Digital Lab Africa 2019 for Creative African Artists and Startups (€3,000 Cash Prize and Mentorship)

Application Deadline: 13th January 2019

Eligible Countries: Sub-Saharan African countries

To be taken at (country): France

About the Award: Digital Lab Africa call for projects is open to anyone, professional or not, from the sector of multimedia content creation: artists, producers, developers,, start-ups, SMEs, collectives, students or entrepreneurs, based in sub-Saharan Africa. The applicants have to be based in this region or being nationals of one of the Sub-Saharan African countries, provided the project development is mostly implemented locally. The objective of Digital Lab Africa is to provide a springboard for African talent in multimedia creation and to make their project happen with the support of French leading companies (studios, producers, broadcasters, distributors) such as ARTE (web creation), Okio-Studio (virtual reality),CCCP (video game), and 1D Touch/Believe Digital (digital music).

Eligible Fields: Digital Lab Africa is looking for projects at initial stage of development, in need of partners and financial support and innovative in terms of narration, content or technologies.

• Web Creation: This category is dedicated to all linear and non-linear format which offer an innovative storytelling and/or an immersive/interactive experience for the audience.
  This category includes all content,  irrespective of the genre – fiction, documentary, series, TV format, magazine, entertainment, news… – produced to be viewed mainly online (first digital content). Projects which combine several media (transmedia) or offer a cross media strategy and which aim to attract an audience, engage with it and retain it will be considered first.
  Examples: an interactive web documentary, a web series including a chat or a video game, a news show in 360°, a thematic web channel etc.
• Virtual Reality: The virtual reality category is open to any content which offers an immersive experience to the public, on any type of support (computer, tablet, smartphone and virtual reality headset), using virtual reality technologies, augmented reality, mixed reality, 360° video, and 3D interactions.
  Examples: journalism report, fiction or documentary movie, musical clip, museum visit, video game…
• Video Game: the video game category is open to all prototypes/concepts of video game for mobile application or full screen.
  Examples: action, strategy game, a game which aim to inform, train or educate.
• Digital Music: the digital music category is open to all projects which offer an innovative and enriching user experience using multimedia tools, solutions and content, based on one or several African artists, musical genres or African territories.
  Example: creating an app offering a multimedia world and an interactive community around an artist.
• Animation:  the Animation category is open to all projects/content which mainly use animation technics (2D, 3D, paper, film, sand, modeling clay, painting, figurine etc).Examples: an animated short film, an animated web-series, an animated comic, an animated application, etc.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: 

• DLA call for projects targets artists, producers, designers, start-ups, students in the media and creative industries. The call is open to any professional or individual from Sub-Saharan Africa having an innovative project in 5 categories of multimedia production: WEB CREATION, VIRTUAL REALITY, VIDEO GAME, ANIMATION and DIGITAL MUSIC.
  
• All submitted projects should be set down in French or English. They should target an international audience. It is about developing projects, researching partners and financial support. The projects should be innovative in form, narration, content or technologies employed.

Selection Criteria: The projects will then be evaluated by the DLA selection committee based on criteria of artistic/technical quality, technological/creative innovation and feasibility/economic potential.

Value of Programme: 

• The platform will allow creative multimedia projects to come to light with the support of French and Sub-Saharan African partners like Lagardère Studios, ARTE or Triggerfish Animation.
• Selected applicants will take part in a Pitch Competition. The winning projects win a 3,000 € cash prize and a Digital Lab Africa Incubation Pass to support the project development.
• The DLA project incubation includes mentorship and project development support by French and Sub-Saharan African partners for each category. Additionally, the Incubation Pass comprises residence time in France within digital cluster and participation in benchmark multimedia events. The expected outcome of Digital Lab Africa is market ready content/productions showcasing African creativity.

How to Apply: 
Download the call for projects presentation and rulesComplete the online form
Email the following application files (in French or in English) to applications@digilabafrica.com before January 13th, 2019

• Pitch deck / Presentation document (PDF, PowerPoint or Word) including:
  – project’s overview, concept, statement of intent…
  – development and production schedule, provisional budget, target audience and strategy
• Visual element and/or research document
  – Storyboard / mood board / graphics / portfolio / screenplay (for web creation, animation or VR projects
  – Game design document (for video game projects)
  – Any preview, pilot or video demo of the project (if available, for all types of projects)
• A cover letter explaining why you want to be part of the DLA Mentorship & Incubation program (1-page maximum)
• A resume/curriculum vitae of the applicant and/or description of the company represented
• A picture (.jpeg) of the applicant

Applicants can submit several projects (one form per project)

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Women as Repositories of Communal Values and Cultural Traditions

Nyla Ali Khan

Why is gender violence such a consistent feature of the insurgency and counterinsurgency that have wrenched apart the Indian subcontinent for decades? The equation of the native woman to the motherland in nationalist rhetoric has, in recent times, become more forceful. In effect, the native woman is constructed as a trough within which male aspirations are nurtured, and the most barbaric acts are justified as means to restore the lost dignity of women.

The story of the partition of India in 1947 into two separate nation-states, India and Pakistan, is replete with instances of women resorting to mass suicide to preserve the “honor” of the community. If a woman’s body belongs not to herself but to her community, then the violation of that body purportedly signifies an attack upon the honour (izzat) of the whole community.

In one instance, the crime of a boy from a lower social caste against a woman from a higher upper caste in Meerawala village in the central province of Punjab, Pakistan, in 2002, was punished in a revealing way by the “sagacious” tribal jury. After days of thoughtful consideration, the jury gave the verdict that the culprit’s teenage sister, Mai, should be gang-raped by goons from the wronged social group. The tribal jury ruled that to save the honor of the upper-caste Mastoi clan, Mai’s brother, Shakoor, should marry the woman with whom he was accused of having an illicit relationship, while Mai was to be given away in marriage to a Mastoi man. The prosecution said that when she rejected the decision she was gang-raped by four Mastoi men and made to walk home semi-naked in front of hundreds of people. The lawyer for one of the accused argued the rape charge was invalid because Mai was technically married to the defendant at the time of the incident (“Pakistan Court Expected to Rule on Gang-Rape Case,” Khaleej Times, 27 August 2002).

Such acts of violence that occur on the Indian subcontinent bear testimony to the intersecting notions of nation, family and community. The horrific stories of women, in most instances attributed to folklore, underscore the complicity of official and nationalist historiography in perpetuating these notions. I might add that the feminization of the “homeland” as the “motherland,” for which Indian soldiers, Kashmiri nationalists in Indian-administered Kashmir and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir are willing to lay down their lives, serves in effect to preserve the native woman in pristine retardation.

In order to highlight the groundbreaking work accomplished by local agencies, cadres and social networks in Kashmir, the distinction between traditional customs and practices that limit the role of women and progressive roles prescribed for women within Islamic norms needs to be underscored by responsible scholarship and social work. The western preoccupation with empirical observation has led to an inaccurate conflation of Islamic norms with practices.

Despite the political mobilization of Kashmiri women during the upheaval in 1931 and the politically volcanic Quit Kashmir movement of 1946, they have now reverted from the public sphere to the private realm. The onslaught of despotism in 1931 unleashed by Maharaja Hari Singh awakened Kashmiri women from their slumber and induced them to rattle the confining bars of the monarchical cage. Remarkably, the illiterate women of Srinagar, Kashmir, were initiated into political activism and it was they who heralded the political participation of educated women. The Quit Kashmir movement of 1946–47 saw the evolution of women into well-informed and articulate protestors, assuming leadership roles in the quest for a Kashmiri identity: “When male leadership was put behind bars or driven underground, women leaders took charge and gave a new direction to the struggle” (Misri 2002: 19). But this consciousness of the women, which could have produced women cadres, was diluted by the reversion to normative gender roles. Attempts to drown the voices of progressive women into oblivion became more frequent with the onset of militancy in 1989–90. Can women step out of their ascribed gender roles, once again, to significantly impact socio-political developments in J & K?

It is important to imagine confidence-building measures that emphasize the decisive role that women can play in raising consciousness, not just at the individual but at the collective level as well.

Is Dubai Really a Destination of Choice?

Faisal Khan

Attracted by the sun, sea, glamour and glitz many British people visit or choose to live and work in Dubai. With over 700 luxury hotels, some neck-creakingly tall buildings, tax-free salaries, futuristic design, high-end malls the appeal is obvious. At any given time, approximately a 100,000 British people live and work in Dubai and the UAE, and on average anywhere between half a million and one million British tourists visit annually.

However, the glamour and seductive appeal of Dubai (and the Emirates generally) disguises a dark side: it’s legal system and laws. An increasing number of British people are often unsuspectingly falling foul of these laws with at times devastating consequences. The UAE’s legal system is founded upon civil law principles (mostly influenced by Egyptian law) and Islamic Sharia law, the latter constituting the guiding principle and source of legislation. The laws are, however, often vague, confusing and arbitrarily applied.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Offices (FCO) British behaviour abroad report (2014) found a 30 per cent rise in the number of Britons arrested in the UAE between 2012 and 2014 and this despite a drop of more than a third in the number of British tourists to the UAE in the same period. The report found that the UAE was the fourth most likely country in which UK citizens would require consular assistance. The mere accusation of wrongdoing can have serious consequences; as Scottish electrician Jamie Harron discovered. He was sentenced to 3 months in jail for public indecency after he accidentally touched a man in a bar.

Afsana Lachaux, a former British civil servant, had her son taken from her while living in the UAE. Having moved there for a new life, events soon took a nasty turn. Her husband became abusive, and she felt that she had no choice but to flee with her son. However, instead of supporting her she found that the authorities and the legal system favoured her husband. The women’s shelter that she fled to told her husband where she was, and the courts dismissed her protestations and witnesses.

I connected with Afsana via twitter she tells me she ‘left the UAE in 2014 and is in the midst of legal proceedings here and in France to try and get the Dubai sharia divorce overturned and have some rights to see and speak to Louis. So far the U.K. has refused me jurisdiction.’ For her ‘the most despicable thing is that UK courts endorse the UAE legal system.’ I can’t imagine anything much worse for a mother to experience than to have her child taken from her.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) have highlighted issue’s facing women if they are embroiled in a legal dispute with their husband. HRW note that UAE Law is applied in a way which discriminates against women. It’s permissible, for example, for a husband to physically chastise his wife and a woman can’t work without the husbands permission. The NGO Detained in Dubai which helps Western expats with legal problems in the UAE warns that it is risky for women to report crimes such as rape to the police ‘The victim can be jailed themselves or subject to retaliatory accusations that can lead to lengthy detentions or legal proceedings.  One thing that rings true is that the system and its applications are volatile.’

Shezanne Cassim, found himself in a maximum-security prison in the middle of the desert for nine months after the authorities accused him of threatening national security because he created a sketch comedy parodying teenagers in Dubai and posted it on YouTube. Marc Owen Jones, Gulf expert formerly at Exeter University tells me:

‘In cases of national security, there is far more scope for a lack of transparency and accountability, which can increase the likelihood of politicised charges based on International relations, personal vendettas, paranoia and other motivations.’

Alas, in recent months Durham University PhD student Matthew Hedges who was carrying out research on UAE security policies was arrested on spying charges after one of his interviewees apparently reported him to the authorities. He had been held in solitary confinement since he was detained in May.

Recently released he remains in the UAE (his passport likely confiscated) pending legal proceedings. Some say that often in cases where expats are arbitrarily detained there is little support from the British consulate where the standard response is ‘we cannot interfere in the legal processes or prison systems of other countries’. In the case of Matt Hedges, however, Jeremy Hunt is now involved.

Commenting on the Matthew Hedges case, Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch opines:

“The UAE invests considerable time and money painting itself as a progressive and tolerant country, but Hedges case shows the face of an autocratic government with a fundamental lack of respect for the rule of law…UAE rulers cannot claim to preside over a global knowledge and education hub while locking up academics for months in solitary confinement.”

For most of us visiting Dubai and the UAE we may have a wonderful and trouble-free time. However, it’s worth remembering that behind some fairy-tales lurks a nightmare.

Canada and Saudi Arabia: Friends or Enemies?

Yves Engler

One has to admire the Canadian government’s manipulation of the media regarding its relationship with Saudi Arabia. Despite being partners with the Kingdom’s international crimes, the Liberals have managed to convince some gullible folks they are challenging Riyadh’s rights abuses.

By downplaying Ottawa’s support for violence in Yemen while amplifying Saudi reaction to an innocuous tweet the dominant media has wildly distorted the Trudeau government’s relationship to the monarchy.

In a story headlined “Trudeau says Canada has heard Turkish tape of Khashoggi murder”, Guardian diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour affirmed that “Canada has taken a tough line on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record for months.” Hogwash. Justin Trudeau’s government has okayed massive arms sales to the monarchy and largely ignored the Saudi’s devastating war in Yemen, which has left up to 80,000 dead, millions hungry and sparked a terrible cholera epidemic.

While Ottawa recently called for a ceasefire, the Liberals only direct condemnation  of the Saudi bombing in Yemenwas an October 2016 statement. It noted, “the Saudi-led coalition must move forward now on its commitment to investigate this incident” after two airstrikes killed over 150  and wounded 500 during a funeral in Sana’a.

By contrast when the first person was killed from a rocket launched into the Saudi capital seven months ago, Chrystia Freeland stated, “Canada strongly condemns the ballistic missile attacks launched by Houthi rebels on Sunday, against four towns and cities in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh’s international airport. The deliberate targeting of civilians is unacceptable.” In her release Canada’s foreign minister also accepted the monarchy’s justification for waging war. “There is a real risk of escalation if these kinds of attacks by Houthi rebels continue and if Iran keeps supplying weapons to the Houthis”, Freeland added.

Ottawa has also aligned itself with Riyadh’s war aims on other occasions. With the $15 billion LAV sale to the monarchy under a court challenge in late 2016, federal government lawyers described Saudi Arabia as “a key military ally who backs efforts of the international community to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and the instability in Yemen. The acquisition of these next-generation vehicles will help in those efforts, which are compatible with Canadian defence interests.” The Canadian Embassy’s website currently claims “the Saudi government plays an important role in promoting regional peace and stability.”

In recent years the Saudis have been the second biggest recipients of Canadian weaponry, which are frequently used in Yemen. As Anthony Fenton has documented in painstaking detail, hundreds of armoured vehicles made by Canadian company Streit Group in the UAE have been videoed in Yemen.Equipment from three other Canadian armoured vehicle makers – Terradyne, IAG Guardian and General Dynamics Land Systems Canada– was found with Saudi-backed forcesin Yemen. Between May and July Canada exported $758.6 million worth of “tanks and other armored fighting vehicles” to the Saudis.

The Saudi coalition used Canadian-made rifles as well.“Canada helped fuel the war in Yemen by exporting more rifles to Saudi Arabia than it did to the U.S. ($7.15 million vs. $4.98 million)”, tweeted Fenton regarding export figures from July and August.

Some Saudi pilots that bombed Yemen were likely trained in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In recent years Saudi pilots have trained  with NATO’s Flying Training in Canada, which is run by the Canadian Forces and CAE. The Montreal-based flight simulator company also trained Royal Saudi Air Force pilots in the Middle East.

Training and arming the monarchy’s military while refusing to condemn its brutal war in Yemen shouldn’t be called a “tough line on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.” Rather, Canada’s role should be understood for what it is: War profiteer and enabler of massive human rights abuses.

Fiji First Party retains power in sham election

John Braddock 

In the second election since the 2006 coup, the Fiji First Party (FFP) of former coup leader Frank Bainimarama retained office with a 51.8 percent majority after last Wednesday’s poll. The FFP has been in power since the 2014 election following eight years of military rule.

Results at the end of provisional vote counting showed the FFP’s votes had dropped from 59 percent at the previous election. The Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA) was on 37.9 percent, up from 28 percent, followed by the National Federation Party with 7.5 percent.

The turnout, based on over 600,000 registered voters, ranged from 53 to 61 percent across Fiji’s four divisions. Heavy rain and flooding forced the closure of 26 polling stations, affecting 7,800 people. Nevertheless, the turnout was well below the 84.6 percent who voted in 2014, indicating widespread disenchantment. A Fiji Times poll published in late October showed one in five voters were still undecided.

Following the 2014 election, the US and its local allies, Australia and New Zealand, rushed to legitimise the result as “democratic.” These powers, however, have supported coups in Fiji as long as the resulting regime lines up with their imperialist interests. Since 2014, they have sought to re-forge ties with Bainimarama in order to undercut China’s influence in the geo-strategically significant South Pacific state.

The 2018 election was a contest between two parties run by former coup leaders and military strong men. SODELPA, which benefited from the swing against the FFP, represents the interests of a nationalist layer of the privileged chiefly Fijian elite. It has been led since 2016 by Sitiveni Rabuka, the instigator of two military coups in 1987, the prime minister following the 1992 election and also the former chairman of the unelected Great Council of Chiefs.

The Labour Party, which has historically had a base of support in the Indo-Fijian community, received the second lowest number of votes at 0.66 percent. For the second time it failed to meet the 5 percent threshold to get into parliament. Labour had previously been elected to office in 1987 and 1999. On both occasions, the resulting government was rapidly overthrown by a coup.

The Fiji government rests directly on the military. Successive regimes have all been thoroughly authoritarian and anti-working class. The imposition of inequality and social misery—28 percent of the population lives below the poverty line—has been accompanied by harsh austerity measures, along with intimidation of opposition parties, repressive laws and rampant violence by the police and military.

Fears of another coup have not subsided. Wellington university lecturer Jon Fraenkel told Radio New Zealand on November 5 that any possibility of an opposition party succeeding would quickly “destabilise things.” Labour Party leader Aman Ravindra-Singh said the majority of the population “remains very scared.” Most people were not prepared to engage in discussion, he said, but were constantly “looking behind their backs” and “speaking in whispers.”

Two thousand police were deployed and the military placed on stand-by for polling day. Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho claimed, without substantiation, that rumours were circulating about “rogue groups” seeking to disrupt the polls. He warned that any attempts to do so would not be “taken lightly.” Several people were reportedly detained for “questioning.”

Six parties with a total of 233 candidates were vying for 51 seats. In an attempt to eliminate the largely ethnically-based voting that prevailed prior to the coup, in which ethnic Fijians often vied with Indo-Fijians, there are no longer constituency seats. Parties compete in a single national constituency.

The elections were conducted under stringent legal and political constraints. It is virtually impossible for independent candidates to stand. Registered parties produce lists, in which candidates are identified by numbers. Names and party identification are not allowed on ballot papers. A 48-hour media blackout applies prior to the polls closing, with all signage and campaign activities banned.

A multinational observer group reported there were only “minor glitches” in the electoral process. However, discrepancies were claimed in the electoral roll, with some 50,000 more voters than the latest census data. Opposition parties alleged widespread vote-buying in the guise of government grants.

Campaigning was characterised by the total suppression by all the parties of the social crisis. The FFP and SODELPA campaigned on their purported competing economic records. Bainimarama trumpeted nine years of “straight growth,” absurdly declaring that Fijians “now have more opportunities, more jobs, more income and more luxuries of life” under the FFP. Rabuka claimed even more impressive growth figures during SODELPA’s term in office.

Fiji’s economic outlook has in fact weakened, partly as a result of the damage and lost production from Cyclone Winston, which hit in February 2016, leaving tens of thousands homeless and causing losses equivalent to over 30 percent of GDP.

According to the Asia Development Bank, Fiji, which has a population of just over 914,000, is the third most impoverished country in the Pacific, behind Timor-Leste and Micronesia, with the fourth highest unemployment rate at 6.2 percent. Health indicators are appalling. Of every 1,000 babies born, 22 die before they turn five. Fiji has the highest rate of deaths from diabetes in the world. One in three adults has diabetes and three diabetes-related limb amputations are performed in hospitals every day.

Bainimarama contends that inequality has been reduced. While reliable figures are hard to find, the IMF reported in 2016 that in 2013–14 the poorest 10th of households received 3.2 percent of total income, whereas the proportion going to the richest 10th was 31 percent.

Bainimarama has imposed a raft of repressive measures to suppress any nascent opposition. These include anti-democratic restrictions on the media and bans on foreign journalists. Almost no criticism of the government is published or broadcast under the draconian 2010 Media Industry Development Decree. Violations are punishable by up to two years in prison. The editor, publisher and manager of the Fiji Times faced trumped-up sedition charges earlier this year after publishing an anti-Muslim letter in the Fijian language paper Nai Lalakai.

According to an Amnesty International report last December, Fiji’s police, corrections and military officers regularly torture people in custody. The report detailed repeated violations of international law by the security forces, including beatings, rape, sexual violence and even murder.

In September 2017, six leading opposition figures were arrested for criticising the country’s 2013 constitution at a political forum. The Public Order Amendment Decree, under which they were detained, was issued in 2012 by the military dictatorship. Government permits are required for any political meeting, and opposition meetings can be deemed threats to “public order.”

Resistance within the working class, however, is growing. In January, thousands of Fijians turned out to demonstrate their support for 200 airport workers locked-out for a month in an industrial dispute. Over 8,000 people rallied in Nadi in the biggest recent protest witnessed in Fiji.

There has been little international media commentary on this week’s election, and thus far no official response from Canberra or Wellington. The local powers, however, will be paying close attention to the result. Considerable diplomatic, financial and commercial efforts will be made to maintain a close engagement with Bainimarama in order to push back against Beijing.

French “Yellow Vest” protesters prepare road blockades against fuel tax hike

Anthony Torres

The “Yellow Vest” movement against high fuel prices, which is developing outside the trade union bureaucracy, is provoking growing fears in media and government circles of an uncontrollable explosion of social anger.

The movement emerged from social media on October 10, when two truck drivers from the Paris area proposed an event called “National blockade against fuel price increase.” It rapidly spread across social media, and now some 200,000 people say they will attend protests scheduled for tomorrow.

The “Yellow Vest” movement is heterogeneous, made up of small businessmen and truck owner-operators as well as workers hostile to French President Emmanuel Macron’s fuel tax increases. The Macron government has claimed that the tax increase would fund ecological progress, but it is leading to price hikes for consumers and businesses at the pump.

According to the French Union of Petroleum Industries, a liter of petrol was around €1.54 (US$1.73) at the end of October and a liter of diesel at €1.51 (US$1.69), up 14 and 22 percent respectively in one year. At the new year, a new tax increase of 6.5 cents per liter for diesel and 2.9 cents for petrol is planned. This is a consequence also of imperialist war policy in the Middle East and notably the embargo on Iran, which has not been offset by stepped-up oil production by US allies like Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the two truck drivers’ proposed events, others are also calling for blockades of roads or highways tomorrow. In total, 500 gatherings are being prepared across France. There have already been trial runs, notably in the Jura region a week ago, called by a group set up on social media. Around 500 vehicles of private individuals, professional drivers or farmers came together in Dole.

This is part of an international wave of protests against fuel price hikes. Recently, thousands of Bulgarians blocked the country’s main roads and highways to protest fuel price hikes, increases on punitive taxes for older or more polluting cars, and rising car insurance premiums.

The Macron government is terrified of any movement that is not organized by the union bureaucracies, which in France are financed and controlled by the state and business federations. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner demanded that “there be no total blockages” and threatened protesters with police crackdowns. “Anywhere there is a blockade and thus a risk to the operations of the security forces and free movement, we will intervene.”

Castaner added, “What is difficult is that there is no trade union that is used to setting up protests that is organizing this. For example, for a protest, you have to tell the police prefecture about it. But now, very few people are declaring them. I call on those who are listening to declare where they will be demonstrating.”

On Wednesday, the government tried to calm rising popular anger with a series of pronouncements. To help drivers to change cars and obtain more ecologically friendly vehicles, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced programs to facilitate the buying of used vehicles, as well as an increase in fuel subsidies.

From the Navy aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, Macron made a few hypocritical statements bemoaning his own unpopularity. “There is impatience and there is anger. I share this anger, because if there is one thing that I have not succeeded in doing, it is reconciling the French people with its rulers. One sees this divorce in each and every Western democracy. This worries me.”

Rising anger among drivers against fuel tax increases is one expression of the far broader opposition against Macron’s regressive policies. He aims to put the costs of the tax cuts he is handing to the super-rich, as well as plans to spend hundreds of billions of euros on a military buildup, squarely on the backs of working people. Macron’s declaration that he would have liked to commemorate French fascist dictator Philippe Pétain on November 11 only underscores his violent hostility to the working class.

The money needed for the functioning of society must be found—not in the wallets of people filling up their petrol tank, but in the grotesque fortunes of the financial aristocracy.

Since the beginning of 2018, France’s 13 richest billionaires added €23.67 billion to their fortunes, making France the country where the billionaires are increasing their wealth the fastest in the world. Bernard Arnault, Europe’s richest man, has a fortune estimated at €65.5 billion, and François Pinault has €30.43 billion. According to economist Thomas Piketty’s 2010 report, the top 10 percent in France hold 62 percent of the country’s wealth.

Developing a struggle against Macron and the financial aristocracy requires opposing the political forces, primarily on the right, that are trying to intervene in the Yellow Vests protest, as well as the cowardly and reactionary policy of the union bureaucracies, which oppose the movement.

Laurent Wauquiez, the head of the right-wing The Republicans party, and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan of the far-right Arise France (DLF) party have said they will try to join the protest.

Neo-fascist leader Marine Le Pen told Le Parisien, “We were the first party to express our total support for this movement, which is apolitical, of course, but which appeals to many of our voters.” She added, however, that she would not participate in the blockades. “The role of a political leader, unless it is in exceptional circumstances, is not to be in the street, but precisely to offer choices on how to solve the French people’s problems through the ballot box.”

The trade unions and allied political parties have barely hidden their hostility to the Yellow Vests. Officials from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France (LFI) said their organization would support the movement, but that LFI’s “ecosocialist” wing opposes reducing fuel taxes—supposedly to protect the environment.

As for the unions, which strangled strikes against Macron’s privatization of the National Railways, they are denouncing the Yellow Vests and demanding the workers submit to their diktat. One leaflet on the Yellow Vests distributed by the Stalinist General Confederation of Labor (CGT) denounces them as a “manipulation of the anger of citizens and workers by the far right and road transport interests.” The CGT proposed instead to organize “inter-industry struggles that cannot be organized by anyone but our union,” that is to say, that the Stalinists would doom to defeat.

For now, it appears that the Yellow Vests protest will have significant support. For those looking for a way to fight the Macron government, the critical question is the turn to the working class, and the organization of struggles of the working class independent of the trade unions. As in the October 1917 Russian Revolution and the French general strikes of 1936 and 1968, the working class is the only force that can settle accounts with the power of the financial aristocracy.

The way forward is a political and international struggle against imperialist embargos and wars, and Macron’s austerity policy. The development of such a struggle will inevitably raise the question of the independent organization of the working class and the transfer of state power to the working class in France and across Europe.

Facebook hires former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg

Joe Mount 

Facebook’s decision to appoint former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg as its vice-president of Global Affairs and Communications epitomises the integration of the social media giants and the capitalist state apparatus in every country.

After reportedly extensive discussions with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Clegg claimed to be impressed by the company’s recognition that it “is on a journey which brings new responsibilities not only to the users of Facebook’s apps but to society at large. I hope I will be able to play a role in helping to navigate that journey.”

These “responsibilities” involve a stepping up of internet censorship as part of the efforts of the ruling elite in every country to suppress working-class resistance to austerity, militarism and war.

Clegg led the Liberal Democrats party into coalition government with Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives between 2010 and 2015. He is mainly remembered for betraying his party’s pledges of opposition to tuition fees that were instead trebled under the coalition. This was part of a savage increase in austerity measures that created the conditions for last year’s Grenfell fire disaster, which cost the lives of 72 people. It was the Tory/Lib Dem coalition, with Clegg as deputy prime minister, that backed the 2011 war on Libya, which devastated that country, and it was under Clegg that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was forced to seek asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

The Liberal Democrats’ vote base collapsed as a result. In place of being a stooge of private capital in government office, Clegg is now hawking out his tattered liberal credentials to one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. In return for a reported £4 million per year, he joins a long line of ex-government figures to use their influence to get rich in the private sector. Former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair has made tens of millions through “consulting” with the likes of the murderous Saudi dictatorship, with whom he has a £9 million deal to advise on its “modernisation.”

Clegg joins Facebook at a time when it is censoring socialist, left-wing and oppositional web sites, including the closure of hundreds of such sites over the last several weeks. In addition to legitimising this clampdown, Clegg’s role will be to help ensure the tech giant avoids or minimises any encroachment on its commercial interests as the American corporation comes under pressure from Brussels, where Clegg enjoys considerable connections from his period as a Member of the European Parliament from 1999-2004.

Last year, the European Commission imposed a €110 million fine on Facebook for business malpractice regarding the firm’s takeover of WhatsApp. Rising trade tensions between the US and the European Union (EU) mean the political and financial stakes are now much larger.

The EU recently announced plans to step up internet censorship to tackle “disinformation” that may affect the outcome of next year’s European election campaign. Clegg will now have the opportunity to perform another U-turn, this time on the issue of tax avoidance, following his critical remarks against such practices by major firms. Facebook paid a miserly £7.4 million in corporation tax in the UK last year, despite quadrupling profits.

Clegg has positively endorsed the collaboration of tech companies with the state, arguing, “If the tech industry can work sensibly with governments, regulators, parliaments and civic society around the world, I believe we can enhance the benefits of technology while diminishing the often-unintended downsides.”

Though he is the most senior British politician to join the management of a major tech company, Clegg is not the first. Fellow Liberal Democrat Lord Allan of Hallam joined Facebook as Director of Policy in Europe in 2009. In the US, the notorious war criminals Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell were hired by Dropbox and Salesforce in 2014 and in 2003 former US vice president Al Gore joined the board of directors of Apple Inc.

Facebook faced major privacy concerns following the mass data leak involving Cambridge Analytica, a company linked to President Donald Trump, which harvested the data of millions of Facebook users. Cambridge Analytica originated in British deep-state “psychological operations,” earning millions of pounds via government contracts and developing greater involvement in propaganda exercises targeting populations around the world.

The issue was elevated to prominence by liberal media outlets such as the Guardian and New York Times and, in March, Zuckerberg was pressured to testify before the US Congress. The British government fined Facebook £500,000 (US$560,415), the maximum penalty, following the scandal. Notwithstanding official criticisms, such abuses have been used to ensure compliance with demands for increased state surveillance. Bogus claims that “fake news” spread via social media is facilitating “Russian meddling” in elections in the West has become an axiom of official debate, adopted by conservative and liberal factions of the bourgeoisie alike to demand the censorship of free speech.

Clegg’s appointment was endorsed by Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson, who claimed fatuously, “I look forward to meeting Nick Clegg in his new role, as we have serious concerns about Facebook’s lack of democratic accountability. He will know our concerns about data privacy, taxation and transparency. He will also be acutely aware that there are very serious questions about the role the company played during the EU referendum that the [Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport] select committee still requires answers to.”

Facebook has enthusiastically collaborated in government-coordinated political blacklisting. Zuckerberg announced his intention to submit to government pressure last year with stepped-up use of artificial intelligence and human staff to intervene in the activity on its platform. Citing “interference from nation states” and the “spread of news that is false, sensational and polarizing,” Facebook had the responsibility to “amplify the good and prevent harm,” he wrote.

The World Socialist Web Site drew attention to the scale and target of internet censorship in 2017 after it identified the systematic rigging of search results by Google in order to make left-wing and anti-war websites harder to find. Social media is becoming a major battlefield of the class struggle.

Facebook’s control of the world’s largest platform, along with other services such as WhatsApp and Instagram—that are more popular among youth—gives it a unique role in facilitating public debate. But it is just one of the monopolistic corporations that dominate internet news, search and social networking and which have a working division of labour with governments. While these companies initially adopted a politically neutral and “techno-utopian” stance, typified by Google’s motto “Don’t be evil,” they have become willing tools and partners of the most reactionary and militaristic forces, particularly in the US.

The tech giants are collaborating in efforts to criminalise political opposition and suppress free speech, functioning as the “trusted gatekeepers” for governments and ensuring the “correct” interpretation of world events—i.e., spreading real fake news. Under capitalism, the progressive international possibilities of communication technology are being used instead as a tool for state surveillance, dictatorship, private profit and war.

In January, the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site issued an open letter to socialist, anti-war, left-wing and progressive websites, organisations and activists calling for an international coalition to fight internet censorship.

Emphasising that the defence of democratic rights required the mobilisation of the international working class, it stressed, “It is critical to establish an understanding in the working class of the inseparable connection between the defense of their class interests, their living standards, working conditions, wages, etc., and the fight for democratic rights. Without access to alternative news and social media, workers in different countries will not be able to effectively coordinate their common struggles.

“Unfettered access to the Internet will facilitate the international unity of the working class in the global fight for socialism, democracy and equality. The World Socialist Web Site is convinced that the struggle against internet censorship, as a critical component of the defense of democratic rights, will be enthusiastically supported by the working class. This is their fight. It is not simply that the involvement of the working class is important in order to defend free speech. Rather, the fight to defend free speech is important for the working class.”

US imposes limited sanctions on Saudi officials over Kashoggi’s murder

Mike Head 

In yet another attempt to protect the Saudi Arabian monarchical dictatorship, the Trump administration levied sanctions on Thursday against 17 Saudi officials allegedly involved in the gruesome killing of journalist Jamal Kashoggi. The sanctions were unveiled just hours after the kingdom’s public prosecutor said he would seek the death penalty for five people who have been charged in the case.

Both the timing of the US Treasury’s sanctions announcement and the narrowly targeted character of the measures point to the White House seeking to shore up the latest Saudi version of the events, which explicitly denies that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder inside the country’s consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul on October 2.

In effect, the US government is backing a bid by the Saudi regime to single out a handful of officials as sacrificial lambs. Some may be executed in another brutal exercise to save the monarchy, which has been a crucial linchpin of US foreign and military policy for decades.

The US Treasury said the targets of the sanctions—including Prince Mohammed’s former adviser, Saud al-Qahtani, senior aide Maher Mutreb, and Riyadh’s counsel-general in Istanbul, Mohammed al-Otaibi—were blacklisted for gross human rights abuses.

The cynical nature of this claim to oppose human rights abuses was underscored by the fact that the list did not include the crown prince or another close aide, Major General Ahmed al-Assiri, the ex-deputy head of Saudi intelligence. The Trump administration has been desperately trying to shield Prince Mohammed from blame, and sponsor the theory that “rogue actors” carried out the plot without his knowledge.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the individuals “targeted and brutally killed a journalist who resided and worked in the United States,” and “must face consequences for their actions.” He also said the Saudi government “must take appropriate steps to end any targeting of political dissidents or journalists.”

In reality, the Saudi regime had made plain its intent to continue its ruthless suppression of any internal dissent by declaring the crown prince totally innocent. Adel al-Jubeir, the kingdom’s foreign minister, said a Saudi investigation had shown that “his Royal Highness the crown prince has nothing to do with this issue.” Instead, “this was a rogue operation,” by individuals who acted beyond their authority and “for their mistakes they will pay the price.”

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was a tactical critic of the Saudi government, reflecting divisions within the royal family itself. He was killed inside the consulate on October 2 by a specialised death squad dispatched by the Riyadh regime, which Prince Mohammed has ruled with an iron fist since he was anointed crown prince by his ailing father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, in June 2017.

Under Washington’s sanctions, any assets the 17 Saudi officials have within US jurisdictions are frozen, the individuals are blocked from entering the US, and US-based firms are prohibited from any transactions with them. These restrictions will have no impact on the massive US aid and arms sales to the regime, which is conducting a murderous war in Yemen as part of its long record as a key US ally throughout the region, including against Iran and Syria.

Conscious of the domestic and international outrage over the slaying of a well-known journalist by a key US ally, Trump’s administration claimed it was leaving the door open to further measures. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said a US investigation would continue and his department would “work with other nations” to hold accountable those involved in the killing.

Earlier this week, however, US National Security Advisor John Bolton effectively ruled out any finding that implicated the de facto Saudi ruler. Bolton declared there was nothing on Turkey’s audio tapes of the killing that incriminated the crown prince. That was despite the Turkish government hinting that it holds separate, as yet undisclosed, material that brings the assassination to the royal court’s doorstep.

Saudi Arabia’s death penalty announcement was full of contradictions. The prosecutor’s office did not release the names of 11 people it said it has charged in the case, and claimed that the five people who face the death penalty confessed to their crime.

This announcement came with a third version of events. Initially, Saudi authorities denied government employees played any role in Khashoggi’s disappearance, saying the journalist left the consulate shortly after he entered it. Then, on October 20, the Saudi government acknowledged Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate.

On Thursday, Riyadh said the operation was ordered by Assiri, the then-deputy intelligence chief, who tasked a team of 15 operatives with returning Khashoggi to the kingdom, either voluntarily or by force.

At the media briefing, the public prosecutor’s spokesman acknowledged a degree of premeditation, saying there was evidence the team leader prepared for a possible execution in the event negotiations with Khashoggi failed. The spokesman said team members included a forensics expert tasked with covering up evidence if force had to be used.

After Khashoggi entered the consulate, the team leader concluded the journalist could not be persuaded to return and had to be killed, the prosecutor’s office said. Khashoggi was injected with a fatal dose of a tranquiliser, his body was dismembered in the consulate and his remains were handed over to a local associate. By this implausible account, the team then submitted a false report to Assiri, saying Khashoggi left the consulate after negotiations failed.

Washington’s backing for this fraud faced immediate difficulties. On Thursday, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, disputed the Saudi narrative. “It was not a momentary decision to dismember this body, it was pre-planned,” Cavusoglu said. “Necessary equipment was brought beforehand. It was planned how he will be killed and dismembered.”

The Turkish government, whose strategic interests in Syria and across the Middle East have come into conflict with those of the Saudi regime and the US, has conducted a drip-feed of evidence that has placed the conspiracy at the feet of Prince Mohammed.

Turkey is yet to release full transcripts of its audio tapes. However, they have been shared with allied intelligence agencies and even played to a Saudi agent, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Some members of the US Congress also expressed disbelief in the Saudi story, concerned that the whitewash was too obvious. Representative Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said: “I don’t find the shifting Saudi explanations particularly believable. It has a ‘let’s round up the usual suspects’ kind of quality to it.”

This is window dressing. Successive governments in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike, have turned a blind eye to the Saudi regime’s crimes and repressive methods, which have included routinely beheading political opponents and non-violent offenders, putting 150 to the sword in 2017 alone.

Before Khashoggi’s disappearance, an estimated 30 Saudi journalists already had been imprisoned or disappeared, without any protest from the US or its allies, who sell billions of dollars in arms to the kingdom each year, profit off its oil wealth and rely upon it to enforce their geo-strategic interests in the Middle East.

Civilian death toll mounts as US escalates offensive in Syria

Bill Van Auken

Amid near total silence by the Western media, the US military has steadily escalated its bombing campaign in eastern Syria, killing scores of civilian men, women and children over the past week.

While the offensive is supposedly aimed at clearing out remaining pockets of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Deir Ezzor province near the border with Iraq, it is becoming increasingly clear that the US military campaign has wider strategic aims, directed at regime change in Syria and escalating Washington’s confrontation with Tehran.

In the latest incident, US airstrikes on Thursday targeted residential neighborhoods in the villages of al-Boubadran and al-Sousa, destroying homes and killing at least 23 people, the Syrian state news agency Sana reported.

The raid reportedly wiped out an entire family of 17 civilians, who had been forced to flee from the nearby town of al-Baghuz because of intense combat between ISIS fighters and the US proxy ground troops of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is comprised largely of the Syrian Kurdish YPG [People’s Protection Units] militia. The advances of the YPG in the region have been made possible by intense US bombing and close-air support.

The attack comes on the heels of earlier and even more devastating US strikes. On Tuesday, the Syrian government condemned an airstrike against the town of al-Sharifah that left over 60 civilians dead and injured. The Syrian government as well as residents of Deir Ezzor province have also charged that US warplanes are dropping cluster bombs as well as white phosphorous munitions—both banned by international treaties—on civilian neighborhoods, with devastating results.

Syria’s foreign ministry addressed two letters last Saturday to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the current president of the UN Security Council Ma Zhaoxu, condemning yet another earlier US airstrike against the village of Hajin near the Iraqi border that killed 26 civilians, including 14 children.

The letters denounced the US intervention that has been waged since 2014, with continuous bombings that have been carried out without any UN mandate or permission from the Syrian government. They charged that under the false pretense of fighting terrorism, the US was killing Syrian civilians, decimating the country’s infrastructure and violating the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity with the aim of perpetuating the CIA-orchestrated war and effecting regime change.

“All these attempts constitute a blatant violation of all United Nations Security Council resolutions on Syria,” the Syrian foreign ministry said.

“Whilst the United States and its allies continue to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Security Council has maintained an awkward silence and failed to take any measure to stop these misdeeds,” the statement continued.

Speaking to reporters Thursday after a regular meeting of the UN humanitarian agency, Jan Egeland, a special advisor to the UN on Syria, said that the problem of Syrian refugees had been compounded by the destruction of entire cities, which he compared to the decimation of Stalingrad and Dresden in World War II.

Among the worst hit of these cities was Raqqa, the so-called Syrian capital of ISIS, which US airstrikes and artillery bombardments largely reduced to rubble, while killing thousands of innocent civilians.

Russia’s foreign ministry—citing the letters sent by Damascus to the United Nations—reported on Thursday that over 8,000 bodies have been recovered from the ruins of Raqqa, which was besieged by the US military one year ago, between June and October of 2017.

“The bodies of over 4,000 people were found while clearing away the rubble in two of the city’s residential neighborhoods left over from the airstrikes and also around the stadium and the zoo,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the media. “Those were mainly women, the elderly and children. In addition, a mass grave where more than 2,500 people were buried was uncovered at a farm near a pediatric clinic and the National Hospital, while another burial site was opened near Al-Panorama where 1,500 of the bombing raids’ victims were buried.”

The letters to the UN indicated that just two percent of the rubble has been cleared away in Raqqa, where returning residents are living among the ruins and amid the continuing stench of human remains.

In a Wednesday press conference, the State Department’s special representative for “Syria engagement,” James Jeffrey, indicated the aims that American imperialism is pursuing by means of this unrelenting carnage.

Claiming that the military objective of the more than 2,000 US troops on Syrian soil is the defeat of ISIS, Jeffrey made clear that this campaign is seen as a virtually unending venture by the Pentagon and the White House, bound up with the goal of regime change in Damascus, as well as in Tehran.

Jeffrey insisted that “you cannot have an enduring defeat of ISIS until you have fundamental change in the Syrian regime and fundamental change in Iran’s role in Syria, which contributed greatly to the rise of ISIS in the first place in 2013, 2014.”

This is utter nonsense. The rise of ISIS was rooted in the US destruction of Iraqi society after its 2003 invasion and occupation of the country, followed by the CIA’s orchestration of a war for regime change in Syria by means of funneling vast quantities of arms, money and foreign fighters to Islamist militias, with ISIS proving to be the principal beneficiary.

With this attempt to effect regime change through the promotion of Al Qaeda-connected militias having failed, Washington is now pursuing the same aims by somewhat different methods.

Pressed by a reporter as to when US troops would be withdrawn from Syria, given Jeffrey’s prediction that ISIS would be defeated within the next few months, the US ambassador responded that the mission in Syria was to ensure the “enduring defeat” of ISIS, which he said required “building up local security forces” and “participating in a political process that gives the people of the northeast a future so that they aren’t going to be subject to temptations to go with ISIS as they did back in 2013-2014.”

In other words, Washington is preparing a permanent occupation of northeastern Syria, with the dual aims of controlling a region that contains the country’s oil and gas fields, vital for Syria’s reconstruction, and securing the border with Iraq.

The escalation of US military operations in Syria are bound up with the strategy being pursued by Washington throughout the Middle East to roll back Iranian influence and destroy the Iranian economy by means of sweeping unilateral economic sanctions that are tantamount to an act of war.

Within this broader context, the brutal US offensive being waged in northeastern Syria—at the cost of an increasing number of civilian lives—has the potential for igniting a far more devastating region-wide war.

German chancellor calls for a “real European army”

Johannes Stern 

To the applause of the vast majority of European parliamentary deputies, German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a call on Tuesday for the “creation of a real European army.” Merkel’s speech in Strasbourg underscores the reactionary traditions currently evoked by the ruling elites in Germany and Europe. The task of such an army would be to advance the economic and geostrategic interests of Germany and Europe across the world using military force.

“We are aware that as Europeans, we can better defend our interests when we act together,” Merkel explained. She continued, “Only a united Europe is strong enough to be heard on the global stage and defend its values and interests. The times when we could rely unconditionally on others are over. This means that we Europeans have to increasingly take our fate into our own hands if we want to survive as a community. This means in the long term that Europe must become more capable of acting abroad.”

Merkel tried to sell the creation of an army “capable of acting,” i.e., a Europe armed to the teeth, as an “opportunity” to achieve “lasting peace” after the “horrors” of two world wars. What a mockery! Her own words left no doubt that the European powers are militarily rearming to prepare for war and play an independent role in the struggle to reorganise the globe.

There is “less and less chance of enforcing interests on the global stage alone,” Merkel declared. She therefore proposed “that we set up a European Security Council with alternating, rotating memberships of the Member States, in which important decisions can be prepared quickly.” One needs a “European reaction force,” which “can also act locally.” There has been “great progress” in “permanent structural cooperation in the military field” but “due to developments in recent years” one must now “work very consciously on the vision of creating a real European army one day.”

A German-dominated European army is one of the stated goals of Germany’s grand coalition (Christian Democratic Union, CDU, Christian Social Union, CSU and Social Democratic Party, SPD) government. The coalition pact already agreed on taking further steps towards creating an “army of Europeans.”

Last weekend, SPD leader Andrea Nahles also pleaded for a European army at the “debating camp” of the SPD in Berlin. “We have to put an end to all this small-state politics. We now have to find a European answer.” There are 28 armies, 27 air forces and 23 navies in the European Union. What is necessary is a “European army,” she declared.

This demand is also supported by the Greens and sections of the Left Party. The EU must be able to “conduct world politics in a dramatically changed situation,” Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock told Der Spiegel in a recent interview. A common European security and defence policy is “a holistic project” and requires “first and foremost combining military capabilities in Europe and reducing duplicated structures.”

Already two years ago, immediately following the election of Donald Trump, leaders of the Left Party called for a “European army” to “put an end to the pussyfooting” with Washington.

In Strasbourg, Merkel claimed that a “European army” was not an “army against NATO” but “a good complement to NATO.” In fact, it is obvious that the call for an independent European force is a response to the growing conflicts between the major powers, which are reverting to open hostility and creating the danger of a third world war, exactly 100 years after the end of WWI.

When French President Emmanuel Macron raised his own demand for a “true European army” last week, he made absolutely clear that it would also be directed against the US.

US President Donald Trump immediately responded via Twitter, describing Macron’s proposal as “very insulting.” On Tuesday he said: “Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the US, China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two—How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the US came along. Pay for NATO or not!”

Merkel and Macron are currently striving to transform the EU into a military alliance that, unlike NATO, can operate independently of, and against the US. But historical grounded tensions and conflicts are also breaking out between Berlin and Paris. As tensions escalate with the US, differences are increasing between the European powers themselves.

Representing an ever more vocal anti-French wing in the German ruling class, the leader of the right-wing extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alexander Gauland, condemned Merkel’s participation in the ceremonies to mark the end of WWI. Gauland said on German television that “it was wrong to retrospectively rewrite history and participate in the victory celebrations of the former allied forces at a later date.” Germany had “lost the war,” he said, and “yes, the policies that led to WWI have many guilty parties.” Therefore, one could not march “beside Mr. Macron through the Arc de Triumph.”

The fact that Gauland can uncritically propagate his aggressive historical revisionism on a major German public news channel is indicative of the course being taken by the German ruling class. Earlier this year, Gauland provocatively referred to “Hitler and the Nazis” as a mere “speck of bird shit in over a thousand years of successful German history” and said that Germans had “the right to be proud of the achievements of German soldiers in two world wars.”

When the ruling class in Germany now dreams of a “European army” or an “army of Europeans,” it draws directly from the criminal traditions of German imperialism. The Nazi regime was quite prepared to use pro-European rhetoric to justify its plans for world domination. For example, it described its forces in the former Soviet Union, which suffered a crushing defeat in Stalingrad, as a “European army.” A memorandum from the German Foreign Office of September 9, 1943 on the establishment of a “European Confederation” resembles many of the passages in current speeches and strategy papers on European foreign and defence policy.

“The unification of Europe, which has been on the cards for a long time in history, is an inevitable development,” it reads. “Europe has become too small for feuding and mutually exclusive sovereignties. A divided Europe is also too weak to sustain itself in the world with its own character and strength and maintain peace.”

The section headed “Joint Defence Against External Attacks” states: “The basic principle must be that an attack on Europe will be opposed by a solidarity-based defence of the European peoples. The military forces of the European peoples are to be regarded as a single unit and aligned with one another.”

Today, as then, the implementation of such a strategy requires an aggressive nationalist, anti-working-class and ultimately fascist programme. That is why Macron declared it “legitimate” to honour World War II general, fascist dictator and Nazi collaborator Philippe Pétain when Macron made his own appeal for a “European army.” For the same reason, the ruling class in Germany is courting the far-right AfD and permits far-right terrorist networks to be active in the German army (Bundeswehr)—networks which in turn can rely on support from sections of the military, police and intelligence apparatus.

In his book Power in the Middle, published in 2015, the now emeritus Humboldt professor and foreign policy adviser to the German government, Herfried Münkler, demanded that Germany, as a “central power,” once again become the “hegemon” and “disciplinarian” of Europe. From the standpoint of German elites, the call for a European army serves exactly this purpose. It must be sharply opposed by the working class along with all other attempts to strengthen European nation states and their respective armies.