Ninety-Nine is published three times a year by Global Justice Now
Global Justice Now campaigns for a world where resources are controlled by the many, not the few. We champion social movements and propose democratic alternatives to the rule of the 1%. Our activists and groups in towns and cities around the UK work in solidarity with those at the sharp end of poverty and injustice.
Ninety-Nine magazine, Global Justice Now 66 Offley Road, London SW9 0LS
Cover: Widespread damage to buildings near the Palestine Tower in Gaza City after bombardment by Israeli forces.
Photo: Geopix/Alamy Stock Photo
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Gaza shows why deep injustices continue around the world
Nick Dearden Director
I have to start by expressing my anger that one year on we are still witnessing what I believe (and I am not alone) is a genocide in Gaza. One being committed by a very rich government, against an impoverished people – with the backing, and the arms, of the richest powers on the planet. As Tim Bierley explains in this issue, the new UK government remains complicit in this, and its partial arms embargo has only scratched the surface of what it should be doing to uphold international law.
How is this horror in Palestine, and now Lebanon too, allowed to continue? It’s held in place, like so much injustice in our world, by a deeply colonial mindset, based on the idea that most people’s lives have very little value. That the majority of people on the planet are entirely disposable.
How else can we explain not just the continued flow of arms despite the tens of thousands of civilians killed in Gaza, but the medical apartheid of the Covid pandemic, which continues across a succession of essential drugs and treatments today? How else can we explain the continued freedom of the fossil fuel industry to profiteer from fuelling the climate disasters that are already proliferating around the globe?
The horror in Gaza is held in place by the colonial idea that the majority of people on the planet are entirely disposable.
The first step to changing things is breaking down the colonial, racist narratives that underline the way our global economy works. And then we must join together to refuse to participate in an economy which treats people as if they’re disposable.
In this issue we hear about numerous ways that people in the global south are doing precisely this. The latest efforts to hold Shell to account in Nigeria after decades of destruction. The uprising in Bangladesh against entrenched inequality. The refusal of people in Kenya to pick up the tab for the excesses of western banks.
We have so much to gain from joining with these efforts and movements in solidarity. We can finally begin the process of taking back our society, our economy, and our world from the laws of the market, and reclaim all those things that make life worth living from the clutches of the profiteers.
UK’s partial arms embargo not enough
Global Justice Now has continued to campaign for a full arms embargo on Israel, as well as a suspension of the UK-Israel trade deal, as Israel’s assault on Gaza continues. More than 42,000 Palestinians have now been killed, including at least 11,000 children. The new Labour government has so far failed to sufficiently change course from the previous government’s uncritical backing of Israel.
In August we commissioned leading barrister Sam Fowles to look into whether UK government ministers and senior civil servants may have breached international law by giving backing to Israel’s operations in Gaza, as well as its longstanding illegal occupation of Palestinian land. Fowles found it is likely that the UK, through its trade relationship with Israel, has helped facilitate the unlawful occupation, while there is a real possibility that UK ministers could be liable for Israeli war crimes in Gaza, if Israeli
personnel are found by a court to have committed them. The story was published in the i newspaper and Fowles also wrote an article for the Guardian about his advice.
In September, after months of heavy pressure, foreign secretary David Lammy announced that the UK had suspended 30 arms export licences to Israel, concluding that there was a clear risk that these arms could be used to commit breaches of humanitarian law. This was an important step, preventing Israel from accessing parts for its F-16 fighter jet fleet, as well as for military helicopters and drones. It followed hundreds of thousands of people, including 25,000 Global Justice Now supporters, taking action to demand an embargo. However, the ban was only a partial one, failing to cover UKproduced components of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jets – totalling 15% of the aircraft – which have been used by the Israeli military in Gaza, as
well as more than 300 other licences that remain active.
Finally, after the new business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds announced in July that the UK would seek to develop a new trade deal with Israel, we sent a letter with Amnesty International UK, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights and over 20 other organisations urging the government to revoke the existing trade deal for as long as Israel’s human rights abuses continue.
As Ninety-Nine goes to press, Israel has dramatically escalated the conflict with a series of bombing raids on Lebanon, followed by the beginnings of a ground invasion. It has intensified the need for the UK and other governments to begin seriously withholding economic and political support from the Netanyahu government in response to its serial breaches of international law.
Join the trade action at: globaljustice.org.uk/israel-trade
Polls show the British public overwhelmingly backs an arms embargo on Israel.
The new UK government has shown some promising signs of a willingness to take on the fossil fuel industry in its first few months, starting with its manifesto commitment to limit new fossil fuel projects in the North Sea.
legal defences in cases against the Rosebank oilfield and the Whitehaven coal mine in Cumbria.
Over the summer, Unison became the first UK union to endorse the Fossil Fuel Treaty, demonstrating that this global exit plan can provide a framework for justice for workers in the UK as well as communities in the global south.
An end to fossil fuel expansion is the first pillar of the Fossil Fuel NonProliferation Treaty, which is the major focus of Global Justice Now’s climate campaign. Ministers have also dropped the previous government’s
We’ve been working with supporters and groups around the country to build support for the treaty, engaging a variety of councillors and parliamentarians from a range of parties on the campaign. At the international level, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia have recently endorsed the treaty, taking it to a total of 14 national governments so far.
With the new government’s first UN
climate summit, COP29 in Azerbaijan, fast approaching, we’re asking ministers to endorse the Fossil Fuel Treaty and once again pushing them to commit the UK’s fair share of climate finance, funded by making corporate polluters like Shell and BP pay up. In July, we found that the profits of these UK oil giants over the last year add up to more than the combined GDP of six of the Caribbean countries worst hit by Hurricane Beryl, a devastating tropical cyclone which made landfall in the Caribbean in June. These obscene statistics remind us why the fight for climate justice is so urgent and why the UK government has a huge role to play, at COP29 and beyond.
On Saturday 16 November, in the middle of COP29, we will join a global day of action for climate justice. Find out more at: globaljustice.org.uk/cop29
Campaigners marched from Shell's headquarters to Parliament to demand climate finance and a fossil fuel phase-out in September.
After our campaign win on the climate-wrecking Energy Charter Treaty earlier this year, the global movement against corporate courts is setting its sights on taking down these secret investor tribunals, also known as ISDS, from as many trade deals as possible.
In the UK, we’re starting with the UK’s investment treaty with Colombia, which ended its initial 10-year term in October, meaning it is open for renegotiation. Global Justice Now is calling on the UK government to work with Colombia to terminate this treaty, which contains ISDS clauses. Colombia is currently facing ISDS claims exceeding $13 billion, over 13% of its annual budget. This call is part of a longer process we’re calling for – a review of all UK treaties containing corporate courts.
There is also still a window to remove the risk of ISDS as the UK officially joins the Pacific trade bloc in December. In opposition, Labour expressed concern over corporate courts in this deal, but now ministers have gone quiet, even though there is a simple solution. The UK has already signed ‘side letters’ with Australia and New Zealand agreeing to drop the ISDS provisions between these countries. We’re pushing the UK to do the same with the other nine members of the Pacific trade deal.
Take action: globaljustice.org.uk/colombia-isds
Mpox vaccine inequality
The spread of a new more deadly strain of the mpox virus this summer, centred in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has exposed the continuing failure to learn the lessons of vaccine inequality from the Covid-19 pandemic. At least 20,000 cases have been reported since the start of the year, with well over 500 deaths, most of them children. In mid-August the World Health Organisation declared the outbreak “a public health emergency of international concern”. Global Justice Now joined calls for urgent steps to improve vaccine access in the countries most affected by the virus, after a familiar situation occurred of all available vaccine doses being stockpiled by countries in the global north.
The crisis has strengthened calls for progress in negotiations over a global pandemic treaty, which are continuing at the World Health Organisation. Countries with large pharmaceutical industries including the UK have been blocking attempts to agree steps to ensure equitable vaccine access in the treaty, once again putting corporate profits ahead of global public health. As Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden wrote for Al Jazeera: “To keep ignoring the needs and lives of a large section of humanity because it gets in the way of profit is not only wrong, it will subject all of us to new, dangerous epidemics. None of us can be secure in such a world.”
Above: Global Justice Now joined an international delegation of trade campaigners last year to meet Colombian communities resisting ISDS.
Swiss pharma giant Gilead has been criticised by access to medicines campaigners after announcing a limited programme of voluntary licences for lenacapavir, its groundbreaking long-acting HIV prevention injection. The deal will see generic versions of the twiceyearly jab become available in lowincome countries. However, it excludes middle
income countries including Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Peru, which must now pay whatever Gilead decides to charge – despite people from these countries participating in trials which demonstrated the medicine’s effectiveness. The agreement prevents supplies from being distribute to middle-income countries, even if they have issued compulsory licences permitted under WTO rules.
Serbians oppose Rio Tinto’s new lithium push
Thousands of Serbians are resisting new efforts by British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto to develop a massive lithium mine in the Jadar Valley in the west of the country. Serbia holds vast deposits of lithium, used for electric vehicle batteries, but Rio Tinto’s proposed project has sparked huge protests across several years over fears
of environmental destruction and water pollution.
Mass mobilisations in 2022 forced the government to halt the project, but this July it u-turned, sparking over 25,000 Serbians to take to the streets, some blocking Belgrade’s main railway tracks. The u-turn came after Rio Tinto notified the Serbian government of its
Lenacapavir is priced at $42,500 per person per year in the US, while it is estimated that generic versions can be profitable mass-produced at between $41 and $100 per person per year. “People who put their bodies on the line for science should be assured access to the fruits of that research. Anything else is exploitative,” said Tian Johnson of pan-African health advocacy nonprofit, African Alliance.
intention to bring an ISDS claim – where foreign investors can sue states over public policies not in their interest – over the revoking of its licence, using the UK-Serbia bilateral investment treaty. Within days of the u-turn, the EU signed a memorandum of understanding with Serbia to bring the country’s critical minerals into its supply chain.
Campaigners at the global AIDS summit protest in July against Gilead.
NEWS SHORTS
Wealth tax on super- rich could raise £1.5 trillion
A Tax Justice Network report in August found that governments around the world could raise more than £1.5 trillion by copying the ‘solidarity’ tax on the richest 0.5% of households introduced by Spain in late 2022, including £23 billion in the UK.
Vertex must drop price of cystic fibrosis drug
Access to medicines campaigners delivered a petition signed by 142,000 people around the world to US pharmaceutical company Vertex in September, calling for global access to their cystic fibrosis drug. Vertex charges $326,000 per year for the life-saving medicine, despite the fact it can be made for under $6,000.
UK to return Chagos Islands to Mauritius
The UK government announced in September that it will hand over the Chagos Islands, its last African colony, to Mauritius, with a right of return for Chagossians in 1968. But the decision was criticised after revealing that the military base on Diego Garcia will remain under UK control.
Cumbria coal mine has licence quashed
The UK’s first planned deep coal mine for 30 years, in Whitehaven in Cumbria, will not be allowed to go ahead after its licence was overturned by the high court in September. A legal challenge brought by South Lakes Action on Climate Change and Friends the Earth successfully argued that the approved was unlawful because its claims to be ‘net zero’ relied on purchasing carbon credits abroad, which are not allowed under UK rules. It followed the new Labour government informing the court that former
levelling up secretary Michael Gove’s decision to grant planning permission had been based on an ‘error in law’. West Cumbria Mining had also failed to include emissions from the burning of coal from the mine – estimated to be 220 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent –in its climate assessment. But following the landmark Horse Hill supreme court judgement earlier this year, these emissions are now required to be taken into account in UK planning decisions.
Kenyans overturn finance bill amid debt crisis
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Mass protests in Kenya in July saw the government of President William Ruto forced to scrap a major finance bill which proposed a series of tax increases including on basics like bread and cooking oil. Dozens of people were killed by Kenyan security forces amid a violent crackdown as demonstrators stormed parliament. The bill was introduced to tackle the country’s mounting public debt crisis, with debt payments using up more than 50% of the government’s revenue. A series of IMF and World Bank loans in recent years
have largely been used to pay off existing debts to private lenders, including western banks like Blackrock. In February this year, western banks lent Kenya a further $1.5 billion at an outrageous 10.4% interest rate. Protestors criticised the IMF and World Bank for demanding the government introduce austerity measures, and demanded an audit of the country’s $78 billion government debt. Ruto announced in September that the auditor-general would carry out an audit.
A man calls for
debt audit during anti-government protests in Nairobi.
One year into Israel’s assault on Gaza, a ceasefire seems further away than ever. From the arms trade to security ties, the UK must stop aiding and abetting, writes TIM BIERLEY.
Over the past year, the world has watched in horror as Israel has carried out a campaign of incredible violence in Gaza. Unimaginable suffering has become an everyday occurrence and the images that are streamed daily on social media will surely haunt us forever. And shamefully, it has done so with UK support.
Israel’s response to the 7 October attacks and the horrific killing of civilians on that day has been one of extreme collective punishment of the people of Gaza. It has driven more than 90% of the over 2 million people living in Gaza from their homes. It has killed at least 40,000 people and injured hundreds of thousands more. It has cut off food and water, blocked and bombed aid convoys, and destroyed civilian infrastructure, including most of the functioning hospitals. In total, it has damaged or destroyed an estimated two-thirds of the buildings in the 140 square mile territory.
ACTING WITH IMPUNITY
For months after 7 October, Rishi Sunak’s UK government backed Israel’s actions unconditionally, encouraging Israel to act with impunity, even as it committed the most blatant and appalling violations of humanitarian law. It gave support to the killing in Gaza both through diplomatic cover and the steady supply of weapons. This included key parts for Israel’s fleet of F-35 fighter jets, described by their manufacturer as “the deadliest in the world”.
Clearly, this is not a scale of death and destruction that can be justified as self-defence, or a series of unfortunate accidents. It has become increasingly evident that it is Israel’s state policy to place no value on Palestinian lives.
The British public never agreed to this and a huge movement of workers, activists and ordinary people emerged to demand the UK ends its complicity in Israel’s campaign of violence. A central demand has been for the UK to ban the export of arms to Israel. Over 25,000 Global Justice Now supporters have joined this demand – and polls show again and again that the majority of the British public agrees.
In January, the scale and brutality of Israel’s attacks on Gaza was such that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opened a genocide investigation into Israel’s operations. And in June, a comprehensive UN report accused Israel of grave war
Right: More women and children have been killed by the Israeli military over the past year than in any other year of conflict around the world in the past two decades.
Left: Palestinians look at the aftermath of Israeli bombing of Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, in June 2024.
crimes, including using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.
Yet the Conservative government made clear that it would continue signing off weapons sales to Israel.
Between October 2023 and May 2024 it didn’t reject a single arms export licence to the country –despite previous Conservative governments having suspended arms to Israel on several occasions in the past.
intervention by the ICJ, with the world’s highest court confirming that Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land is illegal.
A UN report in June accused Israel of grave war crimes, including using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians.
AN INADEQUATE SHIFT
When Labour was elected to government in July, they did so promising to restore the rulesbased international order and uphold human rights, offering some opportunity for change.
The new foreign secretary, David Lammy, made the positive step of restoring funding to UNRWA, the UN body responsible for delivering aid in Gaza, after his Conservative predecessor shamefully suspended UK donations earlier in the year. And in September, Lammy also announced the suspension of some arms sales to Israel (see page 3).
But while this was an important win for the movement, the decision allowed for significant exceptions, including allowing the continued export of parts for the F-35 jet, an aircraft that has been used in some of the largest massacres in Gaza.
Just as concerning was an obscure announcement in July when Keir Starmer’s government stated that Israel was a priority country for deeper trade relations with the UK. It came just weeks after another landmark
What’s more, it found that Israel’s settlement-related measures and legislation treating Palestinians differently from settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are a breach of Article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. This refers to two particularly severe forms of racial discrimination: racial segregation and apartheid. The ICJ called for Israel to end this system of racist discrimination as rapidly as possible, and placed obligations on all states not to aid or assist the occupation.
Yet the 2030 Roadmap for trade already agreed lays out ongoing and enhanced security, defence, science and technology relationships between the UK
and Israel. And the UK’s trade strategy for negotiations over a new trade deal, first developed under the Conservative administration, says ministers will prioritise deeper cooperation in industries heavily involved in breaches of international law.
ISRAEL’S WAR ECONOMY
Palestinian human rights organisations have demonstrated how Israel’s artificial intelligence and cyber sectors, for example, owe much of their success to unregulated testing on Palestinians, while
Amnesty International has shown clearly how their pervasive role in surveillance and control has served to entrench Israel’s occupation.
Israel’s burgeoning tech industry owes much to its close military ties, with many of Israel’s tech trainees coming from Unit 8200, an army division infamous for its mass surveillance of Palestinians.
It is unsurprising, then, that many of Israel’s surveillance technologies originate in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, where Israel’s military rule allows firms to prototype and refine their products on populations whose rights to privacy have been stripped from them.
Speaking to IsraeliPalestinian magazine +972, veterans of the unit have described how closely the unit works with the private sector on technology development.
What’s more, while consecutive
Conservative and Labour governments have correctly adopted the position of non-recognition of Israeli settlements due to their illegality under international law, there is a glaring anomaly: settlement products are permitted entry into the UK.
This is not logically consistent with the legal obligation of nonrecognition, and amounts to aiding and assisting the maintenance of an unlawful situation given that such imports help to sustain Israel's settlement economy and to further the forcible transfer of Palestinians from their homes and land.
According to legal advice we commissioned in August, facilitating trade that allows Israel or Israeli companies to profit from the Occupied Palestinian Territory could leave ministers and senior civil servants personally liable for breaches of international law.
NO MORE BUSINESS AS USUAL
Over the last twelve months Western governments including the UK have
consistently failed to stand up for international law and put genuine pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change course. The result has been to embolden him, with Israel expanding its attacks to include an invasion of Lebanon in October, displacing 1.2 million people, and at the time of writing launching a new assault on northern Gaza including the Jabalia refugee camp, with devastating consequences.
It has taken a huge movement to drag the UK government into action on an arms embargo, however partial. But we will need much more again to keep the pressure on Keir Starmer’s government to end material support for Israel’s aggression – and that includes economic policies like trade deals. We must force ministers to recognise that there can be no more ‘businessas-usual’ while Israel continues to violate international norms.
Tim Bierley is campaigns and policy manager at Global Justice Now.
Hundreds of thousands of people have joined national demonstrations around the UK over the last year.
Double your impact with The Big Give Christmas Challenge
Your donation to Global Justice Now can be doubled from 3-10 December
This year Global Justice Now is joining The Big Give Christmas Challenge. In this exciting online fundraising event happening from 3-10 December, your donation to our work will be doubled at no extra cost, meaning your gift can have double the impact. It’s a great way to make your donation go further and help raise even more for our hardhitting campaigns.
This year we’ll be aiming to double £17,500 in donations to £35,000 for our campaigning work on a just transition away from fossil fuels. Thanks to years of tireless activism and advocacy from people like you, decisionmakers are beginning to recognise the urgent need for a ‘green transition’ – shifting from harmful fossil fuels to sustainable renewable energy. But it's vital that this transition benefits everyone, not just big
businesses and wealthy nations. That’s why we’re pushing for an international Fossil Fuel Treaty to ensure a fair phase-out of fossil fuels, and for trade rules that support democratic control of critical minerals in the global south.
Keep an eye out for our Christmas Challenge appeal in the run-up to December – we’ll be in touch once it’s time to get involved.
And thank you to all our incredible pledgers (including many Ninety-Nine readers) who have already committed to donating to help make the Challenge possible – we are extremely grateful for your support. Find out more at:
Fossil Fuel Treaty campaign pack
Our campaign to get the UK government to endorse the Fossil Fuel Treaty is gathering momentum. The idea of a treaty to coordinate a global fossil fuel phase-out is making its way into the public and political sphere, with cities, countries and thousands of organisations around the world endorsing it.
Can you help us build this groundswell through a few simple efforts to spread the word? We’ve put together these handy campaign packs for exactly that purpose. They include everything you need to share the campaign with friends and family, colleagues and neighbours.
Order yours now at: globaljustice.org.uk/campaign-pack
"The poorest are the most poisoned” – inside the fight for justice against Shell
Shell’s destructive legacy has left the Niger Delta one of the most polluted places on Earth. Today, affected communities continue to fight back for justice and compensation, writes ANITA BHADANI.
Josephine Obari is a councillor in the Rivers State Government. Hailing from Eleme River State, she is a proud member of the Ogale community of which she is a voice. She tells me she has been involved in the fight to hold Shell accountable for a near decade.
“We have been unable to sue Shell in the local courts in Nigeria. We saw they were trying to thwart all of our efforts, so we decided to take the case to the UK. The lives of people in my community are in danger, and we are crying for Shell to compensate us.”
The Niger Delta is a hugely densely populated region – home to over 30 million people, a quarter of Nigeria’s population. It is also one of the most polluted places on Earth. Shell’s operations in the region date back to 1958 – and since then, there have been thousands of oil spills in what a commission of appointed experts have termed an “ecocide”.
Shell itself has publicly reported over 1,000 oil leaks since 2011 alone, amounting to 17.5 million litres of oil spilled. Owing to corporations’ tendency to underestimate oil spill volumes and the resulting damage, the actual figure is likely much higher.
poisoned”, Obari says.
“When it rains, the poisonous chemicals in the atmosphere return to further pollute the soil and rivers, reducing farm fertility and killing fishes. We used to have clean water. We used to have vegetables. We used to have plenty to eat but Shell has deprived us of our rights.”
PROFIT AND LOSS
Oil pollution across the region has led to the impoverishment of local communities and the reckless destruction of their ways of life. Meanwhile, the first six months of 2024 alone saw Shell rake in nearly £11 billion in profit.
Until now, Shell has refused to accept that it is their pollution that is causing death in our community.
The UK law firm Leigh Day is bringing claims on behalf of both the Ogale and Bille communities – the latter of whom have faced similar devastation as a result of Shell’s oil spillages. In a legal briefing, the law firm states that the communities “seek simply to ensure that the oil pollution which has devastated their communities is cleaned up to international standards” and that “compensation is provided for their loss of livelihoods and the destruction of their way of life”.
The impacts on the lives of the Ogale community, who rely on the water for farming, drinking, washing and fishing, are stark. “My people are suffering. They are dying every day. The people among the poorest are the most
Crucially, this case is a chance for the voices of the Ogale and Bille communities to finally be heard. “For so many years, we have asked Shell to come and look into our problem, our matter”, Obari explains. “They don't want to hear us. We lost so many as a result of this Shell oil pollution.
Right (top): Josephine Obari; (bottom) Oil covers stagnant water over Shell's pipeline in Ogale, Rivers State, Nigeria.
And until now, Shell has refused to accept that it is their pollution that is causing death in our community.”
Shell has historically deflected from accountability for the vast majority of the pollution, pointing to “crude oil theft, illegal refining and sabotage” as driving causes. However, experts have highlighted that its allegations of sabotage have not been verified by any independent bodies.
It also previously attempted to dispute that it holds legal responsibility for the oil spills, arguing that it is just a parent company with no legal duty to the affected communities in Nigeria and distancing itself from the actions of its Nigerian subsidiary. This year it has even gone as far as attempting to sell its onshore Nigerian oil operations entirely. The sale is currently being challenged by local
Nigerian communities in a separate legal case. However, in a landmark judgement in 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that there was “a good arguable case” that Royal Dutch Shell – the UK-based parent company – is liable for the environmental harm caused by its Nigerian subsidiary, setting an important precedent on the potential liabilities of parent companies for the actions of their subsidiaries.
For Obari and others in her community, it is crystal clear where the responsibility lies. “We are suffering every day because of Shell. We are dying every day because of Shell. If you are living here, you are risking your life.”
“But where do we go? We don’t have another Ogale. This is the only Ogale we have.”
Anita Bhadani is media manager at Global Justice Now.
After Bangladesh’s uprising, we must seize the moment for real change
Mass protests this summer sparked the resignation of Bangladesh’s prime minister, and a change of government. But this is only the beginning, says SUSHOVAN DHAR.
This August, a month-long student protest saw Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed, forced to resign and flee the country.
The protests started with the demand to end the quota system which allocates 30% of government jobs to the descendants of freedom fighters. However, they escalated into a broader rebellion against Hasina’s despotic regime and her party, the Awami League.
In the end, the students earned a hard-fought victory which saw the overthrow of Hasina’s regime – but one that also witnessed over 1,000 deaths and thousands more injured at the hands of the authorities.
THE FALL OF THE AWAMI LEAGUE
who took power riding on popular waves of mass upheavals.
The two biggest movements of independent Bangladesh – the movement for the restoration of democracy in 1990, demanding an end to General H.M. Ershad's military rule, and the Shahbag movement of 2013, which started with a call for the execution of war criminals but evolved into a larger movement for societal democratisation and an end to socio-economic inequality – also met similar fates.
The end of the Hasina regime marks a full circle of the Awami League’s hegemony in the nation’s politics. The party’s latest consolidation began with her electoral triumph in the 2008 elections, in which her alliance achieved a sweeping victory, winning 263 out of 300 seats.
While the party had previously been in power twice from 1971-75 and 1996-2001, this victory was qualitatively different, heralding an era of total domination of Bangladesh’s politics.
The birth of the country and its history since 1971 have been chequered with successive waves of rebellion for authentic democracy, only to be overturned by the political actors
The history of lost opportunities for democratisation and the inability to address social injustices compels us to contemplate the future of the current triumph. With Hasina’s ousting, the dark clouds of fear have moved out, but apprehensions persist about what’s next.
YUNUS: HERO OR NEOLIBERAL?
Three days after the fall of the previous regime, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took over as head of the interim government, currently leading a 21-member team consisting of retired bureaucrats and military officers, NGO personalities, advocates, academics, and others. The government also accommodated a couple of student leaders who spearheaded the protests. The diversity of this group, including the inclusion of members from minority religious
Students launched the 'Bangla Blockade' initially to demand the scrapping of quotas in public service jobs.
Left: A female student carrying a sign reading 'Quota or merit? Merit! Merit!' in Dhaka.
and ethnic communities, looks commendable, even though it fails to include any representatives of the workers or the peasants.
Muhammad Yunus was considered the most appropriate personality to lead the country out of crisis, given the collapsed administration and widespread lawlessness. The people, sick of authoritarianism, nepotism, corruption, and powerhungry political parties, preferred 'apolitical' figures over professional politicians. Secondly, his stature was seen to not only instil confidence in the masses but also benefit the country internationally. The public’s perception of him was and remains warm following his harassment at the hands of the previous regime, which attracted public sympathy and made him a hero.
However, as progressives, we must keep a critical eye and look beyond these easy narratives. Yunus’s microcredit model, despite being advertised as a panacea for poverty, has actually resulted in massive debt among the poor in Bangladesh
and around the world. His strong advocacy for neoliberalism has also made him the darling of the World Bank and Western elites.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Bangladesh’s economy, a poster child of neoliberal reforms, has been shaky since the outbreak of Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Our GDP growth rates are steadily falling, and the local currency has depreciated considerably. We also face a debt crisis, with the banking sector experiencing serious liquidity problems and burgeoning unsecured loans.
To tide over the foreign exchange crisis, Yunus is looking to the International Monetary Fund, despite having full knowledge that IMF conditionalities, including strict austerity measures, will reduce public spending, making people’s lives difficult. This is bound to rekindle similar protests to those that brought him to power. The quota system may have initiated the rebellion, but deeper rage about socio-economic conditions – such as deteriorating
living conditions, corruption, and political authoritarianism – sustained it.
The right wing and religious fundamentalists are also actively looking to lay their hands on power, as evidenced by increased mobilisations and attacks on religious and ethnic minorities in recent weeks. So as the progressive international movement, where can we go from here?
It is clear that Bangladesh needs to make a clear break with the existing socioeconomic model and overcome the political convergence of the elites if it is to improve the lives of millions of people living in abject poverty and misery. Ordinary people have the power to change things when we get organised. Students started the movement, but now other sections of society must join hands to keep the momentum going.
We, as progressives, must unite in our vigilance to harness this momentum towards a progressive, democratic Bangladesh, and prevent reactionary forces from diverting it.
Sushovan Dhar is a political activist and trade unionist based in Kolkata, India.
The Imaginary Institution of India
A new exhibition of Indian art looks at two formative decades in the emergence of modern India.
Bookended by two pivotal moments in India’s history – the declaration of the State of Emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975 and the Pokhran Nuclear Tests in 1998 – The Imaginary Institution of India delves into a transformative era marked by social upheaval, economic instability, and rapid urbanisation. Running at the Barbican and organised in partnership with the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, it features over 25 artists and nearly 150 works across a range of media, including many shown in the UK for the first time.
The exhibition takes the declaration of the Emergency in 1975 and the ensuing suspension of civil liberties as a moment of national awakening, signalling how it provoked artistic responses, directly or indirectly. It covers the artistic production that unfolded over the next two decades or so, within the turmoil of a changing socio-political landscape.
Culminating in the 1998 nuclear tests, the show illustrates how far the country moved from the ideals of non-violence, which once had been the bedrock of its campaign for independence from British colonial rule, to assert its place in a new global order.
Courtesy the artist and Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi
Below: Construction Woman Washing Her Face
The title of the exhibition is taken from an essay by Sudipta Kaviraj, in which he writes persuasively about the intellectual process of conceptualising the Indian nation. Artworks consider the state’s inability to abide by the progressive character of its Constitution, conceived as an instrument for radical social transformation. They also confront government failure to uphold secularism, social justice, welfare, minority rights and affirmative action in the face of a rising Hindu right wing and pro-capitalist economic agendas. They demonstrate that solidarity and protest existed, and were expressed in many registers, from the strident or intimate to the despondent or poetic, both anguished and hopeful, in the street and in the home. We witness the quiet defiance and resilience which truly defines this imaginary institution of India. In the words of B. R. Ambedkar, the Indian Constitution’s main architect, “Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy.”
The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975-1998 runs from 5 October 2024 to 5 January 2025 at the
Top right: Senior Staff Club House at Above: Palace of Justice in Chandigarh
The closure of the UK’s last coal power station in September was the culmination of years of work, writes LIZ MURRAY.
When the news came through in October 2009 that plans for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent had been shelved, we knew we’d won something big.
This victory was an important one in its own right – as the new Kingsnorth would have produced more carbon dioxide emissions per year than Tanzania –and at Global Justice Now we’d been fighting it for the previous two years, along with many others in the climate movement. But it was more than this. It was a key milestone on the road to finally ending the burning of coal in the UK. Kingsnorth was never built, and nor were any other coal power stations from that point onwards.
A few weeks ago, at the end of September, we saw the UK’s last coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar close, ending the era of burning coal that’s lasted more than 140 years and led the UK to be one of the most polluting countries on the planet.
The campaign against Kingsnorth was one of many battles to stop new fossil fuel developments across the UK over many years. But this was a particularly significant moment, with the UK becoming the first G7 country to achieve the milestone of phasing out coal power altogether. As the climate justice movement in the UK, we can take heart from this victory.
A JUST TRANSITION
Today, the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries are calling for a globally just phaseout of all fossil fuels through a Fossil Fuel Non-
Proliferation Treaty. This co-ordinated global exit plan from fossil fuels would have justice and equity at its heart.
The treaty aims to ensure that the transition away from fossil fuels is a fair one – with highquality, secure jobs, and climate finance and support for countries whose economies are dependent on fossil fuels, to make an exit viable for all.
Every battle to stop individual fossil fuel developments like Kingsnorth power station is vital, but a treaty to co-ordinate the phase out of fossil fuels at a global level, and to speed the switch to renewable energy in a way that’s fair to every worker, every community and every country, would be a game changer. As we reflect on the end of coal in the UK, it’s a reminder that big changes are possible – and they can be won by determined campaigning.
Liz Murray is head of Scottish campaigns at Global Justice Now.
Campaigners form part of a human chain around Kingsnorth power station in Kent, July 2009.
DEAR FUTURE CHILDREN
Franz Böhm, 2021
1hr 21mins
Following the lives of three young women in Uganda, Chile and Hong Kong, Dear Future Children is a powerful look into the work of the new emerging generation of activists shaping our world for the better – created itself by a team of young filmmakers, journalists and activists from over 15 countries, as the personal and the political converge.
By getting an in-depth look into different areas of the young women's lives, we see how their politics are shaped by their reaction to their experiences and environments, and the way these influence their lives across multiple dimensions.
The documentary is as much a showcase of their work as it is a call to action. The narrative refuses to reduce their stories to ‘feel-good’ inspiration, instead compelling us to ask ourselves – how are we using our own agency to create change in our everyday lives?
Anita Bhadani
THE PRICE IS WRONG: WHY CAPITALISM WON’T SAVE THE PLANET
Brett Christophers
Verso, 2024
The Price is Wrong is a powerful rebuttal of the stubbornly pervasive idea that the climate crisis can be solved through a combination of markets and technology. Now that renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels, Christophers asks, where is the inevitable transition the green capitalists promised us?
In fact, it’s not the price of energy that matters to the market but the profitability, and renewables are just not as profitable as fossil fuels. This is one of their advantages – it is hard to profiteer from something that is free, abundant and widely available – but an economy driven by profit creates little incentive for a green transition. Christophers concludes that instead of constantly
increasing state subsidies to make private investment more appealing, we must take energy back into public ownership.
This forensic analysis of electricity markets (and their failures) is at times dense with case studies and statistics (Christophers was once a management consultant), but it’s broadly accessible and incredibly persuasive: a must-read for anyone wanting to debunk the theory that green capitalism can save us.
Daisy Pearson
DO NOT DISTURB: THE STORY OF A POLITICAL MURDER AND AN AFRICAN REGIME GONE BAD
Michaela Wrong
Fourth Estate, 2021
Thirty years on, there remains a reluctance to criticise the government that ended the Rwandan genocide. Western politicians are rightly guilty that they did so little to halt the mass killing. More important, president Paul Kagame has proved a useful ally, convincing policymakers that he has used aid to do the impossible – creating a ‘Switzerland in Africa’ from the legacy of genocide. But journalist Michaela Wrong explains this story misses much complexity, and in the process blinds us to the brutal reality of Kagame’s rule. She examines in much detail how Kagame consolidated power by eliminating opponents and creating a climate of
terror. Moreover, she looks at Kagame’s role in destabilising and plundering neighbouring DRC.
This year, Kagame returned to power on a 99% vote that would make many a dictator blush. Yet British politicians choose to believe the fairytale, recently classing Rwanda as a country so safe we might ship traumatised refugees there. Wrong shows the deadly impact this fairytale has had across central Africa.
Nick Dearden
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TOMORROW
Leave the future to a voice you can trust to shout loudly for wha t you believe in
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Alongside people like you, we’re standing up to injustice Where we all have access to the food, healthcare and education we deser ve. Where people’s lives
Here at Global Justice Now we are unafraid to demand what you believe in and hold the power ful to account. For decades we ’ ve done hard-hit ting research to expose injustice, and pushed for change with communities around the world. And we promise to keep doing so long after you’re gone. You can make this possible.
More than two thirds of our income comes from people like you, keeping our campaigns erce and our voice unrestrained. By leaving a gift in your Will to Global Justice Now you can make sure we’ll continue to ght for your values after you’re gone. A gift from you can make the di erence of winning a campaign for generations to come.
I am leaving Global Justice Now a gift in my Will because the work they do is of the greatest importance It is a long, hard battle we are embarked on – not just for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren.
M Chamberlain, Global Justice Now member and legacy pledger
