More than 300 activists murdered in 2017

As Brazil reels from the murder of city councilor Marielle Franco, it is instructive to remember the broader backdrop of repression. Brazil leads the list in murders of ecological and agricultural activists in the Americas, with 46 being slain last year alone.

The information is taken from Biodiversidad en América Latina y el Caribe.

In 2017, 312 activists in 27 countries were killed for their non-violent activities, according to data compiled by Front Line Defenders.

Dedicated to the more than 300 human rights defenders killed this year, the FDL’s Annual Report on Human Rights Defenders at Risk opens with two pages that list the names of those who died. The report details the physical attacks, threats, judicial harassment and smear campaigns used by state, non-state and corporate actors to obstruct the peaceful work of human rights defenders around the world.

More than two thirds, 67% of the total number of murdered activists, defended rights over land, the environment and indigenous peoples, almost always in the context of activities of extractive industries, megaprojects and large companies.

Of the cases collected, only 12% of all murder cases resulted in the arrest of suspects. Impunity for acts of violence and chronic lack of protection for defenders at risk continues to generate a climate of frequent killings, the organization said. Of the cases in which data on previous threats were collected, 84% of the defenders had received at least one personal death threat before being killed.

"Throughout the world, defenders continue to tell us that police and government officials refuse to respond to requests for protection after death threats," said Executive Director Andrew Anderson at the launch of the report in Dublin. "The killings almost always occur after a series or pattern of threats, which indicates that if the police take preventive measures and the authorities take the threats against the defenders seriously, the murders could be drastically reduced."

In addition to the high murder rate in 2017, criminalization remained the most common strategy used to obstruct the crucial work of human rights defenders. In 2017, thousands of activists were arrested on false accusations, subjected to prolonged legal proceedings, costly and unfair or sentenced to long prison terms. In several countries, the authorities accused defenders of "waging war on the state" and "secession," charges that can lead to the death penalty. In the Middle East and North Africa, human rights defenders faced charges related to terrorism, state security and espionage. In Vietnam, the government organized a systematic campaign against bloggers, academics and journalists in 2017, with activists arrested, accused, labeled "enemies of the state" and subjected to imprisonment for up to ten years and additional time under house arrest.

The report also highlights that international pressure on governments attacking the activists is crucial. In 2016, six activists in Sudan were arrested and prosecuted for "conspiracy to conduct intelligence and espionage activities in favor of foreign embassies" and "waging war against the state." Three of them were detained for almost a year and two were tortured. But  after an extensive campaign of national and international pressure, the six received a presidential pardon in August 2017.

In many of the cases denounced by Front Line Defenders, both judicial harassment and physical attacks were preceded by defamation and smear campaigns at the local level. Female human rights defenders around the world reported increasing campaigns of sexual defamation aimed at bringing them into disrepute and hindering their activism by undermining their local support networks.

In response, according to Executive Director Andrew Anderson, Front Line Defenders is working to promote the safety of human rights defenders with a range of protection programs. In addition to training in risk management and digital protection, political advocacy at national, international and EU level, emergency relocation and almost 500 protection grants provided to activists at risk in 2017, Front Line Defenders also works with human rights activists to design visibility strategies that counteract the campaigns of defamation and disrepute that place them in situations of risk.

Violence and Monotheism (a review)

A review of the Spanish edition of “Violence et Monotéisme”, published by Fragmenta, Barcelona, 2014  

Mar Rosas Tosàs
04.03.18

 

René Girard, in his celebrated work Violence and the Sacred (1972) maintained that religion constituted the best remedy against humanity’s violence. Jan Assmann sets out to upset this thesis: in the foundational texts of biblical monotheism, he says, we find a semantics of violence.
 

Assmann’s thesis is that the Pagan religions had no conception of any distinction between true religion and false religion, and that it was biblical monotheism that introduced this distinction. This is what he calls “the Mosaic distinction”: the religion of the other is false and, consequently, the others are aliens and enemies because they are enemies of God (p.24).
 

As Lluís Duch says in his introduction (and as Assmann’s regular readers will quickly note) this study is closely related to his previous research on the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton, who led a monotheistic revolution which was, per Assmann, the first to articulate religion on the basis of the Mosaic distinction.
 

Amongst the ancient Pagan religions, Assmann continues, there existed a mutual translatability which guaranteed communication between cultures. Not only did they not question the gods of other communities, but foreigners’ beliefs in the gods was a guarantee that they were people worthy of trust, and that relationships with such people could be established. Yes, there was violence, but that was a question of power, not one of truth, as it would be in biblical monotheism (pp.42-43). With this new emphatic concept of truth, monotheism introduced, then, a new kind of pseudospeciation, to use a term of Erik H. Erikson borrowed by Assmann. In biological terms, humans are identical, and it is only due to culture that strangeness and violence towards the same species is generated. The configuring of a new ontology, in practice, translated into a new kind of violence.
 

Assmann goes on to examine the type of violence which the Mosaic distinction creates. It’s important to point out that his interest is not in what really happened, but rather what he and his wife Aleida Assmann call “cultural memory”, which frequently weighs more in the life of the group than the events that really occurred. So Assmann concentrates on how biblical monotheism presents itself in its early texts: why does it present itself as a leap and a revolutionary break if, in reality, it was really a progressive evolution (various biblical texts take for granted the existence of other gods, which is why in those texts God demands an exclusive fidelity)? And why is a language of violence employed in order to show the victory of monotheism over other religions?

Assmann distinguishes between pure violence –that divine violence of which Walter Benjamin wrote –and cultural violence, which he divides into five categories. The forms that most interest him in the pursuit of his study are juridical violence and religious violence. The first is a counterviolence which aims to create a juridical sphere which opposes pure violence, that is to say, it opposes that violence that is exercised as a function of merely private interests. Religious violence, on the other hand, is exercised in the name of God’s will (p. 34).
 

By extension, Assmann next develops the thesis that violence is an original contribution of monotheism (p. 32) and goes on to examine it. As we said, it is a question of the violence which bases itself on the distinction between the true and the false, which translates into a classification of people as friends or enemies. Now, the peculiarity on which Assmann lingers is that this religious violence is simultaneously a juridical violence (p. 84). For Assmann, biblical monotheism’s original gesture was its idea that violence exercised by despotic political leaders in the pursuit of personal desires rather than the enforcement of the law was in fact pure violence And in opposing this with a juridical violence legitimated by religion, biblical monotheism presents itself as a liberation movement from pure violence. In this way, biblical monotheism seeks to oppose the pessimistic anthropology that bases itself on the premise that, without a strong state, society is condemned to chaos, in the same line of reasoning that centuries later would be developed by Thomas Hobbes and Carl Schmitt. In summary, Assmann argues that the biblical God makes the claims to justice his own. For the first time in history, religion is the object of an ethical and juridical transformation.
 

Biblical monotheism also presents itself as a “bastion of justice” to the extent that it opposes the supposed “blindness” and violence of Paganism. In its opposition to Paganism, the prohibition of images plays a crucial role, something which biblical monotheism also frames in an incredibly original way. Assmann examines how – in one passage in Deuteronomy and another in Exodus –two apparently separate things are linked: the prohibition of worshiping other gods on the one hand, and on the other, the prohibition on representing God. This serves to clarify who is faithful to God and it constitutes the distinctive mark of the new religion. Assmann astutely points out, however, that biblical monotheism doesn’t so much oppose the Paganism beyond its borders as it does the Paganism within them. It’s not a matter of Egypt or Babylon, but rather of Canaan.
 

The final thesis that he defends in this work is that “the move towards this new form of religion as a life principle could never have been realised without the resource of the written word (p 10). In the ancient oriental empires, the king was the incarnation of the law, such that the legal text was of merely informative value. This ceases to be the case with the new religion, in which the text comes to have the value of a performative utterance. According to Mendelssohn, in Judaism one can only write the laws and rules of life, that is, the historic truths, but not the salvific and eternal truths. Assmann disagrees with Mendelssohn: the move towards a transcendental religion requires the writing down of laws because their codification is a necessary first step for establishing the distinction between the true and the false, between the true God and that of the idols (pp. 119-120). In distinction to what Mendelssohn claimed, the written word is related to eternal truth, even if only indirectly.

Assmann has been criticised for an unjustifiable inclination towards Paganism. Duch, in a more moderate tone, speaks of his “sympathy” for it (p.1). But the truth is that Assmann does not call for a return to polytheism (p.35) but rather proposes an attempt to realise the original impulse of biblical monotheism, which was never fulfilled: to dispossess the political leaders of their omnipotence and to free men from any totalising system (p.123).
 

In our view, before doing this, we need to deeply analyse monotheism’s notion of truth, which Assmann labels “emphatic”, and which he opposes to the ancient Pagan religions’ concept of truth, which he qualifies as “weak”. The Mosaic distinction seems like a good starting point to settle the strengths and merits of both groups of religions, but it requires a deeper study.


Translated by David Montoute.

Original text:

https://www.unav.edu/publicaciones/revistas/index.php/anuario-filosofico/article/viewFile/2764/2630

8 Reasons to Love Trump

Augusto Zamora R

Shirts of every stripe (except neo-fascist ones) were torn in anguish over the election to the US presidency of the outsider Donald Trump, and as tends to happen, the passions of the moment have crowded out the space available for analysis. From this spot, we had already pointed out  that Trump, although he was no Bluebeard the Pirate (nor Hillary any Joan of Arc) certainly was addressing himself to whites –that is, to 69% of registered voters– and that topics such as immigration aimed to pull votes  away from Hillary, whom various surveys had predicted would lose.

We will still insist that Trump is not Bluebeard, and that Hillary is no Joan of Arc. Beyond all of the screeching, it may be that Trump turns out to be the better option, and that, given time, we will apply the words of Matthew “by their fruits will you know them” (Matthew 20).  Without forgetting what we have said previously that “whoever wins, once anointed, will be incorporated into the establishment” – a less passionate and more realistic analysis of Trump’s actions in the Whitehouse will show that the wolf is not as scary as he is made out to be. So let us review:

1. IMMIGRATION:

Trump affirmed that he will carry out a huge deportation of immigrants. In the US, that is synonymous with Latin Americans (latinos or hispanics, putting it simply). Now he says it would be only be one million (there are more than eleven million), but that they would be immigrants with criminal records, which, if true, would be just a handful. The whole song-and-dance over Trump has created the impression that there were no deportations before. Nothing could be further than the truth. The “benevolent” Obama exercised, in his term, the most severe anti-immigration policies of the past thirty years. According to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data, 2,768,357 people were deported between August 2009 and August 2016. In 1986, under Reagan, the figure was 24,592 Hispanic immigrants; in 1996, under Bill Clinton, 69,680; in 2006, under Bush Jr. 280,974; in 2012, under Obama, 435,498 people. When Barack ends his term, he will have expelled 3 million immigrants whose only crime was to be hungry. Trump, in excluding –for the moment- immigrants with clean records from the threat of deportation, is exempting 95% of them. Next to Obama’s “wholesale deportation for everyone” there will be Trump’s “wholesale deportation of those with records” which will greatly improve the situation of ordinary immigrants.

2. THE WALL:

We reiterate our belief that the wall will never be built. Trump has said that he will only build parts. Neither is this a novel subject. The first wall was built in 1990, with 20 kilometres in the area of San Diego. En 2005, the US Senate approved an extension of 1,123 kilometres to the 600 kilometres of the wall already in existence by that year. In 2006, the same Senate adopted a new amendment to build 595 kilometres of wall and 800 kilometres of fences. In 2009 similar walls and fences covered more than one thousand kilometres. Today, there are 509.5 kilometres of wall for those on foot and 482.4 kilometres of fences against those in vehicles (which those on foot can leap over) and 58.4 kilometres of a double or triple wall in the San Diego section. Walls come and go, but immigration will never be stopped. From 1990 till present, some 20 million Hispanics have crossed the border, showing the futility of the barriers. Unlike the previous governments, which built walls and barriers without making a fuss about it (and dismissing Mexico’s protests), Trump has laid the subject on the table, and –surprise!– he will meet with the Mexican president about it. No other US president has done so in order to address this issue. We will see how it is eventually watered down and will end up remaining more or less as it is, but with some extra fencing for appearances’ sake. The only novelty will be in Trump discussing the wall with Mexico.

3. THE FREE TRADE DEALS:

 A little bit of history. Free trade deals (originally called ‘free exchange treaties’) were an invention of England in the 19^th century in order to benefit its industrial production, this at a time when Great Britain was the world’s factory. Latin American countries were the first victims: the continent’s “liberators” agreed to sign free trade deals which exempted British products from taxes. Those treaties destroyed the economies of whole countries and gave rise to neo-colonialism. Today, the premise is the same. ‘Globalisation’ is only for capital and multinational companies, not for workers. The free trade agreements have undermined working conditions, including those of the US middle class which voted largely for Trump. The multinationals took their industries to Asia or Mexico and closed their US installations. Trump’s promise to reindustrialise the country can only be criticised by the corporations that want the free circulation of goods and capital, but their workers without rights, as has been happening in Spain for years. The TTIP, which Trump has labelled “madness”, is a treaty that puts states on their knees before big business and capital. To defend economic and social rights is the struggle of the Left. If Trump helps in that, then we should let him.

4. NATO: 

According to Trump, Europeans should meet their “defence” expenditures, since the US economy is not now in any condition to finance NATO’s aggressive deployments. Since 1999, Europe has experienced an unprecedented militarisation which, if not halted, will sooner or later lead to war with a Russia that is being territorially boxed-in further and further. That Trump should openly address Europe being in a state of war, a subject deliberately avoided by the media, is a welcome thing. A note for our followers:  in the coming months, the deployment of 6,000 soldiers to Eastern Europe is envisioned, together with hundreds of tanks, armoured vehicles and heavy ordinance. Also approved is the Armoured Division of the Fourth Division Infantry sending another 4,000 soldiers in January of 2017.  According to the newspaper Stars and Stripes, the US will also deploy 60% of the personnel and equipment of the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade of New York, made up of 1,750 pilots and 60 planes and helicopters, amongst them the UH-60 Black Hawk and the CH-47 Chinook, (“2 brigades of nearly 6,000 troops head to Europe amid growing Russian tensions”). Stars and Stripes is an army daily which reports on troop movements, military exercises and other themes related to the US armed forces. If there’s going to be a war, let them give us a heads-up first.

5. CRIMEA: 

A whim of the Soviet leader Nikita Krushev, himself of Ukrainian origin and a hero of the Battle of Stalingrad, passed the historically Russian peninsula to the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine in 1954. He did it to commemorate 300 years of Russian-Ukrainian unity and out of his belief in the eternal survival of the Soviet Union, then at the height of its power. The death of the USSR put within NATO’s reach the old German dream of bringing Ukraine into its orbit in order to use it against Russia.  The 2014 coup d’etat, promoted by the US and NATO, threatened to bring Ukraine into the Atlanticist organisation  –and with it– NATO’s control of Sevastopol, the historic base of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. But in Moscow, it was no longer the drunken Boris Yeltsin in power, but Vladimir Putin. Putin had already declared that he wouldn’t accept NATO bases in Georgia. In 2008 he invaded Georgia and put an end to the Atlanticist project. With this precedent, it was already obvious that Moscow would not accept the loss of Crimea. Last July, Trump declared that “the people of Crimea…prefer to be with Russia, instead of where they were before, and that has to be taken into account.” He also expressed his opinion on what could happen if anyone tried to return Crimea to the Ukraine: “And now you want to start World War Three in order to give [Crimea] back?” Trump recognising Russia’s recovery of Ukraine would be a political defeat for NATO and the EU, but it would help to shore up the continent’s precarious peace.

6. UKRAINE:

It is common knowledge that Ukraine is submerged in an interminable swirl of corruption and mismanagement. The country’s poverty has caused salaries to dip to 50% those of China. The ruling institutional clique has placed Ukraine at number 1 in Europe’s corruption index. Trump, during his campaign, labelled Ukraine a “country in chaos”, which provoked angry reactions in Ukraine’s leaders. Interior minister Arsen Avakov, called him a “dangerous outcast” whilst a government MP called him “a complete idiot”. Ukraine is a geostrategic borderland for Russia, and it is not going to let NATO take it, at least, not without a war. Crimea and Ukraine are part of the same package. Neither of them is worth a nuclear war. Except for the suicidal, nothing can justify a nuclear war. Reinforcing peace, however, is worth everything.  

7. SYRIA:

 “Obama is the founder of ISIS and Hillary Clinton is the cofounder”, said Donald Trump on numerous occasions. He also said that he would finish off the Islamic State in one hundred days. Even if it’s 200 days, it won’t matter so long as it brings peace to the destroyed and martyred Syria. With Hillary that would not have been possible. With 250,000 dead, the country almost completely destroyed and eight million displaced, a thorough accord between the US and Russia is required. The announced meeting between Trump and Putin can at least deliver that deal. NATO won’t like it, but Syrians will. With the country pacified, hundreds of thousands of them will be able to return and, with international aid, rebuild their country. Is anyone against this?

8. ONE DOLLAR SALARY: 

Let’s admit it; even though it has a touch of demagogy about it, this is an honourable gesture which shouldn’t be dismissed. With this gesture, the multi-millionaire Trump says that he earns so much money that he doesn’t need a publicly-paid salary. Has any other millionaire done this before, even though many of them have filled public posts? The first US President George Washington, despite being a slaver and a millionaire, assigned himself a salary that was 2% of the national budget.  According to the Center for Responsive Politics, there are 268 millionaires in Congress, all of which faithfully receive their salaries, together with perks. The Texan Michael McCaul has a 500 million dollar fortune. Doesn’t Trump’s gesture say something to the ‘black card’ people or to the sports club managers who spend 737,000 Euros of public funds in restaurants, amongst a never-ending list of such people?

There is also a ninth reason: Trump has banned the ‘revolving doors’. No member of his cabinet may profit from the exercise of his public position until five years after he has left it. Let Spain and Europe take note.

Let’s ask the EU to expel only those immigrants with criminal records and give papers to those that don’t. Let’s tear down the barbed wire fences built by democratic governments and bring back the free movement of people. Let’s end the ridiculous militarisation underway and let us secure peace on the subcontinent. Let us put an end to the criminal policies that destroyed Libya, Syria and Iraq, and let us help to rebuild those countries. Let us criticise less and lead more by example. Trump is not worse than what we have here in Europe. To believe anything else is utter self-delusion and blindness. In Europe the racist extreme right already governs: in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Ukraine… These are realities, not speculation.

Translated by David Montoute from the original:

http://blogs.publico.es/dominiopublico/18508/ocho-razones-para-amar-a-trump/

COMMENT:

Although generally a good article, a few caveats should be added:

Russia's 2008 intervention in Georgia cannot accurately be described as an "invasion", but should be understood as an appropriate and proportional response to an unprovoked attack upon South Ossetian civilians and Russian peacekeepers alike by the Georgian government then headed by Mikheil Saakashvili.

Augusto's first sentence also leaves us with the impression that only neo-fascists cheered Trump's victory -a pretty extraordinary claim when 50% of the voting public chose him. In fact, Trump's support came from a broad swath of opinion and included both Leftists, diverse anti-interventionists (such Justin Raimondo's excellent Anti-War site), Paleocons, and simply those disgusted by the sociopathic warmonger Hillary Clinton. Contrary to media hype, the far-Right and its racist ideologues were a distant voice and an essentially irrelevant factor in Trump's truimph. It has been noted than a great number of those who previously elected Barack Obama (twice) this time opted for Trump. 

Did they all become "racists" overnight?

In a sane and rational world, Jill Stein's Green Party would now be steering the United States' away from its costly and destructive empire. But as our author has reminded us, serious analysis begins with the world that we have, not the one that we want.