Posts Tagged ‘Sarkozy’
The Damascus fork in the Middle East road
The much abused label of a “humanitarian” intervention has been brought out again, for Syria, by the USA and its allies in western Europe. After the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the UN Security Council vote (meaning the vetoes by China and Russia) as a “travesty” and having said “we will work with the friends of a democratic Syria around the world to support the opposition’s peaceful political plans for change”, the French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé called the vetoes a “stain” on the UN, adding that French President Nicolas Sarkozy would soon present further initiatives against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
These clumsy but belligerent posturings are aimed at lending some kind of moral legitimacy to a violent intervention in Syria and ignoring the profound opposition these policies provoke amongst the working class in USA and in Europe, and opposition in the Middle East and Asia to a new zone of war. Even in the Western media it has been widely reported that pro-US powers, including Turkey and France, are providing arms and aid to Syrian opposition forces – methods that have become typical of the topplings pursued in the Middle East and North Africa regions during the decade of 2000-2010.
[See ‘When China and Russia use the veto’ posted a few days earlier.] Here is a selection of recent developments, statements and responses:
The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) issued a communiqué on 2012 February 05 from Caracas. This said: “The heads of state and government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) reiterate their condemnation of the systematic policy of interference in and destabilization of the brother Syrian Arab Republic, the aim of which is to impose, by force, regime change on the Syrian people.”
“The ALBA member states condemn the acts of armed violence that irregular groups supported by foreign powers have unleashed against the Syrian people. The member states hope that the Syrian society will return to calm and develop in peace. The ALBA countries reiterate their support for the policy of reforms and national dialogue promoted by the government of President Bashar al Assad, seeking to find a political solution to the current crisis, respecting the sovereignty of the Syrian people and the territorial integrity of that brother Arab country.”
The original communiqué “Alba ratifica su apoyo a Siria” can be read at the website of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry (translation by Yoshie Furuhashi).
An editorial in the People’s Daily, China has said: “The US and Europe are likely to move against Syria without UN backing. China and Russia are acting within the UN framework, but the US and Europe are trying to set their own rules. In the 2003 Iraq war, France and Germany shared the same stance as China and Russia. During the Bosnia-Herzegovina war in the 1990s, the UK and France sided with Russia.”
“It is far different now. Shared values are bonding Europe and the US again diplomatically. They both adopt this value diplomacy as a powerful tool in the current global competition. With their declining technologic advantage, values are being applied to widen the gap between the West and the developing countries. The US still enjoys dominant military power, which helped it win the Cold War and smash the Milosevic and Saddam regimes. But now it faces economic competition from emerging countries, where military power cannot help directly.”
The Voice of Russia has reported that Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and foreign intelligence chief Mikhail Fradkov arrived in Damascus on Tuesday (2012 February 07) to have talks with the country’s leader Bashar Assad and give him a letter from President Dmitry Medvedev. The VoR`s Olga Denisova reports from Damascus. On their arrival at Damascus airport, Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Fradkov were greeted by a top-ranking delegation. When the Russian officials were taken to the center of the city, they could see crowds of pro-Assad supporters, some of them holding Russian flags. People were chanting ‘thank you, Russia!’ At some moment, police officers found it hard to keep people at a necessary distance from the Russian car procession as too many of them wanted to welcome the envoys.
Speaking during a press-briefing after the talks, Mr. Lavrov said that the Russian message was accepted in Syria: “We confirmed our readiness to help Syria overcome the ongoing political crisis relying on three principles outlined in the Arab League`s initiative on November 2, 2011. The Syrian leader, on his part, confirmed his adherence to the policy of non-violence.”
According to Voice of Russia, Bashar Assad said that Syria is interested in the Arab League`s mission to be resumed and even expanded. He believes that the Arab League monitors should watch the situation in all restive districts of the country and report all violations, no matter on which of the opposing sides. Mr. Lavrov told journalists that Mr. Assad confirmed his government`s readiness to start an interethnic dialogue as suggested by the League. Mr. Assad is also expected to have talks with a commission that deals with preparing a draft constitution for Syria. After the draft is ready, a national referendum on the new constitution will be held, to be followed by parliamentary elections, which Assad described as “not offering any privileges to the ruling Ba`ath party”.
Reuters has reported that Russia has won a promise from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday to bring an end to bloodshed in Syria, but Western and Arab states acted to isolate Assad further after activists and rebels said his forces killed over 100 in the city of Homs. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, representing a rare ally on a trip to the Syrian capital that other states are shunning, said both countries wanted revive a monitoring effort by the Arab League, whose plan to resolve Syria’s crisis Moscow and Beijing vetoed in the U.N. Security Council.
According to the Reuters report, there was an indication from Lavrov’s comments that the issue of Assad eventually giving up power – a central element of the Arab proposal that failed in the Council – had been raised. Assad said he would cooperate with any plan that stabilised Syria, but made clear that only included an earlier Arab League proposal that called for dialogue, release of prisoners and withdrawing the army from protest centres. Russia’s mediation failed to slow a rush by countries that denounced the Russian-Chinese veto three days ago to corner Syria diplomatically and cripple Assad with sanctions in hopes of toppling him.
A perspective from the World Socialist Web Site has said that the supposed “principles” underlying the US initiative – that the major imperialist powers have the right to intervene and depose the governments of former colonial countries they deem guilty of violating human rights – stand in complete contradiction to international law. As in everything else, the American financial aristocracy makes up the rules as it goes along.
The reasoning of the Russian and the Chinese governments is fairly straight-forward. They see the US posturing once again as the champion of democracy and human rights as it carries out a relentless campaign of aggression aimed at transforming Iran and Syria – both key trading and strategic partners with Moscow and Beijing – into neo-colonial puppet states of American imperialism. The modus operandi in pursuing these imperialist aims is now all too familiar. A targeted regime is denounced with hypocritical invocations of human rights violations after the US and its allies promote civil war in the country and then utilize the inevitable repression as the pretext for intervention.
This was the formula employed successfully in Libya, after Russia and China abstained, failing to exercise their veto, on a resolution authorizing a “no-fly zone,” supposedly to protect the civilian population. This resolution was then exploited as a pseudo-legal fig leaf for a US-NATO war of colonial aggression involving non-stop bombardment of Libya. Special forces and intelligence assets led the so-called rebels in the toppling and ultimate assassination of Muammar Gaddafi.
Jorge Insunza, a leader of the Communist Party of Chile and a member of its Central Committee and Political Commission, has in an interview said: “The Communist Party of Syria, which is a great, serious, and responsible Communist Party and which is not part of the Syrian government, says that it is necessary for Syria to make progress in the deepening of the real exercise of democratic rights. That there have been flaws and errors is an objective fact. However, North American intervention would not solve any democratic problem. On the contrary, it would result in the establishment of a power that would be much more repressive than the current government which allows the existence of parties that are not part of it and have a critical perspective as in the case of the Communist Party of Syria.” This interview was released by TeleSur on 2012 February 03.
‘Germany is not head of the class of the Union’
A 'debt meter' shows the level of Germany's debt, which is currently over 80 percent of GDP. By European standards, that is nothing to boast about. Photo: Der Spiegel / Carsten Koall
About the euro and Germany, and about Europa and the Germans, there’s not a lot that can be read on the matter that helps clear it up. We need some help from inside Europe to do that – instead of clueless yammering about ‘markets’ from American economists, or instead of smug garbage about Euro politics from barmy Brit commentators, and instead of overaged tripe about the EU from the World Bank and the IMF. Without further ado, here’s the help.
Jacques Attali, the influential former advisor to Mitterrand, has sent a blunt warning to Angela Merkel, the German Bundeskanzlerin. Writing in Slate.fr Attali has said that Merkel either must agree to the purchase of defaulted European bonds by the European Central Bank and the issuance of European bonds, or she will end up holding the smoking gun of Europe’s suicide. In a translation of Attali’s short but astringent article, helpfully provided by Sign and Sight, we are told that he rids Germans of their most cherished illusions. “Germany is not head of the class of the Union, who winds up having to pay for the sins of all the others. Its public debt is close to 82 percent of its gross domestic product, practically as bad as France. Ten of its banks, all owned by the government, which provide twenty percent of the credit outside of the financial markets, are currently in very poor condition. Germany’s energy consumption will increasingly rely on Russian gas, which today represents 37 percent of its imports. Its demographics are so catastrophic, that Germany will already have less inhabitants than France in 2060, and 44 percent of the Germans are over 65 in comparison to 35 percent of the French, which will make it particularly difficult for Germany to repay its debts.” Over to you, Angie, if you dare.
"We are deeply ashamed," the German parliament declared in a joint statement issued on Tuesday condemning the crimes committed by a neo-Nazi terror cell. Photo: Der Spiegel / Michael Gottschalk / dapd
Here is part of the French original:
Elle n’est pas le bon élève de l’Union, qui refuse de payer pour les erreurs des autres. Sa dette publique est de 82% du PIB, pratiquement égale à la dette française; dix de ses banques, toutes publiques, qui fournissent 20% des crédits au secteur non financier allemand, sont en très mauvaise situation. Sa consommation d’énergie dépendra de plus en plus du gaz russe, qui représente 37% de ses importations. Sa démographie est catastrophique au point que, en 2060, il y aura moins d’Allemands que de Français et que 44% de la population allemande aura plus de 65 ans contre seulement 35% en France, ce qui rendra particulièrement difficile le remboursement de la dette publique allemande. Enfin, l’avenir de l’industrie allemande n’est pas si prometteur qu’elle le croit: selon une récente étude anglaise, sur les 100 entreprises les plus innovantes du monde, 11 sont françaises et seulement 4 sont allemandes.
What is it about Deutschland, Germans and the idea of Europe that invariably gets all tangled up in knots? Eurozine has presented an interview, originally carried by the magazine Esprit, with Jan-Werner Müller who talks about “German contradictions”.
This situation now has to be addressed by leaders who are clearly not great believers in moral-historical justifications for European unity, and who often obfuscate the issues: Germany’s foreign minister has just called for ‘more Europe’ while a Christian Democratic minister recently even demanded the creation of the ‘United States of Europe’ – without saying what in practice this would mean. So I fear that Germany has no real road map of how it wants to relate to Europe, other than preserving what has already been achieved in the way of economic gains and personal freedoms (e.g. travel), while at the same time minimizing the costs.
To be sure, there are also some voices who advocate a much more assertive global role for Germany in conjunction with core Europe (of course France in particular) – for instance the political theorist Herfried Münkler, who in a recent article in Der Spiegel openly expressed his concern that Europe is being destroyed by its periphery (e.g. Greece), instead of adopting a global strategy to increase its power. He explicitly called for ‘all power to the centre’ so as to re-empower European elites and for Germany to exercise more leadership, rather than hoping for some illusory democratization of the EU as it is. This is a coherent stance that may well become attractive for a German government, especially if the current approach of muddling through makes neither Germans nor other Europeans really happy – and fails to solve the Euro crisis.
The bloody cost of ‘democratic transition’ in Libya
Libya's oil and gas industry. Graphic: Der Spiegel
The real nature of the US-NATO invasion of Libya has become even clearer in the last week. The orchestrated media coverage, similar to the trigger-happy reportage that marked the Gulf Wars and the USA’s Iraq and Afghanaistan wars, has focused on demonising Muammar Gaddafi and on the ‘rebels’ who are now in Tripoli. Absent from the popular coverage, especially on television, is the ordinary Libyan. Not absent any longer are the commercial roots of this invasion, for the German media are now openly talking about the business opportunities or Libyan “reconstruction”.
The Security Council’s stipulations that ground troops not be introduced into the country, that an arms embargo be kept in place and that mercenaries be prevented from entering Libya have all been flouted in this criminal operation to seize control of an oil-rich former colony and loot its resources, observed the World Socialist Website. There is barely any attempt to hide the fact that special forces, intelligence agents and mercenary military contractors have organized, armed and led the “rebels”, who have not made a single advance without the prior annihilation of government security forces by NATO warplanes.
After being terrorized for five months by NATO bombs and missiles, the people of Tripoli are now facing sudden death and a looming humanitarian catastrophe as a result of the NATO campaign to “protect civilians”. Kim Sengupta of the Independent reported Thursday from the Tripoli neighborhood of Abu Salim, which the “rebels” stormed under the cover of NATO air strikes. Known as a pro-Gaddafi area, its residents have been subjected to a reign of terror.
Libya military bases. Graphic: Der Spiegel
“There was no escape for the residents of Abu Salim, trapped as the fighting spread all around them,” Sengupta reported. “In the corner of a street, a man who was shot in the crossfire, the back of his blue shirt soaked in blood, was being carried away by three others. ‘I know that man, he is a shopkeeper,’ said Sama Abdessalam Bashti, who had just run across the road to reach his home. ‘The rebels are attacking our homes. This should not be happening. The rebels are saying they are fighting government troops here, but all those getting hurt are ordinary people, the only buildings being damaged are those of local people. There has also been looting by the rebels, they have gone into houses to search for people and taken away things. Why are they doing this?’ ”
Asked why local residents were resisting the NATO-led force’s takeover of the city, Mohammed Selim Mohammed, a 38-year-old engineer, told the Independent, “Maybe they just do not like the rebels. Why are people from outside Tripoli coming and arresting our men?” Meanwhile, other reports laid bare war crimes carried out by NATO and its local agents on the ground in Tripoli. Both the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies documented a massacre perpetrated against Gaddafi supporters in a square adjacent to the presidential compound that was stormed and looted on Tuesday.
“The bodies are scattered around a grassy square next to Moammar Gadhafi’s compound of Bab al-Aziziya. Prone on grassy lots as if napping, sprawled in tents. Some have had their wrists bound by plastic ties,” AP reported. “The identities of the dead are unclear but they are in all likelihood activists that set up an impromptu tent city in solidarity with Gadhafi outside his compound in defiance of the NATO bombings.” AP said that the grisly discovery raised “the disturbing specter of mass killings of noncombatants, detainees and the wounded.”
Libya oil pipelines and infrastructure. Graphic: Der Spiegel
Among the bodies of the executed the report added were several that “had been shot in the head, with their hands tied behind their backs. A body in a doctor’s green hospital gown was found in the canal. The bodies were bloated.” Reporting from the same killing field, Reuters counted 30 bodies “riddled with bullets”. It noted that “Five of the dead were at a field hospital nearby, with one in an ambulance strapped to a gurney with an intravenous drip still in his arm.” Two of the bodies, it said, “were charred beyond recognition.”
[See ‘A time before the pillage – what North Africa should mean to us’.]
The pretence that the US and its European NATO allies were intervening in Libya to “protect civilians and civilian populated areas from threat of attack,” as stated in the United Nations Security Council resolution, has effectively been abandoned. Behind the fig leaf of this resolution the naked imperialist and colonial character of the war has emerged. Der Spiegel has reported that three weeks ago, Hans Meier-Ewert, head of the German-African Business Association, travelled to Libya together with representatives from 20 German companies. Since all regularly scheduled flights to Tripoli have long ago been cancelled, the German government made a Transall military transport plane available for the journey, and the mission was headed up by Hans-Joachim Otto, a state secretary in the German Economics Ministry.
In Benghazi, where the rebel movement is headquartered, the group handed over aid goods and medical supplies to the city’s hospitals – public relations and photo ops. There, the Germans also met with representatives of the Libyan transitional council and of the country’s central bank in an effort to pursue economic interests in the country. Libya is rich relative to its African neighbors, but the Europeans consider its infrastructure woefully inadequate. Felix Neugar, an ‘expert’ on Africa with the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), has complained that Libya lags far behind the high standard of the large Gulf oil producers.
Economic associations estimate that between 30 and 50 German companies were active in Libya before the war. “But it was a difficult country to do business in,” reported Der Spiegel. “State-owned companies dominated most markets, and legal standards were at best fluid under Gadhafi’s leadership. During the meeting in Benghazi with the transitional council, the German economic leaders were assured that the private economy would be strengthened, says Meier-Ewert. Contracts signed with the Gadhafi regime are to be honored, and many Libyans with extensive business experience are planning to return from exile, the German delegation was told.”
Libya tribes and tribal areas. Graphic: Der Spiegel
The Germans aren’t the only ones who have begun exploring opportunities in post-Gadhafi Libya. The Italian oil concern Eni is doing all it can to defend its status as the largest foreign oil producer in the country. Even before the rebels stormed the Gadhafi residence in Tripoli this week, Eni technicians had begun preparing to restart the flow of oil. And Eni has the full support of the government in Rome. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is meeting with rebel leader Mahmoud Jibril in a few days.
“Right now it is still too early to say when, how and under what conditions production can begin again in Libya,” said BASF subsidiary Wintershall, an oil producer active in the country since 1958, told Der Spiegel. The war also interrupted the construction of a highway that the German firm STRABAG had been working on. This autumn, the company plans to send a team to Libya to assess the situation. RWE Dea, another German firm that drills for oil in Libya, hopes the new government will uphold existing contracts. In the end, raw material exploitation contributes to reconstruction, the company says.
A lucrative reconstruction however requires destruction to be visited on Libya and its populace. This is taking place in appalling measure. Reporting from a local hospital, the Telegraph said: “As battle raged in the Tripoli streets hundreds of casualties were brought in, rebel fighters, Gaddafi’s soldiers, and unlucky civilians, laying next to each other in bed and even on a floor awash with blood, screaming or moaning in agony. Many died before they could be treated.” The paper interviewed Dr Mahjoub Rishi, the hospital’s Professor of Surgery: “There were hundreds coming in within the first few hours. It was like a vision from hell. Missile injuries were the worst. The damage they do to the human body is shocking to see, even for someone like me who is used to dealing with injuries.” Most of the casualties, he said, were civilians caught in the crossfire. The Telegraph reported that Tripoli’s two other major hospitals were similarly overflowing with casualties and desperately understaffed, as were all of the city’s private hospitals.
The aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned that the city is facing a medical “catastrophe”. The group told Reuters that “Medical supplies ran low during six months of civil war [i.e., NATO bombardment] but have almost completely dried up in the siege and battle of the past week. Fuel supplies have run out and the few remaining medical workers are struggling to get to work.” The lack of fuel means that hospitals that have kept their power by running generators can now no longer do so. Health officials in Tripoli report that blood supplies have run out at the hospitals and that food and drinking water is unavailable over whole areas of Tripoli.
Distant from the battle, the hapless civilian victims and the constant terror of US-NATO airborne drones, fighter jets, bombers and surveillance aircraft, Western leaders have been parcelling out Libya’s future – this is mostly taking place in Paris, as the French government has played a leading role in the so-called “international deployment” against Gadhafi. The French government has proposed a quick meeting of the so-called Libya Contact Group, which is comprised of the countries that participated in the military operation. Germany, given its abstention in the United Nations vote to endorse a no-fly zone, is not a member of the group.
The meeting could happen as soon as next week, and high on the agenda will be drafting a plan together with the National Transition Council for the “international community’s” future role in Libya. The European Union’s deadly doublespeak is being broadcast regularly: “The way is now open for Libya for freedom and self-determination,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said in a joint statement. They added that Europe would make “every endeavour” it could to help, providing “support for its democratic transition and economic reconstruction”. Of course it will, at a cost in North African lives and for a profit to be reckoned in many billions of euros.
The IMF, its directeur général, and a New York hotel maid
Friday afternoon, South Asia
"Do you really think I've nothing better to do?"
The business zine ‘Emerging Markets’ has reported that French finance minister Christine Lagarde “has emerged as the frontrunner to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn as IMF chief as the chances of former Turkish politician Kemal Dervis receded”. Apparently, there were hopes that Kemal Dervis would become the first emerging market politician to head the IMF, but these have faded Lagarde emerged as frontrunner to succeed DSK.
The zine has said that “senior policy officials” consulted by it said they were backing the French finance minister (pic left) in the wake of Strauss-Kahn’s dramatic resignation. A key ally of former Turkish economy minister Kemal Dervis, a leading contender for the role, acknowledged that his chances of clinching the top job had receded.
Asked whether Dervis woud become managing director Homi Kharas, a deputy to the former Turkish finance minister now at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told Emerging Markets: “Unfortunately I think it’s unlikely.” He said Lagarde’s appointment could undermine the IMF’s legitimacy if her candidacy is secured solely through a political deal among rich nations. “Major countries at the end of the day are prepared to forgo the principle of technocratic appointments for the short term expediency of having a politically trusted friend and that seems to be the way that the world is currently governed.”
The result will be a revolt against the Fund by developing countries, he added. “What we will see from the emerging nations is that they will vote with their feet. “Developing nations can make [international financial institutions] less relevant as global institutions and restrict them to being essentially institutions that play in the arena of the spheres of influence of the rich countries. That is what is happening more and more.”
Wednesday evening, South Asia
The IMF is obviously very slow to learn, or chooses not to, or has jettisoned Strauss-Kahn. Following its first bland, utterly non-committal and quite unconcerned statement about l’affaire DSK, it has come out with a second which, if possible, bests the first at idiocy in the face of a massive loss of moral face.
The IMF logo seen during a news conference in Bucharest, March 2009. Photo: Reuters/Bogdan Cristel/Files
“The following can be attributed to William Murray, an IMF spokesman, in response to questions regarding contact with the Managing Director and on speculation in media about his status: ‘We have not had contact with the Managing Director since his arrest in New York. Obviously, it will be important to be in contact with him in due course. We are aware of widespread speculation about the Managing Director’s status. We have no comment on this speculation, other than to note, as we did earlier this week, that the Executive Board was briefed informally on developments regarding his arrest in New York. We continue to monitor developments. Meanwhile, Mr. John Lipsky remains acting Managing Director, and the Fund continues its normal work’.”
This sounds a lot like the IMF is saying – “well it’s just one of those things, let’s just say not very much out of the ordinary is happening and let’s assure you that we’re still doing what we do best, which is wreck the lives of people in developing countries”.
Under Francois Mitterrand, Strauss-Kahn served as a minister, then became a corporate lobbyist in the 1990s. As finance minister in the 1997-2002 Jospin “Plural Left” government, Strauss-Kahn privatized several public firms—France Télécom, Crédit Lyonnais bank, and defense firm Thomson-CSF. After resigning as minister in 1999 in a bribery scandal, he remained a major figure inside the PS and corporate circles, taking the IMF post after being nominated by Sarkozy in 2007.
As IMF chief, he has overseen deep social cuts impoverishing workers in many indebted countries—Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Hungary, Romania, and Pakistan—in exchange for IMF loans. He recently oversaw financial negotiations with the military dictatorship in Egypt, as it tries to combat the resistance of the working class following the departure of Hosni Mubarak.
Zhu Min, Group Executive Vice-President, Bank of China, speaks during a session at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, China 28 September 2008. Photo: World Economic Forum
The ‘Letter from China’ blog in The New Yorker points to some of the turmoil over leadership of the IMF, and what is slowly being seen as Asian pressure over what has so far been Western dominance of the Fund and Bank senior positions.
As pressure builds on Strauss-Kahn, said the blog, today’s Huanqiu Shibao is decidedly less cautious: “If a Chinese person takes the post”—of managing director—“it will greatly promote economic exchange between China—the country with the largest trade volume and holdings of foreign reserves—and the international community.” Another Huanqiu article referred to speculation in the Western press that China’s top official at the IMF, Zhu Min, a Johns Hopkins-and-Princeton-trained economist, is among the oft-mentioned candidates. The story concluded gloomily that Western reports generally see Zhu as insufficiently experienced, and likely to reach only a deputy managing director “this time, in part because “Europe and America will oppose the appointment of a Chinese person to lead the IMF.”
Monday evening, South Asia
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund, is lead from a police station Sunday, May 15, 2011 in New York where he was being held. Photo: AP
In Europe and in the multilateral financial institutions, positions are cautiously being taken over the Strauss-Kahn case. So far, the Euromedia has focused a great deal on the effect l’affaire DSK is having on the French presidential election and the challenge to Sarkozy. But what about the IMF and World Bank? Silence. What about the men and women who run these enormously powerful and influential organisations – what do they have to say about this case and its reflection on their collective values? More silence.
We have heard from The Economist, which has long been a staunch ally of the Fund and the Bank. “Whatever the fall-out on French politics, Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrest has left the IMF reeling. One insider called it a ‘disaster’,” the commentary noted. “Although he had been expected to leave within a couple of months, Mr Strauss-Kahn, unless quickly exonerated, will now presumably be forced out far sooner. That leaves the fund without a political heavyweight at the top in the midst of important negotiations with European policymakers over Greece’s debt crisis.”
What is noteworthy is the ways in which these institutions are discussed by the biggies of global and international economics. Only 10 days ago, Joseph E Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University, a Nobel laureate in Economics, and the author of ‘Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy’, had this to say about the IMF and DSK.
“For progressives, these abysmal facts [growing inequality, recession, unemployment] are part of the standard litany of frustration and justified outrage,” wrote Stiglitz. “What is new is that the IMF has joined the chorus. As Strauss-Kahn concluded in his speech to the Brookings Institution shortly before the Fund’s recent meeting: ‘Ultimately, employment and equity are building blocks of economic stability and prosperity, of political stability and peace. This goes to the heart of the IMF’s mandate. It must be placed at the heart of the policy agenda.’ Strauss-Kahn is proving himself a sagacious leader of the IMF. We can only hope that governments and financial markets heed his words.”
I really wonder what Prof Stiglitz thinks of his encomiums now. Reality outside the cozy models of macroeconomics can be startlingly, starkly different.
Sunday evening, South Asia
Le Nouvel Observateur's website on Sunday was entirely Strauss-Kahn.
The Sunday lurched on about L’affaire DSK and in my view the most confused reactions have come from the media in France. They seem confused about what they ought to feel and say. There are some responses concerning the blow to the honour and prestige of France dealt by the sordid allegations, but there is also a sense of bemoaning the end of a challenger to Sarkozy, and quite a few mutterings that this is a dreadful plot to trap Strauss-Kahn.
Here is a selection of the reaction and early views on the impact of L’affaire DSK.
Euronews has reported that lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, said on Sunday that their client will plead not guilty to accusations of trying to rape a maid at a New York hotel. “A spokesman for the New York Police Department said Strauss-Kahn faces charges of a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment. The IMF chief does not have diplomatic immunity and was set to appear in court later on Sunday.”
Business Insider has quite bluntly said that ‘IMF Throws Dominique Strauss-Kahn Under The Bus’. “The IMF is not exactly standing up for the man,” they wrote, referring to the bland and shifty IMF statement issued today. “The IMF has already had to investigate and apologize for one Strauss-Kahn sex scandal (an affair with a subordinate). Strauss-Kahn survived that one, after apologizing publicly to the IMF and his wife. His surviving this one, at least with his job intact, seems unlikely.”
The New York Times has pronounced in a headline, ‘Arrest Throws French Politics Into Disarray’. This is hardly so. What has thrown France and its suffering workers into disarray is not such conduct, but the imperial ambitions of Sarkozy in Africa and his government’s ramshackle social spending at home. “For months, France has been buzzing with speculation that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the popular chief of the International Monetary Fund, would quit his job in Washington to take on President Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential elections,” the NYT said. “On Sunday, French politicians and media met news of his arrest in New York for alleged sexual aggression with stunned disbelief and expressions of national humiliation. The incident threw Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s political party, the Socialists, into confusion and set the stage for a new political calculus that could allow the National Front, the far-right party led by its founder’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, to become a more dominant force during the election campaign.”
The Guardian has got to the point. “The allegations threaten to severely damage the standing of the IMF, where Strauss-Kahn was leading the response to the global financial crisis.” The newspaper reported that Strauss-Kahn had been on his way to Europe to discuss the worsening European debt crisis. A meeting in Berlin with Angela Merkel scheduled for Sunday has been cancelled. He was also scheduled to meet European financial ministers on Monday and Tuesday and was to have discussed how best to tackle Greece’s debt crisis and finalise Portugal’s €78bn bailout package. The British newspaper also provided the information that the Sofitel hotel in New York where Strauss-Kahn was staying is in the heart of the theatre district, and he had a US$3,000 (£1,850) a night suite.
In Paris, France Soir asked in disbelief: “Accusé d’agression sexuelle, DSK est-il victime d’un complot? DSK est-il victime d’un complot, d’une manipulation? Quelques heures après le coup de tonnerre et l’annonce de l’arrestation du patron du FMI, les déclarations en ce sens sont de plus en plus nombreuses.” Melodrama apart, what this means is that France Soir has said that Strauss-Kahn could well be the ‘victim of a conspiracy’ and the ‘target of manipulation’.
A more bizarre response has come from Liberation, which usually seems to have its finger on the pulse of things. “Pour 2012, DSK semblait le mieux armé pour répondre au désarroi des Français, épuisés par la crise et désorientés par le règne foutraque de Sarkozy: l’expérience internationale, la crédibilité de l’économiste, la fibre sociale, le savoir-faire d’un négociateur hors pair leur laissaient penser qu’il saurait mieux que tout autre défendre leurs intérêts et ceux de la France.”
Roughly translated, this means: “For 2012, DSK seemed best equipped to respond to the distress of the French, who are exhausted by the financial and social crisis and disoriented in the reign of Sarkozy. With his international experience, the credibility of being an economist, his knowledge of the social fabric and negotiating skills left them thinking that he would defend their interests and those of France.” What exactly is Liberation talking about? Perhaps it’s not a good idea to get their writers to consider anything serious on a Sunday morning.
The New York Daily News on the IMF head
[Earlier post] It’s too early to tell the whys and wherefores, but here’s a small selection of reportage about the astounding Strauss-Kahn incident. The French media have lots to say too, since the IMF head is/was expected to run for president of France.
Update: The IMF has released a very short statement on the bizarre affair. Here is the text from the IMF website:
Ms. Caroline Atkinson, Director of External Relations at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), issued the following statement today: “IMF Managing Director Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York City. Mr. Strauss-Kahn has retained legal counsel, and the IMF has no comment on the case; all inquiries will be referred to his personal lawyer and to the local authorities. The IMF remains fully functioning and operational.”
The Boston Globe – The head of the International Monetary Fund was taken into custody and accused of a sexual assault yesterday, just before he was to fly to Paris from John F. Kennedy International Airport, authorities said. Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of attacking a maid earlier in the day at a Times Square hotel, authorities said.
WNYC News Blog – NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne confirmed that Strauss-Kahn, the 62-year-old managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was being questioned by detectives from Manhattan’s Special Victims unit about an alleged sexual assault said to have taken place around 1 p.m. Saturday at the Sofitel Hotel. “The 32-year-old maid reported that Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked and sexually assaulted her,” said Browne.
Update: Al Jazeera has carried a brief and generally unflattering profile of the IMF head. It has called him an architect of France’s economic recovery in the late 1990s, Strauss-Kahn, popularly known in France as “DSK”, served in a Socialist government as finance minister between 1997 and 1999. He cut the public deficit to qualify France for the euro and took steps that led to the privatisation of some state firms.
The profile has said that Strauss-Kahn, 62, was forced to resign from Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin’s government in 1999, after he was caught up in a corruption scandal, but a court later cleared him. A former professor of economics at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Strauss-Kahn has come in for criticism over his luxurious style, seen by some as inappropriate for someone who wants to become the leader of the French left. Despite being based in Washington, he has continued to spend a lot of time in France, and the New York Post newspaper reported that he had a deal with Air France to get on any flight. New York police pulled him off a Paris-bound flight on Sunday night.
Some early reactions from the press in France:
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, popularly known in France as 'DSK', served in a Socialist government as finance minister between 1997 and 1999. He cut the public deficit to qualify France for the euro and took steps that led to the privatisation of some state firms. Photo: Al Jazeera/AFP
Le Parisien – En Direct. DSK arrêté à New York pour “tentative de viol” présumée – Dominique Strauss-Kahn était venu au siège du Parisien-Aujourd’hui en France pour y rencontrer des lecteurs. Le patron du FMI et favori des sondages pour la présidentielle 2012 en France.
Le Monde – Le directeur général du Fonds monétaire international (FMI), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a été arrêté samedi 14 mai à l’aéroport JFK de New York et placé en garde à vue pour une agression sexuelle présumée dans un hôtel de la ville.
RTL.fr – Le mot utilisé et qui fait parler tout Internet est “sodomy”, qui signifie avant tout “agression sexuelle”. Le directeur général du FMI, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 62 ans, a été placé en garde à vue samedi à l’aéroport JFK, à New York, où il est interrogé.
nouvelobs.com – Le directeur général de l’institution avait fait l’objet d’une enquête concernant une liaison qu’il avait eu avec une subordonnée. Le directeur général du FMI Dominique Strauss-Kahn, arrêté samedi à New York suite à des accusations d’agression sexuelle.
Le Monde – L’arrestation samedi 14 mai à New York de Dominique Strauss-Kahn, accusé d’agression sexuelle, pourrait donner un coup d’arrêt à la potentielle candidature à la primaire socialiste pour la présidentielle de 2012 du directeur général du FMI.
It looks very like prescience for, on 6 April, Bretton Woods Project published an article titled, ‘Heading for the right choice? A professional approach to selecting the IMF boss’. This said: “In 2009, the IMF agreed to ‘adopt an open, merit-based and transparent process for the selection of IMF management’. It was a commitment that was long overdue. The informal ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ made at the end of World War II that European governments could select the head of the IMF so long as the US got to choose the World Bank boss had long been regarded as outdated and illegitimate.”
The impression that the rich governments which have run the IMF have dragged their heels on this enormously important issue is hard to avoid. “It matters who the head of the IMF is, and it matters how they are chosen. It matters for the legitimacy of an organisation that, through the stringent conditions often attached to its loans, has a powerful hand in economic policy making – and hence politics – in many countries, particularly poorer ones.”
I am sure that those who have long been calling for IMF reform will be wondering about this week-end’s events concerning Strauss-Kahn. They are: ActionAid, Afrodad, Bond, Bretton Woods Project, Cafod, CRBM, Christian Aid, CIDSE, 11.11.11. Halifax Initiative, Eurodad, Jubilee Debt Campaign, Forum Syd, New Rules for Global Finance, The Norwegian Forum for Environment and Development, Oxfam, The Social Justice Committee of Montreal, SLUG, WDM, TWN and Weed.
So, why did the powers now attacking Libya easily tolerate Gaddafi for the last 10 years?
A Gadhafi supporter waves a regime flag on Green Square in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. Photo: Spiegel/Reuters
Right from the first, Muammar Gaddafi made no secret of his hatred for the Tunisian and Egyptian rebellions against Ben Ali’s and Mubarak’s dictatorial rule, this comment in l’Humanité in English has explained. In his own idiosyncratic way he has just hit upon the safest way to put the great post-colonial powers back into the saddle by providing the Tunisian and Egyptian former dictators’ accomplices with a pretext for bombing his territory. Paris, London or Washington are thus once more taking over the controls.
Des insurgés fêtent la destruction d'un tank des forces pro-Kadhafi après une attaque des avions français à 25 kmde Benghazi. Photo: Ouest-France/Epa
A smell of oil gives the neo-colonial powers’ real objectives away. Protection of the civilians is not among them. And this fuels criticism. Since resolution 1973 was voted by the Security Council last Friday despite the abstention and reservation of several states, French Rafale or British Tornado planes can drop their bombs on the tyrant’s hideouts. There are and will be major collateral damages, more civilian victims. As was the case twenty years ago, during the first Gulf war led by an international coalition where the US then played the most prominent part, France being content with playing the part of first-rank participant.
This time the French president Nicolas Sarkozy stands on the Western armada’s front line. Last Friday he was saying before the cameras that the aim is “to protect defenceless civilians” and to support the emergence of democracy. UNO’s resolution stipulates that the war objective pursued is only to protect “the populations and civilian zones under the threat of attacks in Lybia’s Arab Jamhiriya.” But these verbal precautions are meant to rally the countries that balk at approving the Security Council’s resolution, or at least to persuade them to abstain. They ill conceal the Western powers’ war-prone strategies.
Today Libya is the next biggest producer of oil in Africa after Nigeria. And it sits on huge reserves. Enough to stir limitless greed, even as, Japan’s nuclear catastrophe aiding, oil seems to be a most highly coveted fuel. The great capitalist powers easily came to terms with the Gaddafi regime during the last decade. Libya’s oil thus represents nearly 20% of Italy’s supply and at least 10% of France’s.
Pro-Gadhafi forces reportedly reached the outskirts of the rebel-held city of Benghazi on Tuesday. This image shows rebels retreating under fire from Gadhafi's troops. Photo: Spiegel/AP
The great Western capitals consider that part of the Libyan elite who have broken off with the guide might grab all or part of the oil and constitute an even more “pliant” partner than the present regime. Especially as they would stand indebted to the West for its military intervention and as the social question, which is incontrovertible in Tunisia or in Egypt, does not figure so prominently in Libya, whose population was somehow driven into exile: its migrants (4,5 million out of 10 million inhabitants) being caught between two fires, had no demands to formulate other than the right to save their skin by fleeing the country.
[Original French article is ‘L’aubaine pour reprendre la main sur le monde arabe’ by Bruno Odent, ‘Libya: A Golden Opportunity for Western Powers to Regain Control over the Arab World’]
“A puzzling question preoccupied commentators in the aftermath of the Obama administration’s apparent about-face sometime around March 16, the day before passage of UNSC 1973. Prior to that day, conventional wisdom held that the White House opposed military intercession, even in the shape of a no-fly zone, and despite the increasingly impassioned pleas of Britain, France and the Libyan National Council in rebel-controlled Benghazi.” This editorial statement, titled ‘Of Principle and Peril’, has been made by the editors of Middle East Research and Information Project (Merip).
Sur la route entre Benghazi et Ajdabiyah, un char des forces pro-khadafistes a été abandonné, touché par les bombardements de la coalition. Photo: Reuters
The objections to a no-fly zone, given voice before Congress by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, were pragmatic rather than principled. Among their number: Libya is a huge country, much larger in area than the twin swathes of Iraq the US and Britain policed in the 1990s; the necessary military assets, such as aircraft carriers, were not in theater; and Qaddafi’s helicopter gunships and tanks would be undeterred by an aerial exclusion zone, just as Saddam’s forces were in 1991, when they crushed the uprising in southern Iraq despite US mastery of the skies. Gates underlined for the legislators that imposing this measure would be, in essence, an act of war. “Let’s call a spade a spade,” he said on March 2. “A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses.”
So why, in UNSC 1973, did the US push for and attain an authorization of force that not only includes a no-fly zone but also goes beyond it? Mainstream accounts, since they are molded by White House media outreach, have predictably emphasized the administration’s mounting worries about massacres as Qaddafi’s legions regained ground, as well as President Barack Obama’s desire to be on the right side of the struggle between peoples and autocrats in the Arab world. UNSC 1973 is portrayed as a victory for the humanitarian interventionist element of Obama’s foreign policy team, among them UN Ambassador Susan Rice and adviser Samantha Power, who are eager to expiate the sins of the Clinton administration in ignoring Rwanda. The resolution is depicted simultaneously as belated, but determined fulfillment of Obama’s pledge in his Cairo speech of June 2009 to revise the list of US priorities in the Middle East, bringing US interests into greater harmony with the aspirations of the region’s populace.
The more plausible explanation for the confused signals from the White House is that official circles were engaged in debate over whether Qaddafi would win. If, as it appeared in the second week of March, the Libyan strongman would rapidly quell the rebellion and reestablish his dominion across the country, there would be little point to Western intervention.
The West’s Libya campaign has begun
De la fumée s'élève au-dessus de Benghazi où s'écrase un avion, le 19 mars 2011. Photo: Libération/AFP-Patrick Baz
French military jets have begun enforcing the UN backed no-fly zone over Libya, Russia Today has reported, as international forces prepare to carry out possible air strikes. At an emergency meeting in Paris, attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN chief Ban Ki-moon and representatives of the Arab League, it was decided to resort to military action to enforce the no-fly zone.
RT quoted news reports as having said that the operation is expected to involve British, Arab, Canadian and Danish jets, as well as French. Italy, France and Spain will provide airbases for support in the region. Arab states – Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates – said they do back the no-fly zone over Libyan airspace. There is a report in the French news site Libération titled ‘Sarkozy annonce le début d’une action militaire en Libye’.
The UN news service has said that the UN Security Council “today effectively authorised the use of force in Libya to protect civilians from attack”, specifically in the eastern city of Benghazi, which Colonel Muammar Al-Qadhafi has reportedly said he will storm tonight to end a revolt against his regime.
Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which provides for the use of force if needed, the Council adopted a resolution by 10 votes to zero, with five abstentions, authorizing Member States “to take all necessary measures… to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamhariya, including Benghazi, while excluding an occupation force.” The abstentions included China and Russia, which have the power of veto, as well as Brazil, Germany and India.
The full text of the UN Security Council resolution is here.
What is the ‘no fly’ zone about, and why are the Western powers committing fighter jets to maintaining it? Aijaz Ahmad has been interviewed on MR Zine. He said: “A no-fly zone is not about flying aircrafts. It’s about laying the groundwork for occupying at least certain parts of the country and for destroying the garrisons and fighting capacity on the ground. Robert Gates and others in charge of the American defense establishment have said that a no-fly zone really means a ground attack on the country. So that’s what a no-fly zone really is about. It’s not about some great air force that Gaddafi has because he doesn’t. Part of this council that has been set up in Benghazi has called for a no-fly zone.” It is about Libyan oil and gas, after all.
In Dakar, a call to ‘clear away invaders’
Ringing statements from Bolivian president Evo Morales and former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have been made at the World Social Forum 2011. Addressing tens of thousands who marched through Dakar, the Senegalese capital, to mark the start of the World Social Forum 2011, Morales called for a programme of social struggle to build a new world. “There must be awareness and a mobilisation to put an end to capitalism and clear away invaders, neocolonialists and imperialists […] I support the popular uprisings in Tunisia and in Egypt. These are signs of change.”
Lula told delegates that economic doctrines imposed on the world’s poorest countries no longer have a place in modern societies. “In South America, but above all in the streets of Tunis and Cairo and many other African cities, a new hope is being born. Millions of people are rising up against the poverty to which they are subjected, against the domination of tyrants, against the submission of their countries to the policies of the big powers,” said Lula.
Marching in the streets of Dakar. Photo: Abdullah Vawda/IPS
In its eleventh year, the Forum remains a space for open and honest debate. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade did not hesitate to declare himself a supporter of the market economy which most here reject, and threw down a challenge to participants regarding their engagement with established global institutions such as the United Nations. “If you who are here, if you had supported the idea, then Africa would already be on the Security Council. Since 2000, I have followed your movement and I still – excuse my frankness – ask myself this question: have you succeeded in changing the world at the global level?”
IPS news has reported that this is a challenge participants in the WSF take very seriously. Kenyan social justice activist Onyango Oloo was a key organiser of the 2007 edition of the Forum in Nairobi; he was unable to attend this year, but he suggested that the building of another world is already begun, away from the fleeting attention of the media. The WSF is a place where those builders can meet each other directly. Organisers said 75,000 people from 132 countries attended, to share their experiences of injustice and resistance, to test each others’ analyses and return home newly-inspired.
Eurodad has reported that a new international debt justice campaign has launched at the World Social Forum in Dakar. Several civil society organisations are launching a global campaign for a new international debt court. The campaign, “Defuse the Debt Crisis,” calls upon French President Nicolas Sarkozy (G20 Chair in 2011) and the international community to establish new rules for debt justice. These rules must ensure fair settlement of debt disputes when a country struggles to repay its loans or when the legitimacy of a debt is in question.
Countries all over the globe are experiencing worryingly high levels of sovereign debt, much of which has been caused by reckless private lending which triggered the global financial crisis. Unsustainable and illegitimate debt impedes development and prevents poverty reduction in developing countries. A fair and lasting solution to the debt problem is urgently needed.
European activists on stilts carry a banner reading "For a world without borders" as they walk in a march on the opening day. Photo: Rebecca Blackwell/AP
“The European approach to the current debt crisis repeats the errors that helped turn the sovereign debt crisis of Southern countries in the 1980s into what was later called “a lost decade for development,” says Oygunn Brynildsen Policy Officer at Eurodad. “Rather than holding investors responsible for the risks of their investments, public funds are being used at the expense of tax payers to bail-out the private sector,” she added.
However, “there are alternatives to handle such protracted crises in ways which do not put the burden on the poor,” says Nuria Molina, Eurodad Director. “Rather than condemning debtor countries to protracted adjustments, while securing profits from risky investments, governments must put in place fair and transparent debt workout mechanisms based on well-tested insolvency principles.”
The Guardian reported that migration and movements of people are a key theme of this year’s World Social Forum, along with the growing role of the countries of the “south” and the evolving geopolitics of south-south relations. The city’s Cheikh Anta Diop University, which is hosting the forum, has seen its population explode overnight. The expansive campus – if you get lost, allow three-quarters of an hour to find your way – is home to around 80,000 students: a city within a city. The forum brings another 75,000 participants weaving in, out and among the university’s daily crowds.
“The mobilisation here at Dakar is beyond any expectation,” said one of the forum’s organisers on Wednesday. The overwhelming size of the forum shows both the momentum of the claim that “another world is possible” and brings the limitations of the current structure into sharp relief, she adds. More local and regional forums are needed, interjects another organiser, to complement the world edition and deepen the movement against “globalisation under the interests of capital”.
UN head gives Europe blunt message on ‘integration’ and immigrants
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addresses the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Source: UN News
There are times when the United Nations gets it right, and this is one of thise times. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has delivered a ringing statement to the rightists of Europe, against what he called a new “politics of polarization”.
His statement comes in the week following the extraordinary and unconscionable declaration by Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, that multiculturalism has failed in Germany and so has integration of foreigners. Ban’s statement, contained in two addresses – to the European Parliament and to the Council of Europe – also comes a month after Nicholas Sarkozy’s government in France deported several thousand Roma to Bulgaria and Romania.
Ban warned Europe against a new “politics of polarization”, discrimination and intolerance over immigration, with Muslim immigrants as primary targets. “Almost seven years ago, my predecessor Kofi Annan stood before you,” he told the 27-nation European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. “In his address, he made an impassioned call for Europe to seize the opportunities presented by immigration and to resist those who demonized these newcomers as ‘the other’. I wish I could report, today, that the situation in Europe has improved over the intervening years. But as a friend of Europe, I share profound concern.”
In a speech earlier to the 47-nation Council of Europe, he highlighted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ proclamation of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family. “That is our base line,” he declared at the session marking the 60th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights. “That is our standard. There are no exceptions. In a complicated and connected world, this mission is essentially simple and simply essential.”
Germany's persistent discomfort with migrants. Image: Deutsche Welle
In his address to the parliamentarians, Mr. Ban said Europe has served “as an extraordinary engine of integration, weaving together nations and cultures into a whole that is far, far greater than the sum of its parts. But for Europe, ‘winning the peace’ was the narrative of the last century. “The 21st century European challenge is tolerance within. Inclusion, building diverse communities, is as complex a task as the one Europe faced after the Second World War. None of this is easy,” he added.
Migrants, he noted, suffer disproportionately, whether they are from within Europe or beyond, and he pointed to “a new politics of polarization” as a dangerous emerging trend. “Some play on people’s fears. They seek to invoke liberal values for illiberal causes. They accuse immigrants of violating European values. Yet too often, it is the accusers who subvert these values – and thus the very idea of what it means to be a citizen of the European Union,” he said.
Ban made particular reference to Germany’s history of right-wing nationalism. “Europe’s darkest chapters have been written in language such as this,” he said. “Today, the primary targets are immigrants of the Muslim faith. Europe cannot afford stereotyping that closes minds and breeds hatred. And the world cannot afford a Europe that does this.” In his address to the Council, Mr. Ban cited evidence of backsliding on civil and political rights and a growing anxiety in many developed countries over migration and economic hard times that are used to justify policies of discrimination and exclusion.
Germany's violent, racist and xenophobic rightist groups still organise with impunity. Image: Deutsche Welle
The UN Secretary General also said bluntly that none of Europe’s largest and wealthiest powers had signed or ratified the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers 20 years after it was adopted. “In some of the world’s most advanced democracies, among nations that take just pride in their long history of social progressiveness, migrants are being denied basic human rights,” he said. “We must respect cultural diversity, while never compromising our fundamental principles and never tolerating intolerance, Lasting social change, including respect for human rights, and particularly women’s rights, cannot be planted from afar. It must take root within societies.”
In a typically clumsy and painfully transparent attempt at camouflaging the Merkel government’s increasingly illiberal position, the German federal government has announced plans for legislation to promote the integration of immigrants into mainstream society. “For a while multiculturalism in Germany was about immigrants living as they wished and not putting integration too much in the forefront,” said spokesman Steffen Seibert at a government press briefing in Berlin. “In everybody’s interest, this society has to act, and the government will act.”
"Demonising the 'other' " as a dangerous political manoeuvre. Image: Deutsche Welle
Seibert said Merkel’s center-right coalition cabinet planned to adopt “concrete” new regulations next Wednesday on immigration policy and residency permits. The legislation would focus on German language courses and combating forced marriages, and make it easier for foreign diplomas to be formally recognized. Deutsche Welle quoted Seibert as saying: “This country is extremely glad to have hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people with foreign roots who are well integrated. But we also recognize, and perhaps we are stressing it more now than in years gone by, that with some foreigners integration is not happening as it should. In some cases it is quite openly being rejected.”
Seibert’s schizophrenic prose does nothing to explain Germany’s deep-seated discomfort with the foreigner. It’s very label for the immigrant of the 1950s, gastarbeiter, or guest worker, implied that when the ‘guest’ had completed his term of economic usefulness he would cease being the guest by leaving. This is a term that continued to be used by all sections of Germany’s political spectrum even throughout the years when the country claimed it was encouraging multi-culturalism. It did no such thing, choosing instead to raise barriers based on language proficiency, the recognition of educational qualifications and the ‘burden’ on its services. By her contemptible statement, Merkel has revealed the deeply alarming tendency of western European ruling elites to resort to dangerous polarisation in order to disguise the failures of their policies for their own marginalised and economically depressed citizens.
