The atrocities faced by the Muslim community adversely affects their mental well-being
“It doesn’t matter if we have a stable job or not, if we’re economically independent; the fear of getting arrested purely due to our religion never stops.”
Khadijha from Mushidabad
“My past experiences with a mental health practitioner were unproductive and mentally tiring. If the people who are supposed to help us do not understand the oppression we face, how will we ever be able to share our uncertainties in a non-judgmental setting?”
Javed from Bhopal
Khadijha and Javed, and many more like them, craved a safe space to voice the daily and multiple injustices and discrimination they faced. They needed to communicate their anxieties freely.
The last few decades have witnessed a relentless assault on the rights of members of minority communities or oppressed castes in India. But there has been little or no attention given to the state of mental health in these communities. No studies have been conducted to analyze the correlation between State’s actions and its effect on the mental health of the Muslim community.
In an effort to reach out and create a safe space for members of the Muslim people to speak out, Bebaak Collective organized a discussion with people from eight states in India between 8th – 22nd September 2020. The discussion was an eye-opener. People from all over the country communicated their struggles in the current climate, and how much of an emotional impact it had on them. Several participants expressed how connected they felt in a space that didn’t seek to isolate them, and instead related to their problems they had to suffer through.
Despite living in a secular country, the discrimination and deprivation faced by members of the Muslim community, is well documented. The recent Shaheen Bagh protest verdict is a prime example of the manner in which the Muslim community suffered at the hands of the State through a wide number of policies and laws. The protest, which drew Muslim women from all over India, was historically monumental. Muslim women, who face both religious and gender oppression, came together to protect their rights and protest discriminatory laws like the Citizenship Amendment Act. Even after being relentlessly threatened, these women came out as protestors for the first time ever.
However, the State prohibited any public disturbance and blockage of the streets during a protest, completely overlooking the concerns of the minority and instead addressed the “inconvenience” faced by the unaffected public. Every time a marginalized body comes forward to speak for its community, they are repressed by the authorities and booked under draconian laws like UAPA. There have been many instances during NRC protests and Delhi riots where Muslim activists, academics and the youth have been discriminated and targeted by the police.
This systemic oppression simply due to their Muslim identity, has negatively impacted the mental well-being of the community.
Where are the voices of Muslim women? How long will we allow Islamophobic men to make our decisions for us? When will the State finally recognize our cognitive autonomy?
The continuous lack of justice and incarceration of community leaders have left us in a constant state of frustration and fear. We have no outlet to vent out our worries – the State has created a situation where our community feels completely isolated from the rest of the country. Something as little as forwarding a message which is critical of the government, is looked upon as anti-nationalist. All these incidents have immensely impacted the community’s mental health.
Given the harsh economic situation in India, accessing mental health services has become a privilege rather than a medical necessity for a majority. The situation is exacerbated for a significant proportion of Muslims who are not financially secure. Besides, other structural barriers hamper our ability to afford quality mental healthcare. In a report by National Statistical Office, it was revealed that literacy rate for Muslim women in India was lower than women of any other religion. Muslims also have the highest proportion of youth (age 3-35 years) who have never enrolled in formal education programs. These barriers limit the community’s opportunities to gain proper employment, and thus many end up getting stuck in the poverty cycle.
Even if Muslims are able to afford therapy, they end up facing more obstacles. The mental health industry often operates from a space of neutrality while trying to make a diagnosis and provide an intervention. However, it fails to recognize the mental stress that comes from institutionalized structures of oppression against minorities. By calling itself neutral, the industry ends up hiding it’s Islamophobic and anti-caste views. Often, mental health practitioners tend to only focus on the classification of our mental illnesses, and don’t explore the psychosocial causes behind the same.
As Javed mentioned before, many psychologists fail to recognize the struggles that derive form belonging to an oppressed community. They often undermine their issues and make it seem as if meds are the only solution to their problems. Javed had to repeatedly explain his frustration with the discriminatory policies, but instead he faced a wall when the psychologist refused to make the sessions political, and ended up removing his safe-space to communicate his worries.
It is essential that we start having these important political discussions in an attempt to provide marginalities with the much needed community care. Until mental health practitioners understand the vast struggles that the Muslim community faces, many from the community will refuse to seek help. If we want to break the stigma against mental health, and stop the myth of selfishness that comes with the concept of self-care, then we need to start observing, accepting and working towards the injustice that the minorities have been facing, in order to provide them with better mental healthcare.
“The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.” Edward Dowling
Of late we have been seeing many articles lamenting the role of the Press and Media in today’s society and complaining how it is no longer objective and principled but seems to be more a propaganda machine than anything else. I thought it therefore necessary to try to put things in perspective so that we can recognize what is really happening to our world. That way we will either take the trouble to change matters or at least see how entirely expected and appropriate the role of the media and press is, under the circumstances.
The play Mouse Trap is the longest running play in history. It has been going on since 1947. But strangely the ending is always the same. Now isn’t that very peculiar? Or is it really quite understandable because though the actors have changed since 1947, the script is the same and so no matter which actor comes, he or she is forced to speak the same lines and so the play begins in the same way and the ending is the same.
I would like you to remember this analogy while I recall a quick history lesson. Once upon a time there was a multi-national company, run from a warehouse in London where its Board sat. It sent out its managers at first to trade with Indian kings. They took permission to build trading posts, then permission to recruit a small force to secure their goods. Gradually these trading posts metamorphosed into forts, the security guards into a private army and the country managers into Governors. The enslavement of India was well on its way, before the Indian leadership such as there was, even woke up to the fact. That India was more a geography than a political reality at the time was no doubt helpful to those who had a more global view. Robert Clive, Country Manager, British East India Company, waged war, annexed independent states and assassinated their legitimate heads and installed his own Agents to administer what had been in effect independent countries in their own right.
Beautiful mausoleums
It was the so-called ‘Mutiny’ of 1857, which only the last of the Great Mughals, Bahadur Shah Zafar had the courage to call by its real name, ‘The Indian War of Independence’, that brought in the British Crown. The slavery of India did not end; however, we just changed our owners. Bahadur Shah Zafar was accused of treason and banished from the land of his forefathers. He defended his position and pointed out that it was he, who was the king of the land, not the British East India Company and so he could not possibly have committed treason against himself. It was the Company Sahib (note the address of respect, enforced on India) which was the intruder into a land where they came to trade and stayed to rule. Of course, the plea fell on the deaf ears of the British East India Company’s judge and Bahadur Shah Zafar was banished from the home of his forefathers forever.
Cut to 2020; a century and a half later and what do we see? The names have changed. The actors have changed but the script is the same and so the play continues. The objectives are the same and so are the methods; grabbing raw material, fuel, land, labor, power and markets in any way possible using any means at one’s disposal and treating any attempt by the rightful owners at self defense as rebellion, to be crushed mercilessly with overwhelming force. The foundation of this method is of course even more ancient. The industrial-military complex and its methodology for global domination is first recorded more than 2000 years ago in the annals of the history of the Roman Empire. The Empire is long gone, but ideology outlasts its proponents and so the lessons have been learned and are being practiced. The centurion replaced by the present-day soldier performing the same role; following orders from on high.
The world however has changed in some ways in that public opinion does have a bigger say in things, than used to be the case with the Romans or the British Empire. So, thought-steering evolved to a fine art. That and the art of influencing others by means of repeating a lie over and over. Lessons once again learnt from a master, the head of Hitler’s Propaganda Ministry, Goebbels. Only, we are not silly enough to call it Propaganda Ministry. Instead we call it the Free Press. The lie becomes the truth. The victim deserves to die, and the law is a handmaiden of the tyrant, designed to give his every action the veneer of legitimacy.
The New World Order is well on its way to achieving its aim of global domination, called by yet another harmless, even benevolent sounding name, Globalization.
Just reflect a bit on this: what differentiates a Corporation from a Democracy?
Seattle, Bezo’s …..
Corporation
1. Hereditary or nominated head
2. Absolute authority of leadership
3. If people don’t like the leader, they have to leave
4. Attempts at asserting equality, freedom or questioning decisions are seen as Opposition = Rebellion = Treason = Punishment = ‘Death’: Firing
5. Master plan for everyone. Others must align to it
6. Freedom is anathema except for the top leadership. Everyone else is free only to follow orders, couched in nice language.
7. Test of success = alignment to values.
8. Mark of a leader = Can break unions.
9. Mark of a trouble maker = represents the people = Union leader.
10. Inequality is accepted even expected
11. Corporations seek to influence consumers
12. Media/Press = the PR Agency. It sings the official tune, its success lies in its ability to influence minds by interpreting (not reporting) facts, it invents language to ensure that all official actions appear good and all opposition to them appears bad: Freedom fighter = insurgent/terrorist; dead civilians = collateral damage; genocide = ethnic cleansing; murder = encounter.
Its job is to ensure that the establishment always appears to be noble, good, pious and kind; no matter what it does. It can never be objective.
Democracy
1. Elected head
2. Participatory authority
3. If people don’t like the leader, the leader must leave
4. Collective bargaining & decision making is encouraged.
5. Citizens participate in leadership. Questioning & Opposition: Signs of a healthy democracy.
6. Participatory master planning open to change as necessary
7. Equality and freedom are sacred; supported and defended by the constitution
8. Constituents are citizens, equal participants in the future of the collective. Citizens are free, even encouraged to influence the government
9, Democracies seek to consult citizens. Media/Press is the agent of the people. It gives them a voice, it encourages debate, it provides space for dialogue, it encourages divergent ideas and ideologies, it reports facts and it questions authority and official decisions.
10. It is the interface between the government and citizens and by its role it tells the government what the people really want . It keeps authoritative tendencies in check by its ability to expose them and redresses the wrongs committed by those in power.
Corporations see people as consumers. Democracies have citizens
I can go on, but I won’t. I will leave you to add to this list as you wish. Those of you who have read Collins & Porras’, Built to Last will recall the reasons for greatness that they cite for what they call ‘Visionary Companies’. Among them, ‘Total Alignment to a Core Ideology and Cult-like Cultures’ are most critical. The single most critical need for a Cult-like Culture is a profusion of mindless followers, who will do what they are told, without question. That is what alignment is all about. And incidentally that is what the fascist state also needs. The success of the corporation is measured by how it can increase shareholder value. This is a direct result of high profits through good margins or high volumes or both. Everything else is subordinate to that goal.
That is the reason why in British India, the British rulers forced the farmers of North India to grow indigo instead of food and precipitated a famine that resulted more than two million deaths. But the commercial success of the venture justified the cost in human lives. Especially when they were not British lives but those of some nameless poor black people in ‘that colony of ours’. Similarly, to create a market for the produce of the cloth mills of Yorkshire, the vibrant textile industry of Northern and Central India was deliberately destroyed including the smashing of looms and the amputation of the thumbs of master weavers. Millions of small weavers were reduced to penury overnight. And the cloth from Yorkshire had a free entry into the huge Indian market. After one must wear clothes, no matter their origin. It is not an accident that Gandhiji took Swadeshi as his slogan, burnt his British clothes, and donned the dhoti. He used the spinning wheel as his symbol and spun thread and made khadi cotton cloth. Unlike many today, he knew his history very well and was a master at putting his finger on the nerve that hurt the most.
[Suggested reading: Anarchy, by William Dalrymple]
Corporatizing of Democracy: The Totalitarian State
The ideal situation for the corporation is when the state becomes a corporation. Then the head of state is proudly called a ‘CEO’. Productivity is at a peak, trains run on time, there is no disruption of work, students study, workers work, teachers teach their subject exclusively, parents condition the next generation properly and all government is left to those who walk the corridors of power. Indeed, this is as it should be and all is right with the ant colony. It is not accidental that countries like China, Israel and even Pakistan have long had most favored nation status with the US/Europe but India (when we were part of the Non-Aligned Movement: what an appropriate name it was!) did not. Those were the days when the trade union movement was vibrant though for those who worked for corporations this was something of a problem. Then came the criminalization (totalitarian control) of trade unions by political parties who floated their own unions and eventually trade union activity became a memory.
The Corporation is interested in one thing only as I mentioned: maximizing profit. Social, religious, or political ideologies are of no interest to it in any way except in terms of how they support its goal. In most recent times, Afghanistan was invaded because the Taliban were too dumb to play ball and insisted on giving the rights to build a gas pipeline to a South American company. Iraq was invaded because Saddam refused to play ball and insisted on selling his oil for Euros and not dollars. Consequently, he met a fate the purpose of which was to also put the fear of god into his brothers who are also sitting on oil reserves. Nobody can accuse them of being slow on the uptake, so they welcomed the killer of Saddam with open arms, dancing girls, falcon hunts, gifts of jewelry and what-have-you. In return they got promises of arms aid for which they pay first and then wait to see if the arms do come. Arms to do what, you may ask. Take 3 guesses, I will reply.
Of course, the PR (Free Press!!) was hard at work talking about the repressive regime of the Taliban and the well hidden Weapons of Mass Destruction of Iraq. The fact that among the ‘friends’ of the Corporate State are others who are even more repressive than the Taliban is immaterial and naturally goes unreported. That the Weapons of Mass Destruction were so well hidden that they were never found is brushed aside. The saddest part was to see how even the best and most noble prostitute themselves to be in the good books of the Corporate State, when none other than Colin Powell stood before the United Nations and lied through his teeth.
Above all the corporation needs order. It calls it by many names; peace, harmony, goodness for all mankind, but what it really needs is order. The fastest and surest way to create order is using overwhelming force. Zero tolerance. All protest, debate, demonstrations, criticism, and ‘confusion’ must be eliminated to get silence and order. Corporations and corporate language find immediate resonance in the military because many if not most of modern corporate thinking has roots in military command theory. That is the reason why if you read the history of the development of any fascist totalitarian rule, you will find that the first collaborators of fascist rulers are always industrialists, businessmen; in short those who run corporations. For it is they who understand and empathize with the fascist leader the best.
When Hitler took control of Germany it was the industrialists and businessmen who supported him. So also, Mussolini was supported in Italy and many others whose names you well know. Many examples are present in our time today and need not be mentioned as they are clearly visible and known to all of us. The question is what do we want to do?
Corporations are the most undemocratic structures in the world and stand for the exact opposite of all democratic values. However now we have a problem. And that is, what do we do with public opinion if we express the truth as I have done? The solution is language. Say the same thing but differently.
So the Voice of the Corporation (their Media/Press companies) talks of freedom (they mean freedom to obey), equality (you are exactly equal to the next man on the assembly line), meeting aspirations (provided you keep your head to the corporate grinding wheel for 30 years first), progress (corporate goals are being met) and welfare (good living conditions for the enforcers). Crime and patriotism are both redefined. Any action that seeks to slow down or change the corporate goal is a crime. Any opposition to official ideology is treason. Patriotism is not love of and loyalty to the country but loyalty to the government of the day. Criticism is defined as disloyalty. Curtailing of freedom and human rights are justified in the interest of security.
In order to get people to not just agree to their freedoms being curtailed and human rights being reduced and violated, terror is used by the state or its agencies so that fear crazed people will come running into the open arms of the police asking for protection and gladly ratify the most draconian laws which imprison their minds, tongues and actions. Security is inversely proportional to functionality. People are taught this valuable lesson so that they tamely accept hours of waiting for flights, strange security guards delving into their most personal belongings and their probing hands and eyes rampaging all over their bodies, ostensibly searching for hidden arms.
People who have learnt these lessons also learn to keep their mouths shut even if they do not actively support legislation legalizing torture, murder, detention without cause and disappearances in the night. And those who do not learn this lesson become examples whose fate enables others to learn.
Freedom of expression is a very well rehearsed charade. The Corporate State allows you to say whatever you want and to hold demonstrations of as many people as you want. This serves two important ends: it supports the illusion of freedom of speech and allows people a way of letting off steam so that there isn’t enough buildup to bring about fundamental change. This also allows the Corporate State the opportunity to identify potential threats to itself and to take care of them later once the noise has subsided and all the demonstrators have gone back to their TV screens and popcorn. Then the Corporate State does what it intended to do anyway. The Iraq war, Tiananmen Square massacre in China, and many others are all good examples.
There are many others, but I will leave you to think of them. The same is the case of Judicial Enquiries where compliant judges sign on dotted lines and the case is always closed in favor of the Corporate State. Ask, when was the last time that the State was indicted in a Judicial Enquiry and its agents went to jail?
Seattle night view
The last thing that a Corporate State needs is a thinking, questioning, middle class that has options. So, it seeks to remove them and to change their situation where the people are completely dependent on the state which then becomes the best way of controlling them. Financial meltdowns, whether they are deliberately engineered, or the result of excessive greed are a very useful tool to bring the middle class down to earth. It is the middle class which loses the shirt on its collective back and has its homes repossessed and suddenly higher goals like freedom, liberty and human rights have to be subordinated to the immediate goal of putting food on the table or ensuring a roof overhead. After the meltdown, the Corporate State steps in with its bail-out plans, all neatly packaged with a veritable spaghetti of strings attached. All sensible people fall in line. Those who protest or worse, seek to show others the reality are struck down, often by their own badly frightened compatriots. If they escape that fate, the Corporate State removes them from circulation for the common good, silently watched by the mute majority.
Ask, in the last meltdown who suffered the most? Corporate heads who were responsible for the meltdown or the middle class who were their faithful employees? Ask, how is it that heads of corporations which went bankrupt went home with multi-million dollar pay and bonus packages? What are these rewards for? Ask, who are the direct and immediate beneficiaries of the bailout packages? Ask, how many corporate heads lost their jobs or suffered pay cuts or lost their homes in the financial meltdown? Ask, where were the decisions that created the meltdown taken, in board rooms or on the assembly line? Ask, yet who is the one who lost the shirt on his back and the roof over his head?
The Corporate State is a great supporter of technology. It funds and supports without limit all research that enables it to control the people better and more powerfully. The official line of course is that this is in the interest of the people themselves to better be able to protect them from harm. Anyone thinking of raising his voice against more and more invasive surveillance is silenced by his own people. Some amazing technological developments are being mentioned. Bugs with solar powered cameras which will transmit real-time images and audio to a satellite which will beam it back to a central console monitoring the doings of the target group. The term ‘fly-on-the-wall’ suddenly has a quite different and sinister meaning. Satellite maps that pinpoint your home, car, and yourself exactly and can track your every move. Cell phones, credit cards, ID cards, retina scans all to identify you positively and to track your every move. Once again, I won’t go on.
The point is that the vast majority of research and development that is currently going on is not in the areas of health, food production, environmental protection, education or economic development but in the area of what is euphemistically called ‘security systems. In fact, these are not security systems but surveillance systems, control systems and more sinister systems which all dovetail to focus on the overarching goal of enhancing the hold of the Corporate State on the world.
What can we do?
What the Corporate State cannot stand is the light of day on its activities. And so accurate reporting of facts, shining the light of enquiry on shady deals, asking the unasked, speaking the unsaid and raising your voice against injustice right at its inception. Technology today gives us the ability to do all of this without depending on the Corporate Media to give us space. We know they will never do that, but we don’t need them today. Thanks to the internet, camera mobiles, and the ability to upload images and text from almost anywhere, it is possible today to ensure that at least those who are interested can see the side of the picture that mouthpieces of the establishment have been hiding.
Ultimately to act or to sit and watch is the decision of the individual. We cannot force anyone to act. What we can and must do however is to ensure that people have access to correct information so that they can make good decisions. What we can and must do is to ensure that critical questions are asked and brought into the debate so that people can demand more and better information from the agencies of the Corporate State.
Whether they get that information or not immediately is not the issue. When they start asking the questions this in itself will generate positive trends where citizens will stop acting like consumers and start to exercise some of their rights. The right to information is one. The right to justice is another. I believe that as citizens of democracies, no matter how flawed, if we can enforce accountability by sharing information and asking questions we will have achieved a great deal in ensuring that men and women can still walk free in the land, long after we are gone.
Organ donation is when a person allows an organ of theirs to be removed, legally, either by consent while the donor is alive or after the death of the donor with the approval of the near relative (Tamuli et al., 2019). Transplantations are the next that follow organ donations that include kidney, heart, liver, pancreas, intestines, lungs, bones, bone marrow, skin, and cornea (Tamuli et al., 2019). Globally, organ transplantation has saved thousands of lives (Ramadurg & Gupta, 2014). One may donate his/her organs like kidney and tissues like part of the liver, pancreas, lungs, and intestines during the life course. However, most of the organ donations occur only from a deceased donor (Tamuli et al., 2019).
The Transplantation of Human Organs Act was first established in India (1994) and was later amended in 2011, provides a legal and transparent system for organ donation in India (Shroff, 2009). In 2015, the health ministry of India announced a policy mechanism to facilitate the cadaver organ donation to address institutional roadblocks further. Nevertheless, almost 500,000 individuals die each year because of the lack of organ availability, primarily due to a limited number of organ donors in the country. Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO) states that only about 0.01% Indian population donates their organs after death, whereas 70-80% of the Western country people pledge their organs (G et al., 2018). Globally, it has been identified that the attitudes of people towards organ donation are affected by factors such as awareness, education, and religion. This could be attributed to the fear and distrust among people about organ donation owing to religious attitudes, superstitions, and proper knowledge and understanding of organ donation (Jagadeesh et al., 2018).
The Crucial Role of Cultural and Religious Beliefs on Organ Donation
The religious and cultural perspective on organ donation among different communities is one of the challenges limiting the practice of organ donation. It is well-known that these beliefs play a crucial role in behaviour and decision-making regarding organ donation in religious countries, particularly in Asian regions. Religion is a significant influencing factor that governs the public’s attitude and practices towards organ donation. No religion officially bans organs from being donated or obtained or is against transplantation from living or deceased donors. The explanation for the lower score among Hindus may probably be because of their strong belief in a continuous cycle of birth and rebirth. However, some South Asian Muslim scholars (ulemas) and jurists (muftis) reject the concept and practice of organ donation from both living and deceased donors because they believe in the human body as an “Amanat” (trusteeship) from God and should therefore not be profaned after death (G et al., 2018 & Mostafazadeh-Bora et al., 2017).
Lack of information on legal and procedural details of organ donation
Another important barrier to organ donation is the lack of awareness among healthcare professionals on the legal and procedural details of organ donation. The lack of knowledge and awareness of organ donations, religious attitudes and superstitious beliefs has created fear and distrust in the minds of ordinary people and terminally ill patients. Health care practitioners should theoretically be the most trained group in the field of donation of live and cadaveric organs. In the organ procurement process, this community is the most decisive link since they are the first individuals to develop a relationship with the potential living or cadaveric donor family and should be able to activate the organ donation choice (Jagadeesh et al., 2018).
Distrust towards the health care system: The largest barrier to organ donation
Studies reveal that mistrust in the donation process is one of the main barriers stopping individuals from donating their organs after death. This mistrust could potentially stem from various causes, including perceptions that physicians are more concerned with their financial well-being than the health of patients, and negative media coverage of physicians and their practices. The same study suggested greater openness in the relationships between doctor and patient, and more time dedicated to informing the patient about the organ donation and organ transplantation process, as a strategy that reduces this mistrust. These findings illustrate the need for improved relationships between the donor-family and the donor-physician (Jagadeesh et al., 2018).
Role of family knowledge, perception, and support in organ donation
A cross-sectional study conducted in coastal South India among skilled drivers infers that the major hindrance for organ donation is the lack of family support and mistrust of the health care system, as shown by the concern that donated organs would be used for medical research and would not meet those who need it most. Families with favourable donation information and mindset criteria had a ten times greater probability of providing consent to donate their deceased next to kin’s organs (Melino, 2014).
What can be done?
To overcome the barriers to a successful organ donation request, effective communication along with education, awareness, and mass campaigns can prove to be useful. Communication includes engaging with families in a manner that offers ample information to make an informed- decision about the option of donating an organ. Families often need to be prepared for the order. It is essential to address critical subjects, such as brain deaths, how the body is treated, burial arrangements, patient desires for donation, donation costs, and providing comparative statistics on the benefits of donating an organ (Siminoff et al., 2015). Rising consent and conversion rates for transplantable organs is one promising strategy to reduce the difference between the need for organ donation and availability. The lack of awareness or expertise individuals have about organ donation is a significant obstacle frequently cited for the low consent rates. A popular approach to educate or enlighten a target audience is to communicate in mass the potential benefits of adherence to a healthy practice or to communicate the potential risks of non-compliance. In pro-social health areas, many advertising campaigns are also accompanied by grassroots or interpersonal messages of power. Registry cards are made available in the case of organ donation and brochures are disseminated that inform participants about donation. Campaigns that use interpersonal communication efforts to help media campaigns are projected to be more successful than the media alone. Hence, an effective communication strategy on organ donation can aid in eliminating negative attitudes and create a conducive atmosphere for organ donation among the driver population.
Australia has given the world two influential and disruptive exports in the field of media. One, currently in London’s Belmarsh Prison, is facing the prospect of extradition to the United States for charges that could see him serve a 175 year sentence in a brutal, soul destroying supermax. The other, so the argument goes, should also be facing the prospect of incarceration for what he has done to politics in numerous countries. But media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the gruesome presence behind Fox News and News Corp, is unlikely to spend time in a cell any time soon. The same cannot be said for Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.
Ingratiatingly, politicians have made the journey of pilgrimage to the not-so-holy Murdoch to keep in his good books. Disgracefully, though motivated by perceived necessity, British Labour’s Tony Blair wooed Murdoch prior to the 1997 UK general election he was to win. The victory for New Labour led to an association between Blair and Murdoch that was, according to former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil, “almost incestuous”.
Blair’s kowtowing did its magic. As former deputy editor of TheSun, Neil Wallis, recalls in the first instalment of the documentary series The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, he was flayed by Murdoch for initially running what he called a “fairly standard” front page on the election. This was the same paper that boastfully declared on April 11, 1992, that, “It’s The Sun Wot Won It.” Labour, then led by Neil Kinnock, was favoured in the polls to defeat John Major’s weary, dysfunctional Conservatives. Murdoch, and his paper, would have none of it. On election day, the paper’s headline bellowed: “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.”
By 1997, attitudes had changed. Wallis recalls entering his office after editing the first edition. Murdoch called: “Hated your paper this morning,” he raged. “Two or three minutes later my door opens, Rupert comes up and says ‘you’re getting this wrong. You’ve got this totally wrong. We are not just backing Tony Blair but we are going to back the Labour party and everything he does in this campaign 200%. You’ve got to get that right.”
The paper’s endorsement for Blair followed but came with its pound of tantalising flesh. Blair was required to write a puff piece for the paper promising a referendum should he wish Britain to embrace the Euro currency. Former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, forever associated with the Brexit campaign and Murdoch worship, saw this intervention as crucial. “The price of Rupert Murdoch’s support for Tony Blair was that Blair promised he would not take us into the European currency without a referendum, and if Rupert Murdoch had not done that we would have joined the Euro in 1999 and I doubt Brexit would have happened.”
In a 2016 study published in Social Science Research, the authors found that The Sun’s endorsement for Labour in 1997 led to a boost of support in the order of 7%. In 2010, the same paper’s return to backing the Conservatives increased support by 15%. Even if these figures were to be scaled back significantly, they would still suggest a degree of staggering influence.
It is precisely such power that has become something of an obsession for former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. Rudd has never resiled from the view that Murdoch was directly responsible for his demise. True, his own knife-wielding colleagues in the Australian Labor Party, addled by negative poll ratings, were happy to do the deed, but it was Murdoch who sang the tune of encouragement. At the launch of his second volume of autobiography in 2018, Rudd claimed that Murdoch “is ideologically, deeply conservative, deeply protective of his corporation’s commercial interests and, therefore, prosecutes a direct agenda through his newspapers which I’ve been on the receiving end [of].”
Another former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, albeit from the conservative side of politics, is also convinced, having become something of a crusader against Murdoch and his foot soldiers. On the ABC’s Insiders program, he warned of the costs accruing to Australia in permitting the dominance of Murdoch’s press imperium. “We have to work out what price we’re paying, as a society, for the hyper-partisanship of the media.” He cast his eye to the United States “and the terribly divided state of affairs that they’re in, exacerbated, as Kevin [Rudd] was saying, by Fox News and other right-wing media.”
This had led to an alliance of sorts between the two men on this point, despite Turnbull’s previous description of Rudd as one of those “miserable ghosts” that haunt politics after the fact. A wiser Turnbull understands Rudd that much better after his own party initiated a palace coup, leading to the ascent of Australia’s current Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.
While an online petition against the dominance of the Murdoch press imperium seems like peashooter stuff, Rudd’s initiative has gathered momentum. His petition, now tabled in Australia’s Parliament, specifically calls for a royal commission “to ensure the strength and diversity of Australian news media.” Having received 501,876 signatures, it notes concern “that Australia’s print media is overwhelmingly controlled by News Corporation, founded by Fox News billionaire Rupert Murdoch, with around two-thirds of daily newspaper readership.” Australians holding views contrary to the Murdoch line “have felt intimidated into silence.” Adding to this such matters as the “mass-sackings of news journalists,” the stripping influence of digital platforms on media diversity, News Corp’s closure of 200 smaller newspapers after their acquisition and “relentless attacks on the ABC’s independence and funding”, the picture is bleak.
The petition’s tabling caused a flutter of interest in Parliament. While Murdoch is unlikely to break out into sweat at efforts made by Australia’s politicians to investigate his reach of influence, any inquiry will be irritating. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is certainly hoping to cause a stir, having pushed members of the Senate to establish an inquiry into media diversity in response to Rudd’s petition. “Australians have become increasingly concerned about the concentration of media ownership and the power and political influence of Murdoch.” The Senator is also keen to see the two former prime ministers “speak frankly and have the protection of parliamentary privilege, which is important when you’re talking about issues of power and influence”.
Murdoch’s hirelings are ready. Unfortunately for Hanson-Young, the News Corp imperium is skilled in camouflaging inertia against change with promises of activity. The inquiry’s terms of reference are also shallow, omitting any reference to News Corp Australia while calling for an examination of the “state of media diversity, independence and reliability in Australia and the impact that this has on public interest journalism and democracy.”
News Corp Australia’s executive chairman, Michael Miller, was cool in his statement, noting that the company had participated in at least nine previous media inquiries. “As always, we will continue to constructively engage in these important conversations.” Murdoch will be hoping that the conservative Morrison government, and a good number of Labor opposition figures, will not go wobbly in preventing change. History may well prove him right. Again.
Around 20,000 demonstrators gathered in the centre of Leipzig on Saturday, crowded together and with most not wearing masks, to protest the German government’s coronavirus restrictions. Police waited for several hours, before it officially ended the demonstration due to the crowd’s non-compliance with hygiene regulations. Several thousand demonstrators then marched across the city’s central ring road and attacked counter-demonstrators and journalists. The police not only permitted the mob to run riot, but they also actively supported them.
The so-called “Lateral Thinkers” demonstration in the city centre had been approved by the Saxon Higher Administrative Court in Bautzen just a few hours before the demo began. Previously, the Leipzig Administrative Court only allowed a demonstration to take place on the expansive grounds of the exhibition centre situated on the outskirts of the city.
Tightly packed demonstrators in front of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig (Image: Twitter Video)
Based on the experience of previous similar demonstrations in Berlin and Konstanz, it was evident that neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists throughout Germany would mobilise for the Leipzig demo and that participants would ignore the government’s pandemic regulations. Nevertheless, the higher court made a conscious decision to allow protesters to gather in the narrow confines of the city centre, thereby providing a prominent arena for COVID-19 deniers and right-wing extremists.
In so doing, the court had the full support of the police in the state of Saxony. Numerous videos, photos and eyewitness reports currently circulating on the Internet show how demonstrators defied all constraints under the benevolent eyes of the police. Several videos document policemen in patrol cars lifting their thumbs in solidarity with demonstrators.
When demonstrators tossed pyrotechnics, firecrackers and other projectiles at the police to force their way through to the Leipzig ring road, the police did nothing to stop them. Instead they withdrew step by step. This is also documented on video.
For their part, those taking part in a counter-demo were harassed and surrounded by the police. In the Connewitz district of the city, two water cannons were used the same evening to disperse left-wing activists who allegedly threw stones at the windows of a police station and ignited incendiary devices.
Several journalists were physically attacked by the far-right demonstrators, with some suffering significant injuries. Again, the police did nothing to protect the journalists, but rather participated in the attacks. At least 38 media representatives were prevented from carrying out their work, according to the journalists’ union DJU. Nine cases of obstruction stemmed from the hostile intervention of police officers. “Compared to the anti-Corona demonstrations in Berlin, for example, we saw a completely new dimension yesterday in terms of the extent of violence,” said DJU Chairwoman Tina Groll.
The German Journalists’ Association DJV also protested against police harassment. “More than once journalists in Leipzig were prevented from reporting by police forces. There was no justification whatsoever for this,” said DJV Federal Chairman Frank Überall. He said it was scandalous that a journalist had been threatened with police custody and the withdrawal of his press card.
Both Leipzig’s police commissioner, Torsten Schulze, and Saxony’s interior minister, Roland Wöller (CDU), gave the police their unreserved support. Using violence against the right-wing demonstrators was “not appropriate,” Schulze said: “You don’t fight a pandemic with police measures, but rather by appealing to reason.”
At a joint video press conference with Saxony state premier Michael Kretschmer (also CDU), Wöller said on Sunday: “To accuse the police of having failed is incorrect and completely absurd. We fully support our police officers who are doing an excellent job.” No questions were allowed at the press conference.
Wöller did not mention the violent acts carried out by demonstrators, the attacks on journalists and the highly visible presence of neo-Nazis, members of the Identitarian movement and other right-wing extremists. Instead, he railed at length against the “left-wing rioters” in Connewitz, claiming that the anti-restriction demonstration consisted primarily of pensioners and children.
“No matter how many police officers accompanied the assembly,” he said, “a violent dissolution of a peaceful assembly was and is not at issue, because what would be the alternative? Use of force against seniors or water cannons against children? Freedom of expression is a fundamental right that must be protected.”
The support of the judiciary, police and government for the coronavirus deniers and right-wing extremists in Leipzig was so blatant that several leading politicians felt forced to express their reservations. Particularly the SPD and the Greens, who govern in a coalition with the notoriously right-wing CDU in Saxony, were nervous because they have been thoroughly exposed.
Germany’s justice minister, Christine Lambrecht (SPD), demanded “thorough clarification.” She said that such incidents could “never be justified,” and that freedom of demonstration was “not freedom to use violence and massively endanger others.” The deputy premier of Saxony, Martin Dulig (SPD), complained that the state had “let itself be led by the nose in Leipzig.” The Greens, who also fill the post of a deputy premier in the state, even demanded Wöller’s resignation.
This is all aimed, however, at covering their own political tracks. In reality, the coronavirus policy of the federal and state governments, which is supported by all parties including the SPD, the Greens and the Left Party, is itself criminal in its character. Although the number of infections and victims is exploding, schools, daycare centres and businesses remain open without adequate protective measures, meaning the virus can spread at breakneck speed in crowded rooms and overcrowded public transport. Profits have priority over human lives.
Where this leads to can be seen clearly in France, where the number of new infections on a daily basis rose to almost 87,000 last Saturday and 40,000 have already died of COVID-19. Germany is only two to three weeks behind the developments in France.
Some restrictions have been imposed by the government and federal states at the start of November limited to the private domain, thereby threatening the very existence of hospitality, entertainment and service industries, most of which fail to receive any of the promised official financial support. The lion’s share of the government’s financial aid flows instead to the big corporations and banks.
Right-wing extremist elements are exploiting the resulting desperation for their own purposes, although they lack any support among broad layers of the population. Those taking part in the Leipzig demonstration were transported from all over Germany at considerable expense. The aim of the protest was to intimidate opponents of the governments’ criminal corona policy and prepare a further loosening of protective measures, even if comes at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.
The state and government’s support for the far-right Leipzig demonstration underscores once again that the fight against the devastating health and social consequences of the coronavirus pandemic requires an independent political movement by the working class. The Socialist Equality Party (SGP) is calling for the establishment of rank-and-file action committees in factories and schools that operate completely independently of the parties in the Bundestag and the trade unions to form networks on both a national and international basis.
These committees must organise the measures necessary to protect the population against the virus and prepare a general strike. Their demands cannot be based on what the corporations and parties consider to be affordable, but rather on what is necessary to secure the lives and well-being of children, youth, teachers and the entire working class.
COVID-19 infections are surging out of control across Canada. New cases have surpassed 4,000 every day this week, almost double their peak during the pandemic’s “first wave” last spring.
The surge in infections that began with the reopening of schools at the end of August—total cases have more than doubled from 129,000 on August 31 to over 275,000 some 10 weeks later—has become an avalanche.
Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta have all set daily new COVID-19 case records during the past seven days. Yet the country’s provincial governments, who have the primary responsibility for tackling the pandemic, have responded by doubling down on their drive to keep the economy and schools open, regardless of the impact on health and lives. In this they have big business support, with the reactionary arguments in favour of “herd immunity” advocated in the Great Barrington Declaration increasingly being publicly promoted.
Yesterday, Ontario reported 1,426 new COVID-19 cases, a record number for the fourth time in five days, and the seven-day daily average of new cases rose to 1,217. In Manitoba, the Conservative provincial government has been forced to order gyms and hairdressers closed as of today and has restricted non-essential businesses to kerb-side collection, after the infection rate skyrocketed to over 230 per day per million inhabitants. Major outbreaks are under way at more than 20 long-term care facilities, including Parkview Place (23 deaths) and Maples (175 infections).
In Quebec, over 600 deaths have been recorded since schools reopened in late August and new cases are averaging more than 1,000 per day. Alberta is recording a daily infection rate of 210 per 1 million inhabitants, prompting doctors to issue an open letter warning of a looming catastrophe. “If this rate of increase continues unabated, our acute care health system will be overrun in the near future,” wrote the physicians, who included many intensive care specialists. “Hard experience elsewhere in Europe and the US has shown that when these resources are overwhelmed, mortality rates from COVID-19 and other treatable conditions increase dramatically.”
The depth of the crisis was underscored Tuesday when even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau felt compelled to issue a cautious rebuke to provincial governments over their reluctance to impose restrictions on some economic activity. “We’re seeing record spikes,” Trudeau declared. “I urge premiers and mayors to do the right thing. Act now to protect public health.”
Notwithstanding his pose of concern, the reality is that Trudeau and his Liberal government have overseen and facilitated the reckless reopening of schools and businesses that has led to the present health and social disaster. With the support of its trade union and New Democratic Party allies, the Liberals provided billions of dollars to the provinces that it claimed would make the reopening of schools and the economy safe. In fact, even the most rudimentary safety measures—from speedy, systematic contact tracing and mass testing, to the provision of proper PPE (personal protective equipment) to all health care workers—have not been carried out.
In its September 23 Throne Speech, the Trudeau government insisted that any shutdowns in response to a rise in infections should be “short-term” and conducted at the “local level”.
The reopening of the schools, which was facilitated in every province by the unions’ smothering of all opposition from teachers, has proven critical in provoking the current uncontrolled spread of COVID-19. According to the latest figures from Public Health Canada, schools and childcare centres accounted for the highest number of coronavirus outbreaks in September and were second only to long-term care facilities in October. Kim Lavoie, Canada Research Chair in behavioural medicine at the Université de Québec à Montréal, said, “It’s really the school-aged kids, primarily the 10-to-19 age group, that are counting for the highest number of cases now in Quebec.”
Andre Picard, the Globe andMail ’s award-winning senior medical reporter, acknowledged Monday that Canada has adopted the “herd immunity” policy laid out in the Great Barrington Declaration—i.e., let the virus rip through the population unchecked. “Fasten your seatbelts folks (voluntarily of course, no rules required),” wrote Picard. “Because much of Canada is now barreling down the Barrington Highway. What the Great Barrington Declaration says, when you cut through the pomposity, is that profits matter more than people, that we should let the coronavirus run wild and, if the vulnerable die in service of economic growth, so be it.”
This finds particularly stark expression in Ontario, where the hard-right Ford government has tossed almost all public health restrictions overboard even as new infections surge out of control. Last week, Ontario Premier Ford presented a new multi-tier “reopening plan” that effectively allows all businesses to restart operations and with only extremely limited restrictions. Restaurants and bars were given the go-ahead to restart indoor dining with up to 50 guests, under what Ford cynically described as a framework aimed at striking a “happy balance.”
The plan also imposed extremely strict controls on the enforcement of new restrictions by local public health officials. For example, in the City of Toronto, new cases would have to rise above 3,000 per week for an extended period before the re-imposition of a ban on indoor dining would even be considered. Needless to say, the new plan calls for schools to remain open, which the ruling class views as essential because parents can then be compelled to work amid the pandemic.
The far-right Toronto Sun, a pro-Trump rag, responded to the Ontario government’s new even less restrictive COVID-19 policy with exaltations of joy. After weeks of promoting the Great Barrington Declaration on its editorial pages, the Sun crowed that it had finally gotten “action” from Ford.
Medical experts have reacted with dismay, warning that the abandonment of any effort to contain the spread of the virus risks producing a health disaster. Brooks Fallis, head of critical care for the William Osler Health System, which serves Brampton and western Toronto, wrote in the Globe, “In Canada, provinces are mainly accepting significant viral activity to minimize economic disruption—learn to live with (COVID-19). Investment has been made in public health, but not enough to target suppression. A trade-off is being made between mortality, morbidity and strain on health care resources, and a perceived improvement in short-term economic prospects.”
The only concerted opposition to the ruling elite’s criminal drive to reopen the economy as the virus runs rampant is coming from the working class. Last week, teachers and support staff refused to work at a Toronto-area school after education authorities, supported by the Ford government, insisted on keeping it open in spite of a major COVID-19 outbreak. In British Columbia, more than 800 parents participated in a one-day school strike late last month, keeping their kids at home to protest the lack of protection measures and the refusal of the NDP government to disclose infection numbers in schools.
To prevent a dramatic worsening of the COVID-19 catastrophe, working people must develop these isolated protests into an organized political struggle to fight for the shutdown of all non-essential production, an end to in-person learning in schools, full wages for all workers forced to shelter at home, and the provision of tens of billions of dollars to the health care system to provide everyone with treatment and PPE. To wage such a struggle, rank-and-file safety committees must be formed in every workplace, school and neighbourhood to organize opposition and prepare for a political general strike to place the protection of human life above the defence of corporate profit.
The US presidential elections crisis has reignited the factional warfare in the British ruling class over Brexit.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s nationalist programme for a UK independent of the European Union (EU) rested heavily on an alliance with Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda and declared hostility to EU. His strategy was that, through a close relationship with Trump’s White House, Britain could gain an upper hand in relation to France and Germany and dictate the terms of its access to the EU’s single market while supporting American imperialism’s increasingly unilateralist actions on the world stage.
In the run-up to the US elections, as a victory for Biden looked more and more likely, Johnson’s government was thrown into crisis. The Times reported in October that Johnson’s chief adviser and a leading figure in the Brexit campaign, Dominic Cummings, was ordering Tory MPs to begin a charm offensive with the Democratic candidate.
Biden is expected to return to America’s traditional approach of pushing its interests within the EU, rather than adopting an openly confrontational stance. The UK has previously played a pivotal role in this strategy, serving as America’s point-man in Europe. Brexit threatens to destroy that role, leaving Britain cut off from the EU and of considerably less use to the US.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed the Withdrawal Agreement for the UK to leave the EU on January 31st. [Credit: U.K. Prime Minister]
The Democratic Party is also concerned to maintain the Good Friday Agreement in Ireland that ended decades of civil war in Northern Ireland, of which they were leading authors. The Irish American lobby is a significant force in the party and Ireland is a low-tax haven for billions of dollars-worth of US companies’ European operations. Brexit’s endangering of the agreement by creating a customs border across Ireland or in the Irish Sea is considered a red line.
UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was given a dressing down by House Democrats along these lines during a visit to the US this September. Biden tweeted at the time, “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit. Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”
The US elections of November 3 and their aftermath, which have seen Biden declared the winner and Trump and the Republicans engage in an attempted coup to overturn the result, have brought the Brexit crisis to a head.
In his first call with Johnson since being named President Elect by the news networks, held on Wednesday, Biden again stressed the importance of the Good Friday Agreement. Last Sunday, Democratic Senator Chris Coons, tipped as a likely candidate for Biden’s Secretary of State, told Times Radio that a UK-US trade deal was also reliant on a UK-EU agreement. “These are interlocking concerns,” he said. “The timing of the resolution of the current issues between the UK and EU and the prioritization that could be given to a US-UK FTA [free trade agreement] have to speak to each other.”
These events have spurred on the pro-EU majority in the British ruling class. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer penned an opinion piece in the Observer on Sunday using Biden’s victory to urge Johnson to come to an agreement with the EU and drop its Internal Market Bill proposals, set to be voted on in the House of Lords the next day. Clauses of the Bill allow the UK to overrule parts of its agreement with the EU, especially in relation to Northern Ireland, breaking international law.
The morning of the vote, former Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown, told BBC Radio 4 Today that Biden opposed Brexit and that “He is also worried about the Good Friday agreement—he is not going to allow a trade deal with Britain to happen if we in some way breach the Good Friday agreement.”
Labour Lord Falconer, the shadow attorney general, said on Sky News a few hours later, “What on earth is the point of making the United Kingdom an international pariah, just at the moment a new president of the United States emerges saying, not only do I want the British government to comply with the Northern Ireland protocol, but I want a law-abiding world?
“To make ourselves an international outsider, somebody who will become low down the list of the people who the United States will want to do business with, is a very big mistake for the United Kingdom.”
In a lecture Monday evening, former Tory prime minister John Major joined the chorus to say he was left “incredulous” by his own party’s actions and warned, “Our hefty international influence rested on our history and reputation, buttressed by our membership of the European Union and our close alliance with the United States.
“Suddenly, we are no longer an irreplaceable bridge between Europe and America. We are now less relevant to them both.”
Johnson ultimately suffered a massive defeat in House of Lords as the peers voted to remove the disputed sections of the Internal Markets Bill. Many Tory Lords, led by former party leader Michael Howard, were among the 433 votes in favour of their removal, against just 165 opposed.
Johnson, however, is beholden to his fanatically pro-Brexit Tory party, backed by pro-Brexit donors, whose leadership he won on a Brexit at all costs ticket. Number 10 has already signaled the government’s intention to reinsert the clauses removed by the Lords when the Bill returns to the House of Commons, where the Tories have an 80 seat majority. A government minister told the Financial Times following the Lords vote that the clauses “are popular with the backbenchers. To remove those clauses would risk causing great upset, particularly among those who vigorously defended the bill in the first place.”
The prime minister is also caught in the game of brinkmanship he has been playing with the EU since becoming prime minister. Only a month ago the UK government threatened to pull out of talks altogether. Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, privately warned last week that talks were not on a “trajectory” for a deal and that “very serious divergences” remained between the two sides. After a call between EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Johnson over the weekend, Number 10 announced that “significant differences remain” and an EU source told the Guardian, “we are nowhere.”
European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, right, speaks with the British Prime Minister's Europe adviser David Frost during Brexit trade talks between the EU and the UK, at EU headquarters in Brussels. (Olivier Hoslet. Pool Photo via AP, File)
Under these conditions, the Johnson government was clearly holding out for a Trump victory and even entertained barely concealed hopes for a successful Trump coup. Raab refused to acknowledge, let alone condemn, Trump’s anti-democratic plotting on election night, as he falsely declared himself the winner and made unsubstantiated claims of ballot fraud.
Asked on Sunday whether he believed the US elections had been fair, after tweeting that “some of the processes are still playing out” in his congratulation message to Biden, Raab replied, “We really don’t want to get drawn into the cut and thrust, the controversies, the claims, the counter-claims, either in the election or in the immediate aftermath…”
The question is open as to how far Johnson was actively engaged in discussions with the Trump administration about their plans to stay in office. But yesterday Johnson finally referred to Trump as the “previous president” after his first telephone conversation with Biden—an indication of how deeply he has been undermined.
Johnson is caught between the fierce divisions in the American and British ruling classes, generated by rapidly sharpening geopolitical and class conflicts. The crisis in the US has brought tensions in the UK over Brexit to breaking point. In the coming weeks and months, it will send shockwaves throughout the British and international working class, who will be radicalised by the ongoing collapse of American democracy.
Just as American workers and youth have no representative in either the Democrats or the Republicans, and must build an independent socialist party against both, so British workers and young people must reject both wings of their own ruling class in their noxious Brexit conflict. The only political means of doing do is the common struggle with the working class on the continent for the United Socialist States of Europe.
