In Coimbatore: Death, Disease and Divinity

BY KAVITHA MURALIDHARAN

 JANUARY 21, 2022

LONG READ
Facebook

TwitterRedditEmail

Illustration: Priyanka Borar.

“I remember rats falling down from roofs and dying in our homes. It was the most ominous sight I have ever seen. You might laugh at it today, but a rat falling from the roof meant we had to leave our houses, not knowing when we could return.”

That vivid and graphic account comes from A. Kuzhandhaiammal, a resident of Kalapatti locality in Coimbatore. Now in her 80s, she was not yet in her teens when plague struck that Tamil Nadu city for the last time, in the early 1940s.

Coimbatore’s unhappy history of epidemics – ranging from smallpox to plague to cholera – has seen the rise of a phenomenon that exists elsewhere but seems concentrated in this region. The proliferation of ‘Plague Mariamman’ temples. There are 16 of them in this city.

And, of course, the Covid-19 pandemic has seen the coming of a ‘Corona Devi’ temple as well. But it is the Plague Mariamman (also called Black Mariamman) shrines that command a far greater following. There are a few in neighbouring Tiruppur district too that still hold festivals and attract visitors.

From 1903 to 1942, Coimbatore suffered at least 10 bouts of plague, killing thousands of people. Decades after it left, plague remains etched in the collective memory of this city. For many old-timers like Kuzhandhaiammal, the mention of plague is a chilling reminder of what the city historically lived through.

Outside of what is perhaps the most famous of the Plague Mariamman temples in the bustling Town Hall area, a flower seller is readying for a busy evening. “Today is Friday. There will be a good turnout,” says Kanammal, in her 40s, without lifting her eyes from hands that continue to intricately weave the flowers together.

“She is powerful, you know. It doesn’t matter that we have a Corona Devi temple now. Black Mariamman is one of us. We will continue to worship her, especially when we fall sick, but even for other kinds of general prayers too,” says Kanammal. By ‘general prayers’ she refers to the more routine demands of devotees – prosperity, success and long life. Kanammal was born nearly four decades after the end of the plague era. But many of her generation, too, flock to Mariamman for succour.

The impact of plague was such that it came to constitute a part of Coimbatore’s cultural ethnography. “The original native residents of the town were not just witnesses to the havoc wrecked by plague. They were the victims. You will not find one family here that has not been affected by plague,” says Coimbatore-based writer C.R. Elangovan.

According to the 1961 District Census Handbook , Coimbatore city witnessed 5,582 deaths in 1909, and 3,869 deaths in 1920 from different bouts of plague. Other reports suggest that Coimbatore’s population was reduced to 47,000 in 1911 after the plague outbreak of that year. All in all, heavy tolls on a city that in 1901 had a population of around 53,000.

Elangovan says his own family fled Coimbatore to briefly “live in the forests” before they could hope to return to the city “without being harmed.” That hope came from what seems an unlikely source today.

“Through those dark years, with no medical help available, people turned to divinity,” reasons P. Siva Kumar, a Coimbatore-based entomologist with a keen interest in the district’s ethnography.

That hope, as so often happens, was also tied to fear and despair. It was in 1927, the middle of the city’s plague era, that the philosopher Bertrand Russell declared religion to be “based primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes.”

All these varied reasons have something to do with the existence of those 16 temples dedicated to the deity – whose popular name, too, underwent a shift. “People also started calling Plague Mariamman as Black Mariamman,” says Elangovan. “And since maari also means black in Tamil, the transition was seamless.”

And even as the plague itself retreats into the shadows of history, generationally handed-down memories of its impact manifest in diverse ways.

People turn to Plague Mariamman for prosperity and long life, but they also seek relief from diseases like chicken pox, skin ailments, viral infections, and now Covid-19. PHOTO • KAVITHA MURALIDHARAN.

“I remember my parents taking me to the temple whenever I was ill,” says Nikila C., 32, a resident of Coimbatore. “My grandmother made regular visits to the temple. My parents believed that the temple’s holy water would help cure disease. They also offered pujas at the shrine. Today, when my daughter is unwell, I also do the same. I take her there and do pujas , and give her the holy water. I may not be as regular as my parents were, but I still go. I think it is part of being a resident of this city.”

*****

“I serve as a fourth-generation priest here and people still visit seeking remedies for chicken pox, skin diseases, Covid-19 and viral infections,” says M. Rajesh Kumar, 42, at the Plague Mariamman temple in Town Hall area. “There is a belief that this goddess offers reprieve from such diseases.”

“This temple has been in existence for over 150 years. When the plague visited Coimbatore [1903-1942], my great-grandfather decided to consecrate an additional idol as Plague Mariamman. After him, my grandfather and my father took care of it. I do it today. Since then, no region under the reign of the goddess has been affected by plague. And so people have continued to have faith in her.”

A similar story surrounds the temple in Coimbatore’s Saibaba Colony. “This one was originally constructed about 150 years ago,” says 63-year-old V.G. Rajasekaran, an administrative committee member of the Plague Mariamman temple in this locality. That is, it was built before the advent of plague.

Interestingly, both these and many others like them, were already Mariamman temples, but celebrating her in other roles or avatars . When the plague hit this region, bringing devastation in its wake, additional statues of the deity were consecrated – all of them in stone – as Plague Mariamman.

When plague hit the city some three decades after the founding of the temple he serves, “at least five or six people died in each family,” says Rajasekaran. “The families left their homes after the deaths of their members, or as the plague progressed, when rats fell from the roofs. It took four or five months before they could return to their homes.”

The residents of Saibaba Colony, then a small village, decided to install a separate statue towards worship for cure from plague and decided to call her Plague Mariamman. “We had two deaths in our family. When my uncle fell ill, my grandmother brought him to the temple, laid him before Plague Mariamman, and applied neem and turmeric on him. He was cured.”

Since then, that village and several others (which are now part of Coimbatore city), believed that worshipping Mariamman would save them from the plague.

Elangovan says this could be the reason behind the prolific numbers of, and proximity between, the Plague Mariamman shrines. “Saibaba Colony, Peelamedu, Pappanaickenpalayam, Town Hall and other localities would have been different villages a century ago. Today all of them are part of Coimbatore city.”

Writer and chronicler of Tamil cultural history Stalin Rajangam says the worship of Plague Mariamman could have been a “very natural consequence, a reaction to a disease that had wreaked havoc. The concept of the belief is this: you believe in god to find a solution to your problems, to your worries. The biggest problem for humankind has been illness. So, obviously, belief centres around relief from diseases.”

“It is common in Christianity and Islam too,” Rajangam adds. “Children are treated in mosques for illnesses. In Christianity, we have worship of Arogya Madha (mother of well-being). The Buddhist bhikus are known to have practiced medicine. In Tamil Nadu, we have the siddhars , who were originally medical practitioners. That is why we have something called the siddha stream of medicine.”

There is a Mariamman temple in almost every village of Tamil Nadu. She may have a different name in some regions, but her shrines are there. The idea of particular gods and their wrath or ability to cure is not restricted to one religion or one country. And scholars across the globe have taken the religious response to plagues and epidemics more seriously in recent decades.

A temple in the Pappanaickenpudur neighbourhood of Coimbatore. Painted in red, the words at the entrance say, Arulmigu Plague Mariamman Kovil (‘temple of the compassionate Plague Mariamman’). PHOTO • KAVITHA MURALIDHARAN.

As the historian Duane J. Osheim puts it in his paper, Religion and Epidemic Disease , published in 2008: “There is no single or predictable religious response to epidemic disease. Nor is it correct to assume religious responses are always apocalyptic. It might be better to recognize that religion, like gender, class, or race, is a category of analysis. The religious response to epidemic disease may best be seen as a frame, a constantly shifting frame, to study influencing illness and human responses to it.”

*****

Annual amman thiruvizhas (festivals for Mariamman) are quite common in Tamil Nadu even today. And these reinforce the need to understand the relationship between public health and religious belief, says Stalin Rajangam. The festivals typically happen across the state in amman temples during the Tamil month of Aadi (mid-July to mid-August).

“The preceding months – Chithirai , Vaigasi and Aani [respectively, mid-April to mid-May, mid-May to mid-June, and mid-June to mid-July] are very hot in Tamil Nadu,” says Rajangam. “The land is dry, and the bodies are dry. The dryness leads to a disease called ammai (chickenpox/smallpox). The remedy for both is coolness. And that is what the thiruvizhas are all about.”

In fact, the worship of ‘Muthu Mariamman’ – yet another role for the deity – is about seeking providential relief from chickenpox and smallpox. “Because the disease leads to outbreaks on skin, the goddess was called Muthu Mariamman, muthu meaning pearl in Tamil. There have been medical advancements that effectively deal with the poxes, yet the temples continue to draw crowds.”

Rajangam also points to some rituals associated with the festivals that could have medicinal if not scientific value. “Once the thiruvizha is announced in a village, a ritual called kaapu kattuthal is held, following which people cannot step outside of the village. They will have to maintain hygiene within their families, on their streets, and in the village. Neem leaves, considered a disinfectant, are liberally used during the festivals.”

The guidelines announced for Covid-19, when the scientific community was still grappling with a solution, was something similar, points out Rajangam. “There was physical distancing and use of sanitisers for hygiene. And in some cases, people resorted to using neem leaves because they did not know what else they could do when Covid happened.”

The idea – of isolation and the use of some kind of sanitiser – is universal. During the Covid outbreak, public-health officials in Odisha invoked the example of Puri Jagannath to drive home the importance of quarantine and physical distancing. The authorities highlighted how Lord Jagannath shuts himself up in theanasar ghar (isolation room) before the annual Rath Yatra.

And the idea of the goddess and fighting disease is “so universal that an amman temple in Karnataka is dedicated to AIDS,” says writer S. Perundevi, associate professor of religious studies at New York’s Siena University,

She adds that Mariamman worship is a “very comprehensive idea … In fact, in Tamil maari also means rain. In certain rituals like mulaipari (an agricultural festival), Mariamman is seen and worshiped as crops. In some cases, she is worshipped as gems. So, she is also seen as the goddess who gives the disease, the disease itself, and its cure. This is what had happened in [the case of] plague too.” But Perundevi warns against romanticising the disease. “The folklore of Mariamman,” she points out, “is more an attempt to accept an encounter with disease as part of life and find solutions.”

*****

So who is Mariamman?

This Dravidian deity has long fascinated researchers, historians, and folklorists.

Mariamman was and is perhaps the most popular goddess in the villages of Tamil Nadu, where she is regarded as the guardian deity. And her stories are as varied as the sources they come from.

Some historians cite Buddhist tradition as recognising her as a Buddhist nun from Nagapattinam, to whom disease-afflicted people, particularly those stricken by smallpox, turned to for a cure. She asked them to have faith in the Buddha and cured very many, treating them with neem-leaf paste and prayer – and advice on hygiene, cleanliness and charity. On her attaining Nirvana, people built a statue of her, and there, holds tradition, begins the Mariamman story.

There are several other versions, too. There is even the tale of the Portuguese, when they came to Nagapattinam, naming her Maryamman and claiming her to be a Christian goddess.

And there are some who claim her to be just a counterpart of Shitala, the north-Indian goddess of smallpox and other infectious diseases. Shitala (‘one who cools’ in Sanskrit) is seen as an incarnation of Goddess Parvati, spouse of Lord Shiva.

But evidence emerging from research of the past few decades suggests she was a goddess of rural people, worshipped by Dalits and the marginalised castes – in fact, a deity of Dalit origin.

Unsurprisingly, the power and appeal of Mariamman saw, over the ages, attempts at assimilation and appropriation of the deity by the dominant castes.

As the historian and writer K.R. Hanumanthan pointed out in a paper, The Mariamman Cult of Tamil Nadu , as early as 1980: “That Mariamman is an ancient Dravidian goddess worshipped by the early inhabitants of Tamil Nadu …  is revealed by the association of the deity with the Pariah [Paraiyars, a Scheduled Caste], erstwhile ‘untouchables’ and the oldest representatives of the Dravidian people of Tamil Nadu.

In many temples of this deity, says Hanumanthan, Paraiyars “seem to have acted as the priests for quite a long time. For example, in the Karumariamman temple of Thiruverkadu near Chennai. The original priests were Paraiyars. But they were later replaced by Brahmins when the Religious Endowments Act [1863] came into practice.” This British colonial Act gave legal sanction to an upper-caste takeover of the temples of marginalised communities that was already underway. Post-Independence, states like Tamil Nadu brought in their own laws in an attempt to undo or mitigate this injustice.

*****

And now a ‘Corona Devi’ temple? Seriously?

Well, yes, says Anand Bharathi, manager of the temple of that name in the Coimbatore suburb of Irugur. “It is in line with the Plague Mariamman worship,” he says. “When we decided to install a statue for Corona Devi [in an already existing shrine], the disease was at its peak. And we believe only worship can save us.”

So when Covid-19 happened, Coimbatore was among the few places in the country that saw, in late 2020, a place of worship spring up for the disease.

But Devi? Why not Corona Mariamman, we ask. Well, Bharathi finds there are problems with the lexical semantics of connecting those words. “The word Mariamman sits well with plague but not with Corona. So, we decided to call the goddess Devi instead.”

There is a Mariamman temple in almost every village of Tamil Nadu. She may have a different name in some regions, but her shrines are there

Medical advancements notwithstanding, worship of the deity and the associated rituals continue to be a part of the public response to health issues.

But unlike in the case of Plague Mariamman temples, the Corona Devi temple has not, for most of its existence, allowed worshippers to visit in person – because of the lockdowns. Apparently, a temple built around the deadly virus has to treat not just its deity but the pandemic’s protocols, too, as divine. The temple administration claims it performed a yagna (a ritual worship or offering with a specific objective) for 48 days following which the clay statue of Corona Devi was dissolved in a river. The shrine is now open to visitors, but they might be unnerved by the absence of a figurine to worship.

Writers like Elangovan reject the idea of the Corona Devi temple being part of Coimbatore’s ethos in the way that Plague Mariamman temples are. “It is at best a publicity stunt. It has nothing to do with Plague Mariamman shrines, you cannot draw comparisons between them. Plague Mariamman temples are an intrinsic part of Coimbatore’s history and culture.”

Plague Mariamman places of worship across the city continue to draw crowds to this day, even though plague itself remains just a bleak if awful memory. In 2019, just before the onset of Covid-19, the Plague Mariamman temple at Pappanaickenpalayam became a minor sensation after a parrot sat on the statue of the goddess during a festival, sending devotees into a tizzy.

According to local reports, the ‘event’ lasted for hours, drawing even more visitors to the temple. “Mariamman is a village deity. Her temples will never lose their relevance among the ordinary public,” says Elangovan. “For example, for the Koniyamman temple festival at Town Hall, the sacred fire pit is made at the Plague Mariamman temple in the same locality. The rituals are inter-related. Koniyamman is considered the guardian deity of Coimbatore.”

Not many members of the present generation are aware of such intricate history and myths. Yet, these shrines continue to hold significance for them. “I honestly never knew the temples had this kind of history,” says R. Narain, a 28-year-old entrepreneur in Coimbatore. “But I am a regular visitor to the temple along with my mother, and I will continue to visit it in future too. It changes nothing for me. Or maybe, I will be more awed now.”

This first appeared on Rural India Online.

Have We Learned Nothing From the COVID-19 Pandemic? New Animal Epidemics Ignored

BY MARTHA ROSENBERG

 JANUARY 21, 2022
Facebook

Twitter RedditEmail

You would think as COVID-19 has now killed 5.54 million, there would be greater vigilance about other brewing zoonotic epidemics. Yet even as 41 countries now have outbreaks of avian influenza, called HPAI or H5N1, including the US, there is little to no reporting on the threat in the US press. The attitude still seems to be “wait and see” as it was with COVID-19 though cases surfaced six months before any action was taken; have we learned nothing?

Since the new year, millions of birds have been killed in Israel, Spain, France (notable for its foie gras), the UK, the Netherlands, Hungary, Nigeria, India, Japan and other countries to stop the spread of avian influenza. Yet depopulating and “repopulating the global poultry stock” doesn’t work and just keeps “reloading the gun” of avian influenza say Dr. Michael Greger in his excellent book, “Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching.”

While the HPAI/H5N1 “bird flu” virus does not easily transmit to humans, when it does it is often fatal. Moreover, since bird and swine viruses are both Type A influenzas, a bigger worry is reassortment as we saw with the 2009 H1N1 virus (called “swine flu” until pork industry pressure). This virus was an eerie mix of five swine and bird flu influenzas. The 1918 flu epidemic was also from a bird influenza virus.

Reporter Tom Philpott indicted the massive Smithfield Foods subsidiary Granjas Carroll de México, along the Mexican border, for hatching the 2009 virus –– though Smithfield strongly disagreed.

Concerns about influenza reassortments appear in the scientific literature. According to the journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution, “Nowadays, it is well-established that A(H1N1)pdm 2009 was the result of a genomic reorganization between two A(H1N1) swine viruses with at least four previously reassorted gene segments from avian, human and swine-adapted viruses…The H5N1 virus infecting humans was the result of a reassortment among a quail H9N2 strain with segment-4 (hemagglutinin, HA) from goose H5N1 and with segment-6 (neuraminidase, NA) from teal H6N1 viruses…These are excellent examples of how reassortment can impact the evolution of segmented viruses.”

In addition to bird flu mutations, scientists and public health officials also worry about the evolution of the Swine Acute Diarrhea Syndrome coronavirus or SADS-CoV which is very similar to COVID-19 and also endemic to China and linked to bats. While SADS-CoV does not appear to have reached US shores yet, it is related to porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) which caused the death of millions of US pigs in 2013–2014.

Another disease that has overtaken most of the world while barely reported in the US is African Swine Fever (ASF) virus. It killed a quarter of the world’s pigs in 2019 and is now endemic in 50 countries including our neighbor Haiti. Unless you read the ag press you’ve probably never heard of it.

ASF has devastated China’s pork industry and may explain why China relies on the Smithfield Tar Heel, North Carolina slaughter plant, which it bought in 2013, for pork.

Few realize the gigantic slaughterhouse which kills as many as 35,000 pigs a day is owned by China’s WH Group. China bought the plant soon after thousands of pigs with circovirus were found floating in the Huangpu river. Congressional hearings were held but the sale went forward.

Has Pandemic Response Improved?

It is understandable that public health officials want to avoid “false alarms” when a pandemic does not develop –– especially after the apparent overreaction to a swine flu outbreak in the US in 1976 that did not materialize. Still, erring on the side of caution with COVID-19 and acting sooner would have saved millions.

Less noble are the motives of news outlets whose fast and processed food advertisers cause them to downplay and even ignore animal diseases that could cut into sales. Who, for example, ever saw piles of pig or poultry carcasses on the news when viruses that killed those animals relentlessly ripped through the US less than 10 years ago?

Thanks to slow-to-act public health organizations and Big Food-captured news outlets, zoonotic epidemics that could become pandemics are still ignored until they are knocking at our front door and it is too late. Has COVID-19 taught us nothing?

Martha Rosenberg is an investigative health reporter. She is the author of  Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health (Prometheus).

The War in Afghanistan and Canadian Media Propaganda

BY LUKE BEIRNEFacebook

TwitterRedditEmail

On August 30, 2021, the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, signalling the end of a twenty-year occupation. Since this withdrawal, the Canadian media has relentlessly pursued justification for the war. Criticism has been entirely restricted to critiques of the withdrawal and of the “failure” of the mission. This is a continuation of the Canadian media’s inability to effectively critique the military machine.

The American-led invasion of Afghanistan resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of nearly six million people. Rather than criticizing the consequences of withdrawal, the war itself should be the subject of criticism. It was an imperialist endeavor ever-marked by atrocity and bloodshed.

On November 11, amidst a wave of propaganda pieces, CBC published an article titled ‘We Did Our Best’: Canadian veterans of Afghanistan reflect on a year of loss. This article opens by stating that: “​​The rapid and shocking fall of Afghanistan to Taliban forces this summer has forced Canadian soldiers who served and sacrificed there during Canada’s 13-year involvement in the conflict to re-confront the meaning of their role in the country.” One soldier quoted states that “We did our best to provide the space for a possible future to emerge, and that just didn’t pan out.”

Such an approach is grounded in the notion that the war in Afghanistan was noble. This has been the framework for all coverage. For instance, a CBC article post-withdrawal stated that “For those closest to international efforts to build a civil society in Afghanistan, the events of the past month have been a bitter pill to swallow.” Another CBC article quoted a soldier who stated that “Over there, you can’t be anything other than what they say you are. You can’t be a man who is openly gay or you die. They don’t even believe that women are humans.” And, “You look at history, not one civilization has been able to come in there and tame the Afghan people and it’s not about that. It’s about helping them help themselves.”

Purely colonial logic allows the myth of benevolent conquest to prevail. When Canada joined the invasion of Afghanistan, on October 7, 2001, politicians supported this across the board on the grounds that it was necessary to defend “freedom and democracy” and fight the war on terror. This narrative framed coverage of the war throughout and persists to this day. Now, the idea being forwarded is that military conquest allowed Afghanistan to “civilize.” Criticism of the withdrawal process suggests that continued military occupation would enable the civilizing process to continue. This is colonial logic and follows a tradition stemming back hundreds of years.

It should go without saying that the war in Afghanistan was in no way fought for the sake of women’s rights. It is not even possible to meaningfully critique gender-based oppression while glorifying imperialism and neo-colonialism. The media has also consistently suggested that withdrawal has driven “a mounting humanitarian catastrophe.” The fact that the invasion itself was a major humanitarian catastrophe is ignored.

The war in Afghanistan was not about freedom, democracy, or the Afghan people. It was part of a campaign of imperialist aggression spearheaded by the United States and supported by the pan-European sphere of accumulation. Conquering and occupying non-European territories has allowed the for intensive extraction and wealth accumulation. This campaign has been status-quo since the end of the Second World War, when the United States by-passed former powers to secure a position of global dominance. It is a process which continues to accelerate.

Since the 9/11 attacks, America has launched at least 91,340 airstrikes, which alone have killed between 22,679 and 48,308 civilians. The vast majority of these deaths occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite attempts to sanitize it, this kind of drone warfare is particularly horrific. Stephen Graham writes that psychologists in Palestine, for instance, have noticed “a whole generation of Gazan children suffering deep psychological trauma because of the continual exposure to the buzzing sounds of drones high above, machines that can spit lethal violence upon them and their families at any time.” This is terrorism.

The war on terror has been marked by Western powers using terror to control and subjugate. Paranoia instilled in populations has allowed states to effortlessly breach human rights, enforce authoritarian measures, and undertake massive military campaigns across the globe. When desirable, these anti-terror measures are applied to Indigenous peoples and others who threaten the state’s colonial regime at home. The media has contributed immensely to this by continuously bolstering and justifying state ideology.

On October 7, 2021, exactly twenty years after Canada joined the invasion, the Immigration and Refugee Board held a tribunal regarding the Canada’s attempts to permanently ban Chelsea Manning from entering the country. Manning’s supposed crime is leaking secret documents detailing war crimes, such as unlawful killings, torture, and human rights abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. The decision will be made sometime this year. It is undeniable that Canada is guilty of such war crimes. Among other things, it wilfully turned prisoners over to allies knowing that they would be tortured. The Canadian state’s attempts to ban Manning are an attempt to maintain control of the war narrative and mitigate critique.

The Canadian media, particularly CBC, serves as state propaganda. This does not necessarily mean that it receives direct instruction from state bodies. Instead, the overall structure ensures that state perspectives dominate coverage and commentary. Given the evidence of systemic war crimes that emerged when Australia’s role in Afghanistan was examined, it is no surprise that Canada has no interest in examining the mission critically. Controlling the narrative also enables the state to continue to exert colonial dominance internally and externally.

Ignoring the nature of such coverage contributes to ongoing colonialist and imperialist efforts at home and abroad. It is the duty of independent media to undertake rigorous analysis of the claims made by corporate and state outlets. Demonstrating that there is more credence to less-circulated perspectives can help unsettle the foundations of state dominance, conceptually and materially. This allows for stronger resistance to future wars and ongoing colonial practices.

Luke Beirne was born in Ireland and lives in Canada. His debut novel debut novel, Foxhunt, will be released by Baraka Books in April 2022.

How a Battle for a Piece of Forest in Nova Scotia Echoes the Global War for Our Biosphere

BY KENN ORPHAN

 JANUARY 21, 2022Facebook

TwitterRedditEmail

2021 was a year that few would want to relive. Mounting climate change fueled catastrophes dominated much of the news around the world. Here in Canada, it was no different. Fires and record heat decimated large swaths of land in British Columbia and Alberta. Then the floods came. Decades of clearcutting old growth forests have led to a seemingly never-ending stream of disasters. In years to come, this existential crisis will only grow. But there is nothing natural about these disasters. This is just one part of a global attack on our biosphere for the profit of a few.

In Nova Scotia, where I live, vital ecosystems have been under attack by extractive or exploitative industries for decades. We recently won a hard-fought battle to stop the development of a precious piece of land on the eastern shore of the province. Owl’s Head is a small, but biodiverse sanctuary that was slated for decimation to make way for a golf course. A deal was set in motion behind closed doors between the Liberal government at the time and a wealthy American couple who own land adjacent to the reserve. After massive public outcry, organising, protests and an election, the proposal was withdrawn.

Unlike most of Canada with its vast boreal range, Nova Scotia is primarily dominated by Acadian forests. These woodlands are home to endangered animals like moose, wood turtles, and pine martens. They are also coveted by forest industries for their pulp. Westfor, a billion-dollar consortium that represents the interests of 13 logging mills, has been responsible for a stepped-up effort at extracting and clearcutting on crown lands. These lands, that should belong first to the Indigenous Mi’kmaq and the people who live in these important and ever threatened places, have been intimidated by this influential and powerful company. Following centuries of colonial settler expropriation, they have carved up enormous sections of the province for the profit of a few and at the expense of rural communities and countless species, many of which are critically endangered.

For several weeks, forest protectors from Extinction Rebellion Mi’kmak’i/Nova Scotia, including the tireless Mi’kmaq activist, Darlene Gilbert, have endured the bitter cold to stop the clearcutting of one of the last remnants of forests in this rural part of Annapolis County. This is an area that has suffered greatly from clear cuts erasing enormous swaths of woodlands essential for moose and other wildlife for food and as a natural shelter from the winter’s cold and the summer’s heat. Their commitment to the land and to the future, echoes that of other water and land protectors around the planet, from Wet’suwet’en to the Niger Delta to the Amazon. Every battle is a stand against the relentless war bring waged against the earth.

We are all witness to a ruthless and thoroughly stupid war against the biosphere we all depend upon for life wherever we may live. Indeed, we are living in a crucial era for fighting for and protecting what remains before it is too late. To be sure, it is a daunting challenge. But the victory of Owl’s Head should serve as an encouragement. And just a few years ago in this same province, a company called Alton Gas from Alberta was determined to store fracked gas in underground salt caverns and dump toxic brine into the Shubenacadie River, decimating the 13,000 year long ancestral fishing area of the Mi’kmaq people. It withdrew after sustained protest. These battles can be won, but we must unite to fight them, and we must do it now before the madness of ecocide ends with the finality of extinction.

Kenn Orphan is an artist, sociologist, radical nature lover and weary, but committed activist. He can be reached at kennorphan.com.

Assad regime tortured over 653 Palestinian refugees to death since 2011, report reveals


Palestinian children holding banners in solidarity with Palestinian refugees in Syria [Ashraf Amra/Apaimages]

January 23, 2022 

The total number of Palestinian refugees tortured to death by the regime of Bashar al-Assad since the beginning of the Syrian revolution has risen to 653, a rights group has reported.

According to statistics released by the Action Group for Palestinians in Syria (AGPS), four Palestinian refugees died under torture in the Syrian regime's vast prison network last year, bringing the total number to 653 throughout the course of the ongoing decade-long conflict.

The names of the refugees recently tortured to death are Majed Al-Madani, Mahmoud Kadoura, and Mohamed Ibrahim Kamal, with the fourth Palestinian's name being kept confidential reportedly due to security concerns.

The AGPS also reported that over 1,790 remain in secret detention by the Syrian regime.

The Axis of Torture was taught by a Nazi and is likely to grow

The true number of killings, deaths under torture and disappearances of Palestinians and others are estimated to be much higher than the recorded statistics show. Many deaths are not reported by Syrian authorities and the families of many detainees remain silent for fear of reprisals.

According to statistics from two years ago, at least 34 of the Palestinians tortured to death were women and at least 110 were detained.

The AGPS stated that it "continues to urge the Syrian government to disclose the fate of scores of Palestinians held in its lock-ups, release the bodies of those tortured to death, to seriously work on halting harsh torture tactics, launch fact-finding probes into crimes of torture, and to bring those involved in such crimes before courts."

Many see the Assad regime's practice of torturing to death Palestinian refugees – along with over 14,000 others – over a decade of the conflict contradicts the claim by supporters of the regime that Assad and his allies defend Palestinians and fight for the Palestinian cause.

Book Review: The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of the Past by Mike Savage

EmaiIn The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of the Past, Mike Savage explores how inequality has surfaced as a pressing cause for concern over the past decade, offering an ambitious interdisciplinary re-theorisation of inequality and bringing a historical understanding to the table. Its deeply contextual approach, theoretical breadth and historical consciousness make this hugely generative book a major contribution to understanding inequality today, writes Jo Littler. 

The Return of Inequality: Social Change and the Weight of the Past. Mike Savage. Harvard University Press. 2021.  

Find this book (affiliate link):

Mike Savage’s new book is long and weighty, as befits its subject: the return of inequality as an issue to be understood in all its contemporary grotesque complexities. Savage is probably best known for his work on class and social stratification, including the BBC collaboration The Great British Class Survey and the Pelican book Social Class in the 21^st Century, as well as for his work on the sociology of culture and the history of social methods. His new book starts from the premise that inequality is now once again a major topic of public and academic concern. Unlike the start of this century, it argues, when public discourse was saturated with ideas that we were, by and large, advancing into a progressive future via social liberalism, technological globalisation and knowledge-based economic growth, today the stark, unavoidable realities of economic and social inequalities, democratic breakdown and climate crisis have set a new tenor, a new normal. No longer can social science take refuge in the comforting delusion that we exist in an era of reflexive modernisation at the end of history.

The introduction discusses how inequality has surfaced as a cause for concern over the past decade. There has been a ‘turning of the telescope’: an increasing sense that the rich, rather than the poor, might need to be the subject of scrutiny, and indeed might be the main social problem, as evinced by both the Occupy movement and the rise of ‘elite studies’ in sociology. Today, it argues, inequality now even bothers the wealthy much more: elites cannot use wealth to guarantee their own security in a world they can ‘no longer predict and control’. It points to the mainstream success of books on inequality, and in particular Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century (with which it is fascinated). The book discusses the problems of the social sciences: its siloed nature, rigid disciplinary boundaries, the fetishisation of big data devoid of social and historical context. Inequality ‘has come to prominence precisely as the anomaly that troubles conventional social science models’.

The Return of Inequality therefore sets out to provide an ambitious interdisciplinary re-theorisation of inequality and, in particular, to bring a historical understanding to the table. It argues that the accumulated ‘weight of the past’ has surfaced in a myriad of contexts, from Black Lives Matter to right-wing nationalism to #MeToo. Savage’s undergraduate degree was in history, and the book is at pains to emphasise both that sociology is ‘not fundamentally different from history or geography’ in its scope and that the imbrication of the humanities and social sciences is crucial and necessary. Appropriately, each chapter takes as its point of departure a particular graph, image or table – from the Gini coefficient, to Pierre Bourdieu’s spatial map of distinction, to a photograph of Rhodes Must Fall – and uses it to launch its exploration into a different facet of inequality. There is an ongoing engagement with the power of the visual.

Photo by Biao Xie on Unsplash

The Return of Inequality is split into three parts. The first considers established theories of inequality; the second analyses its various different dimensions; the third weighs up what is to be done. Part One is where Savage is by far on surest ground. Its three chapters pivot around the work of Piketty, Bourdieu and Karl Marx respectively, but range well beyond. They feel like instant seminar room classics, providing magnificently lucid analytical overviews of the different historical techniques and traditions used to measure economic inequality, cultural and social capital and wealth accumulation.

The latter section places wealth rather than just income inequality fully into the picture of today’s rentier-driven, asset-based economy. Savage writes of how, in most ‘developed’ nations, ‘50% of wealth is now inherited’. Because we are now returning to a world with higher capital stocks, ‘the weight of the past is returning, and along with this comes resurgent elitism, patronage, discrimination, and the entrenchment of inherited privilege’.

Part Two of the book is the longest and is more experimental than the first. Its six chapters range across different dimensions of inequality (imperialism and the nation state; the body, ‘race’, class and gender; cities and space; changing dynamics of data and knowledge). The key argument is that inequality trends are associated with elite formation amongst competing global powers, which it traces back through the formation of nation states as well as to past and present imperial projects.

Along the way, this section argues against identity politics, and instead for an approach examining how ‘visceral inequalities’ of the body become more profound as relative social inequalities decline yet historical inequalities remain unaddressed. It is critical of the post-war liberal vision of social mobility, of its expectations of evaporating inequality ‘in the hot sun of affluence driven by economic growth’. It analyses the changing inequalities of cities, arguing that they are now less modernistic and dynamic than receptacles for sedimented capital. And it discusses how the widespread practice of ‘de-reading’ and rise of shorter digital attention spans has been harnessed by elite corporate wealth.

Part Three suggests what should be done. Policy alone can’t cut it, Savage argues, at a time when politics is returning to the parameters of the nineteenth century: characterised not so much by left and right divisions as by ‘intra-elite axes, often organised around religious or geographical divides’. In such a context – within the fraying fabric of nation states and resurgent nationalism – appeals to ‘effective skilled management’ are themselves part of the political problem. Instead Savage gives us a five-point plan: reviving radicalism; de-centring economic growth; holding capital to account; redistributing wealth; and cultivating ‘sustainable nationalism’.

The Return of Inequality is a hugely generative book. Its deeply contextual approach, theoretical breadth and historical consciousness make a major contribution to understanding inequality today. It is excellent to think with. Inevitably there are issues in need of much further discussion. For instance, gender is well considered as part of the ‘visceral inequalities’ section, but overall plays a relatively minor role. The book would benefit from including the work of more female sociologists who have written about this topic (like Sylvia Walby’s Globalization and Inequalities) and more on global gendered inequalities. Similarly, environmental crisis and sustainability are rightly emphasised at the beginning and end of the book, but this could do with much greater development and emphasis throughout.

I also have some issues with the prescriptions of the final chapter (whilst finding them good overall). The book advocates ‘sustainable nationalism’ whilst dismissing both nationalisation (on the ground that it’s authoritarian) and cosmopolitanism. This is problematic, both because cosmopolitanism has a more multifaceted history than Savage acknowledges, and because any consideration of a sustainable nation state surely needs to be accompanied by overt commitments to cosmopolitanism and transnationalism, to avoid all the obviously exclusionary dangers the nation state brings. Plus, explicitly throwing out any form of nationalisation as political strategy is an ideological relic from the very era of neoliberal third way politics that Savage is critiquing (at a time when the NHS urgently needs recommitting to nationalisation, and when collectivising ownership of broadband and energy would address many problems the book identifies). More engagement with pre-existing suggested solutions, both academic (such as Andrew Sayer’s book Why We Can’t Afford the Rich) and from the work of think tanks and NGOs, would also be useful at the end of the book.

Such quibbling is in part the product of different perspectives, positions, generations; our entry points into the issue of inequalities are not the same. For instance, I was part of a generation of social theorists participating in the European Social Forums in the 2000s where inequality was already very much on the agenda (despite the best efforts of much social theory). We all have different geographical and generational perspectives because of where and how we were thrown into the conjuncture. What makes this book so good is how it situates the inequalities of the present by rigorously extending existing theories, by imaginatively joining so many historical dots together and by capaciously expanding this difficult and necessary conversation. At the same time, there is clearly plenty of work still to do.

• This review first appeared at LSE Review of Books.

Please read our comments policy before commenting.

Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics. 

Shortened URL for this post: https://bit.ly/3qPbCtk

---

About the reviewer

Jo Littler – City, University of London
Jo Littler is Professor of Social Analysis and Cultural Politics in the Department of Sociology at City, University of London.

UK’s propaganda leaflets inspired 1960s massacre of Indonesian communists

Paul Lashmer, Nicholas Gilby, James Oliver 

Shocking new details have emerged of Britain’s role in one of the most brutal massacres of the postwar 20th century.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Bettmann

Last year the Observer revealed how British officials secretly deployed black propaganda in the 1960s to incite prominent Indonesians to “cut out” the “communist cancer”.

It is estimated that at least 500,000 people linked to the Indonesia communist party (PKI) were eliminated between 1965 and 1966.

Documents newly released in the National Archives show how propaganda specialists from the Foreign Office sent hundreds of inflammatory pamphlets to leading anti-communists in Indonesia, inciting them to kill the foreign minister Dr Subandrio and claiming that ethnic Chinese Indonesians deserved the violence meted out to them.

The British wanted the Indonesian army and militias to overthrow elected president Sukarno’s government. He and Subandrio were considered to be too close to the PKI and communist China, and Britain wanted to end Confrontation, the low-level military and political campaign launched by Sukarno and Subandrio against the Malaysian Federation.

The newly discovered pamphlets, dating from the mid-1960s, targeted the leftwing foreign minister, repeatedly challenging the anti-communists to kill Subandrio, describing him as Sukarno’s pet “cockerel”. The propagandists reserved special venom for Subandrio. “The Army has only pulled out a few of the cockerel’s many feathers, they haven’t even clipped its wings,” the pamphlets complained. The bird needed its “neck wrung; and the whole of Indonesia will rejoice”.

Hundreds of pamphlets were also sent to Muslim anti-communists, claiming agents of communist China would take over Indonesia. Following an abortive coup in which six generals were kidnapped and murdered, which the army blamed on the communists, “it was inevitable” that “many innocent Chinese would suffer in consequence”, one covert British pamphlet claimed. “We may deplore the unbridled fury” unleashed on Indonesia’s Chinese, but “we realise that for the most part they only have themselves to blame”.

The British also wrote the script for a ghoulish radio broadcast, purportedly from the dead generals whose bodies had been dumped in a well. “Worms may feed upon our rotting flesh,” cried the dead generals “but our voices have become the voices of the Nation’s conscience.” “Oh Subandrio!” they shrieked, “Do you not think that a hangman’s rope is too easy a way out for such a man as you?”

Immediately after the coup attempt, General Suharto took control of the Indonesian army and oversaw the massacres of the anti-communist purge. Over the next months, the rightwing, pro-west Suharto usurped the ailing Sukarno. He was appointed acting president in 1967 and then president the following year. His dictatorship lasted for 32 years.

Lenah Susianty, whose father was arrested and detained in the crackdown said: “The whole Chinese community in Sukabumi bore the brunt for a long time.” Susianty, who is now on the board of the Indonesian human rights organisation Tapol, added: “They were afraid to say anything and had to silently bear extortion, harassment and other ill-treatment from others in the society. They were an easy target because they were considered as ‘communists’.”

Soe Tjen Marching’s father was also tortured and imprisoned for two-and-a-half years because the military suspected him of being a member of the PKI. Now a lecturer at Soas University of London, she says that the targeting of the Chinese community in 1965 had “a huge part in sustaining suspicion as well as discrimination between Chinese and non-Chinese in Indonesia. It is therefore urgent for the British government to apologise”.

In October the Observer revealed the first hard evidence that British officials secretly deployed black propaganda in the 1960s. The material purported to come from exiled nationalist Indonesians. In fact it was written by Foreign Office psychological warfare experts working from a comfortable chalet in Singapore in cooperation with MI6. For five decades the Foreign Office has denied any involvement in the murders.

As the massacres started in October 1965, British pamphlets called for “the PKI and all communist organisations” to “be eliminated”. The nation, they warned, would be in danger “as long as the communist leaders are at large, and their rank and file are allowed to go unpunished”.

At least 500,000 people were massacred, and some estimates go as high as three million. These included ethnic Chinese, many who were killed by Muslim and other militias.

Steve Alston of Tapol yesterday said his organisation was “appalled that the British government engaged in a disinformation campaign to incite violence”.

“In the face of such evidence, the British government must now commit to launching an inquiry by independent counsel to be completed within 18 months.”