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News from Berlin and Germany, 26th April 2023

Weekly news roundup from Berlin and Germany

The Left Berlin
26/04/2023

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Warning strike last Friday: BVG was not affected

Last Friday, commuters and travelers prepared themselves for far-reaching restrictions on long-distance and regional services operated by Deutsche Bahn and other transport companies. The Railway and Transport Union (EVG) called for warning strikes lasting several hours. Between 3 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Friday, employees of all railroad companies where negotiations had taken place stopped working. The Berlin transport authority (BVG) announced that its personnel would not be taking part in that strike, though. Regional trains in Berlin and Brandenburg were anyway affected as well since Deutsche Bahn was on strike. Source: berlin.de

Police no longer want to dialogue with climate activists

From Monday on, “Last Generation” wants to make Berlin stop. Only when the federal government agrees to the group’s demands will the protests end. The number of participants has grown: according to the climate group, around 1,000 people signed up for this permanent protest. During the blockade wave last October, there were 80. The public prosecutor’s office in Berlin sees no reason to classify the “Last Generation” as a criminal organisation. On the other hand, the Neuruppin public prosecutor’s office assumes the purpose of the group is to commit offenses of “enough burden”. Source: tagesspiegel

Giffey to become senator for economic affairs

Now that the SPD has voted by a narrow majority to form a coalition with the CDU in Berlin, the group’s senators have been decided. As expected, the former governing mayor Franziska Giffey will take over the economic portfolio. Her party colleague Cansel Kiziltepe will be responsible for labour and social affairs. Iris Spranger will continue to be responsible for the interior. On the CDU side, unsurprisingly, Kai Wegner becomes mayor. Stefan Evers will take over the finance portfolio. Manja Schreiner is to be responsible for transport, Katharina Günther-Wünsch for education. Joe Chialo will be senator for culture. Source: spiegel

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Basis against Wagenknecht’s confidant

In the Left Party in North Rhine-Westphalia, the pressure is growing around former top candidate Sahra Wagenknecht, who is considering leaving the party. With a clear majority, the Bochum district association passed a resolution last Thursday evening directed “against all threats of splitting by prominent members”. Such a resolution has a sound target: Bochum is the constituency of the close Wagenknecht confidant Sevim Dağdelen. Also, of the six members of the Bundestag elected via the NRW state list, only state party leader Kathrin Vogler has so far “clearly positioned herself against the threat of division.” Source: taz

How AfD grows within the German right

The AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) was created a decade ago, and it has managed to establish itself as a constant presence in Germany’s parliament. Now, it challenges the Christian Democrats, seeking to tear down historic barriers to the far-right. The face of the party has quite changed: whereas conservative Euroscepticism was the dominant theme in its early days, AfD today represents largely a far-right party. Nevertheless, there is a constant: from the beginning, AfD sought to unite the political spectrum to the right of the CDU and its traditional coalition partner, the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP). Source: Jacobin

“Like the citizens’ movement in the GDR”: researchers support Last Generation

Under the motto “Negotiation instead of criminalisation”, a group of German-speaking scientists advocates a better and more objective way of dealing with climate campaigners of the Last Generation. “Individual administrative offences and selective violations of the law”, according to the declaration signed by more than 1,600 researchers, are legitimate forms of protest in view of the urgent need for political action. The researchers see the Last Generation in the tradition of other great protest movements, such as “the civil rights movement in the GDR”. However, social indignation is currently directed against climate activists. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the group as non-extremist. Source: berliner zeitung

Working hours: trusting is ok, but controlling is even better

Lately, the term “Home office” is often used. But what counts as paid work at home? Who controls it? Already before Christmas, Federal Labour Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) had promised he would present a proposal regarding it. Currently, he plans a legal obligation to record working hours electronically, referring to a corresponding draft law. Employers’ associations and trade unions could also agree on aspects such as “non-electronic” or retrospective recording of working time to be conceivable. There should also be special regulations for small companies. The influential Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA) is also very critical of Heil’s draft. Source: dw

Germany: new strikes threaten rail and air traffic

After the strike and before the strike: on Wednesday, 26 April, travellers and commuters have to expect restrictions in public transport. There could also be new strikes in rail and air traffic in the coming days and weeks. The trade union ver.di plans actions in Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg. There could also be strikes at Deutsche Bahn in the next few days. The railway and transport union EVG is threatening new actions if DB does not present a better negotiation offer at the round of talks on Tuesday, 25 April. Source: adac

Diane Abbott’s letter makes fighting racism harder – but she is not the real problem

Despite the insensitivity of her statement, Diane Abbott’s track record on fighting racism exceeds that of almost all her accusers

Phil Butland
25/04/2023

Labour leader Keir Starmer has just sacked Dianne Abbott – Britain’s first Black, female MP, and one of the few remaining allies of Jeremy Corbyn inside parliament. The sacking came after a letter written by Abbott to the Observer which said that groups who are often still racialised as white like Jews and Travellers may encounter prejudice, but they do not suffer from racism.

Online reactions to the sacking have been mixed. On the one hand, there are people with a very justified antagonism to Starmer’s increasingly authoritarian politics, who uncritically defend the contents of Abbott’s letter. On the other, there are those – including Novara Media’s Ash Sarkar and Momentum founder Jon Lansman – who argue that Starmer was right to decree that Abbott can longer represent Labour in parliament. I believe that both of these arguments are wrong.

In this article, I want to argue that if we are to develop a coherent response to Abbott’s sacking, we need to understand that two discussions are running simultaneously – one within the anti-racism movement about how we best fight against racism, and a less nuanced attempt by Starmer to purge his party of any remnants of the Left.

What did Diane Abbott say?

According to Vox Political, Abbott “penned a letter that correctly pointed out that people of colour suffer racism more habitually than other ethnicities – but did it in a clumsy way.” The current dilemma would be easier to solve if this were all she said. This is what the Observer, printed:

“Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from “racism”. They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable. It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.”

Many of the points here are valid – but it is absolutely wrong to suggest that racism experienced by Irish people, Jews and Travellers is not qualitatively different to prejudice against red headed people.. Simply put, the Holocaust, the enforced Irish Famine, and systematic discrimination, are not the same as someone calling you “ginger”.

Abbott has since apologised for the letter, saying that it was an “initial draft” which had been sent for publication by accident. It is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility that the Guardian Media Group, which has fought a relentless battle against Corbyn and his supporters, knew this, and published the letter in bad faith.

Nonetheless, Abbott’s apology rightly says: “I wish to wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and disassociate myself from them.” and that “it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered [racism’s] monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers and many others”

The reality of racism in modern Britain

Talk of a “hierarchy of racism”, where some forms of racism are worst than others, is dangerous, as it can divert us from the necessity of fighting all forms of racism together. But if you want to go down this road, let us look at how different groups currently experience racism.

The recently released Evidence for Equality National Survey reported that o ver a third of people from minority groups have experienced racist assaults. Unsurprisingly, people identifying as “Black Caribbean”, “mixed white/Caribbean”, “mixed white/Black African” and “Other Black” all suffered an above-average number of attacks (around 50% each), but the worst hit group was “Gypsies/Travellers” with 62%

According to Amnesty International, “millions of Roma live in isolated slums, often without any electricity or running water, and struggle to get the healthcare they need. Many live with the daily threat of forced evictions, police harassment and violent attacks Romani children also often suffer segregation in schools and receive a lower standard of education.”

Eastern Europeans have also been subjected to a particularly vicious form of racism. A report by the British Sociological Association starts: “the spike in hate crimes that followed the Brexit vote in the summer of 2016 serves as a poignant reminder that Eastern Europeans are still ‘not-quite-white’”

And while antisemitism has been manipulated for political ends, synagogues are still being desecrated, and it is clear that antisemitism is still a prevalent form of racism among white supremacists and Covid deniers, such as the Nazi Matthew Herrigan who printed leaflets claiming that “Jewish people were behind a Coronavirus hoax, controlled the media and were evil”.

This is before we start discussing possibly the most vicious form of current discrimination – Islamophobia – is not based on skin colour but on assumed beliefs of all Muslims – black, brown and white. Under these circumstances, the Left should be uniting to fight all forms of prejudice, not arguing amongst itself about which groups suffer the most discrimination.

The Tories’ terrible record

As a response to Abbott’s letter, Tory minister Grant Shapps said: “Once again, Jewish people have to wake up and see a Labour MP casually spouting hateful antisemitism.” Can we just look at what’s been happening in Shapps’s own party? Just two weeks ago, the Runnymede Trust published a report that argued, “Britain is not close to being a racially just society.”

Home secretary Suella Braverman recently proudly said that she “dreams” of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, in an act that even the Establishment paper the Financial Times (FT) called “an eerie 21st-century echo of a medieval idea” The FT article continues: “the government’s Rwanda rhetoric is designed to deflect attention from strikes, NHS waiting lists and a stagnating economy. ”

Tory peer Baroness Warsi has argued that Braverman’s “racist rhetoric” is putting “British Asian families at risk.” Braverman has continually used racist language about “small boats and grooming gangs”, and attacked “British Pakistani males, who hold cultural values totally at odds with British values” Her words have been echoed in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s attacks on “cultural sensitivity and political correctness”

Conservative councillor Andrew Edwards was recently suspended for saying that all white men should have a Black person as a slave, saying “It’s nothing wrong with skin colour, it is just they’re a lower class than us white people, you know.”

And I don’t know where to start with former Tory prime minister Boris Johnson, who still has hopes of making a political comeback. It has just been reported that Johnson told aides that “I am the Führer.” A party whose recent leader talks of Black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and who referred to burka wearers as “letter boxes” cannot take the moral high ground in a debate about racism.

Labour’s miserable response

What about Labour? To say that the Labour Party under Keir Starmer has not responded well to this increase in racism would be a woeful understatement.

Rather than challenging the Tories’ racism against refugees, Keir Starmer has attacked them for not being racist enough. Confronting Rishi Sunak in parliament, Keir Starmer called for more deportations: “Last year, 18,000 people were deemed ineligible to apply for asylum. … prime minister, how many of them have actually been returned?”

One of the less publicized findings of the infamous Forde report was that “Black Labour staff suffer under the party’s ‘hierarchy of racism”, and that the ”’overwhelmingly white’ Labour Party was an unwelcoming place for people of colour” .

Taj Ali reports his own experiences in his University Labour society; “A few months into my first year, I attended a social event the society had organised. At this event, one individual made an Islamophobic joke directed at me. Another shouted ‘white power’, and a third did a Nazi salute.”

Diane Abbott has been deemed unsuitable to represent Labour in parliament. Unlike, say, Barry Sheerman, who tweeted that Jews Richard Desmond and Philip Green were given places in the House of Lords paid for by “silver shekels”. Labour took no action against Sheetman for his blatant antisemitism.

Compare and contrast with Labour’s treatment of Apsana Begum, the first hijab-wearing Muslim MP, or even of Abbott herself.

Labour and the police

At the end of March this year, the Casey reported concluded that the Metropolitan police is “institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.” I don’t recall Labour officially acknowledging the report, but its release was followed by a sustained pro-police campaign by the party.

I still follow Labour’s facebook page (I’m there to read the below the line comments). Shortly after the Casey report was published Labour posted the following separate comments and memes in just 6 days:

“Labour’s Antisocial Behaviour Action Plan: 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and PCSOs on our streets” (3 April)
“Labour is the party of law and order. “(3 April)
“Labour will bring back neighbourhood policing and tackle antisocial behaviour.” (3 April)
“Labour will put 13,000 neighbourhood police and PCSOs back on the beat” (4 April)
“Labour will rebuild neighbourhood policing” (4 April)
“A Labour government, with Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, will make Britain’s streets safe.” (4 April)
“With Keir Starmer’s leadership, Labour will prevent crime, punish criminals, and protect communities from antisocial behaviour.” (5 April)
“Labour will make Britain’s streets safe.” (5 April)
“A Labour government will prevent crime, punish criminals, and protect communities” (7 April)
“Labour will bring back neighbourhood policing to keep communities safe.” (7 April)
“Labour will reform the police and criminal justice system and put 13,000 extra neighbourhood police officers and PCSOs back on our streets.” (8 April)
“Labour will rebuild neighbourhood policing to prevent crime, punish criminals, and protect communities.” (8 April)
“The next Labour government, with Keir Starmer as Prime Minister, will make Britain’s streets safe.” (9 April)

Novara media reports that 1,741 people have died in police custody since 1990. Not a single police officer has been convicted for these deaths, nor of the 74 disproportionately BAME people fatally shot by police since 1990, Under these conditions, Labour’s law and order platform is a green light for even more police harassment of minorities under a future Starmer government.

Worse, while the right wing press was obsessing about fictional “Asian grooming gangs”, Labour produced an advert with the false claim: “Do you believe that adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison? Rishi Sunak doesn’t.” When challenged that the ad was playing on racist tropes, Labour doubled down, with Keir Starmer saying “I stand by every word”.

So, how should socialists respond?

Diane Abbott’s suspension has little to do with her misguided comments, and her track record on fighting racism is much better than nearly all of her accusers. She has been one of the few MPs who has actually challenged racism. Indeed, she has been the victim of disproportionate racism herself – receiving 45.14% of all abusive tweets to candidates in the run up to the 2017 Election.

The Forde report noted that “The criticisms of Diane Abbott are not simply a harsh response to perceived poor performance – they are expressions of visceral disgust, drawing on racist tropes, and they bear little resemblance to the criticisms of white male MPs elsewhere in the messages.”

The current pile on against Abbott from the media and politicians of all parties has nothing to say about the much more dubious record of most of her accusers. Supporting her suspension only serves to strengthen the grip of the bureaucrats who are removing the slightest trace of opposition to Keir Starmer’s right wing neoliberalism from the party.

Nonetheless, the discussion generated by her letter and subsequent sacking has provoked two important discussions which we must address as a movement. Firstly, how do we build the unity which we need to oppose all forms of racism? Secondly, is their any future for building this unity within a Labour Party that is keener to sustain the racists in its ranks than principled fighters like Diane Abbott?

The Good, the Bad, and the Absurd.

Cannabis Legalization plan in Germany

Evan Bernel
24/04/2023

The German Ministry of health under the Minister Karl Lauterbach (Social Democrat) has published its plan for a legalization of Cannabis in Germany. The bullet points seem okay at first glance: The legal transport of 25 grams of dried flower starting at age 18, home growing of 3 female plants in the flowering stage, and the ability to found non-profit cannabis social clubs with up to 500 members. Though when one looks at the details, a few problems can be noticed: in some cases the proposal is even more restrictive than other models of cannabis legalisation. Let’s look at the problems of the new proposal.

No solution for scoring weed out-of-town.

Imagine you visit family or friends in another city in Germany for the holidays. Under the proposal of the health ministry, you would be forbidden from going to a cannabis social club there, becoming a member, and purchasing cannabis. This is because you would only legally be able to be a member of a single cannabis club in all of Germany.

No receiving weed from other countries.

Have a friend or family member where weed is legal? Well under this proposal, none of them could legally send you the cannabis from their garden or local dispensary. Even though the possession of that weed would be legal under the law, the receiving of it coming from another country would be illegal. That’s a contradiction and keeps an element of criminalization alive. It’s not a crime to receive a bottle of wine from California, so why should it be a crime to receive a bag of weed from the same place?

No Tourists!

It is already common knowledge that some tourists come to Berlin for the liberal drug laws, the club scene, and drugs. While the law proposal would allow Berlin Residents to legally purchase their cannabis in Berlin, the tourists would still have to go get their product at the infamous Görlitzer Park, where an activist found most of the weed sold there to be cut with dangerous substances. This brings with it health risks, which could mean unnecessary and life-threatening health emergencies for these consumers, from anything from lung failure to an overdose from dangerous synthetic cannabinoids.

THC Potency Limit for those under 21 years old

The members under 21 years of age will be limited to purchasing cannabis under a certain THC limit. This is an absurd double standard, because 18-year-olds in Germany can already legally drink themselves into a coma with 151 proof rum. For those who don’t know what that is, that is rum with 75,5% alcohol. That’s more potent than most hashish concentrates! Not only that, but alcohol is deadly, while nobody ever died from a THC overdose. This policy will lead to the black market filling the gap for more potent cannabis products, where often the so-called “haze” or “cali” cannabis is just cannabis which is laced with synthetic cannabinoids. Often, consumers don’t even know they are consuming these substances until it’s too late and they are physically addicted, and we know that synthetic cannabinoids are more dangerous than natural THC.

Consuming cannabis within cannabis clubs will be forbidden.

Yes, you read that correctly. You won’t be able to sit with your friends on a couch and play videogames or have a little party at the cannabis club with your friends, as is the case in cannabis social clubs in Spain. No, the government wants to force you into your apartment. And if you aren’t lucky enough to have an apartment where you can legally smoke, then too bad for you. Because the government also doesn’t want you to be smoking on the sidewalk in public. Where are you supposed to consume your grass then? Well, if you’re lucky enough to have a smoking bar near you that is 420-friendly, you could go there. Same thing with night clubs as well. But one thing sticks out here like a sore thumb, there is no way to guarantee harm reduction and notice problematic consumption patterns in members of the cannabis community. That means there will be no community structure of people who can notice the early warning signs of cannabis use disorder in its members and intervene accordingly so that affected people can get the help they need early on.

No consumption on the sidewalk until 8pm

In Germany, it’s a social taboo to drink alcohol in public before 4pm. The saying goes “kein Bier vor Vier” which means “no beer before 4pm”. While that is a social taboo, and in most cities and states still not illegal, the German government wants to hold stoners to a higher standard and forbid them from smoking cannabis on the sidewalk. This, as well as the potency limit for 18-21 year olds mentioned earlier, clearly goes against the general equality clause of the constitution of Germany (Art. 3 Abs. 3 GG). Which states that no two essentially similar acts are allowed to be treated unequally under German law. Also, the fact that smokers can smoke tobacco on the sidewalk in Germany adds to this legal argument.

No solution for drivers

If you were hoping to smoke some weed and not have to worry about losing your license due to a positive urine test the day after, then I’m sorry to disappoint you but that won’t happen. The old rules for those operating a motor vehicle will stay in place. That means if you are required to take a blood or urine test, you better hope it’s been 30 days since your last consumption. Because that’s how long it takes for the residue product leftover from Delta-9-THC, THC-COOH, which is not psychoactive, to completely leave urine and the blood stream. Basically, your body breaks down the psychoactive Delta-9-THC, and what is left is THC-COOH, which will still trigger most drug tests in Germany to turn up positive. That means even though you never drove high behind the wheel, you could still lose your driver’s license indefinitely due to a drug test.

No permanent change for 4 years.

The health ministry’s plan would mean all these policies would be in place for 4 years and will get a final evaluation (and possibly a second round of reforms) after those 4 years. That is ridiculous when you know the background that, the health policy experts in the German parliament visited foreign policy makers in places that cannabis is legal just recently. Here they are, posing for the cameras. In fact, the health policy experts of parliament must know quite well by now what to expect from cannabis legalization, they could still choose to improve the policy, but they are unlikely to do so against the wishes of the ministry of health.

Final words

The perfect cannabis regulation law will never fall out of the sky. Even the small victories we can see in the health ministry proposal are the result of years of lobbying and activist work on the ground, in the streets. I have been a part of this movement for years, so I know nothing comes without a fight and the fight for cannabis legalization is far from over. What can you do, to make your voice heard? Well for one, you can join the German Hemp Association (Deutscher Hanfverband) for as low as 5 euros a month. It is the largest union and lobby organization of cannabis legalization activists in Germany and is a proud part of the greater European Organization for the reform of drug laws, called ENCOD. You can get active in your city with the help of the hemp association to win over voters for pro-cannabis political parties such as DIE LINKE and push politicians to make the right decisions on drug policy. In Berlin this is more important than ever, since the ongoing vote within the SPD party of Berlin could mean another state government would block further steps towards cannabis legalization within the Bundesrat. We must be vigilant if we are to win the justice that we deserve. Schluss mit Krimi, Cannabis normal!

National Poetry Month: Pablo Neruda (1904–1973)

As new reports suggest that the Chilean poet was poisoned, Hari Kumar looks at his legacy

Hari Kumar
23/04/2023

“I have always wanted the hands of people to be seen in poetry.”

Introduction and short precis of Neruda’s life

Recent reports about Neruda’s death have re-sparked interest in this great Chilean poet. Here, a short precis of his life is followed with details of his death and legacy. The latter contrasts his apparent present standing among Chilean youth with that of Gabriela Mistral.

Pablo Neruda was born in a village in southern Chile in 1904. He sold his possessions to finance his first volume, “Crepusculario” (“Twilight”) in 1923. In 1924, “Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada” (“Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair”) made him famous. During this time he disdained any political connections in his poetry.

By 1927 his poetry was rewarded by Chile in diplomatic posts, first as consul in Burma. Most famously he was posted to Madrid in 1933. During the Spanish Civil War he became friends with Federico García Lorca, who was later murdered by the fascists. He steadily grew closer to the communists. Chile’s government recalled him because of his open partisanship with the Republican side. He had written “España en el corazón” (“Spain in the Heart,” 1937) on the war front. His passage leftwards continued. During the Second World War he wrote “Canto a Stalingrado” (“Song to Stalingrad,” 1943):

“At night the peasant sleeps, awakes and sinks

His hand into the darkness asking the dawn…

Tell me if the purest hands of men still

Defend the castle of honor, tell me dawn,

If the steel on your brow breaks its might,

If man is in his place…

Tell me if gunpowder still sounds in Stalingrad…

And the Spaniard remembers Madrid and says:

Sister, resist, capital of glory, resist.”

Neruda joined the Communist Party of Chile in 1945, but did so only after he was elected to the Senate. To be elected, he had campaigned for the party by reading his poetry. Later he joined the party at a public ceremony in Santiago, where he read from an early version of the “Canto General” – the fragment “A mi Partido” (“To my Party”). He recited publicly:

“You have given me brotherhood towards the man I do not know…

You have taught me to kindle kindness like a fire…

You gave me the straightness which a tree requires..

You taught me to see the unity and yet diversity of man.”

But under the right-wing González Videla government, a military rule of brutality against progressives began. The Communists in parliament were dismissed. A miners’ strike at Lota broke out leading to fierce repression. It was now that the name Augusto Pinochet first entered into Chile’s history, as he began arresting militants and ran a concentration camp. Meanwhile, President Videla made a secret alliance with US President Harry Truman and emissary Admiral William Leahy to declare communism illegal.

Nonetheless Neruda published an open denunciation of Videla. Shortly after, in 1947, he delivered an impassioned speech in the Senate condemning Videla. Now he was in serious danger and a price was on his head. Neruda went into hiding, and completed “Canto General” including the anthem to Stalin. Neruda, hunted as he was, escaped by crossing the mountains into Argentina in 1949. Still in danger of arrest there, he went on to Paris to the World Peace Congress, where he was introduced by Pablo Picasso.

But by 1952 the Chilean government’s order to arrest leftists was rescinded, upon which Neruda returned to Chile. He received the International Peace Prize in 1950, the Lenin Peace Prize and the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. It is remarkable that he was awarded the Nobel after penning his various “Odes to Stalin,” as members of the judging committee voiced major reservations on them.

Under the social-democratic President Salvador Allende, Neruda resumed his diplomatic career as ambassador to France in 1971, but resigned after developing prostate cancer. Now the army led by General Augusto Pinochet was fueled by US imperialism to revolt. The fascist dictatorship coup of Pinochet in 1973, sponsored by the USA, violently displaced the elected democratic President Salvador Allende. Allende had led the Socialist Party and the Popular Unity Front. The latter included the Communist Party of Chile which was foremost in spreading the revisionism of a “peaceful road to socialism.” Naturally this led to illusions that facilitated the path for the Pinochet Junta. These events are well known (MLOB). Fascists killed both Allende and any residual hopes of ‘the parliamentary road to socialism.’ In short order, after first massacring progressive and communist resisters, Pinochet installed a neo-liberal experiment inspired by the Chicagoite Milton Friedman.

How did Neruda die?

On September 23, 1973, just twelve days after the defeat of Allende, Neruda died in Santiago, Chile. Of course Neruda’s death was rather convenient for Pinochet, since Neruda was so beloved by the Chilean people. Victor Jarra – also a popular singer and poet – was simply tortured and executed. But Neruda’s death had to be more quietly staged. The Mexican ambassador visited Neruda in hospital one day before his death assuring him a plane to take him to a hospital in Mexico. Tragically, Neruda wanted to wait. He died the next day. The plausible pretense was that he died of his cancer.

Rumblings of sinister causes were long voiced, but they became loud after the eventual side-lining of Pinochet. In 2013, Neruda’s chauffeur, Manuel Araya, “told the Mexican magazine Proceso that the poet had called him in desperation from the hospital to say that he had been injected in the stomach while he was asleep.”

Chilean judge Mario Carroza ordered Neruda’s body to be exhumed for forensic testing. After testing, a panel of sixteen international experts concluded that the death certificate declaring Neruda’s death was from cancer cachexia (wasting) was false. But, “That cannot be correct,” said Dr. Niels Morling of the University of Copenhagen’s department of forensic medicine. “There was no indication of cachexia. He was an obese man at the time of death.” Mysteriously, various bacteria were also found in Neruda’s body. In 2015 the Chilean government said that it was “highly probable that a third party” was responsible for his death. Researchers were commissioned to investigate further.

In March 2023 Canadian researchers of ancient DNA genomes, Debi Poinar and Hendrik Poinar, gave their analysis to a Chilean tribunal. After five years of detailed genetic analysis of bone and tooth samples, they found the bacterium Clostridium botulinum (C. botulinum) in Neruda’s body. This produces botulinum, a deadly toxin used in warfare. Moreover it is known to have been used to kill political prisoners in Chile in 1981. However only fragmentary pieces of DNA were available to identify with certainty the bacteria in Neruda’s body at death. Nonetheless they had been producing toxin. Importantly the scientists also determined that it was not an environmental contaminant from the soil following his burial.

The muted popularity of Pablo Neruda in Chile today

Poetry, as many art forms, becomes wrapped in very personal tastes. How do we interpret that currently a strong move in Chile appears to favor the resurgence of the Nobel Prize winner Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957)? The popularity of Neruda today in Chile has been apparently eclipsed by that of Mistral.

Yet the two poets were life-long friends. Initially Mistral was his “school director” in Temuco, and encouraged his poetry. Then they were both consuls for Chile in Madrid and Barcelona. While Mistral also sang of the common people, she is far less well known for this than was Neruda. In 1945 Mistral became the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Mistral was long known as a pioneer for women’s education and rights. While during her lifetime she was ignored by Chilean intelligentsia, she accepted the Mexican Government’s offer to lead educational reforms in Mexico.

However she had an equivocal relationship to Chile. Part of this seems to have been a reaction to attempts to label her as a lesbian. “About Chile, the less said the better,” she wrote. “I’ve even been hung up on this silly lesbianism, which hurts me in a way I can’t even put into words. Is it possible to see a bigger fake?” It is uncertain what her real feelings of sexuality were, and they are in any case quite irrelevant to the strength of her poetry.

It is interesting that when the fascist Pinochet government came to power, they used her as an icon: “Since her death, Mistral’s image has been reinvented and manipulated, particularly during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. In the 1970s and 1980s, she was manipulated as the symbol of social order and submission to authority.”

Also in today’s Chile, she seems to be favored in the movement of the new President Gabriel Boric. That the Pinochet dictatorship promoted Mistral has not affected her current popularity amongst today’s youth.

Perhaps some explanation stems from some unsavory aspects of Neruda’s life. At times a personal selfishness and womanizing was apparent. As Lankes remarks:

“Feminists point to a passage in his memoirs, published in 1974, in which he described raping a maid when he was a diplomat in what is now Sri Lanka… The passage has recently caused outrage, and in 2018 Congress dropped a proposal to rename Santiago’s airport after Neruda.” Neruda’s rape of a Tamil cleaning woman is completely indefensible. His own note that “she was right to despise me” is no adequate response.

However Neruda’s poetry stands for itself. Such endorsement does not equate to condoning the reprehensible personal behavior he himself describes in his memoir. For another rather more positive example of his attitude to women, see “To the Women of the World,” illustrated by Maureen Scott of the League of Socialist Artists.

No doubt Mistral’s humanity is coupled to less overt communist partisanship – in contrast to those of Neruda. This surely influences how capitalist governments promote her. This applies whether we are discussing Pinochet or Boric, even though these two radically differ.

To conclude

Neruda’s poetry needs no apology, and his espousal of the workers’ cause and its political allegiances to the USSR are to his credit. The people of Chile had a great daughter-poet in Mistral. But they also had a great son-poet in Neruda.

See also:

Adam Feinstein; “Pablo Neruda – A Passion for Life”; New York; 2004.
Ilan Stavans; “Introduction” to “The Poetry of Pablo Neruda”; New York; 2003.
“Pablo Neruda” at poets.org

First published by American Party Labor

Macron humiliated, but no victory for workers yet

Macron is now so weak that the police are confiscating saucepans, but the lack of a general strike means that his pensions law has not yet been defeated

John Mullen
22/04/2023

After a 12th day of action on 13th April, the national trade union leaders have called for the first of May – traditionally a day of demonstration for workers’ rights to be the time for “a tidal wave of protest”. In the meantime, every day, in different towns, there are demonstrations, and blockades of motorways or shopping centres, railways, universities or high schools. On 20th April, protesters invaded the headquarters of Euronext, who own the Paris Stock Exchange. “We chose the Stock Exchange,” explained one protestor, “because we want the richest companies to pay for our pensions with their endless millions”.

Macron has now signed his pensions bill into law, On the evening on Monday 17th, he gave a live speech “to the nation”. At the time of his speech, demonstrators gathered in front of town halls around the country to bang on saucepans and drown out his nonsense. All he had to offer was a vaporous collection of shallow slogans. He declared he needed “a hundred days” to “calm the situation down”. He promised “a new pact on life in the workplace”. No one believed him. Not only are 90% of employed people opposed to his idea of making us spend two years longer in the damned workplace, but those who have been following know that it was Macron who drastically reduced the power of Health and Safety Committees in workplaces and who continually attacks the rights of statutory staff representatives. Just before his speech we learned that only a quarter of those people who regularly vote for Macron thought his speech would help!

Determined to show he is in charge and can “turn the page”, Macron has organized a series of symbolic visits on other issues around the country, and has demanded that his ministers also get out and about and talk to people. On Thursday 20th, he chose a school in a small town of only 4 000 inhabitants, where he planned to make some announcements about teachers’ pay. Energy workers cut the electricity off at Montpellier airport as he arrived. Hundreds of demonstrators were waiting for him, and electricity workers cut off the power at the school he was going to, obliging him to speak in the playground and without a microphone. A massive police presence stopped demonstrators from approaching Macron, and people were searched, with saucepans being confiscated if found! Macron announced a pay rise for all teachers, but with plenty of strings attached, one example of a series of minor concessions this week.

On Friday there were five ministers in towns around the country, all met with saucepan banging crowds and protected by tear gas. Several Macronist ministers have found it easier to simply cancel their public appearances.

Although the movement has slowed, it is still very active and extremely popular (polls show that 64% of the entire population want the protests to continue, and 45% want more radical actions). The refusal of national union leadership to campaign for going beyond the weekly day of action made a quick victory against the pensions attack impossible, but Macron is not out of the woods yet.

Some of the Macron camp have cynically decided that now is the time to use racism to divide us. An immigration law aiming at making it easier to deport people, shelved a few weeks ago, is likely to be presented to parliament after all. And Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Finance, declared this week that the real worry of French people was benefit fraud, with the money from it “being sent to North Africa” he alleged. In fact, immigrants cost far less to social budgets than other members of the population, since they often arrive as adults (so their education is not paid for by France), and not infrequently leave France on retirement (so health costs in old age are not borne by France). In any case, all experts agree that tax fraud by richer citizens costs around a hundred billion euros, at least ten times more than benefit fraud. Le Maire’s comments show he is happy to encourage the far right in order to save his government’s skin.

Macron’s “hundred days to calm things down” have been declared by electricity unions “a hundred days of anger”. Major prestige events such as the Cannes film festival in May and Roland Garros tennis championship in June may well find that electricity is hard to come by. The first of May should be inspiringly huge. Nevertheless, more mass strike action will be necessary to win.