CounterVortex

by Subuhi Jiwani, World War 4 Report

On May 16, 2014, vote counting day of India’s lower-house Lok Sabha elections, I received a text with the title “Aaj ki ABCD” or the “ABCD of the day.” All the letters of the alphabet were the starting points of phrases in praise of Narendra Modi. For instance, N was “Nationalist Hindu Modi”; R was “Rishwaton ka Lokayukt, Modi” or Ombudsman for Corruption, Modi; Y was “Youth ka bharosa, Modi” or Hope for the youth, Modi; and Z, unsurprisingly, was “Zindagi ka madksad, Modi” or The goal of life, Modi.

This is only a small indication of how convinced many Indians are that Modi, a Hindu nationalist, represents true Indianness and patriotism, a no-holds-barred approach to corruption (clearly a jibe at the rival Indian National Congress), and the promise of development and the availability of jobs, among other things that helped him and his Bharatiya Janata Party win a majority in these elections. This, despite the fact that Modi and 59 others have been accused of a criminal conspiracy in connection with the 2002 Gujarat pogrom—three days of anti-Muslim rioting that left more than 1,000 dead.

An Interview with Nnimmo Bassey

by Yemisi Akinbobola, Africa Renewal

Nnimmo Bassey, an award-winning environmentalist, is one of Africa’s leading campaigners, particularly for his work in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region. Mr. Bassey was a human rights advocate in the 1980s. He was imprisoned many times by late president Sani Abacha’s government in the 1990s. He is co-founder and chair of Friends of the Earth International and Environmental Rights Action. In 2009, Time magazine named him one of the Heroes of the Environment. In this interview with Yemisi Akinbobola for Africa Renewal, Mr. Bassey discusses the continuing protests by the Niger Delta people against oil pollution and makes the case for compensation.

by Peter Gorman, Fort Worth Weekly

The fight against the Keystone pipeline is focused this week on a bunch of farmers in Nebraska whose lawsuit thus far has won a round in state court, delayed a decision by President Barack Obama on allowing the line to cross the US-Canada border, and apparently has TransCanada, the company that owns the pipeline, worried.

In the past four years, landowners, indigenous people, climate-change scientists, and environmentalists from Canada to South Texas have battled the tar sands expansion. Despite those protests, the southern leg of the pipeline was completed and is now in operation.

But in Nebraska, the landowners’ suit against TransCanada’s use of eminent domain could cause a rerouting of the northern section of the line, forcing a delay and giving opponents in both Canada and this country more time to make their case that tar sands mining and transportation could spell environmental disaster with no major economic benefit.

Revolutionary Content in the Sunflower Movement

by Wen Liu, World War 4 Report

On March 17, a group of students and citizens gathered in front of Taiwan’s congress, the Legislative Yuan, to protest against the passing of the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (CSSTA) by the ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT). The office of President Ma Ying-jeou, the Executive Yuan, had approved the CSSTA, and the KMT leadership said time for debate had expired, demanding a vote to ratify—despite public discontent. The sit-ins grew larger overnight. The next day, March 18, hundreds of protestors climbed over the fence, bypassing the police and entering the Legislative Yuan. About 300 protesters successfully occupied the Legislative Yuan chamber, while hundreds more surrounded the building, demanding immediate withdrawal of the CSSTA and establishment of a negotiation mechanism that will allow democratic oversight procedures for any treaty between Taiwan and China.

This was the beginning of the “Sunflower Movement” that unprecedentedly occupied the legislature until April 7—for 24 days—and mobilized millions locally and abroad. On the surface, the movement seems to be about procedural accountability, as emphasized by one of the main student coalitions, Black Island Youth. However, the movement has revealed multiple layers of social concern, including the stagnant economy, youth unemployment, worsened labor conditions, the KMT’s political dominance—and the question of Taiwan’s national sovereignty that has occupied Taiwanese public consciousness for decades.

by Emily Achtenberg, NACLA

In recent months, Bolivia’s Amazonian region has experienced the most disastrous flooding of the past 100 years. In the Beni department, seven of eight provinces and 16 of 19 municipalities are under water, with 75,000 people (more than one-quarter of the population) affected. Economic losses from the death of 250,000 livestock heads and destruction of seasonal crop lands, estimated at $180 million, are mounting daily.

While seasonal flooding is common in Beni, experts agree that climate change has added a threatening new dimension to the cyclical pattern, bringing record rainfall to most of Bolivia this year. Deforestation, exploitation of cultivable land, and loss of infrastructure through the breakup of traditional communities are other factors contributing to soil erosion and increased vulnerability to flooding.

In the past weeks, attention has focused on the role played by two recently-inaugurated Brazilian mega-dams—the Jirau and the San Antonio—in Bolivia’s floods. Located on the Madeira River, the largest tributary of the Amazon which receives its waters from rivers in Bolivia and Peru, the dams are just 50 and 110 miles, respectively, from Brazil’s Bolivian border.

Beijing’s Strategic Interests in Post-Withdrawal Afghanistan

by Haifa Peerzada, openSecurity

The conflict in Afghanistan is becoming more complex by the day, spreading beyond its borders into south Asia. There are four main parties: the US, Pakistan, Afghanistan itself and the Afghan Taliban. Others, previously remotely involved, are increasingly drawn in—the most prominent being China.

China’s growth rate of close to 10 percent per annum makes it a global economic hub with which to reckon, second only to the US. This may not however be socially sustainable as it perpetuates inequality in income, heavily concentrated in China’s southern coastal area. Moreover, the country’s ethnic cohesion is uncertain: apart from minority tensions, the Han majority is itself fractured among ethno-linguistic communities which have experienced sustained segregation.

Fear of becoming a target of non-state actors has put the authorities in Beijing on their guard. That fear was exacerbated by the recent violent attack in Tiananmen Square, allegedly by members of the Muslim Uighur community from Xingiang province in the north-west. While the Turkish Islamic Party claimed responsibility, the authorities blamed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a group affiliated with al-Qaeda. Such incidents exacerbate the socio-economic problems which may in the final analysis prove destructive for the instrumental legitimacy on which the power of the Communist Party rests.

The state has for long has been concerned about the separatist movement in Xingiang—a concern enhanced by a fear of Afghanistan providing safe havens for Uighur militants. China sought to counter this by maintaining good connections with the Afghan Taliban and the Quetta Shura. For their part the Taliban are not keen on isolating China as it is the only non-Muslim country that has promised to give them political recognition and respite from UN sanctions—in return for not allowing any group to conduct any violent activity on its territory. This understanding seems however to be falling apart, with China fearing that Afghanistan may be slipping into another civil war, thereby creating space for militants to launch attacks on it. That may be why China supported the US-Taliban talks in Doha, however unsuccessful they proved.

An Interview with Activist and Intellectual Yassin al-Haj Saleh

by Danny Postel and Nader Hashemi, Boston Review

Yassin al-Haj Saleh is often called the conscience of the Syrian revolution. Born in Raqqa in 1961, he was arrested in 1980, while a medical student in Aleppo, and imprisoned for his membership in a left-wing organization. He remained a political prisoner until 1996, spending the last of his sixteen years behind bars in the notorious desert-prison of Tadmur (Palmyra).

Saleh has emerged as one of the leading writers and intellectual figures of the Syrian uprising, which began three years ago this week. In 2012 he was given the Prince Claus Award (supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs) but was unable to collect it, as he was living in hiding in Damascus. Now living in exile in Turkey, Salehwrites for a variety of international Arabic-language publications. Along with a group of Syrians and Turks, he recently established a Syrian Cultural House in Istanbul called Hamish (“margin” or “fringe”). Saleh has published several Arabic-language books, most recently Deliverance or Destruction? Syria at a Crossroads (2014).

—Danny Postel and Nader Hashemi, co-editors of The Syria Dilemma.