Xi Jinping and the Memory of the Soviet Union

[Pictured: Mao and Khrushchev meet in Beijing in 1957 prior to the Sino-Soviet split]

By Nolan Long

In a widely circulated quotation, Chinese President Xi Jinping is supposed to have said that the collapse of the Soviet Union is a “tragedy too painful to look back upon.” While this is most likely an apocryphal quote that began being circulated by Western media in recent years, it is, in fact, consistent with Xi’s actual thinking on the Soviet collapse. Throughout the pages of the Governance of China, President Xi gives continued attention to the history of Sino-Soviet relations and his regret of the Soviet disintegration. In the memory of Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China as a whole, it would seem that the period of division between the People’s Republic and the USSR is now seen as a mistake. While Xi has seemingly never spoken publicly about the Sino-Soviet Split, his regret for this era is evidenced by his mourning of the Soviet collapse, his rhetorical focus on periods of alliance between the two countries, and his diplomatic efforts to ensure strong China-Russia ties today. In China’s New Era, the Soviet Union is remembered as an ally, rather than an enemy.

The history of Chinese-Soviet relations is a long one. Ken Hammond’s recent book, China and the World, covers this topic extensively. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the new socialist state developed close ties with the Soviet Union. To this point, Xi Jinping notes, “after the founding of the PRC in 1949, China explored the path of building socialism in sole alliance with the Soviet Union and in semi-seclusion from the rest of the world.”[1] He also noted the theoretical contributions that the Soviet Union made to China’s early experience with socialist governance: “we are always open to useful governance experience from other countries, digesting its essence and employing it for our own use on the basis of our own systems. For example, we learned a lot from the valuable experience of the Soviet Union during the initial period of the PRC in building socialism.”[2]

However, these mutually beneficial relations between the PRC and the USSR did not last long. As early as the late 1950s, cracks in the socialist alliance were forming, only to be exacerbated during the 60s, and sustained throughout the 70s. The origin of the dissolution of the alliance laid primarily in ideological disagreements. Whereas Mao Zedong and the CPC saw the Soviet Union as revisionist (under the leaderships of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev) and later as social imperialist, the Soviets saw the People’s Republic as increasingly erratic, uncontrollable, and ‘adventurist.’ The Split was not purely theoretical, however. It resulted in the withdrawal of Soviet technical professionals in the 1960s and was a contributing factor to China’s war with Vietnam in 1979.

Though incredibly ironic from our modern point of view, the Communist Party of China, during the Sino-Soviet Split, saw the primary contradiction in world politics as Soviet social imperialism. Ken Hammond writes, “up to the end of the 1960s, China’s primary contradiction in the world was the clash between the socialist camp and the imperialists, led by the United States. But now Mao and others felt the Soviet Union was the greater threat to China.”[3] As a result, China undertook a strategic alliance with the United States against the Soviet Union. In retrospect, this alliance, and the Sino-Soviet Split as a whole, was a disaster for the global socialist movement. This is not to say the CPC’s criticism of the Soviet leadership was invalid; the CPSU had indeed become revisionist following the ascendency of Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviet leadership practically abandoned Marxism-Leninism through the denigration of Stalin and the veiled attack on Lenin. The criticism of the Communist Party of China was certainly necessary, but the diplomatic Split itself was at least regrettable, if not itself a mistake.

However, as is evidenced in the writings and speeches of General Secretary Xi Jinping, the memory of the Sino-Soviet Split has now soured in the Communist Party of China. Tensions between the two states began settling in the early 1980s, though the collapse of the USSR in 1991 made these efforts to resolve differences irrelevant. The question now at hand is one of historical memory. Do Xi Jinping and the CPC remember the Soviet Union as an ally or an enemy?

President Xi’s words and actions suggest that he regrets the Split between the PRC and the USSR. In 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War Two, Xi honoured the dead of WWII as well as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. He noted not only the great number of Chinese lives lost, but also the tremendous death toll of Soviet fighters, demonstrating his memory of the sacrifice of the Soviet people.[4] Similarly, in a 2013 speech given from Moscow, President Xi told a story of a Soviet air force captain, Gregory Kurishenko, who fought alongside the Chinese against the Japanese imperialists.[5] This story was told to emphasize the historically close ties between the Chinese and Russian people. Clearly, Xi Jinping’s memory of the Soviet people is one of allyship and not of enmity.

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While the quotation at the beginning of this essay is likely apocryphal, President Xi Jinping has assuredly demonstrated remorse over the collapse of the Soviet Union. He notes that the disintegration of the world’s first socialist state marked a period of negative transformation in the socialist movement as a whole; “in the late 1980s and early 1990s, during a period of dramatic change in Eastern Europe, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union collapsed and the Soviet Union disintegrated, dealing a severe blow to world socialism.”[6] While noting the consequences the collapse had on the socialist world as a whole, President Xi still holds that the collapse was the result of ideological revisionism. “One main reason for its failure was that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union became detached from the people and turned into a group of privileged bureaucrats who only served their own interests.”[7] This quotation is not so much a dismissal of the importance of the Soviet Union as much as an apt historical assessment. While critiquing the late USSR’s ideological line, Xi Jinping still does not embody Split-era hostilities to the Soviet Union in his thought.

Lastly, Xi Jinping’s efforts to foster mutually beneficial relations with the Russian Federation demonstrate that historical hostilities do not bear on his thought or actions. Since his tenure as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China began in 2012, Xi has made continual and concerted efforts to establish strong diplomatic ties with Russia, the historical successor to the Soviet Union. While Xi clearly regrets the Soviet collapse, this does not stop him from working with the modern Russian Federation in order to re-establish cooperative ties between the Chinese and Russian peoples. In a 2013 speech given in Moscow, Xi stated, “at present, both China and Russia are at a crucial stage of national renewal, as their relations have entered a new period characterized by provision of vital mutual development opportunities and serving as primary mutual cooperation partners.”[8]

While President Xi Jinping has seemingly never explicitly spoken or written about the Sino-Soviet Split, his work implies a deep regret for this historical period and the blow it dealt to the global socialist movement. As such, Xi’s tenure can be seen as an effort to rectify the historical mistakes made by the Communist Party, while maintaining a firm stance against revisionism. In the memory of Xi Jinping and the CPC as a whole, the Soviet Union is now remembered as an ally and mentor, rather than an adversary.

Notes

[1] Xi Jinping, “A Deeper Understanding of the New Development Concepts,” in The Governance of China, Vol. II (Foreign Languages Press, 2017), 233.

[2] Xi Jinping, “Uphold and Improve the Chinese Socialist System and Modernize State Governance,” in The Governance of China, Vol. III (Foreign Languages Press, 2020), 148.

[3] Ken Hammond, China’s Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future (1804 Books, 2023), 56.

[4] Xi Jinping, “Remember the Past and Our Martyrs, Cherish Peace, and Build a New Future,” in The Governance of China, Vol. II (Foreign Languages Press, 2017), 485.

[5] Xi Jinping, “Follow the Trend of the Times and Promote Global Peace and Development,” in The Governance of China, Vol. I (Foreign Languages Press, 2014), 303.

[6] Xi Jinping, “Be Prepared for the Great Struggle,” in The Governance of China, Vol. IV (Foreign Languages Press, 2022), 93.

[7] Xi Jinping, “Apply the New Development Philosophy in Full,” in The Governance of China, Vol. IV (Foreign Languages Press, 2022), 197.

[8] Xi Jinping, “Follow the Trend of the Times and Promote Global Peace and Development,” 302.

References

Hammond, Ken. China’s Revolution and the Quest for a Socialist Future. 1804 Books, 2023.

Xi, Jinping. The Governance of China, Vol. I-IV. Foreign Languages Press, 2014-22.

Is the Genocide in Congo Due to Human Hatred or Corporate Profit?

[Pictured: Congolese march near the border with Rwanda in 2023. Credit © Getty Images]

By J.B. Gerald

Rwanda has broken international law with the visible presence of Rwandan troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) alongside Rwanda's covert M-23 militia. M-23 is reported to have captured Goma (again) and the civilians are in a state of emergency. This is familiar because M-23 previously took over the city in 2012 but had to withdraw because it wasn't equipped to administer the city of two million. As the M-23 rebels and their allies increase their takeover of the East Congo with reported vows of advancing to the capital of the DRC in a "liberation" of the country, it becomes clear Rwanda has invaded Congo again, possibly for keeps this time to maintain its hold on the East's gold, copper, and coltan mines.

The Congo's government has requested international sanctions against Rwanda. But the international community has allowed an ongoing genocide of the Congolese people for thirty years. The people of the Congo live under a genocide warning.

Paul Kagame began invading the Eastern Congo after he took over Rwanda in 1994. Subsequently, Uganda, which sponsored Kagame's invasion of Rwanda with U.S. funding, and Rwanda have maintained militias in the area. While genocide was brought under control in Rwanda, an insistence on mass killing was carried into the Congo by Kagame's Rwandan troops in pursuit of Hutu refugees who fled there. This also allowed Rwandan forces to protect Tutsi groups settled in the Congo, and access and control a portion of the mining resources.

But the resources belong to the people. As they do in the Sudan and South Sudan. As they do in Gaza and Palestine. All three areas are currently threatened by genocide against the people who have lived there.

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The U.S. Government's official site for the National Library of Medicine notes, “5.4 million people have died in Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998 because of conflict” (Peter Moszynski, Jan. 31, 2008, BMJ). However, since the “First Congo War” in 1996 to the present, the western press notoriously underestimates the death toll at six million civilians.

From the perspective of preventing genocide, the source of the problem rests in both the five lakes region of Africa and the Middle East, with corporate interests using national leaders to effect policy. This facile academic statement of the obvious covers the fact that millions on millions of innocent civilian lives are currently being sacrificed for corporate growth and profit. This is against any sense of ethics, knowledge of right and wrong, law, religious commitments to honour life, or the people's informed consent.

In the DRC, the genocide continues because it is meant to. It works. The mines are working, the resources are taken. The peoples’ deaths are not a corporate concern. The elites are not about to stop it. They are the reason Patrice Lumumba was assassinated in 1961 and the UN's Dag Hammarskjöld was killed. And why the Simba rebellion was crushed. And why Eastern Congo was thrown into the chaos of warring militias.

The Rwandan genocide, which suddenly occurred between tribes living in peace, brought in an Anglo-American-backed Paul Kagame. One could say Rwanda is responsible for the genocide of Congolese except that the benefits have devolved to International corporations, stock markets, manufacturers, and western economies. As with all such imperialist and colonialist dynamics throughout history, Kagame’s Rwandan forces are simply mercenaries for western capitalists.

Unfortunately, this is an all-too familiar history. European and American policies have used Independent Congo (Zaire, DRC) since its colonial bondage as a people enslaved to the uses of Western capital. China is now buying into the land as well, with the purchase of many previously American owned mines. It is unclear how or if this will be much different than the Western playbook. One thing, however, is clear: the genocide continues. With respect for conscience, a portion of UN peacekeepers are in place to lessen the civilian body count. But the guilty parties here are the same who engineered the “Rwanda” genocide, which the UN did not stop, and which served Western corporate expansion.

There is little hope of any justice for the people of the DRC until the ownership and control of the mineral resources in the East are in the hands of a just regulator that assures both the people’s safety and fair payment for their resources. And, any such arrangement, would have to be negotiated and agreed upon with not only strict parameters, but with the approval of the very people who labor in these harsh conditions. In our new multipolar global landscape, this would have to be UN administered to include Russian and China. It is an alternative to an ongoing genocide. Until then, all profits from the genocide should be tracked as evidence for eventual prosecution.

"God Wants You Aspiring to Be a Capitalist"

[Pictured: David Oyedepo gives a sermon at his megachurch in Nigeria.]

By Titilayo Odedele

There is something going on with Pentecostal churches.

In a time of the ascendance of neoliberalism, bourgeois institutions have failed and most radical and revolutionary formations have been severely compromised. In contrast, Pentecostal churches have thrived, welcoming millions around the world into their fold and keeping most. Why?

To begin to investigate this, we must first understand our current context. Neoliberalism is a form of capitalism marked by constant and fundamental economic crisis due to the intensive relationship it has to accelerating the accumulation of capital through deregulation (broadly defined as loosening of government regulations on labor, companies, and the goods they produce, and the like) and market liberalization (the process of removing government regulations on markets specifically, like preventing popular ownership of national assets and ending public support, which enables widespread access to goods, etc.), among other processes which lead to widespread precarity.

One way of qualifying the crisis-prone nature of capitalism is by analyzing Kondratieff waves, a controversial but substantive conception of long waves of capitalist growth and stagnation believed to occur every 40-60 years. Some argue that these cycles have shortened in recent decades, particularly with economic stagflation (stagnation and inflation occurring at the same time) occurring more frequently than in waves past. Alongside these market conditions is the receding social cushion for most people in most countries as states retreat from service provision in the name of cost-efficacy, resulting in increasing precarity. As these crises produce unrest, the state responds with increased repression and surveillance, and the ideological and politico-philosophical domestication of everything—including social change—facilitating and normalizing capital’s seeming inescapable commodification.

Despite their pervasive power, influence, and supposedly empirically-sound requirements for debtor countries, the Bretton Woods institutions like the IMF and World Bank made promises that did not bring about prosperity for most of the world. Further failures of neoliberalism include an unprecedented amount of scientific knowledge about the climate crisis, to the demise of ecosystems, some island societies, and in terms of capitalist interests, futures for certain products and supply chains.

One would think that an economic system which fails to live up to its own promises would be unpopular, particularly in the places where its policies have had the most visible failures in terms of a declining quality of life for most people in a society. In most African cases, however, neoliberal capitalism is seen as a winning mode of economic organization which simply has not been applied properly. This is particularly the case in Nigeria, where I am conducting my dissertation research. Nigeria has been a strategic Western ally since independence, with its indigenous, political, economic, religious, and military elite coordinating with the U.S. and U.K. in particular in order to stomp out ideologies which promote alternative ways of organizing the economy, like socialism and communism.

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In light of the failures of political, economic, and military powers in Nigeria, and the particular confluence of the three in its specific history of (mostly reactionary) military coups, it appears that religious elites are the final standing source of traditionally legitimate power. Though they have been aligned with other elites who have lost public trust, they maintain it. Pentecostal pastors in particular enjoy dedicated adherents, political and international patronage. David Oyedepo (Africa’s richest pastor), Enoch Adeboye, Jerry Eze, Biodun Fatoyinbo, Paul and Betsy Eneche, and many others have even become capitalists themselves. They all have churches that are aligned with the so-called prosperity gospel message, preaching that health and wealth are the exclusive signs of divine favor and alignment.

Somehow, these pastors have managed to grow their churches by transforming neoliberal values into moral imperatives which their congregants take seriously. How they have managed to avoid becoming objects of scorn, and indeed, become objects of respect and social honor despite contributing nothing that improves the material conditions of most of their adherent is what I will continue to investigate. As a Nigerian-American, I feel the need to respond to Walter Rodney’s call to the people of the Global South: to study our societies with a Marxist methodology, we need to undertake serious study of the ways in which imperialism hides itself and capitalism lives its afterlives. Only then will we begin to be positioned to end its vice grip on the Continent and the Diaspora, and surely beyond.

This phenomenon appears in other conservative (in a Marxist sense) countries like the U.S., Brazil, the Philippines, South Korea, South Africa, and others in the Western axis of military and economic domination. This case of capitalists running churches isn’t new, but I would contend that the historical mixing of factors which has led us to this particular version of capitalist Christianity are worthy of attention from radicals of all stripes.

Titilayo Odedele (she/they) is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Northeastern University. Their research interests include global connections of sacralization of neoliberalism, imperialism, Pentecostalisms in the Global South, and related topics. She enjoys spending time with her partner, siblings, and dog.

References: 

Amin, Samir. Neo-Colonialism in West Africa. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974.

Amin, Samir. "Understanding the political economy of contemporary Africa." Africa Development 39, no. 1 (2014): 15-36.

Bayat, Asef. Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2017.

Han, Ju Hui Judy. “Shiting Geographies of Proximity: Korean-led Evangelical Christian Missions and the U.S. Empire.” In Ethnographies of US Empire, edited by Carole McGranahan, and John F. Collins, 194-213. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018.

Ogunbadejo, Oye. "Nigerian-Soviet Relations, 1960-87." African Affairs 87, no. 346 (1988): 83-104.

Rodney, Walter. Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution. New York: Verso Books, 2022.

Global Philanthropy as an Artificial Plateau for the Bourgeoisie

By Dumi Gatsha

The past few weeks have shown how destabilized we are globally. Globalization has become too heavy for the modern neocolonial empire. As multilateralism, rules based order and global trade no longer serve the interests of those in power. We are seeing generations of progress wiped away by brutal military forces on one extreme end, whilst ideologies, knowledge, and history are destroyed on the other. We see the destructure through abuses in elected offices at all levels: from sporting code regulators, parent-teacher associations, or either of the three arms of a government. Transgender rights, overseas development assistance and intellectual property law trends reflect the regressive shifts in Global geopolitics. We are all at risk of compromised global health security, climate degradation, and state-sponsored gender disparities.

We are held at ransom by a global elite that has thrived off of capitalism, racism, and digitalization. The frontiers of social, activist and change movements haven't been absolved from this crisis. As the barriers to enablement, resources and funding remain largely pooled in the global minority. Asset managers, Donor-advised funds, and private foundations remain vehicles of tax inequity, avoidance, and wealth hoarding. This diagnosis can be applied to any context where war parallels corporate profit and economic growth propels failed governance. Somewhere amidst all of this, rests philanthropy in plateu. A system replicating the world as we know it: centers of knowledge and power, yielding to the whims of the elite, educated, and well heeled.

There are countless theories of change that are reported as “successful”, leaving an impression that progress can be sustained beyond resourcing or project lifespans. Those theories of change have no meaning in a world that enacts anti-LGBT and anti-abortion laws. Neither a world where safeguards for diversity and inclusion are politicized and revoked through state and corporate machinery. We are witnessing atrocious crimes in real time, documenting injustices via social media in a world where aggressors and perpetrators deploy violence with impunity. Activists and caregivers are exhausted. Social structures are slowly being dismantled and removed from any forms of mutual aid or solidarity action. These are the moments grassroots activists warned against. These are the hallmarks of a world with no peace for those most marginalised.

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As the world burns, grant application windows, requirements, and eligibility take away much needed time for organising. The increased heat warnings and cyclones in Southern Africa only aggravate the socioeconomic conditions for the many problems movements try to solve. Yet climate related opportunities rarely weave in queer or reproductive inequities. The coup de tats in West Africa brought economic renaissance domestically whilst enacting over-regulation of civil society and socially restrictive laws that target women and LGBT populations. Philanthropy remains unimaginative, held up in the hubris of self-serving strategies whilst INGOs navigate self-preservation. Remaining with growth targets and maintaining annual distribution percentages; it is intentional to keep ways of working and grant making business as usual. The hierarchy and value chain must be maintained so they can save face, income floors, and for a “rainy day.” The question is whose rainy day and what kind of rains?

Shifting power remains aspirational. As long as money and capital are not yielded and transferred, the risks and harm to communities will continue. Whilst there aren't any dividends paid out in grant making and partnerships; controls remain pre-determined to normative development aligned programming. This leaves little room for disruptive impact and change. Disruption would mean working ourselves out of activism and philanthropy ceasing to exist. It would mean recognising activism as work deserving of meaningful compensation and social protections — even at grassroots levels. It would look like a reparative system returning exploits and extracts to communities. Valuing circular social structures that do more healing and nurturing of the planet and all people. Systems that support our sense of becoming and belonging without reserving these for those who can assimilate or navigate to adopt. It would mean all of us can be saved from a rainy day without someone deciding whether one of us is deserving or not.

As the year of turmoil continues to unfold, those of us deemed undeserving of solidarity or sunshine remain in abundance. We will resist for our own survival, and rest for our own sanity. No one has saved us from our own people, governments or corporates — neither do we expect to be saved. We continue to share our stories and joy with the hope that the world will become kinder one person at a time. Whilst our dignity and personhood may be stripped from us in moments of inequity and injustice; our humanity remains in tact. This was captured harrowingly beautifully by Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela Mandela: “you are interrogated for 7 nights and 7 days without sleep… God provided a mechanism I had never thought of at the time. I reached a threshold where the body could not take the pain anymore, then I would faint. Those were the most beautiful moments. The body rested and when they threw a bucket of water to wake me up… I got up, I was so refreshed and I started fighting all over again.”

We continue to dream and cultivate our world as best as we can, with the little we have wherever we are. We have accepted that philanthropy, especially that which extends from global capital, will never have the capacity or compassion to meet us where we are. After all, communities remain behind when the donor, enabler, investor, INGO, or development program leave our countries. We will continue to speak truth to power, as capitalism continues without an end in sight. Toni Morrion's masters narrative beautifully captures how I view philanthropy's plateau. Void of any transformative disruption or imagination — whilst performing all the right words, keeping the same partners, co-opting participation and representation to maintain its systems. Its practitioners drawn from across development, volunteer, and civil society pipelines bear the hallmarks of Audre Lorde's masters tools. However, as a part of neocolonial Empires and in Gad Saad's words: philanthropy is bound to implode from within due to its own excesses. We will still be there to recreate, rebuild, and heal towards a queer, climate, and gender just world.

Dumi Gatsha (they/them) is the first ever gender diverse parliamentary candidate in Botswana, former facilitator of the #ShiftThePower UK Funders Collective and founder of Success, a grassroots organisation working in the nexus of human rights and sustainable development.

Trump's Plan for Gaza Is In Keeping With American Tradition

[Pictured: Trump’s visit to the Western Wall in 2017, which marked the first time a sitting President of the United States had made the visit. Trump said this of the experience, “I was deeply moved by my visit today to the Western Wall. Words fail to capture the experience. It will leave an impression on me forever.” Picture obtained from the White House archives.]

By Kenn Orphan

So, Trump wants the US to “take over” Gaza. And he isn’t opposed to using American troops to make that happen. That was all over the news recently. Trump is being essentially the scrubby New York real estate dealer that he is. He sees this as a sweet deal. “We’ll make it the Riviera of the Middle East,” he said.

He isn’t troubled by the bodies under the rubble or the half-starved population still there. He spoke unemotionally about forcibly relocating over a million people. Unspoken were the hundreds of thousands of Gazans now gone from the equation. A genocide not spoken of in polite society. “Why would they want to return?” he asked, “the place has been hell”. He described their predicament as if it were a natural disaster. As if their suffering were caused by some tsunami or monsoon and not by the bombs and drones and snipers supplied by the world’s most powerful nation under an administration run by a Democrat.

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The shift comes as a shock to many, as US official policy has always aimed for a two-state solution. Anyone who has followed this issue closely has understood this has always been a farce, one repeated by both Democratic and Republican regimes alike for decades, even as they bolstered the settler-colonial project that is Israel. The Palestinians have always represented a thorn in this project’s side. A problem to placate and pacify with endless amounts of platitudes and apartheid, promises and brutality. And it all ended where it was destined to end, in genocide.

Trump’s plan isn’t really that shocking when one considers that the American project, itself, has always been a real estate deal. It has always framed the living earth as a commodity to be bought, developed ruthlessly, then sold to the highest bidder. In this worldview, land is not something to be cherished. No tree is sacred, as the olive tree is to the Palestinians. It holds no existential weight. It is not beloved even though it freights our souls through this vast galaxy. It is a monetized unit of wealth to be wrapped up tightly in plastic and shipped over night to the consumer.

This is America at its rancid heart. A project that slaughtered millions of buffalo to stick it to the Indigenous people of the land. That enslaved millions of Africans to harvest cotton. That nuked two civilian populations, the only nation to do so thus far. That doused thousands of hectares of farmland and rainforest in Southeast Asia with napalm and agent orange. That scorched the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan to avenge a crime they had nothing to do with.

A nation that gleefully blows off the tops of ancient mountains in Appalachia for a few buckets of coal. That sullies the groundwater for a few gasps of “natural” gas. That digs its pincers into marshland to suck out the last bits of the earth’s primordial blood. And which has belched out the most warming gasses into our atmosphere of all nation states thus far.

Trump’s plan for Gaza is in keeping with this tradition. It is disaster capitalism at its zenith. And it is in keeping with how the American project views the living mantel of this planet. The life-giving loam that we all depend upon. It is in keeping with how it sees its Indigenous peoples. A problem to be dealt with by administering the appropriate, surgical military strikes accompanied with a boatload of platitudes. A minor bump in the road on the way to development.

Gaza is a mirror. And it is staring back at us all. It is the modern manifestation of a long, bloody legacy of colonial greed, exploitation and cruelty. And like all other stolen lands, it will not cease to exist just because its buildings and orchards and people were mercilessly leveled or because some greasy real estate dealer now has his eyes set on it.

A Review of Shourideah C. Molavi’s ‘Environmental Warfare in Gaza’

Shuruq Josting

In her book Environmental Warfare in Gaza, published by Pluto Press in February 2024, Shourideh C. Molavi makes a historical journey through the wars and incursions on Gaza, developing our understanding of what their past and ongoing impacts mean for Gaza’s built and cultivated environments.

Molavi serves as lead researcher for Palestine at Forensic Architecture (FA), which is a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London, as well as the founding  institutional base for an interdisciplinary academic field of the same name.. As a field, forensic architecture works on “the production and presentation of spatial evidence within legal, political, and cultural contexts, and takes architecture to include not only buildings, but shaped environments at the scale of cities and territories.”

The research agency’s work has been used as evidence in courts and in citizens’ tribunals across the world, combining techniques such as spatial modeling and audio and video documentation of state violence and violations of human rights. In its investigations of states and corporate entities, Forensic Architecture, according to its website, has aided the legal and public struggle against “historical and contemporary colonial violence, including the destruction of traditional environments and life worlds.”

In her new book, Molavi not only builds on her previous investigations along Gaza’s Eastern “border”[1] but also considers the colonial history of Palestine’s environment, starting with the categorization of plants by the British.

Over years, Israel has widened the “protective” zone along its borders, progressively reducing the scarcely available arable land by flattening the land through airstrikes and bulldozers. In recent years, this process has been extended through the deliberate targeting of lands with high concentrations of pesticides, sprayed alongside the fence onto Gazan farmlands.

These steps are done in order to create the perfect “buffer zone,” providing clear views into the strip. Molavi concludes that this so-called “no-go zone,” ranging from 300-1000 meters, turns Gaza’s border into the ideal “one-sided” border, allowing for permeation from one side only. This constantly affects the livelihood of Palestinians in proximity to the border.

In order to have a clearer view of protestors or agriculturists, specific types of plants were criminalized due to their height or banned from the environment altogether. The effects can be seen clearly, for instance, in the planting pattern: while in earlier years crops up to 80 cm height were permitted, the Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights reported in 2018 that farmers had been forced to reduce the height of their plants to only 40 cm (~15 in) due to ongoing razing activities (Molavi 2024, 33).

These enforced changes to the agricultural environment include citrus orchards, which were central to the development of Gaza’s role as a coastal trade hub. According to Molavi, the role of the orange in the “formation of Gazan identity, including local knowledge production, socio-economic relations and migration patterns, domestic and international cultural exchange . . . is largely understudied.” (p. 27) We do know, however, that Gazan traditional citrus cultivation is closely linked to the Palestinian Nakba or “catastrophe,” as thousands of families lost access to fruit orchards and vegetable plots that lay beyond today’s militarized borders. After they became refugees and settled in Gaza, many Palestinians had to adapt to an urban lifestyle, and only a small percentage of Gazans today cultivate farmland, much of which is owned by a small percentage of large-scale landowners.

Similarly, Gaza has lost many of its olive groves, often near the “buffer zone” due to clearing processes by Israel or by the prohibition of taller plants. According to Oxfam, roughly 112,000 olive trees, symbolic of Palestine, were uprooted by Israel between 2000 and 2008.In addition to their symbolism, olive trees have provided Gazan grove keepers and their families an income, as well as a critical food source, in the form of oil and olives, during times of curfew imposed by the Israeli army. Already in the early stages of Israel’s ongoing genocide on Gaza, many Gazans had to cut down their trees to provide their own families and communities with firewood to survive the winter. Gazans stress the loss they felt and the role these trees, many of which were inherited, had in their lives.

From 2017 to 2019, when Gazans protested for their internationally recognized Right of Return (UNGA Res. 194 (III)), the now cleared and flattened area near the fence allowed for the targeting and injuring of thirty six thousand Gazans, who resorted to burning tires and utilizing the toxic smoke to take cover from snipers. Roughly 29% of these injuries were brought on by live ammunition and rubber bullets, leading to many Gazans undergoing amputations. Especially for small-scale farmers, this can mean the loss of their livelihoods.

Investigations of the pesticides sprayed by Israel onto Gazan lands have resulted in the conclusion that the while plants subjected to the deliberate spraying of herbicides along Gaza’s borders showed traces of insecticides and pesticides,  “damaging levels of herbicides were not detected” (Molavi 2024, 72) by the consulting Katif Center Laboratories. Nonetheless, farmers have reported severe losses of crops and have had to resort to planting different crops, not only changing the landscape but also removing Gazan people’s access to ancestral foods and traditions, such as foraging Khobeiza (Palestinian Common Mallow) and grazing animals on the land. Further, many farmers have had to move away from their traditional growing techniques and crops, growing alternative crops in greenhouses so as to shield them from herbicides.

Questions regarding FA’s approach have been put forward, most interestingly by Palestinian filmmaker and artist Emily Jacir in her film Letter to a Friend (2019), which is dedicated to FA founder Eyal WeizmannGiven the often repeated crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, ranging from extrajudicial executions to war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with global arms exporting firms, Jacir raises the question why her friend’s focus remains on proving a crime has been committed instead of working to prevent it from being repeated or exacerbated.

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Jacir’s Letter to a Friend is a critique that can nourish movements for social and ecological justice, essentially calling for the proactive protection and defense of lives and livelihoods. This call could, if we let it, form the basis of more strictly enforced policies determining what will—sooner or later—harm the environment and local populations and inform new ways of preventing these crimes. It is this very necessity to protect the soils and livelihoods from being weaponized to create scarcity that can connect movements for a joint cause and a more just future.

Writing for Verfassungsblog: On Matters Constitutional, Saeed Bagheri, Lecturer in International Law at the University of Reading School of Law, writes that “the natural environment remains the silent victim of Israel’s war on Gaza.” He highlights the Israeli military’s general stance towards the environmental destruction it is causing in Gaza: While there is a military necessity to clear areas, “there appears to be little evidence of ‘widespread, long-term, and severe environmental damage’ from Israel’s air strikes on the heavily civilian-populated Gaza.” Bagheri makes the case that Israel is thus using the “widespread, long-term, and severe standard—an international humanitarian law standard that already labors under ambiguity—in combination with the inability of scientists to undertake careful studies of air, water, and soil quality, to screen its enormously damaging impacts in Gaza. 

Despite decades of Palestinian and Lebanese farmers, as well as international researchers, attempting to prove and provide evidence for the widespread environmental destruction, we do not need to wait until evidence of an already destroyed environment surpasses military need. Under the precautionary principle, the burden of proof lies with the party profiting from the actions, which is why some researchers advocate for the use of the precautionary principle in armed conflict. They assert that while under International Humanitarian Law the focus rests on “all feasible precautions,” the precautionary principle actually provides protective guidelines and takes parts of the decision out of the hands of military personnel.

Some, like Bagheri, do not think that this is enough, looking at the lack of consequences and interventions on behalf of Gazans: already in April 2024, six months after the start of Israel’s genocide on Gaza, Bagheri said that “the UN, in general, and the ICC in particular, should have done more to attenuate the substantial risk of mistreatment of the natural environment, concerning more particularly the ecology, health and survival of Palestinians.” This sentiment is shared by many and goes far beyond the ongoing genocide—those who read Shourideh Molavi’s research closely will see that an intervention should have long preceded the currently ongoing destruction, given the vast amount of evidence provided.

Environmental Warfare in Gaza is is an essential book for understanding the ongoing war on Gaza. Molavi reports on Gaza’s past and present with respect and gratitude to her local colleagues, closing off by paying tribute to her collaborator Roshdi Yahya Al-Sarraj, co-founder of the investigation’s journalistic partner organization, Ain Media Gaza, who was killed in an airstrike on his home.

Since the book’s release early this year, much has changed, and Molavi, despite clearly having re-edited her book to include the newest developments, could not have predicted the destruction that has been brought upon Gaza since. While she continues to investigate Israel’s crimes in Gaza and the continued ecocide in Gaza that enhances the famine, a section of the book comes to mind that brings us closer to the people and the future of Gaza:

“Refusing to limit her output to low-growing fruits and vegetables, Mona would strategically place olive trees among her crops. [...] Responding to the forced biopolitical modifications of [the] otherwise familiar landscape, such acts of resistance interrupt the colonial and imperial gaze, also emphasizing the inextricable role of the environment in modern warfare.” (p.43)

As with the farmers interviewed by Molavi in 2018, the people of Gaza still refuse to be helpless in the face of a man-made famine. Initiatives such as Thamra have resorted to planting amidst the ruins, to have access to food. Seeing himself forced to evacuate, Yousef Abu Rabea, a Palestinian farming engineer and co-founder of Thamra, collected seeds from his family’s farm in Beit Lahia. Thamra’s aim is to promote food stability, but Abu Rabea remains concerned: “The genocide has left the farmland all but devastated by artillery-borne white phosphorus, a potent carcinogen that lingers in the soil, poisoning farmers and making their crops unsafe to eat.” As of October 7, 2024, new evacuation orders for Gaza’s North have been issued, and the bombing of the densely populated areas of the North has increased manifold. Yousef Abu Rabea was killed by an Israeli drone strike on October 21, 2024.

While the majority of research on the chemical effects of discharged ordnance focuses on the effects of white phosphorus, an incendiary agent that is not yet deemed a chemical weapon, on the human body, laboratory investigations by the American University of Beirut are underway to better understand the result of soil contamination in South Lebanon’s targeted areas. The United States’ National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health already lists ingestion as a possible means of absorbing white phosphorus, suggesting that soil and plant contamination will lead to absorption by humans, as well as grazing animals. While many insist that conclusive investigations can only be done after the end of Israel’s attack on Lebanon and Gaza, Lebanese farmers have already lost thousands of trees due to white phosphorus fires. Previous attacks with white phosphorus have led to diminished harvests and contaminated streams in earlier attacks. Earlier research has linked white phosphorus particles in Alaska’s Eagle River Flats to the death of thousands of waterfowl.

Building on the conclusion drawn in a recent ELC blogpost by Elena Tiedens, where the precautionary principle fails to prevent damage done to the environment, ecocide proves to be a path through which the destruction of the environment, and subsequently co-violations to human rights, could be persecuted and punished. Ecocide in Gaza is not a local issue, as became clear at the latest in Reuters’ most recent findings on e.g. the release of asbestos through urban bombing that will affect the health of the coming generations. In the words of Cenk Tan, ecocide is “a phenomenon that has serious international impact. It represents humanity’s toll on Earth.”

Notes

[1] To this day, the Occupied Palestinian Territories of 1967 and the Gaza Strip are internationally considered occupied territories and therefore do not have officially determined borders. 

Grounding with Koreans in the Belly of Another Beast

[Pictured: The western-induced border, commonly referred to as the DMZ (demilitarized zone), that separates the Korean people.]

By D. Musa Springer

Republished from Hood Communist.

In the short time between sunrise and boarding the 15 hour flight to Tokyo, all of my travel anxiety turned to excitement. In November 2023, I was invited to join the 2nd annual U.S. Peace Delegation to Chongryon (The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan), in a variety group of U.S. academics, journalists, high school youth, and organizers. The delegation was organized by Korean Reunification activists Dr. Kiyul Chung, a Visiting Professor at Tokyo’s Korea University and Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung University, and Derek R. Ford, a US-based activist and visiting lecturer at Korea University. The opportunity to join this exchange felt like a unique chance to build fundamentally anti-imperialist paths to solidarity, and proved itself to be. 

As an International Youth Representative for the Cuba-based Red Barrial Afrodescendiente, I’m familiar with organizing delegations for Africans struggling in the U.S. to ground with Africans struggling against the blockade in Cuba. Aside from it being the longest flight I’ve ever taken, this trip to ground with Koreans in Japan was my first time on the ‘attending’ end of a delegation, putting anti-imperialist politics into practice from that perspective. My time at Korea University, as well as touring the impressive Chongryon Korean National Schools, reaffirmed my commitment to the examples of Cuba’s internationalist politics, and presented much educational dialogue, valuable exchanges, and material pathways for further solidarity. 

I would especially like to thank Dr. Kiyul Chung, the only Korean born in the Southern portion of the Korean peninsula to ever teach at a Northern Korea university! The wonderful Korean comrade and longtime anti-imperialist organizer shepherded us throughout the entire delegation, losing his own sleep for the sake of ours. At 71 years old, Dr. Kiyul has more energy than the entire delegation combined, with his passion for his people and the Reunification of Korea beaming at all times. This experience provided me with further insights into the historical struggles of the Korean people under Japanese imperialism — both as an unrecognized, oppressed colonial diaspora within Japan, and in their Motherland as the target of limitless Western imperialist aggression.

I believe that traveling on delegations is a task that organizers in the U.S. should engage in, within an organized fashion, including domestic trips to share notes with organizers across the country. Our organizations must collaborate and strategize on how they, and in turn us, can do better in supporting a broad and fresh base of members within our ranks to experience the political transformations, solidarity, and exchanges that often come from delegations. In this context my reflection on my time grounding with Koreans, like my reflection on African power and politics in La Marina, is an attempt to offer some perspective on the broad map of global resistance to imperialism, the process of building ties to learn from our Global South siblings in struggle, and to share insights to both the experience itself and what I learned from it.

Koreans In Japan

One of the most staggering revelations of this trip was learning firsthand about the sheer scale of Korean suffering under Japanese imperialism. While the image constructed of Japan in the West is closely related to the island’s cultural exports — popular art, food, entertainment and fashion often associate the island and its history with all things fun and whimsical — the reality of its colonial violence is much less spoken. As Derek Ford details, the origins of Koreans in Japan is fraught with ‘profound violence’:

“From their founding after World War II, Koreans in Japan—who are sometimes called “Zainichi Koreans”, meaning “foreign Koreans”—have always had to struggle to create and maintain educational spaces and systems where they can teach and learn about their own history, culture, traditions, and languages, in addition to other essential disciplines and languages. This was a basic human right as well as a political struggle, as Japan’s colonization of Korea, which officially started in 1910 but began about 5 years earlier, forced over 2 million Koreans—about 90 percent of whom came from the southern part of the peninsula—to move to Japan through either physical violence, coercion, and deceit. The story of the formation of a Korean population in Japan in the 1900s is one of profound violence.

Some were “recruited” by Japanese companies after colonial forces stole their lands and gave them to landlords, promised great jobs and good pay but receiving the opposite. Many Korean women, hundreds of thousands, were kidnapped into Japan’s military sexual slavery network, which the U.S. [military] inherited after it replaced Japan as the occupying force in the south [in 1945]. In 1938, Japan forcibly conscripted and kidnapped workers from Korea and brought them to Japan as slave laborers, where they were forced to build the military, munitions buildings and construct secret underground bases and bunkers for the air force. In the latter instance, children were particularly valuable, as their small bodies and hands were essential for creating the tunnels with pickaxes.”

Koreans estimate upwards of 7-8 million were conscripted to Japanese colonial forced labor during the World War period, with at least 800,000 taken to mainland Japan as forced labor. Approximately 300,000 Korean women were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military, again, an operation later taken over by the U.S. military occupation. In their explanations of this history on our trip, the Koreans consistently made comparisons to the colonization of Indigenous people and chattel slavery of Africans in the Americas, and the plight of these individuals is a haunting testament to the universal brutality of colonialism. Similar to how African historians intentionally highlight and celebrate our resistance to colonialism and slavery, all of the Koreans made sure to remind us that they revolted consistently. One historian said that an estimated third of all Korean forced laborers actively resisted through guerrilla warfare, organized escape, and marronage, embodying a common anti-colonial spirit of resilience and defiance.

It’s worth noting the population dynamics among Koreans in Japan, because the Korean community in Japan has a complex and significant history, a main theme throughout the delegation. Japan’s policy towards ethnic Koreans living within its borders, particularly those who do not hold citizenship of either Japan or South Korea, reflects Japan’s enduring colonial policies and the greater geopolitical forces of the region. Japan only recognizes the Republic of Korea (‘South Korea’) as the ‘legitimate’ government of the Korean Peninsula. Consequently, Japan does not consider passports or citizenship issued by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or ‘North Korea’) as valid. This stance is rooted in Japan’s imperial legacy, subservient diplomatic relations with the U.S. who wages continual war against the DPRK, and its own colonial recognition policies. As one can imagine, immense issues related to things like traveling, housing, and education arise from not having your citizenship formally recognized.

Of roughly 1 million Koreans in Japan, thousands of them do not possess Japanese nor South Korean citizenship; the term “Choson” is used for them. This term is a reference to the Korean peninsula under the Choson Dynasty (1392–1897), before its division into North and South; from 1910 to 1945 the peninsula was ruled by the Empire of Japan under the name Choson. “Choson” is how the Japanese government categorizes these Koreans in legal, political, and administrative limbo, and it’s important to remember that many are descendants of Koreans brought to Japan during the colonial period who either only have DPRK citizenship, some combination of Japanese and Korean citizenship, or who have chosen not to obtain Japanese citizenship in place of citizenship to their Motherland, the DPRK. ​​In 1947, Japan enacted the ‘Alien Registration Law’, which relegated ethnic Koreans to the status of foreigners within Japan. Following this, the Nationality Law of 1950 removed Japanese citizenship from Korean offspring born to Japanese mothers, while Korean children fathered by Japanese men could retain their Japanese citizenship.

Learning of these dynamics forced me to reflect on the colonial obsession with regulating national identity, citizenship, and ethnic classification; from the centuries-old ‘One-Drop Rule’ that continues to dictate the racial class system of the U.S., to the apartheid segregation system imposed onto the Palestinians by the Zionists, to the dangerous blood-quantum eugenics preoccupation of Nazi Germany. Whether implicitly implied through legal and cultural means, as is the case with Koreans in Japan, or through explicit and violent exclusion, colonizers are always necessarily obsessed with sternly dictating national and ethnic identity, marriage, citizenship, population diversification, and racial classification.     

While some progress has been made, one can imagine the serious implications that these classifications have had for the identity, legal status, and discrimination of the Korean community in Japan for several generations. Those designated as Choson usually face challenges related to their imposed-statelessness, such as limitations on travel, difficulties in accessing most social services, ethnicity-based discrimination in housing and labor, and broader issues of societal oppression. 

One example that we learned from students at Korea University was during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Japanese government created a special program to support students struggling financially. Japan allowed for students across the entire country of all nationalities, including students at international schools in Japan, to request and receive state funds to help needy students afford a laptop to do remote schoolwork during quarantine, access protective gear like masks and sanitizer, and even help paying university tuition. All students, that is, except for students at Korea University. 

These students already faced a number of compounding financial and discriminatory issues long before the pandemic; students informed me that by simply attending Korea University, they have already curtailed the vast majority of their job prospects within Japan. Korea University was the only university where students were not allowed access to this COVID support, and Korean students launched a grassroots campaign in response to protest and calling out the Japanese government. 

Other examples are much more dramatic, but equally illustrative of the oppressive nature of life in Japan for the Koreans. As Ford notes:

“In 2018, a Japanese man attacked a young Korean man with a knife, and he admitted to police he did so “because he had ‘looked down’ on him.” That same year, two men shot up Chongryon’s headquarters in downtown Tokyo.”

During our visit, the mixture of this painful past with the tenuous present was palpable. 

“Just before the beginning of the COVID pandemic we had to crawl through a torn chainlink fence,” participants of the delegation from prior years told me, as we accessed the underground tunnels where thousands of Koreans perished as forced laborers. By November 2023 during my trip, the Japanese government had installed sparse lighting inside the opening of the tunnel, and had a small multilingual plaque acknowledging the historic nature of the site. Having legal access to these tunnels and the small commemorative plaque is itself the result of struggle by local Korean organizers and a small handful of Japanese historians, and remains a point of contention: the plaque doesn’t accurately describe the site, almost reading as a celebration of the horrors endured by Koreans in these tunnels, with absolutely no mention of forced labor. Of the roughly  1200 forced labor tunnels across the island, only less than a dozen are accessible by Japanese historians, who must receive tight-gripped government approval to enter.

These underground cave-tunnels were utilized by the Japanese imperial army, who moved most of their military operations underground to escape bombardments and military action during the World Wars. Once I ducked my way into the dark, humid tunnel, I quickly realized the space was filled with an ominous, heavy, and familiar feeling. We observed the physical marks on the walls of these underground tunnels painstakingly chiseled by the hands of Korean laborers, many just teenagers as young as 12, under the duress of Imperial Japanese guns. These marks are not just scars on stone; they are indelible imprints of a dark history, a somber reminder of the exploitation and suffering endured. 

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Exploring the legacies of chattel slavery causes a similarly chilling feeling for Africans in the Americas. At the Castillo de San Severino in Matanzas, Cuba, for example, historians point out where you can still see the bullet holes in the stone walls, where Africans who attempted to escape or revolt were punished by gunfire. There’s a level of reality that is communicated by experiencing the physical remnants of this deep oppression.

Dr. Chung and professor Curry Malott, another participant on the delegation, described that when there were no lights inside these colonial tunnels, only the guide’s flashlight, they were immersed in shadows and the echoes of brutal horror. To honor this, we turned off all the lights to experience just a few seconds of the darkness that plagued Koreans for decades. 

Interestingly, the Japanese public’s awareness of their nation’s colonial history is markedly absent, intentionally hidden and disallowed from public memory in any capacity. The nation’s imperial history is not taught in their schools, nor part of public discussion in any meaningful capacity. The lack of historical consciousness among the Japanese populace about their own country’s role in colonizing Korea is concerning, but not dissimilar to the absolute and proud lack of public knowledge in the U.S. of the atrocities their European ancestors carried out against many colonized and enslaved populations. It points to a broader issue of historical amnesia as a tool of the maintenance empire, the nearly inescapable dominating power of U.S. imperialism, and the importance of truthful historical education in acknowledging and learning from the past. 

Since at least 1948 the Koreans have engaged in organized resistance in the form of grassroots organization and DPRK-supported popular education. In 1955, this grassroots organizations would become Chongryon, a network of Korean schools that they began to build immediately following liberation. Chongryon now exists as a network of hundreds of Korean schools across the islands, cultural centers and businesses, and a humbly stunning university in Tokyo — all leading the struggle against the violent erasure of Korean people’s history, culture, and presence. And, as one professor made sure I understood clearly, all of this is achieved through belief in the values and principles of socialism.  

Microcosm of Regional Imperialist Aggression

The complexities of this situation reflect the ongoing tensions in the East Asian region — due primarily to the presence of U.S. imperialist forces that occupy all of Japan and the Southern Korean Peninsula — and the wider Pacific region through United States Pacific Command (USPACOM). 

In my short time in Japan, I was repeatedly stunned at the extremely visible and influential presence of U.S. military forces on the small island. Signs in some places read “U.S. Military Housing”, while others advertise “Best Car Rentals For U.S. Military Men.” When I ventured into the fashion district in my free time, massive and popular second-hand clothing markets were on most corners filled with used military paraphernalia, proudly sitting across from the McDonald’s on every block. In true ‘traveling while Black’ fashion, I sought out other Black people whenever possible; in Tachikawa, nearly every Black person I saw, including those who messaged me on social apps, were U.S. soldiers and their families. In some regards, what I observed and experienced of the U.S. Military presence in Japan was more visible and aggressive than their presence domestically in many places. The juxtaposition of Japanese culture and context with the U.S. military presence gave the same feeling as the police who occupy U.S. cities, who stick out within a society designed to cater to them. 

The U.S. has not only occupied and wedged its way into virtually every aspect of Japanese life and economy, it has also stunted and outright stopped virtually all attempts at Korean reunification, regional peace and stability, and sustainable diplomatic ties between the DPRK, its citizens, and Japan. 

One afternoon on the trip we drove up a winding, narrow road to park our van at a stunning mountaintop park, surrounded by cherry blossoms and lush greens. The beauty felt like a scene from a movie.

“Right there, you see it,” Said Dr. Kiyul, one hand on my shoulder and the other pointing at the various cargo and military ships in the ocean. “See that big U.S. ship right there? That’s where the nukes are!” 

The ship he was referring to was the unavoidable USS Ronald Reagan, a massive nuclear-powered aircraft ‘supercarrier’ sitting off the shore of Yokosuka. 

“That ship is readied with nuclear weapons and other devastating heavy artillery, aimed at the DPRK at all times. One may think that the Japanese, being the victims of the world’s most tragic and infamous nuclear attack by the U.S., wouldn’t cooperate with this nuclear chauvinism,” said Dr. Kiyul. 

Unfortunately, the U.S. uses the nonsensical guise of “deterrent diplomacy” and maintains a subservient Japanese government to assert that they are keeping Japan ‘safe’ from the DPRK and others, even if the opposite remains true. Most Japanese people I spoke with in my free time felt, for lack of a better term, deeply indifferent to the U.S. military occupation across their island, though some have said that the events in Palestine since October 7 have changed that. 

It’s important to underscore how deeply ingrained the U.S. military presence and militarization is in the Pacific region is. Similar to how U.S. AFRICOM has turned the entirety of the African continent to a subservient militarized zone, or how the U.S.  SOUTHCOM has designated Latin America as its “yard” to dominate, so too has the U.S. PACOM (Indo-Pacific Command) carved the entire Pacific region into its playground. U.S. military bases, naval carriers, occupation installments, and joint-training endeavors completely surround the DPRK and China, utilizing Japan, Southern Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Guam, and surrounding areas in the region to encircle those the U.S. deem as enemies.    

This all-encompassing military presence aligns with the U.S. strategy of “full spectrum dominance” to control all land, sea, air and space possible. Across the continent of Africa the presence of the U.S. AFRICOM resulted in a 100,000% increase in terrorism across the continent, deteriorated the already shaky regional stability, and left neo-colonial forces with new caches of U.S. weapons. In a similar manner, the U.S. presence in the Pacific has caused a breakdown of negotiations between the DPRK and neighborhooding countries like Japan, as well as the Southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. Each time the North and South Korean governments have attempted peace talks, let alone discussions of any potential reunification, the U.S. has swiftly halted such talks; the easing of Japanese hostility against the DPRK was also stunted by the U.S., who deemed the DPRK a grave safety and forbade the Japanese government from seeking peaceful solutions. The U.S. has consistently denied DPRK-initiated proposals to discuss a peace treaty to formally end the Korean war, for example, the longest war in U.S. history.  

What’s clear is that the U.S. prefers to continue an aggressive and antagonistic policy towards the DPRK, using its subservient “allies” in the region as mere launching pads from which they can target their regional enemies. Despite the DPRK remaining politically consistent on the question of peace talks, consistent on the common sense policy not relinquishing nuclear weapons (for fear of suffering the same fate of Libya’s Qaddafi), consistent on their expressed desire for reunification of Korea, the U.S. has been equally consistent in denying the region stability and demilitarized peace. The largest military occupation is in Luchu (Okinawa), which doubles as a U.S. and Japanese colonial occupation of these Indigenous islands. 

For Koreans in Japan, I was told by students, Japanese aggression and discrimination against internal Koreans tends to match the larger geopolitical situations they face. As the geopolitical sphere becomes more complex and contentious, local Koreans face knife attacks, are scared to wear their traditional clothing outside of their schools, are made into the society’s punching bags, and experience a microcosm of the larger regional warcraft by the U.S.

68 years of Internationalism, Popular Education In Practice 

The delegation took place just one month following the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation in Occupied Palestine on October 7, and therefore the consistent backdrop of most conversations on the trip was Palestine, the resistance struggle being waged there, and how it is related to the burgeoning potential of a multipolar world. The DPRK has long supported the struggles of the Palestinian Resistance both materially and politically, as they have to a lesser known extent African liberation struggles, including training various militant Black Panthers and supporting some seeking asylum. In fact the DPRK has never recognized the Zionist state, consistently calling for the liberation of Palestine. 

In the Korean elementary and middle schools, I flipped through pages in their history books and saw images of Martin Luther King Jr., Muamar Qadaffi, the Black Panther Party, Malcolm X, Ahmed Ben Bella, and other revolutionary figures in African history, which was particularly warming. While in in the U.S. the DPRK is extremely and harshly vilified, the Global South still largely recognizes the DPRK for having never surrendered to imperialism, and as an “unwavering ally of the South and the resolute torchbearer of anti-imperialism”, as the Communist Party of Kenya put it in their December issue of Itikadi. Reverence for the DPRK exists across Africa, with organizations like the Nigerian-DPRK Friendship Association highlighting the role that the DPRK played in supporting African liberation movements of the 60s and the 70s, and African development beyond that. This support includes providing tractors and agricultural supplies, helping to develop local infrastructure like roads and hospitals, exchange of academic training, import-export exchange, and technological cooperation.  

Inside each room of the Korean high schools and the Korean University, images of their anti-colonial heroes Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il hang proudly, similar to the endless images of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Jose Martí plastered across Cuban walls. The Koreans recognize their struggle as primarily a struggle against the contradictions of imperialism and colonialism, with the Korean Juche ideology guiding them, and sew this recognition into the fabric of their work inside Japan. 

In the middle school classes, a young Korean girl was asked to practice her English in front of the class by speaking to us; the students all turned their chairs around and sat quietly, attentively to show her respect. To our surprise, she didn’t simply introduce herself, but rather introduced her entire class, speaking almost exclusively in the collective “we” — telling us what ‘we’ as a class like to do, why they are excited to meet us, and so forth. We all noted the collective, communal nature of the Chongryan system, and the beautiful display of this collectivism in the student’s persistent use of “we.” 

Toward the latter half of our trip, I was able to guest lecture alongside other delegation participants for two different classes at Korea University. The topic of the class that I joined is itself a testament to the advanced nature of their revolutionary education: “End of the Unipolar World, Creation of Multipolar World: Histories of Korea-U.S., Russia-U.S., and China-U.S. Confrontation” taught by professor Kiyul Chung. We discussed the globalization of anti-imperialist principles of self-determination, the role of the DPRK in supporting a burgeoning multipolar world, and the active application of DPRK principles of self-reliance and self-defense. 

When it was my turn to speak, I put into context the struggles of Africans within the U.S. as an internal colony, highlighted several moments of joint history between DPRK and African liberation struggles, and discussed the strong commonalities between Pan-Africanism and Korean Reunification as strategies and political ideologies. The commonalities in these two ideological northstars needs to be further explored. The same way that Korean Reunification wishes to see the U.S., Japanese, and Western imperialist grip on Korea fall, we too wish to see this imperialist grip on Africa fall. The same way that they desire the reunification of the Korean Peninsula under scientific socialism, so too do we wish to see the unification of Africa under scientific socialism. In the same way that they envision safety and security for the Korean diaspora as being existentially linked to the reunification of Korea, we also understand the safety and security of Africans in our diaspora from imperialist racism as only being achievable through Africa’s unification.  

And as they wish to see the fall of the neo-colonial puppet governments of Japan and South Korea — who take their orders directly from the U.S. — we, too, wish to see the fall of the neo-colonial comprador class, who exploit Africa and Africans at the command of Western imperialists. 

The discussions highlighted the irony of certain academic narratives that focus exclusively on single-issue oppression with a U.S.-centric lens, while ignoring the broader history and experience of imperialism globally. While discourse of ‘global anti-blackness’ has gone viral in recent years, rarely have I seen this perspective properly contrasted with the experiences of Koreans under Japanese imperialism, including the mass rape and enslavement of Korean women, or other colonized populations. It underscored the importance of recognizing and respecting the diverse histories of both suffering and resistance across the world, rather than subsuming them under singular narratives of blanket oppression hierarchies.

This trip helped me to think deeper on the often cited concept of ‘the world being built on antiblackness’, critically examined in the light of the Pacific region’s experiences, the Arab (West Asia) region’s experiences, and so forth. The sufferings of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iran, in Korea, the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii, and in other regions includes levels of dehumanization, mass murder, sanctions, exploitation, and slavery by Western powers that challenge the narrative that centers solely on anti-Blackness as the foundational for global oppression. This view feels reductive in light of serious engagement with the world history of imperialism, as it overlooks the multifaceted nature of imperialist violence and the diverse experiences of those suffering under it, in favor of grand narratives.

While I do not claim to be an expert on such subjects nor want this occasionally controversial topic to overshadow the overall reflections in this piece, I do hope that we can broaden our understanding of our own oppression in light of global struggles. Conditions of enslavement, colonization, vicious racism and discrimination emanate from a system of imperialism that dictates super-exploitation at all costs, that simply reappears in various forms and locations. We must resist the urge to claim a form of chauvinism which asserts a global preoccupation, consciously or subconsciously, with our oppression as the ‘psychic’ lifeblood of the modern world. In reality, imperialism is the lifeblood of the modern world-building project, with the U.S.-EU-NATO bloc dictating the terms of exploitation to the world. 

This, perhaps, is why the Chongryon school network is primarily based on Korean culture as their basis of community and education. “Korean culture is thousands of years old, and our oppression is not,” one student at Korea University told me. “That is why we focus on learning our Korean language, our mythology, our history. if we do not preserve it, Japan will squash it out of us.”

In Cuba, a similar phenomenon exists. The depth of African culture, from language and dance, to fashion and spiritual practice, help to unify and sustain the Revolution, by creating a common African identity that Afro-Cubans unif around. For the Koreans in Japan, their culture is not just an act of resistance against Japanese erasure, it is also a source of unity and great ethnic, national pride. For African organizers in the West, we have to remember that our culture is a powerful tool for unification and pride, taking the lessons from other colonized individuals who have proven as much. 

Under the guise of building a ‘battery factory’ and with firm belief in the power of their culture, Koreans in Japan secretly built Korea University without the knowledge of the Japanese government, which opened in 1956. On the basis of culture and popular education, they have turned this act of defiance into a network of contested spaces, where they are able to exercise their autonomy. Language, song, dance, history, traditions, clothing, all are celebrated as a basis for the socialist experiment in self-determination that is Chongryon. I couldn’t help but wonder, what it would mean for us to return to and celebrate our African culture in a similar and serious manner.

As we move forward, it is crucial to carry these lessons with us, fostering an empathetic and decisive discourse on resistance and liberation. Delegations are not simply to perform a more ethical form of tourism, but rather are crucial moments to witness and learn the opportunities that exist for colonized peoples who are organized and dedicated. After my trip to Chongryon to ground with Koreans in the belly of another beast, I am reaffirmed that our struggle as Africans must be decisively socialist and anti-imperialist, firmly rooted in notions of cultural power, and remain consistent in our solidarity with the Korean struggle. We have to join them in calling for the reunification of Korea and supporting the U.S. Out Of Korea movement, because the intertwined nature of our struggles are profound.

Trump, Tariffs, and Trade: ‘Protectionism’ Won’t Save Workers

By Eugene Puryear

Republished from Liberation News.

President-elect Donald Trump has declared his intention to enact tariffs on trade from, at least, China, Mexico and Canada. He’s also threatening tariffs on BRICS nations if they are not sufficiently supportive of the dollar. Trump has also floated an across-the-board tariff on all goods coming into the country, and specific tariffs on individual companies like John Deere. These tariffs are supposed to improve the situation for the American worker and the country writ large. Given the ravages of deindustrialization in large swaths of the United States, moving away from “free trade” holds an instinctive appeal to those of us fighting to make ends meet. 

In reality “protectionism,” as these sorts of tariff policies are called, is just another of the ruling elite’s economic strategies. That, like, “free trade,” comes with a range of problems for workers, to greater or lesser degrees depending on one’s occupation. With Trump linking tariffs to issues like migration, dollar supremacy and managing the fall-out of tax cuts for the wealthy, the general effects of tariffs will also be affected by political shocks.

The very debate over “trade policy” reflects how inadequate the capitalist system is for meeting the needs of the vast majority of working and poor people. The problems it looks to solve can only be addressed by replacing the profit-first orientation of capitalism with the people-first orientation of socialism. 

Tariffs 101

A tariff is a tax — a tax on goods coming into a country from another jurisdiction. The popular perception is that this is a tax on foreign companies in other countries. However, the reality is different. A tariff is a tax on imports, so most of the burden falls on the companies importing either fully produced goods or parts to assemble or sell in the U.S. 

In other words, if Wal-Mart buys TVs from China to sell in its U.S. stores, Wal-Mart pays the tariff when it receives the TV’s from China. Wal-Mart can, of course, increase the price of the TV to absorb the cost of the tariff, meaning the tax is really paid by the person trying to buy an affordable TV. Wal-Mart might buy more TVs from a U.S. company, creating some jobs. However, in addition to higher production costs, less competition means the U.S. TV companies also can increase their prices. So, at the end of the day, all the TVs in Wal-Mart are going to be more expensive. 

During Trump’s first term, for example, tariffs were placed on washing machines. One study found that approximately 1,800 new jobs were created at Whirlpool, Samsung and LG factories in the U.S. However, according to the same study, in the months following those tariffs, prices for washers and dryers increased as well, by $86 and $92 per unit, respectively.

As Trump himself has noted about the impact of his proposed new tariff policies when asked if he could “guarantee” that it would not raise prices: “I can’t guarantee anything.”

‘Benefits?’

For the working class, understanding these trade-offs is crucial. What can benefit one subset of our class, can hurt the other, and in both senses “hurt” and “help” are relative concepts. Autoworkers, for instance, suffer on the job injury rates twice as high as workers overall. At the Rivian Automotive electric vehicle factory, for example, workers sustained injuries as serious as cracked skulls, bone fractures, back lacerations that required surgery and even amputated fingers. 

So, increasing “manufacturing jobs” is no panacea, even if the salaries are higher than in other working-class sectors. Nonetheless, the appeal of tariffs to many is that it will bring overseas manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. In Trump’s own words:

This new American industrialism will create millions and millions of jobs, massively raise wages for American workers, and make the United States into a manufacturing powerhouse like it used to be many years ago.

The year 1979 was the peak of manufacturing employment in the U.S., with 19.5 million employed. Currently there are 12.8 million manufacturing workers, a difference of 6.7 million. During Trump’s first term, when he also pursued various tariffs, manufacturing employment, at best, increased by 350,000 jobs over four years. Even if you were to add in the best case scenario of the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs act, the possibility of more than a few hundred thousand manufacturing jobs a year being created seems highly unlikely. In such circumstances, manufacturing jobs reaching the level they were at in the year 2000, much less 1979, is a faraway prospect. 

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Further, most workers — roughly 90% — do not work in manufacturing, placing them on the losing end of cost increases associated with tariffs. One analysis estimates that the tens of millions of workers making less than $55,000 could see their cost-of-living go up between 5-6% from Trump’s tariff proposals. The heaviest burden falls on those making less than $28,600, which is already “insufficient to meet a one-person basic family budget in any county or metro area in the United States.”

The real motive

Trump’s tariff policy, from a worker’s perspective, is classic divide and conquer. It entices those struggling with the cost-of-living with the limited, possible opportunity at getting a higher-paying manufacturing job, while making life more expensive for everyone else, in particular the lowest paid workers. This faux-pro-worker policy, then, really has different goals. First and foremost is to kneecap China’s economy. 

Since the earliest days of capitalism, tariffs have been used for such purposes. When combined with military power, tariffs are a way for capitalists in one country to maintain their advantages over others. As Fredrich Engels, pioneering Marxist, noted: “England thus supplemented the protection she practiced at home by the Free Trade she forced upon her possible customers abroad; and, thanks to this happy mixture of both systems, at the end of the wars, in 1815, she found herself, with regard to all important branches of industry, in possession of the virtual monopoly of the trade of the world.” 

Significant tariffs on China directly (or third countries where Chinese businesses invest to export to the U.S.), combined with sanctions policy and military force, are designed to raise the “cost of doing business” with Chinese companies for companies from anywhere looking to also do business in the United States. The hope is to slow Chinese economic growth and development and/or forcing China to make various economic concessions to the U.S. 

Another motivation for Trump’s tariff policy is to try to cover the holes he plans to create through his trillion dollar tax transfers to billionaires. Trump and the Republicans are promising to extend the tax cuts they enacted in 2017 at the cost of $4 trillion, primarily benefiting the ultra-rich. The average tax cut for the bottom 60% of the country would be $500, for people with $5 million in income, the average tax cut would be $280,000. 

The only way to address the government’s debt, also a Trump promise, while pursuing these tax cuts (and more) would be destructive cuts to essentially all vital government programs, including Social Security. Since most workers certainly would not like to see their retirement cut so that millionaires can buy new cars and boats, tariffs are meant to try to keep enough critical programs afloat that it staves off mass anger. 

Failure all around

Most estimates show Trump’s tariffs will not be enough to replace losses from his tax cuts for the ultra-rich, and real life has shown that Trump and Biden’s tariff policies have failed to hobble Chinese steel or auto companies. So, even considering its true purpose, Trump’s tariff proposals are unlikely to meet their goals. Not to mention they are going to increase costs for working-class people, create — at best — a very limited number of manufacturing jobs, and possibly slow down the U.S. and global economy leading to more economic misery for the working class. 

Trump’s “protectionism” is no better than the alternative of “free trade.” They are both just capitalist strategies to maintain their stranglehold on wealth and power. 

As we’ve noted before, “Relentless focus on profit is core to capitalism. This obsession with profit is the system’s motor engine.” Yet since 1969, profitability has been trending downward. The first response of the capitalist class, starting in the 1970s, to promote policies that have become known as “neoliberalism”: expanding production in the developing world (globalization); attacks on public spending and progressive taxation (austerity); and a massive expansion of U.S. military power to subdue those who refuse to comply with the imperial agenda.​​ Which all came with a heavy dose of “free trade” ideology. 

These strategies failed to fully restore profitability and created their own contradictions, like the rise of China, that also created issues for the ruling class. So now, a new “protectionist” strategy has arisen to apply different medicine to the same illness. What is really needed is radical surgery, a total change in the economy, from profit first, to people first, or, socialism.

Dirty Break or Destruction: The Peculiar Politics of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

By Youhanna Haddad

Perhaps the critics were right.

The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States. Founded in 1982 by a cadre of social democrats, the group has since swelled to roughly 100,000 official members. Virtually all of that growth occurred after Senator Bernie Sanders launched his first presidential run, which mainstreamed socialism in America. What was once a marginal bunch now regularly makes headlines and even has members in Congress.

Yet the Democratic Socialists of America is hardly uncontroversial on the American Left. A longstanding critique is that it’s too reformist and cozy with a Democratic Party it should be trying to destroy. Rather than mobilizing to build independent institutions, leftist critics believe the organization siphons socialist energy into the duopoly’s lesser evil. That is arguably counterrevolutionary as it may further lock us into a capitalist political system which only serves the elite.

Naturally, members forcefully resist this characterization of their organization. But recent events seem to have vindicated the critics in many ways. On August 6th, the Democratic Socialists of America’s official Twitter account posted the following:

“[Vice President Kamala] Harris choosing [Minnesota governor Tim] Walz as a running mate has shown the world that DSA and our allies on the left are a force that cannot be ignored. Through collective action… DSA members… organized… to support Palestinian liberation… and… pressured the Democratic establishment into… backing down from a potential VP with direct ties to the IDF and who would have ferociously supported the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”

The DSA seemingly believes Walz is a solid choice and that Democrats caved to leftist activists in choosing him. A closer look at Walz, however, reveals that he is no progressive. He is, at best, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Although much of his worse escapades have been so brazen that Walz is really a wolf in wolf’s clothing.

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For example, he regularly speaks before the Minnesota Israel lobby. The Jewish Community Relations Council has applauded the governor’s “pro-Israel record.” Days after October 7th, Walz addressed the Council “in solidarity with Israel against the terrorism of Hamas.” In the speech, Walz made it clear that he stands “firmly with the state of Israel and the righteousness of the cause.” That cause, recall, is apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinians.

But that’s not all. When Palestinian constituents who lost family members in the Gaza genocide wanted to meet with Walz, he refused. The Minnesota governor originally agreed to the meeting under the belief that these Palestinians would merely share their stories. When they informed Walz of their intention to discuss divestment and other material policy, he ordered his staff to cancel.

At a conference of the extremist Zionist American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Walz called Israel “our truest and closest ally.” He touted the apartheid state’s supposed “commitment to values of personal freedoms and liberties.” As a federal congressman, Walz voted to condemn a United Nations resolution declaring Israel’s West Bank settlements illegal. This placed Walz to the right of longstanding State Department policy, overturned by Donald Trump, that considered the incursions illegitimate.

It’s clear where Walz’s sympathies lie — with the Zionists and against the innocent men, women, and children they’re slaughtering. So it appears the Democratic Socialists of America were wrong. The Democrats didn’t respond to their calls for a free Palestine. Instead, they installed another stooge who will gleefully abet the ongoing holocaust in Gaza.

Democrats aren’t listening to socialist organizers. Pretending they are sells false hope, and enables liberal politicians to take leftist votes and run. Throughout their careers, Harris and Walz have made it abundantly clear where they stand.

Neither has any real commitment to working people at home or abroad. Their lack of such commitment is precisely what allows them to thrive in the fundamentally irredeemable Democratic Party. Despite the DSA’s official line, many members understand this. Within the organization exists a robust movement for a “dirty break” from the Democrats. One member described the strategy as follows

In the short term, the DSA should keep “run[ning] candidates on the Democratic… ballot line.” But the crux of the dirty break is that, concurrently, the DSA should begin building an independent working-class party. Upon assembling a sufficient infrastructure and voter base, the DSA should abandon the Democrats and run candidates under its banner.

One thing the DSA could do to facilitate a dirty break is further broaden its big tent. Currently, the DSA’s constitution essentially bans members of “democratic-centralist organizations” from joining. This excludes many Leninists, who are some of the biggest advocates for an independent working-class party. And while there are numerous Marxist-Leninist organizations that already exist as an alternative to groups like the DSA — with the most recent iteration coming from academic Carlos Garrido, who is involved in building such a party — it would make sense for the DSA to welcome the inclusion of this radical energy, rather than continuing to buffer it. As DSA members have yet to make much progress toward a dirty break, they could use such vigor. 

While not all DSA members support a dirty break, the vision is there. That alone may help many DSAers avoid the Democratic ruse of courting progressives for their votes before summarily abandoning them. Historically, stumbling into this trap seems to be the DSA’s modus operandi. But it won’t lead anywhere good.

The organization should instead empower its dirty breakers and channel the energy the DSA undeniably possesses into independent institutions which challenge — not serve — imperialist hegemony. And if the DSA doesn’t do that, other groups should emerge to supplant it.

Youhanna Haddad is a North American Marxist of the Arab diaspora. Through his writing, he seeks to combat the Western liberal dogmas that uphold racial capitalism. You can contact him at youhannahaddad@gmail.com.

Palestine: The Human Cost of Capitalist Exploitation

By Peter S. Baron

As the genocide in Palestine continues, we must confront the stark reality of American involvement. American taxpayer money is funding a continuous supply of bombs and war technology to Israel, weapons that are being used to kill Palestinians. Despite the political posturing, the U.S. government’s unwavering stance isn't about moral high ground or justice — it's about cold, calculated geopolitical and capitalist interests.

Escalation and Brutality Since October 7th, 2023

Since October 7th, 2023, Israel’s brutality in Gaza has escalated to unimaginable levels. Families have been torn apart, homes reduced to rubble, and entire communities shattered. The death toll is over 45,000, including more than 41,000 civilians, 15,620 children, and 10,173 women, according to Euro Med Monitor. When including “indirect deaths,” the Lancet estimates the true death toll is likely upwards of 186,000 people. With countless bodies buried under 40 million tons of rubble, the true number may never be known.

Children, who should be playing and learning, are instead facing death and destruction. Roughly 80% of Palestinian children have reported emotional distress and trauma. Think back to when you were a child, say nine years old. Could you imagine living in such a dystopian reality? According to UNICEF, at least 17,000 children have been orphaned or separated from their families. Over 2,750 people have been detained or forcibly disappeared by the Israeli Defense Force, leaving families in anguish and communities in fear.

Israel’s constant bombardment has left over 86,200 injured, overwhelming Palestine’s already crumbling healthcare system. The injured and sick have been abandoned with nowhere to go as over 30 hospitals, 100 clinics, and 275 ambulances have been targeted and destroyed by Israeli strikes. Health professionals, who should be saving lives, are themselves becoming casualties, with over 486 killed and 640 injured. Civil defense workers, crucial for emergency response and rescue operations, have not been spared, with over 259 killed or injured.

Palestine is being suffocated under a wave of deliberate, calculated suffering. A million people are gasping for air with acute respiratory infections, 577,000 are writhing in agony with severe diarrhea, and 107,000 are battling acute jaundice. Over 100,000 people are being devoured by scabies, 65,000 are enduring the relentless torment of skin rashes, 12,000 are passing blood through their bowels in sheer agony, and 11,000 children are suffering from chickenpox in conditions that are nothing short of hellish.

And it doesn't stop there. Hundreds are gripped by mumps and meningitis, diseases that thrive in the chaos and despair deliberately inflicted upon this population. The threat of a polio outbreak looms, like a vulture waiting to feast on a community already pushed to the brink.

Gaza has tragically become a vast graveyard, a land where the living walk among the dead, buried hastily and in desperation as the relentless bombardment continues. Once vibrant neighborhoods have been reduced to fields of graves, where bodies are laid to rest in backyards, beneath staircases, and along roadsides. Cemeteries overflow, and morgues can no longer contain the sheer number of the dead. The ground is dug up repeatedly, with graves being made on top of graves as space runs out. In some places, graves themselves have been destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, leaving bones and remains scattered and exposed. The once sacred rituals of honoring the dead have been replaced by hurried, makeshift burials, often without the dignity of proper rites. Gaza has become not just a place of death, but a symbol of the utter devastation and inhumanity that has turned an entire territory into one massive, sorrow-filled cemetery.

Israel has completely destroyed over 141,920 Palestinian homes and partially damaged another 312,000, displacing at least 1.7 million people out of a population of 2.2 million. Can you fathom such enormous numbers? What about the terror of losing your home, your loved ones, and your sense of security, repeatedly over the course of eight long months? This mass displacement has left countless people without shelter, food, electricity, or basic necessities. Families are huddling in makeshift shelters, clinging to the hope of survival amidst relentless attacks.

Over 180 press headquarters, 2,500 industrial facilities, 460 schools, 690 mosques, 3 churches, and 200 heritage sites have been destroyed or damaged. This is the erasure of the history, culture, and identity of an entire people. This genocide has been the deadliest event on record for journalists in decades. Deliberately targeting reporters, killing over 140, aims to silence the truth and blind the world to the atrocities being committed.

The blockade on Palestine, which has been in place since 2007, has been elevated to a “complete siege,” significantly restricting the flow of food, water, electricity, humanitarian aid, and medical supplies ensuring that Palestinians remain trapped in a cycle of poverty, dependency, and despair. Israeli Minister of National Security, Ben-Gvir, even went so far as to assert, “The only thing that needs to enter Palestine are hundreds of tons of explosives from the Air Force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid.” This blockade, justified under the guise of security, is in reality a brutal economic stranglehold designed to cripple the region and maintain geopolitical dominance.

The justifications for the blockade of Palestine, particularly claims like those highlighted by commentator Steven Bonnell, known online as "Destiny," that Hamas uses sugar from imported soda and sweets to manufacture rockets, are patently absurd. They insult the intelligence of the global community. The implausibility of using common sugar for military rocket propulsion is glaring. It belies established chemistry.

The real motivation for blocking basic goods is to make Palestine uninhabitable. The tactic of deliberate deprivation carried out by Israeli elites with American support coerces the Palestinian population into leaving their homeland behind or suffering intolerable living conditions, thereby clearing the way for further territorial control. Israeli Colonel Yogev BarSheshet revealed as much, saying, “Whoever returns here, if they return here, will find scorched earth. No houses, no agriculture, no nothing. They have no future.”

The United States’ steadfast support of Israel’s manipulative use of basic human needs for geopolitical ends demonstrates a profound disregard, if not contempt, for the humanity of Palestinians. The death and devastation are not “mistakes.” This is a calculated campaign of destruction and control.

Economic Interests and Military-Industrial Complex

The United States’ unwavering funding for Israel’s actions in Palestine is driven by a web of economic, political, and ideological factors that prioritize profits and power over human lives.

The U.S.-Israel partnership is not just about direct military might; Israel's intelligence capabilities provide the U.S. with critical insights into Middle Eastern geopolitics, preempting threats to American economic dominance while generating profits for the elite.

Israel's advancements in cybersecurity, defense, and agriculture are exploited by U.S. industries to create profitable joint ventures and innovation hubs that benefit the wealthy few. The Iron Dome missile defense system, a joint U.S.-Israel project, is lauded for safeguarding Israeli cities, but it primarily serves to bolster the military-industrial complex, allowing U.S. defense companies to gain insights and innovations that they can apply to other projects. For example, the Iron Dome has introduced cutting-edge technology in missile interception, which the U.S. likely integrates into its own defense systems.

Of course, the production and maintenance of the Iron Dome system generate significant profits for U.S. defense contractors involved in the project. The Israeli corporation Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the U.S. corporation Raytheon have joined up to produce Iron Dome components and systems within the U.S. The partnership is propped up by over $7 billion in U.S. investments allocated to Israeli missile defense programs since the early 1990s.

The U.S. provides Israel with billions of dollars in military aid annually, which Israel then uses to purchase advanced weaponry and technology from American defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing. Outside of corporate executives, major shareholders, and a limited number of employees directly involved in the defense industry, very few people benefit from investments in these companies.

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Overall, about 61-63% of Americans own some form of stock, either directly or indirectly through mutual funds, retirement accounts, and other investment vehicles. Given the widespread investment in major indexes and mutual funds, which often include shares of these large defense companies, it is likely that a substantial portion of Americans who own stock indirectly hold shares in defense companies. For instance, many popular index funds and ETFs that track the S&P 500 or other major indexes include shares of these top defense contractors. However, this figure is misleading when it comes to the actual distribution of wealth. As of the third quarter of 2023, the top 10% of Americans held 93% of all stocks — the highest level ever recorded. In stark contrast, the bottom 50% of Americans held just 1% of all stocks. This means that despite a majority of Americans technically owning stock, most people see very little financial benefit from the market, including any profits gained by defense companies. The economic and social costs of military engagements disproportionately impact the majority, who gain almost nothing from the stock market despite their indirect involvement.

The Stable-Unstable dynamic

More broadly, the relationship with Israel is vital for U.S. companies aiming to access, dominate, and control the Middle East's abundant resources — namely, oil and natural gas. Despite the U.S. achieving energy independence, regional “stability” remains crucial for the elite, because it allows them to maintain control over global energy prices, secure profitable trade routes, and preserve their geopolitical dominance, all of which protect their economic and strategic interests on a global scale.

Israel’s US funded military capabilities aims to prevent conflicts or political upheavals that could disrupt the U.S.’ dominance over the flow of oil and other goods through critical chokepoints like the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz, which are essential for maintaining global trade routes. According to Israel, for example, Israel’s Shin Bet — its FBI equivalent —  has foiled adversarial plots aimed at key targets, preventing attacks that could have disrupted global oil supplies.

But let’s be clear, what the elites seek to foster is not peaceful stability, but rather controlled instability.

Regional stability is essential in key areas like oil flow and trade routes because it ensures that oil and goods keep moving smoothly, without sudden disruptions that could hurt the profits of the elite. Stability here means oil tankers safely passing through shipping lanes without threats of piracy or war, and goods flowing from factories to markets without delays. Governments in these regions need to be cooperative, keeping things calm and under control so that business can continue as usual.

But in other regions, controlled chaos is part of the strategy. By stirring up conflict and instability in countries like Iraq, Syria, and Libya, the U.S. prevents any one country or group from becoming powerful enough to challenge American dominance. This kind of instability looks like ongoing civil wars, governments struggling to maintain control, and communities torn apart by violence. These conditions keep local leaders too busy trying to survive to focus on resisting U.S. influence or forming alliances with America’s rivals.

In this way, the U.S. ensures that no single country in these regions becomes strong enough to disrupt American interests. Instead, these countries remain weak, divided, and dependent on U.S. military aid and economic support to stay afloat. The chaos keeps them in check, while the stable regions keep the oil and goods flowing—both serving to maintain U.S. power and control in the world.

Therefore, what the elites truly seek is a balance: stability where it protects their economic interests and controlled instability where it ensures their geopolitical dominance.

Selective Stability, Controlled Instability

The U.S.-Israel military presence in the Middle East serves as the iron fist behind the smooth flow of oil and goods, ensuring that nothing disrupts the relentless pursuit of profit. Oil tankers, loaded with crude, glide through the Persian Gulf under the ever-watchful eyes of American and Israeli warships, their safety guaranteed by the threat of overwhelming force. These tankers are the arteries of the global economy, and the military presence ensures that they deliver their cargo without interruption. The calm waters mask a brutal reality: this enforced stability exists solely to protect the profits of oil magnates, ensuring that every drop of oil fuels the capitalist machine, keeping the elite firmly in power.

On land, the same dynamic plays out with trade routes from factories in the East to markets in the West. U.S. and Israeli forces act as enforcers, maintaining a system where compliant governments keep their populations in check, ensuring no disruption disturbs the flow of goods. This military presence suppresses any threat to the status quo, propping up regimes that prioritize business as usual over human rights.

Simultaneously, the U.S. military presence in the Gulf keeps the Middle East in perpetual turmoil. Israel's airstrikes on Hezbollah targets aren’t about self-defense—they’re about throwing gasoline on the fire. When bombs rip through crowded neighborhoods, it’s not just militants who suffer; it’s entire communities—families gathered around dinner tables, children laughing in the streets—obliterated in an instant. This isn’t collateral damage; it’s a strategy. The more destruction, the more Hezbollah is provoked, ensuring a vicious cycle of retaliation that justifies yet another wave of attacks. This relentless violence keeps the region seething with rage, just the way the arms dealers like it. With every missile launched, stock prices for American defense contractors soar, profits stained with the blood of innocents.

Saudi Arabia’s onslaught against the Houthis is no different. These so-called "precision" airstrikes routinely tear apart schools, hospitals, and marketplaces—places where everyday people go to survive, to live. But that’s exactly the point: to turn Yemen into a landscape of despair, ensuring it remains a theater of war. The more catastrophic the situation becomes, the more Saudi Arabia clings to American military support, feeding into the U.S.'s grand design. The bombs don’t just destroy buildings—they destroy any chance for peace, ensuring Yemen remains a battlefield where only the arms dealers prosper.

When local governments are weakened by instability, they become more desperate, more willing to sign deals that favor U.S. companies, especially in resource extraction and trade. These companies swoop in, exploiting the disarray to secure access to valuable resources at bargain prices, all while the region burns. Meanwhile, the ongoing turmoil makes it nearly impossible for rival powers like Russia and China to establish a stable presence or secure long-term investments. Every time they try to establish a foothold, the instability disrupts their plans, forcing them to pull back or lose billions in failed ventures. This ensures that U.S. interests face no real competition in the region, keeping American dominance secure.

The paradox of U.S. policy lies in using instability to achieve a form of controlled stability. By periodically destabilizing the region, U.S. elites maintain a balance of power that prevents any one nation from becoming too powerful while ensuring ongoing dependence on U.S. support.

Palestine isn't just a footnote in this power-hungry game; it's a centerpiece. The capitalist elite know that crushing Palestinians will ignite resistance, not just in Palestine but across the entire Middle East. And that's exactly what they want. This turmoil becomes the perfect excuse for Israel to beef up its military, all under the guise of "security," funded by billions of U.S. dollars. Every act of Palestinian defiance is twisted into a justification for Israel's brutal military machine, which the U.S. gleefully supports because it keeps their imperial ambitions alive.

“Orientalism” (as understood by Edward Said) provides further pretext for the atrocities in Palestine. Arabs and Muslims are depicted by corporate media and bad-faith social media personalities as violent, backward, and a threat to Western civilization, which views itself as rational and enlightened. This dehumanization makes it easier to justify and carry out extreme violence against them. The Israeli government speaks of fighting “human animals,” making Palestine a “slaughterhouse,”  and “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”

The skeptics among us might wonder, "Even if we are being overly destructive, isn't the core of this foreign policy in our best interests?" After all, our politicians constantly assure us that our military actions are meant to protect us and enhance our security.

No. This policy doesn't protect us; it undermines our security. The “stable instability” American elites create fosters resentment and extremism, breeding terrorist groups that then target innocent civilians, including us. The CIA has admitted that such actions generate significant "blowback," leading to increased threats that culminate in loss of lives. The fear and threats generated by our aggressive foreign policy lead to the erosion of our own civil liberties through measures like invasive airport security. One study demonstrated that despite spending over $550 million on TSA screening equipment and training, TSA agents failed to detect a threat in 67 out of 70 mock tests. This means that in 95% of the trials, the TSA missed planted threats. The elite are sacrificing our privacy and rights in the name of a security that remains elusive.

Elite Manipulation of Politicians

Historically, politicians have never hesitated to carry out the elite’s killing missions in exchange for political funding. The situation here is no different. The Israel lobby’s influence in the United States plays a significant role in maintaining this status quo. Powerful lobbying groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) exert tremendous influence over U.S. politicians. Through campaign contributions and political pressure, these groups ensure that U.S. policies remain staunchly pro-Israel. Politicians, driven by the need to secure campaign financing and re-election, often align their policies with the interests of these lobbies.

Despite its relatively small financial contributions compared to other donors, AIPAC strategically targets key lawmakers to maximize its impact. By lobbying, fostering close relationships with politicians, and forming strategic alliances and partnerships with various interest groups, political entities, and organizations to advance their policy goals and support for Israel, AIPAC ensures that legislators align with its pro-Israel agenda.

Furthermore, AIPAC uses intimidation tactics, threatening to support challengers against incumbents who do not toe the line, thereby coercing politicians to adopt its views. Recently, the anti-Zionist Democrat Jamal Bowman lost his primary to Zionist candidate George Latimer, who received over $15 million from AIPAC in the most expensive primary race ever. Politicians witness the political fallout in races like NY-16 and quickly learn the severe consequences of defying the Israel lobby. This creates an oppressive environment where fear of backlash forces compliance, transforming the political landscape into a monolithic echo chamber where Zionism is the only acceptable stance.

The Cycle of Violence and Exploitation

Remove all the moral platitudes and justifications for our actions and what we are really talking about here is an obscene, ruthless pursuit of power and money, where the deaths of children and the destruction of homes are built into the business model. The elite have their sights set on Gaza today, with plans that starkly illustrate their predatory strategies. Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former senior advisor, highlighted the "very valuable" potential of Gaza's waterfront properties. In a revealing interview at Harvard University, Kushner suggested Israel should remove civilians from Gaza to "clean up" the area.

Israeli real estate developers, such as Harey Zahav, have proposed building beachfront properties over the ruins in Gaza, which have been heavily bombarded. Constructing settlements on the remains of demolished Palestinian homes evokes the harrowing history of the Nakba, during which over 500 Palestinian towns and villages were systematically destroyed by Zionist militias. Israeli General Elad Peled described the war crimes he committed during the Nakba, saying “we entered the village [and] planted a bomb next to every house.”

Ultimately, the more successful Israel is in wiping out Palestinians, the stronger the U.S.-Israeli stranglehold on this region becomes. More land becomes available to exploit, to expand settlements, and to control strategic trade routes, such as the Suez Canal where 30% of the world’s shipping containers must pass through and the Bab el-Mandeb strait where six million barrels of oil pass through every day.

The Zionist leaders of years past were clear about their intentions. In 1948, the founder and first prime minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion said, “We must do everything to ensure [the Palestinians] never do return.” Moshe Sharret, the second prime minister, agreed, stating, “We… have come to conquer a country from the people inhabiting it.” Chaim Weizman, the first president of Israel, analogized Palestinians to “the rocks of Judea” — “obstacles that have to be cleared on a difficult path.”

At its core, Zionism is a capitalist project. It is about turning land — what should be communal — into a commodity for private profit. The Jewish State, a pamphlet written by the father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, admits as much. He called for transforming previously non-commercial lands into productive economic zones through agriculture, urban planning, and infrastructure — efforts that would inevitably displace existing populations. Israeli authorities implemented this idea, strategically seizing and reclassifying Arab land to consolidate their control over it.

By forcibly removing Palestinians and appropriating their land, Zionism creates fertile ground for real estate ventures and new markets. This process is further bolstered by the military and security industries, cornerstones of capitalist economies, which profit from the instability and conflict.

The Zionist project does not merely parallel capitalism; it is a manifestation of it, embodying the drive to dispossess, commodify, and profit.

The Nauseating Reality

How sickening is this?

The endless churn of war keeps corporate profits soaring. Capitalism demands ever-growing profit margins, and the corporate overlords, with their iron grip on political power, won't let go. The U.S. must remain Israel's staunch ally, not for justice or security, but to keep the gears of the war machine turning, to keep the stock market fat, and to ensure the elite continue to float above the suffering they've engineered.

Without unwavering U.S. support, Israel would have to consider diplomacy, stripped of the military dominance that U.S. aid guarantees. This could finally reduce tensions, forcing other nations and groups in the region to soften their aggression, knowing the U.S. is no longer fueling the militarized madness.

However, in this late stage of capitalism, the elite cannot afford peace. Demand for weapons would plummet. The military-industrial complex, bloated by blood money, would see profits wither. Stock prices of defense companies would fall, dragging down the portfolios of the elite who thrive on this manufactured chaos.

The deep animosity between Israelis and Palestinians is a direct result of the calculated strategies employed by elites to maintain their stranglehold on power. This conflict is deeply rooted in the reality of Israel as a settler-colonial state, driven by a capitalist system that thrives on division and exploitation. The powerful deploy propaganda and systemic oppression to manipulate the masses into fighting each other, distracting them from uniting against their true oppressors — the elites themselves.

This situation mirrors the European settlers' ruthless exploitation and slaughter of Indigenous populations in North America. European elites indoctrinated and mobilized ordinary European settlers to commit genocide out of fear and hatred, but the elites were truly motivated by the opportunity to seize indigenous resources and grow obscenely wealthy. Similarly, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is motivated by an elite community’s rapacious desire to control land and resources. The elites stoke hatred and fear among ordinary Israelis, framing the conflict as an inevitable clash where both sides must annihilate the other. They position themselves as indispensable protectors in this endless cycle of bloodshed, manipulating public opinion to cement their power.

Many Israelis may genuinely feel that their security is at risk, leading them to support their government’s aggressive policies as a form of self-defense. This fear is skillfully manipulated by the elite through a relentless stream of propaganda. Settlers are not inherently evil; they have been indoctrinated—through schools, media, and political discourse—to believe that their safety requires they have an exclusive right to the land.

The truth is, no one has an inherent right to any land. The earth belongs to all people. Israelis aren't wrong simply for living in Palestine; they're wrong for denying Palestinians the same right to live there.

Recognizing this common oppression is crucial for building solidarity and working towards an equitable resolution. Otherwise, we fall back into the same old power struggles that the elite have always used to divide and conquer.

The Real Struggle

The real struggle is not between Israelis and Palestinians but between the oppressed masses and the elite forces that divide them and facilitate their exploitation in the pursuit of profit and power. Israeli society, like any other, is divided by class. The elites, who benefit from the conflict, use their power to maintain control and increase their wealth, manipulating the fears and prejudices of the broader population to sustain the status quo. The average Israeli, despite being on the dominant side of the conflict, is still part of the oppressed mass under capitalism. They are manipulated into supporting policies that perpetuate the occupation and the conflict, believing it necessary for their survival and security.

On the other side, Palestinians' anger and resentment are understandable, if not inevitable. Such feelings are born from their experiences of dispossession, violence, and systemic brutality. Both populations are oppressed by the same capitalist system that prioritizes profit over human lives, using division and hatred to maintain control and suppress any potential unity against the true oppressors. There is a vast difference in degree, but not in kind.

The true enemy is not the individual Israeli or Palestinian but the elite-driven capitalist system that fuels the Zionist project. Recognizing this common oppression is crucial for building solidarity and working towards a just and equitable resolution.

This entire situation reflects a broader reality; a tiny elite class routinely manipulates global politics and economies to their advantage. The genocide in Palestine is a means to an end — ensuring that share prices climb and profits soar, all while innocent lives are taken. Millions are deemed expendable by an elite class that orchestrates these horrors from boardrooms and government offices, far removed from the bloodshed and despair their decisions cause.

This is murder for money.

Peter S. Baron is the author of If Only We Knew: How Ignorance Creates and Amplifies the Greatest Risks Facing Society (https://www.ifonlyweknewbook.com) and is currently pursuing a J.D. and M.A. in Philosophy at Georgetown University.