 |
| Ghanaian timber ready for export |
By Robbie Corey-Boulet
New documents on logging permits in Ghana indicate most timber exported from the country is likely illegal, exposing purchasers to possible jail time under a new European Union regulation, the environmental watchdog group Global Witness said.
Abidjan, Ivory Coast - New documents on logging permits in Ghana indicate most timber exported from the country is likely illegal, exposing purchasers to possible jail time under a new European Union regulation, the environmental watchdog group Global Witness said Tuesday.
In February, Ghana's Forestry Commission gave Global Witness lists of permits covering more than 15,000 square kilometers (5,800 square miles), or nearly 15 percent of the country's land mass, the group said in a new report. Permits for more than 12,000 square kilometers (4,600 square miles) were not covered by the country's 1998 Timber Resources Management Act, calling their legality into question.
Ghana's logging permits are in a mess. Of six types of permits issued by the authorities to logging companies, only two fall within the government's own definition of what is legal, said David Young, forest sector transparency campaigner for Global Witness.
Until the government gets its house in order, European buyers should consider all Ghanaian timber products as extremely risky, and make sure they are doing thorough checks along their supply chains, Young said.
The EU Timber Regulation, which went into effect on March 3, prohibits the import of illegal timber and holds importers responsible for ensuring it has been legally sourced. Penalties vary among European countries but could include up to two years in prison and a fine of 50,000 euros ($64,500), according to Global Witness.
In 2010, Ghana entered into a voluntary partnership agreement with the EU that covers permit allocation as well as transportation and processing. The release of the new Global Witness report coincides with a biannual meeting this week assessing implementation of the agreement.
Young said that while such meetings usually focus on technical aspects of tracking timber, officials should address problems surrounding how permits are granted. For example, while Ghanaian law requires that permits be obtained through open and competitive bidding, this has not been documented in the vast majority of cases, he said.
You can't have a beautiful, perfect timber tracking system using computer databases and everything else if you haven't got any guaranteed legal logging permits that trigger the cutting of the timber in the first place, Young said.
Officials with Ghana's Forestry Commission were not immediately available for comment.
The Forestry Commission published a separate list of permits in March to show proof of the legal sources of wood and wood product imports. Global Witness said inconsistencies between the lists from February and March raised further questions about the legality of timber permits.
According to EU figures, Europe consumes 33 percent of the total volume of Ghanaian timber exports and 43 percent of total value. The EU said the forest sector was the fourth-largest contributor to Ghana's GDP in 2008.
Last month, Global Witness included Ghana on a list of four African countries where political elites, logging companies and forestry officials were colluding to use shadow permits originally intended for small enterprises for commercial purposes in a bid to avoid tightening timber regulations.
Editorial
FREE
GBAGBO NOW!
The
International Criminal Court (ICC) trying Laurent Gbagbo, former President of
La Cote d’Ivoire has ruled that the prosecution has not presented enough
evidence to warrant the trial.
However the court, instead of releasing Gbagbo from custody
gave the prosecution up to November this year to provide better evidence.
The Insight believes
that the continued detention of Gbagbo is most unfair and flies in the face of
all the rules of natural justice.
The fact is that as at now there is no evidential basis for
either trying Gbagbo or keeping him in jail.
It may also turn out that even by November the prosecution
may still not be able to provide any evidence which will warrant the trial of
the former President.
In the light of the
circumstances, the only proper thing for the court to do is to acquit
Laurent Gbagbo until
there are grounds for his arrest, detention and trial.
We insist that Laurent Gbagbo deserves to be freed now.
Showcasing Kwame Pianim, Nyaho Tamakloe and
Wereko-Brobbey
 |
| Mr Kwame Pianim |
By
Nana Akua Tweneboah-Koduah
In Ghana today Mr Kwame Pianim, Dr Nyaho Tamakloe and Dr Charles
Wereko-Brobbey have something in common. They seem to have their fates and hard
earned reputations tied together. But it does not hinge on the three
individuals being founding and leading members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)
or what they have done in terms of their public service to the country.
It’s all got to do with the three gentlemen exercising their democratic
rights first as Ghanaians and secondly as individuals who sought to share the
truth with Ghanaians by spilling the bean on what they know about the 2012
Elections.
So much has gone under the bridge ever since Ghanaians decided to go in a
different direction by not hiring Nana Akufo-Addo, the NPP former flagbearer,
as the Chief Executive Officer of our dear country Ghana during the 2012
Presidential Election.
After denouncing the presidential results and refusing to concede defeat
to the eventually winner and sworn-in President John Mahama, Akufo-Addo rushed
to the Supreme Court (SC) with a litany of allegations which is only backed by
raw pink sheets, a subjective personal analysis and self-created CD-ROM with evasive
and clueless Dr Mahamadu Bawumia sitting in the driver’s seat.
This was after some staunch but excellent NPP lawyers such as Messrs
Charles Zwennes and Jay Menka Premo who were contacted by Nana Akufo-Addo to
lead the petition case had examined the so-called evidence, but due to its
hollowness had decided to stay away to avoid any disgrace and embarrassment in
court.
There is something that Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP did very well before
and after they went to court to contest the results of the 2012 Presidential
Election at the Supreme Court. They whipped all members and supporters of the
NPP in line. Whether you believe their so-called allegations or not, the NPP
under the direction of Akufo-Addo made sure that every NPP supporter or member
see no evil or speak no evil of what they were doing. The belief of the NPP was
that if the party swims in unison it will make their case believable and
winnable hence their decision not to tolerate any dissenting views.
But Mr Kwame Pianim, Dr Nyaho Tamakloe and Dr Charles Wereko-Brobbey,
three prominent NPP members who have made their marks as far as the party is
concerned, found the eye of the needle and jumped out of the “NPP’s Burning
Train” to tell Ghanaians about the true account of what they know about the
2012 Presidential Election.
Kwame Pianim was the first to go.
This distinguished economist did not mince words in saying that the NPP
is exhibiting intellectual and mental laziness following its decision to go to
court to challenge the 2012 elections. He stated pointedly that the NPP needs
to courageously confront its defeat because that would help deepen the nation’s
democracy and development.
Mr Pianim, who was angry about the current state of
affairs in the NPP, noted in the interview with the African Watch Magazine that
the NPP is heading in the wrong direction with its court petition adding that
“I think the national executives should reconsider doing the work we have voted
them to do, or leave for others to take over, when the results of an election are
announced, we should be ready to accept the results no matter how bitter...the
interests of individual members and those of the party sometimes differ.”
 |
| Ambassador Nyaho Tamakloe |
Mr Kwame Pianim added other things: That Akufo-Addo
technically ceased to be the leader of the NPP after the declaration of the
results on December 9, that the pending case before the SC was the act of three
individuals of the party and that until the case is determined by the justices
of the SC, all Ghanaians including members of the NPP must fully recognize
President John Mahama as legit Head of State of the Republic and
Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces.
Perhaps the icing on Kwame Pianim’s lecture 101 was
when he stated that. “The boycott of the President’s inauguration somehow
portrayed the NPP executives as confused people. Some of these self-appointed
spokespersons of the NPP seem to talk anyhow.
Their demeanour and arrogant utterances tend to
turn off people from the NPP. They are part of our problem and did not help us
in the elections.”
These were
harsh words which bit the NPP and got them ticked off. The response by the NPP
was immediate, concerted, cruel and very damaging. Within 48 hours, the NPP
effectively used the radio, television and the print media to tear Kwame Pianim
into pieces. His crime was daring the NPP establishment by saying things that
will torpedo Akufo-Addo’s chances in court.
Next in
line was Dr Nyaho Tamakloe who needs no introduction because of his long
association with football in the country and his strong passion as a leading
and founding member of the NPP. The General Secretary of the NPP, Kwadwo Owusu
Afriyie usurped the powers of the Electoral Commission (EC) when he declared
Nana Akufo-Addo the winner of the presidential election on Saturday December 8,
2012. Afriyie, also known as Sir John did not stop there. He asked all NPP
supporters to be in white clothing and go to church the very next day.
This act
by Sir John is so despicable that it has even emerged in court with Dr Bawumia,
the star witness of the NPP denying ever hearing about this clarion call. Who
authorized Sir John to usurp the constitutional mandate of the EC has remained
under wraps until Dr Nyaho Tamakloe emerged from nowhere and revealed in his
newly-released autobiography “Never Say Die”, that it was Nana Akufo-Addo and
Jake Obetsebi Lamptey who personally asked Sir John to resort to that mischief.
Nyaho
Tamakloe who expressed his shock in his book, stated that it was an
irresponsible behaviour for Sir John to call the elections for the NPP under
the direction of Nana Akufo-Addo and Jake when larger chunks of the results
from the NDC strongholds were still outstanding.
Prior to
the launching of his book, Nyaho Tamakloe’s assessment of President Mahama’s
first 100 days in office was seen as a stab in the back of the NPP. Without
mincing words, Nyaho Tamakloe stated that the criticisms being levelled against
President Mahama was unfair because he was still putting his team together. He
queried, "How can you describe somebody who has just
taken over power within three months as someone who cannot deliver; I don’t
think that is fair".
Dr Nyaho Tamakloe boldly stated that, “If we [NPP] had been in power I wouldn’t
even know how our performance would have been. Our government would have been
descried the same way others are describing the present government".
The NPP have heard enough from this recalcitrant
member who has gone overboard. They descended heavily on him with the view to
flattering him beyond recognition. Dr Nyaho Tamakloe did not have any escape
route since he broke the unwritten code of the NPP by taking on the party. The
unpalatable adjectives with which Nyaho Tamakloe received his fire are still
embedded under internet search engines.
 |
| Dr Wereko Brobbey, |
Dr Wereko-Brobbey, the man known for his Tarzan
like brashness also stepped up the plate last week when he released the
bombshell by chastising the NPP for using clueless Dr Bawumia as their star witness.
Poking his hands into the eyes of the NPP, Dr Wereko-Brobbey also known as
Tarzan told the NPP that their failure to use a knowledgeable person with
workings of the election procedures may go against them when the final ruling
is pronounced by the judges.
Perhaps what sent the NPP packing was when after
describing Dr Bawumia as a clueless witness, Tarzan went on to say that Bawumia
is clinching on mere assertions, superstitions and personal interpretations of
the law, whilst General Mosquito who represented President Mahama and the NDC
was masterful during his evidence-in-chief at the court.
That made it three for the NPP. They have another
talker on the loose. They have had enough of these so-called leading members
who are making their case too tough to sell in the eyes of Ghanaians. Something
other than mere condemnation has to be done. Yes, let’s have an emergency
meeting and suspend Tarzan to serve as a deterrent to any other member groping
in the darkness with the intension of following their trail.
Today, Tarzan remains suspended whilst the
flattened fate of Kwame Pianim and Nyaho Tamakloe still remains unknown. The
NPP have achieved their aim. They have succeeded in silencing any member who
wants to exercise his/her democratic right as a paying member to express
his/her feelings about the direction the party is heading to.
But are there some truths in what these three
gentlemen said? Or are these three gentlemen so wrong in what they said whilst
the rest of the party is right? Did these three gentlemen say what is on the
hearts of many NPP folks who for fear of being maligned may be hiding in their
holes with their thoughts?
The NPP is the party that claims to be the champion
of democracy in the country, yet cannot tolerate or create room for any
dissenting views. It is either the way of those who call the shots in the party
or the highway. But that is not democracy.
Democracy is about brainstorming. It is about
agreeing to disagree. It’s about having the heart to stomach a lot of nonsense.
Sometimes it’s about hearing what you don’t want to hear. That is the beauty of
democracy.
If you want to hear what you want to hear all the
time, you turn out to become a tyrant and undemocratic. Today if you want to
remain a member or supporter of the NPP all what you need to do is to Watch,
Obey and Follow. You dare not question anything, because you have no right to
do so. That is what has defined the NPP today.
 |
| Map of Mali |
By Antoine Lerougetel
A donor conference organised by the European Union, France and Mali on May 13 brought together 108 countries and international institutions in Brussels. They pledged 3.25 billion for Mali in 2013 and 2014 to reconstruct the former French colony.
The list of donors gives an idea of the powers vying for influence in Africa and specifically in the Sahel region, which houses vast reserves of oil, gas, uranium, gold and other precious minerals. The European Union (EU) pledged 520 million, France 280 million, the USA $367 million, the UK and Denmark 15 million each, Germany 100 million, the World Bank 50 billion, the Islamic Development Bank 130 million and China 50 million.
EU development aid commissioner Andris Piebalgs said the stabilisation road map for Mali was the cornerstone of the international community’s commitment to the country and had to be followed resolutely. He insisted that beyond Mali, the EU’s commitment is regional, extending to the wider Sahel area.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius asserted that through Mali, the future of the sub-region and beyond is at stake, warning that there were strings attached to the aid. He said particular attention would be paid to the traceability of aid follow-up of projects.
The donations are not humanitarian in character, but rather aim to stabilize the Western-backed regime in Mali and assist the ongoing French- and US-led war in the country.
Since France invaded Mali on January 11, Mali has been occupied by 4,500 French troops leading some 7,000 soldiers sent by the puppet governments of the neigbouring ECOWAS (Economic Community West African States) countries, as well as Chad.
The original April date for withdrawal of the French contingent is now well past, and the UN already announced it will send 11,200 additional soldiers and 1,440 special police forces into the whole region, which will come mainly from France. Paris has said that 1,000 soldiers will remain in Mali even after 2013 to back up a UN force.
British Prime Minister David Cameron declared in January that Britain would work with others to close down the ungoverned space in northwest Africa, a global threat which would require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months.
Though opposition Islamist and Tuareg-nationalist forces have been driven from the towns they occupied in northern Mali, they continue to mount attacks on French, Malian army and ECOWAS contingents.
The resistance is growing because of the cruelty of the Malian army against the Tuareg and the brutality of all the occupation forces against the vast majority of the population of the country. Apart from the ravages of the war, the famine and the displacement of 500,000 people, much of the poverty and economic disruption of this desperately poor nation was caused by the economic and aid embargo imposed by France and its allies when Captain Amadou Sanogo carried out his military coup on March 22, 2012.
The donors aim to strengthen the occupation forces in advance of the July 28 deadline set for national elections for a government to take over from French-backed interim president Dioncounda Traore. This will mean placing the entire north under the control of the central government in the capital, Bamako, which is controlled by the French army. The US is stipulating that no aid will be forthcoming until the elections are carried out.
If the elections did not take place in the North, this would amount to a de facto division of the country something the imperialist powers fear, as otherwise northern Mali will harbour forces that threaten the French Areva company’s uranium mining activities in Algeria and Niger. France’s uranium, mined in the area, is required for its nuclear weapons and power plants, which supply 75 percent of the country’s electricity.
These geostrategic motivations underlie not only the war itself, but also the funds lavished on it by the donors in Brussels.
Dollar in danger as the world’s currency
Though the US dollar continues to
reign as the foreign reserve currency of choice, a new International Monetary
Fund analysis shows that the currency has slumped to a 15-year low, heightening
concerns that it may lose that status.
While the dollar currently
constitutes 62 per cent of the $6 trillion in foreign holdings by the world’s
central banks, when a historical view is taken into account, Dick Bove, vice
president of equity research at Rafferty Capital Markets says the dollar’s
actual percentage of total money supply worldwide has gone from 90 per cent in
1952 to about 15 per cent today.
Bove, like many other analysts,
believes that the rise of the Chinese currency, the yuan, is at the expense of the US dollar’s dominance
as a safe haven.
"Generally speaking, it is not
believed by the vast majority that the American dollar will be
overthrown," says Dick Bove.
"But it will be, and this
defrocking may occur in as short a period as five to 10 years," he tells CNBC.
The repercussions of the dollar’s
decline as the foreign currency holding of choice would be more than a symbolic
hit to America’s economic standing. With a budget deficit exceeding $1 trillion
per year, if the dollar were to decline against other currencies the US would
find itself in the uncomfortable position of having to pay back this debt.
Bove goes further, arguing that the
deadlock in Congress over the federal budget, and the now-mandatory cuts
designated by the sequestration, are eroding confidence in America’s fiscal
state.
"The ratings agencies are
already arguing that the government's debt may be too highly rated. Plus, the
United States Congress, in both its houses, as well as the president are
demonstrating a total lack of fiscal credibility," says Bove.
Political wrangling over raising the
federal debt ceiling was widely viewed as the primary reason that the US debt’s
rating was downgraded in 2011. At the time, the rating agency Standard &
Poor’s had issued a warning that progress towards balancing the country’s budget
was required for a return to a “stable” outlook. In that same year Moody’s and
Fitch Ratings both downgraded as well.
According to the Wall Street
Journal, New Zealand and China are currently in talks to make their respective
currencies directly convertible, eliminating the need to convert either
country’s currency into dollars when making or receiving payments.
Though officials told the WSJ that
the talks were in the “very early stages,” such a plan is likely to
sound alarm bells for anyone worried over the dominance of the US dollar.
"There is no time frame for
concluding an agreement," said
a spokeswoman for New Zealand’s prime minister to the WSJ.
"We are aware it took Australia
around 12 months to achieve its recent agreement with China,” she added.
If China is indeed embarking on a
project to establish its currency as more market-oriented, then its swelling
trade with nearby countries such as New Zealand and Australia, which agreed
last month to direct convertibility with the yuan, could well continue to
undermine the greenback.
Beyond simply removing the American
currency from trade, direct convertibility can also make Chinese government
bonds more attractive as foreign-exchange assets. Australia, for one, says it
plans to invest up to 5% of its total foreign-currency reserves to Chinese
government bonds, while New Zealand’s Reserve Bank has thus far not made any
announcements either way.
"The No. 1 security issue we
have as a nation is the preservation of the US dollar as the world's reserve
currency," said Michael Pento, president of
Pento Portfolio Strategies to CNBC.
"It's a thousand times more
important than a nuclear bomb being tested by North Korea. It's a thousand
times more important that we keep the dollar as the world's reserve currency,
and yet we are doing everything to abuse that status," he added.
How much is a U.N. peacekeeper
actually worth?
By David Bosco
The debate over the political and military value of peacekeepers won't be resolved anytime soon. Financially, however, the worth of a peacekeeper is clear: $1,028. That's the monthly sum the United Nations pays to states, per soldier, when they contribute peacekeepers to duly authorized missions. It's a dollar figure that hasn't changed much since the early 1990s, even as U.N. peacekeeping has closed some missions, opened others, and undergone significant reform. The static compensation rate has emerged as a significant point of tension in New York, primarily between the states that contribute most troops to missions and those states that foot the bill for peacekeeping.
While there are exceptions, U.N. peacekeeping is an activity mostly paid for by the rich world and carried out by troops from poorer states. The leading troop contributing states (TCCs) are Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Rwanda. The top funders are the United States, Japan, Britain, Germany, France, and Italy. Combined, these countries cover well over 50 percent of the peacekeeping tab, while offering fewer troops than diminutive Jordan. The United States alone pays 27 percent but provides a grand total of 109 peacekeepers. "With a few exceptions," notes George Washington University scholar Paul Williams, "the West has basically left peacekeeping operations." Turtle Bay blogger Colum Lynch recently described the structure as "the U.N.'s own caste system."
Those states providing the manpower believe they are long overdue for a raise. "If your salary had only gone up a little bit since the mid 1990s would you be happy?" asks Williams. The TCCs point out that their soldiers operate in dangerous environments on behalf of the international community. The deaths of five Indian peacekeepers in south Sudan last month -- killed when the convoy they were escorting was ambushed by rebels -- was just the latest example of the costs. In the last decade, more than 800 peacekeepers have died while on mission.
Peacekeeping has always entailed risks, but the kind of missions the United Nations has launched since 1990 have often been especially risky. Cold War peacekeeping missions were usually interposed between organized national armies, with the consent of all parties. Most post-1990 missions have been sent into complex internal conflicts in which the consent of the parties is less certain. "Increasingly, U.N. peacekeepers operate in high-risk environments, where the quest for peace and stability is elusive," U.N. Undersecretary General for Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous wrote recently.
For several years, TCCs have insisted during meetings of the U.N.'s budget committee that the organization increase the base compensation rate. Each time, however, the TCCs faced skepticism from the large funding states. The overall cost of U.N. peacekeeping has climbed to more than $7 billion a year, amid a climate of austerity. The European Union has called for "strict budgetary discipline" in peacekeeping. But there's also an element of mistrust.
The United States and other large funding states have insisted that TCCs provide information on the actual costs that they incur when they deploy peacekeepers. In 2009, all contributing states agreed in principle to provide cost metrics, but very few have actually done so. "The actual cost structure for most TCCs in providing their troops is a big, black box," said one diplomat from a leading funder. "With a few exceptions, TCCs have not been responsive to their agreement to provide data."
The usually unspoken concern among leading funders is that U.N. peacekeeping is actually a money-maker for a number of poorer states, even at current compensation levels. Some TCCs pass on to their troops the full U.N. reimbursement amounts. Uruguay, for example, pays its soldiers their normal salary plus the U.N. reimbursement. But other TCCs pay their soldiers only their normal salaries, pocketing the remainder. These states may be able to supplement their defense spending with U.N. funds. Two scholars who examined Bangladesh's role in peacekeeping identified the financial motive as important:
The financial benefits accrued by Bangladeshi peacekeepers thus play an important role in supporting the economy. Official sources indicate that during 2001-10, the government received $1.28 billion from the UN as compensation for troop contributions, contingent-owned equipment, and other forms of compensation. UN peacekeeping helps the Bangladesh Army to purchase and maintain military equipment that it would not be able to obtain under normal circumstances and to reward its personnel.
Even when TCCs pass on U.N. compensation directly to their soldiers, the sums can create a strong incentive from within the ranks to participate. A Pakistani police official wrote that the U.N. postings "represent a once-in-a-career opportunity to generate savings and gain some financial security." Still, most TCCs strongly resist the notion that they or their soldiers participate for financial reasons. Fearful of offending the countries that provide forces. funding states are cautious about making their concern explicit.
Building bridges between Cuba
and China
 |
| Professor Wang Fen (R) and Li Xanan (R) |
By Yenia
Silva Correa
Diverse reasons have brought them to
Havana University’s Confucius Institute and the results are already bearing
fruit. Enrique Martín became interested in the language thanks to a television
program. After six years of study, he won the national Chinese Bridge Speech
competition and this summer will represent Cuba in the international event.
"I hope to improve on last
year’s result or to equal it," he said, clear in his aspirations, while
knowing that achieving 26th place out of all the participating countries
—Cuba’s position in 2011, before the ranking was eliminated — will be a
challenge.
Yanelis Durán achieved third place
in the national competition. Although this result does not give her the
opportunity to represent her country internationally, she is not disheartened.
"The competition was difficult, but it was also an opportunity to learn, I
learned more about the culture. I hope to take part again next year and need to
begin preparing now," she affirmed.
In order to fulfill their
aspirations, these young people need to dedicate many hours to study and work
set by their professors, who include —as well as Cubans of Asian descent—Wang
Fen and Li Xanan, both of them Masters in Education at the University of
Language and Culture in Beijing.
Both professors recognize that
students are very interested in the language, which, in conjunction with Cuba’s
previous experience in the last three Chinese Bridge contests, means that their
chances are positive.
FROM INTEREST TO ACADEMIC STUDIES
The decision to establish an
academic system for the teaching Chinese at the University of Havana dates back
to 2007. Prior to that, the language was taught at the Center for Chinese
Studies attached to the Foreign Language Faculty, and the Confucius Institute
finally opened its doors in 2009.
Today the Institute is located in
buildings in the university precinct, but its permanent headquarters is to be
in the former Pacífico Restaurant building in Chinatown, a location that is
currently under repair.
The promotion and dissemination of
Chinese culture, combined with the quality of teaching, characterize the work
of this center, which has ignited interest in the community.
Confucius Institute Director Arsenio
Alemán Agusti states, "We have quite a diverse range of students at the
center: from professionals who are studying given their sector’s links with
China, such as the Immigration and Nationality Department, the Cuban Customs
Office, and the Ministries of Transport, Agriculture and Public Health, to
those who are studying because they simply like the culture and want to learn
how to write Chinese characters."
The only enrollment requirement is
to have completed 12th grade. However, in the selection process, the center
gives priority to sectors which have a direct link with China.
One institution that has shown
interest in approaching the Confucius Institute is the Cuban School of Wushu,
which, since January this year, with a group of 30 students, has incorporated
Chinese classes in its athletic development plan.
Cuba’s accumulated experience in the
teaching of other languages has facilitated the application
of these methodologies to Chinese, with good results obtained by the
Institute’s students when they have visited China.
Although the Confucius Institute
does not have branches in other provinces and is not the only institution which
teaches Chinese in Havana —it is also studied in the Chinese Arts and
Traditions Center— it is the only center authorized to conduct international
examinations to certify language levels and to have native teachers.
According to Alemán Agusti, among
the Chinese teaching personnel, there is always one person responsible for
academic management on behalf of the Language and Culture University in Beijing
and who coordinates with the Cubans.
FUTURE PROSPECTS
Through now, there are no immediate
plans to create a degree in Chinese Language; however, work is ongoing to
include it as a third language in degree programs at the Faculty of Foreign
Languages.
The 2012-2013 academic year began
with a total of 477 students enrolled in various courses run by the Confucius
Institute, ranging from Basic Chinese for children through to Choral Singing
and Translation and Interpreting.
Without abandoning its
responsibility to enhance its teaching and methodological preparation, the
Institute, as its Executive Director stresses, is setting its sights high.
"We want to have a presence in quarterly issues of the Confucius
Institute international Journal and we are working toward ensuring that
there is always an article on Cuba."
The institute also participates in academic activities such as the Latin American and international Confucius Institute Conference, organized every year.
The institute also participates in academic activities such as the Latin American and international Confucius Institute Conference, organized every year.
Mass strike upsurge of 2014-2015
By Dr. Webster G. Tarpley
Where are we in the unfolding of the current world economic
depression, and what can we know about the events that lie ahead? The US
Memorial Day holiday weekend provides the occasion to venture some answers to
these questions.
The current world economic depression reached critical mass in the autumn of 2008. The world derivatives panic of that year and the bankruptcy of the British and US banking systems was then followed in 2010 by a European banking panic, which has been disguised as a sovereign debt crisis. That European banking crisis continues to the present day, made worse by brutal and stupid austerity policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. With the US and European economies depressed, the slowdown has spread across the world to impact Brazil, China, and India.
No country has so far been able to turn the corner from depression to broad-based recovery. Japan is currently using high-risk competitive evaluations to end decades of stagnation, but this has been punctuated by signs of financial panic. The supposed success story of Iceland, touted especially by Keynesians, has been exposed as a big lie by the recent election there, which revealed a population driven to desperation by a massive collapse of its standard of living - to the point where voters were willing to bring back the hated right-wing parties responsible for the pre-crash orgy of speculation.
The unfolding of the current depression is roughly parallel to the development of the world economic crisis of the 1930s. Back then, the depression was triggered when Lord Montagu Norman’s Bank of England sharply raised the British discount rate in September 1929, sucking huge amounts of hot money across the Atlantic from New York to London, and resulting in the fabled US stock market panic of October 1929. That was followed by a European ranking crisis in the summer of 1931, which started with the Kreditanstalt of Vienna, then brought down the Danatbank and the rest of the large German banks, and culminated with the watershed default on gold payments by the Bank of England in September 1931, which destroyed the pound-based world monetary system of that era. The British debacle then provoked a panic run on US banks which accelerated during the 1932 and into the spring of 1933. By the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration in March of 1933, every bank in the United States had shut its doors. The Roosevelt Bank Holiday merely provided legal cover for those stricken institutions.
In Europe and the United States, that previous depression reached its low point sometime during 1933. Then, even though depression continued to grip the planet, there was a modest uptick in economic activity and employment. Working people began to feel they had won a breathing space, and the political climate began to change. Today, with numerous ruling class voices being raised to argue that austerity policies have gone too far and are becoming counterproductive, a similar token, short-term amelioration may be in the works.
In much of Europe, the first years of the Depression were marked by a sharp right turn, with the reactionaries and fascists scoring important gains in a number of countries. Most important was of course Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany in January 1933. By early 1934, as historian Wolfgang Abendroth noted, the advance of fascism - like the advance of austerity today - seemed to be irresistible. Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Austria were under fascist regimes. Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and other Balkan states were civilian or military dictatorships. In England, Sir Oswald Mosley had launched his British Union of Fascists. In France, monarchists, reactionaries, and Fascists had almost succeeded with an armed assault on the Chamber of Deputies on February 6, 1934. A fascist coup had been narrowly avoided mainly because of personal rivalries among the various would-be dictators. But the French government of Daladier had fallen, and the new Doumergue regime included as defense minister Marshal Pétain, the boss of French fascism and spokesman for the underground fascist networks known as the Cagoule and the Synarchie.
The United States, since 1933 under by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal government, constituted an exception to the general reactionary drift of these years. But the early years of the new deal were unable to prevent a rout of the existing labor organizations due in large part to the colossal numbers of unemployed workers. But, via the middle of the 1930s, in a breathtaking reversal of fortunes, the US labor movement was about to regain the initiative.
First Years of Depression Bring Crisis of Popular Movements
In Europe, the very desperation of the situation after Hitler’s seizure of power forced Social Democratic and communist political forces to put aside their suicidal sectarian differences in favor of the so-called popular front, a defensive alliance against fascism which suffered from programmatic weakness, but was nevertheless enough to permit a regroupment and counterattack. Trade unionists, workers and other groups took the offensive to assert their economic rights.
Perhaps we can see some parallels between the low point of 1933-34 and our own current situation, especially when the quality of mass leadership is concerned. We have now lived through the abject failure of Occupy, whose Situationist/anarchist leadership reached a new low of absurdity by banning any concrete demands - arguing that if the demands were won, the movement would be co-opted. Very little is now left of Occupy, except the name, a bit of nostalgia, and a widespread resolve not to commit the same stupid mistakes a second time. Right wing pseudo-populist Ron Paul has exposed himself as an auxiliary to the Romney presidential campaign with the main goal of building a career for his nepotist and mediocre son Rand. The so-called Tea Party, which pretended in 2010 to represent a challenge to Wall Street bailouts, has now exposed itself as an abject tool of the reactionary billionaire Koch brothers. In Italy, Beppe Grillo and his guru Casaleggio have demonstrated their bungling ineptitude and bad faith, failing to win a single concrete benefit for their 8 million voters. The terrain, in short, is now clear for new leadership and new approaches.
1936: Popular Front Victories in Spain and France
The first part of the 1936 mass upsurge was the February victory of the Spanish Popular Front of socialists and communists. This alliance was attractive enough to pull even anarcho-syndicalist workers out of their usual self-defeating apolitical stance. A land reform, the most basic of all modernizations, was suddenly on the agenda. Wildcat strikes and peasant revolts broke out. In July 1936, General Francisco Franco, the head of the Spanish colonial army in North Africa, carried out a coup d’état against the Spanish Republic. Franco’s revolt enjoyed the support not just of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, but also of the British conservative regime. Even so, the fascist Franco could have been crushed if a minimum level of solidarity had been maintained between the Spanish and French popular front governments. Here we find a lesson that international cooperation will be absolutely indispensable if any successes are to be one in the years ahead. Nothing whatsoever can be done in Europe without a continent wide movement to seize control of the European Central Bank and use it to finance at least 40 million new productive jobs, starting in infrastructure.
In 1930s France, the Socialists, Communists, and radicals had joined in an electoral alliance in May and June 1935, scoring important successes in local elections. The communist, socialist, and Christian trade unions began closer cooperation. In the national political elections of April and May 1936, the parties of the popular front won a decisive victory. The reactionaries were momentarily in full retreat. The socialist Léon Blum became prime minister. At this point, French workers - desiring to immediately translate their political victory in two social advances - shut down the country with a mass strike, occupying many of the largest factories. In early June 1936, the unions secured a 40-hour week with no reduction in pay, two weeks of paid vacation, an end to unrestrained hire and fire labor policies, and substantial wage increases. The Socialists wanted the nationalization of the Bank of France, but communists - vainly hoping to make France an ally of the Soviet Union by showing restraint - blocked this decisive step. An obvious lesson for us today is precisely that no reforms are likely to prove durable unless the central banks are nationalized and their credit-creating power put at the service of the national interest in full employment and rising standards of living.
Unfortunately, the French popular front was unable to resist the British demand that no arms be provided for the defense of the Spanish Republic. Here again the lesson of international coordination and unity of action is clearly depicted.
In the United States, 1936 had witnessed the founding of the United Auto Workers union. At first, the UAW was a loose confederation of relatively weak locals. The first main UAW effort was to organize the General Motors auto plants in Flint, Michigan. After a strike broke out at a General Motors factory in Cleveland, Ohio, the UAW on December 30, 1936 began a sit-down strike in the Fisher body plant of Flint. General Motors tried desperately to drive the workers out of the factory, but President Roosevelt refused to order federal troops to intervene as strikebreakers. By February 1937, General Motors was forced to recognize the UAW as the sole collective bargaining representative for its workers for the coming six months. The 30,000-member UAW immediately recruited 100,000 new members, and by the end of 1938 had 500,000 unionized workers on its rolls. Even labor organizations which have been decimated by years of reaction can sometimes bounce back with exponential growth during a mass strike phase, provided their policies and leadership are right.
After Years of Defeat, US Labor Upsurge of 1936, FDR Landslide
There followed a general US labor upsurge, with 47 sit-down strikes in March 1937, 170 such strikes in April, and 52 sit-down actions in May. Chrysler plants, hotels, lumberyards, meatpacking plants, laundries, and department stores were all scenes of sit-down strikes. The usually benighted United States Steel Company, fearing an occupation of its plants, quickly accepted the United Steelworkers of America as sole collective bargaining agent. And this pattern was repeated in many other industries. A landmark victory was scored in the Remington Rand strike, which began in May 1936 and ended successfully in April 1937.
These events were accompanied by the presidential election victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won a second term in November 1936. This campaign was unquestionably the most radical of the entire New Deal. In his final speech at Madison Square Garden in New York City just before Election Day, Roosevelt had stated that the bankers “had begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred.”
Roosevelt pledged to crush these Wall Street forces during his second term, saying: “I should like to have it set up my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and all the lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second administration that any of these forces met their master.” The figure of Roosevelt points up the foolishness and lack of realism of those anarchists, grillini, and other misguided souls who negate the very idea of leadership, irrespective of its quality. This is an infantile, anti-authoritarian impulse from the worst of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Capable and responsible leaders are essential for the success of popular movements. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated the reactionary Republican ticket of Landon-Knox by 523 electoral votes to 8, while winning the highest percentage of the popular vote of any candidate since 1820. Roosevelt’s success also shows the synergy between election campaigns on the one hand and labor struggles on the other: they must work together, and neither one alone would be enough.
Comparison of 1935-1936 with 2014-2015: Syria, Putin, Bergoglio, Warren, Greece
The working hypothesis here is that, keeping in mind the general timetable of the 1930s world depression, we may very well be presented with new world historical opportunities of a mass upsurge of working people in 2014 and 2015, or even sooner. Here are some of the factors that currently seem to be preparing this new phase of mass struggle against austerity and bankers’ misrule.
Surprisingly to some, a major force in blowing the lid off the current political stagnation of the Western world may well turn out to be the situation in Syria. There is no greater stimulus to the rebellion of a subject population than to see the oppressor government defeated in one of its international adventures. Here we can cite the Russian Revolution of 1905 against the autocratic czarist regime, which was detonated by the humiliating defeat of the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese war. The czar was weakened, and forced for the first time to accept internal reforms, including a kind of Parliament.
Today, it is increasingly evident that the terrorist al-Qaeda death squads which NATO and Israel have been using to destabilize the government of Syrian President Assad are facing a very uncertain future. If these terrorists were to undergo a decisive defeat or even a total collapse, this would sharply expose the intellectual, moral, and political bankruptcy of the current rulers of Britain, France, the United States, and other countries. The path would then be clear to turn the international war of aggression into a domestic struggle for revolutionary reforms.
Closely related to the Syrian situation has been the leadership of Russian President V. V. Putin, who has remained steadfast in his support for President Assad - recently concentrating the Russian fleet off Tartus in the eastern Mediterranean, and delivering powerful anti-ship missiles and antiaircraft systems to the Syrian government. Putin is also pressing to have not only Syria but also Iran included in the coming Geneva conference on Syria, which might transform those proceedings into the beginnings of a general Middle East peace conference of the type which the Israelis have been attempting to sabotage for decades.
Another area of possible imperialist defeat in the short run is the continued domination of the International Monetary Fund. The BRICS block of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa is well advanced in its preparations for the launching of a BRICS development bank, which would tend to terminate the monopoly on international lending maintained by the IMF and World Bank for the purpose of strangling world economic development and looting the world economy in the interest of the City of London and Wall Street. A BRICS intervention to rescue Egypt from the clutches of the western creditors and plutocratic powers is long overdue, and would constitute a revolution in international affairs.
Another unexpected factor contributing to a possible sharp turn in the world situation is becoming of the Argentine Pope Francis. Here is a pontiff whose outlook has been decisively shaped by his ministry in the slum neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. Francis’s initial statements display a tough polemic against the plutocratic regimes of the Western world. The Pope demands that money be a servant of humanity, and not its ruler. He attacks the invisible power of plutocracy. His entire profile puts him on a collision course with the vicious austerity policies championed by the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Francis is reliably reported to be working on his first encyclical letter, which will be a defense of traditional Catholic social doctrine against the pernicious ideologies of neoliberalism, monetarism, and globalization. When this encyclical is published, the Vatican’s repudiation of the dominant economic schools of Europe and North America will become an important political fact. The dominant austerity psychosis will be stripped of its entire theoretical and practical justification. Austerity policies will be seen as the devil’s work. Resistance to imperialist looting can be expected to grow in southern Europe, in Latin America, and elsewhere.
In the United States, the younger generation is being crushed by a student loan burden which has now exceeded $1.1 trillion, exceeding all forms of household debt except home mortgages. The reactionary Republicans and the Wall Street Democrats of the Obama regime are resisting the rock-bottom interest rates which are the minimum necessary to stabilize this debt in the short run. For many students, student loan debt becomes the central factor of their lives. The average bachelor’s degree is accompanied by about $35,000 of debt. Advanced degrees easily generate $75,000 of debt. Degrees in law and medicine routinely exceed $100,000.
The new Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, long regarded by anti-Wall Street forces as the most promising politician in the Democratic Party, has now come forward with a bill to cut student loan interest rates to about .075%, representing a reduction of almost 90%. Equally significant is the fact that Senator Warren wants this debt relief to be paid for by the Federal Reserve System, which her bill orders to fund new loans administered by the Secretary of Education. Here is a case study of the method needed to raise the entire US and world economies out of depression - an economic recovery financed by cheap long-term credit for infrastructure, agriculture, and manufacturing provided by the de-privatized central bank.
Establishment news organs like the Washington Post (the house organ of the Federal Reserve System) are attempting to bury Warren’s proposal on their conspiracy of silence and censorship, but the word is getting out. The academic year of 2013-2014 could well be rocked by mass struggles on the part of students demanding the alleviation of their indebtedness. This is of course a critical factor, since it is inevitably young people who must provide the vanguard for any significant mass upsurge.
A wild card in the international situation remains Greece. Here the reactionary austerity block of Samaras and New Democracy might crumble during the spring and summer of 2013, opening the door to yet another round of early elections. If so, there is a real chance that the Syriza bloc might take over the government. This would highlight the important positive qualities of Syriza, which demonstrates a level of program, strategy, organization, and leadership which is vastly superior to the vast majority of today’s political formations. If Syriza as a governing party should become an object of sustained international attention, this comparison will prove extremely embarrassing for such snake oil salesmen as Beppe Grillo, Nigel Farage of the xenophobic UK Independence Party, and the petty bourgeois professors and legal cranks of the newly founded Alternative for Germany.
Success or Failure Determined By Leadership and Program: Get Ready
Since a new mass upsurge thus appears well within the realm of possibility, the main question becomes the preparedness of mass forces to take advantage of this new opportunity to lead the world out of the current economic breakdown crisis.
This comes down to the question of hegemony. What forces will exercise preponderant influence over the newly radicalized or newly revived strata entering the political battle over the next several years? We can be sure that if the principal ideologues of radical action remain such discredited fakers as Noam Chomsky or the Situationist International, the cause of civilization’s survival will become grim indeed. And if not Chomsky or the anarchists, who will set the tone?
Will there be an adequate anti-depression program, or will the very notion of program be reviled? Will there be a strategy of fighting a series of anti-austerity actions and election campaigns so as to believe pressure on working people in the short run, while building a movement capable of exercising power in the medium run? Will the necessity for leadership be recognized, or will infantilism and anti-authoritarianism rule the day? Will scores of contending splinter parties, organizations, groups, and groupuscules be able to form a common front, or will they insist on maintaining their impotence in fragmentation?
The answers provided to these questions in 2013-2014 may well determine the course of world history and the potential for human survival in 2015.
The current world economic depression reached critical mass in the autumn of 2008. The world derivatives panic of that year and the bankruptcy of the British and US banking systems was then followed in 2010 by a European banking panic, which has been disguised as a sovereign debt crisis. That European banking crisis continues to the present day, made worse by brutal and stupid austerity policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Commission. With the US and European economies depressed, the slowdown has spread across the world to impact Brazil, China, and India.
No country has so far been able to turn the corner from depression to broad-based recovery. Japan is currently using high-risk competitive evaluations to end decades of stagnation, but this has been punctuated by signs of financial panic. The supposed success story of Iceland, touted especially by Keynesians, has been exposed as a big lie by the recent election there, which revealed a population driven to desperation by a massive collapse of its standard of living - to the point where voters were willing to bring back the hated right-wing parties responsible for the pre-crash orgy of speculation.
The unfolding of the current depression is roughly parallel to the development of the world economic crisis of the 1930s. Back then, the depression was triggered when Lord Montagu Norman’s Bank of England sharply raised the British discount rate in September 1929, sucking huge amounts of hot money across the Atlantic from New York to London, and resulting in the fabled US stock market panic of October 1929. That was followed by a European ranking crisis in the summer of 1931, which started with the Kreditanstalt of Vienna, then brought down the Danatbank and the rest of the large German banks, and culminated with the watershed default on gold payments by the Bank of England in September 1931, which destroyed the pound-based world monetary system of that era. The British debacle then provoked a panic run on US banks which accelerated during the 1932 and into the spring of 1933. By the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration in March of 1933, every bank in the United States had shut its doors. The Roosevelt Bank Holiday merely provided legal cover for those stricken institutions.
In Europe and the United States, that previous depression reached its low point sometime during 1933. Then, even though depression continued to grip the planet, there was a modest uptick in economic activity and employment. Working people began to feel they had won a breathing space, and the political climate began to change. Today, with numerous ruling class voices being raised to argue that austerity policies have gone too far and are becoming counterproductive, a similar token, short-term amelioration may be in the works.
In much of Europe, the first years of the Depression were marked by a sharp right turn, with the reactionaries and fascists scoring important gains in a number of countries. Most important was of course Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany in January 1933. By early 1934, as historian Wolfgang Abendroth noted, the advance of fascism - like the advance of austerity today - seemed to be irresistible. Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Austria were under fascist regimes. Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and other Balkan states were civilian or military dictatorships. In England, Sir Oswald Mosley had launched his British Union of Fascists. In France, monarchists, reactionaries, and Fascists had almost succeeded with an armed assault on the Chamber of Deputies on February 6, 1934. A fascist coup had been narrowly avoided mainly because of personal rivalries among the various would-be dictators. But the French government of Daladier had fallen, and the new Doumergue regime included as defense minister Marshal Pétain, the boss of French fascism and spokesman for the underground fascist networks known as the Cagoule and the Synarchie.
The United States, since 1933 under by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal government, constituted an exception to the general reactionary drift of these years. But the early years of the new deal were unable to prevent a rout of the existing labor organizations due in large part to the colossal numbers of unemployed workers. But, via the middle of the 1930s, in a breathtaking reversal of fortunes, the US labor movement was about to regain the initiative.
First Years of Depression Bring Crisis of Popular Movements
In Europe, the very desperation of the situation after Hitler’s seizure of power forced Social Democratic and communist political forces to put aside their suicidal sectarian differences in favor of the so-called popular front, a defensive alliance against fascism which suffered from programmatic weakness, but was nevertheless enough to permit a regroupment and counterattack. Trade unionists, workers and other groups took the offensive to assert their economic rights.
Perhaps we can see some parallels between the low point of 1933-34 and our own current situation, especially when the quality of mass leadership is concerned. We have now lived through the abject failure of Occupy, whose Situationist/anarchist leadership reached a new low of absurdity by banning any concrete demands - arguing that if the demands were won, the movement would be co-opted. Very little is now left of Occupy, except the name, a bit of nostalgia, and a widespread resolve not to commit the same stupid mistakes a second time. Right wing pseudo-populist Ron Paul has exposed himself as an auxiliary to the Romney presidential campaign with the main goal of building a career for his nepotist and mediocre son Rand. The so-called Tea Party, which pretended in 2010 to represent a challenge to Wall Street bailouts, has now exposed itself as an abject tool of the reactionary billionaire Koch brothers. In Italy, Beppe Grillo and his guru Casaleggio have demonstrated their bungling ineptitude and bad faith, failing to win a single concrete benefit for their 8 million voters. The terrain, in short, is now clear for new leadership and new approaches.
1936: Popular Front Victories in Spain and France
The first part of the 1936 mass upsurge was the February victory of the Spanish Popular Front of socialists and communists. This alliance was attractive enough to pull even anarcho-syndicalist workers out of their usual self-defeating apolitical stance. A land reform, the most basic of all modernizations, was suddenly on the agenda. Wildcat strikes and peasant revolts broke out. In July 1936, General Francisco Franco, the head of the Spanish colonial army in North Africa, carried out a coup d’état against the Spanish Republic. Franco’s revolt enjoyed the support not just of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, but also of the British conservative regime. Even so, the fascist Franco could have been crushed if a minimum level of solidarity had been maintained between the Spanish and French popular front governments. Here we find a lesson that international cooperation will be absolutely indispensable if any successes are to be one in the years ahead. Nothing whatsoever can be done in Europe without a continent wide movement to seize control of the European Central Bank and use it to finance at least 40 million new productive jobs, starting in infrastructure.
In 1930s France, the Socialists, Communists, and radicals had joined in an electoral alliance in May and June 1935, scoring important successes in local elections. The communist, socialist, and Christian trade unions began closer cooperation. In the national political elections of April and May 1936, the parties of the popular front won a decisive victory. The reactionaries were momentarily in full retreat. The socialist Léon Blum became prime minister. At this point, French workers - desiring to immediately translate their political victory in two social advances - shut down the country with a mass strike, occupying many of the largest factories. In early June 1936, the unions secured a 40-hour week with no reduction in pay, two weeks of paid vacation, an end to unrestrained hire and fire labor policies, and substantial wage increases. The Socialists wanted the nationalization of the Bank of France, but communists - vainly hoping to make France an ally of the Soviet Union by showing restraint - blocked this decisive step. An obvious lesson for us today is precisely that no reforms are likely to prove durable unless the central banks are nationalized and their credit-creating power put at the service of the national interest in full employment and rising standards of living.
Unfortunately, the French popular front was unable to resist the British demand that no arms be provided for the defense of the Spanish Republic. Here again the lesson of international coordination and unity of action is clearly depicted.
In the United States, 1936 had witnessed the founding of the United Auto Workers union. At first, the UAW was a loose confederation of relatively weak locals. The first main UAW effort was to organize the General Motors auto plants in Flint, Michigan. After a strike broke out at a General Motors factory in Cleveland, Ohio, the UAW on December 30, 1936 began a sit-down strike in the Fisher body plant of Flint. General Motors tried desperately to drive the workers out of the factory, but President Roosevelt refused to order federal troops to intervene as strikebreakers. By February 1937, General Motors was forced to recognize the UAW as the sole collective bargaining representative for its workers for the coming six months. The 30,000-member UAW immediately recruited 100,000 new members, and by the end of 1938 had 500,000 unionized workers on its rolls. Even labor organizations which have been decimated by years of reaction can sometimes bounce back with exponential growth during a mass strike phase, provided their policies and leadership are right.
After Years of Defeat, US Labor Upsurge of 1936, FDR Landslide
There followed a general US labor upsurge, with 47 sit-down strikes in March 1937, 170 such strikes in April, and 52 sit-down actions in May. Chrysler plants, hotels, lumberyards, meatpacking plants, laundries, and department stores were all scenes of sit-down strikes. The usually benighted United States Steel Company, fearing an occupation of its plants, quickly accepted the United Steelworkers of America as sole collective bargaining agent. And this pattern was repeated in many other industries. A landmark victory was scored in the Remington Rand strike, which began in May 1936 and ended successfully in April 1937.
These events were accompanied by the presidential election victory of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won a second term in November 1936. This campaign was unquestionably the most radical of the entire New Deal. In his final speech at Madison Square Garden in New York City just before Election Day, Roosevelt had stated that the bankers “had begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred.”
Roosevelt pledged to crush these Wall Street forces during his second term, saying: “I should like to have it set up my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and all the lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second administration that any of these forces met their master.” The figure of Roosevelt points up the foolishness and lack of realism of those anarchists, grillini, and other misguided souls who negate the very idea of leadership, irrespective of its quality. This is an infantile, anti-authoritarian impulse from the worst of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Capable and responsible leaders are essential for the success of popular movements. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated the reactionary Republican ticket of Landon-Knox by 523 electoral votes to 8, while winning the highest percentage of the popular vote of any candidate since 1820. Roosevelt’s success also shows the synergy between election campaigns on the one hand and labor struggles on the other: they must work together, and neither one alone would be enough.
Comparison of 1935-1936 with 2014-2015: Syria, Putin, Bergoglio, Warren, Greece
The working hypothesis here is that, keeping in mind the general timetable of the 1930s world depression, we may very well be presented with new world historical opportunities of a mass upsurge of working people in 2014 and 2015, or even sooner. Here are some of the factors that currently seem to be preparing this new phase of mass struggle against austerity and bankers’ misrule.
Surprisingly to some, a major force in blowing the lid off the current political stagnation of the Western world may well turn out to be the situation in Syria. There is no greater stimulus to the rebellion of a subject population than to see the oppressor government defeated in one of its international adventures. Here we can cite the Russian Revolution of 1905 against the autocratic czarist regime, which was detonated by the humiliating defeat of the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese war. The czar was weakened, and forced for the first time to accept internal reforms, including a kind of Parliament.
Today, it is increasingly evident that the terrorist al-Qaeda death squads which NATO and Israel have been using to destabilize the government of Syrian President Assad are facing a very uncertain future. If these terrorists were to undergo a decisive defeat or even a total collapse, this would sharply expose the intellectual, moral, and political bankruptcy of the current rulers of Britain, France, the United States, and other countries. The path would then be clear to turn the international war of aggression into a domestic struggle for revolutionary reforms.
Closely related to the Syrian situation has been the leadership of Russian President V. V. Putin, who has remained steadfast in his support for President Assad - recently concentrating the Russian fleet off Tartus in the eastern Mediterranean, and delivering powerful anti-ship missiles and antiaircraft systems to the Syrian government. Putin is also pressing to have not only Syria but also Iran included in the coming Geneva conference on Syria, which might transform those proceedings into the beginnings of a general Middle East peace conference of the type which the Israelis have been attempting to sabotage for decades.
Another area of possible imperialist defeat in the short run is the continued domination of the International Monetary Fund. The BRICS block of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa is well advanced in its preparations for the launching of a BRICS development bank, which would tend to terminate the monopoly on international lending maintained by the IMF and World Bank for the purpose of strangling world economic development and looting the world economy in the interest of the City of London and Wall Street. A BRICS intervention to rescue Egypt from the clutches of the western creditors and plutocratic powers is long overdue, and would constitute a revolution in international affairs.
Another unexpected factor contributing to a possible sharp turn in the world situation is becoming of the Argentine Pope Francis. Here is a pontiff whose outlook has been decisively shaped by his ministry in the slum neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. Francis’s initial statements display a tough polemic against the plutocratic regimes of the Western world. The Pope demands that money be a servant of humanity, and not its ruler. He attacks the invisible power of plutocracy. His entire profile puts him on a collision course with the vicious austerity policies championed by the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank. Francis is reliably reported to be working on his first encyclical letter, which will be a defense of traditional Catholic social doctrine against the pernicious ideologies of neoliberalism, monetarism, and globalization. When this encyclical is published, the Vatican’s repudiation of the dominant economic schools of Europe and North America will become an important political fact. The dominant austerity psychosis will be stripped of its entire theoretical and practical justification. Austerity policies will be seen as the devil’s work. Resistance to imperialist looting can be expected to grow in southern Europe, in Latin America, and elsewhere.
In the United States, the younger generation is being crushed by a student loan burden which has now exceeded $1.1 trillion, exceeding all forms of household debt except home mortgages. The reactionary Republicans and the Wall Street Democrats of the Obama regime are resisting the rock-bottom interest rates which are the minimum necessary to stabilize this debt in the short run. For many students, student loan debt becomes the central factor of their lives. The average bachelor’s degree is accompanied by about $35,000 of debt. Advanced degrees easily generate $75,000 of debt. Degrees in law and medicine routinely exceed $100,000.
The new Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, long regarded by anti-Wall Street forces as the most promising politician in the Democratic Party, has now come forward with a bill to cut student loan interest rates to about .075%, representing a reduction of almost 90%. Equally significant is the fact that Senator Warren wants this debt relief to be paid for by the Federal Reserve System, which her bill orders to fund new loans administered by the Secretary of Education. Here is a case study of the method needed to raise the entire US and world economies out of depression - an economic recovery financed by cheap long-term credit for infrastructure, agriculture, and manufacturing provided by the de-privatized central bank.
Establishment news organs like the Washington Post (the house organ of the Federal Reserve System) are attempting to bury Warren’s proposal on their conspiracy of silence and censorship, but the word is getting out. The academic year of 2013-2014 could well be rocked by mass struggles on the part of students demanding the alleviation of their indebtedness. This is of course a critical factor, since it is inevitably young people who must provide the vanguard for any significant mass upsurge.
A wild card in the international situation remains Greece. Here the reactionary austerity block of Samaras and New Democracy might crumble during the spring and summer of 2013, opening the door to yet another round of early elections. If so, there is a real chance that the Syriza bloc might take over the government. This would highlight the important positive qualities of Syriza, which demonstrates a level of program, strategy, organization, and leadership which is vastly superior to the vast majority of today’s political formations. If Syriza as a governing party should become an object of sustained international attention, this comparison will prove extremely embarrassing for such snake oil salesmen as Beppe Grillo, Nigel Farage of the xenophobic UK Independence Party, and the petty bourgeois professors and legal cranks of the newly founded Alternative for Germany.
Success or Failure Determined By Leadership and Program: Get Ready
Since a new mass upsurge thus appears well within the realm of possibility, the main question becomes the preparedness of mass forces to take advantage of this new opportunity to lead the world out of the current economic breakdown crisis.
This comes down to the question of hegemony. What forces will exercise preponderant influence over the newly radicalized or newly revived strata entering the political battle over the next several years? We can be sure that if the principal ideologues of radical action remain such discredited fakers as Noam Chomsky or the Situationist International, the cause of civilization’s survival will become grim indeed. And if not Chomsky or the anarchists, who will set the tone?
Will there be an adequate anti-depression program, or will the very notion of program be reviled? Will there be a strategy of fighting a series of anti-austerity actions and election campaigns so as to believe pressure on working people in the short run, while building a movement capable of exercising power in the medium run? Will the necessity for leadership be recognized, or will infantilism and anti-authoritarianism rule the day? Will scores of contending splinter parties, organizations, groups, and groupuscules be able to form a common front, or will they insist on maintaining their impotence in fragmentation?
The answers provided to these questions in 2013-2014 may well determine the course of world history and the potential for human survival in 2015.
British,
French arsonists on the loose
 |
| A suburb in Syria under attack |
By Finian Cunningham
How to describe the actions of Britain and France towards
Syria and by extension, the wider Middle East and Africa regions?
This week, the insane British and French mis-rulers gave notice that they intend pouring fuel on the Syrian crisis - a crisis that they largely instigated - by openly sending more heavy weapons to the Western-backed mercenaries tearing that country apart.
It should be patently obvious that the murderous rampage against Syrian civilians that is entering its third year could not be sustained if it were not for the relentless Western government and media support. Now this Western remote-control killing machine is to be fitted with a higher murderous gear, thanks to the diplomatic engineering of Britain and France in removing the European arms embargo on Syria.
This is the conduct of arsonists who rush to a fire that they have started, and while claiming to be firefighters, these same protagonists are laden with more inflammable material undeterred by the sound of screaming voices.
The truly insane thing about these criminal European regimes is that the evil fruit of their nefarious work is rampant not just in Syria, but contemporaneously across the Middle East and Africa.
London and Paris finally got their way in goading the European Union to officially lift the arms embargo on Syria, paving the way for Britain and France to begin funneling weapons to the Al Qaeda-linked militants doing the West’s bidding to sabotage the government of President Bashar al Assad and effect the long-held objective of regime change in Syria.
Britain and France are cynically maintaining the ridiculous fiction that this increased weapons supply will bring peace to Syria - in the face of overwhelming evidence that such a move will do the exact opposite.
Moreover, the increased British and French firepower to myriad self-styled jihadist brigades in Syria threatens to escalate sectarian bloodshed across the entire Middle East, pulling Lebanon, Iraq and other countries into an all-out internecine conflagration.
This is not a prediction. It is a description of what is already happening as a result of the criminal foreign policies of London, Paris, Washington and their regional allies.
On Tuesday, the day after Brussels lifted its arms embargo
on Syria, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was in the West African
country of Niger warning about the perils of “international terrorism” and how
the North and West African states must “pull together to defeat this threat.”
Fabius (and Britain’s Hague) should be renamed “minister for foreign arson.
Last week, Niger was the scene of a deadly twin suicide attack in which 35
people, including 10 militants, were killed. The attacks on a Niger army
barracks in the city of Agadez and a French-owned uranium mine in Arlit are
believed to the first such terrorist incidents in that country since its
independence from the former colonial ruler, France, in 1960.
Fabius claimed that the militants behind the twin assaults launched their attacks from southern Libya. This was also the view of Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou. Despite a denial by the Libyan government of any such link, it is plausible that the militant groups behind the attacks in Niger have at least been materially galvanized by the various NATO-backed jihadist brigades that overthrew the Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi at the end of 2011.
The double bombings last week in Niger were claimed to be a joint operation by the Movement for Oneness and Justice in West Africa (MUJWA) and the Signed in Blood group led by Moktar Belmoktar. Both organizations are self-declared affiliates of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).
The latter led the NATO regime-change operation, starting in early 2011, against Libya’s Gaddafi with weapons and money supplied by NATO powers and their Persian Gulf Wahhabi allies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. NATO also provided the seven-month aerial bombardment campaign that was crucial for the Libyan jihadists’ defeat of Gaddafi. This is the same nefarious nexus that is ripping Syria asunder.
Fabius claimed that the militants behind the twin assaults launched their attacks from southern Libya. This was also the view of Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou. Despite a denial by the Libyan government of any such link, it is plausible that the militant groups behind the attacks in Niger have at least been materially galvanized by the various NATO-backed jihadist brigades that overthrew the Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi at the end of 2011.
The double bombings last week in Niger were claimed to be a joint operation by the Movement for Oneness and Justice in West Africa (MUJWA) and the Signed in Blood group led by Moktar Belmoktar. Both organizations are self-declared affiliates of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).
The latter led the NATO regime-change operation, starting in early 2011, against Libya’s Gaddafi with weapons and money supplied by NATO powers and their Persian Gulf Wahhabi allies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. NATO also provided the seven-month aerial bombardment campaign that was crucial for the Libyan jihadists’ defeat of Gaddafi. This is the same nefarious nexus that is ripping Syria asunder.
NATO’s regime-change operation in Libya has since created a
lawless country overrun by fractious militia, where even the former Western
sponsors of the militia are no longer safe. The killing of US Ambassador
Christopher Stevens in Benghazi in September 2012 is perhaps the most graphic
indicator of the mayhem that the NATO powers have unleashed on Libya, formerly
one of Africa’s most developed states. Since then, British and French consular
sites and personnel have also come under attack and their staff have had to be
withdrawn from that North African country.
This is a foretaste of the kind of chaos that will escalate in Syria and the wider region now that Britain and France have opened the floodgates for arming the like-minded Wahhabi mercenaries in Syria. President Assad predicted this very outcome several months ago, and he was derided for it by the Western regimes and their propaganda media.
It is credibly reported that the Libyan jihadists have been major suppliers of NATO and Wahhabi Arab weaponry into Syria. They have also sent fighters to join the estimated 10,000-20,000 foreign mercenaries marauding in Syria.
The NATO-Arab weapons supplied to Libya to oust Gaddafi have also found their way to the ideologically similar groups that span the vast Maghreb, Sahel and Sahara terrains. It was these arms and fighters that energized the Islamist MUJWA and Ansar Dine that took over northern Mali early last year.
France mounted a full-scale troop invasion and aerial bombing campaign in Mali on 11 January this year allegedly to defeat “Islamist extremists” threatening the sovereignty of its former Malian colony. Securing the rich uranium and other mineral resources of Mali, as in Niger, are of course the real Western agenda.
The same groups, along with Belmoktar’s Signed in Blood, were involved in the deadly siege of the Amenas gas plant in Algeria in January earlier this year, in which 37 workers were killed. That siege was said to be in retribution for France’s military intervention in Mali “to liberate the northern territory.”
Now these same groups are behind the twin bombings in Niger, which destroyed a central part of the uranium mine owned by French company, Areva. The attackers said it was also revenge for the ongoing French military operations in neighboring Mali.
How clear does it have to get before the European public
start to connect the criminal reality of their political rulers? These
so-called governments in London and Paris are nothing but a gang of arsonists,
setting whole countries on fire with explosive repercussions - all fuelled by
reckless imperialist self-interest.
Like the fire-bombing tactics of cities during the Second World War by Western criminal regimes, these present-day terrorist fires in the Middle East and Africa, once unleashed, are becoming self-reinforcing and out of control. What’s more, through unremitting economic austerity, these mis-rulers are, in effect, extorting public welfare money from workers, unemployed, the elderly and sick to pay for their criminal conflagration abroad.
No comments:
Post a Comment