Challenging the power of the 1%
Issue 08 - May 2017
The world in the age of Trump
The extreme right takes centre stage
Also in this issue The surge of US resistance Will we get ‘TTIP on steroids’? The rise and fall of the Jungle
ISSUE 08: May 2017 03 Campaign news
on called STOP PRESS! - Snap general electi r candidates. Check out the enclosed postcard
for quizzing you
06 Global news 08 Trump, trade and ‘TTIP on steroids’ 10 Extreme right takes centre stage 14 United against Trump 16 The rise and fall of the Jungle 18 Protection for peasants 19 Reviews
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 020 7820 4900 • offleyroad@globaljustice.org.uk • globaljustice.org.uk Editor: Kevin Smith Design: Matt Bonner www.revoltdesign.org Cover illustration: © Edel Rodriguez Printed on 100% recycled paper. Get Ninety-Nine delivered to your door three times a year when you become a member of Global Justice Now. Go to globaljustice.org.uk/join
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Building resistance to Trumpism Dorothy Guerrero Head of policy Donald Trump’s election as US president threatens to roll back decades of hard-fought struggles for everything that decent people care about. This comes against the backdrop of already unacceptable levels of inequality between rich and poor, the failure of governments to confront runaway climate change, crumbling welfare states and the increasing threat of wars. Trump, Brexit and the re-emergence of right-wing populism are grave symptoms of the crisis we are all in. Nothing has prepared the current crop of activists, social movements, NGOs and campaign organisations for the phenomenon of the reemergence of right-wing populism which is gripping not just the US and UK but many countries around the world. Right-wing populist parties led by Islamophobes, believers in white supremacy and friends to the richest corporations, are gaining working people’s votes and young people’s support. Yet Trump’s reckless Trump, Brexit and economic, climate and the re-emergence social policies and their consequences, his shocking of right-wing lack of respect for the rule of law, his complete disregard populism are grave for the truth, his misogyny and symptoms of the utter narcissism are being met by fierce resistance in the US crisis we are all in. and beyond. Even people who are well out of activist circles in the US are getting mobilised, as Kate Aronoff writes. Civil rights groups, the courts and even his own party are blocking his reckless and destabilising immigration and health policies. Walden Bello explains how political extremism surfaced from global economic stagnation and how it is spreading globally, while Nick Dearden lists the hazards of the looming US-UK trade deal that will not just open a Pandora’s box of evils in the UK – on health, food, security – but will also affect other countries. We are all coming to terms with the fact that plutocracy – the rule of a small group of the wealthiest – is deepening in our society and that we need to fight once again for even basic human decency. There is a symbiotic relationship between powerful transnational corporations that now dominate virtually all aspects of life and the chipping away of democracy that is producing extreme nationalism. This is presenting us with the urgent need to organise – as well as important opportunities for resistance.
Get ready to stop Trump’s visit From the flash demonstrations against Donald Trump’s Muslim ban to the women’s marches and the almost two million-strong petition against Trump’s planned state visit to Britain, the UK has been part of the global wave of protests against the new US president. Tens of thousands of people have come out at short notice, many joining their first ever demonstration. Now the new Stop Trump Coalition, including Global Justice Now and many other organisations, has been set up to protest Trump’s state visit to Britain when it happens (the date is not yet known as Ninety-Nine goes to press). In doing so it will also seek to mobilise many of those people revolted by Trump’s policies to take action for trade justice, migrant rights and more besides. A US-UK trade deal is central to Theresa May’s push for ‘hard Brexit’, with terms that are being dubbed ‘TTIP on steroids’ (see page 8) – just one reason we need to ensure opposition to Trump and global ‘Trumpism’ is loud and clear.
© Jess Hurd
CAMPAIGN NEWS
Global Justice Now projection ahead of the parliamentary debate on Trump’s state visit.
How to talk about migration There have been numerous reports in the media about the spike in hate crimes against migrants and ethnic minorities after the European referendum. In the face of this growth in anti-migrant sentiment, Global Justice Now has teamed up with the anti-racist organisation Hope Not Hate to deliver a series of training workshops nationwide on how to communicate more effectively with people about migration. The workshops include training in listening techniques, how to harness the power of narrative and asking constructive questions. So far, 14 Global Justice Now groups, from Cornwall to Glasgow, have
engaged in the training, including two of our new youth groups. Participants in the training have reported increased confidence and ability to communicate about migration. Many have taken further action as a result, from acts of community engagement to a more active involvement with our campaign on Marks & Spencer (see page 4). New connections with other local campaigners, refugee and asylum seeker groups and local mosques have also been made. We’ll continue to promote effective action at the community level and challenge the culture of hostility to migrants.
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Hit the Daily Mail where it hurts Global Justice Now activists have begun campaigning against the Daily Mail and its hate-filled media stories by targeting them where it hurts – their advertising contracts. Newspapers like the Daily Mail frequently bombard us with panicked stories about immigration, and the word “migrant” has become a pejorative term hardly associated with a human being. This is creating a toxic and sometimes violent atmosphere around the migration debate in the UK. High street brands like Marks & Spencer, which has lucrative advertising contracts with the Daily Mail, provide an important source of income for the newspaper. Not only have thousands of people already called on M&S boss Steve Rowe to stop funding the Daily Mail and its anti-migrant articles, but across the country people have started to take part in a ‘secret shopper’ action in M&S stores. From Brighton to Edinburgh, activists have been slipping miniature leaflets inside products on the shelves of M&S stores. Exposing the company’s relationship with the Daily Mail in this way will ensure more M&S customers and members of the public will start to question why the company is financially supporting the Daily Mail’s hate speech. We are targeting Marks & Spencer because it proudly proclaims its ethical credentials and presents itself as a socially responsible company. If M&S stops funding the Daily Mail it can set an example to other brands, and send a strong message to the newspaper that the public will not tolerate this anti-migrant rhetoric. The campaign aims to ensure that newspapers, and the companies which fund them, take more responsibility for their contribution to the UK’s violent culture of anti-migrant hate. Thanks to public pressure from campaigns like Stop Funding Hate, companies like Lego and the Body Shop have already publicly stated that they will not advertise with the Daily Mail. Global Justice Now has sent out over a thousand ‘secret shopper’ packs to ramp up the pressure and make sure the company cannot sweep its relationship with the Daily Mail under the carpet. You can order your pack here:
globaljustice.org.uk/packs
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CAMPAIGN NEWS
Youth rising
© Rohan Ayinde
Trade democracy now! The UK government has set up working groups with 15 countries to prepare trade deals for when we leave the EU – including the US. But it is refusing to tell anyone, even MPs, what is being discussed. The UK has been one of the strongest supporters of TTIP and CETA, so we can be sure that these secret deals will include many of the same toxic elements, handing more power to big business. That democratic deficit extends to the deal-making process. While big business may get a seat at the table, at the moment there is no way for even elected MPs to shape trade policy, let alone ordinary people. The devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are completely excluded. That is why Global Justice Now has started to campaign for a new democratic process for agreeing trade deals. These deals affect so many aspects of our lives, so we need to be able to have a say – without one we will never be able to make trade work for people and planet.
Global Justice Now’s new youth network took a major step forward through its first national gathering, We Rise, on 1 April. The meeting, held at Goldsmiths College in London, saw youth network activists agree a mission statement for the network in the morning, followed by public discussions, debates and workshops attended by around 140 people. Youth activists chaired sessions with speakers including NUS president Malia Bouattia, journalist Owen Jones, author Nick Srnicek and Global Justice Now’s Dottie Guerrero. They discussed how to fight the rise of right-wing populism, the UK’s free trade agenda after Brexit and alternatives to capitalism. Creativity was another major element of We Rise, with a workshop on ‘brandalism’, live poetry and music and an after-party with live performances.
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GLOBAL NEWS MOVEMENT NEWS
El Salvador chooses ‘water over gold’ in historic mining ban El Salvador has become the first country in the world to ban metal mining, after parliament approved a law to protect the Central American nation’s water supplies in March. It follows a longrunning campaign uniting community, Catholic and civil society groups behind the slogan ‘No to mining, yes to life’. Over 90% of the country’s surface water supply is polluted, a legacy of
years of lax industrial controls and unsustainable farming. Pedro Cabezas, of International Allies Against Mining in El Salvador, said: “The vote is a victory for communities who, for more than a decade, have relentlessly organised to keep mining companies out of their territories.” The ban follows the failure in November of a seven-year case
brought by international mining company OceanaGold to the World Bank’s corporate court, ICSID. OceanaGold had demanded over £200 million in compensation for being refused a licence for its El Dorado gold mine. The case was dismissed, and OceanaGold ordered to pay El Salvador £6.4 million towards legal costs.
© Pedro Cabezas
Activists standing above the legislative chambers of El Salvador as they wait for the final vote on the prohibition of mining.
Ecuadorians reject return to neoliberalism Ecuador voted to stick with the politics of redistribution in April as it elected Lenín Moreno to succeed Rafael Correa as president. Moreno, a former vice president under Correa, faced a runoff with a former banker who proposed tax cuts for the rich and public spending reductions. Correa, a leftwing economist who governed the country for a decade, was unable to stand again due to
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a term limit in the constitution he introduced. However, his party won a majority in Ecuador’s parliament in April, followed by Moreno’s narrow victory. The last ten years have seen Ecuador’s poverty levels fall by 38%. Inequality has also fallen, while spending on health, education and public investment have all risen. To achieve this, Correa pushed
through re-regulation of the financial sector and declared the country’s national debt ‘illegitimate’, eventually negotiating a 60% write-off. There were signs that South America’s ‘pink tide’ of progressive governments might be receding after a pro-US free-marketeer was elected in Argentina last year. Moreno’s election suggests a more complicated picture.
GLOBAL MOVEMENT GLOBAL NEWS
NEWS SHORTS Mass protests in French Guiana target European space rocket The people of French Guiana, a territory on the mainland of South America, have held the largest protests in their history over years of neglect by the French government. Demonstrations are targeting the launch site of the Ariane rocket, the jewel of the European space industry, which lies in the territory. The ‘Let Guyana Take Off’ movement promises to stop Ariane launching until French Guiana itself ‘takes off’.
Thai fisherfolk delay coal power plant The Thai military junta has recently halted plans to build an 800MW coal-fired power plant in the coastal region of Krabi, instead promising to restart the Environmental Health and Impact Assessment with a greater degree of public participation. The decision was a surprise climbdown a week after the government had approved the plant, and followed a wave of demonstrations in Bangkok and the arrest of a series of prominent protesters. The power plant has been opposed by conservationists and the local tourist industry, as well as the local fisherfolk
community, many of whom have formed a cooperative that promotes sustainable fishing in the region. The fisherfolk fear that the passage of large vessels transporting coal would damage the local sea beds, and chemical runoffs from the plant would harm the marine eco-system. The Save Andaman from Coal Network has been demanding a delay of three years to the project to see if an alternative plan could be implemented to generate 100% of the region’s electricity needs from renewable energy.
© Greenpeace
UK aid funding ‘indiscriminate detention’ for refugees in Libya Refugee camps in Libya funded with UK aid money are indiscriminately and indefinitely detaining asylum seekers, according to the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI). Despite the violent instability of the Libyan civil war, the UK is trying to prevent refugees from reaching Europe by holding them in Libya. ICAI expressed concerns that UK aid is backing a system that “prevents refugees from reaching a place of safe asylum.”
160,000 on the streets of Barcelona in support of refugees The mayor of Barcelona joined 160,000 on the streets in February to demand that Spain’s conservative government accept more. Marching behind a banner that said “Enough Excuses! Take Them In Now!” in Catalan, the protest moved from the city centre to the Mediterranean coast to commemorate the lives of the thousands of refugees who have died trying to come in to Europe.
British bombs continue to be dropped on Yemen Two years after the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen began, over 10,000 people have been killed and an estimated 17 million require urgent humanitarian assistance. Millions have been left without access to vital infrastructure, clean water or electricity. While the bombardment has created a crisis for Yemeni people, it has offered a business opportunity for arms companies. The UK government has licensed over £3 billion of arms to the Saudi regime, including fighter jets and bombs. These sales have been underpinned by strong
political support, with the Prime Minister making it the first country she visited after triggering Article 50. The sales’ legality is currently the subject of a landmark judicial review, brought by Campaign Against Arms Trade, which could set an important legal precedent. It calls on Whitehall to suspend all current arms export licences to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen, and stop issuing further licences, while holding a review into whether such exports are compatible with UK and EU law. The verdict is still pending.
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AGE OF TRUMP
Trump, trade and ‘TTIP on steroids’ We need to prepare to fight a bad deal between the UK and US, writes NICK DEARDEN We might hate Trump’s policies on climate change, migration, military spending and financial deregulation. But he effectively killed off the Trans-Pacific Partnership between Pacific Rim countries, and he’s promised to renegotiate the much-disliked North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on the basis that it encouraged outsourcing and cost jobs. So can we find some hope in Trump’s take on trade? Unfortunately not. In fact, as a country which is possibly ‘somewhere near the front of the queue’ for a trade deal with the US, British activists shouldn’t throw away their placards opposing TTIP, the toxix trade deal between the US and the EU. Sooner or later, we’re likely to be fighting a US-UK trade deal which can best be described as ‘TTIP-on-steroids’. There is currently a war going on within Trump’s administration between the ‘free traders’ – those who want international rules to compel countries everywhere to privatise and deregulate everything in sight – and the ‘economic nationalists’. Whichever side wins, it isn’t going to be good news for the rest of the world.
TRADE AS POWER The economic nationalists are not anti-trade – they just believe more explicitly in the rule of the powerful, and don’t want a multilateral system of rules to govern trade. NAFTA has been blamed for wiping out two million Mexican small farmers, but the economic nationalists don’t hate NAFTA because it was too rough on Mexico – they hate it because they think the US should have been far more exploitative. Billionaire commerce secretary Wilbur Ross has even said he thinks NAFTA represents a “trade war” between Mexico and the US. So what might they have up their sleeve for Britain? We know May is desperate to do a trade deal with Trump to prove her Brexit strategy can
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work, and Trump will use Britain to try to undercut the EU, which he sees as a major competitor. But if TTIP was bad, direct UK negotiations with the US will be much more one-sided. The NHS has long been salivated over by the US’s enormous healthcare corporations. When Theresa May arrived in the US to meet Trump, she attended a Republican conference at which several lawmakers expressed the excitement of US businesses at ‘getting involved in’ UK healthcare.
The NHS has long been salivated over by the US’s enormous healthcare corporations. When Theresa May arrived in the US to meet Trump, she attended a Republican conference at which several lawmakers expressed the excitement of US businesses at ‘getting involved in’ UK healthcare. Modern trade deals are more about regulations than tariffs, and the US government has always been clear that our food and farming regulations, which prevent the sort of high-intensity, high-chemical, low-animal welfare farming common in the US, are a “trade barrier”. Any deal would likely strip away UK regulations on genetic modification, antibiotics and hormone use in farming. In turn, this would open up our small farmers to devastating competition with US agribusiness.
AGE OF TRUMP
The US is also hot on giving companies that possess your data more power over how they can use that data, allowing Silicon Valley corporations to move your data to the US, where they don’t have to abide by European laws on data privacy. All of this will likely be enforced by Investor-State Dispute Settlement ‘corporate courts’, which allow corporations to sue governments for passing any regulations that damage corporate profits, from environmental protection to antismoking policies.
As things stand, MPs have virtually no powers to scrutinise, amend or permanently halt trade deals. That’s why we’ll be launching a major new campaign to make our trade deals democratic. If you
didn’t like TTIP, you need to get involved, and ensure we’re not landed with ‘TTIP-on-steroids’. Donate today to help get this campaign off the ground and look out for more ways to take action coming soon.
Illustration by Jacob V Joyce
NOT JUST BRITAIN These sorts of deals won’t just affect people in Britain. Imagine what they would mean for countries where small farmers require even greater protection from US agribusiness. Or where people are dependent on cheap, generic medicines that US pharmaceutical corporations have tried for decades to make illegal. The British government is now also looking at post-Brexit trade deals with a range of countries – including Turkey, the Gulf States, Israel and India. Apart from legitimising serious human rights violations in some of these countries, these deals could also see British corporations, like their US cousins, privatising healthcare and damaging small farming. Stopping these deals will need to be a major focus for social justice campaigners. But simply stopping deals isn’t enough. We need to put forward an alternative model of trade – just and democratic trade that works for people and planet. Nick Dearden is the director of Global Justice Now.
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AGE OF TRUMP
The extreme right moves to centre stage Walden Bello argues that Trump and Brexit are the latest stage in a growing global revolt against liberal democracy Donald Trump’s ascendancy must be seen in the context of the continuing global economic crisis. The Obama administration’s failure to bring about a sustained economic recovery in the US, owing to its timid policies, made a decisive contribution to Trump’s election as president. A pallid stimulus programme, failure to come to the rescue of millions of homeowners bankrupted by the sub-prime real estate bust, and inability to deliver the banking reforms needed to discipline Wall Street led to the Democrats’ electoral debacle in November 2016. The 64 electoral votes that put Trump over the top came from the heavily white and working class states of Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. These were traditionally Democratic areas that
© Gage Skidmo re
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had gone for Obama in 2008 and 2012 but deserted Hillary Clinton in 2016. In Europe, economic stagnation is also the order of the day. The central reason is Germany’s insistence that there is no easing off on austerity programmes for the heavily indebted southern European countries and Ireland. The Eurozone crisis provided ammunition to right-wing critics of the European Union that Brussels was a bureaucracy stifling their national economies and political sovereignty. The Brexit vote stunned the world and appeared to presage the coming to power of more national movements against the EU, with both opponents and supporters of the six-decade-long experiment in supranational
© Julian Stallabrass
©X
AGE OF TRUMP Bottom left: Trump rally in the USA. Below: The leader of the Austrian far-right ‘Freedom’ party painted on the side of a van.
governance looking nervously to the coming elections in France, where Marine Le Pen of the National Front has cast the contest as an epic struggle between the French nation and the “soulless”, “unelected” technocrats of Brussels.
THE RIGHT STEALS THE LEFT’S THUNDER This sentiment is a manifestation of a massive popular reaction against corporate-driven globalisation and the neoliberal polices adopted by governments to promote it. In Europe and elsewhere, the suffering visited on working people is being blamed on parties identified with policies of financial liberalisation that triggered the financial crisis. The anti-globalisation critique was initiated by the nonestablishment left in the 1990s; however, because big, powerful social democratic parties in Britain, France, and Germany played a central role in pushing financial liberalisation out of a mistaken belief that this would bring about a tide of growth that would benefit their working class constituencies, it is the right that has successfully harvested popular resentments and harnessed them to angry mass movements. The troubles of the established left stem not only from its Faustian bargain with finance capital. Also central has been its failure to combat discriminatory attitudes among white workers and integrate migrants into the organised working class. This is most evident in France and Germany. In previous eras, trade unions and other working class institutions played a key role in integrating successive waves of marginalised people not only into the economy but into the political sphere. However, when race, ethnic origin and religious background came into play, as they did with recent migrants from outside Europe, this traditional role of unions began to falter.
A universalist perspective based on class was steadily eroded, and the racist and ethnic exclusivist tendencies of younger white workers were not effectively countered. Not surprisingly, all throughout Europe
The anti-globalisation critique was initiated by the non-establishment left in the 1990s; however... it is the right that has successfully harvested popular resentments and harnessed them to angry mass movements. today, even in the traditionally more socially liberal Scandinavian countries, white workers are deserting social democratic parties and stampeding towards the right. In recent elections in the Netherlands and Austria, radical right-wing parties were barely excluded from power, while in Germany, the fastest-growing party is the antiimmigrant Alternative für Deutschland.
THE REVOLT AGAINST LIBERAL DEMOCRACY There is not only rebellion against neoliberalism, globalisation and migration sweeping the globe but a broader disenchantment with liberal democracy as well. Joseph Goebbels said that with the victory of the Nazi counterrevolution, “The year 1789 is hereby erased from history.” One might likewise say that the rising right-wing movements in the US, Europe and elsewhere have as one of their goals ’erasing‘ 1989 from history. 1789 was the year the French Revolution, the font of modern democracy, began. 1989, in turn, was the apogee of liberal democracy, when it vanquished communism in Europe. In the aftermath of 1989, Francis Fukuyama famously advanced his proposition that history had come to an end because there was nowhere else for countries to end up than in liberal democratic regimes that served as the political canopy of free market capitalist economies.
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AGE OF TRUMP Scarcely had it been proclaimed than the anticipated democratic golden age was challenged by antiliberal movements, mainly religious-inspired forces like political Islam in the Middle East and ethnic exclusivist ones in Eastern Europe. The varieties of opposition to liberal democracy have broadened in recent years, with European and American populist movements that champion racism or ethnic exclusivism either openly or in coded terms being the most prominent. No movement or individual, however, has been more brazenly contemptuous of the ideals of liberal democracy than Rodrigo Duterte, who was carried to the presidency of the Philippines by an insurgent electoral movement in May 2016. Duterte’s signature programme has been his ‘war on drugs’. This is no ordinary law and order campaign. A whole sector of society has been unilaterally stripped of their rights to life, due process, and membership in society. This category – drug users and drug dealers – is said to comprise some 3 million of the country’s population of 103 million. In the nine months since Duterte assumed power in July 2016, nearly 8,000 people have been gunned down by police anti-drug operatives or police-linked vigilante movements. Duterte is unrepentant and has said it might be necessary to kill “at least 20,000 to 30,000 more.”
PROGRESSIVES TAKE UP THE CHALLENGE Is Duterte the face of things to come? Fortunately, progressives are waking up, though belatedly, to the threat to civilised political life posed by right-wing movements. Trump’s inauguration triggered the biggest mass protests in the US in recent years, with women in the lead (see page 14). In Europe, civil society is taking up the cause of migrants, as progressives launch efforts to create new movements and parties rooted in the traditional progressive values of the left to replace the faltering social democrats. The brazen moves by Trump and the climate denialists in the US to dismantle climate agreements are galvanising a truly international movement that has become the strongest single challenge to the right-wing agenda. They have a long way to go, but with their values and institutions under threat, progressives are realising that they have no choice but to match and surpass the right’s capacity to mobilise. The words of the martyred American trade unionist, Joe Hill, have become the choice slogan of progressive opposition in the Trump era: “Don’t mourn, organise.” Walden Bello was one of the leaders of the anti-globalisation movement and author of many books, a former member of the Philippine Congress and co-founder of Focus on the Global South.
© Noel CelisAFP
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bal justice lo g of g in er th a g n ea p ro Join a Eu this summer ts is iv ct a er m m su is th ts is activ ered The prime minister may have trigg g Brexit in March, but the last thin g is Global Justice Now will be doin t, we’ll withdrawing from Europe. In fac s from be joining global justice activist this e across the continent in Toulous ons, August for five days of discussi tion. organising, debate and celebra
y The European Summer Universit ed anis org is for Social Movements work by ATTAC, the international net t of. which Global Justice Now is par set up Although ATTAC was originally tive truc des the to campaign against active power of financial markets, it is played on many issues. ATTAC France ns a leading role in the mobilisatio s, Pari in s talk around the UN climate pe were and ATTAC groups across Euro
central to defeating TTIP. n The programme of the Europea rsity. dive this cts Summer Universit y refle We will discuss everything from about migrant rights to how we bring There a new, sustainable economy. will be speakers from around the in more world, but also space to think allows. depth than a single-day event Simultaneous translation means t too. English speakers can take par of Following the successful launch been our youth net work, we’ve also re is the par ticularly keen to ensure people space at the event for young re we’ to organise together. But young encouraging activists old and to come along.
the If you’re interested, check out stions que website (below) and direct to
activism@globaljustice.org.uk. ersity ATTAC European Summer Univ When: 23-27 August Where: rès Université Toulouse - Jean Jau More info: www.esu2017.org
ossible How you make our work p With
r, it is coming from individuals last yea ing people like you who are the driv And as a force behind our campaigns. t to democratic organisation, we wan spend be transparent about how we king wor your generous donations. Our iture last figures of income and expend annual year are on the chart here. Our to our review, which we’ll be mailing our final regular suppor ters, will contain accounts.
Faith based organisations £21K 1%
Fundraising £439K 26%
Other income £28K 2%
Campaigns £1,193K 72%
Grants (unrestricted) £29 9K 20% Grants (restricted) £294K 20% Individual donations £849K 56%
Expenditure Total £1,612K
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Total £1,453K
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In 2016 the commitment of our c EU-US suppor ters to stopping the toxi with the trade deal TTIP came to fruition also saw trade deal being shelved. We dodgy ose exp victories in our work to the rest aid spending. Now, alongside our king ma of our suppor ters, you are (see current campaign work possible pages 3-5), thank you.
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almost two thirds of our income
AGE OF TRUMP
United against Trump Kate Aronoff on resistance to President Trump in the US It’s been hard to find silver linings in the United States these last few months. Our arcane electoral system put a noholds-barred bigot in office, and – via a disastrous budget bill and healthcare proposal – his party is competing with itself over who can condemn the most poor people of colour to lives of poverty and misery. The silver lining, while hard to spot amidst Trump’s xenophobic onslaught, is that Americans aren’t taking it lying down. People from well outside the usual activist networks are now dead set on resisting Trump. Greeting him on his inauguration weekend were as many as 4.6 million people across 550 cities turning out for the Women’s March, the largest single day of protest in United States history. For many (my parents included) it was their first protest of any kind, and many of those who attended are keeping momentum up back home.
Indivisible, a freshly-started group to pressure elected officials into rejecting Trump’s agenda, now claims nearly 6,000 chapters nationwide. Membership in groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, voicing a politics long thought taboo in America’s post-Cold War fog, has ballooned to 20,000. Across the board, social movements are growing bolder than at any point in recent memory. And it’s having an effect.
UNEXPECTED ALLIANCES Consider the alliances that helped defeat Trump’s Muslim travel ban, which would have barred refugees from the country for 120 days and restricted travel for people with passports from seven majority-Muslim nations. Within hours of the Executive Order coming down from the White House on 27 January, thousands of people rushed to airports, at the
Photos from protest at Philadelphia Airport following the announcement of Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’ – one of hundreds that took place across the US.
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AGE OF TRUMP urging of several community organisations that serve undocumented immigrants. Inside airports, travelers, some coming stateside for the first time, others returning home from short trips, were told they would be unable to enter the country, many without a place to return to. Meanwhile, lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) huddled around outlets in baggage claim to draft up defences for clients stranded in limbo and legal challenges to the order itself. That weekend, federal judges in New York and Massachusetts temporarily blocked part of the ban and issued a temporary restraining order on federal immigration officials from enforcing it. By 3 February, US district court judge James Robart had blocked its main provisions. Helping in the victory, too, was an early February strike by Yemeni corner shop owners in New York, many themselves hit hard by Trump’s anti-Muslim stance. “I don’t care about the money,” shop owner-turnedstriker Ragehi Hussein told New York’s Village Voice, “I care about what happens in the world.” When the taxi drivers’ union called a work stoppage on the day of the airport demonstrations, cab app company Uber scabbed, sending drivers to airports where taxis had agreed to make a show of defiance. As many as 200,000 people deleted the Uber app in response. Trump’s administration contested the judges’ decision in court , and were rebuffed at each turn – eventually sending the White House back to the drawing board. Another just slightly “watered-down version”, to borrow Trump’s words, was stopped in the courts less than a month later, hours before it was set to take effect on 15 March.
SOMETHING UNLEASHED For all the horrors of Trump’s still-congealing administration, it seems to be unleashing something more encouraging than just numbers: a sense of shared struggle and an increasing tendency toward bold action. Those flooding into the streets are doing so against sexism and Islamophobia and draconian attacks on the poor. Aside from calling for a $15 minimum wage and to support water protectors at Standing Rock, the platform for 8 March’s International Women’s Day strike stated resolutely that “we want to dismantle all walls, from prison walls to border walls, from Mexico to Palestine”. The next few years will be brutal, many of the fights will be defensive. Communities across the country will be exposed to terrifying levels of risk. But Trump has faced an incredibly embattled first few months. If movements keep up, it will only get worse for him. Kate Aronoff is a US-based journalist who writes for the Guardian, In These Times and Dissent. All photos by Joe Piette/Flickr.
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The rise and fall of the Jungle Refugees are not only being turned back at borders, attempts to support them are being criminalised. Words by Jason Parkinson, photos by Jess Hurd. In January 2015 Calais banned food distribution within the city limits. All makeshift camps in Calais were evicted and refugees pushed out past the city limits to a site where the camp that came to be known as the Jungle was created. In February 2016 the eviction of the camp’s south side displaced 3,000 people. 139 children went missing. The following October the demolition of the camp saw 10,000 people forced out of their makeshift community and the site was razed to the ground. In February 2017 the UK government terminated the Dubs Amendment of the UK Immigration Bill that offered safe haven to 3,000 children already in Europe. 1,100 minors from the Jungle were told they would not get asylum in the UK. Children fled the immigration reception centres in their hundreds, returned to sleeping rough around Calais and risked their lives again stowing away on board trucks to reach their families in England. 1,500 refugees voluntarily left the Jungle and were sent to the official camp in Dunkirk. On 15 March this year the French government made public its plans for that camp to be demolished as well. On 2 March 2017 the Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart invoked State of Emergency laws to ban all food distribution to refugees living rough in surrounding areas of the town. That same day police used tear gas against food distribution volunteers from charity Utopia56. At the end of March a court in Lille overturned Bouchart’s food ban, stating there was no security justification for preventing charities from handing out aid to asylum seekers. Jess Hurd is a photojournalist and campaigning photographer. Jason Parkinson is a freelance video journalist.
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This page: Refugees leave the Jungle camp prior to a demolition planned by French authorities. Calais, France. Opposite top: Fires rage during the eviction of refugees in the Jungle camp, Calais, France. Opposite bottom: Migrant protest demands that the UK open the border. Eurostar Calais Terminal, France.
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FARMERS’ RIGHTS
Protection for peasants Henry Saragih looks at the attacks faced by peasants worldwide and legal moves to defend their rights One morning in March, 36 houses belonging to peasant families of Mekar Jaya village in Indonesia’s North Sumatera province were razed to the ground. A palm oil plantation company, assisted by state forces, used heavy machinery to evict the people and take the land. Agus Ruli Ardiansyah, from Indonesia’s peasants union, says that 360 families from the village no longer have anywhere to live. Their village is part of over 550 hectares of peasant land that have been seized by this company alone in less than a year. Worldwide, land grabs like this are unfortunately becoming more common – highlighting the continuing lack of peasants’ rights. Peasants, or small-scale farmers, as a group, are very vulnerable to human rights violations: the expansion of plantations like palm oil have forced peasants and indigenous people out from their land and territory. We peasants, producers of the food on the table, have been active in many avenues to struggle for better recognition and protection of our rights. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of peasants around the world are still facing displacement and criminalisation. Hunger and malnutrition, unemployment, gender discrimination and poverty all have something in common: they are more prevalent in rural areas. That is why we feel a human rights based approach can be useful. In 2008 we began a process within the United Nations for a declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas. We brought our proposed declaration from members of La Via Campesina; from little villages in Sumatera, Parana, Limpopo, Granada and many others. This declaration, if approved, will create an international legal instrument to protect the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, and draw attention to the threats and discrimination they suffer. The road to a UN declaration will include the fourth session of negotiations this May in Geneva 18 Ninety-Nine 2017
and peasa nts outside the Henry Sarag ih speaking in front of ten thous in ta, 2011. Indonesian presidential palace in Jakar
– meaning the content of the draft declaration will continue to be shaped by UN member states, civil society and other parties. From a simple peasants’ declaration, the draft has grown to 27 complex articles. Now it is not only exclusive to peasants, but has been developed to include all people working in rural areas. In the latest UN draft, we can find that the declaration also applies to any person engaged in small-scale livestock-keeping, fishing, forestry, hunting or gathering and handicrafts. The declaration also contains crucial rights for peasants and other people working in rural areas – individual and collective rights – such as the rights to land, seeds, water, decent income and biodiversity, with an emphasis on rural women’s rights. The adoption of the declaration by the UN could provide villages like Mekar Jaya with another legal instrument to protect peasant lands in the future. Take action to support the UN declaration at:
globaljustice.org.uk/farmers Henry Saragih is the chairperson of the Indonesian peasant union, SPI and former general coordinator of La Via Campesina.
REVIEWS
Reviews THE CITY: LONDON AND THE GLOBAL POWER OF FINANCE Tony Norfield Verso 2016 For the past three decades, the City of London as a financial centre has been crucial to the UK economy. From Thatcher’s ‘Big Bang’ financial market reforms, to New Labour’s support for the growth of the finance sector to fund its modest social programmes, the position of London as the centre of financial flows and the revenues that are reaped have helped Britain to finance and sustain its trade deficit. Norfield’s book is a critical evaluation of the power of finance from someone who has worked at its heart. While providing crucial insights into the workings of the global financial system, from financial speculation to tax havens, Norfield also explains how the
rise of the financial power of London rests on its imperial past. Far from being a modern excess, finance was a structural part of British capitalism which underpinned the Empire. It is here that we can find the explanation for the state’s promotion of finance and trace the role of the City in creating a global economy where so few companies and people control so much. Mareike Beck
LOOK AT THE POWERFUL PEOPLE Formation Warner Bros/Meno 2017 We desperately need a counterculture, so the recent political turn in pop is interesting. Case in point, the band Formation, whose first album, Look at the Powerful People, was launched with a blistering online call for positive politics and the ‘revolutionary power of art and creativity’. While their lyrics are subtly political there’s no counterculture here… yet. They are sonically interesting but the album is definitively from our present. A counterculture only forms when a band or scene appears like an alien future, different enough from the present to cause a rupture.
There’s no punk in Formation, not enough antagonism. Sonically there are elements of Motown, funk, 70s prog but there’s no guitar. This allows song structure to take on the influence of electronic dance music. It took a government crackdown to turn dance music into a counterculture. Perhaps this is a model. It will take the constriction of positivity to find our own route to a counterculture in Formation.
SOUND SYSTEM: THE POLITICAL POWER OF MUSIC Dave Randall Pluto Press 2017 When Beyoncé burst onto stage during the 2013 Super Bowl halftime with a troop of dancers making overt references to Black Lives Matter and the Black Panthers, was it a thrilling moment of bringing radical consciousness to the masses, or was it the capitalist music industry coopting and commodifying struggle? These are the tensions between music, politics and culture explored in this new book by Faithless guitarist Dave Randall. Sound System draws on a wealth of historical references – there’s a fascinating account of the unbroken lineage from the Notting Hill Carnival all the way back to the Haitian revolution of 1791. But it also draws on Randall’s personal experiences as a professional musician supporting the cultural boycott of Israel in the wake of the Gaza bombings of 2008/09. While there’s no explicitly new theorising about the relationship between music and politics, Randall reassuringly comes to the conclusion that while music undoubtedly matters in the struggles for justice, it’s not enough to sing or spectate from the sidelines. Kevin Smith
Keir Milburn
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