Monthly Archives: October 2019

In 2006, an African-American woman, Tarana Burke, started the #MeToo movement on social media, a call for victims of sexual violence and harassment to share their experiences.

Yet, 11 years later, when #MeToo became a global phenomenon after celebrities like Alyssa Milano, Rose McGowan and others shared their own stories of sexual assault and harassment, Burke was left largely unacknowledged.

Women of colour the world over were angry but not surprised. The #MeToo movement is about power imbalance, after all, and women of colour are used to their voices being silenced.

In a forthcoming book on #MeToo and social change, I cite this example to demonstrate how the movement goes beyond violence and harassment for black women.

The extent of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in Australia is harrowing. A 2018 report stated that Indigenous Australians are 3.4 times more likely to be sexually assaulted as non-Indigenous Australians.

So for many black women, the #MeToo movement requires a larger discussion about power imbalances in society, the lack of representation of black woman in leadership positions and the denial in mainstream society to accept black bodies.

This is necessary to fully understand why we have never consented to various forms of oppressive power, and why #MeToo is more than just person-to-person abuse.

Indigenous women have been pushing back against oppression and power since colonisation.

Around the world, colonisers sought to destroy Indigenous populations through oppressive government control, political violence and false representations of First Nations peoples as being promiscuous, lazy, untrustworthy savages.

This long history also included demonising, sexualising and fetishising black bodies. We were to be controlled or eradicated, but not before the coloniser had their taste of smooth Black Velvet.

Black women who have experienced the trauma of sexual violence and harassment know all too well where the seeds of this oppression began. When you are at the hands of someone who exoticises the black body while simultaneously demeaning its worth, you are trapped in a cycle of abuse that began with colonisation and has never left.

In modern-day society, black people continue to be viewed by governments and those in positions of power as disposable commodities. In Australia, this interplay frequently feels similar to an abusive and controlling relationship.

The government has consistently worked to undermine Indigenous peoples experiences through policy constraints and a refusal to recognise our unique culture and knowledge system. And in taking action without consultation, the government denies Indigenous peoples the right of reply and consent.

The recent protests by the DjabWarrung people trying to save sacred trees from being bulldozed to build a road in Victoria illustrates the nature of this relationship.

The DjabWarrung women were not asked how they felt about the governments action and its cultural impact on their community. They did not give consent.

The lack of representation of black women in high-level positions in government, business and society is also missing in this conversation. Black women are rarely shown to be leading.

In 2017, the cover story in Business Chicks magazine featured various women working to tackle discrimination in Australia, including journalist Tracey Spicer. Spicer had just started the NOW campaign aimed at ending sexual harassment in the workplace an Australian response to the #MeToo movement.

But the cover came under fire for its lack of diversity. No women of colour were represented as being on the front line in the battle against oppression.

If the representations we see of black women in Australia only focus on disadvantage and deficit not success and excellence how do we expect stereotypes to change? How do we shift the power imbalance?

As an Indigenous woman who has written specifically on leadership, I can attest that many black women are already acting behind the scenes in leadership roles.

The announcement of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, for instance, was undertaken by two Indigenous women, Pat Anderson and Megan Davis, who have fiercely campaigned to achieve constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians.

Responses from black women to #MeToo in both Australia and the US have demanded a deeper interrogation into the power dynamics and entrenched racial stereotypes that have contributed to this culture of sexual violence and harassment.

In Australia, there are numerous examples of this pushback occurring. In 2018, South African comedian Trevor Noah faced criticism after a YouTube clip surfaced of him saying hed never seen a beautiful Aborigine and making sexual jokes about the didgeridoo.

Outraged Indigenous women said that as a man of colour himself, Noah should be familiar with how the black body is viewed by society. Academic Chelsea Bond and commentator Angelina Hurley, hosts of the radio show Wild Black Women, interviewed Noah and explained why the joke was inappropriate.

In this country, white men have long joked about their entitlements upon sexual violence towards Aboriginal women Theres really offensive terms that are still used in this country that Aboriginal women are not necessarily desirable or attractive, but they are good for something else and that is all.

The ways in which Indigenous women called out this behaviour are important to the broader conversations around #MeToo. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, our fight goes deeper into the roots of colonial power to which we have never consented.

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For Indigenous women, the #MeToo movement is a deeper fight against racism, power and oppression - The Conversation AU

The unprecedented blackout of front pages by Australias newspaper publishers this week is a highly significant event in Australian political and media history.

It represents the completion of a deep rupture in the relationship between government and media, which for many decades was marked by a preparedness on the part of the media to take notice of government advice where matters of national security were concerned.

It also represents the first concerted, unified, co-ordinated campaign by the Australian media outside of wartime, when there were constant rows about censorship to assert press freedom in the face of government oppression.

Read more: Australia needs a Media Freedom Act. Here's how it could work

It defies the prevailing political climate of fear created and sustained by both sides of politics since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 2001.

It defies the aggressive hostility towards the press shown by the federal government, with its determination to continue the prosecution of ABC and News Corp journalists for revealing government secrets that the public clearly had a right to know, and by the head of the Home Affairs Department, Mike Pezzullo, who says he wants people jailed if they leak government information to the media.

And it defies the contemptuous attitude to press freedom shown by the Australian Federal Police in raiding the ABC and the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst over stories. This attitude was reinforced by new AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw, who told Senate estimates on October 21 that he had not turned his mind to the question of why the newspapers might have embarked on this campaign for press freedom.

Read more: Media raids raise questions about AFP's power and weak protection for journalists and whistleblowers

Those AFP raids led to two concurrent parliamentary inquiries, one by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) and the other by the Senate Standing Committee on Environment and Communications.

The raids also galvanised the media industry. On June 26, the heads of all the main news organisations presented a united front at the National Press Club in accusing the government of criminalising journalism. They called for a thorough overhaul of laws on national security, government secrecy, whistleblower protection, freedom of information and defamation.

At the same time, they acknowledged the media had done a bad job of raising public awareness of the threat to press freedom. The blackout of October 21 was a dramatic first step in redressing this.

The involvement of News Corp, with its command of two-thirds of Australias daily newspaper circulation and its proven political clout, has given powerful impetus to the campaign. Whether it would have joined in had not one of its own journalists been raided is a matter on which Kershaw might care to reflect as he conducts his promised review of how the AFP handles these matters.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Scott Morrison used Question Time in parliament to reassert his previous position that journalists are not above the law. His response ignored the fundamental point that the problem lies in the law itself.

There is a natural time frame for the media industrys campaign. The PJCIS is due to report on November 28 this year and the Senate inquiry on March 16 2020. That gives the industry roughly five months in which to put enough political pressure on the government for it to make a serious attempt at law reform.

Read more: Parliamentary press freedom inquiry: letting the fox guard the henhouse

However, the antagonism to this from the federal bureaucracy and the security services was revealed in their appearances at the PJCIS inquiry. They gave no ground at all. They regard the current regime of laws as right and necessary.

So, if the government does attempt genuine reform, it will face sustained opposition from its own public service. The government will also have to explain to the Australian people why the fear on which this whole politico-legal edifice has been built is no longer quite as acute as they have been led to believe.

It would also be turning its back on a history of government oppression of the media, a fixture in Australian political life that goes back at least as far as the earliest days of the Cold War.

The bugbear then was communism. ASIO kept files on Australian journalists whom it suspected often on comically flimsy grounds of being reds. ASIO then used these assessments to blight peoples careers by passing them on to media executives who were prepared to listen.

In those more quiescent days, the media were also prepared to be part of what was called the D-notice system, under which the media voluntarily agreed not to publish material on subjects defined in the D notices. These included material on atomic bomb testing in Australia, defence capabilities, and the whereabouts of Vladimir Petrov, a Soviet diplomat and spy in Canberra who defected with his wife in 1954.

The system lasted from 1952 to 1982, by which time the media had woken up to the fact that it was a betrayal of its public duty to collude with the government like this.

The old Fairfax newspapers in particular began to publish embarrassing leaks of intelligence material. Some of it showed how Australia was double-crossing Indonesia at a time when, publicly, Australia was doing its best to appease Jakarta.

The Sydney Morning Herald got out one such story on the front page of its first edition before an injunction was served in the middle of the night restraining it from further publication. The second edition of the paper appeared with a large white space where the story had been, carrying the word censored and recounting what had happened to the story readers were no longer allowed to see.

More spectacularly, Fairfax journalist Brian Toohey became the target of successive governments outraged over his stories based on leaks about intelligence activities. He became the bete noir of the then head of the Defence Department, Sir Arthur Tange. Toohey has now written a book called Secrets about the ways governments continually wage war against journalists and whistleblowers.

Read more: BOOK REVIEW: Brian Toohey's Secret warns against Australia being 'joined at the hip' with US

In the recent PJCIS inquiry, the same Mike Pezzullo who said he wanted leakers sent to jail also proposed reviving the D-notice system. Given the current level of hostility between government and media, it seemed quixotic, to say the least.

However, it also showed that nothing changes in the culture and mindset of the Australian public service. The same instinctive resort to secrecy and control of information that has been its hallmark for decades remains its hallmark today. The only difference is that it has now been supercharged by the passage of 82 pieces of national security legislation since the September 11 terror attacks.

Continued here:

Australian governments have long been hostile to media freedom. That's unlikely to change any time soon - The Conversation - Australia

BAGHDAD Tens of thousands of people, many of them young and unemployed men, thronged public squares and blocked main streets Friday in the capitals of Iraq and Lebanon in unprecedented, spontaneous anti-government revolts in two countries scarred by long conflicts.

Demonstrators in Iraq were beaten back by police firing live ammunition and tear gas, and officials said 30 people were killed in a fresh wave of unrest that has left 179 civilians dead this month. In Lebanon, scuffles between rival political groups broke out at a protest camp, threatening to undermine an otherwise united civil disobedience campaign now in its ninth day.

The protests are directed at a postwar political system and a class of elite leaders that have kept both countries from relapsing into civil war but achieved little else. The most common rallying cry from the protesters in Iraq and Lebanon is "Thieves! Thieves!" a reference to officials they accuse of stealing their money and amassing wealth for decades.

The leaderless uprisings are unprecedented in uniting people against political leaders from their own religious communities. But the revolutionary change they are calling for would dismantle power-sharing governments that have largely contained sectarian animosities and force out leaders who are close to Iran and its heavily armed local allies.

Their grievances are not new.

Three decades after the end of Lebanon's civil war and 16 years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the streets of their capitals echo with the roar of private generators that keep the lights on. Tap water is undrinkable and trash goes uncollected. High unemployment forces the young to put off marriage and children.

Every few years there are elections, and every time it seems like the same people win.

The sectarian power-sharing arrangement that ended Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war distributed power and high offices among Christians, Shiites and Sunnis. It has mostly kept the peace, but has turned former warlords into a permanent political class that trades favors for votes. A planned tax on WhatsApp amid a financial crisis was the last straw.

In Iraq, a similar arrangement among Shiites and minority Sunnis and Kurds has led to the same corrupt stasis, with parties haggling over ministries so they can give jobs and aid to supporters while lining their own pockets. The devastating war against the Islamic State group only exacerbated decades-old economic problems in the oil-rich country.

"They (leaders) have eaten away at the country like cancer," said Abu Ali al-Majidi, 55, pointing toward the Green Zone, home to government offices and Western embassies.

"They are all corrupt thieves," he added, surrounded by his four sons who had come along for the protest.

In Iraq, a ferocious crackdown on protests that began Oct. 1 resulted in the deaths of 149 civilians in less than a week, most of them shot in the head and chest, along with eight security forces killed. After a three-week hiatus, the protests resumed Friday, with 30 people killed, according to the semi-official Iraq High Commission for Human Rights.

In both countries, which share a history of civil strife, the potential for sustained turmoil is real.

Iraq and Lebanon are considered to be firmly in Iran's orbit, and Tehran is loath to see protracted political turbulence that threatens the status quo, fearing it may lose influence at a time when it is under heavy pressure from the U.S.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah in Beirut and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Baghdad have said they want the governments in both countries to stay in power.

The protests against Iraq's Shiite-led government have spread to several, mainly Shiite-populated southern provinces. In Lebanon, demonstrations have erupted in Shiite communities, including in south Lebanon for the first time.

Signs of a backlash against Tehran's tight grip on both countries can already be seen.

Among the protesters' chants in Baghdad, one said: "Iran out, out! Baghdad free, free!"

Protesters trying to reach the heavily fortified Green Zone were met with tear gas and live ammunition. Men in black plainclothes and masks stood in front of Iraqi soldiers, facing off with protesters and firing the tear gas. Residents said they did not know who they were, with some speculating they were Iranians.

In the south, headquarters of Iran-backed militias were set on fire.

In central Beirut, Hezbollah supporters clashed with anti-government protesters. Supporters of the powerful group rejected the protesters equating its leader with other corrupt politicians. A popular refrain in the rallies, now in their ninth day, has been: "All means all."

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned in a televised speech that the protests although largely peaceful until now could lead to chaos and civil war. He said they were being hijacked by political rivals opposing the group.

"We are closing the roads, calling for toppling the system that has been ruling us for the past 30 years with oppression, suppression and terror, said Abed Doughan, a protester blocking a street in southern Beirut.

After Friday's deadly violence in Iraq, a curfew was announced in several areas of the south. Hundreds of people were taken to hospitals, many with shortness of breath from the tear gas.

The current round of protests has been endorsed by nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has a popular base of support and holds the largest number of seats in parliament. He has called on the government to resign and suspended his bloc's participation in the government until it comes up with a reform program.

However, powerful Shiite militias backed by Iran have stood by the government and suggested the demonstrations were an outside "conspiracy."

Iraq's most senior Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, appealed for protesters and security forces to avoid violence. In his Friday sermon, he also criticized the government-appointed committee investigating the crackdown in the previous protests, saying it did not achieve its goals or uncover who was behind the violence.

As in the protests earlier this month, the protesters, organized on social media, started from the central Tahrir Square. The demonstrators carried Iraqi flags and chanted anti-government slogans, demanding jobs and better public services like water and electricity.

"I want my country back, I want Iraq back," said Ban Soumaydai, 50, an Education Ministry employee who wore black jeans, a white T-shirt and carried an Iraqi flag with the hashtag #We want a country printed on it.

Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has struggled to deal with the protests. In an address to the nation early Friday, he promised a government reshuffle next week and pledged reforms. He told protesters they have a right to peaceful demonstrations and called on security forces to protect the protesters.

Similarly, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri issued an emergency reform package few days after the protests began on Oct. 17 a document that has been dismissed by protesters as "empty promises."

Link:

Protests rattle the postwar order in Lebanon and Iraq - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Between impeachment inquiries, questions about the security of our elections and the proliferation of books and articles announcing that democracy is dead, its clear that many people in the United States are disillusioned with democracy.

But its hard to claim that the United States, at any point in its history, has been a democracy in the rigorous sense of the word. This is partly by design. The foundations of the United States were defined by a struggle over how much democracy should be mitigated. It was terrifyingly radical to suggest that the people even a very restricted group of people might have a say in government, and the founders cautiously padded the rails to limit the power of the masses. This was still a huge step forward from dynastic monarchy, but it was not a place to stop.

And we didnt stop.

Over the two and a half centuries since, weve grown more democratic, expanding the franchise to women and people of color and instituting the direct election of senators by popular vote (the 17th amendment, ratified in 1913). But weve also taken steps away from pure democracy; initiatives making it more difficult for people to vote and gerrymandering are good examples of this. Weve watched the role of money in politics grow and seen the proportion of our representation drop because of the cap on the number of members in the House of Representatives.

In the past 20 years, weve had two presidential elections in which the candidate with the most votes did not take office. But presidential elections are only the tip of the undemocratic iceberg. In 2014, a Princeton study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page found that the United States is an oligarchy, not a democracy, with policy driven by the economic elite and business interests. Furthermore, studies and polls show that majority public opinion on many of the key issues of the day abortion, gun control, universal health care is nowhere near reflected in public policy decisions.

Its hardly surprising that we havent yet perfected our system of government. Societies have been practicing democracy for a very short time relative to human history, and were still working out the bugs and persuading ourselves to commit to the difficulties. And democracy is still a terrifyingly radical idea as much as we rhapsodize about government by the people, we are afraid to trust ourselves and much more afraid to trust anyone else.

Moreover, democracy was never supposed to be a perfect clockwork mechanism, functioning on its own while citizens went about their lives, mitigating with preternatural precision every failure of human nature. Democracy is about people actively engaging with the decisions of their government at every level. It requires creating the space and processes for that to happen, providing education to enable an informed citizenry and putting in place safeguards to prevent oppression by the majority and then continuously improving and adjusting those components as society changes.

In our technology-rich world, with a surplus of wealth and leisure time, we should have more opportunities to facilitate and extend democracy than ever before. And we do. Municipalities across the United States and countries around the world are experimenting with different types of democracy, leveraging digital and nondigital innovations to better involve citizens. Some countries have mandatory voting; some have instituted e-voting. Some localities within the United States are experimenting with ranked-choice voting or quadratic voting. Some countries are expanding the potential of direct democracy, in which people vote on policies or laws rather than on representatives; some are looking for ways to engage people beyond voting, into broader engagement in governance and community. There are myriad ways that we can make our system more representative, more accountable, more reflective of what people want.

And yet most of the discourse in the United States treats democracy as a done deal, an achievement to trumpet and spread around the world, an enviable and unchangeable status quo. Theres an immense kind of hubris in the suggestion that the way we do democracy is the end-all and be-all of governance, and that if it doesnt work it must be democracys fault rather than our own.

Its telling that many of the arguments about the end of democracy suggest its because weve given too much power to the masses, that weve become too democratic. A paper by Shawn Rosenberg, professor of political science and psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, claims that the problem is social media and that other technologies have disrupted the role of elites in guiding the masses through the intricacies of policy and economics. Other commenters suggest that the abysmal state of political literacy in the United States means the people cant be trusted to make decisions about their government.

But how many of the recent failures of democracy have come about not because institutions eroded but because those institutions either were never intended to be democratic or have recently been adjusted to be exclusionary?

That the Electoral College system should result in a president who did not win the popular vote is not a failure of democracy; rather, its the expected effect of a system that was always supposed to be undemocratic, and its functioning as intended (if not quite as designed). If the checks and balances of our tripartite system have failed, its not only because of bad people acting in venal and unethical ways; its because those people were elected through undemocratic means of gerrymandering, party politics, voter suppression and intense injections of money, and they know where their incentives lie. If voter turnout is low, maybe its not because people dont believe in democracy any more, but because the system they live in has shown them time and again that their vote doesnt count the way its supposed to count and their representatives dont need to care about representing them.

Our recent stumbles are reminders that we still have work to do on our system of government. Democracy is not a unitary state that can be achieved, but a continuous process. We need to keep reinventing and refining government, to keep up with changes in society and technology and to keep it from being too easy for elites with resources to exploit. And it is worth fighting for. Not because of the founders, or because it sounds good, but because while democracy may be far from perfect, it is still the best system weve got.

At least so far.

Malka Older is an affiliated research fellow with the Center for the Sociology of Organizations at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and the author of The Centenal Cycle trilogy. Her new collection of short stories, And Other Disasters, will be published on Nov. 16.

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The United States Has Never Truly Been a Democracy - The New York Times

WE saved all the world, Kurdistan activist Honar Kobani told me on Thursday. But today children in Serekaniye are being killed by Erdogan with chemicals. What do you do when world leaders stand aside in the face of fascism? Friends of the Kurds, and of their social revolution, will continue to call on the politicians to take action.

We will continue, too, to keep alive belief in a society for the common good, which the Kurds were turning into reality: a society built on bottom-up democracy, that prioritises womens rights, ecology and multicultural harmony.

We will attempt to bring these ideas into our own actions and organisations. And we also call for a boycott of Turkey, because the Turkish economy is President Erdogans Achilles heel.

The last two weeks have produced expressions of shock and horror across the world, but these are nothing to the shock felt by the Kurds.

Honar Kobani lost two brothers and two nephews in the 2014 battle to save his namesake home city: the battle that turned the tide against Daesh. And he observed that as we were speaking, Russian and regime forces were driving through Kobani.

READ MORE:David Pratt: Donald Trump has stabbed the Kurds in the back

The Kurds have no reason to trust the Syrian regime, which wouldnt even recognise many of them as citizens; but better to be under Assad than face Turkey and the militant jihadi gangs that they are using as frontline troops.

The horror of living under the gangs sponsored by Turkey can be seen in Afrin, the westernmost part of Kurdish Syria, which Turkey invaded and occupied last year.

Those who have not fled this once-peaceful region face a combination of oppression and random violence; kidnap for ransom has become a major industry. People with relations abroad and so potential access to more money are particularly at risk, as the brother of another Edinburgh Kurd recently discovered to his cost.

Turkeys land-grab in Syria also strengthens Erdogans brutal hold on Turkey itself, giving double reason for a boycott. Our call for boycott is supported across Scottish civic society, as well as by the Kurdish community.

Turkey has declared war against the Kurdish people and has supported Daesh. Brutal suppression within Turkish borders has been matched by invasion and ethnic cleansing in Syria.

Within Turkey, an increasingly fascist government is demonstrating contempt for basic human rights, such as freedom of speech.

For their own reasons, the US and Russia have conceded to Turkish aggression, while the rest of the world does nothing. It is up to us to act. Buying Turkish products, and especially Turkish holidays, provides support to this brutal Turkish government. We are calling on everyone not to help fund oppression.

Erdogan announces in the UN his intention to carry out an unprovoked attack and implement ethnic cleansing. He gathers together gangs of militants, who have fought with Daesh, Al Qaeda and other violent jihadi groups, to spearhead his attack on the ground.

He backs them up with the firepower of the second-largest military force in NATO, equipped by the arms companies of Europe and the United States.

He empowers the gangs to indulge in wanton violence and looting, and to free Daesh prisoners.

He targets Turkish bombs at hospitals and water supplies and civilian convoys, and loads them with white phosphorus. Kurds and their neighbours, who two weeks ago were living in peace and building a society that focused on the common good, face death, destruction and displacement from their homes and land. And the worlds leaders, the so-called international community, watch it all, like rabbits caught in the headlights.

Much has been written about the role of the US and Russia and occasionally, that other imperialist contender, Iran.

We have always known that there is no honour among imperialists. But all those who make a show of professing their horror, yet do nothing, must also take the blame.

That Turkey has carried out an unprovoked invasion, should, in itself, be enough for politicians to take action. The deliberately genocidal nature of that invasion makes the need for action all the more urgent.

And while the media focus on the man-made disaster in Northern Syria, state repression within Turkey gets even more extreme against the Kurds, and against anyone who expresses a whisper of criticism of the government.

International leaders are not powerless to act. They could work together to implement and protect a no-fly zone over northern Syria. They could impose meaningful sanctions that seriously hurt the Turkish economy, and they could strengthen the half-hearted stay on new arms deals to a complete ban.

They wont do these things unless they are pushed, and that is why we will keep up pressure on our politicians and governments, and urge everyone who cares about a better world and the preservation of human lives to join us. But we can also take action ourselves through a boycott of Turkish goods, and especially of tourism, which has become an increasingly important mainstay of the Turkish economy.

Not long ago, it looked as though Turkeys growing economic difficulties would bring an end to the increasingly tyrannical rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But a booming tourist industry has helped ward off greater economic decline that could have triggered political change. In 2018, tourism brought Turkey 23 billion, with 2.25 million UK holiday-makers making a significant contribution. Income from tourism including from the government-owned Turkish Airlines has enabled Erdogans political survival by preventing more serious economic collapse.

It has also provided the funds that have enabled Erdogan to distribute money directly to his supporters, and to increase military spending. While life for many people in Turkey is a struggle for survival, military spending last year was increased by 24% to 14.8bn.

The call for a boycott of Turkey is growing. It comes from the Kurds themselves, and it is supported by a growing number of academics. writers, artists, and people from all walks of life who want to do what they can to make a difference and to take a stand.

Northern Syrian today is the front line of the fight against fascism and for a better world as Spain was 80 years ago. We need to learn from history and take a stand now.

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Sarah Glynn: Civic Scotland is adding its voice to Turkey boycott - The National

We are witnessing a moment of widespread social mobilisation in many cities around the world that seems to be gathering pace as the numbers swell and the demands become clearer, even if they begin with a very particular response to a specific act of government (increases in fuel or transport fares, corruption, authoritarianism) soon they include the whole system of oppression and dehumanisation, years of austerity for the poor and concentration of wealth for the rich, wars, violence in all its forms, it all becomes a deep clamour: this system has to change.

Perhaps international communications and awareness of common issues, in particular amongst young people, have been enhanced by the actions of environmental groups like Gretas Fridays for the Future and Extinction Rebellion and, less visible in the media but equally important in terms of the risks shared by all humanity, by the coordinated work of the antinuclear activists the world over intent of achieving a ban of nuclear weapons via the ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Perhaps the simultaneous quality of the protests is simply evidence that people have reached the breaking point and can no longer tolerate the violence, the discrimination, the oppression, the competition, the lack of solidarity, and we may understand it as a response to the cruelty of neoliberal capitalism.

Perhaps the rise of the deranged autocrats and fascists, taking over governments, betraying their allies, leading a genocide of immigrants, have brought echos of the pre-WW2 state of affaires.

Or, perhaps, a new sensibility, a new spirit, a new inspiration and a new humanism is growing in the hearts of the peoples, who begin to see beyond the rebellion, beyond the protests, and beyond their individual lives, dreaming, glimpsing, just making out how the world could be different, compassionate, fair, safe for everyone, nonviolent, meaningful, full of joy and solidarity.

Most likely all of the above, and many other subtle factors that will be showing themselves in the process.

Some snippets from around the world

Chile

Four million people were yesterday in the streets of Santiago and other cities demanding changes to the draconian neoliberal regime of President Piera. The spark was an increase in the price of the Metro fares to which students responded vigorously but the rest of the population followed to include issues of health, education, pensions, etc in the biggest demonstrations ever seen by the country.

Haiti

Anti government protesters have been demanding changes for several months, denouncing corruption and the abject poverty imposed on the population.

Catalonia

There have been massive demonstrations against the lengthy prison sentences imposed by the Spanish Courts on members of the Catalonian government after they conducted a referendum on Catalonias independence.

France

The Gilets Jeunes have been in the streets of many French cities for months, initially protesting an increase in the price of fuel but widening the remit to include other social problems and demanding changes in the system.

UK

More than a million people went to the streets to protest against the way the government is conducting the Brexit process and demanding a Popular Vote, a final say on whether the UK actually leaves the EU and under what conditions.

Hong Kong

Initially sparked by a ruling that would allow offenders to be sent to Chinas mainland Courts to be tried (now withdrawn by the Hong Kong officials), the movement has maintained a constant presence in the streets for several months, adding other demands, in particular a move towards full democracy.

Algeria

The Revolution of Smiles have seen people in the streets for several months which led to the fall of the previous corrupt regime and ongoing negotiations with a not very cooperative military for a new government that responds to the needs of the population.

Lebanon

Country-wide, non-sectarian protests are taking place in response to the governments planned taxes on gasoline, tobacco and online phone calls such as through Whatsapp.

Ecuador

IMF-led increases in transport fares and neoliberal austerity by President Lenin Moreno brought about massive demonstrations and the participation of the indigenous population. In spite of the apparent climb down by the government serious problems still exist and the population remain on high alert.

Morocco

Social protests began in 2017 denouncing economic measures, water shortages and violent repression by the regime but the problems continue as the measures introduced by the King have compounded the existing problems.

Egypt

Protests against President el- Sisis government have been taking place in several Egyptian major cities, but they have been met with a strong police response and Human Rights violations according to Amnesty International and other organisations.

Russia

Pro-democracy, mainly students, demonstrations have been taking place, followed by arrests and Court Cases flooded by young people.

The list goes on. Irans retirees, US teachers, Sudans toppling of al Bashirs corrupt government, the Czech Republic massive demonstrations against corruption, Iraqs antigovernment protests and so on.

These images speak for themselves

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People taking to the streets in all continents demanding a humanised system - Pressenza, International Press Agency

Fiat money has a surprisingly short lifespan. The almighty U.S. dollar currently serving as world reserve currency is not exempted, in spite of all proclamation that it cannot fail. Throughout history, fiat money has failed over and over again, where sound assets like gold have survived. Ruling out acts of god and unforeseen circumstance, the number one reason fiat fails is due to unsound economic policy. This is where gold and bitcoin stand to truly prevail.

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Theres a reason no one hears people saying good as fiat to describe something trustworthy or valuable. Gold has been used as currency for thousands of years, since at least 700 B.C., when it was favored by Lydian traders. The oldest fiat money still being used today has only been around for a little over 300 years, beginning in 1694 with the founding of the Bank of England. Prior to its use as currency, gold was used in barter and trade all over the world, in the absence of political mandate. By contrast, fiat means by decree or let it be done and depends on the force-backed laws of a state or monarch to demand its use, or else.

A recent tweet by user @100trillionUSD makes an interesting observation. When fiat failure strikes, it tends to happen first as a gradual build, and then spiral out of control suddenly, skyrocketing to oblivion. The German gold mark was a gold-backed currency for the empire from 1873-1914. After the gold standard was abandoned in 1914, the paper mark would soon become worthless, hyper-inflating itself to toilet paper tier within 10 years.

This is an extreme case, to be sure, but even where the most reliable fiat money is concerned, it always devalues into relative worthlessness at some point. As mentioned, the current title holder for longest lasting fiat currency is the British pound sterling, at 325 years old. Compared to its initial value in silver, when it was created to help finance war in 1694, it has lost almost 100% of its value.

The devaluation story of the U.S. dollar is no less dismal. As noted by one prominent inflation calculator:

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, todays prices in 2019 are 2,493.53% higher than average prices throughout 1913 The 1913 inflation rate was 2.06%. The current inflation rate (2018 to 2019) is now 1.71%. If this number holds, $1 today will be equivalent in buying power to $1.02 next year.

So the real question with fiat is not how stable is it, but How long until its suitable for kindling? A much cited but highly disputed 27-year fiat lifespan study found that 20% of the 775 fiat currencies examined failed due to hyperinflation, and that 21% were destroyed in war. 24% percent were reformed through centralized monetary policy. This means that the majority of failure or discontinuance of fiat is by way of government intervention, warfare and economic policy.

Emphasizing the inability to wage large scale warfare in the absence of this paper fiat, dollardaze.org states that Initially, money is a tangible commodity. That commodity is then concentrated by those who issue paper receipts merely representative of the underlying commodity. The reason for doing this is to lend out more in paper receipts than what can be legitimately backed. In other words, the powerful amass hard assets via scammy, obfuscated pilfer, while the poor suffer hardship, forced to use the garbage currency being offered instead.

For a highly detailed list of modern cases of hyperinflation, the Hanke-Krus Hyperinflation Table is an eye-opening resource illustrating the unreliable nature of government money. Though now slightly dated and not including recent examples like Venezuela, the data is presented in starkly direct fashion. In August 1945, prices in Hungary doubled in only 15 hours. Brazil experienced a daily inflation rate of 2.02% from December 1989 to March 1990. Even Austria is not immune historically, the crown hyper-inflating for almost a year from October 1920 to September 1922. The Hanke-Krus study is a sobering reminder of what happens when sound economic principle is ignored. As Austrian school economist Ludwig von Mises put it:

The most important thing to remember is that inflation is not an act of God, that inflation is not a catastrophe of the elements or a disease that comes like the plague. Inflation is a policy.

And further: The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation. The whole grim apparatus of oppression and coercion policemen, customs guards, penal courts, prisons, in some countries even executioners had to be put into action in order to destroy the gold standard.

Whether or not one agrees with the proclamation of the renowned economist is immaterial in the face of the economic reality. Fiat money is, was and always will become worth less over time by its very nature. Bitcoin and crypto stand to remedy this if leveraged properly and by a large and determined enough market. Judging by the current regulatory climate and history itself, however, fiat wont fall without a fight.

Which fiat collapse do you find most remarkable? Why? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Graham Smith is an American expat living in Japan, and the founder of Voluntary Japanan initiative dedicated to spreading the philosophies of unschooling, individual self-ownership, and economic freedom in the land of the rising sun.

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How Fiat Money Fails: Deconstructing the Government's Paper-Thin Promise - Bitcoin News