Forida is a 22-year-old sewing machine operator in a clothing factory in Dahka, Bangladesh. She often works 12-hour days producing clothes for brands such as H&M and Target. Sometimes, during busy production cycles, the hours are even longer.
“Last year, I worked until midnight for a full month,” Forida explained. “I used to feel sick all the time. I was stressed about my son and then after I got home from work, I had to clean the house and cook and then go back to work again the next morning. I would go to bed at 2am and get up at 5.30am each day.”
Even with the combined income from her husband, Forida’s family barely had enough food to eat.
Meanwhile, a CEO from a top clothing brand would have to work only four days to earn what a garment worker in Bangladesh earns in a lifetime.
Forida’s story is included in a report released today by the anti-poverty organization Oxfam. The report, Reward Work, Not Wealth, reveals how the global economy empowers the richest 1% while hundreds of millions of people struggle to survive.
Oxfam found that 82% of the global wealth produced last year went to the richest 1% of the world’s population. In other words, four out of every five dollars of wealth created in 2017 went into the pockets of the 1%.
While a new billionaire was created every other day, the 3.7 billion people making up the poorest half of the world’s population saw no increase in their wealth last year.
“The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system,” said Winnie Byanyima, the Executive Director of Oxfam. “The people who make our clothes, assemble our phones and grow our food are being exploited to ensure a steady supply of cheap goods, and swell the profits of corporations and billionaire investors.”
Oxfam reported that the 42 richest people now own as much wealth the poorest half of the world’s population.
Since 2010, billionaire wealth has risen annually by 13%, a rate six time higher than that of average workers.
Key factors contributing to this concentration of wealth, Oxfam found, are erosion of workers’ rights, corporate influence in political and labor policy-making, rewarding inherited wealth, tax evasion, and cutting costs to maximize profits for company owners.
“A perfect storm is driving up the bargaining power of those at the top while driving down the bargaining power of those at the bottom,” Paul O’Brien, Oxfam America’s Vice President for Policy and Campaigns, explained. “If such inequality remains unaddressed, it will trap people in poverty and further fracture our society.”
Oxfam pointed to President Trump’s policies as widening the gap between rich and poor, and empowering the 1% on the backs of the American working class.
Since taking office, Trump has chosen a cabinet with more billionaires in it than ever before in US history, and whose combined wealth is greater than the 100 million poorest Americans. Oxfam cited Trump’s proposed tax and healthcare reforms as policies favoring the super-rich.
Meanwhile, the three richest Americans own the same wealth as the poorest half of the country’s population.
Such data underlines the plight of the American poor. Oxfam’s report included a portrait of Dolores, a former poultry worker in Arkansas. She and her co-workers were provided so few bathroom breaks at the factory that they were forced to wear diapers to work.
“It was like having no worth,” Dolores said. “We would arrive at 5 in the morning… until 11 or 12 without using the bathroom… I was ashamed to tell them that I had to change my Pampers.”
Work in the US poultry industry has one of the highest rates of injury in the country. Oxfam found that “repetitive strain injuries can be so severe that after only one year on the production lines, some workers reported being unable to straighten their fingers, hold a spoon or even properly hold their children’s hands.”
Across the world, poor people’s labor fuels the rising concentration of wealth.
“Dangerous, poorly paid work for the many is supporting extreme wealth for the few,” Oxfam explained. “Women are in the worst work, and almost all the super-rich are men. Governments must create a more equal society by prioritizing ordinary workers and small-scale food producers instead of the rich and powerful.”
The biggest problem for families in Cuba these days is the financial difficulties caused by the United States blockade. It has not been removed even though diplomatic relations were established following former President Obama’s visit to Cuba. This is due to, among other things, the fact that there are laws that have to be repealed by the US Congress. So far, the changes have been blocked by the Republicans. The Helms Burton Act, which makes it very difficult for other countries to trade with Cuba, is still in place.
On June 15, 2017, President Donald Trump gave a speech in Florida, especially directed to the extreme right-wing Cuban exiles in the city of “Little Havana” in Miami. He said that the money from tourists travelling in Cuba goes directly to Cuba’s military and because of that he will not open up US tourism to Cuba. Consequently there must still be travel restrictions and trade with Cuba is still prohibited. The US Embassy in Havana and the Cuban Embassy in Washington D.C., however, should not close, and the direct flights between The United States and Cuba will continue. Trump demanded internationally monitored elections, several parties, a free press, release of all political prisoners, and the extradition of Assata Shakur (Joanne Chesimard), who has political asylum in Cuba. The speech was symbolic (and warmly welcomed) thanks to the Cuban exiles who supported him during the election. The trade and travel restrictions are out of his hands based on laws that would have to be abolished by the US Congress. More and More Republicans believe that 50 years are enough and that the blockade does not work as intended: to have regime change in Cuba. The speech was a repetition of demands Trump knew would never be accepted by the Cuban government. Let’s see what happens.
In Cuba, life continues with shortages of everything. For example, toilet paper is missing, and when it comes onto the shelves again, there is no soap powder; when that returns, there’s a lack of tooth paste, and so on. It is also difficult to get spare parts for cars, for example, and for many other imported goods.
In 1992, the double currency was introduced, so they have both the national pesos and the special tourist currency, convertible pesos called C.U.C. The value of the C.U.C. is between one dollar and one Euro. Recently it is been close to the dollar. You need 24 national pesos for one C.U.C. , and the Cubans can calculate the exchange between the two in their heads. We cannot do that, and it is a mystery how Cubans can live for 400-800 national pesos a month, equivalent to 20-40 dollars. Indeed, they have their “libretta”, a sort of ration book, but is does not cover their entire food needs. It is still difficult to afford all the necessary food.
About 3 years ago, the government announced that the C.U.C. would cease to exist; leaving only the national peso, but that has not happened yet and has probably proven to be harder than expected. The dual currency causes more and more inequality between those who have access to the C.U.C. and those who have only their salary in national pesos. They are free to exchange them to C.U.C. but is makes no difference. Slowly society has become more affluent, but money is unevenly distributed and prices rise making it worse for those who are being paid in national pesos.
The reforms introduced five to six years ago have meant changes in Cubans´ everyday lives. Now Cubans can become self-employed; there are more than 100 professions in which they can work legitimately by paying taxes. Before, all were state employees. Now an increasing number are working independently, for example selling agricultural products. Many have opened small shops or cafes. It is also possible to open a restaurant or start a cooperative where several people share a company. There is good money in transportation; many are driving taxis, both for tourists or shared taxis for Cubans. Good money can also be made by renting rooms and apartments to tourists, the so-called “casas particulars”.
Cubans can now sell and buy their houses, which was a necessary reform because an increasing number of houses literally collapsed in the streets because of lack of maintenance. The residents could not afford to maintain them, nor could they buy paint and other building materials. Fortunately, they now can. For example, if you can get your cousin in Miami to invest in a house, you can renovate it and sell it for double the previous price and share the profits. Foreigners cannot buy the houses but Cubans can with foreign capital or if they have other access to C.U.C. More and more houses are being built and renovated, especially in the more upscale neighborhoods. It is absolutely about time, as many of the houses have not been maintained for 50 years.
Some other changes have been introduced since August 2017: no more private lease permits (the so-called “casas particulares”) will be issued, and permission to create family restaurants, small cafes and gift shops has been stalled. The tax system for self-employed does not work well enough, and they need to make some changes.
Daily life presents challenges. Although all households in Cuba have a pressure cooker and a rice cooker, cooking is a slow affair. Rice must be cleaned, garlic must be peeled, beans must be boiled and a sofrito (oil with garlic, onions and peppers) must be made. Many poor Cubans eat only one, main meal a day, an almuerzo (lunch) in the middle of the afternoon – of course depending on their work schedule and whether they get food at work. There are many problems with water and electricity, at least in Havana. For a period of time there were many and long-lasting power outages, now there are short-circuit interruptions. The water supply in Havana is the source of difficulty and irritation. In some neighborhoods, the water supply is closed daily in the middle of the day, in other places, there is water only every other day. When there is no water, you get it from a tank on the roof and it needs to be opened and closed. Sometimes the water does not come at night as expected. Last time I was in Havana, it was missing for 3 days.
When you see a clinic or hospital, you are not impressed because the equipment is a bit old-fashioned, certainly not new and modern, but the doctors are incredibly skilled and you will be carefully examined. It is not about just prescribing any medicine. It can be difficult to get hold of because of shortcomings in that area. On the other hand, the medical service is probably the best in the world. In every city and every Havana neighborhood, there are outpatient clinics with several doctors, and it is open 24 hours a day. You can also call a family doctor. I experienced an example three to four years ago, when I was visiting a father who had his nine month old daughter with him. When I arrived and touched her arms, she seemed hot. I told the father I thought she had a fever. “She has a fever?” he asked, and, frightened he immediately went to the phone and called the family doctor. A young, female doctor arrived ten minutes later and took the child in her arms. She took her temperature and examined her and then walked around in the living room with her in her arms, singing to her. When the child had fallen into a half-sleep, she gave her a pill without waking her. A few minutes later the father took the child, and the doctor left the house. What a service!
The health service also provides free dental visits. In the district of Playa in Havana, in addition to a general dentist in the outpatient clinic, there is a 24-hour emergency clinic. Last time I was in Cuba, one of my Cuban friends got a toothache one a Saturday evening, I went with him to the clinic at ten o’clock at night. There was a watchman looking at television and a dentist who immediately treated my friend for a problem in his molar. A few days later he came for follow-up care.
Did I mention there is free education in Cuba, from first class to phd-level at the university? Other courses are not very expensive, for instance cooking courses or taking a drivers lice nse.
Surprisingly, there has been a shortage of food in Cuba, and not only in that special period for the first ten years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At that time Cuba lost half of its gross national income with the loss of financial support from the Soviet Union. It has seemingly been difficult to restructure agriculture from monoculture, such as sugar cane and tobacco, to cultivating different crops that can feed the population. Cuba has a tropical climate where everything grows all year round, root vegetables such as sweet potatoes, malanga and yucca. You can also grow rice if you have irrigation. In addition, you can grow various tropical fruits, avocados, bananas, coconuts, pineapple, guayava, papaya, mamay, citrus fruits and many more. They are rich in vitamins and contain many other important nutriments.
In some areas they have eco-gardens, small community gardens where they grow vegetables without any pesticides or additives. Most of the people who work there are volunteers, and they sell the products to people in the community,
It is difficult to transport the goods. There has been a shortage of gasoline and the shortage has returned now, because Venezuela is no longer sending so much oil. The Cubans in Havana complain that they cannot afford to buy vegetables, and prices are too high both in the state sales and in the private markets. Prices of groceries like garlic, onions and small peppers have risen. The daily problems continue.
As the 86-year old grandmother said, “Cuba is a nice country, if only we had a little more money.”
(And if your goal be truth, Is this the right road—
Europe’s faults all glossed, and all Islam’s held to so strict an audit?)
-Sir Muhammad Iqbal
Too often in the news, Islam is only associated with terrorism and extremism. An uninformed viewer may think: How could anyone in their right minds find inspiration and solace from such a faith? However, to billions of people across the world, Islam is the avenue for seeking liberation and peace.
A lot of ink, an infinite number of film reels, and a frantic churn of news stories bristling with violent tones on Islam have fixated the Muslims as a stereotyped homogeneity. There is a cottage industry of authors who keep the midnight oil burning to ensure that the flashlights on bad Muslims keep beaming. These are churned out by a well-oiled Islamophobia machine with financial backers, think-tanks, and misinformation experts who are constantly manipulating the already flawed image of what a Muslim is, of what Islam is. They are attacking the identity of Muslims, which is so diverse that it cannot possibly fit into a box. Islam has been projected as a misogynistic religion and Muslims the most barbaric community, especially when it comes to dealing with women.
From terrorists to dictators, provocative literature to fabricated threats, Muslim identity is marred by almost every imaginable negative stereotype and menacing trope. Amidst these, the images of good Muslims, in every medium, are few and far between.
In an ideal world, journalism is a profession of incredible integrity and Journalists, among the most dexterous and skilled people in the world. We have all benefited from the work of persistent journalists who put life, limb, family and even sanity on the line in their pursuit of truth. There is no sane, decent, and democratic polity possible without journalists who challenge power, relentlessly pursue and disseminate the truth and always find the next story to tell.
Sadly, journalism is failing to perform its fundamental role of objective reporting and analysis and continues its job by rehashing tired old narratives of “radical Islam” or a “fight within Islam”. The truth is much more convoluted than that and the entire world has a direct role in creating the dangerous reality which so many Muslims have to live with every single day.
The press once seemed to have a conscience, thanks to history’s painful social conflicts and questions of war and peace. The world, however, has changed, and many of us may be in the time warp of old values. Like all institutions, the media has also suffered in terms of its reputation.
The media shows remarkable consistency in employing an arsenal of semantic games and incendiary phrases to link most of the violence around the world with some form of Islamic ideology or some Islamic group.
It is much easier for the media to limit the complex debate on various issues confronting Muslims to a series of clichés, slogans and sound bites, rather than examining root causes. It is easier still to champion the most extreme and prejudiced critics of Islam while ignoring the voices of mainstream Muslim scholars, academics and activists. There is a strong voice of moderates from within the Muslim ranks that could be channelized properly by the media to give a rounded assessment of Islamic issues.
Societal understandings of “good Muslims” are just as narrow as its conception of “bad Muslims”. Both of these characterisations are rooted in a common baseline, which gives rise to linear caricatures that overshadow representations of “good Muslims” as Olympians or scholars, and even mayors of world-class cities.
Indeed, the hegemony of “bad Muslims” has entirely eclipsed representations of “good Muslims”. Like the “bad Muslim”, the identity of “good Muslims” is also linked to terrorism with the accusation that they failed to stop it. Muslims are tagged with the affirmation of collective guilt that obliges them to condemn or apologise for entirely unrelated actors and unconnected actions. Terrorism is not only conflated with Islam but tied exclusively to it and nothing else.
Muslim bashing is in several cases a by-product of the new brand of journalism which sees value in the “social weight” of the message. The media keeps beaming recurring images of the deep-seated communal ruptures that already exist in the walls of our society and are too well known.
By reinforcing them wittingly and unwittingly contributes to further deepening their impact. The new media not only reflects the mood but is responsible for building it as well. Media oxygen is provided only to those who say something communally inflammable and in such an environment, the efforts of pacifists and even of the moderated segments suffer great damage.
Religion has been simply reduced to a social or political construct, although for millions of people, it is a daily practice and the very framework for understanding, that connects their lives to a spiritual reality. Their faith is the prism through which they view the world, and their religious communities are their central environments.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of faith in the lives of so many. Yet, often the only religious voices on the front page are those speaking the language of hatred or violence, especially in stories about conflict or social tensions. The media can carefully balance and moderate the coverage by injecting more reasoned and saner voices.
Good journalism requires an understanding of reliable and rigorous academic studies, attentive listening to diverse sources, dogged examination of data and other records and close observation of policies and institutions, especially when their messages deal with human faith.
It takes time, skill and the support of editors and other prominent news leaders who live in the community to truly follow the fundamental principles of journalism. These principles do not guarantee publishers a return in eye-popping audience numbers, but they guide and monitor the community truthfully.
M Scanlon’s classic essay, “The Difficulty of Tolerance“, offers an attractive affirmative answer: Tolerance is valuable for its own sake because of the attitude it allows us to bear towards our fellow citizens, an attitude of fraternity and solidarity that is deeper than the intractable disagreements that divide us.
The solution is not difficult. What is needed is a meaningful engagement between the media and authentic caretakers of the Muslim faith. The media has to learn to seek out the saner voices and not just line up opinions that suit its own narrative. Most importantly, it should reports facts faithfully.
The distorted images of Islam stem partly from a lack of understanding of Islam among non-Muslims and partly from the failure of Muslims to explain themselves. The results are predictable: hatred feeds on hatred. Ignorance of Islam exists both among Muslims and non-Muslims. Non-Muslims misunderstand Islam in their ignorance and in turn, they fear it. This way, fantasy, conjecture and stereotypes replace fact and reality.
Similarly, Muslims have their own misconceptions. They react to the hate and fear of non-Muslims by creating a defensive posture within their societies and sometimes, a combative environment built on militant rhetoric.
John Pilger advises in his book “Hidden Agendas” that, “It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas of the message and the myths that surround it.”
One of our big challenges in wildlife conservation is to stop poaching and habitat degradation which leads to animal human conflict which always has only one ending, destruction of the animal.The backbone of the conservation team in a Reserve Forest or a National Park is the Forest Guard. This individual lives inside the forest, many in the Core Areas in highly substandard conditions, is paid a pittance and is expected to be self-motivated enough to walk miles of boundary tracks to ensure that no illegal activity is happening. He is unarmed, except with a stick and walks as he has no vehicle. In many places where he is required to go there are no roads for him to use any vehicle, even if he had one. He lives away from his family who he sees perhaps once a week.
I am given to understand that the average age of the Forest Guard is 50 years and that young people are unwilling to take this job because of its hardship and deprivation. All these forests are starved of funds, thanks to our bureaucracy and many a time, even sanctioned funds are not released by State Governments. Be that as it may and no matter how unglamorous the job of the Forest Guard is, it is the most critical link in the chain that protects our wildlife and forests. It is critical that State Governments take note of the plight of these people and enhance their salaries and living conditions and do what it takes to ensure that they can do their jobs comfortably and effectively.
I firmly believe that the key to wildlife and forest conservation is the wholehearted support of local people. That can’t happen when they don’t know the forest, don’t know how to conduct themselves respectfully and safely in it and so live in fear of forests and wildlife instead of loving and enjoying them. That is also why we see the completely despicable and deplorable behavior of people when they do go to spend a few days in our National Parks. Go to any of our major parks and you will see people drunk, smoking and throwing cigarette butts and matches, eating junk food and throwing plastic wrappers anywhere, blaring radios and music from all kinds of devices, shouting and behaving in ways that can leave one in no doubt that the humans didn’t descend from monkeys. If they had, they would behave like monkeys, with respect and sensitivity to others who share the forest with them. Darwin would have changed his mind if he had visited Dhikala in Corbett National Park. But how do you get local people involved and interested in forests and wildlife conservation?
Shivayya & Kishtiah
What I believe will help hugely in more ways than one is to involve our High School and College youth in wildlife conservation. It is only when the young generations learn to appreciate nature that they will do what needs to be done to protect and preserve it. I spent my entire school and college time in the 1960’s and 70’s, in the forests of the Sahyadri Hill Range in what is today called the Kawal Tiger Reserve. I would go off to the farm of Mr. Venkat Rama Reddy on the bank of the Kadam River and spend my entire summer and winter holidays with him. No electricity, no telephone, no running water. Wake and sleep with the sun. I walked uncounted miles of animal tracks with my friend Shivaiyya, Uncle Rama’s Gond tracker, fished, bathed and swam in the Kadam and Dotti Vagu Rivers and sat at innumerable waterholes, watching animals and birds come to drink water in the summer where water is very scarce. As most of these rivers dry up in the summer, you can walk long distances on the river bed, where though the soft sand underfoot makes the going a little strenuous it saves you from the thorn bushes on the bank.
If you walk up in the Kadam streambed and turn right to go up the Dotti Vaagu, you would come to some deep pools in a very shaded spot. The water there does not dry out for a long time even in the summer. It is amazing how, as I write this today more than 45 years later, I can literally see in my mind the river, the pools, the bamboo fronds that cover that part of the forest, the light, and shade. I can still smell the forest on a sweltering hot afternoon and then the fresh smell of the earth in the morning, still wet with dewfall in the night. Memory is a powerful thing indeed. We didn’t have cameras then, but we lived these beautiful times and the memory will stay with me for as long as I live. After that, who cares?
I recall vividly as if it were yesterday, one time when I was sitting in a blind that had been cut into the middle of an acacia thorn bush, about 30 feet up the bank of the Dotti Vaagu. Very cramped space, a log to sit on and a small space opened in the front of the bush to stick the barrel of the gun through to give me a clear shot, if some animal came to drink water. The bush itself was about 50 yards up the slope that borders the water hole. On this very hot summer day, this is the only source of water for miles around, left over dregs of Dotti Vaagu.When you sit silently, you become a part of the surroundings. Your ears initially buzz with the residual sound of the bustle you have left behind. But after a while, they fall silent and then you begin to hear the sounds ofthe forest. The buzzing of the cicadas, the incessant call of the Brain-fever bird, the distant barking of dogs from the village.
Then as your ears get more attuned to the sounds, you start hearing the subtler ones; the rustle of the leaves as a rat snake makes his way from one shaded spot to another, the cooing of the turtle doves, bark of the Chital sentry when she sees something alarming. You hear the breeze in the dry leaves on the forest floor as they play chase with each other. The teak trees having shed most of their leaves, the dominant color is brown. There is very little shade, except under the acacia thorns like the one I am sitting in. There is some bamboo, but most of it is young and does not provide shade. There are no elephants in this forest, but the Bison (Gaur) browse on what they can reach of the bamboo and so do the Chital, Sambar, and Nilgai.
As I keep sitting very still, even controlling my breathing, knowing that above all else it is movement that attracts attention and becomes visible, I suddenly see a pair of jackals materialize in front of me. The bitch is more cautious and is lagging behind. The dog is ahead. Both sense that something is perhaps not as it should be. However, the wind is blowing steadily in my face and so I know they can’t smell me. The bitch even looks directly at me; perhaps she knows, maybe she can sense the rise and fall of my chest as I breathe or maybe it is an old memory she is trying to place. The moment passes and she follows her mate into the open. First, they drink, then they sit in the water on the edge and cool off in the intense heat of the day, then they start playing, chasing each other around like little puppies, secure in the knowledge that they are alone. It is a very rare moment for me, to be observing animals doing what they do when they are not afraid.
Even if I had a video camera, it could never capture the entire atmosphere; the excitement, the challenge of sitting silent and still like a tree stump, my outline broken by the bush I am sitting inside. The memory of those jackals is still so vivid in my mind that even today, 45 years later, I can see them playing in and around the water. Nothing lives that long in the wild. That pair of jackals is long gone. But I will remember them and that day, all my life.
After a while I realize that the jackals are a mixed blessing. Their presence will allay the fears of other animals heading to the water, as it is an indication that all is well. But at the same time, it will keep the smaller game, the Chinkara, the Chowsinga, and the Black-naped Hare away from the water hole. I want to make them leave but without alarming them so much that they warn everyone else of my presence. I gently clear my throat. It is as if an electric shock goes through their bodies. One minute they are carefree playmates. The next instant they go rigid for a split second and then like a flash, they are gone, each in a different direction to confuse the pursuer. I settle once again into the ritual of watching life happen. This enforced immobility and silence, the attendant boredom, initially; then the flow of thoughts in the mind, while trying to keep aware of the surroundings, is an incredibly powerful exercise for introspection. And waiting for and watching animals on a watering hole is the best way to do it.
I have not seen any initiative in our schools and colleges to encourage youth to spend time in the forests, not zipping around in Gypsies but actually camping and walking. They have no idea of the joy of waking up and watching the dawn breaking at the edge of a lake, waiting for the flights of duck and in season, geese to start coming over the horizon. I recall the incredibly beautiful magic of these flights, in V-formation come from one side before the rising sun, ‘disappear’ into it and then reappear on the other side as if they came out of the sun itself. As you watch the flights, you can hear fish plop in the water in the early morning feeding frenzy. They have no idea of the joy of listening to Cheetal alarm calls, asking a question and Sambhar answering it. That is when you understand the meaning of the term, ‘Silence speaks louder than words’. Because if a Sambhar doesn’t confirm the Cheetal’s sighting, I for one, would put it down to the Cheetal’s natural skittish nature of taking alarm at every shadow. I think this is the key to conservation, get the youth involved.
As the sunlight strengthens, the bird calls start. Invariably it is the Jungle Fowl rooster who calls first; his call that ends in a question. If you look for him, you will find him on any small rock or dry tree branch rising out of the wet morning forest floor, that catches the first rays of the rising sun. A little later the Peafowl call out their very loud and raucous bugles. The Langur sentinel alerts the jungle to the fact that he is awake and watching.
The problem is that today parents and teachers don’t know the joy of spending time in a forest, so they can’t teach others. Also, since they never learnt how to live in a forest, they are afraid and don’t enjoy it. It is a vicious spiral. The love of the forest must be inculcated early in childhood through controlled experiences which are monitored to ensure safety and are essentially immersion learning classes in life skills. If we do it right, then I believe that we will create a generation that truly loves the wild places and will invest time, energy and resources to ensure that they remain unspoilt for future generations. This will also bring about a better understanding of matters critical to survival like Global Warming, which currently seems to be suffering from the problem of having been defined in a way that makes it almost impossible for the average city dweller who thinks that his eggs and milk come from the supermarket, to comprehend, much less relate to in a personal way.
I suggest that the government starts a program like the NCC (National Cadet Core) which we have in most schools and colleges. A National Forest Core (NFC) can be formed which can be run by the Forest Department (Wildlife Conservation Wing) which can hold jungle camps, seminars, photography lessons and contests and wildlife tracking and spotting activities in school holidays. All these can be self-financed, paid for by the children as they are excellent educational and leadership development activities. In these camps in addition to learning about nature, flora and fauna, they can be taught orienteering, survival skills, camping, tracking and photography. These camps must be held inside forests and Forest Guards must be involved in them. They can talk to the children, tell them stories of their encounters with wildlife and teach them the basics of being safe in a forest. They can take small groups of children and their teachers on nature walks where they can experience the forest. Walk to a lake and sit quietly on the bank, just inside the tree line and sketch the scenery. As they sit there, they can watch animals and birds that come to the lake and observe their behavior and try to identify them. What can be done on such outings is endless and beyond the scope of this article. I just want to give you a taste so that you will be motivated to take action.
What is more important is that children will learn to appreciate and love nature and the natural world and understand how much quality it adds to life and how much we need it. They will meet tribal people (Adivasis) and learn about their lives, stay with them, understand their problems and learn to empathize with them. They will learn the importance of the many cycles of life and death that take place in the forest, where everything that dies, gives life to something else. They will be detoxified and experience what it means to breathe fresh air where it is made; in forests. They will remember the sight of the night sky above them and see the millions of stars that they can never see in their cities. They will learn to enjoy silence, punctuated by sounds, each of them evidence of life and activity.They will take away with them, memories which will last them their lifetimes and remind them of what they owe the earth.
The Forest Department can give children who participate in these programs, Honorary Forest Guard badges and a National Park Membership card which will entitle them to concessional fees when they visit any National Park in the country. They can hold competitions, quizzes and practical challenge competitions and give prizes. The first prize could be a badge making that child, Honorary Wildlife Warden. Children who have been to several camps could be recruited to participate in the Annual Wildlife Census that happens in all parks. They will be energetic, enthusiastic and incorruptible and not likely to write numbers of tigers and leopards in census forms, while imbibing tea in the village.
What better way to spend the holidays camping out in forests, walking the earth and learning about those who we share the earth with?
On January 15, millions of Americans commemorated Martin Luther King’s Day. His famous speech, ‘I Have a Dream’ was repeated numerous times in media outlets as a reminder of the evil of racism, which is being resurrected in a most pronounced way in American society.
But that is only one version of Dr. King that is allowed to be broadcast, at least in polite company. The other, more revolutionary, radical and global King is to remain hidden from view.
Exactly one year before he was assassinated, on April 4, 1968, Dr. King delivered a truly scathing speech that challenged not only the state apparatus by the liberal hierarchy which posed as if they were his allies. It was called: “Beyond Vietnam“.
“We must stop now,” he said, his voice thundering. “I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted.”
Then, he added these words, which sent much alarm among those who sought to isolate anti-war efforts from King’s own struggle:
“I speak of the – for the – poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam.”
Unlike the more famous speech ‘I Have a Dream’ – delivered in the 1963 ‘March on Washington’ – ‘Beyond Vietnam’ pushed past the boundaries of what is acceptable by ‘liberal’ America into whole new territories, where Dr. King’s anti-war and global solidarity values were unapologetically linked to the fight against racism and poverty at home.
On that day, the American civil rights struggle courageously broke free from the confines of American exceptionalism, to join a worldwide movement of struggles against racism, colonialism and war.
Unsurprisingly, Dr. King’s speech angered many members of White communities who were directly or indirectly affiliated with the Washington establishment.
Merely three days after the speech, the New York Times countered in its editorial: “There are no simple answers to the war in Vietnam or to racial justice in this country. Linking these hard-complex problems will lead not to solutions but to deeper confusion.”
In fact, there was no ‘confusion’, but total and complete clarity and coherence. To be truly meaningful, human rights values cannot be sectionalized and isolated from one another.
Yet, what alarmed the so-called liberals is the intellectual growth and awareness of the civil rights movement at the time, which matured enough to the point of pushing for greater integration among all struggles.
A more vibrant and empowered King, aged only 38 years at the time, seemed to have fully fathomed the link between the oppression of poor, Black Americans at home and the oppression of poor Vietnamese peasants abroad. They were all victims of what he dubbed the “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.”
Right there and then, King had achieved a revolutionary and terrifying idea that might have contributed to his assassination a year later, for many of his allies outside the Black communities began disowning him.
But this passage in particular gave me a pause, as I reflected on the plight of millions of refugees and poor migrants forced to leave their homes in Africa and the Middle East, driven by wars, corruption and extreme want.
“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies,” he said.
“On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day, we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway.”
The metaphor of the road – to salvation, freedom, safety – was particularly emotive and foretelling.
If Dr. King was alive, he would have certainly placed the refugees as a top priority in his “revolution of values.”
Africa in particular, is being robbed. Tens of billions of dollars are being siphoned out of the continent, while Black men and women are being sold for slavery, in Libya and elsewhere.
Libya was torn apart by the NATO-led war that left the country without a government. The war on Libya channeled massive armaments to neighboring African countries, leading to new wars or resuscitating old conflicts.
According to the United Nations, there are nearly 700,000 African refugees in Libya who hope to reach Europe. The latter, which has fueled the Libya conflict, has taken no responsibility for the crisis.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that 2,550 refugees and migrants died trying to cross to Europe from the Libyan coast in the first 9 months of 2017. One of every 50 persons who embarks on the journey dies on that tragic “Jericho Road.”
They do so while knowing the risk, because staying in Libya or going back home could mean a far worse fate.
While in Libya news reports speak of ‘slave markets’, in Israel, the country’s immigration ministry is offering civilians lucrative jobs to ‘locate, detain and monitor’ African refugees, who are all being pushed outside the country and thrown into other perilous regions.
In the US, the government and media, selectively exploit the legacy of Dr. King, but behave in ways that are completely contrary to the true values of that noble man.
The US military is expanding its operations in Africa faster than in any other part of the world. This means more weapons, more political instability, coups, wars and eventually millions more of poor men, women and children being driven to flee, often to their own demise.
The legacy of Dr. King, as presented in mainstream media, has become about the whitewashing of a racist, militaristic and materialistic system, although King himself has championed the exact opposite.
“Now let us begin,” he concluded in his anti-war speech. “Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.”
50 years after his assassination, maybe it is time to truly listen.
Following the announcement on January 19 that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is pregnant, New Zealand was inundated with fawning media coverage. Newspapers were crammed with congratulatory messages from local and foreign political leaders. Columnists offered parenting advice for Ardern and her partner Clarke Gayford, and speculated about the baby’s gender, possible names and whether the parents would get married.
Further choreographed gushing can be expected in June, when Ardern is due to give birth.
This nauseating campaign resembles the frenzy that accompanies royal pregnancies in Britain and has the same basic aim. It is to divert public attention from issues of far greater concern: soaring social inequality, poverty and the growing danger of world war.
Ardern, 37, was installed as Labour Party leader just weeks before the September 23 election and widely promoted by the media in an attempt to save the party from electoral collapse. The party scraped into office by forming a coalition with the Greens and the right-wing New Zealand First. Now a new wave of “Jacindamania” is being whipped up as the government prepares to boost the military and impose pro-business austerity measures on the working class.
Ludicrously, several commentators asserted that Ardern’s pregnancy sends an “empowering” message to working women. One headline called the prime minister “an inspiration for a generation.” Another labelled her pregnancy “a landmark for women’s rights.” Former Prime Minister Helen Clark tweeted: “Every woman should have the choice of combining family and career.” Gayford was hailed for setting a positive example as a “full time dad.”
Green Party leader James Shaw, a member of the coalition government, applauded Ardern’s decision to take six weeks’ leave when the baby is born, then resume her post. “That a woman can be the prime minister of New Zealand and choose to have a family while in office says a lot about the kind of country we are and that we can be—modern, progressive, inclusive, and equal,” Shaw declared.
Such claims are absurd and false. Ardern and Gayford, a former radio and TV presenter, make at least $500,000 a year and inhabit a different universe from the vast majority of New Zealanders.
For working people, the main obstacle to raising a family is entrenched and widespread poverty, for which successive Labour and National Party governments are responsible. Median incomes have stagnated for decades, while the cost of living has soared.
Few families can afford for either parent to give up work. The Labour Party has promised to extend paid parental leave, but only from 18 to 26 weeks. The most a new parent can get during this period is $516 a week before tax—less than the full-time minimum wage.
Labour will keep the former National Party’s draconian policy of forcing single parents to look for work once their youngest child turns three, pushing thousands more people off welfare.
Claims that the government will address poverty are being discredited rapidly. Ardern’s pregnancy announcement overshadowed a report two days earlier that the Labour Party’s election promise to halve child poverty by 2021 was based on inaccurate Treasury calculations.
Treasury secretary Gabriel Makhlouf said a previous estimate of 88,000 children being lifted out of poverty by Labour’s increases to family payments was the result of a “coding error.” A new, lower figure will be released in late February.
The Labour Party’s pledge was always highly dubious and based on a lower poverty line than that used by Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft, appointed by the previous National Party government. He estimated last year that 290,000 children lived in poverty, about one in four.
The gulf between rich and poor is widening. On January 22, Oxfam reported that 28 percent of the wealth created in New Zealand in 2017—$42 billion—went to the richest 1 percent of society. The super-rich have benefited from the global stockmarket boom and New Zealand’s out-of-control property bubble.
The poorest 30 percent—1.4 million people—gained just 1 percent of the wealth generated in the past year. Household debt at the end of 2017 stood at 168 percent of disposable income, up from 159 percent before the 2008 financial crash. The Salvation Army told the Dominion Post it distributed more food parcels in 2017 than ever.
Ardern’s government has promised big business no increase in corporate tax and committed to keeping core government spending below 30 percent of gross domestic product, the same as the previous National Party government. Hundreds of millions of dollars will be diverted to upgrade the military to prepare for war.
Days before Ardern’s pregnancy announcement, Foreign Minister Winston Peters attended a meeting of 20 foreign ministers in Canada to escalate US threats of war against North Korea. Peters demanded that “maximum pressure” be placed on North Korea to disarm. Labour has indicated it would support an attack on North Korea.
Peters, leader of the right-wing populist NZ First Party, will become acting prime minister when Ardern takes her parental leave. Ardern told Radio NZ Peters was “fantastically supportive” and she was “grateful” he would take on the role.
NZ First promotes anti-Chinese xenophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry, deep cuts to immigration and increased spending on the police and military—policies Labour has largely adopted. Peters has repeatedly demanded an “investigation” into Chinese-born National Party MP Jian Yang, who has been witch-hunted by the media as a security threat. The anti-China campaign dovetails with Washington’s plans for war against China.
Labour handed disproportionate power to NZ First, which received only 7.5 percent of the votes last September, after Peters decided on October 19 to form a coalition with Labour rather than the incumbent National Party. Peters was made deputy prime minister and foreign minister, and NZ First’s Ron Mark became defence minister.
Ardern learned she was pregnant on October 13, while coalition negotiations were underway, but claims she told no one except her partner. She made Peters her deputy, however, knowing that he would take over her role for six weeks.
During the coalition talks, which were held in secret, US Ambassador Scott Brown publicly criticised the National Party government for failing to fully endorse Trump’s threats to obliterate North Korea. He indicated that Washington expected a more overtly pro-US and anti-China stance from the next government. This was undoubtedly a major factor in Peters’ decision to form a coalition with Labour.
The prospect of the NZ First leader’s elevation to acting prime minister has not drawn any criticism from the Labour Party’s supporters in the media and trade unions.
The trade union-funded Daily Blog, which published at least six posts congratulating Ardern, paints China as a threat and supports NZ First’s agitation against Chinese “interference” in New Zealand. None of Labour’s cheerleaders criticised Brown’s intervention during the coalition talks because they all support the military alliance with the US and the build-up to war against China.
Laurence Fink, the CEO and chairman of the investment management firm BlackRock, sent his annual letter to CEOs around the world last week.
Fink, who is in Davos for the World Economic Forum which opened on Tuesday, and whose firm manages more than $6 trillion in investments, is clearly worried about the prospect of mass struggles of the working class in response to deepening social inequality and attacks on living conditions and public services. His letter, titled “A Sense of Purpose,” warns his fellow multimillionaires and billionaires to exercise “social responsibility.” Fink himself has a net worth of $340 million.
BlackRock’s investments are greater than the GDP of any nation except China and the United States. They include big shares in major banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo. BlackRock played a major role in the bank bailout of 2008, a role that was widely believed to have violated conflict of interest rules, due to Fink’s close ties to senior government officials.
Fink, a long-time Democrat who has donated to the presidential campaigns of John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, speaks for that section of the financial establishment worried that Trump’s fascistic appeals and unpredictability will harm the interests of American capitalism and provoke a social explosion.
Along those lines, Fink writes to his fellow CEOs, “The public expectations of your company have never been greater. Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose.” Fink feigns concern over workers’ retirement funds, infrastructure, automations, climate change and diversity in the workplace.
“In 2017, equities enjoyed an extraordinary run—with record highs across a wide range of sectors—and yet popular frustration and apprehension about the future simultaneously reached new heights. We are seeing a paradox of high returns and high anxiety.”
As Fink knows, this is no paradox at all, under conditions where all the “high returns” are going to the top 10 percent, especially to the top 1 percent and even 0.1 percent.
The talk of “social purpose” cannot disguise the fact that Fink represents a corporate and financial elite that is responsible for the gutting of social programs, accompanied by an unprecedented assault on the wages of unskilled and semi-skilled workers. Eight individuals own as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion people on the planet, and the vast majority of the American working class has been steadily losing ground for decades.
Fink has particularly close ties to the Clintons. Cheryl Mills, who is a member of BlackRock’s board of directors, worked in the Clinton White House in the 1990s, and was Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff from 2009 to 2013. Fink was considered a strong possibility for the post of Treasury Secretary if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency in 2016.
None of this, however, prevented Fink from joining Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum in 2017, where he favored loosening banking regulations and privatizing public assets.
Several months ago, in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek about the since-enacted tax bill, most of Fink’s criticism centered on the corporate tax rate. Like most of the leading Democrats, Fink advocated a major corporate tax cut, if not quite as large as that proposed by Trump. Fink’s proposal was a rate of between 25 and 27 percent, compared to Trump’s 20 percent. He also voiced full support for other parts of the legislation, such as the 25 percent pass-through rate for sole proprietors and partnerships, claiming that it would help small businesses. In actuality it will serve to further enrich corporate real estate developers.
Fink has also backed some of Trump’s talk of infrastructure spending, especially the need for the bulk of it to be funneled into the corporate sector. In a letter to his BlackRock shareholders last April, he wrote, “Projects must deliver competitive returns and that will often require efficiencies that can only be achieved through private ownership.” In other words, public resources must be put under private control. As in health care and every other area of government spending, it must be used to further enrich the ruling elite.
Fink’s tenure at BlackRock has included some notorious episodes. In 2006, BlackRock, in partnership with real estate giant Tishman Speyer Properties, purchased the New York City Stuyvesant Town housing complex. The new owners worked to push out existing tenants as quickly as possible in order to attract residents who would be willing and able to pay monthly rents of $4,000 or more. Following the Wall Street crash of 2008, the owners were unable to make their loan payments on the property, causing them to default and leave the development in limbo, with many residents unsure if they would be able to remain in their apartments. Many of the development’s apartments are now being rented at “market rates.”
Fink is also the vice chair of New York University’s Board of Trustees. NYU has numerous ties to Wall Street, New York City real estate magnates and the military. These connections have fueled a decades-long expansion of the school, including massive salaries and perks for “star” faculty and top administrators. Along with 100 other universities, NYU has used offshore havens to shelter its endowment from taxation.
The Paradise Papers, a collection of 13.4 million electronic documents that reveal the hidden offshore assets of giant corporations and the ultra-rich, connected NYU to a Bermuda-based corporation, Genesis Limited, incorporated since 1980, with multiple university shareholders. The papers also revealed that in 2001, NYU was a shareholder in Arcadia Associates, an entity that folded after three months and was headed by Leonard Stern, after whom the NYU Stern School of Business is named.
The Paradise Papers also exposed the connections of Fink’s BlackRock to ten offshore corporations in Bermuda. Two of his fellow members of the NYU Board of Trustees, William Berkley and Joseph Landy, were also linked to offshore accounts.
Berkley has played a leading role in the campaign to privatize public education. Posturing as an advocate of educational “reform,” he is a major backer of the charter school movement, using public funds for privately-run schools. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Achievement First Charter schools in New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Berkley also benefits personally from the explosive growth of student loan debt. He is the Director of First Marblehead Corporation, one of the leading American private student loan companies. Today, over 15 percent of Americans are saddled with student loan debt. Of those students graduating this year, the average debt is $37,172 for undergraduates, and significantly higher for graduate students.
Exactly a year after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) on his first day in office, the governments of the 11 remaining members of the proposed economic pact announced on Tuesday they would sign an amended agreement on March 8 in Chile.
The announcement’s timing points to the increasing isolation of the US, and the escalating global tensions between the rival capitalist powers. Rebadged as the Comprehensive Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership, the “TPP 11” is markedly different from the previous version.
Despite media headlines about a “rescued free trade pact,” the jettisoned 12-country TPP was never about free trade. It was a US-led economic bloc directed especially at undermining China, which was excluded from the TPP, and ensuring the unrestricted plundering of the Asia Pacific’s resources and markets by US financial, media, pharmaceutical and other transnational giants.
Now, following Trump’s dumping of the TPP, it effectively has become a Japanese-led pact aimed against China and, potentially, the US itself. Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is by far the biggest member of the new bloc.
Significantly, the TPP announcement also came on the same day that Trump imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent on imports of solar panels and washing machines, most of which come from China and South Korea, signalling a new aggressive turn in his “America First” protectionist program.
At the meeting of global elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos the next day, Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross spelt out the trade war drive behind these decisions. Trade wars “are fought every single day,” he told reporters. “The difference is the US troops are now coming to the rampart.”
Ross’s militarist language is not accidental. For the past quarter century, successive US administrations have resorted ever-more to military aggression to seek to offset the country’s economic decay, relative decline and loss of global hegemony. Washington’s response to the reshaped TPP will be to intensify both its trade and military war plans.
The commerce secretary’s broadside was directed, first and foremost, against China, declaring that its “highly protectionist behavior” and aim to become a world leader “in most all of the new technologies,” was a “direct threat” to the US.
Ross, however, sent a belligerent message to every other government as well. “We don’t intend to abrogate leadership, but leadership is different from being a sucker and being a patsy,” he said.
The Canadian government, which baulked at signing up to the TPP 11 during last November’s Asia-Pacific summits, agreed to participate, in part, to strengthen its position in acrimonious talks with the US on the future of the two-decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mexico, which will also join the TPP 11, is the other party to the NAFTA negotiations.
In talks that began on Tuesday, Trump’s administration continued to demand major concessions from both Canada and Mexico—including guarantees of US content in North American cars. Trump has ratcheted up his threats to walk away from NAFTA. In this context, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) declared that the new TPP was “a clear signal that this country is serious about lessening its dependence on its giant neighbour to the south.”
Canada’s reversal on the TPP highlights how each ruling class is now jostling for position in the face of the US threats. Canadian officials told the CBC that Canada secured a side letter with Japan that requires Tokyo to give Canadian-based auto firms the same access to its market as any European auto makers. Canada also obtained side letters from each of the other 10 nations recognising Canada’s right to protect its “cultural sector.”
Because of the US withdrawal, the TPP 11 is much smaller than the previous version, which represented about 40 percent of the global economy and a quarter of world trade. The 11 remaining members—Japan, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam—account for some 14 percent of the world’s gross domestic product.
The agreement remains tenuous and fraught because of each capitalist class’s conflicting interests. No start date has been set for the pact, which must still be ratified by the various legislatures, and many of its measures are to be phased in over 10 years.
More fundamentally, however, the revamped bloc marks a sharp global shift. From 2008, under the Obama administration, the TPP became a key aspect of Washington’s “pivot to Asia”—a concerted military, diplomatic and economic drive to encircle and dominate over China. As Obama stated repeatedly, the purpose was to ensure that the US, not China, “writes the rules of the road for trade in the 21st century.”
By abandoning the TPP, Trump made it clear his administration wants a completely free hand to assert US interests unilaterally. It will not work within the old, post-war framework that sought to avoid the outright trade wars that erupted during the 1930s, collapsed world trade and set the stage for World War II.
Over the past year, Japan’s government spearheaded efforts, backed by Australia’s government, to resurrect the TPP. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in particular, regarded the TPP as crucial to gaining greater access to US markets and as a platform from which to reassert Japan’s global interests and combat China’s ambitious One Belt One Road project to directly link Beijing, across Eurasia, to the European powers.
Anxious not to too openly cut across Washington’s agenda, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday left open the prospect of the US joining the new TPP at a later date. The Australian ruling class relies heavily on the US for investment and strategic protection and has been increasingly integrated into US war plans, including through the stationing of US Marines in Darwin.
Turnbull, like his 10 TPP counterparts, boasted that the “free trade agreement” would foster investment, generate billions of dollars in export revenues and create “thousands of jobs.” Each government highlighted the advantages that their nation’s industrial, agricultural and services industries would reap.
In reality, decades of such trade pacts have boosted the capacity of global financial and corporate giants to extract super-profits at the expense of the jobs and conditions of workers on every continent, driving social inequality to unprecedented levels. As Oxfam reported on the eve of the Davos gathering, nearly all global wealth growth in 2017, 82 percent, went to the richest 1 percent, while the poorest half of the world’s population, some 3.8 billion people, gained nothing at all.
If implemented, the TPP 11 will intensify the social polarisation. While few details have been published about the pact, it retains Investor State Dispute System clauses, which allow transnational companies to sue governments if any regulations interfere with their profits.
The 30-clause previous agreement also featured the protection of “intellectual property rights,” the full opening up of economies to overseas investment and the breaking up of state-owned enterprises that were directed particularly against China.
Above all, the TPP will only heighten trade conflicts over market shares and sources of profit, particularly between the US and the other major powers, and accelerate the descent of world capitalism toward military conflict and war.
Although the nationalists narrowly held on to their absolute majority in the Catalan parliament in the December 21 regional election, they have been unable to appoint a regional premier and form a new government. If a new premier is not invested before the January 31 deadline, a new election must take place.
The crisis centres on the ban on five nationalist deputies being able to vote in the regional parliament—including former regional premier Carles Puigdemont, leader of Together for Catalonia (JxCat). The five fled to Belgium after the Catalan Parliament declared independence in October, fearing arrest after Popular Party (PP) Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy invoked Article 155 of the Constitution giving Madrid the power to directly administer regions. Sedition and rebellion charges led to the imprisonment of three deputies, including vice-premier Oriol Junqueras (Republican Left of Catalonia, ERC).
Rajoy had hoped to install pro-Spanish unity parties in power on December 21, but it backfired. He has since threatened to extend the use of Article 155 if a new government resurrects the “independence process.”
Although Catalan parliamentary regulations allowed the three imprisoned deputies to nominate proxies able to vote, lawyers say the same privilege cannot be extended to the five in exile without the Speaker’s committee changing the rules. As a result the nationalist bloc is reduced to 65, instead of 70, deputies in the 135 seat regional Parliament - three seat short of an absolute majority.
Last week, the nationalists managed to get the ERC’s Roger Torrent elected as Speaker, a post with the power to decide who to propose for investiture as regional premier. However, he only obtained a simple majority on the second ballot - beating by just nine votes José María Espejo-Saavedra candidate of the right wing anti-independence Citizens party, which won the largest number of seats in the election.
The vote for speaker would have been an exact draw, exacerbating the constitutional crisis even further, had it not been for the abstention of nine deputies—eight from the Podemos-backed Catalonia in Common (CeC) and an unknown “renegade” from the pro-Spanish unity bloc comprising Citizens, the Catalan Socialist Party (PSC) and Popular Party (PPC).
On Monday, Torrent announced that, following discussions with all the Catalan parties, Puigdemont was “the only candidate” he was putting forward as regional premier even though he was “aware of his personal and legal situation.” Torrent justified his decision saying that Puigdemont is endorsed by JxCat and the ERC and that the Candidatures of Popular Unity (CUP), which has four deputies, recognised his “legitimacy.”
He had asked for a meeting with Rajoy “to sit down to analyse and talk about the anomalous situation in the Catalan Parliament,” in which the “political rights” of the eight nationalist MPs were being “infringed.”
JxCat has proposed that Puigdemont’s investiture and participation in parliamentary debates could take place via a video link. The decision on this and whether the five deputies can appoint proxies was postponed on Tuesday by the Speaker’s Committee. Pro-unity parties claimed it was deliberately being delayed to a date as close as possible to January 31 to prevent them appealing to the Constitutional Court.
Puigdemont asserted, during a debate on Catalonia at the University of Copenhagen on Tuesday, that he could form a new government, declaring, “We will not surrender to authoritarianism despite Madrid’s threats…It’s time to end their oppression and find a political solution for Catalonia.”
He demanded that the PP government take the necessary measures so that he can return to Catalonia “safely”, with “complete tranquility and total normality” in order to be invested.
PP ministers declared that this was out of the question. Home Secretary Juan Ignacio Zoido vowed, “Justice will be done with Carles Puigdemont” and that Spanish security forces were “working on the problem.”
“Although there are a lot of country paths and you can get in by boat, in helicopter or in a microlight, we are working towards that not happening… so that Puigdemont can’t even get back in in the boot of a car,” he boasted.
PP government spokesperson Inigo Mendez de Vigo snapped, “He won’t be president” and would not be allowed to vote and rule via a video link from Belgium. If the situation remained stuck, a fresh regional election would be called in Catalonia. “This is not what we want but that’s what will happen if they (nationalists) act outside the law.”
Reports suggest the PP government will lodge an express appeal to the Constitutional Court should the Speaker’s Committee authorise a video link.
The PSC has also threatened an appeal to the Constitutional Court if Puigdemont is elected. Spokesperson Eva Granados declared, “Lawyers have unanimously stated that a tele-investiture cannot be produced…We cannot accept a debate with someone who has decided not to come to the investiture debate.”
Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias also insisted that Puigdemont cannot be premier saying “It does not seem sensible that someone from Brussels can be president of the Government of Catalonia.” Catalonia in Common would abstain in the vote for the “independentistas or constitutionalists… We are not going to support either one or the other.”
Podemos had sought a government agreement “between progressives”—ERC, PSC and themselves, he said.
Podemos is pursuing a case through the Constitutional Court to get the use of Article 155 illegalised.
Citizens leader Inés Arrimadas criticised Podemos bitterly for abstaining in the vote for Speaker and scuppering any chance of her party’s candidate, Espejo-Saavedra. She declared, “The only impediment to not having a premier is that the Podemos gentlemen have decided to side with the independence fighters.”
“There are still arithmetical options for the Parliament to be chaired by the party that has won the elections [i.e., Citizens],” she claimed.
The pro-unity forces may have little to fear. It seems behind the scenes there are moves to jettison Puigdemont. While Puigdemont was in Denmark, Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena appeared not to want to jeopardise those moves. He turned down a request from the Public Prosecutor to reactivate an arrest warrant against Puigdemont, ruling that he preferred to wait until “a time when the constitutional order and the normal functioning of parliament are not affected” to issue a new warrant.
Former PSOE secretary general, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, after declaring that “Puigdemont will not be president” because “the unilateral path has died and everyone knows it,” insisted that in reality none of the nationalist parties want to put at risk their narrow majority in a new election.
On Monday, when asked if the ERC will support the remote investiture of Puigdemont, ERC spokesperson, Sergi Sabrià, said the party would only take a final decision when JxCat reveals how it plans to carry it out. “So far there have been different opinions, and when everything is clear we can talk about certainties and not hypotheses,” Sabrià said.
ERC deputy spokesperson, Gabriel Rufián, went further, revealing that the party had a “plan B” for Junqueras to be put forward as candidate for the premiership.
The leadership of the CUP, which has a deciding vote with its four deputies, will discuss on Saturday whether to support Puigdemont based on whether he will resume the push for independence.
CUP deputy Natàlia Sànchez also complained on Tuesday that JxCat’s lack of “clear information” about how it is planning to invest Puigdemont did not help to “weave trust.” “Not having all the elements does not help make the decision,” she added.
Sànchez said support for Puigdemont depends on whether he will “deploy the Catalan republic or intends to carry out a political action for an autonomist [rather than independentist] legislature.” “All scenarios are open.”
