Thursday, May 23, 2024

To foreign politicians - justice for Ukrainian workers!

APPEAL FROM UKRAINIAN LABOUR AND SOCIAL ACTIVISTS

TUESDAY 21 MAY 2024, BY COLLECTIVE

This appeal to workers and activists abroad comes from Ukrainian trade union activists and leaders in Kryvih Rih, as well as supports of various civil society initiatives. It is not an official appeal from any trade union. But it expresses very well the mood and wishes of many Ukrainian trade unionists and NGOs, and the issues they wish to communicate to their counterparts in other countries, less than one month before the elections to the European Parliament.


On the eve of the European Parliament elections, trade union activists in Kryvyi Rih appeal to candidates and remind politicians that it is wage earners who bear the brunt of the war against the aggressor. They are the ones who lack ammunition, and it is their interests that should be discussed in high places. As Ukrainian trade unionists, we believe that ignoring these facts is fraught with catastrophic consequences. We warn against using support for Ukraine to cover up selfish agendas, which is common among certain international elites.

Yuriy Samoilov, leader of the Independent Trade Union of Miners, said: "In our families, every other conversation is about the war, about those who are currently serving, about how to help them, because the vast majority of those mobilised are ordinary workers. This has become the union’s priority. But at the same time, labour legislation is being suspended, social spending is being cut, and children of businessmen and officials are having fun abroad. Is this fair?" - Yuriy asks.

The appeal has already garnered support from a diverse group of trade union, civic, and student activists from various regions of Ukraine. They share a common dissatisfaction with the lack of interest in employee issues and firmly believe that their collective voice is the key to change. They see the potential audience of the appeal as friends of Ukraine and allies of workers, in Europe and around the world.

Oleksandr Skyba, leader of the Free Trade Union of Railway Workers at the Darnytsia depot, points out that since the war’s onset, labour rights have been significantly curtailed. He argues that most of these changes have not bolstered defence capabilities, but rather weakened them. "Allowing employers to arbitrarily suspend labour relations and the provisions of collective bargaining agreements is a severe blow to the role of trade unions and the foundations of democracy," he asserts. Oleksandr underscores his confidence in the power of unity and mutual support in the struggle and looks to his foreign comrades for solidarity.

Appeal to political representatives of the people of Europe and the world

Given that our fate often depends on your decisions, we, Ukrainian trade unionists and activists, would like to address you directly and emphasize the following:

While the international community is stuck in indecision, Russian occupation troops are gladly stepping up their offensive. Our comrades are dying on the frontline, forced to fight without enough arms supplies, and in the absence of proper air defence, our power plants, factories, and homes are being hit by devastating strikes. With truly “unwavering support,” this would not have been inevitable. However, for now, we have to face the aggressor mainly on our own.

The resilience of Ukrainian society depends on ordinary workers, who make up the majority of the armed forces and ensure the functioning of the home front in logistics, production, and maintenance of critical infrastructure. At the same time, there is an increasingly visible social divide, where public goods exist just for the elite and the rest are left with only duties. This demoralises and threatens the country’s defence capability and its future. While we continue to get paid peanuts, work overtime, and live under the constant threat of being put on the street, our government is much more concerned with deregulation and creating favourable conditions for business owners.

The safety and well-being of our families and friends are absolute values for us; they make us hold on. Yet it is painfully clear that post-war Ukraine will lack opportunities for a decent life if wage-earners do not get the leverage to solve their problems. It is with horror that we realise that we will probably have to seek a better life abroad, working day and night, competing for starvation wages from greedy masters.

It is also no secret that your elites are freezing wages, raising prices, cancelling holidays, and cutting social spending, justifying all these as a necessity to support Ukraine while at the same time continuing mutually beneficial trade with Russia; your money and technology is supporting their military capacities. This policy is extremely dangerous for the solidarity and trust between our peoples.

We understand that only together can we defend democracy and social justice from the invasions of imperialists, the pressure of dictators, the appetites of oligarchs, and the demagoguery of the far right.

Therefore, we call on you to:

1. Stop weapon exports to third countries and prioritise the supply of arms and ammunition necessary right now for defence to Ukraine. Our war should not become a pretext for profiteering by security salesmen!

2. Make it impossible for Putin’s regime to circumvent sanctions. This requires, among other things, closing shady schemes used by Russian, Ukrainian, and other oligarchs. Every transaction and spare part provided allows Russia to continue the war!

3. Write off the unfair debt and ensure your money is not spent on anti-social experiments in our country! International support should help to restore and expand universal healthcare and education, rebuild affordable housing and public infrastructure, and ensure decent jobs and working conditions.

4. Establish contacts with Ukrainian trade unions and civil society organisations, lobby for their involvement in decision-making at all levels, and insist on the importance of collective bargaining and freedom of associations! In a deformed political system, this is almost the only way for ordinary people to claim their rights.

5. Expose the use of solidarity to cover vested interests! Confiscate Russian assets, shut down offshore companies, and tax the super-rich/ Do not present your people with the false choice of sacrificing the fate of Ukrainians or taking away from the most vulnerable at home!

14 May 2024

Source: https://rev.org.ua/to-foreign-politicians-justice-for-ukrainian-workers/

NB: On the original site, the call for signatures is intended for Ukrainian activists, but ENSU will work with Ukrainian trade unionists to determine the means of international support.

P.S.

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Towards a return to dictatorship in Tunisia?

THURSDAY 23 MAY 2024,
 BY S. MOUSAKARAN
INTERNATIONAL VIEWPOINT

The shocking images of the arrest of lawyer and columnist Sonia Dahmani on 11 May 2024, during a raid by balaclava-wearing the plainclothes police on her house in Tunis, broadcast live on France 24, were seen around world. However, this arrest is merely the sad continuation of the waves of arrests and repression that have swept across the country since the coup d’état of President Kaïs Saïed on 25 July 2021.

 

Elected in 2019, Kaïs Saïed came to power at a pivotal moment of collective fatigue and the absence of a political alternative. A former university lecturer who had not held any political office, he rallied around himself by mobilising a populist discourse on the revolutionary forces and the popular will, of which he would be the one and only repository, thus discrediting all intermediary bodies - trade unions, media, associations and civil society.

CONCENTRATION OF POWER

On 25 July 2021, he initiated a legal restructuring with the promulgation of a new Constitution concentrating the main powers in the hands of the President. He attacked the democratic bodies and checks and balances created by the post-revolutionary Constitution of 2014.

A veritable hunt for opponents was then launched, targeting political opponents, judges, journalists, trade unionists, civil society associations and actors and, more generally, any person or structure critical of the new political leadership.

In this context, Kaïs Saïed uses the concepts of traitors to the nation, or even “mercenaries” who would “undermine the State in the name of freedom of expression”.

HELPING MIGRANTS CRIMINALIZED

In order to win popular support, he has designated associations that help migrants as the real enemy from within, at a time when Tunisia, a transit point for Europe, is experiencing a huge influx of migrants.

In reality, civil society as a whole is under threat. Activists are reporting practices and humiliations the like of which have not been seen since the time of Ben Ali, with the return of increased surveillance, police raids on premises, telephone harassment and cases of obscure “foreign funding”, a real obsession of Kaïs Saïed.

The arrest on 6 May 2024 of anti-racist activist Saadia Mosbah is the latest stage in the criminalisation of the work of associations.

The new wave of arrests of lawyers and journalists in Tunisia since 11 May seems to be the logical continuation of this return to dictatorship, with Kaïs Saïed attacking the last bastions of freedom.

CLIMATE OF FEAR

European governments are no strangers to this serious authoritarian turn. Although several officials have expressed “concern”, the fact remains that the European Union is perfectly happy with the new regime, to which it has entrusted the task of outsourcing its borders and managing migrants before they arrive in Europe, just as it was with Ben Ali’s regime.

The similarities between the two regimes are sadly confirmed. The arrest of lawyer Mehdi Zagrouba, following that of Sonia Dahmani, has rekindled a trauma: torture. Mehdi Zagrouba claimed to have been tortured by police officers just before his appearance before the judge, causing him to vomit and faint during the hearing.

More than a decade after the revolution, a climate of fear has returned to Tunisia, where freedom of expression seemed just a few years ago to be the only achievement.

Nevertheless, mobilizations and demonstrations are being organised to demand a fixed date for the presidential elections due to take place in the next few months. No deadline has yet been set as the presidential term draws to a close.

23 May 2024

Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.

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New Poll Shows Biden Risking 20% of Voters in Key Battleground States

“We found that across all five states, a critical margin of voters—roughly one in five [or more]—are less likely to vote for Biden on account of his handling of the war in Gaza.”
MAY 21, 2024

Protesters outside of a campaign event for President Joe Biden in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on April 16, 2024.
PHOTO BY KYLE MAZZA/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES

A new poll of voters in five key battleground states has found President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israeli assault on Gaza is greatly impacting his chances of reelection — with some 20% ​“less likely” to show up for him at the ballot box in November.

The poll, released Tuesday and conducted by YouGov, was commissioned by Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action), a political group, and voters were surveyed in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Democrats narrowly won in 2020, as well as in Minnesota, where Democrats and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton edged out Trump in 2016.

“We found that across all five states, a critical margin of voters—roughly one in five [or more]—are less likely to vote for Biden on account of his handling of the war in Gaza.”

“What this opinion poll suggests is that Biden cannot continue to ignore the convictions and demands of a large segment of the Democratic electoral base if he wants to preserve his chances of winning,” said Osama Abuirshaid, AJP Action’s executive director.

“A large percentage of Democrats oppose his handling of the Israeli war in Gaza,” Abuirshaid said. ​“A larger percentage of them want to see a change in his policy and an immediate and permanent cease-fire.”

A news release about the poll from AJP Action noted that ​“across all five states, a critical margin of voters — roughly one in five — are less likely to vote for Biden on account of his handling of the war in Gaza.” The YouGov poll ​“included a representative sample of 500 registered Democratic and Independent voters” in each of the five states, according to a summary of the report from AJP Action.

Halah Ahmad, who worked as a researcher on the YouGov poll, shared an analysis of the narrow vote differentials and margins for both the 2016 and 2020 elections for President in those five states.

Arizona, Ahmad reported, had a differential of 91,234 votes in 2016 and 10,457 in 2020. Pennsylvania showed 44,292 votes in 2016 compared to 80,555 in 2020, while the Uncommitted campaign there netted 57,951 votes. In Wisconsin, the vote differential was 22,748 in 2016 and was even smaller in 2020, where 20,682 votes separated Biden from Trump.

Michigan saw a difference of 10,704 votes in 2016 and 154,188 in 2020, while some 101,436 voters chose Uncommitted this year. Minnesota saw 44,765 votes in 2016 and 233,012 in 2020, along with 45,913 votes for Uncommitted in the most recent primary.

All five states included in the poll have sizable Arab and Muslim American populations and contain large urban areas that will be key to Democrats and President Joe Biden’s efforts to secure enough votes to beat former President Donald Trump and overcome the typically narrow margins in those states.

Those five states were also home to surprisingly successful primary campaigns that are part of the ​“Uncommitted” national movement that has upstaged Biden in many states, even as he carried them.


People gather for an Uncommitted Minnesota watch party on Super Tuesday.PHOTO BY STEPHEN MATUREN/AFP


The Uncommitted movement first exploded in Michigan, which held its primary on Feb. 27 and saw more than 100,000 people cast ballots for ​“Uncommitted,” which was about 20% of all votes cast. Biden won Michigan by only about 150,000 votes in 2020.

On April 2, ​“Uninstructed” received nearly 50,000 votes in Wisconsin, more than double the campaign’s goal of 20,000 votes, which represented the slim margin of victory for Biden in 2020.

The Uncommitted movement is still spreading, and there are even Uncommitted delegates who will be at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August. The movement resonates with many Democratic voters who feel as though they cannot vote for Biden as long as his administration continues to fund, fuel and enable the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

“President Biden’s backing of Israel’s war in Gaza has fractured his party, with one in five voters less likely to support him in November,” offered political analyst and Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid.

“However, Biden has a path to reuniting his coalition,” added Shahid, the former spokesperson for Justice Democrats, ​“by ending weapons transfers to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.

"President Biden's backing of Israel’s war in Gaza has fractured his party."

Saqib Bhatti, the co-executive director of the Action Center on Race & the Economy, wrote in an opinion article for In These Times in late October that ​“I am done voting for the lesser of two evils. I will not vote for Joe Biden in 2024.”

At the time, some political observers believed Bhatti’s position may have been somewhat of an outlier. But it soon became clear that Bhatti spoke for a large number of U.S. voters who also felt that ​“you’re allowed to be a single-issue voter if the issue is genocide.”


A volunteer with the Listen to Michigan (Uncommitted) campaign on February 27, 2024.PHOTO BY MOSTAFA BASSIM/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES


But even as the Uncommitted movement gained traction and primary after primary showed how dejected many voters are with the Biden administration’s support for the Israeli assault on Gaza, the poll released Tuesday illuminates the dramatic contours of the uphill battle Democrats face in their effort to keep Biden in the Oval Office.

“We know that elections are close in Wisconsin, and that we can expect that they'll be close yet again in the General Election in November," said Reema Ahmad. "So these stats are sobering."


“This puts Biden before a choice: either he does the morally and politically right thing and preserve his chances in the November elections, or he continues on the current path and risks jeopardizing his reelection bid,” Abuirshaid said. ​“What is certain is that the war in Gaza has turned into an electoral issue this year.”

Reema Ahmad, a Palestinian organizer in Wisconsin who helped lead the Uninstructed campaign, said the poll’s results are ​“not surprising” but nonetheless ​“sobering.”


“It’s always helpful to have data that reflects and sheds more light on conversations that we’re having in community with voters,” Ahmad said.

​“We know that elections are close in Wisconsin, and that we can expect that they’ll be close yet again in the general election in November. So these stats are sobering,” she said. ​“I hope it continues to put pressure on the administration to make the policy changes, to take the actions that a majority of Americans continue to push for — and certainly a majority of Biden’s base that elected him in 2020.”

Protesters block the regular route that President Joe Biden would have taken in order to get to the State of the Union.PHOTO BY CELAL GUNES/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES


The YouGov poll follows the release of Times/​Siena polls about a week ago that also highlighted voters that were or may be abandoning Biden because of his position on Gaza.

“Around 13% of the voters who say they voted for Mr. Biden last time, but do not plan to do so again, said that his foreign policy or the war in Gaza was the most important issue to their vote,” wrote Nate Cohn of The New York Times in the article ​“Trump Leads in 5 Key States, as Young and Nonwhite Voters Express Discontent With Biden.”

“Just 17% of those voters reported sympathizing with Israel over the Palestinians,” Cohn wrote, who went on to quote a 30-year-old Georgia voter who supported Biden at the polls in 2020 but currently plans to vote for a third party in November.


The new YouGov poll also found that at least 40% of Democratic and Independent voters in each of the states surveyed ​“say that imposing an immediate and lasting cease-fire, conditioning aid to Israel, and ensuring full entry of humanitarian aid would make voters more likely to vote for Biden in November.”

Kyle Johnson, political director of the Milwaukee-based organization Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC), supported the Uninstructed campaign and said whether or not Biden takes those actions could successfully sway him to turn out for the incumbent. But, Johnson said, that would also depend on how Biden would talk about those decisions and whether enough is done to address the harm his support for the genocide has already inflicted on many voters and communities across the United States.

“If it’s referenced in more of a political manner or something to be celebrated as a victory lap, then that’s crass and it’s unacceptable,” Johnson said. ​“If it’s a reckoning and a realization that this is something that we should have never even been participating in, in the first place, and the right time to address this harm was six, seven, eight months ago, but we’re here now, then that’s a different conversation to have. I think that would be meaningful for people.”

“If [Biden] wants to get reelected, he needs to make sure that his policy is in alignment with what young voters want, which is to stop supporting Israel—especially as it commits a genocide—and to protect the human rights of Palestinians,” said Dahlia Saba.


Halah Ahmad, the researcher, noted that ​“these results are hard to dismiss.”

“Even when taking into account the counterpoint, voters who approve of Biden’s handling of the war also support a cease-fire and other de-escalatory policies,” she said. ​“While Israel has renewed its bombardment on Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and other areas at levels we haven’t seen since October, this poll is a stark reminder for the administration that voters in states that matter are paying attention — Biden can’t afford to pretend otherwise.“

Dahlia Saba, one of the organizers of the student encampment on the UW-Madison campus, said those actions ​“would make people reconsider” whether they would vote for Biden, but ​“it’s important to note that those criteria are the bare minimum for a lot of people.”

“This is not an issue of messaging. This is an issue of policy,” Saba said. ​“If [Biden] wants to get reelected, he needs to make sure that his policy is in alignment with what young voters want, which is to stop supporting Israel — especially as it commits a genocide — and to protect the human rights of Palestinians.”

Omar Mussa, an organizer with the Pennsylvania Uncommitted campaign said that for the administration to take action now ​“wouldn’t hurt.” But for some, it may be too late.

Mussa said that they ​“have friends that lost 99 family members since October” and that others have ​“lost 40, 50” friends and family members in the Israeli military’s mass murder of Palestinians since October.

“What does it mean to lose not just mothers and fathers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles, but to completely obliterate an entire family line of family tree off the face of the earth?” Mussa asked.

“What people are most devastated about is that we know the power of America,” Mussa said. ​“We know that a simple phone call from the president could have put a stop to this in October.”
“Now is the time for this administration to make the policy changes on a whole host of issues, including on the genocide underway in Gaza,” Ahmad said.

Regardless of how many voters might be swayed by Biden taking clear actions that would represent a significant shift in his positions on Gaza, Ahmad said she returns to what is fundamentally a moral question that is in front of the President.

“Now is the time for this administration to make the policy changes on a whole host of issues, including on the genocide underway in Gaza,” Ahmad said.

“Make those policy decisions now. There will be a time for voters to decide how and who they will vote for, but we have a whole five months for people to be making those decisions,” she said.

“Meanwhile, every single day people are killed through our tax dollars. The very least that this administration could do is listen to what a majority of Americans have been calling for for the last seven months.”

As a reader-supported 501©3 nonprofit, In These Times does not oppose or endorse candidates for political office.
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The Threat of Democracy on Campus at UMass

May 21, 2024
Source: The Nation


Image by Kenneth C. Zirkel, Creative Commons 4.0



Before arriving at UMass Amherst last fall, Chancellor Javier Reyes was already notorious for his cavalier approach to critics. But few foresaw what he did on May 7.

Earlier that day, organizers from a coalition of campus solidarity groups had erected tents on a small section of the lawn by W.E.B. Du Bois Library. Like virtually all the recent encampments in this country, there was no hint of violence from the campers.

It was the latest tactic in a seven-month campaign to end UMass’s complicity with the US-Israeli war on Gaza. The organizers had four demands: that UMass disclose its financial ties to weapons makers and corporations with links to Israel, that it divest from those corporations, that it end study abroad programs in Israel, and that it drop all charges and sanctions against the students arrested in a peaceful building occupation last October.

Instead, Chancellor Reyes summoned the police, citing an alleged threat to campus safety. As the sun went down, UMass PD and State Police in riot helmets began arresting faculty, students, alums, and community supporters. By 1 AM, they had arrested 134 people. Journalists counted 117 police vehicles.

Faculty members in orange vests were arrested first. Then the gloves came off. Numerous arrestees were held prone on the ground and zip-cuffed. Many protesters standing nearby were also arrested. Police reportedly covered up their badges. Videos show armored police tackling unarmed people, kneeling on prone arrestees, attacking video journalists, and charging into groups of protesters.

One graduate student I know was thrown to the ground and a police officer “landed with full force on my lower back, which caused me to lose my breath.” The officer got up briefly but then “came back and stomped on my back.” After the arrest, the student was zip-cuffed and kept in an airless police wagon for three hours, then taken to the campus hockey arena all night, where he was denied access to water “until eight or nine hours in.” When “we told the officer our zip ties were too tight and we were in pain and losing circulation,” the officer replied that “we should have thought about the consequences beforehand.”

The five biggest campus unions condemned the repression. The Student Government Association and graduate workers’ union, followed by faculties and librarians, all issued votes of no-confidence in Chancellor Reyes. Commencement speaker Colson Whitehead withdrew in protest.

Meanwhile, the higher-ups doubled down. Reyes claimed that “involving law enforcement [had been] the absolute last resort,” given that students had “rejected” his offers and had engaged in “confrontations and outright violations of university policy and the law.” He later told the Faculty Senate that deploying police was simply “something we had to do.”

UMass system President Marty Meehan and board of trustees chair Stephen Karam likewise claimed, in nearly identical statements, that “Chancellor Reyes and his team have engaged in good faith discussions, offered meaningful paths to a resolution, and done everything within their power to engage sincerely and protect students’ rights to free speech.” The state’s Democratic governor Maura Healey implied that the protesters were violent and antisemitic, saying that “there’s no place for hate or for violence or threats of violence on our college campuses.”

None of these officials provided any evidence for their claims. As one reporter noted on May 9, “UMass has not pointed to any incidents of violence among the protesters or specific threats that warranted involving law enforcement.”

Attorney Rachel Weber, who teaches part-time at UMass and belongs to Jewish Voice for Peace, has witnessed the administration’s repression of protesters all year. Students “have been stonewalled, vilified, betrayed, and punished by the administration since October for demanding that their tuition money not be spent on genocide. Their arguments have been well-researched and well-articulated.”

Administrators’ arguments, not so much. They’ve followed what Weber calls a “decades-old playbook about how to discredit dissent”—and not a very sophisticated playbook at that. One strategy is blaming so-called outside agitators. Yet on May 7 “the only outside agitators, the only violent actors, were the police.”

As a faculty witness to the May 7 negotiations meeting between students and administrators, I am in a position to counter some of the administrators’ public claims about that day.

Two of their lies are particularly egregious. First is that calling the police was the “last resort.” Reyes had already ordered police to begin amassing near the encampment when he entered the negotiations around 4:30 PM—not exactly a good-faith gesture. When student negotiators cited examples of campuses where leaders have negotiated with students in good faith or at least declined to order their arrest, Reyes and his team dodged.

Reyes’s claim in the meeting that “there’s nothing that I can do” to meet student demands is also a lie. Although the chancellor cannot simply decree divestment, he could advocate for it publicly, and he could unilaterally fulfill many of the students’ other demands. When pressed to advocate for divestment, he finally admitted he just didn’t want to, because it would upset some people.

On that last point, at least, he was correct. And that’s the deeper problem. Javier Reyes is particularly unsavory, but he also reflects a systemic sickness in higher education. As public universities are defunded, they increasingly cater to wealthy donors, corporations, and the Pentagon. Financial dependency on those entities necessitates autocratic governance; democracy could upset the sponsors. At UMass Amherst, 73 percent of undergraduate student voters support divestment. Suppressing such impulses requires that university boards be stacked with plutocrats, who naturally prefer administrators like Reyes.

UMass student organizers insist on holding Chancellor Reyes accountable, but they also realize he’s a tool of bigger forces. The profound anti-Palestinian racism of most university leaders is but one symptom of authoritarian governance. Whether our aim is confronting war profiteers, ending campus carbon emissions, or cutting financial ties to polluters, we’d have a much easier time winning if we had a democratic university governance structure accountable to students, workers, and the public. That’s true at higher levels too: If either the United States or the United Nations functioned democratically, both the slaughter in Gaza and the underlying Israeli occupation would have ended long ago.

Democracy is the only genuine threat posed by the encampments.
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Handmaids in America
May 22, 2024
Source: Civil Discourse




In the first year of Trump’s presidency, I decided it was time to reread George Orwell’s classic “1984,” which I hadn’t touched for a couple of decades. When I read it again, it was upsetting to find it resonated in a way I never expected it to. “1984” was supposed to be an artifact from a future we had avoided. It turns out it was not.



It was newly relevant in obscene and dangerous ways.



The deception in order to influence public opinion was everywhere.



1984 became a cliche. It actually stopped being powerful, but its reality was so persuasive. We became a culture of alternative facts. We are still struggling to fight back. Progress is not linear.



Good fiction can be an escape, but we also live in a time when it is instructive. As much as Orwell’s writing was freshly eye-opening at the start of Trump’s presidency, Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” is appropriate for this moment. Many people have seen the popular dystopian TV show. But it’s the book itself, which I read in 1985 when it was first published, that I want to turn back to in this moment.

The book is a beautifully written dystopian novel set in what was then the near future, looking at a United States split into pieces and imagining life in “Gilead,” a Christian fundamentalist theocracy with strict class lines and second class citizenship, sometimes sexual slavery, for women. Undesirable people were sent to do hard labor in the radioactive “colonies.”

As Trump’s willingness to let Christian nationalist elements hold increasing sway over his policy decisions became apparent, people who pointed to “The Handmaid’s Tale” were dismissed as alarmist. But they were not. We live in an America where legal abortion is increasingly off the table while hunting down women who go out of state to access care is under discussion. Today, Trump refused to commit that people had a right to use contraception.

Today, in the most recent attack on American women in the wake of Dobbs, the Supreme Court case that reversed Roe v. Wade, the Louisiana GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a new law. It adds the two drugs used for medication abortion to the state’s list of controlled dangerous substances, making possession of the drugs without a valid prescription a crime. The bill now goes to 28-11 Republican-controlled State Senate, where its passage is all be assured.

After that, the bill goes to the desk of Republican Governor Jeff Landry for signature. In 2022, as Attorney General, Landry threatened the medical licenses of doctors who continued to provide abortion care after a judge temporarily blocked the state’s abortion ban. In 2023, as Attorney General and then Governor-elect, he personally solicited the Louisiana State Bond Commission to withhold millions in funding necessary to prevent saltwater from intruding into New Orleans’ water supply because the city government refused to arrest and prosecute women after the state passed its abortion ban. In 2022, Landry said, “If you don’t like the laws of the state, you can move to one which you like.” But the following summer, he joined 17 other state attorneys general who signed a letter Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch sent to the Biden administration demanding access to information about residents who obtain abortions or gender-affirming care in other states.

You get the point. Barring something completely unforeseen, this bill is about to become the law. Women and people who help them, including women who need an abortion to protect their lives or their fertility will be imprisoned under this state law if they choose to try and take control of their health.

Readers of Civil Discourse will recall that we’ve discussed repeatedly how safe these abortion drugs are. Mifepristone, the subject of lots of litigation, is safer than Tylenol or Viagra. And it’s effective. Perhaps that’s the problem. Letting women direct their own futures doesn’t work for the Handmaid’s Tale crowd. The Guttmacher Institute, a reliable source for tracking statistics and trends on abortion, says that 63% of abortions in this country, an increase of 10% from 2020, are now medication abortions.

This new law doesn’t represent the views of Louisiana voters. In a June 2023 poll, 52% of respondents said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. An overwhelming 85% said that a woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion if her life is seriously endangered due to pregnancy, and 77% said a woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion if she became pregnant as a result of rape. Laws that deny women this access to care are not a product of the will of the voters in Louisiana, and certainly not nationwide, where by March of 2024, 74% of Americans backed access to medication abortion.

The Handmaid’s Tale Halloween costumes are no longer ironically funny. Especially not with Trump on the ballot this year.

There is hope. Justice Department lawyers are undoubtedly scrutinizing this measure for constitutional defects and will prepare to launch one of the two basic kinds of challenges to a law like this if possible: either a facial challenge that says the law as written is unconstitutional or an “as applied” challenge that would take issue with its impact once it goes into effect. That’s how DOJ, during Democratic administrations, has successfully challenged some of the worst abuses of state legislatures in areas ranging from abortion to immigration to voting rights. Those challenges won’t happen if Donald Trump retakes the White House; his Attorney General will not authorize them. Right now, it’s more important than ever to retain as much in the way of checks and balances against encroaching Christian nationalism and “unified Reichs” as possible.

We’re in this together,

Joyce
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“We Hope to Be a Model”: Students & Faculty at The New School Secure Divestment Vote

May 22, 2024
Source: Democracy Now!



Students and faculty at The New School, home to the first faculty Gaza solidarity encampment, have announced they reached a deal with the university to hold a vote on divesting from Israel by June 14. The agreement comes after months of campus protests, encampments and the occupation of a university building to demand The New School divest its endowment from companies arming and supporting Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank. The school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter has said the university currently has ties to several companies that are “actively involved in, and benefiting from, the genocide in Palestine,” including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Google and Caterpillar. “What this is not is an end to war or famine or occupation, and so we’re keeping our eyes on the bigger picture, which is Palestine,” says Alexandra Chasin, a professor at The New School and member of the faculty encampment negotiating team. “We hope to be a model, or at least to help organizers at other universities, as well.”

Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

We turn now to New York, where The New School Gaza solidarity encampment has announced it’s reached a deal with the university’s Board of Trustees to hold a vote on divesting from Israel by June 14th. The agreement comes after months of campus protests by students and faculty demanding The New School divest its endowment from companies arming and supporting Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank. The agreement also granted amnesty to those involved in the peaceful protests. The New School’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter has said the university currently has ties to several companies that are, quote, “actively involved in, and benefiting from, the genocide in Palestine,” unquote, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Google and Caterpillar. The New School has been home to the country’s first faculty encampment.

For more, we’re joined by two guests. Alexandra Chasin is professor of literary [studies] at Lang College at The New School. Professor Chasin was part of the faculty encampment and the negotiating team that led the Board of Trustees to agree on divestment. And Natasha Lennard joins us, a columnist for The Intercept. Her most recent piece is “University Professors Are Losing Their Jobs Over ‘New McCarthyism’ on Gaza.” She’s also associate director of The New School’s creative publishing and critical journalism master’s program.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Professor Chasin. You were part of the negotiating team. What happened? What did you agree to? It’s fascinating to go down 5th Avenue. On one side, you have the faculty encampment inside The New School. Diagonally across is Parsons. And straight across is the student encampment that was reestablished inside the school there.

ALEXANDRA CHASIN: So, I’d like to begin by just establishing that this was a faculty-student collaborative effort. There were undergraduate students, graduate students, alumni, part-time faculty and full-time faculty in both encampments and negotiating teams. That’s very important to us, because faculty really wanted to stand in solidarity with students, so that collaboration is meaningful to us.

I want to also say, of course, what this is not is an end to war or famine or occupation, and so we’re keeping our eyes on the bigger picture, which is Palestine. We still have a lot of work to do. This isn’t even divestment. It’s a commitment by the investment committee to vote on divestment two-zero — and that’s an important point — on some language that I hope I’ll be able to read to you in a moment. It’s significant also because this represents movement on the part of the investment committee, movement in response to campus activism and to the expressed will of the representative bodies at the university, faculty and student Senates, divisional bodies, unions, and the local AAUP chapter. And the language, again, which I hope you’ll let me read to you, we hope to be a model, or at least to help organizers at other universities, as well.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor, how does what’s occurred at The New School differ, for instance, from the conciliation efforts at some other universities, like Brown and Northwestern, the few — the handful of university administrators that have actually attempted to negotiate with their faculty and students over divestment?

ALEXANDRA CHASIN: Yeah, well, we have achieved an actual commitment to vote, as Amy said, by or on June 14th, which is unusual. And this is what the investment committee will be voting on specifically. It’s a “call for complete divestment from industries implicated in military and police violence in Gaza and the West Bank, and all global militarized conflict such as companies or subsidiaries involved in weapons manufacturing, military supplies and equipment, military communication, and public surveillance technology.” And we believe that’s really a step forward and, again, hope that it helps folks organize at other universities.

And moreover, in exchange for this commitment to vote, in fact, for a public statement of the commitment to vote, we got, as was also mentioned, legal, professional and academic amnesty for all participants. And we agreed to disband peacefully, which we think is important. And moreover, if the committee votes negatively, we get a written statement of their rationale, which we also think will be a useful organizing tool.

AMY GOODMAN: And just the significance of the president of The New School, is Donna Shalala —

ALEXANDRA CHASIN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — a well-known name. She was the head of HHS, Health and Human Services, under President Clinton, a Cabinet member. She was the president of Hunter. She was the president of University of Wisconsin, the chancellor, president of the University of Miami. Her role in this?

ALEXANDRA CHASIN: Well, it’s been a journey, as they say. What she did on Sunday that was significant was that she turned over, she deputized a dean at NSSR to negotiate on her behalf, and put that dean in direct contact with members of the investment committee. And that was a significant move.
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MORROCO
At Western Sahara: Visiting a Forgotten People


May 23, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.


Michele Benericetti - Proud. Flickr.

South of the Algerian town of Tindouf on the border with Western Sahara are five refugee camps. The camps are home to the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara and are administered by their freedom movement Polisario, which is fighting to liberate their homeland from Morocco.

Life in the desert camps leaves a deep impression and testifies to a people who, despite limitations, have managed to build a well-organized society under harsh conditions. “We Sahrawis were originally a nomadic people who used to travel around on camels and settled in different places in and around Western Sahara. There were no borders that limited us from moving into what is today Mauritania or Algeria,” said Jadiya who is a translator.

The colonial era saw European powers come to Africa to take over territories, exploit labor, and extract natural resources. In Western Sahara, the Portuguese and French were first beaten back by the local population before Spain managed to colonize the area in 1884. In 1973, the Polisario freedom movement was established by the indigenous Sahrawi people to liberate their land from the Spanish empire.

Western Sahara remained a Spanish colony until 1975 when the Moroccan government organized a so-called “Green March” with 350,000 protesters marching into Western Sahara to claim the land. The protesters pressured Spain to leave Western Sahara, which Morocco then occupied. Today, Western Sahara is still occupied by Morocco and is thus considered to be Africa’s last colony.

Desert Camps

It is around 35 to 40 degrees Celsius in Wilayah of Bojador, the smallest of the five refugee camps on the border with Western Sahara. My feet are boiling in my shoes, but walking in bare feet is not an option. The sand is far too hot. According to Filipe, a local Sahrawi engineer educated in the Soviet Union, it has been five to six years since it last rained in the camps. “Not a single drop from the sky,” he says.

In the refugee camps, people live either in simple huts with tin roofs or in “getouns,” square tents with entrances on all sides and a large colored carpet as a floor. Skeletons of cars stripped of wheels, doors, windows, seats, and all interior parts remind me of apocalyptic TV shows. Car doors are reused as fencing for the village’s many goats, which are often seen wandering around in herds on the sand hills in the camp. However, the many car frames work well as playgrounds for children who would otherwise not have access to slides, swings, or climbing frames.

The Wall of Shame

Western Sahara is divided into three areas. There is the region of Western Sahara where the occupying power Morocco is in power. There are the liberated areas of Western Sahara, where the freedom movement Polisario is in power. And then there are the refugee camps in Algeria, where Polisario is also in power. To separate the different areas from each other and maintain control over the occupation, the Moroccan monarchy built a 2700-kilometer wall across Western Sahara.

“The Wall of Shame,” as the Sahrawis call it, can easily be compared to Israel’s apartheid wall in Palestine, as both were built by occupying powers and effectively force indigenous families and other communities to live apart from each other.

Although the Wall of Shame is built of sand, “it’s the most dangerous wall in the world,” a Polisario soldier says. The wall is divided into several lines: barbed wire, dogs, a moat, the wall itself, 150,000 soldiers, and eight million landmines. The outermost line is the numerous mines. In addition to making it harder for Polisario soldiers to penetrate, civilian nomads or local cattle are often blown up from stepping on the mines.

A Temporary Situation

As a result of the Moroccan occupation, thousands of Sahrawis fled in the 1970s to the refugee camps in Algeria, whose government allowed Polisario to administer the camps as part of the liberated territories.

The five refugee camps in Algeria are named after towns in Western Sahara. For example, Wilayah of Bojador is named after the city of Bojador, which is in one of the areas ruled by Morocco. “Each camp is named after one of our cities to signal that the camps are temporary. It’s to show that we will return to our real cities one day,” says engineer Filipe.

Wilayah of Bojador may be the newest and smallest of the five refugee camps administered by Polisario. But when I stand on the camp’s largest hilltop, I can see houses and tents far out on the horizon. All around the camps is the flag of Western Sahara, which with its black, white, green, and red colors is very similar to the Palestinian flag. The only difference is that the Western Sahara flag has a red crescent and star in the middle. “The black color symbolizes the occupation. Today, the black color is at the top, but when we will achieve our freedom, from that day on, we will fly the black color at the bottom,” says Filipe.

A Well-Organized Society

Despite limited access to resources, the Sahrawis have in many ways managed to build a well-organized society. For example, each camp—which is considered a region—is divided into several small districts. Each district has a small health clinic, and each camp has a regional hospital. In addition, there is an administrative camp where the main hospital is located. “If you are ill, you first visit the health clinic in your district. If they cannot help you, go to the regional hospital. If they cannot help you either, you go to the administrative camp hospital, then to the hospital in the nearby Algerian town of Tindouf, then to the Algerian capital Algiers, and finally to Spain,” says Filipe. “It is very well organized.”

Around the Wilayah of Bojador, there are small shops where you can buy groceries like rice, pasta, potatoes, and canned tuna. In the camp, I encounter everything from a school, kindergarten, women’s association, and a library to a hairdresser, a mechanic, and small stalls selling tobacco or perfume.

A truck travels the narrow, bumpy roads from home to home, filling bags—the size of inflatable trampolines—with water so families can drink, bathe, and wash their clothes. According to the NGO, The Norwegian Support Committee For Western Sahara, international observers describe the Sahrawi refugee camps as “the best-organized refugee camps in the world.”

A Life Outside the Camp

The Sahrawis and Polisario are doing the best they can to create a dignified life for the people in the refugee camps. But it is not free of challenges. According to Fatima, a member of the Sahrawi Youth Union, one of the biggest challenges today is that there is an older generation that can remember a life before the camps, while a large younger generation has lived their entire lives in the camps.

“To prevent children in the camps from growing up without knowing about life outside the camps, we have set up a scheme where children are sent to Spain to live with a family for a period of time. In this way, they become ambassadors for Western Sahara in Spain, and they see that there is life outside the camps,” says Fatima. When Fatima was six years old, she was part of the program. “I had never in my life seen a fish or seen so many green trees in the same place. I thought it was just something you saw in movies. That it wasn’t real. But in Spain, I learned that it’s real,” she recalls.

Challenges

There are still problems that Polisario and the local population in the camps struggle to solve. Several young men say that job opportunities vary and that they are often unemployed. Even the men and women employed in hospitals and police stations only receive a salary once every three months, and the pay is not high. Many young unemployed Sahrawis must go abroad to find a job. In the meantime, they volunteer in the camps to carry out various practical tasks.

Refugee camps rely on international donations from bodies like the UN or from other countries. When a bus in Spain is damaged and no longer meets national safety requirements, it can be sent to Western Sahara. Here the buses, which are very similar to Danish city buses, drive around in the sand with passengers. But in many ways, the Sahrawis live a limited life in the camps at Tindouf. During my entire stay, I didn’t see a single trash can. The lack of a waste system means that cigarette packs, plastic bottles, and other rubbish are strewn around the camp.

The power goes out frequently and connecting to the internet is generally a problem. The latter is considered a major problem for the Sahrawis, who want to connect with people in the wider world to bring international attention to their resistance struggle.

Promoting the Cause

The Sahrawis are interested in drawing attention to their cause. In the desert, they have established a museum called the Museum of Resistance, where tourists are taken on a journey from the Sahrawi’s original nomadic life through the colonial period and the Moroccan occupation to Polisario’s fight for liberation. The museum includes a miniature version of the Wall of Shame and several of the tanks and weapons that Polisario soldiers have managed to take from the Moroccan military. In the desert you will also find a media house where journalists sit behind desktop computers, writing articles and updating the Polisario website and social media with news from the camps. There are soundproof rooms, microphones, and soundboards to record radio broadcasts, and studios with green screens and video cameras to record TV news. Polisario has its own TV channel.

In addition, the Sahrawis organize the renowned international film festival FiSahara, which brings people from all over the world. Many of the international guests at the film festival come from Spain. Sahrawi President Brahim Ghali met journalists at the festival. He criticized Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez for changing his country’s position regarding Morocco’s occupation; in 2022, Sánchez wrote to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI to say that he agreed with the view that Western Sahara should be autonomous but under Moroccan rule. “We have frozen our relations with the Spanish government, but we still have good relations with the Spanish people,” said Sahrawi President Ghali.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Marc B. Sanganee is editor-in-chief of Arbejderen, an online newspaper in Denmark.
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