France : Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité & Laïcité….But Not for Muslims?

Mariamne Everett

 

“…Our country is one that has no problems with any of the world’s religions whatsoever, because they are all practised freely in our country. And to all French people of the Muslim faith, and indeed to citizens from anywhere else in the world whose religion is Islam, I should like to say to them that France is a country in which this religion, too, is freely practised.”

– Emmanuel Macron, President of France, 31st October, 2020 in an interview with Al Jazeera

Macron made the above statement during an interview with Al Jazeera in an attempt to clarify, what he characterised as “misunderstandings” about his statements towards the Muslim community. How historically accurate is it though? France is after all, a country with a history steeped in colonialism. However, that colonial history is far from over, as evidenced by the actions of the French government even over the past century towards its own Muslim population (which is the largest in Western Europe and estimated at around 5 million people) and its neo-colonialist actions in its territories and formerly colonised states.

Whenever the issue of religion comes up in France, one word is sure to enter the conversation, and that is laïcité (translated best as secularism). This term is evoked by French politicians on all sides of the political spectrum to justify the proposition or passage of laws that effectively target one particular religious minority. The principle of laïcité is tied to the passage of a law in 1905 establishing the separation of church and state. It’s important to stress that this law also guarantees the freedom to practice one’s religion while ensuring neutrality at the state level. For example, according to Article 18, religious symbols are not allowed “on public monuments or in any public place whatsoever, except for buildings used for worship, burial grounds in cemeteries, monuments and museums or exhibitions.” However, no mention is made prohibiting the wearing of religious symbols in public spaces such as schools. This would come much later.

In the aftermath of World War I, a war in which up to 100,000 Muslim soldiers died fighting on the French side, France brought over young men from its North African colonies to provide cheap labour to build up its economy and replace the high numbers of men who had been killed. These men performed the jobs that most French people didn’t want to do, for example, laying railroad track and working in mines. They earned low wages and lived in crowded tenements on the outskirts of major cities.

During World War II, the majority of Muslims and Arabs from France’s colonies fought on the Allied side. They, in fact, made up a large portion of Charles de Gaulle’s Free French army, at a time when a large number of their white French counterparts were collaborating with the Vichy regime. The sacrifices of these soldiers from colonised African nations were little recognised by French society — going so far as to present the 1944 liberation of Paris as a “whites only” victory. By the time the Algerian War broke out in 1954, around half a million Algerians were living and working in France.

France’s fifth & current republic was established in 1958, and with it, a new constitution. Article 1 of this Constitution states that “France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs,” Article 5 reinforces this by stating that “The President of the Republic oversees to the respect of the Constitution.”

Despite this new constitution promising equality, discrimination towards France’s minorities continued. This, coupled with a desire to show support for the ongoing Algerian War of Independence, led to tens of thousands of Algerians organising a peaceful demonstration in Paris on October 17, 1961. In what would later become known as the Paris Massacre of 1961, French police, led by Maurice Papon, a local prefect and known Nazi collaborator during the Vichy regime responsible for the deportation of thousands of Jews, attacked these unarmed protestors. 14,000 people were detained with thousands injured – many of whom were thrown into the river Seine –  and around 400 were shot. As Yasser Louati, a French human rights and civil liberties activist and president of CJL (Justice & Freedoms For All Committee), puts it “The 1961 Paris Massacre is not an event recognised as a bloody act in the history of the republic. There is a desire to forget or underestimate what happened in October 1961.”

Intolerance wasn’t exclusively practiced by the French state, however. In the first half of the 1970s, the Mouvement des Travailleurs Arabes (the Arab Workers Movement) was formed following a consensus that left-wing unions like the Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour), one of France’s largest trade unions, failed to seriously address racism in the workplace and to make space for Algerian factory workers in their unions.

In 1976, during a period of economic decline, a new immigration law was introduced, called le droit au regroupement familial (the right to family reunification). While this law seemed favourable towards its immigrant population on the surface, allowing immigrant men to bring over their spouse and children, in actuality, it was meant to limit immigration by introducing many caveats. For example, one had to prove that they had lived a minimum of one year in France, have suitable housing for them and their family, enough financial resources and that they wouldn’t disrupt “public order.” These limitations would go on to be expanded by the introduction of another law in 2003, such as extending the minimum length of stay to two years, have stable employment making at least minimum wage and prove they have “integrated well” into French society, an ambiguous qualification.

In addition to this attempt at stifling immigration, Arabs & Africans continue to experience waves of police brutality and hate crimes. In 1983, France’s first anti-racist demonstration, the March for Equality And Against Racism, was organised by Toumi Djaidja, a young Algerian, after he suffered a near death experience from gunshot wounds inflicted by a police officer during a raid. What began as a small march in Marseille on October 15, 1983 made up of just 30 people, gained momentum over two months, with over 100,000 supporters marching to Paris, propelled by the death of Habib Grimzi, a 26-year-old Algerian vacationing in France, who was beaten and thrown off a train alive by four young Foreign Legion recruits.

The march also came at a time when Jean Marie LePen’s extreme right wing party Front Nationale (National Front) began to gain significant political presence. Their sentiments towards immigrants were not isolated and are reflected amongst members in other right-wing parties. As exemplified by Alain de Griotteray, a member of the centre-right political party, Union pour la Démocratie Française (Union for French Democracy) who penned the book “L’Immigration : Le Choc” (“The Shock of Immigration”). In a review by his party’s founder, Michel Poniatowski, Poniatowski stated that “Muslim and African immigration, on the other hand, poses a different problem” and that “this population, perhaps because it is poorly integrated and has a high percentage of unemployed, represents a potential for criminality and delinquency as well as a prison presence much higher compared to the average European in France.”

As these anti-immigrant views continued to spread, and despite President Francois Mitterand’s Parti Socialiste (Socialist Party) in power, 1989 marked the year that the hijab controversy began in France when three Muslim school girls were suspended from their high school in Creil, a suburb of Paris, for refusing to take their hijabs off. This controversy greatly divided the country, with many saying that allowing the wearing of the hijab goes against France’s policy of secularism. The State Council however disagreed, pronouncing that “The freedom thus granted to pupils includes for them the right to express and manifest their religious beliefs within schools, with respect for pluralism and the freedom of others, and without compromising teaching activities, programme content and attendance requirements.” By the end of the year, Education Minister Lionel Jospin issued a statement declaring that it was up to educators, rather than the state, to decide whether the wearing of the hijab would be permitted in their classrooms. In response to this statement, a letter was written by several French “intellectuals”, and published in Le Nouvel Observateur, addressed to the Minister. In it was this especially noteworthy declaration : “ ‘Welcome all the children,’ you say. Yes. But that never meant bringing their parents’ religion into school with them as it is. To tolerate the Islamic headscarf is not to welcome a free being (in this case a young girl), it is to open the door to those who have decided, once and for all and without discussion, to make her submit. Instead of giving this young girl a space of freedom, you are telling her that there is no difference between school and her father’s house.” This declaration signifies along with laïcité, the use of a feminist argument veiled as concern for these particular Muslim girls, in a broad attempt to stifle religious expression in a particular faith.

Targeting children of immigrants continued in 1991 as former president Valery Giscard d`Estaing, member of the centre right Parti Republicain (Republican Party), called for “citizenship to be restricted to those born of French parents.” Two years later, the Méhaignerie law was introduced, more or less ending France’s Jus Soli laws that granted birth right citizenship for the children of immigrants born in the country.

In 1994, the Minister of Education, Francois Bayrou, published a circular addressed to all public school officials effectively banning all “obvious religious symbols” – without stating what he considered to be obvious – but that “subtle ones” may remain. Although this action came without any semblance of legal backing, it set the stage for France’s eventual law in 2004 banning the expression of all “religious affiliation” in public educational institutions.

Prior to legally prohibiting religious symbols in schools, the French government, under the auspices of then Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, took a contradictory move to their spirit of separating church and state by founding the controversial French Council of Muslim Faith in 2003. The body was created to “collaborate with public authorities on all Islam-related questions and regulate Muslim religious activities in France”. According to Louati, this body “is a power share between a handful of federations, all of whom are related to foreign countries which include Morocco, Algeria and Turkey. They are not elected by Muslims, and have never held free, transparent and fair elections. It is not a coincidence that they do not represent Muslims before the state but the state before Muslims.” It is important to note that this very same council would go on to declare in October 2020 that “Muslims aren’t persecuted in France” at all.

Nearly 10 years after the release of Minister of Education Bayrou’s circular, the centre right President Jacques Chirac, having recently defeated LePen’s extreme right party for a 2nd presidential term, announced that he would like religious symbols to be banned in schools. The Stasi Commission, set up by Chirac, agreed with him on the principle of secularism. The Baroin Report which was put to the National Assembly a few weeks previously, addressed the “issue of wearing religious symbols in schools”. This report focused heavily on why the veil in particular is not compatible with laïcité and why it should be banned from schools. This decision, and the subsequent law passed in 2004 banning the wearing of religious symbols in schools, which Human Rights Watch said unfairly targets Muslim girls, meant that many girls felt they had to choose between their religion and education. This law goes directly against Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

The year 2004 was a historical turning point. It was a departure from the original term of laïcité enshrined in the 1905 law limiting religious neutrality to the state level, to this new law imposing religious neutrality on all public educational institutions. While this law has only been introduced in schools, it could potentially be extended to demand religious neutrality in other services provided by the state. In fact, as recently as 2017, the European Court of Justice gave even French private companies permission to forbid their staff from wearing religious symbols in the workplace.

France went on to introduce a tougher and more invasive law in 2010 banning full-face coverings in public places. A law that was both condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Committee and NGOs such as Human Rights Watch stating that it undermines Muslim women’s religious rights and freedoms. No doubt intentionally, this law passed at around the same time as France was occupied with the law on pension reform introduced in November 2010.

2015 would be another important year regarding the place of Muslims in French society as France began to introduce measures aimed at tackling terrorism following the Charlie Hebdo attack on January 7th, 2015 and later that year, the November Paris attacks. As a response to the latter, the then president of France, Francois Hollande, of the Parti Solialiste (Socialist Party), ramped up his bombing campaign of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq to include Syria all the while declaring a state of emergency. The “abusive and discriminatory raids and house arrests” that occurred against its Muslim population during this state of emergency were criticised by NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. In fact, out of the 3,200 raids conducted and the placement of 350 to 400 people under house arrest, the counterterrorism unit eventually only launched five terrorism-related investigations. Moreover, what were at first presented as temporary emergency measures, would later be voted permanently into law in 2017.

Amidst the current deadly pandemic and continued wave of Yellow Vest protests against austerity, Macron has declared his intention to fight “Islamist separatism.” Firstly, warrantless police raids have been carried out following the assassination of Samuel Paty, to “send a message,” according to the Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. Incidentally, the same minister also called for the dissolution of the Collectif Contre Islamophobie en France (Collective Against Islamophobia in France). In response, CCIF, an organisation that documents instances of Islamophobic hate crimes, instead dissolved itself voluntarily and is moving its activities abroad. Another Muslim non-governmental humanitarian organisation, Barakacity, was also dissolved by Darmanin under the claim that its founder made “hateful” and “antisemitic” posts on his social media account. A claim that he was only able to contest after the dissolution of his organisation. Important to note as well is that despite Macron stating in his interview with Al Jazeera that “in our country, in France, any journalist is free to speak about the French President, the Government, the political majority or minority or indeed the rest of the world,” Macron called into the Financial Times to have an article about him removed. Another article, by Politico Europe, entitled “The dangerous French religion of secularism” was also taken down with no real explanation to its author. The Editor later issued an apology claiming it didn’t meet their “editorial standards.”

Over the past few weeks, France has attempted to introduce further laws that threaten the safety of its population and severely restrict its human rights and safety. Laws that one could argue could potentially impact its whole population, but especially discriminate against its minority populations, including its Muslim one. The first one, entitled Loi de Sécurité Globale (Global Security Bill), would prohibit the filming or photographing of police unless all identifying features are blurred. If caught breaking this law, violators risk a fine of up to 45,000 euros and one year in prison. This includes anyone, even journalists fulfilling their duties. This law has been condemned by various groups, including Amnesty International and the Paris-based group, Defender of Rights.

A newer law that is being brought to the French Assemblée Nationale (National Assembly) proposes setting up internment camps for French citizens accused of “radicalisation”. Though not mentioned directly in the title, the “radicalisation” it seems to aim to tackle is that of “Islamist radicalisation.” This is stated in its preamble : “While Islamist terrorism has claimed nearly 250 victims in France in just 5 years, the authorities are slow to measure the extent of this phenomenon.” What is also important to note is that no definition has been given for what constitutes someone who has been “radicalised”.

Looking to the future, one thing seems certain, if these two laws mentioned above pass, it could pave the way for even worse legislation, all done in the fight to uphold both laïcité and tackle “Islamist separatism.” Taking into account France’s record with its Muslim population even just over the past century, we can’t entirely dismiss fears that the situation could dramatically worsen.

What’s Inside Haiti’s New Security Decrees: An Intelligence Agency and an Expanded Definition of Terrorism

Jake Johnston & Kira Paulemon

On November 26, 2020, the Haitian government published two decrees on national security. The first creates a new national intelligence agency, while the second greatly expands the definition of terrorism. Haitian president Jovenel Moise has been ruling by decree since January when the terms of parliament expired, and has used that power to consolidate the strength of the executive branch. The government has framed the changes as a response to recently increasing insecurity, however the Port-au-Prince Bar Association and various human rights organizations have denounced the new decrees and warned that they could be used to increase repression.

Marie Suzy Legros, the head of the bar association, labeled the decrees as “tyrannical” and as the destruction of liberty. “Jovenel Moise has the madness of a dictator,” former Senator Steven Benoit commented in response to the decrees. “He does not realize that we are no longer in 1957,” he continued, in reference to Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier who created his own intelligence agency in the early years of the dictatorship. Even before these recent decrees, 11 human rights organizations had condemned the “dictatorial and unconstitutional” actions of the current administration.

On December 12, the Core Group in Haiti issued a press release “expressing concern” over the new decrees. The Decree on the Strengthening of Public Security, the diplomatic representatives note, “extends the qualification of ‘terrorist act’ to certain facts that do not fall under it and provides for particularly heavy penalties.” The intelligence agency, the Core Group, continued, gives “the agents of this institution virtual legal immunity, thus opening up the possibility of abuse.” Taken together, these decrees “do not seem to conform to certain fundamental principles of democracy, the rule of law and the civil and political rights of citizens.”

So, what is in these new decrees?

A New Intelligence Agency

The National Intelligence Agency (ANI by its French acronym) is a technical and administrative institution, whose primary focus is on information gathering and the repression of hostile acts that could be perceived as a threat to national security. Though the new agency will operate under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior, the president has the sole authority to name a director general and other high-level positions (Art. 54).

The ANI will be staffed by individuals recruited from the National Police Academy and from the military. The decree includes scant information on the vetting of ANI officers, but notes that recruits will be subject to testing as well as to psychological and moral inquiries (Art. 32). The officers, whose identities will remain anonymous due to national security concerns, will also be armed (Art. 51) . The decree also grants total secrecy to the ANI’s operations. The ANI is authorized to conduct surveillance and will have access to all relevant government databases. Officers will also be able to enter private homes or businesses at any time in order to access documents, objects, or anything else relevant to an ongoing investigation (Art. 55).

ANI officers will not be regular civil servants, but instead will hold a special status, de facto creating a third armed force in the country (Art. 33). The decree also grants legal protection to all ANI officers (Art. 49). There is no possibility for legal recourse in the case of abuse without prior authorization from the president. The agency itself is protected from any legal action that seeks to prevent its functioning or the execution of its activities (Art. 67). The decree offers relatively little information as to how this new agency might be funded.

An Expanded Definition of Terrorism

The Decree for the Reinforcement of Public Security expands the definition of “terrorism” to include such acts as robbery, extortion, arson, and the destruction or degradation of public and private goods.

Articles 1.12 and 1.13, however, go even further and specify that acts of crowding or blocking public roads to obstruct movement are included in this expanded definition. The decree specifies that even so much as placing garbage in a public road would fall under the new definition of terrorism. Blocking roads is a common protest tactic in Haiti, as in many other countries.

The decree also specifics penalties under the new definition. Those found guilty of committing “terrorist acts” can spend from 30 to 50 years in prison and face a fine ranging from two million to two-hundred million Haitian gourdes (about $28,000 – $2,800,000 at today’s exchange rate). The decree states that the penalties cannot be lowered under any circumstance. Individuals can be exempted from punishment if they provide the authorities with information that prevents a terrorist act and leads to the arrest of the individuals or groups responsible.

Oddly, the decree states that, if there are any reservations, the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate has 30 days to introduce a new law in parliament. The parliament has not functioned since January 2020.

Most Important Aspects of Nutrition Are Also the Most Neglected

Bharat Dogra

In India we have the biggest programs on nutrition and we have also have some of the highest rates of malnutrition. Despite the expanding nutrition programs (checked for the time being by Covid related factors ), malnutrition levels remain high, as revealed also in the latest surveys. This curious and sad phenomenon has been examined by several learned experts, but somehow some very important factors do not get the attention they clearly deserve.

Nutrition of various foods is  related closely to the soil in which food is grown . When the natural fertility of soil is badly affected due to the decline in the organic matter, by the imposing of various harmful chemicals on soil, by destroying earthworms and various micro-organisms in soil, by heavy erosion and in other ways, then the balance of various nutrients in soil is badly disrupted and the nutrition of various food and fodder crops grown in this is also badly disrupted. This cannot be made up by artificial additives. Hence maintaining good soil health and maintaining organic matter of soil are very important in themselves ( it is  increasingly realized that this is also very important for checking climate change  ) but in addition this is also very important for maintaining proper nutrition content of food , as soil is ultimately the greatest and most important source and resource of all farming.

When soil quality is badly impeded in a society of poor people, this leads to very disastrous nutrition results as many people are eating less than needed and whatever they are eating is also deficient  in nutrition due to soil-related factors ( as well as perhaps other factors as well). In rich societies as people are eating a lot, they may make up nutrition deficiencies  but in their case soil-related adverse factors may be reflected in disease.

Secondly a somewhat related factor is that balanced time-honored, traditional diets are fast being replaced by other foods. In India, for example the daal-roti and daal-bhaat traditional diet makes very sound nutritious sense which also relates beautifully and organically to soil-health. For example the proteins and other nutrients of important cereals and legumes often complement each other and hence make for a balanced diet, a scientific fact which is affirmed by common people every day as they find it more nourishing to eat these foods together rather than separately. In terms of soil health , in farming this corresponds to mixed farming of, for example, wheat and gram, or other mixed farming systems and rotations of cereals and legumes, as nutrients needed by cereals are provided free and effortlessly by nitrogen-fixing abilities of legume crops. Unfortunately, these balances of nutrition systems and their organic relationships with soil health have been neglected in recent times.

Instead the official food security system and public distribution system in India gives unbalanced, one-sided importance to just two cereal crops , neglecting pulses and millets, which in turn pushes poorer families towards a more unbalanced diet, leading not just to malnutrition but even higher possibilities of disease. Nutritionally some of the richest millet crops have been increasingly neglected, a fact which has proved costly also for soil health. Such trends towards malnutrition have of course been accentuated by the increasing arrival of packaged junked food even in many poorer households, particularly in urban households.

A frequently neglected factor not just in market-purchased and packaged food but sometimes even in food cooked at home  and even nutrition centers is the quality of cooking/edible oil. Unfortunately the use of hydrogenated edible oils, which convert healthy and useful unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats in oilseeds to unhealthy and harmful saturated fats has spread widely as this is promoted as cheaper oil in attracted ways by powerful agribusiness companies. In addition some of the cheaper imported oils( including possibility of  GM oils) are also not good for health. The domestically produced GM cottonseed oil, obtained from Bt. cotton, is widely used in some markets for making snacks and namkeens. It will be useful to know and monitor how healthy are the oils  used in our nutrition programs, as preparing safe healthy food is particularly important for small children as well as pregnant and lactating mothers.

All these factors are important but an even more important fact is the simple and very sad reality that a very large number of households in India ( and in several other  countries ) simply cannot afford  adequate and nutritionally balanced food for all family members on a regular basis. Their number is likely to be increasing and will increase more in times of climate change. Even the landless farm workers who toil the hardest directly in producing this food cannot afford this. As long as this very sad reality persists, only nutrition schemes by themselves cannot fill the gap in nutrition; we simply need more justice and equality in the world and ultimately this is the most important fact for ending hunger and malnutrition.

UK: Pandemic hits working class hardest due to deep social inequality

Robert Stevens

The Fifth National Congress Resolution of the Socialist Equality Party (UK) noted, “The working class has paid a heavy price for the collusion of Labour and the TUC [Trades Union Congress] with the Tories and the employers. The virus is a poor man’s disease. Those in the most deprived communities were more than twice as likely to die as those in the wealthiest districts, and males in manual jobs four times more likely to die than those in professional occupations."

This analysis is confirmed to devastating effect in the report, “Build Back Fairer: The COVID-19 Marmot Review--The Pandemic, Socioeconomic and Health Inequalities in England”. Produced by the Institute of Health Equity at University College London (UCL) and the Health Foundation, the 221-page report confirms that the disease impacts most severely on the working class.

The report, "Build Back Fairer: The COVID-19 Marmot Review--The Pandemic, Socioeconomic and Health Inequalities in England"

“There are clear differences in risks of mortality related to occupation,” it notes. “Being in a key worker role, unable to work from home and being in close proximity to others put people at higher risk. Occupations at particularly high risk include those in the health and social care, as well as those requiring elementary skills such as security guards and bus and taxi drivers.”

Lead author Sir Michael Marmot is Professor of Epidemiology at UCL and director of the Institute of Health Equity, and a leading authority on health inequalities for over four decades. A former president of the World Medical Association and the author of The Health Gap—The Challenge of an Unequal World, Marmot has published valuable studies and lectured on health inequalities in the UK, the United States and Australia .

His report explains, “England had higher mortality from COVID-19 and higher excess deaths in the first half of 2020 than other European countries for which comparable data are available.” The reason for this is because the working class has been under systematic assault over decades, leading to a gutting of living standards and the wholesale destruction of essential health and social protections:

“Not only does England vie with Spain for the dubious distinction of having the highest excess mortality rate from COVID-19 in Europe, but the economic hit is among the most damaging in Europe too. The mismanagement during the pandemic, and the unequal way the pandemic has struck, is of a piece with what happened in England in the decade from 2010.”

Sir Michael Marmot, NHS Confederation annual conference and exhibition 2010 - Liverpool ACC (credit: NHS Confederation - Flickr: Sir Michael Marmot)

The UK has suffered over 65,000 COVID-19 deaths according to government figures, but the true death toll is over 76,000. It fared so badly because of the class war austerity measures waged by successive governments.

The report notes, “Government policies of austerity succeeded in reducing public expenditure in the decade before the pandemic. Among the effects were regressive cuts in spending by local government including in adult social care, failure of health care spending to rise in accord with demographic and historical patterns, and cuts in public health funding. These were in addition to cuts in welfare to families with children, cuts in education spending per school student, and closure of Children’s Centres. England entered the pandemic with its public services in a depleted state and its tax and benefit system regeared to the disadvantage of lower income groups.”

Income inequality led to health inequality. “Health had stopped improving, and there was a high prevalence of the health conditions that increase case fatality ratios of COVID-19… The unequal conditions into which COVID-19 arrived contributed to the high and unequal death toll from COVID-19 in England.”

The “governance and political culture both before and during the pandemic have damaged social cohesion and inclusiveness, undermined trust, de-emphasised the importance of the common good, and failed to take the political decisions that would have recognised health and well-being of the population as priority.”

Prior to the pandemic “health was deteriorating, life expectancy stalling and health inequalities widening. Socioeconomic inequalities played a big part in these adverse health conditions in the decade before 2020.”

Marmot’s work historically has focused on the impact of de-industrialisation, forcing millions who live in former industrial heartlands into a life of poverty. The report states, “[T]he close association between underlying health, deprivation, occupation and ethnicity and COVID-19 have made living in more deprived areas in some regions particularly hazardous. Mortality has been particularly high in the North West and North East since the end of the first wave.”

Over the past decade, “Cuts to local government… were regressive, with more deprived local authorities experiencing greater cuts than wealthier areas. From 2009 to 2020, net expenditure per person in local authorities in the 10 percent most deprived areas fell by 31 percent, compared with a 16 percent decrease in the least deprived areas. In North East England spending per person fell by 30 percent, compared with cuts of 15 percent in the South West. Cuts to public services were also regressive and negatively impacted more deprived areas the most. In some areas, which we call ‘ignored places’, by the start of 2020 deprivation was entrenched and deepening.”

The report links deaths among BAME groups directly to the occupations they are employed in and entrenched social inequality these communities face. While the authors state their belief that racism is a factor, class issues related to employment and living conditions predominate.

Explaining why “mortality risks from COVID-19 are much higher among many BAME groups than White people in England,” it notes, “BAME groups are proportionately represented in more deprived areas and high-risk occupations, and these risks are the result of longstanding inequalities and structural racism.”

It states, “As well as social care being one of the occupations with the highest rates of mortality from COVID-19, the crisis has exposed the pre-existing difficult conditions and low pay in this sector. In the UK there are more than 900,000 people working in frontline social care roles as their main job. A high proportion are women (83 percent) and 18 percent are BAME compared with 12 percent for all occupations. One in 10 care workers is on a zero-hours contract and 70 percent earn less than £10 an hour (38). The proportion of care workers on low wages is highest in the North of England, which is also the region whose care homes have been the most affected by COVID-19.”

Many BAME workers also live in poorer areas in multi-generational households.

One of the main strengths of the study is its detailing of how the pandemic has accelerated a social crisis that has already devastated the lives of millions.

“As we set out in this report, COVID-19 has exposed and amplified the inequalities we observed in our 10 Years On report and the economic harm caused by containment measures—lockdowns, tier systems, social isolation measures—will further damage health and widen health inequalities. Inequalities in COVID-19 mortality rates follow a similar social gradient to that seen for all causes of death and the causes of inequalities in COVID-19 are similar to the causes of inequalities in health more generally…

“The COVID-19 pandemic and associated containment measures have led to declining incomes and an increasingly precarious financial position for many, which has exacerbated already concerning levels of poverty, debt and financial insecurity in England.”

The UK is depicted as torn asunder by class divisions. “The last decade was marked by low and stagnating wage growth and increases in rates of poverty for people in work and for children. There were associated rapid increases in food poverty and homelessness. The introduction of the living wage did not prevent poverty among working people, while the new Universal Credit limits to benefit entitlements and changes to the tax and benefit system were regressive and resulted in widening income and wealth inequalities. Incomes for wealthier people and regions increased markedly—buoyed by rising house prices and share values, and the relatively low levels of taxes.”

The precipitous decline of living standards accelerated during the pandemic:

· “Household income (from all sources, including wages, benefits, assets and savings) fell in the UK in April 2020, following the outbreak of the pandemic. Changes to the benefits system, introduced to support households, did reduce the impact on the lowest-income groups, but when these changes are reversed in March 2021 there will be great financial and health harm to those groups. People on a low income but who are not reliant solely on benefits have experienced large declines in their income.”

· “A higher proportion of people earning less than £20,000 reported receiving a reduced income than those in the higher income brackets”.

· “As a result of COVID-19, inequalities in wealth will widen even beyond their high level pre-pandemic. One-third of families in the top income quintile saved more than usual in the first two months of the pandemic, whereas lower-income families were more likely to have taken on additional debt and 50 percent of people with savings under £1,000 had used them to cover everyday expenses.”

· “Prior to the pandemic, food insecurity was already of significant concern in the UK and the Trussell Trust found that an estimated 8–10 percent of households had experienced either moderate or severe food insecurity between 2016 and 2018. These levels have risen considerably during the pandemic as a result of loss of income, school closures and the additional costs of having children at home. During March to August 2020, four million people in households with children experienced food insecurity--14 percent of households--up from 12 percent before the pandemic.”

Marmot’s report proposes dozens of recommendations that should be carried to reverse the results of a social counter-revolution. But these are all addressed to the very government than has waged this offensive against the working class. There will be no change of heart by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his gang of political criminals. Indeed, Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s November spending review is acknowledged as leading to “a reduction of £10 billion in ‘normal public sector spending’ next year. Public sector pay outside the NHS will be frozen, and the temporary boost of £20 a week to Universal Credit is not set to continue beyond March 2021.”

Nothing is to be spared from cuts. “There are growing calls to reform social care pay to create parity with NHS pay but the November 2020 spending review subjected care workers to a pay freeze.”

Tens of millions of people, living in the fifth richest country on the planet, are suffering levels of social distress without precedent since the 1930s. This situation is entirely the responsibility of the pro-capitalist Labour Party and their partners in the trade union bureaucracy, who have collaborated in the greatest transfer of wealth from the working class to Britain’s oligarchy in history—leaving the UK the social wasteland and playground for the rich outlined in Marmot’s report.

When David Cameron’s Tory government began his “age of austerity” programme in 2010, he was not only acting in the spirit of Margaret Thatcher, but continuing the austerity of the Brown Labour government which had just overseen a £1 trillion bailout of the UK’s banks following the 2008 global financial crash.

None of this changed with the election of the nominally left Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. Corbyn and his shadow chancellor John McDonnell were opposed to fighting the spending cuts imposed by the Tories and instructed Labour councils running virtually every major urban conurbation to impose “legal”, “balanced” budgets.

The bipartisan assault on workers livelihoods has continued throughout the pandemic, before and after Corbyn was replaced as Labour leader by Sir Keir Starmer. The suppression of all opposition in the working class to the Tories’ “back-to-work/back-to-school” drive by the trade unions and Labour has claimed tens of thousands of lives and will claim tens of thousands more.

German government increases military spending, cuts education and health care

Johannes Stern

The 2021 federal budget passed last week makes clear the priorities of the ruling class: not the health and lives of working people, but the interests of German imperialism at home and abroad. While the budgets for health, education and social affairs have been massively cut compared to this year, spending on the military and the security apparatus continues to rise.

Next year, for example, the defence budget will be increased by a further €1.3 billion to €46.93 billion. It has thus increased by almost €15 billion since 2014. In fact, it is even higher. The German government had already reported defence spending of over €50 billion to NATO for this year, as numerous military expenditures are hidden in other budget items. Money for the federal Interior Ministry, led by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), will also be increased to €18.46 billion. This is almost €3 billion more than this year (€15.67 billion).

German army troops deployed during COVID-19 pandemic (AP Photo/Jens Meyer)

The additional billions for the security forces and the military are just the start of a massive arms offensive. The economic stimulus package adopted by the grand coalition of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in early May already included €10 billion for “new armaments projects with a high proportion of German value-added.” In the new defence budget, €7.72 billion is earmarked for military procurement, which will swallow up billions more in the coming years: for 2021 alone, €350 million have been earmarked for the procurement of the A400M wide-body transport aircraft, €442 million for the Puma infantry fighting vehicle, €998 million for the acquisition of new Eurofighter fighter jets and €379 million for the construction of the multi-role Combat Ship 180.

While billions are being spent on militarism and war, cuts are being made in education, health and social welfare. The budget for education and research is to fall by €70 million next year to €20.24 billion. The cuts in the other two departments are even more severe. For example, the budget for the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs will fall by €5.7 billion (!) to €164.92 billion, and the budget for the Ministry of Health by €5.95 billion (!) to €35.3 billion.

The so-called coronavirus bailout packages passed in March, and the 2020 supplementary budget, were always primarily billion-euro gifts for big business and the banks. Now, even the minimal additional spending that had been earmarked for pandemic control is being reversed. In addition, the new budget prepares even more comprehensive social attacks. “We must also always remember what public debt means,” Chancellor Merkel warned in her government statement on the budget. “It means, of course, burdening future budgets, it means the need to pay it back, and it means restrictions on future spending and future generations.”

The entire Bundestag (parliamentary) debate underscored that the ruling class sees the pandemic primarily as an opportunity to advance its policies of militarism, strengthening the repressive powers of the state at home and imposing social austerity.

Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) praised the budget as a “visible sign saying thank you to our troops at home and abroad, not only to give them warm words but also to make clear as budget legislators: The Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) are important to us, we stand by them, we put our money where our mouth is.” By this, she means preparing for new wars and crimes. She used the main part of her speech to “very briefly describe why we need armed drones.” Like the Americans, she said, the Bundeswehr needed to be able to “take out” enemy positions from the air.

In a fascist tirade, Martin Hohmann, who was expelled from the CDU in 2004 for an anti-Semitic speech, and now sits on the Bundestag’s defence committee as a deputy for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), called on the grand coalition to implement its rearmament and war plans even more aggressively. He defended the right-wing terrorist networks and practices in the elite Special Forces Command (KSK), saying, “Of course, in such a unit there is a special kind of communication, of rituals and a sometimes coarse humour. There are sometimes pig heads flying at a party.” Ultimately, however, “these fighters” were “ready to go into action for Germany and German interests at any time and to stake their lives for others.”

He appealed to Kramp-Karrenbauer, “Madam Minister, please don’t let yourself be infected by the hysteria of the general campaign against the right! Do not unsettle these men!”

The grand coalition has long been putting this right-wing extremist party’s policies into practice, protecting far-right networks in the army and police. From the outset, Kramp-Karrenbauer’s planned restructuring of the KSK was aimed at organizing this elite force, riddled with neo-fascists, to be more effective in pursuing the interests of German imperialism externally and suppressing growing social opposition at home.

In essence, the supposedly left-wing opposition parties also support this course. Their speakers also beat the drum for strengthening German foreign and war policies and increasing police powers.

Green Party defence policy spokesman Tobias Lindner said, “We need ground-based air defence; we have one right now that requires modernization.” Moreover, he said, the Bundeswehr has heavy transport helicopters “that are over 40 years old—new ones are urgently needed,” fleet service boats “that we need to replace promptly,” and plenty of “old materiel that is falling apart at the seams” and needed to be replaced “with new, functioning materiel.” He said one must “really ask whether this coalition and where this coalition is setting the right priorities.”

Left Party spokesman Michael Leutert expressed similar views. “We have a fundamental problem; because German foreign policy is simply no longer visible,” he said. He said Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (Social Democratic Party SPD) had “recently failed as head of the foreign ministry to position Germany strategically in such a way that the Federal Republic remains capable of acting.” The world, he said, “has been undergoing rapid and dramatic change for years, with all the effects that are well known. Shifts in power, the breaking away of international certainties.” This made it even more important to define “a strategic framework for action” that “naturally has our interests in mind.”

In his speech, Victor Perli, who sits on the Budget Committee for the Left Party, bragged about how he had advocated arming the police. He said he had “a tough debate in the committee” with the (notoriously right-wing) Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) over the issue. “But there is a happy ending: thanks to the efforts of the Left Party, 2,000 federal police officers are now enjoying winter boots. That’s nice news for once.”

The deadly impact of US college reopenings in the fall, a balance sheet

Genevieve Leigh

As the university and college campuses in the US begin to wrap up the fall semester, the devastating impact of campus reopenings for in-person classes in the middle of the worst pandemic in a century is becoming ever more clear.

According to new data collected by the New York Times, American college campuses have officially reported nearly 400,000 cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic in March. More than 85 campuses have reported at least 1,000 cases each—with some registering well over 5,000. More than 75,000 of the cases have come since early November alone.

Those cases include more than 90 deaths involving college employees and students.

Students wear masks on campus at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Contrary to many nefarious statements from school administrators seeking to shift the blame of the outbreaks on students, spread of the virus on campuses has very little to do with misguided social gatherings or partying. The conditions in student dormitories, and even off campus housing, are simply not conducive to proper social distancing.

Furthermore, according to census data, more than 1.1 million undergraduates work in health-related occupations, including more than 700,000 who serve as nurses, medical assistants and health care aides in their communities, putting them at higher risk of contracting COVID-19.

As was predicted well before the fall semesters began, the spread of the virus among students and faculty was not contained to college campuses. Towns and cities with colleges that reopened for in-person learning, or which, for one reason or another, allowed large numbers of students to return to their dorms, quickly become some of the worst hot spots in the country.

The Times data comprises an analysis of more than 200 counties with substantial college student populations. According to the data, the overall COVID-19 deaths have risen faster in these counties than elsewhere in the country. In fact, deaths in those counties have doubled since the end of August, compared with a 58-percent increase elsewhere.

The experience over the last four months in the schools, both K-12 and college campuses, have produced incontrovertible evidence that in-person learning has led to an increase in community spread, hospitalizations and deaths.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham logged 972 cases, amounting to roughly four percent of the student population, by September 1, less than two weeks after the start of classes. Before opening, the university had claimed that an expansion of “in-house” university-owned testing, combined with rudimentary tracking and mask wearing would prevent an outbreak. The outcome of the Alabama “experiment” proved to be a complete disaster. The city of Birmingham in particular, and the state of Alabama as a whole, became leading coronavirus hot spots by mid-September.

The University of Iowa and Iowa State University, about two hours apart from each other, were both home to massive outbreaks of COVID-19. In Story County, where Iowa State is located, almost 4,000 individuals tested positive for COVID-19 by the end of September. The University of Iowa alone reported a staggering 1,804 total cases by September 15. Subsequently, Iowa held one of the top positions in the country for the worst outbreak of the pandemic per capita for the last two weeks of September. Colleges and universities in Iowa have since reported a total of 9,031 cases at 27 schools and counting.

San Diego State University’s reopening plans led to more than 700 COVID-19 cases among students within the first month of reopening. By November, the total number of cases among students since the start of fall instruction reached more than 1,700. As students began testing positive in large numbers, the university put hundreds of students into “isolation dorms” with no more than 10 minutes to pack-up after staff in hazmat suits arrived at their doors.

On the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, nearly 2,000 graduate student instructors, with widespread support from faculty, student workers, and the community at large, went on strike against the administration’s reopening plans. After the strike was abruptly shut down on September 16, at the behest of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), cases on the campus skyrocketed. In October, county health authorities were forced to order the whole campus to shelter in place.

This exercise could be repeated for almost every single university and college campus in the US, and in fact, internationally. In every case, the university administrations, backed by local and state politicians, played criminal roles in supporting reopening plans, downplaying outbreaks, and scapegoating students.

As a result of this reckless reopening of schools, and the economy more broadly, the pandemic is now raging out of control in the US.

This week, the US passed the grim milestone of 300,000 deaths. Nearly 3,000 people are dying every day. Hospitals and Intensive Care Units (ICUs) are being overwhelmed throughout the country. Nurses and doctors are being forced to make the choice of who will receive care and who will not. And new cases continue to rise each day.

Despite the dire state of the pandemic, the deadly experience of the fall semester, and the immense amount of scientific evidence advising against reopening, many colleges are still planning to bring thousands of students back after Christmas break in January for the spring semester.

Princeton University, for example, is offering dormitory space to thousands of undergraduates, a tenfold increase from last semester. The University of California, San Diego is expecting to board more than 11,000 students in campus housing—about 1,000 more than it housed in the fall. Harvard is expecting to double the number of students on campus in the spring compared to the fall. Cornell University expects about 19,500 students will be living on or around campus in Ithaca, New York.

The reopening of campuses amid the mass death taking place across the country is nothing short of criminal, particularly when one considers that coronavirus vaccines are expected to be widely available around the time of the end of the spring semester.

In other words, with a medical solution to the pandemic in sight, colleges and universities are taking action that will serve to maximize the number of deaths before it can be realized.

Behind this reckless decision is a broader campaign, spearheaded by the Trump administration but supported by both Democrats and Republicans, to reopen the economy and prevent any loss in corporate profits. There is no doubt that in the fall universities were also driven by profit concerns (having in mind tuition, college sports, dormitory real estate contracts etc.), prioritizing their bottom line over the health and safety of students and the broader community.

Now with Democratic president-elect Joe Biden ready to take office on January 20, the same deadly policy is being pursued. In a speech last week, Biden stated that reopening schools would be a “national priority.”

Opposition to the reopening of schools in the spring, both on the college level as well as K-12, is already beginning to forcefully emerge among students and faculty.

Over 70 faculty members at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill signed an open letter this week, published in the student newspaper, that predicted a repeat of the fall debacle in the spring. “We have every reason to expect that the university will—once again—be overwhelmed by infections when classes resume,” the letter said.

Anger and frustration among students at the University of Michigan has only increased since the shutdown of their strike, often erupting in fierce denunciations of the administration in public meetings. These sentiments are shared by students, teachers, and school staff throughout the country and around the world.

As for K-12, the World Socialist Web Site has facilitated the creation of rank - and - file safety committees, independent of the corporate-controlled trade unions, in dozens of cities to organize educators and students in the fight back.

As the spring semester approaches, there is no doubt that hundreds of college, university and K-12 campuses throughout the US will once again emerge as central battlegrounds in the fight to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. In this fight, teachers, students, faculty, and staff stand on one side of the barricade, fighting for an end to the reckless policies of in-person learning, for resources to be allocated for safety measures and online learning, and for policies based on science, that put life over profit.

On the other side of this fight stand the university administrations, the corporate-controlled trade unions and both the Democrats and Republicans.

Kia auto workers in South Korea launch week-long strike action

Ben McGrath

Auto workers at Kia Motors have struck again this week, their fourth industrial action within the past month. Workers stopped work last week from Wednesday to Friday and are demanding improvements in pay and other working conditions in a situation where the auto companies and the unions are attempting to impose wage freezes throughout the industry.

South Korean autoworkers strike last year

Workers began their latest strike on Monday and it will last until Friday. Both the day and night shifts at all three of Kia’s plants in Gwangmyeong, Hwaseong, and Gwangju will strike for four hours each on Monday through Thursday and then for six hours each on Friday. Workers are demanding a 120,000 won ($109) monthly wage increase, 30 percent of the company’s operating profits as bonuses, and raising the retirement age from 60 to 65. They are also demanding the restoration of 30 minutes of guaranteed overtime, which the company has rejected as too costly.

Instead, Kia is attempting to freeze wages while offering bonuses totaling as much as 150 percent of monthly wages as “performance-based” pay. In addition, Kia would also pay 1.2 million won ($1,097) as part of a COVID-19 package while providing 200,000 won ($183) in gift certificates. According to media reports, the Kia branch of the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) has reached an agreement with the company on these issues, but has still not reached an agreement on the additional overtime.

Kia workers should place no faith in the KMWU to bargain honestly on their behalf. As they walk off the job, the KMWU is attempting to force workers at General Motors Korea to accept a similar sellout contract, while isolating workers and their struggles at the two companies from one another. GM Korea workers are voting this week on whether or not to accept a tentative deal that is similar to the one they already rejected on December 1.

Looming over the heads of GM Korea workers is also the threat that GM will move operations out of the country, resulting in thousands of job losses, despite previously signing agreements to keep production in South Korea until 2028. That agreement, accepted by the KMWU, resulted in the closure of GM Korea’s factory in Gunsan.

The current deals are similar to the one already imposed on Hyundai Motors workers in September. It included a wage freeze for only the third time in the union’s history. The KMWU is making clear that it is on the side of management and the exploitative capitalist system, a fact that becomes all the more evident during the economic crisis facing the working class.

Throughout 2020, workers in South Korea have faced massive job losses and wage cuts. In the third quarter of 2020, monthly earnings for the bottom 20 percent income bracket fell 1.1 percent to 1.63 million won ($1,490) from the previous year while the second lowest bracket also saw a 1.3 percent drop. On the other hand, the monthly income of the top 20 percent rose 2.9 percent, to 10.39 million won ($10,000).

The official unemployment rate, which drastically undercounts the underemployed, rose to 3.7 percent in October, the highest in two decades for that month. Officially, 1.03 million people were out of work as of that month. The overall number of economically inactive increased by 508,000 to 16.74 million people. Young adults between 15 and 29 are especially hard hit, with the official unemployment rate at 8.3 percent. The actual unemployment rate skyrockets to 24.4 percent when the underemployed and economically inactive are taken into account.

In short, President Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea, who came to power posturing as a friend of the working class, has overseen widening social inequality and worsening working conditions. His government has defended the wealthy and the capitalist class no less than his conservative predecessors Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013) and Park Geun-hye (2013-2017).

The KMWU is taking an active role in this attack on the working class as the largest union within the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). The KCTU is one of the two leading umbrella trade union organizations in South Korea, the other being the yellow Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU). While the FKTU openly collaborates with the government and management, the KCTU postures as militant, and at times, even anti-capitalist. This is entirely fraudulent.

In fact, the KCTU bears direct political responsibility for the policies of the Moon administration, having helped elect the president in May 2017 by portraying him as a progressive alternative to the despised Park Geun-hye, who was ousted following mass protests. The KCTU worked to ensure the protests would stay within the confines of bourgeois politics.

Throughout the course of Moon’s administration, the unions have held only four mass protests, the most recent on November 25. These have been staged in order to allow workers to let off steam and to convince workers that the current government can be pressured to adopt worker friendly policies.

Furthermore, economic disaster facing the working class did not begin with the COVID-19 pandemic, but widespread restructuring was underway in numerous industries like auto manufacturing and shipbuilding. Hyundai Motors already planned to slash as many as 10,000 jobs last year. Retail giant Lotte announced tens of thousands of job cuts just prior to the pandemic.

As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and the corporate assault on the working class intensified, the KCTU promoted the government’s COVID-19 economic measures in March. It claimed that any negative impacts on workers were nothing more than unforeseen “blind spots” that could be resolved through “special labor supervision” and the KCTU’s collaboration with the government.

Over the summer, the KCTU gave de facto support to a “tripartite agreement” between the government, big business, and the unions, which approved job and wage cuts as well as other cost saving measures.

Workers at Kia and GM Korea must take their struggles beyond the confines imposed on them by the unions. This requires the building of independent rank-and-committees that will unite auto workers with their class brothers and sisters throughout South Korea and internationally, who face the same assaults on their working conditions and livelihoods. Such a struggle has to be based on a socialist perspective in opposition to big business, government and the unions, which all rely on and defend the capitalist system.