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F E AT U R E The dragon and the bear on the roof of the world Cash-strapped but strategically important, Tajikistan is undergoing rapid change with its future increasingly being shaped by a power play between China and Russia. Klas Lundström reports. Photos: Fredrik Lerneryd A young foreman from a construction They are handed back their cell phones of Stalin’. In 1961, with Tajikistan still site queues at the SIM-card desk of and immediately launch a frantic search 30 years away from independence from the glitzy Tcell shop in Tajikistan’s for a WIFI connection. The foreman the Soviet Union, the name was changed capital, Dushanbe. He’s well-dressed, herds them out of the store and across back in a wave of de-Stalinization. Today drenched in perfume, and trailed by the street to one of Dushanbe’s numerous Dushanbe is home to 863,000 people. three Chinese men, all eager to lay hands construction sites. on their phones again. In a remote corner on the top floor Urban makeover of a shopping mall, some of the Soviet ‘I’ve learned Chinese to communicate past’s heritage is being sold off at keen with the construction workers,’ he says. It’s obvious the city is shedding its skin prices. Paintings of Lenin, Stalin and ‘Most of them are from China.’ His nod and undergoing a rapid urban facelift. to his colleagues is politely returned, but The previous one started at the tail-end Top: Slim pickings: goats wait to head out to they seem more interested to learn about of the 1920s, after the Soviet invasion, graze in Alichur, a settlement of mainly Kyrghyz the status of their Tajik SIM cards. when Russian architects and engineers herders in the Pamir mountains. transformed Dushanbe (‘Monday’ in Bottom: A shopkeeper in Dushanbe with his ‘If you don’t pick up a few sentences, Tajik) from a sleepy market town with collection of Soviet paraphernalia for sale. you’ll have no idea if they’re badmouthing 5,000 inhabitants into Stalinabad, ‘City you behind your back,’ the foreman adds. 52 NEW INTERNATIONALIST



F E AT U R E One of many Chinese-funded construction sites in Dushanbe. Yuri Gagarin. Soviet medals, propaganda Nearby neighbourhoods are due to to 1997 which claimed 100,000 lives, banners and busts. ‘Mostly tourists come be torn down to make way for high-rise displaced a million people and laid here,’ says the vendor, a man in his seven- buildings. One is a family-run hotel, situ- industries to waste. The subsequent and ties. ‘Locals are interested in other stuff.’ ated along a picturesque back street. ongoing migrant exodus to Russia has become the difference between life and Outside the mall entrance, a spacious ‘We got a good deal, and I want out of death for numerous families left behind. constructivist-style avenue takes you this business,’ says the current manager. In 2021 alone, over a fifth of Tajikistan’s to Dousti Square (‘Friendship Square’). ‘It’s been many years of hard work and total population crossed the border into It’s no longer called Lenin Avenue, but little rest. Now, let’s see what happens Russia seeking work mainly within that named after Rudaki, the late ninth from here.’ country’s gig economy. This has given century Persian poet and literary pioneer. Moscow considerable political lever- As for the square’s Lenin statue – it was Zones of influence age over Emomali Rahmon, Tajikistan’s relegated to the backyard of the Art Fund. long-ruling, authoritarian president. The outskirts of Dushanbe are covered The threat that Russia could force Tajik A mere stone’s throw away, the foun- with cotton fields, stripped after the workers to return is enough to make him tain in front of the parliament building harvest. Locals gather remnants of the exercise caution – as is also the undesir- has become a sandpit: an indication of crop that the machines missed and fill ability of getting on the wrong side of what awaits the complex which still bears plastic bags. Heavy investment in indus- Vladimir Putin. the symbol of the Tajik Soviet Socialist trialized cotton farming has led to large- Republic. The Chinese Yanjian Group scale environmental damage, disrupted Moscow’s regional influence, however, will construct a new Tajik parliament, the freshwater systems and the destruction suffered a severe blow during the finan- Chinese government’s third-largest aid of more sustainable forms of agriculture. cial crisis in 2008, when the Russian project ever. ruble nosedived with a resultant financial ‘After independence, when the Soviet tsunami devastating Central Asian econ- Tajikistan’s quest for an independ- collectivization system was dismantled omies. Tajikistan’s need for fast cash led it ent narrative has led to the large-scale overnight, land became a huge busi- straight into China’s hands. demolition of cultural hallmarks such as ness and investment opportunity,’ says the Mayakovsky theatre, the panoramic Askarsho Zevarshoev, a Dushanbe- China seized the chance by grant- Jomi cinema and the Green bazaar, which based environmental consultant for the ing loans that the Tajik government had hosted a bustling Sunday market. Some of German non-profit PATRIP Founda- no hope of paying back. It’s a geopoliti- its vendors have moved to Mehrgon, the tion, which funds cross-border projects. cal shift that may be visible in Dushanbe new indoor market, but the vast majority ‘There was no land reform and all the in the shape of its rapid urban facelift, have disappeared without a trace, driven subsidies that people relied on during the largely paid for by Beijing. But it’s really out by higher rents. ‘At Mehrgon, every- Soviet era were gone.’ far away, primarily in the eastern Pamir thing’s much more expensive than it was Mountains, that China collects the bill.   at the old bazaar,’ laments a taxi driver. It is but one sign of a rocky economy ‘You might as well buy cheap Chinese that has been hit by several blows since In return for a debt write-off, Chinese goods at minimarkets.’ independence. First there were the mining companies have been granted ravages of a civil war lasting from 1992 54 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

Tajikistan In 2021, over a fifth of Tajikistan’s total population crossed the border into Russia seeking work. This has given Moscow considerable political leverage large concessions in ecologically delicate strong military presence in Tajikistan and have been marooned on the dark side of regions, where Tajikistan’s uranium and will build another border guard outpost the moon. The desolate stretches of the coal reserves have lain largely untouched in the country, its thirteenth since 2002. Pamir Highway are one of the conduits of since the fall of the Soviet Union. The China’s expansionist Belt and Road Initi- most blatant example of China’s grip on China has repeatedly dismissed any ative and the increasing traffic of Chinese Tajikistan is the 2011 handover of  1,158 suggestion of stationed personnel in migrant workers and trucks, albeit driven square kilometres of ‘disputed territory’ Tajikistan, but recently secured military by Tajik citizens, isn’t well-received by in the Pamir Mountains.  access to another Pamir Mountain base, a locals, who consider themselves pawns in former Soviet army outpost. This facility a modern version of the Great Game, now The Tajik Pamirs lie in the autono- is owned by Tajikistan’s special forces, but waged between Russia and China. mous region Gorno-Badakhshan. This paid for by Beijing. vast mountainous area spans over 66 ‘People aren’t too happy about the percent of the country’s total land Lost highway influx of Chinese goods and commodi- surface, but is home to only a small frac- ties,’ explains Askarsho Zevarshoev. tion of its population – just 200,000 From Alichur, a town with 2,000 inhab- ‘Tajik merchants and vendors, who make people. The best road leading there is the itants, mostly Kyrgyz livestock breeders, a living selling local goods, can’t compete fabled M41, better known as the Pamir the distance to Dushanbe is four times with cheap Chinese brands.’ Highway. more than that to the Chinese border. Here, the collapse of the Soviet Union is The stranded drivers extract cigarettes Today it is in disrepair, but was once compared to a fallen curtain that no-one from a flattened and dusty pack and try to an impressive achievement when in the has bothered pulling up again. light them. Brisk winds kill their matches. 1930s Russian engineers – in tandem with ‘Are there any other trucks coming from Tajik workers – brought infrastructure, ‘In the Pamirs, people got together Alichur?’ the driver asks. electricity, health centres and schools to as a collective to make ends meet’, says isolated mountain communities 4,000 Askarsho Zevarshoev. ‘Many isolated vil- Yes, there are, and with this news metres above sea level. lages have been severely hit by the total they return to their truck and lean over lack of investment from Dushanbe since the open engine lid. They lift their cell Trucks, Chinese-imported minivans independence, and they’re basically left phones towards the winter sky. It’s all in (often bearing fake Chevrolet logos) to take care of themselves.’ vain, there’s no signal out here. O and jeeps take turns to pass the narrow slopes, where tricky bends dangle above The potholed Pamir Highway splits KLAS LUNDSTRÖM IS A WRITER AND INVESTIGATIVE the Panj River, marking the border with Alichur down the middle. Large trucks REPORTER WHO FOCUSES ON ENVIRONMENTAL Afghanistan. rush by, en route to Dushanbe, with goods ISSUES, MINING, AND POST-WAR SOCIETIES. HIS WORK and construction materials destined for HAS APPEARED IN THE GUARDIAN, AL JAZEERA AND Historically speaking, it was here that the numerous Chinese-run projects. Most INVERSE, AMONG OTHERS. in the nineteenth century, the Tsarist set off from Kashgar, in Xinjiang, one of and British empires fought for domina- East Asia’s oldest cities and an important This article was supported by the Pulitzer Center. tion over Afghanistan during the ‘Great junction along the Silk Road. Game’. Today, with the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the Tali- One lies stranded with a flat tyre, ban’s subsequent return to power, this about a 30-minute drive from Alichur. area is of strategic interest to outside It tilts precariously on the sloping road. parties. It’s a geopolitical situation that The plates and three drivers are Tajiks, could well establish three nuclear powers but everything inside its red container on Tajik soil. is Chinese. Hailing a crowded minivan, one of the drivers asks: ‘Do you have any Russia, which has maintained strong room to spare? We need to hitch a ride military ties to the former ‘Soviet colony’, before it gets dark.’ They are tired, dirty is slated to pay for the construction of a and desperate. But when they realize new, yet undisclosed, border outpost. there are no spare seats, they merely nod Meanwhile, the United States maintains a in quiet affliction. They might as well MAY-JUNE 2022 55

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LGBTQI+ rights ‘As long as the world keeps running, we’ll be here’ Branded as terrorists by President Erdoğan’s hardline regime, LGBTQI+ people in Turkey are finding ways to express themselves and build solidarity, writes Tuğçe Özbiçer. A s my friends and I climb the old 2014, winning 51 per cent of the vote, the This solidarity appears in different staircase to a bar in Istanbul’s most populist chapter of his leadership forms: listening to each other’s troubles, vibrant Taksim district, I’m sur- began. It has been marked by attacks on being there for support when someone prised to hear the establishment’s name. minority groups and increased suppres- has suffered from violence, or sharing I thought Şahika had shut down but it sion of the political opposition in aca- creative work to help queer groups and seems my friends had just stopped going. demia, media and civil society. individuals to reach a bigger audience. ‘Queer managers took over,’ they explain, ‘so we have all migrated back!’ Istanbul’s annual Pride March has been ‘The solidarity in the LGBTQI+ com- running since 2003 and has been steadily munity made me the person who I am Passing familiar faces in colourful growing in popularity. In 2013, almost today,’ says Akış Ka, whose stage name outfits, laughing and kissing, we enter 100,000 people attended and by 2014 it comes from the word ‘Akışkan’, meaning a room overflowing with life. Akış Ka, a was the biggest LGBTQI+ event in Tur- ‘fluid’ in Turkish. drag artist, performs to a cheering crowd. key’s history. But in 2015 Pride was offi- People from the LGBTQI+ community cially banned by The Istanbul Governor’s Akış Ka points to the core of solidar- come here to be with each other as they Office, citing security concerns. Although ity and its importance on an emotional are, true to themselves, despite the hate it still takes place, the event is brutally level: ‘It is, first of all, being together. that the government spreads. attacked by police every year. In 2021, And crying together. It means the world. officers fired tear gas into the crowd and Crying with someone, for the same thing.’ In February 2021, president Recep around 20 people were arrested. Tayyip Erdoğan told the nation: ‘LGBT Stronger ties have been made with – there is no such thing.’ There are con- Making minority groups ‘enemies’ is other social justice movements. Co- tinuous attempts to exclude the LGBTQI+ a useful tactic for Erdoğan as he deepens operation between the queer move- community, as well as the feminist move- his grip on power. It’s a strategy that has ment, political parties, and human rights ment, from the public sphere. But in proved effective in the past. ‘AKP has been organizations increased in 2013 when underground spaces such as Şahika, it’s systematically violent towards Kurds, anti-government protests swept the clear that Erdoğan is wrong. Alevis, working-class people and women. country. These coalitions have made it The LGBTQI+ community is the easiest easier for the LGBTQI+ community to Erdoğan’s Justice and Development to attack. In a way it is mathematical: voice their concerns and demand rec- Party (AKP) has been ruling Turkey for individuals from all social, ethnic or class ognition and acceptance. ‘Suddenly we almost two decades now. Since a sweep- backgrounds can be united by homopho- were labelled a “threat” because we had so ing electoral win in 2002, the AKP bia and transphobia,’ Akış Ka says. much support and we were very visible. has slowly and meticulously made the Erdoğan’s conservative supporters were transformation from being a conserva- Crucial solidarity scared their children would also come tive rightwing party to becoming an out as gay!’ Akış Ka comments. authoritarian far-right regime. When In the face of increased oppression, soli- Erdoğan was re-elected as president in darity has grown, often fostered in spaces ‘Absurd and scary’ like Şahika. This solidarity is crucial Unstoppable: Celebrating Pride in central Istanbul for the LGBTQI+ community in Turkey In 2021, a six-month-long student protest on 30 June 2019, despite the ban on the event. where discrimination often begins within movement calling for the democratic the family and expands into all areas of election of a university rector turned MURAD SEZER/REUTERS/ALAMY the society. into a fight for LGBTQI+ rights, with many detained and arrested for offences MAY-JUNE 2022 57

F E AT U R E Turkey was ‘The judge asked me if I’m serving for charge them with “polluting public areas” ranked as having LGBT. As if being LGBTQI+ means that or “abusing public spaces”,’ says Keskin. Europe’s highest you belong to some kind of illegal organi- trans murder rate zation that you could serve for!’ explains In prison trans people face a double in 2016 Hazar. She was sentenced to house arrest punishment; if they haven’t had gender- for a month. affirming surgery they are held in soli- including ‘displaying rainbow flags’. tary confinement. Although it is legal to Students at Boğaziçi University The finger of blame apply to undergo gender reassignment whilst in prison the Turkish state will opposed the appointment, by Erdoğan ‘Attempts to present the LGBTQI+ move- usually refuse, illegally claiming that himself, of rector Melih Bulu. One of the ment as a terrorist organization have a lot ‘gender-reassignment surgery is a type of AKP’s parliamentary candidates in 2015, to do with the state’s increasingly milita- plastic surgery’. Bulu had remained a close ally of the rist, transphobic and homophobic ideol- party and the President. ogy,’ says lawyer and activist Eren Keskin, In 2018 Buse Aydin, a trans woman who is the founder of the Legal Aid Office inmate, applied and went through all the ‘Those who joined the protests are not Against Sexual Harassment and Rape in necessary processes to get surgery. She students,’ said Erdoğan in January 2021. Detention. ended up on a 38-day long hunger strike ‘This is something involving terrorists.’ for the approval of a human right that’s This terrifying trend is led by the covered in the 8th and 14th articles of the Hazar is an activist and artist from President but echoed by many others, European Convention on Human Rights. Istanbul and a former student of Boğaziçi including anti-LGBTQI+ ministers and Even after that, the Ministry of Health University. She was one of the founders of corrupt media platforms that continue to refused to cover the costs of the necessary BOUN Art Collective (Boğaziçi Univer- spread hate. surgeries. ‘After all Buse was forced to sity Art Collective) which, as part of the go through, she cut her penis in solitary protest, organized a campus-wide exhibi- LGBTQI+ people have even been confinement in 2019. With the incredible tion displaying over 400 works submitted made scapegoats for the Covid-19 pan- work of women’s and LGBTQI+ organiza- by artists across the world. demic. In April 2020, Ali Erbaş, the head tions, she finally had her gender-affirm- of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, ing surgery and the state covered the One piece entitled ‘Yılanı Güldürse- delivered a sermon in which he said that costs. She is happy now, recovering,’ says ler’ (To make the serpent laugh) showed homosexuality caused disease. ‘Let’s Keskin, Buse’s lawyer. a picture of Kaaba, the most sacred site in come and fight together to protect people Islam, with various LGBTQI+ solidarity from this kind of evil,’ he said. President Despite all the oppression that Tur- flags in each corner. Hazar says that con- Erdoğan backed him up, stating that key’s LGBTQI+ community has been servative students posted a photo of it on Erbaş was ‘totally right’ in what he said. facing, its existence is more visible than Twitter, saying ‘it is insulting Islam’. ever. Asserting themselves in various Erbaş was also massively influential state and non-state spaces, queer people Erdoğan divisively commented: ‘We in relation to Turkey’s withdrawal from continue to resist, especially through will lead our young people to the future the Istanbul Convention on Combating creative works and a growing arts and not as the LGBT youth but as the youth Violence Against Women in March 2021. culture scene in big cities. that existed in our nation’s glorious past.’ As the most comprehensive agreement Following him, interior minister Süley- to tackle gender-based and domestic ‘We’re expressing ourselves through art, man Soylu tweeted that ‘the government violence, it bothered some conservatives music, performance... We’re telling our would not tolerate the LGBT perverts who because it recognized the abuse of a own empowering stories out loud, writing attempted to occupy the rector’s office’. husband, boyfriend, father or a brother. our own history. If we don’t, then there will be no memory or evidence of a LGBTQI+ Hundreds of students were detained, According to Keskin, ‘Erdoğan’s govern- community in Turkey,’ says Akış Ka. including Hazar and six others from the ment and its supporters are terrified by the Collective. They were charged with ‘pro- feminist and LGBTQI+ movement because ‘Our stories inspire and empower voking the public to hatred and hostil- both are bravely fighting against so-called others. The state doesn’t support us, but ity.’ Hazar, who now lives in Berlin, was “traditional Turkish family values”.’ what can they really do? As long as the put on trial – a process she describes as world keeps running, we’ll be here. If we ‘absurd and scary’. At least 280 women were murdered in lose our hope for equality, justice and 2021 according to the ‘We Will Stop Femi- freedom, there is nothing to hold on to.’ cide Platform’ – the majority killed in their homes. In 2020, Turkey was ranked Turkey’s LGBTQI+ community is by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisex- more resilient than vulnerable. And, the ual, Trans and Intersex Association as the fight will go on. O second worst place in Europe for LGBTQI+ rights out of 49 countries. Turkey was also TUĞÇE ÖZBIÇER IS A JOURNALIST FROM ISTANBUL. ranked as having Europe’s highest trans SHE WORKED FOR SEVERAL TURKISH LEFTWING murder rate in 2016. NEWSPAPERS BEFORE MOVING TO LONDON IN 2020, Space for expression DUE TO THE INCREASED OPPRESSION OF THE MEDIA ‘Most of my clients who have experi- enced human rights violations are trans IN TURKEY. SHE COVERS MOSTLY LGBTQI+ ISSUES, people. Even when they are wander- ing the streets, police come to them and WOMEN, ARTS AND CULTURE, AND HUMAN RIGHTS STORIES. 58 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

VIEW FROM labour; mental and physical abuse. Mar- ILLUSTRATION: KATE COPELAND riages impose such burdens on women INDIA that they are often forced to leave paid words are from a written parliamen- work. Why do you think only 22 per cent tary response by a former Minister for Bring on the marriage strike of Indian women are part of the formal Women and Child Development. workforce? Let me begin with a cliché: at the pulsat- But marital rape is not just a concept ing centre of every Indian family are mar- While these men were foolish enough – it is a crime, a violation, sexual assault. riages. But who benefits from them? Apart to come out and tell the world that they While criminalizing it would neither from the wedding planners, caterers, want to preserve the right to rape their reform nor democratize the institution decorators and other related businesses, wives, our country as a whole has failed of marriage, it would at least bring in a the main beneficiaries of marriages in our to protect women from this form of semblance of accountability. country are – drumroll – men. physical and emotional violence, which is socially sanctioned and hence remains Here’s another cliché: Indian men So, it was quite amusing when a section hidden inside our homes. are entitled. And most of that entitle- of Indian men went on a #MarriageStrike ment centres around the skewed power earlier this year, even as a bench of Statistics back up this claim. The latest dynamics of their relationships with their judges were hearing public interest litiga- National Family Health Survey (2019) wives. Anything that threatens that power tions filed way back in 2015 that sought revealed that sexual violence by husbands centre brings out the fool in them. And a to criminalize marital rape. India has in India was 40 times higher than that per- fool will say or do anything – including strict anti-rape laws – but with an excep- petuated by other men. The percentage of outing themselves smugly as pro-rape, as tion that says sexual intercourse by a man married women in India who experienced evidenced by the marriage strikers. O with his own wife cannot be termed rape. physical, sexual, or emotional violence by This clears the path for men to get away their spouses was 31 per cent, while over 5 NILANJANA BHOWMICK IS A MULTI-AWARD- with sexual assault within marriages. per cent of women reported being forced into sexual acts by their husbands. These WINNING JOURNALIST BASED IN NEW DELHI. According to the male strikers, crimi- numbers are just what’s being reported – nalizing marital rape would leave men in a country where consent is often a fuzzy SHE TWEETS @NILANJANAB open to baseless criminal charges and concept, especially when it comes to con- make marriage a dangerous institution. jugal rights. But here’s the thing. Marriage is already a dangerous institution in India: for women. For years our government’s position on marital rape has been that it is an For a majority of Indian women, it international (read ‘foreign’) concept that means loss of agency, freedom and con- ‘cannot be suitably applied in the Indian fidence; intense emotional and physical context due to various factors like level of education/illiteracy, poverty, myriad social customs and values, religious beliefs, mindset of the society to treat the marriage as a sacrament, etc’. The quoted MAY-JUNE 2022 59

F E AT U R E Please continue to not sponsor this child It’s been 40 years since New Internationalist sounded the alarm on child sponsorship. But today thousands of people are still signing up to the idea. To whose benefit?, asks Kathleen Nolan as she explores why this quick fundraising tool is not all it’s cracked up to be. Did you know you can design your global fundraising machine. But in whose altruism... charitable gifts are shown own child? interests and at what costs? to be inextricably bound up in webs of If you visit the website of reciprocity and relations of power.’5 Take World Vision, Compassion Interna- I have been researching child sponsor- the practice of letter-writing between tional or almost any other child spon- ship since 2018 and my advice not to par- sponsor and child. Back in 1982, Stalker sorship agency, you will be greeted ticipate is typically met with blank stares remarked, ‘there’s nothing like writing a with an assortment of demographics to or with the retort: ‘Well, isn’t it better regular thank-you letter to keep you in select from – age, gender, country, even than nothing?’ Unfortunately, it’s not.4 your place’. birth date, if you have a special day in mind for your child’s birthday. At every Misguided motivation For some, motivation is tied up in step of the way, you will be assured that those glossy photos of children living in you are making a ‘life-changing con- Since New Internationalist sounded the poverty – images that tug at a donor’s nection that empowers the child and alarm on child sponsorship four decades heartstrings and pull them towards sat- their community for a future filled with ago, the more things have changed, the isfying the yearning for a personal con- opportunity’.1 more they have stayed the same. nection with the ‘other’. Carol Sherman, humanitarian and international develop- This ‘design your own’ approach to The same set of misguided motiva- ment consultant, describes the persua- child sponsorship has barely changed in tions for sponsors remains, the same sive marketing techniques used for child 40 years. lack of public education around issues of sponsorship as ‘much like those found on global poverty and inequity and the same online shopping sites or dating apps’.6 In May 1982, Peter Stalker wrote a level of denial of the role played by the powerful critique of child sponsorship Global North in (re)producing problem- There is a belief that child sponsor- for New Internationalist (NI 111). In it he atic historical patterns of thinking and ship, in some way, advances the project highlighted that while child sponsorship relationships. of ‘development’ – but that is a project might be an easy way to raise money, primarily framed by and for the North it was not such a good way to spend it.2 The reasons people become child to make the Global South feel the need to In 1982 there were ‘one million “foster sponsors are numerous, including donor ‘catch up’. parents” in the West,’ wrote Stalker. By guilt over their own privilege, the need 2022 the number has grown more than for a personal connection, the desire to Others are drawn to child sponsor- 10-fold, while the amount of money support development, or even a belief ship because they think it is an apo- raised in the name of child sponsorship that sponsoring a child is apolitical. litical way to help innocent victims of is estimated to be more than $3 billion People are also drawn to child sponsor- chronic poverty. Peter Stalker’s com- per year.3 It has become a highly effective ship for altruistic reasons. But, as geogra- mentary from 1982 is still relevant today: pher Francis Rabbitts observes: ‘Despite ‘[I]f you need to be inoffensive to the the common association of charity with 60 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

Child sponsorship ANDY K USING SHUTTERSTOCK powers-that-be, the chances of promot- producing any kind of long-term change. Plastered across the websites and pro- ing constructive change are not high.’ ‘Charity lets people off the hook by not motional materials of child sponsorship In this case, Stalker continued, ‘the best agencies are slogans like ‘make a differ- thing that the sponsor could do is keep requiring them to recognize their position ence’, ‘personally rescue’ and ‘save a life’. their $20.’ within a relationship based on power,’ says Yet, the materials seldom, if ever, provide Simon Granovsky-Larsen, international a deeper analysis of the interrelated injus- Off the hook? development scholar. Agencies do not tices and inequities, or the role played by encourage sponsors to examine their role the North in producing and reproducing What is often missing from child spon- in global injustice nor do they attempt to them. Instead, child sponsorship agencies sorship is the essential distinction reverse or undo the structural conditions continue to frame the ‘other’ as lacking, between charity and justice. By feeding that have produced it. Actions based on backward, inferior, and longing for the off sponsors’ emotions, agencies avoid justice, on the other hand, ‘require a dif- standards of the North. a deeper level of engagement with the ficult look at who you are, what your role issue of global poverty, while perpetuat- is in imbalanced relationships of power, A number of critiques of child spon- ing a myth that if we give $30 a month and how you can act (sometimes at a cost sorship refer to it as a form of pater- all will be well in the world. As a form to yourself) to undo the structural condi- nalism, racism or white saviourism. In of charity, sponsoring a child serves tions that have produced that injustice’, response, some agencies are striving only immediate needs, with no view to summarizes Granovsky-Larsen. to address these issues. For example, World Vision’s website includes a list ‘The marketing techniques used of frequently asked questions, most for child sponsorship are much emphasizing typical sponsor concerns about where the money goes and why like those found on online to become a sponsor. But they also shopping sites or dating apps’ include questions such as: ‘Aren’t there better ways to raise money for chil- dren in poverty, which don’t “reinforce paternalism”?’ The answer World Vision provides, however, fails to educate a potential sponsor about the complexities of global poverty or their role in it: ‘We wish the world was just and equitable, and that everyone had the same chances MAY-JUNE 2022 61

F E AT U R E to thrive. However, some of us have been with the government and local institu- ecological justice, democracy, citizen born into countries and circumstances tions to strengthen systems and policies, participation, and peace and reconcili- that give us advantages that others do rather than child sponsorship,’ argues ation, in addition to mobilizing Cana- not have.’7 Sherman. dians and educating them on the root causes of global poverty. ‘An analysis of To position the global poverty dis- Back in 1982, Peter Stalker grappled global poverty leads us to see the inte- course as simply a case of being fortunate with the issue of whether child spon- grated nature of the response that is or unfortunate utterly disregards the role sorship was ‘better than nothing,’ rec- needed [and to] seeing that the poverty played by the North in producing and ognizing that ‘there are people who of our brothers and sisters in the Global sustaining the conditions of the South, give to sponsorship agencies who would South is linked to systems that are also for example, structural adjustment pro- give on no other terms’. This led him to linked to our own wealth in the industri- grams, foreign policies, and global trade ask if child sponsorship aid could have alized world,’ explains Luke Stocking, a regimes. Viewing the global poverty dis- some role to play, despite its defects and deputy director for DPCC. course through a fortunate/unfortunate negative impacts. The answer, 40 years lens takes people in wealthier countries ago and now, is no – tinkering with We can support and act in solidarity out of the power relationship and repro- existing models is not good enough.9 with grassroots groups and campaigns duces problematic historical patterns of Although child sponsorship agencies for change around the world, while thinking and relationships.8 have evolved – from reconsidering letter putting pressure on our governments to writing, highlighting community work shape policies and laws. This can take a Child sponsorship is highly success- done with some of the funds raised, or number of forms: exercising one’s right ful at escaping questioning and reproach in a few cases by eliminating the ‘online to vote with a global citizenship lens; sup- because it is viewed as a ‘well-intentioned’ shopping’ experience of selecting a child porting NGOs which promote a change and benevolent act on the part of ‘good – programmes fail to be justice-orien- in foreign aid conditions; participating in people’ who want to ‘help’. Failure to ask tated. ‘Child sponsorship is never going civil engagement and divestment actions sponsors to think and act differently and to be the solution to the problem. And to make accountable those companies to challenge their present comfortable I think the faster we realize that, and engaged in extractive projects linked to role as well-intentioned, good people, is change our core assumptions, the better violence and harm in local communities an example of a problematic pattern of off we’ll be,’ urges sociology professor in the Global South. thinking. Peter Ove. Child sponsorship is a simplistic non- Orientating towards justice Instead, we need to take actions based solution to complex issues. Here, I return on global justice by engaging with and to the 40-year-old words of Peter Stalker: Before I began research into child spon- supporting organizations that run edu- ‘Alleviating the problems of the poor sorship, I was unable to articulate why I cation and advocacy programmes, is one thing. But solving them involves was uncomfortable with the idea. Several while raising funds to directly support much more difficult choices.’ O participants in my research study grap- the work of their partners in the Global pled with similar feelings. ‘We’re not South. For example, Development and KATHLEEN NOLAN IS A PROFESSOR IN THE FACULTY asking the right questions, and we’re Peace Caritas Canada (DPCC) works OF EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF REGINA, not doing the right thing. We should be with partners in the Global South on CANADA. HER INTEREST IN GLOBAL JUSTICE AND putting much more pressure on working INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT LED HER TO CONDUCT RESEARCH INTO CHILD SPONSORSHIP, SPECIFICALLY HER STUDY ENTITLED, ENGAGING THE PUBLIC IN CRITICAL AND JUSTICE-ORIENTED GLOBAL ACTIONS: MOVING BEYOND CHILD SPONSORSHIP (BEYONDCHILDSPONSORSHIP.CA). To position the global poverty The author wishes to acknowledge all the research discourse as simply a case of being participants who were interviewed for the research study named above. fortunate or unfortunate utterly disregards the role played by the 1 worldvision.org 2 Peter Stalker, ‘Please do not North in producing and sustaining sponsor this child’, New Internationalist, May 1982, nin.tl/stalker 3 Emily Buchanan, ‘Is child the conditions of the South sponsorship ethical?’, BBC, 9 May 2013, nin.tl/ethical 4 Kathleen Nolan, ‘Better than nothing? A review and critique of child sponsorship’, Research, Society and Development, 2022, nin.tl/better 5 Frances Rabbitts, ‘Child sponsorship, ordinary ethics...’, Geoforum, 2012. 6 Carol Sherman, ‘It’s time to end aid agency child sponsorship schemes’, The New Humanitarian, 20 April 2021. 7 wvi.org/child-sponsorship 8 Vanessa de Oliveira (Andreotti), ‘Editor’s preface “HEADS UP”’, Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices, 2012, nin.tl/heads-up 9 David King, ‘Kids in South Sudan await a daily meal...’, The Conversation, 4 November, 2019, nin.tl/tinker 62 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

SOUTHERN Highlighting the work of artists and EXPOSURE photographers from the Majority World Take that! A cholita wrestler sprays her male opponent with foam in El Alto, Bolivia. Cholita is a term referring to an indigenous Aymara and Quechua woman wearing the typical velvet tiered skirts and with long braided hair. Mexican photographer Rodrigo Cruz, who snapped this moment, writes: ‘Bolivian wrestling has become very popular thanks to the cholita wrestlers. Bolivia is a majority indigenous country but its cholitas have long endured racism and high rates of domestic violence. Such wrestling matches began here around 2000 as a gimmick thought up by promoter Juan Mamani, but quickly became a way for the women to take out their frustrations on the indignities they were suffering and to show they were as strong as men. The wrestling shows may have comic theatrical elements, but they also require constant training to perform aerial flights from the ring’s ropes and to withstand painful falls.’ The cholitas have broken free from Mamani’s monopoly on the matches and formed their own association which now also arranges bouts. rodrigocruz.com MAY-JUNE 2022 63

Anna Bill Claudette Danny Elsa Fred Grace Henri Ida Julian Kate Larry Mindi Nicholas Odette Peter Rose Sam Victor Wanda IMAGES OF HURRICANE BILL AND HURRICANE NICHOLAS BY THEAUSTINMAN USING A CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE CC BY-SA 4.0; HURRICANE IDA BY NOAA (PUBLIC DOMAIN); ALL OTHERS BY NASA (PUBLIC DOMAIN). Teresa

Human fragility and climate degradation Is it too late? As climate change stretches Back in 1947, a group of scientists awareness of its own frailty that is both human fragility towards associated with the Bulletin of refreshing and alarming. The situation breaking point, should we the Atomic Scientists started up cries out for modesty on our part, given be preparing for societal something called the Doomsday Clock the mounting discontents of the human- collapse? This is the to measure how much closer the human dominated Anthropocene era with its existential question behind species is getting to perilous catastro- addiction to growth no matter the cost to ‘ deep adaptation’, a theory phe each year. The original threat was our physical and mental wellbeing – to that is rapidly gaining nuclear war, and the clock was set at say nothing of the fate of other species. adherents. Richard Swift seven minutes to midnight – midnight assesses how far, if anywhere, being the hour of human annihilation. The new normal it will take us and what The clock has moved back and forth 24 better paths we could go times – further away after the end of the After all, it’s not like there is no evidence of down. Cold War, and much closer with increased impending doom – with extreme weather awareness of the inevitability of the events mounting year on year. In 2021 The 2021 Atlantic hurricane season exhausted climate crisis. Today it stands at just 100 alone, northwestern North America and the designated 21-name list of storm names, seconds to midnight. Australia have had a record rise in tem- the third time this has happened and the second peratures, resulting in alternating – and such season in a row after 2020. The total For most of humanity the idea of plan- equally deadly – wildfires and flooding. damage was estimated at over $80 billion. etary doom remains ‘incomprehensible’. Strange weather events like killer torna- Back in the day, ‘It’s the end of the world!’ dos have increased their range and inten- would have been a line you might have sity throughout the US midwest. Overall, found in cartoons in magazines like The July 2021 was measured as the hottest New Yorker. Some idiotic guy (women had month in world history. Floods in eastern better things to do with their time) with a Belgium and western Germany drowned long beard dressed in a white robe, car- 240 people and caused $43 billion worth rying a sign proclaiming our collective of damage – one of a record four $20 bil- demise. No more. In this era of Covid- lion-plus weather disasters in 2021.1 19 (with its toll of close to six million lives, and counting) death is never far As usual, the planetary crisis is at its from either the headlines or the human sharpest where human frailty and vul- psyche. Our usually rambunctious nerability join hands, by-and-large, in and self-assured species is showing an the Global South. It is difficult sometimes to identify the effects of climate shifts MAY-JUNE 2022 65

THE LONG READ and their impact on the all-important from Sudan in the east to Senegal in the There is no lack jet streams that shape weather patterns. west) which is overwhelmingly reliant on of evidence that In the industrial North we have, until vulnerable dryland agriculture. A recent not only are we relatively recently, been able to ignore study concluded: in a planetary them because change is incremental crisis of major and without significant disruption yet ‘In the Sahel more than elsewhere, proportions, of everyday life for most people. In the these natural disasters are degrading the but that those Global South, the problem is somewhat natural resources that are essential to least responsible the opposite. Disruption caused by vul- the agropastoral livelihoods that under- are bearing the nerability, whether it’s the food supply or pin the economy in much of the area… heaviest burden natural disasters, has been commonplace Under the combined effect of drought for decades. and floods, land is deteriorating and losing its fertility. Insufficient rain-fed But it is definitely getting worse. irrigation means that crops fail or are Extreme weather in 2021 brought together destroyed, while livestock struggle to find typhoons of record intensity hitting the water for drinking and sufficient pasture. southern Philippines (Ria) and southeast- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate ern Africa (Eloise), killing hundreds and Change (IPCC) predicts that agricultural displacing thousands. Then there was yields will fall by 20 per cent per decade the worst sand storm in a decade to hit by the end of the 21st century in some Beijing, making air in the Chinese capital areas of the Sahel.’3 almost unbreathable and calling attention yet again to the country’s dependence on Thus there is no lack of evidence that deadly coal. Add in flash floods in Asia not only are we in a planetary crisis of ($30 billion damage in China alone) and major proportions, but also that its effects runaway forest fires from Argentina to the are unevenly spread: with those least Amazon, and the picture is far from pretty.1 responsible bearing the heaviest burden. Consider also the longer-term persis- Power play tent threats to low-lying islands in the Pacific and Indian Ocean, and to heavily The billionaire class and the world’s populated Bangladesh at the head of the militaries are not without their climate Bay of Bengal – where agriculturally rich change contingency plans. The latter’s but storm-surge vulnerable delta land is are far more serious than the schoolboy under imminent threat. Estimates have fantasies of Bezos et al to escape to a ‘new it that one in seven Bangladeshis will frontier’ on their space ships. The Pen- be forced to relocate from coastal areas tagon has elaborate plans for defending due to climate violence. (The nearly 170 their system of 750 military bases spread million people of the country produce around the world, many of which, such just 0.56 per cent of the global carbon as those in Diego Garcia in the Indian emissions behind the inexorable sea rise.) Ocean or Guam in the Pacific, are under This is not an event of the distant future immediate threat from the deteriorat- either – in 2020 one of the fiercest storms ing climate. In case of actual conflict – ever to come from the overheated waters the most recent being unleashed upon of the Bay Of Bengal, Cyclone Ampram, Ukraine – the acceleration of climate pounded India’s Bengal coast, south of collapse is a virtual certainty. During the Bangladesh, killing nearly 100 people and 1991 Gulf War, oil well fires contributed causing some $13 billion of damage.2 more than two per cent of global fossil fuel emissions that year. Then there is the population of the Sahel (a region spanning 13 countries There is a ‘primal link’ between the military and the fossil-fuel industry. In 66 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

Human fragility and climate degradation the US, the armed forces alone account largest impact of climate deterioration Washington DC, Beijing, Moscow or Brus- for more than a fifth of energy consump- is seen as something that is happen- sels – have more to do with maintaining tion. Indeed, the US is burning fossil fuels ing ‘over there’ to ‘other people’, mostly position and power than saving the planet. at a greater rate than entire countries. in the Global South. Colonial history, Only 35 states burn more oil per day than tinged with racism and condescending The end of the world goes the Pentagon.4 Under a special deal made arrogance, has set up the Anglosphere mainstream during the COP4 negotiations (1998) that and Europe for a hard fall. For centu- led to the Kyoto Protocol, the carbon ries the discourse of colonial authorities Now a range of scientists and other serious budget of the US military worldwide is had it that ‘the natives’ were not acquisi- folk are actually discussing our impend- exempted from both carbon emission tive enough to grasp civilization and its ing frailty and marshalling evidence measurement or reduction – an exemp- many ‘advantages’. Turns out now that that societal collapse might actually tion advocated by ‘climate guru’ Al Gore. that very acquisitiveness is proving the happen in our lifetime. It is even infiltrat- This was then extended to the militaries undoing of a humanity too big for its ing popular culture, including the 2021 of all countries under a national security ecological boots. Netflix blockbuster Don’t Look Up with a provision. Globally, the military (even in cast that included everyone from Holly- peacetime) is the largest single sector of The Covid-19 virus and extreme wood heart-throbs like Leonardo DiCap- carbon pollution, accounting for an esti- weather events that know no borders rio to serious actors such as Meryl Streep mated six per cent of all emissions.4 should be teaching us that we all live (in a barely believable role as a narcissis- on the same planet. Yet such lessons are tic populist President). The film tries for While the US military is shifting to slow to be learned. Indian writer Amitav the unlikely combination of humour and renewables like solar where feasible, Ghosh draws this alarming conclusion: terror, with a predictable cast of Trump- by the very nature of their operations like villains and techno-creep billionaires modern militaries are carbon depend- ‘To look these facts in the face is to rec- as the ‘baddies’, and a few noble scientists ent and highly energy intensive. But ognize that it is a grave error to imagine trying vainly to rally support to stop a most of their climate-related planning that the world is not preparing for the planet-destroying meteor before it’s too for the future is devoted to dealing with disrupted planet of the future. It’s just late. The parallels with climate-change global conflicts provoked or exacerbated that it is not preparing by taking mitiga- deniers and their ilk pretty much slaps the by climate breakdown: struggles over tory measures or by reducing emissions: viewer in the face. Audiences have been water and other resources, environmen- instead, it is preparing for a new geopo- divided between those glad for any reflec- tal refugee flows, collapsed state systems, litical struggle for dominance.’5 tion of real-life dilemmas even from thin terrorism and any local resistance to Hollywood satire, and others appalled by the US or other great powers. Despite Ghosh has put his finger on it. Instead what they see as a disempowering and mounting evidence to the contrary, the of the drastic international measures depoliticizing message at a time when needed to halt climate collapse, the main calculations still being made – whether in GLOBAL WEATHER MEGA-DISASTERS COSTING $20+ BILLION, 1980-2021 4 1980 3 1981 1982 2 1983 1984 1 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 SOURCE: YALE CLIMATE CONNECTIONS, USING DATA FROM NOAA AND EM-DAT, NIN.TL/10-2021 0 67 MAY-JUNE 2022

THE LONG READ serious thought and action are in such to mourn for what he feels we are about In the US, the short supply. But, make no mistake, ‘the to lose, and to the psychological resources armed forces essential movie of the moment’ is now the necessary to overcome that loss and alone account third most-watched film in Netflix history. carry on. His desire is that we emerge by for more than a embracing a humanitarian survivalism, fifth of energy The problem with the film, and argu- which, going by this paper, is pretty vague consumption ably much of the other ‘doomism’ that is in its details. Bendell does not kid himself taking hold, is that what is intended to rally or his readers that it is possible to know A trio of climate activist/scientists writing us to action may indeed have the opposite with any certainty the speed and variable in a long article published on the excel- effect. Are fear and terror by their very effects of climate degradation based on lent UK-based openDemocracy website nature reactive and de-politicizing? But levels of vulnerability and the economic don’t hold back when they claim that: even if they are, the question still hangs wherewithal to adjust. Yet at times he is in the air and understandably haunts us given to frightening predictions, verging ‘In fact, Deep Adaptation consistently – is it too late to effectively stop climate on collapse pornography, as when he pos- cherry-picks data, cites false experts, degradation and the powerful lobbies tulates: ‘Inevitable methane release from puts forward logical fallacies, and disre- of carbon capitalism that militantly the seafloor leading to a rapid collapse of gards robust scientific consensus. Bendell defend it? societies will trigger multiple meltdowns defends himself by offering unsupported of some of the world’s 400 nuclear power- reasons for activists and the public to dis- Among the most widely read and influ- stations, leading to the extinction of the trust mainstream climate science. In all ential of those who fear it’s just too late human race.’7 of these regards, deep adaptation mimics is Jem Bendell, a UK-based ‘Professor of the practices that deniers of global Sustainability Leadership’ who describes This kind of doomist prognostication warming have wielded for decades.’8 himself as someone with ‘twenty years of can come across as emotional manipu- experience in sustainable business and lation dressed up in scientific garb. It is Their critique is extensive and detailed, finance, as a researcher, educator, facili- not clear from the text why these nuclear focusing on rates and impact of methane tator, advisor and entrepreneur, having power stations should go into meltdown. release and arctic sea ice. They tend to lived and worked in six countries’.6 Bendell is hardly alone in his perspec- be particularly agitated by the contro- His essay ‘Deep Adaptation: A Map for tive, finding company in a growing versial claim that soon (if not already) Navigating Climate Tragedy’ has been crowd of ‘collapseolologists’, including human-caused carbon emissions will translated into a number of languages Guy Macpherson, Rupert Reed, John be outstripped by ‘a tipping cascade’ of (mostly European, although Chinese, Michael Greer and Richard Heinberg. To natural releases that will carry climate Japanese and others are rumoured to be some degree their perspective is shaped heating out of human control. Their main in the works) and has gained a reader- by a pessimistic frame of mind; others concern is that focusing on non-linear ship of probably well over a million by looking at the same evidence might draw tipping points and feedback loops (while this point.7 Bendell’s central claim is that different conclusions. This of course does ignoring their complexities and ambigui- we are facing near-term societal collapse not mean they are wrong. Certainly, ties) takes away the responsibility – from due to anthropogenic (or human-caused) their perspective speaks eloquently to humans in general and states in particu- climate change. His paper hangs on a the complacent failure of political elites lar – to challenge the powerful lobbies of reading of the scientific literature with around the world to meet even the too- carbon capitalism and rethink the politics a focus on rising temperatures and non- modest goals for climate amelioration and economics of growth. An attitude of: linear (ie out of control) feedback loops of they have set out for themselves. ‘It’s already too late so why bother, it’s out carbon releases, particularly in the polar of our control anyway.’ This is obviously regions. His belief is that we have already Debate and dissent not Bendell’s intention but it is a plausible reached a tipping point (or several actu- consequence of his position. ally) and that amelioration efforts will One suspects that Bendell has had the inevitably be too modest to pull us back. most influence due to his sensitive treat- The politics of deep adaptation Unlike other ‘doomsday’ theorists he ment of climate grief and how to move comes across as modest and humanistic beyond it – which has provoked compar- It would be unfair to lump deep-adapta- in his prognostications, at many points isons with the 12-step programmes fol- tion supporters in with climate-change asserting that it is simply not possible to lowed by recovering alcoholics. Also, the deniers on the basis of ignoring the scien- predict how the inevitable impending paper thoughtfully frames the reasons so tific consensus. Bendell, and many of the collapse will play out. He eschews the many still refuse to recognize the terri- others who believe in near-term collapse kind of ‘lifeboat’ ethics all too common ble planetary crisis we must face. Bendell among the gated-community middle hopes that his call for deep adaptation class or the populist bunker mentality of will bring together a community of iden- the white supremacists set on guarding tities structured around shared grief that their own racial purity. is as much a spiritual movement as it is a social one. Oddly, Bendell devotes fewer than three of the 26 pages of his essay (dis- Those who dissent from Bendell’s pes- counting the references) to weigh up the simistic outlook do so from two sets of evidence on which his thesis of near-term criteria: 1) the perceived negative effects societal collapse hangs. He devotes most on the fight against climate degradation; of ‘Deep Adaptation’ to giving permission and 2) a different reading of the evidence. 68 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

Human fragility and climate degradation Stop! Activists demand climate action in to keep and how,” is a question of resil- problem here. The justifications for his Quezon City, Metro Manila, the Philippines, ience. “What could we let go of so as not radical adaptation position are narrowed 25 September 2020. Although this was one of to make matters worse,” is a question of down to focus pretty much exclusively on numerous climate protests around the world relinquishment. “What could we bring carbon releases and temperature rises. that day, the message was close to home, as the back to help us in these difficult times,” Philippines has witnessed increasingly violent is a question of restoration. “With what Carbon and the resource curse hurricanes and typhoons in recent years. and with whom shall we make peace as we awaken to our common mortality,” is Runaway carbon emissions and their cli- ELOISA LOPEZ/REUTERS a question of reconciliation.’9 mactic effects are just recent manifesta- tions of an older more all-encompassing of human society, have much more in Hard to disagree with any of this. attitude to the natural world – one that common with more sober climate activ- But its political and social implications is deeply embedded in capitalist moder- ism, differing mostly in the time frames are more radical than Bendell’s sober nity as a whole. Amitav Ghosh in his involved and the unwillingness to specu- language allows. At one point in ‘Deep superb recent book, The Nutmeg’s Curse: late on the details of collapse. There is a Adaptation’ he castigates the neoliberal Parables for a Planet in Crisis, identifies big difference between exaggeration and obsession with markets and individu- the ‘resource curse’ as the tap root of our denial. The impending-doom narratives alist ethics as the root of the failures of ecological crisis.5 He dates it back at least are more allied with a broader consen- public policy almost everywhere to seri- as far as the Dutch genocide of Indone- sus of climate scientists and activists that ously tackle climate degradation. So far sia’s Banda islanders, which aimed to we are in a deep planetary crisis of our so good – but not nearly far enough. get at their precious nutmeg trees in the own making. But the question is: ‘When?’ early 1600s – at the time a handful of While they may differ in future projec- One gets the sense that Bendell wants nutmegs were so valuable you could use tions, there is a shared sense of urgency. to set aside the differences of Right and them to purchase a ship or a house. Here Bendell is at his best, with his claim Left to gather a broad tent of ‘radical in favour of what he calls the ‘four Rs’ adapters’ to face a new reality of impend- What in conventional economic terms which he feels should underpin his ing societal collapse. It feels like he has is an advantageous natural endowment notion of deep adaptation. muted much of his criticism of the capi- has been utilized through corporate talistic commitment to profit-driven predation (particularly in the mining ‘“What do we most value that we want growth in order to achieve this. But and agricultural sectors) to undermine one also senses a baby and bathwater the healthy development and ecological MAY-JUNE 2022 69

THE LONG READ integrity of the Global South. This his- the exploration, refining and transport of companies and political elites across the torical process has led to a perpetual petroleum and its derivatives. ideological spectrum) to lie and dance in ambivalence among some peoples on the order to maintain the carbon status quo. receiving end about natural resources These carbon capitalists, whether Hypocrisy has become a form of govern- that have been turned against them for private or parastatal, have known for a ment. Ghosh is eloquent in his description the narrow benefit of outsiders. The long time the deadly effects their ‘busi- of all this, providing the essential histori- resource curse has myriad negative ness model’ was having on the planet cal dimension: ‘Fossil fuels have from the effects. These include: exploitation of and its inhabitants. As far back as 1959, start been enmeshed with human lives in mostly-nonunionized local workers; a the renowned physicist Eduard Teller, ways that tend to re-enforce the power of lack of spin-off economic activity com- addressing a petroleum conference the ruling classes. This dynamic is per- pared with more integrated forms of at Columbia University, warned that: fectly expressed by the dual meaning of development; corruption as large private ‘Whenever you burn conventional fuel, the English word “power” which com- extractive industries use their financial you create carbon dioxide… Its presence bines the idea of “energy” as in “a force largesse to obtain favourable access from in the atmosphere causes a greenhouse of nature” and “power” as in a relation local powerholders; and poverty as tax effect.’ He said that persistent fossil-fuel between humans, an authority, a struc- and royalty giveaways suck economic use would eventually cause the melting ture of domination.’5 surplus overseas. Whether it’s mining for of ice caps, raising sea levels until ‘all the gold in Guatemala or extracting petro- coastal cities would be covered’.10 What goes around… leum in the Gulf, inequality and ecologi- cal devastation are baked in. Other warnings followed. In 1965, For too long the carbon emissions and Frank Ikard, President of the US Petro- temperature rise that the international Among the persistent impacts on leum Institute, noted that ‘carbon dioxide COP climate negotiations are preoc- our political lives of the resource curse is being added to the earth’s atmosphere cupied with have also prevented many are various forms of authoritarianism, by the burning of coal, oil, and natural environmentalists from seeing the bigger dating from colonial office directives to gas at such a rate that by the year 2000 picture. Can we make the ‘manage- present day military-influenced forms of the heat balance will be so modified as able’ 1.5° Celsius cut-off in temperature rule prone to dictatorship and inequal- possibly to cause marked changes in advance or will it spill over, making large ity. Perhaps the most prominent modern climate.’10 sections of the world less and less habit- form of this authoritarianism is organ- able? While these indicators are certainly ized around the carbon capitalism of the Yet they did nothing. Why? Aside from important, the preoccupation with them petrostate. Such states have a range of the usual mundane reasons of corporate simplifies the more profound changes political shadings, from the semi-feudal greed and profit there is the tight connec- in structures and attitudes we need if monarchies of the Arabian Gulf to the tion between the control of carbon as an we intend to live within our ecological Islamic absolutism of Iran, the petro- energy source and the domination of the means. To do this we need to embrace nationalism of Russia and Iraq or the pop- global economy. Fossil fuels are control- a more profound environmentalism ulist authoritarianism of Left (Venezuela) lable in a centralized fashion – in a way (often reflected in indigenous thought) and the populist Right (in US states like that renewable energy sources rooted in that changes the entire human attitude Texas and Louisiana as well as the Cana- the commons (wind, water, solar) never towards nature. We need to reject the dian Province of Alberta). The resource can be. To give up fossil fuels would notion of nature as a passive storehouse curse connected to carbon is perhaps also mean giving up the power they are of resources that we can use as fuel for the most pernicious these day, as it also enmeshed with. This is not something our growth economy. We need to replace enables climate degradation on a scale those who control the levers of carbon this passive notion of nature with a vital- our species is starting to find deadly. All of capitalism are in any rush to do, whatever ist sense – still held by indigenous people this of course underpinned by the inter- the costs in terms of species survival. The and other folk – of a nature that is an national petroleum cartel (China National interdependent symbiosis between fossil active participant in sustaining life or, Petroleum Corporation, Esso, Shell, BP fuels and military power positions those as we are learning at our peril, not sus- and a few others) which controls much of in charge (private petroleum executives, taining it. We are learning that the earth military brass, the parastatal bureau- is not inert and machine-like (as much crats who run quasi-public national oil enlightenment science from Descartes onwards would have it) but that Gaia bites Are fear and terror by back with extreme weather and inhospi- their very nature reactive table climate shifts. The central rule of and de-politicizing? our ecological survival is not all that dis- similar to that of much of human interac- tion: ‘What goes around comes around.’ Even in the worst-case scenario, where all we can do is adapt to climate deterio- ration, we need to work with the knowl- edge of natural cycles to be successful. We cannot build our dwellings on flood plains or exposed coastlines. Neither can we build homes or infrastructure in 70 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

Human fragility and climate degradation areas subject to landslides provoked by tipping points and feedback loops have the local and a radical decentralization increased storm activity. Storm intensity taken the decision out of human hands; of human affairs for a start. Building threatens human habitation downstream and 2) the forces of the carbon economy from the local would allow a much more from dam infrastructure and the huge and the cheerleaders of growth are just too immediate appreciation of how to sustain tailings ponds associated with largescale powerful for any meaningful challenge. ecological health. Another key is the mining projects. We cannot engage in the It seems at times that Bendell & Co. are rebirth of a vibrant commons in manag- practices of deforestation that encour- also retreating from any kind of political ing vital resources like forests, renewable age wildfires. We need to be conscious of struggle into a survivalist mode out of a energy, water and urban green spaces to carefully managing local water sources distaste for the cynicism and betrayal that replace the acquisitive regime of private and the most fertile of top soils. Those shape the world of political realism and property that the resource curse feeds off. living downstream from melting gla- pragmatism. Yet the degradation of the Those who believe that new technologies ciers will face an entirely new set of chal- climate is so interwoven with the inequali- alone can save us are in for a rude awak- lenges. There are a whole host of baseline ties of growth capitalism and an autocratic ening. We need a much more significant ecological practices that we need to adopt state based on militarism and privileged rupture from the status quo. A tall order, in order to survive, whatever the pace of racial exclusion that not challenging them but the stakes have never been higher. temperature rise. feels a dereliction of duty. Human frailty has seldom seemed so On a wider basis, preserving the So, is it too late? There is no right or obvious, at least in modern times. These means of our survival would require a wrong answer to this. One’s attitude here days we wear it on our sleeves. Whether move beyond such local deep adapta- may vary depending to some degree on we retreat into enclaves of deep adap- tion. We need to stop our ecological your position in the social order and per- tation or attempt to mount a political overshoot, stop ransacking the earth of sonal inclinations towards pessimism or challenge to carbon capitalism, we are rapidly diminishing natural resources. optimism. It may be the case that it has destined to be ‘put into our place’ as far This carries us into the choppy waters of always been too late and that the human as the natural cycles that sustain life on competing states and multilateral nego- proclivity to try and dominate nature our planet are concerned. Again, it’s not tiations. The globalized trade system is was there from the get-go. By this reck- a question of ‘if ’ but a question of ‘when’ not serving us well. Neither is the endless oning it is down to species DNA or God’s and hopefully ‘how’. O search for stockholder value. We cannot Will, depending on your philosophical continue to ‘mine’ the world’s fisher- proclivities. RICHARD SWIFT IS A MONTREAL-BASED WRITER, ies using trawler technology that sweeps ACTIVIST AND A FORMER CO-EDITOR AND REGULAR the ocean clean of marine life. We must In another sense the answer doesn’t CONTRIBUTOR TO NEW INTERNATIONALIST. HE IS rethink chemical meat-centred agricul- seem to matter much. If we want to AUTHOR OF SOS: ALTERNATIVES TO CAPITALISM ture with its size and expensive inputs ensure our equitable survival, what we (AVAILABLE AT NIN.TL/SOS). and globalized markets. We need to need to do doesn’t change whether it’s a reconsider the stuff we produce and how ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. Differences will have more 1 Jeff Masters, ‘The top 10 global weather…’, Yale we produce it. The carbon-intensive pet- to do with the scale on which we operate Climate Connections, 11 January 2022, nin.tl/10-2021 rochemical industry with its endless flow – do we give up the big fights and pull 2 The Climate Reality Project, ‘How the climate crisis of plastics (many single use) can no longer back into small enclaves of possibility? is impacting Bangladesh’, 9 December 2021, be a major source of the livelihood for nin.tl/climate-reality 3 OCHA, ‘The Sahel in the hundreds of thousands of workers (many Still, we would have a better chance midst of climate change’, reliefweb, 16 March 2020, in China and the Global South). There is if we had a vision of how to organize nin.tl/Sahel 4 Joyce Nelson, ‘The military’s carbon an urgency to all of this that is underlined society in a way that valued our ecologi- bootprint’, Watershed Sentinel, 30 January 2020, by Jeremy Lent writing for resilience.org: cal context rather than treating nature nin.tl/bootprint 5 Amitav Ghosh, The Nutmeg’s as a set of passive, free resources to be Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, University of ‘One way or another, humanity is exploited to underpin an unsustainable Chicago Press, 2021. 6 jembendell.com/about headed for the third great transformation consumer lifestyle. Many of the elements 7 Originally published 27 July 2018; revised 27 July in its history [after the agricultural and of such an alternative, based on equality 2020, nin.tl/Bendell 8 Thomas Nicholas, Galen Hall, industrial revolutions]: either in the form and degrowth, are already in place as part Colleen Schmidt, ‘The faulty science, doomism, of global collapse or a metamorphosis to of various versions of a Green New Deal to and flawed conclusions of Deep Adaptation’, a new foundation for sustainable flour- restart the human adventure as an ally of openDemocracy, 11 July 2020, nin.tl/doomism ishing. An ecological civilization offers a nature rather than its conqueror. The pro- 9 Resilience, ‘Jem Bendell on Deep Adaptation path forward that may be the only true jects and the ideas associated with them to climate chaos’, 9 July 2021, nin.tl/resilience hope for our descendants to thrive on have drawn a wide range of adherents 10 Reported in Benjamin Franta, ‘What Big Oil Earth into the distant future.’11 from Andean Latin America to the fledg- knew about climate change, in its own words’, The ling décroissance (degrowth) movement Conversation, 28 October 2021, nin.tl/Franta Is it too late for politics? centred mostly in Europe. But they spread 11 ‘We need an ecological civilization before it’s far beyond identifiable social movements too late’, 11 October 2018, nin.tl/Lent All the destructive power residing with to a widespread unease, particularly the carbon-military complex demands among the young, with our growth obses- a political challenge. But the notion that sion and where it is taking us. we face near-term societal collapse would probably make such a challenge unlikely. It is not so hard to figure out the philo- The doomster narrative is embedded in sophical points of debarkation that any the idea that it is all too late because: 1) the eco-socialist Green New Deal will need as a starting point. A championing of MAY-JUNE 2022 71

HALL OF INFAMY JOE MANCHIN JOB: Democratic Senator from West Virginia REPUTATION: Covert Republican and carbon apologist As the world faces crisis upon crisis, The ALLISON BAILEY/ALAMY 73-year-old Joe Manchin is the quintes- sential renegade Democrat: pro-carbon, power plant. No wonder any carrots or remotely progressive legislation. The anti-abortion and firmly opposed to sticks to incentivize a shift to renewables Democrats then tumble in the polls, any whiff of ‘an entitlement society’. In stick in his craw. The carbon capital- gaining the reputation of a ‘do nothing’ a Senate split almost 50/50 between the ists from the oil, gas and coal industries administration failing to live up to its donkey and the elephant, Manchin has know an ally when they see one, bestow- promises. Such senators usually come become the centre around which poli- ing more campaign loot on their boy from smaller states – and when accused tics inside the DC beltway revolves. He than on any other senator during the of betrayal they justify their reaction- likes the attention that lets his politi- current election cycle. ary manoeuvring by donning the cloak cal whimsy rule the roost. Which way of ‘independence’ and championing ‘the will Joe jump on this or that piece of With the Biden Democrats in the little man’. Back in Barack Obama’s day, legislation? White House, Manchin has become a it was Connecticut’s Joseph L Lieberman major thorn in their side. Whether it’s the and North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad To get a sense of Manchin’s social Build Back Better bill or voter rights for who rallied to eliminate any ‘public conservative and pro-carbon politics, the urban poor, Manchin – often oper- option’ in Obama’s promised health- a good start is understanding who he is ating in concert with Arizona Democrat care reforms. The resulting ‘Obamacare’ and where he comes from. Manchin is Kyrsten Sinema – can always be relied remains dependent on private insurance the senior senator from the US coalmin- upon to resist the key legislative initia- – a rare beast in the world of socialized ing State of West Virginia. He has held tives of his own party. medicine. These days Joe Manchin is well the seat since 2010, having previously positioned to sustain the deadlocks that served as the state’s governor. In that role, His opposition to voter rights is a bind US government. O Joe stood up to those nasties at the Envi- particularly egregious position in light ronmental Protection Agency over new of Republican states’ deployment of LOW CUNNING: Manchin likes to present rules that limited mountaintop-removal gerrymandering, draconian voter reg- mining, accusing the Obama adminis- istration provisions and discourage- himself as a defender of Senate traditions. He tration of attempting to ‘destroy our coal ment of the working class, particularly is a big supporter of the filibuster by which industry’. those of colour, from voting. Manchin Republicans stonewall progressive legislation. and Sinema, always so willing to wrap He glorifies his commitment to bipartisanship Manchin is what is known in US polit- themselves in the star-spangled banner, which allows him to partner with those ‘across ical parlance as a Blue Dog Democrat – are now happy enough to endanger that the aisle’ to block any threats to corporate power. a reactionary as likely to vote against supposedly most cherished of US values: his own party as he is for it. During democracy. SENSE OF HUMOUR: Manchin recently the reign of Donald Trump he turned out to be more of a Trumpster than It always seems to be this way. If the quipped: ‘I don’t know where in the world I such Republicans as Liz Cheney and Democratic Party wins the Presidency belong politically.’ Refreshing candour or a Mitt Romney. He gave the green light and a majority in the House of Repre- guise for pro-corporate duplicity? to controversial cabinet nominees and sentatives, there are always a couple of supported the packing of the Supreme conservative Democratic senators who Sources: The New York Times; The Guardian; Court with reactionary justices. Overall, side with the Republicans to block any Jacobin; UnHerd; AlterNet; Portside. he voted for Trump’s programme more than half the time. Why? For a start Manchin is a very rich man and a good deal of his eco- nomic success is rooted in the money he made, which comes from a family firm selling waste coal from abandoned mines to a high-polluting West Virginia 72 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

VIEW FROM ILLUSTRATION: KATE COPELAND BRAZIL Racism’s deadly cycle When Moïse Kabagambe, a Congolese in Salvador, were found dead with signs the country’s streets in protest, as Black immigrant, was murdered at a beach of torture and gunshot wounds. movements did after Moïse’s killing. But kiosk in Rio de Janeiro in January, secu- that does not happen. Not that the death rity camera footage of him being set In November 2020, João Alberto Sil- of Black people isn’t worth the effort of upon by a group of men armed with veira Freitas was murdered in a Carrefour protest; it’s the loss of privileges for non- sticks went viral. It managed to disturb a supermarket in Porto Alegre. Immobilized, Blacks that would come with the end of portion of Brazilians who sell the fiction he was suffocated and beaten to death by a structural racism that isn’t palatable. It is that we live in a racial democracy – the private security guard and a policeman. easier to repeat the lie that the Congolese belief that we are a society free from was just another fatality. racial discrimination. In February 2019, Pedro Henrique Gonzaga was killed by asphyxiation by a And there’s the flipside: when teach- Moïse came to Brazil eight years ago security guard at an Extra supermarket ers decide to discuss, in the classroom, with his mother and brothers, escaping in Rio de Janeiro. People shouted that the the reason why young Black people are conflict as political refugees. The family young Black man was suffocating, but the the primary victims of violent deaths, claims he had gone to the kiosk where assault continued in front of his mother. far-right militants harass and threaten he worked for daily wages to collect a them, accusing them of brainwashing delayed payment. In July 2019, a 17-year-old Black man children. was stripped, gagged and whipped by two Variations of his murder keep recur- foremen after trying to steal chocolate After Moïse’s death there was much ring in a country founded upon slavery at a Ricoy supermarket in São Paulo. As agonizing about the footage being shared. and defined by structural racism at all in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, the torturers them- In my opinion, the video pains us and, levels of social interaction. The difference selves recorded the scene. therefore, should be shown in schools to now is that the assaults and executions foster debate on who we are as a society. are seen by millions on their cell phones. It would be great for the Brazilian And to ensure that young people do not conscience if these people were devils. reproduce the crimes of several previous It is not the first time a Black person has Because then the evil would be far from generations. O been tortured or killed in public spaces. us. However, the truth is that they are our And it won’t be the last, considering that friends, co-workers, family members and LEONARDO SAKAMOTO IS A POLITICAL SCIENTIST many still feel comfortable taking on the even ourselves, who reinforce the system AND JOURNALIST BASED IN SÃO PAULO. HE IS role of the plantation foreman who beats that normalizes these atrocities. As A CAMPAIGNER WITH THE INVESTIGATIVE NGO and kills Afrodescendants to put them ‘in Hannah Arendt pointed out, an ordinary REPÓRTER BRASIL, WHICH HE ESTABLISHED IN 2001. their place’. citizen may become an Adolf Eichmann depending on the context. For example, in April 2021, Bruno and Yan Barros, accused of stealing meat Not to discount other social and politi- from an Atakadão Atakarejo supermarket cal agendas, but Brazilian racism is more than enough reason for us to occupy MAY-JUNE 2022 73

MIXED MEDIA SPOTLIGHT Words: Subi Shah Photo: Laurence Sordello STEVE CHANDRA SAVALE OF ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION I n 1990, a young guitarist called Steve unknown. Lee is working again with ADF Foundation, Primal Scream and others. Chandra Savale came across an adver- on a new album, which has been pushed Savale smiles and reveals that he is an tisement in a newspaper which read back time and again due to the pandemic, ‘Black/Asian musicians required for but is expected later this year. avid reader of New Internationalist and experimental dub noise project.’ He was recollects my 2016 interview with Noam the only one to reply. We discuss Savale’s view that music Chomsky, saying it provoked him to is an instrument for personal spiritual think about the global swing to the Right At the time, Savale had no inkling that change and also wider social justice. at the time. he would go on to form part of a trail- blazing collective, Asian Dub Foundation ‘I guess we’re [still] most vocal about ‘The really scary thing is that certain (ADF), which, along with significant fellow immigration and citizenship, as we always conditions that prefigure a far-right take- travellers such as Nitin Sawhney, Fun-Da- were,’ he says. ‘[Current British Home Sec- over appear to be here,’ he says. ‘In my Mental, Talvin Singh and State of Bengal retary] Priti Patel has been able to get away view, they are as follows. One, the pander- (the late Saifullah ‘Sam’ Zaman), would with accumulating the most authoritarian ing to far-right agendas by mainstream define a genre that came to be known as and explicitly racist powers a UK gov- currents, such as the adoption of UKIP’s Asian Underground. ernment has had since World War Two. agenda by the Tories and the reshaping of We  have always tackled  issues through the Republican party to extreme national- ADF was set up by Aniruddha Das (aka our music which we hope encourages ism. Two, when sections of the Right start Dr Das), John Pandit (aka Panditji) and action beyond this medium. On 1 January to attack mainstream institutions that are Deedar Zaman. Several months after 2021, the day the UK left the EU, our col- usually sacrosanct in traditional conserva- meeting the founders, Savale (aka Chan- laboration with comedian Stewart Lee tive discourse – for example, attacks on drasonic) was officially asked to join the “Comin’ Over Here” was the song that was “elites”, the judiciary, selected corporations band – the rest is musical history. In the purchased most in the UK, and all profits and even the police. This false anti-estab- two subsequent decades ADF have won or went to the Kent Refugee Action Group, lishment  rhetoric  is couched in a mili- been nominated for innumerable awards, an organization right at the cutting edge. tancy that resembles the Left and, when including the BBC’s for World Music and The track provided a musical backing to combined with nationalism, can appeal the Mercury Music Prize, and still play to Stewart’s ruthless pillorying of UKIP’s to large sections of the working class. And packed stadiums across Europe. anti-immigrant rhetoric, and had a reso- finally, far-right movements are backed nance similar to our “Free Satpal Ram” by huge sums of money that any genuine Perhaps surprisingly, Savale places no campaign back in 1998.’ Left opposition cannot hope to match.’ weight on such accolades, saying: ‘Per- sonally, I’ve no interest in award culture. Satpal Ram was just 20 when he ended Savale tells me that ADF is a continu- I can’t stand the notion that somehow an up fatally stabbing a white man in a Bir- ously evolving project, with issues of artist is considered to be more important mingham restaurant with a pen knife. immigration, citizenship and racism at its because they’ve received an award. It has The man had attempted to glass him core, due to the shared lived experience no relevance to the way I see music, what- in the face during a racially aggravated of its members. They are on the eve of a soever... As ADF, we are committed to brawl. Ram underwent a trial that was rife UK and France tour when we speak, and collaborating with both established and with legal blunders, racist assumptions, Savale laments ‘the headache of Brexit new talent.’  Famous collaborators have misinformation and oversights, where Bureaucracy, limiting access to artists who included Sinead O’Connor and Chuck D he was prevented from pleading self- are vital to musical exploration’. I ask him of Public Enemy. They also platformed defence. He was released after enduring if anger really is an energy (as the Public celebrated beatboxing flautist Nathan 15 years of incarceration, following a long Image Limited song goes) and what makes ‘Flutebox’ Lee at a time when he was quite and sustained campaign by Asian Dub him angry. His reply: ‘Everything.’ O 74 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

‘I can’t stand the notion that somehow an artist is considered to be more important because they’ve received an award’ MAY-JUNE 2022 75

MIXED MEDIA BOOKS Things They Lost This World Does Not Belong to Us by Okwiri Oduor (One World Publications, ISBN 9780861543878) by Natalia Garcia Frere, translated from the Spanish by Victor Meadowcroft oneworld-publications.com (Oneworld Publications, ISBN 9780861541904) ++++, oneworld-publications.com ++++, Twelve-year-old Ayosa inhab- knows, this is a family trait: Ecuadorian author Natalia into bondage to a rapacious its a world of blurred bounda- ‘That was how it was. Mamas García Frere’s debut novel neighbour. ries. Her memories pre-date left. Daughters waited.’ is a brooding tale of broken her birth; wraiths, ghosts, relationships, betrayal and Now, years later, Lucas emotions and nightmares But then Ayosa decides – just possibly – redemp- returns to find the house, still are as real and compelling not to wait any more, and tion. As a young boy, Lucas inhabited by the two squat- to her as her human inter- her friendship with Mbiu, witnesses the invasion of his ters, in a state of advanced actions; and her love-hate an orphan dismissed by the comfortable family home decay and home to a vast mul- relationship with her mother townsfolk as a ‘throwaway by two violent and uncouth titude of insects, spiders and Nabumbo defies the normal child’, begins to fill the void. strangers, Felisberto and invasive, strangling weeds. rules of dependency. Ayosa is In a world where nothing is Eloy. Inexplicably welcomed Haunting the furthest and desperate to be wanted and black and white, Ayosa real- by Lucas’s weak and vacil- most dilapidated margins of loved, but Nabumbo, whose izes that she can forge her own lating father, the two gradu- the house, Lucas communes own childhood was torn apart path, and choose who to love ally take over the running of with his fellow liminal crea- by tragedy, is unable to fulfil and who to leave behind. the household. The upkeep tures, the arachnids and bugs, the role she has been given. of the house is neglected, his as he prepares his revenge on Instead she is often absent: Things They Lost, written mother’s beloved garden is the brutes who destroyed his either physically so, when she by Caine Prize-winning wrecked and she, driven mad childhood. escapes for weeks or months Kenyan author Oduor, defies by the descent of her family at a time to pursue a failing categorization. There is into chaos, is forcibly confined For a first novel This World career in photography, or psy- fantasy and magical realism, to a cell-like chamber. Even- Does Not Belong to Us is a chologically, when she disap- and there is the coming-of-age tually, the family is driven remarkably assured work. In pears inside herself. As Ayosa narrative of a Bildungsroman, out entirely and Lucas is sold prose that is both poetic and but there are also recog- earthy, Natalia García Frere nizable elements of Greek spins her evocation of the tragedy, with the townsfolk – natural world and humanity’s in particular radio personali- place in it with care and pre- ties Ms Temperance the poet cision. It is much to her credit and a man who reads death that in a book full of derelic- notices – taking on the role of tion, both physical and moral, the Chorus. Ayosa herself is a the reader is left with an abiding reverse-Cassandra, who can sense that even in the darkest see the past but isn’t believed. places, hope and redemption remain living possibilities. PW The writing is mesmeric, at times as warm and rhythmic as a lullaby, and filled with gentle, keen observations of the natural world. A book with a big heart that feels like a hug. JL 76 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

MIXED MEDIA Reviews editor: Dinyar Godrej Reviewers: Jo Lateu, Peter Whittaker, Amy Hall Come to This Court and Cry: Aftermath How the Holocaust Ends Preti Taneja by Linda Kinstler (And Other Stories, ISBN 9781913505462) (Bloomsbury, ISBN 9781526612595) andotherstories.org bloomsbury.com +++++ ++++, Linda Kinstler never knew abandoned trials and ongoing Aftermaths do not end, or as we struggle to make sense her paternal grandfather. All investigations, she pieces have neat beginnings. Each of what has happened, we are she knew is that his name was together the evidence that her one feeds into another. forced to recalibrate our per- Boris, he had disappeared at grandfather was a member of Preti Taneja grapples with spectives on the world and the end of the Second World a Latvian death squad known this after 29 November our place in it. In every loss War and he was never dis- as the Arajs Kommando. This 2019, when Usman Khan – we must examine the losses cussed among her relatives. squad was directly responsi- someone to whom she had before, and grieve for what However, the chance discov- ble for the murder of 30,000 taught creative writing while will now be missing in the ery of a Latvian spy thriller Jewish people. Another he was in a high-security future. in a Riga bookshop would member of the Kommando prison for terrorism related radically upend her under- was Herberts Cukurs, the offences – stabbed five people ‘In moments of deep loss standing of her family and ‘Butcher of Riga’ who in 1965 at an event to celebrate the we become as children, trained its place in history. The book was assassinated by Israeli fifth anniversary of Learn- to seek comfort in the old fairy she found was a fictionalized intelligence agents. Astonish- ing Together, an education tales: the fundamental good account of the life and crimes ingly, there is also evidence programme involving uni- versus the fundamental evil,’ of one Boris Karlovics Kin- that after the war Boris Kin- versity students and incarcer- writes Taneja. We can be left stler, her grandfather, and it stler worked for the KGB, ated people. Saskia Jones and searching for simple answers set Linda on a path that would prior to his disappearance. Taneja’s friend Jack Merritt to questions that don’t have cross continents and unearth were killed in the attack at them. deeply disturbing evidence of Come to This Court and Fishmongers’ Hall in London. his role in the genocide of Lat- Cry combines meticulous Taneja confronts the links via’s Jews in World War Two. historical research with The fragments of After- between individual and sys- philosophical inquiries into math expertly reflect the temic pain as she journeys Digging into cold cases, nationalism, holocaust denial, experience of grief and how, through the long shadows of guilt and the burden of proof. colonial history, of 11 Sep- This is an invaluable and tember 2001. She explores the highly readable account of violence of the British state, not only one family’s story, her role in this aftermath as but also of a period on the a teacher, as a British-born cusp of passing from living woman with South Asian memory, and deeds we must heritage, and the power (or never allow to be forgotten. powerlessness) of the written As Linda Kinstler writes: ‘Is it word. possible that the antonym of “forgetting” is.... “ justice”?’ PW Taneja had been invited to the celebration at Fishmon- gers’ Hall, but had stayed at home to prepare for a literacy festival. Aftermath is a lament on what it means to be one of ‘those who are left’. AH MAY-JUNE 2022 77

MIXED MEDIA FILM The Drover’s Wife: The Wall of Shadows The Legend of Molly Johnson directed and co-written by Eliza Kubarska directed and written by Leah Purcell 94 minutes 109 minutes ++++, ++++, Leah Purcell has based her film an early scene shoots a stray Nepal’s mountains attract almost nothing about them, on an outback tale by Henry bullock and feeds the whole tourists, and each year many locked as they are in them- Lawson, who’s often billed as family. It’s when she lets down hundreds of them reach the selves and their conquest. Australia’s greatest short story her guard, and doesn’t see off summit of the most famous: The focus is on Ngada and his writer. His is a simple story a neck-shackled aboriginal Everest. Their Sherpa guides family. He is highly skilled about an unnamed woman fugitive, that her life, and that and porters call it Chomol- and competent, but is aware of protecting her children from of her children, changes. ungma, meaning Goddess the extreme danger and isn’t a deadly snake lurking some- Mother of the Earth. They mono-maniacal. Jomdoe, his where under their ill-fitting This central relationship is depend on it for their liveli- partner, is as concerned about floorboards. In her version, the beating heart of the film. hood, and Ngada Sherpa has the spiritual consequences Purcell is almightily power- Molly starts to trust people, climbed it 10 or 11 times. He’s of transgression. She burns ful as the woman to whom to learn about who she is, not climbed Kumbhakarna, incense, purifying because she’s now given a name, Molly about her family history. But, though, the ‘mountain with of its reach, its ability to pen- Johnson, and a wider life and of course, it doesn’t end well. shoulders’. No one has. To the etrate space. We see their son, reality. She’s the vital centre of There are always the people Sherpas, it’s not just revered, Dawa Tenzin Sherpa, stand- an anti-Western with a driving passing, drawn by the town- like Chomolungma, but a ing in smoke from a fire he’s lit narrative, an abiding sense of ship growing nearby. On sanctuary. It’s beyond access. in the woods. Dawa’s a bright, physical threat, and huge land- occasion, their scenes are too But in 2019, Marcin, a Polish athletic teenager, who could scapes with a lethal, growing hurried, too summary: not climber, and Dmitry and become a guide like his father, colonial presence. least the English woman’s Sergey, two Russians, aim to but wants to be a doctor. It’s arrival undercutting the film’s make the first ascent of its east beyond the family finan- Molly’s husband, a sheep climax, which should have face, ‘The Wall of Shadows’. cially – unless Ngada joins the drover who’s been away for been devastating. Yet this is a An agency offers Ngada the climbers. months, beats her – and potent, shattering narrative – key role as their guide. she has the marks to show of colonial arrogance, racism, This is a documentary for it. But she’s an unyield- misogyny and persecution. Although once a climber with stunning and precipi- ing defender of herself and And what shines out is the herself, Kubarska has not tous landscapes, but memo- her kids. When anyone humanity, strength and soli- made a film about climbing, rable for its portrait of gentle, approaches their homestead darity of Australia’s original as the two Russians, very late unassuming people caught she’s there with a rifle, and in peoples. ML on, suddenly realize. We learn between two worlds. ML 78 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

MUSIC MIXED MEDIA Reviews editor: Dinyar Godrej Reviewers: Malcolm Lewis, Louise Gray COVER ARTWORK: WOLFGANG TILLMANS Strike ǾǮǵǼǺǵǮȁǸǾǮǦǻȁ/ Together for Ukraine by Lining Time (Shadow World Editorial Records, LP, DL) by Various artists (Standard Deviation x Mystictrax Records, DL) hotsalvation.com nin.tl/for-Ukraine ++++, +++++ The only album recorded by a students at the Darting- At the time of writing, the military forces for ‘purely group of five women students ton College of Arts in rural Russian invasion of Ukraine defensive initiatives’. Some going by the name of Lining England. Josefowitz went on to is in its second week. A Euro- of the names here will be well Time in 1982, Strike is sim- have an international career pean humanitarian crisis of a known to followers of club plicity itself: mostly voices, as a visual artist and Strike proportion unseen since the music: Laurent Garnier and percussion in the form of – originally only on cassette Second World War is unfold- Miss Kittin need no intro- woodblocks, a bit of acoustic – was only rediscovered and ing in real time. Organizations duction, and nor does – on guitar, all in the employ of re-released for a recent Paris- of all types are fundraising the artwork front – Wolfgang some excellent feminist con- based retrospective of her to help Ukrainian refugees. Tillmans who created the sciousness-raising songs that work. Lining Time described Together for Ukraine is just cover image. Given the enor- remain – 40 years on – still Strike as ‘militant songs with one of the musical communi- mity of the invasion, it’s salu- pertinent. There is something dancing friends’. They were ty’s responses to this call. tary to realize that many of so unguardedly direct about made at a time of Reclaim the the tracks have been created Strike that perhaps its closest Night marches against male Compiled under the aus- within days of the conflict landmark is not all the post- violence against women and pices of the underground starting: Decka and the Lady punk feminist rock around when the anti-nuclear peace Machine’s ‘One for Ukraine’ in the late 1970s and early camp at Greenham Common Kyiv club ‫כ‬Ш (the mathemati- and Job Sifre’s ‘Heroyam 1980s, but the 1976-77 record- was making headlines. Even Slava’ are certainly two. ings from the Langley Schools when Lining Time construct cal symbol means ‘does not Music Project, in which Cana- simple call and responses exist’ – something that, right All the tracks here are of dian children sang songs by such as ‘Women in the world now, seems hard to think of) the banging techno variety. David Bowie, Klaatu, The Car- – strike! Mothers – strike! and two of the city’s under- This is not to everyone’s taste, penters and Barry Manilow. Sisters – strike!’, it’s with a ground labels, Standard but what is incredible is that lucidity that recalls the mul- Deviation and Mystictrax, these musicians and DJs, some That said, Strike has none titrack compositions of Mere- this digital album gathers 65 in Ukraine, some not, have of the gentle naivety of the dith Monk. There is simplicity Ukrainian and international responded to the fundamen- Langley kids. The quintet – and elegance, strength and club artists to raise money for tal ethos of club culture – a Claire Bushe, Cathy Frost, hope here. LG a range of funds helping chil- joyous gathering of the tribes Lisa Halse, Cathy Josefowitz, dren, LGBTQI+ people, and – to make something that puts Mara de Witt – were dance the Come Back Alive foun- hope out into the world. LG dation, which since 2014 has been supporting the Ukrainian MAY-JUNE 2022 79

THE The crossword prize is a voucher for our online shop to the equivalent of £20/$30. Only the PUZZLER winner will be notified. Send your entries by 15 May to: New Internationalist Puzzle Page, The Old Music Hall, 106-108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE, UK; or email a scan to: [email protected] Winner for 255: Eoin Wall, Swords, Dublin, Ireland. CROSSWORD 256 by Axe 14 Italian town – East-South-East of French 30 Bag 31 trip but end up in Filipino port (9) 24 Central American country, British department? (6) 31 Almost stagger upon the rainforest (6) Honduras until 1973 (6) CRYPTIC ACROSS 32 Rome council’s gone on too long 16 British superstar’s about to name a West 26 Nigerian industrial city on the Niger 1 Announce Fourth Team to meet up near Bank settlement (6) trading words (7) River north of Port Harcourt (7) Chester (7) 18 New republic where it’s rude to get a CRYPTIC DOWN 29 Val d’-----, important route through the 5 High-born Hindu’s place is behind the round in pubs (8) Italian Alps (5) sending back of urn (6) 2 Alien’s torture, imprisonment in this 20 Masters a bit of poetry after dropping the country (5) 30 Major city, port and peninsula of western 11 Hole-in-one at an old African elevated beginning and refining here in Cuba (8) Mindanao (9) site (9) 3 Where in Canada Russian girl meets a 22 Ring girl from a Brazilian cultural centre... (6) little animated thing from the cinema (9) 31 World’s largest river based on its water 12 Flower of Poland is, on reflection, at the 24 ...ring another, a busy thing, about flow speed of discharge (6) rear of earlier conflict... (5) 4 Fellow graduates find industry here in rainforest country (6) Ukraine (6) 32 ------- Palace, Rome, former official 13 ...and Czech city is, during glasnost, 26 A Shinto settlement in Nigeria (7) residence of the popes (7) ravaged (7) 29 East German is among those without a 6 Fort in Rajasthan where the French turned up to fight (5) QUICK DOWN drink in an Alpine valley (5) 7 Left over land for Red Sea port (4,5) 2 Oldest surviving nation on the African 8 This Asian is a real draw, they say (4) continent (5) 9 Many move quietly entering mission 3 Largest city of Saskatchewan (9) above a Japanese city (9) 4 Variant name of the industrial region based 10 Classical language at home that’s not on the Donets and Dnieper Rivers (6) used through the Baltic region (6) 6 Rajasthani city whose fort is set 300m 15 Appropriately bid ‘Salaam’ to Asian city (9) 17 Club over the water from Chelsea? (9) above its 10th century base (5) 19 East Coast city bundle covers an island 7 Red Sea outlet founded by the British in east of 28 (9) 1905 to export cotton (4,5) 21 Alvarez zooms some characters away 8 Laotian’s neighbour (4) 9 City and industrial port on Satsuma from Tuscan site (6) 23 Number attracted to Swedish university Peninsula, Kyushu (9) 10 European country, sometime vassal place from New Caledonia (6) 25 State house is beneath the mountain in state of Poland, Sweden and Russia (6) 15 City purpose-built as the capital of Crete (5) 27 Capital is, to begin with, strewn about Pakistan in 1967 (9) 17 Part of the Thames south bank known Nubia and Aden (5) 28 Depopulated southern state, under for its Dogs’ Home and power station (9) 19 Largest city of Maryland (9) German consent, gains an island (4) 21 Province of Italy and its capital on the QUICK ACROSS Arno River (6) 23 Capital of New Caledonia (6) 1 England-Wales border river area (7) 25 The Gem State, the 43rd of the Union 5 Member of the dominant Hindu military (1890) (5) caste in northern India (6) 27 Arabian capital, constitutionally (5) 11 Former name of an African state 28 Third-largest island of Indonesia, the conquered in 1935 (9) world’s 13th in size (4) 12 River of Poland, tributary of the Oder (5) 13 Coal and steel city of Czech Silesia SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD 255 founded in 1267 (7) ACROSS: 9 Etruria, 10 Atacama, 11 Abu 14 City of Lombardy set between Lakes Musa, 12 Euskara, 13 Asia Minor, 15 Loire, 16 Camelot, 19 Cabinda, 20 Pesto, 21 Nile Maggiore and Como (6) Delta, 25 Furness, 26 Czarina, 28 Altun Ha, 16 Judaism’s second city, the largest in the 29 Alamein. DOWN: 1 Kerala, 2 Friuli, 3 Ordu, 4 Canaan, West Bank (6) 5 Balearic, 6 Faisalabad, 7 Galatian, 18 Caribbean island, independent republic 8 Pasadena, 14 Moldoveanu, 16 Cape Fear, 17 Misurata, 18 Tunisian, 22 Luccan, from 2021 (8) 23 Leiden, 24 Amarna, 27 Avar. 20 Former pirate haven, now an important deep-water port of Cuba (8) 22 Historic Brazilian city near Recife in Pernambuco state (6) ASSOCIATION Solutions here are alluded to by ‘association’ words or phrases, eg WORDSEARCH 102 Find the 15 Canadian cities WORDS 23 ICE as a solution could have association words like ‘melting (ICE)’ and towns hidden here. or ‘(ICE) skating’, so the association words in each clue could appear in a phrase before or after the solution word. ACROSS DOWN 1 Bring to: Manager (7) 1 Value: Sugar (5) 5 Saved one’s: And 2 Church: Regular (5) eggs (5) 3 State of; For bed (7) 8 Oxford: One’s jacket (3) 4 Lion: Of the Shrew (6) 9 Grand Coulee: 5 Borough of: Geese (5) Busters (3) 6 Rank: Black (3) 10 Tennis: Joint (5) 7 Older but: Than 11 Sabre: Band (5) before (2,5) 12 Six: League (7) 13 Days of: Faithful (3) 14 Big: And wine (6) 14 Shadow: Maker (7) 16 Cry blue: Of crows (6) 15 Play by: Ache (3) 19 Santa: Ann (7) 17 School: Size (7) 21 My own private: Falls (5) 18 Sand: Chuzzlewit (6) 24 Campbell: And Ruth (5) 20 I cannot: With me (5) 26 One and one is; Of us (3) 22 Heavens: And 27 Pindaric: To joy (3) beyond (5) 28 Gaming: cloth (5) 23 French and Australian: 29 Book of: One to And closes (5) twenty (7) 25 Sovereign’s: And Sceptre (3) SOLUTION TO ASSOCIATION WORDS 22 SOLUTION TO WORDSEARCH 101 ACROSS: 7 Jerome, 8 Truman, 9 Plymouth, 10 Up to, The 19 NATO countries were: 11 Kissing, 13 Angle, 15 Derby, 17 Chamber, 20 Star, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, 21 Aircraft, 23 Attack, 24 Eleven. Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, DOWN:1 Bell, 2 Commas, 3 Returns, 4 Itchy, 5 Autumn, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, UK, USA. 6 Bastille, 12 Identity, 14 Charter, 16 Bureau, 18 Market, 19 Backs, 22 Feed. 80 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

AGONY UNCLE Ethical and political dilemmas abound these days. Seems like we’re all in need of a New Internationalist perspective. Enter stage: Agony Uncle Q: My friend runs a much- desperation that I turned to it. she is accusing Amazon. But The arguments against your ILLUSTRATION: EMMA PEER loved crafts shop. There’s a A ‘consequentialist’ approach if your friend tweaked her friend’s behaviour seem to boil sign in the window which turns on the results of a given sign so it said, ‘Support local down to two things. Firstly, she says: ‘We pay our taxes – moral act. In this case, the neg- business instead of Amazon!’ is just wrong about something. unlike Amazon!’ But recently ative real-world consequences would her behaviour suddenly Dodgy contracts and wars I worked a shift for her in are almost nil: it sounds like become permissible? are not all the state spends its the shop and my friend said your friend is depriving the money on. It is still the case that I should encourage custom- taxpayer of small change – I think the problem we more goes on important things ers to pay by cash. When I though, for her, it might well be have here is that neoliberal- like welfare, healthcare and asked why she said that card a meaningful amount saved. ism has made us so – justifi- social care, even if the quality transactions were automati- In a society wracked by a ‘cost ably – cynical about the value of those services is declining. cally recorded on the bank of living’ crisis, overseen by of doing the right thing. Suc- But, more than that, I think statements which go to her a negligent state, this kind of cessive generations have now the problem with your friend’s accountant, but that when small-scale tax dodging could grown up in societies that are behaviour is that psycholog- people paid by cash she could be defended as self-survival. grossly unfair by design. We ically-speaking, it is Thatch- be more exible with the are inured to headlines about erite. She is acting as if there income she declared for tax A ‘deontologist’ would household-name corporations is no such thing as society. It’s purposes. ‘It only gets spent focus on the rules and obliga- paying virtually no corpora- an individualist, selfish revolt, on wars and dodgy contracts tions at play. But has the moral tion tax, while the British gov- which doesn’t prefigure a better for the government’s mates,’ force of the UK state, with its ernment forces through tax world, but affirms that there is she added. But it feels hypo- demand that we pay our taxes, rises on working people. In the no alternative to ‘me first’. We critical, and I want to tell her waned in recent years given post-pandemic environment, have to believe otherwise. O I don’t agree. I know it’s not on all its incompetence and cor- as an insightful article in The the same scale – she doesn’t ruption? Perhaps. Hypocrisy Economist recently argued, 1 ‘The shrinkflation state’, The even make much money – and, more still, dishonesty we’re left with the worst of Economist, 19 February 2022, from the shop – but surely – seems like an easier charge: all worlds: ‘paying European nin.tl/shrinkflation there’s no such thing as ethical your friend is clearly guilty of taxes for services as skimpy as tax-dodging? the ethical violation of which those in America’.1 SEND YOUR DILEMMAS TO Confused of South London ADVICE @NEWINT.ORG A: When you’ve dispensed as much fine wisdom as I have, dilemmas start to present themselves as easily solvable. Worried about cultural appro- priation? Queasy about slum tourism? Doubting the value of activism? Agony Uncle has a prescription. But I have to say, this letter floored me. My instinct is that what your friend is doing is wrong, but almost every path that I fol- lowed came up against a wall. Moral philosophy has never really helped anyone in the real world, so it’s a sign of my MAY-JUNE 2022 81

WHAT IF… WE SAID ‘NO’ TO CONCRETE? The world is turning grey as more and more concrete is poured. Vanessa Baird posits an alternative. ANDY CARTER Concrete is magic. It gives form Luckily those developing alternatives allow for more height. The HoHo to the boldest civic ambitions and don’t think so. Hempcrete is gaining trac- building under construction in Vienna, allows the wildest flights of architec- tion as a viable construction material will be 76 per cent wood in structure tural imagination; it can house mil- and alternative to standard concrete and and 24 storeys high. According to lions or give expression to towering clay bricks (which also emit CO2 in their woodskyscrapers.org, these advances phallic capitalist hubris. manufacture). Made from a mix of hurd ‘meet and exceed modern construc- (a hemp by-product), lime binder and tion requirements including fire codes, It’s also handy if you want to make water, it is moulded into blocks and hard- building costs, construction times and a patio outside your back door. ened in the open. Hemp grows fast and structural requirements’. uses little land (10 tonnes can grow in 100 The Romans used it (see the Col- days on 0.4 hectares). Instead of emitting Of course, to be eco-friendly all osseum), but the 20th century was CO2, hempcrete actually absorbs it. timber needs to be 100 per cent certi- when the world went concrete crazy fied sustainable. – and it became synonymous with It weighs six times less than concrete, development and progress. It’s often its makers say it can be made as strong, but Benjamin Gill is a sustainable con- confused with cement, the kiln-fired you wouldn’t build a dam with it. It’s espe- struction expert with social enter- limestone-based substance that binds cially suitable for domestic construction prises Bioregional and One Planet sand, aggregate (usually gravel or and insulation, and being more flexible and Living. He says: ‘We need construc- stones) and water to make concrete. fungus-resistant than concrete is better in tion to be a carbon sink rather than The result is so incredibly strong and earthquake-prone and humid regions. a source. That means scaling up an durable – especially when reinforced entire new supply chain and indus- with steel – that it is today the second Timber is also seeing a revival. Thanks try to deliver sustainably grown and most widely used substance on the to advances in construction systems, sourced bio-based construction mate- planet, after water. wooden eco-buildings are now reaching rials like FSC timber and hempcrete.’ for the sky. Cross-laminated timber (CLT) Since 2003, China has poured was used to build the 14-storey Treet apart- Whether sustainable forestry more concrete every three years than the ment block in Bergen, Norway. Hybrids of practices are able to meet the demand if US managed in the entire 20th century. wood-and-steel and wood-and-concrete timber takes off as the primary building And thanks to its global Belt and Road pro- material remains to be seen. The shift gramme of big dams, ports, roads, railways would certainly incentivize us to value and cement factories across 50 countries, forests more. Other big mindset shifts China will keep doing so. might happen too. If something can only be built in concrete, should it be built at Let’s pause there… and consider. Half all? The higher and heavier you build, the of concrete’s CO2 emissions are created bigger the carbon footprint, says Gill, so during the manufacture of cement; more human-scale construction could be and as concrete hardens, it releases yet beneficial in many ways. Concrete will more CO2. ‘If the cement industry were still be needed for some things – securing a country, it would be the third largest wind-turbines, for example. But a wisely carbon dioxide emitter in the world… sur- allocated concrete CO2 budget would rule passed only by China and the US,’ writes out destructive (big dam) and vanity (the Jonathan Watts in The Guardian. highest building) projects. Concrete is thirsty – accounting for ‘Concrete is one of the tools that allows one-tenth of the world’s industrial water humans to see themselves as separate from use. It makes strong storm defences – but nature and our planet,’ says Gill. To move concreted towns and cities trap floodwa- beyond it is ‘a huge opportunity to create ter. Its wind-borne dust causes silicosis a different construction industry that is and other respiratory diseases. It’s a dirty carbon absorbing rather than emitting’. business. ‘Sand mafias’ operating illegally to supply the concrete industry terrorize Saying ‘no’ to concrete is a challenge, local communities. but it could be saying ‘yes’ to living with nature within planetary limits, to But given the power and ubiquity of realism, to survival. O concrete, isn’t giving it a miss just fanciful? 82 NEW INTERNATIONALIST

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