6th March, 2021: The historic and globally recognized farmers’ movement, which entered into an electrifying phase with the ‘Delhi Chalo’ Call on 26th Nov, completes 100 days today. The movement continues to challenge the notorious ‘Three Farm Acts’ that would herald unprecedented levels of corporate control over agriculture, nullifying the mandi system, diminishing the significance of the Minimum Support Prices (MSP) and opening up the possibility of alienation of farmlands to big corporations. Landowning farmers, marginal farmers and agricultural workers, in particular women across all categories, stand to lose by these laws. In addition, this will lead to a general increase of dominance of big corporates such as the Adanis and Ambanis over rural governance and agriculture, enhancing the already existing “Company Raj”.
For more than 7 months, the entire nation witnessed farmers across the country on the streets, raising their voice against these laws that would permanently jeopardize their already precarious situation and also eventually disband the public distribution system (PDS). Diverse sections of civil society and concerned citizens extended support at many places. The farmers and farm workers of Punjab, a state which not only thrives on agriculture but also one that has a long history of farmer unionism have been leading since Day 1.
Under the leadership of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, consisting of over five hundred farmers’ organizations across the country, along with the All India Kisan Sangharsh Co-ordination Committee (AIKSCC), the farmers arrived at the borders of Delhi in late November, with thousands of tractors from Punjab. They staged historic sit-ins at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur throughout the cold winter months. The farmers have also staged roadblocks and rail blockades, peacefully and democratically to communicate their points to the largely unresponsive government and the middle-class power holders in India’s cities.
However, the Govt., continuing its anti-people and authoritarian approach, refused to listen to the farmers who complained that they were never consulted in the process of enactment of these laws, despite being the primary stakeholders. The Govt, its right-wing affiliates and lapdog media houses made multiple attempts to vilify the farmers’ movement, spread fake narratives, clamp down on the protest, inflict injury, undertake arrests etc. The Centre even imposed a de facto economic and transportation blockage of Punjab. However, none of these modes of repression worked in the face of the tremendous resistance of the farming-toiling class.
With their increased participation and leadership, the women farmers and elderly farmers also gave a befitting reply to the disparaging and misogynist comments by that CJI, asking why they were ‘kept’ in the protest. The central role played by women farmers in keeping the movement alive at the borders of Delhi, in the villages of Punjab and elsewhere is awe-inspiring.
Over the months, the movement snowballed across the length and breadth of the country, intensifying the demand for a complete repeal of the three Farm Acts and the Electricity Bill, calling for a legally guaranteed MSP for all crops, for slashing of diesel prices and the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee Report (in particular C2+50). The government’s refusal to accept the farmers’ demands, despite repeated meetings, eventually strengthened the struggle and over the last two months, the movement took wings throughout Western Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana and Rajasthan. Multiple maha-panchayats and rallies have been convened, in which lakhs of people participated, with the inspiring presence of women in some of them. Today, the protestors have blocked major roads leading to Delhi and resolved to continue their struggle till the demands are met.
As we extend our solidarity, we deeply appreciate the historic achievements of the movement so far. Within Punjab, it has been able to galvanize the non-farming sections and create a region-wide political churning against centralized pro-corporate Hindutva rule. The movement has brought back the “farmer” at the heart of the political discourse, as a category of people pitted against corporate rule. This is an important achievement in times when we stand in real danger of Hindutva-corporate rule being normalized.
Unsurprisingly, and significantly, such a political process has promised to heal the religious polarization in Western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had engineered through communal riots in 2013, from which it had reaped massive electoral benefits. The Govt was also forced to enter into multiple rounds of consultations with the farm unions, although it was never sincere in its commitment to understand and address the core issues. The pressure from the movement made the Govt announce shelving of the Electricity Amendment Bill and the Ordinance to ‘Check Air Quality Deterioration in NCR’, which sought to impose heavy fines on the farmers. Even the Supreme Court had to take cognizance of the protests and stayed away from interfering with the farmers’ right to agitate peacefully.
Recently, the movement has been able to enlist the support of several non-BJP political parties and the central trade unions – by extending solidarity to the latter’s stance against the Labour Codes – and joined the No Vote to BJP Campaign that has been going on in election-bound Bengal. In other words, the farmers’ movement has moved towards building a cross section social movement and weaved alliances with social movements, trade unions and political parties, in order to throw up a potent political opposition to the BJP’s anti-federal, Hindutva/corporate rule.
NAPM salutes all the farmers of the country and in particular those camping at Delhi for 100 days, braving the biting cold and the cold-hearted government. We respectfully remember each of the 248 farmers whose lives were lost in the past few months, only because of this callous regime. We firmly believe that it is high time the entire nation stood resolutely by the farmers who are fighting a crucial battle for the present and the future generations.
In solidarity,
National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM)
For further details, write to napmindia@gmail.com
The European Union has been keeping up appearances in encouraging the equitable distribution of vaccines to combat SARS-CoV-2 and its disease, COVID-19. Numerous statements speak to the need to back the COVAX scheme, to ensure equity and that no one state misses out. And EU member states could be assured of a smooth vaccine rollout, led by the EU apparatus, humming with needle jabbing efficiency. Negotiating as a bloc, lower prices could be assured, along with an appropriate supply of vaccines across the 27 member states.
These initial hopes have been shredded. While the vaccination programs in Israel, the United Kingdom and even the United States have gathered form and speed, it has stuttered and stumbled in the EU. The companies behind the vaccines have been patchy in their production lines. Authorities have put halts on jabs and in some cases, introduced rationing.
In January, the manufacturers of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine informed the European Commission that it would ship fewer doses to the bloc than originally understood. “While there is no scheduled delay to the start of shipments of our vaccine should we receive approval in Europe,” a spokesperson for AstraZeneca explained, “initial volumes will be lower than originally anticipated due to reduced yields at a manufacturing site within our European supply chain.” The initial cut in supply was dramatic: from the initially promised number of 90 million does, the number would be 40 million.
Stella Kyriakides, European commissioner for health and food safety, was indignant. Discussions with the company, she recorded on Twitter, “resulted in dissatisfaction with the lack of clarity and insufficient explanations.” Members of the EU were “united: vaccine developers have societal and contractual responsibilities they need to uphold.”
The company then promised in early February to make up the missing doses. In this, the EU was found wanting in its contractual negotiations with AstraZeneca. The EU-AstraZeneca deal, written in Belgian law, stresses the “best reasonable effort” of both parties to deliver the goods in question and acting in good faith. The UK-AstraZeneca agreement, written in English law, also contains the best reasonable effort clause, but features a toothier provision. Should AstraZeneca or its subcontractors be persuaded to do anything that might hold up the supply of vaccine doses, the UK government reserves the right to terminate the contract and invoke penalties.
The EU was left with essentially meek retaliations: withholding payments till the company coughed up promised supply, or till it assisted finding other producers who might make the vaccine. Tellingly, the EU had also waived its right to sue AstraZeneca in the event of delays.
The UK negotiators were also sharp enough to clarify the chain of supply (places of manufacture, for instance), putting the onus on the company to cover any unpredicted fall promised doses. The EU, in an act fit for commercial dunces, had tied itself in knots.
The AstraZeneca drama was but one in what can only be seen as a failure in manufacture, supply and distribution. Pfizer-BioNTech, having made a deal for the supply of 300 million doses with the EU, also saw reductions in their deliveries to enable its Belgium processing plant to increase capacity. In January, Italy was informed about successive reductions of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine: 20% and 29% in respective quarters of the month. The more granular picture was even more severe, with various Italian regions seeing a fall of 60% of doses.
This picture of struggle was repeated that same month in Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia and the Spanish capital, Madrid. Rationing of distribution was introduced by the Spanish government. Polish officials were sufficiently angered by Pfizer-BioNTech to threaten legal action.
Hungary, preferring a different, more unilateral way of coping with the shambles, approved the use of other vaccines otherwise held up in the queue of the European Medicines Agency. The vaccines from China’s Sinopharm and Russia’s Sputnik V have passed regulator muster, with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán himself receiving the former at the end of last month. “Without the Chinese and Russian vaccines,” the pugnacious populist reasoned, “we would have big problems.”
Last month, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was rather confessional in a speech on the failings of the EU vaccination policy. “We were late in granting authorisation. We were too optimistic about mass production. And maybe we also took for granted that the doses ordered would actually arrive on time.”
The European scene was ready for a more global brawl over vaccines and their shipments. On February 26, Italian authorities urged the European Commission to block 250,700 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine destined for Australia. The reason was put down to AstraZeneca’s failure to live up to expectations in supply and Australia not being a “vulnerable country”. The request was also based on the EU export control mechanism on COVID-19 vaccines, introduced in January with the intention to block exports of vaccines outside the union. “The objective of this measure,” came the European Commission’s justification, “is to ensure timely access to COVID-19 vaccines for all EU citizens and to tackle the current lack of transparency of vaccine exports outside the EU.”
Since its inception, the European Commission has proved slow on the draw; 174 authorisations for millions of shots to 30 countries have been granted. Set to expire on March 31, the European Commission is proposing the extension of this measure into June. Many member states approve. France even went so far as to publicly back Italy’s request. The country’s Health Minister Olivier Véran summed up the mood in an interview with BFMTV channel: “Believe me, the more doses I have, the happier I am as health minister.”
Germany also added its voice of approval. “In general,” stated German government spokesman Steffen Seibert, “vaccine exports aren’t stopped as long as the contracts with the EU are abided by.” Cattily, Seibert excused the EU’s regulatory restrictions by claiming that many “vaccines go from the EU to third countries, while nothing or almost is exported from the United States and Great Britain.” German Health Minister Jens Spahn was more reserved, warning that such moves could cause “problems in the medium term by disrupting the supply chains for vaccines”.
Australia’s protests were more of minor irritation than anger. Canberra had, according to Health Minister Greg Hunt, “raised the issue with the European Commission through multiple channels, and in particular we have asked the European Commission to review this decision.” Prime Minister Scott Morrison was even understanding to a point, acknowledging that Italy was seeing a death rate of 300 a day. Europe faced “an unbridled situation. That is not the situation in Australia.”
Vaccine patriotism was always going to surface to dampen any optimism on the part of public health utopians. Countries and self-interest come before the noble aspirations of humanity. The Director General of the World Trade Organization, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala laments that WTO members, to the extent they had “export restrictions or even prohibitions of these goods [vaccines]” were holding “back recovery.”
A great danger to the EU in this ugly affair will be whether certain nation states within the family will take its efforts in combating COVID-19 seriously. As shown by Hungary’s example, the bunglers in Brussels risk being ignored altogether.
As for the blocking of vaccine exports to third countries, Bernd Lange, the German MEP who chairs the European Parliament’s trade committee, is gloomy and regretful. The European export mechanism risked constituting a de facto ban. “Pandora’s box opened,” he wrote on Twitter in response to the Italian decision. “Mistake.” Imitators would follow, as could “fatal consequences on supply chains.” A global conflict over the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines is in the offing.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial. Somdeep Sen. Cornell University Press, New York. 2020.
A book that has a very narrowly defined title often fails to look at the larger context, either regional or global. In “Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial” Somdeep Sen succeeds surprisingly well in placing the struggles of Hamas/Gaza/Palestine well beyond the regional into a thought provoking global perspective.
What is missing from the title is one of his fundamental themes, that of liberation. Not only is Hamas caught between the anticolonial and the postcolonial, but the idea of liberation, of freeing Palestine from the Israeli colonial-settler context is also caught between the two ideas. In short, liberation is not a point in time, not a date in a history book, but an ongoing process that precedes that noted timeline and succedes the same.
Liberation then becomes not only just Palestine, but Palestine as a liberating idea within the global network of postcolonial acts of liberation.
Hamas
The focus is on Hamas, but does not cover its full history as a grassroots organization that in its early formation provided much needed social services to the refugees and victims from the 1948 nakba. Sen concentrates on Hamas’ current predicament of being both a resistance force to settler-colonialism and a governing force in an area nominally ‘liberated’ from Israeli settlements, while still carrying the burden of both forwards.
One of the more striking ideas was the concept that even as Hamas is criticized for its sometimes coercive and violent control of Gaza, those very acts create and sustain the idea of ‘Palestine’. The inhabitants of Gaza recognize Hamas not just as Hamas but as the government, as the nation – as Palestinian. Even earlier than Hamas’ takeover of Gaza’s government, Sen discusses the idea that the the postcolonial moment began with the Oslo Accords, and in spite of all its flaws and the poverty of its intentions, it put into writing the concept of ‘Palestine’ – undefined and subject to many onerous conditions, but still – Palestine.
Liberation in this context starts well before Oslo. Palestine has been seeking liberation since the end of World War I: first from the British empire and its League of Nations imposed mandate; and subsequently from Jewish settler-colonialism during the mandate and on into the establishment of Israel.
What is occurring in Gaza today is the ongoing struggle for liberation within both an anticolonial and a postcolonial set of ideas and actions:
“Hamas’ persistence with the simultaneous roles of resistance and assumption of governmental authority confirmed that the anticolonial and postcolonial can indeed exist in the era of colonial rule in service of the liberation struggle….[it] is also a microcosm of the entirety of the Palestinian long moment of liberation….it is the Palestinian coastal enclave that exemplifies the long moment before the withdrawal of the colonizer in its entirety, consolidated under a single leadership….”
“Despite the their faults and inadequacies, both resistance and governance somehow evoked the colonized’s retort, “We are here, we exist, we are organized”…And even though actual liberation is far from being realized [it] has already begun under the auspices of Hamas’ rule over Gaza.”
Global perspective and liberation
When Sen extends his arguments to global comparisons his ideas take on a more powerful significance. His arguments are well founded as he incorporates examples from around the world.
Sen’s correlations with other liberation struggles cover much of the rest of the world. South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Cuba, India, Ecuador, Algeria, and North America are mentioned in his discussions. Early in the work he writes “…characterizing the socioeconomic crisis as extreme overlooks the reality that the treatment meted out to Gaza is the norm under settler colonial rule.”
If I take my home country Canada as an extended example of North American settler-colonialism, all Sen’s arguments are applicable. Canada (and the U.S.) were attributed as being “empty land”, a “land without people.” The indigenous people were removed from the land by various devices – wars, starvation, forced removal – and the remnant populations were placed on “reservations”, the North American system of apartheid. Those that were not removed from settler society were subject to racist and discriminatory legislative and judicial action.
Physical genocide/ethnic cleansing was accompanied by cultural ‘cleansing’. The indigenous celebrations were forbidden (here on the West Coast, the tradition of the Potlatch was outlawed) and children were forcibly removed from their families in order to “civilize” the “savages”, without granting them even then the right of equality.
Under the concept of liberation, the indigenous people of Canada are still resisting colonization and all its depredations and are undergoing a “long liberation”, claiming their rights, protecting their land against militarized police forces, and still seeking equality before the law even as their inequality is written into the constitution.
Sen’s description becomes universal as in the end he suggests “that the nature of the (settler) colonial endeavor, and its ability to alienate their sense [of] self, is such that the struggle for liberation from the legacies of colonial rule may persist perpetually.” Society itself is changed, and the liberation process includes the adaptation to those changes, “the colonized are undone from their sense of self in a way that they do not have any memory of an identity sans the legacies of the colonization.” Society is changed, there is no reset button, liberation involves finding a national identity, part of that being “the national anticolonial struggle itself.”
Sen’s work, “Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial” is a powerful and well argued presentation on Hamas’ actions in Gaza. At the same time he very thoughtfully extends his arguments as being part of the global system of settler-colonialism.
These arguments my sound rather esoteric in light of the brutality and racist attitudes of the colonial projects around the world, but ultimately they find the truth: no person is free, no person is liberated until all are liberated, until all the constructs of colonial settler activities, all the racism, the economic dominance, the cultural denials are deconstructed and remade into a society that provides equality in all areas to all the people of the world. We are, in that sense, all Palestinians.
Jim Miles is an independent writer
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