AQA has approved Black Learning Achievement and Mental Health UK (BLAM) to deliver educational units on Black British history. The achievement comes in the wake of government attempts to whitewash British history as set out in its recent race disparities report.
The importance of teaching Black history
The charity works to support and uplift marginalised young people through a range of projects and initiatives. It will now provide AQA award units on Black British history. The organisation is developing its own Black History module for Key Stages 1-5. This module will teach children and young people about the true history of people of African descent.
BLAM’s founder Ife Thompson told The Canary:
There are no avenues to learn about Black history outside Black history month. Our surveys from our project delivery with children across London show us that young people still do not learn about Black history in a cross-curricular way. They tell us how they feel overlooked, undervalued and unseen. Educators, community organisers and schools must do more to ensure Black narratives are included and incorporated into their own curriculums and direct project work.
She added:
It is of particular importance as academic researchers have found that when a positive Black identity is attained, it improves racial esteem, acts as a buffer against the impact of racism and reduces depressive symptoms. Teaching Black history improves the racial identity and in turn wellness of Black children.
She concluded:
By providing an AQA Accredited Black British History module we are placing educational value and currency on the learning of our narratives. It enables Black history to be given the academic respect it deserves and enables children to have their cultural specific narratives rewarded at a level of value akin to the “valued” dominant exclusionary narratives.
Black history is British history
Thompson also told The Canary:
The current educational curriculum is Eurocentric as it gives disproportionate attention to European and Western achievements and omits or white washes the existence and contributions of Black persons/communities.
Black British people, African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Latinx people, and many others in the diaspora, have all made significant contributions to the UK and beyond. Black history is British history. Learning about histories of race and resistance is integral to understanding the story of modern Britain. We can’t begin to tackle the vast race disparities that exist today if we don’t know why they exist. Black-led movements for justice in Africa, Britain, the Caribbean, and the Americas can give us the tools we need to disrupt and dismantle the oppressive systems we continue to fight against.
Education at the heart of Britain’s culture war
Black Lives Matter protesters in the UK organised under the banner “the UK is not innocent“. This rallying call worked to highlight the histories and present-day realities of race and racism in Britain. The school curriculum is at the heart of Britain’s ongoing culture war.
During Black History Month, equalities minister Kemi Badenoch argued that teaching children white privilege as a fact is ‘breaking the law’.
The government’s controversial and poorly received race disparities report writes off calls to decolonise the curriculum as “negative”. It incorrectly sets out that the decolonising project aims to ‘ban’ white authors and replace them with “token expressions of Black achievement”. One of the report’s most concerning passages says:
There is a new story about the Caribbean experience which speaks to the slave period not only being about profit and suffering but how culturally African people transformed themselves into a re-modelled African/Britain.
In response to this, historian David Olusoga said:
Shockingly, the authors – perhaps unwittingly – deploy a version of an argument that was used by the slave owners themselves in defence of slavery 200 years ago: the idea that by becoming culturally British, black people were somehow beneficiaries of the system.
This dangerous faux pas clearly demonstrates why we must learn about Britain’s history of slavery, colonialism, and empire in an open and honest way. If we don’t, we won’t be able to move beyond patterns of racist thinking.
Challenging historical amnesia
The government’s review on the Windrush scandal found that “institutional amnesia” was a key contributing factor. In spite of this, Black people in Britain continue to be erased, as reflected in the recent failure to commemorate troops of colour who fought in WWI. Britain’s colonial past still isn’t part of the UK’s compulsory curriculum.
Thompson said:
I believe the mandatory teaching of Black history will make these collective failings less likely to occur. History is a gateway to exploring how historical harms affect the future, whilst giving us the opportunity to learn from these mistakes and whilst placing harm reduction elements in its place. In the interim schools and community organisations must do what they can on a grassroots level to reduce the harms caused by the exclusion of Black people from the curriculum.
These unjust exclusions feed into the ahistorical narrative that Black and Brown people haven’t contributed to British history, and therefore don’t belong in its present. If we want to build a positive future, we must acknowledge everything that has happened in the past.
It’s time for us to make a concerted effort to undo the whitewashing of British history. Standing in opposition to the government’s vision for the education system – one that stifles critical thinking and dissenting voices – BLAM’s work is more important than ever.
Six years after Ferguson, St. Louis hasn’t seen a single substantive police reform. A group of young Black leaders have instead set their sights higher: taking control of city politics.
In 2014, then-Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown. His death sparked reports, blue-ribbon commissions and countless police reform efforts. But so many of those reforms fell short of their stated goals. Today, St. Louis leads the nation in police killings per capita.
As the nation continues to grapple with how to save Black lives from police violence, we’re partnering with The Missouri Independent to examine why police reform efforts so often fail. We follow a new generation of leaders who, as a part of the Ferguson movement, are finding new ways to change policing in the St. Louis region. Reporters Trey Bundy and Rebecca Rivas follow local activist Kayla Reed, who went from attending protests to organizing them. After years of frustratingly slow progress toward reform, Reed transformed herself into a political powerbroker who is upending city politics.
And there’s no way to talk about police reform without talking about the power of police unions. We look how the St. Louis Police Officers Association, the city’s main union, formed to protect white police officers from accountability after beating a Black man. And we talk with James Buchanan, one of the city’s few Black police officers in the 1960s, who went on to help start the Ethical Society of Police, a union founded by Black officers to fight for racial equity in the department and community.
This show is guest hosted by Kameel Stanley, executive producer of Witness Docs, a documentary podcast network from Stitcher and SiriusXM.
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In around six weeks, the G7 summit of world leaders will arrive on my doorstep. Since this was first announced, and as a veteran of previous summits, I’ve been worried about policing. Nothing Devon and Cornwall police have said to date has alleviated my fears.
On 28 April, the force held a Facebook Live event alongside the Cabinet Office, Cornwall Council, and Public Health Cornwall. It was supposed to be a protest special and they’d answer questions left in the chat. However, many of the actual questions on protest were ignored. But the cops did confirm that one random person’s wedding could go ahead. The event finished early because they’d apparently ‘run out of questions’.
In particular, the police refused to answer a question on whether any spycops would be present at the protest.
The question
The police were asked:
At the G8 Summit in 2005, 18 undercover police officers were present, several of whom had sexual relationships with activists. Can you reassure protesters that no undercover officers will be present at the G7 protests?
But it seems the police are unable to give that reassurance since the question was ignored. I contacted the G7 police media team to ask them for a comment about why they didn’t want to answer this question and why they finished the session early when there were questions still unanswered. I have still not received a reply at the time of publication.
PR and spin
It’s clear the police don’t really want to do anything other than promote their own PR and spin. They say they’re happy to allow protests to happen. But their designated sites for protest are all miles away from where the summit is taking place. One such place is in Exeter, 105 miles from the G7. I can’t even imagine why anyone would want to protest there or why the police even think this is a viable option. Falmouth, one of the other designated sites, is at least the media centre for the event. But the designated protest site is in a car park, off the main road, where no-one will see the protest.
Kevin Blowe, campaigns coordinator of the Network for Police Monitoring, told The Canary:
The latest Council of Europe Venice Commission guidance, which Britain has signed up to, says the police have a duty to “facilitate assemblies at the organizer’s preferred location and within ‘sight and sound’ of the intended audience”. Similarly the UN Human Rights Committee last year said “peaceful assemblies should not be relegated to remote areas where they cannot effectively capture the attention of those who are being addressed”. However, the proposed “protest sites” at Truro, Exeter, Plymouth and Falmouth are miles away from where the G7 summit is taking place. This is a deliberate attempt to crush their effectiveness.
Police Liaison Officers
Meanwhile, the police are using every opportunity to try to get protesters to talk to them. Throughout the briefing they made reference to their police liaison officers (PLOs) and how these friendly boys and girls in their baby blue bibs can help facilitate our protests. But as The Canary has previously reported, the main purpose of PLOs is to gather intelligence.
In fact, this was a point that was made for us during the Facebook Live event. In answering a question about whether violence was expected at the protests, chief superintendent Matt Longman stated:
I’ve already heard from some protest groups who are attending that they are a bit nervous about this, because they don’t want to be associated with that.
So not only are the police using people who are liaising with them for intelligence, they’re then quoting what people have said to them in a public forum.
And this type of response is exactly why the Resist G7 Coalition has made it clear that, as a coalition, it will not be talking to the cops:
The police will try and divide us. The coalition recognises and respects that groups may, in their individual capacity, feel the need to liaise with the police. But inevitably, those who do engage with the cops will be told, ‘oh but you’re the nice protesters, we’re happy with you. But look at those other nasty people – they’re the ones we’ve got a problem with’.
Divide and rule is, obviously, not new. But it is used time and again to break protest movements. The Resist G7 Coalition has taken great strides in a short time to bring together diverse groups. We recognise our collective power and our collective struggles. This unity brings a lot of strength that the cops will try and break. But hopefully through working together in a respectful way, with a clear code of conduct, we can overcome these efforts.
Protesters are the local community
Another tactic the police seem to be using is othering protesters. Repeated messages are painting those wishing to protest as outsiders – people coming into Cornwall to cause disruption. Protests will be allowed but only if they don’t have an impact or disrupt anyone. But as Blowe stated:
To begin with, “legal and safe protest” does not mean holding public assemblies “without impacting upon residents and businesses”. All protests by their nature cause some temporary disruption and all have some impact on others – that is what they are for. However, because freedom of assembly and expression are considered vital in a democratic society, the police should know they have a legal duty to avoid interfering with a protest unless certain clear conditions are met. They are also obliged to positively facilitate and protect protest rights where it is possible to do so.
But the police are also missing a crucial point. We are the local community. It’s the G7 that’s disrupting us. We didn’t ask for the summit to be held in Cornwall. We didn’t ask for 5,000 extra cops on our streets.
For six weeks, Cornwall has taken to the streets with hundreds of people coming out to oppose the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill. We have shown there is strong resistance here. And while many of us hope people will travel and join protests here in June, it’s vital that we recognise that protest is coming from and being organised by the local community.
A nasty surprise
As I’ve previously written, people are in for a nasty shock when the G7 arrives in Cornwall. Nothing that I’ve heard from the police so far has changed this opinion. By refusing to answer protesters’ questions and comment on spycops, the police have shown they’re not prepared to be accountable for their actions.
Their PR spin isn’t fooling anyone. Speaking to non-political people in my local town, there’s a lot of anger. Anger at the disruption the G7 will cause. And anger that the police think they can corral protests into irrelevant locations.
Meanwhile, people are getting organised. Most protest groups are sensible enough not to talk to the police. There will be resistance, and local people are already showing that Cornwall is a vibrant place for protest. We refuse to be divided, whether between different groups of protesters or between perceived notions of who forms the local community. And it’s through acting together that we will build solidarity and put Cornwall on the map as a place of resistance and rebellion.
Featured image via Kill the Bill Cornwall (with permission) and Emily Apple
It was April 1, and Jestin Dupree had driven more than 400 miles from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana to the state’s capital, Helena, to testify against legislation that could be used to jail environmental protesters. For years, his tribe had been protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, which was to cross the Missouri River, their main source of water. Their efforts seemed to be vindicated when the project was cancelled by President Joe Biden during his first day in office.
Montana’s new legislation, however, would allow environmental protesters to be jailed for up to 18 months if they obstruct operations at oil and gas facilities — and up to 30 years if they damage equipment. It seemed to be a direct rebuke to the Indigenous activism that had helped stop Keystone XL.
The state lawmaker championing the bill, Representative Steve Gunderson, hadn’t consulted with the tribe despite the disproportionate impact it could have on tribal members, according to Dupree. Gunderson had also referenced the 2016 protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota while introducing the legislation, which just didn’t sit right with Dupree. Those protests were largely peaceful and only turned violent when private security hired by the pipeline company threatened protesters with guard dogs — and when police used water bombs and tear gas on mostly Indigenous protesters in the middle of winter. Nevertheless, Gunderson, who did not respond to a request for comment, falsely accused protesters of “throwing homemade explosive pipe bombs.”
“Today is April 1, which is April Fool’s Day, and when I read the language in this bill, it sounds like a bad and disturbing joke that targets minority people in this state,” Dupree, a Fort Peck tribal councilmember, testified before the legislature.
Despite similar testimony from several other representatives of Montana’s Indigenous communities, the bill sailed through the state’s House of Representatives and Senate, both of which have a Republican majority. It is now headed to GOP Governor Greg Gianforte’s desk, where it is likely to be signed into law.
“This is a blanket bill that they’re trying to shove down everybody’s throats,” Dupree told Grist. “It’s very unfair to have no consultation, and the fact that it was an issue with the Standing Rock tribe that brought this [bill] about — that the sponsor even mentioned that — was disgusting.”
Once signed, Montana will become the fourth state this year to pass legislation that increases penalties for trespass on properties with so-called “critical infrastructure” — a long list of facilities including pipelines, refineries, and other oil and gas equipment. The bill punishes those who “materially impede or inhibit operations” of an oil and gas facility with up to 18 months in prison and a fine of $4,500. Those who cause damage to critical infrastructure that costs more than $1,500 could face a jail term of up to 30 years. Kansas and Arkansas passed similar laws earlier this month, and in January Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill that makes trespassing on oil and gas properties a misdemeanor punishable with up to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.
Source: The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law
Naveena Sadasivam / Clayton Aldern / Grist
In total, 15 states have enacted such laws since 2017, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, a nonprofit civil liberties group that has been tracking anti-protest legislation. (Montana will be the sixteenth if the bill gets the governor’s signature.) The most common provisions in these bills include lengthening jail terms so they stretch anywhere between six months and several decades, raising fines to the tune of thousands of dollars, and financially penalizing groups that help organize protests resulting in trespass or damage of critical infrastructure. For instance, trespassing on property with a pipeline in Arkansas is now a Class D felony punishable with up to six years in prison; in contrast, a traditional criminal trespass charge has a maximum of one year of jail time.
“That’s an incredibly harsh and chilling penalty, particularly in the context of environmental protests which occur in or around construction sites for pipelines, where it’s unclear where property lines begin and end,” said Nicholas Robinson, a senior legal advisor with the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. In cases where pipeline companies used eminent domain to seize land, the protesters arrested may be the very property owners who’ve been forced to sell access to their land.
The bills have widespread support from oil and gas interests, and industry lobbyists often testify in support of the legislation at legislative committee hearings. The Montana legislation has the backing of the Montana Petroleum Association; the Montana Association of Oil, Gas, and Coal Counties; and the chamber of commerce in Billings, the state’s largest city. The bills also have a striking resemblance to model legislation proposed in 2017 by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a membership organization for state legislators known for drafting industry-friendly bills. The organization has taken credit for “educating” lawmakers on critical infrastructure protection in Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, Indiana, North Dakota, and Wyoming — all states that either considered or have since passed anti-protest laws.
The first wave of these laws initially passed in states that were home to controversial oil and gas projects. After Oklahoma passed one such law in 2017, Louisiana, Texas, North Dakota, and Wisconsin quickly followed suit over the next couple of years. At the time, environmental advocates and landowners were protesting a number of pipeline projects in those states, including the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline in Wisconsin, and the Permian Highway pipeline in Texas.
In states such as Pennsylvania and Illinois, where the fossil fuel industry does have prominent oil and gas projects but Democrats control key branches of government, the bills have failed. But Arkansas, Kansas, and Montana have successfully passed critical infrastructure legislation even though they do not currently have pending pipeline projects, a sign of the fossil fuel industry’s lobbying power, particularly in state legislatures with Republican majorities.
“Some of that is about keeping the trend going — and setting a precedent to felonize protest — as much as it is about protecting any individual pipeline or fossil fuel infrastructure project,” said Connor Gibson, an independent researcher tracking anti-protest laws.
Saturday 1 May is International Workers’ Day (IWD) – or May Day. So, what better way to mark over 130 years of struggle than to get out on a #KillTheBill demo?
the roots of the modern May Day bank holiday are in the fight for the eight-hour working day in Chicago in 1886, and the subsequent execution of innocent anarchist workers.
In 1887, four Chicago anarchists were executed; a fifth cheated the hangman by killing himself in prison. Three more were to spend six years in prison until pardoned by Governor Altgeld who said the trial that convicted them was characterised by “hysteria, packed juries and a biased judge”. The state had, in the words of the prosecution put “Anarchy is on trial” and hoped their deaths would also be the death of the anarchist idea.
The anarchists were trade union organisers and May Day became an international workers day to remember their sacrifice. They were framed on false charges of throwing a bomb at police breaking up a demonstration in Chicago. This was part of a strike demanding an 8 hour day involving 400,000 workers in Chicago that started May 1st 1886.
You can read more about the Haymarket Martyrs here.
So, protesting on 1 May about home secretary Priti Patel’s authoritarian and regressive Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (the Police Bill) seems apt. And here’s how you can get involved.
#KillTheBill everywhere
Campaign group Collective Action LDN has produced an interactive map of where #KillTheBill protests will be happening. It had 46 listed as of Friday 30 April at 12pm. Most of them are happening on Saturday 1 May:
And as The Canary‘s Emily Apple previously wrote, make sure you know your rights when you’re out on a #KillTheBill demo.
Rules of the game
First – the government has slightly relaxed the coronavirus (Covid-19) rules around protests. As Apple previously wrote:
regulations have also changed and now include an exemption for protest.
But as police monitoring group Netpol’s Kevin Blowe previously toldThe Canary, don’t take anything for granted if you’re on a #KillTheBill demo this weekend:
The coronavirus regulations changed on 29 March, providing protests with an exemption from restrictions.
He added:
forces may still take a rigid, confrontational stance on public health rules in areas where there is no prior negotiations, so it remains vital to make sure everyone knows their rights. Please, also remember that social distancing matters – without it, we risk excluding many of the people who are needed to help the movement against the bill to grow
Keep it schtum
Second – follow these simple steps from legal group Green and Black Cross to protect yourself on protests. Make sure you read The Canary‘s full details of them here:
NO COMMENT.
DON’T GIVE POLICE PERSONAL DETAILS.
ASK WHAT POWER UNDER THE LAW ARE THE POLICE USING?
DON’T ACCEPT A DUTY SOLICITOR.
DON’T ACCEPT A CAUTION.
Also, watch out for the so-called ‘Blue Bibs’. These are police liaison officers. They may appear friendly and make idle small talk, but they are actually trying to get info on you and those you’re protesting with. So, do not engage with them at this weekend’s #KillTheBill demos:
IWD is one of the most important days in the activist calendar. And this year, it takes on new meaning with #KillTheBill. So, the more people out across the country the better.
Climate activists have blockaded the Faslane nuclear base by attaching themselves to giant plant pots.
Members of Extinction Rebellion Scotland and Trident Ploughshares, are staging the blockade at the north gate of the base on the Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute.
The group placed three planters, which contain plants and flowers and are painted with the words “Safe”, “Green”, and “Future”, on the road on Friday morning.
A protester is locked on to each planter so they cannot be moved, preventing access to the base, though emergency vehicles can still access the site via the south gate.
The activists said they are demanding a future safe from the “threat of nuclear weapons and environmental destruction”.
The activists are staging the protest at the north gate of the base (Extinction Rebellion Scotland/PA)
Sarah Krischer, an archaeologist and Extinction Rebellion (XR) Scotland activist, said: “Nuclear weapons are an existential threat to the entire world.
“Stockpiling weapons with the ability to wipe out all life in order to appear tough does nothing to keep either the UK or any other country safe.
“The ongoing environmental degradation caused by uranium mining and nuclear testing continues to be felt, particularly among Pacific island nations that are also the most threatened by climate change.
“We must come together to build a safe, more just future for all.”
Police Scotland said they are aware of the incident and officers are at the scene.
HM Naval Base Clyde, known as Faslane, is home to the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
Extinction Rebellion said the action is part of the Peace Lotus campaign, a global day of anti-war resistance celebrating the anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.
One of the world’s first deep sea mining pilot tests has resulted in a huge machine being stuck on the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean, reports Greenpeace.
A broken cable has resulted in the mining company Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR) losing control of its 25-tonne robot “nodule collector” Patania II on the deep seabed in its Clarion Clipperton concession zone.
GSR has confirmed that “the connection between the Patania II and the cable has indeed come loose, so that Patania II is currently on the seabed.”
Dr Sandra Schoettner, a deep-sea biologist from Greenpeace Germany speaking from on board the Rainbow Warrior nearby in the Pacific Ocean, said: “It’s ironic that an industry that wants to extract metals from the seabed ends up dropping it down there instead.
“This glaring operational failure must act as a stark warning that deep sea mining is too big a risk. Losing control of a 25-tonne mining machine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean should sink the idea of ever mining the deep sea.
“The deep sea mining industry claims it’s ready to go, but investors and governments looking at what happened will only see irresponsible attempts to profit from the seabed spinning out of control.
“This industry has ‘risk’ written all over it and this is exactly why we need proper protection of the oceans – a Global Ocean Treaty that helps to put huge areas off-limits to industrial activity,” said Dr Schoettner.
Not the first time
This is not the first time GSR’s Patania II has failed during pilot tests. In 2019, the company had to stop the trial of the same prototype nodule collector due to damage caused to the vehicle’s communications and power cable (‘umbilical cable’).
Last week, Greenpeace International activists painted “RISK!” across side of the ship Normand Energy, the ship chartered by GSR to operate the Patania II, to highlight the threat of deep sea mining to the oceans.
GSR has been awarded a 75,000 sq km exploration contract area – 2.5 times the size of Belgium – to operate in and was scheduled to do another test series in Germany’s contract area.
Exploration contract areas for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, central Pacific basin. Image: International Seabed Authority 2017
The tests were supposed to be a significant step for the industry’s planned development.
So far, environmental groups, iwi and hapū have successfully opposed attempts by Australian mining company Trans Tasman Resources to begin a 30-year mining operation off the Taranaki Coast, but Greenpeace Aotearoa is now calling on Jacinda Ardern to make New Zealand the first country to ban the risky practice altogether.
Already, almost 10,000 people have signed the petition to ban seabed mining in New Zealand since its launch earlier this month.
A Greenpeace deep sea mining protest last week on the starboard side of the GSR-chartered Belgian ship Normand Energy. Image: Greenpeace
One of the world’s first deep sea mining pilot tests has resulted in a huge machine being stuck on the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean, reports Greenpeace.
A broken cable has resulted in the mining company Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR) losing control of its 25-tonne robot “nodule collector” Patania II on the deep seabed in its Clarion Clipperton concession zone.
GSR has confirmed that “the connection between the Patania II and the cable has indeed come loose, so that Patania II is currently on the seabed.”
Dr Sandra Schoettner, a deep-sea biologist from Greenpeace Germany speaking from on board the Rainbow Warrior nearby in the Pacific Ocean, said: “It’s ironic that an industry that wants to extract metals from the seabed ends up dropping it down there instead.
“This glaring operational failure must act as a stark warning that deep sea mining is too big a risk. Losing control of a 25-tonne mining machine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean should sink the idea of ever mining the deep sea.
“The deep sea mining industry claims it’s ready to go, but investors and governments looking at what happened will only see irresponsible attempts to profit from the seabed spinning out of control.
“This industry has ‘risk’ written all over it and this is exactly why we need proper protection of the oceans – a Global Ocean Treaty that helps to put huge areas off-limits to industrial activity,” said Dr Schoettner.
Not the first time This is not the first time GSR’s Patania II has failed during pilot tests. In 2019, the company had to stop the trial of the same prototype nodule collector due to damage caused to the vehicle’s communications and power cable (‘umbilical cable’).
Last week, Greenpeace International activists painted “RISK!” across side of the ship Normand Energy, the ship chartered by GSR to operate the Patania II, to highlight the threat of deep sea mining to the oceans.
GSR has been awarded a 75,000 sq km exploration contract area – 2.5 times the size of Belgium – to operate in and was scheduled to do another test series in Germany’s contract area.
Exploration contract areas for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, central Pacific basin. Image: International Seabed Authority 2017
The tests were supposed to be a significant step for the industry’s planned development.
So far, environmental groups, iwi and hapū have successfully opposed attempts by Australian mining company Trans Tasman Resources to begin a 30-year mining operation off the Taranaki Coast, but Greenpeace Aotearoa is now calling on Jacinda Ardern to make New Zealand the first country to ban the risky practice altogether.
Already, almost 10,000 people have signed the petition to ban seabed mining in New Zealand since its launch earlier this month.
A Greenpeace deep sea mining protest last week on the starboard side of the GSR-chartered Belgian ship Normand Energy. Image: Greenpeace
Janine Jackson interviewed the International Center for Not-for-Profit-Law’s Elly Page about anti-protest legislation for the April 23, 2021, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: The guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin case did not leave things as settled as some would like to hope. But one thing was made clear: the power of protest. There is simply no way the prosecution of a police officer for the on-duty killing of a Black man would have gone so far without millions upon millions of people, around this country and the world, going out into the street. Some reckon protests over George Floyd’s murder were the largest in this country’s history, and the most diverse—and that’s why some are eager to shut that down.
Listeners may know about Florida’s HB1, what Gov. Ron DeSantis claims is a law to crack down on “agitators.” But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of state and federal efforts to prevent US citizens from doing what we all know we will only be doing more and more of: coming together publicly, using our numbers to fight for societal change.
JJ: Let’s leap right in. The tracker launched in 2016, I’m guessing for reasons, and I’m guessing also that the reasons have only increased since then. What are the sorts of things that you are seeing that concern you?
EP: Yeah, so thanks. We have been, as you say, tracking these anti-protest laws and bills for over four years now. And, really, what we’ve seen since this last summer is a distinct escalation from prior years. We’ve seen over 90 bills introduced in 35 states, since last summer and the killing of George Floyd, that would restrict or chill the right to peacefully assemble and protest. It’s an unprecedented number, both in terms of the number of bills that have been introduced and the extreme lengths they go to to repress protests and discourage people from turning out.
JJ: Let’s talk a little bit about more of that. The degree they go to, it’s partly the way they define “riot,” the way they define “violence,” but it’s also like the extension of what is going to be a crime. Talk a little bit more about that.
Elly Page: “These bills…use vague, sweeping language to define new criminal offenses, or redefine existing ones, related to conduct that may occur during a protest.”
EP: Absolutely, yeah. A common thread throughout these bills is that they use vague, sweeping language to define new criminal offenses, or redefine existing ones, related to conduct that may occur during a protest.
So we’ve seen bills targeting “taunting” police in Ohio and Kentucky. The new law in Florida that contains this new criminal offense around mob intimidation, which is sweepingly defined—you only need three people who are trying to get another person to do something, or to have a particular viewpoint, which sounds a lot like any kind of protest, where you’re trying to convince someone to do or think differently. Broad prohibitions on inciting or encouraging or aiding unlawful assemblies; obviously those cast a wide net.
And in many cases, these new bills and laws are relying on states’ existing definitions of “rioting,” which, in almost all states, are already very broadly defined in ways that can capture a completely peaceful protest. In many cases, you only need a small number of people, whereas most of us conceive of a “riot” as kind of a large group. In most instances, you don’t actually have to cause any damage or injure anyone for it to be a riot; you only need to pose a threat or a danger of something, property being damaged or someone being injured. This is one of the many ways that these sweeping definitions can cover, again, completely peaceful, nonviolent protest activity.
JJ: The problem that I think a lot of folks could see is the broad sweep of it. And yet at the same time—it’s not a “but,” it’s an “and”—and at the same time, we see that they’re actually specifically targeted. Florida’s law is about Black Lives Matter; it’s not about January 6, you know? We know that there are particular targets, and we shouldn’t pretend we don’t know.
EP: Right. And that’s something that we’ve seen, time and time again in this tracking project, that lawmakers are really introducing these anti-protest initiatives in the aftermath of distinct protest movements. And it’s often clear from the text of the bills themselves, as well as from what lawmakers say, what they’re targeting. And that’s true of, certainly, this wave of legislation.
I mean, you have bill after bill clearly targeting protests that take place in the streets, over 40 bills that would increase the penalty for protests that block traffic. You have, I think, 15 or so that include provisions that create new protections for drivers who hit protesters with their cars. You have provisions that target protests where there’s even nominal damage, like graffiti or even chalking, of public property, including monuments.
So all these anti-protest provisions are often accompanied by provisions that would penalize local governments that try to decrease the budget for their police departments, sort of anti- defund the police provisions. It’s easy to say that the target of these bills is pretty clear.
JJ: I know that another aspect that you look at is the methods, just the gear, the incentivization to use that gear, the militarization, you know. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, which of course has a direct impact on all the things we’re talking about.
EP: Yeah, absolutely. I think, as Americans saw last summer, it’s not just about the law, it’s very much about the way the law is enforced. And we saw very clearly last summer, the way many of our police departments have been militarized, have access to military-grade weaponry, and how that has been used, oftentimes overly aggressively, in response to protesters.
And we certainly have seen legislative attempts going in the opposite direction, that would try to make it harder, that would try to stop that pipeline of military-grade equipment. Yes, that’s right.
JJ: I think folks are careful around the language of “reform,” you know? I think a lot of folks are ready for a conversation about what “public safety” really means, and really a bigger vision. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t material change that could happen that could be meaningful, that could maybe keep somebody alive. And I’m wondering what you see, legislatively, as a response to the problems you track. Statewide, federalwide, what do you see as pushback on this wave of legislation?
St. Louis Post-Dispatch photo of police in Ferguson firing tear gas (photo: David Carson).
EP: Fortunately, we have seen initiatives, most often at the municipal level, that are trying to better protect protesters in some instances. So we’ve seen lots of proposals to restrict the use of so-called “less lethal weapons,” such as tear gas, projectiles, rubber bullets, these kinds of things. We have seen attempts, both at the local and federal level, again, addressing this issue of local police departments’ access to military-grade weapons. There was a lot of concern last summer about the deployment of federal agents to respond to local protests.
And so there are initiatives ongoing at the federal level to address that as well, and restrict the ability of federal agents to intervene in certain circumstances in a protest that’s completely local.
JJ: I know that your work also involves an international focus, and I think it’s interesting that, for a lot of US citizens, the idea is that the United States, you know, “We have so much freedom we export it. We model it around the world. We’re the shining city on the hill.”
Americans don’t often see themselves as existing in an international context. But in terms of free speech, or civil liberties, what would someone with a global perspective on this set of issues say to that, in 2021, in terms of the US seeing itself as a model of free expression?
EP: Yeah, I think it’s really important that Americans don’t take these freedoms for granted, and don’t take for granted that they can freely exercise their First Amendment rights and protest. Working internationally, we’ve seen how using restrictive laws to suppress protests is really a favorite tactic of governments that are trying to minimize and repress dissent around the world. So whether that’s in Russia, or in Egypt, or in Hong Kong, when governments are looking to disrupt or suppress opposition movements, banning or restricting protests is one of the first tools they reach for.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Elly Page, legal advisor at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. You can find them and the US Protest Law Tracker online at ICNL.org. Elly Page, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
Legislation as it stands would have ‘chilling effect’ on right to demonstrate, lawyers tell committee
Anti-protest curbs contained in the new policing bill are disproportionate, hand subjective powers to officers and the home secretary, and violate international human rights standards, MPs and peers have been told.
Giving evidence to the joint committee of human rights on Wednesday, lawyers said that if the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill was passed as it stands, it would have a “chilling effect” on the right to protest.
Better Read Than Dead, 265 King Street, Newtown NSW 2042
Politics, Protest, Pandemic: The year that changed Australia is the story of the year in Australian federal politics, told through a collection of extended essays from the New Politics Australia podcast series, and a selection of political essays published online.
The 2020 year was one of the most dramatic in human history, shaped by a coronavirus pandemic that influenced society in so many different ways, combining the fields of health, politics, economics, business and education into the one area that proved to be difficult for many governments around the world to manage.
Incumbency during a time of crisis was considered to be beneficial for political leaders and this was shown to be the case in Australia, with the Queensland Government returned at the October 2020 election, and the Western Australia Government returned at their March 2021 election, a result which saw the WA Liberal Party reduced to only two seats in a Parliament of fifty-nine seats. Certainly, those governments did hold political advantages but a mysterious and invisible coronavirus isn’t the sole panacea for political difficulties: governments still need to provide competent management and offer safety to the electorate and, in the case of these two governments, they were rewarded for their efforts.
The opposite occurred in the United States Presidential election: early in 2020, US President Donald Trump was expected to be re-elected, only for those expectations to dissipate throughout the year, primarily due to mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic, and an indifference which at the time of the November election, had led to over 10 million infections and the deaths of over 245,000 people. A crisis can be beneficial to political leaders but the defeat of Trump proved the electorate is prepared to punish incumbents when there is mismanagement of such critical health and economic issues.
The ashes and smoke particles from the 2019/20 bushfires season were still lingering in the air when the political year commenced and it seemed the damage to the Prime Minister’s credibility was so severe—after he surreptitiously went overseas for a family holiday at the height of the bushfires season—that there were some considerations about if he would be able to survive and discussions within the Liberal Party focused upon whether it was time—yet again—to choose new leadership.
But the one crisis which seemed to ruin the tenure of Scott Morrison was replaced by another—the coronavirus pandemic—and this dramatically reversed his political fortunes and changed the discussions from how tenuous his hold on the leadership was, to one where journalists in the mainstream media were suggesting the Labor Party should forget about winning the next federal election, and start campaigning for the election after that—in 2025, or even further ahead in 2028. That’s how fickle politics can be: events can make the world change dramatically, and it’s wise to show caution when viewing these events through a political prism.
The year also commenced with further allegations of corruption and misappropriation of Commonwealth funds in the so-called ‘sports rorts’ scandal, where over $250 million from sports infrastructure programs was directed to Coalition-held seats in the 2019 federal election, in many cases, towards unwarranted and unwanted projects.
Corruption was a continuing theme throughout 2020, with further revelations of the federal government paying ten-times over the market valuation for land in western Sydney owned by Liberal Party donors; the NSW Premier in a secret relationship with a former politician extracting commissions from government land deals; a $3.9 million payment made by the federal government which was outside of the purview of Freedom of Information laws; millions of dollars paid to Foxtel without public justification; corporations reaping larger-than-expected profits and paying dividends and bonuses to senior executives after receiving JobKeeper subsidy payments—no questions asked, and no answers provided.
Anthony Albanese started the year as the preferred prime minister in opinion polls—and that was to be expected after Morrison’s poor handling of the bushfires crisis—but his role as Leader of the Opposition receded into the background, once the coronavirus pandemic arrived. It seems a crisis has no time for political leaders and parties who are outside of government, and Albanese found it difficult to gain political traction and media attention throughout the year, leading to media speculation as to whether he would lead the Labor Party to the next election.
Albanese’s intention was to support the public interest, as well as provide as much political support and cover for the federal government to create stimulus packages and cushion a quickly-deteriorating economy and reduce ever-increasing unemployment queues. Of course, this was the best series of events for the public and the economy, but left Albanese without any political capital, or credit for acting in a responsible manner.
State Liberal opposition leaders in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia saw matters differently and, in conjunction with the mainstream media, directed hostile campaigns against Labor Premiers Daniel Andrews, Mark McGowan and Annastacia Palaszczuk, calling for borders and the economy to open up immediately—and quite often, reversing their positions as soon as the circumstances changed. Morrison and his senior leadership team also attacked the Labor premiers, even going as far as supporting Clive Palmer’s court challenges to Western Australia’s border closures, and demanding Queensland and Victoria urgently end their respective lockdown strategies, even through Liberal premiers in South Australia and Tasmania had engaged in exactly the same closures and lockdowns. The shock of the onset of the coronavirus pandemic encouraged the federal government to use the mantra of “all in this together” and, as the year progressed, it was evident not everyone was part of this rhetoric.
Political protest and action was also a theme throughout the year. The blacks lives matter movement was ignited after George Floyd was murdered by a police officer, and the movement spread from the streets of Minneapolis to over 400 cities across the world, including in Australia.
But far from the passive support and encouragement shown by Morrison to anti-vax/5G/lockdown protests in May, where he understood “the frustrations that they’re feeling”, the Prime Minister suggested the black lives matter protests organised several weeks later would place “the economic recovery at risk”, were “politically-driven left-wing agendas”, and instructed NSW Police to charge protestors. Again, not everyone was “all in this together”, and Morrison offered his musings according to his political biases.
The coronavirus pandemic was most certainly a combined health and economic issue, but it also provided an existential crisis. What is purpose of government? What is the purpose of the economy? What is the purpose of society? Human history has been littered with salient points that change the course of that history and it’s only after those points have occurred that humanity has a full perspective and understanding of these events. World War I was one of those points, as was World War II. Fundamental changes occurred during the post-war period: cities, communities, societies and countries were rebuilt, guided by Keynesian economic thinking, until the onset of neoliberalism in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which fast-tracked economic development and technological change, but also privatised essential social services, as well as creating a larger barrier between the super-wealthy capital classes and working classes.
Neoliberalism has failed. As an economic ideology, it was teetering after the global financial crisis in the late 2000s, but bailed out by the United States government and the European Union, hoping to continue with the easier option of unsustainable growth and endless productivity drives. This pandemic has offered an opportunity for the world to reassess a future pathway over the next decade or two, and new economic thinking and strategies are required to navigate world economies through this precarious path. Which political parties will be able to successfully guide their national economies? In Australia, Morrison has pushed forward the notion of ‘snap-back’, hoping to return the economy to pre-COVID-19 conditions but this seems to be offering false hope to the electorate. Sometimes, prevailing circumstances dictate a set of economic responses—as was the case in the post-World War II period—and perhaps this expectation of returning to the economy of yesteryear offers comfort to the electorate, even if this means the unpalatable truth is pushed further down the political road.
Primarily, the electorate is after solutions from their political leadership, and the leaders who fail to deliver, are the ones likely to suffer at the time of an election. Morrison—and many of his ministers—have the habit of making public announcements and promises, only for those promises to remain undelivered, or re-announced in a different form. And, if there’s anything that goes wrong, deflections are offered, as are excuses and mistruths: it seems there’s always someone else to blame, rather than accepting the responsibility for errors and ensuring they are not repeated.
In the latter part of the year, there were revelations senior male ministers were engaged in inappropriate relationships with young staff members. Other allegations implied against the Attorney–General, Christian Porter, and aired by the ABC Four Corners program, exploded onto the scene in early 2021, when the full details of an alleged rape in 1988 were made public. There was also an allegation of a rape committed by a ministerial staffer in Parliament House just before the 2019 federal election, and the details of this incident were revealed in February 2021.
Other incidents of sexual misbehaviours by ministerial staffers were also revealed, which brought up the question: is Parliament House a safe workplace for women? It seems there are serious issues there and the federal government will need to make reforms within its own system if it is to match public expectations and the way the rest of the community is expected to behave.
This book primarily offers insights into the performances of the Liberal–National Coalition and the Labor Party throughout the year. It was a dramatic year in which no-one really understood what the final outcome would be, and this is still a delicate issue for 2021 and beyond.
Vaccines for coronaviruses have been created and that is one of the biggest breakthroughs in medical history. There is still some way to go in this area but the discovery of the vaccine is a game-changer for the field of medicine, despite varying efficacy of some versions of the vaccine, and the issues caused by the AstraZeneca version, where rare blood clots resulted from a small number of vaccinations.
It was said that developing a vaccine to coronaviruses was close to impossible and, if it was to be developed, it would take many years, if at all. Twelve months after the coronavirus pandemic commenced, a vaccine became available to the public: there was an international will to make a vaccine, and the vaccine was developed.
While there were successes in the field of medicine, politics was disappointing. An opportunity to find constructive responses in the public interest was available to political leaders, but the opportunity to point score and seek political benefit always seems to be greater. Politics in Australia had become too tribal and these divisions are eagerly exploited by a conservative mainstream media and key political players, including Prime Minister Morrison.
The rollout of the vaccines seemed to coincide with a political timetable—the completion schedule of October 2021 fitted in neatly to expectations Morrison planned to call an early federal election to exploit the anticipated success of this rollout—but the political party which prioritises politics and places its own interests first is in peril of losing control of its agenda and is destined for failure. There is now a shortage of vaccines and there is no schedule offered for when Australia’s population will be fully vaccinated; there is confusion about whether these vaccines are safe, primarily because the federal government placed vested interests ahead of the public interest. And it will suffer politically for acting in this way.
Australia is still at the crossroads, with no clear direction of which way it will proceed. The country has handled the pandemic well: coronavirus cases are in single digits across the country, and these have mainly been caused by overseas passenger arrivals. If there was a choice of residing in Australia, or in one of the many countries with thousands of new cases reported every day, most of the electorate would choose to live here.
But there are still many areas needing attention: long-term economic issues need to be resolved; climate change and environmental issues are still largely neglected by a federal government, which sees more merit in a ‘gas-led recovery’ than investing in a renewables energy future. The structure of federation placed a handbrake on Morrison’s initial desire to place more emphasis on the economy, rather than health, and the responses of the premiers and chief ministers were the ones which stopped Australia replicating the severe outbreaks, caseloads and deaths that occurred in the United States, and many parts of Europe.
Politics in this country needs to change, but the system itself is unclear about where it needs to start. The simple act of increasing female representation within the Liberal and National parties created a raucous response from the existing male members, unwilling to relinquish their privilege, or in the case of Morrison, saying he didn’t “want to see women rise only on the basis of others doing worse”.
A constant theme within Politics, Protest, Pandemic is the belief that Australia currently has the wrong type of federal government at the wrong time. Australia’s Constitution is outdated, created in 1901 and not fit-for-purpose in 2021; a political system which makes it difficult for women, migrants and community interests to engage and be an active part of that system; vested interests taking prominence over public interests; endless corruption, media manipulations, mismanagement; a hostile mainstream media which seems to be more intent on holding the public to account, rather the federal government.
It has been said that a government should “never let a good crisis go to waste” but it’s often forgotten that these are words from British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, mentioned towards the end of World War II. It took many years for the changes implemented at this time—the Bretton Woods agreement, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Monetary Fund, as well the creation of the United Nations—to come to full fruition in the latter part of the 1950s and the 1960s. The leadership towards the end of World War II comprised Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, John Curtin, among many others around the world. In comparison, during 2020, the world leadership comprised Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Scott Morrison. Trump has departed the scene—for the time being—but the leadership of Johnson and Morrison remains.
An opportunity to reform world economics and communities—or, at least, install the first building blocks of change—was missed during 2020 but that’s not to suggest the opportunity has been lost forever. Finding the right vaccines was critical in reducing the impact of the coronavirus all around the world and, through human endeavour, those vaccines were found.
The French philosopher, Henri Bergson, believed solutions to all of the problems in society do exist; the issue for humanity is how to find those solutions. The same resolution is evident in the political sphere: the solutions to the many problems that exist in Australia’s political system are there and available.
It’s just a matter of choosing the right kind of leadership that can find and implement those solutions.
Authorities lambast British-born Paul Harris for criticising treatment of pro-democracy campaigners
Beijing and Hong Kong authorities have accused the British-born head of Hong Kong’s bar association and human rights lawyer of being an “anti-China politician” after he criticised jail sentences imposed on pro-democracy activists.
Paul Harris, the chair of the HKBA, had represented one of 10 people convicted this month for organising or attending unauthorised assemblies during the pro-democracy protest in 2019. The defendants were given a range of suspended sentences or immediate jail terms of up to 18 months.
Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Fatia Maulidiyanti has condemned the invitation to Myanmar coup leader General Min Aung Hlaing to attend the ASEAN ministerial conference in Jakarta at the weekend as revealing Indonesia’s true colours — that it is accepting of human rights violators.
“Min Aung Hlaing’s arrival actually shows that Indonesia is indeed very apologetic towards human rights violators not just domestically but internationally,” said Maulidiyanti.
Maulidiyanti said that Indonesia had acted the same way when it received Sudan President Omar Al-Bashir at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) extraordinary leadership conference in 2016.
Yet, according to Maulidiyanti, Al-Bashir was a dictator and a fugitive of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“Indonesia once did the same thing during the OIC Conference in 2016 when Indonesia also invited Omar Al-Bashir,” she said.
Based on the reception of these two human rights violators, Maulidiyanti questioned Indonesia’s position — which is actually reflected through President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo — with regard to protecting human rights.
The arrival of the Myanmar military junta leader is regrettable because it was as if Indonesia was paying no heed to the violence taking place in Myanmar.
Jakarta not heeding violence
“So here there is actually a question, what face is Indonesia presenting through President Joko Widodo and government officials by not heeding the violence occurring in Myanmar. The aim, rather than inviting the leader of the military junta, is to open dialogue,” she said.
Maulidiyanti questioned what the real aim was in inviting the lead of the Myanmar military junta to Jakarta.
Maulidiyanti emphasised that Indonesia should have invited the Myanmar National Unity Government (NUG) to the ASEAN meeting on Saturday afternoon.
“The government should have instead invited the NUG who are the elected representatives of the Myanmar people,” she said.
On the other hand, Maulidiyanti said that ASEAN had a very important role to play in resolving the problems in Myanmar. ASEAN should immediately take firm measures over the violence being committed by the Myanmar government.
The invitation of Min Aung Hlaing to the ASEAN conference proves that ASEAN was not a safe place for the protection of human rights.
“It can be seen from the cooperation where they don’t want to heed the situation or the importance of acting immediately against the Myanmar government today, meaning ASIAN is not a safe place for protecting human rights”, she said.
Widodo’s response
President Widodo said that the violence in Myanmar must stop. This was one of the points he stressed during the meeting with the eight leaders of ASEAN countries at the ASEAN Leaders Meeting in Jakarta.
“At the meeting earlier I conveyed several things. First, the situation developing in Myanmar is something which is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to continue,” said Widodo during a virtual press conference on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube channel.
“The violence must stop. Democracy and stability as well as peace in Myanmar must be restored immediately. The interests of the Myanmar people must always be the priority,” he said.
Second, Widodo emphasised the importance of General Min Aung Hlaing making two commitments.
An end to the use of violence by the Myanmar military and that all parties must restrain themselves so that tensions can be eased so that a process of dialogue can be begun.
“Political prisoners must be released immediately and an ASEAN special envoy needs to be established, namely the ASEAN secretary general and chairperson to promote dialogue between all parties in Myanmar,” said Widodo.
Third, he asked that access be given for humanitarian aid from ASEAN which would be coordinated by the ASEAN secretary general and the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA Center).
Widodo also asserted that Indonesia wass committed to overseeing the above three commitments so that the crisis in Myanmar could be resolved.
“We thank God that what has been conveyed by Indonesia will turn out to be in accord with what has been conveyed by ASEAN leaders so it can be said that ASEAN leaders have reached a consensus,” said Widodo.
“The ASEAN secretary general has conveyed five points of concusses which will be conveyed by the ASEAN secretary general or chairperson. The contents are more or less the same as those that I conveyed earlier in the national statement which I conveyed earlier,” added the president.
The ASEAN leaders meeting which was held today in Jakarta was attended by the leaders of the nine countries in Southeast Asia: President Joko Widodo, Vietnam Prime Minister Pham Minh Chính, Brunei Darussalam Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Myanmar military chief General Min Aung Hlaing, Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Hassin, Laos Foreign Affairs Minister Laos Saleumxay Kommasith, Thai Foreign Affairs Minister Don Pramudwinai and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
We are living through an era marked not just by the explosive violence of the far-right, but by the specific targeting of antifascist activists by the state and white nationalists alike. The term “antifa” has escaped its practical usage and is now used as a mythic signifier for all things left-wing and chaotic in the right-wing imagination, which has only increased seemingly impulsive acts of violence against anti-racist organizers. This is not a new history, and itreminds of us of a heart-wrenching tragedy from the 1980s that is still in the memory of many antifascists demonstrating in the streets: The Greensboro Massacre. Here neo-Nazis and Klansman jointly planned the murder of members of the Workers Viewpoint Organization, which was involved multi-racial unionization efforts and was holding anti-Klan events. These murderers ended up being acquitted, presenting an all too real image of white immunity.
Below is an excerpt from my recent book, Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse, in a chapter that looks at the persistent presence of right-wing violence and its evidence in the Greensboro Massacre and the mass killings that have come later. There is a common story here, one that is still playing out, and this can inform how antifascists see themselves and the centrality of their work in defending against white vigilante brutality.
***
To comprehend the reality of white nationalist violence, both historic and impending, is to understand the central function of white identity: violence againstthe “Other.” The shift from neo-Nazis to the “alt-right” is one of minor philosophic changes and branding, but the underlying cause and the overarching message retain a key component of revolutionary upheaval, of the mythic battle for “survival of their race,” and the desire for power. Far right leader Richard Spencer, for his part, has shifted his rhetoric from one of simply the preservation of “identity” to the need to take and exercise power in a dominating way. This is an acknowledgement that much of the language of white identity that has filtered over from the European identitarian movement is disingenuous: What Spencer and likeminded white nationalists want from their ethnostate is a Great White Empire. This vision is one that refuses to quit, that will take down opponents as it needs to; its only reason to refuse violence is the optics. As the crisis of collapsing capitalism, ecologies, and political structures continue to swell, as economic instability and climate chaos increases conflict, white nationalists’ capacity expands with infinite inertia. The triggers will only multiply, the conditions will only become more conducive. This is not simply Trump’s America, it is every America to come.
For the anti-fascist left, this ongoing white nationalism should be a reality check for what we face. The presence of white nationalism is not just ideological, or a political proposition, but it is the implicit encasement of violence; an attack looking for a victim. The surprising growth of the “alt-right” has had one less predicted effect: that their violent rhetoric and vulgar racialism would so thoroughly infect the conservative communities they tried to cozy up to. Their violence has extended to the MAGA-Belt, the Independent Trumpists whose anger has become explosive.
In 2020, as the coronavirus raged, anti-mask protesters denied its reality, and Trump ramped up racist fears as a campaign strategy, Derek Chauvin leaned on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes until Floyd died. A complete insurgency, unseen for half a century, came in its wake, and so did the “whitelash.”
The Proud Boys, which had been a dominant force on the far right since the “alt-right” decline post-Charlottesville, came back into the fray, as did white vigilantes around the country. The Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer and other far right groups had become a constant presence in cities like Portland, Oregon, by this point, engaging in targeted attacks and street battles since Trump’s election. While they often use the mutated rhetoric of self-defense or describe themselves as conservative fraternities, their binding force is violence. The ideology itself has slipped a bit, of less importance than committing to the attack of opponents, where violence itself has become explicitly central.
At the same time, open white nationalism itself has moved further right as the “bowl patrol” celebrates Dylann Roof, and Atomwaffen Division and The Base prepare for mass murder as an accelerationist path to collapse. From the GOP to the “patriot” subculture to the Nazis frothing for action, violence is passed along as a fashion for identity. The Proud Boy leadership continues to play dumbfounded by accusations of violence as the group’s President Enrique Tarrio claims that violence is disallowed, disavows the violence of members and pretends that Proud Boys accused of violence were never actually members of the organization. As the GOP stokes a “vigilante identity” across the country, it only sends messages of approval to groups like the Proud Boys that their violence is part of a greater plan to restore America, and the violence only spreads like a cultural pandemic. While it is often the edges of these organizations that engage in the most egregious of the violence (since its leadership has too much to lose), there is a straight line between the inner circle and the assaults and murders.
The Greensboro Massacre happened just over 40 years ago, and yet it feels like the ghost of an earlier time. It was only this year that the City of Greensboro, North Carolina, issued an apology to the victims, and one survivor, Reverend Nelson Johnson, received it. It got little news coverage; it was an old story that has been largely lost, but what really robbed it in the news cycle was that it was too familiar. We know white nationalist violence now; we live with it every day.
The fringe of the white nationalist movement is an essential part of it, and it is where the move towards real-life violence takes place. White nationalist organizations will (almost) never “condone” the murders in the practical, instructive sense — but they don’t have to: their message has been heard loud and clear. Their ideas have violence at the core, their behavior is poised and prepared for violence, the violence is the logical outcome of everything they have built. Spencer has argued that his mission is for a “peaceful ethnic cleaning,” but this is a contradiction in terms. This creates a perpetual dilemma for the communities white nationalists target, both in active points of confrontation and in daily life.
The potential of white nationalism only grows without resistance to stifle it. Conscious community defense is the only thing that can weather the storm. We have to wrestle with the reality that the far right’s violence is genocidal and persistent and will never evaporate on its own.
It was the violence of the encroaching Trump era that turned anti-fascism into a mass movement, the threats of the Proud Boys that hardened organizations, the terrorist killings in synagogues and mosques that created a wall of persistent refusal. What white nationalists think will push back their opposition — their capacity for violence — is what fills the streets with anti-fascists. The culture of apocalyptic violence carries with it an endemic hurt, one that will paint an entire generation with fear and mourning, and also the seeds of a new type of social identity, one that understands this feeling of loss in the collective retribution that is faced on those responsible. We are seeing new waves of anti-fascism, the kernel of a new plurality defined by compassion, mutual aid and the willingness to disrupt the systems that never served us.
In an era of mass shootings and global pandemics, we have been marked by an inescapable trauma, but it is also pushing us back into a community of care and defense. In a society where we rarely create the space to mourn, the growing mass actions against violence have taken the role of a public reckoning, transmuting that hurt back into a shield wall. We don’t avoid the streets because of white supremacists’ violence — we overwhelm the streets because of it. We multiply, reproduce, change our spaces and our relationships and ourselves because of it. We escalate our expectations, for safety and ecstatic living, because we know the antithesis. We come out because we are afraid, and this is the only way to the other side.
Avon and Somerset police have issued an apology to four protesters they arrested for peacefully demonstrating in support of the ‘Colston Four’. The force has recognised that its blanket ban on protests and subsequent arrests of protestors was “unlawful”.
On 25 January, Avon and Somerset Police arrested Ros Martin, Paula Richardson, Rolland Dye and Taus Larsen. The force issued them with fixed penalty notices (FPNs). It had issued a blanket ban on protests, warning that demonstrators could be given a £10,000 fine. Exercising their right to peaceful protest, the four individuals demonstrated outside Bristol magistrates’ court. This was to express solidarity with the Colston Four, the people accused of toppling slave trader Edward Colston’s statue during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
Unlawful arrests
Martin and Richardson wrote messages of solidarity on the pavement using chalk. Dye held up a placard, and Larsen cycled around the area playing music. According to Bhatt and Murphy solicitors, they all “wore masks and practised social distancing”.
In February, Martin told The Canary that police immediately arrested her. Moreover, they failed to follow recommended practice to engage, explain, and encourage those breaching lockdown rules to disperse. Martin said:
I was alone at the time, there was no other protester, I had a mask on and socially distanced, wrote three words and was immediately arrested.
In a statement made after Avon and Somerset police’s apology, Larsen said:
The whole thing was ridiculous. I wasn’t posing any risk to the public, but the police put me in a position which increased the risk to me and to the officers dealing with me.
Following a legal challenge, Avon and Somerset Police acknowledged that the force’s blanket ban on protests was unlawful. The ban was in breach of Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights which protect freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. As a result, the arrests and FPNs were also unlawful.
According to solicitors Bhatt Murphy:
The correct approach would have been to consider whether the individual protest was safe to proceed in its particular circumstances.
‘Vindicated’ in their right to protest
A statement Avon and Somerset Police issued on 22 April said:
we now accept we misinterpreted the regulations and that the arrests and the issuing of FPNs were unlawful.
It added:
We have apologised to them and explained officers’ actions were motivated purely by a desire to protect the health of the public at the height of the pandemic.
The force has cancelled the fines for the four protesters. And it has payed compensation for their wrongful arrests in a “substantial” out of court settlement.
Martin said:
In the week that justice has been served for George Floyd, it is vital that the right to peaceful protest in support of the Colston 4 has prevailed. It is fundamental to our democracy. The locking up of peaceful protestors should never happen.
Alex Raikes, director of Stand Against Racism and Inequality (SARI), said:
It is welcome that the Chief Constable has apologised and that justice has been done for our clients. SARI supports peaceful, safe protest as it has been a key aspect throughout history for upholding and protecting human rights.
What could this mean for other protests?
Tony Murphy of solicitors Bhatt Murphy concluded:
The Chief Constable’s acceptance that an outright ban on protest will never be lawful, including during a pandemic, is important. My clients regard chalking messages of solidarity on the pavement as a peaceful, safe and lawful form of in-person protest.
According to lawyer Gus Silverman, this could be the first time a police force has admitted to unlawfully arresting protesters under coronavirus regulations. This is a significant ‘legal first’ in the wake of ‘brutal‘ policing of Kill the Bill protests in Bristol and elsewhere under coronavirus regulations.
This week on CounterSpin: It’s not hard to see—indeed, it’s hard not to see—how the initial Minneapolis police department account of George Floyd’s death, “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction,” would have been the last word were it not for intervening factors: One was the witnessing of teenager Darnella Frazier—whose historical act deserves a serious responsive effort to protect and respect citizen reporters, and to fight racist policing—more so than pats on the head like that from the Washington Post‘s Margaret Sullivan about her “pure…motivations” and “moral core.”
And another being the unprecedented multi-racial protests Floyd’s murder kicked off. If the verdict is testament to the power of protest, so too are the vigorous efforts to squelch that power. We’ll talk about that with Elly Page, legal advisor at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law and founder of their US Protest Law Tracker.
CounterSpin210421Page.mp3
Also on the show: After the Supreme Court ruled last summer that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status, the Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin wrote, “While we might be slow in getting there and are diverted time and again, Americans can eventually be prevailed upon to come down on the side of fairness, equality, inclusion and simple human decency.” The notion that civil rights just expand naturally without struggle—and that justice delayed is, you know, fine—isn’t serving trans kids as right-wing legislators target them at the state level. We’ll hear from Christy Mallory, legal director at the Williams Institute, based at UCLA School of Law.
Who doesn’t like sticking it to the Tories? If you do, then a rebirth of a successful 2015 campaign may be right up your street. Because it’s back and you can get involved.
Sticking it for years
The “Stick It To The Tories” campaign first launched in 2015. It was founded by local members of the People’s Assembly in Pembrokeshire, Wales in response to the difficulty of rural campaigning. The idea was delicious in its simplicity: a series of provocative, agitative stickers based around certain campaigns. The stickers were ones that people outside of the major towns and cities could actively use in their communities. So, Stick It To The Tories was born.
It was a success. Over 100,000 people got their hands on its stickers. One of its first and most well-known campaigns, was Choose the Tories or the NHS. You can’t have both:
Then Stick It To The Tories focused on the 2017 general election:
Now, the campaign is back after a hiatus. And it’s ready to fight the current Tory incumbents. So, The Canary caught-up with co-founder Jim Scott to find out what’s happened since the 2017 election – and what this new campaign has got in store.
The relaunch
Scott explained that he and his colleagues had wanted to relaunch the campaign for a while. But as with a lot of activism, nothing is ever straightforward:
We have actually been trying to relaunch Stick it to the Tories since we took what we hoped would just be a ‘short break’ after the 2017 General Election. We struggled to find a new web person. Also, juggling unpaid activism with self employed work is always hard too. So it just didn’t happen. During the pandemic, I’ve been getting stuck in helping the People’s Assembly much more. So when it was suggested that we relaunch via the People’s Assembly shop it all just kinda fell into place. Stick it to the Tories always was very closely affiliated with People’s Assembly.
Many individuals and organisations we’ve worked with have often asked if we are going to get up and running again soon. They’ve told us that they are desperate to get out there stickering again. And I’ve noticed that during the pandemic, many people are talking about how important it is that we employ more innovative and creative ways to agitate right now. I think Stick it to the Tories will play an important role in doing exactly that:
Changing political tides
A lot’s changed since Stick It To The Tories’ successful 2017 campaign. Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May have both left the spotlight. The Tories themselves have arguably gone further to the right. Meanwhile, the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has changed a lot. And Labour is – well, a bit of a mess. Reflecting on this, Scott told The Canary that in some respects the shift in both parties has increased the need and desire for activism:
During the 2017 campaign, there was an amazing feeling of hope in the air. Obviously this was all bound up in the Corbyn project. And therefore, also the prospect of some kind of parliamentary route out of the Tory hell hole we were in then, and are in now.
Then, there was a very raw feeling of despondency following the 2019 general election. But in some ways, I think the dismal and ineffectual state that Labour is now in has actually helped some of us. We’ve found focus. And we’ve redirected our energies very squarely back towards movement politics instead.
In parliamentary terms things have got a whole lot worse. But without that distraction I think people’s energies have shifted toward working with organisations like the People’s Assembly. It’s there where we actually have a much stronger chance of destabilising the establishment at a core level. We can also harness that very real energy which is out there right now to demand and fight for a new normal following the pandemic.
Stick It To The Tories and People’s Assembly have made a launch video. It features none other than Canary editor-at-large Kerry-Anne Mendoza:
Disaster capitalists
There is indeed the chance to fight for a new normal. But also, there are still a lot of specific causes to campaign and agitate for. As Scott explained:
Stick it to the Tories has always been and always will be very reactive to, and symbiotic with, current political events. The People’s Assembly is there to give a platform and a voice to current struggles faced across the movement. And likewise, we will be on hand to work with a range of trade unions, campaigns, workers and activists. We want to help to elevate their struggles when they most need it.
Covid has highlighted with an almost visceral clarity the hardwired inequalities within our system. We’ve all seen how the Tories have used the crisis as cover to do what they do best: syphon billions of public funds into the pockets of their wealthy mates. The 1% pay insult to the nurses who have kept this country afloat during the crisis shows exactly how much regard the Tories have for our NHS or its workers. So we felt it was very important to highlight this. 40% for nukes – 1% for nurses, it kinda says it all:
#KillTheBill
You can buy all the new stickers from the People’s Assembly shop here. Scott continued:
The Tories are also attempting to use the crisis to sneak through dangerously authoritarian legislation. Their ‘Police Bill’ would not just take away our rights to protest for our rights. But it would also effectively criminalise an entire way of life for the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community. It also has many other disturbing erosions of our rights and liberties. So, we decided to produce a three sticker special on #KillTheBill. We expect it to be very popular, especially with the mounting protests we are seeing around the country right now:
Disabled people: bearing the brunt of Tory policy
Once again, Stick It To The Tories will be supporting grassroots campaign group Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC). Scott said it was a particularly personal matter for him:
DPAC have always been a huge inspiration to me personally. Following DPAC’s activism almost a decade ago ignited a fire in me to becoming more politically active again. Tory austerity kicked in. We saw disabled people literally blockading roads with their own bodies in protest against such brutal treatment from the Tories. It made me think to myself: if things are this bad then I need to get stuck in too.
Again, Covid has exposed these deep inequalities within our society. There is an inherent flaw to our system when six out of 10 Covid deaths have been disabled people. The Tory’s divisive policies and hostile environment against disabled people has also created a severe upsurge in discrimination and hate crimes. So I think it’s vital that we highlight this and work together across our campaigns to combat it:
A long and agitative past
Stickers have a long history of being used in political and activist campaigning for agitation and collective struggle. Scott recognises this – and believes it to be a crucial part of activism:
This is one of the aspects of the project that excites me the most. Throughout the history of struggle, from the Levellers, to the Chartists and the Suffragettes and other recent struggles like the Miners strikes and battles against Thatcher’s Poll tax, badges, stickering and flyers have always played a hugely important role in spreading our message. And they’ve always proved an effective way to inject our politics into the world around us.
The media won’t tell our story. So, we have to. I guess this is the underpinning principle of Stick it to the Tories. We take our message out onto the streets and into the psyches of everyday people.
Making history?
Scott is also mindful of how, after years of activism, it can be hard to maintain positivity:
Sometimes on the left a despondency can set in. It can be easy to forget that we actually make history with our struggles. We are effective; we do push them back and we do force change. Sometimes it’s big. And sometimes it’s small. But it all makes a difference. It’s all making history, and we should rejoice in that.
He also likens our current struggles, and the Stick It To The Tories campaign, to another protest movement from over 100 years ago:
An Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) ‘Stickerette’ campaign in the US in 1917 distributed over four million stickers in total. And I think the mood is ripe right now for mass agitation in this country and beyond:
Changing the game?
Scott thinks stickers in 2021 could be part of a game-changing approach to activism:
I can see stickering and other new forms of civil disobedience creating a step-change in how we do our politics and becoming hugely effective too, especially when you consider that what the Tories are attempting with their Police Bill, such an erosion of our human rights would essentially take us several steps beyond authoritarianism and frighteningly far into the realms of fascism.
We know where that road leads, so as a collective movement, we’re not gonna let that happen right!? It’s time for us to put those ‘silent agitators’ to work so that they can play their part alongside the mass civil unrest that needs to come with it.
We can all stick it to the Tories
Speaking of civil unrest, the People’s Assembly has organised a demo on 26 June. Marching through London to parliament, it’s over the government’s handling of the pandemic. And of course, Stick It To The Tories has made a sticker for that, too:
Stickers have a long and proud history of playing a central role in activism. So, it’s wonderful to see Stick It To The Tories make a return. At a time when many aspects of our lives are under greater threat than any time in recent memory, the more ways to protest, the better. It seems Stick It To The Tories may become an integral part of this summer’s much-needed activism.
Papuan protesters outside the United Nations headquarters yesterday after John Anari was gagged again from making a full statement at the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues. Image: Screenshot from the WPLO YouTube channel
COMMENT:By Andrew Johnson
Gagged again! West Papuan Liberation Organisation (WPLO) representative John Anari was allowed to introduce himself at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues yesterday – and that was the end of his message.
No doubt the UNPFII will claim it was a lucky gremlin, but John’s video feed was up and working and only went silent as he called attention to the United Nations own responsibility for the ongoing oppression, deaths, and looting of West Papua for these past 59 years!
Papuan protesters outside the United Nations headquarters yesterday after John Anari was gagged again from making a full statement at the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues. Image: Screenshot from the WPLO YouTube channel
COMMENT:By Andrew Johnson
Gagged again! West Papuan Liberation Organisation (WPLO) representative John Anari was allowed to introduce himself at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues yesterday – and that was the end of his message.
Officials claimed he had used up his two minutes for the forum (UNPFII). Anari says he was shut down early.
No doubt the UNPFII will claim it was a lucky gremlin, but John’s video feed was up and working and only went silent as he called attention to the United Nations own responsibility for the ongoing oppression, deaths, and looting of West Papua for these past 59 years!
A groundbreaking environmental treaty between Latin American and Caribbean countries goes into effect today, after almost eight years of planning and negotiations.
The Escazú Agreement, named for the Costa Rican district where it was approved in 2018, is the first environmental treaty in the region, and the first in the world that includes provisions for environmental human rights defenders. The United Nations-facilitated agreement requires participating countries to prevent and investigate attacks against environmental activists, as well as improve public accessibility to environmental information and encourage public participation in environmental decision-making. It also acknowledges that living in a healthy environment is a human right, which could pave the way for participating countries to take stronger climate and environmental actions in the future.
Twenty-four of the region’s 33 countries have signed, or expressed interest in the agreement. It has been officially ratified by 12 — including Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua — making it binding in those countries.
“Its entry into force will mean that the mechanisms for cooperation and for accountability that are embedded in the agreement will begin to function,” said Marcos Orellana, the United Nations special rapporteur on toxics and human rights, who assisted in the development of the treaty. “This is very important because the agreement from its inception has been conceived as an instrument to strengthen capacities at all levels for environmental democracy.”
These mechanisms include requirements that countries improve vulnerable communities’ access to environmental information, as well as put in place up-to-date systems that allow citizens to easily find documents such as government reports, lists of polluted areas, and the text of environmental laws and regulations. “The idea is one-stop shopping for all the environmental information a person needs,” David Boyd, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, told Grist in an email. Boyd was not involved in the development of the treaty, but was an advocate for its ratification.
The Escazú Agreement also requires countries to publish nontechnical summaries of environmental projects and take timely action to prevent, investigate, and punish attacks on environmental human rights activists.
That last provision is particularly crucial in Latin America, where trying to protect the environment often means putting your life on the line — the region was home to more than half of environmentalists killed worldwide in 2018. Last year, for example, two employees at a Mexican butterfly reserve were assassinated, six Indigenous community members were killed at a Nicaraguan nature reserve, and an Indigenous land activist was murdered by an armed mob in Costa Rica. This violence is often associated with conflicts with loggers, petroleum workers, dam builders, gem and metal miners, and members of organized crime, many of whom have interests in controlling the region’s resource-rich lands.
“The importance of the agreement is that it recognizes there is an issue of impunity in Latin America, that a lot of crimes against Latin environmental defenders go unpunished,” said Marina Comandulli, a campaigner at the environmental human rights nonprofit Global Witness. “To a certain extent, if the states implement this agreement, we are hoping to see a reduction and investigation of the cases where Latin American environmental defenders have been subject to threats, attacks, or have even been killed.”
While she described the agreement as an achievement, Comandulli expressed concern that countries with high rates of violence against environmental activists — like Guatemala, Brazil, and Colombia — have signed but not yet ratified the treaty. Honduras, one of the world’s most dangerous countries for environmental activists, has not even signed it. “If they are not committed to implementing this agreement, that could actually prevent the agreement from being implemented in the way we were expecting,” she said.
The treaty’s goals could also be bolstered if companies choose to vocally support it, Comandulli said, since the region’s environmental activists are often stigmatized as anti-development. Some governments were hesitant to move forward with the agreement because they worried it would drive away business — corporate support could quell those fears.
International treaties are technically legally binding, but countries won’t be punished if they don’t follow through. The implementation of the agreement “rests on the good faith” of the participating countries, Orellana said, and there will be a compliance committee formed to “examine situations of noncompliance.” Camandulli expects implementation to vary in each country and hopes the participating parties can learn from each other as they move ahead.
“Human rights treaties, we see them as aspirations,” she said. “The implementation [of this treaty] will depend on a number of things, especially political will from governments.”
A groundbreaking environmental treaty between Latin American and Caribbean countries goes into effect today, after almost eight years of planning and negotiations.
The Escazú Agreement, named for the Costa Rican district where it was approved in 2018, is the first environmental treaty in the region, and the first in the world that includes provisions for environmental human rights defenders. The United Nations-facilitated agreement requires participating countries to prevent and investigate attacks against environmental activists, as well as improve public accessibility to environmental information and encourage public participation in environmental decision-making. It also acknowledges that living in a healthy environment is a human right, which could pave the way for participating countries to take stronger climate and environmental actions in the future.
Twenty-four of the region’s 33 countries have signed, or expressed interest in the agreement. It has been officially ratified by 12 — including Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua — making it binding in those countries.
“Its entry into force will mean that the mechanisms for cooperation and for accountability that are embedded in the agreement will begin to function,” said Marcos Orellana, the United Nations special rapporteur on toxics and human rights, who assisted in the development of the treaty. “This is very important because the agreement from its inception has been conceived as an instrument to strengthen capacities at all levels for environmental democracy.”
These mechanisms include requirements that countries improve vulnerable communities’ access to environmental information, as well as put in place up-to-date systems that allow citizens to easily find documents such as government reports, lists of polluted areas, and the text of environmental laws and regulations. “The idea is one-stop shopping for all the environmental information a person needs,” David Boyd, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, told Grist in an email. Boyd was not involved in the development of the treaty, but was an advocate for its ratification.
The Escazú Agreement also requires countries to publish nontechnical summaries of environmental projects and take timely action to prevent, investigate, and punish attacks on environmental human rights activists.
That last provision is particularly crucial in Latin America, where trying to protect the environment often means putting your life on the line — the region was home to more than half of environmentalists killed worldwide in 2018. Last year, for example, two employees at a Mexican butterfly reserve were assassinated, six Indigenous community members were killed at a Nicaraguan nature reserve, and an Indigenous land activist was murdered by an armed mob in Costa Rica. This violence is often associated with conflicts with loggers, petroleum workers, dam builders, gem and metal miners, and members of organized crime, many of whom have interests in controlling the region’s resource-rich lands.
“The importance of the agreement is that it recognizes there is an issue of impunity in Latin America, that a lot of crimes against Latin environmental defenders go unpunished,” said Marina Comandulli, a campaigner at the environmental human rights nonprofit Global Witness. “To a certain extent, if the states implement this agreement, we are hoping to see a reduction and investigation of the cases where Latin American environmental defenders have been subject to threats, attacks, or have even been killed.”
While she described the agreement as an achievement, Comandulli expressed concern that countries with high rates of violence against environmental activists — like Guatemala, Brazil, and Colombia — have signed but not yet ratified the treaty. Honduras, one of the world’s most dangerous countries for environmental activists, has not even signed it. “If they are not committed to implementing this agreement, that could actually prevent the agreement from being implemented in the way we were expecting,” she said.
The treaty’s goals could also be bolstered if companies choose to vocally support it, Comandulli said, since the region’s environmental activists are often stigmatized as anti-development. Some governments were hesitant to move forward with the agreement because they worried it would drive away business — corporate support could quell those fears.
International treaties are technically legally binding, but countries won’t be punished if they don’t follow through. The implementation of the agreement “rests on the good faith” of the participating countries, Orellana said, and there will be a compliance committee formed to “examine situations of noncompliance.” Camandulli expects implementation to vary in each country and hopes the participating parties can learn from each other as they move ahead.
“Human rights treaties, we see them as aspirations,” she said. “The implementation [of this treaty] will depend on a number of things, especially political will from governments.”
In the early morning hours of April 4, 2021, a day that many Christians recognized as Resurrection Sunday, detainees, at the St. Louis City Justice Center moved in the spirit of insurrection to challenge their oppressors and well documented repression at the jail. After the first major rebellion at the jail grabbed national attention on February 6, 2021, government bureaucrats in collaboration with “activists” of the social justice state scrambled to mystify what is really happening to detainees at the city’s jails through sham reports and pseudo-independent investigations.
The attempt to paper over the status quo of cruelty and inhumanity exacted on detainees in the aftermath of the February 6th jail uprising has proved unsuccessful.
An organisation that represents police officers is kicking off about people sharing videos of arrests and other police interactions on social media. It’s calling for platforms like Twitter and YouTube to do something. But the group’s claim that cops are somehow the victims here doesn’t exactly ring true.
Stop sharing cop videos, says cop
The Metropolitan Police Federation (MPF) is the Met Police’s “staff association”. It represents more than 30,000 cops. And it’s recently hit back at people sharing videos of its officers’ conduct on social media.
The MPF said in a statement that its leader Ken Marsh:
has called for the government and force leaders to tackle social media firms that enable footage of officers dealing with incidents to be shared.
Marsh said it was time to end:
trial by social media.
He also said:
It’s time to step in. We want something done… Officers shouldn’t be subjected to this while simply doing their job.
Stop and search
A specific incident prompted the MPF’s statement. It involved the Met’s Territorial Support Group (TSG) stopping and searching a Black man last year. As the MPF itself said, TSG officers:
stopped [him] under the Road Traffic Act. Officers then searched the man’s car under the Misuse of Drugs Act.
The MPF noted that:
Evidence showed that the man failed to comply with the officers’ verbal demands and refused to show his hands, which led to him being handcuffed in his car.
The incident in question ended with the police officers not finding anything. So, people shared partial footage of the incident on social media. Then, as the MPF wrote, the man:
complained to the IOPC [Independent Office for Police Conduct] that he had been stopped in an aggressive manner, that the grounds for the search were false, that the force used by the officers was unnecessary, and that they had failed to use PPE when searching him and his car.
The IOPC only upheld the man’s complaint about PPE. This is not surprising given the police investigate themselves and it is notoriously hard for people to get any semblance of justice. Indeed, over the last decade, only one in 200 complaints against the Met Police were upheld.
The MPF claim this is an example of why social media companies should stop people sharing videos. But this is not the whole story.
Institutional racism?
The Guardianreported on the incident in July 2020. As it wrote:
In the original incident… on 23 May, Colaço said he was stopped after being “aggressively tailgated” by the Metropolitan police, with officers then running to his car and banging on his window. They later said they had been able to smell cannabis from his car.
As he queried why he was being stopped, Colaço, 30, was forced into handcuffs, video footage shows. He agreed to leave his car and stood with officers who searched him, while others combed through his BMW and found nothing.
Just days later, police stopped Colaço again. This time, City of London police allegedly smashed his window. It was just after he was on C4 News talking about the 23 May incident and institutional police racism. As reported in March, an IOPC investigation into this incident resulted in it upholding Colaço’s appeal. And it told City of London police to re-conduct its own investigation.
Nothing to see here
The Guardiansaid Colaço claimed police have searched him “about 20 times”, but he “did not have a criminal record”.
So, in other words, the incident the MPF is using as an example of why the public shouldn’t share cop videos is arguably an example of the institutional racism that pervades the Met’s use of stop and search. Of course, the MPF would disagree. Marsh said of the 23 May incident:
Yet again my colleagues, after thousands and thousands of pounds have been wasted, have been found to be doing their job exactly as they should.
“Censorship” and “whitewashing misconduct”
Police monitoring group Netpol disagrees with the MPF’s call. It told The Canary:
To somehow prove its dubious case for ‘trial by social media’ the MPF started off arguing for the release of all body camera footage. But the Met rejected this idea last year. This was after its own internal review showed officers displaying “poor communication, a lack of patience, a lack of de-escalation before use of force is introduced”.
Now the MPF instead wants the Tories to put pressure on companies like Twitter and YouTube to censor people who share evidence of oppressive policing. This is evidence that has often helped to challenge officers’ misleading versions of events. And it has also led to the disciplining of violent officers. Netpol argues that in the face of the enormous power that officers wield, filming the police is one of the few effective ways of ever successfully holding them to account.
Last year the French government tried to criminalise members of the public who shared images of police officers. But widespread protests forced it to backtrack.
The British government should learn from this clumsy attempt at censorship and ignore the increasingly desperate attempts by the MPF to whitewash repeated cases of misconduct by its members.
Who will police the police?
Just days ago, someone shared this footage on Twitter:
— Boots On The Ground News! (@bearwitness2019) April 12, 2021
Should people not share this kind of footage? The MPF thinks not. But the problem with its position is twofold.
Firstly, the MPF seems to believe that its officers are beyond public reproach. That or they just know how bad these incidents look and want to avoid the public holding them to account for their actions.
But secondly, it thinks that the reason for its officers engaging with the victims in these videos is correct in the first place. For example, Colaço is clearly the victim of systemic, institutionalised police racism. Yet the MPF claims its officers are the victims.
This skewing of the narrative is endemic of the current approach to policing. It ties into the contentious Police Bill. And it also shows the creeping authoritarianism that pervades the police and their bosses in government.
For decades, Europe has poured millions of tons of its trash into incinerators each year, often under the green-sounding label “waste to energy.” Now, concerns about incineration’s outsized carbon footprint and fears it may undermine recycling are prompting European Union officials to ease their long-standing embrace of a technology that once seemed like an appealing way to make waste disappear.
The EU is in the process of cutting off funding for new incinerators, but there’s little sign most existing ones —currently consuming 27 percent of the bloc’s municipal waste — will close any time soon. And, even without EU financial support, new plants are in the works, many in southern and eastern European countries that have historically incinerated less than long-standing waste-to-energy proponents such as Germany, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian nations. Meanwhile, across the English Channel, post-Brexit Britain is charging ahead with proposals for dozens of new garbage-burning projects.
Without a more decisive change of course, critics argue, that adds up to an existential threat both to Europe’s promise to slash carbon emissions to net-zero by midcentury and its dreams of a “circular economy” in which reuse and recycling largely take the place of waste disposal.
“Burning plastic in a climate emergency, that’s insane,” said Georgia Elliott-Smith, an environmental engineer and Extinction Rebellion activist who is suing the British government over its decision to exclude incinerators from its new emissions trading system. Plastic, hard to recycle and ubiquitous in garbage, is made from fossil fuel derivatives and emits carbon dioxide when burned, accounting for a substantial chunk of incineration’s climate damage.
In a case scheduled to be heard in the High Court this month, Elliott-Smith contends Britain violated its Paris Agreement commitments by omitting the waste-to-energy sector from the market it created when it left the European greenhouse gas emissions trading system as part of its divorce from the E.U. While she also argues the new system is too weak to shrink Britain’s carbon footprint, including incinerators could, in principle, put a cost on their emissions.
Sinking billions of pounds into new incinerators now could lock Britain into decades of garbage-burning and make it harder for cash-strapped local authorities to boost recycling and composting rates, she said. The country already burns nearly 45 percent of its waste — more than it recycles, the Channel 4 show Dispatches recently reported. “The way incineration works, it skews the economics of waste by its very existence,” Elliott-Smith said. “Once you build the beast, you’ve got to keep feeding it.”
Worries that incinerators sicken those who live near them — disproportionately poor, and people of color — have long dogged the industry. Wealthy nations such as Sweden and Denmark, which rely heavily on waste-to-energy plants, say their sophisticated emissions treatment systems mean such concerns are misplaced. But critics note many nations lack the resources for the best pollution-control systems. Dangerous emissions such as dioxin and particulate matter sometimes go unreported, and enforcement is often porous, environmentalists say.
The climate concerns are newer, crystallized in a report the consulting firm Eunomia produced for ClientEarth, an advocacy group. It found that British incinerators’ power generation was more carbon-intensive than electricity from natural gas, and second only to coal. Overall, European incinerators pumped out an estimated 95 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, about 2 percent of total emissions.
That footprint helped prompt EU officials to drop incineration from a draft of important green investment guidelines, known as the “sustainable finance taxonomy,” expected to be formally adopted this month. Not only can trash-burning plants no longer get subsidies designated for environmentally beneficial projects, they have also been cut off from other major EU funding streams. And the European Parliament has urged member nations to minimize incineration.
“It looks like things are really changing in Brussels,” said Janek Vähk, a coordinator at Zero Waste Europe, a network of advocacy groups. Leaders, in his view, have “started understanding that incineration is a big source of greenhouse gases.”
For its part, the industry says it is unfair to compare its carbon emissions directly with those of plants whose main function is to generate power. “The primary reason why we exist is for waste treatment, not energy production,” said Agnė Razgaitytė, a spokeswoman for the Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants, or CEWEP, an industry group. “So it’s not exactly comparable in the same way.”
Without incineration, she said, landfill costs tend to rise, increasing the danger of European trash leaving the continent, and ultimately being burned in uncontrolled settings or littering beaches and waterways. And landfills have their own climate impact — any organic waste in them generates the potent greenhouse gas methane as it decays. What’s more, incinerator operators salvage metals from the ash left over after burning, allowing their reuse.
“We’re at home in the circular economy,” Razgaitytė said. “We do give value to the waste that otherwise would be just lost.” No matter how much is recycled and composted, she added, there will always be something left over: “I don’t think the waste-to-energy sector as such is going out of business any time soon.”
The EU’s shift comes after a building spree that doubled EU countries’ municipal waste incineration between 1995 and 2019, to 60 million tons annually. Such plants now provide power to 18 million Europeans and heat to 15 million, the industry says.
Individual countries remain free to fund and commission new incinerators. Those plants still make money from waste-disposal fees and by selling electricity and, in some places, heat. In some countries, operators can still claim subsidies designed to support renewable energy, as long as they burn waste that has been collected in separate streams so recyclable or compostable material is not incinerated.
Demonstrators protest the continued operation of the incinerator in Edmonton in north London.
Stop the Edmonton Incinerator
What’s more, Vähk warned, the EU’s aim for countries to landfill no more than 10 percent of municipal waste by 2035 will unintentionally bolster incinerators’ appeal. “There’s a lot of pressure on minimizing landfill,” he said. That’s worrying, “because we don’t want to move from landfilling to incineration.”
It all comes as the EU is pushing to reduce waste, particularly plastic, by ratcheting up targets for composting and recycling, mandating that plastic bottles contain 30 percent recycled content by 2030, and banning — as of this July — single-use items such as cutlery, cups, and stirrers. The EU has also adopted a new “circular economy” plan that aims in the longer term to encourage better product design so reuse and recycling are easier.
Continued incineration, critics argue, could threaten those goals. Once built, they say, incinerators cannibalize recycling, because municipal governments are often locked in by contracts that make it cheaper to get their rubbish burned than to sort it for recyclers.
One nation now grappling with the legacy of its long embrace of incineration is Denmark. The country, one of Europe’s biggest waste producers, built so many incinerators that by 2018 it was importing a million tons of trash. The plants generate 5 percent of the country’s electricity and nearly a quarter of the heat in the local networks, known as district heating systems, said Mads Jakobsen, chairman of the Danish Waste Association, which represents municipal authorities and waste companies.
Pushing to meet ambitious carbon-cutting goals, Danish lawmakers agreed last year to shrink incineration capacity by 30 percent in a decade, with the closure of seven incinerators, while dramatically expanding recycling. “It’s time to stop importing plastic waste from abroad to fill empty incinerators and burn it to the detriment of the climate,” said Dan Jørgensen, the country’s climate minister.
But in focusing only on Denmark’s own carbon footprint, Jakobsen said, the country’s politicians had failed to consider what would happen to the waste Denmark turns away. And with loan repayments still due on many plants, he said, “I’m also concerned about the stranded costs. Who’s going to answer for those costs? Will it be the citizens in my municipality?”
Two regions of Belgium are also seeking to reduce incineration capacity. But few other parts of Europe are following suit. Indeed, some countries are planning new plants. Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania landfill most of their waste, and will probably need more incineration capacity, said Razgaitytė. Italy and Spain are among the others that may also build new plants, she said.
In central and eastern Europe, “there is very strong pressure and a lucrative market for new incinerators,” said Paweł Głuszyński, of the Society for Earth, a Polish advocacy group. Poland has about nine incinerators now, plus a similar number of cement plants that use processed waste as fuel, he said. Around 70 new projects are seeking approval, he said, including proposals to convert old coal plants to burn garbage instead. Poor enforcement in Poland means emissions of toxins such as dioxins and furans often reach hazardous levels, Głuszyński said, but tightening EU rules may help,
Britain, too, seems intent on pushing ahead with an expansion of burning, with dozens of new projects under consideration. Collectively, they would double current incineration capacity.
There are hints, though, that some of what’s on the drawing board may not materialize. Wales said last month it would put a moratorium on large new waste-to-energy plants, and consider an incineration tax. In February, Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s secretary for business, energy and industrial strategy, refused an application for a new incinerator in Kent, east of London, although he allowed expansion of an existing plant. In his decision, he said the project could hamper local recycling, reasoning that encouraged incinerator opponents.
In Cambridgeshire, the leafy, well-off home of the University of Cambridge, plans for another plant stalled in the face of vocal opposition from residents and local politicians. But such decisions can raise uncomfortable questions. The North London Waste Authority, which manages waste for seven boroughs in the capital, plans to expand, and extend the life of, an aging incinerator in the neighborhood of Edmonton, which has a large Black and immigrant population and is one of the country’s lowest-income areas.
“Why is (incineration) not good enough for Cambridgeshire, but it’s good enough for Edmonton, which is poor, racially diverse and already suffers with a lot of pollution?” asked Delia Mattis, an activist with the local Black Lives Matter group. “There’s racism in the planning.” Other groups, including Stop the Edmonton Incinerator Now, are also working to close the facility, which had been nearing the end of its life before the overhaul was proposed.
The neighborhood — where men’s life expectancy is 8.8 years shorter, and women’s 5.7 years shorter, than in wealthier parts of its borough — “is like a nonstop conveyor belt of trucks” going to and from the incinerator, Mattis said.
A report from Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative arm, found British incinerators are three times more likely to be sited in the poorest and most racially mixed areas as in the wealthiest, whitest ones.
Whatever countries decide on incineration, cutting waste will also require addressing its source, by pushing producers to make less throwaway packaging, and longer-lasting goods, said Jakobsen, the Danish waste association official. “Better design, better production, more recyclable material,” he said. “That’s a huge task that has not been fully addressed.”
For decades, Europe has poured millions of tons of its trash into incinerators each year, often under the green-sounding label “waste to energy.” Now, concerns about incineration’s outsized carbon footprint and fears it may undermine recycling are prompting European Union officials to ease their long-standing embrace of a technology that once seemed like an appealing way to make waste disappear.
The EU is in the process of cutting off funding for new incinerators, but there’s little sign most existing ones —currently consuming 27 percent of the bloc’s municipal waste — will close any time soon. And, even without EU financial support, new plants are in the works, many in southern and eastern European countries that have historically incinerated less than long-standing waste-to-energy proponents such as Germany, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian nations. Meanwhile, across the English Channel, post-Brexit Britain is charging ahead with proposals for dozens of new garbage-burning projects.
Without a more decisive change of course, critics argue, that adds up to an existential threat both to Europe’s promise to slash carbon emissions to net-zero by midcentury and its dreams of a “circular economy” in which reuse and recycling largely take the place of waste disposal.
“Burning plastic in a climate emergency, that’s insane,” said Georgia Elliott-Smith, an environmental engineer and Extinction Rebellion activist who is suing the British government over its decision to exclude incinerators from its new emissions trading system. Plastic, hard to recycle and ubiquitous in garbage, is made from fossil fuel derivatives and emits carbon dioxide when burned, accounting for a substantial chunk of incineration’s climate damage.
In a case scheduled to be heard in the High Court this month, Elliott-Smith contends Britain violated its Paris Agreement commitments by omitting the waste-to-energy sector from the market it created when it left the European greenhouse gas emissions trading system as part of its divorce from the E.U. While she also argues the new system is too weak to shrink Britain’s carbon footprint, including incinerators could, in principle, put a cost on their emissions.
Sinking billions of pounds into new incinerators now could lock Britain into decades of garbage-burning and make it harder for cash-strapped local authorities to boost recycling and composting rates, she said. The country already burns nearly 45 percent of its waste — more than it recycles, the Channel 4 show Dispatches recently reported. “The way incineration works, it skews the economics of waste by its very existence,” Elliott-Smith said. “Once you build the beast, you’ve got to keep feeding it.”
Worries that incinerators sicken those who live near them — disproportionately poor, and people of color — have long dogged the industry. Wealthy nations such as Sweden and Denmark, which rely heavily on waste-to-energy plants, say their sophisticated emissions treatment systems mean such concerns are misplaced. But critics note many nations lack the resources for the best pollution-control systems. Dangerous emissions such as dioxin and particulate matter sometimes go unreported, and enforcement is often porous, environmentalists say.
The climate concerns are newer, crystallized in a report the consulting firm Eunomia produced for ClientEarth, an advocacy group. It found that British incinerators’ power generation was more carbon-intensive than electricity from natural gas, and second only to coal. Overall, European incinerators pumped out an estimated 95 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, about 2 percent of total emissions.
That footprint helped prompt EU officials to drop incineration from a draft of important green investment guidelines, known as the “sustainable finance taxonomy,” expected to be formally adopted this month. Not only can trash-burning plants no longer get subsidies designated for environmentally beneficial projects, they have also been cut off from other major EU funding streams. And the European Parliament has urged member nations to minimize incineration.
“It looks like things are really changing in Brussels,” said Janek Vähk, a coordinator at Zero Waste Europe, a network of advocacy groups. Leaders, in his view, have “started understanding that incineration is a big source of greenhouse gases.”
For its part, the industry says it is unfair to compare its carbon emissions directly with those of plants whose main function is to generate power. “The primary reason why we exist is for waste treatment, not energy production,” said Agnė Razgaitytė, a spokeswoman for the Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants, or CEWEP, an industry group. “So it’s not exactly comparable in the same way.”
Without incineration, she said, landfill costs tend to rise, increasing the danger of European trash leaving the continent, and ultimately being burned in uncontrolled settings or littering beaches and waterways. And landfills have their own climate impact — any organic waste in them generates the potent greenhouse gas methane as it decays. What’s more, incinerator operators salvage metals from the ash left over after burning, allowing their reuse.
“We’re at home in the circular economy,” Razgaitytė said. “We do give value to the waste that otherwise would be just lost.” No matter how much is recycled and composted, she added, there will always be something left over: “I don’t think the waste-to-energy sector as such is going out of business any time soon.”
The EU’s shift comes after a building spree that doubled EU countries’ municipal waste incineration between 1995 and 2019, to 60 million tons annually. Such plants now provide power to 18 million Europeans and heat to 15 million, the industry says.
Individual countries remain free to fund and commission new incinerators. Those plants still make money from waste-disposal fees and by selling electricity and, in some places, heat. In some countries, operators can still claim subsidies designed to support renewable energy, as long as they burn waste that has been collected in separate streams so recyclable or compostable material is not incinerated.
Demonstrators protest the continued operation of the incinerator in Edmonton in north London.
Stop the Edmonton Incinerator
What’s more, Vähk warned, the EU’s aim for countries to landfill no more than 10 percent of municipal waste by 2035 will unintentionally bolster incinerators’ appeal. “There’s a lot of pressure on minimizing landfill,” he said. That’s worrying, “because we don’t want to move from landfilling to incineration.”
It all comes as the EU is pushing to reduce waste, particularly plastic, by ratcheting up targets for composting and recycling, mandating that plastic bottles contain 30 percent recycled content by 2030, and banning — as of this July — single-use items such as cutlery, cups, and stirrers. The EU has also adopted a new “circular economy” plan that aims in the longer term to encourage better product design so reuse and recycling are easier.
Continued incineration, critics argue, could threaten those goals. Once built, they say, incinerators cannibalize recycling, because municipal governments are often locked in by contracts that make it cheaper to get their rubbish burned than to sort it for recyclers.
One nation now grappling with the legacy of its long embrace of incineration is Denmark. The country, one of Europe’s biggest waste producers, built so many incinerators that by 2018 it was importing a million tons of trash. The plants generate 5 percent of the country’s electricity and nearly a quarter of the heat in the local networks, known as district heating systems, said Mads Jakobsen, chairman of the Danish Waste Association, which represents municipal authorities and waste companies.
Pushing to meet ambitious carbon-cutting goals, Danish lawmakers agreed last year to shrink incineration capacity by 30 percent in a decade, with the closure of seven incinerators, while dramatically expanding recycling. “It’s time to stop importing plastic waste from abroad to fill empty incinerators and burn it to the detriment of the climate,” said Dan Jørgensen, the country’s climate minister.
But in focusing only on Denmark’s own carbon footprint, Jakobsen said, the country’s politicians had failed to consider what would happen to the waste Denmark turns away. And with loan repayments still due on many plants, he said, “I’m also concerned about the stranded costs. Who’s going to answer for those costs? Will it be the citizens in my municipality?”
Two regions of Belgium are also seeking to reduce incineration capacity. But few other parts of Europe are following suit. Indeed, some countries are planning new plants. Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania landfill most of their waste, and will probably need more incineration capacity, said Razgaitytė. Italy and Spain are among the others that may also build new plants, she said.
In central and eastern Europe, “there is very strong pressure and a lucrative market for new incinerators,” said Paweł Głuszyński, of the Society for Earth, a Polish advocacy group. Poland has about nine incinerators now, plus a similar number of cement plants that use processed waste as fuel, he said. Around 70 new projects are seeking approval, he said, including proposals to convert old coal plants to burn garbage instead. Poor enforcement in Poland means emissions of toxins such as dioxins and furans often reach hazardous levels, Głuszyński said, but tightening EU rules may help,
Britain, too, seems intent on pushing ahead with an expansion of burning, with dozens of new projects under consideration. Collectively, they would double current incineration capacity.
There are hints, though, that some of what’s on the drawing board may not materialize. Wales said last month it would put a moratorium on large new waste-to-energy plants, and consider an incineration tax. In February, Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s secretary for business, energy and industrial strategy, refused an application for a new incinerator in Kent, east of London, although he allowed expansion of an existing plant. In his decision, he said the project could hamper local recycling, reasoning that encouraged incinerator opponents.
In Cambridgeshire, the leafy, well-off home of the University of Cambridge, plans for another plant stalled in the face of vocal opposition from residents and local politicians. But such decisions can raise uncomfortable questions. The North London Waste Authority, which manages waste for seven boroughs in the capital, plans to expand, and extend the life of, an aging incinerator in the neighborhood of Edmonton, which has a large Black and immigrant population and is one of the country’s lowest-income areas.
“Why is (incineration) not good enough for Cambridgeshire, but it’s good enough for Edmonton, which is poor, racially diverse and already suffers with a lot of pollution?” asked Delia Mattis, an activist with the local Black Lives Matter group. “There’s racism in the planning.” Other groups, including Stop the Edmonton Incinerator Now, are also working to close the facility, which had been nearing the end of its life before the overhaul was proposed.
The neighborhood — where men’s life expectancy is 8.8 years shorter, and women’s 5.7 years shorter, than in wealthier parts of its borough — “is like a nonstop conveyor belt of trucks” going to and from the incinerator, Mattis said.
A report from Unearthed, Greenpeace’s investigative arm, found British incinerators are three times more likely to be sited in the poorest and most racially mixed areas as in the wealthiest, whitest ones.
Whatever countries decide on incineration, cutting waste will also require addressing its source, by pushing producers to make less throwaway packaging, and longer-lasting goods, said Jakobsen, the Danish waste association official. “Better design, better production, more recyclable material,” he said. “That’s a huge task that has not been fully addressed.”
On 10 April 1981, young Brixton residents rose up in response to police oppression, entrenched inequality, and marginalisation. The unrest soon spread to urban centres across the UK.
The Scarman Report went some way to identifying the root causes of the rebellions. But successive governments have failed to deal with these issues, and have exacerbated them in many cases. 40 years of cuts and privatisation, an increasingly fascist state, and a devastating pandemic have resulted in a frustrated, volatile population with little to lose. If plans for the proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill go ahead, we could see history repeat itself.
The battle for Brixton
In 1981, the New Cross fire exacerbated community mistrust of the police. The arson attack – which killed 13 young Black people – was one of a series of racist attacks in the area and across Britain. Despite this, the police dismissed claims that the fire was an act of racial violence. After years of marginalisation, heavy-handed policing, and alienation, the community rose up on 2 March 1981, the Black People’s Day of Action. An estimated 20k people marched through London to demonstrate against Britain’s indifferent police, media, and government.
Met Police’s ‘Operation Swamp ’81‘ further aggravated tensions in Brixton. The force used the ‘sus laws’ to harass young Black men in the area. These were laws which increased police powers to stop, search, and arrest anyone deemed ‘suspicious’. In early April 1981, plainclothes officers stopped and searched nearly 950 people in 5 days, often without reason. Following the stabbing of a young Black man, and increased police presence in the area on 10 April 1981, young people in Brixton rose up. The unrest in Brixton lasted for two days, but spread to urban centres across Britain. Namely Moss Side (Manchester), Toxteth (Liverpool), and St Paul’s (Bristol).
“We’re just as powerless”
Many of these uprisings were sparked by attempts to challenge arrests, raids, and assaults on young Black people. Hundreds were injured. The Runnymede Trust highlights that the Scarman Report – commissioned in response to the urban rebellions – “stressed the importance of tackling racial disadvantage and racial discrimination”. Black Past adds that the report “blamed the police for escalating the tensions”.
Tony Cealy, who took part in the uprising as a 15-year-old, told theVoice:
I suppose, looking back now it was an opportunity to tell the British state that we had had enough of being victimised by the police. It was an opportunity to fight back and let people know that enough was enough.
Reflecting on the rebellion’s legacy, he added:
We’re just as powerless as we were during the 1981 uprisings.
Lessons learned
Since the 1981 urban rebellions shook the nation, Britain has seen numerous major uprisings. These include the 1991 Handsworth uprising, the 2001 race riots in Bradford, and the 2011 Tottenham uprising following the police shooting of Mark Duggan. While varying in scale, location, and demographics, the causes of each violent uprising were essentially the same. Entrenched inequality, marginalisation, and unjust, heavy-handed policing.
And now the government plans to thrust the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill upon us. The draconian bill seeks to further increase police powers and criminalise vast swathes of the population. This includes children and young people, Traveller communities, rough sleepers, and anyone who dares to publicly protest against the encroaching police state. The breadth of the proposed bill’s impact is reflected in the diverse range of organisations that have come together to form a “massive coalition” to oppose it. Meanwhile, the police have met peaceful ‘Kill the Bill’ protesters with brutality, while the mainstream media has told a different story.
If the government enshrines its draconian bill in law, rather than supporting communities and dealing with poverty, trauma, and unmet needs, it’s likely that we’ll see yet another long, hot summer of violent discontent.
Vigils are to be held this weekend to mark the second anniversary of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being detained in prison after being dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Supporters demanding his release will join events on Sunday outside the embassy, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, and at Belmarsh prison in London where he is being held.
Assange lived inside the embassy for several years before being forcibly removed and arrested by police on 11 April 2019.
A bid by the United States to extradite him was rejected at Westminster Magistrates’ Court earlier this year but he has remained in prison until the outcome of an appeal.
WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson told the PA news agency that Assange’s continued imprisonment was an “outrage and a travesty of justice”.
He said: “April 11 marks two years since one of the world’s most important journalists was silenced when Metropolitan Police officers stormed into the Ecuadorian embassy and subsequently arrested and imprisoned Julian Assange on the United States’ behalf.
“It has now been two years of incarceration, isolation and psychological torture, all for exposing war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the same journalism for which Julian has been applauded all over the world for and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
“It’s long past time for this injustice to end and we continue to appeal to the United States and the Department of Justice to drop the appeal and all the charges against Julian.
“In January, a judge in London ruled that Julian should not be extradited and so we are today calling for him to be released from Belmarsh prison and be a free man to be able to spend his time with his young family.”
Hrafnsson added that dozens of human rights and media organisations are supporting the case for Assange to be freed, saying: “This gross injustice must come to an end.”
It was recently revealed that Pope Francis sent a personal message to Assange, whose partner Stella Moris said: “After a hard night, Julian woke up this morning to a kind, personal message from Pope Francis @pontifex delivered to his cell door by the prison priest.”
However, one disturbing element of the bill seems to have gone under the radar – government plans for ‘secure schools’. Concerned by this, the Coalition for Anti-Racist Educators (CARE) took to social media to shed light on what the proposed draconian bill will mean for youth ‘justice’.
The bill proposes to make setting up and running a secure school – in which children and young people will be held captive – a “charitable activity”. It also proposes harsher sentencing and additional surveillance of children and young people who are in trouble with the law.
What are secure schools?
Secure schools are part of the government’s plan to reform the UK’s youth justice system. Autonomous trusts will run these ‘schools’. The Ministry of Justice will have oversight, not the Department for Education. If implemented, the bill will “ensure that operating a secure school can be a charitable activity”, and encourage new “charitable” providers to expand the youth carceral state. The government claims that “secure school providers will take a child-focused and trauma-informed approach to youth custody”.
CARE highlighted that these plans will criminalise children and fail to deal with the root causes of their trauma. It also set out that secure schools will essentially be “a rebranded version of Young Offenders’ Institutions”:
Secure schools have been snuck into the policing bill… Yet another sinister way in which the government would rather pump money into locking people up, in this case children, instead of dealing with systemic social issues that cause trauma in the first place #KilltheBillpic.twitter.com/72xTs2Gpky
A 'trauma' lens invites us to look at structural inequalities, inequity and social structures. A 'mental health' lens locates the problem within the individual as something that sits inside them, that the individual has. This narrative is everywhere I look. This must be resisted.
Oasis Charitable Trust’s new secure school will be situated where the Medway secure training centre once stood. The former centre has a long history of harrowing allegations of child abuse and mistreatment which were ignored for years. Raising concerns about the government’s focus on autonomy in its plans for secure schools, children’s rights charity Article 39 said:
Abuse suffered by children in secure training centres was *not* due to G4S & Serco managers having too little freedom. Yet autonomy is "key to the vision" for secure 16-19 academies (secure schools rebrand). This from Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Bill Explanatory Notes pic.twitter.com/EpdTAWLK2X
CARE highlighted that Oasis academies – predominantly based in “diverse” and “socio-economically deprived” areas – have one of the highest permanent school exclusion rates in the country. It added:
As Zoe Luba wrote in 2020, “Secure Schools are just one element of racial capitalism, locking up Black and other kids of color at vastly disproportionate rates.”[6]
Quoting Zahra Bei’s response to the government awarding Oasis Charity Trust with the contract to run the UK’s first secure school in 2019, Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy tweeted:
“the policy of rebranding youth jails as 'secure schools' provides a thinly veiled disguise for what in essence marks the start of the biggest children’s prison expansion programme in Britain.”
— Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (@BellRibeiroAddy) April 5, 2021
Visualising the school-to-prison pipeline that plans for secure schools will help streamline, Kids of Colour director Roxy Legane shared:
Viewed as problem non issue behaviour hub definitely now viewed as a problem more hub time more hub than class time, what a pain for us exclude them OH! Medway secure [prison] school 2022, thanks Oasis! FFS they’re old now prison
Other changes to youth justice in the proposed bill include harsher sentences and further surveillance of children and young people who are in trouble with the law. And it will likely be disproportionately used against children and young people who are already over-policed and under-protected. Namely children from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds, those eligible for free school meals, and children with special educational needs.
The government’s proposition to lock up children in the name of “charity” is yet another reason why we must continue to fiercely fight against the draconian bill.
Deliveroo workers have gone on strike, just as the company joined the stock market. It was, of course, a game of two halves: workers fighting for rights; fat cat investors attempting to make a killing.
Everybody out… on your bikes
Deliveroo workers held protests in cities across the UK: from London, York and Sheffield via Reading and Wolverhampton. The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) is repping the Deliveroo workers. It noted a report which stated:
major health and safety concerns including but not limited to poor COVID-19 protections. It also highlights pay well below minimum wage, with many riders earning as little as £2 per hour and points to the rise in litigation and industrial action against the company.
Share this so it can be remembered how companies like Deliveroo make money through the exploitation of their workers. I hope their stock market flotation sinks. pic.twitter.com/saolEvDTXw
IWGB president Alex Marshall, who is a former bicycle courier, said:
Deliveroo presents a false choice between flexibility and basic rights but the Uber ruling showed that, here as well as abroad, workers can have both.
That is the least they deserve and what the public expects for our frontline workers.
But so far, Deliveroo itself has been scornful. It’s dismissed workers’ concerns. It called IWGB a “self-appointed union”. And it said that the majority of its workers were “happy”. Of course, it’s of little wonder the company was so barbed about its striking workers. Because its trading on the stock market hasn’t gone according to plan.
with… [Deliveroo’s] Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange.
That is, the company was open to anyone buying its shares for the first time. Press Association (PA) reported that Deliveroo saw shares increase by more than 3% to 290p in early trading on Wednesday, before edging back slightly.
But as PA noted, shares are still around 28% below their launch price of 390p per share, which would have valued the business at £7.6bn. As of midday on Wednesday, the company had a market value of around £5.3bn.
Of course, it’s not worker’s pay and conditions that’s primarily spooking investors.
Worker’s rights? Who cares?
PA said that leading fund managers largely said that the primary cause of their caution was its shareholder structure, which will give significant power to its founder Will Shu in shareholder votes.
Surprise, surprise. Who cares about workers’ rights when there’s money to be made? But it doesn’t have to be this way. As IWGB said:
The company’s main competitor Just Eat already declared its intention to abandon the gig economy model of ‘bogus self-employment.’ Other courier corporations [like Uber] have been compelled to do so by courts in the UK and victories against Deliveroo are being won in courts abroad.
So, will Deliveroo back down? Or is the power of the shareholders too strong? Given its less-than inspiring stock market performance, Deliveroo may well make changes to how it operates in a bid to earn more money. But don’t immediately expect workers’ rights to be part of this.
Additional reporting and featured image via Press Association
This week on CounterSpin: It’s not hard to see—indeed, it’s hard not to see—how the initial Minneapolis police department 
Also on the show: After the Supreme Court ruled last summer that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status, the Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin 
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