Ex-Maoist Socialist Party backs “herd immunity,” austerity in Dutch elections

Parwini Zora & Harm Zonderland

Right-wing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is reopening schools as COVID-19 surges in Europe, after a decade of leading governments of austerity and war. Rutte’s Freedom and Democracy Party (VVD) has nevertheless dominated Dutch elections, which end today, thanks to the reactionary policies of the middle-class parties that the bourgeoisie has passed off as the “left.” This includes prominently the ex-Maoist Socialist Party (SP) of the Netherlands.

Rutte rejected even the limited lockdowns adopted in other European countries and only this year imposed a curfew, forcing non-essential workers to stay on the job throughout the pandemic. As a result, over 1.1 million people have contracted the virus and over 16,000 have died in a country of only 17.3 million. The SP made clear its support for this general policy in a recent election interview with SP parliamentary leader Lilian Marijnissen, where she emphasized that she was looking to enter into any coalition that would agree to include her party.

“Our engagement is for a coalition government,” Marijnissen said. Asked if she would consider a coalition the VVD, which is set to decisively win the elections, she said: “Let the voters decide.” She added that the VVD is “at the bottom of my list.” Marijnissen declared, however, that she is open to cooperation with any party that “wants to make the Netherlands fairer.”

Lilian Marijnissen (2018), Credit: Wikimedia

In an interview with students, posted on YouTube on February 15, Marijnissen reaffirmed her party’s commitment to “herd-immunity” policies for reopening schools. “Think about quick-tests, think about class-groups split in half,” she said. A motion put forward by the SP “demands” the government “investigate how to reopen education safely.”

The SP has run a campaign based on accepting the herd immunity policy imposed by the bourgeoisie across Europe, and instead dividing the working class by relentlessly targeting Muslims and immigrants with police-state measures. Its election programme, titled “Make an Act,” combines hollow phrases and invocations of activism with the party’s trademark criticisms of Muslims and calls for building up the police forces.

The programme denounces unidentified “groups of extreme Salafists who raise children in hatred for our freedom and democracy,” calling to ban “hate preachers” and to “legally regulate the right of residence of children rooted in our country.” To make clear their support for deporting children or other immigrants who do not meet the SP’s criteria, they add immediately afterwards: “People who are not entitled to a residence permit must return to their country of origin.”

Under the title “A safer country,” the SP writes: “Due to the shortages in the police, more extraordinary investigating officers are being appointed in municipalities. We want more agents. If local enforcers nevertheless have to perform police tasks, they must also become police officers, with police training and adapted armament. These enforcers should be part of the police organisation, so that good cooperation is assured. In this way the police also get extra ears and eyes in the neighbourhoods,” the SP writes.

Since the last elections, the SP has dropped its ritualistic calls for the Netherlands to leave the EU or NATO, instead calling for a more aggressive Dutch military policy, including with more “peace-keeping” military missions abroad. In a cynical nod to mass anti-war sentiment, the PS criticizes “the nonsensical strategy of ‘permanent war.’” The SP tries to excuse itself by claiming that it only agreed to give “non-lethal” support to the NATO military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The SP’s amorphous calls for “unity,” its criticisms of divisions “based on colour, gender or class,” and its occasional invocations of “socialism” are so much dust thrown into voters’ eyes to obscure its reactionary politics. The SP official website even seeks to reassure big business that they are no threat, declaring, “we are not against wealth, but we are against poverty.”

The SP arose in 1972 out of a multitude of “Marxist-Leninist” Maoist groups, most prominently the Kommunistische Eenheidsbeweging Nederland (KEN, or Communist Unity Movement of the Netherlands), which maintained connections with China’s Maoist regime. It maintained the extreme nationalist orientation common among European Maoist parties. In 1983 it published a xenophobic pamphlet, titled “Foreign Labour and Capital,” that demanded that immigrant workers adopt the Dutch language and values or else leave.

The SP gave up its “flirtation with Maoism” in 1986, under the leadership of Jan Marijnissen, the father of Ms Marijnissen, stripping references to Lenin and Marx from the party programme, and calling instead for a “breakthrough in parliament.” The SP leadership now blushes about its empty references to Marxism in earlier eras, instead focusing exclusively on “practical” realpolitik within and outside the trade union confederations and the Dutch state machine.

The privileged middle-class operatives of this party have profited, as trade unions, corporations and successive governments “negotiated” massive wage cuts, slashed labour rights and social benefits, and systematically strangled strikes. This allowed for a massive transfer of wealth to the top of Dutch society.

This constant redistribution of wealth from the bottom to the top increasingly discredited the Labour Party (PvdA) and the trade union apparatuses. Instead, far-right populist organizations like the Party for Freedom (PVV) of Geert Wilders sought to capitalize on deep social anger at this corrupt framework with appeals to anti-Muslim and xenophobic hatreds. The SP, for its part, drove mass anger in the working class to the political establishment into a dead end, allowing the far right to grow.

During the pandemic, it has sought to stifle any action, however limited, that it feared might trigger broader opposition in the working class.

Last November, the SP came into open conflict with its youth movement, ROOD (meaning “red”). The SP leadership expelled several leading ROOD members for alleged dual-membership in the Communist Platform, a Stalinist outfit on the periphery of the SP and the union apparatus. The SP branded them as “study room-communists” that say “very scary things,” adding: “They want to arm the population to start a civil war.”

The SP thus effectively cut ties with and disbanded its own youth movement at the end of last year, amid a mass upsurge of COVID-19 deaths in the Netherlands and across Europe. Its claims about the Communist Platform’s alleged radicalism are absurd, moreover, as this Stalinist outfit works to paint the SP’s reactionary parliamentary activities in false “revolutionary” colours, and demoralize and disorient youth who seek an alternative to the SP on its left.

While admitting that the SP is “complicit in oppression by the state and by capital,” the Communist Platform writes: “We nevertheless appeal for a vote for the SP. The SP has the greatest potential to develop into a working class, communist party. Despite these aforementioned problems, the SP has proven itself to be the most coherent party against neo-liberalism and imperialism compared to other ‘left’ parties in the parliament.”

The elections were called shortly after the expulsion of ROOD members, as a mounting political crisis engulfed the Rutte government and virtually the entire political establishment. Investigations confirmed that Dutch officials falsely and vindictively accused immigrant families of child benefit fraud, forcing them to repay the benefits they had received and ruining thousands of families. While the SP posed as concerned by the families’ complaints, they had previously played a central role in creating a political climate favourable to vicious targeting of Muslims and immigrants.

Nonetheless, the SP has the unflinching support of a broader layer of middle-class, pseudo-left groups that justify its every twist and turn with claims that nothing else can be done. Socialistisch Alternatief (SA), the Dutch section of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI), downplays and covers up the SP’s political objectives, writing: “since there is no mass workers party, which represents the independent political interests of the working class in the election, the Socialist Party can be seen as the best voting option for many workers.”

The politics of the SP and its political satellites are completely rotten. Like the German Left Party, the Spanish Podemos and the Greek Syriza, the Dutch SP mouths a few empty phrases while backing the Dutch state apparatus as the ruling class manoeuvres to bring Rutte back to power for an agenda of more austerity and more deaths from COVID-19.

The SP must be exposed for what it is: a sinister political trap, aiming to prevent the working class from fighting independently against herd immunity, austerity and war based on an independent, internationalist and socialist programme, and instead tying it to the established parties.

New Zealand: Two years since the Christchurch far-right terrorist attack

Tom Peters

March 15 marked the second anniversary of the Christchurch terrorist attack, in which fascist gunman Brenton Tarrant murdered 51 men, women and children in mass shootings at two mosques, and injured 40 others.

The 2019 massacre was the worst in New Zealand’s history and its brutality shocked billions of people around the world. The terrorist filmed and broadcast his slaughter on the internet, with the aim of inciting others to violence.

At a public remembrance service in Christchurch on Saturday, the names of the dead were read out, and spokespersons for the bereaved families gave speeches. Maha Elmadani, whose father was killed, said: “His death, and that of all the shuhada (martyrs) has left behind a heartache that can never be healed and an emptiness that can never be filled.

“The pain of losing these 51 lives not only impacted the people of Christchurch, the pain ripped through New Zealand and the rest of the world and continues to be felt,” she said.

Survivors are suffering severe psychological trauma and many have debilitating and potentially life-threatening injuries.

Ahmede Yesuf, a young father shot in the Al Noor mosque, told TVNZ: “There’s not a single day I don’t remember the 15 March… When I go to the cemetery I feel I belong there as well. I was nearly one of them and sometimes I feel like I wish I died that day.” The bullet fragments lodged in Yesuf’s body are slowly poisoning him with lead. He could have them surgically removed, but the operation would risk leaving him permanently disabled.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told Saturday’s service she wanted a “more inclusive nation” that is “proud of our diversity.” She declared: “In the aftermath of March 15 we have learned so much. We’ve been willing to ask ourselves some incredibly hard questions. We have confronted, and continue to confront our laws, our systems, our bureaucracy, and things are changing and will continue to change.”

In reality, the government has washed its hands of any responsibility for the political environment in which Tarrant’s fascist views developed. Successive Labour and National Party governments stoked Islamophobia by taking part in the illegal US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The right-wing nationalist New Zealand First Party, which played a major role in Ardern’s Labour Party-led coalition government from 2017 to 2020, had repeatedly expressed racist and anti-Muslim positions similar to those in Tarrant’s manifesto. Labour adopted NZ First’s anti-immigrant policies; both parties scapegoated immigrants for social inequality, the erosion of public services and the rising cost of living, fueled by the government’s pro-business policies.

Tarrant’s manifesto also expressed his admiration for then-US president Donald Trump, who he called a “symbol of white renewal.” To prevent public discussion about these parallels with the right-wing policies of governments and political parties, NZ’s chief censor banned possession of the document.

A royal commission of inquiry into the attack whitewashed the police and spy agencies which, in both Australia and New Zealand, dismissed or turned a blind eye to warnings that could have led to Tarrant’s arrest. The commissioners stated that Tarrant acted alone, despite his known links with Australian and European fascist groups. All the evidence submitted to the inquiry by government agencies has been kept secret.

Andrew Little, the minister leading the government response to the inquiry, recently released a report summarising 33 “community engagement” meetings with Muslim groups. Many participants expressed “concerns” that no state agency or official has been held accountable for failing to stop the attack. Ministers were also told that Muslims continue to feel unsafe and distrust the intelligence agencies—which have spied on and harassed Muslims for decades.

In comments published by Radio NZ, one attendee described the meetings as an empty “box-ticking exercise.” Another said: “The few participants who were allowed to speak were given an enforced two-minute opportunity, which were each responded to without time limit by the ministers. Responses from the ministers were often defensive and accusatory.”

The ongoing danger of far-right violence was highlighted on March 4, when police arrested a 27-year-old Christchurch man for threatening to bomb the mosques targeted by Tarrant. The man’s name has been suppressed after he appeared in court and was remanded in custody.

Alarmingly, despite the threat being posted on the well-known website 4chan, police and intelligence agencies claimed they did not see it. Police were alerted to the threat by a member of the public.

In Australia, the second anniversary of the massacre committed by an Australian terrorist was ignored by political leaders and most of the media. Brief reports were buried under an avalanche of coverage about government sex scandals.

An Islamic preacher in Melbourne, Molla Mohammad Rashidul Huq, told SBS the massacre had a “huge” impact in Australia. “Many Muslims have now stopped going to the mosque. And those who do, are very scared and fear what if someday such an attack takes place on Australian soil,” he said.

The Australian National Socialist Network (formerly the Lads Society) shares Tarrant’s fascist ideology and in 2016 its leader Thomas Sewell tried to recruit him as a member. Sewell was arrested earlier this month for brutally assaulting a security guard outside Channel Nine’s offices in Melbourne, apparently in retaliation for the media company’s reporting on the NSN.

The Australian and New Zealand governments have exploited the Christchurch atrocity to further expand the state’s repressive powers. The Christchurch Call to Action, initiated by the Ardern government, encouraged tech companies and governments to censor online content deemed “extremist.”

This has nothing to do with combating the far-right. The French government of Emmanuel Macron, which hosted the Christchurch Call summit in May 2019, recently passed an “anti-separatist” law.

Other signatories to the Christchurch Call—including Switzerland, India and Sri Lanka—have also introduced anti-democratic and anti-Muslim legislation.

The obvious aim of such measures is to strengthen racist and nationalist tendencies, and prepare the state apparatus to confront mass opposition to inequality, poverty, war and the refusal of governments to control the coronavirus pandemic. Trump’s attempted fascist coup on January 6, abetted by elements within the US military and police, is only the most striking example of the growing danger of fascist dictatorship internationally.

Coronavirus crisis spirals out of control in Papua New Guinea

John Braddock

Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Pacific’s largest and most populous country, and one of the world’s most impoverished, is experiencing an uncontrolled coronavirus outbreak after appearing to have avoided large numbers of infections during 2020. The source of the new wave has not been identified.

Hundreds of cases in the past few days have taken the national total to 2,226 and 26 reported deaths, with the capital Port Moresby the worst hit. This represents a sharp surge since the end of February when 1,316 COVID-19 and 13 COVID-19 deaths had been reported.

According to a social media post by a senior gynecologist at Port Moresby General Hospital, Glen Mola, patients are dying of COVID-19 “every day,” suggesting the real death toll is far higher.

Medical staff of Papua New Guinea’s Defense Force receiving COVID-19 training last year (Credit: World Health Organization/PNG)

By world standards, the official figures are low, but fewer than 50,000 tests have been carried out among a population of nine million, the sixth-lowest testing rate in the world. In many places outside the capital there is no testing at all. The Guardian cited PNG government sources saying the real case rate could be 10 times the official figure.

The government is responsible for a growing disaster. Pandemic Controller and police commissioner David Manning announced Wednesday that a so-called “nationwide isolation strategy” will be put in place this week. He emphasized this would not be “a stiff lockdown,” but simply measures “to ensure that people are not moving around unnecessarily.”

After lifting a two-week lockdown of the capital Port Moresby during a surge of cases last July, Prime Minister James Marape declared: “COVID-19 not only affects us health-wise but also economically. We must adjust to living with the COVID-19… we will not shut down our country again.”

All but three of PNG’s 22 provinces have now recorded cases, with the National Capital District spiraling to over a thousand. The township of Lae was last week placed in lockdown, but only until this Friday, following a spike in numbers. New cases have hit Huon Gulf and Nawaeb Districts, the semi-autonomous island of Bougainville and Western Province, which borders the Indonesian territory of West Papua, where infection rates are among the highest in Melanesia.

The government last week announced it has sourced only 200,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses from Australia and 70,000 from India, which Marape declared would “hopefully” arrive in April. The governor of East Sepik province, Allan Bird, said the delay would cost lives. “PNG did not order or pay for any vaccines in 2020, so we are not entitled to any vaccines” he said, adding that the only vaccines available to PNG “are donated by friendly governments.”

In fact, Canberra’s response to the unfolding crisis in its former colony is governed by intensifying geo-strategic considerations. The recent meeting of Quad leaders from the US, Australia, Japan and India committed to overseeing vaccination logistics for the Asia-Pacific region as part of their moves to strengthen military and strategic ties to confront China and prepare for war. Beijing last week deployed a medical team to Port Moresby.

On Monday, the Australian published a sharp warning from Australian Strategic Policy Institute director Peter Jennings that the emergency “could play into PNG politics and increase the risk of instability in the streets,” thereby creating a health and security catastrophe on Australia’s doorstep. Jennings said the federal government was reacting too slowly and called for a deployment of Defence Force medics, a hospital ship and private medical contractors.

PNG’s vulnerable healthcare system is on the verge of collapse. Port Moresby General Hospital, the country’s biggest, is at capacity and staff are among a growing number of people ill with COVID-19. Entire sections of the hospital have been closed after 40 staff members tested positive. The hospital is running short of gloves and other personal protective equipment.

The hospital was forced to further restrict its services after 40 percent of mothers in the labour ward returned positive test results. They could not be separated from others because there is no isolation labour ward. Pandemic Controller Manning forecast “serious problems,” including the possible closure of the hospital, which would lead to “chaos.”

Provincial hospitals, including Angau Hospital in Lae, are already shutting with their resources severely strained following years of budget cuts. Mount Hagen Hospital has received only one-third of the money needed to remain open. The governor of Oro province, Gary Juffa, told the Guardian “years of neglect” and corruption inside PNG’s healthcare system is “now uncovering a grim reality.”

St John Ambulance commissioner Matt Cannon told the media that PNG faces an uncontrollable outbreak. “We are not at the tipping point now—the tipping point was three weeks ago,” he said. “We are anticipating hundreds more cases, and potentially this will increase to thousands. We are at alert level. There are big alarms going off.”

Cannon told Al Jazeera that the pandemic is being exacerbated by conspiracy theories that, along with a belief in sorcery and other superstitions, are a “fact of life in PNG.” But according to Juffa, one reason for widespread misinformation is that politicians and “people in positions of responsibility… are going around saying the virus is not real, that vaccines are no good.”

There are fears that ceremonies for PNG’s recently deceased first prime minister, Michael Somare, who was buried on Tuesday, could become ‘super spreader’ events. With many thousands having gathered in towns over recent days to mourn, the case numbers could climb dramatically in coming weeks.

Such a development will exacerbate the existing social crisis. According to Oxfam, 37 percent of the population lives on less than $US1.25 a day. In Port Moresby tens of thousands live in crowded, unofficial settlements. Malaria, HIV/AIDS, dengue fever, drug-resistant tuberculosis and polio are all rife. More than 60 percent of the population has no access to safe drinking water. A vast gulf separates the poverty-stricken PNG masses and the country’s corrupt and venal political elite.

Explosive social struggles will undoubtedly erupt. Since 2016, doctors and nurses have repeatedly gone on strike over the grossly inadequate conditions in the health system. Following a sit-in early last year by 600 Port Moresby nurses protesting inadequate personal protective equipment, over 4,000 nurses were ready to strike over the lack of preparation for a coronavirus outbreak. The strike was averted by the PNG Nurses Association which, not for the first time, called it off at the last minute.

In Australia, one of the biggest hospitals in Far North Queensland has declared an emergency following an influx of COVID-19 patients from PNG. Cairns Hospital is currently treating six patients from PNG, all fly-in fly-out mine workers. A significant number of the 51 cases in Queensland’s hotel quarantine system are Australians returning from PNG.

PNG’s worsening crisis could be repeated across the Pacific region, where new outbreaks are hitting island states previously relatively protected by their geographic isolation. New Caledonia went into a two-week lockdown from March 8 after nine community cases were confirmed. A day earlier neighbouring Wallis and Futuna reported the first of 19 community cases. Other countries such as the Solomon Islands also remain extremely vulnerable.

European Medicines Agency continues to endorse the safety of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine

Benjamin Mateus

As of yesterday, more than a dozen European countries, including Germany and France on Monday and Sweden and Latvia on Tuesday, have suspended their vaccination programs using the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine over recent reports of people developing blood clots soon after being inoculated. Some have died.

Thromboembolic events are not uncommon, especially among older adults with health conditions such as obesity, heart disease or cancer. Blood clots can form in the legs or even arms, and some can travel to the lung, causing a pulmonary embolism which can have dire consequences or be fatal.

In general, the annual incidence of thromboembolic events is approximately 1 in 1,000. The risk begins to rise after 45, reaching five- to six-fold higher in people approaching 80 years of age. However, the recent reports of a small number of brain clots from Germany have further raised concerns among health officials about the product’s safety.

A person gets a dose of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine at the Edouard Herriot hospital, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021 in Lyon, central France. (Olivier Chassignole, Pool via AP)

According to the vaccine maker, 37 such events have been reported among 17 million people who have received the vaccine. According to Reuters, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is investigating reports into 30 cases among 5 million people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine. The EU regulators are expected to release the results of their investigation on Thursday. For certain, they will be examining the rates of blood clots in the general population compared to those vaccinated. Additionally, investigations are taking place into possible manufacturing defects.

Dr. Penelope Ward, Professor of pharmaceutical medicine at King’s College London, placed this into context in speaking with the Financial Times: “In the UK, about 165 people a day might suffer a thrombotic episode, some of which will be fatal. In contrast, the number of reports from the ongoing vaccine program in the UK and EU, which includes 20 million individuals vaccinated to date, is just 37. By chance alone, at least 15,000 such events might have been expected from a population this size.”

Meanwhile, 2.68 million deaths from COVID-19 have occurred globally, with over 850,000 of these just in Europe. The weekly number of deaths attributed to infections remains high, at more than 20,000.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has continued to stand by its position that there have been no deaths causally linked to COVID-19 vaccines and has raised concerns that the suspension of these vaccination programs will lead to additional unnecessary deaths considering the spread of more virulent variants of the coronavirus. They said yesterday, “As of today, there is no evidence that the vaccine causes the incidents, and vaccination campaigns must continue so that we can save lives and stem severe disease from the virus.”

On the news that France, Germany, Italy and Spain had coordinated their decisions to halt their vaccination programs with the vaccine from AstraZeneca, EMA Executive Director Emer Cooke, speaking at a conference yesterday, said, “It is inevitable that you have rare or serious incidences of illnesses that occur after vaccinations. Our role at EMA is to evaluate these to make sure that any suspected adverse reactions are rapidly investigated so we can figure out this is a real side effect to the vaccine or is it a coincidence? The number of thromboembolic events overall in the vaccinated people seems not to be higher than that seen in the general population. Trust in the safety and the efficacy of the vaccine that we have authorized is paramount for us. And our job is to make sure that we can maintain trust in these vaccines based on a proper scientific evaluation.”

She then added, “Currently, we are still firmly convinced that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing COVID-19 with its associated risks of hospitalizations and death outweigh the risk of these side effects.” It should be noted that during the efficacy vaccine trials, Oxford/AstraZeneca had reported there had been five serious adverse events in those who were vaccinated. Still, none were found to have been caused by the vaccines.

Italy’s prime minister, Mario Draghi, told the Guardian that he and French President Emmanuel Macron had spoken, agreeing to resume their vaccination programs once they received confirmation of the vaccine’s safety from the EMA. Agnès Pannier-Runacher, a French business executive and serving as Secretary of State for Economy and Finance, told the Financial Times that there was nothing dubious in the coordinated effort to suspend their vaccination programs. “If you see a decision being made in other countries, the risk is that a mistrust of the vaccine could develop. Our intention is to be perfectly transparent and [show] that every time that there is an alert, we treat it as professionally as possible.”

As these events were unfolding, the European Commission announced yesterday that they agreed with Pfizer-BioNTech on an accelerated delivery of 10 million doses in the second quarter. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “I know how critical quarter 2 is for the rollout of our vaccination strategies in the member states. These accelerated 10 million doses will bring the total doses of BioNTech-Pfizer in quarter 2 up to over 200 million. This is very good news. It gives member states room to maneuver and possibly fill gaps in deliveries.”

The suspension of vaccination with AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine takes place against countries’ backdrop of using vaccines as a cudgel for geopolitical interests. While the US has distributed 143 million doses of COVID-19 vaccinations and 45 million in Europe, low- and middle-income countries continue to wait for vaccines through the WHO COVAX facility. Dr, Michael Osterholm, in an article published in Foreign Affairs last week, wrote, “In February, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that 10 countries had administered 75 percent of the world’s available COVID-19 vaccine supply. At the time, more than 130 countries, home to 2.5 billion people, had yet to receive a single dose of any vaccine, rendering them vulnerable to new variants.”

A study commissioned by the International Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation found that the global economy could lose as much as $9.2 trillion “if governments fail to ensure developing economy access to COVID-19 vaccines, as much as half of which would fall on advanced economies.” The dangers of vaccine nationalism will have serious geopolitical consequences soon for vast numbers of working people. It only underscores the inability of capitalism to address the most basic needs of humanity.

One million Indian bank employees join two-day national strike against privatisation

Arun Kumar

About one million public sector bank workers joined a two-day national strike on Monday and Tuesday against the plans by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for mergers and privatisations of state banks. Striking workers held protests in several cities across India.

The two-day action is part of a growing wave of class and other social struggles in India and internationally. Tomorrow, workers in public sector insurance companies will join a strike against privatisation. Tens of thousands of farmers are in continuous protests against the government’s pro-agribusiness farm laws, camping at various sites on the outskirts of Delhi since November 26.

The trigger for the bank workers’ strikes was the decision, proposed in the national budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, to privatise two more public sector banks. The government has already privatised the IDBI Bank by selling its majority shares in 2019 and has merged 14 public sector banks in the last four years. The bank workers legitimately fear that mergers and privatisations will lead to cuts to jobs, wages and other benefits, and increased workloads in the drive to make the banks more profitable.

Bank workers protest against the privatization in Ahmedabad, India, Monday, March 15, 2021 (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)

Except for top-level managerial staff, all the public bank employees from scales I, II and III fully participated in the two-day strike, impacting regular bank services, such as cheque clearances, deposits and withdrawals at branches, while ATM services remained unaffected. A trade union official told the media: “On average, about 2 crore [20 million] cheques/instruments worth about Rs.16,500 crore [$US2.27 billion] are held up for clearance. Government treasury operations and all normal banking transactions have been affected.”

Reflecting the fear within the government and the ruling class in general about growing working class opposition, Finance Minister Sitharaman falsely claimed that under the privatisation, “the institutions are not going to be closed or workers are not going to be removed” and “the salaries or scale or pension of employees, all will be taken care of.”

The strike was called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), a federation of public sector bank unions that includes the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA), Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI), Indian National Bank Employees Federation (INBEF), Indian National Bank Officers Congress (INBOC), National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) and National Organisation of Bank Officers (NOBO).

By joining the strike en masse, bank workers clearly expressed their readiness to fight against the government’s privatisation plans and other pro-investor economic measures. The WSWS spoke to workers at Valluvar Kottam, Chennai, one of the many rallies held across the country.

Maha explained: “I decided to join the strike and protest to express my opposition to privatisations and mergers of public sector banks. If the banks are privatised there won’t be job security and the current benefits for bank employees. And the common people will also be affected by the privatisation.

Striking bank workers at a protest in Chennai (Credit: WSWS)

“I wrote an exam to get this bank job because I thought jobs are safe in the public sector. I work in Baroda bank. It has been merged with a few other banks. In fact, the mergers of banks will also lead to privatisation. I don’t see my job is safe. Unlike in the previous strike, there is greater participation by workers in this action.”

Rao, another bank employee, commented: “I have been working in the bank for the last eight years. I am opposed to the privatisation of banks. There wouldn’t be any protection of people's savings in the private banks. Most of the private banks went bankrupt. In this situation, if the public sector banks go private, common people’s savings will be plundered.

“No political parties have supported our struggle. As you say, they all stand on one position, the defence of capitalism.”

The UFBU was forced to call the strike due to workers’ mounting anger, but the unions are seeking to contain the opposition, fearing it will erupt out of their control. They are promoting dangerous illusions among bank workers that pressuring the government will make it change its privatisation policies.

AIBOA general secretary Sowmya Dutta demagogically declared: “If the government does not listen, they will go for an even bigger, indefinite strike like the one on the lines of the ongoing farmers’ agitation.”

The unions have organised limited strikes on an annual basis against privatisation, only to see the government intensify its drive against public sector industries and further attacks on social and democratic rights. Last September, the government pushed through parliament three farm laws placing the agricultural sector under the domination of major agribusiness corporations and new labour acts to expand the use of contract labour, allow employers to hire workers at will and make most industrial action illegal.

The role played by the bank unions is directly related to the big business policies of the political parties to which they are affiliated. All these parties are committed to pro-investor economic restructuring, just as much as the Modi government.

Both the AIBEA and AIBOA are linked to the Stalinist Communist Party of India (CPI). The BEFI has fraternal relations with the Centre of India Trade Unions, which is affiliated to the other main Stalinist party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM. The INBEF is affiliated with Congress, India’s longest-standing bourgeois party.

Over the past three decades, successive governments, led either by Modi’s Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) or Congress, have implemented similar socially-incendiary economic “reforms.” In 1991, the Congress government initiated this program with the goal of transforming India into a cheap labour platform for global capital, and aggressively pursued it while in office. The Stalinist CPM and CPI provided crucial parliamentary support for Congress governments and ruthlessly implemented similar policies when in office in the states of West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala. The CPM-led administration in Kerala is currently doing the same.

Last year on January 8 and again on November 26, tens of millions of workers participated in a general strike against Modi’s measures, including privatisation, austerity, the promotion of “hire and fire” contract jobs, massive corporate tax cuts, relentless promotion of Hindu communal reaction, rampant social inequality, and suppression of democratic rights. This year has witnessed strikes by nearly 100,000 Tamil Nadu state transport workers, Kerala state transport workers, electricity workers, childcare centre workers and auto workers, including Toyota workers in Bangalore, and protests by Tamil Nadu state government employees and teachers.

As struggles of workers and farmers mount, the two Stalinist parties, the CPM and CPI, are intensifying their moves to prevent the working class from taking an independent revolutionary path. They are hell bent on subordinating workers’ and farmers’ protests to the opposition Congress, with which the CPM and CPI are politically aligned, and other right-wing opposition parties. The Stalinists are in an official alliance with the Congress for next month’s state elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Assam.

Right-wing feminist marches in Australia promoted to bury the class issues

Oscar Grenfell

Sweeping claims have been made for national women’s marches held in Australia’s capital cities and major towns on Monday. The protests have been described in the corporate press as “the biggest uprising of women that Australia’s ever seen,” a “turning point” and an “historic moment.”

The superlatives began before the rallies had even been held. An editorial in the Age on Monday morning, promoting the demonstrations, framed them as the latest stage in a struggle against “millennia of discrimination and sexual tyranny.” Before anybody had actually taken to the streets, the Age compared the protests to the massive mobilisations against the Vietnam and Iraq wars, which were directed against illegal imperialist interventions that killed hundreds of thousands.

The Australian, the national flagship of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, has criticised aspects of the current feminist campaign for its own reasons. It nevertheless published a prominent opinion piece from commentator Caroline Overington, headlined “Why all fathers should join the March4Justice.” Leading figures in the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the Greens and the trade unions joined media pundits in calling for the largest possible attendance at the protests.

Labor MP Tanya Plibersek and Greens representative Larissa Waters at the Canberra protest (Credit: Twitter, @tanya_plibersek)

Rarely, if ever, have supposedly oppositional rallies been promoted by such a broad cross-section of the establishment.

This is all the more striking given that the pandemic has been used for the past year to ban virtually all public demonstrations. Mass protests against police violence last June faced attempts by governments to declare them illegal through the courts, furious denunciations from Liberal and Labor MPs, police attacks, and a decidedly hostile reception from the official media.

The near-unanimous support for the women’s marches should give pause to workers and young people. To be blunt, it would be a mistake to abandon one’s critical faculties on the basis of confected, dishonest, and in some cases, ludicrous, media hype.

While some people, including students and youth, no doubt participated in the rallies out of the best of intentions, it is necessary to make a political characterisation of the protests, their class character and the program they advanced.

Monday’s rallies were a semi-official mobilisation of affluent and self-absorbed layers of the upper middle-class, based on the reactionary nostrums of feminist identity politics, and advancing an agenda antithetical to the interests of working people, male and female alike.

Their purpose was to bury any discussion of the major social and political issues facing the working class; promote the fraudulent claim that gender relations are the primary, and perhaps sole issue in contemporary society, and legitimise attempts to undermine basic democratic rights.

Far from being a “grassroots uprising,” the protests were the outgrowth of a media campaign over sexual harassment and assault in the corridors of power. It began in mid-February, when Brittany Higgins, a federal Liberal Party staffer, told the media that she had been raped by a colleague inside parliament almost two years earlier.

At the time, Higgins asked the police to discontinue an investigation less than a fortnight after it began, remained an employee of the government and collaborated with it to keep the story out of the press. During her media appearances last month, however, Higgins stated that she felt she had received insufficient support from her superiors. This was immediately presented by much of the press as cast-iron proof of a systemic culture of support for sexual assault within parliament and virtually everywhere else in Australian society.

In this context, it was revealed that a senior cabinet minister in the government had been accused of an historic rape. Attorney-General Christian Porter was rapidly identified as the subject of the allegation. The incident was alleged to have occurred in 1988, when Porter was a 17-year-old boy. The complainant withdrew from a police investigation last June, before she had signed a statement. Shortly after, she took her own life, meaning that the matter can never be tested in a court.

The media campaign has intensified a crisis of the Liberal-National Coalition government. Internecine conflicts within the Coalition are clearly at play, evidenced by extensive leaking to the press. The media frenzy has also dovetailed with frustration from sections of the ruling elite over the failure of the government to proceed as rapidly as demanded with a sweeping overhaul of workplace conditions and industrial relations, aimed at boosting corporate profits at the expense of the working class.

Whatever the precise motives of the current campaign, it is serving a broader function of burying any discussion of an unprecedented social and economic crisis afflicting masses of people. The women’s marches were held a fortnight before the end of the federal government’s Jobkeeper wage subsidy. This is forecast to throw hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people out of work, on top of already high levels of unemployment.

Rates of poverty, homelessness and social distress have skyrocketed over the past year, as the federal government, with the support of Labor and the unions, has responded to the pandemic by providing hundreds of billions of dollars to big business, and virtually nothing for ordinary people. The ruling elite is well aware that this is provoking widespread social opposition and is fearful that working class struggles are on the agenda.

None of this, however, is openly discussed in the corporate press. Nor is the issue of war. The Coalition government, with the full support of Labor, has deepened Australia’s involvement in US plans for a catastrophic conflict with China, aimed at ensuring American hegemony in the Asia-Pacific. Only last week, the government played a central role in calling the first meeting of the “Quad,” a de facto anti-China alliance of the US, India, Japan and Australia. In strategic think-tanks, this is presented as a significant step on the road of military confrontation with Beijing.

Australia is also held up as an international model for the attacks on democratic rights accompanying the war preparations. Sweeping “foreign interference” laws, passed in 2018, are aimed at criminalising anti-war opposition. They have been accompanied by a McCarthyite and racist campaign, demonising Chinese people in Australia as potential spies.

The official line-up that promoted the women’s marches supports this entire reactionary agenda and is keen that it be kept under wraps. That is why Labor, which has marched in virtual lockstep with the government, has latched onto the feminist campaign as a means of differentiating from the Coalition. Of all the potential bases of opposition to the government, Labor, the Greens and sections of the corporate press have chosen the most right-wing.

Labor and Greens MPs were prominent at the protests, along with some current and former Liberal parliamentarians. Feminist activists, millionaire media commentators and representatives of corporate think-tanks and lobbies were among the speakers.

The most striking aspect of the speeches was their immense distance from the issues facing ordinary people. Amid a worsening social crisis, the affluent speakers called for greater female representation in elite institutions. One of the official demands of the protests was for 50 percent of parliamentarians at the state and federal levels to be women by 2030. Many of the speakers raised that this target should also be applied to corporate boardrooms and company managements.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported the remarks of former Liberal MP Julia Banks, who told the Melbourne rally that “having more women in positions of power would help drive real action on the issues that left many Australian women feeling ‘fed up.’” Innumerable references were made to the need to “break the glass ceiling.” No one elaborated on how having more female representatives of big business and the banks would aid working class women, or anyone but themselves.

Another key plank of the current media campaign is to undermine basic civil liberties and long-established legal principles, including due process and the presumption of innocence.

Higgins, who only reissued a police complaint over the 2018 allegation late last month, told the Canberra rally: “I watched as people hid behind throwaway phrases like ‘due process’ and ‘presumption of innocence,’ while failing to acknowledge how the justice system is notoriously stacked against victims of sexual crimes.”

Other speakers insisted that all complaints of sexual violence or harassment by women had to be believed prior to any judicial process. The #MeToo movement was repeatedly held up as the model. Its primary modus operandi has been the publication of untested allegations against prominent figures, especially in the arts, which serve as the basis of shunning the accused and seeking to destroy their career.

Among the demands of the protests was for an independent inquiry into the allegations against Porter. As legal experts have noted, such an inquiry would establish a dangerous precedent. It would involve the testing of criminal accusations outside of a criminal court and to a lower burden of proof. Because Porter could never be convicted based on the criminal standard of guilty beyond reasonable doubt, a different standard would apply—possibly that used in civil cases when judgement is made on the balance of probabilities.

Such an inquiry would empower the government to establish quasi-judicial proceedings against anyone, and to potentially tar them as guilty of a criminal offence without due process. The precedent could be used against political opponents. This would further widen the broad assault on democratic rights overseen by Labor and Coalition governments for the past two decades.

All in all, the line of the protests was right-wing, directed towards the advancement of a small layer of affluent women within the official political and business structures, and against civil liberties established through centuries of political struggle.

The unions and the pseudo-left have done their best to cover this up. In Canberra, Australian Council of Trade Union Secretary Sally McManus and President Michelle O’Neil called for the campaign to tackle the harassment experienced by working class women. McManus and O’Neil, however, preside over a corporatised organisation that has collaborated with governments and the employers to gut the jobs, wages and conditions of workers, men and women alike, including the most vulnerable and exploited.

For their part, pseudo-left groups such as Socialist Alternative and Solidarity have uncritically promoted the rallies as a progressive struggle against the misogyny of the Liberal Party. In doing so, they are lining up behind the corporate media, Labor and the Greens, and again demonstrating that they represent the interests of privileged sections of the upper middle-class.

Workers and young people should reject the current media campaign. The fundamental division in society is class, not gender. The crucial task facing the working class is to begin an independent political struggle based on socialist principles for its own interests, against austerity, social inequality, war and the assault on democratic rights.

HiiL Innovating Justice Challenge 2021

Application Deadline: 30th April 2021

Eligible Countries: The HiiL Justice Accelerator particularly encourages applications from Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ukraine, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and the Netherlands.

To be taken at (country): The Hague, The Netherlands

About the Award: The HiiL Justice Accelerator finds and supports the world’s best justice entrepreneurs in order to create access to justice for all.

Between 40-50 startups, selected as semi-finalists, will be invited to pitch at local Boostcamps. This year’s Boostcamps will take place in Johannesburg, Lagos, Nairobi, Kampala, Kyiv, and The Hague. In some cases, startups may pitch by Skype or be brought to the nearest Boostcamp. Additionally, these semi-finalists will be guided through a “market validation” process.

Eligibility: We look for ventures with strong potential to prevent or resolve pressing justice needs. Examples of such eventures are those that deliver concrete justice solutions for many people, including micro, small and medium-sized businesses, and initiatives within existing justice systems or public institutions, spearheaded by driven intrapreneurs.

• Innovative justice initiatives who can make significant social impact
• Ventures that have a business model and the ambition to scale across a country or internationally
• Ventures that have a business model that enables them to become financially sustainable
• Ventures led by a motivated and strong team that includes experienced and inspiring founder(s)

Criteria: who can apply?

• The founder and applicant should be 18 years of age or older.
• The venture must be committed to providing access to justice underpinned by evidence showing justice needs.
• The person(s) with whom we engage should be the founder or a co-founder of the organization and should be able to make key, high-level, and direction-shifting decisions (such as whether or not to take investments and who to partner with) on behalf of the entire organization.
• We can only accept innovations to be incorporated with a bank account in the name of the legal entity by the time they receive our grant funding.

Selection Criteria:

• Scope (is it a justice innovation? is it solving pressing justice problem)
• Impact
• Uniqueness
• Sustainability
• Scalability
• Team

Value of Award: HiiL’s Justice Accelerator offers you a 4-month long programme that provides you with:

• €10,000 non-equity seed funding.
• Full training program delivered by industry specialists: business growth, marketing, team & leadership, impact measurement and much more.
• Coaching sessions and mentorship on topics of your choice.
• Access to HiiL’s global network of justice leaders, legal tech organisations and top level researchers.
• International exposure and potential investment opportunities.
• Chance to win up to €20.000 at the pitch event of the Innovating Justice Forum.

How to Apply: Click here to apply

Visit Program Webpage for details

Ingressive for Good African Women in Design Scholarship Program 2021

Application Deadline: 26th March 2021

About the Award: The African Women in Design Scholarship Program was created to expand access to design education. We #ChooseToChallenge the fact that only 20% of designers in Nigeria are females. This reflects the realities of many African countries and we want to do something about it. This is why we have partnered with Geneza school of design to help 1000 women build skills in design.

The design training comprises of three comprehensive digital course paths. You can learn one of the following:

• Product Design (UI)
• Graphic Design
• Brand Identity Design

The best part? Each path is a potential career and 0.05% will get access to job opportunities and our laptop program after assessment.

Type: Training

Eligibility:

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To be Taken at (Country): Online

Number of Awards: 1000.

• 500 in the first cohort (April to August)
• 500 in the second cohort (August to December)

Value of Award: You will learn:

• Product Design: You will learn to design websites and mobile application interfaces using Figma. View course content
• Graphic Design: You will learn the principles of design, visual elements, and how to use Photoshop. View course content
• Brand Design: You will learn how to interpret briefs, create logos, packaging, and brand assets.
  View course content

Duration of Award: 12 weeks -24 weeks depending on your chosen paths

How to Apply: APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP NOW

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Ingressive For Good/HNG Internship Program 2021

Application Deadline: 25th March 2021

About the Award: Ingressive For Good is offering African youths interested in building a skill in design (UI/UX, Graphics),. Front End development  (HTML / CSS, JavaScript, ReactJS), Back End development (PHP, JavaScript, Python) or Mobile software development (Flutter, Java, Kotlin), free access to the HNG Internship’s program. Finalists will be added to the Ingressive For Good Alumni community and have the opportunity to access jobs, laptops and more.

Ingressive For Good announced its partnership with HNG Internships to train 50,000 African youths in design and software development, in line with her commitment to increase their earning power.

Type: Internship

Eligibility: For young Africans

Number of Awards: 5000

Duration & Value of Award: This 7 month bootcamp will include a training Phase (2 Months), project Phase (2 Months) and  Internship Phase (3 Months). 

How to Apply: Register here

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Make Our Planet Great Again (MOPGA) Visiting Fellowship Program 2021

Application Deadline: 3rd May 2021

Type: Fellowship

Eligibility:

• Candidates must have obtained their PhD less than five years prior to the application, i.e. they must have defended their PhD between May 2016 and April 2021. They should not have resided in France after September 1st 2020 (more than 90 days) and they must not be French nationals. The start of the visiting fellowship for young researchers in France is due to take effect in January 2022.
• When reviewing applications, particular attention will be paid to ensure geographic diversity of the MOPGA 4th call laureates. As such, 7 fellowships will be reserved for young researchers from sub-Saharan African countries (list given below, excluding South Africa).

Number of Awards: 40 fellowships will be awarded to the young researchers over a 12-month period from January 2022. 

Value of Award: The fellowship includes the following benefits:
– Monthly allowance of 2,500 euros  
– Moving allowance of 500 euros
– Support for social security coverage 
– Support for health insurance

A visiting fellowship agreement with the French host institution will be established between the institutions and the laureates. It will specify the means and resources made available by the host laboratory so that the researcher can carry out the research project.

Duration of Award: 12 Months

How to Apply: Applicants must submit their research project online on the following link: https://campusfrance.smapply.io/prog/MOPGA4 with the following supporting documents:

1. Your CV with the list of your publications in English (4 pages maximum)
2. Copy of your PhD diploma
3. CV of your research supervisor in the French host institution for the visiting fellowship (2 pages maximum)
4. Letter of support from the French host institution 
5. Letters of recommendation (maximum 3)
6. Copy of your Passport or National ID

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Harvard University Crossroads Emerging Leaders Program 2021

Application Deadline: 22nd March 2021

To Be Taken At (Country): Online

About the Award: The Program is a prestigious and a fully funded career development opportunity for students from across the world, who are the first member of their family—or the first generation within their family—to attend university and facing challenges of financial and social circumstances. Following a rigorous multi-stage evaluation process, exceptional students are selected from a diverse applicant pool to take part in this unique educational experience. 

Type: Short course/Training

Eligibility: This program is for students who are from backgrounds of social and financial adversity. All applicants must meet the following criteria:

• First person in their immediate family, or the first member of a generation, to attend university.
• Low-income background
• Ages 18-26

Number of Awards: up to 60 students

Value of Award:

 For participants:

1. Free access to HarvardX courses
2. Machine-learning-based skills assessment and recommendations for improvement
3. Live, interactive sessions featuring senior Harvard faculty from a range of disciplinary backgrounds

For semi-finalists and finalists:

1. Mentorship opportunities with Harvard alumni and industry leaders
2. Smaller peer group settings to discuss course material and academic affinities
3. Access to paid or unpaid internships, locally, regionally, or internationally
4. Access to mentorship for one year post-program
5. Participation in an annual regional alumni event

For finalists:

1. Intensive finalist program with case-study-based curricula
2. Consideration for 1,500 USD student grant for internships or short courses in-region
3. Competition for a 10,000 USD seed fund for innovative in-region initiatives

How to Apply: Apply HERE

Interested applicants should go through the FAQ before applying.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: This program is a collaboration between the Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute, Harvard University, Harvard Business School Club of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Dubai International Financial Centre, with the support of Air Arabia, the Carlton Hotel, Dubai Future Accelerators, and Emirates Grand Hotel.

Spanish Government MAEC-AECID Masters Scholarships 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 22nd March 2021

Type: Master

Eligibility: All the applicants of this program (SCHOLARSHIPS AFRICA-MED) must have knowledge of Spanish, meet all the requirements as stipulated in the specific conditions of section 3.1 of Annexure III and present all the documentation required as per section 3.4 of the mentioned Annexure.

Eligible Countries: Countries in  Latin America, Africa and Asia 

To be Taken at (Country): Spain

Number of Awards: Not specified

Duration of Award: 9 months

How to Apply: Access to online procedure (requires authentication)

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Award Webpage for Details

Commonwealth Distance-Learning Scholarships 2021/2022

Application Deadline: 26th April 2021

Eligible Countries: Bangladesh, Cameroon, Eswatini, Ghana, Guyana, India, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, The Gambia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia

To be taken at: UK Universities

About the Award: Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholarships provide the opportunity for individuals to study for a UK Master’s degree while living and working in their home country. The scheme was established in 2002, as a direct response to the measures taken by its funder, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), to explore new methods of delivery as part of the drive for poverty reduction. To date, nearly 1,000 Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholarships have been awarded.

Type: Masters

Eligibility: To apply for these scholarships, you must:

• Be a citizen of or have been granted refugee status by an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person
• Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country
• Hold a first degree of at least upper second class (2:1) standard; a lower qualification and sufficient relevant experience may be considered in certain cases
• Be unable to afford to study your chosen course without this scholarship.

The CSC aims to identify talented individuals who have the potential to make change. We are committed to a policy of equal opportunity and non-discrimination, and encourage applications from a diverse range of candidates.

Selection Criteria: Selection criteria include:

• Academic merit of the candidate
• Potential impact of the work on the development of the candidate’s home country

How to apply: The CSC’s online application form is now open.

• You should apply to study an eligible Master’s course at a UK university that is participating in the Distance Learning scheme. Click here for a list of participating universities and eligible courses.
• You must also secure admission to your course in addition to applying for a Distance Learning Scholarship. You must check with your chosen university for their specific advice on when to apply, admission requirements, and rules for applying. You must make your application using the CSC’s online application system, in addition to any other application that you are required to complete by your chosen university. The CSC will not accept any applications that are not submitted via the online application system.
• You can apply for more than one course and/or to more than one university, but you may only accept one offer of a Distance Learning Scholarship.
• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage see link below) before applying

Visit the Scholarship Webpage for Details