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Month: March 2023

Germans for Scottish Independence

Coordinating people in Germany who are fighting for Scottish independence


09/03/2023

Germans for Scottish Independence, formed in 2013, are a relaxed association of individuals with very different biographies, motivations and objectives.

People from Scotland and from the German speaking world connect; Scots in Germany, Germans in Scotland, people who are interested in the respective cultures of those nations and those who have family or business connections between both countries. Some of us were there from the beginning, some joined over the years and others after the EU referendum in 2016.

The group is cross-party and democratic but without a definite hierarchy and individual members represent radical left wing as well as business orientated views. There are many different thoughts and ideas on issues like NATO membership for an independent Scotland, the future currency and the position of the Monarchy. However, the opinions and views of each individual do not necessarily represent those of the group as a whole.

Mutual acceptance and respect is our top priority, as much as Scotland’s independence is our consensus.

Nevertheless, Germans for Scottish Independence remain united by the progressive goals of the independence movement. In particular, we support the removal of British Weapons of Mass Destruction from Scotland, energy transition, peaceful internationalism, the safeguarding and expansion of social standards, free and classless education, a free and fair health system as well as EU membership and much more.

People with extreme right wing and/or nationalistic ideals are not welcome by Germans for Scottish Independence.

This focus on social networks is an intentional approach as we are geographically wide spread yet work together over many borders. We also try to be visible outside the internet and work tangible and effective – for this reason are we planning a demonstration in Berlin.

On Saturday, 11th March, we are organising an international demonstration for Scottish independence in Berlin. Together with European neighbors and supporters from all over the world we want to send a united signal to Westminster and to Scotland! A broad, colorful and peaceful, but strong and solidary signal of support for Scottish independence.

The demonstration starts at 11am at Brandenburger Tor. At 7pm, we will be organising a Jam Session for Scottish Independence – a Post-Demo Meet-Up in Arcanoa, Tempelhofer Berg 8. Arcanoa is one of Kreuzberg’s most atmospheric small venues, where you have a couple of well-earned beverages and play and listen to some live music.

There’ll be a number of planned acts to set the ball rolling, including Kevin Gore & Mr. Moon, Tina Jünnemann and Bodhrán Slippy, then the stage will open to any other willing participants for some acoustic open stage and jamming.

Radio Berlin International #22 (2023-03-05)

Tunisian Anti-fascist Rally / Scottish Independence / International Women’s Day Demonstrations


08/03/2023

In this episode, we hear from:

  • Nesrine, a Tunisian activist studying in Berlin and member of the group FACQ Berlin (Front for Anti-Colonial / Anti-Capitalist / Anti-Cistem Queers)
  • Gavin Taylor, a Scottish journalist with Independence Live, a citizen journalist organisation providing live streaming coverage of various events in and connected to Scotland
  • Alicja Flisak from CoLiberation, a Polish-speaking queer feminist collective working around abortion, queer and women’s liberation and migration

This week’s playlist is:

  • Randy Newman – It’s a Jungle out There
  • Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come
  • Gang Śródmieście – Discopolka
  • Karolina Czarnecka – Módl się za nami
  • Miriam Makeba – Africa
  • Black Magui – La3bed faddet

This episode is presented and produced by Srijon Sinha. The studio engineer is Tom Wills.

Please tell us what you think of the show by emailing radio@theleftberlin.com. Don’t forget to include your name and where you’re listening from, and we’ll read out as many messages as possible on the air.

Germany hedges bets in changing international order

Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, has been trying to form new alliances in Brazil, India and Africa. Hari Kumar asks what does it mean to speak of multi-polarity world and what is the German and EU position within it?


The German Chancellor has been a busy traveller lately. As he flies around he speaks of a “multi-polar” world. What does this mean? It means developing a third force in international politics including Germany, in alliance with BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) – minus Russia of course. The pace of these attempts was increased after the Russian aggression in Ukraine.

In 2022, Olaf Scholz warned at the elite club at Davos against the sole hegemony of two powers, the USA and China:

“I don’t give any credence to the reports of a new bipolarity between the US and China, either. Of course, China is a global player – “once again”… that does not mean that we need to isolate China, neither does it give rise to the claim of Chinese hegemony in Asia and beyond. Particularly since we are seeing new and ambitious powers emerging in Asia, Africa and Latin America…When we realize that our world is becoming multipolar, then that must spur us on to even more multilateralism, to even more international co-operation.”

Scholz’s statements come in the context of him fighting hard for German capitalism to keep it in pole position within the EU. This year Scholz reiterated warnings against the USA new drives to protectionism, and German industrial intent (Davos 2023):

“[under the US Inflation Reduction Act] some 370 billion dollars have been earmarked for energy and climate change mitigation over the next ten years. … Through the German Climate and Transformation Fund we have made almost 180 billion euro available ourselves for the period 2023 to 2026.”

The Chancellor and the EU know they have to heavily invest to keep pace with the USA, including boosting pitiful levels of compute chip manufacturing in Europe. EU President Von der Leyen also set “sovereignty” as a key slogan in her 2021 State of the Union address. In particular Von der Leyen listed the example that 90 percent of European data is held in the cloud services of U.S. corporations such as Amazon or Microsoft as place where the bloc is vulnerable.

This year at Scholz issued a dire warning against “fragmentation” or protectionism:

“Over all of this hangs a sword of Damocles: the danger of a new fragmentation of the world, of deglobalization and decoupling…. I am doing my utmost to ensure that the free trade agreements we have successfully negotiated with Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, and Chile will soon be followed by new ones: with MERCOSUR (South America), India, and Indonesia. And we are also open to discuss a tariff agreement for the industrial sector with the United States…. This is also the aim of the international Climate Club we launched during Germany’s G7 Presidency. A Secretariat has recently been set up at the OECD and the International Energy Agency. So the Club is now open to new, ambitious members.” Davos 2023

Scholz pro-actively opened this “Club” by inviting South Africa, Senegal and the Niger, to discussions with the G7 under his presidency. His approaches to Africa, have not been unproblematic. In particular Mali and Burkina Faso not only kicked out the French army (their former colonial masters) and welcomed in Russian forces including the brutal Wagner forces, but also refuses German Bundeswehr drone flying rights.

Unsurprisingly Scholz focused recently on BRICS. The term ‘BRIC-s’ was coined in 2001 by an economist Jim O’Neil for bankers Goldman Sachs. In 2014 ‘S’ was added for South Africa. O’Neill advised investors that BRIC represented a large, and growing portion of world GDP. In 2018, BRICS had a combined nominal GDP of US$26.6 trillion (26.2% of the gross world product), a total GDP Purchasing Power Parity of around US$51.99 trillion (32.1% of global GDP PPP), and an estimated US$4.46 trillion in combined foreign reserves. The group also accounts for 40% of the world’s population.

Many other countries queue to join BRICS. The BRICS International Forum president Anand reports that Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia could join “very soon”. In earlier announcements Iran and Argentina had formally applied for membership. All the so-called MINTS (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey) will probably end up within BRICS.

Obstructions were placed in the BRICS path. For example, the USA engineered President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff’s downfall and the trial of Lula da Silva (Guardian 2016). Lula’s re-election in Brazil uplifted BRICS. Brazil and India, which Scholz recently visited – both have grand visions.

President Lula’s foreign policy adviser, Celso Amorim, was an architect of ‘multipolarity’ (Lula’s Brazil, 30.01.2023; Der Spiegel):

“Amorim is considered the intellectual originator and architect of the multipolar strategy.. he believes that Brazil benefits from having several power centers determine world politics and therefore advocates good relations with all international players. For this reason, he expanded South-South relations.”

Lula aims to reweld several South American nations into Hugo Chavez’s original Union of South American Nations (USAN, or UNASUL) by reconfiguring the free trade agreement between the EU and MERCOSUR. As a measure of Lula’s determination to be ‘independent’, Lula has rejected the USA led shunning of Russia (Brazil and Peace 31.01.2023 Der Spiegel):

“Lula did not want to comply with Scholz’s request to pass on tank ammunition to Ukraine. “Brazil has no interest in passing on the ammunition to be used in the Ukraine-Russia war… “Brazil is a land of peace. And that’s why Brazil doesn’t want any involvement in this war, not even indirectly.”

That sentiment alarms Western imperialists who recognise:

“As was reported in the Munich Security Report… not a single state from Africa or Latin America – and hardly a state in Asia – supports the West’s sanctions policy against Russia. If serious setbacks are to be avoided in the global power struggle against Russia and China on a long-term basis, one must win back at least a few of the Global South’s countries. After all, in many countries of the South, the “Western-dominated order” is in many states in the Global South, characterized by “postcolonial domination” which engenders sympathy for a “post-Western” global order.“ German Foreign Policy 14 Feb 2023

India is also a leading economy meriting it as a destination for Scholz. India recently hosted the G20 meeting, as it entered the presidency of the BRICS. As Brazil, India refuses to deep freeze Russia. Indeed oil exports from Russia barred by the EU now largely go to India. Moreover “During the first ten months of India’s fiscal year (April-January), India’s imports from Russia have jumped to US $7.31 billion, five times that of the previous year. Russia ranks fourth on India’s list of suppliers, just behind the USA.“ German Foreign Policy 23 Feb 2023

But BRICS ‘independence’ from imperialism is constrained. Patrick Bond sees the BRICS as collaborators with Western imperialism:

“the BRICS are ‘collaborating actively with imperialist expansion, assuming in this expansion the position of a key’ bloc, whose own interests also rest in sub-imperialist stabilisation of international financial power relations, for the advancement of their own regional domination strategies.” (Third World Quarterly, 2016 Vol. 37).

But an even more important dimension is of course that BRICS includes Russia and China. Both imperialist nations. Hence, the BRICS itself is simply another imperialist formation – just as is the EU, and the nations led by the USA which in Europe at least – revolve around NATO.

China also woos the very same areas as Western imperialism does:

“Three days before the Ukraine paper, Beijing presented… its “Global Security Initiative.” This concept, announced by Xi Jinping a year ago, is a political continuation of the so-called Silk Road Initiative, Beijing’s almost global economic and development program…The text.. argues against “unilateralism, bloc confrontation and hegemonism” and advocates guaranteeing security not through military alliances but through individual agreements. At the same time, Xi lists where the focus of Chinese foreign policy will be in the future: in the countries of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands.” Der Speigel 4 March 2023

In conclusion, No doubt American imperialism is by far and away still the most dominant. This as measured by its economic, military and political reach. While its leaders fret over the growth of China, objectively the distance between ‘top dog USA’ and its imperialist rivals is enormous. But things change, they are right to be anxious. Hence their continual challenging of China (restricting Chinese access to microchip technology and restricting telecommunication access; imposing import restrictions into USA; returning to “home-shoring” industry; constant provocations via Taiwan; etc.

German Chancellor Scholz visits Biden this weekend in Washington. They have a lot to discuss. Not the least the failure of the USA to honor its part of the tank deal. Suspicions are that the USA holds up deliveries of Abrams to ensure a future arms-market share in Europe. Scholz plays a delicate game. He wants to bolster EU power. But he cannot antagonize the USA directly – as of yet. Along the way if he can bring into a ‘multi-polar’ world various BRICS and other ‘South’ countries – the more degrees of freedom the German imperialists have against the Americans.

All the major imperialists – the USA, China, the EU, Russia – see what is coming shortly – a new world war of re-division. US Air Force General Minihan wrote in a Memo on Jan 29 2023: “We will fight in 2025. Xi secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022.” And where is the united left that will fight for workers and toilers visions?

Originally published at the Red Phoenix 4 March, 2023 under the title: Mr Scholz Goes a-wooing BRICS”

Macron plays “double or quits” on pension attacks

Exciting and  Decisive Week for Class Struggle in France. More mass actions today


07/03/2023

After a three-week period of relative calm, all trade union federations in France have called workers  “to bring France to a standstill” on Tuesday 7th March. Key sectors of workers have promised ongoing strikes after that. Radical left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, speaking to student mass meetings, is asking  them to “blockade everything you can”, and high school students are mobilizing too. Already on the 6th March, electricity workers were blocking ring roads with their vans, and nuclear power station workers were making their plants work at half power. A number of universities and roads have been blockaded this morning, Tuesday, while demonstrations in 300 towns are planned for today.

Support from the general public is unprecedented. With at least seventy per cent of the population supporting the strikes, and a far higher proportion still among under 60s, even mainstream news channels (attempting to remain relevant) are inviting radical union reps on air, where they defend in detail the need for a general strike.

Macron’s bill, now being debated in parliament, has two aims. Firstly to raise the standard retirement age from 62 to 64, and secondly to scrap several better sectional retirement agreements which have been won over the years by workers with the strongest trade unions (Macron calls these “special regimes”). This is his flagship reform.

Many mainstream analysts have shown that there is no economic need for these changes: the Commission for Pension Strategy, set up by the Prime Minister says that, despite an ageing population, the percentage of GDP needed to pay pensions will remain steady for many years. But the present attack is a crucial symbol that workers, not bosses, are expected to pay for the economic crisis and that Macron’s “gifts for billionaires” fiscal  policy will be even more generous to the rich in future.

His bill guarantees a historic clash. Unlike the plan that he put forward three years ago, which was shelved after huge strikes, this proposal is very simple – it will add two years to our working lives. His previous plan, based on a complicated points system, might have allowed him to make concessions and save face, but the present bill puts the question in black and white: “when will you be able to retire?”. It has provoked rage everywhere. The least combative union confederation, the CFDT, asked its railway worker members to vote on renewable strikes after Tuesday. Eighty percent voted in favour!

After several tremendous days of action, some of Macron’s ministers seem pretty terrified. “Bringing France to a standstill” said one of them, Olivier Veran, “will risk an ecological catastrophe, a catastrophe in farming, even a human catastrophe. Bringing France to a halt means risking the health of our children, and missing the train of the future.”  Meanwhile another minister seems to have lost all contact he might have had with reality, declaring “this is a left wing reform”.

Union leaders

Union leaders in the various confederations have differing strategies, but none is giving anything like a sufficient lead. They took the risky decision of suspending action during the three weeks of staggered school holidays, using the excuse that they did not want to alienate the public, even though most French people cannot afford to go on holiday in February, and the movement is in fact wildly popular.

A rare united call from all unions initiated the slogan  “Bring France to a standstill on March 7th”. The leaders of the least combative, CFDT confederation, explicitly say this is not a general strike (they concentrate on hoping that shops will close for the day). The more combative CGT is asking workers to meet the following day in each workplace to vote for “renewable strikes”. The popularity of the cause would have allowed union leaderships to call an unlimited general strike, but their attitude as professional negotiators prevented this. Philippe Martinez, national CGT leader even criticized radical left MPs for going too far, in obstructing parliamentary “debate” on the attacks!

Fortunately, some union federations in particular industries, under pressure from the rank and file,  are more determined. Renewable strikes (typically voted on in mass meetings every day or two)  have already been announced in railways and the Paris metro, in ports, in chemical plants, and among refuse collectors and shop workers. Electricity workers and oil refinery workers  began the strike a day early. And this list gets a little longer every couple of hours.

Left organizations 

The large organizations of the radical Left, and particularly the France Insoumise, have thrown themselves into the battle. In parallel with arguing in parliament, FI members of parliament have been organizing meetings in universities and popularizing their posters and stickers, which declare “Until retirement at 64 is withdrawn, BLOCKADE EVERYTHING” and “Solidarity with the strikers : Give money to the strike fund!”. FI activists are also producing solidarity posters for shopkeepers to put in their windows. One Conservative politician announced yesterday she was suing Louis Boyard, an FI member of parliament, “for inciting violence”.

Various other political movements have been trying to make up for  the timidity of the union leaders. Because Wednesday 8th March is International Women’s Rights Day, feminist groups and others are calling for strikes to continue that day to underline the specific harm done to women (who often take years out of paid employment to raise children) by the new bill. Once this idea became popular, student and youth organizations got together to call a day of action on pensions on Thursday 9th March. We are hoping all these initiatives help add up to an unstoppable dynamic.

What next?

Macron is hoping that when the amended text is voted through parliament, the movement will fade and die. This is not the most likely outcome, but we certainly need strategic thinking about how to win. Many of the most radical activists rightly emphasize the need for autonomous rank and file mobilization, but neglect to mention national political forces. This could be dangerous: if Macron prefers to dissolve parliament rather than retreat on pensions, the question of national mass political organization, and how to support the radical left while defending anticapitalist politics, will become central.

Minister for Employment Olivier Dussopt said last week he found  Marine  Le Pen of the fascists to be  “more respectful of our institutions” than is the France Insoumise. Such statements might be a sign of horrific future alliances.

Crisis, what crisis?

Going private may suit the rich but is not an option for most. The government is wilfully in denial on the NHS they have run-down over 13 years. It’s time to pay staff a decent wage and invest.


06/03/2023

Many working in the NHS as well as those who depend on its services see the current situation as being one of crisis. Lack of community care prevents patients from being discharged from hospital and beds being freed to take both acutely ill patients and those needing planned procedures. Ambulances are unable to move patients into rammed A&Es, and wait outside, unavailable to answer emergency calls. The government presents this as no more than “an extraordinarily difficult time”. Speaking to parliament, Steve Barclay, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, blamed this on flu, Covid, strep. A infection, staff sickness and delayed discharges.

Harm to workers and harm to the community

Widespread strikes in the health sector including unprecedented action by the Royal College of Nursing are a testimony to the extreme pressure to staff from both intolerable working conditions and the cost of living crisis. Real terms wages have fallen by around 20% since the Conservative government took power. That poor staffing is bad for patients is well recognised, and is often the first reason given by those taking industrial action in explaining their decision. Instead of responding positively to pay demands and recognising considerable public support for health workers, government has turned to legislation that will make it more difficult for staff to strike, with the threat of sacking for those who do.

Vacancy rates and a long term absence of any workforce plan undermines the claim that this legislation is about a new found interest in maintaining safe services. A recent survey indicates that with the current 133,000 unfilled posts things are likely to get even worse, with four in 10 doctors and dentists saying they are likely to quit over ‘intolerable’ pressures. Meanwhile, the number of working age people claiming disability support has doubled post-pandemic. Record numbers of people are taking early retirement, most commonly because of ill health. Nine million people are now ‘economically inactive’, with 27% giving long term sickness as the reason. All of this shows that the UK cannot afford the NHS to fail.

Ambulance crisis

Ambulance Chiefs keep repeating that services are stretched beyond the limit. Patients are literally dying in the back of ambulances, while in 2021 it was estimated that up to 160,000 were coming to harm because of delays. In the same year, the West Midlands Ambulance Service acknowledged that it was causing catastrophic harm to patients. Last December, response times across England were the worst on record. One medical college president observed that pressure on the NHS was now so severe that it was breaking its ‘basic agreement’ with the public to treat the sickest in a timely way, commenting ‘the true barrier to tackling this crisis is political unwillingness; the current situation is breaking the workforce and breaking our hearts’.

Criminal inaction by government is causing huge numbers of unnecessary deaths.

In 2021, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine published an estimate of the number of deaths across the UK associated with crowding and long waiting times in Emergency Departments (ED) of 300-500/week. The authors analysed Hospital Episode Statistics and Office of National Statistics data in England. Studies elsewhere have previously shown that delay in moving patients from the ED to a ward increased the risk of death. Conversely, risk decreased when movement of patients was speeded up. Such an estimate therefore seems entirely plausible given that the ED is simply not equipped to provide ongoing treatment and levels of nursing care needed.

The study demonstrated a steady rise in death by 30 days for patients who remained in the ED for more than five hours from their time of arrival. One extra death occurred for every 82 patients delayed for more than six to eight hours. The data was published only after peer review and the methodology used in reaching the conclusions is clearly set out. Importantly, other experts agree the figure is perfectly reasonable, and may indeed be an underestimate. A repeat analysis using more recent data came up with an estimated 530 deaths a week.

While of huge potential significance, this type of study cannot absolutely prove delayed admission causes deaths, meaning the conclusions are open to challenge. Representatives of NHS England, however, cannot get away with simply stating: “It does not recognise those figures”. A more serious response is required and they should show where they think the paper is wrong and share their analysis for consideration and response. This is a process that is essential if policy decisions are to become more science based and therefore effective in terms of protecting patients.

More or less everyone but the government thinks the NHS is in crisis

When Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt liked to present himself as a champion of patient safety. Against this, campaigners point out that on his watch we find missed targets, lengthening waits, crumbling hospitals, false solutions, funding boosts that vanished under scrutiny, and blame apportioned to everyone but himself. Later becoming chair of the Commons Select Committee on Health, he concluded in a recent 2022 report that: “We now face the greatest workforce crisis in history in the NHS and in social care, with still no idea of the number of additional doctors, nurses and other professionals we actually need”, adding that this was putting patients at risk of serious harm.

The report also stated: “It is unacceptable that some NHS nurses are struggling to feed their families, pay their rent and travel to work”, suggesting they be given a pay rise to match inflation. For Hunt, now chancellor, this has been conveniently forgotten, with the Treasury being cited as the main block on progress in pay talks. Meanwhile, the House of Lords Public Services Committee opined that: “The state of emergency healthcare is a national emergency. The substantial delays that patients face when trying to access emergency health services create . . . an unprecedented clinical risk” .

Downward spiral but no credible plan

Responding to current performance statistics, the Health Foundation commented: “these figures show a gridlocked health and care system struggling to meet the needs of patients . . . in October 2022, hospital waiting lists hit a record high of 7.2 million, with nearly 411,000 waiting over a year. More than 1 in 10 people with a serious condition such as a stroke or chest pain waited over 105 minutes for an ambulance in November, while nearly 38,000 people spent more than 12 hours on trolleys in A&E. In addition, 39% of urgent cancer referrals waited longer than the target two months to receive their first treatment.

The Department of Health and Social Care commissioned a report from the King’s Fund to help it understand how this situation had arisen. The thinktank helpfully concluded that a “decade of neglect” by Conservative administrations has weakened the NHS to the point that it cannot tackle the huge backlog of care. Specifically, years of denying funding and failing to address its growing workforce crisis have left it with too few staff, too little equipment and too many outdated buildings.

It is no surprise that a Tory party in power for 13 years is reluctant to admit the NHS is in crisis as this would mean taking responsibility for the mess. The pining for a more privately funded system is neither fair nor makes economic sense. Recent promises of improvement represent only a sticking plaster. The government should reflect on the fact that the vast majority of the public still support the core principles of a public service. The NHS itself has not failed, but has been failed by politicians, and politicians deserve to pay a political price.

Dr John Puntis is co-chair of Keep Our NHS Public