E.P. Thompson at 100

BY PETER LINEBAUGH

 FEBRUARY 2, 2024
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As a former tank commander, Edward knew his way around an internal combustion engine.  Once at a gathering in Toronto someone’s car wouldn’t start up and Edward was under the hood and had the engine running in a jiffy.  It was a surprise.  He was not afraid to explore how the world actually works.   Once there was a problem in north Wales at a cottage he had.  The water wasn’t running.  It was past daylight but he put on his boots and strode out into night with his torch or flash-light swinging its beam back and forth in the muddy grass looking for the pipeline.  He found it and on the spot repaired its stop-cock.  I was impressed by these traits of the scholar of The Making of the English Working Class.

Of course, he was a man of ideas, and his reach with them was across the world.  When Allende died he turned his tears to a powerful poem.  He lived in the Worcestershire countryside.  Behind his house a tulip tree grew and surrounding the tulip tree were cyclamens grown from Palestine.  His mother and father and brother had deep ties to India and the Levant.  He loved wildflowers and could name them with English names such as the poet, John Clare, may have used.  It was one of his links to the English commons, both the knowledge and the names.

His sleeves were often rolled up. His jacket or jumper often had chalk dust mixed with the ashes of the cigarillos he smoked.  He conveyed the look and style of mid-20^th century English intellectual grunge.  A seminar might happen anywhere.  He lay flat on the pinewood floor, and comrades and colleagues joined him there.  He loved the cut and thrust of debate; he could recite Wordsworth at length; in lecture he could build to a climax.  Theatre was in his bones.  When listening his eyes might be sharp conveying acuity.  He had a beautiful voice with versatile accents and registers of great range.  He liked to tease us by saying that Marx was English too.  Not just German or Russian.  He had a massive capacity for work, and generally knew what he was talking about.  When he didn’t, he’d ask, or study.  He aimed to put an end to nuclear war at least.

Edward Thompson, presente! 

Peter Linebaugh is the author of The London Hanged, The Many-Headed Hydra: the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (with Marcus Rediker) and Magna Carta Manifesto. Linebaugh’s latest book is Red Round Globe Hot Burning. He can be reached at: plineba@gmail.com

SEE

EP Thompson: historian for the working class

Displaced Lebanese lament bombed homes, lost livelihoods

Tyre (Lebanon) (AFP) – When Ines Tehini and her family fled their south Lebanon village after Hezbollah and Israel began exchanging fire in October, she thought they would be home in a matter of days.


Issued on: 03/02/2024 -

Lebanese who fled the south have taken shelter at a school in Tyre 

© ANWAR AMRO / AFP

But nearly four months later in a school turned shelter, her hopes for a swift return to normality have faded after Israeli strikes badly damaged the family home in Aita al-Shaab on the border, said the mother of three.

"My brother's apartment on the floor above me was completely burnt down, and the floor where I live also sustained damage," she told AFP from a classroom in the south Lebanon city of Tyre.

"If I could, I would rent an apartment in Tyre, but I can't afford it," said Tehini, 37, as her toddler played on mattresses strewn on the floor.

"I don't know what will become of us," she added.

Since the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, the Lebanese-Israeli border has witnessed near-daily exchanges of fire, mainly between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

At least 218 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also at least 26 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Smoke billows after Israeli bombardment around the southern Lebanese village of Aita al-Shaab 

© Jalaa MAREY / AFP/File

In northern Israel, nine soldiers and six civilians have been killed, Israeli officials have said.

The violence has displaced more than 86,000 Lebanese, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

People in south Lebanon told AFP their homes and livelihoods had been destroyed in the fighting, which has heaped misery on a population already battered by a four-year economic crisis.

'Rebuild from scratch'

Tehini's husband, a soldier, earns $150 per month -- barely enough to support the family even before they fled.

Fighting back tears, she said her family home had been destroyed in 2006, when Israel and Hezbollah fought a full-blown war.

Recent Israeli strikes also damaged many of her neighbours' property and livestock, Tehini said.

"All those people will have to rebuild their lives from scratch," she added.

Many were forced to flee after their homes and other property were damaged 

© ANWAR AMRO / AFP

Several frontline villages in Lebanon have sustained heavy damage, with the state news agency reporting Israeli strikes on houses.

Following the strikes, Hezbollah has sometimes announced the death of its fighters.

In a classroom further down the hall, Hafez Mustafa from the border village of Beit Lif said his 10 children had to drop out of school or university after he lost all his livestock and access to his crops.

"My daughters had to stop their university studies because we were $400 short" on tuition fees, said the 47-year-old, deep lines etched on his forehead.

The Israeli army bombed a farm he co-owned with a friend, killing or scattering some of his cows, he said.

He had to sell his remaining livestock because he had no money to feed them, and it was too dangerous to return to work in his olive groves.

"All my livelihood is gone," he said.

"We're tired. This war has dragged on for too long. We can't take it anymore."
Awaiting a truce

The Tyre district hosts more than 27,000 people displaced by the conflict, more than 700 of them living in makeshift shelters, according to the IOM.

The Lebanese state has been cash-strapped for years, leaving host communities now to rely largely on humanitarian organisations for aid.

"We are unable to provide basic necessities," said Mortada Mhanna, who heads Tyre's disaster management unit, standing in a workroom abuzz with volunteers and civil servants.

Families "have lost their properties and their jobs -- they can't fend for themselves", he said, expressing regret his team had been unable even to secure regular food aid.

A volunteer carries a box of donations to be distributed to the displaced 

© ANWAR AMRO / AFP

In Srifa, less than 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the border with Israel, farmer Abbas Fakih is staying in a house rent-free thanks to the generosity of residents.

The 40-year-old fled the violence in his village of Rab Tlatin further east with his extended family.

Although he managed to move his cattle to safer land, he said the war had put his livelihood on hold.

"I had 250 goats. I've had to sell 50 or 60... just to put food on the table and feed the remaining cattle," he said, surrounded by his four children and their cousins.

Most of his youngest goats died in their poorly heated new barnyard, he said, and the family was unable to plant lentils and wheat, meaning no income during the next harvest.

"All we do is wait impatiently for the news, hoping we will hear about a truce," he said.

© 2024 AFP

Quake trauma haunts children in Turkey's container city

Kahramanmaras (Turkey) (AFP) – Cansu Gol lost her baby in the rubble of Turkey's massive earthquake a year ago. Now she spends her time trying to heal the mental scars of her two surviving children.

Issued on: 03/02/2024 - 
Container schools offer children a sense of normality in Turkey's earthquake zone © YASIN AKGUL / AFP
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One suffers from trauma-related attention deficit disorder and the other from speech problems which emerged after last year's February 6 disaster in which 50,000 died across Turkey's southeast.

For the 33-year-old mother, the improvised schools in a container city near the quake's epicentre in the province of Kahramanmaras offer a glimmer of hope.

"My seven-year-old daughter was pulled out alive from the rubble hours after the earthquake. Now she is suffering from attention deficit disorder," Gol told AFP.

"She didn't cry or scream at all, instead storing all the stress inside," she said.

Her four-and-a-half-year-old son began to speak after joining a nursery set up in one of the containers housing hundreds of thousands of survivors of Turkey's deadliest disaster of modern times.

"He keeps asking about his brother (who died). He says he flew away like a bird," the mother said.
Bouts of violence

Teachers try to create an atmosphere of normality for the kids, each one of whom has lost homes, family and friends. All have varied levels of understanding what actually occurred.

A bust of post-Ottoman Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, stands in the courtyard, just as it would at any other school.

The 20-student classrooms are decorated with balloons, adding colour to a camp comprised of hundreds of identical white metal containers arranged in even rows.

'Things won't go well until these families are settled in apartments,' the school principal said © YASIN AKGUL / AFP

Just a 10-minute walk away, empty spaces recall the apartment towers that stood in this Mediterranean city, once most famous for its ice cream.

"It is just as painful for the students as it is for the teachers," said the school's principal, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity because civil servants are barred from speaking to the media without authorisation.

"Many things evoke the quake: aftershocks, the month of February or simply the snowfall," which was heavy that fatal night, he said.

His school takes care of 850 children from diverse backgrounds.

They live in a container city housing 10,000 survivors, creating a tense atmosphere that breeds occasional bouts of violence.

"Cursing, offensive gestures, kicking -- things won't go well until these families are settled in apartments," he said.

'Ghost city'

The principal said the state was doing its best, even housing teachers in the container cities so they can be near the kids.

"In which disaster is everything perfect?" he asked. "Life goes on."

But that life, said Sara Resitoglu, 24, is a constant struggle.

'Kahramanmaras has turned into a ghost city,' Fatih Yilanci said 

© YASIN AKGUL / AFP

"There's no space. All our lives are in one room," the young mother sighed.

Elif Yavuz and her husband tried to rebuild their lives in the nearby city of Mersin, following the path taken by more than three million people who left immediately after the quake.

But like many others, the couple eventually moved back because their seven-year-old, who has heart problems, struggled to adapt.

"I resigned myself to returning and living in a container just so that she would not be upset," the mother said.

Her daughter was now doing well in school. Yavuz plans to buy her a new pair of shoes as a reward for another excellent report card.

Away from the container camp, Fatih Yilanci joined the multitudes who spend days scouring city ruins for scrap metal they can sell to feed their families.

His apartment was only lightly damaged, meaning that his family did not automatically qualify for a container home.

But his neighbourhood is gone, as are most of his friends, who died in the ruins.

"Kahramanmaras has turned into a ghost city," Yilanci said.

© 2024 AFP



Turkey commemorates its worst disaster of modern times

Istanbul (AFP) – Turkey on Tuesday holds pre-dawn vigils for the loss of more than 50,000 people -- and parts of entire cities -- in the earthquake-prone country's deadliest disaster of modern times.


Issued on: 03/02/2024 - 

Last year's February 6 disaster killed nearly 60,000 people and erased swathes of cities across Turkey and parts of Syria 

© OZAN KOSE / AFP

Grieving Turks are still coming to terms with how a 7.8-magnitude tremor could upturn the lives of millions of people in a matter of seconds while they were still asleep.

An updated toll released Friday showed that 53,537 people had died across 11 southeaster provinces officially designated as the disaster zone.

The confirmed loss of 5,951 more lives in neighbouring Syria makes last year's February 6 earthquake one of the 10 deadliest in the world in the past 100 years.

Ancient cities such as Antakya have been effectively wiped off the map

Others have gaping holes in place of apartment towers that toppled like houses of cards when the ground began to move at 4:17 am.

Shellshocked survivors stood outside in the freezing cold in their pyjamas and listened to those trapped under concrete slabs of debris scream in agonising pain.

"It's been a year, but it doesn't leave our minds," housewife Cagla Demirel told AFP in one of the container camps set up for hundreds of thousands of survivors in Antakya.

"Life has lost its spark," the 31-year-old said. "I have no family left to visit, no door to knock on, no pleasant place to be. Nothing remains."
'Can you hear us?'

Antakya's remaining residents plan to gather on Tuesday at 4:17 am for a vigil that will see everyone cry out: "Can you hear us?"

The call became ubiquitous across the disaster zone as people searched for loved ones in the rubble.

Hundreds of thousands of survivors have spent the past year living in tents and metal containers 

© BULENT KILIC / AFP

But it also appears to be a nuanced reminder for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government that many in the quake zone feel left behind.

Analysts at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV) point out that the disaster struck an area already weighted down by unemployment and underinvestment.

"Some districts in the region have the highest poverty rate in Turkey," TEPAV said in a report.

Erdogan pushed back hard against complaints that government rescuers were unprepared and slow to respond.

He has branded the quake "the catastrophe of the century" that no nation could have averted or quickly overcome.

He crisscrossed the nation in the first weeks of the disaster and promised to deliver 650,000 new housing units within a year.

'No return to normal'

He began to hand out keys in Antakya on Saturday for the first 7,000 apartments of the 46,000 ready to be delivered across the quake zone this month.

He said up to 20,000 units would be delivered monthly and 200,000 by the end of the year -- short of his initial promise but still impressive for a region hit by post-quake chaos.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the quake 'the catastrophe of the century' 

© Adem ALTAN / AFP

"Of course, we cannot bring back the lives we lost, but we can compensate all the other losses," Erdogan told Antakya residents on Saturday.

"We made promises to do so."

But Erdogan's words offer little solace to people such as ice cream vendor Kadir Yeniceli.

The 70-year-old native of Kahramanmaras -- a hard-hit city where Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party enjoys overwhelming support -- said people feel "confused" about what happens next.

"There has been no return to normal," Yeniceli told AFP. "It remains the same, there is no progress. There is a lack of employment, there is a lack of money, there is a lack of income."
'Much to be done'

Erdogan's housing pledges came in the runup to a May 2023 general election that turned into the toughest of his two-decade rule.

He prevailed in a runoff presidential ballot thanks to consistent support across much of the disaster zone.

Analyst fear that Turkey is no better prepared for another big shake than it was one year ago 

© Yasin AKGUL / AFP

Many voters expressed a lack of trust in the opposition and thought Erdogan's government was doing the best anyone could do under the circumstances.

But many voters and analysts point out that Turkey is no better prepared for another big shake than it was one year ago.

The country straddles two of the world's most active fault lines and is rattled almost daily by more minor quakes.

And hundreds of contractors are currently facing prosecution for allegedly skirting the building safety standards already in place.

"The country urgently needs to transition from crisis management to risk management," said Istanbul Technical University disaster management professor Mikdat Kadioglu.

"There is still much to be done."

© 2024 AFP

Egypt orders review of pyramid restoration after video sparks public outrage

Egypt's antiquities ministry said Saturday it was setting up a committee to review the restoration of Giza's Menkaure Pyramid after a public outcry over the project.


Issued on: 03/02/2024 

A stone is lifted into place during controversial restoration work on the Menkaure Pyramid in Giza, which has now been paused by the Egyptian government, pending the findings of a review panel 

© Khaled DESOUKI / AFP

By: NEWS WIRES


A week ago, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, Mostafa Waziri, posted a Facebook video showing workers setting blocks of granite on the base of the shortest of the three Giza pyramids.

The footage sparked a storm of criticism from Egyptologists who voiced fears that a wholesale reconstruction of the famed monument was under way, to the detriment of the preservation of its historic fabric.

Trying to calm the debate, in a country where tourism accounts for 10 percent of GDP, the ministry announced that it has set up a "scientific committee chaired by... Zahi Hawass", a well-known Egyptian archaeologist, to review the project.

The committee is made up of "experts in engineering and archaeology" from the Czech Republic, Germany and the United States, as well as Egypt.

The committee's final report will include "the necessary procedures and steps to coordinate with (the UN heritage agency) UNESCO".

"A decision will be made on whether to proceed with the project or not," the ministry said.

At the foot of the Menkaure Pyramid, however, AFP journalists reported that work was already underway last week.

In its original construction, the base of the pyramid was covered with granite, but over time lost part of this covering.

The renovation aims to restore the structure's original style by reconstructing the granite base.

The issue of heritage preservation in Egypt -- home to the Great Pyramid of Giza, the last of the seven wonders of the ancient world that is still visible -- is often the focus of heated debate.

The recent demolition of swathes of Cairo's historic heart drew public campaigns against it, a rarity in a country where political opposition is largely banned.

Russian police detain reporters covering Moscow protest by soldiers' wives

Russian police on Saturday detained a group of around 20 journalists, including an AFP reporter, covering a protest in Moscow by the wives of men mobilised to fight in Ukraine.


Issued on: 03/02/2024 -

A relative of Russian soldiers, taking part in the so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine, holds a placard reading "Is 2024 the year of the family? Bring mobilized soldiers back to their families!", as she protests in front of the Russian Ministry of Defence building in Moscow on January 6, 2024. 

© Olga Maltseva, AFP

By: NEWS WIRES

The women have staged rare protests outside the Kremlin walls for weeks, in an uncomfortable movement for the authorities that has so far not been put down.

A detained AFP video journalist said Russian and foreign reporters -- all men -- were detained and transported in a van to a police station.

The group of journalists was arrested as they covered and filmed the women -- who are demanding their partners be brought home from Ukraine -- outside Red Square.

Video footage showed police bringing reporters wearing yellow press vests to police vans.

The wives of mobilised men have been staging protests outside the Kremlin walls every weekend for weeks, symbolically bringing red flowers to a tomb of an unknown soldier.

While Moscow has orchestrated a huge crackdown on dissent at home, the women's movement has so far gone unpunished.

The detained AFP journalist said around 40 people took part in the protest.

An online live stream posted by the women's group showed participants walking together through central Moscow.

"We are here as the women who need their husbands," said one of the women in the live stream.

Read moreFormer correspondents in Russia call for release of journalist Evan Gershkovich

She said they will "get creative" should authorities try to put down their protest.

The movement is extremely sensitive for authorities, who appear unwilling to spread more anger by arresting women.

It has grown out of the anger of relatives of reservists sent to Ukraine under President Vladimir Putin's September 2022 mobilisation decree.

It has also been ignored by state media.

The topic is especially uncomfortable for the Kremlin ahead of the March presidential election, in which Putin is running for a fifth Kremlin term, more than two years after launching the Ukraine offensive.

According to independent media, there were also several arrests of protest participants outside the headquarters for Putin's candidacy in the election.

Participants noted that police only arrested men.

Another woman in the video live stream said the protest was aimed at showing Russians living as normal during the Ukraine conflict "that there is another part of society that suffers all the time."

According to Putin, 244,000 out of 617,000 of Moscow's forces in Ukraine are mobilised men.

The Kremlin's mobilisation drive in 2022 led to an exodus of men abroad.

(AFP)

Fear and triumph as Indian holy city mosque dispute heats up

Varanasi (India) (AFP) – As Hindus began prayers at a mosque in one of India's holiest cities, the building's elderly custodian Syed Mohammad Yaseen wondered how much longer he would be permitted to worship there.


Issued on: 03/02/2024 

Hindus maintain that the Gyanvapi mosque was built over a shrine to the Hindu deity Shiva during the Mughal empire that ruled over much of India centuries ago

 © Niharika KULKARNI / AFP
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Varanasi, where Hindus travel to cremate their dead by the Ganges river, is the latest flashpoint in a running battle to claim centuries-old Islamic monuments for the country's majority faith.

Campaigners have found an ideological patron in Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who last month inaugurated a grand new temple on the site of a mosque notoriously demolished by Hindu zealots decades earlier.

"We are witnessing repression and cruelty," Yaseen, 78, told AFP.

"This is not just the issue of one mosque. Their slogan says that... 'not even one tomb or mosque will be spared.'"

Yaseen is joint secretary of the Gyanvapi mosque, one of the largest Muslim congregations in the heart of Varanasi.

Security personnel patrol along a street near the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi. This week a local court ordering the mosque's basement thrown open to Hindu worshippers 

© Niharika KULKARNI / AFP

Hindus in the city have long maintained that the structure was built over a shrine to the Hindu deity Shiva during the Mughal empire that ruled over much of India centuries ago.

Muslim worshippers have been attending the mosque under police guard for years in an effort to prevent the simmering dispute from boiling over.

But this week marked a major escalation with a local court ordering the mosque's basement thrown open to Hindu worshippers within seven days of its ruling.

A Hindu prayer ceremony was held there the following morning and India's top court has refused to hear a request by Muslim petitioners to invalidate the order.

Yaseen said the ruling and subsequent rush of worshippers to the site -- unimpeded by authorities -- had demonstrated official backing for the Hindu claim, leaving him deeply distressed.

"They are coming through the courts, through the system," he said.

Secretary of the Gyanvapi mosque, Syed Mohammad Yaseen, says the court ruling left him deeply distressed © Niharika KULKARNI / AFP

"Whatever hurt I could feel as a Muslim, I felt it. I was restless the entire night."

Tensions outside the mosque on Friday were palpable, with a bolstered police presence and around 2,500 Muslims -- nearly double the usual congregation -- arriving for afternoon prayers.

Dozens of Hindu faithful milled about the street outside the police barricades shouting devotional slogans to Shiva, the patron god of both creation and destruction.

'Shackles of slavery'

Calls for India to more closely align the country's officially secular political system with its majority faith have rapidly grown louder since Modi was swept to office in 2014.

His government's championing of Hindu causes reached a new zenith last month when Modi presided over the inauguration of a new temple in Ayodhya, a once-sleepy town not far from Varanasi.

The opening of the immense complex, carrying an estimated cost of $240 million, was a major event that saw public celebrations and weeks of breathless cable news coverage.

Modi hailed the ceremony as a decisive moment in India's liberation from the "shackles of slavery".

Hindu activist Sohanlal Arya says the court's decision is 'one step forward' in the campaign to right historical wrongs

 © Niharika KULKARNI / AFP

But many among India's 210-million-plus Muslim minority considered the gala event was another sign of their growing marginalisation.

The temple was opened on the site of what was once the 500-year-old Babri mosque, which was demolished in 1992 by a crowd of Hindu zealots in a campaign spearheaded by eminent leaders of Modi's ruling party.

The sectarian riots that followed were the worst since India's independence and killed 2,000 people nationwide, most of them Muslims.
'One step forward'

As in Varanasi, Hindu activists had claimed the Babri mosque was built atop an earlier shrine to a Hindu deity during the Mughal empire, which they see as an era where their faith was oppressed.

Sohanlal Arya, a long-time advocate for Hindu causes, said the court's decision to open the Varanasi house of worship to Hindus was "one step forward" in the campaign to right historical wrongs.

"This is a matter of pride for us," the 72-year-old told AFP.

"They destroyed our holy place, they made a mosque. Our evidence is accurate. That is why we have full confidence in the courts."

He added that the struggle to "reclaim" the site had been ongoing since the Gyanvapi mosque was built more than three centuries ago and said that his co-religionists were becoming impatient.

"How much more time will it take? One generation, two generations, three generations?" he added. "We are waiting."

© 2024 AFP

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

Brazil's Lula, environmentalist... and oil champion

Sao Paulo (AFP) – President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has cast himself as a champion of the fight against climate change, but faces criticism from environmentalists for Brazil's booming oil production.

Issued on: 03/02/2024 -

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is trying to be both a climate leader and the leader of a petro-state, critics say 

© Sergio LIMA / AFP

Since returning to office for a third term in January 2023, the veteran leftist has made solid progress on his pledge to end illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which fell by half last year compared to 2022.

But climate campaigners were outraged in December when, just as the COP28 UN climate talks were being held in Dubai, Brazil announced it would join the OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries.

The timing earned Brazil, the world's ninth-biggest crude producer, the "Fossil of the Day" award from the Climate Action Network, which said the country's leaders "appear to have mistaken oil production for climate leadership."

"Brazil can't be a climate leader and petro-state. The two things are incompatible," Suely Araujo, policy coordinator at environmental group the Climate Observatory, told AFP.

Record oil production

Lula came to office vowing "Brazil is back" in the climate fight after four years of surging destruction under far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) in the Amazon, whose hundreds of billions of carbon-absorbing trees are a key buffer against global warming.

In keeping with that message, Brazil is due to host the 2025 edition of the UN climate talks in the Amazon city of Belem.

But even as the Lula government fought to protect the Amazon, Latin America's top oil producer also racked up several monthly crude output records last year -- most recently in November, when it produced nearly 3.7 million barrels a day.

The energy ministry hopes to hit 5.4 million barrels a day in 2029, which could make Brazil the world's fourth-biggest oil producer.

"The world should be thankful to Brazil for being a reliable supplier" of oil, the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, said this week during a visit to the country.

Brazil provides about three percent of global crude supply, he said.

Lula has pushed to expand further, and even wants to explore for oil near the mouth of the Amazon river -- a plan opposed by environmentalists, including his own environment minister, Marina Silva.

'Looking to the past'

Oil accounts for around 13 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in Latin America's biggest economy, according to economist Igor Barenboim.

Brazil exports about one-third of its oil output, which is "key to drive growth," Barenboim said.

Sales from oil and oil derivatives were $42.5 billion last year.

That money provides revenue for the state, including for Lula's cherished social programs.

Lula also argues oil money will be used to fund the transition to clean energy.

But "it's a mistake to want to generate revenue from (oil) exports, looking to the past and ignoring the severity of the climate crisis," said Araujo.

Enrico Marone, a spokesman for Greenpeace Brasil, said the country does not need any new oil.

"The oil fields currently in operation will provide enough resources to support the energy transition," he said.

Brazil currently relies on renewables for 47 percent of its energy mix, more than triple the world average of 15 percent, according to government figures.

© 2024 AFP

Chile declares state of emergency over deadly forest fires

Chilean firefighters were battling rapidly expanding wildfires Saturday that officials fear have claimed around 10 lives and are threatening hundreds of homes, prompting the president to declare a state of emergency.


Issued on: 03/02/2024 -

A state of emergency has been declared over raging forest fires in Chile. 

© Javier Torres, AFP

By:NEWS WIRES


About a dozen fires have been raging since Friday.

The blazes are concentrated in the Vina del Mar and Valparaiso tourist regions, where they have ravaged thousands of hectares of forest, cloaked coastal cities in a dense fog of gray smoke and forced people to flee their homes.

"We have preliminary information that several people have died, around 10," said Sofia Gonzales Cortes, state representative for the central region of Valparaiso.

In the towns of Estrella and Navidad, southwest of the capital, the fires have burned nearly 30 homes, and forced evacuations near the surfing resort of Pichilemu.

"I've never seen anything like it," 63-year-old Yvonne Guzman told AFP. When the flames started to close in on her home in Quilpue, she fled with her elderly mother, only to find themselves trapped in traffic for hours.

"It's very distressing, because we've evacuated the house but we can't move forward. There are all these people trying to get out and who can't move," she said.
'Extreme'

On Friday, Chilean President Gabriel Boric decreed "a state of emergency due to catastrophe, in order to have all the necessary resources" to fight the fires.
The blazes are concentrated in Chile's Vina del Mar and Valparaiso tourist regions, where they have ravaged thousands of hectares of forest. © Javier Torres, AFP

"All forces are deployed in the fight against the forest fires," he said in a message posted to social media platform X.

Emergency services were set to meet Saturday morning to assess the situation.

Around 7,000 hectares have already been burned in Valparaiso alone, according to CONAF, the Chilean national forest authority, which called the blazes "extreme."


Images filmed by trapped motorists have gone viral online, showing mountains in flames at the end of the famous "Route 68", a road used by thousands of tourists to get to the Pacific coast beaches.

On Friday, authorities closed the road, which links Valparaiso to the capital Santiago, as a huge mushroom cloud of smoke "reduced visibility".

The fires are being driven by a summer heatwave and drought affecting the southern part of South America caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon, as scientists warn that a warming planet has increased the risk of natural disasters such as intense heat and fires.

The fires have enveloped Valparaiso in a thick mushroom cloud of smoke. © Javier Torres, AFP

As Chile and Colombia battle rising temperatures, the heatwave is also threatening to sweep over Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil in the coming days.

(AFP)

PAKISTAN

No longer the periphery

S. Akbar Zaidi 

DAWN

Published February 2, 2024 

OVER recent decades, in social and political theory, the notions of ‘core’ or centre, and ‘periphery’ have been challenged and completely upended.

In earlier social science, especially under the hegemony of colonial writings, which morphed into what scholars termed as ‘orientalism’, centre or core, and periphery mattered, primarily to emphasise dominance based largely on racial and religious caricature.

The ‘centre’ was always London or Paris, when it came to British or French imperialism, and the colonies were, literally, the peripheries, inconsequential to how they perceived themselves to be, marginalised. The entire structure of colonialism is based on this lie.

Subsequently, later in social theory, notions of democracy, liberalism, religious and other practices, were also put into a comparative frame of ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ practices (of the West, developed countries), contrasted with more localised, indigenous or evolutionary practices in other parts of the world, away from whatever was considered the core at any particular time. At times, such a core or centre was a physical location, at others an ideology, or a practice or particular way of doing something.

In Pakistan too, this notion of centre/ core and periphery, has had both locational and ideological moorings, the dur-daraz ilaqay, both in terms of where they are and how ‘backward’ they are considered to be. However, the politics of agitation, protest and resistance is reorienting and refocusing such notions completely, overturning outmoded concepts, bringing the periphery right onto the central platform.






Today, both Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, considered to be marginalised, peripheral, ‘out there’, ‘backward’ locations, are rewriting a politics which is taking centre stage and undermining the centre. The periphery speaks truth to power.


The voices of the oppressed people are now increasingly being heard, and the oppressed are finding supporters among those who reside in the locales of power.

Protest movements in both regions, Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan, both of a very different nature, in terms of locale as well as demands, are countering the centre from where such concerns originate.






Whether it is the disappeared Baloch or the wilful underdevelopment of both regions, the so-called peripheries are drawing the entire country’s imagination away from their own regions towards the heartland. The Baloch Yakjehti Committee literally walked its way into the heart of Islamabad from supposedly faraway Balochistan and housed itself there for many days, despite the severe cold and the treatment meted out to all those who camped in Islamabad, almost all of them women and children.

Even the cruellest form of inhospitality and violence towards those who gathered did not result in their resistance coming undone. Moreover, a triumphant return to the centre of their homeland, in the form of a massive jalsa in Quetta, seen by thousands live and later, underscores how one cannot ignore the so-called peripheries.

The Gilgit-Baltistan sit-in, too, related to issues which emanate from the centre, Islamabad, such as the withdrawal on wheat subsidy or the imposition of taxes, has lasted a month in temperatures which are often sub-zero. The sit-in has moved towards a complete shutter-down strike and closure, with little public transport and protests all over the region.






As is clear to all, the protest by the people of Gilgit-Baltistan is not simply about the price of flour, but is enveloped in many years of marginalisation and neglect emanating from the centre, including the need to recognise the basic constitutional rights of the people of the region. Also similar to Balochistan is the grievance that locals are denied opportunities for employment or economic growth.

It is not just the Baloch or the people of Gilgit-Baltistan who have come to challenge the hegemony and dominance of the centre, of Punjab and Islamabad; importantly and most noticeably, it has been the women, especially from Balochistan, who have emerged as leaders and spokeswomen asking difficult questions and demanding answers from the powers responsible for those who are being disappeared or silenced.

Balochistan is the least developed province of a country which is fast under-developing and losing its economic and social position amongst comparable countries which have now all moved ahead.






Women in general in Pakistan and especially in Balochistan are considered the least ‘educated’ and most ‘traditional’, marginal to all praxis and politics, yet it is the very same women who have led the cause in Islamabad. The myth of the silent, depoliticised woman has been overturned by the supposedly peripheral and expendable Baloch woman.

At a time when a pale and unexciting general election is taking place in the heartland of Pakistan, it is voices coming from the responses to Dr Mahrang Baloch’s rally in Quetta, which have become the voices of all the people in Pakistan. Even from the periphery’s periphery — Turbat — from where the protest march originated following the extrajudicial killing of Balaach Mola Bakhsh attributed to the Counter-Terrorism Department, the bastion of power and privilege in Pakistan, Islamabad, has been awakened by calls from marchers 1,000 miles away. Demands for justice and retribution spoken softly at first, from the inconsequential margins of power, have become much louder in the bastions of power.

Just as social and political theory has been forced to surrender to the hegemony and dominance of the so-called norm, which was always conceived in an imagined and imperious centre, after being challenged by indigenous ideas from indigenous people, so too, the dominant ideas and practices from the centre in countries are being challenged by those supposedly on the margins. The voices of the marginalised and oppressed people of Pakistan are now increasingly being heard, and the oppressed are finding supporters and sympathisers among those who reside in locales of power.

The complacent, secure and comfortable centre in Pakistan — of politics, privilege and policy — is being overturned by those who have been marginalised, oppressed and underprivileged, from the furthest regions in the furthest peripheries of the country, as their voices now increasingly become mainstream.

The writer is a political economist and heads the IBA, Karachi. The views are his own and do not represent those of the institution.

Published in Dawn, February 2nd, 2024

PAKISTAN

Dark days for democracy

Tariq Khosa

Published February 3, 2024 

THESE are difficult, frightening times. In the words of Martha Beck (The Way of Integrity, 2021), “A value system built on avarice, ambition, and oppression shows up in unprincipled leaders, corrupt groups, and then entire national cultures.”

Unfortunately, Pakistan has lost its way of integrity. The current caretaker regime is complicit in punishing dissent and criminalising opposition, jailing and torturing people. Democracy is ominously passing through dark days on the eve of the national polls. Are we going through a ‘democratic recession’ as Larry Diamond, a Stanford professor puts it: “There is a spirit of the times, and it is not a democratic one.”

In my last piece in this paper on Jan 8, I had pinned hopes on two chiefs for ensuring that the national polls on Feb 8 will be free and fair. One honourable chief ensured that a major political party continued to be dismantled by another chief heading the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

The party symbol verdict by a Supreme Court bench was widely criticised as denying a level playing field to one of the major mainstream political parties. The principle of fair play was seen as having been grossly violated. After watching the intense and gruelling display of verbal onslaught in the apex court over a weekend, I was willing to bet that the party in question would not be denied its ballot symbol and may well be directed to hold fresh intra-party polls in accordance with their own constitution. The decision led to a burst of dismay followed by a ripple of woe.

The conduct of another chief is beyond any doubt fraught with double standards. The former bureaucrat, heading the ECP, is living up to his reputation of actively promoting a partisan political agenda. Crude ways have been adopted to literally disenfranchise a huge chunk of the electorate by denying their preferred candidates a level playing field.

The electoral watchdog is blatantly ignoring what the current chiefs of police are involved in: massive transgressions in violating the basic human rights of citizens. The rallies of the targeted party are disrupted, their workers arrested, the privacy of their homes violated with impunity. There is no one to check such acts of persecution. The courts are helpless as their lawful commands are disregarded with contempt.

As a former police chief, my head hangs in shame at seeing some police commanders stoop so low to please the ‘invisible forces’ of the deep state. They lack the courage to say no to the illegal manoeuvres of political engineering. They see their role only as serving the powers that be.

Meanwhile, there has been a report in a daily paper quoting the army chief at a function where he is said to have interacted with students from various universities in the public and private sector. He was reported to have said that people should carefully choose their representatives and asked whether political parties should be permitted to break the country and if people should have to wait till the end of the five-year term.

At the same event, the youth were reportedly told that it was not possible to govern virtually, as “it must be performed on the ground” and that decisions should not be based on what is displayed on mobile screens, an apparent reference to social media.


The choice is simple: keep your head down and survive, or speak out and suffer.

This news item reported him as saying that the army paid the most taxes in the country, with half its budget going to the government in taxes, and that no other army anywhere was functioning on such a low budget. The remarks, it was reported by the paper, also centred on Pakistan’s financial prospects with $10 trillion worth of reserves in the shape of mines, minerals, and earth metals, in contrast to $128 billion in foreign debt. It was pointed out, according to the report, that the military-run Green Pakistan Initiative would end the country’s reliance on imported food and make it self-sustaining.

Many questions have arisen following this event. One of the foremost on the minds of some observers has been whether a public political discourse was needed by the head of an ‘apolitical’ institution on the eve of national polls, while some have also asked whether the message for the youth was to not be led astray by social media and Western influence on our culture.

With the challenges to security and territorial integrity on the rise, perhaps remarks that can be construed as political reflections are best left to those within political circles.

The real issues facing the nation are: the elite capture indicative in the widening gap between the rich and poor; stagflation and economic deprivation; lack of security and justice; corruption in public institutions; unaccountable intelligence agencies; poor governance; inadequate health and education facilities; and above all, lack of inclusive democratic practices.

In the current environment of spin and cynicism, the choice given to the people is simple: keep your head down and survive, or raise your head and challenge the atrocities and suffer the consequences.

![ .](https://www.dawn.com/news/1810079/dismantling-democracy-a-hybrid-guide-for-the-judiciary

The response must be a principled one: it should be refusal to be part of an immoral, devious regime and a commitment to bring a change through ballot, by being brave enough to reach the polling stations on Feb 8 and casting their votes. Then it would be the test of those who will count the votes. Will they defy the choice of the electorate or become part of a shameless legacy of yet another rigged election?

We should not forget a perennial truth: that the potential tools of democracy are integrity, public trust and transparency. As Margaret Mead famously said, thoughtful and committed citizens can change the world. “Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Let the people of Pakistan freely choose their leaders.

The writer is a former police chief.
Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2024