Today's Topics:
1. Poland, ozzip, Employee Initiative: "2, 000 pln for
everyone" - Polish Amazon workers demand bonus
everyone" - Polish Amazon workers demand bonus
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. London Anarchist Communists: Class Not Nation. Libertarian
Communism2020: Anarchist Communist Group Day School
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
Communism2020: Anarchist Communist Group Day School
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. France, Union Communiste Libertaire AL #310 -
Antipatriarchy, Education, The silence of the ministry on
gender-based violence (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
Antipatriarchy, Education, The silence of the ministry on
gender-based violence (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL - UCL press release,
Nagorno-Karabakh: against nationalisms, for the
self-determination of the peoples (de, it, fr, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
Nagorno-Karabakh: against nationalisms, for the
self-determination of the peoples (de, it, fr, pt)[machine
translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. Organisation Communiste Libertaire OCL: Courant Alternatif
#304 Palestine resists "American peace" by
#304 Palestine resists "American peace" by
Pierre Stambul (fr)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
6. France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL - Big Tech
capitalists don't have to arbitrarily censor speech that bothers
them (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
capitalists don't have to arbitrarily censor speech that bothers
them (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]
(a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
7. UK, anarchistcommunist ACG: Guatemala: Congress
building set
on fire (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
On 5 November 2020, Amazon workers from the warehouse located near Wroclaw,
Poland (Amazon WRO1) stopped working and demanded "2,000 pln for everyone". In
the following days workers from other Polish sites have joined the protest and
declare to continue during the upcoming Black Friday. ---- The Amazon WRO1
warehouse is the only Amazon fulfillment center in Poland that handles bulky,
big-and-heavy items. More than a thousand forklift truck operators are employed
there, stowing and picking items from high-racks. In total, Amazon in Poland
employs 18,000 permanent stuff and additional 10,000 temp workers in its 8
fulfillment centers operating for the amazon.de, online platform for German
clients (Amazon does not sell in Poland). This year the agencies have offered an
additional recruitment bonus of 2,000 PLN (530$) for the newly recruited,
obviously struggling with finding enough labour.
The recruitment bonus caused a big stir among permanent and temp workers working
already for several months, as they were not entitled to it. In the warehouses
and internet forums a lot of them have been discussing that Amazon only cares
about fulfilling orders before Christmas, but not its workers. The union
Inicjatywa Pracownicza, who organizes Amazon workers in Poland since 2014, has
been pointing out for years that the Amazon business model insures greater
workload in high seasons that depend on short-time employment, in the season of
the biggest profits for the company.
The discontent has also grew because majority of the Polish Amazon warehouse
workers have not received any wage increases this year. Since 2015, in the third
quarter of the year Amazon Fulfillment Poland has been conducting a so-called
"payroll review", comparing earnings in the region around warehouses and in
similar industries. For the first time in 5 years the company did not increased
the basic salary, claiming that it is still competitive: thus the hour wage of
the vast majority of its employees in Poland was frozen at 20 PLN gross per hour
(5,30 usd). This happens during the pandemic, when the wealth of Amazon owner
Jeff Bezos has grownunimaginably, and he himself has found himself among the five
richest businessmen in history.
It has to be said that Amazon has introduced a "Christmas bonus" of 4 PLN (1 $)
for every work-hour between 8 November and 26 December 2020. That bonus was
presented to the unions, who expected higher amounts, but Amazon was not ready to
make concessions.
It is worth to remember, that after Amazon workers protests in various countries
this year, from mid-March to mid-May 2020, Amazon also in Poland offered a
"covid" bonus. However it was 1usd (4 PLN), not 2 usd/2 euro, like in the
majority of European & US warehouses. Obviously the pandemic has not ended and
its second wave has recently hit Poland hard. Amazon employees, along with other
warehouse and logistics workers, are called heroes thanks to whom it is possible
to fulfill orders during the lockdown. Due to the ongoing mass recruitment by
Amazon even more people are coming into contact with each other every day in
company buses, checkrooms, canteens and in the hall, risking their health.
According to many Polish employees, they deserve more. Many expressed that the 4
PLN bonus - just like in last spring - should be a remuneration for working under
the Covid-19 conditions, while the Christmas bonus should be separate and much
higher. Many of them have been repairing their household budgets in recent years
thanks to the Christmas bonus, as their earnings were not satisfactory throughout
the year. This year they feel that it was taken away.
For this reason, from 5 November 2020, a series of grassroots protests took place
in Polish warehouses, including stoppages at work, lasting from a few minutes to
an hour. Workers from different sites expressed their expectations by wearing
orange helth-and-safety vests at work with the handmade slogan on the back "2,000
for everyone". They circulated the pictures online and called on others to join:
"Whoever supports us should also wear such a vest!".
The union Inicjatywa Pracownicza at Amazon received the recordings of the
work-stoppage by forklift truck operators from the Amazon FC WRO1. On a day
shift, at the dock and ship departments, about 115-130 forklift operators (i.e.
the vast majority from these departments) took part in the protest. As one of the
participants reported: "Employees gathered in one place and for about three
minutes they turned on the horns. Those who sympathize with us came to us as a
sign of protest. This made a great impression on other employees. Of course, the
managers and HR people immediately showed up. At the end we shouted three times
'2 thousand for everyone!'. The night shift stopped working for one hour, between
1 and 2 at night. The employees of the pick and stow departments blocked the road
at the pick department, blocking the way." Another participant wrote: "The
protest at WRO1 was also attended by customer return departments on three lines:
about 180 people turned on the andons for a few minutes". The red andon is a
light signal informing that it is technically impossible to continue working.
In the letter to the Amazon management the union wrote: "Representing Amazon and
agency workers, we express our indignation that the bonus does not apply to all.
We are aware that employment agencies that offer the bonus are working with
Amazon for many years and indirectly benefit from the profits generated by Amazon
workers. We are asking for an explanation of such payroll policy that has moved
many workers as policy of no respect for employees. Therefore, we stand that a
bonus of 2,000 PLN, should be paid to all employees, regardless of seniority and
form of employment,and regardless of the PLN 4 bonus. We expect explanations and
further discussions over the bonus."
On November 13th Amazon responded: "We inform you that temporary employment
agencies have a payroll policy independent of Amazon, regarding the workers they
employ. The bonus that the trade union mentions in the letter is not a bonus
proposed by Amazon and the Amazon is not a party to the matter (...)." Amazon has
not responded to the fact that workers feel moved and perceive such a wage policy
as disrespectful and undertake protest, and to the union readiness to start the
talks. Instead, we could read in their letter, that the employees will receive
Christmas benefits from the Social Benefits Fund (although it is set up by the
Polish law, not a goodwill of the corporation) and "traditionally, during
November and December there will be numerous competitions and attractions,
details of which will be provided soon".
The union supports and documents grassroots workers actions. We are receiving
information that more people want to get involved, especially on the upcoming
Black Friday, during the period of intensive work. The union has declared that it
would support these protests and, if necessary, provide legal assistance to their
participants.
https://ozzip.pl/english-news/item/2718-2-000-pln-for-everyone-polish-amazon-workers-demand-bonus
------------------------------
Message: 2
The nation state creates the illusion that the people who live within certain
physical borders are united politically, economically, and culturally. However,
this is not the case and belief in this illusion has led to many in the working
class to support their rulers and bosses more than their fellow workers who are
not identified as belonging to this nation. ---- Nationalism, Internationalism,
and Identity Politics; ---- Libertarian Communism 2020 will consider all these
issues, aiming to find ways of combatting nationalism and working towards a
working class internationalism. Speakers will address the question of nationalism
generally and then the next speakers will focus on nationalism in Catalonia (with
a speaker from the CNT in Spain) and in Scotland. ---- Tickets (free) from:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/libertarian-communism-2020-class-not-nation-tickets-128751401909
https://londonacg.blogspot.com/2020/11/class-not-nation-libertarian.html
------------------------------
Message: 3
The Ministry of National Education employs more than 70% women. One in five women
claims to have experienced situations of violence at work [3]. Gender-based
violence takes place in all spheres, within the family, of course, but also at
work, especially at school. ---- Women education workers face gender-based and
sexual violence perpetrated by their superiors or colleagues. The union teams are
increasingly supporting these victims of violence at work so that their rights
are respected, which is not always the case. ---- In several academies, the
hierarchy allows situations to rot by taking no action against the perpetrators
during the proceedings. The rectorates abandon the victims in a working
environment where they rub shoulders with their attackers on a daily basis (often
warned by the academies of their implication by one or more colleagues). Better:
the hierarchy offers victims to change establishment, the world upside down!
The employer derogates from his legal protection obligation enshrined in the
Labor Code and the Education Code (for example functional protection). Meanwhile,
the minister condemns middle school and high school girls who fight for the right
to dress as they want and against the sexualization of their bodies. The Ministry
and the Minister of National Education, both by words and inaction, establishes
the reversal of guilt: the feeling of impunity for the aggressors, the culture of
rape and insecurity for women and gender minorities.
The education system should be a place to deconstruct stereotypes and educate
about sexuality. It is moreover a mission of the ministry. Although this mission
is enshrined in the Education Code[1]and must be the subject of at least three
sessions per year, it is rarely effective. Sexuality education is confined to
life and earth sciences courses, approached from the perspective of reproduction
and health risks. Staff are not trained to provide quality sexuality education,
and the State is reducing the budgets of popular education associations (such as
Family Planning), which makes their school interventions more complicated.
At the school of sexism
Staff have little awareness of gender equality and gender identities, as shown by
the INSPE programs [2]. However, the circular of March 9, 2018 on the fight
against sexual and gender-based violence in the public service makes prevention
its priority. Likewise, the mechanisms for reporting assaults and protecting
victims promoted by this law are almost non-existent.
This circular recalls that public employers play an exemplary role in the fight
against gender-based and sexual violence at work. However, by letting it happen,
by not applying the law, the Ministry of National Education is spreading
patriarchy and spreading gender-based and sexual violence.
Our political task is to fight against this normalization of violence. Faced with
the inertia of a hierarchy that refuses to take its responsibilities, the
collective struggle, the feminist and union struggle is imperative and essential
to curb gender-based and sexual violence.
Lucie (UCL Chartres)
Validate
[1] This mission is specified by Circular No. 2018-111 of September 12, 2018.
[2] National higher institutes of teaching and education, new name of ESPE,
formerly IUFM.
[3] According to an Ifop investigation for the Defender of Rights produced in 2014.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Le-silence-du-ministere-sur-les-violences-sexistes
------------------------------
Message: 4
After several weeks of military conflict a ceasefire agreement was signed between
Azerbaijan and Armenia. This agreement, which entered into force on November 9
and chaired by Russia, confirms the territorial conquests of the Azerbaijani
army, which now controls several districts occupied for twenty-five years by the
Armenian army. ---- The war took a turn with the capture by the Azerbaijani army
of Shushi, a key city in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azeri population of this city had
been driven out during the 1990-1994 war, it was a strategic military and
symbolic objective for Azeri nationalists. This conflict is inherited from the
policies of the beginning of the USSR. The division of the former socialist
republics aimed at fostering internal national tensions, facilitating their
control. Hence the annexation to Azerbaijan in 1921 of Nagorno Karabakh with an
Armenian majority. These tensions were revived in particular following the
breakup of the USSR in 1991, giving rise to anti-Armenian pogroms and a war waged
by the Azerbaijani state in reaction to the independence movements in the Upper
region. -Karabakh. If the result of the ceasefire is used on the one hand by
revenge nationalism in Armenia and on the other by the dictatorial Azerbaijani
regime to glorify itself, other interests are also at stake. The imperialist
powers in the region are also involved in the conflict. Like Russia, or even the
Turkish state which supplied jihadist arms and mercenaries to the Azerbaijani
army, in order to increase its weight in the region as part of its expansionist
policy.
Our support goes to the peoples, to the popular classes who suffer from the war,
who count their thousands of deaths and Azeri and Armenian refugees. We also
bring our solidarity to the peace activists and internationalists opposed to the
war, exposing themselves to repression. Rather than the model of the nation state
which oppresses its national minorities, we promote libertarian federalism which
seems to us to allow the coexistence of multiple cultures and their mixing,
without a single one being imposed on individuals by a political power.
Against the war fueled by nationalism and imperialist interests, for the
self-determination of the peoples !
The UCL international commission
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Haut-Karabakh-contre-les-nationalismes-pour-l-auto-determination-des-peuples
------------------------------
Message: 5
"Goodbye to the peace process" ---- Since 1993 and the Oslo accords, the
"international community" was supposed to guarantee a peace based on two states
living side by side. Vast hypocrisy! Particularly abject way of demanding that
the Palestinians ensure the security of the occupier (which they signed in Oslo)
and renounce their essential demands, notably Jerusalem and the right of return
of the refugees. ---- The "international community" used these agreements to
protect the occupier, to ensure impunity despite rampant colonization and
repeated massacres in Gaza. She spread the fable that the terrorist was "the
other" (Hamas), not those who experimented with new weapons on civilians or
deliberately mutilated thousands of young people. There were 150,000 settlers
living beyond the "green line" (the internationally recognized border) at the
time of Oslo, there are nearly five times as many today. Gaza lives under a
hermetic blockade, and in the West Bank, it is Palestinian towns and villages
that are surrounded by settlements. In 1995, the Taba accords signed between
Rabin and Arafat fragmented Palestine into three zones of different status.
The era of the soldiers
With Trump, a series of leaders who are particularly brutal and contemptuous of
any notion of law or equality found themselves in power: Netanyahu of course,
Bolsonaro in Brazil, Erdogan in Turkey, Modi in India, Orban in Hungary. , MBS in
Saudi Arabia, Sissi in Egypt, Duterte in the Philippines, and many others to
which we should add older soldiers like Putin or Assad. These soldiers are often
allies. Netanyahu went to support Orban despite the latter's overt anti-Semitism.
Bolsonaro came to Jerusalem. He even told Yad Vashem (the genocide memorial) that
"the Nazis were on the left". And Israel and Turkey are allies to support
Azerbaijan in its attack on Armenia.
These soldiers don't pretend, they assume what they do. Against a background of
racism, fundamentalism and security ideology, they have a certain popular support.
Israel used to define itself as a "Jewish and democratic" state (the joke being
told there is that it is democratic for Jews and Jewish for Arabs). Israeli
leaders and their supporters screamed when accused of practicing apartheid. Today
they assume. The law "Israel, nation state of the Jewish people" officially says
that the article of the declaration of the rights of man "Men are born free and
equal", it is finished! Israel is a Jewish state for the Jews. Only Jews have the
right to citizenship, to land, to self-determination, and of course all of their
colonies are not only legalized, they are the pride of the country. Any
resemblance to a supremacism that we were wrong to believe disappeared is
unfortunately not accidental.
In his book The State of Israel against the Jews, Sylvain Cypel has a pretty
expression: in the past Israeli leaders "urinated in the pool. Now they are
urinating from the top of the diving board ". Decades of impunity have led them
to speak openly about annexation and expulsion. They are the admiration of all
the apprentice soldiers on the planet who dream of handling a fait accompli with
the same dexterity.
The Trump method
Israeli brutality and the long American tradition of murderous imperialist
interventions have come together. For Trump and Netanyahu, it is no longer a
question of "pretending". Trump has moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. He
increased the pressure on his many allies to do the same. He proposed with his
son-in-law Jared Kushner "the deal of the century", which must be read: no more
peoples' rights, we are talking about business, free zones, disheveled
liberalism. We buy the Palestinians: "You will not have a state, you will no
longer have land, but we will give you precarious work in free zones where our
capitalists have invested. We support the planned annexation. The Palestinians,
locked in their Bantustans, will have a status comparable to that of the millions
of immigrant workers in the Arabian Peninsula, a status that resembles a form of
modern slavery. "Greater Israel" is programmed. Very eventually we will add a few
acres of sand to Gaza and we will call it "Palestinian state". The Palestinians
will have no choice. The dignitaries around Trump explain to them that they have
lost, like the Native Americans of old, and that it is the least bad solution for
them.
the return of the feudal lords
And precisely, the master asset of this "pax americana" is the state of the Arab
world. Gone are the days when Nasser (or self-proclaimed anti-imperialist
regimes) dominated this world. With Egypt, long spent in the camp of
collaborators, with Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya ravaged by war, with Algeria where
an illegitimate nomenclature tries at all costs to stay in power, hegemony in the
Arab world has shifted to Riyadh. How to qualify these Gulf regimes?
Feudal, patriarchal, slavery, ultraliberal. They are the heirs of what the West
undertook in the Middle East a century ago: the Sykes-Picot agreements dividing
the region into zones of influence of different imperialisms and the Balfour
declaration offering the Zionists the possibility of undertake the colonial
conquest of a territory.
The West has relied on Islam's most obscurantist current, Wahhabism, to secure
oil supplies and control Muslim holy sites.
Fully integrated into our ultraliberal world, these Gulf States have acquired
colossal financial power. They are armed by the West in particular by France.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince MBS has pans that should have knocked him down. His
regime practices beheadings, he is more than compromised in the sordid
assassination of Khashoggi, his army is starving Yemen and multiplying war crimes
there. And it is common knowledge that his father, King Salman, is behind the
funding for Al Qaeda.
And yet, he is one of the masters of this world. The next G20 meeting will take
place in Riyadh. The Western project is for Israel and Saudi Arabia to jointly
secure control over the Middle East.
Israel's establishment of diplomatic relations with the Emirates and with Bahrain
is a test balloon. The real issue (and its realization will come soon) is
normalization with Saudi Arabia. Already, MBS is calling on the Palestinians to
surrender. It propagates the idea of a Sunni / Shiite religious war whose stake
is to bring down the mullahs' regime. He even claims that there is no religious
barrier to a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital (2018). This great friend
of Israel runs a land forbidden to Jews.
Betrayal?
Is this a "betrayal"?
If the Arab peoples have often identified and felt solidarity with the
Palestinians, their leaders have too often fought their cause.
The list of betrayals of Arab leaders is very long:
Before 1948, the Hashemite (Jordanian) dynasty signed an agreement to partition
Palestine with the Zionists.
1949, there will be no Palestinian state on the 22% of Palestine that eludes
Israeli troops.
1970, King Hussein of Jordan crushes the Palestinians (Black September).
1975, the civil war in Lebanon begins with the assassination of 45 Palestinians
by the phalangists. All Lebanese factions will commit crimes against Palestinians
who will pay a terrible tribe (Sabra and Chatila, Tel el Zaatar).
1976, when the Lebanese left and the Palestinian groups control 80% of Lebanon,
the Syrian troops of Hafez el Assad intervene against them. This intervention
will cause, 6 years later, the departure of the PLO for Tunis.
Years 70-80: the Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan dictatorships multiply the assassinations
against Palestinian leaders.
1978, Egypt signs a separate peace agreement with Israel and becomes its
accomplice. Today it actively contributes to the blockade of Gaza.
What the feudal lords do today therefore has a long tradition. No wonder they and
Israel have long belonged to the same imperialist camp, it makes sense that they
get along.
Can
it work?
In history, there have been vanquished peoples exterminated, locked up, reduced
to slavery or, in any case, no longer able to claim their rights. Countries like
the United States or Australia were built on the extermination and / or
marginalization of indigenous peoples.
Nothing guarantees that Palestine will not suffer such a fate. There are
phenomena in Palestine that did not exist a few years ago: the appearance of
begging, attempts to leave for the West by all means, malnutrition, suicides.
But this tragic outcome, a capitulation in the face of such an unequal balance of
power, seems improbable.
Perhaps because we are still at the same point as when Ben-Gurion made his
declaration after the ethnic cleansing of 1948: "the old will die, the young will
forget". The old are dead, that's for sure, but the young don't forget. They are
Palestinians. Even though Palestine is incredibly fragmented and subject to the
most extravagant statutes of domination, the Palestinians know they are the heirs
of ethnic cleansing and that it will need to be fixed.
Make society
When you add up all the Palestinians scattered around the world, it comes down to
about 12 million people. Between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, there
are more than 6 million, almost as many as the Israeli Jews. Of course, this
Palestine is fragmented, fragmented. No communication is possible between Gaza
under blockade and the West Bank scarred by the wall and settlements. The
Palestinian political division (big victory for the occupier), with the two rival
governments but without power, seems irreversible, at least in the short term. We
are very clearly in an apartheid situation, but the proportion of the oppressed
people in the total population is much greater than what existed in America or
Australia, an imbalance which facilitated the destruction of indigenous societies.
For now, Palestinian society is not falling apart.
A good indication of this vitality of society is the management of the pandemic.
The number of cases in the West Bank is much lower than what is happening among
the occupiers where the pandemic is out of control. In the Gaza Strip, the number
of deaths is 50 times lower than in France. Palestinians are unfortunately used
to confinement in the face of closure and blockade, or the way to preserve
themselves on a roadblock. They have retained collective and solidarity behaviors
which are proving their worth while the occupation has largely destroyed their
health system.
To live is to resist
Palestinian society largely survives thanks to a multitude of associations, large
and small, which ensure solidarity, collective defense, mutual aid and exchange.
This society is highly politicized and despite the attempts to bring the two
rival governments to heel, we debate freely, we inform ourselves.
In the field of education too, Palestine is resisting. Despite the shortages of
premises and teachers, everyone goes to school and illiteracy is almost
non-existent. A multitude of associations, large or small, provide all
extracurricular and collective care for children under 6 years old. School is
free but not extracurricular or university. Families are bleeding themselves to
push children as far as possible, proof that the population believes in the
future. So in Gaza, there are 6 universities, 100,000 students and 21,000
graduates every year. They generally find themselves without work, but they agree
to work without pay so that their company does not collapse. Palestine has in
proportion much more professors, doctors, engineers than the neighboring Arab
countries.
The Palestinian productive apparatus has been largely dismantled by the occupier.
The export ban undermines the economy. Work permits in Israel have declined
sharply. The population often subsists on the salaries of civil servants and
these have been seriously reduced.
The occupier tries at all costs to prevent the Palestinians from producing and
seeks to turn them into aid workers locked in their reserves. The Palestinians
are not giving up. Despite the deaths and the confiscated boats, the fishermen of
Gaza continue to go to sea. Despite the violence and the theft of land, the
peasants cling to their olive trees, their fields, their ancestral lands.
An example of this obstinacy: with the help of the UJFP and the French solidarity
movement, the peasants of the villages of Khuza'a and Abasan in the south-eastern
Gaza Strip (the "buffer zone") were able to build a water tower, several km of
pipes, and now a nursery for vegetable plants. The goal is simple: to be able to
live off their work and feed the people of Gaza.
The
solidarity movement: hope
and responsibility
We often hear words in Palestine that mean something like this: "This war was
born from outside, from European anti-Semitism, from the partition of Palestine
by the UN, from the admission of Israel to the United Nations. UN then this State
trampled from the outset international law and the impunity granted, whatever it
does, to the occupier. The solution will come from us Palestinians, from our
ability to keep our society standing, and from you, international civil society,
from your ability to force your complicit governments to change their policies. "
The international solidarity movement has gone through many sidelines. Support
for Oslo, for "two states", for "the Palestinian Authority, the sole
representative of the Palestinian people", reluctance to speak of apartheid,
refusal to question Zionist ideology and the legitimacy of the state of 'Israel,
half-measures like the boycott limited to settlement products, all of this will
have cost us precious time.
Even the idea of lobbying the various authorities has been misused. It is not
about explaining apartheid to our leaders. They receive daily detailed reports on
stolen land, destroyed houses, arrests of children, stoned schoolchildren... They
know and are consciously accomplices because Israel is their model of a secure,
supremacist and ultraliberal state. who has acquired a great know-how in the
domination of populations deemed dangerous.
The solidarity movement must change paradigm. There is what the law says: humans
are born free and equal, regardless of their supposed identities, beliefs or
origins. Suprematism, colonialism and apartheid are crimes.
The 2005 Palestinian civil society call for BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions)
does not call for one state, two states or 36 states for the Palestinians. He
just asks for their freedom (end of occupation, end of colonization, destruction
of the wall, release of prisoners, end of the blockade of Gaza), equality (this
concerns among others the Palestinians of Israel and Jerusalem ) and justice (the
right of refugees to return since the founding crime of this war was the
expulsion of a people from their own country).
The judgment of the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) clearly condemns France
for having tried to criminalize BDS. This one is legal. It must be generalized in
order to draw public opinion (overwhelmingly convinced that the Israelis are
responsible for this war) into genuine engagement.
The solidarity movement will have to denounce without complex the obscenity
represented by the instrumentalisation of anti-Semitism. How does a racist regime
(against Arabs and Muslims, and even inside Jewish Israeli society), allied with
American Zionist Christians (anti-Semites), allied with Orban or Bolsonaro
(anti-Semites), admired by all the far right in Europe, can he speak on behalf of
the victims of the Nazi genocide? The values of those who martyr the Palestinian
people are much closer to those who committed the genocide than to those who were
its victims.
Hope is dawning in the United States. 40% of Jews all over the world live there,
almost as many as in Israel. AIPAC, the far-right movement allied with the
neo-conservatives, is no longer in the majority in the Jewish community.
Anti-racist movements, allied with Black lives matter have developed. Some like
JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace) denounce apartheid and rally to BDS. The strength of
this left is growing. It might be able to change US policy.
US imperialism has been arming and protecting Israel for more than 50 years. This
impunity is the root cause of the colonial steamroller and the fascization of
Israel. Supporting the rights of the Palestinian people also means forging
international links to reverse the current course of history.
Pierre Stambul
http://www.oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article2467
------------------------------
Message: 6
While Facebook and Twitter had been able to accustom us until then to a certain
laissez-faire on their networks, allowing all kinds of opinions - from the most
respectable to the most filthy - to express themselves, lately the rules have
changed. ---- Since 2016 and the accusations of Russian interference in the US
presidential election, these two social media giants have been scrambling to
prove that they can now be trusted and that fake news and foreign interference
are over. ---- In other words, these networks are starting to censor their users.
And given the disproportionate place these giants occupy in the 2020 Web, we can
go so far as to say that these networks are simply starting to censor Internet users.
The Union Communiste Libertaire defends freedom of expression, but with a
non-individualist conception of freedom: when a person does an act or words that
violate the fundamental rights of other people, he is not making an act of
freedom. No more than there is freedom to kill, there is no freedom to utter
words that violate the dignity of other people ... Thus, for example, we
resolutely support any militant initiative aimed at silencing fascists and we
denounce their attempts to defend themselves by invoking freedom of expression.
But should we be delighted that Facebook and Twitter alone choose to erase
far-right speeches on their platform ? That these companies, after having served
soup for the worst conspiracy theories and feeling the tide, redeem a good
conscience ? That other Big Tech companies, like Youtube and Zoom for example,
hasten to follow suit in this implementation of a vast arbitrary censorship
controlled by a few billionaires who are never accountable ?
Further from the media spotlight, others are paying the price for this political
censorship.
While examples abound and are not new, here are three very recent ones. The
independent media Relations de force, a quality media committed to following
social movements and giving voice to actresses and actors in these movements, was
completely deleted from Facebook at the end of October [1]. At the end of
September, a rally in support of occupied Palestine was censored, also without
warning, by Facebook, Youtube and Zoom [2]. And when the organizers of this
meeting tried to organize a second to denounce this censorship, it struck again [3].
We are not fooled: if the extreme right is today the main target displayed,
mainly by demagoguery, tomorrow all the forces "that disturb" will be targeted.
And if the far right is in fact less and less disturbing, anti-capitalist
speeches like the one we are carrying disturb and will disturb all the more as
our audience grows.
The Libertarian Communist Union calls on the various components of the social
movement to quickly engage in a reflection on freedom of expression as well as on
their dependence on computer tools developed by surveillance capitalism ; free
and decentralized alternatives exist [4], but they still need to be seized upon
and promoted.
Libertarian Communist Union, November 25, 2020.
Validate
[1] Our ousting from Facebook could mark the upcoming end of Balance of Power ,
Balance of Power on October 22, 2020.
[2] Civil society organizations call on Zoom to preserve the space left to
freedom of expression , Association France Palestine Solidarité on October 8, 2020.
[3] Zoom censors an event which was to evoke its censorship , NextInpact on
October 26, 2020.
[4] Decline data monitoring programs like PRISM, XKeyscore and Tempora , PRISM
BREAK April 18, 2020
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Les-capitalistes-de-la-Big-Tech-n-ont-pas-a-censurer-arbitrairement-des
------------------------------
Message: 7
The situation in the central American state of Guatemala is worsening, aggravated
by the COVID-19 pandemic and by two hurricanes, Eta and Iota, that devastated the
country this month. In addition, Guatemala has been plagued by droughts over the
last five years. ---- The government decided to introduce a budget to be
implemented in 2021 that okayed cuts to food programmes, to public education, to
care for victims of coronavirus, as well attacks on civil rights. The wave of
anger among the population forced the government to backtrack on cuts to food
programmes. Despite this, large numbers of people assembled in the capital,
Guatemala City, on November 21-22 to protest against the budget and demand
increases in social spending. In addition, they demanded the resignations of the
President Alejandro Giammattei, and those who had passed the budget. The Congress
(parliament) building was attacked and set on fire. There were also
demonstrations in other towns, Alta Verapaz, Petén, Chiquimula, San Marcos and
Quetzaltenango.
The government responded by sending special forces in against the thousands of
demonstrators in Guatemala City, which started to attack them with tear gas and
water cannon. Forty demonstrators were arrested.
The Giammattei government pledged that it would root out corruption in the
country. In reality, they have brought in many austerity measures. Over fifty per
cent of the population are living below the poverty line. Meanwhile the
government is working to pay off its interest payments rather than funding social
spending. Despite thee promises of the government, corruption remains endemic. A
small elite, based on capitalists and landowners, is encouraging the austerity
measures and privatisation, and the country is totally subservient to the
interests of the USA and Wall Street. To the worsening economic situation has
been added climate change, with droughts and storms, and the coronavirus pandemic.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/11/26/guatemala-congress-building-set-on-fire/
------------------------------
on fire (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
On 5 November 2020, Amazon workers from the warehouse located near Wroclaw,
Poland (Amazon WRO1) stopped working and demanded "2,000 pln for everyone". In
the following days workers from other Polish sites have joined the protest and
declare to continue during the upcoming Black Friday. ---- The Amazon WRO1
warehouse is the only Amazon fulfillment center in Poland that handles bulky,
big-and-heavy items. More than a thousand forklift truck operators are employed
there, stowing and picking items from high-racks. In total, Amazon in Poland
employs 18,000 permanent stuff and additional 10,000 temp workers in its 8
fulfillment centers operating for the amazon.de, online platform for German
clients (Amazon does not sell in Poland). This year the agencies have offered an
additional recruitment bonus of 2,000 PLN (530$) for the newly recruited,
obviously struggling with finding enough labour.
The recruitment bonus caused a big stir among permanent and temp workers working
already for several months, as they were not entitled to it. In the warehouses
and internet forums a lot of them have been discussing that Amazon only cares
about fulfilling orders before Christmas, but not its workers. The union
Inicjatywa Pracownicza, who organizes Amazon workers in Poland since 2014, has
been pointing out for years that the Amazon business model insures greater
workload in high seasons that depend on short-time employment, in the season of
the biggest profits for the company.
The discontent has also grew because majority of the Polish Amazon warehouse
workers have not received any wage increases this year. Since 2015, in the third
quarter of the year Amazon Fulfillment Poland has been conducting a so-called
"payroll review", comparing earnings in the region around warehouses and in
similar industries. For the first time in 5 years the company did not increased
the basic salary, claiming that it is still competitive: thus the hour wage of
the vast majority of its employees in Poland was frozen at 20 PLN gross per hour
(5,30 usd). This happens during the pandemic, when the wealth of Amazon owner
Jeff Bezos has grownunimaginably, and he himself has found himself among the five
richest businessmen in history.
It has to be said that Amazon has introduced a "Christmas bonus" of 4 PLN (1 $)
for every work-hour between 8 November and 26 December 2020. That bonus was
presented to the unions, who expected higher amounts, but Amazon was not ready to
make concessions.
It is worth to remember, that after Amazon workers protests in various countries
this year, from mid-March to mid-May 2020, Amazon also in Poland offered a
"covid" bonus. However it was 1usd (4 PLN), not 2 usd/2 euro, like in the
majority of European & US warehouses. Obviously the pandemic has not ended and
its second wave has recently hit Poland hard. Amazon employees, along with other
warehouse and logistics workers, are called heroes thanks to whom it is possible
to fulfill orders during the lockdown. Due to the ongoing mass recruitment by
Amazon even more people are coming into contact with each other every day in
company buses, checkrooms, canteens and in the hall, risking their health.
According to many Polish employees, they deserve more. Many expressed that the 4
PLN bonus - just like in last spring - should be a remuneration for working under
the Covid-19 conditions, while the Christmas bonus should be separate and much
higher. Many of them have been repairing their household budgets in recent years
thanks to the Christmas bonus, as their earnings were not satisfactory throughout
the year. This year they feel that it was taken away.
For this reason, from 5 November 2020, a series of grassroots protests took place
in Polish warehouses, including stoppages at work, lasting from a few minutes to
an hour. Workers from different sites expressed their expectations by wearing
orange helth-and-safety vests at work with the handmade slogan on the back "2,000
for everyone". They circulated the pictures online and called on others to join:
"Whoever supports us should also wear such a vest!".
The union Inicjatywa Pracownicza at Amazon received the recordings of the
work-stoppage by forklift truck operators from the Amazon FC WRO1. On a day
shift, at the dock and ship departments, about 115-130 forklift operators (i.e.
the vast majority from these departments) took part in the protest. As one of the
participants reported: "Employees gathered in one place and for about three
minutes they turned on the horns. Those who sympathize with us came to us as a
sign of protest. This made a great impression on other employees. Of course, the
managers and HR people immediately showed up. At the end we shouted three times
'2 thousand for everyone!'. The night shift stopped working for one hour, between
1 and 2 at night. The employees of the pick and stow departments blocked the road
at the pick department, blocking the way." Another participant wrote: "The
protest at WRO1 was also attended by customer return departments on three lines:
about 180 people turned on the andons for a few minutes". The red andon is a
light signal informing that it is technically impossible to continue working.
In the letter to the Amazon management the union wrote: "Representing Amazon and
agency workers, we express our indignation that the bonus does not apply to all.
We are aware that employment agencies that offer the bonus are working with
Amazon for many years and indirectly benefit from the profits generated by Amazon
workers. We are asking for an explanation of such payroll policy that has moved
many workers as policy of no respect for employees. Therefore, we stand that a
bonus of 2,000 PLN, should be paid to all employees, regardless of seniority and
form of employment,and regardless of the PLN 4 bonus. We expect explanations and
further discussions over the bonus."
On November 13th Amazon responded: "We inform you that temporary employment
agencies have a payroll policy independent of Amazon, regarding the workers they
employ. The bonus that the trade union mentions in the letter is not a bonus
proposed by Amazon and the Amazon is not a party to the matter (...)." Amazon has
not responded to the fact that workers feel moved and perceive such a wage policy
as disrespectful and undertake protest, and to the union readiness to start the
talks. Instead, we could read in their letter, that the employees will receive
Christmas benefits from the Social Benefits Fund (although it is set up by the
Polish law, not a goodwill of the corporation) and "traditionally, during
November and December there will be numerous competitions and attractions,
details of which will be provided soon".
The union supports and documents grassroots workers actions. We are receiving
information that more people want to get involved, especially on the upcoming
Black Friday, during the period of intensive work. The union has declared that it
would support these protests and, if necessary, provide legal assistance to their
participants.
https://ozzip.pl/english-news/item/2718-2-000-pln-for-everyone-polish-amazon-workers-demand-bonus
------------------------------
Message: 2
The nation state creates the illusion that the people who live within certain
physical borders are united politically, economically, and culturally. However,
this is not the case and belief in this illusion has led to many in the working
class to support their rulers and bosses more than their fellow workers who are
not identified as belonging to this nation. ---- Nationalism, Internationalism,
and Identity Politics; ---- Libertarian Communism 2020 will consider all these
issues, aiming to find ways of combatting nationalism and working towards a
working class internationalism. Speakers will address the question of nationalism
generally and then the next speakers will focus on nationalism in Catalonia (with
a speaker from the CNT in Spain) and in Scotland. ---- Tickets (free) from:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/libertarian-communism-2020-class-not-nation-tickets-128751401909
https://londonacg.blogspot.com/2020/11/class-not-nation-libertarian.html
------------------------------
Message: 3
The Ministry of National Education employs more than 70% women. One in five women
claims to have experienced situations of violence at work [3]. Gender-based
violence takes place in all spheres, within the family, of course, but also at
work, especially at school. ---- Women education workers face gender-based and
sexual violence perpetrated by their superiors or colleagues. The union teams are
increasingly supporting these victims of violence at work so that their rights
are respected, which is not always the case. ---- In several academies, the
hierarchy allows situations to rot by taking no action against the perpetrators
during the proceedings. The rectorates abandon the victims in a working
environment where they rub shoulders with their attackers on a daily basis (often
warned by the academies of their implication by one or more colleagues). Better:
the hierarchy offers victims to change establishment, the world upside down!
The employer derogates from his legal protection obligation enshrined in the
Labor Code and the Education Code (for example functional protection). Meanwhile,
the minister condemns middle school and high school girls who fight for the right
to dress as they want and against the sexualization of their bodies. The Ministry
and the Minister of National Education, both by words and inaction, establishes
the reversal of guilt: the feeling of impunity for the aggressors, the culture of
rape and insecurity for women and gender minorities.
The education system should be a place to deconstruct stereotypes and educate
about sexuality. It is moreover a mission of the ministry. Although this mission
is enshrined in the Education Code[1]and must be the subject of at least three
sessions per year, it is rarely effective. Sexuality education is confined to
life and earth sciences courses, approached from the perspective of reproduction
and health risks. Staff are not trained to provide quality sexuality education,
and the State is reducing the budgets of popular education associations (such as
Family Planning), which makes their school interventions more complicated.
At the school of sexism
Staff have little awareness of gender equality and gender identities, as shown by
the INSPE programs [2]. However, the circular of March 9, 2018 on the fight
against sexual and gender-based violence in the public service makes prevention
its priority. Likewise, the mechanisms for reporting assaults and protecting
victims promoted by this law are almost non-existent.
This circular recalls that public employers play an exemplary role in the fight
against gender-based and sexual violence at work. However, by letting it happen,
by not applying the law, the Ministry of National Education is spreading
patriarchy and spreading gender-based and sexual violence.
Our political task is to fight against this normalization of violence. Faced with
the inertia of a hierarchy that refuses to take its responsibilities, the
collective struggle, the feminist and union struggle is imperative and essential
to curb gender-based and sexual violence.
Lucie (UCL Chartres)
Validate
[1] This mission is specified by Circular No. 2018-111 of September 12, 2018.
[2] National higher institutes of teaching and education, new name of ESPE,
formerly IUFM.
[3] According to an Ifop investigation for the Defender of Rights produced in 2014.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Le-silence-du-ministere-sur-les-violences-sexistes
------------------------------
Message: 4
After several weeks of military conflict a ceasefire agreement was signed between
Azerbaijan and Armenia. This agreement, which entered into force on November 9
and chaired by Russia, confirms the territorial conquests of the Azerbaijani
army, which now controls several districts occupied for twenty-five years by the
Armenian army. ---- The war took a turn with the capture by the Azerbaijani army
of Shushi, a key city in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azeri population of this city had
been driven out during the 1990-1994 war, it was a strategic military and
symbolic objective for Azeri nationalists. This conflict is inherited from the
policies of the beginning of the USSR. The division of the former socialist
republics aimed at fostering internal national tensions, facilitating their
control. Hence the annexation to Azerbaijan in 1921 of Nagorno Karabakh with an
Armenian majority. These tensions were revived in particular following the
breakup of the USSR in 1991, giving rise to anti-Armenian pogroms and a war waged
by the Azerbaijani state in reaction to the independence movements in the Upper
region. -Karabakh. If the result of the ceasefire is used on the one hand by
revenge nationalism in Armenia and on the other by the dictatorial Azerbaijani
regime to glorify itself, other interests are also at stake. The imperialist
powers in the region are also involved in the conflict. Like Russia, or even the
Turkish state which supplied jihadist arms and mercenaries to the Azerbaijani
army, in order to increase its weight in the region as part of its expansionist
policy.
Our support goes to the peoples, to the popular classes who suffer from the war,
who count their thousands of deaths and Azeri and Armenian refugees. We also
bring our solidarity to the peace activists and internationalists opposed to the
war, exposing themselves to repression. Rather than the model of the nation state
which oppresses its national minorities, we promote libertarian federalism which
seems to us to allow the coexistence of multiple cultures and their mixing,
without a single one being imposed on individuals by a political power.
Against the war fueled by nationalism and imperialist interests, for the
self-determination of the peoples !
The UCL international commission
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Haut-Karabakh-contre-les-nationalismes-pour-l-auto-determination-des-peuples
------------------------------
Message: 5
"Goodbye to the peace process" ---- Since 1993 and the Oslo accords, the
"international community" was supposed to guarantee a peace based on two states
living side by side. Vast hypocrisy! Particularly abject way of demanding that
the Palestinians ensure the security of the occupier (which they signed in Oslo)
and renounce their essential demands, notably Jerusalem and the right of return
of the refugees. ---- The "international community" used these agreements to
protect the occupier, to ensure impunity despite rampant colonization and
repeated massacres in Gaza. She spread the fable that the terrorist was "the
other" (Hamas), not those who experimented with new weapons on civilians or
deliberately mutilated thousands of young people. There were 150,000 settlers
living beyond the "green line" (the internationally recognized border) at the
time of Oslo, there are nearly five times as many today. Gaza lives under a
hermetic blockade, and in the West Bank, it is Palestinian towns and villages
that are surrounded by settlements. In 1995, the Taba accords signed between
Rabin and Arafat fragmented Palestine into three zones of different status.
The era of the soldiers
With Trump, a series of leaders who are particularly brutal and contemptuous of
any notion of law or equality found themselves in power: Netanyahu of course,
Bolsonaro in Brazil, Erdogan in Turkey, Modi in India, Orban in Hungary. , MBS in
Saudi Arabia, Sissi in Egypt, Duterte in the Philippines, and many others to
which we should add older soldiers like Putin or Assad. These soldiers are often
allies. Netanyahu went to support Orban despite the latter's overt anti-Semitism.
Bolsonaro came to Jerusalem. He even told Yad Vashem (the genocide memorial) that
"the Nazis were on the left". And Israel and Turkey are allies to support
Azerbaijan in its attack on Armenia.
These soldiers don't pretend, they assume what they do. Against a background of
racism, fundamentalism and security ideology, they have a certain popular support.
Israel used to define itself as a "Jewish and democratic" state (the joke being
told there is that it is democratic for Jews and Jewish for Arabs). Israeli
leaders and their supporters screamed when accused of practicing apartheid. Today
they assume. The law "Israel, nation state of the Jewish people" officially says
that the article of the declaration of the rights of man "Men are born free and
equal", it is finished! Israel is a Jewish state for the Jews. Only Jews have the
right to citizenship, to land, to self-determination, and of course all of their
colonies are not only legalized, they are the pride of the country. Any
resemblance to a supremacism that we were wrong to believe disappeared is
unfortunately not accidental.
In his book The State of Israel against the Jews, Sylvain Cypel has a pretty
expression: in the past Israeli leaders "urinated in the pool. Now they are
urinating from the top of the diving board ". Decades of impunity have led them
to speak openly about annexation and expulsion. They are the admiration of all
the apprentice soldiers on the planet who dream of handling a fait accompli with
the same dexterity.
The Trump method
Israeli brutality and the long American tradition of murderous imperialist
interventions have come together. For Trump and Netanyahu, it is no longer a
question of "pretending". Trump has moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. He
increased the pressure on his many allies to do the same. He proposed with his
son-in-law Jared Kushner "the deal of the century", which must be read: no more
peoples' rights, we are talking about business, free zones, disheveled
liberalism. We buy the Palestinians: "You will not have a state, you will no
longer have land, but we will give you precarious work in free zones where our
capitalists have invested. We support the planned annexation. The Palestinians,
locked in their Bantustans, will have a status comparable to that of the millions
of immigrant workers in the Arabian Peninsula, a status that resembles a form of
modern slavery. "Greater Israel" is programmed. Very eventually we will add a few
acres of sand to Gaza and we will call it "Palestinian state". The Palestinians
will have no choice. The dignitaries around Trump explain to them that they have
lost, like the Native Americans of old, and that it is the least bad solution for
them.
the return of the feudal lords
And precisely, the master asset of this "pax americana" is the state of the Arab
world. Gone are the days when Nasser (or self-proclaimed anti-imperialist
regimes) dominated this world. With Egypt, long spent in the camp of
collaborators, with Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya ravaged by war, with Algeria where
an illegitimate nomenclature tries at all costs to stay in power, hegemony in the
Arab world has shifted to Riyadh. How to qualify these Gulf regimes?
Feudal, patriarchal, slavery, ultraliberal. They are the heirs of what the West
undertook in the Middle East a century ago: the Sykes-Picot agreements dividing
the region into zones of influence of different imperialisms and the Balfour
declaration offering the Zionists the possibility of undertake the colonial
conquest of a territory.
The West has relied on Islam's most obscurantist current, Wahhabism, to secure
oil supplies and control Muslim holy sites.
Fully integrated into our ultraliberal world, these Gulf States have acquired
colossal financial power. They are armed by the West in particular by France.
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince MBS has pans that should have knocked him down. His
regime practices beheadings, he is more than compromised in the sordid
assassination of Khashoggi, his army is starving Yemen and multiplying war crimes
there. And it is common knowledge that his father, King Salman, is behind the
funding for Al Qaeda.
And yet, he is one of the masters of this world. The next G20 meeting will take
place in Riyadh. The Western project is for Israel and Saudi Arabia to jointly
secure control over the Middle East.
Israel's establishment of diplomatic relations with the Emirates and with Bahrain
is a test balloon. The real issue (and its realization will come soon) is
normalization with Saudi Arabia. Already, MBS is calling on the Palestinians to
surrender. It propagates the idea of a Sunni / Shiite religious war whose stake
is to bring down the mullahs' regime. He even claims that there is no religious
barrier to a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital (2018). This great friend
of Israel runs a land forbidden to Jews.
Betrayal?
Is this a "betrayal"?
If the Arab peoples have often identified and felt solidarity with the
Palestinians, their leaders have too often fought their cause.
The list of betrayals of Arab leaders is very long:
Before 1948, the Hashemite (Jordanian) dynasty signed an agreement to partition
Palestine with the Zionists.
1949, there will be no Palestinian state on the 22% of Palestine that eludes
Israeli troops.
1970, King Hussein of Jordan crushes the Palestinians (Black September).
1975, the civil war in Lebanon begins with the assassination of 45 Palestinians
by the phalangists. All Lebanese factions will commit crimes against Palestinians
who will pay a terrible tribe (Sabra and Chatila, Tel el Zaatar).
1976, when the Lebanese left and the Palestinian groups control 80% of Lebanon,
the Syrian troops of Hafez el Assad intervene against them. This intervention
will cause, 6 years later, the departure of the PLO for Tunis.
Years 70-80: the Syrian, Iraqi, Libyan dictatorships multiply the assassinations
against Palestinian leaders.
1978, Egypt signs a separate peace agreement with Israel and becomes its
accomplice. Today it actively contributes to the blockade of Gaza.
What the feudal lords do today therefore has a long tradition. No wonder they and
Israel have long belonged to the same imperialist camp, it makes sense that they
get along.
Can
it work?
In history, there have been vanquished peoples exterminated, locked up, reduced
to slavery or, in any case, no longer able to claim their rights. Countries like
the United States or Australia were built on the extermination and / or
marginalization of indigenous peoples.
Nothing guarantees that Palestine will not suffer such a fate. There are
phenomena in Palestine that did not exist a few years ago: the appearance of
begging, attempts to leave for the West by all means, malnutrition, suicides.
But this tragic outcome, a capitulation in the face of such an unequal balance of
power, seems improbable.
Perhaps because we are still at the same point as when Ben-Gurion made his
declaration after the ethnic cleansing of 1948: "the old will die, the young will
forget". The old are dead, that's for sure, but the young don't forget. They are
Palestinians. Even though Palestine is incredibly fragmented and subject to the
most extravagant statutes of domination, the Palestinians know they are the heirs
of ethnic cleansing and that it will need to be fixed.
Make society
When you add up all the Palestinians scattered around the world, it comes down to
about 12 million people. Between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, there
are more than 6 million, almost as many as the Israeli Jews. Of course, this
Palestine is fragmented, fragmented. No communication is possible between Gaza
under blockade and the West Bank scarred by the wall and settlements. The
Palestinian political division (big victory for the occupier), with the two rival
governments but without power, seems irreversible, at least in the short term. We
are very clearly in an apartheid situation, but the proportion of the oppressed
people in the total population is much greater than what existed in America or
Australia, an imbalance which facilitated the destruction of indigenous societies.
For now, Palestinian society is not falling apart.
A good indication of this vitality of society is the management of the pandemic.
The number of cases in the West Bank is much lower than what is happening among
the occupiers where the pandemic is out of control. In the Gaza Strip, the number
of deaths is 50 times lower than in France. Palestinians are unfortunately used
to confinement in the face of closure and blockade, or the way to preserve
themselves on a roadblock. They have retained collective and solidarity behaviors
which are proving their worth while the occupation has largely destroyed their
health system.
To live is to resist
Palestinian society largely survives thanks to a multitude of associations, large
and small, which ensure solidarity, collective defense, mutual aid and exchange.
This society is highly politicized and despite the attempts to bring the two
rival governments to heel, we debate freely, we inform ourselves.
In the field of education too, Palestine is resisting. Despite the shortages of
premises and teachers, everyone goes to school and illiteracy is almost
non-existent. A multitude of associations, large or small, provide all
extracurricular and collective care for children under 6 years old. School is
free but not extracurricular or university. Families are bleeding themselves to
push children as far as possible, proof that the population believes in the
future. So in Gaza, there are 6 universities, 100,000 students and 21,000
graduates every year. They generally find themselves without work, but they agree
to work without pay so that their company does not collapse. Palestine has in
proportion much more professors, doctors, engineers than the neighboring Arab
countries.
The Palestinian productive apparatus has been largely dismantled by the occupier.
The export ban undermines the economy. Work permits in Israel have declined
sharply. The population often subsists on the salaries of civil servants and
these have been seriously reduced.
The occupier tries at all costs to prevent the Palestinians from producing and
seeks to turn them into aid workers locked in their reserves. The Palestinians
are not giving up. Despite the deaths and the confiscated boats, the fishermen of
Gaza continue to go to sea. Despite the violence and the theft of land, the
peasants cling to their olive trees, their fields, their ancestral lands.
An example of this obstinacy: with the help of the UJFP and the French solidarity
movement, the peasants of the villages of Khuza'a and Abasan in the south-eastern
Gaza Strip (the "buffer zone") were able to build a water tower, several km of
pipes, and now a nursery for vegetable plants. The goal is simple: to be able to
live off their work and feed the people of Gaza.
The
solidarity movement: hope
and responsibility
We often hear words in Palestine that mean something like this: "This war was
born from outside, from European anti-Semitism, from the partition of Palestine
by the UN, from the admission of Israel to the United Nations. UN then this State
trampled from the outset international law and the impunity granted, whatever it
does, to the occupier. The solution will come from us Palestinians, from our
ability to keep our society standing, and from you, international civil society,
from your ability to force your complicit governments to change their policies. "
The international solidarity movement has gone through many sidelines. Support
for Oslo, for "two states", for "the Palestinian Authority, the sole
representative of the Palestinian people", reluctance to speak of apartheid,
refusal to question Zionist ideology and the legitimacy of the state of 'Israel,
half-measures like the boycott limited to settlement products, all of this will
have cost us precious time.
Even the idea of lobbying the various authorities has been misused. It is not
about explaining apartheid to our leaders. They receive daily detailed reports on
stolen land, destroyed houses, arrests of children, stoned schoolchildren... They
know and are consciously accomplices because Israel is their model of a secure,
supremacist and ultraliberal state. who has acquired a great know-how in the
domination of populations deemed dangerous.
The solidarity movement must change paradigm. There is what the law says: humans
are born free and equal, regardless of their supposed identities, beliefs or
origins. Suprematism, colonialism and apartheid are crimes.
The 2005 Palestinian civil society call for BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions)
does not call for one state, two states or 36 states for the Palestinians. He
just asks for their freedom (end of occupation, end of colonization, destruction
of the wall, release of prisoners, end of the blockade of Gaza), equality (this
concerns among others the Palestinians of Israel and Jerusalem ) and justice (the
right of refugees to return since the founding crime of this war was the
expulsion of a people from their own country).
The judgment of the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) clearly condemns France
for having tried to criminalize BDS. This one is legal. It must be generalized in
order to draw public opinion (overwhelmingly convinced that the Israelis are
responsible for this war) into genuine engagement.
The solidarity movement will have to denounce without complex the obscenity
represented by the instrumentalisation of anti-Semitism. How does a racist regime
(against Arabs and Muslims, and even inside Jewish Israeli society), allied with
American Zionist Christians (anti-Semites), allied with Orban or Bolsonaro
(anti-Semites), admired by all the far right in Europe, can he speak on behalf of
the victims of the Nazi genocide? The values of those who martyr the Palestinian
people are much closer to those who committed the genocide than to those who were
its victims.
Hope is dawning in the United States. 40% of Jews all over the world live there,
almost as many as in Israel. AIPAC, the far-right movement allied with the
neo-conservatives, is no longer in the majority in the Jewish community.
Anti-racist movements, allied with Black lives matter have developed. Some like
JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace) denounce apartheid and rally to BDS. The strength of
this left is growing. It might be able to change US policy.
US imperialism has been arming and protecting Israel for more than 50 years. This
impunity is the root cause of the colonial steamroller and the fascization of
Israel. Supporting the rights of the Palestinian people also means forging
international links to reverse the current course of history.
Pierre Stambul
http://www.oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article2467
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Message: 6
While Facebook and Twitter had been able to accustom us until then to a certain
laissez-faire on their networks, allowing all kinds of opinions - from the most
respectable to the most filthy - to express themselves, lately the rules have
changed. ---- Since 2016 and the accusations of Russian interference in the US
presidential election, these two social media giants have been scrambling to
prove that they can now be trusted and that fake news and foreign interference
are over. ---- In other words, these networks are starting to censor their users.
And given the disproportionate place these giants occupy in the 2020 Web, we can
go so far as to say that these networks are simply starting to censor Internet users.
The Union Communiste Libertaire defends freedom of expression, but with a
non-individualist conception of freedom: when a person does an act or words that
violate the fundamental rights of other people, he is not making an act of
freedom. No more than there is freedom to kill, there is no freedom to utter
words that violate the dignity of other people ... Thus, for example, we
resolutely support any militant initiative aimed at silencing fascists and we
denounce their attempts to defend themselves by invoking freedom of expression.
But should we be delighted that Facebook and Twitter alone choose to erase
far-right speeches on their platform ? That these companies, after having served
soup for the worst conspiracy theories and feeling the tide, redeem a good
conscience ? That other Big Tech companies, like Youtube and Zoom for example,
hasten to follow suit in this implementation of a vast arbitrary censorship
controlled by a few billionaires who are never accountable ?
Further from the media spotlight, others are paying the price for this political
censorship.
While examples abound and are not new, here are three very recent ones. The
independent media Relations de force, a quality media committed to following
social movements and giving voice to actresses and actors in these movements, was
completely deleted from Facebook at the end of October [1]. At the end of
September, a rally in support of occupied Palestine was censored, also without
warning, by Facebook, Youtube and Zoom [2]. And when the organizers of this
meeting tried to organize a second to denounce this censorship, it struck again [3].
We are not fooled: if the extreme right is today the main target displayed,
mainly by demagoguery, tomorrow all the forces "that disturb" will be targeted.
And if the far right is in fact less and less disturbing, anti-capitalist
speeches like the one we are carrying disturb and will disturb all the more as
our audience grows.
The Libertarian Communist Union calls on the various components of the social
movement to quickly engage in a reflection on freedom of expression as well as on
their dependence on computer tools developed by surveillance capitalism ; free
and decentralized alternatives exist [4], but they still need to be seized upon
and promoted.
Libertarian Communist Union, November 25, 2020.
Validate
[1] Our ousting from Facebook could mark the upcoming end of Balance of Power ,
Balance of Power on October 22, 2020.
[2] Civil society organizations call on Zoom to preserve the space left to
freedom of expression , Association France Palestine Solidarité on October 8, 2020.
[3] Zoom censors an event which was to evoke its censorship , NextInpact on
October 26, 2020.
[4] Decline data monitoring programs like PRISM, XKeyscore and Tempora , PRISM
BREAK April 18, 2020
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Les-capitalistes-de-la-Big-Tech-n-ont-pas-a-censurer-arbitrairement-des
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Message: 7
The situation in the central American state of Guatemala is worsening, aggravated
by the COVID-19 pandemic and by two hurricanes, Eta and Iota, that devastated the
country this month. In addition, Guatemala has been plagued by droughts over the
last five years. ---- The government decided to introduce a budget to be
implemented in 2021 that okayed cuts to food programmes, to public education, to
care for victims of coronavirus, as well attacks on civil rights. The wave of
anger among the population forced the government to backtrack on cuts to food
programmes. Despite this, large numbers of people assembled in the capital,
Guatemala City, on November 21-22 to protest against the budget and demand
increases in social spending. In addition, they demanded the resignations of the
President Alejandro Giammattei, and those who had passed the budget. The Congress
(parliament) building was attacked and set on fire. There were also
demonstrations in other towns, Alta Verapaz, Petén, Chiquimula, San Marcos and
Quetzaltenango.
The government responded by sending special forces in against the thousands of
demonstrators in Guatemala City, which started to attack them with tear gas and
water cannon. Forty demonstrators were arrested.
The Giammattei government pledged that it would root out corruption in the
country. In reality, they have brought in many austerity measures. Over fifty per
cent of the population are living below the poverty line. Meanwhile the
government is working to pay off its interest payments rather than funding social
spending. Despite thee promises of the government, corruption remains endemic. A
small elite, based on capitalists and landowners, is encouraging the austerity
measures and privatisation, and the country is totally subservient to the
interests of the USA and Wall Street. To the worsening economic situation has
been added climate change, with droughts and storms, and the coronavirus pandemic.
https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2020/11/26/guatemala-congress-building-set-on-fire/
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