#anti globalization movement

[tales-of-witchery]

RANT INCOMING!

TWs: mentions of police brutality, mentions of government abuse, mentions of the climate crisis' effects.

This rant is overally full of eco-anxiety :)))))

I care about my future and I'm honestly worried about it because of the climate crisis.

So I start marching peacefully in the streets, holding kind signs with puns on them (We have been doing it for YEARS now).

I either get ignored (if I get lucky) or beaten by the police (it happened multiple times, recently or not, see what happened for example at the Genova G8 in 2001, tw for police brutality tho).

So I get angry and realize that I NEED to do more, I need to take action and be loud and visible and viral if I want my government to do something.

So I do something disruptive and shocking that does not hurt anyone. Like, for example, throwing soup/paint on the glass that covers and protects a famous painting. (Yeah this is about Ultima Generazione and the painting actions)

I get insulted by the media and by random people on the internet that do not even bother to check the facts, and they say that I'm doing everything wrong because the problem is the government.

So I try to make myself seen by the government.

I try to crash summits etc but I immediately get taken away and arrested by the police, so the government completely ignores me (just think about the various useless COPs).

I realize the problem is systemic, if I want to make myself heard I need to sabotage the system.

So I start doing strategic roadblocks.

I get insulted and beaten and receive death threats by the people that witness the roadblocks, they tell me that the climate crisis is not their fault, which is true, and that I must stop something else, like for example private jets.

So I block a private airport.

And they tell me that intensive farms are way more polluting.

So I try to boycott meat, and they tell me that I'm just a vegan extremist, it is useless, the problem is that the majority of people litter and waste water and ride cars etc.

So I try to advocate for a more sustainable living, and they comment that the real problem is the carbon/fossil fuels/deforestation multi-nationals.

I try to actively advocate against those, and if I get lucky I get accused of being a conspiracy theorist, but if I get unlucky I literally get killed in "mysterious circumstances/terrible accidents" (see what is happening in South America).

So I get tired, I give up, no more.

And then I get told that I'm "uncaring and lazy" and when eventually something bad BAD, like, global level post-apocalyctic shit will happen, it will all have been my fault because "I didn't do enough".

I am so fucking tired.

[moonlayl]

Countries over the world and people over the world are calling for this and participating.

We NEED all hands on deck. If you have to be somewhere, make sure not to but anything, do not go to school or work or ANYWHERE unless absolutely necessary.

This is a one day thing. One day GLOBAL strike. The whole world is sharing this.

Do your part and share this as well!!

❗️SPREAD THIS EVERYWHERE ❗️

[boeing747]

like listen i dont think russia needs any defending but its amazing to me how "all russians are evil genocide supporting warmongers" mentality so often coexists with "every representative on every political level in my country is actively supporting a genocide in palestine and overwhelmingly anyone speaking out against it is punished and blacklisted and arrested" like ????????????????????????????? are we not on the same page? that our political systems as a whole inherently support the murder and disenfranchisement and ethnic cleansing of vast swathes of population for a nations own political gain?? how is my uncle being pilled by russian propoganda any different than your uncle being pilled by the every single Palestinian is a terrorist and deserves to die narrative being pushed out??? is it not a curse that we must collectively organize and fight against ???

[bluepecanpie]

as a retrospective, occupy wall street was the endpoint of the kind of ‘horizontalist’ politics that was popularized with the anti-globalization movement. the involvement of adbusters in establishing the initial ows is more than enough to show us how direct this influence is. underpinning the anti-globalization movement in the global north was a reliance on the framework consecrated by liberalism, and idealist notions that democracy had been distorted from its optimal function by the presence of trans-national corporations bypassing the power of the state. the idea that in the first instance, the state is an instrument of class power - specifically the power of the bourgeoisie, in the capitalist epoch.

occupy’s failure, is the shared failure of that anti-globalization movement, and in between - that of the arab spring, which had seemingly exhausted imagination for another kind of social modality other than one informed by neoliberalism - islamist or not. even the anti-globalization movement came to fore as a sort of post-cold war rebuke of state socialism and the vanguardist politics used to set it up, only to fumble once confronted with the hard power of the state and especially great power conflicts - in a way that ‘actual existing socialist’ states could not do. the occupy movement also forgoed the kind of deep organising that could actually build class consciousness and galvanise the working class into making demands.

i’m not saying that the occupy movement was bad, or counterproductive: it politicized a generation of people, and broke out of this anhedonic, apathetic morose typical of atomised subjects under neoliberalism. I’m just saying that it was no threat to the ruling class, to any corporations, to anyone wearing the robes of institutional power. pro-ows assessment would rather we think how well ows spread and that was the real victory, like there wasn’t a demand for the neoliberal epoch - whether it was explicity stated or otherwise.

[tsscat]

.

[metropolitant]

SINGAPORE TO HOST FIRST GLOBAL NATURAL BODYBUILDING CHAMPIONSHIP: A NEW ERA FOR DRUG-FREE ATHLETICS

[georgierre]

.

[lordzannis]

Based on the search results and the query about Greens Japan in 2024, here are the key points:

Current leadership: As of 2024, the co-representatives of Greens Japan are Namiho Matsumoto, Hisao Hashimoto, and Hitoshi Nakayama.

Electoral representation:

House of Councillors: 0 seats / 245 seats (0.0%)

House of Representatives: 0 seats / 465 seats (0.0%)

Prefectural Assemblies: 2 seats / 2,609 seats (0.0%)

Municipal Assemblies: 31 seats / 29,762 seats (0.2%)

Party membership: As of the most recent data available, Greens Japan has 860 members.

Recent developments:

A female member of Greens Japan won a seat in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, which the party celebrated as marking a new era in Tokyo.

The party has issued statements on various issues, including:

International Women's Day

Protesting the decision to release contaminated water from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Opposition to military laws and the relaunch of the Sendai Nuclear Plant

Ongoing policies: The party continues to advocate for:

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Opposing nuclear power

Introducing a basic income system

Guaranteeing foreign suffrage for permanent residents

Reforming the electoral system

Opposing amendments to Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution

Collaboration: Greens Japan continues to work with civic groups, NGOs, and local green parties. For national elections, they often collaborate with other progressive parties.

While Greens Japan maintains an active presence in local politics and continues to advocate for environmental and progressive policies, they still face challenges in gaining representation at the national level.

Citations: [1] https://grjapan.com/insights/insights/japans-green-transformation-gx-plans [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greens_Japan [3] https://greens.gr.jp/about/intro/english/ [4] https://en.namu.wiki/w/%EB%85%B9%EC%83%89%EB%8B%B9%20%EA%B7%B8%EB%A6%B0%EC%8A%A4%20%EC%9E%AC%ED%8C%AC [5] https://www.eu-japan.eu/news/eu-japan-green-transition-matchmaking-event-2024 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Japan [7] https://www.ijcc.jp/events/green-ireland-festival-2024 [8] https://een.ec.europa.eu/events/green-mission-japan-2024

Based on the search results, here are the major achievements of Greens Japan since its founding in 2012:

Local representation: The party has elected a number of city council members and councillors in towns and cities across Japan. This gives them some representation at the local government level.

First Green mayor: On November 22, 2010, Kazumi Inamura became the first popularly elected Greens Japan mayor, winning in the city of Amagasaki. She was both the youngest mayor elected in Japan's history at age 38 and the first female mayor of that city.

Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly seat: A female member of Greens Japan won a seat in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly, which the party celebrated as marking a new era in Tokyo politics.

Prefectural and municipal seats: As of the most recent data, Greens Japan holds:

2 seats in prefectural assemblies

31 seats in municipal assemblies

Policy advocacy: The party has been active in issuing statements and advocating for key environmental and social policies, including:

Opposing nuclear power and protesting decisions related to the Fukushima nuclear plant

Advocating for women's rights and gender equality

Opposing certain military laws

Pushing for climate action and reduced greenhouse gas emissions

International cooperation: Greens Japan has become a member of the Global Greens, an international organization of green parties from about 90 countries and regions.

While Greens Japan has not won seats in the national Diet, these achievements show they have established some presence in local politics and continue to advocate for green policies at various levels of government.

Citations: [1] https://greens.gr.jp/about/intro/english/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greens_Japan [3] https://en.namu.wiki/w/%EB%85%B9%EC%83%89%EB%8B%B9%20%EA%B7%B8%EB%A6%B0%EC%8A%A4%20%EC%9E%AC%ED%8C%AC [4] https://repo.lib.tokushima-u.ac.jp/files/public/6/65353/20170929141736769905/EID195340.pdf [5] https://tokyoesque.com/sdgs-how-greenery-day-contributes-to-japan/ [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Japan [7] https://grjapan.com/insights/insights/japans-green-transformation-gx-plans [8] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/memberstates/japan

[in-sightpublishing]

Earth Day warning: 10th hottest month in a row requires action

Publisher: In-Sight Publishing Publisher Founding: September 1, 2014 Publisher Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada Publication: Freethought Newswire Original Link: https://ffrf.org/news/releases/measles-spikes-here-we-go-again-repeal-religious-vaccination-exemptions/ Publication Date: April 26, 2024 Organization: Freedom From Religion…

[probablyasocialecologist]

In this book you focus on the idea of gender as a global ‘phantasm’ – this charged, overdetermined, anxiety- and fear-inducing cluster of fantasies that is being weaponised by the right. How did you go about starting to investigate that? Judith Butler: When I was burned in effigy in Brazil in 2017, I could see people screaming about gender, and they understood ‘gender’ to mean ‘paedophilia.’ And then I heard people in France describing gender as a Jewish intellectual movement imported from the US. This book started because I had to figure out what gender had become. I was naïve. I was stupid. I had no idea that it had become this flash point for right-wing movements throughout the world. So I started doing the work to reconstruct why I was being called a paedophile, and why that woman in the airport wanted to kill me with the trolley. I’m not offering a new theory of gender here; I’m tracking this phantasm’s formation and circulation and how it’s linked to emerging authoritarianism, how it stokes fear to expand state powers. Luckily, I was able to contact a lot of people who translated Gender Trouble in different parts of the world, who were often gender activists and scholars in their own right. They told me about what’s happening in Serbia, what’s happening in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Russia. So I became a student of gender again. I’ve been out of the field for a while. I stay relatively literate, of course, but I’ve written on war, on ethics, on violence, on nonviolence, on the pandemic… I’m not in gender studies all the time. I had to do a lot of reading.  There’s a lot of focus in the book on how the anti-gender movement has moved across the world in the past few decades, and how it’s inextricable from Catholic doctrine. It was clarifying for me; domestic anti-trans movements in the UK mostly self-identify as secular.  Judith Butler: In the UK, and even in the US, people don’t realise that this anti-gender ideology movement has been going on for some time in the Americas, in central Europe, to a certain degree in Africa, and that it’s arrived in the US by different routes, but it’s arrived without announcing its history. It became clear to me that a lot of the trans-exclusionary feminists didn’t realise where their discourse was coming from. Some of them do; some people who call themselves feminists are aligned with right-wing positions, and it’s confusing, but there it is. There’s an uncomfortable history of fascist feminism in movements like British suffragism, for instance. Judith Butler: Yes, and of racism. But when Putin made clear that he agreed with JK Rowling, she was probably surprised, and she rightly said, ‘no, I don’t want your alliance’, but it was an occasion for her to think about who she’s allying herself with, unwittingly or not. The anti-gender movement was first and foremost a defence of Biblical scripture, and of the idea that God created man and woman, and that the human form exists only in this duality and that without it, the human is destroyed – God’s creation is destroyed. So that morphed, as the Vatican’s doctrine moved into Latin America, into the idea that people who advocate ‘gender’ are forces of destruction who seek to destroy man, woman, the human, civilisation and culture. 

[gingerswagfreckles]

I think people need to understand that when someone says the situation in Israel/Palestine is complicated they are not necessarily saying that the discussion of who the oppressor vs oppressed is complicated. The Israeli government has been oppressing the Palestinians for a very long time, that is clear, and it is not complicated to understand that at least since the 80s they have had dramatically more financial and military power to keep control of the territory in the way they like.

However, it is reductive and dismissive to insist that there is no complexity in the potential ways to move forward to bring peace to the region. Despite what people on tumblr.edu like to believe, "Israel should never have been created" is not a practical solution to an incredibly heated geopolitical situation in the present day. Israel was created and it does exist. 10 million people live there. 74% of the population is native born and the country has existed for 75 years. Hand waving these fact away with the opinion that "they should move back to where they came from" may make you feel good about being a Radical Leftist, but it does not give anyone a road map for how exactly millions of people without dual citizenship are supposed to just up and evaporate. Nor does it acknowledge the reality that 21% of Israelis are Arabs, the very people you are claiming to want to give the land back to.

Insisting that there's nothing complicated about expecting an entire country's population to willingly dissappear with no consequences is not a productive way to think about this conflict. It ignores the many massive superpowers that have an interest in proping up different states in the region, the power dynamics involved in any land back movements, and the inevitably negative consequences of totally dissolving an established state without a plan. It is also completely and almost comically unrealistic, so much so that it makes it hard to believe that anyone who's opinion starts and ends with this idea really gives a shit about anyone who lives in the area as much as they care about their online leftist clout.

There's nothing complicated in understanding that the Israeli government is and has been maintaining an oppressive apartheid state for decades. It is, however, very complicated to come up with a realistic way to resolve some of the most intricately entangled land disputes on the planet without plunging the region into total chaos. Not everyone has to be deeply educated on every geopolitical situation, but it is very hard to take people seriously when they know nothing about the politics or history of a region and yet insist that there is nothing complicated about it at all.

There's a lot of people on this website who are getting dangerously smug about their own ignorance, and are starting to go down Qanon type anti-intellectual paths in the name of being sufficiently radical. Not knowing the details of a very convoluted land dispute isn't something to brag about online as you call for intentionally reductive solutions. You can support the Palestinian cause and be aware of the oppression they have faced while also holding off on calling people trying to do real analysis and de-escalation work bootlickers. We need to get control of the urge to fit every global issue into a simplistic YA novel narrative structure that appeals to Western revolutionary fantasies.

[fatehbaz]

was thinking about this

To be in "public", you must be a consumer. Or a laborer.

About control of peoples' movement in space/place. Since the beginning.

"Vagrancy" of 1830s-onward Britain, people criminalized for being outside without being a laborer.

Breaking laws resulted in being sentenced to coerced debtor/convict labor. Coinciding with the 1830-ish climax of the Industrial Revolution and the land enclosure acts, the "Workhouse Act" aka "Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834" forced poor people to work for a minimum number of hours every day. The major expansion of the "Vagrancy Act" of 1838 made "joblessness" a crime and enhanced its punishment. (Coincidentally, the law's date of royal assent was 27 July 1838, just 5 days before the British government was scheduled to allow fuller emancipation of its technical legal abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean on 1 August 1838.)

---

"Vagrancy" of 1860s-onward United States, people criminalized for being outside while Black.

Widespread emancipation after slavery abolition in 1865 rapidly followed by the outlawing of loitering which de facto outlawed existing as Black in public. Inability to afford fines results in being sentenced to forced labor by working on chain gangs or prisons farms, some built atop plantations.

---

"Vagrancy" of 1870s-onward across empires, people criminalized for being outside while being "foreign" and also being poor generally.

Especially from 1880-ish to 1918-ish, this was an age of widespread mass movement of peoples due to mass poverty and famine induced by global colonial extraction and "market expansion", as agricultural "revolutions" of monoculture/cash crop extraction resulted in ecological degradation. This coincides with and is facilitated by new railroads and telegraphs, leading to imperial implementation or expansion of identity documents, strict work contracts, passports, immigration surveillance, and border checkpoints.

All of this in just a few short years: In 1877, British administrators in India develop what would become the Henry Classification System of taking and keeping fingerprints for use in binding colonial Indians to legal contracts. That same year during the 1877 Great Railroad Strike, and in response to white anxiety about Black residents coming to the city during Great Migration, Chicago's policing institutions exponentially expand surveillance and pioneer "intelligence card" registers for tracking labor union organizing and Black movement, as Chicago's experiments become adopted by US military and expanded nationwide, later used by US forces monitoring dissent in colonial Philippines and Cuba. Japan based its 1880 Penal Code anti-vagrancy statutes on French models, and introduced "koseki" register to track poor/vagrant domestic citizens as Tokyo's Governor Matsuda segregates classes, and the nation introduces "modern police forces". In 1882, the United States passes the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1884, the Ottoman government enacts major "Passport Nizamnamesi" legislation requiring passports. In 1885, during the "Tacoma riot" or "expulsion", a mob of hundreds of white residents rounded up all of the city's Chinese residents, marched them to the train station, kicked them out of the city, and burned down the Chinese neighborhood, introducing what is called "the Tacoma method".

Punished for being Chinese in San Francisco. Punished for being Korean in Japan. Punished for crossing Ottoman borders without correct paperwork. Arrested for whatever, then sent to do convict labor. A poor person in the Punjab, starving during a catastrophic famine, might be coerced into a work contract by British authorities. They will have to travel, shipped off to build a railroad in British Kenya. But now they have to work. Now they are bound. They will be punished for being Punjabi and trying to walk away from Britain's tea plantations in Assam or Britain's rubber plantations in Malaya.

---

"Vagrancy" amidst all of this, people also criminalized for being outside while "unsightly" and merely even superficially appearing to be poor. San Francisco introduced the notorious "ugly law" in 1867, making it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view". Today, if you walk into a building looking a little "weird" (poor, Black, ill, disabled, etc.) or carrying a small backpack, you are given seething spiteful glares and asked to leave.

"Vagrancy" everywhere in the United States, a combination of all of the above. De facto criminalized for simply going for a stroll without downloading the coffee shop's exclusive menu app. "Vagrancy", since at least early nineteenth century Europe. About the control of movement through and access to space/place. Concretizing and weaponizing caste, corralling people, anchoring them in place (de facto confinement), extracting their wealth/labor.

You are permitted to exist only as a paying customer or an employee.

[opencommunion]

recommended resources on Lebanese resistance and its context

this has been in my drafts for a long time bc I wanted to find more audio resources but in light of recent events I'm posting as is, and will add more later. pdfs for texts without links can be found on libgen ⭐ = start with these 📺 = video resource 🎧 = audio resource Hizballah ⭐ Lara Deeb, "Hizballah and Its Civilian Constituencies," in The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)

⭐🎧 Electronic Intifada Podcast with Rania Khalek, "Why Hizballah would deal Israel a deadly blow" (2024)

⭐🎧 Electronic Intifada Podcast with Amal Saad, "How Hizballah Aims to Deter Israel" (2024)

📺 Rania Khalek, Interview with Hezbollah's Second-in-Command Sheikh Naim Qassem (2023)

🎧 Rania Khalek and Julia Kassem, "The Hybrid War on Lebanon is All About Weakening Hezbollah" (2022)

Hassan Nasrallah, "Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah," ed. Nicholas Noe (2007)

Judith Harik, "Hizballah's Public and Social Services and Iran," in Distant Relations: Iran and Lebanon in the last 500 years (2006) Sarah Marusek, Faith and Resistance: The Politics of Love and War in Lebanon (2018)

Abed T. Kanaaneh, Understanding Hezbollah: The Hegemony of Resistance (2021)

Karim Makdisi, "The Oct. 8 War: Lebanon's Southern Front" (2024) Political theory ⭐ Ussama Makdisi, "Understanding Sectarianism," in The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)

⭐ Rula Juri Abisaab and Malek Abisaab, The Shi'ites of Lebanon: Modernism, Communism, and Hizbullah's Islamists (2014)

Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914 (2010) Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline S. Ismael, The Communist Movement in Syria and Lebanon (1998) 2006 war ⭐ Gilbert Achcar and Michel Warschawski, The 33-Day War: Israel's War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Its Consequences (2007)

The Electronic Intifada with Dahr Jamail, "The world just sat by" (2006)

The Electronic Intifada with Bilal El-Amine, "Lebanon in Context" (2006) The War on Lebanon: A Reader, eds. Nubar Hovsepian and Rashid Khalidi (2007)

Civil war and 1982 invasion ⭐📺 Up to the South, dir. Jayce Salloum and Walid Ra'ad (1993)

⭐📺 Wild Flowers: Women of South Lebanon, dir. Mai Masri and Jean Khalil Chamoun (1987)

⭐ Souha Bechara, Resistance: My Life for Lebanon (2003)

Jean Said Makdisi, Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir (1990)

Bayan Nuwayhed al-Hout, Sabra and Shatila, September 1982 (2004) Ottoman era Charles Al-Hayek, "How, then, did you try to rebel?"

Lebanon Unsettled, "Lebanon's Popular Uprisings"

Axel Havemann, "The Impact of Peasant Resistance on Nineteenth Century Mount Lebanon," in Peasants and Politics in the Modern Middle East (1991) Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (2000)

Peter Hill, "How Global was the Age of Revolutions? The Case of Mount Lebanon, 1821" (2020) Mark Farha, "From Anti-imperial Dissent to National Consent: the First World War and the Formation of a Trans-sectarian National Consciousness in Lebanon" (2015) French mandate era ⭐ Kais Firro, Inventing Lebanon: Nationalism and the State Under the Mandate (2002) Sana Tannoury-Karam, "Founding the Lebanese Left: From Colonial Rule to Independence" (2021) Idir Ouahes, Syria and Lebanon Under the French Mandate: Cultural Imperialism and the Workings of Empire (2018)

Malek Abisaab, Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (2009) Misc ⭐📺 Leila and the Wolves, dir. Heiny Srour and Sabah Jabbour (1984)

⭐ Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon (2007)

Karim Makdisi, "Lebanon's October 2019 Uprising" (2021)

[magz]

Note: If aren't going to participate in Pro-Palestine action, do not mention it!

For accountability:

This is how Magz plans support Palestine during Global Strike January 21 to 28.

Am going to put more Palestine posts in queue, with more focus.

Am going to not spend on anything during week, nor go out (rare anyway).

Am going to not publicly post our arts and promos (of art freelance work).

Am going to read and learn more on Palestine - as there still more can learn.

Am going to be even more visibly pro-Palestinian.

Am going to continue keeping up with what's happening in Gaza.

Am going to continue boycotting products and services on BDS' Boycott List, including not giving free social media promo and good impressions.

Am going to try learn Palestinian Arabic.

Am going to describe, transcribe, and alt text posts on Palestine when possible - to make it more accessible (Am Multiply Disabled).

Am going to share ways to help.

One of shorter checklist options:

Longer checklists:

But really just do *anything* that support and raise awareness *more*, learn, or contribute. Whatever can manage do n able sustain.

If wasn't able to prepare in time, can still participate for rest of week. Is not "all or nothing", don't have to give up. Keep Palestine in your thoughts and actions !

Some links:

https://samidoun.net/2023/12/calendar-of-resistance-for-palestine-2024/

Popular Palestine Accounts:

https://www.instagram.com/motaz_azaiza/

https://www.instagram.com/wizard_bisan1/

https://www.instagram.com/everydaypalestine/

https://www.instagram.com/letstalkpalestine/

(Has graphic footage) https://www.instagram.com/eye.on.palestine/

Some Useful Posts:

Hussyknee's Palestine Masterpost

PaliPunk's Palestine MasterList

SulfurCosmos' "Palestinian Owned Companies" List (for later)

Paradox_Punch's "Pro-Palestine Brands" Twitter Thread (for later)

SulfurCosmos' "Preserving Gaza's Universities"

LoveLetter2You's Learn Palestinian Arabic Masterpost

How To Archive For Palestine

(rest of Magz's #palestine tag)

(#AltTextPalestine on Twitter)

[heritageposts]

Ask an older generation of white South Africans when they first felt the bite of anti-apartheid sanctions, and some point to the moment in 1968 when their prime minister, BJ Vorster, banned a tour by the England cricket team because it included a mixed-race player, Basil D’Oliveira. After that, South Africa was excluded from international cricket until Nelson Mandela walked free from prison 22 years later. The D’Oliveira affair, as it became known, proved a watershed in drumming up popular support for the sporting boycott that eventually saw the country excluded from most international competition including rugby, the great passion of the white Afrikaners who were the base of the ruling Nationalist party and who bitterly resented being cast out. For others, the moment of reckoning came years later, in 1985 when foreign banks called in South Africa’s loans. It was a clear sign that the country’s economy was going to pay an ever higher price for apartheid. Neither of those events was decisive in bringing down South Africa’s regime. Far more credit lies with the black schoolchildren who took to the streets of Soweto in 1976 and kicked off years of unrest and civil disobedience that made the country increasingly ungovernable until changing global politics, and the collapse of communism, played its part. But the rise of the popular anti-apartheid boycott over nearly 30 years made its mark on South Africans who were increasingly confronted by a repudiation of their system. Ordinary Europeans pressured supermarkets to stop selling South African products. British students forced Barclays Bank to pull out of the apartheid state. The refusal of a Dublin shop worker to ring up a Cape grapefruit led to a strike and then a total ban on South African imports by the Irish government. By the mid-1980s, one in four Britons said they were boycotting South African goods – a testament to the reach of the anti-apartheid campaign. . . . The musicians union blocked South African artists from playing on the BBC, and the cultural boycott saw most performers refusing to play in the apartheid state, although some, including Elton John and Queen, infamously put on concerts at Sun City in the Bophuthatswana homeland. The US didn’t have the same sporting or cultural ties, and imported far fewer South African products, but the mobilisation against apartheid in universities, churches and through local coalitions in the 1980s was instrumental in forcing the hand of American politicians and big business in favour of financial sanctions and divestment. By the time President FW de Klerk was ready to release Mandela and negotiate an end to apartheid, a big selling point for part of the white population was an end to boycotts and isolation. Twenty-seven years after the end of white rule, some see the boycott campaign against South Africa as a guide to mobilising popular support against what is increasingly condemned as Israel’s own brand of apartheid.

. . . continues at the guardian (21 May, 2021)

[zvaigzdelasas]

South Africa’s genocide case has put the spotlight on a deeper fault line in global geopolitics. Beyond the courtroom drama, experts say divisions over the war in Gaza symbolize a widening gap between Israel and its traditional Western allies, notably the United States and Europe, and a group of nations known as the Global South — countries located primarily in the southern hemisphere, often characterized by lower income levels and developing economies.

Reactions from the Global North to the ICJ case have been mixed. While some nations have maintained a cautious diplomatic stance, others, particularly Israel’s staunchest allies in the West, have criticized South Africa’s move.

The US has stood by Israel through the war by continuing to ship arms to it, opposing a ceasefire, and vetoing many UN Security Council resolutions that aimed to bring a halt to the fighting. The Biden administration has rubbished the claim that Israel is committing genocide as “meritless,” while the UK has refused to back South Africa.[...]

As a nation whose history is rooted in overcoming apartheid, South Africa’s move carries symbolic weight that has resonated with other nations in the developing world, many of whom have faced the burden of oppression and colonialism from Western powers.

Nelson Mandela, the face of the anti-apartheid movement, was a staunch supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat, saying in 1990: “We align ourselves with the PLO because, akin to our struggle, they advocate for the right of self-determination.”

Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that while South Africa’s case is a continuation of its long-standing pro-Palestinian sympathies, the countries that have rallied behind it show deeper frustrations by the Global South.

There is “a clear geopolitical context in which many countries from the Global South have been increasingly critical over what they see as a lack of Western pressure on Israel to prevent such a large-scale loss of life in Gaza and its double standards when it comes to international law,” Lovatt told CNN.

Much of the non-Western world opposes the war in Gaza; China has joined the 22-member Arab League in calling for a ceasefire, while several Latin American nations have expelled Israeli diplomats in protest, and several Asian and African countries have joined Muslim and Arab nations in backing South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ.

For many in the developing world, the ICJ case has become a focal point for questioning the moral authority of the West and what is seen as the hypocrisy of the world’s most powerful nations and their unwillingness to hold Israel to account. [...]

Israel sided with the West against Soviet-backed Arab regimes during the Cold War, and Western countries largely view it “as a fellow member of the liberal democratic club,” he added.[...]

“But the strong support of Western governments is increasingly at odds with the attitudes of Western publics which continue to shift away from Israel,” Lovatt said.

Israel has framed the war in Gaza as a clash of civilizations where it is acting as the guardian of Western values that it says are facing an existential threat.

“This war is a war that is not only between Israel and Hamas,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told MSNBC in December. “It’s a war that is intended – really, truly – to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization.”

So far, no Western countries have supported South Africa’s case against Israel.

Among Western states, Germany has been one of the most vocal supporters of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The German government has said it “expressly rejects” allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that it plans to intervene as a third party on its behalf at the ICJ.

An opinion poll by German broadcaster ZDF this week however found that 61% of Germans do not consider Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip as justified in light of the civilian casualties. Only 25% voiced support for Israel’s offensive.

But it is in Germany’s former colonial territory, Namibia, that it has attracted the fiercest criticism.

The Namibian President Hage Geingob in a statement on Saturday chided Berlin’s decision to reject the ICJ case, accusing it of committing “the first genocide of the 20th century in 1904-1908, in which tens of thousands of innocent Namibians died in the most inhumane and brutal conditions.” The statement added that the German government had not yet fully atoned for the killings.

Bangladesh, where up to three million people were killed during the country’s war of independence from Pakistan in the 1970s, has gone a step further to file a declaration of intervention in the ICJ case to back South Africa’s claims, according to the Dhaka Tribune.

A declaration of intervention allows a state that is not party to the proceedings to present its observations to the court.

“With Germany siding with Israel, and Bangladesh and Namibia backing South Africa at the ICJ, the geopolitical divide between the Global South and the West appears to be deepening,” Lovatt said.

Traditionally, the West has wielded significant influence in international affairs, but South Africa’s move signals a growing assertiveness among Global South nations that threatens the status quo, says Adekoya.

“One clear pattern emerging is that the old Western-dominated order is increasingly being challenged, a situation likely to only further intensify as the West loses its once unassailably dominant economic position,” Adekoya said.

19 Jan 24