Whistleblower David McBride sentenced, war criminals remain free

Pip Hinman

May 15, 202

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David McBridge addressing a protest outside Labor's national conference in 2023 in Magan-djin/Brisbane. Photo: Alex Bainbridge

The jailing of Afghanistan war crimes whistleblower David McBride on May 14 has been condemned by truth-tellers across the globe.

McBride, a former Australian Defence Forces lawyer, served two tours in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2013, and complained internally about the behaviour of some Australian Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) members, but said he was not taken seriously.

See also

David McBride, whistleblowing and following orders

David McBride should be protected, not prosecuted

Whistleblower David McBride expects to be handed a custodial sentence

First SAS soldier charged for war crimes in Afghanistan

Stella Assange, a friend, said on X that it is “scandalous” that McBride, who “shared documents evidencing impunity over ADF war crimes in Afghanistan” had been sentenced.

“The only person going to prison over the war crimes is the man who blew the whistle,” Assange said.

McBride’s leaked information was considered by the Australian Defence Force’s (ADF) Afghanistan (Brereton) Inquiry, established by the Coalition government to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by the elite SAS in Afghanistan — Australia’s longest war.

The four-year inquiry by Paul Brereton, a New South Wales Court of Appeal judge and senior officer in the Australian Army Reserve, published its report in 2020. It included evidence of 23 incidents in which one or more civilians — or people who had been captured or injured — were unlawfully killed by special forces soldiers, or at their direction.

The report found a further two incidents that it said could be classified as the war crime of “cruel treatment”.

It made 36 referrals to the Australian Federal Police, only one of which has gone to court.

Meanwhile, McBride was charged with five national security offences, denied immunity from prosecution and jailed for 5 years and 8 months, with no parole for 2 years and 3 months.

The only alleged war criminal to appear before court is SAS veteran Oliver Schulz, whose crime was first publicised by the ABC’s Four Corners program on March 16, 2020.

He shot Afghan man Dad Mohammad during an ADF raid in Uruzgan Province, southern Afghanistan, in May 2012.

The ABC’s video footage of the incident helped bring the severity of the war crimes allegations in Afghanistan to the public.

abc_four_corners_2020_on_afghanistan_killing_.png

Still from the Four Corners' expose on Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.

Mohammad was married with two very young daughters. His family complained to the ADF, which investigated and cleared Shulz of wrong-doing. He completed multiple tours and was awarded the Commendation for Gallantry in Afghanistan.

Schulz has fared a lot better than McBride, whose evidence would have contributed to getting Shulz to face court.

Arrested in March last year, Shulz was granted relaxed bail conditions in February, since, according to the magistrate, the highly trained alleged war criminal presents no “heightened risk” and his lawyer argued he would be “at grave risk” of being attacked by “extremists” (in jail) opposed to the war in Afghanistan.

McBride has been charged with stealing public documents; not murder or war crimes.

McBride has always said he gave the ABC the documents as an act of public duty. He has spent five years waiting for sentencing, and now faces more than two years in jail.

Michael West has pointed out that McBride was not even allowed to argue his case in court, as the public interest defence was ruled out. He was therefore compelled to plead guilty.

“What kind of justice is it where McBride is denied the opportunity to put his case in an open court of law, being forced rather to plead guilty to government charges but with no resort to the most basic legal right of pleading his case?” West asked.

“And what kind of justice is it that allows a whistleblower to be tried and convicted while the actual war crimes go unprosecuted, while dozens of incidents go entirely unpunished, untested in court?”

A Brutal Punishment: The Sentencing of David McBride

by Binoy Kampmark / May 15th, 2024

Sometimes, it’s best not to leave the issue of justice to the judges.  They do what they must: consult the statutes, test the rivers of power, and hope that their ruling will not be subject to appeal.  David McBride, the man who revealed that Australia’s special forces in Afghanistan had dimmed and muddied before exhaustion, committed atrocities and faced a compromised chain of command, was condemned on May 14 to a prison term of five years and eight months.

Without McBride’s feats, there would have been no Afghan Files published by the ABC.  The Brereton Inquiry, established to investigate alleged war crimes, would most likely have never been launched.  (That notable document subsequently identified 39 instances of alleged unlawful killings of Afghan civilians by members of the special forces.)

In an affidavit, McBride explained how he wished Australians to realise that “Afghan civilians were being murdered and that Australian military leaders were at the very least turning the other way and at worst tacitly approving this behaviour”.  Furthermore “soldiers were being improperly prosecuted as a smokescreen to cover [the leadership’s] inaction and failure to hold reprehensible conduct to account.”

For taking and disclosing 235 documents from defence offices mainly located in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), the former military lawyer was charged with five national security offences.  He also found Australia’s whistleblowing laws feeble and fundamentally useless.  The Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth) provided no immunity from prosecution, a fact aided by grave warnings from the Australian government that vital evidence would be excluded from court deliberation on national security grounds.

Through the process, the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, could have intervened under Section 71 of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth), vesting the top legal officer in the country with powers to drop prosecutions against individuals charged with “an indictable offence against the laws of the Commonwealth”.  Dreyfus refused, arguing that such powers were only exercised in “very unusual and exceptional circumstances”.

At trial, chief counsel Trish McDonald SC, representing the government, made the astonishing claim that McBride had an absolute duty to obey orders flowing from the oath sworn to the sovereign. No public interest test could modify such a duty, a claim that would have surprised anyone familiar with the Nuremberg War Crimes trials held in the aftermath of the Second World War. “A soldier does not serve the sovereign by promising to do whatever the soldier thinks is in the public interest, even if contrary to the laws made by parliament.” To justify such a specious argument, authorities from the 19th century were consulted: “There is nothing so dangerous to the civil establishment of the state as an undisciplined or reactionary army.”

ACT Justice David Mossop tended to agree, declaring that, “There is no aspect of duty that allows the accused to act in the public interest contrary to a lawful order”. A valiant effort was subsequently made by McBride’s counsel, Steven Odgers SC, to test the matter in the ACT Court of Appeal.  Chief Justice Lucy McCallum heard the following submission from Odgers: “His only real argument is that what he did was the right thing. There was an order: don’t disclose this stuff, but he bled, and did the right thing, to use his language, and the question is does the fact that he’s in breach of orders mean that he’s in breach of his duty, so that he’s got no defence?”  The answer from the Chief Justice was curt: Mossop’s ruling was “not obviously wrong.”

With few options, a guilty plea was entered to three charges.  Left at the mercy of Justice Mossop, the punitive sentence shocked many of McBride’s supporters.  The judge thought McBride of “good character” but possessed by a mania “with the correctness of his own opinions”.  He suffered from a “misguided self-belief” and “was unable to operate within the legal framework that his duty required him to do”.

The judge was cognisant of the Commonwealth’s concerns that disclosing such documents would damage Australia’s standing with “foreign partners”, making them less inclined to share information.  He also rebuked McBride for copying the documents and storing them insecurely, leaving them vulnerable to access from foreign powers.  For all that, none of the identifiable risks had eventuated, and the Australian Defence Force had “taken no steps” to investigate the matter.

This brutal flaying of McBride largely centres on clouding his personal reasons.  In a long tradition of mistreating whistleblowers, questions are asked as to why he decided to reveal the documents to the press.  Motivation has been muddled with effect and affect. The better question, asks Peter Greste, executive director of the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, is not examining the reasons for exposing such material but the revelations they disclose.  That, he argues, is where the public interest lies.  Unfortunately, in Australia, tests of public interest all too often morph into a weapon fashioned to fanatically defend government secrecy.

All that is left now is for McBride’s defence team to appeal on the crucial subject of duty, something so curiously rigid in Australian legal doctrine.  “We think it’s an issue of national importance, indeed international importance, that a western nation has such as a narrow definition of duty,” argued his defence lawyer, Mark Davis.

John Kiriakou, formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency, was the only figure to be convicted, not of torture inflicted by his colleagues during the clownishly named War on Terror, but of exposing its practice. McBride is the only one to be convicted in the context of alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan, not for their commission, but for furnishing documentation exposing them, including the connivance of a sullied leadership.  The world of whistleblowing abounds with its sick ironies.Facebook

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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

The World’s Forgotten War

As catastrophe unfolds in Sudan, most of the world continues to turn a blind eye

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By Azhar Sholgami

May 16, 2024

Source: Africa is a Country


Sudan, 2016. Image credit Anouk Delafortrie for the EU ECHO via Flickr 

CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Deed.


“Don’t worry, Séra, the entire world is watching them, they won’t be able to do anything.”

“You think so?”

“Of course.”

In my heart of hearts, I knew I was wrong. The World Cup was about to begin in the United States. The planet was interested in nothing else. And in any case, whatever happened in Rwanda, it would always be the same old story of blacks beating up on each other.– The Book of Bones, Boubacar Boris Diop

Several months ago, amid the eruption of the war in Sudan, my grandfather, a British Sudanese national, found himself trapped in his house in a high-risk area next to Sudan’s military headquarters. Despite the British government’s efforts to dispatch dozens of soldiers to evacuate their personnel from the embassy right across the street from my grandfather’s house, they failed to include him in their evacuation plan. After our relentless pleas to include both my grandparents, the main query from the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) we received was “Does he have dual citizenship?”

After a few days, my grandfather was tragically shot numerous times while my grandmother was left to starve to death, as both the Radical Support Forces (RSF) and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) refused to cease fire. Upon my arrival at Heathrow Airport several days later, the first sight that greeted me was a banner advertising a pet scheme for animals that were trapped in the war in Ukraine. This stark contrast raised pressing questions: Why did the life of a pet in Ukraine seem to hold greater significance than that of a black British citizen?

Similarly, why was Suliman, another British citizen trapped in the war in Sudan, informed that only he and his kids could evacuate, and that they’d have to leave behind his heavily pregnant wife, as she was not a British national? The Ukrainian Family Scheme in the UK allowed spouses, fiancés, children, grandparents, grandchildren, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews of UK-based sponsors to access the UK for three years and freely work with no restrictions. The Canadian immigration pathway has taken in almost 100,000 more refugees from Ukraine than from Sudan, providing them with financial support, certification exemption, shorter processing time, and looser requirements for migration.

Beyond citizenship, we see many Sudanese activists tirelessly pleading for support by stating the concerning statistics of the Sudanese war—how it has produced the largest amount of displaced people globally while the country also suffers the world’s worst hunger crisis. Yet the United Nations has allocated only 5 percent of humanitarian funds for Sudan. The core question to ask here is: Why do certain lives hold more value in the world of humanitarianism than others?

It is no surprise that when the war in Ukraine broke out, the divide between whose life is considered important and whose isn’t became more evident. In one broadcast on Ukraine, NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella stated, “They are not refugees from Syria; these are refugees from Ukraine… They’re Christians. They’re white. They’re very similar.” Although this statement is problematic for numerous reasons, the main issue is the subliminal message it sends. First, the value of life when measured in humanitarian terms depends on one’s nationality, religion, and race. Second, the white man is perceived to be more civilized and less prone to the exposure of war and conflict, and this perception automatically creates a form of supremacy over people of color, who, presumably, attract instability. We begin to see that the body becomes an indication of humanitarian priority. Individuals who don’t fit the characteristics and features of a white man are perceived as “undeserving” of public sympathy and mourning.

According to historian Achille Mbembe, the West is presented as the “birthplace of reason, universal life and truth of humanity” thus making it seem like the most “civilized region in the world.” It is vital to take into consideration that the index of Eurocentric humanitarianism holds various hierarchies with different levels of importance. Based on that hierarchy, the black life and the Muslim life are at the bottom.

The underlying issue of institutional racism, especially within humanitarian agencies, has not suddenly emerged in the 21st century; rather, it goes back to the formation of these institutions, during a time of prevalent coloniality. In historical terms, the rapid expansion of NGOs in Africa was affected by the fall of European colonial rule. Colonial powers expected to maintain close relations with and a presence in their former colonies in a way that did not make plain that another colonial invasion was taking place. Their rapid expansion focused on aid and development by replicating their linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic structures in Africa.

The humanitarian interventionists prioritized groups to be assisted, broke neutrality, and advocated Western military intervention for humanitarian purposes. British NGOs, such as Oxfam, would even be reluctant to work on Francophone states, particularly in West Africa, as they perceived these states to be France’s territory of influence. The Human Rights Watch was originally created to monitor the former Soviet Union. The founding father of the Red Cross, Henri Dunant, was celebrated for aiding soldiers in the battle of Solferino and treating men equally regardless of what side they represented, creating the phrase “tutti fratelli,” which translates to “all brothers.” What European history fails to convey, however, is that Dunant had built his empire on colonial resources and was there to pursue his business interest in colonial Algeria.

Granted, humanitarian agencies have reformed since their early years. Nonetheless, the influences of coloniality in many of these agencies remain prevalent.

There are a number of explanations for why humanitarian agencies have not been able to meet the desperate need for help during the Sudanese war. First, in a global context in which numerous crises are breaking out at once, European donors’ interests were redirected to conflicts that were more “relatable,” and thus held more value from a Eurocentric perspective. A white population being oppressed by Russia, the West’s largest rival, creates a “reason” in the Western imagination and thus attracts empathy. Empathy is commonly the construction of reason and interest in the world of realpolitik, consequently affecting humanitarian incentives. In the realm of hegemonic fights for power, the Ukrainian war also supports the West’s agenda of distorting Russia’s image and amplifying the humanitarian persona that the West attempts to convey to the world.

Second, where realpolitik is put aside and effective humanitarian interventions are considered, prioritization of who receives aid is influenced by the historical structural racism that exists within these institutions. In other words, in a hierarchy of humanitarian emergencies, the black man’s needs, regardless of how critical they may be in comparison to the other emergencies, are always put last. In a year of calamities, from the exodus of Armenians to the continued attacks on Ukraine, Sudan’s conflict was given less importance.

The Norwegian Refugee Council publishes reports on the topmost neglected displacement crises in the world, in order to shine a light on global sufferings that rarely make headlines, receive less aid, and are not the focus of international diplomatic efforts. In 2022—notably before the Sudanese war—the top 10 countries were all African, and Sudan was number four. In the same year, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway had all redirected aid set to go to other countries and to Ukraine. This therefore slashed UN funds going to various countries in Africa and canceled ongoing pledges of much-needed relief.

Beyond institutional humanitarianism, Sudan currently faces two dilemmas that deprive it of attaining the same solidarity that current violent escalations, such as the one in Palestine, are receiving from the general public. The implications of identity have contributed to much of Sudan’s internal conflict. Sudan is not Arab enough to the Arab world and is not African enough to the African world. Arabization has placed it in a dilemma where it forcefully attempts to integrate itself into an Arabian identity that does not accept its blackness.

Similar to Du Bois’s philosophies of double consciousness, the average Sudanese is programmed to look at himself and his blackness through the eyes of others—through the historical gaze of Arab and European imperialism. The illusion of the self creates a divide within the African identity, subsequently classifying Sudan as non-African in the traditional sense.

This in-between identity consequently affects whom Sudan receives solidarity and support from. Discussions on the Sudanese war started trending globally after two incidents. The first was when diplomats and citizens of Western states were trapped in Sudan and pleaded for support from their governments. The second was after the recent tensions in Palestine escalated, increasing global activism and influencing individuals to explore other regions experiencing similar oppression—the slogan that the Palestinian conflict raised is “our struggles are interconnected.”

The issue with both scenarios is that it took other conflicts on other identities to surface for the loss of Sudanese life to be acknowledged. I would like to note that this comparison is made not to prioritize one cause over another—any form of human calamity deserves full solidarity. However, selective humanitarianism defeats the purpose of humanism, which is that any loss of innocent life is a loss to all of humanity regardless of where or to whom it happens.

An activist from Iran, who has chosen to remain anonymous, writes in one of her statements that contemporary “activism is deeply enrooted in individualism and performative activism” and that “selective attention” was given to other trending causes while “neglecting” Sudan “as our perceptions are influenced by our conditioning.” Our conditioning is based on whom we resonate with more or who looks more like us. The Sudanese may speak and follow the same cultural or religious beliefs as many Arabs, but they don’t carry the same physical features. In psychology, this is referred to as own-race bias, which involves a tendency to resonate with, favor, and recognize one’s race more than other races. The tendency to downgrade a darker-skinned man is prevalent even within Sudan, where there is a mix of Afro-Arabs. Arabian features in Sudan are associated with the ruling ethnic group and its historical domination of the “enslavable” minorities.

In the Middle East and North Africa, an Arabian man with a different complexion often will feel superior and degrade black life and its struggles. Black men are called an abd—a racial slur that translates to “slave.” These derogatory attitudes contribute to the perception among Arabs that Sudanese life is less important. In a world of emerging conflicts in Syria and Palestine or natural disasters in Morocco, the story of a Sudanese black child losing his life to a deadly war will always come last.

As such, the politics of identity, and where Sudan belongs, fragments the opportunity of attaining full solidarity from a similar “race” or Arab identity that the people of Sudan have forcefully tried to resonate with—an identity that does not fully accept or stand in solidarity with the black man from Sudan at times of need, thus creating a solidarity imbalance.

The loss of black life has been normalized in public perception. One commentator on X explains his experience trying to raise public discussions on what was happening in Sudan within a multinational space. He writes that the most common response he receives from the majority of international “activists” when he questions why there is little global solidarity with Sudan compared to other tragedies is that the conflict in Sudan is “just a civil war.”

The lack of public awareness is partially a result of the difficulty of obtaining data, due to limited mobility and internet access within Sudan. However, this ignorance of the geopolitical war between the RSF (weaponized by the United Arab Emirates and Europe to stop refugees from entering Europe through Sudanese borders) and Sudanese Armed Forces (supported by Egyptian military Islamicists for military domination in the region) is primarily due to the lack of interest in and normalization of the loss of black life, and the presumption that Muslim and black bodies are accustomed to violence and that conflict within their regions is to be expected.

Foucault explains that the body is a “political field”—in this context, the reaction to the body’s struggle is destined by the current systemic notions of power. Due to imperial influences, the subconscious mind is programmed to associate violence, poverty, and instability with black and Muslim bodies, reducing the power of this violence. Black and Muslim bodies are marked and characterized with “deadly consequences,” normalizing their struggle.

In her work on “grievability,” Judith Butler argues that some lives are more grievable and hold more value than others. Ungrievable lives, in her definition, are lives that can’t be lost or destroyed, because they as they already inhabit a lost and destroyed zone. They are perceived ontologically, from the very beginning, as already lost and destroyed—meaning that when these lives are destroyed in war, nothing is destroyed. The Sudanese identity, which blends “blackness” and “Muslimness,” is a recipe for disaster in the world of global solidarity that rejects either one of the two identities or both.

Former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Anan states that his biggest regret was failing to prevent the genocide in Rwanda. Rwandan activists and humanitarian workers, like those in Sudan, raised warnings of catastrophe prior to the genocide. Humanitarian agencies and the global community turned a blind eye, consequently making it one of the world’s greatest humanitarian failures.

We are now effortlessly watching history repeat itself. The Sudanese war is on the verge of becoming the next Rwanda. Sudan is in dire need of solidarity and external pressure to increase the chances of holding both General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, accountable for the numerous felonies they’ve carried out over the years.

Furthermore, Sudan is a victim of Western and Arab imperialism, the former of which is not spoken of enough. Imperialistic presence in Sudan can be overthrown only by the people. There needs to be international pressure on regional players that contribute to the war by supplying arms to the Rapid Support Force, strengthening their forces on the ground. As we are learning from Palestinian activism, international pressure requires a bottom-up approach. Civilians around the world need to place pressure on their governments to use bilateral relations to prevent Sudan’s geopolitical war from further exacerbating.

Humanitarian agencies are essential during world calamities. Abolishing the systemic racism that exists within humanitarian institutions that promote Western nuisance, favoritism, and hidden political motives is the only way to break imperialistic cycles of exploitation within the humanitarian arena. As Tammam Aloudat, a humanitarian responder, explains in an interview on the podcast Rethinking Humanitarianism, as of now, humanitarian agencies are commonly “driven not by the demand of people” but by those funding it. We must create a deeper understanding of history and its influences on solidarity and humanitarianism in Africa to overcome these hindrances.

Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire elucidates that we should not deal with people as objects but as subjects. I take that in the humanitarian sense and urge NGOs not to “serve” the people experiencing calamities but to work with them. To work with the Sudanese society, the Sudanese emergency rooms, youth volunteers, and civilian-led humanitarian responders in order to truly assist those in need. This could be done by introducing mutual aid systems within humanitarian organizations. Mutual aid systems are how many volunteers have managed to successfully evacuate Sudanese families or provide them with medical care. How can NGOs institutionalize mutual aid by closely working with civil societies during the war in Sudan to respond to the crisis more effectively? Rest assured that this movement I am urging for is not one that is intended to end humanitarian involvement. Rather, it is a movement for inclusivity that can overcome imperialistic influences to respond to global crises more functionally.

It is a movement that truly stands in the name of humanity.



Azhar Sholgami is currently a PhD student at Cornell University with experience in the developmental and humanitarian sector at the UN in Sudan.

The United States Assembles the Squad Against China

By Vijay Prashad

May 17, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.


Image in public domain


In early April 2024, the navies of four countries—Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States—held a maritime exercise in the South China Sea. Australia’s Warramunga, Japan’s Akebono, the Philippines’ Antonio Luna, and the United States’ Mobile worked together in these waters to strengthen their joint abilities and—as they said in a joint statement—to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight and respect for maritime rights under international law.” A few weeks later, between April 22 and May 8, ships from the Philippines and the United States operated alongside Australian and French naval troops for Exercise Balikatan 2024.

For this Balikatan (“shoulder-to-shoulder”), over 16,000 troops participated in an area of the South China Sea that is outside the territorial waters of the Philippines. Alongside the navies of these nations, the Coast Guard of the Philippines took part in Exercise Balikatan. This is significant because it is the boats of the Coast Guard that most often encounter Chinese ships in these international waters, part of which are disputed between China and the Philippines. Although the official documents of these exercises do not mention China by name, they are certainly designed as part of the increasing military activity driven by the United States along China’s maritime border.

During the Balikatan exercise, the navy vessels from the Philippines and the United States jointly attacked and sank the decommissioned Philippine Navy BRP Lake Caliraya. The ship—which was made in China—had been donated to the navy by the Philippine National Oil Company in 2014. The fact that it was the only ship in the Philippines’ navy that was made in China did not go unnoticed within China. Colonel Francel Margareth Padilla-Taborlupa, a spokesperson of the armed forces of the Philippines, said that this was “purely coincidental.”

During Balikatan, the defense ministers of the four main nations met in Honolulu, Hawaii to discuss the political implications of these military exercises off the coast of China. Australia’s Richard Marles, Japan’s Kihara Minoru, the Philippines’ Gilberto Teodoro, and the United States’ Lloyd Austin met for their second meeting to discuss their collaboration in the region that they call the Indo-Pacific. It was at the edges of this meeting that the public relations teams of these ministers began to float the term “Squad” to refer to these four countries. While they did not formally announce the creation of a new bloc in East Asia, this new nickname intends to provide a de facto announcement of its existence.

From the Quad to the Squad

In 2007, the leaders of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States met in Manila (Philippines) to establish the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or Quad) while their militaries conducted Exercise Malabar in the Philippines Sea. The Quad did not initially include the Philippines, whose President at the time—Gloria Arroyo—was trying to improve relations between her country and China. The Quad did not develop because Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was unhappy with Washington’s growing belligerence towards Beijing. The Quad revived in 2017, once more in Manila, with a more forthright agenda to work against China’s Belt and Road ambitions in the region (which U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called “predatory economics”).

Over the course of the past two years, the United States has been frustrated with India’s discomfort with the kind of pressure campaign that the U.S. has been mounting against China and Russia. India refused to stop buying discounted Russian energy, which was a pragmatic decision during an election period (although India’s purchase of Russian energy has declined over time). When asked if India will consider being a NATO+ member, India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar said that India does not share the “NATO mentality.” India’s reluctance to join in the full-throated New Cold War against China annoyed the U.S. government, which therefore decided to set aside the Quad and assemble the Squad with the more pliant and eager government of Philippines president Bongbong Marcos. It is important to note, however, that in April India delivered a batch of supersonic BrahMos cruise missiles to the Philippines (sold for $375 million and produced by a joint venture between arms manufacturers in India and Russia). That these missiles might be part of the new pressure campaign against China is not something buried in the fine print of the deal.

Provocations

Since its “pivot to Asia,” the United States has sought to provoke China. The U.S. trade war that began in 2018 largely fizzled out due to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its attempt to build the advanced production lines to circumvent U.S. trade restrictions (for instance, when the U.S. tried to prevent China from importing semiconductor chips, the Chinese developed their own manufacturing capacity). The U.S. attempt to make Taiwan into the frontline of its pressure campaign has not borne fruit either. The inauguration of Taiwan’s new president Lai Ching-te on May 20 brings to the helm a man who is not interested in pushing for Taiwan’s independence; only 6 percent of Taiwan’s population favors unification with China or independence, with the rest of the population satisfied with the status quo. Unable to create the necessary provocation over Taiwan, the United States has moved its gunsights to the Philippines.

While the Philippines and China dispute the status of several islands in the waters between them, these disagreements are not sufficient to drive either country to war. In April 2024, former president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte recalled that when he was president (2016-2022), “there was no quarrel. We can return to normalcy. I hope that we can stop the ruckus over there because the Americans are the ones pushing the Philippine government to go out there and find a quarrel and eventually maybe start a war.” In March, President Marcos said that he is “not poking the bear” and does not want to “provoke” China. However, the formation of the Squad two months later does indicate that the Philippines has now replaced Taiwan as the frontline state for U.S. provocations against China.

China’s vice chair of its Central Military Commission, Zhang Youxia, warned against “gunboat muscles.” “Reality has shown,” he said, “that those who make deliberate provocations, stoke tensions, or support one side against another for selfish gains will ultimately only hurt themselves.”

This article was produced by Globetrotter. Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power.



Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power. Tings Chak is the art director and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and lead author of the study “Serve the People: The Eradication of Extreme Poverty in China.” She is also a member of Dongsheng, an international collective of researchers interested in Chinese politics and society.

‘Tick Tock’: Daimler Truck Workers Use Strike Threat to Win Big

By Dan DiMaggio

May 17, 2024

Source: Labor Notes

Image by UAW

North Carolina heavy truck and school bus manufacturing workers won 25 percent pay increases and ended wage tiers after an energetic contract campaign and strike threat against Daimler Truck.

The United Auto Workers unionized these plants in the 1990s and early 2000s—but since then, wages had stagnated. Starting pay was low, and the plants were stuck on different wage scales. At Thomas Built Buses, the largest school bus manufacturing site in the U.S., assembly workers topped out at $24, $5 less than their counterparts at Daimler’s Mount Holly truck plant.

The new contract establishes a common wage grid across all 7,400 workers at the four North Carolina plants, as well as parts distribution centers in Atlanta and Memphis. It’s another win for the UAW under President Shawn Fain, elected a year ago on a platform of “No Tiers. No Concessions. No Corruption.”

The union’s newfound militancy—showcased in the escalating strikes at the Big 3 last fall—was again on display. The UAW made clear that the April 26 contract expiration was a firm deadline.

The message was, “You’re either going to meet our demand or we’re going to be on strike,” said Corey Hill, president of UAW Local 3520, which represents 3,000 workers at the plant in Cleveland, North Carolina. “Tick tock Daimler, you’re on the clock.”

Workers made their own red T-shirts (many with colorful variations on the “Tick Tock” slogan), and wore them in force on Wednesdays, sharing the photos widely on social media.

Practice pickets in front of each plant in the weeks leading up to expiration drew hundreds of workers chanting, “Tick Tock! Tick Tock!” In the Mount Holly plant, workers even periodically started chanting while at work.

‘OWED US A RECORD CONTRACT’

Daimler workers were fired up. “This company owed us a record contract,” Hill said.

Daimler has made $20 billion in profit since the last contract in 2018, while any union gains in that deal were quickly eaten up by inflation. Meanwhile other local employers were raising pay.

“This used to be the best job around,” said welder Ben Smith, a member of UAW Local 5287 at the Thomas Built Buses plant in High Point. “That’s no longer the case. People know it’s not the only game in town—it’s a sellers’ market for labor.”

Right now there’s a strong market for heavy trucks, and the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill has allocated $5 billion for school districts to buy electric and low-emission buses.

“It was a good time to stand our ground and make the company pay up,” said Smith.

The union’s public campaign drew local media attention, as well as the support of local businesses, who hung signs showing their support for the workers. “Being public and talking about our stories, that makes these companies face what their decisions are,” said Hill.

As the clock inched toward expiration, the UAW scheduled a public announcement for 10 p.m. April 26, promising to announce a strike or a record contract. “We all assumed we were going to be getting marching orders for picketing,” Smith said.

But shortly before, the company started moving on the union’s key demands. “I think the company saw how ready we were to strike,” Smith said, “and then caved at the last minute.”

Daimler has used the threat of sending work to its two truck manufacturing plants in Mexico as a bludgeon against North Carolina workers.

“We were compared to Mexico all the time,” said UAW Local 3520 President Corey Hill: “‘How are you gonna cut costs down here? What are you going to do?’”

The company has had a plant in Santiago, in the state of Mexico, since 1991. Workers there build business-model trucks, like those used to deliver bread and beer.

In 2009, Daimler opened another plant in Saltillo, in the border state of Coahuila, which manufactures Class 8 semis—the same trucks built at the Cleveland plant. Saltillo is also home to a Stellantis truck plant; General Motors has an assembly plant in nearby Ramos Arizpe.

“Years ago, we were a premier plant, but as they built in Mexico, the wages went down,” Hill said. The company’s message was, “If you don’t like it, we’ll take it to Mexico.”

After dealing with multiple rounds of layoffs, in 2010 the UAW won some job security protection: a guarantee that a certain number of trucks would be built at the Cleveland and Mount Holly plants each day.

This year, the union was able to increase the guaranteed build rate: 80 trucks per day at the Cleveland plant (on a monthly average), up from 78 in the last contract.

Both Mexican plants are represented by the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), a notoriously corrupt, employer-friendly union with deep ties to the country’s political elite. Hill hopes that Mexican workers will cast off the CTM in favor of an independent union, to fight alongside the UAW to win big improvements at Daimler Truck.

“I would love to see an independent union inside those plants,” he said.

EXPIRES IN 2028

Going forward, the UAW said wages will be negotiated as part of the master agreement, rather than in separate bargaining between the company and each local union, which Daimler had used in the past to play the locals against each other. “The company will never again use the scheme of ‘local bargaining’ to create unfair and inequitable wage increases and wage decreases based on its ability to play the local unions against each other,” said the UAW in a summary of the contract.

The wage increases will be frontloaded: everyone gets 16 percent in the first year of the contract, and many workers will receive even more. The progression to top rate is standardized and shortened from nearly six years to four. Shift premiums, formerly tiered, are now 7.5 percent across the board; tiers for vacation accrual are also eliminated.

Workers won a cost-of-living adjustment with the same formula that the UAW won at the Big 3 last fall, as well as profit-sharing. Those are both firsts at Daimler, which controls more than 40 percent of the North American market for long-haul trucks, sold under the Freightliner and Western Star brands.

The UAW won a new holiday, Juneteenth, and blocked the company’s attempt to increase workers’ health care costs.

Smith, who has been at Thomas Built for just under two years, said he’ll go from making under $24 an hour now to over $40 by the end of the contract, when he’s at top rate.

The contract was ratified in a 94 percent yes vote. It expires on March 3, 2028. The UAW has called on unions to align contract expirations for May 1, 2028 (or as near as possible), to bring maximum pressure to bear on employers and politicians.

The Inexorable Rise of the Belgian Workers’ Party

By Nico Biver

May 17, 2024

Source: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung



European Parliament elections in Belgium are once again taking place in the shadow of national parliamentary and regional elections. One could, therefore, expect similar results in both sets of polls.

In 2019, the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB/PVDA) first succeeded in winning one of Belgium’s then 21 parliamentary mandates (today 22). With 14.6 percent of the vote in the country’s French-speaking region, Wallonia, Marc Botenga became the first radical leftist from Belgium to make it into the European Parliament. The 5 percent attained in the larger Flemish-speaking region, however, was not enough to win a seat.

According to polls, the amount of votes going to the Social Democratic, Christian Democratic, and Liberal parties — nowadays divided according to language — will only continue to sink further after falling below 50 percent for the first time in 2019. Losses will also be felt by the Green Party, which fared well in 2019, while the far-right Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest, or VB) and the far-left PTB are expected to make gains.

Given that the VB together with the right-wing nationalists of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) were almost able to secure an absolute majority in Flanders, forming a government at the federal level may prove to be even more difficult than before. As it is, the current government — made up of seven different parties and successfully formed a whopping 494 days after the 2019 elections — has no majority in Flanders.
The PTB’s Political Prospects

The PTB, however, has no cause for concern at the moment. All polls indicate that they will win three mandates in the next EU Parliament. In the national elections, they are polling at 15–20 percent in Wallonia, 20 percent in Brussels, and in Flanders they exceeded 10 percent in the summer of 2023.

Nevertheless, in polls in Wallonia and Brussels the PTB has been stagnant since 2020, and have only made modest gains in Flanders. Membership growth has also slowed down, with 23,000 members in 2020 and only 25,000 in 2024. This most likely has to do with the fact that in recent years COVID-19, the war in Ukraine and migration issues have taken centre stage, dividing the social and political landscape. As a result, the party’s campaigns on social issues have struggled to capture public attention.

Internationally, the PTB is also unique in many respects. The formerly Maoist party has, since its change of course at the turn of the millennium, maintained relations — now as a Marxist party — with a wide spectrum of other left-wing parties. Although it is not a member of the Party of the European Left, the PTB participates in their electoral campaign, and its MEP Marc Botenga belongs to the European Parliament’s Left group.

The PTB’s positions on EU policy are certainly shaped by the nationalist dispute at home. It is the only Belgian party united across language lines, and actively campaigns against the division of the country by Flemish nationalists. This flies in the face of excessive federalism and the so-called language dispute, which have long been weakening the workers’ movement in Belgium, distracting the people from capitalist plans to privatize and break up social security and welfare systems.

The PTB has a similar view of independence movements, such as the Catalonian, and the plans of some radical left-wing parties to have their respective nations leave the EU or abandon the euro. They do not see the strengthening of the nation-state as a viable option for resisting the policies of large-scale capitalism. In their view, this would only make it more difficult to fight against its power. Given that companies operate on the European level, it would seem that left-wing parties would also have to do so, and therefore network as much as possible. Nevertheless, the PTB rejects the plans of other left-wing parties to make the EU more socially oriented and democratic, because they simply do not consider the EU to be reformable.

In 2018, Marc Botenga criticized both approaches as too parliamentary and not anti-capitalist enough: “On the one hand, both focus more on the government than on power and underestimate the significance of countervailing power and extra-parliamentary action. On the other hand, both lack ambition, and the only prospect they offer is capitalism managed in a better way.”

Last year, he added that he considered “the [EU] treaties are incompatible with most left-wing policy… At the same time, we’ve seen that whenever the pressure is high enough and the balance of forces shifts, these rules are pushed aside very quickly.” He noted the example of the financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, which made it possible to override certain EU treaties.

In the event of a change in government, the PTB does not see the solution in the abandonment of the EU or the euro, but rather in non-adherence to the EU treaties, which stand in the way of left-wing politics. They would instead seek to establish EU-wide solidarity with the country in question.
MPs on a Workers’ Wage

The PTB’s improved electoral prospects can also be traced back to their success in the 2019 election, when their number of MPs soared from eight to 37. This meant that public contributions to the party grew from 2.3 million euro in 2018 to 6.2 million in 2022, making the PTB the third-wealthiest party in the country, despite ranking ninth among all parties. This is due to the contributions paid by elected representatives, high membership fees, and many party donations, which in Belgium cannot exceed 500 euro per/year, enabling the party to quadruple its expenditure on staff and public relations.

It is of great financial advantage to the PTB that not only their full-time staff but also their elected representatives are content with the salary of a skilled worker, or the equivalent of their previous income. According to the party’s political reasoning behind this approach, anyone who runs for office under the PTB should not be able to get rich off their position or enjoy a significantly higher standard of living than the average citizen. Chairman Raoul Hedebouw describes it as follows: “If you don’t live the way you think, then you start to think the way you live.”

This is also the reason why the party introduced a policy whereby workers keep only a 20-percent cut of their daily parliamentary allowances. The remainder, as well as all expense allowances for municipal representatives, are transferred to the party’s coffers.
Popular Politics without Populism

There are many reasons for the PTB’s success. It focuses on popular, mostly socio-economic demands that concern not only marginalized groups, but also most of society. These include free healthcare, an increase in the minimum pension, inflation adjustments, and the introduction of a tax on millionaires. Through months of campaigning with petitions, demonstrations, book releases, conferences, and so on, the PTB has not only advocated for these goals, but also aims to achieve at least some of them. Groups on the municipal level support street campaigns through parliamentary initiatives, but play no independent role themselves.

The PTB attacks the privileges of parties and politicians, and through its MPs’ renunciation of the bulk of their daily allowances and the financing of social projects such as the “Medicine for the People” clinics, the PTB can leverage the public’s loss of trust in their representatives to their advantage. However, their populism does not go so far as to embrace reactionary demands, as the Danish Social Democrats and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) do on issues of migration. Instead, the PTB sticks closer to the methods of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ), which almost completely avoided controversial topics such as migration and crime in their campaigns in Styria, Salzburg, and Tyrol.

In the lead-up to this year’s elections, the PTB asked over 100,000 people to identify areas in which they expected the most from politicians. Their answers will form the focus of the electoral campaign — as long as they do not conflict with their own fundamental political convictions. Regarding contentious topics such as migration or the war in Ukraine, the PTB comments only reluctantly, and refrains from campaigning or organizing parliamentary initiatives on these subjects. The party, however, rejects the tightening of EU asylum regulations, and calls for citizenship to be automatically granted to migrants after five years of residency in Belgium.

In order to effectively tackle the climate crisis, the PTB advocates for rigorous measures, especially against the biggest CO2 producers in the economy. At the same time, they are also careful not to make any demands that could be perceived as having a potentially negative financial effect on segments of their potential voter base. This is why the party generally rejects taxes on fossil fuels and also organizes campaigns against increased parking fees.

Their political success, however, is primarily due to their perceived internal unity and their relatively high personal appeal. The primary public spokespersons for the party are chairman Raul Hedebouw, parliamentary party leader in the Chamber of Representatives Sofie Merckx, General Secretary Peter Mertens, and Flemish parliamentary party leader Jos d’Haese. To this team we can add a fifth member, political director David Pesiteau.

There is only one woman in the top leadership of the PTB and only 13 women among all 37 representatives. This is perhaps the reason why they have less support among women voters. This year, however, the electoral lists are all balanced according to quotas.

In order to improve their communication with society, the PTB relies not only on personal contact established through polls or at info booths, parties, and strikes, but also their massive presence on social media. In the French-speaking region, the PTB spends more than any other party on Facebook advertising. Both of the party’s Facebook pages have a combined total of 309,000 followers — more than La France insoumise in France or Die Linke in Germany, and that in a country with a population of only 12 million.

This form of political communication has led to the PTB gaining significant support among the working class and lower-middle class, particularly in Wallonia and Brussels. An analysis of the 2019 EU Election Study confirms this. Throughout all areas of Belgium, 19 percent of middle class respondents voted for the PTB or were sympathetic to the party, as was the case with 33 percent of those unemployed, 18 percent of those with the lowest standard of living, and 28 percent of those with the second-lowest standard of living. The fact that the poorest respondents were not the largest group is primarily due to competition from the VB in Flanders.

This can also be seen in terms of level of education: 14 percent of respondents with a low level of education and 15 percent of those with an average level supported the PTB. Among academics, the party scored below average at 8 percent. This also explains why the PTB receives below-average results in university towns and must settle for an average of 11-percent approval among those under the age of 25.

As with most other parties of the radical left, their share of the vote is significantly lower in the countryside than in cities. In Wallonia, the PTB reached 17.9-percent approval in cities with more than 100,000 residents, whereas they only managed 10.6 percent in parishes with fewer than 5,000 residents.
Unchecked Flemish Nationalism

It is worth noting that, despite their geographic and cultural proximity to France, the right-wing populists in Wallonia have thus far had little success. This is due not only to the fact that they have little to offer voters, but also because of the PTB’s policies, which have managed to garner support among classes that elsewhere tend to favour right-wing populists. However, it also has to do with the country’s history. Political scientist and PTB expert Pascal Delwit points out that there is no Belgian or Wallonian sense of national identity, although there is a very strong Flemish national identity. It is therefore rather remarkable that the PTB, at least according to polls, has reached second place in Flanders.

With its coal and steel industries, Wallonia was originally the wealthier region of the country, while agrarian Flanders was at a disadvantage. This gave rise to a reactionary Flemish nationalism that even collaborated with the German occupiers during World War II, thereby forfeiting any political role until the 1960s. Today, however, Flanders is the wealthier of the two regions, and the N-VA and VB make use of wealth-based, jingoistic ideologies in their political strategy, which they weaponize against the poorer region of Wallonia.

Flemish nationalism is primarily fuelled by three components: economic policy, which is positioned against poorer Wallonia; migration policy, which is particularly anti-Muslim in nature; and protectionist policies, which have adopted an anti-EU position. As with the 2019 elections, immigration is once again the most important political topic in Flanders, and both radical right-wing parties, N-VA and VB, are currently polling at 45 percent and 49 percent, respectively.

According to polls, the more right-wing VB has meanwhile surpassed the N-VA to become the strongest party in Belgium currently. The VB’s MEPs belong to various far-right groups in the European Parliament. VB works in the Identity and Democracy group together with the Austrian FPÖ, Le Pen’s National Rally in France, and the German AfD. Meanwhile the N-VA is part of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, and cooperates with the Polish PiS, Fratelli d’Italia, and Vox in Spain.

An election survey conducted in Flanders this year by scientists at the University of Antwerp revealed that the VB is winning votes from all other parties, although least of all from the PTB, which itself mainly draws in votes from the social-democratic Vooruit party, the N-VA, and the Green Party. In Flanders, VB is especially strong among voters with lower levels of income and education, whereas the PTB is particularly successful among voters with average income and education levels.
The Risks of Governing

The main risks facing the PTB, as identified by Pascal Delwit, include the (unlikely) establishment of a radical right-wing force in the French-speaking region, not to mention the PTB’s own alleged refusal to join any governments.

The PTB certainly has some rather difficult hurdles to overcome if they are to enter into a coalition of any sort. In the French-speaking region, where coalitions with the PS and the Green Party would be mathematically possible, election campaign banners display the motto “Le choix de la rupture”, which means, more or less, “Choosing to break away”. The party is also talking about breaking away from current politics in the EU election.

In Flanders, however, the reigning slogan, “We always stand by your side”, has a less militant tone, presumably because power is not on their side in that region. Nevertheless, the same four issues are always highlighted under both of these banners: taxation of multimillionaires, defence of purchasing power, abolishment of privileges for politicians, and strict caps on emissions for major polluters.

In 2019, the PTB demanded a minimum pension of 1,500 euro via a petition campaign in which 180,000 signatures were collected. The demand has since been implemented. Furthermore, at the beginning of the electoral campaign, when the PTB also raised the minimum wealth threshold for the millionaire tax they had been calling for to 5 million euro in order to protect medium-sized businesses, the social democratic PS outflanked them on the left and even accused them of having given up “the fight against the ultra-rich”.

The predominantly social democratic FGTB/ABVV trade union federation has repeatedly called on the parties of the Left to form a coalition government. Whether this happens or not, however, is not solely up to the PTB. The PS, which has for months accused the PTB of political uselessness because of their unwillingness to assume any responsibility for forming a coalition, will have to demonstrate whether they want to realize their left-wing demands or remain in a coalition with the liberals. Whether the PS can be persuaded to change their tune ultimately depends on the election results of the PTB.

Nico Biver lives in Marburg and has worked for various MPs in Die Linke. He is also a journalist and documentarian, examining the history and present of the global radical left.

Non-Alignment Today

By Boaventura de Sousa Santos

May 16, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.


Worker in the New World Order: International Solidarity - One of five portable murals for the founding convention of the ICEM, 1995 - Dedicated to imprisoned striking Nigerian oil workers | By Mike Alewitz


The original non-alignment movement occured in 1961 following the Bandung Conference (Indonesia) held in 1955, which was attended by 29 countries, almost all of which had recently been liberated from European colonialism. They accounted for 54% of the world’s population, but their weight in the world economy was almost nil.

In 1955, non-alignment meant wanting to decide on the national development model without having to adhere to either of the two rival models in force at the time: the communist Soviet bloc and the capitalist Western bloc. The concept of the Third World stems from this aspiration. The rivalries between them were beginning to crystallize in the Cold War. The differences between the two models were so great that they pointed to two civilizational models. In fact, the idea of the “new man” had emerged since the beginning of the 20th century in Europe as a new civilizing idea, both in the Soviet version and in the fascist and Nazi versions, and pointed to something ideologically very different from the capitalist norm which, after 1918, was increasingly dictated by the USA. The differences between the participants are well known. The use of force and war to resolve conflicts, which had dominated international politics since the 19th century, was the most unanimous issue. The Soviet bloc had a comparative advantage in that, since the Congress of the Peoples of the East held in Baku (Azerbaijan) in 1920, it had recognized the role of colonial liberation movements in the struggle against capitalism and imperialism. But, as S. Gopal points out, non-alignment was above all a state of mind, the spirit of Bandung. African-American journalist Richard Wright, who was present in Bandung, describes the atmosphere in Bandung thus:

“Only brown, black and yellow men who had long been made agonizingly self-conscious, under the rigors of colonial rule, of their race and their religion could have felt the need for such a meeting. There was something extra-political, extra-social, almost extra-human about it; it smacked of tidal waves, of natural forces. And the call for the meeting had not been sounded in terms of ideology. The agenda and the subject matter had been written for centuries in the blood and bones of the participants. The conditions under which these men had lived had become their tradition, their culture, their raison d’être”.

The then young countries of what is now known as the global South wanted to assert their national interests through cooperation in order to focus on them and not on the interests dictated to them by the global North. These interests included anti-colonialism, anti-racism, getting out from underdevelopment, and expanding areas of peace.

From the outset, the Non-Aligned Movement was contested by the US, since the ideas of neutrality, neutralism or non-alignment were anathema to the US, while the USSR was pushing to intensify its anti-imperialist orientation. As a result, disagreements grew and the movement lost relevance, which worsened with the end of the Cold War.

In 2024, the geopolitical and economic situation in the world is very different from 1955. What sense does it make today to talk about non-alignment? Non-alignment between what and for what? A brief overview of the current geopolitical situation will help us define the possible political content of non-alignment. I anticipate that the new non-alignment is as necessary today as it was in 1955, albeit with very different political and ideological content. I distinguish between weak non-alignment and strong non-alignment.

The geopolitical context

We live in a multipolar (or even bipolar) world, although very different from the world in 1955. Today, the two poles of geopolitical attraction are the US and China and the rivalries between them are intensifying. A new Cold War is emerging, not at all like the one that existed between the Soviet Union and the USA. In this regard, 1955 and 2024 are distinct in three main ways.

1.While the differences between the two poles were enormous in 1955, one communist and the other capitalist, to the point of pointing to different civilizational options, today these differences are much smaller. It’s true that the speeches and self-description of the regimes point to very different realities, but in reality the differences are considerably less. It is enough to remember that until very recently China was considered a strategic partner of the US, something that was never the case with the Soviet Union. Although there is debate about the nature of China’s economic regime (communism, socialism, state capitalism?), China’s evolution over the last thirty years and the role it has played in the globalization of the economy make it increasingly clear that we are dealing with two variants of the same capitalist model: on the one hand, multinational capitalism with globalized financial capital (USA) and, on the other, state capitalism with state control of the financial sector (China). Seen from this perspective, the two systems have more in common than you might think. The differences are important, but they occur within the same model of capitalist economic development. The socialist option as it was envisioned in 1955 has disappeared. And with it, its opposite has also disappeared from the economic lexicon: today we don’t speak of capitalism, but of market economy, as if the markets, which have always existed, had always been capitalist.

2.The second difference from 1955 is that at that time there was a radical difference between democratic countries (because they were multi-party) and autocratic countries (because they were one-party), even though the latter claimed to be another kind of democracy: popular democracy, developmental democracy. Today, the differences are much more tenuous given the degradation of liberal democracies over the last thirty years. It’s no stretch to say that while China is a one-party autocracy, the US is a two-party autocracy. In fact, this was stated with extraordinary foresight by President Julius Nyerere in 1991: “The United States is a democracy by some definition and not by others. It’s a plutocracy, but the native gets the vote; so it’s a democracy! But the United States is very lucky. There are two parties; but they’re really one party! Both parties agree on the basic national objectives. Internally, both of them are highly capitalist. Externally, both of them are imperialist. So, their policies don’t differ very much. It was not Kennedy who planned the Bay of Pigs. It was planned by Eisenhower and Kennedy carried it out, that is, tried to carry it out. So they basically agree.” Obviously, the differences are significant, especially on the domestic front, but in terms of geopolitics they translate into the difference between a monolithic autocracy and a pluralist autocracy.

3.The third difference from 1955 is the emergence of the ecological issue. At that time, the issue was no more than philosophical speculation in the Global North, and when it was dealt with by the countries of the Global South, it was called something else, such as the struggle for land, agrarian reform or the control of mining operations. The situation has changed radically since then and today China alone is responsible for the second largest percentage of carbon dioxide emissions, after the USA. For their part, the countries of the global South have focused their demands on the historical responsibility of the countries of the global North and, if they do not distinguish themselves by being more active in the processes of ecological transition, it is because they are often victims of these processes when adopted by the global North, the so-called energy colonialism. In short, in this area too, the two poles seem more similar than different. Non-alignment between the two poles may mean nothing more than choosing between the storm and the flood. In view of this, the new non-alignment today has many dimensions, all of which are urgent. I distinguish between two main ones, which I call, for lack of a better term, weak non-alignment and strong non-alignment.

Weak non-alignment

As I explained in my summary above, today’s multipolar world is a single system with two main variants. These include the growth of a Cold War, which, because it is unregulated (contrary to the case of the previous one), could at any moment slide into a hot war. Weak non-alignment takes place within this system without challenging it as a whole. But don’t think that the options are weak or don’t involve risks – quite the opposite. Weak or intra-systemic non-alignment has two main characteristics, both of them implying activism.

Active neutrality. Not supporting and doing everything to prevent the outbreak of war between the two blocs. Active neutrality is what used to be called neutralism. It is not just a matter of staying out of conflicts in an isolationist way and not trying to intervene in them. On the contrary, it implies active intervention policies to promote peaceful solutions and prevent wars from occurring. Given the globalization and interdependence of the economy and the world, active neutrality will be more effective if it takes place regionally and not on behalf of isolated countries. Active neutrality is asymmetrical. No one in the global South believes that China wants a war with the US. History teaches us that rising empires advance by creating zones of influence through unequal but reciprocal benefits. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is today’s most powerful affirmation of this. No one in the global South believes that Russia is a militarily expansionist country. On the contrary, it has been historically a victim of European expansionism, having been invaded twice since the 19th century by two European powers, Napoleon’s France and Hitler’s Germany. Russia is defending itself against a new form of expansionism, this time Euro-North American, NATO. In fact, the Russian-Ukrainian war, like the Israel-Palestinian war, has the same objective of stopping the USA’s great rival, China, by neutralizing its most important allies, whether Russia or Iran. Empires in decline, such as the US, assert themselves through war, when they are not even dominated by the permanent war machine fed by the military-industrial complex. Today, the US has eight hundred military bases around the world.

Active neutrality requires non-participation in military pacts, whether promoted by the US or China. It requires distancing oneself from either of them militarily and promoting peaceful mediation and negotiation initiatives, especially from a regional base, be it Africa or Latin America. The economic power of some of the countries of the global South may be enough to have some impact on stopping the looming war.

Active non-alignment. This concept was recently coined in a book by Carlos Fortin, Jorge Heine and Carlos Ominami, (Eds), Latin American Foreign Policies in the New World Order: The Active Non-Alignment Option (2023). First of all, it should be pointed out that active neutrality and active non-alignment are two interdependent policies – the more intense and tense the military rivalry between the US and China, the less room there is for maneuver for the countries of the global South to carry out active non-alignment policies.

Taking Latin America as the focus of their analysis, the authors point out that the adjective “active” has a strong meaning because it implies the policy of a region that today has a significant weight in the world economy and strong relations with both China (the main investor) and the US. In line with what I argue here, active non-alignment would force Latin America out of military agreements with the US because these will increasingly be geared towards forcing Latin America into active alignment with the US in all areas – military, economic, international institutions, etc.

Two complex issues emerge. On the economic front, the situation is dilemmatic. While the US continues to advocate the economic relevance of neoliberalism despite all its failures and the emergence of extremist versions (Javier Milei in Argentina, Daniel Noboa in Ecuador, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador), China proposes a non-neoliberal capitalism with strong state intervention and state control of financial capital. In this area, it is difficult to foresee a third way. On a political level, the US is currently demanding not only alignment, but vassalage, both in Europe and Latin America. What’s more, after Hugo Chavez, Latin America has never again had a leader interested in an autonomous policy for the continent. The hope now lies with Lula da Silva, President of Brazil, undoubtedly one of the most respected leaders in the world. But Lula is obliged to focus on the country’s internal problems, given the level of destruction and institutional degradation during the Bolsonaro period and the fact that Lula has the majority of the legislature against him and only insincere tolerance from large sections of the Armed Forces.

With regard to active neutrality, perhaps the African continent has an advantage over Latin America (despite the growing US military presence in Africa), while Latin America has an advantage in active non-alignment. An articulation between Africa and Latin America could be promising in this area. For its part, India will be attentive to this development and, if it gets actively involved, the proposal of active non-alignment (perhaps combined with active neutrality) will have another strength.

Weak non-alignment contains a tension that will tend to increase over time. Just as in the original non-alignment the Soviet bloc offered advantages that were difficult to reject, so it is now with China. In fact, the idea of non-alignment is often associated with the global South and the most consistent organization of this geopolitical space is the BRICS+, in which China plays a major role. To what extent is it possible to talk about non-alignment? To some extent, India, while still belonging to the BRICS, is showing an autonomy that could be followed by other countries. As more countries (forty candidates) join the group, the political heterogeneity will also increase. In the field of weak non-alignment, we are moving towards an asymmetrical solution of greater proximity to China, but maintaining distances determined by national interests or regional loyalties. If, in essence, this is a conditional alignment, I’m sure China will accept it. The same would not be true of the US, which today, more than ever, demands unconditional alignment.



Strong non-alignment

Strong non-alignment is based on the idea that we live in a time of transition between civilizational paradigms, between the paradigm of Western civilization whose global domination began with European colonial expansion and one or more emerging paradigms that have yet to be determined. We are therefore in a time of interregnum in the sense given to it by Antonio Gramsci: the old paradigm has not yet completely died and the new one has not yet shown itself in a credible way, a time of monsters or morbid phenomena, as Gramsci added. From this paradigmatic perspective, we live in a globalized capitalist society in which officially recognized rivalries aim to perpetuate the system by changing protagonists. The changes are long-term, secular, but they can also result from catastrophes that accelerate historical processes. In most cases, the changes are quantitative for a long time and take place undetected by the geostrategic radar. At some point, however, the world is faced with a qualitative paradigm shift.

However, it is the changes within each of the variants that are significant for the human collectives that have been socialized into them, and so the dissatisfactions, demands or aspirations of these collectives rarely call into question the variant as a whole. For this to happen, external agents are needed, which in American counter-insurgency is called regime change. The asymmetry between the two variants (US and China) is that the ascendant variant (China) doesn’t need to resort to this strategy because it has other mechanisms of attraction at its disposal which, without requiring acceptance of the Chinese system, neutralize any hostility that may exist towards its political regime or its geostrategic processes and interests. In any case, the change of variant does not alter the permanence of the current civilizational paradigm based on infinite economic growth and the exploitation of labor and nature. Strong non-alignment aims to change the paradigm and therefore proposes both distance and non-alignment from either of the two current variants. As the current paradigm was born in the global North, strong non-alignment, although mostly promoted by social movements in the global South, aims to end the latter, as a logical consequence of the end of the global North. There is only a global South because there is a global North.

The specificity of strong non-alignment is the epistemic question. Basically, it’s a question of what kind of knowledge should guide us in understanding the current paradigm and in establishing the framework for its transformation. Weak non-alignment is satisfied with the epistemologies developed in the global North based on the exclusive priority of modern science/technology because it was this epistemology which, together with modern law and the modern state, legitimized the construction of the Western capitalist paradigm whose foundations weak non-alignment does not question.

On the contrary, strong non-alignment questions these foundations and, in order to do so, it cannot resort exclusively to the knowledge that underpins them. Strong non-alignment requires new epistemologies that I have called epistemologies of the South, in which the South is neither geographical nor even geopolitical. It is above all epistemic and is present in the social struggles that take place in both the geographical South and the geographical North. Very briefly, the epistemologies of the South consist in the processes of validating knowledge other than scientific knowledge, knowledge born in the struggles against modern Western domination – capitalist, colonialist, and patriarchal domination – on the part of the social groups that have suffered most from this domination: workers, colonized peoples, indigenous peoples, peasants, women. In their struggles, a plurality of knowledge has always circulated, including scientific knowledge, but also ancestral, popular, and vernacular knowledge. These non-scientific knowledges have been despised, suppressed and banned by the epistemologies of the global North, a process which I call epistemicide. The epistemologies of the South consider that modern science (itself internally very diverse) is a valid and indeed precious knowledge, but that it is not the only valid and precious knowledge, and that it must therefore be able to dialogue with other knowledges. The epistemologies of the south aim to recover these knowledges otherwise insofar as they can help us to think about and legitimize the new civilizational paradigm. It’s not about unconditional, romantic adoption or celebration of some golden age of the past to which such knowledges may be related to. It’s about investing in the epistemic diversity of the world in order to make possible a future that is fairer in relations between humans and more equitable between humans and nature.

Proposals for a strong non-alignment

1. We have the right to be equal when difference makes us inferior; we have the right to be different when equality mischaracterizes us.

2. There are no rights without duties. Duties must exist in proportion to the ability to prevent the violation of human rights and must be demanded in proportion to the consequences that may result from such a violation. Duties cannot be limited to the ethical sphere. They must be enforced by existing and future legal systems.

3. The rights of nature, understood as the vital principle that sustains human and non-human life on the planet, are recognized. The corresponding duties are incumbent on the State, communities, and citizens. The most serious violations of these rights constitute a new crime against humanity/nature: ecocide.

4. Respect for life and dignity implies recognizing the infinite diversity of ways of knowing and living (in) the world and conceiving of life, dignity, living well, and living well together.

5. The right to education must be understood as the right to know the world diversity of ways of knowing as well as rights and duties among human beings and in their relations with nature. Education, in general, and universities, in particular, must be reformed in order to intervene effectively in the dispute over narratives about the paradigmatic transition that is to follow in the next decades.

6.The different development models, including alternative development models, must give way to alternatives to development: de-mercantilization, decolonization, de-patriarchalization, and democratization. The programmed obsolescence of industrial products is prohibited.

7. The commons are all goods that must be shared by all human beings, men and women, without discrimination, as they are essential for life to flourish and dignity to prevail. The right to free access to fundamental common goods such as water, air, space, forests, rivers, seas, seeds, public space, culture, education, health, electricity, information, communication and the internet is recognized.

8. Food sovereignty must be one of the guiding principles of agricultural policy. Indigenous peoples, people descendants from slaves, and peasants have the right to their ancestral territories and their subsoil.

9. Universal basic income is one of the important instruments for combating the growing vulnerability of workers and their families, especially in view of the impact of artificial intelligence on production processes.

10. Health is a public good, not a business. Vaccines are a common, public, and universal good. They must be produced with the interests of the people in mind and made available for free and universal access. As soon as a pandemic or an emergency of equal severity is declared, all embargoes and economic sanctions that prevent the affected countries from protecting the lives of their citizens are lifted.

11. The industrial relocation of goods needed to guarantee the protection of life in the recurring emergencies that are likely to characterize the coming decades must be ensured. For the same reason, small businesses and local shops should be the main forms of distributing products to consumers.

12. Due to its ecological footprint, the international tourism industry should be less and less important in terms of wealth creation and job creation.

13. The right to urbanity is just as valid as the right to rurality. A new type of relationship between the countryside and the city is urgently needed. The countryside does not precede the city, nor does the city represent a higher stage of coexistence than the countryside. Cities must be resized and given a new meaning and dignity.

14. The public debt of peripheral countries must be canceled whenever its weight prevents them from meeting the above objectives. As soon as a pandemic or emergency of equal severity is declared, all embargoes and economic sanctions that prevent the affected countries from protecting the lives of their citizens must be lifted.

Conclusion

Weak non-alignment is the necessary condition for thinking about strong non-alignment. In turn, strong non-alignment is the utopian horizon towards which weak non-alignment must aim if it is not to become a placebo for the ills that internationalist good conscience suffers from today. Without a post-Western horizon, the struggles of non-alignment will not prevent capitalism from becoming increasingly violent towards humans and nature.


It is a question of redistributing fear and hope more equitably. Nowadays, large majorities have too much fear in the face of the vicissitudes of their daily lives and too little hope that things will get better, while a tiny minority has too much hope that the world will continue to guarantee them their privileges and too little fear that it won’t, because they are convinced that they have eliminated or co-opted their enemies. Strong non-alignment assumes that it will not be possible to restore hope to the large majorities without instilling fear in the very small minorities.





Boaventura de Sousa Santos is the emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. His most recent book is Decolonizing the University: The Challenge of Deep Cognitive Justice.