Archives: Articles

Towering above Mumbai’s skyline, the 27-storey new home of India’s richest man has become a symbol of both the fabulous wealth of the country’s business elite and of the gulf between them and those at the bottom.

Yet for all the building’s finery, there appears to be one thing still missing: Mukesh Ambani himself.

People close to the industrialist say that he and his wife entertain at their cantilevered property, known as Antilia, but they and their three children never stay the night there.

One person close to Mr Ambani’s group said he was now in residence, although a neighbour with a view of the building told the Financial Times that the lights were seldom on, and only when Mr Ambani was hosting guests.

Those who have enjoyed the tycoon’s hospitality speak of lavish parties featuring musical acts flown in from overseas. One guest said the home was divided into private and public areas, the latter of which seemed to share more in common with a large hotel than a family home. Staff at the home were trained by India’s luxury Oberoi hotel chain.

Others have been surprised to see a man renowned for his reserve and ruthlessness indulge in a project to erect what has been described as a “vertical palace” and “the Taj Mahal of the 21st century”, reportedly complete with helipads, cinema and billion-dollar pricetag.

Indeed, the entire venture has become a source of disquiet for Mr Ambani, whose fortune, estimated this year by Forbes at $27bn, made him the ninth wealthiest man on the planet.

Controversy began even before construction, when a dispute broke out over the acquisition of the land from a Muslim charity.

People close to the family said a senior US diplomat visiting Mumbai recently had asked to meet Mr Ambani at the celebrated home but later requested a change of venue when reminded of the controversy.

The tower has also served as a lightning rod for ill-feeling about the yawning gap between India’s billionaires and its have-nots, rising as it does above the sprawling slums that are home to millions of Mumbai’s poor.

A spokesman for Reliance Industries, Mr Ambani’s oil-to-retail conglomerate, said the managing director’s living arrangements were “a private matter” and declined to comment. He categorically denied suggestions Mr Ambani, whose group recently acquired a stake in the owner of the Oberoi, might convert the building to another use, such as a hotel.

Mr Ambani’s previous home, a residence in city’s waterside Colaba district where he is still said to stay at least some of the time, is shared with other members of the extended first family of Indian commerce.

One theory as to why the family appears cool on residing at Antilia holds that the building has violated the principles of vastu shastra, a traditional Indian design rubric.

Another suggests that Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani, widow of the self-made founder of the Reliance group and mother of Mukesh and his fierce rival and younger brother Anil, would not accede to her elder son’s intention to move away from the Sea Wind home – even though the animosity between Mukesh and Anil, himself a billionaire, saw them occupying different floors there.

Shares in Reliance Industries have fallen by 22 per cent this year, tracking a general decline in Indian stocks. Yet Mr Ambani’s position as the nation’s foremost tycoon appears secure. In February he was at Downing St to ink a $7.2bn oil and gas deal with BP and the year has seen half a dozen investments as the group diversifies.

Additional reporting by James Lamont in New Delhi, Amy Kazmin in New Delhi and James Fontanella-Khan in Rome.

18 October 2011

By Tom Burgis

@ The Financial Times

REPORTING FROM SEOUL –- Three violent attacks on South Korean residents were allegedly committed in recent weeks by off-duty U.S. servicemen here, including the assault of a 70-year-old grandmother and the unconnected rapes of two other women, Seoul officials say.

Park Kyungsoo, 30, director of the National Campaign for the Eradication of Crimes by U.S. Troops in Korea, knew the public outrage to the crimes would be swift.

“There’s a degree of perversion to the attacks that I knew South Koreans wouldn’t stand for,” said Park.

A 21-year-old U.S. Army private is in South Korean custody after being indicted in the alleged rape of an 18-year-old girl. U.S. officials, including top East Asian diplomat Kurt Campbell, apologized for “pain” caused by allegations that American soldiers sexually assaulted citizens here, and the military has imposed a temporary curfew on its soldiers across South Korea.

Still, attitudes toward the 28,500 U.S. servicemen and women stationed in South Korea have deteriorated. Many residents call for the South Korean government to end its diplomatic agreement that allows for the U.S. troop presence, claiming that they’re more afraid of the U.S. military peacekeepers than the North Korean regime they are supposed to be protected them from.

Seoul dance clubs once frequented by U.S. military now bar admission to American soldiers after concern expressed by female patrons, according to local press reports here. South Korea also created a task force to seek revisions to the Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA, that governs the legal status of U.S. troops in South Korea and elsewhere.

Activists here say that the SOFA, signed in 1965 and amended in 1995 and 2001, is unjust because it goes too far in protecting U.S. soldiers. Many want the police here to be given more legal jurisdiction to investigate sex crimes involving American soldiers.

These developments are the latest in rising tensions between the U.S. military and foreign governments that include controversies over SOFA agreements with both Iraq and Japan.

Many insist that such disagreements pose little threat to overall relations between Washington and ally nations. But such squabbles also suggest an often competing interest between the legal rights of its foreign-based troops and a local citizenry that wants to insure that the visitors are subject to native laws.

“I understand the U.S. wants to protect its soldiers from kangaroo courts overseas, but Koreans also have a right to safeguard their own citizens,” Park said. “The perception among many here is that U.S. soldiers commit crimes and then run back to the protection of their base.”

South Korean authorities cite a rising crime rate among U.S. servicemen. There were 377 alleged crimes last year, up from 306 in 2009, according to national police statistics. Between 2000 and 2010, rapes rose from zero to 11; burglaries from 9 to 24 and violent crime in general from 118 to 154, according to officials.

U.S. officials say the crime rate is low considering the size of the troop presence here.

“A high, high percentage of our service members do the right thing. They abide by the law, make the right choices and conduct themselves professionally,” said Col. Jonathan Withington, a spokesman for U.S. Forces Korea.

He added that South Korean police have quick access to crime suspects under the present SOFA. The Army private indicted in the recent rape was handed over to South Korean police the same day they requested to have him in custody, he said.

“In the last five years, how many times have we said no to such requests? Zero,” Withington added. “The system is working fine just the way it is.”

But an editorial in a Seoul newspaper criticized the U.S. military for delaying access by investigators to the 21-year-old rape suspect before the indictment was filed.

“More than a week has since passed -– enough time to change evidence or statement -– but law enforcement officials could not have access to the suspect, as he is in virtual U.S. territory in Korea,” the editorial read.

Others say the SOFA does not need to be changed.

“Sexual assault is a terrible crime and it draws very emotional reactions, but revising the SOFA cannot prevent it from happening,” said Daniel Pinkston, the North East Asia deputy project director with the nonprofit International Crisis Group in Seoul.

“South Korea has the authority and the right to prosecute U.S. military personnel for crimes committed [there.] And they do,” he added. “And the U.S. military prosecutes them as well.”

Yet experts on U.S. military law warn that such tensions can erode overall diplomatic relations if left unchecked.

“We actually have a well-behaved military –- it’s a fact,” said Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches U.S. military law at Yale Law School. “What makes any amount of crime intolerable are the very high stakes involved.”

Decades have changed the scope and reasoning behind the U.S. presence in nations like Japan and South Korea, where some believe the need for foreign soldiers has greatly diminished.

“Any crime is one too many when you have an occupying force that many believe has outlived its usefulness,” Fidell added. “With the endless trickle of quite appalling crimes in places like Okinawa, it’s not surprising the population is going crazy.”

While South Korea “has dangerous neighbors,” it’s not Iraq or Afghanistan, Fidell said. Continued crime could seriously fray public opinion. “When countries get ticked off, they can find ways to vent their frustration. They can make life easy on Uncle Sam, or not.”

The recent South Korean rapes are the subject of talk among U.S. servicemen here. “G.I. Joe goes out in the real Korea where there are no controls … and he causes unmanaged irritation,” one person wrote on a website frequented by U.S. soldiers, “which [causes] unnecessary complications for the alliance.”

South Korea has a history of waging violent protests against perceived U.S. military wrongdoers. Park’s watchdog group was formed in 1992 following the torture and murder of a 28-year-old Korean woman by an American soldier.

In 2002, riots spread across Seoul after two middle-school aged girls were run over by a U.S. armored vehicle.

Activists like Park insist that South Korea will not back down on its desire to see the SOFA revisited.

“Korean public sentiment no longer remains tolerant of sexual crimes, either by locals or foreigners,” one newspaper editorial read. “This has nothing to do with anti-Americanism…. Ten years is a long enough period to check and update any international treaties.”

By John M. Glionna

20 October 2011

@ Los Angeles Times

Beirut, Lebanon: For westerners, and particularly Americans who have watched Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad up fairly close as he delivers speeches in the US and elsewhere including during last year’s visit to Lebanon, his charisma and populist connection with the public are evident and often powerful.

And President Barack Obama is normally no slough either on the stump when he woes voters and inspires them to support his point of view. But last week’s UN appearance by the two leaders left a Matthew 13:24-30 type image of the wheat being separated from the chaff. Both countries are juxtaposed menacingly in the Middle East, one pressuring the region in an all-out sustained NATO utilized effort to maintain its hegemony and the other actively trying to lead the region in a very different direction. Consequently the public was presented with an interesting contrast in styles and substance.

The two appearances could be handicapped along the lines that Obama’s tough job was to try to shore up Israel whose days as a dominate force in the Levant rapidly grow fewer as history corrects the nearly incalculable injustice that resulted from the West’s implantation of the racist state and as history inexorably deconstructs the world’s last 19 th Century colonial enterprise.

From the UN podium, Ahmadinejad knew in advance that approximately 15 minutes into his speech began AIPAC would signal the launch of its churlish and infantile 30 country walkout and most of the delegations in the audience knew that the White House had given its ok. The Iranian President also knew that there would be the pro-Zionist tabloid media blitz against him complete with the now expected degrading and offensive cartoons and the Persian visitor being labeled in the US media, what else, but an “anti-Semite”, “a clown”, “weirdo”, “crackpot”. “the new Hitler” and the usual moronic libels. It is hard to imagine that the New York Times editors actually read his speech since they not only failed it analyze it but simply dismissed it as a “tirade” the same description they applied last year.

But this year, the AIPAC/White House walk-out backfired and it was roundly condemned not only among the American public but among the publics of each of the countries that agreed to rudely interrupt the proceedings. The Zionist controlled US government failed to realize that the international public, like most Americans, by and large retain respect for the values of open dialogue, common hospitality and respect for leaders from other countries. Moreover, they understand that the raison d’etre of the United Nations is to provide its members with an open forum. This includes Iran and each of the 192 other UN Member States. When Obama spoke the Iranian delegation listened respectfully.

OBAMA the compleat politician?

President Obama, embarrassingly for the American public proved once more his habit of assuming the role of the groveling US politician for the pariah Israeli UN Member. This latest speech was no exception and once more Obama made plain that he will support Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestine as a quid pro quo for the Israeli lobby funding and supporting his 2012 Presidential re-election bid.

Birzeit University Professor Hanan Ashrawi, spoke for many in the audience and across America after Obama finished: “I did not believe what I heard. It sounded as if the Palestinians were occupying Israel.  There was no empathy for the Palestinians; he only spoke of the Israeli problems. He told us that it isn’t easy to achieve peace, thanks, we know this.  He spoke about universal rights, Good; those same rights apply to Palestinians. The White House is applying

enormous pressure on everybody at the UN and they are using threats and coercion.  I wish they would invest the same energy in an attempt to promote peace, not threats.”

Has Iran have produced a Statesman or a sycophant?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is at his best when he is engaged in dialogue and debate according to people in Lebanon and Iran who know him well. But he gets to the point quickly and it sometimes catches his interlocutors off-guard if they aren’t prepared.

Devoutly religious, Iran’s President is unerringly polite and respectful, and never fails to mention the positive and the necessity of dialogue and seeking common ground.

But he speaks frankly and also noted that President Obama never made good on a pledge to try to improve US-Iranian relations and to open a dialogue with Iran, and said he still hopes for a face-to-face meeting. “I don’t believe that this is a chance that has been completely lost,” Ahmadinejad said.

He told Iran’s fellow UN Members “You all know that the nuclear issue has been turned and manipulated into a political issue,” and he added that Iran remains ready to negotiate over its disputed nuclear program, and repeated the country’s position that the program is for the peaceful production of energy

Following the 2009 disputed Iranian elections, he stated “ We were very much in support of change. I sent a personal message to President Obama, but we never received a response .

His UN speech theme was that most nations of the world are unhappy with the current international circumstances. “And despite the general longing and aspiration to promote peace, progress, and fraternity, wars, mass-murder, widespread poverty, and socioeconomic and political crises continue to infringe upon the rights and sovereignty of nations, leaving behind irreparable damage worldwide.” He continued, “Approximately, three billion people of the world live on less than 2.5 dollars a day, and over a billion people live without having even one sufficient meal on a daily basis. Forty-percent of the poorest world populations only share five percent of the global income, while twenty percent of the richest people share seventy-five percent of the total global income. More than twenty thousand innocent and destitute children die every day in the world because of poverty.”

He challenged the United Nations to reform itself and he urged honest debate on the vital issues confronting the world community. He asked the UN to bear in mind who imposed colonialism for over four centuries, who occupied lands and massively plundered resources of other nations, destroyed talents, and alienated languages, cultures and identities of nations?

He asked the UN members to join in solutions to the World’s problems but asked that we not hide the facts of:

· Who triggered the first and second world wars, that left seventy millions killed and hundreds of millions  injured or homeless. Who created the wars in Korean peninsula and in Vietnam?

· Who imposed through Zionism and over sixty years of war, homelessness, terror and mass murder on the Palestinian people and on countries of the region?

· Who imposed and supported for decades military dictatorship and totalitarian regimes on Asian, African, and Latin American nations?

· Who used nuclear bomb against defenseless people, and stockpiled thousands of warheads in their arsenals?

· Whose economies rely on waging wars and selling arms?

· Who provoked and encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade and impose an eight-year war on Iran, and who assisted and equipped him to deploy chemical weapons against our cities and our people?

· Who used the mysterious September 11 incident as a pretext to attack Afghanistan and Iraq, killing, injuring, and displacing millions in two countries with the ultimate goal of bringing into its domination the Middle East and its oil resources?

· Who nullified the Breton Woods system by printing trillions of dollars without the backing of gold reserves or equivalent currency? A move that triggered inflation worldwide and was intended to prey on the economic gains of other nations?

· Which country’s military spending exceeds annually a thousand billion dollars, more than the military budgets of all countries of the world combined?

· Who dominates the policy-making establishments of the world economy?

· Who are responsible for the world economic recession, and are imposing the consequences on America, Europe and the world in general?

· Who are the ones dominating the Security Council which is ostensibly responsible for safeguarding the international security?

This month’s Iran-U.S Presidential addresses at the United Nations have given its members a clear choice for the challenges quickly engulfing the Middle East. Ultimately, as the popular awakenings in this region teach us, it is the citizens of each country who have the power to decide how to deal with these crises.

Iran’s President demonstrated at Turtle Bay this month that he understands the problems, offers rational solutions and is ready for constructive dialogue. The next move is up to President Obama to extricate him and his country from the jaws of Zionism and to join with Iran and the community of nations with constructive proposals to help alleviate the challenges Iran’s President enumerated.

By Franklin Lamb

 

 

On July 1, 2002, US planes bombed an Afghan wedding in the small village of Deh Rawud. Located to the north of Kandahar, the village seemed fortified by the region’s many mountains. For a few hours, its people thought they were safe from a war they had never invited. They celebrated, and as customs go, fired intermittently into the air.

The joyous occasion however, turned into an orgy of blood that will define the collective memory of Deh Rawud for generations.

It was reported that the US air force used a B-52 bomber and an AC-130 helicopter gunship in a battle against imagined terrorists. According to Afghan authorities, 40 people were killed and 100 wounded (The Guardian, July 2, 2002). Expectedly, the US military refused to apologize.

The bombing of Deh Rawud was a microcosm of the war – and equally lethal occupation – that followed. While al-Qaeda was not an imagined enemy, the invasion and destruction of Afghanistan was a morally repugnant – and self-contradictory – response to terrorism.

The war remains repulsive ten years after the US began attacking the poorest country on earth. This latest crime against humanity in Afghanistan is a continuation of a trend that has spanned decades. Unfortunate Afghanistan was designated a pawn in a Great Game between powerful contenders vying for strategic control and easy access to natural resources. Throughout history, Afghanistan has been brutalized simply because of its geographical location.

The people of Afghanistan should not expect an apology for the war either. “The United States invaded Afghanistan to crush an al-Qaeda base of operations whose leader, Osama bin Laden, oversaw the 9/11 terrorist attacks — and to make sure Afghanistan would not be a haven for Muslim terrorists to plot against the West,” wrote Carmen Gentile and Jim Michaels in USA Today, October 6. Such justification has permeated mainstream media like a mantra.

Malalai Joya, a former Afghan MP and human rights activist, dared to challenge this dubious rationale. In a video message recorded on the tenth anniversary of the war and occupation of Afghanistan, she said:

“Ten years ago the U.S. and NATO invaded my country under the fake banners of women’s rights, human rights, and democracy. But after a decade, Afghanistan still remains the most uncivil, most corrupt, and most war-torn country in the world. The consequences of the so-called war on terror has only been more bloodshed, crimes, barbarism, human rights and women’s rights violations, which has doubled the miseries and sorrows of our people” (Monthly Review, October 7).

Army commanders and neoconservative think-tanks are frantically trying to find reasons for celebration. Neither has been able to accept moral responsibility for the crimes committed in Afghanistan under their command.

Marine Gen. John Allen, for example, still sees “real gains, particularly in the south,” as a result of counterinsurgency efforts which he supposedly mastered in Iraq. “Insurgencies are effective when they have access to the population,” he said. “When they are excluded from the population, then insurgencies have a very hard time.”

A strange assessment, considering the fact that the Taliban are not alien bodies from outer space, and worse, seem to still be effectively controlling the country. When the Paris-based research group, the International Council on Security and Development claimed that Taliban controlled 72 percent of Afghanistan, NATO commanders dismissed the allegation as simply untrue (Bloomberg, December 8, 2008).

“The Taliban are now dictating terms in Afghanistan, both politically and militarily,” said Paul Burton, ICOS Director of Policy. “There is a real danger the Taliban will simply overrun Afghanistan.”

Concurrently, there are those who argue that this was in the past, and since then President Obama (in 2009) approved a surge of more than 30,000 troops with the very aim of pushing the Taliban back. Such a move would allow state-building efforts to commence, thus preparing Afghanistan for the withdrawal of foreign troops in December 2014.

Such claims are backed by the latest Department of Defense biannual report to Congress on Afghanistan. The surge has produced “tangible security progress”, claimed the report, and the “coalition’s efforts have wrested major safe havens from the insurgents’ control, disrupted their leadership networks and removed many of the weapons caches and tactical supplies they left behind at the end of the previous fighting season.”

But reality on the ground tells a different story. The Taliban is in control of the vast majority of the country’s provinces (according to Al Jazeera, October 7). Their near-complete control of the east and south, and constant encroachment elsewhere are only cemented by the regular news of their highly coordinated targeting of Afghanistan officials and foreign forces, even in the heart of Kabul. The Taliban’s behavior hardly suggests that it’s a militant movement on the retreat, but rather a shadow government in waiting. In fact, ‘shadow governors’ is the term being used to refer to Taliban officials administering much of the country.

“Recent events strongly suggest that the US and its NATO allies are losing the war in Afghanistan to the Taliban: top collaborator officials are knocked off at the drop of a Taliban turban,” wrote US professor James Petras. (Global Research, October 11).

As for the claim that Afghanis are better off as a result of the US military invasion, the numbers tell a different story. Sadly, few kept count of Afghani causalities in the first five years of the war. According to modest UN estimates, “11,221 civilians have been killed since 2006, 1,462 of them in the first six months of this year” (LA Times, October 7).

Three photographs were published by the German news organization, Der Spiegel last March. They were of US soldiers (known as the Kill Team) posing with mutilated Afghani civilians from Kandahar last year. They were horrifying to say the least, and scarcely have the impression of any kind of ‘tangible progress’.

“It was during Obama’s administration that civilian death tolls increased by 24%,” said Malalai Joya. “And the result of the surge of troops of Obama’s administration is more massacres, more crimes, violence, destruction, pain, and tragedy.”

And yet, there is no apology. It is almost as though the sons and daughters of Afghanistan are mere numbers, dispensable and extraneous.

Ten years after the war on Afghanistan, we stand in solidarity with the war’s victims; with Malalia Joya and her ever-proud people.

By Ramzy Baroud

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), available on Amazon.com.

 

 

Good News First

New York City’s financial district, notorious for devious deals that crash economies, witnessed a more harmonious transaction last week. Hundreds of people came together with distinct goals in mind, and shared in a more democratic, dialogic, and egalitarian cultural exchange than what is ordinarily experienced in our society. In just twenty-four hours, the hallmarks of a true people’s movement began to develop: medical centers, media centers, food delivery, sub-committees, affinity groups, and a General Assembly.

When I first heard that there was going to be a week-long demonstration of people’s power in downtown Manhattan, I decided I’d go if it lasted more than one day. On the first day, the demonstrators were blockaded from Wall Street and settled in Liberty Plaza’s Zuccotti Park, where they stayed overnight.

On day two, the organizers of the movement called to order a General Assembly, a forum for participants to propose ideas, set an agenda, and establish demands. The demonstration, which had been advertised online months in advance, had yet to articulate specific demands. I had hoped that the movement would echo what is presently the most popular and credible demand in the world right now: “ash-sha’ab yurid isqat an-nizam” (“the people demand an end to the regime”). Demanding this is not a cry to the oppressors to be kinder to the oppressed, but a call for action from the oppressed to overthrow their oppressors.

The First General Assembly

I arrived on day two, Sunday, September 18—in time for the first General Assembly. The General Assembly mostly consisted of the individuals who felt the movement should take unified action—roughly half of those in the square. Most of the other half had formed smaller “direct-action committees” that marched through the Financial District separately. Had the cops felt that the marches represented a threat, this division would have been extremely dangerous for everyone participating in the movement.

A group of “facilitators,” a dozen or so people who were instrumental in mobilizing protesters in the first place, addressed the assembly through megaphones and wrote down the names of individuals who raised their hands for a chance to speak, on a list known as “the stack.” Through the course of the discussion, it became clear that two goals dominated the General Assembly: one was to create a Tahrir Square-like movement in New York. The other goal—the one espoused by the facilitators—was to disrupt Wall Street for the sake of disrupting Wall Street. The main tactic for achieving this, at the time, was to gain media-acknowledgement of their agitation.

In an effort to push through their agenda, the facilitators used the typical anarchist organizing-tool: forging “consensus.” With over a hundred participants in the General Assembly, total agreement on the issues at stake would seem impossible. Here’s how they did it:

One of the first items on the agenda was where the movement would go should the police attempt mass arrests in Liberty Plaza. Instead of putting it to a vote, the facilitators concluded that the decision should not be left to the General Assembly, but to an “action committee” that would meet separately. Decision-making authority on most issues was siphoned away from the General Assembly into smaller committees.

This decision led to a debate about whether the action committee should keep the secondary location secret from the rest of the movement in order to avoid tipping off the surrounding police. I pointed out that—as a practical matter—there would be no secrets when it came to mobilizing hundreds of people. Another participant gave an impassioned speech about how our power came from unity and openness, whereas internal divisions and secrets were the tactics of our enemies on Wall Street. Veering somewhat from the topic at hand, he urged those in the crowd wearing bandanas and masks to remove them, saying they scared away potential allies. His speech drew more applause than any other during my four days in Liberty Plaza. Shortly after he finished speaking, however, about a hundred marchers returned from Wall Street, stealing all the momentum.

While everyone was distracted, the facilitators—who evidently disapproved of the direction of the General Assembly—huddled together for a couple minutes, telling eavesdroppers to go away. They subsequently abandoned their attempt to resolve how to prevent the entire movement’s arrest and “switched gears” into a discussion on what the next “direct action” should be.

Within minutes, the discussion turned to who was willing to be arrested and how. Many felt that the quickest way to make the news was to get arrested, and that this alone would make the movement more socially relevant. Most people at the square understood that arrests are a consequence of any significant social movement; some seemed to believe, however, the converse was true: if there are arrests, it will be a significant social movement.

When the facilitators realized that the General Assembly did not approve of this, they tried to disband the General Assembly by asking if everyone needed a break. The participants made it clear that they did not need a break. When the floor reopened, I suggested that the reason for the crowd’s unrest was that the leaders of the movement seemed more interested in getting on television than creating an alternative society based on equality, dialog and democracy in the square. I argued that this itself would attract the amount of people needed to remove the institutions that hold together a society based on domination. Shortly afterward, another participant gave an eloquent speech about the foolishness of trying to occupy Wall Street with only three hundred people, and the need to first occupy the hearts and minds of our fellow New Yorkers, fellow Americans, and fellow humans.

After nearly five hours, only one motion had been brought to a vote: that the “consensus” be modified to require a mere ninety percent majority. Spirits, however, remained high.

In the end, there was to be one big vote on whether or not we should march on Wall Street, yet again, the next morning. Most participants seemed to want to stay in Liberty Plaza to develop the culture of a mass movement.

The opposing position was—shockingly—to confront the police on Wall Street. At one point, the lead facilitator pled that we occupy Wall Street because “it’s pretty clear everybody wants to.” When the suggestion received little support, the facilitator exhorted, “but the name of this movement is ‘occupy Wall Street”’: a name chosen by the facilitators, not the General Assembly.

To forge a consensus in their favor, the facilitators engaged in creative “synthesizing.” Instead of voting between the two contradictory proposals, a facilitator announced that the General Assembly would vote on a synthesis of the two: those who wanted to hold down Liberty Plaza could stay, while the “majority” (which was actually a minority) would march on Wall Street.

The General Assembly was clear about its hostility to this proposal. Overwhelmingly, the participants demanded unity. Instead of deciding which proposal the entire group should follow, the facilitators came up with a “new synthesis.” The great majority of the movement would stay in Liberty Square, while a small group of direct actioneers would occupy Wall Street. The Facilitators then put this second formulation of their first proposal to a vote.

The “everybody just do what they want” proposal was liberal enough to appeal to the liberals, and anarchical enough to appeal to the anarchists. About fifty-seven people voted in favor. I think I was the only person who bothered voting against. The final decision was so uninspiring that about one-third of the people in the square paid no attention to it, and most of those who were involved didn’t bother voting.

Even though those advocating the march were a minority, the procedural coup was complete. I predicted that—in the heat of the moment—everybody would end up marching, simply because it was the only mass action available.

The Direct Action Committee

After the General Assembly, I sat in on the direct-action committee. Like I had done at the General Assembly, I let everyone in the action-committee know that if the point was to get media attention at the cost of dwindling the numbers of the movement through mass arrests, the direct-actioneers should confront the police on Wall Street, one of the most militarized parts of the first world since 9/11. Then I suggested marching north along Broadway. This would get the attention of actual New Yorkers and possibly build the movement.

But the marchers refused to look past Wall Street. I tried convincing them that they weren’t going to disrupt the capitalist system, that the police outnumbered us, were heavily armed, and were quite experienced in dealing with marches on Wall Street. I pointed out that most people who worked on Wall Street showed up at five in the morning, so marching at nine was useless. I pointed out that Wall Street is a mere symbol of capitalism, and that the movement was currently occupying one of the most strategic and symbolic locations in Manhattan, and perhaps the world. Whenever I brought up practical matters, the response was that the action was supposed to be symbolic. When I said the symbolism of occupying Liberty Plaza was powerful enough, the response was that it was important to disrupt the capitalist system, if even for a minute.

My last attempt to sway the action committee was by sharing my opinion that it should not be our goal to disrupt the capitalist system with no alternative solution. I argued that Wall Street represented just one group within the global capitalist system, and disrupting it would only benefit America’s capitalist enemies. I argued, furthermore, that if they didn’t have something better to put in its place, even if they destroyed the capitalist system completely, it would rise violently from its ashes.

There was no way for me to know what most participants thought of my ideas. Shortly after I made my point, the direct action committee’s facilitators decided there was enough of a “consensus” made on the strategy of marching to Wall Street, and it was time to talk tactics.

The Facilitation and Process Workshop

Later, I sat in on the first “facilitation and process workshop.” This was organized to train individuals to replace the current facilitators of the General Assembly, who wanted a break from their self-imposed duties while ensuring the continuity of the hierarchy.

When I sat down, I learned that the facilitators had obtained a consensus that gave them the power to interject at any moment, whereas everybody else would have to take turns to speak. This procedure was, in theory, starkly different from the prevailing method of the General Assembly—taking turns to raise arguments or proposals through “the stack.” Effectively, there wasn’t much difference.

The General Assembly—like every anarchist meeting I’ve ever attended—left loopholes to avoid taking turns. A person could circumvent the stack’s order by making one of several specified hand gestures to signify either a “point of procedure,” a “clarifying question,” or a “direct response.” The keeper of the stack could choose whether or not to acknowledge the interruption. These rules all but guaranteed that the insiders, those who were least open to a diversity of viewpoints, most impatient, and traditionally empowered would dominate the conversation.

During the hour or so that I participated in the workshop, four non-facilitators addressed the group for about ninety seconds each. The remainder of the hour consisted of the facilitators talking among themselves, extrapolating on how vague procedural rules might apply to hypothetical situations and congratulating themselves by repeating that their process for the General Assembly was the most decentralized, democratic one imaginable.

In fact, the procedure for bringing anything to a vote in the General Assembly was highly centralized and hugely inefficient. First, a “working group” had to be formed to demonstrate that a participant’s proposal had some support. The working group had to reach a consensus on the proposal’s final form, which was then rearticulated before the General Assembly. The facilitator then asked whether there was a consensus from the General Assembly, at which point supporters would raise their hands and wiggle their fingers. The facilitator next asked whether there were any “blocks”—a sort of individual veto, expressed by crossing one’s arms. The blocker could then explain his or her opposition to the proposal. If there was a block, the facilitator was supposed to put the proposal to a vote that required a 90% majority to pass. In practice, however, the facilitators’ affinity for consensus often caused them to give in to the block without further voting, sacrificing the majority’s will in the name of democracy.

Frustrated by this, I proposed to the workshop a democratic, decentralized and more efficient procedure for the General Assembly, free of any designated facilitators:

Instead of someone “in charge” scanning the crowd to see whose hands were raised and writing down the order in which participants would speak, the “stack” would be formed by whoever wanted to talk forming a line. This was the only part of my proposal that was implemented.

My proposal also prohibited “direct responses” and other means of circumventing the stack. Addresses to the General Assembly would be limited to concrete proposals; those who seconded a proposal could speak briefly in its favor; those who opposed could speak against it. Then the proposal would be put to a majority vote. The next person in line would then get a chance to speak. No facilitators. No stack-takers. Equal rights and opportunities for all participants.

As I spoke, several of the facilitators wiggled their hands at me in a way I hadn’t seen before: hands down, wiggling fingers toward the ground. This apparently meant they disagreed with my proposal. About sixty seconds into my proposal, the facilitators started rolling their fingers at me, a signal that they wanted me to hurry up, or risk getting cut off. I ignored this and completed my proposal. When the facilitators did this to the woman who spoke after me, another woman chastised them for this demeaning scare tactic.

The facilitators’ failure to articulate their objections to my proposal except through sloganeering betrayed their fundamental distrust in a truly democratic process. They accused me of advocating for the “tyranny of the majority,” the counter to which is easily the tyranny of the minority. They said that facilitators were needed in case somebody came up with a bad proposal, further proof that they did not trust the General Assembly to vote for themselves.

The workshop ended with plans for a second workshop, after which the participants would be given authority to facilitate the General Assembly. I decided to maintain opposition to the process.

Revolutionary or Bourgeois Democracy

A revolutionary mass movement needs a set of unifying goals, and a unified body that can carry out the necessary actions to reach these goals. If these conditions are not met, the mass movement is merely a collection of groups that happen to be carrying out somewhat similar actions in the same place, at the same time. This type of mass movement is quite susceptible to harsh suppression by a modern nation-state.

The General Assembly is the natural place for the movement as a whole to decide upon actions to be carried out together. Because of the extreme procedural flaws of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the General Assembly became the main place for public dialog, even though it was the least conducive place for dialog, being that only one person could speak at a time.

The smaller organizations, action committees, informal dialogue circles and duos are the natural place for dialog, where politicking happens, where the mood is set, where the culture is created, where people synthesize their ideas into concrete proposals, where people who are prepared to propose a plan of action to the General Assembly gather enough popular support for it to be passed. The action committees, however, became the primary vehicles for deciding upon and carrying out action, in spite of the fact that their diminished size made them the least effective bodies for carrying out mass action.

The Occupy Wall Street movement was supposed to be a revolt against a hierarchal, dehumanizing oligopoly. In reality, all that was created was a microcosm of the same system, but with new leaders. Like our nation’s leaders, Occupy Wall Street’s leaders listened to everyone’s grievances, then decided upon a pre-determined plan of action that cleverly borrowed the language of their constituency. The leaders then allowed the participants to decide between this plan of action and an even worse proposal: in this case, marching on Wall Street to an unspecified end, or doing nothing. When this failed, less democratic methods were used to mobilize people.

The Morning March

I didn’t sleep in Liberty Plaza Sunday night. I was confident I could make it back for the 9 AM General Assembly, before the 9:30 march on Wall Street. A friend of mine texted me at 7:09 AM, letting me know that the General Assembly was starting surprisingly early. By the time I got there—before 8 AM—it looked like ninety percent of the people had already left Liberty Plaza.

From what I was able to gather from the disheartened people left in the square, the leaders woke everybody up at around 6:30 AM with the promise of a General Assembly. After everybody was assembled, a couple announcements were made. At one point, somebody got up in front of the General Assembly and shouted that they should march on Wall Street immediately. Instead of voting on this proposal, those in favor started marching. As I predicted, almost everybody followed.

Forgetting, for a moment, the movement’s complete ineffectiveness, I tried imagining what would happen if it succeeded in shutting down Wall Street. I couldn’t help looking north, to Ground Zero, where ten years ago a small group of people carried out a highly successful operation that disrupted Wall Street for an entire week. What good came of that? The destroyed buildings are still being rebuilt. The families are broken forever. The culprits were not just vilified by the American public, but by those they considered their allies—the international Muslim community, including Islamic nation-states in militant opposition to the US.

I was wrong in my prediction that the police would use the movement’s internal division to commence mass arrests. The marchers were so non-threatening to the police and to the capitalist system that instead of blockading Wall Street, the police spent the night organizing a maze of barricades for the march to proceed through. A convergence of interests took place whereby the protestors got to prove to the world that the USA is not entirely comprised of war-and-financial-criminals; whereas our nation’s rulers got to prove to the rest of the world, as a backdrop to the General Assembly of the United Nations, that the United States is still the one place in the world which allows its citizens to protest: as long as they’re predominantly white, middle-class, male citizens.

The police’s facilitation of the protest didn’t stop the marchers from claiming, upon their triumphant, yet exhausted return, that the cops were scared of them—these two-hundred unarmed, untrained, unorganized, somewhat disenfranchised youths. One marcher gave a speech about how nobody could tell them that six of their comrades had been arrested for nothing; for they had disrupted trading, if only for a minute. The bell on the stock exchange, after all, had rung at 9:31.

With the current state of the people’s movement, America is in for a long winter.

By Fritz Tucker

02 October, 2011

Countercurrents.org

Fritz Tucker is a native Brooklynite, writer, activist, theorist and researcher of people’s movements the world over, from the US to Nepal. He blogs at fritztucker.blogspot.com

There is no danger that the protesters who have occupied squares, parks and plazas across the nation in defiance of the corporate state will be co-opted by the Democratic Party or groups like MoveOn. The faux liberal reformers, whose abject failure to stand up for the rights of the poor and the working class, have signed on to this movement because they fear becoming irrelevant. Union leaders, who pull down salaries five times that of the rank and file as they bargain away rights and benefits, know the foundations are shaking. So do Democratic politicians from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi. So do the array of “liberal” groups and institutions, including the press, that have worked to funnel discontented voters back into the swamp of electoral politics and mocked those who called for profound structural reform.

Resistance, real resistance, to the corporate state was displayed when a couple of thousand protesters, clutching mops and brooms, early Friday morning forced the owners of Zuccotti Park and the New York City police to back down from a proposed attempt to expel them in order to “clean” the premises. These protesters in that one glorious moment did what the traditional “liberal” establishment has steadily refused to do—fight back. And it was deeply moving to watch the corporate rats scamper back to their holes on Wall Street. It lent a whole new meaning to the phrase “too big to fail.”

Tinkering with the corporate state will not work. We will either be plunged into neo-feudalism and environmental catastrophe or we will wrest power from corporate hands. This radical message, one that demands a reversal of the corporate coup, is one the power elite, including the liberal class, is desperately trying to thwart. But the liberal class has no credibility left. It collaborated with corporate lobbyists to neglect the rights of tens of millions of Americans, as well as the innocents in our imperial wars. The best that liberals can do is sheepishly pretend this is what they wanted all along. Groups such as MoveOn and organized labor will find themselves without a constituency unless they at least pay lip service to the protests. The Teamsters’ arrival Friday morning to help defend the park signaled an infusion of this new radicalism into moribund unions rather than a co-opting of the protest movement by the traditional liberal establishment. The union bosses, in short, had no choice.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, like all radical movements, has obliterated the narrow political parameters. It proposes something new. It will not make concessions with corrupt systems of corporate power. It holds fast to moral imperatives regardless of the cost. It confronts authority out of a sense of responsibility. It is not interested in formal positions of power. It is not seeking office. It is not trying to get people to vote. It has no resources. It can’t carry suitcases of money to congressional offices or run millions of dollars of advertisements. All it can do is ask us to use our bodies and voices, often at personal risk, to fight back. It has no other way of defying the corporate state. This rebellion creates a real community instead of a managed or virtual one. It affirms our dignity. It permits us to become free and independent human beings.

Martin Luther King was repeatedly betrayed by liberal supporters, especially when he began to challenge economic forms of discrimination, which demanded that liberals, rather than simply white Southern racists, begin to make sacrifices. King too was a radical. He would not compromise on nonviolence, racism or justice. He understood that movements—such as the Liberty Party, which fought slavery, the suffragists, who fought for women’s rights, the labor movement and the civil rights movement—have always been the true correctives in American democracy. None of those movements achieved formal political power. But by holding fast to moral imperatives they made the powerful fear them. King knew that racial equality was impossible without economic justice and an end to militarism. And he had no intention of ceding to the demands of the liberal establishment that called on him to be calm and patience. “For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions in the South, a little change here, a little change there,” King said shortly before he was assassinated. “Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire system, a revolution of values.”

King was killed in 1968 when he was in Memphis to support a strike by sanitation workers. By then he had begun to say that his dream, the one that the corporate state has frozen into a few safe clichés from his 1963 speech in Washington, had turned into a nightmare. King called at the end of his life for massive federal funds to rebuild inner cities, what he called “a radical redistribution of economic and political power,” a complete restructuring of “the architecture of American society.” He grasped that the inequities of capitalism had become the instrument by which the poor would always remain poor. “Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism,” King said, “but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all of God’s children.” On the eve of King’s murder he was preparing to organize a poor people’s march on Washington, D.C., designed to cause “major, massive dislocations,” a nonviolent demand by the poor, including the white underclass, for a system of economic equality. It would be 43 years before his vision was realized by an eclectic group of protesters who gathered before the gates of Wall Street.

The truth of America is understood only when you listen to voices in our impoverished rural enclaves, prisons and the urban slums, when you hear the words of our unemployed, those who have lost their homes or cannot pay their medical bills, our elderly and our children, especially the quarter of the nation’s children who depend on food stamps to eat, and all who are marginalized. There is more reality expressed about the American experience by the debt-burdened young men and women protesting in the parks than by all the chatter of the well-paid pundits and experts that pollutes the airwaves.

What kind of nation is it that spends far more to kill enemy combatants and Afghan and Iraqi civilians than it does to help its own citizens who live below the poverty line? What kind of nation is it that permits corporations to hold sick children hostage while their parents frantically bankrupt themselves to save their sons and daughters? What kind of nation is it that tosses its mentally ill onto urban heating grates? What kind of nation is it that abandons its unemployed while it loots its treasury on behalf of speculators? What kind of nation is it that ignores due process to torture and assassinate its own citizens? What kind of nation is it that refuses to halt the destruction of the ecosystem by the fossil fuel industry, dooming our children and our children’s children?

“America,” Langston Hughes wrote, “never was America to me.”

“The black vote mean [nothing],” the rapper Nas intones. “Who you gunna elect/ Satan or Satan? In the hood nothing is changing,/ We aint got no choices.”

Or listen to hip-hop artist Talib Kweli: “Back in the ’60s, there was a big push for black … politicians, and now we have more than we ever had before, but our communities are so much worse. A lot of people died for us to vote, I’m aware of that history, but these politicians are not in touch with people at all. Politics is not the truth to me, it’s an illusion.”

The liberal class functions in a traditional, capitalist democracy as a safety valve. It lets off enough steam to keep the system intact. It makes piecemeal and incremental reform possible. This is what happened during the Great Depression and the New Deal. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s greatest achievement was that he saved capitalism. Liberals in a functioning capitalist democracy are at the same time tasked with discrediting radicals, whether it is King, especially after he denounced the war in Vietnam, or later Noam Chomsky or Ralph Nader.

The stupidity of the corporate state is that it thought it could dispense with the liberal class. It thought it could shut off that safety valve in order to loot and pillage with no impediments. Corporate power forgot that the liberal class, when it functions, gives legitimacy to the power elite. And the reduction of the liberal class to silly courtiers, who have nothing to offer but empty rhetoric, meant that the growing discontent found other mechanisms and outlets. Liberals were reduced to stick figures, part of an elaborate pantomime, as they acted in preordained roles to give legitimacy to meaningless and useless political theater. But that game is over.

Human history has amply demonstrated that once those in positions of power become redundant and impotent, yet retain the trappings and privileges of power, they are brutally discarded. The liberal class, which insists on clinging to its positions of privilege while at the same time refusing to play its traditional role within the democratic state, has become a useless and despised appendage of corporate power. And as the engines of corporate power pollute and poison the ecosystem and propel us into a world where there will be only masters and serfs, the liberal class, which serves no purpose in the new configuration, is being abandoned and discarded by both the corporate state and radical dissidents. The best it can do is attach itself meekly to the new political configuration rising up to replace it.

An ineffectual liberal class means there is no hope of a correction or a reversal through the formal mechanisms of power. It ensures that the frustration and anger among the working and the middle class will find expression now in these protests that lie outside the confines of democratic institutions and the civilities of a liberal democracy. By emasculating the liberal class, which once ensured that restive citizens could institute moderate reforms, the corporate state has created a closed system defined by polarization, gridlock and political charades. It has removed the veneer of virtue and goodness that the liberal class offered to the power elite.

Liberal institutions, including the church, the press, the university, the Democratic Party, the arts and labor unions, set the parameters for limited self-criticism in a functioning democracy as well as small, incremental reforms. The liberal class is permitted to decry the worst excesses of power and champion basic human rights while at the same time endowing systems of power with a morality and virtue it does not possess. Liberals posit themselves as the conscience of the nation. They permit us, through their appeal to public virtues and the public good, to see ourselves and our state as fundamentally good.

But the liberal class, by having refused to question the utopian promises of unfettered capitalism and globalization and by condemning those who did, severed itself from the roots of creative and bold thought, the only forces that could have prevented the liberal class from merging completely with the power elite. The liberal class, which at once was betrayed and betrayed itself, has no role left to play in the battle between us and corporate dominance. All hope lies now with those in the street.

Liberals lack the vision and fortitude to challenge dominant free market ideologies. They have no ideological alternatives even as the Democratic Party openly betrays every principle the liberal class claims to espouse, from universal health care to an end to our permanent war economy to a demand for quality and affordable public education to a return of civil liberties to a demand for jobs and welfare of the working class. The corporate state forced the liberal class to join in the nation’s death march that began with the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Liberals such as Bill Clinton, for corporate money, accelerated the dismantling of our manufacturing base, the gutting of our regulatory agencies, the destruction of our social service programs and the empowerment of speculators who have trashed our economy. The liberal class, stripped of power, could only retreat into its atrophied institutions, where it busied itself with the boutique activism of political correctness and embraced positions it had previously condemned.

Russell Jacoby writes: “The left once dismissed the market as exploitative; it now honors the market as rational and humane. The left once disdained mass culture as exploitative; now it celebrates it as rebellious. The left once honored independent intellectuals as courageous; now it sneers at them as elitist. The left once rejected pluralism as superficial; now it worships it as profound. We are witnessing not simply a defeat of the left, but its conversion and perhaps inversion.”

Hope in this age of bankrupt capitalism comes with the return of the language of class conflict and rebellion, language that has been purged from the lexicon of the liberal class, language that defines this new movement. This does not mean we have to agree with Karl Marx, who advocated violence and whose worship of the state as a utopian mechanism led to another form of enslavement of the working class, but we have to learn again to speak in the vocabulary Marx employed. We have to grasp, as Marx and Adam Smith did, that corporations are not concerned with the common good. They exploit, pollute, impoverish, repress, kill and lie to make money. They throw poor families out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars to make profits, poison and pollute the ecosystem, slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy, plunder the U.S. Treasury and crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women. They worship money and power. And, as Marx knew, unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater and greater numbers of human lives until it finally consumes itself. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the perfect metaphor for the corporate state. It is part of the same nightmare experienced in postindustrial mill towns of New England and the abandoned steel mills of Ohio. It is a nightmare that Iraqis, Pakistanis and Afghans, living in terror and mourning their dead, endure daily.

What took place early Friday morning in Zuccotti Park was the first salvo in a long struggle for justice. It signaled a step backward by the corporate state in the face of popular pressure. And it was carried out by ordinary men and women who sleep at night on concrete, get soaked in rainstorms, eat donated food and have nothing as weapons but their dignity, resilience and courage. It is they, and they alone, who hold out the possibility of salvation. And if we join them we might have a chance.

By Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times.

 

What has happened to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh? No, I am not talking about the political confabulations that he is holding to save his colleague Home Minister P Chidambaram from falling into disgrace. In case you missed it, what I am referring to is his speech at the 66th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. “Till a few years ago the world had taken for granted the benefits of globalisation and global interdependence,” the Prime Minister said. “Today we are being called upon to cope with the negative dimensions of those very phenomena.” [Grim globalisation sermon by Singh, The Telegraph, Sept 24.http://bit.ly/oTuKjt].

It seems wisdom has finally dawned upon the elderly economist.After being in power for over seven years, and having initiated the process of economic liberalisation in India in 1991, Manmohan Singh probably is now being arm-twisted to sign on the dotted line. Only he would know how tough and harsh it must be for him to blurt it out at the UN General Assembly. Enough is enough, he seems to be conveying.

This reminds me of another historical statement that India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had made from the ramparts of the Red Fort in New Delhi on Aug 15, 1955. He had said: “It is very humiliating for any country to import food. So everything else can wait, but not agriculture.” I have often said in my presentations that only Nehru would have known how much humiliation he had to undergo to receive food aid. Similarly, I think only Manmohan Singh can tell us, if at all he ever picks up the courage to confide with the nation, how humiliating it has been for him to not only sing songs in favour of globalisation but to also bring in policies that would eventually go against the national interest.

The Telegraph report further states: In a clear indictment of free market policies and deregulation which have brought the world to its present financial meltdown, Singh said: “Economic, social and political events in different parts of the world have coalesced together and their adverse impact is now being felt across countries and continents.” The economist Prime Minister warned that “the world economy is in trouble”. As one of the leaders who is party to the Group of Twenty (G-20) efforts to revive the global economy after the meltdown three years ago, he lamented that “the shoots of recovery which were visible after the economic and financial crisis of 2008 have yet to blossom”. Making a grim prediction for the future, the Prime Minister, in fact, said: “In many respects the crisis has deepened even further.”

This is what happens when you read too much from the text books. The proponents of economic liberalisation had simply followed the book rules and had gone on defending whenever signs of failure would appear. These rules were designed in the west, and Indian economists (most of whom are on a kind of sabbatical from the western universities) had the onerous task to ensure that India does not deviate from the path of privatisation and neoliberalism. Using the mainline media to their advantage, I must say these economists had done a remarkable job in creating the illusion of economic growth. We have been simply seduced by the power of GDP, and somehow made to believe that we can all realise our dreams to be stinkingly rich before we die.

I think the Prime Minister’s exasperation stems from the diktats he has been lately receiving from the G-20 and the World Trade organisation (WTO). Take a look at the recent review of India’s trade policy by the WTO (which in reality was more of a US review of India’s trade policies). WTO hit where it would hit the Prime Minister most. Already under fire from the political opposition, media and the public at large for his inability to control inflation, WTO actually directed India not to restrict food exports at any cost. India must export, and when it needs to meet its domestic needs it can import. Such a directive, if India decides to follow, will only add to Manmohan Singh’s woes. [WTO slams India’s trade policy on farm items, Economic Times, Sept 15, 2011,http://bit.ly/pNqIKh]

Another crucial policy that he is being directed to adopt, and in fact he is being repeatedly asked to explain as to why he has not been able to implement is the approval for FDI in big retail. As per theG-20, India was supposed to have cleared all the obstacles in allowing unhindered approval for FDI in retail by November last year. As the coordinator on behalf of G-20,IMF was to monitor the implementation for FDI in retail across the G-20countries. It is not that Manmohan Singh didn’t try. He had in fact created a fast track approval process as a result of which all discerning views were put on hold. But then politically it has not been possible for him to appease theG-20.

These may be just two of the irritants. But the writing of the wall is clear to any sensible person, provided he is not a mainline economist. The 2008 economic meltdown was in reality an economic collapse. If the governments across the globe had not joined hands to pump in US $ 20 trillion to save the economy, the neoliberal economic model would have collapsed by now. This year too it is once again showing its ugly head. There is panic all around. The crisis of PIGS countries is now heating the Eurozone. The US is already faced with its worst economic crisis, partly being sustained by printing more currency notes. Everyone knows it can’t go on for long.

Nevertheless, Manmohan Singh must now be familiar with the imminent collapse of the global economy. As the head of the State he must be trying to emerge clean so that he can say: Look, I warned you..”

By Devinder Sharma

 

 

When Recep Tayyip Erdogan became Turkey’s prime minister in 2003, he seemed to be certain of the new direction his country would take. It would maintain cordial ties with Turkey’s old friends, Israel included, but also reach out to its Arab and Muslim neighbors, Syria in particular. The friendly relations between Ankara and Damascus soon morphed from rhetorical emphasis on cultural ties into trade deals and economic exchanges worth billions of dollars. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s vision of a ‘zero-problems’ foreign policy seemed like a truly achievable feat, even in a region marred by conflict, foreign occupations and ‘great game’ rivalry.

The Israeli raid on the Turkish aid ship, Mavi Marmara, in international waters on May 31, 2010, was not enough to erode this vision. The official Turkish response to Israel’s violent attack – which killed nine Turkish citizens – was one of great anger, but it hardly resembled what Turkey saw as state-sponsored Israeli piracy in the Mediterranean.

However, the Syrian uprising in March, the harsh government crackdown on dissent, and the growing militarization of the opposition – all leading the country down the road to full-fledged civil war – has forced Turkey to abandon its ‘zero-problems’ foreign policy. While Turkey had clearly grown impatient with the bloody crackdowns on widespread protests demanding freedom and political reforms, its growingly confrontational attitude towards Damascus was not entirely altruistic either. Considering the exceptionality of the situation throughout the Arab World, Turkey has had to make some difficult choices.

Turkey’s initially guarded support of NATO’s military intervention against Libya was a litmus test. It proved that Turkey’s membership in the organization, and its regional standing was more important than any foreign policy visions.

“The same stunning irony was clear in Turkey’s relations with (murdered President Muammar) Qadhafi’s Libya. Once these regimes faltered…zero problems was likely to look like a bad bet,” wrote Steven A Cook in the Atlantic, on November 18.

The other ‘stunning irony’ is, of course, Turkey’s hostile attitude towards Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, once considered by Erdogan to be a personal friend. In fact, the leading role currently played by Ankara to isolate and punish al-Assad would seem like the official “denouement of the Erdogan/Davutoglu investment in Bashar al-Assad,” and thus the “end of what has been billed as Turkey’s transformative diplomacy,” according to Cook.

Despite pressure on Ankara to hasten its isolation of Syria, and subtle insinuations that the Turkish leadership is moving too slow on that front, the language alone tells of near complete foreign policy conversion. In a statement on November 15, Prime Minister Erdogan suggested that al-Assad cannot be trusted. “No one any longer expects (the Syrian President) to meet the expectations of the people and of the international community…Our wish is that the Assad regime, which is now on a knife edge, does not enter this road of no return, which leads to the edge of the abyss” (Global Spin blog, TIME online, November 16).

The apocalyptic language can be justified on the basis of an almost inevitable civil war in Syria, and the instability that such a war could create for an already unstable southern Turkish border. More, with regional and international players already vying for the opportunity to exploit Syria’s internal woes, Turkey’s own internal problems could soon be exploited for the benefit of outside forces. Thus, the new Turkish foreign policy appears to be centered on ensuring a position of leadership for Ankara in any future scenario faced by Syria. It’s a remarkable shift – from a moralistic approach to politics to a crude realpolitik outlook, which may require sacrificing others for the benefit of oneself.

Political realism is often riddled with ironies. While Turkey once threatened to go to war unless Syria expelled PKK’s Ocalan, it “is now supporting a man, Riad al Assad, whose ‘Free Syrian Army’ is doing exactly the same across the Syrian border,” according Ankara-based writer Jeremy Salt. Furthermore, “in confronting Syria…Turkey has put itself at odds with Syria’s ally, Iran, whose cooperation it needs in dealing with the PKK” (The Palestine Chronicle, November 18).

By claiming a position of leadership in the ongoing effort to topple the Syrian government, Turkey hopes to stave off unwanted repercussions from the Syria fallout – and thus control the outcome of that adventure. This explains why Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, has played the host of the Syrian National Council, and why the Free Syrian Army, which has launched several deadly attacks on Syrian security installations, is finding a safe haven in Turkish territories.

Politically, Turkey is also taking a lead role. Its foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, after a meeting with French foreign minister Alain Juppe, called for more international pressure against Damascus. “If they don’t listen we have to increase pressure to stop bloodshed in Syria,” he said. “But this pressure should not be unilateral pressure, all the relevant countries should act together” (The Financial Times, November 18).

What Davutoglu means by ‘act together’, and which countries are ‘relevant’ is open to speculation.

As for acting, Mohammad Riad Shaqfa, the leader of Syria’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, offered his own roadmap at a news conference in Istanbul. “If the international community procrastinates then more is required from Turkey as a neighbor to be more serious than other countries to handle this regime,” Shaqfa said. “If other interventions are required, such as air protection, because of the regime’s intransigence, then the people will accept Turkish intervention” (Turkey’s Hurriyet, November 17).

A detailed plan of that envisaged intervention was published in Turkey’s Sabah newspaper on the day of Shaqfa’s comments. According to Sabah, an intervention plan was put forth by ‘oppositional forces’. Its details include a limited no-fly-zone that progressively widened to include major Syrian provinces and a blockade of the city of Aleppo in the north (Sabah, November 17).

Considering the escalating violence in Syria, and the palpable lack of good intentions by all ‘relevant countries,’ Syria is teetering close to the abyss of prolonged civil war, divisions and unprecedented bloodletting.

“As negotiator and facilitator between the Syrian government and the internal opposition, Turkey has a role to play,” wrote Jeremy Salt, “but provoking Syria along the border, lecturing Bashar al-Assad as if he were a refractory provincial governor during Ottoman rule and giving support to people who are killing Syrian citizens is not the way ahead.”

By Ramzy Baroud

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

 

 

 

Atgaa, 10, and her sister Reemya, 8, are about to be married to men in their 60s. Atgaa will be her husband’s fourth wife. Their wedding celebrations are scheduled for this week and will take place in the town of Fayaadah Abban in Qasim, Saudi Arabia.

The girls are getting married because their financially struggling father needs the money that their dowries will provide: young girls of this age can fetch as much as $40,000 each.

Many readers might be shocked at this news. How can it be legal? The answer is that Saudi Arabia has no minimum age for marriage, and it is perfectly legal to marry even an hour-old child.

Three Saudi ministries share the blame for allowing and facilitating child marriages. The health ministry is tasked with conducting genetic tests for couples considering marriage. Saudi law requires potential brides and grooms to provide certificates of genetic testing before marriages can officially proceed.

The justice ministry regulates the marriage process and issues licences. And the interior ministry registers families and documents the relationships between family members. It is also the most powerful government agency; it has authority over all other ministries and can direct their activities at will.

As with many pernicious practices, child marriage would not exist without tacit support and approval from the country’s leadership. Far from condemning child marriage, the Saudi monarchy itself has a long history of marrying very young girls.

Sarah, who is now a brilliant Saudi doctor, told me she was barely 12 when the late prince Sultan proposed to her after seeing her walking at a military base where she had lived with her father. Luckily, her father had the wits to claim that she was chronically ill, at which point the proposal was swiftly rescinded.

Camel festivals, held at his time of the year in Saudi Arabia, witness the practice called akheth (“taking”) in which girls aged 14 to 16 are “gifted” to the usually elderly members of the monarchy for a few days or weeks. This practice, reminiscent of the infamous droit du seigneur in medieval Europe, is maintained to this day with the monarchy’s protection.

Saudi Arabia has probably the highest number of child marriages in the Middle East and yet there has been almost no international outrage or objection directed at the practice. I have personally sent two letters to Ann Veneman, the director of United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), regarding the Saudi practice and asking her to make her views on the issue public, as she did with Yemen.

Instead, Unicef lauded Saudi efforts to protect child rights and even honoured Prince Naif, whose interior ministry is one of the departments overseeing child marriages. So no wonder the Saudi monarchy feels confident that such a practice can continue.

The US government has been similarly indifferent to the plight of child brides in the kingdom. In April 2009, I wrote to William Burns, the undersecretary of state, regarding the case of Sharooq, 8 – also from Qasim. I never heard back from him.

At a public conference, I asked a former senator, Chuck Hagel (seated next to Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence), if he personally or the US would accept the friendship and alliance of a family that allows child marriage. The answer was nothing short of shocking: “We cannot decide for other countries what is appropriate or not,” he said.

So far, no UN body, such as Unicef or the human rights council, has issued a single statement condemning child marriages in Saudi Arabia [see footnote]. In fact, not one country has made a statement in the human rights council on this issue, and not a single western government has asked the Saudi monarchy to stop the practice. The ugly tradition of child marriage thus continues with the help of the monarchy and its apologists in the west.

If any governments, especially in the west, are seriously concerned with this barbaric and medieval practice, they should ban the heads of Saudi justice, interior and health ministries from entering their countries. If this action were taken against government leaders facilitating crimes against children we would soon see a resolution of this issue.

Saudi Arabia must be pressured to set a minimum age for marriage and save children like Atgaa and Reemya.

• This footnote was added on 15 November 2011. Unicef would like to make clear that a statement was issued in 2009 by Ann Veneman, then its executive director, expressing deep concern about child marriage in Saudi Arabia.

By Ali al-Ahmed

8 November 2011

@ The Guardian

 

It may not ease the daily pain of occupation and blockade or the endless anguish of refugee status and exile or the continual humiliations of discrimination and second class citizenship, but the admission of Palestine to membership in UNESCO is for so many reasons a step forward in the long march of the Palestinian people toward the dignity of sunlight! The event illuminates the path to self-determination, but also brings into the open some of the most formidable obstacles that must be cleared if further progress is to be made.

The simple arithmetic of the UNESCO vote, 107 in favor, 14 opposed, 52 abstentions, and 21 absent fails to tell the story of really one sided was the vote. Toting up the for and against votes obscures the wicked arm twisting, otherwise known as geopolitics, that induced such marginal political entities as Samoa, Solomon Islands, Palau, and Vanuatu to stand against the weight of global opinion and international morality by voting against Palestinian admission as member to UNESCO. This is not meant to insult such small states, but to lament that their vulnerability to American pressure should distort the real contours of world public opinion. Such a distortion makes a minor mockery of the idea that governments can offer adequate representation to the peoples of the world. It also illustrates the degree to which formal political independence may hide a condition of de facto dependence as well as make plain that voting within the United Nations System should never be confused with aspirations to establish a global democracy in substance as well as form. As an aside this consistently compromised electoral process within the UN System demonstrates the urgency and desirability of establishing a global peoples parliament that could at least provide a second voice whenever global debate touches on issues of human concern.

What is most impressive about the UNESCO vote is that despite the US diplomacy of threat and intimidation, the Palestinian application for membership carried the day. There was enough adherence to principle by enough states to provide the necessary 2/3rds vote even in the face of a determined American diplomatic effort, bolstered by threatening punitive action in the form of refusing further financial support for UNESCO, which amounts to some $60m for the current year, and overall 22 per cent of the organization’s annual budget of $643m in 2010-11 (which is projected to be $653m for 2011-12). Actually this withholding of funds is an American policy embedded in legislation that derives from the early 1990s, and cannot be attributed to the ridiculously pro-Israeli present Congress that would have acted in a similar fashion, and probably feels deprived of an opportunity to draw fresh UN blood. Indeed rabid pro-Israel members of Congress are already showboating their readiness to do more to damage so as to exhibit their devotion to Israel. This unseemly demand to punish the UN for taking a principled stand is worse than just being a poor loser, it amounts to a totally irresponsible willingness to damage the indispensable work of cultural and societal cooperation on international levels just to show that there is a price to be paid to defy the will of Israel, with the United States as willing enforcement agent. It is an excellent moment for the governments of other states to demonstrate their commitment to human wellbeing by helping to restore confidence in the UN. One way to do this is to help overcome this unanticipated UNESCO budget deficit, and what would deliver a most message to Washington and Tel Aviv would be a collection campaign that generated more funds than those lost. It seems a useful opportunity to show once and for all that such strong arm fiscal tactics are no longer acceptable and don’t even work in the post-colonial world. Such an outcome would also confirm that the geopolitical tectonic plates of world order have shifted in such a way as to give increasing prominence to such countries as China, India, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa all of whom voted to admit Palestine to UNESCO. At least for the moment in this limited setting we can obtain a glimpse of a genuine ‘new world order’! The Security Council has proved unable and unwilling to change its two-tier structure to accommodate these shifts, but these countries can by their own action become more active players on the global stage. It is not necessary to wait until France and Britain read the tea leaves accurately enough to realize that it is time for them to give up their permanent place at the UNSC.

Perhaps, more enduring that the vote itself is the reinforced image of the wildly inappropriate role given to the United States to act as intermediary and peacemaker in seeking to resolve the underlying conflict and ensure the realization of Palestinian rights that have been so cruelly denied for more than six decades. Observers as diverse as Michel Rocard, the former Socialist Party Prime Minister of France, and Mouin Rabbani, a widely respected Palestinian analyst of the conflict, agree that this effort to thwart an elemental Palestinian quest for legal recognition and political participation, demonstrates beyond all reasonable doubt, although such a reality has long been apparent to even the most casual serious observer of the conflict, that the time has come to disqualify the United States from presiding over the resolution of this conflict. It has always verged on the absurd to expect justice, or even fairness, to flow from a diplomatic framework in which the openly and extremely partisan ally of the dominant party can put itself forward as ‘the honest broker’ in negotiations in a setting where the weaker side is subject to military rule and exile. To have given credibility to this tripartite charade for this long is itself mainly a commentary on the weakness of the Palestinian position, and their desperate need to insist henceforth on a balanced international framework if negotiations are ever to have the slightest prospect of producing a sustainable and just peace.

Leadership role lacking

Yet to find a new framework does not mean following Rocard’s incredibly Orientalist prescription: “The Americans have lost their moral right to leadership in resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is time for Europe to step into the fray.” As if Europe had recently demonstrated its capacity for rendering justice by the NATO intervention in Libya! As if the colonial heritage had been rebranded as a positive credential! As if the Americans ever had a ‘moral right’ to resolve this conflict that was only now lost in the UNESCO voting chamber! It is not clear how a new diplomacy for the conflict that is finally responsive to the situation should be structured, but it should reflect at the very least the new realities of an emergent multipolarity skewed toward the non-West. To be provocative for once, maybe Turkey, Brazil, Egypt, and India could constitute themselves as a more legitimate quartet than that horribly discredited version of a quartet composed of the United States, the EU, Russia, and the UN.

Returning to the UNESCO controversy, it is worth noting the words of denunciation used by Victoria Nuland, the designated State Department spokesperson. She described the vote as being “regrettable, premature” contending that it “undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.” Even Orwell might be dazed by such a diversionary formulation. Why was the vote regrettable and premature? After all to work for the preservation of religious sacred sites within the halls of UNESCO is hardly subversive of global stability by any sane reckoning.

And after enduring occupation for more than 44 years, it qualifies as comedic to insist that Palestine must not yet in from the cold because such entry would be ‘premature.’ And how can it be claimed that Palestine participation within the UN System ‘undermines’ the ‘shared goal’ of regional peace in the Middle East? The only answer that makes any sense is say that whatever Israel says is so , and the United States will act accordingly, that is, do whatever Israel wants it to do in the global arena. Such kneejerk geopolitics is not only contrary to elementary considerations of law and equity, it is also monumentally irrational and self-defeating from the perspective of national wellbeing and future peace.

Serving common interests

What in the end may be most troubling about this incident is the degree that it confirms a growing impression that both the United States and Israel have lost the capacity to serve their own security interests and rationally promote the wellbeing of their own people. This is serious enough with respect to the damage done to such societies by their own maladroit behavior, but dealing with these two military heavyweights who both possess arsenals of nuclear weaponry is sheer madness. These are two holdout government that continue to rest their future security almost exclusively on an outmoded reliance on hard power calculations and strategy, the effects are potentially catastrophic for the region and the world. When Israel alienates Turkey, its only surviving friend in the Middle East, and then refuses to take the minimal steps to heal the wounds caused by its recklessly violent behavior, one has to conclude that the Israeli sense of reality has fallen on hard times! And when Israel pushes the United States to lose this much social capital on the global stage by standing up for its defiance of international law as in relation to rejecting the recommendations of the Goldstone Report or refusing to censure the expansion of its unlawful settlements or the collective punishment of Gaza, there is no longer much doubt that Israeli foreign policy is driven by domestic extremism that then successfully solicits Washington for ill-advised backing.

The situation in the United States is parallel. Many excuse, or at least explain, America’s unconditionally irrational support for Israel as produced by the fearsome leverage exerted by AIPAC over electoral politics in the country as practiced by Congress and rationalized by conservative think tanks. But what this is saying is that the United States Government has also lost the capacity to pursue a foreign policy in a crucial region of the world that expresses its own national interests, much less provides guidance based on a wider commitment to a stable and just Middle East. The Arab Spring created a second chance so to speak to redeem the United States from its long embrace of vicious autocratic rule in the region, but this opportunity is being squandering on the altar of subservience to the vindictive whims, expansionist visions, and paranoid fears of the Netanyahu/Lieberman governing coalition in Israel.

Welcoming Palestine to UNESCO is a day of celebration and vindication for the Palestinian people, and a political victory for PLO leadership, but it is also a day when all of us should reflect upon the wider Palestinian tragedy and struggle, and seek to take further steps forward. UNESCO has given a momentary respite to those who were completely disillusioned by what to expect from the UN or the system of states when it comes to Palestinian aspirations, and instead put their hope and efforts into the initiatives of global civil society, especially the growing BDS campaign. Now is not the time to shift attention away from such initiatives, but it does suggest that there are many symbolic battlefields in the ongoing legitimacy war being waged for Palestinian self-determination, and several of these lie within the network of institutions comprising the United Nations.

By Richard Falk

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has authored and edited numerous publications spanning a period of five decades.