Saudi Arabia and the West’s right wing: A dubious alliance

James M. Dorsey

Traditionally focussed on ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Islam, Saudi funding in the era of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has been streamlined and finetuned to ensure that it serves his geopolitical ambitions, primarily stymying the expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East and North Africa and enhancing the kingdom’s global impact.

The effort, however, has so far produced a mixed bag. Spending is down but more targeted. Saudi Arabia has handed over control of the Grand Mosque in Brussels in a move designed to demonstrate its newly found moderation and reduce the reputational damage of a Saudi ultra-conservative management that had become contentious in Belgium.

Yet, monies still flowed to militant, ultra-conservative madrassas or religious seminaries that dot the Pakistani-Iranian border. The kingdom’s focus, moreover has shifted in selected countries to the promotion of a strand of Salafi ultra-conservatism that preaches absolute obedience to the ruler, a corollary to Prince Mohammed’s crackdown on critics and activists at home.

Saudi governmental non-governmental organizations that once distributed the kingdom’s largesse to advance ultra-conservatism as well as officials have adopted the language of tolerance and respect and principles of inter-faith but have little tangible change at home to back it up.

To be sure, Prince Mohammed has lifted the ban on women’s driving, enhanced women’s work and leisure opportunities and kickstarted the creation of a modern entertainment industry but none of these measures amount to his promise to foster an unidentified but truly moderate form of Islam.

The prince’s moves, moreover, have been accompanied by an embrace of the European right and far-right as well as Western ultra-conservative groups that by and large are hardly beacons of tolerance and mutual respect.

“Saudi Arabia with MBS as Crown Prince has not been advocating Islamic religious reform,” said Middle East scholar HA Hellyer, referring to the Saudi leader by his initials.

“The existing Saudi religious establishment has not been encouraged to engage in a genuine rethinking of its ideas that draws it closer to the normative Sunni mainstream, nor listen to existing Saudi religious scholars who advocate more normative and mainstream approaches. Rather, the establishment has been muzzled. MBS’s ‘reforms’ in this arena are about centralizing power—they are not about restoring the Saudi religious establishment to a normative Sunnism,” Mr. Hellyer added.

Prince Mohammed’s interest in non-Muslim ultra-conservative groups in the West fits a global pattern, highlighted by political scientists Yascha Mounk and Roberto Stefan Foa, in which technological advances and the increased importance of soft power that lie at the root of Russian intervention in elections in the United States and Europe, have informed the information and public relations policies of multiple autocratic states.

Technology and soft power are, according to Messrs. Mounk and Foa, are likely to spark greater efforts by authoritarians and autocrats in general to influence Western nations and undermine confidence in democracy.

“Indeed, China is already stepping up ideological pressure on its overseas residents and establishing influential Confucius Institutes in major centres of learning. And over the past two years, Saudi Arabia has dramatically upped its payments to registered U.S. lobbyists, increasing the number of registered foreign agents working on its behalf from 25 to 145… The rise of authoritarian soft power is already apparent across a variety of domains, including academia, popular culture, foreign investment, and development aid,” Messrs. Mounk and Foa said.

Saudi Arabia alongside other Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, as well as China, have furthermore been major donors to Western universities and think tanks and developed media outlets of their own such as Qatar’s Al Jazeera, Turkey’s TRT World China’s CCTV, and Russia’s RT that reach global audiences. They compete with the likes of the BBC and CNN.

The need for Saudi Arabia to acquire soft power was driven home by mounting Western criticism of its war in Yemen and condemnation of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on the premises of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The Saudi effort to do so by garnering conservative, right-wing and far-right support was evident in Northern Ireland.

Investigating a remarkable campaign by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a key support pillar of British prime minister Teresa May’s government, in favour of Britain’s exit from the European Union, Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole suggested that a senior member of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family and former head of the country’s intelligence service, Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, as well as its just replaced ambassador to Britain, had funded the anti-Brexit effort through a commercial tie-up with a relatively obscure Scottish conservative activist of modest means, Richard Cook.

The ambassador, Prince Nawaf’s son, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf al Saud, was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Britain until last month’s Saudi cabinet reshuffle.

“It may be entirely co-incidental that the man who channelled £425,622 to the DUP had such extremely high-level Saudi connections. We simply don’t know. We also don’t know whether the… Saudi ambassador had any knowledge of his father’s connection to Richard Cook,” Mr. O’Toole said.

Similarly, Saudi Arabia has invited dozens of British members of parliament on all-expenses paid visits to the kingdom and showered at least 50 members of the government, including Ms. May, with enormous hampers of food weighing up to 18 pounds.

One package destined for a member of the House of Lords included seaweed and garlic mayonnaise; smoked salmon, trout and mussels; and a kilogram of Stilton cheese. Others contained bottles of claret, white wine, champagne, and Talisker whisky despite the kingdom’s ban of alcohol.

In a move similar to Russian efforts to influence European politics, Saudi Arabia has also forged close ties to conservative and far-right groups in Europe that include the Danish People’s Party and the Sweden Democrats as well as other Islamophobes, according to member of the European parliament Eldar Mamedov.

Writing on LobeLog, Mr. Mamedov said the kingdom frequently worked through the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) bloc, the third largest grouping in the European parliament. Saudi Arabia also enjoyed the support of European parliament member Mario Borghezio of Italy’s Lega, who is a member of Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), a bloc of far-right parties in the parliament.

The kingdom’s strategy, in a twist of irony, although in pursuit of different goals, resembles to a degree that of one of its nemeses, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim non-governmental organization that has opposition to Saudi Arabia’s puritan strand of Islam carved into its DNA and has forged close ties to the European right and far-right in its bid to reform the faith.

The Saudi strategy could prove tricky, particularly in the United States, dependent on the evolution of US special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into foreign interference in the 2016 election that brought President Donald J. Trump to office.

Mr. Mueller reportedly is set in court filings to unveil efforts by Saudi Arabia, its reputation in the US tarnished by the Khashoggi killing, and the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom’s closest ally, to influence American politics.

Said Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney. “I guess what Mueller has to date has turned out to be pretty rich and detailed and more than we anticipated. This could turn out to be a rich part of the overall story.”

2018: Another challenging & tough year for American Muslims

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

The seven-million American Muslims remained at the receiving end since 9/11/2001 through reconfiguration of US laws, policies and priorities but their plight has taken a new twist under President Donald Trump whose anti-Muslim, anti-immigration policies and rhetoric alarmingly fomented hate crimes against them.

The xenophobic rhetoric and anti-Muslim fear-mongering enjoys unprecedented influence with Donald Trump’s most vitriolic anti-Muslim rhetoric as typified by his election campaign declaration: “I think Islam hates us.”

Tellingly, on Oct 29, attorneys for a President Donald Trump supporter, Patrick Stein, who was convicted in a domestic terrorism plot aimed at slaughtering Muslim refugees asked a federal judge to factor in the “backdrop” of Trump’s campaign rhetoric when deciding their client’s sentence. Patrick Stein was one of three right-wing militiamen found guilty in April of a conspiracy to kill Muslim refugees living in rural Kansas.

Stein’s attorneys argued in a sentencing memo that sending Stein to prison for life was unwarranted and that a sentence of 15 years would be appropriate. They said the judge should factor in the “backdrop to this case” when crafting an appropriate sentence.

“2016 was ‘lit.’ The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful and contentious presidential elections in modern history, driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president,” they wrote and added: “Trump’s brand of rough-and-tumble verbal pummeling heightened the rhetorical stakes for people of all political persuasions.”

The accumulated impact of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim rhetoric  is that a large proportion of non-Muslim Americans think Islam is incompatible with American values, according to a research by the New America Foundation and the American Muslim Initiative. The research found that 56 percent of Americans believed Islam was compatible with American values and 42 percent said it was not. About 60 percent believed US Muslims were as patriotic as others, while 38 percent they were not.

Researchers found that Republicans were more likely to hold negative perceptions of Muslims and Islam, with 71 percent saying Islam was incompatible with American values. About 56 percent of Republicans also admitted they would be concerned if a mosque was built in their neighborhood.

It will not be too much to say that Islamophobia has entered the government. It is incorporated into the law, and becomes increasingly acceptable in America. Apparently, Muslims in America are more vulnerable to bigotry and Islamophobia as a result of President Donald Trump’s behavior and actions than they were after the 9/11 attacks.

The level of anxiety and apprehension was such a high level that many Muslims were fearful to public display signs of their faith. A number of Muslim women, for instance, were deciding not to appear in public wearing the scarf. Alarmingly, a Hijab-clad Muslim woman stabbed in Texas by two white males.

As Sophia McClennen of Salon pointed out, the month of June 2018 was an especially bad month for the seven-million Muslims in America. First, a new study of U.S. perceptions of Muslim Americans conducted by Dalia Mogahed and John Sides for the Voter Study Group showed that many Americans view Muslims in the United States as insufficiently “American,” and almost 20 percent would deny Muslim citizens the right to vote.

The Muslim Ban 3.0

Then in June, the Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump’s decision to institute a ban on immigrants, refugees and visa holders from five majority-Muslim countries in a 5-4 decision. This is known as Muslim Ban 3.0 since it was the third iteration of the Muslim Ban.

The synergy of these two pieces of information is critical because it reveals a common attitude that Muslims pose a threat to U.S. security whether they are U.S. citizens or not, McClennen said adding: while these attitudes do break down heavily across party lines, it is noteworthy that the study indicated that even 12 percent of Democrats would consider denying Muslim citizens the right to vote. Their study also showed that 32 percent of Democrats favor targeting Muslims at U.S. airport screenings to ensure the safety of flights. That figure compares with 75 percent of Republicans.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority of the Supreme Court opinion upholding the travel ban. He emphasized that, despite ample evidence of President Donald Trump’s animus towards the Muslim community, the ban was a security issue and not an example of discrimination, “Because there is persuasive evidence that the entry suspension has a legitimate grounding in national security concerns, quite apart from any religious hostility, we must accept that independent justification.

As made clear by Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, where she referenced the court’s 1944 decision to uphold the internment of Japanese Americans, the practice of claiming national security needs in order to implement discriminatory policy is nothing new in this country. She argued that the court’s decision “leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’ because the policy now masquerades behind a façade of national-security concerns.”

Taken together the Supreme Court decision and the voter study reveal a mainstreaming of Islamophobia. Whether aimed at Syrian refugees or U.S. citizens, these attitudes, policies and practices underscore the reality that America really has a Muslim problem — a problem seeing Muslims as human beings deserving of dignity, human rights and respect, McClennen concluded.

A chilling example of President Trump’s Muslim Ban 3.0 was prevention of Shaima Swileh, a Yemeni mother to see her dying son who came to the U.S. to be treated for a genetic brain condition. Ultimately Swileh was given a visa waiver. She arrived in San Francisco on December 19 while her son Abdullah expired on December 28 only nine days after her arrival.

Anti-Muslim Bias Incidents, Hate Crimes Spike

Not surprisingly, the divisive rhetoric of US President Donald Trump has fomented hate crimes against the Muslims.  Anti-Muslim bias incidents and hate crimes are up 83 and 21 percent respectively, as compared to the first quarter of 2018, according to a report released in July by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

Incidents involving government agencies, including the FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, have also risen by 60 percent in this time period. For the second quarter of 2018, CAIR received 1006 reports of potential bias incidents, with 431 of these reports determined to contain an identifiable element of anti-Muslim bias.

The 2018 second quarter report records denial of religious accommodation as the number one type of bias incident. Many of these cases have occurred at an incarceration or detention facility, making this the number one location of anti-Muslim bias incidents in the second quarter of the year. This is the first time that detention facilities have been among the top five locations of bias incidents since CAIR has kept records of anti-Muslim discrimination.

The most prevalent trigger of anti-Muslim bias incidents in 2018 remains the victim’s ethnicity or national origin, accounting for 33 percent of the total. For the 341 cases in which a victim’s ethnicity or national origin was identified, the most frequent was “Middle Eastern/North African” at 39 percent.

The second most common was “Black/African-American” at 17 percent. At 14 percent, “South Asian” was the third most commonly targeted ethnicity. Seventeen percent of incidents occurred because of an individual being perceived as Muslim.

A Muslim woman’s head scarf (hijab) was a trigger in 16 percent of incidents. The report dataset is drawn primarily from the intakes CAIR conducts each year. With each case, civil rights and legal staff seek to ensure the highest possible level of accuracy. CAIR has reported an unprecedented spike in bigotry targeting American Muslims and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president.

Civil Rights Report shows increase in anti-Muslim bias incidents in California

In August, the California Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA) released its annual civil rights report which revealed an 82 percent increase in reported incidents of religious-based discrimination, anti-Muslim bias incidents, and immigration matters to all four CAIR offices throughout the state from the previous year.

The report, titled CAIR-California’s “Civil Rights Report 2018,” summarizes and analyzes all civil rights and immigration matters reported to CAIR-California’s offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, (CAIR-SFBA), San Diego (CAIR-SD), the Greater Los Angeles Area (CAIR-LA), and the Sacramento Valley (CAIR-SV) in 2017.

According to the report, CAIR-CA staff received a total of 2,259 incident reports in 2017. Key highlights of CAIR-California’s report include a 503 percent increase in reported discriminatory treatment during travel from 2016 to 2017, driven primarily by the intentional discrimination encapsulated by the Muslim Ban. The number of immigration matters handled also increased significantly by 113 percent from 2016.  In 2017, CAIR-CA received the most incident reports in the following categories:  immigration (44.9%), travel matters (17.1%), hate incidents or hate crime (8.7%), law enforcement interactions (8.3%), and employment discrimination (6.2%).

On the positive note

On the positive note, three Muslims elected to House of Representatives in November 6 election. Ilhan Omar won in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District and Rashida Tlaib won in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. They are the first Muslim women elected to the Congress. In Indiana, Rep. André Carson (D) won his re-election bid for the 7th District.

More than 90 American Muslims ran for office this year at the local, state and national level according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and Jetpac, a group that seeks to build a strong American Muslim political infrastructure and increase American Muslims’ influence and engagement.

The CAIR exit poll survey indicated that 95 percent of eligible Muslim voters turned out at the polls. Seventy-eight percent of Muslim voters cast ballots for Democratic Party candidates and only 17 percent for Republican Party candidates.

CNN reported winning of two Muslim Women to the House of Representative with the headline: What happens when Muslims and Islamophobes both win. Writing under the above heading, Juan Cole, chief editor of Informed Comment and Professor of History at the University of Michigan, comments about Tuesday’s election: “Perhaps the most remarkable stories are the two Muslim women elected to the House, one from Minneapolis (Ilhan Omar of Somalia) and the other from Detroit (Rashida Tlaib of Detroit, but ultimately Palestine). They aren’t only women, and Muslims, but also refugees. They are Donald J. Trump’s worst nightmare and the antithesis of what he thinks America is or should be, if you listen to his rhetoric. But actually he has some commonalities with them.”

According to Arab-Anti-Discrimination Committee, five Arab Americans were elected today to the House of Representatives: Donna Shalala (FL) winning Florida’s 27th district,  Ralph Abraham (LA) US Congress 5th District, Darin LaHood (IL) US Congress 18th District, Garret Graves (LA) US Congress 5th District, and Justin Amish (MI) US Congress 6th District. Chris Sununu was re-elected as New Hampshire’s Governor. Michael Saba was elected to the Ninth District seat in the South Dakota House of Representatives. There were over 60 Arab American candidates running for office in local, state and federal elections.

Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the House of Representative in 2006, was elected Attorney General of Minnesota today. In a victory message Ellison said: “No matter what color you are, what your gender identity is, what your religion is, how much money you make, how old you may be, how healthy you are, who you love, where you live, or how you pray, know that as Minnesota Attorney General, I’ll be on your side fighting for your rights every day. Because we believe everybody counts, and everybody matters.” Keith Ellison received national attention for his decision to use an English translation of the Qur’an, translated by British scholar George Sale in 1734, that once belonged to President Thomas Jefferson for his reenacted swearing-in ceremony, which generated praise and criticisms from political pundits. Ilhan Omar is one of the first Muslim-American woman took up the seat vacated by Keith Ellison.

Five American Muslim candidates were elected to local offices in San Francisco: Sabina Zafar, Aisha Wahab, Maimona Afzal Berta, Cheryl Sudduth, and Javed Ellahie. A total of 12 Bay Area Muslims ran for elected office in the November 6 election. In New Jersey at least 11 Muslims were elected to various offices which include: Assad Akhtar, Passaic County Freeholder; Mohamed T. Khairullah, Mayor Prospect Park; Alaa Abdelaziz, Councilman, Paterson; Hazim Yassin, Councilman, Red Bank; Sadaf Jaffer, Councilwoman, Montgomery; Salim Patel, Councilman, City of Passaic; Mussab Ali, Jersey City Board of Education; Mariam F. Khan, Dennis Township Board of Education; Mohammad M. Ramadan, Passaic County Board of Education; Alaa Matari, Councilman, Prospect Park; and Adam Chaabane, Woodland Park Board of Education.

In December, The city of South Portland has elected Deqa Dhalac the first Muslim African-American woman city councilor in the city’s history. Dhalac who is a U.S. citizen with Somalian roots, is a social worker with two masters degree and mother of three children. Dhalac won the elections against her opponent Donald Cook with more than two-thirds of the vote. “My campaign was all about love,” she said. “Everybody was excited to see a different person, different representation, different faces in the city council. A lot of people were like, ‘It’s time.’”

The Muslim Awareness and Appreciation Month

The County of Santa Clara California declared the month of August as the Muslim Awareness and Appreciation Month. The Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Clara, California issued a proclamation saying that Muslims have been part of U.S. history from the beginning, have contributed to the production of wealth and construction of the nation, and have served in our Armed Forces and they are also part of the rich history of the civil rights movement. The proclamation went on to say Muslim Americans within California and throughout the nation strive to promote peace and understanding between all faiths, identities, and nationalities and extend to them the respect and camaraderie every American deserves. Recognizing the Muslim Americans’ contribution the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Clara declared the month of August as the Muslim Awareness and Appreciation Month.

Early Elections: Who Will Dethrone ‘The King of Israel’?

Ramzy Baroud

“A historic mistake” is how Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu responded to calls for early elections last November. A few weeks later, he spoke, in exaggerated confidence of the “unanimous” agreement of his right-wing coalition that early elections must be held next April.

So why the change of heart?

Netanyahu may not be a good leader, but he is certainly a cunning politician. The fact that he is gearing up for a fifth term at the helm of Israel’s fractious political scene speaks volumes of his ability to survive against many odds.

But it is not all about Netanyahu and his clever ways. Israeli politics are truly dismal. The Left, if it ever earned such a title, is marginal, if not entirely irrelevant. The Center lacks any real political identity or decipherable discourse concerning, for example, foreign policy or true vision for peace and coexistence. The Right, which now defines Israeli society as a whole, has moved further to the right, and is saturated in religious zeal, ultra-nationalism, while some of its parties are flirting with outright fascism.

As strange as this may sound, in the company of Education Minister, Naftali Bennett, Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, and the recently-resigned Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu is not the most extreme.

Indeed, per Israel’s Orwellian politics, nothing is what it seems.

Netanyahu is now paying the price for his overconfidence. The right-wing creature that he has so diligently created to quash his enemies, has grown so powerful and unhinged, that even the prime minister himself could no longer control political outcomes.

The once unchallenged Israeli leader has himself grown too comfortable with power. His family too has become too accustomed to the good life. His wife is now standing trial for corruption and misuse of public funds.

As of early December, the police have recommended, and for third time, that Netanyahu be charged with fraud, accepting bribes and breach of trust. Between direct involvement in the massive corruption racket that his office has espoused, and the dirty dealings of his own circle of aides and profiteers, the Israeli leader is no longer untouchable.

Netanyahu’s sense of safety has always been buttressed by his good standing in opinion polls.

Even now, his numbers are still relatively high. His Likud party would still win an easy election – 30 seats in the Knesset’s 120 seats – if the vote was to be held today.

In fact, this is precisely why Netanyahu had the change of heart and succumbed to mounting pressure from Bennett, among other dissatisfied right-wingers.

His hands are getting tied in Syria, thanks to Russia’s strong rejection of Israel’s incessant bombing of the war-torn country. His movement in Gaza has too become restricted due to the botched attack on the besieged Strip on November 11.

Gaza was a place where Israeli politicians could freely flex their muscles, punished the trapped population of that tiny region, either with a customary war or a routine bombardment.

But Netanyahu has failed on that front as well, where the Gaza Resistance recently repelled an Israeli commando attack and forced the Israeli government into an Egyptian-sponsored truce.

A mere 48 hours later, Lieberman resigned in protest, further contributing to the growing stigma among Israeli officials from all parties that their leader is ‘weak’ and was ‘defeated’ by Hamas.

Still, his coalition survived, but not for much longer. A razor-thin majority of a single Knesset member kept the once powerful coalition alive in Parliament. Bennett and others suddenly had the key to the Likud-led coalition’s survival and to Netanyahu’s own political fate.

Thus, Netanyahu opted for early elections, hoping for an easy victory and for yet another right-wing coalition, where he would have greater maneuverability and command greater respect.

Since Center and Left parties have already proved worthless, Netanyahu is now counting on their ongoing failure to appeal to Israeli society.

Elections will be held on April 9, as announced on December 24, by speaker of the Knesset, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein;  nearly 8 months before they were originally scheduled.

Considering Netanyahu’s increasing misfortunes, 8 months would be too long to maintain his electability. In fact, most Israelis already see him as a corrupt leader.

According to the same calculations, early elections in April is not long enough for a capable contender to emerge from neither the Right, nor the political wreckage of the Center and Left to, finally, dethrone the king of Israel.

However, this, too, might prove to be wishful thinking.

Within days of Edelstein’s announcement, Bennett and Shaked declared the formation of their own new party. The leaders of the ‘Jewish Home’ are now the leaders of the ‘New Right’. While this is seen as a major challenge to Netanyahu within his right-wing constituency, it is also an early sign of the fragmentation of the Right itself.

But that’s not all. Another Benjamin – Benjamin “Benny” Gantz – is hoping to change the Israeli political paradigm entirely.

The ex-general has served in several wars against Gaza, at the Israel-Syria front and was the country’s 20th Chief of General Staff.

With an unclear, thus untainted, political outlook, and a bloody war record, it would be tough for Netanyahu to diminish Gantz’s reputation among Israelis. In Israel, ‘killing Arabs’ is always an incentive at the polls.

Although the army man-turned politician is being perceived as a Center-Leftist, he clearly wants to start anew. On December 27, Gantz launched his own political party: Hosen Yisrael – Resilience of Israel.

With little, if any political campaigning, the new party would win 15 seats in the Knesset if elections were held today.

This says much about Israelis lack of faith in the existing Center-Left political elites, but also about the serious challenge that the Right, with all of its strands – should expect if the pendulum continues to swing.

For now, Netanyahu’s strategy is likely to focus on gaining as much new political capital as possible while taking as little risks as possible.

But with his enemies gaining momentum, police investigations closing in, the fracturing of the Right and the rise of an electable Centrist, Netanyahu, the survivalist might become a liability to his own party, which could, at last, usher in the end of his political career.

López Obrador proposes austerity budget, creates free economic zone at the border

Alex González

On December 24, the Mexican Chamber of Deputies approved the first budget of the new “leftist” president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). The funding package is characterized by a massive increase in military spending, negligible funds for social programs, and the creation of a new free economic zone at the US-Mexico border to further exploit Mexican, US and Central American workers.

AMLO proposed the budget under conditions in which his party, the Movement for National Regeneration (Morena), holds large majorities in both houses of Congress. Millions of people voted for AMLO and Morena with the expectation that, holding every lever of power, they would be able to carry out what AMLO has called a historic “fourth transformation” of Mexican society.

The new administration’s financial plan strips away his populist pretensions and exposes precisely what is meant by “change” under the capitalist government of AMLO. The new government’s leftist credentials consist of paltry programs that will leave social conditions intact, while blaming government employees and corruption—not the capitalist system—for the top 10 percent of Mexicans controlling 70 percent of the country’s wealth.

Markets and international commentators have celebrated the budget for its “fiscal responsibility,” with the value of the peso increasing by 0.7 percent after its release. “The new administration is keen to show more conservative fiscal management from the get-go,” wrote BNP Paribas bank.

Finance capital has commended the budget precisely because it protects the interests of the ruling elite. Meanwhile, massive sums have been granted for repressive measures that will be used against any independent movement of the working class as it becomes disillusioned with Morena and turns to a fight for genuine social equality.

AMLO and Morena awarded the Mexican military its largest funding package in history, with an 11 percent increase from the Peña Nieto administration’s 2018 budget. Although he campaigned under the promise of removing the Armed Forces from domestic security operations, AMLO has backtracked by announcing the creation of a new National Guard that will be composed of between 120,000 and 150,000 members by 2021. The National Guard amounts to a new wing of the military and will be controlled by military brass.

This massive military increase must be seen in the context of a growing crisis at the US-Mexico border. On December 20, the Trump administration announced that it would immediately deport new Central American asylum seekers to Mexico pending the resolution of their asylum claims, which the AMLO administration agreed to enforce. This sets the stage for an explosion of anger by tens of thousands of immigrants who did not escape extreme poverty and gang violence to be condemned to a life of shantytowns at the border. As workers and peasants become more desperate, the Mexican military and National Guard will be deployed to carry out the dirty work of US imperialism.

A policy of repression is being combined with a slashing of social assistance for refugees. Despite the fact that refugee applications skyrocketed by more than 1,140 percent in the past four years, the new budget reduced refugee funding by 20 percent.

As for the “profound and radical” change promised by AMLO, this amounts to a sum of about $48.5 million (922.7 billion pesos), or less than $2.50 for every person in Mexico for the entire year.

One of AMLO’s flagship programs, “Youth Building the Future,” will provide 300,000 high school students with $117 (2,400 pesos) each month. Another 2.3 million youth will be given $191 a month to work as interns for one year. The cosmetic nature of the program becomes transparent when compared to the objective needs of the working class, including trillions of dollars for universal, high-quality education. Only 17 percent of youth between 25 and 64 have a college degree, and the average educational attainment for Mexicans is middle school. Only 21 percent of those who enroll in college graduate, half of which drop out due to insufficient financial resources to continue their education.

Another one of AMLO’s supposed progressive programs is the doubling of pensions for retirees and the disabled to $74 (1,500 pesos) per month. Individuals must be 68 years old to receive the funds, while indigenous populations must be 65 years of age. The sum is less than half of the minimum monthly wage and will keep millions of workers from retiring who cannot afford basic necessities like rent or health care. About 34 percent of adults over 60 and 14 percent of adults over 75 were active in the labor force in 2017.

A pittance for the poor is being combined with a bonanza for corporations. On Monday, AMLO has announced a new free economic zone at the US-Mexico border that will slash the value-added tax in half, from 16 to 8 percent. The top income tax at the border will also decrease from 30 to 20 percent. The new free economic zone will reportedly be the largest in the world and will stretch from Baja California in the Pacific to Tamaulipas in the Gulf of Mexico.

AMLO has sought to sell what amounts to a new state-sponsored center of exploitation by raising the minimum daily wage in the new economic zone to $9—or a little more than one dollar per hour in an eight hour day. Despite having nominally higher minimum wages than the rest of Mexico, these remain poverty wages that will be clawed back through more exploitative working conditions and fewer benefits for Mexican, Central American and US workers. The tax cuts are also estimated to leave a budget shortfall of $610 billion (120 billion pesos), which will be paid for through cuts in social services for these same workers and youth.

The first month of AMLO’s administration has already confirmed the assessment made by the World Socialist Web Site on the eve of last year’s elections in Mexico that “Sooner rather than later, a Morena-led administration will betray the mass aspirations for an end to the social hardship and suffering that López Obrador has cynically exploited.”

Cuba deepens austerity in response to continued economic stagnation

Alexander Fangmann

Cuban Economy Minister Alejandro Gil Fernandez announced last month that the government will be cutting fuel consumption and imports, including raw materials, equipment and food next year. These cuts are the result of several years of stagnant growth, averaging just 1 percent per year over the past three years, a decline in exports, most notably of professional medical services, and a fall in Venezuelan oil subsidies owing to that country’s own deepening crisis.

Gil said that the government would reduce energy consumption throughout the economy, from 91 metric tons per million pesos in gross domestic product (GDP) this year, to 84 next year, forcing state-owned companies to do with less. This would reduce the pressure on the government to use scarce hard currency for oil purchases, as Cuba’s own energy production accounts for only half of its needs.

Gil explained the government’s rationale for cuts, saying, “The 2019 plan is one of adjustment to current realities. We cannot spend more than we earn.” This is especially the case as Cuba has committed to halting any increase in short-term debt.

Reductions in energy consumption announced back in 2016 had already resulted in large cutbacks in public lighting and bus service, working hours and air conditioning at many state-owned companies, and less availability of fuel for vehicles.

Gil also said that imports would be reduced by 11 percent, a measure that will have an impact throughout the economy and lead to a variety of shortages. Cuba is heavily dependent on imports for a wide variety of items, from raw materials and equipment for its industries, as well as food and all kinds of consumer goods, and the measure will no doubt lead to higher prices for most Cuban workers.

Alongside the cut in imports, the economy minister also announced the government would attempt to boost exports by 6 percent. Revenues have decreased in a number of sectors, including sugar and nickel mining, as well as tourism, at least in part due to US president Donald Trump’s re-imposition of restrictions on travel to the island by US nationals.

Speaking at his brother Fidel’s graveside on January 1, the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, 87-year-old Raul Castro condemned the Trump administration for “taking on the path of confrontation with Cuba,” while reiterating the Cuban government’s austerity message, declaring the need “to reduce all non-necessary expenses and to save more.”

A large part of the decline in export revenue has come from the programs through which Cuba sends doctors and other medical professionals abroad in exchange for a combination of hard currency and oil, and which represents the majority of its export revenue. This business took a hit after the election of the fascistic Brazilian former army captain Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency of Brazil. As president-elect, Bolsonaro set a hard line against Cuba, forcing out some 8,300 medical professionals.

The “More Doctors” program with Brazil is one of the two biggest export-earning deals Cuba has with its doctors, and accounts for $400 million to $500 million in export revenue, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. The biggest program by far is in Venezuela, to which Cuba supplies 28,000 professionals, and is itself threatened by Venezuela’s ongoing economic collapse.

Pavel Vidal, an economist at the Pontifical Xavierian University in Cali, Colombia estimates that professional services such as these deals for medical professionals account for 55 percent of Cuba’s total exports, and that revenue from this source has fallen from $10.2 billion to $7.7 billion over the past four years. Some of this decline has come from Venezuela, which has seen its ability to supply oil hindered by its own economic crisis.

Venezuela’s shipments of subsidized oil to Cuba have reportedly resumed as of September 2018, according to Reuters reports, after a pause, although shipments are still far below previous levels, and Cuba is expected to continue purchasing oil from Russia and Algeria as a result. Most of the decline in oil shipments to Cuba have been the result of a drastic decline in production in the Venezuelan oil industry.

Refinery capacity at PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, is currently running at just around a third of capacity due to a lack of needed parts and other supplies due to a scarcity of hard currency resulting from the fall in oil prices. As a result of the oil price decline, Venezuela’s economy is nearly in free-fall, with inflation estimated at over 1 million percent and prices on many goods doubling or tripling every few months. GDP has fallen by almost half since 2014.

There is a real concern in the Cuban government that an end to what remains of Venezuelan support would plunge the Cuban economy into a situation similar to that which it faced in the 1990s after the collapse of the USSR, albeit without a popular political figure like Fidel Castro to contain the protests this would inevitably generate.

The Cuban government’s draft of a new constitution is aimed at enshrining an expansion of private property and market mechanisms that has been under way for some years, and which has seen the elimination of a million public sector jobs and the encouragement of a broad swathe of petty entrepreneurs known as cuentapropistas, or “self-employed.”

Though there is widespread agreement among the ruling Cuban Communist Party (PCC) of the need to increasingly turn to the world market, there is something of a division in the Cuban government over the extent to which it will commit to unleashing market forces in the domestic economy and allow the private accumulation of wealth.

This has come out in some of the statements from government officials, with Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel arguing in the National Assembly against a slowdown of the process:

It is time to act without dogmas and with realism, addressing the priorities, facilitating the real strengthening of state enterprise and its productive links with foreign investment, joint ventures and the non-state sector of the economy.

We must also put in order the activity of the private sector of the economy, but without impeding or slowing down its performance, stimulating best practices until ensuring that those working within it move away from illegalities. The challenge is to integrate all the actors, forms of property and management present in our social economic environment into the battle for the economy that, I reiterate, is today the fundamental battle.

He also defended the cuentapropistas from charges that they would be a source of danger for the Cuban regime, owing to their independent source of wealth and potential links to reactionary Cuban exiles and their allies in the US government:

Self-employed workers are not enemies of the Revolution, they are the result of the process of updating the economic model; they have solved problems that burdened the State and for which it was sometimes inefficient. They have rescued trades that life proved necessary.

We know that there are still attempts to turn the non-state sector into an enemy of the revolutionary process, but they will not succeed in dividing us. For this we count on the commitment of our self-employed workers and of state institutions.

It is notable that one of the significant and widely reported draft changes to the Cuban constitution, removing the article stating that the country is “advancing toward a communist society,” has apparently been rescinded following popular opposition. While Cuba is not socialist and has not been “advancing toward a communist society,” under the leadership of the Castros and their successors in the PCC, there is no doubt wide support for genuine socialism among Cuban workers, who face pressures similar to those faced by other workers around the world.

Hundreds die on UK streets as homelessness reaches record levels

Margot Miller 

Thousands of people are living on the streets in every UK town and city and a record number of roofless people are dying.

One encounters homeless people on every major high street—sitting, sleeping, begging, wrapped in a sleeping bag or blankets in an attempt to keep out the winter cold.

Homelessness shot to national prominence again over the holiday period when a man died just feet from Parliament on December 20. Hungarian national Gyula Remes had been homeless for the last three months. According to friends, he had just found a job as a chef’s assistant and was hoping to be off the streets soon.

His death came as the Office for National Statistics revealed figures showing that almost 600 people died in 2017 while sleeping rough on the streets. The grim tally of 597 dead marks a 24 percent increase over the last five years, with the highest numbers in London and the north west of England. Over the last five years, an estimated 2,627 homeless people have perished on the streets.

There were 50 deaths on the streets of Greater Manchester last year, with homeless people dying at a higher rate, relative to population, than London, where 136 homeless people died.

In the region’s main city, Manchester, on December 26, Tony Lawless, who had been a rough sleeper on and off since the death of his father, was found dead in Rochdale canal. The former market worker had just been released from North Manchester General after collapsing on Christmas Day and was 51 years old.

Homeless people often resort to sleeping in refuse bins, which has led to several deaths. Last January, Russell Lane, 51, died from his injuries after being tipped into the back of a refuse lorry in Rochester, Kent. He had wrapped himself in a disused roll of carpet in the bin.

The number of rough sleepers in England doubled in 2017 to 4,571, from 1,768 in 2010, according to the House of Commons Library, which also reported average life expectancy for a rough sleeper at just 47 for a male and 43 for a woman.

The first published deaths of the homeless on the street coincide with the latest figures released by the Crisis charity, revealing a record 170,000 families and individuals without homes. The number is expected to rise.

Research carried out at Heriot-Watt University on behalf of Crisis found a year-on-year increase in homelessness between 2012 and 2017. Approximately 38,000 under-25s and 4,200 over-65s are homeless.

There are 170,800 homeless households in comparison to 151,600 in 2012. Included in this figure are those who are rough sleeping, sofa-surfing, or staying in hostels.

Crisis lays the blame at the doors of government, including policies which have created an acute shortage of genuinely affordable social housing, reduced Housing Benefit which no longer covers rent and is not available to under 25s, and youth thrust out of the care system aged 18 without provision. John Sparkes, chief executive, said, “This new research echoes what we see every day in our front-line work—that there is no such thing as a ‘typical’ homeless person … this crisis is affecting people who range from young care-leavers to pensioners. … This is a wake-up call to see homelessness as a national emergency.”

These figures are corroborated by housing charity Shelter, which revealed at the end of November that there are 320,000 homeless people living in Britain, an increase of 25,000 since last year. This figure, which includes people in working families, is likely an underestimate. Official figures only include those in contact with local authorities and not the hidden homeless residing with family or friends.

Shelter Chief executive Polly Neate said, “Due to the perfect storm of spiraling rents, welfare cuts and a total lack of social housing, record numbers of people are sleeping out on the streets or stuck in the cramped confines of a hostel room.”

The charity cited one of the causes of rising homelessness as the low level of housing benefit—a means-tested welfare benefit to help meet costs for rented accommodation—which does not cover average rent. The local housing allowance in Manchester, for example, is set at £532 a month for a family needing a three-bedroom house. However, private landlords, apart from student lets, ask for rents of £800 per month and upwards.

The homeless crisis has become so visible and public anger so widespread that Theresa May’s Conservative government has been forced to retract its previous denial of responsibility. Just prior to Christmas, Housing Minister James Brokenshire said the Conservatives “need to ask ourselves some very hard questions” regarding the increase in rough sleepers since the government came to office, and that what was necessary were “changes to policy.”

This was just PR, with the government doing virtually nothing to ameliorate an appalling crisis. After announcing “the end of austerity” in September, May allocated a measly £100 million—a repackaging of money already announced—as part of the government’s “Rough Sleepers Strategy” that is supposedly to eradicate rough sleeping by 2027!

Leading politicians of all parties, whose austerity policies over decades are responsible for the crisis, interrupted their Christmas celebrations for a show of sympathy for the homeless and destitute.

In recent weeks, the public have been forced to endure the obscene spectacle of Conservative MPs visiting food banks and supermarket food bank drop-off points for photo-ops. Among these were Dominic Raab, who infamously said in 2017 that those using foodbanks were people “who had a cashflow problem episodically.” The reality is that huge swathes of the population are going hungry and being forced onto the streets due to more than a decade of brutal anti-social policies, such as the bedroom tax and universal credit.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn visited a homeless hostel run by Crisis in his Islington constituency on Christmas Eve. In his Christmas message he invoked the spirit of the Good Samaritan, while his government-in-waiting has bent over backwards to reassure the rich it will not encroach on their ill-gotten gains to provide essential services.

Labour’s promise of initial funding of £100 million for one year into a rough sleepers’ cold weather fund is derisory and would not end rough sleeping. Corbyn acknowledged as much when he suggested Labour in office would repeal the 1824 Vagrancy Act, under which there have been 2,365 prosecutions in 2015-2016. This would make it legal to sleep and beg on the streets but would not eradicate the causes of destitution.

The homeless crisis is an indictment of a failed system, capitalism. Beginning in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher, and pursued enthusiastically by subsequent Labour governments, over 1.5 million council houses were sold off as the building of new stock ground to a halt. Last year only 6,463 homes were built in England for social rent, while 1.25 million families are on the waiting list.

Labour councils throughout the UK have implemented every cut imposed by central government and implemented privatisation of services with zeal. In London, residents have organised in opposition to the regeneration plans of Labour’s mayor Sadiq Khan, which involve the demolition of 8,000 council estate homes so property developers can get their hands on prime real estate to make a killing.

Greater Manchester’s social housing stock has declined by 5 percent in the six years since 2012 and 85,639 households languish on Labour council-run housing waiting lists. This led to 2,000 children spending their Christmas in emergency accommodation.

Gentrification and social cleansing are happening everywhere, with city skylines crowded with cranes and newly built luxury high-rise blocks that are unaffordable to everyone but the richest.

The resources can and must be found to provide safe, decent homes for all. The wealth of the billionaires and super-rich, acquired by exploiting the working class, must be expropriated to meet urgent, life or death, social needs.

Scotland: 300 laid off at Kaiam plant on Christmas Eve

Steve James

Three hundred thirty-eight workers at optical electronics firm Kaiam’s Livingston plant in Scotland were told December 20 their promised pre-Christmas pay, due the following day, would not be forthcoming.

Four days later, on Christmas Eve, all but 26 were made redundant, with immediate effect, as the company collapsed.

Workers spoke to the press of their shock at the speed and timing of the closure, and of the devastating impact it will have on them and their families.

Joanne Baxter told the Sun, “It is bad enough any time of the year being in this situation but it is Christmas and people are relying on this wage to just start their Christmas shopping today.” She continued, “There’s people in there with just one breadwinner in the family, they’ve got kids and they’ve not even got a selection box for them.”

Another worker said, “The usual pay day is the 27th but it had been brought forward to the 21st for Christmas, but now they say they don’t even know if it will be paid on the 27th. My rent is due in the next few days and I don’t know what I am going to do.”

Father of two Kevin Wells told the Edinburgh Evening News, “There were a lot of tears from members of staff. People were asking a lot of questions, like, ‘My wife’s pregnant, how do I go about getting redundancy?’ People don’t know what the next stages are. They were told they’d get help finding jobs and what jobs there are in West Lothian. We were told it’ll be four to six weeks before we get money from the government.”

Faced with misery over Christmas and New Year without work, friends and relatives set about fundraising efforts for the workforce and their families. A local community centre offered its resources to store hundreds of donations of food and family presents. A Facebook page was set up, while a crowd funding page quickly collected around £21,000—more than double its original target. Despite these efforts, it leaves the workers sharing only around £70 each.

KPMG administrators claimed the company, which has also closed its operation in California, folded because of a “lack of material orders” along with operating costs of the factory. Pressed by local Member of the Scottish Parliament, Angela Constance, Kaiam’s CEO Bardia Pezeshki explained that the company’s products—high capacity fibre optic transceivers carrying data within and between the huge data centres on which cloud-based data services depend—tended to be sold to companies such as Facebook, Amazon and Google.

According to Pezeshki, the tech conglomerates were “extremely poor at predicting when orders happen,” but suppliers had to maintain capacity in case they won an order.

Pezeshki complained that competition from China meant that market price for their devices had dropped from $900 to $100 over just one year. An $800,000 loan intended to keep the company afloat pending new orders was undermined by trade tensions between the US and China, while one of the company’s backers demanded liquidation.

Last year, Kaiam attempted to sell to both sides of the deepening standoff between the US and China.

Last May, Kaiam announced a partnership with Broadex, based in Jiaxing, in China’s Zhejiang Province, whereby Broadex would manufacture and supply its high-end transceivers to the Chinese market. Jeremy Dietz, Kaiam’s sales and marketing vice president told the press, “The two companies will combine on business growth activities in and around China to strengthen Kaiam and Broadex’s market share in optical transceivers for data centres as well as PLCs for 5G rollouts.”

In July, however, Kaiam issued a press statement in which Dietz claimed, “We sometimes forget that the optical components that power Cloud companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and others are virtually all made in China and are thus susceptible to trade tensions. As patriots, we believe a transceiver reserve is necessary for our domestic security.” Dietz boasted that Kaiam was “currently exploring secure underground locations in [US] states such as Utah and Nevada.”

It is unclear when Kaiam’s operations began to unravel, but local Westminster MP Hannah Bardell claimed the company still had £4 million worth of orders on its books.

Last year, Kaiam sold a plant in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, England for $80 million, one year after having purchased it for $70 million. One worker, John Jack, told the Sun that workers at the Livingston plant had been led to believe that this sale secured its future. Pezeshki admitted he had had a “windfall” from the deal. “But,” said Jack, “they never spent a penny on the plant. Some machines are held together with sticky tape.”

Pezeshki has been condemned by Labour and Scottish National Party (SNP) politicians for leaving local managers to break the closure news to the workforce while he flew to California. However, it emerged this week that the SNP knew about Kaiam “financial difficulties” as early as November 22.

The closure sharply exposes the pro-capitalist perspective of both the SNP and the Labour Party. Both parties have for decades insisted that, faced with a globalised economy and regardless of their differences over Scottish independence, living standards must be sacrificed in the struggle to attract international investment.

While workers face frozen or declining wages, benefit freezes and endless pressures on vital social services, companies intending to open new offices or factories have grants and benefits lavished upon them. It appears that Kaiam were offered around £850,000 in grants by investment agency Scottish Enterprise in 2014, when the company relocated some of its production away from a Chinese factory to Livingston.

Tyre manufacturer Michelin is due to close its longstanding factory in Dundee, at the cost of 845 jobs in 2020. The Scottish government recently hailed a “Michelin-Scotland Alliance” and an “Innovation Parc” on the site of factory. However, the Michelin agreement is not legally binding, and no jobs are guaranteed under it. The unions as usual have not lifted a finger, with Unite’s Marc Jackson, the convener at the plant, admitting that a “significant number of jobs will be lost.” Going forward, the “Innovation Parc” will become a new cheap labour platform for local and international capital.

Over the past decades, the unions have collaborated in one round of job losses after another. Nearly 40,000 jobs have gone in manufacturing in Scotland since 2007, with the total down from 221,000 to 185,000. Last month alone, hundreds of jobs were lost at engineering firm BiFab in Fife and the Western Isles and 40 jobs went as the Carbon Dynamic construction firm in the Highlands went into administration. But the nature of Kaiam’s collapse expresses new dangers. If Pezeshki is to be believed, the company, and everyone who depended on it, has fallen victim to the worsening geopolitical relationship between the US and China. Kaiam workers, their families and supporters are being confronted with the stark realities of world capitalism in the 21st century.

New rank-and-file organisations are urgently needed to take up a struggle to defend jobs and living standards, and to turn to the broadest sections of workers in Britain and internationally for support. But the fundamental issue raised is which class must run society. If escalating trade and military tensions between rival groups of capitalists can destroy living standards across the globe, then workers are posed with the need for world socialism to implement rational global economic planning for social need not private profit.

German army plans recruitment of EU foreigners

Johannes Stern

The German Ministry of Defence plans to recruit tens of thousands of foreigners from the EU into the Bundeswehr. The plans for this are “more concrete than have been known so far,” Der Spiegel reported last week on Thursday. According to a confidential ministry study submitted to the news magazine, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) wants to recruit mainly young Poles, Italians and Romanians for the German army. According to the paper, there is “quantitative potential” for the Bundeswehr among young men coming from these countries.

According to Der Spiegel, the ministry has already “calculated this potential more precisely.” According to the study, about 255,000 Poles, 185,000 Italians and 155,000 Romanians between the ages of 18 and 40 live in Germany. Together, this group represents about half of all EU foreigners in Germany. If at least 10 percent of this targeted population showed interest in the German army, the Bundeswehr would come up with “more than 50,000 possible new applicants for the force.”

The inspector general of the Bundeswehr, the highest ranking German military figure, also confirmed the plans. The recruitment of EU citizens for special activities is “an option” that is being examined, Eberhard Zorn told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group. People talk about “doctors or IT specialists, for example,” he said. In times of a shortage of skilled workers, the Bundeswehr had to “look in all directions and strive to find the right young talent.”

The plans of the Ministry of Defence and the official debate about them show how aggressively German imperialism and militarism are re-emerging despite Germany’s historical crimes in two world wars. Having caused a social catastrophe in Southern and Eastern Europe in particular with its austerity measures, Berlin is now using the lack of prospects and sheer desperation of young people to recruit cannon fodder for the German war policy.

Since leading government representatives officially announced the return of German militarism at the Munich Security Conference in 2014, the government and the Ministry of Defence have been working to increase the Bundeswehr’s troop strength, however, with rather moderate success so far. Since Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) announced the expansion of the army on May 10, 2016, the Bundeswehr has hardly been able to record any significant growth despite aggressive advertising campaigns. In November, the Bundeswehr officially comprised 180,997 active soldiers, just under 1,000 more than in 2015 (179,633).

The plans of the Ministry of Defence have been worked out behind the backs of the population for a long time. The 2016 White Paper on German security policy and the future of the Bundeswehr stated: “Last but not least, opening up the Bundeswehr to citizens of the EU would not only offer potential for wide-ranging integration and regeneration and thus strengthen the personnel base of the Bundeswehr, it would also send out a strong signal for a European approach.” According to Der Spiegel the state secretary responsible for Bundeswehr personnel, Gerd Hoofe, signed off on the concept in August.

The German initiative is aggravating tensions within the European Union. Poland’s Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz is “surprised by the advance,” writes Der Spiegel. For his government, he urged “rapid clarification in Brussels.” The opening of the Bundeswehr for foreigners without consultations in the EU, “would not be appropriate behaviour,” Der Spiegel quotes Czaputowicz. “If Germany were to introduce such a law without consulting Poland beforehand, that would not be good. Of course, Germany has more to offer to workers and probably also to soldiers.”

There are similar concerns in Bulgaria, Italy, Romania and Greece. In talks with German military attachés, for example, the Bulgarian government had made it clear that 20 percent of the positions in the Eastern European country’s armed forces could not be filled today due to staff shortages. If Germany now opened its army with significantly higher salaries, this would have “catastrophic consequences.”

Berlin’s efforts to increase its own armed forces with foreign mercenaries go hand in hand with the German government’s plans to create a “ real European army “ (chancellor Angela Merkel). With both projects German imperialism is pursuing the goal of expanding its dominance in Europe and asserting its geostrategic and economic interests in competition with the other great powers worldwide. In this process the ruling class is increasingly openly returning to the German-European power politics of the German Kaiser and of Hitler.

“Germany’s destiny: Leading Europe in order to lead the world” was the title of an essay published by an official website of the German Foreign Ministry four years ago. Since US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would withdraw US troops from Syria and that “the United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world,” leading German foreign policymakers have been stepping up their calls for more German leadership in Europe and internationally.

“We must now put our own house in order and be more prepared ourselves—in our own interests and for our own sake,” Norbert Röttgen (CDU), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, stated in an interview . It was now necessary to “consolidate the progress we have made in this area, i.e., to increase the military budget every year so that the Bundeswehr becomes fully operational again and is able to make its contribution.” Germany is “being required” because “without Germany nothing works either, that is also part of our responsibility, at least in Europe.”

Social Democratic Foreign Minister Heiko Maas made similar comments in an interview with the news agency dpa. “Our responsibility is growing. The expectations of us are higher than ever before,” he explained. Germany is already “assuming massive responsibility ... but the more old partners withdraw from international cooperation, the more the eyes are on us.”

Maas indicated that the ruling class was preparing a massive escalation of its war and great power offensive in the coming year. With its membership of the Security Council beginning on January 1, Germany is “moving politically even closer to crises and conflicts. Our vote will gain even more weight in the Security Council. We will not be able to duck away from difficult decisions,” the foreign minister stated.

He was particularly concerned about “the situation in the Middle East—with the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and the struggle for a Middle East peace settlement.” Germany would have to “be even more committed there than before,” and would also have to “assume military responsibility.”

The return of German militarism is also supported by the Left Party and the Greens. Their current silence on the recruitment plans of the Bundeswehr can only be interpreted as a tacit approval. Only recently, Dietmar Bartsch, the leader of the Left parliamentary group in the Bundestag, called on the German government “not only to talk” about the proposals of French President Emmanuel Macron regarding the construction of a European army, but “rather take genuine action.” And Green leader Annalena Baerbock demanded in an interview: “In a dramatically changed situation, the EU must be able to make world politics.”

If there is criticism of the defence ministry’s advance, it comes from the right. The recruitment of EU foreigners is “no solution for our personnel problem,” CDU defence official Henning Otte told the Westfälische Rundschau. “If we have difficulties in winning Germans for service in our own troops, then the attractiveness of the Bundeswehr must be increased.”

Rüdiger Lucassen, the spokesman for defence policy of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, stated that “German citizenship” was the “basic prerequisite for service as a soldier” along with “identification with our German culture, values and norms.” He regretted that von der Leyen, despite various advertising programmes, “had not been able to fill the armed forces with the necessary personnel.”