Application Deadline: 8th December 2023 12:00PM ET
Eligible Countries:
Sub-Saharan Africa (AF) – Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia
East Asia and Pacific (EAP) – Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Mongolia, Taiwan, and Vietnam
Europe and Eurasia (EUR) – Albania, Cyprus, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Türkiye
Middle East and North Africa (NEA) – Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Territories, and Tunisia
South and Central Asia (SCA) – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan
Western Hemisphere (WHA) – Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Suriname
United States of America
To be taken at (country): USA
About the Award: Since 2012, TechGirls trained and mentored 186 teenage girls (ages 15-17) from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, and Yemen. The core of the program is a three-week experience in the United States.
In 2024, the program will support 111 young women from 37 participating countries/territories and 13+ U.S. peers in a dynamic four-week U.S.-based experience with a seven-month mentoring program (including pre-and post-exchange).
Since 2012, TechGirls has trained and mentored 653 teenage girls. Initially, the TechGirls program focused on countries in the Middle East and North Africa. In the summer of 2022, the TechGirls program expanded globally, engaging a talented cadre of STEM-minded young women from the United States and select countries in all six regions of the world (Western Hemisphere, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and South and Central Asia).
The core of the TechGirls program is a 24-day experience in the United States. In partnership with Virginia Tech, participants engage in an interactive tech camp that provides an in-depth examination of cutting-edge technologies and various educational and professional paths in STEM fields. Then, TechGirls travel to a city around the USA (Austin, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Detroit, or Seattle) for community immersion and STEM career exploration. The TechGirls programming yields a multiplier effect as participants return home to conduct community-based projects with seven months of mentorship
Type: Training
Eligibility: Students eligible to apply are those who:
Are citizens of one of the eligible countries/territories and living in that country/territory at time of exchange:
Sub-Saharan Africa (AF) – Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia
East Asia and Pacific (EAP) – Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Mongolia, Taiwan, and Vietnam
Europe and Eurasia (EUR) – Albania, Cyprus, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Türkiye
Middle East and North Africa (NEA) – Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Territories, and Tunisia
South and Central Asia (SCA) – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan
Western Hemisphere (WHA) – Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Suriname
United States of America
Are between the ages of 15 and 17 at the start of the exchange on July 13, 2024
Born on or between July 13, 2006 and July 13, 2009;
Have demonstrated advanced skills and a serious interest in science, technology, engineering, and/or math in their academic studies;
Intend to pursue higher education and/or careers in STEM, especially technology;
Have strong English language skills (advanced intermediate English skills);
Exhibit maturity, flexibility, and open-mindedness;
Will attend at least one additional semester of secondary school upon their return to their home country;
Are committed to completing a community-based project upon their return home; and
Meet U.S. J-1 visa eligibility requirements (for instance, U.S. citizens are not eligible for a J-1 visa).
Eligible candidates must be citizens and current residents of participating countries. Third-country nationals permanently living in an eligible country should contact us to determine eligibility prior to applying.
Preference will be given to those who have limited or no prior experience in the United States. You are not eligible if you have travelled to the United States in the last three years as part of any other ECA exchange program.
Please note that family members of U.S. Embassy or Consulate staff. U.S. Department of State employees, family members of the administering organization or partner organizations are not eligible to apply.
TechGirls encourages people with diverse backgrounds and skills to apply, including individuals with disabilities.
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award: The TechGirls program covers the following costs:
Roundtrip international airfare from participant home country to the United States
Housing during program
Double occupancy hotel or dormitory accommodations
Tell Me About Australia Awards Fellowships & Short Courses:
Australia Awards Fellowships aim to build networks of influence and leadership by strengthening partnerships between Australian organisations and partner organisations in the region. Fellowships target senior and mid-career officials and professionals who are in a position to advance development outcomes in priority areas and increase the institutional capacity of partner countries through their leadership.
Through Australia Awards Fellowships, Australian organisations can apply for funding to host and support a range of professional development activities including: work attachment; supervised research; a management or leadership course; a study tour; program meetings and visits or a combination of these. Fellowships can vary in length, ranging from 2 weeks to 52 weeks. A strong feature of a Fellowship is its flexibility. They range from specialist training of Timorese doctors in the endoscopy departments at two leading Australian hospitals, to training government officers from Vietnam on coastal and marine conservation and sustainability.
WHICH FIELDS ARE ELIGIBLE?
Australia Awards Fellowships provide short-term opportunities for in-Australia study, research and professional development activities, hosted by Australian organisations – and do not lead to academic qualifications. Application rounds are held through a competitive selection process.
TYPE:
Fellowship
Who Can Apply For Australia Awards Fellowships & Short Courses?
Australian organisations such as government institutions, business and non-government organisations are eligible to apply. Organisations must be legal entities with an Australian Business Number and must be able to demonstrate links with partner organisations in participating countries, and provide in-kind or financial contributions to support Fellowships. Individuals cannot apply.
FELLOW ELIGIBILITY
Australian organisations must ensure that all nominated Fellows meet the following general eligibility requirements:
be a minimum of 18 years of age at the time of commencing the Fellowship
not be a permanent resident or be applying for permanent residency in Australia or partner of someone who is
be a citizen of an eligible country
not be current serving military personnel
be able to satisfy all requirements of the Department of Home Affairs for (DFAT sponsored) student visas subclass 500
be able to participate in the Fellowship.
be able to travel without family members as DFAT will only fund and provide visa support letters for individual Fellows, not their family members
Fellows with a disability that requires assistance must travel with a carer
WHICH COUNTRIES ARE ELIGIBLE?
Southeast Asia
Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam
South Asia And Middle East
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Iraq, Jordan, Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories and Sri Lanka
Pacific
Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Wallis and Futuna
About the Open Doors Russian Scholarship: The Open Doors International Olympiad is starting for the seventh time! Depending on the chosen direction, the winners of the Olympiad will be able to enroll for free in the master’s or postgraduate programs of their chosen University. Participants of the doctoral track will be able to choose a future research supervisor and pass an interview with them during the Olympiad.
Participation in the Olympiad and further education at the University are possible in Russian or English.
This year there are 14 subject areas available, same as last year. The crucial difference is that the doctoral track is now available in ALL of them instead of just six.
Foreigners from ANY country can participate in the Olympiad, as well as compatriots permanently residing abroad and stateless persons. Participants of the master’s track must have a bachelor’s or specialist’s degree or be completing an appropriate level of education in 2024. Participants of the doctoral track will need a specialist’s or a master’s degree.
Additionally, to be allowed to participate, you’ll have to pass a short test in each of your selected subject areas. We designed it to make a preliminary evaluation of your knowledge level and get you acquainted with the Olympiad’s interface. If you are unable to pass this test in five attempts, you won’t be able to start filling in your portfolio and participate in the Olympiad.
Both master’s and doctoral tracks include 2 rounds that are held online. The first round is a portfolio competition. Those who have been successfully selected after the evaluation of the portfolios are invited to take part in the second round – the Olympiad itself, which is a series of proctored online tests.
In addition to those two rounds, the doctoral track includes one additional round which consists of online interviews with up to three potential research advisors at the participant’s choice. If any of the interviews is successful, the participant chooses a research advisor from among those who gave them a pass.
Participation in the Olympiad and further education at the University are possible in Russian or English.
Field of Study: Compared to the previous year’s 11 subject areas, this year there are 14. The new ones are “Clinical Medicine & Public Health”, “Earth Sciences” and “Education”. Some of the other subject areas have been updated and renamed: “Biology”, “Psychology”, “Physics”, “Chemistry” and “Economics” have been changed into “Biology & Biotechnology”, “Neuroscience & Psychology”, “Physical Sciences”, “Chemistry & Materials Science” and “Economics & Econometrics” respectively.
New this year are the availability of the doctoral track in all subject areas, and the preliminary entry tests. Registration closes on December 10
Type: Masters, PhD
Who can apply for Open Doors Russian Scholarship:
Foreigners can participate in the Olympiad, as well as compatriots permanently residing abroad.
Participants of the master’s track must have a bachelor’s or specialist’s degree or be completing an appropriate level of education in 2023. Participants of the doctoral track will need a specialist’s or a master’s degree.
Both master’s and doctoral tracks include 2 rounds that are held online. The first round is a portfolio competition. Those who have been successfully selected after the evaluation of the portfolios are invited to take part in the second round – the Olympiad itself, which is a series of proctored online tests.
Doctoral track includes one additional round which consists of an interview with potential research advisors at the participant’s choice. If the interview is successful, the participant chooses a research advisor from among those who gave them a pass.
Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award: Your tuition fee will be paid by the Russian Federation. You will only have to cover your travel and accommodation costs, insurance and personal expenses.
Duration of Programme: Duration of candidate’s chosen course
How to Apply: Please note that currently ALL foreign students are allowed to enter Russia, but each university has its own guidelines on how exactly to do it. Also, if you apply and are accepted as a winner by both Open Doors and Rossotrudnichestvo, you’ll have to choose only one scholarship – getting both is impossible.
The Labour Party has issued a directive to all party branches warning that any public expression of opposition to Israel’s war against Gaza will be met with disciplinary action, including expulsion.
General Secretary of the Labour Party David Evans contacted secretaries of Constituency Labour Party (CLP) and local branches Friday, ahead of mass protests in defence of the Palestinian people.
Evans warned, “Elected representatives have been given strong advice not to attend any of these events, and I would urge you to exercise similar caution.” This outrageous edict was to ensure party members did not share a platform with, or stand close to, “individuals that threaten to undermine the values and principles of the labour party.”
London’s mass protest on Saturday, “March for Palestine – End the violence – End Apartheid”, was joined by more than 150,000 people, with thousands more demonstrating across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
A section of the protest in London against Israel's assault on Gaza, attended by over 150,000 people on Saturday October 14, 2023
Evans wrote, “I ask that no Labour Party banners be taken along.”
Labour’s venom toward global protests in defence of the Palestinians did not stop there. Evans announced that any motions tabled at CLPs or local branches against Israel’s war crimes “will be ruled out of order”.
He declared, “The party’s leadership has been clear that Labour fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself, rescue hostages, and protect civilians, in line with international law.” But Israel’s collective punishment against Palestinian civilians is in naked violation of international law.
Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people faces destruction as Israel’s military—armed and financed by the US and Britain—pummels civilian targets amid a genocidal blockade depriving Palestinians of water, food and electricity. Israel has severed all internet connections in Gaza, preventing Palestinians from speaking to the world.
The Labour Party has announced its own information blockade. Evans declared that social media accounts must not be used “to promote statements or events that are likely to bring the party into disrepute” and that “abusing someone online is completely unacceptable”. He left no doubt about the meaning of Labour’s diktat, directing secretaries to the party’s code of conduct that defines opposition to Zionism as anti-Semitism, providing a trigger to expel members who publicly oppose Israeli war crimes. He urged CLP and local secretaries to report any breach of party rules to Labour’s witch-hunting compliance unit.
Evans’ letter stated that any instance of “anti-Semitism” (as defined by Labour’s compliance unit) should be reported to the Community Security Trust (CST), a body he described as a charity “that protects Jews from anti-Semitism” and which “is recognised by police and government as a unique model of best practice”. The CST is in fact a front group for the Zionist state.
Young Labour leader resigns over Starmer’s support for war crimes
Labour’s call for a crackdown on internal dissent was given its head by leader Sir Keir Starmer who used media interviews over the past week surrounding the party conference in Liverpool to demand full support for Israel’s genocidal war.
British Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer tells LBC radio he supports Israel's collective punishment against 2.3 million civilians in Gaza [Photo: LBC radio screenshot]
On Wednesday, Starmer told LBC radio that Israel’s military response to action by Hamas fighters was proportionate, declaring, “Israel has the right to do everything that it can to get those hostages back safe and sound, therefore I’m very clear Israel must have, does have that right to defend herself and Hamas bears responsibility.”
LBC’s Nick Ferrari asked, “A siege is appropriate? Cutting off power? Cutting off water?” To which Starmer replied, “I think that Israel does have that right.”
On BBC Newsnight, Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry backed Starmer to the hilt. Asked, “Do you think cutting off food, water and electricity is within international law?”, she replied, “I think that Israel has an absolute right to defend itself against terrorism.”
Challenged by the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire, who insisted, “That’s not the question that I asked”, Thornberry was unwavering: “It is an appropriate answer to the question that you’ve asked.”
Labour’s embrace of crimes comparable to those of the Nazis during World War II is fueling mass opposition, even among previously loyal Labour members. On Thursday, Lubaba Khalid, Young Labour’s National Executive BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) officer, resigned from the party.
Khalid published her resignation letter on Twitter/X on Thursday. She wrote: “As a Palestinian, with direct family in Gaza, I am absolutely appalled by the comments made to LBC by the leader of the Labour Party and my local MP, Keir Starmer, who said that Israel ‘has the right’ to withhold water and electricity. Collective punishment is a war crime under international law. This position was then reaffirmed by Emily Thornberry.
“I have spent the last few days worried about the safety of my family and with electricity now cut off and communication limited these worries are only exacerbated. I have received zero support from the Labour Party—a common theme experienced by other Muslim and Palestinian members.”
She concluded, “The comments from the leadership this week have been the last straw. I can only conclude that the Labour Party is no longer a safe space for Palestinians and Muslims.”
Khalid’s resignation letter has been viewed more than 3 million times and liked by more than 41,000 people. Her family is from Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, struck repeatedly by Israeli missiles.
Khalid’s resignation raises fundamental political issues. She was voted to Young Labour’s national executive last year, part of a slate of candidates from campaign group Momentum, named Socialist Future. She said in her election statement, “I have long considered the Labour Party my political home.” She continued, “I’m standing to build an empowered, campaigning socialist youth wing that is unafraid to stand up for the communities we represent”, insisting, “Our organising must be anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and committed to global liberation.”
But Khalid’s resignation will instead reinforce the conclusions being drawn by millions of workers and young people about the real character of the Labour Party.
Between 2015 and 2016, more than 180,000 workers and youth joined Labour to support Jeremy Corbyn who promised a fight against the pro-war and austerity policies championed by the Blairites. The Momentum group played a key role in promoting Corbyn. As WSWS explained in 2015: “Momentum is perpetrating a fiction: namely that the Labour Party ‘can transform our society for the better,’ rather than being an obstacle to such a change.”
Corbyn betrayed his thousands of supporters, ceding to the Blairites on every issue. On becoming leader he resigned as Chairman of Stop the War Coalition, backed a free vote in parliament to bomb Syria, reaffirmed Labour’s support for NATO, endorsed Trident nuclear weapons and instructed Labour-run councils to enforce Tory budget cuts. Momentum’s founder Jon Lansman backed the bogus campaign against “left-wing anti-Semitism” used to remove Corbyn as party leader. Corbyn opposed any mobilisation of the membership to defeat the Blairites’ witch-hunt, insisting that the right-wing’s attack dogs were part of Labour’s “broad church”.
The governments of Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya, home to some of the most horrific crimes of imperialism in the twentieth century, have joined the US and European governments in their support for Israel’s campaign of mass murder and ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
They are rushing to reinforce the howls of outrage emanating from Washington, London, Berlin, Paris and Madrid. But any examination of the record of these rotten regimes, and of imperialism’s crimes against their peoples historically, instead underscores the political amnesia required for anyone to swallow this torrent of hypocrisy and lies.
Kenya’s President William Ruto, indicted over crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court over his role in instigating ethnic violence after the 2007 elections that left over 1,500 dead and half a million displaced, posted a statement expressing “solidarity with the State of Israel”.
President of Kenya William Samoei Ruto addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022 at U.N. headquarters. [AP Photo/Mary Altaffer]
Kenya, he pontificated, “unequivocally condemns terrorism and attacks on innocent civilians in the country” and supported actions against “perpetrators, organizers, financiers, sponsors, supporters and enablers” of terrorism.
Rwanda, under the three-decade brutal dictatorship of Paul Kagame, issued a similar statement, condemning the Palestinian armed uprising as an “act of terror”, and expressing “sympathy” for “Israel following the terror attacks on Israeli territory… leading to the loss of lives, numerous injuries and the abduction of hostages.”
Democratic Republic of Congo President Félix Tshisekedi, who recently sent the army to crack down on anti-United Nations protestors in Goma city, killing over 50 demonstrators, “firmly condemned the terrorist attacks… causing heavy loss of life and many injuries.”
Despite the lying propaganda campaign of the mass media, the populations in all these countries, like the vast majority of the world’s people, solidarise with the Palestinians who have been subject to decades of oppression and persecution.
Kenya gained independence in 1963 after a 10-year anti-colonial struggle waged by radicalized peasants against Britain. The Mau Mau uprising was an armed rebellion launched by mostly Kikuyu peasants in central Kenya, whose fertile land was expropriated by British settlers.
British Army patrol crossing a stream during the Mau Mau rebellion. [Photo: Ministry Of Defence Post 1945 Official Collection, MAU 587]
Like today’s Netanyahu’s regime portrayal of Palestinians as “animals”, the British colonial authorities decried the heroic fighters—who were armed with homemade guns, machetes and bows and arrows against the modern equipped British army and its local collaborators—as animals and savages animated by backward beliefs. As one official study of the colonial authorities said, the Mau Mau were “an irrational force of evil, dominated by bestial impulses and influenced by world communism”.
Kimathi, the most important Mau Mau general, was captured, subject to a kangaroo trial and executed. An estimated 150,000 Kenyans died in the war. Studies have showed how the UK detained half a million people in de facto concentration camps as a punishment for being potential Mau Mau sympathisers.
Thousands were beaten to death or died from malnutrition, typhoid, tuberculosis or dysentery. Inmates were used as slave labour and subjected to sexual assault. Interrogation under torture, castration and using broken bottles inserted in vaginas was widespread. The number of white civilian colonialists killed by Mau Mau attacks the basis of British imperialist propaganda denounced the uprising—was just 32.
DR Congo is the home to one of the most horrific crimes of imperialism. Colonised by Belgium, an estimated eight to ten million Africans died as victims of King Leopold's “rubber-terror” from 1885 to 1908—because of forced labour to collect rubber for export, together with epidemic disease and famine. Parents who refused to participate in rubber collection were threatened with having their children’s hands cut off and their entire villages razed.
After independence in 1960, Belgium and the US worked to murder the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba, the leader of the anti-colonial struggle. Lumumba’s demand that the Congo should control its own extensive mineral wealth signed his death warrant. He was captured by pro-imperialist forces, tortured and executed, and his body dissolved in acid. The Belgians kept his teeth as souvenirs.
Over the next decades, Congo was ruled by the CIA’s proxy, Joseph Mobutu, who ran the country as a kleptocracy. He looted an estimated $5 billion before his removal in 1997. The spilling over into the Congo of the Rwandan crisis of the 1990s cost as many as 5.4 million lives over the next decade, dubbed the world's deadliest since World War II, in what has come known as the First Congo and Second Congo wars.
Rwanda was colonised by Germany and then Belgium. The roots of the 1994 Tutsi Genocide, which saw 900,000 people butchered in 100 days, has roots in the colonial era. Belgium enforced strict hierarchical divides among otherwise fluid and overlapping ethnic groups, the Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa, as a way of maintaining control in Rwanda.
At first, Belgian colonial authorities reinforced existing Tutsi elite power structures. But during the late 1950s, when the Tutsi monarchy started calling for independence, Belgian imperialism responded by magnifying long-simmering resentment among the Hutu peasant majority and reversed the discrimination, elevating Hutu over Tutsi and creating a new oppressive state based on the exclusion of Tutsi.
When Rwanda gained independence from Belgium in 1962, French imperialism intervened to shore up its diminishing influence in Africa. Paris provided military and economic support to the Hutu extremist government of Juvénal Habyarimana. Paris deployed French troops, arms, and training to the Rwandan army in the immediate lead-up to the genocide, as it carried out mass arrests, torture and executions of predominately Tutsi opponents.
When the genocide broke out in 1994, France launched a new military intervention, providing safe passage out of the country of many perpetrators, most to Congo. Paris was determined to maintain its backing for the Rwandan regime against the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi armed group led by US-trained Kagame and stationed in neighbouring Uganda, a key US ally. From Uganda, the RPF waged a civil war for control of Rwanda. The Rwandan genocide was the product of this imperialist struggle between France and the United States over influence within the region, which Paris regarded as critical for the maintenance of French control in Africa.
The “support” of these states for the genocidal war now being waged by Israel is in fact only the support of bourgeois ruling cliques that have enriched themselves through the immiseration of workers and the rural masses since independence. They function as the local representative of the imperialist powers, their banks and corporations, when the imperialist powers are determined to subjugate the resource-rich continent, especially to curb Russian and Chinese influence. They are all responding to legitimate social and democratic aspirations of workers amid soaring levels of inequality with the same authoritarian, police-state measures and violence of the imperialist states and Israel.
Kenya is run by millionaire President William Ruto. Since his election last year, Ruto has implemented brutal International Monetary Fund-dictated policies. He has slashed fuel and maize subsidies. His infamous Finance Bill, that includes tax hikes on income and goods is opposed by nearly 90 percent of a population that has already suffering under the collapse of the Kenya shilling, job losses and precariousness, and soaring inflation.
Since the rise of anti-austerity protests in March, police have outlawed demonstrations, carried out mass arrests, imprisoned opposition leaders, and used teargas, batons, water cannon and live bullets that have killed at least 75.
Ruto has solidified Kenya’s traditional role as a US proxy in Eastern Africa. He has continued the deployment of Kenyan troops in Somalia to suppress the al-Shabaab Islamist insurgency. Located on the Indian Ocean and the entrance to the Red Sea, Kenya is geopolitically key: around $700 billion in maritime shipping passes through every year, including nearly all Europe’s trade with Asia. It is one of Washington’s chokepoints in case of war against China.
Ruto has also signed up to Western-backed East Africa “peacekeeping” force to Congo’s mineral-rich east to assist President Félix Tshisekedi’s attempt to stabilise the war-torn region to allow imperialism to plunder minerals such as cassiterite, columbite-tantalite, wolframite, beryl, gold, and monazite. Congo’s resources are also viewed by Washington and its European imperialist allies as key to waging war against Beijing.
Ruto’s latest actions has been to call for the reinstatement of a Western-backed, French puppet president—President Mohamed Bazoum—in Niger. He has signed off on Washington’s idea to deploy Kenya’s infamous corrupt police force to Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s most impoverished country to suppress heavily-armed gangs allied with competing factions of Haiti’s pro-imperialist ruling elite.
In Rwanda, Kagame has ruled with an iron fist for nearly three decades. In 2021, he deployed 3,000 troops funded by the European Union to suppress an Islamist rebellion in the impoverished north of Mozambique. French energy giant Total has US$20 billion of liquefied natural gas investments in the area. Kagame has also accepted becoming the British sub-contractor in charge of enforcing Britain’s racist migration policies. Announced in April 2022, a deal with the Conservative government would see thousands of asylum seekers sent to Rwanda. Kagame has received an upfront payment of £140 million.
The degeneration of the bourgeois regimes in the former colonial countries shows that there is no national road to the liberation of oppressed peoples. There is tragic similarity between Zionism and African nationalism. The idea that new African states, created on the borders forged by European imperialism, could meet the social and democratic aspirations of Africans has proven as false as the Zionist myth that the Jews could find sanctuary through the creation of a religiously exclusivist state founded through the dispossession off its Arab inhabitants. Instead, all these countries, ruled by a parasitical minority, are in a headlong descent into police state forms of rule, fascism and war.
On Friday, French police arrested Jean-Claude Meyer, a member of the French Jewish Union for Peace (UJFP), for carrying a Palestinian flag at a Strasbourg protest. Another UJFP member, Perrine, was also arrested and held for an additional 24 hours on Saturday evening. As of Sunday night, it appeared she had not been released. A total of 13 people were arrested at the Strasbourg rally organised in defence of Palestinians as the Israeli state prepares a ground invasion of Gaza.
The rally was banned by the local prefecture in line with the memorandum to police chiefs issued by French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin. It states: “Pro-Palestinian demonstrations, as they are likely to generate disturbances to public order, must be prohibited,” and “the organization of these prohibited demonstrations must give rise to arrests.”
A UJFP statement after the arrest of Meyer and other protesters pointed to Macron’s murderous role in backing Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, and the popular anger this has unleashed:
“Faced with the legitimate emotion which pushes a large part of the population—including many young people—to show solidarity with Palestine, which has once again been put under fire since the spiral of murderous violence to which has left civilians once again facing bombing and expulsion out of the Gaza Strip, adistraught power [France] which seems to have lost all measure aligns itself with the Israeli extreme right, refuses to allow the voice of the suffering Palestinians to be heard, and even forbids the slightest sympathy to be publicly expressed for the oppressed!”
The collective also criticized the role of French media in whitewashing the Israeli onslaught and official French support for it. It noted that there is “Not a word in the official media, not a gesture from the authorities in the direction of de-escalation, but on the contrary the expression of contempt for a solidarity movement which … is not limited to pro-Palestinian organizations alone.”
By Sunday evening, the only French media outlet to have reported on the arrest of members of the Jewish Union for Peace was France3’s Grand-Est regional news page. In pro-Palestinian protests across France at the weekend, hundreds were fined and dozens arrested, although the interior ministry has not yet released official statistics.
At another solidarity protest for Gaza Saturday, police arrested well-known left-wing journalist and former Unsubmissive France (LFI) member Taha Bouhafs. They dragged Bouhafs away from the protest, though he showed them his press credentials and passport. Bouhafs was later released and fined for attending the protest.
In a press conference on Saturday, Darmanin seized on a Chechnyan youth’s horrific murder of Domnique Bernard, a teacher at his old high school, to impose more measures to repress political opposition in France, particularly amongst foreign residents. After the attack Friday, the French terror threat level was raised to “emergency attack,” the highest level. Thousands of additional police officers are posted across France.
Darmanin pledged to carry out the “systematic expulsion of any foreigner … considered dangerous by the intelligence services.” He stated that state agents will be “allow[ed], across all State services, to evaluate people [foreigners] who are in the country, to classify them as being dangerous, and obviously to proceed with their expulsion.”
Darmanin also claimed 189 antisemitic acts had taken place in France since last Saturday, which led to 65 arrests. He also said Pharos, the French government website where online content can be anonymously reported, has received 2,449 complains relating to alleged antisemitic statements or apology for terrorism online.
Since anyone publicly expressing solidarity for the Palestinian people can be arrested and classified as an antisemite, it is impossible to know how many of these incidents are genuinely antisemitic, and how many are part of state crackdown on pro-Palestinian opposition. It is unclear whether these figures include those arrested at pro-Palestinian protests.
The escalation of the French state’s crackdown on political opposition over the weekend reflects the extreme nervousness in ruling circles that their full-throated support for the Israeli massacre of Gazans will reignite the class struggle in France. Next week, further planned protests, including the commemoration of the 200-300 Algerians killed by police in the massacre of Paris in 1961, have been banned by the Interior Ministry.
A protester holds a Palestinian flag during a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, in Paris. [AP Photo/Thibault Camus]
Jean-Claude Meyer and other arrested pro-Palestinian protesters are political prisoners. They were not committing any crime and were arrested only for peaceful political expression. A domestic situation in which Jews are transformed into political prisoners for speaking out against genocide points to the extremely advanced preparations in the ruling class to impose a fascistic police state.
Meyer’s arrest exposes the reactionary political lie that the Israeli state represents the interests of all Jews around the world. On the contrary, principled expressions of Jewish solidarity for the Palestinian people in Israel, the United States and France have shown the broad opposition in the Jewish population to the brutal policies of the Israeli regime.
In the last two decades and under successive governments of all political colorations, the French ruling class has systematically built up a fascistic police state. One facet of this campaign has been the promotion of the far-right National Rally (RN) of Marine Le Pen, a party that descends from the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy-French regime. Another has been the emergence of a unanimous official consensus in favor of police repression.
Macron’s interior minister, Darmanin, a sympathiser of the far-right royalist Action Française, personifies the fascistic evolution of the French ruling class. His sympathies for the Action Française, founded in 1899 to support the jailing of innocent Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus and that became a key ideological backer of collaboration with Nazism in World War II, led him once in office to denounce kosher and halal food.
In a televised debate before last year’s presidential election, he attacked neo-fascist leader Marine Le Pen from the right, as “soft” on Islam.
In 2021, Darmanin led the state campaign for the Anti-Separatism law, which amongst its other anti-democratic provisions, requires France’s 8 million Muslims to abide by “national cohesion” and “public order.” This is being extended to anyone who opposes Macron’s support for the Israeli state as it massacres the Gazan population before the entire world.
French police arrests of Jews opposed to the Israeli state’s genocidal onslaught on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip exposes the lie that its banning of Gaza solidarity protests aims to protect Jewish people. Rather, it aims to protect the French police state from mounting popular opposition, including to its support for the Israeli regime’s policies of mass murder.
Macron’s massively unpopular government is maintained in power through imperialist war abroad and police repression at home. It has devoted billions of euros to supporting a fascist-infested regime in Ukraine in a war with Russia, and an unprecedented program of rearmament in France itself. It rules against the people, weathering mass strikes against his overwhelmingly unpopular pension cuts only through a combination of police violence and the support of a compliant union bureaucracy. Ruling circles clearly fear that the eruption of opposition to genocide in Gaza can blow this rotten political edifice apart.
