Scent of tradition lingers in Lebanon's 'village of roses'

Elisa Amouret
Wed, May 17, 2023 

The oil derived from the famed Damask rose is a staple of perfumers, while rose water is used across the Middle East

On a gentle slope looking out over Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, villagers work their way across pink-dotted terraces, gathering perfumed Damask roses that are used for essential oils, sweets and cosmetics.

The rose harvest "gives you a bit of hope, it makes things beautiful, it calms you down -- it gives you strength to carry on", said Leila al-Dirani, picking the flowers from her family's land in the village of Qsarnaba.

A soft bag tied around her waist and her hands scratched from the thorns, the 64-year-old plucks the small, pink buds from their bushes as their rich and heady scent wafts across the hill.



The oil derived from the famed Damask rose --- named after the ancient city of Damascus located just across the mountain range separating Lebanon and Syria -- is a staple of perfumers.

Experts swear by the flower's therapeutic properties in fighting infection and as a relaxant, while rose water is used across the Middle East both as a refreshing drink, in sweets such as Turkish delight, to scent mosques and even to bestow luck at weddings.

After a morning collecting roses, the workers in Qsarnaba drop their fragrant bundles at a warehouse in the village where they are paid based on their harvest.

At the facility carpeted with pink petals, Zahraa Sayed Ahmed -- whose first name means "flower" -- buys the raw materials to produce her rose water, syrup, tea and jam.

Around four years ago, she set up a small workshop at her house, using a traditional metal still that "belonged to my grandfather", said Sayed Ahmed, 37.

- 'Roses help put food on the table' -

With a kilogramme (2.2 pounds) of rose petals, she said she can make up to half a litre of rose water.

She then also bottles and labels her modest production by hand, putting it on limited sale locally.

"The production of rose water is a part of our heritage," said Sayed Ahmed. "In every home in Qsarnaba there is a still, even if it's just a small one."

The rose season only lasts a few weeks, but it is a busy time for Qsarnaba's residents.

"This year is the first year that we didn't bring workers to help us because the production is low and we couldn't afford it," said Hassan al-Dirani, 25, who has been picking the flowers alongside his mother, Leila.

Since late 2019, Lebanon has been grappling with a devastating economic crisis that has seen the local currency collapse and pushed most of the population into poverty.

"The rose harvest and all other harvests have lost about 80 percent of their value... because of the economic crisis," said local official Daher al-Dirani, who hails from the extended family that is the biggest in Qsarnaba.

"But the roses help people put food on the table," he added.

Exported from Syria to Europe for centuries since the time of the Crusades, the ancient Damask rose is also cultivated in countries including France, Morocco, Iran and Turkey.

"Our village produces the most roses out of any village in Lebanon" and more than half of the country's rose water, Sayed Ahmed claimed proudly, as the captivating scent lingered in the air.

"Qsarnaba is the village of roses."

ea/lg/aya/ami

'Could Be Your City': A Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Survivor's Warning

By Sara HUSSEIN

May 17, 2023

Masao Ito, 82, is one of a dwindling number of 'hibakusha', survivors of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945

Richard A. Brooks

On August 6, 1945, four-year-old Masao Ito was riding a tricycle near his home in Hiroshima when a bomb fell from the sky and changed his life forever.

He survived the US nuclear attack and made it home to his mother, but the horror was just beginning.

His father, at work closer to the centre of the western Japanese city, searched the post-apocalyptic landscape for Ito's 12-year-old brother.

When he found the boy, he was so badly burned that Ito's parents refused to let their four-year-old see his brother, who died several days later at home.

Ito's 10-year-old sister had been at a relative's house, which was destroyed without a trace.

"People escaping the hypocentre headed towards the outskirts, where our house was. They had terrible burns and could hardly walk," the 82-year-old told AFP.

His parents invited the survivors to rest in their home. "But they died, one after another."

In the August heat, the bodies had to be moved, but there was no cemetery to take them to.

"They were moved to an open space, not even in caskets but placed one on top of another. Kerosene was poured over them to burn them," Ito said.

The scene is one he doesn't talk about often, but it remains visceral more than seven decades later.

"It was just horrible, a horrible smell," he said.

"It's a scene I really wish I could forget."

A retired bank employee, Ito has worked for almost two decades as a volunteer guide for the peace memorials and museum in Hiroshima, and as an anti-nuclear campaigner.


Atomic bomb survivor Masao Ito has worked for almost two decades as a volunteer guide for the peace memorials and museum in Hiroshima

Richard A. Brooks

He is one of a dwindling number of hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings in the last year of World War II that killed around 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 74,000 in Nagasaki.

This week, leaders of the G7 developed economies will meet in Hiroshima, and are expected to visit the Peace Memorial Park and speak to hibakusha.

He said he would warn them: "If you have nuclear weapons, you may be tempted to use them, and accidents can happen."


"It's simply better not to have them," added Ito, who wears large glasses and a pin depicting a bent missile with an anti-nuclear symbol over it.

He acknowledges that a world without nuclear weapons might seem impossibly idealistic, particularly as Russia makes thinly veiled threats about using the weapons, and North Korea continues missile tests.

But he believes holding the summit in Hiroshima can send world leaders a powerful message.

"As long as there are nuclear weapons in the world, there is a possibility that your city could become like Hiroshima."

"Is that really something you are willing to accept?"

Ito's childhood was shattered by the bomb: his father died of radiation poisoning, and the family business collapsed into bankruptcy.


An anti-nuclear symbol is seen pinned on the jacket of atomic bomb survivor Masao Ito in HiroshimaRichard A. Brooks

He and his mother fled Hiroshima to escape their debts, and he contracted tuberculosis, spending over a year in a sanitorium, where he received a US care package containing medicine and a Bible.

He read it, but when he encountered the line beseeching Christians to "love your enemies", he was so angry he threw the book against a wall.

"My enemy was the Americans... Why in the world should I love America?" he recalled thinking.

Ito would later convert to Christianity but his anger did not fade.

When he began offering peace tours, he felt discomfort with the inscription on the Hiroshima cenotaph: "Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil."

"I felt I should promise to avenge the souls of those who died so they could find peace."

With time though, and especially as he met Americans who were devastated by what they learned in Hiroshima, his feelings changed and he "started to understand finally" what the Bible phrase meant.


His tour groups include school children, who he feels have a particularly important role.

"I can't continue forever. I tell students, it's your turn now to... achieve a world free of nuclear weapons."

© Agence France-Presse

China's Xi hails 'new era' of ties with Central Asia at summit

PATRIARCHY & MISOGYNY WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS

Ludovic EHRET
Thu, May 18, 2023

Map showing Central Asia countries. China's President Xi Jinping will host a two-day summit with the leaders of five Central Asian leaders in Xi'an starting May 18.

Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed a "new era" of ties with Central Asia on Thursday, kicking off a summit Beijing hopes will deepen relations with the strategically vital region.

Held in the ancient Chinese city of Xi'an, the historic eastern end of the Silk Road that linked China to Europe through Central Asia, Beijing has said this week's meeting is of "milestone significance".

And in a speech to the region's leaders at a welcoming banquet Thursday evening, Xi said strengthening ties was a "strategic choice".

"I am confident that with our joint efforts, tomorrow's summit will be a full success and will herald a new era of China-Central Asia relations," Xi was quoted as saying in a readout of the speech seen by AFP.

"Join us in opening up a bright future of China-Central Asia cooperation," he said.

This week's meeting is the first of its kind since the establishment of formal relations 31 years ago.

Beijing says trade with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan reached $70 billion in 2022 and expanded 22 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023.

Central Asia has also become key to China's trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, a defining geopolitical project for Xi, with Beijing keen to restart cooperation and fill the vacuum left in former Soviet states by Russia's war in Ukraine.

China, the world's second-largest energy consumer, has invested billions of dollars to tap natural gas reserves in Central Asia, while rail links connecting China to Europe criss-cross the region.

Analysts told AFP this week's summit is likely to see efforts to reach agreements to further expand that vast network, including a long-stalled $6 billion China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and an expansion of the Central Asia-to-China gas pipeline.

- 'Global economic leadership' -

Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev hailed the "unique scope" of that project at a meeting with Xi ahead of the summit.

Xi also told Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov in talks on Thursday that China was "willing to work with Kyrgyzstan to build a community of good neighborliness, friendship, shared prosperity, and a shared future".

He then met with the leaders of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, lauding the close ties between them and pledging to expand economic and cultural exchanges.

"Your policies will ensure the development and further prosperity of a modern socialist state, the strengthening of the authority and the global economic leadership of the country in the nearest future," Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev told Xi.

Xi and Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan greeted the heads of state at a grand welcoming ceremony in the evening, posing for a group photo in front of an old-style Chinese building lit by red lanterns.

Dozens of dancers then performed a musical show inspired by the Tang Dynasty, when relations between China and Central Asia were considered very strong.

A media event will be held on Friday morning, expected to be attended by all six presidents, at which a joint statement is likely to be released.

- Growing influence -

This week's summit also comes as Beijing works to replace Russia as Central Asian nations' preferred partner -- and as Xi positions himself as a global statesman keen to expand China's reach far beyond its borders.

"Xi will position himself as a leader that can promote global development and peace," Zhiqun Zhu, a Professor of International Relations and Political Science at Bucknell University, told AFP.

The summit also coincides with a meeting of the G7 in Hiroshima that will likely focus on efforts to "push back China's growing influence around the world", Zhu said.

"The diplomatic and strategic significance cannot be underestimated," he said.

ehl-oho/pbt

CCP = GOP

Library books should not have 'unhealthy ideas': Hong Kong leader

AFP
Wed, May 17, 2023 

A women looks at books in a public library in Hong Kong

Hong Kong must not "recommend books with unhealthy ideas", the city's leader John Lee said on Thursday, following the removal of library books related to the deadly Tiananmen Square crackdown and other political issues.

The finance hub has undergone huge legal and political changes since Beijing imposed a national security law on the territory in 2020, silencing dissent following massive, and at times violent, pro-democracy protests the year before.

The latest measure comes after a prominent political cartoonist -- whose work often satirised Hong Kong's relationship with mainland China -- was suspended indefinitely from publishing in a mainstream newspaper, and his books were removed from the city's libraries over the past week.

The flash removal prompted Hong Kong journalists to comb the public library department's database for books on other politically sensitive issues -- including the 1989 Tiananmen Square bloody crackdown against peaceful protesters -- discovering dozens of titles were missing.

Lee defended the apparent removal of politically sensitive materials, saying the books found in Hong Kong's public libraries "are those we recommend for the residents".

"We must not recommend any books that are unlawful, that violate copyrights, that contain unhealthy ideas," he said.

"The government is obliged not to recommend books with unhealthy ideas."

The former security chief did not specify how the government defined "unhealthy ideas", nor when the books were removed, but added that residents could still find the literature "in your own way and read them".

Since the enactment of the national security law, Hong Kong has seen its autonomy eroded, despite Beijing's promise to uphold it after Britain's handover in 1997.

Room for expression of overt political differences has shrunk, with the territory's courts, legal procedures and cultural spheres irrevocably altered.

An annual vigil commemorating the Tiananmen Square crackdown had drawn thousands to Hong Kong's Victoria Park every year in a vivid illustration of the city's former political freedoms.

But it was banned in 2020, and the vigil's organisers have been charged with "incitement to subversion" under the security law.

hol-dhc/dhw/sco

Tunisian president evokes 'tolerance' after synagogue attack

IN A POLICE STATE; WHERE WERE THE POLICE

AFP
Thu, May 18, 2023 

Tunisian President Kais Saied (L) greeting his country's Chief Rabbi Haim Bittan following a deadly shooting attack

Tunisian President Kais Saied has hosted Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders following a deadly mass shooting outside a local synagogue, telling them Tunisia was a country of "tolerance and coexistence".


The May 9 attack on the resort island of Djerba killed five people and sparked panic during an annual Jewish pilgrimage at the historic Ghriba synagogue, Africa's oldest.

The interfaith meeting on Wednesday "attests to the tolerance and coexistence that have characterised Tunisia for centuries", Saied said, according to a video released by the presidency.

It included Tunisia's Grand Rabbi Haim Bittan, Mufti Hichem ben Mahmoud and Archbishop Ilario Antoniazzi.

The gunman, a police officer, killed three other officers and two worshippers, a French-Tunisian and an Israeli-Tunisian man, before being shot dead himself by police.

During the meeting, Saied said a probe was underway to determine whether the shooter had any accomplices.

Four people linked to the gunman and suspected of involvement in the attack have so far been arrested, the private Mosaique FM radio reported late Wednesday.

Tunisian officials have denounced the attack as "criminal" but refrained from referring to it as a "terrorist" operation which would imply anti-Semitic motives.

Saied told the religious leaders on Wednesday that the attack sought to "undermine Tunisia and its stability, and sow discord and division".

"You can live in peace, and we will guarantee your safety", he said, addressing the Jewish community.

Saied noted a "distinction between Judaism and Zionism", rejecting any "normalisation" with Israel and calling on the international community to "put an end to the tragedy of the Palestinian people".

Rabbi Bittan called the meeting "excellent" and said he had received "guarantees that what happened (in Djerba) would not repeat".

The pilgrimage to Ghriba is at the heart of Jewish tradition in Tunisia, where only about 1,500 members of the faith still live -- mainly on Djerba -- compared with around 100,000 before independence in 1956.

The Ghriba pilgrimage was previously targeted in a 2002 suicide truck bombing that killed 21 people and was claimed by Al-Qaeda.

LESE MAJESTE IS TYRANNY

Thailand’s Move Forward Party takes on biggest political taboo

AFP Published May 19, 2023

BANGKOK: After shocking Thailand’s military-backed elite with a historic election breakthrough, the Move Forward Party now wants to take on the nation’s biggest political taboo — laws on insulting the monarchy.

However, MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat’s determination to modify the lese-majeste laws protecting King Maha Vajiralongkorn has quickly emerged as a key issue that could block his path to power.

The monarchy has long had an exalted status in Thai society, and is shielded from criticism by section 112 of the penal code, which punishes infractions with jail terms of up to 15 years.

Posters of the king are ubiquitous, from shops and homes to public buildings and motorway billboards, and cinema-goers are expected to stand for the royal anthem before screenings.

But youth-led pro-democracy demonstrators in 2020 breached the taboo against public discussion of the monarchy’s status, with some protesters calling for the king’s power and spending to be reined in.

MFP channelled the reforming zeal of the protest movement in its campaign for Sunday’s election, pledging to limit who can bring lese-majeste charges and to cut the maximum sentence.

Tough laws

Section 112 outlaws defaming, insulting or threatening the king or certain members of his family.

But its interpretation has expanded to include almost any criticism, whether in public or on social media, including even indirect or light-hearted references.

Since the 2020 protests erupted more than 200 people have been prosecuted, including minors, some for seemingly trivial transgressions.

MFP proposes to cut the maximum sentence for lese-majeste and restrict who can bring charges — at the moment it can be done by anyone, and ultra-royalists are known to trawl social media looking for potential complaints to file.

Pita insists the changes are needed to heal rifts in Thai society, and that Move Forward will not eradicate the law. “We want to amend, not abolish, act 112, which can be done in the parliament,” he said.

“We would like to talk maturely in the parliament, and we will do it slowly but surely and thoroughly.” But in the past the army has used even the suggestion of disloyalty to the crown as grounds to launch a coup.

The generals ousted elected governments in 2006 and 2014, promising both times to get tough on elements threatening the monarchy. And the current, military-written constitution makes it extremely difficult for Pita to become prime minister, even though Move Forward won the most seats.

MFP and rival opposition party Pheu Thai are working on a multi-party coalition that would give them more than 300 out of 500 lower house seats.

But to secure the prime minister’s job the coalition needs a majority across both houses — including the Senate.

The 250 members of the Senate — monarchist, pro-military arch-conservatives, hand-picked by Prayut’s junta — are threatening to block Pita’s bid for the job.

“I disapprove despite the number of MPs he gathered,” Senator Jadet Inswang said.

“I will not accept Pita as a PM because he... has previously said that he would abolish 112. I can’t accept.”

Cycle of unrest

But given the results of the election, the issue is now part of the political debate regardless of whether Pita becomes prime minister, according to Napon Jatusripitak, a political scientist and researcher at the Yusof Ishak Institute.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2023

MAY KALI REST HIS SOUL

UK's Richest Family Patriarch Srichand Hinduja Dead At 87

By AFP - Agence France Presse

May 18, 2023

Srichand Hinduja, the tycoon who headed Britain's richest family, has died at the age of 87, a spokesman said.

Hinduja had dementia and his plight had become the centre of a family feud that culminated in court proceedings about whether he should be taken into public care.

The eldest of four brothers behind the Hinduja Group conglomerate, he died on Wednesday, according to a family spokesman.

He "passed away peacefully" and was "looked after" by relatives, the spokesman said, hailing him as a "visionary titan of industry and business".

The Hindujas topped the Sunday Times Rich List in 2022 with a fortune estimated at £28.4 billion ($35.4 billion).

But a London judge said that despite the vast means at their disposal, Hinduja's needs had become "marginalised" by the family dispute, according to court filings that emerged in November.

The family said they had settled their differences.

The conglomerate was founded by the brothers' father Parmanand Hinduja who traded in tea and dried fruit in Mumbai in 1919 before moving it to Iran.

The brothers took over in the 1960s and greatly expanded the business.

The sprawling Hinduja Group -- led by London-based Srichand and Gopichand -- grew to span interests in power, oil and gas, banking, and healthcare.

Srichand Hinduja was thrust into the UK media spotlight in the late 1990s amid accusations that a leading member of Tony Blair's government had improperly lobbied to gain him British citizenship.

jit/ach

Moldova, fearing Russia, wants to join EU 'as soon as possible'

Marc PREEL and Marc BURLEIGH
Thu, May 18, 2023 

For Moldovan President Maia Sandu, EU membership is the only guarantee against becoming Russia's next target

Moldova wants EU membership "as soon as possible" as protection against a threat from Russia and hopes for a decision to start negotiations "in the next months," President Maia Sandu told AFP in an interview.

The small nation of 2.6 million people, nestled between EU neighbour Romania and war-ravaged Ukraine, will on June 1 hold its first major summit of wider Europe.

That gathering of the European Political Community -- a forum created last year that brings together leaders of all 27 EU countries with 20 neighbours of the bloc -- will be an occasion for Moldova to burnish its candidate credentials.

For Sandu, EU membership is the only guarantee against becoming Russia's next target.

Her country, a former Soviet republic, already has a breakaway region, Transnistria, where Russia has stationed a small number of troops.

"Of course, nothing compares to what is happening in Ukraine, but we see the risks and we do believe that we can save our democracy only as part of the EU," she said.

"We do believe that Russia will continue to be a big source of instability for the years to come and we need to protect ourselves," added Sandu, on the sidelines of a Council of Europe of summit in Iceland that wrapped up on Tuesday.

The 50-year-old leader, in office since 2020, in February accused Russia of fomenting a coup to try to seize power in Moldova.

She has called for Moldovans -- who polls show are overwhelmingly behind joining the European Union -- to hold a pro-EU rally on Sunday.

"The Ukraine war made things black and white. So it's very clear what the free world means, and what the authoritarian world means, for all of us," she said.

- 'Realistic project' -

Russia's war next door suddenly firmed up the prospect of EU membership for Ukraine and Moldova.

Both countries applied last year to join the bloc and in June 2022 became candidate countries, along with Georgia.

"We do believe that this is a realistic project for us and we are looking forward to see this happening as soon as possible," Sandu said.

Membership, however, could take a decade or more to attain, given the long list of requirements candidate countries must meet to be able to sit alongside the other nations in the European single market.

Unlike Ukraine, Moldova is small enough to be able to be integrated into the European Union relatively easily.

But it faces several challenges to bring its democratic standards up to EU levels, notably in terms of fighting corruption.

Its fragile economy, energy security and the issue of Transnistria, with its 30,000 pro-Russian population, all need to be addressed as well.

Transnistria, in the east of Moldova, is not recognised by the international community. The zone sprang up in 1990 after a brief civil war that erupted when the Soviet Union collapsed, and ended up from 1992 as a frozen conflict.

"We are struggling to have peaceful resolution of the conflict, and we've been calling on Russia to withdraw its illegally stationed troops," Sandu said.

"We need a geopolitical opportunity to be able to solve the conflict."

The president, who has started the process of taking her country out of the Russia-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States, added: "What kind of relations can you have with a regime which kills innocent people in the neighbouring country?"

Moldova was ready to cooperate only with "democratic countries, with countries which respect the territorial integrity of other countries, which respect the international rules based system," she said.

Russia brandished Ukraine's desire to one day join NATO as one of its justifications for invading its neighbour.

For Moldova, that is not a door on which it is about to knock.

Moldova was not rethinking its stance of being a neutral country for now, Sandu said.

"But there are discussions in our society about whether neutrality protects us and if at some point people will change their view, of course we will reconsider this decision. In the meantime, we are trying to consolidate the defence sector of Moldova and we are counting on our friends."

For "friends" Moldova is leaning heavily on the other participating countries of the European Political Community.

The June 1 summit in Chisnau, Sandu said, "is important because we see that we are not alone, that we have many friends".

map-rmb/ach

Women's secret war: the inside story of how the US military sent female soldiers on covert combat missions to Afghanistan


Jennifer Greenburg, Lecturer in International Relations, University of Sheffield
Mon, May 22, 2023 

THE CONVERSATION

US marines with a female engagement team in southern Helmand province, Afghanistan, in May 2012. Cpl. Meghan Gonzales/DVIDS

LONG READ

A US Army handbook from 2011 opens one of its chapters with a line from Rudyard Kipling’s poem The Young British Soldier. Written in 1890 upon Kipling’s return to England from India, an experienced imperial soldier gives advice to the incoming cohort:


When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains …

The handbook, distributed in 2011 at the height of the US’s counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, invoked Kipling and other imperial voices to warn its soldiers that:

Neither the Soviets in the early 1980s nor the west in the past decade have progressed much beyond Kipling’s early 20th-century warning when it comes to understanding Afghan women. In that oversight, we have ignored women as a key demographic in counterinsurgency.

Around this time, a growing number of US military units were – against official military policy – training and posting all-women counterinsurgency teams alongside their male soldiers.

Women were still banned from direct assignment to ground combat units. However, these female soldiers were deployed to access Afghan women and their households in the so-called “battle for hearts and minds” during the Afghanistan war, which began on October 7 2001 when the US and British militaries carried out an air assault, followed by a ground invasion, in response to the September 11 attacks.

And these women also played critical roles in gathering intelligence. Their sexuality – ironically, the basis of the excuse the US military had long given for avoiding integrating women into combat units – was now seen as an intelligence asset, as the army handbook made clear:

Like all adolescent males, young Afghan males have a natural desire to impress females. Using this desire to interact with and impress females can be advantageous to US military forces when done respectfully to both the female soldier and the adolescent Afghan males. Female soldiers can often obtain different and even more in-depth information from Afghan males than can male soldiers.

Whether collecting intelligence or calming victims of a US special forces raid, female soldiers – often despite a lack of proper training – played a central yet largely invisible role in the Afghanistan war. Their recollections of what they experienced on these tours call into question official narratives both of women breaking through the “brass ceiling” of the US military, and the war having been fought in the name of Afghan women’s rights and freedom.

Since the US’s final withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban’s rollback of women’s rights has concluded a brutal chapter in a story of competing feminisms over the past two decades of war.

US female marines crouching with their weapons

Female counterinsurgency teams in Afghanistan

Between 2010 and 2017, while conducting research at six US military bases and several US war colleges, I met a number of women who spoke of having served on special forces teams and in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. This was surprising as women were then still technically banned from many combat roles – US military regulations only changed in 2013 such that, by 2016, all military jobs were open to women.

Fascinated by their experiences, I later interviewed 22 women who had served on these all-female counterinsurgency teams. The interviews, alongside other observations of development contractors on US military bases and the ongoing legacies of US imperial wars, inform my new book At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War.

By 2017, enough time had lapsed that the women could speak openly about their deployments. Many had left the military – in some cases disenchanted by the sexism they confronted, or with the idea of returning to an official job in logistics having served on more prestigious special forces teams.

This article is part of Conversation Insights
The Insights team generates long-form journalism derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.

In 2013, Ronda* supported a mission deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city. She was one of only two women living on a remote base with the Operational Detachment Alpha – the primary fighting force for the Green Berets (part of the US Army’s special forces).

For Ronda, one of the most rewarding aspects of this deployment was the image she carried of herself as a feminist example for Afghan women. She recalled:

Just letting the girls see there’s more out there [in the wider world] than what you have here, that was very empowering. I think they really appreciated it. In full kit I look like a dude, [but] that first instance when you take off your helmet and they see your hair and see you are female … A lot of times they have never seen a female before who didn’t just take care of the garden and take care of the kids. That was very empowering.

Female soldiers talking to a local woman in front of a helicopter

Amanda, who had been on a similar mission to Uruzgan province in southern Afghanistan a year earlier, also described inspiring local women – in her case, via stories she shared through her interpreter of life in New York City, and what it was like to be a female soldier. Amanda lived alongside the male soldiers in an adobe hut with a thatched roof, and was unable to shower for the full 47 days of the mission. But she recalled going out into the village with pride:

You see the light, especially in the females’ eyes, when they see other females from a different country – [it] kind of gives them perspective that there is more to the world than Afghanistan.

Publicly, the US military presented its female counterinsurgency teams as feminist emblems, while keeping their combat roles and close attachment to special forces hidden. A 2012 army news article quoted a member of one female engagement team (FET) describing the “positive responses from the Afghan population” she believed they had received:

I think seeing our FET out there gives Afghan women hope that change is coming … They definitely want the freedom American women enjoy.

However, the US military’s mistreatment of its female workforce undermines this notion of freedom – as do the warped understandings of Afghan culture, history and language that both male and female soldiers brought with them on their deployments. Such complexity calls into question US military claims of providing feminist opportunities for US women, and of acting in Afghan women’s best interests.

As a logistics officer, Beth had been trained to manage the movement of supplies and people. She said she was ill-prepared for the reality she confronted when visiting Afghan villages with one of the cultural support teams (CSTs), as they were also known, in 2009.

Beth’s pre-deployment training had included “lessons learned” from the likes of Kipling and Lawrence of Arabia. It did not prepare her to understand why she encountered such poverty when visiting Afghan villages. She recalled:

Imagine huts – and tons of women, men and children in these huts … We had to tell these women: ‘The reason your children are getting sick is because you’re not boiling your water.’ I mean, that’s insane. Look at when the bible was written. Even then, people knew how to boil their water – they talked about clean and unclean, kosher, and that they know what’s going to rot. How did Jesus get the memo and you didn’t?

A female Afghan role-player wraps a headscarf around a female soldier while a third female soldier looks on.

‘Ambassadors of western feminism’

By observing lessons in military classrooms, I learned how young US soldiers (men and women) went through pre-deployment training that still leaned on the perspectives of British colonial officers such as T.E. Lawrence and C.E. Callwell. There was a tendency to portray Afghan people as unsophisticated children who needed parental oversight to usher them into modernity.

US military representations of Afghan women as homogeneous and helpless, contrasting with western women as models of liberation, also ignored Afghan and Islamic feminist frameworks that have long advocated for women’s rights. The notion of US female soldiers modelling women’s rights was often linked with representations of Afghan people as backward and needing models from elsewhere.

To skirt the military policy that in the mid-2000s still banned women from direct assignment to ground combat units, female soldiers were “temporarily attached” to all-male units and encouraged not to speak openly about the work they were doing, which typically entailed searching local women at checkpoints and in home raids.

Rochelle wrote in her journal about her experiences of visiting Afghan villages: “Out the gate I went, [with] headscarf and pistol …” Like Beth’s use of a biblical reference to explain the Afghan villages she confronted, Rochelle placed Afghanistan far backward in time. In one diary entry about a village meeting, she reflected:

For years, I have always wondered what it would be like to live in the Stone Age – and now I know. I see it every day all around me. People walking around in clothes that haven’t been washed, ones they have worn for years. Children with hair white from days of dust build-up. Six-year-old girls carrying around their baby brothers. Eyes that tell a story of years of hardship. Houses made of mud and wooden poles, squares cut out for windows. Dirty misshapen feet.

A cultural considerations matrix.

When Rochelle was not accompanying the male patrols, she was visiting girls’ schools and holding meetings with Afghan women about how her unit could help support income-generating opportunities for women, such as embroidery or selling food. Her logic, that this would reduce Taliban support and recruitment, echoed USAID programmes that still today claim targeted economic opportunity can “counter violent extremism”.

Amelia, a female soldier attached to a special forces mission, spoke of how she was an asset because:

We were not threatening, we were just there. For Afghan men, we were fascinating because we were these independent women in a different role than they see for most women there. And we were non-threatening to them, so they could talk to us openly.

Strikingly, Amelia admitted that she and other female soldiers played a similar role for their American counterparts too:

For the [male] marines, just having us there helped kind of calm things down. We would do things to try to give back to them – like we baked for them frequently. That was not our role and I don’t want anyone to think that we were a “baking team”, but we would do things like that and it really helped. Like a motherly touch or whatever. We would bake cookies and cinnamon buns. It really helped bring the team together and have more of a family feeling.

Amelia’s clear apprehension at her unit being seen as the “baking team” speaks to how they were incorporated into combat through reinforcement of certain gender stereotypes. These women used “emotional labour” – the work of managing, producing and suppressing feelings as part of one’s paid labour – both to counsel the male soldiers with whom they were stationed, and to calm Afghan civilians after their doors had been broken down in the middle of the night.

But the women I met also revealed a culture of sexist abuse that had been exacerbated by the unofficial nature of their combat roles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Soldiers who did not want women in their midst would joke, for example, that CST actually stood for “casual sex team”. Such treatment undermines the US military’s representations of military women as models of feminist liberation for Afghan women.

A soldier stands in front of a mock Afghan village, holding his rifle.

‘It was the best and the worst deployment’

Beth’s first deployment to Afghanistan in 2009 was to accompany a small group of Green Berets into an Afghan village and interact with the women and children who lived there. One of her strongest memories was figuring out how to shower once a week by crouching under a wood palate and balancing water bottles between its slats.

Beth’s role was to gather information about which villages were more likely to join the US military-supported internal defence forces – a cold war counterinsurgency strategy with a history of brutalising countries’ own citizens. To elicit feelings of security and comfort in those she encountered when entering an Afghan home or searching a vehicle, she described adjusting her voice tone, removing her body armour, and sometimes placing her hands on the bodies of Afghan women and children.

But this “kinder and gentler” aspect of her work was inseparable from the home raids she also participated in, during which marines would kick down the doors of family homes in the middle of the night, ripping people from their sleep for questioning, or worse.

Women like Beth were exposed to – and in a few cases, killed by – the same threats as the special forces units to which they were unofficially attached. But the teams’ hidden nature meant these women often had no official documentation of what they did.

If they returned home injured from their deployment, their records did not reflect their attachment to combat units. This meant they were unable to prove the crucial link between injury and service that determined access to healthcare. And the women’s lack of official recognition has since posed a major barrier to being promoted in their careers, as well as accessing military and veteran healthcare.

Female soldier saluting

While Beth said she was “lucky” to have come home with her mental health and limbs intact, many of her peers described being unable to sleep and suffering from anxiety, depression and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of their continued exposure to stressful combat situations such as night raids.

Six months into her deployment, Beth’s female partner was riding in a large armoured vehicle when it ran over an explosive device. “Luckily”, as Beth put it, the bomb exploded downwards, blowing off four of the vehicle’s wheels and sending a blast through the layer of rubber foam on which her partner’s feet rested. She was medevacked out of the combat zone with fractured heels, along with six other men.

Technically, Beth was always supposed to have a female partner when working for a cultural support team, but no replacement came. Her mission changed and she became the only woman assigned to support a group of marines stationed on a remote base. There were only a handful of other women on the base, and Beth lived alone in a repurposed shipping container sandwiched between housing for 80 men.

Beth said the marines spread false rumours about her. Other women I spoke with indicated that there was a widespread culture of degrading women like Beth in the US military at this time – just as its leaders were publicly disavowing the military’s epidemic of sexual assault and rape.

As Beth described her treatment on the second part of her deployment in Afghanistan, her eyes widened. She struggled to find the words that eventually came out:

It was the best and the worst deployment. On some level, I did things that I will never do again – I met some great people, had amazing experiences. But also, professionally, as a captain in the Marine Corps, I have never been treated so poorly in my life – by other officers! I had no voice. Nobody had my back. [The marines] didn’t want us there. These guys did not want to be bringing women along.

Beth described how one of the male soldiers lied to her battalion commander, accusing her of saying something she didn’t say – leading to her being removed from action and being placed under a form of custody:

I got pulled back and sat in the hot-seat for months. It was bad. That was a very low point for me.

‘Women as a third gender’

A narrow, western version of feminism – focused on women’s legal and economic rights while uncritical of the US’s history of military interventions and imperialistic financial and legal actions – helped build popular support for the Afghanistan invasion in 2001. On an individual level, women like Beth made meaning of their deployments by understanding themselves as modern, liberated inspirations for the Afghan women they encountered.

A female soldier cleans the wound of a child

But in reality, the US military did not deploy women like Beth with the intention of improving Afghan women’s lives. Rather, special forces recognised Afghan women as a key piece of the puzzle to convince Afghan men to join the internal defence forces. While male soldiers could not easily enter an Afghan home without being seen as disrespecting women who lived there, the handbook for female engagement teams advised that:

Afghan men often see western women as a “third gender” and will approach coalition forces’ women with different issues than are discussed with men.

And a 2011 Marine Corps Gazette article underlined that:

Female service members are perceived as a “third gender” and as being “there to help versus there to fight”. This perception allows us access to the entire population, which is crucial in population-centric operations.

The use of “third gender” here is surprising because the term more often refers to gender identity outside of conventional male-female binaries. In contrast, military uses of such language reinforced traditional gender expectations of women as caregivers versus men as combatants, emphasising how women entered what were technically jobs for men by maintaining these gender roles.

The female counterinsurgency teams were intended to search Afghan women and gather intelligence that was inaccessible to their male counterparts. Beth had volunteered for these secretive missions, saying she was excited to go “outside the wire” of the military base, to interact with Afghan women and children, and to work with US special operations.

Initially, she was enthusiastic about the tour, describing her gender as an “invaluable tool” that allowed her to collect information which her male counterparts could not. She went on home raids with the marines and would search women and question villagers.

Technically, the US military has strict rules about who is allowed to collect formal intelligence, limiting this role to those trained in intelligence. As a result, Beth explained:

Just like any other team going out to collect information, we always steer clear of saying “collect” [intelligence]. But essentially that’s exactly what we were doing … I won’t call them a source because that is a no-no. But I had individuals who would frequent me when we were in particular areas … [providing] information we were able to elicit in a casual setting instead of running a source and being overt.

‘A completely different energy’

Recruitment poster for a female engagement team.

Cindy deployed with a US Army Ranger regiment to Afghanistan in 2012. Having recently graduated from one of the military academies, an advertisement caught her eye: “Become a part of history. Join the US Army Special Operations Command Female Engagement Team Program.”

She was drawn in by the high physical bar and intellectual challenge of jobs in special operations from which the military technically excluded her. Describing the process of being selected for the female unit as a “week from hell”, Cindy said she was proud of “being where it’s hardest” and “the sense of duty, obligation”.

While she was completing her training, Cindy’s friend from airborne school was killed by an explosion in October 2011, while accompanying an Army Ranger team on a night raid of a Taliban weapons maker’s compound in Kandahar. This was Ashley White-Stumpf, subject of the bestselling book Ashley’s War, which is now being adapted into a film starring Reese Witherspoon. She was the first cultural support team member to be killed in action, and her funeral brought this secret programme into a very public light.

Her death cast a shadow on the excitement Cindy had initially felt. To confuse matters, the dangers that White-Stumpf (and now Cindy) faced were publicly invisible, given that women were banned from being officially attached to special forces combat units. When female soldiers did appear in public relations photographs, it was often handing out soccer balls or visiting orphanages.

US soldiers unveil a monument to their dead colleague

Yet once deployed, Cindy was attached to a “direct action” unit – the special forces portrayed in action movies kicking down doors, seizing documents and capturing people. This meant that while special forces carried out their mission, her job was:

To interact with women and children. To get information, or [find out] if there were nefarious items that were hidden under burkas and things of that nature.

She explained how “you have different tools as a woman that you can use that I don’t think a man would be successful in” – offering the example of a little boy in a village who her team thought knew something. A ranger was questioning the little boy, who was terrified of how, in her words, this male soldier “looked like a stormtrooper, wearing his helmet and carrying a rifle”. In contrast, Cindy explained:

For me to kneel next to the little kid and take off my helmet and maybe put my hand on his shoulder and say: “There, there” – I can do that with my voice, [whereas] this guy probably could not or would not. And that kid was crying, and we couldn’t get anything out of him. But you can turn the tables with a completely different energy.

Cindy told me proudly how it took her just 15 minutes to identify the correct location of the Taliban activity, when her unit had been in the wrong location. She, like many of the women I spoke to, painted a picture of using emotional labour to evoke empathy and sensitivity amid violent – and often traumatic – special operations work.
‘I’ve had so much BS in my career’

The women I interviewed were operating in the same permissive climate of sexual harassment and abuse that later saw the high-profile murders of the servicewoman Vanessa Guillén at Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2020, and the combat engineer Ana Fernanda Basaldua Ruiz in March 2023.

Before their deaths, both Latinx women had been repeatedly sexually harassed by other male soldiers and had reported incidents to their supervisors, who failed to report them further up the chain of command. Such cases overshadowed any excitement about the recent ten-year anniversary of women formally serving in ground combat roles in the US military.

Protesters carry a poster in memory of murdered US soldier Vanessa Guillén

Mollie deployed to Afghanistan as part of a female engagement team in 2009. Her career up to then had been chequered with discriminatory experiences. In some cases, there were subtle, judgmental looks. But she also described overt instances, such as the officer who, when told of her impending arrival on his unit, had responded bluntly: “I don’t want a female to work for me.”

Mollie said she saw the FET as a way to showcase women’s skill and value within a masculinist military institution. She felt tremendous pride for the “20 other strong women” she worked with, whose adaptability she was particularly impressed with:

During the FET, I saw such great women. It frustrates me that they have to put up with this [sexism] … I’ve had so much BS like that throughout my career. Seeing how amazing these women were in high-stress situations – I want to stay in and continue to fight for that, so junior marines don’t have to put up with the same sorts of sexist misogynist comments that I did.

Mollie said the experience on the FET changed her, describing herself emerging as an “unapologetic feminist” responsible for more junior servicewomen. This encouraged her to re-enlist year after year. But for other women, deploying in capacities from which they were normally excluded, only to then return to gender-restricted roles, was a good reason to quit after their contract was up. As was, for many, the continued background of resistance and abuse from male colleagues.

A 2014 study of the US military found that “ambient sexual harassment against service women and men is strongly associated with risk of sexual assault”, with women’s sexual assault risk increasing by more than a factor of 1.5 and men’s by 1.8 when their workplace had an above-average rate of ambient sexual harassment. In 2022, the US military admitted that the epidemic of sexual assault within military ranks had worsened in recent years, and that existing strategies were not working.
‘Magnitude of regrets’

Amid the chaotic withdrawal of US and international forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, marines threw together another female engagement team to search Afghan women and children. Two of its members, maintenance technician Nicole Gee and supply chief Johanny Rosario Pichardo, died in a suicide bomb attack during the evacuation that killed 13 soldiers and at least 170 Afghans.

Media coverage remembered Gee cradling an Afghan infant as she evacuated refugees in the days leading up to the attack, underscoring how female soldiers like her did high-risk jobs that came into being through gender expectations of women as caregivers.

Writing to me in 2023, ten years after her deployment to Afghanistan, Rochelle reflected that the departure of US soldiers could be “a whirlwind of emotions if you let it”. She added: “My anger lies with the exit of our own [US forces]. The magnitude of regrets, I hope, lay heavy on someone’s conscience.”

The experiences of Rochelle and other female soldiers in Afghanistan complicate any simplistic representations of them as trailblazers for equal rights in the US military. Their untreated injuries, unrecognised duties, and abusive working conditions make for a much more ambivalent blend of subjugation and pathbreaking.

And even as their position helped formalise the role of US women in combat, this happened through the reinforcement of gender stereotypes and racist representations of Afghan people. In fact, Afghan women had long been mobilising on their own terms – largely unintelligible to the US military – and continue to do so, with extraordinary bravery, now that the Taliban is back in control of their country.

It is devastating, but not surprising, that the military occupation of Afghanistan did not ultimately improve women’s rights. The current situation summons feminist perspectives that challenge war as a solution to foreign policy problems and work against the forms of racism that make people into enemies.

Following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, US Army female engagement teams have been reassembled and deployed to train foreign militaries from Jordan to Romania. As we enter the third decade of the post-9/11 wars, we should revisit how these wars were justified in the name of women’s rights, and how little these justifications have actually accomplished for women – whether in the marine corps barracks of Quantico, Virginia, or on the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan.

*All names and some details have been changed to protect the identities of the interviewees.

For you: more from our Insights series:

What my 20 years in Afghanistan taught me about the Taliban – and how the west consistently underestimates them

Can wars no longer be won?


The inside story of the CIA v Russia – from cold war conspiracy to ‘black’ propaganda in Ukraine

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

UK Junior doctors to stage fresh strike in dispute over pay

Alan Jones, PA Industrial Correspondent
Mon, May 22, 2023

Junior doctors in England will stage a 72-hour strike next month in their long-running dispute over pay.

Members of the BMA will walk out from 7am on June 14 after the Government failed to make a “credible offer” on pay, it was announced.

Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairs of the BMA Junior Doctors Committee, said: “Since April’s strikes we have had three weeks of negotiations with the Government, seeking a deal that fully restores pay for junior doctors after the more than 26% drop they have suffered over the last 15 years.

“We entered these talks in good faith, hoping that after months of refusal by ministers to meet with us, we would finally see a real offer on the table that would avoid the need for more industrial action and stop the haemorrhaging of junior doctors from the NHS.

“In that time we have received an offer which is in no way credible or even reasonable for where we are in the negotiating process.

“We made clear from the very start that talks required a recognition of the scale of our pay erosion.

“No such recognition has been forthcoming.

“We made proposals showing our willingness to be creative and work with the Government on how the reversal of our pay erosion could be achieved.

“In the end, however, the Government would simply not accept the fundamental reality of the pay cuts junior doctors have faced.

“This was made clear when they finally made their pay offer of 5%.

Although it has announced a 72-hour strike, the BMA stills expects to announcement, it expected to hold talks with Health Secretary Steve Barclay (Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire)

“Not only is that nowhere near addressing pay erosion over the last 15 years, it would not even have matched inflation this year.”

The BMA said, despite its strike announcement, it expected to meet Health Secretary Steve Barclay on Wednesday for talks.

A Government spokesperson said: “It is both surprising and deeply disappointing that the BMA Junior Doctors Committee has declared further strike action while constructive talks were ongoing. These will be hugely disruptive for patients and put pressure on other NHS staff.

“We made a fair and reasonable opening offer, and were in active discussions about both pay and non-pay issues.

“Unfortunately, it seems the BMA is unwilling to move meaningfully away from their unaffordable headline demands on pay.

“The Government has been clear that strikes must be paused while talks take place, so while the BMA has chosen to end our current discussions, we remain ready to continue them at any point if strikes are called off.”

Deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery said: “It’s hugely disappointing that talks between the Government and the doctors’ unions have broken down again.

“We are now facing the deeply worrying prospect of another 72-hour walkout by junior doctors next month.

“As with previous strikes by junior doctors, this will lead to major disruption to patient care.

“We understand junior doctors feel they’ve been pushed to this point by factors including below-inflation pay uplifts and severe staffing shortages.

“Trust leaders will work flat out to ensure disruption is minimised on strike dates, but rapid resolution is needed at a national level to bring strike action to an end.

“With next month’s action by junior doctors now confirmed, their threats of more strikes over the summer and radiographers, nurses and consultants also balloting for industrial action, it’s vital serious talks take place between the Government and unions to resolve these ongoing disputes and avert further disruption to NHS services.”

Junior doctors in England plan more strikes in fight for better pay

Reuters
Mon, May 22, 2023

Junior doctors hold a strike amid a dispute with the government over pay, in London

LONDON (Reuters) -Junior doctors in England plan to stage more strikes in June, their union said, meaning more strain for the state-run health service, NHS, after pay negotiations with the government collapsed on Monday without a resolution.

The strikes will be from June 13 to 17, the British Medical Association (BMA), which represents about 45,000 junior doctors in England, said in a statement, threatening strikes "throughout the summer" if the government did not change its position.

Tens of thousands of junior doctors have already staged two rounds of walkouts this year to demand wage increases that match inflation, which as of last month was still running into double digits. The government has said such pay rises would only inflame inflation further, pushing up interest rates and mortgages.

The BMA describes junior doctors as those who are qualified in clinical training and have up to eight years' experience working as a hospital doctor or up to three years in general practice. They work under the supervision of a senior doctor.

Strikes by healthcare workers in the National Health Service (NHS), which have also included walkouts by nurses and ambulance workers, have led to the cancellation of numerous appointments, disrupting patient care at a time when millions are waiting for treatment.

"These will be hugely disruptive for patients and put pressure on other NHS staff," a government spokesperson said in a statement responding to the latest strike plan, adding they were ready to continue talks if strikes are called off.

The BMA said the government's latest pay offer of a 5% increase for 2023/24 was not a credible offer since it was "nowhere near addressing pay erosion over the last 15 years."

(Reporting by Muvija M; Editing by Mark Porter and Jonathan Oatis)

Nurses start voting on whether to renew mandate for industrial action


Alan Jones, PA Industrial Correspondent
Mon, May 22, 2023 

Nurses start voting on Tuesday on whether to continue taking strike action in their long-running dispute over pay and staffing.

Almost 300,000 members of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in England are being asked to renew their mandate for industrial action until the end of the year.

The RCN is urging members to vote “yes” to strike action, saying it would pressure ministers to improve the pay award for nursing staff and boost staffing levels to keep patients safe.

RCN members rejected the Government’s pay offer in April following several days of strike action since December.

The RCN’s new ballot will be aggregated, meaning the union is seeking a country-wide mandate to allow strikes in every NHS trust or other NHS employer in England where RCN members work.

Any future strikes would involve more than twice as many nursing staff at twice as many locations, said the RCN.

To achieve a country-wide mandate, 50% of all eligible members must vote and the majority must say “yes” to strike action.

The ballot will close on June 23, with the result expected to be announced the following week.

RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said: “Once again, we have been forced to ask our members if they want to take to the picket lines in their fight for fair pay. This is unfinished business and the Government can get it resolved without the need for more strike action.

(PA Graphics)

“Ministers have tried to silence them through the courts as well as in Parliament but we will continue to make sure their voice is heard through the corridors of power.

“The NHS is fraying at the edges. To improve care and address the shortage, Government must bring more people into nursing and keep them there by paying staff fairly.”

Most health unions in England have accepted a 5% pay rise for this year and a cash payment for last year.

Members of the RCN and Unite voted to reject the offer.

Downing Street insisted the Government had made its final offer on pay.

A No 10 spokesman said: “We have offered a fair and generous deal that the RCN themselves recommended to its members and subsequently accepted by the majority of other unions via the NHS staff council.

“We continue to think it’s important that all unions recognise that collective decision and it should be respected.”

The spokesman said Rishi Sunak recognised nurses do “incredible work”, but “what we don’t want to see is patient care impacted any more than it has been with these strikes”.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We hugely value the work of nurses and it is disappointing the RCN is balloting their members for further industrial action.

“The majority of unions on the NHS Staff Council voted to accept the Government’s fair and reasonable pay offer – which includes a double-digit pay rise of 10.7% over two years for newly qualified nurses.

“We hope RCN members recognise this is a fair deal and decide it is time to bring industrial action to an end.”

'Unfinished business': Nurses among hundreds of thousands of workers to vote on further strike action

Sky News
Mon, May 22, 2023 


Almost 300,000 nurses will start voting today on whether to continue strikes in their long-running battle over pay and staffing.

Members of the Royal College of Nursing in England are being asked to renew their mandate for industrial action until the end of the year.

The RCN says members should vote to continue strikes as this will increase pressure on ministers to improve the pay offer that was rejected in April.

RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said: "Once again, we have been forced to ask our members if they want to take to the picket lines in their fight for fair pay.

"This is unfinished business and the government can get it resolved without the need for more strike action.

"Ministers have tried to silence them through the courts as well as in parliament but we will continue to make sure their voice is heard through the corridors of power.

"The NHS is fraying at the edges. To improve care and address the shortage, government must bring more people into nursing and keep them there by paying staff fairly."

In the new ballot, the union will seek a country-wide mandate, allowing strikes in every NHS trust or NHS employer in England with RCN members.

For this, at least 50% of eligible members must vote and the majority must want strike action.

Read more:
Nurses could be on strike 'up until Christmas', says Royal College of Nursing
Couple fear strike by nurses could be a 'matter of life and death'
Hospitals brace themselves for 'exceptionally low' staff numbers as nurses prepare to strike over bank holiday

The ballot closes on 23 June, with the result expected in the following week.

The government has said there will be no improvement to the pay offer made in April, with a No 10 spokesman saying: "We have offered a fair and generous deal that the RCN themselves recommended to its members and subsequently accepted by the majority of other unions via the NHS staff council.

"We continue to think it's important that all unions recognise that collective decision and it should be respected."

Also today, a six-week ballot opens for more than 300,000 council and school support staff in England and Wales on whether they should also strike over pay.

The union, Unison, has called for a pay increase of 2% above inflation, claiming that since 2010 the value of local government pay has fallen by 25%.

The ballot is open to workers such as refuse collectors, social workers, teaching assistants, and librarians, with another ballot opening for Northern Ireland in August.

Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: "These workers are truly dedicated but they've had enough. Going on strike is a huge step that isn't taken lightly but many feel they have to make a stand.

"Employers can do far better, but ministers also need to step up to make sure local government is given the funding it needs, so staff get a decent wage and services are protected."