SCURRILOUS SLANDER

Medvedev escalates anti-Ukrainian rhetoric

Maria Domańska

On 5 April, Dmitri Medvedev, Vice-Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, posted a post on his Telegram channel entitled “On Fakes and True History”. The text included the following phrases:

- reports of Russian war crimes are “fake cynical Ukrainian propaganda” prepared for “huge money” by “troll factories” under the supervision of Western governments and NGOs at their service;

- to dehumanise and denigrate Russia, “the crazed beasts of the nationalist and territorial defense battalions are ready to kill Ukrainian civilians”; all because “the very essence of Ukrainianness, fed by anti-Russian venom and lies about its identity, is one big sham”. Ukrainian identity does not exist and never has;

- the comparison of Ukrainianness to Prussian militarism, which was “bred in schools” and later developed into National Socialism; the latter unleashed World War II and was defeated only by the Red Army; today’s Ukrainian radicals were also formed in schools in the spirit of hatred towards everything Russian;  "a pseudo-history of Ukrainian statehood was hastily written" after 1991; the historical ties of Kievan Rusʹ with today’s Russian territories were broken; the idea of one nation was destroyed; “Ukrainian historical figures of the 20th century are exclusively Nazis and collaborators”;

MAKHNOVITZ ANARCHIST ARMY UKRAINE REVOLUTION 1917-1921

- some Ukrainians have been “literally worshipping the Third Reich” for the last 30 years; photographs of "Nazi symbols found in every military unit captured by the Russian army” are supposed to bear witness to this;

- “Ukraine has mentally become a second Third Reich and will suffer the same fate”; “this also applies to the monsters who usurp the right to represent Ukraine”;  the current “special operation” should teach them a lesson, as should one episode of the “glorious past”. In this context, Medvedev mentions the NKVD officer, Pavel Sudoplatov, who killed the head of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists, Yevhen Konovalets, with a bomb planted in a box of chocolates [Sudoplatov also organised the assassination of Lev Trotsky];  “There will be many more such gifts for Nazi criminals”;

- President Putin has clearly defined the “special operation’s” aim: the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine; these tasks will be carried out not only on the battlefield. The most important objective is to change the  consciousness of some Ukrainians, which is “bloody and full of false myths”; it will serve to “ensure peace for future generations of Ukrainians and build an open Eurasia – from Lisbon to Vladivostok”.

Commentary

• Since the beginning of the war, Medvedev has been heavily involved in the propaganda field, which contrasts with his previous low level of activity in public life (following his resignation as prime minister in January 2020). This engagement may indicate an ambition to strengthen his position within the ruling elite. He may also be fulfilling a task assigned to him by the Kremlin to set a highly aggressive tone for the official narrative and thus set specific ‘standards’ for the entire state administration.
• In addition to the repudiation of Ukrainian national identity and statehood, which became common in Russian propaganda, the text contains openly totalitarian slogans. Medvedev in fact calls for the forced re-education of Ukrainians and dehumanises the Ukrainian people, thus justifying mass war crimes. Furthermore, he makes thinly-veiled allusions to the need to assassinate top representatives of the Ukrainian government.
• The phrase referring to “building an open Eurasia” through “denazification” suggests that Russia has more far-reaching plans, encompassing the  “denazification” and “demilitarisation” of all of Europe. The aim would be to neutralise it in the global conflict over the future world order between Washington and the Beijing-Moscow tandem.
• The language of the text – saturated with invectives, hate speech and extreme aggression – is probably an expression of the Kremlin’s growing frustration, both at the failure of its initial plan to conquer Ukraine and the West’s resilience to Russian war propaganda. One of the purposes of stirring anti-Ukrainian hysteria is to fan Russian society’s ‘rally-around-the-flag’ sentiment. Medvedev’s text is in keeping with the tone of an article published on 3 April on the main page of the RIA Novosti state news agency. It called for the extermination of Ukraine’s elite, the “de-Ukrainisation” of society, and a long occupation of Ukrainian territory.

UKRAINE, RUSSIA AND HUNGARY ELECTIONS

Can Europe get tough on both the Russian enemy without and the Hungarian enemy within?

Hungarian authoritarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s victory in 3 April general election reveals something rotten in the heart of the European Union. It may also make it more difficult to help Ukraine.

Published on 5 April 2022 
Timothy Garton Ash - The Guardian (London)
 

Bas van der Schot | De Volkskrant


As I stood in a cold, disconsolate crowd in central Budapest late on Sunday night, listening to Hungarian opposition leader Péter Márki-Zay concede defeat in the country's general election, the Twitter feed on my phone filled with images of murdered Ukrainian civilians in the town of Bucha. Some of them had their hands tied behind their backs. Beside one murdered woman lay a keychain with a pendant showing the yellow stars on blue background of the European flag. The Ukrainian horrors are clearly far worse than the Hungarian miseries, but the two are fatefully connected.

It is a bitter irony that, just as we learn of some of the worst atrocities in Russian president Vladimir Putin's war of terror against Ukraine, Putin's closest ally among EU leaders, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, is re-elected partly because he turned that very war to his own political benefit. As well as exploiting all the advantages he has already built in to a heavily rigged political system, such as gerrymandered constituencies and overwhelming media dominance, Orbán won by telling Hungarians that he would keep them out of this war – and that their heating bills would stay low due to his sweet gas deals with Putin.

 

More : Timothy Garton Ash: ‘Hungary shows us that we haven’t yet succeeded in linking the Europe of values to the Europe of money’

In his victory speech, the Hungarian leader listed the 'opponents' he had defeated. They included the international media, Brussels bureaucrats and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who has criticised him fiercely for his opposition to the weapon supplies and further sanctions that Ukraine desperately needs. So he tells us exactly who his enemies are - and friend Putin has hastened to congratulate him on his famous victory.

If the Hungarian six-party opposition coalition led by Péter Márki-Zay had won, Hungary would have become a staunch Western ally in the face of Russian aggression, as other central European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic are proving to be. 'Russians go home!' some youngsters chanted at the very end of that disconsolate opposition wake in Budapest, recalling a slogan from the time of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. Walking back at midnight across a deserted Heroes Square, I recalled how in that very place in June 1989 I heard a young, seemingly idealistic Orbán himself call for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. Yet now the ageing cynic is flatly refusing to let Western arms supplies pass through Hungary in order to help the Ukrainian army send the Russians home. I wonder what he sees when he looks in the mirror.

An opposition government would also have joined the European Public Prosecutor's Office, enabling the pursuit of well-documented corruption in the use of EU funds. They would have kicked out the International Investment Bank, which the opposition says is closely linked to the Putin regime. And they would have set about the difficult process of turning Hungary back into a proper liberal democracy.

Instead, Orbán's Fidesz party has once again secured a two-thirds supermajority, enabling it to change the constitution at will. Whatever honeyed assurances it gives in Brussels or Washington, it will continue to consolidate what political scientists describe as an electoral authoritarian regime. Hungary's political system is now closer to that of non-EU Serbia, where this weekend saw a simultaneous victory for another nationalist electoral authoritarian, president Aleksandar Vučić, than it is to that of a democracy like France or Portugal. Orbán and Vučić are close allies.

 

More : Viktor Orbán’s ten-year war on the media in Hungary

There were significant failings by the opposition. The six parties were not as united as they should have been and the lead candidate obviously failed to convince the electorate outside Budapest. Overall, the opposition actually lost votes, although it gained some single-member constituencies in the capital. But there is no way in which this was a fair election.

Wherever I went over the last five days, I saw streets and metro carriages plastered with government-funded posters showing an avuncular image of Viktor Orbán beside the slogan 'Let's Protect Hungary's Peace and Security'. Another ubiquitous poster showed a young mother and child with the slogan 'Protect the Children'. This advertised a government referendum conducted at the same time as the election, with questions such as 'do you support the promotion of sex reassignment therapy for underage children?'. (The referendum did not reach the required 50% of valid votes.) State media relentlessly promoted a pro-Orbán narrative, as they have done for more than a decade, and even spent some time effectively blaming the war in Ukraine on the Ukrainians. Márki-Zay got just five minutes on state television to explain the opposition programme. Facebook was plastered with regime-supporting paid advertising, thus continuing the platform's ignoble record of helping the enemies of liberal democracy in return for filthy lucre.
State media relentlessly promoted a pro-Orbán narrative, as they have done for more than a decade, and even spent some time effectively blaming the war in Ukraine on the Ukrainians

Yet having spent lavishly on tax and welfare handouts to win the election, the Orbán government needs EU funds to fill a big hole in its finances. Unless the EU is prepared simply to accept that it now has an authoritarian member state, it should at long last impose rigorous conditionality on the flows of European money which have long been one of the main founts of Orbán's power. This means continuing to withhold post-Covid recovery grants and loans, since transparency cannot be guaranteed by a regime that is actually built on the corrupt use of EU money. It also means finally triggering the rule of law conditionality mechanism which could hold back significant chunks of funding from the EU's regular budget. (And don't be fooled into giving Hungary lots of money for Ukrainian refugees who have in fact already moved on to other countries.)

More : How George Soros was transformed from herald of democracy into Hungary’s “enemy of the people”

But here's the problem. Faced with the latest evidence of the barbaric behaviour of Russian troops in Ukraine, Europe needs to step up its sanctions on Putin. When Orbán returned from back-to-back summits of NATO and the EU in Brussels last month, his government sent an email to all Hungarians who had signed up for a Covid vaccine saying that 'proposals were put on the agenda against which Hungary's interests had to be protected'. His government would never allow weapons supplies to go through Hungary to Ukraine, nor sanctions to be imposed on the 85% of Hungary's gas and 64% of its oil that comes from Russia. In response to the Bucha atrocities, EU leaders such as French president Emmanuel Macron are now calling for more sanctions, including on Russian oil. Self-styled 'realists' may argue that Brussels has to stay soft on Hungary in order to keep Orbán on board for a common front over Ukraine.

Europe should now get tough on both the Russian enemy without and the Hungarian enemy within. But can it and will it do both at once? Here is another dilemma this dark depressing weekend has presented to a deeply shaken Europe.

Foreign ship sinks in Mariupol after missile attacks, says flag registry

Tue, April 5, 2022
By Jonathan Saul

LONDON (Reuters) -A Dominica-flagged cargo ship sank on Tuesday in the besieged southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol after being targeted by Russian missile strikes, the vessel's flag registry said.

The Azburg was believed to have been without cargo and at berth in Mariupol when it was initially hit by two missiles on April 3, the Dominica Maritime Administration said.

"On April 4, around 2240 LT (local time) the vessel was heavily fired upon by Russian armed forces after intentionally shelling the vessel twice a day earlier," the registry said in a statement.

"Specific characteristics of firing on the vessel remain unknown, crew reported shelling, bombing and repeated hits by missiles, causing a fire in the engine room."

One of the 12 crew members required medical treatment while the remaining crew were evacuated onto nearby vessels, the Dominica registry said.

Russian officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Moscow has said that it is not targeting civilians in what it calls a "special operation" to demilitarize Ukraine.

Ukraine said this week that it was bracing for about 60,000 Russian reservists to be called in to reinforce Moscow's offensive in the east, where Russia's main targets have included Mariupol and Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city.

Eric Dawicki, deputy administrator of maritime affairs with the registry, said the vessel sank early on Tuesday.

He said the registry assumed the sinking would "create some environmental impediments".

"It certainly will create navigational impediments at the dock and we are certainly concerned," he told Reuters.

"The indiscriminate shelling of a merchant vessel with a civilian crew with no place to seek refuge is the lowest of lows," Dawicki added.

Dawicki said the information was received by the vessel's operator which was in email contact with the crew.

A senior official with Ukraine's Maritime Administration said earlier on Tuesday that the ship had been hit by a Russian navy missile, according to initial information.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the details of the sinking.

The vessel arrived in Mariupol on Feb. 23 and was unable to leave Ukrainian waters because of the closure of the port, according to British security company Ambrey Intelligence and the registry.

Russia's military took control of waterways around Ukraine when it invaded on Feb. 24.

Two seafarers have been killed and five other merchant vessels hit by projectiles - which sank one of them - off Ukraine's coast since the start of the conflict, shipping officials say.

UN shipping agency the International Maritime Organization (IMO) said there were 86 merchant ships still stuck in Ukrainian ports and waters as of March 30, with around 1,000 seafarers unable to sail.

Maritime officials have said supplies are running low onboard the ships, which also face multiple perils including missiles and floating mines.

"As well as the dangers arising from bombardment, many of the ships concerned now lack food, fuel, fresh water, and other vital supplies," the IMO said.

"The situation of the seafarers from many countries is becoming increasingly untenable as a result, presenting grave risks to their health and wellbeing."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday Ukraine's efforts to push back Russian troops from Mariupol were facing difficulties and the military situation was "very difficult".

(Reporting by Jonathan Saul; Editing by Nick Macfie and Rosalba O'Brien)

Mines kill, injure more than 500 children in Iraq: UN

More than 500 children have been killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance in Iraq in the past five years, UN agencies have warned     

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
05 April, 2022

The material is particularly present near borders where Iraq has been involved in armed conflicts over the past four decades [Getty- archive]

At least 519 children have been killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance in Iraq in the past five years, UN agencies have warned.

"More than 80 percent of children affected are boys," the rights groups UNICEF, the world body's children's agency, and the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) said in a joint statement on Monday night.

They added that boys were "disproportionately impacted due to incidents of child labour, such as grazing animals or collecting scrap metal to sell".

The statement said although Iraq has not "suffered from open conflicts" over past years, "the effects of explosive weapons will reverberate for years to come".

A report by the charity Humanity & Inclusion said: "Iraq is considered one of the countries most contaminated by explosive devices in the world," with more than 3,225 square kilometres (1,245 square miles) of land contaminated with unexploded ordnance.

The material is particularly present near the borders with Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, all areas where Iraq has been involved in armed conflicts over the past four decades.

Baghdad fought a war with Iran between 1980-1988, as well as the first Gulf War triggered by the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

The Iraqi military between 2014 and 2017 backed by an international coalition fought a war against the Islamic State militant group.

In the joint statement, UNICEF and UNMAS urged "all parties to accelerate every effort to clear existing mines and unexploded ordnance" and called on "all parties to accelerate their efforts to remove mines and explosive remnants, to strengthen victim assistance and to support children's right to a safe, secure and protected environment".

UPDATES

Ukraine war: African students face Russian missiles and racism

African students who have fled the war in Ukraine say the racism they face is making a bad situation worse. DW's Tobore Ovuorie has kept in touch with several of them as they go about seeking refuge in Europe.


A group of African students on the station platform in Lviv, Ukraine

At dawn on February 24, Olufunmilola Bamidele found 40 missed calls and numerous voice messages on her phone.

The 33-year-old Nigerian post-graduate student at the Dnipro Medical Institute in Ukraine had wrapped up her studies and gone to bed just hours earlier.

The calls were from relatives in Nigeria, worried about her safety because Russia had invaded Ukraine.

"If I didn't wake up to use the restroom, I wouldn't have seen these because I would have probably woken up around 7 a.m. or 7:30 a.m.," Bamidele told DW.

News sites were reporting explosions in Ukraine's capital Kyiv and in Kharkiv. Explosions had also been heard in Dnipro, which lies between the two cities.

Dnipro is a six-hour drive from Ukraine's capital Kyiv whose outskirts came under heavy attack

Discrimination on trains

Bamidele initially wanted to stay put in her home of the past six years.

"I was like: I am going to remain here since this city is still calm and there is nothing going on. So, definitely, maybe, we would just be safe till the end of it," she said.

But her parents in Nigeria ordered her to leave Ukraine.

On February 28, Bamidele set off for the train station. She told DW that she wanted to see if it was true that foreigners were not being allowed on outbound trains. Media reports about stranded African, Indian and Arab students were going viral.

"I just wanted to see what was going on because I was hearing on the news that they were not allowing foreigners to enter the trains," she said.

"When I got there, there were a lot of people. I met some people who said they had been there for 12 hours and they were not allowed to enter the train."

She said that she saw a person of color smash a train window and a fight break out.

The scramble for any bus

The next day, Bamidele returned to the train station and found some of the foreigners she had seen the previous day still waiting. There were only two trains per day bound for Lviv, not far from the Polish border.

Russian missiles had damaged the train station and Ukrainian soldiers had been ordered to prevent entry and exit to Dnipro as of March 3

Bamidele realized that she had to leave immediately. A day before the city was shut down, she scoured the bus stations for a way out and met a woman who could get her on to a private bus.

Hours later, Bamidele, five other Dnipro Medical Institute students from Nigeria and 44 others boarded a 50-seater bus bound for the border.
Hypothermia and exhaustion

The six Nigerian students did not want to travel to the Romanian border but that was where the bus was heading.

"So, when we got to a city that was close to Romania after 24 hours, it was a very hectic journey for us because we needed to stop at every checkpoint and there were a lot of checkpoints," said Bamidele.

The soldiers, she said, checked everyone to ensure there was no "intruder" on the bus.

The students decided to stay in the Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi until they could figure out which country they would try to reach.

Soldiers in Ukraine on the lookout for "intruders" at checkpoints

They had to figure out a plan while suffering from hypothermia, said Bamidele. They had also heard about the discrimination and ill treatment being meted out to Africans at Poland's border.

Hotels and apartments in Chernivtsi were fully booked but the group of students eventually found two very small rooms they could rent.

"That city was cold and the apartment was cold as well. There was nothing we could do. So we were there the first day to see what was going to happen. Maybe there would be another border that would be opening, and we would be going there," said Bamidele.
A smoother journey to Hungary

By the third day, the cold rooms in Chernivtsi had become unbearable. At the bus station, they bought tickets to Uzhhorod, near Ukraine's border with Hungary.

The 12-hour trip to Uzhhorod was smoother than the ride to Chernivtsi and there were fewer military checkpoints.

They arrived in Uzhhorod at about 4 a.m. on March 6 and caught a taxi to the city of Chop, where they waited to transfer to a train bound for the Hungarian border. Too tired to wait five more hours for a free train, the students bought tickets for a train departing immediately for Budapest, Hungary's capital.

Young Africans flee to Hungary because people of colour are better welcomed there.

On the platforms at the main train station in Budapest, many volunteers were on hand to help those fleeing Ukraine. Bamidele said they distributed toiletries and other basic supplies. Some even opened their homes to those who had nowhere to go.

In Dnipro, Bamidele used to volunteer for Diaspora Relief. In Budapest, a volunteer from the non-profit organization welcomed the six students and took them to a hostel.

Bamidele's uncle in Nigeria was not pleased that she was staying in a hostel where men and women were sharing bedrooms and bathrooms. On March 8, she moved to a private one-bedroom apartment he had booked online.

Bamidele volunteered to cook for the students and to help others still trying to reach Hungary.

"I started cooking because I knew that a lot of people hadn't eaten good food. We had been eating junk. And I knew that while they are in the hostel, they cannot even cook. So, finding myself in a comfortable place, I was like: Let me just cook for other people that don't have this opportunity,” she said.

Soon Bamidele was cooking for over 300 students. The meals are sponsored by Diaspora Relief.

Rejection upon rejection

Bamidele is doing more for African students than cooking because they are going through a rough time in Hungary. Accommodation is hard to find. Apartments need to be booked for four to five nights and check-in is always 4 p.m., while checkout is 10 a.m. The students need somewhere to stay warm in the times in between.

The governments of countries such as Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa helped students to leave Ukraine

Bamidele is helping people to search for apartments where new arrivals can stay temporarily.

"After booking on Airbnb, we have to go and check to see if they want us as people coming from Ukraine because it is very hard to get hosts that are going to take people coming from Ukraine,” she said.

DW asked several of the African students who had made their way to Hungary about their experience. Many said that the owners of Airbnb apartments in Hungary were now refusing to rent to them.

"They are not specific but I think it is Africans," Bamidele suggested.

African students in Hungary also told DW that Ukrainians who had fled to Hungary were more likely to find private accommodation or stay in refugee camps.

Racism in a refugee camp

A Ghanaian management student who declined to be named said he had left the refugee camp he was placed in after fleeing Sumy in northeastern Ukraine because of discrimination. He told DW that a Ukrainian man had complained to camp officials that sleeping beside a black man was traumatizing. The student was then moved to another space within the camp.

"So, hearing that, a lot of people don't want to stay in a refugee camp. So we just look for Airbnb and some of the NGOs like Diaspora Relief have been paying for food and accommodation," he said.

Though many African students in Hungary are without stable accommodation, some are still trying to attend the online lectures offered by their universities in Ukraine, while others are taking up the language classes offered by the government of Hungary.

Olufunmilola Bamidele told DW she would stay in Budapest for now. But she is planning to travel to Ireland, which she has heard is open to Africans who left Ukraine.

Edited by: Benita van Eyssen

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Africans in Ukraine: A student fears for his life

Donors Fall Short on Afghan Aid Pledges Amid Widening International Rifts

Divergences in approaches to Afghanistan map onto wider divergences between the United States and its allies and China, Russia, and their partners.

By Catherine Putz
April 05, 2022

Last week, a virtual donor conference convened by the United Nations accrued pledges of $2.44 billion for Afghanistan from 41 nations, falling short of the $4.4 billion target (itself down from the more than $5 billion the U.N. said it would seek back in January but still “the world’s largest appeal for a single country.”)

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivered remarks at the opening of the conference, hosted jointly by the governments of the United Kingdom, Germany, and Qatar, calling attention to the dire situation in Afghanistan.

“Some 95 percent of people do not have enough to eat. Nine million people are at risk of famine. UNICEF [United Nations Children’s Fund] estimates that a million severely malnourished children are on the verge of death, without immediate action,” he said, adding a looming economic collapse, an employment crisis, a drought, and skyrocketing food prices to the misery heaped upon Afghanistan.

“Wealthy, powerful countries cannot ignore the consequences of their decisions on the most vulnerable,” Guterres said, asking for “unconditional and flexible funding as soon as possible” so the U.N. could “reach 22 million people with food, water, health care, protection, shelter, education and other forms of life-saving aid.”

Guterres went on to stress the importance of access for aid workers — male and female — and for girls to be allowed access to not just education but the totality of modern life: “The inclusion of women and girls in all sectors of society and the economy is essential to overcoming Afghanistan’s intersecting economic, humanitarian and human rights crises.” But, he added, aid must not be withheld. “[W]e cannot use their education as a bargaining tool,” Guterres said, a comment arguably aimed at the World Bank and donors, such as the U.K., EU, U.S., and Turkey, which raised concerns about the Taliban’s treatment of women.

On March 30, days after the Taliban suddenly reversed a decision to allow girls to attend school past the sixth grade, the World Bank suspended four projects worth $600 million, which it had announced earlier in the month, over concerns about the continued banning of secondary education for women. The projects, as the BBC reported, would be restarted “only when the bank is confident that its goals can be met.”

At the pledging conference, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield delivered remarks in which she pledged an additional $204 million in new humanitarian assistance but also stated that “The Taliban will not control our humanitarian funding.” Thomas-Greenfield went on to say, “The people of Afghanistan have our unequivocal support. But the Taliban’s ambition to improve its own relations with the international community depends on its conduct.”

As desperate as the Afghan people are for assistance, the Taliban government does not appear ready to compromise on ideological issues and neither are international financial institutions, aid organizations, and donors. Among the most generous in pledging donations were the U.K. ($375 million), Germany ($221.46 million), and the United States ($204 million). The conference’s other host, Qatar, pledged $25 million. Absent from headlines was any news of pledges made by Russia or China.

On the same day as the U.N. pledging conference, China hosted the third “Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Neighboring Countries of Afghanistan” in Tunxi, Anhui. The in-person meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan as well as the Taliban’s Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

In a joint statement, the group called “for further measures to improve people’s livelihood and guarantee the basic rights of all Afghan people, including all ethnic groups, women and children” and urged the Taliban to “to take more visible measures” to demonstrate its distance from terrorist groups. In the joint statement the seven nations pledged “to provide humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people, support Afghanistan’s economic reconstruction and self-reliant development, and strengthen regional connectivity,” but did so without specific pledges.

In a routine press conference on March 31, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, while outlining the results of the meeting, that “China respects the leading role of the Afghan interim government in receiving foreign aid and opposes the politicization of humanitarian aid. We urge the US to take primary responsibility as the culprit of the predicament in Afghanistan, stop unilateral sanctions and unconditionally return Afghanistan’s national assets.”

These divergences in policy approaches to Afghanistan map onto existing divergences in the international community, particularly the widening rift between the United States and its allies, and China, Russia and their partners, as can also be seen in responses to the crisis in Ukraine.

STAFF AUTHOR
Catherine Putz is managing editor of The Diplomat. She tweets @LadyPutz.

ANALYSIS

COVID19 AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

The legitimacy of lockdown, according to Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas recently argued that the pandemic measures of the German government hadn’t gone far enough. To weigh the state’s duty to protect life against other rights and freedoms was unconstitutional, he warned. In the ensuing controversy, critics accused him of authoritarianism. Were they right?

Published on 26 March 2022 
Peter J. Verovšek - Eurozine (Vienna)
 

Hajo | Cartoon Movement

LONG READ

Jürgen Habermas’s article in the September 2021 issue of German political monthly Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik is the latest example of what his first editor described as the philosopher’s ability to create "a huge brouhaha" (einen gewaltigen Wirbel) in the German public sphere. (1)

In the piece, Covid-19 and the protection of life, Habermas not only defended the legitimacy of restrictions on civil rights – including free movement and assembly – designed to reduce infections by SARS-CoV-2, but also argued that the German government was not going far enough to protect the population. By taking as its baseline the availability of intensive care beds, rather than the risk of infection per se, the government was, he argued, failing to observe its constitutional duty to "exclude all courses of action that risk the probable endangerment of the life and physical integrity of a foreseeable number of innocent citizens."

On Habermas’s reading, the prohibition on the subordination of individual human life to any other goal is the supreme value not only of Germany’s post-war democratic political culture, but of the Basic Law itself. To argue – as some German jurists recently have – that risk to human life could be weighed against other basic rights was therefore not merely unethical, it was also legally false.

Although Habermas initially frames his argument broadly in terms of the democratic constitutional state, his citations and later discussion reveals that it is primarily addressed to the legal-ethical discourse in Germany (as so many of his public interventions are).
More : Instrumentalising the health crisis. On herd democracy and human dignity

Even in Germany, the reaction was somewhat muted compared to previous occasions. This probably says something about not only the public appetite – or lack thereof – for serious discussion about the measures to fight the pandemic, but also the polarisation of these debates when they do occur. Rather than engaging objectively with Habermas’s arguments, the response descended into the kind of polemic with which, after two years of pandemic, we are all-too familiar.

In a response entitled The Habermas dictatorship, published in the conservative German daily Die Welt on 11 October, features editor Andreas Rosenfelder accused him of creating a 'biopolitical Leviathan that can restrict any freedom for the purpose of infection control, always and everywhere, without condition and without measure'. Rosenfelder objected to Habermas’s framing of the critics of the lockdown policy as 'libertarians' opposed to state authority by definition. This, he argued, implied that the government and those who supported its 'strict' lockdown policy were simply 'defending' a legal norm, rather than 'a practice hastily borrowed from China'.

Rosenfelder’s diatribe – and the resonance it received on social media – reflect the discontent within parts of German society with what is seen as the 'media technocracy' over the course of the pandemic. Wild assertions such as that lockdowns are 'borrowed from China' (if anything they are rooted in the development of quarantines and cordons sanitaires to restrict the freedom of movement during the bubonic plagues) are par for the course in this discourse. Hyperbole aside, however, Rosenfelder was right that Habermas allows the government significant authority to restrict fundamental rights.

But while Habermas’s prioritisation of the protection of life might be extreme in certain respects, his proposals were neither particularly radical nor potentially authoritarian. Moreover, despite championing 'the unforced force of the better argument', Habermas is aware that philosophy does not have a privileged position in modern life.(2) Whereas professional thinkers may highlight certain problems, it is the public that serves as the ultimate arbiter.

As I shall argue, this fallibilistic commitment to the public sphere as the essence of modern democratic life has important implications both for Habermas’s argument itself, and for the power of governments to restrict the fundamental rights of their citizens in the face of SARS-CoV-2 while respecting the strictures of democratic legitimacy.

Origins

Starting with his attack on Martin Heidegger in 1953 for failing to apologize for his collaboration with the Nazis, to his role in the Historians’ Debate in the mid-1980s and his interventions in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, Habermas has intervened in almost every important controversy in post-war Germany. More recently, he has expanded his focus to debates on the future of the EU and the emerging European public sphere.

While Habermas argues that the public intellectual plays a crucial role in a liberal political culture as a 'guardian of rationality', he does not consider them to be neutral figures.(3) On the contrary, while public intellectuals help to ensure that the public exchange of ideas proceeds thoughtfully and on the basis of good information, they can take strong positions and make ‘arguments sharpened by rhetoric’.(4) Habermas has therefore never shied from controversy in his quest to improve the quality of public debate about the key issues of the day.
More : The virus as metaphor

In this case, Habermas’s argument had been rehearsed in a number of shorter public comments, both in Germany and abroad. In an interview in Le Monde in April 2020, Habermas noted that while emergency measures posed a number of problems for democratic legitimacy, pandemic states of exception were required in order to protect ‘the fundamental right to life and to physical integrity’. Despite the understandable pull of the ‘utilitarian temptation’, politicians must not, he argued, trade lives against economic considerations.

This is not to say that Habermas disregards such considerations entirely. On the contrary: in a plea published in both Die Zeit and Le Monde two weeks earlier, he and his co-signatories – including German former Foreign minister Joschka Fisher, French-German former Green MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit and German academic Axel Honneth – called on the European Commission to set up an EU-based 'corona fund' by borrowing on international financial markets at low interest rates. This, they argued, would enable the EU’s members to 'shoulder the huge financial burdens of the crisis together'. Such a step would not only allow poorer states to care for the economic wellbeing of their citizens without having to lift lockdowns prematurely; it would also take advantage of a new social atmosphere in which it was 'popular to show helpfulness, empathy and hope'.

While the pandemic created a tension in the generally “complementary relationship” between democratic self-empowerment of citizens to act collectively and the individual rights protected by the constitution, states of exception demanded that such conflicts be resolved in favour of the former

These earlier interventions highlight two aspects of Habermas’s thought that his critics overlooked. The first regards the role of solidarity in democratic politics, especially within a state of emergency. In his Blätter article, Habermas argued that democracy was incompatible with an individualistic conception of citizenship and instead required citizens to conceive of themselves as part of a collective able to act for the common good. Especially under crisis conditions – such as those brought about by Covid-19 – 'the state is dependent on unusually high cooperation from the population'. While the pandemic created a tension in the generally 'complementary relationship' between democratic self-empowerment of citizens to act collectively and the individual rights protected by the constitution, states of exception demanded that such conflicts be resolved in favour of the former.

In contrast to proponents of a looser approach, Habermas rejected the idea of a 'trade-off between the right to life and those competing basic rights that public health measures do indeed seriously impinge upon'. In situations such as the Coronavirus pandemic, precedence had to be given to the protection of life as the prerequisite for all other rights. The state could still 'offset' the priority given to the protection of life 'against secondary effects that threaten lives elsewhere and in other ways, but not against claims from competing basic rights'.

This conclusion follows from Habermas’s philosophical thought. His social and political theory is rooted in the fact that human interactions can be interpreted from two different and incompatible viewpoints: the internal perspective of a participant in a 'lifeworld' and the external, 'system'-based perspective of an observer. While the latter has certain advantages, most notably in governing efficient and materially productive market relations, Habermas worries about the ability of such functional, system-thinking to 'colonize' the lifeworlds of individuals by encroaching too far onto their daily lives and everyday interactions with others.(5)

For Habermas, prioritizing economic considerations (by privileging individual private rights) over the protection of life is precisely such a form of colonisation. In his interview with Le Monde, he noted that the 'language of “value”, borrowed from the sphere of economics, encourages quantification. But a person’s autonomy cannot be treated in this way … there is no “choosing” one human life over another.’ During short states of exception, therefore, politics 'as the means to achieve collective goals” demands priority over the law as ‘medium for guaranteeing subjective freedoms'.
Implications

A powerful statement of the danger of creeping authoritarianism has come from another public intellectual and philosopher, Giorgio Agamben. At the beginning of the pandemic, Agamben noted 'the increasing tendency to use the state of exception as the normal paradigm of government'. Habermas’s Italian counterpart therefore warned of the deleterious consequences of normalizing the kind of public monitoring, surveillance and restrictions on movement deemed necessary to fight the Coronavirus.Habermas is sensitive to concerns about the overuse of emergency politics. However, he noted that 'only Covid deniers could vilify measures justified solely for the duration of the pandemic as an excrescence of biopolitics'. In his public comments, Habermas has repeatedly emphasized that exceptional measures to protect life can be democratically legitimate only when supported by a majority of the population. He therefore stressed that when the political perspective of the participant is allowed to infringe upon basic rights, citizens must be able to trust ‘that the government will not allow the regime of legally mandated common-interest behaviours introduced on health-policy grounds to persist beyond the current hazardous situation’.

Understanding the basis for such trust and what prevents democratic states from imposing or extending states of exception indefinitely requires a deeper dive into Habermas’s philosophical system. Habermas defines democracy not in terms of majorities – as with republican supporters of popular sovereignty – nor in terms of unfettered respect for individual rights – as with liberals. Rather, democracy requires that ‘all decisions of consequence will depend on the practical discourse of the participants’.(6)

This does not mean that all such decisions must be made by referendum or that citizens have to actively consent to every government policy. Instead, the democratic process is legitimized by the ability of citizens to voice their disapproval through opposition, protest and debate. Not only that: the government must remain sensitive to the public’s discursive veto power by changing course in response to mass repudiations of government policy.(7)

As the foundation of modern democratic life, what Habermas refers to as the ‘anarchic, unfettered communicative freedom’ of public debate must be open to all topics and to everyone affected. This ‘wild’ process of opinion-formation, ‘in which equal rights of citizenship become socially effective’, must be matched by the sensitivity of the government and the institutions of law to public opinion.(8) Such an approach ensures the defence of civil liberties – both through the legal system and the prerequisites of the public sphere itself – and allows citizens to see themselves as co-authors of the laws that bind them. Even the compulsory restrictions imposed by state during the pandemic retain their ‘unique character as a voluntary contribution of the individual towards the collective accomplishment of a universally approved political task’.

If an open, functional and politically influential public sphere is the prerequisite for democratic legitimacy, then the presence of such an institution is the origin of citizens’ trust that the state will not abuse its powers. Even if governments were to overstep these boundaries, Habermas believes that the public could make use of vibrant national political spheres and the sensitivity of political institutions to public opinion to force a change. Because the modern, digitized public sphere enables both opinion-formation and the mobilisation of the people without physical contact, restrictions on mobility and measures to ensure physical distancing no longer impede its functioning.(9)
Even the compulsory restrictions imposed by state during the pandemic retain their "unique character as a voluntary contribution of the individual towards the collective accomplishment of a universally approved political task"

The situation is very different in illiberal or authoritarian regimes, where the ability of citizens to express themselves is restricted by surveillance, media concentration and other measures designed to tame the ‘wildness’ of the public sphere. ‘Illiberal democracies’ like Poland and Hungary still hold elections and protect constitutional rights at a theoretical level; however, since citizens are no longer empowered to act in a politically autonomous way that would allow them to see themselves as co-authors of the law, these regimes can no longer claim democratic legitimacy. In this regard measures to fight the pandemic are no different than any other political decision.
Conclusions

In appealing for the legitimacy of public health measures designed to prevent predictable and avoidable increase in infections and deaths, Habermas is fulfilling his role as a public intellectual ‘who seeks out on important issues, proposes fruitful hypotheses, and broadens the spectrum of relevant arguments in an attempt to improve the lamentable level of public debates’.(10) He is speaking in response to the growth in Corona-denialism in Germany and around the world, which is not just disrupting civil order, but also prolonging the pandemic and facilitating the mutation of the virus and the potential creation of vaccine-resistant variants of SARS-CoV-2.

This task is very different from that of epidemiologists who advise governments. Habermas argues that it is not the place of philosophers to give their opinions on the gravity of the threat of the virus itself, as Agamben did in calling Covid-19 ‘a normal influenza’. Instead of undermining public faith in medicine, intellectuals can help to ensure that societies engage in processes of opinion-formation to ensure that both expert advice and the will of the people are taken into account and balanced in a politically acceptable manner.

In this way, public intellectuals help to create and maintain the democratic solidarity necessary for individuals to act collectively as citizens. This is necessary, because – as Habermas noted in his Blätter article – ‘without civic common interest to back up mandatory law, the democratic state under the rule of law cannot have a political existence’. Aiding in the creation of such a collective ‘we-perspective’ is a crucial contribution, especially during crises such as the present, which demand sacrifices from everyone and can only be overcome concertedly. The pandemic should be seen as a chance to show solidarity and the ability to act collectively, not an opportunity to stubbornly assert one’s individual rights in a way that endangers others and further prolongs a pandemic that everyone wishes was already over.


👉 Original article on Eurozine. 

References

(1) Karl Korn quoted in Lorenz Jäger, ‘Heimsuchung von Heidegger’, Zeitschrift Für Ideengeschichte 15, no. 3 (2021), 12.

(2) Peter J. Verovšek, ‘The Philosopher as Engaged Citizen: Habermas on the Role of the Public Intellectual in the Modern Democratic Public Sphere’, European Journal of Social Theory 24, no. 4 (2021).

(3) Jürgen Habermas, Philosophical Introductions: Five Approaches to Communicative Reason, Cambridge: Polity 2018, 152.

(4) Jürgen Habermas, ‘Heinrich Heine and the Role of the Intellectual in Germany’, in The New Conservatism: Cultural Criticism and the Historians’ Debate, Cambridge: MIT Press 1989, 73.

(5) See Peter J. Verovšek, ‘Taking Back Control Over Markets: Jürgen Habermas on the Colonization of Politics by Economics’, Political Studies (2021).

(6) Jürgen Habermas, Theory and Practice, Boston: Beacon Press 1974, 34.

(7) Stephen K. White and Evan Robert Farr, ‘“No-Saying” in Habermas’, Political Theory 40, no. 1 (2012).

(8) Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, Cambridge: MIT Press 1996, 186, 307–8.

(9) Katharine Dommett and Peter J. Verovšek, ‘Promoting Democracy in the Digital Public Sphere: Applying Theoretical Ideals to Online Political Communication’, Javnost – the Public 28, 4 (2021).

(10) Jürgen Habermas, Europe: The Faltering Project, Cambridge: Polity Press 2009, 52, 55.

US denies pressuring Spain to support Morocco's autonomy plan for Western Sahara

The US ambassador's statements came after Russia’s envoy in Algeria claimed that Spain’s "turnaround" on the dispute was due to "pressure exerted by certain parties".

Basma El Atti
Rabat
05 April, 2022

"We didn't push Spain to change their position on Morocco. Spain made its own decision," said US envoy to Spain. [Getty]

The US ambassador to Spain has denied claims that Biden's administration put pressure on Madrid to change its position on the Western Sahara dispute in support of Morocco's autonomy plan.

"We didn't push Spain to change its position on Morocco. Spain made its own decision," said Julissa Reynoson Pantaleón, the newly-appointed US ambassador in Madrid, during an interview with the Spanish daily La Vanguardia published on Monday.

Spain, which held a neutral stance on the issue since decolonising the territory in 1975, said last month that Rabat's 2007 proposal to offer Western Sahara autonomy within the kingdom is the "most serious, realistic and credible" solution to solve the four-decade-long conflict.

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Israel backs Morocco's autonomy plan in Western Sahara

Basma El Atti

In 2006, Morocco presented its autonomy plan for the territory, which is supposed to allow Sahrawis to run their affairs "democratically", through legislative, executive, and judicial bodies, while Morocco retains control over the defence and foreign relations.

For its part, the UN has backed the plan but the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which continues to call for an independent state for Sahrawis, rejected Rabat's proposal to date.

The US ambassador's statements came after Russia's envoy in Algeria claimed that Spain's "turnaround" on the conflict was a result of "pressure exerted by certain parties", but without quoting them by name.

By lending its support to the plan, Madrid reconciled with Rabat but opened a new rift with Algiers. Algeria, which backs the Polisario separatist movement, considered Spain's sudden change of policy a "betrayal" and recalled its ambassador to Madrid.

Spain's new Western Sahara position 'shameful': Polisario

MENA

Basma El Atti

In April 2021, ties between Madrid and Rabat hit a low when Spain allowed Polisario leader Brahim Ghali into Spanish soil for medical treatment. Rabat reacted furiously, recalling its ambassador from Madrid.

The following month, Spain was caught off guard when more than 8,000 stormed its borders in Ceuta. Spain accused Morocco of deliberately putting thousands of lives at risk to "blackmail" Madrid during the diplomatic dispute between the two countries.

Meanwhile, the US ambassador renewed her country's support for Morocco’s autonomy plan. "We believe that Morocco's plan is reasonable, viable and we also support the process that the United Nations," she said.

However, Reynoson made no mention of the US recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the territory in 2020. The recognition was signed under Trump's administration as a part of the Abrahams Accord that persuaded Rabat to normalise ties with Israel.

Since its inauguration in January 2021, Biden's administration has yet to formally voice its recognition of Rabat's sovereignty over Western Sahara.

WE CALL IT FASCISM WHEN ORBAN, PUTIN, DUDA, DO IT

Israel renews closure of 28 Palestinian NGOs in occupied East Jerusalem

Israel maintains its crackdown on institutions in the city in a policy believed to aim at curbing the Palestinian Authority's influence

Israeli security forces gather outside the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City

 during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, 4 April 2022 (AFP)

By MEE staff
Published date: 5 April 2022

Israel has renewed the closure of 28 Palestinian civil society groups in occupied East Jerusalem, including the Orient House and the Prisoners' Club offices, local media reported.

On Monday, the representatives of the Jerusalem municipality, the Shin Bet, the Ministry of Internal Security, and the army's Home Front Command arranged to extend the closure of offices of Palestinian civil society in the city during a meeting.

It is widely believed that Israel has pursued a crackdown on Palestinian institutions in the city, including schools and NGO groups, to block the Palestinian Authority (PA) from getting a foothold in East Jerusalem.

The Orient House, an iconic building in the city that once hosted the kaiser of Germany in the late 1890s, was shut down during the Second Intifada in 2001.

Israel had attempted to close the building several times since its occupation of the city in 1967, saying that it was used as the headquarters for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

Israel had increased the presence of its military police in East Jerusalem as it expects tensions to rise in the city during the month of Ramadan and the Easter and Passover holidays in April.

On Tuesday, Israel released the PA's governor of Jerusalem, Adnan Gheith, after he was summoned for questioning in the morning.

Gheith is a resident of the Silwan neighbourhood. Though his role as the mayor of Jerusalem is symbolic, Israel has arrested him over 28 times and banned him since 2018 from leaving the city and meeting officials from the PA.

He told Wafa news agency that "my arrest comes as part of the criminal series that the occupation is carrying out against our people.... we will remain on our land embodying our sovereignty despite all these measures and these dark forces."

Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980, in a move unrecognised by the majority of the international community.

Geico drops Linda Sarsour as a diversity speaker after FAUX outrage from pro-Israel groups

More than 60 groups demand Geico apologise to Sarsour for 'defamatory public attack'

Linda Sarsour speaks during a press conference on 11 March, 2021, in Louisville, Kentucky, ahead of the one-year anniversary of Breonna Taylor's killing during a no-knock police raid (AFP)
By MEE staff in Washington

Published date: 8 April 2022 

The US-based insurance company Geico has cancelled a scheduled speech by Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour at their offices, following a backlash from pro-Israel and Jewish groups who decried her criticism of Israel as antisemitic.

Geico had scheduled Sarsour to speak on 5 April at an internal event celebrating Middle East and North African Heritage Month - the official celebration recognised by the US government is Arab American Heritage Month, which occurs every April.

However, the insurance giant reversed course on Thursday, saying on Twitter that "we apologize to our employees, customers, and others for our initial plan to invite Linda Sarsour to speak."

"GEICO does not condone hatred of any kind, and we do not stand with anyone who does. We are not aligned with any form of exclusion," the company's statement said.

In response to the cancellation, more than 60 groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), Jewish Voice for Peace, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, came together on Friday to demand Geico apologise to Sarsour, saying their statement was an attack on the activist's character.

'Geico's defamatory attack on Linda Sarsour is an attack on all Americans who dare to criticize the Israeli government and other human rights violators'

- Statement from groups demanding apology from Geico

"GEICO must immediately delete its false, defamatory and unacceptable attack on Linda Sarsour, who has vocally advocated for justice for all people and repeatedly fought against Islamophobia, antisemitism, xenophobia, and all other forms of hatred," the groups said in a joint statement.

"GEICO's defamatory attack on Linda Sarsour is an attack on all Americans who dare to criticize the Israeli government and other human rights violators."

Cair also sent a letter addressed to Geico's CEO Todd Combs demanding both an apology as well as a meeting with Arab and Muslim community leaders.

The progressive advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace separately came to Sarsour's defence, saying that Geico should "retract their defamation and apologize to Linda Sarsour immediately". They called the company statement "an insulting, libelous public tweet".

Sarsour "is a beloved, principled organizer who fights for our collective liberation and has made invaluable contributions to movements for racial and economic justice", the group said on Twitter.

"Is that not aligned with your values, @GEICO?"

MPower Change, a Muslim-led social and racial justice organisation in the US, created a petition online further calling on Geico to apologise to Sarsour.

"GEICO decided they were more comfortable publicly vilifying and dehumanizing a prominent advocate for Arab Americans, U.S. Muslims, Palestinians and other marginalized communities, than simply having a conversation," the petition reads.
Conflating Israel criticism with antisemitism

Several Jewish organisations condemned Geico's initial plan to host Sarsour, with the Anti-Defamation League saying it was "shocked" the company was partnering with a person involved in "delegitimizing Israel".

Stopantisemitism.org, a group that has labelled several Palestinian activists as antisemitic, and the American Jewish Committee also joined in the criticism, condemning Geico over the invitation.

Sarsour is a leading activist in the US who has advocated for a number of causes including the rights of Palestinians living in the occupied territories, as well as women's issues, and Muslim American rights. She was also an organiser of the 2016 Women's March.

She is a well-received figure among Arab and Muslim progressive circles, however, her staunch support for Palestinian rights, her criticism of Israel, and support for the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has often drawn the ire of pro-Israel organisations, as well as conservative and right-wing commentators.

In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, the campaign of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden attacked Sarsour after her appearance at a panel at the Democratic National Convention.

The campaign later apologised to Sarsour in a private phone call, but subsequently told CNN that it did not support the activist's views.

Sarsour has not publicly commented on Geico's decision, and Geico did not respond to MEE's request for comment.