Trump May Be Among the Most Vile of Anti-Immigrant Demagogues, But He is Not Original

Bruce Neuburger

 November 18, 2024
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Image by Greg Bulla.

Immigration to the U.S. southern border has long been subject to cold-hearted racial demagoguery. The Statue of Liberty may have welcomed some of the “huddled masses” from Europe at different times, but no such welcome was ever given to people from south of the border. There, a different attitude has prevailed.

Donald Trump’s MAGA hate speech includes such descriptions of non-European immigrants as “stone cold killers,” “immigrant criminals from the dungeons of the world,” “rapist,” “pet eaters” — or “invaders” from across the southern border. Some may find Trump’s words pleasing and others dreadful, but he is far from original.

The story begins in 1846 when U.S. President Polk— encouraged by the slavocracy eager for more land to expand their operations and by the merchant capitalists looking for a gateway to the Pacific — set about to rip off the northern half of Mexico from the rest of that country. Among the European Americans who followed their “Manifest Destiny” west to newly conquered lands after the war in 1848, there was debate about whether the new U.S. territories would be “slave” or “free.” But there was neither debate nor doubt about how to receive the non-white immigrants who made it to those promising lands.

In a Congressional hearing in the 1880s a member of the House committee on immigration questioned a representative from California: “Two years ago California came before this committee and stated herself in opposition to the Chinese and Japanese immigrant and in favor of Chinese and Japanese exclusion, stating that they wanted to develop a great big white State in California, a white man’s country; and now you come before us and want unlimited Mexican immigration . . . I cannot see the consistency.”¹

But there was consistency. Chinese and Japanese workers were among the first waves of non-whites whose labor would lay the groundwork for large scale agriculture and the California dream that would not be theirs. But as important as their labor was it came with a defect making them far from the ideal workers white employers desired: They were difficult to remove thus posing an unacceptable threat to white demographic dominance.2 Mexican labor, however, was close at hand and easily deportable, a quality that made it, by the early 1920s, the immigrant labor of choice.

The southern border became, not the firm line of defense of national sovereignty as our contemporary demagogues would have us see it, but the portal for the low wage laborers on whose backs an empire was being built. But the door was meant to be a revolving one and herein lay the conflict.

Through the years the southern border has been the scene of a schizoid dance of immigration. There were times when employers on U.S. farms, factories, and railroads, couldn’t get enough of those “hard working,” “uncomplaining” Mexican (or Central American) workers—think of the Bracero program during the World War II years.³ Then there were other times marked by furious nativist-driven campaigns to stop the flow and rid the land of “criminals,” “disease ridden delinquents,” “drug runners,” “ants,” “communists” or “terrorists”— depending on the era. Notable in this are the years 1930, 1954, and 1994.

In the early 1930s hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were deported or otherwise forced out of the U.S. having been made convenient scapegoats for a brutal Depression economy. The deportations were massive and indiscriminate and accompanied by a ferocious campaign of racial intimidation and threats so intense that many of those who left the U.S., did so on their own out of fear of violence. Forty to sixty percent of those deported or repatriated were U.S. citizens, and many were children.

1954 was the year of Operation Wetback, a militarized campaign of terror and mass deportation that resulted in the suffering and death of many immigrants. Operation Wetback was principally an ethnic cleansing campaign. Its goal was to reverse the “troubling” growth of Mexican and Mexican American communities in California and the Southwest. But the deportation campaign ultimately failed, not because it wasn’t well planned or brutally executed, but because the immigrant communities had become interwoven in the economic and social fabric of border states. After a military style mass deportation of more than a million immigrants which caused terrible suffering, American authorities appealed to Mexicans to return to the U.S.! The California and southwest economy could not function without them. ⁴

In the intervening years since Operation Wetback the structural dependence of U.S. capitalism on cheap, vulnerable labor has increased. At the same time, one of the foundations of white supremacist control and identity, the demographic dominance of white people, is more challenged than ever. What began as a labor system largely restricted to California and the southwest has now become a key part of the labor structure for the entire country. In places throughout the U.S., and especially in the cities, essential jobs from service to construction to meat packing, child care and elder care, are dependent on immigrant workers. And the countryside? Today nearly 90% of U.S. farm and dairy workers are immigrants, roughly half undocumented.

Walk the streets of major cities, go to the school rooms and work places and the demographic future greets you in all its multiplicity. This is what lies at the heart of the MAGA-fascist immigrant frenzy— a clash of demographics.

For the nativist who has bought into the notion that the U.S. is a “white man’s land” and must always remain so — this is the metastasizing of a nightmare. For those who view humanity through a broader lens, it is a twist of historical irony and the harbinger of a potentially better world.

The Crazy Dance

In the 1980s President Reagan tried to alter the crazy dance of immigration with an amnesty for what were then three million immigrants deprived of documents.⁵ Today, 38 years on, there are at least 11 to 12 million people with this status. Thirty-eight years have passed since there has been any viable path to the most basic “legal residency” for those millions. And the reason for this is no great mystery: No matter how much verbal fog obscures it, the U.S. economy depends on their labor, their cheap labor.

U.S. capitalism admits to no apartheid nor racial caste system, and yet it can’t function – and compete — without workers deprived of basic rights. The endless discussions and promises over the last decades about “comprehensive immigration reform,” have been so entangled in their own contradictions that one residing in Alice’s Wonderland would find it beyond the pale . . . with no end in sight.

Beginning in the 1990s we witnessed with Clinton, Bush and Obama, the border wall constructed, laws criminalizing immigrants enacted, a spectacularly cold blooded decision to drive refugees from NAFTA⁶ into the desert where many died, and an endless raging frenzy over “border security.” Meanwhile, beginning especially under Obama, immigrant detention centers sprouted like diseased deformities on the landscape. In the mid 1990s California’s conservative governor Pete Wilson tried to solve the state’s “demographic problem.” It was called Proposition 187, a draconian plan of ethnic removal that sought to enlist teachers and healthcare workers to its cause. The ballot measure passed easily but the plan failed. Massive resistance by teachers, medical workers, and youth from the immigrant communities, played an important role. The fight to defeat Proposition 187 was a watershed for California. It actually secured greater respect and rights for immigrants, much to the chagrin of the nativists and white supremacists. And they have not forgotten that defeat!

When campaigning for office the first time in 2016, Trump cited and praised Operation Wetback. He even mimicked Herbert Brownell, the Secretary of State in 1954 who, at the height of that Operation, threatened to shoot immigrants to discourage them from coming. Trump, not to be outdone in the verbal thuggery department, said at the time he would machine gun them. And we saw how those words aroused people to horrible actions in 2019 in places like the garlic festival in Gilroy, California and a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.⁷

And now in the Trump2 era, a more rabid fascist nationalism targets the broader non-white community, and non-white immigrants in particular, not only as inferiors, but overtly as racial enemies, and poisoners of blood!

Trump2 is better organized, with a more indoctrinated base, possessed with a histrionic passion for preserving white dominance, or white supremacy, and with the added zeal of racial animus and Christian fundamentalism. It is also linked to the more desperate moment as the U.S. empire confronts greater challenges to its global dominance. The MAGA fascists look to rouse the populace with a racial zeal for the imperial tests ahead.

The depth of Trumpite insanity was spoken to by the MAGA groupie Elon Musk in a conversation with Joe Rogan on November 4 when he referred to then upcoming election as an “existential” moment: “If the Democrats win the election they will legalize enough illegals to turn the swing states. And [then] everywhere will be like California. There will be no escape” (my emphasis)–“Everywhere will be like California.” Such is the vision of hell for the MAGA racial fanatics.

To be sure Trump’s MAGA fascism is more than an immigration and demographics project. It is the fervent vision of a U.S. returning to the unassailable heights of global domination. The glue that holds this MAGA project together bears a striking resemblance to its German counterpart in the 1930s. Racial demagogy, white (instead of Aryan) supremacy, (and misogyny) at its core. While not new, in the world of today, it’s a lunatic vision and its lust for a racial reckoning is more dangerous than it’s ever been.

Postscript:

The opposite of this MAGA vision sees defense of humanity as a whole as our sacred responsibility. And that includes the defense and preservation of this little, abused planet of ours. The MAGAites are going to have to be defeated if we are to succeed in uplifting our humanity. Along with that, the system out of which this MAGA nightmare has arisen will also have to go. Will the coming assaults on immigrants be a spark for a broader, more radical social movement?

¹ Stoll, Steven, The Fruits of Natural Advantage, UC Press, 1998 p.152

² Throughout the 1800s western nativists waged war on Asian immigrants. This included racist pogroms that literally burned down Chinese communities on the west coast. In 1882 the nativists succeeded in passing the Chinese Exclusion Act.

³ The Bracero program was a wartime measure begun in 1942 that brought millions of Mexican workers under contract to work in California and other states. Their contract stipulated that they had to return to Mexico after their period of contractual labor ended. The Bracero program ended in 1964 but the need for Mexican labor did not.

⁴ Operation Wetback was a militarized operation led by a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General. At least one million workers and their families were deported, sometimes deep into Mexico far from their homes. Some deportees were dumped inside the Mexican border without food or water. Hundreds of deaths resulted.

⁵ In 1986 Congress passed the Simpson/Mazzoli Act (Immigration Reform and Control Act or IRCA) that provided for an amnesty for 3 million undocumented workers to legalize their status. In addition a program for growers allowed for many additional legalizations. One of the aims of this amnesty was to assure employers of a more stable workforce. Simpson/ Mazzoli provided for sanctions for employers who continued to hire undocumented workers. This was meant to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants. But this provision was not enforced and following Simpson /Mazzoli the flow of undocumented immigrants into the labor force continued and increased.

⁶ The North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect in 1994. Among its effects were lowering tariffs on U.S. produced corn. The subsequent flooding of the Mexican market with cheap U.S. corporate grown corn caused corn prices to fall and hundreds of thousands of small Mexican farmers were ruined, a fact that the mainstream media has largely ignored. Many displaced farmers and rural workers, to survive, went north. But just at that time a border wall was constructed in such a way as to force them to make their way north through dangerous mountainous and desert terrains leading to hundreds and then thousands of deaths. According to one estimate at least 8,000 immigrants have died crossing the Mexico – U.S. border since the latter 1990s.

⁷ In August 2019 a mass shooter killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in one of the deadliest attacks targeting Latinos in modern U.S. history. This followed a shooting in Gilroy the previous month where three people were killed and eleven wounded. The shooters in both cases were white, those injured and killed, mainly Latinos.

Bruce Neuberger is a retired teacher and author of Postcards to Hitler: A German Jew’s Defiance in a Time of Terror.

 

Peru Becomes New Center of Rivalry Between the U.S. and China

The U.S. looks to enhance its relationship with Peru through the northern port of Paita (YILPORT)

Published Nov 16, 2024 3:53 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

The U.S. has moved to counter China’s investments in a mega port in Peru with the Department of State funding an initiative that will establish a sister relationship between the ports of Hueneme in California and Paita in Peru.

As China’s President Xi Jinping inaugurated the $3.5 billion megaport of Chancay, South America’s first Beijing-funded port infrastructure project, the U.S announced that Hueneme and Paita will establish a sister port relationship, a move that is largely designed to safeguard Washington’s interest. It was a part of a series of agreements the U.S. announced with Peru timed to the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum 2024.

The two ports signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that defines the relationship, with the deliverables being fostering trade relations, enhancing commercial exchanges, and promoting economic development. The key focus areas will include improving transparency in procurement, sharing best practices in port management, exploring green energy initiatives, and collaborating on sustainable port development strategies.

The U.S. embassy in Peru said in a statement that the Department of State is funding the initiative but did not reveal the amount of commitments.

The U.S. wants to secure its interests in South America through the port of Paita which is strategically located on the northern coast of Peru in the Piura Region. This makes the facility, which is jointly owned and operated by Terminales Portuarios Euroandinos (TPE) and DP World, serve as a key gateway for Peru and South American trade to international markets. Over the past decade and a half, Paita has become Peru’s most important port for exporting agricultural goods and seafood products, generating more than 1,000 direct and indirect jobs in the north of the country. It handles about 10 percent of Peru's freight traffic with an annual capacity of 650,000 TEU.

“In the North of Peru, TPE stands out as the main port for agro-exports and is the potential gateway for importing products. This characteristic makes it a strategic port on the West Coast of South America. I have no doubt that the signing of this MoU will bring mutual benefits in terms of development as green ports, commercial strategies, as well as safety and security,” said Eduardo Cerdeira, CEO of TPE.

Establishing the sister relationship between the two ports came on the same day that China and Peru inaugurated Chancay port, which is located approximately 50 north of Lima and is designed to serve as a major hub for Chinese trade with South America. Chancay which has an initial annual capacity of 1 million TEU is expected to strengthen Peru's maritime infrastructure on the Pacific coast, allowing transshipment of cargo to Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama. It will permit the countries to bypass ports in Mexico and the U.S. as they trade with Asia while China emphasizes it as a key link to build direct trade.
 

Europe’s human rights watchdog urges Cyprus to let migrants stuck in UN buffer zone seek asylum


A refugee man stands in front of tent at a camp inside the U.N controlled buffer zone that divide the north part of the Turkish occupied area from the south Greek Cypriots at Aglantzia area in the divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, Aug, 9, 2024.

 (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias, File)

BY MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS
 October 30, 2024

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A senior official with Europe’s top human rights watchdog has urged the government of ethnically divided Cyprus to allow passage to nearly three dozen asylum seekers out of a U.N.-controlled buffer zone where they have been stranded in tents for months.

Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a letter released on Wednesday that despite receiving food, water and other aid, some 35 people, including young children, continue to face “poor living conditions” that make it difficult for them to obtain items such as formula milk and diapers for babies.

The migrants, who come from countries including Syria, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan and Cameroon are stuck in a buffer zone that separates the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north of the Eastern Mediterranean island nation and the Greek Cypriot south where the internationally recognized government is seated.

In a letter addressed to Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, O’Flaherty said the migrants’ prolonged stay in such conditions is likely to affect their mental and physical health, as illustrated by the suicide attempts of two women.

Cyprus breached right of 2 Syrian cousins to seek asylum, European court says

O’Flaherty said he acknowledged the “seriousness and complexity” of Cypriot authorities’ efforts to stem the flow of migrants crossing the buffer zone from north to south to seek asylum.

But he said this doesn’t mean Cypriot authorities can ignore their obligations under international law to offer migrants “effective access to asylum procedures and to adequate reception conditions.”

O’Flaherty’s letter comes a couple of months after the U.N. refugee agency had also urged the Cypriot government to let the migrants seek asylum.

Migrant crossings from the north to the south have dropped precipitously in recent months after Cypriot authorities enacted a series of stringent measures including the installation of cameras and special police patrols along sections of the 180-kilometer (120 mile) long buffer zone.

The Cyprus government ceded control of the buffer zone to U.N. peacekeepers after battle lines stabilized in the wake of a 1974 Turkish invasion that triggered by a coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece. Cypriot authorities have consistently said they would not permit the buffer zone to become a gateway for an illegal migration influx that put “severe strain” on the island’s asylum system.

Earlier this year, Cyprus suspended the processing of asylum applications from Syrian nationals after granting international protection to 14,000 Syrians in the last decade.

Christodoulides underscored the point to O’Flaherty in a reply letter, saying that Cypriot authorities are obligated to do their utmost to crack down on people-smuggling networks moving people from mainland Turkey to northern Cyprus and then to the south.

It’s understood that all the migrants have Turkish residency permits and arrived in the north aboard scheduled flights.

The Cypriot president said authorities will “make every effort” in accordance with international law “to prevent the normalization of irregular crossings” through the buffer zone.

Regarding the stranded asylum seekers, Christodoulides said the government is offering supplies and healthcare and assured O’Flaherty that “we will resolve this matter within the next few weeks,” without elaborating.

The Cypriot president also defended patrols that marine police vessels conduct in international waters to thwart boat loads of migrants reaching the island by sea. He said those patrols fully comply with international law and rejected allegations that marine police are engaging in seaborne “pushbacks” of migrant boats.

Earlier this month, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Cyprus violated the right of two Syrian nationals to seek asylum in the island nation after keeping them, and more than two dozen other people, aboard a boat at sea for two days before sending them back to Lebanon.

O’Flaherty asked Christodoulides to ensure that all Cypriot seaborne operations abide by the obligations flowing from the court ruling and to carry out independent probes into allegations of “unlawful summary returns and of ill-treatment” of migrants on land and at sea.

 

China Gains Foothold in Thailand as Cosco Invests in Container Terminals

Laem Chabang handles 80 percent of the container throughput in Thailand (Hutchison Thailand)

Published Oct 25, 2024 9:30 AM by The Maritime Executive

 

 

Cosco Shipping Ports, the terminal and port operating arm of the Chinese-government-owned shipping company, reports it is acquiring stakes in two of the terminal operations in Thailand’s leading port. It is a critical step for the company to expand its reach into Southeast Asia and support’s China effort to increase its influence in the region.

Laem Chabang Port is Thailand’s largest port accounting for approximately 80 percent of the country’s container throughput. Started in the early 1990s, it is located approximately 80 miles from Bangkok and close to the country’s major industrial and manufacturing hubs including Rayong.

Under the terms of the parallel agreements, Cosco will acquire 12.5 percent of Thai Laemchabang Terminal (TLT) and 30 percent of Hutchison Laemchabang Terminal (HLT) both in the port of Laem Chabang and controlled by Hutchison. The company has been operating TLT since 2002 and began driving expansion in the region with HLT which was started in 2006. 

Expansion of the operations is ongoing adding additional berths and capacity. Cosco reports it will gain access to seven berths in the port. Once the current expansion is operational, the total annual capacity is expected to reach approximately 6.7 million TEU. Cosco is spending approximately $110 million for the stakes in the two terminals as well as a share in the Port of Sokhna at the northern end of the Red Sea in Egypt on the route to the Suez Canal.

Cosco cites the excellent connectivity of Laem Chabang Port to global trade routes saying that it makes it “an ideal gateway for international shipping.” China has long been seeking a foothold in Thailand to support its efforts to expand trade in Southeast Asia. Cosco points to Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor initiative which it says will further strengthen the long-term growth and prospects of Laem Chabang Port and the surrounding area.

Unlike other regions such as Germany where Cosco faced strong opposition to its purchase of a share of a terminal in Hamburg, the company is being welcomed into Thailand. The company cites a “stable and favorable regulatory environment,” in Thailand which it says minimizes its operating risks. Cosco said in its statement that the deal aligns with its long-term strategic intention to deepen Sino-Thai economic and trade cooperation and expand in the Southeast Asian market.

World’s first CO2 storage service soon ready in Norway


By AFP
September 25, 2024


Wildfires in Canada have generated record CO2 emissions

 - Copyright Nova Scotia Government/AFP/File Handout

Pierre-Henry DESHAYES

Norway is set to inaugurate Thursday the gateway to a massive undersea vault for carbon dioxide, a crucial step before opening what its operator calls the first commercial service offering CO2 transport and storage.

The Northern Lights project plans to take CO2 emissions captured at factory smokestacks in Europe and inject them into geological reservoirs under the seabed.

The aim is to prevent the emissions from being released into the atmosphere, and thereby help halt climate change.

On the island of Oygarden, a key milestone will be marked on Thursday with the inauguration of a terminal built on the shores of the North Sea, its shiny storage tanks rising up against the sky.

It is here that the liquified CO2 will be transported by boat, then injected through a long pipeline into the seabed, at a depth of around 2.6 kilometres (1.6 miles), for permanent storage.

The facility, a joint venture grouping oil giants Equinor of Norway, the Anglo-Dutch Shell and TotalEnergies of France, is expected to bury its first CO2 deliveries in 2025.

It will have an initial capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year, before being ramped up to five million tonnes in a second phase if there is enough demand.

“Our first purpose is to demonstrate that the carbon capture and storage (CCS) chain is feasible,” Northern Lights managing director Tim Heijn told AFP.

“It can make a real impact on the CO2 balance and help achieve climate targets,” he said.



– Prohibitive cost –



CCS technology is complex and costly but has been advocated by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), especially for reducing the CO2 footprint of industries like cement and steel, which are difficult to decarbonise.

The world’s overall capture capacity is currently just 50.5 million tonnes, according to the IEA, or barely 0.1 percent of the world’s annual total emissions.

In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era, CCS would have to prevent at least one billion tonnes of CO2 emissions per year by 2030, the IEA says.

The technology is still in the early stages, and has been slow to develop because of prohibitive costs — compared to the price companies have to pay for CO2 emission quotas, for example.

It therefore depends heavily on subsidies.

“Public support was and will be crucial to help such innovative projects to advance, especially as CCS costs are still higher than the costs of CO2 emissions in Europe,” said Daniela Peta, public affairs director at the Global CCS Institute.

The Norwegian government has financed 80 percent of the cost of Northern Lights, which has been kept confidential.

The Scandinavian country is Western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer.

The North Sea, with its depleted oil and gas fields and its vast network of pipelines, is an ideal region to bury unwanted greenhouse gases.

– Greenwashing? –

Northern Lights is part of an ambitious 30-billion-kroner ($2.9 billion) scheme dubbed “Longship” — after the Viking ships — of which the state has provided 20 billion kroner.

The plan initially included the creation of two CO2 capture sites in Norway.

While the Heidelberg Materials cement factory in Brevik is expected to begin shipping its captured emissions to the site next year, snowballing costs have forced the waste-to-energy plant Hafslund Celsio in Oslo to review its plans.

In addition, Northern Lights has also secured cross-border deals with Norwegian fertiliser manufacturer Yara and energy group Orsted to bury CO2 from an ammonia plant in the Netherlands and two biomass power stations in Denmark.

Some environmentalists worry the technology could provide an excuse to prolong the use of fossil fuels and divert funds needed for renewable energies.

They have also raised concerns about the risk of leaks.

“Northern Lights is ‘greenwashing’,” said the head of Greenpeace Norway, Frode Pleym, noting that the project was run by oil companies.

“Their goal is to be able to continue pumping oil and gas. CCS, the electrification of platforms and all of these kinds of measures are used by the oil industry in a cynical way to avoid doing anything about their enormous emissions,” he said.

City that could have been: Untold story of Russia’s Vologda

If fate had played out differently, Russian city of Vologda might have been crowned capital of Russia

Elena Teslova |17.09.2024 - TRT/AA



MOSCOW

Far in the northwest of Russia lies Vologda, a city nestled in one of the country’s most authentically Russian regions and known for its developed industries and beautiful nature.

If fate had turned out differently, it might have been crowned the capital of Russia.

Vologda is as old as Moscow itself, with both cities born in 1147, according to ancient manuscripts. Throughout the turbulent centuries, as foreign invaders swept across the land, Vologda's geographical embrace shielded it from destruction.

By the 16th century, it had blossomed into one of the most vital hubs for Russia’s trade with England, Holland and other Western lands. In 1555, the British, drawn by its promise, opened their trading office in Vologda, and the first Russian ambassador to England, Osip Nepea, hailed from this storied city.

But the winds of history took a dramatic turn in 1564. Ivan IV, known as Ivan the Terrible, found himself beleaguered by both foreign invasions and the threat of rebellion. With turmoil brewing in Moscow, the tsar sought refuge in Vologda. Accompanied by his family, the royal treasury, priceless icons and symbols of power, he made his way to this northern city with dreams of forging a new capital.

Vologda, strategically positioned at the gateway of the Northern Sea Route, held immense promise. Its coat of arms, adorned with an open gate, symbolized an invitation to Europe, a pathway to the world beyond. The tsar envisioned fleets sailing from its shores, and in moments of peril, he imagined Vologda as a safe haven from which he could retreat.

"Without hesitation, Ivan IV set his grand plans into motion. He commanded the construction of a magnificent cathedral and a mighty kremlin, a fortress to rival even Moscow's Kremlin. Noble families, drawn by the tsar's vision, began to buy land and build their lives in Vologda's embrace," Larisa Gulneva, head of the Excursion and Educational Department of the Vologda Museum, said in an interview with Anadolu.

In the tsar’s grand design, the new fortress was to be twice the size of the Moscow Kremlin, which today stands as the largest active fortress in Europe. Vologda also became the spiritual heart of a new diocese, elevating the city to a place of religious significance, she said.

"Yet, as fate would have it, destiny had other plans. In 1571, as Ivan IV personally oversaw the construction of the grand Saint Sophia Cathedral, a mysterious omen appeared. A brick, or perhaps a piece of plaster, fell from the cathedral and struck the tsar. According to the chronicler Ivan Slobodsky, the tsar interpreted this as a sign — a rejection by the very ground on which he stood," she noted.

In Russian folklore, such signs were powerful, Gulneva emphasized, adding: "Holy places were believed to possess great spiritual energy, and for one to be rejected by such a place was an ill omen indeed, fraught with dire consequences. Whether it was superstition, paranoia or a deep-seated fear that drove him, Ivan IV decided that Vologda was not meant to be his capital. Mounting his horse, he left the city, never to return."

But Vologda’s story did not end there. The city thrived, bolstered by the tsar’s investment and vision, she said.

"In 1918, following the Great Russian Revolution, Vologda briefly became the "diplomatic capital of Russia," hosting embassies, consulates and missions as diplomats sought refuge from the advancing German troops. Though the diplomats eventually left, Vologda’s legacy remained," she added.

Today, the Vologda region is a beacon of prosperity, with thriving industries, rich agriculture and historic treasures. Its educational and sports centers are strong, and its people, the region's greatest asset, continue to shape its future.

According to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, Vologda stands as the most mono-national city in Russia. Over 96% of its residents are Russian, their features reflecting the global image of the Russian people—blonde hair, blue eyes and freckled faces.

The region's nature is also quintessentially Russian, painted in soft hues of green, white, blue and violet, a serene palette that soothes the soul.

Vologda may not have claimed the title of Russia's capital, but its spirit remains indomitable. Its story is one of resilience and quiet strength, where the past and present weave together to create a city like no other. As head of the region Georgy Filimonov declares, Vologda’s success is a testament to its people — the true treasure of this northern land.

INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

HERITAGE: IN SEARCH OF MELUHHA

Ali Bhutto

DAWN

Published September 8, 2024

The archaeological site of Nahuto, in Umerkot district, where artefacts dating back to the Hakra Ware Phase and the Mature Harappan Phase have been found | Photos by the writer


The bangles cover Radha Kohli’s arms from wrist till shoulder and resemble a coat of armour. Radha, who says her name means “God’s wife,” is the only midwife for miles in the area surrounding the village of Nahuto. This western periphery of the Thar Desert is referred to in the local dialect as ‘Mohrano’, or the beginning, where the dunes gradually give way to the fertile plain of the River Indus.

Radha is known as the village doctor and turns up when called, even if at midnight, in the villages that lie in the vicinity. Trained by her mother-in-law, it took her thirty years to master the art of delivering babies. “Of the nine women in the house, she chose me,” she tells Eos.

In the Thar Desert, bangles signify marital status. Jheeni Kohli, who says her name means “soft-spoken”, discarded her bangles the day her husband died. Like most women in the village, her palms bear the rope-marks of years spent drawing water from wells.

THE LOST CITY OF NAHUTO


Local lore has it that the perennial Hakra River once flowed half a mile from Nahuto. The story goes that the area was a trading post of nine-hundred huts — or shops — and it is from here that the village gets its name — pronounced Nau-hut-o — according to Faqir Irshad Kunbhar, a local resident. One of the defining characteristics of the lost city was the large number of washermen that could be seen washing clothes along the banks of the Hakra.

Within sight of the village, amidst shrubs of euphorbia, lies a mound littered with shards of pottery, bricks and occasionally, bones. It is locally referred to as Nahutojo Bhiro. The word bhiro is the Thari equivalent for daro, or mound, and the name translates into the Mound of Nahuto.

Hoth Khashkeli, a resident of the neighbouring village of Mohobat Ali Shah, was among the locals hired by the provincial department of archaeology to help excavate the site in 2018. Hoth points to the exact spots on the north-eastern side of the mounds, where trenches were dug and then refilled with earth to preserve the ruins.


Despite being among the most advanced of the ancient civilisations, little is known about the Indus Valley Civilisation to this day. Ali Bhutto examines its various aspects, including evidence that hints at a strong matriarchal element, and a lesser-known archaeological site on the peripheries of the Thar Desert…

The excavations lasted three months and were conducted by Qasid Mallah, the chairman of the archaeology department at the Shah Abdul Latif University in Khairpur, and a six-member team. “They said the site was around five-thousand years old,” Hoth tells Eos.

Hoth’s eyes light up when he talks about the skeleton of a large fish that was unearthed here, in the middle of the desert. He also recalls seeing an ornament that depicted the head of a crocodile. (In the winter of 1926-27, a 2.5-inch crocodile head made of shell had been found by the archaeologist Daya Ram Sahni in Mohenjo Daro).

Muhammad Hassan Khashkeli, another local who was among the excavators at Nahuto, says that beads and figurines had also been found. The Sindhi word he uses to describe the latter is “goodi.”

Mallah tells Eos that the site dates back to the Hakra Ware phase (3500 to 3000 BC). The most common find was Hakra pottery, which is handmade, but there was also material dating to the period between 2600 and 1900 BC, when cities like Mohenjo Daro and Harappa were flourishing.

Based on the evidence collected, he believes that this too was once a large city. The artefacts found included human figurines, jewellery and the skeleton of a fish that, when living, would have weighed around 10 kilogrammes, according to him.

“Nahuto was the gateway to Gujarat [in modern-day India],” says Mallah. It served as an ancient junction of sorts. Caravans travelling from the area that is currently Gujarat would have passed through here to get to the cities of Mohenjo Daro, Chahunjo Daro and Lakhanjo Daro, according to him. Similarly, the spot would have been central to journeys made in the opposite direction.

Asma Ibrahim, an archaeologist who is also the founding director of the State Bank of Pakistan Museum and Art Gallery, believes that there was constant intermingling between the people of the Indus Civilisation and those of the wider region, including Central Asia.

Ibrahim, who has done a post-doctorate in archaeological chemistry and whose area of focus is ancient human bones, tells Eos that there was a continuous influx of people across the Kirthar Range, throughout the third millennium BC and earlier. She describes it as a slow migration.

“We have evidence that, during the winters, they were coming down to this area and then they were mixing up, and intermarriages were happening,” she says. “It was a very common thing.”

Figurines from Mehrgarh depicted with elaborate hairdos, on display at the National Museum in Karachi

‘THE BLACK LAND’ OF ANCIENT TEXTS

A Sumerian mythological text from the third millennium BC, titled Enki and the World Order, refers to an exotic land called Meluhha. It is described as a place of abundance and an exporter of luxury goods. The text sings the praises of Meluhha, and mentions, among other things, that it is home to the peacock — a bird indigenous to South and Southeast Asia.

In this text, and a later one, titled The Curse of Agade, dating back to the beginning of the second millennium BC, Meluhha is referred to as “the black land.” The reason behind this is unclear, but some scholars attribute it to the black soil of its cotton fields.

A report of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), for the year 1926-27, provides an interesting clue. “The Babylonian and Greek names for cotton (sindhu and sindon, respectively) have always pointed to the Indus Valley as the home of cotton growing,” writes John Marshall, the director-general of the ASI. He had found pieces of finely woven cotton and evidence of cotton weaving at Mohenjo Daro.

According to Mallah, “the black land” might refer to parts of Gujarat — where black soil, formed from volcanic rocks, occurs naturally. Similarly, black soil can also be found in the Deccan Plateau.

Nilofar Shaikh, an archaeologist and chairperson of the Centre for Documentation and Conservation of the Heritage of Sindh — located at the Endowment Fund Trust’s office in Jamshoro — tells Eos that all the items mentioned in the Sumerian texts as coming from Meluhha, have been found at Indus sites such as Mohenjo Daro.

On the basis of archaeological evidence, Meluhha is believed to be the Indus Civilisation, according to Shaikh. It covered an area that includes Sindh, Punjab, southern and eastern Balochistan, Gujarat, Haryana, and pockets of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Indian Punjab, northern Rajasthan, western Uttar Pradesh and southern Jammu and Kashmir.

Marco Madella, an environmental archaeologist and professor at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, who has surveyed Sindh for potential archaeological sites, describes it as a very international civilisation. “It had connection with many parts of the world. And to think that was 5,000 years ago, that’s something incredible,” he observes.

One of the statues found by KN Dikshit in Mohenjo Daro, on display at the National Museum in Karachi. Archaeologists believe the statues were a reflection of how women of the Indus cities dressed

ECHOES OF THE PRESENT

Kaleemullah Lashari, who heads the Technical Consultative Committee for National Funds for Mohenjo Daro, believes that using the translation of certain words might result in people missing the context, while referring to terms such as Meluhha and the black land.

“It is often said that Meluhha may have been an area that included Makran, Sindh and parts of Gujarat, or it may have been an area within this larger region,” Lashari tells Eos. There were reasons why specific words were used and they often had connotations that were very different to what they are translated into, according to him.

“Of all the artefacts found at Indus sites, we have mainly jewellery more than anything else,” observes Tasleem Abro, who is the director of the Archaeology and Anthropology Museum at the Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur. “We have found women’s finger impressions on pottery,” she says, adding that even back then, they were “working women.”

The custom of wearing bangles on the entire length of the arm was widespread among women in Sindh up until about 200 years ago, after which it reduced significantly, according to historian and scholar Badar Abro. “Thar is the living museum of Mohenjo Daro,” he says.

“One thing we have to be careful [about] is not to try to connect things in a direct way, because, at the end of the day, if you want to use some adornment on your arms, what do you have? Bracelets,” says Madella. “The same object, when we move it from one society to another, can have radically different meanings,” he adds.

While conducting excavations at Mohenjo Daro in the winter of 1924-25, the archaeologist Kashinath Dikshit found a seven-inch statue of a female adorned with jewellery and an elaborate headdress. He would, over the course of that season, unearth 200 human figurines, mostly female.

Dikshit associated these with the cult of the Mother Goddess and noted in his report that “the female energy, or ‘mother principle’” were central to some of the earliest forms of worship in the ancient world. He believed, as do some archaeologists today, that the sculptures are a reflection of how the women of the Indus Civilisation dressed.

Over the next two years, Dikshit recovered two hoards of ancient jewellery in gold, semi-precious stones and ivory. The items included bangles, ear ornaments, hair clasps, combs, hairpins and a necklace.

In the excavation season of 1925-26, another archaeologist, Madho Vats, found a copper statuette of what “appears to be a dancing girl,” according to his colleague Sahni’s report for that year. This label seems to have stuck, as it was used in the reports that followed and is applied till this day.

In the following year, Sahni would find another “naked dancing girl.” He noted that one of its arms was “covered with bangles from the shoulder to the wrist.” Similarly, in 1930-31, a third statue, also referred to as a dancing girl, was found by British archaeologist Ernest Mackay.

It emerges from these early reports that the ‘Priest King’ label, like that of the dancing girl, was a result of an attempt to describe and make sense of an artefact. When the male bust was found by Dikshit in 1924-25, Mackay wrote in the report for that year, “It seems probable that this head is that of a priest, for priestly statues have been found in Babylonia, wearing garments very similarly decorated with trefoils”.

Ancient jewellery in gold and semi-precious stones on display at the Harappa Museum



THE MATRIARCHS OF THE INDUS

Among the numerous seals that surfaced in Mohenjo Daro, there were some that depicted a human figure wearing a horned headdress, seated in what Mackay describes in his report for the year 1928-29, as “a yoga attitude.” The figure’s arms, Mackay writes, are “adorned with bracelets.”

Indian archaeologists Madhukar Dhavalikar and Shubhangana Atre believe that the figure in the seal is a female. In a research paper published in 1989, they refer to it as “Lady of the Beasts,” or the goddess of fertility.

According to Dhavalikar and Atre, two other seals, found in Mohenjo Daro showing a religious ritual, contain depictions of female devotees and a high priestess. In the seals, the devotees are shown with long braids, while the high priestess wears a horned headdress.

“Women had a very high place in that society,” says Asma Ibrahim, adding, “We have come to know that women were the head of the house.”

A stroll through Mohenjo Daro’s residential neighbourhood reveals that its inhabitants enjoyed better standards of living than most people of the area do today.

In the late eighties, a group of physical anthropologists conducted studies on skeletons in a cemetery at Harappa and found that the women buried there were closely related to one another, while the men weren’t related to each other, or to the women (Pakistan Archaeology, 1993).

Indus figurines on display at the Harappa Museum

On the basis of these findings, American archaeologist Mark Kenoyer, who was in charge of the excavations, writes in Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation, that “a woman was buried near her mother and grandmother, and a man was buried near his wife’s ancestors rather than his own.”

It seemed to suggest that it was the husband who was entering the wife’s family, rather than the other way round. Kenoyer goes on to mention that further studies are needed to confirm this theory.

“Genetic studies from the Indus are problematic, because there are not many cemeteries in general,” says Madella. The other problem, he tells Eos, is that the climate of the region is not conducive to the preservation of organic material, such as DNA or collagen, in skeletons. There is, therefore, “very little preservation of the molecules that would have been used for doing this kind of analysis,” he notes.

Lashari tells Eos that the matriarchal element grows stronger the further back one goes, to settlements in the Greater Indus Region, such as Mehrgarh, a site in Balochistan, believed to date back to the 8th millennium BC.

“The radiocarbon chronology of Mehrgarh is a complete disaster and it is absolutely unreliable,” Italian Paolo Biagi, an archaeologist and senior researcher at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, tells Eos via email.

“They made just a few dates, which are very obsolete and the results do not follow the suggested techno-typological sequence,” Biagi says. The only way to know the real chronology of Mehrgarh is to date as many of the human bone remains as possible, he adds.

Mehrgarh figurines dating back to the end of the fourth millennium BC are described in the Mehrgarh Field Reports 1974-1985 as having “heavy pendulous breasts” and a “hooked nose.” Figurines from this period, and the ones from the middle of the third millennium BC, have elaborate, even glamorous hairstyles, setting them apart from those found at Indus sites like Mohenjo Daro and Harappa.

According to Asma Ibrahim, a study needs to be conducted on who was making these complex hairdos during that period and the specialised skills involved. “They have more than five-hundred hairstyles in Mehrgarh,” she says, referring to the figurines.

“If you look at the comparison between the Early Indus period [3300-2600 BC] and the Mature period [2600-1900 BC], there’s a lot of change,” says Nilofar Shaikh. “There is continuity — we have evidence here, but suddenly we have these cities rising up on the banks of the rivers,” she adds.

During this period, there is another change: items in ivory, gold and silver, are being produced on a large scale in Indus cities, whereas in the earlier period, there are only one or two odd cases of gold or silver being found, according to Shaikh.

She says that studies need to be carried out on what triggered these changes. The transfer of technology“ and ‘the exchange of knowledge’ were a result of constant contact with the wider region, including Mesopotamia and Sistan (Iran), according to her.

“Until and unless our own script is deciphered — of the Indus — we cannot say much,” she says.

The writer is a Karachi-based journalist who has written for local and international publications.

His work can be found at alibhutto.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, September 8th, 2024