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“This is a circus or a charade in order to greenwash the Egyptian military dictatorship”

Interview with Egyptian journalist Hossam el-Hamalawy about next month’s climate summit in the “Las Vegas of Egypt”

Phil Butland
17/10/2022

Hi Hossam, thanks for agreeing to talk to us. Could you start by introducing yourself? Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Hossam el-Hamalawy. I’m an Egyptian journalist, and a member of the Revolutionary Socialists, which is one of Egypt’s left-wing organizations. Originally I was a photojournalist who had to document the Egyptian revolution, and was involved in the labour movement back home.

I’m currently based in Berlin, that’s where I reside now. This is where I’m doing my PhD on the Egyptian security services, and their role in the counter revolution.

Today we want to talk about the COP27 climate summit, which is starting on November 6, in Sharm el-Sheikh. Given the state of the environment, isn’t it a good idea that people are coming together and talking about stopping climate change?

In an abstract term, this sounds very nice and very attractive. In concrete terms, and in reality, this is a circus or a charade in order to greenwash the Egyptian military dictatorship.

Egypt is currently led by Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the former Minister of Defence. In 2013, Sisi led a military coup against Egypt’s first democratically elected president, from the Muslim Brotherhood. Since then, he has been ruling that country with an iron fist. We have thousands of political prisoners and pre-trial detainees, and dissent from all shades has been crushed brutally by his security services.

…this is being marketed abroad as empowering the Global South. But what you’re doing is simply empowering and giving political capital to a military dictatorship…

Sisi suffered for a very short period of time following the coup, with some sort of diplomatic boycott, which did not really last for long. Usually the easiest way to do business with the industrial West, if you’re a military dictator, is to simply take off your uniform, and you organize some kind of “election”. Once you’re dressed in a civilian suit, they start dealing with you again. This is what Sisi did.

COP27 is being held in Sharm el-Sheikh, which is the Las Vegas of Egypt. It’s a touristic area by the Red Sea which is mainly for international tourists and well-to-do Egyptians. In order to even get into Sinai, ordinary Egyptians have to have special permits. It’s not a free movement area.

Usually Egyptians who cross the Suez Canal to Sinai are vetted by the police. If you’re not middle or upper middle class, if you look poor, then you must present a reason why you’re going to Sinai along with permits for work or accommodation. If you can’t provide these, you’re not allowed to go to these areas.

While he has been inviting climate change activists to come to Egypt, Sisi has been embarking on a war on greenery. He’s been chopping down trees in a methodical manner, all throughout Cairo and the other urban centres. He is doing this to extend and widen streets, to allow military and armoured vehicles to move more easily, in order to quell any future uprisings. This also facilitates traffic to his newly secluded administrative capital.

COP27 is being held in an Egypt where political prisoners are languishing in jail, where Egyptian environmental activists are not allowed to attend, where indigenous tribesmen from Sinai, who have long been prosecuted and marginalized, are not given a voice.

By the way, a joint statement has been issued by Egyptian human rights activists demanding a platform and a voice at the conference for the local Sinai people who’ve been subjected to Sisi’s dirty war during his counterinsurgency, and who have been subjected to forceful evictions. But such calls have fallen on deaf ears, as you can imagine.

So this is being marketed abroad as empowering the Global South. But what you’re doing is simply empowering and giving political capital to a military dictatorship, that is destroying the environment.

If the Egyptian environmental activists are not going to be at COP27, who will be there representing Egypt?

There will definitely be government officials, as well as youth who have been hand picked by the security services to represent the regime. They will be rebranded as NGO activists, environmental experts and what have you, but there won’t be any serious campaign or from Egyptian civil society.

In the context of a conference… a few kilometres to the South of an ongoing war against the local indigenous tribes, thinking that you can further your environmental cause in this setting, means that you are simply lying to yourself, and to the public

What does normalization mean concretely for the Sisi dictatorship? What did he gain from COP27?

It gains more political capital, which means that he can buy more arms from the West. He can expect diplomatic support from the different players when it comes to shielding his regime officials from prosecution abroad. It helps him avoid the UN related moves to either denounce the human rights record or punish his regime.

Let’s look at the reaction of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung in Berlin. They will agree with everything that you say about the Sisi dictatorship, and about political prisoners. But they are saying that they are coming under pressure from their groups in the Global South, in particular in Africa, who argue: if this summit doesn’t happen, then we’ll have more Pakistans. Western countries will be able to ignore the voice of the Global South even more. Do you think this is a legitimate point of view?

No, I don’t. You can’t save the environment in one place if you’re destroying it in another. Empowering local military dictators in the Global South, and letting them get away with crimes is not going to help your environmental cause. In the context of a conference organized in Las Vegas, a few kilometres to the South of an ongoing war against the local indigenous tribes, thinking that you can further your environmental cause in this setting, means that you are simply lying to yourself, and to the public. And this is not the leftist solidarity that we would expect from our partners.

Moving from the Left to the German government. The Germans now have a Green foreign minister, who I guess will be at COP27. And Germany is one of Egypt’s major trading partners. Do you think that the new German Red-Green-Yellow government will be able to force change from Sisi either on environmental matters or around repression?

I honestly don’t think so. There is a long track record of the German state eventually accommodating military dictatorships as long as they do business deals with them. Every now and then there might be some concerns raised about political prisoners, or high profile detainees which Egypt may use to score some PR victory. But other than that, I don’t really expect any substantial change in German foreign policy.

Let’s talk about one of those prisoners. Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who’s perhaps the best known Egyptian political prisoner. There is a free Alaa campaign in Berlin, which has already organized some protests at the British Embassy. What’s the situation with Alaa now? What help is he receiving?

Alaa is entering the 200th day of his hunger strike. And the only thing we can do to help him is to create as much noise as possible around his cause, hoping that by pressuring the Egyptian regime into some PR scandal, we can secure the release of Alaa and maybe a number of other hostages that the regime has in there.

Alaa’s health is in a very fragile situation. He has been kept in solitary confinement for a very long time. At this point, many say that his imprisonment is more or less a personal vendetta by Sisi himself who is offended and insulted by Alaa’s family who have been central to the activism around and before the revolution.

Do you think that COP 27 offers opportunities for our side to raise Alaa’s case and to put Sisi under pressure?

Maybe, but not necessarily by going to Sharm el-Sheikh and thinking that you can voice such demands there, but by boycotting it and by exploiting the media attention so as to raise as many issues related to human rights as possible in the current situation.

If you don’t support people attending COP27, what is your alternative?

When it comes to saving the environment, I think that everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room, which is called capitalism. If German activists want to save the environment, then they should campaign and organize against their own government and its own policies.

When it comes to coal use and helping the transition into non fossil fuel as soon as possible, your fight is local. As for us in Egypt, the solidarity that you can give us is, at least, to not empower our own regime. This is number one. Number two, hold protests in front of Egyptian embassies and consulates around the world with pictures of political prisoners, demanding their immediate release.

How can people reading this interview get involved in protests around COP27? Where can they go? How can they find out what’s happening?

I usually follow two links. One is the Egypt solidarity website. And the other one is called cop civic space. Follow the news via those two links to get involved. You can also follow the Free Alaa campaign in Berlin.

Thanks Hossam. Good luck in your future work

“Romantic relationships are a lifestyle choice”

Feminist authors Jacinta Nandi and Nadia Shehadeh discuss relationships, girlboss feminism and #metoo2.0

Jacinta Nandi
16/10/2022

Jacinta: When I decided I wanted to write this book, I had a totally different book in mind, than the book I ended up writing. A more positive book, easier to read, wth a really simple message: Just doit: leave your husband, like a girl-boss. Total dump him feminism.

Nadia: And then…

Jacinta: Well, there are parts of the book that are still clearly Dump Him feminism. Because I think women should just leave their husbands! If they’re violent, but also if they’re lazy. Or even just because they’ve fallen out of love. They should leave. But what I found out writing this book is that there’s no “just” about it. It’s hard. Society – institutions like the tax office, the job center – society makes it hard to leave.

Nadia: Yep. I think the most important message Dump Him feminism gives us is that you should, or can, go at any time. For any reason. You know, realized at an embarrassingly late point in my life – that I don’t need a reason to leave a man. I can just go. That was an epiphany.

Jacinta: Life IS easier without men. Sometimes I think instead of 50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR EHEMANN I should’ve written 50 REASONS TO NEVER GET INVOLVED WITH A HETEROSEXUAL MAN IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Nadia: I’ve been saying for years: life without a partner is the easiest life you can have. At least if you’re single.

Jacinta: Once kids are involved, it’s hard. Life as a single mother isn’t easy

Nadia: Yep. I don`t understand how mothers, parents in general, are able to raise kids. Do you guys have superpowers? It’s a mystery to me.

Jacinta: Nadia, we’re both over forty now. And I remember, when I was 33, my ex left me. I have a friend, Nellie, about seven years older than me. And Nellie told me she’d given up on romance. “Friendship is more important to me than romantic love now. I actually live for you guys, and your children now!” My boyfriend had just left me, I was really broken. And I remember thinking, God, that’s tragic. But I don’t anymore

Nadia: I think what Nellie said is so important. Romantic relationships don’t contribute much to life. They’re a lifestyle choice. And hard work. You have to put a lot of effort in. You know I married super young? My ex-husband, he was a nice guy, all my girlfriends used to ask if he had a brother they could date But, even with this nice guy, the amount of effort I had to put in to keep our everyday heterosexual life going – it was such hard work, at a certain point I just couldn’t take it anymore.

Jacinta: Well, men never put any effort in!

Nadia: You know, every day I’d be thinking: life could be so easy if I was on my own. I was so young and I’d ask myself: Do people enjoy living like this? The whole time, I was thinking: Even if this love is beautiful… I want more from life than this. It was as if there was a ghost living in me, whispering: You’d have a much easier life if you were alone. And I was ashamed of these thoughts.

Jacinta: I feel like none of my exes actually wanted to make a home with me. They didn’t want to hang nice curtains up. You know I never had a workroom? My first boyfriend was a student, he got the workroom, the next ex was a writer, got the workroom. I never got a workroom. And I wonder. Why didn’t I ever ask if I could have a workroom? It was a bit fucked-up. But I also think it’s unfair, how we talk about this stuff. Always asking the women why they didn’t do things differently. Oh, you wanted a partner so much, so you had low standards, it’s your fault these men were shit, because you wanted a partner. Why didn’t you leave sooner, why didn’t you communicate your needs? I don’t think anyone ever says to my exes why didn’t you put nice curtains up and be more supportive!

Nadia: You know what? I open TikTok, and these clips from young straight women flood my timeline, always complaining about the same things. Guys not doing the bare minimum. Guys leaving you on read. Ghosting. Cheating. The full repertoire! I watch the clips and I think: “Wow”. They know how it’s going to be. But they’ll never stop trying.

Jacinta: There’s a chapter on the Heard/Depp case at the end of my book. In their relationship, their short marriage, Depp was a human being. She was meant to be there to support him. And he was meant to be fully human. And that’s why people are angry at her, right? Because she thought she was his partner, thought they were a team. How dare she?

Nadia: Oh, absolutely. He’s this dreamy gifted artist-type. She’s this annoying bitch who thought she was human, had autonomy, dared to think she didn’t deserve to be abused?

Jacinta: You know recently on Twitter they were talking about what a shit sugar daddy he was? You know, Heard’s a gold-digger because apparently if you marry someone for their money – like he didn’t marry her for her looks – they’re legally allowed to beat and rape you? Right? You’ll have to show me that paragraph in the Gesetzbuch! But even in this fantasy world where she’s this calculating bitch who married him for his money – he’s stingy! He’s worth 650 million, but her engagement ring was only 100k. That isn’t three months wages. You know if he’d spent three months wages on her ring, she could sell that and pay the ten million!

Nadia: The thing I can’t get over is the fact that when women ask for the bare minimum – I don’t want to be humiliated, I don`t want to do all the work alone, it would be great if we could be real partners actually – the world turns on them. The absolute BARE MINIMUM is still too much. I mean, when even Taylor Swift has to write lyrics like “A never-needy, ever-lovely jewel, whose shine reflects on you” – you know what’s going on.

Jacinta: It makes me angry that girlboss feminists who are all like, why are your standards so low, that’s why men treat you badly…turned around and said it was funny that Depp wanted to rape Heard’s corpse. So, we should have higher standards but if your husband is a famous pirate, you should have no standards at all?

Nadia: Look at what happened with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. On that flight. We’ve known all along that Pitt did something bad on that plane.. Let’s be honest. Everyone knows that Johnny Depp was an asshole to Amber Heard. We know this.

Jacinta: Yeah.

Nadia: The rule is: as a female ex-partner, you mustn’t share any details. You’re not allowed to ruin a man’s honour by telling everyone what your guy was like.

Jacinta: Amber Heard broke a taboo?

Nadia: Yes. And the joke: for years, it was kind of okay, for the public, that Amber Heard existed. She’d been in a shitty marriage with Depp. That marriage ended. She’d made a few films. Okay. Nobody cared.

Jacinta: And then he sued her, and the world turned on her.

Nadia: I’ve thought about it a lot. I think our culture is shifting right now – we’ve come to a new point. Where women talk about their lives. Where famous women reveal how shitty their famous partners were. Amber Heard became a symbol of this. I think this Amber Heard-moment is somehow a #metoo2.0. A taboo is being broken right now, in front of our eyes. People don’t understand what’s really going on, but actually the Amber Heard story is a new #metoo.

Jacinta: I can’t understand what’s happening. Feminists, mothers, mothers who are raising their girls to be feminists, they write to me telling me to stop talking about this? It’s not enough that they’re silent, they want everyone to be silent?

Nadia: I don’t understand why the resistance to Amber’s story is so strong. In May, I thought, why are people being like this? Why do they care so much about Depp, as if he’s a close relative? Why don’t they read the facts?

Jacinta: You can read the UK trial statements online. It’s really clear. She didn’t defame him.

Nadia: But it’s an attractive story, right? Crazy Ex Girlfriend aka wife comes out, with all this dirty laundry years later. OMG. Doesn’t she know she should keep her mouth shut? And that was the worst. That it was really entertainment for people. And some pro-Depp-feminists, instead of shutting up, gave their shitty comments in this whole misogynistic circus.

Jacinta: Well, it’s more interesting that the depressing boring reality: rich guy with a history of violent behaviour beat and raped his wife.

Nadia: Right.

Jacinta: I get so confused because I tell myself all these feminists who supported Depp are just dumb, and not evil. Right? They just fell for propaganda?

Nadia: The thing is, men have always been able to rely upon heterosexual women’s discretion. Women have learnt to keep their mouths shut. They have to be loyal, in the relationship, and once the relationship is over. And it’s embarrassing for women to admit they were involved with an asshole. They don’t want to seem being stupid or desperate. So you might tell your friends about the horrors of the relationship. But if you go public – even if, like Heard, you’re forced to go public – people can’t take it. They lose their fucking minds!

Jacinta: So women remain silent?

Nadia: Well, it works, doesn’t it? You might complain to your friends, but that’s it.

Jacinta: I can’t bear it, that even feminists pretended these three sentences were malicious.

Nadia: Amber Heard expected the bare minimum. For her safety, her dignity. She got a restraining order and then she wrote an op-ed.

Jacinta: You know fake feminists who ask did you even watch the trial? I wonder if they read the op-ed. It’s so innocuous: I read it half-way through the trial, I couldn’t believe it. You’d have to be misogynist to be offended by that?

Nadia: And Depp was never cancelled! Never! I saw him in 2018. Accidentally at a big festival in Belgium. An old loser playing with Hollywood Vampires. Someone who is cancelled doesn’t play at festivals.

Nadia: Let´s face it: there was never a famous guy who got cancelled because of his problematic behaviour towards his partner. William S. Burroughs killed his wife. J. D Salinger started a very disturbing “relationship” with the 18-year-old Joyce Maynard when he was in his 50s. There’s a video of Charles Bukowski kicking his partner off the sofa. It’s on YouTube, it’s super disturbing. Was he cancelled? Nope. People don’t care about it. A legend will always be a legend.

Jacinta: Johnny Depp, legend. Johnny Depp keeps winning. Johnny Depp will win again. Like yeah, he will. Abusers win. That’s what the op-ed was about.

Nadia: I keep on asking myself why was it so attractive, back in May and June, for people to show solidarity with Depp? I mean, they could’ve kept silent? But no. They really wanted to show they were on his side? And now we see the first English-speaking feminists trying to back-pedal somewhat. They say, oh we fell for disinformation. For a disinformation campaign.

Jacinta: Yeah, I don’t know. There were a lot of clickbait YouTube videos – there still are. But it was easy enough to do your research and realize there’s no way she defamed him.

Nadia: Well, I can’t help thinking: being a feminist in the public sphere, it’s your duty to get informed. Don’t get all your information from TikTok. And I say that as someone who watches TikTok all day long.

Jacinta: People WANTED to fall for it. sued her for getting a restraining order and writing an article saying we should protect victims more. And all the “did you watch the trial” people, knew these basic facts, knew she was being sued for stating publicly that she was a feminist and thought victims should be protected more. If Depp truly were a victim – which I don’t think anyone really believes? Johnny Depp will win again – memes of her crying, him laughing – the way people supported him was always the way you support a winner, support an abuser – but okay, let’s pretend for a moment we think Depp was a victim, he was scared of Heard, he was living his life in fear of her beating him up. How, exactly, does him suing her for defamation bring him any closure? If he really was a victim, this court case would have retraumatized him. Wouldn’t have made him any safer.

Nadia: It’s fascinating. People ignored the basic legal facts of the case! Acted like this trial proved he was the victim of domestic violence. This is what has made the case such a fucking disaster in terms of media and public reception.

Jacinta: People say they think he’s a victim, then next second they mention Heard’s mental health diagnosis. This rent-a-diagnosis from Shannon Curry. If you think Depp’s a victim, why does it matter if Heard has borderline personality disorder? If anything, if she’s mentally ill and Depp’s her victim, that could mean she DIDN’T defame him maliciously? But what they really mean is it’s okay if he beat her and raped her if she’s borderline, because then she’s unworthy. She’s less human than a mentally stable woman.

Nadia: All he wanted was to destroy Heard’s integrity, publicly humiliate her. He announced his intentions clearly. And then he did it.

Jacinta: And feminists say things like you know, in German, Schlammschlacht or Rosenkrieg or Promiklatsch or Promiehe. As if it was a fair fight. Two rich people, suing each other. Both as bad as each other. He was worth 650 million, he stopped her working while they were together, she’s now not just bankrupted but owes him millions.

Nadia: 650 million!

Jacinta: Well, I reckon 645 million now because he must have spent 5 million on bots! And feminists tell you to stop caring. Amber Heard’s rich, so it’s fine he raped her. Or it’s fine he sued her, bankrupted her for being feminist because she’s white and famous. You know, I think it’s important because so many non-famous women are being sued for defamation now? Depp’s an MRA and everything he did is an abusive man’s text book. There’s this fucked-up stuff happening. Women losing custody because the dad was abusive and if they talk about it, they lose their kid. The Heard/Depp is important because Depp will inspire abusers and Heard will make victims scared to get to safety. All the copy-cat rapes there’ll be. Because of all the nurses who say she must be a liar because she didn’t go to the doctor straight away, all the teenage girls’ mums who encourage their daughters to laugh at Amber. But also, it’s important because Amber Heard’s a human being who dared to leave a rich, famous guy and whose life has been destroyed. How can people say it’s unimportant?

Nadia: She DARED to stick to her version of the story.

Jacinta: Yeah. I’ll never get over the fact that he was the one who broke their agreement in the first place!

Nadia: You know the worst part?

Jacinta: What?

Nadia: Amber could have just been living her life. And Johnny too. The story was over.

Jacinta: Yeah, he wasn’t cancelled and the story was over. But he was searching for reasons to sue her. And you know, he fucked his own career up in the process. But I think he hates her so much that it was worth it for him.

Nadia: Instead of just letting her go, he drags her to court, years after the relationship’s over. Because it isn’t over for him. Says it all, really.

Jacinta: I’ll never forget that Lidl joined in! With the bullying. Like I dunno, Lidl, cheapo veggies but I reckon the people who work there are intelligent people`? They know full well that he probably raped her with a bottle. Did a cavity check. Even the biggest Deppheads believe the cavity search story! And Lidl, a German supermarket chain, who knew full well Depp had probably raped her, they were so certain that it was morally okay to bully a rape victim if the whole world is, that they brought that ad out? What’s wrong with them?

Nadia: I think the reason so many white women defend Depp is they felt triggered. This case means that reality and romance don’t mix. We pretend: If you do the work, have all the privileges, if you’re beautiful, and you behave good, you, as a white woman, you’ll get a good guy. Because you deserve it. But the truth is, you can meet someone who seems to have it all. Like a talented, famous actor like Depp, who was able to maintain the illusion of being sensitive and soft for many years. But you’ll get the same old crap, because these fancy little love stories are taking place in the patriarchy. And they couldn’t take it.

Jacinta: See, my theory was that because of her queerness and mental health issues, they saw her as flawed and unworthy, almost not white. But I think your theory’s true, too. Because it’s always white women writing she could have been so happy, she threw it all away.

Nadia: It’s a relationship myth.

Jacinta: They hate her because they know it’s not true?

Nadia: Depp versus Heard and Jolie versus Pitt: these stories prove that instead of romance people taste the terror of heteronormativity. And in a heavy dosage.

Jacinta: It’s so weird isn’t it. People accuse her of marrying him for his money, but deep down they think because of his money she should have kept her mouth shut about the rape.

Nadia: It hurts women to see that hetero romances are a scam that in many cases just don`t work. I mean, it’s in the statistics. There’s literally data.

Jacinta: It’s interesting that Jolie and Heard, both bisexual, are considered homewreckers. Paradis and Aniston, the nice girls. I always imagine Paradis barefoot in some country house in France. And then the men left these perfect women for these dangerous-looking, cold-looking, exotic-looking beauties? Intelligent, bisexual women? Maybe romance was dead already when they left.

Nadia: The thing is with Jolie/Pitt is there’s also a racist side. We all know he attacked Maddox. And nobody cared. Like: he’s the Cambodian adoptee. And Pitt lost his temper a bit – come on. Who cares?

Jacinta: Oh God, yeah, the way people talk about it, they sound like Agatha Christie.

Nadia: We always think we’ve come so far. But we haven’t made much progress at all.

Jacinta: We haven’t made any progress at all. Camille can put on a nice suit and earn money asking Amber why she didn’t take photos of her bleeding vagina. That’s all feminism has really achieved? Women aren’t human. Everything that has been done to Amber would be done to Camille tomorrow, if she said she’d been raped. Women aren’t seen as human.

Nadia: You know 15 years ago, I thought we were living in a freer, more modern world. But then I watched series like Girls of the Playboy Mansion on MTV. And I watched the way the tabloids destroyed Amy Winehouse and Britney.

Jacinta: I have a fan in India, and what I am about to say is provocative. She wrote me the other night. She said Western feminism is over. Because feminists in the West want to appease incels. So, they sacrifice Heard, make Heard a scapegoat. They think they can appease incels. Isn’t that what’s happening? We call Vasquez a girlboss feminist, in fact she’s a girlrapist? And my fan said Iran is the future. If they manage it. They’re gonna lead the way.

Nadia: Oh, that’s interesting. I was talking to an Iranian friend yesterday and I said, being controversial, that we’d never have the kind of feminist uprising they have in Iran over here.

Jacinta: No, how can we? It’s feminist to fight for Depp’s right to rape and beat Amber Heard.

Nadia: The thing is, feminism over here, in the West, is so easy to consume. Especially if you’re white, straight and privileged.

Jacinta: “I am sooooooo feminist, I know loads of women are abusers! Men and women are equal now, and women are the real abusers! Stop boring me with statistics about dead women and women’s refuges, I looked into Amber Heard’s eyes, I know she’s lying.” Heard’s our scapegoat, but also a warning.

Nadia: Because women who speak out about men’s bad behaviour have to be punished. And this is what makes it hard to leave men. Back to the topic of your book! If you’re a good woman, a good wife, you won’t leave your husband. Not for any reason. You stay, because of your love for him. And if you do leave, be loyal, loving – the well-behaved ex.

Jacinta: OH MY GOD! I just realized! That’s why Moss and Paradis are praised so much for their loyalty, right? If people thought he hadn’t abused them, there’d be nothing to praise? They’re being praised for keeping his secrets?

Nadia: Well, people want to think that when male violence exists, it’s in a serial killer kind of way. People still think that some women deserve the bad treatment. Like, sexworkers. Trans women. Poor women. Black and brown women. But when a white privileged cis man is violent, when the victim’s a privileged woman, or famous, or beautiful: that’s when they think something is going on. Something’s up.

Jacinta: Not as if it’s just normal.

Nadia: You know, the first time I wanted to leave a man. It was exhausting. We were living together. And there is so much mental load, mental exhaustion when you separate from someone. The comforting conversations. Dividing up the stuff. It was emotionally exhausting, although we were on very good terms during that process. And I often wonder: how do women with kids manage it at all? Or women who experienced bad things from their partner? Or women who are poor?

Jacinta: Yeah, the mental load after an abusive relationship is even worse, I think. This is why Heard should have taken every penny she could off that abusive prick! You know what her only mistake was in all of this? She always underestimated how much he hated her. Even in court. She underestimated his hate.

Nadia: She should’ve taken every penny. She took less than she was entitled to. Much less than the bare minimum. When people call her a gold-digger, they’re just trying to show contempt.

Jacinta: I genuinely don’t understand the gold-digger stuff. Like okay, she married him for his money, because she loves money. Then she tried to confuse us all by pledging the money to charity, changed her mind because she’s greedy and selfish. Only donated 1.3 million, kept the rest for herself. Okay, then what? Like what? Then he’s allowed to rape her, retroactively allowed to rape her, because he paid 6 million for the privilege. It’s so fucked up. If I was pretending I thought he hadn’t raped her, if I officially thought she was lying about the rape, I’d never bring up the pledge/donate stuff?

Nadia: I hope she will win the appeal. Just the fact that she stands up for herself after all those horrible experiences she had to go through – it shows how strong she is. And I hope when people look back at this tiktok trial and the ramifications it has – I really hope they will be ashamed that they participated in a mess like that.

Jacinta: God, yeah. I hope so, too.

Jacinta’s new book 50 ways to leave your Ehemann is now available and can be ordered from Nautilus press. Nadias Ost gut jetzt can be ordered from edition assemblage. NOTE: the books are in German, Jacinta’s recent English-language book WTF Berlin. Expatsplaining the German Capital has just gone into its second edition

Socialism Ran In Angela Lansbury’s Blood

The late actor’s grandparents and father were socialists who went to prison for opposing rent rises. Her aunts were Communists and campaigners for abortion rights

Judy Cox
13/10/2022

Angela Lansbury, much-loved star of stage and screen, has died aged 96. Among the many obituaries, few give more than a passing mention to her socialist family heritage but that heritage casts a light on a fascinating period of British socialist history when Labour politicians defied the law to fight inequality.

Angela’s grandfather was George Lansbury, a socialist, anti-war campaigner and supporter of women’s suffrage who led the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935. Lansbury lived in the East End and during the Dockers’ Strike of 1889 he joined a strike support committee through which he met members of the Social Democratic Federation, which he joined in 1892. In 1903, Lansbury left the Marxist SDF and joined the Independent Labour Party which was more aligned to his Christian socialism. He was elected to parliament in 1910 representing Bow and Bromley. He resigned his seat in 1912 to campaign for women’s suffrage and was briefly imprisoned after publicly supporting suffragettes’ illegal actions.

In 1912, Lansbury helped to establish the Daily Herald newspaper, and became its editor. Throughout the First World War, the paper maintained a strongly pacifist stance, and supported the October 1917 Russian Revolution. These positions contributed to Lansbury’s failure to be elected to Parliament in 1918. He devoted himself to local politics in his home borough of Poplar and was elected Mayor.

He defied the law and went to prison with 30 Poplar councillors for his part in the Poplar Rates Rebellion of 1921 when the council refused to set rates which entrenched inequality between rich and poor London boroughs. The councillors were arrested on the 1 September despite mass support on the streets. Three weeks later, councillor Nellie Cressall who was six months pregnant was released. The others were released on 12 October when other councils threatened to follow their example.

Lansbury was returned to Parliament in 1922 and served as First Commissioner of Works in the Labour government of 1929–31. After the political and economic crisis of August 1931, Lansbury did not follow his leader, Ramsay MacDonald, into the National Government, and remained with the Labour Party becoming leader. His pacifism and his opposition to rearmament in the face of rising European fascism put him at odds with his party, and when his position was rejected at the 1935 Labour Party conference, he resigned the leadership.

George and his wife, Elizabeth Brine, known as Bessie, had 12 children, of whom 10 survived to adulthood. Angela Lansbury’s father, Edgar Lansbury, grew up in Poplar, and became a timber merchant. Lansbury was elected to Poplar Council in 1912, serving alongside his father. He represented both the Labour Party and after its foundation in 1920 the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). He also supported Sylvia Pankhurst’s East London Federation of Suffragettes, serving as Honorary Treasurer in 1915.

In 1921 Edgar was imprisoned with his father as a Poplar Councillor. Another jailed councillor was Edgar’s first wife Minnie Lansbury. Minnie Glassman was born in Stepney in 1889, one of seven children in a Jewish family. She became a teacher and was an active member of the teacher’s trade union and a campaigner for equal pay for women. She was also an active suffragette, joining the central committee of the East London Federation of Suffragettes In 1921 Minnie was one of five women imprisoned for their role in the rates rebellion. Minnie contracted pneumonia while in jail and died on 1st January 1922, aged 32. Thousands of people lined the streets on the day of her funeral.

Angela’s youngest aunt, Violet Lansbury… was a journalist for the Communist Daily Worker with her own column, “Violet Lansbury’s weekly chat”. After the Second World War she became a noted translator from the Russian of a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books.

In 1924 Edgar Lansbury was elected as a member of the CPGB’s Central Committee. From 1924 to 1925 he served as Mayor of Poplar, the country’s second Communist mayor after Joe Vaughan. Following Minnie’s death, Edgar Lansbury married actress Moyna Macgill and the two moved to Regent’s Park. He left the Council in 1925, the same year that his first child, the future actress, Angela Lansbury, was born. Twin sons, Bruce and Edgar Jr., later became prominent film and TV producers.

In 1927 Lansbury’s timber firm was declared bankrupt. In 1934 Lansbury wrote George Lansbury, My Father. In the work he inadvertently quoted from confidential documents his father had allowed him to see and was found to have contravened section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. He was fined and his book was recalled in order for the text to be censored. He died of stomach cancer in 1935.

Angela’s aunt Dorothy Lansbury (1890–1973), was a women’s rights activist and later a campaigner for contraceptive and abortion rights. She was 16 when she became a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP). She started work as a clerk and accountant, and very soon joined the National Union of Clerks. She joined the Women’s Freedom League and the Women’s Labour League, but was unhappy with the militant tactics employed by the suffragette movement.

In 1912 Dorothy married Ernest Thurtle, who was later elected as the Labour MP for Shoreditch. In 1924, Thurtle and her husband founded the Workers’ Birth Control Group. Thurtle was the general secretary of Shoreditch Trades Council and Labour Party, and in 1925, was she elected to Shoreditch Borough Council, later becoming mayor in 1936. From 1946, she served a term as a member of the London County Council, representing Shoreditch.

Throughout her career, Thurtle was a tireless advocate for working-class women having free access to information on abortion, pressing the Labour Party on this, saying it made nonsense of their supposed commitment to sexual equality. In 1936, Thurtle became one of the earliest members of the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA), and served as a vice-president until her retirement in 1962.

Another of Angela’s aunts was Daisy Lansbury (1892–1971) was born in Bow, East London, the sixth child of George and Bessie. When she was born, the family were living in poverty but she attended school until the age of fourteen. She then spent three years assisting her mother with caring for her younger siblings, then studied shorthand and typing, becoming a bookkeeper and typist for her brother Edgar.

In 1912, Daisy became her father’s personal secretary, a position she held until his death in 1940. She supported the ILP and shared a flat with May O’Callaghan and Nellie Cohen, who were active in the East London Federation of Suffragettes. All three women joined the Communist Party when it was established in 1920. Through the National Guilds League, Daisy met Raymond Postgate, and the two married in 1918. From the 1960s, her health was increasingly poor, and she died in 1971, a few weeks after Raymond. Her son Oliver Postgate was an animator and creator of Bagpuss, the Clangers and Pogle’s Wood.

Angela’s youngest aunt, Violet Lansbury (1900–72), was the youngest of the twelve Lansbury children. Violet joined the Communist Party when it was formed and she moved to Soviet Russia around 1923 to marry Igor Reisnner, a professor of agriculture, with whom she was to have two children. During the 1920s, she began to work as a translator and interpreter. In 1932, she visited Bombay and, in 1934, Karachi, it is believed as a Comintern courier.

Her marriage began to fail and she met Clemens Palme Dutt in Moscow in 1933. Palme Dutt had an Indian father and Swedish mother, and his brother was the leading British Communist, Rajani Palme Dutt. By 1935, they had begun a relationship and within a year they began to live together. They married in 1938 and Violet gave birth to their daughter, Anna Elizabeth, and moved to Paris where Palme Dutt began to work.

The family survived Stalin’s purges, unlike thousands of others who were shot or interned. In 1940 her memoir, “An Englishwoman in the U.S.S.R.” was published. In the early 1940s, she was a journalist for the Communist Daily Worker with her own column, “Violet Lansbury’s weekly chat”. After the Second World War she became a noted translator from the Russian of a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books. She died in 1972.

News from Berlin and Germany, 13th October 2022

Weekly news round-up from Berlin and Germany

The Left Berlin

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Angela Davis pays tribute to women in protest movements

US civil rights activist Angela Davis paid tribute in Berlin to the role of women in protests around the world. “This is certainly cause for hope,” Davis said at a rally at Oranienplatz, also referring to the current demonstrations in Iran. She spoke about protest movements, and the fight for freedom and against racism. She accused Germany of “colonial amnesia” and denounced the fact that black people hear sentences like: “How did you learn German so well?” Davis (78) is considered an icon of the left scene. In 2020, there was an exhibition about her in Dresden. Source: Zeit

Man dies 3 weeks after a police operation in Berlin

A 64-year-old man collapsed during a police operation in Berlin – three weeks later, he died in hospital. In a press release issued on Thursday evening, the Berlin victim counselling centre Reachout accuses the police of using “massive brutal force” during the operation and of being responsible for the death; it also speaks of racism. The police are investigating the officers involved. The man’s body is to be autopsied. The investigation is being conducted by the police department for civil servant offences. The police did not report the incident until about a week after it had happened. The reason given was an “office error”. Source: morgenpost

Traffic blockades by climate protesters largely dispersed

Activists of the environmental group “Last Generation” blocked Berlin’s rush-hour traffic again last Tuesday morning. Further protests are expected in the coming days. The activists had previously obstructed traffic for several hours on several main arteries. Dozens of protesters were involved. The A100 motorway was particularly affected, including the Spandauer Damm and Messedamm junctions as well as the exit to the A115 Avus. As well as a quick return to the nine-euro-ticket, one of the most overdue safety measures in the acute situation of climate emergency is a 100 km/h speed limit on German motorways, said press spokesperson Aimee van Baalen. Source: rbb

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Rape culture at Oktoberfest

More than 50 reported sexual offences at the Oktoberfest, including the rape of a woman in a beer tent toilet. This is evidence of a so-called “rape culture”. Rape culture stands for the dull feeling that rape is something like a force of nature. An external catastrophe that can no more be avoided than a hurricane. One can at least prepare oneself a little for hurricanes. At the Oktoberfest, this seems to be more difficult – although there is a prevention project, the “Sichere Wiesn” initiative, which offers victims advice and help. However, the focus here is on potential victims, not with those who perpetrate rape and sexualised violence. Source: deutschlandfunkkultur

Cottbus, we have a problem

Cottbus has just avoided nationwide attention for being Germany’s first major city with an AfD major. So now take a breath, shake off the tension and get back to business as usual? It is better to stay alert. The AfD got about a third of Cottbus residents to vote for their candidate. This is a candidate who wants to solve the housing problem by deporting 400 foreigners, among other issues. The current Germany Monitor points out that only 39 percent of East Germans are satisfied with democracy. Only one in three believes that politicians care about the country’s well-being. Something is breaking away in its municipalities. Source: rbb

Nearly 14 million people in Germany threatened with poverty

Although Germany is one of the richest countries in the world, 13.8 million people are threatened or directly affected by poverty. This is the conclusion of the Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband in its current poverty report. The Federal Government also states in its Poverty and Wealth Report 2022 that there is a growing gap between rich and poor. In the country, considering figures, it is considered poor singles who have less than 1,148 euros per month. For single parents with one small child it is 1,492 euros, and for a couple household with two small children 2,410 euros. Source: dw

“Starting small”: a pastor fights poverty in Cologne

In the basement of his church, Pastor Franz Meurer shows how poverty can be fought in a rich country – without politics, but with the help of donations and volunteers. He has built a kind of factory on the almost 1000 square meters of church basement of St. Theodor in Vingst, a factory to fight poverty. With hundreds of helpers, he collects donations, distributes food and clothes, has tutoring, repairs bicycles, organizes the largest holiday camp in the city. The Pastor also says he is not interested in discussing poverty. He says it is more important to start small, where you can make a difference yourself. Source: dw

PerfocraZe International Artist Residency -p IAR

Interdisciplinary Ghanaian artists’ program and a performance ‘hatchery’

The Left Berlin

For the past four years, pIAR has served the arts and the queer community as a safe sanctuary for radical artistic programmes, advocacy, ‘artivism’ and cultural intervention. Since 2017, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi [crazinisT artisT] (pronouns: sHit if not she) has rented a new space after six years of active public advocacy and fearless artivism in and outside Ghana. sHits new space is a safe sanctuary and has become a home for ‘all’. pIAR is a paradise for many queer and non-queer creative individuals from all over the world – converging, researching and developing projects that engage global audiences on sensitive issues such as gender/sexuality, racism, class and power relations. Artists in residence are also encouraged to discuss and explore other topics, including decolonisation, multiculturalism, patriarchy, healing practices, indigenous rituals, etc.

Countless people benefit from our studio, workshops and the residency program over the past four years. However we are urgently seeking for funding to purchase a 12 bedroom space with studio facilities that can accommodate at least 26 people including the artists in residence, the pIAR team, interns and mentees that will be directly and immediately affected if we are evacuated from our current home any time soon. The cost of the houses in Kumasi are currently between $200,000 and $300,000 depending on the quality, size, site, conditions of the house and the facilities available.

The new ANTI-LGBTQIA+ bill dubbed the ‘PROMOTION OF PROPER HUMAN SEXUAL RIGHTS AND GHANAIAN FAMILY VALUES BILL, 2021’ by some members of Parliament has endangered perfocraZe International Artist Residency (pIAR) for our radical visibility as a safe sanctuary. The Bill has created mixed reactions among citizens, religious groups and the queer community. It has doubled up the violence against LGBTQIA+ persons across the country, recording several viral videos of mob attacks on suspected LGBTQIA+ persons without justice for the victims. One of our offices (LGBT+ Right Ghana) was raided by the police in February 2021 in the company of a homophobic landlaord and some residents.

The bill also directly threatens the founder and artistic director of pIAR as a transwoman, artivist, human rights advocate, and the board member of LGBT Right +. It is dangerously determined to prosecute anyone who identifies as queer or is perceived as (following the bill’s definition) an ‘LGBTTQQIAAP+’ person, ally or sympathiser. The bill will also prosecute landlords or anyone who rents their properties or premises to queer persons or LGBTQIA+ inclusive organisations. This is our emergency to raise funds for our own safe house to avoid dealing with the threats our landlord is facing at the moment from the homophobic community..

We understand the cost of our facility is quite expensive but we will appreciate the maximum contribution within your budget or any possible means you can afford to support us. Please visit our GoFundme fundraiser for further details:

Our aim is to gradually normalise our queer existence through radical ‘artivism’ and by empowering our younger selves to reclaim our placement in the society. We are determined to break those oppressive binary structures through constant advocacy and educational engagement with the ‘Cis-Hetero’ community. By far pIAR has been very progressive bridging the gab between some of these community through our annual public festival dubbed love fEAST which brings together over 200 people from the queer community and the ‘Cis-Hetero’ neighbourhood for a dinner/party at our current space every January.

Your donation or contribution will be so much impactful for the continuity of the radical empathetic and solidarity created by pIAR. With such a safe house if secured pIAR can continue offering space and support for artivists, workshops, gathering, learning and strategic planning towards safety and security of the community members.