General election produces political earthquake in Britain

Chris Marsden & Julie Hyland

The Conservative Party has won a narrow majority after yesterday’s General Election. With a projected 331 seats in Westminster, it will not have to rely on support from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party or the Liberal Democrats, as some had predicted.

The result owes nothing to popular support. The Conservatives polled approximately 36 percent of the vote, a small rise on 2010, but due to Britain’s first past the post constituency-based system it increased its number of seats by at least 22.

This is an election that Labour lost rather than one that the Tories won.

Labour’s share of the vote fell, most spectacularly in Scotland where it was wiped out by the Scottish National Party (SNP). There is now a solitary Labour MP in the whole of Scotland—and just one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat—as the SNP swept the board, securing 56 seats compared with six in 2010.

The stark contrast between the fate of the two parties is primarily because the SNP made a pitch to anti-austerity sentiment, whereas Labour did not.

Labour leader Ed Miliband centred his election campaign on an assertion that his party would be a more “sensible” advocate of austerity, which would still allow for some growth in highly circumscribed areas. He combined a pledge for a “budget responsibility lock” with a promise to clamp down on immigration, to defend the European Union and maintain Britain’s role as a leading military power.

This enabled the SNP to exploit widespread hostility to Westminster, especially to Labour itself, and to channel this sentiment behind its nationalist agenda. In this it was aided and abetted by the pseudo-left groups such as the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity Scotland, who endorsed an SNP vote.

The SNP is now the third largest party in Westminster, with major ramifications for the future survival of the United Kingdom as a unitary state. In many constituencies in Scotland the swing against Labour was well over 30 percent.

High voter turn-out in Scotland masks a national figure that would otherwise have been lower than in 2010.

The election has claimed the scalps of three party leaders.

The Labour Party is decapitated. Within hours of the result, Miliband resigned as the anticipated last-minute surge to Labour failed to materialise. The party’s shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, and Douglas Alexander, shadow foreign secretary, lost their seats. Labour was unable to offset its losses in Scotland with any significant gains in Tory marginals and its vote even in major urban conurbations was poor—leaving it almost 100 seats adrift of the Tories in its worst result since 1987.

The UK Independence Party is the third most popular party on 13 percent, having picked up support from both the Conservatives and Labour. Nonetheless, with around four million votes—significantly higher than the SNP—it took just one Westminster seat.

Nigel Farage resigned as UKIP leader after he failed to win his Thanet constituency. UKIP’s main donor Arron Banks had called for a vote for the Tories in the seat because Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to hold a referendum on British membership of the European Union by 2017.

The result for UKIP mirrors the success of the SNP, not in its-right wing nostrums, but from the essential standpoint of the dangerous cultivation of nationalist sentiment.

Liberal Democrat leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg also resigned, after his party suffered what he described as a “cruel and punishing night”. Clegg only narrowly managed to retain his own seat due to tactical voting by Tories, with the majority of Conservative gains coming from former Liberal Democrat seats. All other leading Liberal Democrat figures, such as former Business Secretary Vince Cable and former Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, lost their seats—leaving a parliamentary group of just eight Liberal Democrats that could travel to Westminster in a mini-bus.

Caroline Lucas remains the Green Party’s sole MP, despite the party increasing its national share of the vote due to its nominally “left” programme.

Britain’s ruling elite got the result they had wanted. Virtually all the media and leading business figures insisted that a Tory majority was necessary for the “stability” of the financial markets—the only constituency that counts.

But it is a pyrrhic victory. It heads a government that not only might preside over a British exit from the European Union, but also the break-up of the United Kingdom. Moreover, it commands the support of just 22 percent of the electorate--under conditions in which it is pledged to further savage cuts that will devastate the lives of millions.

The overriding message from the election is that, for the vast majority of people who sought change, it will not come through parliament and certainly not from the Labour Party.

Labour is a bureaucratic organisation with no real base in the working class and no ability at all to make a popular appeal to their fundamental concerns. They are not seen as an opposition tendency, but rather as a pale copy of the Tories.

It has already responded to defeat with complaints that it drifted too far to the left and calls to recapture the glory days of Tony Blair.

There has never been an occasion where the gap between the sentiment of the broad mass of the population and the structures of official politics has been so vast. This is only the ideological reflection of the gulf which has opened up between the super-rich oligarchy, who dictate the policies of all the major parties, and the working class.

This situation will have explosive political consequences.

Parliamentary democracy is in a state of advanced decay and cannot be revived. The working class must intervene independently and in its own interests if it is to combat the ongoing destruction of jobs, wages and social conditions and the growing danger of militarism and war.

It can only do so on a socialist programme.

The Socialist Equality Party stood two candidates in the general election, Katie Rhodes in Glasgow Central and David O’Sullivan in Holborn & St. Pancras, London. Rhodes secured 58 votes and O’Sullivan 108. The purpose of the SEP’s campaign was to raise the necessity of a new socialist movement of the working class, one based on the fight for a workers’ government in Britain within the framework of a United Socialist States of Europe and a world socialist federation.

The prerequisite for the development of such a movement is the historical and political education of the most advanced and self-sacrificing elements in the working class, especially the young.

In the course of our campaign, the SEP distributed thousands of election manifestos and spoke to thousands more. Our candidates addressed almost a dozen hustings and wrote extensively on the programme and class character of all the major parties, as well as the pseudo-left groups that gravitate around them.

Most importantly, the SEP placed the international online May Day rally against imperialist war, hosted by the World Socialist Web Site, at the centre of its campaign. Two highly successful meetings were held in Glasgow and London to listen to the event.

The outcome of the election is a stark confirmation of the programme and perspective advanced by the SEP. We urge workers and young people to respond by taking the decision to join our party.

Kerry in Riyadh: A meeting of war criminals

Bill Van Auken

US Secretary of State John Kerry appeared side by side with his Saudi counterpart, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, in Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh Thursday and praised the monarchical oil regime for its role in the bloody nearly two-month-old war against Yemen, the most impoverished nation in the Arab world.

The Saudi royals were to be commended, he said, for their “initiative to bring about a peaceful resolution through the announcement of their intent to establish a full, five-day, renewable ceasefire and humanitarian pause.”

Kerry used the word “intent” advisedly. Even as he spoke, Saudi warplanes continued to pound Yemeni homes, schools and hospitals into rubble, carrying out at least seven airstrikes Thursday against the port city of Hudaydah and five against the northwestern provincial capital of Sa’ada, a stronghold of Yemen’s Houthi rebel movement that the Saudi regime is determined to crush.

Earlier, Saudi warships fired rockets into the town of Hajjah, striking the Maydi Hospital, and more than 100 airstrikes in other areas of the country left scores dead, many of them women and children.

Neither Kerry nor Jubeir said when the five-day “humanitarian pause” would begin, nor did they provide any specific definition of its terms. Jubeir indicated, however, that it would be dependent on the Houthi rebels laying down their arms.

This is not the first time the Saudi regime indicated that it would call a halt to the bloodbath it has unleashed on Yemen. On April 21, after nearly a month of bombing, it proclaimed that Operation Decisive Storm, the title given to its air war against Yemen, had ended and a new phase centered on achieving a political resolution of the Yemeni conflict would begin. Instead, the air strikes only intensified.

The United Nations has put the death toll from the Saudi-led war at more than 1,400, with thousands more wounded, the overwhelming majority of the casualties civilians. Some 300,000 people have been forced to flee their homes. Bombs have demolished at least 30 schools and the violence has left nearly 2 million school children unable to attend classes.

An estimated 20 million people, or 80 percent of the population, are going hungry as a Saudi-led blockade of Yemen’s harbors together with repeated air strikes that have destroyed runways at the country’s airports have cut off its food supplies.

Speaking in Djibouti, a stop on his way to Saudi Arabia, Kerry postured as if the imperialist power he represents were just one more humanitarian enterprise. He declared that Washington was “deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation that is unfolding in Yemen” and urged “all sides, anybody involved, to comply with humanitarian law and to take every precaution to keep civilians out of the line of fire.”

Who does the US secretary of state think he’s kidding? Washington is not some benevolent bystander in this bloodbath.

The White House and the Pentagon have backed Saudi Arabia to the hilt since the war began, rushing it fresh arms, including deadly cluster bombs, banned by the vast majority of the world’s nations because of their murderous effect upon civilians. It has set up a US command center in Riyadh to supply the Saudi Air Force with targeting intelligence, and it has dispatched US Air Force KC-135 Stratotankers to the region to carry out daily aerial refueling of Saudi warplanes, so that the airstrikes can continue around the clock.

Last year, Saudi Arabia spent $80 billion on arms, making it the fourth largest weapons purchaser in the world. The Obama administration is preparing to sell it and the other Persian Gulf oil monarchies even more powerful weapons systems.

The US president is scheduled to hold a summit at Camp David next week with the crowned royals of the Gulf Cooperation Council. He is prepared to offer them an advanced ballistic missile defense system as well as bunker buster bombs.

CNN quoted a senior US official as saying that “the president’s goal is building a defense infrastructure and architecture for the Gulf region that also includes maritime security, border security, and counter-terrorism.”

In other words, the Obama administration is further solidifying US reliance on the Saudi monarchy as a key pillar of its drive for domination of the strategically vital and oil-rich Middle East. Even as the US and the other major powers negotiate an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program, Washington is building up Saudi Arabia and the other reactionary Gulf states for a possible war against Iran.

The nature of the Saudi regime was made abundantly clear on the eve of Kerry’s visit with the mass beheading of five immigrants—two from Yemen and one each from Sudan, Eritrea and Chad. A Saudi national was decapitated on the day the US secretary of state landed in the desert kingdom. After these grisly public executions, the headless corpses of the victims were hung from helicopters to ensure the maximum display of the state atrocity.

The US-Saudi axis gives the lie to all the pretexts used by US imperialism to justify the decades of wars that have taken the lives of over a million in the Middle East, from the claim that it intervened to fight for “democracy” to the lie that it was waging a “war on terrorism.”

Even as it continued bombing Yemeni cities, the Saudi air force, with Washington’s blessings, dropped arms and supplies this week to Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) forces in Yemen, a movement that the Obama administration had previously portrayed as the paramount terrorist threat. As the most rabidly sectarian enemies of the Houthis—inspired by the Saudi monarchy’s state religion of Wahhabi Islamism that animates similar movements, from ISIS to Boko Haram—AQAP has now been recast as Yemeni patriots.

As in Iraq, Libya and Syria before it, Washington’s role in the Yemeni war is based not on humanitarian concern, support for democracy or hostility to terrorism. It is pursuing the predatory interests of US imperialism, attempting to offset American capitalism’s economic decline by military means. It is prepared in this process to spill unlimited amounts of blood and to drag the peoples of Middle East, the United States and the entire planet into a third world war.

Farmers’ Struggles At Battleground Peripheries

T Venkateshwarlu

The farmer suicide in the Aam Admi Party (AAP) rally at Delhi once again facilitated national level discussions on farmers’ suicide in the country. The rally was organized by the AAP against ‘Land acquisition Bill, 2014’. The farmer suicide is a big tragedy and very painful thing. Ruling party BJP and opposition party Congress blamed AAP to the farmer suicide. Delhi Chief Minister and AAP party leader Aravind Kejriwal accepted his mistake that to continue the meeting after the farmer suicide. Rahul Gandhi promised to the farmers that he will fight against land acquisition in the country. These statements and tragedies are all became the part of history. In the country farmers’ suicides have been happening for three decades without any interruption. From 1995 almost every 30 minutes one farmer is committing suicide. In these three decades nearly three lakh farmers were committed suicides. This is the according government data. In reality this number may be three times higher. In 2014 the rate of farmers’ suicide increased 26% comparing with previous year. No party did not take serious about farmers’ suicides and not wage struggles against the farmers’ major problems which are causing to the farmers’ suicides.

Many parties, organizations, forums and Non- government Organizations are waging struggles in various forms against ‘Land Acquisition Bill, 2014’. Modi government designed the ‘Land Acquisition Bill’ 2014’ by making changes to earlier Land Acquisition Bill, 2013. After curtailing the workers’ rights in the name ‘Sramevajayati’ Modi started his attack on farmers’ rights. Once again these actions proved that people took disastrous decision by electing Modi government. The tragedy is that many political parties did not respond and wage struggles against ‘Sramevajayati’ which is against workers and serve the industrialists interests. It shows that the parties’ interest in farmers’ vote bank in Indian politics.

In the new Bill Modi removed the consent and social impact assessment clauses in the Land Acquisition Bill, 2013. He wants to provide a lot of opportunities to the corporate companies to grab the farmers’ land and make huge profits. So, he removed the consent and social impact assessment clauses in the previous Bill. After the prolonged struggles for decades farmers succeed in getting ‘Land Acquisition Bill, 2013 which included progressive clauses such as 70% to 80 % consent of land owners which provides bargaining powers to the farmers to get better compensation to them at the time of land acquisition. The social impact assessment prevents corporate companies to make real estate business with the farmers’ land which were taken in the name of establishing industries and projects. There is no doubt that the Modi Land Bill is against farmers’ interests. He wants to serve the interests of the corporate companies. So, he thought that consent clause and social impact assessment may give troubles to corporate companies at the times of land acquisition. He never feels and hesitates to work for the corporate companies. Actually he proved himself that he is the best servant of the corporate owners. The corporate media is projecting him as a ‘savior’ of the country. He changed the Bill to fulfill the corporate companies’ aspirations. So, struggles against ‘Land Acquisition Bill, 2014’ are genuine and required. Any farmers’ family should not fell into vulnerable situation because of the land acquisition. Before taking farmers’ land for private companies, development projects and infrastructure projects, government should provide sufficient compensation and sustainable livelihoods to the land owners. Most of the parties which are waging struggles against ‘Land Bill, 2014’ largely confined to compensation. But compensation will not suffice to the farmers. We should demand that along with sufficient compensation land owners should be include as shareholders in the industries and development projects. No government has right to grab land from the farmers and distributes it to the corporate companies in the name of development. Farmers have the right on their lands. No government has to take their right on their lands. Only at the time of building cooperatives by themselves farmers may give their rights on the lands for collective benefit. The agriculture labourers and other people those who depend on lands and other natural resources for their livelihoods have to consider as the victims development projects at the time of land acquisition. Sufficient compensation has to pay them for losing their livelihoods opportunities. Even within the land acquisition arena those who are fighting against land acquisition are not demanding shareholder status of the land owners in industries and developmental projects.

Most of the ongoing farmers’ struggles are almost confined to the problem of ‘Land Acquisition Bill, 2014’. But we have to remember that this is one of the problems of the farmers’. Focusing more on ‘Land Acquisition Bill’ these parties put aside the other major burning problems of the famers’. Because of these problems small, marginal and middle class famers are facing serious crisis in agriculture. Famers have been gradually drowning in to the debt trap. Throughout the year farmers and their family members’ hard work did not get any reasonable income to survive. Instead of providing income to their hard work it gives huge debts and pushes them into more vulnerable conditions. These conditions are facilitating tragedy of farmers’ suicides across the country. Farmers are facing many serious problems such as lack of sufficient and timely financial assistance from the government banks, increasing prices of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, lack of irrigated water facility, decreasing the soil productivity, lack of agricultural department services, lack of drying platforms and storages, lack of agriculture produce processing centers, marketing facilities to the produce and Minimum Support Price (MSP) to the agriculture produce.

Farmers are exploiting by the market at every stage from inputs stage to marketing stage. Lack of financial support from the government banks farmers are forced to depend on money lenders for agriculture loans. These money lenders collect high interest on the loans. Most of the times the traders or seeds, fertilizers and pesticides shop owners give loan and collect money with high interest after crop harvest or they give loan with the condition that the farmers have to sell their produce to those shop owners. Less quality of the seeds, fertilizers and pesticides are damaging the crops. Lack of storage facilities famers have to sell their produce after harvest. If they have facility to storage for their produce they can wait to get good price for their produce in the market. This situation forced famers to sell their produce as early as possible after harvesting.

Market places are far away from the villages. Farmers are unable to access the latest prices of their produce. So, they have to depend on traders to sell their produce. Traders are taking this as good advantage and purchasing produce from farmers at less prices. The traders become syndicate to purchase agriculture produce at less prices from the farmers. Traders are exploiting the farmers in a big way. Cost of production increased nearly four to five times but the income did not increase according to the production cost. At the same time the consumers are getting the agricultural produce at high prices. The profit is consuming by the traders. MSP became maximum price for the produce. Governments did not bother about the MSP to the agriculture produce.

Along with these problems erratic rains are also damaging the crops. Farmers are not getting sufficient insurance for their crops damage. Scarcity of the irrigating water became one of the big problems to the farmers. Farmers are spending lakhs of rupees on bore-wells and many times they are not getting water but they are drowning into debts because of bore-wells. Electricity problem became is one of the problems of farmers. They have to wait day and night for the electricity. The power cuts are adding their contribution in damaging the agriculture produce.

Farmers are doing cultivation with so many problems. These problems are pushing farmers into debt traps and finally causing to farmers’ suicides. The various parties and organizations have to wage relentless struggles on the farmers’ problems. Leaving these major problems and wage struggles and these struggles should be in center place of battle ground. But the political parties and organizations confined to the peripheries of the battle ground by confining the land acquisition.

The BJP and Congress party completely failed to address the farmers’ problems. These parties’ leaders are competing to propagate how they are working for the farmers. But in reality they never take farmers issue as a serious issue. Congress party could not find time to discuss the agricultural crisis in Parliament. Modi always find time for corporate companies’ owners but he did not want to give five minutes time to the farmers’ representatives to discuss agriculture crisis. But he propagates that ‘Nothing is valuable than farmers in the country’. People know who are most valuable to Modi. He works for the interests of the corporate companies by crushing the rights of farmers and workers. He removed the consent and social impact assessment clauses to protect the interests of the corporate companies. At the same time he can say that the farmers are most valuable in the country.

Communist parties and revolutionary groups are not yet come-out from their dogmatic world of semi- feudal theory. Particularly Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders are almost confined to propagate the land reforms in West Bengal and failed build different types struggles on farmers’ major problems. These parties’ leaders forgot their party program to establish Socialism in the country. They did not bother about path of revolution which determines the strategy and tactics. These parties confined to Parliamentary politics and forgot Socialist revolution in the country. They did not understand ongoing changes taking place in economical and social fields particularly in the agricultural sector in the last three decades because of predominately prevalence of Capitalist relations in the agriculture. Because of the dogmatism and Parliamentary politics these parties’ leaders are reluctant to understand present agricultural relations, crisis and wage struggles against major problems of the farmers.

The revolutionary groups are waging struggles on ‘Land to The Tiller’. These groups’ leaders are reluctant to study changes in agriculture and new problems of the farmers. In their program ‘Landless’ is the major problem of the people in rural areas. They did not understand the changes occurred in the agriculture. So, they are not focusing the problems of farmers. The farmers those who are committing suicides are landholders. Even in the backward regions also farmers are committing suicides because market exploitation. Their problems are not lack of land. Their problems related to the market exploitation. It is the result of capital intervening in agriculture sector across the country. There may be variations in capitalist development across the country. In some corners or remote areas somebody may find the characteristics of the ‘Semi- feudal’. Because of the misunderstanding of about capitalist development in the country and they are reluctant to understand the changes in agriculture focus on farmers problems facing by the market. Because this limitation they are not waging struggles against exploitation in the market.

Waging prolonged struggles against these major problems is not as easy as waging struggles against ‘Land Acquisition’. Along with struggles the parties and organizations have to build farmers’ cooperatives with small, marginal and middle class farmers. Above 70% of the farmers belong to the small and marginal farmers’ category. These cooperatives manage by the leadership of the small and marginal farmers. These cooperatives purchase inputs at less price and sell the produce at reasonable price. These cooperatives will provide financial support to the farmers and do other initiatives like agriculture produce processing. Along with these initiatives these cooperatives work advocacy to get insurance and infrastructural facilities to the agriculture produce and pro farmers policies. The farmers are not corporate owners, so Modi did not care them and always try to cut the farmers rights to protect the interests of the corporate owners. The cooperatives also help to consumers by providing quality produce at reasonable price. These cooperatives will be good answer to the government which is praising and showing the corporate agriculture is the solution of the agriculture crisis.

The parties and organizations have to revisit their approach and understand the severity of the problems of the farmers. These problems are the result of capital intervening in the agriculture sector. Apart from struggles against ‘Land Acquisition Bill, 2014’ they have to wage struggles on major problems of the farmers. This initiative is require a lot to end the lakhs of farmers’ suicides across the country for the last three decades.

Survival Of The Weakest

Sukumaran C. V.

Violence against women and violence against the Earth, legitimated and promoted by both patriarchal religion and science, are interconnected assaults rooted in the eroticization of domination. The gynocidal culture’s image of woman as object and victim is paralleled by contemporary representations that continually show the Earth as a toy, machine, or violated object, as well as by the religious and scientific ideology that legitimates the possession, contamination, and destruction of Mother Earth.—Jane Caputi.

CIVILIZED MAN SAYS: I am Self, I am Master, all the rest is Other—outside, below, underneath, subservient. I own, I use, I explore, I exploit, I control. What I do is what matters. “What I want” is what matter is for. I am that I am, and the rest is women and the wilderness, to be used as I see fit.—Christina M. Kennedy.

When in 2012 December, Nirbhaya was gang raped inside a running bus and thrown out and killed, the collective patriarchal and misogynistic psyche of the nation believed that it happened because the girl went out at night (that is a crime as far as girls are concerned), it happened because the girl was loitering around with her boyfriend (that also is a crime), it happened because the girl was asking for it by being outside at night!

At Moga in Panjab, the 14 year old girl was not going out at night. And she was not with her boyfriend. She was with her mother and she was travelling in broad daylight and yet she met with (more or less) the same fate of Nirbhaya! Now what will be the excuses of those men (and women) who share the patriarchal bias against the female? What stupid reasons can the male chauvinist culture of the nation put forward to blame the innocent girl?

When I see girls travelling by buses, Nirbhaya and the Moga girl come into my mind. When I see girls travelling by trains, the image of the hapless girl Soumya, who has been pushed out of the running train and raped while being unconscious (and killed), comes into my mind. When I see brave female journalists, the Shakti Mill gang rape incident comes into my mind. When I see girls outside their homes in the remote villages, the Badaun incident comes into my mind.

A democratic society should be one in which the weaker and weakest sections of the people are equally safe and secure as the strongest sections are. But in our country, the weaker sections, the Adivasis and the Dalits, always find themselves in the receiving end. If the nation wants to ‘develop’ and ‘progress’ their land is always snatched and they are always dispossessed and displaced. “Tribals make up just 8 percent of our population. Yet, they account for more than 40 percent of the displaced persons of all projects. And there would be an equally big number of dalits among the displaced.” (P. Sainath, Everybody loves a good drought)

Sainath continues: “Imagine the entire population of the continent of Australia turned out of their homes—eighteen million people losing their lands, evicted from their houses. Deprived of livelihood and income, they face penury. As their families split up and spread out, their community bonds crumble. Cut off from their most vital resources, those uprooted are then robbed of their history, traditions and culture. May be even forced to adopt an alien diet. Higher rates of disease and mortality pursue the dispossessed. So do lower rates of earnings and education. Also, growing joblessness, discrimination and inferior social status. Oddly it all happens in the name of development. And the victims are described as beneficiaries. Sounds too far-fetched even as fiction? It’s happened in India, where in the period 1951-90, over 21.6 million people suffered precisely that fate—displaced by just dams and canals alone. Add mining that has dispossessed 2.1 million people and you have the population of Canada. Further, industries, thermal plants and defence installations have thrown at least 2.4 million other human beings out of their homes. That’s around 26 million Indians.”

And when it comes to the weakest section—the females—the picture is so bleak that it frightens us. It is said that in every 20 minute a woman is raped in India! Nearly 20 years ago a feminist writer wrote that ‘it almost seems as if rape is the favourite pastime of the males of this country.’ (Saraswati Haider,

‘Bandit Queen and Woman Question’, Mainstream, March 23, 1996). It seems that even then the picture is not as bad as now.

The female can’t walk through our streets without being subjected to obscene comments and gestures. The female can’t travel by buses and trains without being groped and fumbled. The female can’t use the public space freely as almost all public space in this nation exclusively belongs to the males. The problem is, as the French feminist Simon de Beauvoir wrote in The Second Sex (first published in 1949), that ‘humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being. Man can think of himself without woman. She can't think of herself without man. And she is simply what man decrees; thus she is called ‘the sex' by which is meant that she appears essentially to the male as a sexual being. For him she is sex—absolute sex, no less. She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential…. Legislators, priests, philosophers, writers and scientists have striven to show that the subordinate position of woman is willed in heaven and advantageous on earth. The religions invented by men reflect this wish for domination.’

In our country, the moment the female steps out of her home she is in an insecure and hostile sphere where anything unpleasant can happen to her. It seems that no girl in our country is able to walk through the streets without being heard the obscene comments of the males on her body parts.

While the sexual crimes against women are increasing day by day, the conviction rate is declining alarmingly and the culprits enjoy virtual impunity. This growing culture of impunity makes women helpless victims of sexual harassment. Our law enforcement agencies lack professionalism, and when it comes to the issue of lewd comments and harassment even the police take them for granted. Therefore society can't provide women absolute safety in public places by only addressing the issue as a law and order problem.

The attitude of perceiving woman as a sexual object is to be shattered. Our family set-up, our curricula, our visual media and our cinemas project woman not as an individual and a human being just as man is, but as an object created for man and inferior to man. Lewd comments and sexual harassment start from our schools in the form of eve-teasing, and when the eve- teasers grow up, it becomes sexual harassment. In our society the girls are trained to be submissive and to “suffer silently” the dirty behaviour of the other sex, while the boys are trained to be aggressive and their aggressiveness is praised even when it violates the freedom of a girl to walk freely through the street.

The only crime in which the victim is accused of the responsibility of the crime is sexual harassment or rape. The victim is told that it happened because she wore tight jeans and top or revealing clothes or she was tempting others to be sexually assaulted or raped!! If all the women start wearing burkha, Patriarchy will still continue its practice of raping women and then the excuse suggested may be that it happens because of the anatomy of women.

The basic problem is, as the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, who wrote the epoch-making play A Doll's House, which came as a thunderbolt to the male-centric social and moral ethos of Europe, says: “A woman cannot be herself in the society of present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.” It should be remembered that Ibsen wrote the above quoted sentence in the notes he made for the play in 1878. How contemporaneous the sentence seems in the present day Indian socio-cultural background!

In our country, girls and women fear to travel by bus or by train, they are afraid to be in public places. The prejudice (and attack) against women starts from the womb itself. The foetus is killed, if it is female. Without shattering the typical patriarchal mindset of perceiving woman as a sexual object created for man, we can't create a social milieu which is completely free of sexual violence. Woman should be projected as an individual just like man is. Or else the survival of the female in this country is in grave danger.

P.S.: The ultimate solution to end rape is to make the society a gender egalitarian one. Meanwhile, it doesn't mean that the molesters and the rapists can go scot-free. While the crime rate against woman is increasing so fast, the conviction rate goes at a snail's space. It certainly encourages the males to indulge in violence against girls and woman. And even if convicted; within years, the convicts come out and harass the victims as it happened in Delhi. (In 2007, a young man raped and killed a 6 year old girl, cut her body into pieces and threw them into the public toilets in Delhi. In 2013, the court found out that the culprit was a ‘juvenile' at the time of committing the crime and let him free as he has already been in prison for more than five years. Immediately after coming out of the prison, the ‘juvenile' went to the home of his victim and threatened her parents that he would do the same thing to their younger daughter too!)

I really don’t understand the logic behind considering the rapist as juvenile. Stringent punishment should be meted out to the rapists, whether they are ‘juveniles’ or not, because rape is a kind of murder, more heinous than murder itself. As a group of French feminists in their statement against rape declared:

“Rape is legally recognized as a crime with physical aspects only, namely, the penetration of the vagina by the penis against the will of the victim. In effect, however, the real crime is the annihilation by the man of the woman as a human being.” (Quoted by Saraswati Haider in her article ‘Bandit Queen and Woman Question’, Mainstream, March 23, 1996).

Shinzo Abe: Changing his Stance?

Sandip Kumar Mishra

In the latter half of April 2015, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with both Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Barak Obama. There were some speculations that he may change his course of being unapologetic on the Japanese colonial past but nothing of that sort happened. On 22 April 2015, Abe met the Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia African Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia. It was expected that it would be a better exchange between the two leaders than November 2014 when they encountered in Beijing in a very awkward way.

Optimists believed that in the wake of the 70th anniversary of the end of WW2, Abe might make a statement in August 2015 in which he would change his course of being unapologetic on history issues and his address in Jakarta would be a precursor to that. However, optimists should not have neglected the fact that just a week before his Jakarta visit, Abe sent an offering to the Yasukuni shrine, knowing quite well how it would be received in neighbouring countries. In Jakarta too, Abe stopped by just expressing ‘deep remorse’ for Japan’s role in WW2 and did not make a formal apology – that was made during the same meeting in 2005 by the then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
 

During his week-long visit to the US from 26 April, Abe addressed the Joint Session of the US Congress – the first by any Japanese prime minister. It was again expected that he might say something that would be soothing to the countries that have gone through Japanese colonial exploitations and humiliation. But Abe emphasised the supreme importance of the Japanese alliance with the US and also underlined the strategic significance of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In his speech in the US, he again assiduously avoided language related to Japan’s colonial past – which has been convention.

Abe probably feels that his consistent ‘aggressive’ approach and unapologetic behaviour would gradually become more acceptable in regional politics and even if it does happen, his stance is very successful for the Japanese domestic politics. He is quite convinced that a declining US would like to have a partner in Asia Pacific, one that fully supports their policy of Asian ‘re-balancing’ or ‘pivot to Asia’ and takes a lead in regional politics. In the process, if Tokyo takes lead and becomes ‘assertive’ vis-à-vis Beijing, it would reduce Washington’s burden and provide them with negotiating space in dealing with China. In the process, Abe feels that an apologetic stance does not go well with an ‘assertive’ Japan.
 

Abe is also quite consistent in being unapologetic on history issues, uncompromising on territorial issues, and aggressive in dealing with neighbouring countries. Abe feels that if the US support continues, he could carry forward his approach without much problems. From his speech at the US Congress, it also appears that he is interested in invoking democracy as common meeting point to connect Japan with India and Australia. Abe also assumes that even though it is dangerous to have a military confrontation in the region, it is useful to keep the situation ‘warm’ and utilise it for his political purposes.

However, he is mistaken and even if his policies may buy him popularity in Japan’s domestic politics, they would not succeed in producing desired results in its external relations. First, his approach may strengthen the US-Japan bilateral but it has led to the emergence of serious mistrust in the US-South Korea-Japan trilateral. It is not surprising that South Korean President Park Geun-hye is ready to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un unconditionally, but prefers to get Abe’s apology on the ‘comfort women’ issue before any bilateral talks with him. Second, Shinzo Abe’s policies have been pushing South Korea closre to China over the past few years. Incidentally, a conservative party government is in power in South Korea, one that has strong bonds with the old and reliable ally – the US; but if there would have been a progressive government in South Korea, the entire equation would have been markedly different.

Third, the Japanese behaviour provides breathing space to North Korea, which was feeling pinch of economic sanctions, especially after its third nuclear test in February 2013. Any problem in the Japan-US-South Korea trilateral gives North Korea manoeuvring chance. Fourth, Japan’s expectations that India and Australia as democratic countries would necessarily go along with Japan may not be correct. Democratic values include tolerance, peace, stability and common prosperity. If Tokyo’s unapologetic behaviour does not appear to move in this direction, New Delhi’s and Canberra’s supports cannot be unconditional and as a given.

Lastly, there is no fool proof mechanism to keep political and strategic relations in the regional politics ‘warm’. There is always a serious chance of miscalculation and such strategies must be avoided.

Thus, it would be right to disagree with optimists who keep imagining a changed Shinzo Abe in near future, especially if the US does not change its foreign policy course or regains its huge relative prominence. Since both the options appear either remote or impossible, with all the changes, Abe’s approach will remain the same.

Students of the West Bank Unite

Ramzy Baroud

In November 1993, I was on a mission. At the age of 21, I wanted to change the world, starting with Birzeit University, the second largest Palestinian university in the West Bank, situated near Ramallah, in the heart of the occupied territories.

Back then I had made a name for myself with my nationalist poetry and my first poetry collection was published a year earlier in Gaza. It was called The Alphabets of Decision. Each assortment of verses started with a letter in the Arabic alphabet, going in order. “It was time for the poor and peasants of Palestine to articulate their political agenda, rejecting the entire culture of political defeat,” I wrote something to that effect in the introduction.

Birzeit was my platform and my audience quickly multiplied. My last performance was in front of a crowd of thousands, who cheered, chanted and, once I concluded my call for rebellion against Oslo’s “Gaza-Jericho First” agreement, and the assured defeat it heralded, we marched outside the campus, only to be greeted with Israeli army bullets and tear gas.

That was anything but a fatalistic act compelled by the fervor of youth. At the time, local, Israeli and international media were eagerly awaiting the student council election results in Birzeit. A leading hub for Palestinian nationalism – to be compared to Najah University of Nablus – Birzeit was the first litmus test for late PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s Oslo “peace process”. The idea was this: if the Fatah (al-Shabiba) supporters won the elections, it would be understood as a symbolic popular mandate that the Palestinian people were in favor of what it turned out to be political folly and a strategic calamity that has since then institutionalized the Israeli occupation and Palestinian division.

Palestinians are highly politicized people, and utterly sensitive to any attempt at squandering or bargaining their rights. Oslo was but the last of such attempts that span the last seventy years of history – from the Rogers Plan, to the Village Leagues, and more.

The Birzeit student elections were our opportunity to send an early message that Oslo was born dead and that any “process” that negotiates the most basic human rights of Palestinians is fully rejected.

As Palestine’s rich were vying for the economic dividends of peace, and diaspora elites that were affiliated with Arafat and his Fatah party were ready to “return” and claim position and prestige, the daughters and sons of refugees, peasants and laborers of Palestine stood firm in Birzeit. Sure, the language here is loaded with socialist class references, but truthfully that was what it was. We were the “masses” as we gathered in Birzeit from every corner of the occupied territories, unified by an eagerness to learn, but also compelled by nationalistic priorities.

A coalition was quickly formed between Islamic student groups and the socialists. It was also a formidable alliance that brought Muslims and Christians together, where a Palestinian identity took center stage, sidelining Islamic and socialist references and ideologies. We were afraid for our country and our people. To think that at that age we possessed the foresight and political consciousness to predict the disaster of Oslo, while many intelligent and experienced men and women genuinely celebrated and anticipated “peace” should tell you much about the intellectual prowess of Palestine’s youth.

In November 1993, the Israeli army was on a mission too. Nightly raids in the towns of Birzeit, Abu Qash, and other villages where many students resided, targeted leaders of the anti-Oslo movement. Some of us fled to the mountains to escape the army’s wrath. We plotted ways to reach the university on Election Day via nearby hills. Others stayed at the university for days. Others were not so lucky, as they were arrested and jailed, while some were tortured. Many Gaza students were deported back to the strip.

Fatah supporters, although they didn’t endorse the Israeli action, benefited from it. A favorable Birzeit vote was the needed impetus to sell Oslo as a popular demand, to hail its architects as national heroes, and to shut out the opposition – the debate altogether – as irrelevant.

Independent vote monitors finally emerged from what I believe was the Engineering school, joined by representatives of the factions that contested the elections. The leader of the group took the stage and declared the results: al-Quds Awalan bloc (Jerusalem First) won.

That was us. And Jerusalem First was our answer to Arafat’s men’s deferral of discussing the status of Jerusalem – along with other fundamental issues, such as the rights of refugees, borders, etc – until the “final status negotiations,” which were never actualized.

There was a pause of a single second that felt much longer, as if thousands of us, who camped at the campus until late at night, wanted to eternalize and attempt to fathom the meaning of that victory. A single second that was loaded with meanings, with oppressive memories of those who died, of those in jail, of those persisting in squalid refugee camps fashioning hope from desperation and standing strong. A single second followed by an uproar, an incredible euphoria which I am yet to witness ever since.

‘With our bloods .. with our souls .. we will sacrifice for you Palestine,’ we chanted in tandem, the echoes of our chats penetrating the darkness, reaching the ears of Israeli soldiers who prepared for action. We roamed the university in a rare moment of victory, and hope, feeling that the bond that ultimately unified us was much stronger than all of the obstacles that stood between us.

It was Oslo’s first crisis. The victory was followed by a massive crackdown, arrests, imprisonments and deportation. Like many others, I was sent back to Gaza. It was the end of my academic career at Birzeit, never to see the campus again, or to have coffee with my peers at the main cafeteria ever again. Ameed, Ahmed, Abdulhadi, and all the rebels of the past, remained in the past.

Since then, the Israeli crackdowns on Birzeit students became the joint responsibility of Palestinian Authority (PA) goons as well. When the PA was established in 1994, terror in Palestinian campuses became the norm. Joint Security Coordination between the PA and the Israeli army made sure that rebellious Palestinians were punished severely, and when necessary, eliminated altogether.

After the 2007 Hamas-Fatah split in Gaza, the crackdowns on Fatah’s enemies in campuses became harsher than ever before and the margin for free expression was limited to the point of suffocation. The PA became the new occupier, and Israeli soldiers watched from a distance, only getting involved when PA security required a helping hand.

Yet when submissiveness was assured, Birzeit rose once more in a display of people’s power similar to that of November 1993. On 22 April, Fatah was once more defeated as Hamas-affiliated supporters won a convincing majority by winning 22 seats. The socialist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, harvested five more, leaving Fatah supporters with only 19 seats. The students were speaking of a coalition, another symbolic gesture that the one party role is not a Palestinian quality.

While top Fatah leaders are promising to study and investigate, examine the evidence and reform their political agenda that led to the defeat, some are suggesting that these will be the last student elections in the West Bank for a while. It is understood that Fatah defeat is a reflection of a larger phenomenon that speaks of the dissatisfaction with that Oslo culture that my generation fought against, and ferociously so, some 22-years ago.

The pessimists are not wrong. Abbas remains in “power” since his election as the head of the PA in 2005, with no further elections required. No legislative elections have been held since Hamas won the majority of the vote in 2006 either, for similar outcomes are to be expected.

Yet despite the limited margins of freedom in Palestine – due to the Israeli occupation and its PA contractors – Birzeit roared once more, reflecting a larger trend of courage and fearlessness that began in Gaza, but is echoing in every corner of the West Bank.

And as a member of a past generation at Birzeit, I would like to take my hat, or red kuffiyeh off, and tell the students of Birzeit, Najah, al-Quds, Bethlehem and elsewhere: Please finish the job we started. Democracy is your vehicle and the freedom of your people should always be your ultimate goal.

The Iran Framework

Mel Gurtov

We have every reason to celebrate the so-called framework agreement with Iran. It exemplifies the best of President Obama’s foreign policy, namely, engaging adversaries. Remember when candidate Obama’s argument for engagement during campaign 2008 was ridiculed by Hillary Clinton, among many others? Now Obama has two major engagement successes to crow about, leaving behind those who are quick to criticize the deals with Cuba and Iran as anything from foolish to treasonous. Needless to say, neither of those understandings is complete; the devil is always in the details, and there are plenty of them. But to reach this point after more than 35 years when other administrations have either failed to cut a deal or refused to try is nothing short of extraordinary. And in the case of Iran, the nuclear agreement comes at a crucial moment, not merely in terms of Iran’s nuclear-weapon potential but more broadly with respect to the chaotic shape of Middle East politics.

John Limbert was a political officer in the US embassy in Tehran when the nightmare hostage crisis unfolded in 1979. Out of his captivity has come a seminal guide, Negotiating with Iran: Wrestling the Ghosts of History (2009), which reflects his deep background in Persian studies and his commitment to dialogue and mutual understanding. His book examines several cases of crisis in Iran and then offers a number of guidelines to successfully negotiating with the Iranians. At a time when we are hearing loud criticisms of the nuclear deal and efforts by Congress members, and Israel, to undermine it, we should pay attention to what experts like Limbert have to say.

Limbert proposes fourteen negotiating lessons. I have selected seven of them, and added one of my own. Comparing the lessons with the framework just concluded allows us to see how effectively the two countries’ diplomats worked together.

Avoid legalisms; seek solutions based on “mutually agreeable standards” that Iran can claim as a victory. Having two MIT scientists who knew of one another discuss technicalities was a key to successful talks. That allowed many details of an accord to focus on science, not politics. As for claiming victory, while Secretary of State John Kerry and other US officials could cite major concessions by Iran, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif could boast that Iran will keep its centrifuges and nuclear enrichment program, its major nuclear research site at Fordo, and some of its uranium stockpile.

“Be aware of Iran’s historical greatness” and past grievances based on humiliations by foreign powers. President Obama, in an interview with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times and elsewhere, has shown his attentiveness to Iran’s history and culture. He has pointed to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s mention of Iran’s unhappy history with the US, and has made respectful comments about Iran’s greatness and right to acknowledgment as a major regional power. Throughout the years of talks with Iran, its leaders have above all else demanded “respect,” i.e., justice and recognition of Iran’s legitimacy. The nuclear negotiations have provided that.

Clarify lines of authority: be sure to talk with the right people, but also present a common US position. This was a challenging lesson to follow inasmuch as the ayatollah deliberately kept in the background, letting his negotiators do their thing but without committing himself to the outcome. On the US side, Republican and others’ sniping presented obstacles for negotiators, in particular when 47 US senators signed a letter to the ayatollah warning that any agreement was subject to Congressional review. Nevertheless, the “right people” were evidently at the table and were able to craft an agreement that, on Iran’s side, the ayatollah did not negate and, on the US side, amazed even some conservative critics.

Understand Iranian interests. Obviously, removing the sanctions was essential to a deal, but not at any price. Iran’s insistence on keeping fuel rods at home and not shipped to Russia was essential face-saving, and US negotiators did not allow that position to halt the talks. Likewise on the centrifuges issue: The US negotiated down their number (from about 19,000 to 6,000), but Iran still has some 5,000 allowed to operate according to CIA director John O. Brennan.

Do not assume the Iranians are illogical, uncompromising, untrustworthy, duplicitous. US negotiators clearly did not. Hopefully, they kept in mind that many Iranians view Americans the same way.

Ignore hostile rhetoric and grandstanding; be businesslike and professional—and be willing to stay the course.

Remember that there were successful US-Iran talks in the past, for example in 2001-2002 over Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban.

Be ever-conscious of the politics of a deal—the fact that on each side, it must be sold to wary buyers and outright opponents who want to see it fail. This is why the “optics” of the deal are so important, with each side having a different narrative of the deal’s strengths so as to make it more attractive domestically. The message here: Don’t interpret public statements about the deal by the other side as backsliding with the intention to subvert it.

The nuclear deal with Iran, if it holds, could potentially open a new era in US relations with the Middle East. Though the Saudis, the Israelis, and some other supposed friends of the US will object, a cooperative US-Iran relationship is a critical piece in the overall puzzle to find a path to something resembling stability. We can see the outlines of cooperation with Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Washington and Tehran have common interests. Simply put, Iran’s leaders feel threatened by ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Taliban. To be sure, there are also places—Yemen, Israel/Palestine, Libya, and Syria—where the US and Iran are at odds. But if the nuclear deal can move forward, and termination of sanctions can lead to a fruitful economic relationship, the agenda of cooperation may expand and violence-by-proxy may greatly reduce. For the US, an end to one-sided relationships in the Middle East would be a blessing, with positive ramifications for Israel and others.

Statues of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning unveiled in Berlin

Stefan Steinberg

Bronze statues of persecuted whistleblowers Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning were unveiled in Berlin on May Day. The statues are part of an art project entitled “Anything to Say?”, the work of Italian artist Davide Dormino, which pays tribute to the courage of the three.

The life-size effigies of the trio stand in a row on chairs beside one extra empty chair. The extra chair invites passersby to express their solidarity with the three whistleblowers and share their own views publicly.

Davide Dormino and his sculptures

In an online statement, Dormino says: “History never had a positive opinion of contemporary revolutionaries. You need courage to act, to stand up on that empty chair even if it hurts.”

Hundreds of people gathered in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz on Friday, with many adults and also children mounting the chair to air their views to the assembled crowd.

The WSWS spoke with Dormino, an artist who also teaches sculpture and drawing at the Rome University of Fine Arts (Libera Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma).

Stefan Steinberg: What was your motivation for this project?

"Anything to Say?" Sculptures of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning in Berlin's Alexanderplatz

Davide Dormino: I was speaking to my friend, the American author and journalist, Charles Glass, about courage and the importance of adopting a critical attitude toward authority, and gradually the concept for the project emerged.

This has been an element in my art work for many years, in fact, from the very beginning. I am a firm advocate of public art. I believe that such art is a great chance to speak to a broad audience, and I believe art is a great opportunity to help people to mature and develop their ideas.

I came up with the idea of three figures standing on chairs. Why the chairs? The chair has a double meaning. It can be something comfortable, but we can also use it to elevate ourselves and gain a new perspective. The idea was to represent three icons of our contemporary world, three men who defied the system. They chose the chair of courage … but the empty chair is the most important part of the sculpture. It is an opportunity for us to stand up, to get a better view and share their courageous stance.

The crowd in Alexanderplatz

Perhaps you may remember the scene in the film, Dead Poets Society[1989], where the pupils stand on the tables as an example of courage and the rejection of blind authority—I think we need such courage today.

There was an amazing reaction in Berlin at Alexanderplatz. Everybody felt that it was an all-inclusive moment. Some people stood on chairs and expressed their support for the whistleblowers, some said nothing. It was very important.

SS: Could you say some more about your conception of public art?

DD: I am an independent artist. I work with galleries, but an integral part of my work is public art. In 2011 I did a work to commemorate the victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, “Breath”. It was also a public art work, a monument to the many victims of the earthquake. Art is great when it gives people an opportunity to ask some questions about their lives and society.

SS: There are many artists today who deny or play down art’s social role and are content to reduce art to mere decoration.

DD: Art can do much more. The role of the artist is to help people to ask questions, encourage discussion and assist in developing new perspectives.

SS: Which in turn requires a critical view of society …

DD: This has been the case since the beginning of the world. Important artists have always been the first to recognize and point to a new direction. I did a teaser for the project that you can see on YouTube. In the video, I say there is no time for compromise. Art is called upon to make a choice, to show a new direction. I call upon people to take a stand because their liberty is at stake. I conclude: “Be courageous because courage is contagious.” 

"Anything to Say?"

SS: The individuals you’ve sculpted are vilified by political establishments all over the world. In various ways Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Bradley [Chelsea] Manning are all prisoners and have had to accept huge restrictions on their freedom. Why are they heroes for you?

DD: They are heroes because they show us how much control governments have over us. We have to understand the difference between control and privacy. Privacy is sacrosanct. It is a basic human right. With the new technology it is easier for the government to control us. That is not democracy, in my opinion, but it is also important to know why and how they control us.

We need to have the courage to know the truth. Sometimes people don’t understand and they say, “It doesn’t matter if they know everything about me.” This is very wrong.

SS: In the past your work has taken a more abstract form, this time you have chosen a very direct, realistic form.

DD: I deliberately chose to model them in a realistic fashion—an ancient form of representation. The message has to be clear. People have to be able to immediately recognize them.

SS: What is the plan for the sculptures after Berlin?

DD: The idea is to make a viral sculpture, a living sculpture that can be featured in the main squares of the most important cities of the world. To leave a sign, a flag, to create a meeting point to encourage dialogue and permit people to adopt a different point of view. To start discussions.

After a month in Berlin, we will move the sculptures to the Ostrale art centre in Dresden. They have supported us. We are also working to organize exhibitions in America, Moscow, Switzerland, Portugal and other countries.

Leading Australian journalist advocates confrontation with China

James Cogan

Peter Hartcher, the international editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and a frequent guest on television current affairs programs, wrote a column on May 5 that called for the US and its allies, including Australia, to confront China over Beijing’s construction of alleged military infrastructure on disputed territories in the South China Sea.

Hartcher’s piece was headlined: “World reluctant to point finger at China’s encroachment on strategic islands.” Standing reality on its head, he depicted the Asia-Pacific as a region where an aggressive China has brushed aside the concerns and protests of neighbouring states and the United States. Beijing, he declared, is pursuing an agenda of “relentless expansionism, yet no one is prepared to stand in its way.”

Hartcher condemned regional governments, and the Obama administration, for supposedly refusing to oppose China. The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) had “showed it was weak, divided and unwilling to confront China” and “won’t even talk about the problem openly, much less act.” Australia, he asserted, “has dealt with it the same way almost all countries have—by pretending that it’s not really happening… Governments do not want to put trade relations at risk by confronting Beijing over its bad behaviour in taking territory from weaker states.”

Hartcher echoed the stance outlined in a major report published last month by the US Council for Foreign Relations (CFR). The report advocated a “new grand strategy,” consisting of an intensified economic, diplomatic and military drive to undermine and weaken China. It asserted that China is the “most significant competitor” of the US and called for “less emphasis on support and cooperation and more on pressure and competition”.

After citing Bob Blackwill, one of the authors of the CFR document, Hartcher concluded his column as follows: “The question is no longer whether China will forcibly take territory claimed by other nations. The question is what the rest of the world is going to do about it.”

Both the CFR report and Hartcher’s comment, in denouncing Chinese aggression, excluded any reference to the context in which the Chinese regime has ordered the construction of airfields and other infrastructure on tiny reefs and islands in the South China Sea. Neither mentioned the US “pivot” to Asia, which has involved continuous diplomatic and military provocations directed against China since Obama formally announced the policy on the floor of the Australian parliament in November 2011.

With the openly stated aim of concentrating 60 percent of American air and naval power in the Indo-Pacific by 2020, Washington is expanding its military deployments across the region. New basing arrangements have gone into effect in Australia, Singapore and the Philippines, including at sites directly adjacent to the disputed territories. The US has expanded its military ties and exchanges with India and Vietnam, and most provocatively, with Japan. The Obama administration has provided a blank cheque to the right-wing nationalist Japanese government of Shinzo Abe, pledging full US military support to maintain Japan’s hold over the East China Sea’s Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, which are claimed by China.

The US, Australian and Japanese armed forces are being systematically integrated and trained, through regular military exercises, to implement the Pentagon’s AirSea Battle concept, which envisages devastating attacks on targets in mainland China, cyber and outer-space attacks on satellites and communications systems, and a naval economic blockade.

In July, as many as 30,000 American and Australian personnel, deployed with dozens of warships and hundreds of aircraft in the Pacific Ocean and across northern Australia, will conduct Exercise Talisman Sabre. The training is literally a dress rehearsal for blockading the Straits of Malacca and Indonesia’s Sunda and Lombok Straits, and shutting down the maritime trade routes through which China receives energy supplies and raw materials.

It is in this climate of growing threat that the Chinese regime is seeking to establish facilities in the South China Sea. Its military would seek to utilise the tiny outposts to protect the approaches to the sea lanes, and negate the overwhelming superiority of the US and its allies.

The CFR report and Hartcher’s comment reflect the manner in which Beijing’s attempts to match imperialist militarism with militarism of its own are being seized upon in the US and Australia to demand even greater aggression.

Hartcher has a carefully cultivated persona within the Australian media establishment, as the detached and passionless commentator, someone who stands apart from the rhetoric of the “left’ and the “right.” His commentary on China, however, has marked him out as one of the most bellicose advocates of military confrontation.

On March 4, Hartcher authored a column for the Sydney Morning Heraldbluntly headlined: “IS [Islamic State], Russia, China: all fascist states.” He justified this amalgam by reducing the historical phenomenon of fascism to an authoritarian, centralised, nationalistic state, powered by a “sense of historical grievance or victimhood.” China, he opined, “is overcoming its ‘century of humiliation’ at the hands of Western imperialism.”

“In short,” Hartcher declared, “there is no need for Western leaders to play word games… All three of these rising threats are enemies of freedom. They deny freedom to their own people and they ride roughshod over the rights of other peoples.”

He concluded: “The world confronts a resurgent fascism. It doesn’t seem that the West, absorbed with economic crisis in Europe and political dysfunction in the US, comprehends fully the force and the fury rising against it.”

In the period ahead, Hartcher’s assertion that China is an expansionist fascist power, seeking to destroy the “West,” may well emerge as the political pretext for the steadily growing preparations for war by the US and its allies.