What is really radical in sex/gender politics?

Robert Jensen

The political left, and much of mainstream feminism, is characterized by an analysis of how systems and institutions shape our choices, a critique of capitalist media, and a commitment to a scientific/materialist worldview. But when faced with radical feminism’s compelling critiques of patriarchy, leftists and many feminists routinely abandon those principles. Radical feminist critiques of prostitution, pornography, and transgender ideology should be part of a consistent, coherent left analysis.
For the past three decades, I have been involved in a variety of political movements in the United States that critique the distribution of wealth and power. My politics are radical feminist, anti-capitalist/anti-empire, anti-racist, and ecological – positions that I will sometimes sum up with the term “leftist.”

For me, all those analyses are rooted in a challenge to the hierarchies that define virtually all of contemporary society. Such a politics rejects the domination/subordination dynamics that inevitably emerge from hierarchy – both within the human family, and between humans and the larger living world – which produce an unjust and unsustainable world.

In my experience, this collective commitment on the political left to challenge hierarchy is routinely rejected in the case of radical feminist positions, especially challenges to men’s commercial sexual exploitation of women. I believe those radical feminist positions are consistent with anti-hierarchy/anti-domination politics, but many who also identify as leftist disagree, sometimes vehemently.

My thesis is that in contemporary political debates, leftists criticize liberals for failing to strike at the systems at the core of hierarchy/domination, for being satisfied with tepid reforms rather than the radical change necessary to produce real justice. Yet when confronting the issues around prostitution, pornography, and transgender ideology, lots of leftists become liberals. My goal here is to describe these conflicts and offer a tentative explanation for them.

Prostitution

A hallmark of left analysis is a focus on systems and institutions, not simply on the individual choices people make in a moment within a hierarchical system. For example, capitalism’s defenders argue that in a system based on the freedom to choose, wealth inequality is the inevitable byproduct of some people’s greater talent and/or effort, and that this inequality is necessary for innovation and progress. Leftists point out that people do indeed “choose” but under conditions that often leave little meaningful choice for those struggling to survive, and that greed and self-interest are not the only human motivations that generate creativity.

Capitalists exhort people to improve their lives through education and effort, but no matter how virtuous study and hard work may be, individual choices won’t produce equity. While claiming to protect individual liberty, capitalism makes meaningful freedom more difficult for most people to achieve.

That critique of liberalism and individualism seems to go out the window for many on the left when they analyze prostitution – or as prostitution supporters like to call it, “sex work.” Instead of recognizing how the sexual-exploitation industries (e.g., prostitution, pornography, stripping, massage parlors) actually operate in patriarchy, many leftists argue that if women choose to engage in “sex work,” they should be free to do so, and no further examination of context apparently is relevant. Leftists, who are critical of capitalism’s relentless commodification of everything, seem to accept the commodification of women’s bodies for male pleasure (while some boys and men are prostituted, of course, the vast majority of people used in the sexual-exploitation industries are girls and women).

A simple question for those who claim to want to end sexism and foster sex/gender justice: is a society likely to achieve that justice if one group of people (women) can be routinely bought and sold for the sexual pleasure of another group (men)?

Prostitution is a “job” that is, as one researcher puts it, “multitraumatic.” As one feminist philosopher explains, “if we apply the regulations currently applied to other forms of work to the selling and buying of sex, the acts intrinsic to the ‘job’ can’t be permitted; they are simply inconsistent with regulations governing worker safety, sexual harassment laws, and civil rights.” Another critic points out that “the logic underlying such arguments [from the left to defend prostitution] quickly reduces to a defense of libertarian capitalism.”

The leftists’ response often doesn’t go beyond the slogan “sex work is work,” with an argument that the real harm is created not by men’s sexual exploitation of women but by the stigma associated with, and criminalizing of, prostitution. This claim ignores the fact that radical feminists have long rejected the criminalizing of those who sell sex (primarily women) and advocated the “Nordic Model”, which imposes penalties only on sex buyers (primarily men). These laws put the focus where it should be – on men’s accountability for their choices to sexually exploit women, not on women’s choices to survive by selling sex – and fund the services women need to leave prostitution.

Pornography

Media criticism is another key component of contemporary left analysis. For example, left critics of mainstream news organizations have argued that journalists’ claims that they simply present “the facts” ignore the importance of selection, context, and framing in constructing the news. Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky offered a compelling “propaganda model” that demonstrates how commercial news media tend to reflect the worldview of powerful people and institutions.

Just as news media never simply inform, entertainment media do much more than entertain. Movies and television shows are shaped by myriad value judgments and are never a simple presentation of an unfiltered reality. For example, critics from the left have pointed out that media reinforce the myth of meritocracy and support consumer capitalism, trade in racist depictions, and are filled with sexism and sexual violence. Even so-called “reality television” is never reality; shows such as “Cops” and “Live PD” are a form of “copaganda” that distort public perceptions of policing.

The one mass media genre that escapes consistent left scrutiny is pornography, the graphic sexually explicit material that saturates contemporary online culture. When it comes to pornography, the left seems to abandon concern about how entertainment media convey values and help shape attitudes, suggesting instead that pornography is simply “fantasy” that we need not take seriously. There are sexual fantasies presented in pornography, but there’s no rational reason that fictional depictions should be critiqued in some parts of the industry (Hollywood movies and network TV, for example), but ignored in pornography. If anything, men’s routine use of pornography as a masturbation facilitator should make us more concerned about how the images shape attitudes and influence behavior.

Pornography is, without a doubt, the most overtly sexist and racist media genre in contemporary culture. Women are routinely presented as not only accepting male dominance but seeking it out so they can achieve sexual fulfillment. Pornography routinely employs overtly racist stereotypes, such as the sexually aggressive African American man looking for white women or the demure Asian geisha who lives to provide pleasure to white men, which would produce justifiable leftist outrage in any other media genre.

When radical feminists began to challenge the pornography industry in the 1970s, the left largely ignored or ridiculed the critique, endorsing a liberal/libertarian approach based on the primacy of freedom of choice. Even when it was clear that the pornography industry was eroticizing male dominance and racism to keep the predominantly male consumers paying for more, leftists mostly ignored how the profit motive led to intensified sexism and racism. Feminist critics were labeled prudes for their failure to see that it’s all just harmless fun.

Decades later, the radical feminist critique of the harms of pornography – to the women used in the industry, to women against whom pornography is used, and to all women who live in a society in which sexual brutality is eroticized and widely circulated – is more compelling than ever. The routine degradation of women and the racist portrayals of African Americans and other people of color continue. Yet the left has not embraced the critique.

Transgender ideology

The left tends to think of itself as scientific and materialist. I use those terms here not in the specific way they show up in Marxist theory, but in a more general sense. Leftists argue that we should make rational claims that can be defended with evidence and logic (as do a wide variety of other people, of course), and any claim inconsistent with the material realities of the world should be rejected. In my experience on the left, any type of theological claim cannot be the basis for public policy, no matter what one’s personal beliefs.

These commitments are ignored when leftists support the ideology of the transgender movement. Radical feminists have long argued that sex categories (male and female) are biological realities tied to reproduction and that gender categories (masculine and feminine) are cultural constructs. Sex is a material reality, and gender is how a culture imposes meaning on that reality. The transgender movement includes people with widely varying ideas about this, but a claim often repeated in that movement is that sex itself is a social construct. But “social construction” implies that something could be constructed differently. Marriage is a social construction, for example. At one point in the United States, only heterosexual couples could get married, but now same-sex couples can as well. Humans tend to be a pair-bonding species, but the meaning of “marriage” could change because it is but a social institution.

Sex categories and human reproduction are a different matter. I am biologically male (with no traits that would put me in the category of intersex, a very different question than transgender). I cannot menstruate, carry a fetus, or nurse a baby. That is a biological reality, and not subject to change through cultural redefinition. Not all women have children, but only women have children; no one can socially construct me into pregnancy.

This matters because in patriarchy, girls and women face specific threats to their psychological and physical safety by virtue of being female, most notably men’s harassment and violence. Certain kinds of single-sex spaces (such as changing rooms and prisons) and institutions (girls and women’s sports) exist to give female humans some measure of protection from male dominance. If there is no impediment to men claiming to belong in the category female, it opens those spaces to men who can use the ambiguity over transgender identity to exploit women. High school boys who identify as girls and then compete in athletics as females undermine the opportunities for female athletes.

Transgender people need protection from violence and discrimination, as the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled, but not at the expense of the right to privacy and security of girls and women who want access to single-sex spaces and refuse to capitulate to “a patriarchy that suggests women must always sacrifice so that the male-bodied can be comfortable,” as one legal scholar puts it. If a transgender ideology that erases sex differences becomes normalized, it’s reasonable to expect more constraints on the freedom of girls and women.

The transgender response is often simply to repeat, “trans women are women”, without offering answers to important questions – what does that actually mean, why are feminist concerns about the implications of that ideology irrelevant, and why is radical feminism’s longstanding challenge to patriarchal gender norms not a productive path? In my experience, the left has largely accepted the policy proposals of the transgender movement without asking for a more coherent explanation and without providing safeguards for girls and women. Daring to challenge that ideology can get one shouted down in public and expelled from left organizations, experiences with which I am familiar.

The end of patriarchy?

Why do leftists so routinely abandon some of their core principles and practices when dealing with radical feminist critiques of patriarchy? Why do leftists so easily embrace liberal individualism and accept arguments that are unclear and/or incoherent when they involve sex/gender and sexuality? My tentative explanation: fear and a lack of imagination.

I don’t mean that as an insult, as if leftists are cowardly and insufficiently creative. In this context, “fear” simply recognizes that it can be scary to rethink basic assumptions about ourselves and our social world. In this context, “lack of imagination” simply recognizes that it can be difficult to construct a new sense of self and society when those old assumptions are gone.

I know this, because I am often afraid and regularly struggle to imagine new ways of living. When I first encountered the critique of pornography, for example, I mocked the radical feminists who were challenging male power rather than critically self-reflecting on my own life. But today, I find radical feminism to be a source of strength.

When discussing my book The End of Patriarchy: Radical Feminism for Men, I joke that the title is aspirational and not a prediction. I don’t expect to see the end of patriarchy in my lifetime. Given my age (I was born in 1958), I also don’t expect to see the end of capitalism, Western imperialism, or white supremacy. But my guess is that patriarchy will take even longer to dismantle. Patriarchal attitudes are woven so deeply into the fabric of our lives – especially our sexuality – that it can be difficult to see how the system shapes us and frightening when we start to understand it.

I understand the fear of confronting a powerful system and the difficulty in imagining something new. But we can start with policy proposals that are viable today. The Nordic Model that addresses prostitution is working in several countries. Feminists have created pornography education campaigns to respond to “this public health crisis of the digital age.” And we can challenge transgender policies that erase the material reality of sex differences in patriarchy.

Commercial surrogacy as a means of Exploitation

Yuvraj Trivedi

The term infertility is considered ailment in the society which should be catered as soon as possible. This is due to the idea of a blood child which is deeply rooted in society and to make it happen various technological marvels are developed by humans to solve the problem of infertility. One such miracle is Surrogacy. Commercial gestational surrogacy refers to an arrangement when “the egg of the adoptive mother or an egg donor is fertilized with the sperm of the father-to-be or an anonymous sperm donor in a laboratory to produce an embryo. This embryo is then transferred into the uterus of the surrogate”, this arrangement rejects the popular taboo of sexual relations between the father-to-be and the surrogate and makes it an asexual mode of reproduction.

It can also be seen as a paid sex work because of potential intimacy with pregnancy. In India, commercial gestational surrogacy is seen as a thriving business due to the availability of economical and affordable treatments and surrogates.  It serves as a major source of income for the women who belong from the underprivileged section of the society and increases their standard of living. It might seem as if it brings about happiness in the lives of women longing motherhood. But in reality it traps the women with an economic incentive. It endangers the women from the underprivileged section of the society as it puts unfair societal pressure and their illiteracy is used to deceive them.

Surrogates in India are vulnerable for many reasons, but the thing that most face is lack of financial support, which force them to become surrogates and rent their womb. Surrogacy is considered a sin as surrogates are considered prostitutes because of the common notion of sexual relations that is associated with giving birth for the sake of money. They are being termed as ‘fallen women’ and are accused of being bad mothers who sell their children. These social stigmas lead their life in utter darkness. Not only the surrogate’s character is looked down but her whole family character is questioned. Thus making them a victim of a vicious cycle of vulnerability.  “These social labels mean that after surrogacy some families have to leave their homes” leading to non-permeance of their home and repeated displacements drag them towards more poverty.

Many of these surrogates belong from a family with no earning member and due to which they undertake surrogacy. The surrogates and their families suffer from mental violence due to the stigma attached to surrogacy. They are sometimes even forced by either husband or family to take up surrogacy to make a living. The surrogates do not have much idea about the surrogacy contracts and the amount they are receiving for the entire set up and everything is decided by the male counterpart. The surrogate’s value is reduced to that of an object which serves the purpose of earning money in exchange for renting their body. The surrogate’s decision is usually influenced by factors like distress due to financial conditions and their family coercing them to take part in the arrangement. They are trapped in the never-ending cycle of being ostracized by society and their desperate attempt to escape poverty.

The surrogacy contracts between the clinics, prospective parents and the surrogates play a vital role in misleading the surrogates. The surrogates are easily manipulated by the doctors who take advantage of their illiteracy. The surrogacy contracts which consist the rights of surrogates over the foetus and child are drafted in English to deceive them as they aren’t aware of their rights.  There are many cases in which if the child is born with a defect the prospective parents abandon the child with the surrogates which in turn puts financial and emotional pressure on them. The surrogacy contracts also contribute to the number of girl child being abandoned by the parents because these contracts provide an effortless way out to prospective parents if they do not want a girl child. The only victim of such scandals is at the end of the surrogates who unknowingly enter surrogacy contracts with the view that it will help their family and children but does the opposite.

These contracts contain information of various medical procedures that one needs to undergo. As these are drafted in English and the surrogate being illiterate, they are not informed about the medical procedure. In the pre-pregnancy period the surrogates uterus is prepared for embryo transfer which involves many invasive procedures and multiple risks to the surrogate which are often not discussed. They are deceived by not informing them about health risks associated and the multiple pills, tests etc that they go through. The surrogate is prohibited to exercise any right over her body by agencies like prospective parents and surrogacy clinics.

These procedures exposes the surrogates to health risks which might be fatal for their lives.  Privilege is used as a weapon to exploit the underprivileged section. The belief of having special entitlement because they hold some kind of status in the society is influenced by the idea of negative privilege and due to that, the upper-class strata of the society from where the prospective parents belong, assume their entitlement over the body of surrogate as they are paying her to correct the apparent disease of infertility.

The remuneration that the surrogates receive is an important pulling factor that induces women to enter into surrogacy contracts. These includes medical expenses along with residence and food. The surrogates go through many medical procedures, mental and physical pain of carrying the baby for nine months. The surrogates stay away from their families and children and under constant medical surveillance thus the remuneration they generally get is not enough for the pain they suffer throughout the arrangement of surrogacy. Surrogates in India when entering into surrogacy contracts are either influenced by financial distress or their families thus, their decision of entering surrogacy contracts is not free from mental coercion. Necessity is the main reason for women to undertake surrogacy and not their own choice.

Therefore, commercial gestation surrogacy endangers women’s life and her poverty is used as a tool to drag them into such a profession. The laws that govern surrogacy in India have failed to recognize the exploitation that the surrogates face during the arrangement. Surrogacy contracts are biased towards agents other than surrogates and misuse their vulnerability. The privilege of practicing the right to choose is not available to surrogates in India because they do not have the luxury to do so. Surrogates constantly fight against the stigma and confirm to use of morality to justify the work they are involved in.

Yemen: A Torrent of Suffering in a Time of Siege

Kathy Kelly

“When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out “stop!”

When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable, the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.” —  Bertolt Brecht

In war-torn Yemen, the crimes pile up. Children who bear no responsibility for governance or warfare endure the punishment. In 2018, UNICEF said the war made Yemen a living hell for children. By the year’s end, Save the Children reported 85,000 children under age five had already died from starvation since the war escalated in 2015. By the end of 2020, it is expected that 23,500 children with severe acute malnutrition will be at immediate risk of death.

Cataclysmic conditions afflict Yemen as people try to cope with rampant diseases, the spread of COVID-19, flooding, literal swarms of locusts, rising displacement, destroyed infrastructure and a collapsed economy. Yet war rages, bombs continue to fall, and desperation fuels more crimes.

The highest-paying jobs available to many Yemeni men and boys require a willingness to kill and maim one another, by joining militias or armed groups which seemingly never run out of weapons. Nor does the Saudi-Led Coalition  which kills and maims civilians; instead, it deters relief shipments and destroys crucial infrastructure with weapons it imports from Western countries.

The aerial attacks displace traumatized survivors into swelling, often lethal refugee camps. Amid the wreckage of factories, fisheries, roads, sewage and sanitation facilities, schools and hospitals, Yemenis search in vain for employment and, increasingly, for food and water. The Saudi-Led-Coalition’s blockade, also enabled by Western training and weapons, makes it impossible for Yemenis to restore a functioning economy.

Even foreign aid can become punitive. In March, 2020, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) decided to suspend most aid for Yemenis living in areas controlled by the Houthis.

Scott Paul, who leads Oxfam America’s humanitarian policy advocacy, strongly criticized this callous decision to compound the misery imposed on vulnerable people in Yemen. “In future years,” he wrote, “scholars will study USAID’s suspension as a paradigmatic example of a donor’s exploitation and misuse of humanitarian principles.”

As the evil-doing in Yemen comes “like falling rain,” so do the cries of “Stop!” from millions of people all over the world. Here’s some of what’s been happening:

• U.S. legislators in both the House of Representatives and the Senate voted to block the sale of billions of dollars in weapons and maintenance to Saudi Arabia and its allies. But President Trump vetoed the bill in 2019.

• Canada’s legislators declared a moratorium on weapon sales to the Saudis. But the Canadian government has resumed selling weapons to the Saudis, claiming the moratorium only pertained to the creation of new contracts, not existing ones.

• The United Kingdom suspended military sales to Saudi Arabia because of human rights violations, but the UK’s international trade secretary  nevertheless resumed weapon sales saying the 516 charges of Saudi human rights violations are all isolated incidents and don’t present a pattern of abuse.

• French NGOs and human rights advocates  urged their government to scale back on weapon sales to the Saudi-Led coalition, but reports on 2019 weapon sales revealed the French government sold 1.4 billion Euros worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia.

• British campaigners opposing weapon transfers to the Saudi-Led Coalition have exposed how the British Navy gave the Saudi Navy training in tactics essential to the devastating Yemen blockade.

• In Canada, Spain, France and Italy, laborers opposed to the ongoing war refused to load weapons onto ships sailing to Saudi Arabia. Rights groups track the passage of trains and ships carrying these weapons.

On top of all this, reports produced by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the International Commission of the Red Cross repeatedly expose the Saudi-Led Coalition’s human rights violations.

Yet this international outcry clamoring for an end to the war is still being drowned out by the voices of military contractors with well-paid lobbyists plying powerful elites in Western governments. Their concern is simply for the profits to be reaped and the competitive sales to be scored.

In 2019 Lockheed Martin’s total sales reached nearly 60 billion dollars, the best year on record for the world’s largest “defense” contractor. Before stepping down as CEO, Marillyn Hewson predicted demand from the Pentagon and U.S. allies would generate an uptake between $6.2 billion and $6.4 billion in net earnings for the company in 2020 sales.

Hewson’s words, spoken calmly, drown out the cries of Yemeni children whose bodies were torn apart by just one of Lockheed Martin’s bombs.

In August of 2018, bombs manufactured by Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin fell on Yemen like summer rain. On August 9, 2018, a missile blasted a school bus in Yemen, killing forty children and injuring many others.

Photos showed badly injured children still carrying UNICEF blue backpacks, given to them that morning as gifts. Other photos showed surviving children helping prepare graves for their schoolmates. One  photo showed a piece of the bomb protruding from the wreckage with the number MK82 clearly stamped on it. That number on the shrapnel helped identify Lockheed Martin as the manufacturer.

The psychological damage being inflicted on these children is incalculable. “My son is really hurt from the inside,” said a parent whose child was severely wounded by the bombing. “We try to talk to him to feel better and we can’t stop ourselves from crying.”

The cries against war in Yemen also fall like rain and whatever thunder accompanies the rain is distant, summer thunder. Yet, if we cooperate with war making elites, the most horrible storms will be unleashed. We must learn–and quickly–to make a torrent of our mingled cries and, as the prophet Amos demanded, ‘let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Online Education: New Tool For Division

Suman Kalyan Moulik

In this time of the COVID pandemic, it is often heard that Coronavirus doesn`t differentiate between rich and poor. Though the virus infects both rich and poor equally, the steps to control it, the reaction of the state, consequences of lockdown — all these don`t paint a picture of equality in a most unequal society. In a country like India, the results of lockdown depend on the class position of the affected person. This becomes clear when we compare the state`s response to the 40 million migrant laborers with the same state`s response to the dollar earning non-resident Indians ( in true sense they are the real migrants) by the ‘ Vande Bharat ‘ project. Nowadays the phrase ‘ New Normal’ has become popular thanks to corporate media. This means the post COVID world will not be the same. Our lifestyle, work procedure, cooking habits, education will see a lot of changes. We will accept these new changes as normal.’ Work from home’ would be seen as an example of a new normal. Jobs will be done from home with the help of modern technology. But the proponents of this new style of work are totally silent about the toiling masses who work from morning to evening in the mines, factories, construction sites or the safai mazdoor, housemaids without whom the so-called civilised society will fall to pieces. In this context, we want to discuss online education now.

This long lockdown period has totally disrupted the education system like other social sectors. Many important examinations have been canceled or delayed, in several classes, students are promoted to the next without an exam. In the current educational year, there is little chance to complete the syllabus within the stipulated time. Midday meal has stopped in govt school so there is every chance that nutrition will suffer among the pupils. Uncertainty has gripped all levels from primary to University. In this critical situation, both central and state govt advocates online education. A number of educationists already declared that online education is the only future. The main idea behind this system is that as the students can not reach in the educational institutions, the teacher will create a virtual classroom applying modern technology and students will attend those classes from home. presently online education is not only a theoretical concept, but it is also already applied and reaction to this process already started. private institutions arranged virtual classes with the help of zoom, Skype and pupils attend the classes with uniform following usual routine In govt and govt aided schools, a few states are organizing classes by using tv channels, teachers are trying to reach the pupils through WhatsApp group also.

At present, the country is going through the phase of unlock-2. Different sectors are gradually opening up. Though the govt previously declared that classes will reopen from 1st July, they backed out due to the vehement protest from a section of guardians. In their protest letter (change.org,1st June 2020) they demanded online education for the rest of the curriculum. These guardians come from those strata of the society which have high purchasing capability and controlled the public opinion on every socio-economic and political matter. Hence facing the wreath of this powerful class, the central hrd minister declared that educational institutions will not reopen before 15th August, though the unbearable plight of millions of poor people couldn’t move the govt.

A few relevant informations——–

Sometimes the unprecedented situation demands unusual decisions.No doubt prolonged lockdown due to COVID has created such a situation in India. In that case, the main responsibility of the govt of a country like India, where severe poverty and inequality runs so high should be to help the neediest section of the society, at least not to make the present gap wider. The same is applied in Education also. So the question arises whether the system of online education should be inclusive for all or a large number of students would be excluded from the arena of education? Would this system deepen the division between rich and poor, urban-rural, among different social strata or would this minimize the loss due to COVID lockdown and prove useful measure for all the students? Whether online education is an emergency and temporary measure or it is going to be a permanent fixture in the name of a new normal? None can deny that the reform prog taken from the nineties has made education a purchase-able commodity.would the system of online education intensify the process of commodification?
Online education is a technology-based system, the minimum requirements for which is an Android phone, continuous high-speed internet data and a computer. Teaching through the

WhatsApp group is practically not possible.

#Among young Indian computer users only 8% used net connection.

# As per a report of Mission Antodaya(2017-18) 47% of Indian people can use electricity for 12hrs/day.

# 26% of Indians used smartphones while the desktop, laptop, or tablet users are only 11%.

# National sample survey reports that 26% of people in our country used internet but 66% of total population resides in rural India where internet users are only 5.15%.

# In 2014 national digital literacy mission or digital ‘saksharata abhijan’ were formed to make people digitally literate. But up to oct-2018, only 20 million (1.67% of the total population) people have become digitally literate.

# As per the Annual Status of education report (2018),2.13% of pupils of govt institutions getting the scope of using computers in school.

It is evident from the above facts that only the rich people can afford to buy this expensive technology-based education.pupils with no money to buy at least a smartphone and sufficient data would not be able to reach this virtual classroom. In the face of a severe economic crisis brought by COVID pandemic, the idea that guardians would flock to buy smartphones and computers for their wards is not only crazy, reactionary also online education would cause a severe imbalance in the society in the present infrastructure. Here the rich will get advantage and the children of the toiling classes (most of them are economically weak, mainly Dalits, tribals, and minority community) would be deprived. At the same time, the regional disparity will be increased Rural areas would be lagging behind urban areas Again all the students would be deprived in Kashmir where 4G internet service remains suspended most of the time.

Our experience from the last three months reveals that rate of attendance of students in online classes organised by private institutions is more than 90% whereas the rate of attendance at WhatsApp based online classes in govt or govt sponsored school is not more than 10%.some say that we don’t get full attendance in classes on normal time also. But they can’t realise the qualitative difference between the two. In normal classes, the responsibility of absence depends on the individual student but this online system definitely excludes those students having no smartphone or laptop.

This deprivation will cause them to suffer from an inferiority complex. Recently a few poor students have committed suicide due to this exclusion. So online education can’t be regarded as the only way out in this abnormal situation.

There is an opinion that as online education is an emergency and temporary arrangement, it’s the opposition is pointless. But our recent experience is that govt is trying to execute its antipeople agenda using COVID lockdown. Labour law reforms or privatization of national assets has already started. Recently in a conference, UGC chairman said,” we are seeing at this time of COVID-19 and even later when all of this over to give a push to online education.it is important for improvement in the gross enrollment ratio”.Chairman’s words proved that the govt is trying to establish an online education system in a big way. The economic package announced by finance minister N.Sitaraman a few days back includes the proposal of creating ‘one class- one channel’ to strengthen online education. This idea not only negates the concept of bringing education in the concurrent list of the Constitution, but it follows the plan of ‘one country- one education’ propagated by Sangha Parivar.

Examination, Education And Selective Amnesia

Sana Shah

It has been few weeks now that we have been watching the University Grants commision (UGC) and the Students’ differences unfold over the question of conducting examination in times of the Pandemic. The Supreme Court too has been invoked to adjudicate the matter at the earliest.

By all possibilities, even thinking of an exam, be it online or offline mode seems farcical. How can one forget that as the Pandemic continues to accelerate, as people continue to suffer in one way or the other, given different social positions , people have lost lives, jobs, homes and so much more.

This not only exposes the loopholes in our system but also in our understanding of “education” which we have in this moment collapsed into “examinations”, as we interchangeably use one word for the other. Some would say, let’s be “practical” , how would you have your education without getting a degree by taking the exams and life is all about competition and that I should keep my Philosophy to myself – this only shows our underlying intellectual bankruptcy, thanks to the idea of education with which we have grown up! Rather than facing up to life and questioning all that is wrongly placed, we are looking for means to evade it !

As the debates around exams continue to make it to the newsroom, I am forced to add some other points as well .

We have, for all these years conveniently forgotten the variable of “political conflict”, the site of which happens to be the Kashmir Valley, for so many years now.

How many times did it become impossible to hold classes, for how long the situation has never been conducive for education here, when survival becomes the primary question ?

How many examinations could not be conducted on time here, how many semesters had to be left suspended for the time and how often? Given the frequent internet shutdown here, how many online classes could be held, rather is the option of online mode of learning even available to the students here ?

These questions are not put up here to play the ‘conflict-victim’ card, as some people would like to believe- these questions are only a small reflection of the larger lived experiences and realities every student faces here,in almost every academic session !

How many times did we hear of a “twitter-storm” to highlight the plight of students here , how many times did it occur to the “concerned citizens” to register a protest to accentuate the challenges students face here , day in , day out?

How many times then did we hear of any concession or alternative measures or even a proper strategy or long term plan to help our students here ? We always had to work with some make-do temporary system (reducing syllabus at times, going for mass promotion the other times, working with home-delivered assignment at times) , letting things pass, thinking that the next session would be better !

Datesheet were pinned at the notice board, I remember in my student-days, without proper classes and even our teachers here would ask us to go by the “system” for the lack of any alternative and this continues to happen till date. Not to talk of the psychological consequences of the same for students!

However to even think like that was nothing but a reflection of the intellectual dereliction and administrative omission on part of the people at the helm of affairs and all the stakeholders who could have acted in a better way instead, learning from the experiences.

Yes, our students despite odds, have been excelling . But glorifying the same without accepting the structural injustices and systemic indifference to a certain section of the population adds to the process of normalising suffering . Applauding those students who succeed despite the odds only shows a reverse- failure on the part of those applauding, after letting the students suffer alone without any help and having to put up with the systemic challenges in the midst of all pervasive institutional apathy, all on their own !

In other ways it acts as a pressure point on students who could not do the same, or to put it differently, it sends the message that ‘well, suffering is okay, since you have people who can do well even with such difficulty, so doesn’t make a difference if you face it as well!’.

It is very late though, but such moments nonetheless call for a reflection on the exclusionary system that we all have accustomed ourselves to, which requires a Pandemic to wake us up and even then we conveniently forget those at the margins who continue to suffer.

It is due to the Pandemic situation that we see education disrupted, however let’s never forget, each year almost , the students in Kashmir face that education-disruption, and no one blinks an eye, as we all are equal but some are more equal than others !

List of Israeli Targets Leaked: Tel Aviv Fears the Worst in ICC Investigation of War Crimes

Ramzy Baroud

When International Court of Justice (ICC) Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, confirmed last December that the Court has ample evidence to pursue a war crimes investigation in occupied Palestine, the Israeli government responded with the usual rhetoric, accusing the international community of bias and insisting on Israel’s ‘right to defend itself.’

Beneath the platitudes and typical Israeli discourse, the Israeli government knew too well that an ICC investigation into war crimes in Palestine could be quite costly. An investigation, in itself, represents an indictment of sorts. If Israeli individuals were to be indicted for war crimes, that is a different story, as it becomes a legal obligation of ICC members to apprehend the criminals and hand them over to the Court.

Israel remained publicly composed, even after Bensouda, last April, elaborated on her December decision with a 60-page legal report, titled: “Situation in the State of Palestine: Prosecution Response to the Observations of Amici Curiae, Legal Representatives of Victims, and States.”

In the report, the ICC addressed many of the questions, doubts and reports submitted or raised in the four months that followed her earlier decision. Countries such as Germany and Austria, among others, had used their position as amici curiae – ‘friends of the court’ – to question the ICC jurisdiction and the status of Palestine as a country.

Bensouda insisted that “the Prosecutor is satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to initiate an investigation into the situation in Palestine under article 53(1) of the Rome Statute, and that the scope of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction comprises the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza (“Occupied Palestinian Territory”).”

However, Bensouda did not provide definitive timelines to the investigation; instead, she requested that the ICC’S Pre-Trial Chamber “confirm the scope of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in Palestine,” an additional step that is hardly required since the State of Palestine, a signatory of the Rome Statute, is the one that actually referred the case directly to the Prosecutor’s office.

The April report, in particular, was the wake-up call for Tel Aviv. Between the initial decision in December till the release of the latter report, Israel lobbied on many fronts, enlisting the help of ICC members and recruiting its greatest benefactor, Washington – which is not an ICC member – to bully the Court so it may reverse its decision.

On May 15, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, warned the ICC against pursuing the investigation, targeting Bensouda, in particular, for her decision to hold war criminals in Palestine accountable.

The US slapped unprecedented sanctions against the ICC on June 11, with President Donald Trump issuing an ‘executive order’ that authorizes the freezing of assets and a travel ban against ICC officials and their families. The order also allows for the punishing of other individuals or entities that assist the ICC in its investigation.

Washington’s decision to carry out punitive measures against the very Court that was established for the sole purpose of holding war criminals accountable is both outrageous and abhorrent. It also exposes Washington’s hypocrisy – the country that claims to defend human rights is attempting to prevent legal accountability by those who have violated human rights.

Upon its failure to halt the ICC legal procedures regarding its investigation of war crimes, Israel began to prepare for the worst. On July 15, Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz, reported about a ‘secret list’ that was drawn up by the Israeli government. The list includes “between 200 and 300 officials”, ranging from politicians to military and intelligence officials, who are subject to arrest abroad, should the ICC officially open the war crimes investigation.

Names begin at the top of the Israeli political pyramid, among them Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his current coalition partner, Benny Gantz.

The sheer number of Israeli officials on the list is indicative of the scope of the ICC’s investigation, and, somehow, is a self-indictment, as the names include former Israeli Defense Ministers – Moshe Ya’alon, Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett; current and former army chiefs of staffs – Aviv Kochavi, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot and current and former heads of internal intelligence, the Shin Bet – Nadav Argaman and Yoram Cohen.

Respected international human rights organizations have already, repeatedly, accused all these individuals of serious human rights abuses during Israel’s lethal wars on the besieged Gaza Strip, starting with the so-called ‘Operation Cast Lead’ in 2008-9.

But the list is far more extensive, as it covers “people in much more junior positions, including lower-ranking military officers and, perhaps, even officials involved in issuing various types of permits to settlements and settlement outposts.”

Israel, thus, fully appreciates the fact that the international community still insists that the construction of illegal colonies in occupied Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the transfer of Israeli citizens to occupied land are all inadmissible under international law and tantamount to war crimes. Netanyahu must be disappointed to learn that all of Washington’s concessions to Israel under Trump’s presidency have failed to alter the position of the international community and the applicability of international law in any way.

Furthermore, it would not be an exaggeration to argue that Tel Aviv’s postponement of its plan to illegally annex nearly a third of the West Bank is directly linked to the ICC’s investigation, for the annexation would have completely thwarted Israel’s friends’ efforts aimed at preventing the investigation from ever taking place.

While the whole world, especially Palestinians, Arabs and their allies, still anxiously await the final decision by the Pre-Trial Chamber, Israel will continue its overt and covert campaign to intimidate the ICC and any other entity that aims to expose Israeli war crimes and to try Israeli war criminals.

Washington, too, will continue to strive to ensure Netanyahu, Gantz, and the “200 to 300” other Israeli officials never see their day in court.

However, the fact that a “secret list” exists is an indication that Tel Aviv understands that this era is different and that international law, which has failed Palestinians for over 70 years, may, for once, deliver, however a small measure of justice.

Coronavirus Criminality: Bolsonaro and the International Criminal Court

Binoy Kampmark

This could be the stuff of fiction. But then again, many legal principles began, at some point or rather, in the sludge of speculation before hardening into legal briefs and prosecutorial documents.  Holding heads of state to account for crimes against their people remains a perennial project with a patchy record.  This is particularly the case when it comes to international tribunals vested with jurisdiction to try such figures.  It all reads well in the statute, but when it comes to testing it, the will is often lacking.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, along with a set of other leaders, offers an excellent case in point. With many fingers pointing at Chinese culpability for the coronavirus and seeking some legal forum to test Beijing’s “wrongs”, there is a double play at stake.  For figures such as US President Donald Trump, the coronavirus is only serious if the light is shone on Chinese wickedness and economic wrongs.  Arguments have been made by his administration that Beijing fork out “very substantial damages” by way of compensation.  An energetic number of lawmakers in the US Congress have been trying to strip China of its sovereign immunity in US courts.  The China Compensation Cart has become a heavy one, indeed.

The other side of the play is one of lessening the effects of the virus, which would seem to undermine the argument of Chinese malice.  (Can you be malicious in spreading something ineffectual?)  The US commander-in-chief insists on ignoring the seriousness of it all; the disease it causes is merely a sniffle which will go away.

Bolsonaro’s method has been similar, with its inevitable local twist.  Be it managing or spreading the coronavirus, everyone else shoulders blame, be it irritating governors, querulous medical advisers and ministers, or a lurking firth column of hysterics.  When asked about Brazil’s soaring death toll as it passed China’s, he was nonplussed.  “I don’t work miracles.  What do you want me to do?”  He has been the physical exemplar of repudiation: defying social distancing in meeting supporters in public, attending gatherings without protection; contracting the virus and promoting the snake oil properties of the antimalarial drug, hydroxychloroquine.

When he has gotten on board sanctioning laws ostensibly made to slow viral spread, he has limited their effect.  In early July, for instance, he accepted the bill passed by the Chamber of Deputies that masks be made obligatory when in public but vetoed their use in shops, churches and schools.

In the country, the Brazilian Union Network UNISaúde, an umbrella group of social organisations and unions representing health workers decided to take the matter of command responsibility that one step further.  On Monday, the group filed a complaint with the ICC claiming that the government had been “criminally negligent in its management of the COVID-19 pandemic – risking the lives of healthcare professionals and of members of Brazilian society.”

According to the filed document, certain “government leaders have underestimated the seriousness of the pandemic, and one of them is the president of Brazil.”  Bolsonaro’s “attitude of contempt, neglect, and denial, has brought disastrous consequences, with the resulting intensification of the spread of the illness, completely straining the health services, which were unable to meet the minimum conditions to assist the population, causing deaths without further controls.”

The president’s accusers go further, suggesting, somewhat fancifully, that he might also be guilty of that gravest of crimes.  “The failure of the Brazilian government amounts to a crime against humanity – genocide.”  The problem with that accusation is that genocide can never be the outcome of negligence or pig headed stupidity, being the cold blooded intention of killing members of a group for reasons of race, ethnicity or religion.  Millions have perished because of the colossal ignorance and incompetence of their leaders without making the grade of an Eichmann.

Marcio Monzane of UNI Americas, a key organisation leading the charge to The Hague, acknowledged that it was “a drastic measure, but Brazilians face an extremely dire and dangerous situation created by Bolsonaro’s deliberate decisions.”

This effort to draw attention to the fallible, dangerous leadership of Bolsonaro is not new.  Such a figure has an innate capacity to add fuel to the engine of resentment. The number of complaints filed against Brazil’s head of state is starting to bulk in the office of the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.  In November 2019, the Brazilian Bar Association for Human Rights and the Arms Commission for Human Rights Defence accused Bolsonaro of crimes against humanity and incitement to genocide of the Amazon indigenous populace.  Their preferred choice for investigating such claims?  The ICC.

On April 3 this year, the Brazilian Association of Jurists for Democracy filed a complaint with the ICC similarly claiming that the president had committed crimes against humanity.  The accusations then focused on shrugging off the “seriousness of COVID-19 and encouraging activities that can only result in the rapid and uncontrolled spread of this deadly illness.”  The complainants claimed that a million Brazilians would perish were the WHO recommendations not be met.

The document notes that Bolsonaro’s actions have received the opprobrium of numerous health institutes.  In defiance of medical guidance provided by global authorities, the president, in his capacity as head of state, did “everything in his power to minimize the severity of the pandemic and to encourage the spread of COVID-19 by instructing the nation of Brazil to act in a manner inconsistent with the sound recommendations of the health professionals”.

The wheels of justice tend to be slow; that of international justice, slower.  What Bensouda makes of these various promptings to launch an investigation into the conduct of the Brazilian government during the coronavirus epidemic may well make legal history. But even the activists concede that the longest of bows is being drawn.

Report warns theft of international student wages in Australia set to worsen amid COVID-19

Eric Ludlow

A report published last month exposed egregious levels of wage theft targeting international students in Australia. It also warned that the so-called “reopening of the economy” and the desperate situation of international students experiencing financial hardship amid the COVID-19 crisis means they will be more vulnerable to exploitation and to worsening working conditions.

Written by Professor Bassina Farbenblum (University of New South Wales) and Associate Professor Laurie Berg (University of Technology Sydney) in conjunction with the Migrant Worker Justice Initiative (MWJI), the report analysed data from a 2019 survey of 5,968 international students, as part of the Information for Impact project funded by StudyNSW.

The respondents were nationals of 103 countries. The highest number were from China (24 percent), followed by India (14 percent).

Half of respondents aged over 20 had received less than the basic statutory minimum wage of $18.49 per hour for 20-year-olds and $18.93 per hour for 21-year-olds in permanent positions while employed in their lowest-paying job. Over three quarters (77 percent) were paid below the minimum casual rate of $23.11 per hour for 20-year-olds and $23.66 per hour for 21-year-olds.

Over a quarter of respondents (26 percent) earned $12 or less per hour. The report noted that this figure has remained unchanged since the National Temporary Migrant Work Survey in 2016, despite marginal rises to statutory minimum wages since that time. The proportion of international students who reported that they speak “fair” or “poor” English on $12 or less per hour was 39 percent.

The report also noted that a “stark outlier was Chinese students who fared far worse than others at the most egregious levels of underpayment. In their lowest-paid jobs, well over half (54 percent) were paid $12 per hour or less.” Approximately one in ten were paid less than $10 per hour and 83 percent earned less than the minimum wage for casuals.

In an interview with the WSWS, one Chinese student in Brisbane said: “I have rarely heard of Chinese students ever getting the legal minimum wage. The maximum wage I have ever received is $18 per hour and the lowest wage I’ve ever received is $12 per hour.”

One in five respondents reported working very long hours and 9 percent had not been paid at all for a period.

Of the students surveyed who experienced problems at work, almost two thirds did not try to access help or seek information to address the problem according to the MWJI analysis.

The authors pointed out that 48 percent of respondents said that they feared losing their jobs if they complained. They write that this concern is “likely accurate,” as 7 percent of all respondents reported that they had in fact lost their jobs as a result of a complaint. This would be a substantial proportion of those who had raised issues at work. Thirty-eight percent said that they did not seek information or help for fear of affecting their current or future visas.

Like young workers, students and other casual and part-time workers across Australia and internationally, many international students lost their casual jobs as a result of limited social distancing measures introduced in response to the spread of COVID-19.

International students are excluded by nationalist and anti-democratic laws from almost all government assistance, leaving those that lost jobs with no income and unable to pay for accommodation, living expenses or their exorbitant course fees. Many are no longer able to rely on assistance from family members in their home countries, who are also experiencing financial hardship brought on by the COVID-19 crisis.

Interviewed by Equal Times last month, Indian student Ajay is studying for a masters degree in data science at Melbourne’s Monash University. His course will cost $80,000. After the 25-year-old’s café job was suspended in March, he was left with just $50 in his bank account.

With the pro-business “reopening of the economy” in Australia, the report noted that international students will be even more vulnerable to exploitation “due to their highly precarious financial status and desperation for work in a more tightly constrained labour market.”

The authors added that this “will likely lead many to accept even poorer working conditions” and “intensify the factors that deter international students from seeking help or taking action when problems arise.”

In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Professor Berg said: “The government cannot treat international students and their labour as a utilitarian commodity. During COVID-19, many international students were essential workers in aged care, supermarkets, food delivery and cleaning, keeping Australians safe, fed and cared for. Yet the government turned its back on those who lost jobs and has failed to seriously address exploitation among those who are working.”

The report also pointed to the fact that many international students could not return home due to borders being closed, flights being unaffordable or unavailable or because they did not want to jeopardise their return to Australia to study amid uncertainties around the spread of the pandemic.

However, increasing financial hardship, concerns over their health and inadequate online learning support led tens of thousands of international students to return home when lockdowns were introduced in March. Most planned to continue their studies in Australia once COVID-19 had abated.

As a result of the reckless back-to-work drive, dictated by corporate profit interests, Australia has in recent weeks seen a resurgence in COVID-19 cases and has closed its international and most state borders. There have been several thousand new cases since the beginning of July, the majority in the state of Victoria.

According to the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), approximately “120,000 students or 20 percent of total international enrolments in Australia are currently blocked from entering the country due to the border closure, of which nearly 7,000 are stranded in India.”

The federal government announced earlier this month that a “pilot” program to bring small numbers of international students back for the coming semester would be suspended.

The “Safe Passage” pilot program was tabled by the Canberra-based Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Canberra (UC) in early June. They proposed to fly 350 international students to Canberra this month. It was accompanied by a similar plan for 800 students to return to South Australia.

According to the ANU and UC, the program included stringent pre-departure and post-arrival testing and 14-day isolation upon arrival in Australia.

Federal education minister Dan Tehan told PIE News that the programs would only go ahead with the “reopening of internal state and territory borders within Australia” and “the return to on-campus learning for the benefit of domestic students and the international students who are already in Australia.”

ANU undergraduate student Harpragaas Singh, currently stuck in the northern Indian state of Punjab and unsure if he had even be shortlisted for the pilot program, told SBS: “I am totally disappointed with the way they are handling the situation for students and all other temporary visa holders who are currently stranded offshore.”

Universities across the country are pleading with the federal government to reconsider the proposals, but not out of concern for the future education of their international students.

International students have been treated by universities as cash cows for decades, bringing in $39 billion last financial year, amid decades of funding cuts by Labor and Liberal governments. The universities estimate they could lose up to $19 billion over the next three years due to lower international student numbers stemming from the pandemic.

Concerned over the pandemic’s impact on Australia’s competitiveness on the world market for international students, the Department of Home Affairs, the federal government body in charge of immigration, announced minor changes to highly sought-after post-study visas for international students. Under the visa subclass 485, international students who have completed two years of study in Australia are eligible to work in Australia for between 18 months and 4 years.

Previously, students were required to be present in Australia for at least 16 months to be eligible. Among the changes are the granting of student visas to new students offshore, free visa applications and counting online study while abroad toward requirements for the post-study work visa.

However, the changes do not help international students who chose to defer their studies as the pandemic began to spread in March.

The situation confronting international students is a graphic expression of the social crisis being inflicted on the entire working class by governments and the corporate elite that they represent.

This underscores the need for a fight to unify international and domestic students, as part of the struggle to build a socialist movement aimed at establishing free higher education for all, and decent paid permanent jobs as a fundamental social right.

Australian SAS planted weapons on murdered civilians in Afghanistan

Taylor Bennington

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has revealed further evidence leaked from a nearly completed closed-door inquiry of systematic war crimes carried out by elite Australian Special Air Services (SAS) in Afghanistan.

The revelations include that SAS military rotations in 2012 and early 2013 planted weapons on the bodies of civilians they had murdered, in an attempt to cover their tracks. This was done so crudely that the same distinctively marked weapon was planted multiple times.

The official inquiry is being carried out by Paul Brereton, a New South Wales Supreme Court Justice and army reserve Major General, and has lasted four years. Brereton has reportedly conducted over 250 interviews and looked into at least 55 alleged war crimes incidents between 2005 and 2016.

An Australian light armored vehicle in Afghanistan

The latest ABC report detailed an SAS raid on Shina Village in May 2012. Two civilians were shot dead by Australian troops and then presented as Taliban “insurgents” by photographing their corpses alongside an AK-47 assault rifle. The same weapon, which had teal tape wrapped around the stock, was used for both civilians, an elderly man in his 80s and a young mentally ill man. A third Afghan killed in the raid was the imam of the local mosque, Muhibullah.

Shina villager Abdul Wali told an Afghani journalist that his elderly father, Abdul Wahid, was unarmed and killed in cold blood. “[My father] was on his own land. He never stole or did anything bad to anyone,” he said. “This is impossible to forgive.”

Jan Mohammad was the young, mentally ill man killed in the SAS raid. Sahki Daad, the victim’s brother-in-law, gave an account of the killing, saying 20-year-old Jan Mohammad was tending a grazing cow when the SAS approached the village.

“When the cow heard the helicopters, it ran and he ran after it,” Daad explained. The “soldiers came his way… and saw him running.” He continued, “they shot him straight away in the head.”

Several SAS soldiers who served in the 2012 Afghanistan rotation told the ABC that the framing of unarmed civilians as Taliban insurgents, with planted radios or weapons, which were known as “throwdowns” within the ranks, “happened on numerous occasions.”

In January 2013, an SAS squad was commanded to sweep the village of Nawjoy to find and kill an alleged Taliban target named Mawlawi Sher Mohammad. Merely an identification by name constituted the validation of carrying out this assassination. The Australian SAS soldiers located Mawlawi as he was congregating with several women, ripped him away, and shot him dead. Nawjoy villager Ghafoor Jan, the victims’ brother-in-law, told journalists, “Mawlawi was an innocent man… He had no links at all with the Taliban.”

Chapman revealed soldiers were “most of the time [given] a really simple description of the average Afghani man.” He explained: “Often… they would be saying stuff like ‘Fist-length beard, wearing Afghani clothes’.”

Further crimes were committed following the assassination of Afghani citizen Mawlawi Sher Mohammad. Ghafoor Jan told journalists the soldiers “burned people’s motorbikes and one car.” He added: “They burned them because they thought the vehicles belonged to the Taliban. But they were the property of the villagers.”

Another massacre of civilians in Afghanistan occurred toward the end of 2012. An Australian military raid on Sara Aw in December resulted in “up to 10 suspicious killings with another five Taliban dead,” the ABC reported. At least five of these suspicious killings occurred at a villager’s tractor where there were no weapons found on the victims.

Afghan villager Mohammad Nassim, who witnessed the attack, told journalists that “there were three Taliban in nomad houses [near the village]. They resisted and were killed. But then they killed other people—civilians.”

Witness and fellow villager Ratmahullah said Australian soldiers “were shooting people intentionally. They were mass shooting.”

Abdul Qadas, who got injured during the raid, said his brother Abdul Salim was driving the tractor when he was killed. “He was carrying a load of onions; he was taking them to the city. There were some other people with him as well.” Abdul Qadas’s cousin was also killed in the attack while packing onions.

According to the ABC, the SAS were accompanied by Afghan special forces in the operation. It added that “the Zulu 1 [SAS] patrol was involved in shooting at the tractor… and that some members of the SAS patrol were unhappy about what happened.”

This is considered to be the worst day of civilian killings yet uncovered by the official investigation into Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.

Special Forces commander Adam Findlay revealed the investigation arose from the concerns of SAS soldiers writing letters to the upper stratum about misconduct. The number of individuals who have given evidence to the four-year long inquiry currently exceeds 300.

The ABC published photos of Australian soldiers on a mission in Afghanistan waving a US Confederate flag with the inscription “southern pride.” These featured in a “highlights video” edited by several SAS soldiers following their rotation of Afghanistan in 2012. The presence of fascistic elements within the SAS is well documented. In 2007 Australian soldiers flew a Nazi swastika flag above a vehicle while on patrol in Afghanistan.

The individual war crimes carried out in the past two decades flowed inexorably from the primary war crime—the invasion and neo-colonial occupation to advance the geopolitical and economic interests of the United States and its allies.

The criminal violence inflicted on the occupied people of Afghanistan since 2001 represents an indictment of the entire ruling class in Australia.