It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Hericium erinaceus (commonly known as lion's mane). Image: Alison Northup, CC 3.0
Superfoods come and go. The latest is the mushroom Lion’s mane (Hericium erinaceus), which may have benefits for the immune system as well as reducing inflammation and improving sleep. This is according to the food producer Urban Farm.
“Lion’s Mane mushrooms (Hericium erinaceus) are showing incredible promise for their potential to support mental health and cognitive function,” Webb has told Digital Journal. “They may encourage the growth of beneficial gut bacteria, which could strengthen the immune system while also positively impacting brain health.”
Webb highlights studies suggesting that lion’s mane could help with anxiety and mood: “In research involving participants with mild mental health complaints, those who consumed Lion’s Mane extract reported lower levels of anxiety and irritation compared to those who didn’t. This suggests lion’s mane may have calming properties, although more studies are needed to confirm this.”
Native to North America and Eurasia, the mushrooms are common during late summer and autumn on hardwoods.
For older adults, Lion’s Mane could be particularly beneficial. Here Webb explains: “There’s evidence that Lion’s Mane may help with cognitive decline. In one study, older participants with mild cognitive impairment who consumed Lion’s Mane over 16 weeks showed improved scores in cognitive function tests compared to those on a placebo.”
Shiitake mushrooms may also be of benefit, indicates Webb: “Shiitake mushrooms contain beta-glucans, a type of dietary fibre that could support immune health and help reduce inflammation,” Webb says. “Their natural compounds may also help lower cholesterol and blood pressure, offering potential cardiovascular benefits.”
Webb adds: “Shiitake mushrooms could help protect against chronic diseases associated with inflammation. They’re not just a culinary favourite but also a valuable addition to a balanced diet.”
H. erinaceus contains diverse phytochemicals, including polysaccharides, such as β-glucan, as well as hericenones and erinacines.
Both Lion’s Mane and Shiitake mushrooms may provide antioxidant benefits. Webb finds: “These mushrooms contain compounds that could protect cells from oxidative stress and reduce inflammation,” Webb explains. “This makes them a potential ally in maintaining overall health.”
Proceed with Caution
While the potential of these mushrooms is exciting, Webb advises caution: “Always consult with your doctor before introducing medicinal mushrooms to your diet, particularly if you have existing health conditions or take medication. It’s essential to ensure they’re suitable for you.”
Digital Journal note: Many alternative medical practices are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence of effectiveness or logical mechanism of action. The reader is advised to always seek professional medical advice.
US deported record 61,680 Guatemalans in 2024: agency
A Guatemalan migrant deported from the United States waits at the Returnee Reception Center upon arrival at the Guatemalan Air Force Base in Guatemala City - Copyright AFP STRINGER
The United States sent back a record 61,680 Guatemalans in 2024, the state-run Guatemalan Migration Institute said after the last deportee planes arrived in Guatemala City.
Four aircraft touched down at an air force base in the Guatemalan capital on Friday, arriving from Texas. AFP journalists saw around 100 people disembark from one of the planes, most of them women with small children.
The stepped-up returns from America happened ahead of Donald Trump returning to the White House as president in late January 2025. Trump has vowed mass deportations.
Guatemala’s government estimates there are 2.7 million Guatemalans living in the United States, but that only 400,000 of them have documents to legally stay and work.
A total of 508 planes carrying 61,680 Guatemalan deportees arrived from the United States in 2024, according to officials.
In 2023, a total 55,302 Guatemalans were sent back, higher than the previous record registered in 2019 of 54,599.
Thousands of Guatemalans irregularly enter the United States each year to escape violence and widespread poverty at home.
Their remittances to families back home are often a vital financial lifeline. Guatemala’s central bank estimates that a record of nearly $21 billion was sent back in 2024 — equivalent to 19 percent of the country’s GDP.
Trump sides with Musk in right-wing row over worker visas
By AFP December 28, 2024 Cracks have emerged in US President Donald Trump's right-wing coalition, which combines those seeking immigration restrictions with more restrained pro-business groups - Copyright AFP/File Kena Betancur
Donald Trump weighed in Saturday in a bitter debate dividing his traditional supporters and tech barrons like Elon Musk, saying that he backs a special visa program that helps highly skilled workers enter the country.
“I’ve always liked the (H1-B) visas, I have always been in favor of the visas, that’s why we have them” at Trump-owned facilities, the president-elect told the New York Post in his first public comments on the matter since it flared up this week.
An angry back-and-forth, largely between Silicon Valley’s Musk and traditional anti-immigration Trump backers, has erupted in fiery fashion, with Musk even vowing to “go to war” over the issue.
Trump’s insistent calls for sharp curbs on immigration were central to his election victory in November over President Joe Biden. He has vowed to deport all undocumented immigrants and limit legal immigration.
But tech entrepreneurs like Tesla’s Musk — as well as Vivek Ramaswamy, who with Musk is to co-chair a government cost-cutting panel under Trump — say the United States produces too few highly skilled graduates, and they fervently champion the H1-B program.
Musk, who himself migrated from South Africa on an H1-B, posted Thursday on his X platform that luring elite engineering talent from abroad was “essential for America to keep winning.”
Adding acrimony to the debate was a post from Ramaswamy, the son of immigrants from India, who deplored an “American culture” that he said venerates mediocrity, adding that the United States risks having “our asses handed to us by China.”
That angered several prominent conservatives who were backing Trump long before Musk noisily joined their cause this year, going on to pump more than $250 million into the Republican’s campaign.
“Looking forward to the inevitable divorce between President Trump and Big Tech,” said Laura Loomer, a far-right MAGA figure known for her conspiracy theories, who often flew with Trump on his campaign plane.
“We have to protect President Trump from the technocrats.”
She and others said Trump should be promoting American workers and further limiting immigration. – ‘MAGA civil war’ –
Musk, who had already infuriated some Republicans after leading an online campaign that helped tank a bipartisan budget deal last week, fired back at his critics.
Posting on X, the social media site he owns, he warned of a “MAGA civil war.”
Musk bluntly swore at one critic, adding that “I will go to war on this issue.”
That, in turn, drew a volley from Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who wrote on the Gettr platform that the H1-B program brings in migrants who are essentially “indentured servants” working for less than American citizens would.
In a striking jab at Trump’s close friend Musk, Bannon called the Tesla CEO a “toddler.”
Some of Trump’s original backers say they fear he is falling under the sway of big donors from the tech world like Musk and drifting away from his campaign promises.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump’s remarks might soothe the intraparty strife, which has exposed just how contentious changing the immigration system might be once he takes office in January.
On the Abandonment of Political Prisoners in the Pro-Palestine Movement
Original title: "#FreeCaseyNow: On Casey Goonan and the Abandonment of Political Prisoners in the Pro-Palestine Movement"
Casey Goonan is the only US political prisoner from the 2024 pro-Palestine student encampments. They are an abolitionist and anarchist who has dedicated themselves to multiple forms of prisoner support work and directly engaging with incarcerated comrades. The impact they’ve made inside is prevalent, as indicated by statements from their comrades Stevie Wilson and Hybachi Lemar. They’ve always pushed to ensure an understanding of Black struggle and revolt as central to their abolitionist work, and through understanding the totality of anti-Blackness the importance of an anti-police and anti-prison perspective was brought into any and all of their efforts towards liberation.
In June of 2024, they were arrested by a task force comprised of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in connection with an alleged direct action which took place in solidarity with the UC Berkeley encampments which had been brutalized by police and zionists earlier in the year* . If convicted, they could face up to 20 years in prison with a minimum sentence of 5. The investigation and court proceedings are currently ongoing but a non cooperative plea deal is pending in which Casey will plea guilty to one charge to allow additional charges to be dropped. This plea deal does not include information or testimony against anyone else.
While Casey has received a great amount of support from decentralized community in New York, Chicago, California, and elsewhere, the pro-Palestine movement needs to be publicly and actively supporting them. Right now, their primary accomplices are those who personally know them, those who prioritize prisoner support, and fellow anarchists. Despite vague assertions of the interconnectedness of repression and struggles between the American policing and prison apparatuses to that of Israel, there has been little material manifestation from that understanding within the US pro-Palestine movement. Meanwhile, coordinated struggle between prisoners and outside militants has been a key point of success for Palestinian liberation.
We must recognize the necessity of attacking the infrastructure of occupation domestically. Amidst calls for escalation, it is of vital importance to defend those experiencing repression from the legal system. To not do so is to allow one of the state’s most well-funded and structured counterinsurgency tactics to take complete hold of movements. If people are abandoned to incarceration, the fear of repression will throw everyone towards inactivity. This need for defense is especially true for those facing charges beyond the more palatable ways of dissent, like marches and encampments.
State repression must be met with expanding our community resources to reach those inside. Bravery must be met with support.
It’s not surprising that, despite the large presence of the Palestinian diaspora in the American pro-Palestine movement, tactics focus primarily on vocalizing dissent through marches and making demands of the state, which are a far cry from the struggle within Palestine itself. This is partially attributed to the class character of the diaspora — a petty bourgeois group would have no investment in attacking infrastructure they partially benefit from even if that same infrastructure perpetuates the genocide of indigenous groups including Black people and Palestinians both domestically and globally. Equally, the motivations and interests of the community organizations and student groups that are largely in control of the movement not only harbor that class character but also rely on funding from the infrastructure they refuse to attack. Despite the student movement being referred to as an intifada, it’s activity is incomparable to what has occurred during the numerous intifadas leading up to the Al-Aqsa Flood.
Considering pro-Palestinian community groups and political organizations like USPCN, CJP/SJP, Dissenters, NAARPR, JVP and PSL are supplied with enough funds to bus people in for marches, plan conferences, and campaign for local policy, certainly donating money towards legal fees for those facing repression would be no issue.
Even with all the attention and credibility being given to the pro-Palestinian student movement and despite the numerous pro-Palestine student groups on university campuses, there have been no publicly circulated student-led support efforts for Casey. Outside of participants of the Columbia University encampment, there has been no mention of them from any other university space, most likely attributed to groups aligning themselves with certain tactics, a hesitancy towards anarchists, and the fear of repression.
Beyond the bare minimum of ensuring people are supported in obtaining adequate legal counsel, any revolutionary horizons with teeth require long term prisoner support. This practice is key to the current struggle that led to the Al-Aqsa Flood as exhibited by the rich history of organizing within prisons and the ongoing liberation of those being held hostage by Israel. In Khalida Jarrar’s words, “[t]he ongoing conquest to liberate prisoners is in tandem with the Palestinians’ constant and multifaceted struggle against colonialism. Hence, the slogan “emptying the prisons” is derived from and a core component in the Palestinian struggle through various stages in its history.”.
Those of us living under a plantation economy already have our own reasons to ensure incarceration is a central site of struggle. But if one does insist upon taking guidance from elsewhere and if one intends to “bring the Intifada home” or “escalate for Gaza”, Palestinians have provided plenty of methods for how carcerality can be attacked.
Casey understood this prior to their incarceration and there’s no doubt this knowledge influenced their own political horizons. If the pro-Palestine movement wants to also tote itself as an intifada they should take note of the militant organizing and support infrastructure within and between prison walls that occurrs in Palestine. Abandonment of prisoners is where revolutionary ideals die.
Around 500 health workers and other Palestine campaigners gathered in central London on Saturday, 28 December. They came to show their horror and fury at the Israeli destruction and burning of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza the day before.
This was the last major functioning hospital in northern Gaza. Israeli troops drove people from it on Friday 27 December. Earlier airstrikes around Kamal Adwan had killed dozens of people.
Hospital director Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, now held as a prisoner, said Israel had slaughtered about 50 people. The massacre is the mark of an army that is set on wiping out all human life in an area.
“It feels like the media aren’t interested any more and politicians are content to enable a continuing genocide,” London nurse Lubna told Socialist Worker on Saturday’s protest.
“I don’t have much time off over the holidays. But I can’t sit at home while the Israelis are ethnically cleansing Gaza and actually stepping up their murders.”
The protest was advertised as a vigil and there was deep sorrow at the appalling suffering. But there was also righteous anger.
Doctor Asad told Socialist Worker, “The Israelis did this, but I hold Keir Starmer, Joe Biden and all the politicians responsible. Unless they have worked to stop all arms to Israel, I say they are to blame for every death and for the murder of children.”
Student Michael said, “This level of destruction is treated as normal it seems. We can’t allow this to fade into a background of ‘acceptable mass murder’.”
Almost 450 days since the genocide began, the Kamal Adwan horrors are still shocking.
Ismail al-Kahlout, a nurse who was working at the hospital, told Al Jazeera news that the Israeli military detained staff and patients. Soldiers stripped many of them naked in the cold. The Zionist forces beat people, including those who were wounded or sick.
When women refused orders to lift their clothing for inspection, Israeli soldiers slapped them in the face.
“We were not allowed to go to the toilets. We live in humiliation. We are exhausted. We are tired. Enough is enough,” al-Kahlout said.
Ezzat Ramadan, who was staying at the hospital, said he walked around for two hours in the cold with few clothes on. He then reached the place where he and others were interrogated.
“They took photos of all of us. They spat on us. They humiliated us,” he said. “Before releasing us, they put a number on everyone’s chest and back.”
Shorouk al-Rantisi, a hospital staff member, said Israeli soldiers tied them up and blindfolded them. “We could hear people screaming but we could not know who exactly was being beaten,” she said. “I was waiting for my time to be beaten as well.”
The Times of Israel newspaper reported on Saturday that Israel has “vastly expanded” a military corridor cutting Gaza in half. This suggests it intends to occupy the area indefinitely.
The corridor now covers almost 50 square kilometres—18 square miles—roughly 13 percent of the area of the Gaza Strip. It has more than a dozen military outposts, the report said. These bases “featured everything one would expect at a well-entrenched position for troops to remain indefinitely except that nothing seemed to be permanently attached to the ground”.
Health Workers 4 Palestine and the Palestinian Forum in Britain called the London protest. It demanded “an end to aggression, urgent medical aid, treatment for Gaza’s wounded, accountability for war crimes and for people to raise our voices against this brutal genocide”.
Gaza hospital shut after Israeli raid, director held: health officials
By AFP December 28, 2024 Copyright AFP Omar AL-QATTAA
An Israeli military raid targeting Hamas militants has forced a major hospital in northern Gaza out of service and led to the detention of its director, the WHO and health officials said Saturday.
The assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital has rendered the facility “useless”, further worsening Gaza’s severe health crisis, the Palestinian territory’s health officials said.
“This morning’s raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital has put this last major health facility in north Gaza out of service. Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” the World Health Organization said overnight on X, referring to the Israeli operation that began in the early hours of Friday.
The WHO said 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including some on ventilators, reportedly remain in the hospital.
Patients in moderate to severe condition were forced to evacuate to the destroyed, non-functioning Indonesian Hospital, the UN health agency said, adding it was “deeply concerned for their safety”.
Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry reported that Israeli forces detained Kamal Adwan Hospital’s director, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, along with several medical staff members.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Abu Safiyeh was held alongside its north Gaza chief, Ahmed Hassan al-Kahlout.
The Israeli military did not comment on the detentions.
Ammar al-Barsh, a resident of Jabalia where the military has focused its assault in recent weeks, said the raid on Kamal Adwan and its environs had left dozens of homes in the area in ruins.
“The situation is catastrophic, there is no medical service, no ambulances and no civil defence in the north,” Barsh, 50, told AFP.
The army “continues to raid the Kamal Adwan Hospital and the surrounding houses, and we hear gunfire from Israeli drones and artillery shelling”, he added.
– ‘Heinous crime’ –
In the days leading up to the raid, Abu Safiyeh had repeatedly warned about the hospital’s precarious situation, accusing Israeli forces of targeting the facility.
On Monday, he issued a statement accusing Israel of targeting the hospital “with the intent to kill and forcibly displace the people inside”.
On Thursday, Abu Safiyeh said five staff members of the hospital had been killed in an Israeli strike near the facility.
Since October 6, Israel has intensified its land and air offensive in northern Gaza, saying its goal is to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.
The military said Friday that it was acting on intelligence regarding “terrorist infrastructure and operatives” in the hospital’s vicinity.
Before initiating the latest operation near the hospital, the military said its troops had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients, and medical personnel”.
Hamas has denied claims its operatives were present at the hospital, accusing Israeli forces of storming it on Friday.
“The enemy’s lies about the hospital aim to justify the heinous crime committed by the occupation army today, involving the evacuation and burning of all hospital departments as part of a plan for extermination and forced displacement,” Hamas said in a statement.
Gaza’s health ministry had earlier quoted Abu Safiyeh reporting that the military had “set on fire all surgery departments of the hospital”.
Abu Safiyeh said the military had also “evacuated the entire medical staff and displaced people”.
“There are a large number of injuries among the medical team.”
– ‘Death sentence’ –
Iran, which backs Hamas, “strongly condemned the brutal attack”, with a foreign ministry statement calling it “the latest example of war crimes, crimes against humanity, (and) gross violations of international law and norms”.
The Israeli military has regularly accused Hamas of using hospitals as command and control centres for attacks against its forces throughout the war.
Hamas has denied the accusations.
The WHO reiterated its call for a ceasefire.
“This raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital comes after escalating restrictions on access for WHO and partners, and repeated attacks on or near the facility since early October,” the WHO said.
“Such hostilities and the raids are undoing all our efforts and support to keep the facility minimal functional. The systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of health care.”
Meanwhile, Hamas’s media centre reported “massive Israeli air and artillery strikes in Beit Hanoun”, in northern Gaza .
The Israeli military says it has killed hundreds of militants since the stepped-up assault in northern Gaza began on October 6, while rescuers in the area say thousands of civilians have died in the sweeping offensive.
Gaza civil defence also reported that in a separate Israeli strike in central Gaza at least nine Palestinians were killed on Saturday.
The Gaza war was triggered by the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel last year, which resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,436 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Israel army says ends raid against ‘Hamas centre’ in north Gaza hospital
Ambulances transport wounded Palestinians from Kamal Adwan Hospital to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City - Copyright AFP Omar AL-QATTAA
Israel’s military said on Saturday it had ended its raid on “a Hamas command centre” in a north Gaza hospital and detained its director as a suspected Hamas operative.
Since October 6, Israeli operations in the Palestinian territory have concentrated on the north, where they are carrying out a land and air offensive they say aims to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.
As part of its offensive, the military launched a raid early Friday on northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, which had been one of the area’s two remaining functional medical facilities.
“The IDF (military) and ISA (security agency) completed a targeted operation against a Hamas command centre in the Kamal Adwan Hospital… the forces apprehended over 240 terrorists in the area,” the military said in a statement.
It added that the hospital’s director, Hossam Abu Safiyeh, suspected of “being a Hamas terrorist operative”, had been detained for questioning.
The military said the hospital was being used by “terrorists… for military operations in Jabalia”.
Hamas dismissed as “lies” Israeli allegations that its operatives were at the hospital.
“At the beginning of the targeted operation, the 401st Brigade encircled the Kamal Adwan Hospital and apprehended terrorists who were hiding in the area and eliminated additional terrorists,” the military said.
Israeli special forces then conducted “precise activities” inside the hospital and located and confiscated weapons including grenades, guns, munitions and military equipment, it said.
During the raid, next to the hospital, “terrorists fired anti-tank missiles and RPGs (rocket-propelled-grenades) at the troops and attempted to carry out additional attacks against the troops”, it said, adding that troops “eliminated” the assailants.
– ‘Over 240 terrorists detained’ –
Later on Saturday in an online media briefing, Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said there were a “lot of explosives” around the hospital.
“The amount of terrorists is what we were expecting. We weren’t expecting to find a weapon storage with thousands of guns,” he said.
“That’s not the type of target this was. This was a command and control centre that we understood was for many dozens of terrorists or a few hundreds.”
The military said that during the operation, “over 240 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists and other operatives suspected of terror activities were apprehended, some of whom attempted to pose as patients or flee using ambulances”.
Apart from detaining Abu Safiyeh, who is being questioned in Gaza, the military said it also detained “Hamas engineering and anti-tank missile operatives and approximately 15 terrorists who infiltrated Israel during the October 7th massacre”.
“Either they admitted or we were able to cross-reference with other intelligence we have,” Shoshani said, referring to those arrested.
“When I talk about the hospital director, he is a suspect,” Shoshani added.
Before launching the raid, the military said it helped to evacuate 350 patients, caregivers and medical staff from the hospital.
It said that during the operation, an additional 95 patients, caregivers, and medical personnel were evacuated to the Indonesian Hospital in coordination with local health officials.
“Kamal Adwan is now empty,” the World Health Organization said, adding it was “appalled” by the raid, the latest against a hospital during the war.
The premise of Seven Children is unusual. It constructs seven ‘average’ children from millions of statistics – each child symbolising the very middle of a parental income bracket, from the poorest to the wealthiest. The seven were born in 2018, when the UK faced its worst inequality since the Great Depression and became Europe’s most socially divided nation. They reached their fifth birthdays in 2023 amid a severe cost of living crisis.
Suffer the children
The years 2018–23 were some of the toughest for British children and their families since the Second World War, argues Dorling. From early summer 2019 through to a few months evenbefore the start of the pandemic in March 2020, levels of satisfaction with life and happiness in the UK plummeted.
There are many reasons. One is that people in the UK no longer become better off as they age. That’s relatively new: the 1990s were the country’s first decade of persistent high income-inequality in recent memory.
Longer term, “very little has become better for most people in the UK since the parents of children like the seven in this book were themselves growing up.” As things stand in 2024, average wages and living standards do not look likely to return to 2008 levels until the 2030s.
In autumn 2018, when a third of the population, were already living below what is considered the minimum income standard, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, made headlines with a report on the UK that found that, during the second decade of the twenty-first century, “food banks have proliferated; homelessness and rough sleeping have increased greatly; tens of thousands of poor families must live in accommodation far from their schools, jobs and community networks… and the social safety net has been badly damaged.” He added that “close to 40 per cent of children are predicted to be living in poverty by 2021.”
He was ridiculed by the UK government of the day, despite the fact that he had come to the UK at their request. In fact, his projection proved accurate. This helps explain why satisfaction levels are so low: “The story of the last thirty years in the UK is that hope fell when change did not come.”
More recently, UNICEF found that between 2014 and 2021 child poverty rose faster in the UK than in any comparable country worldwide. More shockingly, a quarter of children now live in poverty in southeast England (defined as excluding London) – that is more in the most affluent part of England than in all of Scotland.
The average height of the UK’s children is now falling, and has been for almost two decades. “More babies and children of all ages and in all areas now die before reaching adulthood than died a few years ago, despite lower birth rates overall,” notes Dorling in the Introduction to Peak Injustice, a curated collection of some of his writings from the last six years.
“When injustice is at a peak, none of the mainstream political parties oppose it,” observes Dorling. “That is how it came to be at that peak – by being accepted as inevitable.” The difference between this peak and previous ones in the past is that today we have all the information we need to see what is happening – but choose not to act.
Umair Haque has said that the USA is “a rich country where the average person lives like a poor person.” This is becoming true of the UK as well – and it’s getting worse. Official statistics for 2024 show a “huge and rapid increase in poverty, possibly the most rapid ever recorded in the UK.” Some 17% of children go hungry several times a month – a massive 5% increase on the previous year. The statistics on poverty are better in Scotland – but then “Scotland does not penalise the third, fourth and further children of households in receipt of any kind of benefits” – a policy for which children pay with their health, their well-being and their life chances.
In Peak Injustice, Dorling also looks at the failings of the NHS – increased mortality rates, in particular – which he attributes to a combination of forced privatisation and austerity. “Cuts to local authority budgets and the consequent repeated decimation, year on year, of adult social service visits and meals-on-wheels services, coupled with the stalling in required rises in healthcare funding and so much else very neatly matches up with the rising death rates,” he reports. Infant mortality rates also rose in the UK as midwifery services were cut back. The greatest rises were seen around the time of birth and were not matched elsewhere in Europe. In fact, in some European countries, infants were half as likely to die in their first year of life as those born in the UK.
Inequality rising
Inequality is a recurrent feature of both books. In the 1980s, Britain transformed itself from one of the most equitable countries in Europe to one of the most inequitable. Dorling notes: “By 2019, the inequality gap among different areas in the UK had become so large that it couldn’t be plotted on European graphs without inventing a special scale to avoid the UK being literally off the chart, because its geographical inequalities were three times bigger than those of the next most unequal country.”
Social inequality runs alongside the geographical gap. Growing wage inequality is a major factor, with flexible working playing a major role. At the start of the pandemic, there were more than a million people on zero-hours contracts — ten times more than there had been fourteen years earlier. In those early Covid-19 months, more than one in ten of all workers aged 16–24 in the UK were on such a contract.
Meanwhile, “Britain’s top earners pay much less than half the marginal rate they paid in the 1970s. In fact, the last time they paid as little tax as they pay today, as a share of their income, was in 1916.”
Escalating housing costs also make Britain an ever more unequal society. Rising house prices have driven more people into the growing private rented sector. Dorling highlights the steady rise in the proportion of older renters – people aged 45 to 54 – and how it not only increases the amount spent on housing costs; it also impacts on the ability of younger adults to begin renting in the first place. Whereas the proportion of households headed by someone aged 25 to 34 who rented privately did not exceed a fifth until shortly after the year 2000, that figure has now more than doubled – and if it is levelling off, it’s only because more adults aged 25 and over are living with their parents.
Who can blame them? Landlords increased rents for their tenants by more in the year to March 2024 than at any other time recorded in official statistics. At the same time, “Britain has also never had as many spare empty bedrooms as it has today. Never have such a small group owned so much that is so often empty. That is what an inequality crisis looks like,” concludes Dorling.
Thus the rapid rise in homelessness after 2010 was not caused by a housing shortage. “Even in London, there are more bedrooms in houses and flats than there are people to sleep in them.” The problem is that since 1981 housing in England and Wales has been increasingly unevenly shared out. Government policy – deliberately aimed at keeping house prices rising – is significantly to blame.
The empathy gap – and its political consequences
One of the features of long-term inequality is that people know less and less about others from a different socioeconomic background. Few people know, for example, that the number of financial penalties, the ‘sanctions’, that have been imposed on benefit claimants by the Department for Work and Pensions, now exceeds the number of fines imposed by the magistrates’ courts for all crimes of any kind committed in England and Wales and those imposed by sheriff courts in Scotland. And, unlike in a magistrates’ court, decisions on benefit claimants’ guilt are made in secret by officials who are subject to constant management pressure to maximise penalties, and the claimant is not represented in the process. “In the first quarter of 2022 there were almost 50,000 sanctions issued to Universal Credit recipients for not trying hard enough to find work,” writes Dorling in Peak Injustice.
This loss of awareness of how others live facilitates a decline of empathy. As we have previously noted, “Growing levels of inequality as a permanent fixture of society undermine social solidarity and lead to some believing that they are simply ‘better’ than others. These views were commonplace in the 19th century but declined in the post-war years of greater equality. They are back now, encouraged by a neoliberal economic model that has been in place for over 40 years.”
“This empathy gap,” observed one recent analysis, “allows people like Neil Couling, Work Services Director at the DWP to say that ‘many benefit recipients welcome the jolt that a sanction can give them’. If Mr Couling had considered for a moment what he was stating, and regarded those he was targeting as human beings like himself, he might have thought differently.”
Declining empathy undoubtedly contributes to the rise of ‘othering’ and exclusionary – often racist – narratives pursued by the far right. “All across Europe it has been claimed that the rise of the far right was fuelled by those who lost out economically,” notes Dorling. “However, detailed research in the Netherlands in 2019 found that the opposite was true.”
The research showed that people who suffered a loss in income or unemployment did not move to the far right and their anti-immigration agenda. In Britain too, it might be added, more people believe immigration to be economically and culturally beneficial than ever before. Rather, people hit by the crisis usually support fairer income redistribution and may be drawn to the radical left. Instead, it is those fearful of falling down the economic ladder, of losing what they have already gained, that are attracted to the right. The Conservatives have made such fearmongering central to their political discourse.
Reasons to be hopeful
Beyond the sometimes dry statistics, there is a lot of humanity in these books. Peak Injustice includes some very astute observations about the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon. These include Dorling’s belief that his growing popularity made it inevitable that he would be brought down; and that his apparent weakness – his refusal to make personal attacks and play the standard Machiavellian politician – may prove to be a lasting strength, that politics can be done differently: “He showed that it was possible to shift an apparently immovable political consensus, in a remarkably short time, by drawing on the power of decency, honesty and compassion – and hope.”
Dorling also reminds us that, although the 2019 general election was painted as the worst defeat for Labour in many years, Corbyn’s 32% share of the vote was higher than the 30% gained by Ed Miliband in 2015, the 29% won by Gordon Brown in 2010, the 31% won by Neil Kinnock in 1987 or the 27% that Michael Foot secured in 1983.
Dorling has some basic solutions to the crisis. He points out that in an experiment in 2008 a dozen people were asked what they needed to get off the streets. “The answer, it turned out, was on average £794… a very basic income was all it took.”
Redistributive taxation will be essential to tackle inequality. A majority of people now believe the government does too little. Last year the Fairness Foundation reported that more than four in five people in the UK agreed that the government should fund minimum levels of provision for social care, good quality childcare and preschool education and ensure cheap public transport. More than seven in ten agreed that government should provide enough funding to ensure basic decent provision in relation to social or rented housing and to lifelong learning and more than three in five agreed that the government should provide a minimum income. As these positions gather popularity, they also gain support from those who themselves are well off.
Many obvious solutions are already being applied – but not in the whole UK. The Scottish Child Payment system has reduced inequality to one of the lowest levels in Europe. “We can eliminate the worst of child poverty within a year,” concludes Dorling, “should we wish to.”
Who will pay? A land values tax would help, wealth taxes too, “enforced simply by changing the law to state that you do not own an item, land or shares that you do not pay the proper tax on.”
The current government believes that economic growth will generate the revenue needed to repair this broken country. Dorling is more doubtful, warning: “Please don’t rely too much on the promise of growth. People cannot eat growth.”
Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.
UK Energy bosses post £483 billion profits since energy crisis began
DECEMBER 28, 2024
Just 20 energy companies have made a staggering £483 billion in profits since the start of the energy bills crisis.
While the full range of figures for 2024 have yet to be declared, profits this year amount to £9bn, with another £77bn of interims also declared.
Recent Ofgem price cap changes have seen energy bills creep upwards with a further 1.2% increase due to come into force from 1st January 2025.
Simon Francis, coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, commented: “While consumers have suffered in cold damp homes this winter, energy firms’ boardrooms have been celebrating further bumper profits. To add insult to injury, around a quarter of what is spent on heating our draughty properties is wasted, because the fact is that the UK has some of the worst insulated homes in Europe. Fuel poor households are seeing money fly out of their windows and into the pockets of the energy industry.
“We are repeatedly told that there is not enough money to provide support for older people with their energy or to roll out comprehensive programmes of insulation. These figures show this is simply not true. There is plenty of money in the energy industry, it’s just not in the hands of hard-pressed customers.”
The staggering sums are revealed in the End Fuel Poverty Coalition’s updated profit tracker which examines profits made by a sample of companies that include energy producers (such as Equinor and Shell) through to the firms that control our energy grid (such as National Grid, UK Power Networks and National Gas Transmission) as well as suppliers (such as British Gas). It does not include supply chains or market trading firms.
As recently as October, changes in the price cap meant that suppliers will be able to make an additional 11% in profits on every standard variable tariff. Analysis of these figures suggest that supplier profits allowed through the price cap could amount to around £1.2 billion over the next 12 months, enough to cover the cost of Winter Fuel Payments for almost all pensioners.
A March 2024 Warm This Winter Tariff Watch report also called for improvements in transparency of the ownership of energy firms after it found that British households had been boosting the profits of Chinese and Qatari Government-backed funds as the cost of the gas network has surged 38%.
Warm This Winter spokesperson Caroline Simpson said: “We reckon it’s about time the energy industry stopped lining their own pockets and supported the estimated 8.8 million people that have spent Christmas in cold damp homes.”
The group is campaigning for a comprehensive insulation programme as the quickest and easiest way to bring down bills permanently: in real terms the average household is paying more than £750 extra to use similar levels of energy as a few winters ago. The latest forecast price cap rise means energy bills will be 70% above what they were in winter 2020/2.
Simon Francis said: “That’s why the Chancellor needs to fully fund the Warm Homes Plan in the Comprehensive Spending Review. Anything less than the £13.2bn promised during the election campaign will simply not be good enough.”
In a new memoir, Tariq Ali recounts his work and activism across the end of the Cold War era and the era of neoliberal globalization. He spoke to Jacobin about what it means to be an anti-imperialist in a changed world.
Tariq Ali at his home in London on July 15, 2003. (Cambridge Jones / Getty Images)
Tariq Ali’s new book, You Can’t Please All, is a follow-up to his “autobiography of the ’60s,” Street-Fighting Years. These new memoirs covering the period from 1980 to 2024 reflect the author’s prolific activity and span a uniquely broad range of topics. They take in everything from Latin America to Pakistan, Perestroika, Britain under Margaret Thatcher and after, the author’s family background, cultural interventions on TV and on stage, cricket in the postcolonial era, a political reading of Don Quixote, and much more.
Ali’s account testifies to the deep change the world has seen since the global post-1968 retreat. Reflecting on his own trajectory, it explores the ways in which revolutionaries, mass movements, and intellectuals responded to a new situation.
Interviewed by Stathis Kouvelakis for Jacobin, Ali focuses on the running thread of his political life: anti-imperialism, and its meaning in the post–Cold War period of globalized neoliberal capitalism. Anti-Imperialism and the Left, From the 1960s to Today Stathis Kouvelakis
Anti-imperialism dominated your entire life, from your first political action — a demo in the streets of Lahore after the killing of Patrice Lumumba in 1961 — up to the 2000s, when, after a long period dedicated mostly to cultural work, you returned to active politics around antiwar and anti-imperialist politics. You have always been a staunch internationalist, but your internationalism has a definite anti-imperialist edge, right? Tariq Ali
I think that’s true. Living in Pakistan, I was completely obsessed from a very young age with reading all the magazines that came into the house. They were mainly communist magazines from the United States — Masses and Mainstream, Monthly Review — and then from Britain, the New Statesman, Labour Monthly, and only very late on the New Left Review. I read them because I was interested in the postcolonial situation. In Pakistan, we were going through a postcolonial phase, which seemed no different from what it was under the last days of British imperialism. Everything was run by the British, who then handed it over to the Americans.
When I read about Lumumba’s death, I was really enraged. We called a meeting at the college, and I said, “We can’t not go out into the streets.” But, according to an old British imperial law, it was punishable by heavy imprisonment to demonstrate as more than five people together. But we decided we’d do it and about two hundred showed up. We explained who Lumumba was and they said, “We’re marching to the US consulate because these are the people who had him killed.” One guy asked, “Is there any proof?” The whole place burst out laughing. No one doubted it was the Americans. We came back from the embassy, and we felt so strong and gutsy that we started chanting slogans against the military dictatorship in Pakistan. We did that and the country was bemused: Who are these crazy kids?When I read about Patrice Lumumba’s death, I was really enraged. We called a meeting at the college, and I said, ‘We can’t not go out into the streets.’
That was a memorable demonstration, because it took everyone by surprise. There had not been a single demonstration about Lumumba in the West or in India, in countries where it would be legal, with big communist parties. I still run into people who say, “I remember the Lumumba demonstration in Lahore.” I say, “Were you on it?” They say, “Yes, yes, of course. . .” So, it seems by now that the size of the demo has increased to 50,000 people! [laughs]
Then, the Chinese Revolution was taking place. The entire left-progressive movement — trade unions and peasant movements in the forefront — were constantly talking about China. When I was very young, my parents took me to the May Day meeting and the only talk was China: the slogan chanted was: “We will take the Chinese road, comrades.”
So, the whole notion of struggle and revolution came very early to me, and it wouldn’t have happened had I grown up in a different part of my own family. It was my parents being communist and people from that milieu coming regularly to our house — poets, radicals — that propelled me on that path. I remember when the French were defeated at Điện Biên Phủ, apolitical people were celebrating. A cousin of my mother’s, who was a film producer, rang her up to celebrate and said, “My son was born today, I’ve named him Ho Chi Minh.” My mother said, “If even these people are celebrating Điện Biên Phủ, we may not be so unlucky in this country.” It was a semi-nationalist but staunchly anti-European and anti-American anti-imperialist feeling among the people generally.The whole notion of struggle and revolution came very early to me, and it wouldn’t have happened had I grown up in a different part of my own family. Stathis Kouvelakis
What’s remarkable in your case, coming from the Global South, is not that you became an anti-imperialist in the 1960s and ’70s, but that you remained so. Since you restarted political activity in the world that followed the fall of the Soviet Union, you’ve been campaigning against the new imperialist wars, acting and connecting with various experiments, particularly in Latin America, resisting American imperialism. Many on the Left remained opposed to neoliberalism but abandoned anti-imperialism. Tariq Ali
There’s an interesting contradiction here. I joined the Fourth International [FI, what was then known as the “United Secretariat”] because it was anti-imperialist and internationalist, and these were its most attractive features. I was quite shocked when they began to move away from that.
I remember meeting with Daniel Bensaïd in Paris in some café, and he said, “There’s the fortieth anniversary of 1968 coming up, what should we do? You always have good ideas on how to have big celebrations.” I said, “Daniel, internationalism, as we once understood it, is just creeping out of your own ranks. Back in 1968, you were renaming streets in the Latin Quarter ‘Heroic Vietnam Street.’” He said, “Okay, what are you suggesting?”
I said, “A huge celebration of the changes in South America. Let’s call the Zapatistas; it’s not impossible that Hugo Chávez will come. We will have Evo [Morales] from Bolivia. We will get the progressive left in this country: there are a few people still keeping on. They’re not revolutionaries like we were, but they are left social democrats. They’ve been propelled to power by mass movements.” Daniel said, “It’s a very interesting idea, but I don’t think anyone among the anti-capitalists will support it. It’s not because they are hostile as such, but it doesn’t interest them.” I said, “This is deeply shocking.” He said, “I can imagine that for someone like you, it’s even more shocking.”
He knew what was going on, as some other comrades from the old days were in denial.
At the time of the Iraq War, I had a big discussion with Catherine Samary of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire. Of course, she was against the war. But I asked her, “How do you explain the fact that in all the big countries in Europe, you had gigantic antiwar demos [on February 15, 2003]; millions in London, Rome, and Madrid, even the Germans managed 100,000. You, in France, managed nothing.” Stathis Kouvelakis
There were demos though: in Paris, the numbers were similar to the ones in Germany. Tariq Ali
They were comparatively small. Catherine’s argument was that [then president] Jacques Chirac opposed the war, and that’s why people felt they were represented. I said, “But hang on. Charles de Gaulle opposed the Vietnam War. That didn’t stop you. It’s a deep, fundamental structural problem in what’s happened to the French intelligentsia and the French left.” A bit later, when the French edition of my book on the Iraq War [Bush à Babylone: La Recolonisation de l’Iraq] came out with La Fabrique, I was going with Éric Hazan to bookshops in Paris and a couple of other places to give talks. At one event, I said, “I get the feeling that a section of the French intelligentsia, particularly around the Parti Socialiste and liberals, really would have liked to have been part of this war.” Éric interrupted me and said, “He is completely right on that.”Britain is the only country where the Stop the War Coalition, even in bad times, survived. We didn’t let it go under.
The evolution in France was very disappointing. We had enormous faith in that group [the Ligue Communiste, later the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire] and its élan, in the 1960s and 1970s. It is slightly ironic that the “state capitalist” wing of the Trotskyist movement [the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and its international network, the International Socialist Tendency (IST)] turned out to be much sharper and much better, on Yugoslavia, on Iraq, and now on Ukraine. They opposed very strongly NATO and the US. One reason we used to criticize the IST group was because of its lack of internationalism.
But if you look now, it’s the Mandelite currents that have been found wanting and have sort of disappeared. Whereas without the handful of SWP Trotskyists like Lindsey German and John Rees, we couldn’t have built the antiwar campaign. Britain is the only country in the world where the Stop the War Coalition, even in bad times, survived. We didn’t let it go under. Stathis Kouvelakis
There is obviously a relation between this persistence and the size of the movement in support of Palestine in Britain. Tariq Ali
Without any doubt. On Palestine, we’d had at least one demonstration every year, so the British progressive movement was ready when it came. These are the people who organize the Palestine demos, then the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. They came and it was fantastic, it got larger and larger. I warned them that sooner or later this will go down: we have to think of other actions. And then other actions began quite spontaneously by a new generation, fresh to politics, that we’d never expected. They are not attracted to small groups — the old way of doing things.
Here we come to the problem, which is that whereas in French politics you have Jean-Luc Mélenchon, here [in Britain] there’s no one else but Jeremy Corbyn. His weaknesses as a left-wing leader come to the fore. He’s hooked on Labourism even when he’s expelled from it. Stathis Kouvelakis
Could you comment on the following statement made by another Trotskyist leader, Michel Raptis, also known as Pablo. Toward the end of his life, he said to the Mexican revolutionary and theorist Adolfo Gilly, “The deepest meaning of the twentieth century was this immense movement for the liberation of the colonies, oppressed peoples and women, not the revolution of the proletariat, which was our myth and our God.” Would you agree? Tariq Ali
Partly. That is what Ernest Mandel used to sometimes call — in relation to what he called “centrists” — the worshipping of faits accomplis. Stathis Kouvelakis
But, as you say in your book, he was accusing the New Left Review of doing that. . . Tariq Ali
Yes, and he was right. However, in Portugal, we came very close to a revolutionary dénouement, in my opinion, much closer than in France in May and June 1968, because there the French Communist Party was a huge bulwark, whereas in Portugal the Communist Party, whether we like it or not, was on the side of the far left. But they were totally outmaneuvered. I remember huge workers’, soldiers’, peasants’ demonstrations in Portugal where the chant was “Revolution, revolution, socialism.”In Portugal we came very close to a revolutionary dénouement, in my opinion, much closer than in France in May and June 1968.
Then Mario Soares, the social democratic leader, came and said, “Yes, we will have socialism. But do we want the socialism of Eastern Europe? No. Do we want the socialism of the Russians? No. Then why does our dear comrade Álvaro Cunhal [secretary-general of the Portuguese Communist Party] constantly go on about the dictatorship of the proletariat? We’ve got rid of one dictatorship, and they want to bring another one on that model.” Cunhal could never answer that. Ideologically, we were defeated in Portugal.
Ernest [Mandel] was shaken because he was very excited, though the FI underestimated Portugal because [Mandel] was convinced that the revolution would break first in Spain. A number of us who knew Spain better, said to him, “There’s going to be a huge compromise in Spain.” He said, “You’re wrong. The traditions of the POUM [Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification], of anarchism etc. . . .” The Basque comrades [of ETA-VI], who were very sharp, said the post– [Francisco] Franco succession will be good because we’ll be legal, but nothing much will change. Portugal took the FI completely by surprise. Stathis Kouvelakis
So, for you, the twentieth century was still the century of missed revolutionary opportunities, even in Europe or in the advanced capitalist countries. Tariq Ali
Yes, I think that was the case until 1975, the defeat of the Portuguese Revolution was the decisive factor.Fidel Castro felt very strongly that we’d now been defeated for generations to come, but that was not the sense we had in Europe. Stathis Kouvelakis
More than the coup in Chile? Tariq Ali
The coup in Chile had, of course, a big impact. But there was huge sympathy for Chile, even among bourgeois circles, there was not a sense that the revolution had been defeated. I remember Hortensia Allende being welcomed by the then British prime minister and leader of the Labour Party, Jim Callaghan, who embraced her in public. She addressed the Labour Party conference saying, “Comrade Allende has been murdered,” and the whole conference stood in silence. Fidel Castro felt very strongly that we’d now been defeated for generations to come, but that was not the sense we had in Europe. In Europe, the crucial test was Portugal, and the Americans knew that. NATO money was poured into Soares and his [reformist] party. Imperialism Today: One Global American Empire? Stathis Kouvelakis
Let’s come now to the post-1990 world. Your position is that there is only one global empire, the US empire. How would you then characterize China and Russia? Are they imperialist powers; do they have to be put on the same plane as the US? This is the position of a whole part of the radical left today, which makes a parallel between the current situation and the interimperialist configuration of the pre–World War I period. The same people add that, by thinking that one imperialism is by far the dominant one, and so more dangerous for any progressive government, you commit the sin of “campism.” Tariq Ali
I was quite clear on this question in The Clash of Fundamentalisms. Who was the big winner of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Chinese turn to the capitalist road? It was the United States. American capitalism remained the strongest capitalism, not just militarily, but economically and technologically. It’s no accident that the Internet emerged on the west coast of the US, not the west coast of China. US ideological domination was virtually unchallengeable. We had to challenge it, of course, but we wouldn’t be able to do so if we stopped saying that America was an imperial power.
It doesn’t make sense to say that because the Soviet Union imploded and China went capitalist that there is no longer an imperial power. I was very strongly against that view, but people were very reluctant to counter it. At academic conferences, when I talked about “US imperialism,” there was a slight shudder, meaning we thought we’d lost all that world. No, you didn’t lose that world, you lost another one. When I was in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s talking to senior party intellectuals, what was driving them mad was that Mikhail Gorbachev couldn’t see that they were going to be crushed by these bastards unless we had something. Yevgeny Primakov in particular feared that Gorbachev was preparing a capitulation.At academic conferences when I talked about ‘US imperialism,’ there was a slight shudder: people thought we’d lost all that world. No, you didn’t lose that world, you lost another one.
My view about China and Russia is that they are essentially nationalist, that they will defend their nationalism, or national sovereignty if you want to call it that. The Russians said this includes not having NATO surrounding us, or NATO trying to break us up into little bits. And the Chinese say similar things. Leave us alone, don’t provoke us with Taiwan. The Americans could have done this, it was there for them to grab, but they did exactly the contrary.
Perry [Anderson] and I had this discussion in private and my view was that the debate between Karl Kautsky and [Vladimir] Lenin on ultraimperialism versus interimperialist contradictions seems to have been solved in favor of Kautsky. For most of the twentieth century, Lenin was more or less correct, but now after the fall of the Soviet Union, it looks as if we’re going to get an ultraimperialism in some form in which all the European powers would more or less capitulate. There’s no question of them fighting back. I felt that even more strongly now, during the assault on Palestine.
In the 1990s, the Russians and the Chinese were prepared to go along with US ultraimperialism and the Europeans, but they were too huge to be swallowed up like Europe has been, especially China. There was a big debate within Chinese economic circles on whether they should just cave in to the neoliberal way of going to capitalism. Then there came a big backlash from inside the Communist Party of China saying, “No, we can’t go like that, we can’t make the Gorbachev mistake.” Deng Xiaoping had advised Gorbachev that perestroika [restructuring] is fine, but you can’t do perestroika properly unless you forget about glasnost [openness and transparency]. From a purely cynical standpoint, he was not so wrong.In the 1990s, the Russians and the Chinese were prepared to go along with US ultraimperialism and the Europeans, but they were too huge to be swallowed up like Europe has been, especially China.
The whole strategy of the US and of the thinkers and military specialists who run that country is that the only way to maintain its hegemony is by breaking everything up into little bits, so that no country emerges that can ever challenge it, till the end of humanity. That’s what the US has been doing wherever you look. That’s what they did in Yugoslavia, albeit unthinkingly. [Bill] Clinton told an audience in some American town that the war in Yugoslavia was in the interest of the US. And they’ve done the same in the Middle East: to break it up, divide the three countries that had huge armies that threatened Israel and the American hegemony in the region. Stathis Kouvelakis
So you don’t see China’s economic rise and expansion at a global scale turning into a new imperialism. Tariq Ali
It could, if the United States provokes them. I don’t deny that possibility. The Americans had two big plans for destabilizing China: Tibet and Taiwan. Tibet is now integrated by a mega-influx of Han Chinese migrants. They’ve done this also by modernizing Tibet and making lots of jobs available for Tibetans. The result is quite astonishing: it’s a classic, imperial-style operation, but not like what the Brits did when they took a place like India. They are building infrastructure, not just trains and things for supply routes.
Concerning Taiwan, any attempt by the West to encourage any provocations by the government in Taipei is unlikely to work since trade between the two regions is intense and any armed adventures would be totally counterproductive for Taiwan and its citizens. So how is this going to shake out? It is difficult to predict. But if the Americans try and break China into tiny parts, the Chinese could do anything. They will not take it lying down.The whole strategy of the United States and of the thinkers and military specialists who run that country is that the only way to maintain US hegemony is by breaking everything up into little bits. Stathis Kouvelakis
Let’s come now to Ukraine, another crucial development of recent years. There is no question of supporting the [Vladimir] Putin regime or thinking it is somehow friendly to the Left. I assume that you agree with Susan Watkins’s analysis of the Ukraine war, which sees it as a combination of three kinds of wars. Inspired by Mandel’s analysis of World War II, she sees it as an interimperialist war, a national war against a foreign invasion, and a civil war particularly affecting the Donbas. The most controversial element here is probably the interimperialist dimension, which means US imperialism’s responsibility in provoking this war by constantly expanding NATO eastward. Tariq Ali
That brings us back to what these Soviet comrades were telling me: that Gorbachev is giving all this away without even a written treaty, that previous semi-capitulations or whatever have always had a treaty, and the Germans were prepared even to offer one. The Americans weren’t. They gave verbal assurances: “not one inch eastward” as explained in Mary E. Sarotte’s book. She’s a right-wing liberal but her book gives a solid account of how the Americans operated and what they did from the beginning when Gorbachev asked mildly, “What do we get in return for handing over East Germany to you?” He was given an assurance by the Americans, not one step eastward with NATO. And Gorbachev believed it. This should have been enshrined in a treaty — which could have been disregarded, of course, but still, it would have been there and given some legal basis.
So then they started moving NATO regularly [eastward] till they landed in Ukraine. William J. Burns, who’s now head of the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency], was ambassador to Russia between 2005 and 2008. When he got back to the United States, he wrote a paper to Condoleezza Rice, [then secretary of state], saying very clearly the one thing we shouldn’t provoke them on, which they regard as a red line, is incorporating Ukraine into NATO. He now, of course, says: “I warned them in private and I was proved right.”
Personally, I didn’t think Putin would invade. He took everyone by surprise. Of course, we have strongly criticized him and he should get out. But the only way now is to come out [of the war] via negotiations. One of his senior advisers told a friend of mine: “Putin kept this as a total secret. But, when I later asked about the mounting casualties, etc., he said, ‘Don’t be too critical of me. We are the last generation who could take on the Americans. If I hadn’t done this, the next generation would never have done it. They sort of half live in that world themselves.’” Stathis Kouvelakis
How do you respond to a moral argument that has some purchase, even on the Left: if Ukrainians want to join NATO and be part of the West, why should we deny them the right to do so? Wouldn’t that go against the notion that they have agency and reproduce a kind of colonial attitude toward Ukrainians? Some suggest that this is the sin of the Western radical left, which disregards Eastern European people and doesn’t take seriously their desire to get rid of Russian domination. Tariq Ali
My response is that the last elections in Ukraine before the “Euromaidan revolution” returned an overtly pro-Russian candidate, Viktor Yanukovych. That president was removed by an American “color revolution,” i.e., a regime change that they organized. Who believes that they would ever support anything like genuine democracy? Putin destroyed his own chances, because even people who were very pro-Russian can’t have anything to do with him now.The Chinese are serious in at least pushing back on American plans. But I don’t think that of the Global South as such.
So, it’s a mess. I’m in favor in general of having referendums, but let’s have them openly. Let’s have no military presence in that country at all and let the fascist wing of the [Ukrainian military] be completely disarmed. Otherwise, how can you have the proper conditions for a referendum? The Ukrainians may then vote for [NATO], which I doubt since lots of reports and articles that Volodymyr Ishchenko is writing indicate a growing dissatisfaction. Stathis Kouvelakis
There is a lot of talk about the rise of the Global South as an independent actor on the global scene. This has been confirmed by the North-South divide we’ve seen both on the issue of Ukraine and on Palestine. This isn’t homogeneous — Narendra Modi’s India, for instance, refused to apply sanctions against Russia but is very pro-Israel. All in all, do you think that we are moving toward a multipolar world? If so, is there something positive in this change, despite the fact that all these emerging powers in the Global South are just capitalist countries? Tariq Ali
I would say that it’s an attempt to move to a multipolar world that would never have happened without the Chinese. It is a sign that the Chinese are serious in at least pushing back on American plans. But I don’t think that of the Global South as such. They can obviously resist on Palestine, as it’s so blatant what the Americans and the West are up to. But the notion that they would do it on everything . . . that I doubt very much. Most of the bourgeois forces in these countries can be bought off. It’s really not so much about ideology as of who pays out more cash. It’s the same with Pakistan. India is obviously different, but even in Brazil some pressure has been exercised on [Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva] to pull back from his initial position, which was very strongly against the United States and in support of the Palestinians.
Lula used to say, “They’ve taken me for a fool.” Once he was tricked by Barack Obama, who flattered him and he fell for it, he said, “This will never happen again.” It’s not a personal thing. It’s American interest, US support for Jair Bolsonaro and involvement in the parliamentary coup against Dilma Rousseff. So, he hasn’t gone back, but he has been playing with them. He’s also nervous that the military is still infected with Bolsonaro.
I think that each country is playing things according to its own interests. There’s no overriding theme of opposing the United States. We had a better version of it in the 1960s with the Bandung Conference. Stathis Kouvelakis
Yes, but there was a different social project there. Tariq Ali
I agree, there’s no social project now at all, which is why it’s so easy to dismantle if the Americans wanted to do it. The Palestinian Cause: A New Vietnam? Stathis Kouvelakis
The movement in support of Palestine, has been, I think, the most hopeful development in the West in the recent period. Can we establish a parallel between this and the movement against the Vietnam War in the 1960s, of which you were a protagonist? Do you think that Western governments’ near-unanimous support for the genocide in Gaza will somehow backfire, provoking a moral and political crisis and a crisis of legitimacy in the imperial center like the movement in support of Vietnam did?
Tariq Ali
There are several things to be said on this. First, it is not like the Vietnamese movement and the solidarity movement with Vietnam because that movement for most of us who participated in it had a very clear social content. It was not just for national liberation. However faulty, it was led by a communist party whose central leader was a Comintern guy, Ho Chi Minh. That had a big impact all over, especially where there were mass communist parties. It created tensions within these parties, with the leaderships who were saying, “We support the Vietnamese, but don’t say it too loudly.” It was [a conflict of] “peace in Vietnam” versus “victory to the Vietnamese.” That enabled us to divide these parties, in particular their youth wings, all over Europe.
Here, in Britain, the far left combined was larger than the Communist Party’s youth wing. The far left and its periphery hegemonized the youth very quickly. That’s why we organized university occupations. The SWP [at the time, called International Socialists] and the young International Marxist Group played a big role in that, even if numbers were small. It varied from country to country, but it happened at the height of the twentieth century.The way the Vietnamese called for internationalism was absolutely crucial.
Then, the way the Vietnamese struggle was carried out, the way the Vietnamese called for internationalism, was absolutely crucial. I recall once in North Vietnam, when I was with the North Vietnamese prime minister, Pham Van Dong, I said, in front of lots of people, “Comrade, time for International Brigades.” He took me aside and said, “Look, I’ll tell you what the problem is. This isn’t Spain, which is part of Europe. This is a country far away. So, just transporting you guys over for political propaganda would cost us a lot of money, and we don’t have that much. Then, we have to make sure that you guys are protected. Because this isn’t a war fought with rifles, the Americans are bombing us all the time, they will kill some of you.”
I said “So what? Your people are dying.” He said, using these words, “No, it’s not a good idea. A better idea is to go back and build mass movements in solidarity with us. Much more useful than a tiny show.” I said, “The British consul general in Hanoi, who fought in World War II, told me over tea three days ago that when he heard the bombers coming, he felt like grabbing a gun and going out onto the ceiling and firing at them.” Pham Van Dong said, “Well, why doesn’t he? We won’t stop him.” He meant: you guys are sweet and nice and we appreciate it. He hugged me very warmly and said it would not be useful because times have changed.
The other reason Pham Van Dong gave me for not having volunteers was that they were on a very tricky path between the Russians and the Chinese: “If we make a big appeal, we know thousands of people will come from Europe and elsewhere, but we’ll be summoned by Chairman Mao and the Russian leadership, saying, ‘What do you want? Why let these crazy people in? Are you saying we’re not giving you enough arms?’ So, we don’t get into that. It’s just easier.” So, the FI decided that building the solidarity movement with Vietnam was a central priority — one of the best things they ever did.Unlike the Palestinians, the Vietnamese had a state in the North and huge material support from the Soviets and the Chinese.
The other big difference was that unlike the Palestinians, the Vietnamese had a state in the North and huge material support from the Soviets and the Chinese. They scored more and more victories on the ground. I attended a talk in Hanoi by their top military commanders, where some of us were allowed in. A high-ranked officer explained how they were going to crush the Americans.
I was skeptical. I said, “Crush the Americans? Look what’s going on.” The colonel said, “We have a plan, a combination of guerrilla attacks and sudden mass attacks on them to take them.” He basically described the Tet Offensive. So, they were very convinced, and we said, “We might actually win this one. That would be a huge blow against the Americans.” And they did. That was the atmosphere.
Palestine is also different in the sense that for the younger generation — not for the previous ones — the war in Gaza came as a huge shock. At the beginning, the good elements reacted to it like they would react to Black Lives Matter: occupy the parks and all that. But gradually it deepened, and something happened that didn’t happen with all these Black Lives Matter–style movements: they began to read and to ask questions. A very important element in the United States was the entry of young Jewish people into the movement. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that the anti-Zionist young Jews had occupied Grand Central Station and said to the rest of the movement, “This is our business, just let us do it alone.” In Britain, too, they had their own banners, but they never did independent things like young American Jews did.
That shook the Israelis and the AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee], but it didn’t touch the politicians, of course. My own feeling is that this created a new consciousness. If we can’t describe it as totally anti-imperialist, it’s not that far from it. People realize that is what the Israelis are doing with our money, with our bombs, in some cases with our soldiers, and it’s unacceptable.
I’m optimistic that something will come out of it. There is admiration for the Palestinians who do fight back and total disgust for the soldiers they see muttering Nazi-style obscenities against the Palestinians like “Our children need protection because they’re not like Arab children.” These sort of “Kill the Arabs” chants are repeated by their supporters here. This has created a strong feeling that all institutions created by the United States after World War II are useless unless the Americans support them, starting with the great so-called United Nations, and all the international courts that they’ve tried to sabotage.A very important element in the United States was the entry of young Jewish people into the Palestine solidarity movement.
The effect on the new generations is very positive. Ironically, the American state will soon realize this. Any other country can now say: “Who are you to tell us anything? We can go and do our own atrocities like the Israelis did. Why should we listen to you?” Actually, the whole structure of international relations has been dented by this particular war. The Israelis, backed by the West, have waged a genocide against the Palestinian people and its consequences will be with us for a long time. This is a memory that will not go — and wherever else the US does it now, people will react saying, “Go away! Don’t do it. We don’t believe you.” And I think it also has had an effect, whether people like it or not, on perceptions of Ukraine: “You say Ukraine is sacred, you defend them. We can’t do this, we can’t do that, because it might offend them. And in Palestine, you just watch freely.” Imperialist Interventions in the Middle East Stathis Kouvelakis
One last question on the latest developments in the Middle East. What is your attitude when dictators are toppled in Iraq, Libya, and now Syria? Tariq Ali
There is no cause for celebration when these acts are carried out by Western imperialisms under the leadership of the United States. When they are toppled by their own people, I celebrate. The West removes the people it doesn’t like at a particular moment. Saddam [Hussein] of Iraq was a hero when he acted for the US and started a war with Iran. He became a “Hitler” only when he invaded Kuwait, imagining he had a green light from the US. Then after 9/11, they finished off him and a million other Iraqis. Five million orphans. Then they lynched Saddam. Cause for celebration? I wrote against him and produced a documentary mocking him when he was alive.
In Libya, NATO killed over 30,000 Libyans to push through regime change and lynch Muammar Gaddafi. “We came, we saw, he died” was Hillary Clinton’s celebration. French and British politicians took money from Gaddafi. The [London School of Economics begged for a big donation and its professors wrote young Gaddafi’s PhD for him. Lord Anthony Giddens [the theorist of Tony Blair’s “Third Way”] compared Libya to a “Norway of North Africa.”
The same people supported NATO’s assault. I criticized him severely for many years. I did not celebrate his death. What is there to celebrate in the antics of Western imperialism? The same for Syria. Iraq has not yet recovered. Libya is a wreck, ruled by rival jihadists. Syria has already been divided. The huge triumph of the West is still playing itself out.
They are no longer ashamed of displaying their double standards as we observe with the Israeli genocide in Palestine, but NATO’s useful idiots in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, adornments of the bourgeois media and their supporters in the barely existent left, still pretend that advances are being made. In one of his remarks on theater, Bertolt Brecht stressed that he was interested in the “new bad days, not the old good ones.” There are no longer any good ones left. Centuries before him, Baruch Spinoza — who has just had his sentence of expulsion rescinded by the Synagogue in Amsterdam — offered his own advice: “Neither to laugh nor to cry but to understand.” NATO liberals should reflect on it.
Contributors
Tariq Ali is an editor of New Left Review.
Stathis Kouvelakis is an independent researcher in political theory. A member of Syriza's central committee from 2012–15, he was a candidate for MeRA25-Alliance for Rupture in the May 2023 Greek general election.
