Australia’s governing Liberal Party wracked by factional conflicts

Oscar Grenfell 

Australia’s Liberal Party, which is in a federal coalition government with the rural-based National Party, continues to be wracked by bitter factional conflicts in the wake of the August political coup that ousted Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and installed Scott Morrison in his place.

Public blows traded between Morrison and his supporters, and the Turnbull wing of the party over the past week have raised the prospect of a split.

The divisions, over how best the Australian ruling elite can respond to deepening geopolitical tensions between the US and China, economic volatility and seething discontent in the working class, are being compounded by the prospect that the Liberal-National Coalition will suffer a landslide defeat in an election that must be held by May 18.

Morrison’s government, which lost its lower house majority when Turnbull quit parliament, has been able to remain in office only because the Labor Party opposition and crossbench MPs have not seriously challenged it. They, along with the corporate elite, fear that the crisis of the government threatens the stability of the entire parliamentary set-up.

The latest turmoil erupted when media reports last weekend revealed that Turnbull had been denouncing the prime minister in private discussions with Liberal state MPs in New South Wales (NSW). Turnbull allegedly said Morrison’s only concern was “keeping his arse on CI,” the prime minister’s official car. The former leader reportedly said Morrison should call an early election on March 2.

Since then, Turnbull has refused to deny making the comments. They were leaked to the media, deepening the government’s crisis, while Morrison was in Argentina for the G20 summit.

The Turnbull’s self-styled “progressive” wing of the party is agitating for a federal election to be held before the NSW state election, which is scheduled for March 23, because the widespread hostility to the Morrison government will increase the prospect that the NSW Liberal government of Gladys Berejiklian will be swept from office, following a major Liberal defeat in the Victorian state election on November 24.

On Monday morning, Turnbull publicly demanded an early federal election, so that Berejiklian could “go to the polls and be judged on her record rather than being hit by the brand damage that arose from the very destructive, pointless, shameful leadership change in Canberra in August.”

An anonymous NSW Liberal MP told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday that the state government wanted Morrison to call a federal election “that afternoon.” Another said Turnbull was “just saying what everyone wants.”

Morrison sought to hit back at Turnbull by directly intervening in the internal affairs of the NSW party. He reportedly spent much of Sunday making phone calls to party figures, demanding that they ensure federal MP Craig Kelly, a member of the party’s most right-wing faction, be pre-selected for the forthcoming federal election.

Kelly was likely to lose the internal ballot for Liberal candidacy in his southern Sydney electorate of Hughes. In response, Kelly threatened to leave quit the Liberal Party and move to the crossbench, placing the government even further into a minority on the floor of parliament. Despite Turnbull publicly denouncing any move to bow to Kelly’s threat, Morrison prevailed, convincing the Liberal NSW state executive to dictate Kelly’s selection.

Kelly has been a vociferous opponent of Turnbull and a prominent supporter of the right-wing faction that serves as Morrison’s base.

There have been calls from this constituency for Morrison to intervene also in support of Jim Molan, a far-right federal Liberal senator and retired military major general. A key backer of the coup against Turnbull, Molan was relegated last month to an unwinnable fourth position on the party’s NSW senate ticket.

The machinations in NSW follow a series of blows to the crisis-ridden Morrison government.

On Saturday, Michael Kroger, a Morrison supporter, resigned as president of the Victorian state Liberal Party, after former state Premier Jeff Kennett and Turnbull backers demanded he step down following the unprecedented swings against the Liberals in the Victorian election.

The Liberals’ vote plunged by at least 6 percent, amid widespread hostility to its racist “law and order” campaign, and the party’s blatant turn to anti-immigrant xenophobia and right-wing populism.

Kroger’s resignation came just after federal MP Julia Banks, who holds a Victorian seat, announced on November 27 she was quitting the government and moving to the cross-bench. Banks repeated her claim that she was “bullied” by the anti-Turnbull faction led by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and declared on Sunday that the voices of party “moderates” had been “drowned out by the right wing.”

In a desperate drive to reassert his authority, Morrison called an unscheduled federal party-room meeting last night to push through changes to procedures for unseating a prime minister. The new rules, which passed, require a two-thirds vote by the party room for a spill to be called against a prime minister who had won a federal election.

The move does little to guarantee Morrison’s leadership, because he has not won an election, but was installed by the party-room.

The real purpose of the meeting it appears, was to assert Morrison’s control over the party. He used it to demonstrate his close ties to former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott, whom he consulted on the change. Abbott was a key architect of Turnbull’s ouster.

Editorials in the Murdoch-owned Australian and the Fairfax Media’s Australian Financial Review hailed Morrison’s move. The Australian declared: “The time for Scott Morrison to appease Malcolm Turnbull is over.”

An Australian opinion piece by businessman Maurice Newman pointed to the agenda underlying this support for Turnbull’s removal. Newman denounced the former prime minister as a “progressive” and rejected his defence of the “broad church” conception of the Liberal Party associated with post-World War II Prime Minister Robert Menzies. Newman wrote of Menzies: “Not for him the fashionable Left. He was a nationalist, not a globalist. He was a monarchist, not a republican.”

Newman’s article accused Turnbull of failing to appeal to “the forgotten people” of the “hollowed out middle-class,” whose conditions of life had been decimated by “crony capitalism.” Newman concluded by pointing to the possibility of a party emerging in the wake of a federal election “out of the ashes” of a defeated Liberal Party.

Behind the August coup is a push to refashion the Liberals into a far-right party, based on populism, anti-immigrant xenophobia and racism, in line with similar movements in Europe and the United States. It is aimed at channelling widespread disaffection into reactionary channels and cultivating a constituency that can be mobilised against the emerging social and political struggles of the working class.

Morrison also was at pains during the G20 summit to express his support for US President Donald Trump. Turnbull had, before his ouster, expressed concerns that the Trump administration’s “America First” program and aggressive confrontation with China could jeopardise the Australian ruling elite’s trading relations.

Four jobless youths commit suicide

Kranti Kumara 

In a collective suicide, four youth aged 17 to 24 years old jumped into the face of an oncoming train in the northwestern state of Rajasthan late last month.

The college-educated youth reportedly took this horrific step because they were overwhelmed at the prospect of being jobless. Three of them, Manoj Meena aged 24, Satyanarayan Meena aged 22, and Rithuraj Meena aged just 17, died on the spot. Eighteen-year-old Abhishek Meena succumbed to his injuries after being hospitalized.

All four hailed from the same village and shared an apartment not far from the railway tracks where they took their lives. The media reported their friends, 18-year-old Rahul and 19-year-old Santosh, as saying that the four youth had seen no escape from an abysmal future of joblessness and poverty. Without work, they would be forced to return to their backward village and to try to subsist as farmers in what is one of the most arid and impoverished parts of India.

The tragic joint suicide of these young graduates highlights the stark reality facing Indian youth.

Despite the incessant boasting of India’s ruling elite, particularly Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, about the country having the highest growth rate among the world’s large economies, India faces a devastating jobs crisis, with millions unable to find work, let alone well-paying, secure employment.

According to India’s Labour Ministry, at least 1 million new workers enter India’s job market every month. Yet the Business Standard reported in May of 2018, based on findings of the International Labour Organization (ILO), that from May 2014, when the BJP took office, until October 2017, just 823,000 additional jobs had been created—and most of these it classified as “vulnerable employment.”

India’s youth-suicides are the highest in the world. The Indian Home Ministry’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reported that more than 9,000 students committed suicide in 2015, or more than one every hour. Yet many experts believe these figures underestimate the phenomenon.

All over the world, youth face increasingly difficult circumstances due to the capitalist crisis. But in India, the pressures are especially severe. Because of the lack of or dilapidated state of health care and other public services, and of pensions and other social provisions, the vast majority of parents are dependent on their children in retirement, or even earlier, should they become sick or injured.

Joblessness is a burning issue in Rajasthan, where the campaign for the December 6 state assembly elections is now in high gear. As usual, the various bourgeois parties are falling over themselves making grandiose and entirely vapid promises of jobs for youth.

Currently, Rajasthan is governed by the BJP, under Chief Minister Vasundara Raje, a member of the Scindia clan, the royal family of the former princely state of Gwalior. The BJP combines rabid Hindu communalism with total subservience to big business, claiming that the only way to bring “development” and create jobs is to do whatever investors ask.

Epitomizing the vast gulf that separates her government from the bleak reality that faces Rajasthan’s youth, Raje cheerfully commented to the press that the “mood in the state is good.”

According to India’s Ministry of Labour and Employment, in March 2018 Rajasthan had a mere 12,854 openings in all sectors for 857,316 job seekers. The Census Bureau has reported that in 2016 the unemployment rate for the state’s 20 to 29-year-olds was over 30 percent.

When the BJP campaigned for the 2013 state assembly election, Raje made the now often quoted pledge to Rajasthan’s youth, “Lathi nahi, naukriya doongi (I will provide jobs, not police truncheons)”—a reference to the police beating unemployed youth who had protested against the then-Congress Party government earlier that same year. However recently, when over 200 youth marched peacefully to the BJP headquarters to submit a memorandum demanding jobs, the police beat them up in a similar fashion.

During the 2013 election campaign, Raje promised to create 1.5 million jobs by 2018. But according to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), out of the 127,817 people who received vocational training from the state only 9,904 were placed in jobs between 2014 and 2017.

There is a spate of other statistics that demonstrates the paucity of jobs in Rajasthan, in both the public and private sectors.

In 2017, when the state assembly secretariat advertised 18 job openings as office-attendants, over 13,000 people, including 129 engineers, 23 lawyers, a chartered accountant and 393 postgraduates, applied. Similarly, when the government recently advertised for five orderlies, it received over 23,000 applications, many of them from persons with advanced degrees.

The Rajasthan BJP government’s principal “job-creation initiative” has been to “reform” the state’s purportedly “rigid labor laws.” These changes, which have been held up by the Modi government as a model for all India and copied by several other BJP-governed states, allow businesses in Rajasthan to effectively hire and fire workers at will, while erecting further barriers to workers engaging in collective action.

Nationwide, the situation for youth is similarly desperate. Facing widespread disenchantment, Modi and his BJP are stoking communalism in the run-up to the April-May 2019 general election. In the previous 2014 parliamentary elections, Modi loudly proclaimed that he would bring “Acche Din (Good Days),” and create 100 million jobs by 2022 with his so-called “Make in India” program.

The “Make in India” campaign has involved Modi traveling to Europe, North America and elsewhere in Asia to urge investors to take advantage of a government determined to provide them with plentiful cheap labor, rapid land acquisition, and lavish tax subsidies. One of Modi’s biggest boasts is that industrial wages in India are one-quarter of those in China.

The Modi government is well aware of the widespread hatred and disenchantment it has evoked with its bogus promise of providing employment through its pro-businesses agenda. That is why it has now resorted to crash, albeit limited, “job-creation.”

In February 2018, the government-owned Indian Railways, the nation’s largest employer with 1.3 million workers, placed advertisements for 90,000 railway jobs. An eye-popping 28 million people applied. This has created a logistical nightmare for the railway since it now has to sift through over 21.2 million final applicants. Given the Indian Railways’ notorious safety record there is every reason to fear the new hires will be put hurriedly to work without adequate training.

Although those who committed suicide typify educated youth facing misery, the prospects facing working-class youth and the poor are bleaker still. The overwhelming majority of the latter are compelled to eke out a living working as temporary or part-time workers with no benefits and uncertain income.

The Modi government and their henchmen constantly boast about how their policies have achieved a “world-beating” economic growth rate of over 7 percent. There is good reason to suspect the GDP growth rate as computed by the Modi government is skewed. But be that as it may, the overwhelming benefits of what growth there has been has gone to India’s rich, above all the 1,500 persons possessing $100 million dollars in wealth or more.

Credit Suisse’s “2018 Global Wealth Report” reveals only one in 10 adult Indians possesses more than $10,000 in wealth. On the other hand, the number of dollar millionaires, which numbered just 39,000 in 2000 had increased by the middle of 2018 almost 10-fold to 343,000. This includes some 130 billionaires.

Sri Lankan court blocks functioning of Rajapakse cabinet

K. Ratnayake 

In a move that leaves Sri Lanka without a functioning government, an appeals court yesterday issued an interim order restraining Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse and his cabinet of ministers, state and deputy ministers from exercising their powers.

The court decision dramatically deepens the political crisis triggered when President Maithripala Sirisena unconstitutionally sacked Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister on October 26 and appointed former President Rajapakse in his place.

The court order was in response to a legal petition signed by 122 MPs, including Wickremesinghe, to prevent the functioning of prime minister and ministers appointed by Sirisena. Wickremesinghe, who is supported by his United National Party (UNP), the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), insists he was removed unconstitutionally and thus remains prime minister.

The petitioners declared that despite two no-confidence motions passed by the parliament on November 14 and 16, Rajapakse and his ministers continue as a cabinet and take governmental decisions.

The case is being heard before two judges—the court’s president Preethi Padman Surasena and Arjun Obeysekara. They have set the next hearing for December 12 and 13, and ordered Rajapakse and other ministers to appear and explain on whose authority they are acting.

Lawyers for Rajapakse and his ministers called on the court to dismiss the petition on technical grounds that the no-confidence motions had not been properly documented. They also argued that the country would plunge into anarchy if the cabinet were prevented from functioning.

Judge Surasena, however, rejected the argument, saying that “the damage that would be caused by allowing a set of persons who are not entitled in law to function as the prime minister or the cabinet of ministers or any other minister” would be more harmful. He said the court order was an interim one and not a final determination.

The court decision further undermines the position of Sirisena and Rajapakse in the worsening factional infighting in the Colombo establishment that has now proceeded for more than a month and shows no signs of any compromise or resolution.

Sirisena is engaged in one round of talks after another in a desperate attempt to end the political crisis. Yesterday the president met with UNP leaders for a second time to resolve the deadlock. After the meeting, however, the UNP said the talks failed. The UNP presented Sirisena with the affidavits from 122 MPs calling on him to reappoint Wickremesinghe as prime minister, which he flatly rejected.

In a meeting with TNA leaders yesterday, Sirisena said he would “take the necessary action within the next 24 hours” to end the political turmoil. Ominously, he said he would summon the country’s national security council and other officials. While he did not elaborate, it is a clear warning that Sirisena is considering the use of the military to impose his rule.

Sirisena is facing another legal challenge to his decisions to prorogue parliament, then dissolve it on November 9. The Supreme Court has temporarily overturned the dissolution and today begins hearing the petition against the president’s proclamation.

Following the appeals court order, Rajapakse immediately issued a statement declaring he did not agree with the judgment. Claiming that constitutional interpretations can only be made by the Supreme Court, Rajapakse said he would appeal to the highest court today, requesting that it stay the interim order restraining him and his ministers.

Rajapakse declared it was more important to be dedicated to “the struggle for political stability in the country in the struggle to win a general election.” Rajapakse and his allies are calculating that they can win an election, if one is called, by capitalising on the widespread alienation with the previous “unity” government over its attacks on living conditions.

Addressing a public meeting, a jubilant Wickremesinghe declared that the appeals court order was a “victory for the democracy,” adding: “What we want is to strengthen the democracy and the parliament.”

The claims by the rival Wickremesinghe and Rajapakse camps to be defending democracy are utterly bogus. Both have long histories of using police-state measures against working people. Their factional warfare erupted in response to a rising tide of opposition among workers and the poor to the International Monetary Fund’s austerity program, imposed by successive Colombo governments.

Sirisena broke from then President Rajapakse and ousted him in the 2015 presidential election in a Washington-backed regime-change operation, in league with Wickremesinghe. Sirisena was able to exploit the widespread hostility to the Rajapakse government’s autocratic methods of rule, austerity measures and the atrocities committed during the communal war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

However, the “unity” government of Sirisena and Wickremesinghe faced mounting opposition as it implemented the same IMF austerity agenda and used the police and military against striking workers and protests by students and the poor. After a landslide defeat in local elections earlier this year, Sirisena distanced himself from Wickremesinghe and then in October joined forces with Rajapakse, whom he had denounced as a dictator in the 2015 election.

The UNP and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) of Sirisena and Rajapakse represent the dominant bourgeois factions that have ruled the country since 1948, using anti-democratic methods and instigating anti-Tamil communalism that led to the devastating 30-year communal war. Whichever faction succeeds in grabbing power will resort to dictatorial forms of rule to suppress the developing mass opposition.

Yesterday, Colombo was in turmoil with protests by workers and youth. Hundreds of temporary workers sacked by the housing ministry defied police and demonstrated to demand their jobs back. A protest by unemployed university graduates was attacked by police. Today, hundreds of thousands of tea plantation workers are due to begin an indefinite strike for higher wages.

The intervention in the political crisis by the Supreme Court, and now the appeals court, is an expression of fears in ruling circles that the flagrant breach of constitutional norms will further fuel the disillusionment among working people in parliament and the entire political establishment. As a result, workers and youth could take a revolutionary direction.

The political crisis in Colombo has been compounded by the escalating confrontation between the US and China, which are both seeking to boost their influence in Colombo and throughout the region. Washington backed the ouster of Rajapakse in 2015 because he was regarded as too close to Beijing and, in the current situation, has lined up with Wickremesinghe. The Trump administration is undoubtedly engaged behind the scenes in undermining Rajapakse and Sirisena.

The working class cannot place any faith in either faction of the ruling class, which is united in its determination to suppress the growing opposition and protests, using whatever means necessary including the military and police. What is necessary is the independent mobilisation of workers, youth and the poor on the basis of an international socialist program to fight for a workers’ and peasants’ government. That is the perspective of the Socialist Equality Party.

Is ‘Peace in the Middle East’ in Russia's Interest?

Pieter-jan Dockx

Since its resurgence in West Asia through its intervention in the Syrian civil war, Russia has attempted to position itself as a conflict mediator for the region. Having established cordial ties with most of the region’s actors, Russia is perfectly placed to mediate—or so the narrative goes. At the core of this narrative lies the notion that Russia is perfectly placed to advance peace given its excellent bilateral relations in the region. However, proponents of the narrative have failed to consider that it was regional conflict that engendered these various cordial relationships in the first place, and have benefited Russia both politically and militarily.

Consequently, while Russia is indeed well-positioned to play mediator, it is not in Moscow’s interest to establish durable peace in West Asia. Four factors showcase how and why Moscow would not find it in its best interest to alter these ‘favourable conditions’, i.e. regional turmoil, and why the Russia-as-a-mediator narrative remains a mere discursive construct disconnected from reality.

Improved Bilateral RelationsThe Syrian situation has not only improved Russia's relationship with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime but has also stimulated Moscow’s ties with others involved in the conflict, like Israel and Turkey. In the three years prior to Russia’s intervention, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met only twice. Post intervention, they have met thrice a year and have had exchanged weekly phone calls. The Syrian civil war has also strengthened the Syrian Kurds, whom Turkey views as an existential threat. With Turkey’s traditional NATO allies like the US supporting the Kurdish forces, Ankara has shifted closer to Moscow. The planned purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defence system will solidify Turkey’s pivot eastward.

Under the pretext of fighting the Islamic State (IS), Kremlin has set up a counter-terrorism coordination centre in Baghdad, bringing together Russian, Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian military officials. Almost a year after Iraq formally declared victory over the IS, the meetings continue. In fact, Russian officials have alluded to the longevity of the organisation. Additionally, the centre's presence in Iraq points to Moscow’s intentions to use the fight against the IS to pull Baghdad into its orbit.

New Diplomatic BreakthroughsRegional diplomatic disputes have allowed Russia to break new ground politically. The ongoing Saudi-led blockade of Qatar and US President Donald Trump’s initial support for the move have led Doha to further diversify its security partnerships by looking towards Turkey and Russia. Russia-Qatar relations have been on the mend since a similar diplomatic rift in 2014, ultimately leading to a planned purchase of S-400s. While these disputes are often perceived as being zero-sum games, they are not so to Moscow. Improved ties with Doha have not affected Moscow’s partnerships with Riyadh.

Benefits for Russia’s Defence IndustryRegional conflict benefits Russia’s defence industry, with West Asia being an important export market. Data analysis demonstrates how the value of Russian arms exports to the region has more than tripled since 2000. The region also represents just under a third of all Russian arms exports, up from 15 per cent in 2000. Excluding Russia’s two largest costumers, China and India, the region’s share has increased to almost 60 per cent of the remainder of Russia’s arms sales.

Iraq, in particular, having witnessed continuous conflict since 2003, has vastly increased its defence purchases from Russia. For example, after reports surfaced showing Iran-linked militias like Kata’ib Hezbollah using US M1 Abram tanks in the fight against the IS, Washington applied pressure on Baghdad to rein in the tanks. Instead, Iraq turned towards Russia and began replacing its M1 Abrams with Russia’s T-90S and SK tanks.

Moscow’s intervention in Syria has also allowed it to battle-test, optimise and advertise the effectiveness of its weapon systems, leading to a further increase in arms sales  Over the course of three years, Moscow has tested over 200 new weapon systems of which some were not tactically opportune. Russian officials expect the ‘marketing effect’ of the Syrian war to be around US$ 7 billion.

Probability of Iran-Saudi ConfrontationOne conflict Russia has a genuine interest in preventing is a direct military confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Open conflict between the two would trigger panic in the oil market, pushing prices upwards. An oil exporter like Russia has no interest in such an increase, preferring a stable market with prices around US$ 70 per barrel. That said, direct confrontation between the regional powers is unlikely to take place in the near future. Iran’s behaviour in Syria with regard to Israeli airstrikes indicates that Tehran has no interest in opening up a new front with US-backed actors. With Saudi Arabia’s recent assertive foreign policy being largely unsuccessful, it is improbable that Riyadh will confront Tehran.

A critical analysis of Moscow’s re-entry into West Asia and its interests in the region challenges the emerging narrative of Russia’s suitability as a broker for peace. Turmoil in the Arab world has allowed Moscow to bolster its ties with various players and also benefited its defence industry. While global oil market dynamics give Russia an incentive to avoid war between Tehran and Riyadh, there is no appetite for such confrontation in either capital. Consequently, Moscow’s own interests, and the foundations of cordial relations Russia currently enjoys with West Asian countries, together render it unsuitable to play the role of a mediator for peace in the region.

Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals (SISGP) 2019 for Developing Countries

Application Deadlines:

1. To begin with, apply for a master’s programme at universityadmissions.se, between 16 October 2018 – 15 January 2019.
2. Apply for an SI scholarship between 4-14 February 2019, follow the instructions below.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible countries: International students (especially from developing countries)

To be taken in (country): Sweden

Accepted Subject Areas: SISGP offers scholarships to a large number of master’s programmes starting in the autumn semester 2019. Check the list of master’s programmes that are eligible for SISGP.

About Scholarship: The Swedish Institute Scholarships for Global Professionals (SISGP) programme is part of the Swedish government’s international awards scheme aimed at developing global leaders who will contribute to the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden and administered by the Swedish Institute (SI).
The programme offers a unique opportunity for global professionals to develop professionally and academically, to experience Swedish society and culture, and to build a long-lasting relationship with Sweden and with each other.
The goal is to enable the scholarship holders to play an active role in the positive development of the societies in which they live. Ideal candidates are ambitious young professionals with academic qualifications, demonstrated work and leadership experience, ambition to make a difference by working with issues which contribute to a just and sustainable development in their country in a long term perspective, and a clear idea of how a study programme in Sweden would benefit their country.
Priority will be given to applicants with a strong and relevant professional background and demonstrated leadership experience.

Eligibility/Criteria: Applicants must

• have minimum of 3,000 hours of demonstrated full-time or part-time employment, voluntary work, paid/unpaid internship, and/or position of trust.
• be from an eligible country
• display academic qualifications and leadership experience.
• be required to pay tuition fees to the universities, have followed the steps of university admission, and will be admitted to one of the eligible master’s programmes..
• have demonstrated leadership experience from employment, voluntary work, and/or internship after high school studies.
• Read more about the selection criteria, target countries, and eligible master programmes (in link below) before applying.

Number of Scholarships: Approximately 300 scholarships will be awarded

Scholarship Value: 

• Tuition fees: directly paid to the Swedish university by us
• Living expenses of SEK 10,000/month
• Travel grant of SEK 15,000 *
• Insurance against illness and accident
• Membership of the SI Network for Future Global Leaders(NFGL) – a platform to grow professionally and build your network while in Sweden
• Membership of the SI Alumni Network after your scholarship period – a platform for continued networking and further professional development

* The travel grant is a one-time payment for the entire study period. The grant is not applicable to students already living in Sweden.

The scholarship does not cover:

• Additional grants for family members
• Application fee to University Admissions

Duration of Scholarships: The Swedish Institute Study Scholarships is intended for full-time master’s level studies of one or two years, and is only awarded for programmes starting in the autumn semester. The scholarship is granted for one academic year (two semesters) at a time. It will be extended for programmes longer than two semesters, provided that the student has passed his/her courses/credits.

How to apply: The application process consists of these steps.

1. Apply for a master’s programme at universityadmissions.se
2. Apply for a SISGP scholarship
3. Notifications from University Admissions
4. Announcement of 300 successful SI scholarship recipients

It is important to go through ALL Application requirements before applying for this scholarship
GOODLUCK!


Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Protecting the Most Vulnerable from Genocide

J. P. Linstroth

Ghosts of European colonialism still haunt us today even in the 21stcentury. This was evident from the untimely death of American John Allen Chau, 26, from Washington state on November 16that the hands of Sentinelese-Jarawa people from the Andaman Islands.

The last days of Mr. Chau are reminiscent of the novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord(1965) by late naturalist, Peter Mathiessen, where everything goes wrong for the Christian missionaries, as they did for Chau. This young American was naively determined to eradicate what he called “Satan’s last stronghold” in the world and paid for it with his life.

There are only about 100 Sentinelese-Jarawa people left. They are fiercely independent, rejecting contact with outsiders and culturally remaining intact. Jarawa are small-statured and ebony-complexioned and thought to be remnants of people who originally migrated thousands of years ago from Africa and settled in the Andaman Islands east of India and west of Myanmar. For the most part, the Indian government has been successful in preventing interlopers from accessing their island. Chau paid some local fishermen to reach these remote Jarawa people.

As these tribal people have managed to remain isolated, they are also highly susceptible to viral contagion, even from the common cold and flu.

As an anthropologist who writes about indigenous issues, I am aware how much European colonialism is an ever-present issue in the minds and memories of many indigenous peoples because of the horrifying genocide wreaked upon them.

Indeed, there are very few “uncontacted” indigenous peoples remaining in our globalized planet. The majority of uncontacted natives may be found in the Amazon region in the borderland areas of Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru. Anthropologists are continually worried about the safety of such vulnerable people because of their lacking immunity to Western-borne illnesses and threats from outsiders as tourists, illegal loggers, and gold miners encroaching upon their territories.

In assessing the situation of isolated people like the Sentinelese-Jarawa of the Andaman Islands as well as the isolated Amerindians in the Amazon, we need to return to the history of Western thought and Western civilization for explaining the problems associated with contact in relation to indigenous peoples and Europeans.

We may begin with the Abrahamic religions’ origin story of Adam and Eve, who bit from the forbidden fruit of knowledge in the biblical Old Testament and were ejected from Eden by Yahweh. The symbolism is fairly clear. The Garden of Eden represents idyllic nature, the millennia when humankind spent hunting and gathering until the Neolithic Revolution about 12,000 years ago with the domestication of plants and animals. This was the so-called transition to civilization, eventually producing states, writing, hierarchies and class systems, organized religion, slavery, mass warfare, science, astronomy, mathematics, and genocide. It was a knowledge supposing humankind was somehow separate from nature and humans were superior to nature—at least to Western minds in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

What is more, in the “Age of Exploration,” Europeans believed they had to “civilize” non-Western people and bring them God’s word and convert natives to European ways. As such, along with killing and torturing natives, Europeans made it a practice of saving indigenes from their supposed state of nature, ignorance, and savagery.

When the Portuguese first landed in Brazil in 1500, Pêro Vaz de Caminha wrote King Manoel I: “They seem to be such innocent people that, if we could understand their speech and they ours, they would immediately become Christians. For it appears that they do not have or understand any faith…”Salvation of natives indeed became one of the primary projects of the conquest.

Such religious proselytizing supposes, like Mr. Chau, native peoples have no minds and no wills of their own and are devoid of proper religious thought. They are rather native objects and vessels who require filling with the true faith brought to them by force, if necessary—why would God give the means of force to the colonizers unless He wanted them to convert the natives?

Witness accounts from the Spanish conquest such as those of Bartolomé de las Casas describe how devastating the violence against Indians was, such as during the invasion of Peru: “…I affirm that with my own eyes I saw Spaniards cut off the nose, hands, and ears of Indians, male and female, without provocation, merely because it pleased them to do it, and this they did in so many places that it would take a long time to recount.”

Similarly, here is an eyewitness account by Captain Nicholas Hodt of an 1861 massacre of Navajo (Diné) in present-day Arizona: “The Navahos, squaws, and children ran in all directions and were shot and bayoneted. I succeeded in forming about twenty men…I then marched out to the east side of the post; there I saw a soldier murdering two little children and a woman. I hallooed immediately to the soldier to stop. He looked up, but did not obey my order…”

The arc of history of this protracted genocide, from massacres like “Wounded Knee” against the Sioux in 1890, or more recently, the effects of development in the Brazilian Amazon during the 1960s, is long and collectively never forgotten by descendants of the victims. In every case, aboriginal peoples are subsequently plagued by a sense of loss of their identities, homelands, ways of life, cultures, resulting often in alcoholism, domestic violence, drug abuse, and suicide.

Unbeknownst to most Americans, Hitler partially based his ideas of the concentration camp and extermination of European Jews on Native American reservations and our racial policies in the United States. Americans systematically conquered original peoples and justified the ensuing genocide with the idea of “Manifest Destiny,” a term coined by journalist John O’Sullivan, meaning the divine right to settle the continental United States from “sea to shining sea.” The Natives were just part of the natural landscape and in the way.

Genocide continues happening now in Brazil with the persecution of the Guarani-Kaiowá on ranch lands in Mato Grosso do Sul. Even more worrying is that newly-elected Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro promises to persecute Brazilian Amerindians for their lands.

Like the Sentinelese-Jarawa who voluntarily choose to be isolated, the Mashco-Piro people of Western Peru live by choice without contact. As anthropologist Glenn Shepard, of the Museu Emilio Goeldi of Brazil, explains: “…Isolated Amazonian groups have not remained stuck in the Stone Age since time immemorial. Rather, they have resorted to ‘voluntary isolation’ in modern times in order to survive.”

“Civilization” is an ambivalent outcome at best for indigenous peoples. At this late date, it is likely that we can learn much more from them than the reverse. After all, their lifeways would sustain for unknown millennia, whereas climate chaos, nuclear annihilation, resource depletion and contamination—products of conquering empires—are supplanting genocide with societal suicide. Time to listen instead of preach, time to slow down, consume much less, and respect all peoples and our planet.

Father of Green Revolution in India Rejects GM Crops

Colin Todhunter

Genetically modified (GM) cotton in India is a failure. India should reject GM mustard. And like the Green Revolution, GM agriculture poses risks and is unsustainable. Regulatory bodies are dogged by incompetency and conflicts of interest. GM crops should therefore be banned.

You may have heard much of this before. But what is different this time is that the claims come from distinguished scientist P.C. Kesaven and his colleague M.S. Swaminathan, renowned agricultural scientist and geneticist and widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution in India.

Consider what campaigner and farmer Bhaskar Save wrote in his now famous open letter in 2006:

“You, M.S. Swaminathan, are considered the ‘father’ of India’s so-called ‘Green Revolution’ that flung open the floodgates of toxic ‘agro’ chemicals, ravaging the lands and lives of many millions of Indian farmers over the past 50 years. More than any other individual in our long history, it is you I hold responsible for the tragic condition of our soils and our debt-burdened farmers, driven to suicide in increasing numbers every year.”

Back in 2009, Swaminathan was saying that no scientific evidence had emerged to justify concerns about GM crops, often regarded as stage two of the Green Revolution. In light of mounting evidence, however, he now condemns GM crops as unsustainable and says they should be banned in India.

In a new peer-reviewed paper in the journal Current Science, Kesaven and Swaminathan state that Bt insecticidal cotton has been a failure in India and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers. These findings agree with those of others, many of whom the authors cite, including Dr K.R. Kranthi, former Director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research in Nagpur and Professor Andrew Paul Gutierrez and his colleagues.

The two authors conclude that both Bt crops and herbicide-tolerant crops are unsustainable and have not decreased the need for toxic chemical pesticides, the reason for these GM crops in the first place. Attention is also drawn to evidence that indicates Bt toxins are toxic to all organisms.

Kesaven and Swaminathan note that glyphosate-based herbicides, used on most GM crops, and their active ingredient glyphosate are genotoxic, cause birth defects and are carcinogenic. They also note that GM crop yields are no better than that of non-GM crops and that India already has varieties of mustard that out-yield the GM version which is now being pushed for.

The authors criticise India’s GMO regulating bodies due to a lack of competency and endemic conflicts of interest and a lack of expertise in GMO risk assessment protocols, including food safety assessment and the assessment of environmental impacts. They also question regulators’ failure to carry out a socio-economic assessment of GMO impacts on resource-poor small and marginal farmers.

Indeed, they call for “able economists who are familiar with and will prioritize rural livelihoods, and the interests of resource-poor small and marginal farmers rather than serve corporate interests and their profits.”

In the paper, it is argued that genetic engineering technology is supplementary and must be need based. In more than 99% of cases, the authors argue that time-honoured conventional breeding is sufficient. In other words, GM is not needed.

Turning to the Green Revolution, the authors say it has not been sustainable largely because of adverse environmental and social impacts. Some have argued that a more ‘systems-based’approach to agriculture would mark a move away from the simplistic output-yield paradigm that dominates much thinking and would properly address concerns about local food security and sovereignty as well as on-farm and off-farm social and ecological issues associated with the Green Revolution.

In fact, Kesaven and Swaminathan note that a sustainable ‘Evergreen Revolution’ based on a ‘systems approach’ and ‘ecoagriculture’ would guarantee equitable food security by ensuring access of rural communities to food.

There is a severe agrarian crisis in India and the publication of their paper (25 November) was very timely. It came just three days before tens of thousands of farmers from all over India gathered in Delhi to march to parliament to present their grievances and demands for justice to the Indian government.

According to the Charter of Indian Farmers, released to coincide with the farmers’ march in Delhi:

“Farmers are not just a residue from our past; farmers, agriculture and village India are integral to the future of India and the world.”

Successive administrations in India have however tended to view Indian farmers as a hindrance to the needs of foreign agricapital and have sought to run down smallholder-based agriculture – the backbone of Indian farming – to facilitate the interests of global agribusiness under the guise of ‘modernising’ the sector, thereby ridding it of its ‘residue’ farmers.

To push this along, we now have a combination of World Bank directives and policies; inappropriate commodity cropping; neoliberal trade and a subsequent influx of (subsidised) agricultural imports; and deregulation, privatisation and a withdrawal of government support within the farm sector, which are all making agriculture economically unviable for many farmers.

And that’s the point, to drive them out of agriculture towards the cities, to change the land laws, to usher in contract farming and to displace the existing system of smallholder cultivation and village-based food production with one suited to the needs of large-scale industrial agriculture and the interests of global seed, pesticide, food processing and retail corporations like Monsanto-Bayer, Cargill and Walmart. The aim is to lay the groundwork to fully incorporate India into a fundamentally flawed and wholly exploitative global capitalist food regime.

And integral to all of this is the ushering in of GM crops. But as Kesaven and Swaminathan imply, GM agriculture would only result in further hardship for farmers and more difficulties.

Of course, these two authors are not the first to have questioned the efficacy of GM crops or to have shown the science or underlying premises of GM technology to be flawed. Researchers whose views or findings have been unpalatable to the GMO industry in the past have been subjected to vicious smear campaigns.

Despite the distinguished nature of the two scientists (or more likely because they are so distinguished and influential) who have written this current paper, we may well witness similar attacks in the coming days and weeks by those who have a track record of cynically raising or lowering the bar of ‘credibility’ by employing ad hominem and misrepresentation to suit their pro-GMO agenda.

And that’s because so much is at stake. India presents a massive multi-billion-dollar market  for the GMO industry which already has a range of GM crops from mustard and chickpea to wheat, maize and rice in the pipeline for Indian agriculture. The last thing the industry wants is eminent figures speaking out in this way.

And have no doubt, GM crops – and their associated chemical inputs – are huge money spinners. For example, in a 2017 article in the Journal of Peasant Studies, Glenn Stone and Andrew Flachs note that Indian farmers plant the world’s largest area to cotton and buy over USD 2.5 billion worth of insecticides yearly but spend only USD 350 million on herbicides. The potential for herbicide market growth is enormous and industry looks for sales to reach USD 800 million by 2019. Moreover, herbicide-tolerant GM traits are the biotechnology industry’s biggest money maker by far, with 86 per cent of the world’s GM acres in 2015 containing plants resistant to glyphosate or glufosinate. However, the only GM crop now sold in India is Bt cotton.

If we move beyond the cotton sector, the value capture potential for the GMO biotech sector is enormous. Clearly, there is much at stake for the industry.

The negative impacts of the Green Revolution can be reversed. But if commercial interests succeed in changing the genetic core of the world’s food supply, regardless of warnings about current failures of this technology and its unintended consequences at scientific, social and ecological levels, there may be no going back. Arrogance and ignorance passed off as ‘scientific’ certainty is not the way forward. That was a salient point when Bhaskar Save outlined his concerns about the impacts of the Green Revolution to Swaminathan back in 2006.

Scientists can and do change their views when presented with sufficient evidence about the flaws and negative impacts of technologies. This is how science and debate move forward, something which seems lost on the industry-backed scientists and ideologues who tout for GM.

It also seems lost on politicians who seem more intent on doing the bidding of foreign agricapital rather than listening to Indian farmers and following a more appropriate agroecologically-based route for rural development.

Bank of England warns “no-deal” Brexit would be worse than 2008 crash

Robert Stevens 

The Bank of England (BoE) has published an analysis warning that the UK could face economic collapse and chaos as the result of a “no-deal” Brexit. According to the BoE’s “worst case scenarios,” gross domestic product could fall as much as 10.5 percent over a five-year period, the official rate of unemployment could nearly double to 7.5 percent, inflation could rise to 6.5 percent, house prices could fall by 30 percent, commercial property prices could collapse by up to 48 percent, and the pound could fall to parity with the US dollar.

Such levels of economic dislocation and collapse have no precedent since World War II and far outstrip the impact of the 2008 economic crash.

The worst-case scenarios are based on a “no-deal” Brexit with no transition period, meaning the UK would leave the EU on March 29, 2019 and be forced to revert to World Trade Organization rules for trading with Europe and the rest of the world. The worst case presumes that there would be custom checks on the UK’s border for goods, with the UK unable to reach new trade deals with the EU or other countries until 2023.

While the bank said these scenarios were “not necessarily what is most likely to happen,” its analysis comes less than four months before the UK’s scheduled EU exit, under conditions where the proposed deal between Prime Minister Theresa May and the EU has not yet been agreed by the British parliament. Tomorrow a five-day debate on the agreement will begin, with a vote to be taken on December 11.

As it stands, there is no parliamentary arithmetic under which May can get the deal through parliament in the first vote, with all opposition parties opposed, including the Conservative Party’s de facto coalition partner, the Democratic Unionist Party, as well as some 90 mainly hard-Brexit Tory MPs.

Even the BoE’s scenario of a “disruptive Brexit” that nevertheless involves an “absence of border disruption and financial market disruption” envisages a major crisis, with a fall in GDP of 3 percent, a rise in unemployment to 5.75 percent, an increase of inflation to 4.25 percent, a decline in house prices of 14 percent and a collapse of commercial property prices to the tune of 27 percent.

The Financial Times notes that the time scales cited by the BoE in its analysis are optimistic, and economic disorder could happen far sooner. And, while mapping out scenarios of possible economic Armageddon, the BoE is careful to add the caveat that its Financial Policy Committee “judges that the UK banking system is strong enough to continue to serve households and businesses even in the event of a disorderly Brexit.”

Nevertheless, the Tories’ hard Brexit wing denounced the BoE’s report as the resurrection of “Project Fear,” as they described the Remain campaign in the 2016 referendum. Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the BoE had always “got it wrong.”

Jacob Rees-Mogg denounced BoE Governor Mark Carney as a “second tier Canadian politician who failed to get on in Canadian politics and then got a job in the UK.” He added, “I don’t think he’s greatly respected.” Calling for Carney to resign, he said the BoE head was “deeply politicized.” He continued: “It is unusual for the Bank of England to talk down the pound and shows the governor’s failure to understand his role… He is not there to create panic.”

Faced with such intractable divisions within the ruling Tory Party, the Tory house organ, the Spectator, alluded to the existential crisis facing British imperialism in a comment by James Forsyth. He wrote that ahead of the vote on the Brexit deal, there is “painfully little support for May’s plan… One cabinet minister is privately predicting that we are heading for the ‘gravest constitutional crisis’ in our history.”

Forsyth, however, described this assessment as “hyperbole,” as “the 17th century had several that were far worse.” He then acknowledged that “the next few weeks will put greater strain on the constitution than any other event in the past hundred years.”

It is extraordinary that Forsyth goes back to events nearly 370 years ago to draw any parallel with the Brexit crisis. The main event of the 17th century in England was the nine-year civil war (1642-1651), which culminated in the execution of Charles I in 1649 and laid waste to England, Scotland and Ireland, with total casualties of over 370,000, equivalent in Ireland to 41 percent of the total population. Even the Tories’ much preferred constitutional crisis, the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, saw the invasion of England by William of Orange and the fall of the Stuart dynasty.

The assessment of the BoE was substantiated by the analysis contained in a cross-departmental government report. It concluded that a no-deal Brexit could mean the UK economy growing by 9.3 percent less over the coming 15 years as compared to staying in the EU. Even if parliament eventually backed May’s Brexit plans, the UK economy could be up to 3.9 percent smaller after 15 years, according to another set of figures.

In response, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is doing everything possible to ensure that the crisis facing British imperialism is safely managed and confined within the institutions of the bourgeois state. On Friday, McDonnell wrote to the permanent secretary to the Treasury, Tom Scholar, informing him that “as shadow chancellor, I’m working with my shadow ministerial team and a team of advisors led by Lord Kerslake, in an exercise to prepare our shadow Treasury team for government in the light of a possible early general election. We are working on preparations for an initial post-election budget, the commencement of a spending review and various reforms of the role of the Treasury…”

His letter concluded with an assurance to British capital that nothing is being considered that will rock the boat: “In view of the current instability in government as a result of which an election could come at any time, I believe it behoves us to make suitable preparations now to ensure that there is a smooth transfer of power, obviously depending on the outcome of that election.”

Labour is also formulating a response whereby—general election or not—it will endorse a second referendum to reverse the Brexit vote. While Corbyn at this stage has not come out favouring a “People’s Vote” on May’s deal—as demanded by the Blairite wing of the party, who want the option of remaining in the EU on any ballot paper—McDonnell has made more accommodating statements.

Last Wednesday, he said that if Labour was not able to force a general election—Corbyn’s declared preferred policy—“we’ll be calling upon the government then to join us in a public vote,” adding, “that’s the sequence I think that we’ll inevitably go through over this period.”

On Friday, McDonnell also came down firmly in support of the inclusion in a second referendum of the option of remaining in the EU, saying, “It’s difficult to see Parliament deciding if there is to be a choice that they wouldn’t have at least some sort of Remain option on there. But it will be determined by Parliament if we get to that state.”

Andrés Manuel López Obrador inaugurated as new president of Mexico

Alex González & Don Knowland 

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) was sworn in as president of Mexico on Saturday. The new administration is being characterized, and hailed in many quarters, as the first “leftist” government in the country since 1940. Popular expectations are that his administration will reduce widespread poverty, as well as end endemic violence and corruption.

AMLO delivered a two-hour inauguration speech in Mexico’s Congress. He vowed to preside over a “radical and profound change” that will bring about a “rebirth of Mexico,” in which “the poor come first.” His administration would bring to Mexico a “fourth transformation,” likening it to the fight for independence from Spain (1810-1821), the liberal Reforma period under Benito Juarez (1858-1866) and the Mexican Revolution (1910-1921).

AMLO characterized the “neoliberal” economic model that has prevailed in the country for decades as a catastrophe that resulted in the concentration of income in a few hands and the impoverishment of the majority of the population, with many risking their lives to emigrate to the United States or taking the road of criminal activity.

Growth, he said, had averaged only 2 percent a year during this period, and public debt (presently 46 percent of GDP) rose without substantial accomplishments in infrastructure. AMLO contrasted this with the period from 1940-1982 (that is, before the rapid onset of globalization of the world economy) when growth averaged 6 percent per year without producing an increase in government debt. In contrast to a time period when Mexico was “self-sufficient,” it now was forced to import petroleum and corn, he said.

The privatization of Mexico’s oil industry under the energy reform of outgoing president Enrique Peña Nieto had not, AMLO said, saved the country as had been promised, but instead resulted in meager foreign investment and a decreasing rate of oil production, with excessive increases in the prices of gasoline, diesel, gas and electricity. He said his administration will “recover our oil like General [Lazaro] Cárdenas [Mexico’s president from 1934-40 who expropriated foreign oil holdings].” “I am a Cardenista,” he proclaimed.

The crisis in Mexico originated, López Obrador stressed, not only in of the failure of the neoliberal economic model, but also because of the predominance of corruption. During that period nothing “harmed Mexico more than the dishonesty of the rulers and the small minority that has profited from influence. That is the main cause of economic and social inequality and the insecurity and violence that we suffer.” His administration’s prime objective thus would be to end corruption and impunity.

As for ending the reign of violence that has plagued the country, in his speech López Obrador reiterated his proposal made over the last two weeks to modify the restrictions in the constitution on the military’s involvement in domestic policing and to create a new national guard composed of units from the army and the marines who would report to the military brass.

This was an about-face from his campaign promises to take the military off the streets and turn them back to the barracks—reversing a campaign launched in 2006, ostensibly to fight the drug cartels, that resulted in hundreds of thousand killed or disappeared.

López Obrador laid out a series of measures that amount at most to modest increases in public spending to alleviate poverty and “bring social justice.” All Mexicans ages 68 years old or older (63 years in impoverished indigenous areas) would receive a pension of 62 dollars a month—double the current rate. Persons with disabilities, in extreme poverty, and young people who neither study nor work, would receive benefits or scholarships. One hundred new universities will be built.

A recent poll by the newspaper El Economista showed that 45 percent of Mexicans believe that real change will be seen within a year under the new administration, and about half said that they expected AMLO to keep all or most of his campaign promises. The day of the inauguration, some 150,000 people attended a celebration in Mexico City’s central square, and 30,000 lined up to visit the presidential palace, which AMLO said would not be his residence, but a public museum.

However, these widespread expectations will soon come crashing up against AMLO’s program and the interests of the bourgeoisie that it embodies.

Although AMLO says Mexico will build new oil refineries, he also said the previous administration’s energy privatization reforms would not be undone, and foreign investment contracts will be honored.

As for the scourge of corruption, there would be no new prosecutions of former government officials, who will be allowed to keep the hundreds of millions of dollars they looted. He will only prosecute officials for future acts. Presumably, officials could return to business as usual after AMLO’s six-year term.

As for funding the reduction of poverty and unemployment, López Obrador declines to increase government debt and says an “austerity” budget will prevail.

Nor will his administration raise taxes, not even on the oligarchic sliver at the apex of Mexican society that benefited disproportionately from the neoliberal political economy he decries. They, like corrupt officials they trafficked with, can keep their ill-gotten wealth. Nor will AMLO pursue any restrictions on the banks or the financial sector, he says.

Most dangerous to the Mexican populace is López Obrador’s proposal for a new national guard, which will effectively result in the further militarization of the country. That is something his voters did not support or even contemplate; quite the contrary.

In his speech AMLO went to considerable lengths to conceal the real class character of the military as the armed representatives of the ruling class. They instead were defenders of democracy because they had not carried out a coup since the end of the Mexico revolution! In Mexico, he said, “we do not have military members that are part of the oligarchy, and they are backed by public opinion. … They have been nourished by the people, they are the people in uniform.”

The danger of such conceptions, and of increasing the power of the military at a time of growing social unrest, cannot be understated. The new national guard will be used to repress social opposition just as ruthlessly as under previous governments, if not more so. The purpose of portraying the military as allies of workers is to chloroform their class consciousness with nationalist poison ahead of the violent upheavals that will inevitably come when illusions in AMLO’s government are shattered.

AMLO attempts to depict the deepening crisis of Mexican society as a product of misguided policies by corrupt leaders rather than as the objective trajectory of the capitalist system. But he is only sowing illusions that “honest” leadership and better policies can relieve the oppression of the Mexican population.

As long as the financial oligarchy is allowed to dictate every aspect of life for the working class, there can be no real improvement in living conditions, under AMLO or any other capitalist politician.

The reality is that López Obrador’s new “leftist” government will mark a new stage in the crisis of the ruling class. All the formerly dominant bourgeois parties lie in tatters. Millions of workers, who have looked to AMLO and Morena to reverse their losses over the past four decades, are certain to be vastly disappointed.

These shattered illusions and the continuation of intolerable conditions under capitalism can only lead to social explosions on a scale not seen since the Mexican revolution.