An Israeli air strike has hit Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City where thousands of civilians are seeking medical treatment and shelter from relentless attacks. The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 500 people were killed in the hospital blast. Donna Miles, an Iranian-Kiwi columnist, penned this article before news of the attack on the hospital.
COMMENTARY:By Donna Miles
Of everything that I have read and watched about the unfolding events in Israel and Gaza, a tweet and a short video have stood out the most.
The tweet came from Dov Waxman, a professor of Israel studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. It read:
“To the people celebrating the mass murder of Israeli citizens, you have lost your humanity. To the people enthusiastically calling for Israel to decimate Gaza, densely populated with 2 million Palestinian citizens, you have lost your humanity. Israelis and Palestinians are real people, just like you and me.”
The video, posted on X, is a short clip of an interview with the distressed father of the young Israeli woman whose video of being taken hostage on a motorbike went viral on social media.
The father speaks in Hebrew with a voice full of pain. A written translation reads:
”Also Gaza has casualties… mothers who cry… let’s use this emotion, we are two nations from one father, let’s make peace, a real peace.”
The heroic words of this Israeli father and his belief in peace, despite his incredible suffering, reduced me to tears.
To the people celebrating the mass murder of Israeli civilians, you have lost your humanity. To the people enthusiastically calling for Israel to decimate Gaza, densely populated with 2 million Palestinian civilians, you have lost your humanity. Israelis and Palestinians are real…
We, the international community, bear a big responsibility for the bloodbath of the past few days and the hell that is to come by failing to bring “a real peace” for Palestinians and Israelis.
A Gazan schoolgirl looks into the BBC camera and says: “I wish I could be a normal child, living with no war”.
We, the international community, have failed this child and one million other Gazan children who are about to pay “a huge price” for the crimes that they’ve had no parts in.
Protesters at the Auckland rally last Saturday in solidarity with the Palestinian right to freedom and calling for an end to the killing of civilians. Image: David Robie/APR
For more than 40 years, hundreds of UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, including one co-sponsored by New Zealand, have stated that “Israel’s annexation of occupied territory is unlawful, its construction of hundreds of Jewish settlements are illegal, and its denial of Palestinian self-determination breaches international law”, but there has been no accountability for Israeli occupation and its apartheid practices.
But now that we have this horror unfolding before our eyes, we are, at last, prepared to pay attention and listen to Palestinians as they are finally invited to the likes of CNN and BBC to tell us that what we have seen in the past few days, they have been experiencing for the past 75 years.
Husam Zomlot, the head of Palestinian Mission to the UK, described Gaza as the biggest open air prison, where 2 million people have been taken hostage by Israel for the last 17 years.
As I type this, Israel has ordered a total siege of the densely-populated Gaza, cutting off fuel, food and electricity to an already deprived population while conducting massive retaliatory airstrikes.
Half of Gaza is children
Half of Gaza’s 2.2 million population are children. These children have no Iron Dome to stop the rockets, and no sophisticated army to protect them as their houses are flattened and their bodies are charred and mangled.
An airstrike has already wiped out 19 members of the same Palestinian family who were sheltering in their house in a jam-packed refugee camp in Gaza.
A shell-shocked survivor of the strike said he didn’t understand why Israel struck his house. “There were no militants in his building, he insisted, and his family was not warned”.
Many Gazans have already lost family members, including children and infants, in previous wars.
The 2-year-old son and wife of Israel’s most wanted man, the leader of Hamas’ military arm, Mohammed Deif, were killed as Israel tried and failed to kill him during the 2014 Israeli offensive on Gaza which, shockingly, killed over 500 Palestinian children.
Targeting schools, hospitals, mosques and marketplaces, as Israel is doing now and has done in the past, in a densely populated area where people have nowhere to flee, can only reflect Israel’s total disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians.
If we expect occupied people not to target civilians then surely we must demand the same from their powerful occupier.
It’s rare to find a full body with all its parts the deeper we went into the hospital the more shocking and terrifying the scene became in gaza in result of the israeli air strike that hit the #baptisthospital#Gazapic.twitter.com/tR9KC5sRvb
Staggering failure
There has been much talk about the staggering failure of Israeli intelligence on multiple fronts. But Israel’s biggest intelligence failure is the ongoing assumption that occupation can ever co-exist with peace — it cannot.
Columnist Donna Miles . . . “We have been here before, and have learnt that collective punishment of Palestinians will only strengthen their resolve to fight for their freedom.” Image: DM/APR
I have no doubt that Netanyahu will do as he has promised and will exact “a huge price” for Hamas’ murderous attacks.
But we have been here before, and, time and time again, have learnt that collective punishment of Palestinians will only strengthen their resolve to fight for their freedom.
In his first message after the attacks, Netanyahu quoted from the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik: “Vengeance… for the blood of a small child, / Satan has not yet created.”
Netanyahu left out the preceding line: “Cursed be he who cries out: Revenge!”.
Killing more Palestinians will not solve Israeli’s security problems. The only path to peace is by ending the illegal settlements, annexations and dispossession of Palestinians.
Donna Miles is an Iranian-Kiwi columnist and writer based in Christchurch. This article was first published in The Press last Friday and is published here with the permission of the author.
The priority for Gaza is not bandages and aspirins — they need loud voices condemning Israeli genocide. They need the bombing and killing to stop.
Early last week Hipkins condemned the killing of civilians in the Hamas attack on Israel but has refused to condemn Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people.
Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa John Minto . . .
The “collective punishment” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza; the withholding of food, water, electricity and fuel; the intensive massive bombing of densely populated civilian areas of Gaza — these are all war crimes. Genocide is the only name that fits.
More than 700 children have been killed so far by Israeli bombing with civilian casualties of more than 2800.
Green light to orgy of killing
By refusing to condemn these killings, Hipkins is giving Israel the green light to continue its orgy of killing in Gaza.
Hipkins says he is “deeply saddened” by civilians deaths. But not deeply saddened enough to call out the colonial, apartheid state of Israel whose racist policies against Palestinians are the cause of the slaughter in Gaza.
Similarly, when Hipkins says “we call on all parties to respect international humanitarian law, and uphold their obligations to protect civilians, and humanitarian workers, including medical personnel”, it is a meaningless gap-filler in a government media release.
Hipkins’ announcement will be welcomed in Washington and Tel Aviv but will be deplored by decent people around the world who call for human rights for Palestinians and accountabilities for apartheid Israel.
The Prime Minister has our loudest voice — we demand he use it to help end the slaughter of civilians in Gaza by sheeting home blame where it belongs — with the policies of the racist, apartheid state of Israel.
John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidaity Network Aotearoa.
The referendum on the indigenous Voice in Australia last Saturday was an historic event. Australians were asked to vote on whether to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia in the Constitution through an indigenous Voice.
The Voice was proposed as an independent, representative body for First Nations peoples to advise the Australian Parliament and government, giving them a voice on issues that affect them.
Here are some key points:
The proposal was to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution by creating a body to advise Parliament, known as the “Voice”.
The “Voice” would be an independent advisory body. Members would be chosen by First Nations communities around Australia to represent them.
The “Voice” would provide advice to governments on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, such as health, education, and housing, in the hope that such advice will lead to better outcomes.
Under the Constitution, the federal government already has the power to make laws for Indigenous people. The “Voice” would be a way for them to be consulted on those laws. However, the government would be under no obligation to act on the advice.
Indigenous people have called for the “Voice” to be included in the Constitution so that it can’t be removed by the government of the day, which has been the fate of every previous indigenous advisory body. It is also the way indigenous people have said they want to be recognised in the constitution as the First Nations with a 65,000-year connection to the continent — not simply through symbolic words.
It was necessary for a majority of voters to vote “yes” nationally, as well as a majority of voters in at least four out of six states, for the referendum to pass.
Unfortunately, it was rejected by the majority with more than 60 percent with the vote still being counted. In all six states and the Northern Territory, a “No” vote was projected.
The Voice vote nationally – “no” ahead with 60 percent with counting still ongoing. Source: The Guardian
According to the ABC, a majority of voters in all six states and the Northern Territory voted against the proposal.
New South Wales 81.2 percent counted, 1.81 million voted yes (40.5 percent) and 2.67M million voted no (59.5 percent).
Victoria 78.5 percent counted, 1.56 million voted yes (45.0 percent), and 1.91 million voted no (55.0 percent).
Tasmania 82.7 percent counted, 134,809 voted yes (40.5 percent), and 198,152 voted no (59.5 percent).
South Australia 79.1 percent counted, 355,682 voted yes (35.4 percent), 648,769 voted no (64.6 percent).
Queensland 74.3 percent counted, 835,159 voted yes (31.2 percent), 1.84 million voted no (68.8 percent).
Western Australia 75.3 percent counted, 495,448 voted yes (36.4 percent), and 866,902 voted no (63.6 percent).
Northern Territory 63.4 percent counted, 37,969 voted yes (39.5 percent), and 58,193 voted no (60.5 percent).
ACT 82.8 percent counted, 158,097 voted yes (60.8 percent), and 102,002 voted no (39.2 percent).
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said the next steps after the failed Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum are yet to be decided and called the expectation of having a plan just days after the vote “not respectful”.
In addition to being viewed as divisive along racial lines, concerns about how the Voice to Parliament would work (whether indigenous Australians would be given greater power) and uncertainties about how the new body would result in meaningful change for indigenous Australians contributed to the rejection.
Australia has held 44 referendums since its founding in 1901. However, the referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament in 2023 was the first of its kind to focus specifically on Indigenous Australians.
As part of a broader push to establish constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians, the Voice proposal was seen as a significant step towards reconciliation and was the result of decades of indigenous advocacy and work.
A key turning point came in 2017 when 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates from across the country met at Uluru for the First Nations’ National Constitutional Convention. The proposal, known as the Voice, sought to recognise Indigenous people in Australia’s constitution and establish a First Nations body to advise the government on issues affecting their communities.
However, the Voice proposal was not unanimously accepted. In the course of the campaign, intense conflict and discussion ensued between supporters and opponents, resulting in what supporters viewed as a tragic outcome, while the victorious opponents celebrated their victory.
The support of Oceania’s indigenous leaders Pacific Islanders expressed their views before the referendum on the Voice to Parliament.
Henry Puna, Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum, said that Australia’s credibility would be boosted on the world stage if the yes vote won the Indigenous voice referendum. He stated that it would be “wonderful” if Australia were to vote yes, because he believed it would elevate Australia’s position, and perhaps even its credibility, internationally.
The former Foreign Minister of Vanuatu (nd current Climate Change Minister), Ralph Regevanu, warned Australia’s reputation would plummet among its allies in the Pacific if the Voice to Parliament was defeated.
These views indicate the potential impact of the voice referendum on Australia’s relationship with Pacific Island nations, which it often refers to as “its own backyard”.
The “No” camp claimed the Voice was an “elite” idea, that “real” Indigenous people didn’t want it, because Peter Dutton had spoken to “shoppers”. Even with the results, they still insist communities did not want one – taking away what little voice they gothttps://t.co/kWt0hjDHEC
Division, defeat and impact A tragic aspect of the Voice proposal is the fact that not only were Australian settlers divided about it, but even worse, indigenous leaders themselves, who were in a position to bring together a fragmented and tormented nation, were at odds with each other — including full-on verbal wars in media.
While their opinions on the proposal were divided, some had practical and realistic ideas to address the problems faced by indigenous communities in remote towns. Others proposed a treaty between settlers and original indigenous people.
There are also those who advocate for a strong political recognition within the nation’s constitutional framework.
Despite these divisions among indigenous leaders, the referendum on Voice represents a significant milestone in the ongoing indigenous resistance that spans over 200 years.
It is a resistance that began on January 26, 1788, when the invasion began (Pemulwuy’s War), and continued through various milestones such as the 1937 Petition for citizenship, land rights, and representation, the 1938 Day of Mourning, the 1963 Yirrkala bark petitions, the 1965 Freedom Rides, and the establishment of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972.
It further extended to 1990-2005 with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), the 1991 Song Treaty by Yothu Yindi, Eddie Mabo overturning terra nullius in 1992, Kevin Rudd’s 2008 apology, and the Uluru Statement from the Heart until the recent defeat of the Voice Referendum in 2023.
A dangerous settlers’ myth and its consequences The modern nation of Australia (aged 235 years) has been shaped by one of European myths: “Terra Nullius”, the Latin term for “nobody’s land”. This myth was used to describe the legal position at the time of British colonisation.
Accordingly, the land had been deemed as terra nullius, which implies that it had belonged to no one before the British Crown declared sovereignty over it.
Eddy Mabo: A Melanesian Hero An indigenous Melanesian, Eddy Mabo, overturned this myth in 1992, known as “the Mabo Case,” which recognised the land rights of the Meriam people and other indigenous peoples.
The Mabo Case resulted in significant changes in Australian law in several areas. One of the most notable changes was the overturning of the long-standing legal fiction of “terra nullius,” which posited that Australia was unpopulated (no man’s land) at the time of British colonisation.
In this decision, the High Court of Australia recognized the legal rights of Indigenous Australians to make claims to lands in Australia. It marked a historic moment, as it was the first time that the law acknowledged the traditional rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. In addition, the Mabo Case contributed directly to the establishment of the Native Title Act in 1993.
Even though these changes are significant, debates persist regarding the state of indigenous Australians under colonial settlement.
Indigenous Affairs reporter Isabella Higgins says the No victory in the Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum could change the way Indigenous Australians will want to interact with the rest of the country going forward. pic.twitter.com/g5CxBaU0Op
Indigenous leaders need to see a big picture The recent referendum on the Voice sparked heated debates on a topic that has long been a source of contention: the age-old battle of “my country versus your country, my mob versus your mob, I know best versus you know nothing.”
While it’s important to celebrate and protect cultural diversity and the unique perspectives it brings, it’s equally important to recognise that British settlers didn’t just apply the myth of terra nullius to a select few groups or regions — they applied it to all areas inhabited by indigenous peoples, treating them as a single, homogenous entity.
This means that any solution to indigenous issues must be rooted in a collective, unified voice, rather than a patchwork of fragmented groups.
Indigenous leaders need to prioritise the creation of a unified front among themselves and mobilise their people before seeking support from Australians. Currently, they are engaging in competition, outdoing each other, and fighting over the same issue on mainstream media platforms, indigenous-run media platforms, and social media.
This approach is reminiscent of the “divide, conquer, and rule” strategy that the British effectively employed worldwide to expand and maintain their dominion. This strategy has historically caused harm to indigenous nations worldwide, and it is now harming indigenous people because their leaders are fighting among themselves.
It is important to note that this does not imply a rejection of every distinct indigenous language group, clan, or tribe. However, it is crucial to recognise that indigenous peoples throughout Oceania were viewed through a particular European lens, which scholars refer to as “Eurocentrism”.
This “lens” is a double-edged sword, providing semantic definition and dissection power while also compartmentalising based on a hierarchy of values. Melanesians and indigenous Australians were placed at the bottom of this hierarchy and deemed to be of no historical or cultural significance.
This realisation is of utmost importance for the collective attainment of redemption, unity and reconciliation.
The larger Australian indigenous’ cause From Vasco Núñez de Balboa’s momentous crossing of the Isthmus of Panama to Ferdinand Magellan’s pioneering Spanish expedition across the Pacific Ocean in 1521, and Abel Janszoon Tasman’s remarkable exploration of Tasmania, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, to James Cook’s renowned voyages in the Pacific Ocean between 1768 and 1779, the indigenous peoples of Oceania have endured immense suffering and torment as a consequence of the European scramble for these territories.
The indigenous peoples of Oceania were forever scarred by the merciless onslaught of European maritime marauders. When the race for supremacy over these unspoiled regions unfolded, their lives were shattered, and their communities torn asunder.
The web of life in Australia and Oceania was severely disrupted, devalued, rejected, and subjected to brutality and torment as a result of the waves of colonisation that forcefully impacted their shores.
The colonisers imposed various racial prejudices, civilising agendas, legal myths, and the Discovery doctrine, all of which were conceived within the collective conceptual mindset of Europeans and applied to the indigenous people.
These actions have had a lasting and fatalistic impact on the collective indigenous population in Australia and Oceania, resulting in dehumanisation, enslavement, genocide, and persistent marginalisation of their humanity, leading to unwarranted guilt for their mere existence.
The European collective perception of Oceania, exemplified by the notion of terra nullius, has resulted in numerous transgressions of indigenous laws, customs, and cosmologies, affecting every aspect of life within the entire landscape. These violations have led to the loss of land, destruction of language, erasure of memories, and imposition of British customs.
Furthermore, indigenous peoples were forcibly relocated to concentration camps, missions, and reserves.
The Declaration received support from a total of 144 countries, with only four countries (which have historically displaced indigenous populations through settler occupation) voting against it — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
However, all four countries subsequently reversed their positions and endorsed the Declaration. It should be noted that while the Declaration does not possess legal binding force, it does serve as a reflection of the commitments and responsibilities that states have under international law and human rights standards.
The challenges and concerns confronting indigenous communities are undeniably more severe and deplorable than the current “yes or no” referendum. It is imperative for the entire nation, including indigenous leaders, to acknowledge the profound extent of the Indigenous human tragedy that extends beyond the divisive binary.
Old and new imperial vultures Similar to the European vultures that once encircled Oceania centuries ago, partitioned its territories, subjugated its people, conducted bomb experiments, and eradicated its population in Tasmania, the present-day vultures from the Eastern and Western regions exhibit comparable behaviours.
It is imperative for indigenous leaders hailing from Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia to unite and demand that the colonial governments be held responsible for the multitude of crimes they have perpetrated.
Message to divided indigenous leaders Simply assigning blame to already fragmented, tormented, and highly marginalised Indigenous communities, and endeavouring to empower them solely through a range of government handouts and community-based development programs, will not be adequate.
Because the trust between indigenous peoples and settlers has been shattered over centuries of abuse, deeply impacting the core of Indigenous self-image, dignity, and respect.
My personal experience in remote indigenous communities I am a Papuan who came to Australia over 20 years ago to study in the remote NSW town of Bourke. I lived, studied, and worked at a small Christian College called Cornerstone Community.
During my time there, I was adopted by the McKellar clan of the Wangkumara Tribe in Bourke and worked closely with indigenous communities in Bourke, Brewarrina, Walgett, Cobar, Wilcannia, and Dubbo.
Unfortunately, my experiences in these places left me traumatised.
These communities have become so broken. I found myself succumbing to depression as a result of the distressing experiences I witnessed. It dawned upon me being “blackfella” — Papuan indigenous descent — was and still consistently subjected to similar mistreatment regardless of location.
This realisation instilled within me a sense of guilt for my own identity, as I was constantly made feel guilty of who I was. Tragically, a significant number of the young indigenous whom I endeavoured to aid and guide through diverse community and youth initiatives have either been incarcerated or committed suicide.
West Papua, my home country, is currently experiencing a genocide due to the Indonesian settler occupation, which is supported by the Australian government. This is similar to what indigenous Australians have endured under the colonial system of settlers.
Indigenous Australians in every region, town, and city face a complex and diverse set of issues, which are unique, tragic, and devastating. These issues are a result of how the settler colony interacted with them upon their arrival in the country.
Nevertheless, the indigenous people were not subjected to centuries of abuse and mistreatment solely based on their tribal affiliations. Rather, they were targeted by the settler government as a collective, disregarding the diversity among indigenous groups.
This included the indigenous people from Oceania, who have endured dehumanisation and racism as a result of colonisation.
It is imperative to acknowledge that the resolution of these predicaments cannot be attained by a solitary leader representing a particular group. The indigenous leaders need a unified vision and strategy to combat these issues.
All indigenous individuals across the globe, including Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, and West Papua, are afflicted by the same affliction. The only distinguishing factor is the degree of harm inflicted by the virus, along with the circumstances surrounding its occurrence.
A paradigm shift Imagine a world where indigenous peoples in Australia and Oceania reclaim their original languages and redefine the ideas, myths, and behaviours displayed on their land with their own concepts of law, morality, and cosmology. In this world, I am confident that every legal product, civilisational idea, and colonial moral code applied to these peoples would be deemed illegal.
It is time to empower indigenous voices and perspectives and challenge the oppressive systems that have silenced them for far too long.
Commence the process of renaming each island, city, town, mountain, lake, river, valley, animal, tree, rock, country, and region with their authentic local languages and names, thereby reinstating their original significance and worth.
However, in order to accomplish this, it is imperative that indigenous communities are granted the necessary authority, as it is ultimately their power that will reinforce such transformation. This power does not solely rely on weapons or monetary resources, but rather on the determination to preserve their way of life, restore their self-image, and demand the recognition of their dignity and respect.
Last Saturday’s No Vote tragedy wasn’t just about the majority of Australians rejecting it. It was a heartbreaking moment where indigenous leaders, who should have been united, found themselves fiercely divided.
Accusations were flying left and right, targeting each other’s backgrounds, positions, and portfolios. This bitter divide ended up gambling away any chance of redemption and reconciliation that had reached such a high national level.
It was a devastating blow to the hopes and aspirations for a better world for one of the most disadvantaged originals continues human on this ancient timeless continent — Australia.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
On 11 October at the Labour Conference, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting spoke of his party’s “ten-year plan for a National Care Service”. This was a key speech which happened merely days ago. So, you’d expect it would still be part of Labour’s agenda. Those who’ve followed the party under Keir Starmer, however, won’t be surprised to learn that the “ten-year plan for a National Care Service” is reportedly now a zero year plan for nothing:
In his Labour conference speech 4 days ago, Wes Streeting spoke about "our 10 year plan for a National Care Service"
Today, "The Observer understands that Starmer’s party will avoid laying out a detailed plan for reform of social care"https://t.co/yZP8cWYzdt
Starmer’s party will avoid laying out a detailed plan for reform of social care, and the politically nightmarish issue of how to fund it, because it fears any proposals would be torpedoed by the Tories in the heat of a campaign.
According to senior party figures, Keir Starmer’s team – while committed to social care reform – do not want to offer the Tories a target that would invite them to attack the plans and make claims about the tax implications. Instead, there would be a general commitment to make changes when in office.
To sum up, Labour’s election plan is to offer vague promises from a man who the British public already don’t trust. This is polling from YouGov:
When Starmer first came to power, you can see the vast majority of people ‘didn’t know’ if he was trustworthy or not. 22% of those polled believed he was; 19% swung the opposite way. Over time, the ‘don’t knows’ have dropped as people have got to know the new Labour leader. However, while the number of people who trust him has risen 8 percentage points to 30%, the number who don’t trust him has risen by a whopping 24 percentage points to 43%.
As you can see below, trust in Starmer is better than trust in Rishi Sunak, but it’s also less steady. Notably, the direction of travel for Starmer is that the longer people have any awareness of him, the less they trust him:
So, what’s happened to cause this situation? Quite simply, Starmer has shown himself to be a man who’s almost pathologically incapable of sticking to his word.
Un-abandoning his pledge to “end outsourcing” in the NHS.
Distancing himself from the trade unions he once claimed to support.
Abandoning his aim to retain EU free movement.
Not only abandoning the pledge to remove Universal Credit, but having his work and pensions secretary claim they “actually agree with the concept behind” it.
Abandoning the plan to abolish tuition fees.
Ditch any serious pretence of fighting climate change.
Abandoning his pledge to increase tax for the top 5% of earners.
Scrapping his pledge to get rid of the undemocratic House of Lords.
This isn’t even all of it. And as such, it’s plain to see why you couldn’t trust this guy as far as you could throw him.
Electioneering
Of course, the lack of trust in Starmer may be baked into Labour’s strategy for the next election. If Starmer doesn’t offer anything, then people can’t mistrust his ability to deliver it. There are two problems with this, and the first relates to this quote from the Observer article:
“We need to give ourselves cover to do reform in the manifesto, without giving the Tories a target to attack us. We can’t allow the issue to dominate a campaign again,” said a party source.
Going off how eagerly Starmer sheds policies – especially half-decent ones – most people will naturally come to the conclusion that he isn’t abandoning progressive proposals because he’s a clever political operator; he’s abandoning them because he’s a regressive politician.
If Labour promised a National Care Service in ten years, people would constantly be asking for progress updates. By vaguely hinting at one, Starmer can more easily get away with not delivering a policy he had no interest in delivering in the first place. The embarrassing U-turns have taught Starmer one thing, it seems, and that’s that you can’t U-turn on a policy which never existed.
Social care: hardly a vote-loser
The issue is that people aren’t stupid, and many will see his vague promises for exactly what they are – i.e. a big old heap of nothing.
In 2010, Labour’s plans for funding social care were branded a “death tax” by the Tories, and hit the party’s vote badly, while in 2017 Theresa May’s Conservative campaign suffered irreparable damage amid accusations she was planning a “dementia tax”.
This framing is bizarre, as it suggests the concept of a National Care Service is a certified vote loser. The 2017 election isn’t a good example of that, however. While May was slated for her ‘dementia tax’, Labour offered a fully-funded National Care Service, and it saw the biggest increase in vote share since 1945. While Labour’s fortunes were down to more than offering a National Care Service, it’s clearly not the guaranteed vote loser that the party is now claiming it is.
Labour isn’t caring
While Labour claims it’s shaping its policy platform to win votes, I’d argue that we’re witnessing something else entirely.
The Tories’ 13-year failure to deliver has finally caught up with them, and polling is reflecting that. Starmer knows this is down to the Tories’ mistakes rather than his own moves. However, this window of time does give him the opportunity to abandon policies without it impacting on polling too much – i.e. he can make the argument that no one cared about these policies anyway. This is giving a false impression of what will happen in the actual election when all eyes are suddenly upon both parties, and it becomes more obvious than ever that Labour has nothing to offer.
At this point, it’s entirely likely that Labour win anyway because the Tories have even less to offer. Regardless of who wins in that situation, however, it’s the public who ultimately lose.
In the aftermath of Palestinian group Hamas’ terror attack inside Israel on October 7 and the Israeli state’s even more terrifying attacks on Palestinian urban neighbourhoods in Gaza, the media across many parts of Asia tend to take a more neutral stand in comparison with their Western counterparts.
A lot of sympathy is expressed for the plight of the Palestinians who have been under frequent attacks by Israeli forces for decades and have faced ever trauma since the Nakba in 1948 when Zionist militia forced some 750,000 refugees to leave their homeland.
Even India, which has been getting closer to Israel in recent years, and one of Israel’s closest Asian allies, Singapore, have taken a cautious attitude to the latest chapter in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Soon after the Hamas attacks in Israel, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks”.
He added: “We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.” But, soon after, his Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) sought to strike a balance.
Addressing a media briefing on October 12, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi reiterated New Delhi’s “long-standing and consistent” position on the issue, telling reporters that “India has always advocated the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine” living in peace with Israel.
Singapore has also reiterated its support for a two-state solution, with Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam telling Today Daily that it was possible to deplore how Palestinians had been treated over the years while still unequivocally condemning the terrorist attacks carried out in Israel by Hamas.
“These atrocities cannot be justified by any rationale whatsoever, whether of fundamental problems or historical grievances,” he said.
“I think it’s fair to say that any response has to be consistent with international law and international rules of war”.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has blamed the rapidly worsening conflict in the Middle East on a lack of justice for the Palestinian people.
Lack of justice for Palestinians
“The crux of the issue lies in the fact that justice has not been done to the Palestinian people,” Beijing’s top diplomat said in a phone call with Brazil’s Celso Amorim, a special adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, according to Japan’s Nikkei Asia.
The call came just ahead of an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on October 13 to discuss the Israel-Hamas war. Brazil, a non-permanent member, is chairing the council this month.
Indonesian President Jokowi Widodo called for an end to the region’s bloodletting cycle and pro-Palestinian protests have been held in Jakarta.
“Indonesia calls for the war and violence to be stopped immediately to avoid further human casualties and destruction of property because the escalation of the conflict can cause greater humanitarian impact,” he said.
“The root cause of the conflict, which is the occupation of Palestinian land by Israel, must be resolved immediately in accordance with the parameters that have been agreed upon by the UN.”
Indonesia, which is home to the world’s largest Muslim population, has supported Palestinian self-determination for a long time and does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
But, Indonesia’s foreign ministry said 275 Indonesians were working in Israel and were making plans to evacuate them.
Many parts of Gaza lie in ruins following repeated Israeli airstrikes for the past week. Image: UN News/Ziad Taleb
Sympathy for the Palestinians
Meanwhile, Thailand said that 18 of their citizens have been killed by the terror attacks and 11 abducted.
In the Philippines, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said on October 10 that the safety of thousands of Filipinos living and working in Israel remained a priority for the government.
There are approximately 40,000 Filipinos in Israel, but only 25,000 are legally documented, according to labour and migrant groups, says Benar News, a US-funded Asian news portal.
According to India’s MEA spokesperson Bagchi, there are 18,000 Indians in Israel and about a dozen in the Palestinian territories. India is trying to bring them home, and a first flight evacuating 230 Indians was expected to take place at the weekend, according to the Hindu newspaper.
It is unclear what such large numbers of Asians are doing in Israel. Yet, from media reports in the region, there is deep concern about the plight of civilians caught up in the clashes.
Benar News reported that Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has spoken with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict according to UN-agreed parameters.
Also this week, the Malaysian government announced it would allocate 1 million ringgit (US$211,423) in humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
Western view questioned
Sympathy for the Palestinian cause is reflected widely in the Asian media, both in Muslim-majority and non-Muslim countries. The Western unequivocal support for Israel, particularly by Anglo-American media, has been questioned across Asia.
Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post’s regular columnist Alex Lo challenged Hamas’ “unprovoked” terror attack in Israel, a narrative commonly used in Western media reporting of the latest flare-up.
“It must be pointed out that what Hamas has done is terrorism pure and simple,” notes Lo.
“But such horrors and atrocities are not being committed by Palestinian militants without a background and a context. They did not come out of nowhere as unadulterated and uncaused evil”.
Thus Lo argues, that to claim that the latest terror attacks were “unprovoked” is to whitewash the background and context that constitute the very history of this unending conflict in Palestine.
US media’s ‘morally reprehensible propaganda’
“It’s morally reprehensible propaganda of the worst kind that the mainstream Anglo-American media culture has been guilty of for decades,” he says.
“But the real problem with that is not only with morality but also with the very practical politics of searching for a viable peace settlement”.
He is concerned that “with their unconditional and uncritical support of Israel, the West and the United States in particular have essentially made such a peace impossible”.
Writing in India’s Hindu newspaper, Denmark-based Indian professor of literature Dr Tabish Khair points out that historically, Palestinians have had to indulge in drastic and violent acts to draw attention to their plight and the oppressive policies of Israel.
“The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), under Yasser Arafat’s leadership, used such ‘terrorist’ acts to focus world attention on the Palestinian problem, and without such actions, the West would have looked the other way while the Palestinians were slowly airbrushed out of history,” he argues.
While the PLO fought a secular Palestinian battle for nationhood, which was largely ignored by Western powers, this lead to political Islam’s development in the later part of the 1970s, and Hamas is a product of that.
“Today, we live in a world where political Islam is associated almost entirely with Islam — and almost all Muslims,” he notes.
Palestinian cause still resonates
But, the Palestinian cause still resonates beyond the Muslim communities, as the reactions in Asia reflect.
Indian historian and journalist Vijay Prashad, writing in Bangladesh’s Daily Star, notes the savagery of the impending war against the Palestinian people will be noted by the global community.
He points out that Hamas was never allowed to function as a voice for the Palestinian people, even after they won a landslide democratic election in Gaza in January 2006.
“The victory of Hamas was condemned by the Israelis and the West, who decided to use armed force to overthrow the election result,” he points out.
“Gaza was never allowed a political process, in fact never allowed to shape any kind of political authority to speak for the people”.
Prashad points out that when the Palestinians conducted a non-violent march in 2019 for their rights to nationhood, they were met with Israeli bombs that killed 200 people.
“When non-violent protest is met with force, it becomes difficult to convince people to remain on that path and not take up arms,” he argues.
Prashad disputes the Western media’s argument that Israel has a “right to defend itself” because the Palestinians are people under occupation. Under the Geneva Convention, Israel has an obligation to protect them.
Under the Geneva Convention, Prashad argues that the Israeli government’s “collective punishment” strategy is a war crime.
“The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into Israeli war crimes in 2021 but it was not able to move forward even to collect information”.
Kalinga Seneviratne is a correspondent for IDN-InDepthNews, the flagship agency of the non-profit International Press Syndicate (IPS). Republished under a Creative Commons licence.
A simultaneous war with China and Russia is a strategic nightmare that sober American strategists such as Henry Kissinger have been warning the US to avoid at all costs, and it is also a topic that some US media outlets have become more and more fond of talking about in recent years. At least from the publicly available information, Washington has never previously addressed it as a formal political agenda, supposedly aware of its seriousness and the terrible risks it carries. But the publication of a report by a congressionally appointed bipartisan panel titled America’s Strategic Posture crossed this “red line” on October 12.
The central point of the 145-page report is that the US must expand its military power, particularly its “nuclear weapons modernization program,” in order to prepare for possible simultaneous wars with China and Russia. Notably, the report diverges completely from the current US national security strategy of winning one conflict while deterring another, and from the Biden administration’s current nuclear policy. It is not a fantasy among the American public, but a serious strategic assessment and recommendation in the service of policymaking.
The 12-member panel that wrote the report was hand-picked by the US Congress from major think tanks and retired defense, security officials and former lawmakers. This report makes us feel that a “strategic nightmare” is sneaking into the US political agenda, but has not drawn due concern and vigilance in Washington, and to a large extent, the American elite group represented by the panel is actively working to make this nightmare come true.
A look at the specific recommendations of this report will send shivers down the spine of those who retain any basic rationality. The report recommends that the US deploy more warheads, and produce more bombers, cruise missiles, ballistic missile submarines, non-strategic nuclear weapons and so on. It also calls on the US to deploy warheads on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and to consider adding road-mobile ICBMs to its arsenal, establishing a third shipyard that can build nuclear-powered ships, etc.
What depths of insanity is the US sinking to? The US’ military spending accounts for nearly 40 percent of the world’s total defense expenditures, and it has been growing dramatically for several years, with military spending in 2023 reaching $813.3 billion, more than the GDP of most countries, but even that is not enough for these politicians. Such a report full of geopolitical fanaticism and war imagery, whether or not it actually ends up as a “guide” for Washington’s decision-making, is dangerous and needs to be resisted and opposed by all peace-loving countries.
According to some American media, the report ignores the consequences of a nuclear arms race. In fact, the report doesn’t seem to consider this at all and doesn’t suggest any measures other than nuclear expansion to address this issue. In other words, it is a reckless approach. Both China and Russia are nuclear powers, and everyone knows that provoking a confrontation between nuclear powers is a crazy idea. Even promoting a nuclear arms race under the banner of “deterrence” is a disastrous step backward in history. Washington’s political elites, who lived through the Cold War, cannot be unaware of this. However, the fact that such an absurd and off-key report is being presented in all seriousness by the US Congress is both surreal and unsurprising. It is in line with the distorted political atmosphere in Washington today.
The motives behind this exaggeration of threats and creating a warlike atmosphere are highly suspicious. The recent outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict caused a sharp increase in US defense industry stocks, while American defense industry companies have also been the biggest beneficiaries of the long-standing Russia-Ukraine conflict. The military-industrial complex, like a geopolitical monstrosity, parasitically clings to American society, manipulating its every move, pushing Washington step by step to introduce and even prepare for ideas that were once considered “impossible.” The prosperity of the American military-industrial complex is built upon blood and corpses, and carries a primal guilt. Serving the interests of the American military-industrial complex is unethical.
The reality is that such rhetoric is becoming increasingly politically acceptable in today’s Washington. The idea of “preparing for possible simultaneous wars with Russia and China,” once a fringe fantasy, has gradually made its way into Washington’s agenda, which is deeply unsettling. If Washington were to adopt even a small portion of the recommendations in this report, the harm and threats it could pose to world peace would be immeasurable and would ultimately backfire on the US itself. There is an old Chinese saying: “Those who play with fire will perish by it.” This is something that is worth Washington’s careful consideration.
An activist interrupted the start of Keir Starmer’s keynote speech on Tuesday 10 October, the penultimate day of the Labour Party’s annual conference.
The activist showered biodegradable glitter on the shocked Labour leader while shouting:
True democracy is citizen-led. Politics needs an update. We demand a people’s house – we are in crisis.
The demands came from the new non-violent direct action group People Demand Democracy. A spin-off from Just Stop Oil, the group’s website draws links between the multiple crises hammering the UK electorate. It states:
Crises such as cost of living and climate are related. Their roots lie in the question of power: who has it and who doesn’t. Our democracies are incomplete, undermined and broken. Those that have wealth and power have done that to prevent us, the people, from actually being in charge. If we want to deal with any of the crises we face, we will have to upgrade our democracy.
The group are calling for the two main political parties to embrace a proportional voting system and implement a permanent citizen’s assembly. Only Starmer’s Labour wouldn’t know democracy if it hit the party in the face like a glitter bomb.
Labour Party’s glaring democratic hypocrisy
After security forced the protester off stage, a bedazzled Starmer declared to the room:
If he thinks that bothers me, he doesn’t know me. Protest not power; that’s why we changed our party, conference.
Of course, the conference floor and the corporate media ate it up. And almost as quickly as Starmer brushed off the glitter along with the protesters demands, the Mirrorhad penned a nauseating puff piece opining in its headline that:
Glitter protest against Keir Starmer only reveals leader fit to form next Government
Cue some well-deserved eye-rolling. Ultimately, this take from the Mirror labours under the assumption that a politician’s ability to not lose face in front of an audience during a public protest enshrines them with some innate leadership quality. Instead, his quick dismissal should be seen in the context of the leadership’s consistent failure to engage with campaigners.
Because tellingly, it isn’t the first time the Labour leader has ignored activists. During the 2021 party conference, Starmer blanked a Green New Deal activist (and Labour party member, no less), as he approached to discuss Labour’s climate policies. A politician unwilling to listen to a vital part of its membership and electorate is no leader.
Incidentally, Bristol MP and shadow secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport Thangam Debbonaire has also snubbed Green New Deal protesters at this year’s conference in much the same way:
We're at Labour conference asking MPs to revoke Rosebank and back a Green New Deal.
We are scared for our futures and want answers from political leaders.
So it's disappointing when Shadow Ministers like Thangam Debbonaire refuse to stop and speak to young people. pic.twitter.com/p9MCXTPovu
Moreover, it’s hard to divorce these reactions from the party’s position on protest at large. In June, Labour leadership refused to get behind a fatal motion to put a stop to the Tories’ repressive Public Order Bill. It has also stated that if it wins a general election, it won’t repeal any of the Conservatives’ anti-protest legislation.
So it’s plain to see that Labour is no party of the people – it’s a party of the rich and powerful capitalist class.
Pantomime of internal democracy
Given the Labour leader’s rousing proclamation, you could almost be forgiven for thinking the party has been a shimmering beacon of democracy since Starmer took the helm. Of course, you’d be palpably wrong. As the Canaryhas previously documented, the party has purged left-wing members and curtailed Constituency Labour Party (CLP) debates.
Funny, too, that Starmer could champion his party’s commitment to democracy with a straight face when, as the Canary’s Steve Topple reported on Monday, the party were:
trying to remove the voting rights of minoritised officers in constituency parties
Moreover, People Demand Democracy has pointed out that Labour members and multiple Unions overwhelmingly voted for proportional representation at the previous annual conference in 2022. But since the motion was non-binding, Labour’s leadership shunned the result.
It similarly looks set to do so to a motion tabled by Unite’s Sharon Graham. On Monday, conference voted through a proposal to nationalise the energy industry and the railway system. Despite the support for public ownership, however, shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC:
We’re not going to nationalise the energy system.
So it looks like the protester who transformed Starmer into a knock-off panto villain might have had a point. Evidently, when it comes to Labour’s internal democracy, it might as well be pantomime.
Sponsored by corporate criminals Inc
What’s more, the Labour party conference highlighted, once again, that the UK itself is a sham of a democracy. Come the next election, voters realistically have the choice between two parties that are firmly in the pocket of big business.
Naturally, corporate lobbyists and industry bodies peppered the Labour fringe. Cadent Gas flogged hydrogen – a fossil fuel industry-favourite climate ‘solution’ – to a room of delegates. It also led an event at the Conservatives annual conference.
Meanwhile, the Carbon Capture and Storage Association (CCSA) was another industry lobbyist playing the field at both major conferences. The body boasts a buffet of big polluters among its leadership and overall members.
And Amazon – hardly a paragon of workers’ rights – sponsored multiple events at this year’s conference. Fortunately, GMB members were on hand to highlight the rank hypocrisy:
Caution the GMB are handing this flyer out to attendees of the Amazon sponsored ‘Growing Together: Unlocking Productivity Through Business Collaboration’ event at Labour Party conference pic.twitter.com/apKbR0qMck
A leader with the ‘integrity’ to screw over everyone
Yet the presence of ecocidal and human rights violating corporations should come as no surprise either. As Topple reported for the Canary in August, Starmer’s Labour has shafted everyone, bar its rich backers.
Its abandonment of marginalised communities and the planet has only continued apace. At a fringe event hosted by a fossil fuel industry lobby, shadow decarbonisation minister Sarah Jones poured cold water on the possibility that Labour could revoke the climate-disastrous Rosebank oil field. Meanwhile, the Labour leader once again threw trans people under the bus with his response to Sunak’s latest transphobic tirade at the Conservative conference.
With no ounce of irony, in a speech to conference, shadow secretary for energy security and net zero Ed Miliband lauded the Labour leader for his “integrity” and “decency”. This about a man who has repeatedly reneged on campaign promises and screwed over multiple marginalised communities in the process? It’d be hilarious if the impacts of Labour’s about-turns weren’t so dangerous to so many.
Ultimately, Starmer’s bluff should not fool anyone. Regardless, under an undemocratic electoral system, he’ll still win power. So long as he keeps his capitalist chums rolling in it, they’ll fund the party’s sweep to victory in 2024.
One thing’s for sure: a UK under Starmer’s Labour won’t be “citizen-led” – it’ll be corporate bought and paid for.
Almost 50 years to the day after the joint Egyptian-Syrian offensive that launched the 1973 October War, Israel has once again been caught with its pants down. On this occasion its briefs were dangling from its ankles as well.
Operation Al Aqsa Storm, as Hamas named its 7 October 2023 offensive into Israeli territory, represents an even greater Israeli failure.
Extensive and reasonably successful Egyptian and Syrian efforts to conceal their intentions, preparations, and capabilities notwithstanding, Israel in 1973 received multiple warnings about an impending Arab attack from, among others, King Hussein of Jordan, a high-level Egyptian agent, and several of its own intelligence officers.
Its primary failure was not ignorance, but the haughty dismissal of knowledge that contradicted preconceptions.
While hubris and complacency have been mainstays in Israel’s dealings with Arab military adversaries, on this occasion it additionally had no information about the impending operation.
This despite its world-leading surveillance and intelligence capabilities, and the reality that the Gaza Strip is not only miniscule in size but also the most intensively and intrusively surveilled territory and population on the planet, and one that has furthermore been under blockade for 17 years.
That Hamas and Islamic Jihad were under these circumstances able to plan and prepare an operation of such scale, scope, and sophistication, a process that will have consumed many months at the least, and will have required extensive communications among leaders, cadres, and operatives, is an astonishing achievement and testament to the legendary resourcefulness of Gaza’s Palestinians.
Launched in plain view
While we can at this point only speculate as to how Hamas managed to prepare and launch this offensive in plain view of Israel, the avoidance or effective encryption of electronic and digital communications will certainly have played an important role.
Similarly, Hamas has in recent years considerably improved its counter-intelligence capabilities to minimise infiltration, an essential feature given the nearly constant flow of Palestinians who transit through Israeli-controlled border crossings and are susceptible to recruitment by Israeli intelligence as conditions for access to health care, employment, and the like.
Rather than serving as Israel’s eyes and ears within the Gaza Strip, it seems likely at least some of these Palestinians conducted reconnaissance for Operation Al Aqsa Storm within Israel.
As for the weaponry used, much of it is either rudimentary or of local manufacture, making ingenious use of available materials such as paragliders, steel from a British ship that sunk off the Gaza coast decades ago to manufacture rocket tubes, and unexploded Israeli ordnance. More advanced capabilities will have been smuggled in, presumably with the assistance of Hizballah in Lebanon, perhaps with the cooperation of sympathetic or corrupt Egyptian border patrols.
The legendary corruption of Israel’s own border crossings with the Gaza Strip may also have played a role.
Committed to fighting the previous war, Israel constructed formidable underground obstacles to prevent Palestinian commandos from infiltrating Israel through their tunnel network. In response, Hamas and Islamic Jihad simply breached the weak points in the barriers surrounding the Gaza Strip, such as wire fences that relied on electronic monitoring rather than more sturdy concrete obstacles (some of which also appear to have been breached).
And a key objective of the initial Palestinian missile barrage, which targeted Israeli military airfields among other objectives, was to paralyze and thus delay Israel’s ability to rapidly respond.
Immediate objectives
Al Aqsa Storm’s immediate objectives were to infiltrate and seize key Israeli security installations, such as the Re’im military base which serves as the headquarters for the Gaza Division; kill or capture a significant number of Israeli soldiers; establish Palestinian territorial control over population centers within Israel’s boundaries for the first time since 1948; and present significantly improved Palestinian capabilities to the Israeli public and security establishment with a massive missile barrage at Israeli cities and the deployment of new infiltration and combat techniques.
While Israeli civilian casualties do not appear to have been an objective as such, it appears that many were killed, and others abducted. Additionally, there are reports of a massacre at a desert party.
In the event, the operation succeeded in nearly all respects, one suspects beyond the wildest expectations of those who planned and executed it. Dozens of Israeli soldiers, including a major general, were spirited into captivity inside the Gaza Strip.
Many more, including senior officers, were killed and wounded, and almost 24 hours after the operation commenced, Palestinian fighters remained ensconced in multiple locations and installations inside Israel.
Images of Israeli bulldozers and missiles deployed against the Israeli police headquarters in Sderot to dislodge Palestinian fighters within it will remain with us for some time, and as with the Egyptian military’s nearly effortless crossing of the Suez Canal in 1973, won’t be erased by subsequent developments.
A more difficult question concerns Hamas’s motives and broader aims. Seen from the movement’s perspective, Israel has simply gone too far, for too long.
Particularly under the stewardship of the Netanyahu government and its predecessor, escalation has been consistent and transformed into a strategy.
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley, army-enabled attacks on villages throughout the West Bank by settler auxiliaries, and increasing incursions by prominent Israeli politicians and settler groups into the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem’s Old City have reached new heights, and done so in the explicit service of formal annexation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a map of the “New Middle East” without Palestine during his September 22, 2023, address to the UN General Assembly in New York. Image: Common Dreams
In the Gaza Strip, Israel has shown no inclination to lift or significantly relax the blockade, and treats Hamas as a force that can safely be ignored on the grounds that the movement cares about little else than maintaining its rule over the Gaza Strip.
Within Israel’s prisons, the situation of Palestinian detainees has been deteriorating by design. Yet every Israeli escalation has been normalised by Israel’s US and European partners, with each outrage met by little more than paeans to “shared values” and Israel’s “right to defend itself” and, under Washington’s leadership, a focus on an Israeli-Saudi agreement intended to render Palestine and the Palestinians irrelevant.
Within the region, a growing number of Arab states have in practice extended to Greater Israel a halal certificate, at Palestinian expense. Closer to home, Turkey has forced a number of Hamas leaders it previously hosted to leave the country, and Qatar has in recent months reduced the financial support it provides to Gaza in agreement with Israel, on the grounds that Hamas needs to find a more sustainable solution to its financial crisis.
So what is Operation Al Aqsa Storm meant to achieve? It appears that the movement concluded, some time ago, that a repeat of previous confrontations with Israel, such as during the 2021 Unity Intifada, the first that Hamas rather than Israel initiated, would be insufficient to break the logjam, and that only a spectacle on the scale of what we witnessed on October 7 would serve to concentrate minds in Israel and other relevant capitals.
In other words, the main objective would seem to be to render the status quo obsolete and put paid to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, entirely or at least in its current form. Secondly, Hamas appears determined to free Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, and additionally use those it has captured and abducted as leverage in negotiations on other matters, including for example those relating to the Haram al-Sharif.
Insurmountable obstacles
It is highly unlikely that undermining Saudi-Israeli diplomacy formed an important motivation, because the proposed deal faces too many insurmountable obstacles in Washington and Israel, and both Hamas and its allies understand this.
Additionally, if Muhammad bin Salman is determined to proceed with such a deal, there’s no indication he would be deterred by a mound of Palestinian corpses any more than his Arab cohorts who preceded him, and in any case, could consummate any agreement after a decent interval.
This notwithstanding, embarrassing not Riyadh specifically but all regional capitals that maintain formal or informal relations with Israel is an added benefit for Hamas. Particularly so if mass demonstrations in the region in support of the Palestinians serve to remind its governments and the world at large that Palestine remains a live issue.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad can additionally be presumed to hope that their offensive fatally weakens the PA ensconced in Ramallah, thereby creating greater freedom of action for their movements in the West Bank.
The above notwithstanding, the timing of this operation is curious, because conventional wisdom held that Israel’s various adversaries were content with a strategy of managed escalation so as not to interrupt the growing polarisation and dysfunction within the Israeli political arena.
That Hamas nevertheless chose an unprecedented offensive at this moment may have been related to matters of operational security and fears of exposure, or an assessment that this was an opportune moment with Israel having prioritised sadism in the West Bank and reinforcement of its border with Lebanon, or indeed a revised assessment that exposing the colossal failure of Israel’s extremists and security establishment is the best way to weaken them.
It is inconceivable that Hamas would have embarked on an operation of this scale without also preparing for an unprecedented Israeli response. Together with Islamic Jihad and others, it will probably have prepared for massive Israeli incursions into the Gaza Strip launched for the purpose of significantly degrading their organisations and infrastructure, killing cadres and assassinating leaders it can locate, and leaving a massive trail of death and destruction.
Last stand thinking
Better a last stand than a slow death, the thinking apparently goes, particularly if that stand gives a renewed lease on life. Israel will presumably also conduct a massive sweep throughout the West Bank, crack down on Palestinians within Israel, and may also seek to abduct or liquidate Hamas leaders based abroad.
It’s a scenario based on the reasonable assumption that Israel remains unprepared to resume direct control of the entire territory for a protracted period of time. In other words, and as with previous assaults on the Gaza Strip, Israel’s objective may ultimately be to restore a version of the status quo that produced the present crisis.
Inflicting significant casualties in close-quarter combat, as the Palestinians succeeded in doing in 2014, could reduce the length and intensity of such incursions. The Palestinian organisations presumably know better than to believe that holding dozens of Israeli prisoners will provide them with a measure of protection from the authors of the Hannibal Doctrine, which considers a dead Israeli soldier preferable to a captive one.
It is an issue that can at most be used for psychological warfare.
A key question is whether Gaza’s militants will confront Israel only with their existing preparations, or whether Operation Al Aqsa Storm is part of a broader initiative by the self-styled Axis of Resistance, in which Hezbollah and perhaps others will join the fray if Israel crosses certain red lines to relieve the pressure on the Gaza Strip.
If Israel follows through on its demands of mass evacuations of densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods and proceeds with intensive carpet bombing to flatten them, causing mass casualties in the process, we may soon find out.
Mouin Rabbani has published and commented widely on Palestinian affairs, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He was previously senior analyst Middle East and special advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group, and head of political affairs with the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria. He is co-editor of Jadaliyya Ezine.
This writer has been a student of the Holocaust since childhood, with my Poem/Plaque “Never Again” in the Wiesenthal Holocaust museum in Los Angeles. I recently found out, through Ancestry, that I am 12.5% Jewish, but that should not matter at all. Basically, one’s sensitivity is either there or not. Another case in point regarding Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians is the fact that there are perhaps millions of Israelis and Jews worldwide who abhor the current policies of that nation. The widely read Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, is known by many to be a “voice in the wilderness” opposing those policies and, more importantly, the Jewish supremacy mindset. If only we had such a daily print newspaper with progressive sentiments here in Amerika. We don’t!
In the Spring of 1988, I was a marketing manager for a manufacturing company based in NYC. Each week I took a three day trip to visit one of our sales reps throughout the nation. This one week I was off on a night flight to Phoenix on a wide body jet for the five hour flight. We were able to stand in a lounge area of the plane if we wished, perhaps having a drink or two. Next to me was this forty something guy, dressed in a casual style. He said he was an Israeli engineer on a business trip to Phoenix. During our conversation I asked him what his feelings were regarding the Israeli- Palestinian situation. This was 1988 and there were, as now, many problems between the two factions. The man spoke perfect English and said the following:
“You have to understand that we Israelis see the Palestinians the way you see the southern blacks here. The truth is that they ‘breed like rabbits’ like your blacks here. If we don’t do something about it, pretty soon they will overwhelm us with their numbers. Suffice to say, and I say this with all candor, we have no choice for our survival as a nation but to drive them into the sea if possible, as sorry as that may sound.”
In my years as a Socialist anti-war activist I have heard or read many opinions on blaming Israel (and Jews) for their Control of our USA foreign policy. Each and every time I face such talk I always turn the argument around. My point of view is this: The creation of Israel by the English and American powers was meant to place a Junkyard dog in the Middle East to keep tabs on the oil producing states there. Israel was allowed to exist because of this intention. Obviously, the Zionists who resided there, or emigrated from mostly Europe and the USA, did all they could to create a Jewish State instead of an all encompassing Palestine, with multiple religions and peoples sharing it. Perhaps there should have been an East and West Palestine set up from the beginning if the main adversaries could not find a way to peacefully coexist. Sadly, if only those peoples who actually descended from natives of Palestine, whether Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, could have remained as they had been for generations — basically getting along, who knows?
Let me offer this caveat as well: The German-induced holocaust upon the Jews of Europe was as terrible as the other types of ethnic cleansing committed by many other factions throughout history. The Turkish genocide of the Armenians or the USA’s genocide of Native Americans to name just two. When an aggressive force like the Nazi regime, after capturing most of Europe, turned its sights on the Jews with such horrific vigor, who can blame any Jew, anywhere, for seeking safe refuge? Yet, once established in such a place if those same folks then look upon their neighbors in that region, the Palestinians, as how that engineer inferred… makes them lose any moral compass they may have had.
Nationwide, workers across higher education are now divided as to whether to take strike action over pay and working conditions. In September, 42 universities saw staff walk out – but many more decided not to take action. Unfortunately, at the University of Brighton management has decided to escalate their action against University and College Union (UCU) members as the indefinite strike enters its 15th week.
Union busting at Brighton University
On 22September, an open letter from the Brighton University’s director of people Julie Fryatt stated that the senior management team (SMT) has become increasingly concerned about the behaviour of UCU members during pickets. Fryatt alleged these behaviours included:
blocking of the highway, forcing colleagues and students in their cars to stop until they open their windows to speak to pickets, and banging on cars.
In a follow-up email to staff, professor Andrew Lloyd confirmed that the university sent a “letter of claim”to the UCU. It said this was the “first step in seeking an injunction to enforce legal picketing” by no longer allowing staff members to picket on university grounds.
In addition, due to these accusations against UCU members, the SMT is now investigating four of Brighton’s UCU reps (with no specific charges). They could face potential disciplinary action. The group includes the Brighton branch UCU chair Mark Abel. He told Canary:
There is no evidence for these allegations. They are doing this because they do not like the strike. Picking on four UCU picket supervisors and union representatives amounts to trade union victimisation. SMT argue that we have breached ‘reasonable management instruction’ yet fails to recognise that ‘reasonable management instruction’ does not apply to us in a trade union capacity. If they did apply, we would never be able to act against management as we would always be under their control.
It is the duty of the employer to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies. What UCU expected to happen is a discussion between the union and management about the redundancies and trying to reduce the number. People have left the university independently (e.g. resignations), and management could have used those savings to mitigate the compulsory redundancies before the deadline at the end of this month.
UCU knows that resignations happened after the selection process, and the SMT are refusing to consider how this shifts the numbers and is thus not complying with a legal requirement on their part.
These emails attacking the UCU have not gone down well with staff. Some UCU members have been striking for the first time in opposition to this attack. Brighton University’s SMT seems to wish to spend its time and energy teaching UCU a lesson. Yet in the everyday running of the university, students face the brunt of these actions.
Student impact ‘will be minimal’
Chelsea Reinschmidt is a deaf international student. Brighton University recently told them they would have to drop out of their course because it could not provide them with a British Sign Language (BSL) Interpreter.
The university assured Chelsea in the leadup to coming to Brighton that it would not have accepted them onto the course if it could not support them. However, it then backtracked. The university said it would not be able to support Chelsea anymore. It claimed this was due to high costs and changing timetables (meaning interpreters were cancelled).
Initially, Chelsea agreed to fund BSL interpreters through their student funding. However, the university stated that because there were no alternative avenues to provide funding for an interpreter, unless Chelsea could pay the estimated £100,000 themselves, it would be impossible for them to properly engage with the course and achieve the grades needed for their progression.
Now out of pocket financially due to visas and travel expenses to get to Brighton, and as Chelsea is on a student visa with no course to take, they must return to the US. Heartbroken over their situation, Chelsea told Canary:
I came here from New York excited to start my journey in Occupational Therapy (OT). I had lived a lifetime of experience relevant to the course, I was well-positioned to succeed. I was full of hope for my new life and what I could do, particularly in the NHS which is in dire need of specialist OT’s right now. I really believed in the power of OT.
When that opportunity was stolen from me due to albelism and audism, I was crushed.
It’s the university’s responsibility to make the course accessible to its students. It is not my responsibility to figure out how they will accommodate [me]. But at every twist and turn, Brighton University kept putting the burden on me, acting like I was supposed to supply my own interpreters for their course, and they actually thought it was reasonable and equal for me to give them £100,000 for this purpose. I asked every student in my cohort if they had £100,000 to give the university if it meant them being on the course. Every single person said no.
I am one person; they are an institution. It is very clear that no deaf person is accessing this course now or in the near future for OT, and this is the field that directly serves Deaf and Disabled people. Any way you want to dress it up, it is discrimination, plain and simple.
While this situation is appalling, it comes as no surprise. In an attempt to run the university on the cheap, cuts to support staff mean there are not enough people to do the job properly. While there has not been a mass cut to support teams like we’ve seen with the academic redundancies, the gradual erosion of these services has still had disastrous effects.
Continued cuts to student support
I work as an Academic Support Worker (ASW) at Brighton University and have experienced first-hand the continued cuts to student support.
I want to make it crystal clear from the outset that I am not criticising the service at Brighton University. My colleagues in the Disabilities and Dyslexia Department are kind and compassionate individuals who work tirelessly to support students. The SMT’s systematic underfunding of our department means that it has become increasingly difficult for us to provide specialist support to our students.
Moreover, like academics who have not had a pay rise in line with inflation inover a decade, ASWs have suffered a substantial pay cut in the last year.
Former ASW Alex Lee told the Canary:
When I started as an ASW in 2022, I was given a handbook that said an ASW doing notetaking was eligible for writing up time. I agreed to take on casual notetaking sessions from September to January, but a week after taking on these sessions, the terms of my work changed.
I was only eligible for writing up time in ambiguous and undefined ‘exceptional circumstances. This amounted to a 33% pay cut, done without consultation of ASWs or students, and no consideration of how this might impact us or the quality of our work.
I was not surprised when they cut my pay as an ASW, but I did feel angry and disgusted about the pattern of callousness towards staff and students. Senior management did not care at all about what support disabled students wanted, didn’t care that ASWs were low paid casual staff often struggling to do PhDs onpoverty-level stipends in a cost-of-living crisis.
The whole SMT have shown that they are bureaucratic bean counters that could not care less about education and well-being.
Moving forward?
It is hard to understand what the long-term plan of Brighton University’s SMT is. In my opinion, I do not think it has one.
Since May, these continued cuts are short-term solutions to an endemic problem within UK higher education. It is understandable to blame management teams like Brighton for not prioritising staff. However, the marketisation of education is the root cause of the problem. The UK government is not putting enough money into the sector, and this marketisation has made university funding too volatile to function properly.
We need proper government funding and not increased student debt. If this does not change soon, more cuts will inevitably come.
If you have a moment to sign the petition against management’s target of UCU representatives, please follow the link here. There is also a fundraiser to support staff on strike, which can be found here.
Aotearoa New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is correct to condemn Hamas killing Israeli civilians in its attacks on Israel this week.
The killing of civilians or taking them hostage is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention and should be universally condemned.
However, the Labour government has been deathly silent on the war crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians under Labour’s watch these past six years.
Under his prime ministerial watch this year, Chris Hipkins has looked the other way while Israel has built more illegal Israeli settlement homes on Palestinian land; killed more than 250 Palestinian civilians; supported Israeli settler pogroms against Palestinian towns and villages across the occupied West Bank and encouraged highly-provocative Israeli ministerial and settler incursions into the Al Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
Why does he only wake up when Israelis are killed? Why does he think Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian lives?
The Prime Minister’s pro-Israel stance is one-sided and blatantly racist.
New Zealand, along with other Western countries, bears heavy responsibility for the deaths of Palestinians and Israelis in recent days because we have never held Israel to account for its crimes against the Palestinian people.
We have given Israel a free pass to murder and abuse Palestinians and this led to the inevitable tragedy last weekend.
It is precisely the attitude of Western leaders such as our Prime Minister which has meant so many lives have been lost.
The Prime Minister has the blood of Palestinians and Israelis on his hands.
John Minto is national chair of Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).
Gaza Strip . . . about 2.3 million people have been living trapped under an Israeli air, land and sea blockade since 2007. Image: Al Jazeera (CC)
The besieged Gaza Strip
The Palestinian enclave — home to about 2.3 million people — has been under an Israeli air, land and sea blockade since 2007, reports Al Jazeera.
More than 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced and thousands have taken shelter in UN schools as Israeli attacks intensify, forcing Palestinians to flee their homes.
Buildings, mosques and offices have been targeted as Netanyahu promised “mighty vengeance” for the deadly attacks that has sent shockwaves across Israel.
Harrowing images from inside Gaza have emerged with 19 members of a family killed when an air strike on Sunday hit their residential building. More than 60 percent of Gaza’s population are refugees who were ethnically cleansed from their homes currently in Israel.
Israel has maintained a land, sea and air blockade on Gaza since 2007, a year after Hamas was democratically elected into power. The voting came nearly two years after Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from the enclave.
The blockade gives Israel control of Gaza’s borders, and Egypt has stepped in to enforce the western border.
Israel has stated it has blocked the borders to protect its citizens from Hamas, but the act of collective punishment violates the Geneva Conventions and has long been considered illegal by groups including the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Israel is carrying out the longest, now-illegal, now-apartheid occupation in modern history. Gaza has been illegally blockaded for 17 years, confining more than two million mostly civilian human beings in deteriorating conditions, subjecting them to repeated bombardments and ceaseless deprivation.
Hamas’s attack is a response to longterm and escalating, immediate violence.
The blockade wall that was breached is an illegal structure. A million children have been born behind that wall; did you expect them to sit quietly?
Wall deserves to fall
That wall deserves to fall — but we, here in Aotearoa and throughout the world, should have brought it down with diplomatic and economic and legal sanctions long before it came to this.
Now Hamas’s violent resistance has broken through the wall.
Palestinians have a legal right to armed resistance, but no one has a right to unlimited violence. There is no honour in attacking civilians in their homes or bombing Gazan apartment buildings.
It is a core principle of international humanitarian law that the violations of one armed group do not release another armed group from its constant obligation to uphold the rights of civilians. Armed groups are responsible to the law, to the idea of minimising the harm done in this world.
We who demand the protection of Palestinian civilians can best do that by calling for the protection of all civilians: human rights are either everyone’s rights or they are nothing.
If we lose sight of that, the world becomes even more dangerous — and Palestinians have always borne the brunt of that danger.
No military solution
There is no military solution. Solutions call for political will here, outside Israel/Palestine.
The rage and despair accumulated through generations and decades of brutality will not reset. Do not call for the return to the status quo ante because it was intolerable, unjust and illegal.
We, here in Aotearoa New Zealand, need to act on the basis of law and the equal rights of human beings to protection, to justice, to self-determination.
We call on our government to initiate, to pick up the phone and lead in mustering international action.
For anyone to be safe, Palestinians must be free and civilians must be protected.
The Hamas attack on Israel yesterday has brought the usual round of systemic misreporting by New Zealand news outlets as they repost stories from the BBC, AP and Reuters which bend the truth in favour of Israeli narratives of “terrorism” and “victimhood”.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa John Minto . . . “‘Occupied’ is the status these Palestinian territories have under international law, United Nations resolutions and NZ government policy, and should be consistently reported as such.” TVNZ screenshot/APR
The BBC, AP and Reuters typically talk about the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem when they should be reported as the occupied West Bank, occupied Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem.
The BBC, AP and Reuters typically refer to Palestinians resisting Israel’s military occupation Palestinian “militants” or “terrorists” or similar derogatory and dismissive descriptions.
We would not call Ukrainians attacking Russian occupation forces as “militants” so why do our media think it’s OK to use this term to describe Palestinians attacking Israeli occupation forces?
Palestinian right to resist
Under international law, Palestinians have the right to resist Israel’s military occupation, including armed resistance and should not be abused for doing so by our media.
Palestinian resistance groups should be described as “resistance fighters” or “armed resistance organisations” while Israeli soldiers should be described as “Israeli occupation soldiers”.
The BBC, AP and Reuters typically give sympathetic coverage to Israelis killed by Palestinians but do not give similar sympathetic coverage to Palestinians killed, on a near daily basis, by the Israeli occupation (more than 240 killed so far this year, including dozens of children.
Labour leader and NZ Prime Minister Chris Hipkins . . . New Zealand “condemns unequivocally the Hamas attacks on Israel.” Image: TVNZ screenshot/APR
The vast majority of these killings are simply ignored.
Palestinians are the victims of Israeli apartheid policies, ethnic cleansing, land theft, house demolitions, military occupation and unbridled brutality and yet our media ends up giving the impression it’s the other way round.
Wide coverage is given to Israeli spokespeople in most stories with rudimentary reporting, if any, from Palestinian viewpoints.
For example, so far Radio New Zealand has reported on the views of New Zealand Jewish Council spokesperson Juliet Moses but has yet to interview any Palestinian New Zealanders who suffer great anxiety every time Palestinians are killed by Israel.
Support for self-determination
New Zealanders overwhelmingly support the Palestinian struggle for freedom and self-determination. They rightly reject Israel’s racist narratives and its apartheid policies towards Palestinians.
Yara Eid, a journalist from Gaza, expresses her reaction to the news that her friend and fellow journalist 21-year-old Ibrahim Lafi was murdered by Israeli missiles in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/4LqutaOgmP
We should not be calling for negotiations between the parties because Palestinians face both Israel and US at the negotiating table and this will never bring justice for Palestinians and will therefore never bring peace.
Killings in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . . . a graph showing the devastating loss of life for Palestinians compared with Israelis in the past 15 years. Source: Al Jazeera (cc)
Instead, we need a timeline for Israel to abide by international law and United Nations resolutions. This would mean:
Ending the Israeli military occupation of Palestine;
Ending Israel’s apartheid policies against Palestinians, and Allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and land in Palestine
This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished with permission.
Contact with the journalist Nidal Al-Wahidi was lost yesterday during his coverage of events at the Beit Hanoun checkpoint, and there is no confirmed information about his death. https://t.co/2U9wAkrwaw
In 2015 Alex Gibney had an insightful documentary on Scientology, Going Clear. What really got to me was how utterly foolish and chronically masochistic many of those former members of this so called Church were. I have studied various cults, and even dabbled within one myself during my younger days. I have seen, firsthand through my own vulnerability, how the need to either belong to or feel needed by a group of others can drive one to enter into these cults. The sad reality is that few people, and this is key, ever realize that it is in fact a cult that they are joining. What made me literally shout at my television screen while listening to some of those interviewed by Gibney was “How much **** did you have to take for so many years before you finally saw the light?” Watch the film and see for yourself how far people allow themselves to be manipulated and exploited and even tortured. Mind you, my experience with cults like Scientology, including my brief visit with LifeSpring (an offshoot of EST), revealed to me the vast number of highly educated and (seemingly) intelligent people who allow themselves to be taken in. I myself was taken in too… all the way up to LifeSpring’s advanced training course which consisted of two weeks of intensive (and expensive) mind control. As I began to speak one-on-one with some of the others sharing this experience, I realized how many overly sensitive and “needy” folks like myself (including many recovering addicts and alcoholics) that were there. The need to “belong” and to “feel wanted” can be so powerful.
Having gone through three years of intensive Freudian analysis in the early 80s I can see how cults like Scientology and EST and LifeSpring copied much from standard psychoanalysis, then tweaked it a bit and renamed it something else. Having studied how our own government has used various techniques of outright torture, especially in regard to the Orwellian War of Terror, I can see how cults copy those techniques and refine them a bit. This is all for the same heinous purpose: Control. Having also spent over half my adult life studying the entire Nazi movement right through WW2, I can see how much of what Hitler’s gang did with their mass rallies and pomp and circumstance has been mirrored by cults like Scientology. Seeing the leaders of this cult and its top executives dressed in uniforms that resemble those worn by movie ushers from the 30s and 40s, one has to laugh at the audaciousness of it all. Yet, it is real! Thousands attend these spectacles and cheer and applaud… just like those fools did in 1930s Germany! How about the overflowing crowds who follow the so called Televangelist preachers and send their hard earned savings for “Prayer cloths” and other nonsense?
Now, allow me to go one step further. One year from now we will have our next Presidential Horserace. Check out the conventions they hold for these two major political parties. You will then realize why cults like Scientology have been so successful. To this writer, the two-party system here in our dear America has been the longest lasting cult in our nation’s history. As with the inane British “Tory vs. Labor” con job, our own “Republican vs. Democrat” garbage has for so long scammed so many good, decent Americans. Do the research and see how the really key issues and policy decisions that keep this Military Industrial Empire going full speed always have the consensus of the two parties. It has to or the wizards behind the curtain would do some pruning to make certain of it.
Cults, any and all, SUCK! Isn’t it time for more Americans to connect the dots?
New York Times published a news article “Greece, Battered a Decade Ago, Is Booming” by Liz Alderman, with additional reporting from Niki Kitsantonis (Monday, Sept. 25 / in print on Saturday, Sept. 30, Section B, Page 1 with the headline: “A New Era of Prosperity for Greece”).
The article informs us that Greece was hit by an economic crisis a decade ago. It had, then, a load of debt – (doesn’t it now?) – which it could not repay and almost left the eurozone. So far so good.
The newspaper informs that today it is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. Again, so far so good. And clearly, the famous credit rating agencies are upgrading Greece’s debt rating and thus, opening the way for large investors and the economy is growing at twice the rate of the eurozone average. That’s right. CEPR economist Dean Baker, commenting on the article after its publication, wrote with emphasis: “Since the eurozone growth rate for 2023 is projected to be 0.8 percent, growing twice as fast is a rather low bar.”
The journalist mentions that unemployment is at 11 percent, which one would say, with a dose of humor, is “Greek statistics” because the probability is that unemployment is much higher. (Greece’s past government falsified fiscal data in order to enter eurozone.) Dean Baker will point out though, “The 11 percent unemployment rate is far higher than the rest of the European Union, which has a 5.9 percent unemployment rate.” Everywhere in Greece there is poverty, and mine conditions in society.
I am one of the Greeks living in New York, and I have received many messages and phone calls from Greek people who want to immigrate to America because they cannot make ends meet. Friends and family members ask me the same. They are forced to do two-three jobs to survive. The minimum wage is 780 euros (650 net). So, how is it that the article describes “a miracle”? One would say that even the examples of the people mentioned in the article are not typical.
And the tourists who have returned en masse, as the article states, has not helped to improve incomes. On the popular islands – that the average Greek cannot visit – usually, there are galley conditions for the workers.
Unfortunately, in Greek society, a small percentage of 5%-10% live well – “the oligarchs eat with golden spoons” – and the rest suffer. Children of the poor go to school hungry. The country has some of the most expensive fuel in Europe, expensive food, high VAT, and very expensive electricity. Many do not have money for dental care, to change tires on the car, or, to start a new family. The journalist writes “misery of austerity is still fresh”, no, it is not fresh; it is still present in the social conditions. Nowhere is mentioned that the government gave, until recently, “Soviet-style” Food Pass and Fuel Pass coupons, which helped the re-election by a landslide of the conservative leader Mr. Mitsotakis. This image is not beautified by the fact that the companies Microsoft and Pfizer are investing in Greece.
For reasons that are understandable, rating agencies like DBRS Morningstar and Moody’s do their job. Very likely for them, a strong economy means neoliberalism, purchasing power that is getting worse every year, and cheap labor. And Greece is a country that lacks personalities like AOC and Bernie. But the NYTimes should not present these assessments while ignoring the poverty that still exists in the country that gave birth to Democracy. The NYTimes has accustomed us to a more critical look at the suffering of ordinary people.
In conclusion, “can a dead man dance?” No! So, the information given by the NYTimes should create “a complete picture” and not the opposite. Perhaps, we can accept that somehow, the good American newspaper wants to help improve the desperate economic situation that continues to impoverish the Greeks and stop the transfer of wealth to the few. Good psychology is everything, even in economy. Until then, the country will continue to live its own difficult fate, its own 1929, similar to the conditions America experienced at the start of the Great Depression era.
On 4 October, Rishi Sunak scrapped the Northern section of HS2, confirming reports that the axing was on the cards. Addressing the Conservative Party conference – which happened to be in Manchester – Sunak said HS2 would no longer run to the city.
To add insult to injury, the PM also confirmed that the Old Oak Common to Euston leg of the high speed rail would go ahead.
Yup, you read that right. The North gets snubbed, and London gets yet another shiny new transport link. If it were satire, I’d think it was a little too on-the-nose.
HS2: Keeping it on the doorstep
Back in July, the government paused construction of HS2’s Euston station for a minimum of two years. This shifted the predicted end date of the project to a (distinctly hesitant) 2042.
Passengers would instead have to get off at the new Old Oak Common station in Acton, and change for the Elizabeth line. The Elizbeth line itself officially opened in 2022, and was a brand new feather in the cap of the South’s transport network. It connects the East and West of England – via London, of course.
However, it appears that building a high speed train between Birmingham and London’s suburbs would be too embarrassing even for Sunak. Instead, his government are taking over construction in Euston from the wildly overbudget HS2 bosses. The PM also announced that the government had found £6.5bn in savings, and promised that:
The management of HS2 will no longer be responsible for the Euston site. There must be some accountability for the mistakes made, for the mismanagement of this project.
This miraculous cost-cutting measure is almost blindingly simple – if trains don’t go to Manchester, then fewer people will want to get on them. If fewer people want to get on the train, then the station doesn’t need to be as big. As such, only six of the eleven platforms from the original designs are actually going to be built. Truly exceptional logic, right there.
Well the North has roads, doesn’t it?
But what, you might ask, about the North? After all, HS2 was previously at the forefront of the government’s grand scheme to ‘level up’ the economy by providing better infrastructure to the North.
HS2’s costs had almost trebled to more than an estimated £100bn from £37.5bn in 2013. That was even before taking into account recent ballooning inflation, making it one of the world’s most expensive lines. Then, back in 2021, faced with mounting costs, the government pulled the plug on the northernmost route linking Birmingham to Leeds.
Well never fear – Sunak also announced the diversion funds for the improvement of existing transport routes up North. The government plans to spend the £36bn saved by scrapping the Manchester leg of HS2 on improving current road, bus, and rail networks.
The PM stated:
I am cancelling the rest of the HS2 project and in its place, we will reinvest every single penny, £36 billion, in hundreds of new transport projects in the North and the Midlands, across the country.
Much as with the Northern sections of HS2 itself, I shall believe it when I see it.
‘How little he really cares’
The Northern leg’s cancellation might just have come as cold comfort from an environmental perspective. After all, a 2020 Wildlife Trusts reportshowed that the line’s full route would partially or completely eliminate:
108 ancient woodlands.
Five wildlife refuges of international importance.
33 Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
21 local nature reserves.
But wait right there. The PM also announced that his government would perform major upgrades on key motorways such as the M6, serving central and Northern England.
Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, Rebecca Newsom, highlighted that Sunak’s decision:
to divert the money into over 70 road schemes shows how little he really cares about tackling air pollution, traffic and cutting carbon emissions.
While investment in Midlands and Northern rail may provide better value for money, the full £36 billion… should have been redirected to public transport to truly help level up the UK, protect children’s lungs, and help cut household costs.
Money would be spent also on faster train journeys between Manchester and other northern cities, including Bradford, Hull and Sheffield under a scheme named ‘Network North’.
First train out of here
So there you have it. Far from ‘levelling up’ the North, HS2 has become a lengthy debacle which fizzled out into a fast-track between Birmingham and London. As usual, money is promised to everywhere outside the capital – but I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting, if I were you.
It’s almost fitting that Britain’s only completed high-speed line is the Eurostar, bearing passengers out of London and into France. European companies own most of the UK’s rail lines anyway – it makes sense that the real money is on getting out of the country as fast as is humanly possible.
After 10 years of non-attendance, France turned up to this week’s French Polynesia sitting of the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation (C-24) — but the French delegate did not deliver the message that pro-independence French Polynesian groups wanted to hear.
French Polynesia was re-inscribed to the United Nations (UN) list of non-self-governing territories in 2013.
Pro-independence leader Moetai Brotherson, President of French Polynesia, came to power in May 2023.
Since then he has claimed he received assurances from French President Emmanuel Macron that France would end its “empty chair” policy regarding UN decolonisation sessions on French Polynesia.
President Macron apparently kept his promise, but the message that the French Ambassador to the UN, Nicolas De Rivière, delivered was unambiguous.
He declared French Polynesia “has no place” on the UN list of non-autonomous territories because “French Polynesia’s history is not the history of New Caledonia”.
The indigenous Kanak peoples of New Caledonia, the other French Pacific dependency currently on the UN list, have actively pursued a pathway to decolonisation through the Noumea Accord and are still deep in negotiations with Paris about their political future.
French public media Polynésie 1ère TV quoted the ambassador as saying: “No process between France and French Polynesia allows a role for the United Nations.”
French Ambassador to the UN Nicolas De Rivière . . . present this time but wants French Polynesia withdrawn from the UN decolonisation list. Image: RNZ Pacific
The ambassador also voiced France’s wish to have French Polynesia withdrawn from the UN list. At the end of his statement, the Ambassador left the room, leaving a junior agent to sit in his place.
This was just as more than 40 pro-independence petitioners were preparing to make their statements.
Tahiti’s President Moetai Brotherson . . . pro-independence but speaking on behalf of “all [French] Polynesians, including those who do not want independence today.” Image: Polynésie 1ère TV screenshot/APRThis is not an unfamiliar scene. Over the past 10 years, at similar UN sessions, when the agenda would reach the item of French Polynesia, the French delegation would leave the room.
The C-24 session started on Tuesday morning.
This week, French Polynesia’s 40-plus strong — mostly pro-independence delegation — of petitioners included the now-ruling Tavini Huiraatira party, members of the civil society, the local Māohi Protestant Church, and nuclear veterans associations and members of the local Parliament (the Territorial Assembly) and French Polynesian MPs sitting at the French National Assembly in Paris.
It also included President Moetai Brotherson from Tavini.
French position on decolonisation unchanged For the past 10 years, since it was re-inscribed on the UN list, French Polynesia has sent delegates to the meeting, with the most regular attendees being from the Tavini Huiraatira party:
“I was angry because the French ambassador left just before our petitioners were about to take the floor [. . . ] I perceived this as a sign of contempt on the part of France,” said Hinamoeura Cross, a petitioner and a pro-independence member of French Polynesia’s Territorial Assembly, reacting this week to the French envoy’s appearance then departure, Polynésie 1ère TV reports.
Since being elected to the top post in May 2023, President Brotherson has stressed that independence, although it remains a long-term goal, is not an immediate priority.
Days after his election, after meeting French President Macron for more than an hour, he said he was convinced there would be a change in France’s posture at the UN C-24 committee hearing and an end to the French “empty chair policy”.
“I think we should put those 10 years of misunderstanding, of denial of dialogue [on the part of France] behind us [. . .]. Everyone can see that since my election, the relations with France have been very good [. . . ]. President Macron and I have had a long discussion about what is happening [at the UN] and the way we see our relations with France evolve,” he told Tahiti Nui Télévision earlier this week from New York.
President ‘for all French Polynesians’ – Brotherson President Brotherson also stressed that this week, at the UN, he would speak as President of French Polynesia on behalf of “all [French] Polynesians, including those who do not want independence today”.
“So in my speech I will be very careful not to create confusion between me coming here [at the UN] to request the implementation of a self-determination process, and me coming here to demand independence which is beside the point,” he added in the same interview.
He conceded that at the same meeting, delegates from his own Tavini party were likely to deliver punchier, more “militant”, speeches “because this is Tavini’s goal”.
“But as for me, I speak as President of French Polynesia.”
Ahead of the meeting, Tavini Huiraatira pro-independence leader Oscar Temaru said that “It’s the first time a pro-independence President of French Polynesia will speak at the UN (C-24) tribune”.
Temaru, 78, was French Polynesia’s president in 2013 when it was reinscribed to the UN list.
Speaking of the different styles between him and his 54-year-old son-in-law — Moetai Brotherson is married to Temaru’s daughter — Temaru said this week: “He has his own strategy and I have mine and mine has not changed one bit [. . .] this country must absolutely become a sovereign state.
“Can you imagine? Overnight, we would own this country of five million sq km. Today, we have nothing.”
French Minister of Home Affairs and Overseas Gérald Darmanin wrote on the social media platform X, previously Twitter, earlier this week: “On this matter just like on other ones, [France] is working with elected representatives in a constructive spirit and in the respect of the territory’s autonomy and of France’s sovereignty.”
Darmanin has already attended the C-24 meeting when it considered New Caledonia.
The United Nations list of non-self-governing territories currently includes 17 territories world-wide and six of those are located in the Pacific — American Samoa, French Polynesia, Guam, New Caledonia, Pitcairn Island and Tokelau.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-WP) and the Papuan Student Alliance (AMP) have denounced the Rome Agreement of 30 September 1962 as “illegal” during protest speeches marking the 61st anniversary last Saturday.
The groups gathered at several places throughout Indonesia to hold peaceful protests and speeches.
The protesters held a public discussion and protest in Yogyakarta, Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Ternate, East Java and North Maluku.
Some protesters were met by hardliner groups of Indonesians who claimed they were supported and protected by the Indonesian police.
The Facebook page of AMP reports that peaceful demonstrations were also scheduled for September 30 in Kupan city but were obstructed by Garuda reactionaries, known as ORMAS (Civic Organisation Group) and police officers.
Some conversations were extremely racist, indicating that both the police and state are still maintaining a policy of racism.
Protests such as these are not unusual. Papuan students and their Indonesian supporters do this annually in order to draw attention to Indonesia’s illegal occupation of West Papua, which violates international law and the UN Charters on self-determination and decolonisation.
This time, the protest was over the Rome Agreement.
In 2021, an attempt to stage a protest in front of the US Embassy in central Jakarta was also made, but 17 AMP Papuan students were arrested.
What the protests are against
These protests across Indonesia may be dismissed by mainstream media as insignificant. But for Papuans, they are actually most significant.
The theme is protesting against what Papuans see as the “genesis” of a betrayal with lies, deceit, and manipulation by powerful international actors that sealed Papua’s fate with Indonesia.
This set a stage of gross human rights violations and exploitation of West Papua’s natural resources, which has been going on since these agreements were signed.
They were treaties, agreements, discussions, and decisions concerning West Papua’s future made by state and multinational actors without Papuan input — ultimately leading to West Papua’s “destruction”.
According to the AMP, the agreement between the Netherlands, Indonesia, the United Nations (UN) and the United States was manipulated to gain control over Papua, reports Suara Kalbar.
The AMP Papuan students and their Indonesian solidarity groups stated that the September 1962 Rome Agreement, followed by the signing of the New York Agreement on August 15, 1962, was reached without the involvement of any representatives of the Papuan people.
The protesters’ highlighted these flaws of the Rome Agreement that:
The Act of Free Choice to be delayed or cancelled;
“Musyawarah” (a form of Indonesian consensus building) be used rather than one-person-one-vote;
The UN report to the UNGA be accepted without debate;
Indonesia would rule West Papua for 25 years after 1963;
The US could exploit natural resources in partnership with Indonesian state companies; and
The US would underwrite an Asian Development Bank grant for US$30 million and guarantee World Bank funds for a transmigration programme beginning in 1977.
The agreement signed by Indonesia, the Netherlands and the United States was a very controversial with 29 articles stipulating the New York agreement, which regulates 3 things, where articles 14-21 regulate self-determination based on the international practice of one person one vote; and articles 12 and 13 governing the transfer of the administration from the United Nations Temporary Executive (UNTEA) to Indonesia.
Thus, this agreement allowed Indonesia’s claim to the land of Papua, which had been carried out after the transfer of control of West Papua from Dutch to Indonesia through UNTEA on 1 May 1963.
West Papua ‘conditioned’
The student protesters argued that prior to 1963 Indonesia had already conditioned West Papua by conducting military operations and suppressing the pro-independence movement, reports Koran Kejora.
Ironically, the protesters say, even before the process of self-determination was carried out on 7 April 1967, Freeport, the state-owned “mining company of American imperialism”, had signed its first contract with Indonesia.
This meant that West Papua had already been claimed by Indonesia through Freeport’s first contract two years before the Act of Free Choice was conducted, reports Koran Kehora.
The Act of Free Choice itself “was a sham”, only 1025 out of 809,337 Papuans with the right to vote had been quarantined or voted, and only 175 of them voiced their opinion, protesters said.
Despite its undemocratic nature, terror, intimidation, manipulation, and gross human rights violations, with the implementation of the Act of Free Choice, Indonesia legitimised its illegal claim to West Papua.
Igin Kogoya, a coordinator for AMP and Indonesian supporters in Malang, said in a media release that Indonesia did not carry out the agreement in accordance with the New York Agreement, reports Jubi.
Instead, Indonesia uses a variety of military operations to condition the region and suppress the independence movement of West Papuans.
“Therefore, before the self-determination process was carried out in 1969, Freeport, the imperialist state-owned mining company of the United States, signed its first contract of work with the Indonesian government illegally on 7 April 1967.”
Early Freeport mine deal
Naldo Wasiage of AMP Lombok and Benjos of FRI-WP Lombok claimed colonial Indonesia had made claims to the West Papua region with Freeport’s first contract two years before the Act of Free Choice was passed.
Today, Indonesia’s reform, terror, intimidation, and incarceration, as well as the shootings and murders of Papuans, still occurring.
The human rights of the Papuan people are insignificant and hold no value for Indonesia.
The Military Operation Area was implemented throughout West Papua before and after the illegal Act of Free Choice. This clearly demonstrates that Indonesia’s desire to colonise West Papua until the present.
When asked about the Rome Agreement, Andrew Johnson, an Australian who has been researching international documents and treaties related to West Papua’s “betrayal”, said:
In order to invest billions of dollars in looting West Papua, Freeport would need assurances that Indonesia would be able to deliver access to the region. A Rome Agreement-type document would provide this assurance.
Victor Yeimo: Unveiling the atrocities
After being released from the Indonesian legal system and prison on 23 September 2023, Victor Yeimo addressed thousands of Papuans in Waena Jayapura by saying:
The Papuan people have long suffered under a dehumanising paradigm, which denies our inalienable rights to be human in our own land.
Yeimo said that the Papuan people in West Papua were systematically excluded from any decision-making processes that shaped their own future.
Jakarta’s oppressive control led to arbitrary policies and laws imposed on West Papuans, disregarding their voices and aspirations. This exclusion highlighted the colonisers’ desire to maintain control and dominance, he said.
The ratification of Special Autonomy, Volume II, serves as an example of Jakarta’s deception. The Papuan People’s Council (MRP), entrusted with representing the special autonomy law, was sidelined, rendering their role meaningless.
Jakarta’s military intervention further emphasised the denial of Papuan rights.
The expansion of five new autonomous provinces in West Papua deepens the marginalisation of indigenous Papuans. This move reinforces the grip of Indonesian colonialism, eroding the cultural identity of the Papuan people.
Jakarta’s tactics, supported by state intelligence and collaboration with local elites, legitimised its oppressive control, Yeimo said.
The state intelligence agency (BIN) in Jakarta manipulated conflict between Papuan groups and tribes to perpetuate hostility and division. By sowing seeds of discord, the colonisers sought to weaken the collective strength of the Papuan people and divert their attention away from their own oppressive actions.
Under Indonesian colonial rule, property, wealth and position held little significance for the Papuan people, Yeimo said.
Relying on hollow promises and pseudo-offers from the oppressors would never lead to justice, welfare, or peace. It was time to reject the deceptive allure of colonialism and focus on reclaiming autonomy and dignity, Yeimo told his people.
Embracing nationalistic ideals was crucial in the Papuan struggle for liberation. Indigenous Papuans must question their own participation in Indonesian colonialism.
Working for the colonisers as bureaucratic elites or bourgeois elites does not uphold their humanity or dignity. It is time to reclaim their autonomy and fight for their freedom.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Can you imagine that after my generation either was pushed into the Vietnam phony war or pushed into the streets to get us out, we have arrived at this, this ****? Bad enough that less than twenty years later we twice destroyed and invaded Iraq (occupying it the second round), destroyed much of Afghanistan, and then set our sights on the rest of the Middle East. Let’s look at what the rigged system has given us since 1980:
The crème de la crème had to then be Dutch Reagan, informer for the HUAC ( House Un-American Activities Committee) and friend of the California Super Rich Mafia. Already going senile, Reagan actually used the moniker that Trump later stole: MAGA (Make America Great Again) to convince many Two Party/One Party suckers… sorry, voters, to make him the quintessential front man for the Super Rich corporate predators. While his wife’s war on drugs was going on, the CIA, handled by his VP and former CIA boss Bush #1, was making sure plenty of crack cocaine was flowing into the US, especially Southern California. Ronnie baby meanwhile made sure the super rich got lower tax rates as the nation saw less and less private sector unions. The great illusion was when states passed the contradictory Right to Work laws, which meant having to work with NO union to protect you. None!
Reagan did his job, which meant acting like a commercial pitchman (which he knew from experience) and napping while Bush #1 ran the corporation… sorry, the country. Then, when Governor and Democratic Party presidential candidate Michael Dukakis wore that silly helmet while foolishly riding on top of a tank as his numbers dissipated, we got Bush #1. He was there when the Deep State wanted to punish Saddam Hussein for not staying on his side of the reservation and getting too big for his britches. So, Saddam became Hitler and the Brits and us destroyed Iraq with the asinine “Coalition of the Willing… to do Uncle Sam’s bidding” with mostly our firepower. One surmises that the economy under #1 was enough to turn off the suckers… sorry, voters. Even the yellow ribbon BS on this Wag the Dog phony war (Go and get that film by Barry Levinson) could not save the day. So, we got Mr. Bill….
If there was ever a professional bullshit artist better than Billy Clinton, show me! This guy could BS his way out of any scrap. “I did not inhale,” is as good as it gets. The funny thing is that he did what the professional card players call a tell. They can read a person’s hand by how he or she gestures or looks. Books have been written on that skill in reading body language. Well, Billy boy would tell while having a conversation by giving a “shit eating grin” or pausing before finishing a thought. You could just know this guy was about to BS, and did he! “I did NOT have sex with that woman!” Gold, pure gold.
Bush #2 or Junior as his dad referred to him, was a true piece of work. This spoiled frat boy who supported our phony war in Vietnam while conveniently using #2’s influence to fly with the Texas Air National Guard. For you novices on history out there, during the 60s and 70s the last military personnel to ever get sent overseas into any hornet’s nest was our National Guard and Reserves. You would need an attack by North Vietnam on our shores to see those guys in action. After all his personal peccadilloes and failures as a (so called) businessman, Junior got to work for the Texas Rangers. Bush #1 sure did have lots of friends. Then, after a failed attempt at Congress, the Super Rich Texas Deep State got Junior into the governor’s mansion. From there, with the help of an army of right wing movers and shakers, Junior became President… in name only. They made sure Tricky Dick Cheney would run things as his Veep. The increasing suspicions as to what really went down on 9/11 led Junior to sign off on War on Iraq 2, to perhaps wash some of that **** away from the public’s attention. Junior became the idiot emperor who just didn’t have any clothes. He ruled MoronAmerika during the absolute worst foreign policy maneuver our nation has ever made.
The damage that the Bush/Cheney Cabal had done just opened the door to the need for “Hope and Change.” Enter Barack Hussein Obama, advertised as a true activist for progressive change. He was handled so well by the Democratic Party movers and shakers that mega millions of suckers… sorry, voters, put this guy into the Oval Office. His greatest foreign policy maneuver was to increase drone missile attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan by tenfold of what the Cheney/Bush Cabal did. How many innocent civilians happened to be near where the **** happened is a tragedy in itself. Barack also continued the bailout AKA gift to the Wall Street banksters on the taxpayer’s dime. He was the reverse front man to Reagan’s own servitude to the Super Rich.
What can one say about The Trumpster that hasn’t been covered by serious researchers? Put it this way: If we were back in the days of the Old West, The Donald would have been the epitome of the con man pushing his medicinal remedies from the back of a wagon. He took the (rightful) anger of millions of working stiffs (mostly white, by the way) and mesmerized them with his populist rhetoric. A man who stood up to his knees in the Deep State **** his whole career convinced them that he was anointed to save them. The real twist is that most of them still follow his tune right over the cliffs of reason.
Finally, we have Lunchbox Joe, who they now have to guide to and from the podium. This guy was always a piece of work his entire career. He helped break the railroad workers strike and then had the audacity to stand on the picket line with auto workers. Biden destroyed Anita Hill 32 years ago when she told the world the truth about Clarence Thomas. Biden also supported the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq in ’03. Before that he supported Billy Boy’s welfare reform bill, which took us back closer to the Gilded Age. Now, he follows the orders of the Deep State and keeps sending our tax dollars down the rabbit hole in support of a Neo Nazi infiltrated Ukraine. Read my lips: If they run this guy again he will lose… even to a crook like Trump.
Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission NACC ignores huge Australian War Crimes & Carbon Debt
I have made 5 huge successive Submissions to the newly formed Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). However my 2 most serious Submissions – on horrendous Australian war crimes (Submission #2: 6 million Afghan avoidable deaths from deprivation under Australian and US Alliance occupation in gross violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) and on horrendous, planet-threatening Carbon Debt (Submission #3: an enormous $5 trillion fraud perpetrated on Australian children, grandchildren and future generations) – were rejected by the NACC on the basis that the NACC had “not been able to identify a clear allegation of corrupt conduct as defined by the National Anti-Corruption Commission Act (2022). As a result, the Commission is unable to take any further action in this matter”. My 5 Submissions are summarized below with the rejected Submissions asterisked.
(1). “Submission To National Anti-Corruption Commission: Australian Labor Government’s Lying For Apartheid Israel”. On a bipartisan Coalition Opposition and Labor Government basis, Zionist-subverted and US-beholden Australia is second only to the US as a fervent a supporter of Apartheid Israel and hence of the evil crime of Apartheid that is condemned by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Departure from fervent support for the Zionist-subverted US and for Apartheid Israel means potential political oblivion for Coalition and Labor MPs noting that Australian Federal MPs receive huge remuneration. MPs and governments should not lie and benefit from lying (fraud and corruption) and should not lie in the interest of inimical foreign governments (treason). Apartheid Israel and its Zionist agents have damaged Australians, Australian institutions and Australia in numerous serious ways. However the Australian Labor Government lies for Apartheid Israel in 15 matters.
*(2). “Submission To Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission Over Huge But Ignored Australian War Crimes”. Variously as UK or US lackeys Australians have invaded about 85 countries with 30 of these invasions being genocidal. In the last 80 years (i.e. within living memory) Australia has violated all circa 80 Indo-Pacific countries variously through occupation and invasion (most countries), complicity in US regime-changing coups (8 countries), and through disproportionate climate criminality (impacting all countries). The Brereton Report found that 39 Afghans had allegedly been unlawfully killed by Australian soldiers. However successive Australian Governments and their public servants have grossly violated Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention by criminally rejecting their unequivocal demand for Occupier provision to the Conquered Afghan Subjects of life-sustaining food and medical services “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. Now 6,000,000 (Afghans passively murdered over 20 years by the US Alliance including Australia) / 39 (Afghans allegedly unlawfully killed by Australian soldiers) = 154,000 i.e. the passive mass murder of 6,000,000 Afghans (mostly women and children) by Australian and US Alliance politicians is 154,000 times worse than the alleged unlawful killing of 39 Afghans by Australian soldiers. Of course all war crimes should be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators tried and punished, but in my opinion no Australian soldier should be tried for any of these 39 alleged unlawful killings of Afghans before the politicians complicit in the 154,000 times greater war crime (the passive mass murder of 6,000,000 Afghans) are exposed and tried. The same argument applies to horrendous avoidable deaths from deprivation in the Australia-complicit WW2 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indian avoidable deaths, 1942-1945) and Iraqi Holocaust (3 million avoidable deaths, 1990-2011).
*(3). “Submission To Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission: Corporations & Governments Ignore Huge Carbon Debt”. Australia is among world-leading climate criminal countries in 16 areas. Corporations, governments and Mainstream media conspire to fraudulently and corruptly ignore Australia’s huge and inescapable Carbon Debt that totals (in USD) about $5 trillion, is increasing at up to about $0.7 trillion each year, and at $69,000 per head per year for under-30 year old Australians. The Carbon Debt of the World is $250 trillion and increasing at $13 trillion each year. This is appalling intergenerational injustice because this ever-increasing and inescapable Carbon Debt will have to be paid by our children, grandchildren and future generations. The damage-related Carbon Price is about $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent but the global applied average is merely $2 per tonne CO2-equivalent. A general principle of national law and the Natural Law is that people are recompensed in full for damage done to them by others but this is rejected in relation to deadly Carbon Pollution by a greedy, fraudulent, corrupt, and traitorous Australian Mainstream (except notably for the science-informed and humane Australian Greens). Carbon Pollution from carbon fuel burning kills about 7 million people each year but the previous Coalition Government’s response to the IMF demand to adopt a modest $75 per tonne CO2-equivalent Carbon Price to save 4 million lives by 2030 was a simple “No”. The present climate criminal Labor Government ignores Australia’s huge exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and supports over 100 new coal and gas extraction projects. Australia has 0.33% of the world’s population but its annual Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution is 5.4% of the World’s total annual GHG pollution. In the absence of requisite action (atmospheric pollution by GHGs is increasing at record high rates) the direst expert prediction is that 10 billion people will die this century in a worsening Climate Genocide en route to a sustainable population in 2100 of only 1 billion people.
(4). “Submission To Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission: Huge & Fraudulent University Fees Exposed”. Education is a basic human right and all education should be free for all. However the commodification and corporatizing of higher education has meant that free university education presently only obtains in about 25 countries. Australian universities charge impoverished local and overseas students hugely excessive tuition fees whereas Accredited Remote Learning (ARL) can deliver top quality, reading-based courses and accrediting examinations essentially for free. All societies and nations need to have a large complement of expert scholars and scientists for a variety of economic, health, national security and national prestige reasons – however why should impoverished, circa 20 year old undergraduate students have to pay for this? Tertiary education provision in Australia can be vastly cheaper off-campus than on-campus. Thus off-campus university education can be essentially cost-free by simply involving students reading prescribed texts and addressing other teaching materials, with qualifications established by expert accrediting examinations. This indeed was the de facto off-campus scheme during the Covid-19 Pandemic except that huge full fees were dishonestly applied to local and overseas students. The student debt from fees presently totals A$74 billion, a massive fraud perpetrated on Australian students, and indeed one of the biggest frauds in Australian history.
(5). Submission To Australian National Anti-Corruption Commission, NACC: Mainstream Media Lying”. Australian Mainstream media (MSM), including the publicly-funded ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), and the dominant US Murdoch empire media have an appalling and ongoing record of lying by omission and lying by commission. Lying by omission is far, far worse than repugnant lying by commission because the latter at least permits public refutation and public debate (subject, of course, to the will of MSM gate-keepers). Democracy ideally requires an informed electorate but driven by ever-increasing wealth inequity Western democracies (including Australia) have become kleptocracies, plutocracies, Murdochracies. lobbyocracies, corporatocracies and dollarocracies in which Big Money corruptly purchases public perception of reality, votes, more political power and hence more private profit. Although individual journalists can have certain opinions and biases, lying by omission and lying by commission by media is fraud and corruption when perpetrated for personal gain, and treason when perpetrated in the interests of inimical foreign governments such as those of Apartheid Israel and pro-Apartheid America. Experience of Australian MSM mendacity over many decades instructs that the serious examples of fraud, corruption and treason in my 5 Submissions will be resolutely ignored by cowardly and mendacious Australian MSM presstitutes. Australia can be saved from fraudulent MSM in part by (a) publicly exposing and listing all MSM falsehoods on the Web, and (b) banning foreign MSM ownership.
There’s an insidious new tactic emerging for selling Right-wing ideology to wider audiences, evident in last month’s Budapest Demographic Summit for “family-friendly thinkers and decision-makers,” the upcoming pro-birth Natal conference in Austin, Texas, and the recent film “Birthgap.” They all peddle pronatalism, a set of norms and policies that exhorts and often coerces women to have more children to raise fertility rates, often coupled with alarmism over alleged “population collapse.”
Pronatalism is on the rise to counter the growing push for gender equality, contraceptive access, and women’s educational and economic empowerment. It is connected to totalitarian policies dictating reproductive choices, the racist Great Replacement conspiracy theory, the religious anti-abortion movement, tech elite futurism. Elon Musk, for example, is an avowed pronatalist who donated $10 million to population collapse “research” and liked the idea of denying voting rights to childless people. He wanted to attend the Budapest summit, but couldn’t make it so he met last week in Texas with Hungary’s President Novák instead to draw attention to the “demographic crisis.”
Lately pronatalists are trying to pull a more appealing game face. The Budapest Summit says it wants to support the “psychological health and security of families,” so they can “plan for a secure future.” The Natal conference claims it “has no political or ideological goal other than a world in which our children can have grandchildren.” The Birthgap film purports to help cure an epidemic of “unplanned childlessness” and proposes “re-engineer[ing] our societies to reduce [it so] many more people would go on to have…children just like parents naturally do.” It conducts tearful interviews with regretful women who lament that their natural drive to have children was thwarted by society, and now it’s too late.
Who could object to standing up for families’ health and security, and for the right of people who want children to have them? Yet behind this innocuous-seeming family-friendly rhetoric lurk unsavory connections to Right-wing propaganda, manipulation, and straight-up lies.
The Budapest summit touts Hungary’s achievement of the “highest rates of marriage and childbearing in Europe, while divorce and abortion rates are falling,” a nice way of saying that its right-wing populist leader Viktor Orbán adopted and implemented the Great Replacement ideology, which motivated mass-shooters in the U.S., as state policy. “We do not need numbers, but Hungarian children,” he said. “In our minds, immigration means surrender.”
The Natal conference has demonstrable links to far-right eugenicists and racists. Birthgap filmmaker Stephen Shaw is feted by right-wing talk show hosts like Jordan Peterson, Neil Oliver, and Chris Williamson, and presented as a “renowned demographer” despite having no credentials in demography. Shaw and Peterson both gave keynotes at the Budapest summit.
But ad hominem objections to the people behind the conferences and the film aside, the assertions they make are discreditable and counterfactual. Decrying imminent “population collapse” while the global population grows by 80 million each year and is projected to hit 10.4 billion in the 2080s is absurd. To make depopulation seem like a threat, Birthgap resorts to lying about data on the reasons for declining birth rates. It cites a 2010 study (which it calls a “meta-analysis”) by Prof. Renska Keizer which the film says indicates that just 10% of women chose not to have children and 10% can’t have them for medical reasons, which “leaves a whopping 80% of women without children childless by circumstance” as opposed to by choice.
But that’s not at all what Keizer’s research says. The 2010 study Birthgap cites is not a meta-analysis, not quantitative, and does not indicate 80% of childless women didn’t choose to be so. In fact a 2011 study by Keizer et al. analyzed a 2006 dataset surveying women in the Netherlands who were childless at age 45, and found that 55% of them were childless voluntarily, while 45% were childless due to medical or other reasons. Other studies found similar results: 56% of those without children were voluntarily childless according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, 72% according to the CDC National Survey of Family Growth, and 74% according to a 2022 Michigan State University study. Researchers working on my organization’s fact-checking project Birthgap Facts found no credible data supporting the film’s claim that 80% of childless women were “childless by circumstance” as opposed to by choice.
What the data does show is that women exercising their right to choose if and when to have children results in delaying childbirth, smaller families, and a decline in teen pregnancy. Those outcomes are beneficial and should be celebrated, not stigmatized.
According to the United Nations, at least 12 million girls are married before they reach the age of 18 every year, and more than 650 million women alive today were married as children. Around 257 million women globally face unintended pregnancies due to lack of access to contraception, abortion care, and counseling.
At current levels of consumption, today’s population of eight billion is driving resource depletion, soil erosion, water shortages, species extinctions, and climate catastrophe. Over a billion children are already at “extremely high risk” from climate change. High fertility rates and population growth undermine climate resilience and complicate efforts to end poverty and hunger and ensure basic services and infrastructure.
These are the real threats to the future, not some imagined conspiracy to stigmatize reproductive choices and hold fertility rates down. They make Shaw’s proposal of “social engineering” to reverse the imaginary threat of depopulation all the more reprehensible. By distorting and lying about childlessness, he’s trying to manipulate young people and their governments into prioritizing procreation over education and career. This purports to avoid a dystopian future, yet it would actually usher one in.
Rather than manufacturing a crisis whose remedy entails “social engineering” to roll back progress on human rights and women’s control over their own lives, we should focus on the real crisis fueled by pronatalist pressures from family, religion, and governments that force millions into motherhood against their wishes, often by means of coercion and sexual violence. The rhetoric of the Budapest summit, Natal, Birthgap and their ilk claiming they’re simply trying to help families and alleviate the heartbreak of “unplanned childlessness” is insidious, and we should recognize and call it out for what it is: another arrow in the pronatalist quiver, another weapon wielded against hard-fought gains in gender equality and reproductive autonomy.
It’s always going to be a fun day when you wake up to see ‘woke’ trending on Twitter. On Wednesday 4 October, this was – once again – thanks to the usual suspects. The Tories staged their party conference this week, and on 3 October they officially announced as part of their platform that they plan to ‘kick woke ideology out of science’. Einstein wept.
‘Stop stoking a stupid culture war’
It’s predictably hilarious – but probably also dangerous in equal measure – that there are voices on Twitter and elsewhere which unironically support such a policy. However, people who actually know something about science, and/or the term ‘woke’, reacted with anger as well as disbelief.
Professor Christina Pagel from the Independent SAGE said in a tweet:
For fuck's sake, stop stoking a stupid culture war and come up with at least one policy that makes lives better instead – preferably one looking more than 15 mthss ahead.
Science is NOT in danger from "woke ideology", which is a bullshit invented culture war concept anyway. https://t.co/ya83oO33jt
The word ‘woke’ seems to have had a steady presence at this year’s Conservative Party Conference – and home secretary Suella Braverman has especially developed a fondness for it. As PinkNewsreported:
Braverman claimed that the UK would “go properly woke” under Keir Starmer with “highly controversial ideas” like “gender ideology, white privilege, and anti-British history.”
So wedded are the Tories to defending Braverman’s nonsense arguments that security removed senior party member Andrew Boff from the conference for criticising them. Boff, who is openly gay, called out Braverman’s comments as “transphobic and homophobic”.
Even the senior Tory politician stated that “There’s no such thing as gender ideology”. Why, then, is the party establishment so keen on making a common enemy of the pro-LGBT ‘woke’ agenda?
Stay woke
Of course, this is an age-old tactic. The Tories in particular love to turn powerless groups of people – whether they’re migrants, trans people, or families on benefits – into scapegoats in order to distract from the horror that is their own governance.
They’ve u-turned on climate pledges and allowed raw sewage to be dumped into our waterways. They’ve decimated the NHS with chronic underfunding and privatisation. They’ve consistently vilified striking workers, passing anti-strike legislation and denying the need for pay rises in line with inflation. That’s not to mention the creeping fascism they’ve introduced via the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and the Public Order Act 2023.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If I were to list every mean-spirited, anti-working class policy of this government, I’d be here all day. What’s important is that we make clear to politicians like Braverman that we see through their divisive rhetoric.
For a great many people, the world in general – and the UK in particular – is becoming an increasingly difficult place in which to live. We can only survive by sticking together. We need to support one another against powerful people whose primary aim is to defend the interests of the 1%. Realising this and not falling for the rhetoric of those in power is, in fact, closer to the original meaning of being ‘woke’ – which is probably why it’s become a term politicians are so afraid of.
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) supporters are livid Labour is refusing to recognise the state of Palestine a full 104 years after the first Palestinian calls for an independent state.
It’s a disgraceful decision, both unprincipled and cowardly.
Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson confirmed this decision when answering questions here:
Q – ??? about the Palestinian Representative in Australia to present his credentials here. That was announced formally.
Grant Robertson – There is a formal Foreign Policy part of the manifesto. We’re sticking with the long standing bi-partisan approach to a two-state solution in the Middle East and what we are doing is working with the Palestinian representative on closer discussions but that doesn’t make a change to a formal recognition. It just means that we open that dialogue up.
Q – So no formal recognition?
GR – Not until there is a state to recognise. But we have long stood for a two-state solution and what we have said is that we want to have more open and regular dialogue with Palestinian Representatives.
Labour implied in their manifesto release this week that they would recognise the state of Palestine although the wording was unclear and ambiguous. What is clear now is that the slippery wording was deliberately meant to mean all things to all people.
The disingenuous wording in the Labour manifesto says:
Labour is committed to an enduring and just two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the right of Israel to live in peace within secure borders internationally recognised and agreed by the parties, and reflecting the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people to also live in peace and security within their own state.
A re-elected Labour government will:
Invite the Head of the General Delegation of Palestine to present their credentials as an Ambassador to New Zealand.
One hundred and thirty eight other countries have recognised Palestine as a state and haven’t had the “problem” of recognition that Grant Robertson has manufactured for Labour.
It seems Labour has once more buckled to pressure from a tiny pro-Israel lobby group within the party. They are allowing these anti-Palestinian racists to veto any meaningful steps to support the Palestinian struggle for human rights.
It’s an indelible stain on Labour’s integrity.
Background to the 104 years After 1918, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of the First World War, each of the countries of that empire gained independence — except Palestine. The first Palestine National Congress was held in 1919 and called for independence from Britain which held the League of Nations mandate for Palestine.
Britain, however, refused independence and in the 104 years since, Western countries, including New Zealand, have colluded with Britain, then Israel and the US, to deny a Palestinian state or even equal rights for Palestinians who are citizens of Israel.
Western countries turned a blind eye to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1947–49 and look the other way today as Palestinians continue to be driven out of their homes and off their land by Israeli settlers, backed up by the Israeli military.
John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). Republished from The Daily Blog with permission.
If re-elected, Labour would invite Palestinian ambassador to Canberra to present credentials here. pic.twitter.com/UvzyOTd96T
NY Governor Kathy Hochul Should Sign the Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act Into Law
New York is just one of just a handful of states that won’t allow people convicted of crimes to obtain post-conviction relief with non-DNA evidence of innocence.
10.02.23By Barry Scheck
(Image: Elijah Craig II/Innocence Project)
Today, freed and exonerated people, advocates, and policy makers gathered in New York City to call on Governor Kathy Hochul to help innocent New Yorkers in prison facing a nightmarish scenario.
Under current law and through court precedent, New Yorkers who pled guilty to a crime can only challenge their conviction with new evidence of innocence if the evidence was derived from DNA testing.
At the Innocence Project, which I co-founded in 1992, we have litigated hundreds of wrongful conviction cases, leading to the release and exoneration of more than 200 people. In 31 years of this work, we’ve seen that it is not uncommon for innocent people to plead guilty. In fact, of the more than 3,000 exonerations of innocent people which have been identified nationally since 1989,24% pled guilty, according to the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE). On the other hand, among the 347 exonerations in New York State, NRE data shows that DNA played a role in only 54 of those cases.
So it plainly follows that the prohibition against proving innocence through non-DNA evidence is not only unfair and arbitrary but the data shows it keeps an intolerable number of innocent people in New York prisons with no way to challenge their wrongful convictions. Governor Hochul has a chance to fix this. She can sign the Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act, passed by the New York Senate and State Assembly, into law. As an attorney who has witnessed firsthand the trauma that wrongful conviction brings to our clients and their families, I urge her to do so.
Why do innocent people plead guilty? From the first moment a person is charged with a crime, all actors in the system—defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges—have an interest in a speedy resolution, which is why 95% of felony convictions in the United States are obtained through plea bargains.
Innocent people charged with serious crimes who cannot afford bail feel extraordinary pressure to plead guilty because they fear being subjected to violence or sexual assault in pre-trial detention facilities like Rikers Island, where there is an ongoing humanitarian crisis. In 2022, 17 people died in custody at Rikers Island or shortly after being released. Furthermore, people held at Rikers don’t have regular access to their lawyers and are not able to fully participate in their own defense. Incarceration in horrific conditions and isolation from family and friends incentivizes people accused of crimes to try to get home as soon as possible, even if that means pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit.
Then there’s the trial penalty, the grim reality that courts and prosecutors threaten to impose much harsher sentences than the plea offer if a client goes to trial and loses. “I never thought I would accept a guilty plea – until my life was hanging in the balance,” said Rodney Roberts, my colleague at the Innocence Project and an exoneree. He describes the decision to plead guilty to a sexual assault he did not commit as “sabotaging and saving himself at the same time.” His defense attorney told him that he would likely lose if he went to trial and would be sentenced to life in prison. He was advised to take a plea offer of a seven-year prison sentence where he would likely serve only two years in prison. Eager to get home to see his young son, and aware of racial bias in the criminal legal system, Mr. Roberts, who is Black, took the plea. He wound up spending 18 years in custody, both in prison and civil confinement, before DNA proved his innocence in 2013.
Data confirms that Mr. Robert’s decision was perfectly logical. Black and brown people are disproportionately impacted by the criminal legal system. A recent report by the NRE,“Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022,”confirms alarming racial disparities in the criminal legal system. Black people are seven times more likely than white people to be falsely convicted of serious crimes. Innocent Black people were almost eight times more likely than innocent white people to be falsely convicted of rape, The NRE also found in a 2015 study that innocent people who plead guilty almost always get lighter sentences than those who are convicted at trial, “Almost three-quarters of homicide exonerees who pleaded guilty were convicted of murder. It appears that the great majority did so to avoid the risk of execution.”
Given what we know about the realities of the criminal legal system, it’s shocking that New York is just one of just a handful of states that won’t allow people convicted of crimes to obtain post-conviction relief using non-DNA evidence of innocence. Even worse, post-conviction procedures in New York do not clearly authorize judges to order discovery of information that prosecutors, innocence organizations, and even judges themselves would like to obtain from third parties to make sure justice is done.
The Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act provides practical, measured, efficient solutions to the problems faced by innocent New Yorkers who were pressured into pleading guilty to crimes they didn’t commit. Governor Hochul has vowed to fight for justice for all New Yorkers. She should sign this legislation. Those who are experiencing these grave injustices desperately need a champion.
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Kia ora koutou. Ko Ngāpuhi tōku iwi. Ko Ngāti Manu toku hapu. Ko Karetu tōku marae. Ko Myles Thomas toku ingoa.
I grew up with David Beatson, on the telly. Back in the 1970s, he read the late news which I watched in bed with my parents. Later, David and I worked together to save TVNZ 7 and also regional TV stations.
The Better Public Media (BPM) trust honours David each year with our memorial address, because his fight for non-commercial TV was an honourable one. He wasn’t doing it for himself.
He wasn’t doing it so he could get a job or because it would benefit him. He fought for public media because he knew it was good for Aotearoa NZ.
Like us at Better Public Media, he recognised the benefits to our country from locally produced public media.
David knew, from a long career in media, including as editor of The Listener and as Jim Bolger’s press secretary, that NZ’s media plays an important role in our nation’s culture, social cohesion, and democracy.
NZ culture is very important. NZ culture is so unique and special, yet it has always been at risk of being swamped by content from overseas. The US especially with its crackpot conspiracies, extreme racial tensions, and extreme tensions about everything to be honest.
Local content the antidote
Local content is the antidote to this. It reflects us, it portrays us, it defines New Zealand, and whether we like it or not, it defines us. But it’s important to remember that what we see reflected back to us comes through a filter.
This speech is coming to you through a filter, called Myles Thomas.
Better Public Media trustee Myles Thomas speaking beside the panel moderator and BPM chair Dr Peter Thompson (seated from left); Jenny Marcroft, NZ First candidate for Kaipara ki Mahurangi; Ricardo Menéndez March, Green Party candidate for Mt Albert; and Willie Jackson, Labour Party list candidate and Minister for Broadcasting and Media. Image: David Robie/APR
Commercial news reflects our world through a filter of sensation and danger to hold our attention. That makes NZ seem more shallow, greedy, fearful and dangerous.
The social media filter makes the world seem more angry, reactive and complaining.
RNZ’s filter is, I don’t know, thoughtful, a bit smug, middle class.
The New Zealand Herald filter makes us think every dairy is being ram-raided every night.
And The Spinoff filter suggests NZ is hip, urban and mildly infatuated with Winston Peters.
These cultural reflections are very important actually because they influence us, how we see NZ and its people.
It is not a commodity
That makes content, cultural content, special. It is not a commodity. It’s not milk powder.
We don’t drink milk and think about flooding in Queenstown, drinking milk doesn’t make us laugh about the Koiwoi accent, we don’t drink milk and identify with a young family living in poverty.
Local content is rich and powerful, and important to our society.
When the government supports the local media production industry it is actually supporting the audiences and our culture. Whether it is Te Mangai Paho, or NZ On Air or the NZ Film Commission, and the screen production rebate, these organisations fund New Zealand’s identity and culture, and success.
Don’t ask Treasury how to fund culture. Accountants don’t understand it, they can’t count it and put it in a spreadsheet, like they can milk solids. Of course they’ll say such subsidies or rebates distort the “market”, that’s the whole point. The market doesn’t work for culture.
Moreover, public funding of films and other content fosters a more stable long-term industry, rather than trashy short-termism that is completely vulnerable to outside pressures, like the US writer’s strike.
We have a celebrated content production industry. Our films, video, audio, games etc. More local content brings stability to this industry, which by the way also brings money into the country and fosters tourism.
BPM trust chair Dr Peter Thompson, senior lecturer in media studies at Victoria University, welcomes the panel and audience for the 2023 media policy debate at Grey Lynn Library Hall in Auckland last night. Image: Del Abcede/Asia Pacific Report
We cannot use quota
New Zealand needs more local content.
And what’s more, it needs to be accessible to audiences, on the platforms that they use.
But in NZ we do have one problem. Unlike Australia, we can’t use a quota because our GATT agreement does not include a carve out for local music or media quotas.
In the 1990s when GATT was being negotiated, the Aussies added an exception to their GATT agreement allowing a quota for Aussie cultural content. So they can require radio stations to play a certain amount of local music. Now they’re able to introduce a Netflix quota for up to 20 percent of all revenue generated in Aussie.
We can’t do that. Why? Because back in the 1990s the Bolger government and MFAT decided against putting the same exception into NZ’s GATT agreement.
But there is another way of doing it, if we take a lead from Denmark and many European states. Which I’ll get to in a minute.
The second important benefit of locally produced public media is social cohesion, how society works, the peace and harmony and respect that we show each other in public, depends heavily on the “public sphere”, of which, media is a big part.
Power of media to polarise
Extensive research in Europe and North America shows the power of media to polarise society, which can lead to misunderstanding, mistrust and hatred.
But media can also strengthen social cohesion, particularly for minority communities, and that same research showed that public media, otherwise known as public service media, is widely regarded to be an important contributor to tolerance in society, promoting social cohesion and integrating all communities and generations.
The third benefit is democracy. Very topical at the moment. I’ve already touched on how newsmedia affect our culture. More directly, our newsmedia influences the public dialogue over issues of the day.
It defines that dialogue. It is that dialogue.
So if our newsmedia is shallow and vacuous ignoring policies and focussing on the polls and the horse-race, then politicians who want to be elected, tailor their messages accordingly.
There’s plenty of examples of this such as National’s bootcamp policy, or Labour’s removing GST on food. As policies, neither is effective. But in the simplified 30 seconds of commercial news and headlines, these policies resonate.
Is that a good thing, that policies that are known to fail are nonetheless followed because our newsmedia cater to our base instincts and short attention spans?
Disaster for democracy
In my view, commercial media is actually disaster for democracy. All over the world.
But of course, we can’t control commercial media. No-one’s suggesting that.
The only rational reaction is to provide stronger locally produced public media.
And unfortunately, NZ lacks public media.
Obviously Australia, the UK, Canada have more public media than us, they have more people, they can afford it. But what about countries our size, Ireland? Smaller population, much more public media.
Denmark, Norway, Finland, all with roughly 5 million people, and all have significantly better public media than us. Even after the recent increases from Willie Jackson, NZ still spends just $44 per person on public media. $44 each year.
When we had a licence fee it was $110. Jim Bolger’s government got rid of that and replaced it with funding from general taxation — which means every year the Minister of Finance, working closely with Treasury, decides how much to spend on public media for that year.
This is what I call the curse of annual funding, because it makes funding public media a very political decision.
National, let us be honest, the National Party hates public media, maybe because they get nicer treatment on commercial news. We see this around the world — the Daily Mail, Sky News Australia, Newstalk ZB . . . most commercial media quite openly favours the right.
Systemic bias
This is a systemic bias. Because right-wing newsmedia gets more clicks.
Right-wing politicians are quite happy about that. Why fund public to get in the way? Even if it it benefits our culture, social cohesion, and democracy.
New Zealand is the same, the last National government froze RNZ funding for nine years.
National Party spokesperson on broadcasting Melissa Lee fought against the ANZPM merger, and now she’s fighting the News Bargaining Bill. As minister she could cut RNZ and NZ On Air’s budget.
But it wouldn’t just be cost-cutting. It would actually be political interference in our newsmedia, an attempt to skew the national conversation in favour of the National Party, by favouring commercial media.
So Aotearoa NZ needs two things. More money to be spent on public media, and less control by the politicians. Sustainable funding basically.
The best way to achieve it is a media levy.
Highly targeted tax
For those who don’t know, a levy is a tax that is highly targeted, and we have a lot of them, like the Telecommunications Development Levy (or TDL) which currently gathers $10 million a year from internet service providers like Spark and 2 Degrees to pay for rural broadband.
We’re all paying for better internet for farmers basically. When first introduced by the previous National government it collected $50 million but it’s dropped down a bit lately.
This is one of many levies that we live with and barely notice. Like the levy we pay on our insurance to cover the Earthquake Commission and the Fire and Emergency Levy. There are maritime levies, energy levies to fund EECA and Waka Kotahi, levies on building consents for MBIE, a levy on advertising pays for the ASA, the BSA is funded by a levy.
Lots of levies and they’re very effective.
So who could the media levy, levy?
ISPs like the TDL? Sure, raise the TDL back up to $50 million or perhaps higher, and it only adds a dollar onto everyone’s internet bill. There’s $50 million.
But the real target should be Big Tech, social media and large streaming services. I’m talking about Facebook, Google, Netflix, YouTube and so on. These are the companies that have really profited from the advent of online media, and at the expense of locally produced public media.
Funding content creation
We need a way to get these companies to make, or at least fund, content creation here in Aotearoa. Denmark recently proposed a solution to this problem with an innovative levy of 2 percent on the revenue of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney.
But that 2 percent rises to 5 percent if the streaming company doesn’t spend at least 5 percent of their revenue on making local Danish content. Denmark joins many other European countries already doing this — Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France and even Romania are all about to levy the streamers to fund local production.
Australia is planning to do so as well.
But that’s just online streaming companies. There’s also social media and search engines which contribute nothing and take almost all the commercial revenue. The Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill will address that to a degree but it’s not open and we won’t know if the amounts are fair.
Another problem is that it’s only for news publishers — not drama or comedy producers, not on-demand video, not documentary makers or podcasters. Social media and search engines frequently feature and put advertising around these forms of content, and hoover up the digital advertising that would otherwise help fund them, so they should also contribute to them.
A Media Levy can best be seen as a levy on those companies that benefit from media on the internet, but don’t contribute to the public benefits of media — culture, social cohesion and democracy. And that’s why the Media Levy can include internet service providers, and large companies that sell digital advertising and subscriptions.
Note, this would target large companies over a certain size and revenue, and exclude smaller platforms, like most levies do.
Separate from annual budget
The huge benefit of a levy is that it is separate from the annual budget, so it’s fiscally neutral, and politicians can’t get their mits on it. It removes the curse of annual funding.
It creates a funding stream derived from the actual commercial media activities which produce the distribution gaps in the first place, for which public media compensates. That’s why the proceeds would go to the non-commercial platform and the funding agencies — Te Mangai Paho, NZ On Air and the Film Commission.
One final point. This wouldn’t conflict with the new Digital Services Tax proposed by the government because that’s a replacement for Income Tax. A Media Levy, like all levies, sits over and above income tax.
So there we go. I’ve mentioned Jim Bolger three times! I’ve also outlined some quite straight-forward methods to fund public media sustainably, and to fund a significant increase in local content production, video, film, audio and journalism.
None of it needs to be within the grasp of Melissa Lee or Willie Jackson, or David Seymour.
All of it can be used to create local content that improves democracy, social cohesion and Kiwi culture.
Myles Thomas is a trustee of the Better Public Media Trust (BPM). He is a former television producer and director who in 2012 established the Save TVNZ 7 campaign. Thomas is now studying law. This commentary was this year’s David Beatson Memorial Address at a public meeting in Grey Lynn last night on broadcast policy for the NZ election 2023.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
The simple answer to this contradiction is that people vote against governments rather than for them and Labour are being punished for failure — a party in policy paralysis — unable to get out of its own way and get anything meaningful done.
Spelling this out is a recent poll conducted by Essential Research for the lobby group Better Taxes for a Better Future which shows the big majority of voters want a capital gains tax, a wealth tax, a windfall profits tax and want the wealthy to pay at least the same tax rates as the rest of us. (A survey conducted by IRD earlier this year found the uber rich pay less than half the tax rates the rest of us pay)
Here are the figures:
Support for a capital gains tax in New Zealand.Support for a windfall profits tax in New Zealand.
Support for the wealthy to pay a fairer share of tax in New Zealand. Image: Essential Research
Wealth tax A TVNZ poll released last week shows overwhelming support for a wealth tax in line with Green Party policy.
The poll asked eligible voters if they would support or oppose a wealth tax on the assets of New Zealanders with more than $2 million in assets if having the wealth tax meant everyone got free dental care.
A majority — 63 percent — said they would be in support of it, while 28 percent were opposed. The rest did not know or refused to say.
The polls show the ground has shifted dramatically in recent times and has opened the way for Labour’s traditional values (if they have any life left in them) to flourish. The electorate is wanting fairer taxes and have the free-loading rich pay much more.
But Labour under its current and former leaders has been looking the other way. It is out of touch and faces its heaviest electoral defeat in my lifetime.
National and ACT are doing well not because voters want them but because voters are voting against Labour.
The same thing happened in the 1990 election. After six years of brutal Labour policies under David Lange and Roger Douglas the electorate had had a gutsful. They wanted to stop featherbedding the rich at the expense of the rest of us.
National policies even worse
Labour was thrown out and National came in with policies that were even worse than those proposed by Labour.
The same thing will happen this election.
There is a pervasive belief among self-interested politicians that when they are interviewed for opinion polls people will say they are prepared to pay higher taxes but when they get into the ballot box they vote against tax increases.
But this argument can only apply when the individual voter faces paying more tax. In these recent polls the call is for the undertaxed rich to pay a much fairer share. These tax changes the electorate wants will not impact on the 99 percent of voters who go to the polls.
Even National and Act voters want these taxes — but the Labour leadership remain lost in the neoliberal wilderness. They haven’t got the message.
Labour’s failure means we will have to face three years of awful National/Act policies which will deepen the problems we face.
I haven’t kept count but I have personally heard from dozens of Labour members and voters who have told me they have left the party this year and won’t be voting Labour this year — disgust is the dominant theme.
Only hope is reshaped party
After this election Labour’s only hope is to reshape the party around the changed public attitudes to tax and find its roots once more. That is easier said than done for many reasons.
Labour’s activist base is irredeemably middle class and it only has tenuous links with organised workers (less than 10 percent of private sector workers are in unions) who are a small part of the voting public.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has shown no sign he is capable of leading the rejuvenation policy, thrust and direction the party needs. He is still in the politics of the late 20th century.
All the indications are that the job of Labour renaissance is beyond him.
Hopefully there will be enough good people left in Labour to do what’s needed.
To describe Rishi Sunak’s premiership as a ‘car crash’ would be inaccurate, if only because the term implies a one-off event. To add to the ridiculousness, the PM and his few remaining friends in the media keep urging us to agree about how clever he is for creating these chronic collisions. The latest disaster in this ongoing fiasco is Sunak’s ‘War on the War on Motorists‘.
Sunak versus safety
The ‘war on the war on motorists’ has come about not because of some longstanding political opinion, but because Sunak saw some people complaining about 20mph zones and reckoned he could win over a few hundred votes.
Essentially, this makes the Tory leader look like an ambulance-chasing lawyer – a man who is running after voters and claiming he shares their interests and always has done. While you can possibly win votes that way, it doesn’t seem like a practical means of running a country.
People have pointed out that many do actually want 20mph zones – especially outside schools and homes:
I’m flummoxed by the logic. I represent one of the most car-dependent places in the country, and people here are desperate for the traffic to slow down past their homes and schools.
One commenter highlighted the fact that ‘motorists’ also spend a lot of their spare time not being motorists:
Because motorists don’t have kids, don’t ride bikes, don’t go for walks, don’t care about the planet. That’s all they are, 24 hours a day. Motorists. https://t.co/swmPK2zg92
Political editor Peter Walker elaborated on the situation we find ourselves in:
To point out the obvious, restrictions on driving are not a zero-sum game, even for drivers. If you endlessly build just infrastructure for cars, everyone drives, and you end up with horrendous congestion. There's an incentive *just based on traffic* to provide alternatives.
Hence, very rationally, the UK govt and many others around the world have tried to shift the balance towards public transport and active travel. This includes carrots – new rail lines, bike routes etc – but if it is to work, *necessarily* has to include sticks for driving.
Given that Mother Nature has us significantly outgunned, what we really need are politicians with the sense to stop assaulting the environment:
Clearly stung by “inaction man” jibe, Sunak turns into “arrogant & patronising bullying man” on #bbclaurak – telling deeply dangerous lies about #NetZero, sacrificing our future in a desperate attempt to secure his own survival
The War on the War on Motorists: whiplash politics
Sunak is currently attending the annual Tory Party Conference in Manchester. Given that he’s facing criticism from everyone – including his own MPs – its unclear how long his War on the War on Motorists will survive. No one is quite sure what policies the PM will propose next week. However, while that’s no way to run a country, history has shown us that a Tory with no idea where they’re heading is preferable to a Tory who does.
Since the end of the Cold War, important, profound changes in the relations between capitalist states, coupled with equally sharp changes in the content of those relations, have seduced left-wing intellectuals and academics to embrace those countries whose governments clash– for untold reasons– with the political or economic demands of the US and its allies. They began to uncritically see these countries as fellow combatants in the struggle for social justice, for example, as anti-imperialists. Even upstart rivals for spheres of interest were seen as anti-imperialist, if they opposed US hegemony. Stated crudely, they present the enemy of their enemy — the US and the” West” — as their friend.
Why did so many on the left subscribe to this fallacy?
We must begin with the nature of imperialism in the Cold War.
The Cold War sustained unique, though historically bound alignments. The world was divided between socialist-oriented countries led by Communist or Workers’ Parties, the leading capitalist powers and their neo-colonies, and the non-aligned countries refusing to join in the anti-Communist crusade organized by the capitalist powers. Such a clearly defined order with an equally clearly defined conflict between the leader of the socialist camp, the USSR, and the leader of the capitalist camp, the US, led many to believe that the era of classical imperialism, the era of inter-imperialist rivalries, was over.
They were wrong.
The demise of the USSR and the emergence and intensification of numerous capitalist crises — political, social, ecological, and, especially, economic — created powerful centrifugal forces pulling apart the capitalist camp and dissolving its unity. In addition, global changes– the mobility of capital, the ready marriage of capital and labor in new regions and countries, inexpensive, effective transportation, the emergence of new technologies, new classes of commodities, and the commodification of public, common, and freely accessed goods — generated new competitors and intensified competition.
Crises and competition are the fertile soil of capitalist rivalries and state conflicts.
The world that emerged after 1991 had more in common with the world that Lenin knew before World War I than with the Cold War era and its clash of social systems and their blocs. Just as nineteenth-century capitalists strived to set the rules for peacefully carving up the world and establishing free trade by means of the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, the post-Cold War capitalist allies sought rules, alliances, trade agreements, and the elimination of barriers to capital movement, commodity exchange, and labor exploitation globally. Both periods were widely heralded as triumphant for capitalism and its inevitable reach to every corner of the globe.
But as the great nineteenth-century powers came to understand, uneven development, upstart rivals, and ruthless competition disrupted the promise of peace and harmony. After a promising interlude of relative peace — the first period of modest Western harmony since the Napoleonic wars — the new nineteenth century order began to unravel with economic instability, conflicts, military build-ups, colonial resistance, and nationalist wars.
Similarly, the post-Cold War capitalist powers enjoyed an interlude of rapidly expanding world trade — so called “globalization” — and the regulatory guidance of powerful international institutions. This harmony, too, proved elusive, to be shattered by a series of economic crises and regional wars at the turn of the twenty-first century. The so-called dot-com crisis marked “paid” on a decade of capitalist swagger and the ideology of there-is-no-alternative. Rocked again by a global “little” depression, a European debt crisis, a false debt-fueled recovery, a global public health disaster, and now a prolonged period of stagnation and inflation, the promised concord of capitalist rule has been shattered on the shoals of constant wars, social and political instability, and economic dysfunction.
That is the capitalist world of today — not so different from the capitalist world on the eve of 1914.
The most farsighted thinkers of the turn of the last century saw the end of capitalism’s nineteenth-century stability and apparent harmony as an opportunity. Lenin and others perceived the beginning of a new era ripe for revolutionary change. They foresaw a stage of capitalism bringing war, misery, and suffering on the masses in Europe and beyond. For these visionaries, the only escape from the despair inevitably wrought by the dominance of finance and monopoly organized in a global system of imperialism was revolution and socialism. The tragic First World War proved them right.
Today, without a vision to rescue working people — those feeling the brunt of capitalism’s expanding crises, more frequent wars, displacement of people, and bankruptcy of solutions — the field of politics is left to the right-wing opportunists, the faux-populists, the demagogues, the nostalgia peddlers, and other assorted hucksters of right and left. Bizarrely, most of the Euro-American left treat these charlatans as though they were aliens dropping from the sky, rather than the natural, logical product of the vacuum remaining from a left that lacks ideological clarity, cohesion, and a revolutionary program.
More broadly, even “liberal” governments are turning to nationalism, trade barriers, tariffs, and sanctions, the traditional posture of the right. Largely not noted by the left, the Biden administration, for example, has continued most of the trade and sanction regimens, and even the immigration policies, of the Trump administration.
As capitalism retrenches behind narrow self-interest, fierce, ruthless competition, and state-against-state conflict, the vast majority of the Euro-American left continues to circle-the-wagons around an increasingly discredited liberalism and social-democracy. With no answer to a world of ever-growing nation-state rivalries and global tensions, far too many on the left are locked into a defensive strategy that promises more of the same or a return to an imagined “golden age”: before Trump and right-wing populism or before Reagan, Thatcher and market fundamentalism. Failing to locate capitalism’s decadence in capitalism itself, this left promises to manage capitalism to better results– a hundred-year-old delusion.
Equally delusional is the notion — popular with a prominent section of the left– that an emerging bloc or order constitutes the foundation of a powerful movement against imperialism when that bloc itself is made up of capitalist-dominated states or states with a major capitalist economic sector. If Lenin is right — and we have overwhelming reasons to believe that he is — capitalism is at the very core of the system of imperialist rivalry. How can capitalism-dependent states collaborate, putting aside their own self-interest, to create a world without competition, friction, conflict, and war between states, themselves made up of competing capitals? Is not capitalism the essence of imperialism, and rivalry, conflict, and war the inevitable outcome? Has there been a counter-tendency since Lenin wrote Imperialism in 1916?
Beginning thirteen years ago, with the foundation of a modestly alternative grouping of five powerful states denied access to the top, exclusive club of capitalist states, the BRICS alignment became a cause for some leftists. Based more on blind faith than anything promised by the BRICS members — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — leftists nonetheless cobbled together an ideological construct called “multipolarity.”
When radical political prospects appear dim, when the prospect of socialism seems remote, many on the left turn to the global chessboard, pretending that some chess pieces represent the social change that they long for in their own backyard. Frustrated with the long, hard road of winning the masses in their own country to a program serving working people, leftists in the US and EU invest vicariously in the actions of other governments that, for various reasons, are in opposition to the US and the EU governments.
This surrogate identification must not be confused unthinkingly with solidarity or internationalism. Both solidarity and internationalism emerge with sympathy for other peoples and their interests or with their governments only when those governments are serving the people. Solidarity with Cuba, for example, is grounded on the long-standing resistance of the people of Cuba to the demands, coercion, and aggression of the US and its allies. Since the government of Cuba organizes and supports that resistance, it, too, earns our solidarity.
The zeal for multipolarity arises from a fact and a hope. It is indeed a fact that the US government may have lost some of its ability to impose its will on the rest of the world and that global powers have risen to challenge US domination. This accounts for some of the increasing conflict and chaos in international relations.
But the multipolarity zealots interpret this as a setback to the system of imperialism when it is, at best, a setback for US imperialism. The fallacy is in assuming that the capitalist challengers are somehow benign and that they, magically, will restrain their interests in order to establish global harmony and peace. There is no basis in historical precedence or contemporary currency for this assumption, beyond mere hope.
Certainly, it is a radical misread of recent history and today’s events. In just the last weeks, relations between the governments of Canada and India reached a boiling point, conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out again, and two joined-at-the-hip reactionary governments, Poland and Ukraine sued and abused each other. All occurring without US government sponsorship. Venezuela’s government — a strong proponent of the multipolarity ideology — is itself in a bitter conflict with Guyana over 160,000 square kilometers of oil-rich territory, rejecting a “consultative referendum” proposed by the government of Guyana.
The presence of multipolarity’s icons within BRICS hardly ensures that bringing down US hegemony will disable the imperialist system: members India and the PRC maintain festering relations that break out into open warfare from time to time. Brazil under Bolsonaro was openly hostile and confrontational with all the more progressive countries of Central and South America (which reminds us that imperialism is about governments and socio-economic systems and not simply countries), and Russia is hotly contesting with France over valuable resources in Central Africa.
And the new members of BRICS carry even more contradictory baggage. Egypt and Ethiopia have a long-standing water dispute that will not be resolved by BRICS. Iran and Saudi Arabia have an existential dispute carried on by proxy, notably in Yemen. The Saudis are prepared to recognize Israel in order to acquire nuclear technology to match Iran, an action hardly suggestive of peace and prosperity.
Is there a common progressive, anti-capitalist, or anti-imperialist interest uniting this formation? Or are they united merely for expediency in this or any other bloc that will have them? Modi’s India, for example, accepts membership in nearly all international formations — Western-oriented or otherwise.
It is magical thinking to believe that without the heavy hand of the US empire, imperialist predation and conflict will melt away. Lenin scoffed at Kautsky’s notion that multipolar harmony (ultra-imperialism) would follow World War I, and events proved him right.
Moreover, the idealism invested in multipolarity and BRICS has fallen far short of what contemporary leftists have thought, as Patrick Bond and others have shown (despite his use of the unhelpful concept of “sub-imperialism”). BRICS sets a very low bar in reordering global relations, contrary to the wishes of many on the left.
Activists in Johannesburg, during the most recent BRICS meeting, organized a BRICS-from-below event. Though spawned by the center-left, social democratic Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, the South African coordinator made a keen observation:
Trevor Ngwane, said, “BRICS wants leverage. Instead of saying, ‘We are capitalists fighting to be bigger capitalists’, they want to get strong, they start pretending that if they get strong, life will get better for the working class. We know that there will be a question: Does this mean you favour America?
“During the Struggle, there was a party that used to say, ‘Neither Washington nor Moscow’, so we must not be swayed and convinced to choose between these two; we must find our own way as socialists towards socialism.
“The problem with BRICS projects is that it’s all top-down. It’s something organised by governments.”
Yes, BRICS is organized by governments, capitalist-oriented governments for the most part, as Trevor Ngwane is keenly aware.
But more importantly, he challenges how BRICS (and by implication, multipolarity) is in any way related to the goal of socialism. It is socialism that is missing from BRICS and the multipolarity discussion. A program offered to working people that merely shuffles the deck of capitalist powers is no answer at all.
In a recent discussion of BRICS and the Eastern Economic Forum among three leading exponents of multipolarity, there is not one word about socialism. There is talk of development, of startups, of public-private partnerships, strategic priorities, and investments — even of Russian hypersonic missiles — but not one word about socialism.
One discussant claims to capture BRICS with this piece of sophistry: “So we’re dealing really not only with a geographic split, but with a split of economic structures, a mixed public-private economy, not like the Western public-private partnership, which you socialize the losses and privatize the profits, but something where the aim is really not to make a profit, but to make the overall economy grow.” Capitalism with a human face?
For sure, there are multipolarity advocates who believe that they see multipolarity as a step towards socialism. They recognize in the deepening economic, social, political, and ecological crises facing capitalism that socialism may be a solution. But as John Smith so frankly puts it in an Interview: “Convincing people that socialism is necessary is not so difficult; what is much more difficult is to convince people that socialism is possible.”
We live in a time when, rather than joining with people, organizations, or parties that advocate, organize, and fight for socialism, many on our left have become observers of a chess game between capitalist governments, cheering any force that attempts to diminish US power. How this will or will not benefit the exploited masses of the world is of little count.
Smith, the author of a thoughtful analysis of twenty-first century imperialism, succinctly summarizes our challenge in the face of profound crises of capitalism:
Wherever we are subjectively, objectively, the necessity to begin a transition towards communism is posed by this existential crisis. There is no other way out for humanity than this. Anything that distracts us from this, any sort of fantasy that some kind of a multipolar world will be better in any way, must be dispelled because we do not have any more time to waste.
The abhorrent racism on display in the lead-up to a historic vote on Indigenous constitutional recognition in Australia has underscored exactly why the legislation is sorely needed.
Australia will hold a historic Indigenous rights referendum on 14 October. First Nations have lived on the continent for at least 60,000 years. If Australians vote yes, the country’s constitution would recognise First Nations and Torres Strait Islanders for the first time.
Crucially, the so-called ‘Voice to Parliament’ would enshrine Indigenous peoples’ right to be consulted on laws that impact their communities. Specifically, it’s a proposal to set up an Indigenous-led independent body to advise Australia’s Parliament.
‘Voice to Parliament’ referendum to redress racism
At the crux of this proposal is the cold hard fact: Australia is a deeply unequal, racist society.
More than two centuries after the first British colonists dropped anchor in Sydney Harbour, the colonised country has failed to address its striking racial disparities for its Indigenous residents. Discrimination and the resulting inequality pervades everything from education, healthcare, through to justice.
Shocking no one with an ounce of racial awareness, the state is ten times more likely to incarcerate First Nations and Torres Strait Islanders than non-Indigenous inhabitants. Of course, it all boils down to a deadly systemic cocktail of racial profiling, over-policing, and state surveillance. Despite making up just 2% of the general population, Indigenous people comprise 26% of those the criminal justice system imprisons. Moreover, Indigenous deaths in custody are rife.
Inquest after coronial inquest have led to the sum total of bugger all change, as deaths continue to soar. Over 30 years after they were made, the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) – predictably – remain largely unimplemented.
Clearly, these deep inequalities cannot be separated from the intergenerational impacts of colonial violence against the First Nations. Policing academic Amanda Porter has pointed out how Australian police forces were:
founded on violence: racist violence, imperial violence and settler colonial violence.
Given this, as the International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs has explained:
The cycle of colonial control continues, as these Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families become vulnerable to a lifetime of government surveillance and potential criminalisation by the system.
In short, like many settler nations, Australian society has yet to truly look its colonial past in the face. Moreover, it has still to reckon with the ongoing racism its violent colonial history underpins and emboldens. Enter the Voice to Parliament; the referendum now offers tentative, early steps towards redressing these imbalances.
Racism and conspiracies at large
Inevitably, the vote for Indigenous representation – however moderate it might be – has drawn out the vile bigots in their droves.
As the BBChas reported, people have splashed sickening anti-Indigenous memes across social media. Prominent Indigenous campaigner for the Vote Yes drive Thomas Mayo told the broadcaster that online trolls have directed vitriol and threats to him throughout.
Like a moth to flame, racist pundits, activists, and lawmakers have stoked a virulent disinformation campaign against the vote. The Guardian’s Van Badham listed some of the absurd conspiracies she has encountered on social media during the referendum campaign:
The Indigenous voice to parliament proposal is not a secret UN plot to steal Australian land. It is not a proposal for a “third chamber of parliament”. It is also not a conspiracy to stop dairy farming, impose “backdoor communism”, force people to listen to rap music or start a new religion … though I have been told all these things on social media this past fortnight.
Rap music, communism, and a healthy dose of anti-dairy sentiment strikes fear in the hearts of racist conspiracy nuts – good to know. Predictably, there’s clear crossover with the Covid conspiracy crowd too.
Unsurprisingly however, much of the misinformation has centred round race. One senator has nonsensically equated the Voice with apartheid. Meanwhile, other opponents have claimed the referendum will create greater inequality.
Translation: their fragile egos can’t countenance a break from the white settler status quo. It figures that a mild chance to put Indigenous voices into policy-making has the right wing frothing at the mouth.
The misinformation machine
Opposition leader Peter Dutton, of the conservative Liberal Party, spearheaded the No campaign in Parliament. Dutton has claimed that the vote “divides the nation”. As the BBChighlighted, disinformation analysts have found that a lot of the misinformation content online:
mirrors the narratives that underpin the No campaign. That includes claims from Australia’s opposition leader Peter Dutton that the Voice will “permanently divide” the nation based on race, creating an “Orwellian effect” that gives First Nations communities greater rights and privileges.
And who better to fan the falsehoods than right-wing racist misinformation mogul-in-chief Murdoch? The billionaire media tycoon’s Sky News has racked up views on its Youtube channel amplifying a series of deceitful No campaign claims. For instance, this has included the patently incorrect suggestion that the referendum’s success would render parliament powerless.
Right-wing senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, an Indigenous Australian who opposes the Voice, said it would sow division and discontent. As the Canary’s Maryam Jameela has articulated before, this once again proves that:
Getting Black and brown faces into positions of power means very little if those same people don’t use their power to make life better for the most vulnerable people in society.
Jameela explained how diversity metrics can be naive, since political representatives are:
in these positions of power because they’ve chosen to act in the interests of power.
Indigenous communities mobilise
Of course, the limits of diversity are also a core reason why the Voice itself can only go so far. Its mild demands would simply establish an advisory position for representatives of First Nations and Island peoples to input their thoughts on legislation.
Crucially, parliamentarians would be under no obligation to heed the advice or act in favour of Indigenous communities. The countless commissions and inquests on Indigenous rights and injustice that have gone ignored do not instill confidence in this regard, either.
Nonetheless, in spite of its limitations, Indigenous Australians have passionately championed the referendum.
Campaign group Yes23 has said that “more than 80 percent of Indigenous Australians” were behind the looming referendum. On Sunday 17 September, Australians rallied around the country to fight for the landmark Indigenous rights reform. Tens of thousands joined “Walk for Yes” events in major cities ahead of the vote.
However, recent surveys have shown that about 60% of voters are against the reform, versus 40% in support. This is a near reversal of the situation a year ago.
Ultimately, the persistent and pernicious scale of systemic and institutional racism towards Indigenous citizens has spelled out exactly why they need a channel to lawmakers in the corridors of power.
Yet for some egotistical racists, even this modest proposal is a step too far, too fast. First Nations peoples have a right to be heard on the issues that affect them. Now the only question remaining is: will the people of Australia listen to their Indigenous neighbours and vote yes on 14 October?
On 26 September, home secretary Suella Braverman gave a hate-fuelled tirade on the subject of asylum seekers as part of a keynote speech in Washington. In it, she stated that the United Nations Refugee Convention was not “fit for our modern age”.
The address, which took place at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, was billed as intending to lay out an international plan to deal with the refugee crisis. However, Braverman’s answer appears to boil down to simply redefining what a refugee is.
Braverman: ‘A completely different time’
The 1951 Refugee Convention legally defines the term “refugee” and outlines their rights. Braverman called it “an incredible achievement of its age”. However, she went on to cite a deeply questionable study stating that the convention now gives at least 780 million people the potential right to move to another country.
She said that it is:
incumbent upon politicians and thought leaders to ask whether the Refugee Convention, and the way it has come to be interpreted through our courts, is fit for our modern age or in need of reform.
Regarding this perceived lack of reform, she stated that:
The first [reason] is simply that it is very hard to renegotiate these instruments. The second is much more cynical. The fear of being branded a racist or illiberal. Any attempt to reform the refugee convention will see you smeared as anti-refugee
‘Very real danger’
She also added that Western countries will not be able to sustain an asylum system:
if in effect simply being gay, or a woman, or fearful of discrimination in your country of origin, is sufficient to qualify for protection.
We are living in a new world bound by outdated legal models. It’s time we acknowledge that.
The problem being, of course, that fearing discrimination should be sufficient grounds to qualify for protection. In a world with any measure of human decency, nobody should have been able to question that simple maxim without choking on their words. Unfortunately, I’m given to doubt that Braverman and her cronies have a shred of human decency to share between them.
In a statement as part of his role at the AIDS Foundation, musician Elton John said he was “very concerned” about Braverman’s comments. He highlighted the fact that “simply being gay”, as the home secretary put it, was clearly cause to be fearful:
Nearly a third of all nations class LGBTQ+ people as criminals and homosexuality is still punishable by death in 11 countries.
Dismissing the very real danger LGBTQ+ communities face risks further legitimizing hate and violence against them.
Colonialism and the refugee crisis
Of course, this isn’t even to mention the UK’s role in the criminalisation of homosexuality in these countries. As the Migrant Rights Network put it:
Sadly, out of the 69 countries where homosexuality is criminalised today, 36 of them are former British colonies. Many commonwealth African nations, for instance, still hold onto the colonial-era legislation and attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community.
Likewise, another key and growing driver of refugee movement is the ever-worsening climate crisis. The non-profit Climate Refugees stated that:
Recent trends indicate more internal displacement due to climate-related disasters than conflict, where in fact, of the 30.6 million people displaced across 135 countries in 2017, 60 percent were as a direct result of disasters.
industrialised colonial nations have belched out the bulk of emissions that have fueled climate warming. However, the impacts of super-charged extreme weather have disproportionately hit the less industrialised nations least responsible.
But far from acknowledging the dire issue of the refugee crisis – let alone taking ownership of the role that the UK and the rest of the Global North played in it – Braverman has an entirely different solution. She’s looking away.
The solution? Ignore the problem
Braverman has previously criticised the European Convention on Human Rights for blocking the Tory government’s Rwanda scheme. Hitting back, the non-profit Refugee Council said that – rather than taking aim at the UN convention – the UK should be:
addressing the real issues in the asylum system, such as the record backlog, and providing safe routes for those in need of protection.
Similarly, Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, accused Braverman of having “given up on fixing the Tories’ asylum chaos” and “looking for anyone else to blame”.
This attitude typifies Tory responses to social issues across the board. Rather than working to find a solution, they change definitions in order to sweep a problem under the rug. From plans to redefine child poverty, to changing targets for cancer care in order to reduce damning figures, to funneling foreign aid into investment portfolios, the Conservatives are no stranger to moving goalposts.
So, simply defining a refugee more narrowly as someone immediately at risk of violence or death is barely even a stretch.
Asked after the speech whether the UK would consider leaving the convention if changes were not delivered, Braverman said the government would do “whatever is required” to tackle the issue of migrants arriving via unauthorised routes.
To state this simply, the home secretary appears to prefer that the UK removes itself entirely from the Refugee Convention, rather than facing up to the fact that refugees are human beings in need of help.
Truly, I wish I could say that I was shocked – or even surprised. Unfortunately at this point, Braverman is beyond the point where her naked cruelty is anything more than an everyday occurrence.
(@OnlinePalEng) October 17, 2023
Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
Caution 
(@HelenMorganMP) 
(@MrMatthewTodd) 
Molly (@GreenPartyMolly)
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