UN WARNS: Of threat of Terrorism on Regional Scale in Africa!

Dr Ibn Chambas

By Iddi Yire 

The United Nations (UN) says there is the threat of terrorism on regional scale, not only the hit-and-run attacks of Boko Haram in Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon, but also the wider Sahelo-Sahara region.

Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for West Africa and the Sahel, said originally, militant groups were driven by sentiments of exclusion, marginalisation and disenfranchisement.

Citing Mali as a case study, he explained that it would be important to pursue efforts at decentralisation, in order to maintain a commitment by national stakeholders to the implementation of the peace process.

Dr Chambas made these remarks in Accra during the unveiling of the Head Office Complex of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP).

The event, which coincided with the launch of a book, dubbed: "Strides and Strains of CSOs in Africa: The WANEP Story", was chaired by Mr Alain Marcel Da Souza, the ECOWAS Commission President.

In attendance were Dr Sam G. Doe, the first Executive Director and Co-founder of WANEP and Mr Emmanuel H. Bombande, the second Executive Director and Co-founder of WANEP.
Dr Chambas said ECOWAS and WANEP would be in a good position to devise collaborative approaches in addressing these challenges and related issues of peace and security, while creating a conducive environment for mediation and negotiation. 

He said the ECOWAS would strengthen its collaboration with WANEP in addressing common threats affecting the sub-region.

On the recent events that led to former President Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia after more than two decades of 'strong' rule, Dr Chambas said: "While this was a truly remarkable manifestation of the international community upholding the collective will of The Gambians for genuine democracy", it will be important for civil society organisations such as WANEP to join in and support the efforts of ECOWAS, the African Union and the UN to accomplish the transition in The Gambia, which will be a long and arduous process that touches on critical issues of national reconciliation, and security sector reform”.

Mr Da Souza remarked that the wisdom of ECOWAS to formally collaborate with CSOs and in particular WANEP was in line with the ECOWAS vision of transforming itself from an ECOWAS of States to an ECOWAS of Peoples.

"Ever since the emphasis on human security became enshrined in international normative frameworks and adopted by ECOWAS as the undergirding principle for its Regional Conflict Prevention programme, the issue of peace and security can no longer be the sole preserve of governments," he said. 

"Building peace and ensuring human security is the collective responsibility of all stakeholders. Governments everywhere have come to recognize and accept the critical role of civil society in complementing its efforts at building peace and sustainable development," he added.

Mr Chukwuemeka B. Eze, the Executive Director of WANEP, said with the cooporation of governments, ECOWAS, the African Union, and development partners, WANEP had continued to act as a catalyst in implementing programmes and specific activities that support Africa Peace Agenda.

Editorial

AVRAM GRANT: TIME TO GO!

Many sports enthusiasts say that the time has come for the coach of the national football team, the Black Stars Avram Grant to go.

They say so because they believe that he was not a good coach and he failed to improve the skills of the players and the team.

The Insight agrees that Avram Grant ought to go but it is for very different reasons.

Avram as coach of the Black Stars acted in ways which linked our national team to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

He used his platform as our coach to canvass positions for the benefit of Israel and its occupation of Palestine.

This is completely unacceptable and Avram must be replaced with a new coach who reflects national aspirations.

Avram: it is time to go!

Retrieval Of State Assets Lawful – Eugene Arhin replies critics

Flagstaff House, The seat of Government

By Marian Ansah

The Director of Communications at the presidency, Eugene Arhin, has said government’s decision to set up a committee to retrieve state assets suspected to be in the possession of some individuals, is lawful.

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) criticized the move, saying it is a cover up for state sponsored thuggery.

But speaking in an interview with Citi News, Eugene Arhin said the directive conforms to the laws of Ghana.

“I think it is not legally prudent , or even ethically prudent for any member of the previous administration to hoard any property in their possession so I think the directive from the Chief of Staff is in the right direction .”

He further clarified that, government would “get hold of all public assets which are in possession of some other individuals who were within the previous government.”

He was however quick to emphasize the need for those in charge of the retrieval not to use the exercise as an opportunity to “witch-hunt other government officials, who rightly and rightfully possess properties which of course may belong to themselves.”

Government indicated on Friday that, it had set up a task-force which will focus on retrieving state assets believed to be held by individuals.

The decision followed the seizure of five cars belonging to the National Organiser of the NDC, Kofi Adams, by men believed to be National Security personnel.

But the NDC on Saturday subsequently warned that the task-force could compromise peace and stability .

“The activities of these NPP hoodlums operating under the name ‘invisible Forces’ with tacit approval from elements within the Ghana Armed Forces and the Ghana Police Service, have gone on for several weeks without any noticeable effort by government to take action against them.”

“Instead of condemnation and firm action to end this spate of lawlessness, these criminal elements, loyal to President Akufo-Addo, have received approbation from leading figures within the NPP who have sought to justify their conduct amidst threats to seize more private properties,” a statement issued by the NDC said.

The NDC said it is willing to ensure the recovery of any national assets; but will not tolerate any attacks on its members.

Parliament Is Really in Need - Speaker

Rt. Hon Mike Ocquaye

By Benjamin Mensah

Parliament, seeking to expand its infrastructure, has solicited the support of the Government and people of China to build a new chamber block.

At least, some legislators are complaining that the 275-member parliament is crowded and needs more space for members to do more effective work.

Also the legislature needs a modern library complex, a parliamentary museum and other research facilities to enhance the performance of duties.

Reverend Prof. Aaron Michael Oquaye, the Speaker, has therefore appealed to the Chinese Government to assist Ghana in the construction of a new chamber block for the Members of Parliament.

Rev. Prof. Ocquaye made the appeal when Madam Sun Boahang, the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, paid a courtesy call on him at the Parliament House in Accra.

The Speaker commended the good bilateral ties between Accra and Beijing and requested China to come to the aid of Ghana in developing her infrastructure.

"The Parliament of Ghana is really in need. We still have a lot of things to be done...we have a vision for a new Chamber of Parliament and we hope your good country can help us in this direction," he said.

On the development of Ghana’s industrial sector, the Speaker called on the Chinese Government to help the Government of Ghana to make the “one district one factory" a reality.

Rev. Prof. Oquaye said: "We have been on tour to some countries and we realised that they have very small factories.

“Like the pen for instance, one factory deals with the manufacturing of just the shell, another factory with just the ink and another factory with the assembling. These are some of the things that will go a long way to help this great country, " he said.

Madam Boahang, on her part, praised Ghana for her contribution to the development of the Chinese economy and congratulated the Speaker of Parliament on his appointment.

"I bring you congratulatory messages and warm greetings from the President of China, Xi Jinping, and the people of China...We understand that you do not just have rich experience in parliamentary issues but you also have a vision of a statesman.

“I believe under your leadership, there will be more achievement in our parliament and continuous development," she said.

Ms Sarah Adwoa Safo, the Deputy Majority Leader, hinted of plans to set up an inter-parliamentary caucus between Ghana and China to help in the free flow of information between parliamentarians in both countries.

"We are putting together an Inter-parliamentary caucus. In the Sixth Parliament, I was a member of the Ghana-China Inter-Parliamentary Caucus, and we were looking at putting this together so we have representatives of both sides of the house, then we will interact with members of Parliament in China, their experiences and best practices in order to impact them in our setting," she said.

The Deputy Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, appealed for assistance to develop the IT infrastructure of Parliament.

"We know for instance we don't have a dedicated IT infrastructure for Parliament. Members of Parliament, when they get to Parliament, want to be on the internet and they sometimes have difficulties. I am sure the Chinese can make this work," he said.

Mr Birender Singh Yadav, the Indian High Commissioner, also paid a courtesy call on the Speaker.

The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to enhance the bilateral relations between Accra and New Delhi.

GNA

Can Local Refining Address Nigeria's Oil Challenges?

By Audu Liberty Oseni

Despite strong-arm efforts to stamp out unlicensed local refining in Africa’s largest oil producer, the practice continues and is a major source of livelihood for those involved. Maybe it is time the government recognized and regulated local oil refining instead of relying on imports of petroleum products.

Since the discovery of oil in 1958, Nigeria is yet to find solutions to her crude refining and exploration and has over the years relied on importation of refined petroleum products.

Successive governments had made promises on building functional local refineries and addressing the rot in the oil sector. Unfortunately, none of them has repositioned the sector.

In one of the efforts Mr. Olusegun Aganga, the former Minister of Trade and Investment, signed a memorandum of understanding between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and some foreign investors under an American-Nigerian joint venture to put up six modular refineries at the cost of $4.5 billion (about N700 billion). To this moment nothing has been done.

The federal government audit report shows that over $1.6 billion has been spent on the turnaround and maintenance of Nigeria’s refineries, without a functional refinery on the ground.

In the face of this challenge, communities in the Niger Delta region have come to adopt unconventional technologies in refining crude oil, which they sell to make a living.

Both the federal and state governments have branded these actions as illegal, thereby shutting down the refining plants. The argument of the government is hinged on the fact that the exercise is criminal and leads to pollution and environmental degradation, loss of revenue, as the products are not well refined, which also leads to health disasters, explosions and vehicle breakdown.

In an effort by the government to checkmate this act, about 4,349 illegal refineries were reportedly destroyed in diverse operations executed by the Joint Taskforce (JTF) in the Niger Delta between January and December 2012 alone and the destruction continues to this time.

In a complementary action, about 36,584 drums of illegal refined products, 638 pumping machines and 326 outboard engines were reportedly confiscated and destroyed by the JTF and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Niger Delta communities, while 2.24 million liters of illegal diesel in Delta State were reported to have been destroyed.

In Edo, Rivers and Delta states soldiers under the auspices of ‘Operation Pulo Shield’ were reported to have destroyed numerous local refineries.

As the government destroys local refineries, branding them illegal as a justification for its actions, groups such as the Ijaw People Development Initiatives (IPEDI) have argued that rather than destroy such ‘illegal’ refineries the government should allow them to operate to create job opportunities for the youth in the region.

They advised the government to provide operational guidelines for local refineries, rather than destroying them. They observed that in spite of the destruction of local refineries and branding them illegal, they still exist.

As such the best idea is for such refineries to be licensed by the federal government and to demand the payment of appropriate taxes.

Mr. Peter Biakpara, a former commissioner in Delta State government, does not see any illegal refineries in the Niger Delta region. Rather, he calls the exercise “local expertise”.

To him, “government has to encourage local refineries, and if the government refuses to support and regulate them, they will continue to exist, because those who operate them cannot easily give up as they are making a living out of them.”

He also observed that “the giant oil refining companies we have today may have started in crude and traditional forms as those operating in the Niger Delta at the moment.”

He was of the opinion that government should play a major regulatory role as it does in other sectors, as against its choice of using the firepower of the state to send people out of business.

Even as government destroys the local refineries in the Niger Delta, the hope of Nigerians in having efficient and functional refineries is still dim.

A report by the Special Task Force on national refineries revealed that the number of licenses issued to investors to build refineries in Nigeria has increased to over 28, and in all none of the licensees has the capacity to operate a refinery.

The report also revealed that of the 42 oil refineries operating in Africa, the three in Nigeria are the worst, in terms of efficiency and capacity utilization.

Foreign investors are unwilling to invest in Nigerian refineries as a result of these challenges.

Some key questions that are left unanswered are: going by the need for the Nigerian state to have local refineries that are driven by the local people, should initiatives of crude refining in Niger Delta communities be killed by the government? Is there a way the government can establish a framework that will enhance local crude oil refining in the Niger Delta? Are there ways government can encourage local refining of crude oil by setting regulations that will guide the activities of local refiners?

Communities within the region have also argued that if the reason for destroying their local refineries is because their activities lead to environmental pollution, Shell Petroleum Development Company and other multi-national companies operating in the region should also be shut down because they also cause environmental pollution.

If the Nigerian government sees a reason to encourage and support initiatives on local refineries by communities in the Niger Delta, investment in this direction will be one of the best options, they argue.

There is a sense in which communities in the Niger Delta are not likely to give up local refinery operations. The trend is likely to continue as those who engage in the act see it as a huge source of livelihood.

For instance, investors in this business make between N2 million (about $12,800) and N10 million ($64,000) every week, depending on the scope of their business.

Those who engage in the distribution of the products make more gains, particularly at the time of fuel scarcity, since they control the retail using boats and canoes to transport the products from one location to another.

Some law enforcement agents like the army and police whose assignment is to checkmate such operations are alleged to have joined communities in the business mainly because of the high profit.

In a sense too, despite several efforts towards cracking down on the operators of these ‘illegal refineries’ by the JTF, the number of lorries loading oil from the local refineries continues to increase.

The president of the Oil and Gas Service Providers Association of Nigeria (OGSPAN) Colman Obasi observed that: “From all indications and what is obtainable, the war against illegal refineries cannot be won now. In fact, it is far from being won. It has not even started and this is due to the fact that those who engage in the business are still in charge.”

Putting up a local refinery no doubt is capital intensive. If Nigeria will have a local refinery with good capacity in place, hopes that the challenges and corruption found in the country’s oil sector will disappear are high.

As the Nigerian state takes cognizance of the important role indigenous technology and local initiatives can play in both technological advancement and economic transformation, the government is likely to listen to the growing voices of advocates for supporting the local refineries.

The government may start to think in terms of plans to encourage and design policies for initiatives like those in Niger Delta communities rather than branding them illegal and shutting them, using the firepower of the state. This can be a dramatic turning point for the restive Niger Delta and the Nigerian state socially, economically and politically.

From the failed attempts by the government to establish functional refineries, and government unwillingness to give up its monopoly on oil business in Nigeria, the business of local refineries in Nigeria will face challenges in the years ahead. Despite the envisaged challenges, communities in Niger Delta are likely to embrace illegal refineries in full force in years to come. This is likely to be the case as communities in the region are resilient when it comes to oil.

Militants in the region are also finding the business lucrative and they are likely to opt for it in place of kidnapping and waging war against the government. The business is also likely to thrive more when communities and militants in the region know how lucrative it is, thus this is likely to be another area government has to confront Niger Delta region just as it did in the days of militancy.

* Audu Liberty Oseni is Communication Officer, Rural Mobile Health Initiative. libertydgreat@gmail.com

MUST WAGES COME DOWN?

Karl Marx

By Edgar Hardcastle | 

A most deadly weapon in the armoury of the politicians who defend the interests of the employing class is the assertion that wages must come down because the present rates of pay are “more than industry will bear.” It is put forward by Liberals and Tories, and has been supported by the expert advisers called in to help the Labour Government. It is accepted by large numbers of workers, and is more than half-believed by the Labour leaders themselves. It is not true.

The Capitalist class are not poor, nor are they becoming poor. The powers of wealth production are not declining, but increasing. The Seventy-second Report of Inland-Revenue (Table 47) tells us that the gross income assessed to income tax (excluding weekly wage-earners) amounted, in the year ended March, 1929, to an estimated total of £2,765,000,000. That figure is the largest amount in any year since the War. It is £41 million more than the highest preceding year, and is £650 million more than the first complete year after the War (1919-1920). Sir Herbert Samuel, in a letter to The Times, published on December 1st, stated, on the authority of Professor A. L. Bowley, that in spite of the so-called depression the total national income in 1930 would probably be £100 millions more than the national income in 1924, the year when the last comprehensive calculation was made by Professor Bowley and Sir Josiah Stamp. This will put 1930 only slightly below 1928 and about on a level with 1927.

The vast surplus wealth of the rich minority, at a time when about two and a quarter million workers are jobless and dependent on unemployment pay or relief, is well illustrated by the huge sums of money seeking investment. The Daily Express on December 11th drew attention to the fact that “bank deposits are very considerably higher than they were this time a year ago. People are hoarding instead of investing. Money is so cheap as to be almost unlendable.” The Financial Times on November 10th gave details of one recent loan after another which had been heavily over-subscribed. A typical example is the London Electric Railway issue. The company wanted to raise about £3,500,000. They received offers totalling nearly £140 millions, or forty times as much as they wanted. It is true that some applicants would apply for more than they expected to receive, but they would do this only because they were aware of the superabundance of money seeking investment. This is nowhere denied. Mr. Snowden, in the House of Commons on October 30th, stated categorically, in reply to a question, “There is no shortage of credit.” The Evening Standard's City Editor (November 25th) estimated that about £1,000 millions had been offered for investment in response to invitations to invest less than a quarter of that amount. This had all happened in the first ten months of 1930, the year of “depression.” In Australia, another “depressed” country, a £28 million Government loan in December was promptly over-subscribed.

What, then, is this “ trade depression ”?

It is a condition which arises normally and inevitably out of Capitalism. It is a crisis of over-production. Millions of the world’s workers are suffering want because the world is glutted with goods which no one will buy. In spite of what was described by the Observer on June 22nd as ”frantic efforts to limit production,” the competing combines which struggle for control of production are faced with bursting grain elevators, overflowing oil tanks, over-stocked warehouses, and shops filled with unsaleable goods. Ships lie idle, farmers are burning wheat in Manitoba, and South America is convulsed with political upheavals owing to the suffering caused by vast quantities of unsaleable coffee, grain, nitrates, etc.

The owners of industry have allowed the workers they employ to produce more food, more fuel, more ships, more raw material, more machinery and more of everything than they can sell. Not that there are no people in need—far from it. Three-quarters of the population have never known the pleasure of satisfying their modest desires to the full. It has been estimated by American Trade Unions that this winter will see one-sixth of the men, women and children of the U.S.A. on the verge of starvation. Contrast that with the American Standard Oil Companies’ estimated record profit in 1930 of £57 millions.

Those who are in need lack money to buy. Those who have surplus money have no more needs left unsatisfied. That is the key to the depression. That is why prices are forced down and workers are thrown out of work by the hundred thousand. There they will stay until the accumulations of goods are slowly disposed of. Then the anarchic system of producing faster than the market can absorb will begin again.

Lower wages will not remedy this evil. Lower wages aggravate it. With less money to spend, the working class buy less than before of the goods offered for sale. The employers increase their incomes as a result of the reduced wages bill, but much of the increase merely goes to swell the fund of money which is surplus to their requirements. They seek to invest it, but find fields for investment limited. Nobody will extend plant and factories at a time when the existing ones are shut down because the owners cannot find buyers for their goods.

Since 1921 the total annual wages of the workers have been reduced by over £550 million. That has not solved the unemployment problem. It has merely served to make the rich richer than before.

There is, then, no economic necessity for lower wages, but is it possible in the existing situation for the workers to resist demands made by the employers for wage reductions?

Let us first make clear what wages are. The owners of the means of production (the land, factories, and so on) are the owners of all the wealth which the workers produce. They give to the workers wages which cover their cost of living. Nevertheless, there is, for most workers, a margin between the standard of living and the cost of providing the bare physical necessities of life. The  employers seek constantly to reduce the level of wages in keeping with any fall in the cost of living, and to press wages down still further towards the bare physical minimum. If there were no resistance, they would do this. The workers’ economic organisations, their Unions, can be centres of resistance. They may, as happened in Germany only a month or two ago, play the humiliating role of inviting wage reductions. On the other hand, they may put up a stiff resistance. If they do this, the employers will pause and count the cost before embarking on an attempt to force acceptance of their terms. It is true that the employers have behind them their wealth and the forces of the State to starve the workers into submission, but it is also true under certain conditions that they will hesitate to launch out on this costly and provocative course. It is admitted that increases of wages give the employers added inducement to employ more labour-saving machinery. But here, again, it is worth noticing that the vast accumulations of capital which to-day are sunk in plant and machinery make a factory re-organisation scheme more expensive than it was when the amounts of capital so invested were less.

The first essential is that the workers should clear their minds of the employers’ propaganda which harps continually on the so-called depression. The Capitalist class as a whole are not depressed. They are richer than they have ever been.

Ever since 1920 we have had it drummed into our ears that industry is depressed. But the Economist newspaper’s index of the rate of dividend on ordinary shares shows a remarkable stability at about 10 per cent. The average rate in 1919 was 10.7 per cent. Since then it has never risen above 11.1 per cent, or fallen below 8.4 per cent. In 1929 it was 10.5 per cent., in spite of falling prices. We have been solemnly warned that the unfortunate Capitalists were living on their capital. But Sir Josiah Stamp (Times, November 20th, 1930) estimates the total national wealth in 1928 as being over £18,000 millions, as compared with only £14,310 millions in 1914. He has deducted from his 1928 figure the National Debt of £6,400 millions,: the gross total being £24,445 millions.

Again, the workers must not be deceived by the specious argument that if they refuse to accept lower wages they will lose their employment altogether. If the Capitalist class have need to preserve any industry or branch of industry which is in financial difficulties, they will themselves find excuses for protecting it with tariffs or for giving it subsidies. They will keep it on its feet, whatever the level of wages. Thus we see the Capitalist class prepared to give State grants to air service companies and (in Australia) to gold-mining companies. In 1926 we saw the Conservative Government heavily subsidise the mines. And we have seen the inland telegraphs maintained permanently at a big annual loss because the Capitalist class have need of that service. Millions of pounds were paid as subsidies to overseas cable companies.

On the other hand, if the Capitalist class have no need to maintain a particular branch of industry, they will let it close down in spite of lower wages. Where combination is far advanced, it is now quite common for the federated employers to buy out particular units simply in order to close them down. “National Shipbuilders’ Security, Ltd.,” is a company formed for the express purpose of buying and dismantling redundant shipyards on behalf of the shipbuilders in general.

The arguments referred to. above are used by the employers to make their wage reduction policy easier of attainment. The arguments need only to be examined for their purpose to be understood.

But something more is required of the workers. Even the most effective action on the economic field, i.e., that action which is based on an appreciation of the common interests of the workers as a class, cannot solve the fundamental problem. Only Socialism can do that.

And if the workers would turn their attention to Socialism, the whole form of the struggle with the employing class would change. So far, despite heroic fights by Trade Unionists against wage reductions, the employing class have never had reason to fear that the working class were turning away from their belief in the Capitalist system. But when a considerable body of workers learn the lesson that no reformist policy or party is of any use, and begin to understand and support the demand for Socialism, we can confidently anticipate a less aggressive and less cheese-paring attitude on the part of employers. They will, when that time comes, be anxious to surrender part of their wealth in the hope that by so doing they may stave off the day when they must yield it all. We shall then be well on the way to the acquisition by society of the means of wealth production now privately owned by a privileged class.

Floating Nowhere: The Currency Chaos

By Edgar Hardcastle | 

The cynic who said that the only lesson of history is that men never learn from history was knowingly exaggerating, but he also had it wrong, at least in regard to the history of capitalism. A few people have learned from past crises what kind of system it is and the economic laws on which it operates. And if the crisis is big enough memory of it will last for years among capitalists and workers alike as something they would like to avoid happening again.

However, two things undermine their fears in course of time. As, in the main, neither capitalists nor workers fully understand how capitalism works they are always ready to accept new quack remedies for capitalism’s ills. And governments, always with an eye on solving the immediate problem and winning the next election, will time and time again flout past experience and simply hope that something will turn up to save them. (The Daily Mail, 10th July, which solidly backs the Government over the currency crisis, frankly admits that the Tories are simply “gambling on prosperity”.)

An interesting case in point is the German Chancellor Willy Brandt. Like others of his generation he was for years committed to avoiding a recurrence of the great German inflation of the nineteen-twenties and similar events after the second world war, but has recently declared that he would "rather have inflation than unemployment”. He need only look up the records to see that he may get both. In the ’twenties, when inflation got out of hand, nearly 30 per cent, of the workers were unemployed.

Creating Weakness

Marx, the economist whom modern economists do not want to know, pointed out certain basic facts about capitalism. The capitalist, having acquired surplus value in the form of commodities, through the exploitation of his workers, needs to turn these commodities into money. Through long and hard experience it was appreciated that in the interests of capitalists as a whole there is great advantage in having it in a stable form — either gold or its equivalent, a paper currency convertible into gold at a fixed rate.

This was how the pound became a world-accepted currency in the nineteenth century, and the dollar in this century. The purpose of the gold link was to prevent the depreciation of the pound or the dollar, and consequent rise of prices, through the excess issue of an inconvertible currency. That is now all in the past. First the pound and then the dollar became inconvertible currencies issued in increasing quantities and losing their purchasing power month by month.

It is not speculators who make a currency "weak”, but its continuing loss of purchasing power which gives speculators their opportunity. And it is not only speculators. Capitalists all over the world who have sold goods for pounds or dollars do not want to hold them because their purchasing power goes on falling. The Chairman of the Arab countries’ Economic and Social Development Fund put the point in the course of a protest against the American Government’s refusal to allow dollars paid to the Arab countries for oil, to be converted into other currencies: "Why should we produce more and then be stuck with dollars we cannot make use of? It would be better to leave the oil underground.” (Financial Times, 10th July 1973).

Cheap Makes Dear

If of course the dollars were convertible into gold at $35 an ounce as they used to be, nobody would fear to hold dollars. At present the dollar and pound are described as “floating”. All this means is that instead of being devalued and immediately fixed at the lower level they were devalued and allowed to fluctuate about the lower level.

The pound was devalued in 1967 by the Wilson government and again in 1971 by the Heath Government — on the latter occasion with the enthusiastic support of Tories, Labour and the trade unions on the ground that it would make exports cheaper to foreign buyers and thus encourage production for export. The other side of the coin is that devaluation makes all imports correspondingly dearer. So the Labour Party and trade unions which protest against the higher prices of imported goods are protesting against the inevitable result of an action they approved of.

The governments and capitalists are becoming aware of the fact that while the depreciation of currencies may seem to be of short-term advantage, at least to exporters, the competitive depreciation of currencies such as the dollar and pound creates a chaotic situation which may make all international trading operations more difficult. This is leading some capitalists and economists to see that in the long run capitalism will have to re-learn the need to have stable currencies and that there is no better way than to restore gold convertibility at a fixed rate, in short the end of inflation.

And what does this offer to the workers? In nineteenth-century British capitalism there was no inflation. Prices in 1914 were actually slightly lower than in 1814. In between, prices rose moderately in booms and fell in depressions. And what the workers got was exploitation and poverty all the time, relieved somewhat in booms and worsened in depressions, with unemployment similarly.

Nobody has produced — or will produce — any policy which will change the nature of capitalism. Those who really do learn the lesson of history will concentrate on getting rid of capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Muslim ban and beyond: Fighting white power in Trump’s America

Caption: Tamir Mustafa, Joan Rodriguez, and their children. Mustafa said, "What makes America great is everybody in it." Photo: Melissa Cox

By Beverly Bell

My neighbors Anthony and Fenton, brothers aged 7 and 8, and I had a sidewalk conversation about Trump’s victory one evening. The boys were nervous because they had heard that Trump hated Black people; they wanted to know whether this was true. I told them that all evidence indicated it was. They deliberated for a few minutes, and then Anthony said, “Well, our dad is white, and our mom and grandma are Black. So he would hate our family.”

The march against Trump’s Muslim ban in New Orleans, on January 29, concluded at the towering Robert E. Lee monument. Below the Confederate general, the circle bearing his name gives way to wide, oak-lined St. Charles Avenue, the central boulevard of white, elite culture. Lee’s statue is targeted by the Take ‘Em Down NOLA coalition, which demands that all monuments to white supremacists be deconstructed. (Read more and sign the petition here.)

A New Orleanian in hijab had marched to Lee Circle next to her two young children, one of whom held a sign reading, “I register only to go to school.” His little sister carried a placard lettered with, “What did I do?”

Along the route, the family had passed a pedestrian who shouted, “Go back to where you came from!”

Of the hatred and bigotry currently on display, Haitian-American physician Jonel Daphnis, said, “It’s always been like this. It’s just that instead of cursing us out quietly, now they’re emboldened to curse us out loud. Now we can’t keep up delusion as a way of maintaining our mental and spiritual well-being. It’s out in the open."

“It’s about white supremacy. Always has been.”

On white supremacy

A quiet smile is how Seun Adebola, a twenty-something Nigerian cellular microbiology student in New Orleans, responded to my statement of amazement about the number of white people who had voted for Trump.

I knew what his smile meant. “Where have you been?”

Where a lot of us have been is living the lives of white, straight, US-born, economically comfortable people who have benefited all the way along from skewed systems. This is true even for many working to challenge those systems.

White supremacy goes far beyond individual hatred, or fear, or mistreatment of people of color. (For a brilliant explication of white supremacy, see this by Chicana feminist writer and organizer Elizabeth “Betita” Martínez). Dominant political, economic, and social structures have accrued and reproduced the white power across the centuries.

That structural power is so strong that it has eroded democracy and rights to the point that Trump has the key to the White House despite the majority not having cast their ballots for him, and despite huge numbers of people of color having been excluded from casting any ballot at all. The disenfranchisement has come through such vehicles as mass incarceration of African-Americans in a new Jim Crow, and the Crosscheck system of purging voters, mainly of color, from lists. Institutionalized white power has also created the ongoing crises under which so many resource-poor, rights-deprived, and socially excluded people live.

On whiteness

Scholars and activists reaching back to W. E. B. Du Bois, their numbers growing rapidly since the 1990s, state that the problem is not white supremacy; the problem is the social construct of the white race itself. In his book released three days before Trump’s inauguration, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, Georgetown professor and Baptist minister Michael Eric Dyson writes, “You don’t get whiteness from your genes. It is a social inheritance that is passed on to you as a member of a particular group.”

The 1993 Race Traitor manifesto reads, “The white race consists of those who partake of the privileges of the white skin in this society.” The race construct is held in place across time and space by all of us who remain willing to accept the entitlement that our whiteness gives us.

We who think we are white need only do nothing, or not enough, and whiteness and its power will course right along. So will homophobia, patriarchy, xenophobia, and economic inequity, because the same structures keep them alive and well, too.

Anyone who doesn’t feel some part of their soul killed, or doesn’t at least feel very uncomfortable, by being part of whiteness in Trump’s imagined white America is on the wrong side. We have the opportunity to use our discomfort as a further motivating and unifying force to subvert whiteness, thereby advancing justice, equity, understanding, and compassion.

We cannot be afraid to be radical. The times demand nothing less.

If the idea unnerves us, we can consider what Martin Luther King wrote in Letter from Birmingham City Jail: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice..."

On being a white race traitor

President Donald Trump

James Baldwin famously said that, “As long as you think you are white, there is no hope for you.” Those of us with privilege, access, and power that we gain from claiming whiteness can, instead, strive to be excellent traitors to the white-race construct and the power it conveys.

“Active racists” - and, we can add, active race traitors - “are the ones who are walking with the direction the treadmill is going, passive racists are those who are standing still but nevertheless are being moved in the direction the treadmill is going, and active non-racists are walking in the opposite direction,” wrote  Beverly Daniels Tatum, psychologist and former president of Spelman College.

Walking in the opposite direction means challenging the Muslim ban and all presidential acts of identity zealotry, of course. Yet creating a new status quo doesn’t just mean changing the problems out there. It also means questioning ways that each of us who believes she or he is white may be letting unjust action and inequitable power slip by because they reinforce our narrow self-interest. It means, additionally, calling out and challenging the words, actions, and inequities which perpetuate white power and whiteness.

We can open our eyes and ears to what we normally fail to notice around us. We can sharpen our attention and relearn by watching and listening to people of color more, letting go of our defensiveness and fear to really see and hear. We can struggle hard to root out the propaganda and misinformation we’ve gotten from school, church, the government, and other institutions. We can shut out the corporate media which endlessly reinforce white power, and instead become more accurately informed through news sources like The Root, Color Lines, Democracy Now, Truthout, Common Dreams, and Yes Magazine. We can read normally suppressed histories, truths, and perspectives, such as through the Zinn Education Project and the superb book by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me.

We can talk about race, power, and privilege, a lot. For us ostensibly white people, we need to make the choice to do this because - unlike everyone else - we have the liberty of not talking about race if we don’t want to. Seun Adebola’s take on it is, “Whites need to get over their aversion to discussing race critically. Critically means de-white-supremacizing their minds. The starting point of any such conversation should be ‘I am racist’, and proceed from there.”

There is much that white race traitors can do to be noncompliant citizens in a presidency, country, and world based on systemic racism. A great place to start is to promote the broad-reaching political platform compiled by the Movement for Black Lives amongst our schools, communities, churches, and synagogues. We can also organize with groups like Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), an anti-supremacy group for white people.

Other things we can do: Join those who, throughout Trump’s first days in office, have taken their children to demonstrations. Discuss politics with our neighbors or the next person in line at the grocery store. For middle and high school teachers, use Resistance 101 in our classrooms. Pull over or stop walking and start filming whenever we see cops confronting people of color and others under attack, using the Mobile Justice app if possible. Be active bystanders in attacks on people of color, Muslims, women, or immigrants. Work for US foreign policy which reinforces, not destroys, the rights, security, and self-determination of people of color and resource-poor people everywhere. Responding to action alerts is good, but clicking that button should be the start of our activism, not the end.  

A fundamental principle of all our work should be to follow the strategic lead of communities of color, Muslims, Native Americans, women facing oppression, LGBTQ people, progressive Jews, and others who are now in the crosshairs. Check out Black Lives Matter, Incite, Standing Rock, Indigenous Environmental Network, Audre Lorde Project, Fierce, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Sound Vision, Jewish Voice for Peace, and T’ruah. These are only a few of many wonderful organizations who can help us in our path.

The imperative for collective survival

My neighbors Anthony and Fenton, brothers aged 7 and 8, and I had a sidewalk conversation about Trump’s victory one evening. The boys were nervous because they had heard that Trump hated Black people; they wanted to know whether this was true. I told them that all evidence indicated it was. They deliberated for a few minutes, and then Anthony said, “Well, our dad is white, and our mom and grandma are Black. So he would hate our family.” The two then discussed safety tactics with each other, concluding that they needed to convince their family to move to Mississippi or Florida.

Their plan was so touching that I hated to break the bad news: Trump’s power extended to those states, too.

People with whiteness and power need to do more than we’ve ever done to up-end the daily practices, laws, ideologies, and policies which render even little kids frightened. We must join forces across color lines, and across religious and nationality lines, and rebel more and better.

This is an imperative for conscience and justice. Given the president who has taken over the White House, it is also an imperative for collective survival.

[The author thanks Seun Adebola, Sarah Knopp, Moira Birss, and Neil Tangri for their input.]

* Beverly Bell is the founder of Other Worlds, a women-driven education and movement support collaborative in the US.