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By T.Sh | DOP

Anger is sweeping through Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque today, Wednesday, July 26, 2023, in response to an alleged “Temple Organization” and a number of right-wing settler groups’ planned Flag March.

The march is expected to include ministers and Knesset members, amid calls from Palestinians to confront settlers’ intrusions, declaring it a night of anger and devotion to fend off the incursions.

The provocative march aims to target the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque, including the New Gate, the Zahra Gate, the Column Gate, and the Asbat Gate, culminating in entering the Old City through the Moroccan Gate and reaching the Western Wall Plaza.

The Palestinian Youth Movement in Jerusalem has announced a day of anger across the occupied city, with devotees and defenders standing firm against what is called the “Anniversary of the Temple’s Destruction.”

In a statement, the movement called on all able individuals to be present at Al-Aqsa Mosque after the afternoon and evening prayers on Wednesday, July 26, 2023, to confront the settlers’ planned intrusion on Thursday, July 27.

It has been made clear by the Palestinians that Israel’s attempts to take control of Jerusalem will only result in resistance activities.

The extremist Temple groups are preparing for a wide-scale incursion into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque on Thursday, July 27, 2023, marking the alleged “Temple’s Destruction” anniversary, preceded by a hostile flag march that has become recurrent in the holy city.

The Islamic-Christian Society for the Support of Jerusalem and its Holy Sites warned of “Israeli” plans to Judaize the occupied city and control all its neighborhoods through the so-called “Flag March.”

“Flag March” is a form of provocation and Judaization of the holy city, according to Nasser al-Hudmi, head of the society.

Al-Hudmi emphasized that this Judaization aims to control all Arab neighborhoods and eventually demolish the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque to erect a mythical “Temple” in its place.

He further stated that the “Flag March” is a traditional march carried out by the occupation every year, but it has now escalated to twice a month.

26 July 2023

Source: daysofpalestine.ps

By Motasem A Dalloul

Early this week, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said that his country’s independence would never be complete as long as Palestine is occupied. Echoing the words of the late South African freedom fighter and President Nelson Mandela, he also pointed out that this has been the position of his predecessors as well.

“Palestine’s strength can only be achieved through its unity,” he told CNN China. “The Palestinians know this very well.” He added that some Arab states, and China, are striving to get Palestine accepted as a full UN member state “even if it is still occupied.”

In fact, most free people around the world appear to support the Palestinians and wish to see the Israeli occupation ended as soon as possible. Only the corrupt elites who run the corrupt states or the so-called democracies, including the US and those in the West, deal with the Israeli occupation as a fully-fledged UN member state, even though it has never fulfilled one of the main conditions of its membership, namely allowing the Palestinians to exercise their legitimate right to return to their land.

The Arab people love Palestine and wish to see all Israeli aggression against the Palestinians stopped and the occupation ended. However, too many Arab leaders — brutal dictators almost to a man — are on the opposite side of the fence to their people.

This has been made very obvious in recent years with some Arab leaders normalising ties with Israel which their people reject. Due to brutal repression in the Arab countries, the people could not express their opposition to normalisation freely, but the world was given a glimpse of their real feelings when Israelis visited Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. It was made clear that they weren’t welcome.

So, if the Arab leaders are more interested in Israel than in Palestine and the Palestinians, why do they claim to support the Palestinian cause from time to time?

Palestine has played a hugely important part in Islamic history, and holds great significance for Muslims. It is the home of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site for all Muslims on earth, and most Arabs are Muslims; Palestine and its people are in their hearts.

Arab leaders recognise this spiritual and historic connection between their people and Al-Aqsa so cannot easily ignore it. They use this connection when they want to conduct any immoral relations or communications with the Israeli occupation authorities, or when they want to suppress the freedoms of their people.

When they want to reinforce their authoritarianism, they highlight the issue of Palestine in their agenda. They use emotional language in their speeches and might invite Palestinian leaders to show up for a photocall, or host Palestinian patients or those wounded by Israeli soldiers or settlers.

This way, the Arab leaders get the sympathy of their people, who will forget their own troubles, as happened with the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was defeated by Israel in 1967, but would later become the figurehead of the pan-Arab project thanks in part to his alleged support for Palestine and the national Arab agenda, which included the boycott of Israel and the liberation of Palestine.

Despite Nasser’s mass arrests and execution of Egyptians who fought against the Israelis in 1948, when he died the Palestinians mourned him as a hero of Palestine and its people, and called him a national leader. This has been the situation with many other Arab leaders, who have not been interested in helping the Palestinians at all.

Algeria’s Tebboune hosted the Palestinian factions for a national dialogue in October last year. What happened afterwards? Nothing. He brought them together and they showed up for the obligatory photo opportunity, and that was it. He got the Algerians clapping for him and the Palestinian leaders ate well and slept well. The people of occupied Palestine, meanwhile, continue to live through exceptionally difficult times under Israel’s brutal military occupation.

The Algerian regime is an extension of the regime of the late dictator Abdulaziz Bouteflika, so when Tebboune told CNN China that Algeria’s independence is not complete, he was right. That’s the reality for the Algerian people, who do not enjoy freedom and independence. But Tebboune has done nothing for Palestine except condemn Israeli aggression or express support for the Palestinians with empty words.

Next week, Cairo is hosting a meeting for the Palestinian factions to discuss the latest Israeli violations and attacks as well as the challenges facing the people of occupied Palestine. Egypt is hosting this meeting which will look for mechanisms to help the Palestinians; at the same time, it will continue to help Israel to impose a siege on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian traders in Gaza who import goods from Egypt say that the Egyptians do not sell them any of the goods banned by Israel. We can be sure, though, that next week’s faction meeting in Cairo — which comes in the middle of an escalation of Israeli aggression against the Palestinians — will be well publicised in Egypt, giving President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi the chance to show Egyptians that he is a supporter of Palestine and its people.

The reality is that Arab leaders have been suppressing legitimate Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation since the time of the British Mandate, which ended in 1948 with the creation of the apartheid state. Their function was to prepare for the creation of Israel and their role ever since has been to facilitate its growth and protect it from the Palestinians.

If proof is required for this, then we need look no further than the Arab League’s unanimous adoption of the Saudi Peace Initiative in 2002, which literally completes the occupation of Palestine. At the same time, look at the nationalistic remarks of the Arab leaders even as Israeli troops and settlers kill and wound Palestinians, and the Zionist state steals ever more Palestinian land while ties with the Arab world get warmer and warmer. Arab leaders use Palestine shamelessly to boost their own popularity, but do nothing to help its people.

Motasem A Dalloul The author is MEMO’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip.

26 July 2023

Source: middleeastmonitor.com

By MEE staff

Despite several months of protests across Israel, on Monday parliamentarians succeeded in passing legislation to remove a key judicial power, limiting the ability of the courts to override the government’s laws.

The so-called “reasonableness standard” had long been a thorn in the side of right-wingers in Israel and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed its removal as a victory for parliament over an unelected body.

“Today we did a necessary democratic act, an act that is intended to return a measure of balance between the branches of government,” Netanyahu said in a televised address on Monday evening.

For anti-government demonstrators and opposition leader Yair Lapid, the move instead signals the “destruction of Israeli democracy”.

With international markets reacting negatively to the move and condemnation coming from foreign governments, Middle East Eye takes a look at why the “reasonableness standard” was such a point of contention.

Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, the “reasonableness standard” has been one of the Supreme Court’s key tools to limit the power of the executive.

It allowed the court to overrule what it considered unreasonable government decisions and appointments. The power, which was never enshrined in legislation, derives heavily from British common law, which was influential in the formation of the Israeli judiciary.

Israel does not have a written constitution – only a set of roughly defined Basic Laws – and has a heavily centralised executive, and so the Supreme Court’s rulings were the main check on overreach.

Critics have claimed that the “reasonableness” assessment is too vague and subjective, and has given too much power to unelected officials.

Supporters say that its integration into Israeli law over the decades has prevented the country sliding into authoritarianism.

What has been the reaction?

Following the passage of the new legislation, there was a massive outcry from the protesters who have been pushing back against the judicial reforms since January.

The law passed with 64 votes in the 120-seat chamber – opposition lawmakers stormed out, shouting “shame”.

Financial markets reacted sharply to the new measure. Tel Aviv share indices closed 2.3 percent lower, while the shekel lost 1.4 percent to reach 3.68 against the dollar.

Credit agency Moody’s warned on Tuesday about a “significant risk” likely to have “negative consequences for Israel’s economy and security situation”, while Morgan Stanley also predicted “increased uncertainty about the economic outlook”.

Despite previous warnings, however, the US State Department said there was “not going to be any cut or stoppage of military aid, and that is because our commitment to Israel and our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad”.

“Our decades-long partnership with Israel is ironclad,” said spokesperson Vedant Patel on Tuesday.

What happens next?

A number of organisations, including the Israel Bar Association, have filed a petition with the Supreme Court against the legislation. Lapid said he would also be submitting a petition.

However, it is debatable as to whether the court can actually act to strike down the new legislation.

So far the court has never invalidated any Basic Law – striking down this act would therefore be unprecedented.

It would also be fraught with constitutional difficulty, but it is not impossible. It would, however, likely further inflame and polarise an already heated debate in Israel.

The rest of Netanyahu’s judicial reforms package will not be put before parliament until after the summer recess.

However, Netanyahu has promised to reach out to the opposition to discuss the future legislation.

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Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.

26 July 2023

Source: middleeasteye.net

By Middle East Monitor

As thousands of Israelis blocked roads and scuffled with police over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, Arab citizens shared online memes of themselves watching the crisis unfold as unfazed spectators, Reuters reports.

They make up a fifth of Israel’s 9.7 million people and could be among those most impacted by the religious-nationalist government’s controversial push to curb the Supreme Court, but they point to deeper concerns than the debate over balance of powers.

“We are in a constant battle for our existence,” mused retired teacher, Adnan Haj Yahia, 67, in a coffee shop in Taybeh, a central Arab city abutting the Occupied West Bank.

Looking at a protest ad covering the front pages of leading Israeli newspapers with the words “a black day for democracy”, he said that described daily reality for his community.

Palestinians who stayed in the new Israeli state after the 1948 war. Largely self-identifying as Palestinian, they have long pondered their place in politics, balancing their heritage with Israeli nationality.

While others hotly debate the state’s identity as Jewish and democratic, Palestinian citizens “have no place in this formula,” said attorney, Hassan Jabareen, founder of the Haifa-based Adalah rights group.

Jabareen, who has more than two decades of experience petitioning the Supreme Court on minority rights cases, said the Court had traditionally been the last line of defence in cases of “extreme, unreasonable discrimination.” He cited protecting Arab participation in elections, fair allocation of budgets and rights to live in towns denying Arabs residence.

Still, he said Palestinians, whether they hold Israeli citizenship or live under military occupation, have little hope in an increasingly conservative court that has backed bills such as the 2018 Nation-State Law, which declares only Jews have a right to self-determination.

“Discrimination in Israel is official,” said Jabareen. “This is the only state in the world that rejects the idea that the state should be a state of all its citizens.”

‘Top priority is to live’ 

While Israel says it grants them equal rights, many Arabs say they face structural discrimination and hostile policies.

A 2021 report by the Israel Democracy Institute found significant social and economic gaps between Jewish and Arab citizens, with poverty among Arabs more than three times higher.

Arabs are mainly employed in low-income industrial jobs, the report said. They tend to live in overcrowded towns and villages with infrastructure deficiencies and poorer-funded schools.

The danger of weaker oversight on the executive is clear to Palestinian citizens, particularly under a government that has expanded illegal settlements in the Occupied West Bank and is made up of senior ministers who whip up sentiment against them, lawmaker Aida Touma-Sliman of the Arab-Jewish Hadash party told Reuters.

Earlier this year, the US condemned as incitement to violence comments by Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, that a Palestinian village in the West Bank must be “erased” by Israel.

But many are remaining on the sidelines, Touma-Sliman said, as they do not see themselves reflected in a protest movement infused with nationalist and militaristic symbols.

Instead, Palestinian citizens have, for months, been mobilising to address a different crisis: record levels of criminal violence rocking their communities.

At least 130 Arab citizens have been killed in crime-related shootings since January, twice the fatalities over the same period last year, according to data gathered by an advocacy group campaigning against the violence.

It is not only the climbing death toll but the paralysing effect organised crime groups have on local communities, who no longer feel safe, said Touma-Sliman.

Community leaders and members have urged the Prime Minister to take action, accusing the government and police of systemic neglect. Netanyahu, in a rare statement following the killing of five people on a single day in June, said the government “was determined to fight organised crime and restore quiet.”

“The Palestinian community is trying to fight for survival,” said Touma-Sliman. “The top priority for Palestinians at this point is to live. The top priority for the protesters, the Jewish protesters, is to live in democracy.”

26 July 2023

Source: middleeastmonitor.com

By Nora Barrows-Friedman

Inspired by the movement that helped dismantle the apartheid regime in South Africa, dozens of faith-based groups in the US this week launched an initiative to take action against Israeli apartheid.

The Apartheid-Free Communities initiative, convened by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, encourages faith groups to pledge “to step away from any and all support to Israeli apartheid, occupation, and settler colonialism.”

More than 80 groups have already signed the pledge, including three denominations: the United Church of Christ, South Central Yearly Meeting (Quaker) and the Alliance of Baptists.

Many other interfaith, Christian, Jewish and Muslim organizations have also signed on.

The initiative developed last year during an ecumenical gathering to assess “how to bring churches on board because of the particular need to educate and motivate churches to make a stand,” Reverend Allison Tanner, national organizer for the initiative, told The Electronic Intifada.

The campaign was born out of a response “to the direct request of Palestinian civil society to create apartheid-free zones,” she said, and from recognizing the need “to ignite congregations more fully in the work.”

For years, churches and other faith-based groups have participated in divestment campaigns while calls to stand against Israeli apartheid have grown.

Last year, the Presbyterian Church USA – which has more than a million members around the country – affirmed that “the government of Israel’s laws, policies and practices regarding the Palestinian people fulfill the international legal definition of apartheid.”

The church has worked since 2014 to divest from US companies that profit from Israel’s abuses of Palestinian rights.

The Presbyterian church recommended that its members and staff “seek appropriate ways to bring an end” to the racist policies of apartheid, containment and colonial violence.

Other Christian denominations across the US have taken similar steps to oppose Israel’s apartheid and occupation policies in Palestine.

Notably, Palestinian churches have played a key role in boosting support for divestment among North American congregations.

In 2009, Palestinian Christians issued the Kairos Palestine document, calling on churches around the world to take action for justice, including specifically support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

However, Tanner explained that the church-based divestment initiatives have reached a plateau.

“We wanted to fire up those groups again – but there is also a recognition that what happens at the denomination level doesn’t trickle down into the pews,” she said.

The Apartheid-Free Communities initiative, she noted, focuses on educating congregants in order to support collective action in order to have a material effect on Israeli policy.

The pledge that faith-based communities and individuals can take, Tanner explained, “was written very succinctly and very focused: if you’re against racism, if you’re against bigotry, then you ought to be against apartheid.”

It serves “not only to say you’re against apartheid, but to name Israeli apartheid, to commit to take action against Israeli apartheid and to become part of a network that helps you think through and live out these commitments.”

Tanner and other faith-based leaders recently returned from a delegation to Palestine, organized by the American Friends Service Committee.

What she saw, she said, “was the direness of the situation. And the starkness of what people are facing … that was really heavy. Our whole group is still grieving and dealing with some secondary trauma from witnessing that so intensely.”

In speaking with people she met across historic Palestine who are facing accelerated land theft, systemic violence and military occupation, there was a sense, on the one hand, that there is widespread hopelessness.

But on the other hand, she added, there was a feeling “that things are changing – and we don’t know what that change is going to look like. [But] it gave us an urgency in the work that we’re doing now.”

Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and associate editor at The Electronic Intifada, and is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine (Just World Books, 2014).

8 June 2023

Source: electronicintifada.net

By Lubna Masarwa and Elis Gjevori

The Israeli parliament has been accused of passing a “racist” piece of legislation that would see Palestinian citizens of Israel screened from living in almost half of the country’s small villages and towns.

The so-called “admissions committees” law passed on Tuesday would strengthen a controversial 2011 piece of legislation that allows those same panels – made up of members of the local community – to screen applicants for housing units and plots of land in hundreds of Jewish Israeli “community towns” built on state land.

Human rights campaigners have stressed that this is aimed at giving small Jewish communities the power to prevent Palestinians from buying or renting homes. There are almost two million Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are estimated to make up 20 percent of the country’s population.

The law does not officially allow the committees to reject residential candidates for reasons of race, religion, gender, nationality, disability, class, age, parentage, sexual orientation, country of origin, views or party political affiliation.

However, the wording of the 2011 law allows committees to reject candidates who they deem to be “inappropriate for the social and cultural fabric” of the community.

“In practice, this power has led to the exclusion of Palestinian citizens of Israel from these communities, which are built on state-controlled land,” said Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, in a statement after the legislation was passed.

Hassan Jabareen, Adalah’s founder, is worried by the latest piece of admissions committee legislation and Israel’s judicial reform plans, which are set to open the court to political interference.

“We are now in a very critical situation,” Jabareen told Middle East Eye, adding that there is now a “climate in which Arabs can be easily discriminated against”.

‘Apartheid in Israel’

In 2012, Adalah took the Israeli government to court, arguing that the admissions committees law was a racist piece of legislation that mainly targeted Palestinians.

Four members of Israel’s supreme court agreed, while five members thought it was too soon to rule on the matter.

With the Israeli parliament now expanding the number of towns that can screen who lives in their community, “we are talking about almost half of the towns in the country” that are potentially off limits to Palestinians, Jabareen said.

To date, the law, which previously applied only to the Galilee in northern Israel and the Negev (Naqab) in the south of the country, allowed Jewish communities with up to 400 households to run admissions committees and select who could live in the communities.

The newly passed expansion raises that limit to communities with up to 700 households, and after five years the minister of economy and industry will be able to increase the number of admissions committees to towns with more than 700 households.

It also expands the areas in which the law will be applied beyond the Galilee and the Negev to areas designated as having a national priority regarding housing.

“The area north of Haifa and up to the Galilee, which covers 241 towns or 80 percent of the towns in the north” could now be denied to Palestinians, according to Jabareen.

In the south of the country, in the Negev region, 89 percent of towns could also be considered off-limits to Palestinians.

With a high concentration of Palestinians living in the north and south of the country, it’s hard not to conclude that the law is being carefully targeted to demographically engineer Jewish supremacy.

“We are clearly talking about a country that has decided to be an apartheid state inside the greenline,” Jabareen said, referring to Israel’s pre-1967 borders. “A huge part of this country won’t be allowed for Arab citizens.”

“What’s strange is that this law passed yesterday without any media or public attention [in Israel]. It’s becoming easier to infringe on the rights of Arabs,” Jabareen added.

‘Palestinians have the right to build homes’

Aside from politicians representing the two Arab parties in parliament, only two opposition Labour parliamentarians voted against the legislation, with all others voting in favour.

Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament who voted against the law, told MEE that while Jewish communities continue to receive preferential treatment in housing and land allocation, “a new Arab village has never been established in the Galilee or for that matter any part of Israel”.

“The building planning process in Israel is Zionist and ideological, and thus it alienates and is hostile to the Arab population,” Tibi said.

Over the years Israel has used a number of different instruments to prevent Palestinians from expanding their communities, according to Tibi.

The Kaminitz Law was passed in 2017. It imposed strict penalties on construction work it deemed illegal, but campaigners saw it as penalising the country’s Palestinians, who rarely get permission to expand their homes.

“Arab towns have the right to plan for their future,” Tibi said. “There is a shortage of land for young couples and plots of land are not being made available.”

“Some of the young Arabs go to other towns, mixed cities or Jewish Israeli towns, but this admissions committees law prevents them from entering hundreds of towns and villages with national priority,” he added.

“I am afraid that this ban will be further expanded to mixed cities and there will be Jewish neighbourhoods that ban Arabs.”

Lubna Masarwa is a journalist and Middle East Eye’s Palestine and Israel bureau chief, based in Jerusalem.

Elis Gjevori is a journalist based in Istanbul. He focuses on the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East.

27 July 2023

Source: middleeasteye.net

By Colin Todhunter

The prevailing globalised agrifood model is built on unjust trade policies, the leveraging of sovereign debt, population displacement and land dispossession. It fuels commodity monocropping and food insecurity as well as soil and environmental degradation.  

It is responsible for increasing rates of illness, nutrient-deficient diets, a narrowing of the range of food crops, water shortages, chemical runoffs, increasing levels of farmer indebtedness, the undermining and destruction of local communities and the eradication of biodiversity.

The model relies on a policy paradigm that privileges urbanisation, global markets, long supply chains, external proprietary inputs, highly processed food and market (corporate) dependency at the expense of rural communities, small independent enterprises and smallholder farms, local markets, short supply chains, on-farm resources, diverse agroecological cropping, nutrient dense diets and food sovereignty.

It is clear that there are huge environmental, social and health issues that stem from how much of our food is currently produced and consumed and that a paradigm shift is required.

So, some optimists – or wishful thinkers – might have hoped for genuine solutions to the problems and challenges outlined above during the second edition of the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) that took place last week in Rome.

The UNFSS has claimed that it aims to deliver the latest evidence-based, scientific approaches from around the world, launch a set of fresh commitments through coalitions of action and mobilise new financing and partnerships. These ‘coalitions of action’ revolve around implementing a ‘food transition’ that is more sustainable, efficient and environmentally friendly.

Founded on a partnership between the UN and the World Economic Forum (WEF), the UNFSS is, however, disproportionately influenced by corporate actors, lacks transparency and accountability and diverts energy and financial resources away from the real solutions needed to tackle the multiple hunger, environmental and health crises.

According to a recent article on The Canary website, key multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) appearing at the 2023 summit included the WEF, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, EAT (EAT Forum, EAT Foundation and EAT-Lancet Commission on Sustainable Healthy Food Systems), the World Business Council on Sustainable Development and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

The global corporate agrifood sector, including Coca-Cola, Danone, Kelloggs, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Tyson Foods, Unilever, Bayer and Syngenta, were also out in force along with Dutch Rabobank, the Mastercard Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Through its “strategic partnership” with the UN, the WEF regards MSIs as key to achieving its vision of a ‘great reset’ – in this case, a food transition. The summit comprises a powerful alliance of global corporations, influential foundations and rich countries that are attempting to capture the narrative of ‘food systems transformation’. These interests aim to secure greater corporate concentration and agribusiness leverage over public institutions.

Hannah Sharland, the author of the piece in The Canary, writes:

“… the UN is knowingly giving the very corporations sponsoring the destruction of the planet prime seats at the table. It is precisely these corporations who already shape the state of global food systems.”

She concludes that the solutions to a burgeoning world crisis cannot be found in the corporate capitalist system that manufactured it.

During a press conference on 17 July 2023, representatives from the People’s Autonomous Response to the UNFSS highlighted the urgent, coordinated actions required to address global hunger. The response came in the form of a statement from those representing food justice movements, small-scale food producer organisations and indigenous peoples.

The statement denounced the United Nations’ approach. Saúl Vicente from the International Indian Treaty Council said that the summit’s organisers aimed to sell their corporate and industrial project as ‘transformation’.

The movements and organisations opposing the summit call for a rapid shift away from corporate-driven industrial models towards biodiverse, agroecological, community-led food systems that prioritise the public interest over profit making. This entails guaranteeing the rights of peoples to access and control land and productive resources while promoting agroecological production and peasant seeds.

The response to the summit adds that, despite the increasing recognition that industrial food systems are failing on so many fronts, agribusiness and food corporations continue to try to maintain their control. They are deploying digitalization, artificial intelligence and other information and communication technologies to promote a new wave of farmer dependency or displacement, resource grabbing, wealth extraction and labour exploitation and to re-structure food systems towards a greater concentration of power and ever more globalised value chains.

Shalmali Guttal, from Focus on the Global South, says:

“… people from all over the world have presented concrete, effective strategies… food sovereignty, agroecology, revitalisation of biodiversity, territorial markets and a solidarity-based economy. The evidence is overwhelming – the solutions devised by small-scale food producers and Indigenous Peoples not only feed the world but also advance gender, social, economic justice, youth empowerment, workers’ rights and real resilience to crises.”

Guttal asks “why are policy makers not listening to this and providing adequate support?”

That’s easily answered. The UN has climbed into bed with the WEF and unaccountable corporate agrifood and big data giants, which have no time for democratic governance.

A new report by FIAN International was released in parallel to the statement from the People’s Autonomous Response. The report – Food Systems Transformation – In which direction?  – calls for an urgent overhaul of the global food governance architecture to guarantee decision making that prioritises the public good and the right to food for all.

Sofia Monsalve, secretary general of FIAN International, says:

“The main stumbling block for taking effective action towards more resilient, diversified, localized and agroecological food systems are the economic interests of those who advance and benefit from corporate-driven industrial food systems.”

These interests are promoting multistakeholderism: a process that involves corporations and their front groups and armies of lobbyists co-opting public bodies to act on their behalf in the name of ‘feeding the world’ and ‘sustainability’.

A process that places powerful private interests in the driving seat, steering policy makers to facilitate corporate needs while sidelining the strong concerns and solutions being forwarded by many civil society, small-scale food producers’ and workers’ organisations and indigenous peoples as well as prominent academics.

The very corporations that are responsible for the problems of the prevailing food system. They offer more of the same, this time packaged in a biosynthetic, genetically-engineered, bug-eating, ecomodernist, fake-green wrapping (see the online article From net zero to glyphosate: agritech’s greenwashed corporate power grab’).

While more than 800 million people go to bed hungry under the current food regime, these corporations and their wealthy investors continue to hunger for ever more profit and control. The economic system ensures they are not driven by food justice or any kind of justice. They are compelled to maximise profit, not least, for instance, by assigning an economic market value to all aspects of nature and social practices, whether knowledge, land, data, water, seeds or systems of resource exchange.

By cleverly (and cynically) ensuring that the needs of global markets (that is, the needs of corporate supply chains and their profit-seeking strategies) have become synonymous with the needs of modern agriculture, these corporations have secured a self-serving hegemonic policy paradigm among decision makers that is deeply embedded.

It is for good reason that the People’s Autonomous Response to the UNFSS calls for a mass mobilisation to challenge the power that major corporate interests wield:

“[This power] must be dismantled so that the common good is privileged before corporate interests. It is time to connect our struggles and fight together for a better world based on mutual respect, social justice, equity, solidarity and harmony with our Mother Earth.”

This may seem like a tall order, especially given the financialization of the food and agriculture sector, which has developed in tandem with the neoliberal agenda and the overall financialization of the global economy. It means that extremely powerful firms like BlackRock – which holds shares in a number of the world’s largest food and agribusiness companies – have a lot riding on further entrenching the existing system.

But hope prevails. In 2021, the ETC Group and the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems released the report A Long Food Movement: Transforming Food Systems by 2045. It calls for grassroots organisations, international NGOs, farmers’ and fishers’ groups, cooperatives and unions to collaborate more closely to transform financial flows and food systems from the ground up.

The report’s lead author, Pat Mooney, says that civil society can fight back and develop healthy and equitable agroecological production systems, build short (community-based) supply chains and restructure and democratise governance structures.

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Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.

31 July 2023

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Peter Koenig

Ever since the Biden Administration, alias the Globalists, took power in Washington, China was bombarded with threats and sanctions; foremost with attempts of “chips-strangulation”, meaning, being blocked for the chip production, and by supply chain disruptions of electronics, notably semiconductors.

The entire car industry could be paralyzed. While that would be great for the Global Warming / Climate Change freaks, not only the car industry, but also to a large extent the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) would suffer, as it also depends on such fast-evolving chips. A good thing as well!

The drawback with a production / supply interruption would be a slack in new chip-technology development which is subject to constant scientific research and trials.

You may call it the Chips War – West versus China. It had begun already some three years ago. At some point in 2022 rumors emerged that Mr. Biden was to blackmail Americans working in the Chinese chip-industry by taking their US citizenship away, if they would not quit their jobs immediately.

Of course, this is complete nonsense and would be totally unconstitutional. Not even King Biden could get away with acting on such a menace.

So far nothing happened, other than the US prohibiting Taiwan, the main producer of such valuable chips, to supply them to mainland China, and asking Taipei’s main chip manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) to build with urgency a chip manufacturing facility in Arizona that should become operational in 2024.

TSMC chairman Mark Liu said, however, that the plant faced a shortage of workers with the “specialized expertise required for equipment installation in a semiconductor-grade facility.” Therefore, the TSMC chip plant in Arizona will have to postpone production until 2025, instead of 2024, as expected by the Biden Administration.

So much for Washington’s attempt to outpace Beijing in the global chip race by economically closely collaborating with Taiwan. Not to forget, Taiwan is seen by Beijing as an integral part of mainland China. See this for more details, see this.

What is the semi-conductor industry? For what are semiconductors used?

It is the industry in which companies conceive, design, and manufacture an electronic device, called semiconductors, a fundamental component of modern electronics, such as cell phones, televisions, and computers. As the world is becoming increasingly all-digitized, it will ever-more depend on computers and electronics to enhance the capabilities of devices ranging from doorbells to motor vehicles – and, not to forget the MIC. The semiconductor field is dominated by a handful of countries, though the field is growing and expanding rapidly.

According to the White House, the US currently produces roughly 10% of global semiconductor manufacturing, and China about 15%. However, the picture is much more complex.

Understanding the semiconductor manufacturing and user markets, let’s look at the world’s largest semiconductor producers.

Taiwan’s diplomatic status is part of mainland China. Only 12 countries recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation. That is 6% of the tiniest of UN members. For all practical purposes, despite the US (which does not recognize Taiwan either as an autonomous and sovereign country), Taiwan must be considered as part of Mainland China. Thus, de facto, Taiwan’s production is part of China’s production. More on this later.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) singlehandedly manufactures roughly 50% of the world’s semiconductors. Unlike semiconductor manufacturers such as Samsung or Intel, which produce semiconductors for use in their own products, TSMC manufactures semiconductors for many other companies, including Apple, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), California, and more. This is known as the foundry model of business.

Now – who is winning and who is losing the “chip war”?

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world.

30 July 2023

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Peter Koenig

Background of Italian Recent Politics

In October 2022 Ms. Giorgia Meloni, became Prime Minister of Italy. Her extreme right-wing party, Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia), won the September 2022 elections with 26% of the vote, even though it had polled only 4.3% four years earlier. Ms. Meloni co-founded the party in 2012 and led it since 2014. See this.

Such an increase in voters meant that Italians were sick and tired from the so-called “democratic” neoliberalism coming out of the EU in Brussels, notably out of the non-elected dictatorial European Commission (EC), known to most serious analyst to be but a lackey of Washington’s.

But Italians had also enough of the steady NATO influence of Italian politics. Italy is currently arguably the country in Europe with most US / NATO military bases. Most Italians are strong NATO opponents.

In brief, Italians welcomed the promising “new wind” coming out of the newly elected right-wing party – expecting a departure from the ongoing US / EU – submissive neoliberal Italian politics.

In October 2022, Italian President Mattarella appointed Giorgia Meloni as Italy’s first female Prime Minister, following the resignation of Mario Draghi amidst a government crisis and as a result of the September 2022 general election. Messrs. Mattarella as well as Draghi are affiliated to the “Independent” party. Mr. Draghi is a former president of the European Central Banks, and a close ally of the WEF’s CEO, Klaus Schwab.

Sergio Mattarella OMRI, an academic and lawyer, has served as President of Italy since 2015. The attribute OMRI stands for Order of Merit of the Italian Republic and might be considered the Italian equivalent of knighthood.

Back to Giorgia Meloni

A clue to her priorities came in an animated speech she gave in Spain last June.

“Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology… no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration… no to big international finance… no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!”

In another well-quoted speech from 2019 she said: “I am Giorgia, I’m a woman, I’m a mother… I’m Christian.”

For the role of Italy’s new family and birth rate minister, she has picked Eugenia Roccella who has spoken out against abortion and threatened to reverse recently agreed rights for same-sex parents.

Nevertheless, Ms. Meloni has promised to govern “for everyone”. She had to assure Italy’s allies in both NATO and the EU that there will be no change in direction in foreign policy. This is an important point, as both her coalition partners, Matteo Salvini, heading the League and the late Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right party, Forza Italia, have been strong supporters of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

“Giorgia Meloni comes from a post-fascist cultural background but recently she’s taken a very moderate position and stated she won’t change [predecessor Mario] Draghi’s policy on Ukraine,” Italian political scientist Prof. Roberto D’Alimonte told the BBC. “She did this because she had to build her credentials to be a legitimate candidate for prime minister.”

Recent – Italy-China Relations

On February 17, 2023, President Mattarella met with China’s Mr. Wang Yi, in Rome. Mr. Wang Yi is a member of the Political Bureau of China’s Communist Party (CPC) Central Committee. He is Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, basically acting as Foreign Minister.

It was a most cordial and what looked like a constructive and productive meeting. They were talking about strengthening their relations through BRI (Memorandum of Understanding [MOU) signed in 2019) and jointly promoting multilateralism.

Conveying President Xi Jinping’s warm greetings to President Mattarella, Wang Yi said that China will bring new opportunities for China-Italy cooperation. He noted that China and Italy should resume exchanges at all levels in an all-round manner, and promote mutually beneficial cooperation across the board. Wang Yi stressed China and Italy are natural partners in Belt and Road, a strong impetus for further development of their bilateral relations.

This left a positive signal for strengthening China-Italian BRI relations – Italy being the only EU and G-7 member as part of the BRI.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world.

Recent Events

At the recent NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania (11/12 July 2023), Ms. Meloni confirmed in a press conference from Vilnius, that at the invitation of President Biden she will travel to Washington to meet with the US President on 27 July 2023.

The Italian PM highlighted Rome’s support to the NATO Alliance and to Kyiv’s accession to NATO. She praised NATO’s “important steps forward [towards Ukraine’s] future accession to the Alliance. She stressed this point by mentioning Italy’s leadership in 2024 of the G7. “NATO mustn’t lose focus on its Southern Flank and the Global South.”

Ms. Meloni went even further in supporting the warrior alliance, NATO, saying that “Our freedom has a cost. What we invest in defense comes back tenfold in terms of defending our national interests.”

She further argued for increased cooperation among NATO Allies, a drive that must extend to Indo-Pacific matters and, most notably, China, noting the importance of tackling the “systemic rival” holistically – i.e., considering issues such as supply chain security, especially in the field of critical raw materials, and safeguarding technological advantage.

These considerations come as her government tends to dropping out of China’s BRI, a matter that will certainly come up in her forthcoming Washington visit. For more details see this (12 July 2023).

This is a 180-degree turn-around from Ms. Meloni’s earlier position on NATO and from President Mattarella’s discussion in February 2023 with Mr. Wang Yi from China. It also demonstrates the US / EU pressure the Italian Government is under.

Clearly, Ms. Meloni is not free to follow her campaign promises and even her party’s ideology – of cooperation for multilateralism, a departure from the neoliberal globalist dominance exerted by Washington, EU, the WEF and the entire bought and corrupted UN system throughout the world.

Italian freedom, national sovereignty – has been flushed down the drain, like that of so many other nations – and that against the will of most of the concerned nations’ people.

To Stay or Not to Stay in the BRI

Ms. Meloni’s government under pressure from the US, but also from the EU, is leaning towards exiting the Belt and Road. In a recent article by the Chinese state-owned Global Times, Beijing expresses its concern about Italy’s abandoning the BRI cooperation agreement with China.

The BRI-Agreement is based on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of 2019 which is set to be auto-renewed in March 2024, unless one of the parties resigns from the agreement three months prior to the deadline.

This gives Ms. Meloni enough time to present the case to the Italian Parliament, to transfer this decision and responsibility to the presumably democratic parliamentary body.

When putting this possibility forward, Ms. Meloni also said that one could have “excellent relations with China without being part of a strategic plan” such as the BRI.

To add fuel to the fire, Italy’s Enterprise Minister Adolfo Urso told Radio24 that the Meloni government “is not being pressured by the US, nor China, on the [BRI] Memorandum.” But he added that since the MOU was signed, “our trade with China has worsened considerably, in contrast to what has happened with France or Germany, which have instead implemented [new] business with China. This should give us pause for thought.”

In the meantime, China is seeking alternative means to promote commercial and cooperation opportunities directly with the Italian business community.

For more details, see this (30 June 2023).

Taking BRI to the Italian Parliament

Senator Stefania Craxi, member of the governing coalition party Forza Italia and chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said she would support the full involvement of Parliament on the BRI decision.

She praised PM Meloni’s “institutional” approach, “which recalls the need to involve Parliament on a sensitive issue such as the BRI MOU, whose approval at the time impacted on the dynamics of our country’s strategic alliances”. She remarked that the MOU was not presented to Parliament for approval before signing.

Senator Craxi added that the BRI “clearly doesn’t only have commercial implications” – as some had depicted it when it was signed in 2019. Proof of this is the fact that despite being the only Western European country to have signed it, Italy’s trade with China is less that of other EU nations.” She implied that signing it was a mistake, as it brought only negative consequences.

When PM Meloni recently spoke to Parliament, she reiterated that Italy could have “excellent relations with China, “without being part of a strategic plan”, meaning BRI. But she also said, the decision had not yet been made, that evaluations are under way – and that the final say would be that of the people, “seeking solutions in view of our interests”.

With a significant Parliamentary mandate of her party, Ms. Meloni – leaning towards exiting BRI – would make the decision as one of the Italian people.

For more details, see this (29 June 2023).

In the five months before the deadline to decide on the ceasing or continuing the BRI-MOU, it is time now for the Chinese business community to enter into direct contact with the Italian Business community to either lobby for staying in the BRI, or to establish solid commercial and business relations with Italian entrepreneurs outside of BRI.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world.

25 July 2023

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Dr Ranjan Solomon

When ruling dispensations run out of viable ideas on political playoffs, they almost always resort to the politics of compulsion. By contrast, responsible governments which are committed to social progress use politics as an instrument to advance development, via progressive political agendas.

They recognise that programs of public benefit veer towards enhancing social-economic-cultural-welfare value. Politics where schemes are ideologically self-centred tend to approximate proxy agendas that segregate and carve up social dissection.

These proxy agendas often tend to garner votes using political camouflages. They tend towards populist tendencies, even though they are irrelevant. In the current political season, there are two levels at which political stakes are being played out. There is Manipur which is played out largely in the realm of conflict-crisis politics which has evolved into a colossal catastrophe. On Wednesday, July 19, a video emerged on social media, showing three women of the Kuki community who were stripped naked and paraded in public. They were also being sexually molested by some among the mob of men.

Appallingly, the Government of the day has consumed a concoction of political opium and set aside Manipur almost as if it did not even exist. The Prime Minister showed his back on the people of Manipur, even taking on two international travels that should have awaited a resolution in the state. In this process, the government in the State and the centre has tacitly consented to the victimisation of people. The turmoil persists until today. The consequences are glaringly perilous, yet the government in its dwarfed vision will not act.

The government has now come up with a previously constructed agenda to prepare for upcoming futures that will not merely confiscate Manipur from ongoing memory, but also create political hassles that are a blotch in the country within and overseas. The European Parliament even passed a strongly worded resolution on the Manipur crisis. It will probably fall on deaf ears unless the EU, as a whole, resorts to a boycott-divestment-sanctions strategy that could threaten Indian economic interests. This, of course, is a highly unlikely scenario.

The Uniform Civil Code (UCC) is the new political opiate introduced by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP to attract huge debate in wide sections of the polity. Given its timing and time table, the attempt to push through the UCC prior to the 2024 General Elections seems the ideal ploy to divert attention from the multiple failures of the government and its bit-by-bit diminishing fortunes. The BJP has marked it as an agenda to bring closure to a long-pending national question. Long imminent as it may have been, the government has never quite known where it should take the UCC.

To the BJP, the UCC is a non-starter. It is not proactively engaged in any kind of pro-active attempt to bring commonality to the country’s civil code. In fact, there is no ready-made reconciliatory-oriented instrument that will bond the various religio-cultural entities within the country. Non-Indic faiths already find the UCC threatening and suspect they are at the receiving end of what seems to be a political conspiracy to snatch their distinct identities and relegate them to subservient categories by enforcing traditions and customs that have survived the centuries without posing risks to national integrity.

These same arguments would apply to the millions upon millions of indigenous people in various parts of the country for whom customary laws will be snatched away under the guise of the UCC. Nor will it produce the gender justice that it pledges to pave the way for, the latter being a core question when it comes to evolving the UCC. True, the country cannot remain static on matters as crucial as an integrated civil code. That is not to say that a civil code has to be uniform. Integration can straddle multiplicity of intents that have non-competing facets. Uniformity is based on the intent to create and assert conformity to majoritarianism. Critics of UCC have already disregarded a ‘one-size-fits-all’ formula.

They are asking why the UCC cannot have a pluralistic approach to a Civil Code. There are widespread anxieties over what the Uniform Civil Code will do to disrupt and destroy India’s pluralism. Is the proposed UCC feasible for the nation’s integrity and concord? Will it set some communities aside and plunge them in the margins? Will the ruling party and its alliance partners segregate the nation while a common code is developed minus consensus?

The risks are huge in a country where differentiation and dissections are already being thrust upon people by political compulsions in other arenas. In fact, there are strongly expressed qualms that UCC as it is likely to be developed might actually be in contravention of the idea of India itself. This is not guess work. Political patterns we have witnessed have illustrated just how dominant ideas of one section of the polity can suppress many others based on a brute majority. For now, the Government seems to be certain of just one fact – that it wants a UCC to come into force. The contents of that are unclear.

The Opposition has asked for clarity, sometimes asking for even a single idea that the UCC will pursue. Either, the government has a plan in mind and would rather not divulge it. Or, it is clueless in so far as details are concerned. Will an inadequate UCC get approved with the brute majority that the ruling party has access to in the Parliament, meet the same fate of the CAA? The CAA remains a law that has no rules framed four years after its passing. Or, for that matter, the failed political goals of the removal of Article 370 and Article 36 in Jammu and Kashmir? Unless, the UCC is built around a political pact punctuated by consensus, it could easily be socially destructive, and be one more nail in the coffin of Indian democracy.

As important as political consensus is a democratic obligation, civil society must also be permitted to play its role and enable the shaping of the political formula that should emerge. As far back as 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru hastened the progression of reforming religious laws through a common code. That was confined just to the Hindu community, with the single view of modernising Hindu society and creating national unity. Soon enough, the code embraced Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs. It could be argued that Nehru’s strategy left the non-Indic religions out in the cold. In the zeal that characterised Independence, there were several actions that could have piggy-backed on the momentum that Independence itself brought to the fore.

Gripped by a positive sense of nationalism, the force of dialogue and nation-building and national integration may just have allowed for evolving a dialogue-based common set of working principles through which a UCC could have been set in motion. This government could well adopt the lessons of history and act, delayed as it may be, to come to a common understanding of what the essence and extent of a common civil code could resemble. Where do we begin?

Can we rule in options for dialogue and rule out those that are irresolvable? The Indian Constitution, which came into effect in 1950, was unequivocal. The State shall not legislate nor could courts enforce the UCC. The Constitution insisted on a dialogical approach that obliged the government to “endeavour to secure for all citizens a Uniform Civil Code.” These included laws that apply to everyone in India, replacing religion-based personal laws governing matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption and succession. But the Constitution clarified that UCC was non-enforceable through courts.

In the 1950s, the Nehru government overcame opposition and arrived at agreement on several laws to codify and reform Hindu personal laws, a process which was started during the British rule of India. These included the Hindu Marriage Act, Hindu Succession Act, Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, and Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act. Within the purview of all these, the UCC could still mystify settled questions such as the Hindu undivided family (HUF). Prime Minister Narendra Modi has argued for the implementation of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in India, stating that India cannot function efficiently with a system of “separate laws for separate communities”.

At this juncture in our history, this could be described as a simplistic dismissal of the pluralistic character of the nation which, in itself, is a composite nation within nations. It is the fusion of the many cultures that make India a unique country sanctified by multiple traditions/mores, religions, language, and ethnicities. Several key questions of justice underline the relevance of the UCC. For the UCC to be unifying there must be a plurality of approaches in addressing the challenges. There cannot be a hierarchy in terms of what comes first. One step at a time is the way to go but a comprehensive vision is needed to allow for a fusion of these steps.

If the UCC is to serve as a fundamental step in the direction of gender justice and social equality in India, its formulation must assure all citizens equal rights and opportunities under the law setting aside specific religion or cultural affiliations. Intricate concerns and interests of all rights holders including religious communities, women, and other marginalised groups must be factored in. This government which is habituated to pushing through legislations in unilateral ways must recognize the far-reaching nature of the UCC and adopt highest parliamentary standards.

Civil society claims and contentions that assume primacy in the formulation of the UCC must be factored in. In the final analysis laws are about people and a government that rides roughshod over people’s interests and aspirations will easily get the laws wrong. This has been proven on more occasions than one. When it comes to Personal Laws in India, in the contemporary context, not only Muslims but also Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, Parsis, and Jews are governed by their own personal laws. Personal laws have, in their roots, the thought of religious identity.

In fact, even the reformed Hindu Personal Law still integrates specific customary practices. Issues and discrepancies emerge when Hindus and Muslims marry under the Special Marriage Act, where Hindus continue to be governed by Hindu Personal Law, but Muslims are not. Yet, there is a narrow focus on recasting the Muslim Personal Law and its provisions on marriage and what it sanctions? A National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2019 puts the occurrence of polygamy among Hindus at 1.3 per cent against 1.9 per cent among Muslims. The previous Union law minister Kiren Rijiju had vowed that the government would place the issue of UCC before the 22nd Law Commission of India.

This contradicts what the 21st Law Commission had stated namely that such a code was neither necessary nor desirable at this stage” in the country. The question arises, why is there a tearing hurry to fast-track the UCC? Faizur Rahman, secretary general, Islamic Forum for the Promotion of Moderate Thought, recently said, “in so far as marriages are concerned, the Special Marriage Act which allows interfaith couples to marry is the UCC as envisioned by the Constitution framers.” In many ways, it is a rejection of personal laws governing marriage.

To repeat the claim I have made at the start of this article, there is no blueprint for a UCC with the government. Until there is a blueprint and a political process set in place, the Opposition and social movements/civil society should sternly oppose the move. The BJP has left the UCC as a private members bill ostensibly to avoid a backlash should things go awry preceding a general election. If ever the BJP were to introduce the bill, they would assess the momentum and then take a call. Opponents of the BJP’s UCC moves can take some solace at seeing the diffidence here. In fact, even BJP allies including the Shiromani Akali Dal, AIADMK, Mizo National Front have put brakes on the BJP’s subtle attempt to squeeze it in.

The opposition from several BJP allies is fierce and unshakable and rooted in the claim of religious rights and identities of minorities – religious and ethnic. They are sworn not to allow an erasure of customary laws across faiths and tribes. Tribal communities are equally peeved by the attempted back-door stab of the UCC by the BJP. Tribals know better that the UCC will nibble into their customary rights and traditions. The people of North Eastern States have written to the Law Commission that they reject any attempt to dilute the provisions of Article 371 A of the Constitution. From Meghalaya came a warning from a BJP leader warning the Government from interfering with the matrilineal societies of the state.

When it comes to marriage in India, personal laws single out queer people in general and, more so, heterosexual women. The UCC under the BJP is hardly likely to conciliate either of these two groups of people, even though the BJP pretends it stands for advancing women’s social and political rights in India. The BJP has shown notoriously political duplicity on issues such as Triple Talaq and marital rape. The BJP has vociferously supported repealing Triple Talaq citing “gender justice and equality” for not just Muslim women, but in fact for all “humanity”.

However, the same government took a dubiously opposite platform when it opposed pleas seeking to criminalise marital rape in India. The BJP argued that marital rape could not be treated as a criminal offence in India on the insubstantial grounds that “it could become a phenomenon which may destabilise the institution of marriage and an easy tool for harassing the husbands”. The BJP also chose rather obscure arguments to oppose the legalisation of same-sex marriage in India. The question arises: If the Uniform Civil Code is introduced, how would uniformity get manifested for people of different religions, castes, genders, and sexualities?

The fear is that a Hindutva version of the UCC may be worse for women, notably for heterosexual women, and the queer community, especially sexual minorities. A BJP adaptation of fail-safe equal gender and sexual rights to all Indians seems quite remote when it comes to justice. The legalisation of same-sex marriages in India would be equally, or even more, complicated. The Prime Minister has adopted a populist, simplistic tactic. He reportedly asked a public gathering if a unitary family could afford to have different regulations and codes of conduct within the family.

The orchestrated chorus had been tuned to affirm a vociferous NO. Those who live in families know too well that no two children actually resemble each other in traits unless under acute disciplinary circumstances. The plank that the BJP is building may not survive, if only civil society sets the agenda, and other political parties unite to oppose the UCC. To win the vote in Parliament and to lose it on the street would be futile socially and politically.

The anti-CAA protests, the Farmers Movement, and a string of micro struggles all around the country should convey to the government the risks of overt anti-people laws. Resistance is mounting. The Opposition is readying itself to give the BJP a tough fight and the BJP can either dismiss their mobilisation or shift to democratic ways. The suspicion is that the BJP will use the UCC as a worn-out colonial era polarising tactic, set as a potential time bomb for the 2024 election. After having used up almost all its communal weapons, the BJP cannot call back issues of beef, hijab, and Ram Temple. They are not marketable and their shelf life has expired. Responsible citizens and the Opposition must offer insistent alternatives. Perhaps, this is a testing moment and the people must prevail in the interests of justice.

Ranjan Solomon is a political commentator, writer, and human rights activist.

25 July 2023

Source: countercurrents.org