Europe – Pike & Hurricane

The #strajkkobiet phenomenon

Ioana Pavel — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 17:11:08 +0000

The #strajkkobiet phenomenon in Poland is made up of two sides. The first can be grossly defined as the hundreds of thousands of women protesting and demanding unencumbered access to legal abortion, and the Government vehemently trying – and ultimately succeeding – to restrict this particular right. How is the phenomenon unfolding?

On October 22, 2020, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal imposed a near-total ban on abortions. The ruling allows for abortions in cases of sexual assault, incest or when the mother’s life in danger, but bans it in cases of fetal abnormalities, whereas around 96% of abortions in Poland have taken place in cases of fetal abnormalities. The ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) has been pursuing an agenda of restricting abortions since the beginning of its mandate, and has promoted it as a campaign promise. Since February, the decision has taken effect.

Both sides use human rights rhetoric to justify their positions. Government rhetoric argues that a human life must be protected from the moment of conception until death, citing the right to life as well as the freedom of conscience and religion, as protected by the Polish Constitution. Meanwhile, the protesters speak of women’s sexual and reproductive rights, arguing that the ban will not prevent abortions, but merely force women to seek them illegally. Beyond the approximate 1,000 abortions carried out legally, women’s rights groups estimated that 200,000 polish women still seek abortions either illegally. Those who can afford it will seek an abortion abroad. Those who carry out illegal abortions and those who aid women in seeking out illegal abortions risk a sentence of imprisonment for up to three years. About a dozen convictions of this kind take place annually.

A key player on the Government’s team is the Catholic Church, which supports the ban wholeheartedly. In 2015, 92% of the population identified as Catholic and 61% said that religion has a very high or a high importance in their life. Whereas the state and the church are by law supposed to be independent from each other, a Reuters analysis shows that priests have been known to display election posters on parish property and talk about the elections during mass.

Meanwhile, a key player on the protesters’ side is the European Union, which nonetheless has no competence to impose law on reproductive rights. It does, however, take a stand on the issue. In a 2020 submission by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the Commissioner found that “since 2014 almost 4,000 Polish doctors have signed a “Declaration of Faith of Catholic doctors and medical students regarding human sexuality and fertility”, through which they expressed their commitment to following “divine law” in their professional work and to reject abortion, contraception and in vitro fertilisation.” Whereas a doctor who signs such a declaration must refer the patient to another practitioner, in practice, timely access to an abortion is severely and systematically hindered. According to the same submission, in some areas and in some hospitals, virtually all doctors have signed such a declaration and women are forced to seek an abortion illegally.

The same report found that sexual and reproductive health is further dampened by a 2017 decision that the emergency contraceptive pill would be made available only on prescription, as opposed to over-the-counter. However, prescriptions are delayed by doctors who refuse to sign them based on the same freedom of conscience and religion clause, the long wait or the cost for an appointment, and the fact that minors need a legal guardian to accompany them when making such an appointment.

In a press release on November 26, 2020, the European Parliament has spoken out against the ban, citing that women’s rights were being violated and their lives were put at risk. The EP had found that access to prenatal screening, which could find fetal abnormalities and result in a request for an abotion, was being restricted by doctors using the conscience clause. Meanwhile, Poland has announced that it plans to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, wherein member States of the Council of Europe vow to “protect women against all forms of violence, and prevent, prosecute and eliminate violence against women and domestic violence”, on that grounds that the Convention imposes “a leftist ideology”. It is up to the same Constitutional Tribunal to review the Istanbul Convention and make a final decision.

Meanwhile, the #strajkkobiet phenomenon is not about a protest against one particular ruling by the Constitutional Tribunal. The phenomenon is about a system of oppression that pushed women to break the law in order to have access to the same rights that other European Union countries choose to protect. Women who do not have the means to go abroad for an abortion will end up getting an illegal one. The lucky ones will be under some kind of medical supervision. Those without that option will go for an at-home improvisation that will, in some cases, be fatal. The #strajkkobiet phenomenon is about a system of oppression that left women with no choice but to protest.

Related articles:

The legality of abortion

Photo credits:

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Nowhere to Stay Home

Maya Diekmann — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 19:03:56 +0000

It is a challenge to find positive side-effects that a deadly global pandemic may bring to the world. With so much uncertainty, pain, fear, exhaustion, and death immediately surrounding us every day, the silver linings are hard to spot. Often, these silver linings turn out to be temporary: Healthcare workers that reaped applause from the balconies of this world several short months ago, are now expected to treat the organizers of anti-lockdown demonstrations with the same means as someone who has, for the last ten months, tuned down their personal whims in favour of a safer and more effective pandemic response. Those states that once delivered personal protection items and financial aid to less well-equipped parts of the world, are now hoarding vaccine doses that don’t even exist yet. How can you see the opportunities that an economic crisis might bring for the implementation of a promising European Green New Deal, if you have just lost your job and don’t know how long you can provide dinner for your family? How can you see some of the most effective responses to homelessness in years, while simultaneously so many people around the globe are pushed to their existential minimum, to the brink of losing their own homes?

The ones who cannot stay home

Upon giving out their first lockdown orders, many European governments quickly realized that to stay home, one must have a home to begin with. In one of their most rapid homelessness policy executions in years, the UK’s government ordered for almost 15,000 persons without permanent shelter to be relocated to empty hotel rooms, student dorms, and vacant housing. Similar governmental projects have been undertaken in France, Australia, and the U.S. In Germany, where coherent nation-wide policies on homelessness solutions not just during the corona pandemic are sparse and slow, non-governmental organizations have taken the lead when it comes to organizing hotel rooms for persons in need.

The message conveyed by a response such as the U.K.’s makes apparent how far policies to combat homelessness, provided they are backed up with sufficient funding, can come. Yet, it is also obvious—and so it has been for years for those engaged with this issue—that one emergency response upon another is not enough to overcome the issue once and for all. The urgency with which the matter has been addressed during times of crisis needs to become a new normal, if homelessness is to be confronted successfully.

Addressing homelessness is as complex as the diversity of the problem’s root causes. Among the main factors that push people on the street are stagnant wages and unemployment, matched with a lack of affordable housing and healthcare, discrimination, domestic violence and family problems.

4 Million people in the EU are homeless, 700,000 people sleeping rough every night—a figure that has increased by 70% in the last ten years alone. The disproportionate development of housing prices and inflation rates on the one hand and minimum income on the other put more and more individuals inside the EU in precarious situations. Over the past 10 years, the EU consumer price index (CPI) has increased by about 15%—inflation that remains unmatched by the increase in minimum wages, averaging 4.4% in the same time span. On top of this, housing costs in major European cities are skyrocketing: Rent has increased by 35% in Barcelona between 2010 and 2018, by over 50% in Paris between 2004 and 2019, and by over 70% in Berlin between 2004 and 2016.

Housing is becoming an especially disproportionate burden for low-income earners: In 2018, over one third of those households at the risk of poverty in the EU spent 40% of their income on housing. This makes livelihoods extremely prone to economic hardships—such as unemployment, furlough, or short-time allowance. U.K. authorities are gloomily predicting that “as many as half a million households could be at risk of homelessness once the full economic impact of the coronavirus is realized.” In other words: Mix unaffordable housing with a weakened economy, as we see it in times of the corona pandemic, give it a good stir and you have the perfect potion for a very real crisis.

The case of Vancouver provides a tragic example of the damage such an explosive cocktail of unaffordable housing and stagnant income can cause. The cut of governmental support for housing in the 1980s kicked loose a wave of homelessness that even caused the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UNCESCR) to urge the Canadian government to declare the situation a national emergency. Within three years, between 2002 and 2005 the number of those without shelter in the Vancouver area nearly doubled, from 1,121 to 2,174. While the growth has been significantly slowed down since 2005, the trend has not yet been reversed and the most recent count in 2019 marked a peak of 2,223 people living on the streets of Vancouver.

In Canada, emergency responses, such as overnight shelters, have long been at the centre of homelessness management. While indispensable to addressing the issue, they are no sustainable solution to combat it in the long run. Unconditional access to permanent housing, known as the Housing First approach, has been identified as a key contributor to improve the situation of homeless people and communities in Vancouver. The Vancouver at Home (VAH) study, investigating a Housing First trial among homeless adults suffering from mental illnesses, has found that Housing First as compared to standard responses “produce significant benefits for participants, improve public safety and reduce the use of crisis and emergency resources.”

The City that Never Sleeps Rough

Similarly positive attitudes toward a readily accessible housing market are reflected by organizations around the world who stress that those provided with permanent shelter are more likely to seek help in other areas of their lives, too. One of the flag store implementations of the Housing First approach can be found in Finland: by investing over 250 million euros into affordable housing and support workers, the Finnish state, together with regional and non-governmental actors, has one of the most successful homelessness response mechanisms and prevention systems in the world. As a result, Finland is the only EU member state in which numbers of homeless are decreasing, with its capital Helsinki having virtually eradicated rough-sleeping.

While there are multiple success stories of individual cities’ and regions’ approach to homelessness—such as that of Trieste in Italy tackling homelessness by improving its mental health care system—the only lastingly effective approach is a systematic one. Only with common standards within a given state, or even beyond, can homelessness be eradicated once and for all. And what better way to create common standards than through common institutions? In a resolution from November 2020, the European Parliament urges the EU and its member states to end homelessness by 2030. While a detailed agenda is yet to be published, the Parliament recommends better access of homeless individuals to the labour market and healthcare, and a shift of focus from emergency responses to Housing First and prevention mechanisms. Concerning the latter, they recognize the pressing problem of unaffordable housing in European cities and announce a proposal to guarantee more inclusive housing markets. It might be just another policy proposal. But at least it is the long-overdue first step towards solving a problem that has been invisible, yet ever present on the horizon, for so many years.

In the summer of 2020, Barcelona cracked down on companies owning vacant apartments in the city by implementing a law that would allow the city to buy empty apartments at 50% of market values. In an unprecedented effort to create affordable housing, local authorities presented companies with an ultimatum of either renting out available apartments within a month or be subjected to compulsory sales at the described conditions. Paris, where as of 2017 over 26% of apartments are vacant, is imposing harsh fines on apartment owners breaking rules for Airbnb rentals, which “encourage property speculation and reduce the housing available to residents.” Berlin has implemented a temporary rent freeze for the year of 2021 and a permanent rent cap that regulates the allowed increase in rent in the following period.

The author Jonathan Safran Foer once wrote: “It’s always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.” The pandemic has unleashed a crisis on so many different levels, producing so much noise that it becomes difficult to decide which problem to focus on first: healthcare professionals—to mention just those essential workers most immediately linked to the question of life and death—are ridiculously underpaid and undervalued, yet they remain equally taken for granted. Shutting down an entire economy, or at least having it run on low power mode to unburden healthcare workers, threatens the livelihoods of small businesses and their owners while feeding into the hands of enterprises. Limiting children’s right to education—while absolutely necessary when classrooms become a turnstile for a deadly virus—bears and exacerbates immense inequalities in opportunity. Living in a city and losing one’s job in the middle of all this very easily becomes an eviction notice. But all this noise, as overbearing as it might be, has also opened many eyes. We have to keep treating the invisible crises that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light with the urgency they deserve. We have to make sure that people can stay home. We must not go back to sleep.

Related articles:

Such a big world and still not enough space to live?

Photo credits:

By The Humantra on Unsplash

“On the scrapheap”, by Jon Berkeley on behance, CC BY-NC 4.0

“Balconies”, by unitednations on Unsplash

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Eternal Putin

Maya Diekmann — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 18:33:49 +0000

How does one leave the Kremlin after nearly two decades in office? And can one leave it gracefully and even more importantly—perhaps—alive? Russia’s Vladimir Putin has little to learn from his predecessors. Of the nine de facto Russian leaders since Lenin, five died in office, two were more or less officially exiled and eradicated from the Russian political scene, one became one of “the most reviled men in Russia”, and the last one remains nothing but the drunk memory of Russia’s chaotic stumble into the 21st century. Putin, the founding father of post-Soviet Russia, surely has no interest in following in his immediate predecessors’ footsteps or becoming yet another Russian leader among many.

Till death do us part

Recent constitutional reforms in Russia, initiated by the president, have commentators pointing to the possibility that Putin might in fact be choosing the more popular mode of transportation out of the Kremlin—that is in a coffin. With the annulment of his presidential terms, Putin could seek reelection in 2024 and technically stay president until 2036, ensuring him a de facto presidency for life, given that the life expectancy in Russia averages 67.75 years for males—an age which Putin has already exceeded.

Putin’s legacy is withering away, unless he makes one of two decisive moves: Tightening his grip on power or—almost unimaginable—letting go.

But why go to such lengths of reforming an entire constitution to be re-elected president if playing a game of musical chairs with a designated side-kick, in Putin’s case Dmitry Medvedev, is just as effective? Unless, of course, the partner is increasingly weak and no longer suitable for the game, as Medvedev’s plummeting approval ratings after 2014, from which the former Prime Minister never managed to recover, indicate. Only after Medvedev resigned upon Putin’s proposition for constitutional changes, and Mikhail Mishustin assumed his position, have the approval ratings for the new Russian Prime Minister started to recover. Perhaps, Putin has found a new president-in-waiting in Mishustin. Though this still wouldn’t explain the constitutional reform.

More realistically, Putin may have realized that his own image might just never fully recover either, after the 2018 anti-government protests—least when the organizer of these protests and Putin’s main political opponent almost miraculously survives a “mysterious” attempted assassination. And only so many political opponents can end up poisoned before an explanation to the Russian people and the international community is inescapable. Approval ratings will unlikely ever reach those peaks of Putin’s early presidency and opposition is only likely to grow louder. In other words, Putin’s legacy is withering away, unless he makes one of two decisive moves: Tightening his grip on power or—almost unimaginable—letting go.

The last responder

If Putin does in fact want to be reelected in 2024, he needs to have sufficient support from the people of Russia, meaning he needs to stabilize his approval ratings. Those are in fact looking pretty stable—albeit not great—even if one accounts for a temporary corona-induced low. Yet, if he actually plans to retire, doing so with such mediocre ratings—a far cry from his heydays—would leave a bitter aftertaste for the man who has been ranked Russia’s second greatest leader after Stalin by the Russian people. Whenever and however Putin leaves the Kremlin, he will want to do so on a high note. Since Putin first assumed power he has only experienced two major crises in approval ratings—not counting the most recent one triggered by the Kremlin’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The first were the large scale anti-government protests between 2011–2013, that were, among others, motivated by Putin’s decision to run for reelection. It was essentially Russia’s suspiciously successful performance at the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi—cue: the 2017 documentary “Icarus”—that propelled Putin’s ratings back up after these protests.

The second were the large-scale anti-corruption protests against the government between 2017–2018 and although not immediately linked to Putin’s reelection, these—once again—occurred in the year of the Russian presidential elections out of which Putin would emerge victorious. Unfortunately for him, there were no more major sports events scheduled in the near future that could prove handy to Putin’s agenda. If the Kremlin wants to keep an already strained Russian population under control for the next presidential election—or even just until then—they need to find a remedy for the dissatisfaction. And how better to please the opposition than to give them what they have been asking for ever since the President circumvented the constitution in 2012: a Russia without Putin.

A Piece of Eternity

Enter the constitutional reform. However near or far the amendments project the end of Putin’s reign, it does project it. It is almost a guarantee for no one like Putin to ever happen to Russia again. And Russia was thrilled about that: A sweeping 78 percent of Russians approved Putin’s suggested reforms, even in a time where the President’s popularity itself was scraping at a corona pandemic induced near all-time low, and even at the risk that Putin might in fact run for another term. At least the end is in sight.

“But Putin’s reform might just prove successful, regardless of future presidential terms or even approval ratings.”

Had the corona pandemic not happened, Russians might have even been thankful enough for their president offering his own head, to spare some more positive opinions towards him, too. Then Putin’s master plan might have worked out––he could have left with a bang or ridden his wave of approval a bit longer. But Putin’s reform might just prove successful, regardless of future presidential terms or even approval ratings. In the end, the reforms have gifted Putin with one thing: He has enshrined his legacy—his rediscovered Russian greatness—into the heart of the Russian state, while ensuring that no president after him will even come close to this legacy. And that itself is a piece of eternity for Putin.

Related Articles

Freedom in the Russian neighbourhood

The Grand Chessboard 2.0

Photo credits

Kremlin, Luigi Selmi, CC BY-SA 2.0

Chris Liverani, Unsplash

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An Ideology of Selfishness — How Misinformation Propagates Inequality

Filip Zahariev — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 15:26:39 +0000

Since the 2010s, a sharp uptake in the levels of misinformation can be observed, in the push for so-called austerity, in the war on facts, in the bold attempts of different socio-political organizations to exchange fact for opinion.

The mechanisms of propaganda have mastered their most powerful array of tools yet––social media. That’s not to say misinformation hasn’t gone hand in hand with print media; it has walked hand in hand with factual information, since as long ago as the fifteenth century, when the printing press took off. In the intervening centuries, human society has, collectively, found ways to combat misinformation through methods of verification which, the hope was, the Internet would make foolproof. But rather than provide a higher standard, the rise of the Internet (and of social media, in particular) has seen the decline of hard journalism along with the printed press.

Nowadays, criticism is systematically dismissed as “fake news”––if not outright silenced––, no matter the source or topic it is aimed at. It would be easy to pin the blame on a name or on a score of them. Easy but misguided. The Trumps and Bolsaneros of the world are a symptom of an economic system at odds with itself, much like the ouroboros swallowing its own tail, at once hungry and suffering from agonising convulsions.

Marilynne Robinson, in a piece for the NYRB in June, “What Kind of Country Do We Want?” described this economic system as:

“…the snare in which humanity has been caught––great industry and commerce in service to great markets, with ethical restraint and respect for the distinctiveness of cultures…having fallen away in eager deference to profitability.This is not new, except for the way an unembarrassed opportunism has been enshrined among the laws of nature and has flourished destructively in the near absence of resistance or criticism.”

This is, Robinson writes, a “system now revealed as a tenuous set of arrangements that have been highly profitable for some people but gravely damaging to the world”. And not just the world––growing economic inequality is as high as it has ever been.

Inequality – A Cancer Eating Away at Society

Inequality affects “more than 70% of the global population,” according to a UN report, but nowhere is it more jarring, more on focus than in the richest, most powerful and prestigious countries in the world. To this end, it’s time to turn the reader’s attention to several recent developments, first in the USA and then in the UK.

Robinson describes the USA as “having been overtaken with a deep and general conviction of scarcity, a conviction that has become an expectation, then a kind of discipline, even an ethic. The sense of scarcity instantiates itself. It reinforces an anxiety that makes scarcity feel real and encroaching, and generosity, even investment, an imprudent risk.”

It is this sense of scarcity that drives society towards polarization, which Robinson in turn characterizes as “a virtual institutionalization in America of the ancient practice of denying working people the real or potential value of their work.” This institution couldn’t work without popular support. It is here that the mechanisms of branding––dare we call it by its non-politically correct name, propaganda?––enter into the scene. With them come their main beneficiaries, would-be demagogues whose interest lies in reinforcing the status quo.

Through the benefits of unified branding, large swathes of the population are persuaded to vote against their own interests. This branding rarely has a basis in fact, as is the case with perceptions of economic competence in the USA, for example. Every Republican administration from Reagan onward has overseen a recession, and every Democratic administration has overseen a strong recovery and an economic boom. Do Americans trust Democrats more to do a good job with the economy? On the contrary: the GOP enjoys a durable advantage, recently at eight points. The pandemic may agitate sentiments and approval numbers, but even in the chaotic era of President Trump, Americans irrationally trust in the GOP’s longstanding image as the party of practical, “fiscally conservative” businessmen who know how to run things efficiently and profitably. (Joseph O’Neill, “Brand New Dems?” for the NYRB)

This is no small feat of misinformation, but a wilful spread of what is equivalent to a mass delusion over decades. So, too, with migration; despite migrants performing jobs the vast majority of Americans do not want, their contribution to society is denied.

A Universal Problem

This is not a uniquely American issue, though the USA is perhaps the most extreme example––and the richest country in the world. If we turn to the UK, much the same can be seen, both in terms of a push for austerity and in the divorce from facts. For a decade now, British austerity has gutted the NHS (National Health Service)––in a time of a pandemic, the fault lines of this act couldn’t be more pronounced.

The “Leave” campaign was successful on the grounds of false claims, as well as racism and a perceived economic victimhood of the English (more so than any other group) at the hands of migrants. At the UK’s great economic loss over membership taxes to the EU, as well. Why is it, then, that British farmers were faced with the possibility of their harvest rotting, unpicked, on trees? This is an issue exacerbated by the coronavirus, certainly, but with its roots in the Eastern European migrant labour force that so offended English sensibilities, despite performing a job that no Britons are interested in.

And in February, Business Insider estimated that by the end of 2020, the British government will have spent £200 billion to leave the UK, more than all its payments to the Union over forty-seven years of membership. One cannot help but wonder what these funds might’ve accomplished, were they aimed at reducing economic inequality within the UK, rather than spent on a divorce bill.

What becomes clear through these examples––and many more like them––is that the drive towards ever greater profitability at the core of our economic system is not only flawed, it is a pandemic more deadly, more divisive than COVID-19 could ever be. Its tools seek to propagate an ideology of selfishness. And it is easy to drink its bitter message in. What’s required is only passive consent, a wilful lethargy, an unwillingness to look away from the screen.

Or… a different choice can be made. We can examine humanity through a prism not of its greed or rugged individualism, but through an outrage for the injustices embedded in our society, and most of all, through a shared human experience and selflessness.

Related articles:

A Stark Case of Propaganda

The Social Network of Ethnic Conflict

Photo credits:

Astroturf by hanne jatho, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

INEQUALITY by Teeraphat Kansomngam, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Paul Harrop / Poster site, New Bridge Road, Newcastle / CC BY-SA 2.0

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The legality of abortion

Elena Wasserzier — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 14:50:09 +0000

On the 28th of September, the Amnesty International Student Association of Malmö University hosted a movie screening about the fight for safe abortion rights in Ireland, since the date also hallmarks the international day of safe abortions. The association made use of the occasion to remind people all over the world of women’s reproductive rights.

Additionally to the movie screening, a song written by Robin Atiken about “the legality of abortion” was performed. The song renders facts that can be found on the official website of Amnesty International and it constitutes a display of circumstances and reality for women across the globe.

The lyrics are presented below:

The legality of abortion is seen as somewhat crude

but listen as I sing, it will help you out dude

A quarter of pregnancies,

end in this procedure

So take that at your leisure.

If safety’s your worry then listen don’t hurry

25 million unsafe abortions,

Are done each year

This whole issue brings me a harsh tear

It it were safe,

Women would be saved

Are you hearing me quite clear?

A medical error called

the “chilling effect”

Where the line of abortion is not

scientifically checked

Post abortion care goes down

That makes all of us some clowns

If you shun the operation

A stigma will be the occasion

Our culture will be shamed

And we’ll all be to blame

CHORUS: x3

Why fight?

It’s a woman’s right.

If you disagree you can choose as you please.

People are delusional, when they think we have already achieved equality in regards to the sexes. This is not the case and the world still struggles to change old patriarchal patterns towards equity and equality for all. Even as recently as 2020, reproductive rights remain a major element in women’s fight for equality in multiple countries across the globe.

As depicted in the movie “When Women Won”, Ireland has just allowed the right for safe and legal abortions in 2018, which is only two years ago. Before that, women had to travel to England, literally cross a country border, to receive a safe abortion and be able to decide over their own body and their reproductive rights. The referendum which was adopted on the 28th of May 2018, granted the repeal of the almost constitutional abortion ban.

This illustrates that the world is very far from the progress women’s rights advocates aspire to see. Literal baby steps are taken in regard to women’s reproductive rights, because Ireland is not the only country which is late in history. The USA, for example has shown in the last couple of years that history can also go backwards in its timeline, when a couple of states, e.g. Virginia, decided to ban abortions and to deem it illegal. When this did not work out completely, the state aggravated its abortion laws, which made it a lot harder for women to seek an abortion when needed.

However, Virginia was eventually sued over their unfair abortion laws by Planned Parenthood, Center for Reproductive Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. The lawsuit considered the following laws as “burdensome and medically unnecessary”:

Second trimester abortions must be performed in a hospital;

Abortions must only be performed by a physician;

Medical facilities providing more than four first trimester abortions per month must undergo strict licensing requirements;

Patients must undergo an ultrasound and counseling 24 hours before an abortion, requiring them to make two trips to a clinic; and

Abortion is a class 4 felony if the requirements are not followed

The plaintiffs claimed that “the Commonwealth of Virginia has spent over four decades enacting layer upon layer of unnecessary and onerous abortion statutes and regulations.”

The list goes on: El Salvador and Nicaragua, in Central America, still enforce discriminatory laws that ban abortions in almost all conditions. More than 40% of the world’s women in childbearing age live in countries where, abortion is medically either very restricted, not accessible at all or banned and illegal, with partly grave penalties as a result of violation of the law.

Related articles:

Politics of fertility

Politically conscious art as backlash: Amanda Palmer’s “There Will Be No Intermission”

Picture Credits:

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Victoria Pickering, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Freedom in the Russian neighbourhood

Maya Diekmann — Mon, 02 Nov 2020 11:01:11 +0000

“Eastern Europe is free. The Soviet Union itself is no more. This is a victory for democracy and freedom.” When US President George H. W. Bush, declared victory over the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991, after a Cold War that had nearly lasted half a century, he set the tone of what would become a given in Western understanding of history. The Soviet Union lost, communism lost, there is no longer any threat coming from the East. Just how wrong this framing of the end of the Cold War turned out to be, would slowly unveil itself over the years to come.

Of geopolitical disasters

Russia’s Vladimir Putin once called the dissolution of the Soviet Union “a major geopolitical disaster of the century.” What he referred to, was the fact that millions of ethnic Russians suddenly found themselves on foreign territory when the Union ceased to be in 1991. Time and time again this disaster turned out to be quite useful as an excuse for Russia to meddle with its neighbours’ politics. It even went so far as to inspire much of Putin’s speech to the Russian Federal Assembly that initiated the annexation of Crimea in 2014. No wonder that in other former members of the Soviet Union, where the integration of ethnic Russians has been rather draggish, fears of the big bad neighbour persist even almost thirty years after the Soviet Union disintegrated.

But would Russia really go as far as to annex a tiny peninsula home to roughly 1.5 million lands-people, despite being aware of the implications of such actions internationally? Of course not. The fact that Crimea’s inhabitants are mostly of Russian descent surely added a nice detail to the story, but ultimately Putin’s real asset on the peninsula were the deep, blue, and, most importantly, warm waters around it––the Russian naval base in Crimean Sevastopol, the only port that does not freeze over in the winter.

Which brings us to the real geopolitical disaster: Russia, like any other country in the world, is a slave to its own territory. There are some developments, which Russia is unlikely to ever accept. Losing the Ukraine would be one of them, and not just because of Sevastopol. Tim Marshall, author of the book “Prisoners of Geography,” writes that if Putin was the religious man he claims to be, he would pray for mountains in the Ukraine. Then, Russia wouldn’t have to worry about security threats from the West effortlessly cruising through the great corridor, the Northern European Plain, straight up to Moscow. Then, Russia wouldn’t have to worry about NATO at their doorstep.

Beware of NATO

And what a worry NATO is. Since its foundation, NATO has been a thorn in Russia’s (western) side. As an alliance created for the purpose of providing collective security against the Soviet Union, not even Mikhail Gorbachev, the ‘liberator’ of the East Bloc if you will, was particularly keen on having the pact’s forces anywhere near the Russian border. Moscow’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy declared that NATO expansion would make “the Baltic states and Ukraine… a zone of intense strategic rivalries.”

Fast forward three decades and we have an armed conflict in the Donbass region of the Ukraine. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has actually listened to the Kremlin’s threats in the 1990s. The case of the Ukraine is a difficult and complex one and it combines the worst of both worlds of Russia’s problems: A big share of its population consists of ethnic Russians and it is of immense strategic importance to Russian territorial security. This makes it virtually impossible for Russia not to act when it sees the Ukraine flirting with the West. With over 3,000 casualties, and roughly 1.6 million displaced persons, the war in the Ukraine and, in particular, potential Russian involvement cannot and must not be justified. But it can be understood. And to understand, we cannot ignore the behaviour of the USA, Europe, and the historic West.

New peace, old fears

Perhaps after the end of the Cold War, one could have attempted what Germany and France managed after the Second World War. A similar mutual distrust, exacerbated by the lack of natural borders protecting against invaders, had kept Germany and France at odds in a similar fashion that Russia is at odds with Western Europe today.

But even if the NATO powers had wanted to, Russia simply could not have been integrated in the existing Atlantic security system after 1991. As Richard Sakwa writes: “In structural terms, Russia was too big, too independent, too proud and ultimately too strong to become part of an expanded ‘West’.” And instead of reforming existing structures and actively seeking cooperation and compromise with Russia, building the ‘Common European Home’ that Gorbachev had envisioned, the capitalist West saw itself to have won the day, leaving Russia with an unjustified sense of defeat, a questionable new ‘Cold Peace’, and old fears of the Great European Plain.

With its continuing “triumphalism”, the USA would go on to unilaterally influence international politics like no other, ultimately turning Russia away from Europe and the West. Sakwa describes 2003 as the year in which Putin decided that US involvement in the Iraq War demonstrated the nation’s true ambitions, its expansionist policies, which were incompatible with his embrace of national sovereignty––a firm position Russia has kept until this day. NATO’s and the EU’s expansion eastwards were a confirmation to Russia of what they were already suspecting. The West was coming for their neighbours, and ultimately, for them. And when the West reached Ukraine, Russia pulled the emergency brake.

Freedom in the Russian neighbourhood

Even as recently as 2014, the USA remains convinced that Ukraine can be anything but Russia’s neighbour. “[T]he future of Ukraine must be decided by the people of Ukraine”, were US President Barack Obama’s words before unleashing sanctions on Russia which, together with those of the EU, nearly “brought the Kremlin to its knees.” But Russia has adapted to the sanctions and proved surprisingly resilient to the external pressure. Rather than forcing the Kremlin to obey, they have been, if anything, marginalized even more, once again turning inwards, relying on no one but themselves––and their Ukrainian buffer.

When we look at a map, one of the first things that stand out are the carefully carved lines that make the borders of a state. The end of the Cold War has added many new lines and shapes to the map of Eastern Europe, but it has not added a new topographical alto-relief, indicating the mountains that Putin keeps praying for. The stretch between Moscow and the Atlantic Ocean remains dark green, and, most importantly, flat. This means that Russia has to rely on other means of creating a defense line––its immediate neighbours. So, when Bush announced the end of the Soviet Union, what he meant was the end of an ideology, rather than the end of geopolitical power struggles. And when he called Eastern Europe “free,” what he meant was: “As free as one can be when sandwiched between Russia and the rest of Europe.”

Related articles:

Ukraine: Revolution of Dignity

NATO Membership: Better Defence at a Lower Cost

Photo credits:

Sam Oxyak, Unsplash

Марьян Блан (@marjanblan), Unsplash

Jeroen, Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

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Lessons on democracy: the blank vote

Merle Emrich — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 15:30:02 +0000

It is easy to claim that low voter turnout during elections is due to complacency, indifference and a lazy attitude of taking democratic rights and freedoms that others died, and are still dying, for granted. However, low turnouts, spoilt ballot papers and especially blank votes can be political statements in themselves.

Blank votes and democratic dissatisfaction

Who can be surprised by low turnouts, symptomatic for a lack of confidence in party politics, when policies do not overlap with rhetoric? When elections are presented as an opportunity to evoke positive change but positive change does not come. When the choice offered on the ballot paper seems to be that between plague and cholera. When people feel they need to vote tactically or that their vote does not count due to a winner-takes-it-all system or percentage barriers. Thus, low turnouts don’t necessarily hint at an increasing political indifference in Western society but at an increasing disillusionment with the representative democratic system as it is which makes people turn to informal rather than formal means of political participation.

This trend goes hand in hand with the increasing number of protests as well as blank votes. In the Spanish elections of 2011, 300 000 blank votes (ballot papers that have been left blank), 300 000 spoilt votes (ballot papers that have been filled in or submitted incorrectly) and 100 000 votes for the blank vote party Escaños en blanco (‘blank seats’) were counted which represents about 3 percent of the voters. In the second round of the 2017 French presidential elections 11.52 percent of the ballots cast, more than ever before, where either spoilt (3%) or blank (8.52%). As single cases they hint at the people’s dissatisfaction with the candidates in a specific election, when it becomes a trend it becomes evidence for more fundamental dissatisfaction with the system, says Chiara Superti (Columbia University).

Illusions of democracy

The solution certainly cannot be to brush of all those who do not vote or vote blank as indifferent or even undemocratic. Instead, non-voters, blank votes and spoilt ballot papers can offer insights into citizens’ political opinions. Lessons can be learned from them if we take a step back and reflect on our understanding of democracy.

In The UNESCO Courier sociologist Alain Touraine identifies two prerequisites for democracy: 1) freedom of political choice which makes possible a system in which power is distributed based majority decision, and 2) social conflict, for instance the workers’ movement. Granted, it would be a mistake to adopt a black-and-white thinking in which there exist only democratic and non-democratic systems instead of recognising the multitude of forms and levels of democracy. And, at the same time, if we critically inspect people’s freedom of political choice and democratic representation, we must admit to ourselves that our representative democracy is far from perfect.

In his video on democracy, the YouTuber Oliver Thorn (Philosophy Tube) presented a re-calculation of the Brexit referendum result taking into account the people who were not allowed to vote (prisoners and non-British residents). According to his calculation only 71.2% of the people who have an interest in the UK’s future were allowed to vote on it. Thus, merely 26.6% of the people living in the UK voted to leave the European Union. All debate about Brexit aside, it is fair to say that in this case, as in others, it was not a majority who made a ‘democratic’ decision. And even among those who are able to vote, the majority can overrule the voices of minorities and marginalised groups reducing the democratic system to democracy for the rich and the privileged.

The blank vote

Voting blank as political protest or statement is not a recent phenomenon. It can be traced back to the beginnings of modern Western democracy: in the 1881 French legislative elections around three percent of the votes were voided and in some areas up to 20 percent of the ballot papers were spoilt. Many of the comments that were scribbled on the ballot papers were written in a sophisticated language and showed an understanding of complex political concepts which suggests that the votes had been spoilt as protest based on an informed decision.

However, in many cases blank votes are not taken into consideration. In countries like the UK they are considered spoilt votes. And until recently this was also the case in France. Since 2014 blank votes are counted separately from spoilt votes but have no impact on the election results. Countries like Italy, the Netherlands, Costa Rica and Brazil have the same approach. Blank votes are in these cases merely symbolic. Yet, their recognition would have a real impact on election results. In 1995, Jacques Chirac would not have won the majority in presidential elections, and neither would have François Hollande in 2012, had blank votes been calculated into the election results.

Only few countries recognise the blank vote, and many of them not fully. In Sweden blank votes are only taken into account in referendums. And while Switzerland recognises blank votes, they merely have a noticeable impact in certain local elections since a relative majority is sufficient to win the presidential elections. In Spain blank votes are taken into consideration when calculating the participation threshold, yet only valid ballot papers are used to calculate the seat distribution in parliament. It is in Latin America where we can find countries that fully recognise the blank vote. In Colombia blank votes can invalidate an election making it necessary to repeat it. This second round, however, cannot be invalidated. Likewise, in Peru blank votes can bring about a repetition of the elections if they represent two thirds of the votes.

Recognising the blank vote

While the recognition of the blank vote might lead to voters favouring rejection over approval votes and a high number of blank votes might result in a political crisis, it can benefit democracy in many ways. It would not only better reflect the political will and opinion of the voters but might also lead to higher turnouts. The option of voting blank would provide additional incentive for politicians to present election programmes and policies that convince the voters rather than presenting nothing more than the lesser of two evils.

In countries like Italy, Chile and Colombia, Chiara Superti argues, often more votes are cast blank than are given to many minor or extreme parties that are generally considered the choice of protest voters. Politicians should see the blank vote as a sign of the people’s discontent before it augments to a level that erupts in widespread protests, says Olivier Durand, founding president of the Association pour la reconnaissance du vote blanc. He promotes the adoption of a system of recognition of blank votes in which a certain percentage of blank votes would lead to a third round in the French presidential elections with different candidates.

The debate on the recognition of the blank vote in France reemerged in the context of the Gilets jaunes movement. But its history predates the recent wave of protests. Since 1958 there have been 60 law drafts concerning the blank vote. In 2017, seven presidential candidates expressed their support for its recognition. And only Emmanuel Macron (La République en Marche), François Fillion (Les Républicains), Marine Le Pen (Rassemblement National) and Philippe Poutou (Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste) did not mention the blank vote in their election programmes.

The recognition of the blank vote might make elections more complex and complicated. Yet it might also make our democracies more democratic. And no matter which side we take in the debate on the blank vote, there is one thing at least that we can learn from it: democracy is not singular. Democracy contains multitudes of different forms and levels of democracy. It lives of constructive debates that do not hold on to the current form of democracy as the one truth, the ultimate democratic achievement but that are open to change in order to improve lived democracy.

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

What type of a democracy…, Tim Green, CC BY 2.0

Democracy, Nico Hogg, CC BY-NC 2.0

Brexit, Ungry Young Man, CC BY 2.0

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Organ donations: a second chance at life

Julia Glatthaar — Wed, 20 May 2020 09:28:51 +0000

“Helping others” is something a lot of people aim for, take pride in and get satisfaction from. There are so many projects that you can get involved in, you could start volunteering or donating to a specific organisation. It is exactly at this point where it is crucial to talk about how each and every one of us, through a single donation, could give another person a second chance at life. To be exact, one person could possibly save up to 8 lives and enhance 75 more. Living organ donors can donate a kidney, lung, as well as a portion of their liver, pancreas, and intestine. Deceased organ donors can give two kidneys, two lungs, heart, pancreas and intestines. Corneas, tissues, hands and face, blood stem cells, cord blood, bone marrow, blood and platelets can also be donated.

Organ donations through deceased persons has sparked much controversy. Each country has developed their own approach on this matter based on an opt-out or opt-in concept, trying to boost organ donations in the presence of ever growing waiting lists.

Opt-in or opt-out?

Countries, such as Germany, Sweden, and Brazil are using an opt-in system, relying on their citizens actively signing up for organ donations, This, however, can lead to individuals who would want to be a donor not donating (a false negative). Opt-out countries, for instance Sweden, Russia and Uruguay, consider all citizens to have agreed to be an organ donor, even though this can potentially lead to an individual who does not want to donate becoming a donor (a false positive). Every day various organs get harvested and planted, yet the waiting list is growing exponentially compared to the people donating organs, and every day people die waiting for a life saving organ.

A study by the University of Nottingham found that an opt-out system had a higher total number of kidneys, the organ with the longest waiting list, transplanted and a higher quantity of organ transplants in general. However, as mentioned above, organs do not always stem from deceased donors. And living donations are higher in opt-in countries.

This study may have impacted countries, mostly European, to make changes in their system. For instance, England changed to an opt-out system this March. In either system, family members still have the final word, and can even override their relatives’ decision to donate.

Getting personal

It may surprise you then that Sweden, an opt-out country, has one of the lowest organ donation rates in Europe. It is Spain, who has the highest organ donation rate in the world. Apart from utilizing opt-out consent, their success is based on measures such as a transplant coordination network that works both locally and nationally, a high quality of public information available about organ donation, and a focus on reaching out early to families of potential donors. Just by talking to relatives for 3-4 hours chances of organ donation triple.

When organs are rejected

Another problem is the lack of surgeons who are able to remove organs or tissue for donation. For instance, in the US, Roland Henry, a previously healthy person until the car crash, wanted his organs to be recovered and donated, yet t local organ collecting agency denied his wish. This is one of many examples where governments all around the world are letting usable organs go to waste due to a lack of communication within the different organ agencies, gaps in the medical system and a lack of overview and reporting.

Organ tourism and organ trafficking

These gaps in efficiency, when it comes to harvesting organs, are extremely dangerous to people on both sides of the spectrum. On the one hand, people on the waiting lists are dying, on the other hand organ donors are being exploited to the extent of death as well. An example of the latter can be found in the Indian state Tamil Nadu, where three out of four harvested hearts went to foreigners, mostly wealthy citizens of Western countries. And whilst the Transplant Authorityclaims that organs are only given to foreigners when there are no Indian citizens on the waiting list, it is difficult to overlook that the main obstacle for Indians seems to be to register and pay the necessary fees. Of course, Tamil Nadu is only a single center, yet it it is part of an overall problem.

The lack of organs and possibilities to pay high prices also leads to the phenomenon of organ trafficking. As of 2008, the WHO estimated every tenth kidney to derive from international organ trafficking, a business worth approximately 5 billion US dollars. There are stories of people selling essential and non-essential organs to pay debts, or to help their families. Moreover, they are difficult to confirm. As for the buyers, they are mostly sick and vulnerable citizens from the US, Western Europe, the Arab Gulf states, Israel and wealthy enclaves in the developing world.

As mentioned, particularly in Europe, states have been trying to combat waiting times, and with that organ trafficking and organ tourism, by boosting organ donations through opt-in and opt-out systems. In other countries, already a new medical definition of “death” could boost organ donation.

Brain death and cardiac death

Cardiac death, is typically defined as the moment when the heart has stopped beating or is beating too irregularly to sustain life. Brain death is the cessation of all brain activity, including all of the activity in the brain stem. Hence, with advanced technology, such as ventilators, the central body system (heart and lungs) can still keep the body running, whilst the person itself is no longer sentient. Therefore, in countries, such as Japan, Pakistan and Romania, brain death is not accepted by society and, often times, the medical sector. And this is a real struggle when it comes to deceased organ donation.

Here, in Sweden, brain death is seen as equal to cardiac death. Therefore, in the case of deceased organ donation, turning of the ventilator is not noted as the official moment of death, instead the date of the diagnosed brain death is registered.

Organ donation is something very personal, and maybe therefore still not talked about enough. It is important to speak to your family and friends about this subject and ask yourself the question of whether or not you want sign up for donation, stay the system, ot opt out.

by Julia Glatthaar

Photo Credits

Organ donation, GDS Infographics, CC BY 2.0

Organ trafficking, Glacomo Salicconi, CC BY 2.0

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Taking life in the name of ideology: Germany’s right-wing network

Merle Emrich — Sun, 17 May 2020 14:44:40 +0000

On 2 June 2019, the district president of the region of Kassel in central Germany, Walter Lübcke (CDU), was murdered. What was first suspected to be the crime of a lone perpetrator turned out to be the politically motivated killing of a man with profound connections to Germany’s right-wing network. What was long suspected by some, latest after the NSU (Nationalsocialist Underground) murders, and denied by others has become painfully obvious: 75 years after the defeat of the Third Reich, Germany is all but free of Nazis some of whom are willing to take other people’s life in the name of fascist ideology.

The assassination of Walter Lübcke

Almost a year after CDU politician Walter Lübcke was shot dead in his home, the federal prosecutor has filed charges against main suspect Stephan Ernst as well as his accomplice Markus H. Two weeks after the crime, DNA that could be traced back to Stephan Ernst had led to his arrest. Ernst confessed to the murder and stated that he acted alone. But then Ernst changed his lawyer to Frank Hannig, who is known to be part of the right-wing milieu by association with the Pegida movement, and withdrew his confession. He now claimed that he and Markus H. had intended to beat up Lübcke. According to Ernst, they got into a fight with the politician leading to Markus H. accidentally shooting him. Federal prosecution appears to dismiss the credibility of this second confession and views Ernst as the main suspect. But what were his motives?

In 2015, Lübcke spoke at a citizens’ assembly to inform the public on the setting up of a refugee centre close to Ernst’s home near Kassel. Members of the extreme right, including Ernst and Markus H., were in the audience and disturbed the event by making loud remarks on “the fucking state“. At some point, Lübcke seemed to have had enough and replied that whoever does not share its values “can leave this country at any time” which was followed by him being insulted as “traitor“. Markus H., then, uploaded a video of the event on YouTube resulting in several death threats by right-wing people against Lübcke.

Further aspects reinforce Ernst’s motive. He had made donations not only to the far-right AfD party but also to the Identitarian movement, and had spread hate comments online. He had been actively involved in the Hessian state elections by putting up campaign posters for the AfD, a party whose leading politicians frequently stand out through incidents such as describing Hitler and the NS regime as “bird poop in history” or being recognised as “fascist” by a legal court. Moreover, Ernst had been convicted seven times previously for serious bodily harm, attempted manslaughter and an attempted pipe bomb attack on a refugee centre. After his arrest for the murder of Lübcke two additional cases caught the investigator’s attention. Firstly, the attempted shooting of a teacher from Kassel known for his left-wing convictions in 2003. However, evidence is insufficient for the case to feature in the trial of Ernst. Secondly, a knife attack against Iraqi refugee Ahmed I. which might be relevant in court.

Deep into the brown bog

Not only is the murder of Walter Lübcke a politically motivated crime that sent ripples of shock throughout Germany, but it is also another one in a series of cases in which the German intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) appears to have either underestimated or ignored the threat of far-right terror. Since 2009 Ernst had no longer been in the focus of the Verfassungsschutz which had categorised him as inconspicuous, and neither was Markus H., despite all evidence pointing towards both of them being active in far-right circles. Even after 2009, both Ernst and Markus H. were present at at times violent Nazi protests, including the attack on a DGB (German Trade Union Confederation) protest in 2009 and the escalated protest in Chemnitz in 2018. And although questions on the exact details remain unanswered, both Ernst and Markus H. seem to be directly or indirectly linked to the NSU on whose death list the name “Walter Lübcke” had been found.

It is furthermore assumed that Markus H. acquired the murder weapon for Ernst, made possible by another failure of the Verfassungsschutz. Initially, Markus H. had been banned from owning a weapon due to his right-wing ideology and previous convictions i.e. for the use of an unconstitutional number plate and for shouting “Sieg Heil” and doing the Hitler salute at a pub in 2006. He filed a complaint against this ban and the court asked the Verfassungsschutz if they had information on Markus H. that would speak against him owning a weapon which they negated due to lack of knowledge about a document mentioning Markus H. hardly anyone had access to. Thus, Markus H. was legally able to purchase weapons.

In fact, Ernst might have been involved far more in the extreme right movement than anyone dared to imagine when he was first suspected of having assassinated Lübcke. Evidence, in form of a photo, emerged which suggests that Ernst is part of the militant Nazi network Combat 18 (by now illegal in Germany); founded in Great Britain in 1992 and taking root in Germany in the early 2000s as a militant branch of the Blood & Honour network whose members helped out the clandestine NSU terrorists. After the arrest of Ernst, right-wing extremist Mike S. posted a comment on Facebook in solidarity with Ernst: “I stand behind comrade E., in good times as well as in bad times.” Information published by Der Spiegel, including a photo taken at the pub Stadt Stockholm after a NPD protest in 2002, proves that Ernst was not only an acquaintance of Mike S. but that he was also in contact with Combat 18 leader Stanley Röske who is rumoured to have hosted NSU terrorists Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt at his birthday party in 2006. German intelligence and security services however don’t seem to show much concern due to this network which prepares for right-wing terror and a “war of races”.

Hannibal, Uniter e.V. and the Nordkreuz network

Two years prior to the assassination of Lübcke another case shed light on Germany’s Nazi network. During razzias in August 2017, illegally hoarded weapons and ammunition along with 200 body bags and death lists including about 5000 names of left-wing politicians and anti-fascist activists were found. None of the accused people were convicted for attempted terror, but merely for illegal possession of weapons. Among them are right-wing populist and lawyer Jan-Hendrik H. and (by now former) detective superintendent Haik J. who were investigated on suspicion of terror as police had found a police-internal ground plan of a local politician’s flat who was under police protection. Marko G., police officer for the State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) and temporarily the Special Deployment Commando (SEK) who himself was hoarding ammunition, took part in the trials solely as a witness.

What connects the people whose homes were searched during these razzias is that they were part of the Nordkreuz group – one of many chat groups that could be traced back to a man named André S. alias “Hannibal”. Reconstructed chat conversations revealed the content of its members’ conversations: assassination fantasies about left-wing people, sympathising with the NSU, references to Hitler having “fought hard for the German ethnicity”, their perceived threat of Russia, Islamist terror and refugees.

Members of both Uniter – a club founded by André S. – and the right-wing chat groups hosted by him include former and active police officers and soldiers. The aim of André S. appears to have been to build a network of soldiers, police officers and representatives of public authorities who fear that in the case of a catastrophe the state won’t be able to upkeep public order. One of their strategies is to build a combat force called “Defence”. What led to the unearthing of this network, that neither the MAD (Military Counterintelligence Service) nor the Verfassungsschutz seemed to have noticed or taken seriously, was the arrest of one of the chat group’s members, Special Force Command soldier Franco A.

In early 2017, Franco A. was arrested at the Vienna airport because he had hidden a gun there. During the investigations it turned out that he was registered as Syrian refugee “David Benjamin”, possibly as part of a plan to commit attacks which were supposed to be the starting point for right-wing riots ultimately leading to a coup. He also appeared to have been involved in a plan to free imprisoned Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck and to blow up the memorial for the Jewish Rothschild family in Frankfurt. Apart from a death list and the gun Franco A. had hidden at the Vienna airport, additional weapons – some of which had swastikas carved into them – and explosives, a manual on how to build a bomb, a guerilla guide which is popular among members of the extreme right and Wehrmacht relics were found in his possession.

A further alarming detail in the case is that Maximilian T., fellow soldier and friend of Franco A., worked as assistant of Jan Nolte, member of parliament for the AfD. His position granted him access to parliament without having to go through a security check, as well as access to, among others, the office of Green party politician Claudia Roth whose name had been found on one of the network’s death lists.

The Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt, however, dismissed charges against Franco A. for the preparation of a serious criminal offense endangering the State. Only Mathias F., another friend and army comrade of Franco A., was convicted for illegal possession of weapons but merely received a suspended sentence. Meanwhile, the German government continued to deny the existence of any kind of right-wing network and the connection between the individual cases. Furthermore, many questions remain unanswered, among them, why Franco A. had not been noticed before. After all, he had clearly revealed his right-wing ideology in his Master thesis in 2014. He had argued that immigration was the cause of a contemporary genocide of Western European peoples and that the Jews were to blame for it, and justified the use of violence in contexts of “protection of the identity of the own people” against “foreign elements”. Even though the German army was aware of Franco A.’s Master thesis, they merely classified it as a bad academic work.

The murder of Lübcke and the cases connected to the Nordkreuz network demonstrate that the failures of the Verfassungsschutz in the context of the NSU are not a single case, but rather a symptomatic and structural problem. In part it might be related to personal faults of the former head of the Verfassungsschutz, Hans-Georg Maaßen, who had speculated on videos of the right-wing mob that chased after foreign looking people in Chemnitz (2018) being faked, who accused the Left party of being “left-wing radicals” and Antifa as “extremists”, and who is now criticising mainstream media for calling out conspiracy theories related to corona and those who spread them. But to a great extent, the blindness towards far-right extremism of the Verfassungsschutz and the government, might be due to the intransparent structures and processes of the Verfassungsschutz which lead to the disappearance or almost complete inaccessibility of documents and thus people like Stephan Ernst falling under the radar, as well as an unwillingness to admit that there is the danger of right-wing violence and terror in Germany of all places.

“Offer for idiots” (left). “Brown politics in blue colour” (right).

Anti-fascism

In his book Paris – Boulevard St. Martin No. 11 German-Jewish communist and résistant Peter Gingold wrote: “The most meaningful and precious thing in German history is and remains the anti-fascist resistance.” In an appeal to the generation born after him to continue in the tradition of antifascist resistance and to act based on a sense of justice he confessed to having it found unimaginable that, after 1945, “the following generations would be – yet again – confronted with nazism, racism, with reviving nationalism and militarism.” And yet, augmenting xenophobic sentiments and nationalism, the presence of fascist soldiers, lawyers and police officers, the existence of Nazi networks in Germany and beyond speaks a clear language, pointing precisely to this unimaginable scenario.

Since 1970 more than 250 people have died due to right-wing terror. Yet, it was not until the NSU murders – due to their scale and the failure of the Verfassungsschutz to uncover the clandestine fascist network earlier and thus prevent deaths – and the assassination of Walter Lübcke – a white man and member of the German political elite – that focus fell on the continued existence of Nazism in post-1945 Germany both in international and national media, and politics. A profound examination of the structures of the Verfassungsschutz needs to happen and Germany has to increase its awareness of the uncomfortable truth of fascist terror. Yet, while politics and intelligence services remain (partially) blind on the right eye, the ordinary citizen can still do their part, whether individually or as a group, to stand up and speak out against racism, fascism, xenophobia and other forms of hate, injustice and discrimination. And after all, antifascism, in Germany and elsewhere, does not start with the legal prosecution of those who have already committed violent acts. It starts with resisting and calling out fascist ideology already in its earliest stage.

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Identitären-Demo in Berlin, 17.06.2016, Tim Lüddemann, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Chemnitz: AfD-Trauermarsch und Gegenkundgebung (1), Tim Lüddemann, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Chemnitz: AfD-Trauermarsch und Gegenkundgebung (2), Tim Lüddemann, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Solidarität verteidigen – United against racism & fascism, Rasande Tyskar, CC BY-NC 2.0

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One country, many borders – an attempt to define Georgia

Nina Kolarzik — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 13:48:01 +0000

“Borders” imply one clear line. You are either in front of it or behind it. But in reality, borders are not that simple. They change throughout time. They follow different ways, depending on who you ask. They are multidimensional: cultural, physical, religious and linguistic. A web of borders can be found in the South Caucasus region. By looking at Georgia’s relation to Europe, this article shows that borders and identities are constructed.

One question to start: On which continent do you think is Georgia? On the Georgian tourist website the country is presented as European, based on the Caucasus as a European mountain range. At the airport of the capital Tbilisi you are welcomed to a European country. However, in the Central and West European public consciousness few would name Georgia as European. This question is not as easy to answer as it sounds at first and it is an issue that questions the nature of borders.

Considering Georgia

Georgia is a country located in the South Caucasus next to the Black Sea. Like other countries in the region between the European and the Asian continent, it faces the question of belonging and orientation. And this question is not simple to answer, since it depends on many different factors: politics and alliances, cultural influence and traditions and the will of the citizens.

Historically, Georgia was under both European and Asian rule. Geographically, the Caucasus Mountains are commonly seen as the Southeastern border of Europe, which means that Georgia is topographically located in Asia. Politically, Georgia orients itself on Western democracies. It is among others a member of the Council of Europe and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and is seeking to join the European Union (EU) and NATO. It also is part of the Asian Development Bank, but the ties to European states are closer. That counts also for the military sphere. The Rose Revolution 2003 marked the turn to a more pro-Western, Euro-Atlantic foreign policy. Culturally the country is closer to Europe and most Georgians identify themselves with Europe, not Asia.

I asked Georgians about how they feel about Georgia and Europe, and a man from Tbilisi told me: “Geographically speaking, the border of Europe goes on the south Caucasus. Historically speaking, few centuries ago we had strong connection with the European countries, even assigning their ambassadors; based on the ideology and Identity values, we are much more similar to Europe, rather than Asia. So yea, Georgia was as far as possible a part of Europe before and nowadays, indeed.”

However, Georgia’s culture has Asian origins as well and its music, architecture and food are a sign of this heritage. As it can be seen, Georgia is hanging in several dimension between the two continents.

Considering Europe

To know if Georgia belongs to Europe, we can turn around and ask where Europe ends. There is no universal definition of Europe but multiple interpretations. In geographical terms, we read about the Caucasus Mountains as its border earlier. In another understanding it is the river Aras, which would make Georgia part of Europe- which interpretation is the right one? When searching the history of Europe, it can be defined as building on the law of the Roman Empire and on Christianity. The Caucasus region was once part of the Roman Empire and they are some of the oldest Christian nations in the world. This again would imply the inclusion of Georgia to Europe.

After the Reformation, when Christianity, that served as a common ground for all the nations of the continent, became fragile, the name “Europe” became a diplomatic term. A term that did not include Georgia. The 17th century was a time of massive political changes on the continent: The Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia arguably define our political system until today. The new concert of European nation states had the chance to defend and prove itself in the continuous Ottoman wars. While at times, the Ottoman Empire was seen as a European power, increasingly a border was drawn by the European states to its “Eastern neighbours”. The absence of natural borders made Europe feel the need of differentiating itself from others, be it in cultures or religions. This made up over time an European identity in contrast to others, especially Asian and Arabian identities.

In the 20th century a political idea emerged that is still upheld in the contemporary EU nations. Two aspects made up a new European consciousness: “‘Europeanism’, the sense of belonging to a centuries-old civilisation, and ‘Europeism’, the perception of an urgent need to ‘build Europe’ to end war.” Out of this the European Union was eventually formed. Often, when people talk about “Europe” they mean the EU, which does not make things easier. However, even this clear defined political organization carries a similar struggle as does the continent: an unfixed territory and constantly shifting borders. How can Europe be seen as one entity, when its political borders have been changed several times and through expansion its former neighbours are becoming a part of it?

Contemporary Europe is strongly connected to values: “Europe ends where the perception of the values are different from the European ones.” These values can be adopted, which means that the European territory is still up to change and growth: “Every state of this region […] is also able to add something new to the idea of European values and is somewhat connected to those shared ideas.”

So what do we learn from this about Georgia? It does not explain why Georgia is often not seen as European in Central Europe.

Who is making borders and why?

When constructs, for example borders, are made, it needs to be asked who is behind the construction and for what purpose. The uncertainty of defining Europe is at least also an advantage for the nations that determine the “European identity” and the norms that others have to comply with. It makes the definition of borders a strongly political question, since it is the basis for the inclusion or exclusion of countries. This is visible in frequent debates about European expansion, especially in the debates about a potential EU membership for Turkey. The uncertainties about Europe also mean uncertainty for the South Caucasus countries. Projects like the Eastern Partnership develop European values and build strong economic connections between EU institutions and Eastern countries like Georgia or Moldova, which are both backed by Romania as potential future EU member states.

Another citizen from Georgia’s capital said about his country: “I guess it’s more Europe than anything else and the main indicator, I would say, is culture, which is deeply rooted in Christianity and it matters. As [a] counter argument, one could say that Ethiopia is also [a] Christian nation but the country is in Africa. But that is more aberration. And of course it’s [a] matter of politics – Georgians want to be Europeans (mostly) and as it is on the edge of the Europa, there is [a] chance that they will build up [a] European nation and state one day”.

Why decide? Say yes to Eurasia

Georgia can be seen as having a dual identity. Georgia “could fit into either Europe or Asia, depending on which definition you use.” But why is there the need to put it into one of the two boxes, why Europe or Asia? “Like all other Caucasian people, the Georgians do not fit into any of the major categories of Asia or Europe. The Georgian language is not Semitic, indo-European, nor Turkic.” We can also see it as Eurasian or Caucasian, as one of its own kind.

Many borders exist- in our minds, on paper, or even in the physical world. But do we need them? What do they mean in everyday life? Who makes the borders? Who profits from them? Which one is the right one? Are there natural borders? … The question of Georgia opened up more questions about borders than it answered.

by Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credits

European connections, TheAndrasBarta

borderland, Free-Photos

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