Sunday, November 10, 2024

South Africans protest against Israeli attacks on Gaza, Lebanon

November 10, 2024

Protesters with Palestinian and Lebanese flags gather at Embassy of Israel in a show of solidarity demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israeli attacks continue in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa on November 09, 2024. [Ihsaan Haffejee – Anadolu Agency]

South Africans on Saturday held a protest outside the Israeli Embassy in the capital Pretoria to condemn Tel Aviv’s continued attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, Anadolu Agency reports.

Waving Palestinian and Lebanese flags, protesters carried placards demanding justice, peace, and the call for an end to Israel’s attacks in the Middle East.

“Boycott apartheid Israel,” “Freedom for Palestine,” “Your silence will be studied by your grandkids,’’ read some of the posters.

Massarah Rejeb, who organized the protest, told Anadolu that they went to the Israeli mission to request and demand an immediate and irrevocable ceasefire in Palestine and Lebanon.

About 300 people, including members of trade unions, Lebanese people born in South Africa, and Palestinians, joined the demonstration.

“We came to the Israeli embassy to protest the ongoing genocide in Palestine that is now spilling over into Lebanon and threatening a regional-wide carnage,” Mametlwe Sebei, the head of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa, told Anadolu.

Sebei said they gathered to express their solidarity with the people of Lebanon and their resistance, as South Africans have with the Palestinians.

He said it was vital to send a message that South Africans will continue holding the line, intensifying their solidarity with the heroic people of Lebanon, Palestine, and the Middle East, who continue to resist “Zionist colonialism.”

The protesters’ demands included the call to the South African government, which has filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, to close the Israeli embassy in Pretoria as a firm stance against its ongoing aggression in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.

They also requested South Africa to stop all trade relations with Israel, particularly in coal.

Israel has continued its offensive on the Gaza Strip since a Hamas attack last year, killing more than 43,600 people, mostly women and children.

The conflict has spread to Lebanon, with Israel continuing deadly strikes across the country since late September, an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of the Gaza war.
Israeli settlers attack Palestinian homes, olive farmers in occupied West Bank

Israeli settlers and soldiers carried out attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, including against their homes and olive farms.


The New Arab Staff
10 November, 2024


Israeli forces often escort settlers attacking Palestinian civilians in the West Bank [Getty]


Israeli settlers attacked the homes of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank town of Yasuf, a local official told Palestinian news agency Wafa on Sunday.

Village council head Wa'el Abu Madi said dozens of settlers smashed windows and doors of the homes with stones.

In the al-Qanub area of Hebron governorate, settlers attacked Palestinian farmers and stole their olives.

Farmer Mohammed Abdul Hamid Shalaldeh was quoted by Wafa as saying that armed settlers forced him and other farmers to leave their olive fields and proceeded to steal their produce.

Shalaldeh added that Israeli forces had demolished tin houses and tents belonging to the families in a bid to expel them from the area.


Israeli settlers have carried out several attacks on Palestinians harvesting olives in recent weeks, since the beginning of the olive harvesting season in October.

Earlier this month, the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission reported that Israelis had carried out 360 attacks over the past month, mainly around Nablus.

The attacks include the uprooting of 1,401 trees, blocking Palestinian farmers from accessing their lands and theft of olive crops.

Settlers have also stolen harvesting equipment and vehicles of Palestinians.

Israeli settlers and soldiers have stepped up attacks on Palestinians since the beginning of Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023.

Israel forces and settlers have killed at least 760 Palestinians in the occupied territory since October 2023, and a further 6,300 have been wounded.

Over 11,600 Palestinians have been detained in that period, including journalists, children and former prisoners, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society.

REST IN POWER

Canada remembers Murray Sinclair, trailblazing Indigenous judge and senator

Relatives, friends and leaders say Sinclair, who died this week aged 73, and his legacy will ‘never be forgotten’.

Justice Murray Sinclair speaks during the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's final report in Ottawa, Canada, in 2015 [File: Chris Wattie/Reuters]

By Al Jazeera Staff
Published On 10 Nov 2024

Canada is holding a national memorial for Murray Sinclair, a trailblazing Indigenous judge and senator who led the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission into abuses committed against Indigenous children at residential schools.

The public event on Sunday afternoon in Winnipeg, in central Canada, comes days after Sinclair passed away on November 4 at age 73.

“Few people have shaped this country in the way that my father has, and few people can say they changed the course of this country the way that my father had – to put us on a better path,” his son Niigaan Sinclair said at the start of the memorial.

“All of us: Indigenous, Canadians, newcomers, every person whether you are new to this place or whether you have been here since time immemorial, from the beginning, all of us have been touched by him in some way.”

Sinclair, an Anishinaabe lawyer and senator and a member of the Peguis First Nation, was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba and the second-ever in Canada.

As chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), Sinclair organised hundreds of hearings across Canada to hear directly from survivors of the country’s residential school system.

From the late 1800s until 1996, Canada forcibly removed an estimated 150,000 Indigenous children from their families and forced them to attend the institutions. They were made to cut their hair, forbidden from speaking their native language, and many were physically and sexually abused.

“The residential school system established for Canada’s Indigenous population in the nineteenth century is one of the darkest, most troubling chapters in our nation’s history,” Sinclair wrote in the TRC’s final report.

“It is clear that residential schools were a key component of a Canadian government policy of cultural genocide.”

Mary Simon, Canada’s first Indigenous governor general, described Sinclair during Sunday’s memorial as “the voice of truth, justice and healing”.

She said he had “a heart brave enough to expose injustices, yet generous enough to make everyone around him feel welcome and important”.

Other Indigenous community leaders and advocates across Canada also have spent the past week remembering Sinclair for his unwavering commitment to confronting the systemic racism faced by Indigenous people.

“One of the greatest insights he shared is that reconciliation is not a task to be done by Survivors. True reconciliation, he said, must include institutional change,” Alvin Fiddler, grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) in northern Ontario, said in a statement after Sinclair’s death

.
Sinclair speaks at a Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada event in 2015 [Blair Gable/Reuters]

“Reconciliation, he taught us, is ours to achieve,” Fiddler said.

“The work ahead of us is difficult, but we share his belief that we owe it to each other to build a country based on a shared future of healing and trust. Murray encouraged us to walk the path towards reconciliation. Accepting this responsibility is a fitting way to honour his legacy.”

Pam Palmater, chair of Indigenous governance at Toronto Metropolitan University, said Sinclair was someone who “never stopped educating Canadians … and making sure we never forget”.

In an interview with CBC News on Sunday, Palmater noted that Sinclair “didn’t just conduct the TRC”; he was involved in many other initiatives, including an inquiry into child deaths in Manitoba and an investigation into the police department in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

“He’s never going to be forgotten. He’s one of those people where his legacy lives on,” Palmater said. “His impact is going to be felt for many decades to come.”

Source: Al Jazeera
FAILED STATE

Haiti replaces prime minister, marking more turmoil in its democratic transition process


A transitionary council created to reestablish democratic order in Haiti has signed a degree firing the country’s interim Prime Minister Garry Conille, replacing him with Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, a businessman who was previously considered for the job


ByEVENS SANON 
Associated Press
November 10, 2024



PORT-AU-PRINCE -- A transitionary council created to reestablish democratic order in Haiti signed a degree Sunday firing the country’s interim Prime Minister Garry Conille and replacing him with Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, a businessman who was previously considered for the job.

The decree, set to be published on Monday, was provided to the Associated Press by a government source. It marks even more turmoil in an already rocky democratic transition process for Haiti, which hasn’t held democratic elections in years in large part due to the soaring levels of gang violence plaguing the Caribbean nation.

Fils-Aimé, is the former president of Haiti’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry and in 2015 ran an unsuccessful campaign for Senate. The businessman studied at Boston University and was previously considered for the position as a private sector candidate for the post before Conille took the seat.

Conille, a longtime civil servant who has worked with the United Nations, served as prime minister for only six months.

The transitional council was established in April, tasked with choosing Haiti’s next prime minister and Cabinet with the hope that it would help quell turmoil Haiti. But the council has been plagued with politics and infighting, and has long been at odds with Conille. Organizations like the Organization of American States tried and failed last week to mediate disagreements in an attempt to save the fragile transition, according to reporting from The Miami Herald.

The process suffered another blow in October when a three of members on the council faced corruption accusations, from anti-corruption investigators alleging that they demanded $750,000 in bribes from a government bank director to secure his job.

The report was a significant blow to the nine-member council and is expected to further erode people’s trust in it.

Those same members accused of bribery, Smith Augustin, Emmanuel Vertilaire and Louis Gérald Gilles, were among those to sign the decree. Only one member, Edgard Leblanc Fils, did not sign the order.


‘Trump’s victory is devastating for progressives, but our voice is more important than ever’


Credit: Consolidated News Photos/Shutterstock.com

While working in Chicago for President Obama’s re-election campaign, the words of one man in a focus group the team ran will always stay with me.

He said that he’d voted for Obama in 2008 but for a far right “tea party” candidate at 2010’s mid-terms. We probed him further; we needed to understand why. What he wanted from life, he said, was to have a good job that would allow him to own his home and send his kids to college.

Because of the financial crash, he’d lost his job, his house had been repossessed and he could no longer afford to support his kids. So now, he explained, he would keep voting to fire politicians until his life got better.

14 years on, as many of us around the world reel from the news of Trump’s overnight election victory, and look to understand how and why this has been possible – and the work ahead to fully digest, accept and understand the impact of this result, it is this anecdote that comes back to me – and what it tells us about the motivation of many voters.

Devastating result for progressives

There is no sugar coating it. The result is bleak, bruising and bad beyond words. The consequences of this result will be felt around the world, for years to come. It is a grim day for anyone who cares about an economy that works for working people, women’s reproductive rights, democratic norms, the climate crisis and more.

Millions of Americans are waking up feeling fearful of how this will play out in their lives and what this means for the world. We will see more attacks on reproductive rights, even on things like IVF. We will see a devastating and harsh crackdown on immigration but also on immigrants who already live in the US; the chance of a trade war with China is high; and ongoing US support for Ukraine is now in question.

How did we get here? The post-election analysis will be long and no doubt painful – for the Democrats and beyond. But, it is not without good reason that political strategist after political strategist reaches for the famous 1992 Bill Clinton messaging, ‘it’s the economy stupid’ and ‘change vs more of the same’.

It is indeed a painful fact that a candidate can have the record Trump has in terms of their treatment of groups from women, to Latinos, to the Trans community to migrants – and yet this isn’t a deal breaker amongst the electorate as a whole in electing him when confronted with a cost of living crisis which has hurt working people across the country.

Indeed, in the hours of political commentary that have followed this morning’s results, shock and disbelief amongst presenters and pundits has abounded at the record support for Trump from Latino voters and People of Colour, along with a surprising uptick in support from younger women.

If we strip it back to ‘it’s the economy stupid’ and instead consider many of these voters as working class people, who are struggling to get by and cope with high costs, we can better understand why voting for a candidate who has polled ahead on the economy through the campaign might appeal.

And on the economy, like on so many issues, we see fact and feeling collide in the mind of voters – and feeling win out. Policies Biden has pushed, focused on infrastructure, investment and new green jobs are proving successful. The rub is that they are not yet flowing through to how people feel and therefore what they think. In the course of this campaign the Democrats relied heavily on using graphs and charts to underline this point and try and convince voters of the data. What it ultimately showed is this: feelings don’t believe facts.

Learning lessons from defeat

Would their feelings have been different if voters had believed that a Kamala Harris presidency would offer change rather than more of the same? Perhaps, perhaps not. One of the moments that might most underscore whether things could have turned out differently was the televised debate, where, asked what she would have done differently to the Biden administration, she gave the answer, ‘nothing’. Despite being a new candidate, the incumbency factor cost Kamala Harris dear.

It is too early for Democratic recriminations – but those will come. They will be a grim and probably damaging post-mortem. And the shockwaves will impact us here in the UK too.

For progressives in Britain – whether in Westminster or around the country, like the one million people who are part of the organisation I lead, 38 Degrees, who are united by their desire for a fairer, more respectful and more sustainable country – there are worries about what this might mean in terms of damaging government confidence in pursuing a progressive agenda.

Many politicians have taken confidence from the bold and objectively successful policies of the last Democrat administration. The absence of the example of big bold progressive policies, and the presence of horrendous policies soon to come, could knock the Labour government’s confidence to stick to their guns on their big, bold, progressive pledges.

But I believe, as we enter this unknown new era, it is more important than ever that we stand up for the enduring values of fairness, respect and sustainability. This was a bad night but it doesn’t change the importance of that voice, it makes it more needed.

It is more important today that the government hears demands from public for progress – to counter the wobbles they might have from this defeat of progressives across the pond – the government must stick to its mandate of big bold action on the cost of living, to save the NHS, to protect our environment, and more.

The lessons from this disaster will take time to absorb. But whatever our next steps, the reality is that voters who feel their lives are not being served by politicians, or the economic system they live in, will continue to fire their representatives until their lives get better.

‘Woke weapons:’ Culture war’s newest ammo


Today


'Including investments in arms companies in environmental, social and governance funds would make a mockery of the entire concept.'



There are concerns that the progress President Joe Biden made in gun safety law could be undone now Trump is to return to the White House, this time accompanied by a vice president who has called for disbanding the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Since 2015, 25 Republican states have passed laws allowing residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit, US media said. Both Trump and JD Vance have openly played down gun violence and have proposed increasing the number of school resource officers to avoid mass shootings at schools.

Speaking at the National Rifle Association’s Great American Outdoor in February, Trump boasted about his administration’s inaction on gun violence, claiming: “During my four years, nothing happened. And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield.”

Fortunately, gun ownership is one aspect of American culture that the UK has largely avoided. However, weapons have recently gained attention in Britain, where banks and the financial powerhouse of the City of London are attempting to recast investments in arms manufacturers as eco-friendly.

As reported by Politico, our cash-strapped government is looking to private sector funds to strengthen the defense industry. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria may inhibit these funds from reaching such manufacturers.

Miles Celic, chief executive of TheCityUK, contends that the war in Ukraine illustrates that weapons now serve a social good by defending democracy, and therefore deserve recognition as sustainable investments.

“We would argue there is a social value in defense that needs to be properly recognised amongst the sustainability community.”

But it’s a topic that risks inflaming tensions across the political spectrum. On the right, ESG has become a contentious term, with US Republicans accusing businesses of prioritising progressive values over profit.

Andrew Griffith, a Conservative MP and former City minister, argued against ‘blanket’ ESG policies.

“As City minister I saw first hand the damage done by ‘blanket’ ESG policies defunding British defense companies because the eco-warriors coming up with the indices happened to also be personally opposed to them.

“Patriotic pensioners and investors who had invested their money in funds were horrified to discover that whilst their freedoms were being defended against Russian invasion, some in the City were sabotaging the companies behind that defense,” he said.

Conversely, the left has criticised the City for channelling funds into harmful and polluting companies.

“Including investments in arms companies in environmental, social and governance funds would make a mockery of the entire concept,” said Emily Apple, media coordinator for the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).

“There is nothing sustainable or ethical about arms trade, and we should be encouraging divestment rather than finding loopholes for shareholders to make even more money from devastating people’s lives,” she added.

Curiously, the right-wing press has remained conspicuously silent on the story. Perhaps it’s easier to rally against perceived ‘woke’ excesses than to confront the complexities of redefining what constitutes responsible investment. The silence is particularly striking given the ongoing debates about gun culture in the US.
Dear Mormons, our history of worrying about 'impure blood' doesn't end well

(RNS) — Latter-day Saints are once again on the wrong side of justice, the wrong side of the gospel and the wrong side of history.

Migrants seeking asylum line up while waiting to be processed after crossing the border Wednesday, June 5, 2024, near San Diego, Calif. (AP Photo/Eugene Garcia)


Jana Riess
November 8, 2024


(RNS) — Last month, the Public Religion Research Institute released its annual American Values Survey, just in time for the presidential election. One finding in particular jumped out at me: Nearly a third of U.S. Latter-day Saints agree that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the nation.

PRRI likely added this question because President-elect Donald Trump used the phrase in his political campaign speeches at least once. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” Trump said in December 2023 at a rally in New Hampshire. “That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”

This idea of undesirable people “poisoning” the blood of a nation dates back nearly a century to another populist leader, a guy by the name of Adolf Hitler, as President Biden pointed out in response to Trump’s comment.

The comparison is worth examining now that we are awaiting a second Trump administration. Ordinary Germans who viewed themselves as good people — people who took casseroles to sick neighbors and attended church regularly — voted for Hitler in large numbers. They did so because he promised an end to their economic woes and vowed to make their nation one the world would have to respect again.

Not coincidentally, he also gave them convenient scapegoats for all the things that were wrong with their country — Jews, Roma people, sexual minorities, people of color. Anyone with “impure” blood. Anyone who did not belong in his vision, anyone with “poison” in their veins.


The “selection” of Hungarian Jews on the ramp at the death camp Auschwitz-II (Birkenau), in Nazi-occupied Poland, in May/June 1944. Jewish arrivals were sent either to work or to the gas chamber. Photo from the Auschwitz Album/Creative Commons

Last winter, when I was in Germany, I visited the vast site of the Nazi Party Rally grounds outside the city of Nuremberg, where Nazi Party leaders were tried in the years after the war ended and sentenced for war crimes.

What I did not realize is that Nuremberg was strategically selected to be the site of those trials because the city had been such a stronghold of Nazism in the 1930s. The sprawling grounds and enormous stadia attest to that. This was where thousands of Nazis convened each summer for party rallies, Hitler Youth competitions and events, family camps and military parades.

It’s a chilling place to see, and remember.

It’s likely that there were eager Latter-day Saints at those rallies. According to historian David Conley Nelson, most German Mormons were accommodationists of the Hitler regime, to varying degrees. The one German Mormon we have chosen to remember is one who resisted: teenage martyr Helmuth Hübener, the youngest resistance fighter to be executed for opposing the Nazi regime. We love his story, the fact that he sacrificed everything to be on the right side of justice, living out the gospel with everything he had.

But the LDS Church in Germany did not support him; in fact, his Nazi branch president excommunicated him for standing up to Hitler.

Again: Most church members in Germany were accommodationists. In fact, two of the saddest episodes that emerge in Nelson’s historical research relate to how obsequiously German Latter-day Saints sought to make themselves useful to the Nazi regime by helping Nazis with two things Mormons were very good at: basketball and genealogy.

In 1935 and 1936, Mormon missionaries helped teach the German national team how to play basketball so they could compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, the first to include basketball as a medal competition. They were apparently delighted to share their knowledge.

Throughout the 1930s, German church members employed their talents at genealogical research to assist fellow Germans in finding their ancestors — not for the usual reason of linking families together forever in the eternities, but for the much darker purpose of proving their Aryan ancestry. Germans living under Hitler’s regime had to demonstrate their “biological purity, free of ‘racial pollution’ or the ‘corrupting blood’ of Jews or others Hitler considered to be inferior,” Nelson writes. And Latter-day Saints, with their expertise in family history, were only too happy to help Germans verify their racial superiority.

Which brings us back to blood poisoning. I don’t think a majority of U.S. Latter-day Saints who voted for Trump this week did so because they were hoping to rid the nation of impure blood. Most likely did it because they believed Trump’s rhetoric about the economy.

But in doing so, they have nonetheless accommodated the other elements of Trump’s platform. That includes the scapegoating of immigrants, comparing them to animals (with animal and insect comparisons being step one in the dehumanization process necessary for their removal).

Our people are once again on the wrong side of justice, the wrong side of the gospel and the wrong side of history.


Related:

German Mormons: New book uncovers LDS support for the Third Reich

 

Existence # 2/2024

cover

The autumn issue of Existence magazine was dedicated to the topic of anarchist pedagogy. After 20 years, we are once again trying to stir up a discussion about the relationship between anarchism and education. We consider this topic to be somewhat neglected, so we decided to look at it from the ground up.

First of all, therefore, we discuss its philosophical perspective: we confront the topic of education with the anarchist view of human nature, apply basic anarchist principles to it, and wonder how the classics of anarchist theory approached it. We expose the purpose of institutionalised state-run education and the false myths surrounding it, such as its supposed progress, equal opportunities and emancipatory potential. We do not begin by asking how to make the school system better, but ask the fundamental question of whether school as we know it is even necessary.

This leads us to an anarchist perspective – we look for the fundamental pillars of an anarchist pedagogy and the tools that might assist it. We are not trying to give clear answers, rather we are asking questions and learning by discussing the topic ourselves. At the same time, we seek practical inspiration from (not only) anarchist experiments in education, both past and present. These experiences support our thinking as much as theory. When we talk about theory, we turn to those who have more or less addressed the question of education: to Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Ferrer, Goodman and Ward. In the pages of Existence we present books that we found stimulating in our discussion of education: Anarchism and Education: a Philosophical Perspective by Judith Suissa, Free Women of Spain by Martha A. Ackelsberg, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire and Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich. We were also inspired by these works and had fun discussing the pedagogical challenges within our movement.

In addition to the main theme, the magazine provides other interesting reading. We recall how 32 years ago in Prague, anarchists first beat up nazi-skinheads during a demonstration against fascism. Yavor Tarinski introduces his idea of democratic and ecological cities. With Peter Gelderloos we will reflect on real solutions to the climate crisis. For the 100th birthday of anarchist Colin Ward’s we bring a critical article by Wayne Price.

In the obituaries section, we introduce anarchists who have recently left us, including Tsvetana Djermanova, Alain Pecunia, Alexandre Sant’Ana, Thodoras Meriziotis, Julien Terzics, Roman Legar, Ruslan Tereshchenko, Alexander Pustovitov, James C. Scott and Vladislav Yurchenko. The texts of the A3 wall newspapers raise themes of clerofascism, wage labor, anti-social government and incompetent unions, Javier Milei’s visit to Prague, rainbow capitalism and race riots. We lay out activities of the domestic anti-authoritarian movement, including the May Day demonstration and the anarchist bookfair. The Anarchist Federation introduces its activities and concludes this issue, as always, with reviews – this time focused on 11 publications.

DOWNLOAD

 

La Tempesta: The unforeseen Palestinian issue in the global war

From Act for freedom now

“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”
– Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

The main value of these texts, published in Italy last March, is undoubtedly the commitment of the authors to the fate of the struggle of the colonized, imprisoned and massacred Palestinian population, and, additionally, the fact that their position does not yield to the overwhelming blackmail of those who try to equate any “pro-Palestinian” position with anti-Semitism. Amidst the general indifference to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, there are few who care to act; La Tempesta does.

However, after a first reading of the various texts that make up this publication, we are left with a mixed impression and a certain uneasiness. We are struck by the fact that some of the analyses, proposals and points of view with which we are in deep agreement are juxtaposed with others — sometimes separated by only a period or a comma — that evoke in us only repulsion, nausea and, since the authors are anarchists, dismay. We’re not used to well-argued and coherent words that, on the one hand, win our deepest convictions and, on the other, attract our most vigorous dissent.

Nevertheless, we have decided to translate these texts in order to make them available for reflection, discussion and debate. Some will find this an ambiguous choice, and they may be right. Despite the problematic aspects of the following texts, and despite the superficial, imprecise or unsubstantiated1 aspects and passages that some will certainly notice, it seems to us that in the course of the decisive events we are living through, which herald calamities that are likely to be even worse, these texts express, develop or repeat certain ideas, certain premises, certain principles that we consider relevant both for understanding reality and for orienting anarchist action today. Among others:

• The importance of supporting, through international solidarity movements, the emancipatory impulse of decolonization struggles and a clear, uncompromising stand against Israeli colonialism.
• The inflexible need to destroy the state, whatever it may be, and the assertion that there is an unbridgeable gap between political revolution and social revolution.
• Despite its naivety and lack of realism, given the circumstances and poverty of the times — both existentially and in terms of ideals — the affirmation and argument that replacing the Israeli State (or any other State) with a free federation of free communities is the only desirable horizon2, the only perspective capable of preventing decades of violence and dehumanization from making living together impossible.
• The affirmation of the defeatist principle, still valid today, according to which the struggle of the exploited during a war must be directed first and foremost against their own state, which logically leads to the voluntarist incitement that the battle is being fought here, at home, and that “it is up to us to attack the masters at home.”
• The observation that “if we do not do our part, with internationalist action from below, the initiative can only pass to the States“, which stems from the conviction that only internationalist interventions can make a difference.
• An overview of the current context, summarized as follows: “The war in Ukraine, as well as the conflict in West Asia (a definition that seems to us decidely less Eurocentric than the so-called Middle East), are chapters, for certain aspects different frontlines, of an increasingly heated global conflict, which sees in prospect the direct clash between the USA and China within the strategic horizon of the slow loss of hegemony by Western capitalism, even if it remains largely dominant for the time being.
• The assertion that militarization is not an ongoing process, but a fundamental principle of modernity, its precondition. That the spread of war today must not be attributed solely to the military sphere, but is inseparable from the civil, social and economic spheres, once presented as separate and now shamelessly organized ever more closely by the masters of the abyss.
• Awareness of the threat posed by the inextricable link between war, increased forms of censorship and propaganda, and repression.

That said, we find it unacceptable that what happened on October 7th is presented with euphemistic and misleading language such as “the October 7th action” and “the Palestinian resistance’s October 7th action.” The choice of these terms — when we would find it more accurate to speak of a massacre, or at the very least, bloody attacks — is indicative of a more general problem in the various texts, namely a kind of flight from reality on the part of the authors, an ideological relationship to the world that necessarily leads to the distortion of facts to the point of trapping oneself in a miserable campism: the purity of good on one side (the “Palestinian resistance”) and absolute evil on the other (Israel and those who live there).

For our part, we continue to believe that nothing can justify acts such as rape, torture and the slaughter of unarmed civilians, wherever they may come from, whatever the context, whoever the perpetrators, whatever the intentions. We used to think that one had to be a scumbag, a reactionary, or a Leftist — in short, a despicable person — not to oppose such acts adamantly, or to diminish their significance and sweep aside this abyss with a wave of the hand, on the pretext that they were “settlers”.3 We were wrong.4 Historically, while some anarchists have always sought to understand, promote and defend violence as a necessary and just means of action, this has always been a liberatory violence that has its own rules, its own ethics, and can in no way be indiscriminate violence. Need we remind you that the anarchists of the Makhnovshchina and the Spanish Revolution punished rape and pogroms with death?

It is one thing to not want to “cry with the wolves” against the October 7 attack, justifying it on the whole by the fact that “when someone is locked up in terrible conditions, don’t be surprised if they blindly make a bloodbath when they escape the cage” (an already slippery argument), or by preferring to “dilute” certain horrors through the search for the “truth of the facts” and to minimize them through intellectual relativization (the relationship to “violence” in such a context of colonization has its own distinctive features that cannot be sidestepped). But that today’s anarchists can not only ignore the horrors of October 7, offering no criticism whatsoever, not even the slightest reservation — falling, by the way, into the same logic of dehumanizing the enemy that the authors identify in the “automated genocide” carried out by the Israeli state and its army — but even implicitly valorize and praise these horrors (“the retaliation of the human and oppressed variant against the techno-military omnipotence”) by presenting them as “Palestinian Resistance” is, in our view, as unjustifiable as it is toxic.

The recurrent use of the concept “Palestinian resistance” is, in our view, a second source of problems. While speaking of “Palestinian resistance” (and sometimes even of “Palestinian Resistance”) is undoubtedly a convenient way to avoid dealing with the thorny issues that have accumulated over the past decades, it is also a distortion of reality, since it means using a smooth, homogeneous imaginary construct to cover up a complex reality. The “Palestinian resistance” here is nothing but a spectre that erases all the alterity, antagonisms, differences, rifts, contradictions, incompatibilities and conflicts between different real expressions of struggle — and struggles within the struggle — of the past and present in Palestine. This is tantamount to erasing the history and evolution of these struggles, their different elements, the perspectives of these different elements and the people who participated in them.

Is there no difference, then, between the intifadas of the past, the incendiary kites that set fire to Israeli fields in 2018, and bus bombings, or between demonstrations along the Israeli border and attacks like those of October 7? Is there no fundamental difference between the formation and organization of a religious “armed party” like Hamas — an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which claims to find its principles in the Koran and to fight in the name of Islam, which has close ties to the Iranian state and the state of Qatar, and which values martyrdom and suicide bombings — and armed groups that pursue ideals of freedom, social justice and emancipation, or popular uprisings with all their self-organization? Is there no difference, then, between military conflict and social insurrection, between combat orchestrated by politicians and popular uprisings? Concerns and reflections on problems such as the militarization of “the resistance”, the specialization into combatants, the concentration of decisions, the organization and material resources in the hands of a general staff, not to mention the dependence on foreign organizations and powers and the consequent subjection to their logic and interests, have marked the history of past struggles. To flatten these problems today under the guise of a fantasized “Palestinian resistance” would constitute a loss of immeasurable proportions. Struggles and resistance movements are not precious gemstones, and anarchists, revolutionaries and subversives are not jewelers: so let’s make sure that we bring together understanding, engagement, solidarity and criticism in the same movement, and that the quest for purity remains the sad business of diamond cutters.

After all, do we really need these ideological mystifications to criticize Israeli massacres, those of NATO, the military industry or technology? Must we refrain from necessary criticism, must we deny ourselves our anti-authoritarian, anti-nationalist and anti-religious ideas in order to take a clear stand against Israeli colonialism and the ethnic cleansing it has been carrying out for several decades? How would an uncritical glorification of “Palestinian resistance” advance us here or contribute to the ongoing conflict there?

***

Contemporary history is littered with events that teach us that, contrary to the blind promise of the Enlightenment, it is not the sleep of reason that creates monsters, but reason itself. As for our worlds of perception, engulfed by the icy currents of progress, battered by the metallic dominion of technology, eroded by the metastases of politics, paralyzed by the cold waters of egotistical calculations, dazed by the drums of ideology, we are no longer stunned by the realization that very little remains. We believe, however, that it is of fundamental importance to preserve what remains, in spite of everything. Bringing clarity to the anarchist struggle today also means understanding events (and evaluating or commenting on the discourses that accompany them) in relation to the following: the sleep of emotion and sensitivity generates good reasons.

A plethora of commentators (be they military experts, politicians, intellectuals, journalists, activists or militants) are forever reiterating their good reasons to justify this or that ongoing or future war, spewing their good reasons in the face of piles of corpses and shattered existences. How many of them would swallow these good reasons if they (or their loved ones) found themselves in the middle of mass graves and bloody quagmires, surrounded by desolation, directly affected by the events? Against the Western tradition that separates reason and intellect from passions and affects, considering the former as noble and the latter as vile, we are committed to thinking, always, with the heart and the mind. It is for this reason, moreover, that we reproduce in the appendix a recently published text entitled “Carnage in Palestine: The Reason of States Against Humanity,” which combines intelligence, sensitivity, revolutionary and anarchist principles and ethics in a powerful response to all those who for months now have managed to intoxicate an already stale and unbreathable air.

The translators of the French version, June 2024.

“Here is the tragedy in our situation: while I am convinced of the existence of human virtue, I doubt the human capacity to halt the holocaust we all fear. And the doubt is there because it is not humanity who makes decisions about the world’s ultimate fate but political blocs, constellations of power, clusters of States that speak a different language, that of power.

“I believe that the natural enemy of mankind is the mega-organization. It robs the individual of his vital responsibility for his fellow man. It shuts down his propensity for solidarity and love, instead making him a stakeholder in a power that seems directed at others, but ultimately is directed at himself. Because what is power other than the feeling of not having to pay for the consequences of evil deeds with your own life but with those of others?

“If, at last, I were to declare the futile dream that I like many others carry, it would be this one: that as many people as possible will realize the need to break away from the blocs, churches and organizations that hold a hostile power over the human being, not to mount new structures but to weaken the sway of power’s life-destroying forces in the world. Such a realization may be humanity’s only chance to relate as one fellow human being to another, to once again become one another’s friend and source of joy.”

Among other things, when the authors summarize the development of events in Ukraine from 2014 to the present, heavily imbued with the “Putin narrative”, or when they casually describe the population of Gaza as a “people-class without a State.” ↵
This necessarily means overcoming national, ethnic and religious barriers. Overcoming these barriers was a key feature of the Arab Spring uprisings, especially in Syria and more recently in Iran. In this respect, it is as significant as it is disastrous that during the pro-Palestinian rallies in Paris last October-November, groups of Iranian and Syrian exiles who criticized Hamas were sidelined by a Leftist anti-imperialism that was implicitly pro-Hamas. ↵
Settlers, really, the Thai workers, the Negev Bedouins, the Israeli Arabs, the exploited in the kibbutz, dead by the dozens on October 7, and taken hostage by the dozens and dozens? ↵
We must admit that it is disturbing to discover that there can be agreement between anarchists and the above categories on these matters. ↵

– Stig Dagerman, The fate of humanity is at stake everywhere and at all times

Among other things, when the authors summarize the development of events in Ukraine from 2014 to the present, heavily imbued with the “Putin narrative”, or when they casually describe the population of Gaza as a “people-class without a State.” ↵
This necessarily means overcoming national, ethnic and religious barriers. Overcoming these barriers was a key feature of the Arab Spring uprisings, especially in Syria and more recently in Iran. In this respect, it is as significant as it is disastrous that during the pro-Palestinian rallies in Paris last October-November, groups of Iranian and Syrian exiles who criticized Hamas were sidelined by a Leftist anti-imperialism that was implicitly pro-Hamas. ↵
Settlers, really, the Thai workers, the Negev Bedouins, the Israeli Arabs, the exploited in the kibbutz, dead by the dozens on October 7, and taken hostage by the dozens and dozens? ↵
We must admit that it is disturbing to discover that there can be agreement between anarchists and the above categories on these matters. ↵

 

Two Gifts from Ivan Aguéli: Sufi, Anarchist, Theosophist, Painter

From Bitter Winter, A magazine on religious liberty and human rights, by Massimo Introvigne

A museum in Sala and a book on his magazine “Il Convito” help understanding the different aspects of the extraordinary career of the Swedish artist.

This year, I received two gifts from a character I had been interested in for decades, Swedish painter Ivan Aguéli (1869–1917). First, I was finally able to visit the Aguéli Museum in his birthplace, Sala, Sweden. Sala is located some 130 kilometers from Stockholm, and the museum is open only four days per week. It is a small museum but still essential for understanding Aguéli as an artist. 

In fact, there is a different perception of Aguéli in Sweden and elsewhere. In Sweden, he is primarily known as a painter, and one who eludes classification in a specific current, and honored as such. Abroad, his artistic production is less known than his role in the history of the spread of Sufism in the West, esotericism, and anarchism. In fact, a closer look at the Egyptian landscapes may open a window on Aguéli’s spirituality. But you have to look at them twice.

Massimo Introvigne visiting the Aguéli Museum in Sala, August 17, 2024.
Massimo Introvigne visiting the Aguéli Museum in Sala, August 17, 2024.

The second gift came by the mail. It was the book by Paul-André Claudel “Un journal « italo-islamique » à la veille de la Première Guerre mondiale : Il Convito / النادي [al-Nâdî] (Le Caire, 1904-1912)” (Alexandria: Centre d’Études Alexandrines, 2022). The book is a jewel and confirms that there is no substitute for the printed paper. The elegant composition of text and illustrations would never be the same on Kindle. 

The museum in Sala introduces the artist but does not reveal the important role of Aguéli as a cultural strategist who tried to create a friendship between a part of the Western culture and Islam. This is the subject matter of Claudel’s book, organized around the magazine “Il Convito,” published in Italian, Arabic, and sometimes Ottoman Turkish in Cairo between 1904 and 1907, with two further issues in 1910 and 1912 by Aguéli and Italian medical doctor, scholar, and intelligence agent Enrico Insabato (1878–1963). 

Claudel’s tour de force succeeds in showing the idiosyncratic nature of the magazine. There is little doubt that Insabato, under his hat (one of many, though) as an Italian spy, produced the magazine to persuade Muslims that, unlike Britain and France, the secular Italy of the early 20th century was a friend of Islam. Engaged in an ideological and political conflict with the Vatican, Italy did not support Catholic or Protestant missionaries either.

The cover of Claudel’s book.
The cover of Claudel’s book.

However, the continuous dialogue and cooperation between Insabato and Aguéli produced a magazine unlike the many others published by Europeans in Egypt. The latter often praised reformist and modernized Islam. On the contrary, Aguéli was a Sufi and “Il Convito” praised a traditional Islam resisting modernization and criticized the reformists. 

It also maintained that traditional Islam needed a caliphate, which led the magazine to a pro-Ottoman position that finally led to its undoing. When Italy attacked the Ottoman Empire in 1911 to add Libya to its colonies the contradiction between the pro-Italian and pro-Turkish attitudes of “Il Convito” exploded. The Young Turks revolution of 1908 had already changed a landscape where Türkiye could be perceived as the representative of a traditional Islam opposing modernity.

Aguéli (standing, left) and Insabato (standing, center) with others in Cairo, circa 1904.
Aguéli (standing, left) and Insabato (standing, center) with others in Cairo, circa 1904.

Of course, Aguéli the Muslim convert and Sufi is well-known as the man who introduced René Guénon (1886–1951) to Sufism, although on how extensively the latter was influenced by the Swedish painter (perhaps more than he cared to admit) opinions differ.

Claudel’s book also offers some curious clues about Aguéli’s relationships with esoteric milieus. Given what “Il Convito” was and its connections with the Italian intelligence, it may look strange to find there Theosophical references and an obituary of Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907), co-founder of the Theosophical Society. But the references are less strange if we consider that Aguéli was a member of the Theosophical Society himself. 

Obituary of Colonel Olcott in the June 1907 issue of “Il Convito” (from Claudel’s book).
Obituary of Colonel Olcott in the June 1907 issue of “Il Convito” (from Claudel’s book).

As many in Swedish esoteric milieus and beyond, he was also influenced by Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). Claudel adds some interesting details, including the close relationship in Cairo between Aguéli and Eugène Dupré (1882–1944), in fact so close that they shared for a while the same apartment. Dupré co-founded the Egyptian branch of the Martinist Order and another esoteric society, the Ordre du Lys et de l’Aigle. Claudel also mentions Dupré’s claim that Aguéli was “a very close friend” of Charles Grolleau (1867–1940), another Martinist and disciple of Papus (Gérard Encausse, 1865–1916). Grolleau later converted to Catholicism and, via an introduction by Guénon, participated in the initiatives in Paray-le-Monial of iconographer Louis Charbonneau-Lassay (1871–1946) promoting the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Here, Claudel’s book needs to be read together with another essential text on Aguéli I already reviewed in “Bitter Winter”: “Anarchist, Artist, Sufi: The Politics, Painting, and Esotericism of Ivan Aguéli” (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), a collection of fourteen essays and of some key texts by Aguéli, edited by Mark Sedgwick. The collection includes decisive chapters by Per Faxneld on Aguéli and esotericism and by Sedgwick himself on the Swedish painter and Guénon (and a contribution by Claudel too).

Ivan Aguéli, “Egyptian Landscape,” circa 1895. Aguéli Museum, Sala.
Ivan Aguéli, “Egyptian Landscape,” circa 1895. Aguéli Museum, Sala.

The most puzzling question is how Aguéli could have been at the same time a Muslim Sufi, a member or associate of different Western esoteric organizations, and an anarchist. Insabato had been an anarchist too, but at least from a certain date on he was more a spy on anarchists circles on behalf of the Italian intelligence service. Claiming that Aguéli moved from anarchism to Sufism and esotericism would not solve the problem. He remained an anarchist, although in his later years a less active and outspoken one, until his mysterious death near Barcelona in 1917, hit by a train. 

Left, French police photograph of Aguéli taken by the inventor himself of the mugshots, Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914); right, Leda Rafanelli (credits).
Left, French police photograph of Aguéli taken by the inventor himself of the mugshots, Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914); right, Leda Rafanelli (credits).

In fact, Aguéli was not the only anarchist who claimed that anarchism was atheistic as it rejected the religions that sided with the rich and the powerful, such as 19th-century Christianity, but Islam was a religion of the oppressed and an entirely different matter. 

Here, a comparison may be proposed with Tuscan anarchist Leda Rafanelli (1880–1971). While many know her only as the lover of pre-Fascist Benito Mussolini (1883–1945), Rafanelli was at the same time an anarchist, a self-styled Muslim (if an idiosyncratic one), and a professional Tarot reader who cultivated a number of esoteric interests. Comparing her to Aguéli would do for another interesting book and would confirm that anarchy and esoteric spirituality were not necessarily incompatible.