The most humanistic and scientific socialist of our generation

The mathematician Edwin Madunagu, 75 years old in 2021, is one of Nigeria’s foremost socialist intellectuals. 

Here, his friend Biodun Jeyifo, the literary scholar, pays tribute to him.

Endsars protesters in Nigeria. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

BY Biodun Jeyifo
07.19.2021
https://africasacountry.com/

This is an edited version of a speech given by Professor Biodun Jeyifo on the 75th birthday celebration of Edwin Madunagu.

Of all such friends and comrades that I have ever met and worked with very closely both in Nigeria and in other parts of the world, Edwin Madunagu stands out in a group comprising no more than two or three comrades who have been consistent in their intellectual and scholarly activism. He is the most humanistic and scientific socialist of our generation.

It is considered very unusual for a socialist to be both a humanistic and a scientific socialist. Without wishing to oversimplify the complexity of this formulation, which contrasts and pits humanistic and scientific socialists against one another, the implied contrast between them can be framed as the conflict between a socialism of the heart and a socialism of the head, or one based on “sentiment” and the other based on “rigor.” As a matter of fact, among all Marxists, this categorical distinction between the two putative “socialisms” has been enshrined in the supposedly fundamental division between the writings of the “early Marx” and the later, “scientific Marx.” On this premise, in the writings of the so-called “early” Marx, the emphasis of the youthful, revolutionary theoretician was squarely on passionate analyses and denunciations of the generalized alienation, poverty, exploitation, and suffering of the working and non-working poor of Europe and the whole world. But in the writings of the older, more mature, and more “scientific” Marx, sentiment and passion gave way to detailed and complex analyses of the objective forces and movements of capitalism, together with the equally objective forces that—irrespective of the subjective desires and inclinations of both oppressors and the oppressed—can be mobilized to bring an end to the terrible state of affairs in the world.

That was and is the received understanding of humanistic and scientific socialism. Though it has largely been revised, it still holds true to this day among many Marxists and socialists. Why is this the case? For me, I start with the elementary but irrefutable observation that to become aware of and concerned about exploitation, oppression, and suffering in the world, you do not need to have read Marx or joined a socialist movement. As a matter of fact, that is how most people in the world become aware of and responsive to terrible conditions of exploitation and suffering in their communities, their nations, and the world. That being the case, “socialism” and “Marxism” are what we might call secondary or additional elements to the foundational status of either personal and collective experiences of exploitation and suffering, or vicarious and solidaristic identifications with the suffering of others. To use this formulation to get to the nitty-gritty of this tribute to Eddie, permit me to draw on aspects of events and realities that brought Eddie and myself together in our youth and shaped our experiences in the Nigerian Left.

Eddie and I first met as undergraduates at the University of Ibadan, and then again in 1976 upon my return to the country after graduate studies in the US; at the time of our second meeting, we were both still “beginners” in Marxism. The Anti-Poverty Movement of Nigeria—which Eddie and others had started and into which I was recruited and became editor of the organization’s magazine, The People’s Cause—was not, strictly speaking, a Marxist organization. The important point is that both of us, having barely started our encounter with Marxism, began what would eventually become our most serious theoretical engagement with Marxism and socialism. There is nothing quite like the exponential growth of knowledge that happens when two or more people grow together, driven by something as elemental as the passion to effectively challenge the scourge of poverty and oppression in the world.

As Eddie and I (and others too) grew in sophisticated knowledge of Marxism and socialism, this passion remained the foundational element in our maturation as Marxists. I will go so far as to argue that we were so driven by this factor that it, and not “Marxism” or “socialism,” became the yardstick by which we measured the authenticity and reliability of all the comrades we came across and worked with. Eddie in particular is very responsive to this factor, without being inquisitorial about it: what people feel, genuinely feel, about needless human suffering and exploitation matters to him immeasurably.

As much as it may seem counterintuitive to most of the comrades who might be reading this tribute, Eddie—more than any other comrade that I know of in the Nigerian Left—is ready and willing to forgive ignorance of, and even indifference to, “Marxism” and “socialism” from any comrade with whom he establishes genuine collaboration, as long as they are irreproachably genuine in their opposition to human suffering and exploitation. This particular observation leads me directly to perhaps the most crucial—and at the same time most debatable—aspect of this tribute, which is the place of Marxism and socialism in Eddie’s lifework.

Although he has never deliberately set out to create the image of an inflexible and doctrinaire Marxist, for many in the Nigerian Left, this is the general opinion of Edwin Madunagu. Ironically, in the mid-to-late 70s, epithets like “romantic,” “anarchist,” and “Trotskyite” were hurled at him (and this writer) by the most orthodox individuals and organizations in the Nigerian Left. Given this background, it seems nothing short of a paradox that it is Eddie who has turned out to be the most dedicated and articulate voice and repository of the Marxism and socialism of the historic founders, both for this generation and the generations before.

Eddie writes almost exclusively for the Left in a resolute move that seeks to establish the fact that the Left not only still exists but must be sustained. Though he and I have never explicitly discussed this “arrangement,” we have perfectly understood its necessity. To this I can only add that what Eddie brings to Nigeria’s national political discourse is incalculable. If you are among those who claim that Marxism and socialism are no longer relevant in Nigeria, even in the face of their resurgence in many parts of the world, all you have to do is read Eddie’s periodic writings in The Guardian; he is undeniably one of the most enlightening columnists on the crises facing Nigeria, Africa, and the world at the present time.

As I think of Eddie’s lifework in relation to Marxists and socialists of the present and past, I think of the well-known African proverb which states that “when an old man or woman dies, it is a whole library that dies with him or her.” Of course, this is a tribute to a still living, still intellectually vibrant comrade and long, long may this continue to be so! But it is Eddie’s great achievement to be the uncontested repository and archivist of the heritage of Marxism and socialism in our country. Thus, I can report here that as far back as the mid-70s, Eddie and I began to plan for the need to produce “information” and “documentation” on the struggles, victories, and defeats of the Left in our country—a major aspect of our work.

I think I can reasonably claim to have met the “information” quotient of this self-assigned task. Thus, to Eddie has fallen the far more daunting task of “documentation.” The first—and perhaps only—free peoples’ library in Africa was established in Calabar by Eddie and his wife, Bene Madunagu. Sadly, that library has closed down due to many factors, chief of which was lack of funds to keep it going. However, what is left of the library is not rubble, and it is not ashes: it is the largest collection of the papers, memorabilia, and published and unpublished writings of past and living generations of the Nigerian Left. This collection comprises leaders of the working class movement, academic socialists and Marxists, women’s organizations, and student and youth movements.

Knowing my friend and comrade very well, I can imagine his surprise at this tribute, surprise that he is being showered with praise for the work of a lifetime which he could not but carry out—which, indeed, he often feels is incomplete. To this, my response is this: Eddie, who else but me can and will say it: that you will never know the number of our youths who look up to you! You have garnered and also planted many seeds. Indeed, your life’s work is like a granary—for those of the present, coeval generations as well as for those who will come hereafter.

One last thing, Eddie, that I have always wanted to say to you over the decades, but which I somehow never brought myself to say: Would you please try to show the humanist side of your socialism more openly, more publicly than you tend to do? You see, all our friends to whom I have tried to reveal this side of your revolutionary subjectivity and identity have always told me that it is nonexistent, that I am making it up!


About the Author
Biodun Jeyifo is Professor Emeritus and Research Professor of African and African American Studies and of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He was formerly National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of Nigeria.

Mobilizing in Disorder

Post the looting and failed insurrection, what would it mean for the South African left to undertake a populist political strategy?

 

And should it look to South America for inspiration?

A long read.

A member of Bolivia's Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) movement in 2013. The MAS is back in power after a brief rightwing coup (Photo: Cancillería del Ecuador, via Flickr CC).

BY William Shoki
07.25.2021
https://africasacountry.com/

There has been much effort to try and characterize the nature of the unrest that has gripped South Africa in recent weeks. Following the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt, the country exploded into a period of disorder that brought flashbacks of the violence that engulfed South Africa before its first democratic elections in 1994. Some elements of this wave bridge then and now: the strategy of coordinated attacks on vital infrastructure, the weaponizing of deep racial and ethnic tensions, and the conditions of widespread poverty and inequality that serve as their background. The difference is that, when Nelson Mandela graced television screens to address the nation to appeal for calm after the murder of Chris Hani, it was a moment that put South Africans at ease—that reminded them that the postapartheid state in the making gave much reason for hope and that the African National Congress (ANC) would lead all into this brighter future. But when President Cyril Ramaphosa first addressed South Africa on this occasion, his presentation was flat and lethargic, representative of an ANC that is spent and left with little to offer the masses.

The available evidence suggests that the violence was predominantly orchestrated by supporters of Zuma as a plot to either extract concessions from Ramaphosa in favor of Zuma (such as that he be pardoned), or to sink the Ramaphosa government altogether. This is a dramatic confrontation between two factions of the ruling party: one, the so-called wing of “Radical Economic Transformation” (RET), represents a politics of faux radicalism that advocates a united front of the black tender-based capitalist class allied with the working class against the white-dominated private sector. It mostly serves as a rhetorical device to provide ideological cover for a system of political patronage in which the state becomes a site for accumulation. Ramaphosa’s camp, then, is associated with anti-corruption and the return to a mythical, clean capitalism where states and markets are neatly disentangled.

Many South African commentators have identified the RET faction as populist. In South Africa, this mainly functions as a dirty word, a floating signifier for a crass, antidemocratic political style where all power is vested in the grip of a charismatic leader—whether it’s Zuma or Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), South Africa’s third-largest party which increasingly cohabits the same space as the RET faction in South Africa’s political field. In the last 10 years, “populists” have been the standard-bearers for the myriad ills afflicting South African politics today: systemic corruption bleeding out state resources and hollowing its capacity, social polarization through racialism and xenophobia, and the machismo which contributes to the country’s escalating rate of gender-based violence.

Indeed, the political trajectory the country now travels exhibits some of the hallmark beginnings of a full-fledged populist moment. The most recent general election in 2019 showed cracks in the center; the ANC and the Democratic Alliance (DA), the largest parliamentary opposition party, fielded their worst electoral performances to date. Though this is hardly enough to count as evidence of “Pasokification,” there is palpable inertia afflicting the mainstream parties. Despite coming to power promising to expel corruption, Ramaphosa looks mostly powerless to control members of his own party. Before this spate of violence, his hands were full with managing the fallout from a scandal in which Minister of Health Zweli Mkhize (who is mostly well-liked and viewed as competent given his professional health background) was placed on leave following revelations that he played a role in awarding an improper contract worth $10 million to a communications company run by a former aide.

While ANC comrades continue to use the public purse to fill their coffers, the party is moving forward with its plan to drain the pockets of citizens. In sharp contrast to governments elsewhere that are using the exigency of the pandemic to increase public spending, the ANC is reining it in—with steep cuts to the public sector, education, and health planned. The DA, on the other hand, has been bleeding support due to its misplaced obsession with right-wing American identity politics and concomitant efforts to rebrand as a culture-war fighting force (the de facto party leader, Helen Zille, sets the tone). In the corridors of elite public opinion, the ANC is roundly derided and the DA is routinely mocked. Of course, both parties have loyal voting bases that give them enduring electoral dominance. But for some time now, the political forces seen as lively and creative are either fresh players like the EFF, African Transformation Movement, ActionSA, and Patriotic Alliance, or the RET faction spiritually led by Zuma (read more about the unrest precipitated by his arrest here, here, and here).

These aforementioned groups are drawing from the populist playbook in more identifiable ways, specifically with regard to their ideological focus and political form. In terms of the first, they are marked by a tendency to make identity the dividing line of society. The EFF, for example, conceives of South Africa’s fundamental social cleavage as proceeding on racial lines. South Africa’s political dysfunction is attributable not just to nagging, racialized inequality, but that the “national question” (the debate on South African nationhood) remains unresolved. In other words, all political conflict is an expression of an irreconcilable, transhistorical antagonism between settler and native. Unless and until there is some kind of thoroughgoing redistribution of resources that makes the color of economic and cultural power in South Africa noticeably black, social instability will abide.

As already alluded to, the EFF is but a more sophisticated extension of the RET faction. The latter is by no means a stable or coherent one and mostly encompasses a loose network of people that stand to lose if patronage is seriously curtailed through legal and policy interventions. But the normative framework deployed by proponents of RET and the EFF is the same insofar as it diagnoses South Africa’s problems as stemming from wealth being far too concentrated in the hands of the white minority. The problem is not the unequal distribution per se, but the perceived unfairness of resources being predominantly owned and controlled by “non-indigenous” South Africans—i.e., whites and Indians. The programs touted as vehicles for redistribution—be it land reform or nationalisation—are not pursued as egalitarian initiatives, but as projects for reclaiming national sovereignty as a “black”—specifically “African”—race.

These tropes clearly mirror the strategies of populists elsewhere, but do they resonate with the masses? Notwithstanding its impressive electoral growth since starting in 2013, the EFF seems headed for a plateau. After its noisier initial years as one of the biggest adversaries of Zuma, it now looks stuck. One reason for this comes from an overreliance on its online presence, itself a quality of the populist political form. As a “digital party,” the EFF commands a large social media following with a unique ability to shape the agenda of the digitized public sphere. But this hasn’t translated into much political influence, as the party has mostly eschewed the base building required to actualize its (once) ambitious political program.

Nowadays, the EFF is largely content to organize protests against racism at South African schools (which are mostly counterproductive and involve little consultation with the victims) or against the national health regulator (endangering members’ lives during a pandemic while demanding that scientific decisions about vaccines be decided by political whim). This, under normal circumstances, is perfectly fine for a political party to do. Yet the fact that this constitutes the bulk of the EFF’s activity during an unprecedented social and economic crisis makes the party either laughable or suggests something about the true nature of its political priorities. Basically, the EFF is not really as anti-systemic as its leaders make it out to be, and it only seeks a transformation of South Africa’s elite.

The EFF appeals to working-class voters with its rhetoric, but because it lacks any roots in working-class society it has grown increasingly disconnected from it. It has mostly projected the idiosyncratic views of its top brass, and with expected inconsistency—for example, during this violence, some of its senior members have called for Zuma’s pardon, others have shamed his kleptocracy, and others have represented him in the court proceedings attempting to prevent his arrest. The EFF seems unsure of its identity—iffy about how far to follow its ostensible commitments to accountability, the rule of law, and Pan-Africanism, versus how much to pander to fashionable discourses. It is no wonder that it has started to tacitly embrace right-wing talking points to shore up against possible decline.

The communal racial violence of mid-July will certainly give ammunition to those keen on packaging South Africa’s divisions as primarily a conflict between its four racialized groups—black, white, Indian and coloured. But outside of specific regions—such as KwaZulu-Natal, where tensions between blacks and Indians have deep historical origins—race-based concerns don’t figure as much in the political concerns of the majority. One guess as to why this is so is that although white South Africans are still seen as the symbol of wealth and inequality, there is an established, if not bitter, commonsense understanding that they are so integrated into South Africa’s social and economic fabric that for better or worse, they are here to stay. Though they might hoard their wealth or practice versions of “redlining” (to keep black residents out of certain neighborhoods or police blacks’ movements using private security), they are accepted as being a positive force in the country overall. It is telling, for example, that most South Africans look disapprovingly to Zimbabwe as a worst-case scenario of white flight that a hyper-racialized polity would precipitate.

It is here that savvier populists are breaking ground, with immigration selected as the prism of choice to explain numerous social ills like joblessness, crime, and communal disintegration. That South Africa’s political class scapegoats migrants is nothing new. What’s distinct about the moves made by emerging outfits is the latent effort to forge an anti-immigrant alliance across class lines, between the townships and suburbs. Some characters that have more explicitly drawn on these themes are those like Herman Mashaba, whose anti-immigrant record is well-established. When he was with the DA, Mashaba’s political commitments placed him in the tradition of high-minded, pro-business, by-your-bootstraps black conservatism (he made his money selling hair straightening products).

However, his new outfit, ActionSA, exhibits a more “catch-all” character, with its policy platform spanning issues both left and right: from climate change, land reform, and housing, to immigration and the rule of law. These maneuvers bear a strong resemblance to the non-partisan populism of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy, which straddles both left and right and draws the line of social antagonism between ordinary citizens and the political establishment. Ahead of local government elections scheduled for October this year, ActionSA announced that it would appoint its mayoral candidates through a digital voting system that allows registered members to pick them—a copy-paste of Five Star’s experiment with direct democracy, the Rousseau platform (former DA leader Mmusi Maimane, who left the party for similar reasons as Mashaba, has also launched a citizen populist outfit called the OneSA movement).

Often attached to such anti-immigrant sentiments are law and order discourses, although they also have a logic of their own; these discourses will no doubt have stronger allure in the wake of the recent unrest. Images of quickly mobilized vigilante groups in predominantly white or Indian neighborhoods show the success of the siege mentality that parties like the DA have pushed to exploit suburban paranoia. Since 2008, white South Africans have increasingly become militant, because where they once had the economic muscle to opt out of society—through gated communities, private schools and private healthcare—the COVID squeeze has subjected them to the generalized precarity enveloping everyone else. In the securitized enclaves to which they now make a desperate retreat (enclaves that increasingly also have black residents), black South Africans are marked as “foreigners” and increasingly put through the humiliating trial of racial profiling. (In the recent violence in Kwazulu-Natal, for example, armed white residents patrolled entrance roads to their suburbs demanding black residents show IDs and in some cases shooting at blacks.)

Though images of self-organized, armed groups in middle-class suburbs are new and horrifying, they have been a mainstay in South Africa’s townships and rural areas given the general pattern of poor service delivery that policing forms a part of. A notable development was when minibus taxi associations mobilized their ranks to defend shopping malls against looters and to help with cleanup operations (in contrast, taxi violence has rocked the Western Cape, a province that the looting didn’t reach). The security forces’ inability to quell this recent eruption of violence will only harden perceptions of state failure and pave the way for unaccountable non-state actors to mete out violence and law enforcement in South African communities. Accompanying this will be renewed calls for a more punitive criminal justice system to properly “deal” with criminals.

More traditional right-wing formations, like the Christian evangelical African Transformation Movement, explicitly advocate for the return of capital punishment, as well as the empowerment of traditional leadership—and, surprisingly, for a state bank (not unlike the EFF’s call for the nationalization of the reserve, or central, bank). There are also groupings like the Patriotic Alliance, led by gangster-turned-businessman Gayton McKenzie, which is making inroads with coloured communities in Johannesburg (ousting the DA in by-elections in suburbs like Riverlea and Eldorado Park). McKenzie has also made imprisoning undocumented foreigners a focus, declaring, “We shall build walls like Donald Trump. We shall put soldiers there.”

What gives these groups traction is less their own ingenuity or organizational strength, but rather their ability to capitalize on the economic insecurities, cultural anomie, and political discontent which pervades all corners of South African society. Popular mobilizations these days look less like well-organized masses taking to the streets united by a shared cause and vision, and more like motley crowds spilling over from Twitter, where hashtags determine the shape of mutual grievance—#PutSouthAfricansFirst, #RacistBanksMustFall, and now, #ShutdownSA. Like all populists weaponizing popular frustrations, questions linger about their ability to move in a sustainable political direction, since they by nature flourish in a climate of disorganisation and ill-defined disaffection.

Put another way, populists, rather than representing an exogenous development, are products of the prevailing conditions. The patterns are global: the decline of parties and civil society organisations like trade unions as a result of neoliberal globalization. The manifestations are local and have as their key dynamic the political decay of South Africa’s ruling coalition. Although the Tripartite Alliance (the ANC; South African Communist Party, or SACP; and Congress of South African Trade Unions, or SAFTU) entered South Africa’s democratic era as the most vibrant social force, its grassroots institutions are now withered and sickly. Dominated by ghost members, local branches are now undemocratic vehicles for power plays and patronage dealing, and the trade union movement is fractured between those loyal to the ANC (under the Congress of South African Trade Unions, or COSATU), and those oppositional to it (under SAFTU). The ANC’s wane and increasing dysfunction matter not just as an object of political intrigue, but because they affect the possibilities in the political field as a whole.

Populism arises out of this political void; it represents an earnest attempt to “rethink mobilization in an age of demobilization.” A well-accepted definition is hard to come by, but instead of viewing contemporary populism as the force corroding democracy (though some populists do, such as Viktor Orban in Hungary or Narendra Modi in India), populism arises from the erosion of democracy wrought by thirty years of neoliberalism, which retooled the state to shield the market from political contestation. Populism is not solely a right-wing phenomenon as it is often thought of. More accurately, it is just the dominant organizational form of our age.

Those content to simply hurl the label as an epithet reveal an anti-majoritarian inclination, a longing for the heyday of post-ideological consensus at the peak of neoliberalism. Since its unravelling with the 2008 financial crisis, politics—understood as the conflict of different societal visions beyond the mere administration of government—has been returning in fits and starts. Conditioned by neoliberal depoliticization, populists have mostly struggled to advance a coherent vision and at best can only offer firm repudiations of the status quo. Where intermediary institutions would have once played the role of interest formation by helping individuals become groups through shaping shared political commitments, populists are only able to draw from the surface of inchoate social grievance. Thus the usual recourse to identity as a framework for understanding social conflict, for those markers which previously expressed competing interests, like class, have become objectively displaced. Identity provides an anchor for vague discontent, but it can hardly provide the roots for real politics.

Still, it is hard to see a path to power for most of these right-wing populists, mainly because the ANC’s hegemony is spectacularly resilient. But perhaps the mistake is thinking that power is what they want. Some likely just want a piece of the pie that is the expansive and lucrative ANC party-state; others are simply interested in becoming coalition players and advancing their policy hobby horses. Though many personally brand as outsiders—like the EFF’s Julius Malema, for example—many are one-time insiders in search of a route back in. Their significant effect on the South African political landscape, however, has been to set the terms for how social antagonism is popularly framed and understood. Even Ramaphosa’s presidency has involved him casting his political agenda in populist terms, with talk of “inclusive growth” and building an economy that works for the majority. Of course, the ANC is well-practised in talking left and walking right. (For his part, Ramaphosa recently admitted the government is giving serious consideration to a basic income grant—whether this is more than just placation remains to be seen).

Where is the South African left amidst all this? The South African left has been in disarray for a long time. Its popular structures were mostly tethered to the ANC; following the democratic transition, they were either dissolved (most notably, this happened with the United Democratic Front which led the anti-apartheid resistance in the final decades of apartheid when the ANC was in exile) or consolidated into a vehicle for the ANC, like what happened with different civic organizations on the ground when they were absorbed into the South African National Civic Organisation in 1992. The late 1990s, therefore, was a moment where many formations reevaluated the strategy of organizing with and through the Alliance, in the face of its disappointing volte-face away from a radical policy of economic distribution.

As such, a structural shift occurred where the South African left fragmented into the left within the Tripartite Alliance and the independent left. The independent left emerged from the proliferation of social movements in the early 2000s that mushroomed against the growing failures of the ANC to deliver the popular reform it promised (e.g., the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, the Anti-Privatization Forum, Anti-Eviction Campaign, groups like Abahlali Basemjondolo, which organized shack dwellers, and the AIDS movement). Even the Treatment Action Campaign, the only one of these groups that became a national movement, can be considered part of this independent left. The culmination of this rift came through the “NUMSA moment” in 2013, when the largest trade union affiliated with COSATU, the National Union of Metalworkers South Africa (NUMSA), broke away from the Tripartite Alliance. At once, it resolved to form a new working-class party and spearheaded the formation of the United Front, a wide coalition of workers, the unemployed, rural people, civic organizations, academics, and activists that would unite workplace and community struggles and lay the groundwork for a workers’ party.

The project stalled, and feeling that it had been taken over by NGOs, NUMSA left, throwing the UF into quiet death. In 2017, NUMSA also played a hand in the creation of the South African Federation of Trade Unions so as to displace COSATU as South Africa’s largest trade union confederation. Right then, the sense that a new party was on the horizon began to lift, and at the end of 2018, the Socialist and Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP) held its pre-launch convention with delegates drawn primarily from SAFTU. But after the SRWP’s humiliating defeat at the 2019 general election following a rushed campaign (it amassed only 25,000 votes, below the threshold required to obtain at least one seat in parliament), South Africa’s left is once again left roaming in the political wilderness.

Since then, many have been wondering about what it would take to revive the South African left with its constituent social movements. Though it is admitted that the historic weakness of the labor movement is both a fact of political failure and a result of neoliberalism’s transformation of work, it is much harder to confront the extent to which it also reflects a broader and graver crisis of political mediation in general. Not only parties and trade unions, but all intermediary institutions that once formed the lifeblood of social and political life—traditional media, civic organizations, churches, sports clubs and even neighborhood committees (what German historian Jan-Werner Müller calls the critical infrastructure of democracy)—are all in decline.

The vast majority of the South African population, without a vehicle for political visibility, is mostly illegible to the public sphere. The decline of traditional media has accelerated social media as the battleground of ideas, where disinformation is widespread but the barriers to entry are still high. Since the spate of unrest, reliable facts have been hard to come by on the extent of lives lost and which infrastructure was targeted. Additionally, it is even harder to paint an account of exactly who was involved, and why—to have a sense of motivations and incentives on the ground. Traditional media outlets, for example, no longer have ties to community media that would ordinarily play the role of conveying the holistic picture of their social situation beneath surface-level reportage.

The escalating dominance of social media disinformation was already on display just before the unrest, when a senior journalist at one of the country’s mainstream newspapers published a story about a black woman giving birth to 10 children and thus breaking a Guinness World Record. The story turned out to be fake and probably linked to the ANC’s factional fights, but many of the journalist’s social media supporters dismissed his critics as racist (he is black). To this day, nobody knows what actually happened—a testament to how difficult it is to have a handle on what is going on in South Africa today. But rather than view the country as now suddenly victim to the era of post-truth, these challenges reflect a collapse in what Dylan Riley terms the “material and social conditions for the production of claims.” In the new public sphere, everything is chaotic noise because no groups are being clearly spoken for.

The decomposition of social institutions leaves what remains of the South African left disconnected. As Mazibuko Jara (who was expelled as Communist Party spokesperson for disagreeing with the SACP’s support for Zuma) explains, “The Left lacks a popular narrative that connects directly with how people are experiencing the crisis. We need to build this narrative for now, for moments when struggles flare up, and for the long term.” Jara’s point can be extended to the insight that politics is not just the site for discovering one’s economic interests, but also for developing a worldview—for finding explanations for why the world is the way it is, for developing tools for understanding why it changes when it does. Where populists have been successful, it is because they have developed powerful—if not ultimately shallow and incorrect—accounts of why people are where they are and what they have to confront in order to be somewhere better.

Put another way, they provide stories with protagonists, though often cast in simplistic terms as Manichean struggles of good versus evil—the struggle of the downtrodden black majority against a powerful network of white monopoly capital, or of hardworking South Africans against lazy and greedy foreigners, for example. Often, contemporary stories cross over into the land of conspiracy and mythmaking. The dearth of substantive political narratives today reflects the hole opened at the end of history, i.e., the notion that society is without a telos, no longer working towards something better and greater—that liberal capitalism is as good as it gets. The fall of the Berlin Wall made obsolete the grand narratives that supplied meaning to most of the world during the twentieth century: capitalism versus communism, colonizer versus colonized.

I would like to suggest that Jara’s intervention—a response to Niall Reddy’s call for a new left party—reads like an endorsement for left-wing populism in South Africa. What would it mean for the South African left to undertake a populist political strategy? One way in which populism appears incompatible with the political ambitions of the left is that to be left is to be by definition counter-hegemonic. While the right is only interested in tinkering around the edges of the social order, the left wants to transform it entirely—and so is faced with the challenge of having to create durable organizations capable of building power in the long term. Speaking of the fall of left populism in Europe (considering the decline of SYRIZA in Greece, Podemos in Spain, Die Linke in Germany, La France Insoumise, and Labour under Jeremy Corbyn), political theorist Anton Jager puts the predicament well: “In a certain sense, left populism tried to synthesize what couldn’t be synthesized—too ‘left’ to fully profit from the breakdown of the traditional party system, and too ‘populist’ to answer key organizational questions.”

But is Europe the only model for what left-wing populism could look like? Elsewhere, left-wing populism looks resurgent. Though the rise of right-wing, neoliberal populist governments in Latin America following the “Pink-Tide” moment has led many to declare the end of left populism there, the return of the Peronists to power in Argentina, the resurgence of the Movement for Socialism (MAS) in Bolivia in the shadow of a 2019 coup, and recently, the presidential ascendancy of left-wing trade unionist (and school teacher) Pedro Castillo in Peru (while in Chile, a process of radical constitutional reform, propelled by the popularity of radical feminists, is underway) suggest a steady left renewal in South America. Even in Brazil, Lula da Silva’s exoneration and return to politics gives reason to believe the trend will continue (with a likely run in next year’s presidential elections, he outperforms Bolsonaro in almost every poll).

As Thea Riofrancos discusses, the Latin American case demonstrates a way to progressively construct a political subject out of “the people.” But instead of the blood-and-soil formulations of the right, they “comprised a heterogenous bloc of the exploited and excluded, the discriminated against and dispossessed.” The need for doing so arises by necessity in places like Latin America, Asia, and Africa, where the structure of capitalism subordinates most outside of the traditional wage-labor relation. South Africa’s consistently high unemployment rate has meant that trade union organization is an option foreclosed to many, and for those employed, union rates are at their lowest (in 2018, only 29.5% of employees were members of a trade union). Much as rebuilding the union movement is an urgent task, it no longer seems capable of “grounding socialist politics in a mass base” as Reddy maintains (not in the short term, at least).

So, then, how to mobilize the masses of unemployed, precariously employed, and downwardly mobile? In defence of left populism, Venizelos and Stavrakakis maintain that “within societies marked by multiple divisions, inequalities, and polarizations, populism thus indicates a discursive practice that aims at creating links between the excluded and suffering in order to empower them in their struggles to redress this exclusion.” Thinking back to the United Front, and its earlier inspirant the United Democratic Front, what are these if not South African instantiations of left populism, even if not self-consciously so?

This is not to impose contemporary frameworks on the past; in fact, such ideas are themselves reflected in debates at the time. For example, Steven Friedman in Transformation, discussing the mid-eighties debate over whether the Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU, formed as an outgrowth of intense union mobilisation in the 1970s known as “The Durban Moment”) should remain autonomous and focus on class struggle or join the popular front against apartheid led by the UDF, frames it as a disagreement between “workerists” and “populists.” In The New Left Review, John Saul pushes back against this framing, instead preferring Ernesto Laclau’s term of “popular-democratic,” noting that it “captures better the positive thrust that expressions of nationalism, racial consciousness and democratic self-assertion are capable of having in South Africa. Moreover, such popular-democratic assertions can also give positive conceptualization to the kind of broad alliance of classes and class fractions (workers, peasants, petty-bourgeois, etc.) which can be most effective in mounting the struggle against the anti-apartheid state.”

Since then, things have changed: Laclau (along with his widow and longtime collaborator, Chantal Mouffe) became the principal advocates of left populism, while the ANC has abandoned the left populism of the national liberation movement. Its populist currents today are not revolutionary, but patrimonial and clientelist. Still, the dream of national liberation powerfully endures in the popular imagination. Ignoring the opportunists who wield it cynically (Zuma, for example, was comparing lockdown restrictions to apartheid-era states of emergency at a press conference just before his arrest), many understand the post-apartheid condition as fundamentally unchanged. Understood through this lens, demands for change are vocalized as demands for social inclusion and economic freedom, for the real democracy that was promised, to be realized.



This is what distinguishes populism in the West against populism in the Third World: while populism in the former arises from the void left from the attrition of mass party democracy and robust welfare states, populism in the latter stems from the absence of it. Much as South Africa is undergoing the same disintermediation that characterizes everywhere else, it barely had political mediation to begin with. At least, not to the extent exemplified by postwar social democracy, with its stable employment and institutionalized class conflict (through bargaining councils and the like), as well as the collective provision of social needs like education, health care, and transportation. What the contemporary cry for freedom expresses is the longing for national integration, to form part of the political community in a deep and meaningful way beyond simply having the right to vote.

It is no surprise, then, that the “land question” has so much affective force. It’s a container for a whole host of issues at once—the historic injustice of land dispossession, the deprivation of food sovereignty, and the alienation of the multitude. Some attribute it mystical importance, noting the significance of being connected to the land in traditional African belief and custom. More straightforwardly, though, it is because the moment of dispossession marked the moment of something which has since not been recovered: the loss of self-determination. South African society is structured such that self-determination—the ability to set and pursue your own ends—is decided by class position, which is in turn shaped by our recent past of racial hierarchy.

A left-populist strategy could address the need for self-determination (individual and collective) by aiming not for the restoration of national sovereignty (an empty idea that belies the obsolescence of the nation in the age of globalization), but popular sovereignty. Left populism turns out as a kind of republicanism from below, representing a claim to full citizenship rather than the partial and burdened citizenship of apartheid. The historian Erin Pineda makes the argument that America’s civil rights movement should be interpreted as populist: its claims, she argues, “did not press an exclusive idea of peoplehood—a deserving black minority, the true people, against everyone else—but advanced the idea that mobilizing from the perspective of those who bear the brunt of the “malignant kinship” held the key to freeing everyone.”

At the moment, the South African left mostly proclaims the death of the national liberation project. But instead of dismissing it, why not reclaim it? To do so would already be a modest advance; it would disabuse us of the false impression projected by the ANC that national liberation is synonymous with it. Reclaiming the narrative of national liberation is not simply to dogmatically assert it in the abstract, but to ground it in concrete struggle. The South African left has repeatedly been faced with the puzzle of how to discursively unite workplace, community, and student struggles. Not ignoring the fact that the reasons for a rift between the different sites of struggle are deeper, the populism of the “mass democratic movement” actually presents a viable model for giving them coherence. What would it mean to revive it in a contemporary context? To render struggles for housing, water, basic income and free education, not as socialist (too removed), or anti-capitalist (too vague), but as part of an ongoing liberation struggle which now significantly takes aim at the erstwhile liberators?

Neoliberalism’s devastation manifests not only economically, but psycho-politically as well. When all of life is subject to the vagaries of the market, it produces not only a precarious existence but a devastating feeling of powerlessness. This widespread dissolution of agency is what a new left political project should appeal to, and in South Africa, it’s questionable whether real political agency has existed for most. To the extent that it did, it was felt most potently during the peak of the anti-apartheid movement, the most complete practice of collective agency in South Africa to date (the HIV/AIDS struggles of the 2000s follows). National liberation was understood as a process—whether in the ANC’s stagist framework of the “National Democratic Revolution” (that ultimately shaped up to be a chimera), or, more simply, as requiring the undoing of apartheid’s deliberate policy of social and economic underdevelopment. It was never going to be enough to aim for minimum provision and sufficiency—the dream of national liberation has equality as its premise.

Whereas the now-disintegrated national liberation coalition of the ANC established the black bourgeoisie as its hegemonic element, Jara argues that “nation-building, for the working class, should mean unifying itself nationally as the leading class whose developing culture, aspirations and economic interests become increasingly those of the overwhelming majority of our people.” His argument that the “working-class must construct an African nation” calls back to the nature of organization in the anti-apartheid struggle. Whether the social formations of the anti-apartheid movement were deeply embedded in communities, or whether claims of such are exaggerated, their direction was not just to oppose the apartheid state but to form a counter-society in the absence of state provision.

It is these energies that the ANC quelled when it entered into government. Indeed, the ANC is the cautionary tale of capitulation that haunts many left-populist forces today. Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, writing of Syriza’s failure in Greece, insist that “insofar as the Syriza government has failed the most crucial democratic, let alone revolutionary, test of linking the administration up with popular forces—not just for meeting basic needs but also for planning and implementing the restructuring of economic and social life—there were all too few on the radical left outside the state who saw this strategy as a priority either.”

Yet the failure of national liberation populism does not fall into the “too left, too populist” dilemma identified earlier. Rather, in postcolonial contexts, national liberation movements were not left enough. This is no accident, and expresses a tendency Frantz Fanon predicted in his seminal text, Wretched of the Earth. Though the national liberation project is easily co-opted by the national bourgeoisie for its own economic interests, Fanon does not want us to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, he maintains a difference between national liberation as sterile elite capture and national liberation as collective ownership over the goals of anticolonial struggle.

How this comes to pass cannot be stipulated in advance. The profound explosion of rage in South Africa—for now, mostly knee jerk, inchoate, and driven by desperation—indicates that the once passive masses have reached their breaking point. Mobilization to channel this anger into a progressive direction must be centered on demands that address people’s immediate needs. Doubtless, future campaigns will organize for basic income, for free decent services including water, electricity, and sanitation, and against the imposition of austerity. But what is the glue that binds these aspirations together? What is the imaginary which gives them impetus?

Everyone bemoans the weakness of the South African left, but how to rebuild it in such hostile conditions? By now, populism looks less like a model of organizing the South African left can make use of, and more like the default template in a country whose political traditions are still young, whose democracy is still nascent. Populism here takes its form as national liberation, but its substantive articulations vary—from the now widely discredited “Rainbowism” that papered over racialized inequalities and fetishized liberal constitutionalism (itself receiving another lease on life at the moment, at Ramaphosa’s advantage), to the RET economic nationalism that makes race foundational and denigrates liberal constitutionalism. Is there another way that transcends both?

It goes without saying that the South African left needs to get its house in order. What’s different is that this task is more urgent than ever. Not only does it need as expansive a coalition as ever to advance the structural reforms necessary, but it needs to do so quickly given the pace of social and ecological collapse. It simply feels too late to only opt for the road of long and patient organizing entailed by rebuilding the labor movement. Even so, a new left-wing political project in South Africa must address not only the material needs of people, but must be underpinned by a philosophical outlook—an answer to the question, what is this all for?

If there is one thing the explosion of unrest has clearly demonstrated, it is the failure of the South African left to become a recognizable social force after apartheid. An effort to rebuild the left in South Africa must take into account the constraints of our historical conditions, have a pulse on popular consciousness, and advance a vision that raises expectations about what society could look like and what people should expect from it. The case for appropriating national liberation is the case for the South African left to go beyond itself, to go beyond its self-concept as marginal. It needs to become majoritarian in spirit and character, while remaining firmly principled. It needs to first speak to the people before it can speak for them.

World Bank to finance extra Covid jabs for poorer nations

Boxes containing doses of US Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccines donated through the COVAX mechanism arrive in Bolivia AIZAR RALDES AFP

Issued on: 26/07/2021 - 
Geneva (AFP)

A new World Bank financing mechanism will allow developing countries to purchase Covid-19 vaccines collectively through the Covax facility, it was announced Monday.

Covax was set up to ensure 92 developing territories could access coronavirus vaccines to fight the pandemic, with the cost covered by donors.

The new mechanism will allow those countries to buy additional doses on top of the subsidised ones they will already receive via Covax.

Using money from the World Bank and other development banks, the facility says it will make advanced purchases from vaccine manufacturers based on aggregated demand across countries.

Under the World Bank financing arrangement, up to 430 million additional doses, or enough doses to fully vaccinate 250 million people, would be available for delivery between late 2021 and mid-2022 for the 92 countries that currently get their vaccine doses covered by donors.

Countries should also have some flexibility in selecting to buy particular vaccines that align with their preferences.

Covax is co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO), the Gavi vaccine alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

The financing mechanism "will allow Covax to unlock additional doses for low- and middle-income countries" Gavi chief executive Seth Berkley said in a statement.

"As we move beyond initial targets and work to support countries' efforts to protect increasingly large portions of their populations, World Bank financing will help us advance further towards our goal of bringing Covid-19 under control."

- Vaccine inequity -

The WHO has raged against the staggering imbalance in global distribution of Covid-19 vaccine doses.

Nearly 3.9 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been injected around the world in at least 216 territories, according to an AFP count.

In high-income countries, as defined by the World Bank, 95.4 doses have been administered per 100 inhabitants.

That figure stands at just 1.5 doses per 100 people in the 29 lowest-income countries.

Covax has so far delivered more than 138 million vaccine doses to 136 participating territories -- far short of the numbers it hoped.

"Accessing vaccines remains the single greatest challenge that developing countries face," said World Bank president David Malpass.

"This mechanism will enable new supplies and allow countries to speed up the purchase of vaccines. It will also provide transparency about vaccine availability, prices, and delivery schedules."

The World Bank said it is making $20 billion in financing available to developing countries to help purchase and distribute vaccines, supporting efforts in 53 countries so far.

According to the Washington-based development lender, many countries have indicated they would like to purchase additional vaccines through Covax.

© 2021 AFP

Desperate and fearful, Eritrean refugees flee war-hit Tigray

The Mai Aini camp hosts Ethiopians as well as Eritrean refugees uprooted by the ongoing war in the Tigray region EDUARDO SOTERAS AFP

Issued on: 27/07/2021 -

Dabat (Ethiopia) (AFP)

Simon Fikadu awoke before dawn to join the convoy leaving the Mai Aini camp for Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia's war-hit Tigray region, where he and his family have lived for seven years.

It was a Tuesday morning in mid-July, and officials had arranged to drive Simon and 19 other refugees more than 100 kilometres (60 miles) south to visit the proposed site for a new camp -- one they hoped would be safe from persistent, unpredictable fighting.

The cars pulled away just as Simon heard the first volleys of gunfire that would soon encircle Mai Aini, including the mud-brick home where his wife and three children were still asleep.

Over the next few hours, he would field dozens of frantic calls from his wife and other loved ones who cried out in horror as bullets and artillery fire rained down around them.

The July 13 clashes at Mai Aini were just the latest example of how the Tigray war has upended life for many thousands of Eritrean refugees, who for more than two decades had come to see the region as a sanctuary from their oppressive homeland.

The conflict pits rebels aligned with the region's former ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), against forces backing Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, among them Eritrean soldiers.

From the outset Eritrean refugees were caught in the crossfire: Two camps in northern Tigray, Hitsats and Shimelba, were looted and then completely destroyed in what one aid group called a "rampage".

Thousands of their inhabitants remain unaccounted for.

Now Eritrean refugees fear they will come under fresh attack from resurgent rebels, and they are desperate to leave Tigray once and for all.#photo1

"I'm in a state of shock. Please try to understand my emotion," Simon, his phone still buzzing with calls from Mai Aini, told UN officials as he toured the new campsite located in Dabat in the Amhara region neighbouring Tigray.

Speaking in broken English, he begged for a mass evacuation of the two camps that remain in Tigray, adding: "Please try to be not only as a staff member. Please try to be a human."

- A haven turns hostile -

Eritrean refugees began arriving in Tigray in 2000, towards the end of a ruinous two-year border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia that left tens of thousands of people dead.

They were fleeing the authoritarian rule of President Isaias Afwerki, whose abysmal rights record and system of forced military service have led some to dub Eritrea "Africa's North Korea".#photo2

Abiy won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize in large part for initiating a surprise rapprochement with Isaias following a nearly two-decade stalemate.

Yet Isaias and the TPLF remained bitter enemies, with the result that Eritrean refugees continued to feel at home in Tigray.

The region "was good for all of us," said Abdela Ibrahim, a former resident of the Shimelba camp who now lives in a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Gondar, south of Tigray in the Amhara region.

But that changed when Abiy sent troops into Tigray last November to topple the TPLF, a move he said came in response to TPLF attacks on federal army camps.

"When the war happened, the people (Tigrayans) became divided," Abdela said.

"The adults would give you water to drink, while the youths, forsaking their previous stance, would quarrel with you, would harm you, would kill you with whatever objects they had."

Once fighting reached Hitsats in late November, pro-TPLF militiamen targeted refugees in reprisal killings after suffering battlefield setbacks against Eritrean troops, refugees have told AFP.

Eritrean soldiers also committed abuses, the refugees said, arresting dozens of people, likely more, and whisking them to an unknown location.

Eventually Eritrean forces assumed control of Hitsats and Shimelba and forced those remaining in the camps to evacuate, the refugees said.

Many embarked on days-long treks to safety through an active conflict zone, often with nothing to eat but moringa leaves.

- Killings, looting -

Before the war there were 92,000 Eritrean refugees living in Tigray, including 19,200 in Hitsats and Shimelba, according to Ethiopia's Agency for Refugees and Returnees Affairs (ARRA).

More than 5,000 of those fleeing the destroyed camps ended up in Mai Aini and a neighbouring facility, Adi Harush, though they have never felt at ease there, said ARRA boss Tesfahun Gobezay.

Many fear being associated with Eritrean soldiers, who have been implicated in the mass rape of Tigrayan civilians and massacres that have killed hundreds.

"They were saying they were getting targeted because they were seen as Eritrean," Tesfahun told AFP.

"There was a growing mistrust between the Eritrean refugees and the host communities. That's the reason for their fear."

The violence that kicked off July 13 in Mai Aini has no doubt heightened those anxieties.#photo4

It began after the rebels, fresh from retaking the Tigrayan capital Mekele in late June, launched a new offensive to reclaim disputed territory in southern and western Tigray, where Mai Aini and Adi Harush are located.

At least one Eritrean refugee was killed, the UN refugee agency said last week, while ARRA said at least six refugees were reportedly killed by TPLF "militants".

ARRA also accused the TPLF of deploying heavy artillery in Mai Aini and Adi Harush, looting vehicles and warehouses and preventing refugees from leaving -- creating what is "tantamount to a hostage situation".

Rebel spokesman Getachew Reda dismissed such allegations.

"We have no problem with Eritrean refugees, and we'll extend whatever protection we can," he said.

"That's the practice and that's the policy."

- 'We'll sleep in the mud' -

Despite such assurances, refugees are singularly focused on getting out of Tigray.

"Eritreans are being massacred and killed by stones in Tigray and around Shire (town)," Solomon Tesfamariam said, echoing an unverified claim made by several refugees.

"So, from now on, I believe Tigray is not a comfortable place for us Eritreans."

In light of the latest violence, officials are expediting the relocation of refugees out of southern Tigray to a 90-hectare (225-acre) site in Dabat.

Priority is being given to those who fled Hitsats and Shimelba, followed by "those who have the biggest fears", Tesfahun said.#photo5

The first 79 refugees arrived last week, the UN said.

When AFP visited the site in mid-July, it was little more than a muddy, open expanse surrounded by wheat fields and grazing areas.

But refugees like Solomon stressed they wanted to come right away, even if facilities weren't ready.

"The shelter and everything is for tomorrow. Now lives have to be saved," Solomon said.

"We will sleep in the mud if we have to."

© 2021 AFP

The origin of the Mafia began in the decline of the Roman Empire.

 As this article points out; "Where agricultural estates felt threatened by barbarian or Roman soldiers they protected themselves by fortification, and their neighbors surrendered their holdings to them in exchange for protection."

Rome's Decline and Christianity's Ascent, to 306 CE

Authority needed respect in order to rule effectively, but respect for authority was falling among Roman citizens, including among the empire's aristocracy and its tradesmen. This decline in respect was caused in part by armies on the move within the empire, armies plundering towns and farms, and it was caused by military-emperors sending tax collectors about the empire squeezing more taxes from people.

Disrespect for authority had developed also within the military. During the chaotic decades in the first half of the third century, discipline within the army continued to decline. The experienced soldiers who trained the army, the centurions, were often the victims of mutinies, and centurions began to disappear.

Meanwhile, the empire's economy had not been benefiting from advances in technology. A steam engine had been invented by a Greek named Hero of Alexandria during the rule of Augustus, but there had been no interest in saving labor. Producers had no vision of technological progress. They had been increasing production by using more labor by sweat and muscle. They used slave labor. The steam engine – which would lead an industrial revolution in the eighteenth century – remained unused.

During the first half of the 200s, economic activity in the empire declined, especially in the empire's western half, where roads deteriorated despite programs to restore them. Economics was little understood by what there was of government under the military-emperors, and governmental policies added to the decline, as did the continued imbalance in trade and the flight of the empire's bullion eastward. During the first half of the century taxation encouraged men of commerce to hoard their money rather than invest it. To pay soldiers, emperors debased money, and government began paying its debts in money that it would not accept from citizens as payment of taxes.

Prices skyrocketed. The middle class went bankrupt. More people had become beggars, and many others feared that they too would soon be impoverished. In Rome and other big cities, proletarians remained disinclined to organize themselves against authority, but here and there in the countryside desperate peasants did revolt, but their uprisings were not coordinated and not widespread enough to challenge the empire militarily. In various parts of the empire, bands of desperate people wandered the countryside, surviving by theft. In 235 - the year that Maximinus Thrax became emperor - bands of brigands swept through Italy. In Gaul, hordes of people roamed about, pillaging as they went. Piracy grew on the Aegean Sea, and tribal people from the Sahara attacked Roman cities along the coast of North Africa.

Disorders sometimes cut off trade routes. By 250, Rome's trade with China and India had ended. Agricultural lands in the empire were going unused. With the declining economy, people moved from cities and towns to rural areas in search of food. Cities began shrinking to a fraction of their former size, some to remain occupied only by administrators.

Agricultural lands went unused. With the declining economy, people moved from cities and towns to rural areas in search of food, and cities began shrinking. Where agricultural estates felt threatened by barbarian or Roman soldiers they protected themselves by fortification, and their neighbors surrendered their holdings to them in exchange for protection.

Mata'afa takes office as Samoa's first female PM

Fiame Naomi Mata'afa is the first woman to become prime minister of Samoa, taking office after a bitter impasse

 Vaitogi Asuisui MATAFEO SAMOA OBSERVER/AFP

Issued on: 27/07/2021 -
Apia (Samoa) (AFP)

Fiame Naomi Mata'afa entered parliament as Samoa's first female prime minister Tuesday, ending a bitter impasse that left the Pacific island without an effective government for 109 days after her election victory.

Following several abortive legal challenges, outgoing leader Tuilaepa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi finally conceded defeat on Monday, allowing Mata'afa and her fledgling cabinet to move into their parliamentary offices.

"I am pleased and thankful," Mata'afa said, listing an interim budget as her immediate priority to keep the government running and give her cabinet time to review Samoa's financial and economic circumstances.

But she told Radio New Zealand the preparations had not been smooth going.

"We had approached key ministries... in terms of preparing briefs for an incoming government. They weren't very responsive," she said.

"I would presume now that the issue has been settled about the validity of our government, they will come on board."

A key issue will be Samoa's future relationship with China, with Mata'afa opposed to a Beijing-bankrolled major port project approved by her predecessor.

The 76-year-old Malielegaoi, who had ruled almost unopposed for more than two decades with his Human Rights Protection Party in power for nearly 40 years, strongly rejected his defeat in the April 9 election.

In bizarre scenes, Mata'afa had to be sworn in as the new leader in a tent in May after he locked the doors of parliament.

The constitutional crisis came to an end four days ago when the Appeal Court, Samoa's top judicial body, ruled that Malielegaoi's actions were unlawful.

Mata'afa believed the three-month impasse had damaged Samoa's reputation as a democracy.

"Some of the illegal actions taken by the last government, which the courts have said were unlawful, is a demonstration of the government moving away from the rule of law," she said.

"So I think the overall view that we have to restore the foundation of the rule of law for the government is a very important thing."

Her FAST Party was formed just last year.

Only Mata'afa, a former cabinet minister and deputy prime minister under Malielegaoi, and La'auli Leuatea Schmidt who was once briefly agriculture minister have previous cabinet experience.

© 2021 AFP

Sandstorm engulfs desert city in China

Sandstorms are common in the region each spring but rare in the summer, Gansu province had not experienced such a sandstorm in several years.

Dunhuang, a tourist draw with a colourful history as a Silk Road outpost, momentarily disappeared in the dust clouds STR CCTV/AFP


Issued on: 27/07/2021 - 

Beijing (AFP)

A wall of sand over 100 metres high swallowed a city on the fringes of the Gobi desert in northwestern China, in scenes reminiscent of a disaster film.

Dunhuang, a tourist draw with a colourful history as a Silk Road outpost, momentarily disappeared in the dust clouds as the storm hit on Sunday.

A resident surnamed Zhang told local media Jimu News that the sandstorm came abruptly and swept through the city in five or six minutes.

"I couldn't see the sun," he said, adding that the city in Gansu province had not experienced such a sandstorm in several years.

"At first I was enveloped in the sandstorm's yellow dust, then it turned red and finally black."

Dunhuang is home to several major tourist attractions including the Mogao Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage site with ancient Buddhist carvings and striking desert landforms.

Sandstorms are common in the region each spring but rare in the summer, according to state-run news agency China News Service.

© 2021 AFP

French Polynesians seek a reckoning as France vows to open archives on nuclear testing

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to doctors and nurses at the Hospital Centre of French Polynesia in Papeete after his arrival in Tahiti on July 24, 2021. 

© Ludovic Marin, AFP

Text by: Tiffany FILLON
Issued on: 27/07/2021 - 

French President Emmanuel Macron is under pressure to apologise for the devastating legacy of decades of nuclear testing in French Polynesia as he wraps up his first official trip to the region. Many of the islanders believe the tests caused an increase in the population’s cancer rate and are demanding recognition and compensation.

Macron is visiting French Polynesia, an archipelago of more than 100 islands, for the first time since being elected in 2017. The president, who postponed a planned 2020 visit to the overseas territory due to the Covid-19 pandemic, arrived in Tahiti on Saturday evening for a four-day stay that began with a visit to a hospital in the capital island of Papeete.

Crucially, the French president is expected to address the consequences of the 193 nuclear tests France conducted on the atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa from 1966 to 1996. Many developed cancer in the years after the tests were conducted and are hoping for a meaningful gesture from Macron as they struggle to secure compensation.

Several French Polynesian political organisations and associations have warned for years about the long-term effects of radiation from the tests. "This country has suffered so much from these nuclear tests and it continues to suffer. When we see that eminent scientists are now predicting that radiation-induced illnesses have a trans-generational effect, we wonder what we will pass on to our children,” Antony Géros, the vice-president of the pro-independence party Tavini Huiraatira, told French overseas media network Outre-Mer La 1ère ahead of Macron’s visit.

Several thousand people demonstrated in Papeete on July 17 to pay tribute to the victims of one of the most polluting tests, dubbed Centaure, which was conducted on that date in 1974 near Moruroa. A previous demonstration took place on the July 2 anniversary of France’s first nuclear test in French Polynesia.

The protests come in the wake of new revelations about the consequences of the tests in recent months. An investigation entitled “Toxic” published in March by French media NGO Disclose claims that the population was exposed to higher doses of radioactivity than officially announced and that France neither warned nor protected its people.

“Toxic” asserts that after the Centaure test, “about 110,000 people were dangerously exposed to radioactivity, i.e., almost the entire population of the archipelagos at the time”.

Atmospheric tests, then underground

The nuclear tests were first carried out in the atmosphere between 1966 and 1974. “There was international pressure to stop these aerial tests and move them underground, but France did not give in and hid the extent of the fallout,” researcher Sébastien Philippe told FRANCE 24. Philippe contributed to the Disclose investigation and co-wrote the book, “Toxic : An Investigation into French nuclear testing in Polynesia”.

From 1975 onwards, France abandoned aerial tests and carried out underground tests instead. Although “this period is still very poorly documented”, Philippe said, he believes that the tests affected the islands’ environment more than the population. “The atolls were disfigured. These underground tests have caused collapses and rock fractures, and hundreds of kilograms of fission products and plutonium remain trapped. The fauna and flora have been severely affected,” added Philippe, who is an associate researcher at both Princeton and Sciences Po university in Paris and a specialist in nuclear issues.

The results of the investigation had a major impact on French Polynesia, prompting France to organise a roundtable with representatives of the ministries of defence, health and overseas territories as well as a Polynesian delegation in early July. Geneviève Darrieussecq, minister delegate for veterans, told the gathering that “there was no state cover-up” and ruled out an official apology from France, despite requests from anti-nuclear groups and local political organisations.

Acknowledging responsibility for the consequences of nuclear testing “would be to acknowledge that the authorities exposed populations [to fallout] without their knowledge, after maintaining for decades that these tests were clean”, Philippe said. “Some institutions do not necessarily want to make official what happened, or probably don’t think they did anything wrong, given that, at the time, they were following orders.”

Victims’ compensation

The lack of an official apology is also closely linked to the issue of compensation. “Acknowledging what happened also means compensating the population on a massive scale,” said Philippe, who estimates the cost of compensating victims of cancer potentially caused by atmospheric testing at €700 million.

Many continue to ask for compensation. But they are up against France’s Committee for the Compensation of Victims of Nuclear Tests (CIVEN), which has not yet acknowledged that the nuclear fallout caused cancer. During the July roundtable it became clear that claimants needed help putting together their applications. CIVEN receives 140 to 150 compensation claims per year.

CIVEN's new president, Gilles Hermitte, anticipates an increase in claims in the event of an official decision on compensation. It is essential that these people have the right information, he told AFP, but they also need help in "taking the steps to obtain the necessary documents for their files, particularly the medical documents”.

Macron has confirmed that the archives will be opened, according to the president of French Polynesia, Édouard Fritch.

France wants to repair its troubled relationship with the territory despite a history that continues to poison relations. The defence ministry has stated that it is committed to “allowing all Polynesians to access their history, archives and health data with full transparency, to know what happened during this period (…) while preserving certain secrets that could allow foreign powers to begin to acquire nuclear weapons”.

Questions remain about France’s archives

For Philippe, gaining access to the archives would be an important step towards being able to calculate the impact of the tests’ nuclear fallout independently.

“For example, this would allow us to better understand how the authorities made decisions, why and when people were exposed to fallout, and why it was acceptable at the time for people to be exposed,” he said.

But it also matters how France opens its archives – and to whom. “The issue is knowing which archives will be declassified,” Philippe said. “We also need to see whether the government opens them to all researchers without additional vetting, to avoid a one-sided history being written."

The defence ministry has said it needs to explain “the methods and data used to calculate the doses [of radioactivity] people received during and after the nuclear tests” in French Polynesia.

While French Polynesians may be hoping for significant announcements during Macron’s visit, the Élysée Palace has so far remained vague. “The president of the Republic will be keen, during this trip, to promote a close, transparent dialogue by encouraging the swift and concrete implementation of several measures, both on the issue of remembrance with the opening of the archives and on the issue of individual compensation,” said the Élysée.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/07/maohi-lives-matter-tahiti-protesters.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/07/reparations-now-france-owes-french.html

LETS NOT FORGET FRANCE'S WAR ON GREENPEACE FOR PROTESTING NUCLEAR TESTING IN POLNESIA

Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior

• Overview
• Background
• Sinking of the ship
• France implicated
• Aftermath
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• Further reading
• External links

The sinking of Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was a bombing operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE), carried out on 10 July 1985. During the operation, two operatives sank the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, Rainbow Warrior, at the Port of Auckland in New Zealand on her way to a protest against a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship.

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The Day French Secret Agents Bombed a Greenpeace Ship

https://brand-yourself-better.medium.com/the-day-french-secret-agents...

2021-05-19 · In 1985, French secret service agents planted two bombs and sank the Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior. Docked in Auckland, New Zealand, Greenpeace was preparing for …

• Author: Daniel Hopper