A quarter-million protest in Berlin against the grand coalition and the return of fascism

Ulrich Rippert

Nearly 250,000 people demonstrated Saturday in Berlin against racism, the far-right Alternative for Germany’s witch-hunting of immigrants, and the reactionary policies of the grand coalition government.

Demonstration at Potsdamer Platz

Organized around the central slogan “#indivisible—solidarity instead of exclusion,” the protest was one of the largest in recent German history.

The organizers had expected 40,000 participants and were stunned when more than six times that number showed up to demonstrate. The opening rally at Berlin’s Alexanderplatz was jam packed, and when the front of the demonstration arrived at the Victory Column, just under three kilometres away, many still had not set off from the starting point.

The protest was the culmination of a growing mobilization against the grand coalition government of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, which is implementing the xenophobic and right-wing extremist positions of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in all major policy areas.

In recent weeks, demonstrations against the AfD and the right-wing policies of the grand coalition have taken place in a number of cities. They have for the most part been given little coverage by the media. Most recently more than 40,000 people demonstrated in Munich and Hamburg against racism and a new, right-wing police law.

Especially since the events in Chemnitz and Dortmund, where far-right thugs and neo-fascists chased down foreigners, evoking sympathetic and supportive comments from the police, the secret service and the federal interior minister, resistance to the government has been increasing. On Saturday, protesters carried banners and posters saying, “No to Hate Against Muslims,” “No Place for Nazis” and “Racism is Not an Alternative.”

One banner read, “Solidarity with the Victims of Right-Wing, Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence.”

In addition to the fight against racism and xenophobia, demonstrators opposed the government’s anti-social policies and the growth of economic inequality. Ulrich Schneider, chief executive of the Joint Welfare Association, warned of the effects of rising poverty in Germany and called for urgent action by the government against uncontrolled increases in rents in many cities. He also denounced the efforts to pit the growing ranks of the poor and needy against immigrants and asylum seekers.

An employee of the low-wage airline Ryanair spoke about the brutal conditions confronting the workers and the strikes by Ryanair pilots and flight attendants in recent months.

A section of the 250,000 person demonstration

The demonstration was called by the “Indivisible” alliance, a coalition of some 4,500 associations, organizations and individuals. The alliance was joined by church organizations, charities and trade unions. Many celebrities, including the well known actor Benno Fürmann, the television presenter Jan Böhmermann and the band Die Ärzte, supported the protest. In the evening, a performance was given by songwriters Konstantin Wecker and Herbert Grönemeyer.

When it became clear in the run-up to the demonstration that the turnout could be bigger than originally anticipated, a number of political parties attempted to become involved. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) spoke of a great “affirmation of tolerance and cosmopolitanism.” Instead of sealing off [borders] and promoting nationalism, he declared, what was needed was more diversity and solidarity.

This was said by an SPD minister whose party supports the so-called “master plan” against foreigners drawn up by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer of the Christian Social Union (CSU). The plan is a scheme for locking up immigrants in camps, where they can be bureaucratically abused and deported as quickly as possible. Last year, in the previous grand coalition government, then-Justice Minister Heiko Maas had attacked anti-G20 demonstrators in Hamburg as “left-wing extremists” and called for the holding of a “rock against the left” concert.

At the demonstration, the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party—SGP) distributed many thousands of leaflets with the headline “The fight against right-wing terror requires a socialist perspective.” At two information stands, the SGP announced the publication of a new book titled Why are they back? Historical falsification, political conspiracy and the return of fascism in Germany. The book attracted great interest and sparked many discussions.

SGP information stand

A young woman who had come to the demonstration with her mother from Luckenwalde in Brandenburg expressed great concern over the strengthening of the AfD and the increase in right-wing violence. “I think it is high time to fight right-wing tendencies and violence,” she said. “It is already the case that too much is accepted that is inhuman. We saw in World War II where that leads. In my opinion, we can see the beginnings here. We have to oppose that.”

Another demonstrator said she was participating in the protest to deliver on a promise she had made to her grandmother that she would never again experience such terrible events as she had experienced in her lifetime.

In many discussions, the right-wing policies of the grand coalition came up. It is widely understood that the establishment of a system of camps and the brutal deportation of refugees means that the government has adopted the slogan of the AfD, “Foreigners Out!”

A young man from Frankfurt am Main, who did not want to give his name for fear of reprisals, expressed indignation at the government’s policy. The treatment of refugees was “completely unacceptable,” he said. It was also “unacceptable that those who wanted to help refugees were treated like criminals,” he added. One had to assume, he continued, that in the next few years, because of the effects of climate change and the exploitation of the countries of Africa and the Middle East, more migrants would be forced to leave their homelands.

People are outraged by the fact that more than 1,500 refugees have drowned in the Mediterranean this year alone, and the German government and European Union are under such conditions constantly tightening their refugee policies. This was made clear by banners such as “Sea Rescue is Not a Crime.”

Michael said he was “appalled and angry” about the situation. The sealing off of Europe’s borders meant the government was allowing “hundreds of refugees to drown in the Mediterranean, which is terrible.”

Michael

He stressed that the government’s inhumane policy was directed not only against refugees, but also against its own people. While “billions of euros” were being spent on arming the military, “there is just as little money left for refugees as for healthcare, kindergartens and many other social needs,” Michael said.

At the closing rally, when it was announced from the platform that there were also SPD officials and leaders of the Left Party and the Greens present, there were loud whistles and boos. Maya, a sales assistant from East Berlin, said angrily that it was “unheard of for the SPD to be demonstrating here while it carries out in government exactly the policy that is being protested against.”

Overall, the protest was characterized by a marked contradiction. While many demonstrators were outraged by the AfD, the growth of neo-fascist forces and the right-wing policies of the government, and were looking for a way to counter this, most of those addressing the rally sought to calm things down and de-escalate the situation. Their key words were harmony, reconciliation and neighbourly love.

In his speech, the secretary-general of the German section of Amnesty International, Markus Beeko, referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was passed almost 70 years ago. This guaranteed, he said, “universal and indivisible rights to every human being on this earth.” The right to think and say what you want, to believe who you want, to be protected from torture or persecution, to marry whomever you love—it was “a great idea” for which it was worthwhile getting involved.

The Protestant theologian and Berlin General Superintendent Ulrike Trautwein emphasized that hate damages social coexistence. She pointed to the peaceful demonstrations in East Germany in the autumn of 1989. At that time, a common slogan was “no violence.” The pastor exclaimed, “That should connect us today! No violence!” She said she feared that racism and anti-Semitism could make social violence socially acceptable again.

Jutta Weduwen, executive director of the Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ASF), also expressed concern over the increase in social conflict and warned against “eroding solidarity and cold feelings.”

Hannah and Mathew

Many protesters responded to such calls for harmony with unease or hostility. This sentiment clearly emerged in a conversation with a couple from Berlin, Hannah and Mathew, who marched while wheeling their child in a pram. “I’m not as full of love as keeps being stressed here,” said Mathew, who comes from Scotland and is studying in Berlin. “When I see the right-wing extremists on the rise again, I’m angry. What I miss in all the speeches is a fight—not violence, but a political struggle.”

“It’s not all about love,” added Hannah, who has already completed her biology studies. “The cause of the problems is capitalism and the constant intensification of exploitation. We need a left-wing movement that fights against the existing system and does more than say love one another, be nice to each other. What is missing is a vision, a political idea.”

The demonstration Saturday was marked by the fact that very different positions on the fight against right-wing extremists and neo-fascists existed side by side. But it can already be seen that the aggravation of social conflicts will very quickly lead to a political differentiation.

The intervention of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei was directed toward preparing the next stage of the struggle and making clear that the fight against the right requires a struggle against capitalism and therefore a socialist perspective.

The SGP has shown in recent years how the rise of the AfD and the neo-fascists was ideologically prepared. It has fought against efforts to downplay the crimes of German imperialism and the Nazi regime by professors such as Jörg Baberowski and Herfried Münkler at Humboldt University. It has warned of and exposed the return of German militarism. It has fought to mobilize the working class against these developments and their source in the capitalist system and all of its political parties and apologists, including the supposedly “left” organizations such as the SPD, the Left Party and the Greens.

The SGP leaflet to the demonstrators states: “The only social force that can counter this development and stop the right wing is the international working class. For this reason, we call for the expansion of working class struggles across the continent. The conspiracy of the grand coalition, the intelligence services and right-wing extremists must be ended.

“It is time to revive the revolutionary socialist traditions of Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Lenin and Trotsky, defended only by the International Committee of the Fourth International and its sections. The SGP calls on workers and young people to join and to take up the fight against capitalism, fascism and war.”

Australian “edu-business” set to profit under Gonski 2.0

Erika Zimmer

Last month, the South Australian Liberal Party government announced that it will partner with a major international education software provider, Civica, to “transform school and preschool operations.” The decision underscores the pro-business agenda behind the Gonski 2.0 plan for Australian school education.

The Gonski 2.0 report, announced in May, was overseen by David Gonski, a prominent member of Australia’s corporate and financial elite. It advocates an even more regressive testing regime than the NAPLAN (National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy) model, implemented by the Rudd Labor government in 2008 as part of its “Education Revolution.”

NAPLAN itself was based on testing regimes introduced decades ago in the US, following business demands that schools adopt “standards” and “standardised testing.” According to academics, the test industry in the US alone is now worth $48 billion annually, part of a $4.3 trillion global education industry.

Civica states on the company’s website that its Civica Education Suite has been designed “to enable schools to fully embrace the Gonski 2.0 report recommendations.” It is to be rolled out to 30,000 teachers and 185,000 students in the state of South Australia.

For its part, the New South Wales (NSW) government, in Australia’s most populous state, has made clear its determination to proceed with the Gonski 2.0 agenda, following the publication of the Gonski 2.0 report by announcing that it would be conducting a major review of the NSW school curriculum. However, while the “review” would take 18 months to complete, NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes decided to declare its outcome in advance. It will implement the findings of the Gonski 2.0 report.

The speed with which governments have taken up the Gonski 2.0 recommendations is only matched by their failure to investigate why the current education model has, according to the Gonski 2.0 report, “failed a generation of students.” It also confirms the warnings made by the WSWS from the outset, that the fundamental aim of both NAPLAN and Gonski 2.0 is to align school education ever more closely with the rapidly evolving interests of so-called “edu-business.” (Link to Gonski 2.0 article May 2018)

Ex-federal education minister Julia Gillard promoted the NAPLAN testing regime on the basis that it would improve education outcomes, especially for low achievers. In reality, and predictably, it has had the opposite effect. The already stark inequities in Australia’s school system have widened and the concentration of disadvantaged students in disadvantaged schools increased to one of the highest in the OECD.

The Gonski 2.0 blueprint titled, Through Growth to Achievement: Report of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools is being sold as an education model that promotes individualised learning. A key component of its recommendations is for schools to measure individual students’ “learning progressions,” rather than assessing progress according to a student’s age or year level. In other words, in addition to the NAPLAN periodic assessment every two years, teachers will be required to continuously analyse a student’s proficiency in relation to hundreds of new criteria.

The fact that a pilot mass data collection system, ALAN (Assessment for Literacy and Numeracy), has been set up in hundreds of NSW schools this year, and rejected by teachers as unworkable, has done nothing to halt the rush by governments and business to forge ahead with Gonski 2.0.

The NSW Education Department was forced to pause the rollout of ALAN after teachers found it time consuming and overwhelming. Teacher Dan Hogan told the Sydney Morning Herald that the workload involved addressing more than 1000 indicators, across seven so-called “sub-elements” of literacy and numeracy, for each child.

These “learning progressions” have to be “micro-audited” to document a child’s progress from beginner to master of a subject, with teachers updating each indicator every five weeks.

“The micro level to which teachers are expected to be assessing and plotting children is beyond ridiculous,” one teacher told the NSW Teachers Federation.

Dismissing teacher objections, NSW Education Department secretary, Mark Scott, endorsed ALAN, declaring it was in line with Gonski 2.0’s recommendation for more focus on individual growth.

Academic Anna Hogan has warned that profit making, not evidence, underpins the agenda of edu-business. Writing on NAPLAN she stated, “According to ACARA (the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority responsible for developing the test), NAPLAN is delivered by ‘experts’ across the field. It seems problematic that experts in this case are not teachers, curriculum developers or even university researchers. Instead experts are constituted by their ability to offer “‘value-for-money’ on competitive tender applications.”

Hogan also raised concerns over potential conflicts of interest, whereby edu-businesses are “contracted to develop aspects of NAPLAN, but also create revenue through marking the NAPLAN test and the selling of resources to improve NAPLAN results.” The NAPLAN market includes practice tests, student workbooks, online programs, tutoring, teacher professional development and data analysis for schools. One such test, the PAT (Progressive Achievement Test) records data that is utilised to prepare for NAPLAN. PAT has been purchased by over 7,000 of Australia’s 9,400 schools.

Gonski 2.0 will open up opportunities for edu-business to reap far bigger profits. In June, Deputy President of the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF), Joan Lemaire, claimed, following what she described as “productive discussions” with the NSW Education Department, that the mass data collection by teachers would be “slowed down.”

In reality, the opposite is the case. In July, Correna Haythorpe, President of the Australian Education Union (AEU), affiliated to the NSWTF, told delegates at the NSW Teachers Federation Annual Conference that the federal government intends to tie school funding to the introduction of Gonski 2.0’s “learning progressions and an online assessment tool.” Moreover, while the NSW ALAN trial only covered two curriculum areas, maths and literacy, the National School Reform Agreement between the Commonwealth and state and territory governments would cover 15 areas: the seven Key Learning Areas, in addition to 8 “general capabilities,” an initiative outlined in the Gonski report designed to boost student workforce skills. At the same time NAPLAN would be retained.

“So NAPLAN, learning progressions, online assessment tools—when will teachers actually have the time to teach? It’s a resource-intensive, one-size-fits-all school reform, without any additional resources,” Haythorpe told the Conference.

The teachers’ unions are well versed in posturing as opponents of the government’s pro-business education reforms. In 2010, following mass opposition to NAPLAN, they pledged to organise a national boycott of the regressive testing regime, only to call off the ban at the last minute, after the government agreed to include the union in its “working party” to examine the use of student performance data. The union then insisted that their members administer the tests. Haythorpe’s main concern over the introduction of Gonski 2.0 reforms is not their impact on teachers, but the fact that the unions have not been consulted.

The teachers’ unions will enforce, not fight, the pro-business agenda of the entire political establishment. The Socialist Equality Party has established the Committee for Public Education in order to mobilise the rapidly growing opposition of teachers, parents and students, outraged at the ongoing dismantling of public education. Such a struggle can only be based on a socialist perspective, fighting for the transformation of society as a whole in the interests of the working class, not the privileged few.

We urge all those who agree with the CFPE’s perspective to become actively involved in this vital political initiative.

Australian government flags forcing new immigrants to live in designated zones

Mike Head 

The government of recently-installed Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week launched a concerted bid to blame immigrants, including refugees, for the soaring living costs and deteriorating basic infrastructure that confront millions of working class people.

The Liberal-National Coalition government is seeking to whip up a xenophobic and anti-immigrant social base. It is accusing migrants of causing “congestion” in Australia’s biggest metropolitan areas—Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane-Gold Coast.

The turn to scapegoating immigrants is another indication of the wholesale lurch to the right within the political establishment signalled by the late August backroom removal of Morrison’s predecessor Malcolm Turnbull.

Within weeks of taking office, Morrison told Fairfax Media last month that he wanted a “fair dinkum” conversation about population and tougher rules to slow the entry of migrants into “congested” cities. His comments echoed the calls issued by far-right and anti-immigrant outfits, such as Senator Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who triggered Turnbull’s ouster, is already boasting of having slashed the annual immigration intake from about 190,000 to 160,000.

On Tuesday, Population Minister Alan Tudge foreshadowed plans to force newly-arrived immigrants to live in designated parts of the country. “We are working on measures to have more new arrivals go the smaller states and regions and require them to be there for at least a few years,” he declared in a speech at the Menzies Research Centre, a Coalition thinktank.

Fearing widespread opposition in Australia’s increasingly internationalised working class, which is comprised of workers from all over the world, Tudge provided no information on how such a regime would be monitored, policed and enforced. The mooted scheme would resemble an apartheid-style system in which immigrants would be compelled to carry identification, and be under constant surveillance by the Australian Border Force.

Nor did Tudge refer to the penalties—most likely detention or deportation—for families who breached the zoning system. Scenes like those in the United States, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers swoop on homes and workplaces of alleged “undocumented” migrants, would be certain to follow.

The type of measures being drawn up behind closed doors was indicated by Australian opinion columnist Niki Savva. She asked if immigrants would be treated like prisoners released on parole. “Would it be like home detention with ankle bracelets or subcutaneous devices to alert authorities to their whereabouts?” she suggested. “What happens if people are found residing outside the borders of their designated living areas? … Would they be rounded up, detained, returned to the country towns they are meant to be in—along with their partners or children—or sent back to their place of origin for breaching their visa conditions?”

There is a dark history of such measures in Australia. Many indigenous people were confined to missions and reservations until the 1970s and thousands of “enemy aliens” from Italy, Germany and Japan were rounded up and interned during World Wars I and II.

Tudge’s speech specifically targeted people of Chinese descent. He warned that the “multicultural composition of our population is also changing rapidly,” noting: “Today, over a million Australians have Chinese heritage.”

These divisive remarks were made in a definite context. The Trump administration has embarked an escalating tariff and economic war to prevent China from challenging the US as the global military and corporate hegemon, accompanied by provocations that could trigger armed conflicts in the South China Sea and elsewhere, leading to another world war.

Tudge alleged that immigration was producing unprecedented “integration challenges.” There were people who “struggle to speak the national language,” a “higher than ever concentration of the overseas born in particular areas” and “a small minority” that was “challenging our values and sometimes using violence to do so.” Tudge has previously proposed stronger English language tests to block unwanted migrants.

One aim of compelling immigrants to live in specified zones is to make them available to employers as a cheap labour force, driving down wages for all workers. This already occurs in regional areas where refugees, international backpackers and Pacific Island temporary visa holders are ruthlessly exploited, often as fruit pickers or meatworkers.

Above all, the parliamentary establishment is seeking to channel the growing popular discontent over inequality and falling living standards in reactionary nationalist directions. Tudge essentially accused incoming migrants of clogging the roads and trains in the urban centres, saying average peak time commuting now took almost twice as long as it did a decade ago.

In reality, working class people face worsening traffic and public transport logjams and delays because of the profit-driven character of urban development under capitalism. Billionaire property magnates dominate residential construction, build with little or no regard for the transport, education, health and social needs of residents. Banks, investors and speculators have driven up housing prices, forcing workers to live on far-flung city outskirts. Basic services, including water, power, public transport, roads and airports, have been privatised or franchised, adding to the chaos and costs inflicted on working people.

Tudge claimed the government was undertaking a “massive boost in infrastructure expenditure” to build road and rail networks. In fact, the level of spending has fallen per head of population. Moreover, the projects he listed are mostly expensive toll roads and other developments that will proceed only if they generate huge profits for their corporate operators.

Even if the Morrison government’s supposed “record $75 billion in forward 10-year plans” materialises, it stands in stark contrast to the $200 billion allocated for military weaponry—that is war preparations—over the same period.

Morrison and his ministers know they have backing throughout the parliamentary elite for their immigrant-bashing. On the eve of Tudge’s speech, Labor Party leader Bill Shorten wrote to Morrison proposing a bipartisan “population task force,” indicating support for “a new settlement policy” to redistribute people away from Sydney and Melbourne.

From their “White Australia” origins onward, Labor and the trade unions have long records of trying to isolate and divide workers in Australia from their fellow workers in Asia and globally. Spearheaded by Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the last Labor government began to cut immigration numbers and advanced a similar plan for regional settlement zones.

The underlying Labor-Coalition unity was displayed again this week when New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian followed Tudge’s speech by saying immigration had been allowed to “balloon out of control” in Sydney and her state. State Labor leader Luke Foley objected that Berejiklian had “panned” him in March for issuing a similar call. In March, Foley sought to fuel racist sentiment, claiming that immigrants were causing a “white flight” from Sydney suburbs.

As in the US and Britain, the Murdoch media is fanning the anti-immigrant scare-mongering. Recent editorials in the Australian have urged politicians not to be “afraid of a frank and sensible debate about the pros and cons of immigration,” claiming it was the “barbecue-stopping” concern of voters.

Exactly the opposite is true. The ruling class, exemplified by Murdoch, and its political servants are seeking to cultivate a right-wing constituency and use it against the growing opposition in the working class to social inequality and deteriorating conditions.

Workers should reject the poisonous drive to pit them against each other along national, ethnic and communal lines. Immigrant workers and their families have the basic democratic right to live and work where they choose. The only way to reverse the corporate offensive on living standards and halt the lurch toward war is to unify the struggles of the working class on a global basis to overturn capitalism and reorganise economic and social life to satisfy human need, including by pouring trillions of dollars into the advanced infrastructure necessary for modern life.

Russia: Putin ally Kudrin pushes for rapprochement with the imperialist powers

Clara Weiss

Alexei Kudrin, one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, has stepped up his campaign for a rapprochement with the imperialist powers.

In recent days, Kudrin made several statements indicating that a powerful wing in the Kremlin seeks to mend ties with the West. On Wednesday, Kudrin argued that the sanctions by the West “create great risks for the speed of [economic] growth.” They would make it virtually impossible for Putin’s outlined goals for social improvement to be realized, Kudrin said.

This comes after years in which the Kremlin has officially tried to argue that the Western sanctions have had no significant impact on the Russian economy. Then, Kudrin warned that the sanctions which are now being discussed in the EU and above all the US “could lead to a recession already in the next year.”

Therefore, he continued, Russia’s foreign policy had to be oriented toward “minimizing the tensions with other countries and at least maintaining and lowering of the sanction regime, and not its escalation.” He added that he “would measure the effectiveness of [Russian] foreign policy” on the basis of whether or not sanctions would continue.

A few days earlier, Kudrin was in Riga, the capital of NATO-member state Latvia, and made a case for the improvement of Latvian-Russian relations. This is under conditions where Latvia, like the other two Baltic states, has been at the forefront and a major staging ground for the NATO military build-up against Russia.

In none of these remarks did Kudrin even so much as mention the systematic encirclement of Russia by NATO, denounce the endless imperialist provocations over the alleged “Russian hacking“ of the US 2016 elections and the alleged Skripal poisoning, or describe the sanctions as the economic warfare on the part of imperialism they objectively constitute. Judging by Kudrin’s line, the question of mending ties with imperialism was solely a matter of Russia changing its foreign policy.

Kudrin also recently expressed concerns about prevailing mass poverty in Russia, stating that “given the GDP per capita that we have, it is dishonourable to have such levels of poverty in our country.”

Kudrin’s remarks reflect broader discussions and shifts within the Russian oligarchy. Now the head of the Audit Chamber, which functions as a watchdog for the budget, Kudrin has been a key figure in Russian politics for decades. He rose to power and wealth alongside Putin under the shadow of Leningrad mayor Anatoly Sobchak in the 1990s. In the first two presidencies of Putin, he was finance minister and responsible for a major wave of social cuts in the early 2000s. If there is mass poverty in Russia, Kudrin is amongst those primarily responsible for it.

A few years ago, he founded the Center for Strategic Research, a think tank which has provided the blueprint for the deeply unpopular pension reform bill that Putin signed just last week. While meeting suspicion and opposition from sections of the elites, especially in the military and the military-industrial complex, Kudrin is viewed as a possible link to the pro-US liberal opposition and is popular in international finance circles.

In this year’s state of the nation address in March, Putin had already signalled that his fourth presidency would involve much more far-reaching concessions to the liberal opposition. Numerous pro-Kremlin outlets greeted his reelection as an opportunity to enact the very reforms of the liberal opposition that voters had expressed their opposition to in voting for Putin.

The widely hated pension reform is itself part of this attempt by the Russian oligarchy to make concessions to both the imperialist powers and the liberal opposition, which for decades have been demanding such an assault on workers’ living standards.

The fact that US imperialism has made absolutely no sign of lowering its pressure on Russia in recent years, no matter what concessions the Kremlin was willing to make in domestic and foreign policy, but, on the contrary, has only continued to escalate it, underscores the desperation of the Russian oligarchy. Without any prospect of being rewarded for its concessions to imperialism, it is frantically trying to manoeuvre itself out of its historical dead end.

Underlying the recent push toward improving relations with the imperialist powers are above all the class tensions in Russia itself. In light of an ongoing economic crisis, which has been significantly exacerbated by the Western sanctions, there is enormous anger about the oligarchy’s decade-long monopolization of wealth and political power. The ramming through of the pension bill, which will raise the retirement age for Russians by five years in the face of opposition by some 90 percent of the population, has significantly exacerbated social and political tensions.

The social discontent has found an initial reflection in the recent regional elections, which saw opposition candidates from the far-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and the Stalinist KPRF win in several regions, while the votes for United Russia plummeted in numerous regions by 10 to 20 percent.

The election results have caused enormous nervousness in the Kremlin. While both the KPRF and the LDPR have proven over decades to be a reliable “loyal’ and right-wing nationalist opposition to the ruling United Russia party, the oligarchy is well aware that the votes for these parties express much broader political and social opposition to the status quo. The growing struggles of workers internationally add to the concerns of the oligarchy that the working class in Russia too will sooner rather than later be driven into struggle.

These fears were spelled out quite concretely in a lengthy piece published October 10 in the Kremlin controlled Rossiiskaya Gazeta. The author is Valerii Zorkin, the 75-year-old head of Russia’s Constitutional Court, who for decades worked for the Stalinist regime before becoming a major figure in Russian legislation during capitalist restoration. In his piece, he raised alarm about the potential political fall-out from the prevailing extreme poverty and social inequality in Russia.

According to Zorkin, the Constitutional Court is receiving a large number of complaints about the lack of social welfare assistance in Russia. There was enormous discontent, Zorkin argued, over economic and social injustice and the impact of “three decades of reforms,” meaning— even if Zorkin did not dare put it this way—almost three decades of capitalism.

He wrote: “Society perceives most acutely and sharply the extremely unequal distribution of the burden of the economic reforms that have been conducted in the country, the main testimony of which is first and foremost the extraordinary social inequality. ... Over 20 million Russians live beneath the poverty line. In this context, one cannot fail to note that a year ago we celebrated the centenary of the events of 1917, which, as is clear today, were provoked above all by the deep socio-economic divide within Russian society.”

Among the proposals Zorkin presented was greater “political pluralism,” including the opportunity for the opposition to actually get into positions of power, and constitutional reforms. None of his proposals would benefit the working class. Rather, like Kudrin’s proposals, they amount to a plea for greater collaboration of all sections of the oligarchy with US imperialism and sections of the upper middle class that back the liberal opposition, with the aim of uniting against what they perceive to be their common enemy: the working class.

Macron fails to name new French government

Francis Dubois

The crisis shaking the French government since the resignation of Interior Minister Gérard Collomb, one of the earliest supporters of President Emmanuel Macron, intensified this week. Last week, Macron announced a major cabinet reshuffle, but as of this writing the cabinet changes have still not been announced.

Following eight ministerial resignations over the past two weeks, further departures took place this week. Culture Minister Françoise Nyssen, Agriculture Minister Stéphane Travers and Regional Cohesion Minister Jacques Mézard all announced plans to step down.

The naming of a new government has been announced and then delayed multiple times. On Tuesday, the press was invited for an imminent announcement. But it was rescheduled at the last minute for Friday, reportedly after Macron and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe failed to reach an agreement. Macron purportedly did not want a cabinet reshuffle that would allow Philippe to make a new statement of general policy before the National Assembly, insisting that his own July 9 statement to both houses of parliament at Versailles remained the authoritative statement of overall government policy.

At a press conference Friday, with the media reporting that the cabinet reshuffle would not be announced, Macron seemed totally overcome by the situation. He lamely declared, “I do things calmly and with respect for people. I am trying to do things in a professional way… One must do things with calmness, method and at a good rhythm. There is no crisis, the government is at work, no posts are vacant and things are advancing.”

Officials have admitted that one of the main difficulties in finding new ministers has been repeated refusals by politicians to join the Philippe government. They all fear risking their careers by joining a government whose days seem to be numbered. This is an unprecedented situation in French politics, where politicians offered a ministerial post have traditionally rushed to accept.

The replacement of Collomb at the interior ministry has posed a particular challenge under conditions of rising discontent within the security forces, which for years have been demanding a rise in their budgets so they can carry out the mass repression the government demands of them.

Nine ministers have cancelled key public appearances. Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire did not go to the yearly meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Bali, Indonesia.

Whatever the composition of the new government, it is already clear that Macron’s agenda of deep austerity, militarism and police state rule will not change. All of the major bourgeois parties support this program and Macron has announced that he will work more closely with the trade unions to impose it. In line with the trajectory of the entire French and European bourgeoisie toward the far right, the cabinet reshuffle will mark a new and violent rightward shift.

Since Collomb’s resignation, Prime Minister Philippe has taken steps in this direction, pushing for the integration into the government of figures from the right-wing Gaullist The Republicans (LR) party.

For now, it is the various factions of this party that are pushing the hardest against the Macron-Philippe government, denouncing its indecision and accusing it of spreading indecision at the highest levels of the state. Speaking in the National Assembly, Christian Jacob, the head of the LR parliamentary group, said, “They were not able to tell us anything… because we are not even sure if there will be a government.”

LR deputy Guillaume Larrivé declared, “Eight days after the compulsory resignation of Mr. Collomb, it does look very serious that we still do not have an operational government… The ship of state no longer has a pilot. We are not capable of finding an interior minister. That is pretty surprising!”

Factions of LR around Alain Juppé, the former prime minister under right-wing President Jacques Chirac, are coming forward to offer themselves for a proposed coalition. Juppé set off a massive rail strike in 1995 by announcing a direct attack on pensions and public services.

Another former Chirac prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, said one should “go towards a logic of coalition,” with “people of the center left” and “the center right… people close to Alain Juppé, for example.”

Another LR faction closer to the far right, around ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy and current LR party leader Laurent Wauquiez, was omnipresent in the interview and matinee radio shows. Brice Hortefeux, the former interior minister under Sarkozy, who is close to Wauquiez, denounced what he called “institutional disorder and political chaos on a scale never seen before” at the highest summits of the state.

Just a few days after French neo-fascist leader Marine Le Pen met with Italy’s neo-fascist interior minister, Matteo Salvini, and declared that she wants “to take power,” her party is conspicuous by its absence, at least for the present. Neo-fascist deputy Sébastien Chenu told BFM-TV on October 9, “This is a lot of noise over nothing.”

The same moderation could be observed in Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France (LFI) party, whose leaders reacted by mildly criticizing the government without doing anything to inconvenience it. LFI spokeswoman and deputy Danièle Obono said in an interview, “We are not seeking crisis for the sake of crisis,” adding, “Macron may be in crisis… we are spectators.”

With Macron leading the most right-wing regime in France since the end of World War II and the Nazi occupation, the Morenoite wing of the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) wrote on its website Permanent Revolution that Macron is “worn out” because he is losing his “center-left base,” which is frustrated with his right-wing policies. The NPA was, in typical fashion, leaving open the possibility that a more “center-left” tendency in the ruling elite could lead an opposition to fascistic forces. The heart of the NPA’s political strategy is to subordinate the independent interests of the working class to the supposedly “democratic” wing of the bourgeoisie.

But all of the bourgeois parties are moving in the direction of counterrevolution and the far right, the supposedly “democratic” no less than the openly neo-fascist. In Germany, the grand coalition of the main “democratic” parties—the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union—is adopting the politics of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which won only 12.6 percent of the vote in the last election. Last week, AfD leader Alexander Gauland published an article rehabilitating anti-Semitism and Hitler’s “blood and soil” policy in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany’s main newspapers.

The key question is the growing conflict between all the different wings of the bourgeoisie and the working class, the only consistently progressive and revolutionary force in capitalist society. In France, the ruling elite is for the time being trying to carry out its move toward the far right under some political cover, working through the so-called “center-right” or “center-left” factions that surround Macron and Philippe. But this changes nothing with respect to the basic trajectory of the government, which is entering into collision with the working class.

Bonus removal cancels out Amazon’s UK pay rise

Alice Summers 

Amazon’s much heralded decision to increase workers’ wages to £9.50 an hour in the UK and £10.50 in London is a fraud.

According to a report from the GMB trade union, any wage increase workers receive will be largely cancelled out by the loss of share and productivity incentive schemes.

Currently, Amazon’s warehouse workers receive one Amazon share for every year they work at the company, and one additional share after five years. If workers hold on to the shares, known as Restricted Stock Units (RSU), for two years, they are able to cash them in tax free. Under the new programme, workers will be stripped of these stock bonuses in favour of a “sharesave” scheme, which would permit Amazon employees to buy shares at a discounted price over three or five years.

With Amazon share prices having seen a 70 percent increase just this year, and continuing to grow, the loss of these share bonuses over the next years will likely see Amazon workers losing out on much more than the £1,500 a year that these stocks are currently worth.

The loss of share benefits is equivalent to roughly half the £3,120 increase promised to Amazon warehouse workers outside of London, who currently earn a poverty wage of around £17,000 a year before tax.

Amazon employees will also lose cash bonuses for meeting performance targets. These bonuses, known as Variable Compensation Pay (VCP), allow employees to earn 8 percent on top of their monthly salary, and 16 percent over the busy Christmas period. According to an Amazon employee who spoke to Yahoo Finance, the average Amazon worker usually receives between $1,800 (£1,377) and $3,000 (£2,295) a year through the VCP program.

The pay rise therefore leaves Amazon workers in almost the same position financially as before. Indeed, when the loss of VCP bonuses is factored in, many workers may in fact see a net loss.

Faced with the exposure of its smoke-and-mirrors deception, Amazon has replied by vaguely asserting that “the significant increase in hourly cash wages more than compensates for the phase out of incentive pay and RSU” and that “because it’s no longer incentive-based, the compensation will be more immediate and predictable.”

There is no doubt that whatever minimal raise is given to Amazon workers will be more than made up through ever greater exploitation, higher paces and more workplace injuries. The company already uses electronic devices to monitor productivity and time workers during their bathroom breaks. New technology is being tested that will even use sound pulses to redirect a worker’s hand if he moves it in the wrong direction while moving items from a bin to a delivery box.

Figures also compiled by GMB released earlier this year show that in three years 600 health emergencies required paramedics and ambulance attendance at Amazon’s 14 UK-based distribution centres. In over half, the patient was taken to hospital.

This month, the GMB published findings of an investigation showing that “more than 440 serious health and safety incidents at Amazon warehouses have been reported to the Health and Safety Executive since 2015/16.” The GMB noted that “workers have suffered fractures, head injuries, contusions, collisions with heavy equipment—and one report detailed a forklift truck crash caused by a ‘lapse of concentration possibly due to long working hours.’”

These shocking figures will no doubt only increase as Amazon pushes for greater and greater productivity from its staff.

The UK media was complicit in selling this wage increase fraud as a major success story, with the Guardian’s Larry Elliott describing Amazon’s pay offer as a “seriously big” increase and a victory resulting from the “strong campaigning, skilful PR and the channelling of [the] populist anger” of workers.

It is the media that is trying to channel workers’ anger here. One newspaper after another dutifully noted that the pay rise brings the wage of Amazon’s 17,000 full-time and 20,000 temporary agency staff above the voluntary UK Living Wage of £8.75 an hour (£10.20 in London), and 21 percent higher than the current national minimum wage of £7.83. But if Elliot thinks this is a “seriously big” increase, he should try living on it.

With Amazon’s new pay rise, a fulltime worker in London will earn around £17,300 a year after tax and National Insurance contributions are subtracted. For workers outside the capital, their annual post-tax salary will be roughly £15,900.

According to the online Minimum Income Calculator, designed by organisations including anti-poverty charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a single person living on their own in Inner London would require £30,455 a year (£24,090 after tax) just to afford a minimum decent standard of living. A lone parent in London with one infant child would require a post-tax income of roughly £40,900, over £23,000 a year more than the Amazon wage offer.

A single parent with a child living outside London would require around £41,400 (£31,530 after tax) to achieve this minimum decent standard of living.

That a yearly income of less than £16,000 is now hailed as a major victory for workers is a testament to the drastic and deliberate degradation of the conditions and pay of the working class over the last decades. Amazon has become a by-word for the brutal exploitation of workers, low pay and dangerous working conditions. The company is emblematic of a broader and prolonged shift in economic relations that has seen the proliferation of poorly paid and insecure jobs—often to wage rates even worse than those at Amazon.

This process was exacerbated in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, which was seized by the capitalist class and governments around the world to accelerate the decades-long assault on the social position of the working class, replacing higher paid full-time positions with a modicum of job security and working benefits with low-wage and precarious employment.

UK wages are £31 a week lower than the pre-2008 average. Around 20 percent of Britain’s 33 million workers earn an annual salary of £15,000 or less, with 50 percent earning no more than £23,200. The decade since 2008 has seen the growth of the “working poor,” with 60 percent of those in Britain classed as poor in 2017 and living in a household in which at least one person works.

This drastic decline has been facilitated by trade unions like the GMB, whose calculations showing workers subsisting on rock bottom pay are an indictment of their own efforts to suppress the class struggle. Functioning as industrial police on behalf of the government and employers, they have worked to systematically limit strikes and prevent any significant coordination by workers across borders.

The study on pay is the sum of GMB’s efforts, which it hopes can be leveraged to wrest union recognition and new sources of revenue for the union. The GMB has no intention of leading a strike or any other industrial action against Amazon, which would immediately pose the question of the international unity of Amazon workers, under conditions in which the multi-trillion dollar firm has been hit by strikes and protests in Germany, France, Spain, Poland and Italy, as well as worker agitation in its American home base.

Any suggestion that the interests of workers can be secured through the supposed benevolence of multi-billionaires like Jeff Bezos, whose entire fortune depends on the continued brutal exploitation of the working class, is false. The rights of the working class will be won only through organized class struggle, independent of the trade unions and capitalist political parties. This requires the formation of rank-and-file committees in every workplace—with the International Amazon Workers Voice providing a powerful and global organising mechanism.

African Peacebuilding Network (APN) Program of the Social Science Research Council 2019

Application Deadline: 5th January, 2019.

Eligible Countries: African countries

To be taken at (country): Research can be done about one or several African countries. Grant may support travel outside of Africa for research and conferences related to the specific project.

About the Award:
The APN is now accepting proposals for two research initiatives:

1. Individual Research Grants (https://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/view/apn-research-grants/)
2. Book Manuscript Completion Grants (https://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/view/african-peacebuilding-network-book-manuscript-completion-grant/)

The APN supports independent African research on conflict-affected countries and neighboring regions of the continent, as well as the integration of evidence-based knowledge into scholarly discourses, and the practices of regional and global policy communities.
These awards are open to scholars and practitioners from multidisciplinary backgrounds. Individuals that choose to apply for these grants must be based in African universities; regional organizations; government agencies; or nongovernmental, media, or civil society organizations on the continent.

Field/Level of Study: Social Sciences; Peace and Security Studies

Type: Research Grants

Eligibility: 

• All applicants must be African citizens currently residing in an African country.
• This competition is open to African academics, as well as policy analysts and practitioners.

Selection Criteria: The APN is interested in innovative field-based projects that demonstrate strong potential for high-quality research and analysis, which in turn can inform practical action on peacebuilding and/or facilitate interregional collaboration and networking among African researchers and practitioners.
Proposals should clearly describe research objectives and significance, with alignment between research design/method and research questions and goals. Proposals should also demonstrate knowledge of the research subject and relevant literature, and address the feasibility of proposed research activities, including a time frame for project completion. Applicants should also discuss the likely relevance of the proposed research to existing knowledge on peacebuilding practice and policy. We strongly encourage the inclusion of a brief, but realistic budget outline (keeping within the allotted amount for the grant), to fit appropriately within a six-month project and the page limit required.

Number of Awardees: Varies

Value of Award: up to$15,000

Duration of Programme: 6 months

How to Apply: Apply here

Visit Research Webpage for details

Advancing Young Women Professional Fellows Program 2019 for Women Entrepreneurs

Application Deadline: 9th November 2018 midnight (EST)

Eligible Countries: East African countries

To be taken at (country): Michigan State University (MSU) (U.S.), Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) (Tanzania), the University of Nairobi (UoN) (Kenya), and Kyambogo University (KYU) (Uganda)


About the Award: We are recruiting young Tanzanian, Kenyan, and Ugandan professionals from diverse backgrounds in private, public, non-governmental, and education sectors who are either women agribusiness entrepreneurs or individuals working to increase women’s economic engagement in the agricultural sector.

The Advancing Women Agribusiness Entrepreneurs and Innovators Professional Fellows Program hosted at Michigan State University (MSU) connects Ugandan, Tanzanian and Kenyan agribusiness professionals and entrepreneurs with their counterparts in Michigan for knowledge exchange and capacity building. The program strengthens visiting fellows’ skills in agro-entrepreneurship and agri-food system innovation, and addresses issues of women’s economic empowerment.

Type: Entrepreneurship, Training

Eligibility:

• Women entrepreneurs, social innovators, or small and medium business owners or managers and other leaders working in the agriculture and food sectors
• Individuals (of any gender) in civil society and NGOs working on programs that support women in the agriculture and food sectors in their respective countries
• Policymakers, ministry employees, and others in the public sector (of any gender) focused on supporting and improving opportunities for women in the agriculture or food sector
• Academic staff (of any gender) who are implementing programs to impact advancing women in the agriculture and food sectors

Selection Criteria: 

• 25-40 years old
• A citizen, national, or permanent resident of Tanzania, Kenya, or Uganda
• Is living and working in Tanzania, Kenya, or Uganda at the time of the application
• Speaks fluent English
• Has at least 2 years of professional/working experience in their field
• Has demonstrated leadership and collaborative skills and a commitment to community
• Has employer’s support for participating in the program (for those not self-employed). For those self-employed, has recommendation from local authorities at the district, county, and/or community levels
• Is interested in participating in a reciprocal program for American participants coming to your country
• Preference will be given to those who are in an earlier state of their careers
• Preference will be given to applicants who have not previously had the opportunity to travel to the US

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The fully funded U.S. program includes:

• Professional internships with Michigan organizations,
• Seminars and trainings with professionals from Michigan State University and external partners,
• Field trips to urban farms, food hubs and related centers throughout Michigan, and
• Participation in the Professional Fellows Congress, held in Washington, D.C. and attended by cohorts placed at other U.S. institutions.

While in Michigan, fellows stay at a nearby hotel for the bulk of their visit, then spend the last week with a local host family. Based on the fellows’ program goals and business interests, MSU matches each individual with an appropriate internship.

Duration of Programme: 
Spring 2019: April 2019 – May 2019
Fall 2019: October 2019 – November 2019

How to Apply: Apply here

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

TWAS-UNESCO Associateship Scheme for Researchers from Developing Countries 2019

Application Deadline: 5th December 2018

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Associateship countries

About the Award: In collaboration with UNESCO and a number of centres of excellence in the South, TWAS has instituted a Joint Associateship Scheme to enable competent researchers from the South to visit these centres regularly. An associate is appointed for three years during which he/she can visit a Centre twice for research collaboration. Almost 300 centres have been selected to participate in the Scheme. TWAS provides travel support for the associates and a contribution towards subsistence costs up to USD300.00 per month while living expenses are covered by the host centres.
In 1994, in cooperation with UNESCO, TWAS instituted an Associateship Scheme to help counteract the brain drain affecting many developing countries. The programme supports regular visits by researchers from developing countries to centres of excellence in the South. Almost 300 centres of excellence in the South have agreed to participate in the programme.

Field of Study: Natural sciences

Type: PhD

Eligibility: Applicants must hold a PhD or equivalent degree. The selection of associates is highly competitive; appointments are made on the basis of merit. Special consideration is given to scientists from isolated institutions in developing countries. Women scientists are especially encouraged to apply.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The Associateship covers the associate’s travel expenses and a monthly contribution of USD300 towards incidental local expenses. The host centre covers accommodation and food, and provides the research facilities.

Duration of Program: Appointments have a fixed duration of three years. During this time, the associate is entitled to visit the host centre twice, for a period of 2 to 3 months each time. Subject to the availability of funds, the appointment may be renewed for a further 3-year term.

How to Apply: Applicants must complete the online application form by clicking on the ‘Apply now’ button at the bottom of this page. While filling in the online application, applicants also need to upload the following documentation:

• scanned copy of the applicant’s passport, even if expired (page with applicant’s name and surname);
• supporting Statement from Head of Home Institution;
• the applicant’s curriculum vitae (no more than 4 pages);
• the applicant’s full list of publications;
• PhD certificate;
• two letters of recommendation by two referees, one of whom should be from an expert from another country;
• a recent invitation letter – on the host institution’s letterhead paper – from one of the Institutions listed in the files available here. It should contain the proposed time of the visits (two to three months for each visit) and should refer to the proposed cooperation. It should be made evident that the applicant and the proposed host have been in contact regarding the scientific work to be done during the visit and that the conditions for conducting the work have been agreed in terms of the timing of the visit and the facilities available.

APPLY NOW

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: UNESCO, The World Academy of Science

Jamal Khashoggi rejiggers the Middle East at potentially horrible cost

James M. Dorsey

The fate of missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, assuming that his disappearance was the work of Saudi security and military officials, threatens to upend the fundaments of fault lines in the Middle East.

At stake is not only the fate of a widely respected journalist and the future of Turkish-Saudi relations.

Mr. Khashoggi’s fate, whether he was kidnapped by Saudi agents during a visit to the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul to obtain proof of his divorce or murdered on its premises, threatens to severely disrupt the US-Saudi alliance that underwrites much of the Middle East’s fault lines.

A US investigation into Mr. Khashoggi’s fate mandated by members of the US Congress and an expected meeting between President Donald J. Trump, and the journalist’s Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, could result in a US and European embargo on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and impact the kingdom’s brutal proxy war with Iran in Yemen.

It also would project Saudi Arabia as a rogue state and call into question US and Saudi allegations that Iran is the Middle East’s main state supporter of terrorism.

The allegations formed a key reason for the United States’ withdrawal with Saudi, United Arab Emirates and Israeli backing from the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program and the re-imposition of crippling economic sanctions.

They also would undermine Saudi and UAE justification of their 15-month old economic and diplomatic boycott of Qatar that the two Gulf states, alongside Egypt and Bahrain, accuse of supporting terrorism.

Condemnation and sanctioning of Saudi Arabia by the international community would complicate Chinese and Russian efforts to walk a fine line in their attempts to ensure that they are not sucked into the Saudi-Iranian rivalry.

Russia and China would be at a crossroads if Saudi Arabia were proven to be responsible for Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and the issue of sanctions would be brought to the United Nations Security Council.

Both Russia and China have so far been able to maintain close ties to Saudi Arabia despite their efforts to defeat US sanctions against Iran and Russia’s alliance with the Islamic republic in their support for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

A significantly weakened Saudi Arabia would furthermore undermine Arab cover provided by the kingdom for Mr. Trump’s efforts to impose a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would favour Israel at the expense of the Palestinians.

Finally, a conclusive determination that Saudi Arabia was responsible for Mr. Khashoggi’s fate would likely spark renewed debate about the wisdom of the international community’s support for Arab autocracy that has proven to be unashamedly brutal in its violation of human rights and disregard for international law and conventions.

Meanwhile, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has suffered significant reputational damage irrespective of Mr. Khashoggi’s fate, raising the question of his viability if Saudi Arabia were condemned internationally and stability in the kingdom, a key tenant of US, Chinese and Russian Middle East policy, were to be at risk.

The reputational damage suffered by Prince Mohammed embarrasses UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, who together with his aides and representatives in world capitals, worked hard to project his Saudi counterpart as the kingdom’s future.

Saudi Arabia has so far done itself few favours by flatly rejecting any responsibility for Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance with no evidence that the journalist left the consulate at his own volition; asserting that claims that it was involved were fabrications by Turkey, Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood; seeking to defame Mr. Khashoggi’s fiancé and supporters; and refusing to fully cooperate with Turkish investigators.

Saudi reluctance to cooperate as well as the US investigation and Ms. Cengiz’s expected meeting with Mr. Trump complicate apparent Turkish efforts to find a resolution of the escalating crisis that would allow Saudi Arabia to save face and salvage Turkey’s economic relationship with the kingdom.

Turkey, despite deep policy differences with Saudi Arabia over Qatar, Iran, and the Muslim Brotherhood, has so far refrained from statements that go beyond demanding that Saudi Arabia prove its assertion that Mr. Khashoggi left the Istanbul consulate at his own volition and fully cooperate with the Turkish investigation.

Reports by anonymous Turkish officials detailing gruesome details of Mr. Khashoggi’s alleged murder by Saudi agents appear designed to pressure Saudi Arabia to comply with the Turkish demands and efforts to manage the crisis.

Widely acclaimed, Mr. Khashoggi’s fate, irrespective of whether he as yet emerges alive or is proven to have been brutally murdered, is reshaping the political map of the Middle East. The possibility, if not likelihood is that he paid a horrendous price for sparking the earthquake that is already rumbling across the region.