Pro-Russian candidates win presidential elections in Bulgaria and Moldova

Markus Salzmann

Pro-Russian presidential candidates won run-off elections in both Bulgaria and Moldova on Sunday. The results have caused domestic and international tensions and have deepened the crisis of the European Union (EU), because the EU and NATO member Bulgaria and strategically located Moldova, situated between Romania and Ukraine, will both now orient more strongly towards Moscow.

In Bulgaria, the former general Rumen Radev stood for the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), while the president of parliament, Zezka Zatcheva, was the candidate of the pro-EU ruling party, the GERB. Radev won decisively with more than 58 percent of the vote. Zatcheva secured just 35 percent of the vote. Radev had led in the first round of the election on November 6.

The election provoked a huge domestic political crisis. After the defeat of the candidate he had nominated, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov (GERB), who has been in office since 2014, announced his resignation on Sunday. Borisov is to remain temporarily in power, but the country will be left without a fully functioning government for several months because current President Rossen Plevneliev is not permitted to call new elections so close to the end of his term in office.

While the most powerful executive position in Bulgaria is that of prime minister, the president is the formal head of state and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the election was seen as decisive in determining the country’s orientation. In contrast to Plevneliev, a right-wing critic of Russia, observers consider Radev as an opponent of the EU. He has repeatedly called for a lifting of EU sanctions on Russia and spoken out in support of Crimea belonging to Russia.

However, observers do not expect the general, who was partially trained in the United States, to seriously call into question Bulgaria’s membership in either the EU or NATO. His pro-Russian orientation is above all bound up with economic considerations. More than 30 percent of the country’s economic activity is dependent upon Russia. Bulgaria relies almost entirely upon Russia for its gas supply, and tourism from Russia (several hundred thousand Russian citizens own holiday homes in Bulgaria) contributes significantly to the economy.

Radev profited above all from hostility to the government, which is seen as corrupt and anti-working class. A quarter century after the reintroduction of capitalism and nine years after joining the EU, Bulgaria is an impoverished country. With GDP per head of population amounting to $7,500, half of all residents live in poverty. The 58-year-old Zatcheva defended the government and the EU during the campaign. She insulted her rival as a “red general” and declared that under her presidency, Bulgaria would maintain its European orientation.

Radev is a Bulgarian nationalist and belongs to the political far right. He sought to direct the social anger during the campaign into anti-refugee xenophobia and anti-Turkish sentiments. He raged that Bulgaria could not become “the migration ghetto of Europe” and warned that neighbouring Turkey would soon “open the gates” and flood Bulgaria with refugees.

Some commentators compared him with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban and the leader of Poland’s governing party, Jaroslav Kaczynski, who both combine nationalism with xenophobia.

For the GERB, which is a member of the conservative European People’s Party, it was the first electoral defeat since its founding 10 years ago. In the past, the party benefited from the discrediting of the Socialist Party and a diverse range of right-wing conservative parties. The GERB sought to boost illusions in the EU, which have since been punctured.

After Radev’s electoral victory and the resignation of the government, commentators expect a period of political and social instability. “The mixture of fear, insecurity, xenophobia, the perception of poverty and the feeling that they have been forgotten by Europe, coupled with the expected predominance of nationalist protests, is highly explosive,” a comment by Deutsche Welle stated.

Moldova

In Moldova, pro-Russian candidate Igor Dodon won 52 percent of the vote, while his pro-European competitor Maia Sandu got 48 percent.

This prompted alarmed responses in Brussels and other European capitals. The EU and NATO have been trying for some time to draw the country out of Russia’s sphere of influence. During the campaign, Dodon announced he would cancel the association agreement with the EU and join a trade bloc with Russia. However, he cannot carry this out without the consent of parliament, where his opponents hold a majority.

Dodon benefited from widespread opposition to the right-wing liberal government, which has been in power in a series of various coalitions since 2009. The impoverished agricultural country, with a population of 3.5 million, has faced a political crisis for years. Prior to the 2014 parliamentary election, a scandal broke out that still determines political debate today. Almost a billion dollars disappeared from Moldovan banks.

For the first time, residents from Transnistria, which separated from Moldova after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, participated in the election. They voted overwhelmingly for Dodon.

Moldova is Europe’s poorest country. According to international aid organisations, 41 percent of the population live on less than $5 per day. Since July 2014, the country has been linked with the EU in an association agreement. As a result, Russia imposed punitive measures that severely affected the agricultural sector and further deepened the economic crisis.

Sandu, who secured second place in the first round of the election, defended the pro-European and pro-market policies responsible for rampant poverty. She led her campaign with a vague pledge to combat corruption and develop closer ties to Brussels. The association agreement was “the basis for the development of the country,” she stated on television. She also called for the unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from Transnistria.

Dodon represents a section of the ruling class that is closely bound to Russia and profits from this relationship. He announced he would immediately travel to Russia for talks. He also spoke out sharply against the EU, declaring, “The advantages of our westward orientation could not balance the disadvantages of turning away from Russia.” During the campaign, he described life in Moldova as “unbearable” and complained that the partnership with Russia had been destroyed.

Dodon, an experienced politician, is well aware that the intensifying economic and political crisis is producing social tensions that would be directed against all of the country’s political factions. He therefore called for calm soon after the announcement of the first electoral results. “We don’t need any destabilisation or confrontation,” he stated.

Obama postures as Europe’s protector in Athens

Chris Marsden

Outgoing President Barack Obama delivered a farewell public speech in Greece yesterday that was so out of step with reality as to appear delusional.

Prior to his departure for Berlin, Obama’s primary political mission in Athens was to reassure the major European powers that the United States remains committed to the NATO military alliance and to the preservation of the European Union (EU)—a task made necessary by the hostile statements of Republican president-elect Donald Trump.

During his campaign in July, Trump declared, “I want to keep NATO, but I want them to pay.” His statements were widely interpreted in Europe as a challenge to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which provides that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all treaty members. Denouncing European states for not meeting agreed targets on military spending, Trump added, “They will pay if asked by the right person… Hillary Clinton said: ‘We will protect our allies at all cost.’ Well how the hell can you get money if you’re gonna say that?”

This was accompanied by supportive statements regarding Britain’s June 23 referendum vote to exit the EU, with Trump declaring, “I think the EU is going to break up... the people are fed up.”

Obama sought to counter these threats by reassuring his intended European audience that Trump would be constrained by the supposedly inherent power of democracy in general, US democracy in particular and America’s long engagement with Europe. “It’s why we stand together in NATO--an alliance of democracies,” he declared.

“In recent years, we’ve made historic investments in NATO, increased America’s presence in Europe, and today’s NATO--the world’s greatest alliance--is as strong and as ready as it’s ever been. And I am confident that just as America’s commitment to the transatlantic alliance has endured for seven decades--whether it’s been under a Democratic or Republican administration--that commitment will continue, including our pledge and our treaty obligation to defend every ally.”

He went on to praise the EU for “the progress it has delivered over the decades--the stability it has provided, the security it’s reinforced,” describing the bloc as “one of the great political and economic achievements of human history.”

The carefully selected and well-heeled gathering at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre applauded Obama’s every utterance. But his reassurances regarding the “world’s greatest alliance” and one of history’s “great political and economic achievements” are references to institutions that have brought untold suffering to the peoples of Europe and the world.

His pledge to uphold Article 5 is a threat of war against Russia, as underscored by his pledge to “support the right of Ukrainians to choose their own destiny.” The EU has, moreover, plunged millions of Greek workers ever deeper into a social nightmare, based on an austerity programme that Obama did not shy away from endorsing. He even praised the Syriza-led government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for its imposition of austerity measures dictated by the EU and the IMF in order “[t]o stay competitive, to attract investment...” In this context, his promise to support Greece as it “continues to implement reforms” sounded like a threat.

An equally fundamental problem for Obama is that he is delivering a promissory note that he cannot cash and which he instead entrusts to Trump.

He offered instead a melange of banalities, contradictions and outright lies. His opening remarks were a cringe-worthy exercise, utilising random Greek words and phrases, references to “the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides,” “the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides” and to Socrates and Aristotle. He praised Greece for giving birth to the ideas of democracy and the rule of law. But this served merely to introduce his main theme, that America remained the land where “all men are created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights.”

Yes, the presidential campaign was fought “hard”, he said, “[b]ut after the election, democracy depends on a peaceful transition of power, especially when you don’t get the result you want.” American “democracy is bigger than any one person”, he added. “In the coming weeks, my administration will do everything we can to support the smoothest transition possible.”

Quite how this grotesque effort to lend legitimacy to Trump’s presidency is supposed to safeguard democratic ideals Obama did not say. Rather, he was forced to admit that US and other democratic regimes around the world faced “serious challenges” because the “same forces of globalization and technology and integration that have delivered so much progress, have created so much wealth, have also revealed deep fault lines.”

Obama cannot mention the word capitalism, which would imply the existence of an alternative system, socialism. Instead, he tried to square a hymn of praise to the benefits of “globalisation” in supposedly improving “the lives of billions of people” so that “the world has never, collectively, been wealthier, better educated, healthier, less violent than it is today” with the fact that “this global integration is increasing the tendencies towards inequality, both between nations and within nations, at an accelerated pace.”

Without pause, Obama went on to describe “global elites, wealthy corporations--seemingly living by a different set of rules,” of the “rich and the powerful” accumulating “vast wealth while middle and working-class families struggle to make ends meet” and this feeding “a profound sense of injustice and a feeling that our economies are increasingly unfair.”

“This inequality now constitutes one of the greatest challenges to our economies and to our democracies,” he warned, especially because “everybody has a cellphone and can see how unequal things are.”

Obama warned against what he described as “movements from both the left and the right” pulling back “from a globalized world” as evidenced in Trump’s victory and “in the vote in Britain to leave the EU.” But he then demanded, “We cannot sever the connections that have enabled so much progress and so much wealth.” To which American, Greek and British workers would reply, “Wealth for the super-rich, grinding poverty for the rest of us.”

The remainder of Obama’s speech combined warnings against a retreat into “comfort in nationalism or tribe or ethnicity or sect,” with the claim that his administration had “pursued a recovery that has been shared now by the vast majority of Americans” ensuring that “inequality is being narrowed.”

Like his own, Europe’s governments now had to make clear that they “exist to serve the interest of citizens, and not the other way around.”

One wonders how Obama thinks that he can get away with such nonsense--other than the fact that he rarely speaks to anyone but the lords of finance, the US military and the obscenely rich show-business figures who still treat him like a fellow celebrity. But his administration and the policies of austerity and war he has pursued in the interests of Wall Street are responsible for Trump’s emergence. If he was a more honest man, he would have spared us the references to the pantheon of Greek cultural figures and cited instead France’s King Louis XV, “Après moi le deluge!”

Volkswagen is charged with aiding Brazilian dictatorship in torturing workers

Armando Cruz

Late last month in Brazil a group of labor unions and human rights activists associated with the National Truth Commission (Comissão Nacional de Verdade (CNV) presented a charge to the Ministerio Público Federal (the Public Prosecutors Office) denouncing the Volkswagen corporation for having collaborated with the military in the persecution and torture of their own workers during the 21-year US-backed dictatorship (1964-1985). The CNV was created by a 2012 law to investigate human rights abuses in the country.

The April 1964 coup launched by the Brazilian military, with the help and direction of the US embassy, the CIA and the Johnson administration, overthrew the democratically elected government of the nationalist-reformist João Goulart and set the model for the US-backed reign of terror in Chile (1973), Argentina (1976) and elsewhere in the hemisphere.

Under Argentina’s military junta, Ford Motor Company was similarly charged with having fingered militant workers in its factories, which were run like a police state and provided facilities for the secret police to interrogate and torture autoworkers.

The trigger for the charges against VW in Brazil were the documents collected by the CNV workgroup “Dictatorship and Repression of Workers and the Union Movement,” which establish that Volkswagen Brasil elaborated so-called “dirty lists” of militant workers in their factories for the Department of Social and Political Order (Departamento de Ordem Política e Social, DOPS), the country’s feared secret police. These lists, according to the charges, included workers’ full names, their addresses and the departments in which they worked.

“There are almost 200 ‘occurrence reports’ made by the [VW] security and sent to the DOPS,” according to a report in the Brazilian daily Estadão. “In these, there are reports of workers being surprised by the Military Police (MP) while picketing and instead of being sent to a Police Station, being taken to an MP office or to a VW factory in São Bernardo do Campo [in the State of São Paulo] in order to be identified and interrogated. There are reports of beatings and torture of workers linked to the communist parties inside the factory.”

São Bernardo do Campo is, along with Santo André and São Caetano do Sul, an industrial region known as the ABC Paulista where auto companies like VW, Ford, General Motors and Mercedes-Benz have operated since the late 1950s. The region eventually became the birthplace of the Workers Party and the platform for future president Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ Da Silva, who was a prominent union leader in the early 1980s during the last years of the dictatorship. The region in recent years has been an epicenter of the country’s deep economic crisis, reflected in mass layoffs and wage cuts.

In 1980, when Lula led a 41-day strike for a 15 percent wage rise, the DOPS received a list of 436 workers from plants that belonged to VW, Mercedes-Benz and the steelmaker Villares. While there are also reports that these latter two companies (and others) collaborated with the regime, VW is the first one to be charged, to officially accept the charges and to negotiate for judicial reparations.

The journal Carta Capital recounts the fate of the now retired worker Lúcio Antônio Bellantini, who in 1972 at the age of 28 was detained and delivered to VW’s security chief, Adhemar Rudge, an ex-army colonel. “At the time, I distributed the journal Workers Voice and discussed politics with people with the intention of taking them to the union and to fight against the dictatorship and for democracy. That was my crime,” he declared.

He was tortured for over a month by the DOPS, who were trying to force him to identify people he knew in the labor movement and the PCB (Communist Party of Brazil). “What I want now is that VW build a memorial and tell the role it played in this period of repression. The struggle is for history to be recorded and taught to children, so it can never be repeated,” declared Bellantini.

The CNV report states that Rudge was brought in as VW Brasil’s head of security in order to replace a former Nazi: the Austrian Franz Paul Stangel, who was deported in 1967 after three extradition requests for him to face charges for his role in the Polish concentration camps of Sobibor and Treblinka. Rudge remained at the post until 1991.

The Volkswagen headquarters in Germany made a statement that in response to the charges it would select an independent German historian to review its own history in Brazil, as it has done in Europe itself in relation to the company’s collaboration with the Nazi regime.

However, predictably, there have never been any substantive consequences stemming from charges brought before the Workers Party-created CNV. Thousands of former assassins and torturers of the dictatorship remain free thanks to an impunity law maintained by every government since the end of military rule in the mid-1980s.

What is more, the current government of President Michel Temer (brought to power through the impeachment of the Workers Party president Dilma Rousseff) is even less likely to disrupt friendly ties with foreign transnationals over crimes committed under the dictatorship as it seeks to do the bidding of both the national bourgeoisie and international finance capital in making the working class pay for the capitalist crisis.

Canada’s plans to wage war in Africa take shape

Laurent Lafrance

For the second time in less than four months, Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has travelled to West Africa with a view to finalizing plans for Canada’s participation in French and US-led counter-insurgency warfare on the continent.

As part of his latest “fact-finding” mission, Sajjan visited Mali and Senegal, countries that could see the deployment of some of the 600 soldiers and 150 police officers the Trudeau Liberal government is to send to Africa as part of what it is touting as a renewed commitment to UN “peacekeeping” missions. Other options include Central African countries such as the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo or the Central African Republic.

While not confirming the countries where Canadian soldiers will be deployed, Sajjan told the Toronto Star upon his return that Canada has committed to operate in several countries and with an engagement of at least three years in each case.

Sajjan’s trip to Mali took place only weeks after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met French Premier Manuel Valls and pledged Canada would dramatically expand its partnership with Paris in military interventions in former French colonies in West and Central Africa.

Speaking at a town hall session before 300 high school students last week to mark the Liberals’ first year in office, Trudeau and Sajjan used a mixture of “humanitarian” and “anti-terror” demagogy to promote the soon-to-be-announced African military interventions and obscure the real imperialist goals that lie behind them.

Trudeau declared it was necessary to tackle “the root cause” of the problems in the region. “Canada,” he said, “has an awful lot to offer other than just stopping people from shooting at each other,” though doing so is “important and one of the first things that we want to do.” Sajjan said Canada will strive to “empower” African youth, “instead of them being radicalized and going into other groups.”

In reality, Canada’s mission in Africa has nothing to do with the well-being of the African people. Quite the contrary. Canada’s ruling elite is determined to join French and American imperialism’s drive to dominate the resource-rich continent through violent means because it has developed extensive economic and financial interests in West and Central Africa, most of all in exploiting these regions’ abundant mineral wealth.

During the Star interview, Sajjan once again made clear that “peacekeeping” is only a subterfuge and that Canada is effectively preparing to wage all-out war. “This is not the peacekeeping of the past,” said the Defence Minster. “[W]e need to look at what the challenges are of today and develop the peace operations for today’s challenges.”

Senator Daniel Lang, chair of the Senate committee on national security and defence, shed more light on the real character of Canada’s impending “humanitarian” military intervention in Africa. Following discussions at UN headquarters, Lang said, “It was clearly put to us that these countries and these regions…are undergoing such terrible devastation and political turmoil and violence, [that it will require] a 10- to 20-year commitment.” Lang added that Canada was asked to provide significant military equipment, including armored vehicles, helicopters and other airlift capabilities.

The missions Trudeau pledged to join are all counter-insurgency operations aimed at propping up pro-Western governments that are facing armed rebellion by Islamist forces or regionally based militants. Mali is a case in point. Following the destruction of Libya by the Western powers in 2011, Tuareg militias, supported by Islamists who had been armed by NATO to oust the Gaddafi regime, were able to seize large quantities of Libyan weaponry and launch an uprising in northern Mali against the central government in Bamako.

France responded by deploying troops at the beginning of 2013 to reconquer Mali’s resource-rich north. The intervention was sold to the public as a counter-terrorist mission. In truth, it is part of a new scramble for Africa, through which all the major powers are seeking to gain control over resources, markets and strategic countries.

As part of its two-year-old Operation Barkhane, France now has more than 3,000 troops stationed in Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. Canadian defence officials recently confirmed that planning is well underway for Canada to send military transport aircraft to move French troops in those five countries.

The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has become increasingly involved in West Africa. Since 2011, Canadian soldiers have joined US forces in Operation Flintlock, a US Africa Command-led mission to train Special Forces from West and Central African states. Last year, Canadian heavy-lift Globemaster military aircraft carried nearly 40 tons of French military equipment between France and Africa.

Not long ago, the Globe and Mail expressed concern that the Liberals’ decision to send “peacekeeping” troops to Africa could take away from Canada’s supportive role in various US military-strategic offensives. But Canada’s “newspaper of record” recently published an editorial voicing support for a deployment to Senegal as a first step to greater Canadian involvement in Africa. Among other things, Sengal is seen as providing a valuable base for supporting interventions elsewhere, including in Mali.

Apart from Mali and Senegal, the Liberals are considering increasing Canada’s military presence in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a small contingent of nine Canadian servicemen is already operating. Canadian mining companies have invested about C$3 billion in DRC’s mining sector in recent years and have garnered huge profits from the impoverished country. Canadian companies seized on the chaos provoked by the war that engulfed the Congo and much of the region between 1998 and 2003 to rake in millions.

The Toronto Star, which reviewed nearly 1,000 pages of heavily redacted documents, published an article last month that provided an unusually frank admission of the lucrative economic interests in DRC that lie behind Ottawa’s interest in mounting a “peacekeeping” mission there. The article revealed some of the discussions that took place at the highest levels of the Harper Conservative government in 2010, when the UN requested Canada to take leadership of its Congo “peacekeeping” mission.

The article cited Andrew Leslie, then the commander of Canada’s army and now the Liberal “Whip” in the House of Commons. Leslie told the Star that key arguments in favor of Canada intervening militarily in the Congo were “the extensive business interests of the Canadian mining industry, and the fact that China was increasingly influential in the country.” Leslie added that another factor was concern that instability in the region could help recruiting by al-Qaida.

The Canadian military was eager to take charge of the UN’s DRC force, believing it had sufficient resources to conduct a mission and seeing it as means of putting to use the “skills” it had developed through its leading role in the neo-colonial, Afghan counter-insurgency war.

Deepak Obhrai, who was at that time parliamentary secretary to Harper’s minister of foreign affairs, said the government finally chose not to send troops to the Congo because supporting government forces guilty of widespread human rights abuses would have been politically “disastrous” for the Conservatives. The government decided instead to offer logistical support to African Union Forces, which did the dirty work.

Remarks by an official who spoke to the Star on condition of anonymity further revealed the imperialist ambitions of Canada in Africa when he said that the missions in the impoverished continent would be similar to the recent deployments to Iraq and Ukraine, where the CAF is providing arms and training local forces.

Those two missions are part of the broader US drive to impose its hegemony on the entire Eurasian landmass and thwart and subjugate its main rivals, above all Russia and China. Canada, which over the past quarter-century has joined one US-led war after another, is playing a leading role in both NATO’s military mobilization on Russia’s borders and Washington’s anti-China “Pivot to Asia.”

UK: May government pins its hopes on Trump presidency

Robert Stevens

Formed as a result of the deepening crisis in British ruling circles following June’s unexpected referendum vote to leave the European Union (EU), the Conservative government of Prime Minister Theresa May is looking to secure its global interests through developing the closest possible relations with US President-elect Donald Trump.

In response to the November 8 election, May issued a statement effusively welcoming Trump’s victory, as opposed to the more cautious statement issued by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Britain and the United States have an enduring and special relationship based on the values of freedom, democracy and enterprise,” she wrote. “We are, and will remain, strong and close partners on trade, security and defence. I look forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump.”

In remarks that left no room for a misinterpretation of the trajectory of the British government toward a transatlantic alliance with Trump—at the expense of Europe—last Thursday Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson aimed his fire at Merkel and other EU leaders who expressed concern and even opposition to Trump’s election.

“It’s time that we were overwhelmingly positive about the possibilities here and I may respectfully say to some of my beloved European friends and colleagues that I think it’s time we snapped out of the doom and gloom about the result of this election and the collective whinge-orama that seems to be going on in some places,” Johnson said. “In our country, I think we should recognise that this is an opportunity. I think we should take what the president-elect has had to say about his feelings for our country at face value.”

Johnson followed up his attack on other EU states by boycotting an “emergency” meeting of European Foreign Ministers Sunday, called at the instigation of Berlin. The meeting was also snubbed by the French foreign minister. May government sources dismissed the meeting as “huffing and puffing” designed to allow EU officials to posture as opponents of Trump.

In rushing to endorse Trump, Johnson and the anti-EU wing of the Tories have amplified Trump’s statements—made during the US election campaign—supporting Brexit and pledging that under his presidency the UK would receive a favourable trade agreement with the US. This is contrasted to the statement by outgoing Democratic President Barack Obama, who said, during his trip to the UK last April, that if the UK voted to leave the EU it would go to the “back of the queue” in terms of trade agreements.

Placing its fortunes in the hands of a reviled and unstable figure such as Trump is a measure of the government’s political desperation. It does so under conditions of ongoing protests in the US against the validity of his victory and an unprecedented political and constitutional crisis in the UK, with the government forced to appeal to the Supreme Court in an attempt to reverse a High Court ruling that May cannot trigger Article 50—the formal means to exit the EU—without Parliament voting on it first.

The court case and the judicial decision was shaped by powerful sections of Britain’s ruling elite who have demanded above all a “soft-Brexit” deal preserving access to the Single European Market. May and Johnson might calculate that Trump’s backing will strengthen their negotiating position, but it is a high-risk strategy. Even former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, while slavishly backing the US to the hilt as the junior partner in the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the “war on terror,” portrayed himself as a “bridge” between the US and Europe due to the importance of continental trade with Europe.

Moreover, even as May mortgages her future to the Eurosceptic wing of her party, she undermines her own dwindling authority. This week Nigel Farage, the interim leader of the far-right UK Independence Party (UKIP), along with the party’s financial backer Aaron Banks, became the first leaders of a European political party to meet Trump at his Trump Tower penthouse in New York.

As leader of UKIP, Farage spearheaded the successful “Leave” campaign in the referendum, focusing on anti-immigrant xenophobia. The then Tory Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to call the referendum to assuage his party, which was split on the issue of remaining in the EU. Much of the Tories wider base was supportive of UKIP’s anti-EU stance, with Cameron haemorrhaging support to Farage’s party. Farage has since developed close ties with his fascistic co-thinker Trump, who invited Farage to speak alongside him at an election campaign rally in Mississippi in August.

May’s government was thrown onto the back foot by Farage’s latest meeting with Trump. Her official spokeswoman stated, “We have established routes of engagement with the president-elect and his team. Our diplomatic staff have been building those contacts and links in the run-up to the election.”

The spokeswoman claimed, “The president-elect talked [to May] about enjoying the same relationship Reagan and Thatcher did,” adding in a pointed reference to Farage, “I don’t remember there being any third person in that relationship.”

The Guardian reported Monday, “There have been reports of a cabinet split in which some ministers urged May to use Farage’s links to Trump.”

In reality, while May bends over backwards to insist that the much vaunted “special relationship” between the US and the UK remains intact, there is no indication that Trump views the UK as a critical ally. According to media reports, May was forced to wait until Trump had called a host of other countries before he deigned to speak to the British prime minister following his election victory. Trump spoke to the leaders of India, Japan, Australia, Egypt, South Korea, Mexico, Israel and Turkey first. Ireland’s leader Enda Kenny also received a 10-minute call before May.

In her speech to the annual Guildhall banquet Monday night, May glowingly referred to the “new president-elect in the US who defied the polls and the pundits all the way up to election day itself.”

She added that the UK’s departure from the EU would not see “Britain stepping back from the world, but an example of how a free, flexible, ambitious country can step up to a new global role in which, alongside the traditional trading blocs, agile nation states like Britain can trade freely with others according to what’s in their own best interests.”

“We will also use the strength and size of our economy to lead the way in getting out into the world and doing new business with old allies and new partners alike,” she added.

In reality, the Brexit vote has severely undermined the UK’s use-value to Washington and therefore its continued ability to punch above its weight on the world arena. That is why May sought to portray Britain’s role within the US-led NATO military alliance as the pivotal issue. Britain, said May, “is the only country in the G20 to meet its commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on defence and 0.7 percent of gross national income on overseas development …”

The UK “is a leading member of the coalition supporting Iraq to defeat the scourge of Daesh [ISIS]; that has agreed to send 800 troops to Estonia as part of NATO’s presence in eastern Europe.” The UK is also involved in “Nigeria in the fight against Boko Haram; and … reinforcing its commitment to peacekeeping forces in South Sudan, Somalia and Kosovo.”

The UK has pitched itself as the main opponent of German plans for the creation of a European Army and guarantor of the hegemony of NATO. Alongside its trailing after Trump, it is a stance that will only sharpen political antagonisms with the EU’s economic and political powerhouse, Berlin.

Leading SPD politician to become German president

Peter Schwarz

On Monday, after weeks of behind-the-scenes wrangling, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) decided to support the candidacy of Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier for the office of federal president.

Nothing should now stand in the way of the current foreign minister being elected to Germany's highest public office. The Social Democratic Party (SPD), CDU and CSU control nearly three quarters of the votes in the Federal Assembly, which will elect the president on February 12, 2017. The Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) will probably also support Steinmeier. Only the Left Party has announced that it would stand its own candidate.

The agreement on Steinmeier took place a few days following the US presidential election, and was obviously influenced by the result. The victory of Donald Trump has triggered a shock in Germany.

Big business is preparing for turbulent times ahead, when a protectionist course prevails in Washington and this sets a global precedent. German industry is dependent on exports, second only to the Chinese. Germany's current account surplus will reach a historic record of 8.8 percent of GDP this year. In foreign policy, the German government is reckoning with sharp international tensions and an increased in military conflicts if Trump implements just a fraction of his campaign announcements.

Both the crisis in the export industries and the increase in military operations will exacerbate social and political tensions within Germany and accelerate the alienation of broad sections of the population from the political elites. Against this background, the agreement on Steinmeier, justified by the CDU chairman and Chancellor Angela Merkel as a “rational decision,” sends out a dual signal.

Firstly, Steinmeier, like no other German politician, embodies the policy of welfare cuts and militarism with which the German ruling class is reacting to the global crisis of capitalism.

As head of the chancellery of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD), he drafted the “Agenda 2010” welfare and labour “reforms,” and thus bears primary responsibility for the exponential growth in precarious forms of work and the related decline of wages and benefits. In the meantime, just half of all those working in Germany are in full-time jobs with social insurance.

As foreign minister of the present grand coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD, Steinmeier tirelessly argues for German great power politics and the return of German militarism. A milestone in this respect was the speech he delivered on February 1, 2014 at the Munich Security Conference.

A culture of German military restraint, Steinmeier said, should “not become a culture of standing aside. Germany is too large to comment on world politics only from the sideline.” Steinmeier did not stop at words. The same month, he played a leading role in the coup in Ukraine, which, resting on fascist militias, replaced a pro-Russian regime with a pro-Western one headed by a billionaire oligarch.

Second, with the selection of Steinmeier, the grand coalition is closing ranks. The agreement on a common candidate is a clear signal for a continuation of the governing coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD after the federal elections in autumn 2017.

The election of the president, who has largely ceremonial duties, has always served to set the course for future government coalitions in Germany. For example, the election of the SPD politician Gustav Heinemann with the votes of the FDP prepared the election of Willy Brandt as the first Social Democratic chancellor in the Federal Republic of Germany. Based on his supposed “independence,” the president also fulfils the task of providing support for official politics beyond the immediate government camp.

The so-called “people's parties”—CDU, CSU and SPD—have dramatically lost voters in recent years. In some state elections, even their combined votes are insufficient to form a majority. For this reason, there have been numerous scenarios outlined for a new coalition government at the federal level.

Sections of the CDU and the Greens, who already govern jointly in some states, are looking to form a so-called “black-green” coalition. According to media reports, Chancellor Angela Merkel had even proposed Winfried Kretschmann, the Green state premier of Baden-Württemberg, as a candidate for president. Kretschmann responded to the offer by praising Merkel to the skies, declaring that she was irreplaceable as chancellor.

But Merkel’s initiative failed due to opposition from the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU. At last weekend’s Green Party conference, delegates rebuked Kretschmann and other prominent advocates of a black-green coalition by voting down their resolutions.

Under these circumstances, the CDU/CSU intend to renew their proven alliance with the SPD in preparation for the coming period of social upheaval, following Trump’s election as US president. The Greens, who have no fundamental differences with the government’s policies, remain in reserve to step into a future coalition in a period of crisis.

The same is true for the Left Party. In recent months, leading representatives of the Left Party, the Greens and the SPD, supported by SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel, had brought an alliance of these three parties at federal level into discussion. This met with enthusiasm in the Left Party, above all, which is ready to do anything as long as it is rewarded with ministerial posts at the Berlin cabinet table.

But such a project appears too uncertain for the ruling elites at the moment. To counter the expected social and political convulsions—at least momentarily—they are relying on proven mechanisms. As early as 1968, a grand coalition of the CDU/CSU and SPD had adopted emergency laws when confronted with massive protests. And in 2003, when Chancellor Schröder prematurely ended the “red-green” coalition in face of massive discontent with Agenda 2010, the grand coalition took over the implementation of these anti-working-class policies. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the CDU and SPD worked closely together to save the banks and shift the burden onto the population.

The nomination of Steinmeier has been met with enthusiasm by sections of the liberal, formerly democratic, petty bourgeoisie, who, given Trump's election victory and the rise of right-wing parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD), yearn for order and a strong state. For example, Heribert Prantl, domestic policy editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, has been gushing in his praise of the SPD politician.

Prantl described the president as a “defender of the social and constitutional republic” and emphasized, “This was rarely as necessary in West German history as it is today.”

Steinmeier's nomination for this office, Prantl continues, is “a demonstration of the community of democrats” and “a victory for reasons of state.” The SPD politician was “prepared in domestic policy terms and well versed in foreign policy.” He had the talent of “an honest broker,” which “cannot be valued highly enough today.” He was “anti-Trump” and an “anchor of experience.” Prantl concludes, “The hopes that are linked to a Federal President Steinmeier are not small.”

However, many other media outlets have expressed skepticism.

The pro-union Frankfurter Rundschau fears that a president “who feels so committed to the poorly regarded consensus of the so-called middle,” would widen the gap between the establishment parties and the general public.

“What Germany needed, was a sort of a democratic anti-Trump,” writes Stephan Hebel. “Not in the sense that he simply defends the establishment against the right-wing populists. Rather, it would be better to have [some]one who, given the anger at the failure of the establishment parties, which is not entirely without reason, can give a voice and even better, a democratic direction.”

The pro-Green Party taz makes a similar argument. “While large sections of society no longer feel represented by the political class, someone would become president who, like no other, is a typical professional politician,” writes Martin Kaul.

The conservative press attacks the CDU/CSU for not standing its own candidate with a clear right-wing profile. “This 'lack of an alternative' does no good to Germany's political system, which like never before is being challenged by populists of all kinds,” Berthold Kohler wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “In this respect too, it would have been better if the Union [CDU/CSU] had sent its own candidate into the race.”

And Ulf Poschardt rages in Die Welt, “The elite achievers have no political representation in the federal government, the chattering elites—the warning sign of Trump or not—are continuing as usual. They have understood nothing. In the end, this includes the charming President-to-be ... It is becoming dark in Germany.”

One thing is clear from all the commentaries: The establishment parties are joining forces behind Steinmeier because they are preparing for fierce social and political conflicts.

Trump’s win provokes nervousness and bravado in Beijing

Mike Head 

China’s ruling elite has initially responded to Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election with a combination of appeals for dialogue, warnings of global instability and nationalist rhetoric.

On the one hand, the Beijing regime is clearly anxious to reach an accommodation with Trump and his aggressive “America First” agenda, arguing there could be a mutual “win, win” outcome for both ruling elites. At the same time, it is preparing for an historic collision.

Trump’s campaign threats to name China a “currency manipulator” from day one of his presidency and to impose punitive 45 percent tariffs on Chinese imports, and his plans to boost US military spending, especially on the navy, have generated calls in state-run media outlets for China to be ready for all-out trade war and military confrontation.

Publicly, Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated Trump and told him the world’s two largest economies shared responsibility for promoting global development and prosperity. “I place great importance on the China-US relationship, and look forward to working with you to uphold the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation,” Xi told Trump by phone.

But the People’s Daily, the main official mouthpiece of the Beijing regime, ran editorials that sent different messages, depicting the United States as dysfunctional and crippled. A November 8 editorial described the election as “the most dark, chaotic and negative one in the past two centuries,” with the candidates smearing each other “in the most despicable and uncivilised ways.” It concluded: “Such chaos and disorder tells the world that the US is ‘sick’ when it comes to the nation’s own economy, society and politics.”

A November 11 editorial said Trump’s rise had “plunged the world into a period of deep uncertainty,” compounded by his “contradictory statements and lack of details.” It held out hope that Trump would recognise the “critically important” need to “strengthen the relationship” because “America’s strength depends on China’s strength.”

Yet the same editorial warned that Washington’s “pivot” to Asia—a concerted drive to militarily and economically dominate over China—was unlikely to “fade under Trump.” Instead, it would “have a harder edge.” The newspaper noted that the Pentagon had been pushing for a stronger military presence in the region, and “could get its way” with Trump in office. “Trump has already stated his intention to increase defense spending, and his vision for national security includes adding 350 ships to the US Navy,” it said.

Editorials and commentary in Global Times, a more openly nationalist state-controlled media outlet, were more belligerent. A November 11 article declared that “China should stand ready to fight back” if Trump rolled out protectionist measures.

“Trump regularly railed against China during the campaign, blaming the country for US job losses and proposing a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports,” the article commented. “Although campaign rhetoric is not necessarily consistent with policy after a candidate assumes office, China should be ready for any possible scenario when it comes to its bilateral ties with the US, including a trade war.”

The article insisted China would “not hesitate” to retaliate. “China is now a vital overseas market for American firms like Apple Inc., and in 2015 China’s imports of goods from the US reaching $149 billion, based on Chinese customs data. There is no doubt that the American economy would suffer a severe blow if China were in turn to impose a 45 percent tariff on US-made goods.”

A November 10 Global Times editorial asserted that, regardless of Trump’s “own tendencies,” the US was “not powerful enough to maintain its global hegemony.” However, “in the initial stage of Trump’s presidency, he might bash China to establish authority as a new commander-in-chief,” so “Beijing should be prepared for Trump’s blows” and “respond decisively and fearlessly.”

One feature of Trump’s victory has been hailed in Beijing—the killing off of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the Obama administration had pursued as the economic spearhead of its anti-China “pivot.” The TPP, which excluded China, was designed to establish a US-led trade and investment bloc, battering down all national barriers to the domination of Asia-Pacific markets by American financial, technology, pharmaceutical and media corporations.

China will now step up its efforts to win support for a Beijing-led Asia-Pacific free trade area at this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, to be held in Peru on November 19-20. Briefing journalists ahead of President Xi’s departure for the summit and a Latin American visit, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong warned that “trade and investment protectionism is rearing its head.” He said a trade pact was therefore essential “at an early date.”

For more than six years, China has proposed a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP) and a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), but the Obama administration repeatedly pushed these plans aside in favour of the TPP. Li said Xi’s attendance at the summit showed China’s “confidence in promoting” its alternatives.

The FTAAP would cover all 21 members of APEC, while the RCEP would group the 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, but not the United States.

A November 11 Global Times article further drummed up Chinese nationalism, provocatively predicting the triumph of a “China-led Asia.” It proclaimed that China’s economic clout had “geographically fractured” the US pivot.

The commentary asserted that Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent declaration that he was “separating” from Washington, followed by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s purchase of navy vessels from China, had “put holes in Washington’s net around the Middle Kingdom.”

“It’s simple: US allies are being overwhelmed by China’s sheer industrial production, and infrastructure investment is more attractive than US foreign military base construction… Japan and South Korea may become isolated if the ASEAN countries continue to turn towards Beijing, and will have to decide what is more beneficial: US-led containment or collaborating with a China-led Asia.”

This bravado is designed to whip up nationalist sentiment, pitting Chinese workers against their fellow workers in America, throughout the region and internationally. While the Beijing bureaucrats and oligarchs will no doubt still seek to cut deals with Washington, Trump’s victory has spurred the rise of bellicose nationalist elements on both sides of the Pacific, intensifying the dangers of war between nuclear powers.

The Precarious Politics of Post-‘Liberation’ Mosul

Derek Verbakel

Progress is well underway for Mosul to be recaptured from the Islamic State (IS). Aided by US-led air and ground support, the anti-IS campaign chiefly involves the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF); Kurdish Peshmerga; a collection of predominantly-Iran-backed mostly-Shia militias; and Sunni tribal fighters. ISF units have breached the city’s easternmost neighbourhoods, and while resistance is stiff, it nevertheless seems like only a matter of time until the IS is militarily defeated and, as many commentators present it, Mosul is thereby ‘liberated’. 

Yet, such triumphalist and reductive language framing the military campaign risks downplaying the fraught political conditions in Mosul and Ninewa Province more widely. Indeed, once the IS is dislodged, there will be underlying and unameliorated political issues that present even greater challenges to stabilising northern Iraq.

Tangled and competing interests drive various stakeholders who will not disarm once the IS is gone, and ultimately aim to translate hard-won gains into political advantages. The ISF – the only party authorised by Baghdad to enter Mosul itself – have worked unprecedentedly close with the Peshmerga, who have pledged to stay out; but this could change due to a shifting coalition strategy or unilateral decisions. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) wants to consolidate control of disputed territories claimed also by the central government in Baghdad. Like their previous actions, Kurdish security personnel may forcibly displace Arab families from their homes in contested areas, tilting the ethnic demographic balance.

Shia sectarian militias will seek a larger role in Iraq’s government and broader political society. They seem to have accepted Baghdad’s demand – restated by Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians as well as Turkey and the US –  of refraining from entering Mosul. Yet some Shia militia leaders have proclaimed a religious duty to fight in Mosul, Iraq’s main Sunni Arab-majority city; and while their presence alone would inflame sectarian tensions, they might also rehearse past episodes of violence against Sunni civilians. 

Shia militias may also seek to establish a permanent base of operations in Tal Afar – like Mosul, a city to which Turkey claims historic and cultural ties. This would allow strategic access to aligned forces in Syria and more immediately challenge Turkey and its KRG allies' influence in northern Iraq. Under the pretext of defending Sunnis, Ankara has already threatened unilateral action against Shia militias, who it suggests will not only seek to raze Mosul, but also rid Tal Afar of its majority-Sunni Turkmen population. 

A broader power struggle is also escalating between Ankara and Baghdad over spheres of influence in northern Iraq. They have exchanged threats of war over Baghdad’s repeated, unheeded demands to withdraw Turkish troops stationed just northeast of Mosul since January 2015. While rebuffed by Baghdad and the KRG, Ankara has demanded a greater role in the Mosul campaign, and last week aggressively shored up forces facing the Iraq border. Along with containing advances by Shia militias and the IS, above all, Turkey’s presence in Iraq aims to quell trans-border nationalist aspirations of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), labelled terrorists also by the KRG. Also seeking to augment Turkish influence in Ninewa is Atheel al-Nujaifi, a former provincial governor who heads a Sunni Arab militia trained and equipped by Turkey. Baghdad staunchly opposes Nujaifi’s intention to figure centrally in post-IS provincial politics.

To claim credibility as a national institution, the Shia-dominated Iraqi central government will need to reassert state power in ways acceptable to Mosul's inhabitants. This was not the case when in 2014, from outside perspectives, the IS overran the city with surprising ease and members and sympathisers began embedding themselves into Mosul’s social fabric. There occurred intermarriage with the population and joining the IS became a much-needed avenue to stable employment for many Moslawis. 

It will be tricky to determine who joined – whether earnestly, out of desperation, or not at all – and how to treat IS prisoners and families, as well as others who might feel unfairly branded as collaborators. There may also persist a degree of support for the IS. Having experienced alienation especially since 2003, Moslawis have tended to regard the central government warily; and so, engendering a sense of political enfranchisement, particularly among Sunni Arabs in a conflict-stricken city, will be difficult.

Beyond Mosul, there will also be crucial but divisive questions concerning the form of post-IS governance structures and security provision in Ninewa. Baghdad will face enormous pressure to address longstanding disputes regarding dispensation of territory, revenues, and powers to local authorities. Several agendas and frameworks are fiercely contested by Sunni and Kurdish leaders as well as minority communities who view Sunni Arabs as complicit in what many consider attempted genocide by the IS'. Violence will spike if armed groups seek to pre-emptively homogenise area demographics along ethnic or sectarian lines.

As such, troublingly absent is any consensus on what happens after the IS is displaced from Mosul and wider Ninewa - which will be the site of clashing interests pursued by several anti-IS groups unwilling to disarm or withdraw. There will be no unifying Iraqi nationalist political project to bridge inter-communal divisions and little trust among traumatised populations in new or reconstituted systems of governance. Vulnerable to self-serving interventions by external powers, this political minefield will be prone to further cycles of violence.

American Turbulence: Global Ramifications

Chintamani Mahapatra

By electing Donald Trump as the forty-fifth president of the US, the American people created history for the second time in less than a decade. The first was election of an African American as the president. What has surprised millions of poll observers and analysts is defeat of a seasoned politician by a political outsider with no administrative or political experience.

The campaign during the 2016 presidential race was negative, bitter and vitriolic to a degree unprecedented in American history. More significantly, the post-election reaction to Trump’s victory too is an unparalleled development. Thousands of students in various college campuses across the US and thousands of people in diverse American cities took to the streets venting their anger and frustration over the election outcome. Several political leaders around the globe also expressed their discomfort and displeasure over the election outcome in the US.

While all these are extraordinary developments, the next four years of the Trump Administration will be crucial for international security and stability. The Trump Administration’s approach to world affairs is uncertain and beyond credible projection, given how Trump is a political outsider and his equation with the Republican Party leadership is fractured.

This is particularly pertinent in view of the Republican Party’s emergence as the majority party in the US House of Representatives and the Senate. Unless Trump is able to establish dependableand cooperative ties with his party leaders, he will remain largely dysfunctional when it comes to putting forward his policy initiatives, towards domestic or foreign policy.

What Trump promised during his campaign, if implemented, would bring about a paradigm shift in American domestic politics and foreign policy; but even a fraction of it cannot be implemented without his ability to carry Congressional leaders with him.

There is widespread concern about the state of things to appear once Trump assumes office. During the campaign, he repeatedly attacked the American system as “rigged.”Will he now try tofix the system? During his victory speech, he made a tall promise to double the US’ GDP? It is not a feasible proposition.However, he is a businessman and will try to apply his business acumen and create an economic miracle.

Trump was largely responsible for the political polarisation in last eighteen months of the election season. Once he won the election, he called for national unity. He hinted that he would not drastically alter the country’s foreign policy. Will the American people and world leaders believe him and cooperate with his policies? Massive demonstrations against him in schools, colleges and cities across the US and international reaction to his electoral victory tell a different story.

Trump called for a wall across the US-Mexican border during the election campaign. Will he be able to build his promised wall to keep Mexican immigrants at bay? More significantly, will he be able to make Mexico pay for it? If the Trump Administration succeeds in crafting a new immigration policy, the deportation of millions of undocumented workers will take place.This would create enormous uncertainties within the US and would affect Washington’s hemispheric relationships.

Donald Trump has questioned NATO’s relevance and has demanded defence burden sharing by NATO members. Will the economic downturn in Europe encourage NATO members to increase their defense budgets? Trans-Atlantic ties will be in for some trouble. He also asked Japan and South Korea to make their own nuclear weapons for defence. Will Tokyo and Seoul have trust in Trump’s Asia Pacific strategy?

Trump’s views on Muslim immigrants and Islamist extremism will also be on test in the coming years. He promised to use his “secret plan” to defeat the Islamic State in West Asia. Can he make the US win a war in that region in the backdrop of the Afghan quagmire? Will he able to gain the support and confidence of the Muslim countries in fighting terror? 

Thus, the US ties with Europe, Latin America, West Asia, and the Asia Pacific are in for changes and not necessarily for better. Trump will certainly try to make America great again, but the cost of it for other nations is insofar unknown. However, Trump’s America is unlikely to disturb the apple cart of the Indo-US relationship. The strategic partnership between the two countries is mature enough to sustain short-term turbulence. Trade and investment cooperation, and defence and security ties between New Delhi and Washington are likely to experience an upward trajectory. 

What the Indian foreign policy establishment needs to be aware of are the challenges that may come as the after-effect of the Trump Administration’s ties with other countries and its impact.

ivoh Restorative Narrative Fellowship for Media Practitioners 2017

Application Deadline: 28th November 2016

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country):  USA

Eligible Fields: Media practitioners of all kinds — photographers, journalists, gamers, documentary filmmakers, marketers and those working at the intersection of media and the arts

About the Award: The media plays an important role in telling stories about tragedies, trauma, and communities or individuals who are facing adversities. And yet, too often, these are the main stories we see and hear from the media. Images & Voices of Hope is working to change that — by providing media practitioners with an opportunity to tell stories about how people and communities are finding hope, resiliency and restoration in the aftermath or midst of difficult times.

If this type of storytelling interests you and you have a strong story idea, we encourage you to apply for Images & Voices of Hope’s Restorative Narrative Fellowship.

ivoh’s fellowship is an extension of the organization’s work around Restorative Narrative — a genre of stories that show how people and communities are making a meaningful progression from a place of despair to a place of resilience. (You can read more about Restorative Narratives, and find related examples, here.)

The fellowship, which will run February 1 through August 1, will provide five fellows with a stipend to spend six months telling Restorative Narratives in various communities. As a fellow, you’ll have the opportunity to help change media — and the people and communities that media serves — for the better.

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility: 

• Media practitioners of all kinds — photographers, journalists, gamers, documentary filmmakers, marketers and those working at the intersection of media and the arts;
• Both freelancers and employed media practitioners can apply;
• Freelancers will be required to find a home for their projects, while those employed at media organizations can work on their fellowship project with the intent of publishing it on their organization’s website;
• ivoh requests permission to republish the work in its entirety – or if that’s not possible, a condensed version of it.

Number of Awardees: 5

Value of Fellowship: The fellowship provides:

• A stipend:  USD 2,500 stipend for financial support and to cover costs associated with their work for the fellowship. These costs may include travel, data analysis, research expenses, and more;
• High-level coaching: six months, fellows will receive storytelling coaching from Jacqui Banaszynski, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, longtime editor, and a professor at the University of Missouri;
• Training workshops: a chance to learn more about the restorative narrative genre, receive feedback on their projects, and engage in 1:1 coaching sessions with Jacqui. The first training workshop will be held in early March, and the second will be held in timing with ivoh’s annual media summit in late June;
• Speaking opportunity: to present their projects and share lessons learned during ivoh’s annual media summit, which attracts media practitioners from around the world;
• Ongoing recognition and support from ivoh: part of a growing cohort of Restorative Narrative Fellows from around the world. You will be introduced to past fellows and the larger ivoh community, which is comprised of individuals who care about how the media can help strengthen and empower people and communities

Duration of Fellowship: February 1 through August 1

How to Apply: If you are interested in applying, fill out the online application HERE. Applications are accepted through November 28.

Visit Fellowship Webpage for details

Award Provider: ivoh