US admiral threatens Beijing over South China Sea

James Cogan

Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of the US Pacific Command, used a speech on March 31 to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra to once again issue US threats of “confrontation” over China’s construction of facilities on islands and reefs in the South China Sea.

Harris painted China’s activities in the most sinister and destructive light. Beijing was, he said, “building artificial land by pumping sand on to live coral reefs—some of them submerged—and paving them over with concrete.” He asserted that China reclaimed from the sea an area comparable to a 4.5 square kilometre Australian national park.

Harris flatly rejected China’s assertions of sovereignty over large areas of the South China Sea, dismissing its “nine-dash line claim” as “inconsistent with international law.” He declared that “the scope and pace of building man-made islands raise serious questions about China’s intentions.”

In a thinly-veiled threat to Beijing, Harris stressed the US commitment to what was initially labelled the “pivot” to Asia by President Obama. Now referred to as the “rebalance,” it involves the concentration of 60 percent of US air and naval power in the Asia-Pacific. The admiral highlighted the “rotation” of US marines, aircraft and ships to Australia, and the close integration of the Australian military into US operations.

“By maintaining a capable and credible forward presence in the region,” Harris stated, “we’re able to improve our ability to maintain security and stability. And if any crisis does break out, we’re better positioned to quickly respond.”

Harris’s comments were somewhat sensationally reported in sections of the Australian media. Michael Wesley, from the Asia Pacific School at the Australian National University, told Fairfax Media it was a “dangerous escalation” in US-China tensions. In fact, the remarks were entirely in tune with a consistent drumbeat of accusations against China since the start of the year.

Prominent figures in the US political, intelligence and military establishment are trying to make China’s alleged activities in the South China Sea a major issue of geopolitical tension. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, senators such as Republican John McCain and Democrat Jack Reed, and top admirals and generals have made sweeping claims. They accuse China of building airfields and anti-ship and anti-air missile bases that would be used to deny the US Navy access to the area and exert Chinese military control over some of the most important sea lanes in the world.

On March 19, McCain, Reed and the other Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee leaders, Bob Corker and Bob Menendez, sent a joint letter to the Obama administration demanding that it inform the Senate what “specific actions the United States can take to slow down or stop China’s reclamation activities.” The senators alleged that Chinese construction in the South China Sea was “a direct challenge, not only to the interests of the United States and the region, but to the entire international community.”

They wrote: “While other states have been built on existing land masses, China is changing the size, structure and physical attributes of land features themselves… This is a qualitative change that appears designed to alter the status quo in the South China Sea.”

The senators sent their letter amid the dismay in Washington over the fact that Britain, followed by Germany, France and Italy, ignored US objections and joined the Chinese-initiated Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Within a matter of days, the European powers undermined years of efforts by Washington to pressure countries in the region to distance themselves diplomatically, economically and strategically from China. Virtually every state in Asia, including key US allies such as Australia, Taiwan and South Korea, rushed to join the AIIB before the deadline for founding member rights expired on March 31.

The April 1 WSWS perspective noted that the intervention by the European imperialist powers to assert their own interests in closer relations with China underscored the tremendous decline in the world economic position of the United States. Compared with the vast investment and trade opportunities opening up in China and Asia as a whole, Washington has little to offer.

The perspective warned that American imperialism would respond by “increasing its military provocations, threatening to plunge the world once again into war.”

That process is at work in the South China Sea. The territorial disputes between China and states such as the Philippines and Vietnam are flashpoints that Washington can seek to inflame in order to destabilise the entire region.

On March 26, the Philippines government announced it was retaliating against China’s construction activities by resuming its own building of facilities on reefs in the Spratly Islands, which are claimed by both countries. Washington’s role in Manila’s decision is not known. Until last week, however, the Philippines had suspended its construction activity until the conclusion of a case it took to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in The Hague, to assert its sovereignty claims at China’s expense. No ruling is expected before early 2016. Regardless of the outcome, China has rejected the court’s jurisdiction and refused to participate.

On previous occasions, Filipino efforts to erect structures on disputed territories or intercept Chinese fishing vessels led to tense standoffs between the Chinese and Filipino navies. An incident could rapidly flare into war against China by the US, which has given the Philippines security guarantees. Such a war would draw in Australia and Japan.

Various air force activities in the disputed areas could trigger conflict. In February, Filipino sources revealed that the US Navy flew a Poseidon surveillance plane from a base in the western Philippines over the Spratly Islands, risking attempts by Chinese jets to intercept it.

On March 31, China announced that, for the first time, it flew several jet fighters through the Basi Channel, which is part of the ocean separating the Philippines and Taiwan. The official Chinese news agency Xinhua boasted: “This is the first time that the PLA Air Force conducted such drills in an airspace far offshore from Chinese coastlines.” The purpose of the drill, it claimed, was to “level up the PLA Air Force’s mobility and combativeness.”

While there were no reports that Taiwan or the Philippines sought to intercept the Chinese aircraft, such encounters are virtually inevitable if China begins to regularly send military flights into such sensitive areas.

France prepares to boost military spending

Kumaran Ira

As it drafts its revised military strategy, France’s Socialist Party government (PS) is preparing a major military escalation. The government recently convened a Defense Council to review the military budget, escalate overseas military operations and permanently maintain troops deployed across France after the mass Charlie Hebdo shooting in January.

The government said that a review of the 2014-2019 Military Program Law (LPM) will take place in the summer, ensuring the armed forces receive the funding promised to them. Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian stressed the need to “protect the necessary financial resources for the LPM.”

Up to 23,000 posts in the army that were set to be eliminated by 2019 are being reinstated in order to maintain a military presence at home and abroad. Proposed measures include boosting reservists from 28,000 to 40,000, enhancing cyber-warfare operations and hiring an extra 500 intelligence specialists.

Under conditions where the ruling class has nothing to offer for unemployed youth, it is preparing to use them as cannon fodder in its escalating imperialist wars. The government is also promoting military service in France’s overseas territories for young people without qualifications. About one thousand positions will reportedly be opened up in the army “by autumn 2015.”

Plans for a permanent military build-up inside France underscore the deep concern of the political establishment over rising social discontent. Discredited by its austerity policies and unpopular wars, the French ruling elite is dramatically expanding police-state measures designed to intimidate and repress social discontent.

As part of the revised military strategy, President François Hollande stressed that the deployment of some 10,000 troops across France after the January 7 attack on the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo will be maintained indefinitely. This is the first time the government deployed simultaneously as many troops inside France as abroad.

According to a statement issued by the Elysée Presidential palace, “The threat of a terrorist attack against our country remaining high, the head of state has decided to keep the number of troops deployed on our national territory at 10,000, to reinforce security forces led by the Interior Ministry.”

While claiming that there is no money for essential public services including health and education, the government is spending about one million euros a day on Opération Sentinelle (Operation Sentinel), a nationwide security operation, in order to mobilize these troops.

The revised military strategy comes amid sharpening geopolitical tensions between global powers. The conflict with Russia over Ukraine after the NATO-backed fascist-led coup last February has threatened nuclear war. Under the “pivot to Asia”, the US is fomenting a war drive aimed at China. Inter-imperialist tensions are also exploding within Europe amid a broad campaign for re-militarization whose most striking feature is the resurgence of German imperialism’s military ambitions.

The French ruling class is nervously watching the rise of the German military. Germany plans to boost its defense budget by 6.2 percent over the next five years, aiming to increase defense spending to more than €35 billion by 2019 and comprehensively modernize the army. Between 2010-2014, Berlin has raised defense spending seven percent to €32.4 billion, while French defense spending fell 2.5 percent over the same period to €31.4 billion.

The French ruling class is reacting by stepping up its own rearmament. Hollande’s decision to revise the military strategy comes as high-ranking military officers publicly denounced the government’s decision to cut the military budget last year. At the same time, the neo-fascist National Front (FN), benefiting from the bankruptcy of the discredited PS, is calling for the rearmament of France, making political appeals to the military.

FN leader Marine Le Pen has called for a halt to defense budget cuts, insisting on keeping a minimum military budget of two percent of GDP and increasing defense spending by €2 billion yearly, for an indefinite period.

The rearmament policy is a warning to the working class. As workers’ social rights and living standards are looted to pay for military escalation, European capitalism is preparing the type of arms race between the European powers that twice, in the last century, plunged the continent into world war.

Confronting economic decline and a rising trade deficit, French imperialism is seeking to overcome its crisis through military means. Participating in the US-led war in the Middle East, France is carrying out military operations in Africa, including in Mali and Central African Republic, aiming at re-establishing their former colonial spheres of influence.

Under the revised strategy, 10,000 troops will be mobilized for external operations. The government plans to escalate its military operations in Africa and the Middle East. France is currently involved in major military operations, including Sangaris in the Central African Republic (CAR), Barkhane in Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad, and Chammal in Iraq.

The PS government is also preparing to increase French troops in the African Sahel region. Some 3,000 French troops have been deployed in the region. Le Drian said France would “slightly increase” the number of troops participating in the Barkhane anti-jihadist operation and reduce soldiers in the Central African Republic “to give us the means to support” the fight against Boko Haram.

While not giving specific troop figures, Le Drian said that Paris has no intention of intervening in the fight against Boko Haram, but added that “we are considering logistical and intelligence support to forces from Chad, Niger, and Cameroon on the ground.”

Le Drian said the new Madama desert base situated near the Libyan border in northern Niger would be fully operational in July, ostensibly to combat the flow of weapons and jihadists from neighbouring Libya to countries including Mali or Nigeria.

Greece verges on default as creditors demand deeper austerity cuts

Robert Stevens

After five days, talks between the Greek Syriza-led government and its international creditors ended without an agreement Wednesday.

Yesterday the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras submitted a new 26 page document containing austerity measures it described as a “comprehensive list of tax, administrative and policy reforms,” after having a previous list of proposals submitted last Friday rejected. 

As a conditions of receiving any further loans, including an outstanding €7.2 billion required to pay off billions in debts which are coming due and satisfy the four month austerity agreement it signed up to on February 20, Greece has been required to come up with a far more extensive and detailed raft of austerity measures for approval by the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to Reuters, Greece submitted the list too late for it to be considered by euro zone deputy finance ministers at Wednesday’s teleconference on Greece. 

According to reports, the initial assessment of the proposals by eurozone officials is that it does not go far enough in imposing further attacks on the living standards of the working class. The EU, ECB and IMF insist that Syriza ditch its entire election programme of token anti-austerity reforms and enforce measures making it easier for companies to sack workers en masse, as well as further attacks on wages and pension rights. Just prior to the Eurogroup meeting, hundreds of pensioners marched in Athens demanding increases in pensions. Similar protests were held in other cities throughout Greece.

The Financial Times noted the new measures “are similar to Friday’s initial effort and fail to address several issues that bailout monitors have insisted on, including an overhaul of the Greek pension system and greater labour market liberalisation.” It continued, “Indeed, the proposal appears to reverse reforms in several of these areas. The document includes €1.1bn in fresh spending this year…” 

Speaking to the FT, a senior EU official said that the new proposals were inadequate and that there was “no chance of any agreement” with Greece before next scheduled meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Riga on April 24.

The Tsipras government had indicated it hoped to be able to reach agreement on a new set of proposals by the beginning of the Greek Orthodox Easter (which falls on April 12). But this deadline is uncertain.

Greece’s government and banks are cut off from all access to the international money markets, with their position becoming more perilous by the hour. Even as the Eurogroup meeting began, a senior representative of the Greek government, Interior Minister Nikos Voutzis, reportedly told Germany’s Spiegel news magazine that without additional money they may not be able to pay back a €450 million loan to the IMF on April 9. A further €2.4 billion in debt must be paid back in April.

Voutzis’ announcement was quickly denied by the Greek government, but finance markets immediately began to fall on the news. One currency analyst, in response to Voutzis, compared a possible decision by Greece not to pay back the IMF loan on April to the collapse of the US bank Lehman Brothers that triggered the 2008 global financial crash.

The Guardian quoted an unnamed Greek official who complained, “a campaign of rumour, innuendo and deliberate leaks is being waged against us.” Stating further that “the banking system is at risk, outflows are growing, non-performing loans are mounting. What they are doing is criminal. The February 20 agreement was supposed to give us four months of financial stability and instead they are using it to asphyxiate us.”

Despite such rhetoric, the Syriza government represents the interests of a section of the Greek ruling elite and responds at every stage as a pro-capitalist regime seeking some arrangement with the European powers at the expense of the working class. Its new document notes, “The Hellenic Republic considers itself to be a proud and indefeasible member of the European Union and an irrevocable member of the eurozone.”

The protracted nature of the negotiations has strengthened the hand of figures in ruling circles that support Greece being forced to default and leave the euro zone.

On Tuesday billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC, “If it turns out the Greeks leave, that may not be a bad thing for the euro. If everybody learns that the rules mean something and if they come to general agreement about fiscal policy among members, or something of the sort, that they mean business, that could be a good thing.”

The same day Peter Gauweiler, vice president of the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), described Greece as a "bankrupt state" and resigned his parliamentary seat—criticising German Chancellor Angela Merkel for being too accommodating. The CSU are the coalition partners and sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.

The Financial Times noted, “Merkel is also under pressure from anti-euro Alternative für Deutschland party, which has won over disaffected CDU voters.” It cited the comments of Mujtaba Rahman, analyst at the Eurasia Group risk consultancy, who said, “This resignation indicates that Merkel is very constrained, not simply from the AfD, but also within her own party. It suggests Merkel will need to maintain a hard line, which means no money without material reform from Greece on pensions and labour.”

Merkel, in a joint news conference with French President Francois Hollande in Berlin, commented that “time is of the essence” in reaching an agreement with the Greek government.

Syriza’s efforts to strike a better bargain with creditors centre on efforts to exploit antagonisms between the major powers. It has made a concerted effort to deepen Greece’s ties with China and Russia, both of which have geostrategic interests in the region. Tsipras recently welcomed representatives of the Beijing regime to the Greek port of Piraeus—a strategic facility in which China already has extensive interests.

This week, speaking to Russian news agency ITAR–TASS in the lead up to his visit to Moscow on April 8, Tsipras said his government opposed the EU’s sanctions against Moscow.

“You know that in previous years there was a blow to these [Greek-Russian] relations as previous Greek governments did not do what they could in order to deter this meaningless policy of sanctions amid the tensions in Ukraine,” he said.

Tsipras claimed that he had told EU leaders at their summit in March, “Tell me how you envisage the architecture of security in Europe? Do you envisage it with Russia opposed to us, or with Russia in a process of dialogue and mutual understanding?”

He concluded, “I did not receive an answer from many but I believe that the answer is clear: the European security architecture must also include Russia.”

On Tuesday the leader of Syriza’s “Left Platform”, Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, returned from a two day visit to Moscow. His mission was to prepare the way for Tsipras’ visit. Lafazanis met with Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, as well as Alexei Miller, the head of Gazprom. He told the media that Greece supported Russia expanding its proposed Turkish Stream pipeline, which aims to transfer natural gas via the Black Sea, to Greece.

Greece’s orientation to Russia cuts directly across the interests of the EU and the United States. To Vima reported that Lafazanis thought it was a “mistake to isolate Russia and that Europe will benefit from the operation of multiple natural gas pipelines.” The paper reported that Lafaznis had stated that major Russian oil companies had agreed to support exploration for oil and other fossil fuels in offshore areas in Western Greece and would consider lowering the cost of natural gas it sells to the country.

Washington’s “human rights” imperialism exposed

Joseph Kishore

The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it is resuming arms shipments to the military dictatorship in Egypt, beginning with the transfer of 12 F-16 fighter jets, missiles and the components required to build 125 tanks. In a personal call to Egypt’s ruler, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Obama also pledged to resume the annual transfer of $1.3 billion in military aid.

The White House made no effort to claim that Egypt had made “credible progress toward an inclusive, democratically elected civilian government”—the statutory condition for ending the suspension of military aid imposed in October 2013. Instead, it invoked an exemption passed by Congress late last year to override this requirement.

Resuming military aid to Egypt, the second largest recipient of such assistance from the US, after Israel, is “in the interest of US national security,” a White House statement declared. Obama told al-Sisi it was necessary for Egypt and the US to “refine our military assistance relationship so that it is better positioned to address the shared challenges to US and Egyptian interests…”

The administration could not even make a pretense that Egypt had made a turn toward democracy. The blood-soaked al-Sisi regime has not slackened its murderous repression one iota. Since coming to power, it has brutally repressed protests. Political opponents have been beaten, killed and arrested en masse. According to one count, more than 41,000 people have been locked up since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi in 2013. More than 1,000 political opponents have been sentenced to death.

The decision to resume arms shipments to Egypt came only two days after the announcement by Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, that US military forces will begin direct training of right-wing National Guard militias organized by the Kiev regime, including the fascist Azov Battalion. This outfit, founded and led by neo-Nazis, has been on the front lines of the war in eastern Ukraine against pro-Russian separatists.

These are only two of the most damning exposures of the “human rights” pretenses of American foreign policy. With increasing brazenness, the United States functions as the spearhead of militarism and reaction all over the world. It is driven to support the most brutal regimes in pursuit of its program of global domination through military force.

The immediate spur for the resumption of arms shipments to Egypt is the air war against Yemen, led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the Obama administration. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have announced plans for a possible ground invasion alongside the escalating bombing campaign, with the goal of ousting Houthi forces backed by Iran. The additional military equipment Washington is sending to Egypt would undoubtedly be deployed in such a ground assault.

The two US allies leading this campaign sum up the character of the enterprise. The brutality of the Egyptian regime is matched by that of the Saudi monarchy, which rules with an iron fist, carries out beheadings with gruesome regularity, and has funneled money to Al Qaeda and other Islamic fundamentalist groups as part of the US regime-change operation in Syria.

As for Ukraine, support for openly fascistic forces has been a hallmark of the US-led operation that began last February with the ousting of the elected pro-Russian president. That putsch was spearheaded by the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and Right Sector. Throughout Eastern Europe, the US is relying on right-wing, nationalist, racist and anti-Semitic movements and governments as part of its military-economic-diplomatic drive to isolate, undermine and, ultimately, dismember Russia.

On the other side of the world is Honduras, where death squads linked to the US-backed government of Juan Orlando Hernández have been carrying out a reign of terror against students protesting against education cuts, including the abduction, torture and murder of at least four young people. Hernández is the successor to President Porfirio Lobo, who came to power following a US-backed coup in 2009.

The US provides tens of millions of dollars annually to the Honduran police and military, headed by a regime that Foreign Policy recently described as “a cesspool of corruption and organized crime in which the topmost levels of government are enmeshed.” Hernández and Lobo have overseen the establishment of police militias with close ties to drug gangs and pushed for the direct involvement of the military in domestic repression.

The coming together of the police and military with right-wing death squads and drug gangs—funded with US money—is repeated in other countries in Latin America, most notably Mexico. The entire Mexican state is complicit in the massacre of 43 students last year, and the UN special envoy on torture declared earlier this month that the use of torture had become “generalized” in the country. None of this has had any impact on the full support the Obama administration accords the government of Mexican President Peña Nieto, which is pushing through economic “reforms” aimed at opening up the energy sector to foreign capital.

One could cite dozens of examples along these lines. The American financial aristocracy exports the blood, filth and criminality embedded in its social being wherever it seeks to dominate and control—and there is no part of the world that is exempt from this drive.

From the beginning of the rise of American imperialism, the ruling class has sought to couch its predatory ambitions in the language of “freedom,” “human rights” and “American values.” As Trotsky noted in 1924, “America is always liberating somebody. That is her profession.” At no other time, however, have the ideological justifications for aggression been so threadbare.

One final point. The ever more naked exposure of the criminality of American imperialism coincides with the further shift to the right of the organizations of the privileged middle class—the liberal and pseudo-left backers of the Obama administration.

Those who once presented themselves as “anti-war” have taken the opportunity of Obama’s election to line up directly behind US imperialism, backing US-led operations in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Ukraine and Iraq, among others. They have jumped onto the bandwagon of “human rights imperialism” precisely at the point where it is being decisively exposed before the people of the United States and the entire world.

Why (market-based) U.S. Education Reform Is Doomed

David Ellison

Bill Gates and his lieutenant, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, insist that America's schools must be run like a business. If educators faced both the accountability (standards, high-stakes testing, merit pay) and competition (vouchers/choice, charter schools) of an open, capitalistic market, then teachers would finally have to get off their duffs and get to work.

Trouble is, after nearly two decades of this, American education is no better. That's because, Gates and Duncan maintain (completely unfazed by overwhelming evidence to the contrary), we haven't implemented market-based reforms enough. So now, let's switch to the new Common Core Standards, and use them to evaluate not just schools, but individual teachers.

Sorry. Even the Common Core are doomed because they cannot cure what truly ails American education today.

A correct diagnosis, however, would involve acknowledging the Voldemorts: vexing, embarrassing issues that, frankly, we'd much prefer not to name:
America recruits most of its educators from the bottom percentiles of college graduates. (And now, thanks to "reform," my state, California, has seen a 66 percent decline in enrollment at teacher-education programs.)

Fifty percent of our students writhe in poverty, the highest rate in the industrialized world, and the single most powerful impediment to academic success.

Our communities and, therefore, our schools are now more segregated by race and class than ever before in our nation's history. (Vouchers and charters, by the way, only exacerbate this.)

Heaping insult upon injury, we usually send our least qualified teachers to staff those decrepit, segregated schools -- perhaps the most heinous moral outrage of our time.

Our families and our culture are in crisis. In fact, the United Nations ranks the United States 34th out of 35 industrialized nations in terms of childhood well-being.

Finally, our entire system of education is based upon a century-old assembly-line industrial model. We sort children according to their ages, insist they all learn identical things at precisely the same time ....

Why don't Gates and Duncan focus on any of the above dire, longstanding educational crises? Perhaps they are blinded by their ideology. Competition and other market-based strategies enabled Gates to amass his fortune. Therefore, they can't help but raise the "fortunes" of public education as well, right?

Besides, market-based educational reforms are so apparently simple, so relatively cheap. Everyone can conveniently ignore the real and shameful problems hobbling America and its public schools today. After all, to address them, we'd need to transform not just our schools, but our communities, even our very culture.

Finland did.

In the 1960s, Finnish schools were by all measures mediocre. They are now universally recognized as some of the finest in the world. In 2009, they were ranked number one.

How did Finland do it? The Finnish Parliament replaced its failed market-based reforms with a new, bold plan: Finland would put a great teacher in every classroom in the nation.

Finnish teacher-education programs are now more competitive than many medical and law schools. All prospective teachers must earn master's degrees, but the government pays their tuition. When they graduate, teachers earn salaries commensurate with other similarly educated professionals.

In Finland, there are few, infrequent national tests that have nothing to do with teacher or school evaluations. Classes are small, with usually no more than 20 students.

Critics of citing Finland as a model usually cling to two differences between it and the United States: Finland is so much smaller, with a relatively homogeneous population. They're careful to eschew any of the many other, more profound contrasts, however, such as its narrow distribution of wealth. Or the fact that the Finnish rate of childhood poverty is only about one-quarter that of the United States. Or that all Finnish children receive free health care, free preschool, and free tuition to all colleges and universities. Their parents enjoy extended, paid maternity leave, free high-quality child care, and even a governmental stipend per child. Seventy-seven percent of Finns bought a book last year. Seventy-five percent of parents read out loud daily to their children.

By the time those children enter their first, bright classroom, they are so much more healthy and better-prepared than most American kids. And then they all meet great teachers there, too.

If we in the United States are to nurture our children as well as the Finns do theirs, we must likewise accept that real reform must be holistic and far-reaching. Education is but the canary in the coal mine of our nation. If the wretched bird is dying, it warns us that there's a heck of a lot more at risk than just our public schools.

In truth, we cannot reform only American education. We must reform America.

Otherwise, our schools are doomed. And so are we.

The Changing Landscape Of Middle-East Conflict

Sazzad Hussain

The classical view of the conflict affecting the vast stretch of land from the Persian Gulf to the Levant and beyond up to the Maghreb has been the seven decade old confrontation between the Israel and Palestine over the occupation of the Arab land by the Jewish state. For that firstly Arab states fought collectively against Israel to wipe it out from the world map at the initial stage leading to 1967. At that time it was Arab identity or nationalism that made Arab leaders like Nasser of Egypt to drive and rally popular support across the political boundaries in the Middle East to stand up for a cause—the liberation of Palestine and formation of a grand Arab identity as a political block in the international arena. At that time it was Arab nationalism which was propagated and voices of Islamism, despite its overwhelming majority, was pushed or rather crushed harshly by these secular regimes. At that time, like today, all the Arab nation states liberated or freed from western colonialism, were run by monarchs and dictators and were devoid of democracy. Most of the monarchs, except the kings of Morocco and Jordan, were absolute rulers with American military protection and full endorsement from the Minaret. On the other hand, the dictators were westernized, socialist and though despotic, were secular in principle and functioning providing modern education, scientific development, women empowerment and protection to minorities like Christians, Yazidis, Kurds, Druze and even Jews. They caused two problems to the west—first their antagonism towards Israel and second their nationalization of natural resources—from Aswan dam in Egypt to petroleum and gas fields in Iraq, Syria, Algeria and Libya. The absolute monarchies, led by Saudi Arabia were favourite allies of the west allowing energy giants Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Total, Gulf, BP and the great ARAMCO. Though their subjects were vehemently anti-Israeli, their voices and opinions were diverted by the strong clergy patronized by the royal palaces. Across the spectrum of the Arab Middle-East, it was Iran, the Persian state which was critically important to this conflicting landscape. Under the imperial rule of the Shah, Iran was the launch pad of all American and western interests in this region in which its oil reserves, once nationalized by its socialist Premier Mossadegh, was owned by Anglo-American corporations. The 1979 Revolution of Iran, which had ousted Shah Pahlavi, changed the equilibrium of power in Middle-East as the Islamic Republic of Iran started perusing a hot policy of reaching out to Arabs in the name of Shiite Islam and vehemently opposing the pro-western Arab regimes and the existence of Israel.

Much of the politics and development in Middle-East known to us here in India has been defined by this scenario of the late 1970s which was also the height of the Cold War. Middle-East in the post-Revolution Iran period was characterized by the polarization of the anti-Israeli Arab world on strategic interests. It was preceded by the Camp David agreement between Egypt and Israel and later two more Arab recognition of the Jewish state—by Jordan and Morocco. While the Gulf monarchies remained diplomatically at distance from Tel Aviv, other Arab republics, notably the regimes in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Algeria and Tunisia staunchly opposed any dialogue with Israel and supported various Palestinian groups fighting occupation. These secular Arab nations, mostly Iraq, Syria and Libya armed themselves with sophisticated weapons procured from the Soviet Union along with non-conventional arsenal like nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to bully Israel and pro-western Arab monarchies. On the other hand, the Gulf monarchies used their oil revenues in big business and infrastructure development by leaving their kingdoms guarded by US army, navy and air force bases on their soils. This non-confrontational policy perused by the Gulf monarchies with Israel allowed them to emerge as important global business players with hubs like Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha etc. After the great oil boom of 1974, Saudi Arabia, with full American knowledge and endorsement, started patronising transnational Islamism to check the secular Arab regimes in the Middle-East and in the Islamic world. Pakistan became its first destination following in Lebanon which resulted in a devastating civil war till 1993. The Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on the same year made this Saudi move to be an effective Cold-War ploy for the west.

While the Saudi-American led Islamist armed campaign called Mujahedeen created the Afghan Jihad on the Af-Pak border and paved the way of the formation of Al-Qaeda and the global jihad, it was Iran which started a counteroffensive to exert its clout in the Middle-East by reaching out to the Shiite Arabs in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and among Palestinian refugees. Libyan leader Col. Gaddafi too became a close ally of Iran though he was a Sunni. The Baathist President Hafez al-Assad of Syria used this new strategic partnership to wrest his influence in this region, particularly to pressurize Israel. But his fellow Baathist Saddam Hussein of Iraq differed with Iran on sectarian lines. Saddam was armed and supported by Saudi Arab and other Gulf monarchies and the west to fight an eight year war against Iran (1980-88). In it, the west had duel objectives—to weaken anti-American/anti-Israeli Iran as well as to crumble the nationalized welfare state of Iraq so that it does not pose a threat to Israel (Israel bombed the nuclear facilities of Iraq in 1982). Iran’s involvement in Middle-East conflict paid off well despite its armed hostilities with Iraq as it successfully established its leverage in Lebanon torn apart by civil war on sectarian divide and outside intervention for the PLO. Israel invaded Lebanon to drive the PLO machinery out from Beirut in 1982 and to form a strong Sunni-Maronite (Christian) power sharing to evict Iranian influence (as wished by Saudis and Americans). But the Israeli involvement paved the way for a strong resistance movement of Shiite Arabs in Lebanon—the Syrian backed Amal and the Iranian backed Hezbollah. In the course of time Hezbollah emerged as a key player in the west-Asian conflict in broking peace with Israel by engaging in both hostilities and negotiations and unifying the Lebanese society with all its professed groups including the Maronites.

The success of the Afghan Jihad, the fall of the USSR, the emergence of Al-Qaeda and the global Jihad (read Sunni extremism) and the stalling of Israel-Palestinian peace talks created a different landscape in the Middle-East after the 1991 Gulf War. Syria backed America in that multi-national campaign against Saddam’s Iraq while Iran remained neutral. A weakened Iraq sans Saddam was Iran’s gain and so far the biggest winner in Iraq after Saddam’s fall is Iran and its every government is heavily influenced by Tehran. This has contributed the deep rooted sectarian divide in Arabian societies across Middle-East in the last two decades. Sunni resistance and extremism, in opposition to Shiite rise in Iraq with Iranian intervention has led to the emergence of groups like al-Qaeda up to IS in this region in the last one and half decade. Various Sunni militant groups, starting from the one led by al-Zarqawi in Jordan has been operating against various opponents across this region and all are affiliated to al-Qaeda after 9/11. They have been active in Algeria, Yemen and Iraq for a considerable period and many US drone attacks have been carried out against their leaders in Yemen. In all this changing landscape in the Middle-East, its focal point has gone missing—the Palestinian problem. The cause for an independent Palestinian state, free from Israeli occupation is lost from the collective memory of the people of this region as the entire area got engulfed in sectarian violence within. After Saddam’s fall, the only remaining Arab opposition to the western interest remained as Libya’s Gaddafi and Syria’s al-Assad. In the new scenario, Gaddafi too abandoned his previous policies and reached out to the west. So only the regime in Damascus, an ally of Iran and Hezbollah, remained as a problem for the US-Saudi grand alliance. The Syrian regime was cornered first with the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a Sunni in 2005. The objective of reigniting the Lebanese society on sectarian lines through that assassination did not succeed because of the all-inclusive stand of Hezbollah. After that the world saw the pounding of Beirut by Israeli war planes on Hezbollah targets and massive and disproportionate offensive on Gaza by the Jewish state against Hamas. The oil-rich gulf monarchies spoke nothing against them. Then came the so-called Arab Spring in late 2010. Beginning with Tunisia, it was the first public outpouring to bring down undemocratic despots—both dictators and monarchs across the Arab world for establishing democracy. Though it was successful in Tunisia, its script was not the same in other Arab states. People protested for more than ten days in Tahrir Square, Cairo demanding removal of President Hosni Mubarak. But as this Egyptian dictator was a long-time ally of the west, Washington took ten days to condemn his repressive measures against the protestors. Though Mubarak was ousted and elections brought former Islamist Mohammad Morsi as president, the Egyptian army removed him from power less than a year re-establishing the same old authoritarian measures to serve the western interests. Other pro-democracy demonstrations in Arab monarchies like Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, UAE, Qatar and Kuwait were crushed by the authorities with full US nod. The largest of these demonstrations, seen in Bahrain was declared a sectarian one, as majority of its subjects were Shiite and Saudi Arab sent troops to crush that rebellion. Fearing same kind of public fury, the Saudi king declared largesse to its youth including cash benefits—a bribe for not demanding democracy. In Yemen, the pro-democracy movement forced the long serving President Saleh to flee the country. However in Libya and Syria the story was different. Former al-Qaeda activists and sectarian militants were aided by NATO war planes to bring the fall of Gaddafi to establish ‘democracy’. But it became a second Iraq—with militancy dividing the country on tribal lines. In Syria, NATO member Turkey facilitated Islamist militants including al-Qaeda operatives to enter the country through its border to topple al-Assad regime—the last secular bastion in the Arab world, to bring ‘democracy’.

The armed and financial support to al-Qaeda affiliated groups by Arab monarchies like Saudi Arabia and Qatar in Syria and the Turkish transit from different parts of the world of its personnel quickened the rise and spread of IS. It is a Sunni extremist group bent on annihilating Shiite, Kurds, Christians and Yazidis living in peaceful coexistence in Syria and Iraq for centuries under all previous regimes. This new emergence of power and authority in the Middle-East has again pushed the elusive Palestinian issue, the core point of the conflict of this region, to the background. As US refused to deploy its ground forces against the IS nor the NATO air power—it is the old classic inclusive forces of Iraq—Shite militia, Kurdish Peshmarga and the regular Iraqi army that are fighting united against them. Only Jordan has joined the limited air-strike by the west against the IS inside Iraq and Syria. On the other hand Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE have participated in air-strikes against IS targets in Libya. Interestingly, the IS has not showed any hostility against Israel.

The transition of power in post-Arab Spring Yemen has not been smooth as president Hadi was installed by its oil-rich Gulf monarchies. A majority of his opponents belongs to the ethic Hauti, an Arab tribe of Zaidi Shiite sect. As confrontations escalate, the Hauti militia seized a considerable area of Yemen including capital Sa’na on late March. The belligerent president called his gulf neighbours for help and responding to his SOS, Saudi Arab launched air-strikes in Yemen from 28th March. Other Arab states like Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan are also joining this campaign. The apparent objective of this military adventurism seems to be neutralizing Iranian influence among the Hautis with approval by the Arab League. However, without any UN mandate, this Saudi led strike in Yemen creates a new landscape in the ever volatile Middle-East on sectarian lines. The powerful Arab unity required to crush the menace of the IS is now applied against a lesser and insignificant threat for the Sunni kingdoms. The world in general now wonders what the real problem of the Middle-East is. With the core issue of Palestine gone missing and chances of its any breakthrough seem bleak as the re-election of Bibi Netanyahu in Israel, it is the fighting within the elements of clan, tribe and sect of the Arab Muslims that characterizes the present landscape of the Middle-East conflict.

Faust At The Games: The Olympic Path Of Destruction

Joseph Grosso

A recent anecdote, one that had been foreshadowed for weeks, proclaimed that this past winter Boston had broken its own record for snowfall having an ungodly 110.3 inches dumped on it in three months. If such a grueling winter, and its tedious effects- such as its paralyzing of mass transit, can have a positive effect, it seems to have Bostonians questioning their bid to host the Summer Olympics in 2024. Since the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), in a surprise move, chose Boston over Los Angeles, a city that already has hosted the event (and one would think possesses an attractive amount of sprawl, to represent the American bid poll numbers are in decline. A WBUR (local public radio in Boston) poll from February had support at only 44 percent; a more recent one put the number at 36 percent.

Meanwhile over at the winter half of the 2022 Olympics, Beijing is in position to become the first city in history to host both the summer and winter games; this despite a lack of snow that would force different events to be staged 150 miles apart. The reason for Beijing’s potential good fortune: the five democratic cities that initially put up bids (Munich, Oslo, Krakow, Stockholm, and St. Moritz) withdrew due to overwhelming public opposition. Beijing’s only remaining competition: the free terrain of Kazakhstan.

It seems plausible that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would favor Beijing for having already burned through $40 billion hosting the 2008 Summer Games, a record until it was surpassed by the $51 billion dropped in Putin’s Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics. A record which Beijing can still claim distinction is the amount of displaced people. 1.5 million people were displaced in the run-up to the games in 2008 surpassing the 720,000 forcibly displaced in South Korea ( then ruled by military dictator Chun Doo-Hwan) to clear the way for the 1988 Summer Games. Overall in the past quarter century the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions estimates that over two million people have been displaced due to the Olympics.

To the totalitarian mind the Olympics has the obvious appeal of acting as a ‘coming out’ party, an official joining to a prosperous global community, the inherent effect of which is the glorifying of both the repressive state as well as its ruling party or leader all through the pricey pomp and circumstance of Olympic brotherhood (decorated with grotesque architecture often produced by globe-trotting Western architects- again China probably holds the lead here) and of its useful corollary political neutrality. The culmination of this had to be the Nazi regime’s hosting of the Games in 1936 where in fact the first Olympic torch relay took place, the brainchild of chief organizer Dr. Carl Diem and thoroughly promoted by Joseph Goebbels (Goebbels commissioned Leni Riefenstahl to film the relay as part of the Nazi propaganda film titled ‘Olympia’ released in 1938).

Of course democracies aren’t completely above such corruption and skullduggery. No doubt such a global introduction and acceptance was what the Brazilian president Lula da Silva had in mind back in 2009 when Brazil was awarded the 2016 Summer Olympics. After all here were his words at the time:

Today is the day that Brazil gained its international citizenship…
I think this is the day to celebrate because Brazil has left behind the level
of second-class countries and entered the ranks of first-class countries.
Today we earned respect.

No doubt similar ecstasy was invoked by Brazil’s hosting of the past World Cup. The World Cup being the Olympics’ fellow mega sporting which in 2022 will be staged in Qatar (brought to its audience by slave laborers from Nepal whom a report not long ago by The Guardian revealed were dying at a rate of almost one a day. By some estimates Qatar will spend $100 billion, including funds for nine state of the art stadiums). This after the Cup figures to be blessed by Vladimir Putin in 2018. In the case of Brazil, by June 2013 the country was engulfed in the largest protests since the fall of the dictatorship in the mid-1980s as millions stormed the streets to protest corruption, displacement , and the billions diverted to Olympic infrastructure, much of which has dubious usefulness after the games, while the Brazilian economy stagnates.

Cost overruns are endemic to the point of absurdity. Just prior to the2010 Winter Games Vancouver, with public money, was forced to import snow to make certain the games begin on schedule. After an initial estimated price-tag of $1.3 billion for the games in 2004 by city leaders in Athens and the IOC, Greece was on the hook for $5.3 billion as soon as the details were flushed out and by the time the torch moved on the number spent was over $14 billion. Four years later 21 of the 22 Olympics facilities had fallen into disrepair occupied by squatters and covered with graffiti.

Such a dismal record apparently means nothing to demigods of the IOC. Why should it? Wined and dined in potential host cities by politicians of all stripes longing for their brief moment in Olympic sunshine (IOC president Thomas Bach had nothing but good things to say about Putin before and after Sochi) and with billions in revenue with billions more coming due to lucrative TV contracts, the IOC doesn’t foot the bill for construction costs, nor pay any of its athletics, or even share its revenue with host countries. Most of its expenditures go to local national Olympic committees that organize bids and hence keep the cash machine rolling.

In the case of Boston the local committee calls itself Boston2024. A few weeks ago The Boston Globe revealed that six of the committee’s 10 salaried employees are making over $100,000. Former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick was slated to pull in $7500 a day for occasional travel as group’s ambassador until the tastelessness of that even had current mayor Martin J. Walsh register his disgust. Patrick has since said he’ll work for free. Mitt Romney, who bills himself the savior of the Salt Lake City Games in 2002 by allegedly bridging a $379 million shortfall and a bribery scandal (though many are those who say he overestimated his role and his main accomplishment was getting $1.3 billion of taxpayer money poured in the Games- something of an inevitability historically), is working hard behind the scenes. Boston2024 is trying to convince a justly skeptical public that the Boston Olympics would be funded strictly with private money. After initially resisting the idea the committee now claims it will sponsor a public referendum in November 2016.

The tragedy is that there will be cities that will ‘win’ the bidding process and host that and future Olympics. Paris, Hamburg, and Rome are said to be some other contenders for 2024. No doubt some will back off due to public opposition and maybe the IOC will again simply reach for the totalitarian option. Either way it’s safe to say that, as long as for most of the world the Olympics remain a TV show promoting cheap patriotism and phony sentiments of global brotherhood, the regime of corruption, displacement, and repression will go on. Given that the Nazis themselves established the torch relay all those years ago perhaps such a reality need not be considered shocking.

Urgent ‘Musts’ Needed for Palestinians

Ramzy Baroud

Waiting on Israeli society to change from within is a colossal waste of time, during which the suffering of an entire nation – torn between an occupied home and a harsh diaspora – will not cease. But what are Palestinians and the supporters of a just peace in Palestine and Israel to do? Plenty.

Those who counted on some sort of a miracle to emerge from the outcome of the recent Israeli elections have only themselves to blame. Neither logic nor numbers were on their side, nor the long history laden with disappointing experiences of “leftist” Israelis unleashing wars and cementing occupation. Despite a few differences between Israel’s right and the so-called left on internal matters, their positions are almost identical regarding all major issues related to Palestine. These include the Right of Return and the status of occupied Jerusalem to the illegal settlements.

But Palestinians are not without options. Sure, the odds against them are great, but such is the fate of the oppressed as they are left between two options: either a perpetual fight for justice or unending humiliation and servitude.

First, the most difficult obstacle to overcome is the stronghold of Mahmoud Abbas and his corrupt circle on Palestine’s political discourse at home. This is not an outcome of Abbas’s particular savvy or the genius of his class. The post-Oslo circle only exists to maintain the status quo: US interests and involvement as a mediator in the conflict, Israel’s security – thus the constant crackdown on Palestinian opposition and resistance – and ensuring that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has a reason to exist for the sake of ensuring the many privileges that come with the job.

Second, for that to take place, the very ailments that have afflicted Palestinian society for years, leading to the creation of the ineffectual PA in the first place, would have to be confronted heads on. One such condition is factionalism, which has to be overpowered by a collective that defines itself first and foremost as Palestinian.

Factionalism, in its current form, has destroyed much of the social fabric of Palestine. It has divided the already divided people into fragments making them easy to be controlled, manipulated, suppressed – and when necessary – besieged. 67 years are just too long a period for a nation that lives mostly in exile, trapped or confined behind walls, to sustain its political identity and remain unified around the same “constants” without proper leadership.

Third, such seismic change cannot come easily. It must be gradual and part of a national initiative. It must be a conversation that brings friends and rivals not to divide material perks, useless “ministries” and worthless “government” posts, but rather to mend the broken unanimity that once existed. In fact, once upon a time, Palestinians were not united or disjointed around the frivolous “peace process,” but instead around “national constants,” where the Right of Return took central stage.

The transition from disunity and chaos into something visionary and not confined by short-term political interests, must be smooth, calculated and led by respected Palestinian figures, not those with hands soiled by blood and corruption.

Fourth, one major issue that must dominate the new political discourse is the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees, guaranteed by international law. The issue is not only essential in its centrality in the lives of millions of Palestinians suffering in Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere, but is also essential to any sensible understanding of the conflict and its resolution.

The struggle in Palestine doesn’t date back to the war of 1967, but the Zionist takeover of Palestine between 1947-48 that resulted in nearly a million refugees, the expropriation of their land, homes, rights and the attempt at erasing any evidence of their existence.

By marginalizing the Right of Return, one diminishes the very roots of the conflict, and any serious attempt at reconciling the painful past with the equally agonizing present.

Fifth, Palestine 48 must be fully incorporated into national agenda. The Palestinians of 1948 have always, and will remain a major component of the Palestine question and the Palestinian struggle for freedom and human rights. The fragmentation between the communities were imposed by calculated political realities, enforced by Israel or circumstances. That said, the issues have never been truly separated: the plight of Palestinians in Israel, those under military occupation in the occupied territories, and refugees in the diaspora all go back to the same historical point of reference – the Nakba of 48. These common struggles continue to be sustained by Israel, its racist laws, its military occupation and its refusal to adhere to international law.

Without the Palestinians of 48, the Palestinian national identity will remain politically fragmented and scarred. The persistence and collective strength of that population is an important asset, and their struggles are part and parcel of the struggle and resistance of Palestinians in the occupied territories and those in the diaspora.

Sixth, resistance must be respected.

The term “resistance” once dominated references made by Palestinian leaders in yesteryears, but was purposely marginalized following the signing of Oslo in 1993. That was driven by two subtle understandings that resistance was ineffective, and that to achieve a degree of validity and stateliness in the eyes of their US benefactors, the new rulers of Palestine needed to abandon seemingly unsophisticated references to a bygone era.

Yet without resistance there is only submission and defeat, which is precisely what took place. Only popular resistance in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the steadfastness of 48 Palestinians, crowned by the legendary resistance of Palestinians in Gaza under a harsh siege and repeated wars, continue to frustrate Israel. Yet, the harsher Israel tries to destroy Palestinian resistance, the more emboldened Palestinians become, for resistance is a culture, not a political choice.

Seventh, BDS must continue to grow, bridge gaps. Resistance is part and parcel of the ongoing global campaign, to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. The outcome of the Israeli elections, and the rise of a more self-assertive Palestinian political collective by 48 Palestinians, would mean that BDS must enlarge its mission, not just rhetorically by practically as well.

The BDS movement had already emphasized equality for 48 Palestinians as a main objective that is as vital as all other objectives. The Joint List Arab party which won 13 seats in the Knesset solidified the relationship between Palestinian Arab communities within Israel as the BDS movement has to a large extent solidified the rapport between Palestinian communities across political and geographical divides. But more is needed. The new self-assertive Palestinian community in Israel deserves greater engagement.

Finally, one State must become the rally cry for equality and freedom.

The more empowered and racist Israel becomes, and the deeper it digs into the roots of its Apartheid and racist institutions and walls, the more obvious the answer becomes: a state for two peoples with equal rights. Both Palestinians and Jews exist in that very space, but they are governed by two sets of laws that make peaceful co-existence impossible. In order to speed up the achievement of that moment and lessen suffering, Palestinians have some urgent work to do.

It is time for Palestinian communities everywhere to surmount ideological, factional and political divides, reach out to one another, unite their ranks, and harness their energies, for no matter how deep the divide, Palestine is, should and will always be one.

Bolivia’s Contested Process of Change

Benjamin Dangl

A fist fight broke out in a local campesino union office in La Paz one afternoon last April while I was waiting to interview the union’s leaders. The fight was over how funds for government-supported projects were spent. Last week, at a campaign rally for an El Alto mayoral candidate losing in the polls, speeches were largely about the struggle over the political capital and legacy of a series of anti-neoliberal rebellions in the early 2000s. And this past Sunday, the party of President Evo Morales,the victor in general elections last October, lost key races in regional elections across the country. Such events point to the contested nature of Bolivian politics within and without the so-called “process of change” under Morales.

Popular uprisings helped paved the way to the 2005 election of Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous president and a leader who promised to bring about long-overdue socialist and anti-imperialist changes to the impoverished, but resource-rich, country. The campesino and indigenous movement protagonists of the 2000s are now largely aligned with the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), Evo Morales’ political party. In the lead-up to Sunday’s regional elections, this support was visible in neighborhood council offices in El Alto, where campaign literature for MAS candidates was distributed, and in a major campesino confederation in La Paz, where a massive campaign banner blanketed office headquarters.

But when talking with movement leaders inside these buildings, it was clear that their support was critical and uneven. While most backed Morales, they were also critical of right-wing politicians brought under the MAS umbrella, corruption scandals, a heavy dependence on extractive industries, and the high levels of violence against women in the country. While in the public eye these movements supported the MAS, their support was also based on a less visible process of debate, power-struggles and critique within the movements themselves.

Still, this close alliance with the government recently contributed to a corruption scandal which has allegedly implicated various indigenous and campesino movement leaders who have been accused of pocketing government funds destined for community projects. While the investigation into this corruption case is far from complete, the allegations stuck well enough on many leaders that it significantly lowered popularity for key MAS candidates in regional elections.

The corruption allegations weakened the candidacy of Felipa Huanca, MAS gubernatorial candidate for La Paz, someone who rose up through the ranks of the Bartolina Sisa campesina movement. The MAS mayoral candidate for El Alto, Édgar Patana, was also implicated in corruption charges; one notorious leaked video showed Patana receiving a packet of money from former El Alto mayor, Fanor Nava. (On the campaign trail, Patana never explained what was in the envelope.)

The corruption theme weighed heavily on campaigns in La Paz and El Alto, and seriously contributed to these candidates’ loss on Sunday. Even Morales came out after the election to say that, in the department of La Paz and the city of El Alto, voters “cast a punishment vote against corruption.”

Another reason for the MAS’s loss in La Paz and El Alto, however, was Morales’ own stance against MAS opponents in the election. Facing potential defeats, the president threatened that he would not work with opposition politicians in El Alto or in the department of La Paz if voters elected them. “If you want more [government-funded] projects, there is Édgar Patana; if you want more projects, there is Felipa Huanca. Think about this, it depends on you,” Morales told voters. The threat had the reverse effect; many voters responded by shifting their support to MAS opponents.

Outside of MAS losses in La Paz and El Alto, at the time of this writing, opposition parties are reported to have won regional elections in most mayoral races in key cities, with the MAS winning only four of the nine governorships. On a national level, these results are a far cry from the 60% support Morales received in last year’s general election, which also granted the MAS 2/3 of the seats in congress.

In terms of the regional election, the MAS may have misread the political situation, and chose candidates poorly. Morales admitted this much during the actual campaigns. This demonstrates a certain miscommunication between MAS leadership and its base in various parts of the country. However, the opposition victories on Sunday don’t indicate a renewed, united offensive against the MAS. Major individual challengers to the MAS may rise out of this election (such as the Sol.bo party’s Felix Patzi, who won the La Paz governor race), but nationally, opposition from the right and left is still fragmented. Local political dynamics are quite distinct from the national scene; opposition to the MAS locally doesn’t necessarily translate into opposition to the MAS nationally, as an Andean Information Network report on Bolivia’s 2010 regional elections pointed out.

In the end, the regional election results speak of the complex political terrain in a country where, in key cities and departments, MAS hegemony is challenged from a variety of political positions. Following the election, new checks and balances to MAS party power may continue to open up spaces of dissent, debate and contestation that will deepen Bolivia’s wider process of change, a process that the MAS doesn’t, nor did it ever, completely control.

Challenging the Silence Racism Creates

David Ragland

When racial bias occurs it is customary to suggest that such practices are out of the norm or something only done by an individual out of touch with prevailing social values, but racism is part of American social ecology, often as unrecognized as the air we breathe.

That contaminant of racism in our national atmosphere has become more sharply noticeable, however, since the generalized uprising of hurt protest following the Ferguson, Missouri police shooting death of Michael Brown in August last year. We are beginning to see that it all connects, that each incident relates to the others.

Oklahoma University Sigma Alpha Epsilon and now Bucknell University’s recent racist outburst cogently demonstrate that such incidents are widespread in American higher educational institutions. On March 20, 2015 three Bucknell students on the campus radio station during the “Happy Time show” made racial slurs. The following is from an account released by John Bravman, Bucknell University President.

Student 1: “Niggers”

Student 2: “Black people should be dead.”

Student 3: “Lynch ‘em!”

The three students who made the statements have been expelled as of Monday March, 30, 2015. According to sources close to the University administration their fraternity[s] have revoked their memberships.

Over the past few days, Bucknell University administration and a concerned group of students and faculty have worked to formulate a response to avoid the status quo of silence on campus. The violence advocated in the language of this and other incidents points to a set of greater truths.

1. Racism is rooted in violence that seeks to silence those it targets.   Many are inclined to avoid discussing race and racism, but silence only hides and misdirect racist acts and language so as to convince us racism does not exist.  While the onslaught of news describing people of color murdered by police may be shocking to many who don’t experience police brutality or harassment, they are unsurprising to people of color and yet these occurrences are often labeled as isolated or as the victim’s fault.

In my own classroom, we recently discussed the brutalization of Martese Johnson, a student at University of Virginia who was beaten by Alcohol Beverage control officers, who falsely charged him with “public intoxication and obstruction of justice,” contradicting every eyewitness claiming the opposite.  One of my students snickered with another student.  When I asked what was funny, she said he had a fake I.D. I later forwarded to her the article pointing out his I.D. was not fake.

This interaction bothered me until I began to reflect on Jennifer Trainor’s — author of Rethinking Racism — discussion of how racism is rooted in emotion tempered by social norms, culture and history.  What my students were reflecting was, “there had to be a reason, because the police would never do this to us.”  And indeed they would not, because those students are white, from communities with wealth. At the same time, these episodes undermine their faith in the status quo, as they should.  This is unsettling for many, as schooling and work trains people to accept social norms and be happy about it.  Those who suggest that things are otherwise are frequently silenced and labeled as complainers.

2. Racist language and acts of racism are mechanisms of stratified justice radically favoring the wealthy while dividing the rest of us. Historian Joseph Ellis, in his book Founding Brothers, points out in a chapter entitled Silence, that the Founding Fathers agreed that the rigorous and morally oriented debate on slavery would not be mentioned until that generation’s death.  This founding act of silence gave generations to come the sense that slavery was simply part of the culture, when it was actually highly contested but silenced in favor of political expedience to satisfy the economic interests of wealthy landowners- who were the only citizens with voting rights.  Today we rarely mention the ways a small wealthy class benefit from laws that protect them, while convincing a larger portion of Americans to believe in a dream that will never benefit them—a phenomenon frequently updated from the days of slavery to today.

Citizens United is the 2010 Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to be considered individuals and their political donations part of free speech, allowing countless hundreds of millions of new and highly influential dollars into election campaigns on behalf of candidates who vote just the way the corporate donors want them to. Why then if corporations are individuals, there is no criminal prosecution for corporate polluters or for those financiers who caused the 2008 market crash?  At the same time, corporations profit from massive incarceration of people of color and the legal system across America, including Ferguson, is complicit.  The mayor of Ferguson continues to deny what the U.S. Department of Justice study finds, (despite racist language in emails) that racism is a key part of the criminalization of Blacks.  I argue that this silence allows violence against people of color to continue.

One Drug Enforcement Agency officer recently reported that he was told to avoid white neighborhoods. For many who resist this line of thinking, the myths of fairness, democracy (despite the evidence that the US no longer meets many indicators for a robustly democratic society), and idea that they too will have the American dream is played upon by unscrupulous politicians who evoke fear to get elected. We are divided. We are thus conquered.

3. Finally, we need a national conversation to listen and truly hear the daily experience of the least among us, in order to challenge the silence of racism, change our behavior and deconstruct the institutions that reinforce racism. Dr. Betty Reardon, a close mentor and peace educator, often says that if you were born and raised in this society, it is impossible to be untouched by racism.  We are all involved in some way and should thus all struggle against this systemic flaw. Recently the Truth-Telling Project invited people from across the US to Ferguson to share their experience of police violence and its context.  The Truth-Telling Project connected local residents with community organizations who are empowering their own communities to learn our tragedy can inform transformation.  The underlying thought of this project is that before reconciliation or healing can occur, police practices, and the root causes of racism and economic inequality must begin to change. As well, personal stories and experience contain truth that can guide our actions toward structural change.

While racism is inseparable from the American experience, we have to revisit the past, listen to the experience of others to challenge the violence and language that leads to it if we are to realize the possibility of democracy and dream of an America that works equitably for all who touch these shores.

Visit www.thetruthtellingproject.org to upload your video expressing your experiences and hopes.