South Korean President Park impeached

Ben McGrath & Peter Symonds

South Korea’s National Assembly yesterday voted to impeach President Park Geun-hye, the first step in her removal from office. The vote of 234 to 56 in the 300-member Assembly was well over the necessary two-thirds required and indicated that significant sections of Park’s own right-wing Saenuri Party supported the impeachment.

The impeachment follows weeks of massive protests involving millions of people demanding Park resign over a scandal involving her close personal confidante, Choi Soon-sil. Although she holds no official position in the government, Choi allegedly influenced its decisions, was privy to classified documents and used her ties with Park to solicit donations from South Korean companies.

The protests—the largest in South Korea’s history—reflect widespread hostility and anger towards Park over broader issues: the deepening gulf between rich and poor as well as her administration’s anti-democratic methods in silencing critics, disbanding an opposition party and suppressing strikes.

After the vote, Park apologised once again for the “grave national turmoil” that her “carelessness and shortcomings” had produced, but gave no indication that she would resign. Park has been named as a criminal suspect in legal proceedings involving the Choi scandal but she cannot be indicted while in office.

Following yesterday’s Assembly vote, presidential authority and duties have been transferred to Prime Minister Hwang Gyo-an who becomes acting president. The impeachment case now goes to the Constitutional Court which has six months to decide if the charges against Park warrant her removal from power.

Six of the nine justices must support Park’s dismissal which would be followed by a fresh presidential election within two months. Six of the judges were appointed by Park and her immediate predecessor Lee Myung-bak, also from the Saenuri Party. However, a court decision to keep Park in office would likely reignite the protest movement and plunge the country into even deeper crisis.

Park’s impeachment reflects deep divisions within the South Korean ruling elite as well as intense public alienation from the entire political establishment. Yonsei University professor Moon Chung-in told the Financial Times last month: “South Korea is in a state of total crisis. We have intertwined political, geo-political and economic crises… and no leadership to mend the fractures or drive society.”

Park, like other Asian leaders, has attempted to balance between China, which is South Korea’s largest trading partner, and the US, which is a long-time military ally. South Korea hosts key American military bases and currently nearly 30,000 US troops. Park, who came to office in 2013, sought to improve relations with China and earned US displeasure when she appeared last year at a military parade in Beijing alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Significantly the Obama administration offered no support to the embattled Park. The US embassy even signaled sympathy for the protests in Seoul by turning its lights off along with other nearby buildings at a time fixed by protest leaders. State Department spokesman Mark Toner declared yesterday that the United States “is there with Korea as it undergoes this political change and transition”—thereby tacitly accepting that Park would be removed.

At the same time, under pressure from Washington, the Park administration agreed in July to the US deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to South Korea, angering Beijing. While nominally directed against North Korea, the THAAD installation on the Korean Peninsula is part of the US military build-up throughout Asia in preparation for war against China.

The election of Donald Trump as US president has further heightened the dilemmas confronting the South Korean ruling elites. According to the Financial Times, financial officials in Seoul in the wake of Trump’s election win “directed banks to prepare for external shocks, while the Blue House [presidential residence] convened a national security council session.”

Although Trump told Park following his election win that he agreed “100 percent” with the US-South Korea alliance, he threatened, in the course of his campaign, to withdraw from the alliance if South Korea did not pay more towards US military bases. Despite Trump’s reassurance, he has placed a question mark over the alliance that can only compound uncertainty in Seoul and exacerbate divisions within the ruling elites over South Korea’s strategic orientation.

Trump’s extreme economic nationalism is also destabilising South Korean politics. He has declared that he will tear up the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and threatened trade war measures against China that would heavily impact on the South Korean economy. While South Korea is not part of the TPP, Trump has also criticised South Korea’s free trade agreement with the US as unfair on American businesses.

Trump’s stance is encouraging opposition parties—the Minjoo (Democratic) Party, People’s Party and Justice Party—to ramp up their calls for protectionism. The Democrats strongly opposed the free trade agreement with the US and, along with other opposition parties, have been seeking to channel popular opposition in an economic nationalist direction. Trade unions and farmers groups have taken part in the anti-Park protests to demand trade restrictions and government subsidies for products such as rice.

The South Korean economy is stagnating with the latest OECD forecast putting growth for 2017 at just 2.6 percent. Exports, which comprise about 45 percent of the country’s GDP, shrank by 3.2 percent year-on-year in October after a 5.9 percent drop in September. Hanjin Shipping, which was once South Korea’s largest shipping company, declared bankruptcy in August. Household debt exploded to a record $1.15 trillion by mid-year—the eighth highest in the world.

Rising levels of poverty and unemployment, particularly among young people, are fuelling social discontent which the opposition parties are seeking to exploit. None of them, however, can offer any solutions to the social crisis. In fact, the Democrat presidents—Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun—made deep inroads in the living conditions of the working class by breaking up the life-long employment system and opening the door for the mass casualisation of the workforce.

An article in Bloomberg on Thursday likened the protests calling for Park’s resignation to political upheavals around the world, stating: “The wave of populism that fueled Brexit, the rise of Donald Trump and the fall of Italian leader Matteo Renzi has reached South Korea, where street protesters see Friday’s parliamentary vote to impeach President Park Geun-hye as a step towards toppling the establishment she symbolises.”

The opposition parties are also seeking to capitalise on growing fears of war. The Minjoo Party criticised but did not oppose the installation of the THAAD anti-ballistic missile system which makes South Korea a target in any war between the US and China. The People’s Party and Justice Party opposed the move on economic grounds, reflecting fears in business circles of economic retaliation by China.

The political turmoil in Seoul is raising fears in Washington that Park’s removal could result in a win by an opposition presidential candidate who would adopt a more moderate stance towards North Korea and China. Such an administration might limit US military involvement in South Korea and could adopt protectionist measures.

European Central Bank rejects request by Italy for more time to rescue ailing lender

Nick Beams

The European Central Bank has rejected a request to delay the deadline on a private-sector-led deal to rescue the Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) bank, Italy’s third largest, making more likely a government bailout that would impose major losses on small investors and bondholders.

MPS had sent a request to the ECB’s supervisory board to extend the deadline on the deal to January 20 to allow more time for the €5 billion rescue operation to be put in place.

The deal, which hinged on an injection of funds from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund of up to €2 billion and a series of complex debt for equity swaps, was to have been settled this week. But the overwhelming “No” vote in the Italian referendum last Sunday and the subsequent resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi threw the rescue plan into disarray with the Qatari fund saying it would not make an investment until it received clarity on the formation of a new government.

According to a report in Reuters and subsequent reports in the Financial Times and the Guardian, the board of the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism, charged with European banking regulation, turned down the request for a delay at a meeting yesterday.

The ECB and the Italian Treasury have so far refused to comment but trading in MPS shares was suspended, after losing a further 10 percent of their value. According to the Italian media, MPS held an emergency board meeting and will be engaged in talks with the government over the weekend.

Citing “people briefed on the deliberations,” the Financial Times said the supervisory board had turned down the request fearing that “if MPS’s troubles were left unresolved, it could lead to a systemic crisis across Italy’s banking system.”

The ECB decision makes it almost certain that the government will have to organise a bailout in some form. However, under European Union rules, which came into force this year, any injection of state funds would have to be preceded by the imposition of losses on creditors, in particular small retail investors and households.

Such a move will be politically explosive. Small investors, who often hold deposits, account for a large share of junior bond holders. It is estimated that there are some 40,000 households which own €2 billion worth of bonds in MPS. They were lured into making such investments following the European banking crisis of 2011 with the assurance that their investments were as safe as deposits.

A “bail-in” of such bondholders in four small banks which went broke late last year caused a political uproar, with one small investor taking his own life. Any such operation involving MPS, taking place on a much larger scale, would become a major campaign issue in Italian elections following the fall of the Renzi government and could lead to a movement to quit the EU.

A statement issued by Members of the European Parliament belonging to the right-wing populist Five Star Movement, issued on the blog of the organisation’s founder Beppe Grillo, said MPS could only be saved by state aid in order to avoid bail in-rules that hurt smaller savers as happened a year ago.

“This is not the time to fear the European Union and a possible infraction procedure. The consequences of a disordered bail-in would be disastrous to say the least. Almost apocalyptic if one considers the size of MPS.”

The statement, which was reported in the Guardian, said it was “time to slam our fists at the table in Brussels … while not giving a damn about the deficit.”

The talks between MPS and the government may result in a last-ditch effort to come up with a rescue plan, but the political uncertainty about the composition of the new government and its policies make its achievement unlikely.

Mujtaba Rahman, head of European issues for the Eurasia Group risk consultancy, told the Financial Times that European institutions had always been “sceptical” about the private-sector plan. “Not only does it imply a less ambitious restructuring plan but the ability to secure an anchor investor has become much less likely in light of Renzi’s resignation and the ongoing political instability in Rome,” he said.

It appears that the ECB decisions may be part of a wider plan to force the Italian government and the country’s financial authorities to impose a restructuring of the country’s entire banking system, which is weighed down by an estimated €360 billion worth of bad loans.

Reuters reported that ECB officials had expressed the hope that the “precautionary recapitalisation” of MPS by the Italian state—that is, a recapitalisation of an institution still considered to be solvent—would pave the way for similar injections of government funds into other Italian banks plagued by bad loans.

According to one anonymous ECB official, cited by the news agency, there was a consensus that MPS needed a recapitalisation. “Once that is done, it could serve as a template for other banks.”

But as the Reuters report noted, such a state intervention became a “political taboo” this year when new EU rules stipulated that it could only be carried out after all private investors, including small holders, took losses first.

Whatever the outcome of the talks and negotiations over the next few days, it will have far-reaching implications for the entire Italian banking system. The next potential crisis centres on UniCredit, Italy’s largest bank, and its only significant global banking institution.

UniCredit is set to announce a plan to raise €13 billion in capital next Tuesday as part of an effort to stabilise its financial position. But if the government does decide to undertake a bailout of MPS under the terms dictated by the ECB, those plans could be jeopardised. According to the Financial Times, senior bankers said they were fearful that a “precautionary recapitalisation” of MPS could jeopardise efforts to raise capital by UniCredit.

So far, European financial markets have remained stable in the face of the MPS crisis. But there is potential for so-called “contagion” because of the interconnections in the banking system. For example, UniCredit owns Hypovereinsbank, which is Germany’s fourth largest bank, while Banca Nazionale del Lavro, Italy’s eighth largest lender, is owned by BNP Paribas, France’s largest bank, and Cariparma, Italy’s eleventh largest lender, is owned by Credit Agricole, a major French bank.

India & Pakistan: the Unthinkable

Conn Hallinan

President-elect Donald Trump’s off the cuff, chaotic approach to foreign policy had at least one thing going for it, even though it was more the feel of a blind pig rooting for acorns than a thought out international initiative. In speaking with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Trump said he wanted “to address and find solutions to the county’s [Pakistan’s] problems.”

Whether Trump understands exactly how dangerous the current tensions between Pakistan and India are, or if anything will come from the Nov. 30 exchange between the two leaders, is anyone’s guess, but it is more than the Obama administration has done over the past eight years, in spite of a 2008 election promise to address the on-going crisis in Kashmir.

And right now that troubled land is the single most dangerous spot on the globe.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars over the disputed province in the past six decades and came within a hair’s breathe of a nuclear exchange in 1999. Both countries are on a crash program to produce nuclear weapons, and between them they have enough explosive power to not only kill more than 20 million of their own people, but to devastate the world’s ozone layer and throw the Northern Hemisphere into a nuclear winter with a catastrophic impact on agriculture worldwide.

According to studies done at Rutgers, the University of Colorado-Boulder, and the University of California Los Angeles, if both countries detonated 100 Hiroshima size bombs, it would generate between 1 and 5 million tons of smoke that within 10 days would drive temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere down to levels too cold for wheat production in much of Canada and Russia. The resulting 10 percent drop in rainfall—particularly hard hit would be the Asian monsoon—would exhaust worldwide food supplies, leading to the starvation of up to 100 million plus people.

Aside from the food crisis, a nuclear war in South Asia would destroy between 25 to 70 percent of the Northern Hemisphere’s ozone layer, resulting in a massive increase in dangerous ultraviolent radiation.

Lest anyone think that the chances of such a war are slight, consider two recent developments.

One, a decision by Pakistan to deploy low-yield tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons and to give permission for local commanders to decide when to use them.

In an interview with the German newspaper Deutsche Welle, Gregory Koblentz of the Council on Foreign Relations warned that if a “commander of a forward-deployed nuclear armed unit finds himself in a ‘use it or lose it’ situation and about to be overrun, he might decided to launch his weapons.”

Pakistan’s current Defense Minister, Muhammad Asif, told Geo TV, “If anyone steps on our soil and if anyone’s designs are a threat to our security, we will not hesitate to use those [nuclear] weapons for our defense.”

Every few years the Pentagon “war games” a clash between Pakistan and India over Kashmir: every game ends in a nuclear war.

The second dangerous development is the “Cold Start” strategy by India that would send Indian troops across the border to a depth of 30 kilometers in the advent of a terrorist attack like the 1999 Kargill incident in Kashmir, the 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament, or the 2008 attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people.

Since the Indian army is more than twice the size of Pakistan’s, there would be little that Pakistanis could do to stop such an invasion other than using battlefield nukes. India would then be faced with either accepting defeat or responding.

India does not currently have any tactical nukes, but only high yield strategic weapons—many aimed at China—whose primary value is to destroy cities. Hence a decision by a Pakistani commander to use a tactical warhead would almost surely lead to a strategic response by India, setting off a full-scale nuclear exchange and the nightmare that would follow in its wake.

With so much at stake, why is no one but a twitter-addicted foreign policy apprentice saying anything? What happened to President Obama’s follow through to his 2008 statement that the tensions over Kashmir “won’t be easy” to solve, but that doing so “is important”?

The initial strategy of pulling India into an alliance against China was dreamed up during the administration of George W. Bush, but it was Obama’s “Asia Pivot” that signed and sealed the deal. With it went a quid pro quo: if India would abandon its traditional neutrality, the Americans would turn a blind eye to Kashmir.

As a sweetener, the U.S. agreed to bypass the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement and allow India to buy uranium on the world market, something New Delhi had been banned from doing since it detonated a nuclear bomb in 1974 using fuel it had cribbed from U.S.-supplied nuclear reactors. In any case, because neither India nor Pakistan have signed the Agreement, both should be barred from buying uranium. In India’s case, the U.S. has waived that restriction.

The so-called 1-2-3 Agreement requires India to use any nuclear fuel it purchases in its civilian reactors, but frees it up to use its meager domestic supplies on its nuclear weapons program. India has since built two enormous nuclear production sites at Challakere and near Mysore, where, rumor has it, it is producing a hydrogen bomb. Both sites are off limits to international inspectors.

In 2008, when the Obama administration indicated it was interested in pursuing the 1-2-3 Agreement, then Pakistani Foreign minister Khurshid Kusuni warned that the deal would undermine the non-proliferation treaty and lead to a nuclear arms race in Asia. That is exactly what has come to pass. The only countries currently adding to their nuclear arsenals are Pakistan, India, China and North Korea.

While Pakistan is still frozen out of buying uranium on the world market, it has sufficient domestic supplies to fuel an accelerated program to raise its warhead production. Pakistan is estimated to have between 110 and 130 warheads and is projected to have 200 by 2020, surpassing Great Britain. India has between 110 and 120 nuclear weapons. Both countries have short, medium and long-range missiles, submarine ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, plus nuclear-capable aircraft that can target each other’s major urban areas.

One problem in the current crisis is that both countries are essentially talking past one another.

Pakistan does have legitimate security concerns. It has fought and lost three wars with India over Kashmir since 1947, and it is deeply paranoid about the size of the Indian army.

But India has been the victim of several major terrorist attacks that have Pakistan’s fingerprints all over them. The 1999 Kargill invasion lasted a month and killed hundreds of soldiers on both sides. Reportedly the Pakistanis were considering arming their missiles with nuclear warheads until the Clinton administration convinced them to stand down.

Pakistan’s military has long denied that it has any control over terrorist organizations based in Pakistan, but virtually all intelligence agencies agree that, with the exception of the country’s home-grown Taliban, that is not the case. The Pakistani army certainly knew about a recent attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir that killed 19 soldiers.

In the past, India responded to such attacks with quiet counterattacks of its own, but this time around the right-wing nationalist government of Narendra Modi announced that the Indian military had crossed the border and killed more than 30 militants. It was the first time that India publically acknowledged a cross-border assault.

The Indian press has whipped up a nationalist fervor that has seen sports events between the two countries cancelled and a ban on using Pakistani actors in Indian films. The Pakistani press has been no less jingoistic.

In the meantime, the situation in Kashmir has gone from bad to worse. Early in the summer Indian security forces killed Buhan Wani, a popular leader of the Kashmir independence movement. Since then the province has essentially been paralyzed, with schools closed and massive demonstrations. Thousands of residents have been arrested, close to 100 killed, and hundreds of demonstrators wounded and blinded by the widespread use of birdshot by Indian security forces.

Indian rule in Kashmir has been singularly brutal. Between 50,000 and 80,000 people have died over the past six decades, and thousands of others have been “disappeared” by security forces. While in the past the Pakistani army aided the infiltration of terrorist groups to attack the Indian army, this time around the uprising is homegrown. Kashmiris are simply tired of military rule and a law which gives Indian security forces essentially carte blanc to terrorize the population.

Called the Special Powers Act—originally created in 1925 for the supression of Catholics in Northern Ireland, and widely used by the Israelis in the Occupied Territories—the law allows Indian authorities to arrest and imprison people without charge and gives immunity to Indian security forces.

As complex as the situation in Kashmir is, there are avenues to resolve it. A good start would be to suspend the Special Powers Act and send the Indian Army back to the barracks.

The crisis in Kashmir began when the Hindu ruler of the mostly Muslim region opted to join India when the countries were divided in 1947. At the time, the residents were promised that a UN-sponsored referendum would allow residents to choose India, Pakistan or independence. That referendum has never been held.

Certainly the current situation cannot continue. Kashmir has almost 12 million people and no army or security force—even one as large as India’s—can maintain a permanent occupation if the residents don’t want it.  Instead of resorting to force, India should ratchet down its security forces and negotiate with Kashmiris for an interim increase in local autonomy.

But in the long run, the Kashmiris should have their referendum and India and Pakistan will have to accept the results.

What the world cannot afford is for the current tensions to spiral down into a military confrontation that could easily get out of hand. The U.S., through its aid to Pakistan—$860 million this year—has some leverage, but it cannot play a role if its ultimate goal is an alliance to contain China, a close ally of Pakistan.

Neither country would survive a nuclear war, and neither country should be spending its money on an arms race. Almost 30 percent of India’s population is below the poverty line, as are 22 percent of Pakistan’s. The $51 billion Indian defense budget and the $7 billion Pakistan spends could be put to far better use.

American Nazis and the Fight for US History

Erin McCarley

“Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” Richard B. Spencer yelled in front of more than 200 attendees at his annual conference on November 19^th, in the nation’s capitol. Several of his supporters then raised their right arms to give the Nazi salute. This video, taken by a reporter for The Atlantic, features Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, a white-nationalist think-tank in Washington D.C. Spencer is known for having created the term “alt-right.” He is also known for advocating for “a peaceful ethnic cleansing” of the United States.

“America was, until this past generation, a white country designed for ourselves and for our posterity. It is our creation. It is our inheritance. And it belongs to us,” Spencer declared during his speech.

When I first watched Richard Spencer at his NPI annual conference, like many, I was horrified by Spencer’s intentional references to Nazi language, imagery and ideology. In this political moment, as President-Elect Trump appoints to his cabinet, a crew of known white supremacists: Stephen Bannon as Chief Strategist; Jeff Sessions(Attorney General); and Michael Flynn (National Security Adviser), Spencer’s Neo-Nazi D.C. conference takes on a whole new, chilling power—not of a fringe, right-wing hate group, but of a mainstream, right-wing hate group.

After absorbing the initial shock of his fascist message, what disturbed me next about Spencer’s speech caught me somewhat off guard. The philosophy he was espousing didn’t sound totally foreign. In fact, something about it felt sickeningly familiar, like a relic from childhood.

I grew up in one of the most right-wing states in the country: Oklahoma. Formerly Indian Territory, Oklahoma was first created by the US government as an official dumping grounds for indigenous nations that were standing in the way of “white progress.” Under the doctrines of Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny, the US government removed at gunpoint, dozens of indigenous nations from all over North America. They were sent in death marches, on foot and by boat, to Indian Territory, an area the US government viewed as a wasteland, a place where no one should survive. US Explorer Stephen Long referred to this area as the “Great American Desert.”

In total, 64 nations were forcibly removed to Indian Territory between 1831-1878. After the Removals, these nations, having survived near genocide, then endured POW camps, rotten food rations, smallpox, massacres, multiple invasions, multiple land sequestrations, the Boarding School era, the Dawes Act, the Allotment era, the Curtis Act, the Land Run era, commercial oil discoveries on their lands, and finally, the complete annihilation of reservation land that remained, when Oklahoma became a state. The fact that many of these tribal nations are still here today, after all of this history, is an incredible testament to their strength, determination, spirituality and cultural resilience. These nations have been decimated since European settlers set sight on their lands over 500 years ago. And Oklahoma Native tribes have continued to survive and thrive, no thanks to the US government, who broke every single one of the more than 500 treaties it made with sovereign nations.

Today, the Oklahoma tourism industry brags about the fact that Oklahoma is currently home 39 federally recognized tribes. But how those 39 tribes got to Oklahoma is still a giant mystery for many non-Native Oklahomans, whose public school textbooks were ethnically cleansed of non-white histories a few generations ago.

Instead, the state history we were taught as kids was much more in line with the Doctrine of Discovery, Oklahoma style. We were taught that white settlers “discovered” vast open prairies when they came to settle this (presumably) uninhabited area in the late 1800s. These vacant lands were then “opened up” for (white) settlement in a series of Land Runs and Land Lotteries, which schoolchildren in Oklahoma still proudly re-enact to this day, during Western Heritage Week. The US government was giving away “free land,” our teachers said. People traveled from all over the country to grab 160 acres and “stake their claim.” We were never taught, as kids, that this land was somebody else’s. We were never taught that this land was treaty-protected Indian Territory. Nor were we taught the concept of “settler colonialism,” a distinct type of imperialism practiced in many parts of the world, where settler societies invade and replace indigenous populations.

No, we didn’t learn any of this. Instead, we were taught to embody, celebrate and emulate a “white cultural mythology” designed to elevate European colonial history above all other histories. This narrative–based on Manifest Destiny, Westward Expansion, and the Doctrine of Discovery–placed European Americans at the very center of every story, as the primary actors, agents, and engines of Western civilization, development and progress. If any non-white histories were presented at all, they were peripheral to European history and not explored in any depth.

Our public education therefore served its primary function of patriotic indoctrination, creating an inflated sense of self-importance about European American history and white culture. For young white students, US history was served up as a myopic, self-congratulating, historical fantasy.

Without any kind of outside interference, I believe this one-sided view of history, projected some 10 or 15 years out, could easily manifest itself into a deeply-rooted sense of white superiority– a cultural mythology that goes something like this:

“America was, until this past generation, a white country designed for ourselves and for our posterity. It is our creation. It is our inheritance. And it belongs to us.”

These are, again, the words of Herbert Spencer– the white supremacist, Nazi-saluting president of the National Policy Institute, and poster child for the “alt-right” movement. The fact that I recognize his origin story as the same one I was taught at a young age, is a fact that I find terrifying.

Spencer’s rhetoric, unfortunately, is not (just) the lunatic ravings of a sociopathic madman. No, this is a man who believes he has integrity, a man who bases his (fascist) conclusions on a core set of values and beliefs that he has likely embraced throughout his life, beliefs that have been supported in some large way by his community, his education, and his culture, without any major interruption. His rhetoric is also the logical result of a US history narrative that has, for generations, boldly lied about how this country was formed.

Had we all been taught in public schools that our country was founded on genocide (which is ongoing), and built on slavery (which is still legal in some states), as US schoolchildren, we might have evolved very differently, with a much more humble and critical perspective on our nation’s history of white supremacist violence, and a realistic vision for a more peaceful and just future–starting with a national truth and reconciliation process.

Imagine the possibilities for national healing, if most Americans could agree on some universal truths about our nation’s origin story—a story that recognizes the many atrocities of its founding; a story that embraces at its core human rights for all people: indigenous peoples, Africans, poor people, and immigrants from every nationality, every faith/religion, from all over the world.

This kind of democratic history education is perhaps most famously demonstrated by Howard Zinn in his seminal work, A People’s History of the United States. If a history book like this were required reading in US public schools, it would have a profound national impact. For example, it would render absolutely false any cultural narratives about white people’s entitlement to land and its fortunes. And the racist notion of all non-whites as “foreigners” and “illegal immigrants” would also be unlikely, given that we would have a shared understanding of the many thriving, non-European societies that were productively living on this continent long before Columbus, and long before US boundaries were ever formed.

There are international educational models that can guide us in an effort to address the atrocities of our nation’s history. Germany, for example, has made great strides in integrating holocaust history into its national curriculum. South Africa created, in 2000, an Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR), with came out of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Process. The IJR “works with education officials and teachers, exploring two aspects – the impact of the past on teaching and teachers, as well as on how to teach a challenging ‘past’ in classrooms.” The US could learn a lot from these efforts. But without this kind of national process, we will continue to live in a country with extreme political factionalism and ideological polarization.

Furthermore, with a rapidly changing US demographic that will soon place European Americans in the minority population, the emerging fear for many white supremacists of losing racial power and privilege is already manifesting itself in a violent death grip. “A dying mule always kicks the hardest,” and so we see that white supremacist ideology is on the rise. We cannot censor Breitbart news, Fox news, and the National Policy Institute, but we can insist on dismantling white supremacist history. And we must.

In this moment, there’s little support for progressive history education on a national level. Even under Democratic administrations, the United States has long lacked the political will to institute a national Truth and Reconciliation Process for genocide or slavery. It has failed to acknowledge, let alone apologize, for these atrocities. And given the current direction of an incoming Trump administration, this kind of national healing is not even on the horizon.

And so we must take these fights to state and local levels. Our work is cut out for us. And one thing is painfully clear: Until we stop teaching history through a lens of white supremacy, Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and white supremacists like Richard Spencer will have a socially-sanctioned platform for a kind of fascism that should never be possible in a country that would dare to call itself a democracy.

Review: Helon Habila’s The Chibok Girls: the Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria

Charles R. Larson

There’s nothing more informative about one of Africa’s most troubled states in the past half dozen years than Helon Habila’s The Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria. The slim little book (part of Columbia’s Global Reports) was written by the award-winning Nigerian novelist who was born in the area and—although he lives in the United States—returned to the war-torn northeastern area of his country, where he conducted interviews (including with three of the escaped abducted girls) and, then, placed his conclusions within the context of Nigeria’s post-Independence history. The result is a damning picture of Nigeria’s failed leadership, ethnic tensions, and squandered oil wealth, one of the saddest stories of post-colonialism and—in a disturbing way—a warning for other nations (including the United States) to get their act together.

Habila makes it clear that when the 276 girls were abducted, April 14, 2014, the Nigerian government, under President Goodluck Jonathan, was not concerned. I happened to be in Lagos that week and although there was TV coverage of the abductions, no response was forthcoming from the government. It took another month, of external pressure, before there was acknowledgement of the tragedy, after initially denying that the kidnappings had happened. That lackadaisical concern from the government speaks volumes and pretty much sums up Jonathan’s response to everything. If it couldn’t be converted into profit for his cronies, forget it. Obviously, the month lost before there was a response was crucial, rendering their rescue almost impossible. This is all doubly ironic because the girls were at a government school, i.e., presumably “under the care of the government.”

That care was worthless as the incivility of the Nigerian police and army had demonstrated for years. Citizens have learned that in responding to a crime or violent act, you never call the military or the police, because they will make things worse, typically by destroying or taking all of your property. Here is Habila’s bleak observation: “The ones at the top keep the door shut because they don’t want to share the spoils of office. Actual violence, or the threat of it, helps to keep the populace in check, just as poverty does. Keep the people scared and hungry, encourage them to occasionally purge their anger on each other through religiously sanctioned violence, and you can go on looting the treasury without interference.”  This is what I have been told repeatedly by Nigerians during my most recent visits to their country. The statement also becomes an explanation for the government’s tepid response to earlier violence by Boko Haram. When Habila asked locals if they thought the girls would ever be returned, the response was that “We put our trust in God.”

The entrenchment of trickle-down violence and corruption has grown out of decades of failed governments, political coups, economic breakdown, a civil war because of ethnic tensions, and the rise of earlier fanatical groups. Here’s an insight I have never previously encountered: “If one were to point to a single event in Nigeria’s history that marked the rise of this age of intolerance, it would be the Maitatsine uprising of the 1980s. Named for its sect founder Muhammadu Marwa, who was popularly known as Maitatsine, meaning ‘one who curses’ because of his penchant for shouting curses at ‘nonbelievers’ while preaching. Marwa was originally from Cameroon, but had lived in the city of Kano on and off for decades and had amassed a large following among the poor, the many unemployed immigrants from Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, and the almajirai[Koranic students]. Marwa was not only controversial but truly radical, as he denounced part of the Koran, criticized the Prophet Muhammad, and even claimed to be a prophet himself.” Boko Haram is an offshoot of this earlier fundamentalist group. We have seen similar hijackings of Islam in other parts of the world. As the Chief Imam of Chibok told Habila (who is not a Muslim), “They now even kill other Muslims, they throw bombs in mosques while people are praying. Islam doesn’t sanction that. This is just a sect with its own doctrine and its own way of thinking, but it is not Islam.”

When Habila visited the area, in the spring of this year, what he encountered was burned-out schools and ghost towns. There are also hundreds of refugee camps “all over the northeast, Yola, Bauchi, Gombe, Damaturu, Kano, and of course Maiduguri. And now that the war had spread into neighboring countries, there were camps in Chad, Nigeria, and Cameroon.” Refugees in these camps who live under Boko Haram’s rule are typically traumatized; they often cannot return to “their families, the perception being that they and the children they were forced to bear through rape [are] still brainwashed, and likely to become terrorists in the future.” One can only wonder how all of this will end for the victims themselves and their families, in spite of a recent decrease of Boko Haram violence because of the more effective policies of Nigeria’s current leader, Mahammadu Buhari.

Not all of the Chibok girls remain in captivity. About a fifth of the original number managed to escape during the abductions (jumping from trucks, fleeing into the bush.) Others escaped later and have managed to return to school; a few have even been brought to the United States for education. Yet the ramifications of the Chibok abductions have extended far beyond the girls themselves.  “Since the kidnapping in 2014, at least eighteen parents had died of stress-related illnesses like heart failure, stomach ulcers, and hypertension. Boko Haram had killed a few others.” As I write this in late-October, 21 of the kidnapped girls have been released, but it is doubtful if many of the others will ever be returned.

Helon Habila is unflinching in his view of cause and effect. Poor leadership in Nigeria has resulted in horrifying consequences for the people least likely able to take care of themselves, those at the bottom of the society. Boko Haram sprung from poverty, from poor education, from limited opportunities for young people, and religious fanatics seizing an opportunity to enhance their own power and authority.

It’s hard to see how Nigeria can ameliorate decade-long abuses of power at the top, curtail corruption, and redirect its income from oil so that its riches (especially its people themselves, their ingenuity and diversity) can become the dynamic powerhouse that for too long has been more vision than reality.

Total Surveillance: Snooping in the United Kingdom

Binoy Kampmark

The UK-based Liberty Campaign expressed it most glumly.  “The Government’s new Snoopers’ Charter (also known as the Investigatory Powers Bill) will allow the bulk collection of all our personal information.  Who we talk to; what we say; where we are; what we look at online – everything.”

Championed while she was Home Secretary, Prime Minister Theresa May has seen her wishes fulfilled. Total surveillance – and there was already a good deal of that in Britain – is coming to the country.  Late last month, the Investigatory Powers Bill, known by its faux cuddly, yet sinister term the Snoopers’ charter, received royal assent and became law.

The sense that something smelly was in the air was evident by the enthusiasm of the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd.  This nasty bit of legislation was worthy of advertisement as protective, not detrimental, to privacy. In the surveillance stakes, Britain had every reason to be proud with this bit of “world-leading legislation” that provided “unprecedented transparency and substantial privacy protection.”

After trumpeting matters of privacy and transparency, Rudd came to the essential point, using the argument that the world is a terrifying place (as it always tends to be for government): “The government is clear that, at a time of heightened security threat, it is essential our law enforcement and security and intelligence services have the power they need to keep people safe.  The internet presents new opportunities for terrorists and we must ensure we have the capabilities to confront this challenge.”

Web and phone companies will be required to store records of websites visited by every customer for 12 months for access by the security industry, be it the police or pertinent bodies, upon the issue of warrants. This tracking does not extend to VPNs.

The warrant will be all empowering, enabling relevant security personnel to bug phones and computers. Compliance and connivance from companies is also expected, thereby coopting the private sector into undermining encryption protections. That very fact should chill companies in the business of supplying communications.

The obvious rejoinder from those favouring the Snoopers’ Charter is that it is not only snooping with a purpose, but snooping with delicate, informed oversight.   As ever, the error here is to institutionalise snooping by giving some sense of sagacious self-policing.

If the intelligence services have proven one thing, the desire to overstep, and overreach in zeal, is compulsive.  Even the investigatory powers tribunal, charged with the task of hearing complaints against MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, noted in October that an illegal regime in tracking and obtaining data, including web and phone use, had been operating for over 17 years.

Such behaviour draws out nightmarish scenarios of inevitability: the security services will always be there to undermine in the name of Her Majesty’s sacred priorities, while those with data will be there for the pilfering.  “I never assumed my emails and internet activity are completely private,” mused Matthew Parris darkly. “Has anyone?”

The intercept warrants under the new regime, by way of example, require authorisation from the Home Minister prior to judicial review.  Judges, overseen by a senior judicial officer called the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, will be responsible for that task and have the power of veto.

Such padding is all well and good, but the State rarely oversees itself competently when it comes to such concepts as the greater good.  Abstracted and mysterious, that greater good trumps privacy and individual civil liberties.  The lust to gather data becomes insatiable.

The war against encryption has been the central object of the May brigade for some time.  Importantly, it suggests institutional corrosion of basic privacy.  Under Rudd’s stewardship, an attack by direct means is encouraged, despite being feather bedded by dictates of privacy.

This dysfunctional nonsense has truly given Britain a “world class” regime in surveillance that will be a model to emulate by less savoury regimes.  If the Brits do it in that fashion, then why not others?

As Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group explained, Rudd was right in one sense: the IP Act was truly revolutionary in its impact.  “The IP Act will have an impact that goes beyond the UK’s shores.  It is likely that other countries, including totalitarian regimes with poor human rights records, will use this law to justify their own intrusive surveillance powers.”

The idea that partial encryption and half-baked measures are possible is simply dismissed as wishful thinking by such industry pundits as Nic Scott, the UK and Ireland managing director of data security specialists Code42. “You either have encryption in place or you don’t.  Once you create a backdoor of law enforcement powers, you are also opening the door to other, potentially malicious parties.”

That backdoor has been well and truly opened, and the pool of communications data signal an open season for hackers of whatever persuasion.  Goodbye Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014; welcome Orwellian state-manic insecurity and data hoovering.  The only obstacle now will be the spoiling verdict of the European court of justice, if the Labour party’s Tom Watson gets his way.

Worldwide Air Pollution is Making us Ill

Graham Peebles

The man-made environmental catastrophe is the severest issue facing humanity. It should be the number one priority for governments, but despite repeated calls from scientists, environmental groups and concerned citizens for years, short-term policies and economic self-interest are consistently given priority over the integrity of the planet and the health of the population.

Environmental inequality

Contaminated air is the world’s greatest preventable environmental health risk, and, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), is responsible for the premature deaths of an estimated 6.5 million people annually (11.6% of global deaths) – an average of six every minute. And unless there is substantial reduction in the quantity of pollutants cast into the atmosphere, the death count is forecast to double by 2050. Indoor air pollution, mainly from wood or dung stoves in developing countries, accounts for a staggering three million annual deaths.

Breathing – even in one’s own home – has become more dangerous than poor diet, lack of exercise or smoking tobacco.

The problem of toxic air is a worldwide pandemic; a recent WHO air quality model reveals that, “92% of the world’s population lives in places where air quality levels exceed WHO limits”. And whilst contaminated air affects virtually everyone, almost two out of three people killed simply by breathing live in South-East Asia and the Western Pacific. This includes China, where air pollution is responsible for the deaths of around 4,000 people a day (1.6 million a year), due, a 2015 study says, to emissions generated from burning coal, for electricity and heating homes.

Humanity is overwhelmingly responsible for this global crisis, and yet despite repeated warnings little of substance has been done and it’s getting worse. Since 2011 air pollution worldwide has risen 8%, and with the current fossil fuel obsession the increase looks set to continue, and with it human fatalities and a range of chronic health issues. Most deaths are caused by microscopic particles being inhaled: these spark heart attacks and strokes, which account for 75% of annual deaths. Lung cancer and respiratory diseases take care of the rest.

Perhaps unsurprisingly it is the poorest people in the world who suffer the most severe effects of air pollution.

As well as the injustice of social and economic inequality, we live in a world of environmental inequality. If you are a poor child living in a city in a developing country, you are up to 10 times more likely to suffer long-term health issues as a result of breathing the air in which you live, than a child in a rich industrialized nation.

Regional air inequality broadly follows the same North-South hemisphere fault lines as economic inequality, and as such reveals that as well as being a global environmental issue of the utmost importance, air pollution is a geo-political matter aggravated by the neo-liberal economic system. Some of the poorest, most vulnerable members of humanity are suffering the worst effects of air pollution, people living in countries where grinding poverty is widespread, education inadequate and health care provision poor.

Poisonous air

Air pollution causes a wide range of health issues: in addition to heart disease and respiratory conditions including asthma – now the most common chronic disease in children – there is “substantial evidence concerning the adverse effects of air pollution on pregnancy outcomes and infant death”, according to research by the Medical University of Silesia in Warsaw, Poland. And, as if all this weren’t bad enough, in 2013 WHO concluded that outdoor air pollution is carcinogenic, i.e. it causes cancer.

The main pollutants that trigger all these problems are broadly three types: fine particulate matter (PM2.5), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), which is a suffocating gas, and ground level ozone. PM2.5 come from road traffic exhaust fumes and burning fuels such as wood, heating oil or coal – as well as natural phenomenon such as volcanic eruptions. PM concentrations in the air vary depending on temperature and wind speed; they particularly like cold, still conditions, which allow them to aggregate. NO2, Plume Labs relates, “comes from combustion – heating, electricity generation, (vehicle and boat engines), 50% of NO2 emissions are due to traffic.” Ground level ozone is a major component of smog and is produced when “oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – from motor vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions, power plants, gasoline vapors, and chemical solvents – interact with sunlight.”

The way in which these poisons are produced varies somewhat from country to country, but they abound in all densely populated, built up areas, where there are large numbers of motor vehicles, as well as coal-fired power plants and refineries. Emissions from residential energy use, prevalent in India and China, Nature Magazine reports, “have the largest impact on premature mortality globally.” In eastern USA, Europe, Russia and East Asia a remarkably high number of illnesses and fatalities result from air pollution caused by agricultural emissions, mainly nitrous oxide and methane.

Children worst hit

Over 50% of the world’s population now live in cities; by 2030 this figure is expected to rise to 65%. All cities suffer from traffic congestion and all are polluted, some more, some less. The Asian mega-cities are the most contaminated, and perhaps unsurprisingly the cities of India and Pakistan are the worst, filling the top seven positions of conurbations with the highest level of PM2.5 in the world. The Indian capital (25 million population) comes in first; incidentally it’s also the noisiest place to live on the planet.

In an unprecedented study of 11,000 schoolchildren from 36 schools in Delhi, it was found that over half the children had irreversible lung damage: in addition “about 15% complained of frequent eye irritation, 27.4% of frequent headaches, 11.2% of nausea, 7.2% of palpitation and 12.9% of fatigue.” And consistent with research in Poland, it was revealed that the children’s mental health was also impacted, with large numbers suffering attention deficit and stress.

All around the world people are suffering from the impact of toxic air: in Mumbai, simply breathing on the chaotic streets is equivalent to smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day; deaths increase six-fold on heavily polluted hot days in Athens, and mega-Mexico City – one of the world’s most polluted cities – has recently been branded a ‘hardship post’ for diplomats due to unhealthy air. In Nairobi, Kenya, pollution levels are between five and 10 times WHO recommended levels – worst in the slums, home to up to three million people.

London is one of the more polluted cities in Europe, cleaner than Paris and Milan, but dirtier than Berlin and Oslo. Almost 10,000 people die each year in the city from long-term exposure to air pollution, which is now considered Britain’s most lethal environmental risk killing around 40,000 people a year.

And in America, according to a study by the American Lung Association, over 50% of the population is exposed to air pollution toxic enough to cause health problems, with Los Angeles topping the list of places to avoid.

No matter where air pollution occurs, it’s children who are the most vulnerable. This, UNICEF relates, “is because they breathe more rapidly than adults and the cell layer in their lungs is more permeable to pollutant particles.” Research by the children’s agency found that three hundred million children live in areas of South and East Asia where toxic fumes are more than six times international guidelines; another 520 million children living in Sub-Saharan Africa are exposed to air pollution levels above the WHO limit. These toxic fumes cause “enduring damage to health and the development of children’s brain”, and contributed to “600,000 child deaths a year” – more than are caused by malaria and HIV/Aids combined.

Air pollution not only results in long-term health issues, it impedes a child’s cognitive development, affecting concentration and academic progress. The Warsaw paper states that “children who live in neighbourhoods with serious air pollution problems…have lower IQ and score worse in memory tests than children from cleaner environments…The effects were roughly equivalent to those seen in children whose mothers smoked ten cigarettes per day while pregnant.”

Air pollution and deforestation

Some air pollution is the result of natural phenomena: dust storms and wildfires, animal digestion and volcanic eruptions.

However, burning fossil fuels (power plant, refinery, factory and motor vehicle emissions) are the primary culprits.

Deforestation is another cause. The great rainforests of the Earth are its lungs; they cover a mere 6% of the land, but produce around 40% of the world’s Oxygen; they also capture carbon. As the number of trees is reduced so oxygen production and carbon sequestration is diminished.

Whilst it’s true that deforestation has decreased somewhat over the last fifteen years or so, in some countries it is still occurring at an alarming rate. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate that 18 million acres (7.3 million hectares) of forest are lost each year (roughly equivalent to 20 football fields every minute), around 13 million acres (approximately the size of Greece) being tropical rainforest. Half the world’s rainforests have already been wiped out and if the current level of destruction continues, in 100 years, FAO predicts, there will be none left. Brazil, Thailand, the Congo, parts of Eastern Europe and Indonesia are where forests are being cleared most intensely, particularly Indonesia.

The major reason forests are being destroyed is to make more land available for agriculture, which is an effect of overpopulation. Clearing land to make way for housing and urbanization. (another demand of population growth), is a factor, as is Illegal deforestation – with trees being cut down and used for fuel.

Paper production is another major reason; paper that is overwhelmingly used in developed countries. Up to half the world’s timber and 70% of paper is consumed by Europe, Japan and the US. The US alone, with only 5% of the world’s population, uses 30% of all paper, relates Rainforest Action Network; a large amount of which (estimated 40lbs/19 kilos per adult per year) is junk mail, almost half of which is binned unopened.

Reduce Reuse Recycle

If we are to stop the deaths and damaging health effects resulting from breathing contaminated air, it is abundantly clear that we need to replace fossil fuels with cleaner, renewable energy sources and simplify the way we live.

In addition there are a variety of things that can be done to reduce pollutants: we need to stop the destruction of forests worldwide; install filters in every chimneystack; replace petrol and diesel powered public transport and incentivize private ownership of electric and hydrogen vehicles; create more vehicle sharing schemes – car clubs and carpools; improve public transportation and greatly reduce fares; encourage cycling.

Some steps need to be taken by governments, but a great deal can be achieved by individuals accepting greater social/environmental responsibility: a move towards simpler modes of living, in which our lives are not driven by the insatiable urge for material goods, is essential. Incorporating the three R’s into one’s life – reduce reuse recycle – would contribute greatly.

Like many of our problems sharing has a role to play in solving the problem of air pollution: sharing the resources and wealth of the world equitably to reduce poverty and inequality, as well as sharing skills, knowledge, and technologies. And information sharing: making information about air pollution, the levels, risks, causes etc., publicly available, would further raise awareness of an invisible issue. This is particularly needed in developing countries, where many of those affected have little or no information on the dire health risks. Government agencies everywhere collect data on air pollution, some publish it, many don’t all should.

“The magnitude of the danger air pollution poses is enormous,” states Anthony Lake, UNICEF’s executive director. “No society can afford to ignore air pollution”. It is a deadly issue, which is causing untold suffering to millions of people. The responsibility for the wellbeing of the planet and of one another rests with all of us. Now is the time to act and Save our Planet.