The Left Berlin News & Comment

This is the archive template

Category: Uncategorised

The Art of Protesting

Resisting the Systemic Silencing of Palestinian Voices in Germany Through Photography and Illustrations


17/04/2023

“Can you imagine what life must have been like with a four meter high wall and an almost 70 meter wide death strip right at your doorstep?”. This quote is displayed outside a key touristic attraction in Berlin that revolves around commemorating life in the city when the Berlin Wall came up, snaked its way through and dissected it into two incoherent worlds. Michael Jabareen, 29, a Palestinian who lives and works in Berlin as a freelance artist recalled first reading this quote. He grimaced with a look of disgust on his face. “I felt very offended by this quote when I saw it in a public space in the middle of Berlin. My family has been separated by Israel’s occupation and annexation wall for decades. I don’t have to “imagine” what Germany wants me to. We live this everyday back home in occupied Palestine”.

Michael comes from Al Taybeh village – outside of Jenin town north of the occupied West Bank. He grew up under the Israeli occupation’s brutal oppression of Palestinians. He encountered a tank at eight years of age during the infamous raid on Jenin refugee camp in the year 2002. As a youth and young adult he went through Israeli checkpoints. He is unable to visit Jerusalem without an Israeli occupation military permit. Since the Jabareen family has its roots in Umm El Fahem, he watched his extended family get separated by the 712 kilometre long (of which 70 are completed) and eight meter high Israeli occupation wall. As an architect and multidisciplinary artist, Michael used his artistic skills and creativity to engage in socially or politically themed projects to contribute to the expressive resistance movement at home.

Fast forward to November 2022, on a partly cloudy autumn morning in Berlin, I sit with Michael over lunch. We discuss our journeys that brought us together in the city. He first visited  in 2019, to take part in a theatre festival. I first visited Berlin in 2012. He decided to return to the city in 2020 to obtain degree in Visual and Experience Design. My decision, in 2022, to spend four months in the city to work on a project documenting stories of Palestinians in the exile. We stop at May 2022: the time when the Berlin local government made a U-turn on its decision to allow the commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba to proceed.

Common knowledge about German history seems to start and stop at World War II and the Holocaust. What followed the Cold War, the occupation of the country and the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall are discussed in silos. Internally, it is apparent that the German society did not adequately deal with its country’s dark history. Few connect the dots between Germany’s colonial history in the African continent and the attempted annihilation of approximately six million Jews with other minorities.

Since the establishment of the Zionist state on stolen Palestinian land in 1948, Germany has taken it upon itself to provide blind political, monetary and military support to Israel as a way to make up for the bottled-up public guilt from the Holocaust. While it does also support the Palestinian Authority, most of German tax payers’ money goes into projects that contribute to the oppressions of the Palestinian people such as “security sector reform” schemes.

In 2017, Germany adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) non-legally binding revised definition of antisemitism that conflates Zionism with Judaism. As such, any criticism to the State of Israel is labeled as “anti-semitism” under this definition. Two years later, the German parliament adopted another non-legally binding motion to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS advocates for Palestinians’ equal rights and freedoms by calling for the boycott of Israeli linked goods, cultural and academic activities. Again the German state drew similarities between the dark days of the Third Reich and its persecution of the Jews – and Palestinian led resistance of the Israeli occupation and reclaiming the right to self-determination. Moreover the country’s immigration policies towards Palestinian refugees are unjust, labelling them as “stateless” or “unknown” by the system [1].

All the recent collective anti-Palestinian moves by the German state culminated in the 2022 Nakba demonstration ban. While the organisers cancelled the demonstration after the imposed rules, people still stood in solidarity. Flags, the Palestinian kufiyyeh and other symbols were raised in silence on May 15th 2022. Responding, German police arrested 170 individuals, 27 being accused of taking part in an illegal gathering, and of carrying the Palestinian flag. At the time of writing seven trials have been held. While two cases involving a German and a Jewish activist were instantly dropped by the court, the others are ongoing, mainly involving Palestinian and other activists from minority groups.

The bottom line is, Germany equates pro-Palestinian symbols and acts of solidarity as anti-semitic. This view of the state, gives it the right to silence pro-Palestinian voices. In a country that prides itself upon the right of freedom of expression and guaranteed cultural freedoms for those who reside on its soil, these recent acts are an audacity. They are a clear form of discriminatory oppression of a one group, whereby both Palestinian and Jewish identities are flattened to simplistic propaganda labels of “islamic terrorists” versus “victims”.

As a Palestinian in the exile, listening to Michael’s and other people’s accounts of the May 2022 events and witnessing what followed brought on a mix of emotions including anger, disgust and resentment. I spent many weeks contemplating those feelings. How can outright right- wing racist parties be allowed to demonstrate in the name of freedom of expression, while Palestinians, who live under a settler colonial regime, and their allies cannot do the same? How dare a state place the burden of its own historical crimes on Palestinians in the exile? Why do Palestinian or pro-Palestinian forms of art come under scrutiny, to the extent of banning them by withdrawing financial support? Why do we have to amend our resistance language to conform with the white-washed narrative around our struggle? So many questions floated in my head during this period, during which I also read and researched through the visual archive of German history for inspiration.

In January, after a short break away from Germany, I decided to use my camera and photography skills to translate my emotions and thoughts into visuals. Through a sequence of staged and abstract images, I wanted to juxtapose key monuments erected around Berlin that mainly commemorate the Holocaust and the Wall. My choices stemmed from my belief that the points in Germany history that led to the Holocaust are closely linked to the ongoing blind support to a settler colony in Palestine. In other words, a context where minorities were viewed as sub-humans at a certain point in time (Jews in this case) is one that still accepts viewing another group of people, i.e. Palestinians, through the same colonial lens. The Holocaust is employed by politicians from all sides of the political spectrum for their own political gains. Even Jews who argue against Germany’s anti-Palestinian actions are labelled as “self-hating”. Indeed, pro-Zionism and anti-semitism are two faces of the same coin.

The Berlin Wall on the other hand is an example of what every similar structure stands for: occupation, colonisation and oppression. Although it is half the size of its Israeli counterpart, its negative impacts on those who lived to experience its time are immense. They are commemorated by Berlin in more than one location around the city. From these, and  its construction; dimensions; commemorations of those who resisted it and those who were killed trying to escape from one side of the wall to another – one cannot escape this memory in Berlin. The power of the general public that jointly brought down the wall is also displayed in public spaces. The hope that moment brought on to the world was immense. Therefore, consistent with the German experience, I attempted to commemorate our slain brothers and sisters due to the occupation, our collective and unstoppable tide of pro-Palestinian voices and our hope for freedom.

The fact that only four participants took part in this project reflects the real fear among pro-Palestinian activists, of negative repercussions and false accusations of “anti-semitism”. These in turn could impact their work or immigration status in the country. So I made sure that any in this project were kept anonymous, excepting myself. Because of the limited number of participants, I asked Michael to join me as a collaborator. He added his digital line illustrations to chosen images to enhance their story. Those who took part in this project also contributed with text in Arabic and English to relay their own emotions and thoughts.

The result are black and white images, entitled “Cacti: A Visual Protest Against the Silencing of Palestinian Voices in Germany”. It is a body of work that I will forever be proud of. We joined forces to relay our collective anger, frustration and hopes for a future where we are free to express ourselves, our art and our identities. Cacti have traditionally surrounded Palestinian lands.They remain silent witnesses of depopulated villages and to the continued colonisation of our home. They symbolise beauty, continuation and tough resistance. When one Palestinian voice is raised, it echoes and spreads like cacti. It shall never be silenced. In spite of forces like those in Germany.

You can see a gallery of Rasha’s Cacti photos here.

Footnotes

  1. Palestinian refugees, especially those from Lebanon, mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, are given an “unidentified” status. This means that they are denied formal refugee status and related right to work and other benefits. At times, this extends to Palestinian holders of Palestinian Authority IDs. This also means that they are not protected from deportation. But that is not possible as Lebanon never signed an agreement with the latter to take them back. As a result, they are “tolerated” by the German government, which means that their deportation is delayed or on hold for the moment. Palestinian-Syrians  receive a more stable refugee status.

French fascism and the revolt against Macron

As the social explosion continues in France, the far right is marginalised for the moment. Will this last?


16/04/2023

The inspiring revolt unfolding in France is moving into its fourth month. Thursday 13 April saw the twelfth day of action against Macron’s plan to make people work two years longer. There were demonstrations in hundreds of towns, and many high schools, universities, motorways, and railway lines were blocked. The towns of Caen, Rennes, and Brest were thoroughly blockaded. The following day, Friday, over two hundred demonstrations were held across the country. The anger against an attack which, in a context of austerity and inflation, was the last straw for millions, remains powerful. Fifty rappers held a concert in the Paris suburbs to raise money for strike funds. Airport strikers are reporting that delayed passengers very often express their support for their strike. Macron and his Prime Minister Borne can hardly leave their offices without demonstrators harassing them (one of the reasons for which Macron swanned off to China this week). Even in the Netherlands, Macron’s arrogant speech was disrupted by demonstrators. Sophie Binet, newly elected General Secretary of the CGT trade union confederation declared Thursday that Macron “will not be able to govern until he has withdrawn this reform”.

Although the strategy of repeated days of action is tiring for many people, and national union leaderships are still refusing to organize an indefinite general strike, the movement shows no signs of going away. Many of the ongoing strikes have stopped, but others (such as in the postal services of some towns) have just started up.

Macron’s aim is to stage a decisive defeat for trade union organization, and has been an abject failure. His is very much a bruised presidency, and his government has had to retreat on half a dozen other questions in recent weeks out of fear of pouring oil on the flames: money was found for student grant increases, and a plan for compulsory national service was shelved, as was a racist immigration law. His relations in Parliament with the traditional conservatives of Les Républicains are in tatters, as these MPs are reacting in spite of themselves to the huge pressure from their constituents. Meanwhile, the strength of the mobilizations around pensions is giving workers confidence in many sectors, and strikes over wages are becoming more common.

Referendum project

The least combative union leaders, backed by Communist Party leader Fabien Roussel, are now calling to campaign for a referendum on the pensions law. The French constitution allows a referendum to be forced on the government if 200 MPs and 4.8 million citizens (10% of the electorate) sign a demand. The Communist Party has been putting up posters for weeks prioritizing this option. But such a campaign would take many months, and the dynamic of the present uprising would be lost. Nevertheless, the idea has a large following among demonstrators this week as the movement slows a little. The initial request for a referendum project was refused by the Constitutional Council on Friday 14th, but a reworded request may pass next week.

The Constitutional Council (made up of old, rich ex-politicians and elite civil servants), met on Friday, and could have blocked the pensions law for procedural irregularities and allowed Macron a way out. It instead gave the law the green light ­– Macron will no doubt officially sign the measure into law this weekend, but the mobilization will continue.

The revolt has huge consequences for every political force in France, including the radical and revolutionary Left as well as French fascists. It is common to hear in France today that Le Pen and the far Right will be the main beneficiaries of the current crisis, which begs the question, is this true and why would that be so?

The right-wing media who support Macron’s neoliberalism repeat the idea that Marine Le Pen will profit most from the present situation. Macron has always wanted us to believe that he is the best defence against the far right, whereas the very opposite is the case. In 2017, when Macron was first elected, Marine Le Pen got 10.5 million votes. After five years of Macron’s austerity and racist policies, she got 2.5 million more.

The far right still has a fascist core

Le Pen’s far right organization National Rally (previously the National Front) has 88 Members of parliament and controls two town councils among the 279 larger towns in France. It has been very successful ridding itself of the image of a fascist organization, changing its name, expelling some Nazis, and putting forward sophisticated well-dressed spokespeople, many of whom are women. This sanitized image has been much aided by the cooperation of the mass media, and by endless complacent interviews on televised talk shows. Macron has helped even more by putting the RN’s favourite subjects at the centre of political life with a series of racist laws and campaigns.

But the RN still has a fascist core in its membership and in its policies. The centre of its politics is instituting laws which discriminate against non-French nationals, whether in distributing welfare benefits and social housing or in hiring workers. It aims to attack Islam, to ban the wearing of Muslim headscarves in the streets of France as well as the production of Halal meat. The building of fake “national unity” between “truly French” workers and bosses is meant both to repress class struggle and allow even more authoritarian rule ­– and to make workers pay for the crisis – in a horrific combination which Europe has seen before.

The RN has, however, been unsuccessful in building up local party organization to match its massive electoral appeal. For several years, the party has not been able to organize street demonstrations of many thousands. So, this month, when the Left and the unions have put two or three million people on the streets, the fascists can seem momentarily invisible and irrelevant.

And class struggle is bad for fascists. Over the last few months, the talk is all about how to defend the retirement age at 62, and how taxing the rich could pay for our pensions. The lines are drawn between workers and the small privileged elite who defend Macron. Nine out of ten working people, from almost all blue-collar workers to many senior managers, oppose Macron’s reform. No one can pretend that Macron’s attack is the fault of immigrants or Muslims. The far-right agenda seems irrelevant.

A taste of our power

In addition, the experience of the mass revolt contradicts all the values of the far right. Millions in the streets, with tens of thousands of home-made placards, and lots of creative graffiti and activist songs, show a spirit of popular self-organization ­– not of unity behind a supposed national saviour. The favourite demo song “Here we are!” gives a taste of this. “Here we are, here we are! Even if Macron doesn’t like it, here we are! For the honour of the workers and to build a better world – even if Macron doesn’t like it, here we are!”

The experience of the most active members of this mobilization gives workers a taste of our power ­– mass workplace meetings every couple of days, blockading motorways, or seeing the rubbish bins pile up in the streets, and watching society gradually realize how important your work is, all contribute to strengthening class consciousness. And when the energy workers cut off the power from right-wing MP’s office buildings, and put hospitals on free electricity, millions of workers see a glimpse of a possible future. This joyous unity in action is the opposite of the fear and isolation which fuels the far right. The huge demonstrations in smaller towns (sometimes a third to a half of the population, in towns such as Albi and Rodez, and the biggest in many decades in Vannes or Saint Malo) are particularly impressive. And a new generation of 13 to 18-year-olds involved in blockading their schools and demonstrating, sometimes collecting money for strike funds, is learning class struggle. We will see them again in the years to come.

Although Le Pen and her cronies denounce Macron’s pensions law as “unnecessary and unfair” they cannot support the mass trade union revolt, as they are against trade unionism. They say that people are right to demonstrate, but RN activists dare not appear publicly at the demonstrations for fear of being thrown out (union leaders having specifically said they were not welcome). At the same time, with one eye on her large following along small employers, Le Pen denounces “the war between rich and poor” and claims that to pay for pensions France needs to exclude non-French nationals from welfare benefits.

Another key fact is that half the police force vote for the fascists, so Le Pen cannot possibly denounce police violence, as the movement is doing more and more, faced with vicious repression against both adults and children. Children arrested for blockading their high school in Sevran near Paris were kept for 30 hours in cells, not allowed access to toilets, and subjected to racist insults. Other demonstrators have been severely injured by tear gas grenades fired deliberately (and illegally) at their heads. A recording obtained last week by national newspaper Le Monde featured a policeman threatening to break a young man’s legs: “We’ve broken plenty of arms and heads already,” he boasted.

The RN leadership’s discourse on the pensions movement has been almost inaudible, except for a pathetic attempt to suggest there would be more money for pensions if France “was not spending money on immigration”, or that the large proportion of old people in the population might be compensated for if the French government officially encouraged French women to have more children.

Could the far right profit electorally?

In this context, the RN is playing another card: working hard at being “respectable”, putting forward the idea that they represent a realistic governmental option, which has never been tried. s young, sharply dressed president, Jordan Bardella, is loudly denouncing some of the excellent parliamentary obstruction carried out by France Insoumise MPs, claiming that the France Insoumise is a threat to democracy. Some of Macron’s ministers are pushing in the same direction. Darmanin, the Interior Minister, recently declared that Marine Le Pen was much more respectful of the French Republic than France Insoumise.

As experiences elsewhere in Europe have shown, although big capital and money markets prefer traditional conservatism over the far right, they are far more scared of the radical Left than of extreme right-wing parties. This is why Macron and others are concentrating their fire on the France Insoumise and its leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Endless smears have been bandied about over recent years, accusing Mélenchon of being close to Putin, of being antisemitic, of not caring about violence against women, and so on. This will continue and the whole of the left must respond.

With the help of right-wing media and Macron’s policies, the far right is succeeding in its building of a respectable image, and it is doing well in the polls. A recent study put the France Insoumise and the Rassemblement National at 26% each in case of parliamentary elections now. If Macronism collapses electorally, which seems likely, a couple of million Macron voters could well move to the RN. Le Pen hopes in parallel to attract a few well-known MPs from the traditional right into her organization.

In a poll this week, conservative magazine Le Point found that 55% of French people felt that Marine Le Pen “had a real chance” of becoming president in the next elections in 2027. She remains popular among working class people (over 15% of trade union members voted for her last year), and 60% of French people consider her to be “close to the preoccupations of ordinary people”, despite her only real response to unemployment being to exclude non-French nationals from certain jobs. In reality, RN members of parliament, or of the European parliament have voted against workers many times: for example, they voted against gender equality at work, against raising the minimum wage and student grants, against sanctioning multinationals for human rights violations, against finding more money for hospitals, and against freezing rents.

At their 50th annual conference last November, the leaders of the National Rally insisted on the need to set up many local initiatives in order to put down roots in different towns. Although there is sadly no national antifascist campaign, local opposition can be mobilized.  On the 1 May, International Workers Day, the RN is hoping to organize a national meeting and banquet in the port town of Le Havre. Preparation are underway for a counter-demonstration. We need this to be the beginning of broad and radical antifascist action.

Video of one of this week’s demonstrations

“Are you now or have you ever been a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn?”

As Keir Starmer bans Jeremy Corbyn from standing for Labour in the next election, many of Corbyn’s former allies are running scared


15/04/2023

The robotic nasal voice of Keir Starmer echoes around Labour Party HQ. Wes Streeting is putting his hand up and yelping “no sir, not me sir!” The Socialist Campaign Group pretends to be busy with their work, averting their eyes from Sir Dear Leader. John McDonnell risks a furtive scowl as he polishes Starmer’s spare shoes. On the walls hang vast posters of Corbyn with red eyes and the word ‘Antisemite’ emblazoned across the former leader’s forehead.

God Save the King plays on a portable speaker on the leader’s desk, which is flanked by large Union Flags. Not commie trade union flags, patriotic British ones. Streeting is sat on a red, white and blue chaise longue crossing out the words “democratic socialist party” on a stack of membership cards and colouring them ‘Brexit Blue’. Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Ashworth are throwing darts at a picture of benefit claimants. Jon Lansman appears pushing a tea trolley and pours Starmer a weak milky tea which he snatches without thanks and downs like a scalding hot pint.

Racist posters of Tory PM Sunak are being workshopped for the election campaign by briefcase-wielding interns sporting Starmer-style quiffs. Peter Mandelson flicks out his tongue to catch a passing fly. Wearing the colour red is banned, as are the words ‘socialism’, ‘peace’ and ‘love’. At least, that’s how I imagine it. As we are writing our fantasy versions of Labour HQ this week, I thought I might as well do my version. Maybe this will get picked up uncritically by The Guardian too.

Corbyn blocked from standing as Labour Candidate

In the latest instalment of the “Jeremy Corbyn is a hideous racist Bogeyman who wants to murder your granny” saga, the Labour NEC have blocked him from being selected as a Labour candidate in the next general election. Corbyn is a hard working and popular MP of 40 years and, without this interference from the NEC and Starmer, he would easily have been selected by his local Labour Party and elected for Labour an 11th time.

The oddly bland motion put to the NEC by Starmer states that Corbyn should not be allowed to stand as he lost the last general election. There was no mention of antisemitism but the shadow cabinet were keen to insinuate that this was the real reason in media interviews. Wes Streeting, gleefully speaking to Times Radio, opined that if  had properly accepted the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) verdict into antisemitism “things might have been different”. Starmer must rely on snide insinuation from his besuited attack dogs because putting it in writing might have negative legal consequences. All that smearing and it hasn’t come to much.

The trade union reps on the NEC were split, with the cowards in the GMB, USDAW and fucking Musician’s Union flinching and voting for the motion. The Unison delegate abstained and the Deputy Leader, former Corbyn ‘ally’ Angela Rayner, did not attend. For consistency the NEC should also prevent election-losing former leader Ed Miliband from standing for Labour, but I’m not holding my breath.

Corbyn remains an obsession for Starmer and his cabal of right wing sensibles. Socialists are being purged from the party and he is the big one; the dragon that must be slain by Sir Starmer. They remain horrified that he did unexpectedly well on a social democratic platform in 2017 and that his ideas about helping each other spoke to the future generation of voters. This was doing politics wrong. The adults were not in charge. How dare this upstart talk about ridiculous things like ending homelessness and funding social care and education so that no one is left behind?

How dare he propose investment in council housing, properly funding the NHS and free nursery places for all 2-4 year olds? What a monster. Thankfully, now the adults are back in charge and are creating racist attack ads claiming that Sunak does not support convicted paedophiles going to prison, as well as putting out social media posts on combatting fly tipping and nuisance phone calls. I’m not pro nuissance phone calls but they aren’t priorities for the majority of working class people. Not to forget tackling people smoking weed, which Starmer thinks is ruining the lives of people (families!) who have to smell it. That’s the biggest problem of people in Britain right now in Starmer land; the smell of weed.

Starmer’s Labour is going all-in on a ‘Law and Order’ strategy designed to out do the Tories from the right, which makes the reaction of the left in Labour to Corbyn’s election ban all the more infuriating. This is the only way we can achieve socialism? By supporting a party that’s calling for thousands more cops? Just after the Met Police has been found to be institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic? Really?

Labour Left

Corbyn’s long time ally and fellow socialist MP John McDonnell has not covered himself in glory during this unpleasant factional episode. Firstly urging Corbyn to “keep on apologising” over his EHRC report response (the same EHRC that is now proposing the removal of trans people’s legal rights and is packed with Tories) and then responding to the NEC decision by saying “I am a great believer in the powers of conversation, and I think we can reverse this decision, full stop”. This is fanciful, but McDonnell is firmly wedded to the Labour Party, even abandoning his anti-war position over Ukraine rather than stand up to Starmer, as did Diane Abbott.

The Socialist Campaign Group (SCG) MPs have mostly been completely useless on this, with many of them remaining silent in order to keep their jobs. MP Apsana Begum has been steadfast in her support for Corbyn, as someone else who has been treated disgracefully by the Party, but a lot of the big “left wing” names have not. At the beginning of the Corbyn demonization project the SCG might have issued a strongly-worded letter, but now even that level of collective solidarity has been abandoned. Some individual SCG members tweet something vaguely supportive but there is no concerted and collective effort to defend one of their own. Is this the “staying and fighting” we were told was going to happen? Sit, Stay and Roll Over more like.

Jon Lansman, founder of Momentum (a left campaign group within Labour, set up to support Corbyn after he became leader), issued an awful statement in which he said it was bad and factional of Starmer to block Corbyn’s candidacy but urged Corbyn not to stand as an independent. “We need a Labour government not a lone backbencher — Jeremy should follow Tony Benn & leave Parliament to devote more time to politics”, he weaseled. So much for solidarity.

The argument that we need a Labour government is based on the assumption that it will do good things. Voting in any old bunch of clowns wearing red rosettes won’t do. Why should working class people support Labour if it is useless and hateful and right wing? Most of us aren’t getting really vexed about fly tipping, we are trying to scrape together enough money to heat our homes and feed our children. Throwing socialists under the bus so Labour can get on with the grown up business of tackling fly tipping, off-road biking in rural communities (keeps me up at night, this one) and people smoking weed by the method of “more cops” doesn’t seem like a great strategy for the left.

Momentum issued a bizarre statement after the NEC decision to block Corbyn’s candidacy saying that “The call to leave Labour is the siren call of despair… its only effect is to weaken the Labour Left and the survival of socialism within the public sphere.” I think they’re deluded. It is difficult to see how the Labour Left could get much weaker and the idea that the Labour Party is now anything but an obstacle to the development of mass struggle and socialism in Britain is bemusing.

Imagine having to go out door knocking for Starmer and his “cops cops cops” agenda when you could be building a strike or campaigning over the cost of living and the climate crisis, fighting for decent housing, against the attacks on trans rights, against racism and for migrant’s rights? Even off-road biking, Keir. Why would you waste your time? There is more to life than Parliament and the Labour Party. Our biggest struggles will not be fought at the Palace of Westminster. We were right to have hope, but wrong to place it in the parliamentary Labour Party.

It is a waste of any socialist’s time and efforts to remain in this Labour Party that will never let an anomaly like Corbyn’s leadership happen again. The Labour Party despises socialists; the call for socialists to stay inside it is the real siren call of despair. We can do better.

Will Corbyn stand?

At the time of writing, Corbyn has not said whether he intends to stand as an independent candidate. I would like him to, partly to piss off ‘comrades’ like Lansman, and would probably go to London to help campaign for him. For him to do this would mean him relinquishing his Labour membership, again I don’t see the problem, but he may. What is certain is that he has the support of his constituents and his local Labour Party members. He is well loved in his community. The bakers and food workers union BFAWU released an excellent statement pledging to support him if he does stand as an independent. It would be inspiring if other unions did the same. Labour members campaigning for an independent Corbyn would no doubt be purged, hopefully that won’t stop them.

Union reps on the Labour NEC from the CWU, Unite, ASLEF, TSSA and FBU unions all voted against the motion to block Corbyn’s candidacy. Union funding for the party has already declined under Starmer and this trend seems likely to continue. The Labour leadership have been unwilling to support the recent wave of strikes but still expect union backing. If Corbyn stands as an independent, it will be interesting to see if his campaign attracts any union money.

Corbyn standing as an independent could help to derail a Sunak vs Starmer ‘Law and Order’ general election campaign, with media attention being centred on just one London constituency that has voted for a progressive MP for 40 years rather than the frothing racists with fly-tipping gripes that Starmer is apparently courting, wherever they reside.

Corbyn’s influence could be stronger outside the Labour Party in this case; he would have the media spotlight and be able to promote socialist policies. I’d enjoy the general election if this were to happen, it would be refreshing to hear from at least one decent left wing candidate on the telly. It would give a boost to strikers, migrants, people who can’t afford to pay their bills, people persecuted under the punitive benefits system and anyone who wants a better society. People that Labour is determined to ignore or demonise. If he won, which could happen given his local popularity, it would be a welcome kick in the teeth for Starmer and his spineless NEC.

What now?

Having said all this, we should focus our efforts and attentions outside the internal wranglings of Starmer’s Labour, apart from occasional piss-taking as required. I almost didn’t write about this (maybe that would have been for the best…) as I am weary of thinking about Starmer, his adenoidal voice grating in my beige purgatorial nightmares. But he continues to be a shit to Corbyn who gave a lot of ordinary people hope. It’s not just about Corbyn, although it’s upsetting to see someone who has dedicated his adult life to anti-racism be called a racist by shameless arseholes who couldn’t care less about racism, it’s about the deliberate destruction of that hope. The attack on Corbyn is an attack on all of us who believe in fairness and social justice. Standing in solidarity with Corbyn is an assertion that we haven’t gone away.

Starmer is the anti-hope candidate. We can be the hope we need. We should look for the strength we need to organise and improve society within our communities, workplaces, unions, tenant’s associations and campaign groups. Let the two main establishment parties squabble about who is tougher on crime and call each other paedophile-lovers without us and let’s build something that will give them nightmares.

Am I now or have I ever been a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn? Unlike most of his ‘allies’ in the Labour Party, I’m proud to say that I am.

The Silicon Valley Bank “not-a-bailout” Bailout

Recent bailouts show that capitalism is still an inherently instable system


14/04/2023

The clientele of California’s failed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was the high tech start-up industry in Silicon Valley. Banking is a con industry. Without the confidence of depositors, no bank is solvent. This was what SVB faced. Some of its depositors withdrew their deposits to gamble on risky, high-interest rate stocks. The bank did not have enough liquid cash to honour this request. The remaining depositors were left short.

The US government knew if it did support the bank depositor/investors, it could not be publicly called a “bail-out.” Why not? The term bail-out “had become a toxic word in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The depositors would be protected, but the bank’s management and its investors would not.”

The March 2023 bailout was for the full amount – not simply the $250,000 normally protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the banking regulator. These rich depositors were ‘bailed out’ by the US government in full. This includes Pieter Thiel, the multi-billionaire.

Jamie Dimon, chief executive of J.P. Morgan — when asked for his advice by the Biden administration’s Deputy Secretary of the Treasury — warned of “potential” for the banking crisis to spread to other banks in a “cascading series of bank failures.” And indeed the cryptobank Signature Bank was also at risk of crashing soon after and was taken into receivership by the government (US speak for temporarily nationalised).

What happened? Clients had deposited their cash in SVB to reap profits with the bank’s investment strategy. That was locked into US government fixed, long-term bonds, which yielded stable returns. Profit-seeking capitalists realised however that there was a catch in the post-COVID era as inflation re-emerged.

This resulted from an increase in the money supply following the government pumping money into businesses, but also to the population during the pandemic. Between them, the Trump and Biden administrations put into the economy over $5 trillion (“almost a quarter of GDP”) of which $1.8 trillion went into households.

It is true that in the current inflation phase, other non-monetary causes of inflation operate. These include poor supply chains exacerbating supply and demand mismatches, employers wishing to squeeze wages, and businesses using the situation to gouge prices. But there was an undoubted major increase in the money supply.

Attempting to control this money supply, the central banks reverted to their traditional “solution” of raising interest rates. This makes the commodity of money more expensive to buy. As rates steadily rose, the profits from fixed, long-term government bonds (or Marketable Treasury Securities) fell below those obtained by shorter-term bonds or pure speculative gambling. That led investor/depositors to start withdrawing their deposits from SVB. They switched that capital into lending money for shorter term but higher interest rate loans. The search for “fictitious money profits” – as Marx put it – once more led investors to shift money around in search of extra profit increments.

The same dynamic for the lowered profits on long-term Treasury bonds applies also to other so called “fixed income” bonds. It appears that in total some $2.2 trillion are “over-valued” currently, a looming threat destabilising the economy and many exposed banks.

“Other fixed-income markets like the $12 trillion mortgage-backed securities market and the $10 trillion corporate bond market also saw big losses in market value. This is a key reason why banks, which hold such securities, are currently under stress. A recent study found that such assets in the U.S. banking system are overvalued by $2.2 trillion due to mark-to-market losses.” See David Beckworth’s analysis:  “The Fed Has Overseen a Remarkable Transfer of Wealth From Bondholders to Taxpayers.”

Actually the amount of holdings by Banks of such “fixed income” markets has soared between 1980 to 2023 from about $0.5 trillion to $6 trillion.

There is another feature of what has happened that we should note: the effect of the rising interest rate has also been to diminish the so-called Debt to GDP Ratio. This is shown below, expressed by the amount of ‘Marketable Treasury Securities’ held as a percentage of GDP.

This is a very new phenomenon as Adam Tooze points out. His depiction from Federal data from the years 1970-2023 makes that case:

This took hold from the post-pandemic period from 2021. The consequence of this is that government public debt has fallen dramatically. We have discussed previously the divisions of interest between banking and financial capital and industrial capital, which remain intense. At the core is an enthusiasm for high interest rates by finance capital, which gains from the higher rates of borrowing capital. But this is contradictory to the interests of the industrial capitalist who borrows capital for reinvesting in new technology and means of production, therefore preferring a lower interest rate.

Ultimately the contradictions of capital continue to grow immensely. Marxists understand that the whole international banking system under capitalism is – like all other features of capitalism – incredibly fragile. Three points can highlight this.

First in the US, in emergency moves the government established a “Bank Term Funding Program” to underwrite banks. This defends them against depositor withdrawals by using government loans against their original purchase of long-term government bonds, because the government knows that many banks in the US are “underwater.” What this means is they hold large stocks of government bonds that have lost in value as compared to short term “risky” betting investments. That is termed “unrealized losses.” On top, the capital the banks hold frequently cannot cover sudden withdrawals – about 10% of banks have less capital than SVB did. The total unrealized losses at US banks is estimated now at $620bn, or 2.7% of US GDP.

Second, this is not a phenomenon restricted to the United States – it is international. For example, the collapsing confidence in the 167-year old Credit Suisse Bank forced a take-over at basement-low prices by its long time rival, Swiss UBS. But UBS demanded that the Swiss government guaranteed it against potential losses on the books of Credit Suisse, providing $100 bn in liquidity funding to cover deposit withdrawals.

Third, potential solutions such as bank regulations have been weakened, such as the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. As we pointed out previously, this was weakened by the Democrats and Republicans together — but apparently not enough for financial investor greed. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) despairs of meaningful regulations. Its diplomatic language notwithstanding, it concedes “regulations” are not effective: “As the financial system continues to evolve and new threats to financial stability emerge, regulators and supervisors should remain attentive to risks… No regulatory framework can reduce the probability of a crisis to zero, so regulators need to remain humble.”

Normal mechanisms such as lowering real incomes by inflation and removing any vestiges of a “welfare state” are not enough to satisfactorily balance the competing pressures. Meanwhile leading capitalists hope for newer territories and work-forces to exploit. These ambitions are steadily leading to a new world war. Workers and toilers of the world must organize to frustrate this path. Only a workers’ and toilers’ revolution can succeed in this goal. This requires Marxist-Leninist parties, which are being built in many countries.

This article originally appeared in ‘American Party of Labor

“What is a Safe Country?”

Interview with the organisers of a workshop in Berlin about refugees and migration from Senegal


12/04/2023

Hi Fazila and Elettra. Thanks for talking to us. Could you start by briefly introducing yourselves?

Fazila (FB): I’m Fazila Bhimji. I’m in Berlin as a freelancer and independent scholar, I worked for many years in Britain at the University of Central Lancashire.

Elletra (EG): My name is Elettra Griesi. I’m an Italian living in Berlin since 2006 and in Germany for 25 years. I am an architect, but also a social and cultural anthropologist. I’m doing my PhD at Berlin’s Free University in the frame of which I ran an 8 month qualitative ethnographic research in Thiaroye sur Mer (Dakar, Senegal), the community we are engaging with during our event. I’m also spokeswoman at the Institute for Protests and Social Movements at the TU Berlin.

On Monday 17th April, you’re organising a workshop: From Senegal to Europe and Back. What will you be talking about, and why should people go?

FB: We met each other in Berlin at the community-based group, Kiez Kantine, and it turned out that we had both done research in Senegal. We look at migrants coming from Senegal to Europe, but also at the connection between richer countries plundering the seas and displacing lives. Many people in Senegal cannot see a future in fishing and are forced to migrate, both to Europe and to neighbouring states like Mauritania.

Fishermen in Senegal are what’s known as artisanal fishers. The have smaller boats. If they encounter the bigger trawlers, there are accidents and lives are lost. It’s the richer countries including China, Korea, France, and Spain, who are exploiting the seas and the traditional culture of fishing.

EG: This is one side of the story. The other side concerns their displacement and often ends up in deportation centres after their arrival in Europe, where obsolete practices are carried out, like the administering of sedatives to keep people calm, and holding them in cages before the deportation to their “countries of origin”.

Deported people then face several difficulties. They must integrate again into their communities. This is a very difficult step to make, since once you come back from Europe, you are considered as a loser. Going back also means not having anything any more. When you leave your country you give up everything. You have to start again from less than zero.

Now, around 2004-2005, people from Thiaroye sur Mer were starting to migrate to Europe in small fishing boats. There were several accidents, and hundreds of people died. European policies thus started to focus on migration management by running so-called development projects with the aim of creating employment opportunities and “stop migration”. The projects have as their focus groups “potential migrants” and “deportees” and all this contributes to attach this label to these people producing stigmatization within the community and further marginalization.

Normally the discourse about refugees in Europe is about Syria, and more recently Ukraine – it’s about people who are fleeing wars. In contrast, Senegalese refugees are fleeing poverty and the effects of colonialism. They are “bad refugees”. How does this affect the way they are treated?

FB: When Germany received Syrian refugees, Angela Merkel said “wir schaffen das”. There was no such rhetoric for people coming here because of the effects of neo-colonialism.

If you are from Africa or from countries such as Pakistan, the housing situation is really bad, and you’re rarely given refugee status – even in countries which are directly responsible for you being there. Fishers have to flee because there are no fish in the water. This is not just because of environmental reasons, but because countries such as Spain, China, and Korea are stealing fish.

The Senegalese government colludes with European states which are offered waters where the locals used to fish. They have bigger nets and equipment, and are able to fish more easily. This causes migration. When people come to Europe, they are treated very badly. People don’t make the connection that Europe itself is responsible for them. They’re just branded “economic migrants”.

EG: And so, people are usually deported because Senegal is still considered to be a safe country. In the eyes of European governments, there is no need to migrate. Even If you apply for asylum it is very difficult to get the status of refugee.

Plundering the Senegalese waters is one side of the problem. The other side is expropriation of land. At the workshop, we will introduce the community from Thiaroye sur Mer which came from Egypt in the 18th Century and settled in Dakar when it was still not urbanised. They were living from fishing and agriculture.

After Senegalese independence in the 1960s, the government started to take away their lands from them in order to develop the city of Dakar and build industrial buildings. Step by step they were expropriated. They had no land, on one side, and could not get fish from the sea on the other. This led to unemployment, and eventually displacement and migration.

FB: In the villages where I did my research, all the people I spoke to had the same response. They are very dissatisfied with the current government, which is in collusion with European states. They feel neglected.

You each just said something very interesting. Elettra said that national liberation didn’t improve the lives of many farmers and fishers, Fazila that the Senegalese government now colludes with the old colonisers. Does this mean that national liberation wasn’t worth it?

FB: Any kind of liberation is always worth it. But we cannot say that Senegal really got independence from France. It doesn’t have self determination. Even the CFA [Senegalese currency] is linked with the French Franc. They’ve had the same rate of exchange for decades.

People have been fighting against this. There have been some changes, or at least hope for change. There is a fight against neo-colonialism. Even Berlin has seen some solidarity events where West Africans have got together, and demonstrated in front of each other’s embassies. This is an ongoing fight.

My research has a decolonial approach, working with community activists in Senegal or from Nigeria. We were all people of colour working with the fishers. It is important that it wasn’t top down research. We are trying to find out people’s experiences from their own perspective.

EG: I would totally agree with what Fazila is saying, this approach is very important. We must decolonize knowledge and research in order to decolonize the mind and produce equity. As researchers, we should run research that includes the views and standpoints of the people. We must also ensure that no researcher has a higher position, and that research participants are not passive objects. Our research must take their perspectives into account. What do they need? Why should we research there? How can we help them to raise their voices and fight against neo-colonialism? In this way, we take a step towards decolonizing knowledge.

I also agree that Senegal is not really independent. Senegal tries and wants to be independent, but realizes that European powers are too strong to allow liberation. The government is somehow forced to adapt to the European policies in order to get some economic “benefits”, or to be included into development projects.

It is also important not just to talk about helping people, but to support their struggles. What sort of social movements are active in Senegal, fighting colonialism or putting pressure on the government to improve their situation?

EG: There are movements that are moving in this direction, but this is a new development. Until recently, there were almost no social movements fighting against the government. There was a musician group called Yen’a Marre who were activists from the start, but they were really an exception.

Otherwise, in Senegal people were not really used to protests. It was not in the mentality of the people to go on the street. Then, around 20 years ago, people started to become more aware. This process is developing right now. Organizations are also fighting for freedom of movement. This needs to be developed further.

FB: There’s also awareness raising. You can’t say it’s a social movement, but people have realized that this is a long fight and they need to be practical in the short run. There is a lot of work to be done with awareness raising, so people don’t take unnecessary risks trying to get to Europe, and end up drowning in the Atlantic.

There are associations which try to find work for younger people, so that they don’t end up taking the risk. And there is a Women’s Association for women who lost their sons. On the surface, it seems contradictory to the Left idea of free freedom of movement, but people should also have the right to stay. They should not be compelled to move. Their environment should be comfortable enough that they are not forced to take such desperate measures.

What conditions do people fleeing Senegal experience?

EG: There are different routes to reach Europe. Some people move via sea, others by land. It’s not a journey that you can do within one week. Sometimes it takes a month or even years to reach Europe, if at all. During this time, people are stuck in one place and need money to survive or continue their journey. They are forced to work illegally, for example in Moroccan call centres. And the call centres belong to Europeans. So they are working illegally for Europeans before they even reach Europe.

Those who have the luck of reaching Europe end up first in Welcome Centres, then in deportation centres, where they experience administrative detention for not being in possession of staying permits. After a period that differs from European country to European county (up to 6 months) they are either deported or they are released with an expulsion order, so that they mostly end up living on the streets with an illegal status. This forces them to work illegally. As they don’t have documents, they are held in slavery by the land owners for whom they are working. In most of cases, they are caught at some point by the police and put into deportation centres. After a period, they are – again – either deported or they end up on the streets, and the story starts all over. It is a never ending loop.

Let’s talk about your event on 17th April. Who will be there?

FB: Muhammed Lamin Jadama is part of Wearebornfree and helps awareness training in Senegal about the risks of migration. Moustapha Diouf who is the President of the Association of Young Repatriated in Senegal.

EG: There’s also an activist from Italy, Maurizio Tritto, who I’ve know since we were 4 or 5 years old. He’s really engaged in bringing social justice. In 2011, a Welcome Centre in my village was re-adapted into a deportation centre. There were protests which went on for several months, and after one or two years, the deportation centre was closed.

But every time that a new government came into power, the deportation centre was re-opened. Much money flowed in, the centre was closed again, and then a new government was elected. Maurizio never stopped protesting against the deportation centre. He went on hunger strike for two months last year to win attention for what was happening.

But nothing happened. The government would not speak with him or listen to him. This year, he started his hunger strike again, as conditions in the deportation centre were getting worse. People disappeared, people died, people were hold in cages, sometimes without food. He was on hunger strike for 66 days until he collapsed and had to stop. All his efforts went unnoticed, that’s why we invited him. He has very deep insights into this deportation centre.

FB: It’s not limited to Italy. At the old Schönefeld airport in Berlin, a deportation centre is being built, and there will be protests in July. The airport, which used to be a welcoming place for people, is now being used to deport people. The situation just gets worse every day.

One final question. We hope that everything goes well next week, but what happens next? Are you planning further events?

EG: I would really love to organize more events, like seminars in universities and other places which raise awareness among younger people. People just don’t know about the conditions concerning migration and displacement. I hear many times: “Why do they migrate from Senegal? It’s a safe country”. But what is a safe country?

I also heard people say “German agencies are putting so much money into development. So why do people keep on migrating?” We would like to show where this money is going, and what conditions the people in the origin countries are facing.

FB: For me it’s also important to somewhat raise awareness among the Left in Europe, which is mainly focused on freedom of movement. They fail to see the complexities that there are other battles to be fought, like neocolonialism or the plundering of the seas. We should ensure that countries of origin don’t become States which force people to migrate.