 1^st during a summit of business leaders and Cuba experts in New York the idea of normalizing relations with Cuba is gaining steam with Cuban Americans both residing in Miami and throughout the U.S. A reported 51% supported Obama’s moves as opposed to 44% in December when he announced. As has been the trend with Cuban American polls the generation and geographical gaps are glaring and growing. 69% of people 18 to 29 years old are in favor of normalizing whereas 38% of people aged 65 and over support normalization. 41% of Cuban Americans living in Florida agree, 49% disagree, and 10% don’t know (Don’t know?!? ) while those living throughout the U.S. are 69% in favor of the measures. 66% of Cuban Americans born in the U.S. agree with Obama’s actions. Of those Cuban American citizens who were born in Cuba 45% agree, 46% don’t, and again 8% either don’t know or won’t answer. Those who arrived before 1980 are 32% in agreement and 60% disagree while, inversely, those who have arrived after 1980 have 56% in agreement and 35% who aren’t in favor of normalizing relations.

When asked about the embargo the evidence would demonstrate that even though some within the community are reluctant to come out against the archaic policy the overriding sentiment is that it is time to end it.

When posed with the question of whether the embargo should continue 47% say it should not, 36% say it should, and a whopping 17% did not answer. But, when pressed about specifics the results belie fundamental disagreement with the embargo. When asked if “companies owned by Cuban Americans in the United States should be able to sell their products in Cuba?” 58% say Yes. The same goes for services provided by Cuban Americans on the island. When asked if “Cubans living should be able to provide funding to help their friends and family members living in Cuba to open and operate their own business?” 66% say Yes. 55% say Yes, they do “think any individual or company in the United States should be able to provide funding to Cubans living in Cuba to open and operate their own business?” And, when confronted by this statement: “Currently, U.S. companies like Coca-Cola, Nike and Apple sell their products in communist countries like China and Vietnam. Do you think U.S. companies should be able to sell their products in Cuba?” 62% percent said yes. In other words, most Cuban Americans want an end to the embargo even if some of them can’t bring themselves to admitting that fact outright.

The official title of the poll is Cuban Americans’ Viewpoint on the Cuba Opportunity and Obama too should seize the “Cuba Opportunity” and take this moment to continue to make bold steps towards normalization.

Will the Real Terrorist Stand Up?

Both Iran and Cuba are on the U.S. State Department’s “list” of nations that are designated as State Sponsors of Terrorism. Cuba has been on the list since 1982 and Iran since 1984. Iran should be there. Cuba should not.

In a 2014 Miami Conference about changes in the Cuban American Community and the Obama Administration sponsored by Cuban Americans for Engagement (CAFE), an anti-embargo group of which I am a founding member, Antonio Zamora, a former attorney for the Cuban American National Foundation, explained that Cuba’s appearance on the list was a “bone” for the Cuban American political class who had helped the Reagan administration with dealing with Central America. Revolutionary support sent to Angola to fight apartheid and Nicaragua to help the Sandinistas by Cuba could never be defined as terrorism under international standards but the dubious designation has been held up through the years. The State Department’s own annual report gets skimpier and lamer every year. The State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview’s section on Cuba is by far the smallest of the four countries on the “list”; Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria.

The evidence stated is paltry and laughable in the latest iteration from 2013. The members of Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA) have been held in cooperation with the Spanish governments. The members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been participating in talks hosted by the Cuban government to begin brokering a peace deal with the help of Colombia, Venezuela, Norway, and the Red Cross. Then comes one sentence that very clearly states: “There was no indication that the Cuban government provided weapons or paramilitary training to terrorist groups.”

How can Cuba be compared to Iran? Or Syria? Or Sudan? It can’t. Or at least it shouldn’t.

Iran was charged with continued supply and aid to Hizballah (sic) and Palestinian terrorist groups along with sending “sophisticated” weaponry to “oppositionists” in Yemen and Bahrain. All the while, having Syria, another country on the “list” serve as the main “causeway” for such “terrorist-related activity”.

Not to mention, “Iran remained unwilling to bring to justice senior al-Qa’ida (AQ) members it continued to detain, and refused to publicly identify those senior members in its custody.  Iran allowed AQ facilitators Muhsin al-Fadhli and Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi to operate a core facilitation pipeline through Iran, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and also to Syria.  Al-Fadhli is a veteran AQ operative who has been active for years.  Al-Fadhli began working with the Iran-based AQ facilitation network in 2009 and was later arrested by Iranian authorities.  He was released in 2011 and assumed leadership of the Iran-based AQ facilitation network.”

There’s also a quip at the end about Iran being a “proliferation concern.” It is yet to be seen whether or not Obama’s outline to a deal is simply “kicking the can” of inevitable armament down the road.

Still yet, in the Western Hemisphere Overview the first nation mentioned as a “concern” is Iran. Not Cuba, the only nation on the “list” in said hemisphere and only 90 miles away from the United States. In fact, Cuba isn’t even mentioned in the entire chapter. Iran comes before other truly concerning regions throughout the Americas. Iran is supposedly more of a threat than Colombia, which witnessed the most amounts of terrorist attacks. It is mentioned as a threat to national security before neighboring Mexico, with its ruthless cartels dealing in narcotics, human trafficking, and paramilitary-like activities and a political class that enjoys impunity while thousands of its citizens are disappeared. Iran is more of a concern than Venezuela, with Nicolas Maduro and its oil reserves, connections to Iran and its unwillingness to go after drug kingpins. Cuba, despite being designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, is not perceived in any way as a threat within the Western Hemisphere. How can this inconsistency endure at the State Department? The truth is that John Kerry, and the Cuba desk know that the island hasn’t posed a threat via terrorism or any other form of hostility for a long time. They could take Cuba off the “list” tomorrow and they know it.

An emboldened Obama could seize this opportunity and instruct the State Department to take Cuba off the “list”. His legacy is being shaped by Cuba and Iran and he has proven that diplomacy can achieve favorable results. Announcing this before or during the Summit of the Americas in Panama would give him considerable diplomatic capital and would show that he is serious about actually moving forward from reestablishing ties towards full normalization with Cuba.

Power and Resistance at the World Social Forum

Hamza Hamouchene

Tunis, Tunisia.

Despite the stormy weather and the tragic attacks that targeted foreigners at the Bardo Museum in Tunis the previous week, the World Social Forum (WSF), held between 24 and 28 March, succeeded in gathering around 50,000 people from 125 countries representing all continents.

That the anti-globalisation forum was vibrant, youthful and dynamic was a testimony to the still-burning flame of hope for a better world. This is the second time the forum has been held in Tunisia, illustrating its significance in the struggle for a just world more than four years after mass mobilisation across the country inspired uprisings across the region and further abroad.

The WSF is one of the few remaining places where tens of thousands of people from all over the world meet annually to discuss, debate, plan and organise under the banner of “Another World Is Possible”. Though participants may differ on the means to get there, a general consensus prevails on the ends, which include a world freed from injustice, oppression, authoritarianism, imperialism and the domination of a tiny minority that dictate its rule over the majority. More than a thousand workshops and activities were organised around a range of pressing issues, including corporate takeover of democracy, environmental and climate crises, racism and Islamophobia, women’s rights, migration and neo-colonialism.

NGO-isation and power politics creep in

Though the WSF continues to provide a space in which radical thinking, networking and organising can and does take place, it is not immune from power politics and attempts to neutralise, hijack and convert it to a status-quo agenda.

Valid and legitimate criticism has been directed at the insidious “NGO-isation” of resistance, in a way a symptom of the neoliberal state abdicating its traditional role to NGOs. Most of the latter operate in the neoliberal framework of “development” and “aid” and get their funding from many of the same Western governments, international financial institutions and multinational corporations that are at the heart of the power structures that the WSF was designed to counter.

In most cases, these NGOs end up addressing only some of the symptoms of injustice and oppression rather than looking at their structural causes. In doing so, they may contribute to the perpetuation of the system that generates poverty and suffering in the first place.

This phenomenon of NGO-isation has been analysed and addressed in several platforms but it is not the focus of this article, which will try to address two important points: a) how some dominant narratives that keep peoples from imagining and achieving “another world” creep and find their way into alternative forums that are supposed to challenge and deconstruct such narratives and not take them at face value, and b) how authoritarian governments in the region make their presence felt by sending big delegations representing their civil societies to pursue their propaganda and stifle dissent.

The opening WSF march and the ‘War on Terror’

In its communiqué regarding the tragic events at Tunisia’s Bardo National Museum, the organising committee announced that the opening WSF march would come under the banner of “Peoples of the world united against terrorism.” This clumsy and ambiguous slogan ends up – intentionally or not – aligning itself with the discourse of the “War on Terror,” an endless war that has caused untold suffering and created more violence and instability in the world.

The global war on terror has been used to justify interventionism and maintain Western hegemony, which enforces the brutal neoliberal global order, the plunder of natural resources and support for repressive regimes.

That the WSF preparatory committee adopted this language is unfortunate, but we need to bear in mind the local Tunisian context that facilitated such a decision. It is a context where key elements of the political elite – including partly re-incorporated sections of the old regime – have benefited from a so-called polarisation between “secularists” and “Islamists,” in which terrorism is often equated with the latter. Such battles have impacted the psyche of large sections of Tunisian society.

Former dictator Ben Ali’s “politics of fear” and “instrumentalisation” of “national security” for political purposes have ongoing ramifications for Tunisia’s contemporary political context. Not only have they often diverted attention from the socio-economic concerns expressed in the uprising, but they also have limited debates around alternative“conceptualisations of the state and state-society relations”.

In recognition of the past and present forms of the use of “security” discourses by various domestic and global power structures, several organisations and individual activists came together to critically reflect upon and challenge the WSF communiqué.

They called for a new slogan, more aligned with the mission and objectives of the WSF: “People of the world, united for freedom, equality, social justice and peace. In solidarity with the Tunisian people and with all victims of terrorism, against all forms of oppression.”

In a communiqué sent to the WSF organising committee, the signatory organisations stated that “The global justice movement cannot allow itself to be used for domestic and geopolitical agendas designed to manipulate public emotions and justify the further militarisation of societies in a way that ultimately benefits the security/military-industrial-complex.”

In an effort to follow up some of the discussions raised by the communiqué, several workshops specifically addressed this issue: the “Religion and Emancipation Convergence Meeting,” “Neocolonial Militarism and State Violence,” and “From Ferguson to Palestine: We Can’t Breathe.”

The purpose here is not to underestimate the very real effects of political violence, whether it occurs in Tunisia or elsewhere in the world, and regardless, as the statement puts it “of the perpetrator, whether state or non-state actors”. Rather it is to point to the ways the “War on Terror” has been used to shift the attention away from the way capitalist and imperial power works, as well as from the dire socio-economic and repressive political conditions that led to the uprisings in the first place.

The latest declaration by the octogenarian Tunisian President Béji Caid Essebsi that Tunisia will be a major non-member ally of NATO seems to confirm the concerns of the statement supporters that the “War on Terror” agenda ultimately contributes to a further militarisation of the region in a way that benefits the burgeoning “security-military-industrial complex”. Furthermore, the organisation of the “We are all Bardo” march on the 29 March, reminiscent of the “republican” march that was organised in Paris following the Charlie Hebdo massacre, is a reminder of how “national security” continues to be instrumentalised for domestic and geopolitical purposes.

WSF vs authoritarian regimes

It is not new or surprising that many of the region’s authoritarian regimes would send representatives from their loyal civil societies to the WSF to confuse, co-opt and disrupt truly independent and grassroots civil societies. Most notably, the 2013 WSF witnessed clashes between the pro and anti-Bashar al-Assad crowds. Sadly, there were several similar clashes between Syrian participants at the WSF this year.

In one, a group of pro-Assad baltaguia (state-linked thugs) attempted to violently disturb a meeting organised by the Global Campaign of Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution. Similar incidents occurred between some Algerian and Moroccan participants around the Western Sahara issue, which led the WSF organising committee to react in a press conference during the forum.

Even more striking this year is the significant presence of Algerian delegates, which reached around 1,500 people from 650 associations, the overwhelming majority of whom were not involved in organising any activity or workshop. This appears to mark a radical departure from the Algerian regime’s approach towards the WSF in 2013 when it barred 96 Algerian civil society activists from travelling to Tunisia, without giving any reason. According to several Algerian WSF participants, the government authorities adopted a different strategy this year.

Perhaps borrowing a page from the rulebook of their Syrian counterparts, it appears that the Algerian government this year decided to flood the event with its numerous clients and baltaguia. For example, there was one event organised in support of the exploitation of shale gas, clearly aimed at undermining a growing grassroots movement in opposition to the damaging environmental and social-economic effects of such procedures.

According to a petition signed by several well-known and respected Algerian civil society organisations, the Algerian state’s delegation were tasked with disturbing genuine meetings, intimidating dissidents and opposition activists, as well as creating chaos. Authoritarian regimes and their acolytes have no role to play in forums such as the WSF which aim to imagine, deliberate and create “another world”. It is incumbent upon activists who still believe in the radical potential of the WSF to question how this state of affairs was allowed to develop, and how such attempts to hijack the WSF can be halted in the future

Progressives all over the world consider the WSF as an alternative space whose raison d’être is to speak truth to power. Let’s not allow dominant narratives of state, capitalist and imperialist power as well as authoritarian regimes’ manoeuvres to derail us from this noble objective.

New Zealand: International Socialist Organisation leaves Mana Party

Tom Peters

The International Socialist Organisation (ISO) posted a statement on its New Zealand web site on March 3 about its decision to exit the Maori nationalist Mana Party, after four years working within it and campaigning for it in the 2011 and 2014 elections.

The statement made clear that the pseudo-left group has no principled differences with Mana, a capitalist party that represents sections of the Maori elite and middle class. The ISO declared that it would be “proud to work alongside” Mana’s leading members Hone Harawira, John Minto and Annette Sykes in the future.

The decision to leave was based purely on the failure of Mana and its ally, the Internet Party (IP), to gain any significant support in last September’s election. Mana’s leader and sole MP Hone Harawira lost his seat in parliament, despite a highly visible campaign funded by IP founder and multi-millionaire Kim Dotcom.

The election returned the conservative National Party government to office but was marked by near-record abstention of almost one million people, reflecting widespread hostility to all existing parliamentary parties. The Labour Party suffered its lowest vote in 92 years. It supports the government’s austerity agenda and its collaboration with US imperialism in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Internet-Mana, a coalition of two pro-business parties that aimed to participate in a Labour-led government, was incapable of presenting itself as an alternative to the political establishment. It got just 1.4 percent of the vote.

Mana was formed in 2011 as a split from the right-wing Maori Party, which works closely with the government. Harawira left the Maori Party only after it discredited itself by collaborating with National for two years and supporting its austerity measures, including an increase in the Goods and Services Tax and cuts to welfare and other social services.

Various petty bourgeois politicians flocked to Mana, including ex-Green Party MP Sue Bradford and Unite union bureaucrats Matt McCarten and Gerard Hehir—both former members of the self-styled “left” Alliance Party. The ISO was one of three pseudo-left organisations that joined Mana (the others, Fightback and Socialist Aotearoa, remain in the party), and promoted it as “pro-worker,” “anti-neoliberal” and “anti-rich.”

Justifying its decision to join Mana, the ISO statement declared: “In Greece, an anti-capitalist alliance, Syriza, went from insignificance on the margins to hold the balance of power as the largest single party in a country of 11 million. We hoped that in Aotearoa [New Zealand] too we would see a resurgence of the left and greeted Hone Harawira’s break from the Maori Party with enthusiasm.”

These words reveal the class character of both the ISO and Mana. Far from being “anti-capitalist,” Syriza has exposed itself as the servant of the Greek and European bourgeoisie. Since forming government, Syriza has promised to impose the austerity measures demanded by the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The ISO-affiliated group within Syriza, the Workers Internationalist Left, is defending this betrayal of the Greek working class, which voted for Syriza based on its election pledges to overturn the austerity measures.

Around the world, groups such as the ISO aspire to form Syriza-style parties that will above all block the emergence of a genuine socialist movement based on the working class. The pseudo-lefts aim to gain a foothold in parliament, and in a capitalist government, to advance the interests of the privileged middle class layer that they represent.

Mana was intended to serve this purpose in New Zealand, taking advantage of widespread hostility toward National and Labour, while steering opposition away from any political struggle against capitalism.

Alongside minor reforms, including meals in schools and a higher minimum wage, Mana’s main demand is for the government to “invest in and better support Maori business enterprise.” It calls for “increas[ing] the value of settlements” paid by the government to tribal-run businesses under the Treaty of Waitangi process.

Like the Maori Party, Mana supports the government’s Whanau Ora scheme, which privatised the delivery of some welfare services, in order to benefit Maori trusts.

Since 2012, Mana has participated alongside Labour and the right-wing, anti-immigrant NZ First Party in a racist campaign against Chinese investment. Like NZ First, Mana has advocated restrictions on foreigners buying houses and on immigration, which is largely from Asia. Mana supported NZ First leader Winston Peters’ campaign in the March 28 by-election in the Northland electorate.

The pseudo-lefts all seek to cover up Mana’s reactionary program. They present Mana’s promotion of racial identity politics as “progressive,” when in reality it serves to divide the working class and shackle oppressed Maori workers to the tribal and Maori nationalist leadership.

The ISO statement criticised Mana’s “disastrous alliance” with the Internet Party in 2014, complaining that it “compromised the legacy of the party” and damaged its “pro-poor” branding, in a failed attempt to increase its presence in parliament.

However the ISO, Fightback and Socialist Aotearoa entirely supported the merger with the IP—a party that called for state loans and other incentives for web-based companies like those owned by its founder Dotcom. Merger talks were unanimously endorsed at Mana’s conference in April 2014, which was attended by representatives of the pseudo-left groups. The ISO campaigned for Internet-Mana in the September election. If the alliance had entered parliament, the ISO would have stayed within it.

Like Socialist Aotearoa, the ISO blamed Mana’s defeat mainly on the working class, saying it was “not militant or desperate enough to catapult a radical parliamentary alternative to power.”

Apart from underscoring the ISO’s parliamentary aspirations, this accusation is full of contempt for the working class, which has suffered a major decline in its living standards as a result of thousands of state and private sector job cuts, soaring housing costs, and severe cuts to welfare, health care and education. There is also widespread opposition to the government’s indiscriminate spying on millions of people and its support for US wars.

Mana does not represent an alternative to any of this and has largely discredited itself among working people. For the ISO, this is merely a problem of “branding”—that is, Mana’s phony pro-poor posturing. It is more than ready to rejoin Mana’s “activists” in a new organisation. The ISO statement declared: “The political vehicle is not all-important. It is the people that make up the party that are important. There will be other parties and other movements.”

Such a regroupment would be pro-capitalist like Mana and its predecessor, the Alliance, which went into coalition with Labour in 1999 and collapsed ignominiously after voting to send troops to the US-led war in Afghanistan. What the ISO has in mind is a party like Syriza, which has gained office amid a severe social crisis and is taking direct responsibility for imposing austerity on the Greek working class.

The real alternative for workers and youth who oppose war and the attacks on democratic rights and living standards is to join the International Committee of the Fourth International and fight to build its section in New Zealand. The ICFI is the only movement based on genuine socialism and internationalism, and which seeks to unite workers around the world in a revolutionary struggle against capitalism, in opposition to all the bourgeois parties and their middle class cheer-leaders.

French press expresses concerns over German re-militarization

Kumaran Ira & Alex Lantier

Sections of the French press are breaking the silence that has prevailed in France over the resurgence of German militarism, exposing rising tensions between the major European powers. Within the French bourgeoisie there are deep concerns that German rearmament is a fundamental threat to the interests of French imperialism.

After European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called for the creation of an “EU joint army” in a March 8 interview with Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Le Monde published an article titled “Germans in uniform.”

The French media and political establishment are for the most part remaining silent on Juncker’s proposal for an EU army, which would be dominated by Germany. Le Monde wrote, “The proposal, which has largely gone unnoticed in France, has become very popular on the other side of the Rhine.” Le Monde went on to cite German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who welcomed Juncker’s proposal, saying, “Our future, as Europeans, will one day depend on a European army.”

Le Monde drew a parallel with the situation after World War II, when Washington forced Paris to acquiesce to the rearmament of West Germany, which was directed against the USSR. The newspaper wrote: “The French had to submit to what they wanted to avoid: the rearming of Germany and its integration into NATO. Sixty-five years later, History seems to be repeating itself. Europe again wants Germans in uniform, as it is threatened by the Islamic State (IS) and Vladimir Putin.” However, as Le Monde bluntly added, “The French… are not in a hurry to see Germans in uniform.”

The newspaper summarily dismissed Berlin’s attempts to mask the reassertion of its imperialist interests under the veneer of an all-European project. It explained Berlin’s calculations as follows: “We cannot scare our neighbors as we re-arm. It is better to give a European gloss to our re-militarization.”

Fundamental contradictions of European capitalism are reasserting themselves. Berlin and Paris are planning joint projects, such as combat drones, and have sought to work together to negotiate a cease-fire in Ukraine to prevent the US from precipitating outright war with Russia. However, the policy of rearmament across Europe is sharpening deeply rooted tensions between Germany and France, who fought wars three times in the last century-and-a-half: the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 and the two world wars of the 20th century.

On Otto von Bismarck’s two hundredth birthday on April 1, the “Iron Chancellor” was hailed by political and media circles in Germany. Bismarck led a series of wars that unified the German states and established a powerful German Empire led by Prussia. Having defeated France in the Franco-Prussian war, he established Germany as the leading power in continental Europe.

Berlin’s decision to applaud Bismarck as a model for today--even through his policy in continental Europe was largely based on a strategy of crushing and then diplomatically isolating France--has been met mainly with stony silence, but there have been some criticisms in the French media.

In an April 2 article entitled “Germany gives itself over to the cult of Bismarck,” French business daily Les Echos wrote: “Paying homage to Otto is inevitably complicated, as the Prussian had multiple facets. In France, his name and pointed helmet remain associated with the Franco-Prussian war and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. And some Greek ministers could see their views on Germany confirmed by reading his principle of realpolitik: ‘Great crises form a climate beneficial to Prussia’s growth, as we exploit them without fear and possibly without scruples.’”

Under the surface of rhetoric about European integration and solidarity, unresolved conflicts embedded in the bloody history of European and world capitalism threaten the international working class. Now, as in the war-torn twentieth century, the only progressive way forward is a united struggle of the international working class against war.

French imperialism is just as reactionary as its German counterpart. While it raises concerns about German rearmament, it does not object to a policy of aggressive war. It reacts out of fear of its more powerful competitors.

In its article on the European army, Le Monde pointed to a broad crisis of US-European relations as a driving force for German rearmament. “Germany distrusts America, as Merkel has not forgiven Obama for bugging her personal telephone,” the newspaper wrote, adding, “America is playing a dangerous game in Russia, pushing the Europeans in the back and inciting them to take a harsher line and accentuate tensions with Putin.”

Since a fascist-led coup ousted the pro-Russian Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, Washington has escalated the conflict with Russia. Although Paris and Berlin backed the coup in Kiev, they have opposed sharp economic sanctions against Russia as well as US moves to arm the Kiev regime against Russia.

After press reports emerged this February of a push by factions within the Obama administration and the military/intelligence establishment for Washington to directly arm Kiev, Germany and France rushed to propose a diplomatic solution to the fighting in Ukraine. Before negotiating a cease-fire in Ukraine, French President Hollande warned that with Russia, “We have gone in the space of a few months from having differences, to conflict, to war…We are in a state of war, and a war that could be total.”

For now, fears of a world war provoked by Washington are bringing Berlin and Paris closer together. However, under the surface of joint attempts to de-escalate tensions with Russia and plan for a common European defense, an arms race is developing between the European imperialist powers.

A major factor in this is the reckless policy of French imperialism itself. France pushed aggressively, in the face of German opposition, for a US-led war in Libya in 2011 and a subsequent war drive against Syria. Berlin refused to participate in the Libyan war and opposed Paris’ plans for a Mediterranean sphere of influence in its former colonial empire, under the rubric of a “Union of the Mediterranean.”

In the months leading up to the Libyan war, France signed a military alliance with Britain that pointedly excluded Germany. Paris clearly hoped to rely on its greater military strength, including its possession of nuclear weapons, to offset the economic dominance of Berlin. This strategy has blown up in France’s face.

It faces a resurgence of German militarism that has been prepared for some time and was clearly articulated in a speech by German President Joachim Gauck on the Day of German Unity in 2013. Gauck declared that Germany was “not an island” that could abstain “from political, economic and military conflicts.” At the Munich Security Conference in early 2014, he announced an end to “the policy of military abstention” by Germany.

After major increases in its military budget, Germany has finally overtaken France in military spending, reaching €32.4 billion per year, while French defense spending fell slightly to €31.4 billion. With France now poised to increase its military spending, and an arms race set to erupt within Europe, the initial expressions of concern over German militarism are being raised in the French media.