Widespread opposition in Japan to Shinzo Abe’s state funeral

Ben McGrath

The Japanese government held a state funeral for Shinzo Abe on September 27, the country’s former and longest-serving prime minister who was assassinated in July. The event generated widespread opposition in the public, which knows Abe as a warmonger whose tenure in office was marked by a sharp push for remilitarization and attacks on democratic rights.

Protesters gather against the state funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2022. [AP Photo/Christopher Jue]

The funeral took place at the Nippon Budokan, an indoor arena in central Tokyo near the Imperial Palace. The event came with an estimated price tag of 1.66 billion yen ($US11.5 million), which included 250 million yen ($US1.73 million) for the funeral itself as well as costs for security and other expenses.

In total, more than 6,400 people from over 190 countries attended the funeral. Visiting foreign officials include top representatives of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a US-led, quasi-military alliance against China, that includes Japan as well as Australia and India. US Vice President Kamala Harris, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were in attendance.

In addition, Taiwan also sent a delegation in a decision calculated to deepen Taipei’s connections to Tokyo, the US, and other allies.

Abe was killed on July 8 in Nara while campaigning for the Upper House election on July 10. He was allegedly shot by Tetsuya Yamagami, a 41-year-old unemployed worker, angered over Abe’s connections to the Unification Church, a far-right cult to which Yamagami’s mother had donated some 100 million yen ($US700,000) since the 1990s.

Abe served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020, playing a key role in sharply shifting Japanese politics to the right.

Abe oversaw an agenda of remilitarization while preparing constitutional revisions that would make it easier to wage war overseas and to restrict democratic rights at home. This included record-high spending on the military; constitutional “reinterpretations” to justify going to war abroad alongside an ally (namely US imperialism); and railroading military legislation through the National Diet in 2015 to codify the reinterpretations despite widespread public opposition and protests.

His government, furthermore, engaged in a whitewashing of history in the media and in schools, denying or downplaying the crimes of Japanese imperialism prior to and during World War II. This was done to try to dull anti-war sentiment, particularly among youth, who face being dragooned into new wars in the future.

Abe did not settle into retirement after stepping down as prime minister, but continued to serve as a lawmaker, making belligerent comments on China, particularly over Taiwan—a Japanese colony for 50 years, from 1895 to 1945. He was fully committed to Washington’s attempts to goad Beijing into war over Taiwan and even suggested in February that Japan should consider hosting US nuclear weapons.

The glorification of Abe by the present government of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is meant to continue this agenda. State funerals are rare in Japan. Prior to World War II, the event was used by the ruling class to honor political and military figures in addition to members of the imperial family. Public mourning was compelled by law, which was scrapped after the war. Since then, the only non-royal family member to receive a state funeral was in 1967 for former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who led Japan during the immediate post-war period.

Opponents of the state funeral denounced it as undemocratic and unconstitutional, amounting to a return to the pre-war period with the forced public mourning of Abe, paid for with tax payers’ money. An online petition calling for the cancellation of the funeral gained more than 400,000 signatures. A Yomiuri Shimbun poll conducted at the beginning of September found that 56 percent of people opposed holding the event.

Numerous demonstrations were held against the funeral, attracting thousands of participants. Approximately 10,000 demonstrators marched in Tokyo on September 26, a day before the funeral. Machiko Takumi, one of the demonstrators, stated to the BBC, “Abe passed the collective self-defense bill (in 2015). It means Japan will fight with the Americans, which means he made Japan able to go to war again. That’s why I oppose a state funeral.”

Another protester in his 70s set himself on fire near the prime minister’s office on September 21. The man, who survived and was taken to a hospital, left a note stating he was “strongly opposed” to the state funeral.

A 17-year-old high school student at a 4,000-strong rally outside the National Diet on August 31 told the Asahi Shimbun, “I’m not convinced that as much as 250 million yen has to be spent on the state funeral when students are having a hard time amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Hashtags to show opposition to the state funeral are being shared on social media. I want Kishida to reconsider and not ignore the [people’s voices].”

Japan continues to lead the world in new COVID-19 cases. Without any discussion or input from the population, Tokyo has removed nearly all virus mitigation measures and allowed the deadly virus to run rampant throughout the country. As of September 27, there were 368,077 new official cases for the preceding week while thousands have died during the latest virus surge that began in July.

Kishida, therefore, is making clear that his government will not only continue preparations for war, but will run roughshod over the opposition of the working class and youth to attacks on democratic rights and mass infection with COVID-19. This is a process taking place around the world, as ruling classes legitimize far-right and fascist parties and politicians. This includes Donald Trump in the United States, and in Europe, Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Brothers of Italy (FdI).

Parties like the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) offer no genuine opposition to the rise of the far-right. In regards to Abe’s state funeral, CDP leader Kenta Izumi stated there is a “need” to “provide an opportunity for public mourning” while adding, “I too would like to express my appreciation for former Prime Minister Abe’s achievements and efforts.” He offered only mild criticism of the funeral, asking, “Where was the discussion [over the funeral’s planning] between the three branches of power?”

In other words, what bothers Izumi is not Abe’s right-wing record, but that the Democrats did not have more of a say in planning the funeral. Undoubtedly, the CDP hoped to offer its services in containing the protests that were emerging.

Bank of England launches emergency operation to stave off financial collapse

Nick Beams

The Bank of England (BoE) has launched an emergency operation to prevent a collapse of the UK bond market. This threatened to make pension funds insolvent and spark a meltdown of the financial system akin to the “Lehman moment” that set off the global financial crisis of 2008.

The BoE intervention came on Wednesday morning when its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) said it was reversing its previously announced policy of selling off long-term bonds, or gilts, scheduled to begin next month, and would resume purchases.

People wait to enter the Bank of England in London, Tuesday, September 27, 2022. [AP Photo/Frank Augstein]

The bond market selloff started following the Tory government’s smash and grab mini-budget last Friday which handed out £45 billion worth of tax cuts to the corporations and super-rich to be financed by an increase of £72 billion in government debt.

It said the central bank would carry out “temporary purchases” of long-dated government bonds to “restore orderly market conditions,” on “whatever scale is necessary to effect this outcome” and the operation would be “fully indemnified” by the Treasury.

The BoE later confirmed it expected the bond-buying program would total £65 billion at the rate of £5 billion a day for the next 13 days.

The move came after it became clear pension funds, which form a base of the long-term bond market, were faced with insolvency. As part of their operations, these funds use derivatives to hedge their financial positions.

With the fall in the price of bonds they were facing increased margin calls from investment funds that finance their operations for which they did not have the cash on hand. They started to sell off some of their holdings to meet these demands, threatening to set off a vicious circle in which these sales drove bond prices even lower and yields higher.

Comments from senior figures in the banking and financial system indicate the extent of the crisis. An unnamed senior London-based banker told the Financial Times (FT) that at one stage on Wednesday morning there were no buyers for long-dated UK government bonds.

“At some point this morning I was worried this was the beginning of the end. It was not quite a Lehman moment. But it got close,” the banker said.

Kevin Rosenberg, the chief executive for Cardano Investment, which manages strategies for about 30 UK pension schemes, with a total of around £50 billion, told the FT the organisation had written to the BoE warning of the developing crisis.

“If there was no intervention today, gilt yields could have gone up to 7-8 percent from 4.5 percent this morning and in that situation around 90 percent of UK pension funds would have run out of collateral. They would have been wiped out,” he said.

The BoE seems to believe that the immediate crisis can be resolved through its bond market intervention over the next two weeks.

But there is no guarantee of that. Its policy is shot through with contradictions and is being made up on the run. As recently as last Thursday it confirmed that sales of gilts would start on October 3.

The selloff of long-dated government bonds, now flipped, was part of the BoE’s monetary policy tightening program which has seen hikes in interest rates.

It says this part of its agenda will remain. The bank stated in yesterday’s announcement that the “MPC will not hesitate to change interest rates by as much as needed to return inflation to the 2 percent target sustainably in the medium term.”

But its intervention in the bond market, through which it is effectively financing the Tory government’s handout to the wealthy and the corporations, is inherently inflationary.

The BoE and the government have said they will co-ordinate their policies. But as PNB economist Paul Hollingsworth remarked: “It is hard to appear co-ordinated when fiscal policy has its foot on the accelerator and monetary policy on the brake.”

Even before the crisis engulfed pension funds, there was evidence of mounting problems in the financial system. A significant number of banks, including HSBC and Santander, suspended the issuing of new mortgages, along with a series of other lenders, including Virgin Money and Halifax, because they did not know what the cost of funding would be.

Whatever the immediate outcome of the present crisis, the cost of mortgages will rise significantly with warnings that the worst-case scenario of a housing market crash is now becoming the “main assumption,” according to one industry analyst cited in the FT.

Following the BoE intervention, bond prices started to rise and there was some marginal increase in the value of the pound against the US dollar.

The most significant reaction came in the US where, after an initial fall in the futures market, Wall Street surged when the market opened. The Dow finished up by 550 points for the day, 1.9 percent, the S&P 500 was up by 2 percent, with the NASDAQ rising by 2.1 percent.

The surge in the market, coming after a “near death” experience in the UK financial system, appears to have been motivated by the belief it will add pressure on the Fed to ease up on its restrictive monetary measures. But there are growing concerns about the state of the US economy as sentiment on Wall Street swings wildly between fear and greed.

 “There’s fear that the whole system collapses and demand is not able to withstand this amount of rate hikes,” Agnes Belaisch, a strategist at Barings Investment Institute told the Wall Street Journal, noting that there was evidence of a recession.

The immediate origins of the UK crisis lie in the unrestrained greed of the financial elites, represented by the grotesque figure of Prime Minister Liz Truss and her Treasurer Kwasi Kwarteng. But the underlying driving forces lie in the explosion of parasitism in the global financial system over decades, accelerating after the crisis of 2008.

The guiding philosophy of Fed chief Jerome Powell and other central bankers is that inflation can be brought under control in the same way it was achieved under Fed chairman Paul Volcker in the 1980s.

They aim to drive up interest rates and induce a recession to crush the wage demands of the working class confronted with daily cuts in living standards flowing from the highest inflation rate in four decades.

But much has changed since the 1980s, above all in the level of debt and the mechanisms of the global financial system. And the central bankers confront a resurgent working class.

In 1982, at the height of Volcker’s class war under the Reagan administration, gross public debt was 34.3 percent of gross domestic product. It had risen to 127 percent by 2021.

Globally, as a result of corporate bailouts during the pandemic, the total of public plus non-financial debt rose by 28 percentage points to 256 percent of global GDP in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The government debt market has undergone a vast transformation. According to the Bank for International Settlements, as much as 30-50 percent of marketable government debt is now held overnight. This means that the bond market, in which this debt is traded, is highly vulnerable to shifts in financial conditions which can precipitate a far-reaching crisis, as seen in the UK.

This situation has vast implications for the working class all over the world.

It lives under conditions where a sword of Damocles hangs over its head as the insatiable drive for enrichment by the financial elites and their political representatives threatens, virtually overnight, to bring about mass unemployment, the wiping out of pension funds and a crisis for home buyers, on top of the blows already being inflicted by rampant inflation and cuts in social services spending.

The bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline: Who benefits?

Alex Lantier & Johannes Stern

On Monday, powerful underwater explosions blew gaping holes in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which carry Russian natural gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany. Gushers of gas a kilometer in diameter are rising to the surface from the blasts, which occurred in Danish waters. Tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure vital to financing Russia’s economy, and powering and heating the German and European economy, lie in ruins.

As the US and NATO wage war against Russia in Ukraine, this event points to the reckless military escalation underway in Europe. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the blasts were the results of “deliberate action” by unknown parties, while Swedish seismologist Bjorn Lund said, “There’s no doubt, this is not an earthquake.”

Though European media instantly accused Russia of having bombed the Nord Stream pipelines, such charges are rapidly falling apart.

Even the New York Times, normally a source of aggressive anti-Russian propaganda, refrained from blaming the bombing on Moscow. “At first glance, it seems counterintuitive that the Kremlin would damage its own multibillion-dollar assets,” it acknowledged. “While some European officials were quick to speculate about Russian involvement, American officials were more cautious, noting the lack of available evidence,” it continued, noting that Washington “and most of its European allies stopped short of naming any suspects.”

Former Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, a member of several NATO think tanks who is married to prominent US foreign policy commentator Anne Applebaum, suggested openly that Washington was behind the bombing. He tweeted a picture of the gusher of natural gas with the label: “Thank you, USA.” He added, “Now $20 billion of scrap metal lies at the bottom of the sea, another cost to Russia of its criminal decision to invade Ukraine.”

Accusations of Russian involvement in the bombings lack all credibility and detract from the far more likely perpetrator: the United States. The first question that has to be asked about the Nord Stream bombing is: Cui bono? Who benefits, and who had the motive to carry it out?

Russia had no motive to destroy the Nord Stream pipeline. Russia’s Gazprom conglomerate owned half of the pipeline, alongside German, French and Dutch shareholders, and the pipeline was at the heart of Moscow’s plans to rebuild economic ties with Europe, if and when the war with NATO in Ukraine ended. It had no reason to blow up its own pipeline.

For Washington, the bombing presented two benefits. Firstly, coming amid the NATO military escalation against Russia in Ukraine, it would help fuel more anti-Russian war propaganda. Secondly, by making Europe more dependent on US natural gas imports to replace Russian gas, it corresponded to a major US aim in the Ukraine war from the outset: to bring Europe more firmly under US control. These aims have increasingly come into the open in recent years.

In 2018, bitter conflicts erupted between the Trump administration and Berlin, as Trump slapped sanctions on German car exports to America and demanded Berlin shut down Nord Stream 2.

On February 7, 2022, as he stepped up economic and military threats against the Kremlin before the Russia invasion of Ukraine, US President Joe Biden invited German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Washington for talks. During a joint press conference with Scholz, Biden pledged to destroy the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. “If Russia invades,” Biden said, “then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Asked how he would do this—as the Nord Stream pipeline is jointly owned by Russia and ostensible NATO allies of the United States such as Germany, France and the Netherlands—Biden refused to answer, simply saying: “I promise you, we will be able to do that.”

The Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 not only paved the way for NATO to wage bloody imperialist wars from Iraq and Yugoslavia to Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. It deprived NATO of its main enemy, which had helped unify the alliance, and threw Eurasia open to major US and European corporations. Tensions between the NATO imperialist powers, as they competed for the division of the spoils of the world economy, exploded.

Trump demanded that Berlin end Nord Stream 2 after it called for an EU military buildup and a defense policy independent from NATO. While then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for Germany to “fight for our own future ourselves,” French President Emmanuel Macron called for the EU to prepare to confront Russia, China or America.

EU officials rejected Trump’s calls to end Nord Stream 2. Such demands, said German lawmaker Rolf Mützenich, “affect German and European companies and represent interference in our internal affairs. The EU and Germany are apparently not allied partners for Trump, but tributary vassals...”

The US policy towards Europe recalls Leon Trotsky’s warning, nearly a century ago, that in a period of crisis “the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than in the period of boom.” Trotsky described US imperialism’s plans for Europe after World War I as follows:

It will slice up the markets; it will regulate the activity of the European financiers and industrialists. If we wish to give a clear and precise answer to the question of what American imperialism wants, we must say: It wants to put capitalist Europe on rations.

This concisely describes Washington’s policy today. This year, it seized upon Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to escalate the war with Russia and impose the cutoff of EU energy trade with Russia that it had long sought. The impact on Europe is devastating.

Millions of workers in Europe face the prospect of freezing this winter, with gas prices surging tenfold as Europe replaces cheap Russian gas transported by pipeline with US liquefied natural gas. The price hikes are further magnified as European currencies fall against the US dollar, which is rising as the US Federal Reserve increases its interest rates. European steel, chemical and other companies, the Wall Street Journal noted, “are shifting operations to the U.S., attracted by more stable energy prices and muscular government support.”

The EU imperialists have agreed to this, insofar as the war is a pretext to keep diverting billions of euros to rearmament. The German bourgeoisie in particular aims, after losing two world wars, to re-emerge as Europe’s leading military power. This month Scholz called for Germany to “become the cornerstone of conventional defence in Europe, the best-equipped force in Europe” and demanded a German seat on the UN Security Council.

While Berlin officially ended its support for Nord Stream 2 after the Russian invasion, it is raising the issue of renewed energy ties with Russia. This week, Merkel said one should never lose sight of “the day after.” She called to think about what is “sheerly unimaginable at the moment—namely, how something like relations towards and with Russia can be developed again.”

It is more credible to explain the Nord Stream attack, not as an act of economic and political suicide by Russia, but as a signal sent by Washington to its EU “allies”: “Yes, you can re-militarize, but your energy and military policy will be set on our terms.”

These conflicts make all the more clear the enormous dangers facing masses of workers and youth as NATO and Russia teeter on the edge of an all-out global conflagration.

UK: Money for the rich, money for war, but none for education

Margot Miller

As the academic year in the UK begins, schools face an existential funding crisis in funding. School leaders already struggling to balance budgets warn of cuts to the curriculum, staff redundancies and increased class sizes.

According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, spending per pupil in 2024-25 is expected to be 3 percent lower on average than in 2010. The situation is even worse in post-16 education, with college funding per pupil in 2024-25 at 10 percent below 2010-11 levels, while sixth form funding per pupil will be 23 percent lower.

Alex Dickerson the reception class teacher, (left) leads the class at the Holy Family Catholic Primary School in Greenwich, London, Monday, May 24, 2021. [AP Photo/Alastair Grant]

The funding crisis is exacerbated by inflationary pressures triggered by the government’s response to the pandemic, and the NATO war against Russia in Ukraine—in which Britain is playing a major role and financing to the tune of billions of pounds.

Rising energy bills and the recent below-inflation 5 percent pay award for teachers, to be financed out of existing school budgets, mean that schools must lay off staff to make savings. There is already a chronic staff shortage due to excessive work overload and poor pay.

Richard Sheriff is the chief executive officer of the Red Kite Learning Trust of 13 schools in North and West Yorkshire. He told the Guardian. “In over 20 years leading schools, I have never before been faced with such a shock to our budgets. We are in the desperate position of having to look at cutting everything from school trips to teaching resources.”

At Passmores Cooperative Learning Community, a trust comprising four schools in Essex, music could be cut from the curriculum, and the price of school meals increased.

A rising number of children arrive at school hungry and cold. According to the Child Poverty Action, 800,000 children who live in poverty do not qualify for free school meals.

Sean Maher, headteacher at Richard Challoner school in Kingston, said, “I’ve been on various WhatsApp groups, and the consensus is there’s no school in the country that’s going to be able to afford these pay rises that have been passed on unfunded.”

Schools have been given a six months energy bills reprieve with the Energy Relief Scheme but still face huge bills immediately after. Bryn Thomas, the head of Wolverley CE Secondary School, told the BBC that without additional funding the school would be forced to operate at a loss after its fixed deal on energy ended in April. “If we’re not protected we’re looking at a trebling of that £125,000 bill, which will mean another £250,000 will come out of the £900,000 that we have to run our school.”

In desperation, school leaders are appealing to parents and parent/teacher associations (PTAs) for donations to plug the gap, further widening the quality of education offered to children in deprived areas compared to rich. For example, a small number of PTAs can raise at least £100,000 a year, while the average raised is £9,000.

A finance director at a small trust (group of schools) said, “I’m going to the PTA AGM in a couple of weeks’ time… Not for specific projects … just so that we can keep our core services going.” The trust sent a letter to parents asking for a £15-a-month donation.

PTA fundraising, however, has been badly hit by the pandemic. In 2021, PTAs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were only able to raise a total of £60.8 million, half their usual amount.

The plain fact is that voluntary contributions get nowhere close to bridging the growing deficit.

The Department for Education has forbidden schools restricting their hours to cope with the funding crisis with the usual hypocritical concerns about “children’s education, development, and wellbeing.” The real concern is that nothing must come in the way of the accumulation of profits, which is why the government reopened schools before the pandemic was suppressed—so parents are free to go to work.

A picket line of teaching staff at Swinton Co-op Academy in Salford, England in October 2021, where teachers were fighting excessive working hours, shorter lunchtimes, and practices changed in school without consultation [Photo: WSWS]

On September 23, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng introduced a mini-budget, saying, “For too long in this country, we have indulged in a fight over redistribution. Now, we need to focus on growth, not just how we tax and spend.”

The budget measures to be financed by government borrowing in fact represent an unprecedented redistribution of wealth to the corporations and the richest in society. According to the Resolution Foundation, someone on an annual income of £1 million will be £55,220 better off, while a worker on £20,000 will gain £157, an amount soon to be eaten up by rising inflation.

The budget follows the pandemic bailout in March 2020 in which the corporations received hundreds of billions. Government largesse, fully backed by the Labour Party opposition, knows no limits when it comes to handouts to the big business. The recent subvention to the energy companies, coupled with prime minister Liz Truss’s commitment to spend £157 billion more on the military by 2030, is ballooning government debt.

This will be paid for by increasing the exploitation of the working class and starving essential public services, including education, of funding.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, schools, health and public services suffered massive austerity cuts to pay for the government’s bank bailout. The pandemic revealed the resulting parlous state of essential public services, which will be further eviscerated.

Apart from the decrease in national insurance contributions, which benefits top earners the most anyway, the budget offered not a penny extra to address the education funding crisis.

The education unions continue to confine their response to cuts in education to futile appeals to the government. Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, pleaded that the situation “is really a matter for the government to address–something which it needs to do with a sense of urgency.”

The unions’ aim is to suppress a mass mobilization of their members. They responded to the budget with criticism in words only. ASCL leader Barton said schools faced “huge extra costs” from national pay awards “for which there is no additional funding, and energy bills, which the government’s support scheme only partially addresses”.

Dr. Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said the government was “electing to starve public services of investment and cut public sector pay whilst wasting billions on tax cuts for the wealthy and lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses… These measures will not provide the economic growth we need, and it is simply unjustified to claim that real-terms pay cuts for public sector workers are needed to keep inflation down.” 

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT union, called proposed legislation to outlaw strikes “needless and unnecessary… Trade unions are already subject to stringent laws. Government should be focused on resolving the issues that cause dissatisfaction amongst workers rather than removing their ability to object.”

Victory in Cuba – New Family Code Affirms Equality within Family Life

W.T. Whitney Jr.

Image by Juan Luis Ozaez.

The Cuban people, voting in a national plebiscite on September 25, approved a new Family Code. According to the National Electoral Council, preliminary results showed that of almost six million Cubans casting a valid ballot, 66.9% voted Yes; 33.1% voted No. The new Code was left-over business from a new Cuban Constitution approved on April 10, 2019.

The Code promises all Cubans protection of democratic and legal rights, old and new, within the context of family life. It’s a revision of the Family Code contained in Cuba’s Constitution of 1976. The impulse for a new one stemmed from recognition since then, worldwide and in Cuba, that notions of sexual diversity and gender equality are expanding.

The opportunity came in 2018. A Constituent Assembly that year undertook extensive alterations of the 1976 Constitution. In the process – It became really a new Constitution – opposition cropped up in the Assembly and in public consultations to provisions in the proposed Family Code, specifically authorization of same-sex marriages and allowance for gay people to adopt children.

The Assembly determined that the process “should be pursued in more depth.” The new Constitution ended up with a provision for creating a new Family Code later on and approving it by “attending to the results of a plebiscite” taking place in two years. The Covid-19 pandemic caused delay of the plebiscite until now.

The resulting Family Code would protect the right of same- sex marriage and the right of same-sex parents to adopt children. The first article under the title “Marriage” in the final document – there are 301 articles under that heading – states that, “Marriage is the voluntary union agreed to by two legally competent persons with the purpose of living life in common …” Similarly, provisions relating to adoptive parenting refer exclusively to “persons.” The message is that marriage does not have to require a man and woman.

The government carried out vigorous publicity efforts on behalf of the new Code. In nationally televised remarks to the country on September 22, President Miguel Díaz-Canel called upon Cubans “to participate in an action of enormous responsibility.” Catholic clergy and evangelical churches mounted opposition campaigns. The anti-government Havana Times noted that, up against distress in Cuba and sharply increased migration, the Code was just “Bla, Bla, Bla.”

The view here is that the new Code epitomizes Cuba’s zeal, revolutionary in nature, to assure that family life in Cuba is characterized by equality, democratic rights, and protection. The reach of the Code is vast. It extends to all aspects of family life and establishes principles and values fit for guiding citizens in their conduct of family relationships and the state in prescribing for family life.

The Code presented on September 25 was a 63-page document that, on line, displays 11 “titles” representing major categories, dozens of chapters, hundreds of articles, and 2283 paragraphs. Subjects that are covered, all pertaining to family life, include: protection of the rights of children, women, elderly people, persons with disabilities, and members of the LBGTQ communities; arrangement for the handling of property and money; duties and responsibilities, adoption of children and custody arrangements; the special needs and rights of elders and persons with disabilities, and, lastly, aspects of marriage and of parenting and becoming a parent.

The Family Code begins by outlining purposes. Among them are these:*

“To strengthen family members’ mutual responsibilities to assure the emotional and economic well-being of vulnerable family members, and their education and training.

*To establish love, affection, solidarity and responsibility as among the highest of family values.

*To enhance gender equality within the family and strengthen shared responsibly for domestic work and childcare.

*To broaden the range of economic activities within marriage to allow for autonomy of spouses in making decisions favorable to their interests.

*To recognize the right of grandparents, other relatives, and others involved with the children to experience harmonious communications among all family members.”

*To recognize the self-determination, preferences, and equal opportunity for older adults and handicapped persons within the family.

*To respect the right of families to lives that are free of violence and the necessity for preventative measures.”

A statement of principles appears at the beginning of the document: “Relationships that develop in the family setting are based on dignity as the most important value and are governed by the following principals, among them – equality and non-discrimination, plurality, individual and shared responsibility, solidarity, the seeking of happiness …respect, the greater interest of children and adolescents, respect for the desires and preferences of older adults and people with disabilities …”

The far-ranging collection of standards and precepts the new Code lays for family relationships look to be essential in fulfilling long-established principles of democracy and equality and new expectations for a just society. The promise offered is real equality between men and women, women’s empowerment, and support for gender diversity.

It’s equally important to emphasize the extraordinary process undertaken to develop the new Family Code. The people responsible for creating it and securing approval did so in ways that made the Code comprehensive and assured the Cuban people’s participation in the process. On display was the Cuban government’s serious purpose, dedication, competence, and inclination to democracy.

Here is the story of what happened after approval by referendum of that new Cuban Constitution in early 2019. As outlined above, the Constitution provided for the development of a new Family Code over the course of two years. The Ministry of Justice on July 16, 2019 announced the existence of an ad hoc working group that would begin the task. Joining the working group were judiciary, health, and foreign-relations officials, United Nations experts, representatives of the Federation of Cuban Women, the National Center of Sex Education, statisticians, and academicians from the University of Havana.

The working group elaborated one version of a proposed Family Code after another, and finally determined upon version 20. The Council of State on March 22, 2021 announced the creation of an editing commission to be made up of deputies to the National Assembly and representatives of institutions and people’s organizations. On completion of its work, version 22 of the proposed Code appeared on the Ministry of Justice’s web page on September 15, 2021. Expert consultations followed, taking place between September 25 and October 15 and involving representatives of 47 institutions, agencies, and organizations. Changes were made.

The National Assembly initiated discussion of version 23 of the Code on December 21, 2021. Once again provisions were altered and new ones added. The Assembly approved version 24 of the Code and submitted it to a popular consultation that took place between February 1 and April 20 of 2022.

More than six million Cubans participated in the exercise. As a result, 49 % of the proposed Code’s content was changed. In the end, 62 % of Cubans who participated expressed approval of the Code. Finally, version 25 of the Family Code moved on to the National Assembly and its approval came on July 22. The proposal now qualified for the September 25 plebiscite.

The process gave evidence of consistency of purpose, attention to detail, search for perfection, and commitment to the Code’s objectives. Cuba’s revolutionary underpinnings showed as, evidently, ideas of equal rights, fairness, and safety for all Cubans, no one excluded, had not lost their appeal.

The upshot is that Cuba’s socialist government earned even more admiration as it pursued a project difficult to begin with while simultaneously having to cope with a crisis of survival. The latter stems mostly from the U.S. economic blockade that has lasted for over 60 years. Cubans look like they arrange their affairs with a seriousness entirely lacking in the capitalist United States. There, things are left to chance as wheelers and dealers advance their interests, divisions are cemented, and dark forces have a field day.

Chancellor Scholz’s Gulf trip exposes German government human rights propaganda

Johannes Stern

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s trip to the Gulf states last weekend and his handshake with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have exposed once and for all the German government’s human rights platitudes as pure imperialist propaganda.

Handshake between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah on Sept. 24 (Saudi Press Agency via AP)

Leading government politicians and the media routinely call Russian President Vladimir Putin a “murderer” and accuse Russia of “genocide” in Ukraine to justify NATO’s war against Moscow. If these labels currently apply to states and their political leaders, they certainly apply to the Gulf monarchies.

Prince Salman himself was directly involved in the bestial murder of Saudi journalist and regime opponent Jamal Khashoggi. On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to pick up documents for his upcoming wedding. He never reappeared.

The ordeal the journalist endured before his death can only be imagined. A few days after Khashoggi’s disappearance, the Turkish government said it had audio and video recordings proving Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. It said the audio recordings showed Khashoggi being “interrogated, tortured and then killed.” The journalist had been “dismembered” alive and the body “then dissolved in acid.”

The imperialist powers, whose representatives are now making pilgrimages to Riyadh by the dozen following a brief period in which they kept their distance, are just as aware of the shocking event as they are of the fact that Khashoggi’s murderers came from Prince Salman’s immediate circle. In February 2021, the US government released a report stating that the crown prince had personally “approved” the murder.

Immediately after the report was published, Omid Nouripour, then foreign policy spokesman and now co-chairman of the Green Party, had demanded, “Germany must make it clear to the House of Saud that no normal relations with it are possible as long as a murderer who has his critics dismembered is crown prince of the country.”

Now all that is forgotten. Social Democrat Scholz made it clear on the ground that relations with Saudi Arabia are not only now “normal” for the ruling class, but absolutely essential. “We have long-standing economic and political relations with Saudi Arabia.” He said it was “therefore right and important that we continue to talk here and at the other stops on my trip about the development of the region, about the possibilities of economic relations, but also about the political challenges we face.”

By “political challenges,” Scholz means above all the intensification of NATO’s war offensive against Russia. He said he “made it very clear that it is important for us to support Ukraine in defending its own integrity and sovereignty, that we will continue to do so, and that Russia must withdraw its troops.” The NATO powers—led by Washington and Berlin—initially provoked Putin’s reactionary invasion of Ukraine. Now they are escalating the war ever further—with the aim of defeating Russia militarily and exploiting the resource-rich country.

Until that happens, the ruling powers are forced to secure new sources of raw materials because of the severed energy ties with Russia. The Gulf states, which have enormous oil and gas reserves, play an important role in the calculations. “There is a great deal of investment to be made here,” Scholz explained. “It’s also about German companies playing a big role, for example, in the further development of the local economy, the use of oil and gas resources and developments in terms of hydrogen.”

The human rights crimes of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies will not be allowed to stand in the way of these plans. When Scholz was asked at a press conference in Jeddah whether he had “addressed the crown prince about his responsibility for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi,” he replied with his characteristic cynicism, “We have discussed all issues that revolve around questions of civil and human rights. That’s the way it should be. You can assume that nothing has been left undiscussed that needs to be said.”

If Scholz had indeed discussed all “issues of civil and human rights,” he certainly would not be back in Berlin yet. The Saudi regime’s human rights crimes alone are so extensive that it would take several days to list them. Every year, there are scores of “Khashoggis” who fall victim to the regime’s terror.

On March 12, 2022, 81 prisoners were executed in a single day. Most of them had done nothing but take to the streets against the ultra-reactionary dictatorship. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, 41 of the victims took part in the mass protests against the Saudi monarchy in 2011/12. Also, the mass execution included seven Yemeni nationals accused of supporting the Houthi rebels in Yemen, whom Saudi Arabia is brutally fighting.

If any conflict currently has a genocidal character, it is the Saudi regime’s actions in Yemen. The exact number of people killed by the systematic bombing and starvation of the impoverished country is unknown, but it numbers in the hundreds of thousands. A report released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that as early as November 2021 the death toll stood at 377,000.

UNDP estimates that among the victims are more than 260,000 children under the age of five. They died largely from starvation and disease as a result of the Saudi blockade, which was supported by the US and the United Arab Emirates—which Scholz also honoured with a visit. The report also projects that the death toll will rise to 1.3 million by 2030. At the same time, the number of Yemenis living in extreme poverty is expected to rise to 22 million by 2030.

The German government has an accurate picture of the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia. The country is “among the countries that carry out the most death sentences worldwide,” according to a November 2020 statement by the Human Rights Committee “on the situation of human rights in Saudi Arabia,” which said the number of people killed has “increased significantly” since 2014. And further:

At least 186 people were executed in 2019. Under current and strictly applied conversion laws, changing faith and so-called apostasy can be punished by death. Children also fall under this legislation. Despite the announcement of reforms, including the abolition of the death penalty for minors at the time of the crime, executions continue to be carried out here. Alleged confessions for crimes not committed are still regularly coerced under torture. Prison conditions in Saudi prisons violate human rights standards.

The report paints a picture of medieval despotism. Human rights and civil liberties activists are being “brutally cracked down on” and the “human right to freedom of religion or belief ... is so severely restricted that it is in fact nonexistent.” Also, “other minority rights” are “massively restricted to nonexistent, including rights of sexual minorities (LGBTI persons).” In particular, “women’s rights” are also “massively suppressed” and activists are “imprisoned, mistreated and tortured because of their commitment to women’s rights.”

In Qatar, where Scholz began his trip and where the next World Cup will be held from November to December, the situation is no better. In the 10 years since the World Cup was awarded to the emirate, 15,000 construction workers have died there building stadiums and venues, according to Amnesty International. Although the 2 million migrant workers from India, Bangladesh and other Central Asian countries are exploited at starvation wages, Scholz claimed in Doha that the “legal situation of guest workers” had “improved.”

US military buildup against Russia escalates Turkey-Greece tensions

Ozan Özgür

US plans to deploy naval forces to Alexandroupoli, which serves as an important transshipment center in the NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, are further escalating tensions between Greece and Turkey.

A Greek F16 fighter jet performs during an airshow at Tanagra air base, north of Athens, Sunday, September 18, 2022. [AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis]

Last week, the Greek daily Kathimerini reported that the “US Navy is interested in Alexandroupoli port,” adding, “Senior US military officials have proposed further deepening and expanding the port with a view to hosting and supplying US Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.”

These destroyers “carry guided missiles and have expanded electronic warfare capabilities.” The US deployment of these ships in the Northern Aegean Sea would be an important step to encircle Russia and increase US-NATO combat power in the region.

These plans and Greece’s ongoing aerial rearmament is creating fear in Ankara. Greece received its first two F-16 military jets from the United States last week, as part of a $1.5 billion program to modernize its fighter fleet. There are growing concerns in Ankara that Greece could have a stronger air force than Turkey in the next decade.

This military build-up on the Balkans is part of NATO's relentless eastward expansion and its militarization of Eastern Europe since the Stalinist dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The additional protocol to the Mutual Defense and Cooperation Agreement signed between the US and Greece in 2019 included the modernization of the Suda Military Base on the Greek island of Crete, the renovation of Larissa Airport, the military strengthening of the Stefanovikeio Air Base between Volos and Larissa, and the expansion and modernization of the Alexandroupoli Port. These steps, constituting the Greek leg of the US-NATO war preparations against Russia, have largely been realized.

In addition, the US signed military cooperation agreements with Romania and Bulgaria, both of which became NATO members in 2004. US troops were deployed in military bases there which opened in the early 2000s.

These bases are of strategic importance in the US-NATO war against Russia, to arm Ukrainian forces with NATO weapons. Turkey’s decision to close the Turkish straits between the Aegean and Black Seas to all warships immediately after the war in Ukraine began, in line with the Montreux Convention, further increased the importance of the port of Alexandroupoli. Kathimerini reported: “Thousands of soldiers, tanks, helicopters and other supplies for US and other NATO forces have been quickly and effectively deployed to Eastern Europe.”

At this point, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's raised objections to the growing US military presence in Greece, in particular the Alexandroupoli base, near the Turkish border.

In May, Erdoğan charged that the nine military bases built by Washington in Greece were aimed at Turkey: “Look, Greece currently owes €400 billion to Europe. There are nine American bases in Greece right now. So against whom are these bases being established, why are these bases there? This is what they say: ‘Against Russia...’ This is a lie. ... They are not honest. Their attitude towards Turkey in the face of all this is obvious.”

Moreover, Turkish officials made bellicose statements questioning Athens’ sovereignty over the islands and making open threats on the grounds that Greece had illegally armed them. On Sunday, Turkish state-owned Anadolu Agency reported: “Video footage [taken by Turkish army] showed that the landing ships carried military vehicles donated by the US to the islands of Midilli (Lesvos) and Sisam (Samos).”

Moreover, Ankara accused Athens of getting a radar lock on Turkish warplanes on NATO missions with S-300 missiles in late August and early September. In early September, Greek coast guards fired warning shots at a merchant ship in the Aegean Sea.

Ankara, which has strong energy, trade and military ties with Moscow, is concerned that the US-NATO war against Russia could harm the interests of the Turkish bourgeoisie. Turkey’s approach towards Russia is different from other NATO member states. Ankara has tried to act as a mediator, organizing a “grain corridor” from Ukraine under UN auspices or the recent “prisoner exchange” between Ukraine and Russia. While the NATO imperialist powers prepare for nuclear war with Russia, Erdoğan is calling for a “negotiated settlement.”

While Ankara continues to sell armed drones to Ukraine and opposes Russia’s annexation of Crimea, it is also strengthening its economic and political ties with Moscow and does not participate in the US-led sanctions against Russia. In fact, it has recently faced accusations of violating sanctions through banks and some ports in Turkey.

In the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, in NATO wars in Syria and Libya, Turkey has sought a deal with Russia rather than with its NATO allies. The Erdoğan government is trying to maneuver between its NATO allies and their major targets, i.e. Russia and China. The tensions caused by this policy, which feeds the drive by NATO powers such as the United States and France to strengthen military ties with Greece in Eastern Europe, already erupted once, in 2016, in a failed coup attempt against Erdoğan.

Erdoğan’s visit to Uzbekistan for the 22nd summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), after which he declared his goal of joining the organization, has further angered his allies in NATO capitals.

Erdoğan spoke to the PBS channel in New York after the 77th UN General Assembly just following the SCO summit. Asked, “You intend to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. This organization includes Russia, China, and Iran. Do you want your country to be part of the east or part of the west?,” Erdoğan responded, “I have to say very clearly that we are part of the world, neither of the east nor the west... But the European Union has been stalling us for 52 years... We may inevitably be in a situation of seeking different things.”`

Erdoğan hypocritically attacked Greece, posing as a “defender” of refugees, during his speech at the UN General Assembly. Holding a photo of two children who drowned in the Aegean Sea, he said, “Greece is turning the Aegean Sea into a refugee graveyard with its unlawful and reckless push-backs. It is high time for Europe and United Nations institutions to say ‘Stop’ to these atrocities that constitute crimes against humanity.”

Responding to Erdogan in the UN, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said, ‘The boats carrying the desperate people President Erdoğan is talking about are leaving the Turkish shores in broad daylight,” and blamed Turkey for the crisis. “If President Erdoğan wants to talk about red lines,” he continued, “then I say this: Turkish claims over the sovereignty of Greece’s islands are baseless and unacceptable. Questioning the sovereignty of Greek territory crosses a red line for all Greeks.”

In reality, the Turkish and Greek governments, which have supported the imperialist wars in the Middle East and are part of the European Union’s reactionary deal against refugees, are jointly responsible for the catastrophe facing refugees drowning in the Aegean Sea, held in camps, or forced to stay in misery in Turkey.

The danger that the capitalist governments of Turkey and Greece, faced with growing working class opposition and explosive geopolitical tensions, could provoke a war is very serious. Despite the aggression of the Turkish and Greek bourgeoisies, there is no enthusiasm or support for war among the workers. According to a recent poll, 64 percent of people in Turkey believe that there is no enmity between the Turkish and Greek peoples.