French prime minister vows to impose pension cuts despite growing strikes

Anthony Torres & Alex Lantier

Since December 5, French public sector workers have been on strike against planned pension cuts opposed by two thirds of the population, shutting down mass transit, train transport and education. Yesterday, before trade unions and employers’ groups at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE), Prime Minister Edouard Philippe spoke and announced that he would ram the cuts through despite growing opposition. He demanded an end to strike action and stepped-up talks with the trade unions, who have been negotiating the cuts with Macron since 2017.

Philippe provocatively rejected all the strikers’ main demands outright, vowing to impose a system of pensions “by points,” eliminate special pension systems in the public sector, and increase the legal retirement age from 62 to 64.

He told the CESE, “I am determined to pass this reform. We will gradually transform the pension system… We will place a fairer system on solid financial bases, by working somewhat longer and ending the special pension systems.” He would prepare a draft bill for the end of this year, submit it to the council of ministers on January 22, and to the parliament in February.

This confirms that the French government has no intention to compromise, and that the confrontation between the working class and the financial aristocracy represented by Macron will continue and escalate.

There is nothing to negotiate with President Emmanuel Macron’s government. Behind the talks that it holds with the unions, the government is planning to unilaterally slash pensions via a reform that faces overwhelming popular opposition, especially among workers. Strike action must be escalated, based on the perspective of bringing down the Macron government.

Macron is determined to cut the total sum retirees obtain from the French state by tens of billions of euros per year, massively redirecting wealth from the workers to the wealthiest in society. Bernard Arnault, now the world’s wealthiest man, saw his net worth increase by €23 billion last year alone. This would be enough by itself to fill the projected deficit of the pension system, which could grow to €8 to €17 billion by 2025. However, while it gives vast tax gifts to the super-rich, it plans deep cuts to pensions that would devastate tens of millions of workers.

The system of pensions “by points” does not attribute a future monetary value to the pension a worker will receive in exchange for helping pay for current retirees’ pensions during his working life, but a vague number of “points.” A 2016 video of ex-Prime Minister François Fillon, now gone viral, explains the content of this change. He says that such a system “allows something that no politician will admit, to reduce each month the size, the value of the point and so to diminish the value of the pensions.”

Another key part of the reform is Macron’s attempt to buy off the security forces so that they will continue to try to crush growing social opposition to the diktat of the banks. Philippe announced that police, fire and military personnel will get an exception and be allowed to retire at 62.

Philippe’s made claims about the pension reform to calm popular opposition that did nothing to change its reactionary character. He promised that the first generation of workers affected by the reform would be those born in 1975 rather than 1963. For public schoolteachers, “the mechanical application of the new rules would lead to a substantial loss of their future pensions. We will inscribe in the law a guarantee that the level of teachers’ pensions will be comparable to the level in the public service.”

This is a crude attempt to mislead the public, however, as Macron’s reform would slash pensions in the public service as well.

Philippe claimed that this pension reform is a necessary response to the growth of mass unemployment and precarious working conditions of workers in France and internationally, which he presented as logical and inevitable. “France has been characterized by a high level of unemployment for a long time. Studies last longer, careers are interrupted, part time work has grown. That is simply the world we live in,” he said.

These conditions underscore the bankruptcy of capitalism internationally and in France. According to Philippe, however, this shows the necessity of ending the current pension system, closely connected to a job that workers would hold their entire lives, to a more flexible points system that allows pension benefits to be slashed.

Macron is working closely with international financial corporations that would reap enormous profits from the slashing of the current system and the introduction of private retirement accounts. In 2017 the satirical weekly Canard enchaîné revealed that Macron had met with management of BlackRock, a US-based global investment fund that is “highly interested in opportunities raised by the reform of French retirement system that are potentially worth several trillion.”

This underscores that workers who have mobilized in struggle against Macron’s cuts face a struggle against both the French and the international financial aristocracy. In this struggle, which has seen broad sections of rail and transit workers, refinery workers, public school and airport workers take strike action and shut down large parts of France, the key ally of French workers is the international working class.

A powerful international upsurge of the class struggle is underway. Strikes are mounting in protest against the December 12 elections in Algeria, following walkouts by autoworkers and teachers in the US, and a wave of mass protests from Lebanon and Iraq to Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador. This is the social force that can be mobilized against Macron, the financial aristocracy and its program of precarious employment and endless austerity for workers internationally.

For this the struggle must be taken out of the hands of the unions, who work closely with Macron and are seeking to negotiate a deal with him. Workers need their own committees of action, as places where they can plan, discuss, and coordinate strikes and political opposition to the Macron government, and coordination with workers in struggle internationally.

The unions are financed by and deeply integrated into the state and the ruling elite, and while they continue to pledge strike action against the law, Philippe has made clear that he planned to rely on the unions to manage and oversee his pension cuts:

“We will put into place starting next year a governance program that will give to the social partners (i.e. the unions and employers federations) the main management tools. They can then work out a way to return to budgetary equilibrium.”

The same unions who are negotiating the reform with Macron and dictating the pace of strike action will then receive a substantial payoff to work with the state to cut pensions in order to ensure the program remains on a balanced budget.

On this basis, Philippe concluded by asking the trade unions to end the strike: “From today, I would like the presidents of state-owned enterprises begin a dialog with the trade unions to stop these strikes.”

Conscious that Philippe’s speech will not calm but rather inflame workers’ growing anger, the unions have issued a few hypocritical criticisms. On TF1 television, General Confederation of Labor (CGT) leader Philippe Martinez said, “Clearly, two very different visions of society are competing here, his and that of the CGT… I don’t think, given the anger in the country, his will be accepted.”

Laurent Berger of the traditionally pro-government French Democratic Labor Confederation (CFDT) objected to Philippe’s raising of the retirement age with a full pension to 64. On LCI, he invited “workers to join on December 17 an all-trade-union protest we have proposed.”

While the trade unions call protests, all are seeking to formulate sort of agreement acceptable to the Macron government to present to the workers and justify a sell-out. The decisive question in the struggle against Macron’s cuts remains organizing workers independently of the unions and arming them with an international, socialist perspective to oppose austerity.

The impeachment crisis and its political consequences

Andre Damon

On Tuesday, congressional Democrats published two articles of impeachment against US President Donald Trump, centering on claims that the president “compromised the national security of the United States.”

The fascist in the White House is being impeached not for ripping thousands of immigrant children from the hands of their parents, persecuting political dissidents Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, or presiding over a global apparatus of extrajudicial murder. Rather, the impeachment is over Trump’s failure to pursue with sufficient vigor the conflict with Russia.

President Trump speaks to the press in November [Credit: White House]

The document argues that the American president “betrayed the Nation” by delaying “the release of $391 million of United States taxpayer funds that Congress had appropriated… for the purpose of providing vital military security assistance to Ukraine to oppose Russian aggression.”

This is the first impeachment of a sitting president on the claim that he is a “threat to national security.” The types of extra-constitutional arguments used by the US intelligence agencies to justify mass warrantless wiretapping, torture, “rendition,” and the assassination of an American citizen, within the framework of the “war on terror,” are now being used in an effort to remove a president.

The impeachment drive and the anti-Russia campaign that predated it have involved an enormous intervention by the CIA and FBI in domestic politics. The impeachment inquiry was itself triggered by a CIA agent working at the White House, while a recently-released report shows that the FBI justified a wiretap of a former Trump aide by citing a Ukraine policy change in the Republican Party’s platform.

This process is the first time—with the possible exception of the dark and murky events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy—that the CIA and associated intelligence agencies have sought to remove a sitting president.

Anyone who supports the Democrats’ impeachment operation, in the hope that removing Trump on these grounds can have some sort of progressive consequence, is simply ignoring everything the Democrats and their CIA allies have done and said.

The most extraordinary element of the impeachment proceedings was its almost complete domination by US policy in Ukraine. It is of the greatest political significance, not to mention strangely ironic, that the United States’ instigation of the 2014 fascist-led coup in Kiev has had far reaching consequences for political life in the US. In order to carry through the implementation of the confrontation with Russia, which was the rationale behind the coup, the intelligence agencies that determine the policy of the Democratic Party have been compelled to seek the impeachment of Trump.

In 1986, the Iran-Contra scandal was triggered by the revelation that the Reagan administration had concocted a scheme to sell arms to Iran, in order to buy weapons to finance an illegal war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. That investigation revealed that the Reagan administration flagrantly violated the Boland Amendment, passed by Congress to prohibit US government assistance to the Contras.

But in this case, the main charge is that Trump held up the disbursing of money that was allocated by Congress to promote a war that is being planned entirely behind the backs of the American people.

The antidemocratic impulses behind the impeachment drive were summed up by the comments of the arch-warmonger Thomas Friedman, who wrote in the New York Times yesterday, “Generally speaking, I believe presidents should be elected and removed by the voters at the polls. But when I hear Trump defenders scream, ‘Impeachment subverts the will of the people,’ I say: “Really?”

To say that “generally speaking” the leadership of the country should be selected by voters, is to say that this should only be the case when it suits the CIA, FBI, and the military.

Friedman’s real complaint is not that Trump was subverting “the will of the people,” but that he was subverting what dominant factions of the intelligence agencies consider the geostrategic imperatives of the American ruling class.

For all the Democrats’ talk of “corruption,” “obstruction of justice,” “bribery,” and an “organized crime shakedown,” the real reasons for the impeachment stand starkly revealed as differences over how best to conduct the predatory policies of American imperialism.

Both the Trump presidency and the impeachment campaign of the Democrats are different manifestations of the deep and intractable crisis of American democracy. Trump has threatened to turn the impeachment struggle into a “civil war,” implying that he could appeal to his armed, far-right supporters to defend him against what he has called a “deep-state coup.”

The Democrats’ campaign against “foreign meddling” that framed the impeachment drive has provided the framework for imposing domestic censorship measures, with the intelligence agencies and representatives of both parties recruiting Google, Facebook and Twitter to demote and delete left-wing, anti-war and socialist publications, pages, and groups.

But even as Trump and his Democratic opponents frantically denounce one another as traitors and demand each other’s prosecution, there has, at the same time, emerged a remarkable bipartisan unity on fundamental issues facing US imperialism.

This was made perfectly clear this week with the rapid-fire announcement, by congressional Democrats, of agreements on two landmark pieces of legislation: The USMCA anti-China trade deal and the passage of the biggest military budget in US history.

The military budget, passed overwhelmingly by the House of Representatives yesterday, establishes a new branch of the US armed forces, the Space Force, while leveling sanctions against Russia, China, Turkey and North Korea.

“Wow! All of our priorities have made it into the final NDAA,” Trump gloated, noting in particular the removal of language preventing Pentagon funds being used for his immigration crackdown. Amid soaring social inequality, all factions of the American ruling elite are dedicated to war abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home.

The political crisis in Washington is framed by the global upsurge of the class struggle and the deepening crisis of US imperialism.

The past six months have seen an unprecedented expansion of the class struggle all over the world. Mass protests against inequality have broken out from Chile, to Puerto Rico, to Lebanon and Iraq. Autoworkers have gone on strike in Mexico and the United States, while much of the Paris Metro remains shut down, amid a strike wave throughout France. A recent issue of Time magazine, entitled “How America’s Elites Lost Their Grip,” notes with concern the growing audience for socialism throughout the country.

Just as important is the series of setbacks for US imperialism’s efforts, in the wake of the dissolution of the USSR, to preserve its global hegemony through military violence.

In 2003, when the US invaded Iraq, the World Socialist Web Site noted, “Whatever the outcome of the initial stages of the conflict that has begun, American imperialism has a rendezvous with disaster. It cannot conquer the world. It cannot reimpose colonial shackles upon the masses of the Middle East. It will not find through the medium of war a viable solution to its internal maladies. Rather, the unforeseen difficulties and mounting resistance engendered by war will intensify all of the internal contradictions of American society.”

More than fifteen years later, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are universally seen as debacles. The US-backed regime change operations in Syria and Libya have produced nothing but bloodbaths. And the 2014 US-backed coup on Ukraine, which started as an effort to bring Ukraine into NATO, has not succeeded in its fundamental aims.

Within this context, Foreign Affairs noted that it was “not surprising” that “Ukraine is at the center of this storm.”

“Over the past quarter century,” all efforts by the United States to impose its hegemony on the “Eurasian continent have foundered on the shoals of Ukraine. For it is in Ukraine that the disconnect between triumphalist end-of-history delusions and the ongoing realities of great-power competition can be seen in its starkest form.”

But faced with this enormous series of setbacks and debacles, US imperialism is doubling down, replacing the “war on terror” with preparations for “great-power conflict.”

The intractable crisis of American imperialism has generated deep conflicts within the ruling class.

But the relative disinterest in the proceedings among the broad mass of the population underscores the fundamentally undemocratic and reactionary character of the operation. Regardless of its outcome, the results will be a further shift to the right. Its success will intensify the confrontation with Russia, with incalculably dangerous consequences. Its failure could actually strengthen Trump.

The fight against the Trump administration is inseparable from the struggle against the capitalist system and the war plots of both parties. It must be conducted completely independent of and in opposition to the Democratic Party.

The objective social basis for the fight against the Trump administration is the global upsurge of the class struggle. The growing wave of strikes and protests by the working class, if united internationally and armed with a socialist perspective, is the means of opposing not only the Trump administration, but the capitalist system, of which it is the corrupt excrescence.

Government of Azerbaijan Undergraduate, Masters and Doctoral Scholarships 2020/2021 for International Students

Application Deadline: 15th February 2020.

Eligible Countries: Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) & Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries  

To be taken at (country): Azerbaijan

 About the Award: The Educational Grant Program for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation” and “The Grants Program for the Citizens of the Non-Aligned Movement” were approved by the President of the Republic of of Azerbaijan on December 6, 2017 and on January 10, 2018, respectively. The Educational Grant (hereinafter referred to as “scholarship”) Programs provide a pre-requisite course for undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, general medicine / residency programs.
Programmes provide an opportunity for selected 40 candidates on annual basis to study in the leading universities of Azerbaijan at • Preparatory courses • Undergraduate, graduate • Doctoral • General medicine/residency programmes

Type: Undergraduate, Masters, Doctoral 

Eligibility:

• Citizens of the OIC and the NAM member countries
• For undergraduate and general medicine programmes – citizens younger than 30
• For graduate and residency programmes – citizens younger than 35
• Review of the relevant documents
• Interviews (online/Skype) 

The candidates will be informed about the results by early July, 2019 Note: only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Number of Awards: 40

Value of Award: 

• Tuition fee 
• International flight 
• Monthly stipend for meals, accommodation and utility costs ($ 800) 
• Medical insurance 
• Visa and registration costs

How to Apply: 
Application form
Call for application 2020
List of eligible countries
List of diplomatic missions of the Republic of Azerbaijan
List of participating universities
Guidelines for International Students
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQ

• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage see link below) before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

How Africa Could Power a Green Revolution

William Minter

Just before this year’s global climate summit opened in Madrid recently, researchers announced that emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels will hit a record high in 2019.

Although the 0.6 percent rate of growth is less than last year’s 2.1 percent, the total which must be cut to prevent the most catastrophic and irreversible scenarios is still increasing. Deeper and faster cuts are needed immediately and over the next 10 years. The primary responsibility to cut fossil-fuel emissions falls to developed countries that bear the greatest historical responsibilities, as well as to countries with large populations such as China and India that are also now among the top in global emissions.

However, from off-grid solar home systems to utility-scale solar and wind, the potential for major advances in the use of renewable energy is also growing rapidly on the African continent.

With stepped-up adoption of these technologies, African countries could contribute significantly to mitigating the global climate crisis. This would also reduce the ongoing damage to the health of their citizens, whether from kerosene lamps in rural areas, gasoline generators to backup unreliable power grids, or massive coal pollution in South Africa.

Driven by technological innovation, steadily falling costs, and the visible effects of the climate crisis, this transition is still hampered by vested interests in fossil fuels and by foot-dragging on the part of government planning agencies. But there is more and more evidence that renewable options are not only better for the climate and for health, but also the least expensive path. There is much untapped potential for replacing kerosene lamps, backup power generators, and coal power plants with cost-effective renewable alternatives. Innovative energy companies and investors are taking note.

East African countries have pioneered off-grid solar, laying out a model that other African countries could follow. While rural areas are still the primary markets for solar home systems, power grids in most African countries are so prone to power outages that many homes and businesses on the grid must rely on gasoline or diesel generators for backup. Solar systems can already begin to replace smaller generators, and further technological progress could make even larger systems cost-effective.

South Africa is still overwhelmingly dependent on expensive and unreliable coal-fired power plants, which supply 77 percent of the country’s electricity. Recent studies show that for new energy installations, renewable energy is already the cheapest. But such a shift faces enormous obstacles, not least the multiple dysfunctions and effective bankruptcy of Eskom, the scandal-ridden state-owned electricity agency.

Off-Grid Solar

Rapid expansion in solar home systems has been well documented as feasible.

In September 2019, the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association (GOGLA) reported on research in Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda with customers of seven off-grid solar companies. Researchers tracked 1,419 customers who bought solar home systems, with interviews at 3 months and 15 months after purchase. Ninety-five percent of respondents reported significant improvement in quality of life, with 95 percent saying they would recommend their product to a friend or relative.

According to Forbes, there are 600 million people without access to electricity in Africa, 71 million of them in Nigeria. “At this point, we are barely scraping the surface” of potential demand, said Alistair Gordon, chief executive of Lumos, the largest provider of off-grid solar in Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. The company currently has 100,000 customers and expects to provide solar power to 100 million people in the next 5-7 years.

There is also the potential to replace backup generators, notes the International Finance Corporation.

“With rapid improvement in efficiency, performance, and economies over recent years, distributed solar and storage technologies now offer a superior and effective alternative to the backup generators that are proliferating across much of the developing world.” In Nigeria alone, an estimated 22 million small gasoline generators (excluding larger diesel generators) are reported to have a collective capacity as much as 8 times the capacity of the electric grid. They are essential to many small businesses as well as to households.

According to the Access to Energy Institute, “An effective substitute for small gasoline generators, such as solar systems, can tap into a $12 billion-a-year market in Nigeria alone.” Upfront costs are still high, but savings come from eliminating the need to buy fuel. Further research on more efficient systems, they calculate, has the potential to reduce the break-even period to 5-7 years. And while gasoline generators last approximately 5 years, solar systems have a life span of approximately 20 years.

Trapped in Coal in South Africa

The release of South Africa´s Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) in October 2019 was preceded by considerable optimism among renewable energy advocates. The government promised to “articulate the lowest-cost option for the future energy mix for South Africa, with increased contributions from renewable energy sources.” And President Ramaphosa spoke of an $11 billion green-energy initiative.

But when the IRP was announced, the plan called not only for decommissioning 10,500 MW of aging coal plants, but also for launching 1,500 MW of new coal plants. This was inconsistent with the least-cost path scenario detailed by the government Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in November 2018. And it was vigorously criticized by South African environmental justice organizations.

“There is no reasonable basis for building new coal plants when the technology and costs are clearly in favour of renewables and flexible generation,” says Makoma Lekalakala of Earthlife Africa. Coal plants built in the 2020s are likely to be abandoned long before they are paid off, the coalition of environmental groups noted.

The South African Parliament has approved a $4 billion bailout for Eskom’s debt, much of it due to cost overruns of $20 billion on the giant Medupi and Kusile coal plants.

And a devastating report by an outside corporate consulting firm concluded that Eskom has become ”an operationally dysfunctional, financially insolvent, unreliable, and corrupt entity,” arguing that urgent attention to fixing these basic problems must take priority over renewable energy. Renewable energy advocates agree that implementation of any plans, including integration of renewables into the grid, requires fundamental reform in Eskom’s management. But, they say, doubling down on coal will worsen rather than improve the situation.

Unless South Africa’s policies change, therefore, the potential for advance in renewable energy is likely to be realized more rapidly by hundreds of thousands of off-grid consumers around the continent than by entrenched power companies such as South Africa’s Eskom.

White Helmets Founder was Allegedly Assassinated, Turkish Report

Nauman Sadiq

Speculation is rife in the local Turkish media that the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, might have been running away from someone before he fell or was pushed to his death in a case that was initially ruled as a suicide.

Reputed Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported on Tuesday: “The biggest question is why Le Mesurier committed suicide from a height of 7 meters and after walking for 10 meters on a lean-to roof. A possible answer is he was running away from someone who broke into his house and tried to leap on the roof of a building across the street.”

James Le Mesurier was found dead on November 11 in suspicious circumstances after falling off a two-story apartment building in downtown Istanbul. He was alleged to have committed suicide by jumping off the second floor of the building, though the latest findings cast aspersions over the suicide theory, as the circumstances of the inexplicable death indicate likely homicide.

The report further states: “Security camera footage from the last hours of Le Mesurier as he was shopping, the first photos from the scene and contradicting statements of his wife Emma Winberg may change the course of the investigation.

“Winberg said she looked for her husband inside the house and saw his lifeless body when she looked out of the window. Police are investigating now how she was able to wake up about half an hour after she took a sleeping pill and why she stacked a large amount of money inside the house into bags immediately after Le Mesurier’s body was found.”

Despite his “humanitarian credentials,” the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, was a shady character, alleged to be a covert British MI6 operative by Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova days before his death.

Before taking up the task of training Syrian volunteers for search and rescue operations in 2013, Le Mesurier was a British army veteran and a private security contractor from 2008 to 2012 working for Good Harbor, run by Richard Clarke, the former Bush administration counter-terrorism czar.

Much like Erik Prince of the Blackwater fame, Le Mesurier’s work included training several thousand mercenaries for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) oil and gas field protection force, and designing security infrastructure for the police state of Abu Dhabi – a job description that helped him recruit Syrian volunteers from refugee camps in Turkey willing to do dirty “humanitarian work” in enclaves carved out by militant factions in Syria’s war zones.

In this line of work, one is likely to make powerful enemies, including intelligence agencies and militant groups. He could have been killed by anyone of them. In particular, the White Helmets operate in al-Nusra Front’s territory in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province and are known to take orders from the terrorist outfit.

The assassination of James Le Mesurier should be viewed in the backdrop of the killing of the Islamic State’s chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on October 27 in a US special-ops raid. It’s important to note in the news coverage of the killing of al-Baghdadi that although the mainstream media was trumpeting for the last several years that the Islamic State’s fugitive leader was hiding somewhere on the Iraq-Syria border in the east, he was found hiding in the northwestern Idlib governorate, under the control of Turkey’s militant proxies and al-Nusra Front, and was killed in a special-ops raid five kilometers from the Turkish border.

The reason why the mainstream media scrupulously avoided mentioning Idlib as al-Baghdadi’s most likely hideout in Syria was to cover up the collusion between the militant proxies of Turkey and the jihadists of al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State. Unsurprisingly, the White Helmets area of operations is also Idlib governorate in Syria where they are permitted to conduct purported “search and rescue operations” and “humanitarian work” under the tutelage of al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

In fact, the corporate media takes the issue of Islamic jihadists “commingling” with Turkey-backed “moderate rebels” in Idlib so seriously – which could give the Syrian government the pretext to mount an offensive in northwest Syria – that the New York Times cooked up an exclusive report, on October 30, a couple of days after the special-ops night raid, that the Islamic State paid money to al-Nusra Front for hosting al-Baghdadi in Idlib.

The morning after the special-ops night raid, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on October 27 that a squadron of eight helicopters accompanied by warplanes belonging to the international coalition had attacked positions of Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, in Idlib province where the Islamic State chief was believed to be hiding.

Despite detailing the operational minutiae of the special-ops raid, the mainstream news coverage of the raid deliberately elided over the crucial piece of information that the compound in Barisha village five kilometers from Turkish border where al-Baghdadi was killed belonged to Hurras al-Din, an elusive terrorist outfit which has previously been targeted several times in the US airstrikes.

Although Hurras al-Din is generally assumed to be an al-Qaeda affiliate, it is in fact the regrouping of the Islamic State jihadists under a different name in northwestern Idlib governorate after the latter terrorist organization was routed from Mosul and Anbar in Iraq and Raqqa and Deir al-Zor in Syria and was hard pressed by the US-led coalition’s airstrikes in eastern Syria.

It’s worth noting that although the Idlib governorate in Syria’s northwest has firmly been under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led by al-Nusra Front since 2015, its territory was equally divided between Turkey-backed rebels and al-Nusra Front.

In a brazen offensive in January, however, al-Nusra Front’s jihadists completely routed Turkey-backed militants, even though the latter were supported by a professionally trained and highly organized military of a NATO member, Turkey. And al-Nusra Front now reportedly controls more than 70% territory in the Idlib governorate.

The reason why al-Nusra Front was easily able to defeat Turkey-backed militants appears to be that the ranks of al-Nusra Front were swelled by highly motivated and battle-hardened jihadist deserters from the Islamic State after the fall of the latter’s “caliphate” in Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

In all likelihood, some of the Islamic State’s jihadists who joined the battle in Idlib in January were part of the same contingent of thousands of Islamic State militants that fled Raqqa in October 2017 under a deal brokered by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The merger of al-Nusra Front and Islamic State in Idlib doesn’t come as a surprise, though, since the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front used to be a single organization before a split occurred between the two militant groups in April 2013 over a leadership dispute. In fact, al-Nusra Front’s chief Abu Mohammad al-Jolani was reportedly appointed the emir of al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the deceased “caliph” of the Islamic State, in January 2012.

Al-Jolani returned the favor by hosting the hunted leader of the Islamic State for months, if not years, in a safe house in al-Nusra’s territory in Idlib, before he was betrayed by an informant within the ranks of the terrorist organization who leaked the information of the whereabouts of al-Baghdadi to the American intelligence, leading to the killing of the Islamic State chief in a special-ops raid on October 27.

Finally, regarding the death of the founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, in downtown Istanbul, it’s worth pointing out that Turkey has been hosting 3.6 million Syrian refugees and myriad factions of Ankara-backed militant proxies.

It’s quite easy for the jihadists of al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State to intermingle with Syrian refugees and militants in the Turkish refugee camps, and no town or city in Turkey, including the capital Ankara and the metropolis Istanbul where James Le Mesurier was murdered, is beyond the reach of Turkish-backed militant factions and Syrian jihadists, particularly the fearsome and well-connected al-Nusra Front that has patrons in the security agencies of Turkey and the Gulf States.

Plausibly, one of the members of the White Helmets operating in al-Nusra’s territory in Syria’s Idlib betrayed his patrons for the sake of getting a reward, and conveyed crucial piece of information regarding the whereabouts of al-Baghdadi to the founder of the White Helmets, Le Mesurier, who then transmitted it to the British and American intelligence leading to the October 27 special-ops raid killing al-Baghdadi.

In all likelihood, the assassination of the founder of the White Helmets was Islamic jihadists’ revenge for betraying the slain chief of the Islamic State. What lends credence to the theory is the fact that according to local media reports, a turf war has begun in Idlib governorate after the killing of al-Baghdadi in the October 27 special-ops raid and several militant leaders of al-Nusra Front have been killed by jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State.

How To End Rapism In India?

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

The culture of raping women both for personal gratification of persons involved or as a weapon of oppression is killing the public morale of the nation within and globally. The brutal gang rape of Disha at Hyderabd on 27 November, 2019 re-enacted the worst case of Nirbhaya in Delhi seven years ago. In Delhi it was a gruesome killing of the victim within the bus and in Hyderabad it was a brutal burning of her almost alive in open field, after gruesome gang rape . These are only most protested and sensationalized cases but similar cases are happening in many parts of the country. In Disha case the rapists were shot dead. Nirbhaya murderers are still awaiting the hanging. There are many such gang rapes which do not even get media attention.

The news of raping small kids on daily basis is also killing our public sensibilities making the nation think that this is one more bad news and leave at that. Teachers raping their own students in the schools, religious preachers raping their followers is yet another aspect which makes our educational and spiritual institutions fearsome places.

Gang rapes and murder of the victims indicates that it is not lack of self control of an individual and aggrandizing any woman on whom the he could lay hands. It is an expression of cultural brutalization of several layers of our society, the roots of which are in the present family, school, religious structures and civil society, as the gang rapists come from different families, castes and so on. Even our universities are not out of this kind of barbaric rapism. I call it rapism because it has become a social ideological trend, particularly in India.

From village to city, from family to school, college, temple, Masjid, church we must re-think about our man-woman relationship and launch a massive cultural campaign leaving no religion, no school or no family to itself. This disease is presenting itself as ‘Indian’ hence we must tackle it as Indians with a new vision. Both men and women should be fully involved in this cultural campaign of rape free India.

Caste system and dehumanized patriarchal relations brutalized the Indian man-woman relations in a manner that no other society in the world got brutalized. The issue has to be tackled holistically but not just case by case.

If we start from our village family system move upwards into the towns and cities our families use a lot of abusive language at home. Most of the abuses are women centrist. This language certainly gets internalized from childhood stage as father, mother and grand parents use very abusive language as common acceptable idiom. This passes on from generation to generation.

In our society the so called manhood is defined by the amount of control and abusive power that a man has over the women. A man who treats a woman as his equal in everyday life is treated as impotent. This is a very barbaric cultural notion but it is very prevalent. We must fight it out.

Our books are more around romance and sex than around production, science, nature and co-operative man-woman relations. The schools, colleges feed anti-women cultural idiom as an extended language from home to school.

Our police stations are known for using very abusive language and our cinemas are full of violence and sex both rapist and consented. No cinema without vulgar sex and violence can run in the theater for a day. Both the mind of viewer and the producer and the actor is geared to negative sex of violence or heroic physical violence, which is again very brutalizing. All this goes against women.

Rapism of human beings in India or anywhere does not even match the behavior of female and male animal sexual engagement practices. Among animals and birds without the consent of the female the male cannot indulge in forceful sex. The Indians need to be taught of animal behavioral science more and more as the cultural man-woman oppressive relationship is worse than even than that of animals. Of course, the Indian kind of rapism of men does not match with that of other societies. Because gang rapes and killings are very rare in any other society, except in war situations.

In normal situations any personal touch of a female body by a male person her consent is a precondition. In India by and large that is not considered necessary. This is a big challenge to our family and education system. We must admit this weakness of the society and nation and think of a civilizational shift.

The solution is not just more policing and fast track court judgments. It is certainly not encounter killing of the rapists. Since the problem is in our anti-women abusive culture, we must think of man-woman equal rights culture at home and in the public domain. That involves developing a culture of zero tolerance of abuse of women at home, in the field of agrarian or industrial production places or in the school, college or office, even verbally. In every home language has to be monitored by neighbors and any use of abusive language at home and outside should be condemned and shamed.

By and large we have overcome woman or wife beating even in villages with such social shaming and women assertion. Not that no woman beating within the family or outside takes place. However, rampant woman beating has come down. Similarly woman abuse, rape and murder will come down and over a period of time will stop provided we inject a culture of deep respect for women at every place.

Family, school, religious institutions and market places must adopt a cultural practice that woman and man are equal and their self respect needs to be kept up. The school plays a more critical role than any other institution. Our syllabus component about dignity of woman and dignity of labour must increase enormously. If we do not teach children in the schools that woman’s labour and creativity is foundation of advancement and development of the nation we will suffer such maladies more and more in future.

Let us start a cultural revolution for man-woman equality and the first step is opening up a discussion on this issue everywhere–at home, in the school, college, temple, masque, church, office and in the shops.

Skin Deep, Journey in the Divisive Science of Race, by Gavin Evans

Philip Guelpa

Skin Deep, Journey in the Divisive Science of Race, by Gavin Evans (Oneworld, 2019), is a timely and welcome review of the substantial body of work demonstrating the complete lack of a biological basis for the category of “race,” as well as the historical falsifications and scientific distortions that have been used to promote racism. It is well written and accessible to the non-specialist.

The book’s biographical sketch of Evans states that he was “born in London and grew up in Cape Town, where he became intensely involved in the anti-apartheid struggle. He studied economic history and law before completing a PhD in political studies, writing extensively on race and racism. He lectures in the Culture and Media department at Birkbeck College, London.” His strong antipathy toward racism is clear throughout.

Evans presents a review of relevant research and examines the results with a scientifically based and critical eye, identifying weaknesses in studies that purport to identify racial differences in physical and intellectual capabilities. These weaknesses are due to such limitations as small sample sizes, unwarranted extrapolations from weak statistical correlations, and the assumption that correlation necessarily denotes causation. He also examines exaggerations or misinterpretations presented in the popular press as well as by individuals or groups who distort the science to support predetermined conclusions.

It is impossible in this brief review to effectively summarize all of the topics examined in Skin Deep. We will highlight a few.

Evans provides a good, up-to-date summary of the evidence and interpretations regarding the genetic, paleontological, and archaeological data on human evolution. There is still much to learn. A number of recent fossil discoveries indicate the existence of a greater variety of early hominins than previously known (e.g., Homo flore siensis, aka the “Hobbit,” Homo luzonensis, and Homo naladi), suggesting local adaptation of populations in relatively isolated environments.

However, the one central fact is the overwhelming genetic similarity of all modern humans (Homo sapiens, as opposed to other members of the genus)—a much greater uniformity (99.9 percent) than is the case for most other mammals. This indicates that modern humans either replaced earlier forms and/or genetically subsumed them, when they moved out of Africa, with the latter making only minimal genetic contributions, except for Neanderthals and, perhaps Denisovans.

The bottom line is that all living humans are much more alike than they are different. Within population variation is greater than that between populations. Indeed, those differences are, metaphorically speaking, not even “skin deep.”

Archaeological evidence indicates that sophisticated tool manufacture and other evidence of abstract, symbolic thought (e.g., various forms of art), almost certainly associated with fully developed language, are nearly as old as the appearance of anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ), about 200,000 years ago, before dispersal out of Africa. Consequently, early, anatomically modern humans were already equipped with sophisticated mental capabilities that allowed them to adapt primarily through the use of culture to the new environments into which they migrated—Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, rather than by physical adaptation.

This runs counter to claims by “hereditarianists” (those who claim that human behavior is largely determined by genetics) that it was the challenge of adapting to new environments encountered in the move out of Africa that prompted biological selection for increased intelligence. This latter contention bears the stated or implicit conclusion that those who remained in Africa were not so challenged and, therefore, did not develop the more advanced intelligence acquired by the emigrants.

Of particular value is Evans’ debunking of the conception that there can be individual genes that control either intelligence in general or categories of behaviors such as “criminality.”

Research has shown that hundreds of genes may have some influence in any particular aspect of intelligence, each one contributing only a tiny amount to the observed variation. Even then, the interactions between them are complex and difficult to isolate. In short, the quest to identify one or a few genes that have a major determinative effect on intelligence has found no scientific validation.

An example of the extremely dangerous and reactionary implications of pseudo-scientific, genetically based interpretations of human behavior is illustrated by Evans. Steve Bannon, shortly before becoming the chief of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, wrote a piece for the fascist publication Breitbart.com promoting the belief that black males have a disproportionately high frequency of an “extreme warrior gene” that leads them to an increased rate of violence. Thus, according to Bannon, “Here’s a thought: What if the people getting shot by the cops did things to deserve it? There are, after all, in this world, some people who are naturally aggressive and violent.”

The gene allegedly identified as promoting extreme warrior behavior, the MAOA-2R allele, is cited by such hack writers as Richard Lynn and Nicholas Wade, to “explain” the supposed overly aggressive behavior of black males. Evans provides an extensive review of research regarding this gene. The bottom line is that there is absolutely no scientific justification for such a claim. Nevertheless, this and similar pseudo-science is employed by Bannon and others to provide an ideological justification for racism to their fascistic base.

A graph showing the spread of human migration

Another important aspect of the concept of race examined by Evans is the mistaken idea that, until recently races corresponded to broad geographic units—Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. And that these populations were cohesive wholes, genetically distinct, and historically stable. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. Human populations have been on the move for hundreds of thousands of years, mixing and remixing genetically, culturally, and linguistically, with the rate of movement accelerating significantly following the development of agriculture, beginning roughly 10-12 thousand years ago.

While biological adaptation did occur, these are minor and superficial. Current configurations of physical characteristics simplistically described as races are simply a snapshot in time, reflecting a single moment in an ever-changing landscape. Evans cites dozens of examples of such migrations, including the movement of early agriculturalists from the Middle East into Europe and the southward migration of Bantu-speaking farmers in Africa. Many are only recently being identified through genetic research, such as the discovery of a significant admixture of Eurasian DNA into East Africa dating to about 3,000 years ago.

Evans summarizes the historical data that exposes the promotion of racism by Europeans as an ideological justification for colonialism, that Africans, due to supposed inferior intelligence, were incapable of developing advanced civilizations. Examples cited include ancient Nubia and the Great Zimbabwe.

A ruin from Great Zimbabwe

The bulk of Skin Deep presents an extensive review and critique of the claims by some scientists (very few in number) and others that significant differences in intelligence between races can be identified by IQ tests or other means, championed by the likes of Nicholas Wade and Richard Lynn. Such claims, based on simplistic and unfounded characterizations of what constitutes intelligence and how it can be measured, have been refuted time and again. Evans’ critique is interlaced and supported by countless examples of historical distortions, pseudo-scientific fabrications, religious dogma, and outright lies that have been employed over the last few centuries to justify the characterization of one population or another as inherently inferior and others as superior.

Evans takes particular aim at The Bell Curve, by Herrnstein and Murray. This work of pseudo-science, which purports to document genetically determined differences in intelligence between races, is based on selective, manipulated, and fabricated data and interpretations. It has been repeatedly critiqued by a variety of researchers and demonstrated to have no validity. Nevertheless, its use by those with a racist agenda persists. Evans brings together numerous lines of research that conclusively demonstrate not only the scientific worthlessness of The Bell Curve, but that of others who have followed in this line of “research.”

Time and again, claims of racial differences in intelligence, often based on culturally biased IQ tests, are in fact attributable to historical, social, and economic factors, which have nothing to do with intelligence. An extreme example Evans cites is the conclusion by one researcher that San peoples of the Kalahari Desert have an IQ equivalent to that of an eight-year-old European child. Aside from the fact that the test is based on a cultural context with which the San had little or no experience, Evans observes:

I presume Lynn [the researcher in question] has never met a San person, but my experience suggests the notion that their average intelligence is that of a European eight-year-old is absurd. And the idea that a European child could survive alone in the Kalahari is laughable; the kind of statement that could only be made by someone who’d never set foot in a desert.

And further, regarding San whom Evans has met, “They were all fluent in at least two languages, some in four or more.”

In a critique of one of the most recent examples of “scientific racism,” Nicholas Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance, Evans states, “No one disputes that human populations evolved for skin color, lactose tolerance, altitude tolerance, defenses against malaria and the rest, but no scientist has provided evidence of population-specific evolution for wealth-making, authoritarianism, tribal loyalty or, indeed, intelligence.”

This is the crux of the matter. Pseudo-scientific works such as Wade’s conflate clearly biological phenomena with historical/cultural behaviors, and claim, without evidence, that the latter evolve in the same manner as the former, in the tradition of Social Darwinism, sociobiology, and the like

The fundamental question one is left with is: Why in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that, while humans exhibit only a limited range of variation in a few, superficial genetic characteristics, does the concept that races exist as some sort of overriding, bounded phenomena, demarking distinct entities, nevertheless persist?

For all of the valuable information provided by Evans, the book has one significant weakness. His contention that racism is a “belief” rather than an expression of “power” (since “a powerless person can be a racist”) is fundamentally idealist, in the philosophical sense, and leaves the reader with no satisfying explanation as to why such a mistaken and pernicious belief should persist and at times become a justification for vicious behavior and mass murder, even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence otherwise.

Evans suggests that race science, apparently as an expression of underlying racism, is a constant phenomenon that occasionally bubbles to the surface under certain conditions. In the section “What Motivates Race Science?,” Evans cites Stephen Jay Gould’s observation that each resurgence of race science coincides with waves of political attacks against the poor, which are promoted by the far right. Evans observes, “The process is influenced by the political climate, as illustrated by the proliferation of race science on social media in the wake of Trump’s election campaign and since.”

He attributes the latest resurgence to “the combination of the economic fallout from the 2008 banking crash, the decline of manufacturing and mining jobs in the West, the recalibration of the world economy as information technology changes the world, and to the wars in Syria and elsewhere in years to come.”

And further, “The current wave [of race science] is particularly strong and persistent for reasons … that relate to the rise of ethnic nationalism, which in turn is partly prompted by the existential insecurity, particularly of young white men, in response to a rapidly changing social and economic milieu.

“With the rise of the alt-right, fascists taking to the streets all over Europe, populist, nativist right-wingers winning power in several parts of the world; far-right terrorism on the increase; it is clear that racism, and the ideas that feed it, are more resilient than we hoped. The twentieth century showed us where bad ideas about race can lead. If we don’t want the twenty-first to echo those themes, bad ideas need to be countered whenever and wherever they appear.”

In a number of instances throughout the book, Evans points to the use of racism, including purported differences in intelligence, as ideological justification for oppression, such as colonialism. However, he does not go deeper and make a class analysis. Throughout history, racism and other forms of discrimination (e.g., xenophobia, religious bias) have been used by ruling classes as a weapon of domination—to “divide and conquer” the lower classes. This is nakedly obvious in recent centuries under capitalism—the Nazis’ anti-Semitism and anti-black racism in the US, for example.

Therefore, one must conclude that the driving force behind racism and the like is not simply the result of wrong ideas or bad science, whatever any individual’s subjective motivations for adopting such views may be, and regardless of the “scientific” justifications that may be concocted in their support. Rather, such ideas are promoted and sustained as tools of class rule, as the overt promotion of racism currently undertaken by both the right and “left” wings of the American bourgeoisie (e.g., Trump’s drive to build a fascist movement, on the one hand, and the New York Times ’ 1619 Project, on the other) clearly demonstrates.

Now, as world capitalism plunges into extreme crisis, the bourgeoisie feels seriously threatened by the resurgence of the working class. It, therefore, reaches for one of its deadliest weapons—racism and similar forms of ethnic and religious bigotry—to keep it divided. While detailed critiques of pseudo-science and historical falsification, such as Skin Deep, are important and indeed vital resources in the struggle against such biases, these will never be overcome until the root cause, namely class society, is eliminated.

Growing poverty and inequality in New Zealand

Tom Peters

Numerous reports point to worsening poverty and social inequality in New Zealand, more than two years after the formation of the Labour Party-led government, which pledged to end the former National Party government’s austerity regime, imposed since the 2008 financial crisis.

Labour and its two coalition parties—NZ First and the Greens—promised to reduce child poverty and homelessness, and properly fund services such as healthcare and education. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern even created a new role for herself: Minister for Child Poverty Reduction. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters, from the right-wing NZ First Party, declared that he chose a coalition with Labour instead of National in order to restore “capitalism’s human face.”

These pledges have proven to be a fraud. Like social democratic governments around the world, the Ardern government has carried out a thoroughly pro-business agenda, including low taxes and strict spending limits, resulting in the further enrichment of the country’s billionaires, while broad layers of the working class are being driven deeper into poverty.

Figures released on December 9 by Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft show 17 percent of children are in households below the poverty line of 50 percent of the median income—up from 16 percent when Labour came to power in 2017. The figure is 23 percent, 254,000 children, after housing costs are deducted. Some 148,000 children, 13 percent, are going without six or more “essentials,” such as decent shoes, warm clothes, enough food, and the ability to see a doctor.

In a damning TVNZ interview on November 17, Becroft described the Ardern government’s response to the crisis as “weak, supine, passive… We can’t fiddle while Rome burns.” He called for raising unemployment and other welfare payments by 20 to 40 percent—a key recommendation from the government’s own Welfare Expert Advisory Group that was rejected by Ardern.

In a speech in October celebrating two years in power, Ardern falsely declared: “We have lifted between 50,000 and 70,000 children out of poverty.” There is no statistical data to support this claim. These figures are actually a government target for the year 2021, i.e., after next year’s election. By then, the government says increases to some benefits and tax credits will give 385,000 families an extra $75 a week. However, this will be outstripped by the cost of living. Median weekly rents, for instance, have already risen in the past two years by $50.

There are many signs of growing hardship. Research by Auckland City Mission, published in October, estimated that 10 percent of the population, almost 500,000 people, cannot afford to eat properly—up from 7 percent 10 years ago.

In the three months to September, the government spent $167 million on 573,588 emergency Hardship Assistance Grants, mostly for food—a major increase from 345,000 grants in the same period of 2018.

Fleur Wainoho, principal of Whare Tapere o Takitimu, a Maori school in Hastings, recently wrote in Stuff: “I’ve seen a family of four children share one sandwich, breaking that up knowing it’s the only meal source they’ve got for the day. Just seeing that is heartbreaking… a hungry child is only thinking about where the next meal is coming from. They can’t be expected to write a story or be engaged in a lesson.” Wainoho described a solo mother who works full time but pays $520 a week for housing and is forced to rely on charity for food.

The Human Rights Commission reported on November 25 that 7 percent of working households, more than 50,000 homes, are living below the poverty line (defined as 60 percent of the median income or about $600 a week). After housing costs, the figure rises to 67,000 or 9.2 percent. More than 12 percent of households with just one working parent are in poverty.

For the past decade, wages and benefits have remained stagnant, while the cost of living soared. New Zealand now has the highest housing costs relative to income in the OECD, with poor families typically paying half their income, or more, on rent.

An estimated 41,000 people, one in 100, were homeless in 2013 and the figure today is undoubtedly higher. A record 14,000 families are waiting for public housing, while the number of state houses per capita is the lowest it has been since the 1940s. The New Zealand Herald reports that 10 years ago there was one state house for every 65 people, now there is one per 80. The government is building 1,600 houses per year, while demand is increasing by 2,000.

Media commentators and politicians increasingly frame discussion of social inequality as a generational divide, contrasting supposedly comfortable “Boomers” with struggling “Millenials.” This superficial analysis diverts attention from the fundamental class division in society, which cuts across all ages and ethnic groups.

The scapegoating of older people is also an attempt to soften up the population for raising the age of pension entitlement, or implementing means testing, which both the Labour and National parties have proposed at different times.

For about 40 percent of people over 65, pensions are their only income. Between 2013 and 2017 the number of hardship assistance grants for this age group soared from 36,000 to 56,000 annually. About 12 percent of older people in Auckland are malnourished, according to a Massey University study last year.

The real wealth gap is between the working class and the capitalist elite, who are making billions from the housing bubble and other parasitic activities. The richest 10 percent controls 53 percent of the wealth and the top 1 percent holds 19 percent. New Zealand now has nine billionaires, up from eight last year, plus five billionaire families. The individuals on the annual National Business Review “Rich List” increased their wealth from $81 billion last year to $90 billion this year.

Workers have attempted to fight back. Tens of thousands of teachers, nurses, doctors and other healthcare workers have held nationwide strikes in the past two years. The trade union bureaucracy, however, isolated and strangled these struggles, enforcing the government’s cap on public sector wage rises at 3 percent per annum, below the real increase in cost of living. On average, wages increased in the year to September by just 2.4 percent, while rents increased by more than 5 percent.

The Ardern government’s record demonstrates that none of the parties in parliament represents the interests of the working class. As the global economy deteriorates, Labour and its allies will respond with more attacks on jobs, wages, benefits and social services, while protecting the fortunes of the super-rich.