Line of succession

March 19th, 2024

by JOHN SIDEL

Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto visits the grave of his father, who was a prominent economist IMAGE/Tatan Syuflana/AP Photo

This year, elections across the world are offering a stark reminder that voters can expect very little from liberal democracy, even under conditions of ‘free and fair’ competition. It’s easy to bemoan the rigged results in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Russia, or the advantages of incumbency for the BJP in India and the ANC in South Africa. But the spectacle of a Biden-Trump rematch in the US, plus the dismal expectations for a Starmer government in the UK, suggest that problems with contemporary electoral systems are not confined to repressive or clientelist regimes. In Indonesia, the third most populous – and largest majority-Muslim – democracy in the world, a notoriously sinister and volatile figure is now set to take office. Prabowo Subianto, elected on 14 February, is an ex-son-in-law of the long-time military dictator Suharto, a former Army general dishonourably discharged after allegedly overseeing the kidnap and torture of dissidents, and a politician who has exploited ethnic and religious tensions and is now threatening to return the country to authoritarian rule.

Prabowo ran in the previous two elections and lost both times to Joko Widodo (‘Jokowi’). Having been co-opted as Jokowi’s Defence Minister in 2019, he stood again in 2024 with the president’s son Gibran Rakabuming Raka as his running mate – a clear sign that his candidacy had been blessed by the incumbent. Jokowi’s tacit endorsement – as well as the bullying, bribery and bandwagoning of local officials to mobilize support – may help to explain why Prabowo’s 58% vote share on election day was nearly ten percentage points above pre-election polls. The scale of his victory obviated the need for a run-off against his two opponents, former Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, who picked up 24%, and Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowo, who won only 17%. Yet to fully grasp why Indonesians have anointed this grotesque figure, we must take a closer look at the country’s political system.

Compared to earlier iterations of democracy, the parameters of Indonesian politics have been set very narrowly since the return to competitive elections in 1999. During the early post-war struggle for independence, the beleaguered Republik was led by a succession of fractious multi-party governments. Following emancipation from Dutch rule, it saw a short-lived parliamentarist experiment, with four parties dominating the 1955 elections: Partai Nasionalis Indonesia (22%), Masyumi (21%), Nahdlatul Ulama (18%), and Partai Komunis Indonesia (16%). Each was a mass organization with its own regional and sociological strengths and onderbouw of civil society groups. At this time the PKI was steadily building power among the electorate and within the state. Its labour federation, peasant union, women’s and youth groups – along with its cadre of artists and intellectuals and its numerous party publications – made it a formidable presence in public life and political discourse: probably the largest legal, above-ground Communist Party outside the Soviet Union and the PRC.

New Left Review for more

Why are Balochistan’s political parties up in arms?

March 19th, 2024

by KIYYA BALOCH

The controversial election results and the manner in which they have come about have sparked widespread protests across the province.

Balochistan — Pakistan’s largest province by land area as well the most mineral-rich — has nearly been at a standstill for around three weeks as thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, intermittently blocking main highways, cities, and roads since the February 8 general elections.

Almost every major city and town in the province — from the Makran coast near the Iranian border to Chaman next to Afghanistan — has witnessed demonstrations and political rallies as Baloch and Pashtun ethno-nationalist parties, along with minority Hazaras, have taken to the streets, decrying what they term as “stealing the public mandate”.

But this is probably news to you. For even as the fire rages across the province, there has been little mention of it in the mainstream media, whose entire focus has been the election of the Punjab chief minister, the fate of the independents backed by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), and the wheelings and dealings of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as they join hands to form a coalition government in the Centre yet again.

This is hardly surprising, though, considering Balochistan — the site of a violent separatist insurgency, the gateway to the much-touted China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and home to Reko Diq, one of the largest copper and gold reserves in the world — rarely ever features in the mainstream narrative, unless there is a violent episode.

Surprising results

To be fair, there were plenty of incidents of violence in the run-up to the elections, which did receive some airtime on TV channels and a few news stories here and there on digital and print publications. Yet, what has happened since February 8 belies a different kind of violence — candidates declared victorious suddenly found themselves on the losing side within a few hours or even the following day, prominent leaders discovered they had been relegated to lower positions in their strongholds, while upstarts saw remarkable success and worst of all, there were no answers forthcoming on how these results had changed overnight.

Take the Hazara Democratic Party, for example, whose candidates — both prominent leaders, its chairman Abdul Khaliq Hazara and Qadir Ali Nayal — had initially been declared victorious, but ultimately ended up losing their seats in the community’s traditional stronghold to little-known outsiders. Then there is Dr Abdul Malik Baloch, who was initially winning the NA-259 seat with some margin, before finding out that he had lost once the final results were revealed. There was also Akhtar Jan Mengal, whose results from NA-261 Kalat were revised repeatedly, but ultimately resulted in his victory.

Dawn for more

Elite fear of the public: Ukraine, Gaza and Assange

March 19th, 2024

by DAVID CROMWELL

IMAGE/ Stella Assange Twitter

It is a historical fact that powerful elites do not wish to be diverted from pursuing their selfish interests by the public. Minimal, unthreatening expressions of dissent may be tolerated in ostensible ‘democracies’. But public opinion needs to be managed, manipulated or, if necessary, simply ignored.

After all, as Noam Chomsky has said, real ‘democracy is a threat to any power system’. He noted that Edward Bernays, one of the founders and leading figures of the huge public relations industry:

‘reminded his colleagues that with “universal suffrage and universal schooling… even the bourgeoisie stood in fear of the common people. For the masses promised to become king.” That unfortunate tendency could be contained and reversed, he urged, by new methods of “propaganda” that could be used by “intelligent minorities” to “[regiment] the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers.”’

(Preface to ‘The Myth of the Liberal Media’, Edward S. Herman, Peter Lang Publishing, 1999, pp. x-xi)

Elite shaping of public opinion is not 100 per cent foolproof, of course, but it is often highly effective. As Peter Beattie, an assistant professor in political economy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, observed:

‘While the media is far from a brainwashing “influencing machine” or a hypodermic needle capable of injecting ideas into our minds, it is nonetheless the greatest influence on public opinion, as it is the conduit through which the building blocks of public opinion are transported.’

(Beattie, ‘Social Evolution, Political Psychology, and the Media in Democracy: The Invisible Hand in the U.S. Marketplace of Ideas’, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, p. 8)

In fact, one could argue that the media is ‘a brainwashing “influencing machine”’, as demonstrated, for example, by the power and success of the propaganda blitz against Jeremy Corbyn, and the deliberate conflation of antisemitism with anti-Zionism in establishment attempts to smear critics of Israel. However, if public opinion remains stubbornly immune from establishment pressure, it can simply be rejected or overridden.

Consider a YouGov poll last October showing that 66 per cent of the British public support reinstating public ownership of energy companies. Likewise, a 2022 survey by campaign group We Own It revealed that a majority want to see public ownership of utilities such as energy and water.

We Own It director Cat Hobbs said:

‘Privatisation has failed for nearly 40 years. Politicians can’t ignore the truth any longer: these monopolies are a cash cow for shareholders and we need to take them back.

‘We need energy companies that don’t rip us off, public transport that works for passengers and water companies that don’t pour sewage into our rivers.’

The poll also showed very strong support for public ownership of buses, the railways, the National Health Service and Royal Mail. These findings were echoed in an Ipsos poll last August.

Z Network for more

Colonialism, Occupation & Apartheid: African Countries See “Shared Experiences” with Palestinians

March 18th, 2024

DEMOCRACY NOW

VIDEO/Democracy Now/Youtube

Leaders at this year’s African Union summit have condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza and called for its immediate end. Kenyan writer and political analyst Nanjala Nyabola explains the long history of African solidarity with Palestine, continuing with today’s efforts to end the destruction of Gaza. African countries “see really an identical experience between Palestinian occupation and what they have endured under colonization,” says Nyabola. “It’s a question of history. It’s a question of solidarity. It’s a question of shared experiences of all of these systemic types of violence.”

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Leaders at this year’s African Union Summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa have condemned Israel’s assault on Gaza and called for its immediate end. The chair of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, on Saturday said Israel’s offensive was the, quote, “most flagrant” violation of international humanitarian law, and accused Israel of having, quote, “exterminated” Gaza’s residents. Meanwhile, Azali Assoumani, president of the Comoros and the outgoing chairperson of the African Union, praised the case brought by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice, where the court ruled there’s a plausible case that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. During last year’s AU Summit, an Israeli delegate was removed from the plenary hall amidst a disagreement over Israel’s observer status at the African Union.

For more, we’re joined by Nanjala Nyabola, a writer and political analyst from Kenya, joining us from London.

Thank you so much for being with us, Nanjala. If you can start off on Gaza, this meeting this past weekend in Ethiopia, where you even had Lula, the president of Brazil, coming to address the group and saying that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, whereupon Israel’s prime minister said that Lula is persona non grata in Israel? But talk about the significance of the meeting on Gaza, and then we’ll move on to other issues.

NANJALA NYABOLA: Sure. Thank you for having me, Amy.

I think it’s important to understand that the African Union, as a bloc, has been a consistent supporter of Palestinian rights since 1972, and arguably since 1948. Many of African nations see similarities between, and they see really an identical experience between, Palestinian occupation and what they have endured under colonization, and so there’s a lot of empathy there, and there’s a lot of resonance there.

It’s important, though, to distinguish the position of the African Union from the position of individual member states. So, while the union itself has been consistent and has always held the line that Palestinian independence was an integral part of the African Union’s foundational documents and foundational position in international relations, various African nations — because there is no impetus from the African Union for there to be always a single position within each country, various African nations do have different relationships with both Israel and Palestine. So, for example, while every single country in Africa except one recognizes the state of Palestine, the recognition of the state of Israel has varied. There was a time after that 1972 war where African nations wholesale declared that they would not recognize the state of Israel, but that has changed considerably.

Similarly, in relation to the African Union itself, Palestine has had — the Palestinian territories have had observer status at the African Union since 2013. And so, you mentioned how the Israeli representative to the African Union was asked to leave the meeting of the African Union in 2022. This is really because there’s been a lot of back-and-forth about whether or not the African Union, as a body, should recognize Israel as an observer. Observers do not get to vote, obviously, on various issues that are before the African Union, but they do get to participate in meetings, and they do get to contribute to conversations in some ways. And so it is an important thing to be an observer at the African Union, and Israel has made significant diplomat inroads in this regard. But the position of the African Union as a — which is the head of states — the meeting of the heads of states, is the most senior decision-making entity within the African Union, as opposed to the commission, which oversees the day-to-day running of the organization. The position of the African Union heads of states has always been that Israel did not have that observer status. And this was the back-and-forth that the commission had taken an action that the union itself had not endorsed. And this is why the Israeli representative was asked to leave.

Democracy Now for more

The economics teacher of the new generation: Cryptocurrency ideology

March 18th, 2024

by MEHMET OZBAGCI

Do you think that Recep Tayyip Erdogan—who has carried out the most massive privatizations in Turkey’s history, banned countless strikes, driven down working-class wages, and turned millions of refugees into providers of cheap labor under slavery-like conditions—could be a socialist?1 I am aware that this question sounds absurd, but unfortunately there is a reality even more absurd: For a significant segment of Turkish youth, the answer to this question is indisputably yes. In their eyes, Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party represent a socialist and even communist regime with Islamic tendencies.

The reasons attributed to Erdogan’s socialist character are wide-ranging: interest rates have been kept low at the expense of rising exchange rates to prevent the unemployment rate from going up before the general election; the minimum wage has been raised, even though it remains below the inflation rate; and the belief that the government excessively taxes capital, a belief completely contrary to reality. But even if the reasons vary, the fact they point to does not change. A part of the Turkish youth condemns and labels as socialist all economic policies that go beyond the neoliberal discourse or have the slightest possibility of benefiting the working class.

How did these young people—whose social practices are limited to the Internet because they have no money for a coffee with peers, who almost all live with their families because of impossible rents, who are either part of the unemployed majority or are exploited for long hours with wages that lose their real value day by day—become convinced that the source of their problems is “socialism” and “socialist policies”? Why do they adopt a market fundamentalism similar to the Austrian School economists who declare that even Milton Friedman is a socialist?

I think that the answer to these questions is less a result of Turkey’s current political, social, and economic structure and more a result of the global phenomenon of crypto currency. The widespread ownership of crypto currencies has created the grounds for a very reactionary economic understanding among broad social segments, especially among young people.

Financialization for Everyone!

The unofficial start of Turkey’s currency crisis in 2018 was a wake-up call from middle-class dreams for some segments of the working class: Consumerism, which was at the center of the artificial identity of the middle class, was becoming difficult to maintain. Not only did the Turkish lira lose its value day by day, reducing real working-class income, but cryptocurrencies, which had been a niche technology, also gained extraordinary value and garnered great interest.

The continuous depreciation of the local currency was leading not only investors, meaning crypto enthusiasts, but also ordinary Turkish citizens to turn to cryptocurrencies in order to preserve the value of their savings.2 In an environment where there was no regulation on cryptocurrencies and where the state supported nationalist-flavored speculative projects like Turkcoin, a new cryptocurrency exchange or project was announced almost every day.3

Monthly Review Online for more

Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination

March 18th, 2024

by RON JACOBS

Together with Palestine, the state of Kashmir is one of the longest existing political and territorial conflict remaining from the aftermath of the British Empire. Kashmir, together with its sister state of Jammu, were granted a quasi-autonomy at the end of British rule in the subcontinent. The status of the states was to be determined by a popular referendum, which has yet to occur. Arguably, the reason it has not occurred is because India fears it would lose any claim and the people of Jammu/Kashmir would vote for independence, while leaning toward Pakistani and its Muslim foundations. The conflicts between India and Pakistan over Kashmir has erupted into wars between Delhi and Islamabad at least twice. Furthermore, an intensification of Indian repression and military occupation led to an armed insurgency in 1989. Recently, India’s Hindu nationalist government overturned laws protecting the states’ autonomy when, according to the US-government-funded (and not a friend of liberation movements as a rule) Freedom House, “what had been the state of Jammu and Kashmir was reconstituted as two union territories under the direct control of the Indian central government. The move stripped residents of many of their previous political rights. Civil liberties have also been curtailed to quell ongoing public opposition to the reorganization. Indian security forces are frequently accused of human rights violations, but perpetrators are rarely punished.”

In essence, this move by the Indian regime made Kashmir and Jammu part of India, ignoring United Nations resolutions, centuries of history and, most importantly, the people living in those states. It is this history and the proclaimed desires of the majority of Kashmiris that inform a new book on the subject. Written by Dr. Farhan Mujahid Chak, the book titled Nuclear Flashpoint: The War Over Kashmir is a knowledgeable discussion of Kashmir’s history and a critical examination of India’s manipulation of that history to deny Kashmir’s liberation struggle.

The narrative provided by Chak, who also serves as the Secretary-General of Kashmir Civitas—an organization that exists to fight for Kashmiri self-determination, is a narrative that explains the religious, economic and political history of Kashmir over several centuries. It is a story that involves invasions, settlements, and political and financial deals between royals and conquerors. Likewise, it is a chronicle of Kashmir’s long tradition of resistance and struggle; a tradition that exists even today despite the presence of over 500,000 Indian troops that occupy much of the region. The harsh nature of the Indian military’s repression and occupation is a major reason why even a mainstream organization like the aforementioned Freedom House gave the country a rating of “not free.”

It is the contention of the text that India’s repression has intensified since the rise of the Hindu Nationalist Party and its leader Narendra Modi. The author describes the thinking of this extreme right-wing party and its government as one that sees its adherents and supporters as exceptional, creating an Indian exceptionalism in a manner similar to the exceptionalism assumed by many US and Israeli citizens in their justifications for invasions, colonization and crimes against humanity. Chak describes some of the manifestations of this exceptionalist thinking; the rewriting of history and an insistence on religious and cultural uniformity according to the ruling party being primary among them. In a parallel manner, Chak discusses the political spaces where the non-sectarian elements of India’s political system are as opposed to Kashmiri self-determination as the Hindu nationalists. In short, the scenario Chak has written about India and its relation to Kashmir is a scenario that is synonymous with that practiced by other settler-colonial nations, especially the United States and Israel.

Pakistan Observer for more

Weekend Edition

March 15th, 2024

Most seniors need 4 khanas

March 15th, 2024

by B. R. GOWANI

DRAWING/Graphic Cloud/Duck Duck Go

whatever the age, feelings and desires thrive in human beings

Sahir Ludhianvi’s poetry reflected this, and Rafi’s  voice took it higher:

meri chAhat rahegi hameshA jawaN

my love (for you) will always stay youthful

bones get fragile , loosening of muscles occur, lack of balance leads to falls …

then follows depression, inherited or due to being ignored by family

and there may be dependence for food —

due to weakness & illness, many a times financial constraints, too

most senior people’s lives get restricted to four khAnAs or places:

  • jama’atkhana, i.e., community place for worship and meeting
  • anaajkhana, i.e., food place or kitchen
  • kakuskhana, i.e., toilet – due to lack of control & digestion problems
  • dawakhana – clinic or hospital visits become frequent and painful

an amazingly vibrant life reduced, almost invariably, to these conditions …

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

What Aaron Bushnell had to teach us

March 15th, 2024

by MARGARET KIMBERLEY

Aaron Bushnell

Aaron Bushnell was desperate for the world to know what was happening to the people of Gaza. So much so that he died by his own hand, publicly, and in a painful way. But Palestinians are dying painfully and publicly and all because of decisions made by the U.S. and Israel. Aaron Bushnell presente!

“My name is Aaron Bushnell, I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it is not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”
Aaron Bushnell’s video statement before he self-immolated at the Israeli embassy in Washington

On December 1, 2023 an as yet unknown person self-immolated outside of the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, Georgia. It is strange that no one was ever publicly identified, that no name, age, or gender was ever revealed. There were no follow-up stories as to their condition or whether any criminal charges were filed against them. The public hasn’t been informed as to this person’s current whereabouts. 

We only know that this person was taken to the hospital in critical condition and that a security guard who tried to extinguish the flames was himself burned, treated at a hospital, and later released. Police chief Darin Schierbaum labeled the incident, “Extreme political protest,” but no other information was given. It appears that Atlanta media, law enforcement, and the Black plantation overseers wanted that person to be disappeared, and unfortunately, they succeeded. 

The entire world has been in protest against the U.S. and Israeli war crimes being carried out in Gaza. As they did in Atlanta, the corporate media discredit any action that exposes the ongoing genocide. Even after the Republic of South Africa brought charges of genocide against Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the media still worked hard to hide and to obfuscate on behalf of the state. The ICJ declared the genocide charge “plausible” but the misleading New York Times headline read in part, “The top United Nations court in The Hague did not rule on whether Israel was committing genocide in Gaza .” 

The New York Times and other media are still up to their old tricks. Along with the Washington Post, Reuters, and CNN they reported on the death by self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell without mentioning the words Palestine, Gaza, or genocide. On February 25, 2024, Bushnell, a cyber defense operations specialist with the 531st Intelligence Support Squadron, self-immolated at the Israeli embassy in Washington. He set up his phone to record dousing himself with a flammable liquid, lighting a match, and yelling, “Free Palestine” repeatedly until he collapsed.

Unlike the still-unknown protester in Atlanta Bushnell identified himself in a social media post with this statement. “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

The corporate media either buried the entire story outright, or they questioned Bushnell’s mental health without reporting on why he and millions of other people around the world feel so strongly about the plight of the people of Gaza. Self-immolation as a form of protest is not new. Both Vietnamese and Americans used the same tactic to protest the U.S. war against the people of Vietnam.

Black Agenda Report for more

Julian Assange’s grand inquisitor

March 15th, 2024

by CHRIS HEDGES

Kangaroo Courtship ARTWORK/Mr. Fish

The prosecution lawyers in the High Court seeking to ensure Julian’s extradition to the U.S. rely almost exclusively on the judicial opinions of Gordon Kromberg, a highly controversial U.S. attorney.

LONDON —The prosecution for the U.S., which is seeking to deny Julian Assange’s appeal of an extradition order, begun by the Trump administration and embraced by the Biden administration, grounded its arguments on Wednesday in the dubious affidavits filed by a U.S. federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, Gordon Kromberg.

The charges articulated by Kromberg — often false — to make the case for extradition did not fly with the two High Court judges, Jeremy Johnson and Dame Victoria Sharp, who are overseeing Julian’s final appeal in the British courts.

The prosecuting attorneys, under questioning from the judges, were knocked off balance when challenged about the veracity of several of the claims which Kromberg made in support of the indictment against Julian. This was especially the case when the attorneys argued that the classified documents Julian released in 2010 — known as the Iraq and Afghan war logs — were not redacted. These unredacted documents, they told the court, jeopardized the lives of those named in the documents and caused some to “disappear.” 

As defense lawyers Edward Fitzgerald KC and Mark Summers KC made clear, and the judges seemed to acknowledge, the documents were indeed redacted by Julian as he worked with media partners, such as The Guardian and The New York Times, when WikiLeaks published classified military documents concerning the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, along with U.S. State Department cables. The unredacted versions were first published by the website Cryptome after two reporters from The Guardian published a book with the passcode to the documents, leading to their publication by other online organizations. 

Julian contacted the US government, as Summers told the court, and spoke to them at length, in an attempt to prevent the unredacted cables from being published. In the end, the U.S. State Department chose not to act. U.S. officials have sheepishly admitted they have no evidence of anyone named in the documents being harmed. Other allegations  — such as that Julian tried to help Chelsea Manning, who leaked the documents, decode a password hash to access documents or protect her identity, or that he sought to conspire with computer hackers — have also been debunked. 

Chris Hedges for more