Rising Politics of Intolerance and the Need for Unity

Graham Peebles

Over the last 20 years extreme right-wing groups have been on the rise throughout the world. They share a belief in white supremacism and conspiracy theories that allege there is a global plot to replace white Christian populations with Muslims and people of color.

As socio-economic inequality has grown and immigration increased the reactionary ideology of tribal nationalism has become more popular and bled into mainstream politics. Far right groups have garnered support and won political power in a number of countries, including Austria, Poland, Hungary, Italy, the US and India.

Rising far-right terror

Within the spectrum of the far right there are varying degrees of bigotry and Neo-Fascist ideals; at the darkest extreme there are the Neo-Nazi’s, a small percentage that holds the most violent views; next are the pro-white, anti-Semitic social conservatives, they form the majority and want a separation of the races; then there is the more moderate wing or Alt Lite, staunchly anti-feminist, anti-political correctness, pro-western chauvinism. All are abhorrent, all are dangerous; a hint of prejudice no matter where it comes from adds to the collective atmosphere of intolerance, fans the flames of division and can incite violence.

While overall terrorism throughout the world is declining, The Global Terrorism Index (GTI) states that, “there has been a real and significant increase in far-right terrorist activity.”

Since 2014, the number of attacks from right-wing extremists has been greater than attacks from Jihadists, and, the Anti-Defamation League report that during 2018 “right-wing extremists were linked to at least 50 murders in the United States [up 35% on 2017].” Globally, between 2013 and 2017 there were 113 attacks “by far-right groups and individuals…. of those 47 attacks took place in 2017.

On 15th March, 50 Muslims were murdered in Christchurch, New Zealand: the indiscriminate attack on two mosques during Friday prayers was carried out by Brenton Tarrent, a 28-year-old Australian white supremacist. Prior to the attack Tarrent published a 78-page document entailed The Great Replacement, online. In it he states that the aim of the Christchurch murders was “to take revenge on the [Muslim] invaders for the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by foreign invaders in European lands throughout history…and the thousands of European lives lost to terror attacks throughout European lands.” The manifesto title and many of the ideas promoted in it come from Le Grand Remplacement by 71-year-old Jean Camus and published in 2012.

Camus claims that the white Christian European population is being ousted by immigrants from the Middle East, North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. His views have become highly influential on right-wing groups, nationalist and identitarian movements across Europe, the US and elsewhere. Although Camus is particularly concerned with France and preserving French culture, he believes that all Western countries are faced with what he calls, “ethnic and civilizational substitution”, in which over the course of a single generation a civilization is transformed by immigration.

As a result of wars in the Middle East and economic insecurity in Sub-Sharan Africa large numbers of migrants have indeed fled to Europe and elsewhere seeking safety and a new life. The influx of migrants/refugee into western countries presents societal challenges and change, but is not a threat or an act of ‘replacement’. The vast majority of migrants do not want to leave their homeland and travel to a country they do not know; people migrate to escape conflict, persecution and economic hardship, much of it caused by the foreign policies of western powers over decades, the exploitation of poor countries over centuries and the concentration of global economic wealth.

Cries of hate; modes of tolerance

Far-right terrorism is a transnational issue; extremists from different countries are more connected than ever and work together. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies relates the example of how in early 2018 members of the Rise Above Movement (RAM, a white supremacist group based in California) “traveled to Germany, Ukraine, and Italy to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday and to meet with members of European white supremacist groups.” They posted photographs on Instagram with the RAM logo and words like “RAPEFUGEES ARE NOT WELCOME HERE”.

In Ukraine RAM members are reported to have met with Azov Battalion, a paramilitary unit of the Ukrainian National Guard believed to be training and radicalizing white supremacist organizations based in the United States.

The internet plays a crucial role in the work of such groups: social media platforms are employed by both Islamist and right-wing extremists to spread propaganda, organize training, make travel arrangements for events/protests, raise funds and recruit members. Extreme right-wing Internet channels spread lies, exaggerate and mislead; when challenged the sacred cow of freedom of speech is invoked to justify the use of inflammatory language. Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right, but when it leads to murderous violence it violates the most basic human right, the right to life; freedom of speech needs to be conditioned by a sense of social responsibility, respect and understanding of others.

Acts of hate and intolerance of all kinds have been increasing exponentially across the western world in recent years. The 2016 election of Donald Trump in the US, the highly divisive EU referendum in Britain the same year and the influx of refugees fleeing wars and economic hardship triggered a wave of crimes against immigrants, particularly Muslims, as well as other minority groups. Liberal politicians, especially women, have also been targeted, many receiving hate mail and violent threats from right-wing extremists.

The current hatred of Muslims was aroused by the 9/11 attacks and inflamed by the ‘War on Terror’ announced by President George W. Bush in 2007; prejudice normalized, the far right flourished. A 2010 poll conducted by Gallup found that almost half of Muslim Americans experienced racial or religious discrimination, which is on par with “Hispanic Americans (48%) and African Americans (45%),” and, according to research by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency a third of Muslims in Europe say they face discrimination effecting employment, access to public services and housing.

Mainstream politicians stir up discrimination and incite hate; President Trump openly expresses hostility to foreign nationals and consistently makes and retweets Islamophobic comments, he has banned people from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the US, talks of the US being invaded and is building a ‘wall’ on the Mexican/US border. He is not alone in pandering to prejudice, many right and far right leaning politicians in western democracies have been guilty of fanning the fires. A striking example was the recent action by UK Home Secretary, Sajid David when he stripped Shamima Begum of her British citizenship. The 19 year old, who was in the final days of pregnancy when the announcement was made, had made the mistake of going to Syria in 2016 to support ISIS and marry an ISIS fighter. Her baby was born inside a refugee camp in Syria and, due to lack of proper medical care, died three weeks later.

Not only is the action to make her stateless illegal, it panders to the rhetoric of right wing populism and, instead of fostering forgiveness and compassion, adds to the creation of an environment in which judgment, intolerance and retribution flourish.

Unity not division

Protectionist ideals flourish in an atmosphere of fear, of economic instability and an unstable political environment; such insecure conditions strengthen inward-looking insular attitudes allowing the divisive ‘us versus them’ ideology to become the norm. Divisions of all kinds feed the idea of separation, create distrust, suspicion and fear; and fear leads to conflict and hate.

A cornerstone of the economic system and many aspects of contemporary life is competition; competition encourages division. Competition and aggression go together: the sense that we must compete or fight to survive, that others – especially others that are dissimilar – are regarded as opponents, rivals, competitors wanting what we have, which we must defend at all costs. Trust is nowhere in such an unjust world, society fractures along flag waving lines, violence erupts.

One of the consequences of this combative socio-economic system is inequality – of wealth, income, opportunity, influence, access to culture etc., etc. This social poison fuels a range of ills including mistrust, particularly of ‘the other’, someone who looks, talks and prays differently. Societies with the highest levels of inequality have the lowest levels of trust.

Competition, socio-economic inequality and poverty are not the cause of right-wing extremism, neither is the spread of misinformation or the use of inflammatory language, but collectively they form a powerful force in the creation of circumstances in which negative human tendencies like fear and aggression, are inflamed.

Division in any form, including nationalism, and competition go against human nature; if we are to free the world of all forms of extremism and hate they need to be driven out of society and from the systems under which we live. Unity is the keynote of the times, unity with the greatest level of diversity; modes of living that encourage tolerance and unite people must be actively inculcated. This means rejecting competition and embracing cooperation; it means sharing resources, information and wealth equitably; it means building trust and right relationships. Only then will there be peace within our communities and the wider world.

The Health Care Crisis in Rural America

Barb Kalbach

We’ve got a rural health care emergency on the horizon.

Rural hospitals are closing or teetering on the brink of closure at an alarming rate. More than a hundred have closed since 2005 and hundreds more are on life support. Long-term care facilities are vanishing across rural America or being bought up by large corporations who care about profit, not the care of our loved ones.

Most rural hospitals have even stopped delivering babies — you’ll need to go to the city for that, so plan ahead.

I know firsthand. I’m a registered nurse and lifelong Iowan from the country. I’ve kept a close eye on where we’ve been with health care, and where it appears we’re headed. It’s not looking too good for my community and others if we stay on our current failed path.

Medicaid expansion was supposed to help here in Iowa. It sure didn’t — because we handed the program over to private, for-profit “managed care organizations.” What we got in return was less care — and more services denied, facilities shuttered, and lives lost to corporate greed.

Hospitals that were already struggling now have to submit and re-submit claims to these private companies and wait months, if not years, to get paid. Even without privatized Medicaid, we’d still be facing an impending rural healthcare emergency. Privatization merely hastened what was already happening.

Americans spend about twice as much on health care than any other developed country, but we live shorter lives — even as we create “health care billionaires” that get profiles in magazines like Forbes.

The for-profit healthcare system is an extractive industry, helping to suck the wealth and life out of communities, especially in rural areas. We’re being left behind because the for-profit insurance industry doesn’t see us as worth their time.

Rural hospitals, local nursing homes, and care facilities are the lifeblood of our small towns across the heartland. We’re watching our farms and small towns wither away as the countryside empties out and our health declines.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. A system that puts the wellbeing of our community ahead of the bottom line of a select few can and will deliver the care we need, where and when we need it, and keep our rural communities alive and vibrant.

Which brings us to the Medicare for All Act of 2019 introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state. Instead of allowing private corporations to decide who pays for health care and how much, we would put our financing back into public hands — and our health care decisions back into the hands of patients and their care provider.

Under Medicare for All, virtually all aspects of our health care will be covered. This includes, but isn’t limited to, medical, dental, vision, hearing, prescription drugs, mental health, addiction treatment, and much more.

Medicare for All also covers long-term and in-home care as well. What a gift to our families, especially those that often go unseen by an industry dominated by profit: the elderly and people with disabilities. Long-term and in-home care allows people to stay near their families or in their homes, rooted in the communities we call home.

Perhaps most importantly for Iowa and other rural communities, Jayapal’s bill includes a special projects budget for capital expenditures and staffing needs of providers in rural or medically underserved areas.

Will this cost money? Of course it will. But we’ll actually spend less overall than we’re currently spending in our broken health care system, and we’ll get better and more comprehensive coverage.

For all these reasons, Medicare for All is the prescription America and our rural communities need.

‘Every War Is a War Against Children’

Kathy Kelly

We, in the United States, have yet to realize both the futility and immense consequences of war even as we develop, store, sell, and use hideous weapons. The number of children killed is rising.

At 9:30 in the morning of March 26, the entrance to a rural hospital in northwest Yemen, supported by Save the Children, was teeming as patients waited to be seen and employees arrived at work. Suddenly, missiles from an airstrike hit the hospital, killing seven people, four of them children.

Jason Lee of Save the Children, told The New York Times that the Saudi-led coalition, now in its fifth year of waging war in Yemen, knew the coordinates of the hospital and would have been able to avoid the strike. He called what happened “a gross violation of humanitarian law.”

The day before, Save the Children reported that air raids carried out by the Saudi-led coalition have killed at least 226 Yemeni children and injured 217 more in just the last twelve months. “Of these children,” the report noted, “210 were inside or close to a house when their lives were torn apart by bombs that had been sold to the coalition by foreign governments.”

Last year, an analysis issued by Save the Children estimated that 85,000 children under age five have likely died from starvation or disease since the Saudi-led coalition’s 2015 escalation of the war in Yemen.

“Children who die in this way suffer immensely as their vital organ functions slow down and eventually stop,” said Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children’s Country Director in Yemen. “Their immune systems are so weak they are more prone to infections with some too frail to even cry. Parents are having to witness their children wasting away, unable to do anything about it.” Kirolos and others who have continuously reported on the war in Yemen believe these deaths are entirely preventable. They are demanding an immediate suspension of arms sales to all warring parties, an end to blockades preventing distribution of food, fuel and humanitarian aid and the application of full diplomatic pressure to end the war.

The United States, a major supporter of the Saudi-led coalition, has itself been guilty of killing innocent patients and hospital workers by bombing a hospital. On October 3, 2015, U.S. airstrikes destroyed a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing forty-two people. “Patients burned in their beds,” MSF reported, “medical staff were decapitated and lost limbs, and others were shot from the air while they fled the burning building.”

More recently, on March 23, 2019, eight children were among fourteen Afghan civilians killed by a U.S. airstrike also near Kunduz.

Atrocities of war accumulate, horrifically. We in the United States have yet to realize both the futility and immense consequences of war. We continue to develop, store, sell, and use hideous weapons. We rob ourselves and others of resources needed to meet human needs, including grappling with the terrifying realities of climate change.

We should heed the words and actions of Eglantyne Jebb, who founded Save the Children a century ago. Responding to the British post-war blockade of Germany and Eastern Europe, Jebb participated in a group attempting to deliver food and medical supplies to children who were starving.

In London’s Trafalgar Square, she distributed a leaflet showing the emaciated children and declaring: “Our blockade has caused this, – millions of children are starving to death.” She was arrested, tried, convicted, and fined. But the judge in the case was moved by her commitment to children and paid her fine. His generosity was Save the Children’s first donation.

“Every war,” said Jebb, “is a war against children.

Aging China

Tom Clifford

A country that turns grey before wealthy is the dilemma facing those who reside in the leadership compound of Zhongnanhai, just off Tiananmen Square.

A demographic timebomb is ticking and while it is primed to go off after the current leadership in China retires, it is a scenario that could undermine the economy and political stability long before the predicted detonation.

Despite the abolition of the one-child policy, in 2015, the birth rate last year was 10.94 per thousand, the lowest since 1949, when Mao Zedong took power. In 2017 it was 12.43 per thousand, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. The number of babies born in 2018 fell by two million to 15.23 million. In some areas the birth rate plunged. In Qingdao, a city in eastern Shandong province – one of China’s most populous regions – births between January and November decreased by 21 per cent to just over 81,000 compared to the previous year.

For decades most families were limited to one child to control population growth. This policy was often enforced with abortions and harsh financial penalties. A gender imbalance occurred. About 117 boys were born for every 100 girls in 2015 as parents believed males would better secure their welfare in old age.

But the onset of an ageing society and a shrinking workforce saw this policy relaxed in 2015 when couples were allowed two children. But his has not gone to plan. Rising and stratospheric education, health and housing costs make it difficult for couples to afford even one child, let alone two. Also living arrangements mean that many couples have to look after both sets of parents, often in small apartments.

Traditionally, care for the elderly is the responsibility of the children, particularly in a Confucian society where respect for elders is part of the social fabric. Not only is it part of tradition, it is the law. There is a legal requirement for children to look after their parents’ “spiritual and physical needs”. The rising numbers of those classified in the ranks of the elderly will put an unprecedented strain on the ties that hold society together.

China’s workforce – those aged between 16 and 59 – was 897.3 million last year, a 4.7 million drop from 2017. The workforce is on track to decline by as much as 23 per cent by 2050.

China is ageing more rapidly than almost any country in recent history, according to the United Nations. A serious labor shortage will be the consequence.

There were about 222 million people aged 60 years or older as of 2015, about 17 per cent of the nation’s entire population, currently 1.3 billion people. This is expected to peak at 1.4 billion in 2029. The decline will set in immediately after that according to a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences study released in January. The population decline means less domestic consumption, and thus rapidly slowing economic growth. Spending will have to be re-evaluated by new financial strains on the government. The consequences of this will be felt far beyond China’s borders. It was Chinese spending that helped the West avoid an even steeper downturn after the 2008-9 crash.

A baby boom under Mao was followed by more than three decades of a one-child policy, formally introduced in 1979, that created distortions in the economy. True, many poor people in the countryside, where the policy was less strictly enforced, had more than one child. The wealthy, traditionally in the cities, had one. These were the inheritors. That generation of first wealth was passed down to one child instead of dividing it up among siblings. Wealth was concentrated in the coastal areas. This created enormous distortions. Disparity between rich and poor is obvious. The richest 1 percent of households own 30 percent of China’s wealth, according to a Peking University study.

China has relied on government credit to boost its economy. As the population ages, the government will need to divert a good chunk of that funding to take care of the elderly.

In one sense, it is testament to the country’s growing prosperity and new opportunities for women they prioritize careers over raising children and shun traditional roles.

This is already apparent, though not in the government, still exclusively male. But women are outperforming men in education and the workplace. More women than men attend universities, despite the gender imbalance. At least 40 percent of Chinese GDP is attributable to women – the highest proportion in the world. Some 7 in 10 Chinese mothers work outside the home and 80 percent of all female self-made billionaires, globally, are Chinese.

A society undergoing such profound change is ripe for instability.

There are sleepless nights in Zhongnanhai.

Russia Was Never the Real Scandal

Peter Certo

Robert Mueller won’t be filing any more indictments related to the “Russiagate” investigation.

Though the search unearthed ample evidence that Russia wanted Trump to become president — and hints that some members of Trump World were perhaps aware of this — the recent summary declared no concrete findings that the two camps knowingly “colluded.”

The president, naturally, is declaring victory. And his anti-Mueller attorney general is preemptively clearing the president of related obstruction charges, it seems.

Of course, this won’t end the president’s legal troubles. Lawsuits have piled up related to emoluments and sexual harassment. And legal and congressional inquiries into his taxes, business dealings, and possible campaign finance violations are, in various stages, underway.

What it should end, however, is the incredibly naive belief that someone was going to wave a magic wand and make all this “Trump stuff” go away.

This was a hope that “the system” itself was fundamentally sound and would correct itself, expelling all this unpleasantness like a bad burrito. Trump himself cast the investigation as an effort to de-legitimize his electoral college victory, and this wasn’t entirely incorrect.

The thing is, evidence of much more serious “collusion” — with corporations and the wealthy — has always been hiding in plain sight. Though these unique excesses of the Trump era have gotten some coverage, they were never treated as the threat to his legitimacy that Russia was.

I mean, consider the facts.

Backed by health insurance corporations, Trump and the GOP have spent years trying to repeal, negate, or undermine the law that’s provided health care to between 20 and 30 million Americans. (They failed in Congress, but they’re still trying in court.)

Backed by billionaires, they passed an almost incomprehensibly large tax cut for the rich that’s sent the deficit soaring to record heights — and immediately proposed huge cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to cover the difference.

Egged on by military contractors, they’ve put forth military budgets that award more money to a single corporation — Lockheed Martin — than the federal government spends on K-12 education. (And much of it is for a single plane that doesn’t work.)

In lockstep with fossil fuel companies, they’ve put coal lobbyists in charge of the EPA, oil men in charge of the State Department, and at every juncture tried to hound climate science out of government.

Finally, arm in arm with the private prison industry, they’ve loosened federal restraints on private detention facilities and packed them with record numbers of immigrants with no criminal records — even children and babies. (Indeed, this abuse of immigrants is the lone promise Trump’s kept to his working white voters.)

I’m hardly alone in thinking all these crimes far more atrocious than any exchange of nods with shadowy Russians or their online troll farms. But while some leading Democrats and media stories centered Mueller as a central figure of the “the resistance,” real people were organizing to fight the administration on all these fronts.

Groups like the Poor People’s Campaign are organizing to repeal the entire billionaire tax cut package. Democratic socialists have made universal health care a mainstream expectation. The Sunrise Movement and others have turned the Green New Deal into an almost household name.

Meanwhile, immigrant rights movements have even gotten elected officials to tweet #AbolishICE, and made congressional Democrats hold the line on the wall. And more bold ideas are coming around cutting the enormous Pentagon budget to fund social priorities.

The necessity of these movements suggests that “the system” is, in fact, not so sound. But thanks to these efforts, the body politic may soon be.

I’ll be fine if I never see another headline about Robert Mueller again. Let’s see more about the folks doing the real work of “resistance.”

Bone marrow transplant removes HIV from a second patient

Benjamin Mateus

A second individual, known as the “London patient,” has been recently confirmed to be free of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection after receiving a bone marrow transplant for Hodgkin’s lymphoma from a donor with a genetic resistance to the virus. Thirty months after the transplant, multiple tests indicate there is “no return of the virus.”

At this stage, the virus is considered to be in remission. Specialists in the field suggest a three- to four-year period to confidently confirm the cure.

A possible third case was recently announced on March 6 at a conference on retroviruses and opportunistic infections held in Seattle. The “Dusseldorf patient” has shown no signs of infectious HIV more than three months after discontinuing antiviral medications. There are six other HIV-infected patients who have received bone marrow transplants from donors resistant to the virus and might in the future be deemed cured.

Diagram of the bone marrow transplant process. Credit: BONEMARROWmx

HIV is a sexually transmitted virus and the precursor to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), one of the most widespread and deadly diseases on the planet. The World Health Organization estimates that at least 36.9 million people worldwide are infected with HIV/AIDS and that an additional 1.8 million individuals become newly infected each year, approximately 5,000 new cases per day.

Timothy Ray Brown, initially known as the “Berlin patient,” was considered the first HIV-infected patient to be cured. Brown had acquired HIV in 1995 while attending university in Berlin. For 10 years he remained well on antiviral medications that kept the infection in check. In 2005 he developed acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood cells that develops in the marrow of the bones. This leads to symptoms such as shortness of breath and fatigue and can be rapidly fatal without treatment.

Timothy Ray Brown, the “Berlin Patient.” Credit: Manuel Valdes, AP

Initially, he underwent chemotherapy, which put the cancer into remission. As a precaution, Brown’s oncologist obtained a blood sample to test for a possible stem cell transplant as a next option in case the remission was of short duration. Most patients won’t find a donor match, but fortuitously for Brown, he had 267 matches, which led his doctors to consider finding a donor with recently identified mutations in their white blood cells that make them resistant to HIV infection. (This inherited mutation is called CCR5 delta 32 and is discussed below.)

When the leukemia rebounded in late 2006, Brown decided to go ahead with the transplant. Such medical procedures are, however, complex and carry significant and potentially lethal complications. They are generally only used after more conventional treatments for cancer have already failed. He stopped his antiviral medications, and within three months the HIV was no longer found in his bloodstream.

In Brown’s case, his leukemia recurred a year later, and he underwent a second transfer with the same donor. Complications with the second procedure included severe brain injury that left him nearly blind and paralyzed with a prolonged but eventually full recovery.

As a result of the two bone marrow transplants, however, Brown has since remained free of HIV.

The white blood cells searched for by Brown’s doctors are those with a mutation to their CCR5 receptor on CD4+ T-cells. These cells, helper T-cells that express the CD4 protein on their surface, assist other white blood cells by regulating immune responses to an assortment of infections or pathogens. Helper T-cells are infected by HIV when the virus uses a combination of the CCR5 protein and the CD4 receptor to infiltrate the cell, in turn disrupting the coordinated functioning of the immune system.

When the number of infected CD4+ T-cells are sufficiently suppressed, this leads to the symptomatic stage of the infection, making the patient susceptible to a host of opportunistic infections popularly known as AIDS. An untreated person with AIDS can die from a common cold in a matter of days, much less from more virulent infections.

Schematic of how HIV infiltrates a helper T cell using the CCR5 protein and CD4 receptor. Credit: Medscape

Proof of individuals resistant to HIV emerged in 1994 when Stephen Crohn was found to be free of the virus after multiple sexual encounters with partners infected with HIV. He was found after several years of research seeking to understand the molecular mechanisms that lead to viral entry into white blood cells. When investigators analyzed Crohn’s blood, they found a mutation that makes a malfunctioning CCR5 receptor, preventing the HIV virus from entering helper T cells.

Since the identification of this mechanism, considerable research has gone into developing therapeutic interventions to block the function of CCR5. Though several drugs called CCR5 receptor antagonists have been studied, Maraviroc, developed by Pfizer and approved by the FDA in August of 2007, remains the first and only CCR5 inhibitor on the market. The drug was found to achieve complete suppression of the virus in 60 percent of people who have had significant resistance to other HIV drugs, though potential serious liver toxicity requires close monitoring.

Advances in HIV treatments, however, have not made access to the drugs for those infected universal. Only 59 percent of people living with HIV are receiving antiviral treatment, leaving 15.2 million human beings constantly in fear of dying from a minor infection.

Moreover, stem cell transplants from CCR5 mutation donors are unlikely to be realistic treatment options for millions affected by the virus. Combination treatment regimens are available, and the transplants carry significant harsh side effects, including the risk of death.

However, having elucidated the molecular pathways and applying the proof of concepts in the treatment of these individuals provides a tremendous impetus towards designing new cures and targeting the treatment for eradicating HIV and possibly future diseases. This will require a global collaborative effort, unfettered by the capitalist market and profit considerations, to coordinate and translate these findings into measurable outcomes.

Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev resigns amid mounting political crisis

David Levine & Clara Weiss

In a sign of growing social and political turmoil in Central Asia, Kazakhstan’s 78-year-old president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has been head of state of the country since its formation out of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, announced his immediate resignation on Tuesday, March 19. Kazakhstan is of enormous geostrategic and economic significance. It is the largest country in Central Asia and generates well over half of the region’s GDP.

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who had been chairman of the Kazakhstan Senate, the upper house of parliament, was sworn in as president of Kazakhstan on March 20. He is to remain in office until new elections are held next year.

Nazarbayev was for decades a high-ranking functionary of the Stalinist bureaucracy and played a central role in the restoration of capitalism in Kazakhstan, which threw millions into poverty and impelled millions more to emigrate. Among the positions he held were president of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (1990–1991), secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan (1979–1984), deputy of the Soviet of the Union of the USSR (1979–1989) and first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan (1989–1991).

Nazarbayev’s authoritarian regime has been characterized by extreme social inequality, nepotism, corruption and the violent suppression of political and social opposition, involving a rigorous regime of political censorship, as well as a language policy discriminating against non-Kazakh people who previously comprised the majority of the country's population. The Kazakh economy has grown significantly, especially since 2000, largely based on the extraction of the country’s vast precious mineral and oil resources. When oil workers in Zhanaozen went on a militant strike in late 2011, Nazarbayev oversaw a police massacre of the striking workers, with 11 killed and many more wounded.

In his March 19 announcement, Nazarbayev made clear that he plans to remain a key player in Kazakhstan’s politics. Nazarbayev will remain the most powerful person in the country for the rest of his life and oversee the process of a reshuffling of power relationships among Kazakhstan’s elites.

A 2010 law established Nazarbayev’s special status as Yelbasy, “Leader of the Nation” and bestowed upon him the title Halyq Qaharmany, “Hero of the People.” Nazarbayev enjoys lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution. The secrecy and inviolability of his own assets and wealth, as well as those of the family members living with him, are guaranteed.

Nazarbayev retains his special status as Yelbasy, and will remain chairman of the Security Council, chairman of the Nur-Otan Party, and a member of the Constitutional Council. He will also remain chairman of the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan and chairman of the Managing Council of the Samruk Kazyna sovereign wealth fund. The latter company, owned by the state, is the sole or majority shareholder of the national railroad company, the KazMunayGas oil company, the airline Air Astana, and a long list of other key industrial enterprises.

Nazarbayev will thus have veto power over any and all decisions of government, including the power unilaterally to issue decrees with the effect of law, and has special powers that will effectively allow him to make key national economic policy decisions directly, without approval from the government.

In his inaugural address on March 20, Tokayev, the new president, proposed that the Kazakhstan capital city of Astana be renamed as Nur-Sultan in honor of Nazarbayev. The proposal was quickly adopted by the parliament as well as the city council. The central street in Almaty (Alma-Ata), Kazakhstan’s largest city, had already been renamed in Nazarbayev’s honor in 2017. When protests against the decision occurred several days later, the police arrested numerous demonstrators.

Also on March 20, the Senate elected Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, to take over Tokayev’s position as chairperson. Nazarbayeva, born in 1963, has had parallel careers in both politics and business and had an estimated wealth of $595 million as of 2013. Political commentators have suggested her as the most likely successor to take the presidency after the 2020 election.

Nazarbayev did not name a specific reason for his sudden and somewhat unexpected resignation. His health condition is mostly a matter of secrecy, but it is known that he underwent prostate surgery in Germany in 2011. His government has been rocked by crisis recently, with Nazarbayev dismissing all members of his administration on February 21.

Definite political and social conditions point to the broader concerns that underlie the political crisis in Astana and the decision of Nazarbayev to initiate the process of “transitioning” to another president.

First, the country’s ruling class, recruited to a high degree from the former Stalinist bureaucracy, is highly sensitive to the international resurgence of working-class struggles throughout the globe, including in Central Asia and the former Soviet Union. Kazakhstan, in particular, has seen a series of strikes and protests over the past few years and in recent months.

Social anger also recently erupted after a fire in Astana (now Nur-Sultan) on February 4 killed five children while their parents were at work. The family had been living in a temporary building heated by an electric heater and a stove. While official public mourning events were held in multiple cities, protests occurred in Astana involving public statements by women with multiple children.

Urzada Uaisova, an Astana resident and mother of six children, was quoted by news agency Interfax.by as saying, “I have been standing in line [for housing] since 2007. Twelve years have passed, and they haven’t given us anything yet. They have made some promises, but we just keep getting fooled. Each month, I pay 50,000 tenge (about US$130) for my housing, and there are costs for coal to heat the home. Why doesn’t the state give subsidies for the mothers of multiple children? If they would just let us rent an apartment for 50,000 tenge, we would be happy to pay that if we could later take ownership of the apartment.”

Videos of the statements of Uaisova and other women have been viewed on YouTube hundreds of thousands of times—very significant numbers for a country of just 18 million people and far exceeding the number of views of all the videos containing Nazarbayev’s own statement on the event. Later in February, protests took place in several cities demanding the creation of jobs, support for mothers with multiple children, and the resignation of Nazarbayev.

Second, Kazakhstan is engulfed in the crisis generated by the escalating war preparations of US imperialism against Russia and China. The country maintains significant and growing economic ties with China and has long-standing relations with Moscow. China buys about 25 percent of Kazakhstan’s oil output and Kazakhstan is the important country for the land route of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), which is seen by US imperialism as a major geostrategic challenge.

The Carnegie Endowment for Peace and Democracy, an important think tank of US imperialism, noted with concern in May 2018 that “[a]s part of its Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing is rapidly investing in east-west infrastructure projects across the Central Asian republic that have overshadowed previously launched programs backed by the US and Russia. ... From Beijing's point of view, Kazakhstan, where the BRI was first announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, is a critical element of its fast-growing drive for international influence. It sits in a strategic spot between China and Russia and is far away from potential competing powers including the US and the EU.” The article noted that the only way for Astana to counteract Chinese influence was to seek closer cooperation with Russia, but above all the EU.

Extreme social crisis ravages Mozambique in wake of Cyclone Idai

Eddie Haywood

Cyclone Idai, which slammed into Mozambique on March 14, has left Mozambicans in a state of catastrophe. The devastation left in the tropical storm’s wake has produced a full-blown humanitarian crisis, exposing the impoverished conditions already present before Cyclone Idai hit.

According to UNICEF, more than 3 million people across the region affected by Idai urgently need humanitarian assistance, including 1.5 million children. The disaster is the worse natural catastrophe to hit southern Africa in decades.

In Mozambique, the country most affected by the storm, more than 2 million are in need of emergency aid, including 1 million children. UNICEF warned of the severe threat of the spread of diseases after Idai’s destruction of vital infrastructure, such as sanitary water sources and more than 50 clinics and hospitals in the country. Massive flooding has led to a high volume of stagnant water, which threatens to unleash an epidemic of waterborne illnesses, such as cholera.

UNICEF launched an appeal for $122 million to support its response to the disaster. In Beira, a coastal city of 500,000 and the hardest hit by Cyclone Idai, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore told the media, “The lives of millions of children and families are on the line, and we urgently need to mount a rapid and effective humanitarian response across all three countries [Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe].”

Scores of Mozambicans have been made homeless with the destruction of homes by massive flood waters brought on by the storm which washed away entire neighborhoods. Many people across the country have taken up temporary residence atop buildings and other elevated structures to avoid the high water. Exacerbating the catastrophe, a food crisis has emerged, with thousands of acres of farmland flooded by the storm, which wiped out most crops.

On Friday, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported that a vicious outbreak of cholera has began to sweep through the country, with 139 victims so far, and the epidemic far from contained. Many of the afflicted originated from the squalid homeless camps set up for victims. Nearly 1 million vaccines were rushed to the region as a small number of health workers strove to cope the with the outbreak by setting up improvised treatment centers.

The situation for millions of Mozambicans is likely to worsen over the next days and weeks, as many areas devastated remain inaccessible. The storm has left nearly 1,000 dead. With daily reports of bodies discovered scattered in fields and floating in rivers, the death toll is certain to climb.

On Wednesday, Stephen Fonseca, a chief forensic analyst in Africa for the International Committee of the Red Cross, told the Washington Post of the massive flooding caused by the cyclone ripping through Magaro, a farming village, where rescue workers are finding corpses of victims on a daily basis since Idai hit. So far, 156 bodies have been found. These victims likely died during the surge of water that washed over the region. Fonseca stated that the dead he had found were not included in the official toll.

Out of fear for his safety, Fonseca told the Post of regrettably having to leave an unidentified body 30 feet up a tree and snagged on a branch in an area infested with crocodiles.

“Eventually it is going to separate and fall once the ligaments loosen up,” he said. “But there’s no way to get it without someone getting hurt, or falling to the crocs.” Fonseca said.

The magnitude of the disaster is exacerbated by the lack of social spending for emergency services and vital infrastructure to cope with such natural disasters. Nowhere is this illustrated more clearly than in Sofala province, the region hit hardest by Cyclone Idai, an area especially prone to flooding, which occurs two to three times a year.

According to Foreign Policy, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery states that Mozambique ranks third in Africa among nations most exposed to weather-related disasters. Foreign Policy created a map of the disaster’s reach for its website, reporting that some 836 square miles were under flood waters in Mozambique, creating what the publication terms “inland oceans.”

The lack of vital infrastructure and services to provide assistance to the Mozambican masses in the wake of the country’s worst disaster is nothing short of criminal.

Mozambique is a nation of acute social contrast. With a population of nearly 29 million, it is the 16th richest country in Africa, and among the most socially unequal in the world. According to a 2017 report by New World Wealth, a market research firm based in Johannesburg, South Africa, there are 1,100 millionaires residing in the country. Of this group, 50 individuals hold wealth totaling over $10 million.

Contrasted to the obscene accumulation of wealth by a small layer of elites, according to 2016 figures published by the World Bank, 60 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty, with 80 percent left unable to afford enough food daily to maintain proper health. The majority also subsist on less than $2 a day.

Underlying this lopsided social construct is the fact that Mozambique holds vast economic resources in oil and gas reserves and mineral deposits of marble, bentonite, coal, gold, bauxite, granite, titanium and gemstones. The World Bank estimates that Mozambique holds untapped oil and gas reserves totaling over $100 trillion, and the country has the fourth largest reserves of natural gas in the world.

Key to understanding the lack of funding made available for the population to deal with Idai’s crisis are the American and European banks and corporations that have lined up to exploit Mozambique’s natural resources and its working masses.

In recent years, Exxon-Mobil, British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell have secured billions of dollars in large contracts to extract Mozambique’s massive offshore gas reserves.

Far-right party wins most votes in Dutch provincial elections

Harm Zonderland

On March 20, provincial councils were elected in all of the 12 provinces of the Netherlands. The most significant outcome of the election was the entrance into the Senate of the Forum for Democracy (FvD), led by Thierry Baudet. The far-right, near-fascist party won 12 out of 75 seats.

The FvD was elected into the House of Representatives for the first time in 2017, when it won two out of 150 seats. In a statement made after the provincial elections Baudet issued a message to prime minister Mark Rutte: “You can no longer ignore the FvD.”

It was the first time that the FvD was running in the provincial elections, and it was among the top three parties in all the provinces. It is the strongest party in Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland, where the capital Amsterdam, the Harbor of Rotterdam and the political center in The Hague are situated.

The FvD’s political agenda includes a call for closing the borders. It has been able to capitalize on the xenophobia stoked up by the rightwing-liberal VVD of prime minister Rutte and the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders.

On the same nationalistic grounds, the FvD proposes to leave the European Union. Furthermore, FvD’s leader Thierry Baudet is a so-called “climate change denier.” He was able to gain some working-class support by criticizing government spending on renewable energy rather than on healthcare.

Voter turnout was higher, at 56 percent, than in the previous provincial elections in 2015 when 48 percent of those eligible voted.

The media concentrated their attention on a major consequence of the provincial elections: the composition of the Senate, the First Chamber of Parliament, that is elected by the provincial councils.

While the Senate is to be elected in the coming three weeks, it is already clear the government coalition has lost its small majority. The coalition parties, the right-liberal VVD, the liberal D66 and the Christian democratic CDA, with the exception of the latter, have lost seats. The far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) and the Socialist Party (SP) have lost half of their senators, the social-democratic labour party PvdA has lost one seat.

The pseudo-left greens of GroenLinks have doubled their seats in the Senate. They profited from their standpoints on climate issues, such as compensation for increased household energy costs and higher “climate-taxes” for corporations. The ruling VVD has adapted its program to some of the positions of GroenLinks, minimizing its losses to just one seat.

But this is not, as the media claim, a “turn to the left.” While the transition from a fossil-fueled energy supply to renewable forms is popular, a lot of money can be made by some of the VVD’s closest allies, like the large energy and technology corporations.

To get legislation passed through the Senate, the government coalition now has to seek support from opposition parties. Mark Rutte commented: “We will make sure we get majorities. It means a lot of coffee and even more phone calls.”

GroenLinks has eagerly expressed its willingness to co-operate. Its nine senators would be enough for a majority. GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver said: “Last week the government made promises on climate-policy. We will hold them to those promises.” Other parties, like the social-democrats of the PvdA and the right-wing PVV, have made certain demands that are to be met if the government coalition seeks their support.

The main winner of the election is the FvD. Like all fascist parties, both historically and at present, FvD puts forward an extreme right-wing agenda, serving the interests of their capitalist allies and benefactors. They combine nationalism and xenophobia with demagogic promises on issues such as healthcare and education.

Baudet appeals to nationalist sentiments and proposes xenophobic, anti-immigrant policies, using the same methods as Donald Trump with his “America First” rallies and his rants about “immigrant invasions.” While the entire political establishment is planning to place the financial burden of the energy transition on the backs of workers, FvD calls for ending investment in renewable energy resources, claiming that they are “too expensive.”

In addition, Baudet profits from popular discontent with the national government. After decades of austerity and “crisis management,” originally initiated by the social democrats of the PvdA, people have had enough of cuts to social programs, pensions and wages. Baudet publicly denounces the political elite and the “jobs carousel” or “old boys’ network,” appealing to the anger about the political establishment.

However, the political establishment has nothing to fear from Baudet’s denunciations, as those are just for the public. He has gathered a base of supporters in the capitalist class and affluent middle class—by portraying himself as well off and culturally literate, and by referring to art, culture and history in his speeches. In his victory speech, referring to climate policy, Baudet proclaimed: “The Owl of Minerva has come down, to dispel the idol called Transition.”

The rise of fascist tendencies within the ruling circles can be seen in several European countries, from Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), to Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party and the Dutch Forum for Democracy , but also in the Americas. In Brazil, the recently elected president Jair Bolsonaro is known for his anti-immigrant views, his open admiration of the Brazilian military dictatorship, and his pledges to transnational corporations and the “free market.”

In the US, President Trump openly declared class war by claiming that the “twilight hour of socialism” has arrived, and vowing, “America will never be a socialist country.”

When social-democratic parties, Greens, so-called “socialist” and other pseudo-left parties disappoint and betray the working class time and time again, people look for an alternative. And since there is no visible left-wing alternative, some voters stumble into the trap of voting for right-wing parties.

Ogossagou massacre exposes rising bloodshed in European-occupied Mali

Stéphane Hugues & Alex Lantier 

The horrific massacre in the central Malian village of Ogossagou is exposing the brutal realities of the war in Mali launched by Paris in 2013. Under French and German military occupation, this country—one of the poorest in the world—is being torn apart by a rising wave of ethnic bloodshed.

Just before dawn on March 23, a band of approximately 100 fighters dressed in ethnic Dogon garb and bearing firearms arrived in Ogossagou, a Peul (or Fulani) village in the region of Bankass, near the border with Burkina Faso. They proceeded to shoot or kill everyone they could find, from the elderly down to the smallest infants. Approximately 160 people were killed and 55 wounded.

Eighteen people sought refuge in the house of the village marabout (healer), Bara Sékou Issa, who is known across West Africa, hoping the gunmen would not attack a marabout’s house. Sékou Issa had already welcomed a number of refugees from nearby villages into his home, offering them room and board. However, the attackers set Sékou Issa’s house on fire and gunned down anyone fleeing the house to escape the flames. All of Sékou Issa’s religious students reportedly perished in the flames inside his house.

The attackers slit the throat of the village chief, Amadou Barry, in front of his mother, aged 90, and then executed her, as well.

The village was left devastated, with houses and buildings burnt down and even livestock and domestic animals killed. Ismaïla Cissé, one of the Malian army’s few Peul officers, told the press: “They want to wipe us off the surface of the earth. Otherwise, how can one explain that they killed children, the elderly, and even livestock?”

As reports of this horrific massacre spread, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta traveled to Ogossagou on March 25. “Justice will be done,” Keïta pledged. He also fired the chief of staff of the armed services, General M’Bemba Moussa Keïta, as well as the chiefs of staff of the army, air force, and military intelligence.

Keïta’s sacking of the top military leadership was effectively an admission that the Malian army, which is being trained by French and German soldiers, bore significant responsibility for the massacre. Soldiers at a nearby military base, only 13 kilometers away, reportedly were notified that the killings were ongoing around 6 a.m. However, they only arrived on the scene at 9 a.m., by which time the attackers had left.

Serious suspicions of official complicity with the forces that perpetrated the massacre—on the part of the Malian government and therefore its neo-colonial imperialist overlords—remain. Among the wounded in Ogossagou, the authorities apprehended several individuals they accused of being among the attackers. Nonetheless, they are refusing to divulge their identities.

Mopti prosecutor Maouloud Ag Najim told Jeune Afrique: “We interviewed most of the 45 wounded and their relatives, who are currently being treated at hospitals in Sévaré and Bankass. The military police team deployed in Ogossagou also interviewed some of the survivors. … Among the wounded, five people were identified by the survivors as being suspected attackers. We suspect they were members of the group who attacked the village of Ogossagou on March 23.”

After the massacre, Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga announced the dissolution of the Dan na Amassagou militia. This is an ethnic Dogon militia set up in 2016, after the French-backed government began encouraging the formation of local self-defense militias amid fighting between French troops, Malian government troops and various Islamist militias in northern and central Mali.

The Malian government is refusing to confirm or deny, however, whether the five suspected attackers they have taken into custody belong to Dan na Amassagou, a militia loyal to the central government in Bamako and that flies the Malian flag.

A November 2018 report by the International Human Rights Federation and the Malian Association for Human Rights alleged that donzo hunters making up the militia had tacit state backing: “Many witness statements and well-placed individuals testify to at least logistical and financial support for the donzos from the Malian government, or at least from some of its members. … Many witnesses say they have seen the donzos carry out military operations alongside the Malian Armed Forces.”

Youssouf Toloba, the head of Dan na Amassagou, for his part issued a statement denying that his militia had participated in the massacre and pledging to defy the state dissolution order. He said, “I am informing national and international public opinion: if those who are in the forests [terrorist groups] lay down their weapons, Dan na Amassagou will also. As long as that does not happen, we will not lay down our weapons.”

Over the course of the week, six Dogons were killed in two attacks on the villages of Ouadou and Kere Kere. UN sources wrote that in the night of Monday to Tuesday in Ouadou, “Several houses were burnt and livestock was stolen. An initial death toll lists four dead, including a young woman. The inhabitants took refuge in nearby villages.” On Tuesday, they added, “in the Dogon village of Kere Kere in the Bankass region, at least two women were killed and another wounded.”

In Mali, long-standing ethnic divisions are being inflamed and erupting into horrific violence under the impact of years of imperialist war and military occupation. The French-led war in Mali began in 2013, after mercenary militias fled the NATO war that devastated Libya, attempting to return home to Mali. As one of the world’s poorest countries funneled resources into a French-led war targeting ethnic Tuareg and Islamist militias, social conditions in Mali disintegrated.

Railway workers, teachers and public service workers have repeatedly struck to demand unpaid wages and better working conditions.

France has posted 2,700 troops in Mali and Germany 1,100, making it the German army’s largest overseas deployment, to support the Malian regime in Bamako. Presented as part of a “war on terror,” the occupation has fanned the flames of ethnic conflict, with Peul Islamist preacher Amadou Koufa’s celebrity leading to bitter accusations attacking the entire Peul ethnicity as terrorist. Ethnic violence between ethnic Peul, Dogon, and Bambara forces led to the deaths of 500 people in 2018, according to the UN.