UK 

Yvette Cooper’s praise for Italy’s deportation scheme will fuel far right

Keir Starmer previously said Labour is ‘very interested’ in Italy’s racist deportations scheme

Yvette Cooper and Keir Starmer at the National Crime Agency looking to clamp down on refugees (Pictures: Flickr/Number 10)

By Tomáš Tengely-Evans
Friday 22 November 2024  

 SOCIALIST WORKER Issue

Labour home secretary Yvette Cooper has praised a deportation scheme pushed by Italy’s fascist prime minister Giorgia Meloni.

She claimed on Friday it was “very different from the really chaotic Rwanda scheme” pushed by the Tory government.

Italy’s scheme holds refugees who are deemed to come from a “safe country” in Albania to process their claims. The fascist-led government has expanded the list of “safe countries” from 15 to 21—it now includes the brutal dictatorship in Egypt.

The first deportations took place last month. Refugees picked up by the Italian coast guard were shipped to the island of Lampedusa.

Here, Italian authorities “screened” them and singled out men from “safe countries” to deport to Albania. And once in Albania, the refugees were taken to a former air force base in Gjader.

Human rights groups slammed the deal as a breach of international law, but the European Union and a host of mainstream politicians have tacitly backed it.

Cooper said Labour wanted to fast-track deportations of “people who are arriving from predominantly safe countries”. “What Italy is looking at with Albania is being able to take those fast-track decisions,” she said.

“It is just for predominantly safe countries, so this is very different from the really chaotic Rwanda scheme.

“The previous government spent £700 million in the two and a half years it was running in order to send four volunteers to Rwanda.”

Weyman Bennett, Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) co-convenor, slammed mainstream politicians for fuelling the rise of the far right. “The Italian scheme is driven by racism and division and no politician should have anything to do with it,” he told Socialist Worker.

“There are 300 new Reform UK branches being formed and they are not just targeting just Conservative seats.

“The beneficiaries of this rhetoric will be the right and Reform UK.”

Weyman said Labour’s talk of “stopping the boats” ignores what forces people to cross the English Channel. “What’s driving people is bombs, bullets and pestilence—and there is no attempt to deal with those things,” he said. “The solution is safe and legal routes, not scapegoating.”

Many anti-racists were hopeful when the new Labour government scrapped the Rwanda deportations scheme and shut the Bibby Stockholm prison barge in Dorset. That was due to pressure from anti-racist campaigners—and, in the case of the barge, protests by refugees themselves.

But Labour said its move was on the basis of “efficiency”—and paints immigration as a problem to be managed.


Starmer is ‘very interested’ in Giorgia Meloni’s racist immigration scheme
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Cooper has promised to deport 14,000 migrants by the end of the year. And she says that Labour wants to “smash the criminal gangs” that traffic some people across the English Channel.

But the people-smugglers only exist because of Britain’s and the European Union’s racist border rules. If refugees had safe and legal routes to Britain and Europe, they wouldn’t be forced into the hands of organised criminals.

Every time politicians have ramped up border security, it has only forced people seeking a new life to use ­deadlier means. And every time refugees drown or freeze in the back of a lorry as a result, politicians respond with calls for a tougher security—which only ensures yet more deaths.

More than half of those travelling by small boats come from war-torn and dangerous countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Syria, Iraq and Sudan.

Labour promised “change” to millions of working class people who’d suffered under 14 years of Tory austerity and racism.

Instead, Starmer’s ministers praise a fascist government in Italy for making the deportation flights run on time.

Labour’s scapegoating will only fuel the likes of Nigel Farage, Reform UK and the far right. Anti-racists have to keep demanding safe and legal routes—and an end to scapegoating of refugees and migrants—under Labour.Support Stand Up To Racism

Mourn and Organize

By Peter Bohmer

November 22, 2024

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

Trump’s victory is a serious loss for most people in the United States and globally. I disagreed before the election and now, that it didn’t matter who won the Presidential election. Let us mourn and grieve but not give up. Elections matter and this one certainly does but being political means building and gaining power, being active to further what you believe in, much more than voting or supporting a candidate.

I don’t know if any campaign would have caused a Kamala Harris victory. However, her pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian positions, her pro fracking and promoting more oil and gas production by the U.S., and especially her promotion of neoliberal economic policies and not promoting raising the minimum wage, or making unionizing easier or advocating for universal, quality and affordable health care for all was wrong morally and tactically (to win).

Racism, and certainly sexism, were a big factor in Trump’s victory, more below. It is hard to measure its influence on the election, but a proportion of the U.S. population is not willing to vote for a Black and Indian woman with immigrant parents for President. The Republicans also stoked and played into transphobia. Support for Trump’s toxic masculinity contributed to his growing support from 2016 to 2024 among young men; this was most pronounced among the non-college educated.

Perhaps most significant is the defection of working class and non-college educated households and individuals to Trump and the Republicans, first primarily among whites and increasingly among Latin@, Asian American and African-Americans. Among African Americans, the decline was primarily among men. Some of this was manifested in non-voting. Nonvoting increased significantly from the 2020 Presidential election. Nonvoting should not be exaggerated but my guess is that three million less will have voted in 2024 than in 2020 in spite of a voting age population that grew by four million. Much of the decline in voting was in areas that have been the most strongly Democratic, e.g. Chicago, New York, Detroit, Philadelphia, Los Angeles.

The recent election was not a landslide for Trump and the Republicans. They will continue their small majority in the United States House of Representatives and flip the Senate from 51 who vote Democratic to 49 Republicans to, 47 Democrats to 53 Republicans. Trump gained about three percentage points in the Presidential race, compared to 2020, from 47 to slightly below 50% of the vote, and Harris lost about three percentage points compared to Biden in 2020, from 51 to 48 per cent of those who voted. Including votes for third party presidential candidates, almost three million, Trump will have received slightly less than ½ of the votes of those who voted.

Even if Harris had won by a small margin much of the following is still relevant. In this period, where the threat of fascism must be taken seriously and combatted, the concept of non-reformist reforms or reform and revolution is still applicable. The idea is to organize, develop campaigns to have victories that at least partially meet people’s felt needs, that can’t be fully met in a capitalist society, leading to further demands, that build political consciousness and power from below. An example would be winning a campaign for free public transportation with worker and community control of the transit company. A challenge and priority today is the need to prevent further declines in all forms of justice and programs, e.g., Medicaid, and stop attacks on the most vulnerable while organizing to go beyond the status quo.

Key is building and furthering social movements, organizations, developing ongoing campaigns with a focus on the following struggles. Victories, even partial victories and substantial reforms will be more difficult with the Republicans rather than the Democrats controlling the Presidency, U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court but still possible. Hopefully this control will be temporary but let us not put most of our energy and limited resources towards getting Democrats elected in 2026 and 2028.

Key Issues!Anti-Authoritarianism, anti-Fascism. By this I mean there is a substantially greater likelihood of a more repressive state with more serious repression and oppression focused on the most vulnerable and those who actively oppose this authoritarian agenda. This danger is real, the most serious in my lifetime. We are not living in a fascist society and should never exaggerate the current reality, but that is the current project of Trump, Vance, key advisors like Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller and Project 2025, and most of Trump’s appointees.

It is imperative that we build a broad coalition with all who support democracy and oppose increased repression even if they don’t share our perspectives on some issues. Our challenge is to build a broad front against fascism while simultaneously having some of us put forward a theory and practice that opposes all forms of oppression and advocates for justice and liberation for all. Let us continue to organize to free all political prisoners, present and future.

We should support a diversity of tactics including teach-ins, rallies and large demonstrations, direct action including civil disobedience and disrupting business as usual while being deliberate to not isolate ourselves from the broader population; that our actions build the movement against repression rather than isolate it. Although there will be opposition by many Democratic Party officials and many courts and judges to growing authoritarianism and that is necessary, let us not rely on them or follow them to stop the current danger. Palestine Solidarity and an Arms Embargo of Israel—One of the most significant social movements in the US (and globally) in the last 13 and a half months has been the Palestine solidarity movement, on and off campus. Netanyahu is celebrating Trump’s victory and is expanding the war in Lebanon, the West Bank, and threatening to go to war with Iran. Although difficult to be so, the Trump Administration will probably be even more supportive and complicit in Israeli genocide than the Biden Administration has been. Gaining an arms embargo and the US demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the end of the Israeli war on the West Bank and Lebanon will be even more difficult than under Biden but not impossible and should continue to be a priority.

We need to deepen and broaden the Palestine and Lebanon solidarity movement. Although popular support for a U.S arms embargo has majority support in the U.S., one of our tasks is to increase knowledge and active opposition to the U.S. and Israeli war in the Middle East. The U.S. support for Israel was not the major issue for most voters in the recent election although it probably caused many eligible voters to not vote for President and in fewer cases to vote third party. I think the mainstream media and Democratic Party leaders underestimate the importance of Palestine, and not only to Muslims and Arabs. Winning a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the end of bombing of Gaza and Lebanon is a central issue of our time and Israel could not continue without continued U.S. military support.

We also need to also address the underlying issues by supporting the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the end of the blockade and siege of Gaza and the right of return of Palestinians to within the 1948 Israeli borders, often called, Israel 48. Also we should campaign for a solution that leads to the equality of all people, Palestinian and Jewish, in what is historic Palestine, the end of Jewish domination. Even if Israel stops in the future the bombing of Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, the need for a continuing and strong Palestine solidarity movement continues.

3) Economic Justice, Policy

At the very least it is important to maintain the inadequate social safety net we have: Social Security, the Affordable Care Act (healthcare), Medicaid and Medicare, food stamps, Section 8 housing vouchers, protecting unions, child care subsidies, etc. Although an uphill battle with all three branches of government controlled by Republicans and the neoliberal leadership of the Democratic Party, there is popular support for the following which we should organize for.Making it easier to unionize, supporting the PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize Act). This act would make it easier to organize, including gig workers who are usually defined unjustly as independent contractors and thus not eligible to form or join unions.
Raise the national minimum wage to at least $15 an hour with yearly increases to cover the increase in prices.
Extend the Affordable Care Act towards universal, quality and free health care for all including undocumented immigrants and inmates financed by taxes on the wealthy.
Resist all tax cuts for the 1% and organize a campaign for a more progressive tax system, increased taxes on capital gains, corporations and high-income households.
Forgiveness for student debt
A non-reformist reform for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) that guarantees every household an income above the poverty line while maintaining or increasing most existing social programs. Complementary or a possible alternative is winning Universal Basic Services (UBS) that would provide free or affordable and quality public services such as healthcare, childcare, education, transportation, and internet access for all residents.

4) Immigrant Justice


At the very least, maintain DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and resist and stop by any means necessary the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. Organize to continue and expand Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that allows people from countries in war, people facing a severe crisis to remain and work in the United States during dangerous conditions in their home countries, e.g. people from Haiti, Venezuela, Ukraine!

We should do active immigrant defense at the community level and organize at the city, State and National level to prevent mass imprisonment and deportation of immigrants and against the use of the courts, private corporations like GEO, local law enforcement and the National Guard and U.S. Military to carry this out. We need to build an underground movement and a mass movement in solidarity with all immigrants.

Anti-immigrant politics and related policies are a key part in the United States, Canada and Europe right-wing social movements and growing political parties for fascism. Challenging all aspects of this right-wing anti-immigrant politics must be a central part of our campaigns. It is a part of the struggle against continuing U.S. racism. Unlike the Harris campaign which didn’t challenge the demonization of immigrants, a popular education campaign about the positive aspects of immigration—revitalizing depressed communities, their humanity, providing key labor in many sectors of the economy, e.g. agriculture and housing construction, the tech industry; and furthering diversity, is essential.

The U.S. by its past and present, foreign intervention in other countries, e.g., Central America, and the U.S. being a major cause of climate change, should be explained in accessible terms as a cause of refugees, including climate refugees coming to the United States. We should increase the support and solidarity with and granting paths to citizenship for these asylum-seeking refugees. Those fleeing poverty are also refugees, economic refugees.

5) Climate Justice

We need to further organize to maintain the reforms although inadequate of the Biden administration, e.g., The Inflation Reduction Act which incentivizes growing usage of wind and solar energy and electric cars, and towards the elimination of coal production; the appointment of some people in the EPA and other agencies who take the climate crisis seriously. It means the United States staying in the inadequate Paris Climate Agreement, which is a forum for advocating for increasing financial aid to the Global South countries so they can develop economically, while decreasing the use of fossil fuels.

Trump’s campaign promise of “Burn, Baby Burn, and his appointees should be taken at face value. He plans to withdraw from the inadequate Paris Climate Agreement; it

means increased drilling for oil and natural gas on public lands, it means reducing restrictions or regulations on the production of fossil fuels, and the increased production and export of liquefied natural gas. This extractive policy poses an existential threat to people across the world if Trump and the oil industry get their way.

The majority of people in the US want to reduce the use of fossil fuels and there is a significant climate justice movement on and off campus. Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) of fossil fuel companies and of financial institutions supporting this sector is alive and growing. Our task is to grow popular movements to win the phasing out of fossil fuels by ending all subsidies on oil and gas production, that cuts off financing of this industry, that gets institutions such as cities, churches, pension funds, and universities to divest from corporations complicit with this industry. It will be easier to have victories at the State and local level so demands should be directed there at least as much now as at the Federal level. A growing campaign for a Green New Deal that combines good jobs at a living wage, racial and economic justice and keeping fossil fuels in the ground has the potential to build a broad coalition. It should include financial support for the Global South. A diversity of tactics including militant action is called for. The broad support for dealing with the climate crisis means that militant actions can have broad support and delegitimize further the petroleum industry.

6) Reproductive Justice and the Right to Abortion


We should continue and expand our organizing to institutionalize the right to abortion at the State and local level, including the public financing of the costs of abortion. This does not mean giving up on struggles for the national right to abortion, but victories are easier at the current time at the State level. Also, abortion clinic defense remains essential!

Like the broad concerns about the climate, most of the population supports the right to abortion, even in States that voted for Trump.

7) Solidarity with LGBT struggles, people.

Anti trans advertising and speech were a major part of the Republican campaign at the national level and at the State level, e.g., in the campaign against the reelection of Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Popular education in support of trans rights is important both in the general population and in all our movements. So is defense, physically, being welcoming in our communities and organizations, and organizing for LGBT rights in our programs and campaigns.

8) Globally, we need an internationalist global solidarity framework and practice which includes but is not limited to Palestine and Lebanon. What follows are a few specifics.

The ultra-nationalism of the Trump administration is a serious threat to the population of the world, especially in the Global South. There is no respect for the sovereignty of other societies or their right to self-determination nor concern for their people. This needs to be challenged at the ideological level and against the related actions and policies.

The danger of a U.S. initiated war against China is real. In criticizing the exploitation of workers in the Chinese economic system and its domestic repression, let us make sure to demonstrate solidarity with the Chinese people and challenge anti-Chinese racism and demonization. We should oppose the threatened high tariffs against Chinese made goods. They are a regressive tax, meaning a lower proportion of their income will be paid for these increased tariffs by high income people and a higher proportion by the United States working class. Besides hurting Chinese workers, it will raise prices of most goods here. (Let us also stop Trump’s threat of raising tariffs against Mexican goods.) In addition, Chinese and U.S. cooperation in dealing with the climate crisis is necessary, e.g., sharing technology.

Other necessary parts of our global solidarity framework and social movements are continued opposition to nuclear weapons and nuclear war.

Peace and peace treaty with Iran! This does not mean supporting Iran’s oppressive and repressive regime, internally, but it does mean opposing all US aggression against Iran and opposing in all ways Israeli aggression against Iran including war.

We should oppose and end U.S. sanctions and/or U.S supported regime change against Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Iran.

We need to reduce the military budget and the number of U.S. military bases abroad.

What Else?


Education, Popular Education and the Media!

We shouldn’t ignore or demonize all the 78 million people who voted for Trump on November 5, 2024. He won half of the people who voted. Of those who supported Trump, there was justified anger against the ruling class of this country and against the elitism of the professional-managerial class (PMC) who are increasingly becoming the base of the Democratic Party. Much of the recent Democratic Party campaign was wrongly aimed at the PMC even though it failed to gain sufficient voters from the PMC to win; its support continued to decline among working class voters, many of whom did not vote.

The power of Fox News and right-wing social media in promoting Trump and the Trump agenda is very central to their success and a lesson for us; the importance of expanding our media and social media presence.

Some of the opposition to Harris and especially the support for Trump and the Republicans is racist and misogynist. The appeal of MAGA, Make America Great Again, is an idealized view of the U.S. past, i.e., the 1950’s where white men had more social status than Black people and other people of color and more than white women, and their leadership in all institutions was not challenged and the U.S. was the dominant power globally—economically, politically, militarily and culturally. The growing tendency of substantial numbers of white working-class members to support the Republican Party because of their resistance to racial equality has been apparent in presidential elections since 1968. It has been a conscious strategy of the Republican Party beginning with Nixon’s southern strategy in 1968, to gain a base with the white working class, not only in the South, but nationally by appealing to white fears. Trump and the movement he lead have been even more explicit and successful than past Republican campaigns in this racist appeal.

However, to write off half of the U.S. population as deplorable and hopelessly white supremacist and misogynist is wrong and defeatist. Conservative ideology and the right-wing movement have grown in the U.S. and in many other countries, especially in the Global North. Many are decent people who follow fake news. Let us be principled about racial, gender, immigrant and LGBT justice and rights while treating those who voted for Trump, respectfully.

We need to find points of agreement, e.g., their anti-establishment perspective, justified anger at the inequality of income and wealth in the United States and understand the causes of their support for MAGA. Then let us respectfully develop together a framework built on solidarity and caring for all while targeting those with economic power and global capitalism.

We should make a priority of popular education with those who are not wealthy but who share much of the Trump agenda. Schools are important arenas for popular education but so are neighborhoods, workplaces, churches, and community organizations. An aspect of reaching out means building inclusive communities and activities that overcome the isolation and alienation that is prevalent in the United States and a breeding ground for supporting strong and authoritarian leaders. It means reaching out and going in a respectful and principled way to communities where the majority support Trump.

A New Political Party?

The Democratic Party is a corporate controlled and pro imperialist Political Party. Interrelated is the increased alienation of young people, and the working class from it. Its transformation into being the political party that leads radical social transformation or even substantial positive reform of this country is unlikely to happen, and not worth the effort.

The Green Party received 0.5% of the vote for President in 2024, in spite of the opening they should have had because of the support for Israel, increased oil production and neoliberal economics by both major parties. They are primarily a party that runs weak campaigns for President every four years. The campaign of Green Party Presidential Candidate, Jill Stein, was concentrated in battleground states rather than in safe states which would have made sense, by getting more votes than they got and not helping Trump win. The Green Party claimed there was no difference between the Democrats and Republicans parties. In practice, the Green Party worked, even though ineffectively, to ensure a defeat by Harris. This was wrong although they did not cause Harris to lose because even if everyone who voted for Jill Stein had voted for Kamala Harris, the result would not have changed in even one State. Trump would still have won all the battleground States, even Michigan. There are many good people in the Green Party and many people who voted for them because they couldn’t vote for the Democratic Party because of its total support for Israel. We should reach out to them. The Green party and Jill Stein have repeated the same failed strategy and focus on Presidential campaigns for the last 20 years and not learned from these failures. It is time to put the Green Party to rest.

We need to build a party of a new type, not necessarily in the immediate future as it will require mass movements and major social upheaval. These are necessary preconditions for a significant new political party where millions are willing to go beyond the Democratic Party.

Why and What Kind of Party?To help connect and build unity across the major issues and social movements I have been examining and others social movements.
Develop and share historical memory of our past strategies and visions, and our victories and lessons from our gains and defeats, e.g. from Reconstruction.
Involvement in campaigns within social movements at a local, State and national level and in solidarity with others at a global level.
Developing an anti-capitalist vision(s) of an alternative to capitalism, One developed economic proposal is the participatory socialist vision developed by Michael Albert, Robin Hahnel and others, see www.realutopia.org
Not primarily electoral but has an electoral component! Running candidates that are accountable to our program, and involvement in initiatives consistent with our program should be a part of this proposed political party but only a part and not the priority. Probably more initially at the local level! Social movements are the key to challenging corporate and government power, towards reform and revolution, and this should be the focus of this political party of a new type.

By not being primarily electoral, we avoid the difficulty of getting off the ground in an electoral system structured to marginalize third parties. However, for this party to flourish, it needs to have a significant base to begin with and not be the creation of a few left intellectuals or small groups nor be a self-appointed vanguard party. Discussion should begin but the conditions are not right for its formation now.

In closing, get involved in organizing against authoritarianism and for justice and liberation! Our future and all of humanity and nature depends on it. On campus! Student movements have always played a central role in positive social change. The Palestine solidarity movement and encampments are a current example; the campaign for divestment from fossil fuel corporations is another.
In your community, workplace! Building strong social movement unionism is a priority and there is increased support for unions.

Now is not a time for escapism, resignation, cynicism, despair, or nihilism. Those in power, whether Trump or centrist Democrats win if we don’t challenge them on all levels.

REFLECT CRITICALLY on mistakes we, the left, have made that have isolated and limited us while not rejecting the left. Learn from our mistakes. Discuss with others what we can do better to be more effective. It is insufficient to blame the Democrats, the mass media, social media and those who supported Trump. Focus on what we can do!

Few people thought in 1855 that slavery would end in 10 years. Although racism has continued this was a partial but important victory.

We can win!

Si Se Puede!

Thank You!


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Peter BohmerWebsite

Peter Bohmer has been an activist in movements for radical social change since 1967, which have included anti-racist organizing and solidarity movements with the people of Vietnam, Southern Africa, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Palestine and Central America. For his activism and teaching, he was targeted by the FBI. He was a member of the faculty at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA from 1987 to 2021 where he taught political economy. He believes alternatives to capitalism are desirable and possible. Peter is the proud parent of a daughter and three sons.

SYRIAN KURDISTAN

Sara Organization, a place to fight violence against women

The Sara Organization for the Fight Against Violence Against Women has reported 388 incidents of violence, human rights violations and crimes against women in the last 10 months in Northern and Eastern Syria.


ANF
NEWS DESK
Friday, 22 November 2024,

With the 19 July Revolution in Northern and Eastern Syria, women established many institutions and organizations to defend their rights and fight against violence.

One of these organizations is the Sara Organization for the Fight Against Violence Against Women, founded by a group of female teachers in Qamishlo on 1 July 2013.

The Sara Organization works to protect women's economic, political, social and legal rights and to end violence against women and children in particular.

The Sara Organization focuses on issues such as violence, rape, polygamy and early marriage, based on Family Law, in solving social problems. The organization carries out many activities to protect women's rights and raise social awareness. In addition, it provides women with support in different areas.

Committees of the Sara Organization

The Sara Organization is organized on the basis of 5 committees: justice, communication, press and archive, economy, work and monitoring violence.

Justice Committee: Examines rights violations against women, develops solution proposals and forwards unresolved files to the prosecutor's office. It has representatives in court to defend women's rights.

Communication: Favor contact between women and the organization and work on awareness.

Press and Archive Committee: Documents the organization's activities and prepares reports.

Economy Committee: Develops projects to empower women economically and organizes support programs.

Committee for Monitoring Work and Violence: Provides psychological support after the evaluation of women's social situations.

The Sara Organization operates in cities such as the Afrin-Shehba Canton, Sirin, Kobanê, Qamishlo, Hesekê and Aleppo.

It also has offices in the Washukanî, Roj and Serêkaniyê camps. Currently, 119 female employees work to support women subjected to violence.

The organization administration told ANHA that they aim to open new centers in Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and Deir ez-Zor.

388 cases of violence against women reported in 10 months

The Sara Organization shared the statistics on violence and crime against women in the region between 1 January and 31 October 2024 with the public.

The 388 cases were listed as follows:

10 femicides,

2 threats of murder,

90 physical violence cases,

43 suicide attempts,

12 suicides,

2 rapes,

4 burnings,

52 polygamy cases,

37 child marriages,

50 abductions,

3 prostitution cases,

6 harassment,

73 psychological violence cases.

From Gaza to COP29: The 9 Types of Violence Wealthy Countries are Inflicting on the Global South

Tamara Pearson

 November 22, 2024
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At a protest for Gaza in Mexico City, the placard reads, “From Congo to Mexico, from Sudan to Palestine, our world will be free.” Photo by Tamara Pearson.

The wealthy, imperialist countries of the Global North are committing a long list of crimes against people in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. From bombing, to environmental destruction, through to media erasure, the powerful economic and political entities of the Global North are intentionally generating and maintaining catastrophe, then normalizing it.

But now in particular, what was once obscured by a thick, gluttonous veil of macho white Hollywood fairy tales and flimsy, arrogant narratives of bringing democracy to a barbaric Global South, is now harder to deny with the genocide in Gaza and the ongoing planet pillaging.

My latest novel, The Eyes of the Earth, decodes the more human and personal aspects of this plundering, and reveals the people resisting it, in beautiful and magical ways. Below though, is an overview of the nine key types of structural violence being committed.

1) The death industry

The uninhibited killing in Gaza is both an intentional genocide, a land grab, and a profit project for the arms industry. Israeli-based defense firm Elbit Systems reported higher second-quarter profits in August and plans to open a new munitions facility in southern Israel, while Israel has been testing and using new weapons in its wars, then trying to sellthat tech at various global arms fairs. US arms manufactures, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris – saw their profits soar past expectations this year.

Elsewhere recently, the US is building five new military bases in Somalia, and has struck a number of cities in Yemen. European transnationals are supplying weapons and ammunition for the war in Yemen. The US has been driving military intervention in Haiti.

The Global North uses such wars to maintain its hegemony and control over regions and resources. In 2023, total military expenditure was US$2.4 trillion, with the US the biggest spender, at almost half of that. Over 80% of the top 100 arms corporations are headquartered in the Global North.

2) Global North pollutes and over consumes, Global South suffers

Another COP, and the Global North and big business are focusing on defending their economic interests over defending our planet. As with last year at COP28, when there was an agreement to transition away from coal, oil, and gas, but wealthy nations then went on an oil and gas exploration spree, this year they are also weaseling out of any real commitment, let alone facing their responsibility for the harm to the Global South. This year, fossil fuel lobbyists have received more passes (1,773) to COP29 than all the delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined (1,033).

Meanwhile, the situation in poorer countries is going from bad to worse. From Cape Town to Cairo, drought, severe floods, and storms, are destroying lives, crops, biodiversity, infrastructure, and livelihoods. While disasters are also hitting the Global North, poorer countries lack resources for recovery.

The Global North is consuming excessively, while much of the Global South faces scarcity. The North outsources its pollution to the South; using coerced trade agreements, Global South countries are often forced to have weaker environmental regulations, which corporations then take advantage of. Companies like Smithfield Foods for example, produce pork in Mexico – leaving locals without water and contaminating the soil and water sources – then exporting much of that pork to the US. Richer countries shift water shortages to poorer regions by importing water-intensive products like vegetables, fruit, and meat. At the same time, countries like Nigeria have become an e-waste dumpsitefor Europe and the US; with impacts on locals’ health and the environment.

The Global North is responsible for an estimated 92% of greenhouse gas emissions, the US alone for 25% of global emissions, South America for just 3% and Africa for less than 4%. However, eight of the ten countries most affected by climate change are in Africa. For the loss and damage caused, the Global North will owe US$192 trillion by 2050, or $5 trillion a year.

3) Resource robbery

There is an ongoing transfer of wealth from the Global South to the North, where the South is used as a reservoir of resources and low-paid labor, which North corporations convert into profits that stay in the North. Inequality between wealthy and poor countries is not natural: it is constantly being created and reinforced.

Israel isn’t just bombing Gaza, it also wants to plunder its offshore gas reserves, and in late October 2023, the government announced that it had awarded natural gas exploration permits to Israeli and foreign corporations. Multinationals are stealing minerals and materials from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While corporations like Apple, Samsung, Huawei exploit Congo’s cobalt, the people there suffer from forced labor and human trafficking, child labor, hazardous working conditions, and extreme environmental harm.

This type of looting – both historic and in the present – on land stolen from Indigenous people and using enslaved labor, has funded infrastructure in the Global North, while it has been part of genocide, dispossession, famine, and mass impoverishment in the South. Today, the Global North drains commodities worth US$2.2 trillion a year from the Global South – enough to end extreme poverty 15 times over, and from 1960 to today totaling US$62 trillion.

4) Unfair trade

Related to, and facilitating resource robbery, Global North countries use their advantages to implement subsidies and tariffs that favor their corporations. These measures and unfair trade regimes provide protections for Northern investors, promote privatization, and formalize arbitration mechanisms that defend corporations and override Southern countries’ sovereignty and local laws.

Unfair trade gave the US’s rice and corn agroindustries the upper hand, so the US’s corn flooded Mexico and its rice flooded Haiti, and small farmers in both countries couldn’t compete and had to migrate en masse to the cities, leading to large swathes of informal housing or urban slums.

Likewise, Africa’s ten million cotton producers earn an average of US$400 – $550 a year, collectively losing around US$250 million annually to heavily-subsidized cotton producers in the West. Unfair trade deals between the European Union and Africa also mean that Africa’s food exports are uncompetitive against the €50 billion spent on keeping European food produce cheap. Subsidy-driven surpluses of European milk are powdered and sent to Africa, decimating its dairy industry, and the same happens with wheat, leaving Africa a net food importer.

The South loses 14 times more in such unequal trade, than it receives in aid.

5) Global wage apartheid

Major fashion corporations like Zara, H&M and GAP are using unfair practices in their use of factories in Bangladesh. These factories then struggle to pay the minimum garment workers’ wage, which increased last year to 2,500Bangladeshi taka per month (US$104.60). Working weeks are are 48-72 hours, while a single shirt from Zara sells for US$129. Garment workers in the US receive a mean monthly wage of US$2,698 – 25 times Bangladeshi workers.

The massive pay gap between the Global North and South is accompanied by huge differences in working hours, workplace conditions, access to holidays and other benefits, and how menial and physically exhausting the work is. Such differences can not be attributed to a lower cost of living (as purchasing power inequality between countries demonstrates) and are entirely about discriminating based on country.

6) Running the world

Despite the US’s role in the genocide against Gaza, it asserts the moral authority to police other countries through measures like sanctions and intervention. All the countries the US is sanctioning in various ways are in the Global South (Afghanistan, Myanmar, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Nicaragua, North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen) – sanctions which have everything to do with punishing countries for non-compliance with its impositions, and nothing to do with human rights. The US’s six decades of sanctions against Cuba have caused ongoing harm to people there, and CEPR estimates that the sanctions on Venezuela alone, by limiting access to food, medicine, and other imports, have resulted in at least 40,000 deaths.

At the same time, the US is pressing countries like Peru to rethink Chinese involvement in its critical infrastructure, as the US doesn’t want China to gain geopolitical clout in Latin America. This comes as the US also supported an anti-left coup and the consequent coup government in Peru.

The list goes on and on. The US supported the right-wing military coup in Honduras in 2009, intervened in Haitian elections the following year to get a pro-US right-wing victory, and backed a soft coup against Brazil’s Rousseff. It poured billions into Plan Colombia, that displaced millions and lead to thousands of deaths, and it trained military personal involved in counterinsurgency campaigns in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia. Meanwhile, the measly “aid” that Europe sends to Africa after having plundered it, comes with conditions that destroy people’s own socioeconomic models and replaces them with the neoliberal model.

All of this is a violent disregard for autonomy. Such policies are unempowering, erase identity, override local agency, and subjugate the Global South in a clear continuation of colonialism.

7) Criminalizing the fleeing victims

Exemplifying this type of controlling behavior, Trump announced that he would impose tariffs on Mexican imports to the US if Mexico did not reduce the number of migrants (or “criminals and drugs” in his words) arriving at the US’s southern border. Besides the fact that the US shouldn’t use economics to dictate Mexico’s migration policies, migration – especially of refugees – is not something that can just be stopped.

The Global North’s response to people fleeing their homeland, usually as a consequence of the above-mentioned types of violence, is to criminalize them, endanger them through militarized borders, and deny their right to asylum.

At the US border with Mexico, there is a negation of due process, and people fleeing for their lives are forced to wait in Mexico for months. These migrants can’t work, nor afford accommodation, and face kidnapping, extortion (usually multiple times along the way), rape, torture, and being killed. They, and other refugees and forced migrants globally are also vulnerable to extreme exploitation and trafficking, including forced labor (there are 22 million forced laborers, including forced sex work).

Last year, the UK adopted the Illegal Migration Act which stops people who have to arrive without prior permission from accessing asylum and then expels them. Italy has been going so far as to crack down on organizations that save migrants’ lives at sea, and the EU as a whole has, as of December 2023, agreed on a new Migration Pact to prioritize deterrence over human rights, including a regulation that allows countries experiencing a “mass influx” to derogatefrom rights obligations.

8) Slaves to debt

Another way the Global South is both controlled, and kept in poverty, is through debt. Protesting Kenyans have recently managed to force the president to withdraw a bill that would raise taxes, but they were clear that it was the IMF driving such austerity policies, waving placards such as “We ain’t IMF bitches” and “Kenya is not IMF’s lab rat.” Likewise in Nigeria, such austerity, thanks to pressure from a US$2.25 billion World Bank loan, has seen Nigerian unions striking. And just days before the DRC’s elections last year, the IMF provided a disbursement because it wasn’t worried about who would win the election, knowing that any party would feel obliged to maintain its neoliberal economic agenda, including privatizing electricity, and mining codes that cater to Global North corporations.

The IMF and World Bank are controlled by the Global North, particularly the US (the US is the largest shareholder of the World Bank and a US citizen is always president of it). Loans are provided to countries that were once wealthy in resources, culture, and knowledge, but having been ransacked by colonialism, were plunged into material poverty. Now, many countries are dependent on foreign spending and have to offer cheap labor and resources to attract it.

Public debt in the Global South is growing twice as fast as other countries, with such countries paying US$847 billionlast year just in net interest. Some 54 countries last year spent at least 10% of government funds on debt interest payments, and 40% of the world’s population live in countries that have to spend more on such payments than on education or health. Most countries have paid off their debts over and over. In Mozambique for example, one aluminum shelter that was built with loans and aid money, is now costing the country £21 for every £1 that the Mozambique government initially received.

10) Racism and erasure in information and entertainment

And finally, all of the above are sustained by the entertainment, media, and other information industries and systems, with narratives that justify such inequality and violence, including Hollywood’s racist tropes and the news’ boycott of the Global South.

Euro- and US-centrism abound – the Global North and whiteness are the default, the correct, and the heroes. My novel, The Eyes of the Earth, has different heroes and tells a different story, as does a lot of other alternative content. But Hollywood is dedicated to other-ising the Global South and portraying it as a simple, pathetic, dirty and dangerous place This narrative dominates, as Hollywood accounts for around two thirds of total box office take in the international film industry.

The news, meanwhile, just plain overlooks the Global South. For example, the German Tagesschau on public broadcaster ARD had 462 reports on the US, 394 on the EU, 174 on France, and none on most African countries, and less than 10 on countries like Bolivia, Chile, and Sudan, in 2022. The Global South, despite representing 83% of the world’s population, only made up 4.4% of eAustrian Zeit im Bild (ZIB)’s lead stories.

The good news

Though less covered by the media, and despite the hardships and odds, there is resistance and resilience throughout the Global South, and solidarity with Gaza, for example, has been incredible in many Global North countries also.

With the gluttonous twins, Trump and Musk, practically running the US and beyond, in cahoots with corporations, arms and petroleum industries, and others, it is now at least crystal clear that this class is unwilling and incapable of providing environmental and human justice.

Tamara Pearson is a long time journalist based in Latin America, and author of The Butterfly Prison. Her writings can be found at her blog.