Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Protest at Russian Embassy, London (Thursday, November 29)
Protest at Russian embassy – defend democracy activists
Free Russian democracy activists!
Free all members of Pussy Riot!
End the Repression!
London Protest: Thursday 29 November, 6pm,
opposite Russian Embassy, north side of Bayswater Road, corner of Ossington
St (Notting Hill Gate or Queensway tubes.
Supported by Andrew Burgin, Ken Loach, John McDonnell MP,
Derek Wall, Anticapitalist Initiative, Independent Socialist Network and
Socialist Resistance
‘The continued oppressive treatment of dissidents makes a
mockery of the pretence that Putin’s Russia is a tolerant and democratic
country. I support the call for the immediate release of those imprisoned for
political engagement. The true patriots are those who fight to end injustice
and oppression in their homeland’.
—Ken Loach
—Ken Loach
What Goes On When Nothing Goes On?
Slavoj Žižek: 'What Goes On When Nothing Goes On?'
By Slavoj Žižek /
23 November 2012
[…]
So should the Palestinians stand idly while the West Bank
land is taken from them day by day? When Israeli peace-loving liberals present
their conflict with Palestinians in neutral “symmetrical” terms, admitting that
there are extremists on both sides who reject peace, and so on, one should ask
a simple question: What goes on in the Middle East when nothing goes on there at
the direct politico-military level (i.e. when there are no tensions, attacks,
negotiations)? What goes on is the incessant slow work of taking the land from
the Palestinians in the West Bank: the gradual strangling of the Palestinian
economy, the parceling of their land, the building of new settlements, the
pressure on Palestinian farmers to make them abandon their land (which goes
from crop-burning and religious desecration up to individual killings), all
this supported by a Kafkaesque network of legal regulations. Saree Makdisi, in Palestine
Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation, described how, although the Israeli
occupation of the West Bank is ultimately enforced by the armed forces, it is
an “occupation by bureaucracy”: its primary forms are application forms, title
deeds, residency papers, and other permits. It is this micromanagement of daily
life which does the job of securing the slow but steadfast Israeli expansion:
one has to ask for a permit in order to leave with one’s family, to farm one’s
own land, to dig a well, to go to work, to school, to a hospital ... One by
one, Palestinians born in Jerusalem are thus stripped of the right to live
there, prevented from earning a living, denied housing permits, and so on.
Palestinians often use the problematic cliché of the Gaza Strip as “the
greatest concentration camp in the world”— however, this designation has come
dangerously close to truth. This is the fundamental reality which makes all
abstract “prayers for peace” obscene and hypocritical. The State of Israel is
clearly engaged in a slow, invisible process, ignored by the media, a kind of
underground digging of the mole, so that, one day, the world will awaken and
realize that there is no more Palestinian West Bank, that the land is
Palestinian-frei, and that we can only accept the fact. The map of the
Palestinian West Bank already looks like a fragmented archipelago.
At times, the State of Israel has tried to contain Israel’s
excesses, as when the Supreme Court ordered the evacuation of some settlements
in late 2008, when illegal West Bank settler attacks on Palestinian farmers had
become a daily occurrence. But, as many observers noted then, these measures
cannot but appear half-hearted, counteracting a politics which, at a deeper
level, is the long-term politics of the State of Israel, which
massively violates the international treaties signed by Israel itself. Netanyahu
is proceeding full steam ahead with plans for new illegal settlements, despite
widespread international condemnation. The reply of the illegal settlers to the
Israeli authorities is basically: We are doing the same thing as you, just more
openly, so what right do you have to condemn us? And the answer of the state is
basically: Be patient, don’t rush too much; we are doing what you want, just in
a more moderate and acceptable way. The same story seems to continue from 1949:
while Israel accepts the peace conditions proposed by the international
community, it calculates that the peace plan will not work. The wild settlers
sometimes sound like Brünnhilde from the last act of Wagner’s
Die Walküre, reproaching Wotan that, by counteracting
his explicit order and protecting Siegmund, she was only realizing Wotan’s own
true desire, which he was forced to renounce under external pressure. In the
same way, the illegal settlers only realize the state’s true desire that it was
forced to renounce because of the pressure of the international community.
While condemning the openly violent excesses of “illegal” settlements, the
State of Israel promotes new “legal” West Bank settlements, continues to
strangle the Palestinian economy, and so on. A look at the changing map of East
Jerusalem, where the Palestinians are gradually being encircled and their space
sliced up, says it all. The condemnation of non-state anti-Palestinian violence
obfuscates the true problem of state violence; the condemnation of
illegal settlements obfuscates the illegality of the legal ones. Therein
resides the two-facedness of the much-praised non-biased “honesty” of the
Israeli Supreme Court: by means of occasionally passing a judgment in favor of
the dispossessed Palestinians, proclaiming their eviction illegal, it
guarantees the legality of the remaining majority of cases.
And—to avoid any kind of misunderstanding—taking all this
into account in no way implies any “understanding” for inexcusable terrorist
acts. On the contrary, it provides the only ground from which one can condemn
the terrorist attacks without hypocrisy.
[In this extract from The Case for Sanctions Against Israel, Slavoj Žižek inspects the stark reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict. As the world takes notice when missiles are fired, no liberal defence can excuse the actuality of the situation—that the Palestinians will not stand idly by while more and more of the West Bank is taken from them each day.]
[In this extract from The Case for Sanctions Against Israel, Slavoj Žižek inspects the stark reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict. As the world takes notice when missiles are fired, no liberal defence can excuse the actuality of the situation—that the Palestinians will not stand idly by while more and more of the West Bank is taken from them each day.]
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Golden Dawn: Fascists Feeding on Greece’s Misery
November, 2012
The Greek economy is in a depression. The austerity measures
demanded by the troika have made it worse. Nationally one in four Greeks are
out of work. Those with jobs fair little better: Greek bosses are determined to
trash conditions and drive down pay.
Greek workers are not just passive victims—they have been
fighting every step of the way. Greece has been rocked by massive general
strikes, rallies, and occupations. The crisis may be deepest in Greece, but the
resistance is fiercest.
But progressive struggle is only one of two twins that are
born in crisis. Reaction, too, has reared its head in Greece. Amid deprivation
and social decay, fascism has found new momentum.
In the June elections the Nazi party Golden Dawn won
eighteen seats and 7 per cent of the vote. In a poll published in November they
are now the third most popular party. Their electoral rise has been rapid—in
2011 Golden Dawn polled at less than 1 per cent of the national vote.
Officially, Golden Dawn presents itself as “nationalist”,
rather than fascist. But it puts little effort into maintaining this illusion:
their banner resembles a swastika; they make Nazi salutes at meetings and
rallies; and their leader—Nikolaos Mihaloliakos—praises Hitler and denies the
Holocaust.
Canadian Greeks Disavow Golden Dawn Extremists
By Christina Flora on October 20,
2012 In Politics
Greeks living in living in Montreal say they are worried and
disturbed by the recent appearance of the Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party in
Canada, shortly after it opened an office in New York as part of a plan to
reach out to the Diaspora for support for its racist, anti-immigrant, anti-gay,
anti-Semitic, anti-bailout, ultra-religious agenda.
Nicholas Pagonis, President of the Hellenic Community of Greater
Montreal, made his opinion clear: “Golden Dawn is a neo-Nazi party,” he said in
a phone interview. “It’s a racist party. It’s anti-immigrant and (the party in
Greece) has adopted violence as part of their activities.”
He said that his organization, which runs Greek educational,
religious and charitable institutions across Montreal, will be reserving a
special part of next week’s meeting to discuss the city’s chapter of Golden
Dawn.”Golden Dawn has no place here,” he said.
At the same time The American Hellenic Progressive
Association (AHEPA) disavowed Golden Dawn’s appearance in Canada. “Fascism has
no place in Canada, where people including Greeks fight against violence and
Fascism during Second World War,” it stated. AHEPA was founded 90 years ago to
protect people from rascist actions and conflicts caused by the racist Ku Klux
Klan in the U.S.
Golden Dawn takes advantage of recession ravaged Greece
Fascist gangs are turning Athens into a city of shifting
front lines, seizing on crimes and local protests to promote their own
movement, by claiming to be the defenders of recession ravaged Greece.
The undisguised extremism promoted by Golden Dawn is a
chilling watershed in Greece's post-war democracy
By Damien McElroy, Athens
7:00PM GMT 02 Nov 2012
Thugs wearing the black T-shirts of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn
party are carrying out attacks on immigrant markets and in public squares,
according to the United Nations, with victims speaking of areas in the capital
which are now strictly off limits.
Malik Abdulbasset, an Egyptian-born shopkeeper, found
himself the target of one of the mobs on Wednesday night after the barber
across the road was stabbed during a robbery.
Golden Dawn members led a crowd of enraged locals in a
protest on Mikhail Voda St that turned violent despite the presence of riot
police.
While no one witnessed the attack on the barber, residents
were adamant the assailant was black.
After battering his Egyptian assistant, the mob turned on Mr
Abdulbasset, who had defied police to keep his shop open.
"I had to turn and point to my Greek children
and my Greek wife and say, look I am Greek, we are Greek, if you want to kill
us we cannot stop you but you are killing your own."
The riot police watched on but did not intervene and threats
of more protests were pasted on nearby doors.
"I will not close my shop because it is not my fault.
But at the same time if something was to happen to my shop I will leave Greece
because I am not protected."
Ilias Panagiotaris, an MP for Golden Dawn, and a leading
party figure in Athens, was unapologetic about his group's methods.
"Most nations, well, not the US or Australia, have a
single nationality that defines its culture and Greece must return to this
ideal," he said. "The Golden Dawn is a very well organised party that
is intervening to support and help people. Without us in a country
where two million of ten million people are illegal, there
would be chaos."
Support for his party has doubled from the seven per cent it
received in the last Greek election, according to an opinion poll this week.
One of its main claims is it would dragoon immigrants on to
flights to Islamabad and dare Pakistan to shoot the aircraft down.
Mr Panagiotaris added the 'papers' of every Greek who had
acquired citizenship would be thoroughly vetted. "Everyone should have their
documents inspected and those that bought their papers expelled."
The undisguised extremism promoted by Golden Dawn is a
chilling watershed in Greece's post-war democracy.
Dimitra Xirou, the mother of Argyris Argyropoulos, the
stabbed barber, seethed with anger at the nearby hospital, while holding vigil
for her son.
The 43-year-old Mr Argyropoulos, came within an millimetre
of death when he was robbed for just 10 euros, with the knife just missing his
heart.
"It is us who have no one to protect us," Mrs
Xirou said. "We are hungry, we have no jobs, there is crime everywhere.
"It used to be one of the best districts of Athens and
now it is slum that we can't escape because the Pakistanis all come here when
they arrive in Athens."
While the attacks have not specifically been backed by the
powerful Orthodox Church, some priests have reportedly been involved in the
protests.
Metropolitan Omyotis Moiysides, the local priest in Mrs
Xirou’s Panteleiomon district, said the crime wave sweeping Athens as the economy
disintegrated was forcing residents to fight back.
“I understand why the people are crying for help. I was
pulled from my car and robbed,” he said. “The police do not come and stop these
crimes, so the people have to defend themselves.”
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