DeDollarization

"... Like the propaganda from NATO’s mainstream media in regards to the war in Ukraine exaggerating news in favor of the Kiev regime and minimizing any achievements by the Russian Army, the propagandists for Al Qaeda in Syria are doing the same, and in most of the times inventing baseless news to raise the morale among their terrorists, especially fabricating news of Syrian Army’s losses in soldiers. Based on the reports by the Al Qaeda propagandists, there must have been dozens of funerals of Syrian Army soldiers every week, at least.

We celebrate the martyrdom of our soldiers defending their country for more than 12.5 years against the unprecedented war of terrorism by the NATO ‘defensive’ alliance led by the USA comprised of literally hundreds of heavily armed, well-fed, and funded terrorist groups, in addition to providing them with state of the art medical treatment, communication devices, and intelligence information while even stealing the food and fuel from the Syrian people."

What happened to Poland?!

Also 💀🙈😳

"Those who place themselves on the ideological right in several European countries are more likely to express a positive view of the alliance than those on the left. However, in the U.S. and Canada, this pattern is reversed: Those on the left are more likely to say they have a favorable opinion of NATO."

Conclusion:

"In the foregoing, we reviewed the experiences of communist party leaders who miscalculated the political situation and clashed with national revolutionary movements hostile to colonialism and imperialism. This was caused by the fact that these leaders were affected by their bureaucratic party experiences and dogmatic and Eurocentric background that made them project preconceived ideas that were inconsistent with the reality of their societies. This led to the aforementioned mistakes, which contributed in some instances to the failure of the revolutionary movements in their fight against imperialism, especially in the case of Che Guevara in Bolivia and in occupied Palestine against Zionism."

Global Times:

"Japan's decision to dump nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea is a significant concern for global marine safety and human survival. In recent days, opposition and criticism, both domestically and internationally, have grown stronger, particularly since Japan began the discharge on August 24. To divert attention, however, Japan is attempting to portray itself as a victim of intentional targeting by China, rather than accepting responsibility as the perpetrator. In the face of Japan's audacity, we must continue to firmly oppose its dumping actions. Moreover, it is crucial that we unite all available forces worldwide to prevent Japan from inflicting devastating harm on the oceans.

How to do that? Some steps may be worth pondering.

First, we should strengthen communication with the fishing associations, environmental organizations, and the public of the countries affected by Japan's nuclear-contaminated water dumping. In recent days, peoples in South Korea and Japan have held rallies to expose the dangers of dumping nuclear-contaminated water into the sea and condemn the Japanese government's decision to do so. Individuals from many concerned countries, including the Philippines, Pacific island countries, and representatives from various international organizations, have also raised doubts and criticisms regarding Japan's plan to dump nuclear-contaminated water into the sea. Those forces that have voiced legitimate opposition for self-interest and global maritime security are the ones with whom we should strengthen cooperation and unite.

Second, worldwide environmentalists and environmental organizations who have been focusing on nuclear safety and marine environment protection should be invited to make serious science-based analyses about the nuclear water dumping in front of cameras, Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University, told the Global Times.

People around the world genuinely need to understand what kind of water is being discharged. Cooling water of normal nuclear plants has no direct contact with the nuclear reactor fuel cores. The Fukushima nuclear contaminated water, however, is totally different, as it has direct contact with contamination from the melted-down cores of three reactors and is severely contaminated with many radionuclides. Japan has said it has treated the water using Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) technology. Yet so far, growing concerns have been raised that APLS is far from sufficient. Not to mention that some radionuclides, such as Carbon-14, Iodine-129, and Cesium-137, can move up in the food chain and cause damage to human DNA. Against this backdrop, environmentalists, experts, and organizations studying marine ecosystems from across the globe should be encouraged to respond to the concerns about the impact of the nuclear water release on the food chain and human health.

Third, journalists from around the world should be allowed to visit Fukushima, Japan, for unrestricted reporting, Shen suggested.

Recently, when some Chinese journalists visited Fukushima, they were told that smartphones, laptops and cameras are not allowed. What is Japan trying to hide? Japan has chosen to dump nuclear water at a cost of 3.4 billion yen (about $23.22 million), while at the same time seeking 70.1 billion yen to tackle so-called disinformation, or in other words, to counteract the negative press about Japan's nuclear-contaminated water discharge. How is this possible?

Japanese fishermen have been the most vocal opponents of the plan to dump nuclear water. Tokyo has disregarded their concerns, sacrificing the interests of its own fishermen and putting the health of its own people at risk. No matter how much Japan will invest in propaganda, it can hardly conceal its image of being an authoritarian state with a meaningless electoral process.

Organizing joint on-site sampling and investigations among countries and international organizations is also an option. Shen suggests that BRICS countries and the Global South could carry out joint marine scientific expeditions, deploying research platforms or unmanned implants near Japan to conduct real-time independent sampling and monitoring. The results should be publicly compared with the data from Japan and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). If the standards are not met, the dumping should be halted.

Economically, countries can seek compensation from Japanese government or Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) based on international law for potential trans-boundary damage caused by the dumping of nuclear-contaminated water. This will make Japan realize that the cost of discharging outweighs Japan's selfish benefits.

This month as Japan started intentionally polluting the maritime environment with radioactive wastewater, a new catastrophe has emerged, with the potential to last for 30 years, 40 years, or indefinitely. But one thing should be certain - the release of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated wastewater should not mark the end of the story. The international community has a chance to make some joint efforts to stop the uncontrollable situation and protect people.

We are not inciting anti-Japanese sentiment, as our target is always Japan's irresponsible dumping actions. What we are doing is urging Japan to stop its wrongdoing, cancel the ocean discharge plan, for the sake of protecting the oceans for the common interests of humanity across generations. The next time when some politicians, especially those from the West, want to talk about "de-risking," they should bear in mind that the biggest risk in the world today is radioactive pollution brought by Japan. That is the one and only thing in urgent need of de-risking. "

"Algeria's long-awaited ascension to BRICS+ failed to materialize last week during the bloc's summit in South Africa, as Arabic media says India used its veto against the North African nation at the request of France.

Informed sources that spoke with Algeria's Dzair Tube say French intelligence contacted their Indian counterparts ahead of the BRICS+ summit to urge New Delhi into vetoing Algeria's entry to the bloc, describing the move as “revenge” for Algiers' growing influence in the Sahel region “at the expense” of France and as a way to slow down burgeoning ties between Algeria and China.

Tensions between Paris and Algiers spiked after a military junta ousted the French-backed government in Niger, in the latest example of a growing anti-west movement in the Sahel. Since then, Algeria has opposed an ECOWAS military operation in Niger, emphasized the role of diplomacy in bringing about a peaceful solution to the crisis, and refused permission for French military aircraft to fly over Algerian airspace.

The French plot took shape in the wake of a failed bid by President Emmanuel Macron to attend the summit in South Africa.

India saw an opportunity in the request from Paris, as officials were reportedly offered western help to “fill the void” left in former French colonies that have recently risen against neocolonial rule and extend its influence in a vital continent for BRICS+.

While France has maintained close ties with successive Indian governments for decades – being the only European permanent member of the UN Security Council that supported India's nuclearization in 1998 – their relationship has grown closer under Macron, who in 2019 supported India's position at the UN over occupied Kashmir and has sealed multiple defense agreements with the South Asian nation.

In 2018, Macron declared during a visit to India that France “must be India’s best partner in Europe and its gateway to the European continent.”

Nonetheless, India's veto against Algeria led to a dispute with China during the voting process, which reportedly almost caused the “ failure of the Johannesburg summit.” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also opposed Algeria's entry, according to Anadolu Agency.

..."

" ... Understanding “Queerness” in India: Not a Global Identity

The queer movements in the west have deeply informed the understanding of gender in the colonized world. Marx showed that capital is not merely value but is a social relationship emergent from the method with which it appropriates surplus value in production, through which it continuously produces more capital. As capitalism is now firmly in the stage of imperialism, there is a continuous export of capital from the monopoly capitalists in the ‘developed’ world to the former colonies. This capital brings with itself distorted social relations which affect all aspect of life to subvert our understanding of reality in the service of further capital production, including that of gender. This understanding forces us to then look at the history of South Asia to find the particularities of these distortions in our understanding of the term ‘queerness’ itself and its ahistorical nature on a global scale.

South Asia, like all other societies, displayed its own unique development of gender based on the particularities of the time. There is historical mention of the existence of hijras, kinnars, jogappas, khwaja saras, aravanis etc. as gendered social groups beyond the binary understanding of gender as male and female. One finds that various members of these gendered groups not only had a social function in feudal society in terms of a mythological existence but also an active role in the courts of the feudal ruling classes. Many hijras were engaged in the feudal mode of production as tax collectors for the zamindars, even amassing means of production by ways of gifts.4 Khwaja saras found themselves in the roles of guards, both to emperors as well as their harems, holding an important social role in the Mughal court, with their own unique culture centered around their role in these societies. Khwaja saras function can be enunciated by the fact that many found themselves holding high zat ranking within the Mughal mansabdari system, a system which determined the position of a government or military officer by way of the amount of zat points they hold. The mansabdari system organized the militaristic nobility of the Mughal empire and determined how feudal surplus extracted through taxes would trickle down among the nobility in the form of allowances, military holdings and even land governorship. Khwaja saras like Etmad Khan and Firoz Khan found themselves with the high zat ranking of 3000 while others like Khwaja Agah would become commanders of garrisons.5 Others also played an active role in the Mughal court in other ways as well, either as domestic workers serving the emperor and their families or as brokers who would maintain the existence of khwaja saras within the court.6 Apart from this, these gendered communities would also have a lot of mythical value attached to them, with many being considered as deities along with others being provided sole access to being allowed to tend to shrines. The entrenchment and positions of these gender groups in feudal society is apparent and there is a clear role in the production process which they play. Europeans like Francisco Pelsaert expressed their shock at witnessing this, which serves as a point of enquiry into the different development of gender within South Asian society in contrast with European society.

The demarcation between the development gender is also demarcated by the changes in the relations of production in each society. As pointed out previously, capital is in itself a social relation but the production of surplus capital itself occurs on the basis of relations of production, or in simple terms: class relations. Within European society, mercantile capital would gradually develop into industrial capital, categorized what is termed as the industrial revolution which in reality coincided with the larger bourgeois revolution in European society, marked by the eradication of feudalism in European and the onset of capitalism. The bourgeois democratic revolution not just transformed the economic aspect of life but would pervade in all aspects of life, including the family which would transform into a rigid monogamous and heterosexual structure wherein the role of each gender would be deeply entrenched in the production process, namely in the production of surplus (male gender) and reproduction of labour itself (women and children). Here, capitalism served as a progressive force in overthrowing feudalism but also created new social realities. This process was not allowed to occur in large parts of the world, with European capitalism developing from the stage of industrial capital marked by domestic competition to a period of monopolies where finance capital was exported to the rest of the world, in the stage of capitalism termed as imperialism. Imperialism, functioning by way of colonialism, introduced a distorted form of changes in relations of production wherein instead of the eradication of feudalism, imperialist finance capital would align with the feudal lords to both sustain the positions of feudal lords within society as well as perpetuate ‘development’ in a manner which most benefits the extraction and export of resources as part of the colonial process. Colonialism introduced a backward form of capitalism in India wherein instead of overthrowing feudalism, foreign capital would align itself with feudalism and create new distorted relations of production. This is entirely in contrast to the type of trajectory that occurred in Europe, where capitalism initially played a progressive role.

The colonial project also aimed to transform society in a manner which best facilitates its own interests and creates the best conditions for extraction of resources from the colonies. So there were multiple reforms that the colonial project undertook to transform the colonies into the ‘ideal’ islands for plunder, particularly when it comes to gender. There was a strong pushback against gender groups which did not fall into the European understanding of ‘male’ and ‘female’ in the form of their marginalization from the production process and the legal outlawing of their existence under the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871.7 Important to note is that this attack sharpened after the Indian war of independence in 1857, wherein anti-colonial, nationalist and peasant forces were defeated, and large-scale social reforms were undertaken to better transform the old feudal society in a manner where it can better serve the cause of imperialism. This saw the imposition of an understanding of gender which is imported by way of imperialist capital itself, that of rigid binary genders. But the outlawing of other gendered communities and social groups does not necessarily see their elimination, given the fact that feudalism was never overthrown the way it happened in European society. Instead, we find Indian society mired by this contradiction wherein the alliance of imperialist forces with feudal landlord class is reflected in all aspects of life. Simply put, this provides us with a society which attempts to be deeply binary while simultaneously seeing the presence of gender groups which developed under feudalism such as the hijras who continue to have both internal practices as well as a larger social position that is derived from feudal society. This is reflected in the hijra guru-chela system (master-apprentice) as well as in the biggest practice that fuels the hijra economic and social life, that of badhai. Under this practice, hijras make their way into celebrations held on hetero-normative occasions such as that of childbirth and weddings and perform a variety of activities like dances, songs and prayers. They would then provide blessings to the occasion and in return for those blessings, they are provided with gifts either in the form of cash or goods.8 The practice is deeply feudal, from its rituals to the medium of exchange being undertaken. Hijras are also engaged in begging as well as sex work as their other activities for subsistence, pushing them into a lumpen class background in certain spaces but even this status requires more enquiry, given the fact that the process of begging itself is still driven by feudal values associated with hijras in that being cursed by them and displeasing them is considered highly inauspicious.9

The marginalization of these gendered groups in this manner did not really change after the transfer of power to Indian big bourgeoisie in 1947. The Indian big bourgeoisie and its nexus with the landlord class continues the marginalization and oppression that occurred in with the onslaught of colonialism. This contradiction wherein feudal gendered groups exist in sharp contrast with the cisgender groups is observed in various countries which underwent colonization too. Nigerian scholar Oyerunki Oyewumi would argue that within the Yoruba community that occupies various countries in Africa, the stratification of gender and the understanding of gender as it is in the present is the product of colonization, with the new stratification unable to reconcile with the plurality of gender prior to colonization.10 Similarly in Philippines, among the Bigus people, among the Javanese people, among the Iban people, various gender groups are found like the bakla, the bissu, the warok and the manang bali which represent similar situations all over South-East Asia too. But as capitalist society in the ‘developed’ world change along with a loosening of the rigid family structure, gendered oppression creates new understandings of what it means to be queer.

....

Individuality, Sexual Anarchy and Imperialist Distortion of Culture

The hyperfixation on the individual experience is a continuous trend that is a definitive part of how neoliberalism distorts the social relations for persons. For the expansion of the market, there is a need to create more identities to sell commodities to and neoliberalism facilitates this by way of creating new identities continuously, even though they may not be completely defined at all. The individual becomes an alienated being within the social reality and the politics reflects it wherein the individual’s experience is given primacy over the totality of things that impress upon the individual. This creates further identitarian politics, wherein queer theory continues to create more and more new gender, sexual, romantic etc. identities purely out of random individual experiences over an objective understanding of reality. To cater to this, the market has hundreds of different queer flags and other commodities for people who align with those identities. This distorts not only how gender plays out in the lives of people as a form of oppression but also creates further silos within silos to individualize oppression along the lines of identities conceived arbitrarily. For example, the Indian Trans Act itself plays out this confusion by listing the existence of hijras, kinnars, transgender persons, intersex persons, genderqueer persons etc. under the umbrella term transgender or third gender. While many such terms represent a material existence of gender, all of them concrete and different from the ambiguous third gender term, as elaborated upon previously, terms like genderqueer are somehow also lumped into this arrangement wherein genderqueer can itself mean anything, from transgender person to non-binary to even its own unique term separate from those two. By creating such arbitrary lines within the queer space, the focus is then on how the individual ‘feels’ regarding their oppression and on nomenclature instead of how gendered and sexual oppression metes out its violence against them on the scale of a collective. Nomenclature itself becomes a point of expression, resistance and liberation. Not only do these silos alienate the individual, they alienate the already individualized queer movement from engagement with larger people’s struggles. Simply put, such nomenclature, even the practice of changing pronouns may provide one momentary comfort from gender dysphoria, a product of gender oppression, but it will not end said oppression itself.

As mentioned previously, the imperialist capital also distorts social reality and creates an inorganic culture around itself that deeply affects classes within a society wherein said capital is taking up space. This has created a culture centered around individuality and nomenclature but also a culture reliant on desire of a few. Since ignorance of the violence that informs who and what is desirable itself is pervasive, desire becomes individualistic and leads to sexual anarchy. The agency to engage in sex, let alone the ability to consent to sex in a patriarchal society is restricted to few classes. The ability to enjoy sex is also reliant on the amount of leisure-time one receives in their work-day. Since the bourgeois classes in a country like India also have the ability to create more leisure-time for themselves, in contrast to the majority of the Indian population, the question of enjoyable sex, the ability to consent to such sex and the agency to have multiple sexual partners is also a class question. The ignorance of class within queer political spaces also leads to the misconstrued understanding of queerness as the right to pursue desire in an anarchic manner. This manifests into anarchic sexual relationships, where sexual relationships are pursued in a manner which is ignorant of these questions and reduces sex to a market in itself comprised of various partners. Tinder, Bumble, Hinge etc. are mere manifestations of such marketplaces. In such a marketplace, each partner is seen as a commodity to be exploited by way of sex. Such spaces and the anarchic sexual relationships pursued within them are themselves manifestations of the distortions introduced by way of imperialist capital and its effect on culture and life. It is no wonder that the desirable bodies shaped within these spaces are marked deeply by caste and the class of those people these spaces are open to, that is, the bourgeois classes. Reduction of queerness to sexual anarchy is a bourgeois practice, backed strongly by feudal and imperialist forces to provide a few with the space to partake in such reduction.

This subversion of reform, expression of individuality, comfort and accommodation, all of which are already limited to the bourgeois classes, as a form of change, hinders our ability to truly rid ourselves of oppression.

..."