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DEMOCRACY NOW

VIDEO/Youtube

We speak with Ana Tijoux,, the French Chilean musician and hip-hop artist known for her socially conscious lyrics, as she launches her U.S. tour. Her parents were exiled to France during the U.S.-backed Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and she returned to Chile in 1993 and has been making music ever since. Her first new album in 10 years was released in 2024, Vida, and Serpiente de Madera is her new EP out this year. “In this historical moment, we are in constant movement. … [E]verything is quick,” says Tijoux of her latest music. “Sometimes for me it is important to come back to my community, to my people, to not lose hope.” Tijoux also discusses the Palestinian diaspora in Chile and the ongoing crackdown on protests against the genocide in Gaza, and the role of artists in confronting the Trump administration’s culture wars.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

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

We’re joined now in New York City by Ana Tijoux. She’s the French Chilean musician and hip-hop artist, known for her socially conscious lyrics. Her parents were exiled to France during the U.S.-backed Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. She returned there in 1993 and has been making music almost ever since. In the 1990s, she was part of the Chilean hip-hop group Makiza. As a solo artist, she had a breakthrough album called 1977 and has won multiple nominations for three Grammys and five Latin Grammys. Her work explores topics we address on Democracy Now!, from immigration to radical joy. She has a new album, Vida, which was released last year, her first album in a decade; now a new EP called Snake of Wood. As we speak, she’s releasing a new single from it, which is called —

ANA TIJOUX: “Retome la Pluma.”

AMY GOODMAN: Which means?

ANA TIJOUX: It’s to take the pencil once again to write.

AMY GOODMAN: Ah. Ana Tijoux, it’s great to have you with us again, after a decade. What an honor!

ANA TIJOUX: Thank you so much for inviting me. It’s more than an honor.

AMY GOODMAN: I actually want to go way back in time, as we enter this new era in the United States, going back to Chile. You actually weren’t born in Chile. You were born in France.

ANA TIJOUX: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about why?

ANA TIJOUX: Because we had a dictatorship in Chile, so my parents were exiled and —

AMY GOODMAN: Imprisoned before?

ANA TIJOUX: Yes, so that’s the reason a lot of us, like kids, we say the kids of the dictatorship, we was born and raised in other countries. In my case, it was France at that time.

AMY GOODMAN: For people who don’t know what happened on another September 11th, September 11th, 1973 —

ANA TIJOUX: 1973.

AMY GOODMAN: — if you can explain what the transition from a — well, you weren’t born yet, but from a democratic country, led by Salvador Allende, who died in the palace, on to Pinochet, and what that meant?

VIDEO/Youtube

Democracy Now for more

NEW INTERNATIONALIST

War means death and destruction for most. But for the arms industry it means big profits.

How we can hold our governments and institutions to account for their complicity in the trade of weaponry and military equipment? Why do our leaders continue to funnel money into an industry that is so destructive to people and the planet? How can we build stronger links across borders to strengthen our challenge to the weapons industry?

‘How to stop the arms trade’ is a new series from New Internationalist that explores these questions and more through a combination of in-depth articles, newsletters, discussion events and podcast episodes.

New Internationalist for more

by MICHAELA COLLORD

In Tanzania and beyond, political elites manage informal workers not by ignoring them—but by shaping their identities, dividing their ranks, and using class to tighten their hold on power.

A friend recently recalled—laughing as she did—her personal clash with the Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner, the most senior presidential appointee within Tanzania’s commercial capital. The friend in question resides in one of Dar’s (in)famous informal settlements, where she organizes with a co-op of wavujajasho—working people, or literally, “those who sweat.”

She had been invited to an official meeting where the Regional Commissioner, as guest of honor, advertised a new government loan scheme to some 300 attendees, all hailing from low-income groups. Such meetings are common and often follow a set script. State officials celebrate a new government initiative to help wananchi, ordinary citizens, and wananchi are expected to respond favorably, clapping on cue.

This friend, though, upset the script. When given an opportunity to speak, she recalled past loan schemes, often unveiled ahead of elections. People were made to pay expensive administrative fees to banks yet never received any loans. It was, she said, the government and the banks who benefited from these initiatives, not the people.

Her words resonated powerfully, triggering a wave of applause, this time spontaneous. The Regional Commissioner quickly instructed journalists present not to report the incident; the stage-managed event must be brought back under control. Even if momentarily, though, the crowd had changed. It broke with its prescribed role and offered its own, autonomous response.

The friend’s story points to a more widespread—yet often overlooked—phenomenon. There is a growing interest in Africa’s urban middle classes and their political relevance. By contrast, the relevance—even the existence—of working-class subjects is more debated. Certainly, urban working-class identities are diverse and are further complicated by criss-crossing religious, ethnic, and gender cleavages.

But as explored in a recent article with my coauthor, Sabatho Nyamsenda, urban informal workers’ collective identities, self-expression, and group solidarities—their class formation—are a focus of political contestation, including top-down interventions. State actors—like the Dar Regional Commissioner in our friend’s story—seek to manipulate this class formation, variously uniting, dividing, and co-opting urban informal workers.

Why? The contrasting approaches of two Tanzanian presidents, John Pombe Magufuli (2015–2021) and Samia Suluhu Hassan (2021–present), help answer this question. Each adapted their approach to urban informal workers to reinforce their broader strategies of urban and national political dominance, as well as their preferred balance of inter-class relations.

Magufuli, the “bulldozer” president, centralized power at the elite level while making populist appeals to classes of urban poor. Following Magufuli’s death, Samia soon broke with her predecessor; she reintegrated excluded elite factions even as she oversaw widespread, violent evictions of informal workers from the streets. Only later, amidst fears of falling popularity, did her government moderate its approach.

What did this look like in more detail? We argue that, in a manner reminiscent of colonial efforts to control a then-emerging “urban mass,” leaders today adapt approaches to regulating labor informality—especially workers’ access to urban space and their symbolic recognition—that then influence class formation.

Africa is a country for more

by SEAN MATHEWS

Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned the US against assassinating President Ahmed al-Sharaa before the new Syrian leader met with President Donald Trump, a US senator said on Thursday.

The remarkable statement by a US senator reveals the deep hostility toward Sharaa in some circles of the Trump administration. It reaffirms Trump’s own statements that he has been lobbied directly by foreign leaders to give Sharaa a chance, while his own advisors are sceptical. 

“I have been concerned by some rumours that I have heard in…some foreign policy circles of the administration that one option that’s been suggested is assassinating the new leader of the Syrian government, Ahmed al-Sharaa,” Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen said in a Senate hearing on Thursday.

According to Shaheen, Jordan’s King Abdullah II heard about the alleged discussions to assassinate Sharaa and warned against it.

“One of the things that was pointed out to us by King Abdullah was that a change in leadership of that kind would create an all-out civil war in Syria. That would not be good to take advantage of the opportunity we have to move that country forward,” Shaheen said.

Shaheen met with King Abdullah in Washington, DC, in May, suggesting that those discussions may have taken place just before Trump cancelled sanctions on Syria and met Sharaa. 

Shaheen made the remarks during her questioning of Joel Rayburn, Trump’s nominee for undersecretary of state for the Near East, the top Middle East position in the State Department.

The admission by Shaheen is remarkable, given the events of this week. Trump surprised his own senior officials and Israel by announcing he was lifting all sanctions on Syria.

Trump then held a meeting with Sharaa in Riyadh on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One after the meeting, Trump showered praise on Sharaa, saying he was a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter”.

Asked to comment on the assassination “option”, Rayburn replied, “I’m not familiar with efforts like that, but that’s clearly not in line with the president’s intention…or his description of Sharaa in the past couple of days.”

Blindsided

Trump’s decision to remove all US sanctions on Syria, going back to 1979, was met with thunderous applause in Riyadh, but has annoyed members of the US government. Some in the US State Department who have advocated for sanctions relief also felt sidelined.

Just a few days before the announcement, the State Department’s Syrian advisors were briefing foreign counterparts that the Trump administration was set to keep sanctions on the new government in Damascus, one regional official told Middle East Eye.

Meanwhile, hardline members of Trump’s National Security Council have told counterparts privately that they would try to drag out the sanctions relief process to obtain concessions from Sharaa, one current and one former US official told MEE.

Middle East Eye for more

by PRABHAT PATNAIK

FRANCOPHONE Africa was never fully decolonised. In the name of protecting French property located in its former colonies, France insisted on, and the former colonies agreed to, the stationing of French troops in those countries. This gave France immense opportunities to intervene in the politics of its former colonies. In addition, these countries were made to adopt a currency, the CFA franc, which had a fixed exchange rate vis-à-vis the French franc. And to maintain this fixed exchange rate, the monetary policy of these countries was controlled by the French central bank. Since monetary policy cannot be separated from economic policy in general, this basically meant that economic policy in these countries was largely controlled by France. This entire arrangement also survived the integration of France into the European Union system. The independence of these former French colonies therefore was always severely circumscribed; and attempts to break out of this situation by revolutionaries who happened to come to power in any of these countries were met with acts of neo-colonial ruthlessness perpetrated by France with American support against such recalcitrant governments.

Thomas Sankara, a revolutionary who came to power in Burkina Faso and who wanted to get French troops out of his country was killed in a coup, staged by one of his own party members but obviously at French instigation and with French support. The struggle against neo-colonialism in these countries however has continued, with the local armed forces often being the sector from which the leadership of such resistance is recruited. Captain Ibrahim Traore, a leader of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (PMSR) that was established in early 2022 in Burkina Faso, insisted on getting French troops out of his country after coming to power on September 30, 2022, and actually succeeded in doing so. What is more, he also put an end to the CFA franc arrangement that his country had been trapped in. Traore formed the Association of Sahel States (AES) along with two neighboring countries, Mali and Niger, both of whom had also been convulsed with the desire for genuine decolonization. French and American troops were forced to withdraw from Niger and a Pentagon drone station there was closed down. The AES thus began to emerge as a thorn in the flesh of imperialism in a region that is very rich in mineral resources

Monthly Review Online for more

by JOHN P, JACKSON, JR.

In the recent flurry of executive orders from President Donald Trump, one warned of “a distorted narrative” about race “driven by ideology rather than truth.” It singled out a current exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum titled “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture” as an example. The exhibit displays over two centuries of sculptures that show how art has produced and reproduced racial attitudes and ideologies.

The executive order condemns the exhibition because it “promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating ‘Race is a human invention.’”

The executive order apparently objects to sentiments such as this: “Although a person’s genetics influences their phenotypic characteristics, and self-identified race might be influenced by physical appearance, race itself is a social construct.” But those words are not from the Smithsonian; they are from the American Society of Human Genetics.

Scientists reject the idea that race is biologically real. The claim that race is a “biological reality” cuts against modern scientific knowledge.

I’m a historian who specializes in the scientific study of race. The executive order places “social construct” in opposition to “biological reality.” The history of both concepts reveals how modern science landed at the idea that race was invented by people, not nature.

Race exists, but what is it?

At the turn of the 20th century, scientists believed humans could be divided into distinct races based on physical features. According to this idea, a scientist could identify physical differences in groups of people, and if those differences were passed on to succeeding generations, the scientist had correctly identified a racial “type.”

The Conversation for more

by DAN FALK

In “More Everything Forever,” Adam Becker unpacks the flaws in the dreams of tech pioneers to reshape the world to come.

Elon Musk once joked: “I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.” Musk is, in fact, deadly serious about colonizing the Red Planet. Part of his motivation is the idea of having a “back up” planet in case some future catastrophe renders the Earth uninhabitable.

Musk has suggested that a million people may be calling Mars home by 2050 — and he’s hardly alone in his enthusiasm. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen believes the world can easily support 50 billion people, and more than that once we settle other planets. And Jeff Bezos has spoken of exploiting the resources of the moon and the asteroids to build giant space stations. “I would love to see a trillion humans living in the solar system,” he has said.

Not so fast, cautions science journalist Adam Becker. In “More Everything Forever,” Becker details a multitude of flaws in the grand designs espoused not only by Musk, Andreessen, and Bezos, but by Sam Altman, Nick Bostrom, Ray Kurzweil, and an array of tech billionaires and future-focused thinkers whose ambitions are transforming today’s world and shaping how we think about the centuries to come.

Becker targets not only their aspirations for outer space, but also their claims about artificial intelligence, the need for endless growth, their ambitions for eradicating aging and death, and more — as suggested by the book’s subtitle: “AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity.”

Becker finds the idea of colonizing Mars easy to deflate, explaining that dying may in fact be the only thing that humans are likely to do there. “The radiation levels are too high, the gravity is too low, there’s no air, and the dirt is made of poison,” he bluntly puts it. He notes that we have a hard time convincing people to spend any great length of time in Antarctica — a far more hospitable place. “Mars,” Becker says, “would make Antarctica look like Tahiti.”

The solar system’s other planets (and moons) are equally unwelcoming, and star systems beyond our own solar system are unimaginably distant. He concludes: “Nobody’s going to boldly go anywhere, not to live out their lives and build families and communities — not now, not soon, and maybe not ever.”

Becker targets not only aspirations for outer space, but also claims about artificial intelligence, the need for endless growth, ambitions for eradicating aging and death, and more.

Becker sees space colonization as not only unrealistic but also morally dubious. Why, he asks, are the billionaires so keen on leaving our planet as opposed to taking care of it? He interviews the astronomer Lucianne Walkowicz, who sees their focus on killer asteroids and rogue AIs —and their seeming disinterest in climate change — as an evasion of responsibility. “The idea of backing up humanity is about getting out of responsibility by making it seem that we have this Get Out of Jail Free card,” Walkowicz says.

Undark for more

by MAI DER VANG

As this month of May marks 50 years since the United States withdrew from its wars in Southeast Asia, including its proxy war in Laos (the “Secret War”), poet and daughter of Hmong refugees Mai Der Vang examines the Hmong experience of exile.

When my son was born almost two years ago, we held a small hu plig or “soul-calling” ceremony to welcome his spirit to the world and into our family. The shaman my parents appointed for the ceremony was both a friend of the family and kin on my mother’s side. A gregarious and exuberant man, he stood at the front door and chanted for my son’s spirit to come home while the sound of his metal hoop rattle erupted into a rhythmic chiming. After the first segment of the ritual was complete, he took a break and sat down at my dining table. It’s custom for the ritual to happen in two segments, and the second segment takes place only after the ceremonial chicken has been butchered and parboiled in preparation for divination. 

I kept the shaman company while we waited. We talked about the ritual, and he explained my son was going to be fine before relaying his own experiences caring for his grandchildren. Our conversation landed on the war and the losses that followed Hmong people. The shaman told me the Americans brought war to Laos. The Americans, he said, tore the country apart and we Hmong could no longer live there as a result. There is no country for us to return to, no homeland in which to belong. Hmong people have lost so much in the process, he mourned. 

I was reminded of this interaction as I considered the staggering fact that this month marks fifty years since the United States withdrew from its wars in Southeast Asia. Fifty years of cycling through trauma implanted by way of being Hmong. Fifty years to contend and reckon with the fallout of American foreign policy and yet it seems the chasm only deepens. 

Growing up as a daughter of Hmong refugees during the eighties was to grow up with little to no context of myself or the collective history I shared with others. My parents rarely ever spoke about the war, but I do recall two emotionally broken people attempting to reground in a new country, with mother, at home, forlorn and some days passing the hours seated on the bed talking to herself, while father, who at one time worked as a dishwasher at a restaurant, often came home worn and defeated having had to tolerate the aggression of a world that did not look kindly upon him. 

In college, the fractures came together when I finally learned about the war and the devious ends to which Hmong people served an American agenda of warfare abroad. I learned how Hmong people were left behind by the Americans to fend for themselves against the Pathet Lao communists who sought retribution. I learned about the exodus of refugees into Thailand and elsewhere. And I began to construct from these fractures a context and history for myself, a way of getting to know my parents without pressuring them to talk about the war. 

Z Network for more

by AMMAR ALI JAN

Many Hindu nationalists termed the recent Pahalgam terror attack “our October 7” and now call for Pakistan to be “reduced to rubble.” Even under a tenuous cease-fire, nationalist saber-rattling is colliding with the collapse of international law.

Pakistan and India, two nuclear-armed rivals in South Asia, are once again on the brink of a catastrophe. On Wednesday, India launched missile strikes in nine different districts across Pakistan, killing at least thirty-one civilians, including an eight-year-old, in one of the most dangerous escalations in decades. The incident also witnessed the largest aerial battle in history between the two neighbors, involving 125 fighter jets. On Thursday, India further escalated the aggression by using Israeli manufactured Harop drones in a number of cities in Pakistan, creating panic and anger across the country. After a series of Indian attacks on military installations and civilian sites, Pakistan retaliated on Saturday by attacking military installations in a number of cities in India, resulting in unprecedented tensions between the neighboring countries.

There is today a fragile cease-fire, with violations reported already. This is a perilous conflict — the product of historical contradictions within South Asia but also the intensifying contradictions undergirding the global order.

Frenzied

The immediate prompt for the latest tensions was an attack in Pahalgam in Indian-occupied Kashmir that killed twenty-six tourists, the deadliest terror incident in India since the Mumbai attack in 2008. The Indian government, beholden to its Hindu nationalist base and a hysterical media frenzy, immediately blamed Pakistan and suspended the Indus Water Treaty, a bilateral water-sharing agreement between the two countries signed in 1960. India also rejected Pakistan’s offer for an international investigation into the incident, declaring that the time for investigation and negotiations was over.

What is left out of this belligerent narrative is the decades-long, indeed ongoing, erasure of the Kashmiri people. For over eight decades under the occupation, the neighboring countries have refused to implement United Nations Resolution 47, which calls for a plebiscite to determine the future of the region. In 1989, the mass discontent of Kashmiri people with electoral rigging and state authoritarianism turned into an outright insurgency against the Indian occupation. The Indian military responded to this rebellion with mass arrests, censorship, torture, and the extrajudicial killings of thousands of Kashmiri people, turning Kashmir into one of the most militarized regions in the world. In 2019, Narendra Modi’s government abolished Article 370, which provided special status to Kashmir, a move widely viewed as the forced integration of Kashmir with the mainland. Kashmir was put on lockdown as India’s Hindu far right celebrated “peace” and “normalcy” while exercising brutal repression in the state.

Jacobin for more

by ADNAN AAMIR

The Railways Minister’s claim that Gwadar was merely bought in 1958 reignited debate over Balochistan’s rights, overlooking its historic roots in the Kalat State and the people’s ancestral connection to the land

A recent statement by Railways Minister Hanif Abbasi sparked widespread backlash and reignited a long-running debate over Gwadar and its place in the larger issue of Balochistan’s grievances. In a controversial remark, Abbasi claimed that ‘Gwadar is not a property of anyone’s father or grandfather.’ He added that it was purchased by Pakistan from Oman in 1958 by paying money.

This comment drew strong reactions, particularly from voices in Balochistan. One of the most vocal responses came from former Senator Kahuda Babar, a native of Gwadar. He acknowledged that Pakistan indeed purchased Gwadar from Oman under an official agreement. However, he rejected the idea that this transaction nullifies the rights of the people of Gwadar. He stressed that Gwadar is not just a piece of land bought with money. It is deeply connected to the identity, heritage, and generations of the people who have lived there for centuries.

The exchange between Abbasi and Kahuda reflects how Gwadar has long symbolised the larger debate around Balochistan’s place within Pakistan. For many who argue that Balochistan’s grievances are real and serious, Gwadar is often cited as an example of how the province’s resources are used without local ownership or benefit. On the other hand, those who dismiss these grievances often claim that Gwadar was never historically part of Balochistan and was simply purchased by the state, implying there is no special local claim over it. But the real story behind Gwadar’s past tells a more complex and rooted history, grounded in facts and official records.

To understand that history, we need to go back to the late 18th century. According to the book Gwatar Bay to Sir Creek: The Golden Coast of Pakistan — History and Memoirs by Vice Admiral Iftikhar Ahmed Rao, Gwadar was initially part of the Kalat State, the predecessor of modern-day Balochistan. In 1778, the Khan of Kalat took control of Gwadar. Then, in 1783, an Omani prince named Sultan bin Ahmad arrived in Gwadar after a failed coup attempt in Muscat. The Khan of Kalat, Noori Naseer Khan, offered the prince refuge and allowed him to manage Gwadar. The prince was given half of the revenue from Gwadar as a maintenance allowance.

Friday Times for more