Economic Crisis Exposes Plight Of Disadvantaged UK Families – OpEd

 January 9, 2023  

By Arab News

By Zaid M. Belbagi*

The UN World Food Program has estimated that more than 345 million people worldwide are suffering from or are at risk of acute food insecurity — a number that has doubled since 2019. However, while the UN has acted to provide support in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the rising cost of living is also hitting those in the developed world hard, no less so than in the UK, which is witnessing a sharp decline in living standards.

Britain is the world’s sixth-largest economy and a G7 industrialized power that has sought to perpetuate the postwar welfare state. However, its economy has entered what the Bank of England has warned is likely to be the longest recession and sharpest drop in living standards on record. This crisis is being driven by rocketing energy prices, stagnant wages and the sharpest rise in food costs in a generation. Amid a wider context of three prime ministers in the last six months, nationwide strikes and a bleak economic outlook for the coming year, it is little surprise that ordinary people are suffering.

Having ignored the growing impact of high food prices, the UK now has an acute hunger problem. One in four households with children experienced food insecurity in September 2022, affecting 4 million children. One poll from last October showed that one in seven people across the UK (14 percent) are skipping meals or going without food because they cannot afford the essentials. With millions being pushed below the breadline as food prices soar, charities have had to bridge the gap, with a staggering 1.3 million people seeking meals from the 2,000 food banks that have opened across the country.

Though the levels of hunger are not on a par with the developing world, even the families that are able to buy food can often only afford goods that are unhealthy and lacking in nutrition, increasing the scale of food insecurity and malnutrition that is already concerning. Though the UK only imports about 42 percent of its food, local produce is under increasing strain. Just last month, the National Farmers’ Union warned that the UK is “sleepwalking” into a major food supply crisis in the months ahead, with basics such as tomatoes and cucumbers facing shortages due to them being energy-intensive crops. The increasing price of energy and the knock-on effect on food has also led the Institute of Grocery Distribution to most recently warn of up to 19 percent food price inflation in the first quarter of this year.

Such stresses have been felt most acutely by the vulnerable, especially children. The latest data is stark, with almost one in three children in the UK living in poverty (31 percent). This figure reaches almost 50 percent among children in single-parent homes. Though the rate of child poverty improved slightly in response to government support during the pandemic, rising housing costs, including rent, water rates, mortgage interest payments, buildings insurance payments, ground rent and services charges, coupled with the biggest food price rise in 40 years, has severely impacted child poverty. The reality for 25 percent of pupils on free school meals is that their lunches are often the only hot food they are guaranteed to eat in a day. So reliant are the most disadvantaged on these meals that families can sometimes be pushed into crisis during the school holidays because they cannot afford to pay for the food their children usually receive for free during term-time.

Given that lower-income households spend a larger proportion of their income on food, it is little surprise they have been left so exposed to these shocks. Amid an increasingly patchy public health service, which in recent weeks has seen 40-hour waiting times and patients dying in ambulances owing to hospitals being full, the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health warned last week that dental issues have become the most common cause of hospital admissions among children in the UK. Faced with rising costs, many families simply cannot afford toothbrushes and toothpaste or are relying on sugary foods to satiate their hungry children.

Such concerns have also led to the spread of illnesses that were thought to have been consigned to history. In October, for example, the government warned that cases of scurvy had more than doubled in the UK. With average house prices the most unaffordable they have been since 1899, the impact on the health of children is concerning, with more than 120,000 of them effectively homeless and living in temporary accommodation last year.

Food shortages and high prices are causing pain across the world — a situation exacerbated by the war in Ukraine. Though food prices last year already climbed to their highest levels in more than a decade because of supply chain disruptions, the blockade of Ukrainian ports and restrictions on Russia’s imports, global hunger is likely to get worse. Within this context, the UK government must do more to help struggling families. Though wage rises have been promised in April, the vulnerable require support urgently. The current circumstances are only increasing the divide between those who are disadvantaged and those who are not. The physical and psychological impacts of these circumstances are immeasurable.

• Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator and an adviser to private clients between London and the GCC. Twitter: @Moulay_Zaid

Arab News

Arab News is Saudi Arabia's first English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1975 by Hisham and Mohammed Ali Hafiz. Today, it is one of 29 publications produced by Saudi Research & Publishing Company (SRPC), a subsidiary of Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG).

Robert Reich: Job And Wage Numbers Show Fed Is Winning, Big Corporations Doing Great, And Workers Are Losing Ground – OpEd

 January 9, 2023  

By Robert Reich

Job growth and wages are slowing. Employers added 223,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department reported Friday — lower than the average in recent months. 

Average hourly wages rose by 4.6 percent in December, according to the report. That’s a slowdown from 4.8 percent in November.

All this is music to the ears of Fed Chair Jerome Powell because the Fed blames inflation on rising wages. The Fed has been increasing interest rates to slow the economy and thereby reduce the bargaining power of workers to get wage gains. 

At his press conference on December 14 announcing the Fed’s latest interest rate hike, Powell warned that “The labor market remains extremely tight, with the unemployment rate near a 50-year low, job vacancies still very high, and wage growth elevated.”

But aren’t higher wages a good thing? 

The typical American worker’s wage has been stuck in the mud for four decades. 

Most of the gains from a more productive economy have been going to the top — to executives and investors. The richest 10 percent of Americans now own more than 90 percent of the value of shares of stock owned by Americans. 

Powell’s solution to inflation is to clobber workers even further. He says “the labor market continues to be out of balance, with demand substantially exceeding the supply of available workers.” 

But wait. If the demand for workers exceeds the supply, isn’t the answer to pay workers more? 

Not according to Powell and the Fed. Their answer is to continue to raise interest rates to slow the economy and put more people out of work, so workers can’t get higher wages. That way, “supply and demand conditions in the labor market [will] come into better balance over time, easing upward pressures on wages and prices,” says Powell.

Putting people out of work is the Fed’s means of reducing workers’ bargaining power and the “upward pressures on wages and prices.” 

The Fed projects that as it continues to increase interest rates, unemployment will rise to 4.6 percent at the end of next year — resulting in more than 1 million job losses. 

But fighting inflation by putting more people out of work is cruel, especially when America’s safety nets — including unemployment insurance — are in tatters. 

As we saw at the start of the pandemic, because the U.S. doesn’t have a single nationwide system for getting cash to jobless workers, many fall through the cracks, depending on what state they live in. 

When the pandemic began, fewer than 30 percent of jobless Americans qualified for unemployment benefits. 

The problem isn’t that wages are rising. The real problem is that corporations have the power to pass those wage increases — along with record profit margins — on to consumers in higher prices. 

If corporations had to compete vigorously for consumers, they wouldn’t be able to do this. Competitors would charge lower prices and grab those consumers away.

Corporations aren’t even plowing their extra profits into new investments that would generate higher productivity in the future. They’re buying back their shares to boost stock prices. Through the end of 2022, American firms announced stock buybacks exceeding $1 trillion.

A rational response to inflation, therefore, would not increase unemployment in order to reduce the bargaining power of workers to get higher wages. 

It would be to reduce the pricing power of corporations to pass those costs along to consumers along with rising profit margins, by making markets more competitive. 

Corporate pricing power is out of control because corporations face so little competition. 

Worried about sky-high airline fares and lousy service? That’s largely because airlines have merged from 12 carriers in 1980 to 4 today.

Concerned about drug prices? A handful of drug companies control the pharmaceutical industry.

Upset about food costs? Four giants control over 80% of meat processing, 66% of the pork market, and 54% of the poultry market. 

Worried about grocery prices? Albertsons bought Safeway and now Kroger is buying Albertsons. Combined, they would control almost 22 percent of the US grocery market, with revenue over $200 billion. Add in Walmart, and the three brands would control 70 percent of the grocery market in 167 cities across the country.

And so on. The evidence of corporate concentration is everywhere.

It’s getting worse. There were were over a thousand major corporate mergers or acquisitions last year. Each had a merger value of $100 million or more. The total transaction value was $1.4 trillion. 

The government must stop putting the responsibility for fighting inflation on working people whose wages have gone nowhere for four decades. Put the responsibility where it belongs — on big corporations with power to raise their prices. 

One possibility: Any large corporation in an industry dominated by five or fewer giant corporations that raises its prices more than the Fed’s target of 2 percent should be presumed to have monopoly power, and slammed with an antitrust lawsuit.

Robert Reich

Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, and writes at robertreich.substack.com. Reich served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written fifteen books, including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of Nations," and"Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The Common Good," which is available in bookstores now. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.

COMMODITY FETISH: AS SEEN ON TV 
'Can't keep up': Pandemic cooking boom sharpens Japan knife sales

A worker finishing a knife at a factory of Sumikama Cutlery in Seki, 

Gifu prefecture, on Sept 2, 2022. PHOTO: AFP

SEKI, Japan - In a Japanese city once famous for forging samurai swords, craftsmen sharpen and polish kitchen knives, but even at full tilt their small factory can’t keep up with global demand.

The export value of knives and other bladed tools like scissors hit a record high in Japan last year, partly thanks to a home-cooking boom sparked by the pandemic.

Japanese knives are also winning more converts among aspiring and professional chefs, who prize their delicate precision, sleek finish and long lifespan.


Mr Katsumi Sumikama, head of Sumikama Cutlery in the central city of Seki, puts the popularity down to a “combination of technology and traditional craftsmanship”.

To achieve the formidably sharp edge needed to make perfect sushi or cut precise slices of Wagyu beef, the company uses machines that guarantee accuracy to one-thousandth of a millimetre, then artisans finish the job by hand.

But even at full capacity, “we can’t keep up”, Mr Sumikama told AFP.


“We’re seeing demand stronger than pre-pandemic levels in all countries.”

Seki’s renowned blade expertise dates back to the 14th century, when the city became a major producer of swords thanks to its rich natural environment.

“The clean water, charcoal and raw materials were ideal for sword-making,” Mr Sumikama said.

High-quality iron made from ironsand was forged into a tough sword by folding red-hot metal multiple times, and moulded into a curved shape by plunging it into cool water.


When samurai were ordered to abandon their swords in 1876, the industry faltered, but after World War II the city began producing pocket knives for export.

Business boomed at first, with the fixed yen-to-dollar rate a boon for mass exports to the United States.

But when that policy ended in the 1970s and China began making cheaper products, Japan could no longer compete.

‘Truly worldwide’

“There were difficult times,” Mr Sumikama said.

“Seki’s blade-makers decided they needed a new direction.”

At the time, German products, including knives by Zwilling, dominated the market for high-end knifeware, and luxury Japanese offerings were few and far between.

In the 1990s, Mr Sumikama went all in – launching a full line-up of top-of-the-range kitchen knives that cost up to several hundred dollars each.

To emphasise their made-in-Japan pedigree, his company adds a wavy two-tone finish to the metal that evokes the traditional appearance of samurai blades, and a kanji-character logo.

Despite their elegant appearance, Mr Sumikara said he faced scepticism from both within and outside the company that his expensive knives would sell.

“We were trapped in the idea that Japanese products... would not be accepted by consumers unless they were cheaper than German products,” he said.

But the line was a success and the company now sells their luxury knives in more than 50 countries.

The export value of kitchen bladed tools hit a record 12 billion yen (S$121 million) in 2021, a 30 per cent jump from around nine billion yen the previous year, according to Japan Customs.

French chef Olivier Oddos, whose Tokyo restaurant boasted a Michelin star between 2014 and 2021, has been a devotee for more than two decades.

A demonstration to test the sharpness of a knife with a tomato at

 a Sumikama Cutlery factory in Seki, Gifu prefecture. PHOTO: AFP


Japanese kitchen knives now have a “truly worldwide” reputation, he told AFP in his restaurant’s small kitchen.

“I know a lot of French chefs who have come to Japan, and every time they buy Japanese knives. Sometimes they even buy them for their whole team,” he said.
‘Essence of the knife’

Mr Oddos says the formidable sharpness of the Japanese blades makes all the difference.

“It cuts perfectly. It cuts straight. It’s regular,” he said, adding it “changes the quality of the cooking”.

Japanese knives have to be maintained regularly with sharpening stones, but “if you take good care of them, they have a pretty exceptional lifespan”, he said.

Mr Daisuke Kumazawa owns Kama-Asa, a shop that has operated on Tokyo’s famous Kappabashi kitchenware street for over a century.

He says Japanese knives have exploded in popularity overseas in the last decade along with a growing interest in Japanese food.

Chefs want quality blades to do “delicate work”, he said.

The products are so popular that he opened a Paris branch four years ago.

Japanese knives have exploded in popularity overseas in the last decade 

along with a growing interest in Japanese food. PHOTO: AFP


But he has also noted a pandemic rise in interest.

“Probably because they were at home more often, more people wanted to take time to cook, and cook better,” he said.

At Kama-Asa, assistants explain dozens of different knives to a steady stream of Japanese and foreign customers.

Mr Kumazawa wants buyers to think about Japanese knives as more than a simple kitchen tool.

He said: “We want them to know why they are good – the essence of the knife, the thoughts of the craftspeople behind the knife.” 

AFP

 

How Higher Education Got Criminalized – OpEd

 January 9, 2023

By Prakash Kona

If I were not a firsthand witness to the criminalization of higher education, I would not be in a position to write about it. I am a witness to wholesale corruption in teaching appointments which involve bribery and the use of political influence, heads of institutions sitting in selection panels and appointing their partners and personal favorites for various positions, falsifying of administrative records without fear of consequences, manipulations in admissions, use of public funds for expensive lawyers to indulge in lying and deception, the bribing, bullying and blackmailing of teaching and non-teaching staff into servility, influencing and buying of journalists so that no news comes out, harassment and intimidation – all of this happening with the blessings of higher-ups in the political party heading the government, while the devil declares its loyalty to Power with a capital P. 

In all of this criminalization there is a dark side where the supposedly marginalized are in cahoots with establishment politics. Such complicity with power cutting across political ideologies by those who claim to be “weak” and “backward” is rarely admitted and even more rarely spoken or written about. This suits the agenda of the status quo which needs people from sections of the population who could pose a threat to the government, as they speak from the position of the disadvantaged. Those who happily surrender their individuality and self-respect for monetary and other benefits do so in order to preserve their interests.   

The broader context to higher education getting criminalized is that corporatization of the economy in effect meant making ethical compromises, not simply because of the introduction of the profit motive into the life of the mind, but because education became intertwined with economics, money occupying a central place, instead of learning for learning’s sake. Learning for profit’s sake became the new dictum. You can’t be learning something that does not translate into money in one form or the other. Learning for a job’s sake, I understand. But if you’ve to learn just to make money, whether for survival or to have a comfortable life, it means that the knowledge will never translate into an authentic person. That explains the emotional quotient of doctors, IT professionals, legal experts and bureaucrats who acquired positions without the required amount of empathy.

I don’t understand courses like Business Administration. You need to have a business in order to make sense of a degree that qualifies you for administration. How can you be working for a company and have a degree in Business Administration? A degree in Hotel or Tourism management is another of those pointless degrees where whatever little is learnt could easily be garnered through taking a job in a restaurant or as a tour guide. I do not think everyone needs to go to a university in order to acquire norms of civilized life such as self-restraint and basic human decency or the language and awareness that will prevent you from being exploited and abused. These things can be learnt through apprenticeship without wasting time and money in the university. In other words, higher education has been overrated and unfortunately countless youngsters with degrees are walking the streets of the world without employment opportunities along with the tragic realization that whatever they were taught at the university has no immediate relevance to their daily life. 

While corporatization has created quite a few pointless degrees, what happened is that the very concept of education that stood for learning, got diluted. In the process academic leadership went for a toss; in private institutions we have “yes-sir/madam” teachers and administrators who endorse whatever the institution expects of them without questions. In public universities, the academic leaders tend to be incompetent, completely indifferent to the future of the institution and corrupt, doing whatever it takes to hang on to the seat for as long as possible. The semblance of order in private institutions is only because of the fear of getting kicked out. Change in a real sense would mean striking a balance between institutions offering the freedom to ask the right questions that lead to more platforms for inclusion and the socialization of the young to non-abusive, non-patriarchal and gentler forms of living.

I don’t intend to dwell on the bigger issue of the progressive decline of ethical standards along with the related decline in original thinking. No person who is not honest with him or herself could ever be creative in the real sense of the term. Fame and money in the form of prizes and sales mean nothing before the pursuit of the truth. My point is how bare minimum academic standards have been brought down to the level of zero because of the contempt that the semi-literate class in power has for anything that looks like an objective, truthful understanding of the world. What they fail to realize is that every great invention, discovery and production of knowledge took place through a right understanding of how things work. The scientist is an artist who examines nature and the artist is a scientist who observes social behavior. 

Therefore, corruption and dishonesty at the level of higher education can be disastrous for the entire order. Broadly, fraud in an academic setting falls under a tentative definition of white-collar crime. Often this has little to do with political ideologies and more to do with the greed and ambition of particular individuals and members within institutions who are a part of a coterie or mafia working to defeat academic goals and replacing them with vested interests. The criminalization of higher education has different facets to it. What is common to all the facets is that money in one form or another is foregrounded at the expense of thought. 

While the prostitution of the mind for material gains is more or less an accepted fact of life, what makes it worse is that every other crime is given a shade of lightness in order to disguise the moral vacuum that institutions have been reduced to. The Oxford Handbook of White-Collar Crime uses the term “white-collar crime” in two different senses: one of them “refers to the corrupt, exploitative, and socially harmful acts of respectable and powerful individuals and organizations” and another “refers more broadly to economic crimes that involve deception” (4). White-collar crime is a reality because there are individuals who are “corrupt, exploitative and socially harmful.” Such individuals often enjoy political support simply because one of the items in the corporatization of higher education always meant the suppression of any discussion related to meaningful change. “A majority of offenders hail from middle-class backgrounds and have some level of higher education, are married, and have stronger ties to community, family, and religious organizations than traditional street offenders” (Handbook 119). Sometimes there are reasons for “street offenders” breaking the law such as personal or social background; but no excuse is good enough for white-collar criminals, when they happen to occupy higher positions. 

What is strange is that in countries like India corruption has been normalized because of the fundamental dishonesty of the average person on the street. Most people in fact approve of corruption-based success to such an extent that nobody feels that there is anything wrong in it. Corrupt people are admired, seen as respectable and surrounded by well-wishers looking for a favor. When the corrupt stand on platforms and speak about moral values, the thunderous applause they receive is mind-boggling. There is a context to it: 

“A considerable element in the trivialization of white-collar and corporate crime lies in the fact that politicians who set the tone and to a large extent dictate the decibel level of the response to such illegalities depend very heavily on campaign contributions from people and organizations that supply the roster of white-collar criminals. There is a folk saying about not biting the hand that feeds you or, in white-collar crime terms, “Don’t defeat the elite.”

Whether called “white-collar crime,” “economic crime,” or “abuse of power” or given some other label, higher forms of political, professional, and business delicts typically are complex, obscure, and somewhat esoteric. Unlike street offenses, there never has been, or likely will be, an annual tabulation of the extent of such behavior.” (Handbook 42)

The context can certainly be changed provided there is a willingness to call the spade for what it is – a tool for digging. Where injustice and exploitation are the norm, more or less everyone becomes complicit in keeping the inequality going. In one of my favorite Brecht plays, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, the legal system complements the powers that be. In fact, they’re two sides of the same coin. As one of the characters puts it: “The judge was always a chancer! Now the chancer shall be a judge!” Establishment politics needs to bank on institutional support, mostly from the universities, media and courts of law. 

By trivializing white-collar crimes, universities create the base that offers justification for the corruption and abuse of power happening both in and outside the government. If higher education is a part of the status quo to begin with, for one to expect change through learning (which is a real possibility) means that we create avenues for sharing information and ideas in truthful, non-violent and accommodative ways. When educational institutions are corrupted it also means that the legal and other institutions such as the media are severely damaged making it impossible for common people to find expression for their concerns. Once the majority of people are voiceless and powerless, they have only one alternative left, which is to resort to “any means necessary,” to use a phrase popularized by Malcolm X. That’s how colonialism came to an end; that’s how colonial forms of oppression will come to an end. 

References:

Van Slyke, Shanna R., Michael L. Benson and Francis T. Cullen. Eds. The Oxford Handbook of White-Collar Crime. OUP, 2016.

Brecht, Bertolt, The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Trans. Eric Bentley, 1983.

Prakash Kona

Prakash Kona is a writer, teacher and researcher who lives in Hyderabad, India. He is Professor at the Department of English Literature, The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad.

G5 Sahel West African States Bartering Mines For Russia’s Military Equipment – OpEd

 January 9, 2023 

By Kester Kenn Klomegah

In his series of end-year review reports, Special Presidential Representative for the Middle East and Africa, Mikhail Bogdanov, told local Russian media that Russia would continue its interaction with G5 Sahel West African countries to fight terrorism, as terrorist threat in the region had not subsided and the West’s military presence was “not so effective” in Africa.

“Moscow will continue its interaction with the G5 Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Mauritania) on arms supplies to fight terrorism. Naturally, there will be contacts with the G5 Sahel,” Bogdanov told the Russian media, and noted that the group was undergoing “some internal structural changes” currently because problems had arisen over Mali’s participation. 

“We have bilateral communication with all the countries of the five. We will see what format will be optimal for our partners. Interaction here is largely focused on the fight against terrorism and extremism, because this Sahara-Sahel zone has become a hotbed of international terrorism and, of course, because of the collapse of Libya’s statehood and the spread of these processes to the south,” he said.

Over the past several years, Russian Foreign Ministry has strengthened the military-technical cooperation a key part of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation with Africa. It has oftentimes explained in statements released on its website that Russia’s military-technical cooperation with African countries is primarily directed at settling regional conflicts and preventing the spread of terrorist threats, and fighting the growing terrorism in the continent.

It is broadening its geography of military diplomacy covering poor African countries and especially fragile States that need Russia’s military assistance. It has signed bilateral military-technical cooperation agreements with more than 20 African countries, according to several reports.

Some policy experts have said that African society is suffering through a weak institutions and terrorism challenges due to alienation from political governance and lack of having equal opportunity in community affairs. For instance, countries such as Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Central African Republic and many others have loose holds of the government and have deliberately created the political environment for terrorist organizations to flourish in Africa. 

The basic polity of many African countries is not up to the mark. There are state institutions, departments and agencies like law enforcement bodies, regulatory agencies and judiciary suffering from the chronic dysfunctional mechanism which needs immediate focus to address challenges of terrorism and terror funding. Therefore, fighting terrorism should be analyzed and raising the functioning levels of institutions as well as the development of the society.

Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat has reiterated the necessity of creating regional forces for fighting terrorist groups, but added that the African armies are still under-equipped. “It is important that external partners listen to the cries of Africa and operate within the framework of the organization when it comes to the extension support in dealing with this scourge,” he stressed.

Somalia’s President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud also spoke about how the terrorist group, al-Shabaab, controlled large portions of Somalia’s rural areas. “Shabaab, or terrorists anywhere they are, cannot be defeated militarily only,” he said.

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi was very outspoken, shared valuable experiences about the use of well-constituted regional military force for enforcing peace and security in Mozambique. Creating regional military forces to fight threats of terrorism will absolutely not require bartering the entire gold or diamond mines for the purchase of military equipment from external countries.

Now, Mozambique has relative peace and stability after the 16-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) had finally approved the deployment of joint military force with the primary responsibility of ensuring peace and stability, and for restoring normalcy in the Cabo Delgado province, northern Mozambique.

It involves troops from Rwanda and the Southern African Development Community Military Mission (SAMIM). Rwanda offered 1,000 in July 2021. South Africa has the largest contingent of around 1,500 troops. External countries are, of course, enormously helping to stabilize the situation in Mozambique.

The Joint Forces of the Southern African Development Community are keeping peace in northern Mozambique. The rules, standards and policies, provision of the assistance as well as the legal instruments and practices are based on the protocols of building security stipulated by the African Union. It, therefore, falls within the framework of peace and security requirements of the African Union.

Ahead of the next Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg, July 2023, the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) has published a special report on Russia-Africa. The report titled – Russia’s Private Military Diplomacy in Africa: High Risk, Low Reward, Limited Impact – says that Russia’s renewed interest in Africa is driven by its quest for global power status. Few expect Russia’s security engagement to bring peace and development to countries with which it has security partnerships.

While Moscow’s opportunistic use of private military diplomacy has allowed it to gain a strategic foothold in partner countries successfully, the lack of transparency in interactions, the limited scope of impact and the high financial and diplomatic costs exposes the limitations of the partnership in addressing the peace and development challenges of African host countries, the report says.

The report authored by Ovigwe Eguegu, a Beijing-based Nigerian Researcher on Politics and International Affairs, focused on the use of private military companies to carry out ‘military diplomacy’ in African states, and the main research questions were: What impact is Russia’s private military diplomacy in Africa having on host countries’ peace and development? Why has Russia chosen military diplomacy as the preferred means to gain a foothold on the continent?

His report was based on more than 80 media publications dealing with Russia’s military-technical cooperation in Africa. He interrogates whether fragile African states advance their security, diplomatic and economic interests through a relationship with Russia. 

Overcoming the multidimensional problems facing Libya, Sudan, Somali, Mali, and the Central African Republic will require comprehensive peace and development strategies that include conflict resolution and peacebuilding, state-building, security sector reform, and profound political reforms to improve governance and the rule of law – not to mention sound economic planning critical for attracting foreign direct investment needed to spur economic growth.

The United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the entire international community have expressed collective concerns about any use of private mercenary forces, instead strongly suggested the use of well-constituted regional forces approved by regional blocs, as a means of addressing conflicts in Africa. The G5 Sahel are Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. 

Kester Kenn Klomegah

Kester Kenn Klomegah is an independent researcher and a policy consultant on African affairs in the Russian Federation and Eurasian Union. He has won media awards for highlighting economic diplomacy in the region with Africa. Currently, Klomegah is a Special Representative for Africa on the Board of the Russian Trade and Economic Development Council. He enjoys travelling and visiting historical places in Eastern and Central Europe. Klomegah is a frequent and passionate contributor to Eurasia Review.

India Is Wrong: Russia’s Aggression In Ukraine Has Global, Not Just European Ramifications – OpEd

India's Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi with the 

President of Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir Putin, 

at Hyderabad House, in New Delhi on December 06, 2021. 

Photo Credit: PM India

 January 9, 2023 

By Anita Inder Singh

India is wrong to dismiss Russia’s war in Ukraine as Europe’s problem. The illegality and destructiveness of the invasion, and consequential food and energy crises, have global ramifications. That is why 143 out of the 193 member-states of the UN General Assembly have voted against recognising Russia’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions after holding sham referenda there. Ninety-three voted in favour of expelling Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.

India has abstained from every vote in the UN condemning Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. The reason? Moscow is India’s top arms supplier and some 70% of India’s military platforms are of Russian origin. That raises questions about India’s strategic autonomy – but such queries are like water off a duck’s back.

Justifying India’s refusal to censure Russia’s unlawful assault on Ukraine at the GLOBSEC 2022 Bratislava Forum in Slovakia in June, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar contended that “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems”.

Who would have thought that contemporary self-styled ‘Vishwaguru India’, wanting to create ‘One World, One Family, One Future’ as president of the G20 over the next two years, could brush off or be slow to recognise the global food and energy crises inflicted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, whose statehood the international community recognised after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991?

Russia, not Western sanctions, precipitated the crises by blockading the first of many Ukrainian ports on March 3. The head of the African Union, President Macky Sall of Senegal and President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, then heading the G20, met President Vladimir Putin last June to discuss the food, fertiliser and fuel crises caused by Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met him for the first time since Moscow launched its invasion only in September 2022 – at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting, sponsored by Russia’s iron strategic partner, China.

By shrugging aside Russia’s aggression as Europe’s problem, India has also shown indifference to the fears – in and outside the Indo-Pacific – that China, the dominant partner in the Sino-Russian relationship, could follow Russia’s example and try to restructure Asia’s security architecture through war. For, China menaces the territorial sovereignty of many of its Asian neighbours, including India.

India’s strategic partner in the Quad, Japan, faces Chinese threats to its sovereignty and fears that “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow”. Unsurprisingly, Japan has ended its 77-year-old pacifism. On December 16, Japan announced its greatest military build-up since the end of the Second World War in 1945. 

At the economic level, India has purchased unprecedented amounts of Russian crude at discount prices on the grounds that Europe’s energy imports from Russia have dwarfed New Delhi’s buys. New Delhi avows that its “moral duty” is to ensure the best deal for a country “with a per capita income of $2,000″. However, the common man has not benefited from India’s rising oil imports from Russia. Instead, the private companies which have snapped up cheap Russian oil have made huge profits by selling it abroad – even to Europe.

Meanwhile, the foreign minister of a war-ravaged but unconquered Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, laments that it is “morally inappropriate” of India to argue that Europeans are also buying Russian energy. India is buying cheap Russian oil because of “our suffering”.

A view shows a well head and a drilling rig in the Yarakta Oil Field, owned by Irkutsk Oil Company (INK), in Irkutsk Region, Russia March 11, 2019. Photo: Reuters/Vasily Fedosenko

Double standards revealed

New Delhi keeps mum about authoritarian Russia’s silence on China’s expansionism in India and Southeast Asia. In contrast, it has sharply criticised democratic Europe for being silent on China’s activities in Asia: “When the rules-based order was under challenge in Asia, the advice we got from Europe was to do more trade.”

Admittedly, the EU was strengthening its trading ties with China as Beijing displayed its expansionist intentions in the South and East China Seas after 2010. But so was India, whose trade with China has burgeoned to record heights despite border clashes in June 2020 – and again in December 2022.

True, the EU has no defence policy and cannot save ‘Asia’ from China’s belligerence just because France and Germany send a few warships to the Indo-Pacific. But India cannot ‘defend Asia’ from Chinese imperialism any more than the EU. Its GDP per capita of 2,256.6 and military spending of $ 76 billion are no match for China’s 12,556.3 and $ 293 billion respectively. So India focuses on securing its borders with China and Pakistan, and on countering China’s fierce economic and military competition in its immediate South Asian neighbourhood.

Whatever its flaws, the EU is not as parochial as New Delhi alleges. The Union is the world’s largest aid donor and has invested generously in Asia and Africa to counter China’s economic influence. Between 2013 and 2018, the EU gave €410 billion (around $436 billion) in official development assistance worldwide; China €34 billion ($ 36 billion). In 2019, EU investment in ASEAN totalled €313.6 billion (over $300 billion)… From April 2019 to March 2022, India invested $ $55.5 billion (about €52.3 billion) in ASEAN. India itself could be helped by the EU’s €300 (($ 318 billion) Global Gateway fund, which will expand connectivity in the Indo-Pacific and Africa.

Responding to Russia’s threat to wage nuclear war, India has wrongly sermonised that “nuclear weapons should not be used by any side in the Ukraine war”. The fact? Ukraine is not a nuclear state. In 1994 it chose to denuclearise because the US, Britain and Russia, in the Budapest Memorandum, promised to guarantee its security. By invading Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, Russia violated that commitment, imperilling European and global security.

India could learn something from the EU’s experience. Russia does not menace the sovereignty of any EU country at the moment. But by relying on a territorial spoiler for energy, even after Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, democratic Europe has gone adrift in its strategic thinking, As India confronts China’s land grabs, its dependence on Beijing for trade could be self-defeating, given China’s contempt for its slow progress.

Meanwhile, what does New Delhi think of Putin’s assertion that it is “natural” that China’s “military might grows along with the rise in the economic potential”, and that China’s growing might “first of all… relates to its economic might… why should we follow third countries’ interests in building our policy?” Such is Russia’s applause for China’s imperialism.

At another level – amazingly – after supplying India with weapons for over five decades, Moscow has reportedly asked New Delhi for parts of cars, aircraft and trains. So where will that leave India’s dependence on Russian arms against China? At least EU countries are not in the incongruous and shaky position of being reliant on two enemies – Russia and the US – one of which could lose militarily in Ukraine.

The tangled legal, political and economic repercussions of Russia’s devastating war in Ukraine extend far beyond Europe. Unlike India, most members of the G20 – hailing from the Americas, across Europe to Asia – have voted against Russia’s transgressions of international law and human rights in Ukraine. India will be able to provide constructive leadership to the G20 only if it recognises their shock and despair at Russia’s blatant contraventions of international norms. Even as democratic Europe confronts the strategic fallout and human distress caused by Russia’s warmongering, it should step up its economic contribution to the well-being of Asia – and the rest of the developing world.

This article was first published in The Wire on 8 January 2023

Anita Inder Singh

Anita Inder Singh, a Swedish citizen, is a Founding Professor of the Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi. Her books include Democracy, Ethnic Diversity and Security in Post-Communist Europe (Praeger, USA, 2001) ; her Oxford doctoral thesis, The Origins of the Partition of India, 1936-1947 (Oxford University Press [OUP], several editions since 1987, published in a special omnibus comprising the four classic works on the Partition by OUP (2002, paperback: 2004) The Limits of British Influence: South Asia and the Anglo-American Relationship 1947-56 (Macmillan, London, and St Martin's Press, New York, 1993), and The United States, South Asia and the Global Anti-Terrorist Coalition (2006). Her articles have been published in The World Today, (many on nationalism, security and democracy were published in this magazine) International Affairs, (both Chatham House, London) the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Asian Wall Street Journal, the Nikkei Asian Review and The Diplomat.