IV439 - August 2011

IV 439 PDF available to download here

Greece, Ireland and Portugal are the first three countries in the eurozone to agree to ‘bailout’ plans with the so-called Troika consisting of the European commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which place them under the direct tutelage of their creditors. Yet these agreements, which generate new debts and force unprecedented austerity measures on the population, can be challenged under international law. They are in fact ‘odious’ and therefore illegitimate. As the odious debt doctrine clearly affirms, the debts of the State must be incurred and the funds from it employed for the needs and in the interest of the State. However, the Troika loans are conditioned by austerity measures that flout international law and make it impossible for these countries to get out of the crisis.

One year ago during the month of July/August, the floodwaters that ravaged southern parts of Pakistan have long receded. Though gone are the makeshift tent camps on roadsides revival of normal life and livelihood still remain a challenge. Thousands continue a daily struggle to support their families and re-establish livelihoods. As a new monsoon season is on full swing, last year’s trauma and economic pain still linger. While last year’s victims struggle to recover, others now worry that changing world weather patterns will cause renewed flooding.

This article is a summary and development of the argument that I have been writing in the journal Critique, both in the Critique Notes and a number of articles.

"I just spoke to Baba Jan, the most wanted political activist of Gilgit Baltestan these days."

The journal Al-Akhbar interviewed Gilbert Achcar on the current stage of the Arab revolutions in June 2011. The translation and introduction we publish here were published in their English-language edition on 24 August 2011.

Malcolm X has been getting quite a bit of the attention lately, especially with respect to A Life of Reinvention — and deservedly so — but as Professor Marable himself would tell you, no one shaped his intellectual development more than W.E.B. Du Bois.

A new movement has risen in Europe. In Greece in May a series of general strikes shook the government. In France last autumn, millions went on strike and took to the streets to oppose the increase in pension age. There have been general strikes in Spain, Italy and Portugal. In Britain, a new student movement has taken to the streets against the dismantling of universal education. Ireland has seen its biggest trade union march for a generation and there have been large protests in Germany, Romania, Iceland and elsewhere.

The Berlusconi government’s decision to bring forward their austerity measures , in response to the diktat of the ECB (European Central Bank) and the ‘international markets’ shows up the hypocrisy and platitudes of recent months – the economic crisis reveals its true face as yet another massacre of people’s living standards. It is caused by the unfettered drive for profits of a blocked capitalism that is neither able to guarantee our well being nor give us a dignified future.

Following a police crackdown in Hunza Galgit Baltistan twenty people have been arrested including 6 Labour Party Pakistan and Progressive Youth Front activists. Baba Jan is the main accused, he will not surrender. Human Rights organisations should take immediate notice of this grave situation.