The End of the Liberal Zionist Façade

Neve Gordon

Benjamin Netanyahu is truly a magician. Just this past Friday, most polls indicated that his Likud party would likely receive around 21 seats in the Israeli Knesset, four seats less than Yitzhak (Bougie) Herzog’s Zionist Camp (Labor Party’s new name). Revelations of corruption at the Prime Minister’s residence followed by a damning comptroller report about the real estate crisis, alongside industrial downsizing, union strikes, predictions of a weakening economy, a diplomatic stalemate, and increasing international isolation all seemed to indicate that Netanyahu was on his way out. But just when it seemed that the Zionist camp would replace the nationalist camp, the crafty campaigner began pulling rabbits out of his hat.

As if his decision to alienate the Obama Administration over the Iran negotiations was not enough, Netanyahu began pandering to the right by notifying the world that Palestinians were destined to remain stateless since he no longer believed in the creation of another Arab state alongside Israel. He presented the Likud party as the victims of a leftist media conspiracy aimed at ousting the right-wing government, while conveniently ignoring that his ally Sheldon Adelson owned Yisrael Hayom, Israel’s most widely circulated paper. He entreated his voters to return “home” promising to address their economic needs. And on Election Day itself, he frightened the Jews by declaring that Israel’s Palestinian citizens were rushing to the polls in droves, thus presenting Palestinians who cast votes for their own representatives as an existential threat.

Pandering and fear mongering together with hatred for Arabs and the left are the ingredients of Netanyahu’s secret potion, and it now appears that many voters were indeed seduced. Within a matter of a few days Netanyahu garnered almost ten additional seats for his party, cannibalizing two of his extreme right allies: Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinuand Naftali Bennett’s Habayit Hayehudi. Owing to his magic, the Likud did much better than expected, and together with the ultra-Orthodox parties and a new party recently formed by a former Likud minister, Kulanu (All of US), an extreme right wing bloc with 67 out of 120 seats will almost certainly be created (and this even before the soldier’s votes have been calculated, which are usually right of center).

The outcome is clear: the people of Israel have voted for Apartheid.

It is now extremely likely that a spate of anti-democratic laws that had been shelved will soon resurface. These include laws that monitor and limit the financing of human rights NGOs, restrict freedom of the expression, reduce the authority of the Supreme Court, cancel the official status of Arabic, and, of course, bring to a vote the nation-state law. This bill, which was originally drafted by a Likud member, defines Jewishness as the state’s default in any instance, legal or legislative, in which the state’s Jewishness and its democratic aspirations clash‫. This means that Laws that provide equal rights to all citizens can be struck down on the pretense that they violate the state’s Jewish character. Moreover, this law reserves communal rights for Jews alone, thus denying Palestinian citizens any kind of national identity.

Alongside anti-democratic legislation, we can also expect an array of discriminatory policies to be enacted. The new government will likely implement some variation of the Prawer plan, which intends to forcefully relocate thousands of Palestinian Bedouins and take over their land. It will continue pouring billions of dollars on Israel’s settlement in the West Bank and Golan Heights and expropriate more houses and land in East Jerusalem. And it will probably imprison thousands of refugees and “illegal” migrant laborers from Africa currently workers in Israeli cities.

There is, however, one clear advantage to the election results: clarity. At least now there will be no liberal Zionist façade, camouflaging Israel’s unwillingness to dismantle its colonial project. The Israeli refrain that a diplomatic solution with the Palestinians cannot be achieved because the Palestinians lack leadership will ring even more hollow. Finally, the claim that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East will exposed for what it is: a half truth. While Israel is a democracy for Jews it is a repressive regime for Palestinians.

We can also expect little resistance to the right-wing government, since Herzog’s Zionist Camp and Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid are also Arabphobes and therefore less against the substance of such a government and more against Netanyahu’s blatant right wing style. After all it was a political pac associated with Herzog’s party that in the days leading to the elections paid for large billboards with a picture of (Bibi) Netanyahu and his extreme right contender Naftali Bennett warning the viewers that “With Bibibennet we will remain stuck with the Palestinians for eternity.”  The pac must have overlooked the fact that 20 percent of Israeli citizens are Palestinians.

And yet, during these elections there was one ray of light that shimmered through the darkness. The attempt by most of the Jewish parties to sideline the Palestinian citizens produced an unintended result. Creating a united front, the Palestinians garnered 14 seats, almost 25 percent more than they received in the previous elections, and they are now the third biggest faction in the Knesset. Unlike many of his counterparts, Ayman Odeh, the head of the new Joint Arab List, is a true leader. Extremely incisive, he often uses irony and wit to undermine his detractors while advancing an egalitarian vision for the future. In a moment of candor, a well-known Israeli commentator characterized his demeanor as a serious threat: “He’s really dangerous,” she said, “he projects something every Israeli can relate to.”

Will this threat be able to stop the imminent entrenchment of a tide of new Apartheid laws? I sincerely doubt it.

Syriza’s Call for German Reparations

Joshua Tartakovsky

Athens.

Developments are happening faster than the speed of light both in Greece and around the world. It is not often that people are happy to be quickly proven wrong, but luckily the opportunity arrived. Following the Eurogroup agreement and the way it was presented to the public as an end of austerity and as a victory, indicated that the Syriza government is a captive to the Institutions. I expressed the possibility that unless public opposition mounts, Syriza will end up bending to pressure. Recent events, however, suggest that this is untrue. A public mobilization was not necessary, Germany’s humiliating dictates while the Greek public is suffering under the yoke of austerity have already turned the tide and the Syriza Government is resisting Germany’s patronizing and suffocating actions. As argued earlier, Syriza is pursuing a policy of uniting the nation by demanding justice. What goal may it have in mind? What caused this turn? and where may it lead to?

In his speech to the Hellenic Parliament, Prime Minister Tsipras touched on the issue which both some Anglo-Saxon socialists and Conservative Germans would wish would have avoided. Tsipras brought to public view the issue of reparations of World War II, and the fact Germany did not pay back the interest-free forced loan made on the Greek bank by the German occupation forces until today. While some reparations were paid in the 1950s, these were quite small considering the damage and did not include the forced loan. Tsipras demanded reparations from Germany for the immense damage and killing caused during the brutal German occupation as a necessary act to restore historical justice. The parliament decided on the establishment of a committee led by economists and historians who will pursue the issue of reparations. The Greek Justice Minister said that if necessary, he would consider seizing German assets in Greece, including, for example, the Goethe Institutes in Athens and Thessaloniki and even homes of German citizens.

Alexis Tsipras has come under attack by various international socialist groups due to his perceived ultra-nationalism. Some international socialists are uncomfortable with nationalism, due to their hope that working class around the world will unite regardless of national boundaries and due perhaps to Western countries own bitter legacy with nationalism, fascism and colonialism. Others argued that by its appeal to nationalism, “Syriza ignores the class dimensions of the economic crisis” while letting the oligarchs off the hook. However, it is undeniable that the entire Greek people are captive to dictates of the Institutions and that the territory of Greece has come under a German occupation in the past. Furthermore, Syriza pledged to crack down on the oligarchs and has publicly addressed on various occasions the need to provide social justice. What Syriza did not do, however, was to pretend that questions of historical justice are no longer relevant.

The speech given by Tsipras was seen by the World Socialist Website as “the clearest indication of the right-wing and bourgeois character of his government.” However, international socialists often fail to understand that countries that undergo colonization as in the case of many Latin American countries, or a fascist occupation, as was in the case of Greece, have every right to protect their sovereignty. This disagreement is not new. While the Trotsky school objects to “socialism in one country” waiting for a world revolution, Marxism as interpreted by Lenin draws a distinction between revolutionary nationalism of an oppressed nation and reactionary nationalism of a colonialist state. Indeed, the revolutionary governments of Cuba and Venezuela did not shy from appealing to nationalism and to protect their sovereignty. Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro not only spoke using nationalist terms which are bad music for some Western socialists ears, but took actions against imperial and colonial powers operating on their land. Chavez famously said that “we are the Sons of Bolivar”, referring to Simon Bolivar, the revolutionary leader who fought against Spanish colonization. Fidel frequently mentioned Jose Marti, a Cuban nationalist who opposed American colonization of the island. The desire to have a “ a homeland free and sovereign”, as Tsipras said in the parliament, is a legitimate one. It is absurd to presume that oppressed countries or occupied territories cannot appeal to nationalism due to the argument that this may make it more difficult to garner international support.

Tsipras made it clear in his speech in parliament that his vision is a transnational one. Tsipras said that he wishes to “honor the male and female fighters from all over the world who gave their lives for the freedom of their homelands, who gave their lives in order to defeat Nazism”. In so doing, he expressed his solidarity with the Communist and other resistance groups across Europe and with the fighters of the Red Army, who achieved the victory. (Indeed, Tsipras plans to attend the May 9 victory celebration of the Red Army in Moscow). He therefore clarified that he supports international solidarity against fascism and is not a xenophobic nationalist.

Tsipras then went on to pay tribute to the “fighters of the Greek national resistance, who gave their lives in order to rid the country from the Nazi atrocities and occupation.” Here Tsipras accomplished a double goal. First, providing a quick history lesson to many Greeks who under the formal education system have not always learned about the fascist resistance considering the fact that the UK supported the Greek Nazi collaborators and reactionaries in 1944 and placed them in power. Secondly, incorporating the history of Communist resistance into formal national history even for those who familiar with the past.

Tsipras also highlighted in his speech the fact that the Eurogroup has failed to live up to basic decency. He said that he does not preach to others and would not want to be preached to either, while the country has been patronized by northern Europe that sought to rob it of dignity. “Often lately, when listening to provocative statements from abroad, I am reminded of the famous passage from the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus says: “They see the spike in their brother’s eye, but not the pole in their own,” said Tsipras. It appears that Tsipras realizes full well that the Eurogroup has no plans to accommodate Greece’s demands on debt restructuring and an easing of austerity. Indeed, despite the desperate attempt of Finance Minister Vaourfakis to meet the demands of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem said that Greece’s reform proposals were insufficient. This led Greece to suggest that a referendum may be introduced in which the public will decide on whether to remain in the Euro. What is clear is that a significant period of time did not need to pass before the contradictions in the Eurogroup agreement came to light and before it became increasingly obvious that the government cannot please both the Institutions and the public.

It appears therefore, that Tsipras’ patience is starting to wear thin and rather than being on the defensive he chose to take the intiative. The question remains, however, whether the demand for reparations is merely an attempt to secure more finances for the country, and achieve a better bargaining position, or whether it is a genuine attempt to mobilize the public behind him so that the population will undergo a process of radicalization and will be ripe for a Grexit. The latter appears to be more likely in light of Greece’s dire economic state, yet only time will dispel the fog on this issue.

Tsipras demands for reparations, however, and the possibility of taking over German assets in Greece, echo other eras of oppressed countries resisting colonization. The grabbing of assets can be seen as a first step towards securing national sovereignty and restoring dignity, before more ambitious social programs are pursued. Cuban President Fidel Castro famously took control of US property in Cuba following aggression taken by the United States following the Revolution. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez seized assets of foreign oil contractors in Venezuela drawing the wrath of the United States, in 2009. Yet Chavez also seized national oil contractors while Tsipras has not attempted to nationalize the banks at home, leaving his long term plans unclear.

Chavez did not shy from nationalist statements against the US, much as Tsipras is seeking to mobilize the nation against a German financial occupation. “Go to hell, Yankee sh*ts”, Chavez said, “here stands a dignified people. Go to hell a hundred times, we are the sons of Bolivar.” Tsipras rallying call against Germany, along with his visit to the memorial in Kaisariani, where 200 Greek partisans were executed, in his first day as prime minister, can be seen as following Chavez steps, even while using softer language.

International socialists have traditionally shied away from nationalism. Their belief was that nationalism serves as a boundary and a barrier for international workers and oppressed groups beyond national borders. And yet for a country to assert its sovereignty, is not narrow nationalism but basic dignity. The concern expressed, however, that a nationalist appeal will dispel international solidarity, is not rooted in history. “Hands-off Venezuela” and “Hands-off Cuba” campaigns have been taking place in Western Europe and the United States, although these respective countries asserted their national sovereignty and revoked a historical examples of patriotism. One must be aware, however, of the danger of a general anti-German sentiment and to this end, it would be wise of Tsipras to mobilize members of the German Leftist party die Linke to his cause.

The question remains to what degree will Tsipras continue to confront Germany despite the risks involved, whether he is doing so in order to prepare the people for a Plan B, and whether he will be willing to compromise after receiving compensation, assuming this is granted, rather than demanding an entire restructuring of the debt conditions. Germany has already ruled out reparations, however. Yet the issue is sure to heighten tensions and nationalist sentiments in Greece.

While it is too early to say where this will lead, Tsipras, at least for now, is pursuing the same line led out by Marti, Bolivar, Fidel and Chavez. Indeed, privately-owned television channels in Greece have already began their demonization campaign of Tsipras, reminding one of the Venezuelan corporate media campaign against Chavez.

Why the Real Unemployment is Double the ‘Official’ Unemployment Rate

Pete Dolack

How many people are really out of work? The answer is surprisingly difficult to ascertain. For reasons that are likely ideological at least in part, official unemployment figures greatly under-report the true number of people lacking necessary full-time work.

That the “reserve army of labor” is quite large goes a long way toward explaining the persistence of stagnant wages in an era of increasing productivity.

How large? Across North America, Europe and Australia, the real unemployment rate is approximately double the “official” unemployment rate.

The “official” unemployment rate in the United States, for example, was 5.5 percent for February 2015. That is the figure that is widely reported. But the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps track of various other unemployment rates, the most pertinent being its “U-6” figure. The U-6 unemployment rate includes all who are counted as unemployed in the “official” rate, plus discouraged workers, the total of those employed part time but not able to secure full-time work and all persons marginally attached to the labor force (those who wish to work but have given up). The actual U.S. unemployment rate for February 2015, therefore, is 11 percent.

Canada makes it much more difficult to know its real unemployment rate. The official Canadian unemployment rate for February was 6.8 percent, a slight increase from January that Statistics Canada attributes to “more people search[ing] for work.” The official measurement in Canada, as in the U.S., European Union and Australia, mirrors the official standard for measuring employment defined by the International Labour Organization — those not working at all and who are “actively looking for work.” (The ILO is an agency of the United Nations.)

Statistics Canada’s closest measure toward counting full unemployment is its R8 statistic, but the R8 counts people in part-time work, including those wanting full-time work, as “full-time equivalents,” thus underestimating the number of under-employed by hundreds of thousands, according to an analysis by The Globe and Mail. There are further hundreds of thousands not counted because they do not meet the criteria for “looking for work.” Thus The Globe and Mail analysis estimates Canada’s real unemployment rate for 2012 was 14.2 percent rather than the official 7.2 percent. Thus Canada’s true current unemployment rate today is likely about 14 percent.

Everywhere you look, more are out of work

The gap is nearly as large in Europe as in North America. The official European Union unemployment rate was 9.8 percent in January 2015. The European Union’s Eurostat service requires some digging to find out the actual unemployment rate, requiring adding up different parameters. Under-employed workers and discouraged workers comprise four percent of the E.U. workforce each, and if we add the one percent of those seeking work but not immediately available, that pushes the actual unemployment rate to about 19 percent.

The same pattern holds for Australia. The Australia Bureau of Statistics revealed that its measure of “extended labour force under-utilisation” — this includes “discouraged” jobseekers, the “underemployed” and those who want to start work within a month, but cannot begin immediately — was 13.1 percent in August 2012 (the latest for which I can find), in contrast to the “official,” and far more widely reported, unemployment rate of five percent at the time.

Concomitant with these sobering statistics is the length of time people are out of work. In the European Union, for example, the long-term unemployment rate — defined as the number of people out of work for at least 12 months — doubled from 2008 to 2013. The number of U.S. workers unemployed for six months or longer more than tripled from 2007 to 2013.

Thanks to the specter of chronic high unemployment, and capitalists’ ability to transfer jobs overseas as “free trade” rules become more draconian, it comes as little surprise that the share of gross domestic income going to wages has declined steadily. In the U.S., the share has declined from 51.5 percent in 1970 to about 42 percent. But even that decline likely understates the amount of compensation going to working people because almost all gains in recent decades has gone to the top one percent.

Around the world, worker productivity has risen over the past four decades while wages have been nearly flat. Simply put, we’d all be making much more money if wages had merely kept pace with increased productivity.

Insecure work is the global norm

The increased ability of capital to move at will around the world has done much to exacerbate these trends. The desire of capitalists to depress wages to buoy profitability is a driving force behind their push for governments to adopt “free trade” deals that accelerate the movement of production to low-wage, regulation-free countries. On a global basis, those with steady employment are actually a minority of the world’s workers.

Using International Labour Organization figures as a starting point, professors John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney calculate that the “global reserve army of labor” — workers who are underemployed, unemployed or “vulnerably employed” (including informal workers) — totals 2.4 billion. In contrast, the world’s wage workers total 1.4 billion — far less! Writing in their book The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China, they write:

“It is the existence of a reserve army that in its maximum extent is more than 70 percent larger than the active labor army that serves to restrain wages globally, and particularly in poorer countries. Indeed, most of this reserve army is located in the underdeveloped countries of the world, though its growth can be seen today in the rich countries as well.” [page 145]

The earliest countries that adopted capitalism could “export” their “excess” population though mass emigration. From 1820 to 1915, Professors Foster and McChesney write, more than 50 million people left Europe for the “new world.” But there are no longer such places for developing countries to send the people for whom capitalism at home can not supply employment. Not even a seven percent growth rate for 50 years across the entire global South could absorb more than a third of the peasantry leaving the countryside for cities, they write. Such a sustained growth rate is extremely unlikely.

As with the growing environmental crisis, these mounting economic problems are functions of the need for ceaseless growth. Once again, infinite growth is not possible on a finite planet, especially one that is approaching its limits. Worse, to keep the system functioning at all, the planned obsolescence of consumer products necessary to continually stimulate household spending accelerates the exploitation of natural resources at unsustainable rates and all this unnecessary consumption produces pollution increasingly stressing the environment.

Humanity is currently consuming the equivalent of one and a half earths, according to the non-profit group Global Footprint Network. A separate report by WWF–World Wide Fund For Nature in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London and Global Footprint Network, calculates that the Middle East/Central Asia, Asia-Pacific, North America and European Union regions are each consuming about double their regional biocapacity.

We have only one Earth. And that one Earth is in the grips of a system that takes at a pace that, unless reversed, will leave it a wrecked hulk while throwing ever more people into poverty and immiseration. That this can go on indefinitely is the biggest fantasy.

The Collapse of French Intellectual Diversity

Andre Vltchek

There are several machine gunners in front of the Charlie Hebdo building in Paris. These are cops, wearing bulletproof vests, carrying powerful weapons. They stare at occasional pedestrians in their special, revolting and highly intimidating way. Charlie Hedbo editors are well protected, some of them postmortem.

If you think that France is not as much a police state, as the UK or the US, think twice. Heavily armed military and police are visible at all train stations and many intersections, even at some narrow alleys. Internet providers are openly spying on their costumers. Mass media is self-censoring its reports. The regime’s propaganda is in “top gear”

But the people of France, at least the great majority of them, believe that they live in an ‘open and democratic society.’ If asked, they cannot prove it; they have no arguments. They are simply told that they are free, and so they believe it.

***

Employees of Charlie Hebdo go periodically out of the building for a smoke. I try to engage them in a conversation, but they reply in very short sentences only. They do their best to ignore me. Somehow, intuitively, they sense that I am not here to tell the official story.

I ask them why don’t they ever poke fun at the Western neo-colonialism, at the grotesque Western election system, or at the Western allies that are committing genocides all over the world: India, Israel, Indonesia, Rwanda, or Uganda? They impatiently dismiss me with their body language. Such thoughts are not encouraged, and most likely, they are not allowed. Even humorists and clowns in modern France know their place.

They soon let me know that I am asking too many questions. One of the employees simply looks, meaningfully, in the direction of armed cops. I get the message. I am not in the mood for a lengthy interrogation. I move on.

In the neighborhood, there are several sites carrying outpours of sympathy for the victims; 12 people who died during the January 2015 attack on the magazine. There are French flags and there are plastic white mice with Je Suis Charlie written on their bodies. One big poster proclaims: Je suis humain. Other banners read: “Islamic whores”, with red color correction, replacing Islamic with “terrorist” – Putain de terroristes.

There is plenty of graffiti written about freedom, all over the area. “Libre comme Charlie”, “Free like Charlie”!

A woman appears from the blue. She is very well dressed; she is elegant. She stands next to me for a few seconds. I realize that her body is shaking. She is crying.

“You’re a relative…?” I ask her, gently.

“No, no”, she replies. “We are all their relatives. We are all Charlie!”

She suddenly embraces me. I feel her wet face against my chest. I try to be sensitive. I hold her tight, this stranger – this unknown woman. Not because I want to, but because I feel that I have no other choice. Once I fulfill my civic obligation, I run away from the site.

***

Fifteen minutes walk from the Charlie Hebdo building, and there is the monumental National Picasso Museum, and dozens of art galleries. I make sure to visit at least 50 of them.

I want to know all about that freedom of expression that the French public is so righteously longing for and ‘defending’!

But what I see is endless pop. I see some broken window of a gallery and a sign: “You broke my art”. It is supposed to be an artwork itself.

Galleries exhibit endless lines and squares, all imaginable shapes and colors.

In several galleries, I observe abstract, Pollock-style ‘art’.

I ask owners of the galleries, whether they know about some exhibitions that are concentrating on the plight of tens of thousands of homeless people who are barely surviving the harsh Parisian winter. Are there painters and photographers exposing monstrous slums under the highway and railroad bridges? And what about French military and intelligence adventures in Africa, those that are ruining millions of human lives? Are there artists who are fighting against France becoming one of the leading centers of the Empire?

I am given outraged looks, or disgusted looks. Some looks are clearly alarmed. Gallery owners have no clue what am I talking about.

At the Picasso Museum, the mood is clearly that of ‘institutionalism’. Here, one would never guess that Pablo Picasso was a Communist, and deeply engaged painter and sculptor. One after another, groups of German tourists consisting mainly of senior citizens are passing through well-marked halls, accompanied by tour guides.

I don’t feel anything here. This museum is not inspiring me, it is castrating! The longer I stay here, the more I feel that my revolutionary zeal is evaporating.

I dash to the office and summon a junior curator.

I tell her all that I think about this museum and about those commercial galleries that are surrounding it.

“Those millions who were marching and writing messages around Charlie Hedbo… What do they mean by ‘freedom’? There seems to be nothing ‘free’ in France, anymore. Media is controlled, and art has just became some sort of brainless pop.”

She has nothing to say. “I don’t know”, she finally replied. “Painters are painting what people want to buy.”

“Is that so?” I asked.

I mention “798” in Beijing, where hundreds of galleries are deeply political.

“In oppressed societies, art tends to be more engaged”, she says.

I tell her what I think. I tell her that to me, and to many creative people I met in China, Beijing feels much more free, much less brainwasher or oppressed, than Paris. She looks at me in horror, then with that typical European sarcasm. She thinks I am provoking, trying to be funny. I cannot mean what I say. It is clear, isn’t it, that French artists are superior, that Western culture is the greatest. Who could doubt it?

I give her my card. She refuses to give me her name.

I leave in disgust, as I recently left in disgust the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.

At one point I walk into a cafe, to drink a cup of coffee and a glass of mineral water.

A man and his enormous dog walk in. Both park at the bar, standing. A dog puts its front paws on the bar table. They both have a beer: the man from a glass, his dog from a saucer. A few minutes later, they pay and leave.

I scribble into my notepad: “In France, dogs are free to take their beer in cafes.”

***

In the same neighborhood, I rediscover an enormous National Archive, a beautiful group of buildings with gardens and parks all around.

The place is holding a huge exhibition: on how France collaborated with the Nazi Germany during the WWII. The retrospect is grand and complete: with images and texts, with film showings.

For the first time in days, I am impressed. It all feels very familiar, intimately familiar!

***

At night I found myself in that enormous new Philharmonic, at the outskirts of Paris, near Porte de Pantin. I managed to smuggle myself to the invitation-only-opening of an enormous exhibition dedicated to French composer, conductor and writer – Pierre Boulez. That same Pierre Boulez who has been promoting, for ages, the idea of a public sector taking over French classic music scene!

Nobody protested at the exhibition, and I did not hear any jokes directed at Pierre Boulez. It was all brilliantly orchestrated. Great respect for the establishment cultural figure, for the cultural apparatchik!

I heard a technically brilliant concert of contemporary classical music, with new instruments being used.

But nowhere, in any of those tremendous spaces of the Philharmonic, did I hear any lament, any requiem, for the millions of people literally slaughtered by the Empire, of which France is now an inseparable part. No new symphonies or operas dedicated to the victims of Papua, Kashmir, Palestine, Libya, Mali, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Iraq.

My new friend, Francois Minaux, is writing an opera about the US carpet-bombing of the Plane of Jars, during the ‘Secret War’ conducted by the West against Laos. I am helping him with this enormous and noble project. But paradoxically (or logically?), Francoise is not living in France, but in the United States.

When I shared my thoughts with him, on Charlie Hebdo, and on freedom of expression in France, he summarized:

“It’s terrible. The art scene sucks. People are zombies. The mass reaction to the Charlie H attack is disgusting and depressing. ‘1984’ is happening but people are too blind to see it.”

A few hours later, I received an email in which Francoise reflected on his complex relationship with his native land, and its culture:

“Being French nowadays and being free to express yourself is impossible. Back in the early 2000, I could not accept the frame that culture would impose on its artists, and they could not accept my questioning and different approach to art making. They either spat on me or even worse, went mute. So, I left. You must travel outside of Europe and live and work outside, to feel the world.

I felt also that politically engaged works of art were not considered real art in Paris. There is this thing in France: any political engagement is seen either as propaganda or as advertisement. Back in the early 2000’s, we were supposed to make art for art’s sake. We were living under the glass dome of the conservatory. We were ‘protected by the government’.

They let us know that we should not talk about politics or religion in public. Maybe French secularism was a good idea but not to the present extent, when politics and religion became taboo. There is this climate of fear: our elders and teachers hardly discuss politics and religion. And so we didn’t know! Certain things are forbidden to be known in France.

Life in Paris became suffocating. Opinions were not expressed. We were not allowed to understand others. Live became boring: we had nothing substantial to talk about. And so we discussed greasy food and French wine. Economists describe French economy as “austere”, but I would go further by saying that French behavior as well as French identity is austere. But the French people can’t see it because they now all think the same. They are trying so hard to stay French but they are forgetting, how the world has bled, so their French-ness could be preserved. Their culture was built from the blood flowing from the French colonies, and on the foundations of the modern-day French Empire.”

***

So where are those brave French minds now; people so many of us were admiring for their courage and integrity?

They were never ‘perfect’, and they erred, like all humans do, but they were often standing on the side of oppressed, they were calling for revolutions and some even for the end of colonialism. They were holding Western culture responsible for the horrors our planet has been facing for centuries.

Emile Zola and Victor Hugo, then later Sartre, Camus, Malraux, Beauvoir, Aragon…

What do we have now? Michel Houellebecq and his novels, full of insults against Islam, as well as of ‘tears of gratitude’ felt after each blowjob his characters get from their girlfriends.

The legacies of Houellebecq and Charlie are somehow similar. Is this the best France can do, these days? Is kicking what is on the ground, what was already destroyed by the West, what is humiliated and wrecked – called courage?

Are pink poodles on silver leashes, exhibited in local galleries, the essence of what is called the freedom of speech? Such stuff would pass any censorship board even in Indonesia, or Afghanistan! No need for the freedom of expression. It is cowardly and it is selfish – exactly what the Empire is promoting.

***

Christophe Joubert, a French documentary filmmaker, told me over a cup of coffee:

“First I was sad, when I heard about what happened to people at Charlie Hedbo. Then I got scared. Not of terrorism, but of the actions of the crowd. Everybody was indoctrinated: thinking the same way, acting the same way. Like Orwell and his 1984! More precisely, ‘the 8th day.”

“People in France know nothing about the world”, continues Christophe. “They believe what they are told by propagandist mass media”.

“I am not allowed to speak”, the Eritrean Ambassador to France, Hanna Simon, explained to me. “They invite me to some television show where they present a film criticizing my country. They speak openly, but when I try to respond, they shut me up.”

“I know nothing about what you are saying”, my good Asian friend replies, with sadness, after I tell him about the tremendous global rebellion taking place against the West, in Latin America, China, Russia, Africa… He is a highly educated man, working for the UNESCO. “You know, here we hear only one side; the official one.”

I am wondering whether, perhaps in 70 years from now, the National Archive will have another huge exhibition: one on France’s collaboration with neoliberalism, and on its direct involvement in building the global fascist regime controlled by the West.

But for now, as long as dogs can have a beer at the bar, fascism, imperialism and neoliberalism do not seem to matter.

They are Charlie, too!

France is part of Grand Crusade.

Official art.

Some history of collaboration.

Terrorizing Canada With Stephen Harper

Murray Dobbin

Powell River, British Columbia.

The Harper government’s pursuit of its odious Secret Police Act (C51) is just another chapter in the most through-going, and massive social engineering project in the history of the country. Social engineering used to be one of the favourite phrases of the right in its attack on social programs – accusing both liberal-minded politicians and meddling bureaucrats with manufacturing the welfare state. They conveniently ignored the fact that there was huge popular demand and support for activist government.

That was the so-called golden age of capitalism and it wasn’t just because of expanding government services. It was so-called because of a much broader and well-informed citizen engagement – both through social movements and as individual citizens. The level of trust in government was much higher than it is today. And absent from the picture were the factors that today dominate the political conversation: fear and economic insecurity.

Exactly how historians will describe this period in Canadian history is anyone’s guess but one approach could be to look upon the Harper era as an experiment in revealing how vulnerable democracies are to political sociopaths bold enough and ruthless enough to bend or break every rule and tradition on which democracy’s foundation rests.

It’s not just the institutions that are vulnerable though they certainly are. It’s a familiar list including Harper’s bullying of Governor General Michaelle Jean to force the proroguing of the House, his guide book on how to make parliamentary committees ineffective, the use of robo-calls and other election dirty tricks, his attempt to break the rules in appointing a Supreme Court Judge and his neutering the House of Commons question period through a deliberate strategy of refusing to answer questions – a practice that institutionalizes a contempt for Parliament that spreads outward to the general public. At a certain point it doesn’t matter who is responsible – the institution itself becomes risible and irrelevant to ordinary citizens. Which is, of course, exactly what Harper intends.

And that brings us to the other element of democratic politics – the actual citizens who are supposed to be the raw material of democracy. The whole institutional edifice theoretically rests on the foundation of the voting public. The extent to which the institutions of democracy can be assaulted and eroded with impunity is directly proportional to the level of civic literacy. The lower it is, the easier it is for malevolent autocrats like Harper to abuse his power.

In terms of civic literacy we are somewhere between Europe where it is relatively high and the US where it is frighteningly low. While the question is obviously more complicated than this, it’s not far-fetched to suggest that there is a continuum – with consumerism at one end and highly engaged citizenship at the other. We live in a hyper-consumer society – not a citizen-society characterized by the oft-repeated disclaimer “I’m not interested in politics.”  The growing basis for our culture is not community or cooperation but conspicuous consumption and possessive individualism.

So long as the political elite accepted the basic premises of modern democracy and activist government, so long as the institutions they controlled functioned more or less within their defined mandates (that is, they were only occasionally abused) society could function with a minimal level of civic literacy. We could all go shopping more or less assured that the stuff of government (in substance and process) would continue undisturbed. If all political parties accepted the precepts of civil liberties, for example, it didn’t matter that much if there was a low degree of public awareness of the importance of civil liberties to our daily lives.

But when a politician suddenly their appears on the scene willing to systematically violate democratic principles as if they simply don’t apply to him then the demand for increased civic literacy is just as suddenly urgent and critical. Yet it is not something can be accomplished easily or quickly. Three sources come to mind: schools, the media and civil society organizations and activity.

Despite the best efforts of teachers and their unions over the decades civic literacy is extremely low on the curriculum totem pole in Canadian schools. Provincial governments have resisted such pressures which should hardly come as a surprise. There is a built in bias in a hierarchical, capitalist society against critical thinking – precisely because in liberal democracies the over-arching role of government is to manage capitalism with a view to maintaining it along with all its inherent inequalities. Too many critical thinkers is not helpful.

The media, of course, are largely responsible for helping put Stephen Harper in power. Ever since the Machiavellian Conrad Black bought up most of Canada’s dailies they have been used (by him and his successors) as an explicit propaganda tool for the dismantling of the post-war democratic consensus. While there are some tentative signs that they now recognize they’ve created a monster (Globe editorials criticizing the PM on a number of issues like C51) it’s a little late. Twenty-five years of telling people there is no alternative to unfettered capitalism has had a pernicious effect on both democracy and civic literacy.

That leaves voluntary (for the most part) civil society organizations. Yet, despite their objective of informing people about the myriad issues we face, here, too, the model falls short of significantly expanding the base of engaged, informed citizens. Ironically, much of the defensive politics of the left are the mirror image of Harper’s reliance on fear (of Muslims, criminals, niqabs, terrorists, environmentalists, unions, the CBC) to energize his base. We peddle more mundane but substantive fears – of losing Medicare, of climate change, of higher tuition fees, of unprotected rivers and streams and dirty oil.

If Canadians are scared silly, it’s no wonder given the mode of politics directed at them.

Regrettably there is no model from Canadian history that points us in the direction of serious commitment to civic literacy. We have to look to the Scandinavian countries. According to Canadian author Henry Milner “Swedish prime minister Olof Palme once said that he preferred to think of Sweden not as a social democracy but as a ‘study-circle democracy.’ The idea …is associated most of all with the efforts of the ABF (the Workers’ Educational Association). …The ABF offers courses in organizing groups and co-operatives, understanding media, and a broad range of contemporary issues, as well as languages, computers, art, music, and nature appreciation.” There were ten other groups doing study circles – many of them subsidized by the government. Half of all Swedish adults were involved in them

Even in Sweden the model is no longer as robust as it was when Milner wrote this assessment (2002). But even after the defeat of Social Democratic governments, no party has dared undermine Swedish social programs or run roughshod over its democracy. That’s because informed citizens are not easily manipulated by fear and their level of trust in government remains high.

Given our shamefully biased media Canadians still manage to resist Harper’s continued assault on our political sensibility. The first polls on the Secret Police Act (don’t call it by any other name) were alarming with upwards of 80% agreeing with the need for tougher anti-terror laws. But things are changing very quickly as the result of a determined fight-back by civil society groups, a phalanx of heavy-hitting experts and the NDP. A Form Research poll   this week showed support for the Act was down to 38% with those disapproving at 51% – an amazing turn around. The highest levels of disapproval were amongst “…the youngest (64%),  New Democrats (77%), the best educated (65%) and the non-religious (70%).”

Yet the Forum results are decidedly mixed and demonstrate how much work there is yet to be done to neutralize the fear campaign. When respondents were presented with specific parts of the bill the percentage disapproving actually decreased and supporters increased.

The polling will no doubt continue to demonstrate confusion, a desire to deal with the real problem of terrorism and condemnation of the attempt to at the idea of labelling environmentalists and First Nations as terror suspects.

Yet a huge effort will be needed to completely immunize Canadians against the next wave of Harper fear-mongering. Imagine if all these efforts and similar warning campaigns had instead been put into creating something similar to the Swedish “study circle democracy.” That’s the only lasting solution to voter manipulation and a healthy democracy. Until we realize that, progressive politics will remain crisis management and we will continue to pin our desperate hopes on coalitions and proportional representation. But without a high degree of civic literacy these institutional fixes will be ultimately dissatisfying.

Greece: Memory and Debt

Conn Hallinan

Memory is selective and therein lays an explanation for some of the deep animosity between Berlin and Athens in the current debt crisis that has shaken the European Union (EU) to its foundations.

For German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, “memory” goes back to 2007 when Greece was caught up in the worldwide financial conflagration touched off by American and European speculators. Berlin was a major donor in the 240 billion Euro “bailout”—89 percent of which went to pay off the gambling debts of German, French, Dutch and British banks. Schauble wants that debt repaid.

Millions of Greeks are concerned about unpaid debts as well, although their memories stretch back a little further.

In July, 1943 Wehrmacht General Hubert Lanz, commander of the First Mountain Division, was annoyed because two of his officers had been threatened by civilians in the Western Greek town of Kommeno. It was dangerous to irritate a German commander during the 1941-45 occupation of Greece.

Lanz first murdered 153 men, women and children—ages one to 75—in Mousiotitsas, then surrounded Kommeno, where his troops systematically killed 317 people, including 172 women. Thirteen were one-year old, and 38 people were burned alive in their houses. After the massacre, the soldiers ate their lunch in the village square, surrounded the by bodies of the dead, and then pushed on to other villages, killing more than 200 civilians.

It was not the first, nor the last massacre of Greeks, and most people in that country can recite them like the beads on a rosary: Kondomari (60 killed); Kardanos (180 killed); Alikianos (118 killed); Viannos (over 500 killed); Amari (164 killed); Kalavryta (over 700 killed); Distomo (214 killed). All in all, the Germans destroyed more than 460 villages, executed 130,000 civilians, and murdered virtually the entire Jewish population—60,000—during the occupation.

On top of that, Athens was forced to “lend” Germany 475 million Reich marks—estimated today at 14 billion Euros—to pay for the occupation. Adding interest to the loan makes that figure somewhere around 95 billion Euros.

Greece’s public debt is currently 315 billion Euros.

The Greeks “remember” a few other things about those massacres. Gen. Kurtl Student, the butcher of Kondomari, Kardanos, and Alikianos, was sentenced to five years after the war, but got out early on medical grounds. The beast of Mousiotitsas and Kommeno, Gen. Lanz, was sentenced to 12 years, served three, and became a major military and security advisor to the German Free Democratic Party. In 1954 he wrote a book about his exploits and died in bed in 1982. Gen. Karl von Le Suire of Kalavryta fame was not so lucky. Captured by the Soviets, he died in a Stalingrad POW camp in 1954. Lt. Gen. Friedrich-Wilhelm Muller, who ordered the Viannos massacre, was tried and executed by the Greeks in 1947.

It is not hard to see why many Greeks see a certain relationship between what the Germans did to Greece during the occupation and what is being done to it today. There are no massacres—although suicide rates are through the ceiling—and no mass starvation, but 44 percent of the Greek people are now below the poverty line, the economy shattered, and Greeks feel they no longer control their country. Up until the last election, they didn’t. The Troika—the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund—dictated the price of the loan: layoffs, wage and pension reductions, and huge cutbacks in health care. True, their occupiers did not wear the double thunderbolts of the SS or the field green of the Wehrmacht, but armies in pinstripes and silk ties can inflict a lot of damage.

Germany dismisses the Greek demand for reparations—estimated at anywhere from some 160 billion Euros to over 677 billion Euros—as a long-dead issue that was decided back in 1960 when the Greek government signed a Bilateral Agreement with Berlin and accepted 115 million Deutschmarks in compensation.

“It is our firm belief that questions or reparations and compensation have been legally and politically resolved,” said Steffen Seibert, a spokesperson for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “We should concentrate on current issues and, hopefully what will be a good future.”

But that is a selective reading of history. There was never any “resolution” of Nazi Germany’s post-war debts because the country was divided between East and West. The 1953 Treaty of London cut Germany’s obligations in half and stretched out debt payments, but the Treaty did not address reparations because they were supposed to be resolved in the final peace treaty. However, with Germany divided, there was no such agreement.

When Germany was unified in 1990, the Greeks raised the issue of reparations, but the Germans dismissed the issue as resolved by the combination of the London Treaty and the 1960 payoff. But not according to historian Hagen Fleischer, who has studied the reparations issue and the original loan documents. Fleischer says that Germany first argued that as long as the country was divided, Berlin could not consider repaying any debts. “Then after German reunification Helmut Kohl [then Chancellor] and Hans-Dietrich Genscher [then Foreign Minister] said that it was now much too late. The matter was ancient history.”

According to the Syriza government, the 115 million marks Germany paid in 1960 were only in compensation for Greek victims of Nazism, not the physical damage to the country, the destruction of the economy, or the forced loans.

“Germany has never properly paid reparations for the damage done to Greece,” argues Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tspiras. “After the reunification of Germany in 1990 the legal and political conditions were created for this issue to be solved. But since then, German governments chose silence, legal tricks and delay.”

Many Greeks refuse to accept what they consider a paltry sum for the vast crimes of the occupation. Four descendents of the 214 civilians massacred by the 4^th SS Panzergrenadier Division at Distomo sued and, in 1997, were awarded 37.5 million Euros, a ruling upheld by the Greek Supreme Court in 2000. When Germany refused to recognize the verdict, the defendants took their case to Italy, and in 2008 an Italian court ruled that the plaintiffs had the right to seize German-owed property in compensation for the Greek award, including a villa on Lake Como.

Germany appealed the Italian decision to the International Court at Hague, which found in favor of Berlin on a principle of international law that countries are immune from the jurisdiction of other states.

However, Germany has assets in Greece, including property and the Goethe Institute, a leading cultural center in Athens. Justice Minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos says he is ready to begin seizing German assets in Greece.

Tsipras says Germany has a “moral obligation” to pay reparations, a sentiment that some on the German left agrees with. “From a moral point of view, Germany ought to pay off these old compensations and the ‘war loan’ that they got during the Occupation,” says Gabriele Zimmer of Die Linke, a party closely allied to Syriza in the European Parliament.

Addressing the Greek Parliamentary Committee for Claiming the German Reparations on Mar. 10, Tsipras asked “Why do we tackle the past” instead of focusing on the future? “But what country, what people can have a future if it does not honor its history and its struggles?”

Dismissing the argument that reparations are ancient history—“The generation of the Occupation and the National Resistance is still living”—Tsipras warned about the consequences of amnesia: “The crimes and destruction caused by the troops of the Third Reich, across the Greek territory, but also across the entire Europe” are memories “that must be preserved in the younger generations. We have a duty—historical, political, ethical—to preserve, remember forever what Nazism means, what fascism means.”

Nazism is not a memory that needs a lot of refreshing in Greece. Sometime this spring some 70 members of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party, including 16 current and former Parliament members, will go on trial for being members of a “criminal organization.” The anti-Semitic and racist Golden Dawn Party has been associated with several murders, attacks on leftists, trade unionists, and immigrants, and has close ties with the police and several of the billionaire oligarchs who dominate Greek politics and the economy.

Indeed, its profile is eerily similar to that of the German National Socialist Party (Nazi) in its early years. Golden Dawn has 17 members of Parliament and is the third highest vote getter in the country, though its support has recently dipped.

Old memories certainly fuel Greek anger at Germany, but so do the current policies of enforced austerity that Berlin has played a pivotal role in inflicting on debt-ravaged Greece. “Germany’s Europe has finished,” says Greek Social Security Minister Dimitris Statoulis, the Europe “where Germany forbids and all other countries execute orders.”

Thanks to Kia Mistilis, journalist, photographer and editor, for providing material for this column

Venezuela is Not a Threat

Nicolas Maduro

We are the people of Simon Bolívar, our people believe in peace and respect for all nations.

Freedom and Independence

More than two centuries ago, our fathers founded a Republic on the basis that all persons are free and equal under the law.

Our nation made the greatest sacrifices to guarantee South American people their right to choose their rulers and to enforce their own laws today. The historical legacy of our father, Simón Bolívar, is always remembered. Bolívar was a man who gave his life so we would inherit a nation of justice and equality.

We believe in Peace, National Sovereignty and International Law

We are a peaceful people. In two centuries of independence, we have never attacked another nation. Our people live in a region of peace, free of weapons of mass destruction, and in freedom to practice all religions. We uphold respect for international law and the sovereignty of all people of the world.

We are an Open Society

We are a working people, we care for our families, and we have freedom of religion. Immigrants from around the world, live among us, whose diversity is respected. We have freedom of press and we are enthusiastic users of social media.

We are friends of the American people:

The histories of our people have been connected since the beginning of our struggles for freedom. Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuelan hero, fought with the American people during their independence fight. We share the idea that freedom and independence are fundamental elements for the development of our nations.

The relations between our peoples have always been peaceful and respectful. Historically, we have shared business relations in strategic areas. Venezuela has always been a responsible and trustful energy provider for the American people. Since 2005, Venezuela has provided “heating oil” through subsidies for low-income communities in the United States, thanks to our company CITGO. This contribution has helped tens of thousands of American citizens survive in harsh conditions, giving them relief, and necessary support in times of need, evidencing how solidarity can create powerful alliances across borders.

Incredibly, the U.S government has declared our country a threat to its national security and foreign policy.

In a disproportionate action, the government of Obama has issued a “National Emergency” declaring Venezuela as a threat to its national security (Executive Order, 03-09-2015). This unilateral and aggressive measure taken by the United States Government against our country is not only unfounded and in violation of basic principles of sovereignty and self-determination under international law, but also has been unanimously rejected by all 33 nations of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the twelve member states of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).  In a statement made on March 14, 2015, UNASUR reiterated its firm rejection of these coercive measures that do not contribute to the peace, stability and democracy in our region and called on President Obama to revoke his Executive Order against Venezuela.

We reject unilateralism and interventionism

President Obama, without any authority to interfere in our internal affairs, unilaterally issued a set of sanctions against Venezuelan officials with potentially far-reaching implications, interfering in our constitutional order and our justice system.

We advocate for a multipolar world

We believe that our world must be based on the rules of international law, without interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

We are convinced that the relationship of respect between all the nations is the only path for strengthening peace and coexistence, as well as for ensuring a more just world.

We honor our freedoms and uphold our rights

Never before in the history of our nations, has a president of the United States attempted to govern Venezuelans by decree. It is a tyrannical and imperial order and it pushes us back into the darkest days of the relationship between the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean.

In the name of our long-term friendship we alert our American brothers and sisters, lovers of justice and freedom, of the illegal aggression committed by your government on your behalf. We will not allow our friendship with the people of the United States to be affected by this senseless and groundless decision by President Obama.

We demand:

1- The U.S. Government immediately cease hostile actions against Venezuelan people and democracy.

2- President Obama abolish the Executive Order that declares Venezuela a threat to U.S. national security, as has been requested by the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

3. The U.S. Government retract its libelous and defamatory statements and actions against the honorable Venezuelan officials who have just obeyed our laws and our constitution.

Our sovereignty is sacred

The principles of the founding fathers of the United States of America are followed today with the same dignity by the people of Simón Bolívar. In the name of our mutual love for national independence we want the government of President Obama to think about and rectify this dangerous precedent.

We are convinced that the defense of our freedom is a right we shall never give up because the future of the humanity lies also in our country. As Simón Bolívar said: “The freedom of the New World is the hope of the universe”.

Venezuela is not a threat, but a hope.