The Downside of Institutionalized Religion

Lawrence Davidson

Ideologies are pre-set forms of thinking that shape people’s worldviews and, supposedly, help to order and simplify reality. While this supposition is always flawed to one extent or another, ideologies can be very seductive. In part this is because they free their adherents from the hard work of critical thinking. Thus, they are often held onto tenaciously.

Because ideologies distort reality, they are particularly unsuited for those aspiring to power as well as their devoted supporters. History is full of examples of politically powerful ideologies that underscore this fact: fascism, communism, various military cults (particularly popular in South America and the Middle East) and even the ideology of democracy as manipulated by corrupt elites, who play the Pied Piper to the masses.

Yet there is still one more ideology out there which, even now, wreaks havoc by either claiming for itself the trappings of secular power or attaching itself in some influential advisory way to the institutions of power. That ideology is religion in its various institutional manifestations.

I want to emphasize that I am not referring to the personal religious convictions of millions by which life is made to appear understandable and meaningful. Whether such convictions are accurate or not, they play an important role at the individual level and, as long as they do not promote harmful intolerance, should be left to benignly function at the local level. What I am referring to are religious ideologies that are institutionalized in bureaucracies that can project power much as do secular institutions of authority. Religious ideologies so institutionalized see themselves as possessed of God-given truth while playing the game of power amidst human competitors.

Religion in Power

It is often said that we live in an age of religious revival. Whatever this might say for the “spiritual” shortcomings of modernity, this is a state of affairs rife with political danger. A quick look at history can again easily demonstrate why this is so.

* In the 10th through 15th centuries in Europe, Roman Catholicism was a strong political power centered in the Papacy. Historians often claim it preserved what was left of Greco-Roman civilization ((despite the fact that the Church closed down the ancient system of public baths.) It also brought with it the bloodletting of the Crusades and the tortures of the Inquisition.

* When, briefly, the Protestants tasted political power in the form of Calvin’s Geneva, Savonarola’s Florence, Cromwell’s England, and the early New World establishments of North America, the result was widespread intolerance, civil war, burning flesh at Salem and elsewhere and, of course, no dancing. It does not take great imagination to see the potential for high levels of intolerance occurring if some representative of today’s Christian right, say Ted Cruz, takes power in the U.S.

* Buddhism used to be universally revered as a religion of peace and tolerance. However, put it in power or ally it to those who politically rule, and what once was benign turns malignant. Thus, consider the self-identified Buddhist government of Sri Lanka and its brutal campaign against the Tamils in the north of that country. Likewise, you can find Buddhists allied to the government of Myanmar crying for the blood of the country’s Rohingya, a Muslim minority.

* There is a lot of Hindu fanaticism in India, and It remains to be seen if the present government of that country, dominated now by Hindu nationalists, will again turn loose the religious passion which, in the recent past, has led to sectarian violence and massacres of India’s religious minorities (again, notably Muslims).

* Where the Muslims seek or hold state power, the situation is little different. According to Sunni tradition, the ethical standards of behavior set down in the Quran did not dictate state behavior beyond the brief reign of the so-called “rightly guided Caliphs.” Shiites often point out that things fell apart almost immediately upon Mohammad’s death. Civil war and internecine slaughter followed in both scenarios.

Today, in Saudi Arabia and most of the Gulf emirates, one finds Sunni intolerance of Shiite Islam and the exploitation of non-citizen laborers despite their being fellow Muslims. In Shia Iran, authorities seem unsure just how tolerant or intolerant to be toward more moderate interpretations of their own, now politicized, religious tenets.

Then, of course, you have various organizations, claiming to be Sunni Muslim, ranging from ISIS to Al Nusra or some other Al Qaeda variant, all reaching for political power. Where they have tasted success, as in the case of ISIS, the consequences have been particularly bad.

* Since 1948 Judaism has succumbed to the same fate as other world religions entangling themselves in politics. Despite all the rationalizations, propaganda, and self-deception, it is clear that institutional Judaism is now firmly melded to the deeply discriminatory and particularly brutal political ideology of Zionism. I use the word “melded” because what we have here is something more than just an alliance of two separate entities. The Zionists have insisted since 1917, the year of the Balfour Declaration, was proclaimed, that the fate of Judaism and an Israeli “national home” are thoroughly intertwined. Their insistent manipulations have resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The consequences of this melding have been horrific. If you want to know just how horrid things have become, there are numerous Palestinian and Jewish human rights groups that are easily found on the web which will document Israeli behavior in all its dehumanizing detail.

For a more personalized assessment of just what this melding means for Judaism as a religion I recommend the recent book by Marc H. Ellis entitled The Heartbeat of the Prophetic (New Diaspora Books, 2015). Ellis is a Jewish theologian who, in the 1970s, was greatly influenced by the work of Roman Catholic priests in Latin America who were promoting “liberation theology.” That “for the good of the people” interpretation of religion was corrosive of the institutionalized Church, and so the movement was ultimately stifled. However, Ellis thought that the same philosophy could be applied to Judaism – an insight that eventually led him to denounce Zionized Judaism in a manner reminiscent of the prophets of the Old Testament.

For Ellis, institutionalized Judaism has been reduced to an adjunct of an expansionist and racist political ideology. He feels that there is no getting around the inherent evil of this situation. No two-state solution or other “progressive” approach can erase it. As long as Judaism persists in identifying itself in terms of the Israeli state and Zionist ideology, the ethical underpinnings of the religion are left behind in the wreckage of an evolving “Jewish empire.”

Lessons to Be Learned

What have all these historical examples to teach those of religious faith? Some fundamentalists would have us believe the lesson is to remain humble and obedient in the face of an unfathomable deity whose mysterious purposes are simply beyond human comprehension. Yet there is nothing incomprehensible about the repetitive death, destruction and intolerance bred by institutionalized ideologies. And, as the historical  examples given above tell us, religious ideology is no exception.

A better lesson learned seems to be: if you want to be religious, keep it personal and tolerant, avoid tendencies toward institutionalization beyond the level of local charity and organized good works, and stay clear of political alliances. It is said that Jesus told his disciples that “where two or three of you are gathered together there I too will be.” Those are just about the right numbers when it comes to keeping religion safe for the believers and non-believers alike. After all, when you have two or three thousand, or two or three million gathered together, for whatever purpose, then something quite different from a helpful and humane spirit is likely to be present.

Global manufacturing continues to fall

Nick Beams

The deepening recessionary trends in the global economy, which saw stock markets have one of their worst openings for a new year last month, have continued into February. A series of data issued yesterday pointed to lower growth in China, Europe and the United States.

The Chinese statistics bureau reported that the official manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) fell to 49.4 in January, compared to 49.7 for December. This was the sixth consecutive month the index has been below 50, which is the border between contraction and expansion.

An economist with China’s National Bureau of Statistics, Zhao Qinghe, said the result was due to weaker global demand and moves by companies to reduce excess capacity. Production at larger factories was still continuing to expand, although at a slow rate, while output from small ones was contracting, he said.

The clearest expression of the Chinese slowdown is in the steel industry. More than half the major steel producers reported losses in 2015. China Iron and Steel Association member companies suffered losses of $9.8 billion last year, compared to profits of $3.4 billion in 2014.

Overall Chinese steel production, which accounts for more than half the world’s output, contracted for the first time since the early 1980s. Raw steel production fell by 2.3 percent, the drop since 1981.

China chief economist with the ANZ banking group Li-Gang Liu said the data indicated that “the contraction in the manufacturing sector became more entrenched.” He said year-on-year steel output had fallen 12 percent in both December and early January.

The slump is threatening major social consequences in steel and related industries, with the possibility of 400,000 layoffs if so-called zombie companies, which are being sustained by injections of money, are forced to close.

In Europe, a widely-followed survey by the firm Markit showed manufacturing slowed at the start of the year. According to a Reuters report, “incoming orders failed to show any meaningful increase, even though companies cut prices at the deepest rate for a year.” The Markit PMI for the eurozone dropped from 53.2 in December to 52.3 in January.

“The eurozone’s manufacturing economy missed a beat at the start of the year. Growth of order books, exports and output all slowed,” Markit chief economist Chris Williamson said. “If the slowdown in business activity wasn’t enough to worry policymakers, prices charged by producers fell at the fastest rate for a year to spur further concern about deflation becoming ingrained.”

The only “bright spot” was Britain, where output from larger manufacturers increased. But this was accompanied by the highest level of staff reductions in three years and a fall in export orders.

In the United States, the Institute for Supply Management reported yesterday that its gauge of manufacturing was still in contraction territory of below 50, rising to 48.2 last month, compared to 48 in December. The best that could be said of the figure was that, while the contraction was ongoing, at least it had not worsened.

Employment in US manufacturing fell again last month for the sixth consecutive month and manufacturers said the inventories of their customers were too high, meaning they were less likely to place new orders.

US consumer spending remained flat in December, after a 0.5 percent increase in November, with spending on durable manufactured goods such as cars falling by 0.9 percent and purchases of non-durable goods dropping by 0.9 percent. This tends to indicate that spending is being directed to essentials, including housing, health and education.

In an indication of longer-term trends, the US Commerce Department reported last week that demand for durable goods was down 3.5 percent for 2015, the largest annual decline since the official end of recession in 2009.

Summing up the world situation, Reuters headlined its article on manufacturing, “Global factories parched for demand, need stimulus.” It noted: “January surveys of global factory activity released on Monday showed the new year began much as the old one ended, with too much capacity chasing too little demand.”

The gyrations in financial markets are also continuing. Wall Street opened yesterday with a fall in the Dow Jones index. That was after the rally in oil prices of almost 30 percent last week petered out and they began to head back toward $30 a barrel. The price hike had been fuelled by reports that Russia and Saudi Arabia were possibly moving to an agreement to cut back on supply. Those reports have now been largely discounted.

Dominick Chirichella, a senior partner at Energy Management Institute in New York, told the business channel CNBC that it seemed like “every time market participants say prices have bottomed, they have been wrong. There’s nothing that says prices have bottomed—supply is still greater than demand by a lot, Chinese demand may be slackening, the global economy may be slackening and the likelihood of an emergency OPEC meeting seems very low.”

After dropping in early trade, following a near-400 point rise on Friday, the US market turned up again, largely on the remarks of Federal Reserve vice-chairman Stanley Fischer. Speaking to a meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations, he backed away from earlier comments that market expectations for two rate hikes were “too low” and three to four increases were “in the ballpark” this year.

Fischer said it was difficult to judge the implications of financial volatility and weakening markets, which could signal a slowdown in the global economy. Answering a question on his earlier comments, he said “in the ballpark” meant it was a figure that was being “talked about” but it “did not mean it is the only number that is being talked about.”

While the market saw Fischer’s responses as a sign that the cheap money flow will continue, they indicate the growing bewilderment at the Fed and other financial institutions. They have no overall policy but are increasingly reacting on a day-to-day basis.

Conditions for further financial storms are building up as the falling oil price hits highly-indebted oil-exporting countries. Azerbaijan, which depends on oil for 95 percent of its export revenues, is in discussions with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a possible $4 billion bailout loan.

Nigeria, also highly dependent on oil exports, has asked the World Bank and the African Development Bank for $3.5 billion in emergency loans to cover a hole in its budget. The government claimed that this was not an “emergency” measure but only discussions about the cheapest way to finance the budget deficit. An IMF spokesman insisted Nigeria was not in immediate need of an IMF program.

Yet there is no denying the impact of falling oil revenues. Nigeria’s foreign currency reserves have fallen from a peak of $50 billion a few years ago to $28.2 billion, and an emergency fund of $22 billion set up during the 2008 global financial crisis has fallen to $2.8 billion.

Overall there is a growing sense in financial circles that the period in which central banks could stave off some of the consequences of the breakdown that began with the 2008 crisis is rapidly coming to an end.

In a Financial Times survey of opinions in the City of London on whether the outlook was “doom and gloom,” Legal & General chief executive Nigel Wilson said: “We are heading for a world of zeros: including zero inflation, zero growth in per-capita GDP and zero growth in productivity.”

Taking a longer route to arrive at the same conclusion, Helena Morrissey of Newton Investment Management, told the newspaper: “If ‘doomed’ is that the post-crisis experiment in attempting to use asset inflation to generate sustained growth is unwinding, and that confidence in the ability of central banks to always be able to do ‘whatever it takes’ to preserve the wealth of those that seek to front-run official liquidity injections, then the answer is probably ‘yes.’”

Is Being Gay A Crime In India?

Shubhda Chaudhary

Yes, it is.

According to the Supreme Court in 2012, there are 2.5 million gay people recorded in India. But there are a higher percentage of people who have concealed their sexuality in order to avoid discrimination. In September 2006, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, acclaimed writer Vikram Seth and other prominent Indians publicly demanded the repeal of section 377 of the IPC.

Article 377 makes homosexual sex punishable by law and carries a life sentence. The law which criminalises homosexual behaviour was drafted by Lord Macaulay in 1860 and states that “whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment”. Furthermore, the law is at odds with various articles in India’s constitution which supposedly guarantee the right to life and personal liberty, equality, and which prohibit discrimination. Following the decision, both Uganda and Nigeria signed into law harsh anti-gay legislation and campaigners believe the move was influenced by the decision of the Indian court.

It certainly deals a body blow to the very idea of individual choice. It re-criminalizes homosexuality, which carries a maximum jail sentence of life, and gives the police one more excuse to harass, extort and jail law-abiding people whose only ‘crime’ is that they do not conform to the traditional view of sexuality. Much of the urban emphasis is now towards everyday practicalities: Being able to open a joint bank account, get insurance, acquire a home loan, sign as next of kin in a medical emergency, pay rent without a landlord threatening to throw them out. Inheritance is a very contentious issue.

Though, the Indian Supreme Court has deemed homosexuality a crime. But in a revolutionary ruling, the same justices extended legal rights and equality to transgender people. Not only that, they abolished the binary gender system, creating a protected third gender that covers not only transgender people, but also intersex (who have both male and female anatomy) and eunuchs (who have neither male nor female anatomy), often collectively called “hijra.” The change allows them to identify their gender as ‘hijra’ on all government documents, including passports. Governments in Nepal, Bangladesh, and even Pakistan have recognized a third gender category, as well.

India has not been a universal beacon for minority-group freedoms. The infamous Supreme Court decision to effectively re-criminalize homosexuality created a human rights conundrum: Transgendered people cannot be fully protected if their gender identity becomes illegal when expressed in a sexual context. In other words, a transgender woman engaged in heterosexual relations with a man may be breaking the law under India’s ban on homosexual acts, if she is anatomically male.

The issue of ‘being a gay’ comes to light further in the context of the upcoming film ‘Aligarh’ based on the real life of Dr. Siras and his mysterious death.
AMU professor Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras was fired from his job because of his sexual orientation. Siras had mentioned that the institutionalized homophobia was directed towards him to overshadow allegations of nepotism and financial irregularities against the vice-chancellor.

Siras was born and brought up in Nagpur. He had done his post-graduation in humanities from Hislop College before completing his PhD on eminent Marathi author Gajanan Tryambak Madkholkar's writings. His thesis was on 20 political novels of Madkholkar, perhaps only one from the university to have done his doctorate in this subject, considered difficult by many. The gay professor was considered a genius and a good critic of Marathi. His biggest achievement was stated to be creating interest in Marathi at AMU, where a majority of students were Muslims and from Hindi/Urdu background. A poet himself, Siras got the Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad award for his 2002 collection of poems -- Paya Khalchi Hirawal (Grass under my feet).

In 2010, the body of 62-year-old Siras, a reader in Modern Indian Languages, was found on the bed in his private apartment outside the university. Outraged academics, supporters, gays and concerned citizens started an online signature campaign demanding justice in the death of Dr Siras. Till now, the reason behind his death, which was initially deemed as suicide, has not been cleared, which is a major blow to our justice system and institutional homophobia which is manufactured in the campuses.

In order to fully protect transgender groups, nations must both overcome binary gender constraints and de-couple gender identity with sexual orientation. Society must imagine a plurality of genders and sexualities all with equal protections under the law. With this mindset, a new fundamental right emerges: the freedom to determine one’s own identity as inherently pluralistic. Indians accept the presence of the transgender community, but they are still kept away because of the ‘homosexuality’ connotation that transgenders carry with them.

This indeed is a regressive step and it silences the aspirations of millions of Indians who are living dual lives, are not ‘out of the closet’ and fear abandonment by their families or are forced into marriages. It is a failure to accept the freedom of choice and identity of every human, because eventually, the state needs to realize that being ‘gay is as normal as being a trans-gender.’ There is nothing abnormal about it. And in the end, who gets to decide, what is natural, anyway?

More than 1 million in US face food stamps cutoff

Kate Randall

More than 1 million low-income people across the United States could soon lose their government food stamp benefits if they fail to meet work requirements. The threatened mass cutoff of the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits constitutes a vindictive bipartisan attack on some of the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable residents.

A Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) report last month predicted 500,000 to 1 million people would be cut off of SNAP benefits in 2016 due to the return in many areas of a three-month limit on benefits for unemployed adults aged 18-49 who are not disabled or raising minor children.

The SNAP cutoffs loom as hunger and food insecurity continue to rise sharply. According to the most recent statistics from Feeding America, a food bank network, a staggering 48.1 million Americans lived in food insecure households in 2014, including 32.8 million adults and 15.3 million children.

US food banks gave away about 4 billion pounds of food last year, double the amount a decade earlier. Social service providers and food pantries are bracing for an influx of hungry people in response to the SNAP rule change.

Following the financial crisis in 2008, virtually every US state qualified for waivers from the three-month limit due to high unemployment rates. On the basis of the supposedly improving economy, these waivers expired in 21 US states in January. The cutoffs are being implemented a month after the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that more than a quarter of the 7.9 million US unemployed have been jobless for more than six months.

Based on experience in other states where waivers expired last year, the Associated Press now predicts most people will not meet the work requirements and that the number kicked off benefits could top 1 million. Individuals facing cutoff include about 300,000 in Florida, 150,000 in Tennessee and 110,000 in North Carolina. Some of the 21 states, including these three, could have applied for partial waivers for counties with high unemployment rates but chose not to do so.

“The people affected by this are very poor,” Elizabeth Lower-Basch of the Washington DC-based Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) told the WSWS. “These are by definition people who aren’t working more than about 20 hours a week.”

According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers SNAP, about 4.7 million SNAP recipients are deemed able-bodied without dependents, and only 1 in 4 of these has any income from a job. Data from the USDA shows these individuals have gross income averages of 17 percent of the official poverty line, or about $2,000 per year for a household of one in 2015. Beneficiaries receive an average paltry benefit of $164 a month.

The harsh “work for food” requirements were first introduced for SNAP under the 1996 welfare reform bill signed into law by President Clinton and sponsored by then-US Rep. John Kasich, who is now Ohio’s governor and a Republican candidate for president. In 2014, President Obama signed a bill that included $8.6 billion in cuts to SNAP. The temporary 14 percent increase in SNAP benefits passed by Congress in 2009 ended completely in November 2013.

The provision applies to “able-bodied” adults, ages 18-49, who have no children or other dependents in their homes. Such individuals must work, volunteer or attend education or job-training courses at least 80 hours a month. If they don’t, their benefits are cut off after three months.

Looking for work does not qualify as an exemption from the three-month cutoff. “Another major concern is that states are not required to offer people an opportunity to participate, to keep their benefits,” Lower-Basch said. “It’s one thing to say you’re going to have a work requirement to keep your benefits, but we’re going to offer you an opportunity to participate, and if you don’t you’re going to lose your benefits. But people can be cut off without being offered the opportunity.”

In the states that have already imposed the work requirements, a majority of people have been cut off benefits. In Wisconsin, which began phasing in the work provision last spring, two-thirds of the 22,500 adults subject to the change were dropped from the rolls three months later for failing to meet the requirements.

North Carolina, led by Republican Governor Pat McCrory, enacted a law last fall accelerating the work requirements. The bill further barred the state from seeking any waivers in the future unless there is a natural disaster.

State Sen. Ralph Hise claims that providing SNAP benefits beyond three months diminishes people’s job prospects. “People are developing gaps on their resumes, and it’s actually making it harder for individuals to ultimately find employment,” he said. Such preposterous statements fly in the face of the reality faced by those standing to lose their SNAP benefits.

According to the CBPP report, SNAP beneficiaries subject to the three-month cutoff are more likely than other SNAP recipients to lack basic job skills like reading, writing and basic mathematics. And people without a high school diploma, who make up about a quarter of non-disabled childless adults on SNAP, have double the unemployment rate of those with at least a high school diploma.

While the state and federal governments paint SNAP recipients as lazy and unnecessarily reliant on government handouts, many in the group facing benefit expiration have serious physical and mental health problems despite being identified as able to work.

The Ohio Association of Foodbanks found that 30 percent of those participating in the Work Experience Program in Franklin County to maintain their SNAP benefits reported a physical or mental health limitation, despite being classified as an able-bodied adult without dependents (ABAWD). The most common mental health limitations reported by clients included depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and addiction.

CLASP’s Lower-Basch said that due to state government underfunding and bureaucracy, many people who should qualify for an exemption from the cutoff don’t receive one. “One of the big concerns is that people who may have disabilities or work limitations, if they’re not receiving Social Security disability benefits, may not know that they have a disability,” she said.

She added that because many people now apply for benefits online it means that “many clients are never sitting across the table from a caseworker, who might look at them and say we should figure out what exemption you meet because you’re clearly not able to participate.”

The Ohio Association of Foodbanks asked those who lost benefits: “How are you providing food for yourself in the absence of food benefits?” In response, 80 percent said that they depended on food pantries and family support. Others said they relied on soup kitchens, homeless shelters and churches.

A sizeable proportion, 18 percent, responded that they got food by asking strangers, panhandling and dumpster diving. Only 21.3 percent of those studied reported being under a doctor’s care, and many clients explicitly reported not being able to afford the medication they have been prescribed.

While the US expends $609.9 billion a year on the military, prosecuting an endless series of wars around the globe, Obama’s fiscal year 2016 budget proposal included a mere $83.692 billion for SNAP, which presently serves an average caseload of 45.7 million Americans, almost 15 percent of the population.

The growing and unbridgeable gulf between the rich and poor in 21st century America finds one of its most noxious expressions in the drive by the ruling elite to slash minimal food assistance to some of the nation’s poorest and most vulnerable. While the presidential candidates in both big business parties trip over themselves to support the “war on terror” and the drive to war, the potential cutoff of 1.1 million people from food stamps receives no mention.

Racialism, art and the Academy Awards controversy

David Walsh

The controversy continues over the failure of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to nominate any African-American or other minority actors or directors for an award this year.

According to innumerable media commentators, the lack of Academy recognition for several films directed by or featuring African-Americans—including Straight Outta Compton, Creed, Beasts of No Nation and Concussion—is proof of the 6,200 Academy voters’ prejudice; and, still further, that race constitutes the essential foundation of society and its cognition. Therefore, how any given individual understands the world is determined, at the most fundamental level, by his/her racial identity.

The New York Times and its various critics and columnists have been particularly active in advancing a racial-gender perspective in art that has sinister implications.

As to the supposedly snubbed films, both F. Gary Gray’s Straight Outta Compton and Ryan Coogler’s Creed are relatively formulaic, individualist “success stories,” with nothing terribly distinctive about them except their immediate settings. The first is a shallow, self-serving work about the rise of “gangster rap,” the second, which has a few modest charms, centers on the training of a young boxer (Michael B. Jordan) for a big match by the aging, ailing Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone).

Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Beasts of No Nation, about child soldiers in an unnamed West African country, eventually turns into, in the words of the WSWS review, “a virtually unwatchable catalog of crimes.” Idris Elba, a gifted actor, here plays a conventional psychopathic warlord (Charles Taylor, Joseph Kony, etc.), the sort of figure useful to the proponents of great power intervention. Peter Landesman’s Concussion is a well-meaning, limited film about the severe risks of playing professional football, with Will Smith in the lead role of Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-American pathologist.

Would nominations of Creed, Straight Outta Compton or Beasts of No Nationfor best picture, Gray or Coogler for best director, or Smith, Elba or Jordan for best actor have been merited?

It is difficult to answer this in the abstract. On the whole, this group of “African-American” films and acting jobs belong to a thick middle stratum of mediocrity, with no special respect for skin color, gender or sexual orientation, that emerges from the American film assembly line each year. These three or four films are neither better nor worse than many of the other 300 or so eligible for Academy Awards. None of them investigates deeply, or even indicates strong opinions about, existing realities for the mass of the African-American population, or anyone else for that matter.

In any event, there is no evidence that racial prejudice had anything to do with the fact that these films and actors were not nominated. A number of Academy members have made their opinions known on this issue, with some feeling. In an open letter published in the Hollywood Reporter, screenwriter Stephen Geller addressed the proposal of Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the president of the Academy, to “diversify” the membership and weed out “inactive members.”

Geller, who wrote the script for the adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’sSlaughterhouse-Five (1972), challenged the Academy chief’s assumption that those who have not had jobs in the industry for a decade were “responsible for the lack of diversity in the Academy, as well as in the film industry.” He wrote, “There are as many reasons why one doesn’t get an assignment or a film deal as there are reasons why a performer doesn’t get a nomination by the Academy.” He termed the plan to revise the rules concerning diversity “nothing more than a ‘false flag’ issue,” and asked, “What Academy, historically, ever has dealt with contemporary realities? For better and for worse, that has never been its role.”

Documentary producer and director Milton Justice (Down and Out in America, 1986), also in the Hollywood Reporter, referred to the failure of David Oyelowo to win a best actor nomination last year for Selma, writing, “Maybe there weren’t enough actors in the actors’ branch who thought he was good enough to be nominated. I’m not in the actors’ branch, but I certainly didn’t think he was very good in the part.”

Referring to Isaacs’ plan to add more minority and women members to the Academy, Justice asked rhetorically, “If there were more black actors in the Academy, would that have assured David Oyelowo’s nomination? Would it have assured more black nominees this year? Do black people only vote for black people? Did I vote for Sean Penn in Milk because I’m gay?! The whole idea is both insulting to blacks and to the Academy members, who presumably vote on artistic merit.”

Indeed, Isaacs’ plan, praised by virtually every media outlet, is based on a thoroughly reactionary premise, that female or black voters will obediently nominate female or black films, filmmakers and actors. With this move, the Academy is moving in the direction of racial quotas, official or de facto.

The New York Times, as noted above, is at the forefront of the effort to promote the arguments of figures like director Spike Lee and actors Jada Pinkett and Will Smith, who have declared their intention not to participate in this year’s awards ceremony February 28, and to push racial politics in general.

In a January 15 piece, “Oscars So White? Or Oscars So Dumb? Discuss,” theTimes introduces excerpts from a conversation among its chief film critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis and critic at large Wesley Morris with this comment: “Are these the whitest Oscar nominations ever? Or just the most recent Academy Award whiteout?”

In the discussion that follows, Scott refers to the “shocking—or maybe not so shocking—whiteness of this year’s field of nominees.” After noting that the Academy has “done a reasonably good job of recognizing black talent” in recent years, Scott observes, “Spike Lee’s lifetime achievement award feels like belated and inadequate compensation for a career’s worth of slights. At the movies, we may be in the age of Chi-Raq and Straight Outta Compton, but the Academy is still setting the table for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

The gravitational pull of his politics—and the fear of offending Lee’s supporters—is decisive here, because if Scott were objective in his artistic assessment, he would recognize that Lee has made a series of incompetently written and directed films, malicious, selfish and backward in their point of view.

Scott later comments, “The Academy’s blunder reflects the structural biases of the movie industry, which in turn reflects deeply embedded racism in the society at large. And no institution is immune.” Dargis chimes in, “My point being that the lived, embodied experiences of the membership greatly matter and that sometimes even the most well-intentioned white people just don’tsee the racism and sexism in front of them.”

It is foul to argue that “whiteness” is the chief difficulty with this or any year’s Academy Awards, and, in fact, to address art and culture in such terms.

The Times ran a piece January 22 headlined “The Oscars and Hollywood’s Race Problem,” by Roxane Gray, which returned to the theme, and another column January 27, “The Oscars and Race: A Stir Over Rules to Change the Academy,” by Cara Buckley.

In the latter, after noting that the number of black acting nominees in recent decades has reflected the percentage of blacks in the general population, Buckley writes, “But the representational proportionality of black nominees applies only to the acting categories. Let’s look at all of the awards the academy doles out, across all categories, and see how they break down by ethnicity. Let’s look at all the films Hollywood churns out and do the same: Few of the roughly 300 features eligible for best picture last year told stories from the points of view of women or minorities. Besides, we’ve been fed narratives from an overwhelmingly white male perspective since Hollywood began.”

Is Buckley, swept away by the self-involved, exclusivist ideas that dominate her milieu and conformist to the core, even aware of what she is saying? That artwork should be categorized and presumably appreciated according to whether it represents a male or female, black or white perspective? Whether she likes it or not, Buckley is setting up this basic standard: women gain more from art produced by women, Jews from work created by Jews, African-Americans from “African-American art,” etc.

The Times columnist categorizes the world in terms of race, ethnicity and gender. She assumes that perspective is framed by race and proceeds to elevate that to the level of a worldview. It is no exaggeration to point out that, in ideological terms, Buckley and others, in their obsession with race, are spouting a conception of society and art identified historically with the extreme right.

The Nazis asserted the existence of distinct “Aryan” and “Jewish [Bolshevik, liberal, degenerate]” cultures, separated out “Aryan music” from “Jewish music,” and so forth. They classified human beings collectively as “races,” with inherited characteristics, as one commentator notes, “related not only to outward appearance and physical structure, but also shaped internal mental life, ways of thinking, creative and organizational abilities, intelligence, taste and appreciation of culture, physical strength, and military prowess.”

Whether they like it or not, those who view art and culture in racial (or gender) terms and make race (or gender) the basis for a theory of aesthetics give credence to and encourage this type of filth.

Serious artwork has an objectively truthful, relatively universal character. None of the great works of art from which men and women, of every national or ethnic origin, learn and gain were created on the basis of racial or gender exclusivism. Such a vile, self-obsessed outlook, shared by the New York Times critics and the upper-middle class advocates of identity politics, is antithetical to genuine artistic creation. Racial, gender and sexual politics have done immeasurable damage to filmmaking and art generally over the past 40 years. Not a single major work or figure has emerged from this subjective, self-centered crowd.

A truly great film performance involves powerfully expressing—through an individual characterization—something profound and concrete about the reality of the times and the nature of the social relationships that shape human psychology. Such a work or performance raises feelings and moods beyond the limitations of the circumstances under which the work was created.

This gives rise to the viewer’s heightened sense of the universal and intensely meaningful quality of a work. It entails an aesthetic-intellectual process on the part of both the artist and the viewer, “reading the secret code inherent in things, people and events” (Voronsky), that is the opposite of self-centeredness and racial or gender restrictiveness.

One can think of many such performances in global cinema, from Anna Magnani in Open City, Jean Gabin in Grand Illusion and Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath, to performances in the work of Eisenstein, Kurosawa, Welles, Chaplin, Ray, Fassbinder, Hitchcock, Hawks, Murnau, Keaton, Pasolini and many others.

American filmmaking at present does a generally miserable job of portraying American life. The well-heeled African-American petty-bourgeoisie in Hollywood does not speak for or artistically represent African-American working class life, the life of the overwhelming majority of the black population. The black nouveau riche elements are consumed with hostility and contempt for the “great unwashed.” Nothing would compel such people, who have “made it big,” to direct their attention to conditions of exploitation and social misery.

As we argued in a previous article, the solution to American filmmaking’s “diversity problem” will not come from the entry of directors who differ from the current crop only in their ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. That would simply represent more of the same—more complacency, more self-absorption, more trivia.

To “diversify,” in fact, to revolutionize film and art in our day means, first and foremost, the introduction of great historical and social themes.

Report reveals ongoing social crisis for Chicago’s youth and young adults

George Gallanis

A recent report by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) titled “Lost: The Crisis Of Jobless and Out Of School Teens and Young Adults In Chicago, Illinois and the U.S.” reveals the rise of unemployment in the past decade for Chicago’s youth and young adults.

The report begins on a sobering note. While attending a community hearing in Chicago two years ago, the authors of the report recall a statement from a young woman. “Two years ago, when we attended one of these hearings,” they write, “we listened intently, as young people shared their stories. Clear in our memories is the statement of a young woman who said, ‘My friend would be alive today if he had had a job.’”

Indeed, the social misery in which many young Chicagoans live—the rise of gang violence, poverty, the closing of schools—is the outcome in particular of a steady loss of jobs.

The report states that among 16- to 19-year-old Chicagoans in 2014, 12.4 percent of blacks, 15 percent of Hispanic or Latinos, and 24.4 percent of whites (non-Hispanic or Latino) were employed. The national figure for youth employment at the time was of 28.8 percent. Specifically, the unemployment rate for black 16- to 19-year-olds was a staggering 88 percent, while 85 percent of Hispanic or Latino 16- to 19-year-olds were jobless in 2014.

From 2005 to 2014, employment for Hispanic 16- to 19-year-old Chicagoans declined from 25.5 percent to 15 percent, a 42 percent drop. Female Hispanic 16- to 19-year-olds saw the largest decline, with employment dropping by 44 percent from 2005 to 2014.

Comparatively, for the state of Illinois as a whole in 2014, 84 percent of black 16- to 19-year-olds and 72 percent of Hispanics in this age group were without a job. From 2005 to 2014 employment rates dropped by 13 percent for blacks and 20 percent for Latinos. On the national level in 2014, 79 percent of black 16-to 19-year-olds and 74 percent of Latinos in this age group were unemployed, with employment rates decreasing 14 percent for blacks and 21 percent for Latinos from 2005 to 2014.

Then there are the 20- to 24-year-old Chicagoans whose employment rate can only be described as devastating. In 2014, 59 percent of black 20- to 24-year-olds were unemployed. For Latinos, the rate was 37 percent; for whites it was 27 percent. Meanwhile, 41 percent of blacks, 19 percent of Latinos and 7 percent of whites were out of school and without a job.

When tallied together, 31 percent of black 16- to 24-year-olds were out of school and unemployed in 2014 in Chicago, higher than the rate for blacks throughout the US, in Illinois, New York City and Los Angeles.

These staggering rates of unemployment for Chicago’s working class youth and young adults compound conditions of social distress. The report states: “Unemployment increases susceptibility to malnutrition, illness, mental stress, and loss of self-esteem, leading to depression. It also “injures self-esteem, and fosters feelings of externality and helplessness among youth.” The report adds that “increases in youth unemployment cause increases in burglaries, thefts and drug offences.”

“The result is a cycle, where the ‘permanent scars’ lead to conditions that are both a consequence and a precipitating factor that leads to further youth unemployment and parallel social conditions,” the report notes. “For example, in areas with high rates of teenage pregnancy, babies are being born to ‘babies’ in households with high rates of poverty and low levels of employment where feelings of low self-esteem, depression, and powerlessness are often accompanied by substance abuse and in many cases, violence and crime.”

While the report points to the devastating effects of unemployment, the authors of the study frame the plight of Chicago’s working class youth and young adults as, above all, a racial question. While there is no doubt that racial policies are used by the ruling class to divide and ultimately pit workers and youth against each other, the fundamental issue is class and social inequality. To place the prior before the latter is to confuse a symptom for the disease.

Once known as an industrial center of the world, eloquently described by Carl Sandburg as the “city of big shoulders,” Chicago has seen a rampant deindustrialization over the past few decades and with it the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.

In 2014, the WSWS wrote, “In the last 35 years, however, large swaths of Chicago, like Detroit and other cities, have been gutted by deindustrialization. Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing, transportation, health care and other relatively decent-paying jobs have been eliminated since the late 1970s, with 22 percent of manufacturing jobs lost in the city in the early 2000s alone.”

Deindustrialization, the slashing of jobs, the dismantling of pensions, and the gutting of wages are the expression in the lives of working class families of the capitalist system as the ruling class seeks to claw back concessions previously granted to the working class and squeeze out as much profit as possible.

Thousands of jobs threatened in North Sea oil and gas industry

Stephen Alexander

Tens of thousands of offshore and onshore oil workers jobs are threatened by the collapse of the North Sea oil and gas industry. Driven by global oversupply, and the price war being waged across all sections of minerals production, the aging, deep-water fields of the North Sea are particularly vulnerable.

North Sea oil production was already in sharp decline before the oil slump, down 70 percent since 2000. The average breakeven price for deep-water exploration is $62 a barrel. Currently Brent crude sells for $33 per barrel. Standard Chartered have estimated that the oil price could slump further to $10 a barrel, the lowest figure since 1986, while Moody’s predicts a slight increase to $38 by 2017.

There are many indicators of deepening crisis. An industry body has calculated that as many as 50 fields will be decommissioning by 2018 compared to 14 today. Spending on decommissioning is expected to surpass spending on development by the following year. Energy analysts Wood Mackenzie predict that nearly half of North Sea oil and gas fields, “140 of some 320 fields currently in operation, could close over the next five years.” The number of operational rigs has already fallen from 57 to 27 and could fall to 19 by this summer, according to Bob Buskie, chief executive of the Cromarty Firth Port Authority. More than a dozen oil rigs are now parked in Inverness harbour.

The industry body, UK Oil & Gas estimates that 65,000 jobs have gone in the oil sector as of September last year. Approximately 5,000 jobs have been lost offshore, 30,000 in supporting industries and another 30,000 in the service sector. As many as 10,000 of these are thought to have gone in Northern Scotland. Almost 10,000 oil related jobs were lost in Scotland alone in the last six months, according to Scottish Enterprise. The Guardian noted that some estimates forecast that up to 200,000 out of 400,000 UK-oil related job could to be lost.

This will impact heavily in the Aberdeen and Grampian areas of the North East of Scotland in which much of the industry is concentrated. Unemployment spiked 60 percent in the year to October 2015, while local businesses report falling airport traffic, fewer requests for taxis and hotels. In the former boomtown, use of food banks has doubled, while even the main food bank in Aberdeen is imperilled following the collapse of its main backer.

More losses are imminent. Over the last weeks, BP announced another 600 jobs would go in its North Sea operations, on top of 300 last year, as part of plans to slash 4,000 jobs from its global exploration and production business. Aberdeen and the Sullom Voe oil terminal in Shetland will be affected.

In December, Shell announced an additional 2,800 losses worldwide, as part of its £35 billion takeover of the multinational energy firm BG. Shell had already shed 500 jobs in the North Sea and 7,500 worldwide. ConocoPhillips intend to lose another 50 jobs, on top of 230 axed last year, as it moves to close down its Viking gas operation in the North Sea. Petrofac, which employs 1,900 people across the UK, recently decided to axe 160 jobs following an alteration to its shift patterns in the North Sea.

The Wood Group, an Aberdeen based oil services giant, announced plans to reduce its global workforce by 5,000 or 13 percent including 1,000 jobs in the North Sea. Financial administration is to be outsourced to India. Enermach has cut 260 jobs in recent months and predicts more in the year ahead. PLEXUS Holdings has announced half of its 150 Aberdeen-based staff are under threat following a collapse in the firm’s share price. The company supplies wellheads in the UK North Sea, where just half a dozen wells are to be drilled in 2016, the lowest figure since 1964.

Outright job losses come alongside increased exploitation of those remaining. Engineering firm Amec Foster Wheeler intends to slash the pay of its 830-strong Aberdeen-based workforce, both offshore and onshore, by 7.5 percent, following comparable pay cuts in the larger services companies last year. The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) trade union told the Guardian, “Offshore workers are being made to work an extra 320 hours a year for no extra pay, pension arrangements are being slashed and travel allowances removed in some cases.” Contractors have suffered a 25 percent wage cut, despite working gruelling six days on, six days off shift patterns.

While workers face destitution or drastically increased exploitation, the oil slump has encouraged a frenzy of financial speculation. According to the Financial Times , “Hedge funds have raised bets against the oil price to near record levels, anticipating further falls, while investment bank analysts are forecasting that oil could drop towards $20 a barrel — a level few in the industry thought would be seen again during the boom years to 2014.”

The response of the governments in London and Edinburgh, and the trade unions, has been to work towards tax breaks and more perks for the industry.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s Tory government is to set up a cross-government support group for energy firms operating in the North Sea, to be chaired by Oliver Letwin, a former Rothschild banker and current Tory Minister for government policy. Also in the group will be Fergus Ewing, the Business Minister of Scotland’s ruling Scottish National Party (SNP).

This move in aimed only at benefiting the big industry players. The city of Aberdeen itself, hoping to be offered a “city deal”, including £3 billion of infrastructure investment and new research and development facility, has only been offered £250 million, less than tenth of the original amount.

The SNP administration has made clear it wants more powers to give greater tax breaks on top of those already handed to energy giants by the UK government. SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon remarked, “While the power for essential change to the taxation regime remains with the UK Government, the Scottish Government continues to stand alongside Scotland’s oil and gas industry..."

The nationalists are attempting to cloak their obsequiousness before big oil under the mantel of defending workers. Alex Salmond, the former First Minister and current SNP Foreign Affairs spokesman told the Dundee basedCourier, “Oil workers deserve support after decades of pouring money into UK Exchequer.” However, the “real task”, was to “incentivise” the industry, said Salmond.

Salmond called for Tory Chancellor George Osborne to agree a raft of new tax breaks and hand outs in his March budget, including exploration credits to encourage investors to take advantage of lower rig rates and falling operational costs, as well as allowing the cost of drilling all new wells “to be offset against taxation”.

For their part, the trade unions have lined up behind calls for tax breaks and are working closely with the SNP. Last year, Kevin Stewart, SNP MSP for Aberdeen Central, lodged a Parliamentary motion calling for, “Parliament to note the comments of the RMT Regional Organiser, Jake Molloy, who has said of the UK government’s attitude to the oil and gas sector that, what they need to do is bring about incentivised tax breaks which will ensure we maximise recovery...”

China announcing 400,000 steelworker job cuts

Samuel Davidson

An estimated 400,000 steelworkers in China will lose their jobs, in line with plans to slash crude steel production capacity by between 100 million and 150 million tons.

The announcement was posted Sunday on government web sites, and reports a decision made by the State Council on January 22 to cut steel, coal and other basic industrial production in response to the global slump and declining growth in China.

Li Xinchuang, head of the China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, said that the cuts in production would translate into 400,000 steelworkers losing their jobs.

“Large-scale redundancies in the steel sector could threaten social stability,” Li Xinchuang told the official Xinhua News Agency Monday.

The State Council did not say when the cuts would be made, but China, which produces half of the world’s steel, has already cut capacity by 90 million tons in response to the growing slowdown in the Chinese and world economy, and is under enormous pressure to do more. Along with the cuts already made, the new cuts will amount to about a 20 percent reduction in steelmaking capacity.

The reductions will have an enormous impact on Chinese workers. In addition to those directly employed in steel making, it is estimated that for every job lost in steel, another 3 jobs are lost in related and supporting industries.

Three million workers in the steel, coal, cement, aluminum and glass industries are expected to lose their jobs in the next few years as these industries seek to cut production by 30 percent.

Many of these employees are first-generation workers who migrated from impoverished rural villages with hopes of a better life. Often their families are dependent upon money these workers are able to send home.

As in the United States and every other country, investors responded to the announced job cuts with joy. The stock price of China’s largest steelmaker, Hebei Iron & Steel, rose 4.3 percent on the news, and the second-biggest, Baoshan Iron & Steel, rose by 5.3 percent. The stock prices of China’s coal producers also rose on the news of the layoffs.

According to the World Steel Association, China’s steel production in 2014 amounted to 822.7 million tons, or 49.4 percent of the world output of steel. Japan is the second largest steel producer, at 110.7 million tons, followed by the United States at 88.2 million tons and India at 86.5.

In 2015 world steel production fell by 2.8 percent. China’s steel production fell to 803.8 million tons, or a drop of 2.3 percent, the largest fall in 25 years. US steel production fell 11 percent to 78.9 million tons and European production declined by 3.2 percent. Japan, Turkey and South Korea also saw declining steel production in 2015.

The outlook for 2016 is even further cuts. Prices for steel have been on a corresponding decline. The benchmark for hot roll steel has fallen on the world market from over $600 a ton in February 2013 to less than $300 a ton in December 2015.

According to the World Steel Association there is currently an overcapacity of steelmaking by 300 million tons. In other words, the world’s overcapacity of steel is greater than the combined production in Japan, the United States and India, the second, third and fourth largest producers combined.

US Steel, the second largest steel producer in the United States, reported a $1 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2015, for a total loss of over $1.5 billion for the year. The steelmaker reports that its production has fallen to less than 70 percent of capacity. Over the past year it has laid off thousands of steelworkers and idled several mills.

The massive layoffs among Chinese steelmakers underscores the reactionary nature of the United Steelworkers’ union campaign to blame Chinese steelworkers for the decline in US steel production and resultant layoffs. Behind the nationalism and chauvinism being pushed by the USW is support for the war drive of the US government against China.

Steelworkers in China, the US, Japan, India and everywhere around the globe are facing the same problems, brought about not by the workers of other countries but by the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist system.

In place of nationalism, chauvinism and war, workers need an international socialist policy that unites the workers of the world in a common struggle to defend jobs and living standards.

‘Brilliant’ Comrade: The Design in North Korean Madness

Sandip Kumar Mishra


On 06 January 2016, North Korea conducted its fourth round of nuclear tests, and there are speculations that it soon going to conduct another rounds of missile tests. Generally, it is understood to be part of North Korea's reckless behaviour, which hardly has any rational explanation. However, a close observation of Pyongyang's behaviour over the last few years make it clear that there is a method in its madness. Following the death of its death of its leader Kim Jong-il in 2011, North Korea had to face an increasingly drifting China; and especially after Chinese President Xi Jinping took office, Beijing overtly tried to engage Seoul and placate it from the US alliance system.

China desires to reach out to South Korea in a more substantial way for several reasons. First, Seoul would be a vibrant economic partner for Beijing as both the economies have several complementarities. Second, by forging a ‘trust’ relationship with South Korea, China could have a strategic achievement in the context of its growing contestations with Japan and the US in the regional politics. Third, if Beijing assumes a neutral position vis-a-vis inter-Korean disputes, its regional stature and attractiveness would significantly increase, and that would be quite imperative for China to emerge as the centre of unipolar Asia.

The change in Chinese policy towards the Korean peninsula has been evident, with annual summit meetings between the leaders of Beijing and Seoul from 2013; the signing of Free Trade Agreement; and South Korea becoming one of the founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). In contrast, there has been hardly any substantial exchange between China and North Korea during this period. The rift in Beijing-Pyongyang relations became obvious when China cooperated with the international community in imposing sanctions on North Korea after its third nuclear test in February 2013; and no meeting between the top leaders of the two countries; and the execution of Chang Sung-thaek, who was considered to be the point person in North Korea to China.

North Korea hardly had any option to deal with this challenge. From Pyongyang's perspective, there are three important goals that must be pursued in the context of its relations with Beijing. First, the North Korean nuclear and missile programs must not become negotiable as China might try to bargain it for Beijing’s broader foreign policy objectives in the regional politics. Second, China should not be allowed to interfere in the North Korea's domestic politics or economic reform. Third, Beijing's growing proximity with Seoul must be stopped and the China-North Korea bilateral must be reverted to the old days. Pursuing all these objectives together appeared to be extremely ambitious and impossible given the meager material and diplomatic capabilities North Korea had.

However, after the fourth round of nuclear tests and the current scenario, it appears that North Korea has been able to achieve most of these goals. By consistently taking a non-compromising position on its nuclear and missile issues, it has almost made its de-nuclearisation non-negotiable. China has probably realised this obvious fact and not keen to get another round of sanctions passed by the UN Security Council. It is the first time that there is no UNSC resolution in sight even after over twenty days of the North Korean nuclear tests. By being adamant to keep its domestic politics autonomous from China, North Korea sends a clear message to Beijing by its many acts that it would not blink in any tug-of-war. By executing Chang Sung-thaek; Kim Jong-un's refusal to participate in the Victory Day Parade in Beijing; recalling its all-female band Moranbong from Beijing after some disagreements with China; and by carrying out its fourth nuclear test, Pyongyang's message to Beijing is extremely clear and is probably also heard by China.

Last but not the least, North Korea has successfully made it almost certain that South Korea would join the US' Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) system - South Korean President Park Geun-hye has openly expressed her intention to do so - and resultantly, Seoul's relations with Beijing would suffer. It would leave China with no choice but to revert to its proximity with North Korea. In fact, there were fierce debates in South Korea on whether it should be satisfied with the Korea Air Missile Defense system, which is effective against low-flying ballistic missiles, or if it should deploy the THAAD, which is effective in high-flying ballistic missiles. In the past two years, North Korean missiles tests have deliberately been conducted to render South Korea insecure. Pyongyang tested its Rodongmissiles in March 2014 by firing them vertically, thereby reducing its range of 1000-1500 kilometers to 650 kilometers or less. North Korea also tested its Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile SLBM in May 2015 to push South Korea towards the THAAD.

Thus, so far, Pyongyang has been successful in its foreign policy goals despite the particularly limited resources it possesses. If South Korea joins the THAAD, it would be a success for North Korea. It will be interesting to see whether China and South Korea will be able understand the North Korean design or remain naive in their engagements, resulting in a possible contestation ahead.