February 2011
Vol 11, No 02
THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION: THE TRIUMPH OF HUMAN DIGNITY By Chandra Muzaffar
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he people of Egypt have won a great victory. They have defeated a dictator. They have ousted Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak fell at the feet of people power. The Egyptian people showed tremendous courage in their struggle against the dictatorship. They persevered against great odds. Their sacrifice was monumental. According to UN sources, in the course of their 18 day protest against a President who had misruled for most of 30 years, some 300 people died at the hands of hoodlums and thugs serving the Mubarak regime. While thugs targeted the people, it is remarkable that those who fought for justice, freedom and dignity were largely non-violent. Simply put, it was a peaceful revolution— a revolution that had as its epicentre, Medan Tahrir, Liberation Square. The revolutionaries, as commentators have observed, were civil and courteous. At the forefront of this revolution were young people, in their twenties and thirties. It was their idealism which was the fuel of this revolution. They utilised
the new media to the hilt to mobilise and galvanise the masses.
the noble Palestinian struggle for selfdetermination.
The Egyptian Revolution was, in a sense, inspired by the Tunisian Revolution of 14th January 2011. Tunisians— again many of them young men and women— showed Egyptians and Arabs throughout West Asia and North Africa (WANA) that when human beings overcome fear, a hope, a distant goal, is suddenly transformed into reality.
By a strange coincidence, the Egyptian Revolution happened on the same day as Iran’s Islamic Revolution. It was on the 11th of February 1979 that the Islamic revolutionaries in Iran proclaimed victory after the military declared its neutrality and the revolutionaries took over public buildings and the Iranian State Radio and Television. 11th February is celebrated as a national holiday in Iran.
Because Egypt is the heart of the Arab world, its revolution, the Revolution of 11th February, will have a tremendous impact upon ordinary men and women in the region. It will give them strength and confidence. It will empower them. The Egyptian Revolution will become the beacon that inspires the masses to stand up against corrupt, greedy rulers who betray the trust of the people. It will become the banner around which will rally all those who cherish their dignity and independence and refuse to submit to foreign dictation and dominance that has been the curse of WANA. In this regard, the Egyptian Revolution will undoubtedly provide fresh impetus to
The powers-that-be in Tel Aviv, Washington, London, Paris and other Western capitals would not like to be reminded of this historical coincidence. It is a coincidence that will also send a shiver down the spine of many a monarch and president in the Arab world. More than this coincidence, both Revolutions succeeded in harnessing the energies of millions of people in their respective countries. The Egyptian and Iranian Revolutions — some would argue—are the two most broad-based revolutions in human history. At a great historical moment like this (I
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RISING FOOD PRICES AND THE IMPORTANCE OF F UNDAMENTAL C HANGE ........ The sharp
.CHINA PIPELINEISTAN “WAR”(PART II)......P 7
increase in global food prices and their consequences raises some fundamental questions...........................................Page 6
MURDERING SCIENTISTS
. W ALL S TREET P ROFITS - J UST R ENT SEEKING? .............................................P 9
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Reflections dated 6 January 2011, the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, explores the possibility that................................................Page7
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continued from page 1 am writing this article a couple of hours after Vice-President Omar Sulaiman’s announcement over Egyptian Television that Mubarak is stepping down) we should recall the other illustrious revolutions in history— the French Revolution of 1789; the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and the Chinese Revolution of 1949. There have also been people’s movements in recent decades that have succeeded in overthrowing dictatorial regimes that had lost credibility with the people. The people power
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movement in the Philippines in 1986 and the mass movement against the Indonesian President Suharto in 1998 would be two examples from Southeast Asia while the series of uprisings in Eastern Europe in 1989 would also testify to the power embodied in the people. Revolutions and popular uprisings, however idealistic and altruistic its leaders and participants may be in the initial stages, do not always deliver on the freedom and justice they promise. There are many revolutions that have betrayed the people. We do not know
LEAD ARTICLE how the Egyptian Revolution will unfold in the coming days and months. But for the time being, the people of Egypt, and indeed the people of the world, have every right and reason to celebrate. We have just witnessed the liberation of the soul of a nation. We have just embraced the triumph of human dignity. 12 February 2011 Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) and Professor of Global Studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia.
THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION AND THE ARAB UPRISING: SOME FURTHER REFLECTIONS On 7th February 2011, we posted on the JUST website an article entitled “The Arab Uprising 12 Questions and 12 Answers” which examined a number of the underlying issues in the Egyptian Revolution and the larger Arab Uprising. We are carrying excerpts from that article since they provide useful background information on the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. The author of that article, Chandra Muzaffar, has also included two other issues arising from Mubarak’s ouster on 11th February 2011 in his analysis which appears below. 1. Mubarak has handed over power to the Egyptian military high command. What are its immediate tasks? From media reports, the military will through consultations with various groups that were involved in the Revolution formulate a provisional constitution which will be the basis for holding a free and fair election as soon as possible. The election will not be just for the Presidency; it could also include contests for Parliament. The powers of the President, Parliament and the Cabinet will have to be spelt out. Military rule, in other words, will be a brief prelude to civilian rule, and hopefully, a genuine democracy. 2. The US government appears to be pleased with the military take-over and
the proposed transition to civilian rule. Is this what Washington wanted from the beginning? Powerful vested interests in Washington (perhaps not President Barack Obama himself), it seems to me, would have liked Mubarak to remain in office until September which was Mubarak’s own game plan. But these interests realised, a few days into the mass protests, that Mubarak was so unpopular that they would not be able to keep him on the throne. This is when they came up with Plan B which was to instal Omar Suleiman, a Mubarak confidante with close ties to Tel Aviv, as the Vice-President and President in waiting. Suleiman, his friends in Washington and Tel Aviv soon realised, was widely detested by the protesters partly because of his links and partly because of his direct involvement in the suppression of democratic dissent and in the torture of the dissenters. Getting the military to run the show for a while is actually the US and Israeli governments’ Plan C. While they are very much aware of the presence of nationalistic elements in the core of the military who would resist any attempt to perpetuate Egypt’s present role as a client state of the US, they also know that the Egyptian military top brass has business ties with huge corporations in the US that deal with military hardware. Besides, training programmes in the US for
Egyptian officers and joint military exercises between the two countries over a long period of time have deepened the bond between the Egyptian and US militaries. The US government, to put it differently, is quite confident about the Egyptian military. US officials are therefore hoping that it will manage the transition in such a manner that US and Israeli interests will be well protected. 3. How do Egyptian protesters feel about the US’s role in Egyptian politics? There is a big segment of Egyptian society that resents US and Western attempts to decide and determine its future. These Egyptians know why the US is in the Arab world and in West Asia. It is oil; it is the strategic significance of the entire region: the Mediterranean, the Suez, the Straits of Hormuz; and it is Israel. They know that hundreds of thousands of men, women and children have been sacrificed at the altar of US interests. They know how many precious lives — the lives of little children — were snuffed out because of the Anglo-US led sanctions against Iraq that went on for 13 years, and culminated in the invasion and occupation of that blighted land resulting in more death and destruction. The Egyptians and other Arabs remember all this. This is why there is so much anger against leaders like Mubarak and Zine El
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continued from page 2 Abidine Ben Ali, the deposed President of Tunisia, who are viewed rightly as men who facilitated US hegemony of the Arab world in recent years. They are regarded as lackeys serving an imperial agenda. In Cairo and Tunis there were banners denouncing them as agents of the US. Mubarak and Ben Ali have also been part and parcel of the blatant hypocrisy that characterises US relations with dictatorial regimes everywhere. US leaders have often claimed that they are committed to strengthening freedom and democracy in the Arab world. The former US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, even proclaimed in Cairo in 2005 that, “We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.” She launched a foundation called the Foundation for the Future for this purpose. Its chairman until June 2008 was a close US ally, the Malaysian politician, Anwar Ibrahim. In reality, the US, as everyone knows, gave its full support to Mubarak and Ben Ali and other such dictators who imprisoned, tortured and killed political dissidents with impressive democratic credentials. It is only when these dictators were on the verge of collapse that US officials began to support the democratic aspirations of their people. What makes their hypocrisy worse is their suppression of genuine attempts by people in the region to practise democratic principles. When the Islamic party, Hamas, won a free and fair election in Occupied Palestine in January 2006, it was subjected to a boycott and isolated by the US and the European Union. It is because of such hypocrisy that those who are struggling for change in Egypt and elsewhere have very little faith in the US leadership. 4. In your reply just now you mentioned ‘Israel’. Surely ‘Israel’ is an even more compelling factor in the people’s rage against their leaders. If US hegemony evokes negative vibes, it is partly because that hegemony has been used to protect and reinforce Israel’s position in the region. Israel—more than
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the US — is perceived by many Arabs as a bane upon their countries. Leaders and governments who collude with the Israeli regime are often viewed as traitors to the Palestinian cause. For hosting former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon in Tunis some years ago, Ben Ali was denounced by many Islamic and secular groups in the Arab world. Mubarak, whose country has diplomatic ties with Israel, was condemned by all and sundry for closing the Rafah crossing at the Egypt –Gaza border during the Israeli assault on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009. It aggravated the already precarious position of the besieged people of Gaza. When Israel attacked Lebanon in July 2006, Mubarak adopted an antagonistic attitude towards the target, namely, the Hezbollah, the most effective movement in the Arab world resisting Israeli aggression. Israel and those who hobnob with her, incense a lot of Arabs and Muslims not simply because of the manner in which Israel was created in 1948 which was a terrible travesty of justice. Everything Israel has done since then — the conquest of even more Palestinian and Arab territories, the killing of thousands of Palestinians and other Arabs, the expulsion and eviction of Palestinian families, the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the harassment at countless checkpoints which a Palestinian has to endure on a daily basis, and the apartheid wall that barricades Palestinians— have all contributed to the collective humiliation of the Arab and the Muslim. Israel’s arrogance and haughtiness have seared their psyche as nothing else has in the last 63 years. Israel is a perpetual affront to their human dignity. And the protests in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Jordan, in Algeria and in Yemen are about dignity. 5. Surely, the Arab Uprising is not just about how Israeli arrogance and US hegemony have trampled upon the dignity of the people. Hasn’t the economic situation also contributed to mass
LEAD ARTICLE anger? Undoubtedly. It has been estimated that about 140 million Arabs— 40% of the total population— live below the poverty line. But absolute poverty alone has seldom given rise to mass uprisings in history. It is widening income and wealth disparities, exacerbated by increasing food prices and high unemployment, that have begun to hurt a lot of people. While the policies and priorities set by the national elite are partly responsible for this economic malaise, the global economic environment has also been a major factor. Global food prices, for instance, shot up dramatically towards the end of 2010 due to a variety of reasons ranging from natural disasters and climate change to the conversion of food crops to bio-fuel and rampant speculation in commodities. Both Tunisia and Egypt import food today, when the latter was in fact self-sufficient in food in the sixties. Egypt’s present dependence upon food imports reflects a major structural flaw in a number of Arab economies and indeed other economies in both the Global South and the Global North. Starting from the eighties, they began to implement “neoliberal” capitalist policies which interalia required the rolling back of the state that in Egypt’s case meant the dismantling of government managed cooperatives in agriculture, the deregulation of the distribution of agricultural produce and the elimination of farm subsidies and food subsidies. Besides, neo-liberal capitalism also led to the opening up of the domestic market to food imports that were more competitive which in turn affected local food production. Consequently, food production declined significantly and Egypt became a net food importer. Even high unemployment is, to some extent, a result of the dominance of finance capital,— rather than capital for manufacturing activities or the service sector— typical of neo-liberal capitalism. With hedge funds, investment banks and currency speculators ruling the roost, there has been greater concentration of
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continued from page 3 capital in fewer and fewer hands. It is not surprising therefore that income and wealth disparities have become starker in today’s Egypt, compared to the Egypt of the sixties and early seventies. It is important to keep this in mind as protesters rage against some of the symptoms of the disease such as high food prices, massive unemployment and widening disparities. 6. What is the relationship between these economic issues and elite corruption and nepotism which apparently was also one of the causes of the Arab uprising? When people are suffering as a result of soaring prices of essentials and lack of jobs, allegations about elite corruption and nepotism—especially if they are substantiated — rouse the public ire as few other issues do. It is indisputably true that there is a great deal of corruption at all levels in a number of Arab states. It is often linked to relatives and cronies. In Tunisia, allegations about Ben Ali’s venality had been circulating for a long while. Invariably, they involved his wife, Leila Trabelsi, whose opulence and extravagance sustained through corrupt means became fodder for the hundreds of thousands of dissidents yearning for change. Their two families had a stake in all major enterprises from banks and airlines to wholesale and retail businesses. Their avarice incited mass hatred. Much of the anger towards Mubarak and his alleged corruption, revolve around his son Gamal. The father’s nepotism had resulted in the accumulation of so much family wealth that it came to symbolise all the excesses of his 30 year rule in Egypt. What made it worse was Mubarak’s coarse attempt to anoint his son as his successor. In Yemen too, Ali Abdullah Saleh who has been President since 1978 and was allegedly planning to hand over the reins of power to his son, Ahmed, was forced through popular protest to announce that he had no such intention and that
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he would relinquish his position when his term expires in 2013. The people are continuing to demand that he leaves office earlier. 7. Isn’t this — leaders staying in office for decades on end and then handing over power to their offspring— one of the main reasons why the Arab street has exploded in anger? Dynastic politics is repugnant under any circumstances. It becomes even more odious when the man on the throne has been in power for ages and is distinguished by an utter lack of competence and rectitude. WANA where almost all the Arab states are located is perhaps the only region in the world today where unelected incumbents, or incumbents who were elected in farcical elections, have been clinging on to power for decades, and are trying to hand over the reins of authority to their sons. WANA is also the region where elected parliaments, multi-party electoral competition, institutionalised accountability, legalised political dissent, independent judiciaries, and other such norms and principles of democratic governance are rare. It is because democratic governance has yet to become the accepted practice in WANA, that young people especially those who have had some exposure to values such as freedom of expression and democratic accountability have turned against dictatorial governments. They abhor the repressive laws, the torture techniques and the brutal suppression of legitimate dissent associated with these regimes. A segment of the older generation that had always resented the political suppression by the elites, have decided to join hands with the young. The result is the explosion of anger that we are witnessing in many of the cities of the region. 8. While this anger must have built up over a period of time, there must have been some trigger……………. In the case of Tunisia, it was the selfimmolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, a
LEAD ARTICLE young vegetable seller who was struggling to make ends meet in the midst of soaring food prices and was constantly harassed by the municipal authorities, that triggered an outpouring of angry emotions. 10 days after his funeral, on the 14th of January 2011, Ben Ali who had been in power for 23 years, fled from his country, responding in a sense to the clarion call for his ouster from all strata of society. This gave hope to people in Jordan, Algeria and Egypt who were also hungering for meaningful change. When hundreds of thousands of Egyptians came out in the open asking Hosni Mubarak to resign from his presidency, the people of Yemen were encouraged to pressurise their leader to quit. It is obvious that the Tunisian struggle against tyranny had a cascading effect. Bouazizi’s suicide was emulated in Egypt. Four Egyptians set themselves on fire. But the person who coaxed and challenged the people to congregate in the thousands in Tahrir (Liberation) Square on 25 January to urge Mubarak to step down was a young girl by the name of Asma Mahfouz, one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement that has played a big part in organising the mass protests since that day. It was Asma Mahfouz’s courage — and her passionate plea to others to show courage— that convinced a lot of people that they should overcome their fear and stand up for justice. Her voice, like the deaths of her four compatriots, was the trigger that Egypt was waiting for. 9. Is the constant refrain about the role of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan-ulMuslimin) in the Uprising and the socalled danger of the Uprising becoming like the Islamic Revolution of Iran that one hears over CNN in particular part of that agenda? The Ikhwan is one of a variety of movements and organisations that is part of the protest in Egypt. It did not initiate the protest. Of course as a grassroots movement it is reputed to be the most disciplined and the best organised. It has been around for more than 80 years,
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continued from page 4 though officially it is still banned. Though it is only one of the actors at the moment— some Western commentators argue— the Ikhwan could well assume leadership once a new government is formed in Egypt, as it happened in Iran. After all, the Islamic element in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 was also one of the Revolution’s many components and yet within a couple of years, the religious elite was entrenched in power and had sidelined the other actors. Those who make this comparison overlook two important differences. The Iranian Revolution, it is true, was diverse but Ayatollah Khomeini, given his religious credentials and his selfless sacrifice, was widely acknowledged as its overall leader. In his almost 20 year struggle against the Shah of Iran, both within the country and in exile, Khomeini articulated a vision of struggle and change that was essentially religious. There were a number of other illustrious clerics, like Ayatollah Taleghani and Ayatollah Mutahhari who were also at the helm of the Iranian Revolution. There is no one from the Ikhwan who plays a role in the Egyptian Uprising that comes anywhere close to the commanding stature of Khomeini or the other Ayatollahs in the Iranian Revolution. It was partly because of Khomeini’s stature that he was able to shape postrevolutionary Iran in a specific religious mould. The war that Saddam Hussein of Iraq, with the support of a number of Arab monarchies and the connivance of the US, Britain and other Western nations, imposed upon Iran from 1980 to 1988, helped Khomeini to consolidate his religious grip upon his people. There is nothing to suggest that such extraordinary circumstances that allowed a particular leadership with a particular religious orientation to reinforce its position would present themselves again in the case of Egypt. Besides, the Ikhwan which at various points in history was known for its rigid, sometimes dogmatic conservatism has
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also undergone some significant changes. Mainstream groups within the movement have become more tolerant of theological differences, more accommodative of the role of women and non-Muslim minorities, and less exclusive in their notion of state and law. It is significant that in the wake of the massacre of Christians in Alexandria a few weeks ago, the Ikhwan played a major role in projecting Muslim-Christian solidarity. Ironically, the political ban on Ikhwan has strengthened its commitment to humanitarian and welfare principles in Islam, and appears to have diluted its earlier obsession with the primacy of power. Nonetheless, there are still some elements within the Ikhwan who remain attached to a superficial, literalist interpretation of Islamic rules and injunctions. In any case, why are political elites and media commentators in the US, Britain and other Western countries so concerned about the Ikhwan and its ideology in Egypt when they have no qualms about cooperating and collaborating with an Islamic state that adopts an atavistic approach to law and marginalises women and non-Muslim minorities? Is it because Saudi Arabia is not only an unquestioningly loyal ally but is also totally subservient to US and Western hegemony? In other words, it is not the ‘Islamic state’ or ‘Islamic law’ that is the problem. If the West is assured of acquiescence with its power and dominance, it would be quite happy to accept the Ikhwan. The US and other Western elites are not sure if the Ikhwan will reject their hegemony — as the Islamic Iranian leadership has done— and insist upon the independence and sovereignty of Egypt and the Arab people as a whole. Will the Ikhwan leaders follow the example of Hamas in Palestine and Hizbollah in Lebanon and pursue a principled position on the liberation of Palestinian and other Arab lands, and oppose Israel’s nefarious designs in the region? Will the Ikhwan — as required by the Qur’an—privilege justice and the dignity of the oppressed
LEAD ARTICLE and the victims of aggression over and above the interests of the US, British and Israeli elites? Because these are worrying questions for those who seek to perpetuate their hegemony and their power, the Ikhwan and where it stands has become an issue. 10. Instead of focusing upon the Ikhwan, shouldn’t US and Israeli elites reflect on how they can play a constructive role in an Arab world that is asserting its dignity and its honour? This is precisely what they should be doing. If the people succeed in bringing about fundamental change in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries in WANA, US and Israeli elites cannot continue with their present policy of controlling, manipulating and dominating the region through elites who represent their interests more than the well-being of the Arab masses. They should adjust to the new realities on the ground. In more concrete terms, this means justice for the Palestinians—— justice that they have been denied for the last 63 years. Palestinian refugees should be allowed to return to Israel and to a new Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza that will have East Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinian and other Arab prisoners in Israeli jails should be released. The Golan Heights should be returned in its entirety to Syria and the Sheba Farms should be restored to Lebanon. Israel should eliminate its nuclear weapons and WANA should be declared a nuclear weapons free zone. If the US is sincere about respecting and fulfilling the aspirations of the people of the region, it should coax, cajole and coerce Israel to take these measures. As Israel moves towards peace based upon justice in a new WANA, all the states in the region should also accord formal recognition to Israel. While the resolution of the Israel-Arab conflict will be the litmus test of whether or not the US is sincere in its attitude towards the Arab people, it will also have to show through deeds that it no longer
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continued from page 5 seeks to perpetuate its political or economic hegemony anywhere in WANA. It should not try to maintain its political control over the region by ensuring that its proxies and agents are elected through the ballot-box. The US should also cease to use the International
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Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other such institutions and arrangements to push through neo-liberal capitalist policies and programmes that are clearly inimical to the people’s interest. Instead of trying to shape the destiny of the Arab world for its own hegemonic purpose, the US elite should
S T A T E M E N T S learn to respect the autonomy and integrity of the people of WANA. It should allow them to harness their own religious and cultural strengths in order to construct their own future, guided by their own vision. 12 February, 2011
STATEMENTS THE
RISING FOOD PRICES AND IMPORTANCE OF FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE
The sharp increase in global food prices and their consequences raises some fundamental questions about the state of the world economy and how we organise our lives. According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) its food price index hit an all-time high in December 2010. It was partly because of soaring prices that 925 million people worldwide suffered from hunger in 2010, an increase of 150 million since 1995-97. There have been mass protests and riots in a number of countries, including Algeria and Jordan. The escalating cost of bread was one of the many factors that led to the ouster of the Tunisian dictator, Zine-El-Abidine Ben Ali, by the people on 14 January 2011. In other countries, such as India and China the inflationary trend in food prices has forced their central banks to push up interest rates. This will have repercussions for their pace of growth which in turn may affect the global economic recovery. There are many reasons that explain the present escalation in food prices. Climate change is one of them. Unseasonal rains and floods and rising temperatures have impacted adversely upon food production in a number of countries. It has been estimated that a one degree Celsius increase in temperature above the optimum during the growing season can result in a 10% decline in grain yields. The use of food crops to produce fuel for vehicles is another factor. According
to Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, “In the United States which harvested 416 million tons of grain in 2009, 119 million tons went to ethanol distilleries to produce fuel for cars. That’s enough to feed 350 billion people for a year.” Related to this is the massive conversion of farm lands to land for roads, parking lots and housing and industrial complexes. In rapidly urbanising and industrialising economies, the implications of this for food production have been severe. Global population increase, and what is even more important, the expansion of the global middle class in recent years, have led to a significant growth in food consumption. Since supply is struggling to keep pace with demand, prices have expectedly shot up. The situation has been aggravated further by soil erosion and the shrinking of irrigated areas in certain parts of the world. With less scope for improving grain yields to meet the increasing demand, food prices have been climbing up steadily. But more than the demand factor, there is another major cause for food inflation that is seldom highlighted in the mainstream media. This is rampant speculation in commodity prices including food staples such as wheat, corn and rice. One of the main reasons why speculation has become rife in recent months is because of the effect of “quantitative easing”— the cheap dollar
policy pursued by the US government which has increased the flow of hot money especially to emerging economies. It provides huge opportunities to hedge funds, banks and corporations to speculate upon not only food grains but also other commodities such as oil. In fact, the rise in the price of oil which stands today at over 90 US dollars a barrel is also linked to some extent to speculation. It has increased transport costs for food and other goods. This is why curbing speculation through fundamental reforms to the international financial system is a vital necessity. There are powerful vested interests that are totally opposed to any attempt to check this unethical practice driven by greed and selfishness. Nonetheless, those who are concerned about the well-being of the human family — including the basic right of every human being to eat — should continue to press for change. They should also demand that the global powers-that-be address the colossal challenges emanating from climate change and other serious environmental woes that are responsible directly or indirectly for rising food prices and the food crisis in general. In similar vein, there should be a more concerted campaign worldwide to enhance public transportation since the adulation of the private car, as we have seen, has a bearing upon food production. What this means is that priorities both at the
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continued from page 6 individual and collective level will have to undergo a massive transformation. The human family as a whole should realise that the public good should — in most circumstances — take precedence over
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private gain. For this to happen there has to be a holistic change in our attitudes, habits and values. It calls for a revolution of the heart. Only if there is such a spiritual and moral revolution will we be able to
A R T I C L E S overcome the crisis of rising food prices and indeed all the other monumental crises that confront the human family today. Chandra Muzaffar 6 January, 2011
MURDERING SCIENTISTS In one of his regular Reflections dated 6 January 2011, the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, explores the possibility that the recent assassinations of Iranian scientists could have been carried out by Israel’s secret service, the Mossad, with the connivance of American and British intelligence. At the end of November 2010, nuclear scientist, Majid Shariari, lost his life in an explosion just outside his home. In January 2010, Dr. Masoud Ali Mohamadi, a nuclear physicist at Tehran University, was also killed in a bomb blast as he was leaving home for work. Dr. Arseshir Hosseinpour was found dead at the nuclear centre in Isfahan in 2007. Castro attributes to Gordon Thomas, a British expert on the Mossad, the view that “ all Israeli assassination attempts in the last few years against personalities associated with the Iranian nuclear project have been committed by the Kidon (bayonet) unit. According to the Jewish newspaper Yediot Ahronot this unit is made up of 38 agents. Five of them are women. They are all between 20 and 30 years old and they speak several languages — including Persian — and they are able to come and go from Iran with ease. They are based in the Negev Desert.”
The assassination of Iranian scientists mirrors the killing of a much larger number of Iraqi scientists allegedly also by Mossad agents between 2003 and 2006. It is estimated that something like 550 scientists and other academics were killed during that period. In fact, an international conference on the assassinations of Iraqi academics was held in Madrid in April 2006. At that conference biographies of the victims were presented. Assuming that these allegations are true, it is not difficult to fathom why Israel would want to eliminate Iraqi and Iranian scientists, particularly nuclear scientists. Israel is determined to maintain its position as the sole nuclear weapons state in West Asia. This is why in 1981, without provocation, it demolished the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq. It also explains why Israel is so eager to take military action against Iran, even when there is no concrete evidence to suggest that the latter is planning to produce nuclear weapons. Israel knows that more than destroying nuclear installations, it is the pulverization of nuclear brains that will ensure that it continues to exercise a monopoly over nuclear weapons in the region. It is a shame that — with a few
exceptions — the mainstream Western media has made no attempt to probe the alleged link between the recent assassination of Iranian scientists and Israel and its overt and covert operations’ units. Even in the earlier elimination of Iraqi scientists it was only the Dohabased Al-Jazeera that revealed the clandestine role of Mossad hit squads. In cyber media, there are very few websites or blogs that focus upon this critical question of Israel’s espionage apparatus and its activities. It is as if the media as a whole have conspired to protect Israeli interests. What is even more disillusioning is the deafening silence of scientists and academics everywhere. In the so-called great centres of learning in the West, very few voices of conscience have condemned the systematic murder of their fraternity. It is equally disgraceful that in most of the universities and research institutes in West Asia and in the Global South, elimination of Iraqi and Iranian scientists is a non-issue. One can understand why Fidel Castro’s Reflection on the Iranian murders is appropriately entitled, “What would Einstein Say?” Chandra Muzaffar, 12 January, 2011.
ARTICLES CHINA’S PIPELINEISTAN “WAR” (PART II) By Pepe Escobar The Great Escape
From Beijing’s point of view, the title of the movie version of the intractable U.S. v. Iran conflict and a simmering U.S. v. China strategic competition in Pipelineistan could be: “Escape from Hormuz and Malacca.”
The Strait of Hormuz is the definition of a potential strategic bottleneck. It is, after all, the only entryway to the Persian Gulf and through it now flow roughly 20% of China’s oil imports. At its narrowest, it is only 36 kilometers wide, with Iran to the north and Oman to the
south. China’s leaders fret about the constant presence of U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups on station and patrolling nearby. With Singapore to the North and Indonesia to the south, the Strait of
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continued from page 7 Malacca is another potential bottleneck if ever there was one — and through it flow as much as 80% of China’s oil imports. At its narrowest, it is only 54 kilometers wide and like the Strait of Hormuz, its security is also of the madein-USA variety. In a future face-off with Washington, both straits could quickly be closed or controlled by the U.S. Navy. Hence, China’s increasing emphasis on developing a land-based Central Asian energy strategy could be summed up as: bye-bye, Hormuz! Bye-bye, Malacca! And a hearty welcome to a pipeline-driven new Silk Road from the Caspian Sea to China’s Far West in Xinjiang. Kazakhstan has 3% of the world’s proven oil reserves, but its largest oil fields are not far from the Chinese border. China sees that country as a key alternative oil supplier via future pipelines that would link the Kazakh oil fields to Chinese oil refineries in its far west. In fact, China’s first transnational Pipelineistan adventure is already in place: the 2005 China-Kazakhstan oil project, financed by Chinese energy giant CNPC. Much more is to come, and Chinese leaders expect energy-rich Russia to play a significant part in China’s escape-hatch planning as well. Strategically, this represents a crucial step in regional energy integration, tightening the Russia/ China partnership inside the SCO as well as at the U.N. Security Council. When it comes to oil, the name of the game is the immense Eastern SiberiaPacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline. Last August, a 4,000-kilometer-long Russian section from Taishet in eastern Siberia to Nakhodka, still inside Russian territory, was begun. Russian Premier Vladimir Putin hailed ESPO as “a really comprehensive project that has strengthened our energy cooperation.” And in late September, the Russians and the Chinese inaugurated a 999-kilometerlong pipeline from Skovorodino in Russia’s Amur region to the petrochemical hub Daqing in northeast China.
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Russia is currently delivering up to 130 million tons of Russian oil a year to Europe. Soon, no less than 50 million tons may be heading to China and the Pacific region as well. There are, however, hidden tensions between the Russians and the Chinese when it comes to energy matters. The Russian leadership is understandably wary of China’s startling strides in Central Asia, the former Soviet Union’s former “near abroad.” After all, as the Chinese have been doing in Africa in their search for energy, in Central Asia, too, the Chinese are building railways and introducing high-tech trains, among other modern wonders, in exchange for oil and gas concessions. Despite the simmering tensions between China, Russia, and the U.S., it’s too early to be sure just who is likely to emerge as the victor in the new Great Game in Central Asia, but one thing is clear enough. The Central Asian “stans” are becoming ever more powerful poker players in their own right as Russia tries not to lose its hegemony there, Washington places all its chips on pipelines meant to bypass Russia (including the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that pumps oil from Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia) and China antes up big time for its Central Asian future. Whoever loses, this is a game that the “stans” cannot but profit from. Recently, our man Gurbanguly, the Turkmen leader, chose China as his goto country for an extra $4.18 billion loan for the development of South Yolotan, his country’s largest gas field. (The Chinese had already shelled out $3 billion to help develop it.) Energy bureaucrats in Brussels were devastated. With estimated reserves of up to 14 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, the field has the potential to flood the energy-starved European Union with gas for more than 20 years. Goodbye to all that? In 2009, Turkmenistan’s proven gas reserves were estimated at a staggering 8.1 trillion cubic meters, fourth largest in the world after Russia, Iran, and Qatar. Not surprisingly, from the point of view of Ashgabat, the country’s capital, it
A R T I C L E S invariably seems to be raining gas. Nonetheless, experts doubt that the landlocked, idiosyncratic Central Asian republic actually has enough blue gold to supply Russia (which absorbed 70% of Turkmenistan’s supply before the pipeline to China opened), China, Western Europe and Iran, all at the same time. Currently, Turkmenistan sells its gas to: China via the world’s largest gas pipeline, 7,000 kilometers long and designed for a capacity of 40 billion cubic meters per year, Russia (10 billion cubic meters per year, down from 30 billion per year until 2008), and Iran (14 billion cubic meters per year). Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad always gets a red-carpet welcome from Gurbanguly, and the Russian energy giant Gazprom, thanks to an improved pricing policy, is treated as a preferred customer. At present, however, the Chinese are atop the heap, and more generally, whatever happens, there can be little question that Central Asia will be China’s major foreign supplier of natural gas. On the other hand, the fact that Turkmenistan has, in practice, committed its entire future gas exports to China, Russia, and Iran means the virtual death of various trans-Caspian Sea pipeline plans long favored by Washington and the European Union. IPI vs. TAPI All Over Again On the oil front, even if all the “stans” sold China every barrel of oil they currently pump, less than half of China’s daily import needs would be met. Ultimately, only the Middle East can quench China’s thirst for oil. According to the International Energy Agency, China’s overall oil needs will rise to 11.3 million barrels per day by 2015, even with domestic production peaking at 4.0 million bpd. Compare that to what some of China’s alternative suppliers are now producing: Angola, 1.4 million bpd; Kazakhstan, 1.4 million as well; and Sudan, 400,000. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia produces 10.9 million bpd, Iran around
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continued from page 8 4.0 million, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 3.0 million, Kuwait 2.7 million — and then there’s Iraq, presently at 2.5 million and likely to reach at least 4.0 million by 2015. Still, Beijing has yet to be fully convinced that this is a safe supply, especially given all those U.S. “forward operating sites” in the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, plus those roaming naval battle groups in the Persian Gulf. On the gas front, China definitely counts on a South Asian game changer. Beijing has already spent $200 million on the first phase in the construction of a deepwater port at Gwadar in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province. It wanted, and got from Islamabad, “sovereign guarantees to the port’s facilities.” Gwadar is only 400 kilometers from Hormuz. With Gwadar, the Chinese Navy would have a homeport that would easily allow it to monitor traffic in the strait and someday perhaps even thwart the U.S. Navy’s expansionist designs in the Indian Ocean. But Gwadar has another infinitely juicier future role. It could prove the pivot in a competition between two longdiscussed pipelines: TAPI and IPI. TAPI stands for the TurkmenistanAfghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which can never be built as long as U.S. and NATO occupation forces are fighting the resistance umbrella conveniently labeled “Taliban” in Afghanistan. IPI, however, is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the “peace pipeline” (which, of course, would make TAPI the “war pipeline”). To
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Washington’s immeasurable distress, last June, Iran and Pakistan finally closed the deal to build the “IP” part of IPI, with Pakistan assuring Iran that either India or China could later be brought into the project. Whether it’s IP, IPI, or IPC, Gwadar will be a key node. If, under pressure from Washington, which treats Tehran like the plague, India is forced to pull out of the project, China already has made it clear that it wants in. The Chinese would then build a Pipelineistan link from Gwadar along the Karakorum highway in Pakistan to China via the Khunjerab Pass — another overland corridor that would prove immune to U.S. interference. It would have the added benefit of radically cutting down the 20,000kilometer-long tanker route around the southern rim of Asia.
Arguably, for the Indians it would be a strategically sound move to align with IPI, trumping a deep suspicion that the Chinese will move to outflank them in the search for foreign energy with a “string of pearls” strategy: the setting up of a series of “home ports” along its key oil supply routes from Pakistan to Myanmar. In that case, Gwadar would no
A R T I C L E S longer simply be a “Chinese” port. As for Washington, it still believes that if TAPI is built, it will help keep India from fully breaking the U.S.-enforced embargo on Iran. Energy-starved Pakistan obviously prefers its “allweather” ally China, which might commit itself to building all sorts of energy infrastructure within that flooddevastated country. In a nutshell, if the unprecedented energy cooperation between Iran, Pakistan, and China goes forward, it will signal a major defeat for Washington in the New Great Game in Eurasia, with enormous geopolitical and geo-economic repercussions. For the moment, Beijing’s strategic priority has been to carefully develop a remarkably diverse set of energysuppliers — a flow of energy that covers Russia, the South China Sea, Central Asia, the East China Sea, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. (China’s forays into Africa and South America will be dealt with in a future installment of our TomDispatch tour of the globe’s energy hotspots.) If China has so far proven masterly in the way it has played its cards in its Pipelineistan “war”, the U.S. hand — bypass Russia, elbow out China, isolate Iran — may soon be called for what it is: a bluff. 14 October, 2010 Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is Obama Does Globalistan. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com. Part I can be read in January Commentary online : www.just-international.org Source: TomDispatch.com
WALL STREET PROFITS - JUST RENT SEEKING? By Stephen B. Young
Dear Friends and Colleagues, In the November 29th issue of The New Yorker, John Cassidy asks in a commentary: “What good is Wall Street?” He ends his article with a quote from Paul Woolly: “There was a presumption that financial innovation is socially valuable. The first thing I discovered is that it wasn’t backed by any empirical evidence. There’s almost none.”
Wall Street sustained losses of US$42.6 billion in 2008, but made US$55 billion in profits the very next year – when most people were coping, and many coping badly, with recession, unemployment and declining asset prices. In the first quarter of 2010, traders at Goldman Sachs had their best quarter results ever – US$7.4 billion in net revenue.
In securities trading these days, institutional fund managers and speculative high frequency traders are most of the market. Rarely do they provide capital for new or expanded business enterprise. Mostly they take cash out of the economy through the buying and selling of existing securities which represent the present value of past
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continued from page 9 capital investment. Big trading houses hardly ever have a day when they lose money. This is not taking a chance on a roll of the dice - this is loading the dice in their favor. It is moving the chips around among the poker players; total wealth is not increased in a trade of securities; cash just changes hands. If someone buys at five and sells at six to pocket a one dollar profit, what value have they added? Some liquidity to the market for that security, to be sure, and there is a social good provided by liquid markets. But beyond that? They took the dollar profit in exchange for a legal claim on future income and/or capital – a security. This is rent extraction, not wealth creation. Rents are paid for access to legal or political authority – as when we pay rent to a landlord, we buy a share of his or her legal title to real property. Patents and copyrights provide legal opportunities for rent extraction. Without legal title and the power of government to enforce those property rights, no rents could be charged. If prices for securities rise, however, there is what is called a “wealth effect.” People then feel a rising tide of economic prospects and their psychology encourages consumption and borrowing, which do impact the real economy. More realistic economic wealth creation through financial intermediation aggregates existing wealth from some to transfer its buying power to others to finance enterprise, innovation and growth. This is most often done through new loans to business and new equity investment in companies, or through hybrid investments like warrants, preferred stock and convertible bonds and debentures. Traditional banking, investment banking and venture capital provided these financial services. Insurance and other forms of risk protection and diversification also add real economic value in encouraging investment in enterprise. But from 1991 to 2000, some 150
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venture capital-backed companies a year took in equity capital through Wall Street. But since 2000, such annual IPO offerings have averaged only about 50 per year. Capital markets seem to have lost faith in new enterprises and have become captivated by property, derivatives, bonds and every other asset class. So where will the growth come from to hire workers and pay down national debts? Lord Adair Turner, Chairman of the UK’s Financial Services Authority, wrote recently that “It is possible for financial activity to extract rents from the real economy rather than deliver economic value.” If all financial innovation does is create new forms of rent extraction, what good does it do except to take money from the many and give it to the few? In the United States, six firms – Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo – have assets of US$9.2 trillion – 63% of national GDP. John Maynard Keynes famously aligned securities exchanges with casinos in their social utility. Did he have a point? Casinos make a lot of money on millions of small transactions. They win every time you lose at their tables. What wealth do they create? They just take your money and move it to other pockets. So does a poker game, or craps. Money moves among players, but the total pot sees no growth in value. Some go home winners, but others leave as losers to that extent. The bets made by many securities traders are calculated by algorithms that measure a price as a deviation (higher or lower) from a statistical norm and plot the odds of deviation associated with that price. If you bet that the price will converge towards the norm, you can successfully arbitrage and make profits. The algorithms that now control most trading in securities began as attempts to beat the odds in casinos. Our financial system’s major profit seeking mechanism owes its life and its profits to the techniques of gambling.
A R T I C L E S Maybe Keynes had a point after all. Gambling, I would suggest, is a form of extracting rents from the real economy. Gamblers seek rents associated with their legal rights. Gambling is all about getting power according to the rules. The rules of gambling – poker, black-jack, craps, chemin de fer, bridge, if you will – create legal rights in players. Two of a kind in poker beats any single high card, etc. If the rules come down in your favor, you have a right to collect. You suddenly have a valuable property in how the cards or the dice fell. You can therefore trade in your property for some of the cash money put up by the other players, including the house. Or, if you gain nothing to trade from the fall of cards or dice, you lose whatever price you paid to join the game. That entrance fee is also a form of rent, paid to those who “own” the game for access to their assets. All the money that changes hands in gambling is brought into the casino or the game from the outside - from the real economy. Rent extraction in gambling brings about a kind of “irrational exuberance” on the part of many players that does not exist in normal market transactions where pricing future returns is more realistic. The more rent extraction is at work, the less market mechanisms can do their job of providing economically efficient outcomes. Where rent extraction is at work, the elasticity of supply and demand curves tightens; free market checks and balances have less effect; prices don’t signal true levels of demand or possible supply, and they are artificially high. It is easier to make money through rent extraction than to be subject to market forces. Monopolies and cartels create opportunities for rent extraction. Adam Smith, in his book Wealth of Nations, noted that business owners and managers love to get together and conspire against the public by setting up rigged markets to increase the returns to rent. Corruption by officials and politicians
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continued from page 10 is another form of rent extraction: use of state power for selfish gain comes at a price paid to those in charge of state authority. Here, too, market forces are too weak to control prices and economic outcomes. If it is correct that financial intermediation has more and more
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become rent extraction, than it should also be correct that we need to give it less and less deference and government advantages. The profits of financial houses should move back down in proportion to all profits roughly to the proportion that the financial industry contributes real wealth to national GDP.
DR. BINAYAK SEN : GHANDIAN
Disproportionate rent extraction would appear to be highly unethical, in any industry. Sincerely yours, Stephen B. Young Global Executive Director Caux Round Table 14 December, 2010
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By Amir Sengupta No sophistry, no jugglery in figures can explain away the evidence that the skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye. I have no doubt whatsoever that both England and the town dwellers of India will have to answer, if there is a God above, for this crime against humanity, which is perhaps unequaled in history. The law itself in this country has been used to serve the foreign exploiter. My unbiased examination of the Punjab Martial Law cases has led me to believe that 95 per cent of the convictions were wholly bad. My experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion that in nine out of every ten the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in the love of their country. In 99 cases out of 100, justice has been denied to Indians as against Europeans in the courts of India. This is not an exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who has had anything to do with such cases. In my opinion the administration of the law is thus prostituted consciously or unconsciously for the benefit of the exploiter... In my humble opinion, noncooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good... The only course open to you, the judge, is either to resign your post, and thus dissociate yourself from evil if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil and that in reality I am innocent, or to inflict upon me the severest penalty if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this
country and that my activity is therefore injurious to the public weal. On conviction for sedition: A selection from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s closing statement to the judge on March 23, 1922 Text from pp. 87-88 in LAW, A Treasury of Art and Literature, edited by Sara Robbins, published by Beaux Arts Editions,1990. Courtesy bargad. wordpress.com Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. He was then termed a terrorist by the racist white empire, including western powers. Many of his comrades, most of them communists, spent many more years. Tortured and exiled. Che was murdered in Bolivia by the CIA. Fidel Castro was jailed and branded untouchable. Cuba is still under an American trade embargo. Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, hanged by the British. Young Khudiram Bose, hanged. Two of the Chittagong rebels, hanged: Surya Sen and Tarakeswar Dastidar. Kalpana Dutt condemned as terrorist. Chandrashekhar Azad killed himself in an armed encounter with the police. Or, was he killed? Nehru spent many more years in jail than Gandhi and other Congress leaders. Hundreds of Indian revolutionaries were tortured and brutalised in the kala pani of Andaman’s hell-holes. Great Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca murdered by the Franco dictatorship. Genius scholar Christopher Caudwell killed in Spanish Civil War, plus hundreds of anti-fascist intellectuals. Salvador Allende, elected Chilean leader, killed by the CIA. His friend, poet Pablo Neruda, died soon after, in angst. Dissident writer
Ken Saro-Wiwa, executed in Nigeria. He was fighting for the rights of the poorest against the government and a multinational oil company. Azad and Hemchandra Pandey, killed by subterfuge, clearly in a fake encounter, even as Azad carried messages of talks/ ceasefire. Charu Majumdar killed in Calcutta police custody. One generation of Bengal’s young wiped out, tortured, jailed. Chavez, Morales, Lula, all branded Leftists. Lula’s inheritor, Dilma Rousseff, condemned as Leftist Guerrilla Terrorist, is the new elected president of Brazil. Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai, along with thousands of Nepali Maoists, branded terrorists. Aurobindo condemned as terrorist. Orhan Pamuk hounded for reminding Turkey of the Armenian holocaust. Sedition case against Arundhati Roy. Chinese Nobel prize winner Liu Xiaobo jailed for writing a freedom charter. His wife disappears. Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panai in prison for defending pro-democracy protestors. Dr Binayak Sen. Life imprisonment. Sedition. No evidence. Crime: Four decades of relentless health work for the poorest in the most remote zones of India. And non-violent, peaceful protest against human rights violations. Gandhian with a stethoscope. Is this a Police State or a Democracy? 12 January, 2011 Amir Sengupta is one of the eminent writers for Hardnews magazine. Hardnews is the South Asian partner of Le Monde Diplomatique, Paris, France Source: hardnewsmedia.com
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