Chroniclers of systematic destruction

A few hours before setting fire to the synagogue in Baden-Baden, sixty Jewish men, including guests at the spa, were rounded-up and marched through the town in columns. While they marched, SS men yelled to the German spectators, “Here are the Jews. Do to them what you will!” No hand was raised against them. When the Jews reached the synagogue they were funneled up the staircase through a column of SS men and curious onlookers. Once inside they were seated in the sanctuary and forced to listen while a fellow Jew, gymnasium professor Dr. Flehinger, read selections from Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ at the lecturn from which the Torah scroll is generally read. Afterwards, the Jews had to rehearse the Horst Wessel song until they could recite the text perfectly. Forty of these Jews were later deported to Dachau. This photo is dated 18 November 1938. Photo credit, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Between 1955 and 1958, Leon Poliakov and Joseph Wulf published, in German, three volumes of documents on National Socialist perpetrators. Léon Poliakov (1910–1997) founded a centre for research on the Holocaust in France, the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC, Centre for Contemporary Jewish Documentation), a historical commission to document the crimes against French Jews. Today, it is part of the Mémorial de la Shoah, the central Holocaust memorial site in France.

He also published extensively on the subject of Nazi perpetrators. Poliakov acted as an expert-advisor to the French delegation during the Nuremberg trials. In his function as the director for research at the CDJC, he explored the systematic destruction of Jews. His publication ‘Le Bréviaire de la haine. Le IIIe Reich et les Juifs‘ (Breviary of Hate. The Third Reich and the Jews) in 1952 offered one of the first comprehensive studies of the Holocaust.

Joseph Wulf (1912–1974) published the first documentary works on the Holocaust in German. He confronted German society with the crimes. From 1955 until his suicide in 1974, Joseph Wulf lived in Berlin. He researched the history of the Holocaust and the culture of the destroyed Polish Jewry. In his publications, Wulf focused on German sources to better educate German society about the crimes committed in their name. He named the perpetrators in various sectors of society, which was met with great resistance in German post-war society.

‘Das Dritte Reich und die Juden‘ (The Third Reich and the Jews) was the first joint publication of Poliakov and Wulf about Nazism, in 1955. One year later, they published ‘Das Dritte Reich und seine Diener‘ (The Third Reich and Its Servants), and in 1959, ‘Das Dritte Reich und seine Denker‘ (The Third Reich and Its Thinkers).

George L. Mosse (1918–1999) has been described as one of the 20th century’s most provocatively original historians. Best known for his work on the origins of fascism, he dealt with modern European social, cultural, and political history. Mosse’s work helped impel research into new fields including new cultural history, the comparative study of fascism, the history of racism and antisemitism, the study of bourgeois respectability, the aesthetics of nationalism, modern Jewish history, and the history of gender and sexuality. Themes that Mosse did much to advance now occupy a prominent place in the historical scholarship of modern Europe.

In his article on the three books by Poliakov and Wulf, in the journal ‘Commentary’, published in August 1960, Mosse wrote: “These weighty volumes of documents show us how little we have, as yet, penetrated to the core of National Socialism. Historians have concentrated on the political and sociological side of the movement to the virtual exclusion of its ideology. Yet one cannot read through these volumes without being impressed by the all-pervasiveness of the ideological appeal, and without seeing that the Jewish question was; unmistakably, central to this ideology.”

“Indeed, the authors apologize for the fact that even in those volumes not specifically concerned with the Jews, so many documents seem to deal with their fate. But there is no need for such an apology, the less so since the majority of the documents deal with the war years. What had always been central to National Socialist thought then became an obsession, not only in the mind of Hitler but within the whole apparatus of party and state. Racialism, discussed in these volumes with an almost monotonous sameness, is the clue without which National Socialism remains forever inexplicable.”

These paragraphs which follow are taken from the introductory chapter of ‘Das Dritte Reich und die Juden‘ (The Third Reich and the Jews) . The German original text is followed by the translation.

Das in der vorliegenden Dokumentensammlung behandelte Thema weist einige besonders hervorstechende Charaktermale auf. Im wesentlichen umfassen sie den Komplex, der unter der Bezeichnung „Endlösung der Judenfrage“ bekanntgeworden ist. Die annähernde Zahl der Vergasten und auf andere Weise Ermordeten ist bekannt. Auch über die zu diesem Zweck vom hitleristischen Verwaltungsapparat aufgezogene Maschinerie ist man ziemlich genau unterrichtet.

“The subject dealt with in the present collection of documents has some particularly salient features. Essentially, they comprise the complex that has become known as the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”. The approximate number of those gassed and murdered in other ways is known. The machinery set up for this purpose by the Hitlerite administrative apparatus is also fairly well known.”

Aber wie kam es zu dieser ausschlaggebenden Entscheidung? Ist es richtig, wenn einige Erzählungen oder Hinweise die Vermutung erlauben, daß Goebbels und Heydrich die Triebfedern dieses Unternehmens waren, während Heinrich Himmler den kategorischen Befehl des Führers erst nach heftigem Widerstreben ausführte? Welche Beamten und Verwaltungsangestellten wurden davon in Kenntnis gesetzt? Auch heute noch — 10 Jahre nach den Ereignissen — besitzt der Geschichtsschreiber hierüber keine einzige verläßliche Unterlage, ganz in dem Sinne wie Himmler selbst einmal sagte: „Es ist ein Ruhmesblatt unserer Geschichte, aber es wird niemals beschrieben sein.“

“But how did this decisive decision come about? Is it correct if some narratives or indications allow the assumption that Goebbels and Heydrich were the driving forces of this enterprise, while Heinrich Himmler carried out the categorical order of the Führer only after fierce resistance? Which officials and administrators were informed of this? Even today – 10 years after the events – the historian does not possess a single reliable document about this, quite in the sense as Himmler himself once said: “It is a glorious page in our history, but it will never be described.” “

Vellum scroll with an eyewitness account and remembrance of those lost in a 1918 massacre in Novhorod-Siversʹkyi, Russia, (now Ukraine.) Written soon after the pogrom, it curses the perpetrators, recounts the events, and records a prayer for the dead and the names of the men, women, and children who were murdered. It is the only known eyewitness account of this event. On April 6, 1918, as Red Army troops retreated from the German Army, they attacked the Jews of Novhorod-Siversʹkyi, and 88 were killed. Hostility toward Jews was widespread in the Russian Empire, and the military was notoriously antisemitic. Anti-Jewish pogroms, outbreaks of mass violence, erupted frequently in the early 20th century, causing immense suffering. These scrolls were a traditional way to express community remembrance and to honor victims of pogroms. The practice of recording the names of the dead was done following the Holocaust in memorial books known as Yizkor books, created through the collective efforts of survivors to remember and preserve what was lost. Dated after 1918 April-before 1918 December. Photo credit, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection.

Ohne den entsprechenden Abstand ist in diesem Falle eine Geschichtsschreibung besonders schwierig und heikel. Doch kommt noch ein weiteres erschwerendes Moment hinzu. Eine jüdische Feder — und wenn sie noch so gewissenhaft sein will — muß, in die undankbare Rolle des Anklägers gezwungen, Gefahr laufen, den rechten Ton zu verfehlen oder an den beiden gleicherweise gefährlichen Klippen scheitern, daß sich der Historiker erstens jeglichen —• wenn auch verständlichen — Ressentiments zu enthalten hat und zweitens übermenschliche „wissenschaftliche“ Objektivität besitzen muß, die jedem angesichts von 6 Millionen Leichen — einem Drittel des gesamten jüdischen Volkes — schwerfallen dürfte.

“Without the appropriate distance, a historiography in this case is particularly difficult and delicate. But there is another complicating factor. A Jewish pen – however conscientious it may wish to be – forced into the thankless role of accuser, must run the risk of missing the right note or failing on the two equally dangerous cliffs that the historian must, first, refrain from any — albeit understandable — resentment and, secondly must possess superhuman “scientific” objectivity, which should be difficult for anyone in the face of 6 million corpses – one third of the entire Jewish people.”

Aus diesem Grunde wurde die einzig vollkommen neutrale und vorurteilslose Form einer Sammlung von Dokumenten und unbeeinflußbaren Zeugenaussagen — sie stammen größtenteils aus den Archiven des Dritten Reiches selbst — gewählt.

“For this reason the only completely neutral and unprejudiced form of a collection of documents and uninfluential testimonies – most of them coming from the archives of the Third Reich itself – was chosen.”

Dadurch erübrigt es sich, den schmerzlichen, als „kollektive Schuldfrage” bereits in die Geschichte eingegangenen Fragenkomplex zu erörtern. Ohne nochmals auf dieses Thema zurückzukommen, möchten wir uns hier mit folgender Bemerkung begnügen: ln allen zivilisierten Ländern sind zwischen 1945 und 1955 zahlreiche Werke erschienen; Juden und Nichtjuden haben sich mit dem in der Geschichte unserer Zivilisation neuen Komplex des industrialisierten Mordens an Männern, Frauen und Kindern befaßt, denen nichts anderes zum Vorwurf gemacht wurde, als daß sie in diesem und nicht in jenem Bett geboren waren…

Yellow cloth badge in the shape of a six-pointed Star of David with black stiching around the edge. The star outline is formed from two overlapping, dyed triangles and has Dutch text in the center. Dated 1940-45. Photo credit, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection.

“This makes it unnecessary to discuss the painful complex of questions that has already gone down in history as the “collective guilt question”. Without returning to this subject, we would like to content ourselves here with the following remark: ln all civilized countries between 1945 and 1955 numerous works have appeared; Jews and non-Jews have dealt with the complex, new in the history of our civilization, of the industrialized murder of men, women and children, who were not blamed for anything other than that they were born in this bed and not in that one…”

Ausgerechnet im pedantischen Deutschland ist dieses Thema — außer in einigen Schriften ganz allgemeiner Art — bisher keiner einzigen ernsthaften Untersuchung gewürdigt worden. Weshalb ein solches Mißverhältnis? Ist denn nicht das Wissen davon, was geschah und wie es geschah, einem Stillschweigen vorzuziehen, welches verschiedene, unter Umständen sich sogar widersprechende Beweggründe haben könnte?

“In pedantic Germany, of all places, this subject has not been the subject of a single serious study, except in a few writings of a very general nature. Why such a disproportion? Is not the knowledge of what happened and how it happened preferable to silence, which could have various, possibly even contradictory motives?”

Dem Außenstehenden will erscheinen, als sei gerade das Gewissen der untadeligsten und kultiviertesten Deutschen am meisten durch jene Verbrechen belastet, an denen sie selbst keinerlei Anteil hatten; Verbrechen jedoch, die in ihrem Namen, im Namen des gesamten deutschen Volkes, begangen wurden… Wenn nun auch die strikte Verneinung (in unseren Tagen leider nur allzu häufig!) keinesfalls eine Lösung darstellt, so ist zurückhaltendes Schweigen bestimmt erst recht keine.

“To the outsider it would seem that the conscience of the most blameless and cultivated Germans is most burdened by those crimes in which they themselves had no part; crimes, however, which were committed in their name, in the name of the entire German people…. If strict denial (unfortunately all too common in our days!) is by no means a solution, restrained silence certainly is not.”

Wenn die vorliegende Studie zur Zerstreuung nicht gerechtfertigten Unbehagens, zur besseren Erkenntnis der Zusammenhänge und zu ihrem Bewußtwerden beitragen und eine sorgfältige Nachforschung anregen würde, ist die Arbeit der Herausgeber dieses Buches nicht umsonst gewesen.

“If the present study would contribute to the dispersion of unjustified uneasiness, to the better realization of the connections and to their becoming conscious and would stimulate a careful investigation, the work of the editors of this book would not have been in vain.”

The world’s rogue state vs Iran

Update: On 2 November 2018, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, along with the foreign relations and finance ministers of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, issued a joint statement confirming their commitment to establish a ‘Special Purpose Vehicle’, such as a new system governing trade with Iran. Without such a channel, the renewed embargo against Iran by the rogue kleptocracy in power in the USA affects businesses in Europe.

This plan sees European investors and businesses being able to continue all legitimate business with Iran free from the threat of reprisal by the USA for violating its unilateral, completely illegal under international law, embargo. In the statement, European leaders also vowed to continue working with Russia and China.

On Monday 5 November, the American regime in Washington commenced its illegal embargo against Iran and with its usual cowboy bluster warned of ‘severe penalities’ against companies that continued to do business which their embargo wants to block.

More irritating, from the international point of view, is the vacuous threat by the Washington cowboys (US President Donald Trump and his top-tier psychopaths, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin) that any company or individual violating the USA’s unilateral and illegal embargo may lose access to SWIFT global banking system which banks use to conduct international transactions. Even more absurd, the White House cowboys threatened SWIFT itself.

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Update: The Treasury Secretary of the government of USA (equivalent to a finance minister) has said that his government is “in negotiations with Belgian-based financial messaging service SWIFT, that facilitates the bulk of the world’s cross-border money transactions, on disconnecting Iran from the network“.

[SWIFT is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is the financial network that provides high-value cross-border transfers for members across the world. It is based in Belgium, but its board includes executives from US banks. USA has a peculiar – unacceptable in multilateral and bilateral agreements, and illegal anywhere outside territorial USA – set of ‘laws’ that give the government of the USA permission to act against banks and regulators worldwide if they are seen to obstruct US foreign, defence or economic policy. SWIFT supports most interbank messages, connecting over 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories.]

The news agency report adds: “Washington has been pressuring SWIFT to cut Iran from the system as it did in 2012 before the nuclear deal. Although the United States does not hold a majority on SWIFT’s board of directors, the Trump administration could impose penalties on SWIFT unless it disconnects from Iran.”

In August, Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the European Union is working to protect economic ties with Iran and keep payment channels open. Maas said Europe has started work on creating a system for money transfers that will be autonomous from the currently prevailing Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).

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IT IS A MEASURE OF THE PHANTASMAGORIA that rules international relations today, that a pretend-country – one which observes only the law of the gun within its borders and uses its remaining power to impose the same kind of primitive law without – with a pretend-government, has given itself the right to label another country a ‘rogue state’.

This pretend-country is the USA, and in its macabre language, a ‘rogue state’ is any country that neither bows to the USA nor submits to its diktats and intimidations, nor permits entry to the USA’s corporations and banks, nor uses the American dollar as its medium of international exchange. There are still in 2018 a number of countries or nation-states which are neither parliamentary as the Anglo-Americans prefer, nor democracies as the Western Europeans imagine themselves to be. This does not make them “rogue states”, for that label should properly be affixed to just the one pretend-country ruled by a pretend-government: the USA.

In the pretend-government of America’s child logic, it can countenance countries pursuing their interests only provided those interests either coincide with the interests of the American pretend-government or are permitted by it. Any transgression is considered by the pretend-government of USA as being outlaw behavior. To most other countries and territories and states (there are 193 in the United Nations) outlaw behaviour means the use by the country’s government and agencies of methods contrary to accepted standards of international behavior and contrary to international law, cheating or reneging, the use of violent methods when peaceful ones are available.

Using this measure – found in the views of a majority among 193 versus the barking insistence of one – the USA is the pre-eminent rogue state (assisted by an adjutant rogue state, the rather recently invented Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). The citizens of this pre-eminent rogue state have been brainwashed to consider it normal that their country’s military installations exist in staggering numbers in other countries, on other peoples’ land – there are now around 800 US bases in foreign countries. Seventy years after World War II and 62 years after the Korean War, there are still 174 US ‘base sites’ in Germany, 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea, according to the Pentagon while hundreds more dot the planet in around 80 countries, including Aruba and Australia, Bahrain and Bulgaria, Colombia, Kenya, and Qatar.

The Islamic Republic of Iran does not have a military base in the USA, nor in any country near the USA. On the other hand, the pretend-government of the USA maintains 12 military bases in Iraq, 8 in Kuwait, 6 in Afghanistan, 2 in Bahrain and 2 in Turkey, that is, all around Iran. This is how the pre-eminent rogue state threatens and seeks to intimidate other countries.

This is the background against which a remarkable joint editorial published on 15 October by the editors of four of Iran’s leading newspapers must be considered. The four newspapers – Iran, Hamshahri, Etelaat, and Sazandegi – decried the reimposition by the USA of what are called ‘sanctions’ (a misuse of the word that has become commonplace, the correct words should be embargo or blockade) as a violation of the ‘unalienable rights’ of the Iranian people to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’, quoting in fact from the American Declaration of Independence which has long been consigned to ashes in the USA itself.

The joint editorial explained that the “access to medicine, drugs and medical equipments” offers “obvious proof” that it is “children, women and men” who are “actually targeted by blind sanctions.” The recession caused by sanctions will see “many job opportunities lost” in industry and agriculture, effects that will “subsequently provoke escalation of poverty among the households, and these households are just those who constitute Iranian people.”

The joint editorial has as its immediate reference point the abandoning by the USA in early May 2018 of the six-party Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which was signed in 2015, granting Iran sanctions relief in exchange for the curbing of its nuclear activities:

“Whereas leaving JCPOA is a non-diplomatic immoral behavior, imposing tyrannical sanctions against a great nation will certainly be an antagonistic, discreditable measure. The US government claims that its sanctions are targeted on Iranian governance, not on Iranian people, while Iranian government believes that the sanction would come to no harm. However, we as the freethinker freestanding journalists with an attitude independent of any government believe that contrary to what governments claim, the US tyrannical sanctions have brought about destructive repercussions for the lives of millions of Iranian citizens who legitimately enjoy the right of life under optimal conditions.

“The US government obviously tells a lie when claiming that the sanctions are not imposed on the Iranian people. Indeed, the pressure and economic blockade of Iran have left harmful and in some cases, terrible impact on the life of Iranian people, not least the poor, entirely inconsistent with any reading of human rights. Difficulty in having access to medicine, drugs and medical equipments is an obvious proof for this statement that it is the people, children, women and men, who are actually targeted by blind sanctions, and so is when the price of goods are skyrocketed far beyond the purchasing power of ordinary people, and when the cost for health, education and even nutrition for the people are disproportionately increased, when many job opportunities are lost as the immediate effects of the sanctions on the industry and agriculture, all these subsequently provoke escalation of poverty among the households, and these households are just those who constitute Iranian people.”

Yesterday (16 Oct) the pretend-government of the USA blacklisted some 20 Iranian companies, including banks, steel mills, zinc mines, and manufacturers of cars, buses and tractors – on the spurious grounds that they support recruitment of child soldiers for Iran! As has been the practice of the pretend-government of the USA, it employs brazen lies to justify its intention to see destroyed those countries that do not pay it tribute. It lied about the so-called weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it has lied repeatedly about the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, it has supplied Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in their genocidal war against Yemen, it has lied to its own citizens about the origin of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the USA.

Resisting the usual attempts at arm-twisting by the pretend-government of the USA, earlier this month, the International Court of Justice ordered the USA to lift the sanctions on humanitarian goods and civil aviation, saying that they endanger civilian lives. The US “must remove any impediments” to the free exportation of food and medicines to Iran and to the safety of civil aviation, the ICJ said, to no avail however. As pointed out by Iranian experts on international law, the American withdrawal from the JCPOA and the measures it has taken to defy its implementation, the re-imposition of embargos and blockades on Iran and its commercial partners in the world, are a material breach of its international obligations and responsibilities.

It is the pre-eminent rogue state of the world (and its adjutant rogue state) which is the towering threat to peaceful and mutually beneficial co-existence, shared security, amity and understanding, sustainable development and the removal of impediments to the betterment of humans and the environment. Iran must have all our support.

How the GM gangs of India sidestep ethics and safety

Rice fields and coconut palm orchards, happily agro-ecological, in Goa. Photo: Rahul Goswami, 2017

The intemperate attack on Viva Kermani’s article ‘Let’s be honest about GM crops’ by Shanthu Shantharam in a rejoinder, ‘Genetically-Modified Crops Are The Future, Here’s Why’, has entirely exposed the many limitations of the bio-technology industry and the science it represents. There is the matter of Shantharam’s personally taunting language towards the writer, Kermani, while he has done nothing to take issue with the substantial points she has raised. [This comment has been published by Swarajya magazine, and is there titled ‘GM crops debate: naming the missing links, ethics and safety’.]

But there are the far more weighty matters of the roles and responsibilities of science, of agriculture and the cultivation of food, and of the experiences of society and scientists alike with a type of scientific domain (that is, biotechnology) and the effects of its use. These have either been entirely ignored by Shantharam, as he has done for the roles and responsibilities of science; have been given an importance – in the case of agriculture and the cultivation of food – that is simply not to be found outside North America; been presented as successful only (the effects of the use of bio-technology, as seen by scientists and societies) whereas the 40 years of the existence of this technology are accompanied by 40 years of charlatanry which has ducked behind the worn shield of ‘science’.

Although Kermani is right to take strong objection to the tone (bordering on vilification) of Shantharam’s rejoinder, and has countered his assertions, I find that the position he has publicly taken, through the pages of Swarajya and as a member of a scientific community that is engaged in one domain, stirs pity rather than blanket censure. Scientists are no different from any other member of the society to which they belong, however much academic laurels, handsome stipends and access to the corridors of political power may make it all seem otherwise.

The particular ‘temper’ that scientists are to possess (some do, others don’t) is found much more commonly amongst the real functionaries of a thriving society: municipal workers, factory jobbers, nurses and orderlies, postal clerks and so on. Scientists have, in the western scheme of privilege and reward, been elevated to the uncommon, and thus are prone to suffer in those artificially rarefied realms, asphyxiation. What we have seen is one such example. There are unfortunately far too many, and the system of industrialised ‘science’ means that those far too many are entirely in thrall to their sponsors.

The natural patterns that denote uncontaminated lands – an abundance of grasses and a butterfly. Photo: Rahul Goswami 2015

I would like to call Shantharam’s attention to Statute 5 of the International Council for Science (the ICSU). This body is an organisation with global membership of national scientific bodies (there are 122 members representing 142 countries) and international scientific unions (31 members). It is more than likely that the names he has referred to very early into his rejoinder – he has named several national science academies – are members of the ICSU.

The ICSU’s Statute 5 has to do with the Principle of Universality (freedom and responsibility) of science and this states: “The free and responsible practice of science is fundamental to scientific advancement and human and environmental well-being.” The Statute also states that “It requires responsibility at all levels to carry out and communicate scientific work with integrity, respect, fairness, trustworthiness, and transparency, recognising its benefits and possible harms.”

Thus under one of the most important statutes of a leading, if not the most widely subscribed-to, science council, Shantharam’s arrogant claims and taunting manner have no place. Whether from an individual scientist, an institute for scientific advancement in a certain domain, a regulatory body, or a private company whose products are claimed to be science-based, claims and communication of this kind fall afoul, and markedly so, of Statute 5.

The difference between members of the bio-technology industry (and their partners whether in academia or para-statal organisations) and scientists who practice and conduct themselves under the guiding principles of organisations such as the ICSU (and also the International Social Science Council, of like pedigree) is quite simply that society and environment are their universe, and this is a recognition of the most elementary relation that any kind of inquiry – whether it is called ‘science’ or shastra, indigenous knowledge or customary practice – has with such a universe.

Because this elementary relation is rejected (it being inconvenient for industries like bio-technology, but the energy industry – with its nuclear dimension, an ever-threatening one – the trading networks with their inventories of tens of millions of tons of useless goods for which markets are created, are some others) the inquiry into risk and likely return, safety and the consequences of unsafe practices also stand rejected. The replacement behaviour from the overactive advocacies that promote bio-technology, GM seed, crop and food, and industrial agriculture is to repeat, over and over again from as many ‘scientific’ talking heads as can be mustered, that GM is safe and the only alternative.

On the other hand there is not a small roll call of scientists (or those who once were, in the sense that post-modern civilisation believes are scientists) who have gone beyond the peer- and institution-imposed boundaries of their scientific domains to study intently such questions. Their answers have illuminated the enquiries of hundreds of thousands, who are bothered less by the presence of genes and whether they can (or should) be tinkered with and more by the interconnectedness of living systems. David Suzuki is one such scientist and I am not at all surprised that Shantharam dislikes him.

‘Safety’ does mean for all living things – insects, soil organisms, birds, animals and us humans – which the GM merchants ignore because biotech is inherently and fundamentally unsafe and destructive. Photo: Rahul Goswami 2016

How many more within science and of science can the Shantharams of the bio-tech industry dislike and vilify and with what dwindling array of puny arguments? About four months ago, a new project dealing with the risks of genetically engineered plants was set up in Europe. For its participants, the reasons that impel their new activity are a few but greatly compelling: current regulatory practice for risk assessment in Europe is not sufficient to deal with the real dimensions of potential hazards associated with genetically engineered plants, the existing standards are strongly influenced by the biotech companies and are therefore unacceptable, a manner of risk assessment and the new regulation that should flow from such assessment gives much higher priority to the protection of the environment and consumers. This work is being undertaken by scientists – the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER), the Critical Scientists Switzerland (CSS), GeneWatch UK and Testbiotech.

These are the science groups that European consumers now turn to for guidance and they are a tangible demonstration of the uses of the ‘temper’ that science has long prided itself as possessing. It is also and sadly, a reflection of the state of affairs in India that we have lacked even the most rudimentary dialogue between consumers, regulators and food producers (not industry) on what is meant by safe food, what are the risks of even the current high-input agriculture (and its reckless propagation of deadly agro-chemicals, synthetic fertiliser and pesticide). That this lack is being exploited by the bio-technology and GM corporations who speak through their brigade of talking ‘scientific’ heads to public through rejoinders such as the one Shantharam has written is reprehensible and morally repugnant. (See ‘Enemy of Reason: Behind the Mask of Pro-GMO Neoliberal Ideology’ by Colin Todhunter for another view on the methods of the biotech/GM support corps.)

Crucially, Kermani referred to four high-level reports in her article: the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture’s report on GM crops (which spent several months on hearings and taking written and oral evidence) in 2012; the Jairam Ramesh report of February 2010 on Bt Brinjal; the Sopory Committee Report on regulatory oversight concerning cotton; and the Supreme Court of India’s Technical Expert Committee concerning GM field trials whose final report was released in July 2013.

The findings, conclusions and recommendations of all these, which are referred to by Kermani, have not been touched at all by Shantharam’s rejoinder. Instead he has opted to sling mud in every direction. Thus Jairam Ramesh “colluded with activists”, the Sopory report was not about “regulatory approval of GM crops” – in fact it was entirely about falsification and shocking regulatory oversight – and is “irrelevant”, and the Supreme Court Technical Expert Committee report “is in limbo” – false again, for in February 2016 the Supreme Court asked the Union Government to reply to a contempt petition filed against the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) – the sort of regulatory body that the bio-technology industry subverts and perverts – for allowing field trials of GM crops in violation of the court’s earlier orders.

But in his apoplexy, he has denigrated the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture as having been headed by “a communist”, that its members (there were 21 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from the Rajya Sabha) were not “scientifically enlightened” and that the report they worked on was “drafted by a virulent anti-GM NGO”. Such a reaction is preposterous. Shantharam’s addiction to adducing founts of authority stop short at a well-established Parliamentary mechanism that is designed to do precisely what the bio-technology and GM industries do not want: public inquiry and the spread of truth.

Europe has all but thrown GM seed and crop out – the only such crop grown in the EU is GM maize in Spain. That too will not last, for European consumers are now educated about the dangers of the make-believe ‘science’ called GM. Kermani’s article ‘Let’s be honest about GM crops’ is one of the many recent contributions to educating the Indian consumer about these dangers, but the bio-technology industry cannot abide such education. How can it? For it has not been touched by honesty and integrity since its misbegotten birth some forty years ago.

Greece against a cast of contemptible characters

These images (taken from various news agencies) show how ordinary Greeks, but particularly elderly pensioners, have been tormented by EU politicians. This has been portrayed as a Greek debt crisis, but it is much more a crisis about what Europe is and stands for.

Update 11 July: The Greek parliament supported a so-called package of spending cuts, pension savings and tax increases with a majority of 251 votes in the 300-seat parliament. This is what the 61.3% ‘NO’ vote rejected six days ago! Naturally, this has set the stage for massive internal turmoil in Greece. Heavyweights of Syriza, parliament speaker Zoi Konstantopoulou and energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, and 15 other members either voted against the plan, abstained or were absent from the vote. Another 15 Syriza members of parliament said they also opposed the proposed measures and could reject them in future votes even though they supported prime minister Alexis Tsipras and his template of borrowed proposals. With breath-taking cynicism, the Syriza leader has presented this direct repudiation of the will of the Greek people as a “triumph of democracy”. Who is this man Tsipras working for?

The newest alumnus of the Transatlantic School of Austerity and Misery, with a special interest in ‘haircuts’

Beyond the beggaring calculations made by the economists and financiers of the Troika and the ahistorical stubbornness of the Berlin-Paris ruling cliques who will still not deviate from their ‘austerity’ prescription, is the legitimacy of Greece’s claim to autonomy. “Autonomy, the willingness and capacity to question and change our collective laws, is a universal principle and one that should be at the heart of the European project,” writes Giorgos Kallis. “Greece’s disobedience to the rule of the markets is a universalistic call for reclaiming democracy for all Europe, not a particularist protection of its own backyard. This is not a demand for the rest of Europe to obey to Greece’s will, but a plea to listen, reflect and genuinely co-decide.” Ah but Berlin cannot abide any other will than its own.

It is finanzpolitik, or perhaps the political economy of occupation by austerity. Whatever it is called in Eurolingua it has proved politically effective for European elites in general to present the Greek problem as their own debt problem. Doing so has provided a powerful ideological and moral justification for the brutal austerity policies prescribed to the countries of the European ‘periphery’ (and especially Greece) in recent years. And so, as Thomas Fazi has narrated, Euro-leaders’ “deeply moral interpretation of the euro crisis – which pitted the profligate, debt-ridden wrongdoers of the periphery against the virtuous, responsible countries of the core – rapidly became conventional wisdom among European politicians, commentators and bureaucrats”.

On Sunday 5 July 2015 Europe was shown to be imprisoned by its institutions. But the people of Greece chose with dignity and in solidarity to expose the prison, and walk away.

The landslide ‘no’ (or OXI) vote in the 5 July referendum on austerity in Greece is an overwhelming repudiation of the European Union and the austerity agenda pursued all over Europe since the 2008 economic crisis. The weapon of austerity is the euro, and it works by wiping out genuine economic and social progress through productive systems composed largely of small and medium enterprises, because this weapon pries open these local ‘markets’ (a despised term) to raids by financial monopolies.

Such raids have the sanction of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank – together known as the troika which has waged war on the Greeks. The troika has waged such war as punishment (in the words of European politicians such as Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande, Martin Schulz, Wolfgang Schäuble and David Cameron) to the Greeks for their own failed design of the Euro in a system that is economically unsustainable and socially perverse.

“Shame on all those who have accepted the idea that the troika represents the European peoples,” wrote Samir Amin. “Shame on the governments that have installed in the presidency of ‘their Europe’ a Luxembourgian functionary in the service of a tax haven; installed in the management of ‘their central bank’ a character who made a career at Goldman Sachs, the bank associated with all the financial villainies of the century.”

The ‘OXI’ (no) in the referendum means the Greeks voted for a socially just distribution of the burdens for the sustainable reforms necessary in their country to fight corruption and nepotism. They voted for sustainable reconstruction and growth of their economic structures, to reduce military spending and for mandatory negotiations on debt restructuring. Those who so voted on 5 July were 61.3% of the Greek people, drawn largely from the working class and poorer layers of the population.

But what happens now?

There is not much belief that the Syriza government will fulfil the ‘no’ vote mandate and bring austerity to an end. Reportage via independent media say that most people fear there will be new austerity measures, which the mass of the population can no longer take.

Should the Greek Parliament approve talks on the new proposal (it may be acceptable to the Eurozone’s negotiators but has will still have to be approved by the European Parliament) there will be a short period during which the people of Greece will reflect on what is being done. They may decide to tolerate more ‘negotiation’, or not. They could rise up against a government that has gone back on its promises and disregarded their will as expressed in the referendum.

On the other hand Germany will balk at offering any debt relief. The European financial press (such as it is) is carrying reports that a section of German capitalist strategists are calculating that it is now cheaper to kick Greece out of the euro (provide a ‘humanitarian relief aid’ dollop) than continue to negotiate a formal bailout. A French publication reported that the Greek negotiation team was asked by Schäuble, “how much money do you want to leave the euro”, underlining how execrable the Euro political class has become.

These have been disastrous times for people in Greece. Salaries have been cut by half, taxes have increased eight times (not by 8% or 80% but eight times more), there are 1.5 million people unemployed and that is a full third of the working class, those who have jobs have often not been paid in weeks or months. There is misery and 60 euros as pension for those who can find 60 euros to draw out, but the Greeks want to their overthrow of austerity to be historic and permanent.

Desperate food gambits and the danger to India

India’s Republic Day in 2015 will also see the visit of the president of the USA, Barack Obama, accompanied by the usual large delegation of business persons, lobbyists and functionaries of the American government. They will use this visit to demand many things, and amongst the demands will be that the NDA-BJP government ‘reform’ all that is hindering the agriculture and food transformation in Bharat.

A couple tending their stack of rice stalks residue in the Konkan.

We must resist this with strength and perseverance. So far, the NDA-BJP government has not shown that it recognises or understands the threats and dangers, which are very very serious indeed. The American delegation will push this government to clear the way for genetically modified seed and crop (including in food staples such as cereals), for the further industrialisation and mechanisation of crop production (which will mean the removal of smallholder ‘kisans’ from their plots, all in the name of market efficiency), and the deepening of the food processing and food retail industries’ grip on what we eat.

The Prime Minister’s Office, the Union Cabinet and the seniormost bureaucrats of the major ministries involved must wake up to this threat and be firm against it. The signals from elsewhere are many and they are clear about what lies in store for Bharat if the NDA-BJP government at the centre and if state governments do not discharge their duty – which is, safeguard the sovereignty of Bharat.

Already in Europe, the German Environment Ministry is insisting on a complete ban on green genetic engineering in Germany. Under a new European Parliament directive, member states of the European Union will now be able to restrict or completely ban GMO cultivation within their borders. One of the leading proponents of such a legal ban in Germany is its Ministry of Agriculture, which also supports a national ban on cultivation.

Moreover, in a position paper from the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Minister Barbara Hendricks said she does not want to leave any back doors open for genetic engineering. The GMO law must be changed, so that controversial green genetic engineering cannot be used under any pretext in Germany, she stated in the document. “Green genetic engineering has turned out to be the wrong track,” Hendricks said. “It is risky for nature and the environment and is not desired by consumers.”

Worldwide, the project to fully industrialise global food production is far from complete, yet already it is responsible for most deforestation, most marine pollution, most coral reef destruction, much of greenhouse gas emissions, most habitat loss, most of the degradation of streams and rivers, most food insecurity, most immigration, most water depletion, and massive human health problems.

Relationships between soil, urbanisation, fertiliser use, farming, ecology and health. Images from the Soil Atlas, 2015, Heinrich Böll Stiftung.

Under GM- and tech-centric industrial agriculture and food systems – which is what the Americans will demand from us – countries are becoming literally uninhabitable as a result of the social and ecological consequences.

Wherever industrial and genetically engineered agriculture is found, landscapes are left progressively emptier of life. Eventually, the soil turns either into mud that washes into the rivers or into dust that blows away on the wind. Industrial agriculture has no long term future and is ecological suicide. But those who profit from it cannot allow all this to become broadly understood – and unfortunately that has included our NDA-BJP government. That is why they have continued to peddle the lie of food scarcity in India, which the previous Congress government employed so recklessly.

The agriculture and food problem – which will become a more extreme problem for us if the Obama group is given its way – is closely interlinked with growing demand for land. Land is a lucrative investment and has fuelled the real estate boom in India for the last decade. But for our smallholder kisans it is the source of livelihood, as it is for our shepherd groups and tribal communities. Rising demand for land also harms the ecosystem – as is seen in each and every one of the 63 cities whose populations this year are at least one million. The more intensive the farming, the more damage it does to the environment. This is the main reason for the decline in biological diversity, above and below the ground.

The American push will be for agri-food systems in accordance with the new international trade agreements. These are nothing but colonial ways of thinking – that food should be produced for international export as a tool of foreign policy and to control populations (especially through GM) and as a byproduct financially benefit powerful corporations that act as agents of such colonial ways of thinking. Thus it is a direct assault on people’s sovereignty over their natural resources, farming systems and food access as well as their human right to dignified living standards free of exploitation and dependence.

Such treaties (such as the TTP which is facing opposition even amongst those the USA calls allies) are dangerous because they are negotiated in secret. But what has emerged (thanks to leaks) is appalling. Some of the texts in these treaties wants the outright patenting of plants and animals, many draft agreements come with severe punishments for farmers who break intellectual property laws, they deliberately undermine local agriculture (as seen with NAFTA), commons lands are proposed for privatisation, labelling of GM foods will be prohibited, and the governments of countries that try to undo the damage will be liable to be sued by the multi-national corporations. This is the extent of the danger facing Bharat, which will become more clear come Republic Day 2015.

Sizing up city life

Close ranks of tall residential towers signal a new township on the outskirts of Beijing, P R China.

Some two years ago, it was calculated, the world firmly entered the urban age, for the available evidence pointed to a startling truth: more people now live in cities than outside them. The balance between urban and rural populations differs between countries, at times considerably. Chad and Congo have about the same number of people living in cities, 2.95 million and 2.96, but these urban populations are 22% of the total population for Chad and 65% of the total population for Congo.

Overall, the balance between urban and rural populations is thought, conventionally, to directly describe whether a country is likely to be in the high income or low income groups of countries. The Department of Economic and Social Affairs – a specialist agency of the United Nations – entrusts such calculations to its Population Division whose ‘World Urbanization Prospects’ found, in its 2014 revision, that the proportion of urban populations for high income countries was 80% while that for low income countries was 30%. This seems to lend weight to the conventional wisdom that it is cities that galvanise the creation of the sort of wealth which gross domestic product (GDP) growth depends on.

Cities are seen to harbour dynamism and vitality. For those who live in such cities, this is largely true. Residents of cities like Seoul (Korea), Lima (Peru), Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad (all India), Bogotá (Colombia), Nagoya (Japan), Johannesburg (South Africa), Bangkok (Thailand) and Chicago (USA) are very likely to agree that living and working in their respective cities has brought tham prosperity, and are less likely to ponder about this group of cities being the top ten in the world with populations under 10 million in 2014 (there are 28 cities worldwide with populations of at least 10 million).

There is however another aspect to the formation of cities. In 1927, the film Metropolis, conceived by Fritz Lang and delivered as an artfully stylised cinematic message, described the strains and dangers of the power that cities had already come to have over their residents. For Metropolis was a futuristic city where a cultured utopia existed above a bleak underworld populated by mistreated workers. Just over 50 years later, another film, Blade Runner (1982), blended science fiction with a disturbing portrait of a dystopian and dangerous cityscape that was both gigantic and technology-centric, through which the human element struggled to find meaning.

If Metropolis represented the post-industrial revolution European cityscape, then Blade Runner depicted the flagship of what has been called the Asian century, for its mesmerising and frightening urban backdrop was Tokyo then, and could well be China now. The Japanese capital remains in 2014 the world’s largest city with an agglomeration of 38 million inhabitants, followed by New Delhi with 25 million, Shanghai with 23 million, and Mexico City, Mumbai and São Paulo, each with around 21 million inhabitants. By 2030, so the projections say, the world will have 41 mega-cities of more than 10 million inhabitants.

For all their celebrated roles as centres of wealth, innovation and culture, these mega-cities and their smaller counterparts exert dreadful pressures on natural resources and the environment. These are already either unmanageable or uneconomical to deal with, more so in the rapidly growing urban centres of Asia and Africa. Despite the lengthening list of urban problems – most caused by rural folk flocking to cities faster than urban governance structures can cope with existing needs – demographers foresee that today’s trend will add 2.5 billion people to the world’s urban population by 2050. India, China and Nigeria are together expected to account for 37% of the projected growth of the world’s urban population between this year and 2050. It is there that the idea of the city, which so fascinated Fritz Lang, will be sorely tested.

How the Scot ‘no’ changed Europe and the UK

With results from the 32 councils declared, the ‘no’ voters of Scotland carried referendum day and opted to stay in the union, that is, the United Kingdom. The margin – 55% ‘no’ to 45% ‘yes’ – still means that every other Scot wants independence of some sort from the UK and its London-centric Westminster government.

There are some immediate reliefs for London’s politicos who were besides themselves with worry until early today morning. The Union survives (but not in the same shape). Still, this means that the UK remains a G7 economic power and a member of the UN Security Council. It also means Scotland will get more devolution and David Cameron will not be forced out (which may be a disappointment to many more English people than the number of those who voted ‘yes’).

Those reliefs will not provide cheers until after this weekend. Monday morning, the United Kingdom will have to look back at the last few weeks of referendum mania, and the last few adrenalin and hope-filled days, and realise that the 307-year-old union must change course radically to stay in any shape at all (and even that will be on borrowed time). Here is why:

First, there has indeed been a victory for Scotland, for those who considered themselves patriots for voting ‘yes’ and for voting ‘no’. The victory is more devolution for Scotland. Scottish Nationalist Party leader Alex Salmond (who is also the governor of Scotland) is the one who initiated the referendum campaign and who had wanted three options on the ballot papers: independence; the status quo; or more devolution for Scotland.

Until mid-year, the British government led by prime minister David Cameron accepted only the independence question, for more powers to the regional government in Edinburgh was rejected outright, and at the time they thought so, polls were showing a comfortable majority against ‘yes’ – as high as 65% in 2013. That advantage dropped steadily, with a shock poll in early September 2014 putting the ‘yes’ camp for the first time in the lead. This is when Cameron and the leaders of the two other main parties in Westminster – Labour and the Liberal-Democrats – signed a pledge to give more powers to Scotland if its voters chose ‘no’. Cameron and the other leaders – Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and the Labour party’s leader Ed Miliband – will now have to deliver on those promises and also face claims from the other regions – Wales, England and Northern Ireland – for more money and powers.

Second, the ‘yes’ camp had painstakingly put together the arguments its campaign needed to show that Scotland could be successful as an independent country. These arguments appealed to many and convinced a good number – just over 44% as it has turned out – to take the leap of faith and thereby stare down the ‘no’ placards which read, “It’s not worth the risk”. Where the SNP fell short was in convincing more Scots about the risks and how to hedge them. But even in falling short, the ‘yes’ camp has proved to UK (and to all those regions in Europe seeking self-determination) that to seek independence is a powerful and uplifting tonic, which is a substance in very short supply all over the continent.

In the end – for so the commentators and observers mutter – it is the respectable middle class in sober dress who have tended to vote ‘no’, and so have the Labour stalwarts of all ages for whom some idea of ‘solidarity’ is apparently more comforting and familiar than the gritty new business of making independence work and dealing with the more obvious contradictions of the Salmond plan. Scottish monetary union with the UK also meant an independent Scotland using the pound as its single currency, but having no control over it.

The Euro crisis taught Europeans that a monetary union without a political one is a debilitating project, and so the risks shrewdly exploited by the ‘no’ camp (and the banks and the petroleum industry, let’s not forget them) came to weigh more than placards. Even so, Scottish independence as an idea based upon an implicit assumption of Scottish national and ethnic uniqueness – incompatible with the British identity, as any gent in a kilt would swear – has been considerably strengthened, at the cost of the Westminster style of government, whose days are from today numbered.

Third, the nature of this long demise. Early on Saturday morning political scientists were already saying that for British politics, much thought now needs to be given to constitutional arrangements, that constitutional change will have to be delivered. Such work will have to begin on Monday morning to make a start towards reconciling all the interests – Scots, English, Welsh, Northern Irish and local (however local chooses to define itself in the UK). It is not the kind of “epochal opportunity” that the SNP was waving overhead as a flag until yesterday, but it is for similar movements all over Europe, and the project in UK will be watched very carefully indeed in those countries and territories.

Salmond and the SNP will still govern Scotland until 2016 and the party will need to decide whether to run in 2016 on a stronger pledge for full independence (a two-stage referendum was amongst the eminently sensible suggestion made earlier this year). The question of equality will be raised more pertinently than before – in the Linlithgow Palace, Scotland’s James V built an elaborate fountain to express his equal status with his English uncle, Henry VIII, and amongst the ruins the fountain survives as a vivid reminder of Scottish pride. As for the economics of independence, it was Salmond who told the BBC: “The central mistake that the ‘no’ campaign has made is to tell the people of Scotland that the land of Adam Smith is not capable of running its own matters financially.”

The Scottish ‘no’ therefore is but a punctuation mark in a strong statement of cultural identity that began to be written well over half a millennium ago. A more thoughtful UK may result, one whose political performers learn to understand the union they claim to love. If so, the Scots have indeed won.

[The Khaleej Times published my article here.]

The meat map of the world

The economies in Asia and elsewhere will see around 80 percent of the growth in the meat sector by 2022. The biggest growth will be in China and India because of huge demand from their new middle classes. Chart: Meat Atlas

Industrial livestock production in Europe and the USA began when feed, energy and land were inexpensive, the ‘Meat Atlas’ has explained, which is published jointly by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Friends of the Earth Europe.

Nowadays, feed, energy and land have all become scarce and costs have gone up. As a result, total meat production is growing less quickly than before. “The market is growing only for pigs and poultry. Both species utilise feed well and can be kept in a confined space. This means that they can be used to supply the insatiable demand for cheap meat,” the Meat Atlas has said.

By 2022, almost half the additional meat consumed will come from poultry. Beef production, on the other hand, is scarcely growing. The USA remains the world’s largest beef producer, but the meat industry describes the situation there as dramatic. For 2013, it expects a fall of 4-6 per cent compared to 2012 and predicts the decline to continue in 2014. In other traditional producing regions including Brazil, Canada and Europe, production is stagnating or falling.

“The star of the day is India, thanks to its buffalo meat production, which nearly doubled between 2010 and 2013. India is forcing its way onto the world market, where 25 percent of the beef is in fact now buffalo meat from the subcontinent,” said the Atlas (see this news report from 2013 June).

According to the US Department of Agriculture, India became the world’s biggest exporter of beef in 2012 – going ahead of Brazil. Buffaloes are considered inexpensive to keep by the USDA (what benchmark do they use for husbandry I wonder). Thus the USDA considers buffalo meat a dollar a kilo cheaper than beef from Western cattle. In addition, the Meat Atlas has reminded us, the Indian government has invested heavily in abattoirs. Moreover, faced with the high price of feed, Brazilian cattle-raisers are switching to growing soybeans which has presented an opportunity for Indian buffalo-meat exporters.

China and India differ markedly in their food consumption patterns. In India, a vegetarian lifestyle has deep cultural and social roots. In surveys cited by the Atlas, a quarter or more of all Indians say they are vegetarian. “But the number of meat-eaters is growing. Since the economic boom (my note: usual dreadful mis-labelling here; it is no ‘boom’ but a slow destruction) in the early 1990s, a broad middle class that aspires to a Western lifestyle has emerged (true enough). This includes eating meat which has become a status symbol among parts of the population. Nevertheless, meat consumption in India is still small – per person it is less than one-tenth of the amount consumed in China.”

The costs borne by the environment because of the world’s fondness for animal-origin protein are probably the biggest, but are still difficult to calculate despite some 30 years of following advances in environmental economics. This helps us estimate some damage to nature in monetary terms. It covers the costs of factory farming that do not appear on industry balance sheets, such as money saved by keeping the animals in appalling conditions. The burden upon nature also grows by over-fertilisation caused by spreading manure and slurry on the land and applying fertilisers to grow fodder maize and other crops.

Monsanto drops GM crop plans in Europe

‘Monsanocchio’, by Raymond Burki, a Swiss cartoonist whose works are published in the Lausanne daily 24 heures. Courtesy: Presseurop

The signs have been gaining substance over the last two years. In western Europe (Britain excluded), citizens and independent researchers have demanded and end to GM food products. The support given to the seed-biotech-fertiliser conglomerates of the USA and Europe, by their governments has been well met by organised consumer awareness and resistance. It is no wonder then that these cartels have shifted the use of their tactics to Asia, where political establishments can be more easily influenced and where consumer awareness about the dreadful dangers of GM is generally lower than in western Europe.

Europe’s press is reporting that Monsanto, the fertiliser and biotechnology company, is withdrawing all permits requested to the European Commission to grow genetically modified corn, soy and sugar beet because it does not see “a commercial outlook” for these products (that’s what the public relations scoundrels call what we know and practice as informed consumer awareness).

German daily Die Welt reported that only a request to grow genetically modified corn (of the MON810 type) will be renewed. For the moment, this type of corn is the only genetically modified organism commercially cultivated in Europe, said Die Welt. While MON810 corn type is admitted into the EU, several countries including France, Germany and Italy have banned it at the national level, following citizen initiatives. Last year, German chemical firm BASF threw in the towel and relocated its biotechnology centre to the USA because genetic engineering is so strongly contested in Europe.

Monsanto has loudly insisted that its genetically modified products, including maize MON810, which is authorised in Europe, are safe for humans. It has an army of compromised ‘scientists’ on its payroll in every single country where it wants to push its GM products, and using its public relations agents has infiltrated media in every country that it sees as a market. But the evidence that GM is dangerous for humans and animals, for insects and plants alike grows by the day. A study conducted on rats for two years by a team of French researchers on Monsanto NK 603 corn revealed an abnormally high tumour and death rate – Monsanto’s own in-house studies, pushed out as counter-evidence by mercenary accomplices, were conducted for no more than three months!

Roadside shacks of people whose land has been taken over for soy fields in Alto Parana, Paraguay, which is among the South American countries with the most unequal land distribution. Paraguay has seen this situation escalate to the point where today, 2% of owners control 85% of the farmland. The regional situation is worse when one considers that the neighbouring countries – Brazil especially but also Argentina – are also experiencing land concentration for transgenic soybeans. Photo: Grain / Glyn Thomas / FoE

Greenpeace noted the company will also seek to continue sales of its controversial MON810 maize, which was already approved in Europe and is the last remaining GM crop grown there. “The EU-wide authorisation for the cultivation of MON810 is expiring at the end of a ten-year period and the safety of the crop is due to be reassessed. The company is permitted to continue to use MON810 in Europe until the European Commission announces its decision,” stated Greenpeace.

The GM Freeze campaign welcomed Monsanto’s announcement that it is withdrawing pending applications to cultivate GM crops in the European Union but said this is not the end of Europe’s GM story. GM Freeze pointed out that Monsanto’s GM crops will still be imported into the EU, primarily for use in animal feed and biofuels, so the damage to ecosystems and human health caused by GM will continue elsewhere. The lack of labels on meat, eggs, dairy products and fish produced using GM feed means that Europe’s reliance on GM is hidden from consumers so they cannot easily avoid buying GM-fed products. Food companies should meet the clear demand for entirely non-GM foods by labelling those produced without GM, as is done successfully by many companies in Germany, Austria and France.

In tiresomely typical contrast, the government of the United Kingdom is to push the European Union to ease restrictions limiting the use of GM crops in the human food chain, reported The Independent. Britain’s Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is next week due to announce a UK government drive to increase Britain’s cultivation of GM foods! The newspaper said Britain’s ministers are hopeful of building support in Brussels for a change of heart on GM, with Germany seen as a key swing voter. The government of Britain’s craven attempts to relax the rules will face opposition from countries like Poland which in April became the eighth EU member state to ban the cultivation of GM crops.

Forgetting their ‘commitments’ to get GM out of their supply chains, big British food retailers – Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and Tesco – have gone in the opposite direction. Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer have joined Monsanto, Cargill and Nestle on the absurd Roundtable on Responsible Soy, a group that has been condemned by organisations around the world as a greenwash of existing bad practice in industrial soya monoculture. The Roundtable ‘certifies’ (judge and jury) GM soya as “responsible” despite growing evidence of adverse health, environmental and socioeconomic impacts in producer countries. Tesco is now backing GM soya production in South America, where it is grown in huge monocultures sprayed frequently with Roundup to the detriment of people and ecosystems there.

United Stasi of America

A protester in Hanover, Germany, holds up a sign on Saturday reading: “The United Stasi of America,” a reference to the feared secret police in totalitarian East Germany. A second sign states: “Those with nothing to hide should not fear whistleblowers.” Photo: Der Spiegel/DPA

In an important news report, ‘How the NSA Targets Germany and Europe’, Der Spiegel has reviewed a series of documents which prove that Germany played a central role in the NSA’s global surveillance network – and how the Germans have also become targets of US attacks. Each month, the US intelligence service saves data from around half a billion communications connections from Germany.

According to the listing, Germany is among the countries that are the focus of surveillance. Thus, the documents confirm that the US intelligence service, with approval from the White House, is spying on the Germans, said Der Spiegel, and possibly right up to the level of the chancellor.

Britain has been revealed as the junior partner in this Orwellian scheme. But the European Commission has reacted swiftly and strongly. In a letter to UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, the Commission vice-president Viviane Reding requested detailed clarifications about the scope of the UK’s spying practices and even hinted at legal action.

The new aspect of the revelations isn’t that countries are trying to spy on each other, eavesdropping on ministers and conducting economic espionage. What is most important about the documents is that they reveal the possibility of the absolute surveillance of a country’s people and foreign citizens without any kind of effective controls or supervision.

The Global Network of Undersea Cables. Graphic: Der Spiegel

Many high-ranking European officials have issued statements of outrage and protest against America’s spying. These representatives of the European ruling class pretend surprise at the revelations but have no doubt acquiesced to, authorised or supported similar surveillance of their own populations and of their American counterparts.

Nevertheless, the unanimity of the response is an indication that European governments have been goaded into voicing the concerns of their citizens. The US dragnet of telecommunications and the internet over Europe has never been so visible, as are now, thanks to Edward Snowden, US efforts to persecute those who have brought the spying to public notice.

The NSA’s ‘Boundless Informant’ Programme. Graphic: Der Spiegel

In the USA, the slavish corporate media has condemned Snowden’s actions. Witness a representative reaction in the New York Times, for whom Snowden is the product of an “atomised society” and lacking “respect for institutions and deference to common procedures”! This daily newspaper, like others in its pettyfogging class and like the American national television channels, bloodthirsty and war-mongering now for a decade, has ignored the point made bluntly by the American Civil Liberties Union that these “institutions and procedures” long ago lost their claim to respectability.

Britain has been cast even further into Europe’s data protection wilderness after revelations that its formerly glorious signals intelligence agency GCHQ has been monitoring web and telecommunications on an even greater scale than the NSA. Germany’s justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, has demanded explanations from her British counterpart, asking whether the 30-day retention of signals data is based on concrete suspicion or is warrantless (guess which?).

Yet, as Der Spiegel has commented, among the intelligence agencies in the Western world there appears to be a division of duties and at times extensive cooperation. And it appears that the principle that foreign intelligence agencies do not monitor the citizens of their own country, or that they only do so on the basis of individual court decisions, is obsolete in this world of globalised communication and surveillance. Hence Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency, the American NSA and Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency create a matrix is created of boundless surveillance in which each partner aids in a division of roles.