By Roberto Savio
ROME, May 19 2015 (IPS)

The victory of the Conservative Party and the debacle of the Labour Party in the recent British general elections is yet another sign of the crisis facing left-wing forces today, leaving aside the question of how, under the British electoral system, the Labour Party actually increased the number of votes it won but saw a reduction in the number of seats it now holds in Parliament (24 seats less than the previous 256).

Roberto Savio

If the proportional rather than uninominal system had been used, the Conservative Party with its 11 million votes would have won 256 and not 331 seats in Parliament (far short of the absolute majority of 326 needed to govern), while at the other extreme the United Kingdom Independence Party with nearly four million votes would have landed 83 and not just the one seat it ended up with – results that would be hard to imagine anywhere else and a good example of insularity.

To an extent, the recent British general elections mirrored the U.S. presidential elections in 2000 when Democratic candidate Al Gore won around half a million more popular votes than Republican candidate George W. Bush but failed to win the majority of electoral college votes on which the U.S. system is based. The outcome was eight years of George W.  Bush administration, the war in Iraq, the crisis of multilateralism, and all the paraphernalia of “America’s exceptional destiny”.

Let us venture now into an analysis that will have the politologues among us cringing.“The left has tried to mimic the winners, instead of trying to be an alternative to the process of neoliberal globalisation and, since the beginning of the world financial crisis in 2008 … it has had no real answer to the crisis”

It is now generally recognised that the end of the Soviet Union has given free way to a kind of capitalism without control, marked by an unprecedented supremacy of finance which, in terms of volume of investments, overwhelmingly exceeds the real or productive economy.

In its wake, neoliberal thinking has found the left totally unprepared, because part of its function had been to provide a democratic alternative to Communism, which was suddenly no longer a threat.

The left therefore has tried to mimic the winners, instead of trying to be an alternative to the process of neoliberal globalisation and, since the beginning of the world financial crisis in 2008 (with its bail-out cost so far of over four trillion dollars), it has had no real answer to the crisis.

Ever since the industrial revolution, the identity of the left had been to press for social justice, equality of opportunities and redistribution, while the right placed the emphasis on individual efforts, less role for the state and success as motivation.

Continuing with this brutal simplification, we have to add that the left, from Marx to Keynes, always studied how to create economic growth and redistribution – Marx by abolishing private property, social democrats through just taxation.

But it never studied the creation of a progressive agenda in the event case of an economic crisis such as the one we are now facing, with structural unemployment, young people obliged  to accept any kind of contract, new technologies which are making the concept of classes disappear, and rendering trade unions – erstwhile powerful actors for social justice – irrelevant.

It is unprecedented that the top 25 hedge fund managers received a reward in 2014 of 11.62 billion dollars, yet neither U.S. President Barack Obama nor Ed Miliband, then still leader of the Labour Party at the recent British general elections (until he resigned after election defeat), saw it fit to denounce this obscene level of greed.

Meanwhile, Europe as a political project is clearly in disarray, and now faces a “Grexit” on its southern flank and a “Brexit” on its northern flank.

In the case of a “Grexit” (the possible abandonment of the European Union by Greece), Greece faces the prospects of having to make substantial concessions to Europe, thus reneging on the promises of Alexis Tsipras who was voted in as prime minister in rebellion against years of dismantlement of public and social structures imposed in the name of austerity.

What is at stake here is the very neoliberal model itself and not only is ordoliberal Germany supported by allies like Austria, Finland and the Netherlands erecting a wall against any form of leniency, but countries which accepted painful cuts and where conservatives are now in power, like Spain, Portugal and Ireland, see leniency as giving in to the left.

A “Brexit” (the possible abandonment of the European Union by Britain) is a different affair. It is a game being played by British Prime Minister David Cameron to negotiate a more favourable agreement for Britain with the European Union.

A referendum will be held before the end of 2017 and the four million people who voted for the UKIP in the recent elections, plus the country’s “Euro-sceptics”, threaten to push Britain out of the European Union, especially if Cameron does not manage to obtain some substantial concessions from Brussels.

Meanwhile, if Europe is in disarray, the United States has a serious problem of governance. Analyst Moisés Naím, who served as editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine from 1996 to 2010, has pinpointed a few examples of how this has translated into self-inflicted damage.

One concerns China which, after waiting five years trying to get the Republican-dominated Congress to authorise and increase in its stake in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from a ridiculous 3.8 percent to 6 percent (compared with the 16.5 percent of the United States), got fed up and established an alternative fund, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Washington tried unsuccessfully to kill the initiative by putting pressure on its allies but first the United Kingdom, then Italy, Germany and France announced their participation in the new bank, which now has 50 member countries and the United States is not one of them.

Another example was the attempt by the Republican-dominated Congress to kill the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) which has provided support for U.S exporters to the tune of 570 billion dollars since it was set up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934.  In just the last two years, China has provided 670 billion dollars in support for its exporters. Moral of the story: U.S. companies will be at a clear disadvantage.

As Larry Summers, a great proponent of U.S. hegemony, put it, “the US will not be in a position to shape the global economic system”.

The latest snub to the U.S. role of world leader came from four Arab heads of state who snubbed a U.S.-Gulf States summit at Camp David on May 14. The summit had been called by Obama to reassure the Gulf states that the ongoing negotiations with Iran over a nuclear agreement would not diminish their relevance, but the rulers of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain deserted the summit.

However, there is no more striking example of mistake-making than the joint effort by the United States and Europe to push Russian President Vladimir against the wall over his engagement in Ukraine by imposing heavy sanctions.

There was no apparent reflection on the wisdom of encircling a paranoid and autocratic leader, albeit one with strong popular support, by progressively also bringing in all Eastern and Central European countries. The result of this encirclement of Russia is that China has now come to the rescue of Russia, by injecting money into the country’s asphyxiated economy.

China will invest around six billion dollars in the construction of a high speed railway between Moscow and Kazan, is financing a 2,700 kilometre pipeline for the supply of 30 billion cubic metres of Russian gas over a period of 30 years, plus several other projects, including the establishment of a two billion dollar common fund for investments and a loan of 860 million dollars to the Russian Sberbank bank.

So, the net result is that Russia has been pushed out of Europe and into the arms of China, and the two are now starting joint naval and military manoeuvres.  Is this in the interest of Europe?

At the end of the day, the decline of Europe and the United States perhaps comes down to a decline of political vision, with democracy being substituted by partocracy, and the statesman of yesteryear being substituted by very much more modest and self-referential political leaders.

This is all taking place amid a growing disaffection with politics, which is now aimed basically at administrative choices, making corruption easy. At least this is what around one-third of electors now appear to believe when they are asked if they think that they can make a difference at elections … and this is why a rapidly growing number of people are deserting the ballot box. (END/COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

In New Orleans, which was struck by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, residents are planning strategies to prepare for the next natural disaster. Above, a house damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Credit: Steve Wilson/ CC by 2.0

By Matthew Charles Cardinale
ATLANTA, Georgia, Dec 14 2012 (IPS)

Many residents are still rebuilding their lives seven years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region of the United States. Those who are able are looking ahead and organising so that they will be better prepared for future natural disasters.

Although at a recent conference in Doha, Qatar, the international community failed to reach meaningful agreement on preventing more global warming, disaster preparedness will become an increasingly important topic for communities, especially those near water, around the world.

A new book, “Not Meant to Live Like This: Weathering the Storm of Our Lives in New Orleans”, by the members of the All Together in Dignity (ATD) Fourth World Movement living in New Orleans, addresses the topic of community organising for disaster preparedness.

A symposium at the Carter Center in Atlanta on Dec. 13 addressed the same issues. Both the book and the symposium received support from the Southern Partners Fund, a philanthropic group that promotes social change in the American South and which launched a Justice Fund for Disaster Relief and Renewal shortly after Katrina.

New Orleans still recovering

Martin Luther King III, the son of Martin Luther King Jr., emphasised in an interview with IPS that some parts of New Orleans have not yet recovered from Hurricane Katrina.

In the Ninth Ward, he said, “homes were torn town and not rebuilt”, adding, “I am not saying it was intentional…but somebody must have made the decision.”

Even the parts of New Orleans that have been rebuilt have changed dramatically. Public housing communities that served low-income residents were torn down. Public schools have been privatised. Even the homes and businesses that have been rebuilt simply do not look quite the same.

“That happens in every community,” Marilyn Self, manager of the Disaster Readiness programme at the American Red Cross of Greater Atlanta, said during a panel at the symposium. “It’s never the same again. Even if every home is rebuilt and everyone comes back – which they don’t – it’s not the same church spire. The high school has a different look. It’s not the one you have a treasured memory in.”

Sharing responsibilities

“You have a personal responsibility to prepare for yourself in an emergency,” Winston Minor, chair of the Public Safety Committee for the Concerned Black Clergy of Atlanta, said during the panel, advising people to always have at least three days of food, water and medical supplies on hand in case disaster strikes.

“FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] expects you to be able to make it for three days,” Minor said.

But, Minor pointed out, “the community has a responsibility to make sure the community can respond,” and so “everyone in the system needs to be educated”. He said churches should be a vital component of that effort.

The Red Cross has been chartered by Congress since 1881 to help respond to disasters across the United States. Its ability to provide help, however, depends in part on partnerships it establishes at the local level, Self remarked.

One of the biggest problems faced by the Red Cross during and immediately after disasters is shelter. “We need spaces to hold several thousand people. We’ve been bickering with the mega-churches, but there is no agreement in place yet. It’s always, ‘We’ll get back to you.  Let’s talk to our lawyer,'” Self said.

Transportation is also an issue. Local workers who drive public buses or school buses are often relied upon to help transport people out of harm’s way when a storm is coming.

“That has to be communicated down to the person who drives the bus. Public employees need to know there’s a role for them in the disaster plan,” Self said.

Local organisations should have partnerships in place before disasters occur to determine how to cooperate in responding to them.

Housing problems

One key issue after Hurricane Katrina was the drastic decrease in affordable housing units.

In New Orleans today, “affordable housing is very scarce and the rent is very high,” Marie Victoire, co-author of “Not Meant to Live Like This”, told IPS. These factors make it “difficult for low-income people to come back”.

Public housing communities were demolished and replaced with so-called mixed-income housing. Four developments with nearly 5,000 units were demolished after Katrina. Replacement housing has not yet been built, but fewer than a thousand affordable units are planned, with the rest of the units at or near market rate.

“There was no right of return for former residents. They have a million ways to keep people out,” Jay Arena, assistant professor of sociology at the College of Staten Island, who lived in New Orleans at the time, told IPS. Arena is the author of a book called “Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public Housing and Promote Privatization”.

“The political and economic elite saw Katrina as a grand opportunity to deepen their neo-liberal privatisation agenda, change the racial and class demographic of the city, and that’s what they did, by closing down thousands of units of badly needed but hardly damaged public housing units, clearly in violation of international law,” Arena said.

Many low-income families paid 200 to 400 dollars per month on run-down housing before Katrina. After those homes were renovated following the hurricane, prices went up to 700 or 800 per month.

Arena believed that other countries should learn many lessons from what has happened in New Orleans. Above all, he argued, the likelihood of future disasters is another reason to greatly expand the public sector. He added that policies must be put in place to promote the right of return, including rent control and the rights of renters to return to their housing.

“They closed most of the public schools, they closed down the public hospital, Charity Hospital – that probably caused more deaths than even Katrina,” Arena concluded.

The rising spectre of terrorism in Syria shows that by clinging to power and refusing to implement meaningful reforms, Arab autocrats in Syria, Bahrain, and elsewhere are indirectly contributing to the resurgence of terrorism in their societies.

Arab protests started peacefully, but almost in every country regime repression and torture ultimately pushed popular revolts toward violence.

This cynical calculus allowed Arab autocrats to claim that protests were directed from the outside and resistance was the work of terrorist groups. In Egypt and Tunisia, regimes fell while popular protests were still peaceful.

In Yemen and Libya, regimes refused to leave and instead used bloody repression. While they failed to quell protests, some opposition groups were forced to militarise.

In Bahrain and Syria, regimes have changed the narrative from human rights and reform to sectarianism, using the divide and rule approach. Their self-fulfilling prophecy of terrorism has come to pass because of their conscious policy to discredit the opposition and shore up their legitimacy.

While successful in the short-run, this policy is destined to fail in the long run. Domestic terrorist groups that could emerge from the opposition would not only target regime assets; they will go after U.S. and other Western economic interests and personnel in those countries.

In Bahrain, for instance, Sunni vigilantes and even some government officials are encouraged by elements within the ruling family to direct their anger against Americans for their perceived support of pro-reform dissidents. Some regime conservatives increasingly view the Americans, the Shia majority, and Iran as an unholy alliance undermining the Khalifa rule.

The recently appointed minister of information Samira Rajab is anti- Shia, anti-American, and a fan of Saddam Hussein. She blames foreign media and outside provocateurs for the problems in her country – a similar narrative to that of the Assad regime in Syria.

The traditional faction within the Bahraini ruling family, including the prime minister, is turning to Saudi Arabia for support. The king and his son the crown prince Salman are committed to an independent and more inclusive country. Unfortunately, they have been marginalised by the older members of the family council and their younger xenophobic Sunni supporters.

By inviting Bahrain’s crown prince to Washington last week, the administration was sending a signal to the conservative faction that it still supports the king and his son and their plan to seek meaningful dialogue with the opposition.

The other part of Washington’s message is that the resumption of some arms shipments that were halted after last year’s uprising applied to the coast guard and would not be used against the Bahraini people. It gave Salman something to take back, but indirectly signaled to the old guard that the young prince, not his great uncle, is the preferred interlocutor with Washington.

Of course, to save face the old guard has touted the release of the arms as a sign that they are still in Washington’s graces.

It’s clear that Saudi Arabia is trying to expand its hegemony over the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), beginning with Bahrain. The Prime Minister Khalifa and his supporters within the ruling family no longer seem to care about the sovereignty of Bahrain or its historically liberal tradition. Their main concern is their own survival.

In the 1980s I wrote a book on the GCC and highlighted some of the challenges that would face the organisation down the line. I’m afraid, it’s coming home to roost. If the proposed Saudi-Bahraini federation is concluded, Bahrain would cease to exist as an independent state and would become a province under Saudi suzerainty. The Saudis and their Khalifa quislings would expand their repression of the Shia community and Sunni human rights activists in the name of fighting Shia and Iran. The opposition will likely arm, and domestic terrorist groups would emerge in both countries.

In Syria, human rights protests similarly started peacefully but have been forced to defend themselves with arms confiscated from the military and obtained from the outside. The Assad regime continues to kill and torture civilians. Like Bahrain, Assad is blaming foreign provocateurs and terrorists for the bloodshed. The regime’s acceptance of the Kofi Annan plan is a rouse to placate the international community and buy the regime more time.

The Annan plan is doomed to fail because the regime views the domestic situation as a zero-sum game. It believes its survival can only be assured through continued repression and control. Negotiating with the opposition is a fantasy that Assad cannot afford to indulge in if his Alawite minority rule is to survive.

Since 9/11 Arab autocrats have cooperated closely on counterterrorism with the U.S. and other Western countries. At the same time, they branded domestic dissidents and pro-democracy activists as radicals and urged Western governments not to fret over their harsh tactics against their citizens.

Arab regimes mistakenly thought that autocracy, not democracy, was critical for fighting terrorism and that Western support for human rights in Arab countries would dilute such an effort. Because Arab autocrats were pliant partners, Western governments, unfortunately, became addicted to autocracy, which in turn helped autocrats become more entrenched.

Arab rulers seem to forget that many non-Western democracies, including Muslim Indonesia and Turkey, also have been strong partners with Western governments in fighting terrorism. The fall of the dictators in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and Libya would not preclude these countries from fighting terrorism.

Arab Islamic autocrats co-operate in the fight against terrorism to preserve their rule; whereas democracies do so to protect their societies and way of life.

Washington and other Western capitals should make it clear to the remaining Arab dictators, in word and in deed that the game is up. They must implement genuine political reform or step aside. The world cannot tolerate a resurgence of terrorism because of their repressive rule and sectarian politics.

* Dr. Emile Nakhleh is the former director of the CIA Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program, a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico and a National Intelligence Council Associate. He is the author of “A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World and Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernizing Society”.

(END)

In the Friends of Syria meeting held in Tunis last week, Gulf Arab monarchies offered nearly unqualified support for the Syrian opposition, while the democratic states were more cautious.
Representatives of 60 nations and members of Syria’s largest opposition group, the Syrian National Congress (SNC), met here Friday to discuss a possible resolution to escalating conflict in Syria.

The nations present were all generally in support of Syria’s opposition and opposed to the authoritarian regime of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. Iran, China and Russia, all high-profile international backers of the Assad regime, were notably absent.

The meeting in Tunis was designed to be a space in which the SNC and their international supporters could formulate a unified plan of action to stop the atrocities in Syria.

However, despite the absence of any Assad supporters, disagreements among the different parties present were more striking then any agreements reached.

While every participant offered rhetorical support to the Syrian rebels and universal condemnation of the Syrian regime, many important delegates were unwilling to back their expressed sympathies with concrete offers of military aid.

A serious rupture between Gulf Arab monarchies calling explicitly for regime change and immediate military support for the opposition, and democracies (including the United States and host nation Tunisia), who stressed caution and stopped short of demanding that Assad leave the country, proved to be a major obstacle to the conference.

The current Tunisian government came to power as the result of a revolution against a dictator similar to Assad, and most senior officials are former dissidents who spent decades imprisoned or in exile.

Thus it came as no surprise earlier this month when Tunisia expelled the Syrian ambassador in response to the violence in the country.

However, at this meeting the Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki said that Assad should receive immunity from prosecution and that international military intervention in Syria would be a “serious mistake.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton struck a similar tone, condemning the Assad regime and praising the opposition, but not offering any explicit military support.

The Syrian opposition came to this meeting hoping for tangible military promises in what is now an increasingly brutal and one-sided civil war; the measured language of Marzouki and Clinton was anathema to what the SNC and broader Syrian opposition wanted to hear.

Achraf al Moqdad, Syrian opposition activist and member of the Current for National Change, told IPS, “This isn’t what the Syrian people want, they want a concrete resolution with the threat of military action, or (real) military action, to stop the crimes against humanity that are happening everyday, every night in Syria,” he said.

SNC’s press spokesman Mouayad AlKiblawi was even more direct. “(Marzouki and Clinton) never talked about self defense. We want to keep the peaceful image of our revolution but (the regime doesnt) allow us. What (does the international community) want us to do, do they want to exterminate the Syrian people, must there be 100,000 victims before the international community intervenes?” he asked IPS.

When asked what kind of international intervention the SNC wanted, AlKiblawi emphasised that the opposition wanted the international community to treat Syria like Libya, where air-strikes and direct military aid were instrumental in toppling the Qaddafi regime, and not like Yemen, where slow international pressure and promises of immunity finally caused the regime to relinquish power.

“The Syrian streets want any kind of intervention that (ends the) killing here, they don’t care about the method….We’re not Yemen, we have already gone (far) beyond that….it’s nonsense to apply the Yemeni solution in Syria, we don’t agree with that. We won’t live with killers (linked to the regime),” he said.

Clinton and Marzouki’s reluctance to offer military backing disappointed the opposition so much that at one point it looked like SNC representatives were going to walk out of the conference.

Meanwhile, the Gulf Arab dictatorships present at the meeting gave nearly unconditional backing to the democratic aspirations of the Syrian opposition.

Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia called for immediate shipments of arms to the Syrian opposition and explicitly advocated broader military support and the prosecution of Assad and his entourage.

Both these nations are absolute monarchies with few democratic freedoms. The fact that they are throwing their support behind the Syrian democracy movement may have more to do with their longstanding loathing of the Assad regime and his Iranian backers than to any principled commitment to democratisation.

The very fact that Qatar and Saudi Arab are dictatorships may allow them to support intervention in Syria, an idea that is extremely divisive in the Arab world and beyond, whereas Clinton and Marzouki have to be cognizant of the public opinion of their country’s citizens.

Most analysts in Washington believe that the U.S. public will not accept any more costly, uncertain military adventures in the Middle East and while many Tunisians support the Syrian revolution, there is a strong undercurrent of support for Assad because of his rhetorical stance against Israel and his vocal opposition to the United States.

The hard fact that foreign intervention in Syria is still extremely controversial in the international community was not lost on any of the conference’s attendees.

As the first delegates began filing into the hotel, a crowd of about two hundred pro-Assad protesters amassed in front of the conference waving Ba’athist and Palestinian flags and shouting slogans denouncing the U.S. and Gulf Arabs.

Minutes before Marzouki and Clinton arrived at the meeting, the protest turned violent, and demonstrators were beaten back by police.

While this meeting was supposed to present a unified front against Assad, it did anything but. For now, it seems that the bloodshed in Syria will continue.

(END)