Switching on

Harrowdown Hill - Thom Yorke

2009-09-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

Harrowdown Hill is where English UN weapons expert Dr David Kelley was found, dead, in 2003. It was controversially found that he had committed suicide.

Creating a free, defiant art world

2008-09-13T21:37:00.000-07:00

Published in Music Feeds, Issue #6, 10th Sept - 24th Sept, 2008.

Lately, the art world has been tainted by a moral panic.

First, respected artist Bill Henson had 20 photographs of nude adolescents confiscated from his May exhibition at Roslyn Oxley 9 gallery for alleged child pornographic content. A police investigation followed, as did an uproar from Australia's vocal right.

A month later, another furore exploded over the Art Monthly's cover of a nude 6-year-old girl.

Self-proclaimed children's rights campaigner Hetty Johnson and media commentators, including Miranda Devine and Paul Sheehan, led the public charge against Henson and those who defended him, alleging that the art world is guilty of everything from excusing paedophilia to inducing a moral erosion family values. In a May 26 Sydney Morning Herald article, Sheehan asked "Where has the arts community been on the issue of adolescent sexploitation?". While he is aware that sexualised images of children abound in mass advertising, he reserved his fire for "gutless" artists, writers and the film industry who, he alleges, have all been "consistently censorious on difficult moral issues for fear of offending prevailing orthodoxies about gay rights, artistic freedom or moral apartheid for Aborigines". Sheehan also took aim at the gay community for having a "subculture of pedophilia" and the "epidemic of child abuse" in the Aboriginal community — two extremely serious and unsubstantiated claims.

For the most part, the media beat-up didn't tease out or clarify the complexities of censorship and sexuality in art, but confused the issues.

Devine, Sheehan and co can't seem to fathom that artists aren't the enemy of women or children. They did, however, demonstrate is that independence of our art world is fragile and tenuous, vulnerable to attacks from a gabbled chorus of right-wing commentators whose agenda is not to protect the exploited, but to stifle discussion.

Whatever your opinion on Henson's art, the censorship of controversial art and and threats of charges against artists is serious. Everyone is entitled to their opinion about what is good or bad art, or whether the message and content of the art is appropriate, and of course people are entitled to think that Henson is eroticising underage girls. I, and many others, don't agree, and I don't think that the portrayal of nudity is automatically wrong or exploitative. The Classification Board didn't agree either - it rated Henson's art as G, "mild and justified". The point is that censorship is not the answer. It doesn't work.

Who actually benefits from censorship? Not women or children, and not artists either. It's really only those who want to maintain the status quo who benefit from censorship.

It's very easy to ban controversial images, or images that are violent or exploitative of women. It's true that these kinds of images are symptoms of women's subjugation. We live in an extremely violent and divided capitalist society, where a quarter of women will be sexually assaulted before they turn 18, where images of half-starved women and dolled-up children are routinely used in the mainstream media to sell all manner of products, from Country Road clothes to Dove cosmetics. It's this for-profit expolitation and objectification of women and children's bodies that undermines women's confidence, closets people within pre-determined gender roles, and germinates attitudes of disrespect and violence in abusers.

So it's much harder to deal with the actual source of violence against women, and that's why censorship is ineffective. Any kind of useful discussion about ways for women to attain dignity, sexual liberation and equality will be squashed and limited by such restrictive and right-wing responses as censorship.

Likewise, any attempts to have a meaningful discussion about the role and responsibilities of artists is disabled by censorship.

There are many in the art world who are hungry for an alternative to the stale commercialism of the art scene, and who think art should be at the centre of contemporary discussion about politics, gender and sexuality and every other important discussion that needs to be had. Art isn't just about making stuff that looks pretty, it's about the big picture, the stuff that would otherwise make you want to curl into a ball. Surely the role of art is to induce questioning, to confront, to criticise and to provoke.

These roles and rights won't be taken away easily. The art community's defence of Henson and the right to make art that touches on controversial and ambiguous issues has been heartening, and shows that any attack on free art will be challenged creatively and courageously.

COyou2 - Saving the planet, one breath at a time

2008-09-13T21:28:00.001-07:00

We're all worried about climate change – and with the Arctic likely to melt within the next few years, it's no wonder. Governments and big businesses are doing all they can to cut emissions, but they can't do it alone. Now it's up to you and me. Introducing COyou² – your personal carbon capture system. Put a spring in your carbon footprint!

Did you know you emit immense quantities of carbon dioxide every time you exhale? Shame! Imagine if you could wear a lightweight backpack that captures the carbon emissions from you breath, ready for sequestering in your backyard or an unused cupboard. Well now you can.

Don't waste your breath complaining about the coal industry and government inaction when you can capture and store that carbon dioxide instead. At the end of the day, there are 21 million of us and only one government – so what are you waiting for?

Visit www.cou2.com today to start saving the planet, one breath at a time. And be sure to register your email for a complimentary e-catalogue.

read more | digg story

Music as alternative - RATM at the Republican Convention

2008-09-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

Oz film industry: Artists vs Hollywood fatcats

2008-09-02T19:21:00.000-07:00

Those who've gone to see an independent film lately might be familiar with an ad that warns against movie pirating. According to this ad, consumers (understandably sick of being gouged $14 to catch a movie) who download and burn movies are undermining the ability of the Australian film industry to grow and survive.

Pretty big call. Other times, critics of Australia's film industry point to a lack of corporate sponsership and private investment, or say that Australia films are "too niche" for consumers to want to pay money to see.

It's certainly not the case that Australians aren't interested in films - over the last ten years, Australia’s box office gross has averaged $803.03million. But each year, Australian films only gross $34.7million, or 4.3% of this total, compared to 77% for US films. So it's not that there is no market for films, it's just that the majority of films viewed in Australia are foreign - no, American - in origin.

Here's one fact that most contemporary discussion about the weakness of our film industry neglects: Australian film is completely tied to Hollywood.

Art isn't just a cultural good, the arts are an industry, and this industry has an economic imperative. In a market context, overwhelmingly, films exist to meet the demands of a market, and are produced by corporations whose aim by definition is to produce films to generate profit.

In other words, corporate interests rule. And furthermore, Hollywood interests rule. In fact, Australia subsidises Hollywood all the time.

Just look at the recent New South Wales state government support for international film production within NSW. Superman Returns, a Hollywood film shot in NSW in 2006, received big time financial support from the state government via the refundable film fax offset, just one of many protective and supportive measures for Hollywood in Australia. This tax scheme, introduced in 2002, allows large budget film productions to offset their tax, provided their Australian expenditure totals more than $15million. Superman Returns grossed $391million worldwide, and its producers publicy congratulated the NSW state government in assisting the film's overall financial success.

This begs the question - why the hell is our state government subsidising Hollywood? It's not like Hollywood needs it. If Hollywood majors want to shoot films in Australia, that's fine, but surely they can pay their own way!

After all, Hollywood is a large-scale industry, with an average production cost for a film was US$65.8 million in 2006, usually with the same amount for marketing/advertising again. That's a fuckload of money to invest. By contrast, the total average budget for an Australian film in 2005/2006 was $3.8million.

The highly costly nature of making films necessitates a large international market beyond the US. In 1998, US domestic box office gross was US$6.8billion (with a production budget of US$13billion). In other words, most films made in the US don't even make back their budget at the US box office. Hollywood cannot exist without markets outside the US, and that includes the Australian market.

The mass of Hollywood films in Australia undoubtedly has an impact on the viewing trends of Australians - our tastes are shaped toward Hollywood films. And so the cycle continues - quality independent films are less likely to be made, marketed and seen not just because of economic, but cultural reasons. There have been some really important films that have come out of Australia in the last little while, but the reality is that very few people will see them - instead, they're at Hoyts stuffing themselves with their Dark Knight collector's edition popcorn and coke combo. (And I freaking loved the Dark Knight, but seriously, "The Dark Whopper" at Hungry Jack's? Come on!)

It's a such a shame that many Australians will never see films like Ten Canoes, by Rolf De Heer (2001). Its budget was tiny - $2.4million, and it was financed largely by the Australian Film Commission. The style of story-telling and voice-over narration follows Aboriginal aural traditions, and there is a distinct absence of Hollywood production hallmarks like fast-paced editing. There was genuine collaboration with the Ramingining people throughout production (including a public meeting with the community to decide whether the film should be made and a even legal agreement between De Heer and the Yolngu people recognising their rights to the story - how unprecedented is that?!), and the film is in the Aboriginal dialect of Ganalbingu with subtitles in English.

It's cross-cultural, self-representative and non-exploitative, and that's about as non-Hollywood as movies come.

All the values that usually underpin the iconic films of Australian national cinema – competition, masculinity, land belonging to traditional male figures, the Aussie battler - are totally absent from Ten Canoes. Instead, we see values of collectivity and clanship, and harmony with, not domination over, the land. Ten Canoes doesn't base its values on inherited and outdated colonial foundations. It's Australian, but not nationalist, and that's a big break with 'old' Australian cinema. It actually values the original and valid inhabitants of Australia - the Aboriginal people. It's a record of cultural preservation for the stories of the Yolngu people, in the context of a country with an unresolved colonial history.

That's the kind of local culture that I would love to see more cultivation of.

Culture in Australia has always developed under the monolith of Hollywood - even in the 1920s, 95% of films seen here were from Hollywood. You can't grow a self-sustaining arts community in that context. This is what imperialism means for culture. This is the impact of transforming culture into a commodity. Commercialisation cramps creativity.

And this is why Australian cinema is stumped. We're being crushed by an inherently restrictive industry structure. We can't compete with Hollywood. Nothing can compete with Hollywood.

If we want a thriving arts scene, we need to bust out of the industry framework and start afresh. We need to start taxing the Hollywood biggies that are currently being subsidised by the NSW government, and use this money to seriously fund public art projects. Whether its giving grants to film-makers, providing walls for local street artists, opening up new community art spaces or sponsoring up-and-coming artists, its time to start giving art and culture the proper appreciation it deserves.

Published in Music Feeds, Issue #5

The Gruen Transfer: Disturbing and addictive TV

2008-08-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

The Gruen Transfer
Wednesdays, 9pm, ABC

The concept behind the ABC’s The Gruen Transfer is simple — get a bunch of advertising brains from top agencies, sit them down and talk to them about what makes ads work.

It is a great show — intriguing and disgusting at once. Intriguing because it gives viewers an unprecedented insight into the guts of the advertising industry. And disgusting for the same reason.

Its reveals how advertising has been refined to a science. It shows how much creativity, research and time is poured into enticing people to buy “the product”. Panellists describe what techniques they use to appeal to people’s emotions, or stop people from changing the channel during ad breaks.

We are exposed to gruesome insider jargon, like “roadblock”, which refers to when advertisers try to capture an entire audience at once — for instance by placing the same ad on all three commercial channels simultaneously.

The term “gruen transfer” is even more disturbing — it refers to the impact that an intentionally confusing shopping mall layout can have on a consumer. Host Wil Anderson tell us at the moment the gruen transfer kicks in, “our eyes glaze and our jaws slacken … we forget what we came for and become impulse buyers, you know when you set out to buy baby food but find yourself shelling out for a case of beer, two pairs of jeans and a plasma instead”.

It makes me wonder, why the hell are these intelligent, funny and talented people working in advertising? Why do they want to use their knowledge of how the mind works to sell more products for whichever corporations will pay them? Are they totally immoral? Do they hate the rest of the human race? Do they enjoy manipulating people?

And why are they on the show, revealing their awful secrets? Have they no shame?

Sure, their pay cheque must be pretty great, but its nothing compared to what the companies that employ them make from these advertisements.

Take Dove’s “Evolution” ad. In fast-forward, the ad shows the drastic transformation of a model in a billboard ad, from when she steps into the make-up chair to the final photographic image.

Not only is make-up applied and hair teased, but after the photo is taken, her neck is artificially stretched, her eyebrows and cheekbones heightened, her eyes widened, her lines smoothed. It’s pretty alarming stuff, especially for women, who experience the visual assault of mass advertising daily.

Dove uses this alarm to market its own beauty products as anti-beauty and “pro-age”. The message is that beauty comes from the inside, the industry has taken the idea of perfection too far, cosmetics advertising is out of control and the solution is to use products that are more natural, more honest and recognise the variety and subjectivity of female beauty. And sold by Dove.

The message is, we appreciate your imperfections! We just think you would benefit from some green tea and cucumber moisturiser!

It’s the ultimate in cynicism. This is how our society utilises creative people.

Sometimes the panellists admit this. During the July 9 episode, which discussed the effectiveness of government anti-speeding ads, one panellist commented that “ad agencies love this kind of work”, because “we spend so much time flogging — whatever, stuff” that it is a relief to try to do something mildly socially useful.

The skill and creativity of these ad braniacs is shown fully in “the pitch”, a weekly segment where two ad agencies are challenged to “sell the unsellable”. So far, participants in this segment have produced faux ads to make hunting and eating whale socially acceptable (“Whale: The beef of the sea!”), the Democrats electable again (“They are bastards, keep them honest”“) and invading New Zealand appealing to Australians (“There’s a day off in it for you”).

So much humour, so much intelligence and so much creative thinking, wasted on advertising. The unravelling of the advertising science is what makes The Gruen Transfer so wrong, yet so addictive.

From: Cultural Dissent, Green Left Weekly issue #759 23 July 2008.

Also published in Music Feeds, Issue 4, 13th Aug - 28th Aug 2008.

Switching onto art, culture and politics

2008-08-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

I read something the other day that really disturbed me.

It was in a review of Hancock that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, and it was something that Will Smith said. He was talking about how he selects film roles, and how he studies successful Hollywood films. "Nine out of the top 10 biggest movies of all time have special effects; eight out of 10 have creatures in them; seven out of 10 have a love story. So if you want a hit, you might want to throw those in the mix. I just study patterns and try to stand where lightning strikes."

In one way, this comment made alot of sense to me. It explains why Will Smith is one of the biggest actors in the world. He hasn't had a flop since Bad Boys in 1995. He can "open" films - which means that he's one of the few actors who is proven to attract enough box office sales to ensure that this films come out at number one at the box office on their opening weekend. That makes him one of the most bankable stars, if not the most bankable, up there with Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise.

And this is what is so wrong with contemporary arts and culture. Just like Will Smith sees his role as to "stand where lightning strikes", to continue to make box office gold and Hollywood richer, so many creative people see their role as furthering their own career, getting rich, getting famous, aspiring to work for the best and biggest advertising or film or record company.

It's the ultimate in cynicism.

This is what our society does to creative people - tells them they should be spending their energies to make companies richer, consumer products better and the real creative world poorer.

This is what happens when something as amazing as art is turned into an industry. This is what happens when we go to the movies, or to a commercial art gallery, or buy a track off iTunes - we engage with art as an industry, as a commodity, as merchandise, as property.

How much human creativity, humour and intelligence is wasted on advertising? On films that keep Hollywood's cogs spinning? On just making stuff? On selling the idea of consumerism? On switching people off from the world around them?

Capitalism fucks up culture. We have to unfuck it.

Of course, it's every artists' dream to be able to make a living out of their chosen creative area. But what if we don't want to participate in the "market" of art? I don't want my art to be seen as a unit of currency, that is valued and bought and traded by rich people who then place it in storage, or display it in their waterfront mansion. I don't want to create art that reinforces an ideology of consumerism.

I want to see art used to benefit the community and not for profit; that is forward-thinking, independent and critical, not reactionary. I want to see an art world that values sharing and solidarity, not competition and elitism, that switches people on and connects them. I want to be part of an art world that is offering solutions to the global mess, not continuing to be part of the problem. I want to be part of a counter culture, not a culture that reinforces the status quo.

There's nothing better that creative people can do than lend their talents and skills to progressive causes that are socially useful and enriching. This is the challenge that confronts all creatives - to not trade our creative dignity, our human dignity for a high wage at whatever random bullshit company. To instead use art to create a better world.

But we're up for it.

Originally published in Music Feeds, Issue #3, 30 July - 2nd Aug, 2008.

Harry's final destination: militant, metaphysical and deeply moral

2008-08-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
By J.K. Rowling
Bloomsbury, 2007
607 pages,49.95

The Harry Potter series can be read simply as a guide to growing up. It tracks the years between ages 11 and 17 — the angst, dating experiences, family conflicts and educational experiences that characterise this period of growth and self-discovery. However, the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows shows that the underlying theme of the series is death and different approaches to dealing with death.

Harry and his arch-enemy Voldemort occupy opposite ends of the spectrum of attitudes to death. Harry is not scared of death. He is an orphan — virtually everyone he has loved or been close to has died (his mother, father, Sirius, Dumbledore). Furthermore, Harry has been forced to confront his own mortality in numerous tests and battles throughout the seven Harry Potter books.

Serving in the frontline of the battle against Voldemort, Harry has come to terms with the idea of dying. Harry’s acceptance, nobility and dignity in facing the prospect of death is well spelled out in Deathly Hallows, and as a theme comes to a pinnacle toward the end of the book, when Harry learns his true destiny and Dumbledore’s intentions. By contrast, Voldemort is motivated by his complete fear of death and his quest for immortality.

Harry and Voldemort’s characterisation as good and evil respectively is not arbitrary. Their incompatible approaches to death make them that way.

Their attitudes to death also inform their attitudes to life. Voldemort’s obsession with evading death and achieving complete control over both the wizard and Muggle (non-magical) worlds leads to a complete disregard for the life of others. By contrast, Harry, Dumbledore and their allies believe in equality between the wizard and Muggle worlds and respect for Muggle-born wizards and other magical creatures like giants and house-elves (for instance, Hermione’s creation of S.P.E.W. — Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). The creation of Dumbledore’s Army (an organisation of self-defence and resistance against Voldemort formed in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) is another example of this.

The Harry Potter books encapsulate many of the contradictions and beliefs of popular culture and contemporary capitalism. Thus, the Ministry of Magic and the bureaucrats who staff it are repeatedly shown to be corrupt, bureaucratic and inept, even while under the control of the “good” wizards. The Ministry stifles attempts by Harry to tell the truth about Voldemort’s return in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, fearing an explosion of social unrest.

The Daily Prophet tabloid newspaper is shown to be an instrument of manipulation and control over the wizard population that deliberately censors the real news (that is, Voldemort’s return). Its journalists are characterised as gossip-hungry and more interested in creating controversy and writing best-selling, unauthorised biographies of well-known wizards than reporting the facts. The audience recognises and relates to these aspects of real life, and our emotional investment in the novels’ fantasy world is reinforced.

Similarly, J.K. Rowling’s use of familiar political ideas and terms is merely a means to express the novels’ thematic concerns (that is, acceptance versus fear of death and dying), and by incorporating aspects of real life political conflict, she imbues the story with a sense of realism.

There’s a lot of dramatic power in the kind of defiant language and political action that Rowling depicts. Rowling repeatedly uses strong, political language and imagery that has plenty of inherited power from previous, recognised social use, which makes it effective in a literary sense.

Things happen in the world of Harry Potter that we all recognise — a repressive, authoritarian government takes control, curfews are enforced on citizens, squads of organised thugs patrol the streets, torture is used as a legitimate tool of repression, “Mudbloods” (wizards with non-magical parentage) are forced to register themselves with the Ministry and are systematically discriminated against. Students and other citizens begin to organise against the repression. Leaders of the resistance (and their families) disappear or are imprisoned in a last-bid attempt at demoralisation and extermination, and a tide of resentment rises within the population.

At the climax of Deathly Hallows, political language and battle imagery combine with magical ideas. The war between fear and love, good and evil, and left and right comes to its terrible, inescapable culmination. The entire wizard community is forced to re-evaluate its loyalties and beliefs. The statues and suits of armour of Hogwarts march in formation, the giants, massive spiders and centaurs of the Forbidden Forest are stirred from their placid isolation and the result is breathtaking.

When, in the face of the Dark Lord himself, famously timid Neville defiantly screams “Dumbledore’s Army!” to the triumphant cheers of his loyal, militant wizard-troops, and when Professor McGonagall cries, “If any of you attempt to sabotage our resistance, or take up arms against us within this castle, then we duel to kill”, we, the audience, respond with an inflamed sense of justice and defiance.

The use of left-wing imagery and language is not unique to the Harry Potter series. Look at the tagline for the June 2007 film Transformers — “Their war, our world”. The capitalist media often co-opt the language of the left in order to capitalise on the genuine, progressive sentiments of the public, and the realm of culture (for example, novels and film) is no exception to this.

By necessity, Deathly Hallows is the most moral book of the Harry Potter series. Harry completes his internal journey from boy to man, from mere mortal to honoured and glorious leader. In this depiction however, Rowling undermines her own left rhetoric by characterising Potter as the one true leader, upon whom the destiny and harmony of the wizarding world rests.

Harry learns many moral lessons about right and wrong, and is both damaged and fortified by his experiences and losses in battle in Deathly Hallows. Perhaps the moral message of the book, of life beyond death, of meaning beyond the embodied, and Harry’s ultimate lesson is encapsulated in Professor McGonagall’s response to the question, where do all the vanished objects go? “Into non-being, which is to say everything”, he says. The political content of Rowling’s works, though still powerful, is secondary to this message.

From: Cultural Dissent, Green Left Weekly issue #722 29 August 2007.

Real rights and recognition replace racism in Venezuela

2008-08-12T21:43:00.001-07:00

Like the rest of Latin America, Venezuela’s history is scarred by colonialism’s racist legacy — Venezuela’s people were dispossessed in 1520 following Spanish settlement. In the following centuries, they were systematically killed and their land exploited. Slavery, which allowed the colonisers to plunder Venezuela, existed until 1854, and at the time of the 1830 constitution neither indigenous people nor those descended from Africa were recognised as Venezuelans.

Racism was a necessary part of the justification of colonialist conquests. Only now, with the gains being made by the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez and the growing mass revolutionary movement, is Venezuela beginning to grapple in earnest with how to confront this racist legacy.

Chavez’s election in 1998 re-sparked old expectations of land control and the defence of indigenous ways of life, and brought the plight of Venezuela’s indigenous peoples into the public eye.

Venezuela’s 2001 census found 35 different indigenous tribes, 34 different indigenous languages and 535,000 indigenous people (2.1% of the population). Further, many Venezuelans identify as mestizo — or mixed race — and are of a broad racial background.

The rights of Venezuela’s indigenous people were first entrenched in the 1999 Bolivarian constitution, which was ratified by 71% of voters (with 60% voter participation). For the first time, indigenous land rights were identified as being collective, inalienable and non-transferable, with the recognition of the “rights of the indigenous peoples over the land they traditionally and ancestrally occupied. They must demarcate that land and guarantee the right to its collective ownership.”

Article 9 stipulates that while Spanish is Venezuela’s primary language, “indigenous languages are also for official use for indigenous peoples and must be respected throughout the Republic’s territory for being part of the nation’s and humanity’s patrimonial culture”. The 1999 constitution also affirms that “exploitation by the state of natural resources will be subject to prior consultation with the native communities”, that “indigenous peoples have the right to an education system of an intercultural and bilingual nature”, that indigenous people have the right to control ancestral knowledge over “native genetic resources” and biodiversity, and that three indigenous representatives are ensured seats in the country’s National Assembly (these were elected by delegates of the National Council of Venezuelan Indians in July 1999).

In October 2004, Dalia Herminia Yanez, a member of the Environmental Network of Indigenous Warao women of Delta Amacuro state, said: “Under previous governments we had only two lines in the constitution. We have advanced. We also have the law of the demarcation of land that will be approved, the rights of children, and now we are writing laws of the rights of indigenous women.”

Since then, the confidence of the indigenous rights movement has exploded. The multitude of social problems that persist as a hangover of previous, capitalist policies has led to a culture of Chavista activists who support the revolution and lobby the Chavez government to demand attention to their particular issue.

In April 2005, indigenous activists from the Wayuu, Bari and Yukpa tribes converged in Caracas to denounce coalmining operations in Zulia state, which had resulted in the deforestation of thousands of acres of land and the onset of respiratory diseases in members of the local and indigenous communities due to coal dust. A leader of the Yukpa tribe, Cesareo Panapaera, declared: “We want the government to hear us: we don’t want coal. Here are our bows and arrows, and we will use them against the miners if they come to our lands. And if we have to die fighting for our lands, we will die.”

Their campaign was successful. On April 4 this year, Chavez announced a ban on the expansion of coalmining in the Zulia region. The mining, which was carried out by a consortium of the state-owned oil company PDVSA and privately owned transnational corporations, was found to be in violation of the constitution’s affirmation of the indigenous right to control over indigenous land. A statement released by the coalition of environment and indigenous activists announced, “we know that the powerful multinational mining interests in Zulia will keep trying to keep their mega-coal project alive, whatever the cost” and pledged to continue struggling until coalmining was banned entirely in the region.

This campaign demonstrates the gap between what the constitution promises and what exists in Venezuela. Mission Guaicaipuro was established in October 2003 to implement the indigenous rights that are contained within the constitution. Organised by the environment and natural resources ministry, its chief concern is to restore communal and indigenous land titles and defend indigenous rights and resources against corporate exploitation.

At the forefront of the anti-racist movement is the Afro-Venezuelan Network, headed by Jesus “Chucho” Garcia, which is lobbying for recognition of Afro-Venezuelans in the next round of amendments to the Bolivarian constitution, and for the census to ask questions about race and ethnic background, to give a more accurate picture of Venezuela’s racial demographics. Many Venezuelans believe in the common misconception that Venezuela’s broad racial composition and the high number of mestizos means equality prevails and racism is dead, without a deeper understanding of the racial lines that divide the country’s classes and the ongoing, institutional impact of Venezuela’s colonial history.

The Afro-Venezuelan Network has also successfully campaigned for the creation of a presidential commission against racism in 2005, the inclusion of Afro-Venezuelan history in the school curriculum, the establishment of a number of cocoa-processing plants and farming cooperatives run by black Venezuelans in the Barlovento area (which has one of the largest concentrations of Afro-Venezuelans and most active black rights movements in Venezuela) and for Afro-Venezuelan Day on May 10 each year.

The ambitious land and agrarian reforms embedded in the 1999 constitution have been especially beneficial to indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan communities. The constitution declares that idle, uncultivated private land over a certain size can be transformed into productive units of land for common social benefit. By prioritising socially productive land use over monopolistic private land ownership and redistributing idle land to the landless, Chavez has promoted independence, food sovereignty and local agricultural development.

Amidst these local changes, Chavez has been building alliances with other marginalised communities in the Americas, such as providing food, water and medical care to 45,000 Hurricane Katrina victims in areas surrounding New Orleans and supplying discounted heating and diesel oil to schools, nursing homes and hospitals in poor communities in the US.

Despite the limitations that result from the current co-existence of both old and new forces of political and economic power, the Chavez government has doubtless taken the side of the dispossessed, the landless, the black and the indigenous. While in other, capitalist countries, the quality of life for indigenous people is stagnating, and neoliberal governments are consciously rolling back the gains of prior black rights movements (including Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s recent, cynical indigenous action plan), in Venezuela the space for frank discussion about how to move forward in the context of a mass movement has been opened up by the ongoing revolutionary process, and genuine gains have been made by indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan movements to eliminate the systemic nature of racism from Venezuelan life.

Venezuela’s explicitly socialist revolution is creating a model of respect for the indigenous rights of land sovereignty, preservation of culture and language, and meaningful representation and participation in political life.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #717 18 July 2007.

Reporters without integrity

2008-08-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

Reporters Without Borders (RWB). The name, modelled on that of humanitarian organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), conjures the idea of an organisation that monitors global standards of press freedom, offers insightful and hard-hitting investigative reports on world conflict and defends the safety of courageous journalists in war-torn countries. One would imagine that such an organisation would lend its support to one of the few countries in the world that is taking major leaps in democratising the media by breaking the existing monopoly of corporate domination.

And surely, an organisation that claims to laud truthful press coverage would denounce the actions of a television station — Venezuela’s Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) — that participates in a coup against a democratically elected government. In April 2002, a US-backed military coup was launched against the government of President Hugo Chavez. RCTV broadcast opposition calls to overthrow the Chavez government; encouraged viewers to participate in a demonstration that was part of the coup strategy; banned pro-Chavez coverage during the period of the coup; falsified footage of government forces firing on demonstrators (which was used as a justification for the coup); and refused to report Chavez’s April 13 return to power on the back of a mass uprising led by the poor, instead running soap operas and films.

Instead, RWB is at the forefront of the right-wing media war against Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution. Indeed, the political lines of the US government, the US-backed Venezuelan opposition and RWB coincide exactly.

RWB is purportedly non-partisan and independent. However, it receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the International Republican Institute, both of which are financed by the US Congress. Last year, information obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act revealed that RWB had received funds over at least three years from the IRI, linked to US President George Bush’s Republican Party.

In April 2005, RWB secretary general Robert Menard admitted: “We indeed receive money from the NED. And that hasn’t posed any problem.”

On the contrary, the funding source is increasingly becoming a problem for the organisation’s credibility. RWB’s attacks on Venezuela’s popularly elected socialist government coincide with a growing effort by Washington to destabilise and discredit the revolutionary movement. Both major patrons of RWB have been deeply involved in the efforts to overthrow Chavez.

In the years preceding the 2002 coup, millions of dollars of US government funding was directed to opposition groups that participated in the attempt to overthrow Chavez.

According to the Washington DC-based International Relations Center, the NED and the IRI have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars since 1998 (the year Chavez was first elected) to anti-government groups, including the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (a right-wing, pro-boss union federation) and the Assembly of Educators. The IRC’s profile of the NED notes that “with NED funding, IRI had been sponsoring political party-building workshops and other anti-Chavez activities in Venezuela” prior to the 2002 coup. A December 2002 report by the IRC’s Mike Ceaser notes that even before the 1998 presidential election, the IRI “worked with Venezuelan organizations critical of Chavez to run newspaper ads, TV, and radio spots that several observers characterize as anti-Chavez”.

As an instrument of quasi-governmental political aid, the IRI is extremely close to the Bush administration. It operates in more than 65 countries, according to its website. It has been linked to the overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, who was popular with the country’s poor.

Institutions like the IRI and the NED help Washington keep its subversive activities against unfriendly regimes at arm’s length and help prevent scrutiny of its foreign policy. Of course, with US Congress providing all the funding for the IRI and NED, the assertion of neutrality is baseless.

The NED was founded in 1983 by then President Ronald Reagan with the explicit purpose of “planting the seeds of democracy in Latin America” — in other words, intervening against international efforts to undermine Washington’s political hegemony, something that Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution is undoubtedly doing. From 2002 to 2005, the NED’s federal financing tripled, from US$26 million to $75 million, the New York Times reported in January 2006.

RWB has managed to retain some degree of credibility by continuing to criticise the treatment of journalists in Iraq. However, its role in the propaganda war against the Venezuela revolution, and the fact that it has only just begun to admit the dubious sources of its funding after years of refusing to do so, are increasingly attracting criticism.

RWB has been at the forefront of the concerted push by the right wing, both in Venezuela and internationally, to distort the Venezuelan government’s decision not to renew RCTV’s broadcast licence in May as a result of the station’s participation in the April 2002 coup and numerous violations of Venezuelan broadcasting laws. RWB’s June 5 report on its May 24-28 “fact-finding” mission to Venezuela is riddled with unsupported assertions and outright falsehoods.

For example, RWB claims that Chavez has “an impressive media apparatus at this disposal for getting his message across”. Yet according to a June 2 Venezuelanalysis.com article by Gregory Wilpert, only three out of 200 television channels are state-owned (VTV, Vive, and Avila TV) and only two out of 426 radio stations are state-owned. There are no state-owned newspapers. A May 31 RWB report asserts that Chavez intends to “eliminate all the opposition press”, a statement with no grounding. RCTV can continue to broadcast over cable and satellite, it merely cannot occupy one of the limited, free-to-air frequencies.

Although the June 5 report grudgingly admits that Chavez was elected and remains supported by the vast majority of Venezuelans, it omits any mention of the government’s plans to replace RCTV. The station will be replaced on free-to-air television with a new public network, Televisora Venezolana Social (Tves), which will exclusively source programs from thousands of independent and community-based contributors.

This plan simply does not correlate with the claims by RWB and the Venezuelan opposition that Chavez’s intends to enforce “media hegemony”, nor does it represent “a major setback to democracy and pluralism”, as RWB’s Menard asserted. On the contrary, it seems that Venezuela is on a path to rupturing the monopoly that the wealthy elite have over the media, and passing this media power to the people. It is this — the creation of a genuine “mass” media — that Venezuela’s capitalist media companies are desperate to undermine, hence the renewed vigour of the right’s campaign against Chavez.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #715 27 June 2007.

This article was reprinted at Apporea.org by the Bolivarian News Agency (ABN) and Venezuelanalysis.com.

Media lies about Venezuela’s democratic revolution

2008-08-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

The US-backed right-wing campaign to destabilise the democratic revolution in Venezuela, lead by socialist President Hugo Chavez, is escalating again. The upcoming December 2 referendum on proposed amendments to the constitution is prompting a new drive from US-backed capitalist elite to undermine the elected Chavez government. Crucially, the international corporate-owned media’s distortion of events is reaching new heights, with false allegations of government repression of opposition protesters a key component of the campaign to demonise Chavez and the process of change his government is leading.

Over the last two weeks, a former military and political ally of Chavez has defected to the opposition, student-led demonstrations against the constitutional reforms have turned into violent riots, and massive demonstrations, involving hundreds of thousands, have occurred in support of the proposed constitutional reforms.

A demonstration on November 4 in favour of the proposed constitutional changes attracted hundreds of thousands of people. Although peaceful and massive, it remained mostly ignored by the international media.

Three days later, a widely covered but relatively small student demonstration against the reforms ended in violence and gunfire. Over 120 pro-Chavez students and staff were trapped inside the social work building on the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), surrounded by a mob of oppositionists throwing rocks and tear gas grenades. Nine students were injured, one critically.

Confrontations between opposition students and police have continued since then, with a Reuters article that day reporting that opposition protesters opened fire on police, with four officers shot.

Chavez proposed the constitutional changes on August 15, arguing that the changes were necessary to bring about “21st Century socialism” and “to remove the old oligarchic, exploiter hegemony”. The changes have been widely debated in thousands of mass meetings across the country, with the outcome being an additional 36 proposed changes to the constitution — on top of Chavez’s initial 33 — being adopted by the National Assembly. The 69 proposed reforms, in different blocs, will be put to the referendum.

The current outbreak of conflict — driven by an elite terrified of losing more of its power and wealth through increasing moves towards socialism — is aimed at creating a false political crisis, and through this the conditions for counter-revolution.

Without a significant support base that can be mobilised after suffering a series of defeats, the opposition have failed to develop a comprehensive strategy to defeat the revolutionary movement led by Chavez — which has won 11 straight national electoral victories since 1998. The opposition has relied on a narrow layer of privileged students based on the old elite universities. (Under Chavez, free university education has been massively expanded to incorporate hundreds of thousands of the previously excluded poor, largely through the new Bolivarian University, with the government currently constructing 18 new universities.)

The traditional social base of the opposition in the middle class is being eroded not just by demoralisation caused by repeated defeats, but by economic changes that are benefiting that vast majority of Venezuelans, bolstering support for Chavez and undermining opposition.

According to a 2007 AC Nielson and Datos study on behalf of the Venezuelan American Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 97% of the population make up the three poorest (of six) income brackets, and all have experienced significant increases in income between 2004 and 2006 a result of pro-poor measures of the Chavez government. The poorest bracket makes up 58% of the population, and their income has increased 130% after being corrected for inflation. These gains don’t include the benefits associated with the Chavez government’s social missions, that have provided free health care, education, subsidised food, housing and other benefits.

Struggling for a way forward, opposition parties remain split over whether to vote “No” to the reforms, or to abstain from voting. Previous attempts at destabilisation have all failed — such as the April 2002 coup that briefly overthrew Chavez but was defeated by a popular uprising.

An October 4 piece by opposition blogger Francisco Toro entitled “Who are we really?”, which was posted on Venezuelanalysis.com, revealed the dishonest methods used by the opposition have helped lead to repeated defeats. He reveals how the opposition use the private media, largely owned and controlled by anti-Chavez elites, as propaganda machines that provide distorted and selective information to present a false picture of the Venezuelan reality. The international media, taking its lead from Venezuela’s private media, repeat these distortions.

Toro points out the figures in the private media openly stated as far back as 2002 that they would abandon impartiality, which meant news would “no longer be judged by the normal standards of journalistic ethics. Questions of newsworthiness, impartiality, confirmability and public interest would be set aside” in favour of a new guide — will it assist in the goal of overthrowing Chavez? “Henceforth”, he wrote, “the media would serve as a trick mirror — reflecting only those parts of reality that it judged would further an ulterior end. That the image such a mirror produces is deeply distorted is tautological: in this context, the distortion is the point.”

“We were systematically deceived”, Toro said, arguing that all forces in the opposition, himself included, went along with this deception.

Toro argued this backfired on the opposition, because “all we did was fatally undermine our own ability to understand the society we live in”, leaving the opposition’s support base confused and demoralised by repeated defeats that could not be comprehended if you took pro-opposition media propaganda as good coin.

The coverage in the international media continues to follow this same pattern, with heavily distorted and outright false coverage of opposition student riots. The most dramatic was the November 7 UCV violence. According to eye-witnesses, the anti-government protesters were armed with tear gas and masked in balaclavas as they laid siege to the building containing trapped Chavistas. In response, officers from the Venezuelan Protection Unit entered the scene after one hour to release the hostages, with shots fired into the air by way of warning.

Yet, the Venezuelan and international corporate media reported that pro-Chavez supporters violently attacked their opponents, a lie repeated by US state department spokesperson Sean McCormack at a press conference on November 8. The Sydney Morning Herald, on November 9, ran the same picture that appeared in a number of international media outlets of an alleged Chavista pointing a gun at an alleged oppositionist — the identity of both having never been confirmed. The article reported that “opposition members have in the past accused pro-Chavez militants of being behind similar incidents”, something that Chavistas also claim about opposition supporters, although only the opposition claim was reported.

US-Venezuelan author Eva Golinger, author of The Chavez Code, which exposes the extent of US funding of the Venezuelan opposition, wrote on her blog () on November 7: “The Venezuelan government is doing everything in its power to allow [opposition] students to freely enjoy their rights to protest without permitting them to destabilise the country, create chaos, and place in danger the lives of citizens.” She points out that in the US, those responsible for similar acts of violence “would be jailed and subjected to severe repression. Venezuela, on the other hand, is overly permissive with these protests and despite the ample freedom enjoyed by all sectors in this country, the international media distorts the scenario and attempts to paint a portrayal of the Venezuelan government as repressive. Repressive is the US government, permissive is the Venezuelan.”

Many aspects of the proposed constitutional reform directly conflict with capitalist interests. Political power will be decentralised, with the institutions of popular, direct power, given formal recognition. Venezuela’s key natural resources will be protected against future privatisation. Venezuelans who work in the informal economy or are self-employed, most of whom currently have no benefits or guaranteed working conditions, will be ensured a pension, a retirement fund, holiday pay and maternity leave. Workers in the formal economy will have their working week reduced from 44 to 36 hours with the same pay. The impact is clear: the US-backed Venezuelan elites will lose power and wealth should the constitutional reforms be adopted.

The reforms are democratic and progressive in nature. For instance, the voting age will be lowered to 16 years, rights of gays and lesbians will be recognised (a first in South America) and the rights and culture of Afro-Venezuelans further protected.

Political participation of the people has been vital at every step of the reform process. The proposed reforms have been debated widely by the Venezuelan population — between August and October, over 9000 public meetings between National Assembly representatives and citizens were held to discuss the reforms. Workers’, women’s, students’ and other social groups were also consulted. Contrary to mainstream media representation, dissent to the reforms has not been repressed, rather, lively debate has been expressed in the media, in the National Assembly, the constituent assembly and in all aspects of society.

Even the aspects of the reform that the international media have misrepresented as an attack on democracy — for instance, the proposal to allow the reelection of a president for more than two terms (Australia, for its part, has unlimited prime ministerial terms) and the extension of terms from six to seven years — must be approved by the majority of Venezuelans at a referendum on December 2. Also in Venezuela any elected official, including the president, can be recalled before their term finishes if 20% of electors sign a petition calling for a new vote.

Venezuela is continuing along the course of profoundly democratic change it has been carrying out of the last few years, driven by and relying on the participation of the working people. It is becoming increasingly apparent that a major confrontation with powerful interests is inevitable, as the gains and intentions of the revolution and the interests of the US-backed capitalist class continue to clash. There is no possible convergence of democratic, rationally planned socialism, and the profits-first, neoliberal agenda of Venezuelan elite (to say nothing of significant US and European corporate interests in Venezuela).

“The people of Latin America have reached a level of maturity about the politics of the empire”, Venezuelanalysis.com quoted Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro as saying on November 9. “We have no doubt that, as the surveys show, a huge majority of Venezuelans will vote ‘yes’ on the reform.”

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #732 21 November 2007.

South Pacific: Venezuela expands oil aid

2008-08-12T21:29:00.000-07:00

Venezuela has initiated plans to extend its solidarity-based oil deals to countries in the Asia-Pacific region, as signalled by Venezuela’s deputy foreign minister Vladimir Villegas, at the 38th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders meeting in Tonga, held October 16-17.

According to the Energy Publisher website, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in South America and was the world’s sixth-largest oil exporting country in 2006.

“The oil was a blessing given to us by the universe, by nature. We have a choice: either to use it and be selfish about it, or to use it and help with it”, Villegas told reporters at a press conference in the Tongan capital of Nukualofa after the PIF summit.

The October 20 Sydney Morning Herald reported Villegas as saying: “Before President Hugo Chavez came to power, oil was used as a weapon of domination. Now oil is used in Venezuela as an instrument of liberation.”

Venezuela is not just offering cheap oil to the poor island nations of the south Pacific. Villegas said Venezuela would consider helping with a regional fuel depot, matching the forum’s interest in joint bulk-buying of oil to lower costs for its power generators, fishing boats and other vehicles.

Thus the proposed oil deals would also be aimed at boosting energy infrastructure of the partner countries, increasing their energy sovereignty as a means of severing Third World countries’ dependence on the big Western oil corporations.

The public discussion of the proposed agreements at the PIF followed a July invitation of ambassadors of member countries to visit Venezuela to see its oil refineries, hydro-electric programs and other energy programs.

Venezuela already provides crude oil at preferential, below-market prices, as well as energy development infrastructure assistance, to a range of South American and Carribean countries, including Cuba, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Panama and Guatemala.

The PetroCaribe arrangement, for example, enables countries to pay for oil on low-interest loans or in exchange for goods and/or services. These agreements apply only to state enterprises, excluding privately owned corporations.

In sharp contrast to Venezuela’s aid policy, “aid” provided by Australia, the richest country in the PIF, has deepened, rather than reduced, the island nations’ dependence on Western corporations.

Increasingly, the term “aid” is being used to disguise the intervention of Australian corporate interests in the region. Much foreign aid is tied to the purchase of goods and services from Australian companies or government organisations. For example, Canberra used $734 million of its allocated $800 million in aid to Papua New Guinea in 2004 to fund the Australian Federal Police’s presence in the country.

Other Australia aid is used to promote neoliberal “free market” policies. AusAid, Canberra’s overseas aid agency, refuses to fund food security programs in the Pacific that reinforce local agricultural development, instead favouring trade liberalisation that helps Australian food exporting companies gain greater access to Pacific island markets.

Likewise, World Bank “aid” preferences the private provision of services in Third World countries. It has refused to support the East Timorese government’s request for assistance in recreating rice fields, public storage silos and public abattoirs to boost internal agricultural output.

The guiding political ideas of the proposed Venezuela-Pacific oil agreements are directly opposed to the neolibera economic agenda.

Socialist Cuba, a close ally of Venezuela, already provides a solidarity-based aid program to East Timor, paying for 286 Cuban doctors to staff clinics and help train East Timorese medical personnel. A similar program has been recently taken up by Papua New Guinea.

The oil agreements are one way in which Venezuela, since the beginning of its socialist revolution, is using its oil and oil revenue to aid other undeveloped countries’ non-corporate-dominated economic development.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #731 14 November 2007.

Colombia: Chavez leads freeing of FARC-held prisoners

2008-08-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez spearheaded the release of two prisoners held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) — Colombia’s largest left-wing guerrilla force that controls significant portions of the countryside — on January 10.

Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez, captive since 2002 and 2001 respectively, were handed over to a team headed by Venezuelan justice minister Ramon Rodriguez. The prisoners were reunited with ecstatic family members waiting in Caracas, according to a January 10 Venezuelanalysis.com article.

Speaking to Chavez via phone on her release — screened live on Latin America-wide TV channel Telsur, Rojas declared: “Thank you, President Chavez, we are profoundly emotional … We are reborn.”

The FARC had announced its willingness to hand prisoners directly to Venezuela in recognition of the efforts of the Chavez government to begin negotiations towards a peaceful solution to Colombia’s over 40-year-long civil war. After weeks of manoeuvring to undermine the planned handover, it eventually occurred with the authorisation of the right-wing Colombian government of President Alvaro Uribe.

Chavez had originally been negotiating, along with Colombian Senator Cordoba Piedad, for a swap of 49 FARC-held prisoners for 500 FARC fighters currently in jail. However, under pressure from the US — which fears the growing influence of Chavez and his anti-imperialist project — Uribe scuttled these plans on November 21 using the excuse of a supposed breach of protocol by Chavez.

Colombia — which has one of the world’s worst human rights records — is the US’s closest ally in the region in a context of increasing US isolation in Latin America. Colombia is the largest recipient of US military aid in the region and the US military presence could be threatened if peace broke out, as would the role of Colombia’s infamous death squads and repressive state apparatus.

Chavez accused Uribe of deliberately blocking moves towards peace and threatened to cut all trade ties with Colombia, which exports US$4 million worth of goods to Venezuela each year. The FARC subsequently offered its unilateral handover of Rojas and Gonzalez as a sign of good faith.

Chavez indicated his commitment to freeing the remaining hostages, saying on January 10, “I plan to continue to work for the release of all the hostages”. Chavez also stated that in this way, Venezuelans “are sending our heart to Colombia, Venezuela without Colombia is not complete, Colombia without Venezuela is not complete … Venezuela will continue opening paths towards peace in Colombia.”

The US government, while publicly welcoming the release of the prisoners, has refused to acknowledge Chavez’s central role, instead congratulating Uribe — who did all he could to stop it. Speaking to the press on January 10, US State Department spokesperson Tom Casey praised “the leadership of President Uribe, in terms of trying to secure the release of these hostages …”. When repeatedly pressed on Chavez’s role, Casey grudgingly stated that “anybody, including President Chavez” who “supports President Uribe and the Colombian government’s efforts is to be welcomed”.

According to a January 15 Venezuelanalysis.com article, Chavez reiterated his belief that there is no military solution to the conflict in Colombia, calling for international mediation to seek peace.

Chavez insisted that the FARC and the second largest Colombian guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), should not be considered “any terrorist body, they are real armies that occupy territory in Colombia; they must be recognised, they are insurgent forces that have a real political project, a Bolivarian project, which here is respected”.

According to a January 19 Venezuelanalysis.com article by Kiraz Janicke, the Venezuelan National Assembly voted to confer “belligerent” status to the FARC and ELN, and reject the “unilateral lists imposed by the government of the United States” which classifies them as “terrorist organisations”.

Chavez’s comments have sparked new conflict between Colombia and Venezuela, with Uribe accusing Chavez of supporting “terrorists”. The US has accused Chavez of seeking to destablise Colombia.

Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said on January 19 that any mediating role by Chavez is “totally finished”. Associated Press reported on January 18 that a statement by the Venezuelan foreign ministry argued: “The Colombian government has reached the extreme of obstructing and sabotaging the humanitarian missions led by the international community, putting the lives of innocent people at risk.”

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #736 23 January 2008.

Latin America: Building an alternative to ‘free trade’

2008-08-12T21:19:00.000-07:00

The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the Cuban- and Venezuelan-initiated Latin America trading bloc that bases itself on solidarity and cooperation, is continuing to expand and develop as a genuine alternative to the US-pushed neoliberal “free trade” policies that have caused widespread suffering across Latin America.

ALBA was originally proposed by Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez as an alternative to Washington’s proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas(the FTAA was finally defeated by Venezuelan-led opposition in 2005). ALBA is based on the principle of economic and political integration of Latin America to challenge US domination, taking its name from Simon Bolivar, who liberated much of South America from Spanish colonial rule.

Agreements signed between Venezuela and Cuba in 2004, with the aim of aiding the national sovereignty and economic independence of these impoverished nations, were the first concrete realisation of the project. ALBA has since incorporated Nicaragua and Bolivia, with Ecuador expressing interest in joining.

Chavez has even invited regional governments of the United States to join the trade bloc, saying that all people would benefit from this alternative model of trade and development. According to a Venezuelanalysis.com report, Chavez stated on August 7 that creating alternative structures based on Latin American integration will enable the countries to move “toward our financial independence, freeing us from the perverse chains of the International Monetary Fund [IMF]” and any other instruments of financial control by US imperialism.

Recent agreements signed as part of ALBA include the creation of five joint agri-businesses between Cuba and Venezuela to provide priority products for both countries, according to a July 31 Presna Latina report. The produce will include soy beans, rice, poultry, dairy products and timber products, and is aimed at guaranteeing food security. This is an extension of existing ALBA agreements whereby signatory countries, rather then competing against and seeking to exploit each other, plan to integrate their resources on the basis of cooperation.

Other recent agreements include the creation of a cultural fund to provide encouragement and financial grants to young, progressive Latin American artists. An ALBA Council of Social Movements was created during a meeting in Caracas, at which a number of political and social mass movements from across Latin America pledged their support for ALBA, according to an April 30 Venezuelanalysis.com report.

In an example of the pro-people principles that underpin ALBA, it was recently revealed that Cuba pays for most of the 90,000 barrels of crude oil a day it receives from Venezuela in social services. Cuba’s ambassador to Venezuela, German Sanchez Otero, told the Dow Jones news wire on July 31 that although Cuba pays the same price for Venezuelan oil as other countries, over 50% of the oil bill is paid through the provision of doctors and nurses to staff Venezuela’s free health-care clinics.

According to ALBA principles, health, education, literacy and anti-poverty measures are prioritised as the key beneficiaries of economic growth. The fifth ALBA summit in April this year discussed implementing the successful Cuban and Venezuelan social programs in other Latin American countries, with Cuba offering to take its literacy program to Haiti.

More than 50 activists from a range of Latin American groups attended the summit in Caracas. Social movement and political groups that have announced their support for ALBA include Mexican group Insurgent Women; El Salvador’s Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN); the Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores trade union; the Chilean Communist Party; and international peasant movment Via Campesina, which pledged to participate in “Mission Miracle”, the Venezuelan- and Cuban-run health program that provides free operations to restore sight for poor people across the region.

Bolivian President Evo Morales told the summit, “I myself am a president as well as a social activist and trade unionist. I hope that in the future, you are here [on the platform where the presidents sat], and we can see if we are able to truly bring about change in Latin America.” Ministers from Haiti, Dominica, Ecuador and Uruguay also attended.

The April summit proposed the creation of presidential, ministerial as well as social movement councils; committees to coordinate efforts in education, culture, health, investment, trade and finance; and a social oversight mechanism to ensure that ALBA is held accountable to Latin America’s mass social movements. A meeting of ALBA foreign ministers in June proposed the creation of an ALBA bank to finance joint development projects, and the creation of joint companies between ALBA countries with an emphasis on industry, tourism, telecommunications, mining, transportation, and agriculture/food industry.

Venezuelanalysis.com reported on July 18 that the first meeting of the ALBA technical committee involving the four member countries had taken place in Caracas that week to discuss in more detail various integration projects raised at the summit. Concrete projects include plans to create joint Venezuelan-Cuban stainless steel and nickel companies, and an “inter-ALBA market” to help member countries economically complement each other.

While ALBA is the most developed example of Venezuela’s efforts to integrate Latin American economies in a pro-people direction, the Chavez government, which is seeking to lead the construction of a “new socialism of the 21st century”, has shown that it will work with anyone who is willing, and is consequently part of several other ventures. One example is PetroCaribe, an oil agreement between Venezuela and 13 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments, along with Cuba and the Dominican Republic, that allows countries to pay half of their oil bill to Venezuela at market price, and defer the other half for 25 years at an interest rate of 1%.

This agreement has provided relief to the small, underdeveloped nations of the Caribbean in the face of rising energy costs. Importantly, the agreement is restricted to state entities, excluding multinational corporations like Shell and Texaco and giving impetus to the development of run-down state industries in the Caribbean.

The agreement is also working to develop energy infrastructure in these poor nations, many of which import much of their energy, with Venezuela covering shipping costs and aiding the construction of refining stations and storage and distribution centres. As with Venezuela’s agreements with Cuba, member countries can pay off their debts through the the provision of social services or goods. The agreement has allowed member countries to save US$450 million on fuel to date. An August 11 Associated Press article reported that Chavez declared: “Venezuela puts this oil wealth at the disposition of our peoples of the Caribbean. It belongs to all of us.”

Venezuelanalysis.com reported on August 11 that Chavez had concluded a tour of Latin America to secure energy agreements with Uruguay, Ecuador and Argentina. During the tour, Chavez emphasised the importance of oil security in “detaching” from dependence on the US.

Venezuela has also intervened in the Common Market of the South (Mercosur), a free-trade block involving Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Although Mercosur was initially formed in 1992 as a neoliberal body to best negotiate terms within the planned FTAA, Venezuela was accepted as a member country last year with Chavez calling for the “decontamination” of neoliberal elements from Mercosur.

However, differences have erupted over the terms of Venezuela’s entrance into Mercosur, with the right-wing controlled Brazilian senate attempting to place a series of barriers in the way.

One other way Venezuela is pushing for increasing economic independence for the region is through the Bank of the South (Bancosur), which aims to provide an alternative lending institution to the IMF and World Bank and prioritise loans that help develop the region’s economies. Bancosur is intended to help Latin American countries break the trap of heavy debt repayments and reliance on financial institutions that protect US interests, providing low-cost loans without neoliberal conditions such as privatisation and deregulation.

So far, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil have signed on, with member countries pledging to put aside 10% of their currency reserves as funding. Here, too, differences have begun to become clear between those pushing a more pro-people versus a more neoliberal approach. Nonetheless, ventures such as Bancosur have the potential to help further advance the cause of anti-corporate, pro-people integration of the region, and ultimately to liberate the region from chains of US domination.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #722 29 August 2007.

Cuba: Mass participation in elections, debates

2008-08-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

Lauren Carroll Harris & Duroyan Fertl

1 February 2008

On January 20, 8.4 million Cubans — 95% of those eligible — voted to elect their People Power National Assembly (NA), according to a January 21 Inter Press Services (IPS) article. The election comes amid an unprecedentedly widespread and open public discussion of the countries challenges and way forward.

The newly elected delegates to the NA will in turn elect the president, vice-presidents and secretary of the NA. The NA will also elect the 31-member Council of State, which has authority to pass legislation between NA meetings, and includes the president, vice-president and key ministers. Fidel Castro has been elected to the position of president since the establishment of the current “people’s power” electoral system in 1976.

Instead of a corporate-funded electoral campaign, in the weeks preceding the election candidates met and discussed with their local community members as well as student and labour organisations.

On January 4, Cuban newspaper Granma reported that a record number of young people had been nominated as candidates, and that 43% of the candidates were women, giving Cuba the third-highest political representation of women in the world.

Democratic process

Mainstream western media outlets, however, have tried to distort the electoral process, claiming that the apparent absence of opposition candidates for the NA is proof of the “undemocratic” nature of the elections.

While there is only one political party — the Cuban Communist Party — it plays no role in elections.

The corporate media have focused on the fact that the election for NA deputies involves only one candidate per seat. While this is true, it ignores an entire tier of the electoral process in Cuba.

The NA is chosen out of those elected to the municipal level government. Therefore, all candidates in the NA election have already been elected, in municipal elections held in October.

These elections were competitive. Out of a total 55,000 candidates, 15,236 municipal representatives were elected.

Under Cuban electoral law there must be at least two, and up to eight, candidates for each seat. They must be nominated from the community they seek to represent.

The purpose of the recent election was to select, from those municipal representatives, 614 delegates to the NA, and 1201 provincial delegates. Every candidate to both lists must have already been elected a municipal representative — right up to Castro who must, and did in October, stand in competitive municipal elections.

Voting is voluntary for everyone over 16, and any candidate that receives less than 50% cannot be elected. It is indicative of the popular democratic process in Cuba that all candidates received well over half of all votes cast.

Those who claim the NA elections are meaningless cannot explain the extremely high turn out in voluntary elections.

The corporate media has also speculated that the elections will herald a formal handover of power by Castro — salivating over the prospect that a new generation might be more “open” to restoring capitalism in Cuba, returning it to its former position as a de facto US colony, dominated by US corporations.

This is, of course, the same media that speculated that the existing social order would fall apart after Castro temporarily stepped down from public duties due to illness in July 2006, his position as president being filled by the next in line constitutionally, First Vice-President Raul Castro. Those commentators were left disappointed.

Debate

Meanwhile, Cuba has embarked on a high-level public debate to address the very real problems that exist in Cuban society, not in order to change the existing system but to strengthen it.

Announcing the current process of public debate on July 26 last year, Raul Castro emphasised that while Cuba has defied expectations by surviving the harsh 45-year long US economic blockade, there is a need for “a clear conscience about our problems, our inefficiencies, our errors and our bureaucratic and/or slack attitudes”.

He also referred to the need “to change concepts and methods which were appropriate at one point but have been surpassed by life itself. We must never fall prey to the idea that what we do is perfect but rather examine it again.”

The most pressing issues identified include relief of some ongoing daily hardships that have resulted from the combination of the US economic blockade and the legacy of the crisis caused by the collapse of Cuba’s largest trading partner, the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s.

There is a pressing need to boost productivity and agricultural output to provide more and cheaper food. Food imports have risen 35% in the last two years, according to an IPS report last August.

Raul Castro commented: “We are aware that in the midst of the obvious difficulties that we are facing; wages are clearly insufficient to meet people’s needs.” Many see solving these hardship as a crucial challenge, now that the economic crisis of the 1990s has passed.

The debate has been genuinely widespread and deep-going. Official positions have been criticised and official statistics challenged. Many competing views on the source of the problems and the solutions are being presented.

Possibly the most crucial discussion has centred on the “battle of ideas”, how to win the young generation that have grown up during the difficult post-Soviet period to the socialist goals of the revolution.

At the forefront of the debate has been Juventud Rebelde, the paper of Cuba’s communist youth organisation. It has criticised shortcomings in official statistics regarding employment and university attendance, and taken up social issues such as homophobia and gay rights.

In all, 1.3 million proposals have been made during the national discussion, which has involved 215,687 public meetings.

Economic recovery

Another key question has been how to maintain economic growth — Cuba’s economy grew by 7.5% in 2007, well above the Latin American average, by incorporating limited market measures without eroding the gains of the socialist revolution.

Important to this has been the growing trade with Venezuela, encouraged by the revolutionary government of President Hugo Chavez, which has helped ease the effects of the US blockade. In particular, Venezuela provides Cuba with 93,000 barrels per day of badly needed oil as part of an exchange whereby Cuban doctors provide free health care in Venezuela.

Venezuela has provided significant investment into Cuba to assist economic development. A joint venture between the Cuban and Venezuelan states will allow for the reopening of the Camilo Ceinfeugos oil refinery, closed since the Soviet Union collapsed, with the aim of increasing its refining capacity to 100,000 barrels per day.

Some market measures — such as a dual currency system, and limited foreign investment — were introduced during the “Special Period” following the Soviet Union’s collapse, which saw Cuba lose around 85% of its trade.

Tourism was strongly promoted and quickly became the main source of foreign income, only recently surpassed by nickel exports. However, while these measures brought economic gains, they also had negative social consequences, encouraging corruption, inequality and a growing black market.

Anti-social problems also developed amongst those Cubans whose relatives in the US sent them the money to live a comfortable life without working.

Despite some relative privileges created by unequal access to foreign currency, the key gains of the revolution remain intact. Access to health and education remains free and universal.

MinRex, Cuba’s foreign ministry website, has reported that Cuba has maintained an infant mortality rate of 5.3 deaths per thousand live births for the second consecutive year. Comparatively, the world average is 52 per 1000, Latin America’s average is 26, and the US rate is 6.4.

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #738 6 February 2008.

Defend artistic freedom: The case against censorship

2008-08-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

“Beautiful”, “haunting”, “dark”, “evocative” or “revolting”, “indecent”, “exploitative” and “pornographic”? The May 22 seizure of 20 photographs by Australian artist Bill Henson from Sydney’s Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, and the subsequent NSW police investigation, have provoked an extreme response.

Whatever your opinion on Henson’s art, the censorship of controversial art and potential charges against the artist are serious. Given the seriousness of child pornography in our society, criminal charges must not be based on subjective and moralistic judgements.

PM Kevin Rudd and the NSW Premier were quick to condemn the images as “revolting”. Somewhat off topic, Rudd told the media, “I am passionate about children having innocence in their childhood”.

While Henson has remained silent on the censorship of his art, other artists have condemned the heavy-handed police response. Many are concerned about what this case will mean for freedom of expression and the future of the arts in this country.

Also disturbing is the hypocrisy of the conservatives in their back-handed “defence” of artistic expression. Paul Sheehan in the May 26 Sydney Morning Herald, while trying to appear liberal — he doesn’t think Henson should be charged — nevertheless asks: “Is Bill Henson more interested in the sexual awakening of pubescent boys and girls than is strictly necessary?”

After declaring that “pederasts and child sexploiters have had a dream run in our society”, Sheehan then takes aim at the gay community for having a “subculture of pedophilia” and the “epidemic of child abuse” in the Aboriginal community — two extremely serious and unsubstantiated claims.

Sheehan goes on to ask: “Where has the arts community been on the issue of adolescent sexploitation?”. While he is aware that sexualised images of children abound in this society, he reserves his fire for “gutless” artists, writers and the film industry who, he alleges, have all been “consistently censorious on difficult moral issues for fear of offending prevailing orthodoxies about gay rights, artistic freedom or moral apartheid for Aborigines”.

But surely there is a double standard here. Check out the next unwanted Country Road catalogue that appears in your letterbox. What about Bonds’ use of children and young women to sell underwear? What about the emphasis that Vogue, and just about every magazine marketed at women, places on publishing photos of half-starved and sexualised models?

Why is it that these images, which objectify the bodies of children and young women to sell products, which result in the erosion of women’s confidence and self-esteem, don’t come in for the same critique? The fact that these mass media empires do it daily to make super profits doesn’t make it socially acceptable.

NSW police are not investigating these repeat offenders.

Yet, when a renowned artist seeks to delve into sensitive and ambiguous subject matter — the transition from childhood to adulthood — he is branded a “child pornographer”, censored and publicly denounced.

Art exists in a commercial context and no-one denies that Henson has a financial imperative to sell his art. He’s an artist, and that’s what he does for a living. But his art is no more, or less, exploitative than that of any other artist which is sold in a commercial gallery. His art is not exploitative merely because it depicts young people: his subject matter, albeit controversial, is legitimate.

An artist should not be threatened with criminal charges for depicting controversial subject matter. There must be empirical evidence that Henson has committed a crime for him to be charged.

Henson’s only “crime” has been to touch on issues that some people feel uncomfortable with — the blurred line that everyone crosses as they depart from childhood. There is no definite line between childhood and adulthood, only a whole spectrum of experience to transgress. It is not a crime for an artist to honestly broach this subject.

Perhaps the most ambiguous part of this controversy is the flimsy nature of the current police investigation. It is completely unclear who will be charged, and with what.

The May 26 SMH quoted a police spokesperson as saying on May 23 that “as the investigation is in its infancy, it is too soon to comment on the possible breadth of the investigation”. The Commonwealth Crimes Act 1914 forbids the publishing of indecent material depicting under-age adolescents.

But can Henson’s photographs really be described as child pornography? Child pornography involves children who are, by definition, unable to consent to sexual acts. It entails the exploitation of these children via the sale of images to adults.

Henson’s subject matter concerns young people. He uses photography as his medium. That is where the similarity between his art and child pornography ends.

Is there not a fundamental difference between the intentions of an established artist, who exhibits art publicly in a well-known gallery, and men who surreptitiously and illegally sell images of naked children for sexual gratification and consumption by adults online in exchange for credit card details?

Since the confiscation of the most “offensive” of Henson’s photos, many of his subjects have publicly defended him.

One woman, now 35 and a mother, told the May 26 SMH of her experience as a youngster with Henson: “We went to this old building in Melbourne. It was quite dark but I never felt uncomfortable. Bill made you feel incredibly safe and calm. I was involved in the artistic process and I never felt that I wasn’t in control … I absolutely support Bill Henson.”

Another female subject, quoted in the same article, said Henson has “always had total consent from his subjects and their families and would never have made any of his models do anything they were uncomfortable …It never crossed my mind that what I was doing was pornographic”, she said.

Perhaps we are so accustomed to seeing sexist imagery and sexualised images of children that we now cannot discern when children are depicted beautifully, and not sexually.

Beauty does not have to be sexual. Nudity does not have to be pornographic.

Child pornography is real. The objectification of women’s bodies is real. Sexualised images of children are real. Shutting down Henson’s exhibition does not address these issues — it trivialises them. It certainly doesn’t do anything to stop real child pornographers. Indeed, it detracts attention from them.

Those who are concerned about these very real problems can not afford to join the chorus of right-wing commentators who call for censorship and the curtailment of artistic expression. Artists are not the enemy of children and women.

If we want to tackle the problems of exploitative and objectified images of children and women, we have to look at the role that sexism plays in this society. Rather than focus on individual artists and models, we have to demand that the establishment media and advertising industries stop promoting unreal imagery that contributes to the undermining of women’s confidence and the germination of attitudes of violence in abusers.

To those who are undecided about Henson’s works, don’t take the word of right-wing commentators. See it in person (when the exhibition reopens with the 20 “offending” photos removed) and experience the sublime, intimate portraits of young people coming of age. Experience art, beauty and sensuality without exploitation.

From: Comment & Analysis, Green Left Weekly issue #753 4 June 2008.

Classroom struggle: school's out for peace, unity and social justice

2008-08-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

Wednesday's student march revealed how fiercely our youth opposes war in Iraq, writes Lauren Carroll Harris.

March 5 was a historic day. It was the beginning of an international youth movement against war on Iraq. High school students, university students and other young people united to take a message loud and clear to world leaders: there is a better solution to this conflict, and we're prepared to fight for it.

The slogan? Books not bombs. Students feel that the money which will be spent on the military would be better spent on upgrading educational facilities, public housing and hospitals.

The Howard Government is unwilling to say just how much money will be devoted to the war, but it is sure to be in the billions. In comparison, $1.5 billion could restore public education funding to pre-1990 levels, or increase the number of available child care places by 10 times.

The tactic? To encourage students to leave their classrooms, a walkout to show their opposition to Australian involvement in war on Iraq, UN sanctioned or not.

The reason for the protest? War is not the answer to terrorism, and will only result in the senseless deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Aid agencies, including Oxfam, estimate that 80 per cent of war casualties will be civilians. Many students carried handmade banners and placards with slogans like "No war for oil - not in my name" and "How many lives for a gallon of oil?"

The students who attended were also protesting against other injustices and drawing links with other social issues. One speaker pointed out that refugees are the logical consequence of war, and that millions of Iraqis will be displaced.

Another highlighted the plight of Iraqi women, questioning whether much will differ for them after a regime change.

The mood? Passionate, exuberant, political and angry. Ten thousand young people filled Sydney with colour, music and chants as they marched from Town Hall to Hyde Park.

The demonstrators felt ignored and that their only choice was to vote with their feet by walking out of school and sending the urgent message: we have a war to stop.

Many students remarked to me during the day that they had never seen anything like it. One University of Sydney student put it this way: "There are two superpowers in the world today - the US and the global anti-war movement."

The walkouts were likened to the mass moratoria against the Vietnam War in the '60s and '70s during a period of mass youth radicalisation.

In short, the protest was an empowering celebration of unity in the face of international warmongering and a climate of increasing fear and hatred.

It is becoming clearer and clearer that the vast majority of young people don't support this war. But the demonstrations on March 5 were only the tip of the iceberg of the mass anti-war sentiment that exists among our youth.

Since the start of the year, anti-war groups on high schools have blossomed, and more students have started to actively campaign in their schools against war. And these young people have the support of much of the broader community too. In the run-up to the demonstration, rally organisers received calls from parents who wanted to help their sons and daughters publicise the walkout by distributing leaflets and posters.

Furthermore, some P&C Associations even encouraged students to join the demonstration.

But the real question is: what are the next steps for the youth anti-war movement? In a move that contrasted sharply with the Australian Government's commitment to war, despite overwhelming popular opposition to it, a proposal was put to the crowd as to whether another walkout should be called for 1pm, March 26 at Hyde Park.

Students voted enthusiastically and unanimously to protest again, and to take the campaign against war and racism back to their schools too. We hope that next time we are joined by other sectors of the anti-war movement - trade unions, teachers, parents, community figureheads and others.

The demonstrations confirmed two things. This war is a cutting-edge issue in politics today and John Howard has failed to convince the majority of the population that Australia should be involved.

There is no democracy in this country until Howard submits to the will of the majority.

Lauren Carroll Harris is a year 11 student at Bradfield College and chairwoman of Wednesday's Sydney protest rally.

Originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald, March 7, 2003.

all time faves

2008-05-13T20:58:00.000-07:00

Artistically or politically, or even better - both, these pop culture finds are sources of inspiration for me. I'll keep updating this entry, but here's a prelim list.