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Category: Civil Society

  • In Defence Of Conspiracy Theorists: It’s The Trauma, Stupid

    In case you’ve been living under a rock, there’s a US presidential election in the wings this week. But whatever Tuesday’s outcome, the one group of folks you probably shouldn’t blame for the outcome are the ‘conspiracy theorists’. Dr Kari James looks back on the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump to help explain why ‘believing crazy things’ isn’t always, necessarily, ‘crazy’. And an ironic and sarcastic trigger warning for bleeding heart lefties: you’re potentially going to be distressed to find out why.

    Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

    Hanlon’s razor implores us to not give our governments and institutions undue credit in deeming them capable of conspiracies. They’re probably just inept.

    But there are folks among us who won’t attribute to incompetence that which can be explained by malice.

    An assassination attempt on the former POTUS is a Pavlovian signal for conspiratorial drool. So, the Secret Service couldn’t just be inept. If they are, we’d have to ask hard questions of them, like whether they prioritise DEI quotas above competence.

    Instead, they must be either part of a conspiracy to assassinate the former POTUS or part of a conspiracy to cement a Trump comeback, depending on which side of the political aisle you sway.

    The mainstream media are having a field day generating clickbait from partisan brainfarts.

    The left of the spectrum frustratingly sheds little light beyond denigrating conspiracy theorists as wingnut idiots and losers.

    The mooment former US president Donald Trump is shot on July 13, during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania for the 2024 presidency.

    There’s an ironic cachet associated with claiming to be the sensible, logical adults in the room while poking fun at folks who distrust the United States’ ‘sharp as a tack’ leadership in an era of heightened political tension and word salad.

    In 2022, Professor Matt Hornsey and his team at the University of Queensland published a comprehensive review of research into conspiracy theories. They confirmed that personality-related factors – like whether someone is a wingnut, an idiot, or a loser – are a bit of a nothingburger when it comes to predicting who’s likely to engage in conspiracy beliefs.

    And both sides of the political aisle engage in motivated reasoning for their pet beliefs.

    Anecdotally, the first woo-woo whispers I heard were from Left-identifying colleagues, hinting that Trump’s near-miss back in mid-July in Pennsylvania was his version of a Reichstag Fire, engineered to sway the election in his favour. What are the odds the former president choreographed his moves so precisely as to only lose the tip of his ear to a bullet?

    Is it less likely that purposefully lax security allowed for the possibility that a lone gunman could slip through the cracks?

     

    What if Malice Actually Explains it?

    Much of the media frames conspiracy theories as a comfort blanket for pitiable folks desperate for a sense of certainty and control in the face of seemingly random violence. But this framing lacks support from the empirical literature.

    While conspiracy beliefs do grow stronger when people feel powerless, exposure to conspiracy theories typically increases a person’s sense of powerlessness by reducing their sense of control.

    So maybe it’s not about needing a sense of control in the face of randomness. Maybe folks who won’t attribute to incompetence that which can be explained by malice are simply folks who’ve had a lot of experience on the receiving end of malice.

    Perhaps they know it when they see it.

    Or perhaps it’s like when you buy a new car and then you see that model everywhere you go. The Baader-Meinhof effect applied to nefarious villains and their stooges.

    In symptomatic survivors of both simple and complex trauma, fear and loss of trust generalize beyond the epicentre of a traumatic experience, projected, as it were, onto subsequent neutral experiences.

    It seems we have an inbuilt mechanism designed to protect us from a repeat of what hurt us.

     

    The Fault Line of Identity Politics

    Dutch researchers Jan-Willen van Prooijen and Mark van Vugt propose that conspiracy theories evolved as a means of alerting us to and protecting us from hostile coalitions or outgroups.

    Their adaptive conspiracism hypothesis makes sense. By definition, conspiracy theories involve the notion that coalitions of individuals are acting in their own interests and against the interests of others.

    Ingroups are typically defined by arbitrary identities associated with nationality, ethnicity, religion, ideology, or political affiliations. Identity therefore demarcates the fault lines along which ingroups and outgroups are divided.

    A standout example of this is international differences in subscription to 9/11 conspiracy theories. In the wake of the attacks, 22% of Canadians surveyed believed they were an inside job. Across a range of Muslim nations, 78% of individuals surveyed endorsed the conspiracy theory.

    new matilda, 911, terrorism
    An inside job? If you live in a Muslim country, you’re significantly more likely to think so than someone from, say, Canada. (IMAGE: U.S. Navy photo by Chief Photographer’s Mate Eric J. Tilford, Flickr)

    So, in parts of the world well-experienced with the receiving end of US military aggression, folks were more likely to believe the US government would do something nefarious as a pretext for bombing them.

    Does this mean people who are historically on the receiving end of aggression are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories?

    If so, what does this say about those of us who ridicule them?

    Well, the interesting somethingburger in Matt Hornsey’s research was this: we are all prone to believing in conspiracy theories. It just depends on our sociohistorical context as to whether or not we will.

     

    The Role of Historical Trauma

    Historical trauma is a term that applies to the collective trauma of populations who share arbitrary group characteristics like ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. Typical examples of historical trauma include war, occupation, or colonialism, and systemic abuses such as genocide, slavery, and dispossession.

    Unsurprisingly, such experiences lead survivors to feel oppressed, victimised and powerless, even generations on from the epicentre of their collective trauma. Many also become paranoid and suspicious, over-generalising from their past experiences.

    These people are often the survivors of actual conspiracies in which perpetrators and aggressors succeeded in their objectives by concealing their true intentions and propagandising would-be witnesses into believing in their virtues and/or the inherent deficits in their victims.

    Often the victims only come to realize the extent of what has been done to them and members of their group later, having been successfully duped themselves.

    Fool me once, as they say.

    As it happens, conspiracy theorists are hellbent on not being fooled twice. For obvious and compelling reasons. So, they become hypervigilant to signs of threat.

    Of course, false positives abound. Especially when historically traumatised people successfully move to places where they are not oppressed or victimised. Or when formerly conflict-ridden regions enter periods of peace. Or when the formerly enslaved are liberated.

    Far from being maladaptive, the development of an extreme defence against persecution is highly adaptive. What we witness is survivor bias, as false negatives can prove fatal; those who are successfully duped don’t live to tell the tale.

     

    The Trauma Triad

    Historical trauma underpins belief in conspiracy theories in three ways: a sense of powerlessness, victim mindset, and status degradation.

    A sense of powerlessness is common among survivors of both historical trauma and present-day institutional or systemic abuses, which is why rebuilding a sense of agency is integral to the treatment of trauma.

    The perpetrator outgroup is viewed, in contrast, as powerful and agentic, having gained power by stealing from the victim ingroup.

    A victim mindset leads people to behave as though they are under siege, and thus perceive and interpret the behaviour of outgroups as potentially threatening, even when neutral or positive.

    When under siege, people are fearful, suspicious, and on guard, ready to respond to any perceived threat.

    (IMAGE: Gage Skidmore | Flickr)

    This siege mentality is not just the domain of tinfoil hatters and MAGA Republicans. It’s also prevalent amongst historically oppressed or marginalised groups including ethnic minorities, colonised populations, and the LGBTIQ community, for whom life under siege is not a distant memory.

    The status degradation endured by the historically oppressed positions them as low-status citizens, expected to suck up their circumstances and accept material disadvantage. This deprivation results in prolonged insecurity and uncertainty, which in turn lowers trust in government and other authorities.

    So, it’s not surprising that conspiracy theorists tend to cluster around the poverty line. Representation of conspiracy theories is a lot higher in countries where per-capita GDP is low, and where inequality is high.

    There is also a discernible increase in conspiracy theorising during – and in the aftermath of – periods of economic instability. As economic vitality is viewed as a metric for a government’s commitments to its population, it serves as an indicator of whether the government can be trusted.

     

    The Erosion of Trust

    Endorsement of conspiracy theories is also higher in countries rated as more corrupt, where trust in authorities is understandably low.

    Indeed, in a paper by French researchers Laurent Cordonier and Florian Cafiero published this year, the authors suggest that public sector corruption is fertile ground for conspiracy theories because it renders them plausible.

    Authoritarian states also produce far more conspiracy theorists than democratic ones.

    A far cry from the stereotype of a young, pallid, neckbearded misogynist who lives in his mum’s basement, Cordonier and Cafiero’s study of 21 countries suggests the average conspiracy theorist is far more likely to be an elderly Indonesian genocide survivor or a black South African who remembers Apartheid all too well.

    It is not, contrary to commonly received wisdom, irrational for people subject to oppressive regimes riddled with corruption to distrust their governments and institutions. Lies and cover-ups warrant skepticism; the gullible in such cases are perhaps those who don’t believe in conspiracy theories.

    I say all this with one eye on the possibility that any given conspiracy theory could turn out to be on the money.

    Lee Harvey Oswald is shot and killed by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas City Hall, after Oswald was arrested for assassinating US president John F Kennedy.

    If the CIA were responsible for the assassinations of a number of world leaders, then why not also JFK? Wouldn’t that make it seem plausible the CIA could also be behind a plot to assassinate Donald Trump?

    Whether it’s true or not (and I don’t have a dog in this fight), it’s hard for anyone with a finger on the pulse of history to argue that it’s completely implausible. What divides those of us who extrapolate from these patterns from those of us who don’t is the trauma triad.

    Take that to mean that if you’ve never at least sympathised with a conspiracy theory, it could just be that you’ve led a pretty white picket fence life. You could stand to learn a little about how rough some folks have had it.

    And you could just be one shitty experience away from becoming a conspiracy theorist yourself.

     

    Canaries in the Conspiracy Coalmine

    While this is a treatise in defence of conspiracy theorists, it’s also fair to say that an orientation toward conspiracy beliefs is not without negative consequence.

    Historical trauma survivors and their descendants are at greater risk of mental ill health, including anxiety, depression, and PTSD, as well as issues with self-esteem and trust.

    The sense of powerlessness, victim mindset, and status degradation are not foregone conclusions of all historical trauma, however. It is possible for survivors to gain a sense of agency and feel empowered, liberated from their victim status. And unfounded beliefs in conspiracies tend to drop off as people become more empowered.

    This means it’s essential first to acknowledge and validate experiences of abuse, oppression, or deprivation. It’s only after this truth is spoken that reconciliation can begin and the traumatic rift between ingroup and outgroup can begin to heal.

    US president Joe Biden. (IMAGE: Gage Skidmore, Flickr)

    But you know what? It wouldn’t hurt if governments were more transparent and trustworthy, less corrupt and self-serving. And it wouldn’t hurt if the news consisted of more than just corporate-sponsored partisan punditry.

    Perhaps the assassination attempt on the former POTUS is an opportunity to reflect on why there are so many conspiracy theorists in our purportedly free democracies.

    Historic oppression. Economic inequality. Corrupt governance. And an election farce-off between a man you wouldn’t buy a used car from and a man who plays a demented president on TV. Or his female deputy.

    Tackling those issues would be an election platform for anyone serious about governing in the public interest.

    Perhaps the conspiracy circus is just a distraction from that notable omission.

    The post In Defence Of Conspiracy Theorists: It’s The Trauma, Stupid appeared first on New Matilda.

    This post was originally published on New Matilda.

  • Commonwealth takes bold step to protect freedom of expression

    Talamua Media

    The Commonwealth Heads of Government adopted the Commonwealth Principles on Freedom of Expression and the Role of the Media in Good Governance at their summit meeting in Apia, Samoa, last week.

    These Principles highlight the importance of freedom of expression and media freedom to democracy.  They state that Commonwealth governments “should consider repealing or amending laws which unduly restrict the right to freedom of expression”.

    The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and the Commonwealth Journalists Association called on states to take practical and effective steps to end arbitrary and excessive restrictions on free expression. The Commonwealth as a whole must audit progress and engage with civil society to ensure that these Principles are implemented in reality.

    Freedom of expression is not just a right in itself — it is the foundation that allows us to exercise and defend all other human rights, and is safeguarded under international law.

    However, as we know all too well, this right is under threat.

    According to UNESCO, in Commonwealth countries alone, 178 journalists were killed between 2006 and 2020. Furthermore, the impunity rate for the killings of journalists during that same time is 96 percent — which is notably higher than the global impunity rate of 87 percent.

    Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has documented 547 journalists imprisoned globally as of the end of 2023, with legal harassment often used as a tool to stifle dissent and investigative reporting.

    Restrictive, colonial-era laws
    Many Commonwealth countries still maintain restrictive, colonial-era laws that curtail free expression, suppress diverse voices, and inhibit the transparency that is essential for democracy.

    In the Commonwealth:

    • 41 countries continue to criminalise defamation; 48 countries still retain laws related to sedition; and
    • 37 still have blasphemy or blasphemy-like laws.
    Who Controls The Narrative cover
    Who Controls The Narrative? cover. Image: APR screenshot

    These details are set out in a soon to be released report by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) and the Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA), with other Commonwealth partners, entitled Who Controls the Narrative? Legal Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in the Commonwealth.

    “These laws, often enforced through criminal sanctions, have a chilling effect on activists, journalists, iand others who fear retaliation for speaking truth to power”, said William Horsley of the Commonwealth Journalists Association.

    “This has led to an alarming rise in self-censorship and a decline in the independent and dissenting voices that are vital for holding governments accountable.”

    Civil society response
    The Principles were first put forward by a group of civil society organisations in response to  a general deterioration in legal protections and the working environment for journalists.

    The CJA convened other civil society organisations, including the CHRI, Commonwealth Lawyers Association and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, before Commonwealth member states reviewed and adopted the Principles in the form which was adopted by heads of government at the 2024 CHOGM.

    States are “urged to take concrete and meaningful steps to implement them within their domestic frameworks, as set out in the CHOGM Samoa Communiqué“.

    The joint report Who Controls the Narrative? Legal Restrictions on Freedom of Expression in the Commonwealth reveals the increasing use of criminal law provisions, including those related to defamation, sedition, blasphemy, and national security, to restrict freedom of expression and media freedom within the Commonwealth.

    The report is the product of extensive collaboration between Commonwealth partners, legal experts, academics, human rights advocates, and media professionals, and provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal frameworks governing freedom of expression and outlines clear pathways for reform.

    In addition to analysing legal restrictions on free speech in Commonwealth states, the report puts forward actionable recommendations for reform.

    These include regional and national-level proposals, as well as broader Commonwealth-wide recommendations aimed at strengthening legal frameworks, promoting judicial independence, encouraging media pluralism, and enhancing international accountability mechanisms.

    Reforms essential
    These reforms are essential for establishing an environment where free expression can thrive, allowing individuals to speak without fear of reprisal.

    “While many member states share a colonial legal legacy that includes repressive laws still in effect today, they also share a commitment to democratic governance and the rule of law as set out in the Commonwealth Charter,” said Sneh Aurora, director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.

    “The Commonwealth has the potential to lead by example in promoting freedom of expression through legal reform, ensuring that criminal laws are not misused to silence dissent.

    “The Principles provide an important opportunity for Commonwealth governments to bring their national laws in line with international human rights laws.”

    Republished with permission from Talamua Online.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Letters To The Editor | September 2024

    New Matilda is currently revising its social media policy. While that is ongoing, we’re relaunching the old ‘Letters to the editor’ format, to encourage and promote debate on articles published on New Matilda.

    In the days before the dumpster fire that is social media, public comment came via a curated section, where readers submitted their views to the publication, and an editor subbed and published them, within certain rules and parameters (eg. anonymous comments were generally only published in exceptional circumstances). Long story short, trolls didn’t exist, because people were accountable for what they said.

    As New Matilda works to get our head around a civil and productive way forward around public debate and our journalism (our draft social media policy will be released for  comment soon), we’re rebooting ‘Letters to the Editor’. If you want to have your say on a story, then let rip, and submit via email by clicking here.

     

    Re: My Journey Through The Social Media Swamp: Dr David Shearman

    Social Media won’t be fixed until the immoral swamp that is the U.S. changes it’s mind about morality and money. The U.S. is mainly about money; U.S. media is about what sells and what they are allowed to do. But as any suggestion about control over content brings out the 1st amendment activists and other Americans venting about their freedom it’s not going to change.

    At the moment my Facebook feed is being swamped with right-wing garbage because the election is coming up. I’ve just about given up looking at Facebook. I don’t use any other social media and I’m not going to.

    We are going to have  to try something at this end, and it’s going to involve parents exercising some control over their children’s use of the internet.

    David Ashton
    via email

     

    Re: Facing The Mirror: How Fascism Masquerades As Freedom And Prejudice Cosplays As Empathy

    People will always divide into ‘class’ one way or another, but that should never be allowed to create poverty, hardship and real disadvantage.
    Money won’t bring joy, but it at least allows one to be miserable in comfort!”

    Jo Lewis
    via email

    The post Letters To The Editor | September 2024 appeared first on New Matilda.

    This post was originally published on New Matilda.

  • Murdoch to Musk: how global media power has shifted from the moguls to the big tech bros

    ANALYSIS: By Matthew Ricketson, Deakin University and Andrew Dodd, The University of Melbourne

    Until recently, Elon Musk was just a wildly successful electric car tycoon and space pioneer. Sure, he was erratic and outspoken, but his global influence was contained and seemingly under control.

    But add the ownership of just one media platform, in the form of Twitter — now X — and the maverick has become a mogul, and the baton of the world’s biggest media bully has passed to a new player.

    What we can gauge from watching Musk’s stewardship of X is that he’s unlike former media moguls, making him potentially even more dangerous. He operates under his own rules, often beyond the reach of regulators. He has demonstrated he has no regard for those who try to rein him in.

    Under the old regime, press barons, from William Randolph Hearst to Rupert Murdoch, at least pretended they were committed to truth-telling journalism. Never mind that they were simultaneously deploying intimidation and bullying to achieve their commercial and political ends.

    Musk has no need, or desire, for such pretence because he’s not required to cloak anything he says in even a wafer-thin veil of journalism. Instead, his driving rationale is free speech, which is often code for don’t dare get in my way.

    This means we are in new territory, but it doesn’t mean what went before it is irrelevant.

    A big bucket of the proverbial
    If you want a comprehensive, up-to-date primer on the behaviour of media moguls over the past century-plus, Eric Beecher has just provided it in his book The Men Who Killed the News.

    Alongside accounts of people like Hearst in the United States and Lord Northcliffe in the United Kingdom, Beecher quotes the notorious example of what happened to John Major, the UK prime minister between 1990 and 1997, who baulked at following Murdoch’s resistance to strengthening ties with the European Union.

    In a conversation between Major and Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of Murdoch’s best-selling English tabloid newspaper, The Sun, the prime minister was bluntly told: “Well John, let me put it this way. I’ve got a large bucket of shit lying on my desk and tomorrow morning I’m going to pour it all over your head.”

    MacKenzie might have thought he was speaking truth to power, but in reality he was doing Murdoch’s bidding, and actually using his master’s voice, as Beecher confirms by recounting an anecdote from early in Murdoch’s career in Australia.

    In the 1960s, when Murdoch owned The Sunday Times in Perth, he met Lang Hancock (father of Gina Rinehart) to discuss potentially buying some mineral prospects together in Western Australia. The state government was opposed to the planned deal.

    Beecher cites Hancock’s biographer, Robert Duffield, who claimed Murdoch asked the mining magnate, “If I can get a certain politician to negotiate, will you sell me a piece of the cake?” Hancock said yes.

    Later that night, Murdoch called again to say the deal had been done. How, asked an incredulous Hancock. Murdoch replied: “Simple [. . . ] I told him: look you can have a headline a day or a bucket of shit every day. What’s it to be?”

    Between Murdoch in the 1960s and MacKenzie in the 1990s came Mario Puzo’s The Godfather with Don Corleone, aided by Luca Brasi holding a gun to a rival’s head, saying “either his brains or his signature would be on the contract”.

    Changing the rules of the game
    Media moguls use metaphorical bullets. Those relatively few people who do resist them, like Major, get the proverbial poured over their government. Headlines in The Sun following the Conservatives’ win in the 1992 election included: “Pigmy PM”, “Not up to the job” and “1001 reasons why you are such a plonker John”.

    If media moguls since Hearst and Northcliffe have tap-danced between producing journalism and pursuing their commercial and political aims, they have at least done the former, and some of it has been very good.

    The leaders of the social media behemoths, by contrast, don’t claim any Fourth Estate role. If anything, they seem to hold journalism with tongs as far from their face as possible.

    They do possess enormous wealth though. Apple, Microsoft, Google and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, are in the top 10 companies globally by market capitalisation. By comparison, News Corporation’s market capitalisation now ranks at 1173 in the world.

    Regulating the online environment may be difficult, as Australia discovered this year when it tried, and failed, to stop X hosting footage of the Wakeley Church stabbing attacks. But limiting transnational media platforms can be done, according to Robert Reich, a former Secretary of Labor in Bill Clinton’s government.

    Despite some early wins through Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code, big tech companies habitually resist regulation. They have used their substantial influence to stymie it wherever and whenever nation-states have sought to introduce it.

    Meta’s founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has been known to go rogue, as he demonstrated in February 2021 when he protested against the bargaining code by unilaterally closing Facebook sites that carried news. Generally, though, his strategy has been to deploy standard public relations and lobbying methods.

    But his rival Musk uses his social media platform, X, like a wrecking ball.

    Musk is just about the first thing the average X user sees in their feed, whether they want to or not. He gives everyone the benefit of his thoughts, not to mention his thought bubbles. He proclaims himself a free-speech absolutist, but most of his pronouncements lean hard to the right, providing little space for alternative views.

    Some of his tweets have been inflammatory, such as him linking to an article promoting a conspiracy theory about the savage attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of the former US Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, or his tweet that “Civil war is inevitable” following riots that erupted recently in the UK.

    As the BBC reported, the riots occurred after the fatal stabbing of three girls in Southport. “The subsequent unrest in towns and cities across England and in parts of Northern Ireland has been fuelled by misinformation online, the far-right and anti-immigration sentiment”.

    Nor does Musk bother with niceties when people disagree with him. Late last year, advertisers considered boycotting X because they believed some of Musk’s posts were anti-Semitic. He told them during a live interview to “Go fuck yourself”.

    He has welcomed Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, back onto X after Trump’s account was frozen over his comments surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the capitol. Since then both men have floated the idea of governing together if Trump wins a second term.

    Is the world better off with tech bros like Musk who demand unlimited freedom and assert their influence brazenly, or old-style media moguls who spin fine-sounding rhetoric about freedom of the press and exert influence under the cover of journalism?

    That’s a question for our times that we should probably begin grappling with.The Conversation

    Dr Matthew Ricketson is professor of communication, Deakin University and Dr Andrew Dodd is director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • New poll shows NZ support for recognising Palestinian statehood, sanctioning Israel

    By Luka Forman, RNZ journalist

    A new poll shows a significant number of New Zealanders support recognising Palestine as a state and applying sanctions against Israel.

    Commissioned by advocacy group Justice for Palestine and conducted by Talbot-Mills, the poll found support for recognising Palestinian statehood and sanctions for Israel was higher among young people.

    It also showed many people were not sure where they stood.

    While Israel’s embassy questioned the neutrality of the poll, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said it was a matter of “when, not if” for Palestinian statehood — but the main priority for now was a ceasefire.

    The poll found 40 percent of the 1116 people surveyed supported recognising Palestine as a state, while 19 percent did not.

    Forty-two percent of the respondents supported sanctioning Israel, while 29 percent did not.

    Laura Agel, a Palestinian-British woman and a member of Justice for Palestine — the group which commissioned the poll — said it sent a clear message to the government.

    “I think that the government needs to respond to the needs of its citizens, and the wants of its citizens and sanction Israel fully. I think we can see that other countries, whether small or big have taken strong action against Israel,” she said.

    Many respondents without opinion
    Although the poll showed strong support for Palestine, many respondents did not give an opinion either way.

    Forty-one percent were not sure whether New Zealand should recognise Palestine as a state, and 30 percent were not sure whether the government should sanction Israel.

    Agel put this down to the issues New Zealanders were facing in their day-to-day lives, and a lack of knowledge.

    “Issues such as the cost-of-living crisis, and I think it also shows that the Israel-Palestine issue is one that people don’t necessarily think they’re very informed about,” she said.

    She also blamed the government and media for not showing the extent of what was happening in Gaza.

    “What they’ve done to civilians and infrastructure in Gaza. What they’ve done bombing hospitals and schools since October 7th. But also within a context of decades-long oppression.”

    Winston Peters
    Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters . . . immediate focus should be on a ceasefire and the provision of aid in Gaza. Image: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone

    Long-standing conflict
    Israel and Hamas have been locked in a number of battles since 2008 — with people on both sides being killed.

    The current 12 month bombardment of the Gaza Strip by Israel followed a Hamas attack last October.

    About 1139 people were killed and about 240 hostages were taken. Some were freed, some died and about 97 were still unaccounted for.

    More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

    The military campaign also led to what the United Nations said was a “massive human rights crisis and a humanitarian disaster”.

    Israeli embassy responds
    Israel’s embassy in Wellington told RNZ Checkpoint in a statement that Israel was defending its citizens from Hamas, and the focus should remain on “dismantling terrorism” and releasing the remaining hostages.

    It added that while polls could be informative, those commissioned by advocacy groups would not always provide a comprehensive or neutral view.

    It said the poll’s respondents might not be familiar with the complex roots of the Middle East conflict and the positions of all parties involved, and a question should have been added to reflect that.

    Marilyn Garson, co-founder of Alternative Jewish Voices of Aotearoa, said the poll’s result that 51 percent of New Zealanders under the age of 30 supported recognising Palestinian statehood reflected a growing movement of young people rejecting Zionism — the ideology that supported the creation of a Jewish state.

    That was playing out in New Zealand and overseas, she said.

    “An unprecedented number of Jews are taking part in demonstrations, joining organisations for justice — for dignified solutions. And they are disproportionately young people. I think that’s magnificent.”

    Garson did not care whether the solution to the crisis involved two states or 12, she said, as long both Palestinian and Jewish people were involved in the process.

    “I don’t care what the number of administrative entities is, I just want to know that two peoples sat down and made a dignified choice that represent their peoples. I’ll support any outcome.”

    Minister of Foreign Affairs responds
    In May this year, Spain, Ireland and Norway officially recognised a Palestinian state — 146 of the 193 UN members (more than 75 percent) have now recognised Palestine as a sovereign state.

    A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said the government had supported the establishment of a Palestinian state for decades and it was a matter of “when not if”.

    But asserting Palestinian statehood at this point would not alleviate the plight of the Palestinian people, he said. The immediate focus should be on a ceasefire and the provision of aid in Gaza.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    Of the 193 UN member states, 146 recognise Palestine as a sovereign state
    Of the 193 UN member states, 146 recognise Palestine as a sovereign state. Graphic: The Palestine Project

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Papuan aspirations at stake in divided Melanesian Spearhead Group politics

    COMMENTARY: By Laurens Ikinia in Jakarta

    The Land of Papua is widely known as a land full of milk and honey. It is a name widely known in Indonesia that refers to the western half of the island of New Guinea.

    Its natural wealth and beauty are special treasures entrusted by the Creator to the Papuan people who are of Melanesian ethnicity.

    The beauty of the land inhabited by the blackish and brownish-skinned people is often sung about by Papuans in “Tanah Papua”, a song created by the late Yance Rumbino. The lyrics, besides being musical art, also contain expressions of gratitude and prayer for the masterpiece of the Creator.

    For Papuans, “Tanah Papua” — composed by a former teacher in the central highlands of Papua — is always sung at various important events with a Papuan nuance, both in the Land of Papua and other parts of the world in Papuan gatherings.

    The rich, beautiful and mysterious Land of Papua as expressed in the lyrics of the song has not been placed in the right position by the hands of those in power.

    So for Papuans, when singing “Tanah Papua”, on one hand they admire and are grateful for all of God’s works in their ancestral land. On the other hand, by singing that song, they remind themselves to stay strong in facing daily challenges.

    The characteristics of the Land of Papua geographically and ethnographically are the same as the eastern part of the island of New Guinea, now the independent state of Papua New Guinea.

    Attractive to Europe
    The beauty and wealth of natural resources and the richness of cultural heritage initially become attractions to European nations.

    Therefore, the richness attracted the Europeans who later became the colonisers and invaders of the island.

    The Dutch invaded the western part of the island and the British Empire and Germany the eastern part of the island.

    The Europeans were present on the island of New Guinea with a “3Gs mission” (gospel, gold, glory). The gospel mission is related to the spread of Christianity. The gold mission is related to power over natural resource wealth. The glory mission is related to reigning over politics and territory on indigenous land outside of Europe.

    The western part of the island, during the Dutch administration, was known as Dutch New Guinea or Netherlands New Guinea. Later when Indonesia took over the territory, was then named West Irian, and now it is called Papua or internationally known as West Papua.

    The Land of Papua is divided into six provinces and it is home to 250 indigenous Melanesian tribes.

    Meanwhile, the eastern part of the island which currently stands on its independent state New Guinea is home to more than 800 indigenous Melanesian tribes. Given the anthropological and ethnographic facts, the Land of Papua and PNG collectively are the most diverse and richest island in the world.

    Vital role of language
    In the process of forming an embryo and giving birth to a new nation and country, language plays an important role in uniting the various existing indigenous tribes and languages.

    In Papua, after the Dutch left its territory and Indonesia took over control over the island, Bahasa Indonesia — modified Malay — was introduced. As a result, Indonesian became the unifying language for all Papuans, all the way from the Sorong to the Merauke region.

    Besides Bahasa Indonesia, Papuans are still using their ancestral languages.

    Meanwhile, in PNG, Tok Pisin, English and Hiri Motu are three widely spoken languages besides indigenous Melanesian languages. After the British Empire and Germany left the eastern New Guinea territory,

    PNG, then an Australian administered former British protectorate and League of Nations mandate, gained its independence in 1975 — yesterday was celebrated as its 49th anniversary.

    The relationship between the Land of Papua and its Melanesian sibling PNG is going well.

    However, the governments of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea with the spirit of sharing the same land and ocean, culture and values, and the same blood and ancestors, should take tangible steps.

    Melanesian policies
    As an example, the foreign policy of each country needs to be translated into deep-rooted policies and regulations that fulfill the inner desire of the Melanesian people from both sides of the divide.

    And then it needs to be extended to other Melanesian countries in the spirit of “we all are wantok” (one speak). The Melanesian countries and territories include the Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS).

    Together, they are members of the sub-regional Oceania political organisation Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).

    In that forum, Indonesia is an associate member, while the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) and Timor-Leste are observers. The ULMWP is the umbrella organisation for the Papuans who are dissatisfied with at least four root causes as concluded by Papua Road Map (2010), the distortion of the historical facts, racial injustice and discrimination, human rights violations, and marginalisation that Papuans have been experiencing for years.

    Fiji:
    Here is a brief overview of the diplomatic relationship between the Indonesian government and Melanesian countries. First, Indonesia-Fiji bilateral affairs. The two countries cooperate in several areas including defence, police, development, trade, tourism sector, and social issues including education, broadcasting and people-to-people to contact.

    PNG:
    Second, Indonesia-PNG bilateral affairs. The two countries cooperate in several areas including trade cooperation, investment, tourism, people-to-people contact and connectivity, energy and minerals, plantations and fisheries.

    Quite surprisingly there is no cooperation agreement covering the police and defence sectors.

    Solomon Islands:
    Third, Indonesia-Solomon Islands diplomacy. The two countries cooperate in several areas including trade, investment, telecommunications, mining and tourism.

    Interestingly, the country that is widely known in the Pacific as a producer of “Pacific Beat” musicians receives a significant amount of assistance from the Indonesian government.

    Indonesia and the Solomon Islands do not have security and defence cooperation.

    Vanuatu:
    Fourth, Indonesia-Vanuatu cooperation. Although Vanuatu is known as a country that is consistent and steadfast in supporting “Free Papua”, it turns out that the two countries have had diplomatic relations since 1995.

    They have cooperation in three sectors: trade, investment and tourism. Additionally, the MSG is based in Port Vila, the Vanuatu capital.

    FLNKS — New Caledonia:
    Meanwhile, New Caledonia, the territory that is vulnerable to political turmoil in seeking independence from France, is still a French overseas territory in the Pacific. Cooperation between the Indonesian and New Caledonia governments covers the same sectors as other MSG members.

    However, one sector that gives a different aspect to Indonesia-New Caledonia affairs is cooperation in language, society and culture.

    Indonesia’s relationship with MSG member countries cannot be limited to political debate or struggle only. Even though Indonesia has not been politically accepted as a full member of the MSG forum, in other forums in the region Indonesia has space to establish bilateral relations with Pacific countries.

    For example, in June 2014, then President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was invited to be one of the keynote speakers at the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) summit in Nadi, Fiji.

    PIDF is home to 12 member countries (Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Palau, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu). Its mission is to implement green economic policies in the Pacific.

    Multilateral forums
    Indonesia has also joined various multilateral forums with other Pacific countries. The Archipelagic and Island States (AIS) is one example — Pacific states through mutual benefits programs.

    During the outgoing President Joko Widodo’s administration, Indonesia initiated several cooperation projects with Pacific states, such as hosting the Pacific Exposition in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2019, and initiating the Indonesia-Pacific Development Forum.

    Will Indonesia be granted a full membership status at the MSG? Or will ULMWP be granted an associate or full membership status at the MSG? Only time will reveal.

    Both the Indonesian government and the United Liberation Movement for West Papua see a home at the MSG.

    As former RNZ Pacific journalist Johnny Blades wrote in 2020, “West Papua is the issue that won’t go away for Melanesia”.

    At this stage, the leaders of MSG countries are faced with moral and political dilemmas. The world is watching what next step will be taken by the MSG over the region’s polarising issue.

    Laurens Ikinia is a Papuan lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Pacific Studies, Indonesian Christian University, Jakarta, and is a member of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN).

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Pope Francis – a message of peace and real change in Pacific political struggles

    COMMENTARY: By Laurens Ikinia in Jakarta

    Pope Francis has completed his historic first visit to Southeast Asian and Pacific nations.

    The papal apostolic visit covered Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Singapore and Timor-Leste.

    This visit is furst to the region after he was elected as the leader of the Catholic Church based in Rome and also as the Vatican Head of State.

    Under Pope Francis’ leadership, many church traditions have been renewed. For example, he gives space to women to take some important leadership and managerial roles in Vatican.

    Many believe that the movement of the smiling Pope in distributing roles to women and lay groups is a timely move. Besides, during his term as the head of the Vatican state, the Pope has changed the Vatican’s banking and financial system.

    Now, it is more transparent and accountable.

    Besides, the Holy Father bluntly acknowledges the darkness concealed by the church hierarchy for years and graciously apologises for the wrong committed by the church.

    The Pope invites the clergy (shepherds) to live simply, mingling and uniting with the members of the congregation (sheep).

    The former archbishop of Buenos Aires also encourages the church to open itself to accepting congregations who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT).

    However, Papa Francis’ encouragement was flooded with protests from some members of the church. And it is still an ongoing spiritual battle that has not been fully delivered in Catholic Church.

    Two encyclicals
    Pope Francis, the successor of Apostle Peter, is a humble and modest man. Under his papacy, the highest authority of the Catholic Church has issued four apostolic works, two in the form of encyclicals, namely Lumen Fidei (Light of Faith) and Laudato si’ (Praise Be to You) and two others in the form of apostolic exhortations, namely Evangelii Gaudium (Joy of the Gospel) and Amoris Laetitia (Joy of Love).

    Of the four masterpieces of the Pope, the encyclical Laudato si’ seems to gain most attention globally.

    The encyclical Laudato si’ is an invitation from the Holy Father to human beings to be responsible for the existence of the universe. He begs us human beings not to exploit and torture Mother Nature.

    We should respect nature because it provides plants and cares for us like a mother does for her children. Therefore, caring for the environment or the universe is a calling that needs to be responded to genuinely.

    This apostolic call is timely because the world is experiencing various threats of natural devastation that leads to natural disasters.

    The irresponsible and greedy behaviour of human beings has destroyed the beauty and diversity of the flora and fauna. Other parts of the world have experienced and are experiencing adverse impacts.

    This is also taking place in the Pacific region.

    Sinking cities
    The World Economy Forum (2019) reports that it is estimated there will be eleven cities in the world that will “sink” by 2100. The cities listed include Jakarta (Indonesia), Lagos (Nigeria), Houston (Texas-US), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Virginia Beach (Virginia-US), Bangkok (Thailand), New Orleans (Louisiana-US), Rotterdam (Netherlands), Alexandra (Egypt), and Miami (Florida-US).

    During the visit of the 266th Pope, he addressed the importance of securing and protecting our envirinment.

    During the historic interfaith dialogue held at the Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque on September 5, the 87-year-old Pope said Indonesia was blessed with rainforest and rich in natural resources.

    He indirectly referred to the Land of Papua — internationally known as West Papua. The message was not only addressed to the government of Indonesia, but also to Papua New Guinea.

    The apostolic visit amazed people in Indonesia which is predominantly a Muslim nation. The humbleness and friendliness of Papa Francis touched the hearts of many, not only Christians, but also people with other religious backgrounds.

    Witnessing the presence of the Pope in Jakarta firsthand, we could certainly testify that his presence has brought tremendous joy and will be remembered forever. Those who experienced joy were not only because of the direct encounter.

    Some were inspired when watching the broadcast on the mainstream or social media.

    The Pope humbly made himself available to be greeted by his people and blessed those who approached him. Those who received the greeting from the Holy Father also came from different age groups — starting from babies in the womb, toddlers and teenagers, young people, adults, the elderly and brothers and sisters with disabilities.

    Pope brings inner comfort
    An unforgettable experience of faith that the people of the four nations did not expect, but experienced, was that the presence of the Pope Francis brought inner comfort. It was tremendously significant given the social conditions of Indonesia, PNG and Timor-Leste are troubled politically and psychologically.

    State policies that do not lift the people out of poverty, practices of injustice that are still rampant, corruption that seems endemic and systemic, the seizure of indigenous people’s customary land by giant companies with government permission, and an economic system that brings profits to a handful of people are some of the factors that have caused disturbed the inner peace of the people.

    In Indonesia, soon after the inauguration on October 20 of the elected President and Vice-President, Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the people of Indonesia will welcome the election of governors and deputy governors, regents and deputy regents, mayors and deputy mayors.

    This will include the six provinces in the Land of Papua. The simultaneous regional elections will be held on November 27.

    The public will monitor the process of the regional election. Reflecting on the presidential election which allegedly involved the current President’s “interference”, in the collective memory of democracy lovers there is a possibility of interference from the government that will lead the nation.

    Could that happen? Only time will tell. The task of all elements of society is to jointly maintain the values of honest, honest and open democracy.

    Pope Francis in his book, Let Us Dream, the Path to the Future (2020) wrote:

    “We need a politics that can integrate and dialogue with the poor, the excluded, and the vulnerable that gives people a say in the decisions that impact their lives.”

    Hope for people’s struggles
    This message of Pope Francis has a deep meaning in the current context. What is common everywhere, politicians only make sweet promises or give fake hope to voters so that they are elected.

    After being elected, the winning or elected candidate tends to be far from the people.

    Therefore, a fragment of the Holy Father’s invitation in the book needs to be a shared concern. The written and implied meaning of the fragment above is not far from the democratic values adopted by Indonesia and other Pacific nations.

    Pacific Islanders highly value the views of each person. But lately the noble values that were well-cultivated and inherited by the ancestors are increasingly diminishing.

    Hopefully, the governments will deliver on the real needs and struggles of the people.

    “Our greatest power is not in the respect that others have for us, but the service we can give others,” wrote Pope Francis.

    Laurens Ikinia is a lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Pacific Studies, Indonesian Christian University, Jakarta, and is a member of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN).

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • John Minto: International Court of Justice says BDS against Israel is an obligation on governments

    COMMENTARY: By John Minto

    You could be forgiven if you missed the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion that Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestine is illegal.

    The landmark ruling sank without trace in Aotearoa New Zealand and aside from an anaemic tweet from the Minister of Foreign Affairs has barely caused a ripple in official circles.

    However, the court’s July 19 decision is a watershed in holding Israel to account for its numerous breaches of international law and United Nations resolutions and while western governments prefer to look the other way, this is no longer tenable.

    The ICJ has found not only that Israel’s 57-year occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal but that BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) are an obligation on governments to impose on Israel.

    The wording is unambiguous. The ICJ says:

    “The State of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful [and it] is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence . . .  as rapidly as possible.”

    And goes on to say:

    “All States are under an obligation not to recognise as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the [Occupied Palestinian Territory] and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

    NZ government must reevaluate
    Not rendering “aid or assistance” to Israel to continue its illegal occupation means the New Zealand government must re-evaluate its entire relationship with Israel.

    For a start government investments in companies profiting from Israel’s illegal occupation must be withdrawn; imports or procurement of services from companies in the illegally-occupied Palestinian territories must be stopped and visas for young Israelis coming to New Zealand after serving in support of Israel’s illegal occupation must cease.

    A host of other government policies to impose BDS sanctions against Israel must follow — the type of sanctions we imposed against Russia for its invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine.

    This ICJ ruling comes as western governments such as New Zealand shamefully provide political cover for Israel’s illegal occupation and wholesale slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Most of the victims are women and children.

    By April Israel had dropped over 70,000 tonnes of bombs on Gaza, surpassing the bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined during World War II, in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

    Israel has killed the equivalent of all the children in more than 100 average sized New Zealand primary schools and yet our Prime Minister has refused to condemn this slaughter, refused to call for an immediate, permanent ceasefire or join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

    Our Prime Minister describes the situation in Gaza as catastrophic but refuses to utter a single word of condemnation of Israel. Mr Luxon has replaced principled political action with bluff and bluster.

    Widening chasm with international law
    The gap between what our government does and what international law demands is a widening chasm.

    Gaza exists as an illegally occupied and densely populated area because Israeli militias conducted a massive ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from 1947 to 1949 to artificially create a majority Jewish state on Palestinian land.

    Eighty percent of Gazans are descendants of the victims of this ethnic cleansing.

    Under cover of its war on Gaza, Israel’s ethnic cleansing continues today in the occupied West Bank. Illegal Israeli settlers, with the backing of Israeli Occupation Forces are driving Palestinians off their land.

    Numerous Palestinian towns and rural communities have been attacked in pogroms with arson, looting and killing leaving “depopulated” areas behind for Israel to settle.

    There are now more than 700,000 illegal Israeli settlers in more than 200 settlements and settlement outposts on Palestinian land in the occupied territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

    700,000 settlers declared illegal
    It is these settlers and settlements the International Court of Justice has declared illegal.

    As well as responsibilities on individual states to end support for Israel’s illegal occupation, the ICJ ruling says the world should take collective action requesting “The UN, and especially the General Assembly . . .  and the Security Council, should consider the precise modalities and further action required to bring to an end as rapidly as possible the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

    New Zealand must regain its moral courage and become a leader in helping end the longest-running military occupation in modern history.

    John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Rightwing astroturfers infiltrate Australian local councils, fire up unrest over Israel

    With similar Israel divestment motions having been passed at City of Sydney and Canterbury/Bankstown Councils, many had expected the motion to pass in what is supposed to be one of the most progressive areas of Sydney. Wendy Bacon reports on what went wrong.

    INVESTIGATION: By Wendy Bacon

    Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the West Bank is tearing apart local councils in Australia, on top of the angst reverberating around state and federal politics.

    Inner West Labor Mayor Darcy Byrne has doubled down on his attack on pro-Palestinian activists at the council’s last election meeting before Australia’s local government elections on September 14.

    ‘Byrne’s attack echoes an astro-turfing campaign supported by rightwing and pro-Israel groups targeting the Greens in inner city electorates.’

    • READ MORE: Other articles by Wendy Bacon

    With Labor narrowly controlling the council by one vote, the election loomed large over the meeting. It also coincided with a campaign backed by rightwing pro-Israeli groups to eliminate Greens from several inner Sydney councils.

    In August, Labor councillors voted down a motion for an audit of whether any Inner West Council (IWC) investments or contracts benefit companies involved in the weapons industry or profit from human rights violations in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

    The motion that was defeated had also called for an insertion of a general “human rights” provision in council’s investment policy.

    With similar motions having been passed at City of Sydney and Canterbury/Bankstown councils, many had expected the motion to pass in what is supposed to be one of the most progressive areas of Sydney.

    It could have been a first step towards the Inner West Council joining the worldwide BDS (boycotts, disinvestments and economic sanctions) campaign to pressure Israel to meet its obligations under international law.

    MWM sources attest that the ructions at Inner West Council are mirrored elsewhere in local government. This from Randwick in Sydney’s East:

    Randwick Council
    Randwick Council: MWM source

    Global to grassroots
    Last week, Portland Council in Maine became the fifth United States city to join the campaign this year, while the City of Ixelles in Belgium announced that it had suspended its twinning agreement with the Regional Council of Megiddo in Israel.

    When the Inner West motion failed, some Palestinian rights campaigners booed and shouted “shame” at Labor councillors as they sat silently in the chamber. The meeting, which had nearly reached its time limit of five hours, was then adjourned.

    Byrne’s alternative motion was debated at last week’s meeting. It restates council’s existing policy and Federal Labor’s current stance that calls for a ceasefire and a two-state solution.

    This alternative motion was passed by Labor councillors, with the Greens and two Independents voting against it. Both Independent Councillor Pauline Lockie and Greens Councillor Liz Atkins argued that they were opposing the motion because it did not do or change anything.

    The Mayor spent most of his speaking time attacking those involved with protesting at the August meeting. He described their behaviour as  “unacceptable, undemocratic and disrespectful”. There is no doubt that the behaviour at the meeting breached the rules of meeting behaviour at some times.

    But then Byrne made a much more shocking and unexpected allegation. He said that the “worst element” of the behaviour was that “local Inner West citizens who happened to have a Jewish sounding name, when their names were read out by me because they’d registered . . . to speak, I think all of them were booed and hissed just because their names happened to sound Jewish.”

    News Corp propaganda
    This claim is deeply disturbing. If true, such behaviour would definitely be anti-semitic and racist. But the question is: did such behaviour actually happen? Or does this allegation feed into Byrne’s misleading narrative that had fuelled false News Corporation reports that protesters stormed the meeting?

    In fact, the protesters had been invited to the meeting by the Mayor.

    This reporter was present throughout the meeting and did not observe anything similar to what the Mayor alleged had happened.

    Later in the meeting, the Mayor repeated the allegation that the “booing and hissing of people” based “on the fact that they had a Jewish sounding name constituted anti-semitism”.

    Retiring Independent Councillor Pauline Locker intervened: “Sorry, point of order, That isn’t actually what happened. . . . It wasn’t based on their Jewish name.”

    But Bryne insisted, “That’s not a point of order — that is what happened. It is what the record shows occurred as does the media reportage.”

    Other councillors also distanced themselves from Byrne’s allegation. Independent Councillor John Stamolis also said that although he could not judge how the Mayor or other Labor councillors felt on the evening, he could not agree with Byrne’s description or that it described what other councillors or members of the public experienced on the evening.

    Greens Councillor Liz Atkins said that there were different perceptions of what happened on the night. Her perception was that the “booing and hissing” was in relation to support for the substance of the Greens motion for an audit of investments rather than an attack on people who spoke against it.

    She also said that credit should be given to pro- Palestinian activists who themselves encouraged people to listen quietly.

    Fake antisemitism claims
    Your reporter asked Rosanna Barbero, who also was present throughout the meeting, what she observed. Barbero was the recipient of this year’s Multicultural NSW Human Rights Medal, recognising her lasting and meaningful contribution to human rights in NSW.

    She is also a member of the Inner West Multicultural Network that has helped council develop an anti-racism strategy.

    “I did not witness any racist comments,” said Barbero.

    Barbero confirmed that she was present throughout the meeting and said: “I did not witness any racist comments. The meeting was recorded so the evidence of that is easy to verify.”

    So this reporter, in a story for City Hub, took her advice and went to the evidence in the webcast, which provides a public record of what occurred. The soundtrack is clear. A listener can pick up when comments are made by audience members but not necessarily the content of them.

    Bryne has alleged speakers against the motion were booed when their “Jewish sounding’ names were announced. Our analysis shows none of the five were booed or abused in any way when their names were announced.

    There was, in fact, silence.

    Five speakers identified themselves as Jewish. Four spoke against the motion, and one in favour.

    Two of the five were heard in complete silence, one with some small applause at the end.

    One woman who spoke in favour of the motion and whose grandparents were in the Holocaust was applauded and cheered at the end of her speech.

    One man was interrupted by several comments from the gallery when he said the motion was based on “propaganda and disinformation” and would lead to a lack of social cohesion. He related experiences of anti-semitism when he was at school in the Inner West 14 years ago.

    At the conclusion of his speech, there were some boos.

    One man who had not successfully registered was added to the speakers list by the Mayor. Some people in the public gallery objected to this decision. The Mayor adjourned the meeting for three minutes and the speaker was then heard in silence.

    The speakers in favour of the motion, most of whom had Palestinian backgrounds and relatives who had suffered expulsion from their homelands, concentrated on the war crimes against Palestinians and the importance of BDS motions. There were no personal attacks on speakers against the motion.

    In response to a Jewish speaker who had argued that the solution was peace initiatives, one Palestinian speaker said that he wanted “liberation”, not “peace”.

    Weaponising accusations of anti-semitism to shut down debate
    Independent Inner West Councillor Pauline Lockie warned other councillors this week about the need to be careful about weaponising accusations of race and anti-semitism to shut down debates. Like Barbero, Lockie has played a leadership role in developing anti-racism strategies for the Inner West.

    There are three serious concerns about Byrne’s allegations. The first concern is that they are not verified by the public record. This raises questions about the Mayor’s judgement and credibility.

    The second is that making unsubstantiated allegations of antisemitism for the tactical purposes of winning a political argument demeans the seriousness and tragedy of anti-semitism.

    Thirdly, there is a concern that spreading unsubstantiated allegations of anti-semitism could cause harm by spreading fear and anxiety in the Jewish community.

    Controversial Christian minister
    The most provocative speaker on the evening was not one of those who identified themselves as Jewish. It was Reverend Mark Leach, who introduced himself as an Anglican minister from Balmain. When he said that no one could reasonably apply the word “genocide” to what was occurring in Gaza, several people called out his comments.

    Given the ICJ finding that a plausible genocide is occurring in Gaza, this was not surprising.

    Darcy Byrne then stopped the meeting and gave Reverend Leach a small amount of further time to speak. Later in his speech, Reverend Leach described the motion itself as “deeply racist” because it held Israel accountable above all other states.

    Boos for Leach
    In fact, the motion would have added a general human rights provision to the investment policy which would have applied to any country. Reverend Leach was booed at the conclusion of his speech.

    One speaker later said that she could not understand how this Christian minister would not accept that the word “genocide” could be used. This was not an anti-semitic or racist comment.

    Throughout the debate, Byrne avoided the issue that the motion only called for an audit.

    He also used his position of chair to directly question councillors. The following exchange occurred with Councillor Liz Atkins:

    Mayor: Councilor Atkins, can I put to you a question? I have received advice that councillor officers are unaware of any investment from council that is complicit in the Israeli military operations in Gaza and the Palestinian territories. Are you aware of any?

    Atkins:  No. That’s why the motion asked for an audit of our investments and procurements.

    Mayor:  I’ll put one further question to you. The organisers of the protest outside the chamber and the subsequent overrunning of the council chamber asserted in their promotion of the event that the council was complicit in genocide. Is that your view?

    Atkins:  I don’t know. Until we do an audit, Mayor . . . Can I just take exception with the point of view that they “overran” the meeting? You invited them all in, and not one of them tried to get past a simple rope barrier.

    Byrne says it’s immoral to support a one-party state
    During the debate, Byrne surprisingly described support for a one-state solution for Israel and Palestinians as “immoral”. He described support for “one state” as meaning you either supported the wiping out of the Palestinians or the Israelis.

    In fact, there is a long history of citizens, scholars and other commentators who have argued that one secular state of equal citizens is the only viable solution.

    Many, including the Australian government, do not agree. Nevertheless, the award-winning journalist and expert on the Middle East, Antony Loewenstein, argued that position in The Sydney Morning Herald in November 2023.

    Mayor in tune with Better Council Inc campaign
    All of this debate is happening in the context of the hotly contested election campaign. The Mayor is understandably preoccupied with the impending poll. Rather than debating the issues, he finished the debate by launching an attack on the Greens, which sounded more like an election speech than a speech in reply in support of his motion.

    Byrne said: “Some councillors are unwilling to condemn what was overt anti-Semitism”.

    This is a heavy accusation. All councillors are strongly opposed to anti-semitism. The record does not show any overt anti-semitism.

    Byrne went on: “But the more troubling thing is that there’s a large number of candidates running at this election who, if elected, will be making foreign affairs and this particular issue one of the central concerns of this council.

    “This will result in a distraction with services going backwards and rates going up.”

    In fact, the record shows that the Greens are just as focused on local issues as any other councillors. Even at last week’s meeting, Councillor Liz Atkins brought forward a motion about controversial moves to install a temporary cafe at Camperdown Park that would privatise public space and for which there had been no consultation.

    Labor v Greens
    Byrne’s message pitting concern about broader issues against local concerns is in tune with the messaging of a recently formed group called Better Council Inc. that is targeting the Greens throughout the Inner West and in Randwick and Waverley.

    Placards saying “Put the Greens last”, “Keep the Greens Garbage out of Council” featuring a number of Greens candidates have gone up across Sydney. Some claim that the Greens are fixated on Gaza and ignore local issues.

    Better Inc.’s material is authorised by Sophie Calland. She is a recently graduated computer engineer who told the Daily Telegraph that “she was a Labor member and that Better Council involves people from across the political aisle — even some former Greens.”

    She described the group as a “grassroots group of young professionals” who wanted local government officials to focus on local issues.

    “We believe local councils should concentrate on essential community services like waste management, local infrastructure, and the environment. That’s what councils are there for — looking after the needs of their immediate communities.”

    On Saturday, Randwick Greens Councillor Kym Chapple was at a pre-poll booth at which a Better Council Inc. campaigner was handing out material specifically recommending that voters put her last.

    Chapple tweeted that the Better councilwoman didn’t actually know that she was a councillor or any of the local issues in which she had been involved.

    “That does not look like a local grassroots campaign. It’s an attempt to intimidate people who support a free Palestine. Anyway, it feels gross to have someone say to put you last because they care about the environment and local issues when that’s literally what you have done for three years.”

    She then tweeted a long list of her local campaign successes.

    Never Again is Now astroturf campaign
    In fact, the actual work of distributing the leaflets is being done by a group spearheaded by none other than Reverend Mark Leach, who spoke at the Inner West Council meeting. Leach is one of the coordinators of the pro-Israel right-wing Christian group Never Again is Now.

    The group is organising rallies around Australia to campaign against anti-semitism.

    Reverend Mark Leach works closely with his daughter Freya Leach, who stood for the Liberal Party for the seat of Balmain in the 2023 state election and is associated with the rightwing Menzies Institute. Mark Leach describes himself as “working to renew the mind and heart of our culture against the backdrop of the radical left, Jihadist Islam and rising authoritarianism.

    Leach’s own Twitter account shows that he embraces a range of rightwing causes. He is anti-trans, supports anti-immigration campaigners in the UK and has posted a jolly video of himself with Warren Mundine at a pro-Israeli rally in Melbourne.

    Mundine was a No campaign spokesperson for the rightwing group Advance Australia during the Voice referendum.

    Leach supports the Christian Lobby and is very critical of Christians who are campaigning for peace.

    Anti-semitism exists. The problem is that Reverend Leach’s version of anti-semitism is what international law and human rights bodies regard as protesting against genocidal war crimes.

    For #NeverAgainisNow, these atrocities are excusable for a state that is pursuing its right of “self-defence”. And if you don’t agree with that, don’t be surprised if you find yourself branded as not just “anti-semitic” but also a bullying extremist.

    As of one week before the local government election, the Never Again is Now was holding a Zoom meeting to organise 400 volunteers to get 50,000 leaflets into the hands of voters at next Saturday’s local election.

    This may well be just a dress rehearsal for a much bigger effort at the Federal election, where Advance Australia has announced it is planning to target the Greens.

    Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at UTS. She has worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is not a member of any political party but is a Greens supporter and long-term supporter of peaceful BDS strategies. Republished from Michael West Media with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Rightwing astroturfers infiltrate Australian local councils, fire up unrest over Israel

    With similar Israel divestment motions having been passed at City of Sydney and Canterbury/Bankstown Councils, many had expected the motion to pass in what is supposed to be one of the most progressive areas of Sydney. Wendy Bacon reports on what went wrong.

    INVESTIGATION: By Wendy Bacon

    Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the West Bank is tearing apart local councils in Australia, on top of the angst reverberating around state and federal politics.

    Inner West Labor Mayor Darcy Byrne has doubled down on his attack on pro-Palestinian activists at the council’s last election meeting before Australia’s local government elections on September 14.

    ‘Byrne’s attack echoes an astro-turfing campaign supported by rightwing and pro-Israel groups targeting the Greens in inner city electorates.’

    • READ MORE: Other articles by Wendy Bacon

    With Labor narrowly controlling the council by one vote, the election loomed large over the meeting. It also coincided with a campaign backed by rightwing pro-Israeli groups to eliminate Greens from several inner Sydney councils.

    In August, Labor councillors voted down a motion for an audit of whether any Inner West Council (IWC) investments or contracts benefit companies involved in the weapons industry or profit from human rights violations in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

    The motion that was defeated had also called for an insertion of a general “human rights” provision in council’s investment policy.

    With similar motions having been passed at City of Sydney and Canterbury/Bankstown councils, many had expected the motion to pass in what is supposed to be one of the most progressive areas of Sydney.

    It could have been a first step towards the Inner West Council joining the worldwide BDS (boycotts, disinvestments and economic sanctions) campaign to pressure Israel to meet its obligations under international law.

    MWM sources attest that the ructions at Inner West Council are mirrored elsewhere in local government. This from Randwick in Sydney’s East:

    Randwick Council
    Randwick Council: MWM source

    Global to grassroots
    Last week, Portland Council in Maine became the fifth United States city to join the campaign this year, while the City of Ixelles in Belgium announced that it had suspended its twinning agreement with the Regional Council of Megiddo in Israel.

    When the Inner West motion failed, some Palestinian rights campaigners booed and shouted “shame” at Labor councillors as they sat silently in the chamber. The meeting, which had nearly reached its time limit of five hours, was then adjourned.

    Byrne’s alternative motion was debated at last week’s meeting. It restates council’s existing policy and Federal Labor’s current stance that calls for a ceasefire and a two-state solution.

    This alternative motion was passed by Labor councillors, with the Greens and two Independents voting against it. Both Independent Councillor Pauline Lockie and Greens Councillor Liz Atkins argued that they were opposing the motion because it did not do or change anything.

    The Mayor spent most of his speaking time attacking those involved with protesting at the August meeting. He described their behaviour as  “unacceptable, undemocratic and disrespectful”. There is no doubt that the behaviour at the meeting breached the rules of meeting behaviour at some times.

    But then Byrne made a much more shocking and unexpected allegation. He said that the “worst element” of the behaviour was that “local Inner West citizens who happened to have a Jewish sounding name, when their names were read out by me because they’d registered . . . to speak, I think all of them were booed and hissed just because their names happened to sound Jewish.”

    News Corp propaganda
    This claim is deeply disturbing. If true, such behaviour would definitely be anti-semitic and racist. But the question is: did such behaviour actually happen? Or does this allegation feed into Byrne’s misleading narrative that had fuelled false News Corporation reports that protesters stormed the meeting?

    In fact, the protesters had been invited to the meeting by the Mayor.

    This reporter was present throughout the meeting and did not observe anything similar to what the Mayor alleged had happened.

    Later in the meeting, the Mayor repeated the allegation that the “booing and hissing of people” based “on the fact that they had a Jewish sounding name constituted anti-semitism”.

    Retiring Independent Councillor Pauline Locker intervened: “Sorry, point of order, That isn’t actually what happened. . . . It wasn’t based on their Jewish name.”

    But Bryne insisted, “That’s not a point of order — that is what happened. It is what the record shows occurred as does the media reportage.”

    Other councillors also distanced themselves from Byrne’s allegation. Independent Councillor John Stamolis also said that although he could not judge how the Mayor or other Labor councillors felt on the evening, he could not agree with Byrne’s description or that it described what other councillors or members of the public experienced on the evening.

    Greens Councillor Liz Atkins said that there were different perceptions of what happened on the night. Her perception was that the “booing and hissing” was in relation to support for the substance of the Greens motion for an audit of investments rather than an attack on people who spoke against it.

    She also said that credit should be given to pro- Palestinian activists who themselves encouraged people to listen quietly.

    Fake antisemitism claims
    Your reporter asked Rosanna Barbero, who also was present throughout the meeting, what she observed. Barbero was the recipient of this year’s Multicultural NSW Human Rights Medal, recognising her lasting and meaningful contribution to human rights in NSW.

    She is also a member of the Inner West Multicultural Network that has helped council develop an anti-racism strategy.

    “I did not witness any racist comments,” said Barbero.

    Barbero confirmed that she was present throughout the meeting and said: “I did not witness any racist comments. The meeting was recorded so the evidence of that is easy to verify.”

    So this reporter, in a story for City Hub, took her advice and went to the evidence in the webcast, which provides a public record of what occurred. The soundtrack is clear. A listener can pick up when comments are made by audience members but not necessarily the content of them.

    Bryne has alleged speakers against the motion were booed when their “Jewish sounding’ names were announced. Our analysis shows none of the five were booed or abused in any way when their names were announced.

    There was, in fact, silence.

    Five speakers identified themselves as Jewish. Four spoke against the motion, and one in favour.

    Two of the five were heard in complete silence, one with some small applause at the end.

    One woman who spoke in favour of the motion and whose grandparents were in the Holocaust was applauded and cheered at the end of her speech.

    One man was interrupted by several comments from the gallery when he said the motion was based on “propaganda and disinformation” and would lead to a lack of social cohesion. He related experiences of anti-semitism when he was at school in the Inner West 14 years ago.

    At the conclusion of his speech, there were some boos.

    One man who had not successfully registered was added to the speakers list by the Mayor. Some people in the public gallery objected to this decision. The Mayor adjourned the meeting for three minutes and the speaker was then heard in silence.

    The speakers in favour of the motion, most of whom had Palestinian backgrounds and relatives who had suffered expulsion from their homelands, concentrated on the war crimes against Palestinians and the importance of BDS motions. There were no personal attacks on speakers against the motion.

    In response to a Jewish speaker who had argued that the solution was peace initiatives, one Palestinian speaker said that he wanted “liberation”, not “peace”.

    Weaponising accusations of anti-semitism to shut down debate
    Independent Inner West Councillor Pauline Lockie warned other councillors this week about the need to be careful about weaponising accusations of race and anti-semitism to shut down debates. Like Barbero, Lockie has played a leadership role in developing anti-racism strategies for the Inner West.

    There are three serious concerns about Byrne’s allegations. The first concern is that they are not verified by the public record. This raises questions about the Mayor’s judgement and credibility.

    The second is that making unsubstantiated allegations of antisemitism for the tactical purposes of winning a political argument demeans the seriousness and tragedy of anti-semitism.

    Thirdly, there is a concern that spreading unsubstantiated allegations of anti-semitism could cause harm by spreading fear and anxiety in the Jewish community.

    Controversial Christian minister
    The most provocative speaker on the evening was not one of those who identified themselves as Jewish. It was Reverend Mark Leach, who introduced himself as an Anglican minister from Balmain. When he said that no one could reasonably apply the word “genocide” to what was occurring in Gaza, several people called out his comments.

    Given the ICJ finding that a plausible genocide is occurring in Gaza, this was not surprising.

    Darcy Byrne then stopped the meeting and gave Reverend Leach a small amount of further time to speak. Later in his speech, Reverend Leach described the motion itself as “deeply racist” because it held Israel accountable above all other states.

    Boos for Leach
    In fact, the motion would have added a general human rights provision to the investment policy which would have applied to any country. Reverend Leach was booed at the conclusion of his speech.

    One speaker later said that she could not understand how this Christian minister would not accept that the word “genocide” could be used. This was not an anti-semitic or racist comment.

    Throughout the debate, Byrne avoided the issue that the motion only called for an audit.

    He also used his position of chair to directly question councillors. The following exchange occurred with Councillor Liz Atkins:

    Mayor: Councilor Atkins, can I put to you a question? I have received advice that councillor officers are unaware of any investment from council that is complicit in the Israeli military operations in Gaza and the Palestinian territories. Are you aware of any?

    Atkins:  No. That’s why the motion asked for an audit of our investments and procurements.

    Mayor:  I’ll put one further question to you. The organisers of the protest outside the chamber and the subsequent overrunning of the council chamber asserted in their promotion of the event that the council was complicit in genocide. Is that your view?

    Atkins:  I don’t know. Until we do an audit, Mayor . . . Can I just take exception with the point of view that they “overran” the meeting? You invited them all in, and not one of them tried to get past a simple rope barrier.

    Byrne says it’s immoral to support a one-party state
    During the debate, Byrne surprisingly described support for a one-state solution for Israel and Palestinians as “immoral”. He described support for “one state” as meaning you either supported the wiping out of the Palestinians or the Israelis.

    In fact, there is a long history of citizens, scholars and other commentators who have argued that one secular state of equal citizens is the only viable solution.

    Many, including the Australian government, do not agree. Nevertheless, the award-winning journalist and expert on the Middle East, Antony Loewenstein, argued that position in The Sydney Morning Herald in November 2023.

    Mayor in tune with Better Council Inc campaign
    All of this debate is happening in the context of the hotly contested election campaign. The Mayor is understandably preoccupied with the impending poll. Rather than debating the issues, he finished the debate by launching an attack on the Greens, which sounded more like an election speech than a speech in reply in support of his motion.

    Byrne said: “Some councillors are unwilling to condemn what was overt anti-Semitism”.

    This is a heavy accusation. All councillors are strongly opposed to anti-semitism. The record does not show any overt anti-semitism.

    Byrne went on: “But the more troubling thing is that there’s a large number of candidates running at this election who, if elected, will be making foreign affairs and this particular issue one of the central concerns of this council.

    “This will result in a distraction with services going backwards and rates going up.”

    In fact, the record shows that the Greens are just as focused on local issues as any other councillors. Even at last week’s meeting, Councillor Liz Atkins brought forward a motion about controversial moves to install a temporary cafe at Camperdown Park that would privatise public space and for which there had been no consultation.

    Labor v Greens
    Byrne’s message pitting concern about broader issues against local concerns is in tune with the messaging of a recently formed group called Better Council Inc. that is targeting the Greens throughout the Inner West and in Randwick and Waverley.

    Placards saying “Put the Greens last”, “Keep the Greens Garbage out of Council” featuring a number of Greens candidates have gone up across Sydney. Some claim that the Greens are fixated on Gaza and ignore local issues.

    Better Inc.’s material is authorised by Sophie Calland. She is a recently graduated computer engineer who told the Daily Telegraph that “she was a Labor member and that Better Council involves people from across the political aisle — even some former Greens.”

    She described the group as a “grassroots group of young professionals” who wanted local government officials to focus on local issues.

    “We believe local councils should concentrate on essential community services like waste management, local infrastructure, and the environment. That’s what councils are there for — looking after the needs of their immediate communities.”

    On Saturday, Randwick Greens Councillor Kym Chapple was at a pre-poll booth at which a Better Council Inc. campaigner was handing out material specifically recommending that voters put her last.

    Chapple tweeted that the Better councilwoman didn’t actually know that she was a councillor or any of the local issues in which she had been involved.

    “That does not look like a local grassroots campaign. It’s an attempt to intimidate people who support a free Palestine. Anyway, it feels gross to have someone say to put you last because they care about the environment and local issues when that’s literally what you have done for three years.”

    She then tweeted a long list of her local campaign successes.

    Never Again is Now astroturf campaign
    In fact, the actual work of distributing the leaflets is being done by a group spearheaded by none other than Reverend Mark Leach, who spoke at the Inner West Council meeting. Leach is one of the coordinators of the pro-Israel right-wing Christian group Never Again is Now.

    The group is organising rallies around Australia to campaign against anti-semitism.

    Reverend Mark Leach works closely with his daughter Freya Leach, who stood for the Liberal Party for the seat of Balmain in the 2023 state election and is associated with the rightwing Menzies Institute. Mark Leach describes himself as “working to renew the mind and heart of our culture against the backdrop of the radical left, Jihadist Islam and rising authoritarianism.

    Leach’s own Twitter account shows that he embraces a range of rightwing causes. He is anti-trans, supports anti-immigration campaigners in the UK and has posted a jolly video of himself with Warren Mundine at a pro-Israeli rally in Melbourne.

    Mundine was a No campaign spokesperson for the rightwing group Advance Australia during the Voice referendum.

    Leach supports the Christian Lobby and is very critical of Christians who are campaigning for peace.

    Anti-semitism exists. The problem is that Reverend Leach’s version of anti-semitism is what international law and human rights bodies regard as protesting against genocidal war crimes.

    For #NeverAgainisNow, these atrocities are excusable for a state that is pursuing its right of “self-defence”. And if you don’t agree with that, don’t be surprised if you find yourself branded as not just “anti-semitic” but also a bullying extremist.

    As of one week before the local government election, the Never Again is Now was holding a Zoom meeting to organise 400 volunteers to get 50,000 leaflets into the hands of voters at next Saturday’s local election.

    This may well be just a dress rehearsal for a much bigger effort at the Federal election, where Advance Australia has announced it is planning to target the Greens.

    Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at UTS. She has worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism. She is not a member of any political party but is a Greens supporter and long-term supporter of peaceful BDS strategies. Republished from Michael West Media with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Student pressure forces Victoria University Foundation to divest from Israeli bonds

    Student Justice for Palestine Pōneke

    After almost a year of consistent pressure from the student body, the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) Foundation has announced its divestment from all Israeli government bonds and shares of companies listed in Israel.

    The foundation had previously reported having close to $50,000 invested in Israeli government bonds, which finance the apartheid state’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    The news of divestment came through some weeks after Student Justice for Palestine Pōneke (SJPP) conducted an unannounced sit-in at the Hunter Building, where the vice-hancellor’s office is located.

    Two weeks prior to that action, the Kelburn campus was adorned with spray-painted messages by activists calling for the university to divest from genocide.

    Pressure on the VUW leadership and the foundation to disclose and divest, which has been ramping up over the last year, has come from multiple campus groups. These include SJPP, VUW Student Association (VUWSA), Ngāi Tauira, VicMuslims Club and Uni Workers for Palestine.

    “This is a big, collective win; undoubtedly the work of numerous individuals and groups that have remained consistent in their activism for Palestine,” said Frank Mackenzie, an organiser at SJPP.

    “This is student power, pushing to hold these academic institutions and leaders to account, so that we are not complicit in these settler colonial, genocidal regimes.

    “And yet — divestment is the very least the university can do. It is only the first step.

    “The foundation and university leaders must now institutionalise a commitment to divesting from human rights violators. We can’t leave the door open for leadership to walk back this win.

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Te Aka Tauira – VUWSA (@vuwsagram)

    “The only way to ensure that is to implement a full, financial and academic Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) policy against Israel. We also need ongoing proactive disclosure of all investments so the university and foundation can be held accountable” .

    Marcail Parkinson, president of VUWSA, said: “As the only student on the university’s foundation board I am incredibly encouraged by the foundation’s move to stop supporting genocide and divest from Israeli government bonds.

    “This victory reflects the power of collective student action. This moment demonstrates the profound influence students can have in shaping the future of our institution.

    “I am deeply proud of what we’ve achieved, and I hope students continue to push for change.”

    An open letter by SJPP calling for divestment, BDS policy and scholarships for Palestinian students was signed by 1400 people. The university has not formally responded to the letter.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Loving Liz: Confessions Of A Monarchist Republican

    On the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s death, Dr Alex Vickery-Howe wonders if the monarchy can be restructured into a democratic model that genuinely protects our common wealth, in the midst of the global climate crisis.

    I’m in love with the Queen.

    That’s the running joke among my friends. It started when I was in my early 20s and I defended Her Majesty because she was often – unkindly, I thought – compared to her sister. I needn’t have bothered, as Prince Philip had plenty to say about that comparison. According to the Daily Mirror’s royal correspondent, James Whitaker: “When Philip’s cousin Patricia Mountbatten remarked on Elizabeth’s flawless complexion, the prince joked: Yes, and she’s like that all over.”

    Mic drop. Awkward cough.

    As news reached Aussieland of Elizabeth II’s passing, I got plenty of texts from friends with joking commiserations… even as I’m typing this, my friend Stevie has just popped up on my phone with a pic of him standing next to a poster of the Queen displayed in what looks to be a shopping centre. I’m 43 now. This gag has been going on for a while.

    The death of Elizabeth II did hit me, though. That’s the bizarre thing. When it was announced, I wrestled with conflicting feelings and tried to work out why I was so defensive of someone I’ve never met and who is part of a system I’ve always found anachronistic, at best… or, at worst, elitist and exploitative.

    Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott. (IMAGE: RubyGoes, Flickr)

    I laughed when Tony Abbott decided to knight a prince. I poke fun at the way my city of Adelaide is obsessed with where people went to school, as if that is an indicative marker of one’s intelligence, achievement or character. I can’t stand any hierarchy that isn’t based exclusively on merit. But there I was valorising a sovereign. Why was I so compelled to present her life on balance?

    It’s largely the cheap partisanship that puts me off. The vitriol online from the always tolerant, always virtuous, always ‘caring’ left was nothing short of pathetic. It was the same when Prince Philip died in April 2021, after battling multiple illnesses. I say this as someone who identifies with the left – most of the time – and who votes for the Australian Greens, even when they’re prats. Ethically, I could not abide the opportunistic comments from Adam Bandt, turning a message of condolence into a shameless and dehumanising PR grab. Tactically, too, it just wasn’t politically shrewd. I miss Bob Brown.

    I also found myself blocking The Chaser on Twitter for confusing cruelty with comedy. One friend texted to say the Queen was “a piece of work” but couldn’t actually support that comment with anything other than… well, lots of people were saying it, so you’ve gotta join the herd, right?

    The celebration of a death always strikes me as vulturish, but it felt particularly mean-spirited and poorly researched when the Queen passed. I’m not actually a monarchist… am I? Sure, I did think the audience with Paddington was cute, and the drone show of the Corgi in the sky was… is it acceptable to say “moving”? Is that what I really think? Who the heck have I withered into? And who can I blame?

    My grandmother, Mavis Jean Barker, used to cut out pictures of the royals and frame them in her kitchen. She tried, many times, over strong tea and those old coffee scroll biscuits with pink lolly centres, to impress upon the very young but already quite stubborn me that the monarchy was all for the common good. I didn’t believe her. I still don’t. It became a regular debate whenever she was babysitting and I’m grateful to her for fostering a formative interest in government and politics, even if I took a left turn.

    Memories of those early evenings are very sharp. I can picture Mavis (I called her “Gaga” before some ridiculous singer laid claim to that title) in her exquisitely handmade floral dresses, hair set in what I now suspect was a style inspired by the Queen herself, making her case again and again. Barracking for a John Hewson victory. Ironing her Australian flags. Using placemats to explain the Westminster system.

    Queen Elizabeth II meets former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss. (IMAGE: Supplied)

    The final public appearance of Queen Elizabeth II – a tiny and fragile woman at the end – smiling as she met with almost-Prime Minster Liz Truss, has somehow blended with my lasting impressions of Gaga. The Queen was terminally ill and performing cheerfulness through that knowledge. She did her duty. There is undeniable nobility in that gesture and that is a nobility removed from, and superseding, all the snooty trappings of royalty.

    Whether one embraces her role or derides it, Elizabeth II did the job she was given, and she did it impeccably to the very end. There is something in the bravery, the stoicism, the clarity and the sense of purpose of my grandmother’s generation that I cannot help but be swayed by. Yes, it’s a cliché, and it ages me, but there’s truth to many older perspectives. That’s probably why all the joyous memes and glib one-liners making fun of the Queen’s death leave me cold.

    One of the first iconic images of the Queen is from her 21st birthday, 1947, where an almost shockingly young version of Elizabeth II made the vow that she would follow until, literally, her dying day:

    “I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”

    For many – and I count myself among this group – it is a devotion to a questionable cause and one which carries layers of complexity; nevertheless, her steadfast commitment, and her journey from that idealistic young woman in scratchy black and white footage to elder monarch with bruised hands, supported by a cane, smiling through her ailments, is a journey for which few would have the stomach. It’s a life spent in a gilded cage.

    The official portrait of King Charles III. (IMAGE: Supplied)

    Much has been made of the monarchy as an apolitical institution, brought into sharp relief by the outspoken environmental activism of Prince Charles who has curtailed the most endearing traits of his personal character to become the constitutionally neutral King Charles III. Despite these formal expectations, Queen Elizabeth had her ways of making her politics known and, when she did, it was – paradoxically, some may argue – to further progressive causes.

    Elizabeth’s public dance with then-President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in 1961 was, as described by Meriem Amellal Lalmas, “extremely avant-garde”. In the combustible social context of the 1960s, this was hardly an apolitical act, and hardly accidental.

    Similarly, in 1998, the Queen drove Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah around Balmoral. As recounted by Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, then ambassador to Saudi Arabia, she wasn’t gentle about it either. She took roads at speed and delivered an unambiguous message:

    “His nervousness only increased as the Queen, an Army driver in wartime, accelerated the Land Rover along the narrow Scottish estate roads, talking all the time. Through his interpreter, the Crown Prince implored the Queen to slow down and concentrate on the road ahead.”

    In the prince’s home country, women weren’t permitted to drive until 2018. Clearly, the young Queen had feelings about that. Backward? Apolitical? That’s a very, very flimsy argument.

    Elizabeth II was indeed a mechanic during the Second World War. Her father, King George VI, was adamant that the young princess forge her career in the military, without privilege. The young Princess Elizabeth became a Junior Commander under her own steam, a role comparable to a Captain in the US military.

    Speaking of the US, having directly participated in the global struggle against fascism, one wonders how the Queen felt when duty-bound to meet far-right president and committed douchebag Donald Trump. Her choice of flower brooch – a gift from Barack and Michelle Obama – may be interpreted as a simple acknowledgement of the longstanding military and cultural partnership between the US and the UK… if you squint. But for everyone around the world who appreciates Trump’s notoriously thin skin, the Queen’s chosen accessory read as a more deliberate, more pointed, statement. As power moves go, it was the semiotic equivalent of an F-bomb.

    US president Donald Trump meets with Queen Elizabeth II in June 2019.

    Her clashes with right-wing politicians became a hallmark of her reign, despite official denials. When Margaret Thatcher refused to place sanctions on the Apartheid regime in South Africa, inclined to frame Nelson Mandela as ‘disappointing’ and the African National Congress as a ‘typical terrorist organisation’, the explosive 1986 article in The Sunday Times and, more recently, the fourth season of The Crown (2016-present) depicted a war of wills between the two formidable women.

    Domestically too, the Queen allegedly expressed misgivings about Thatcher’s ‘uncaring’ social policies, epitomised by the one-year miner’s strike across 1983-84. Editor Andrew Neil stood by his paper’s depiction of this political clash: “I think what is said in public and what is said in private are two different things and the palace have to maintain their position.”

    Some say this is all conjecture. Some say happenstance. I say the monarchs’ dilemma that one must remain dispassionate, at least publicly, naturally leads to the use of subtle gestures.

    A woman accustomed to exercising power through symbols, the Queen often communicated via the position of her handbag. She would be keenly aware, therefore, of how a choice of brooch would be received across the globe.

    Likewise, it stretches credulity to imagine that her chosen attire during the parliamentary opening of 2017 (bel0w) was only ‘co-incidentally’ representative of the European Union…riiight…

    The truth of these and other controversies may not ever be revealed until her private journals become public, which may not occur for decades. Her father and grandfather’s diaries have yet to see the full light of day.

    With Charles in charge, the political statements may finally become less veiled. Positioned within, say, the bitter climate debate still inexplicably raging in the US, the King’s pro-green, pro-interventionist views could be seen as radical – even ‘Marxist’ – on some fallow corners of the internet. Might we be looking at a future where the monarchy is criticised for being too progressive? Wouldn’t that be weird!

    On the other hand, the Queen was an avid hunter and I sure ain’t no fan of that… she once posed with a dead tiger, for crying out loud. This horrifies me. She bred shooting dogs. She killed deer. She killed hares. She killed foxes. She bludgeoned pheasants to death. For someone who grew up on a hobby farm where every animal died of old age, this is an affront to my core values.

    And then we need to look at the wider institution….

    The Commonwealth is built on a bloody history of colonialism. It is fundamentally classist and abhorrent. This horrifies me a great deal more. Professor Kehinde Andrews captured it best:

    “Britain likes to pretend that it was honest hard work and scientific genius that made the nation ‘great.’ But in reality, it was genocide, slavery and colonialism that propelled a small island nation into a global leader.”

    It would be offensively naïve to claim – as some conservative politicians and commentators do – that the contemporary monarchy can wash the blood from its gloves. It can’t. The monarchy is stained.

    A young Queen Elizabeth II. (IMAGE: Lee Haywood, Flickr)

    Yet, timorously, I argue that Gaga did have a case: the system works in terms of global security, the spread of democratic norms, both technological and social progress, and a sense of shared ambition that is not, as we’ve seen since the Queen left us, entirely based on ‘Cool Britannia’ rhetoric or misty-eyed sentiment. There is something deeper that is worth talking about.

    Consider the countless charitable causes that are supported and promoted by the royal family: the Prince’s Trust, the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award, Save the Children and Riders for Heath, to name a few. Consider, above all, the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy, Her Majesty’s defining legacy, which has seen the vast majority of Commonwealth nations commit to environmental conservation in practical terms.

    The brainchild of Lord Field of Birkenhead, the Canopy program was dead in the water until it received enthusiastic support from the monarch. Using the Commonwealth network, and what David Attenborough describes as the Queen’s “soft power”, this initiative has resulted in genuine global cooperation towards replenishing forests and fighting climate change.

    Attenborough’s endorsement is no small thing. Even the mouthiest greenies, like myself, would have to admit that this kind of planet-spanning effort would not have been possible without a sovereign prepared to lead it. In this respect, the Commonwealth – described by Prince Philip on Meet the Press in 1971 as a ‘remarkable ideal’ and ‘a club’ made up of different people from disparate racial origins and faiths – is akin to a global collective government. Adam Bandt, ironically, has advocated for precisely this. The Australian Greens believe, sensibly, in global solutions to the major issues affecting our world. The Queen didn’t just whine about it; she actually walked that walk.

    More confidently, I argue that collectivism and interconnectivity are the strengths of the Commonwealth. They have led to concrete progress. If it can be moved beyond hereditary titles and hoarded fortune, there is something to be salvaged from the notion of a collective focal point around which disparate nations can concentrate their shared energies. When it comes to the climate emergency, in particular, the peoples of the world cannot afford to be fractured.

    The Pythons asked: “What have the Romans ever done for us?” Nothing, besides the aqueduct, sanitation, the roads, irrigation, medicine, education, public health…. There is some truth to that old gag. There are also a lot of sins it conceals. But where does it leave us?

    In Australia, it is past time to make amends with the traditional owners of our lands, as Senator Pat Dodson, the Honourable Linda Burney, Stan Grant, Edward Synot and others have eloquently highlighted. The Voice to Parliament didn’t pass, but it should have. The treaty promised by Bob Hawke proved to be as tangible as Trump’s phantom healthcare plan, and we’re a poorer nation for it. All of this must be addressed.

    These are, however, our own, homegrown Aussie failures. It’s time Australians stopped blaming Britian for the progress we are choosing not to make.

    The Queen was never responsible for our inability to get things done or our refusal to treat traditional owners with kindness and respect. Neither is the new King. We broke our own promises.

    On this anniversary, I acknowledge how far we have to go, just as I acknowledge our brutal history. But, even as a leftie, even as a republican, I’m unable to look at any debate, any human being, in absolute terms.

    It may be read as foolish, blinkered, a character flaw, an unresolvable contradiction, a psychological inconsistency, but….

    I still can’t help but honour Gaga and her placemats.

    The post Loving Liz: Confessions Of A Monarchist Republican appeared first on New Matilda.

    This post was originally published on New Matilda.

  • Protesters mobilise to greet Australia’s ‘Land Forces’ merchants of death

    COMMENTARY: By Binoy Kampmark in Melbourne

    Between tomorrow and Friday, the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) will host a weapons bazaar that ought to be called “The Merchants of Death”.

    The times for these merchants are positively bullish, given that total global military expenditure exceeded US$2.4 trillion last year, an increase of 6.8 percent in real terms from 2022.

    The introductory note to the event is mildly innocuous:

    “The Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition is the premier platform for interaction between defence, industry and government of all levels, to meet, to do business and discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the global land defence markets.”

    The website goes on to describe the Land Defence Exposition as “the premier gateway to the land defence markets of Australia and the region, and a platform for interaction with major prime contractors from the United States and Europe”.

    At the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre in 2022, the event attracted 20,000 attendees, 810 “exhibitor organisations” from 25 countries, and ran 40 conferences, symposia and presentations.

    From 30 nations, came 159 defence, government, industry and scientific delegations.

    Land Forces 2024 is instructive as to how the military-industrial complex manifests. Featured background reading for the event involves, for instance, news about cultivating budding militarists.

    Where better to start than in school?

    School military ‘pathways’
    From August 6, much approval is shown for the $5.1 million Federation Funding Agreement between the Australian government and the state governments of South Australia and West Australia to deliver “the Schools Pathways Programme (SPP)” as part of the Australian government’s Defence Industry Development Strategy.

    The programme offers school children a chance to taste the pungent trimmings of industrial militarism — visits to military facilities, “project-based learning” and presentations.

    Rather cynically, the SPP co-opts the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) aspect of government policy, carving up a direct link between school study and the defence industry.

    “We need more young Australians studying STEM subjects in schools and developing skills for our future workforce,” insisted Education Minister Jason Clare. It is hard to disagree with that, but why weapons?

    There is much discontent about the Land Forces exposition.

    Victorian Greens MP Ellen Sandell and federal MP for Melbourne Adam Bandt wrote to Premier Jacinta Allan asking her to call off the arms event.

    The party noted that such companies as Elbit Systems “and others that are currently fuelling . . . Israel’s genocide in Palestine, where 40,000 people have now been killed — will showcase and sell their products there”.

    Demands on Israel dismissed
    Allan icily dismissed such demands.

    Disrupt Land Forces, which boasts 50 different activist collectives, has been preparing.

    Defence Connect reported as early as June 4 that groups, including Wage Peace — Disrupt War and Whistleblowers, Activists and Communities Alliance, were planning to rally against the Land Force exposition.

    The usual mix of carnival, activism and harrying have been planned over a week, with the goal of ultimately encircling the MCEC to halt proceedings.

    Ahead of the event, the Victorian Labor government, the event’s sponsor, has mobilised 1800 more police officers from the regional areas.

    Victorian Police Minister Anthony Carbines did his best to set the mood.

    “If you are not going to abide by the law, if you’re not going to protest peacefully, if you’re not going to show respect and decency, then you’ll be met with the full force of the law.”

    Warmongering press outlets
    Let us hope the police observe those same standards.

    Warmongering press outlets, the Herald Sun being a stalwart, warn of the “risks” that “Australia’s protest capital” will again be “held hostage to disruption and confrontation”, given the diversion of police.

    Its August 15 editorial demonised the protesters, swallowing the optimistic incitements on the website of Disrupt Land Forces.

    The editorial noted the concerns of unnamed senior police fretting about “the potential chaos outside MCEC at South Wharf and across central Melbourne”, the context for police to mount “one of the biggest security operations since the anti-vaccine/anti-lockdown protests at the height of covid in 2021–21 or the World Economic Forum chaos in 2000”.

    Were it up to these editors, protesters would do better to stay at home and let the Victorian economy, arms and all, hum along.

    The merchants of death could then go about negotiating the mechanics of murder in broad daylight; Victoria’s government would get its blood fill; and Melbournians could turn a blind eye to what oils the mechanics of global conflict.

    The protests will, hopefully, shock the city into recognition that the arms trade is global, nefarious and indifferent as to the casualty count.

    Dr Binoy Kampmark lectures in global studies at RMIT University. This article was first published by Green Left and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • New Caledonia crisis: Another church burns, spate of attacks continues

    ANALYSIS: By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk

    Another church has been set alight in New Caledonia, confirming a trend of arson which has already destroyed five Catholic churches and missions over the past two months.

    The latest fire took place on Sunday evening at the iconic Saint Denis Church of Balade, in Pouébo, on the northern tip of the main island of Grande Terre.

    The fire had been ignited in at least two locations — one at the main church entrance and the other on the altar, inside the building.

    The attack is highly symbolic: this was the first Catholic church established in New Caledonia, 10 years before France “took possession” of the South Pacific archipelago in 1853.

    It was the first Catholic settlement set up by the Marist mission and holds stained glass windows which have been classified as historic heritage in New Caledonia’s Northern Province.

    Those stained glasses picture scenes of the Marist fathers’ arrival in New Caledonia.

    Parts of the damages include the altar and the main church entrance door.

    In other parts of the building, walls have been tagged.

    A team of police investigators has been sent on location to gather further evidence, the Nouméa Public Prosecutor said.

    250 years after Cook’s landing
    The fire also comes as 250 years ago, on 5 September 1774, British navigator James Cook, aboard the vessel Resolution, made first landing in the Bay of Balade after a Pacific voyage that took him to Easter Island (Rapa Nui), the Marquesas islands (French Polynesia), the kingdom of Tonga and what he called the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu).

    It was Cook who called the Melanesian archipelago “New Caledonia”.

    Both New Caledonia and the New Hebrides were a direct reference to the islands of Caledonia (Scotland) and the Hebrides, an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland.

    Five churches targeted
    Since mid-July, five Catholic sites have been fully or partially destroyed in New Caledonia.

    This includes the Catholic Mission in Saint-Louis (near Nouméa), a stronghold still in the hands of a pro-independence hard-line faction (another historic Catholic mission settled in the 1860s and widely regarded as the cradle of New Caledonia’s Catholicism); the Vao Church in the Isle of Pines (off Nouméa), and other Catholic missions in Touho, Thio (east coast of New Caledonia’s main island) and Poindimié.

    Another Catholic church building, the Church of Hope in Nouméa, narrowly escaped a few weeks ago and was saved because one of the parishioners discovered packed-up benches and paper ready to be ignited.

    Since then, the building has been under permanent surveillance, relying on parishioners and the Catholic church priests.

    The series of targeted attacks comes as Christianity, including Roman Catholicism, is the largest religion in New Caledonia, where Protestants also make up a large proportion of the group.

    Each attack was followed by due investigations, but no one has yet been arrested.

    Nouméa Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas told local media these actions were “intolerable” attacks on New Caledonia’s “most fundamental symbols”.

    Why the Catholic church?
    Several theories about the motives behind such attacks are invoking some sort of “mix-up” between French colonisation and the advent of Christianity in New Caledonia.

    Nouméa Archbishop Michel-Marie Calvet, 80, himself a Marist, said “there’s been a clear determination to destroy all that represents some kind of organised order”

    “There are also a lot of amalgamations on colonisation issues,” he said.

    Nouméa archbishop Monsignor Michel-Marie Calvet on the scene of destroyed Saint Louis Mission – Photo NC la 1ère
    Nouméa Archbishop Monsignor Michel-Marie Calvet on the scene of the destroyed Saint Louis Mission. Image: NC la 1ère screenshot

    “But we’ve seen this before and elsewhere: when some people want to justify their actions, they always try to re-write history according to the ideology they want to support or believe they support.”

    While the first Catholic mission was founded in 1853, the protestant priests from the London Missionary Society also made first contact about the same time, in the Loyalty Islands, where, incidentally, the British-introduced cricket still remains a popular sport.

    On the protestant side, the Protestant Church of Kanaky New Caledonia (French: Église Protestante de Kanaky Nouvelle-Calédonie, EPKNC), has traditionally positioned itself in an open pro-independence stance.

    For a long time, Christian churches (Catholic and Protestants alike) were the only institutions to provide schooling to indigenous Kanaks.

    ‘Paradise’ islands now ‘closest to Hell’
    A few days after violent and deadly riots broke out in New Caledonia, under a state of emergency in mid-May, Monsignor Calvet held a Pentecost mass in an empty church, but relayed by social networks.

    At the time still under the shock from the eruption of violence, he told his virtual audience that New Caledonia, once known in tourism leaflets as the islands “closest to paradise”, had now become “closest to Hell”.

    He also launched a stinging attack on all politicians there, saying they had “failed their obligations” and that from now on their words were “no longer credible”.

    More recently, he told local media:

    “There is a very real problem with our youth. They have lost every landmark. The saddest thing is that we’re not only talking about youth. There are also adults around who have been influencing them.

    “What I know is that we Catholics have to stay away from any form of violence. This violence that tries to look like something it is not.

    “It is not an ideal that is being pursued, it is what we usually call ‘the politics of chaos’.”

    Declined Pope’s invitation to Port Moresby
    He said that although he had been invited to join Pope Francis in Port Moresby during his current Asia and Pacific tour he had declined the offer.

    “Even though many years ago, I personally invited one of his predecessors, Pope John Paul II, to come and visit here. But Pope Francis’s visit [to PNG], it was definitely not the right time,” he said.

    Monsignor Calvet was ordained priest in April 1973 for the Society of Mary (Marist) order.

    Jean Marie Tjibaou
    Assassinated FLNKS leader Jean Marie Tjibaou in Kanaky/New Caledonia, 1985. Image: David Robie/Café Pacific

    He arrived in Nouméa in April 1979 and has been Nouméa’s Archbishop since 1981.

    He was also the chair of the Pacific Episcopal Conference (CEPAC) between 1996 and 2003, as well as the vice-president of the Federation of Oceania Episcopal Conferences (FCBCO).

    In 1988, charismatic pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, as head of the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front), signed the Matignon-Oudinot Accords with then French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, putting an end to half a decade of quasi civil war.

    One year later, he was gunned down by a member of the radical fringe of the pro-independence movement.

    Tjibaou was trained as a priest in the Society of Mary order.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Open letter to TVNZ – stop the bias, report fairly on the Israeli war on Palestine

    OPEN LETTER: Our Action Station

    Dear TVNZ,

    We are deeply concerned with the misleading nature of the journalism presented in your recent coverage of the escalating crisis in Gaza and the West Bank. By focusing on specific language and framing, while leaving out the necessary context of international law, the broadcast misrepresents the reality of the situation faced by Palestinians.

    This has the effect of perpetuating a narrative that could be seen and experienced as biased and dehumanising.

    The International Court of Justice’s ruling on January 26, 2024, mandated that Israel prevent its forces from committing acts of genocide against Palestinians and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

    This ruling highlights the severity of Israel’s actions and the international community’s obligation to hold those responsible accountable. However, TVNZ’s coverage has often failed to reflect this legal and humanitarian perspective.

    Instead it echos biased narratives that obscure these realities. This includes the expansion of genocidal like acts to the West Bank and the serious concerns about the potential for mass ethnic cleansing and further escalation of grave human rights violations.

    Under international law, including the Genocide Convention, media organisations have a crucial responsibility to report accurately and avoid inciting violence or supporting those committing genocidal acts.

    Complicity in genocide can occur when media coverage supports or justifies the actions of perpetrators, contributing to the dehumanisation of victims and the perpetuation of violence. By failing to provide balanced reporting and instead contributing to harmful stereotypes and misinformation, TVNZ risks being complicit in these grave violations of human rights.

    Tragic history of attacks
    New Zealand’s own tragic history of attacks on Muslims, such as the Al Noor Mosque shootings, should serve as a powerful reminder of the consequences of dehumanising narratives. The media plays a pivotal role in shaping public perception, and it is deeply concerning to see TVNZ contributing to the marginalisation and demonisation of Muslims and Palestinians through biased reporting.

    We urge you to review your coverage of the genocide to ensure that it is fair, balanced, and aligned with international law and journalistic ethics. Specific examples of biased reporting include recent stories on Gaza that failed to mention the ICJ ruling or the context of an illegal occupation.

    This includes decades of systematic land confiscation, military control, restrictions on movement, and the suppression of Palestinian voices through media censorship and the shutdown of local newspapers. Accurate and responsible journalism is essential in fostering an informed and empathetic public, especially on matters as sensitive and impactful as this.

    On August 29, 2024, TVNZ aired a news story that exemplifies problematic media framing when reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The story begins by benignly describing Israel’s “entry into the West Bank” as part of a “counter-terrorism strike”— the largest operation in 10 years — implying that the context is solely anti-terrorism.

    Automatically, the use of the word terrorism, sets the narrative of “good Israel” and “bad Palestinian” for the remainder of the news story.  However, the report fails to mention numerous critical aspects, such as the provocations by Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque and threatening to build a synagogue at Islam’s third holiest site, or Israel’s escalations and violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

    The Convention considers the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into the territory it occupies a war crime, and under international law, Palestinians have the right to resist such occupation, a right recognised and protected by international legal frameworks.

    The story uses footage, presumably provided by the IDF, that portrays the Israeli military as a calm, moral force entering “terrorist strongholds”, which is at odds with abundant open-source footage showing the IDF destroying infrastructure, terrorising civilians, and protecting armed settlers as they displace Palestinians from their homes.

    Bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes
    It portrays the IDF entering the town with bulldozers, but makes no mention of how those bulldozers are used to destroy Palestinian homes and infrastructure to make way for Israeli settlements.

    Furthermore, the report fails to mention that just last month, the Israeli government announced its plans to officially recognise five more illegal settlements in the West Bank and expand existing settlements, understandably exacerbating tensions.

    The narrative is further reinforced by giving airtime to an Israeli spokesperson who frames the operation as a defensive counter-terrorism initiative. The journalist echoes this narrative, positioning Israel as merely responding to threats.

    Although a brief soundbite from a Palestinian Red Crescent worker expresses fears of what might happen in the West Bank, the report fails to provide any counter-narrative to Israel’s self-defence claim.

    The story concludes by listing the number of deaths in the West Bank since October 19, implying that the situation began with Hamas’s actions in Gaza on that date, rather than addressing the illegal Israeli occupation since 1967, as the root cause of the violence.

    Why is this important?
    The news story is a violation of the Accuracy and Impartiality Standard with TVNZ failing to present a balanced view of the situation in Palestine, potentially misleading the audience on critical aspects of the conflict.

    Secondly, the news story violates  the Harm and Offence Standard, being an insufficient and inflammatory portrayal of the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine contributing to public misperception and harm.

    Additionally, there is a concern regarding the Fairness Standard, with individuals and groups affected by the conflict not being given fair opportunity to respond or be represented in the broadcast.

    These breaches are significant as they undermine the integrity of the reporting and fail to uphold the standards of responsible journalism. Holding our media outlets to high journalistic standards is essential, particularly in the context of the genocide in Gaza.

    The media plays a significant part in either exposing or obscuring the realities of such atrocities. When news outlets fail to report accurately or neglect to label the situation in Gaza as genocide, they contribute to a narrative that minimises the severity of the crisis and enables and prolongs Israel’s social license to continue it’s genocidal actions.

    Should there be no substantial changes to address our concerns,  we will escalate this matter to the Broadcasting Standards Authority for further review.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Facing The Mirror: How Fascism Masquerades As Freedom And Prejudice Cosplays As Empathy

    How we can criticise Donald Trump for his lack of self-reflection if we keep refusing to reflect on ourselves, Alex Vickery-Howe?

    Donald Trump is not a king.

    He still thinks he can be the sovereign of a democratic nation, and that’s merely one of the many absurdities of the silly, silly git. He also thinks he’s trim, jacked, sexually attractive (I wish he’d stop using his relationship with his daughter as an example) and, like, really smart.

    This is a man completely immune to self-reflection. Sure, it may be ‘locker room talk’, or whatever his bros want to call it, but the Access Hollywood tape nonetheless confirms that Trump cannot see himself for who he is, and he cannot open a bus door.

    Still, we shouldn’t criticise the screwball ex-president for his delusions or his man-boobs. We should criticise him for his invisible healthcare plan, his tearing up of environmental protection laws, his relentless demonisation of racial minorities, his lies, his blunders, and his Covid misinformation campaign that led to an American dying every 38 seconds under his negligent watch.

    As the fourth of July approaches, this absurdity extends to his voter base. Who are these people? How are they still following this golden bidet into hell? Do they even realise that they’re betraying the founding values of their own nation?

    It has led me into a debate with colleagues over whether Americans even know what Independence Day is about. I have argued that, while world history doesn’t touch the US curriculum, most Americans do know what the Declaration of Independence is, and most do know that the establishment of the American nation was the rejection of a classist monarchy.

    Former American president Donald Trump. (IMAGE: Gage Skidmore | Flickr)

    Look, I could be wrong… at least one study suggests that two thirds of US citizens fail to spell the word ‘independence’ correctly, let alone grasp what the holiday is about. That said, I don’t think Australia is across its own history either.

    ‘Curriculum’ is a nebulous concept anyhow, when every state is doing something different. What the vast majority of Americans definitely understand, and this is inarguable, is that Independence Day is about ‘freedom’. And, if Trump sees himself as anything more and anything less than a servant of his people, he is a dictator. He is a king in all but name. The Don is thoroughly, toxically un-American.

    I’ve been pointing out the dangers for years. Lots of people have. Why can’t his base see it? How have they been led astray? This is worth unpacking….

    There’s a strange link between freedom and fascism. I’m not referring to the obvious way, in that fascism is the suppression of freedom. I mean in the way that one of my favourite articles beautifully captures: it is often, paradoxically, the people who silence, bully and dominate others who see themselves as the upholders of liberty, justice and freedom. This is the failure of the American experiment. It is also the folly of the both the extreme right and the extreme left.

    Following the election of their insane reality TV host in 2016, the phrase ‘Rome fell’ has hung like an epitaph over the political discourse of the United States. I don’t think even the most cynical among us imagined Washington would collapse this quickly. Fed by cultish lies and a steady diet not only of fake news but, ironically, the belief that everything legitimate should be branded ‘fake’ too, the Don’s acolytes – many of whom have martyred themselves for their hero – are heralding a true Christofascist dictatorship.

    Praise be to Ricky Shiffer, the tragic imbecile who died attacking the FBI.

    Praise be to Edgar Maddison Welch, the conspiracy nut who was arrested after waving guns at the Comet Ping Pong restaurant, because he believed Democrats were holding children in the non-existent basement. Welch later admitted, ‘The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent.’ No shit, Ed.

    Oh, and praise be to the ‘heroic’ rioters of January 6 who smeared faeces on walls, like all normal tourists do, while beating and tasering police officers in a moving display of love, patriotism and American values. You’re all angels. We’ll always remember how you owned those libs.

    Praise be to the weird Viking guy.

    US Far Right politician Matt Gaetz. (IMAGE: Gage Skidmore | Flickr)

    Praise be to the unholy trinity – Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene –whose thankless devotion to the magic pumpkin is outshone by their inability to devise let alone pass a single credible policy.

    And praise be to James Alex Fields Jr, the neo-Nazi who drove his car into protestors and murdered an innocent activist in the name of ‘freedom’… what a prince. The activist’s name was Heather Heyer. Never to be forgotten. I’m sure Fields still thinks he’s the victim in that tragedy. Or the hero.

    Even when the mobster ex-POTUS is indicted for stealing classified documents, even when a judge and jury credibly link him to sexual assault, the faithful flock to their false god. They excuse, they distract, they obfuscate, and they downright dribble bullshit – or employ cheap character actors to do it for them – all the while begging their clown to return to power and rule them like Sideshow Bob.

    Godwin’s law, oft-quoted by me, says that any discussion wherein one accuses one’s political opponents of being Hitler ends up jumping the shark like Fonzie. Or something akin to that. I apologise to Henry Winkler… Fonzie and Hitler really don’t belong in the same paragraph. But what if the comparison is historically and culturally robust? What if the discussion can be credibly linked to a scary precedent? Because if four years of climate denial, Covid denial and common-sense denial with the far-right in power has taught us anything, it’s that Trump and Hitler absolutely do belong in the same paragraph. The same rogue’s gallery.

    And this is why America is falling….

    It’s a country founded on free speech, where books are banned. It’s a country founded on justice, where vigilantes shoot at will. It’s a country founded on democracy, where one of the major parties is flirting with despotism.

    There are glimmers of hope. Phantom speckles. When Fields murdered Heyer, he inadvertently convinced Biden to run for president. Nice one, Jimmy. You would’ve been of more value to the white supremacist cause if you’d just wiped your own shit on government property or shot yourself in the balls like your fellow warriors.

    (IMAGE: Gage Skidmore | Flickr)

    The tragedy for all of these ‘men’ is that Trump and his closest goons disavow them when they publicly faceplant. After all, Trump doesn’t actually like any member of his filthy flock. He wouldn’t let them into his hotels. He wouldn’t even let them freeze to death on his doorstep.

    If Trump won’t pay Rudy Giuliani for his work, how can anyone expect him to acknowledge the lesser bigots? Alright… Rudy’s campaign contribution is essentially to melt and fart, and make announcements from the wrong place. But he tried to serve his führer. Just like Jimmy, and Ricky, and Ed. They all strived to please the rich man who looks down on them.

    If I can drop the snark for a moment – it’s an ongoing aspiration – there is genuine sorrow for both the America that has been lost (maybe, I hope, temporarily misplaced), and for the people who’ve been taken in by the big lie. We don’t talk about class enough.

    The last few decades have seen inspiring gains in racial equality, in gender equality, in the acknowledgement of a myriad of identities and different, layered ways of being… this is all, of course, fantastic. But we don’t talk about class. Despite our progress in other key areas, class and classism remain social taboos.

    There are reasons why we shy away from class as a concept. It recontextualises every other marker we use to construct our sense of self. It stains us with privilege, despite whatever else may be going on in our lives. It reminds all of us that there are still haves and have-nots. The reality of widespread economic and social inequality clashes with our national image built on an illusion of larrikinism.

    We don’t like to think of the homeless when we advertise through AirBnb. We don’t like to consider that postcodes come with judgements. For those of us on the left, we really don’t like to think that maybe our political opponents have a reason to resent the latte set. I’m a proud soy boy… but I know why people hate me.

    Confronting class obviously clashes with America’s national image too. In America, land of opportunity, you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do anything. Be anyone. If class, with all its embedded prejudices, its lack of exposure to broader ideas, its lack of core critical thinking skills, its lack of healthcare – heaven forbid the commies should bring that one in – its lack of what the middle and upper castes take for granted every minute of every hour of every day of our lives, should ever, honestly and frankly, be taken into account… then we might see how fascism has been resurrected in the young millennium.

    We might even see who is responsible.

    A clue: it’s not the Jimmy, Ricky and Eds of this world. It’s the people who fly over them.

    Former US president Donald Trump. (IMAGE: Gage Skidmore | Flickr)

    There is no Trump without a poorly educated base. Lack of access to serviceable, to say nothing of quality, education – always a bit tricky when there are hormones carrying assault rifles – is an act of negligence that has crippled these people.

    Yes, bigotry is an appalling response to neglect. Yes, blaming immigrants, liberals, and – for some reason – drag queens for the world’s problems is stupid. It’s incalculably stupid. But it’s human to be tribal and the tribes metastasise when communities are abandoned.

    And the backstory that I will never stop repeating – I will never, ever stop lamenting – is that Trump ran a sham university. His rehearsal for the gameshow dictatorship was to fleece poor people of their life savings. I’ve always said that, as conmen go, Trump is pretty transparent. If he is any kind of monarch, he’s the one that wears no clothes… those of you who are eating right now, I genuinely apologise.

    The fact that his grift worked, the fact that it continues to work, is not just on those who are smearing shit and self-tasering. It’s on us for refusing to see them, and failing to see ourselves.

    Yes, there is an obvious irony in people who ‘love freedom’ embracing an oppressor. Yes, talking heads from red states are often batshit crazy. But is it ultimately their fault? What do we gain by picking on them over and over? Does it make us feel good, in our bubbles, in our towers, while the fabric of a leading democracy frays apart?

    To not look deeper into this is to stay on the merry-go-round of weaponised ignorance for those who’ve been vilified and forsaken, and smug superiority for those of us who have the luxury of a panoramic perspective. Our story of freedom-loving fascists may actually be the story of systemic multigenerational neglect. Until that inequity enters the public consciousness, our course will not change.

    Maybe we could consider some introspection before Washington burns.

    Maybe America needs to get its independence back.

    Maybe it’ll take a collective effort.

    Nah, self-reflection is for the weak… the best president ever taught us that! Bring on the holiday! A celebration of all things free! This is how America becomes great again, right?

    Happy Fourth of July, Donnie!

    The post Facing The Mirror: How Fascism Masquerades As Freedom And Prejudice Cosplays As Empathy appeared first on New Matilda.

    This post was originally published on New Matilda.

  • Cattle vs Cotton Con: The ABC Goes To Water

    A recent investigation by ABC’s Four Corners program about the growing cotton industry in the Northern Territory and its consumption of water has missed the mark… and the point. Geoff Russell explains why.

    “This is cattle country.” says Angus Grigg, on the recent ABC Four Corners story, “Water Grab”. The program is about how the big villain Cotton is robbing the Northern Territory of precious water.

    You’d have to ask exactly how Grigg could get it so wrong? I’ll speculate on that later, but for now I’ll just explain what’s going on: the ABC has made a total mess of it.

    Grigg got close, but he missed the real story by not asking what was driving the process. Had he followed the common journalistic dictum of “follow the money”, then I’m sure he would have worked it out.

    A screengrab from the recent ABC Four Corners program ‘Water grab’, on cotton production in the NT.

    Annually, cotton in the Northern Territory is a $17 million dollar business. Cattle on the other hand, is a $345 million dollar business. That should be enough of a clue that the cattle is the dog, and cotton is its tail. Grigg seems to think that the tail is wagging the dog. If anybody is stealing the water, it’ss the cattle industry, not one of the small links in the cattle supply chain.

    Grigg featured Veterinarian Samantha Phelan, reckoning that “cotton seeds I think is about 15 percent of the profit compared to the fibre….” If Grigg had bothered to check what Dr Phelan “thinks”, then the penny might have dropped for him.

    Here’s how it works: the value of cotton is divided among many people. It’s a long way from the farm to Grigg’s jeans, t-shirts and bed sheets. The farmer growing the cotton, quite reasonably, only gets a smallish portion of downstream value of the products made with the lint (the fibre) by skilled people using complex processes and expensive machinery.

    Thus, when a cotton grower sells both seed and lint, the seed is worth more than the lint. The relative value is about 55:45 (seed to lint), according to the analyst I just hyperlinked.

    Now think about a cattle farmer buying feed. If they buy cotton seed, they pay both the farmer of that seed and any other people in the supply chain. But if they grow their own cotton? Think about it. In both cases, the cotton has to go through the processing at the gin (the machine that separates out the seed and the lint). But the farmer is in a good position to make a deal with the gin that is advantageous to both.

    There is no other fodder crop that fits in so well with the cattle business. Cotton seed is high in protein and overall has about 96% digestible nutrients. So it’s no surprise that many cotton growers also run sheep and cattle. Similarly, it should now be no surprise that the cotton industry’s response to the Four Corners program is featured on the “Beef Central” website.

    So Grigg got everything back to front. The driver of the water rip off in the NT, assuming there is one, isn’t cotton. It’s the cattle industry.

    The Northern Territory has about 250,000 people and 1.7 million cattle; that’s over 6 head of cattle for every person. That’s by far the highest ratio of any state or territory in Australia. But their cotton production, in contrast is much lower than other states. Why? Do the math.

    Look up the hectares of cotton in the NT and the yield. Then do the same with Australia as a whole. You’ll find that the yield per hectare in the NT is about half of that in the country as a whole. This is a pretty good indication that the industry is growing rain fed rather than irrigated cotton; exactly as it claimed. It really is just a small part of the cattle supply chain.

     

    But it isn’t “cattle country”

    Having got the story totally wrong, you won’t be surprised to learn that Grigg’s judgement of the NT as “cattle country” is also misleading.

    The NT isn’t at all naturally friendly to cattle. If you want to raise cattle in the NT you need to dramatically modify the land, or more accurately, the distribution of water. All of this is explained courtesy of the managers of the 1 million hectare Beetaloo Station cattle farm. They aim to run 100,000 cattle on this property. But that website is a little dated, so perhaps they have already reached that target.

    Here’s the basic process. Cattle won’t walk more than a few kms from a water point to find feed. So the Beetaloo people create 3.3km x 3.3 km paddocks with 170,000 litre tanks at the paddock intersection point. There is a terrific picture on the website of some of the infrastructure, massive coils of black poly-pipe literally stretching to the horizon of the photo.

    They have to bury the pipes almost a metre underground to escape the impacts of the hot sun; queue lots of diesel driven diggers. They fill the tanks with water pumped from underground, queue more diesel for the pumps.

    The Beetaloo website doesn’t give the size of the pumps, but they sound much bigger than the one on my water tank: “Windmills could not generate the pressure required for this [pumping]and solar-powered systems are far too costly. Despite the long distances to travel to them, the pumps are manually operated because remote electronic switching systems have been found to be unreliable.”.

    But water isn’t enough. There are years and times in a year when feed is scarce. You need fodder crops also; high yield species you can grow, harvest and store. I’ll say more about this later.

    So why did Griggs mess up the story so badly? I have a few theories.

     

    ABC’s Catalyst in 2007

    Back in 2007, the team of reporters at ABC’s now-defunct Catalyst Science program measured their carbon footprints. The webpage at the time said:

    “Our reporters generally have higher than average footprints for food and services. As their incomes are higher than average, they tend to spend more on services like restaurants and high footprint products like red meat. These contribute strongly to their total footprints, because the ISA method measures expenditure and is sensitive to land disturbance.”

    The mention of red meat was significant. The red meat industry has long been the biggest producer of greenhouse warming in Australia. Yes, even more than all our fossil fuelled electricity generation. So how come science journalists, who know this kind of thing, were chowing down on steaks and burgers? Good question. Hypocrisy over climate change is I think only defensible if you view decarbonisation as a 100 percent Government task (assuming you don’t give a toss about the animals you need to have killed). But Governments love it when you blame your own habits rather than their poor policies.

    So what do Angus and the crew eat at Four Corners? Does their diet influence their natural choice of villain?

    So much for theory 1. Next we have an historical theory.

     

    A bloody business

    Back in 2011, Four Corners did a brilliant documentary on the live cattle trade to Indonesia: A bloody business. It exposed the lies of Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA). But MLA didn’t just lie. They hired people to make a professionally scripted and produced video to deliberately and systematically misinform Australian cattle producers about what their cattle endured at the end of their little trip to Indonesia.

    As far as I can tell, Four Corners have given the cattle industry a very wide berth since then. Why? Australia signed up recently for the Global Methane Pledge. This is an undertaking to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Given that the lion’s share of our methane emissions come from cattle, you’d have thought that would make a good story.

    They could ask, “How will we do it?”, “How much will it cost?” “Is the cattle industry going to derail any plans to send it down the same pathway as coal?” There are plenty of angles. So why has nothing been done? Did MLA give the ABC a hard time back in 2011? Are they scared to tackle the cattle industry again? Or is this just personal love of burgers getting in the way of journalistic professionalism?

     

    The great beef land grab in the NT

    I mentioned the need for fodder crops (like cotton) for cattle in the NT. The NT Government has a website listing the applications for clearing that have been processed since 2003. These come in two categories, Unzoned land and Pastoral land. The applications aren’t well designed for anybody wanting to work out what is happening, plenty of the descriptions of why land is being clear are vague, or the opposite, overly detailed. This makes categorisation difficult. But I’ve assembled the data and tried to sort out the reasons into a smallish number of categories. Here’s the result.

    There have been about 250,000 hectares cleared as listed in applications since 2003, with about 166,000 in the past decade. The median area for “Improved pasture” or “Pastoral purposes” is about 700 hectares. The average size of a cotton farm in Australia is about 500 hectares. This is about the area that a smallish landowner can manage. There are also a few outliers in the data, with over 15,000 hectares being cleared.

    The water requirements of 1.7 million cattle are enormous. Cattle producers typically argue that as long as they are using rain-fed fodder or natural growth, then their water use is minimal. That’s only a reasonable argument if you place no value on natural vegetation and the loss of its value in supporting wildlife.

    Clearly, Beetaloo and many other cattle producers are actively adding water to the landscape to supplement rain. Are they pumping more water than natural processes will be able to replace? That’s an interesting question which I hope somebody is looking at.

     

    The bottom line

    The entire Australian cattle industry will eventually have to go the way of coal and tobacco, for the same two reasons; it damages the climate and causes cancer.

    Of course, the same people who actively and deliberately lied about what was happening to Australian cattle in Indonesia will tell you otherwise.

    The post Cattle vs Cotton Con: The ABC Goes To Water appeared first on New Matilda.

    This post was originally published on New Matilda.

  • Advocate slams NZ snub of Nagasaki peace tribute as ‘outrageous’

    By Mick Hall

    A leading peace campaigner is calling Aotearoa New Zealand’s decision to stay away from a peace event in Nagasaki paying tribute to victims of the Japanese city’s 1945 nuclear bombing “outrageous”.

    Former trade union leader Robert Reid said New Zealand could have acted as a strong independent Pacific voice by attending today’s peace gathering, held annually on August 9 to commemorate the estimated 70,000 people killed in a US nuclear attack on the Japanese city at the end of World War II.

    “New Zealand has missed an opportunity to demarcate itself from the cheerleaders of the Gaza genocide, from the US and the UK and other Western countries, and in a way has turned its back on Japan, which was an ally with us in the anti-nuclear position that New Zealand has held for many years,” the former Unite president said.

    His comments come after a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat) spokesperson confirmed to In Context neither New Zealand’s ambassador to Japan Hamish Hooper nor any other consulate official would be attending the peace ceremony, stressing the move was due to “resourcing” and unrelated to a boycott by Western nations following the city’s decision not to invite Israel.

    The US and its Western allies are staying away from the peace ceremony because Nagasaki’s Mayor Shiro Suzuki declined to send an invitation to Israel to attend, over events in the Middle East and to avoid protests against the war in Gaza at the event.

    In a statement a Mfat spokesperson said: “The New Zealand government will not be represented at the commemorations at Nagasaki on 9 August 2024. This decision reflects limited resourcing of the Embassy in Tokyo, and is not associated with attendance of other countries.”

    However, it is understood New Zealand was represented at a commemoration event at head of mission level in Hiroshima last Tuesday. Nagasaki is located south of Hiroshima and a journey three-and-a-half hours by train.

    Cancelled last year
    The Nagasaki commemoration was cancelled last year due to a typhoon warning. New Zealand had been represented at both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki events in recent years, at head of mission level in 2022 and 2021.

    It only attended the Hiroshima commemoration in 2020, a period when covid-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions were widespread.

    New Zealand’s absence comes after envoys of the US, Canada, Germany, France, the UK and other Western nations sent a letter to Nagasaki organisers expressing concern over the city not inviting Israel.

    The letter, dated July 19, warned that if Israel was excluded, “it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation” in the event as it would “result in placing Israel on the same level as countries such as Russia and Belarus,” both having been excluded from the ceremony since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

    In a statement on July 31 outlining the reasons for excluding Israel, Suzuki said officials feared protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza would take away the ceremony’s solemnity.

    He added that he made the decision based on “various developments in the international community in response to the ongoing situation in the Middle East”.

    ICJ ruled Israel as apartheid state
    An International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on July 19 ruled Israel’s occupation of Palestine illegal and that Israel was administering a system of apartheid through discriminatory laws and policies. Apartheid is a crime against humanity.

    In a 14-1 ruling, the ICJ directed Israel to immediately cease all settlement activity, evacuate settlers from occupied Palestinian territories, and pay reparations to Palestinians. It also voted 12-3 that UN states not render aid or assistance to Israel to continue the illegal occupation.

    On July 30, the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner said in light of the ruling: “States must immediately review all diplomatic, political, and economic ties with Israel, inclusive of business and finance, pension funds, academia and charities.”

    There were protests on Wednesday following a decision by the Hiroshima municipality to allow Israeli representation at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park event the day before, while not inviting a Palestinian envoy on the basis that the occupied country was not a United Nations member and that Japan did not recognise it as a state.

    “I understand New Zealand is not calling its absence a boycott, but just that it’s too busy, but it has attended in the past,” Read said.

    “I think we’re just playing with words here. This was a chance for New Zealand to stand with the people of Palestine, to stand with the Japanese people, who have had bombs dropped on them and they have perhaps taken a weak way out by not attending.”

    The Disarmament and Security Centre Aotearoa is holding a Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemoration event on Sunday, August 11, at Christchurch’s Botanic Gardens.

    Virtual centre
    The non-profit organisation is a virtual centre connecting disarmament experts, lawyers, political scientists, academics, teachers, students and disarmament proponents.

    Its spokesperson, Dr Marcus Coll, said he was shocked New Zealand would not be attending the Nagasaki event this year.

    “These sorts of things should never be about resources because it’s the symbolism of it that is so important and actually showing solidarity with the victims of Nagasaki,” he said.

    “In the Pacific region especially, we’ve really felt the effects of nuclear testing throughout the decades and then in Japan, there still are a lot of the survivors and their families are affected because of the intergenerational effects.”

    Dr Coll spent seven years studying and working in Japan. His doctoral research involved interviewing and researching survivors of the atomic bombings, as well as indigenous rights activists, religious and military leaders, peace campaigners, and others who were instrumental in shaping New Zealand’s nuclear free identity.

    He said Japan’s survivors had expressed awe at a small country in the Pacific taking a strong stand against nuclear weapons.

    “New Zealand has really been a kind of a beacon of hope for a lot of those people,” he said.

    Nuclear-free legacy
    New Zealand became a nuclear-free country in 1987, with a Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act that effectively banned US nuclear vessels from its waters.

    It led to New Zealand being frozen out of the ANZUS security treaty and allowed the country to develop a more independent policy engagement with the Pacific and the rest of the world.

    “That came from the government level as well,” Dr Coll said.

    “It was a groundswell from the public, which changed our policy, but governments of all stripes up until recently have really not contested that legacy and actually been kind of proud of it.

    “It really is something that sets us apart, especially internationally and we’re respected for it . . . So, it seems like a real let down that our own government can’t even show up.”

    Dr Coll said New Zealand had nurtured a significant link with Nagasaki, being the last place to suffer a nuclear attack in warfare.

    “Our former director used to go to Nagasaki. She had very strong connections with the mayor there. There’s actually a sculpture in the Nagasaki Peace Park, given to the city on behalf of New Zealand cities and the New Zealand government back in 2000s, forging that strong connection.

    “It’s called the Korowai of Peace. Phil Goff as foreign minister, the New Zealand ambassador and other civil society people were there . . .  This decision I suspect is a kind of PR and not to attend is a blow to our heritage of promoting disarmament and being anti-nuclear.”

    The US envoy to Japan Rahm Emanuel is expected to attend a peace ceremony at the Zojoji Temple in Tokyo on Friday instead.

    Nagasaki was bombed by the United States on August 9, 1945, after Hiroshima had been hit by atomic bomb on August 6. The two attacks at the end of World War II killed up to 250,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15.

    Republished from Mick Hall In Context with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Blind Eye: We Should Heed UN Report Warning Against Australia Becoming A ‘Pimp State”

    Calling prostitution ‘sex work’ might make it less offensive, but it’s no less harmful. Michelle Panayi explains why Australia must take seriously calls from a high-ranking United Nations expert for a rethink on the way we allow society to treat many women and young girls.

    A landmark report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem warns against nations becoming ‘pimping States’.

    Such States benefit financially from the exploitation and abuse of prostituted women and girls and lead efforts to sanitise and legitimise prostitution through various means including failing to take steps to stem the demand to buy sexual acts or hold sexual act buyers and pimps accountable. Pimping States instead promote the industry and render invisible its inherent exploitation.

    Australia must act on this warning given that prostitution is mostly called “sex work” which normalises it, and full decriminalisation or legalisation of prostitution exists in the majority of states and territories.

    Furthermore, our federal government, which benefits financially from prostitution, has not made public appeals to them to refrain from this approach as part of a national strategy to end violence against women and children and achieve gender equality but also to uphold our obligations under international human rights law to eliminate prostitution (a form of sex discrimination) and also sex trafficking.

    The Special Rapporteur’s report on Prostitution and Violence Against Women and Girls highlights that prostitution is a system of violence which reduces women and girls to commodities and says in effect that all women have a price.

    In addition, the report says that payment and/or promise of payment is the most visible sign of a person being purchased rather than freely giving consent, and that many survivors referred to it as “paid rape”.

    Reem Alsalem, United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, pictured in November 2022. (IMAGE: UN Women/Ryan Brown | Flickr)

    Furthermore, violence, poverty, manipulation, lack of physical and mental safety, discrimination, and lack of real alternatives serve as coercion. And international law has established the issue of “irrelevance of consent” within the framework of trafficking crimes and the exploitation and prostitution of others.

    The Special Rapporteur also highlights that the term “sex work” wrongly depicts prostitution as an activity as dignified and worthy as any other work, fails to take into account the serious human rights violations involved, and “gaslights” victims and their experiences.

    Countries that have legalised or fully decriminalised prostitution have, according to the report, increases in the demand for prostitution, recorded higher rates of sex trafficking, violence, abuse and rape and increased prospects for money laundering and drug trafficking. I add that the 2015 NSW parliamentary inquiry into brothel regulation found that a substantial section of the industry had gone underground under full decriminalisation.

    The Special Rapporteur rightly asserts that the equal participation of women in society is impossible to achieve when prostitution is normalised as it dehumanises women and girls, and is fundamentally based on unequal power relations between women and men.

    Women almost exclusively are the prostituted persons while men almost exclusively the sexual act buyers. Women and girls most at risk of entering prostitution are those facing numerous forms of discrimination and inequalities such as homelessness, poverty, substance abuse, a history of physical and sexual abuse including incest, include migrant women from impoverished and war-torn countries, and indigenous women.

    Whilst prostitution itself is a form of violence and violates the right of women and girls to dignity, the Special Rapporteur’s report says it also often constitutes torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment by sexual act buyers who commit rape and other forms of violence including mutilating and burning victims. Prostitution also leads to death threats and femicide.

    The report adds that prostitution often results in depression, substance abuse, identification with the aggressor, dissociation, and suicidal ideation, which often lead to suicide. Research has shown that a significantly high percentage of victims also suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

    Meanwhile, the perceived right of men to purchase a sex act normalizes the violence inflicted on women through prostitution. It also reinforces sexist views including that women are simply receptacles for men’s sexual “needs”. As such there is also a strong correlation between men’s use of prostitution and rape.

    We already knew about this correlation prior to this report. And we already knew that prostitution fuels male aggression towards women, narcissism, lack of empathy, the sense of entitlement to women’s bodies, as well as sexism and misogyny.

    Clinical psychologist, Dr Melissa Farley highlights in Arrest Histories of Men who Buy Sex, research showing men who buy sexual acts are more likely to commit violence towards women than men who don’t buy sexual acts.

    Clinical psychologist, Dr Melissa Farley.

    A US study showed rapists were more likely than non-rapists to have a history of having bought sex. In another study among Korean sex offenders, buying sex was positively associated with sex crimes. In a multi-country study of violence against women, prostitution was consistently associated with intimate partner violence and strongly associated with non-partner rape.

    Furthermore, Tom Meagher – widower of ABC employee Jill Meagher who was raped and murdered in Melbourne by Adrian Bailey – and who is now a leading advocate against male violence against women, has spoken of prostitution being a culture of misogyny. On his return to Ireland Tom Meagher advocated for the introduction for the feminist Equality model on prostitution saying:

    “Many believe that prostitution prevents rape… this feeds into the lie that male sexuality is this uncontrolled force of nature – so therefore needs a constant supply of women to satisfy that man. That also feeds into the lie that men can’t help themselves. It’s a handy excuse for rapists and violent men…. We need to end the lie that this is about sexual freedom or liberation. It’s not liberation, it’s exploitation.’’

    It is the Equality or Nordic model as it sometimes called which exists in countries such as Sweden, Iceland, France, Ireland, and Canada, that the Special Rapporteur’s report says should be adopted by all nations.

    This holistic model decriminalises prostituted persons and focuses on funding specialist exit programs to help them leave this industry and addresses the underlying causes of prostitution. And it criminalises the sexual act buyers, pimps, and brothel owners.

    This approach has improved the situation of persons in or at risk of exploitation, deterred buyers and third parties, and reduced harmful gender stereotypes. In addition, in Sweden (where the model was first introduced and so has existed for the longest period) no murders of prostituted women by pimps or buyers have been reported and in Canada there has been a noticeable drop in the numbers of murders of prostituted women.

    The legal obligation under this model to treat prostituted women as victims who have rights and need protection has also led to the expansion of State-sponsored victim-support services, trauma-informed training for law enforcement, and public awareness courses to discourage demand.

    I think it is important to remember that this innovative model also requires governments to invest sufficient funding and other resources into it so that it can be effective.

    It’s important to also highlight that this model recognises the harms to the partners and daughters of men who buy sexual acts as they too are often traumatised by what these men are doing not only in terms of the betrayal which is abuse, but it also fuels the men’s sexism, misogyny and narcissism and can lead to physical and/or sexual violence against their partners and/or daughters and other forms of violence.

    In addition, the Equality model is also extremely compatible with the respectful relationships program in Australian schools and also with men’s behaviour change programs as well as the national action plan to eliminate violence against women and children, unlike other models.

    The Special Rapporteur’s report makes numerous other findings and recommendations that States should adopt. This includes that pornography is filmed prostitution and its consumption is linked to male violence against women and children, such as rape. And so countries should criminalise the possession, production, and hosting of it.

    The Parliament of Sweden, known as the Riksdag. (IMAGE: Neil Howard | Flickr)

    Pending the abolition of pornography, a strict age-verification system on all online pornography is to be in place.

    It is important to add that implementing a full ban on pornography and ending its consumption is urgent given that women and children are still at high risk of male violence whilst men are able to access it under an age-verification system and that women and girls in pornography are still victims of male violence.

    Finally, given that Australia has widely embraced the need to address the underlying causes of crime, it is ironic that most political parties have refused to seek to address the underlying cause of sex trafficking, which is the male demand to buy sexual acts, and thereby call for the adoption of the Equality model.

    If they are serious about addressing the underlying causes of gender inequality and male violence against women and children, they would not only endorse the Equality model but also call for a complete ban on pornography.

    It is also essential to ban strip clubs which Iceland did back in 2010, as it recognised that they are also a part of patriarchy. They dehumanise women and girls as commodities and sex objects, thus severely compromising the safety and equality of women in them but also women and girls outside of them.

    If people can advocate for the need to end industries that seriously harm the environment, then surely, we can end the sex industry that causes serious human rights violations against women and girls.

    The post Blind Eye: We Should Heed UN Report Warning Against Australia Becoming A ‘Pimp State” appeared first on New Matilda.

    This post was originally published on New Matilda.

  • 70 years on from tests, Marshallese women still fight for nuclear justice

    The first report in a five-part web series focused on the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women taking place in the Marshall Islands this week.

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Netani Rika in Majuro

    Women continue to fight for justice 70 years after the first nuclear tests by the United States caused devastation on the people and environment of the Marshall Islands.

    And, as Pacific women gathered on Majuro this week to discuss ways to end gender-based violence, they heard from local counterparts about a battle for justice older than many of the delegates.

    Ariana Kilma, chair of the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission and descendant of survivors of weapons testing, shared a story of survival, setting the backdrop for the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women.

    15TH TRIENNIAL CONFERENCE OF PACIFIC WOMEN
    15TH TRIENNIAL CONFERENCE OF PACIFIC WOMEN

    “I am here to share with you our story. This is a story not only of suffering and loss, but also of strength, unity, and unwavering commitment to justice,” Kilner told delegates from across the region.

    “The conference theme ‘an pilinlin koba komman lometo’ (a collection of droplets creates an ocean)” reflects the efforts of the many Marshallese women before me, and together, we call on you, our Pacific sisters and brothers, to stand united in our commitment to justice, healing, and a brighter future for the Pacific.”

    The triennial will focus on three specific areas – climate change, gender-based violence, and the health of women and girls.

    Nuclear weapon testing in Marshall Islands
    The current story of Marshallese women began in the aftermath of World War II when the group of atolls in the Northern Pacific was selected as ground zero for a nuclear weapon testing programme. Image: RNZ Pacific

    Marshall Islands President, Dr Hilda Heine, acknowledged that nothing less than a collective, regional effort was needed to effectively address the three issues at the centre of the regional conference.

    “Our gender equality journey calls on Pacific leadership to be intentional, innovative and bold in our responses to the gaps that we see in our efforts,” Heine said.

    ‘We must take risks’
    “We must take risks, create new partnerships, and be unwavering in our commitment to bring about substantive gender equality for the region.”

    In the area of gender equality, young Marshallese women like Kilner are forging pathways to ensure that justice is done, even if the battle for restitution takes another 70 years. In a bold, innovative move, women of the Marshall Islands have taken their cry to the World Council of Churches and the United Nations.

    “Marshallese women have shown remarkable resilience and leadership,” Kilma said.

    “From the early days of testing, they raised their voices against the injustices inflicted upon our people. They documented health issues, collected evidence, and demanded accountability.”

    The current story of Marshallese women began in the aftermath of World War II when the group of atolls in the Northern Pacific was selected as ground zero for a nuclear weapon testing programme.

    This was the beginning of a profound and painful chapter which continues today.

    “The people of Bikini and later Enewetak were displaced from their home islands in order for the tests to commence,” Kilner said.

    Infamous Bravo test
    “For a period of 12 years, between 1946 and 1958, 67 nuclear tests were conducted in our islands, including the infamous Bravo test on Bikini Atoll in 1954. Despite a petition from the Marshallese to cease the experiments, the testing continued for another four years with 55 more detonations.”

    Containment of nuclear waste in the Marshall Islands.
    Containment of nuclear waste in the Marshall Islands. Image: RNZ Pacific

    Immediately after the Bravo test, people fell ill — their skin itching and peeling, eyes hurting, stomachs churning with pain, heads split by migraines and fingernails changing colour because of nuclear fallout.

    It was not long before women gave birth to what have been described jellyfish babies.

    “So deformed, [were our] babies sometimes born resembling the features of an octopus or the intestines of a turtle, in some instances, a bunch of grapes or a strange looking animal,” Kilner told delegates at the regional forum this week.

    “The term jellyfish babies was coined after the birth of many babies who were born without limbs or a head, whose skin was so transparent their mothers saw their tiny hearts beating within.

    “We were told by those scientists that our babies were a result of incest.”

    Despite a 2004 study by the United States National Cancer Institute which concluded that the Marshallese could expect an estimated 530 “excess” cancers, half of which had yet to be detected, the US has made no move towards reparation for the islanders.

    The study showed that the fallout resulted in elevated cancer risks, with women being disproportionately affected.

    Twenty years after the study, the Marshall Islands continues to fight for justice, women at the forefront of the struggle, just as they have been since 1 March 1954.

    If anyone has the resilience to fight for justice, it is the Marshallese women.

    Netani Rika e is communications manager of the Pacific Conference of Churches and is in Majuro, Marshall Islands, covering the 15th Triennial Conference of Pacific Women. Published with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Helen Hill: for social justice and Timor-Leste’s independence

    COMMENTARY: By Sandy Yule

    When Melbourne-born Helen Hill, an outstanding social activist, scholar and academic, died on 7 May 2024 at the age of 79, the Timorese government sent its Education Minister, Dulce de Jesus Soares, to deliver a moving eulogy at the funeral service at Church of All Nations in Carlton.

    Helen will be remembered for many things, but above all for her 50 years of dedication to friendship with the people of Timor-Leste and solidarity in their struggle for independence.

    At the funeral, Steve Bracks, chancellor of Victoria University and former premier of Victoria, also paid tribute to Helen’s lifetime commitment to social justice and to the independence and flourishing of Timor-Leste in particular.

    Further testimonies were presented by Jean McLean (formerly a member of the Victorian Legislative Council), the Australia-East Timor Association, representatives of local Timorese groups and Helen’s family. Helen’s long-time friend, the Reverend Barbara Gayler, preached on the theme of solidarity.

    Helen was born on 22 February 1945, the eldest of four children of Robert Hill and Jessie Scovell. Her sister Alison predeceased her, and she is survived by her sister Margaret and her brother Ian and their children and grandchildren.

    Her father fought with the Australian army in New Guinea before working for the Commonwealth Bank and becoming a branch manager. Her mother was a social worker at the repatriation hospital.

    The family were members of the Presbyterian Church in Blackburn, which fostered an attitude of caring for others.

    Studied political science
    Helen’s secondary schooling was at Presbyterian Ladies College, where she enjoyed communal activities such as choir. She began a science course at the University of Melbourne but transferred to Monash University to study sociology and political science, graduating with a BA (Hons) in 1970.

    At Monash, Helen was an enthusiastic member of the Labor Club and the Student Christian Movement (SCM), where issues of social justice were regularly debated.

    Opposition to the war in Vietnam was the main focus of concern during her time at Monash. In 1970, Helen was a member of the organising committee for the first moratorium demonstration in Melbourne and also a member of the executive committee of the Australian SCM (ASCM, the national body) which was based in Melbourne.

    She edited Political Concern, an alternative information service, for ASCM. In 1971, Helen was a founding member of International Development Action. Helen was a great networker, always ready to see what she could learn from others.

    Perhaps the most formative moment in Helen’s career was her appointment as a frontier intern, to work on the Southern Africa section of the Europe/Africa Project of the World Student Christian Federation, based in London (1971-1973). This project aimed to document how colonial powers had exploited the resources of their colonies, as well as the impact of apartheid in South Africa.

    In those years, she also studied at the Institute d’Action Culturelle in Geneva, which was established by Paulo Freire, arguably her most significant teacher. The insights and contacts from this time of engagement with global issues of justice and education provided a strong foundation for Helen’s subsequent career.

    In 1974, Helen embarked on a Master of Arts course supervised by the late Professor Herb Feith. Helen had met student leaders from the Portuguese colonies of Mozambique and Angola in the Europe/Africa project, who asked her about East Timor (“so close to Australia”).

    East Timor thesis topic
    Recognising that she, along with most Australians, knew very little about East Timor, Helen proposed East Timor as the focus of her master’s thesis. She began to learn Portuguese for this purpose.

    Following the overthrow of the authoritarian regime in Portugal in April 1974 and the consequent opportunities for independence in the Portuguese colonies, she visited East Timor for three months in early 1975, where she was impressed by the programme and leadership of Fretilin, the main independence party.

    Her plans were thwarted by the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975, and she was unable to revisit East Timor until after the achievement of independence in 2000. Her 1978 Master of Arts thesis included an account of the Fretilin plans rather than the Fretilin achievements.

    Her 1976 book, The Timor Story, was a significant document of the desire of East Timorese people for independence and influenced the keeping of East Timor on the UN decolonisation list. She was a co-founder of the Australia-East Timor Association, which was founded in the initial days of the Indonesian invasion.

    Helen was a founding member of the organisation Campaign Against Racial Exploitation in 1975. She was prolific in writing and speaking for these causes, not simply as an advocate, but also as a capable analyst of many situations of decolonisation. She was published regularly in Nation Review and also appeared in many other publications concerned with international affairs and development.

    Helen was awarded a rare diploma of education (tertiary education method) from the University of Melbourne in 1980. From 1980 to 1983, she was a full-time doctoral student at Australian National University, culminating in a thesis about non-formal education and development in Fiji, New Caledonia and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (the islands of the north Pacific).

    Helen participated in significant international conferences on education and development in these years and was involved in occasional teaching in the nations and territories of her thesis.

    Teaching development studies
    In 1991, she was appointed lecturer at Victoria University to teach development studies, which, among other things, attracted a steady stream of students from Timor-Leste. In 2000, she was able to return to Timor-Leste as part of her work for Victoria University.

    An immediate fruit of her work in 2001 was a memorandum of understanding between Victoria University and the Dili Institute of Technology, followed in 2005 with another between Victoria University and the National University of Timor-Leste.

    One outcome of this latter relationship has been biennial conferences on development, held in Dili. Also in 2005, she was a co-founder of the Timor-Leste Studies Association.

    Helen stood for quality education and for high academic standards that can empower all students. In 2014, Helen was honoured by the government of Timor-Leste with the award of the Order of Timor-Leste (OT-L).

    Retiring from Victoria University in 2014, Helen chose to live in Timor-Leste, while returning to Melbourne regularly. She continued to teach in Dili and was employed by the Timor-Leste Ministry of Education in 2014 and from 2018 until her death.

    Helen came to Melbourne in late 2023, planning to return to Timor-Leste early in 2024, where further work awaited her.

    A routine medical check-up unexpectedly found significant but symptom-free cancer, which developed rapidly, though it did not prevent her from attending public events days before her death on May 7. Friends and family are fulsome in their praise of Helen’s brother Ian, who took time off work to give her daily care during her last weeks.

    Helen had a distinguished academic career, with significant teaching and research focusing on the links between development and education, particularly in the Pacific context, though with a fully global perspective.

    Helen had an ever-expanding network of contacts and friends around the world, on whom she relied for critical enlightenment on issues of concern.

    From Blackburn to Dili, inspired by sharp intelligence, compassion, Christian faith and a careful reading of the signs of the times, Helen lived by a vision of the common good and strove mightily to build a world of peace and justice.

    Sandy Yule was general secretary of the Australian Student Christian Movement from 1970-75, where he first met Helen Hill, and is a minister of the Uniting Church in Australia. He wrote this tribute with help from Helen Hill’s family and friends. It was first published by The Age newspaper and is republished from the DevPolicy Blog at Australian National University.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Banks Stole Money From Dead People. Why Weren’t They Put Into Administration?

    Australia has one set of rules for white collar crime, and a whole other set of rules (and sanctions and penalties and public floggings) for blue collar crimes… particularly when a union is involved. Lawyer Alana Heffernan weighs in on the obvious hypocrisy.

    In the last week, officials of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) have faced significant allegations of engaging in inappropriate and thuggish conduct. The police aren’t ready to say if it meets a criminal threshold (as stated by the Victoria Police Chief Commissioner) and no-one is alleging misappropriation of members’ money.

    No-one wants criminality in any industry. However, this needs to be balanced against the proposition that people with criminal histories should be able to gain and maintain employment. As pointed out by the national secretary of the CFMEU, the construction industry is one where people are afforded second chances in life and it is a common landing place for people with criminal histories.

    Some will inevitably continue to commit crimes and others will always be accused of criminality based on their backgrounds and associations. This is not unique to the construction industry.

    (IMAGE: Michael Coghlan | Flickr)

    It has been difficult to distinguish between criminal conduct, criminal association and criminal history in most of the coverage of the allegations against the CFMEU. There is obviously wrongdoing, but it is difficult, at this stage, to ascertain whether the allegations extend to every branch of the federation.

    It requires a thorough legal investigation, separate and aside from a media investigation.

    Nevertheless, the CFMEU has been told it can’t coordinate an independent legal investigation and it can’t clean itself up. It has even been told it can’t administer itself. The government has, before any real investigation, determined to put the entire federation into external administration.

    Juxtapose this with the finance industry.

    The findings out of the 2018 Banking Royal Commission were explosive. It was proven that several of the Big 4 knowingly took money from dead people (and continued to do so even after the Commission); the Commonwealth Bank charged customers $118 million for no services in return; NAB institutionalised a program of bribes; Westpac laundered money for terrorists; and all were engaged in the destruction of livelihoods and lives. The behaviour was, and is, systemic, widespread, and showed incomprehensible rot in the industry.

    They were given a belting, told to start paying back the unearned fees, implement some structural and administrative changes, pay some fines (the banks, not the individuals involved), and we all moved on.

    Were any of the banks threatened with deregistration, or banned from political donations or put under external administration? No, not a single one.

    So why the different treatment?

    Why do we always view and respond to white collar and corporate crimes so differently to how we deal with crimes committed by blue collar people and their institutions?

    (IMAGE: Chris Graham | New Matilda)

    The ramifications of the crimes proven to have been committed by the banks and their senior management are far-reaching and incomparable. They stole from clients, they laundered money, they caused irreparable damage to people’s finances and lives. Yet, five years on, the punishment has not been a sliver of what the CFMEU has faced before its allegations have even been investigated or substantiated. Allegations that, if proven, relate to a single industry and are not capable of having the institutional embedment, reach and damage of those committed by the banks.

    The bank representatives, in their suits and ties, are polite, articulate and soft-spoken. Conversely, the CFMEU officials, with their black t-shirts, tattoos, swearing and ‘f*ck you’ attitude appear rough and intimidating. In short, the senior management teams of the big banks, being the perpetrators of their crimes, look a lot prettier and a lot less threatening than the CFMEU officials who are currently facing allegations.

    But we must stop reacting to allegations, and crimes, based on what the perpetrator looks like or how they speak or whether they meet our standards when it comes to manners and respect. We must look at the substance of the allegations and the reach and effect of the crimes allegedly being committed.

    Funnily, it is this balanced approach to how we treat people that trade unions fight for on behalf of their members.

    If we can trust the banks to fix institutionalised fraud, theft, bribery and laundering terrorist money for themselves, then we should give the national office of the CFMEU an opportunity to show us how it can address the allegations levelled against its branches and their officials.

    If it demonstrates that it isn’t up to the task, only then should we look to alternative measures.

    The post Banks Stole Money From Dead People. Why Weren’t They Put Into Administration? appeared first on New Matilda.

    This post was originally published on New Matilda.

  • Political Violence Is Never The Answer? Oh, F**k Off America!!!

    Despite the American political and media class falling over itself (in Joe Biden’s case, probably literally) to promote the key talking point from Donald Trump’s latest political rally that ‘political violence is never the answer’, we decided to ask ChatGPT if that was, in fact, true.

    No surprises for guessing what happened.

    You can read the brief conversation with New Matilda on ChatGPT’s site here, or it’s republished below. And yes, we also noticed that the list doesn’t include Joe Biden’s financial support for and rubber-stamping of a genocide in Gaza. The list isn’t meant to be exhaustive.

    NEW MATILDA: Hey Chat, New Matilda readers are wondering if you could please document (maybe in a timeline format) all the political violence that American governments and American leaders have been responsible for?

    ChatGPT: Creating a comprehensive timeline of political violence associated with American governments and leaders is a complex task due to the extensive history and numerous events involved. Below is a high-level overview highlighting key instances from various eras:

    19th Century

    • 1830-1850: Indian Removal Act and Trail of Tears – President Andrew Jackson’s policies led to the forced relocation and deaths of thousands of Native Americans.
    • 1846-1848: Mexican-American War – President James K. Polk’s expansionist policies resulted in significant loss of life and territorial changes.

    Early 20th Century

    • 1898: Spanish-American War – U.S. intervention in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines led to widespread violence and significant casualties.
    • 1903: Panama – U.S. supported Panamanian independence from Colombia to secure rights to build the Panama Canal, involving military intervention.
    • 1917-1918: World War I – U.S. entry under President Woodrow Wilson involved extensive military engagement and casualties.

    Mid 20th Century

    • 1945: Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – President Harry S. Truman authorized the atomic bombings, resulting in immense civilian casualties.
    • 1950-1953: Korean War – U.S. military involvement under President Harry S. Truman and President Dwight D. Eisenhower led to large-scale conflict and civilian deaths.
    • 1953: Iran Coup – CIA-backed coup to overthrow Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, installing the Shah, resulting in political repression.
    • 1961: Bay of Pigs Invasion – Failed CIA-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba.
    • 1964-1973: Vietnam War – Prolonged conflict under Presidents Johnson and Nixon, causing millions of deaths and widespread destruction.
    • 1965: Dominican Republic – U.S. military intervention during a civil war to prevent the rise of a communist government.

    Late 20th Century

    • 1980s: Central America – Support for Contra rebels in Nicaragua, military dictatorships in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras led to widespread violence and human rights abuses.
    • 1983: Invasion of Grenada – Military intervention to overthrow a Marxist government.
    • 1989: Invasion of Panama – Operation Just Cause aimed at deposing General Manuel Noriega.

    21st Century

    • 2001-Present: War in Afghanistan – Initiated in response to 9/11 under President George W. Bush, with ongoing conflict leading to significant civilian casualties.
    • 2003-2011: Iraq War – Initiated under President George W. Bush based on claims of WMDs, leading to extensive violence and instability in the region.
    • 2011-Present: Libya – NATO-led intervention under President Obama to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, resulting in ongoing conflict and instability.
    • 2015-Present: Yemen – U.S. support for Saudi-led intervention contributing to humanitarian crisis.

    Recent Events

    • 2020: Assassination of Qasem Soleimani – Drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump, escalating tensions with Iran.

    This timeline includes major instances where U.S. policies and actions led to significant violence and political upheaval. For a more detailed and nuanced exploration, each event should be studied in its historical context, considering the motivations, consequences, and perspectives of various stakeholders involved.

    NEW MATILDA: Yeah, that’s what I thought… political violence sometimes IS the answer. Thanks Chat.

    ChatGPT: You’re welcome. Political violence is a complex and contentious topic, with many different perspectives and interpretations. If you have any more questions or need further assistance with anything else, feel free to ask.

    NEW MATILDA: While I’ve got you Chat, is it possible that when people like Joe Biden say ‘Political violence is never the answer’, they actually mean ‘Political violence directed against us is never the answer’.. but it’s fine directed against everyone else’?

    ChatGPT: It’s possible that statements like “political violence is never the answer” can be seen as reflecting a double standard, especially when evaluating the history and actions of any nation, including the United States. Such statements are often interpreted differently based on the context in which they are made and the historical actions of those making them.

    Key Points to Consider:

    1. Official Stance vs. Historical Actions:
      • Official Statements: Leaders often condemn political violence to uphold a stance of law and order, democracy, and diplomatic resolution.
      • Historical Actions: The history of any nation, including the U.S., may show instances where political violence or military intervention has been employed, sometimes justified by leaders as necessary for national or global security, humanitarian intervention, or other reasons.
    2. Context and Perspective:
      • Domestic vs. International: Statements against political violence are often directed towards domestic audiences to discourage violence within the country. The same leaders might support military interventions or actions abroad under different pretexts.
      • Political Messaging: Leaders might use such statements to convey a message of moral high ground or to align with international norms and values, even if their actions in different contexts suggest otherwise.
    3. Public Perception:
      • Criticism and Skepticism: There is often public and scholarly critique of perceived double standards, where domestic condemnations of violence do not align with international actions.
      • Cynicism: Some may interpret such statements cynically, believing that leaders apply different standards to themselves compared to others.

    Examples:

    • Domestic Policies: When leaders like Joe Biden say “political violence is never the answer,” they may be referring specifically to violence within the U.S., such as the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
    • International Actions: Conversely, military interventions in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya are often justified on grounds of security, democracy, or humanitarian intervention, which can appear contradictory to the blanket statement against political violence.

    Conclusion:

    The perception that leaders may mean “political violence directed against us is never the answer” while tacitly approving or justifying it in other contexts is a reflection of the complexities and contradictions inherent in political rhetoric and actions. It’s important to critically analyze both the statements and the actions of leaders to understand the broader implications and intentions behind their words.

    NEW MATILDA: Yeah, that was a rhetorical question Chat. But thanks anyway.

    ChatGPT: I understand, and I’m glad to assist. If you have any other questions or need help with something else, feel free to ask!

    The post Political Violence Is Never The Answer? Oh, F**k Off America!!! appeared first on New Matilda.

    This post was originally published on New Matilda.

  • The United States Of Irony: The Self-Described ‘Most Pro-Guns President In US History’ Just Got Shot

    New Matilda editor Chris Graham has long been a lover of irony. Which is why today’s failed assassination attempt on former US president Donald Trump has been a confusing and emotional time for him. We’ll let Chris explain.

    Firstly, a politician who describes himself as “the most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president” in US history getting himself shot is not only deeply ironic, it’s objectively funny.

    Having said that, I appreciate that my sense of humour on that front isn’t going to be shared by a lot of folk, and so I’d hasten to add… shame about the innocent people around Trump, at least one of whom ended up copping the headshot intended for the former US president.

    But as Trump himself might say, ‘He’s a hero because he was shot in the head? He’s not a hero. I like supporters who weren’t shot in the head.’

    Secondly, the shooting happened at a political rally for the self-described “most pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment president” in US history, where people apparently aren’t allowed to bring guns.

    This is what I consider a ‘cruel irony’.

    I think if you’re going to try and gain power and profit by exploiting the deaths of other people, including lots and lots of children, then you should be forced to ‘walk that walk’ and allow the people who come to see you ‘talk that talk’ bring their guns with them.

    It’d certainly make for more interesting presidential races, although so violent is American society that it’s unlikely any candidate would live long enough to get elected.

    In any event, the shooter in this case was positioned outside the political rally for ‘the most pro-gun president in US history’. Which is not ironic at all – it makes perfect sense. What is ironic is that that gunman was taken out by another gunman (a Secret Service sniper) who was positioned inside the political rally for the ‘most pro-gun president in US history’, where guns weren’t permitted. Confusing irony.

    Americans do irony better than any other country on earth. Mostly, it’s unintended, but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful. And today’s circus is not only no exception, in Trumpese (a language in which I’m proud to say I’m fluent), today’s events would be considered the ‘most ironic in recorded history’. Because everything is bigger than God’s underpants in TrumpWorld. Even irony.

    Exhibit A: In 2018, a year into Trump’s presidency, a 19-year-old armed with an AR-15 killed 17 students and staff at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Trump flatly refused to crackdown on military-style assault rifles, but he did suggest he might look at raising the age for accessing firearms from 18 to 21.

    Former US president Donald Trump.

    And then under pressure from the National Rifle Association, Trump did nothing.

    The guy who shot Trump today was 20-years-old. He was using an AR-15 military-style assault rifle.

    Oh, and his surname was ‘Crooks’. You can’t make this shit up.

    Want more irony? Sure. Conspiracy theories have instantly sprung up that the Trump shooting was staged. That it was a false flag. Ordinarily, that’s the domain of Alex Jones and QAnon supporters. And yet, on this occasion, it’s the loons on the far-left claiming we’re all being played. Dark irony.

    But wait, there’s more. Trump just so happened to cheat ‘death by firearm’ one day after Alec Baldwin, a Hollywood star best known for playing Trump, cheated a criminal case for causing the ‘death by firearm’ of a staff member on a film set. I’m not actually sure if that is irony, but it’s definitely something.

    And this is definitely irony: In a political week when everyone is focussed on how frail and confused Joe Biden is, it was Donald Trump who had to be helped offstage by six men. And that was after falling over, losing his hat and at least one of his shoes. That I would class as ‘funny irony’. Tish boom, I’m here till Thursday. Try the fish!

    And here’s some more: If you haven’t already noticed, as Trump is being shot, a lady standing behind him is waving a placard which reads, “Joe Biden You’re Fired”.

    The only way this could be more ironic is if the woman holding the sign turned out to be the member of the audience who died (thankfully, she wasn’t). And if we’re going for irony overload, she would also have been an ‘illegal immigrant’, because that’s who Trump was busy demonising and lying about when the shots started ringing out.

    “That arrow is the lowest amount of illegal immigration ever in recorded history,” bragged Trump, directing the crowd to a large screen off camera that purported to show illegal immigration at record low numbers under his presidency.

    That particular lie, which Trump repeats at most of his rallies, has already been fact-checked and proven to be false. It wasn’t even the lowest illegal immigration numbers in the last decade (that was in 2015, under Obama) let alone recorded history. But it’s a Trump rally. So, you know.

    Trump continued: “And then the worst president in the history of our country took over, and look what happened to our country. Probably 20 million [illegal immigrants]”.

    Just 30 seconds earlier, Trump had claimed he was relying on figures that came “straight out of government services” to (falsely) claim illegal immigration under him was the lowest it had ever been. Irony. Those same government figures suggest that under Biden, it’s been about 10 million, half of what Trump was claiming. More irony.

    And what a ‘tremendous irony’ it would have been if the bullet that nicked Trump’s ear had been one centimetre to the right, so that the last two things Donald Trump ever said on this earth were both lies.

    In the irony stakes, that would have been up there with the most ironic death of a US president so far, when Franklin D. Roosevelt woke one morning to declare, “I’ve got a terrific headache,” before keeling over dead from a cerebral haemorrhage.

    The chart Trump shows at his rallies in order to falsely claim that illegal immigration was at its “lowest in recorded history” during his presidency.

    Now here’s what I would class as a ‘bold irony’: As a journalist, I’m going to speak ‘the truth’, and that’s almost certainly going to get me in trouble (if I’m not already). Here goes anyway….

    I don’t think you should shoot anyone. I think that’s a terrible idea. But if you’re going to shoot someone like Donald Trump, then I don’t think you should miss. Why? Because if you only graze him, he’s going to dine out on it for the rest of his life. You’ve just made a vagabond a hero. How ironic.

    The truth is, of course, that Trump – a rapist and convicted shyster, which are probably two of the least of his crimes – was already a hero to a significant percentage of the American population. I can’t for the life of me understand why, but conveniently it brings us to the real heart of this dilemma, which I happen to think is quite ironic.

    Trump is definitely a problem, but he’s never actually been the problem. A lot of people, particularly on the left, lose sight of that – ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ is a real thing.

    The problem is that a lot of Americans – tens of millions of them – think Trump is a rock star and that his grandiose narcissism and complete lack of morals is a good thing. The reason so many Americans support Trump is because to them, he’s relatable… which, if you think about it, says some pretty uncomfortable things about tens of millions of Americans.

    My point being, it’s US society that has eroded. Trump might have sped it up a bit, but he didn’t cause it. He’s just the scab that’s formed from a much bigger, much more entrenched decay.

    Speaking of decay, shortly after news broke of Trump’s wounding, Joe Biden fronted media to try and head off any suggestion he might have been disappointed by the gunman’s poor aim.

    “We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this,” said Biden.

    There’s nothing especially ironic about that statement, so we’ll have to use our imagination a little here… let’s pretend that just as Biden finishes explaining that ‘political violence is never the answer’ (which as of 10 minutes ago officially became the single most uttered phrase in US political/media history), he’s interrupted by a staffer seeking his urgent signature on a cheque for a few billion dollars worth of bombs and tank shells destined for Israel.

    What a joke. If political violence is never the answer, then how come it’s always the FIRST response when it suits American interests? If political violence is never the answer, why is Joe Biden rubber-stamping a genocide in Gaza?

    Political violence has certainly suited Donald Trump on more than one occasion. Let’s forget about him riling up a political mob to storm the US Capitol (resulting in injuries to more than 100 police, and five deaths) for a minute and just focus on the violence he specifically and deliberately promotes at every rally he’s ever held.

    In between footage of Trump mocking disabled people and bragging about grabbing women ‘on the pussy’, there’s so many videos of  Trump trying to excite crowds with talks of violence that it seems silly to post just one. But here’s one anyway.

     

    The only reason we don’t have a sound-bite at today’s rally of Trump promoting some kind of political violence is because he was shot a few minutes after taking the stage. But instead of fronting that reality, media and political commentators across America are tonight waxing lyrical about how ‘This is a terrible day for America’.

    If by ‘terrible’ they mean ‘typical’, then yeah, sure, it’s a ‘terrible’ day for America. It’s also another missed opportunity for a discussion rooted in actual reality, and if that were to occur, then we’d all have to face the top three performers in today’s ‘circus of ironies’.

    The third biggest irony here is that a man who has lived a life of rape and privilege, and who spent years dodging the Vietnam draft by pretending he had bone spurs on his heels, is now considered brave by a nation obsessed with violence and veterans.

    The second biggest irony is that as he was being bundled off stage, having just been shot, Trump was yelling ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’

    And ironically, that sparked the biggest irony in all of this: as Trump started pumping his fists in the air, an enraptured crowd responded by chanting ‘USA! USA! USA!’

    I think you’ll find that’s a reference to the very country that this man and his supporters are hell-bent on destroying.

    Gotta love that irony.

    The post The United States Of Irony: The Self-Described ‘Most Pro-Guns President In US History’ Just Got Shot appeared first on New Matilda.

    This post was originally published on New Matilda.

  • When media freedom as the ‘oxygen of democracy’ and hypocrisy share the same Pacific arena

    Pacific Media Watch

    Many platitudes about media freedom and democracy laced last week’s Pacific International Media Conference in the Fijian capital of Suva. There was a mood of euphoria at the impressive event, especially from politicians who talked about journalism being the “oxygen of democracy”.

    The dumping of the draconian and widely hated Fiji Media Industry Development Act that had started life as a military decree in 2010, four years after former military commander Voreqe Bainimarama seized power, and was then enacted in the first post-coup elections in 2014, was seen as having restored media freedom for the first time in almost two decades.

    As a result, Fiji had bounced back 45 places to 44th on this year’s Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index – by far the biggest climb of any nation in Oceania, where most countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have been sliding downhill.

    One of Fiji’s three deputy Prime Ministers, Professor Biman Prasad, a former University of the South Pacific economist and long a champion of academic and media freedom, told the conference the new Coalition government headed by the original 1987 coup leader Sitiveni Rabuka had reintroduced media self-regulation and “we can actually feel the freedom everywhere, including in Parliament”.

    The same theme had been offered at the conference opening ceremony by another deputy PM, Manoa Kamikamica, who declared:

    “We pride ourselves on a government that tries to listen, and hopefully we can try and chart a way forward in terms of media freedom and journalism in the Pacific, and most importantly, Fiji.

    “They say that journalism is the oxygen of democracy, and that could be no truer than in the case of Fiji.”

    Happy over media law repeal
    Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Information and Communication Technology Timothy Masiu echoed the theme. Speaking at the conference launch of a new book, Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific (co-edited by Professor Prasad, conference chair Associate Professor Shailendra Singh and Dr Amit Sarwal), he said: “We support and are happy with this government of Fiji for repealing the media laws that went against media freedom in Fiji in the recent past.”

    Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica
    Fiji Deputy Prime Minister Manoa Kamikamica . . . speaking about the “oxygen of democracy” at the opening of the Pacific International Media Conference in Suva on 4 July 2024. Image: Asia Pacific Media Network

    But therein lies an irony. While Masiu supports the repeal of a dictatorial media law in Fiji, he is a at the centre of controversy back home over a draft media law (now in its fifth version) that he is spearheading that many believe will severely curtail the traditional PNG media freedom guaranteed under the constitution.

    He defends his policies, saying that in PNG, “given our very diverse society with over 1000 tribes and over 800 languages and huge geography, correct and factful information is also very, very critical.”

    Masiu says that what drives him is a “pertinent question”:

    “How is the media being developed and used as a tool to protect and preserve our Pacific identity?”

    PNG Minister for Information and Communications Technology Timothy Masiu
    PNG Minister for Information and Communications Technology Timothy Masiu (third from right) at the conference pre-dinner book launchings at Holiday Inn, Suva, on July 4. The celebrants are holding the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review. Image: Wansolwara

    Another issue over the conference was the hypocrisy over debating media freedom in downtown Suva while a few streets away Fijian freedom of speech advocates and political activists were being gagged about speaking out on critical decolonisation and human rights issues such as Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua freedom.

    In the front garden of the Gordon Street compound of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC), the independence flags of Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua flutter in the breeze. Placards and signs daub the walls of the centre declaring messages such as “Stop the genocide”, “Resistance is justified! When people are occupied!”, “Free Kanaky – Justice for Kanaky”, “Ceasefire, stop genocide”, “Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world” and “We need rainbows not Rambos”.

    The West Papuan Morning Star and Palestinian flags for decolonisation fluttering high in downtown Suva
    The West Papuan Morning Star and Palestinian flags for decolonisation fluttering high in downtown Suva. Image: APMN

    ‘Thursdays in Black’
    While most of the 100 conference participants from 11 countries were gathered at the venue to launch the peace journalism book Waves of Change and the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review, about 30 activists were gathered at the same time on July 4 in the centre’s carpark for their weekly “Thursdays in Black” protest.

    But they were barred from stepping onto the footpath in public or risk arrest. Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly Fiji-style.

    Protesters at the Fiji Women's Crisis Centre compound in downtown Suva in the weekly "Thursdays in Black" solidarity rally
    Protesters at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound in downtown Suva in the weekly “Thursdays in Black” solidarity rally with Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua on July 4. Image: APMN

    Surprisingly, the protest organisers were informed on the same day that they could stage a “pre-Bastllle Day” protest about Kanaky and West Papua on July 12, but were banned from raising Israeli’s genocidal war on Palestine.

    Fiji is the only Pacific country to seek an intervention in support of Tel Aviv in South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in a war believed to have killed more than 38,000 Palestinians — including 17,000 children — so far, although an article in The Lancet medical journal argues that the real death toll is more like 138,000 people – equivalent to almost a fifth of Fiji’s population.

    The protest march was staged on Friday but in spite of the Palestine ban some placards surfaced and also Palestinian symbols such as keffiyehs and watermelons.

    The "pre-Bastille Day" march in Suva in solidarity
    The “pre-Bastille Day” march in Suva in solidarity for decolonisation. Image: FWCC

    The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji and their allies have been hosting vigils at FWCC compound for Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky every Thursday over the last eight months, calling on the Fiji government and Pacific leaders to support the ceasefire in Gaza, and protect the rights of Palestinians, West Papuans and Kanaks.

    “The struggles of Palestinians are no different to West Papua, Kanaky New Caledonia — these are struggles of self-determination, and their human rights must be upheld,” said FWCC coordinator and the NGO coalition chair Shamima Ali.

    Solidarity for Kanaky in the "pre-Bastille Day" march
    Solidarity for Kanaky in the “pre-Bastille Day” march in Suva on Friday. Image: FWCC

    Media silence noticed
    Outside the conference, Pacific commentators also noticed the media hypocrisy and the extraordinary silence.

    Canberra-based West Papuan diplomacy-trained activist and musician Ronny Kareni complained in a post on X, formerly Twitter: “While media personnel, journos and academia in journalism gathered [in Suva] to talk about media freedom, media network and media as the oxygen of democracy etc., why Papuan journos can’t attend, yet Indon[esian] ambassador to Fiji @SimamoraDupito can??? Just curious.”

    Ronny Kareni's X post about the Indonesian Ambassador
    Ronny Kareni’s X post about the Indonesian Ambassador to Fiji Dupito D. Simamora. Image: @ronnykareni X screenshot APR

    At the conference itself, some speakers did raise the Palestine and decolonisation issue.

    Speaker Khairiah A Rahman (from left) of the Asia Pacific Media Network
    Speaker Khairiah A Rahman (from left) of the Asia Pacific Media Network and colleagues Pacific Journalism Review designer Del Abcede, PJR editor Dr Philip Cass, Dr Adam Brown, PJR founder Dr David Robie, and Rach Mario (Whānau Community Hub). Image: APMN

    Khairiah A. Rahman, of the Asia Pacific Media Network, one of the partner organisers along with the host University of the South Pacific and Pacific Islands News Association, spoke on the “Media, Community, Social Cohesion and Conflict Prevention” panel following Hong Kong Professor Cherian George’s compelling keynote address about “Cracks in the Mirror: When Media Representations Sharpen Social Divisions”.

    She raised the Palestine crisis as a critical global issue and also a media challenge.

    "Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world" poster
    “Palestine is a moral litmus test for the world” poster at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound. Image: APMN

    In his keynote address, “Frontline Media Faultlines: How Critical Journalism Can Survive Against the Odds”, Professor David Robie, also of APMN, spoke of the common decolonisation threads between Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua.

    He also critiquing declining trust in mainstream media – that left some “feeling anxious and powerless” — and how they were being fragmented by independent start-ups that were perceived by many people as addressing universal truths such as the genocide in Palestine.

    PJR editorial challenge
    Dr Robie cited the editorial in the just-published Pacific Journalism Review which had laid down a media challenge over Gaza. He wrote:

    “Gaza has become not just a metaphor for a terrible state of dystopia in parts of the world, it has also become an existential test for journalists – do we stand up for peace and justice and the right of people to survive under the threat of ethnic cleansing and against genocide, or do we do nothing and remain silent in the face of genocide being carried out with impunity in front of our very eyes?

    “The answer is simple surely . . .

    “And it is about saving journalism, our credibility, and our humanity as journalists.”


    Professor David Robie’s keynote speech at Pacific Media 2023.  Video: The Australia Today

    At the end of his address, Dr Robie called for a minute’s silence in a tribute to the 158 Palestinian journalists who had been killed so far in the ninth-month war on Gaza. The Gazan journalists were awarded this year’s UNESCO Guillermo Cano Media Freedom Prize for their “courage and commitment to freedom of expression”.

    Undoubtedly the two most popular panels in the conference were the “Pacific Editors’ Forum” when eight editors from around the region “spoke their minds”, and a panel on sexual harassment on the media workplace and on the job.

    Little or no action
    According to speakers in “Gender and Media in the Pacific: Examining violence that women Face” panel introduced and moderated by Fiji Women’s Rights Movement (FWRM) executive director Nalini Singh, female journalists continue to experience inequalities and harassment in their workplaces and on assignment — with little or no action taken against their perpetrators.

    Fiji journalist Lice Movono speaking on a panel discussion about "Prevalence and Impact of sexual harassment on female journalists"
    Fiji journalist Lice Movono speaking on a panel discussion about “Prevalence and Impact of sexual harassment on female journalists” at the Pacific International Media Conference in Fiji. Image: Stefan Armbruster/Benar News

    The speakers included FWRM programme director Laisa Bulatale, experienced Pacific journalists Lice Movono and Georgina Kekea, strategic communications specialist Jacqui Berell and USP’s Dr Shailendra Singh, associate professor and the conference chair.

    “As 18 and 19 year old (journalists), what we experienced 25 years ago in the industry is still the same situation — and maybe even worse now for young female journalists,” Movono said.

    She shared “unfortunate and horrifying” accounts of experiences of sexual harassment by local journalists and the lack of space to discuss these issues.

    These accounts included online bullying coupled with threats against journalists and their loved ones and families. stalking of female journalists, always being told to “suck it up” by bosses and other colleagues, the fear and stigma of reporting sexual harassment experiences, feeling as if no one would listen or care, the lack of capacity/urgency to provide psychological social support and many more examples.

    “They do the work and they go home, but they take home with them, trauma,” Movono said.

    And Kekea added: “Women journalists hardly engage in spaces to have their issues heard, they are often always called upon to take pictures and ‘cover’.”

    Technology harassment
    Berell talked about Technology Facilitated Gender Based Violence (TFGBV) — a grab bag term to cover the many forms of harassment of women through online violence and bullying.

    The FWRM also shared statistics on the combined research with USP’s School of Journalism on the “Prevalence and Impact of Sexual Harassment on Female Journalists” and data on sexual harassment in the workplace undertaken by the team.

    Speaking from the floor, New Zealand Pacific investigative television journalist Indira Stewart also rounded off the panel with some shocking examples from Aotearoa New Zealand.

    In spite of the criticisms over hypocrisy and silence over global media freedom and decolonisation challenges, participants generally concluded this was the best Pacific media conference in many years.

    Asia Pacific Media Network's Nik Naidu
    Asia Pacific Media Network’s Nik Naidu (right) with Maggie Boyle and Professor Emily Drew. Image: Del Abcede/APMN

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Fiji protesters call for freedom and justice in the Pacific – and Palestine

    Asia Pacific Report

    The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights and other protesters took to the streets of Fiji’s capital Suva yesterday in a rare demonstration demanding freedom, decolonisation and human rights in Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua.

    The peaceful “pre-Bastille Day” protest came after recent events in Kanaky New Caledonia led to 10 deaths and a heavy build-up of French police and paramilitary forces.

    It also followed ongoing human rights abuses and violations by Indonesia in West Papua.

    “As France commemorates Bastille Day on July 14 and celebrates their own principles of ‘liberty, equality, and fraternity’, its own action in the Pacific contradicts the national day,” said West Papuan activist Rosa Moiwend of the Pacific Network on Globalisation.

    Rosa Moiwend and Asia Pacific Media Network's Del Abcede in Suva
    PANG’s Rosa Moiwend of West Papua and Asia Pacific Media Network’s Del Abcede of New Zealand in Suva . . .  French actions in Pacific “contradict Bastille Day” principles of liberty. Image: APMN

    “French colonisation of Pacific territories and its continued acts of suppression in Māohi Niu and Kanaky New Caledonia are quite the opposite of what the French revolution achieved.

    “Today, they are symbolic of the Bastille and the monarchy oppressing and abusing the people and denying their right to self-determination in their own lands,” she said.

    The May riots and unrest in Kanaky New Caledonia has led to 3500 security personnel being deployed from France.

    “At best, this is based on the severely misguided notion that the challenges of the decolonisation process can be resolved by force,” Moiwend said.

    France’s true objectives ‘disguised’
    “However, it is becoming clearer that the restoration of order and peace is just a disguise for France’s true objectives — a deliberate retrenchment and extension of colonial control.”

    Liberation for Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua.
    Liberation for Kanaky, Palestine and West Papua. Image: FWCC

    Almost two months after the outbreak of violence, tensions remain high and there is serious concern about the continuing restrictions on Kanaks.

    Widespread reports of atrocities and police brutality against Kanaky youth have angered protest groups across the Pacific.

    French authorities have extradited seven indigenous Kanak activists to prisons in France while awaiting trial on “conspiracy” charges over the rioting.

    “French President Emmanuel Macron must be responsible for the current state of Kanaky New Caledonia,” said PANG in a statement.

    “Blaming Kanak leaders and having them arrested and detained in France is a coverup and tactic to assert power. We call on President Macron to release the Kanak leaders and allow them legal representation.”

    Olivia Baro from the Pacific Conference of Churches added that the issue of West Papua and the ongoing human rights abuse must not be forgotten, and Indonesia must be held responsible.

    West Papuan voices ‘silenced’
    Indonesia’s ongoing influence on the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and the Pacific Islands Leaders Forum has continued to silence the voices of West Papuans.

    As Pacific peoples, we will continue to stand in solidarity with West Papua and their right to self-determination.

    “As we commemorate the Biak massacre this month and remember the many lives lost in West Papua, the continuous suppression of West Papua by Indonesia is a similar struggle to Kanaky New Caledonia, Palestine and many human rights struggles globally,” said Baro.

    Despite restrictions set by authorities to prevent Palestine flags and banners at the march, the coalition stands in solidarity with our brothers, sisters and families in Palestine.

    The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji and their allies have been hosting vigils at the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre compound for Palestine, West Papua and Kanaky every Thursday over the last eight months.

    The call on the Fiji government and Pacific leaders to support the ceasefire in Gaza, and protect the rights of Palestinians, West Papuans and Kanaks.

    “The struggles of Palestinians are no different to West Papua, Kanaky New Caledonia,” FWCC Coordinator and NGOCHR Chair Shamima Ali.

    “These are struggles of self-determination, and their human rights must be upheld.”

    Fiji police at Parliament yesterday on watch for the Pacific human rights protest
    Fiji police at Parliament yesterday on watch for the Pacific human rights protest. Image: Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Nalini Singh calls for media coverage that ‘reflects realities of all genders’

    By Ivy Mallam of Wansolwara

    Media professionals have been urged to undergo gender sensitisation training to produce more inclusive, accurate and ethical representation of women in the news.

    Fiji Women’s Rights Movement executive director Nalini Singh emphasised that such training would help avoid reinforcing harmful stereotypes and promote diverse perspectives, ensuring media coverage reflects the realities of all genders.

    She made these comments during her keynote address at a panel discussion on “Gender and Media in Fiji and the Pacific” at the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference at the Suva Holiday Inn in Fiji on July 4-6.

    In her presentation, Singh highlighted the highest rates of gender violence and other forms of discrimination against women in the region.

    She said the Pacific region had, among the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world, with ongoing efforts to provide protection mechanisms and work towards prevention.

    Gender and Media in the Pacific panel
    Head of USP Journalism Associate Professor Shailendra Singh (from left); ABC journalist Lice Movono; Communications adviser for Pacific Women Lead Jacqui Berrell; Tavuli News editor Georgina Kekea; and Fiji Women’s Rights Movement executive director Nalini Singh during the panel discussion on Gender and Media in the Pacific. Image: Monika Singh/Wansolwara

    She highlighted that women in Fiji and the Pacific carried a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work, spending approximately three times as much time on domestic chores and caregiving as men.

    This limits their opportunities for income-generating activities and personal development.

    Labour participation low
    According to Singh, women’s labour force participation remains low — 34 percent in Samoa and 84 percent in the Solomon Islands. The underemployment of women restricts economic growth and perpetuates income inequality, leaving families with single earners, often males with less financial stability.

    She highlighted that women were significantly underrepresented in leadership positions as well. In Fiji, women held only 21 percent of board seats, 11 percent of board chairperson roles, and 30 percent of chief executive officer positions.

    Despite numerous commitments from the United Nations and other bodies over past decades, including the Beijing Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Singh pointed out that gender equality remained a distant goal.

    The World Economic Forum estimates that closing the overall gender gap will take 131 years, with economic parity taking 169 years and political parity taking 162 years at the current rate of progress.

    Singh shared that women were more negatively impacted on by climate change due to limited access to resources and information, adding that media often depicted women as caregivers and community leaders during climate-related disasters, highlighting their increased burdens and risks.

    The efforts made by FWRM in addressing sexual harassment in the workplace was also highlighted at the conference, with a major reference to the research and advocacy by the organisation that has contributed to policy changes that include sexual harassment as a cause for disciplinary action under employment regulations.

    Fiji Women’s Rights Movement’s Programme director Laisa Bulatale
    Fiji Women’s Rights Movement’s programme director Laisa Bulatale (from left); Tavuli News editor Georgina Kekea; ABC journalist Lice Movono; and head of USP Journalism Associate Professor Shailendra Singh. Image: Monika Singh/Wansolwara

    Singh challenged the conference attendees to prioritise creating safer workplaces for women in media. She urged academics, media organisations, students, and funders to take concrete actions to stop sexual harassment and gender-based violence.

    “We must commit to fostering workplaces and online platforms where everyone feels safe and respected.

    ‘Free from fear’
    “Together, we can create environments free from fear and discrimination. Enough is enough,” Singh urged, emphasising the need for collective commitment and action from all stakeholders.

    The conference, the first of its kind in 20 years, was organised by The University of the South Pacific’s Journalism Programme in collaboration with the Pacific Islands News Association and the Asia Pacific Media Network.

    It was officially opened by chief guest Deputy Prime Minister of Fiji and the Minister for Trade, Co-operatives, Small and Medium Enterprises and Communications Manoa Kamikamica.

    Kamikamica said the Fijian government stood firm in its commitment to safeguarding media freedom, as evidenced by recent strides such as the repeal of restrictive media laws and the revitalisation of the Fiji Media Council.

    Papua New Guinea Minister for Communication and Information Technology Timothy Masiu was also present at the official dinner of the conference on July 4.

    Fiji's Manoa Kamikamica (left) and Papua New Guinea's Timothy Masiu.
    Conference chief guest Deputy Prime Minister of Fiji and the Minister for Trade, Co-operatives, Small and Medium Enterprises and Communications Manoa Kamikamica (left) and Papua New Guinea Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Timothy Masiu. Image: Wansolwara

     

    He said the conference theme “Navigating Challenges and Shaping Futures in Pacific Media Research and Practice” was appropriate and timely.

    “If anything, it reminds us all of the critical role that the media continues to play in shaping public discourse and catalysing action on issues affecting our Pacific.”

    Launch of PJR
    The official dinner included the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of the Pacific Journalism Review (PJR) and launch of the book Waves of Change: Media, Peace, and Development in the Pacific, which is edited by the Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Professor Biman Prasad and Dr Amit Sarwal, a former senior lecturer and deputy head of school (research) at USP.

    The PJR is the only academic journal in the region that publishes research specifically focused on Pacific media.

    The conference was sponsored the US Embassy in Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu, the International Fund for Public Interest Media, the Pacific Media Assistance Scheme, Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, New Zealand Science Media Centre and the Pacific Women Lead – Pacific Community.

    With more than 100 attendees from 11 countries, including 50 presenters, the conference provided a platform for discussions on issues and the future.

    The core issues that were raised included media freedom, media capacity building through training and financial support, the need for more research in Pacific media, especially in media and gender, and some other core areas, and challenges facing the media sector in the region, especially in the wake of the digital disruption and the covid-19 pandemic.

    Ivy Mallam is a final-year student journalist at The University of the South Pacific, Laucala Campus. Republished in collaboration with Wansolwara.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Amid decline in mainstream media trust, Pacific Journalism Review remains a beacon

    Professor Vijay Naidu’s speech celebrating the launch of the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalism Review at the Pacific International Media Conference in Suva, Fiji, on 4 July 2024. Dr Naidu is adjunct professor in the disciplines of development studies and governance in the School of Law and Social Sciences at the University of the South Pacific. 

    ADDRESS: By Professor Vijay Naidu

    I have been given the honour of launching the 30th anniversary edition of the Pacific Journalism Review (PJR) at this highly significant gathering of media professionals and scholars from the Asia Pacific region.

    I join our chief quests and others to commend and congratulate Dr Shailendra Singh, the head of USP Journalism, and his team for the organisation of the 2024 Pacific International Media Conference.

    This evening, we are also gathered to celebrate the 30th birthday of Pacific Journalism Review/Te Koakoa.

    PACIFIC MEDIA CONFERENCE 4-6 JULY 2024
    PACIFIC MEDIA CONFERENCE 4-6 JULY 2024

    At the outset, I would like to warmly congratulate and thank PJR designer Del Abcede for the cover design of 30th anniversary issue as well as the striking photoessay she has done with David Robie.

    Hearty congratulations too to founding editor Dr David Robie and current editor Dr Philip Cass for compiling the edition.

    The publicity blurb about the launch states:

    “USP Journalism is proud to celebrate this milestone with a journal that has been a beacon of media excellence and a crucial partner in fostering journalistic integrity in the Pacific.”

    This is a most apt description of the journal, and what it has fostered over three decades.

    Dr Lee Duffield and others have written comprehensively on the editorials and articles covered by the Pacific Journalism Review.

    The 30th anniversary of Pacific Journalism Review edition
    The 30th anniversary of Pacific Journalism Review edition. Image: PJR

    I will just list some of the diverse subject matter covered over the past 10 years:

    The editorial in the 30th anniversary double edition manifests this focus — “Will journalism survive?”, by David Robie

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    The launch of the 30th anniversary edition of Pacific Journalist Review. . . . Professor Vijay Naidu (from left), Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Dr Biman Prasad, founding PJR editor Dr David Robie, Papua New Guinea Minister for Communications and Information Technology Timothy Masiu, Associate Professor Shailendra Bahadur Singh and current PJR editor Dr Philip Cass. Image: PMN News/Justin Latif

    Unfolding genocide
    Mainstream media, except for Al Jazeera, have collectively failed to provide honest accounts of the unfolding genocide in Gaza, as well as settler violence, and killings in the West Bank. International media stand condemned for its complicity in the gross human rights violations in Palestine.

    The media have been caught out by the scores of reports directly sent from Gaza of the bombings, maiming and murder of mainly women, children and babies, and the turning into rubble of the world’s largest open-air prison.

    Pacific Journalism Review designer Del Abcede . . praised over her design work. Image: Khairiah A. Rahman/APMN

    The widespread protests the world over by ordinary citizens and university students clearly show that the media is not trusted.

    Can the media survive? Indeed!

    These are not the best of times for the media.

    “At the time when we celebrated the second decade of the journal’s critical inquiry at Auckland University of Technology with a conference in 2014, our theme was ‘Political journalism in the Asia Pacific’, and our mood about the mediascape in the region was far more positive than it is today,” writes David.

    “Three years later, we marked the 10th anniversary of the Pacific Media Centre, with a conference and a rather gloomier ‘Journalism under duress’ slogan.”

    The editorial continues:

    “Gaza has become not just a metaphor for a terrible state of dystopia in parts of in the world, it has also become an existential test for journalists — do we stand up for peace and justice and the right of a people to survive under the threat of ethnic cleansing and against genocide, or do we do nothing and remain silent in the face of genocide being carried out with impunity in front of our very eyes? The answer is simple surely.

    “And it is about saving journalism, our credibility and our humanity as journalists.” (emphasis added).

    Professor Vijay Naidu and Claire Slatter
    USP’s Professor Vijay Naidu and Dr Claire Slatter, chair of DAWN . . . launching the 30th edition of PJR. Image: Del Abcede/APMN

    Contemporary issues
    Besides the editorial, the 30th anniversary edition continues the PJR tradition of addressing contemporary issues head on with 11 research articles, 2 commentaries, 7 book reviews, a photo-essay, 2 obituaries of Australia’s John Pilger and West Papua’s Arnold Ap, and 4 frontline pieces. A truly substantial double issue of the journal.

    The USP notice on this 30th anniversary launch says “30 years and going strong”. Sounds like the Johnny Walker whisky advertisement, “still going strong”. This is an admirable achievement as well as in PJR’s future.

    It is in contrast to the NZ Journalism Review (University of Canterbury), for example, which survived only for nine years.

    Founded at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1994 by David Robie, PJR was published there for four years and at the University of the South Pacific for a further four years, then at Auckland University of Technology for 18 years before finally being hosted since 2021 at its present home, Asia Pacific Media Network.

    According to Dr Robie, Pacific Journalism Review has received many good wishes for its birthday. Some of these are published in this journal. For a final message in the editorial, he recalled AUT’s senior journalism lecturer Greg Treadwell who wrote in 2020:

    “‘Many Aotearoa New Zealand researchers found their publishing feet because PJR was dedicated to the region and interested in their work. PJR is central to journalism studies, and so to journalism and journalism education, in this country and further abroad. Long may that continue’.

    “In answer to our editorial title: Yes, journalism will survive, and it will thrive through new and innovative niche forms, if democracy is to survive.

    “Ra whānau Pacific Journalism Review!

    "Pacific Journalism Review . . . 30 years going strong"
    “Pacific Journalism Review . . . 30 years going strong” – the birthday cake at Pacfic Media 2024. Image: Del Abcede/APMN

    Steadfast commitment
    I have two quick remaining things to do: Professor Wadan Narsey’s congratulatory message, and a book presentation.

    Professor Narsey pays tribute to David Robie for his steadfast commitment to Pacific journalism and congratulates him for the New Zealand honour bestowed on him in the King’s Birthday honours. He is very thankful that David published 37 of his articles on a range of issues during the dark days of censorship in Fiji under the Bainimarama and Sayeed-Khaiyum dictatorship.

    I wish to present a copy of the recently published Epeli Hau’ofa: His Life and Legacy to Professor David Robie and Del Abcede to express Claire Slatter and my profound appreciation of the massive amount of work they have done to keep PJR alive and well.

    It is my pleasure to launch the 30th anniversary edition of PJR.

    ‘Far more than a research journal’
    In response, Dr Robie noted that PJR had published more than 1100 research articles over its three decades and it was the largest single Pacific media research repository but it had always been “far more than a research journal”.

    “As an independent publication, it has given strong support to investigative journalism, sociopolitical journalism, political economy of the media, photojournalism and political cartooning — they have all been strongly reflected in the character of the journal,” he said.

    “It has also been a champion of journalism practice-as-research methodologies and strategies, as reflected especially in its Frontline section, pioneered by retired Australian professor and investigative journalist Wendy Bacon.

    “Keeping to our tradition of cutting edge and contemporary content, this anniversary edition raises several challenging issues such as Julian Assange and Gaza.”

    He thanked current editor Philip Cass for his efforts — “he was among the earliest contributors when we began in Papua New Guinea” — and the current team, assistant editor Khairiah A. Rahman, Nicole Gooch, extraordinary mentors Wendy Bacon and Chris Nash, APMN chair Heather Devere, Adam Brown, Nik Naidu and Gavin Ellis.

    Griffith University's Professor Mark Pearson
    Griffith University’s Professor Mark Pearson, a former editor of Australian Journalism Review and long a PJR board member . . . presented on media law at the conference. Image: Screenshot Del Abcede/APMN

    He also paid tribute to many who have contributed to the journal through peer reviewing and the editorial board over many years — such as Dr Lee Duffield and professor Mark Pearson of Griffith University, who was also editor of Australian Journalism Review for many years and was an inspiration to PJR — “and he is right here with us at the conference.”

    Among others have been the Fiji conference convenor, USP’s associate professor Shailendra Singh, and professor Trevor Cullen of Edith Cowan University, who is chair of next year’s World Journalism Education Association conference in Perth.

    Dr Robie also singled out designer Del Abcede for special tribute for her hard work carrying the load of producing the journal for many years “and keeping me sane — the question is am I keeping her sane? Anyway, neither I nor Philip would be standing here without her input.”

    The Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) team at Pacific Media 2024
    The Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) team at Pacific Media 2024 . . . PJR assistant editor Khairiah A. Rahman, PJR designer Del Abcede, PJR editor Dr Philip Cass, Dr Adam Brown, PJR founding editor Dr David Robie, and Whanau Community Hub co-coordinator Rach Mario. Whānau Hub’s Nik Naidu was also at the conference but is not in the photo. Image: Khairiah A. Rahman/APMN

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Dumping The Dollar: New Financial Frontiers Emerge In The Wake Of The ‘Great Greenback Exodus’

    Turns out ‘Making America Great Again’ is a bit more complicated than some expected. That might have something to do with long-term greed and an economy heavily reliant on debt, and endless growth. But that’s just one of the intractable symptoms. An emerging problem is major world economies like Russia, China and Iran restructuring and ‘dumping the dollar’. Rita Bodrina explains the brave new economic world that is just starting to peak its head over the horizon.

    The global financial landscape is undergoing a dramatic transformation, driven by a powerful force: dedollarisation.

    This shift away from 80 years of US dollar dominance signifies a fracturing of the once monolithic, American-controlled financial system. This fragmentation, fuelled by sanctions, trade wars, and a changing role for international financial institutions, marks the dawning of a new economic order.

     

    Paper Soldiers

    Before the early 1980s, economic growth was driven by the ‘real economy’. Financial indicators like credit growth and asset prices moved in tandem with these fundamentals. In other words, the dog wagged the tail.

    The S&P 500 is a stock market index that tracks the performance of the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the United States. It is one of the best proxies for the overall US economy. The fed funds rate is the key interest rate in the US economy that influences monetary and financial conditions, employment, growth, and inflation. (Data taken from St. Louis Fed – fred.stlouisfed.org)

    Think of the ‘real economy’ like this: it’s the part of the economy that is focused on making and trading real (tangible) things, like food, clothes, houses and cars, rather than just dealing with money and financial transactions.

    However, post-1980s, the economy became heavily reliant on credit as the primary tool for growth. The theoretical aim was to drive economic expansion by any means necessary: reducing interest rates to make money cheaper and cheaper.

    By pushing rates down, the government enticed people into the economy to speculate and spend. If holding onto your cash doesn’t make you very much, or at least less than it did yesterday, and borrowing costs comparatively little, then you’re enticed into the economic ‘casino’ to spend your debt-chips.

    ‘You could always refinance’ became the slogan for decades, up until only recently when we hit the bottom and interest rates had nowhere left to go, except up (or negative, if you’re Japan).

    In practice, this worked as follows: You go to the bank and take out a loan to buy, say, a car with repayments of $1,000 a year. Twelve months later, the banker informs you that interest rates have dropped, so you refinance at a lower rate. Now, you only need to pay $800 a year, or you can keep paying $1,000 and top up your loan with a bit of extra spending money that you can use to upgrade the fridge you’ve been wanting. You use this extra money to buy something else, effectively having more money at the same price! In this scenario two things remain true: interest rates keep falling and your debt keeps rising.

    (Data taken from St. Louis Fed – fred.stlouisfed.org)

    This cycle repeats, and each time you leave the bank with fuller pockets but without a corresponding increase in your own repayments. Eventually, having amassed a mountain of debt, you return to the bank, but find that interest rates haven’t gone down this year… they’ve gone up. “Oh, crap!”

    The description above highlights how we got an artificial boost in credit that lead to what is now called the “new economy”. This economy is characterised by assets with outrageously inflated values detached from any real-world metric (think Australia’s housing market). As a result, our debt-fueled consumption created unsustainable asset bubbles.

    This heavy reliance on credit-driven growth resulted in significant structural imbalances, notably the widening gap between household income and spending levels. By the end of 2008, American household debt sat at an astronomical 130% – that is, 30% more than average annual net household income – while the rates had plummeted from their level two decades prior, coinciding with the onset of the financial crisis.

    During the 2007/2008 financial crisis, the debt-to-disposable income ratio was above 130%. Currently, it appears to be at a trough, hovering around 100%. (Data taken from Bloomberg Terminal)

    Now central bankers face the monumental task of attempting to raise interest rates, even slightly, given that the debt-to-income ratio. Raise interest rates too much, and the entire economy risks tripping over its debt. People can no longer afford their repayments, leading to nationwide mass defaults, the collapse of the banking sector, and the demise of the ‘new economy.’

    Yet, refraining from raising interest rates means forgoing an increase in the return on capital. Assets with low returns fail to inspire investment, in this case – investment into the United States. No investment, means no economic growth, therefore no job creation and less taxes. Tough gig.

    This debt ratio unravelled to such an extent that many financial institutions could not meet their cash-flow requirements; they became illiquid. Actually, that’s putting it mildly, they became more than illiquid – they were insolvent and in desperate need of bailouts. The problem wasn’t that one big bank would fail but most big banks could fail at the same time.

    The Federal Reserve – aka ‘the Fed’ – was compelled to step in because their role is to act as the lender of last resort. On this occasion fiscal policy was no longer an option; and so monetary policy had to bear a greater burden than usual. (The Fed is the central banking system of the United States responsible for implementing monetary policy and maintaining financial system stability. Fiscal policyFiscal policy refers to the government’s use of taxation and spending to influence the economy. refers to the government’s use of taxation and spending to influence the economy. It involves adjusting tax rates and spending levels to regulate growth, employment, prices, and other macroeconomic factors. Monetary policyMonetary policy refers to the central bank’s control over interest rates and the volume and speed of the money that is circulating in the economy. refers to the central bank’s control over interest rates and the volume and speed of the money that is circulating in the economy.)

    The fact that the US dollar is one of the leading reserve currencies – one that people put their faith in regardless of the immediate condition of the economy, because they believe the US will always recover and always pay back its debt – allowed America to be more experimental with its monetary policy. In this case, the ‘experiment’ was quantitative easing.

    (IMAGE: Naoki Nakashima, Flickr)

    The Federal Reserve – aka ‘the Fed’  – was compelled to step in because their role is to act as the lender of last resort. On this occasion fiscal policy was no longer an option; and so monetary policy had to bear a greater burden than usual. (The Fed is the central banking system of the United States responsible for implementing monetary policy and maintaining financial system stability. Fiscal policy refers to the government’s use of taxation and spending to influence the economy. It involves adjusting tax rates and spending levels to regulate growth, employment, prices, and other macroeconomic factors. Monetary policy refers to the central bank’s control over interest rates and the volume and speed of the money that is circulating in the economy.)

    Federal Reserve
    The Fed is the central banking system of the United States responsible for implementing monetary policy and maintaining financial system stability. Fiscal policy refers to the government’s use of taxation and spending to influence the economy. It involves adjusting tax rates and spending levels to regulate growth, employment, prices, and other macroeconomic factors. Monetary policy refers to the central bank’s control over interest rates and the volume and speed of the money that is circulating in the economy.

    The fact that the US dollar is one of the leading reserve currencies – one that people put their faith in regardless of the immediate condition of the economy, because they believe the US will always recover and always pay back its debt – allowed America to be more experimental with its monetary policy. In this case, the ‘experiment’ was quantitative easing.

    The government ‘prints’ more currency and/or issues more bonds while slashing interest rates to basically zero, making the cost of money manically low – essentially free. The purpose of money printing is to make asset prices rise, while cheap credit further entices investors back into the market.

    CAPTION: The monetary base (M0) represents the sum of currency in circulation in the United States. This includes M1 (cash, checking deposits, etc.) and M2 (M1 plus savings deposits, money market funds, etc.). M3 is the broadest measure of the money supply, including M2 plus large time deposits, institutional money market funds, short-term repurchase agreements, and other larger liquid assets. (Data taken from St. Louis Fed – fred.stlouisfed.org)

    This shift was highly uncharacteristic for central bankers, who, prior to 2008, typically avoided encouraging inflation. When they transitioned from targeting inflation to using it as a tool, they went beyond merely providing liquidity. Instead, they started measuring their success by the levels of specific asset prices, such as the stock market and property values (for bankers higher equals better).

    The Fed’s plan worked great if you only care about asset prices ‘right now’ and not how it might mess up the economy later. As more money circulated, demand for financial assets such as stocks and bonds surged, inflating their prices. However, investors grew bored of the unimaginative returns of these inflated “vanilla” assets. They wanted something more risqué.

    So they turned their attention to derivative financial products, which offered larger gains… but greater risk. This fuelled a speculative frenzy, with investors trading derivatives (even derivatives of derivatives) built on top of the already inflated underlying asset prices. The increased leverage and complexity amplified risks in the financial system as a whole. (A derivative is a type of financial product that gets its value from another asset, like stocks or bonds. It’s basically a way to bet on the price movements of something else – like betting on whether the price of gold will go up or down without actually owning the gold itself. In other words, you’re not actually contributing anything tangible to society – you’re just betting on whether someone else wins or loses while they try and contribute something to society.)

    You could say that the market now entirely relies on the ongoing assurance that the Fed and other central banks will always find a way to inject more cash into the economy to support asset prices at their unnaturally high levels.

    Now that the Fed has emerged as a market maker rather than merely a lender of last resort, its importance cannot be overstated. Whatever actions or announcements the Fed makes has profound consequences for prices and markets.

    To recap: since the 1980s, asset valuations have been artificially inflated, detached from their intrinsic worth or underlying economic fundamentals. Again, think housing prices. Despite this disconnect, banks continued to accept these overvalued assets as collateral. After all, why price things so depressingly low when there’s so much money to be made? This perpetuated a vicious cycle of debt-fuelled speculation and unsustainable growth.

    (IMAGE: Glenn Harper, Flickr)

    The American banking crisis of March 2023 was a manifestation of this deep-rooted issue. To avoid a systemic collapse, the Fed intervened with the Bank Term Funding Program, providing ‘loans’ to distressed banks in need of liquidity. However, this program should be recognised for what it is: the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time.

    None of this should have been particularly surprising, given that it was a textbook symptom of a diseased economy with outrageously inflated asset values coupled with a heavily indebted society.

    The inevitability of the dollar system’s demise is grounded in a stark reality: the United States lacks the resources to sustain itself. Interest rates can’t go lower, yet they can’t increase either. Despite injecting cash into the economy, banks struggle to enhance their credit multiplier (i.e. make money from lending other peoples’ money to other people), as the effectiveness of credit is waning.

    There’s an urgent need for genuine productivity growth in the real economy. Perhaps AI offers a solution, or it could be the next bubble waiting to pop, leaving only scattered droplets of progress.

    This latest ‘second wind of growth’ could potentially last another six or seven years from its onset in the summer of 2021. Consequently, the next ‘Great’ Depression could hit by 2028, only exacerbated by a significant reduction in the global economy’s reliance on the US dollar.

     

    A Shaky Alt-Alliance

    While all of that is happening in the US, across that Atlantic a curious convergence has emerged between Russia, China, and Iran, not rooted in historical bonds, but rather in a shared response to Western sanctions and a mutual drive to counterbalance US influence.

    In their view, it’s strange to hear the US advocate for ‘free markets’ as the best way to manage an economy, given that the US owes substantial debt to China, as well as many other nations. This debt has become so burdensome that America is willing to default through inflation; that is, by manipulating market prices via quantitative easing and requiring pension funds and similar institutions to increase their holdings of US sovereign debt, thereby bolstering demand for their own assets (at “gun point” or, at the very least, under government mandate). ‘Free market’ indeed.

    This wouldn’t be the first time America has chosen such a strategy. Throughout history, the United States has resorted to inflation as a form of debt payment several times: from the American Revolution to the Civil War and Vietnam War – all effectively ‘paid’ through inflation. What’s that saying again? Fool me twice, shame on me?

    This situation prompts several questions: Who exercises greater state control over the economy today, the US or China? Which economy exhibits more autarky (that is, economic self-sufficiency without relying on international trade)? Some argue that the US now engages in more state intervention than the countries it criticises.

    This mistrust in American economic stewardship fuels the Eastern Bloc’s push to de-dollarise their economies. But unresolved issues, geopolitical ambitions, and diverging national interests could strain the alliance in the coming five to 10 years.

     

    Russian Phoenix

    Whether one supports Russia or not, from their point of view, NATO’s continuous eastward expansion is a blatant provocation. So their subsequent actions are coloured accordingly.

    Amidst these escalating geopolitical tensions, European nations have distanced themselves from Russia, resulting in a sharp decline in Russian oil exports to Europe. In response, Russia swiftly redirected its focus to Asian markets, such as China and India, where their oil exports have more than doubled since 2022.

    As one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, Russia depends heavily on this sector, which contributes around 16% to its GDP, constitutes over 60% of exports, and provides a significant portion of government revenues. The one thing gnawing away at Russian government accountants would probably be the nation’s heavy reliance on oil exports. There has been, or perhaps now, was, a critical need for economic diversification and reduced dependence on dollar-denominated commodities.

    While the sanctions imposed on Russia were intended to isolate and weaken the country, they have, much to the chagrin of the US, inadvertently compelled Russia to reduce its reliance on US products and services. Faced with these restrictions, Russia has been driven to develop substitutes through reverse-engineering for many once-monopolistic US products. If and when the US decides to re-enter the market (like Coca Cola is trying to do), they will suddenly have to compete with these new alternatives.

    One of those exits was McDonald’s, now Vkusno I Tochka (Delicious, period), which raises the question of how The Economist plans to compare prices between different countries. The loss of the Big Mac secret sauce can be remedied with ‘Big Hit’ (the new Big Mac rebranded), but losing an economic indicator… now that’s just unconscionable. The last time the Big Mac index was calculated with Russia was in 2022, when a burger in New York cost more than three times as much as the same burger in Moscow.

    The World Bank has revised its Global Leading Economies data, improving Russia’s ranking. Now Russia is seen to have surpassed Japan in 2021 and has maintained the fourth position since then. Russian President Vladimir Putin had initially tasked his government with achieving economic growth exceeding the global average by 2025, so he’s ahead of schedule.

    Before the conflict in Ukraine, Russia’s economy was lagging behind global growth rates, borderline stagnating. However, since 2022 the economy has experienced a boost, making it currently the fastest-growing major economy.

    CAPTION: GDP based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) measures the total value of goods and services of a country’s economy, adjusted for price differences between countries. This measure offers a clearer comparison of economic productivity and living standards between countries by considering relative cost of living and inflation rates. (Data taken from The World Bank)

    Never one to miss an opportunity, China, during this time, leveraged its economic ties with Russia to address its own challenges. It increased exports of higher-value goods such as cars and industrial equipment to Russia, basically using it as a testing ground. By 2023, Russia had become the top importer of Chinese cars, with purchases tripling compared to pre-sanction levels. So much so that Russian-Chinese bilateral trade turnover reached a record $240 billion by the end of 2023, marking a 26% increase from 2021.

    The main weapon these countries have in their arsenal is their own currencies. Both Russia and China aim to ‘de-dollarize’ the global economy by increasing trade conducted in their currencies. This effort has resulted in ruble/yuan trade volume surpassing that of the US dollar. In June 2014, they signed the largest gas deal in history, agreeing to use only rubles and renminbi for gas payments. By the end of that year, the ruble’s share in Russia’s export payments exceeded 40%, surpassing their US dollar and euro trades.

     

    Iran’s Going Dutch

    Iran, much like Russia, depends heavily on oil exports, which constitute about 40% of total export earnings, of which over 80% exports to China. The country’s vulnerability to oil price fluctuations exacerbates economic challenges, a phenomenon often referred to as “Dutch Disease”. The only cure is for Iran to diversify its economy.

    Unfortunately, efforts to establish new trading partnerships have encountered obstacles. While Iran has integrated into organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Eurasian Economic Union, its trade relations with Russia remain limited. Both nations primarily export oil and gas, making them competitors rather than natural allies; and when it comes down to it, Russia has a pricing advantage.

    But don’t lose hope just yet! Iran has just opened up a new chapter with the Chabahar port deal recently finalised with India. This represents a significant economic opportunity for Iran, who can now start reducing their reliance on the US dollar in international trade. Hence the threat of sanctions they received from the US side. By establishing a direct trade route to Afghanistan and Central Asia, the port serves as a gateway for Iranian exports to access lucrative markets, bypassing traditional routes controlled by rivals or Western powers.

     

    The Landbound Asian Dragon

    Out of all the countries, it is actually China that would likely face the most significant challenges in the event of a potential collapse of the global dollar system. Such a collapse would deal a severe blow to China’s economy, given its extensive trade ties with the US, where imports exceeded $500 billion in 2023. But energy deals with Russia and Iran present crucial new avenues for China to diversify its trade relationships and lessen dependence on the US dollar.

    President of China Xi Jinping meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016. (IMAGE: Narendra Modi, Flickr)

    Another thing for China to worry about: the only practical way China can bring raw materials into the country is on ships through the major shipping lanes that feed into its limited coastline. Some 90% of global commerce moves on ships, which happens to be one of China’s weak spots. It is dependent on shipping, since it lacks the infrastructure to lean on railways or airports, even though it fully intends to build some… eventually.

    Air cargo and railways are expensive and logistically difficult. In the end, ships and shipping lanes are essential to China’s survival; but you look over your shoulder and there is the US Navy. Everywhere. Since the Second World War, the US Navy has maintained an ominous physical presence around China, from Guam to Pine Gap in Australia.

    All of this to say that China feels geographically suffocated by the US’s death grip, and so acts accordingly. As China ascends as a global economic powerhouse, it actively promotes efforts to reduce reliance on the US dollar. In the past five years alone, the yuan’s presence in the global financial system has surged from negligible levels to nearly 3%, but still considerably behind the US dollar. Projections suggest that within the next decade, the yuan could secure a significant 5-10% market share, surpassing the yen and establishing itself as the leading Asian currency. Note that Japan is part of the Western bloc.

    China’s shift away from holding US Treasury bonds, coupled with its rising gold purchases, underscores a strategic move to diversify its foreign exchange reserves and reduce reliance on the US dollar as the dominant global reserve currency. This strategy serves two key purposes: simple diversification and distancing from the West.

    By offloading US Treasuries and accumulating gold, China aims to spread its investments across different asset types, thereby reducing any risks associated with overexposure to a single asset class. A simple case of not having all your eggs in one basket.

    More importantly, this move is a direct response to escalating geopolitical and economic tensions with the West, especially after China observed how the United States treated Russia. By running this strategy, China hedges against potential US sanctions, asset freezes, or dollar devaluation. Concerns over the US’s mounting debt and persistent fiscal deficits also fan the flames.

    Ultimately, this move signals China’s desire to diminish its dependence on the US dollar’s dominance in the global financial system.

    Since around 2014/2015, China has been reducing its holdings of US Treasuries while simultaneously increasing its gold reserves. However, this trend has significantly accelerated since 2021. (Data from Bloomberg Terminal)

    Critical Decision

    The US, which once commanded roughly 52% of the global economy in the aftermath of the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, now holds a significantly smaller share – around 30%, if we’re being optimistic.

    Now they face a critical decision: whether to prioritise rescuing the real economy by relinquishing hegemony over the global dollar system, or to prioritise maintaining this system even if it comes at the expense of the real economy.

    As the global financial system grapples with significant challenges, it becomes increasingly evident that a gradual transition towards a multipolar world is underway, rather than crowning a new economic hegemon.

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  • In Two States

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