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By Imtiaz Muqbil

WASHINGTON, D.C., 6/20/2016 – Jewish casino baron Sheldon Adelson’s Family Foundation has been identified as one of 33 groups, institutions and individuals which provided or “enjoyed access to” at least US$205 million to “spread fear and hatred of Muslims” in the United States between 2008-13.

A report published by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Center for Race and Gender at University of California (UC) at Berkeley, discloses that the Adelson Family Foundation, founded in 2007 to “strengthen the State of Israel and the Jewish people,” awarded $1,225,000 to U.S. Islamophobia Network groups between 2011-2013. This includes $375,000 to the Endowment for Middle East Truth, $750,000 to the Middle East Media and Research Institute and $100,000 to Charles Jacobs’ Massachusetts-based Americans for Peace and Tolerance.

The report, titled “Confronting Fear,” names Fox News commentators, so-called think-tanks, websites, research centres and many other groups funding a network which is spreading lies and conspiracy theories and “has effectively supported undermining the Bill of Rights for all Americans to achieve the goal of vilifying Muslims.”

More information about Mr. Adelson’s extensive casino interests in Las Vegas, Macao and Singapore can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Adelson

Another group identified is the Joyce and Donald Rumsfeld Foundation, named after the former U.S. Secretary of Defense.

The report will open up a clear window of opportunity for watchdog groups and universities worldwide to seek reverse accountability and start tracing the supporters and financiers of Islamophobic institutions, media and individuals in Asia, Europe and Africa.

In an introductory message to the report, Mr. Nihad Awad, Executive Director of CAIR, says, “Islamophobia has unfortunately moved from the fringes of American society to the mainstream.

“Viable contenders for the office of the presidency have suggested unconstitutional policies such as banning all Muslims from the United States or suggesting that a Muslims could not be president of the United States. Elected officials in 10 states have enacted legislation designed to vilify or otherwise target Islam.

“In at least two states, the way school text books are selected was changed because some activists wrongly believe that introductory religious courses that teach children Islam’s five pillars are “indoctrination” and “proselytization.” Islamophobic groups have enjoyed access to at least $205 million to spread fear and hatred of Muslims.”

Mr. Awad noted that in just November-December 2015 alone, 34 incidents were reported of mosques being targeted by vandals or those who want to intimidate worshippers. “This is more incidents than we usually record in an entire year,” he said.

He adds, “This report makes a case that those who value constitutional ideals like equal protection, freedom of worship, or an absence of religious tests for those seeking public office no longer have the luxury of just opposing the U.S. Islamophobia network’s biased messaging.

“The strategy outlined in this report is an evolution from the opposition-centric strategy CAIR’s Department to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia has pursued since we published Legislating Fear in 2012.

“The proposed strategy focuses instead on changing the environment. Islamophobia and groups that promote bias will likely always exist, but the current environment that grants anti-Islam prejudice social acceptability must change so that such bias is in the same social dustbin as white supremacism and anti-Semitism.”

In her message, Prof. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Director, U.C. Berkeley Center for Race and Gender notes that the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project (IRDP) was set up in 2008 to work with scholars and community organizations in “building strong partnerships and leading new projects focused on the study of Islamophobia.”

She adds, “Since 2008, IRDP has organized annual conferences at UC Berkeley, convening scholars from around the world who are leading cutting edge research on how Islamophobia is produced, structured, and deployed, and how it influences policies and political discourse. Researchers have also detailed the ongoing impact of Islamophobia on Muslim communities in the Bay Area, the U.S., and globally.

These annual conferences have had an important impact on the global community of scholars studying Islamophobia, and researchers and universities around the globe have reached out to IRDP to collaborate and learn from its model. These connections have led to rich partnerships and opportunities for the IRDP to co-host symposia and conferences in Europe, North Africa, Canada, and the Middle East.”

Prof Glenn cites the 2012 launch of the Islamophobia Studies Journal, the first peer-review academic journal in the U.S. with a primary interdisciplinary focus on Islamophobia. The journal has become a central resource for scholars to widely share and review innovative thinking in Islamophobia Studies. Additionally, IRDP continues to support students to build online communities that analyze current events and their intersections with issues related to Islamophobia.”

The latest “Confronting Fear” report documents the negative impact of Islamophobia in America, including:

* Anti-Islam bills became law in 10 states.

* At least two states, Florida and Tennessee, have passed laws revising the way they approve textbooks for classroom use as a direct result of anti-Islam campaigns.

* In 2015, there were 78 recorded incidents in which mosques were targeted. In both November and December of 2015, there were 17 mosque incidents reported during each of these months, numbers almost equivalent to an entire year’s worth of reports from the previous two years.

* Two recent phenomenon – “Muslim-free” businesses and armed anti-Islam demonstrations – raise deep concerns.

“The 2016 presidential election has mainstreamed Islamophobia and resulted in a number of un-constitutional proposals targeting Muslims,” Corey Saylor, director of CAIR’s Department to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia is quoted as saying in a CAIR media release. “‘Confronting Fear’ offers a plan for moving anti-Muslim bias back to the fringes of society where it belongs.”

“The work of the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at UC Berkeley is enriched and inspired by the partnership and the hard work undertaken jointly with CAIR to produce another annual report that exposes the bigotry-producing industry in America while providing opportunities and strategies on how best to reclaim an open, democratic and religiously-inclusive society,” Dr. Hatem Bazian, director of the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the Center for Race and Gender at UC Berkeley, is quoted as saying.

Dr Bazian added: “The hope is that this report and others like it will provide the needed grounding for communities across the country to use for effective engagement with policy makers, educators, civil society leaders, and media outlets. Education and applied research is the best avenue to uplift and bring about a social justice transformation in society and this report is a step in that direction.”

The report presents a four-point strategy designed to achieve a shared American understanding of Islam in which being Muslim carries a positive connotation, and in which Islam has an equal place among the many faiths that together constitute America’s pluralistic society.

CAIR is America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

The Center for Race and Gender (CRG) is an interdisciplinary research center at the University of California, Berkeley that fosters explorations of race and gender, and their intersections. CRG cultivates critical and engaged research and exchange among faculty and students throughout the university, between the university and nearby communities of color, and among scholars in the Bay Area, in the U.S., and around the globe.

By Catherine Shakdam

As the Syrian Arab Army is brokering new grounds against what mainstream media still calls “the opposition”, France has hardened its tone, keen to militarily enter the fray to salvage, or rather, claim its stake over Syria.
Earlier this June, media reports broke news that Paris invested its Special Forces in northern Syria to assist the Kurds in their efforts against ISIL – all part, Paris said, of a broader counter-terrorism operation in the region.

In an address made to the Public Senat TV, France Defense Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian confirmed that Paris was “providing support through weapons supplies, air presence and advice.”

Minister Le Drian’s comment was further echoed by an another state official, when told AFP: ”France has deployed its special forces on the ground in northern Syria to advise rebels and help them fight Islamic State.”

If Western capitals have often been keen to cloud their intervention, to better manage, and orchestrate whatever political fallouts their actions might entail, France has been rather upfront, and I would say unapologetic about its decision to break steal in Syria.

But what is France exactly doing in Syria? And more importantly why now?

The answer to that question may partly lie with the title of a new report published by the Voice of America. The title reads: “France Deploys Special Forces in Syria as IS Loses Ground.”

An interesting choice of words indeed … But there’s more. “The confirmation of French ground assistance to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the SDF, came as Syrian government warplanes intensified airstrikes on rebel-held districts of Aleppo. Airstrikes Wednesday killed at least 20 people and damaged three hospitals in the rebel parts of the city, according to local political activists and rescue workers known as the White Helmets.”

While many might read here confirmation that the West serves Syria’s democratic dreams against the dictatorial pride of President Bashar al-Assad – the leader that the political corporate media have taught all good thinking westerners to abhor – I read a political confession.

I see in France’s intervention an admission of guilt, a desire to remain politically relevant in the Levant, and a desire to assert control come what may.

Yes, I did get all that from VOA! Let me just say that Jamie Dettmer most certainly did not intend for so much information to transpire.

Allow me to walk you back to early 2011, when Syria was witnessing the first stages of an aggressive political takeover. Then, we were told that Syria was in the grip of a popular stand-off pitting President al-Assad regime against pro-democracy activists.

As violence gave way to unimaginable bloodshed and butchery (butchery that was criminally pinned on Damascus to better justify Western interventionism), ISIL surfaced, blurring the line between the now infamous opposition and terrorism.

Today, it is difficult to differentiate between the two. In truth, one may argue that both entities are the by-products of the same will: control, only expressed differently.

Now that months have turned into years, Syria has become a grand battlefield for all political and ideological deformities. One constant has remained throughout: President Bashar al-Assad has to go.

Syria’s war needs to be looked at from this perspective, and this perspective alone since President al-Assad’s deposition remains Western powers’ endgame. France’s new play here feeds directly into this political narrative, but from a different angle.

What angle?
Look at it this way. Herein so far Syria has been made to suffer one engineered revolution, terrorism, and military interventionism all in the name of regime change.

Still, Damascus has endured. In fact, Damascus did more than just endure; it has begun to fight back, and reclaim its land and its sovereignty. So much so that Terror found itself cornered. So much so that Western powers had to reassess their strategy, and imagine a new “opening” to manifest those goals they are so bent on bringing about.

What agenda?
This one is easy: Control.

Syria has always been about control. Control over Syria’s political narrative, control over Syria’s natural resources, and control over Syria’s geopolitical potential.

France you may recall is one of Syria’s long term political investor. Once upon a colonial time France played cartographer on the carcass of the Ottoman Empire so that “les colonies” would feed, and reflect its political ambitions in the Levant.

Today, decades after the Sikes-Picot agreement, France wants to ensure that its legacy will endure the test of time.

Now, for Western powers to assert control over Syria, chaos, or at the very least internal divisions would have to be risen. Since ISIL did fail at mainstreaming sectarianism – not for a lack of trying, it needs to be said – one card was left to be played: ethnic tensions, or rather, ethnic dissent.

France, you will note, planted its flag in northern Syria, in Kurdish territory. Would it be that far-fetched to imagine that Paris’ sudden interest in counter-terrorism has everything to do with building a French-Kurdish alliance to better undermine Damascus authority?

Yet President al-Assad has done a great job at defeating terror. Backed by Russia, Iran, and the Lebanese Hezbollah, the SAA has literally exploded ISIL’s network, sending thousands of its militants scurrying to the hills.

Why did the French feel compelled to intervene now – when they are not wanted – if not to serve their self-interests? Why indeed?

Semyon Bagdasarov, Director of the Moscow-based Center for Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, said in an interview with Svobodnaya Pressa he believes France’s move in Syria will herald in a balkanization attempt.

Since the West could not oust President Bashar al-Assad, it will now work to dismantle its sovereignty, playing ethnic empowerment to better control the political fate of the region.

In 2015, Samuel Ramani wrote for the Washington Post: “France’s hawkish attitude towards Assad and the large scale of its intervention in Syria can be explained by three factors. First, France is using its interventionist foreign policy in Syria and the Middle East more broadly, to reinforce its self-perception as a great power. Second, France is fulfilling its historic role of presenting an alternative foreign policy to that offered by the United States. Third, France regards its steadfast opposition to Assad as an opportunity to enhance security cooperation with anti-Assad Sunni countries in the Middle East, which also share France’s deep distrust of Iran.”

Enough said …

Catherine Shakdam is a political analyst, writer and commentator for the Middle East with a special focus on radical movements and Yemen. A regular pundit on RT and other networks her work has appeared in major publications: MintPress, the Foreign Policy Journal, Mehr News and many others.Director of Programs at the Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies, Catherine is also the co-founder of Veritas Consulting. She is the author of Arabia’s Rising – Under The Banner Of The First Imam

19 June 2016

By Seyed Hossein Mousavian

To avoid that outcome, and allow full implementation of the nuclear deal, European and other non-American banks want concrete legal assurances from the United States government that they would not be punished if they entered Iran.

We firmly believe that President Obama has the power to provide such assurance, and that he should use it now.

To be specific, he should officially instruct his attorney general, and all subordinate American enforcement agencies, to refrain from prosecuting non-United States banks that wish to work with Iran. In other words, he should call a moratorium on American prosecution of foreign firms, sending the clear message that prosecution would not be the norm, but an improbable exception.

Such action would not be far-fetched. In fact, we believe that a strong case can be made that it would have precedents in the foreign-policy and constitutional history of the United States. For example, in 1831, Andrew Jackson’s attorney general, Roger B. Taney, issued a legal opinion in a case known as “Jewels of the Princess of Orange,” stating that the president, in his constitutional roles overseeing the execution of laws and conducting foreign affairs, also had the power to decide not to prosecute.

Since then, there have been other instances of presidential uses of executive power over law enforcement that have gradually consolidated the principle that the president, not courts or prosecutors, makes foreign policy. In 1981, for example, the Supreme Court in Dames & Moore v. Regan supported Ronald Reagan’s power to redirect a private claim against Iran to an independent claims tribunal in the Netherlands.

In sum, if the president finds that Washington politics make it impossible for him to work with Republicans to adapt domestic laws to the United States’ foreign-policy needs (and, at this point, to American obligations under international law), we believe that he can, and should, at least use his authority over law enforcement and foreign policy to protect the achievements of the nuclear deal.

The Iranian leadership, and with it the Iranian public, strongly believe that the American president has enough power and authority to solve the banking problem, and expect Mr. Obama to act accordingly. We believe that European countries share this expectation.

But time is running out, and nobody can be sure of the outcome of the coming presidential election. So Mr. Obama must act as quickly as possible. Prompt and specific reassurances from the administration that foreign banks would not be punished for conducting legitimate business with Iran would give financial institutions enough time to shape and sufficiently develop their business ties with Iran. That, in turn, would make it difficult for any new administration to reverse Mr. Obama’s policy of constructive engagement.

In other words, we believe that the remaining days of the Obama administration should be devoted to consolidating and stabilizing the post-agreement international order, and the numerous economic, political and security benefits it could bring everyone.

In the same vein, it is also said in Tehran that a few serious and sizable American investments in Iran — in fields allowable under current American laws — would send a very positive message to America’s allies, and allay the fear of other Western actors who might still be reluctant to enter the Iranian sphere.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a scholar at Princeton, is a former head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s National Security Council, and the author of “Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace.” Reza Nasri is an international law expert at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva who specializes in charter law, comparative law and legal aspects of Iran’s nuclear dosssier.

20 June 2016

By Jim Miles

I wasn’t at first going to listen to Rosemary Barton’s interview (CBC) with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg considering I would probably not learn anything new. But I did and I didn’t – I did listen and I didn’t learn anything new, the interview only reinforced previously held ideas.

In general that falls into two parts. First it reminded me how much Rosemary Barton follows the mainstream media (MSM) message concerning Canada’s foreign policy in spite of the self-advertising as a hard hitting show host. Whether she is wilfully ignorant or just ignorant is hard to tell, but she continues to reiterate the MSM talking points about “Russian aggression” and accepts without question the comments made by Stoltenberg. The latter clearly demonstrates the acceptance of the MSM message as in certain other panel discussions she presents her tough talking side, which after all is what makes news entertaining.

As for Stoltenberg, he is simply the latest European stooge to operate under U.S. command within the overall NATO structure. His statements about Russia rebuilding its military, about the ’illegal’ annexation of Crimea, about not wanting a new cold war, and saying “we want to prevent conflict that is what we are doing” is all candy floss for the MSM to easily digest without having to chew on some harder contemporary/historical facts.

First, allow me to deconstruct the above positions.

Yes, Russia has rebuilt its military, very successfully if their operations in Syria are an example. But this was done with NATO being the aggressor pact, moving its boundaries right up to the Russian border in certain areas, and certainly much closer by several hundreds of kilometres in spite of Clinton’s (Bill) lie that NATO would not move into Eastern Europe after the reunification of Germany. NATO (and this includes Canada and the U.S.) demonstrated their capabilities for violent and destructive use of force in Libya as the prime example, but also aided the U.S. in Afghanistan, and more recently in the rather lame attacks on ISIS in Iraq/Syria. Lame in comparison to the major successes that the small Russian forces had after they entered the fight against ISIS.

As a further sign of aggression, the U.S. has moved nuclear capable missile sites into Poland and Romania. These are described as defensive, but considering the west’s history of military attacks against Russia (from Napoleon through the Bolshevik revolution to Hitler) the Russian perspective can hardly see these as defensive, especially against Iran, the latter being a non-nuclear capable country. Oh sorry Rosie, your MSM talking points probably tell you differently.

Saying “we want to prevent conflict that is what we are doing” is the same as Andrew Bacevich (“The United States War for the Greater Middle East.” Bacevich, Random House, 2016) saying the U.S. position is to have the biggest military and threaten anyone who doesn’t agree with them in order to have peace – in other words, we’ll threaten to bludgeon you and kill you if you do not agree to our imperial hegemony. And it’s not as if the U.S. has stopped developing and rebuilding nuclear and other forces – oh by the way did I mention the F-35 – that billion dollar boondoggle that Canada insists on buying into?

Russia annexed Crimea much to the consternation of the U.S. who were hoping to grab the Sevastopol military base and establish their NATO presence there as another piece of the puzzle in which to encircle and deconstruct Russia as an independent sovereign state. Read your history folks – this territory has centuries long association as a part of Russia. And what about the UN’s right of self-determination? The Crimeans voted clearly to ask to be annexed by Russia which the Duma accepted. This election was decidedly and clearly more democratic than anything the U.S. tried in Afghanistan or Iraq with the ‘chosen’ parachuted picks for leaders (Chalabi, Karzai). With the war in Syria ongoing, notice how quiet the MSM is about Israel and its illegal annexation of the Golan Heights.

Talking of parachuted leaders, oligarch Poroshenko is the NSA/CIA/state departments ‘man’ of the hour in Ukraine. The U.S. spent billions attempting to disrupt Ukraine enough that they could run in and grab all the goodies while making it yet another forward outpost for NATO on the Russian border. Just ask Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, a possible next secretary of state under the probably soon to be warhawk Clinton government. The murders in the Maidan and the Odessa murders can be attributed to the neonazi Bandera militias supported by U.S. actions. These same groups wanted to ethnically cleanse Donbass of its Russian population resulting in the creation of counter militias in the region to fight them off – thus the war in Eastern Ukraine, definitely not caused by Russian aggression, although undoubtedly supported by Russia.

This of course is but another part and parcel of the drive for U.S. hegemony over the world for “supreme spectrum dominance” that Russia and China are not allowing. Russia needs to be concerned and rightfully is concerned about the western nations conceit of arms that they will rule the world, that their Wall Street corporate dominated government (can you say oligarchs – same thing in western clothing) will control all people, all governments, and all resources.

Which of course leads to the lie about not wanting a “new cold war.” Too late, we are already in a hot war by proxy (Ukraine, Syria) and the sanctions and aggressive military moves towards Russia have already created a political ‘cold war.’ It’s just another talking point to try and say, “really, it’s not our fault, we didn’t want it.” If there ever is a real hot war, then kiss your ass goodbye – the U.S. has a first use nuclear policy thanks to Paul Wolfowitz among others in the neocon PNAC group – and Russia has developed – apparently – full spectrum defensive measures that ensure the U.S. will be destroyed as well.

Scary stuff, but it is the U.S. and its drive towards controlling Europe through the creation of NATO and the EU (encompassing military, financial, and political control through selected non-elected elites), of dominating Eurasia for its resources, and above all, controlling the financial markets for the fiat petrodollar supremacy based on Saudi oil sales using the US$.

Off on a bit of a tangent? Maybe for those of you not capable of global thinking, but that is the bottom line in all this – U.S./western oligarchs attempting – obviously – global control. Certainly not the MSM message, certainly not Rosemary Barton’s message, certainly not Jens Stoltenberg’s message, and unfortunately certainly not the Canadian government’s message as it follows along with U.S. foreign policy in all its aspects. So much for sovereignty.

Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle. Miles’ work is also presented globally through other alternative websites and news publications.

20 June, 2016
Countercurrents.org

By Dr. Ludwig Watzal

Those who still believe in the official story of 9/11, are more naive than children, who still believe in Sancta Claus and the Easter Bunny. After having penetrated deeply into the matter, as I have edited the forthcoming book by 9/11 expert Elias Davidsson on this topic, which is going to be published in Germany, I can only appeal to the common sense of every citizen not to believe in the lies about the official narrative. The official legend on 9/11 is not only full of contradictions but also full of inconsistencies. The best example of this obfuscation is the 9/11 Commission Report, whose script was made in advance by Philip Zelikow and the Bush/Cheney gang. This report is the best prove for a cover-up for “higher” aims such as an endless “war on terrorism” and the expansion of the U. S. imperialism. This report makes no mention of the destruction of WTC No 7.

The 9/11 story is the biggest scam that has ever been dished out to the world , and the worst accomplices in this plot are the corporate media whose leading representatives have no qualms about destroying any skeptic socially or ridicule him as a weirdo or conspiracy theorists. According to them, many thousands of members of the different truth movements are simple “nuts”, although most of them are highly qualified experts, professionals and scientists who are not willing to accept the crap written in the 9/11 Commission Report.

After 24 hours, the 9/11 narrative was already set in stone, although no single evidence had been presented about the involvement of the legendary Osama bin Laden that he has been behind this extremely sophisticated executed attack. So mysterious his plannings of the 9/11 attacks were, so mysterious were the circumstances of his death and his alleged burial at sea. The total pulverization of the Twin Towers can be considered the eighth World Wonder. Everything and everybody turned into dust, except one passport of one of the alleged hijackers, which was found aside the few remains of two 110 story high-rises!

It’s very honorable that the four “Jersey Widows” are pushing the Obama administration to release the 28 secret pages of the 9/11 Commission Report in order to find out who else was involved in masterminding this vile crime against the American people besides presumably the Bush /Cheney administration. If Hillary Clinton becomes the next U. S. President, the cover-up and the distortion of truth will continue. She is the voice of the military-industrial-financial-intelligence-congressional-media complex that is the main beneficiary of this criminal engineering.

Global Research has published a reader on the 9/11 Terror Attacks.

Dr. Ludwig Watzal works as a journalist and editor in Bonn , Germany . He runs the bilingual blog between the lines. http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/
20 June, 2016
Countercurrents.org

By Nesrine Kamal

It is a storyline of an episode of a satirical Saudi TV series which has sparked wide debate on social media.

The plot: two babies switched at birth by mistake in a Saudi hospital and raised by two radical families – one Sunni, the other Shia.

Years later, the hospital discovers the error and each son, now a young man, goes to live with his real family.

When the fathers discover their sons were raised by a family from an “opposing” sect, they desperately attempt to change their offsprings’ religious perceptions, trying to convince them that they have not been following the “right doctrine”.

The series, Selfie, stars popular but controversial satirist Nasser al-Qasabi.

On Twitter, the comedian asked his audience to “fasten seatbelts” before the episode was shown. Afterwards it was praised by both Sunni and Shia viewers.

Although the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam share fundamental beliefs, they differ in religious practices, rituals and organisation. The intensity of the divide differs from one Islamic country to another.

The majority of Muslims in the world are Sunnis. Shia, who make up roughly 10% of the Muslim population, are a majority in Iraq, Iran and Bahrain.

They also constitute large sections of the population in Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, while they are a minority in Egypt and Jordan.

‘Sushi’ children

Sunni-Shia marriages illustrate the sensitivity of the sectarian divide in some countries.

While such unions are common in countries with large Shia populations like Iraq and Lebanon, they are rare in Egypt and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia.

The subject of “Sushi” children – a reference to the offspring of Sunni-Shia marriages – remains a sensitive topic for many.

Arij Umran (not her real name) spoke to the BBC about her experience as a young Saudi woman who was born to a Sunni father and a Shia mother.

“My parents met and got married in Iraq 40 years ago. Sunni-Shia marriages were not such a big deal back then. However, when they returned to Saudi Arabia, they started facing some difficulties.”

Arij says that as a child, she had to keep her mother’s doctrine a secret because many friends “stopped talking to her” when they found out her mother was a Shia.

She says her parents were open-minded and supportive of her choices. When she asked which doctrine she should follow, they said: “It is your duty to find out. You need to read, learn and tell us what you have decided”.

BBC Monitoring journalist Mina al-Lami, who was born in Iraq into a Sunni-Shia inter-marriage, says that having a parent from each sect was and continues to be common in Iraq, especially in mixed areas like the capital Baghdad.

“Growing up there, I didn’t even know there were two different sects until my early 20s,” Mina says. While Sunni-Shia marriages have dropped in Iraq after 2003 given sectarian tensions, they are still not unusual, she adds.

The issue was also tackled by the British-Iraqi filmmaker Hoda El Soudani in her documentary “Why Can’t I be a Sushi?”.

The filmmaker told the BBC: “My main intention was to objectively address as many key issues as possible that one sect may have towards the other sect, and then break down the misconceptions so that some kind of bridge could be built once they realise they have so much in common”.

She says she was motivated to address this sensitive subject after “seeing what is happening elsewhere: in Saudi Arabia, in Yemen, Iran, Iraq…”.

“The point is not to ask why there are differences of opinion, but rather why these differences have led to violence and animosity. To me, the conflict seems to be more political than religious, although it may be hiding behind the religious language.”

“People may say the film is painting a romanticised picture of Sunnis and Shia uniting, but I would say if it existed once, then it can exist again. I’m sure we can be less arrogant and more accepting of the other sect.”

“People needed to be reminded to go back to their roots and embrace the simplicity of just being a Muslim regardless of which sect one follows,” Hoda adds.

BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.

18 June 2016

By Jean Bricmont

European construction began as the dream of European elites and has become the nightmare of European peoples. For a number of European intellectuals and politicians, the dream was to transform Europe into a sort of Superstate, capable of rivaling the United States. For others, the idea was to get rid of the Nation-State once and for all, since it was considered chiefly to blame for the woes of the 20th century.

However, aside from the fact that this dream always enjoyed strong United States support, which casts doubts on its claim to constitute an alternative to American domination, it suffers from a fatal flaw: the nonexistence of a European people. That is, an overwhelming majority of European citizens feel part of their respective Nation-States, or of even smaller entities (Scotland, Catalonia, Flanders, etc.), much more than they feel “European”.

Advocates of European construction have two answers to that objection: either that the feeling of belonging is an historic construction (in the case of modern Nation-States) and is being changed into a “European” sense of belonging, or else that the sense of belonging does not really matter, inasmuch as political decisions must be taken on the basis of economic rationality (the liberal view) or class interests (the Marxist view), rather than on the basis of sentiments.

As for a sense of being European, it is perfectly possible that it may develop over the course of coming centuries, just as the various national sentiments did in the past. But one should not have illusions concerning the time scale. Such processes take centuries, and the Scottish example shows that even within a democratic State such as Great Britain, with equal rights for all and sharing the same language, centuries may not be enough to eradicate national feeling.

It is enough to watch sports events, such as the current European Cup, to see that national feelings are far from disappearing. They are not even disappearing among the “elites”: in Brussels, with rare exceptions, the representatives of the various Member States defend what they consider to be their national interest rather than the “European” interest.

As for the notion that national feeling does not matter, compare the national currencies that existed before the euro and the euro itself. Before the euro, changes in currency parities took place among Member States to make up for differences in economic strength between, say, Germany and France or Italy. But within each State, the unity of the national currency was maintained between rich and poor regions by a whole series of redistribution measures: identical pensions and social allocations, public investments and so on. These measures were politically possible because the citizens of these States “felt” that they were all French, or all Italians, or all Germans.

With the euro, there can be no adjustment in currency parity between weak and strong economies. Moreover, the eurozone lacks the redistribution mechanisms that existed between rich and poor regions of a single State. It is clear from following the Greek tragedy that the Germans do not feel sufficiently Greek – or even sufficiently European – to accept the transfers of wealth needed to “save Greece”. In short, national feelings have a huge economic importance, contrary to the views of the liberals and Marxists who both ignore or play down the importance of “irrational” feelings in social reality.

Or compare Europe with Latin America. In the latter continent, all the countries except Brazil have their origin in the same colonial empire, speak the same language, practice the same religion, even have more or less a common enemy (the United States) and have not massacred each other in recent major wars.

In Europe, it’s the other way around. The “memories” of the various peoples are very different, even contradictory, some having lived through communism, others through fascism, not to mention all the various wars among themselves. Their various legends and even languages preserve these diversities.

And yet, the integration of the Latin American continent is advancing in full respect of the sovereignty of each State. Nobody insists that Chile and Bolivia adopt the same currency, nor that all their four-year university programs be changed to five years, to “harmonize” studies, as with the Bologna process in Europe. If Bolivia or Ecuador decide to control their own natural resources, they don’t have do ask “Brussels” for authorization.

Such integration respecting national sovereignties could have been undertaken in Europe. That was the idea of a “Europe of peoples” proposed by Charles de Gaulle, ruled out by the existing European construction.

The left condemns the policy of the European Union because it is “neoliberal”, but the problem goes much deeper. The fatal flaw is that, in the absence of a European people, European construction can only be undemocratic and bureaucratic. A bureaucratic or autocratic power inevitably arouses hostility and ends up producing political effects contrary to those sought. If EU policies were “socialist”, they would arouse similar hostility.

From the point of view of the liberal right, depriving European peoples of their sovereignty and thus of democracy was natural because those peoples, left to themselves, would vote for too many redistributive measures.

On the left, European construction was promoted because those same peoples were supposedly chauvinist, nationalist, racist, and if left to themselves would surely end up at war with each other. This negative attitude toward their own population has been suicidal for the left, whose only base has to be the “people”.

The Europist left has made a mistake similar to that of the Communists in the past; they too thought that they were acting in the interests of the people, but the latter, being incapable of understanding, had to be led by an unelected elite.

This is particularly flagrant and tragic regarding immigration and refugees. The left Europists want to impose a policy of “opening” without ever asking their own people what they think, since some of them are sure to be against it. But they fail to understand that imposing an unpopular policy can only make it still more unpopular and that nobody likes being forced by others to be altruistic.

The Communists had their People’s Democracies, with democracy as only a façade.

The Europists have their Parliament which is another: it has no real power, and if it did, it would not be able to exercise such power because of the multiplicity of languages and national origins.

The Communists believed that national sentiments would disappear thanks to economic progress. The Europists bet on the same thing, but both have to acknowledge that “irrational” national sentiments have not disappeared, least of all when there is no sign of the promised progress.

For a long time the Communist used the accusation of antifascism to silence their opposition. The left Europists do exactly the same. The moment European peoples balk at the policies being imposed on them, they are ignored and accused of being populists and racists.

In both cases, that sort of intimidation works for a while but finally boomerangs. And when that happens, those who benefit from the popular revolt are those who never gave in to the intimidation, whether Communist or Europeist, that is, the nationalist or religious right.

No doubt, all that foreshadows “dark times” for our continent, as the Europists lament. But who is to blame? Not the Cassandras who try to warn of what is happening, but those who have “constructed Europe” on the shaky foundations of intellectual arrogance, contempt for the people and illusions concerning human nature.

JEAN BRICMONT teaches physics at the University of Louvain in Belgium. He is author of Humanitarian Imperialism. He can be reached at Jean.Bricmont@uclouvain.be

21 June 2016

 

By Eric Zuesse

When the democratically elected President of Ukraine was violently overthrown in February 2014 and replaced by a rabidly anti-Russian regime, not only the residents in the areas of Ukraine that had voted heavily for him (Crimea having voted 75% for him, and Donbass having voted 90% for him) were terrified by what they viewed to be a bloodthirsty new regime, but Russians were, too, because the dictators who were installed made clear their hatred of Russians and even of speakers of the Russian language — one of their first legislative initiatives was to outlaw the Russian language, but the blatant hatred there made the proposal die in Ukraine’s parliament because this new regime needed outside support, and outlawing a language spoken by around half of the nation’s population would have sparked international condemnation.

Shortly after Crimeans voted overwhelmingly on 16 March 2014 to separate from Ukraine and to rejoin Russia, of which Crimea had been a part until the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev arbitrarily transferred Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, the top military commander at NATO, U.S. General Philip Breedlove, said that because Russia had protected Crimeans from invasion by the newly installed Ukrainian regime, which was threatening Crimeans if they were to hold a referendum to separate from Ukraine, “now it is very clear that Russia is acting much more like an adversary than a partner”, and he speculated sarcastically about the “next place where Russian-speaking people may need to be incorporated” into Russia — as if the people of Crimea didn’t have good reason to fear the new regime, and as if speakers of the Russian language in all countries were in the same situation and needed the same protection; and as if NATO itself had any right to comment about this matter at all, since Ukraine isn’t even a member-nation of NATO anyway. Ukraine is a nation that shares a long border with Russia, but does this give NATO a right to ‘defend’ Ukraine from ‘Russian aggression’? Is NATO trying to provoke a Russian invasion in order for NATO to have a pretext to launch a full-scale nuclear war?

Why was the top military commander of NATO commenting on this at all? He was representing the U.S. President, not the people of Ukraine, and certainly not the people of Crimea. The people of Crimea had good reason to be terrified by the new regime, but Obama’s general who was running NATO’s military operations, didn’t care about that at all.

And the threat that the United States and its allies were posing to Russian-speaking populations in other countries that border Russia was also being ignored by the U.S. and its allies.

Alexander Lukin wrote about this matter in Foreign Affairs on 17 June 2014:

Today, the West’s continued advance is tearing apart the countries on Russia’s borders. It has already led to territorial splits in Moldova and Georgia, and Ukraine is now splintering before our very eyes. Divisive cultural boundaries cut through the hearts of these countries, such that their leaders can maintain unity only by accommodating the interests of both those citizens attracted to Europe and those wanting to maintain their traditional ties to Russia. The West’s lopsided support for pro-Western nationalists in the former Soviet republics has encouraged these states to oppress their Russian-speaking populations – a problem to which Russia could not remain indifferent. Even now, more than two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than six percent of the population in Estonia and more than 12 percent of the population in Latvia, most of them ethnic Russians, do not have the full rights and privileges of citizenship. They cannot vote in national elections, enroll in Russian schools, or, for the most part, access Russian media. The EU, despite its emphasis on human rights outside its borders, has turned a blind eye to this clear violation of basic rights within them.

Why does the U.S. government not care about the rights of ethnic Russians in countries which border on Russia, and which treat like dirt, people whose families had moved there from Russia? Is the U.S. government trying to goad Russia into protecting those people, too?

Why was General Breedlove (who hardly breeds love for oppressed people of Russian descent) mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin about the “next place where Russian-speaking people may need to be incorporated”?

Is Obama trying to force Putin to either lose face at home, or else to force Putin to ‘provoke’ a NATO invasion, in order to provide NATO an ‘excuse’ to attack?

On 4 May 2016, Breedlove’s successor, U.S. General Curtis M. Scaparrotti, took over from Breedlove, and he condemned “an aggressive Russia … a resurgent Russia trying to project itself as a world power.” If the U.S. government has a right to “project itself as a world power,” then why doesn’t the Russian government possess the same right — especially in order to defend itself? The headline of that news report from the U.S. Department of ‘Defense’ was “‘Resurgent Russia’ Poses Threat to NATO, New Commander Says”, but precisely what ‘threat’ Russia poses to NATO wasn’t even suggested there, other than the vague charge of a “resurgent Russia striving to project itself as a world power.”

Is General Scaparrotti trying to goad Putin to either lose face at home, or else ‘provoke’ a NATO invasion?

But now NATO is staging Operation Atlantic Resolve, their biggest-ever military maneuvers on Russia’s borders. This includes nuclear weapons.

When the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev tried to plant Soviet missiles 90 miles from the U.S. in 1962, the American President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was ready to go to a nuclear attack against the Soviet dictatorship; this was the Cuban Missile Crisis. Will Russian President Vladimir Putin soon be ready to go to a nuclear attack against the new American dictatorship, which is moving much farther against Russia’s democracy now, than the Soviet dictatorship ever did against America’s democracy then?

Does Obama think he’s playing some kind of game here? Khrushchev didn’t think it was any game; nor did Kennedy. Khrushchev backed down, in a deal in which the previous U.S. President’s, Dwight Eisenhower’s, initiation of installation of U.S. missiles in Turkey against the Soviet Union were also removed. Kennedy negotiated an elimination of both Eisenhower’s and Khrushchev’s provocative and dangerous acts, in a nuclear-armed world. Putin has been careful not to do anything that threatens the U.S., except to protect Russia from what by now is clearly U.S. aggression. But the fact that a democratic Russia has not violated a now dictatorial U.S., constitutes no excuse for U.S. Presidents continuing the aggression that U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush started against democratic Russia.

Meanwhile, we have blatant NATO propaganda spread on German public television, asking “Is NATO expansion to blame for Crimean crisis?” and answering: not only no, but “just change NATO’s name” and we all should ignore Russia’s worries about the hostile U.S. military alliance that has spread right up to Russia’s borders and that’s intent upon posting nuclear missiles minutes from Moscow.

Do Western leaders really think that Western publics are stupid and callous enough to believe that? Is the leaders’ presumption, about this, correct? Is this the reason why nuclear war is getting perilously close while Western publics are worried about it little if at all?

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

18 June, 2016
Strategic-culture.org

By John Scales Avery

NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance, whose purpose is to “protect Europe from aggression”; but today it is aggressive tool of the United States. Today NATO is threatening to drive Europe into an all-destroying thermonuclear war with Russia.

In recent years, participation in NATO has made European countries accomplices in US efforts to achieve global hegemony by means of military force, in violation of international law, and especially in violation of the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles.

Former UN Assistant Secretary General Hans Christof von Sponeck used the following words to express his opinion that NATO now violates the UN Charter and international law: “In the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, the Charter of the United Nations was declared to be NATO’s legally binding framework. However, the United-Nations monopoly of the use of force, especially as specified in Article 51 of the Charter, was no longer accepted according to the 1999 NATO doctrine. NATO’s territorial scope, until then limited to the Euro-Atlantic region, was expanded by its members to include the whole world”

At present the United States government has forced the European members of NATO to participate in aggressive operations in connection with the coup which it carried out against the elected government of Ukraine. The hubris, and reckless irresponsibility of the US government in risking a catastrophic war with Russia is almost beyond belief.

According to The Guardian, June 16, 2016, “The largest war game in eastern Europe since the end of the cold war has started in Poland, as Nato and partner countries seek to mount a display of strength as a response to concerns about Russia’s assertiveness and actions.”

“The 10-day military exercise, involving 31,000 troops and thousands of vehicles from 24 countries, has been welcomed among Nato’s allies in the region, though defence experts warn that any mishap could prompt an offensive reaction from Moscow.”

“A defence attache at a European embassy in Warsaw said the “nightmare scenario” of the exercise, named Anaconda-2016, would be ‘a mishap, a miscalculation which the Russians construe, or choose to construe, as an offensive action’ ”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/06/nato-launches-largest-war-game-in-eastern-europe-since-cold-war-anaconda-2016

Do the people of Europe really want to participate in the madness of aggression against Russia? Of course not! What about European leaders? Why don’t they follow the will of the people and free Europe from bondage to the United States? Have our leaders been bribed? Or have they been blackmailed through personal secrets, discovered by the long arm of NSA spying?

To save itself from the danger of nuclear annihilation, Europe must declare its independence from America, just as the United States once declared its independence from Britain.

Some suggestions for further reading

http://www.countercurrents.org/chomsky130616.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44891.htm
https://www.sott.net/article/319923-War-is-a-racket-US-terrorizes-and-scams-Europe-through-NATO
http://www.makewarshistory.co.uk/?p=2415

http://www.cctv-america.com/2016/06/15/the-heat-nato-war-games#utm_sguid=155260,43357f6d-09a8-927c-abd1-8d4fdafed861
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/06/16/pentagons-real-trategy-keeping-money-flowing
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/05/americas-natos-outrageous-behavior-greatest-threat-exists.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44883.htm
http://www.countercurrents.org/gaist150616.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44852.htm
http://www.countercurrents.org/avery090414.htm

The Illegality of NATO

Europe Must Not Be Forced Into a Nuclear War with Russia

http://www.countercurrents.org/avery240615.htm

John Avery received a B.Sc. in theoretical physics from MIT and an M.Sc. from the University of Chicago.

18 June, 2016
Countercurrents.org

 

By Helena Norberg-Hodge, Rupert Read & Thomas Wallgren

Trade treaties were a hot button issue during the recent US presidential primary campaigns. This represents an important victory for the people – for the grassroots – whose voice is finally being heard. While it’s hard to know what really lies behind Donald Trump’s opposition to the trade agreements, it’s very significant that Bernie Sanders put Hillary Clinton on the defensive about NAFTA and led her to take a stand against the TransPacific Partnership (TPP). In rejecting these trade deals, political leaders are going against the top-down pressure from global corporations and banks. We must of course be alert to the fact that politicians pander to voters while seeking election, but once in power they only seem to hear the voice of big money. Nevertheless, the fact that awareness about the trade treaties has become so widespread is itself a huge victory. Now that these corporate-friendly deals are seeing the light of day, it is unlikely that future trade agreements will be easy, automatic victories for global capital.

In the UK, meanwhile, another fierce debate is underway: voters in Britain will soon decide whether or not to remain in the European Union. Although this issue parallels – and is in fact linked to – the debate around trade treaties, most voices in favor of Brexit seem to offer little more than narrow nationalism, xenophobia and racism. Such associations make it feel impossible for most Greens and progressive thinkers on the left to vote ‘Leave’ in the upcoming UK referendum.

And that settles it in the minds of some: one ‘has’ to vote ‘Remain’. Anything else feels ‘unprogressive’, reactionary, even downright dangerous.

However, there are powerful arguments against the European Economic Union. In all five Nordic countries – Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark – there has been a very powerful critique of the EU from an ecological, cultural, global solidarity and democratic perspective. A large proportion of the population in those countries realized that the impetus to link countries together was primarily based on a misguided notion of economic growth. However, these arguments didn’t reach the English-speaking world, and today on both sides of the debate in Britain this misguided notion continues to prevail.

In order to make sense of misleading pro and con arguments in the media, we need to go behind the scenes to examine the issues holistically. We need to look carefully at the process of economic ‘integration’ that has been going on for several generations now around the world.

At the regional, national and global level, societies and ecosystems have been transformed in order to accelerate economic growth. The emphasis has been on increasing international trade and benefits to international traders, at great cost to ecosystems, livelihoods, and democracy. It is important to understand the formation of the EU in this context, but by no means do the points we make here apply to the EU alone.

The EU is dedicated to corporate interests and economic globalization

The European Union is an extension of the Bretton Woods institutions – The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

It is widely assumed that the European Union was formed in order to prevent conflict and in order to avoid another depression. In the aftermath of the Second World War, political elites and business leaders promoted the notion that economic integration was a path to peace and harmony.

But the result was a form of economic development – based on debt, global trade and consumerism – that systematically undermined democracy and favored corporate interests while hollowing out local economies worldwide. In country after country, transnational corporations (TNCs) have been able to evade taxes by ‘offshoring’ their activities, and to bargain for lower tax rates and higher subsidies by threatening to move where even less in taxes will be demanded, and more in subsidies provided.

Today, interlinked multinational banks and corporations constitute a de facto European government, determining economic activity through the ‘European market’. Their vast lobbying power has an overwhelming influence on the EU Commission and the secretive Council. In other words, corporations run Europe.

Economic integration imposes human and ecological monoculture

Europe is home to a great variety of cultures, languages and customs. The economic union is based on an economic model that is eroding this diversity, which was born of human adaptation to different climates and ecological realities. A fabric consisting of mutually enriching and different cultural traditions is being replaced by the uniform culture of consumerist ‘individualism’.

Previously, the many borders, currencies, and differing regulations made trade difficult for big business, while the diversity of languages and traditions put limits on mass marketing. None of these were obstacles to businesses operating within their own countries – in fact, the borders and cultural diversity helped protect the markets of domestic producers from the predations of mobile capital, helping to ensure their survival.

But for big corporations and financial institutions, diversity is an impediment, whereas monoculture – in all aspects of life, from seeds, fast food and clothing, to architecture – is ‘efficient’. For them, a single Europe-wide market of 500 million people was an essential step to further growth: their growth.

Meeting that goal required a single currency, ‘harmonized’ regulations, the elimination of borders, and centralized management of the European economy.

The EU economy increases pollution and CO2 emissions

The global economic model promoted in the EU increases pollution and fossil fuel use in a multitude of ways.

First of all, economic policies are responsible for a concentration of jobs in ever-larger high-rise urban centers. When people move into urban areas, net resource and energy consumption tends to rise, massively increasing CO2 emissions and toxic pollution.

Secondly, the EU subsidies system not only wipes out family farms but paves the way for agribusinesses that destroy soils and ecosystems, or employ cruel factory farming methods.

Thirdly, investments in infrastructure and fossil fuel subsidies help to prop up the energy-intensive system of mass production for mass consumption. Moreover, most energy subsidies tend to support highly centralized power systems, rather than more decentralized renewable energy.

Even worse is ‘redundant trade’: in a typical year, Britain exports millions of liters of milk and thousand of tonnes of wheat and lamb, while importing nearly identical amounts. The cod caught off the coast of Scotland is shipped 5,000 miles to be turned into fillets in China, then shipped back again.

This kind of wasteful trade – which greatly overshadows the efforts of well-meaning individuals to reduce their personal carbon footprints – actually benefits no one but massive corporations. And it is not efficiency but a wide range of subsidies and ignored costs that make it all possible.

National governments stripped of political power

At the same time as governments subsidise big business, they must pay from their depleted treasuries to retrain displaced workers, to mend the unraveling social fabric, and to clean up the despoiled environments left behind by deregulated, mobile corporations.

Forced to go hat-in-hand to banks, countries can easily find themselves on a downward spiral, with interest payments consuming an increasing proportion of national output. It’s no wonder that so many governments today are struggling to stay afloat, while global corporations and banks are flush with cash.

This has left nation-states increasingly powerless to deliver what people need. They have lost the power to protect their citizens from the impacts of international capital and financial speculation. As a result, many people have lost confidence in governments and democracy itself. They feel disenfranchised and angered by the escalation of inequality-driven by international market forces and rootless, profit-hungry corporations, with the full complicity of the EU.

This is a dangerous situation, ripe for exploitation by extremist forces, including those of atavism and of outright fascism.

European government is not the answer

Many idealists see the EU as a political bloc that has raised environmental and human rights standards continentally and globally, and acted as a buffer to the United States. There is much truth in this. And to greatly strengthen pan-European collaboration with the aim of solving our global ecological and human rights problems is clearly highly desirable.

However, this type of collaboration does not need to – ought not to be allowed to – erode the rights of smaller nation states to run their own affairs under clearly negotiated agreements of environmental protection. We hold that the relatively high standards in the EU have been a consequence of the integrity of the democracies in many of the constituent countries, not a consequence of creating a single market that benefits big business.

We would also argue that to assess the overall contribution by the EU to global environment and human rights affairs we must not look exclusively at the relatively benign EU policies in these areas themselves but also at the consequences for ecological justice of EU policies in trade and military policy.

In fact, the main impetus behind the European Economic Union was the desire of big business to compete with the US. And to a great extent, what we have today is a nascent United States of Europe, competing with the US about market shares but also working closely together with the US in preserving the hegemony of the global North over the global South.

European democracy? If only …

Meanwhile, within the EU, the public has very little power and ability to affect decisions. There is no common public sphere where European citizens can get together to muster democratic control of the European economy and the administrative power concentrated in Brussels.

The European Parliament is weak, and, more importantly, elections to it work mostly on a national-level basis. There are no real European political parties and movements. Thus the situation is even worse than it is at the national level: for at least at the national level there is a public, a citizenry, a demos, a press, a political debate.

It might appear that the solution is to remove power from national governments and give it to a democratically-controlled European government. There is something completely understandable about this impulse. After all, there is a real need for international co-operation around the political and ecological crises gripping our planet.

But scaling up government means increasing the distance between civic society and their representatives. It would be a step backward to create a federal superstate of Europe. Such a government would be virtually incapable of responding to the diverse needs of half a billion people.

Democratic institutions need to operate at a level that is comprehensible and accessible to people: at a human scale. We must take seriously the possibility that global democracy – people’s urge to care for the globe and for all its citizens – can only be real if most functions are local and people’s dependence on global trade and institutions is limited.

When presented by continent- and global-level problems caused by businesses and untrammeled markets, let’s increase international collaboration with the goal of scaling down businesses and markets. This form of collaboration is fundamentally different from scaling up government. It points in the opposite direction!

The following point is then at the heart of the very challenging position we find ourselves in: there is a profound mismatch between politics at the national level, and economics at the international level. Many well-intentioned ‘progressive’ / green / ‘Left’ people and organizations across the continent believe the best response to this problem is to create a true (rather than a merely de facto) European government. Yet this is likely to merely amplify the control already exerted by corporations over the European economy.

The answer, instead, is to decentralize the European economy. This will enable us to shape economic activity to reduce waste and resource consumption while providing meaningful livelihoods and restoring the environment. Through decentralization and relocalization we also reassert democratic control over our own destinies.

The way forward: localization

There is an alternative to undermining our own people in order to enrich foreign corporations and banks. It’s called ‘localization’ and it involves moving away from ever more specialized production for export, towards prioritizing diversified production to meet people’s genuine needs; away from centralized, corporate control, towards more decentralized, local and national economies.

This means encouraging greater regional self-reliance, and using our taxes, subsidies and regulations to support enterprises embedded in society, rather than transnational monopolies.

A shift away from the global towards the local is the most strategic way to tackle our escalating social and ecological crises. Localization shortens the distance between producers and consumers by encouraging diversified production for domestic needs, instead of specialized production for export.

Localization does not mean eliminating international trade, or reducing all economic activity to a village level. It’s about shifting the power from transnational corporations to democratically accountable entities, including nation states. At the same time we need to build up regional and local self-reliance. It’s about reclaiming power over our lives while simultaneously shrinking our ecological footprint.

Localization – the benefits

In contrast with the make-believe of derivatives and debt-based money, localization is founded in real productivity for genuine human needs, with respect for the rich diversity of cultures and ecosystems worldwide.

By shortening the distance between production and consumption, localization minimizes transport, packaging, and processing – thereby cutting down on waste, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. This simultaneously increases resilience, which will be needed to cope with the inevitable crises coming our way.

Localized economies rely more on human labor and creativity and less on energy-intensive technological systems. This increases the number of jobs while reducing the use of natural resources.

By spreading economic and political power among millions of individuals and small businesses rather than a handful of corporate monopolies, localization provides the potential for revitalizing the democratic process. Political power is no longer some distant impersonal force, but is instead rooted in community.

As the scale and pace of economic activity are reduced, anonymity gives way to face-to-face relationships, and to a closer connection to Nature. This in turn leads to a more secure sense of personal and cultural identity.

Localization is a remarkable solution-multiplier, but it should not be mistaken for a complete panacea. It offers no guarantee for peace and ecological wellbeing. Going local needs to be pursued in full awareness of the need for environmental and human rights protection that goes beyond local, regional and national borders. It’s a prerequisite, a necessity in order to build the accountable structures we need that respect and renew diversity.

Localization, or decentralization, was central to the thinking of the people’s movements in the Nordic countries that have resisted full integration into the EU. In Norway, the economic and political elites twice tried to achieve EU-membership and were defeated, thanks to the campaigns for democracy and global responsibility for environment and justice.

In Denmark and Sweden, membership in the Eurozone has been rejected in several referenda after historic grassroots campaigns. In Iceland, the popular support for EU membership has always been weak. The first application for membership in the EU was submitted in 2009 but suspended in 2013 when the pro-membership government lost elections.

UK voters: think before you vote!

We are facing huge crises: the frightening specter of climate change; the threat of nuclear annihilation; the enormous problems of hypermobility and large-scale migration …

These are all consequences of a fixation on growth and technological ‘progress’. The leadership in both Brexit and Remain are committed to promising more ‘economic growth’ to the millions of people who are struggling to hold on to a job, struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

The ‘growth’ that is being discussed is actually supporting excessive global trade and global businesses and banks. The very same process is handing over more wealth and power to the 1%, to the detriment of the 99%. And this type of growth demands ever-more energy for global infrastructures, including bigger airports, ports and super-highways.

So we have a system that destroys livelihoods while driving up CO2 emissions and other forms of pollution. More and more people, including Nobel laureate economists, are questioning this path.

There are some who would believe that collaboration at the pan-European level could facilitate a path to genuine economic decentralization. Others are convinced that those steps to localize can best be taken by first leaving the EU. Still others don’t favor either of these paths. We are not trying to tell UK readers how (or even whether) to vote; we are asking you to help us shed light on and bring sanity to this volatile situation.

Whichever way you vote, please reject the glaringly stupid rhetoric in the media. Speak out, let your voice be heard for ecological and economic sanity, for a fundamental turnaround.

Helena Norberg-Hodge is founder and director of Local Futures (International Society for Ecology and Culture). A pioneer of the “new economy” movement, she has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than thirty years. She is the producer and co-director of the award-winning documentary, The Economics of Happiness, and is the author of Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh. She was honored with the Right Livelihood Award for her groundbreaking work in Ladakh, and received the 2012 Goi Peace Prize for contributing to “the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.”

Rupert Read was a Green Party councillor in Norwich and a candidate in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections. He is Chair of the Green House thinktank.

Thomas Wallgren founded the campaign Yes to the World – No the the EU before the Finnish referendum on EU-membership in 1994. He is a member of the advisory board of Corporate Europe Observatory and of the city council in Helsinki for the Social Democrats.

16 June, 2016
CommonDreams.org