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The Bolivian Left in Berlin

Movimiento Wiphala Alemania on the 2019 coup, indigenous resistance and building solidarity for Bolivian activists in Germany

Alice Lambert
24/01/2021

Translation by Ian Perry

How did the Wiphala group in Berlin come about, and what do you do?

The group’s members are Bolivians living in Berlin. It came about to unify the migrant community after the November 2019 coup in Bolivia. Our objective is to organise a united front, in order to:

Denounce the oppression that took place after the coup.
Demand the emancipation of the indigenous nations, whose resistance is based around the Wiphala, the indigenous symbol which was trampled on by the fascists.
Inform the German people and friends of Bolivia about the Wiphala through educational workshops.
Provide information regarding the injustices, abuses of power, violations of human rights, racism and media repression which our country was suffering.

Specifically, what has the Bolivian group been doing in Berlin and how do you support each other?

Our objective was to make ourselves visible, especially in Bolivia, using online videos to support the struggles of our compatriots in the cities and the countryside, through:

Demonstrations in front of the embassy and in symbolic settings, and cacerolazos (protest actions beating pots and pans).
Solidarity actions, such as holding cooking events to raise funds for the victims of the massacre of Senkata. We also collected money for the “Hunger is not a crime” programme for the poor of the city of El Alto during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Working collectively with other organisations in Europe though online platforms such as Twitter and Facebook (“Wiphalas across the World”). We held successful education sessions discussing important political themes, with the participation of social movement leaders, and Deputies and Senators of the Movement for Socialism (MAS). Such sessions went viral on social networks.
Building parallel struggles in different European countries, following the same forms of organisation and action across the continent.

In your experience what do Germans and others living in Berlin know about MAS, Evo Morales and the situation in Bolivia?
The information Germans have greatly depends on whether they have been to Bolivia. If they have visited as tourists, the great majority will know of Evo Morales as president. Those who have lived or live now in Bolivia also know that Morales was the first indigenous president, that he is a leader who arose from the social movements and that together with the Movement for Socialism (MAS), the political party which he represents, he had a major political impact over the last 14 years. As these years saw stability and growth in Bolivia this has created a generally positive image.

How would you describe the coup and the recent election in Bolivia to non-Bolivians living in Berlin?
Presidential elections were held on 20th October 2019. After a preliminary announcement of a MAS victory, the opposition groups, supported by the Organisation of American States (OEA) and its president Luis Almagro, claimed electoral fraud and rejected the results, calling on the population to revolt. This resulted in days of high tension and chaos in the country; electoral and state institutions, MAS campaign offices and the houses of MAS activists were attacked and burned down, and MAS political leaders kidnapped. This political and social persecution showed that a coup had taken place (months later a study of the election results by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab found no evidence of fraud).

On 10th November Evo Morales, together with state vice-president Álvaro García Linera, resigned his position while denouncing the coup, in order to stop the continuing violence in the country.

The second vice-president of the Senate, Jeanine Añez Chávez, announced that under the constitution she was entitled to assume the state presidency. The conservative sectors behind the break with democracy presented Áñez’s accession to power as a straightforward constitutional succession, and their mass media supporters omitted all reference to the context in which Morales and other MAS state office holders were forced to resign. This façade was presented to the international community, with the USA among the first to recognise the de facto government, followed by the European Union and the German Foreign Ministry.

The de facto government, wanting to silence the population, ordered the armed forces to stop the protests, and issued a decree that the military could not be prosecuted if they killed anyone. This led to the massacres in Sacaba (in Cochabamba) and Senkata (in El Alto, by La Paz). 37 people died, more than 800 were injured, more than 1500 arrested and tortured, and dozens disappeared, plunging the Bolivian people into grief. The killings stopped after protests from international human rights organisations.

The de facto government started to crack under its own weight after a few months, since all the participants in the coup which had criminally taken over the state institutions and enterprises were immediately embroiled in corruption scandals. This started with corruption in the acquiring of medical supplies to confront the Covid-19 pandemic, and ended with the flight of directors of state enterprises, with suitcases full of money, to the United States.

Añez had said on taking power that her objective was to call new elections after 3 months, but this did not happen. Instead the date for new elections was postponed on more than 3 occasions in the course of 2020, provoking a social and political crisis, with the de facto government using the excuse that the conditions were not right. After months of patience the social, indigenous and trade union movements, coordinated though the Pact of Unity, became the main force which forced the October 18th 2020 date for the new elections and drove the reestablishment of democracy in Bolivia.

Añez put herself forward as a candidate for the presidency in the elections, which increased the divisions within the conservative bloc. In the run up to the elections the political parties (the majority of them right wing) attempted to create an alliance that could beat MAS at the polls. They made no effort to investigate those behind the massacres and persecutions that had followed the coup.

On 18th October the elections saw a huge turnout in a calm atmosphere. The results gave a massive MAS victory, with MAS candidate Luis Arce winning the Presidency and MAS gaining a majority in both chambers of the legislative assembly.

I’ve read a lot of very critical portrayals of Morales in the liberal US and European media over the past few years. How does it feel to see those as a Bolivian living abroad?

Many people who previously supported Morales and MAS became disenchanted over mistakes which damaged the image of the party over the course of the years. And the rich families who were used to running the country became sick with fear of losing their power and privilege, leading them to use violence to sow chaos in the country.

The mass media in the USA and Europe are enemies of the peoples’ struggles in Latin America, and they used their hegemonic position to promote lies about the reality in Bolivia, demonising Morales as a leftist follower of Castro and Chavez, and contributing to the destabilisation of the continent.

In spite of this, the progress that was made in the last decade is recognised across the world. The mass media’s ideas are now challenged via the internet and alternative media, so that people have access to more information from which to develop their own views.

Bolivia is a country with an indigenous and multicultural majority, but from its foundation it was ruled by big landowners and then by neoliberal capitalists. Under the governments led by Morales, for the first time in history the indigenous people took power through elections.

It wasn’t an easy task to raise up a country that was largely broken and privatised, while trying to guarantee a better quality of life for the whole population. MAS government measures included:

Nationalising various businesses, with the state resuming the power of administration and redistribution of profits, thus combatting poverty.
Implementing literacy programmes, issuing identity documents, providing food and improving nutrition.
Redistributing land, with public consultation via a referendum.
Implementing programmes to improve education, providing modern teaching materials, technology and new infrastructure.
Guaranteeing a system of universal free healthcare.
Supporting national production and exports, and offering incentives to small businesses.
Coming to new agreements with international business, making Bolivia attractive for foreign investment. This state policy enabled an important rate of economic growth, the highest in Latin America in recent years.

What do you think will happen in the coming months and years in Bolivia?
The initial challenge is to achieve justice for the massacres in Senkata and Sacaba, and in the process ensure that all groups (including the right-wing political parties, military leaders, and elements of the police) acknowledge that what took place in 2019 was a coup. It’s important that the forces of the left and the indigenous peoples use their first years in power to resolve this dispute with the military and right-wing sectors. Meeting this first challenge will provide more stability and security for the Bolivian social forces, which have renewed energy after the 2020 national elections.

Also, the eruption into the political sphere of new forces with structural demands, such as feminist and environmental movements, will create areas of debate and political action to which the government will have to respond.

In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, nature itself has legal rights within the constitution. The government seeks to achieve development in harmony with nature, respecting and accepting its conditions, alongside promoting collective well-being (the concept of Buen Vivir) and respect for the culture and languages of the indigenous nations. The challenge is how to move beyond regulations and declarations, and turn proposals into a tangible reality. How can state action enable moving beyond capitalism and patriarchy?

Collective authorship: Wiphala Movement Germany

We are people from all layers of society and fervent supporters of democracy, justice and harmony. We represent a network of friends inspired by the Wiphala symbol. We defend the emancipation of the indigenous people. We are against the abuse of power and the oppression and exploitation of the Bolivian people.

Links

Movimiento Wiphala Alemania

https://www.facebook.com/112673237095875/videos/3467901229962228

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ_nZ6zc6LM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzWe19H1rgU&t=7s

https://www.facebook.com/WiphalasacrosstheWorld

Union Berlin’s Disappointing Response to Racism

A recent event at Union Berlin has led some to suggest that German football has a racism problem. Is this true, and if it is, who should deal with it?

Markus Joegiches
21/01/2021

Friday should have been a night to remember. A night filled with nothing but positives for the Bundesliga. FC Union Berlin, the only club in Germany’s top league that once competed in the German Democratic Republic. Union Berlin are currently in sixth place after defeating third placed Bayer Leverkusen. This is a huge achievement for Union, whose record signing cost just €2 million, pennies in comparison to Leverkusen’s €26.5 million summer purchase.

Germany’s Nadiem Amiri. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Austria license. Attribution: Ailura, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT

This impressive victory, however, has been overshadowed by a defender on the Berlin side shouting a racist insult and the club’s subsequent passive response. The winning goal was controversial, as a foul was committed by a Union player in the build up play. Leverkusen’s Nadiem Amiri, a German national born in Ludwigshafen to Afghan parents, was particularly incensed over the decision. In the ensuing argument between the two sets of players, Berlin’s Florian Hübner allegedly shouted “Scheiß Afghane,” or “shit Afghan.”

There seem to be multiple racist, xenophobic, and homophobic scandals in football every year. How is the sport supposed to address this never-ending issue if its clubs and governing bodies are not prepared to harshly punish those players and fans that make such statements?

Nadiem Amiri Going Above and Beyond

The Leverkusen players Jonathan Tah and Kerem Demirbay told the press in a post match interview about what was said towards Amiri, but they refused to openly identify the culprit. When asked to shed more light on the situation, Demirbay ,responded with, “No, that’s not my style… What happens on the pitch stays on the pitch.”

The following day, Amiri ,stated, “he [still not openly identifying Union’s Florian Hübner] came to me in the dressing room. Ugly words were uttered out of emotions, which he is very sorry about. He has given me believable assurance of that, therefore the matter is settled for me.” Amiri is going above and beyond here to let Hübner off the hook by accepting that such a comment can be played off as an emotional response.

To be born and raised in Germany, play proudly for the national team, and then be racially abused on the pitch, must cut deep. Many would not be so quick to accept Hübner’s apology.

Union Berlin’s Passive Response

Photo: Silesia711. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Union then ,quote tweeted Amiri’s statement, writing that the club “completely distances itself from racism and discrimination in football and in our society. To be clear: it’s not acceptable in any form.” The next logical step would be for Union to punish the player that levelled the racist insult. Instead, the rest of the tweet read, “After discussions between the clubs and players, we are now waiting on the outcome of the investigation of the DFB [German football’s governing body].” The club must know that it was Hübner who apologised to Amiri, so why not immediately fine and suspend him?

Well, some at Union seem to think that Hübner’s insult was not problematic. Club Manager Oliver Ruhnert, for instance, ,argued that the situation cannot be interpreted as a “scandal of a racist nature. In the heat of the moment, things may have been perceived differently from the way they fell. For the player in question, it is relatively difficult to talk about racism. He is known to be in a relationship with a woman who is not white.”

Essentially, Ruhnert made the classic false argument that because one has a nonwhite/non-German friend or spouse, it is therefore impossible for them to be racist or xenophobic. Issues of racism in the club will never be properly addressed if people like Ruhnert are in such leadership positions.

A Culture of Silence in Football

Football is a cutthroat profession. One serious injury or bad run of form and your career could be done. Very few players have any options outside of the sport. This means that those within football have a mutual respect for each other, and this could explain why there is a culture of silence concerning racism and xenophobia.

For example, the Amiri incident was not the only incident during Friday’s match. Leon Bailey, a black Jamaican forward for Leverkusen, was fouled and refused to be helped up by his opponent. A Berlin player can then be heard ,yelling, “Chill man, we’re in Germany.” Now, this remark is not nearly as bad as Hübner’s, but shows what kind of insults are seemingly tolerated. Insults which can only now be heard because every match is played without fans.

Germany’s Kerem Demirbay. Photo: Oleg Bkhambri (Voltmetro). This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

These xenophobic insults are unacceptable, but it seems as if many players want to handle such issues internally and not broadcast the offenders name to the media. That could explain why Leverkusen’s Tah and Demirbay, the two players who spoke to the media, refused to say Hübner’s name, and why Amiri was so quick to accept the apology. Demirbay even explained that he will not identify the culprit because he has “respect for his opponent.”

The Job of Rooting Out Racism Rests on the Clubs and Governing Bodies

No one should expect footballers to rat out their fellow colleagues. This is a job for the clubs and football’s governing bodies. Union Berlin and the DFL must come down hard on Hübner, showing that such disgusting remarks have no place in the sport. With no fans, the microphones pick up almost everything. There are no excuses this time.

Netherlands: Kafkaesque, racist persecution of welfare recipients pushes government over the brink

On 15th January, the Dutch government resigned following the wrongful prosecution of tens of thousands of parents. Freek Blauwhof reports on government racial profiling and unprecedented injustice

Freek Blauwhof
20/01/2021

On Friday the 15th of January, the Dutch government resigned following a massive outcry over the Dutch tax offices wrongful prosecution of tens of thousands of parents, most of them with migration background or double nationality. After years of wilful ignorance and condoning silence, the cabinet of prime minister Rutte (VVD) is now “taking its responsibility” just two months before the general election. But the government’s resignation is more show than substance.

The scandal has been building for years and goes back to the “zero tolerance policy” on welfare fraud of the first government of prime minister Rutte in 2010. From 2012 on, the Dutch tax and welfare authorities started increasingly to profile parents who received nursery subsidy. In the following seven years, between 25.000 and 35.000 parents, mostly with double nationality, Turkish or Arabic sounding names have been wrongfully prosecuted for benefits fraud on trumped up charges or because of minor procedural mistakes in the application. Most of them were forced to pay back thousands of Euros in welfare payments, resulting in some cases in loss of their homes or jobs, in divorce and in one case even in suicide.

In June 2020, the Dutch parliament voted to convene a parliamentary enquiry commission on the political mishandling of the case. The commission published a damning report in December 2020 which carries the title “unprecedented injustice”. The report condemned politicians and leading public servants for continuing to persecute people even when they have every reason to believe the parents had done nothing wrong. The responsible minister for economic affairs, Eric Wiebes of the right wing liberal VVD, even said during the public hearings that his impression was that “the tax office warned me that they really are too soft”!

This draconian persecution is doubly outrageous considering the Netherlands’ status as one of the biggest tax havens of Europe. Apart from the Netherlands, only the Virgin Islands enable more corporations to dodge their taxes, resulting in the loss of 22 billion Euros of tax revenue worldwide every year. Had the Dutch government cared foremost about public finances, they would have started there.

The motive behind the crackdown was however not fiscal prudence but disapproval of “welfare scroungers” and the ambition to “switch off the [welfare] taps”, which the head of the tax office taskforce on fraud Hans Blokpoel admitted. Above all, premier Rutte’s right wing liberal party VVD has been lurching ever more to the right and flaunting a so called zero tolerance policy. This is a classic right wing campaign scapegoating welfare recipients, who are framed mostly as unwanted migrants, in a bid to compete with the country’s growing extreme right.

As one might expect, this dynamic is a motif that permeates politics in the Netherlands since the neoliberal turn in the 90s and the rise of the extreme right since Pim Fortuyn in the 2000s. This atmosphere has facilitated the neoliberal downsizing of welfare programmes while at the same time allowing for successive right wing governments to increase repressive and surveillance measures against recipients. These policies have led to incredible stories, for instance when last December, a woman on benefits was fined 7000 Euros for failing to report that her mother occasionally did some grocery shopping for her.

Institutional racism was part and parcel of the “fraud” persecution scandal. Personal data were used in computer databases in which foreign sounding names or double nationalities were considered a “risk factor”. The head of the Authority on Personal Data, Aleid Wolfsen, concluded that “the entire system was set up to discriminate and was used as such.” Even artificial intelligence was applied to filter out such “risk factors”. At the very least, 11.000 parents were profiled in such a way.

And it is exactly on this point that the parliamentary enquiry report remains shamefully silent. While it does shed light on the decision making and bureaucratic measures that led to the injustice, it does not once mention the term racism. The word discrimination only comes up once in the 133 pages long text. This is especially remarkable considering prime minister Rutte has himself been convicted of ethnically profiling Somalian Dutch people when he was secretary of state for social services in 2007. He reacted to the judges’ verdict by saying “Apparently that is not legally possible now. It’s high time to change the law.”

Mark Rutte and his government finally resigned so as not to jeopardise his chances at the general elections on March the 17th. According to the polls, the scandal has not so much as scratched him or his party’s chances. The VVD is set to win big, by around 7 percentage points. The other partners, the christian democrat CDA and the culturally less right wing liberals of D66, are predicted to lose slightly. There is therefore no reason to believe that the policies which led to the overzealous prosecutions will fundamentally change any time soon.

Neither are the left wing opposition parties well positioned to profit from the crisis in government because they have failed to consitently oppose the neoliberal and racist policies of Rutte’s governments. The Greens of Groenlinks voted for the Fraud Law that introduced fines and the forced full repayment of welfare money for recipients who make minor procedural mistakes. The Socialist Party MP Jasper van Dijk has been railing for years about welfare fraud committed by migrant workers.

If the Left is to roll back the years of neoliberal and racist rollback of the welfare state and workers’ rights, they will have to seriously change course and start to, finally, consistently oppose cuts, privatisation, infringements of personal rights and the racism that increasingly permeates mainstream society.

Freek Blauwhof has been active in Die Linke Berlin-Neukölln since 2010 and is a former member of the Dutch GreenLeft and Socialist Party. This article was written for theleftberlin

R.I.P. MARKUS. A message from your neighbor — to everyone who miss you

Julia V’s neighbour Markus died this month after a long period suffering from mental health problems. His death shows the alienation and loneliness of modern society, but also provoked an outbreak of compassion

Julia V
19/01/2021

On Friday the 8th of January, 2021, Marco Reckinger, to me known as Markus, passed away in the Herrfurthstrasse in Neukölln, Berlin. He was in his early thirties, struggling with psychological problems, remarkably friendly and charismatic, despite sleeping rough. I live on the street that was his home, nearby to the place where he is now remembered. I would like to share some thoughts with you, other neighbors, and with everyone that cared. 2021 has barely started, we are in lockdown mode, and we should not need to ask ourselves all these questions, alone.

For the last three years, Markus’s shouts were a background to the daily lives of my family, even reaching our colleagues through the now endless work zoom calls, and providing a weird layer over the bedtime stories for our kids. When I first encountered him, years ago, I was suspicious, as who knows what mentally unstable people suddenly might do?

As time went by, we developed a sort of co-existence. We said hello in the morning, and again in the afternoon. The kids ran up to him as soon as they could to give a thumbs up, and if he was mentally present, he would answer with a thumbs up and a big smile.

Before we knew his name, our worried old neighbor referred to him as “unser penner da unten” (translates: our tramp down below) when asking about his health. The word that stuck with me in this description was our. Whoever he was, after years living in our street, Markus belonged with us. I am very sure he was his own, possibly more than anybody, but the fact that Markus was part of our lives was real. That came with a sense of responsibility, and I do not think there is an escape to that. I am not surprised that hundreds of people from the neighborhood have come to say goodbye to him in the last week. An amazing amount of people really cared, but we were not able to organize suitable longterm help. Why?

We called around in summer, when it was too hot to be outside and Markus seemed to be more in distress than usual. The reply we got from whatever place we called was he must come on his own initiative, or we must call the police — they will bring him if he is a danger to someone. Markus was not very present, but definitely not a danger, rather the opposite. In a sense oddly enough I felt safer knowing he was around. After accepting that there was no help to find, we resorted to doing what I believe most people did; to bring tea in winter, occasionally money, dry blankets, clothes and cigarettes.

In the recent weeks he fell ill. I partly witnessed the team from the help for homeless (Obdachlosenhilfe) trying to convince him to come with them to the shelter. The interaction left me quite choked, as the team were not a friendly crew. I can definitely understand why he chose not to come with them. Shortly afterwards I started noticing that it was so awfully quiet outside. Markus had gotten too weak to scream. I started to believe he would not make it. I asked friends what to do, nobody could answer. I could not imagine Markus getting well in an institution. Surely, I had friends who were greatly helped by the mental health care and institutions, but I just did not think it could work for him.

What sort of help would be appropriate? Seeing the obvious support in the neighborhood, I played with the thought of crowdfunding a space for him, but knowing I didn’t have capacity to pull it off right now — neither time to organize, nor people to think it through with — and knowing that even if it would have worked, simply money or a space to live would not have been enough. It is very hard for me to accept this fact — that there was no way that I saw that would offer viable help.

To me his death was political. It touches on systems, on barriers and on culture. I learned the details of Markus previous life through a goodbye speech by his friend last Sunday. What I had imagined was confirmed — in a sense Markus story was a familiar Berlin story, a life path easy to relate to. He was a music producer, a social party animal, arriving here a little lost in his twenties, like many of us did, including me. I am sure we could have danced to the same beat. Berlin does not judge, but it also does not catch you if you slip.

I used to believe that in crisis the only thing that will persist and fix things is community, connections in neighborhoods, between people on the ground. We all knew he needed help, but we did not know how. It leaves me with the chilling feeling that we and our friends, are not safe. It is easy to slip out of a system which is built on many small units. If your unit is broken, or if you yourself are so broken that it is unreasonable for your small unit to carry you, is there a path forward? The state did not fill that function. What sort of structure can take that responsibility? I would like to know.

Through the years, Markus became a sort of friend, and it mattered. His death broke some of my defense, the quite stiff barrier between me and the outside of my unit. This system — with every unit on its own — requires my ignorance, it is a prerequisite for me to function in it. Now my defense system is damaged. It is impossible for me to ignore a person, a sort of friend, dying on my literal doorstep. I saw no way to prevent it, but I refuse to ignore it. I would like to keep my defense system broken, stay just a little bit more off guard, allow myself to be a little less indifferent. If Markus’s death can bring me one thing to hold on to, it is this. The preparedness to feel that others matters, also in moments when there is no clear path to make sense of that compassion, also when the road forward is blocked.

The day after Markus died, I found out that he did refuse to enter the ambulance several times. Would he had entered if someone he knew was friendly would have offered to come with him? I will never know. He had the right to choose to move on, it was a fair decision to make. A few years in the cold is already a few years too much.

I hope Markus has found his peace. For me the silence is still unfamiliar, and it is definitely not ours yet. In time it will be.

Rest in peace, Markus.

Update: I received requests for a German version of this text, thanks to T. from the neighborhood it now exists. 🙂

Julia V, writing from the hood, spent the last decade in Neukölln. Passt auf einander auf! ” Twitter: @_headquarters. This article first appeared on Julia’s medium page. Reproduced with permission

Let them Eat Beans

Profiting from Poverty by Punishing the Poor: The UK Free School Meals Food Parcel Scandal

Anna Southern
18/01/2021

Social Media Scandal

On 12th January, Twitter user Roadside Mum shared a photo with her Twitter followers. The photo showed a loaf of bread, a tin of baked beans, a few cheese slices wrapped in cling film, a small amount of fruit and veg, a handful of pasta, 2 fruit loaf bars and 3 yoghurt tubes (brand name: frubes).[1] This was the food that had been provided in lieu of free school meals during lockdown, and was supposed to feed her child for a week.

The photo quickly went viral, with other parents sharing the meagre offerings that they had received. Some families even received food parcels with half a tomato or pepper, an inch or two of carrot, food such as tuna and cheese packaged in money bags and expired bagels.[2] Sarah, a mother who received a miserly food parcel containing expired bagels and no fresh food apart from two potatoes, made a valid point: “…they’re getting government funding to do this. Where does the money go if this is what they’re giving people?”[3] Where indeed?

These disgraceful food parcels generated much discussion about free school meal (FSM) provision in the UK during the COVID-19 Pandemic. During the first two lockdowns, parents with children receiving FSM had been issued with vouchers to the value of £15 per week to redeem for food in the supermarket. Predictably there was then much right-wing outrage, including from Conservative MPs, about parents spending the food vouchers on alcohol, cigarettes, crack dens and brothels (yes, really.)[4] After this right-wing storytelling, the government decided to switch to mostly providing food parcels. Never mind that the school meals vouchers had only ever been redeemable for food items.

These school meal food parcels were largely outsourced to catering companies, some of whom apparently saw a way to make a bit of easy cash. Let them eat beans. Like playground bullies stealing lunch money, corporations took food straight from the mouths of hungry children with an approving nod from the bigger bullies in government.

Catering Cronies

The company that provided Roadside Mum’s food parcel, or ‘food hamper’ as they prefer to laughably describe it, was Chartwells, a subsidiary of (FTSE 100 Company) Compass Group. As reported in The Guardian newspaper, since 2016, Compass and its subsidiary have won contracts worth almost £350 million for school catering, typically including free school meal provision.[5] They are the largest school meals provider in the UK. Questions must be asked about how they were awarded these contracts and where all this money has gone. Compass Group has links to the Conservative Party; and its recently retired chairman, Paul Walsh, was a donor to the party and a member of former Prime Minister David Cameron’s business advisory group.

Through their incarnation as Chartwells Independent, Compass also provide catering to private schools. Compare and contrast the fare given to privileged private school kids over those getting local authority free school meals; the discrepancy is vast.[6] It shows complete contempt for working class kids. Working class kids can have some out of date bagels. Private school kids get lavish buffets, gingerbread villages, luxurious patisserie selections and special ‘pancake day’ spreads.[7]

Compass Group has been involved in other scandals involving school meals. In the USA, it was found to have overcharged New York schools for school meals over a period of 7 years, receiving discounts from vendors that it did not pass on to the schools as required by law. Compass Group had to pay an $18 million settlement in this particular case of profiteering from hungry children.[8] In 2013, Compass was found to have supplied horse meat to several schools in Ireland and the North of Ireland.[9] Shareholders in Compass Group have raised concerns over the FSM food parcel scandal, no doubt wishing to protect their investments from the scandal.[10] Other catering companies have also provided FSM parcels (ranging from adequate to appalling) during lockdown, they have largely avoided being named in this scandal.

Defences and Government Guidance

Chartwells issued a brief statement about Roadside Mum’s food parcel, stating that it had charged the local authority £10.50 for it rather than £15, or £30. They said that they were sorry that the quantity had fallen short “in this instance”, and blamed the substandard quality of its food parcels on the short notice of the government move from vouchers to food parcels.[11]

The catering companies could argue in their defence that the contents of their food parcels are quite similar to the UK government guidance on free school meals parcels, with the government list having only an additional tin of sweetcorn, a litre of milk, and pack of ham or tin of tuna.[12] They could argue that they were just following government guidelines. This would be an inadequate defence as they did not have to sign up to provide such meagre, punishing meals. They could have refused, they could have insisted on providing sufficient nutritious food and they did not. Profiting from hungry children was acceptable to them until they were caught.

It is even less of a defence when we consider the involvement of Stephen Forster. Stephen Forster was involved, as Chair of the school catering professional body LACA, in drawing up the government FSM food parcel guidelines. Forster is also a director at Chartwells.[13] LACA lobbies the government on behalf of school catering firms, is involved in drawing up government guidance on food parcels, then its national Chair is seemingly able to profit from this miserly government guidance under a different role.

Fighting back

Reprising his role of food poverty campaigner, taken on during the first COVID lockdown,[14] the Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford was quick to speak out on this outrage. He labelled the food parcels ‘unacceptable’[15] and set up discussions with the Prime Minister.

Food writer, chef and anti-poverty activist Jack Monroe also campaigned hard on the issue, receiving hundreds of pictures of substandard food parcels from parents and using their public profile to speak up against this shamefully meagre food provision in TV and newspaper interviews. Jack told the BBC that “free school meals had been replaced with a “poverty picnic”.[16]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer tweeted that the food parcels were “woefully inadequate” and said that the situation “needs sorting immediately”, while Marcus Rashford was discussing the issue with the Prime Minister and making plans with the supermarket Aldi to provide 10 million meals to families in need in 2021.[17] The Labour Party could have been at the heart of this campaign, calling strongly for decent food for all school kids and demanding concessions from the government. Instead it has again been left to footballers, writers, and ordinary people to hold the government and catering contractors to account. I hope that Starmer’s Labour Party start holding the government to account rather than weakly saying “this needs sorting out”. I’m glad they are at least critical of the government over this scandal.

Starmer did raise the similarities between the government guidance on FSM parcels and the inadequate food parcels in parliament but was mocked for his ineffectiveness, with PM Johnson jeering: “I’m grateful to Marcus Rashford, who highlighted the issue and is doing quite an effective job by comparison to [Sir Keir] in holding the Government to account on these issues.”[18]

Johnson and his government are, of course, ultimately to blame for this scandalous failure to support hungry kids. Government ministers decried the food parcels, as if it was not their government that had implemented the FSM food parcels policy or issued abstemious government guidance on the issue. It is this Tory government that has failed its nation’s children during the COVID pandemic; the food parcels scandal being just one instance of failure and neglect. It is a shame that they have been left to get away with it almost unimpeded for so long.

U-Turns Abound

The campaign against these stingy and humiliating food parcels, started on social media by parents and championed by Marcus Rashford and Jack Monroe, lead to a rapid U-turn by the Tory government and a commitment by Chartwells to drastically improve its practices. Other catering companies have kept their heads down. The government has agreed to reinstate its food voucher scheme. From 18th January 2021, parents will again be able to apply for £15 vouchers instead of receiving food parcels. Chartwells have been in discussion with the parent who first raised her concerns on Twitter and have told her that they will make substantial changes to their practice including not billing local authorities for the inadequate food parcels provided, adding more lunch items and also including breakfast items in their parcels and soliciting input from parents and nutritionists on what goes in their parcels.[19] This shows what ordinary people can achieve when they fight. Imagine if they had the backing of a political party consistently fighting alongside them.

The Next School Meals Battle

Fresh from its U-turn on substandard FSM parcels and vouchers, the Tory government has again announced that free school meals will not be provided during the upcoming half-term holidays. They did this with previous lockdown school holidays and were forced to U-turn by (de facto opposition leader) Rashford’s campaigning. I cannot understand why they would do this straight after their recent defeat on the issue of feeding hungry children. It’s as though they enjoy the ‘nasty party’ image. Perhaps they think they can keep beating Starmer with the ‘Marcus Rashford is the real opposition’ stick by doing this. Perhaps they just have complete disdain for working class children and cannot fathom feeding them when they don’t ‘have to’. It appears to almost physically hurt them to feed hungry kids.

Lessons

This food parcels scandal has highlighted several lessons: the ease with which companies that have Tory connections get essential services contracts (see also COVID PPE contracts); that despite their rhetoric, these companies gladly have their snouts in the trough of public money; and the lack of concern of both government and these companies for the health and wellbeing of our school children.

It has also highlighted that it is possible to force them into better positions through vocal and persistent campaigning. Compass Group/Chartwells do not want to upset their shareholders while the government perhaps don’t want to openly be seen to endorse profiting from child hunger. At any rate, the scrutiny and negative publicity has been effective at forcing a change of policy from both.

The scandal has also highlighted the contempt that the government and its friendly catering contractors have for working class children. Working class children are seen to deserve only the bare minimum to keep them alive, forget about thriving or good nutrition or variety in diet. Heaven forbid they enjoy a free meal! If they could get away with it, the Tories would probably provide them with gruel. During previous FSM scandals, social media was full of well-off people smugly posting money-saving recipes and budgeting advice for poor people. This attitude towards the ‘undeserving poor’ is fairly prevalent in the UK.

Successive UK governments and their media helpers have consistently portrayed people living in poverty as feckless layabouts who have brought misfortune on themselves. Parents of children who receive FSM have been smeared as bad at budgeting and selfish, spending money on cigarettes and alcohol rather than their kids. The idea of government supporting people in need has been presented as encouraging dependency and applying for state support has been made torturously difficult, humiliating, and punitive.

Even if this myth of the feckless scrounger parent was true and thousands of parents were ‘playing the system’, punishing hungry children would still be completely and utterly inhuman. Every child deserves to have enough varied, good quality, and nutritious food to eat. No child should be humiliated with paltry starvation rations like stale bread and half a tomato because their parents are poor. As a society we must do better than this. We should be angry at the disdain the Tories have for working class kids and use that anger to fight for change. Trust parents to feed their children. Give them money if they are lacking it, not loveless scraps of charity. Our children are worth much more than a miserly tin of beans.

Footnotes

1 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/mum-slams-free-school-meal-23301801

2 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/free-school-meal-measly-included-23305830 for one disgraceful example and https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/12/what-am-i-supposed-to-make-with-this-uk-parents-on-schools-meagre-food-parcels for more

3 Quoted in https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/12/what-am-i-supposed-to-make-with-this-uk-parents-on-schools-meagre-food-parcels

4 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/24/ben-bradley-under-pressure-to-apologise-over-free-school-meals-tweets

5 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/12/school-dinners-row-shines-light-on-role-of-catering-firms-chartwells-compass

6 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/under-fire-free-school-meals-23305741

7 https://www.instagram.com/chartwellsindependent/

8 https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2012/ag-schneiderman-announces-18-million-settlement-compass-group-usa-overcharging-4

9 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/chartwells-free-school-meals-history-b1786258.html

10 https://www.ft.com/content/2162181a-be67-4feb-a5a8-ae63e3e05fce

11 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jan/12/school-dinners-row-shines-light-on-role-of-catering-firms-chartwells-compass

12 https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/free-school-meals-boris-johnson-food-parcels-government-guidelines-pmqs-video-827833

13 https://laca.co.uk/news/laca-update-stephen-forster-3

14 https://foodfoundation.org.uk/vulnerable_groups/government-makes-a-u-turn-on-providing-free-school-meal-vouchers-over-summer-holidays/

15 https://twitter.com/MarcusRashford/status/1348726328930004993

16 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-55633063

17 https://propermanchester.com/news/marcus-rashford-teams-up-with-aldi-to-provide-10-million-meals-to-hungry-kids/

18 Quoted in https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/free-school-meals-boris-johnson-food-parcels-government-guidelines-pmqs-video-827833

19 https://twitter.com/RoadsideMum/status/1350161736305963008