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Fascist organization and military coup: a chronicle of the 8th of January 2023

We should stop mincing words, Jair Bolsonaro is a Fascist


22/01/2023

by André Rodrigues and Andrés Del Río, professors at Universidade Federal Fluminense.

Jair Bolsonaro’s political extremism, of a fascist type, underwent a long  normalization, continuing through his Presidency of the republic. But the violent coup attempt of his supporters on January 8, 2023,  invading and looting of the palaces of three levels of Government in Brasilia, exposed Bolsonarism as it always was. The shocking scenes provoked international concern about Brazil, with several expressions of solidarity with the Lula government from heads of state. Finally the Brazilian corporate press started used relatively adequate terms to describe Bolsonarist extremism: “terrorists,” “coup plotters,” “anti-democratic,” “criminals,” “extremists”. These words predominated. “Fascists,” however, did not emerge in the media lexicon. The change in vocabulary is part of the normalization process.

Bolsonaro, as a parliamentarian, over three decades appeared frequently on entertainment-oriented television programs. The news media gave a lot of space to him. In his media appearances, he figured as a “polemical” politician, with forceful positions, but never extreme, or unacceptable. Bolsonaro’s “opinions” tolerated by the media, gave him an image of “authenticity”, of a politician who was not “afraid to speak his mind”. They presented him as a sincere politician when in fact he was the representative of a tiny group on the margins of democracy. He always represented hate.

The veneer of “authenticity” was a key tool to accredit Bolsonaro as a spearhead for the advance of the far right. He thus credentialed himself as a charismatic leader with, ironically, an anti-establishment stance. Meanwhile, he affirmed that nothing in Brazil would be transformed through the vote and that only a civil war, with at least 30 thousand dead, would promote change. Or that he would prefer that a son died if he was homosexual, or that he wouldn’t rape a federal representative because she didn’t “deserve it” by her physical appearance; or that Human Rights were the “dung of vagabonds”; or praising by name an execrable torturer of the military dictatorship in the plenary of the House of Representatives. Bolsonaro’s repertoire of extremist and unacceptable stances is inexhaustible. All that did not stop the newspaper Estado de São Paulo from publishing an editorial in 2018 stating that deciding between Bolsonaro and Fernando Haddad – for president in 2018 – was a “difficult choice.” Even though Haddad is a university professor and politician with an absolutely moderate and unblemished career.

In covering the coup and violence of January 8, 2023,  journalists frequently used the expression “radical Bolsonarists”. This expression is greatly inaccuracy because it admits an impossibility: a “moderate Bolsonarist.” Bolsonarism is a fascist movement, a far-right movement, with international links to white supremacists, neo-Nazis, antivax, terraplanists, religious fundamentalists, traditionalists, etc. There is no Bolsonarism that is not radical right. The redundancy in the expression “radical Bolsonarism” is another chapter in normalizing Bolsonarism. A way of not dismissing the strong rejection of any leftist personality or party. Most mainstream newspapers lined up in this.

This normalization process made Bolsonaro the wrong person at the wrong time. He boosted the other Brazilian authoritarian phenomenon with a long history: the military coup. Before leaving the Army to become a councilman in Rio de Janeiro in 1988, Bolsonaro was arrested for indiscipline, and accused in a military trial of being a lazy and undisciplined officer. Years later, the barracks would re-open their doors to Bolsonaro, now the spokesman of a power project in continuity with the pretensions of the 1964 dictatorship.

The central pillar of the Bolsonaro government is the military. It is a military government, in ideas, in how it manages public affairs – always fostering militarism in all sectors of society. There were the frequent military visits –  to decorate, to attend graduations, or to participate in olive green banquets. The “civic-military” schools were the public policies exposing the use of the public machine to construct a militarized society. The military sectors typically believed that Brazil’s fault is the “absence of discipline”. Their arming public policy (in a country where homicides are among the highest in the world) is a tragedy. Almost daily, countless news reports, recount weapons (now legally acquired and unmonitored by the military) ending up in the hands of organized crime.

Let us x-ray public administration  to understand Bolsonaro’s military government. More than 8000 military personnel have occupied civilian positions in the administration. Not even in the military regime were so many military personnel in high positions in democratic public institutions. It is not a coincidence, that General Villas Bôas, former commander of the Army, appears in this movement of military participation. He is the ideologue of the military participating in spheres outside the barracks.

Already in 2018, in the government of President Michel Temer, during the election campaign, then-commander of the Army Villas Bôas brought the coup spirit to the forefront as it had not happened for decades. General Eduardo Villas Bôas, stated on his Twitter profile on Tuesday, April 3, 2018, the eve of the habeas corpus trial filed by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the Supreme Court (STF), that: “I assure the Nation that the Brazilian Army believes it shares the yearning of all good citizens to repudiate impunity and respect the Constitution, social peace, and democracy, and remains attentive to its institutional missions.” This post on social networks generated an extensive social commotion. But his statement was not without the endorsement of the army high commands, showing that it as a army worldview, not a post by an individual. The next day, former president Lula had his petition for habeas corpus rejected, leaving him on the verge of ineligibility for that year’s presidential elections (which would happen a couple of months later). Let’s remember, Lula was in first place in the polls in the presidential race, and by a wide margin.

This absurd intrusion by the high commands of the Armed Forces in national political life was repeated in the last elections of 2022. The Armed Forces questioned the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) 88 times about “supposed vulnerabilities” in the Brazilian electoral process. The Armed Forces then declared non-existent vulnerabilities in the electoral process and in the electronic ballot boxes themselves. There was no evidence to prove it. The army became agents to destabilize the electoral process, and validated the fake news disseminated daily by then-President Bolsonaro.

In the election year 2022, the Armed Forces, through the Ministry of Defense, headed by General Paulo Sergio Nogueira,  enabled the Bolsonarists to continue  attacks and disseminate disinformation. But  no proofs were shown against the electronic ballot boxes. The minister of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Luiz Roberto Barroso, stated  that the military is trying to “discredit” the Brazilian electoral process and that attacks on the system are “totally unfounded”. In short, all attacks against the electoral system in the Bolsonaro government have/had some participation of active or reserve members of the Armed Forces. It is important to highlight: in the previous 25 years of redemocratization, the Armed Forces never questioned the electoral system and the electronic ballot boxes, which demonstrated success in performance.

On November 9, after the election, a Ministry of Defense report on the electoral process was released without pointing to any concrete fraud or proof of irregularity. But the disappointeded Bolsonarists continued the coup discourse. A day later, November 10, General Paulo Sergio Nogueira tried to explain himself and said that the report “did not exclude the possibility of the existence of fraud or inconsistency in the electronic ballot boxes and the electoral process of 2022”.

On November 11, a note issued jointly by the Army, Navy, and Air Force commanders – without the signature of the Ministry of Defense – was addressed to the Judiciary. An excerpt from the Armed Forces’ states: “Any restrictions to rights, on the part of public agents, are condemnable, as well as any excesses committed in demonstrations that may restrict individual and collective rights or put public safety at risk; as well as any actions, by individuals or public or private entities, that feed disharmony in society.”

In 2022, as in 2018, the active participation of military sectors in the presidenticy was as extensive as it was problematic. But it did not end with the defeat of Bolsonaro. In a constant destabilization, demonstrations funded by pro-Bolsonaro companies, and supported by the Armed Forces, continued during the post-election period. On December 12, the date of President-elect Lula’s graduation, trial balloons launched demonstrations of bus and car breakings and arsons. In these attacks, nobody was held accountable and the police and military remained in the best box watching the fireworks of the supposedly disgruntled demonstrators. The rest, we witnessed as it unfolded. January 8 is not over yet. The military were never held accountable for the massive human rights violations in the last dictatorship. Possibly the same will happen regarding January 8th. 

The coup attack of January 8, 2023 exhibited, two fronts that will continue to challenge democracy in Brazil: the political radicalization of society by the fascist far right and the military coup to sabotage the democratic forces. Bolsonaro has not yet acknowledged his defeat at the polls, has left the country, and intends to continue articulating with the international far right. The generals played an active role in the fascist invasion and depredation of the presidential palaces. They need to bend to the legal rigours of the democratic order. That is why the Brazilian social movements continue to chant the cry: No amnesty!

André Rodrigues is a political scientist, professor of political thought at the Fluminense Federal University and coordinator of the Laboratory for Studies on Politics and Violence – LEPOV
Andrés Del Río is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science for the Bachelor’s Degree in Public Policy at the Fluminense Federal University IEAR-UFF; Coordinator of the Center for Studies on State, Institutions and Public Policy, NEEIPP at UFF; Coordinator of the research group: Judicial Power in Latin America of the Latin American Association of Political Science (ALACIP). He is a collaborating member of the Commission on Human Rights and Legal Assistance of the Brazilian Bar Association – CDHAJ/OAB-RJ

“When colonized people call for solidarity, the Left should respond”

Interview with Stefan Christoff (from Musicians for Palestine) about organising concerts, fighting colonialism and boycotting the Pop-Kultur festival


20/01/2023

Stefan Christoff at a recent concert in Berlin. Photo: Phil Butland

Stefan, thanks for talking to us. Can you explain who you are and what you’re doing in Berlin at the moment?

My name is Stefan Christoff. I’m a musician and community activist who lives in Montreal, or Tiohtià:ke as indigenous people call it. I am the coordinator of Musicians For Palestine (MFP), which is a global initiative that brings musicians around the world together to support human rights and Palestine.

We specifically support the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, which is a global effort to try to pressure the Israeli government to respect international law vis-a-vis its policies in the West Bank and Gaza. This is an effort to use pressure within the arts, and academic institutions to build collective power to target the Israeli government.

I’m here in Berlin to play a concert tonight at Morphine Raum, which is an independent cultural space in the city.

Could you say who is involved in MFP and what successes you’ve experienced?

MFP was launched in May 2021. This was a global response to the Israeli bombing of Gaza that May. We specifically wanted to respond as musicians. So we worked very hard, in a brief period of time, to invite artists to sign a common declaration.

We asked artists, organisations and community groups in Palestine who are involved in the Boycott National Committee to review our declaration. This is the representative group of the BDS movement in Palestine.

We circulated the declaration globally and very quickly. A lot of artists who have spoken out about progressive issues, but had not found a context to speak for Palestinian rights support it. This includes members of The Roots, Patti Smith, Rage Against the Machine and Brian Eno.

I was also very happy to see that the initiative was supported by a lot of artists from different countries. For example, from Chile and South Africa, including artists like Msaki and Asher Gamedze. This was a really meaningful moment where progressives around the world came together to support Palestinian human rights.

What is your relationship to Israeli artists? We sometimes hear the accusation that you’re boycotting people just because they’re Israeli.

That’s just not where we’re coming from. We work with a group of Israeli artists called Boycott From Within. They actually helped us with the letters, and helped to coordinate support from Israeli artists who are progressive and support Palestinian human rights.

Since 2017, there’s been a call to boycott Berlin’s Pop Kultur festival because of its links with the Israeli embassy. The festival will be held again this August. What can you tell us about this?

MFP has supported artists who wanted to remove their participation in the festival. Last year, it was only announced at the last minute that the Israeli embassy supported the festival. We helped the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) to draft statements for these artists.

In September 2022, we issued the second global declaration of MFP, which 900 more musicians supported, though Palestine was not in the news. In that declaration, we mentioned Pop Kultur specifically. The declaration was supported by many groups, and collectives and musicians, including Arca, an awesome artist who does a lot of the sound work for Björk and Massive Attack.

At first, the Pop Kultur organisers didn’t acknowledge the connection with Israeli embassy. Then they suddenly said there’s nothing problematic about that connection. Many artists get their travel costs paid by by their embassies. Why are you singling out to Israel? What about artists who are financially supported by the Canadian or other embassies?

This is an opportunity to really look at what the BDS movement is. It is a tactic, a picket line. Palestinian communities who are facing the occupation have called for artists around the world to participate in the global enforcement of a picket line.

Given the system of oppression and occupation which Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have labelled as apartheid, given the siege of Gaza, we are going to respect the Palestinian groups’ appeal to not collaborate with the Israeli state. This is a global effort to pressure the Israeli government.

I want to underline that we are talking about the Israeli state – the government. I live in Canada. My origins are Bulgarian Macedonian, but I was born in Canada, I lived there, grew up there. If somebody is critiquing the Canadian state’s systemic violations of indigenous rights, that doesn’t offend me. That’s not against me.

In the same way, if people are critiquing the Israeli government’s position, it’s about the Israeli government. It’s very clear in any country in the world that there’s a great separation between the government and people.

Going back to Pop Kultur and BDS as a tactic, Palestinian groups are calling for a boycott of the Israeli state. I think it’s important to respect that appeal, because this is a context of colonial occupation, of the Israeli state occupying Palestine.

Palestinian groups have clearly appealed to the world, to artists, academics and labour unions to respect the fact that they are calling for people to not collaborate with the Israeli state. I respect that in the same way as I would if another community were trying to put pressure on either a corporation or a government to respect human rights.

There are lots of historical frameworks to understand what’s happening now in occupied Palestine, within a context of histories of colonialism. We can look to the French occupation of Algeria, or the Portuguese occupation of Angola. The history is different, but the equation of colonialism is the same. It’s important to understand the nuance of every situation. But when colonized people call for solidarity, the left should respond.

There are a number of activists in Germany who will agree with a lot of that in principle, but they will say BDS is not possible in Germany because of German history and the Nazi law “Kauf nicht bei Juden” – “don’t buy from Jews”.

If we equate Jewish identity with the Israeli state, then we accept an exceptionalist framework. This means that the situation in Palestine is removed from the globe. But what’s happening in Palestine is deeply connected to the world. It’s not happening in a historical vacuum,

If we talk about North America and Manifest Destiny, the expansion of the US State in a Western direction, or in the Canadian context, of the consolidation of the “Dominion of Canada” in 1867, this was a colonial process in the same way that Israeli state is a colonial process which is imposing a national structure. This is working against the collective wishes of the indigenous population, who are the Palestinians.

In Germany, we should really address the link between major German corporations like Bayer with injustice. How can we decode the intergenerational wealth that is built on the Holocaust? How can we think about the structures of power within Germany itself that continue to propagate injustice, whether it’s in a local context or internationally?

Despite all the discussion that has happened within the educational system here about the Holocaust, what we haven’t seen is a discussion about the structures of power within this country that are rooted in history.

It is more interesting to think critically about systemic racism from an intersectional point of view, about opposing antisemitism in the same way as opposing anti Arab racism or anti-Black racism. These are connected, and no one is free until we’re all free. That includes Palestine.

Do you think anything has changed significantly since the recent election of a right-wing government in Israel?

Under Netanyahu, a very cold colonial authoritarian rendition of Israeli state power is in control. That will make a lot of people globally to think more critically about the Israeli state. The inherent equation of the colonial edifice of the Israeli state project is amplified with this government.

But it’s important to think about the structure of the state project in Israel as a colonial state project. It’s not simply about the right-wing government as being an exception. It’s part of a continuum of governments over time. The Barak government and others sustained the oppression and occupation of the Palestinian people.

This is similar to how the Trump government in the United States was not without context. For years, the Republican Party was increasingly using racist talking points to divide people and to boost white supremacist Republican nationalism. This did not exist just with Trump – it’s coming from a context.

Do you think that boycotts of itself will change Israel? Or is it part of a wider struggle?

I’ve seen in Montreal a lot of movement towards people understanding the situation in Palestine within a framework of being against oppression, from a state context. These include, for example, a lot of artists who supported Black Lives Matter, and join the protests of Black Lives Matter against police violence and systemic anti black racism.

After those protests, there were a lot of artists who were more open to thinking about supporting MFP, because artists played such a big role in Black Lives Matter. I found the same thing in New York City. So I do think there’s a shift happening.

Quite a few people reading the interview will be artists or musicians. Others won’t be musicians, but they listen to music and have a connection to artists. What is the best thing they can do to support your activities?

First, they can visit our website www.musiciansforpalestine.com. The main thing that we are working on right now is to encourage people to organise local concerts. People often think that activism in the arts happens only at the level of celebrity. But MFP could happen because we had done years of small community events: 30 people in a cafe, 25 people for a poetry reading, 80 people for a jazz concert.

Those events were not just about Palestine, but were intersectional. We included groups advocating for gender justice, or queer rights, or indigenous movements for land. I’d really encourage people to experiment.

I was just in France, for example, and talked with people from different cities about doing small shows. The vast majority of people love music. It’s really cool to have cultural events that are a way of creating a space that is thinking about these issues. It’s not just about protest. People get a lot of sustenance spiritually from music. Cultural events are a really meaningful part of social movements.

If people want to be involved, you can contact us through our website. Or just organize your own thing.

If someone wants to organize an event, and they’ve never done it before, is there any advice you can give them? How can they find artists? Is there anything they shouldn’t do? Who should they be collect collecting money for?

If you want to organise a concert, you don’t always have to do a benefit. Sometimes you can give the money back to the artists – it’s good to support artists too.

But we’ve also done a lot of benefits. I’ve supported 3 groups – Addameer, which supports prisoner rights in Palestine, Medical Aid for Palestinians, which works in Gaza, and Defence for Children International, which does a lot of advocacy work for child prisoners, within Israeli prisons. There are many other groups, but those are the ones I’ve worked with and can recommend.

The second point is to start small. It’s really meaningful to have small events where we listen together to a poet or a musician. It could be at a cafe or a campus. You can also build trust in the arts community over time by having events where you work together. Don’t pour huge amounts of money into it. It’s not about the money. It’s about the people, it’s about sharing space.

The last thing is  to avoid the idea that Palestine is disconnected from the world. It’s really important, also in a German context, to think intersectionally and to think about anti-colonial movements around the world as tied to the Palestinian struggle.

If people want to get involved in such an event in Berlin, they can contact us at team@theleftberlin.com and we can put you in touch with pro-Palestinian musicians and filmmakers. There is also a shortage of venues in Berlin who support Palestine, which is something we can help change.

 

Mist: Election Blunders, Splits and the Crap State of German Politics

Victor Grossman delivers his latest bulletin on the upcoming re-run election in Berlin, the New Year Eve pandaemonium and Lützerath


18/01/2023

Berlin has still seen no real snow – but instead – lots of  “mist.” In German “Mist” means manure, BS, or, to quote Google: “crap, sh-t, dammit!”). Some suggest it derives originally from visiting American basketballers a century ago who, when a shot failed, said “Missed” – and were misunderstood.

True or not, dammit, we were hit by it. In September 2021, in a complicated election, the Berlin minister in charge screwed up; ballots were wrongly delivered, polling stations lacked ballots, voters waited in long lines (like certain areas in US cities) to elect each district’s national Bundestag delegate, its city council delegate and its borough council delegate, each on a separate ballot requiring two X’s each (for person and for party), then dropped into three boxes (no machines). And also a Yes or No vote on a referendum to “Confiscate Deutsche Wohnen,” Berlin’s biggest owner (and exploiter) of Berlin apartment houses. The courts finally ruled that (except for the referendum) the vote must be completely repeated, so thousands of new posters with smiling faces and empty words now decorate lamp poles all over town – until the repeated election day on Sunday February 12th.

The Christian Democrats (CDU), Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens, at about 20% each in the polls, are vying for first place. But the CDU, now slightly in the lead, can find no partners in Berlin; no party dares to team up with the fascistic Alternative for Germany, and it would never ever join hands with the LINKE (Left)! It seems inevitable that the SPD and Greens will again tie up with the LINKE, whose votes (currently polling at 12%) would add enough seats to top the half-way mark and renew the present triumvirate.

But these three have no real love for each other; it’s a compulsory ménage à trois, with the Greens hoping for first place so they can replace Franziska Giffey (SPD) as mayor. Her pleasant manner and good looks may help her win some voters, but with Berlin politics shakier than ever, not enough.

New Year’s Eve in Germany, above all Berlin, is marked for hours before and after a midnight climax by millions of private fireworks. Groups near almost every building set them off with loud explosions, often from boxes with 6, 9, up to 36 linked rockets, shooting up and ending in sparkling, many-colored showers. Many enthusiasts save up for them for months, often smuggling in products made in Poland but forbidden here. There are always injuries and fires; a common defense is: “… but far less deadly than in the USA – here with fireworks not firearms!” Every year churches, environmentalists and animal lovers denounce them, always in vain, except that the official fireworks at Brandenburg Gate have been replaced by a fancy light display.

But perhaps because of a two-year covid hiatus, the display got out of hand this time, especially in a low-income neighborhood where Mayor Giffey was once borough mayor. Instead of firing in the air, groups of young men aimed fireworks at the police and even at firemen trying to put out some of the blazes. 41 policemen and 14 firemen were listed as injured and over 140 people arrested.

As always, the usual “law and order” voices grabbed the mics to denounce “weak-kneed politicians on the left” (for them the SPD and Greens were still “left”) who were going easy on “youth crime and violence,” with more than a hint that “those foreigners” and their “different cultures” were again to blame, joined of course by “antifa terrorists”. Social reasons for young people’s anger: “stop and frisk” discrimination and police strong-arm tactics, lack of decent schools and jobs were dismissed, while rightist hopes to use racism to win votes in Berlin and three more state elections were obvious.

Other young people in Berlin (and Munich) were making trouble in very different ways, like gluing their hands to the street, blocking traffic to protest official foot-dragging in saving the environment.

In a far more popular effort in the same cause, protesters in the tiny village of Lützerath near the Dutch border held out for weeks, often in empty buildings (the villagers had to leave long ago), in little makeshift tree huts, and most recently sitting on the tops of tall tripods or in deep tunnels. Their aim was to prevent monstrous excavators from extending mile-wide open pit mines for lignite coal.

Last week they were countered by a giant police force from all around Germany, and after an ultimatum expired the men in uniform moved in, with cranes, tear gas, dogs, even on horseback, tearing down the huts, ordering all protesters to leave and arresting those who refused. At first there was little violence except for a few fireworks recalling Berlin on New Year’s Eve – and allegedly a Molotov cocktail tossed into a street in angry retribution. Then, on Sunday, up to perhaps 35,000 gathered in a mass protest, defying rain showers in a peaceful demonstration (also with  Greta Thunberg). But when one group also defied police orders and gathered in protest at the edge of the excavation the police again resorted to violence and there were many injuries, including dog bites.

Behind the battalions of finally triumphant cops the protesters faced two other foes. One consisted of politicians. It may still surprise a few that they include not only loud-mouth right-wing “Christian Democrats” but also soft-spoken Green cabinet ministers who rule with them in a joint coalition in that state, North Rhine-Westphalia. And also on the national level, the man largely responsible for continuing such excavations is none other than Robert Habeck, a leading minister in another coalition government at the top as well as co-chair of the Green party, which was once so active in joining and leading just such protests. That was decades ago, however; it is still embarrassing if only because of the party name. That was audible in Habeck’s excuse about two giant power plants; supposed to be shut down by January 1st they will now emit smoke and fumes from the mined lignite at least until April. “It was not my personal plan nor the plan of our coalition to return the plants back into the network,“ he said, “but there’s a war on in the Ukraine, and thus half of German gas imports are missing.” The same reasoning is offered for huge new docks now unloading liquidized gas from the USA, and endangering famed extensive mud flats used – and needed – by migratory shore birds.

Behind the Green-CDU coalition in the state where Lützerath is – or was – located, there is a third adversary: the mine-owner. RWE once helped finance Hitler’s rise, raked in millions by using slave labor during Word War Two and since then has become alternately first or second among Germany’s four giant energy providers. It decidedly does not want to lose the many-digit profits it wins from atomic and lignite power; its CEO alone pockets personally over €5 million a year. Who would want to lose any of that? So – damn the environment or anyone trying to save it! And as many have found; ten thousand or so euros donated in the right places can be greatly appreciated and well worth it.

Here’s an interesting footnote; the largest single shareholder of RWE stocks in 2021 was the US asset management company BlackRock. Together with its sibling in Pennsylvania, Vanguard, BlackRock will soon control world investments worth 20 trillion dollars. According to a Bloomberg report, that will make it “the fourth branch of government”.

And another footnote; the referendum in Berlin in September 2021 – “Confiscate Deutsche Wohnen” – got over a million “Ja” votes (56.4%) and affected all companies owning more than 3,000 Berlin apartments. Deutsche Wohnen owns 155,000. It has since been taken over by a far bigger real estate raptor, Vonrovia, which owns 11,000 apartments in Berlin but 550,000 in all Germany. And strange to say, BlackRock has been financially connected with both of them. It’s a small world!

One more biggy footnote; Elon Musk built his first European Gigafactory for electric Teslas southeast of Berlin, after chopping down half a forest. There are already rumors of dissatisfaction and a union start-up. BlackRock may also have a finger or two in there – but no talk yet of confiscating Tesla.

That demand for confiscation, despite its million supporters, is seen differently within the trio governing Berlin. Franzisca Giffey, the Social Democrat mayor (at least until the February 12th vote and a possible change in ranking), has never hidden her opposition to such a radical move, which means more public ownership, smells too much of old GDR low rent public housing, and displeases those real estate raptors with whom she gets along so cosily. The Greens, though also getting along better and better with big business, not only in Lützerath, could not ignore voters and young rebels in their ranks in Berlin and verbally approved (compensated) confiscation but refrained from any active support.

That left only the Linke within the ruling coalition trio. And even that is misty, for Berlin’s “reformer” Linke leaders had agreed to submit confiscation questions to a special commission for a year, which some feared meant letting it die of dehydration. But now, possibly motivated by the election re-run, Berlin’s Left leaders have revived it as an issue. Berlin suffers fearfully from a lack of apartments and, like so many other items, rents are soaring – and are doubtless for many the most crucial issue.

The lack of homes for working class and also for middle-class seekers is a nation-wide emergency. Somehow, allegedly due to rising costs, there is never enough money to build affordable homes, repair schools, open needed kindergartens and reverse damaging reductions in public health care.

Neukölln: the debate around New Years Eve fireworks is shaped by racism

Interview with lawyer, politician, and activist Ahmed Abed


17/01/2023

On New Years Eve, in Berlin Neukölln, and in other areas, there were attacks on police and firefighters. There has been massive debate, but only about the situation in Neukölln. Julius Jamal from the freiheitsliebe website conducted this interview with Ahmed Abed, chair of the LINKE fraction in Neukölln.

Die Freiheitsliebe: Since New Years Eve there has been an intensive debate about attacks by young people on rescue workers and police. Berlin Neukölln is in the centre of this debate. What exactly happened?

Ahmed Abed: In Neukölln and in the whole of the Berlin, there were a lot of fireworks – I can still remember a New Years Eve around 20 years ago in Friedrichshain, where bangers were thrown from balconies at people on the street below. In many areas, including Neukölln, its predominately young men who throw fireworks like crazy. In other words, the extreme fireworks is nothing to do with “migrants”. But now its being said that more rescue workers and police are being attacked.

Die Freiheitsliebe: Some politicians are suggesting that the attacks with fireworks are a migrant problem. What’s your take on this?

Ahmed Abed: A very clear no! First, fireworks are a big thing for some young people and young adults, at least for a couple of years. Throughout Germany, young people’s exuberance and wish to provoke are a decisive factor. For this reason, many judges don’t see an increase of attacks on New Years Eve. It’s been a recurring experience for a long time.

On top of this, many Neuköllner with a migration background find the profusion of fireworks really bad, but don’t want to ban them. I’m one of these people. Describing people in Neukölln as “foreigners” or “immigrants” when they live here in the second or third generation is particularly wrong.

Die Freiheitsliebe: It is argued that problems are connected to “cultural infiltration” or a “West-Asian” type of person. What do you say to such assessments?

Ahmed Abed: That is just Nazi language. It is cheap and simple to blame “foreigners” rather than focussing on the social situation or youthfulness. Young people in Neukölln have few perspectives of [receiving a] good education, which can lead to a job. One in five – that is 20% – leave school without qualifications. In Neukölln, the youth poverty rate is 50%.

The SPD mayor of Berlin Frau Giffey knows this as she was once mayor of Neukölln and family minister. But she didn’t do anything. Many schools lack the necessary teachers and even head teachers.

I also think that it has a lot to do with young people’s urge to provoke, which has nothing to do either with background or social status. Finally. There are also fights and attacks on police and rescue workers at football games or, as we saw recently, in bars on Fuerteventura. But those were English football fans.

Die Freiheitsliebe: Critical voices see the problem in the rage of youth who have been left behind. Do you see things similarly?

Ahmed Abed: That is hard to say. We actually know very little about the young people and the reason for the excesses. But if it’s to do with the question whether it has anything to do with the social situation, then there would be some reasons in Neukölln, Berlin, and indeed also in East Germany, because of the high youth unemployment and the large number of people on Hartz IV.

Die Freiheitsliebe: What would your answer to the problem be?

Ahmed Abed: First I would say that the rescue workers should be sufficiently protected and instead of the fixation on sensation and the strong racism against migrant youth, there should be a more sober look at the events. The first question would be, if there really more excesses than in previous years or people are searching for a scapegoat for the annual normal state of affairs.

Then I would finally address the poverty here, equip schools sufficiently and stop stigmatizing people with Arab, Turkish and Muslim backgrounds with projects like “confrontational manifestation of religion” and business controls with machine guns. If it carries on like it has been, then social peace could be put under serious threat.

Die Freiheitsliebe: Thanks for the talk

This interview first appeared in German on the freiheitsliebe Website. Translation: Phil Butland. Reproduced with permission.

France: New battle raging against Macron over retirement pensions

Macron’s attacks on pensions are severe. But resistance is expected, and such attacks have been stopped in the past, reports John Mullen in Paris


14/01/2023

Emmanuel Macron announced this week the introduction into parliament of his new bill on retirement pensions. This proposes to make us work longer, both by advancing the normal age at which one can retire, to 64 years of age from 62, and by increasing the number of years of contributions needed to receive a full pension.

750,000 people retire in France each year. Macron’s last attempt at making us work longer, three years ago, was joyfully wrecked, by millions on the streets and hundreds of thousands on strike. Macron was humiliated, pushed into making concessions one by one to different sections of workers, then into promising that only those born after 1975 would be affected. Finally, as the strikes continued, he dumped the reform entirely, blaming the Covid pandemic.

This time round, frightened by the certainty of mass resistance, Macron and his Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne introduced some concessions into the pensions bill. Seniors on poverty pensions will get increases which should gradually mean that no one with a full work record gets less than €940 a month. The initial plan to push the retirement age to 65 was watered down to 64. And Macron has insisted that Borne, not himself, should be the frontline spokesperson, just in case it all goes pear-shaped. In addition, unlike three years back, Macron has limited himself to the aim of giving less money, abandoning his previous plan to reorganize all pension schemes on a points basis, preparing the way for privatisation.

So the latest battle in a thirty year war over pensions has been launched.

In 1982 the Socialist government of François Mitterrand reduced the pension age to 60, and the number of years working to get a full pension was fixed at 37 1/2. Since 1993, French governments of the Right and of the social-liberal Left have continually tried to hack away at the pensions.  Sometimes they have succeeded, sometimes resistance pushed them back, and sometimes the struggles resulted in a draw.

In 1993, a right wing government added two and a half years to the time you had to contribute in the private sector in order to get a full pension, bringing it up to 40 years. In addition, private sector pensions were to be calculated based on a percentage of average earnings over 25 years, and no longer over the best 10 years.

In 1995, the Right was defeated in its attempt to slash public sector pensions. Over a month of strikes, during which the Paris metro was completely shut down for weeks on end, obliged Prime Minister Juppé to abandon his plan in panic.

In 2003, public sector pensions were attacked again. Public sector workers now also had to work 40 years for a full pension. However, pensions are still based on the average salary of the last six months of work before retirement.

In 2010, the normal pension age was pushed back from 60 to 62.

In 2014, it was a Socialist Party government which increased further the number of years necessary to be entitled to a full pension. Among other neoliberal crimes, this act destroyed the Socialist Party electorally (they are now down to 30 Members of Parliament).

Over thirty years then, when some attacks hit home, while others were successfully stopped. Pension systems are complex, but the figures show the immense value in fighting back. In France today, 4.4% of people over 65 live in poverty. The figure for Britain is 15.5%, and for Germany 9.1%, according to OECD figures. If the situation in France was as bad as in Britain, that would mean nearly two million more older people living in poverty. Class struggle works!

Heading for a explosion 

The chances of a social explosion this month are excellent. In a poll this week 46% of the French population say that they are ready to mobilize in resistance!  This includes 32% of those who are already retired.  Only 23% of the population  say they will “definitely not” join the resistance!” 60% say they support the fightback, while only 27% say they are opposed to it.

It is interesting to note that a majority of those who voted for Marine Le Pen in last year’s presidential elections are ready to mobilize to defend pensions. This has obliged Le Pen to loudly pretend she is on the workers’ side in this struggle. The conservative media is very happy to be able to suggest that the fightback will be an alliance between the Left and the far Right. In reality it is the Left that will organize the struggle, and this can be a moment to pull back many of those who voted for the fascists, towards a class struggle view of the world. Some trade union federations have already announced that they will prevent any attempt by far right organizations to join the movement’s demonstrations.

The leaders of all eight trade union confederations have called for strikes next Thursday 19th January. It is the first time in 12 years all have called together: usually some try to play the “moderate” in the hope of getting better treatment from the government.  In 1995, one of the biggest trade union confederations, the CFDT, supported the pensions bill, provoking a huge crisis in its ranks. This time, in 2023, even police trade unions are criticizing the bill.

Leaders braking

Trade Union leaders, including the more radical among the mass confederations, are professional negotiators. Even if French union leaders do not receive the hugely inflated salaries that they do in the UK and elsewhere, they do not put fightback at the center of the strategy. In the present question of pensions, the reform is so unpopular, and the working class has been so willing to strike in recent years, that it would have been perfectly possible to coordinate a general strike on the day the pension reform will be announced.

In coming weeks, trade union bureaucracies will prefer to call single “days of action” and will only call a general strike if put under huge pressure from below. Still, CGT leader Philippe Martinez declared this week that the strikes could be “better than in 1995”, so that is a start. And some groups of workers are determined to go further. Oil refinery workers  have already announced two and three-day all-out strikes over the next couple of weeks.

The main radical left party, the France Insoumise (FI), led by Jean Luc Mélenchon, together with other left organizations, has launched a series of public meetings across France, to build the resistance, and radical Left MPs are very visible on TV attacking Macron’s bill. The FI programme includes the reestablishment of retirement at sixty for all.

One thousand people came to the first public meeting, in Paris, on the same day as the Prime Minister’s announcement.  France Insoumise Member of Parliament François Ruffin spoke there. “Retirement is wonderful, it is our right to a joyful life” he said “It is our right to have the time to look after grandchildren, go fishing or learn zumba, but we need to retire while we are still in good health”. Another FI MP, Mathilde Panot, insisted that the pensions bill was “a declaration of war”.

There will be a national demonstration on January 21, called by left youth organizations, and supported by the France Insoumise. Buses will be running from across the country. This is Macron’s flagship reform, and we need to sink it fast. This will require more than union “days of action”.