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EDITOR’S LETTER

TALES OF EMPIRE THIS MONTH’S

AMY HALL
for the New Internationalist
Co-operative newint.org
Cover: Moussa Bitteye, who was 96
when this photograph was taken in
Saint Louis, Senegal. He fought as a
‘tirailleur’ – a soldier in the French
Colonial army – and explains to the
photographer that he is still haunted
by the war and experiences night
terrors. ‘We spent four or five days in
the jungle picking up the wounded; I
carried many of them on my shoulders,
they were mainly Black, Malian and
Senegalese brothers,’ he explains.
ALFREDO CALIZ/PANOS PICTURES
CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE:
There’s a popular proverb displayed on a sign in the Kojo Koram is a writer and
Barbados Museum: ‘Unless you know the road you’ve an academic, teaching
come down, you cannot know where you are going.’ at Birkbeck College,
As Barbados continues on its path as a young University of London. He is
republic, it’s a reminder that the past is always the author of Uncommon
present in the future. Wealth: Britain and the
Aftermath of Empire.
The sign stands at the opening to the museum’s
exhibit on Africa, where most of the island’s
Mira Galanova is a freelance
population have their heritage but which is half way
investigative journalist
across the world. As the museum reminds us, over a specializing in human rights
period of 500 years many Caribbean societies ‘were and citizen security in Latin
created by the forces of capitalism’ and these forces America. Her work has been
of capitalism had empire at their heart. published in The Guardian
As an internationalist magazine, with a focus on and The Washington Post
the Global South, how Empire shaped our world is among others.
an essential part of any story we tell. So, as voted
for by our readers, it’s a topic we’ve been tackling Priya Lukka is an
head on for the past year. This Big Story rounds economist who works
off our Decolonize How? series, which has been with policymakers,
using the methods of ‘solutions journalism’ to do philanthropists and
just that. activists to improve
Keep an eye on our website for more stories until outcomes for groups of
marginalized people.
the end of September, plus ways in which you can join
the discussion: online and in person. Catch up on the
Samuel Getachew is a
rest of the series at a.nin.tl/DH journalist based in Addis
This edition also includes two new sections: Ababa. He has written for
an extended commentary slot, in which Nanjala The Reporter newspaper
Nyambola takes on racist border policies, and a in Ethiopia as well as The
longer book review. Let us know what you think, and New Humanitarian, the
what we could tackle in these pieces in the future. Globe & Mail and others.

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SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 3
CONTENTS

THE BIG STORY CURRENTS

Stories making the news
8 Tigray peace at risk
Plus: Borderlines
9 Introducing: Bola Tinubu
Plus: Seriously?
10 Strike surge in China

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

Squatting Berlin’s private parking spaces
New road threatens Peruvian Amazon
Plus: Inequality Watch
Plus: Sign of the Times
12 Food programme cuts hit Rohingya
Plus: Open Window
13 France’s reckoning with police violence
Plus: Reasons to be cheerful

DECOLONIZATION
REGULARS
15 The long goodbye 6 Letters
If we want to build a more just world, we need to Plus: Why I…
confront the legacies of empire, argues Amy Hall.
7 Letter from Shapajilla
21 THE FACTS Stephanie Boyd reports from an Amazonian village
where traditional ways of life are changing with
22 How Third Worldism was silenced modern times
Kojo Koram charts how the hopes of anti-colonial
governments were quashed by the likes of Margaret 42 Country Profile: Yemen
Thatcher.
44 Cartoon History: Pirates of the Atlantic
25 Ain dun yet David Lester and Marcus Rediker’s graphic novel
Amy Hall reports from Barbados on ditching the tells the story of three unlikely companions sold
Queen and the legacies of colonialism. into servitude on a merchant ship and thrust into a
voyage of rebellion. In this extract, African American
31 The fight for reparations fugitive John Gwin recalls a mutiny which established
Priya Lukka explains what reparations could mean, democracy onboard an imperial merchant ship.
drawing from the rich and varied global movement
for repair. 49 Temperature Check
Could the age of artwash be coming to an end? Danny
34 Get up, pay up Chivers counts on the successes of the movement to kick
The demand for climate justice is growing. Carlos the oil industry out of the UK’s arts and culture scene.
Edill Berríos Polanco reports on the campaign for
the Global North to cough up for its climate debt. 52 The Interview
Sofia Karim discusses art, architecture and activism
36 ‘Our culture is word of mouth’ with Subi Shah.
A new Kenyan media initiative is using live
performance to try and break free of colonial 63 Southern Exposure
industry norms. Patrick Gathara goes to see what Mahshad Jalalian captures a shot of a young nomad
it’s all about. in Iran’s north-eastern Razavi Khorasan region.

39 How Modi hijacked the call to decolonize 72 Hall of Infamy – Kais Saied
Is the right-wing Indian government shaking off its Tunisia’s president crushes the hopes of democrats in
colonial past? Not at all, writes Tarushi Aswani. the birthplace of the Arab Spring.

80 The Puzzler

4 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
81 Agony Uncle
I was pushed out of my home town due to rising rents –
MIXED MEDIA
now I worry I’m inflicting the same uprooting on others.
What should I do? NI’s in-house ethics adviser chips in. 73 The long review NEW
Bluebeard’s Castle by Anna Biller
82 What if… Jo Lateu finds herself frustrated by a feminist twist on
We were not socialised to be monogamous? the classic folk tale.
Bethany Rielly asks us to end our judgments over
multiple partners. 74 Book Reviews
Traces of Enayat by Iman Mersal; Austria Behind the

COMMENT
Mask by Paul Lendvai; Standing Heavy by GauZ’; To
the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

76 Film Reviews
51 View from India Brother directed and co-written by Clement Virgo;
Nilanjana Bhowmick on the myths that still exist Our river … our sky directed and co-written by
around women and money. Maysoon Pachachi
Plus: Marc Roberts’ Only Planet
77 Music Reviews
55 View from Africa Newton Armstrong/Juliet Fraser, The Book of the
After the African peace mission to Ukraine and Russia, Sediments; Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening, cloud
Rosebell Kagumire asks if the continent’s leaders horizons
should focus their efforts closer to home.
Plus: Kate Evans’ Thoughts from a Broad 78 Spotlight
Subi Shah talks humanity, power and expression with
60 Comment: tragedy – or murder? NEW Johannesburg-based artist Roger Ballen
Kicking off our new extended comment slot, Nanjala
Nyambola says it’s time governments were properly
held to account for their border policies.

65 View from Brazil

IN THE NEXT ISSUE: SPYING ON DISSENT
Are vested interests willing to put international trade
at stake as they seek to slash and burn environmental
protections? Leonardo Sakamoto explores.
Plus: Polyp’s Big Bad World

ONLINE FEATURES
FEATURES
newint.org

17.07.23 Carbon credit dollars stir up communities in Kenya

Can you really put a price on nature? Anthony
56 Justice delayed is justice Lang’at reports on a controversial scheme seen as
denied innovative and beneficial by some, and as carbon
Too many cases are languishing colonialism by others.
in Guatemala’s courts and
prolonging the agony of victims 13.07.23 The gift of writing
and their families. Mira Galanova Writing, reading, giving – all are central to New
reports on what the hold up is. Internationalist’s mission, and to the history of
humankind. Vanessa Baird visits an engaging new
68 From the archive: KK exhibition that shows how it all joins up, and may
unbound even change the world.
In New Internationalist’s first
ever issue, David Martin spoke 26.06.23 Housing is a circus
to Zambia’s president Kenneth A new aerial cabaret show explores the housing
MIRA GALANOVA

Kuanda, who led the country as crisis and the debts of home. Amy Hall reports.
a mostly one-party state from
1964 until 1991. 13.06.23 Western folly and the continuous Nakba
Toufic Haddad argues that the West’s blinkered
support for Israel can only escalate disaster.

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 5
LETTERS
SEND US YOUR FEEDBACK
The New Internationalist welcomes your letters, but please note that they
might be edited for space or clarity. Letters should be sent to letters@newint.org.
Please remember to include a town and country for your address.
Not adding up
Thank you for your article on
the UAE (NI 543), from which
I learned a lot. One question
arose for me regarding the
literacy statistics, largely due
to my compulsive counting
obsession. If men scored 92.56
per cent and women 95.8 per
cent, what missing component
dragged the overall average up
to 98.13 per cent?
TONY GLASBEY (VIA EMAIL)
The editors write: This was
an editorial error. The figure
for the total population is
correct, with men scoring
98.8 per cent and women 97.2
per cent in 2021.
Defend our right to
boycott
Thank you for your issue on
Palestine (NI 544). I don’t
know when I have ever read
a clearer and more succinct
summary of its history
over the last hundred and
some years. You quote an
Israeli activist saying of their
protests against the extreme
right-wing government: ‘It
is all inter-connected – the
occupation is the basis of our
loss of democracy.’
We are seeing a parallel
process in the UK. In its
commitment to colluding
with Israeli policies of
apartheid and occupation,
Westminster is pushing
through a bill which proposes
to ban all public bodies
imposing their own boycotts
on states. This would take
away our democratic rights
to refuse to deal with those
6 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
guilty of human rights
abuses. We need to resist
this bill not only on behalf
of Palestinians asking for
our solidarity but for the
health of our own withering
democracy.
ANNIE NELIGAN BENTHAM, UK
Carbon footprint
I note from your comment on
the letter ‘Too many ads’ (NI
544) that you are intending to
discuss issues raised about the
environmental impact of the
print magazine in your next
editorial review.
Could this discussion also
include the point I have been
making about the climate
impact of print vs online
publications? And yes, saving
paper is a worthy aim, but
surely not if the digital alter-
native has a greater overall
impact (websites also have a
carbon footprint). Suggestions
that digital is better are surely
irresponsible in the absence
of evidence to support this.
KENNETH ALLAN GLASGOW, UK
‘Biological sex is
binary’
In an article reprinted
from 2015, Vanessa Baird
(From the Archive, NI 543)
proposes that since it is now
accepted that sexuality is on
a spectrum, we should also
accept that the same applies
to gender identity. I hope
you will allow me to point
out that the comparison is
specious and misleading.
Gender identity is based upon
biological sex, and biological
sex is most definitely binary.
This division into male and these facts are accepted;
female isn’t some cultural but it has become somehow
phenomenon: it is found controversial to state them.
in all mammals, birds and PETER BAVINGTON LONDON, UK
fishes and virtually all other
animals. Gender – how you The editors write: We
present yourself, and how republished this 2015 article as
others perceive you – is part of a new series marking
obviously something that is NI’s 50th anniversary. The
open to choice and change series showcases our best
in a free society. Trans picks from the archive. With
people [If they choose to - Ed] this in mind, we respectfully
have to undergo medical respond to your letter
and sometimes surgical by reiterating that NI is
interventions which are not committed to elevating the
entirely safe; a brave choice. voices of trans people globally
For this they perhaps should and recognizing that they
inspire our admiration are the experts on their own
and respect, rather than identities. Our stories will
scorn and prejudice. For always strive to challenge
certain purposes only, beliefs that help to reinforce
though, biological sex is discrimination against the
still important: sports trans community and justify
competitions being one the erasure of their existence.
example, and medical Similarly, looking at sex in
treatment another. We aren’t terms of the binary ignores
going to get much further the existence of intersex
with according full rights and people and the diversity of
dignity to trans people unless non-binary identities.
Why I... started a bookshop
I can sum it all up in two words really: frustration and
hatred!
I was frustrated by the lack of a platform for Black
authors. People in the industry acted like people of
colour weren’t writing when the truth is that Black
authors were not being marketed and stocked in book-
shops. So, I created a platform to do just that.
I hate injustice. It really gets to me, and I thought
that this was an injustice I could fix, even though I
knew nothing about retail or publishing – and I had no
money! I am a disruptor and an activist and it seemed
right to use my skills in this space.
CAROLYNN BAIN BRIGHTON, UK afroribooks.co.uk
To share your passion, please email letters@newint.org
 LETTER FROM SHAPAJILLA

THE STORYTELLER
Stephanie Boyd reports from a remote village in the Peruvian Amazon, where
ways of life are changing with modern times – but ancient traditions live on.

Roldan Canaquiri shuffles over dried reeds

that crackle under his bare feet, and climbs
slowly down the riverbank, testing the soft
earth with his toes before each step. The
big winter rains have come and the river
is rising: every day part of the bank col-
lapses into the swirling foam below. But
Roldan is not afraid. The Kukama Indige-
nous elder has lived on the Marañón River
in Peru’s northern Amazon for nearly all
of his 89 years. Although he’s lost most of
his sight and hearing, Roldan never misses
his afternoon pilgrimage to bathe in the
cooling waters.
He steps into a small canoe. His wife
Juana reaches out to steady him. She
is never far from his side. In his youth
Roldan swam in the Marañón but now he
sits on the boat’s wooden bench, lathers
up with soap and uses a small plastic
basin to rinse with river water.
Juana sits in the bow, washing their grabbing his foot, trying to pull him arrived a few years ago, providing just
clothes. She is nine years younger than under. ‘It was a river person,’ he says, enough wattage for cell phones and light
her husband and wears a baby-blue referring to the spirit universe beneath bulbs. Mariluz and other leaders fought
dress with frills and puffy sleeves. Her the Kukama’s waterways. ‘I swam, des- for electricity, yet she worries about the
long black hair, spotted with grey and perate to reach land, and never bathed in impact on her people’s culture. This is why
white, is tied in a neat braid. The younger the middle of the river again.’ we’re making the film – to use new tech-
women in her community wear shorts, When Roldan’s grandchildren were nologies to keep the old stories alive.
t-shirts and make-up, but Juana is from young, people still gathered in the eve- Despite the changes, the river is still
a lost era when women weren’t allowed nings to hear him and other elders tell a place where all the generations come
to go to school and still spoke Kukama- stories by candle or firelight. They learned together: to bathe, fish, travel and fetch
Kukamiria, their native language. about fishing, hunting and farming. But water.
In those days marriages were arranged they also heard cautionary tales about the Mariluz says her mother used to carry
between families. Roldan and Juana’s river spirits, like pink dolphins that trans- a 20-litre bucket on her head over the
union was no exception, and yet, after form into handsome men and carry off half-kilometer walk to the village, but age
raising 12 children they seem happy and young women, or mermaids who lure fish- has slowed her down.
enjoy being together. ermen to live in their underwater villages. I fill up Juana’s small bucket with
My husband Miki and I are filming On the upside, the spirits can cure human muddy river water and try to carry it
the scene. For nine years, we’ve been illnesses and give protection. They are back. No matter how slowly I go, water
working on a documentary with Mariluz powerful forces and must be respected. sloshes over the sides and pours down my
Canaquiri, one of the couple’s daughters. So, the elders’ tales are not just entertain- face. Two young girls run up behind me
As usual Miki and I argue about camera ment: they’re a way to pass on knowledge laughing. One of them takes the bucket,
angles and technical challenges. We are and ensure that the next generation takes and balancing it perfectly on her head,
ILLUSTRATION: SARAH JOHN

drenched in sweat and covered in mos-
quito bites.
A group of teenagers arrives, the boys
joking and shoving each other, the girls
giggling and pretending to ignore them.
When Roldan was their age, he swam
out too far one day and felt someone
care of their sacred river.
But now the evening stories have been
replaced. Roldan’s great-grandchildren
have cell phones and tablets and play
video games or watch movies under the
mango tree in front of his house which
has the best reception. Modest solar panels
skips along the path. Not a drop spills.
Of course, she’s been practising for
years. She learned it from her grand-
mother. O
STEPHANIE BOYD IS A CANADIAN FILMMAKER AND
JOURNALIST WHO HAS BEEN LIVING AND WORKING
IN PERU SINCE 1997.

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 7
CURRENTS
ETHIOPIA
ON THE EDGE
Letay Tesfaye fears her baby
has just days to live. ‘We eat
dry bread (injera) or whatever
is offered to us from the
village,’ she says. ‘My newborn
is always crying of hunger. He
is extremely malnourished
and weak. I am almost certain
I will lose him any moment.’
Letay lives in Samre, a
small town in the war-ravaged
northern Ethiopian region of
Tigray. After emerging from a
vicious two-year civil conflict,
the region is now facing the
threat of starvation, with relief
officials recording almost 600
hunger-related deaths between
April and June this year.
The problem, driven by
acute food shortages and
persistent drought, has been
exacerbated in recent months
Women and children queue for soup
to treat child malnutrition at an aid
centre in the Tigray town of Adwa
on 19 May 2023.
XIMENA BORRAZAS/SOPA IMAGES/ALAMY
8 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
by the suspension of food aid
by the World Food Programme
(WFP) and the United States
Agency for International
Development (USAID).
Allegations of large-scale
food theft led to the halting
of assistance in Tigray earlier
this year. Then in June the
two major donors extended
the pause across the whole
of Ethiopia, pending an
investigation into the claims.
Approximately 20 million
people in Ethiopia are
dependent on aid, with
Tigray one of the hardest hit
regions. Here, more than 90
per cent of the population is
dependent on donated rations.
A peace agreement, signed
in November 2022 between
the federal government of
Ethiopia and the Tigray
People’s Liberation Front
(TPLF), has not brought lasting
calm to the region or an end to
the suffering of its people.
Estimated to have killed
more than 600,000 people,
the brutal conflict saw many
ethnic Tigrayans evicted from
disputed areas that were part
of Western Tigray, now under
the control of Amhara forces
who claim it as part of the
Amhara region.
Almost 12 months on,
thousands remain in makeshift
camps with little support from
the regional government and
international donors.
Schools have been used
as shelters for the displaced,
delaying the start of the school
calendar for the third year
in a row. Save the Children
estimates that ‘about 2.3 million
children remain out of school’.
Growing frustration in the
camps spilled over in June,
when thousands of civilians
staged protests in Mekelle,
Tigray’s regional capital,
demanding their right to return
and resettle in the disputed
areas and for the removal of
suspected Eritrean troops.
Ethiopia’s Prime Minister
Abiy Ahmed finally addressed
BORDERLINES
Escaping anti-LGBTQI+ hate
When Uganda passed a
new anti-LGBTQI+ law in
March, Vinka’s stomach
dropped. ‘The attitude
of the people around me
changed, and my home was
no longer safe,’ she explains.
As a transgender woman,
Vinka was forced to flee her
country for neighbouring
Zambia.
But there she ran into
more danger. ‘They say you
get “asylum”, but it is not safe
here either,’ says Vinka, who
was hospitalized after being
stripped and beaten during
her first days in a Zambian
refugee camp. While in
hospital, she discovered she
was HIV positive. ‘I cried, I
felt like I wanted to kill myself,
and had no-one there to
comfort me.’
In April, Zambian MPs
were among a delegation
of parliamentarians from 22
African nations who met in
Uganda for an anti-LGBTQI+
‘family values’ conference
hosted by a US Christian
right group Family Watch
International, prompting fears
the homophobic laws could
soon spread to Uganda’s
neighbours.
Vinka has now
been moved to safer
accommodation, but
challenges remain. ‘If you
are a refugee, it’s not easy
to access medication,’ she
says. ‘You are discriminated
against not just because of
your gender but because you
are a foreigner.
‘I went into a depression
but I know life has to move
forward. I’m a fighter and I will
fight to survive.’
ALICE MCCOOL

the contentious issue in July,
calling for a ‘win-win solution
to the boundary row’, without
being specific as to how that
noble goal could be achieved.
Meanwhile, the regional
government in Mekelle
is complaining about the
Ethiopian government’s
failure to transfer funds meant
for implementing crucial
programmes, frustrating
post-conflict recovery efforts.
Moreover, the Ethiopian
Election Board has refused to
ratify the TPLF as a registered
political party, denying
its participation in future
elections.
As for now, it is feared
that the continued impasse
between the leadership of
Amhara and Tigray regions
could precipitate another
round of inter-ethnic strife.
This, along with a ruined
economy – losses are
estimated at $28 billion –
and growing donor fatigue,
is fuelling concerns that the
peace deal might not hold.
SAMUEL GETACHEW
INTRODUCING...
BOLA TINUBU
Africa’s most populous country
seems to have succeeded
in a peaceful transfer of
presidential power from an
incumbent to an aspirant. But
there is no big political rupture
here. The victor, 71-year-old
Bola Tinubu, is a consummate
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
insider in Nigerian politics and
is known as ‘the kingmaker’ for
his role in forming the ruling
All Progressives Congress
(APC) party and shaping the
campaigns of former president
and APC leader Muhammadu
Buhari.
In the horse-trading
rough-and-tumble of Nigerian
politics, Tinubu’s campaign
was short on policy and
substance but organized
instead around the rather self-
serving slogan of ‘it’s my turn’.
The election was not
without controversy. Both
of Tinubu’s opponents, the
perpetual candidate Atiku
Abubakar (who has run no
less than six times for the
presidency) and the Labour
Party’s Peter Obi, polled well
and demanded a new election
amid claims of ‘vote-rigging’.
Tinubu secured 8,794,726
votes while Abubakar scored
6,984,520 to Obi’s 6,101,533.
In the end the president got
just under 37 per cent of the
vote with only three in ten
Nigerians casting ballots. Not
exactly a ringing endorsement.
To sell his candidacy to
Nigerians, Tinubu pointed to
his track record as governor of
Lagos state between 1999 and
2007, when he oversaw a flood
of foreign investment into the
capital which swelled incomes.
But his tenure was also marred
by a series of corruption
scandals and broken promises
to improve the city’s decrepit
public services.
The economic, social and
living conditions for the
majority of the country’s
citizens have become
increasingly dire during
the APC’s two terms of
neoliberalism. According
to the National Bureau of
Statistics, some 63 per cent of
Nigerians are now living in
‘multi-dimensional’ poverty.
As Nigerian activist Alex
Batubo reports: ‘Whilst the
majority of the population are
poorer, the rich are now rich
beyond their wildest dreams.’
It should surprise no-one
that Nigerian cement magnet
Aliko Dangote (reputed to be
Africa’s second richest man)
along with billionaire Bill
Gates were cordially invited
to meet President Tinubu
shortly after he was sworn in.
It appears Tinubu, himself one
of Nigeria’s richest politicians,
knows which side his bread is
buttered.
The new president’s
upcoming tenure is not going
to be an easy ride as crisis
after crisis piles up. Crime,
insurgency, inequality,
corruption and ecological
collapse are all pressing
concerns.
The Niger Delta continues
to be ravaged by the
petroleum industry through
gas flaring, dredging, oil
spillage and reclamation of
land for oil and gas extraction,
with local communities
bearing the brunt of this
environmental destruction. In
the northeast particularly, a
violent Islamic insurgency led
by Boko Haram is a seemingly
unsolvable problem.
Elsewhere the resistance
of ordinary Nigerians runs
from a resurgence of trade
union activity to petty and
not-so-petty crime. The young
are particularly alienated as
their enthusiastic support for
Obi’s Labour Party campaign
shows. This maverick 61-year-
old businessman mobilized
hundreds of thousands with
his promise of a radical break
with Nigeria’s old guard
gerontocracy.
Tinubu has promised to
unite this increasingly divided
nation. However, his decision
to scrap fuel subsidies on his
first day in office, sparking
panic buying and clamours
for a general strike, suggests
that the new President is not
off to the best start to achieve
this goal.
RICHARD SWIFT
In the News
SERIOUSLY?
This misogyny is hidden
Amid an endless torrent of
hateful words and harmful
images on social media, we
can rest easy; safe in the
knowledge that the hashtag
#VaginalCancer was banned
from Instagram.
Gynaecological charity
The Eve Appeal discovered
the censorship in July 2023
while posting a patient’s
story of this rare form of
cancer on the platform.
Its search for
#VaginalCancer was met
with a blunt rebuttal when
a ‘this hashtag is hidden’
message appeared, sparking
outrage online. ‘How can
posts about cancer be
inappropriate or offensive?’
the charity asked on Twitter.
Not only is the ban upsetting
for patients, it warned, but it
could also prevent people
seeing useful, potentially life-
saving, information.
Although the platform
is trying to reduce harmful
content, efforts appear
haphazard.
While Instagram has since
unblocked the hashtag, this
is not the first time it has
received complaints over its
censorship of female bodies.
In 2021, users were outraged
to realise #Vagina was banned
while #Penis enjoyed full,
unfettered freedom. This too
has been rectified. However,
educational drawings of
ILLUSTRATIONS: EMMA PEER
vulvas are still blocked, as are
images showing a woman’s
nipples. In retaliation, 300,000
people follow the Instagram
account free the nipple.
ANNA SCOTT
9
CURRENTS
CHINA
STRIKE SURGE
In May striking workers at a
kitchen appliances factory in
the Chinese city of Shenzen
blocked the entrance to the
premises in protest over
unpaid benefits and wages.
The action taken by 100
employees at the Sundairy
Xin’an Electrics Company
(SXEC) was not an isolated
incident. During the first five
months of the year, 140 strikes
were recorded across China’s
ailing manufacturing sector,
according to Hong Kong-
based labour rights NGO
China Labour Bulletin (CLB).
That was the highest number
since the same period in 2016,
when 313 in the sector were
reported.
The CLB has the difficult
task of documenting strike
activities in a country where
official figures are closely
guarded by the autocratic
Chinese Communist Party. By
stealthily recording incidents
of protests posted on social
media by workers, CLB is able
to track labour unrest before
censors scrub any trace of it
from the web. Although just
5-10 per cent of all walkouts
are logged, CBL researcher
Aidan Chau says it is clear
that factory strikes are on the
rise. The wave of discontent is
being driven in part by a drop
in global consumer demand
linked to high inflation. ‘At
present, factories can’t rely
on Western and international
companies to place orders
and do not know how many
workers they actually need,’
explains Li Qiang, executive
director of China Labour
Watch. In order to maintain
a base level of workers in
case an order comes in, some
cash-strapped factories have
resorted to reducing wages.
China’s migrant labourers
are among the hardest hit by
the downturn. With many on
insecure contracts, this group
10
are particularly vulnerable
to labour abuses, as one new
recruit at the SXEC factory
wrote on social media: ‘We are
required to work for a whole
day with just one meal and are
housed 16 people in a room.’
ANDREW ROLLAND
GERMANY
PARASITE PARKING
Even in a party city like
Berlin, on Monday mornings
many people have to go to
work. It was at this time that a
disgruntled commuter found
artist Jakob Wirth preparing
breakfast in his open-concept
apartment – on a streetside
parking space.
Wirth is co-creator of
Parasite Parking. Originating
in Chicago, where private
parking spaces have
obstructed public projects, the
‘parasite’ is a 12 square-meter
platform that can be set up in
a parking space.
Wirth spent 11 days
and nights living in the
installation. ‘I want people to
imagine the possibilities of
what it means to be in a public
space,’ Wirth said, adding
that he hopes the artwork will
spark conversations about who
SIGN OF THE TIMES
In July 2023, 25,000 people gathered for London Trans Pride
amongst a political and media climate which has become increasingly
hostile to the rights of transgender people.
gets to use public and private
spaces, and for what.
The artist also met with
local residents who helped
organize film screenings,
discussions and a party, all
within and around a space
which would normally be
reserved for a parked car.
PAUL KRANTZ
INEQUALITY
WATCH
AUSTERITY
IN THE UK
LED TO OVER
300,000
‘EXCESS’ DEATHS
IN THE 2010S
LEADING TO PEOPLE
ACROSS THE COUNTRY
DYING YOUNGER.
Source:
University of Glasgow and GCPH
PERU
NARCO HIGHWAY
The proposed Pucallpa-
Cruzeiro do Sul highway
would connect Peru with
Brazil, cutting through areas
of untouched rainforest. But
environmental concerns such
as deforestation aren’t the only
threat the project poses.
Onamiap, an Indigenous
rights group, warned in a
recent report that the new
ALICE MCCOOL
road ‘facilitates the occupation
and invasion of Indigenous
territories, putting the
protection of the forests at risk’.
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 In the News

The group is also concerned that
the construction will expose
their communities to violence
as drug traffickers access more
remote corners of the forest.
These fears are not
unfounded. During the
pandemic, 12 Indigenous
leaders in Peru were murdered.
Many had been campaigning
illicit economy by growing
coca leaves and selling them
to traffickers.
‘The road is presented by
politicians under the vision
of development,’ says Apu
Richard Rubio, the vice
president of Indigenous
organization Aidesep. ‘But for
the Amazon, development has
When Peruvians took to
the streets earlier this year
in anger at the ousting of
President Pedro Castillo,
protest organizers raised the
lack of infrastructure in the
country as a major concern.
The mass protests were met
with police violence, leaving
49 people dead, according to
The 2012 Interoceanic Highway
pictured here, promised to improve
the lives of Peruvian locals. Today
it is rarely used for trade, instead
serving destructive mining and
logging activities. Indigenous
groups fear the same will be true
for the new Pucallpa–Cruzeiro do
Sul road.
TANIA WAMANI

against illegal logging and drug
trafficking before their deaths.
By publicly opposing these
projects, leaders are putting
their lives at risk.
At the same time, this
dynamic encourages poorer
communities, with few other
options, to participate in the
a different meaning – one of
spirituality. Destroying living
things, the trees, rivers and
forest, is not our understanding
of development.’
The issue highlights a
disparity between Lima’s
wealthiest classes and the
under-developed countryside.
Human Rights Watch.
Projects like the Pucallpa-
Cruzeiro do Sul highway
purport to address these
concerns and benefit rural
communities, but many locals
believe they do more harm
than good.
JACK DODSON

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 11
CURRENTS

BANGLADESH Children could be withdrawn

from schools, he warns, with
working, which trap them in
a ‘situation of imposed food
A Rohingya refugee waits for food in
Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh’s

HUNGER TRAP girls at risk of child marriages.

A new round of food ration
cuts is putting Rohingya
refugees living in Bangladesh
Aid workers are already
seeing an increase in crime
in the overcrowded camps as
some residents go beyond the
dependency’, Bill Frelick of
Human Rights Watch says.
For Frelick, Bangladesh
only has two choices; provide
the Rohingya with food as
Cox’s Bazar in 2018, where
hundreds of thousands of people
rely on World Food Programme
donations to survive.
RICHARD JUILLIART/SHUTTERSTOCK

at risk of starvation.
At the beginning of June,
the world’s largest refugee
settlement of 900,000 people
in Cox’s Bazar saw food rations
slashed to a level that UN
special rapporteurs say will
lead to ‘spiking rates of acute
malnutrition, infant mortality,
violence and even death’.
In February 2023 the
monthly ration for the
Rohingya populated camp
was $12. This was cut to $10 in
March, and slashed again in
June to just $8. The World Food
Programme says it was forced to
make the cuts due to a shortfall
in international funding.
Hossain Shahid, an Islamic
Relief worker in the camps,
says refugees now face ‘grim
choices’ to make ends meet.
law to feed empty stomachs. long as they remain in the
This is not the first time camps, or allow them to make
the long-persecuted ethnic their own living.
minority has faced starvation LAUREN CROSBY MEDLICOTT
in Bangladesh. In 1978, the
Bangladesh government
weaponized food to force OPEN WINDOW
Rohingya refugees back to Where to hide? by Maarten Wolterink (Netherlands)
Myanmar, where they had
fled persecution and violence.
Within months over 107,000
refugees had been repatriated,
and almost 12,000 had died.
Although the reasons behind
today’s cuts are different, there
are fears that the dwindling
rations, combined with
increasing restrictions and
police violence in the camps,
could lead to a similar exodus.
Bangladesh is being urged
to lift restrictions preventing
Rohingya refugees from

12 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 In the News

FRANCE reporting, Nahel’s story and

VIOLENT DENIAL
In June 2023, Nahel Merzouk,
a 17-year-old of North African
descent, was shot and killed
by a police officer in the Paris
suburb of Nanterre. Initially,
the officer claimed he had
fired at Nahel in ‘self-defence’,
but a video of the incident
contradicted his account.
While the facts are yet to be
fully established, it appears
that unarmed Nahel was shot
point blank by the police
following a traffic offence.
Following the killing, riots
– led mostly by teenagers –
engulfed many French cities.
The weeks of protest spoke to
a growing feeling of discontent
among people living in
France’s impoverished urban
suburbs which have, for
decades, been considered to
experience the worst ‘hyper-
marginalization’ in Europe.
One would think, that in
the weeks preceding France’s
National Day to mark the
storming of the Bastille and
start of the French Revolution,
the significance of these riots
would be clear. And yet, as the
country burned with similar
rage, these dissenters were not
seen as so heroic.
Nahel joins a long list of
young men of Arab and Sub-
Saharan African origin killed
by French police in recent
years, yet questions of race
and class were glaringly absent
from the public discourse.
Skirting the issue, President
Macron even claimed video
games and TikTok were to
blame for the violence.
The French press was
similarly blind to the problem.
Instead of addressing what the
UN High Commissioner for
the protests are being used
to further the hatred and
stigmatization of generations
of French citizens who are
deemed to be less French and
less human,’ a statement from
Sleeping Giants France – a
collective working to counter
hate speech – explains.
More widely, the lethal
shooting shone a global
spotlight on the French
police’s readiness to respond
with violence, an issue long
highlighted by human
rights groups. While ethnic
minorities bear the brunt of
this brutality, other groups
have also complained of
increasing state violence.
During the gilets jaunes
protests of 2018 and 2019, an
estimated 2,500 protesters
were injured, including several
who lost eyes or limbs, as
police fired tear gas, water
cannons and rubber bullets
into crowds. At least 1,800
police were also injured.
In March, radical climate
activists protesting against the
construction of a reservoir
in Sainte-Soline reportedly
lost fingers when riot police
ramped up use of flashbang,
or stun, grenades. Joseph
Downing, an academic and
expert in French politics, says
the heavy-handed approach
stems from the evolution
of French policing. ‘Due to
the way that the Republic
came out of the revolution,
the police have been set up
to protect the state from the
people, not to protect the
people,’ he explains.
While the riots have eased,
a serious question remains as
to whether France can address
its complex race-class issues.
Going forward, a widespread
denial of racism should not be
REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL
NO FAITH IN FOSSIL
FUELS
The Church of England has
finally agreed to divest from
oil and gas in its multi-billion-
pound endowment and
pension fund.
The move, which follows
years of pressure by climate
campaigners, cuts off the
church’s investments in oil
giants including Shell, BP
and Total.
The Anglican church had
previously rejected calls
to divest, claiming it could
change the destructive
industry from within.
However recent U-turns
on green commitments by
Shell and BP seems to have
eroded the church’s faith in
Big Oil.
GAINING GROUND
Over 100 million hectares
of land across 39 countries
was restored to Indigenous,
Afro-descendant and local
communities between 2015
and 2020, according to a
land worldwide. This is in
part thanks to campaigning
by Land Rights Now, a
global movement pushing
for land to be returned to
Indigenous peoples.
COUGH UP
Struggling newsrooms in
Canada have been given
a lifeline after a law was
passed which could force
Google and Facebook to pay
a fee when they host news
on their platform.
The Canadian government
says the law will provide fair
compensation to newsrooms
by recuperating digital
ad revenue diverted from
journalistic outlets to big
tech firms. Similar legislation
passed in Australia in 2021
helped generate almost
$150 million for news
organizations in the first year.
In response, Google and
Meta have threatened to
block Canadian news for
its users. But similar threats
against Australia were
dropped after tweaks were
ILLUSTRATION: EMMA PEER

Human Rights has described
as ‘deep issues of racism
and racial discrimination
in law enforcement’,
commentators scrutinized
Nahel’s background. ‘Using
disinformation and selective
taken as evidence of its non- made to the legislation.
recent report.
existence.
Research by the Rights
MANASA NARAYANAN BETHANY RIELLY
and Resources Initiative
found these groups now
legally own 11.4 per cent of

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 13
 WHY SUBSCRIBE?
WE HAVE A UNIQUE HISTORY
The first ever issue in 1970 carried an interview
with the President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere.
He had argued that 10 per cent of all overseas aid
should be spent on educating the ‘first world’ about
the real causes of world poverty.

We wanted to show that poverty was not the

result of a game of chance. It was caused by a set
of economic relationships, rooted in colonialism,
which enriched a minority by impoverishing the
majority. One way or another this has been the
message of New Internationalist ever since.

newint.org/go/subscribe
 THE BIG STORY
DECOLONIZATION

THE LONG GOODBYE

Confronting the impact of empire is not about getting stuck in the past,
writes Amy Hall. It’s vital to how we build a better future.

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 15
THE BIG STORY

s people across the world struggle to future. Unilever was only able to source
afford to eat, spare a though for the bosses the essential ingredient that helped to
at Unilever – makers of popular brands build its business thanks to the colonial
such as Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Dove system – one which was based on the
soap. They reported a 22 per cent rise extraction and exploitation of people,
in operating profits during the first six resources and the earth. The same
months of this year, after significant hikes system remains today, albeit in a differ-
in their products’ prices.1 Outgoing chief ent guise.
financial officer Graeme Pitkethly told
reporters that the group’s lower overall Colonial capitalism
profit margins showed they were ‘sharing Britain was one of a handful of Euro-
the pain’ of inflation-hit consumers. 2 pean states which drove Western empire.
Unilever wouldn’t be raking it in if it Countries like Spain, France, Belgium,
wasn’t for its colonial roots. The company Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands
began in 1885 Britain, with the Lever also played their part. While there was
Brothers’ soap business, which relied on competition between them, they are, as
palm oil sourced from Africa and pro- professor of Black Studies and author of
cured via its United African Company. 3 The New Age of Empire: How Racism and
It later expanded into foods, and merged
with the Dutch company Margarine Unie
to form Unilever, which these days boasts
over 400 brands in over 190 countries.
In the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC), the plantations where the
company built its business have been
described by the agriculture researchers
GRAIN as ‘sites of ongoing poverty, con-
flict and violence’.4
In 1911 King Leopold of Belgium
granted the British industrialist Lord
Leverhulme – one of the Lever brothers
– concessions over forested land, ‘large
chunks’ of which Unilever eventually con-
verted into industrial oil palm plantations.
It sold these off in the 2000s to Canadian
company Feronia Inc. Communities in
the DRC have accused Feronia of ‘murder,
land grabbing, indentured labour’. 5
In Kenya, widespread sexual abuse has
been uncovered on tea farms that supply
some of Unilever’s brands.6 The company
has also been linked with legal action as
the Kipsigis people fight for the return of
their land. They were forcibly removed
by the British, with thousands of their
people massacred.7 The land is now home
to tea plantations which until 2022 were
leased to a subsidiary of Unilever.
There is an ever-present thread
between the past, the present and the

Within the borders of the present

day US, Indigenous land density
and spread has been reduced by
almost 99 per cent
16 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

Previous page: Activists from Debt for Climate
and Extinction Rebellion shut down traffic in
front of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings
in Washington DC on 13 October 2022.
CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
Below: A girl skips past a colonial era red postbox
outside the former post office building in Roseau,
Dominica. The Caribbean island became an
independent republic in 1978.
TIM SMITH/PANOS PICTURES
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
Colonialism Still Rule the World Kehinde
Andrews says, ‘overlapping manifesta-
tions of white supremacy that cannot be
separated from each other and which
bleed into the current forms of colonial
domination’. 3
This network also worked together to
develop Western capitalism and industry,
fuelled by their programme of devastation.
But it was the British empire that was the
largest, at one point colonizing a quarter of
the world’s population and landmass.8,9
At one time this included the US –
which subsequently became the world’s
biggest imperial power, and a thoroughly
modern colonist. As Andrews points out,
its entire existence is ‘built on the logic of
Western empire’. 3
Decolonization
When Italian Christopher Columbus
arrived in the Americas in 1492, his ‘dis-
covery’ was anything but: an estimated
72 million people already lived there. 3
In the subsequent years a genocide was
unleashed, which Andrews describes as
‘creating an industrial method of death
that cleared the path for European
advancement’. 3
In the centuries that followed, this
land would produce commodities to
power European empires, and be the
site of numerous labour camps, worked
by enslaved people. But although huge
numbers were killed or died due to
disease, many Indigenous peoples sur-
vived. Today most of these communities
remain separated from their land and
17
THE BIG STORY

marginalized economically. One study
estimated that, within the borders of the
present day US, Indigenous land density
and spread has been reduced by almost
99 per cent, with communities now living
on lands more vulnerable to climate
change and with fewer resources.10
Indigenous communities in Canada,
Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand and
elsewhere continue to live with the reality
of settler colonialism.
In his 1972 book How Europe Underde-
veloped Africa, historian Walter Rodney
outlines how the continent was systemi-
cally exploited by extractive European
powers who took ‘the wealth created
by African labour and from African
resources’ and placed restrictions ‘upon
the continent’s capacity to make the
maximum use of its economic potential’,
including foreign ownership. ‘So long as
foreigners own land, mines, factories,
banks, insurance companies, means of
transportation, newspapers, power sta-
tions, then for so long will the wealth of
Africa flow outwards into the hands of
those elements,’ he writes.11
Many places which had healthy indus-
tries saw them run down under colo-
nial rule. India, for instance, had strong
textile and other manufacturing indus-
tries prior to colonization. But it saw its
share of global manufacturing fall from
27 to 2 per cent under British rule.8
Global shake up
Throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s,
there was a long, messy and often violent
process of decolonization, as countries
gained independence thanks to sustained
resistance movements. But it was by no
means a clean break.
Elites in formerly colonized coun-
tries have managed to amass vast wealth
and ‘reap financial rewards from access
to a slice of the Western imperial pie’,
as Andrews describes. There is also a
growing middle class whose wealth is
based on exploiting ‘the same system that
impoverishes the vast majority of those
in the world who are Black and Brown’. 3
Today’s trade, tax, debt and finan-
cial and legal systems have grown out
of colonialism, and serve to dilute the
sovereignty of supposedly independent
nations. Central to this are institutions
such as the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank who play a
part in maintaining the status quo.
Left impoverished by underdevelop-
ment, on gaining independence many
states struggled economically. The IMF
– whose five original shareholders were
the US, Britain, France, Germany and
Japan – provided loans which also served
the agenda of increasingly neoliberal
Western powers, and restricted borrow-
ing governments’ ability to spend on
public services.
Today, as Pakistan reels from dev-
astating flooding and extreme weather
events exacerbated by climate change,
its economy is in free fall. In July, on
the brink of a sovereign debt default, it
secured a $3 billion bailout from the IMF,
following other new loans from govern-
ments such as China, Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates.
Since 1958 Pakistan has entered into 22
agreements with the IMF, its debt to this
organization alone reaching an astonish-
ing $7.6 billion.12 IMF loans come with
conditions attached: Pakistan has already
raised power tariffs under its insistence.13
‘The policies funded by the Fund have
worsened Pakistan’s food and energy
dependency and insecurity, increased ine-
quality and reinforced the trend towards
an authoritarian regime,’ Abdul Khaliq of
the Committee for the Abolition of Ille-
gitimate Debt in Pakistan says.14
But we should be looking elsewhere
for the debtors. Sociology professor
Gurminder K Bhambra has documented
how India was ‘coerced’ into provid-
ing finance to Britain after the First and
Second World Wars, with these debts
subsequently being ‘erased’ through cur-
rency manipulation and other means.
She explains that, from 1946 to 1951, the
colonies were required to provide about
£250 million ($321.7 million) in finance
to help bankroll the post-war reconstruc-
tion of Britain.15
According to War on Want, since 1980
there have been $4.6 trillion in debt
payments from the Global South to the
Global North.16 Debt cancellation is vital
to achieving any sort of rebalancing of
power.
‘The best type of debt is the one that
can never be paid,’ explains legal aca-
demic Kojo Koram. ‘This is how sovereign
debt has come to function – while never
being cleared, the “project” of paying off
the debt can be a useful umbrella under
which to remake the economic basis of a
society.’17
In his book Uncommon Wealth: Britain
and the Aftermath of Empire, Koram out-
lines how the rampant nature of capital-
ist empire also ‘ricocheted back home’
through economic and political trends

A statue of King Leopold II in Brussels, Belgium,

defaced in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives
Matter uprisings, following the murder of George
Floyd in Minnesota, US. Leopold ruled Belgium
during a particularly bloody colonial period.
DIETER TELEMANS/PANOS PICTURES

18 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

Since 1980 there have been
$4.6 trillion in debt payments
from the Global South to the
Global North. Debt cancellation
is vital to achieving any sort of
rebalancing of power
which were first tested in the colonial
world. He describes a ‘boomerang’ effect
in which things like outsourcing, privati-
sation and weakened labour protections
in Britain all evolved from empire, con-
tributing to the vast inequality within the
country today.17
Wealth builders
Not only was poverty far from inevitable
– neither was wealth.
It was only in 2015 that British taxpay-
ers – including a significant number who
were descended from enslaved people –
stopped paying off the debt, originally
£20 million ($25.4 million), from the
‘compensation’ given to Transatlantic
enslavers. And it wasn’t just the super rich
who profited from this. While they may
not have had their own land in the Car-
ibbean, many middle class people still
‘owned’ enslaved people who they could
‘rent’ to landowners. According to his-
torian David Olusoga, ‘these bit-players
were home county vicars, iron manufac-
turers from the Midlands and lots and
lots of widows’.18
While it is a myth that countries were
better off for being colonized, it is clear
that Britain was better off – at least in
financial terms – from doing the colo-
nizing, even if this wealth wasn’t equally
shared. The Empire spurred the indus-
trial revolution and Britain profited,
reaping in $45 trillion from its colonial
rule of the Indian subcontinent alone.19
Money from the empire was invested
across British society and business.
Bhambra has outlined how taxes
extracted from India were used to benefit
people in Britain, including through the
development of the welfare state which
factored in the wealth coming from the
Empire, but didn’t allow for that income
being redistributed in the form of
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
support for colonized subjects – not even
when India faced famine.15
When Britain struggled to rebuild
itself after World War Two, people from
across the Empire – like my aunties and
grandfather – answered the call for help,
and came to work as nurses, bus drivers
and whatever else was needed. They trav-
elled on British passports but were met
with discrimination and racism, and it
became ever clearer that not all colonies
were created equal. People from across
Africa, the Caribbean and Asia have
always received different treatment, by
British government policy and the public,
than those from ‘white’ colonies like Aus-
tralia and Canada.
White supremacy was at the heart of
the British Empire and the Transatlantic
slave trade, and the racialization of Indig-
enous and enslaved peoples was central to
colonizers maintaining their power, and
reducing solidarity among oppressed
groups.
Beyond buzzwords
So what can be done?
Decolonization can refer simply to
the process in which territories that were
once colonized become recognized as
nation states. But increasingly, many
people see it as more than that. Geog-
raphy professor Farhana Sultana has
defined decolonizing as ‘accounting for
and reflecting on the past and present’ to
find ways ‘to remove colonial and impe-
rial powers in all their forms’. 20
It goes deeper than street names and
statues – although the symbolism and
cultural importance of those things
should not be dismissed.
‘Decolonize’ has become a buzzword
in recent years – thrown in front of ini-
tiatives that are actually more about
diversity and inclusion, or simply making
Decolonization
something less racist. But as Eve Tuck and
K Wayne Yang remind us in their seminal
essay ‘Decolonization is not a metaphor’,
if decolonization were to happen it would
be unsettling for everyone. They warn
against the ‘easy adoption of decolonizing
discourse’ and seek to separate this from
wider discussions around social justice. 21
‘Decolonization in exploitative colo-
nial situations could involve the seizing
of imperial wealth by the postcolonial
subject,’ they explain. ‘In settler colo-
nial situations, seizing imperial wealth
is inextricably tied to settlement and
re-invasion.’ 21
Calls to decolonize have too often been
relegated to being ‘ just another frontier
in the culture war’, ‘ just another attempt
by resentful Black people to impose white
guilt on those who are doing better than
them’, divisiveness, or trying to ‘rewrite
history’, as Koram puts it.17
All hell broke loose when the National
Trust, a membership-based historical
conservation charity in Britain, pub-
lished a report which outlined the links
between colonialism, or slavery, and the
properties under its care. Some of the
Trust’s staff and the report’s authors were
hounded by the rightwing press, and the
Trust became a new battle ground in the
‘war against woke’.
Reparation not aid
As well as continuing the process of
decolonization, a journey of repair will
be essential as people continue to live
with the psychological and material
impacts of empire. Climate change con-
tinues to ravage the planet. Capitalism
continues to kill. Indigenous peoples
struggle to get their land back. And in
Britain’s overseas territories – and else-
where – the decolonization process is yet
to be completed.
Reparation is different from aid. The
latter is based on the logic that it is the
‘right’ thing to ‘help’ people in poorer
countries whereas, as Bhambra has
pointed out, ‘reparations provides a dif-
ferent frame – what responsibility do we
have to rectify inequalities?’ 22
There are wide-ranging calls for
reparations for descendants of enslaved
people, and those impacted by colonial-
ism (See page 31 and 34.). The climate is a
crucial part of this, as is the return of land
(See NI 540 Big Story). 23
Some of the most high-profile work for
reparations at an international level has
come from the Caribbean Community
19
THE BIG STORY

An extensive report published in June

‘We’re not looking for aid
and we’re not asking for aid.
We’re demanding redress
for the harm committed’
(CARICOM), a grouping of 15 member
states, as well as five associate members
which are all British Overseas Territo-
ries. In 2013 CARICOM nations set up a
Reparations Commission to establish the
case for the payment of reparations from
former colonial powers – and ‘relevant
institutions of those countries’ – to the
people of the Caribbean.
In 2014 the Commission launched a
10-point plan outlining its demands for
reparations, which includes a full formal
apology to the descendants of Indig-
enous peoples and enslaved Africans,
assistance with the healthcare system
and education development, and the
repair of psychological trauma caused
by colonialism.
Verene Shepherd is professor emerita
of history and gender studies at The Uni-
versity of the West Indies (UWI), Mona,
Jamaica, as well as co-chair of the Com-
mission. When it comes to reparations,
she notes, it’s ‘not just a few people who
are talking about it, this is now an inter-
national movement’.
She says: ‘Infrastructural develop-
ment is necessary to reverse that poverty
and underdevelopment that we have
today, and the psychological harm. The
10-point plan is saying that this is what
needs to be fixed at the very least.’
In July 2023 the Dutch King Wil-
lem-Alexander made a formal apology
for the Netherlands’ involvement in
slavery. 24 He’s not the only one: individ-
uals whose families have directly bene-
fited from the slave trade have begun to
express a desire to address this legacy,
including members of the Trevelyan
family whose ancestors enslaved more
than 1,000 people in Grenada. 25 Earlier
this year the family apologized and
paid around $120,000 towards a com-
munity fund. 26
Shepherd welcomes the move, but
speaks of concerns that the profile given
to these descendents and their activities
could drown out generations of work by
Black activists in the Caribbean. The risk
is that these ‘heirs’ are remembered in
history as the ones who made reparations
happen.
‘Those who know history and have a
good understanding of the emancipation
and abolition campaign are saying we do
not want a repeat of the mis-education
of our people,’ she explains. ‘To this day
when emancipation comes up it’s Wilber-
force and so on who are remembered –
not those who with boots on the ground
fought revolutionary wars to abolish the
chattel enslavement as well as the traffick-
ing in African people.’
estimated that reparations of $77 tril-
lion to $108 trillion are due to descend-
ents of enslaved people in the Americas
and the Caribbean. The report’s authors
are keen to point out that this is a ‘lower-
bound estimate reflecting conservative
assumptions’. 27
Shepherd explains that the CARICOM
10-point plan is not intended as a pay-out
to individuals, but to establish some-
thing that everyone in the Caribbean can
benefit from, including through better
infrastructure and public services.
‘Europeans sometimes claim “oh well
over the years we have given so much
in grants and loans”, but that’s not repa-
rations, that’s aid. We’re not looking
for aid and we’re not asking for aid.
We’re demanding redress for the harm
committed.’
Now the Commission is stepping up
its campaign to get a meeting with the
British government. In April, Prime
Minister Rishi Sunak rejected calls for
an apology and reparations to address
Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave
trade. 28 ‘We reject the negative attitude
of the present prime minster of Britain,’
says Shepherd. ‘I think he needs to get up
to speed with the history of colonialism.’
The decolonizaton process is not over:
seeking to confront, undo and repair
harm caused by colonization, imperial-
ism and enslavement is an essential part
of it, alongside the dismantling of the
structures that perpetuate colonialism’s
impacts.
In the words of Sultana there is no
blueprint, as ‘decolonizing is a process
and not an event; it is ongoing unlearn-
ing to relearn. It is the many acts, small
and large, acting in constellations and
collectivities over time and place, that
bear results’. 20 O

1 Jasper Jolly and Sarah Butler, ‘Marmite and Dove maker’s profits...’, The Guardian, 25 July 2023, a.nin.tl/uni 2 Madeleine Speed, ‘Unilever says...’, Financial Times,
25 July 2023, a.nin.tl/peak 3 Kehinde Andrews, The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World, Penguin Books, London, 2021. 4 GRAIN,
‘A century of agro-Colonialism...’, WRM Bulletin, Issue 260, 23 March 2022, a.nin.tl/wrm 5 GRAIN, ‘The untold story...’, 18 May 2021, a.nin.tl/story 6 Africa Eye and
Panorama teams, ‘True cost of our tea...’, BBC News, 20 February 2023, a.nin.tl/tea 7 Phil Miller, ‘Britain stole their land...’, Declassified UK, 1 December 2022, a.nin.tl/dcuk
8 Priya Lukka, Sophie Efange and Jessica Woodroffe, ‘Reparations as a pathway to decolonisation’, Gender & Development Network, May 2023, a.nin.tl/gadn 9 Sunil
Khilnani, ‘The British Empire…’, The New Yorker, 28 March 2022, a.nin.tl/yorker 10 Justin Farrell and others, ‘Effects of land dispossession...’, Science, Vol 374, Issue 6567,
29 Oct 2021, a.nin.tl/science 11 Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, London, 1972. 12 Sushovan Dhar, ‘Pakistan:
The IMF deal and its critics’, Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt, 24 July 2023, a.nin.tl/cadtm 13 Zulqernain Tahir, ‘Power tariff raised...’, DAWN, 25 July
2023, a.nin.tl/dawn 14 Tess Woolfenden, ‘Reaction to IMF board...’, Debt Justice, 19 July 2023, a.nin.tl/loan 15 Gurminder K Bhambra, ‘Relations of extraction...’,
British Journal of Sociology, Vol 73, Issue 122, January 2022, a.nin.tl/extract 16 War on Want, ‘The call for climate reparations’, 15 November 2022, a.nin.tl/climate
17 Kojo Koram, Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire, John Murray, London, 2022. 18 David Olusoga, ‘The history of British slave ownership...’,
The Guardian, 12 July 2015, a.nin.tl/scale 19 Jason Hickel, ‘Enough of aid – let’s talk reparations’, The Guardian, 27 November 2015, a.nin.tl/aid 20 Farhana Sultana,
‘Decolonizing Climate Coloniality’, in Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua (eds), Not Too Late: Changing The Climate Story From Despair To Possibility,
Haymarket Books, Chicago, 2023, a.nin.tl/sultana 21 Eve Tuck and K Wayne Yang, ‘Decolonization is not a metaphor’, Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education &
Society, Vol 1, No 1, 2012, a.nin.tl/metaphor 22 Spoken during the event ’Connected Sociologies: From Culture Wars to Reparative Histories’, organized by Connected
Sociologies on 31 March in Brighton, UK. 23 ‘Take back the land’, NI 540, a.nin.tl/land 24 Reuters, ‘Dutch king apologizes...’, CNN, 1 July 2023, a.nin.tl/sorry 25 BBC
News, ‘Wealthy UK family…’, 5 February 2023, a.nin.tl/trev 26 Paul Lashmar and Jonathan Smith, ‘“My forefathers did something horribly wrong”...’, The Guardian,
4 February 2023, a.nin.tl/pay 27 Coleman Bazelon and others, ‘Report on reparations...’, Brattle, 8 June 2023, a.nin.tl/brattle 28 Joshua Nevett, ‘Slavery: Rishi Sunak...’,
BBC News, 26 April 2023, a.nin.tl/sunak

20 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
EMPIRE THE FACTS
STOLEN WEALTH ONGOING EXTRACTION
£7.5tn
the estimated amount of wealth Britain extracted from $161.6bn $41.3bn
African countries due to the slave trade.2 Received by African
countries mainly
£ The amount by
which African

GDP
in loans, personal countries were

£
remittances and net creditors
20% aid during 2015. to the world
60% in 2015.7

£
Europe’s share of global GDP went from

£
20% to 60% during the colonial period.3

$2.5m a year $203bn $2.5tn

the estimated resource Taken from Africa in Africa’s
flow from India to Britain corporate profits, debt estimated
between 1793 and 1803 payments, money from mineral wealth.7
(equivalent to billions today).4 illegal activities such as
logging and poaching, or
costs imposed through
climate change in 2015.

EMPIRE MADE POVERTY $152tn

Extracted by the Global North from the Global South between
Before British colonization, India’s
1960 and 2018 when accounting for lost growth.8
share of the global economy was

27% On independence
Ghana had

37 hospitals CLIMATE CHANGE

for 4 million Ghanaians5
2022
The year the IPCC finally reported that colonialism has made
By the time India gained On independence regions of the world more vulnerable to climate change.9
independence it was Kenya had
3
3% 35 schools Responsibility for excess global CO2 emissions:
for 5.5 million young people5

29% 40% 90% 92%

EU28 US the world’s Global North10
32 years The amount (includes most
of time Jamaica had spent tied the UK) industrialized
It had been
into an IMF structural adjustment countries
independent for
programme by 2019. 6
57 years >£1tn
The UK’s estimated climate debt – calculated as its ‘fair share’ of
responsibility for carbon emissions.11

1 Jasper Jolly, ‘Barclays, HSBC and Lloyds...’, the Guardian, 18 June 2020, a.nin.tl/banks 2 Robert Beckford, ‘The Empire Pays Back’, Channel 4, August 2005.
3 Jason Hickel, ‘Enough of aid...’, the Guardian, 27 November 2015, a.nin.tl/aid 4 Hamza Alavi et al, Capitalism and Colonial Production, Croom Helm, London, 1982.
5 Kwame Nkrumah, Africa Must Unite, Panaf Books, London, 1998. 6 Nigel Clarke, ‘Lessons from Jamaica...’, Financial Times, 19 February 2019, a.nin.tl/jamaica
7 Global Justice Now et al, ‘Honest Accounts 2017…’, May 2017, a.nin.tl/honest 8 Jason Hickel, Dylan Sullivan and Huzaifa Zoomkawala, ‘Plunder in the Post-Colonial
Era…’, in New Political Economy, Volume 26, Issue 6, 2021, a.nin.tl/exchange 9 IPCC, ‘Climate Change 2022…’, 2022, a.nin.tl/ipcc 10 Jason Hickel, ‘Quantifying national
responsibility…’, in The Lancet, Vol 4, Issue 9, September 2020, a.nin.tl/lancet 11 War on Want, ‘The call for climate reparations’, 15 November 2022, a.nin.tl/climate

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 21
THE BIG STORY

HOW
THIRD WORLDISM
WAS SILENCED
It was a moment that could have remade the world,
but it was squashed by neoliberal agendas.
Kojo Koram charts the rise and fall of the anti-colonial
New International Economic Order.

A
s the euphoria of the 1960s cascaded
into inertia on the war in Vietnam
and the stagnation of the post-war
‘golden age’ of western capitalism, the
direction of the world seemed very much
up for grabs. As the 1970s began, the
proliferation of proxy cold war conflicts
across the ‘Third World’ suggested that
the impoverished masses of Africa, Asia
and Latin America may be emerging as
the key agents of history.
The term ‘Third World’ had been
reclaimed by a movement of anti-colonial
activists to describe the remaking of the
world they sought to bring about. From
this, a coordinated political vision sur-
faced as newly decolonized nation-states
sought to use their collective power
within the United Nations to challenge
the inequality embedded in the global
system. By 1974, they secured a win
when the general assembly passed a
resolution for the Declaration on the
Establishment of a New International
Economic Order.
But by the end of 1979, Margaret
Thatcher had been elected prime minis-
ter in Britain and the Iranian revolution
precipitated an oil crisis. This in turn led
to a global debt crisis that would drown
the dreams of Third Worldism.
It had been a decade in which the tra-
jectory of global order shifted dramati-
cally, and one which gave a glimpse of a
world that could have been.
The proposal
So what was it about the Third Worldists’
proposals that set the likes of Thatcher on
a mission to quash them?
In the three decades between 1945 and
1975, membership of the UN grew from
51 nation-states to 144, as decolonization
parcelled out the powers of state sov-
ereignty to populations who had been
colonial subjects for the previous century
or more. With the UN general assem-
bly governed according to the principle
of ‘one country, one vote’, decolonized
states began to perceive it as a forum
where they could leverage their greater
numbers.
After becoming the first leader of
an independent Black African state in
1960, the Ghanaian President Kwame
Nkrumah had openly declared, ‘I look
upon the United Nations as the only
organization that holds out any hope
for the future of mankind’.1 As the 1970s
began, other ‘decolonial’ leaders like

22 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

From left to right: Michael Manley, Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica and Luis
of Jamaica; Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister of Echeverría of Mexico turned to the UN
Grenada; Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of in the hope that the institution could
the UN; and Cuban President Fidel Castro during be used to redress an unfair economic
arrival ceremonies at the airport in Havana, system that persisted in spite of formal
ahead of the Non-Aligned countries Summit sovereign equality.
beginning in September 1979. The proposal that emerged became
BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES known as the New International Eco-
nomic Order (NIEO). Its demands were
as simple but as all-encompassing as the
name suggests. Countries were asking
for nothing less than a redrawing of the
rules of global trade so that they could
enjoy economic as well as political inde-
pendence. By May 1974, it appeared
that the pressure being placed on the
UN by leaders of the ‘decolonial’ world
had achieved a breakthrough when the
general assembly passed a resolution
that announced the Declaration on the
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
Decolonization
Establishment of a New International
Economic Order. Included within this
resolution were provisions that still look
radical today, almost 50 years later.
The declaration called for an inter-
national commitment to ending the
waste of food products, ensuring a just
and equitable price for producers of raw
materials; a recognition of the right for
countries to enjoy full permanent sover-
eignty over their own natural resources;
and a commitment to allowing national
governments to control ‘the activities
of transnational corporations by taking
measures in the interests of the national
economies of the countries where such
transnational corporations operate’.
However, rather than change the
structure of the global economy, these
principles would become anathema to
23
 The UN was established as the foundational
institution of the world of nations, but it was
also supposed to protect the old privileges
of the world of empires
the neoliberal powers that would emerge
by the end of the decade. Which there-
fore begs the question: how did the
dream of the NIEO disappear so quickly?
Eyes should turn to the centre of the old
imperial world, London.
Show down
Around the same time that the NIEO
was gaining influence at the UN, a politi-
cal earthquake was occurring in the UK.
In 1974, the same year that the historic
Declaration was passed at the UN, a new
thinktank called the Centre for Policy
Studies (CPS) was created in London
with radical, rebellious Conservative
politicians Keith Joseph and Margaret
Thatcher as co-founders. Thatcher would
use the launchpad of the CPS to become
the first woman to lead a major political
party in Britain when she became the
leader of Conservative Party.
She preached a gospel that was the
antithesis of the NIEO, calling for dereg-
ulated markets and the removal of cur-
rency controls – an approach that would
weaken the ability for states in the Third
World to confront the interests of trans-
national capital. With Thatcher coming
to power in the wake of the NIEO gaining
increasing influence within the UN, the
stage was set for an almighty confronta-
tion between the two camps.
In 1981, 22 heads of state from across
five continents met for the only major
‘North-South’ conference in the history
of international law, at the Cancún
Sheraton Hotel in Mexico. The NIEO
proposals, which had passed at the UN
just a few years earlier, were buried.
None of the provisions would be imple-
mented, because no major new laws or
plans for action had been agreed by the
24
time all the leaders boarded their flights
back home.
When Thatcher returned from
Mexico, she gloated about her defeat
of the NIEO in Parliament, claiming:
‘I think that there was a lot of misun-
derstanding about the purpose of the
conference. I think that hopes were arti-
ficially raised.’ 2
Time to go again
Where did it all go wrong? Perhaps an
error of judgement from the NIEO
project was that it over-invested in the
UN as an institution of world-making
potential. Despite its stated commit-
ment to sovereign equality, the UN was
not a wholly egalitarian institution. Its
structure reveals underlying hierarchies
which still exist within the world. The
permanent five members of the security
council – China, France, the Russian Fed-
eration, the UK and the US – are a case in
point. The Council has the power to veto
‘substantive’ resolutions and these states
have a massive influence.
The seeming equality of the general
assembly, however, was perhaps more by
accident than design. In the lead-up to
the 1945 San Francisco Conference which
created the UN, the British had pres-
sured the US into abandoning its initial
proposal to let the organization enjoy
supervisory powers over all colonial ter-
ritories. 3 The UN was established as the
foundational institution of the world
of nations, but it was also supposed to
protect the old privileges of the world of
empires.
As more decolonial countries took
their place at the UN, power swung to
the financial institutions of the IMF
and the World Bank which were both
birthed at the 1944 Bretton Woods con-
ference. Attended by delegates from
44 nations, the meeting was designed
to remake the global economic system
after the Second World War. The struc-
tural adjustment programmes and con-
ditional loan agreements they would
impose on the Third World during the
1980s strangled any potential resur-
gence of the NIEO.
Since then, there has been a decline in
the politics of internationalism, as nar-
ratives of nationalism or identity have
commandeered the language of solidar-
ity. Moves towards more South-South
dialogue recently, including conversa-
tions about moving away from dollar-
dominated trade, offer a glimpse of
possibility.
As the world prepares to face a set of
interlocking crises which are inherently
international in nature – from the climate
crisis to the migration crisis and potential
future pandemics – it could do worse than
try to revisit the NIEO’s ambition. O
KOJO KORAM IS A WRITER AND AN ACADEMIC,
TEACHING AT THE SCHOOL OF LAW AT BIRKBECK
COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. IN ADDITION TO
HIS ACADEMIC WRITING, HE HAS WRITTEN FOR THE
NEW STATESMAN, THE GUARDIAN, DISSENT, THE
NATION, AND THE WASHINGTON POST. HE IS THE
AUTHOR OF UNCOMMON WEALTH: BRITAIN AND THE
AFTERMATH OF EMPIRE (JOHN MURRAY, 2022)
1 Kwame Nkrumah in 1961, republished in Africa
Renewal, ‘Visions of independence...’, UN, August
2010, a.nin.tl/nkrumah 2 Margaret Thatcher in 1981,
republished in Margaret Thatcher Foundation, ‘Mexico
summit meeting’, a.nin.tl/thatcher 3 Mark Mazower,
Governing the World, Penguin, London, 2013.
NEW INTERNATIONALIST

Barbados took the plunge and ditched the British monarchy two
years ago. Has anything really changed since? Amy Hall reports.
I
f you’re looking for a dominoes game
in the middle of Bridgetown, it’s worth
trying your luck at the tables in Golden
Square Freedom Park. Come Friday
night, things get livelier as people finish
work and shoot the breeze. As the sun
goes down, the soundtrack in this part
of the park is provided by the slamming
of dominoes and tiny whistling frogs – a
constant of night-time in Barbados.
It was here, more than three quar-
ters of a century ago, that trade unionist
Clement Payne held rousing meetings,
spearheading resistance to the white
planter class and demanding better
working conditions.
Of course, the colonial government
had Trinidad-born Payne marked, and
he was deported in July 1937. For four
days the people rioted, and it’s thought
that this uprising, as well as the work of
Payne and his comrades, was crucial in
bringing reform.
With its artworks celebrating the
island’s culture and marking some of the
key moments in its history, the park is a
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
statement of a new Barbados. It was offi-
cially opened in November 2021, on the
eve of the country becoming a republic.
This was a significant moment. A
Caribbean country hadn’t done this since
Dominica became a republic upon gaining
independence in 1978. Of all the countries
to have had the British monarch as head of
state, Mauritius was the last state to ditch
the Queen in 1992.
Now other nations look set to follow
suit. Jamaica has started a constitutional
reform process with the republic as its
goal and the idea has also been mooted
in Belize and Grenada.1 But, unlike
Barbados, many would require a refer-
endum to allow the change. When the
British monarchy was put to the vote in
Australia in 1999 and St Vincent and the
Grenadines in 2009, citizens decided to
maintain the status quo. 2
Outdated concept
Although Barbados became independ-
ent in 1966, the late Queen Elizabeth
II remained head of state as the island
Decolonization
became a constitutional monarchy, even
if her role was seen as largely ceremonial.
Now it is a republic, Sandra Mason, the
last governor-general – the royal family’s
appointed representative – has become
president. She maintains her role of
giving assent to bills passed by legisla-
tors – which she previously carried out
on behalf of the Queen.
‘The reality is that every law was
passed in the name of the British
monarch,’ explains Cynthia Barrow-
Giles, a professor in constitutional gov-
ernance and politics at the University of
the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados. ‘It
was the continuation of the British pres-
ence in the political affairs of a sovereign
nation.’
Suleiman Bulbulia, who was a
member of the republican status tran-
sition advisory committee in Barbados
and is now a member of the Constitu-
tional Reform Commission, concurs. ‘I
think the monarchy is long outdated,’ he
says. ‘It probably suits England but not
anywhere else.’
25
THE BIG STORY

Not everyone in England, I remind
him. He laughs. ‘I think in the psyche of
Barbados we had moved past that attach-
ment to our former colonizer into a
realm where we make our own destiny.
But perhaps the strongest backlash was
to the government’s attempts to rename
the country’s independence day on 30
November as Barbados National Day, to
incorporate the transition to a republic.
Playing dominoes in central Bridgetown on
15 November 2021, a couple of weeks before
the ceremony to swear in Sandra Mason as
president.
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES

It’s time now to have a Barbadian as head
of our state. ’
Has anything changed for Barbadi-
ans day-to-day? Perhaps not on a practi-
cal level, says Bulbulia, but the transition
is essential if the country is to see more
fundamental change. ‘We went to sleep
on 29 November 2021 and woke up on 30
November, and nothing had changed,’ he
adds. ‘But I think it’s all about how Bar-
badians view themselves, and that is a
process within itself.’
Before the transition was completed,
a poll found a varied reaction among the
country’s citizens. One in three Barbadi-
ans were supportive, but a similar pro-
portion weren’t bothered whether the
island became a republic or not. 3
One taxi driver tells me that people
he spoke to at the time were more vexed
about whether or not pop star Rihanna
should have been appointed a national
hero (she was).
This proved to be one step too far for
Barbadians, and the government was
forced to backtrack days later.
Today, much of this indifference
seems to remain among the people I
speak to on the streets of Bridgetown.
Most shrug and say they didn’t have an
opinion on the matter – or at least not one
they wanted to share. I have a drink with
Shawn and François outside a rum shop
near the parliament building, and ask
them what they think about their coun-
try’s republic status. ‘I don’t know what to
tell you,’ says Shawn. ‘We can’t change it.
We can’t change anything – we’re not the
government.’
Always on the cards
So how did Barbados come to do some-
thing so rare, without much public
clamour? It didn’t come from nowhere.
The country’s first prime minister, Errol
Barrow, warned that Barbados should

26 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

‘When you’ve got the queen of England as
your head of state you get the idea that this
paternalistic system implies that they will
protect you, and in fact that’s not true’
not ‘loiter on colonial premises’, and the
prospect of a republic has figured in Bar-
bados’s three major constitutional reform
exercises since independence. In 2005
Barbados legislated for a referendum on
scrapping the monarchy, but this never
happened.4
‘In many countries where you have
that kind of significant political devel-
opment taking place, there has been
something that has triggered it,’ says
Barrow-Giles. ‘In the case of Barbados
there was no trigger. Occasionally you
would get a little flash and maybe some
panel discussion and that’s what it was,
an academic exercise.’
When Mia Mottley was elected Prime
Minister in May 2018, her Barbados
Labour Party (BLP) won the biggest
mandate in the island’s history, with an
astonishing 73 per cent of the popular
vote. The issue of the monarchy had not
figured prominently in an election cam-
paign dominated by economic issues and
falling living standards, but two years
later it was included in her party’s pro-
gramme for government. Just over a year
after that, the transition was complete.
‘There were people who were con-
cerned that the transition was made
without – and we have to be honest – any
real public consultation on the matter,’
says Barrow-Giles. But the constitutional
expert recalls conversations with Mottley
about the republic ‘many moons ago’.
She says: ‘It isn’t something I believe that
she thought about overnight. It was very
obvious that she was a person that would
[act] when the opportunity arose for her
to take that leap.’
For Bulbulia, there is a need ‘to really
engage the people as to what you’re doing
and what it means to become a republic’.
He says that Covid-19 limited the com-
mittee’s possibilities for public consulta-
tion, and they were also constrained by
a tight schedule. He sees the continuing
constitutional reform process as part of
strengthening citizen engagement. It
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
involves in-person and online consulta-
tions, including with Barbadians living
abroad in places like the US and Canada.
Was the announcement eased by the
wider political context? It came not long
after worldwide uprisings against struc-
tural racism and police violence follow-
ing the murder of George Floyd in the
US. Barbados, which had its own Black
Lives Matter protests, also had public dis-
cussions about the need to confront its
position as a former colony.
A petition calling for the removal
of a bronze statue of British naval vice
admiral Horatio Nelson, a defender of
slavery, gained more than 10,000 sig-
natures. The monument, which stood in
National Heroes Square in Bridgetown,
was taken down in a ceremony weeks
before Barbados became a republic. 5
‘When you’ve got the queen of England
as your head of state you get the idea that
this paternalistic system implies that
they will protect you, and in fact that’s
not true,’ says Robert Goddard, a senior
lecturer at Emory University in the US.
‘You have this thing that you’re invested
in, this symbolic regime, that when push
comes to shove is empty.’
Whispers of the past
‘The time has come to fully leave our
colonial past behind,’ said Mason in a
speech, written by Mottley, to announce
the transition to a republic.6 But what
does it look like to leave behind a past
that has entirely shaped the present, and
still has a material impact on the lives of
Barbados’ 282,000 citizens?
Just outside of Bridgetown lies Newton
Enslaved Burial Ground, the final resting
place of nearly 600 people who were
forced to work on the plantation here.
Owned by the English enslaver Samuel
Newton, it operated as a labour camp for
300 to 400 enslaved people at a time.
Today the burial ground is a peace-
ful reminder of the violence which
once marred this spot. Cane fields still
Decolonization
surround it and the factory still stands.
The wind rushes through the trees, telling
the tales of those who came before.
The first English ship arrived in Bar-
bados in 1625. According to information
in the national museum, there was no
sign of the Indigenous people who would
have previously lived on the island. By
1665, much of the island’s forests had
been cleared for cultivation, the island’s
flat landscape acting as a blank canvas for
the new land-owning class.
Indentured servants and prisoners
initially laboured over coffee, cotton
and indigo, but in 1637 a few plantation
owners decided to start growing sugar
cane. Between 1627 to 1807 an estimated
387,000 enslaved Africans were shipped
to the island: the high mortality rate
required a constant stream to keep the
operation going. They were forced to
work in shifts around the clock on the
industrial-scale production.7
The British replicated the Barbados slave
plantation model across the Caribbean.
The island’s ‘slave code’ – an Act passed
in 1661 classifying enslaved people as
property – would be the basis for similar
codes elsewhere, including Jamaica and
South Carolina.
The soil remembers
The slave trade also devoured the land.
‘The place looks pretty, but the scars are
still there,’ Mahmood Patel tells me as we
walk around Coco Hill Forest which is
towards the East Coast in St Joseph. Patel,
who also runs a hotel on the South Coast,
started this regenerative agroforestry
project in 2014, which welcomes tourists
and hikers to explore its trails.8 The dra-
matic erosion is clear to see. Vast chunks
of the landscape seem to be missing.
Beneath the surface, Patel explains, the
soil has been degraded by hundreds of
years of cane production. ‘This area could
be our food basket,’ he says. ‘But a lot of
Barbados land not as fertile as it should
be, so you really can’t grow really good
27
THE BIG STORY
Opposite: Pieces from ‘LOOKA: Dismantling the
Colonial Gaze’. Top: As a collective, the artists
responded to ‘Barbados cotton pickers’, postcard
from the early 20th century with a series of three
photographs in which they all appear. ‘We took
a more powerful stance – we flipped the whole
image on its head,’ says Jalisa Marshall. This
piece, ‘FAFO’, is a nod to conversations that
Black Bajans have had online around race and
privilege.
BARBADOS MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTION/
KNIGHT & CO. RISÉE CHADERTON-CHARLES, JALISA MARSHALL,
JOY MAYNARD, AMBER NEWTON AND KIA REDMAN.
Bottom: In ‘Not for sale’, Kia Redman responds
to the ‘Pottery seller’ postcard, from a similar
period, by imagining what happened moments
after the historical photo was taken. ‘The Woman
Formerly Known as Pottery Seller snatches back
her power,’ Redman says. ‘She tears down the
fictitious idealized backdrop to reveal the true
reality of her life, her culture and her identity.’
BARBADOS MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTION/
J.R.H. SEIFERT & CO. BARBADOS. KIA REDMAN.
quality food.’ He explains that vital min-
erals such as potassium and magnesium
were lost. ‘You have to do a lot of regenera-
tive work, so that’s what we do here.’
The impact can also still be seen in
how the island manages its food supply.
‘You have 300 years of only exporting
one crop and then you export that as a
primary product, and then you import
everything else,’ says Patel.
Geneva Oliverie, a Development Spe-
cialist with the Caribbean Policy Devel-
opment Centre (CPDC), agrees. ‘Our
countries got used to producing one set
of things in a monoculture, whether it be
bananas, sugar cane or something else.
It’s a model from colonialism that persists
today. In this case, we have been unable
to diversify our export product. We were
outside production sites for larger econo-
mies… It wasn’t about feeding who was
living here.’
She also points to the fact that Bar-
bados is one of the world’s most water-
scarce countries.9 ‘There are a lot of
persons on the island who do not get
water every day. But the tourism areas
will get water all the time. It’s always the
locals who stand to fall short.’
While there have been some efforts to
diversify agriculture since the decline of
sugar production in the 1950s, Barbados
is a net importer of food. The high cost
of living and a lack of access to nutritious
food has contributed to the island’s health
problems. ‘Britain left behind a pandemic
of chronic diseases. The hypertension,
28
the diabetic pandemic collectively have
constituted a threat to the existence of
Caribbean society,’ Barbadian historian
and Vice Chancellor of the UWI, Hilary
Beckles, said in 2020.10
Over on the East Coast, the Slow Food
Soup Drive team are busy cooking up
a storm. Funded through donations,
volunteers make over 160 portions of
soup three times a week, and deliver it
to people in need all around the island.
There is always a vegetarian, low sodium
soup on offer, and today the meat option
is beef.
Slow Food Barbados’ main focus had
been running a school gardening pro-
gramme. But when the Covid-19 pan-
demic hit they were forced to take a new
approach. ‘We reached out to one of the
schools in our programme, and the prin-
cipal there told us that that her biggest
concern was that the kids who had been
on the breakfast programme would now
not get any meals for the day,’ explains
Julie Hooper McNeel, the director for
Slow Food Barbados, as we sit down to
chop carrots and okra.
Farmers who would usually provide
produce to cruise ships or hotels sud-
denly had spare supplies. With chefs out
of work, a group got together to cook at a
local restaurant, out of use thanks to lock-
down. When the restaurant re-opened,
they moved here to Walkers Reserve,
a nature reserve on the site of a near
exhausted sand quarry.
At its height, the soup drive was
making over 300 portions each day. But
even after lockdowns eased and people
went back to work, they still received
referrals from churches and community
groups for people who would benefit. To
date they have served over 60,000 soups.
‘We have a lot of families with a lot of
children,’ says Natasha Hackett who is
also helping to prepare food when I visit.
‘Decolonization is not only about
changing a constitution. True
decolonization requires an overhaul
of the structures in your society’
‘I think the need was always there, it just
surfaced during Covid. We have kids who
literally run to the car when they see us
coming.’
Economic autonomy
While inequality within Barbados is an
issue, the island – like so many Caribbean
countries – inherited a weak economic
base at independence and continues to be
restricted by a global economic system
developed to benefit wealthier nations.
‘We have so many issues to deal with
– we come from one crisis after the other
and because of the way in which we
have been inserted in the global politi-
cal economy we don’t have the kind of
autonomy and economic autonomy that
is most desirable,’ says Barrow-Giles.
Barbados is the most indebted country
in the Caribbean, with a debt to GDP
ration of over 135 per cent in 2021.11
‘When you have those constraints you
don’t have the space to invest in educa-
tion, agriculture, in the road networks
and soft and hard infrastructure,’ says
Oliverie.
‘When government has all this debt
to repay then services to the vulnerable
decrease, grants to our people decrease
and so we have more to do with less
money,’ says Donnah Russell, deputy
general secretary of the Barbados Associa-
tion of Non Governmental Organisations.
The association’s leader Marcia
Brandon explains that a charity sup-
porting cancer patients recently had
their government assistance reduced.
‘That’s a stressful situation, to be finding
different ways to raise money or poten-
tially turn people away. I would like to
see the debt cancelled. I have a feeling
we’ve paid it over and over again. It’s
time to wipe the slate clean and have
some solutions to make sure you don’t
get back into that debt.’
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 Decolonization

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 29
THE BIG STORY
For Oliverie, the issue of debt is inex-
tricably linked with the greatest threat
faced by the region. ‘We can’t talk about
climate change without debt, because we
always have to be borrowing more every
time a hurricane pass or every time
there’s a climate hazard.’
Since she came into office, Mottley has
restructured the country’s debt, as well as
speaking out on the international stage
about Western governments’ responsi-
bility to provide funding to deal with the
impacts of climate change.12
At the UN Climate Conference in 2022
Mottley unveiled the Bridgetown Ini-
tiative calling for a new mechanism to
provide climate finance and development.
It proposes a shake-up of how money is
loaned to and repaid by a country hit by
disaster, and the creation of a new Global
Climate Mitigation Trust.
Oliverie believes that climate repa-
rations are due, but remains cautious.
‘We need to ensure that whatever we
get, or however it’s dealt with, it doesn’t
go straight to the heads of government
because I don’t think its going to get down
to the persons who really matter.’
Patel would like to see the debt can-
celled, but believes there are also impor-
tant underlying structural issues that
need to be addressed for Barbados to
move forwards. ‘I think we would have to
then ask big questions, difficult questions
about how we govern ourselves – what
it is we want for our people and what we
want to aspire to?’
Difficult conversations
Conversations about what it means to be
Barbados as a republic, more distant from
its colonizer, are ongoing and tied to the
issue of race.
Although Black people make up
92 per cent of the population, those
members of the white population who
inherited the wealth made through
slavery remain financially dominant.13
‘Despite their political ascendancy in
contemporary society, Black descend-
ants remain marginalized within the
wealth-management and ownership
structures and cultures of the national
economy,’ Beckles wrote.14
At the national museum, which is
housed in the former British military
prison, I join a group of artists who are
working with museum staff to set up a
new exhibition. ’LOOKA: Dismantling
the Colonial Gaze’ is a collaborative work
between five women artists in response to
30
the Barbados Museum & Historical Soci- original group of men to start industrial
ety’s collection of historic postcards.15 sugar production in Barbados, and his
‘I think that there have been lots of family owned ships to transport enslaved
conversations in Barbados around race people, as well as a plantation in Jamaica.
and the position that colonialism still The Drax Hall plantation remains under
continues to play within our society, family ownership.16
especially in the last few years as we’ve ‘Decolonization is not only about
transitioned to a republic,’ explains co- changing a constitution,’ says Shepherd.
curator Risée Chaderton-Charles. ‘True decolonization requires an over-
‘You can’t create distance from some- haul of the structures in your society.
thing if you don’t know what the end You have to ensure that a de-colonial phi-
point is.’ losophy and ideology foregrounds the
Bulbulia believes reparations will changes you are trying to make constitu-
‘feature heavily’ in the ‘difficult conversa- tionally – otherwise it will just be a paper
tions’ ahead. ‘The reality is that the United change.’
Kingdom became rich on the blood, sweat For Brandon, the legacy of colonial-
and lives of Black Africans who were ism is alive and well. ‘I think we’ve inher-
brought to Barbados and whose descend- ited a lot of things that we just kept after
ents are now Barbadian,’ he says. ‘We rely independence,’ says Brandon. ‘People
on tourism from the UK and people say who tried to change it got some backlash.
we will hurt our tourism product [to push The ones who were benefiting didn’t want
for reparations]. I don’t think we will.’ change, I guess because it might mean
they wouldn’t be in the upper echelons
A leading role any more.’
Verene Shepherd, professor emerita Back at the edge of Golden Square
of history and gender studies, Mona, Freedom Park is a ceramic installa-
Jamaica, lauds Barbados and Jamaica tion made up of three big formations.
for playing leading roles in the effort for ‘Peltin’ Bare Big Rocks’ is inspired by
reparations for the Caribbean. In answer the 1937 Payne rebellion, when people
to questions on Barbados, she pointed took to the street armed with sticks and
out that Mottley and Beckles both hold stones, in time forcing the introduc-
key roles in CARICOM’s bodies working tion of trade union legislation, better
on the initiative. ‘Every country is housing and healthcare and the right to
playing a role but I think because of the vote.17 Inscribed into the side of one of
influential voice of the honourable Mia the rocks is a phrase attributed to Adrian
Mottley, Barbados has emerged as a big Green, which seems to sum up Barbados’
voice because she carries the issue inter- relationship with its colonial past as a
nationally; and she’s so passionate,’ says young republic: ‘We c’yah fuhget caw it
Shepherd. ain dun yet.’ O
Barbadians have made specific calls
This project was funded by the European Journalism
to the descendants of enslavers, includ- Centre through the Solutions Journalism Accelerator.
ing British actor Benedict Cumberbatch This fund is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
and the Conservative MP Richard Drax.
His ancestor James Drax was among that
1 Mary Yang, ‘Why do Caribbean countries...’, FP, 28 April 2022, a.nin.tl/fp ; Albert Ferguson, ‘Gov’t to move...’,
The Gleaner, 17 January 2023, a.nin.tl/gleaner 2 Kate Chappell and Brian Ellsworth, ‘Commonwealth
nations…’, Reuters, 30 November 2021, a.nin.tl/reuters 3 Barbados Today, ‘Survey shows support
for republic’, 21 December 2021, a.nin.tl/bt 4 Cynthia Barrow-Giles, ‘Barbados’s long-drawn-out...’,
ConstitutionNet, 30 August 2021, a.nin.tl/cn 5 Michael Safi, ‘Barbados parts way...’, The Guardian, 30 November
2021, a.nin.tl/guardian 6 NBC News, ‘Barbados Governor-General...’, 16 September 2020, a.nin.tl/nbc 7 BBC,
‘Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners’, 2015, clip via YouTube, a.nin.tl/yt 8 cocohillforest.com 9 World Trade
Organization, ‘Barbados’, 20 September 2022, a.nin.tl/wto 10 Danae Hyman, ‘Sir Hilary: Colonial mess...’,
The Gleaner, 8 July 2020, a.nin.tl/beckles 11 CPDC, ‘Barbados Country Profile’, a.nin.tl/debt 12 Abrahm
Lustgarten, ‘The Barbados Rebellion’, The New York Times Magazine, 27 July 2022, a.nin.tl/nyt 13 Barbados
Government, ‘Demographics’, a.nin.tl/nyt 14 Hilary Beckles, ‘On Barbados...’, Black Perspectives, 8 April 2017,
a.nin.tl/demo 15 ‘LOOKA: Dismantling the Colonial Gaze’ is running at Barbados Museum until 7 January 2024
16 Paul Lashmar and Jonathan Smith, ‘Barbados plans...’, 26 November 2022, The Observer, a.nin.tl/observer
17 Julia Rawlins, ‘From the archives...’, NationNews, 26 July 2019, a.nin.tl/nation
NEW INTERNATIONALIST

THE FIGHT FOR
REPARATIONS
The push for repair emanates from movements
with a rich and varied history. Priya Lukka
explores where we’ve come from and what
T
he fight for reparations is not new. One
of the earliest examples of organiz-
ing for this in the UK was the ‘Sons of
Africa’, a late 18th century political group
led by African activists who campaigned
to end Transatlantic slavery. Britain had a
huge role in the transportation of between
10 million and 12 million enslaved Afri-
cans to the Americas from the 16th to the
19th century.
The Sons of Africa was led by Ottobah
Cugoano. Born in present day Ghana in
1757, Cugoano was kidnapped by a slave
trader as a child and ‘sold’ into slavery
on a plantation in Granada. Later he was
‘purchased’ by a merchant and taken to
England. It was here he was set free – not
an outcome that many enslaved people
ever saw. Cugoano went on to campaign
for the abolition of slavery, including
through a series of ground-breaking
public letters to British newspapers.
Movements for reparations have a
rich, diverse and global history, includ-
ing within the anti-colonial struggle on
the African continent in the 1900s. This
was known as the pan-African move-
ment, seen in countries like Ghana which
wanted to chart their own trajectories but
were held back by the structure of global
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
could be ahead.
economic governance after the Second
World War.
Pan-Africanists were opposed to
outside influence on Africa and its eco-
nomic exploitation. Many also dem-
onstrated a political resistance against
entrenched colonial power and violence.
Remembering the importance of these
struggles is important for understand-
ing that today’s divisions along racial
lines are no accident. Reparations begin,
therefore, as ‘a way of acknowledging his-
toric wrongs and accounting for them’.1
More than money
The struggle continues in many contexts
today. In the US, where most scholarly
work on the racial divide has taken place,
African American activists are demanding
financial reparations to be paid directly
to the descendants of enslaved Africans.
Calls for a national apology for slavery
have been made frequently by groups
such as N’COBRA – the National Coalition
of Blacks for Reparations in America.2
Others, like the National African
American Reparations Commission
(NAARC), want reparations for the
ongoing legacies of slavery which have
produced wide socioeconomic and
Decolonization
political disparities in the present-day
US. The 400 richest billionaires have
more total wealth than all 10 million
Black American households combined. 3
Reparations would be used to redress
these disparities in areas like housing,
healthcare and education. In 2019 these
demands resulted in the HR 40 bill being
proposed in the US House of Repre-
sentatives. If passed, it would establish a
federal commission to develop repara-
tion proposals for African-Americans.4
Some groups have gone further than
calls for an apology or redressing some
of the outward manifestations of institu-
tionalized racism. In his seminal article
‘The Case for Reparations’, author and
journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates argues:
‘What I’m talking about is more than rec-
ompense for past injustices – more than
a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a
reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about
is a national reckoning that would lead
to spiritual renewal.’5 In 1968 the Black
nationalist organization Republic of New
Afrika sought $300 billion, and land,
from the federal government to establish
this new Black-majority nation.6
There is much to learn from how dif-
ferent movements are developing their
31
THE BIG STORY
calls for action. At its 2020 conference,
the Green Party of England and Wales
passed a motion based on a proposal
pioneered by the Stop the Maangam-
izi Campaign. It called on the UK gov-
ernment to establish a Commission
of Inquiry for Truth and Reparatory
Justice and commit to atonement and
reparative justice for Afrikan enslave-
ment (reclaiming the spelling using a ‘k’
rather than a ‘c’ as imposed by European
colonizers).
Maangamizi is the Swahili term for
Afrikan Holocaust and the continuum of
chattel, colonial and neocolonial enslave-
ment. The Stop the Maangamzi Cam-
paign is calling for an end to the genocide
and ecocide of African people. The spe-
cifics of this campaign include proposals
for community capacity-building and the
restoration of Afrikan sovereignty, as set
32
out in the Pempamsiempango – the plan for Activists demonstrate at a London protest organized
reparations and planet repairs. by Africans Rising UK on 6 October 2021.
What reparationists are seeking is SANGIULIANO/SHUTTERSTOCK
repair for the atrocities of slavery and
colonialism, as well as ‘seeing the quest
for reparations as part of a continuum of
unbroken struggle for liberation and res-
titution in the present’, explains Esther
Stanford-Xosei, co-founder of the Pan-
Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe
and Director of the Maangamizi Educa-
tional Trust.
The Abuja Proclamation, borne out of
the first Pan-African Conference on Repa-
rations, held in Nigeria in 1993, called on
the international community to recognize
the ‘unique and unprecedented moral debt
owed to the African people’ for enslave-
ment and the colonization of Africa. This
debt is not just about financial wealth or
commodities. Enslaved and colonized
NEW INTERNATIONALIST

We won’t get
the shake-up we
need without
dismantling
the systems
underpinning our
economic and
justice processes
peoples have also been displaced from
their land and their cultures and this can
have a multi-generational impact.
The idea of customary land tenure was
coined by European powers who sought
to re-draw pre-colonial land divisions in
their conquests.7 As part of a divide-and-
conquer strategy, European colonialists
assigned land not to individuals or fam-
ilies but to their chosen leaders, who in
turn granted land rights to local groups.
To maintain an imperial grip on power,
inequalities were solidified.
Who leads the process?
A central principle of reparations is that
the process should be led and defined
by victim communities. In 2005, the
United Nations General Assembly
adopted a set of principles and guidance
on the right to reparations for victims
of human rights violations, stating that
these should include restitution, reha-
bilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of
non-repetition.8
That means understanding how harm
has been caused in the first place. This
can be done through consultations and
evidence hearings, such as the Nurem-
berg Trials at the end of the Second
World War, which helped to establish the
process for Holocaust reparations paid to
Jewish survivors of the Nazi regime.
It is essential that impacted communi-
ties are involved in reparations processes.
In 2021, Germany also went some way in
recognizing and apologizing for its role
in the Ovaherero and Nama genocide
that took place during its colonization of
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
Decolonization
Namibia between 1884 and 1919, pledg- The economist Ndongo Sylla talks
ing $1.2 billion towards existing aid pro-
grammes, but without using the term
about the lack of sovereignty that lies at
the heart of the world economy. Remedy
‘reparations’ or ‘compensation’.9
Consequently, the Ovaherero and
would mean former colonized countries
would gain more control over the mecha-
Nama people have taken their case to
Namibia’s high court, in frustration at
nisms of their own economies, such as
being able to opt out of currency pegging
the lack of their direct involvement: ‘We
were not involved at any stage. The gov-
to the US dollar or the French franc – as
is the case for many countries in Franco-
ernment set the agenda, it discussed what
it discussed and never disclosed it until
phone Africa – and trading in their own
currencies. It would also mean ending
we saw a joint declaration last year,’ said
Mutjinde Ktjiua, Paramount Chief of the
the reliance on development loans and
designing tax regimes which ensure that
Ovaherero.10
There have also been cases where com-
transnationals pay their fair share of tax
in the countries where they operate.
pensation has been awarded to perpetra-
tors instead of a fuller process of repair.
The Asian Peoples Movement for Debt
and Development is calling for repara-
In 1825, 21 years after enslaved Haitian tions in the form of debt cancellation for
rebels secured victory against the French all countries currently facing a climate
colonial authorities, Haiti was forced to crisis, as well as an end to supporting
pay France for the loss of its colony, as development needs through further
a condition of independence.11 The sum debt-creating finance.
demanded by France – the equivalent But there is currently little political
of $21 billion today – was paid over a will nationally and internationally for
period of more than 100 years, with the reparations at the level where it could
final payment made in 1947.12 This placed make a difference. We won’t get the
financial strain on the newly created shake-up we need without dismantling
republic of Haiti and continues to have the systems underpinning our economic
consequences to this day. In 2020, econo- and justice processes, which means
mist Thomas Piketty argued that France examining both the harm they cause
actually owes Haiti at least $28 billion as and what their repair and re-envisioning
reparations.13 would mean.
At the heart of the neoliberal system,
Dismantling the system the imperialist structures that have
Reparations are more than an expenditure- created global inequalities remain. Injus-
based approach to redistribution. They tice manifests in different ways, as the
can also offer a powerful diagnostic of many global examples of reparations
how the world order is upheld by main- struggles show us. Rupturing the power
taining divides. Nowhere is this neo- structures as we know them to enable
colonial power more evident than in repair, restitution and remedy begins
thinking about how the global economy with support for the work already taking
came to be the way it is. Global macro- place. O
economic policy continues to be made
PRIYA LUKKA IS AN ECONOMIST WHO WORKS WITH
through elite mechanisms, in which POLICYMAKERS, PHILANTHROPISTS AND ACTIVISTS
many countries are unable to actively TO IMPROVE OUTCOMES FOR GROUPS OF PEOPLE
MOST MARGINALIZED BY THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM.
influence the policy direction of their HER WORK INVOLVES CONTRIBUTING TO NEW WAYS
countries, and are reduced once again to OF REMEDYING INJUSTICES THAT ARE A LEGACY
participating in these global structures OF COLONIALISM AND NECOLONIALISM USING
APPROACHES OF REPARATIONS AND REPAIR.
on a limited basis.
1 Gurminder K Bhambra, ‘A Decolonial Project for Europe’, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol 60, Issue 2,
3 January 2022, a.nin.tl/jcms 2 ncobra.org 3 reparationscomm.org ; Vanessa Williamson, ‘Closing the racial
wealth gap...’, Brookings Institution, 9 December 2020, a.nin.tl/gap 4 US Congress, ‘H.R.40...’, 19 June 2019,
a.nin.tl/hr40 5 Ta-Nehisi Coates, ‘The case for reparations’, The Atlantic, June 2014, a.nin.tl/coates 6 Dan Berger,
‘The Malcolm X doctrine: the Republic of New Afrika and national liberation on US soil’, in Karen Dubinsky
and others (eds), New world coming: the sixties and the shaping of global consciousness, Between the Lines,
Toronto, 2009. 7 Catherine Boone, ‘Legal empowerment..’, The Journal of Development Studies, Vol 55, Issue
3, 3 April 2018, a.nin.tl/property 8 United Nations, ‘Basic principles...’, 15 December 2005, a.nin.tl/un
9 European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, ‘The “reconciliation agreement”...’, 3 June 2021,
a.nin.tl/germany 10 Kaamil Ahmed, ‘Descendants of Namibia’s genocide...’, The Guardian, 3 February 2023,
a.nin.tl/namibia 11 Marlene Daut, ‘How France extorted Haiti....’ Quartz, 4 July 2020, a.nin.tl/quartz 12 Catherine
Porter and others, ‘The root of Haiti’s misery...’, The New York Times, 26 May 2022, a.nin.tl/haiti 13 Thomas
Lalime, ‘“Au minimum, la France devrait...”’ Le Nouvelliste, 20 January 2020. a.nin.tl/piketty
33
THE BIG STORY
Carlos Edill Berríos Polanco reports on the
growing movement to get the Global North
to cough up for its climate debt.
34
T
his October, for only the second time
since they were founded, the World
Bank and the International Monetary
Fund will hold their annual joint meeting
on the African continent. And activists
will be there in Marrakesh to meet them.
A growing coalition is promoting a
global ‘counter-summit’, kicking off on
Indigenous Resistance Day on 12 October
and running until 15 October, the anni-
versary of the murder of revolutionary
Burkina Faso president Thomas Sankara,
who had called for a united front against
debt in 1987.1
Among those leading the mobiliza-
tion is Debt for Climate, a grassroots ini-
tiative led by Global South activists and
spanning more than 30 countries. The
campaign is pushing for the elimination
of the sovereign debts that are strangling
impoverished countries, and demanding
that the Global North keeps fossil fuel
resources in the ground and funds a just
energy transition.
NEW INTERNATIONALIST

A movement is
growing to build
collective power
and rework the
rules that have
dominated the
world over the
last 500 years
Recent studies argue that fossil fuel
companies would need to pay $5.4 tril-
lion over a period of 26 years in climate
reparations to account for its contribu-
tions to climate change. 2 Rich countries
could pay $170 trillion in reparations for
their own contributions. 3
Feed the machine
The first step Christopher Columbus
took into the ‘New World’ marked the
first scars humanity would leave on the
climate. European colonization of the
Americas caused a ‘genocide-generated
drop in carbon dioxide’ that indirectly
contributed to the ‘Little Ice Age’ between
the 14th and 19th centuries, according to
research by University College London.4
Fast-forward three centuries and
the Industrial Revolution roared to life,
which many scientists see as the begin-
ning of the Anthropocene – the current
geological epoch, in which human activ-
ity is the dominant influence on the
climate and the environment.
As nations began to burn fossil fuels
to power their new steel machines, there
was a sharp increase in greenhouse gas
emissions. At the same time, empires
like Britain – then known as the ‘work-
shop of the world’ – commenced exca-
vating their colonies for fossil fuel
resources, echoing their existing extrac-
tion of enslaved labour. 5
This extractivist power relationship
continues today, explains Jose Gonzalez
from New York Communities for Change
and the Not a Game, It’s People Coali-
tion. This campaign is seeking to get
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
laws passed in New York state to limit the
capacity of vulture funds to buy up sover-
eign debt owed by the Global South. ‘The
only thing that has really changed is that,
instead of an outright military hold, it’s
become a financial one,’ he says.
Get to the root
‘The climate crisis is not just a natural
disaster – it is a human-made catastro-
phe [created] by the more powerful,’ says
Farhana Sultana, a professor at Syracuse
University who specializes in climate
justice. ‘It is a product of centuries of
exploitation and disregard for the envi-
ronment, driven by the relentless pursuit
of profit and power by colonizers and
capitalists.’
In 2019, the top 10 per cent of global
emitters were responsible for nearly half
of total carbon dioxide emissions.6 Not
only does the Global South contribute
much less to global warming, but it also
sees fewer direct benefits of fossil fuel
use. And of course, poorer countries are
already dealing with the most extreme
impacts of climate change.
Exploitation of the Global South by
the North has led to many countries not
having the necessary resources – healthy
economy, infrastructure, or simply fuel
– to put in place the potential adaptation
measures, much less to move towards
renewable energy, explains Juan Pablo
Olsson Argumedo, a member of the Debt
for Climate Campaign, who is also the
Latin America coordinator for the Pro-
gressive International.
During COP27, the UN announced a
historic agreement to provide vulnerable
countries with ‘loss and damage’ funding
following natural disasters. While a good
first step, this still only deals with the con-
sequences of Global North emissions, and
not the system which still allows them to
destroy the planet. For Olsson Argumedo,
what is missing is an effort to tackle the
three pillars that define the Global South
in times of climate crisis: colonialism,
extractivism, and debt.
For centuries, wealthy nations have
used debt as a means of control. In 2016,
the US imposed an unaccountable fiscal
oversight board over Puerto Rico after
it declared it could not repay its debts.
Argentina’s mass uprising in 2001 led to
a renegotiation of its sovereign debt in
2005, only for the Mauricio Macri gov-
ernment to sign new record-breaking
IMF loans of $57.1 billion in 2018. Then,
the Alberto Fernández government
Decolonization
signed a $44 billion deal in 2022 in order
to avoid default.
‘The grave problem is the world eco-
nomic order – the financial architec-
ture of the organisms that finance these
loans – because they’re the same struc-
ture of pillage and colonialism,’ Olsson
Argumedo says.
A liveable planet
As growing numbers of people face the
extreme effects of global heating, protest
is on the up. Debt for Climate activists
have participated in blockading every-
thing from oil refineries to international
political summits. Other groups, like
Extinction Rebellion and Climate Defi-
ance, have also made public disruption
a key part of their strategy, with varying
degrees of success.
A movement is growing to build col-
lective power and rework the rules that
have dominated the world over the last
500 years. And activists are also seeking
to change things from the inside. Mean-
while, Debt for Climate is attempting to
work with the G77 – a United Nations coa-
lition made up of 134 developing coun-
tries – to advance discussion of paying
climate debts and a just transition at a
global scale.
Many activists in the Global South are
seeing the effects of climate change tear
through their communities first-hand,
exacerbated by the legacies of centuries
of colonialism and imperialism. They
will continue fighting for a liveable future
amidst climate collapse. O
CARLOS BERRÍOS POLANCO IS A JOURNALIST
FROM CAGUAS, PUERTO RICO. HE COVERS CLIMATE,
CONFLICT, AND THE INTERSECTION OF THE TWO.
FIND HIM @VAQUERO2XL ON MOST SOCIAL MEDIA.
1 countersummitimfwbmarrakech.org 2 Nicholas
Kusnetz, ‘Fossil fuel companies...’, Inside Climate
News, 19 May 2023, a.nin.tl/inside 3 Andrew L
Fanning and Jason Hickel, ‘Compensation for
atmospheric appropriation’, Nature Sustainability,
Vol 6, Issue 6, June 2023, a.nin.tl/compensation
4 Jonathan Amos, ‘America colonisation...’, BBC,
31 January 2019, a.nin.tl/bbc 5 J. R. Ward, ‘The
Industrial Revolution...’, The Economic History Review,
Vol 47, No 1, February 1994, a.nin.tl/ward 6 Lucas
Chancel, ‘How large are inequalities...’. UNDP,
29 October 2021, a.nin.tl/undp 7 Jenny Gross, ‘UN
climate summit...’, 12 November 2022, a.nin.tl/cop27
Opposite page: People queue to cross the La
Digue River in Petit Goave, Haiti, following the
collapse of a bridge during Hurricane Matthew
which hit the island on 4 October 2016 and killed
over 1,000 people.
ANDREW MCCONNELL/PANOS PICTURES
35
THE BIG STORY
‘OUR CULTURE IS
WORD OF MOUTH’
Decolonizing Africa’s media means interrogating its form
as well as its content. Patrick Gathara examines an initiative
which tells narrative stories through live performance in Kenya,
and asks what lessons it holds for the continent at large.
O
ne Saturday in late July, I attended
a show called Story Sosa, at the
National Museum in Nairobi. Billed
as ‘an experiment in live storytelling’,
the event consisted of five stories with
themes including the racial construction
of artificial intelligence, the dynamics
of lynchings in Kenya and the signifi-
cance of everyday objects. They explored
what women’s hairstyles can tell us
about Kenya’s post-colonial history, and
offered a fascinating glimpse into the
Asian experience in East Africa through
the eyes of three generations of a family
folding and frying samosas.
Each story had been researched and
written like a traditional print magazine
story. The authors were Kenyans already
distinguished on the international stage
as journalists, artists, writers, poets and
performers. They presented them to
us through a captivating and entertain-
ing mix of recitation, video, animations,
and music. It not only felt like the tales
came alive as they were told, but that the
storytellers had shared with us an inti-
mate portrait of a part of the world and
of themselves, and afforded the audience
a chance to experience it. It was every-
thing journalism aspires to be: not just a
set of facts on a page, but living, breathing
36
stories that fire the imagination and
speak to the heart as well as to the head.
The project was the brainchild of
Christine Mungai, the Curator at the
Baraza Media Lab, which supports crea-
tive public-interest storytelling through
encouraging cross-media collabora-
tions, offering journalism fellowships
and organizing events such as the Africa
Media Festival. The festival held its inau-
gural session in February, attracting
participants from across the continent
to discuss the challenges and opportuni-
ties facing African media in the digital
age. Baraza was established in 2019. It
followed research by Luminate, a phil-
anthropic venture by eBay founder and
billionaire Pierre Omidyar which sup-
ports independent media around the
world, and had proposed the creation of
‘a space for media actors to experiment
and prototype new models of storytelling
– especially alongside filmmakers, artists,
social media experts, technologists, and
other cross-disciplinary collaborators’.1
International ≠ Western
Mungai sees shows like Story Sosa as part
of the effort to decolonize African media
both in form and content and defines this
as ‘decentering Western perspectives in
journalism, media and storytelling’. She
adds: ‘It is assumed a lot of times that
what is important to Western audiences
is what is important globally, and some-
times there is that conflation that inter-
national means Western.’
This conflation doesn’t just happen in
the West. The late Zambian journalist and
academic Francis Kasoma argued that in
newsrooms across Africa, ‘the continent’s
journalists have closely imitated the pro-
fessional norms of the [West] which they
see as the epitome of good journalism,
[and] refuse to listen to any suggestions
that journalism can have African ethical
roots and still maintain its global validity
and appeal’.
Kasoma’s push for ‘Afriethics’ – which
grows from conceptions of how stereo-
typical Africans supposedly distinguish
Opposite page top: Author Lutivini Majanja
performs her story ‘Home’ at the Story Sosa event
in Nairobi, hosted by Baraza Media Lab on
23 July 2023.
SLUMIDIA/STORY SOSA
Opposite page below: Reading about the death
of Queen Elizabeth II in Nairobi, Kenya, on
9 September 2022.
BILLY MUTAI/ANADOLU AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 Decolonization

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 37
THE BIG STORY
‘good from bad behaviour, a good person
from a bad one’ – has been criticized for
its reductive assumption that the con-
tinent’s myriad cultures, religions and
languages shared a uniform set of social
and cultural ‘African values’. The concept
has also been said to construct a roman-
ticized pre-colonial past. But Kasoma’s
wider point is shared by Michael Traber
of Michigan University, who a few years
earlier had opined that African media
organizations were ‘foreign bodies in the
cultural fabric’ of the societies in which
they operate.
Part of this is because the media scene
across much of Africa reflects the indus-
try’s history. In Kenya, for example, the
first media enterprises were initially
established to serve the interests of white
settler colonists, administrators and mis-
sionaries. Later on in the colonial period,
other groups, including South East Asian
immigrant workers, local activists and
nationalists like Harry Thuku and later
Jomo Kenyatta, established their own
short-lived publications.
In fact, with the exception of The East
African Standard, most of the publica-
tions established in the colonial era did
not survive, due to a mixture of com-
mercial pressures and suppression by
the colonial state. In the immediate
post-independence period, the media
landscape was dominated by the state
broadcaster: radio was still by far the
most important source of news. No inde-
pendent broadcasters were allowed, and
though a few independent newspapers
were established, their reach was limited
to a tiny urban elite in a largely rural
country. And even these publications
were recruited into the nation-building
project, becoming more a mouthpiece
for an authoritarian state rather than a
space for popular expression.
It was everything journalism aspires
to be: not just a set of facts on a
page, but living, breathing stories
that speak to the heart as well as
to the head
38
The media was removed from society
not just in content, but in form too. As
Kasoma noted, media enterprises copied
and reflected the formats and ethics they
saw in the West. Local traditions of oral
storytelling and visual performance were
seen as, at best, distractions from the
hard-nosed business of journalism.
Cultural exchange
It is this history that the Baraza Media
Lab has set out to challenge through initi-
atives such as Story Sosa. ‘Writing for the
stage,’ Mungai says, ‘felt very natural for
an African audience. Because our culture
is word of mouth.’ One criticism would
be that the concept of the show borrows
heavily, as Mungai readily admits, from
Pop-Up Magazine, a ‘live magazine’ show
performed on stage, and founded in the
US in 2009.
It could be said that rather than chal-
lenging Western models of journalism,
Story Sosa is simply replicating new
ones. Such critiques are reinforced by
the fact that Baraza itself is the product
of research and financing from a US bil-
lionaire (although they have been diversi-
fying, increasing the number of donors as
well as developing independent sources
of income).
With media around the world under
pressure from shrinking revenues,
philanthropists and foundations have
become an increasingly important source
of funding, especially for small inde-
pendent organizations.
This can pose risks, as donor inter-
ests could compromise the editorial
integrity and independence of publica-
tions. However, as Martin Scott, one of
the authors of a 2020 study into founda-
tion funding for journalism notes, those
that support news outlets simply because
they believe in the value of independent
journalism pose few concerns regard-
ing autonomy. 2 Other studies have
highlighted the vital importance of jour-
nalistic integrity and individual values in
protecting against undue donor influence.
Further, we should not ignore the fact
that decolonization is not just, or even
primarily, about rediscovering ancient
‘African’ ways of journalism. Rather it is
about making journalism relevant to the
concerns of local audiences, and reflective
of their perspectives. Cultural exchanges
are age-old mechanisms of learning that
only evolve into colonialism when they
go one way, or when what is borrowed is
not domesticated and made relevant for
the audience.
The hope for Story Sosa is that Baraza
and other organizations take what they
have seen elsewhere and develop that
into a form of local cultural and jour-
nalistic production that reflects the
local experience. One of the things that
stood out for me watching Story Sosa
was that, through performance and the
almost conspiratorial engagement with
the audience, a space was created where
a common reality, in this case Kenya,
emerged: a reality which demanded rec-
ognition and acknowledgment, rather
than explanation.
Baraza is one of a crop of new, inde-
pendent and small Nairobi-based media
organizations such as Africa Stream,
DeBunk Media, Africa Uncensored, and
The Elephant (where I was the found-
ing curator) that are experimenting with
formats and content. In doing so, they
challenge the accepted wisdom that con-
ceptualizes Kenyan and African media.
There are similar initiatives all across
the continent that are helping citizens
reclaim journalism in the public interest.
And what Mungai says about the Baraza
Media Lab could be true of any of them:
‘Baraza is a space to reimagine what could
be possible… Not that Baraza is the solu-
tion, but it is a place where the solution
could emerge.’ O
PATRICK GATHARA IS KENYAN JOURNALIST AND
POLITICAL CARTOONIST. HE IS CURRENTLY THE
SENIOR EDITOR FOR INCLUSIVE STORYTELLING AT
THE NEW HUMANITARIAN.
This project was funded by the European Journalism
Centre through the Solutions Journalism Accelerator.
This fund is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
1 Asch Harwood, Emily Herrick and Wilson Ugangu,
‘Strengthening Kenyan media…’, Reboot, 2018, a.nin.
tl/media 2 Martin Scott (interviewed by Alexander
Matschke), ‘Philanthropists must fill the gaps’,
Deutsche Welle, a.nin.tl/scott
NEW INTERNATIONALIST

HOW MODI
HIJACKED
THE CALL TO
DECOLONIZE
Tarushi Aswani on how the Indian government
is using the language of decolonization to promote
its own form of rightwing nationalism.
A
s India celebrated 75 years of inde-
pendence last year, Narendra Modi
and his supporters worked to cement
a crucial narrative of their project: that
their brand of religious nationalism was
finally freeing India from its colonial
hangover.
In his 15 August independence day
speech, Modi celebrated ‘a renaissance
of the collective consciousness’ in the
country and called on its citizens to
‘liberate ourselves from the slavery
mindset’.
In September came the renaming of
Rajpath – a post-independence title given
to the imperial central avenue of New
Delhi. Previously known as Kingsway
under British colonial rule, the three-
kilometre stretch of road is now Kartavya
Path – ‘Path of Duty’.
During the same month a statue of
controversial revolutionary Subhas
Chandra Bose was formally dedicated
near India Gate, erected in the same spot
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
where a statue of King George V had
stood until the 1960s. ‘The Britishers have
gone, but Britishism is still remaining in
India, so here Prime Minister Modi has
started a new independence movement,’
BJP member of parliament Rakesh Sinha
told reporters.1
By June this year Modi was boasting to
the US Congress that India had attained
freedom after ‘one thousand years of
foreign rule’ – when the British ruled
India for just over 200 years.
Ever since Modi’s Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the
government has been keen to portray
itself as a power for ‘liberation’ in India.
But as postcolonial studies professor
Priyamvada Gopal has written, ‘Far from
offering a new or original vision of collec-
tive good, the Hindu rightwing, which is
Modi’s political home, peddles a recycled
imperial understanding of India.’ 2
Sure enough, Modi and his religious
and political affiliates have been accused
Decolonization
of being nothing but successors to the
British by pitting one community against
another, using the ‘divide and rule policy’
explicitly used by the colonists. 3
Modi’s government has busied itself
renaming landmarks, removing statues
and making other symbolic changes
to show that India is finally emerg-
ing from its colonial past – as a ‘Hindu’
superpower.4
Supremacist agenda
The government’s purported moves
to challenge the ‘colonial mindset’
have served to further Modi’s Hindu-
supremacist agenda, amid the PM’s
quest to turn India into a Hindu Rashtra
– a country run by Hindu laws.
Much of the renaming of landmarks
has been focused on erasing Muslim her-
itage. For example, in 2018 the ancient
city of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh was
wiped from the map. It became Praya-
graj, a more Hindu-sounding name. 5
‘The name changes, policies that seek
to decrease the visibility and presence of
Muslims and other religious minorities
in public spaces, show that their version
of decoloniality means using a Hindu-
centric lens to determine public policy,’
says Dheepa Sundaram, assistant profes-
sor of Religious Studies at University of
Denver.
Government policies have ranged
from the criminalization of undocu-
mented Muslims to a clampdown on
Islamic seminaries. Eleven states in India
have laws to snoop on interfaith mar-
riages and relationships, particularly
aimed at preventing Hindu women from
marrying outside the faith.6
BJP leaders have also proposed draft-
ing a population control Bill which would
limit couples to two children. This has
been seen as an an attack on Muslims, due
to a conspiracy theory that followers of
Islam are trying to produce more children
so the community can grow in numbers
and establish dominance by demographic
change.7
‘For Modi and the BJP, Hindus are
the only true inhabitants of this region
and others are “outsiders”,’ explains
Sundaram.
National heroes
Post-independence India has gener-
ally drawn its heroes from a pool wider
than the Hindu faith. Hafiz Hiqmatullah
Khan, a key figure in Mahatma Gandhi’s
anticolonial movement, who worked as
39
THE BIG STORY

40 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

The story is that Indian Muslims
and everything related to Islam
are ‘foreign’ and ‘un-Indian’
a teacher at an Islamic seminary, is one
such hero. 8 Khan held secret, under-
ground meetings and hung up posters
across his city of Bulandshahr, to further
the boycott of British commodities.
‘For his contributions to the Indian
independence movement, he was
respected and even felicitated,’ says his
grandson Arshadullah Khan. ‘For us
[his family and community], his grave
is a shrine. But the current government
paints us Muslims as badly as they paint
the British, just because we follow the
faith which Mughals followed.’
The Mughal Empire ruled most of the
Indian Subcontinent between 1526 and
1857, as well as parts of Afghanistan and
Balochistan. ‘They [Mughals] killed so
many Hindus and destroyed temples,’
said Suvendu Adhikari, the BJP’s leader
in West Bengal, in January. ‘All the places
named after them should be identified
and renamed. We will remove all British
and Mughal names within a week if BJP
comes to power in Bengal.’ 9
Earlier this year the National Council
of Educational Research and Train-
ing announced its decision to remove
chapters on the Mughal Empire from
school history textbooks.10 It was a move
opposed by many academics, politicians
and activists, who saw it as an attempt to
rewrite history.
Peddling propaganda
While the Indian government continues
to link decolonization to its propaga-
tion of Hindu nationalism, it is causing
massive damage to India’s heritage,
history and secularism. Apoorvanand, a
political commentator and professor of
Hindi at the University of Delhi, explains
that this is the modus operandi executed
by both the BJP and the Rashtriya Sway-
amsevak Sangh (RSS), an extremist, para-
military Hindu organization.
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
Since India’s independence, the RSS
has used the historical subjugation of
India by the British and Mughal rule as
an excuse for violence against Muslims.
It has a history of spreading anti-Muslim
propaganda and stirring violence against
minorities.
‘Before the British, India was ruled
by several different religious rulers,’
Apoorvanand says. He goes on to counter
the rhetoric that Mughals were barbaric
foreigners who plundered India, adding
that many were also ‘born, raised and
buried’ on Indian soil. ‘This narrative
that India was slave to Mughal rule is
absurd, and it has been propagated for
150 years now. People are being made
to believe that Hindus have been under
Muslim rule.’
The story is that Indian Muslims and
everything related to Islam are ‘foreign’
and ‘un-Indian’, says Apoorvanand. It is
within this narrative that demands for
undoing Islamic architecture such as
Babri Masjid, Taj Mahal, Lal Quila have
found fan-following among Hindus.
Postcolonial hogwash
Political anthropologist Ather Zia high-
lights the hijacking of decolonization by
the BJP in the context of the contested
region of Kashmir, which is largely gov-
erned by India but has been disputed
by India and Pakistan since the end of
British rule in 1947. India maintains a
heavy military presence in the region.
Zia argues that India’s actions in
Kashmir are an example of ‘Eurocentric
settler democracy’, likening it to Israel’s
actions against Palestinians. ‘It is the
same prototype which has been peddled
in the last 80 years,’ she says.
In 2019, the BJP government jailed
hundreds of Kashmiris, blocked inter-
net across the region and arbitrarily
stripped the population of its leftover
Decolonization
constitutional rights. It was then pro-
jected as the ‘new’ or ‘liberated’ Kashmir,
when in reality the people who lived
there were far from liberated.
Zia feels that this is exactly the
reason why India’s military occupation
of Kashmir and the criminalization of
Kashmiri resistance is so easily accepted
by global powers – because settler states
are nothing without imposing and anni-
hilating Indigenous people, and they
support each other deeply in the goals of
extractive capitalism.
Since the BJP came to power, India’s
rich history of revolutions and rulers is
being used against it by Hindu radical
organizations – and the BJP endorses
this doctored reality. The Modi regime,
collectively uses doctored anti-Islamic
rhetoric, laced with the pain caused by
British colonialism, to further demonize
Muslims in the eyes of the rest of the
population.
‘What India is currently is a neocolonial
Hindu-supremacist power that utilizes its
status as “postcolonial”, but the word itself
is hogwash,’ says Zia. ‘Postcolonialism has
hidden more than it has told.’ O
TARUSHI ASWANI IS A FREELANCE JOURNALIST
BASED IN NEW DELHI, INDIA. SHE COVERS STORIES
ON HUMAN RIGHTS, GOVERNANCE, RELIGION AND
POLITICS IN INDIA.
1 FRANCE 24 English, ‘Nationalism in India: PM
Narendra Modi on decolonisation mission’, 30
November 2022, a.nin.tl/statue 2 Priyamvada
Gopal, ‘West’s problematic embrace...’, Aljazeera, 25
May 2014, a.nin.tl/modi 3 The Times of India, ‘BJP
follows divide and rule...’, 11 August 2022, a.nin.tl/
divide 4 Tarushi Aswani, ‘Control alt delete’, New
Internationalist, March-April 2023. 5 Vikas Pandey,
‘Allahabad...’, BBC, 7 November 2018, a.nin.tl/
change 6 Chinki Sinha, ‘India’s interfaith couples..’,
BBC, 15 March 2021, a.nin.tl/marriage 7 Tarushi
Aswani, ‘Blaming Muslims...’, The Wire, 5 June 2023,
a.nin.tl/population 8 Amrit Vichar, ‘Moradabad...’,
Amrit Vichar, 6 August 2022, a.nin.tl/hafiz 9 Asian
News International, ‘“Will Remove British, Mughal
Names If...”,’ NDTV, 29 January 2023, a.nin.tl/names
10 Livemint, ‘Why NCERT removed chapters on
Mughals...’, Mint, 5 April 2023, a.nin.tl/history
Opposite page: Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi arrives at Red Fort, New Delhi, for
Independence Day celebrations on 15 August 2018.
PRADEEPGAURS/SHUTTERSTOCK
41
 COUNTRY
PROFILE
‘H
elloooo, helloooo’ – Abu
Mohammed’s usual greeting,
in Arabic, when he sends a
message to my phone. Our exchanges are
usually short, catching up on news, but
also covering power outages and bombs
from Saudi jets. In May: ‘There’s no work
here anymore. This is why I want to reg-
ister my son for adoption in America.
Help me to do this.’
Abu Mohammed’s entreaties are a sign
of the suffering that has been happening
on an almost industrial scale in Yemen
since the Saudi-led coalition – heavily
supported by the US and UK govern-
ments – began bombing in 2015.
The country has suffered, at various
times, periods of high unemployment and,
in some places, devastating poverty, poor
national health outcomes and frail health
infrastructure, bouts of armed conflict
42
and, since the 2011 Arab Spring revolution,
dashed hopes for genuine democracy.
But it hasn’t always been this way.
Despite its peripheral position, the terri-
tory which now forms Yemen has served
as a linchpin for important struggles. It
once controlled the supply of important
commodities like frankincense, myrrh
YEMEN
and spices. Because of its fertility as well
as its commercial prosperity, Yemen was
known to the ancient Romans as Arabia
Felix (Fortunate Arabia).
Later, the north was controlled by the
Ottoman Empire and, on its collapse in
0 300 Miles
0 500 Kilometres
Sana’a Marib
Al Hudaydah
Ibb
Taizz Aden
1918, Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamid
ed-Din established North Yemen as a
clerical monarchy. From 1958 to 1961 this
area was confederated with the United
Arab Republic – Egypt and Syria – to
form the United Arab States. Army offic-
ers then deposed the monarchy, sparking
a civil war in which foreign powers like
Egypt and Saudi Arabia fought until 1970.
Meanwhile, the south was colonized by
the British from 1839 to 1967, as part of
the Aden Protectorate, until Britain was
forced to withdraw in 1967. The new revo-
lutionary government was led by moder-
ates until radical Marxists took charge in
the 1969 ‘Corrective Step’, which led to
the establishment of the People’s Demo-
cratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY).
The two Yemens were unified in 1990,
though infighting and declining economic
conditions sparked a north-south civil
SAUDI
ARABIA
OMAN
Tarim
Al Mukalla
NEW INTERNATIONALIST

war in 1994. Yemen’s then-President Ali
Abdullah Saleh became a fully-fledged
US ally after an American naval vessel was
damaged in an Al Qaeda attack in Aden,
and the 11 September 2001 attacks. The
Saleh regime was flooded with American
funding in the years following.
In 2011, inspired by the revolutionary
uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, a peace-
ful protest movement broke out in Yemen
demanding that Saleh step down. Restric-
tive gender roles, tribal divisions, and
regional inequalities were fundamentally
challenged. Yet the government cracked
down brutally on protesters, splitting the
army and radicalizing the protest move-
ment’s demands.
In the ensuing instability and reacting to
austerity measures, an insurgent Houthi-
based and nationalist movement known as
‘Ansar Allah’ emerged in Yemen’s violently
AT A GLANCE
LEADER: Chairman, Presidential Leadership
Council: Rashad Muhammad al-Alimi
ECONOMY: GDP $19.53 billion (Jordan $45.74
billion, UK $3.13 trillion in 2021)
Monetary unit: Yemeni Rial (1 YRI = $0.004)
Main exports: crude petroleum, scrap iron, fish,
and gold.
POPULATION: 34.4 million. Annual population
growth: 2.1% (2021). Population density: 61 people
per square kilometre in 2020 (Jordan 115, UK 281).
HEALTH: Under-5 mortality rate: 62 per 1,000
live births in 2021 (Jordan 15, UK 4.2). Maternal
mortality per 100,000 live births: 183 (Jordan: 41,
UK 10). Since the outbreak of war, Yemen faces
frequent disease outbreaks of cholera, diphtheria,
and chicken pox. Half of health facilities are
damaged, destroyed, or not functioning.
ENVIRONMENT: From highlands to deserts,
Yemen’s landscape is varied. The weather
reflects this, with mountainous regions seeing
moderate temperatures and rainy seasons.
The country remains arid overall, but once
rare weather events, such as cyclones and
flash flooding, are becoming increasingly
commonplace thanks to climate change. The
Clockwise from top left: Yemeni men push a vehicle to a petrol station in Sanaa amid severe fuel shortages;
students inspect their destroyed school in Taiz; a man shops at a Sanaa market ahead of Ramadan;
the mountain village of Al Hajjarah.
HANI AL-ANSI/DPA/ALAMY; ANAS ALHAJJ/SHUTTERSTOCK; MOHAMMED MOHAMMED/XINHUA/ALAMY; SERGEY-73/SHUTTERSTOCK
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
repressed north, and took over the capital
Sana’a in 2014. The following year, Saudi
Arabia, nervous about Ansar Allah on its
borders – reportedly supported by its arch-
enemy Iran – began a bombing campaign,
supported by massive US and British
arms sales, and a blockade. Left without
food, medicine and fuel, Yemen has suf-
fered famine and epidemics. In 2023, 21.6
million Yemenis require humanitarian
assistance, according to the UN.
Despite extreme suffering there are
signs of hope on the horizon: the Saudis
gaining nothing from the war, and China
recently brokered a peace deal between
Saudi Arabia and Iran. And in June, pil-
grims traveled on the first commercial
flight from Yemen to Saudi Arabia since
2016, signaling an easing of tensions and
a loosening of the blockade.
SAM KIMBALL
Socotra archipelago, a UNESCO World Heritage
Site in the Arabian Sea, was badly damaged by
Cyclone Mekunu in 2018.
CULTURE: Yemenis overwhelmingly consider
themselves Arabs, but tend to divide themselves
between northern and southern groups. On the
Red Sea coastal plain, migrations from Ethiopia
and Somalia have left a mixed Arab-African
population. In the southeast and on the islands of
Socotra, there are groups who speak ancient pre-
Arabic South Arabian languages.
RELIGION: Shafa’i Sunni (65%), Zaydi Shi’a (35%)
and Isma’ili Islam (estimated 15,000 people).
Yemeni Jews once numbered 50,000–60,000
people, but most were flown to Israel after its
establishment in 1948.
LANGUAGE: Modern Standard Arabic (Official)
Yemeni Arabic, Razhihi, Soqotri, Mehri, Bathari,
and Hobyot.
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX: 0.455 (Jordan
0.72, UK 0.921), rank 183 of 191 countries.
STAR RATINGS
INCOME DISTRIBUTION ++ ++,,,
,,,
With an economy in near free-fall after
eight years of war, most Yemenis can’t
even get enough to eat, while a few
with connections to tribal and political
elites live luxuriously.
LITERACY +++ +++,,,,
An estimated 70 per cent of Yemenis
aged 15 years and above are able to
read and write, but with infrastructure
such as schools in total disarray due
to war, there may be some time yet
before literacy improves.
LIFE EXPECTANCY +++ +++,, ,,
Total life expectancy at birth for
Yemenis is 63.7 years, nearly eight
years less than the global average.
POSITION OF WOMEN +,,,, ,,,,
Highly restrictive gender norms in
Yemen have led to lower participation
in economic and public life, high rates
of violence against women and forced
early marriage. War has only made
women more vulnerable.
FREEDOM ++ ++,,,
,,,
Traditional Yemeni culture is
conservative, proscribing several
social freedoms. Warring factions,
among them the Houthis, have lately
cracked down harshly on freedom of
press and expression.
SEXUAL MINORITIES +,,,, ,,,,
Sexual minorities are shunned in
Yemen, as same-sex sexual activity is
forbidden under the Penal Code of
1994, and there have been reports
of violence, detention and torture of
LGBTQI+ people in Yemen in recent
years.
POLITICS +,,,,,,,,
Yemen’s politics are neither
representative nor functional for
ordinary Yemenis. Foreign forces
occupy slices of Yemeni territory
where they repress any dissent, and
the Yemeni Houthi group does the
same. A separatist movement fights for
rights, resources and freedom. Al-Alimi
has no clear popular mandate, and no
parliamentary elections have taken
place in the last 20 years.
43
CARTOON HISTORY

UNDER THE BANNER OF

DAVID LESTER AND MARCUS REDIKER WITH PAUL BUHLE
One day on
the horizon we saw
the black flag with
its grinning skull and
crossbones.
What had we
to lose?

Not a
hard choice
after...
we threw
our captain
overboard.

We were
one and all We went
resolved to upon the
stand by each account.
other.
And what
does that mean,
you ask?

It means…
no more tyranny
of the lash.

Why?
Because
we elected the
captain our-
selves!!!

And we
removed any
who did not But the
treat us all as adventure didn’t
brothers. stop there, no
it didn’t.

We also
chose all the
officers of
the ship.
35

44 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 Pirates of the Atlantic

What of
the loot, you
ask?
Brothers,
Did the do you get my
officers keep meanin’?
it all?
A wooden
world turned
upside down.

No, no, no…

we divided all
plunder in fair
shares.

It’s yours if
you want it.
Oh it is,
mate. Think on it,
brothers.
Think on it.

Nay, it’s not

for real.

Now…

Where’s
that
fiddler?

Who among
ye country
clodhoppers
will dance with
me?

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 45
 I’m
Mark.
John.

NEW INTERNATIONALIST
37
 Pirates of the Atlantic

En route to New York

Most of
the men are
with us.

not sure I think

about the Africans. the Jamaican
only twenty of them, planters were
all tough afraid to buy
characters. them.

John,
We sail’d
after you
with Captain
turned pirate,
Stede Bonnet, until
what
a man-of-war Bonnet
happen’d?
took us. and our crew were
captured and taken to
Charleston, twenty-two
of our boys
hang’d.

Under the Banner of

King Death: Pirates of
the Atlantic, A Graphic
Novel, by David Lester
and Marcus Rediker,
is published by Verso,
£12.99.
versobooks.com

I alone
escap’d
to tell.

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 47
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 TEMPERATURE
CHECK
ENDING THE ARTWASH
Ten years ago, the UK arts and culture
scene was awash with oil company logos.
From the BP Portrait Award to the Shell-
sponsored Southbank Centre in London,
the industry was deeply embedded in the
most high-profile arts institutions.
Today, things look very differ-
ent. Earlier this year, it was confirmed
that BP’s deals with the Royal Opera
House and British Museum have ended,
meaning the oil industry has now been
almost entirely swept away from the UK
culture sector. At least 15 cultural insti-
tutions have shuttered their oil partner-
ships in the last 10 years.1
By sponsoring theatres, museums and
concert halls, the fossil fuel industry had
been able to hide its destructive activi-
ties behind a friendly façade of arts and
education. High-profile arts partner-
ships also ensured access to elites and
decision-makers.
At the British Museum, for example,
BP frequently sponsored exhibitions
linked to countries where it operates. This
allowed company executives to schmooze
government officials from Mexico, Egypt,
Russia or Iraq at exclusive exhibition
launch parties, turning the (publicly-
funded) British Museum into a space for
BP to lobby for more drilling opportu-
nities.2 In return, BP made sponsorship
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
payments worth less than 0.5 per cent of
the museum’s annual budget.3
Resistance to these deals stretches
back to 2004, when the campaign group
London Rising Tide began targeting the
BP Portrait Award. Things stepped up a
gear in 2010 when the arts collective Lib-
erate Tate began using creative interven-
tions to challenge BP sponsorship of the
galleries; and again in 2012, when a group
of theatre-lovers (including me) started
creating Shakespearean stage invasions
before BP-branded plays put on by the
Royal Shakespeare Company. This rebel
theatre troupe became BP or not BP?, and
went on to create around 70 impromptu
performances in 11 different oil-sponsored
institutions, involving giant props, crea-
tive blockades and thousands of people.
Campaigning research groups Plat-
form and Culture Unstained exposed
the dirty details of the oil companies’
arts sponsorship deals and built support
from high-profile artists and performers,
while arts and culture workers organized
against the fossil fuel deals through the
Public and Commercial Services Union
Union and Culture Declares Emergency.
Ironically, the BP-sponsored British
Museum provided a powerful opportu-
nity for international solidarity. Many
of the communities on the frontlines of
Words – Danny Chivers
Standing firm against BP sponsorship of the
British Museum’s ‘Troy’ exhibition on 8 February
2020. Hundreds of activists were also joined by a
giant Trojan horse.
IMAGEPLOTTER/ALAMY
oil extraction and climate change are the
very same communities with colonially-
looted artefacts in its vaults. By teaming
up with activists and performers from
Mexico, Colombia, West Papua, Iraq and
Indigenous Australia, groups were able to
highlight these connections and subvert
BP’s sponsored exhibitions to tell more
honest stories.4
This broad-based, collaborative cam-
paign has succeeded in almost completely
eradicating oil industry partnerships
from UK arts and culture. Alongside a
wider ecosystem of actions and campaigns
against the fossil fuel sector, these suc-
cesses may have helped to drive a wider
shift. Public opinion in recent years has
swung firmly against the oil industry. 5
The UN climate talks refused direct
sponsorship from fossil fuel companies for
the first time in Glasgow in 2021, and the
British LGBT Awards dropped BP and Shell
sponsorship following protests in 2023.
Parallel movements to end fossil fuel arts
partnerships are picking up pace around
the world, with major victories recently in
the Netherlands, Canada and Australia.1
Of course, there is still more work to
do. The London Science Museum still has
four fossil fuel partners, including the
coal-mining giant Adani.6 The British
Museum, which still has a BP Lecture
Theatre, hasn’t ruled out future fossil
fuel partnerships and is yet to properly
address its colonial legacy.
The UK Art Not Oil movement shows
the impact that a determined campaign
of creativity, solidarity, and strategic
direct action can have. Could it be a
model for future victories over the fossil
fuel industry? O
1 Culture Unstained, ‘Successes for the Fossil Free
Culture movement’, nin.tl/culture 2 Behind the Logos,
‘What sponsorship buys’, nin.tl/social 3 UCL, ‘UCL
archaeologists...’, 20 February 2022, nin.tl/ucl
4 Francesca Willow, ‘Direct action group...’, Huck,
8 June, 2023, nin.tl/action 5 India Bourke, ‘Exclusive
polling...’, New Statesman, 10 December 2021, nin.tl/poll
6 Culture Unstained, ‘Science Museum...’, nin.tl/science
49
 Space to

Space to

Space for

Leading the movement in workspaces for those who lead the change,
with spaces currently available to rent

Visit www.ethicalproperty.co.uk
Email sales@ethicalproperty.co.uk
or call 01865 207 810 ĴďťĊÌďķĴĉďīÐ
VIEW FROM
INDIA
Women are being short changed
A childhood memory forever engraved
in my mind is that of my mother,
handing over her salary to my father
each month – and him handing her
back a ‘stipend’. It was the 1970s, and my
mother had bagged an enviable govern-
ment job as a police officer, yet she could
not apparently be trusted to spend her
own cash.
Almost five decades later it would seem
that she was actually rather good with
money – it was my father who wasn’t.
When they both retired, my mother had
far more savings than he did and this has
enabled them both to live a comfortable
retirement.
While I was writing my book Lies Our
Mothers Told Us, I interviewed hundreds
of women across India. I was surprised
to learn that today men are still trying to
control women’s finances. I spoke to one
woman in her mid-forties who said her
husband doesn’t let her spend her money.
‘He doesn’t take it but he won’t let me
spend it either,’ she told me. ‘If I need to
buy something, he would insist on buying
it for me.’
While much has changed since the
1970s, women, including in India, have
remained stereotyped as bad money
managers. In India, 67 per cent of women
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
rely on a male family member for finan-
cial decisions, although over 90 per cent
contributed to household expenses.1
This continues, despite the fact that
most women are responsible for admin-
istering their household’s budget. On
average 89 per cent of women across
the world reported managing or
sharing responsibility for daily shop-
ping needs, compared to only 41 per
cent of men. 2 So, you trust a woman to
run the household but not to handle her
own money? The popular media has
played an important part in propagat-
ing this harmful stereotype. One 2018
study examined around 300 articles
about finance in women’s magazines
and found that a majority stereotyped
women as ‘excessive spenders’. 3
For women financial independence
goes beyond lifestyle, daily needs and
luxuries – it spells liberty, freedom,
self-confidence and security. One-third
of India women surveyed said they
were motivated to work for financial
independence.1
But independence doesn’t always spell
financial equality, for example women
are still struggling for pay parity. Accord-
ing to statistics from the International
Labour Organization (ILO), across the
world women continue to be paid on
average about 20 per cent less than men
for the same work.4
Women also tend to have more inse-
cure employment. For example, in India,
over 80 per cent of women work in the
informal sector in poorly paid jobs
without any benefits. 5
Women are not terrible with money.
In fact, their understanding of money
goes beyond its purchasing potential.
They understand its liberating power.
And that is exactly why they are kept
away from experiencing it. O
NILANJANA BHOWMICK IS THE AUTHOR OF LIES
OUR MOTHERS TOLD US (ALEPH). SHE TWEETS
@NILANJANAB
1 ETBFSI Staff, ‘90% women…’, The Economic
Times, 10 March 2023, a.nin.tl/household
2 Catalyst, ‘Women’s Earnings...’, 11 March 2022,
nin.tl/gap 3 Anne Boden, ‘Why we need to
#MAKEMONEYEQUAL’, 13 March 2018, nin.tl/articles
4 Bureau for Employers’ Activities, ‘Understanding
the gender pay gap’, ILO, February 2020, nin.tl/pay
5 ‘Women and men in the informal economy…’, ILO,
nin.tl/labor-office, 2018
51
THE INTERVIEW
Sofia Karim
The outspoken artist and architect speaks to Subi Shah
about what gets her fired up.
Artist and architect Sofia Karim was
born in 1970s Liverpool, in the North
West of England, to Bangladeshi
parents. Her parents – both doctors
– relocated the family to Libya for
work when Karim, the middle of three
sisters, was an infant. They returned to
the UK when she was seven years old.
Karim describes her first experience
of racism, at the hands of an English
schoolteacher: ‘She tore up my artwork
and frightened me so much that I wet
my pants in front of the entire class… it
was a total shock to my system, suddenly
realizing that not everyone has equal
rights.’
The memory of that injustice was
seared into Karim’s memory, galvanizing
her in her work today, as she mellifluously
blends her architectural training and
artistic leanings with political activism.
When did you first ‘discover’ art?
Being medics my parents had little inter-
est in art, but one day they bought me
a boxset of books on Rembrandt and
Michelangelo. I think it was on offer at a
discount store. I looked at those books for
hours. When I was unhappy or distressed,
I would take them and hide behind the
red velvet curtains in the living room.
52
The images spoke to me of tenderness
and loneliness.
Those curtains are still there in that
house and they have Velcro blood pres-
sure instrument bands as curtain ties!
You began your career training under
well-known British architect Norman
Foster, working on notable structures
including London’s former City Hall and
corporate workspaces in Tower Bridge. It
all sounds pretty swanky. How did that
experience bring you to this point where
you spend your time advocating for
prisoners and campaigning for freedom
of speech and civil rights?
I was working on the Al Faisaliah Tower
in Riyadh. It was Saudi Arabia’s first sky-
scraper. Photos would come back from
site depicting Bangladeshi migrant
workers dressed in rags installing golden
cladding on the dome. Something inside
me stirred. This was when my first con-
flicts with neoliberal architecture, and
its iconic emblems of corporate wealth,
began to arise. The clinical passivity of
most of the structures in our built envi-
ronment – one can hardly call them
architecture – terrifies me. They are a
reflection of the passivity of the creators
and the society they inhabit.
What sparked your diversification into
sculpture and fine art?
I became increasingly troubled about
the world of corporate architecture and
its ethics – or lack of. I tried alterna-
tives, including avant-garde studios like
Peter Eisenman’s in New York. No cure
to be found there either. The problem is
the systems of reality we find ourselves
trapped in, and systems of power. After
over 20 years I had to ask myself: ‘Whose
interests have I served and at whose
expense?’
In 2018 my dear uncle Shahidul Alam
was jailed by the Bangladeshi govern-
ment after reporting on student pro-
tests and giving a critical interview to
Al Jazeera. As part of the campaign to
release him I staged an exhibition at the
MATT WRITTLE
Turbine Hall, [at the] Tate Modern in
London.
Battered and bruised, my uncle was
released on bail after 107 days, holding a
defiant fist in the air. This was the cata-
lyst for my work Architecture of Disappear-
ance. It is is a dynamic body of work in
which I explore the stories of prisoners
that I campaign for through architectural
space, sometimes in designs for actual
building projects. It is a testament to the
global struggle against authoritarianism,
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 THE INTERVIEW

Bangladesh’s slide towards authoritarianism is terribly bleak.

This is symptomatic of a regime that seeks to hold power
by force. A regime that is thin-skinned and paranoid

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 53
THE INTERVIEW
fascism, Hindu-nationalism and caste-
oppression and has been shown in
Germany, Chile, Argentina, Sweden and
the US.
Then, in late 2019, mass protests led
by Muslim women at Shaheen Bagh,
India erupted over the Indian govern-
ment’s Citizenship Amendment Act.
I was campaigning against this with
activists including South Asia Solidar-
ity Group, here in London. I decided to
approach Turbine Hall again. The idea
was simple enough: working in collabo-
ration with artists from across the globe,
we created samosa packets out of recycled
paper, bearing messages of resistance as
protest art in solidarity with the women
of Shaheen Bagh. Turbine Bagh has since
evolved into a platform for political art
and activism, including campaigns for
the release of political prisoners.
On human rights, what do you have to
say about Bangladesh?
Bangladesh’s slide towards authoritarian-
ism is terribly bleak. Torture, extra-judicial
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54
killings and disappearances are common-
place, alongside serious allegations of vote-
rigging in elections. Countless journalists
have been arrested under the Digital
Security Act in an effort to stifle criticism.
This is symptomatic of a regime that
seeks to hold power by force. A regime
that is thin-skinned and paranoid.
Right now journalist Shamsuzzaman
Shams, who was accused and jailed for
perpetrating ‘fake news’ about rising
food prices, has still not had justice, and
he is one of the lucky ones having been
granted bail. Like so many others who
dared challenge prime minister Sheikh
Hasina’s government, he lives in fear of
being re-arrested as he awaits trial. I keep
thinking about the distress he and his
family must be feeling because of [this]
government’s shameless, naked power.
As we speak, there are anti-establish-
ment, pro-democracy protests ongoing
throughout the world, including in the
Czech Republic and France. Could it
be argued that here in the UK, we are
‘armchair activists’ rather than active
activists?
Countries including Bangladesh have
a strong tradition of organized student
politics and protest. Britain doesn’t have
that tradition yet but the climate emer-
gency and movements like Black Lives
Matter and #MeToo are shifting ground,
though I think it will take time before we
see anything as organized as what we are
seeing in Bangladesh.
Anything else you’d like to add, a parting
shot?
Free Shams. O
Find out more about Sofia Karim’s work at
sofiakarim.co.uk
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
VIEW FROM Senegal, Zambia, Comoros and Egypt,
with envoys from the Republic of Congo
and Uganda.

AFRICA
Can the quest for peace in
Europe bring calm at home?
The war in Ukraine is well into its second
year, many thousands have been killed
and millions displaced.
Like most parts of the world, Africa
has not escaped being impacted by the
war, thanks to a web of trade links which
have led to price hikes in goods from
food to fuel. Many countries on the con-
tinent have relied on Ukraine and Russia
as sources of wheat, fertilizer and other
imports. In Kenya as much as 90 per cent
of the wheat consumed is imported from
Russia and Ukraine.1
African countries have been courted
by both Russian and Ukrainian govern-
ments in an effort to get them to choose a
side, but many have remained defiant in
the face of political and public pressure.
Several African governments have been
careful not to upset Russia, despite pres-
sure from the West.
In mid-June, the largest African del-
egation since the war began set out on a
‘peace mission’ to Ukraine and Russia. It
was led by the president of South Africa
Cyril Ramaphosa who was under pres-
sure from the US for allegedly support-
ing Russia. He was joined by leaders from
But despite the ‘historic’ nature of
the trip, there is still little to show for it.
Meanwhile, Sudan is being torn apart by
war between the country’s army and the
paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. With
millions of African lives in danger, one
can’t help but wonder where the peace
mission is most needed.
The interests that leave Ukraine in
ruins are also present on the African
continent. Russia has sought to take
advantage of fragile situations in several
African states. From Sudan to Mozam-
bique, the Central African Republic
to Mali, the involvement of Russia via
Wagner Group mercenaries has been well
documented. 2
And it’s not just Russia-related forces
at work; much of the continent is under
threat from private military groups, mili-
tary bases and the use of proxies. The
interests of foreign powers – including
the US, Europe, China, Turkey and lately
the Gulf countries – are always at play.
This has had devastating impacts, both in
terms of active war and, in some countries,
making even small steps towards democ-
ratization impossible. Both France and the
US have military bases in Niger, where a
coup took place as we went to press.
The business of war is thriving at
the expense of lives and communities.
Resources like uranium, gold, diamonds
and other resources are exchanged for
‘aid’ and backdoor deals which come in
the form of military equipment and ser-
vices. Meanwhile, Africa remains the
most targeted region for large-scale land
acquisitions in the Global South, often by
foreign industrial agriculture companies.3
These takeovers can leave communities
landless, exacerbating food insecurity.
Without robust, pan-African collec-
tive measures to tackle militarism and
extractivist exploitation of the continent,
we remain at the mercy of these empires.
For there to be lasting change we need to
dismantle the growing military and eco-
nomic stranglehold on African states. O
ROSEBELL KAGUMIRE IS A PAN-AFRICAN FEMINIST
WRITER AND ACTIVIST WITH EXPERTISE IN AFRICAN
WOMEN’S LIBERATION, RACIAL AND GENDER
EQUALITY, PEACE AND SECURITY.
1 Human Rights Watch, ‘Ukraine/Russia...’, 28 April
2022, a.nin.tl/grain 2 Federica Saini Fasanotti,
‘Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa…’, Brookings,
8 February 2022, a.nin.tl/wagner 3 Land Matrix,
‘Africa’, a.nin.tl/matrix

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 55
FEATURE

DELAYED
Guatemala may have made progress in trying
to hold people to account for abuses of power,
but with so many tragic cases languishing in
the courts, Mira Galanova explores what’s
getting in the way of justice.

IS JUSTICE
DENIED
O
n 8 March 2017 Guatemala woke up
to the news that a state-run home for
vulnerable children was on fire. Nine-
teen girls died at the scene and 22 others
later in hospital. Fifteen survived with
life-changing injuries.
The girls had been locked inside the
48-square metre classroom overnight,
following their failed escape from the
home. In a desperate attempt to be
released, one teenager is said to have
set fire to a mattress. The flames raged
inside the room for nine minutes before
help came.
The tragedy, which took place in
San José Pinula, a town about 23 kilo-
metres from Guatemala City, shocked
the world. The government declared
three days of national mourning, then
President Jimmy Morales gave a press
conference and assured that those
responsible would be punished.
A few days after the fire the direc-
tor of the shelter and two senior public
officials were arrested, along with nine
others in the following months. There
were numerous pre-trial hearings and
it seemed that justice would be done
swiftly.
But as the public outcry over the
tragedy faded, the legal process stalled.
Over the last six years, the case known as
Hogar Seguro (Safe Home), has seen more
hearings cancelled than held.
Dither and delay
The trial against eight of the accused
had already been moved nine times by
the time it was postponed again on 19
January 2023 – this time because the
sound system inside the court failed. Pre-
vious reasons had included a change of
defence lawyer, a retiring judge, the lack
of a big enough court room and a lawyer
coming down with Covid-19. The families
of the 56 girls who were injured or died in
the fire felt they were being laughed at.
Vianney Hernández, the mother of
Ashly, could hardly contain her anger.
‘It is not fair what they are doing to us
mothers,’ she says. ’They cancel one
hearing after another.’1

56 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

Relatives of the victims commemorate the fourth
anniversary of the Hogar Seguro fire on 8 March
2021 in San José Pinula. Last on the right is
Esmeralda Salguero, holding a photo of her
daughter Keila.
MIRA GALANOVA
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
On 26 January, Lucinda Marroquín
and Luis Armando Pérez Borja, two
accused police officers, came to court
without lawyers and proceedings were
postponed again. The judge ordered for
their legal representatives to be replaced
and on 7 February, Pérez Borja used it as a
reason to have the judge removed.
While the pending decision on the
judge’s withdrawal has stalled the trial,
another appellate court ordered all charges
against former social welfare undersecre-
tary Anahy Keller to be dropped.
According to Alejandro Rodríguez, a
lawyer and researcher at the non-profit
Impunity Watch Guatemala, this was a
part of the plan of the so-called Pact of
Guatemala’s courts
the Corrupts, with ex-President Jimmy
Morales pulling the strings: ‘This is the
trial that suits them – limited to the
mid-level officials. Like this, it will not
go any deeper into what happened in
Hogar Seguro.‘
Another defendant’s lawyer was
offended when plaintiffs suggested that
they were ‘playing dirty’ to hold up the
trial. ‘All procedural parties should be
informed that criminal proceedings are
long,’ Víctor Pérez said to the judge. ‘In a
well-attended process, both the defence
and the plaintiffs present appeals. In large
cases, this results in delays.’
He gave an example of the La
Línea (The Line) case, a celebrated
57
FEATURE
accomplishment of the International
Commission Against Impunity in Guate-
mala (CICIG). It took almost eight years
to convict former President Otto Pérez
Molina and Vice President Roxana
Baldetti of defrauding the state of mil-
lions in customs duties. Just like with
Hogar Seguro, hearings in the La Línea
case were repeatedly cancelled.
Stalling strategy
Delays like this have plagued Guatemala’s
courts for many years. In 2017, Human
Rights Watch analyzed several cases and
concluded that although the country had
made ‘dramatic progress’ over the past
decade in promoting accountability for
abuses of power through the work of the
CICIG, too many cases were now stalling
in the courts. 2
Their report found that defence
lawyers can easily derail criminal pro-
ceedings, and that they often do so
knowing that it may take months or
years to get the case back on track. They
file repeated – and often unfounded –
motions challenging court rulings or
seeking the removal of judges hearing
their cases.
But, as Human Rights Watch high-
lighted, justice is only delayed because
the courts allow it. Higher courts often
miss legal deadlines and judges rou-
tinely fail to quickly re-schedule the pro-
ceedings – all adding up to long delays.
Effective sanctions for lawyers who inten-
tionally sabotage criminal proceedings,
or judges who allow or cause unjustified
delays, don’t exist and the consequences
are heartbreaking for the people at the
centre of the cases.
When 33-year-old Cristina Siekavizza
disappeared in 2011, her husband Roberto
Barreda soon became the prime suspect.
His mother, former Supreme Court pres-
ident Beatriz Ofelia de León, allegedly
used her influence to help him escape to
neighbouring Mexico.3
Two years later Barreda was captured,
extradited to Guatemala and charged
with Cristina’s murder, and his mother
with obstruction to justice.
On 22 August 2016, after a barrage
of motions that sought to suspend the
hearing, Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez
reproached de León: ‘With all due
58
respect, how is it that a professional who
was a magistrate lends herself to causing
delays!’
Barreda died of Covid-19 in August
2020, without disclosing where he had
hidden Cristina’s body. The goal of his
stalling tactics was hardly to wait for his
death, but anti-impunity campaigners
have accused his family of delaying the
legal process until the circumstances
were more favourable; if they were to
wait it out, perhaps the case would get a
The families of
more malleable judge. Cristina’s family
believes that Barreda’s parents – both
the 56 girls who
lawyers – met with the Constitutional
Court magistrates to influence their
were injured or
decisions.
Attempts to suspend a hearing and
died in the fire
delay cases can be obvious, such as when
Barreda fired his lawyer after all the other
felt they were
strategies, including getting the judge
removed more than once, had failed.
being laughed at
But in many cases there could be inno-
cent explanations, such as in the case of
technical problems, illness of key people
in the case or the sheer number of trials
clogging up the courts.
Judges told Human Rights Watch that
they were assigned heavy caseloads that
made it impossible to meet all deadlines. 2
Although the number of judges and pros-
ecutors is only just below the average in
the Americas, Guatemala has double the
rate of murders and about triple the cor-
ruption cases.4
Pulling the strings
It’s easy to understand why many Guate-
malans see a conspiracy behind the prob-
lems in the justice system.
The 2014 election of Supreme Court
and Appellate Court judges was allegedly
the result of a power-sharing deal cut
between Guatemalan politicians Manuel
Baldizón and Alejandro Sinibaldi. 5 At
that time, they were both hoping to
become president.
Baldizón described, in a letter to
CICIG, how 13 soon-to-be-elected mag-
istrates had gathered in the presiden-
tial suite of a luxury hotel and swore
to protect the politicians from any
future criminal charges. 5 Those magis-
trates, elected for a five-year term, con-
tinue in their posts despite the fact that
the mandate of the current courts was
NEW INTERNATIONALIST

supposed to expire in October 2019. The
election of their successors has been
halted after another scheme to influ-
ence the process, this time led by power-
ful political operator and businessman
Gustavo Alejos, was revealed.6
In Guatemala, shadowy groups have
long been pulling strings behind the
scenes. Collectively known as Illegal Clan-
destine Security Apparatuses (Cuerpos
Ilegales y Aparatos Clandestinos de Seguri-
dad or CIACS), they emerged during the
country’s 36-year civil war, as a part of the
state’s repressive counterinsurgency appa-
ratus. Many of them grew from state intel-
ligence and military services.7
Following the 1996 peace accords,
these groups were transformed into
highly sophisticated criminal networks
that have penetrated and co-opted state
institutions at every level. They use their
political, military and intelligence con-
nections, along with corruption and vio-
lence, to generate immense wealth with
complete impunity.
In 2007, CICIG was created to help
the Attorney General’s Office dismantle
these ‘hidden powers’. More than a dozen
corrupt judges and thousands of police
officers were ousted and powerful drug
traffickers were detained. Guatemala’s
homicide rate, one of the highest in the
world, fell by over 40 per cent.8
The anti-corruption drive hit the
highest levels of the government, leading
to the prosecution of members of Con-
gress, ministers and two former presidents.
In 2015 the sitting president and vice presi-
dent resigned over the La Línea scandal.
Guatemalans slowly started to trust
the judiciary. The number of those who
believed that the wrongdoers would be
punished jumped from 29 per cent to 43
per cent between 2010 and 2017.9
But the country’s corrupt elite wanted
a return to the pre-CICIG’s state of
affairs. After the UN-backed body began
to investigate the family of then-Presi-
dent Jimmy Morales, he ended CICIG’s
mandate in 2019.
Justice as a matter of power
Over the past four years, the justice
system in Guatemala seems to have been
on a downward spiral. The Attorney
General Consuelo Porras, appointed by
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
Morales in 2018, has transferred or fired
unbribable prosecutors. Others have been
jailed on trumped-up charges. Her office
has opened seemingly arbitrary investi-
gations into independent judges.
With little faith that they would
get a fair trial, dozens of high-profile
anti-corruption crusaders have fled the
country, including former Attorney
General Thelma Aldana and Special Pros-
ecutor against Impunity Juan Francisco
Sandoval. Among the last to give in was
Judge Gálvez. ‘I now understand that
justice is a matter of power, not control
of power,’ he says in the video announc-
ing his resignation in November 2022. 10
Following the sacking of Sandoval and
exit of CICIG the cases it investigated
have been gradually closed, and the per-
petrators released from prison.
‘With the passing time, the public
clamour for justice diminishes,’ says
Rodríguez. ‘When Otto Pérez Molina
resigned, the public wanted to burn
him. Eight years later, people are asking:
“Might he be innocent? Did CICIG over-
reach their mandate?” It makes it easier
for the justice system to acquit powerful
perpetrators.’
In the Hogar Seguro case, the delays
might prevent the truth about what
caused the tragedy and its high death toll
from coming to light. There had been
complaints about the living conditions at
the home, abuse against children, as well
as allegations of corruption and human
trafficking.11
Shortly after the tragedy, the court
recorded testimonies of eight out of the
fifteen survivors. Two other girls did not
have their accounts recorded until 2021.
Five have still not testified. Meanwhile, a
lawsuit was filed in 2019, accusing all 15
survivors of damage to state property and
the death of the other 41 girls.
‘It is a glaring intimidation. What are
these girls going to reveal, if they are
threatened with a criminal investigation?’
says Paula Barrios of Women Transform-
ing the World, a non-profit representing
some of the Hogar Seguro victims.
Lawyers have reported that back in
2017 girls were pressurized and threat-
ened before they gave their testimony.
The protracted legal battle over the
Hogar Seguro case has worn out the
Guatemala’s courts
families as well as their legal teams. Only
the most persistent journalists still cover
the hearings.
On 19 January this year Elida Salguero
had been hopeful that the trial would
finally begin. Her voice breaks when she
speaks of her daughter Keila, who died in
the fire just a week after she turned 17.
It was a rare occurrence that Elida
had been able to attend court at all. Until
recently, she lived in Puerto Barrios, on
the Caribbean coast of the country, about
290 kilometres from Guatemala City
where hearings are held. Even though
she now lives closer to the capital, Elida
is unemployed and the $6 for the journey
to the tribunals is hard to find. Many of
the victims’ families live in poverty or
extreme poverty.
Elida only made it to court that day
because a Guatemalan-American film-
maker had given her money for the trip
after interviewing her the previous day
for a documentary.
After an hour of waiting, the hearing
was cancelled. Elida didn’t come for the
next one. O
MIRA GALANOVA IS A FREELANCE INVESTIGATIVE
JOURNALIST SPECIALIZING IN HUMAN RIGHTS AND
CITIZEN SECURITY IN LATIN AMERICA. HER WORK
HAS BEEN PUBLISHED IN THE GUARDIAN, THE BBC,
THE WASHINGTON POST, FOREIGN POLICY, AL
JAZEERA AND DEUTSCHE WELLE, AMONG OTHERS.
1 Asier Vera, [video], Twitter, 19 January 2023,
nin.tl/video 2 Mirte Postema, ‘Running out the
clock’, Human Rights Watch, 13 November 2017,
nin.tl/clock 3 Ministerio Público, ‘Caso Siekavizza...’,
6 July 2016, nin.tl/hearing 4 United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime, dataUNODC, dataunodc.un.org
5 CICIG, ‘Denuncia No. 1 Comisiones Paralelas II’,
August 2019, nin.tl/denuncia-1 6 Ministerio Público,
‘Comisiones Paralelas 2020: Fase 1’, 2021,
nin.tl/parallel 7 InSight Crime, ‘Guatemala: CIACS’,
9 March 2017, nin.tl/ciacs 8 The World Bank,
‘Intentional homicides...’, nin.tl/homicides
9 Dinorah Azpuru, Mariana Rodríguez and Elizabeth
J. Zechmeister, ‘Cultura política de la democracia...’,
March 2018, a.nin.tl/culture 10 Miguel Ángel Gálvez
Aguilar, [video], Twitter, 15 November 2022, nin.tl/resign
11 Mira Galanova, ‘Children’s home fire...’, BBC, 9 August
2021, nin.tl/abuse
59
COMMENT
Tragedy -
or murder?
At least 500 people have drowned in the Mediterranean
in a single incident, just the latest in increasingly
normalized disasters. Yet in the Western political milieu,
it made barely a ripple. Nanjala Nyabola asks why
migration policies have become so deadly, and what it
will take to change them.
Details of the tragedy, down to the name of the
fishing trawler, remained murky for days. Surveil-
lance footage released by FRONTEX, the European
border agency, then revealed that the boat was under
Greek coastguard surveillance for at least two hours
before it capsized.
The coastguard has since confirmed it did indeed
have the boat under surveillance ‘from a close dis-
tance’, but did not attempt to intervene even while
the boat rocked aggressively on the waves of the
Mediterranean Sea. But survivors say that the
agency did in fact act – an enforcement boat tried
to attach themselves to the boat three times before
finally towing it and allegedly causing it to capsize.
The full number of those who died may never
be known – because there was no official manifest
on the vessel – but at least 104 people were rescued.
Those on what EU authorities call a ‘smuggler’ vessel
were primarily from Syria, Pakistan, Egypt and
the Occupied Palestinian Territories, attempting to
cross from Libya. Survivors insist that it was the act
of towing that caused the disaster: leading the boat to
take on water much faster than its unseaworthy hull
could take, and condemning most of the approxi-
mately 750 passengers to drown.
Although this journey is only a few hundred kilo-
metres, the waters of the Mediterranean are highly
unpredictable. News of this hazardous journey
travelled the globe when the lifeless body of three-
year old Alan Kurdi washed ashore on the beaches
of Greece in 2015. Since the EU ended its policy
of search and rescue on the open water, tens of
60
thousands have lost their lives making this crossing.
According to the Missing Migrants Project, at least
27,000 people have died crossing the Med since 2014,
but many more are likely unrecorded.1
The EU border agency has consistently said it will
not assist those they consider ‘smugglers’, going as far
as prosecuting humanitarian vessels that offer vital
aid to boats in distress. Yet people continue to come.
Human rights groups argue that the Greek tragedy
represents an even darker development in EU border
policy. Since 2020, EU countries like Greece have
been engaged in illegal ‘pushbacks’ of similar vessels
– forcing them to turn around, out of EU waters –
to deny passengers the right to seek asylum. Their
account, disputed by Greek authorities, is that the
coastguard was not trying to tow the boat towards
safety, but instead to turn it back out to sea.
The undeserving mobile
Much the violence that happens at the European
border results from Europe’s value judgements over
one’s worthiness to travel or seek asylum, translated
into crude bureaucratic metrics. While those travel-
ling from the Global North are worthy until proven
otherwise, those travelling from the Majority World
must provide increasingly complex documentation
on their identity, financial status and justifications for
travel. Simply put, people from poor countries are
increasingly being told they don’t deserve to travel for
any reason: safety, opportunity, much less fun.
For the Global South’s working class, meaning-
ful alternatives to these perilous crossings have
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
PAPADAM TH/SHUTTERSTOCK Europe’s deadly frontier

The rising tide of death on the Mediterranean Sea is a

direct consequence of official European border policy

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 61
COMMENT
almost completely disappeared. The passports of
those on the capsized boat rank in the lowest rung
on the Global Passport Index, meaning they can get
into fewer countries without applying for a visa than
those nationalities ranked higher. Out of 97 possible
rungs, Syria ranks 96th, Pakistan 93rd, The Occu-
pied Palestinian Territories at joint 89th with Libya,
and Egypt as a relative outlier at joint 76th with
Guinea and Niger.
At the same time, these visa application processes
have become more expensive, opaque, and compli-
cated, requiring endless reams of documentation,
extensive financing, middle-men – and even, in
many cases, certification of good conduct from the
police. For nationals of countries with weak pass-
ports the odds of having a visa approved are practi-
cally zero – unless you are wealthy or prepared to
take on dangerous work like deep sea fishing.
People seeking asylum are expected to evidence
their vulnerability through a variety of subjective
metrics, and these are increasingly opaque and
complicated. For single young men particularly,
the presumption of unworthiness is especially high.
Indeed, official policies routinely exclude this demo-
graphic from refugee protection at borders around
the world, driving more of them to unconventional
border crossings.
Contrite?
Moreover, the global circumstances that make
escape an attractive option are often a direct conse-
quence of the foreign policy of the states that also
condemn people to treacherous migration routes.
For Palestinians and Egyptians, their experience of
both occupation and military rule are a direct con-
sequence of the Global North projecting its foreign
policy into their territories.
On 19 June, five days after the Greek tragedy, EU
high representative Joseph Borell was in Cairo offer-
ing the Egyptian government $22 million to ‘help
address the wave of Sudanese refugees’, even while
political prisoners resisting the military regime
languish in Egyptian prisons. 2 On the same day,
the Israeli government – the largest recipient of US
foreign assistance – announced plans to build thou-
sands of new homes in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories, implicitly promising to displace the Pal-
estinians who already live there.
Meanwhile, Syrians are escaping from a war
whose trajectory is intimately connected with the
politics of the global majority while Pakistanis are
confronting economic collapse triggered in part by
their nation’s crippling public debt. Flight, whether
for safety or opportunity, is intimately connected to
the position that a specific nation occupies in global
politics.
Just as importantly, the rising tide of death on the
Mediterranean Sea is a direct consequence of official
European border policy. Researcher Maurice Stierl
has argued the EU has ‘weaponized time’: deliber-
ately sought to create delays to rescue operations. 3
62
And if the Greek coastguard was engaged in an
illegal pushback, it was acting in complete contra-
vention of humanitarian law and the law of the sea.
These pushbacks are a secretive but increas-
ingly common feature of EU border policy. A 2022
investigation by a consortium of media outlets
found that Greek authorities conducted at least 145
such pushbacks that year alone, bureaucratically
labelled ‘prevention of departure’. 4 In at least 22
of these incidents, asylum seekers were ‘taken off
dinghies, placed on Greek life rafts, and left adrift
on the sea’.
The Greek coastguard is under investigation fol-
lowing the reports, but continues to receive funding
from several European countries. If the survivors’
account of what happened on the open water is true,
then this capsize is a dangerous but altogether pre-
dictable escalation. Should ongoing investigations
conclude, as mounting evidence suggests, that the
act of towing the boat is the immediate reason why
it sank, then everyone who drowned as a result was
murdered by the EU’s border policies.
Will this latest disaster prompt the kind of
humanitarian review of EU – and indeed global
– border policies that we urgently need? It seems
unlikely, after a week where the story of the boat’s
capsize was quickly overshadowed by the news of
five extremely wealthy men (some billionaires) in an
improvised submarine disappearing on their way to
the wreckage of the Titanic. Mere days later, the EU
was offering the autocratic Tunisian government €1.1
billion to curb migration. 5 Finally, the quiet bit was
being said out loud: only the wealthy can migrate
safely, and only the wealthy deserve to be rescued
when things go wrong.
Mobility, particularly when it’s in search of
opportunity, has never been accessible to all, but the
uncomfortable juxtaposition of these two extremes
starkly demonstrates the paucity of opportunity
available to citizens of the Majority World. This
tragedy should be a moment to face up to the new
reality that Western border policies are building.
Tax receipts fund these draconian border policies,
and it’s only through self-deception that we can
unsee their cruelty, and wonder aloud: ‘Why can’t
they just come through legal means?’
This gap between illusion and reality enables gov-
ernments to craft border policies that – slowly but
surely – make killing vulnerable people a core func-
tion of the state. O
NANJALA NYABOLA IS A WRITER AND POLITICAL ANALYST.
1 Missing Migrants Project, ‘Mediterranean’, 2023, a.nin.tl/2
2 European Union, ‘Press remarks by High Representative/Vice-
President Josep Borrell’, 18 June 2023, a.nin.tl/1 3 Maurice Stierl,
‘The EU’s secret weapon against refugees – time’, Al Jazeera, 17 May
2023, a.nin.tl/weaponized 4 Katy Fallon, ‘Revealed: EU border
agency involved in hundreds of refugee pushbacks’, The Guardian,
April 2022, a.nin.tl/pushbacks 5 Patrick Wintour, ‘EU accused of
whitewashing Tunisian regime…’, The Guardian, 26 June 2023,
a.nin.tl/Tunis1b
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
SOUTHERN
EXPOSURE Highlighting the work of artists and
photographers from the Majority World

Documentary photographer Mahshad Jalalian captured this portrait of a nomad girl in Razavi Khorasan province,
Iran. ‘The nomads are travelling to find new pastures. They are mostly shepherds and sell the animal products
in nearby cities,’ the photographer explained. Based in Iran, Mahshad has travelled through the wider region,
recording aspects of culture, society and history. ‘After working for many years in the office of a large company,
I decided to pursue my passion for capturing the reality and beauty of everyday life. I believe that documentary
photography is a powerful way to inform, inspire, and improve the world.’
mahshadjalalian.com

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 63
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VIEW FROM
BRAZIL
Agribusiness backers in
Congress scupper climate gains
The election of President Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva came as a big relief for all con-
cerned about the planet’s future. One of
his main pledges was to protect forest and
cut carbon emissions – and indeed the
rate of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon
fell by a third in the first six months of his
term compared with 2022.
Unlike his predecessor, Lula wants
Brazil to be a beacon in the fight against
global warming. But the powerful lobby
that represents agribusiness in Congress
has a different view. In May, they pushed
through measures to thwart the fight
against environmental crimes. It is a clear
defeat for the Lula administration – and
the world.
The government’s denial of a request
from Petrobras to prospect for oil near
the mouth of the Amazon River without
guarantees on environmental protection
spurred the rural caucus in Congress to
seek to reduce the power of the minis-
tries for the environment and Indigenous
Peoples.
These departments are crucial for com-
bating deforestation and land-grabbing,
improving basic sanitation, waste treat-
ment, water management and demarcation
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
of Indigenous territories. Environment
minister Marina Silva warned that the
country, which had targeted sustainable
growth, was destroying the very agencies
that would help in the task.
Then on 30 May, by a vote of 283 to
155, the Chamber of Deputies passed
the so-called Time Frame bill, restrict-
ing the rights of Indigenous people to
claim their historical territories. This
also allows the government to take back
Indigenous peoples’ lands and build
roads and dams on their territories
without consultation.
The bill, now being discussed by the
Senate, would increase deforestation
because, thanks to the stewardship of It’s no use our congressional leaders
their inhabitants, Indigenous lands have expressing concern about global warming
far better rates of forest protection than at UN climate summits and then destroy-
other conservation areas of Brazil. ing the socio-environmental protections
This legislative situation comes about that guarantee sustainable development.
because Lula’s government does not have Will the governments of Germany,
a majority in Congress, and must negoti- Norway and others be foolish enough
ate matters vote-by-vote in a parliament to keep putting their money into the
that is generally conservative. Amazon Fund, aimed at protecting the
There are likely economic impacts, on forest, while the Brazilian Congress
trade and investment. Brazil is a leading loosens its laws? Will the negotiators of
food and commodities producer, and the EU-Mercosur trade agreement simply
competitors elsewhere have attempted ignore this?
to erect trade barriers against Brazilian Will the serious businesspeople who
products based on claims the country operate in Brazil stand by and watch Con-
disrespects human rights and does not gress ruin the country’s image abroad?
protect the environment. Will the business at stake motivate them,
We give credence to such claims when even if quality of life now and for future
vested interests insist on acting against generations doesn’t? O
the environment and traditional popula-
LEONARDO SAKAMOTO IS A POLITICAL SCIENTIST
tions, and when our politicians advocate a AND JOURNALIST BASED IN SÃO PAULO. HE IS
short-termist production model based on A CAMPAIGNER WITH THE INVESTIGATIVE NGO
REPÓRTER BRASIL, WHICH HE ESTABLISHED IN 2001.
predatory development.
65
 One World Calendar 2024
Contrasts

66 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
Now in its 42nd year, the One World Calendar 2024 will be
published in September by New Internationalist, and be
available to order in Ethical Shop. Here Chris Brazier, its editor,
introduces this year’s theme: Contrasts ethicalshop
The contrasts highlighted and explored in this One World Calendar Packed full of eco and organic
tend to be more painterly and less message-driven – as much about gifts and household items,
clashes in colour and texture as about social context. A boy is being buying from the Ethical Shop
elaborately made up in honour of a local deity in a south Indian village; is a really easy way to support
the whites of his eyes and the blood red of the marking show up
fair trade and ethical suppliers,
fiercely against the deep blue of the skin. A behatted man greets his
grandson; as the only person in the frame not dressed in extravagantly
and also New Internationalist
coloured and fanciful costume amid this Guatemalan festival, the eye is magazine.
drawn inexorably towards the sheer delight on his face. An Ethiopian
woman – her wrinkled face, clothing and the background landscape For food,
all subtle shades of brown – smells a vibrantly pink rose. A Cuban
girl dances for sheer joy despite following a car belching out a cloud
clothing,
of insecticide that envelops her street; the bright yellow of her dress calendars,
emphasizes her exuberant, innocent life.
books,
Elsewhere, girl’s and women’s clothing and what it connotes catches
the eye of the photographer. The constricting nature of cumbersome homeware,
black clothes and headscarves worn by women in a Muslim area of
Georgia is juxtaposed with the bright colours worn by young girls –
crafting and
though the delight of all in the bubbles being blown is immediately much more.
evident. Meanwhile, in Bolivia, keen young women skateboarders
have chosen to make their own political statement by reclaiming the
florid skirts of their grandmothers.
Only the extraordinary photograph from Gaza uses contrasts to
propound a ‘message’ in the more journalistic sense, as a father gives a
bath to his daughter and niece in a tub that is, miraculously, still intact
despite the wartime destruction of their home and, indeed, of the whole
neighbourhood visible beyond. Even here, the meaning lies less in
thoughts about war and peace or the Israel-Palestine conflict than in the
amazing resilience of this family, in the phenomenal capacity of humans
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voucher – the
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SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 67
FROM THE ARCHIVE

Opposite page top: Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s

first president, remains a hero of national

‘We believe that liberation in the African country – but many are
critical of his stifling of opposition. Here he is
pictured playing the guitar in 1975.

humanism is more
KEYSTONE PRESS/ALAMY

Opposite page bottom: Kaunda and his

Tanzanian counterpart Julius Nyrere secured
Chinese funding to build a cross-border railway,

embracing than which reduced Zambia’s reliance on neighbouring

white-ruled states. Prior to the railway’s
construction, the bulk of the copper produced

socialism’
in the country was transferred by rail through
white-ruled Rhodesia to the Portuguese coast
ports in Mozambique. Here, Zambian workers are
pictured at work in the copper refinery at Kitwe
in 1965. A white railway manager looks on.
DENNIS LEE ROYLE/AP/ALAMY

DM: One of the things I would like you

to outline is the basis of Zambia’s foreign
policy – the guidelines by which you
operate.
KK: When anything happens our first
question is not who has done it, but is
New Internationalist’s first ever issue, in March 1973,
this right, is it fair, is it just. If the answer
arrived amid escalating tensions in southern Africa, is no, no matter who has done it we will
with Ian Smith’s white-ruled Rhodesia imposing a condemn him and the action he has
taken. Ever since we became independ-
blockade on neighbouring Zambia. In an exclusive ent, and even before, we condemned
interview with David Martin for our magazine, American presence in South East Asia [ie
Vietnam]. We have condemned all these
Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda outlined his
steps taken by the Americans against
approach to foreign policy and political philosophy. innocent people. I think at one time the
In this extract Kaunda, who ruled Zambia from its Americans believed we were almost path-
ologically against them until the Rus-
independence in 1964 until 1991, also discusses why sians invaded Czechoslovakia. We were
he imposed a one-party state. one of the few small nations which said,
and has insisted until now, that that was
the invasion of an independent country.
The Russians had no right to be there and
we have said this without fear or favour.
This is the basis of our foreign policy: if
David Martin: [Ian] Smith said he I have put it in another way. I have said we cannot have permanent friends – well
wanted an assurance from you that you look, if we found a small Black minority and good. But we don’t want to have per-
would no longer support the Zimbabwe oppressing a white majority anywhere in manent enemies. What we want is to help
liberation movements. What is your the world, we would support the white to build bridges between nations, conti-
reply to this? majority against the Black minority. nents and people. We believe this is the
Kenneth Kaunda: We in Zambia have Therefore, for Mr Smith to ask me to task of any nation, big or small.
always said that if Mr Smith wants our get rid of the representatives of freedom
co-operation let him go to the people of fighters who have offices in Lusaka… DM: I think that it is fair to say that
Rhodesia as a whole on the basis of one where else are they going to find an there is a tendency in Africa to project
man one vote and if he is elected on that opportunity to speak and inform the rest the more outspoken aspects of foreign
basis, we are quite happy to welcome him of the world about the oppression which policy towards countries outside the con-
here in Zambia because to us his colour takes place in Rhodesia? This is all we are tinent. For instance, during the recent
is immaterial. It is the system which he doing and if he thinks he can intimidate racial decision to expel Asians from
is using there which is wrong and we us to stop supporting what is justifiable Uganda only you and President Nyerere
can never find ourselves co-operating spiritually, morally, politically, economi- spoke out against it. Many, many people
with that type of system. We can’t. It is a cally, he is barking up the wrong tree. We are being murdered in Uganda today.
matter of deep-rooted principle. cannot stop. In Burundi at least 50,000 people were

68 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 Zambia’s path

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 69
FROM THE ARCHIVE
if we cannot have permanent friends
- well and good. But we don’t want
to have permanent enemies
slaughtered last year and again nobody
spoke out. Don’t you feel that for its own
credibility Africa must begin to speak
out and act more firmly on things hap-
pening within its own area?
KK: We have a few problems over issues
like this. The first is the lack of authorita-
tive sources of information… In the case
of Burundi we had no information at all.
All we knew was that there was an upris-
ing. In Uganda we condemned the racial
approach because we could see clearly
what was happening. [W]here we have
something clear cut we will not hesitate
to speak our minds.
DM: Your document ‘Humanism in
Zambia’ is accepted as the political
guideline in Zambia in much the same
way as the ‘Arusha Declaration’ in Tan-
zania. Could you explain the reasons
why you wrote the document, including
its timing and the main points?
KK: First of all, the timing. We had to
introduce it in 1967 for various reasons.
I think the most important one is that if
we had produced that sort of humanism
before independence, Zambian inde-
pendence might not have seen daylight.
Even today people still confuse human-
ism with communism… From there all
sorts of policies are worked out. If it is
economic policies, then we don’t want
exploitation… Foreign policies, social
policies and others are dictated from
that point. We are beginning with free
education, free health services. It does
not mean yet that everyone has the
chance to go to school, but if we had
delayed any more in making that deci-
sion we would have landed ourselves
in more trouble. This question of class
would have emerged and would have
stuck with us.
70
DM: Why humanism as opposed to
socialism?
KK: Well, this is partly to do with some
of the things which have taken place in
history. We believe that humanism is
more embracing than socialism. Social-
ism, in my opinion, is mainly a way of
organizing your economy and society as
a whole. You are mainly wanting to put
the means of distribution and produc-
tion in the hands of the people. But it does
not convey the same meaning as human-
ism. Sometimes we see socialist countries
which put ideology above man. This we
believe is wrong and the concept must be
brought out – this concept of the impor-
tance of man. The only way we could do it
was by naming our philosophy as human-
ism. Socialism seems to be more limited
in understanding and appreciating [this].
DM: I believe that in the 1960s you
were quoted on a number of occasions
as saying you would not make Zambia
a one-party state unless it was the will
of the people through the ballot box.
Now, during the latter part of 1972, you
decided to do so at a time when the tribal
and political divisions publicly appeared
more marked than before. Why did you
move at this point and why did you ban
other political parties?
KK: I think I followed my earlier state-
ments to the letter because this was the
will of the people. They did it through
the ballot box. You may say there were a
few pockets where other parties had some
influence. But if you look at the whole
voting structure from 1964 to 1972, when
we had by-elections, you will see how
much support UNIP [United National
Independence Party] enjoyed as a party…
We had to legislate sooner or later, inter-
preting what the people had said through
the ballot box and putting that into law.
These figures are there and you cannot
argue against them. And it cannot be said
we manufactured the figures, as the elec-
toral commission comes under the Chief
Justice, and as you know we have inde-
pendence of the judiciary.
As for banning political parties and
detaining some leaders – one has to go
back to 1964. All along we had grown up
as two parties – UNIP and ANC [Zambia
African National Congress]… Before
independence there was a lot of friction;
a lot of violence between the two parties.
This was very serious. We got through
the struggle for independence but the
friction remained… [Later,] the Zambia
African National Congress [ANC] began
a violent campaign in Livingstone, our
tourist capital. Six UNIP members were
killed… I banned the ANC in Livingstone
and there was peace. Then in a district
west of Lusaka I was on an official tour
and members of the ANC cut trees down
across the roads to act as barricades. They
burned food stores belonging to UNIP
supporters and other things. I warned
them that if this continued, I would ban
the party in that area and it did not [stop]
so I banned them. As a result, peace
was restored in that area. All these were
lessons I was learning.
I lifted the ban and trouble began
again… Even the most democratic leader
would find himself in an impossible situa-
tion when people deliberately use violent
methods to achieve their objectives.
Now not only that. At this moment
our security forces, following mine
explosions on our border last weekend
and which killed three of our people,
have arrested five men who have admit-
ted being organized by the ANC to help
Smith’s men in Zambia. It’s treason, it’s
treason. Is the type of politics we are
going to entertain in Africa – helping
Smith’s men? […]
This is not the type of opposition we
can tolerate in Zambia. There is freedom
of speech, of assembly and of association.
The judiciary and the church are inde-
pendent. They must be a mirror to tell us
when we go wrong. We accept criticism
but not opposition – opposition in Africa
is destruction. O
THIS IS AN EDITED EXTRACT FROM THE FULL
INTERVIEW, WHICH CAN BE READ ONLINE AT
bit.ly/3DqUjUS
THE LANGUAGE USED REFLECTS THE TIME OF
PUBLICATION, AND NOT NEW INTERNATIONALIST’S
CURRENT STYLE
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 Share your light
Explore spirituality
with a caring
community

Each of these books is about warfare:

‘Warfare and the Human Condition’ offers a

more substantial outline of the history of
warfare. Including its human, economic, and
environmental costs. This then sets the scene
for a currently relevant consideration of how
we might create the national and
international institutions that can provide
the social and political conditions necessary
if we are to overcome the human ‘tendency’
towards conflict.

The shorter book ‘The Contradiction within

the Soul of Humanity’ Is more of an
extended essay, presenting an edited version
of the introduction and conclusion of the
longer book. So, lacking the historical
overview, but offering a very similar analysis
and outline of a possible, more peaceful,
future.

Available from: Waterstones, Foyles, Housmans, and Amazon

ISBN 978-1-80369-737- 6 and ISBN 978-1-80369-637-9

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 71
 HALL OF
INFAMY
KAIS SAIED
POSITION: President of Tunisia
REPUTATION: Autocrat in
constitutional clothing.
When Kais Saied, a former law professor
and political outsider, was elected presi-
dent of Tunisia back in October of 2019
he was the hope of the region’s young
democrats. After all it was here that
the first stirrings of revolt sparked the
process that shook dictatorships from
Syria to Morocco in what became known
as the Arab Spring in the early 2010s.
But alas, when Saied appeared in a
jolly photo-op standing alongside Syria’s
Bashar al-Assad and Egypt’s Abdel Fatah
al-Sisi during the Arab Summit this May
it clearly signalled Tunisia’s return to the
autocratic habits of the rest of the region’s
current political class – though the signs
have been there for a long time for those
who cared to look.
On the campaign trail in 2019, Saied
presented himself as a law-and-order con-
servative who would be tough on corrup-
tion and lift the country out of economic
crisis, a sales pitch bought by Tunisia’s
youth who made up a large swathe of his
supporters. The retired constitutional law
professor, who had never held a position
in public office, was viewed by the young
as a ‘clean and honest’ candidate.
When push came to shove Saied
wrapped himself in populist clothing
promising to ‘save the nation’ from a
plethora of enemies, ranging from refu-
gees and homosexuals to liberals and
corrupt elites. It is of course a recipe for
repression and that is exactly what Saied
is dishing out.
In July 2021, in response to mass dem-
onstrations against police brutality, Saied
froze Parliament and dissolved Tunisia’s
government. His ‘self-coup’ was cel-
ebrated on the streets by some citizens
happy to see the back of a government
they viewed as corrupt. But that stamp of
approval quickly wore off when it became
apparent that Saied was merely replac-
ing the government with an authori-
tarian regime. After sacking the prime
72
minister he declared himself attorney
general so he could personally oversee
the repression.
Since February this year opposition
figures, including the country’s main
opposition leader, the 81-year-old Rached
Ghannouchi of the moderate Islamic
party, Ennahda, have faced an unprec-
edented wave of arrests. Charged with
‘insulting state security’, Saied’s octoge-
narian foe could face the death penalty if
found guilty.
Having once provided expert legal
advice to help draft Tunisia’s 2014 con-
stitution, the former stickler for the rules
has ended up stretching and manipulat-
ing the law to justify his own seizure of
absolute power. Promises to improve the
lot of ordinary Tunisians have also failed
to materialize, but it’s not those in power
who are to blame, according to Saied. That
would of course fall on the shoulders of
Black African migrants, who he recently
accused of bringing ‘violence, crime and
unacceptable practices’ to Tunisia. The
incendiary speech triggered a flood of
racist attacks against Black Tunisians.
Prone to lecturing the nation using
classical Arabic (a rigid form of the lan-
guage rarely spoken in day-to-day life)
rather than the commonly used Tunisian
dialect, it seems Saied’s supporters have
KHALED NASRAOUI/DPA/ALAMY
quickly grown tired of the professor-
turned-president and his peculiar formal-
ities. In January, just one in ten Tunisians
voted in the country’s parliamentary run-
offs – a record low turnout. O
LOW CUNNING: Saied presents himself as
a simple man of the people called reluctantly
to presidential service, and can often be seen
in social media videos hugging poor Tunisians.
Yet homeless migrants, refugees, Black Africans
and anyone who defies him have no place in
his Tunisia.
SENSE OF HUMOUR: The dour Saied
is not exactly a laugh a minute. When lec-
turing in his university days it was said
you could hear a pin drop and god help the
student who interrupted the good professor
by arriving late. ‘Robocop’, a nickname he’s
acquired thanks to his monotonous voice and
predilection for law and order, failed to spot
the irony earlier this year when he champi-
oned free speech at the Tunis international
bookfair just minutes before police shut down
a stall selling Kamal Riahi’s unflattering
biography of the president. Well, freedom of
expression has its limits.
Sources: New York Times; Private Eye; Al Jazeera;
Al Arabiya; The New Arab; Amnesty; Middle East
Eye; Barron’s; The Guardian; BBC; Foreign Policy;
Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP).
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
MIXED MEDIA
BOOKS
Bluebeard’s Castle
by Anna Biller
(Verso, ISBN 9781804291856)
versobooks.com
A feminist spin on the
traditional folk tale is let
down by flat, frustrating
writing, says Jo Lateu.
When Gothic romance novelist Judith
is swept off her feet at a wedding party
by a charming baron, a fantastic new
future opens up to her that mirrors
that of her fictional heroines: a castle,
a dominant but dashing husband,
abundant wealth, wild and passionate
sex. But the fairytale soon sours, as
Her husband’s true violent nature and
mysterious past begin to be exposed.
Judith had thought of Gavin as a knight
in shining armour, rescuing her from
her life ‘of complacent dullness’ as the
daughter of rich but dismissive parents.
But as the uncomfortable reality of his
tyrannical dominance dawns upon
her, Judith struggles with conflicting
feelings. She stumbles between denial and self-disgust, anger
and acceptance, constantly talking herself out of her decision
to leave him. Her mental well-being disintegrates as she fails
to free herself from her addiction to a husband whom she
knows could kill her.
All of the expected elements of a Gothic novel are to be
found in Bluebeard’s Castle, from its setting and its lady
in distress to its overwrought emotion and the abundance
of religious and supernatural undertones. Writer and The
Love Witch film director Anna Biller’s effort to put a renewed
feminist spin on this traditional folktale – more than three
decades after Angela Carter did so in The Bloody Chamber – is
admirable. Like Carter, she twists the tale in order to expose
its true core of violence against women. In an interview with
online magazine CrimeReads, Biller explained that being a
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
Reviews editor: Conrad Landin
woman ‘exposes one to multiple daily
horrors… [and] the monster is often right
in the house’. Indeed, the 2022 Crime
Survey of England and Wales estimated
that 1.7 million women had experienced
domestic abuse in the previous year.
So far, so positive. Yet Bluebeard’s
Castle fails to deliver and is
consequently a flat, frustrating read.
Judith herself is a vapid, tiresome
character who is neither relatable
– unless you too have a rich father
and live in a castle – nor particularly
likeable. This in itself is no reason to
dismiss Biller’s message – domestic
abuse, after all, can affect anybody.
Even Judith’s constant flip-flopping
over what she wants, what she
needs, and what she is going to do –
reminiscent of the daisy-petal picking
‘he loves me, he loves me not’ game
played by those in the grip of first love
– is an accurate reflection of the mental
torment and prevarication that so often
precede a victim’s final decision to flee.
The main issue, however, is the pedestrian quality of the
writing. At times it reads like a Mills and Boon; at others, like
Fifty Shades of Grey. Could this have been done on purpose, to
parody the Gothic genre? But if that is the case, it is perhaps too
clever by half. In truth, there is not enough irony, no subtlety,
little substance, and the feminist spin is all but invisible, other
than in the final few chapters. The narration lurches from one
Gothic romance or chick-lit cliché to the next, which is occa-
sionally funny – ‘sometimes she orgasmed from his glance’, for
instance – but mostly rather dull.
Rather than a parody, Bluebeard’s Castle comes across as
a pastiche, though sadly not a very good one. In that same
CrimeReads interview, Biller noted that her idea had originally
been for a screenplay; perhaps that genre would have done
justice to the concept in a way this novel does not. O
73
MIXED MEDIA

BOOKS
Traces of Enayat Austria Behind the Mask
by Iman Mersal, translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger by Paul Lendvai
(And Other Stories, ISBN 9781913505721) (Hurst, ISBN 9781805260592)
andotherstories.org hurstpublishers.com

Traces of Enayat is a curious has been shaped by Christian

On 3 January 1963 the Egyp-
tian writer Enayat al-Zayyat
took her own life at the age
of 26. Her only completed
novel, Love and Silence, was
published posthumously
four years later, arousing
interest among the Cairo
intelligentsia as rumours cir-
culated that Enayat’s family
had destroyed the author’s
journals and unpublished
stories. The years passed and
Enayat’s name surfaced only
occasionally as a footnote in
articles on Egyptian women
writers. Then, in 1993, the
poet and academic Iman
Mersal bought a copy of Love
and Silence on a whim, spark-
ing an obsession with its
author that would result in
this book.
hybrid – part detective story
following a decades-old trail,
part discursive tour through
20th century Egyptian lit-
erature, cinema, and social
history. Mersal subtly weaves
quotations from the novel into
the narrative, interrogating
them to question what light
they might shed on the author’s
life. Mersal was, from the
beginning, uncomfortable with
the theory that Enayat killed
herself when her novel was
rejected by a publisher. Indeed,
she finds intriguing evidence of
a second book. Digging deeper,
she tells of a young woman
experiencing severe depression
who somehow found the forti-
tude to confront a hidebound
society and push against the
boundaries of sex and class.
Iman Mersal began her
quest with a search for Enay-
at’s tomb, and she ponders
whether to end with her dis-
covery of a shocking desecra-
tion of the grave site. Instead
she decides to emulate the
multiple endings of Love and
Silence, and imagines a contin-
uation of Enayat’s unfinished
second novel, suggesting ways
in which a life, although cut
tragically short, can neverthe-
less echo down the years.
PETER WHITTAKER
After the Habsburg monar-
chy collapsed in 1918, Austria’s
global prestige tumbled. It was
willingly annexed into Hitler’s
Third Reich in 1938, and after
the Second World War the
Allies treated Austria’s Second
Republic (1945-1963) with dis-
trust and suspicion, carving it
up into four occupation zones.
Unlike Germany, however,
Austria became independent
as a united and neutral state
in 1955, serving as a Cold War
buffer zone between East and
West.
Austria Behind the Mask
provides an excellent summary
of this fascinating history. It’s
mostly concerned, however,
with what happened next. The
political landscape of Austria
over the last eight decades
Democrats, Social Demo-
crats, right-wing populists and
Greens. Over his long and dis-
tinguished career in journal-
ism, Paul Lendvai, a former
Vienna correspondent for the
Financial Times, has spoken to
the lot. But while the 93-year-
old Hungarian’s penchant for
local gossip is mildly enter-
taining, it occasionally veers
into rambling digressions.
Lendvai still provides a
measured analysis of con-
temporary Austrian politics.
Muslims in Vienna in par-
ticular have suffered from
xenophobic prejudice. This
has been fuelled by the rise
of the far-right Freedom
Party of Austria (FPO), which
entered government before
being toppled from power in
May 2019 when its leader was
caught making shady deals
with a woman he believed
was the niece of a Russian oli-
garch. Lendvai claims there
are still paid Kremlin lackeys
lurking in Vienna’s corridors
of power, even after the inva-
sion of Ukraine. But ‘Austria
is still a country with an inde-
pendent judiciary, a free and
vocal media, and a strong
civil society’, says Lendvai –
all things its one-time impe-
rial partner Hungary now
finds lacking.
JP O’ MALLEY

74 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 MIXED MEDIA

Reviews editor: Conrad Landin

Standing Heavy To the Lighthouse

by GauZ’, translated from the French by Frank Wynne by Virginia Woolf
(Maclehose Press, ISBN 9781529414431) (Penguin Classics, ISBN 9780143137580)
maclehosepress.com penguin.co.uk

looking sharp and giving the maintain classic status, thanks

‘The further one travels from
Paris, the more the complex-
ion of security guards tends
towards that of butter,’ the
Ivorian author GauZ’ writes.
‘In the provinces, in the dark
depths of rural France, there
are apparently places with
white security guards.’
The action of Standing
Heavy, however, is largely
confined to the French capital.
In the 1960s, Ferdinand, one
of three central characters,
takes over a room at the city’s
Residence for Students from
Côte D’Ivoire from his cousin
André, and takes over his job
as a security guard too. Three
decades later, he employs
two younger Ivorians, Ossiri
and Kassoum, to do much
the same job: standing heavy,
public and capital the illusion
of security. That it’s all a bit
of a bluff is immaterial. This
narrative is interspersed with
snippet-length observations
of a modern-day department
store. Be they wealthy Arabs or
petty thieves, no-one is spared
in this biting satirical account
of cosmopolitan life.
The refreshing fervour of
Frank Wynne’s translation
here is brought into relief by
the tender passages document-
ing Ossiri and Kassoum’s life
after the 11 September 2001
terror attacks, when bosses
freeze out undocumented
labour. Out of work and tired
of the crumbling Residence for
Students, Kassoum follows his
friend on his mysterious daily
walks: ‘Ossiri showed him he
was living in another culture,
another world, one filled with
beauty and ugliness, with
yawning chasms and Himala-
yan peaks, like everywhere else.’
Politics is never far away
in Standing Heavy, related
through amusingly tedious
faction fighting and poignantly
cynical monologues – but
there is little these immacu-
lately-crafted characters can
do to shape it. Instead, they can
only shape their own stories in
an unforgiving world they can
still find beautiful.
CONRAD LANDIN
Like Lily Briscoe’s attempt to
finish her painting, the young
James Ramsay’s quest to visit
the lighthouse doesn’t come
close to completion till the
novel’s end, a full 12 years after
the action begins.
Meanwhile, his mother Mrs
Ramsay has to navigate famil-
ial tension, the absurd quantity
of children and guests in her
Isle of Skye holiday house, and
an internal monologue which
often drifts into other people’s.
‘Flashing her needles’ as she
repairs a stocking, ‘there was
scarcely a shell of herself left
for her to know herself by; all
was so lavished and spent.’
To the Lighthouse is at
once about thought and con-
sciousness, ambition and time.
It still struggles somewhat to
partly to the perceived greater
accessibility of Mrs Dalloway,
and partly to the continued
propensity of gentlemen
critics to dismiss Woolf ’s
fiction altogether.
Now, however, it reappears
with this rather trite cover
by the US cartoonist Alison
Bechdel, and a new foreword
by Patricia Lockwood, the US
novelist who has become the
go-to versifier on all things
internet. Lockwood’s essay,
about finding To the Light-
house on Skye herself, is
playfully frail and pleasantly
personal. But she is wrong to
dismiss the central section of
the novel, ‘Time Passes’, which
relates the decay of the house
and – yes, rather flippantly –
that of Mrs Ramsay herself
during World War One.
This section centres for the
first time upon Mrs McNab,
the Ramsays’ housekeeper,
putting the domestic drama
in the context of world events
and class dynamics without
leaving the house, and expos-
ing the sheer fragility of the
most perfect constructions
of family life in the face of
nature and war.
It’s something so many
have strived to re-create in
fiction ever since, but Woolf ’s
exemplar is still the best.
CL

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 75
MIXED MEDIA
FILM
Brother
directed and co-written by Clement Virgo
120 minutes
++++,
The muscular guy in an athlet-
ics vest tells his wiry younger
brother to move as he does.
To take in the views, they’re
going to climb a soaring elec-
tricity transmission tower. It
takes nerve, strength, stamina
and grace. They’re sons of a
Jamaican-born single mum.
Francis, in his final year of
school, protects and guides
Michael. Don’t show your feel-
ings in your face, he tells him.
Project strength. He’s evi-
dently worked out in the gym,
is socially confident, popular.
He hangs out at a barber shop,
and we see him working in the
amateur sound studio set up
in a backroom there.
Brother is a drama about
the construction of mascu-
linity, about life options. Set
on an estate in Scarborough,
Toronto, it beautifully depicts
the brothers’ relationship and
inner lives – at early primary
school, as older teenagers,
and later when Francis is no
76
longer around. It’s convinc-
ing and compelling, gets their
strengths and vulnerabili-
ties, and their love and care
for each other – and for their
strict hard-working mum,
putting in long hours and
nightshifts, yet hardly able to
afford to do anything special
for her boys at Christmas.
It’s less successful in its
depiction of women: mum
isn’t much more than their
unhappy carer. Without
Francis, she collapses, but as
her character isn’t fully devel-
oped, this doesn’t have the
impact it should. Michael’s
girlfriend is similarly under-
done – repetitively very nice,
very caring. But it is deft in
relating who people are to
their social circumstances,
it’s brilliantly constructed and
acted, and its key moments
stay with you.
MALCOLM LEWIS
Our river … our sky
directed and co-written by Maysoon Pachachi
117 minutes
++++,
He has a flat-bottomed
wooden boat designed for a
leisurely phut along the Tigris,
so visitors can gaze at the
delights of old Baghdad. His
radio announces the execu-
tion of ex-President Saddam
Hussein, and a 24-hour
curfew. He’ll have no passen-
gers today. The day before
he’s had his first for weeks –
a local woman, Sara, and her
young daughter Reema. They
love the river, the views, the
sky above – their city, their
people. Our river … our sky
shows us that people are who
they are because of the people
they know, help and depend
on, smile and nod to, chat
to, shout at, and, in different
ways, love.
This is, unusually, a feature
about war – but not about sol-
diers. It’s about people in the
midst of it, during occupa-
tion, economic collapse, and
sectarian violence. It’s about
their everyday heroism and
resolve, about their sorrow,
trauma, and humour. Some
are killed, some flee – most,
like Sara, stay and try to carry
on. The local baker keeps his
shop and cafe open because
he pays a silent, scary, gun-
toting man. Sara’s brother, an
official, refuses to take back-
handers and considers leaving.
The baker’s brother, who has a
lovely smile and a readiness
to flirt, talks to women online
to hide that he’s in a wheel-
chair. When he does arrange a
meeting, the café he goes to is
bombed.
It’s not a film with an over-
riding personal story, but one
with many stories. It demands
full attention, it’s never rose-
tinted, and yet it comes
through with faith and even
optimism. It’s a great tribute
to Baghdadis.
ML
NEW INTERNATIONALIST

MUSIC
DIMITRI DJURIC
The Book of the Sediments
Newton Armstrong/Juliet Fraser
(All That Dust, CD, DL)
https://allthatdust.com
+++++
Before Rachel Carson deliv-
ered the devastating alarum
that constitutes Silent Spring
(1962), she wrote a biography
of the oceans of our planet.
The Sea Around Us (1951) is that
rare thing – a scientific book
(Carson was a marine biolo-
gist) as well as a piece of prose-
poetry, a paean to the world
and a warning to its fragility.
It’s this book that underpins
The Book of Sediments, a
richly sensual voice and elec-
tronics composition by Newton
Armstrong with the British-
Canadian soprano, Juliet
Fraser. One of four Carson-
based commissions created by
Fraser (details of the others are
on her website), Sediments is
aptly named. Its progress is one
of layers of sound and words
rising and falling in gentle
motion, gradually building up
new tones and rhythms.
Fraser, unamplified, is sur-
rounded by four loudspeak-
ers, tuned to her voice. As she
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023
sings, the loudspeakers gener-
ate their own layers of feed-
back. In this way, Newton and
Fraser together create strata
of sounds – acoustic sedi-
ments, if you like – that float
in the performance space.
The resulting acoustic phe-
nomena produce slight beat-
ings and hanging tones. The
libretto is of slow words and
phrases taken from Carson:
‘all’ is stretched to the time of
a breath, other words slowly
combine to create lines that
are reminiscent of the textual
rhythms of Samuel Beckett,
or even more so, James Joyce’s
‘riverrun’. A second section,
approximately six minutes in
length, has crackling flashes of
sound that flare briefly as the
voice descends. The sounds live
and then they die, and we, the
listeners, become witnesses to
that process. Using headphones
offers the full, swooning effect
of this meticulous and gently
lovely recording. LOUISE GRAY
cloud horizons
Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening
(Resilient Records, CD, DL)
www.kathryntickell.com
++++,
The music of Kathryn Tickell,
composer and peerless small-
piper, has, on occasion been
called a clear example of
‘Northumbrian futurism’.
Which means what, exactly?
This, Tickell’s second album
with the Darkening (an archaic
word for ‘twilight’), offers
us some explanation. While
the composition is rooted in
British folk musics (as seen in
the instrumentation – fiddles,
clogs, lyres and sistrum
rattles), there is a curiosity as to
how folk music might be more
expansive rather than insular,
looking to history to create
new futures.
A prime example of this
method is the glorious ‘Cae-
lestis’. Its lyric comes from
scholar and guest musician
Stef Conner’s translation of
a Latin inscription left by
Roman legions near Hadrian’s
Wall. The legionnaires, from
present-day Syria and Libya,
invoke a ‘Syrian goddess’,
MIXED MEDIA
Reviews editor: Conrad Landin
GEORGIA CLAIRE
as well as bringing the god
Mithras with them. Tick-
ell’s music – pipes, anchor-
ing guitar and percussion,
a few electronics – creates
an atmospheric weave, over
which Conner and Amy
Thatcher’s vocals soar. A reel
and a ‘Clogstravaganza’ – fast
dance music that’s given some
effects as it speeds past – call to
mind Steeleye Span, but cloud
horizons really establishes
its own unique space in its
songs. ‘Long for Light’, voiced
by Josie Duncan and Conner,
is a statuesque progression of
rhythm and sound. Some of
its vocalizing is generated by
Conner’s ‘Vocables System of
Imagined Ancientness’ (she is
an expert on ancient Meso-
potamian music) that draws
from clusters of sounds found
in the family of Cumbric lan-
guages. The overall effect is a
deliciously warped chronol-
ogy that enriches the album
throughout. LG
77
MIXED MEDIA
G
enerally speaking, I am not a fan of
Brutalist architecture. I find it cold,
uninviting, even defensive. But Roger
Ballen’s newly opened Inside Out Centre
for the Arts is different. Standing on Jan
Smuts Avenue, in central Johannesburg,
the raw concrete structure on which Ballen
worked closely with renowned Brutalist
architect Joe van Rooyen gives nothing
away – in fact even the entrance is con-
cealed. Curiosity invites the outsider in.
The new gallery is a big deal here in
Johannesburg, as there is little public
funding for the arts in South Africa, with
this space sponsored by Ballen’s foundation.
‘The thing is,’ artist and photographer
Ballen says, ‘fine arts, sculpture and even
graffiti in South Africa are overlooked,
but that’s the same across the world, even
in what you might call “developed” coun-
tries. Generally speaking, here in Africa
most governments don’t see art as a pri-
ority because investment in the arts does
not lead to votes.’
End of the Game is the gallery’s inaugural
exhibition. It’s a collection of photographs,
early film reels and installations which give
a hint of Ballen’s dark, incisive wit.
Poorer districts in Johannesburg are
subject to ‘load shedding’: intermittent
power blackouts introduced for energy
conservation. Wealthier residents
harness solar power, but the gallery
is partially lit by the sun as well as an
electricity supply. I am greeted inside
by ‘King of the Jungle’, a majestic taxi-
dermy lion who appears to be roaring
with laughter. Standing on his hind legs,
he holds the severed heads of his hunters
78
in what look like gift bags. Welcome to
the party. Your hosts: Africa’s Big Game.
Born in the US in 1950, Ballen settled
in Johannesburg in 1982, working in
mining before quitting to become a full-
time artist. He came to international rec-
ognition with ‘Platteland’, a collection of
portraits of South Africa’s urban white
poor, which exposed the failures of apart-
heid on its own terms.
He comes across as a thoughtful man,
tall but unimposing, as he leads me
around the space in easy silence. I am
glad he says nothing much about what the
installations are ‘about’, instead letting
me think for myself. The multimedia
exhibition includes other bizarre instal-
lations such as animals riding a merry-
go-round, a cheetah posing as a fashion
model, human mannequins desperately
climbing ropes to try and escape the
vengeful animals snapping at their heels.
There are photographs and footage of
recognizable faces. Winston Churchill,
President Roosevelt and King Edward all
pose proudly with their slaughtered lions,
elephants, rhinos, cheetahs and other
creatures. The deepest shame seems to
be in the horrified expression on each
and every Black African’s face as they
look on helplessly, commanded to carry
hunters’ artillery and drag the carcasses
back to camp.
I ask Ballen where he sources these
strange, sometimes decaying props.
‘Scrapyards, markets, old fairgrounds,
rubbish dumps, wherever I find them.
You know, these animals were slaughtered
mercilessly, just for fun. End of the Game
Words: Subi Shah
Photo: Paloma Palomino
gives them the last laugh, as power shifts
from the hunter to the hunted.’
Ballen explains: ‘The centre has a dual
purpose. One is to function as an educa-
tional space for lectures, workshops, dis-
cussion and the sharing and exploration
of ideas. The other is to showcase local
and international artists who are inter-
ested in the psychological and aesthetic
aspects of issues faced by Africa, such as
big game hunting.
‘A central challenge in my career has
been to locate the animal in the human
being and the human being in the
animal. The photographs I have taken
over the years represent the conflictual
relationship between civilization and
nature, where opposites attract and break
apart in a world built not on logic, but on
irrationality. Delirium, mirage, dreams
and nightmares coexist and cannot be
categorized as light or dark.’
The current generation of youth was
born after the end of apartheid. Later
that evening, I get talking to two bril-
liant young graduates who were excited
about Inside Out. Both are fizzing about
the burgeoning art scene in their city.
One, Mpho, hopes to be showcased at the
Inside Out Centre, while his friend Junior
wants to take an MA in Art History and
become a gallery curator.
Says Mpho: ‘This is the start of what
South Africa can be. Until now, we have
not been able to show the world who
we really are, to show that we are our
parents’ children and we are proud to be
Black Africans. Amandla Awethu!’ [Power
to the people!] O
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 ‘Delirium, mirage, dreams and nightmares coexist
and cannot be categorized as light or dark’

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 79
 THE The crossword prize is a voucher for our online shop to the equivalent of £20/$30. Only the
winner will be notified. Send your entries by 15 September to: New Internationalist Puzzle Page,

PUZZLER The Old Music Hall, 106-108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE, UK; or email a scan to:
puzzlepage@newint.org Winner for 263: Alistair Fortune, East Lothian, Scotland.

CROSSWORD 264 by Axe Lothian’s borders to Percy’s seat (7)

CRYPTIC ACROSS
6 Various sites, Byzantine, found in an old
communist state (6,6)
10 Citizens with other outsiders got out to
the south (9)
11 Cape’s part of cover defence (5)
12 English flower’s hue, looking back, you
and I see at the National Trust (7)
13 One’s at Scottish town, following
14 Half of Israeli port’s almost blown away,
stalking girl’s place in Iraq (2,5)
16 Japanese industrial site’s approval to
make a Mazda’s wings (7)
18 Close to Cana, doctor’s routine is one of
Canaan earlier (7)
20 They travel in Africa early Tuesday with
small American boys (7)
22 Ancient Briton is the first person to view
the joint, by the sound of it (5)
23 Australian’s lineage is found in Lincoln (9)
24 City on the Volga's made it – or did a
grim TV programme? (12)
CRYPTIC DOWN
1 Driving car about the old place, with
number being Central American (8)
2 State capital blunder in putting this in
pastry (6)
3 Piano flatters to deceive in naval battle
here (6,2,7)
4 Churchman, one who conforms around
sixth or so, of course! (7,8)
5 Ancient Greek port’s got a knack of
retreating into the Greek character (6)
7 Hard to leave place in Georgia for the
long grass (7)
8 First-class turnover in, surprisingly,
Aruba’s aid to a place in Asia (5,6)
9 Reduced county employs amateur
sleuth raised in the town (11)
15 Hindu-based religion one’s wrong to
write about in press (7)
17 Much of the Western hemisphere is man
trapped by one reactionary uncle (8)
19 Single woman of the Iroquois (6)
21 Pyrenean river, through time, runs at
first to the east (6)
QUICK ACROSS
6 Common name for the USSR (6,6)
10 Pyrenean Spanish- or French-speaking
people (9)
11 Cape’s part of cover defence (5)
12 One of four identically-named rivers of
northern England (7)
13 English town whose castle has been the
seat of the Dukes of Northumberland
since 1310 (7)
14 Holy city set in Iran with Babylon to the
north and Ur to the south (2,5)
16 Major railway junction of Honshu,
Japan (7)
18 Ancient Semitic nomad of the OT... (7)
20 ...and members of a nomadic Berber
people of the Sahara (7)
22 Ancient British tribe which
unsuccessfully rebelled against the
Romans in 60 CE (5)
23 Indigene particularly associated with
Australia (9)
24 Same-named cities of Russia and
Bulgaria – the latter for its first
communist leader (12)
QUICK DOWN
1 Citizen of Tegucigalpa (8)
2 State capital of South Dakota (6)
3 Site near 5 of the last-ever sea battle
(1571) to feature oar-power (6,2,7)
4 Autocephalous Eastern Church
developing from its beginnings in Kiev
in 988 (7,8)
5 Ancient Greek spelling of the largest
town of the Peloponnese, now Greece’s
third port (6)
7 Sub-Saharan grassland (7)
8 Asian country, the birthplace of Islam,
now ruled by a King and a Crown
Prince/Prime Minister (5,6)
9 Hertfordshire town where in 1066 the
Saxons formally surrendered to William
the Conqueror (11)
15 Indian dharmic religion like Hinduism
and Buddhism (7)
17 New World landmass, in its entirety (8)
19 Iroquois tribe and its language (6)
21 French département, préfecture Foix (6)
SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD 263
ACROSS: 7 Bayamo, 8 Ballarat, 9 Lac
Leman, 10 Utahan, 11 Matamata, 12 Ionian,
13 Lincoln’s Inn, 18 Landes, 20 Malegaon,
22 Peoria, 23 Umbrians, 24 Mafeking,
25 Toledo.
DOWN: 1 Hamadan, 2 Cagliari, 3 Noumea,
4 Claudius, 5 Bataan, 6 Caracas, 8 Bandar
Lampung, 14 Castalia, 15 Negrillo,
16 Lateran, 17 Tornado, 19 Durres, 21 Lobito.

ASSOCIATION WORDSEARCH 110

Solutions here are alluded to by ‘association’ words or phrases, eg Find the 15 New York
boroughs and
ICE as a solution could have association words like ‘melting (ICE)’ neighborhoods hidden here.

WORDS 31 or ‘(ICE) skating’, so the association words in each clue could appear
in a phrase before or after the solution word.
1 Grand; Of the Universe (7)
5 Reinvent the;
Of fortune (5)
8 Date; And sealed (7)
9 Face the; To one’s ears (5)
10 On the Bible; Black and
blue (5)
11 Magic; Jaw (7)
12 The Cat and the;
Wharf (6)
14 A sharp; Of guilt (6)
17 Massage; Games (7)
19 Sitting; And Drakes (5)
22 Over and; And
beyond (5)
23 Raining’s turned to;
A cab (7)
24 Upturned; Around (5)
25 Royal Corps of; the
all-clear (7)
DOWN
1 Autumn; Of time (5)
2 Pear; Of things to
come (5)
3 Roman; Piano
Concerto (7)
4 Side; Up (6)
5 Just Like a; Scarlet (5)
6 Middle; Front (7)
7 Driving; To Kill (7)
12 Team; Of Industry (7)
13 Edgy, extremely;
System (7)
15 Shotgun;
Breakfast (7)
16 Johannes; And
Liszt (6)
18 Sleep; To bowl (5)
20 All the tea in; Clay (5)
21 Kings’; Of Iceland (5)

SOLUTION TO ASSOCIATION WORDS 30

ACROSS: 1 Cats, 3 Bachelor, 9 Blister, 10 Table,
11 Asset, 12 Island, 14 Excess, 16 Scones, 19 Aboard,
21 Inner, 24 Lined, 25 Imports, 26 Catering, 27 Ohio.
DOWN: 1 Cabbages, 2 Trips, 4 Afraid, 5 Hotel,
6 Lebanon, 7 Reel, 8 Status, 13 Espresso, 15 Cabinet,
17 Crispy, 18 Adrian, 20 Adder, 22 North, 23 Alec.
SOLUTION TO WORDSEARCH 109
The 16 Capes were: Canaveral, Cod, Cretin, Farewell, Fear,
Good Hope, Horn, Kennedy, Leeuwin, Lookout, Orange,
St Vincent, Van Dieman, Verde, Wrath, York.

80 NEW INTERNATIONALIST
 AGONY
UNCLE
Struggling with an ethical dilemma? New Internationalist’s Agony Uncle
can help you find answers in our troubled political times.

Q: I’m working class and have recently

moved away from the city I grew up in,
as soaring rents meant I could no longer
afford to live there. But prices are rising
here too as incomers move in, many
taking advantage of new possibilities to
work remotely – and the resentment from
longer term residents about the way this is
changing the area is palpable.
Having experienced the effects of
gentrification first hand, I now find myself
on the other side of the divide.
Should I feel guilty? I never wanted to
become a gentrifier, but what can I do?
Out of Oakland

First, a question: what’s wrong with gen-

trification? Neighbourhoods change with
the times, and can one really complain
about a new deli on one’s street?
I say this not to be glib, but in order to
be more precise about what’s going wrong,
and how you can address it. The sociolo-
gist Ruth Glass coined the term ‘gentrifi- civic participation and job opportunities and take control of those things you can

ILLUSTRATION: EMMA PEER

cation’ in 1964, observing about boroughs
like London’s Islington that ‘one by one,
many of the working class quarters have
been invaded by the middle class… it goes
on rapidly until all or most of the working
class occupiers are displaced and the
whole social character has changed.’
Gentrification, then, isn’t just change,
but the permanent replacement of the
working class. And you don’t mention it
in your own letter, so I won’t presume,
but it’s worth noting that gentrification
in places like Oakland has a markedly
racialized dynamic, with majority white
tech industry workers edging out historic
Black and Latino communities.
The human consequences of gen-
trification are far-reaching. People are
forced to set up their lives and fami-
lies miles away from their roots, isolat-
ing them from their communities and
support networks. And because renting
a room in London or Los Angeles is a
prerequisite in all kinds of careers from
politics to the arts, the loss of afford-
able working-class enclaves means that
become the preserve of the wealthy.
This is no natural phenomenon: it is
achieved by eroding our social housing
stock, allowing the rich to hoard homes
as lucrative rentier assets, and removing
protections like rent controls and squat-
ters’ rights. It is a trend that will only be
reversed by mass action which secures
working class people’s right to the city.
Your first question is whether you
should feel guilty about your move. I would
point out that you are neither a winner nor
a loser here, but one of many who have
been shunted around by the vicissitudes
of the housing market, with no hope of
reversing this inexorable tide yourself. Nor
are you, I suspect, likely to move along and
live somewhere more ‘ethical’ on deeper
reflection. Not least because your apart-
ment would probably be snapped up
by another gentrifier quicker than you
could say ‘bone broth’, and nobody would
benefit! Do not beat yourself up for settling
somewhere that works for you.
But you should think deeply about your
own place in your new neighbourhood
change. It is possible to become para-
lyzed by guilt and shut yourself off from
those around you in embarrassment. That
would only worsen gentrification’s harms,
as you shut the door to your community
and accelerate the descent to an ever more
disengaged, isolated city. Instead, ask
yourself: how many neighbours would
come to you if they needed emergency
childcare or a ride to work? Do you even
know their names? How often do you shop
and eat at locally-owned businesses? Are
you plugged into local campaign groups
that defend tenants or push for progres-
sive housing policy?
Gentrification can feel like an unstop-
pable, faceless process. But at its heart it’s
about the displacement and disadvantag-
ing of working-class communities. What’s
done is done: now try to figure out how
you can help the community around you
and drive change towards a better city
and fairer housing. Try turning your
guilt into action. O
SEND YOUR DILEMMAS TO ADVICE @NEWINT.ORG

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2023 81
 WHAT IF…
WE WERE NOT SOCIALIZED TO BE MONOGAMOUS?
Bethany Rielly asks us to end our judgements over multiple partners.
On my aunt’s golden wedding anni-
versary I asked her what it was like
to spend half a century with one
man. ‘It’s been wonderful, and,
you know, I would have another 50
years,’ she replied. How beautiful
I thought, to spend a lifetime with
the person you love, weathering the
worries of the world side-by-side.
We rightly celebrate these
achievements of human love and
kinship. But what if we also gave
equal importance to other forms of
relationships?
The reason so many of us don’t
do this, perhaps, stems from the
way we’ve been deeply socialized to
believe that lifelong monogamy is
the gold standard. Modern culture
tells us to shape our lives around
one partner: our other half, our one
true love, our soulmate. This is reinforced
by incentives to couple up: married part-
ners enjoy legal and financial benefits not
available to those living outside the norm.
Meanwhile the nuclear family is still
widely considered optimal. But this
belief ignores the fact that the two-parent
dynamic is not a stable fixture in many
children’s lives. After all, how often have
we heard that famous statistic that half of
marriages end in divorce?
The unquestionable dominance of
monogamy leaves little wriggle room for
other ways to live and love, despite the
fact that subscribing to lifelong couple-
dom does not work for everyone.
And nor should it. Alternative rela-
tionships have existed in human societies
for millennia, and still do.
So what would the world look like
if society broke out of the monogamy
straight-jacket?
Consensual non-monogamy is the
umbrella term used to describe relation-
ships where people mutually consent
to having multiple romantic and/or
sexual partners, covering everything
ANDY CARTER
from swingers to polyamory – literally
meaning multiple loves. This is not to be
confused with cheating.
82
Today, interest in these alternatives is
on the rise, but they are far from being
universally accepted, and are often stig-
matized and misunderstood. Fear of
being labelled immoral, promiscuous, or
noncommittal prevents curious people
stepping outside the status quo, while
those in non-traditional relationships
often keep it quiet.
Reaching a point where relationships
outside the monogamy norm are consid-
ered as equally valid would first require
the dismantling of this stigma. We can
start doing this by looking at some of the
benefits of these relationships.
One study from 2017 found non-
monogamous partners scored lower on
jealousy and higher on trust than their
monogamous counterparts. Navigating
the choppy waters of multiple partners
requires people to communicate their
fears, desires, insecurities, vulnerabili-
ties and boundaries in ways that many
monogamous couples are unlikely to
have experienced. Through this process
people, especially in polyamorous rela-
tionships, speak of developing greater
emotional self-awareness and experi-
encing feelings of liberation. These are
lessons monogamous couples could
also benefit from to build health-
ier relationships through better
communication.
In this way could the acceptance
of non-traditional relationships lead
to a more empathetic society where
people maintain a greater sense
of independence? In a 2005 study
involving polyamorous women,
participants reported experiencing
a shift from living for other people
to living for themselves. Lifting
the intense pressure to couple up
would also free single people from
stigmatization.
Others suggest stepping outside
the norm could help challenge feel-
ings of possessiveness and owner-
ship in relationships. Kim TallBear
is a professor at the University of
Alberta’s Faculty of Native Studies,
and author of the Critical Polyamorist
blog. ‘I will not own my lovers, I refuse,’
she tells the All My Relations podcast. ‘It
is not my business who they look at and
who they like and who they desire.’
Her journey to polyamory was
driven by the need to undermine what
she describes as the ‘structure of settler
marriage’. Modern monogamy culture
emerged, at least in part, for economic
purposes, to control female reproduction
and appease male fears of paternity. It
was later spread across the Western world
by Christians, who imposed monogamy
on Indigenous communities, rooting out
native practices.
Looking at the roots of monogamy is
not a reason to oppose it, but it can help
us to recognize and deconstruct some of
the harmful elements of coupledom that
persist today.
If we are to embrace human diversity
in all its forms we must also accept that
there is not one set way to live and love. O
1 Terri Conley et al, ‘Investigation of Consensually…’
Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol 12, No
2, 2017, a.nin.tl/6 2 Elisabeth Sheff, ‘Polyamorous
Women, Sexual Subjectivity and Power’, Journal
of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol 34, No 3, 2005,
a.nin.tl/7
NEW INTERNATIONALIST
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The world is in the grip TWT this year will platform That’s what TWT is all about –
speakers building resistance from and that’s what we’ll be doing in
of multiple emergencies, Ireland, South America, Palestine Liverpool from 7th to 10th October.
and no one is coming to and more, all live in Liverpool.
We can only build a better
save us. If we want a better world, we have world together.
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But it doesn’t have and share strategies.
to be like this. We have to train, learn and
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celebrate together. We have to
imagine, demand and build a
world transformed.

theworldtransformed.org