Amid deepening economic and political crisis, Turkey holds local elections

Ulas Atesci

Amid a mounting economic and political crisis, voters across Turkey will go to the polls March 31 in local elections.

Facing bitter tensions with Washington and Turkey’s other NATO allies over the decades-long wars in Iraq and Syria and an economic crisis triggered by the Trump administration’s trade war measures, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) faces possible defeat in the country’s principal cities. This raises the prospect that the government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his right-wing populist AKP, which has ruled the country since late 2002, could unravel and fall.

Whatever the elections’ outcome, they will solve nothing. The main rival of the “People’s Alliance” of the AKP and the fascistic Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is the so-called “Nation Alliance.” It unites the Republican People’s Party or CHP—the party of the capitalist-military-bureaucratic Kemalist elite that dominated the institutions of the Turkish Republic in the 20th century—with the Good Party, a split-off from the MHP. The Nation Alliance is backed by the Kurdish nationalist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and a wide swathe of petty-bourgeois pseudo-left organizations.

The CHP-Good Party-Kurdish bourgeois alliance is no less hostile to the interests of the working class than the AKP-MHP alliance, from which it is distinguished mainly by its more pronounced orientation to, and closer relations with, the imperialist powers. Amid growing class struggles internationally, including the emergence of a revolutionary movement among workers and youth against Algeria’s military regime, the Nation Alliance-HDP partnership serves to chain growing working class anger against Erdogan to the capitalist system and to imperialist war.

The AKP-MHP alliance emerged after the MHP backed the AKP against an abortive US- and German-backed coup attempt, launched from NATO’s Incirlik air base on July 15, 2016, that aimed to kill Erdogan and topple his government. This alliance, which has controlled the national government since then, now faces a deepening economic slump, growing popular anger over social inequality, and mounting pressure and threats from Turkey’s traditional imperialist allies.

Increasing tensions between Turkey and the US came to a head when Washington made the Syrian offshoot of the PKK—the Kurdish nationalist group against which Ankara has been waging a bloody war for the past 35 years—its principal proxy army in the fight to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria. Incensed, Ankara refocused its intervention in Syria from regime change in Damascus to blocking the emergence of a PKK proto-state there. In pursuit of this goal, it has entered into a shaky alliance of convenience with Russia and Iran, who share the objective of rolling back US influence in Syria.

Since the 2016 aborted coup, Erdogan has attempted to straddle the fault lines of world geopolitics, insisting Turkey wants to maintain close relations with the US and pursue membership of the European Union. But Washington has responded with bullying and ever more strident threats.

Deepening economic crisis

US efforts to punish Turkey economically have had a significant impact on an economy that was already facing turbulence.

After Trump imposed tariffs on Turkish exports to the United States last year, Turkey’s economy entered its first recession in a decade, falling 2.4 percent in the last three months of 2018. Turkey last fell into recession in 2009 amid the global economic crisis triggered by the 2008 Wall Street crash. Unemployment has surged to 13.5 percent, and 24.5 percent among the youth. In the last six months, almost 1 million people have applied for unemployment pay.

At the beginning of 2018, the minimum wage, paid to almost half of Turkish workers, was 1,603 TL (US$424). As Turkey’s currency collapses and prices soar, particularly for food, the purchasing power of the minimum wage—despite a 26 percent rise to 2,020 TL—has fallen to US$370.

As the AKP falls in the polls and faces possible defeat in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities, there are signs that the AKP could disintegrate. Ex-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, ex-President Abdullah Gul and other ex-AKP officials are reportedly considering launching a new party. Some sources claim they have more than 50 parliamentary deputies from both the AKP and CHP—enough to potentially bring down the AKP-MHP alliance in the national parliament.

Erdogan has responded by running a bellicose nationalist campaign, claiming an AKP victory is crucial to the Turkish people’s survival against its “external and internal enemies.” At an AKP rally, he also attacked AKP turncoats, denouncing those who “have gotten off the [AKP] train and boarded another. … Those who betray us today will betray the place they go in the future.”

Erdogan and MHP leader Devlet Bahceli are branding the CHP, the Good Party and the HDP as “terrorist” groups, saying they are aligned with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and what they call the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETO) of Fethullah Gulen—the US-based preacher Ankara blames for the 2016 coup attempt.

In the run-up to the elections, the Erdogan government has intensified its political repression, targeting opposition leaders and candidates for legal attack. CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has been accused of insulting the interior minister in a TV speech 10 months ago, and prosecutors have begun proceedings to remove his parliamentary immunity so he can be charged and tried. HDP co-leader Sezai Temelli and the CHP’s Ankara candidate Mansur Yavas have also been hit with legal charges.

Erdogan is seeking to appeal to popular opposition to US imperialism and NATO, talking up plans to buy the S-400 air defense system from Russia, and denouncing as “terrorists” the Kurdish forces that the US and its other nominal NATO allies have used to wage their ruinous regime-change war in Syria.

The opposition Nation Alliance tries to put itself forward as the only alternative to “AKP-MHP fascism.” CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has pledged to fight for a “strong democracy” and a “strong social state” with “sustainability.” At the same time, the CHP and its allies are generally silent on relations with Turkey’s NATO allies—trying to signal to the imperialist powers that they would be more reliable allies than Erdogan.

The pledges of the Nation Alliance to fight for democracy, jobs and social spending are empty rhetoric. In fact, it is just as hostile to the struggles and social aspirations of the working class as the AKP—a point that the CHP made very clear by joining the AKP in denouncing the Izmir metro strike. Moreover, as the party of the traditional Kemalist elite, the CHP is directly implicated in all its crimes, including repeated coups and the brutal anti-Kurdish war.

Subordinating the working class to pro-imperialist parties in the name of fighting “fascism”

To present itself as to the “left” of Erdogan, the Nation Alliance relies on the services of the Kurdish nationalist HDP and the pseudo-left parties.

The HDP is endorsing the Nation Alliance even though it supports Erdogan’s cross-border military operations in Syria and Iraq, and Erdogan’s decision to jail thousands of HDP members, including former HDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş and other HDP parliamentary deputies.

The HDP has refrained from nominating candidates in the major cities of western Turkey and is instead endorsing those of the Nation Alliance. The HDP is issuing empty promises to its voters that if they elect Nation Alliance candidates, these candidates will be obliged to listen to them. HDP co-chair Sezai Temelli recently said, “Mansur Yavas will know” if he becomes Ankara’s mayor “it is with HDP votes. He can’t run his politics ignoring HDP voters.”

The HDP is running its own candidates mainly in the Kurdish-majority areas of southeastern Turkey. It is also cooperating with the Felicity Party (SP, a smaller Islamist party) in some places.

From prison, where Erdogan has placed him for calling for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey in alliance with US-backed Kurdish militias across the border in Syria, Demirtas has endorsed a Nation Alliance vote as an “anti-fascist” vote against Erdogan. He calls on HDP voters “to cast your vote for a strategic purpose to limit and retract the fascist bloc. HDP voters should never consider other parties or party members as enemies. The defeat of the AKP and the MHP depends on an effective outcome of votes you cast.”

The pseudo-left parties are claiming opposition to the AKP-MHP bloc is justification for supporting the bourgeois CHP and HDP, and even the far-right Good Party or the Islamist Felicity Party.

As the World Socialist Web Site stated before last June’s parliamentary and presidential elections, “The Turkish pseudo-left parties and organisations are lining up behind the pro-NATO and pro-EU bourgeois opposition parties. ... They are all in agreement on the rejection of an independent perspective for the working class—independent of all the discredited bourgeois camps.”

Alper Tas, the leader of the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), has accepted the CHP’s nomination as a candidate for the Beyoglu district of Istanbul, with HDP and Good Party support.

On March 19, Labor Party (EMEP) leader Selma Gurkan also endorsed CHP candidates in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, telling the daily Evrensel that “the forces of labor and democracy, which includes us, have agreed to support CHP candidates” in Turkey’s major cities.

Turkey’s Socialist Equality Group endorses none of the bourgeois candidates in these elections, which will resolve nothing, regardless of which camp wins. It seeks to intervene in these elections to lay out the basis of an independent policy of the Turkish and international working class, oppose the wars and bankrupt political pretensions of the capitalist parties, and develop its struggle to build a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Turkey.

Ukrainian far right mobilized in inter-oligarchic infighting

Jason Melanovski & Clara Weiss 

With less than two weeks left in the presidential campaign, the Ukrainian Interior Minister has mobilized against incumbent president Petro Poroshenko the very same far-right forces that were instrumental in the imperialist-backed 2014 coup that brought Poroshenko to power.

Last week, Poroshenko, who currently sits in third place in Ukraine’s Presidential election polls, behind comedian and leading candidate Volodmyr Zelenskiy and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, was accosted by members of the far-right Azov Battalion-affiliated National Militia in the city of Zhytomyr during a campaign stop. In a photo that was widely shared on social media, Poroshenko was seen fleeing reporters and the far-right thugs while jumping through puddles in the street.

Earlier that week, on March 9, members of the National Militia and other far-right groups attacked Poroshenko’s office in Kiev, leading to the deployment of 700 officers with tear gas to prevent a potential coup against Poroshenko prior to the March 31 presidential elections.

The attacks by the far right on Poroshenko come weeks after the release of an explosive Youtube video reporting that the son of one of Poroshenko’s close political allies, Ihor Hladkovskyy, had begun smuggling military parts from Russia in 2015 and then used private companies linked to Hladkovskyy and Poroshenko to sell the smuggled parts to the military at highly inflated prices. According to the report, the government knew that the items were smuggled into Ukraine from Russia and that the prices were inflated, but continued to purchase the parts in order to enrich companies linked to Hladkovskyy and Poroshenko. Poroshenko later removed Hladovskyy from his position as deputy secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.

In the wake of this report, figures such as far-right Azov Battalion leader Andrey Biletsky and his ally Interior Minister Arsen Avakov have come out publicly in opposition to another presidential term for Poroshenko. Despite being a member of Poroshenko’s government and parliamentary bloc, Avakov stated in an interview with Ukraine’s ICTV, “We are at the end of the political cycle. One way or another, when this political cycle ends, we will have a new president and a new government. And here I am absolutely calm.”

Biletsky and the Azov Battalion have demanded the resignation of Poroshenko prior to the elections, and promised to break up all Poroshenko campaign events prior to March 31.

Interior Minister Avakov, who is the only minister who has been part of changing administrations in Kiev ever since the coup in 2014, is rumored to be allied with Poroshenko’s rival in the election, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Both Biletsky and Avakov are regarded as political friends of the exiled oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi. Kolomoyskyi is said to be bankrolling both Tymoshenko and leading candidate Volodmyr Zelenskyi against Poroshenko in the upcoming elections.

Avakov, who as Interior Minister controls the country’s police force, National Guard, and successor militias to the Azov Battalion which have been incorporated into the government, has immense power to control and threaten voting sites in the upcoming elections. He could also easily order police to stand by in the event of a far-right insurrection against the Poroshenko government.

In addition, the Biletsky-affiliated National Militia have been named official election observers by the country’s Central Election Commission. The group has promised to violently threaten anyone it perceives as committing “fraud,” stating, “If we need to punch someone in the face in the name of justice, we will do this without hesitation.”

The comments by Biletsky and Avakov and the threats by the far right point to potentially violent clashes on March 31, with each side crying foul. Poroshenko, who still enjoys the support of the regular military and his Western imperialist backers, has begun making statements promising that the upcoming elections will be “honest” and “would fully meet European standards of the election campaign.” He is using these declarations to set the stage to condemn the results due to election “fraud,” and to seek Western support if he fails to make it out of the first round of the voting.

Poroshenko, whose campaign has relied chiefly on the whipping up of nationalism, religious separatism and Russophobia, has responded to the attacks from the far right by stepping up militaristic threats against Russia. He has tried to portray his far-right opponents as playing into the hands of the Kremlin, stating in one interview, “Putin hopes that anyone but Poroshenko will be elected, so that the new Ukrainian leaders crawl on their knees and grant him Crimea. My position—don’t count on it! We will liberate Crimea.”

Poroshenko is well aware that both Tymoshenko and Zelenskyi are seen as less reliable allies of the United States and NATO in their ongoing confrontation with Russia. Zelenskyi, a native Russian speaker who enjoys widespread popularity both in Russia and Ukraine, previously appealed to Putin to avoid a military confrontation between the two countries. Tymoshenko likewise has had previous business contacts with Russia, and has made vague promises to end the conflict “peacefully.”

The mobilization of the far right, which is drenched in the blood of thousands of Ukrainian civilians who were killed in the past five years of civil war and has rampaged through numerous villages of the Sinti and Roma ethnic minorities, is a direct result of the imperialist-backed coup in 2014, fraudulently portrayed as a “democratic revolution” by the bourgeois media. In reality, exploiting the factional warfare within the oligarchy, the imperialist powers, above all the US and Germany, mobilized far-right forces to bring to power a regime directly subservient to their interests and complicit in their open war preparations against Russia.

Whatever the outcome of the upcoming elections, US imperialism, which views Ukraine as a country of strategic significance in the encirclement of and war preparations against Russia, will not tolerate any deviation from the confrontational stance taken toward Russia by Poroshenko.

The fascistic forces mobilized openly in 2013-2014 have now become the trump card in the internecine factional battles of the oligarchy. Fueling the explosive conflicts within the oligarchy and the government are the enormous social tensions in the country.

The months leading up to the election campaign have seen a growing wave of protests and strikes by the impoverished working class. The Poroshenko regime responded to these class tensions with an imperialist-backed provocation against Russia in the Azov Sea in late October, and the declaration of martial law in several Ukrainian regions before the election campaign.

Recent polls and media reports show that the overwhelming sentiment in the Ukrainian population is one of opposition both to the ongoing war in the east and to the staggering levels of poverty prevailing in the country. With Poroshenko and Tymoshenko widely hated, the comedian Zelenskyi has been able to capitalize on popular discontent by portraying himself as a pro-peace candidate who would de-escalate tensions with Russia and fight the endemic corruption in the country.

The current situation harbors serious dangers for the working class. The same shock troops that have been targeting Poroshenko and that have been employed against the East Ukrainian civilian population since 2014, will be employed in any major social confrontation between the country’s working class and the oligarchy. They will also be utilized in the case of an escalation of the war, both domestically and against Russia, which continues to be the policy direction of substantial sections of Ukrainian ruling circles, and of the US foreign policy establishment.

Far right attacks on UK Muslims following New Zealand massacre

Paul Mitchell

Several right-wing assaults have taken place in Britain since the horrific killing of 50 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand March 15,

Within hours, a 27-year-old man was attacked with a “hammer” and a “batten,” causing injuries to his head, outside a mosque in Whitechapel, East London. The victim had to be taken to hospital for checks before being discharged. The attack started when a gang of white men in their 20s shouted Islamophobic abuse and called the Friday worshippers “terrorists,” according to witnesses. “The suspects returned to their car and left the scene before police arrived,” a spokesperson for London’s Metropolitan Police said.

Despite the incident being filmed by several onlookers, no arrests have been made by the police.

While describing the attack as a “horrible hate crime”, Detective Chief Inspector Sean Channing was desperate to play down its significance. “Whilst there were initial Islamophobic comments made by this group towards the individual which are being treated seriously, I would like to make clear that at no point did the group approach any mosque or congregation in the area… There is no evidence to suggest that the mosque near the area was the intended target.”

On Saturday in Stanwell, near London’s Heathrow Airport, a 50-year-old man went on the rampage with a knife and baseball bat while shouting “All Muslims must die!”

Local residents described him also screaming, “White supremacists rule!” and “Do you wanna die? Well you’re gonna die!’’ before knifing a young Muslim teenager.

The suspect had previously been arrested for sending threats online.

A 24-year-old Syrian neighbour, Nemer Salem, said he had heard a man shouting racist abuse earlier on Saturday including “some crazy things about Muslims… I’m a Muslim and I got a little bit worried.” Another neighbour explained, “He never used to be like this, but over the last couple of months it’s like someone’s flipped a switch and he’s a completely different person.”

The alleged assailant was arrested near the scene on suspicion of attempted murder and racially aggravated public order. The victim of the stabbing was taken to hospital with his injuries described as not life-threatening.

On Sunday, Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, head of the UK’s Counter Terrorism Policing declared, “Whilst this investigation is still in its infancy, it has hallmarks of a terror event, inspired by the far-right, and therefore it has been declared a terrorism incident.”

The confirmation of a right-wing terror attack by Basu makes a mockery of his claims in the immediate aftermath of the Christchurch attack, echoed by the press and politicians, that what happened there was unconnected to the UK. Basu made the ludicrous claim that “there is no intelligence linking these appalling events in Christchurch to the UK.”

But as Socialist Equality Party (UK) national secretary Chris Marsden explained at the launch of the English-language edition of Why Are They Back? Historical Falsification, Political Conspiracy and the Return of Fascism in Germany in London Sunday, the Christchurch killer, Australian citizen Brenton Tarrant, was “part of an international network of far-right organisations.” He had been radicalised in Europe including the UK.

In his 73-page “manifesto,” Tarrant made hero-worshipping reference to British fascist Sir Oswald Mosley and Darren Osborne, imprisoned in 2017 after driving a van into worshippers outside Finsbury Park mosque in north London. Osborne had planned to assassinate London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who had been physically assaulted only last month at the same mosque. In his manifesto, Tarrant stated that Sadiq Khan is among three politicians who should be targeted for assassination.

Marsden explained, “In Britain, the Brexit referendum had been accompanied by a deluge of nationalism. In June 2016, on the eve of the referendum, fascist Thomas Mair had shot and stabbed Labour MP Jo Cox to death. Tarrant had himself written in support of Brexit, that “it was the British people firing back at mass immigration, cultural displacement and globalism, and that’s a great and wonderful thing.”

In February, the trial began regarding a neo-Nazi plot to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper on behalf of the banned far right group, National Action. Jack Renshaw, 23, bought a machete and carried out research online planning how to kill Cooper for National Action and “white Jihad.” Renshaw has admitted preparing an act of terrorism but has denied being a member of National Action. He is on trial at the Old Bailey alongside Andrew Clarke, 34, and Michal Trubini, 36, from Warrington, who also deny membership of the proscribed organisation—which was banned over its support for the murder of Jo Cox.

This week Harun Khan, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, the UK’s largest Muslim umbrella body with over 500 affiliated organisations, mosques, charities and schools, said that Britain’s Muslim communities were “living under a palpable sense of fear.”

The Christchurch massacre, Khan continued, “makes the risk of copy-cat attacks here in the UK a real possibility, especially in a climate where we are now fully appreciating the growth in the far-right.”

Khan contrasted the government’s commitment of £14 million to support the security of around 400 synagogues and 150 Jewish schools (equivalent to £25,000 per institution) to counter “religiously based hate crime” (12 percent of total recorded hate crimes) with the £2.4 million handed out over three years to all other faith institutions. That is equivalent to less than £500 for each Muslim institution, even though 52 percent of hate crimes are directed at Muslims. Religious hate crimes rose by 40 percent, from 5,949 in 2016-17 to 8,336 in 2017-18, according to the Home Office.

More than 350 leading Islamic figures from countries including the UK, US and South Africa have signed a letter to the Guardian, which links Tarrant’s actions to an atmosphere of “systemic and institutionalised Islamophobia.”

The letter says: “This bigotry has been fuelled by certain callous academics, reckless politicians as well as media outlets who regularly feature those who demonise Islam and Muslims with impunity, disguising their vile mantra behind a veneer of objectivity.

“The massacre of Muslims did not just begin with bullets fired from the barrel of Tarrant’s gun. Rather it was decades in the making: inspired by Islamophobic media reports, hundreds and thousands of column inches of hatred printed in the press, many Muslim-hating politicians and unchecked social media bigotry.”

Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi, a Muslim, felt obliged to call on the government to counter Islamophobia, saying it was the party’s “bigotry blind spot.” Last July, she called for a “full independent inquiry,” saying, “I’ve been warning my party of its ‘Muslim problem’ for far too long.” She had repeatedly raised the issue over the past three years—including writing to Theresa May—but “absolutely nothing tangible has happened”.

“I don’t really believe we have that big a problem,” one former minister told the Guardian. Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis accused Warsi of “missing out on key facts” about the party’s “clear process” and “swift action.”

His comments are shown up for the lies they are by the fact that this month saw 25 Conservative members suspended pending investigations that they made Islamophobic statements on social media. One made the comment, “I was going through a few magazines the other day down at the local Mosque. I was really enjoying myself. Then the rifle jammed.”

Last month, 14 Conservative members of the Facebook group, "Jacob Rees-Mogg: Supporters' Group," were suspended for Islamophobic and racist comments, including demands to “send them home now.”

Macron to deploy French army against “yellow vest” protests

Anthony Torres

After Wednesday’s meeting of the council of ministers, French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux announced that President Emmanuel Macron would activate army units during this weekend’s “yellow vest” protests. This is the first time since the 1954–1962 war in Algeria that the army is to be mobilized in police operations on French soil against the population.

Griveaux announced that the operation would have the task of “securing fixed and static points in conformity with their mission, that is to say principally the protection of official buildings.” He justified his recourse to the armed forces by claiming this was necessary to allow the police forces to “concentrate on protest movements and on the maintenance and re-establishment of public order.”

Today, Defense Minister Florence Parly is slated to meet representatives of the police forces in the late afternoon to discuss operational details on the upcoming deployment this Saturday.

The mobilization of army units comes on top of a series of repressive measures the government announced on Tuesday. These include allowing the state to ban protests if “radicals” attend them, increasing fines for participating in a banned protest from 38 to 135 euros, the setting up of “anti-hooligan brigades” of police, the use of drones, the firing of chemical agents allowing police to trace demonstrators, and the use of police checkpoints to stop and identify demonstrators.

The resort to the French army to threaten protests against social inequality marks a historical turning point of international significance. A wave of strikes and protests is spreading across the world, driven by mounting political anger at decades of austerity and militarism. These range from protests by the “yellow vests” to strikes against decade-long wage freezes across Europe, to the mass protests against the Algerian military dictatorship, to the strikes of US teachers and Mexican maquiladora workers and mass strikes in Sri Lanka and India.

Macron’s decision to deploy the army against the “yellow vests” is part of the increasingly desperate attempts of the ruling class internationally to intimidate the rising political opposition among workers and, failing that, to create conditions to try to repress it through force of arms.

The government is deploying the army amid the media frenzy that followed the looting of the Champs- Élysées avenue in Paris during last Saturday’s “yellow vest” protests. But there is no hard evidence that “yellow vest” protesters carried out this looting. Top officials, including Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, have said these actions were committed by far-right groups who exploited a breakdown in the chain of command of the police forces, some of whom were filmed joining in the looting of shops on the Champs- Élysées.

Despite the murkiness of Saturday’s events, the government is responding by rapidly stepping up threats against protesters. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner brazenly declared that on Saturday, police were facing “10,000 hooligans,” implying that the vast majority of peaceful “yellow vest” protesters were violent criminals whom police could treat as such. Speaking about the violence on Saturday, Macron for his part provocatively declared that supporters of the “yellow vest” movement “have made themselves complicit in it.”

The looting Saturday is only a pretext for the implementation of plans that have been long prepared. A possible resort to the army inside France has been publicly discussed for several years, since the then-ruling Socialist Party (PS) began calling for dispatching the army to working class districts of Marseille and other cities under President François Hollande.

The use of troops to crack down on domestic political opposition underscores the correctness of the WSWS’s long-standing opposition to fraudulent claims that the “war on terror” launched by Washington and its European allies aims to protect the people. The PS began Operation Sentinel under the state of emergency it declared after the Nov. 13, 2015, terror attacks in Paris, perpetrated by Islamist networks the NATO powers were using in the Syrian war. Now Macron, a former minister in the PS government, is using these supposedly “anti-terror” troops to reinforce the mobile police squads he is throwing against the “yellow vests.”

Sensing itself to be deeply isolated and despised by workers internationally, and terrified by rising protests in both France and Algeria, the financial aristocracy intends to wage ruthless class war. A February article in the Monde diplomatique titled “Class struggles in France” pointed to the panic seizing broad sections of the ruling class amid the growing political opposition that is for now largely peaceful but also very deep in the French and international working class.

The monthly wrote, “Fear, not of losing an election, or failing to ‘reform’, or to take stock market losses. But of insurrection, of revolt, of destitution. For a half century, the French elites had not experienced such a feeling. … The director of a polling institute mentioned for his part ‘big CEOs who were indeed very worried,’ and an atmosphere ‘that resembles what I have read about 1936 or 1968’ (the two French general strikes). There is a moment where they tell themselves, we have to be able to spend a lot of money to avoid losing what is essential.”

And so the financial aristocracy is pouring resources into repression and breaking with longstanding guarantees that the army would not be sent to fire on the population. After former PS presidential candidate Ségolène Royal called for sending the army to Marseille in 2013, history professor Jean-Marc Berlière reviewed the history of the French army’s use for police operations in an interview in Le Monde.

In the 19th century, Berlière explained, the army’s repeated murder of workers, including women and children, during strikes and May Day rallies provoked enormous class anger: “Massacres like those that periodically took place—at Fourmies, Narbonne, and so on—seriously hurt its image, which was already badly damaged by suspicion of social and political collusion due to its engagement during strikes on the side of the employers.”

After the October 1917 Revolution in Russia during World War I, which saw mass mutinies in the French army, the government decided it could no longer trust the army for domestic policing. “After the victory and the sacrifices of the 1914–1918 war, it was no longer possible to use the victorious army for internal operations,” Berlière said. Asked whether the French army was active after World War I in domestic policing inside the borders of current-day France, he added: “Basically, no. The political risk was too great: what would be the attitude of the conscripts?”

After the army’s infamous resort to mass torture and murder in a failed attempt to keep Algeria under French rule during the 1954–1962 independence war, Macron is again turning to the army. His hailing last year of Nazi-collaborationist dictator Philippe Pétain as well as Georges Clemenceau—who as interior minister before World War I oversaw army operations leading to the murder of 18 workers—reflect continuous official attempts to legitimize repression.

This underscores the reactionary character of continuous proclamations from within the political establishment that left-wing, socialist and working-class politics are irrelevant and dead. They create conditions where a deployment of the army against working people, lacking any shred of legitimacy, proceeds without meaningful opposition in official French life. The central task, in which the “yellow vest” protests mark an initial step, is to independently mobilize the growing political opposition in the working class against this drive to military-police dictatorship.

The Boeing disasters: 346 more victims of capitalism

Bryan Dyne

In the wake of two deadly airplane crashes that have killed 346 people, it has become clear that executives at aerospace giant Boeing repeatedly subordinated basic considerations of safety to profit, aided and abetted by the federal government.

The first disaster occurred on October 29, when a Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by Lion Air crashed thirteen minutes after leaving Jakarta, Indonesia, killing 189 people. That same plane only narrowly averted disaster a day earlier, Bloomberg reported this week, when a third, off-duty pilot who happened to be on the flight, intervened under similar conditions that ultimately caused the crash.

Less than five months later, on March 10, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed about six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, killing a further 157 men, women and children.

Beginning on March 11, every country in the world grounded the 737 Max 8, citing overwhelming safety concerns. The United States was the final holdout, but it grounded the aircraft on March 13.

“Boeing, in developing the 737 Max 8, obviously felt intense competitive pressure to get the new aircraft to market as quickly as possible,” wrote Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger in a column in MarketWatch this week. Sullenberger is the pilot who safely landed an Airbus A320 on the Hudson River in 2009 and a leading air safety expert.

“When flight testing revealed an issue with meeting the certification standards, the company developed a fix… but did not tell airline pilots about it. In mitigating one risk, Boeing seems to have created another, greater risk,” he wrote.

Sullenberger added, “After the crash of Lion Air 610 last October, it was apparent that this new risk needed to be effectively addressed.” But instead of grounding the aircraft and immediately fixing the problem, Boeing did everything it could to conceal the deadly defect and keep the aircraft flying.

In other words, Boeing executives evidently acted in a reckless, negligent manner, contributing to the deaths of 346 people.

Sullenberger concluded, “It has been reported that Boeing pushed back in discussions with the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] about the extent of changes that would be required, and after the second crash, of Ethiopian 302, the Boeing CEO reached out to the US President to try to keep the 737 Max 8 from being grounded in the US.”

Both the FAA and the Trump administration, for their part, were more than willing to run interference for the company.

The close integration between the airline industry and the agency nominally tasked with regulating it is well documented. In 2005, the FAA introduced a new program whereby aircraft manufacturers could choose their own employees to serve as FAA “designees,” charged with certifying the safety of their commercial planes. Since then, there has been virtually no independent oversight of the safety of any new civilian planes, those produced at Boeing or elsewhere.

During the 737 Max 8 rollout, Boeing told its pilots that they could learn all they needed to know about flying a new type of airplane from a 56-minute presentation on an iPad and a 13-page manual. Both were approved by the FAA and the pilots’ union, and neither included any information about the system likely responsible for the crashes, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmenting System, or MCAS.

US officials, moreover, have deep connections to the airline industry. FAA Acting Administrator Dan Elwell was an American Airlines executive. US President Donald Trump’s new nominee to head the administration, Stephen Dickson, is a former Delta head.

Boeing is a top defense contractor with extensive ties to the military-intelligence apparatus. Patrick Shanahan, the deputy secretary of defense, has worked for Boeing for three decades. Moreover, the current secretary of transportation, Elaine Chao, is the wife of Mitch McConnell, who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign financing from Boeing.

Moreover, Boeing is a key part of the US financial elite’s war for control of markets. Since the 737 Max 8 series was released in 2017, the sales of just 350 of the 5,011 orders Boeing has received have accounted for 50 percent of the company’s profits. Boeing itself has maintained its status as the world’s fifth-largest defense contractor and is currently the largest US exporter.

Shares of Boeing have more than tripled since the election of Donald Trump and his promises of further deregulation, making it the highest- priced stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company has accounted for more than 30 percent of the increase of the Dow since November 2016.

The tragic and preventable deaths of nearly 350 people demonstrate certain realities of contemporary social and political life. The capitalist system is based on the maximization of shareholder profit, not the satisfaction of the needs of society. If endangering the lives of hundreds of people will lead to higher profits, such a risk is justified.

Governments, in their turn, serve to protect the interests of the corporations, a reality demonstrated by the Trump White House’s efforts to protect the largest US exporter, and the repeated actions of the FAA to cover up the series of disastrous shortcuts taken by Boeing.

These disasters highlight the need to take the airline industry out of the hands of Wall Street so that air travel can be brought into harmony with human and social needs.

The technological advances that have been made in air travel over the past decades are indisputable. For the first time in world history, travelers can move from any two points in the world within a single day. This technology must be freed from the restraints of giant corporations and of the capitalist system as a whole. This requires the nationalization of the major airlines and aerospace companies, their transformation into publicly owned and democratically controlled utilities to provide for social need, not private profit.

China’s Strategic Silence on the Hanoi Summit

Sandip Kumar Mishra


An abrupt end of the Hanoi summit between the leaders of the US and North Korea on 28 February 2019 was disappointing for many. But for many others, it was unsurprising because the two parties did not have enough exchanges and understanding at the official level before the summit and there were considerable gaps in their respective positions. After the summit, the US and North Korea have gradually been hardening their positions on the issue of latter’s de-nuclearisation and it appears that both sides have been drifting away rather than moving towards an accommodative position.

The US Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun said Washington would not agree on an ‘incremental’ approach to denuclearise North Korea and argued for an all-or-none approach. In response, North Korea expressed that it has been contemplating over whether to continue talks with the US and maintain its self-moratorium on its nuclear and missiles tests. In a way, the Washington-Pyongyang engagement on the denuclearisation issue has been passing through a critical phase and there is a real possibility of a derailment of the process.

Amidst all these developments, Beijing has been quite circumspect. The Spokesperson of China’s Foreign Ministry, Lu Kang, stated that China considered it premature to call it a setback or failure of the US-North Korea talks, and that Beijing would like to ‘listen to what the US and the DPRK governments will say’ in future. He added that China hopes that the DPRK and the US “will continue to engage in dialogue, show sincerity, respect and accommodate each other's legitimate concerns and jointly promote denuclearization and the establishment of a peace mechanism on the Korean Peninsula.”

Actually, it appears that China still does not want to take a clear stand on the current disconnect between the Washington and Pyongyang. It is interesting to note that China has intrinsically been part of the US-North Korea talks and provided important logistical assistance for the Hanoi summit when the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, covered a long train journey to Hanoi via China. China reportedly expected progress in the US-North Korea talks as these talks happened as per the Chinese framework. In the talks, two important Chinese suggestions—denuclearisation of North Korea and use of diplomatic means—were adhered to and Beijing would have been satisfied if some progress had been made. North Korea has also been in close consultation with China. To illustrate, Kim and China’s President Xi Jinping met four times and coordinated their policy objectives.

In fact, China has been in agreement with the North Korean demand that since some ‘positive developments’ have been achieved in the process of North Korea’s de-nuclearisation, proportional concessions must be provided to North Korea vis-à-vis international sanctions. However, the US has not been keen to consider any such proposal. Washington wants to achieve a significant level of denuclearisation in North Korea before providing any concession on the sanctions. The US believes that if the sanctions are diluted, North Korea might use the window to buy time and after a breathing span, might go back to its effort towards nuclearisation. China appears to share North Korea’s point that given this low level of trust between the US and North Korea, it would be over-ambitious to put forth such unrealistic demands to North Korea. China is also dissatisfied with the fact that in Hanoi, at the last moment, US President Donald Trump refused to relax any sanctions on North Korea in exchange for verified dismantlement of Yongbyon and some other facilities.

However, China chose to be silent and cautious. China’s choice could basically be understood in the context of its trade war with the US. China seeks to have a successful workable deal with the US in near future on the trade issues and a failure to do so would have serious implications for the Chinese economy, which is continuing to slow down. In fact, Xi would be worried by Trump’s open threat that he is “never afraid to walk from a deal,” and that he “would do that with China, too, if it didn't work out.” Xi is scheduled to visit the US around 27 March and he appears to be careful that any open stand on the Hanoi summit might become a stumbling block for China’s possible deal with the US. For the same reason, contrary to expectations, China advised Kim not to have a stop-over in Beijing while returning from Hanoi.

Thus, China’s silence or circumspection on the Hanoi summit is a deliberate strategy to let the US and North Korea clarify their responses and positions further. It is also a deliberate choice on China’s part to avoid its shadow on the US-China summit meet in the late March. However, China definitely is in proximity with North Korea’s position. Beijing would like to make a clearer statement about the Hanoi summit once the outcomes of the US-China summit are decided and it would also like to use the issue in its negotiation with the US.

Women PeaceMakers Fellowship Program 2019 for Women Building Peace (Fully-funded to San Diego, USA)

Application Deadline: 22nd April 2019

Eligible Countries: International


To Be Taken At (Country): Institute for Peace and Justice (IPJ) at the University of San Diego’s Kroc School of Peace Studies, USA.

About the Award: Four Women PeaceMakers and four individuals, who represent international non-governmental organizations, will be selected as a cohort to build mutual learning and stronger partnerships between women peacebuilders and international organizations who are working to end cycles of violence.
During the 12-month Fellowship, the program will focus on Pillar II of the Kroc IPJ’s Peace Partnership Compact: Equitable Funding Partnerships, to strengthen and build more effective partnerships between local and global peacebuilders.

Type: Fellowship (Professional), Training.

Eligibility: Applicants for the Women PeaceMakers fellowship must:

1. Have worked for 5-10+ years as a peacebuilder and have worked directly in their local peacebuilding contexts;
2. Demonstrates peacebuilding/peacemaking skills and attitudes;
3. Be in a position to participate in all activities during the 12-month fellowship and apply what is learned at the conclusion of the residency program;
4. Has worked directly with an international or national funder;
5. Demonstrate local credibility and a strong social network within her country/community of practice;
6. Speak sufficient English to relate personal experiences;
7. This year we are looking to bring on an American (from the United States) Women PeaceMaker – such applicants are highly encouraged to apply.

Selection Criteria: International partners will likewise be selected based on their work in and support of more inclusive peace processes.

Value of Award:

• There is no cost to participate in the Women PeaceMakers Program. Selected peacemakers will receive a per diem to cover basic living costs during the residency. This funding is to be used for meals and incidentals, and any local transportation needs apart from residency activities.
• The program provides all funding related to securing a visa, travel and airfare to and from San Diego at the beginning and end of the residency, and lodging throughout the seven weeks.
• The program encourages applicants to seek supplemental funding from other sources if needed, although the funding provided by the IPJ for those selected will be sufficient for the full seven weeks.
• Housing will be provided at La Casa de la Paz, ​”The House of Peace,” on the campus of the University of San Diego in California

Duration of Program: 12 months (September 2019 – September 2020)

How to Apply: Apply Now
Please see the Program Webpage (Link is below) for information on Application.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details


Award Providers: Kroc School of Peace Studies, USA.

ISNAD-Africa Mentoring for Research Programme 2019 for African Students

Application Deadline: 30th April, 2019 (11:59 GMT)

Eligible Countries: African countries


About the Award: The International Support Network for African Development (ISNAD-Africa) is a pan-African initiative raising global and multi-stakeholder support for clean energy transition and climate resilience Africa through a multidisciplinary network of various stakeholders active in sustainable energy, environment, and climate change fields across the globe.

Type: Training (mentorship)

Eligibility:

• Applicants should be registered postgraduate students in universities in Africa
  • Doctoral students
  • Master’s students should have made a minimum of Second Class (Upper Division) or equivalent from their undergraduate programmes
• Successful applicants will be those who possess excellent research ideas aimed at solving a problem or an innovative approach on sustainable energy, environment or climate change
• Applicants should be carrying out their research in 2019. (Please note that the research may be a new or ongoing research, however, priority will be given to research projects that are at their early stages). Also note that students whose research programme extend beyond 2019 are also eligible to apply and could be considered for extension till the completion of their research.
• Applications are welcome from students in any discipline (Technology, Sciences, Arts, Law, Social Sciences, Environmental Design and Management, Agriculture, Health Sciences, ICT, among others) provided their research are on sustainable energy, environment or climate change-based topics.

In addition to the conventional research topics (such as energy access, renewable energy policy), innovative and non-conventional research topics such as climate photography, environmental journalism, among others, will be of special interest.

Number of Awards: Not specified
Value of Award:

• Participation in a six (6)-session webinar training, on sustainable energy, environment and climate change (including soft skills), to be hosted by the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency (C2E2), a joint initiative of the Danish Government, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).
• admission into a one-year one-to-one mentoring relationship on your research with an experienced researcher or professional (with expertise in your area of research) from world-class organisations such as the World Bank, Harvard University, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Chatham House, and International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) among other international institutions and organisations.
• Support by a mentor to structure your research to be innovative, problem-solving, practice-oriented, and carried out to meet global standards
• Support by ISNAD-Africa to communicate your research findings to relevant stakeholders in the global community, hence, creating more visibility for your research work and career opportunities
• Support (including funding) to implement a self-proposed Environmental Education Outreach in your locality

How to Apply: Qualified and interested applicants are invited to complete the online application here.

• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Afro-Students Entrepreneurship Challenge 2019 for High school/Undergraduate African Students ($5,000 Prize)

Application Deadline: 31st March 2019 11:59 Pm

Eligible Countries: African countries


About the Award: Shortlisted teams from each participating country will be invited to the Annual Afro-Students Entrepreneurship Education Summit where they will pitch to a panel of judges who will determine the most creative , innovative and impactful team. We are looking for students, school/community based teams with the most creative, innovative and impactful business initiatives/models.

Field of Contest:

1. For Profit Enterprise: A business model that is FOCUSED on addressing at least one customer problem and has the ability to maximize profit and scale.
2. Social Enterprise: A business model FOCUSED on addressing at least one SOCIAL PROBLEM with the capacity to generate revenue for the sustenance of the social impact.

Type: Contest

Eligibility: All high school and university students not older than 25 years are eligible to enter. High school students must form a team of not less than 5 students. Individual entries are allowed for university students.

• The competition is open to high schools and universities across Africa.
• Must be a team based project (at least 5 students for high school entries).
• University students may submit individual entries.
• Business must relate to one or two of the categories : For Profit or Social Enterprise.
• Entries must be submitted in English.
• Make a 5 minute summary video of the business model concept.
• Submit business model concept of not more than four pages showing your LEAN BUSINESS MODEL (appendix).
• Send in photos of your project activities.
• Entrants should be available to attend the Afro Students Entrepreneurship Education Summits hosted in different African country each year.

Number of Awards: 6

Value of Award:
High School Category (For Profit and Social Enterprise)

• 1st Prize – $5,000
• 2nd Prize – $1,500
• 3rd Prize – $1,000

University Category (For Profit and Social Enterprise)

• 1st Prize – $5,000
• 2nd Prize – $1,500
• 3rd Prize – $1,000

How to Apply: To submit your entry, you’ll need to complete the application form.
 APPLY NOW

• It is important to go through all application requirements on the Programme Webpage (see link below) before applying

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

World Trade Organisation (WTO) Young Professionals Program 2020 for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 15th April 2019 (CET)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Bahrain, Kingdom of Belize, Bolivia, Plurinational State of Brunei Darussalam, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Fiji, Gabon, Georgia, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, the State of, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao People’s Democratic Republic , Lesotho, Liberia, Macao, China Madagascar, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania,Moldova, Republic of, Mongolia, Montenegro,Mozambique,Myanmar, Namibia, Nicaragua, Niger, Oman, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Qatar,Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Swaziland, Chinese Taipei, Tajikistan, Thailand, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Togo, Tonga,United Arab Emirates, Vanuatu, Yemen

About the Award: The WTO Young Professionals Programme (YPP) is a unique opportunity for qualified young professionals up to the age of 32 years as at 1 January 2020, from eligible developing and least-developed country (LDC) WTO Members, to enhance their knowledge and skills on WTO and international trade issues.
The Programme aims to widen the pool of professionals from these countries who can later be more competitive with respect to recruitment in the WTO and/or other regional and international organizations.
This is a limited programme that offers selected young professionals with the opportunity to gain work experience in the WTO. There is no guarantee of an extension of the programme or of a job offer after the one-year programme.

Fields of Work: The areas of work may include, inter alia, Accessions, Agriculture, Dispute Settlement, Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), Government Procurement, Market Access (tariffs and non-tariff barriers), Rules, Trade and Development, Trade Facilitation, Economic research, Trade Policy Analysis, Trade in Services and Investment, Council and Trade Negotiations, Trade and Environment, Technical Barriers to Trade, Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures, Trade-Related Technical assistance.

Type: Internship

Eligibility: 

• Applicants must be 32 years old or younger, as at 1 January 2020.
• A cover letter (letter of motivation) MUST accompany the application – the letter should also note UP TO THREE areas of work that applicants would be interested in, in order of preference.
• Applications with no accompanying letter will not be considered.

Qualifications:

• Education: Advanced university degree in law economics, or other international trade-related subjects relevant to WTO work
• Knowledge and skills:
  • Relevant expertise or continued academic study in a field of interest to the work of the WTO.
  • Ability to think strategically; work independently and in a team.
  • Demonstrated strong interest in international trade.
  • Commitment and passion for trade or WTO-related work
• Work Experience: Minimum two (2) years of relevant experience
• Languages:
  • Fluency in English.
  • A good working knowledge of one other official WTO language, French or Spanish, would be an advantage

Value of Program: CHF 3,500 monthly salary (approximate)

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Duration of Program: One year without possibility of extension

How to Apply: All candidates must complete an online application form on the Program Webpage.

Visit Program Webpage for details


Award Provider: World Trade Organisation (WTO)

Pernod Ricard Fellowship 2020 for African Artists, Curators and Researchers (Fully-funded to Paris, France)

Application Deadline: 30th April 2019

Eligible Countries: This year, the Pernod Ricard Fellowship focuses on four geographical zones: Southern Europe, Asia, South America, Africa.


To be taken at (country): Paris, France

About the Award: Every year, 4 international Fellows (artists, curators and researchers) are invited by an Artistic Committee for a 3-month residency on the basis of a research proposal.
The Pernod Ricard Fellowship is conceived as a research and artistic platform, experimenting with non‑linear models of generating and distributing knowledge to encourage different possible connections between researchers, contemporary artists, cultural institutions, non-profit organizations and the general public.
Inheriting the cosmopolitan and convivial spirit of the historical studio, art academy and artists’ cantina founded and run by Marie Vassilieff in the heart of Montparnasse, the Fellows enjoy a tailor-made support, special meetings with local or international researchers and art professionals relevant to their needs, and access to a rich network of institutions in France and abroad such as Centre Pompidou (a long-term, privileged partner of Pernod Ricard and Bétonsalon – Center for Art and Research).

Type: Short course (Residency)

Eligibility: Fellows (artists, curators and researchers) are invited by an Artistic Committee for a 3-month residency on the basis of a research proposal.

Number of Awards: 4 (1 likely from each region)

Value of Award:

• A 3-month residency in a in a private studio at Villa Vassilieff
• A 6000 euro grant to cover living expenses in Paris
• A 5000 euro production & research grant
• A tailor-made program of meetings and visits
• 1 or 2 round-trips to Paris
• Access to unexplored resources
• An exceptional network of collaborators, with Centre Pompidou as main partner

Duration of Programme: 3 months

How to Apply:  Before April 30, 2019, please send a proposal including:

• A short outline for a research project to be developed in Paris. –
  • Please provide a short artistic statement to introduce your practice (300 words max.)
  • – Describe a proposal for a research program to be developed at Villa Vassilieff (500 words max.)
  • – Please outline some of the resources and contacts that you would like to activate during your research (500 words max.)
• Please include all these answers in a single PDF document.
• Documentation of previous works (portfolio, PDF format max. 50 MB)
• Bio (300 words max.) + CV
• Your availabilities in 2020 to be in Paris for the residency. You should be at least free 3 months during the year to be selected for the residency program.

The application must be sent by e-mail to: pernodricardfellowship@villavassilieff.net
Subject line: Pernod Ricard Fellowship Application


Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Social Media Companies “Struggle” to Help Censors Keep us in the Dark

Thomas L. Knapp

According to CNN Business, “Facebook, YouTube and Twitter struggle to deal with New Zealand shooting video.”

“Deal with” is code for “censor on demand by governments and activist organizations who oppose public access to information that hasn’t first been thoroughly vetted for conformity to their preferred narrative.”

Do you really need to see first-person video footage of an attacker murdering 49 worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand?

Maybe not. Chances are pretty good you didn’t even want to. I suspect that many of us who did (I viewed what appeared to be a partial copy before YouTube deleted it) would rather we could un-see it.

But whether or not we watch it should be up to us, not those governments and activists. Social media companies should enable our choices, not suppress our choices at the censors’ every whim.

If Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube had been primary news sources in 1915, would they have permitted us to view footage  (rare, as film was in its early days)  of New Zealanders’ desperate fight at Gallipoli?

How about the attack on Pearl Harbor?

The assassination of president John F. Kennedy?

The second plane hitting the World Trade Center.

Lucinda Creighton of the Counter Extremism Project complains to CNN that the big social media firms aren’t really “cooperating and acting in the best interest of citizens to remove this content.”

The CEP claims that it “counter[s] the narrative of extremists” and  works to “reveal the extremist threat.”  How does demanding that something be kept hidden “counter” or “reveal” it? How is it in “the best of interest of citizens” to only let those citizens see what Lucinda Creighton thinks they should be allowed to see?

CNN analyst Steve Moore warns that the video could “inspire copycats.” “Do you want to help terrorists? Because if you do, sharing this video is exactly how you do it.”

Moore has it backward. Terrorists don’t need video to “inspire” them. Like mold, evil grows best in darkness and struggles in sunlight. If you want to help terrorists, hiding the ugliness of their actions from the public they hope to mobilize in support of those actions is exactly how you do it.

Contrary to their claims of supporting “democracy” versus “extremism,” the social media companies and the censors they “struggle” to assist seem to side with terror and to lack any trust in the good judgment of “the people.”