Last Month in DiEM25: October 2020
External Actions
This month:
DiEM25 and the Progressive International (PI) expressed solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn; interpreting the decision of the current Labour Party leadership to suspend Jeremy Corbyn as a cynical attempt to purge the Labour Party of any force capable of turning the Labour Party, as Jeremy did between 2015 and 2019, into a serious threat to the oligarchy’s hold over power
On 18 October, the PI’s electoral delegation criss-crossed the cities of La Paz and El Alto to observe Bolivia’s democratic process and witnessed the victory of Luis Arce!
The Coordinating Collective of DiEM25 condemned the violent crackdown on widespread protests in Nigeria.
DiEM25’s Taskforce on Feminism, Diversity and Disabilities strongly condemned the recent court ruling on restricting abortions in Poland.
Yanis Varoufakis testified in a Spanish court case against UC Global on 27 October – a security agency that spied on Assange and his visitors, including Yanis, during his time at the Ecuadorian embassy. See his statement here.
DiEM25’s thematic group on Peace and International Policy commented on the new Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union – pushing for the EU to promote more sustainable, small-scale agriculture.
DiEM25 celebrated the banning of the Greek Golden Dawn party, but with the awareness that the seeds of fascism live on.
Our local group of DiEMers in South Holland called out the xenophobia present in policy towards the housing crisis in the Netherlands.
DiEMers in Belgium continue to demonstrate for Julian Assange’s release every first Monday of the month!
DiEM25 activists part of Luxembourg local group protested as part of a coalition for the right to housing in the Grand Duchy.
Internal Actions
The Coordinating Collective started discussing DiEM25’s plan forward for the next 5 years, by looking back on our successes and failures. Watch our recorded CC call here and tell us your opinion!
Monthly coordination calls are being organised by the CC with members from all corners of Europe! Here is the schedule for the calls (please keep the days in mind, as these calls will recur on the same day every month, using the same link):
Italy: Zoom on first Monday of the month
Spain: Zoom on first Tuesday of the month
Germany: Zoom on first Friday of the month
France: Zoom on second Monday of the month
UK (+Ireland): Zoom on second Tuesday of the month
Greece (+Cyprus): Zoom on second Friday of the month
Belgium (+ Netherlands and Luxembourg): Zoom on third Monday of the month
Portugal: Zoom on third Tuesday of the month
Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Switzerland (even months) OR Scandinavia and Baltic States (odd months): Zoom on the third Friday of the month
Turkey: Zoom on fourth Monday of the month
Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria Zoom on fourth Tuesday of the month
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia: Zoom on fourth Friday of the month
The option to reform the NCs is being presented to the membership. The first part is in the form of an all member vote (AMV). It includes a proposal for a list of prerequisites, to ensure that all elected NCs will be formed in conditions that will be favourable to the tasks they will be asked to undertake. In this forum thread you can find the AMV text and space to discuss the text, before the vote will be started in about one week from now. The other part is a reconfiguration of the internal workings of NCs: number of members elected, roles, how they are integrated in the greater DiEM25 ecosystem, priorities etc. This is a conversation that we invite you all, due to your extensive experience, to contribute to here. In the next few weeks, we will work at developing a new AMV, renewing the role and structure of NCs, taking into consideration the feedback we will receive in this thread.
Continuing to build on our citizen engagement campaign that sets out to build national programmes in collaboration with Europeans for DiEM25! The work for the questionnaires of 11 countries nearing the final stage. Here you can find more information on the current status of the project, while in case you are interested in volunteering for it, please register your interest here. Finally, if you are from, or live, in one of the following countries, please consider filling out this form to help us develop a questionnaire for it: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Turkey.
DiEMers that played, and continue to play, central roles in the establishment and development of the PI on behalf of our movement have been updating DiEM25 members in a webinar. You find a recording of the video linked here.
We developed “Election participation guidelines”. Here, you can find the guidelines.
We updated our volunteer page. And our volunteers translated the newly designed page into German, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Czech and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian!
On the ground: new DiEM25 Spontaneous Collectives (DSCs) were founded in the Suisse Romande area in Switzerland, as well as in Corinth in Greece and in Bucharest in Romania! Find the latest DSC news here!
This Month in DiEM25: November!
We will continue developing our citizen engagement campaign that aims to reach out to our grassroots members in line with our working plan. If you have already registered to be a volunteer for the project to develop national programmes for DiEM25, get ready — we will contact you soon!
Campaign Accelerator: Soon to be presented, a more systematic and empowering approach for targeted, local campaigning! The history of activism shows that the most famous examples of change were not at all planned actions. Rosa Parks probably didn’t wake up in the morning of December 1, 1955, thinking she would become a symbol of courage and civil disobedience by the end of the day. The protests her actions sparked, ended up improving people’s lives. We cannot script success stories, but we can empower courageous and constructively disobedient people, on their path to a potential success story… and that is what this mission will be about. More info soon.
On 5 November at 21:00 CET, the Rent-volution! Campaign will hold a Pan-European call on a housing campaign we’ve been working on for the past six months. This is an urgent matter due to the second wave of lockdowns spreading throughout Europe, and the continued precarious nature of many peoples’ work. Register here.
On 11 November at 20:00 CET, a francophone presentation on the Green New Deal for Europe will take place. Register and find out more here!
You can also look forward to several events! Yanis Varoufakis meets Owen Jones on 7 November at 19:30 CET. Register here.
And in December, The 2020 Holberg Debate: “Is Global Stability A Pipe Dream?” — Yanis Varoufakis vs John Bolton 5 December at 15:00 CET.
Stay tuned and keep an eye on the announcements of the new series of Movement Coordination Calls! If you have joined DiEM25 in the last three months you can expect an invitation for the teleconference where we will get to know each other and the way DiEM25 operates.
If you wish to send a point to be included in the next newsletter, or want to help to draft it, please contact us at [email protected].
Poland’s abortion ban, a warning for all women* in Europe
Protests continue in Poland and abroad against Poland’s abortion ban
*inclusive of trans, queer and non-binary people
On 22 October, the Polish Constitutional Court banned one of the few remaining — and most common — legal grounds for abortion in the country. This decision has brought thousands of Poles to the streets over the last 10 days, with activists voicing their anger and carrying out hundreds of strikes in Warsaw and other corners of Poland.
These protests — the biggest seen in the country since the eighties — are taking place despite thinly veiled threats by Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński calling for violence against protesters, and escalating numbers of COVID cases in the country. Indeed, women’s rights groups behind the marches may now face prosecution as gatherings of more than five people are currently prohibited as a preventative measure against Coronavirus.
But pro-choice supporters are not giving up, and their disobedience is already paying off
The ruling, affecting over 10 million women of reproductive age, was scheduled to be formally published at the beginning of this week and therefore become legally binding. But as a result of the many justified protests, it has been delayed. The government is backing off and is calling for dialogue with opposition groups and lawmakers to find a solution. The people’s voice is being heard, at least for now.
Looking at the broader context, abortion had already been illegal in Poland, but it was at least permitted under three circumstances: in case of rape or incest, when the mother’s life is at risk, and in the event of severe and irreversible foetal defects. Three has now become two, with the PiS-controlled Constitutional Court declaring abortions falling within the third category unconstitutional.
The problem of this latest ruling is that around 98% of the over 1,100 legal abortions carried out every year are performed under the third exception. Since most terminations are now effectively prohibited, those pregnant will have to carry to term, unless they can afford going abroad to access abortion. Women’s groups estimate that between 80,000 and 120,000 Polish women already go to neighbouring countries every year, mostly to Germany, to terminate unwanted pregnancies. That number will now surely increase, whilst rates of unsafe, pseudo-medical, homemade abortions will as well.
Due to public pressure, the government is looking for a compromise, but does it go far enough? Polish president Andrzej Duda has proposed to continue to allow abortion for foetuses with life-threatening defects but ban it for disorders such as Down’s syndrome. Yet, this alternative follows the same rationale: it takes away the right of women to make decisions about their own bodies and how they want to live their lives. And pro-choice activists and the opposition are not likely to buy it.
This near-total ban on abortion is another manifestation of a war on women and their bodily autonomy
It is a violation of their right to health (physical and mental) and their fundamental right to be treated as equal beings. As women’s groups put it, women are being treated like living incubators. They are subject to an end, with no voice or decision. This is another form of violence.
And yet, this decision does not happen in a vacuum. Around the world, we are amidst an astonishing regression of women’s reproductive rights. In the US, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a devout Catholic and staunch pro-lifer, became the newest addition to the Supreme Court last week, tipping the balance of power on the bench 6-3 in favour of Conservatives. This has the potential to further accelerate the race on abortion bans (in 2019 alone, a total of 26 abortion bans were enacted across 12 states in the US) and could even lead to overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.
Meanwhile, as half a million Poles have been raising their banners, both Poland and the US — along with more than 30 countries, representing over 1.6 billion people, and also including another EU member-state, Hungary — have signed an anti-abortion declaration; aka the Geneva Consensus Declaration.
The Polish Constitutional Court’s decision has of course been heavily criticised across Europe
After all, this assault on reproductive rights is just the latest regressive action taken by PiS, which has also seen the governing party attack judicial independence, free media and LGBTQIA+ rights. So far though, condemnatory words have failed to translate into effective action and the EU has not imposed any penalties against the country.
Pressure is mounting however, and some MEPs and governments are suggesting to withhold EU financial aid from Poland unless the government changes tack. But, will that happen, and if so, will Poland change course? So far any attempts to force the right-wing coalition to alter its position have proven unsuccessful. PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński has indeed vowed that he will not succumb to any blackmail from Brussels and will “protect” Polish sovereignty tooth and nail.
The ruling has also been a rallying call to regressive political forces in Europe. It attacks Polish women’s ownership over their own bodies and rights, as much as it represents a threat for millions of people across EU member-states. It sets a precedent, and it does so at a time where the far-right, riding a wave of support from anti-abortion crusaders, is rising in Europe.
What has been achieved after years of women’s mobilization can be reversed in the blink of an eye if we don’t see this as a collective problem
Every one of us in Europe and around the world — especially women — must stand in solidarity with our fellow Poles. Decisions about the autonomy of our bodies and rights are not, and should not be, left in the hands of any sovereign state. This issue goes beyond national borders.
Nationwide protests have put enough pressure on the government to delay the ban, but should not we tackle the problem more proactively across Europe? If we want to preserve — and strengthen — reproductive rights, we need a united response as Europeans. We need a European solution.
While the European Union must be quick to take real action on this attack to its fundamental principles, we must consider other options that can more effectively tackle this regression.
DiEM25 stands for a Pan-European Convention on Reproductive Rights where EU member-states guarantee access to reproductive autonomy and sexual health
This Convention would sanction countries attacking strong foundations of women’s rights, just like Poland is doing, and others may be tempted to follow. Easy and legal access to abortion — including full medical, psychological and social care — would be binding for all countries, giving back to women, including trans, queer and non-binary people, the right to make decisions about their own health.
Poland’s abortion ban is another step towards women’s oppression, and a warning sign for all other women. But a coordinated European response can help us change course.
Read the statement by our movement’s Taskforce on Feminism, Diversity and Disabilities ‘We stand in solidarity with the women* of Poland’.
Photo Source: Codzienny Poznań on Twitter.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect DiEM25’s official policies or positions.
Against electoral fatalism
For those outside the US, our fate depends not on one superpower’s elections, but on our willingness to force our politicians to reject megalomaniacal commands from Washington.
What do you, me, and most citizens in the world share in common with any American ex-felon in the State of Florida, struggling to make amends with his criminal past while reentering society? None of us, of course, can vote in US elections, though these may impact our lives, molding our political systems and economies through foreign policy and trade.
The average inhabitant of any country — including Puerto Rico, a nation with ambiguous status forming part of the United States — has the power of a Floridian former prison-inmate witnessing the elections on TV or social media. Providence is to those born in what puritanical 18th century settlers christened a promised land, near the self-declared City on a Hill — invoked as a secular foreign policy term in the 20th century for American exceptionalism. Those born outside the Promised Land bear original sin.
Despite all that, one gets the impression that progressive intelligentsia in much of the world, and especially in Western Europe, are mesmerised, glued to screens of fleeting reports on the US presidential debates — not exactly Cicero — in a precipitous decision which locks out our participation. Those onstage seem oblivious to that misty, metaphysical realm beyond US borders.
Many progressives in Europe and elsewhere who followed the primaries passionately speculated whether one should feel under obligation to vote for Hillary in 2016 — despite having no rights to do so. They’re at it again, apparently having accepted that today’s outcome must determine the course of history in the direction of Empire’s undertow. To a large extent, unfortunately, it will. But that does not justify lack of suspicion towards a syndrome which reemerged in Europe during the Obama years: a liberal faith in acquiescence to the US foreign policy ideology called “American exceptionalism”.
Those who cheered Sanders up until and even after his capitulations before Democratic Party bosses in 2016, and through the second capitulation-campaign of 2020, buy the oversold optimism about “Joe Biden’s progressive turn” when he’s shown greater sympathy towards Republicans than popular progressives like congresswoman Ocasio-Cortéz, who admitted recently that Biden has never spoken to her. Inside the US, dissidents like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi have taken flack for rejecting the illusion advocated by Sanders, who with a straight face said Biden might become the most progressive US president “since FDR”.
Optimistic onlookers nonetheless succumb to fatalism, believing our destiny depends on these November elections. Said fatalism hinges particularly on environmental policy, or lack thereof, among the contenders. Has the US conquered our brains again, more effective perhaps than those hyped Russia disinformation trolls? This autumn, let’s also look to ourselves, as well as Southwards and Eastwards.
Brazil’s key to planetary continuity.
The Amazon, spanning Brazil and neighbouring countries, represents the world’s major carbon sink, absorbing roughly 600 million tonnes of carbon annually. President Jair Bolsonaro has accelerated deforestation. Bolsonaro, along with richer men like Mike Pompeo conveniently converted to the Evangelical worldview, which proclaims that we inhabit the end-times. And since Judgment Day is inevitable, we might as well speed up the short-term financial exploitation of our last means of species-survival.
Luiz Inacio Lula, a recently liberated political prisoner, stands a chance with Brazil’s Workers Party of altering the course in a campaign, and as President would refuse submission to either Trump or Biden’s exploitative foreign agenda.
The Bolivian coup-regime of Jeanine Añez–recently defeated by MÁS–shared Pompeo’s gospel, and comparable plans for Bolivian nature and workforces. They are zealots–but progressives who hinge the world’s continuity on the Biden campaign for 2020 represent another, more educated side of the millenarian coin.
Apocalypse Now.
The Greek word apocalypse, also means “to reveal”. It is time to tear the curtains down, to reveal what really hid behind the burlesque of the 2020 US presidential elections, in which much of global progressive intelligentsia has vested its fate. Doubtlessly, we find ourselves at a precipitous moment, which invites a psychosis-like faith that every utterance or tweet can tip the scales influencing a fatal outcome of the US electoral mood and the Empire’s electoral carnival.
The strain of this moment coloured suicidal decisions by mainstream journalism to actively justify censorship of news that might prove harmful to the Biden campaign, such as the Biden family dynasty’s access to imperial corruption in Ukraine, a right held sacred by the US Democratic Party with the same protectiveness one would expect the GOP to have when covering up Bush family indiscretions. The willingness of The Intercept to hush up opinions on Biden’s exceptionalism in Ukraine, is behaviour related to the widespread media silence on Julian Assange’s illegal incarceration.
Survival relies neither on the US electoral college math, nor on the anointed winner of the 2020 electoral burlesque, or even on the Lula campaign to win back Brazil from slash-and-burn jungle colonists in the Amazon. Rather, the future needs dissident governments and movements of the earth to push policy away from submission to Great Power games – be they of the US or of lesser regional superpowers like Russia, Germany or France.
How might Obama’s former Vice President enforce foreign policy? To his credit, as VP, Biden asked Obama to cool the enthusiasm, cautioning against the brutal invasion of Pakistan for extrajudicial execution of Osama Bin Laden–a caution bemoaned by neo-conservatives like Cheney, as the conservative National Review reports.
On Israel, though Biden announced his intent to keep his embassy in Jerusalem, Netanyahu seemed to have postponed Summer annexation plans in anticipation to US elections: Biden disapproves of annexation while Trump supports it, and the nod of the master is required before proceeding. As Israel’s major trade partner, a serious EU threat of sanctions would effectively dissuade Israeli annexation plans, regardless who wins the US Presidency.
On Iran, Biden wants a return to the Iran nuclear-deal violated by Trump. These predictions distract, however, from European failure to have held ground and kept to European ratified JCPA agreements on Iran in defiance of Trump since 2017. Instead, EU leaders after undermining the agreement, applauded the gangsterism of Trump’s assassination of General Qassem Soleimani.
As a movement allied to radical social-democrat elements within the Democratic Party USA, we as DiEM25 along with the Progressive International (PI) must put international pressure on allies like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Bernie Sanders to stay true to their commitment to ending US imperial exceptionalism, for the sake of the world and of their own citizens. Remember that the livelihoods and rights of the average working French and English citizen improved after these countries renounced the Empire.
In this precipitous moment, our fate does not depend on one superpower’s electoral casino.
The question, rather, is: Will the dissident nations and federations of the earth now emerge and act? Or do we continue being cornerstones of US bipartisan megalomania?
Photo Source: Jonathan Meyer from Pexels.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect DiEM25’s official policies or positions.
The democratic deficit in the US should lead us to examine our own in Europe
The show must not go on! Both sides have already taken enough.
The US elections in the last four decades have become a talent show, where contestants try to mesmerize voters — with the rest of the world tagging along — with the illusion that their voices are heard and aspirations are adopted. Witness Obama’s Change or Trump’s MAGA campaigns. They illustrate a world in which policies and programs do not matter — rather, it is the show that matters. This can be related to the popular talent and reality TV shows that numbed our brains and made us addicted to the glamour and glitz, selling us a fake sense of progress and optimism.
For us in Europe, the US resembles an advanced example for where our political discourse is moving towards — a glimpse into the future that we can still alter, if only we act now.
Taking elections as one visible reflection, the 2020 vote in the United States appears to actively undermine voter participation in these elections. Systematic voter suppression in the United States — whether through mass purges of voter rolls, life-long disenfranchisement of ex-convicts, tactical gerrymandering or the electoral college system itself — is not entirely surprising. It may very well be that the envisioned democratic safeguards in the US constitution have become obsolete — and with constitutional amendments requiring 75% of States to agree, are unalterable.
With the United States ranking second-to-last for electoral integrity amongst liberal democracies, we need to turn our attention to expressions of democratic deficit within the European Union, chiefly:
- The European Commission — an unelected body — having the sole authority to introduce legislation and thus exercise a monopoly over the legislative agenda of the European Union;
- The over-representation of national executives within both the legislative and executive branches of governance at the European Union;
- Significant gaps in transparency and public awareness of the rationale and mechanisms for making decisions by elected representatives and unelected officials of the European Union;
- Poor reporting and oversight of lobbying activities that influence the legislative, judicial and executive functions of the European Union; and
- The unchecked power of the European Central Bank (ECB), with accountability limited to prescribed discussions between the European Parliament and the ECB.
What can be done?
Such opaque levels of transparency — in an EU where power is centered around national ruling interests — means that integrity of the EU is often sacrificed for national political needs. This gives further ammunition to Nationalist forces that seek to see a demise of European solidarity.
DiEM25 is actively working on developing alternative governance mechanisms to address aforementioned democratic and transparency deficits in the EU. This problem cannot be solved in a blink of an eye. It is the continuous engagement of citizens in political discourse and their sustained pressure to retain the public civic sphere back from illusive binary electoral politics.
Join us to embolden the role of citizenry in fighting for a more direct representation on the European level!
This article has been authored by Mohammad Khair Nahhas, Amir Kiyaei and Robert Wittkuhn, who are members of the Peace and International Policy DSC.
Photo Source: Element5 Digital from Pexels.
The Jakarta Method and the political efficacy of mass violence
We have grown accustomed to attacks against people of color and civil rights protestors in the United States, either carried out by white supremacist agitators or the police themselves.
“We are the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.”
–Gore Vidal
Many of these agitators carry out their attacks in plain view of US law enforcement, sometimes even receiving assistance from the police. The police then either ignore the assailants or only begrudgingly do their duty and arrest them. Recently, US Marshals murdered Michael Reinoehl in cold blood because he had shot a white supremacist. This was a clear revenge killing by law enforcement intended to terrorize civil rights protestors.
Violence against civil rights protestors in the United States comes from both the police and far-right counter protestors. Whether or not police and far-right protesters actually work together, they often find themselves on the same side, with similar objectives. Often the police take sides in street battles by enforcing their will on the civil rights protestors, while ignoring violent actions carried out by far-right protestors.
Enter the likes of Kyle Rittenhuis and James Alex Fields — two men who killed civil rights protestors for political purposes. Both are avowed white supremacists and revered by contemporary white supremacist groups such as the Proud Boys or Patriot Prayer. Neither exists in a vacuum, and both developed their beliefs through interacting with a significant white supremacist movement in the USA. The Ku Klux Klan used to serve this purpose, but American racism needed to move on from its historically hick, rural and southern base. Enter new forms and names to reinvigorate American white supremacy.
Now we have new, deceptively amorphous, groups of called things like, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer.
Their leaders and membership often overlap. Like the anti-fascist protestors they often violently engage with, their structures are fluid and change regularly. White supremacists have also taken up more space in public discourse — it would appear that they no longer need to wear masks in America. Most of us know the names of Gavin McInnes, Milo Yiannopoulos, Joey Gibson, who have gained popularity in the last decade.
Yet just as we understand that racism is not a new phenomena in America, we would be mistaken to believe that terrorism abided by the state is also a new phenomenon. The United States, either directly or through its proxies, sponsored paramilitary death squads throughout the Global South for much of the latter half of the 20th century. Often done under the auspices of fighting communism, the main commonality between these death squads was that they killed leftists and those associated with them.
Discriminating between actual communists, social democrats and labour rights activists was often not a concern, and many non-communists were swept up in their killings. Many of these events had been documented through books and other media detailing the violent actions of the United States in specific countries or regions. However, this author was not aware of a single book that delved into the development of the methodology behind these killings, nor explored them as interconnected pieces of a larger global strategy.
The Jakarta Method, by Vincent Bevins does just that.
Photo: Graphic from The Jakarta Method.
The Jakarta Method traces the development of how the United States, often with assistance from its ally Great Britain, suppressed leftist movements throughout the Global South through the liberal application of violence. It begins in Jakarta Indonesia, the country with the third largest Communist Party after the USSR and China. From there, Bevins shows how the United States ingratiates members of the Indonesian military, ultimately convincing many of them to overthrow Indonesian president Sukarno. Military leaders who were unwilling to assist in the killing and subsequent coup d’état are themselves killed. Then, with the help of organized crime and other anti-Communist forces in Indonesia, and with intelligence from the CIA, they killed between one and three million people in 1965 and 1966.
Many of the victims had little or nothing to do with the Indonesian Communist Party. Indonesians of Chinese descent were particularly targeted due to the racist notion that this made them more likely to be Communist. Concentration camps were also established to house those accused of being Communist, and use the accused for forced labour. The actual death toll will never be known, nor will we ever know the true political affiliation of many of those killed.
In the end it worked. The violence was successful, and to this day the Communist Party is outlawed in Indonesia.
It was much more successful than the attempt at achieving the same thing in nearby Vietnam, with the added benefit of no Americans dying and no pesky television cameras to document it. Today, descendants of those killed have trouble being accepted into Indonesian society or attaining employment for the Indonesian government. Some of the far-right paramilitary organizations that assisted in the killing still exist. Many of those who participated in the killing are known and still celebrated and feared by many in Indonesian society.
This would have been enough for a good book, and one can read many books detailing the mass slaughter of leftists by Americans during the Cold War. However, Bevins takes it a step further by then showing how the US foreign policy establishment learns from this experience in order to implement it in other countries. Bevins takes us to Brazil and Chile to show how similar methods were employed to violently suppress leftist dissent. Even showing us how the transfer of US State Department personnel led to the implementation of the Jakarta Method in both South American countries.
The implementers of the method did not shy away from its origins, with the Brazilians referring to their program of Communist eradication as Operação Jacarta (Operation Jakarta), and anti-Communist forces in Chile marking graffiti that read “Jakarta se acerca” (Jakarta is Coming).
The Jakarta Method was a learned method of empire, and as such it was deployed across the Global South by those wishing to suppress sovereign civil rights movements by any means necessary.
Key to this method was the coordination between elements of the military or police sympathetic towards violent suppression, criminal gangs, and paramilitary groups. In the case of Indonesia there was coordination between anti-Communist elements in the military, criminal gangs, and far right paramilitary organizations. In the case of Chile the head of the armed forces was killed by far-right actors after he declared he will not intervene with Democratic process. After his killing, the democratically elected Salvador Allende was killed and replaced by Augusto Pinochet in a violent coup d’état. Just last week, the people of Chile voted in a referendum to rewrite their constitution which dated from the Pinochet regime.
It is never just the police, or just the military, or just one group carrying out the massacres, and this historical lesson is a key takeaway for those of us trying to understand the increasing political violence in the United States and elsewhere. When we see Kyle Rittenhouse walking through police lines immediately after shooting protestors, or when we see the Proud Boys organising to commit violent acts against anarchists or anti-fascists we would do well to remember the interplay necessary for large scale political violence to fulminate.
Paramilitaries get away with violence because they typically target the enemies of those who are charged with prosecuting them.
These are not isolated events, there is a Method, and just like the collusion that existed between the KKK and southern law enforcement throughout the early 20th century the goal is terror and suppression. Kristallnacht, the infamous event in 1938 that saw Jewish businesses and synagogues destroyed throughout Germany, is another clear example of this. During Kristallnacht police and others stood by while far-right Nazi paramilitaries and other sympathetic to them destroyed Jewish businesses and attacked Jews.
Recently the Greek far-right political party Golden Dawn was convicted of being a criminal organization by the Greek courts. Yet when people began celebrating the court’s decision, riot police attacked the revelers. Clearly the police were not happy with the court’s decision, and decided to take out their frustrations on those celebrating it.
“Social democracy at home requires anti-imperialism abroad.”
— Aziz Rana
The 1955 Afro-Asian conference in Bandung, Indonesia brought together progressive leaders from across the Global South as many of them were emerging from European colonialism. It connected people with shared values and shared dreams for a better future, and had representatives from roughly half of the countries from the United Nations. It ultimately led to the creation of the non-aligned movement of countries that sought to be independent from both the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Jakarta Method is just one of the tactics used to suppress sovereign civil rights movements. We are facing a Nationalist International that is illustrated through the politics of Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, Orbán, and more. In order to fight against this rising threat to democracies around the world, the Progressive International is forming a common front of progressives.
The Progressive International (PI) was founded by DiEM25 and the Sanders institute in December 2018 to unite, organise, and mobilise progressive forces behind a shared vision of a world transformed.
Today, on election day in the United States, the PI encourages its members to share how the elections affect their communities and lives. If you want to participate, record a short video (30 seconds) explaining how the US elections will impact your life or the lives of your loved ones. Then post your video on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with the hashtags: #YourElectionOurLife and #ProgressiveInternational. The PI will be sharing these posts as election night in the US unfolds, and we hope to feature your voice, too.
Learn more about the Progressive International and join us!
Photo Source 1: Wikimedia Commons.
Photo Source 2: Vincent Bevins on Twitter.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect DiEM25’s official policies or positions.
How social media censorship threatens democracy
The topic of disinformation is dominating the US elections; but what happens when leaks are censored by social media companies?
Debate over social media censorship has been raging during the run up to the US 2020 Election after Twitter and Facebook chose to suppress an article showing leaked emails linking US presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter to influence peddling with Ukrainian oligarchs while his father was then Vice President.
While both Twitter and Facebook have now allowed the story to be shared on the social media platforms, the general policy remains in place: Twitter and Facebook will censor articles of so-called hacked material. Since the Hunter-Biden story, and heavy criticism from the public, Twitter has released further statements on their Hacked Materials Policy, stating that they will allow “reporting on a hack, or sharing press coverage of hacking”. They stated after the fact that the takedown was done to protect private information in the leak. Nevertheless, whether social media companies should have the power to decide when and what to censor behind closed doors, or ‘add additional context’ to, should still be questioned.
This sets a dangerous precedent because such an ambiguous definition of ‘hacked’ material would have prevented disclosures such as the Pentagon Papers, Iraq War Logs, Snowden Leaks, and future exposures of public and private misconduct.
At DiEM25, we stand against past, current, and future censorship of any documents that could root out corruption. And in times when disinformation campaigns are seriously impacting elections, how can we distinguish between controversial material and that which should be taken down for disinformation or misinformation purposes?
A short history of social media censorship.
Many point to the 2018 coordinated banning by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube of InfoWars’ host Alex Jones as the beginning of alleged censorship by Big Tech social media companies. Jones’ removal marked the most high-profile banning after Facebook and Twitter began purging deemed terrorist content in 2015, with an increased crackdown after the 2016 US elections in the wake of an alleged Russian disinformation campaign — and disclosures by sites like Wikileaks, some claim.
Suspending accounts grew in the run-up to the 2018 US Midterm elections. Occupy Wall Street activists, left and right-wing independent media, and news sharing sites of “sensationalist” headlines saw accounts removed and pages were taken down, often without explanation.
The NY Post article suppression marked the “first time” Facebook and Twitter prevented the spread of a news story. The ban prevented users from sharing links to the article, while others, like White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, had their account locked for Tweeting the story to followers.
Meanwhile, NY Post’s Twitter account was locked after Tweeting the story and will remain so until the publication deletes their Tweet containing the article. On October 30, the account was unlocked 16 days after publication due to ‘public feedback’, though without deleting the Tweet to the article.
Foreign influence in a connected world.
While Facebook and Twitter were seeking to limit readership of the NY Post story, questions arose about the origins of the documents leaked in the article. Specifically, if they were part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
The guilt by association — the Trump administration’s long alleged affinity towards Russia — effectively suppressed inquiry into questions raised in the article. National Public Radio (NPR) outrightly refused to report on the story, while New York Times and Washington Post focused research on authors of The Post’s article. Yet, even though information is labeled Russian disinformation, does that make it untrue?
As seen in 2016, documents shared by Wikileaks revealed tactics by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to damage primary challenger Bernie Sanders. It’s important to note that the authenticity of the documents was not disputed. Rather, Clinton’s team sought to downplay revelations by attributing them to ‘fake news’ from ‘Russian propaganda’.
Similarly, leaked documents showing potential UK trade negotiations with the US, including that the nation’s health service was ‘up for sale’ to American companies, were labeled Russian disinformation when shared by UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to criticise policy of Prime Minister Boris Johnson during last year’s election. Again, the documents were not disputed.
Video: A short history of Wikileaks’ most important revelations since its inception by the Progressive International.
Private Companies: A Line of Defense?
Yet, what about deliberate misinformation?
Examine the way President Trump has used Twitter. Similar to predecessor President Barack Obama, Trump’s team has used social media to promote and ‘pass legislation’. Trump has also used Twitter to engage in misinformation about the legitimacy of the vote.
Trump is hardly the only leader to engage in misinformation on social media and use the platform to ‘control the narrative’. Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tweeted that questions about an apparent misuse of public funds were ‘fake news’, despite his wife later admitting they were true in court.
Most recently, French president Emmanuel Macron recently raised ire on Twitter after saying ‘France will never give in’ referring to ‘radical Islam’ after the beheading of a teacher in the country. Many in the Muslim world condemned Macron’s ‘attack on Islam rather than the terrorists’ themselves.
Navigating a new media landscape.
Last week, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey were in Washington to discuss social media censorship.
The hearing again raised the idea of revoking Section 230, which gives social media companies immunity from what their users share on the platform. Doing so would make Twitter and other social media legally liable for what users share. Both Democrats and Republicans, plus Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden, support some change to Section 230.
Meanwhile, Twitter has started moderating content as if Section 230 had already been revoked. Socialist magazine Jacobin was prevented from sharing content with Bernie Sanders and, on the other side of the spectrum, the former US attorney general Eric Holder was flagged for sharing alleged misinformation about voting. Many predict this reality of increased moderation and siding with “complaining users” by social media companies as the eventual outcome to prevent litigation.
Walking a fine line between sharing and censorship.
Social media is a necessary platform for the public to have direct access to exposed corruption by world leaders and, at the same time, social media platforms have an opportunity, as a private company and publisher of information, to correct misinformation on their platform. Not doing so makes misinformation — as well as corruption exposed by whistleblowers — simply a difference of opinion, which is dangerous for the survival of democracy.
Public trust in institutions and their governments can be considered at an all time low, with citizens across the world vulnerable to propaganda and conspiracy theories. This is precisely the time in which whistleblowers should be able to share crucial information with the public.
Photo Source: Tracy Le Blanc from Pexels.
Solidarity to Jeremy Corbyn and an initiative to reinvigorate progressive politics in the UK
DiEM25 interprets the decision of the current Labour Party leadership to suspend Jeremy Corbyn as a cynical attempt to purge the Labour Party of any force capable of turning the Labour Party, as Jeremy did between 2015 and 2019, into a serious threat to the oligarchy’s hold over power.
In view of this McCarthyite purge, DiEM25 recognises that progressive voices within the Labour Party are asphyxiating. They note that no action was ever taken against the smear campaign by key Labour Party functionaries against the Corbyn leadership during the 2017 and 2019 general election campaigns. And, now, they observe in horror the current leadership’s purge of those who, beginning with Jeremy Corbyn, worked toward policies, and a Manifesto, that threatened the privileged.
At this juncture, DiEM25 is calling upon Britain’s progressives (those inside but also outside the Labour Party) to urgent consultations regarding the future of progressive politics in the UK. Soon, DiEM25 shall announce an initiative to bring these voices together to take stock and plan ahead.
Photo (c) CNN
Policies of hate and intolerance must not be allowed to take centre-stage
Future generations will look back at this time of human history with stern judgment.
Policies of hate and religious intolerance are taking centre stage — while those of solidarity and mutual aid, much-needed during times of a global pandemic, have taken a recess.
The void in global leadership — in a world directed by capital and the pursuit of profit — has created an opportunity for Presidents’ Erdoğan and Macron to believe in their sense of destiny to steer human history.
To relocate from the footnotes of history, these leaders have chosen the path of confrontation, whipping up religious and nationalist identities to raise their perceived power.
The most recent row began with President Macron’s speech on the 2nd of October that sought to address the complex balancing of the secular ideals of France and the perceived incompatibilities with Islam. While describing “Islam in crisis“, Macron sought to address domestic concerns by outlining new legal initiatives that will seek to combat “radical Islamism”. While these have yet to be tabled formally, the amendments to the 1905 French law on secularism will increase state control over the organisation of the Islamic faithful by the French Republic, partly to “free Islam in France from foreign influences”.
For Macron to conflate a minority of Muslims whom bear extreme ideologies with the broader 1.8 billion adherents of the faith is incendiary and irresponsible. The response from Erdoğan — the leader of a secular Muslim country — was swift. Removing veils of diplomatic courtesy, he attacked the psychological health of the French President while calling for the boycott of French products in Turkey. While European leaders have been earnestly supporting President Macron, leaders in the Islamic World are under increasing pressure to take a stand — even more so with Macron’s insistence on not to “give up the cartoons” which depict Prophet Mohammad.
This latest round of confrontation, triggered by the brutal murder of Samuel Paty, has reignited intensive debates across the political spectrum. The killing of a teacher — for carrying out their duties — is a symbolic attack on education. In the same week, 24 Afghan students were killed at an education centre in Kabul. Attacks by zealots on these soft targets are a form of intimidation that needs to be countered at its source.
Macron and Erdoğan, along with their contemporaries who prefer harsh words and confrontational actions, are paving a dangerous road for humanity.
French society is being dragged into an untrue dichotomy, with some intellectuals and media channels moving the debate towards a fake polarisation. This false debate pits radical secularists that seemingly confuse state neutrality towards religion by insisting on the erasure of religious obligations in public contexts and Islamogauchists that seek to downplay the fundamentalist elements amongst adherents to Islam against each other.
Meanwhile, Macron, with an eye on the 2022 elections, is seeking to remould himself into not only the leader France, but of an emergent global power — filling the space left behind by a Brexited Britain and a lonesome United States. The loud silence of Germany toward Turkey, while being talked of quiet diplomacy, may yet be due to concerns of maintaining internal cohesion over the large Turkish minority in the country. Furthermore, French attempts to create a zone of influence through the EUROMED initiative, as well as the promise of vast hydrocarbon reserves in the Mediterranean, is propelling the region towards another crisis.
Erdoğan, emboldened by the geopolitical realities of his time, as well as threats to his political survival, is continuously doubling down on his rhetoric and expanding the use of hard power across region. The Turkish economy, which had its GDP nearing a trillion USD in 2013, has lost almost 200 billon USD from its economy since the expansion of its foreign policy adventures. A drop that almost matches the entire Greek economy. Both nations see the riches from fossil resources as vital for regaining their lost prestige.
This short-sighted view neglects the long-term harm — to both their own societies as well as the planet — in maintaining human dependence on fossil fuels. A just transition to the Green New Deal for Europe, and beyond, will diminish tensions over resources that should no longer be tapped. Macron and Erdoğan, by politicising circumstances to detract from their domestic failures, are further deepening the abyss they find themselves in. Deportations, deterrence and control over religious organisations, not to mention continued arms sales to global hot spots, will not resolve the alienation and isolation of minorities.
France and Turkey find themselves on opposite sides of regional proxy wars and resource conflicts.
From Libya and Syria, to the Aegean and Nagorno-Karabakh, these diplomatic spats could transform into incidents that could have unintended — and deadly — consequences. With no climbdown in sight, we are fast approaching a turning point. We can either choose to descend farther into the abyss of confrontation and reverse the course of human history away from its progress, or we can turn towards what is essential during this time: human solidarity, environmental sustainability and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Supporting this requires transnational democratic practices that seek to nurture the forces for peace and reconciliation across borders.
In the immediate term, we:
- Invite grassroots organisations in Turkey and France to meaningfully collaborate on de-escalating the war of words, while simultaneously increasing pressure on their respective governments to curb their knee-jerk reactions.
- Appeal on religious leaders globally, of Abrahamic faiths or otherwise, to call for greater religious tolerance jointly and an end to the use of religious beliefs for meagre political gains.
- Demand the European Parliament and Commission to adopt the 10 pillars of the Green New Deal for Europe and transition our economic and political systems towards a just and sustainable future, while reversing biodiversity loss and sharply reducing inequality.
- Request the immediate convening of a conference of the Mediterranean states to mend the Mediterranean crisis.
The road to acrimony could find France, having never extradited itself from its colonial past, to plunge into internal strife. Similarly, Turkey, suffering from significant economic loss and a weakened currency, could hurtle towards a future engulfed in conflicts across the region. We would not have been at this juncture had the institutions within these countries — as well as the EU — been democratic enough to direct their political energy towards policies of solidarity, sustainability and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
DiEM25 contributes to the goals of democratising the EU by placing matters of peace and international policy at the forefront of actions that seek to effect change within Europe and beyond. The task at hand is growing and so does the need for more members to join us furthering our progression. Join us.
This article has been authored by Amir Kiyaei and Paola Pietrandrea, who are members of the Peace and International Policy DSC.
Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons.
We stand in solidarity with the women* of Poland
DiEM25 strongly condemns the recent court ruling on restricting abortions!
*inclusive of trans, queer and non-binary people
Today marks the eighth day of protests sweeping across Poland following the Constitutional Court’s decision on 22 October to ban abortion almost completely. Prior to the court’s decision last week, access to abortion in Poland was already the most restricted in the European Union, being available only in cases of rape, incest, severe foetal abnormality or threat to the mother’s life.
On 22 October, the Court ruled that abortion on the grounds of ‘severe and irreversible foetal defect or incurable illness that threatens the foetus’ life’ is unconstitutional, thereby practically eliminating the grounds upon which the majority of abortions in Poland are currently undertaken. It is estimated that up to 2,000 women in Poland access abortions per year, around 98% of cases on the basis of severe foetal defect. It is also estimated that around 100,000 Polish women per year seek abortions abroad.
The ruling comes despite criticism of the legitimacy of the Constitutional Court, as well as the widespread power-grabbing measures taken by the right-wing Catholic PiS government since they came into power in 2015, removing completely the independence of the judiciary. Poland is not the only country going in this direction, as we see with the US Supreme Court.
This is not the first time that Poland has sought to ban abortion.
In 2016, a proposed ban was halted after nationwide protests, calling into question the motivation behind the timing of this year’s decision in the midst of a global pandemic, when mass gatherings have been restricted in Warsaw to just 10 people.
In 2017 the European Commission launched proceedings against Poland due to breaches of the rule of law and concerns relating to lack of independence of the judiciary, yet the Commission noted in September this year that “concerns over the independence and legitimacy of the Constitutional Tribunal” remain unresolved.
As well as seeking to curb women’s rights, PiS has also been vocal in its attack of what it calls “LGBT ideology,” banning the education of homosexuality in schools and cancelling Pride marches. It has encouraged the creation of “LGBT-free zones,” which cover almost a quarter of the country. The government has sent additional funds to towns from which the EU has withdrawn financing since declaring themselves “LGBT-free.”
Thousands of Poles have taken to the streets to voice their anger against the latest attack on human rights in their country.
Meanwhile, police are using pepper spray against protestors. The prime minister publicly responded by calling the protests ‘acts of aggression’.
On Tuesday, an opposition party member led a protest on the floor of the Polish parliament, with protestors wearing T-Shirts bearing the red lightning bolt Women’s Strike symbol, and holding placards stating ‘This is War.’ It remains to be seen who will win the long-running fight for human rights in Poland.
We as DiEM25 stand with the basic human rights of people to make decisions concerning their own health and body, and demand that the European Union take immediate action on this attack to its own fundamental principles.
See the map of protests taking place across the world against the abortion ban.
Are you interested in the work of our Taskforce on Feminism, Diversity and Disabilities? Join our Taskforce and help develop pan-European policies and campaigns for this critical area of our movement by going to the member’s area.
Photo Source: the Toronto Star.