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US fascism – the view from Europe

Fascism is a real threat in the USA. But we still have time to organise the mass resistance needed to stop it

Mike Hembury
23/01/2022

Almost a year to the day after the assault on the US Capitol Building by an insurgent right-wing Trump-supporting mob, prospects for the continuation of US democracy – such as it is – after the Biden administration are looking bleak in the extreme.

Not only have the main instigators of the attempted coup not been punished (in spite of overwhelming evidence pointing towards the deliberate nature of the act) but a majority of the Republican party remain convinced that the 2021 election was stolen and that the current government is illegitimate.

The Republican response to the lost election was to double down on the myth of the Big Steal, and to repudiate the validity of the electoral process. Dissenters within the ranks have been purged and electoral officials who carried out their duty in the last elections (to the displeasure of the Trump faction) have been replaced across the country by Trump loyalists. This sets the scene for a very different outcome in the next election.

In its purging of moderate elements the Trump Republicans fully embraced an anti-democratic, insurgent agenda. This sees violent resistance against any other outcome than a Trump win as being fully acceptable. The result is a dangerous alliance between ultra-conservative, Christian fundamentalist and openly fascist elements . It represents a grave and growing danger to women, people of colour, the immigrant and LGBTQI communities and the working class in general.

The Trump agenda is openly billed as the “revenge tour”. From a European perspective at least – the historical parallels to periods preceding the fascist coups in 20th-century Germany and Spain are too stark to ignore.

How should the Left respond to the Trump agenda?

So what should the response of progressive and democratic forces be in the face of a gerrymandered Trump win in 2025? Or the renewed threat of a coup in the event that the electoral process holds up and the Republicans lose once again? To put it another way: with the Republicans now so openly manipulating the democratic process, how can a Republican win be taken at face value?

By way of historical analogy, it is worth comparing the responses of the Spanish and German labour movements in the face of a fascist takeover. The leaders of German Social Democracy acquiesced in the electoral victory of the Nazis in 1932, only to find themselves banned, arrested and sent to concentration camps in the weeks and months that followed. That fact surely counts as one of history’s greatest failures of judgement.

By contrast, in 1936 Spanish workers poured onto the streets on hearing the news of Franco’s putsch, confronting insurgent troops and fascist militia. They went on to implement bold social reforms in the areas under democratic control in the civil war that followed.

And although there’s a lot of talk right now in the US media about the threat of civil war, perhaps it’s the prospect of a peaceful handover of power to a nakedly anti-democratic Republican party that is more worrying.

It was certainly a peaceful transition to a fascist government that spelt the end of the German Weimar Republic, and led to the smashing of the labour movement, persecution of minorities, war, genocide, Holocaust and the deaths of up to 75 million people in World War II.

The gravity of the situation in the USA is beyond doubt. President Biden has described it as “a dagger at the throat of democracy”. Former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich recently called for a “war to save American democracy”. The Democrats are making efforts to counter Republican gerrymandering by enacting voting reform at federal level. However it would be a mistake to count on mere parliamentary manoevers as an effective strategy against a nascent, broad-based and militant fascist movement.

The role of the Democrats

In the fight against fascism, illusions in the class interests of the Democratic Party are no substitute for the self-activity – including self-defence – of the working class and the oppressed. As Democratic senator Bernie Sanders put it recently: “It is no great secret that the Republican party is winning more and more support from working people… It’s not because the Republican party has anything to say to them. It’s because in too many ways the Democratic party has turned its back on the working class.”

In this respect, Sanders is right. The response of the working class and allied progressive forces cannot be subordinated to the inherently conservative agenda of the Democratic Party nor to the supine position of the trade union leadership. In contrast it must be an independent response, based in workplace, union and community organizing. It must be committed to mutual self-defence in the face of any form of fascist aggression, whether at neighbourhood, city, state or national level.

The coming mid-term elections in 2022 and the presidential election 2024 mark key threats to existing democratic and civil rights gains in the United States. Progressive forces and democracy defenders should use the current breathing space to mobilise, make their presence felt and create a genuine united front against the fascist threat. In spite of all the bluster and the current hype around the Trumpist insurgency, in overall terms the extreme white-power right are still a minority.

Progressive change is possible

Rebecca Solnit argued in the Guardian

“While the right has become far more extreme and has its tens of millions of true believers, it is morphing into a minority sect. This has prompted their desperate scramble to overturn free and fair elections and other democratic processes. White Christians, who were 80% of the population in 1976, are now 44%. Mixed-race and non-white people are rapidly becoming the majority. On issues such as climate, people of colour are far more progressive; if we can make it through the huge backlash of the present moment, the possibilities are dazzling.”

The United States has a rich heritage of militancy for progressive causes and movements. Its mass struggles for justice have been inspirational to peoples around the world. America is not just the country of slavery, Jim Crow and the KKK. It is the country of rebellion and resistance both militant and peaceful, of MLK and BLM, the Women’s March on Washington and Christopher Street, of Blair Mountain and the West Coast Waterfront Strike.

If white-power Trumpist Republicans return to power unopposed in 2024, it will surely mean the end of the universal franchise in the USA, the end of American democracy for at least a generation. It will mean incarceration and terror for thousands, if not millions.

Fascism is not something that can be solved by appeasement. It can only be opposed by mass mobilisation and mass resistance.

So at this historical juncture, what’s it to be, America? What path will you take: Germany ‘32, or Spain ‘36?

How did Berlin Museums get the Benin Bronzes? Part Two

Anti-colonial activists have succeeded in having some plunder returned to its original country, but the struggle goes on

Hari Kumar
22/01/2022

This is the second part of this article. You can read part one here.

The complex nature of Western scholars in colonial times

It would be one-dimensional and anti-dialectical to ignore the scholarly and sweeping visions of some of the leading “Orientalists”. Sir William Jones, for example, first translated Kalidas of 400 AD (“the Indian Shakespeare”) from Sanskrit into English. He undertook his studies in 1785, in the colony of “British india”. In his book, India discovered, he declared Sankskrit “more perfect than either Greek or Latin”. It is true he was seen by Edward Said in a more diminished way than perhaps he deserved:

“He was appointed to ‘an honourable and profitable place in the Indies’, and (took) up a post with the East India Company (to) study to gather in, to rope off, to domesticate the Orient & turn it into a province of European learning.”¹

Another such individual was Adolf Bastian, the first Director of the Berlin Ethnological Museum – founded in 1873, out of the Kunstkammer of the rulers of rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia. Bastian was inspired by his mentors Rudolf Virchov and Alexander von Humboldt to embrace a natural science to understand a “unitary humanity of the world”. ²

This museum now contains more than 500,000 objects. Bastian strived to build “a universal archive of humanity,” which he believed was the key to revealing a total history of humanity.” He thought he was consciously trying to preserve the cultures of the world before modernisation (let us call it colonialism) destroyed their traces:

“Adolf Bastian’s mantra became: “the last moment has come, the twelfth hour is here! Documents of immeasurable, irreplaceable value for human history are being destroyed. Save them! ”

But though uncomfortable with it, even he was quite happy to accept funds from the German colonial administration after the state entered that game.

In contrast to Bastian, his heir Felix von Luschan openly avowed an imperialist view:

“Luschan eagerly harnessed colonial troops to collect body parts, and especially skulls… during the Herero Wars and subsequent genocide in German South West Africa (1904–7), Luschan … he asked for colonial troops to collect the skulls of the vanquished following any altercation … women were forced to scrape the flesh off the skulls of the dead.”

In von Lüschan’s book People, Race, and Language:

“[H]e lamented the loss of the German colonies during World War I. And he hoped the African section (of the) new Volkerkunde Museum in Dahlem… would be ‘the most beautiful and greatest monument for our colonial troops.”

And yet, Luschan was a divided man. For he also fought against racist views in general, impressing W.E.B.Dubois with his lecture in 1911 at the First Universal Races Congress in London, attacking “race science”.

In 1902, at the German Colonial Congress in Berlin he denounced myths of racial difference and the putative benefits of European influence, arguing that too often in Africa and Oceania “Civilization = Syphilization” and that European poison was summed up in the four S’s: “Slave trade, schnapps, syphilis, and shoddy goods.”

He understood why Benin had isolated itself during the nineteenth century, after seeing what active trading with Europeans did:

“[L]ike almost all African coastal towns, Benin completely shut themselves off from Europeans as they understood the tremendous danger they faced from the brutal slave trade of white savages… a poison that decomposes.”

His last book was unequivocal:

“All humanity consists of only one species: Homo sapiens; there are no ‘wild’ peoples, only peoples with different cultures than ours.”

Racists had argued the Benin Bronzes “could not be by negroes” as they were such masterworks. To the contrary, in his book on the Bronzes Luschan simply “dismissed the reports from the leading British scholars O. M. Dalton and C. H. Read of a mysterious ‘white’ man bringing these techniques to Benin centuries earlier” and avers instead that, “we have come to know a great and monumental native art in Benin from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which at least in individual pieces, is the equal of contemporary European art.”

Luschan referred to the Bronzes with glowing praise, claiming they were among “the most valuable discoveries that have been made in the area of art and technology of Africa.” Luschan’s analysis undercut racialized arguments about differences between Africans and Europeans, between “blacks” and “whites”, undermining colonial ideologies based on notions of biological racism.

Berlin’s Ethnological Museum becomes the Humboldt Forum

The Berlin collection had grown in leaps and bounds, as shown in the number of objects from African and Oceania – From 1880: 5,845; in 1895, 25,672; in 1905, 59,737. At its peak, it was almost an unrivalled force in terms of its acquisitions.

Of the Benin Bronzes, the British Museum received only a few hundred items from the Foreign Office in 1897. Most were sold by the state, but also some from British officers and soldier looters. The cost rose dramatically on the art market and the British Museum was priced out. This is how Berlin came to house so many Benin Bronzes.

In 2006 the old Berlin ethnological museum became the core of the Humboldt Forum. The newly unitary German state aggressively sought to erase marks of the DDR. The Palast der Republik was torn down and the Berliner Stadtschloss re-built. ³ The total cost of this project was an estimated 590-690 million euros, largely from the German state.

Individual capitalists – like Wilhelm von Boddien, a tractor tycoon from Hamburg, or the widow of retail magnate Werner Otto – also funded some 105 million euros – for the grand plan. Some consider the result a strange place:

“An imposing Disneyland castle minus the fun… to project an image of an idealised past…. an imperial palace, crowned with a golden crucifix, as a showcase for colonial booty…. This was the building, where Kaiser Wilhelm II resided as his troops committed genocide in Namibia and brutally suppressed an uprising in Tanzania in the 1900s.” ⁴

The grassroots movement “No to Humboldt 21! Moratorium on the Humboldt Forum in Berliner Schloss!” issued a challenge:

“We demand the suspension of work on the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace and a broad public debate: The present concept violates the dignity and property rights of people in all parts of the world, and is Eurocentric. The Humboldt Forum opposes the claim of equal coexistence in the migration society.”

This fight was not successful, but it was part of a change in at least one section of German society.⁵ The anti-Semitism and vicious genocide of the fascist Nazi regime had been acknowledged in many ways, including on-going compensation to persons and to the state of Israel. Yet the silence on Germany’s role in African colonialism effectively comprises a “colonial amnesia”:

“Germans believed that they had nothing to do with the colonial exploitation of large parts of Africa, Asia or South America. They were innocent—so many believed—of the devastations brought about by European colonialism.”

“In 2004, the centenary of the genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples confronted a wide German audience with German atrocities of a hundred years before […] the official apology… sparked […] conservative circles [to] denounce the German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Wieczorek-Zeul, who had delivered the apology, as a ‘traitor.’” ⁶

The proliferation of anti-colonial sentiments and consciousness of German people, scholars and intelligentsia can be seen from perusing various websites including “Berlin postkolonial e.v.”:

“[M]any civil-society initiatives in the Federal Republic of Germany have worked towards a critical public discussion of the German colonial past.”

Anti-racist initiatives have been creative. In one example, a group of artists, dramatists and musicians known as “Kolonialismus im Kasten” put a downloadable, alternative self-audioguide to Berlin’s Deutsches Historical Museum (DHM) exhibits of the time of the German Empire:

“In our museum tours, we have addressed the history of German colonialism, which the local public hardly notices. We have shown that colonialism meant violence, racism and economic exploitation, but also produced fierce resistance. And we drew attention to the problematic presentation of German colonial history in the DHM… as if there were no connections between colonial history and popular culture, Reichstag debates or the development of science.“

Indeed, a change has taken place:

“This growing rumbling of protest in the public echoed the postcolonial discussions.” ⁷

The Current Situation

The movements in Germany and Berlin failed in their first goal – to prevent the building of the extravagant Humboldt Forum. But they were not isolated in Germany, or world wide. As early as 1983, the Minister of Culture in Greece, Melina Mercouri, had expressed in very emotive terms why repatriation of stolen art is so important to many nations today:

“This is our history, our soul. They are the symbol and the blood and the soul of the Greek people.” ⁸

This was, of course, directed at the ‘Elgin Marbles’ of the Greek Parthenon, held onto jealously by the British Museum. Neil McGregor, Director of the British Museum (2002-2015), and one of three founding Directors of the Humboldt Forum (2015-2018), rejected return in 2006:

“Repatriation is ‘yesterday’s question […] Questions of ownership depend on the thought that an object can only be in one place. That’s no longer true.” ⁹

McGregor is increasingly out of step now; his imperial pomposity in his popular books shows him as a colonial-excusing paternalist. The progressive trend in German museum culture was noted and applauded by Hochstadt in the American Historical Association. ¹⁰

President Macron of France asked two experts, the historian Bénédicte Savoy and the economist Felwine Sarr to investigate the looted African treasures in France. Savoy and Sarr recommended in 2018 that:

“’any objects taken by force or acquired through inequitable conditions’ by the French Army, scientific explorers or administrators between the late 1800s and 1960 be handed back […] Ms. Savoy said ‘Europe’s arrogance toward the legitimate desire of Africans to reconnect with their heritage is now a thing of the past.’” ¹¹

France will return 26 of the objects looted from Benin during a separate 1892 French invasion which made Dahomey a French colony.

It is hoped that an Edo Museum of West African Art will be built for 300 items “on loan from European museums, if the money to build it can be raised […]designed by Sir David Adjaye.” ¹² Germany announced it will return 11,000 Bronzes from around the country, most from Berlin. The Dutch also recommended this; likewise, Belgium’s pillaged objects are to be returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Britain remains obstinately silent. ¹³

Conclusion

Even this battle within the museums is not yet over, of course. As museum activist Matthew Vollgraf notes, there is still resistance from a co-director of the Humboldt Forum linked to SPD politicians:

“Prominent art historian Horst Bredekamp […] declares “postcolonialism” and “political correctness” to be nothing less than a prelude to fascism. In a February 22 article in the FAZ, “How Much Identity Can Society Tolerate?”, [Social Democratic politician Wolfgang] Thierse vents his frustration at a heterogeneous group of phenomena (with) leftist identity politics, from gender pronouns to the removal of statues and renaming of streets. Although he appears virtually oblivious to the obstacles and inequalities which many minorities face in Germany today.”

No doubt some of this repatriation attempts to dampen anti-racist calls, emanating from the banlieues of Paris. However cavilling is not for now. The extensive anti-racist movements of the last decades, especially since 2004 – has moved the needle. True more needs implementing in the daily grind of lives of immigrants and diverse peoples, but something of consequence has improved.

A longer version with fuller quotes and history will be available shortly at ml-today.com

Footnotes

1 Cited in Amrit Chaudhuri, ‘Two Giant Brothers’; London Review of Books; Vol. 28 No. 8 · 20 April 2006

2 H. Glenn Penny; ‘In Humboldt’s Shadow A Tragic History of German Ethnology’; 2021. Other quotes in this section are also taken from this book.

3 Thomas Thiemeyer, ‘Cosmopolitanizing Colonial Memories in Germany’ 2019 Critical Inquiry; Vol.45(4); p.967-990

4 Oliver Wainwright, ‘Berlin’s bizarre new museum: a Prussian palace rebuilt for €680m’; Guardian Sep 9, 2021.

5 Morat, Daniel, ‘Katalysator wider Willen: Das HumboldtForum in Berlin und die deutsche Kolonialvergangenheit’; Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History 16 (2019), S. 140-153

6 Michael Perraudin and Jürgen Zimmerer; ‘German Colonialism and National Identity’.

7 Thomas Thiemeyer, ‘Cosmopolitanizing Colonial Memories in Germany’, Critical Inquiry 45 (Summer 2019); 967-990.

8 This is our history, this is our soul. They are the symbol and the blood and the soul of the Greek people

9 Charlotte Higgins, ‘Into Africa: British Museum’s Reply to Ownership Debate,’ The Guardian, 13 April 2006.

10 Steve Hochstadt, ’Reckoning With Colonial History – A Berlin Museum Faces the Future’; Perspectives on History; Oct 2017, Vol. 55 Issue 7, p50-55

11 Farah Nayeri and Norimitsu Onishi; “Looted Treasures Begin a Long Journey Home From France”; New York Times; Oct. 28, 2021

12 Alex Marshall; A New Museum to Bring the Benin Bronzes Home’; New York Times; Nov. 13, 2020

13 Alex Marshall “As Europe Returns Artifacts, Britain Stays Silent”; Dec. 20, 2021; NYT

European Alternatives

Democracy, Equality & Culture Beyond the Nation State

The Left Berlin
20/01/2022

European Alternatives (EA) is a transnational grassroots organisation imagining, demanding and enacting democracy, equality and culture beyond the nation state. We act in the belief that a transnational renovation of our political imaginations, institutions, citizenship, collectivity, and actions needs to take place. Otherwise, we will not be able to truly understand and address the most urgent political, cultural and social challenges that Europe is facing in our time: the climate crisis, human rights violations at the European borders, socio-economic inequalities, democratic deficits, and the emergence of right-wing forces leading to a backlash on fundamental rights of all marginalised communities.

EA was founded by Lorenzo Marsili and Niccolò Milanese (latest books: “Shifting Baselines of Europe”, “Planetary Politics” & “Citizens of Nowhere”) in 2007 in London on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the European Union. Our unofficial “celebration” event, the “Festival of Europe”, a civil society-initiated series of debates, lectures, workshops, and exhibitions, was the beginning of our story. We started small as a group of like-minded individuals with almost no material resources, only our energy, ideas and our email accounts, but it rapidly became clear that there was a need for an organisation, a structure, an institution, a medium to inspire, empower and call for a new generation of Europeans to act for a more just and fair future and reclaim citizens’ democratic control over our lives, economies, and ecologies.

In 2021, EA links three hubs operating as independent legal entities in three different European cities: European Alternatives Berlin e.V., Alternatives Européennes Paris, and Studio Rizoma Palermo. We are a cross-border team of 3 co-founders and co-directors, 7 staff members, interns, and multiple freelance collaborators working and traveling in changing constellations on different projects in many places around Europe with a variety of powerful partners (Another Europe is Possible, Arts of the Working Class, documenta Institut, European Community Organizing Network (ECON), Global Labour University, Maynooth University, New Economy Organisers Network (NEON), ulex project).

Our work focuses on organising citizens’ forums and assemblies, courses and trainings for activists, transnational campaigns and actions as well as conferences, performances, exhibitions, publications, and festivals involving academics, artists and grassroots movements, by using innovative online methods (multilingual websites, social media, videos, podcasts, magazines, web documentaries, etc.) and by involving marginalised groups (migrant communities, youth groups, mobile workers, artistic collectives, cultural organisations, local grassroots initiatives, etc.) in activities with a transnationalist focus. Our goal is to:

Articulate a radical, long-term vision of democratic, solidary and open politics, society and culture beyond the nation-state.
Create participatory spaces of active citizenship to question and rethink Europe’s connections with the rest of the world, its global role and its colonial history.
Build the civic capacity and mutual solidarity networks of members, activists and organisations working for progress and common good around Europe.
Experiment with models of governance and tools for action that lead to transformative change in political institutions, society, the economy and our imagination.
Educate a new generation of informed activists and skilled organisers to support new transnational movements, public campaigns, and citizen power for systemic change.
Develop new economic models which are socially just, sustainable, and democratically controlled based on solidarity, care, and responsibility for humans and nature.
Advance human, fundamental, civic, democratic, digital and social rights for a diverse and inclusive European community across borders.

Our mission and values guide how we work to pursue our mission:

Transnational and local: We believe local and regional initiatives become powerful by going beyond national boundaries and interests.
Transdisciplinary and diverse: We believe alternatives are generated at the intersection of activism, research, education and culture and are enriched by diverse expertise and perspectives.
Experimental and creative: We believe in the necessity of acting and learning through experimentation and especially in the power of the arts and culture to unlock future imaginaries.
Empowering and participatory: We believe in spaces for citizens to exchange and build networks and in activities and events which give space for co-creation and participation.
Inclusive and feminist: We believe in a culturally open society and in inclusivity as a precondition for sustainable anti-patriarchal alternatives to emerge.
Anti-racist and anti-eurocentric: We believe involving other parts of the world in our reflections and activities is necessary to make new alternatives based on the perspectives of people from all over the world.

The Berlin hub of EA is represented by Georg Blokus and Kasia Wojcik who are mainly responsible for all projects of the “School of Transnational Activism” (see also our work-in-progress “Online Handbook for Transnational Activists”) as well as “Workers Without Borders” (latest report on policy demands and best practices of care, agricultural and delivery workers) and “Trust Without Borders”.

Our latest project is the “Academy of Migrant Organizing” as part of the School of Transnational Activism, a reflection, research, and education program featuring 9 migrant organizers representing the whole spectrum of political struggles in Germany – from climate and diaspora movements to refugee and black solidarity to housing, queer and workers’ rights. The public program consists of an Online Workshop on “How to Organize Migrant Power through Feminist Artivism, Urban Movements & Workers’ Collectives” on the 29th of January 2022, an Assembly of Solidarity on the 19th of March 2022 in Chemnitz, and a Community Conference from 8th to 10th of April 2022 at Oyoun in Berlin.

On the 25th of January 2022, you can also join our “Voters Without Border Berlin” online citizens forum featuring Daniel Gutiérrez (DWE & Solidarity City Berlin), Sanaz Azimipour (“Nicht ohne uns 14 Prozent” & MigLoom), Tareq Alaows (#LeaveNoOneBehind & Seebrücke), etc. for a discussion about how to push for full political rights for all.

From the 21st to 25th of April 2022, we are organising our biannual “Transeuropa Festival”, this time in the city of Porto on postcolonial feminism and migrant workers’ rights. In autumn, we will be organising our next festival edition of “Between Land & Sea” in Bremen, bringing together migrant organizers, climate activists, and workers from Northern Africa, our friends from Sicily, and many other places around Europe to tackle “the climate crisis as a planetary class struggle”.

Join us

Are you a progressive activist, academic, or artist, part of a grassroots initiative, civil society organisation or social movement? Across borders, citizens in communities and cities build a new Europe of solidarity and justice. Join us!

Contact us

European Alternatives Berlin e.V.
Manteuffelstr. 57A, 12103 Berlin
berlin@euroalter.com

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News from Berlin and Germany, 20th January 2022

Weekly news roundup from Berlin and Germany

The Left Berlin

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Black man assaulted by ticket inspectors

Abbéy Odunlami was in a hurry in December 2020. He was on his way by bike, but to get to his destination faster he bought a ticket and took the subway. There came a normal ticket check. But something happened. There are different versions, but one thing is certain: five minutes later Odunlami had his collarbone and two ribs broken. It was probably about the bike, but he was not sure, because of his German. The inspectors now claimed his other ticket was not valid, either. Nonetheless, he had the impression it was not about that, but about the fact he is black. Source: Berliner Zeitung

Berlin flathunters recommended to move to Cottbus

Berlin remains an Eldorado for landlords. The statisticians at ImmoScout24 have calculated an average of 174 responses in the city for an apartment offer in 2021. In Frankfurt am Main there were just 15. The ImmoScout24 experts see though an alternative option for heavily burdened tenants in medium-sized towns that are located further away from the metropolises. For Berlin, Cottbus – about 75 minutes away by train, could be that alternative. But, of course, this would be for those who are not firmly rooted in their “Kiez.” ImmoScout expects still a significant burden on tenants for Berlin within the next twelve months. Source: Spiegel

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Police raid anti-AfD satirists

The Centre for Political Beauty (ZPS), by means of the “Flyerservice Hahn”, a fictional company that supposedly distributed flyers, shredded millions of AfD flyers instead of distributing them. Now the police have searched the premises of the initiative. The art activists drew then the map with the central question of art activism: what is still art, what is already activism, what is mere activism – and at what point are things punishable? When is artistic freedom perhaps even abused to transgress criminal law boundaries? The Berlin public prosecutor’s office has initiated investigations in response to a complaint. Source: br

Germany designates all neighbors as “high-risk”

With Austria being put on Germany´s travel warning list, all of its neighbors are now designated “high-risk”. The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Poland and Denmark were already on that list. Anyone crossing the borders who has not been vaccinated or recently infected must go immediately into quarantine for 10 days. The isolation period can be shortened if a negative test is provided. Germany itself has recorded a new high in its seven-day incidence of new cases on Sunday: 515.7 new infections per 100,000 people per week, marking the first time the measure has exceeded 500 in the country. Source: dw

New government coalition discusses a strategy on fascism

How to deal with the AfD? “Fascists never stop being fascists. You don’t argue with them, history has shown,” says a line from a well-known song, “It’s all covered by artistic freedom.” But one thing seems to be clear for the “traffic light coalition”: the democratic parliamentary groups in the House of Representatives, as well as in the district councils, need a strategy on how to deal with the extreme right. It makes little sense for the democratic groups to constantly compete to see which is the best anti-fascist party. Unity sends a much stronger signal. Source: nd

German weapons exports hit record – roughly half to Egypt

Arms exports from Germany brought a record revenue in 2021, with just under half coming from Egypt. The agency responsible said the new “traffic light coalition” government wants tighter regulation. Preliminary figures from the Economic Affairs and Climate Action Ministry show that Germany exported arms worth almost €10 billion euros last year — 61% up, comparing to 2020. Also, almost €6 billion went to so-called third countries. Of those, by far the highest spender was Egypt, to which some €4.34 billion of goods — mainly air defense systems and maritime equipment — were exported. Source: dw

Uprooting the Minerals-Energy Complex

Climate activists in South Africa are mobilising and making concrete demands, reports Alex Lenferna, secretary of the Climate Justice Coalition

Alex Lenferna

During the week of September 20th 2021, thousands of people in every province of South Africa mobilised under the banner of #UprootTheDMRE. They were protesting against the polluting, unjust and harmful energy and mining agenda of Minister Gwede Mantashe’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE). They demanded a more just energy and mining future.

The mobilisation was conceived of and planned by the Climate Justice Coalition and partners, and was supported by dozens of civil society organisations. It was not just about climate change. It was about a more intersectional vision of climate, energy, and mining justice, which brought together those who are being harmed by the DMRE’s agenda.

It was led by mining affected communities. They are tired of the DMRE greenlighting polluting and harmful mining and energy projects without their free, prior and informed consent. They are tired of corporations who rarely honour their promises to communities made in social and labour plans. And they are tired of the intimidation and violence they face for resisting.

It was led by youth activists, unwilling to have their future condemned to deepening climate chaos by the DMRE’s polluting plans for lots of new coal and fossil gas, at a time when climate science makes clear we must move away from fossil fuels. Youth who are tired of job opportunities in green industrialisation foreclosed by those with vested interests in fossil fuels.

It was led by communities sick of being plunged into darkness through loadshedding. Communities which lack proper access to energy, because the DMRE refuses to unlock a renewable energy future which would be the fastest, most affordable and job-creating way to bring new energy online. Communities demanding a Green New Eskom that can provide clean, safe and affordable energy for all.

It was led by workers and communities demanding that we move to renewable energy through a rapid and just transition, that leaves no one behind and invests in their future so they can be part of a lower carbon economy. They were demanding one million climate jobs and more social ownership of renewable energy.

It was led by local communities in the Karoo who are saying no to water-intensive and polluting fracking for fossil gas. It was led by fishing communities who are resisting the corruption-ridden plans for polluting powerships, which could devastate their local fishing grounds and cost South Africa hundreds of billions of Rands.

Demands

At a national level, the coalition collectively created a list of demands that were delivered to the offices of the DMRE across the country. The demands were summarised into the following five points:

The leadership and structure of the DMRE must be transformed to fulfil a mandate for an inclusive, socially, economically, and ecologically just energy and mining future. Mantashe must step aside to allow new progressive leadership.
There must be a rapid and just transition to a more socially owned, renewable energy-powered economy, providing clean, safe, and affordable energy for all, with no worker and community left behind in the transition.
There must be no new polluting, corrupt and expensive coal, oil, and gas projects. We demand One Million Climate Jobs instead. Reject the costly, unnecessary, and allegedly corrupt powership program, & investigate officials within the department around irregular deals.
Communities must have the right to say no to mining projects. That includes free, prior informed consent, the upholding of social and labour plans, and the right to sustainable alternative modes of development.
Minister Mantashe and the DMRE must stop blocking and inhibiting Eskom’s transition to renewables. We need a Green New Eskom driving a just transition to a more socially owned, renewable energy future.

In a perversion of anti-colonial discourse, he has tried to paint a defence of coal as an act of resistance against Western imperialism. A rather twisted perspective, given that he is defending one of the worst vestiges of apartheid: the coal-fired Mineral Energy Complex…

Doubling down on extractivism

Months later, the DMRE offices are yet to respond. Their non-response is part of a broader trend in which the DMRE repeatedly ignores civil society and community voices, while marching to the beat of polluting corporations.

Instead, Minister Mantashe and his lawyers have threatened to sue the Secretary of the Coalition (the author of this piece) for an article detailing the reasons why the coalition was marching. In response, the coalition issued an open letter denouncing such intimidation tactics as part of the increasingly authoritarian, undemocratic and unjust energy agenda of Mantashe and the DMRE.

Just the week after the #UprootTheDMRE protests, the DMRE hosted a conference in Limpopo, announced to the public the night before. Community and civil society representatives were not invited; corporations and industry were. At the conference, the DMRE declared the attacks on coal “premature”, and invited coal, oil and gas corporations to invest in South Africa.

Minister Mantashe for his part has spent the months since the mobilisations in strong defense of fossil fuels and against clean energy. In a perversion of anti-colonial discourse, he has tried to paint a defence of coal as an act of resistance against Western imperialism. A rather twisted perspective, given that he is defending one of the worst vestiges of apartheid: the coal-fired Minerals- Energy Complex (MEC), which has made South Africa one of the world’s most unequal and polluting countries.

The coalition was not naive in thinking that the mobilisation by itself would (re)move Mantashe, or uproot the DMRE or the MEC they vociferously defend. What it has done though is help build political power and grow the movement. It has helped expose how Mantashe’s DMRE is increasingly out of step with climate reality, economic reality, and even its own government.

That disconnect was perhaps most clearly demonstrated during COP26. There, the South African government signed on to a R130 billion climate finance agreement aimed at accelerating a just transition away from coal. Just a few days later, Mantashe decried the “global anti-fossil fuel agenda” and called on Africa to resist the supposedly imperial clean energy agenda of the west – while wanting to sell Africa off to western fossil fuel corporations instead.

The Struggle Continues

To continue the struggle against Mantashe and the polluting DMRE, the coalition and its members are engaging in a range of related actions. We recognise that this struggle will require deep and sustained movement building, deploying multiple tactics to ensure radical change.

In the end, the MEC is deeply rooted in South Africa. Uprooting it is a central pillar of uprooting the toxic economic, social, and ecological legacies of apartheid.

On the legal front, the #CancelCoal litigation is taking the DMRE to court for its decision to procure 1500MW of expensive, unnecessary and polluting new coal power plants. As a new report from the University of Cape Town’s Energy Systems Research groups shows, those plants are unnecessary for energy security. They would cost at least R23 billion more than a least-cost optimal electricity plan, and result in 25,000 job losses and lots of unnecessary pollution.

On the governance front, the coalition is working to undertake research on how to transform the DMRE’s governance away from being a defender of the MEC, to a force for a socially, economically and environmentally just energy and mining future. The aim is that, in early 2022, we will release that research as part of our efforts to help transform the department.

The coalition will also be escalating actions targeting the DMRE and Minister Mantashe. Planning has already begun for non-violent direct actions that will focus on both the DMRE and Mantashe as the recalcitrant forces leading our country into an economic and ecological dead-end.

On the popular education front, the #UprootTheDMRE mobilisation stemmed from the coalition’s campaign for a Green New Eskom. Looking forward, as part of the campaign, we will continue to run popular education programmes across the country to grow the movement and show how the DMRE remains the biggest obstacle to transforming Eskom and our broader energy and mining sector.

In all of these activities and more, the coalition welcomes new member organisations and formations who want to work together and join arms in the struggle to uproot the harmful MEC, and build a more socially, economically, and ecologically just future in its place.

Work of a generation

In the end, the MEC is deeply rooted in South Africa. Uprooting it is a central pillar of uprooting the toxic economic, social, and ecological legacies of apartheid. The deeply unequal wealth accumulated by the MEC is largely built through exploiting people, workers and the environment.

To undo the MEC’s deep economic and ecological inequality, tools like a wealth tax can help redistribute riches from wealthy and polluting corporations and individuals. It is vital, though, that such measures invest in a truly just and transformative transition which redistributes not only wealth but also ownership, public goods, and community and ecological well-being.

The #UprootTheDMRE mobilisation was in the end just a moment in the broader struggle against the MEC and, in particular, the government departments and officials who choose to defend and deepen it, rather than overturn it. To truly uproot that deeply unjust system is the work of a generation, as we undo the extractive and harmful legacies of apartheid.

This article first appeared in Amandla! magazine