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The BBC documentary exposing Modi

Two months following the release of a BBC documentary highlighting one of India’s most brutal massacres under its current Prime Minister, under whom its human rights record has rapidly deteriorated, the state faces a period of reckoning.


12/03/2023

In the summer of 2023, India is set to host the G20 Conference, bringing together twenty of the world’s largest economies in an inter-governmental forum. In the months leading up the event, however, the state’s reputation on the global stage has been questioned. These lead back to one of the largest massacres of Muslims in India.

In February and March of 2002, the state of Gujarat in India was under the rule of the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). It witnessed large-scale violence with the killing of nearly a thousand Muslims according to one of the official investigations that took place. This investigation was put to a Supreme Court panel in 2012. Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, was acquitted of all responsibility in these massacres. Two years later, in 2014 general elections the BJP-led coalition won a majority and Modi became India’s Prime Minister.

Recently, those events of 2002 again were scrutinised, this time in the a BBC documentary series “India: The Modi Question”. The first episode focused on Gujarat in 2002, detailing a British-led investigation. This established that Modi had met high-ranked members of the Gujarat police, instructing them not to intervene in the violence. One report at the time described the violence as showing, “all the hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing.” The Modi government’s role was criticised in diplomatic circles globally. Modi was denied a visa to the US in 2005 on a law that holds non-US officials responsible for “severe violations of religious freedoms” – as ineligible for visas. Domestically, the BJP quickly swept the past under the rug, embarking on their mission to create a new India with populist, Hindu-nationalist rhetoric. The release of the BBC documentary, created a new moment of reckoning for the Indian state, now synonymous with the Modi government.

The events of 2002 had not necessarily been forgotten by the people of India, despite the BJP’s best efforts. Journalist Rana Ayyub’s book, “Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up”, detailed her investigations establishing the extent to which state machinery facilitated the violence. Her findings implicated many senior politicians associated with the BJP (including the current leader, Amit Shah) and state police officers, who, were connected to later extrajudicial killings of key witnesses. Ayyub is a notable figure, who reported upon the rapid escalation in hate crimes and violence faced by Indian Muslims since 2014. But others have also raised questions. A series of draconian colonial-era laws vilified, imprisoned, and targeted dissenters against the state. The events of 2002 in retrospect, were a precursor of what was to come. In the last four years , since the 2019 re-election of the BJP-coalition, we witnessed rapid escalation in state-sponsored anti-Muslim violence, and an expanding autocratic state.

In 2019 the Indian government unconstitutionally revoked the special autonomous status of the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir, home to a revolutionary independence movement since 1947. Now it is the most militarised zone in the world, under Indian government occupation. For months, Kashmir experienced a months-long ban on all telecommunications. Next, the Citizenship Amendment Act was tabled in 2019, creating a tiered system of citizenship to make second-class citizenships out of Muslims in India. The mass movement opposing this act was used as an opportunity to systematically persecute many Muslim activists, many still  imprisoned today. Most recently, Hindutva extremists (as far-right Hindu forces are known, often affiliated with the BJP) openly call for the genocide of Muslims at public gatherings, stating their willingness to take up arms. No wonder that may warn that India is on the verge of a genocide against its’ Muslim population. Some argue that this genocide is already underway, as targeted anti-Muslim hate crimes are completely overlooked, and sometimes facilitated, by state players.

This background of the Modi government’s role in facilitating extremist violence in the country over the last decade, makes  the 2002 past, hard to ignore. Yet there has been no lack of prominent BJP leaders making public statements to vilify and target the Muslim community. Domestically, there is no pretence at hiding the BJP’s desire to establish a “Hindu state”. Modi’s role in the 2002 violence has remained somewhat of an open secret amongst the Indian people, even if official proceedings acquitted him of all responsibility. Modi’s membership and participation in the anti-Muslim Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since his teenage years is widely known.

Nevertheless, the state responded extremely strongly to the release of the BBC documentary. It utilised emergency laws to ban the documentary in India almost instantly. The Ministry of External Affairs cited it as foreign, colonialist propaganda. This is consistent with the BJP’s prior dismissal of all non-Indian criticism as “foreign”, or “colonial interference”. Previously it persecuted AltNews’s Mohammed Zubair’s reporting alleging foreign funding.

However, the BJP’s responses to criticism from within the nation, and that associated with the foreign press are different. Internally a large network of Hindutva online trolls, and Indian news media controlled through a combination of state monopolies and corporate ownership by conglomerates associated with the BJP, goes after dissidents. In many cases they are criminalised, and often become the targets of hate speech or systemic persecution; especially if they are Muslim. For example, Rana Ayyub’s has undergone vicious harassment and death threats.

For foreign media however, the BJP and state have far less control. Here they must resort to other intimidation tactics, not necessarily as effective. Here a raid took place on the BBC’s office in India citing tax fraud following the  documentary release. Many foreign correspondents confirm this is certainly not the first act of hostility  from the Modi government. An anonymous survey carried out by Scroll.in revealed a pattern of state attempts to “suppress coverage of the persecution of religious minorities in India and regions such as Kashmir and Assam.” Foreign journalists face visa uncertainty, potential of deportation, “summons” from officials and are “shown ‘files’ and ‘spreadsheets’ detailing their ‘negative coverage’.” In a notable example – Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a Kashmiri photojournalist awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the COVID-19 crisis – was denied exit at immigration and barred from travelling internationally, despite having a valid US visa and ticket.

Now journalists based outside India also seem to face intimidation as well. The Scroll.in survey notes “a journalist working for a European news organisation recount(ing) an instance of the Indian embassy in the European country emailing the publication, asking it ‘not to cover Muslim persecution’.” The larger threat is posed by the network of global Hindutva organisations and the reach of the Indian state beyond its borders, through its embassies. In Germany specifically, the RSS works through its international wing, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh. Much of the Indian diaspora – often upper-class and upper-caste Indian population has also lauded Modi.  This creates a strong network of global allies for his policies. This support is especially aided by the pro-corporate, neo-liberal policies of the government. These steadily erode welfare measures and allow the steady concentration of wealth in the hands of the richest sections of Indian society. An Oxfam report revealed that Indian billionaires increased their wealth by 35% during the pandemic.  At that time 24% of the population was earning under 30 euros a month.

What reckoning does India currently face on the world stage after the release of the BBC documentary? It certainly hasn’t helped that the Modi government’s reputation has taken another hit. This time  Hindenburg Research accused Indian billionaire (and friend and ally of Modi) Adani Gautam of “brazen stock manipulation.”

However India has strong ties with certain Western-aligned nations, such as France (a key trading partner and the 11th largest foreign investor in India) and Israel (See Azad Essa “Hostile Homelands”). Israel and India share ethno-nationalist outlooks and settler-colonialist projects in Kashmir and Palestine.  India’s ongoing tensions with China also provide key potential strategic cooperation with the US. India also maintains strong cultural influence through the diaspora populations in the US and the UK. Notable figures include the CEOs of Google and Microsoft, and the UK Prime Minister. Sunak voiced sympathy with Modi. Through such ties, India may be tacitly accepted, or tolerated  on the World Stage. Even while maintaining trading ties with nations hostile to the western bloc, such as Russia. Here India articulates a policy of  ‘non-alignment’, positioning itself as leading the emerging nations of the Global South. In Germany, the government is unwilling to take a stand on India’s abysmal human rights record. Even when challenged by Die Linke, on the RSS’s inspiration from Hitler and Mussolini’s fascist movements.

On the other hand, India faces immense criticism for exactly these domestic policies and autocratic repression from many Western-based bodies. In 2022, India’s Press Freedom Index fell to 150, and most recently, the V-Dem Institute based out of Sweden cited India as “one of the worst autocratisers in the last 10 years.” Bodies such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and even the US Department of State give scathing accounts of “human rights” within the country. The Indian state cannot be actively hostile against the West, as Iran or China. B India seeks to carve out its own independent foreign policy. Much of the basis to do so rests on India’s self-portrayal as the world’s largest democracy, a thriving multicultural nation with an immense civilisation history.

But with its reputation taking constant hits this is a precarious balancing act. With India expanding its role on the world stage, Modi’s government may see themselves drawing ever closer to the goal to establish a Hindu state. Yet, the response to the BBC documentary shows India’s fears of foreign criticism. Moreover, it clearly establishes that the events of 2002 will not be as easily forgotten.

The G20 set to take place this summer may be the grandest test for Indian diplomacy yet. India is attempting to balance its relations with its allies so as to gain further legitimacy on the world stage. But perhaps more importantly, it is attempting to do so without any questions or attention to domestic repression. For the Indian state, this necessitates immense control and repression of all dissidents and critics. It is likely, meanwhile, that Hindu and state-sponsored violence will continue to rage unchecked.

You can watch The Modi Question here

“It is inaccurate to compare Israel with South Africa. What’s going on in Israel is much worse”

South African Jewish artist Adam Broomberg on being called an antisemite, fighting colonialism and having some sympathy for Germans


11/03/2023

Questions: Phil Butland

 

Hello Adam, thanks for agreeing to talk to us. Could you start by briefly introducing yourself?

A lot of my identity has been thrown into a state of doubt recently. But, I’m a white man who’s 52 years old. All my ancestors come from Lithuania in Eastern Europe. So I come from a puddle of an Ashkenazi Jewish gene pool.

My father’s parents left Lithuania at the turn of the century, my mother’s parents left in the early 1930s. They certainly had more of a sense of urgency because of the pogroms and the visible rise in the danger of staying. My grandparents all landed in South Africa with 250,000 to 300,000 other Jews from that area. And I grew up in that Jewish community.

I was born in 1970, at the height of apartheid. My grandmother spoke Yiddish, she never quite learned English. So a lot of the conversation between my mother and my grandmother was in Yiddish. I was sent to a Zionist Jewish religious school. I studied Hebrew there, I wish I’d been learning Yiddish. The two languages I learned at the school were were the two worst languages in terms of their political implication: Hebrew and Afrikaans.

I’m lucky that my older brother Paul was incredibly politically active in the anti apartheid movement. He was amongst the small group that set up something called the “End Conscription Campaign” or ECC. In South Africa, there was compulsory conscription for white men, just as there is for Jewish people in Israel. So, at the age of 15, I became politically conscious, and then, slowly, more and more politically active.

You’ve continued the family tradition, moving to a few countries, and you’re now in Berlin. What brought you here?

I left South Africa before the end of apartheid, as there was still conscription. I went to London for a year, then I was fortunate enough to be invited to a programme in Italy, I spent about 10 years there, until Berlusconi came to power. That was my first experience of a populist fascist atmosphere.

I then went back to London and started a family. I’m an artist, so got very entrenched in the art world there. Then Brexit started to surface. And with the rise of Brexit came the same populist, fascist xenophobic language.

Literally a couple of weeks after the referendum, I had a show in Berlin. I asked people at the dinner afterwards, how difficult would it be to move with two children and a partner to Berlin. We moved a couple of weeks later, ostensibly for six months, but it’s now been seven years.

So, you escaped apartheid. You escaped Berlusconi, and you escaped Brexit. And then you came to Germany, where you encounter Stefan Hensel. Hensel has a government post for fighting antisemitism in Hamburg and wrote in die Zeit that you are a “hateful antisemitic person who supports terrorism against Jews”. What could you have done to deserve this?

Hensel wrote a number of pieces in die Zeit, taz and a few online things. That quote sounds like an amalgamation of the things he said. I actually buried my mum around new year and returned here to find out about these allegations.

I was urged by a number of trusted colleagues and friends, who really understand the kind of political landscape of Germany, to respond to those allegations because they were libellous and defamation of character. They were all over the press and remained uncontested. I had to invest the next two months of my life galvanizing support. The international press was very receptive, especially the Art Press, which allowed me a platform to publish my response to these unsubstantiated allegations.

Between you and I, when you were a kid, and bullied at school, and somebody said something nasty to you, you lie in bed, and think: “I wish I had said that to him”, or “I wish I had taken a baseball bat and…. I have those private fantasies, but honestly, to focus too much on this petty bourgeois bureaucrat is dangerous. That is their strategy – to reel you into a very provincial battle, and to divert your attention as an activist away from the real struggle which is what brought you to their attention.

As far as I’m concerned, my duty is not to expose this person’s hypocrisy, or the fact that he is using a very common strategy called gaslighting, which we white men aren’t very familiar with as an experience, but every Palestinian lives on a daily basis. I was offered very powerful legal representation pro bono, but I knew it would suck a lot of energy, and take a lot of time. It would be a very exhausting process. And to what end?

The fact that my work in Palestine, made me a target of his propaganda means that this work is achieving something. I need to concentrate on that, rather than defending myself against these ludicrous allegations.

Have the attacks affected your work, for example in the commissions which you have received?

Yes. I was scheduled to have a show in Kassel, which is where the Documenta festival takes place. That show was cancelled because the director felt that my involvement would be too troublesome. It wasn’t my work that was problematic. It was my political position that made them decide to not show the work.

For four months, I was working on a grant with a particular institution. Suddenly that was also denied. I don’t want to come across as a victim here, but to answer your question, yes, definitely, I lost work. My six year contract as a professor in Hamburg ended last October. I don’t think I will find another teaching position in this country.

I don’t think it’s about you being a victim as an individual. But there have been number of cases in Germany, particularly since the Bundestag passed a resolution which has no legal value, but implies that BDS is the same as antisemitism.

You’re the first person who’s clearly stated it has no legal standing. It was contested and deemed unconstitutional to call it illegal. We must keep emphasising that. But the rumours have spread to the point where a number of my colleagues have had to publicly distance themselves or retract their support for BDS.

BDS is not a movement. It’s a well proven, non-violent strategy that’s been used many times, most prominently in South Africa in the 1980s. There was no moral awakening in the 80s in South Africa. It was sanctions that broke the financial backbone of the apartheid state. They were forced into negotiations.

Can we compare Israel with South Africa? In the 1980s. I was also on many pickets of Barclays Bank in Britain, boycotting people who traded with apartheid. That was opposed by Margaret Thatcher. But activists expected it of you. In contrast, if you advocate similar policies in Germany today, a number of people who should know better will say, “Oh, that’s the same as the Nazi campaign “Kauf nicht bei Juden.” How would you respond to this argument?

It’s kind of counter-intuitive, but we need to have a lot more sympathy for Germans in order to let them do what they do best: Think. Through the school curriculum, and the endless memorialisation and rhetoric around the Holocaust they have inherited all the guilt and shame for the Holocaust.

It’s now time to interrogate the Netherlands, who shipped off more Jews to the death camps, second only to Poland. Lithuania was even worse. It’s called the holocaust by bullets – most of my family were killed even prior to the arrival of the German Nazis. They eliminated 98% of the Jewish community with their guns in mass graves.

It may sound a bit odd, but let’s have a thought experiment and say: “Ok, everyone in Germany, you are no longer responsible for the Holocaust”. In the name of my mother, and my grandmother, and all of her six siblings who she lost and my grandfather and all of the five siblings he lost, and their parents, you are no longer responsible for that atrocity. Now, let’s look at Israel without that sense of guilt or shame. There are two possible lessons to be learned from the Holocaust. Is it to defend the most vulnerable, whoever that may be or is it to defend the Nation State of Israel at all costs. It is clear which lesson Germany has chosen to learn.

Germany and Israel are both colonial powers. It’s not only the guilt and shame about the Holocaust that makes Germany support Israel. I think there’s the same reason why outspoken antisemites like Pat Robertson and Donald Trump, and many right wing Americans support Israel.

Israel is a colonial project that’s happening in real time. The European colonial projects happened in the 17th 18th and early 19th century, but essentially, they’re the same project. So let’s divert the conversation away from Israel. And talk about colonialism.

Let Germany really grapple with its colonial history, and forget about the Holocaust for a minute. Let the Netherlands grapple with their colonial history that went on until the 1960s – the Dutch killed 100,000 people in Indonesia. That was justified by colonial rule. Because the way Jews and other victims of the Holocaust were treated is not far off from the way the colonised were treated by the colonial powers. And these two forces were almost running concurrently. It’s just that Jews were white skinned and seemingly assimilated that made it seem so atrocious.

We need to have a more kind of complex understanding. It’s not just about Germany’s guilt. If we alleviate them of the guilt and say: “can you start looking at your colonial history in South West Africa?” The very few countries which failed to support the United Nations in condemning Israel’s abuse of human rights were white colonial powers.

It’s recently become mainstream to call Israel an apartheid state. This wasn’t the case 20 years ago. Now, Amnesty International is saying it, Human Rights Watch is saying it, even Ha’aretz is publishing articles about Israeli apartheid. But in Britain, Labour MPs have been banned from making the comparison. And there’s a lot of self censorship going on. You’ve lived under apartheid. How accurate is this comparison? And how useful is it?

It’s not that accurate, because what’s going on in Israel is much worse. It’s beyond apartheid. I don’t think apartheid is a sufficient definition for the extent go the othering, the abuse, the human rights violations, and the cold blooded murder on a daily basis, state sanctioned murder, pogroms and utter humiliation.

There was nothing like that in apartheid, not on that scale. This is unlike anything I ever saw in my 20 years living under the height of apartheid. When I go to Palestine, to Hebron, Bethlehem, or the occupied territories, it’s way worse than anything I’ve ever seen under apartheid.

I don’t even think that that’s an argument that we should be worrying about any more. It’s outdated. We need to come up with a new term.

Even in Germany, more people are criticising Israel. To a degree this because of Israel’s new government, although they’re just prolonging things which have been going on for a long time.

You say that quickly, but we need to reinforce the link between the leaders of the Zionist movement in 1947-8 – statements by Ben Gurion statements and Golda Meir – and statements made by Ben-Gvir. They’re the same thing. You can draw a very fine red line, and there’s no difference in the genocidal racist, brutal language from 1948. It’s just that now people will say the mask is off.

if anyone’s spent three hours in the occupied territories in the past 75 years, It’s very clear what’s been going on.

Nonetheless, there has been a change of consciousness of people who are saying: “this has got to stop”. And yet we seem to be a long way away from real change. It’s almost exactly 20 years since Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a bulldozer. There’s a new wave of shock, but things carry on as before.

God bless Rachel Corrie. But let’s not talk about white saviours. Do you know how many Palestinians have been murdered in the 20 years since Rachel Corrie got run over by that JCB? What worries me is that there is now a division between the so-called liberal Israeli and the right wing Israeli, and neither of their opinions is of great interest to me.

These arguments all start around 1967 when the occupation of Palestinian Territories started, and I’m afraid I come from a much more radical perspective, which is from 1948. I have a sister who lives in Israel, on the land of a dear Palestinian friend. And we’re still talking about a two state solution? Fuck that shit.

If she didn’t know me, my sister would perceive my daily labour as a threat to her existence. She gave me this analogy: there’s a house and the father dies, and his two sons inherit this house. For 40 years, one of them maintains the house and the other one leaves and, and comes back 40 years later, saying: “What the hell have you done to the house?” And the son who remained said, “I’ve been maintaining it”.

She is implying that she’s been there for 40 years maintaining the house. And I waltz in forty years later and start criticizing it for it’s ideological or aesthetic problems. But there’s a presumption there that it’s our house. It’s not our house. The real issue for me is how, as Jews, how are we going to be gracious enough to ask for permission to peacefully live alongside the rightful owners of this land.

If you look at the analogy, it’s actually the opposite of what happened. There was only one brother living in the house. And he didn’t just go on holiday for forty years. He was kicked out and told that he couldn’t come back. So it’s reversing the roles of what actually happened.

Of course, that’s my point. It’s not my house. It’s not my sister’s house. We both stole somebody else’s house, or our father did. My point is that I think that we’re slightly behind in the struggle, and the struggle will catch up.

We now have right wing Republicans announcing yesterday in the Senate that they don’t want to support the State of Israel. Now, these are some of the most despicable people on the planet. I wouldn’t count them as allies or comrades. But the fact is, is that those in power in Israel need to wake up to the fact that sugar daddy is losing interest, because Israel is becoming a liability.

How hopeful are you of change and where do you think it’s going to come from?

I’m very hopeful of change. Like in South Africa, the driving force will have to come from the international community, which must insist upon the institution of international law. The breaches of the United Nations Laws since 1948 are numerous. But, ultimately, we will need to listen to the Palestinians for guidance in terms of how to move forward.

I’m not talking about the Palestine Authority. I’m not talking about Hamas. I’m talking about the people. This is something they got wrong in South Africa. When the negotiations took place, there was the most unbelievable grassroots democratic organization that existed under the United Democratic Front, which were aligned to the trade unions, and they were not listened to.

I don’t think apartheid ended. With hindsight, Mandela – for all his beautiful, charming, enigmatic existence – sold out the people and workers of South Africa. This is a mistake we can’t make again. We need to listen to the people. This is not a decision to be made by some American President sitting with some puppet Palestinian leader and some fascist Israeli. It’s got to be done in a different way.

Lessons learned from the Battle for Lützerath

Report from an activist involved in the campaign against lignite mining


09/03/2023

It has been almost two months since the village Lützerath in the German Rhineland, as well as the protest camp that had been established in it two and a half years prior, were evicted and destroyed by a coalition between the German police and the energy company RWE. The images of the eviction and protests were seen around the globe and ranged from distressing to sometimes downright absurd, like that of a monk, ridiculing police officers that were stuck in the mud.

One photo, taken by the photojournalist Marius Michusch, has been shared particularly often and appears to sum up at least one aspect of the conflict almost perfectly. The image, taken at night, shows police in riot gear, standing in front of the edge of the coal mine Garzweiler, the bucket wheel of the coal excavator behind them eerily lit up. This photograph represents with a startling clarity not only the destructiveness of the fossil age, but also the entanglements between the interests of energy giants such as RWE and state powers (legislative, judicative, executive).

But in order to understand the conflict around Lützerath, we have to take a look back into its history, rather than only consider the final battle in January. The village Lützerath was sitting on several hundred million tons of lignite coal that to this day still remains in the ground. Coal that is, according to expert reports from the German Institute for Economic Research, not only unnecessary to ensure German energy security, but that will also, once burnt, make it impossible for Germany to keep within the limits of the internationally ratified Paris Agreement.

The stakes around the village have thus been high from the very start. But Lützerath is far from being the first village in Germany to be destroyed for the sake of lignite extraction. Over 130 villages have thus far been destroyed in Germany alone in order to extract the coal that lies below them. That this process has been possible at all is thanks to a law that dates back to the Nazi era, enabling the expropriation of people whose houses are located above coal deposits.

Local resistance against the environmental devastation that comes with coal mining has existed for decades, even if it only really recently started to draw attention beyond the local area. Famously, activists succeeded to defend the Hambach Forest in 2018 with very similar methods to the ones employed in Lützerath, and many of the activists who were present in Hambach had come to support the protests in Lützerath as well.

**Editor’s note: The use of tripods and treehouses seen today in occupations around the world, including in both Hambach and Lützerath, has steadily gained popularity over the past decades. One of the first actions using these tactics that was widely covered in the media was that which came to be known as ‘The War in the Woods,” where activists intended to stop clear-cutting in Clayoquot Sound, Canada. It was the country’s largest act of civil disobedience until the 2021 Fairy Creek blockades.

But one significant thing changed since the protests against the destruction of the Hambach Forest. During the conflict around the Hambach Forest, the German Green Party was still in the opposition in both North Rhine-Westphalia and on a federal level. Many of its party members, amongst them Mona Neubaur, who is today the minister for economics in North Rhine Westphalia, had campaigned alongside the activists for the preservation of the forest and for an earlier end to coal in Germany.

But when the battle began to intensify, the situation changed. In 2021, the Green Party became a member of the ruling coalition of Germany on a federal level. In their coalition treaty, the “progress coalition” made up of social democrats, liberals and greens noted that the German exit from coal should “ideally” happen by 2030. The previous government had aimed for a coal exit strategy by 2038. But Lützerath was not saved by political decision makers. The coalition treaty, which saved five other villages in the Rhenish mining district, refrained from making a clear statement on the village, and instead stated that courts should decide about the future of the village.

Many in the climate movement saw this as a cop-out: The majority of the remaining coal in the area was estimated to be underneath Lützerath. Given the enormous power of RWE in the region, as well as a legal framework not yet sufficiently adapted to the reality of the climate crisis, it seemed predictable that courts would decide in favour of the energy giant, rather than in favour of the last remaining legal inhabitant of the village. And they did. Eckhardt Heukamp, who had stood in solidarity with the climate activists and who had resisted against his expropriation in the courts for years, lost the legal battle and left his childhood home in early October 2022.

“A milestone for the climate”

The whole situation was further exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Green Party, of all parties, now had to pay for years of negligent energy politics and German dependency on Russian gas. Maybe that’s why, eager to break some good news, Mona Neubaur and Robert Habeck announced their partial compliance with the coalition treaty in October 2022 as a milestone for the climate: the exit of coal extraction in the Rhenish mining area would be brought forward, as promised in the coalition treaty, to 2030. Lützerath was portrayed as a last, necessary victim, an endpoint to a chapter soon to be closed.

But the announcement quickly drew criticism. Not only did Habeck and Neubaur announce this decision together with Markus Krebber, CEO of RWE, after closed-door negotiations. Climate scientists and activists alike were quick to point out that the phase-out may have been brought forward in time, but mathematically it did not lead to sufficient CO2 savings to stay within the limits of the Paris agreement. Justified by the energy crisis, the coal-fired power plants were to be utilised more in the short term, effectively leading to almost no CO2 savings.

Neubaur, Habeck and RWE justified their decision with expert reports. However, the ones they referred to were widely criticized by media outlets such as Der Spiegel. The magazine considered them as rushed, insufficiently referenced and based on rough estimations. Other independent reports continued to state that there was still no need for the coal underneath the village. Unsurprisingly then, the refusal by the Green party to declare a demolition moratorium for Lützerath was seen by many in the climate movement as at best, a failure of the Greens, and at worst, outright treason.

It was this disappointment in a party that – many had hoped – would bring about more consequent climate action, combined with an unwavering sense of urgency after yet another summer of tangible climate breakdown, that mobilized thousands to come together when the eviction of the protest camp started in early January 2023.

But even though the movement had mobilized tens of thousands of protesters to contest the destruction of the village, police from all over Germany worked hand in hand with workers from RWE to evict the protesters. While the officers were still removing activists from trees, workers cut down trees right behind them. Given strong winds and overall bad weather conditions in early January, many activists lamented having been endangered by rushed police work. RWE even provided the police with vans to transport the prisoners. Where Lützerath could have been an end point to the fossil age, it instead turned into a lesson on the ways in which the interests of energy giants are protected and enforced by state powers, et the expense of the shared interest of humanity to keep planet earth habitable.

And yet, it would be false to claim that the resistance against the destruction of Lützerath was in vain. Climate activists have announced that they will keep on fighting against the advancement of the coal mine for as long as the coal remains in the ground. While the village and protest camp themselves have been destroyed, the two and a half years of active resistance forged alliances between rural populations and activists; the experiences made and lessons learned from the fight for Lützerath will stay within the memory of the movement.

Further, the media reported widely on the battle on the fields around Lützerath, which served to unmask the way in which the existing system continues to protect the interests of energy companies such as RWE. And lastly, if nothing else, the battle showed once again that grassroots organizing is a highly effective means in contesting power and shifting the dialogue where institutionalized politics fail.

Photo Gallery: International Working Women’s Day – 8 March 2023

Photos from the demo from Invalidenpark to Bebelplatz organised by the GEW and ver.di unions and the Bündnis für Sexuelle Selbstbestimmung


                              

Photos: Bündnis für Sexuelle Selbstbestimmung, Phil Butland, Rosemarie Nünning

Germany hedges bets in changing international order

Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, has been trying to form new alliances in Brazil, India and Africa. Hari Kumar asks what does it mean to speak of multi-polarity world and what is the German and EU position within it?


08/03/2023

The German Chancellor has been a busy traveller lately. As he flies around he speaks of a “multi-polar” world. What does this mean? It means developing a third force in international politics including Germany, in alliance with BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) – minus Russia of course. The pace of these attempts was increased after the Russian aggression in Ukraine.

In 2022, Olaf Scholz warned at the elite club at Davos against the sole hegemony of two powers, the USA and China:

“I don’t give any credence to the reports of a new bipolarity between the US and China, either. Of course, China is a global player – “once again”… that does not mean that we need to isolate China, neither does it give rise to the claim of Chinese hegemony in Asia and beyond. Particularly since we are seeing new and ambitious powers emerging in Asia, Africa and Latin America…When we realize that our world is becoming multipolar, then that must spur us on to even more multilateralism, to even more international co-operation.”

Scholz’s statements come in the context of him fighting hard for German capitalism to keep it in pole position within the EU. This year Scholz reiterated warnings against the USA new drives to protectionism, and German industrial intent (Davos 2023):

“[under the US Inflation Reduction Act] some 370 billion dollars have been earmarked for energy and climate change mitigation over the next ten years. … Through the German Climate and Transformation Fund we have made almost 180 billion euro available ourselves for the period 2023 to 2026.”

The Chancellor and the EU know they have to heavily invest to keep pace with the USA, including boosting pitiful levels of compute chip manufacturing in Europe. EU President Von der Leyen also set “sovereignty” as a key slogan in her 2021 State of the Union address. In particular Von der Leyen listed the example that 90 percent of European data is held in the cloud services of U.S. corporations such as Amazon or Microsoft as place where the bloc is vulnerable.

This year at Scholz issued a dire warning against “fragmentation” or protectionism:

“Over all of this hangs a sword of Damocles: the danger of a new fragmentation of the world, of deglobalization and decoupling…. I am doing my utmost to ensure that the free trade agreements we have successfully negotiated with Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, and Chile will soon be followed by new ones: with MERCOSUR (South America), India, and Indonesia. And we are also open to discuss a tariff agreement for the industrial sector with the United States…. This is also the aim of the international Climate Club we launched during Germany’s G7 Presidency. A Secretariat has recently been set up at the OECD and the International Energy Agency. So the Club is now open to new, ambitious members.” Davos 2023

Scholz pro-actively opened this “Club” by inviting South Africa, Senegal and the Niger, to discussions with the G7 under his presidency. His approaches to Africa, have not been unproblematic. In particular Mali and Burkina Faso not only kicked out the French army (their former colonial masters) and welcomed in Russian forces including the brutal Wagner forces, but also refuses German Bundeswehr drone flying rights.

Unsurprisingly Scholz focused recently on BRICS. The term ‘BRIC-s’ was coined in 2001 by an economist Jim O’Neil for bankers Goldman Sachs. In 2014 ‘S’ was added for South Africa. O’Neill advised investors that BRIC represented a large, and growing portion of world GDP. In 2018, BRICS had a combined nominal GDP of US$26.6 trillion (26.2% of the gross world product), a total GDP Purchasing Power Parity of around US$51.99 trillion (32.1% of global GDP PPP), and an estimated US$4.46 trillion in combined foreign reserves. The group also accounts for 40% of the world’s population.

Many other countries queue to join BRICS. The BRICS International Forum president Anand reports that Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia could join “very soon”. In earlier announcements Iran and Argentina had formally applied for membership. All the so-called MINTS (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey) will probably end up within BRICS.

Obstructions were placed in the BRICS path. For example, the USA engineered President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff’s downfall and the trial of Lula da Silva (Guardian 2016). Lula’s re-election in Brazil uplifted BRICS. Brazil and India, which Scholz recently visited – both have grand visions.

President Lula’s foreign policy adviser, Celso Amorim, was an architect of ‘multipolarity’ (Lula’s Brazil, 30.01.2023; Der Spiegel):

“Amorim is considered the intellectual originator and architect of the multipolar strategy.. he believes that Brazil benefits from having several power centers determine world politics and therefore advocates good relations with all international players. For this reason, he expanded South-South relations.”

Lula aims to reweld several South American nations into Hugo Chavez’s original Union of South American Nations (USAN, or UNASUL) by reconfiguring the free trade agreement between the EU and MERCOSUR. As a measure of Lula’s determination to be ‘independent’, Lula has rejected the USA led shunning of Russia (Brazil and Peace 31.01.2023 Der Spiegel):

“Lula did not want to comply with Scholz’s request to pass on tank ammunition to Ukraine. “Brazil has no interest in passing on the ammunition to be used in the Ukraine-Russia war… “Brazil is a land of peace. And that’s why Brazil doesn’t want any involvement in this war, not even indirectly.”

That sentiment alarms Western imperialists who recognise:

“As was reported in the Munich Security Report… not a single state from Africa or Latin America – and hardly a state in Asia – supports the West’s sanctions policy against Russia. If serious setbacks are to be avoided in the global power struggle against Russia and China on a long-term basis, one must win back at least a few of the Global South’s countries. After all, in many countries of the South, the “Western-dominated order” is in many states in the Global South, characterized by “postcolonial domination” which engenders sympathy for a “post-Western” global order.“ German Foreign Policy 14 Feb 2023

India is also a leading economy meriting it as a destination for Scholz. India recently hosted the G20 meeting, as it entered the presidency of the BRICS. As Brazil, India refuses to deep freeze Russia. Indeed oil exports from Russia barred by the EU now largely go to India. Moreover “During the first ten months of India’s fiscal year (April-January), India’s imports from Russia have jumped to US $7.31 billion, five times that of the previous year. Russia ranks fourth on India’s list of suppliers, just behind the USA.“ German Foreign Policy 23 Feb 2023

But BRICS ‘independence’ from imperialism is constrained. Patrick Bond sees the BRICS as collaborators with Western imperialism:

“the BRICS are ‘collaborating actively with imperialist expansion, assuming in this expansion the position of a key’ bloc, whose own interests also rest in sub-imperialist stabilisation of international financial power relations, for the advancement of their own regional domination strategies.” (Third World Quarterly, 2016 Vol. 37).

But an even more important dimension is of course that BRICS includes Russia and China. Both imperialist nations. Hence, the BRICS itself is simply another imperialist formation – just as is the EU, and the nations led by the USA which in Europe at least – revolve around NATO.

China also woos the very same areas as Western imperialism does:

“Three days before the Ukraine paper, Beijing presented… its “Global Security Initiative.” This concept, announced by Xi Jinping a year ago, is a political continuation of the so-called Silk Road Initiative, Beijing’s almost global economic and development program…The text.. argues against “unilateralism, bloc confrontation and hegemonism” and advocates guaranteeing security not through military alliances but through individual agreements. At the same time, Xi lists where the focus of Chinese foreign policy will be in the future: in the countries of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands.” Der Speigel 4 March 2023

In conclusion, No doubt American imperialism is by far and away still the most dominant. This as measured by its economic, military and political reach. While its leaders fret over the growth of China, objectively the distance between ‘top dog USA’ and its imperialist rivals is enormous. But things change, they are right to be anxious. Hence their continual challenging of China (restricting Chinese access to microchip technology and restricting telecommunication access; imposing import restrictions into USA; returning to “home-shoring” industry; constant provocations via Taiwan; etc.

German Chancellor Scholz visits Biden this weekend in Washington. They have a lot to discuss. Not the least the failure of the USA to honor its part of the tank deal. Suspicions are that the USA holds up deliveries of Abrams to ensure a future arms-market share in Europe. Scholz plays a delicate game. He wants to bolster EU power. But he cannot antagonize the USA directly – as of yet. Along the way if he can bring into a ‘multi-polar’ world various BRICS and other ‘South’ countries – the more degrees of freedom the German imperialists have against the Americans.

All the major imperialists – the USA, China, the EU, Russia – see what is coming shortly – a new world war of re-division. US Air Force General Minihan wrote in a Memo on Jan 29 2023: “We will fight in 2025. Xi secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022.” And where is the united left that will fight for workers and toilers visions?

Originally published at the Red Phoenix 4 March, 2023 under the title: Mr Scholz Goes a-wooing BRICS”